as far distant from the immensity of God as the smallest grain of sand so a thousand years are as far short of Eternity as the twinckling of an eye Wherefore Boëtius says that there is more similitude betwixt a moment of time and ten thousand years than betwixt ten thousand years and Eternity There is no expression which can sufficiently set forth the greatness of what is Eternal nor which can explicate the brevity of time and littleness of what is Temporal Wherefore David Psal 76. when he considered what had passed since God created the world until his time calls all those Ages which were already past by the name of dayes saying I thought upon the days of old And it is not much that he should call Ages dayes when in another place he sayes a thousand years in the presence of God are but as yesterday 1. Joan. 2. And St. John expresses it yet more fully when he calls all those years which were to pass betwixt his time and the end of the world whereof 1600 are already run but an hour But David when he set himself seriously to think upon Eternity which in it self is but one and as the Saints speak one day he calls it Eternal years augmenting as much as he could the conception of Eternity and diminishing that of time For the same reason the Prophet Daniel setting forth the Glory of Apostolical persons speaks in the plural number That they shall shine like Stars for perpetual Eternities it seeming unto him that the ordinary Number did not suffice to declare what Eternity was and therefore explicates it by the number of many Eternities adding for more amplification the Epithete of perpetual Dan. 12. But endeavour we never so much we declare nothing of it Let the Prophets turn themselves wholly into tongues let them call it perpetual Eternities let them call it Eternity of Eternities let them call it many dayes let them call it Ages of Ages all falls short to explicate the infinite duration which it hath Wherefore Eliu speaking of God Job 36. says his years were inestimable because no years imaginable could compare with his Eternity Betwixt a minute and 100000 years there is proportion but betwixt 100000 years and Eternity none at all Well may a quarter of an hour be compared unto a million of years but a million of years with Eternity holds no comparison in respect of which all time vanishes and disappears neither is a million of years more than a moment since neither have proportion with Eternity but in respect of it are both equal or to say better are both nothing Eccl. 11. Wherefore the Wise man said That if a man had lived many years and those all in pleasure yet ought he to remember the time of darkness and the many dayes for so he calls Eternity the which when they shall come all that is past will be found to be vanity If Cain had lived and enjoyed all the felicities of the Earth even until this day and at this instant died what should he now possess of all his delights What would remain unto him of all his dayes past Certainly no more than remained unto his brother Abel whom he murdred more than 5500 years ago equally had both their dayes disappeared and Cain had no more left of his sports and pleasures so fully and for so long a time enjoyed than Abel of his short life but more to suffer in that time of darkness and the many dayes of Eternity Eccl. 11. For if as Ecclesiasticus saith The evils of one hour make many pleasures to be forgotten and the moment wherein a man dyes bereaves him of all he did in life either for delight or appetite why shall not then the torments of Hell make him forget all the pleasures of the earth and the Eternity of evils strip him of a few and momentary pastimes If with the grief of one hour the pleasures of many years are forgotten why shall not the pleasure of one moment for which thou fallest into Hell be forgotten with the malice of many years And if the instant of thy bodily death deprive thee of all thy vain contents and entertainments past what shall be done by the eternal death of thy Soul In that instant wherein Heliogabolus dyed what continued with him of all his sports and delights Nothing At this present after so many years measured in the Eternity of Hell what now remains with him but torments upon torments griefs upon griefs pains upon pains evils upon evils and a perpetual Woe is me which shall last as long as God is God The moment wherein we dye as touching the things of this life makes all men equal He who lived long and he who died shortly he who enjoyed much and he who had but little he who was glutted with all sorts of delights and he who was fed with the bread of sorrow and vexed with all sorts of griefs and misfortunes all are now the same all are ended in death the one is not sensible of his pleasure nor the other grieved with his labours After the expiration of an hundred years in a most rigid life what felt St. Romualdus of all his austerities What the most penitent Simeon Stylites after fourscore years of a prodigious penance wherein he quitted not his hair-shirt by day or night What felt he at his death of his continual fasts and long prayers Certainly of pain no more than if he had spent all that long time in the wanton pleasures of Sardanapalus Of griefs he found nothing but of joy and glory he now does and ever shall in abundance What felt St. Clement of Ancira of his twenty eight years torments suffered by the furious rage and madness of Tyrants Certainly of Pain no more then if during that time he had enjoyed all the delights of the world but of Glory an Eternity For if the malice of one hour make the contents of an hundred years to be forgotten much more will the happiness of an Eternity blot out the remembrance of 28 years sufferance O prodigious moment of death which gives an end unto all that is Temporal which transmits and changes all things which concludes the gusts and pleasures of sinners and begins their torments which ends the labours and austerities of Saints and begins their Glory and joyes Eternal Let therefore a Christian seriously consider that the pleasures by which he sins and the mortifications by which he satisfies are equally to have an end and that the torments which he deserves by the one and the joyes which he merits by the other are equally never to have an end and let him then make election of that which shall be best for him Let him see if it be not better to work himself an eternal Crown of glory out of the sleight and momentary sufferings of this life And let not the length of life affright him for there is nothing long in respect of Eternity It was
is esteemed in it is vain all is vanity of vanities Let us onely aim and aspire unto the eternal because the just onely as the Prophet sayes shall remain in the eternal memory of God The memory of man is as men themselves frail and perishing What man ambitious of a perpetual memory would not rather choose to be esteemed by ten men who were to live a hundred years than by a thousand who were to die immediately after him Let us therefore desire to be in the memory of God whose life is eternity Our memory amongst men can last no longer than men themselves which shall all die like us and there can be no memory immortal amongst those who are mortal It is therefore very expedient that the end of the World should be accompanied by the universal Judgement of all men wherein shall be revealed their most secret and hidden thoughts and anions That the murtherer who hath slain his neighbour lest he should discover his wickedness may not hope that therefore it shall remain conceal'd and That no man should be bold to sin for want of witnesses since the whole World shall then know that which if any but himself had known here would have burst his heart with shame and sorrow CAP. VII How the Elements and the Heavens are to change at the end of Time LEt us now look upon the strange manner of the end of the World which being so terrible gives us to understand the vanity and deceit of all things in it and the great abuse of them by man for questionless were it not for the great malice and wickedness which raigns in the World the period of it would not be so horrible and disastrous Lib. recognit S. Clement the Roman writes that he learned of St. Peter the Apostle that God had appointed a day from all eternity wherein the Army of Vengeance should with all its forces and as we may say in ranged battail fight with the Army of Sin which day is usually called in the holy Scripture The day of the Lord in which battail the Army of Vengeance shall prevail and shall at once extirpate and make an end both of Sin and the World wherein it hath so long raigned And certainly if the terrour of that day shall equal the multitude and hainousness of sins we need not wonder at what the sacred Scripture and holy Fathers have foretold of it But as it is usual in war res to skirmish and make inrodes before the day of battel so before that dreadful day wherein all punishments are to encounter with all offences the Lord shall from divers parts send forth several calamities which shall be fore-runners of that great day of battel and shall like light Horse-men scoure the Campania which St. John in the Apocalyps signified by those Horse-men which he saw sally forth upon divers-coloured horses one red another black and the third pale so the Lord shall before that day send Plagues Famine Warres Earthquakes Droughts Inundations Deluges and if those miseries do now so much afflict us what shall they then doe when God shall add unto them his utmost force and power when all Creatures shall arm against Sinners and the Zeal of divine justice shall be their Captain-general which the Wise-man declares in these words Sap. 5. His zeal shall take up arms and shall arm the creatures to revenge him of his enemies he shall put on Justice as a breast-plate and righteous Judgement as a helmet and he shall take Equity as a buckler and shall sharpen his Wrath as a lance and the circuit of the earth shall fight for him Thunderbolts shall be sent from the clouds as from a well-shooting how and shall nit fail to hit the mark and Hail shall be sent full of stormy wrath The Waters of the sea shall threaten them the Rivers shall combat furiously a most strong Wind shall rise against them and shall divide them as a whirle-wind Very dreadful are those words although they contain but the Warre which three of the Elements are to make against Sinners but not onely Fire Air and Water but Earth also and Heaven as it appears in other places of Scripture shall fall upon them and confound them for all creatures shall express their fury in that day and shall rise against man and if the clouds shall discharge thunderbolts and stones upon their heads the Heavens shall shoot no less balls than Stars which as Christ sayes shall fall from thence If Hail no bigger than little stones falling but from the clouds destroy the fields and sometimes kills the lesser sort of cattle what shall pieces of Stars do falling from the Firmament or some upper Region It is no amplification which the Gospel uses when it sayes That men shall wither with fear of what shall fall upon the whole frame of nature for as in Man which is called the Lesser world when he is to die the humours which are as the Elements are troubled and out of order his eyes which are as the Sun and Moon are darkned his other senses which are as the lesser stars fall away his reason which is as the celestial vertues is off the hinges so in the death of the greater World before it dissolve and expire the Sun shall be turned into darkness the Moon into blood the Stars shall fall and the whole World shall tremble with a horrid noise If the Sun Moon and other celestial bodies which are held incorruptible shall suffer such changes what shall be done with those frail and corruptible Elements of Earth Air and Water If this inferiour World do as the Philosophers say depend upon the Heavens those celestial bodies being altered and broken in pieces in what estate must the lower Elements remain when the Vertues of Heaven shall faulter and the wandring Stars shall lose their way and fail to observe their order How shall the Air be troubled with violent and sudden Whirle-winds dark Tempests horrible Thunders and furious flashes of Lightning and how shall the Earth tremble with dreadful Earth-quakes opening her self with a thousand mouthes and casting forth as it were whole Volcanies of fire and sulphur and not content to overthrow the loftiest Towers shall swallow up high Mountains and bury whole Cities in her entrails How shall the Sea then rage mounting his proud waves above the clouds as if they meant to overwhelm the whole Earth and shall certainly drown a great part of it The roaring of the Ocean shall astonish those who are far distant from the Sea and inhabit in the middest of the firm land wherefore Christ our Saviour said Luc. 21. that there should be in the Earth afflictions of Nations for the confusion of the noise of the Sea What shall men do in this general perturbation of Nature they shall remain amazed and pale as death What comfort shall they have they shall stand gazing one upon another and every one shall conceive a new fear by beholding in
as in order to us or as of what the corporal senses are afterwards to enjoy Other things likewise in several passages may be left to the judicious Reader who will not be over-hasty in rejecting what a discreet and friendly interpretation may allow of THE FIRST BOOK OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT THE TEMPORAL and ETERNAL CAP. I. Our Ignorance of what are the true Goods and not onely of things Eternal but Temporal TO use things aright we ought to know their Value and Estimation and we cannot give them their true value unless we know their nature and what they are which knowledge is in this world so short and imperfect that it passes not forth of it nor enters into the consideration of things Heavenly and Eternal for which we were created And it is no wonder that in Matters of Eternity being so far removed from our senses we know so little since we are ignorant even in Temporal things which we see and daily touch with our hands How can we comprehend the things of the other world when we know not those of this wherein we are and even to that stupidity can humane ignorance arrive that we know not what we presume to be best acquainted with the riches commodities honours and goods of this world with which mortal men so much converse and which they so much covet for that they covet them because they know them not Clem. Roman in Epit. Good reason had St. Peter when he taught St. Clement the Roman that the world was like a house fill'd with smoke wherein nothing could be seen cither within or without the smoke hindering the distinct sight of both After the same manner it happens unto those who live in this world they neither know what is without it nor what within it they neither know the greatness of what is eternal nor the baseness of what is temporal and being ignorant of both for want of knowledge mistake their value giving what is due unto one unto the other making that small account of things heavenly and eternal which they ought to do of things fading and transitory judging so contrary unto truth Lib. 8. mural c. 12. that as St. Gregory notes they take the banishment of this life for their home the darkness of humane wisdom for light and this wandring peregrination here for their rest and abode all which proceeds from ignorance of the truth and the small consideration of what is eternal in such manner as they qualifie what is good with the name of bad and what is bad with the name of good by reason of which confusion in humane judgment David asked of the Lord that he would give him a Master who might instruct him which is the true good saying Who shall teach us what is good The world is therefore ignorant of all things even of its own proper goods which it most enjoyes it faring with us as it did with the Children of Israel who having Manna in their sight and holding it in their hands yet knew it not but demanded What is this but unto us even that curiosity is wanting we enquire not so much as what these riches are for which mortal men hazard so many dangers of death what honours are for which mens hearts burst with envy and ambition what pleasures are for which we endanger our health and often lose our lives what the goods of the earth are which are onely enjoyed during our pilgrimage in the exile of this life and are to vanish at the entrance of the other as Manna did at the entrance of the Land of Promise With reason did Christ our Redeemer in Apocalyps call it the hidden Manna because the Hebrews holding it in their hands knew not what it was even so are the things of this life hidden unto our understandings which although we touch we know not and so confounding their value do that for things temporal which we onely ought to do for the eternal undervaluing these for the esteem of those which for themselves are worthy to be despised and contemned Hence failing in the knowledge of things we fail in their estimation and consequently in their use That which happens in this may be likewise seen in those who did eat Manna for unto some it caused a loathing and procured vomit unto others it tasted pleasantly and like the meat they most desired So great difference is there betwixt the good and ill use of things and the good use of all depends upon their knowledge Let mortal men therefore awake and open their eyes and let them know the difference betwixt what is temporal and eternal that they may give to every thing its due estimation despising that which time makes an end of and esteeming that which eternity preserves the which they ought to seek during this life and by these momentary things purchase the eternal unto which they cannot attain without the knowledge both of the one and the other because aiming at the eternal as that of greatest value they conserve the temporal although of it self of no worth and that which is corruptible and transitory they render firm and durable The Manna also which our Lord gave unto the Hebrews whilest they wandered in the Desert and was to serve them until their arrival in the Land of Promise amongst other mysterious significations which it contained one was to be a Symbol of the blessings which we enjoy in the peregrination of this life until we come to the promised land of eternal happiness For this cause it putrified and corrupted sodainly lasting but a very short time as all things of this world do onely that part of Manna which was gathered with intention to keep for the Sabbath which was a figure of glory or to preserve in the Ark to be carried into the Land of Promise corrupted not in so much as to gather the same thing with different respects made that which in it self was corruptible to be of a condition eternal Bald. apud Tibra in Exod. 15 as is well noted by Baldwin an ancient Doctor and a most learned Interpreter of the holy Scripture So much it imports to have our intentions elevated and placed upon eternity as by the use of temporal and transitory things we may gain eternal converting small things into great mutable into stable and mortal into immortal Some Philosophers who considered better the things of this life although without attention unto the eternal found in them many defects the which the most wise Emperor and Philosopher Aurelius Antoninus reduced unto three In vita sua to wit that they are little mutable and corruptible even until they arrive unto their end all which we shall find represented to life in Manna The littleness of it was such saith the holy Scripture that it was small like that which is brayed in a Mortar and reduced into powder the mutability was so notable that carrying it from the field where it was gathered into their Tents if they
ever in Heaven And it is no marvel though this great thought of Eternity should make so holy a King to tremble when as the Prophet Abucâ—ch sayes the highest hills of the world bow down and quake at the ways of Eternity Damas in vita ejus The holy youth Josaphat at the representation of Eternity Hell being placed on one side and Heaven on the other remained astonished without strength not being able to raise himself in his bed as if he had been afflicted with some mortal sickness The Philosophers more barbarous and who had less light were yet daunted with the conception of it and in their Symbols made choice of things of the greatest of terror to express it some painted it in the form of a Basilisk a Serpent the most terrible of all other who kills with his onely sight there being nothing more horror then that eternity of torments whereinto we are subject to fall Conformable to this St. John Damascen represented eternal duration under the figure of a fierce Dragon which from a deep pit lay waiting with open jawes to swallow men alive Others figured it by a horrible and profound Cavern which at the entrance had four degrees one of iron another of brass the third of silver and the last of gold upon which many little Children of several sexes and ages stood playing and passing away the time without regarding the danger of falling into that bottomless dungeon This shadow they framed not only to set forth how worthy Eternity was of their fear and amazement but also to express their amazement at the folly of men who laugh and entertain themselves with the things of this life without remembring that they are to die and may then fall into the bottomless abyss of Hell Those children who were playing at the entrance of that dismal cave being no other than men in this life whose employments are but those of children and who being so near their death and therefore unto Eternity which succeeds it have neither fear nor care to leave the pleasures and vain entertainments of this world Truly it is a thing of great amazement that being in expectation of two such extreams as are eternal glory and torments without end we live as if there were neither The reason is because men set not themselves seriously to consider what Eternity is which is either hell whilest God is God or glory without end For this cause it is that they remain as setled and obstinate in their fading pleasures as if they were immortal the which was signified by these degrees of so hard Mettals But in David who seriously meditated and framed a lively conception what the eternity of years was it caused so great a fear and so awaked his spirits with care and diligence that it produced in him an extraordinary change of life in so much as he said with great resolution within himself Now I begin This is a change from the right hand of the most high Now I begin Comment in Psal 76. as Dionisius declares it to live spiritually to understand wisely to know truly perceiving the vanity of this present world and felicity of the future reputing as nothing all my life past nor all the progress I have hitherto made in perfection I will henceforth seriously take to heart with a new purpose a new fervour and a a more vehement endeavour the paths of a better life and entring the way of spiritual profit begin every day afresh And because he knew his heart to be so much changed he confessed his resolution to be miraculous saying This change is from the hand of the most high as if he had said according to the same Dionisius to have in this sort changed me out of the darkness of ignorance into the splendor of wisdom from vices unto vertues from a carnal man unto a spiritual is onely to be attributed to the ayd and most merciful assistance of God who by the knowledge of Eternity hath given so notable a conversion unto my heart This great thought of Eternity doth mightily enlighten the understanding and gives us a true and perfect knowledge of things as they are For this cause in some of the Psalms which David made with this consideration as we have already said he added this word understanding Psalm 6. or for the understanding that is to give understanding to those who meditate upon the end of this life and the eternity of the other and therefore despise the goods of the world By the experience of what happened unto his own soul the Prophet exhorts all men that they meditate with quietness and leasure upon the eternity of the two so opposite conditions which hereafter expect them that they may not only run but flie unto with profit and suffer with patience all the difficulty which attend upon vertue and therefore with great mystery promises on the part of God unto those who shall sleep between the two lots that is unto those who in the quietness of prayer shall meditate upon the eternity of glory and of hell that there shall be granted unto them the silver wings of the Dove and her shoulders of gold because the spiritual life consists not onely in the actions of our own good works but also in the patient suffering the evil works of others in lifting up our selves from the durt of this earth and and flying towards Heaven by performance of the Heroical and precious acts of vertue and not yielding unto the troubles and afflictions of this life which oppress us All which is by a lively conception of Eternity effected with great merit and perfection and for this reason did the Prophet express it by the similitude of those things which men esteem the most precious as of gold and silver But because to suffer is commonly more difficult then to do and consequently more meritorious although both be very precious for this cause he said that the shoulders should be of gold and the wings of silver This also did the Patriarch Jacob hold for so singular a good that he gave it unto his son Isachar for a blessing telling him that he should lye down betwixt the two borders that is that he should at leasure meditate upon the two extreams of happiness or misery eternal For this reason he calleth him a strong beast as having the strength of mind to overcome the difficulty of vertue to support the troubles and burdens of this life to suffer the scorns and disgraces of the world to undergo great penances and mortifications by considering the two eternal extreams which attend us And not onely amongst Saints but amongst the Philosophers did the quiet and calm consideration of Eternity produce a great love and desire of things eternal and as great contempt of all which was temporal even without looking upon those two so different extreams which Christian Religion proposes unto us Seneca complained much that he was interrupted in the meditation of Eternity into
that lie had lost his wits but he never had them perfecter since he laught at human greatness and now perceived how ridiculous a thing is that which we call felicity and in his heart rightly esteemed it as it is a vanity of vanities I believe the same judgement which this King gave of the vanity of temporal things would if it had been askt been given by the Emperour Andronicus when naked and his head shaved like a Slave he was infamously dragged thorow the Streets of Constantinople What was then his Imperial Diadem what his Throne and Majesty what his Ornaments of gold and silver All was vanity and a vanity of vanities Neither would this have been denied by Vitellius when they threw dirt in his face and haled him into the Market-place to be executed What were then the Spectacles of the Amphitheater and Games of the Circus the Signiory of the World but vanity of vanities and universal vanity The same would Craesus have preached from the flames the Tyrant Bajazet from his Cage King Bolislaus from his Kitchen and Dionysius from his School If alive they would have said this upon the sight onely of the instability of this life what would they now say upon the experience of eternity whereinto they are entred Let us take the opinion of those Princes which are damned what they now think of the Majesty which they enjoyed in this life Vanity they will say it was a smoke a dream a shadow And without doubt those Kings which are now in heaven in possession of those eternal joyes will say the same That all felicity here below is poor scarce and short and vanity of vanities and worse if it have been an occasion of sin But it is not needful to call witnesses from the other life since the vanity of this is so evident that he who shall set himself to consider the greatness of this World shall perceive that by how much it is more glorious by so much it is more vain What greater Majesty than that of the Roman Empire Let us call to mind what happened in that Scarce was the election of a Roman Emperour known before they who chose him or some more subtle or powerful than they had murthered him An although they studied nothing more than to preserve themselves in the Imperial dignity yet few there were that could effect it Amongst nineteen or twenty Emperours which passed betwixt Antoninus the Philosopher and Claudius the second not one escaped a violent death besides many other Tyrants who took the names of Emperours as in Galienus his time thirty usurped that title and murthered one another in so much as he who called himself an Emperour was almost certain to die a violent death so as the greatest felicity of the world was tyed to the greatest mishap And it is to be wondered that any though almost forced would accept the Diadem But such is the folly of men that having before their eyes so many lamentable examples they gape after those glories which hardly last from morning until night Some of them had scarce been saluted Emperours when they were cut in pieces Aurelianus was one of those who exhibited the most glorious triumph that ever Rome beheld where were shewed An infinite number of Captives from the three parts of the World Many rare beasts as Tygers Lions Ounces Elephants Dromidaries A mighty quantity of Arms taken from the conquered Enemies Three most sumptuous Chariots one of the King of Palmerins another of the Persians and a third of the Goths Two who called themselves Emperours and the great Queen Cenobia adorned with most precious jewels and rich pearls and fettered in chains of gold He himself entred in a triumphal Chariot taken from the King of Gothes drawn by Stags immediately followed by the conquering Army richly armed crowned with Laurel and carrying Palms in their hands Never Emperour arrived at such a height of glory But how long lasted it A short time after he was stabbed with poniards having hardly time to take notice of his greatness much less to enjoy it By how many steps and strange ways did Aelias Pertinax in his old age climb unto the Imperial Throne and lost it before it was known in the Empire that he commanded it He was the Son of a Slave and first a Merchant by which he became a good accomptant then he studied Grammar and became a Schoolmaster after that a Lawyer and having learned to defend causes was made an Advocate but not prospering by these courses he listed himself a Souldier Neither seemed he in that to thrive much better for being arrived to the dignity of a Centurion he was cashiered with infamy But he quitted it not so for returning unto the same trade in process of time he became a Senatour shortly after Consul then President of Syria at last when he expected the Hangman to take away his life he was saluted Emperour by those Souldiers who then came fresh from the slaughter of Commodus They entring his house by night he told them he was the man whom the Tyrant had sent them to murther but they presented him the Scepter and Diadem which he accepted although then 70 years of age and after had scarce warmed the Imperial Seat having onely raigned three Moneths when he was cut in pieces in a time he least suspected it being so beloved esteemed and praised by the Romans that every one would have spent a thousand lives to have saved his yet notwithstanding a few Souldiers passed publickly through the middest of the City and in the sight of all stabbed an Emperour so beloved and honoured of the people and returned back without any so much as questioning them when those of one street so few were the murtherers had been sufficient to have killed them with stones Who sees not here the inconstancy and vanity of humane things as well in the life as unexpected death of this Prince by how many changes and windings did he climbe unto the top of the Imperial greatness and how sodainly without any stop or turn at all was he tumbled headlong down how long was his fortune in growing and how quickly cut seaventy years of a prosperous life ended in the counterfeit felicity of three Moneths and the unhappy death of an hour Then all is vanity of vanities since that which costs so much lasts so little and death in less than one hour overthrows the fortune of seaventy years §. 2. If the felicity of this life did onely end when life ends yet that were sufficient to undervalue it but it often ends before it and sometimes changes into disgraces and mishaps so as with our own eyes we often behold an end of our greatest fortunes Let us not therefore trust in life because it may fail whilest the goods of it remain and let us as little trust in them because they may likewise fail whilest it continues Let this instability of things undeceive us and let us seriously consider their
vanity in their manner of leaving us which is excellently represented by St. John Chrysostome in the Eunuch Eutropius Patrician of Constantinople Hom. in Eutrop. tom 5. Consul and great Chamberlain to the Emperour Arcadius who withdrawing his privacy and favour from him committed him to prison which the holy Doctor admirably ponders in this manner If in any time now more than ever may be said Vanity of vanities all is vanity Where is now the splendour of the Consulat where the Lictors and their Fasces where the Applauses Dances Banquets and Revels where the Crowns and Tapestry where the noise of the City and the flattering acclamations of the Circus all those things are perished a boysterous wind hath blown away the leaves and left the naked tree tottering and almost pluckt up by the roots Such was the violence of the storm that when it had shaken all the nerves it threatned utterly to overthrow the stock Where are now those masking friends those healths and suppers where that swarm of Parasites and that flood of wine poured out from morning till evening where that exquisite and various artifice of Cooks those Servants accustomed to say and do all that pleased All these were no more than a Nights dream which disappeared with the day Flowers which withered when the Spring was ended a Shadow they were and so they passed a Smoke and so they vanisht Bubbles in the water and so they burst Spiders webs and so were torn in sunder Wherefore let us ever repeat this sentence Vanity of vanities all is vanity This saying ought to be written upon our Walls Market-places Houses Streets Windows Gates but principally in the Conscience of every one since the deceitful employments of this life and the enemies of truth have gained too much power and authority with many This is it which one man ought to say unto another this is it we ought to say at dinner at supper and in all our conversation Vanity of vanities all is vanity Did I not daily tell thee that riches were flitting and deceitful but thou wouldest not endure me Did not I tell thee they had the condition of a fugitive Slave but thou wouldest not believe me See how experience hath taught thee that they are not onely fugitive but ungrateful and murthering since they have cast thee into this exigent But because this Eunuch would neither be advised by the counsel of his Domesticks nor Strangers do thou at least who art puffed up with wealth and honours make use of this calamity and turn it to thy own profit There is nothing more infirm than humane things By what name soever thou shalt express their baseness thou shalt still fall short Call them hay smoke a dream flowers which wither all is too little they are so frail that they are more nothing than nothing it self They are not only nothing but are still in precipitation Who was more exalted than this man was he not famous for his wealth through the world was he not mounted up to the height of all humane honour Did not all fear and reverence him But behold him now more miserable than Slaves and Bond-men more indigent than those who beg their bread from door to door There is no day wherein are not set before his eyes Swords drawn and sharpened to cut his throat Precipices Hangmen and the Street which lead to the Gallows Neither doth he enjoy the memory of his pad pleasures nor the common light but is at midday as in a dark night pen'd up betwixt four walls deprived of the use of his eyes But wherefore do I remember those things since no words are able to express the fear of his mind who every hour expects his punishment to what end are my speeches when the image of his calamity appears so evidently before thine eyes Not long agoe the Emperour having sent some Souldiers to draw him out of the Church whither he was fled for sanctuary he became as pale as box and at this instant hath no better colour than one who were dead To this add that his teeth gnash against one another his body quakes his voice is broken with sobbs his tongue stammers in conclusion he stands like one whose soul were frozen for fear within him All this is from St. John Chrysostome It is not needful to attend the end of life to see the imposture of it It is enough to see the alterations whilest it lasts CAP. V. The baseness and disorder of Temporal things and how great a Monster men have made the World LEt us now come to consider the baseness of all that which passes in time the which appeared so mean and poor unto Marcus Aurelius that he said Lib. 2. Those things which fall under sense which either allure us with delight or deject us with grief or glitter with outward pomp and appearance how vile are they all how worthy of contempt how sordid and filthy how subject to perish and how dead This said that great Emperour and Monarch of the World when the Roman Empire was in its greatest power and lustre and in the greatest experience of the goods of the earth being more powerful and having more command of them than Salomon and yet he not onely sayes they were vain but vile filthy contemptible and dead That we may understand this better let us look into the substance and being which temporal things have of themselves without respect either to the shortness of their duration or to the variety of their changes for which alone although in themselves most precious yet were they most despicable but being so little so vile so disorderly and for the most part so hurtful and prejudicial unto us although they were eternal yet ought they to be contemned We are not therefore onely to look upon that littleness and poorness which they have by nature and from themselves but upon the evil which they have acquired by our abuse For the World which of it self were tolerable is by us made such that it is not to be endured even by those who best love it And to those natural goods which it affords our unstable appetite hath added such artificial fopperies of our own inventions that of both together we have composed a Monster no less horrible than that described by St. John in the Apocalyps Apoc. 13. And therefore he that will see what worldly felicity is let him cast his eyes upon that Beast which for his unquietness and unconstancy is said to rise out of the sea He had the head and face of a Lion the body of a Leopard a Beast various and spotted and the feet of a Bear and for his more deformity he had seaven heads and ten horns This the lively Image of that which passes in the World For as this Monster is composed of three savage Beasts of a Bear which is carnal and luxurious of a Leopard whose skin is full of eyes and of a Lion the proudest of all other Beasts
so in the World there is no other thing as St. John saith Ep. 1 c. 2. but the Concupiscence of the flesh the Concupiscence of the eyes and the Pride of life that is Lust and exorbitancy in pleasures Covetousness and gaping after riches Ambition and desire of honours Of those three Monsters is composed the Monster of Monsters which we call the World the which hath also his seaven heads and ten horns to wit the Seaven deadly Sins by which are impugned the ten Commandments and the observation of the whole Law of God Let us also consider the mysterious disposition of the parts of this Beast The feet are said to be of a Bear the body of a Leopard and the head of a Lion because all the inventions additions stratagems and designs of the World are founded upon the pleasure and delights of the appetite which are natural and upon this foundation our malice has builded riches and honours which are not natural but humane inventions Riches are the body of the World and upon them is raised Pride as the head of that body Besides Riches are most conveniently placed in the middle between Pleasure and Honours as being necessary for the supportation of both without which neither can be maintained Avarice therefore forms the body of this Beast that it may equally nourish Pleasure and Ambition Let us then propose unto our selves the Image of this World under the form of this Monster and Chimaera as well to demonstrate the confusion and turmoyl of it as to signifie unto us that the whole substance and being of it consists meerly in the imagination and apparence For such a Monster composed of the several parts of divers Beasts which hath no being or foundation in reason but is onely framed by the fancy the Philosophers call a Chimaera and such truly are the things of this World inconstant confused and troubled and have no substance or being in themselves but are onely deceit and apparence Some seem great and are but little others cozen us more appear to be goods and are really evils To understand this better and know the vanity of the World we are to suppose that humane malice hath corrupted and poisoned it by inventing new gusts and pleasures unto which we have added by our imagination what they wanted of being and reality and by diverting things from those proper ends for which they were ordained have made them all vain and the World a Monster of many heads for the head of things is as Philo calls it the end and the things of the World having left their utmost and true end which is one God and disordered themselves by the many ends of particular vices have made that Beast which is said not to have one but many heads which makes it so monstrous and deformed Men follow not in the use of things their proper end which is to please and serve God but aim at the serving of their passions and satisfie their appetites which as they are divers so they have divers ends and respects from whence results the monstrosity of so many heads and faces From the multitude then of ends follows this deformity which includes and is alwayes accompanied with vanity For the world following this vanity of adulterate ends contrary to reason and nature leaves the true and lawful end which is the service of God and that which leaves its proper end becomes useless and vain If you should blind the eyes of some excellent Marks-man his art and skill were lost and his Bow would become unprofitable because he remained deprived of that by which he was to attain his end So all things being created to this end that man by them might serve God this end wanting they became vain and useless By this example may be clearly seen how vain is the World since it doth not direct those things it enjoyes for the service of the universal Creatour but for other vain and imaginary ends by which it becomes wholly it self a vanity The multitude of Gold Silver Plate Jewels precious Furniture and other Ornaments which we glory in are they perhaps for the service of God Let St. Alexius tell us whether he chose them as means to that end and if they be not for the service of the Lord of all what are they all but vanity Abundance of Delights Masques Dances Feasts Entertainments are they perhaps to please God Let St. Bruno tell us and if they be not for that purpose what are they all but vanity Majesty ostentation of Titles and Honours are they perhaps for the service of God Let St. Josaphat tell us who fled from his Temporal Kingdom that he might better apply himself unto the service of the King of Heaven Vain is all the greatness of the Earth if that of Heaven be not gained by it The most precious thing failing which is the right end all besides becomes vain frivolous and of no esteem §. 2. This deviation and wandering of worldly things from their proper and due end is sufficient to declare their vanity and disorder But there is yet another errour in them which makes them appear much more vain which is that they not onely goe astray from their first and great end which is the service of God but also fail and hold no proportion with that second end which humane vices propose unto them here That which our appetite pretends in Riches Pomp and Honours which it hath invented is the felicity of this life and to that they are so little proper as they have rather disposed things for our misery and torment and therefore vain are all our fancies and inventions To maintain and uphold our honour what Lawes Rights and irregular Customs hath the World invented to the great danger of our lives and the hinderance of our pleasures It hath made honour so brittle that with one word whosoever list may take it from us which is the occasion that many live dishonoured and if they will recover it it must cost their lives fortunes or quiet What greater madness than that the thing which they have made of the greatest esteem in the World should be subject to such an inconvenience and of so cursed a condition that it is very easie to lose and most difficult to regain that any one may bereave us of it and he which hath taken it from us cannot restore it that it is in another mans hand to destroy it and not in our own to repair it What law in the World more unjust that if an infamous person give thee the lye thou remainest dishonoured although he lied that gave it and that honour which he by one word hath taken from thee thou canst not recover by another What greater folly than to fight for honour and maintain truth by quarrelling as if he were the most honourable person and spake the truest which were the strongest especially being so prejudicial to the most vertuous for it commonly happens that those who have the
with which the rich man remained amazed and was taught that to give himself over to gluttony and the immoderate pleasure of his taste was no less hurtful for him than to feed on poisonful creatures or to have to do with Lions Serpents and Tygers And it is certain that Lions and the most furious beasts have not kill'd so many as have died by surfeits and pleasing too much their pallats CAP. VI. Of the littleness of things Temporal SEtting aside how vain the things of this World are let us particularly consider how little they are and we shall perceive that though their vanity which swells and blows them up seems to extend them yet they are in themselves poor short and little especially if we compare them with things eternal Beginning therefore with that temporal good which seems to have the greatest bulk and makes the greatest noise to wit Honour Fame and Renown we shall see how narrow it is Men desire that their fame should ring through the whole World and that all should know their names and if they did what are all in respect of those in the other World since the whole Earth in respect of the Heavens is but a point But who is he that can be known of all who live Millions of men there are in the World who know not whether there be an Emperour of Germany or a King of Spain Let no man then afflict himself for this vain honour for even in his own Country all shall not know him Many thousand years are past and no man knew thee and of those who shall be born hereafter few shall remember thee and although thou remainest in the memory of those yet they also in the end must die and with them thine and their own memory must perish and thou shalt as before thou wert continue a whole eternity without being known or celebrated by any And even now whilest thou livest there are not many who know thee and of those most of them so bad that thou oughtest to be ashamed that such mouthes should praise thee who speak ill even of one another Wherefore then doest thou torment thy self for a thing so short so vile and so vain All these things are so certain that even the Gentils acknowledged them Hear onely one who was placed in the highest degree of glory and dignity in the whole World Marc. Anton. l. 3. p. 200. since he was Lord of it the Emperour Marcus Antoninus who speaks in this manner Perhaps thou art sollicitous of honour Behold how quickly oblivion blots out all things Behold a Chaos of eternity both before and after How vain is the noise of fame how great inconstancie and uncertainty of humane judgements and opinions in how narrow a compass are all things inclosed The World is but a point and of it how small a corner is inhabited and who and how many are those in it who are to praise thee And a little after he adds He who desires fame and honour after death thinks not that he who is to remember him shall shortly die also and in the same manner he who is to succeed after him untill that all memory which is to be propagated by mortal men be blotted out But suppose that those who are to remember thee were immortal what could it import thee being dead nay even alive what could it profit thee to be praised all that is fair is fair of it self and is perfected within it self and to be praised is no part of the beauty He therefore who is celebrated is for that reason neither better nor worse These Antidotes are drawn by the Pagan Prince against the poison of ambition Why therefore should we Christians esteem any honour but that of God What shall I say of the vanity of those titles which many have assumed against all reason and justice onely to make themselves known in the World Let us judge how it will fare with us of Europe by those who have taken titles upon them in Asia For if the fame of those in Asia arrive not to the knowledge of us in Europe no more shall ours in Europe to theirs in Asia The name of Echebar was thought by his Subjects to be eternal and that all the World did not only know Jarricus in Thesau Indic but fear him But ask here in Europe who he was and no man hath heard of him and demand now of the most learned and few shall resolve you unless perchance he find here in my writing that he raigned in Mogor How few have heard of the name of Vencatapadino Ragiu he imagined that there was no man in the World who knew him not The same thought had his Servants and called him The Lord of Kings and supreme Emperour The titles which he arrogated to himself and put in his Edicts were these The Spouse of good fortune King of great Provinces King of the greatest Kings and God of Kings Lord of all the Horsemen Master of those who cannot speak Emperour of three Emperours Conquerour of all he sees and Preserver of all he conquers Formidable unto the eight Regions of the World Lord of the Provinces which he overcomes Destroyer of the Mahometan Armies Disposer of the riches of Zeilan He who cut off the head of the invincible Viravalano Lord of the East South North and West and of the Sea Hunter of Elephants He that lives and glories in his military valour These titles of honour are enjoyed by the most excellent in warlike forces Vencatapadino Ragiu which rules and governs this World How many can tell me before I declare it here that he was the King of Narsinga If then these warlike and potent Princes are not known in Europe No more shall Charles the Fift and the Grand Captain and many other Excellent men in arms and litterature which have flourished in these parts be known in Asia and Africa If we shall reflect upon the truth of those titles which many arrogate unto themselves we shall perceive them all to be vain How many are called Highness and Excellence who are of a base and abject spirit and continue in mortal sin which is the meanest and lowest thing in the World How many are called Screnissimi who have their understanding darkened and their will perverted Others call themselves most Magnificent with as much reason as Nero might be called most Clement This vanity hath proceeded so far that men have not feared to usurp those titles which only belong to God and have thereupon raised great warres and slain innumerable people Wherefore St. John said that the Beast which rose out of the Sea had upon his head names of Blasphemy and afterwards that the purple Beast was full of names of Blasphemy in regard of the blood that hath been spilt in the World for those vain titles and some of them contrary unto the essence of God as the calling of Rome Eternal and deifying her Emperours which was no better than blasphemy The things wherein
should behold by what they are nourished would cause a loathing The Lamprey which was the delicacy of the Romans feeds but upon mud and sluch There is no meat more neat and clean than bread hearbs and water the food of Penitents How narrow is the Sphere of all our pleasures which besides the short time that they endure are mingled with wormwood of many pains and griefs which accompany precede and follow them The Adulterer how many troubles and dangers does he usually pass before he compass his desire in the enjoying what fears and suspicions assault him and when it is past if he think seriously of the sin what remorse and repentance afflict him and oftentimes how many long diseases and sharp pains succeed that which lasted but a moment Let us compare our pleasures with the griefs which follow them and we shall find those far to surpass the other The several sorts of gusts whereof the touch is capable exceed not two or three but the dictinct sorts of pains which afflict it are without number The pain of the Sciatica the Stone the Gout the Tooth-ach the Head-ach besides innumerable other griefs and violences most intense and horrible which follow the tortures invented by Tyrants The greatest pleasure of the sense holds no comparison with the grief endured by the separation of a member or the pain suffered by him who hath the Stone Sciatica or some violent disease in extremity § 3. Well may be seen the poverty and insufficiency of the pleasures of this life in that our appetite still strives to enlarge them by inventing new and artificial entertainments which by their multitude may supply the defects of those which are natural Well may appear the irksome weariness of this life by all our endeavours which aym at nothing more than to give it some ease and relief How many kinds of curious Stuffs have been woven to please us in our Garments what diversitie of easie Beds and Couches have been found out what close Chairs Litters and Coaches have with excessive cost and charges been invented and the invention of them is no sooner known but we pursue it with that pride and haste that they esteem themselves unhappy who enjoy them last although their use be no wayes necessary Fra. Pruden de Sandoval Hist De Car. 5. P. 2. l. 28. See 36. The Bishop of Pampelona Historiographer to Charles the Fift writes that in the year 1546 there were no Coaches in Spain and that much about the same time one being brought thither for the Emperours own person whole Cities ran out to see it and admired it as if it had been a Centaure or some Monster And now what more frequent The invention because easie was so pleasing that in few years people of very ordinary condition began to use them in so much as it was thought fit within a very short time after to prohibit them which is more to be admired in respect of the simple and homely way which a little before was used by the most eminent persons They write of the Duke of Medina Sidonia who for wealth and nobility is one of the greatest in Spain that when he and the Dutchess went to visit our Ladies de Regla a Church of great devotion in Andalusia they went in a Cart drawn with Oxen the which was in the year 1540. Shortly after within five or six years came the Coach into Spain whereof we have spoken and within nine or ten years there was such a multitude of them that by a publick Edict in the year 1577 all Coaches with two horses were forbidden because many of inferiour condition used them both to the destruction of many serviceable horses and to the prejudice of their own wealth and modesty With such haste doth our humane appetite run after what it conceives commodious piecing out with art that which seemed short in nature The same happened as Dio Cassius reports with Litters which were brought into Rome in the time of Julius Caesar but quickly as Suetonius reports it was necessary for the same Julius Caesar to forbid them The same hath and doth pass in costly Apparel which is so equal a disorder that Tully doubts whether is more indecent for the nature of man The use of Coaches or the curiosity of Garments and calls them both impudent and shameless And truely as they are used by many they are no less The same Cicero said that the Roman Souldiers counted their Arms as the members of their bodies because they were no less troubled with the loss of the one than the other The same account many make of their neat and curious garments and are no less sensible if their cloathes chance to be disordered than if they had a member broken or out of joynt Macrobius writes of Quintus Hortensius a Roman Senatour that he was so curious in ordering his Garments by a large Looking-glass made on purpose and disposing the plates of his Gown which he gathered after into a quaint knot after the Roman fashion that being Consul and going into the Forum in all this nice formality accompanied with his Collegue it happened that in a great press and croud of people his fellow Consul chanced to disorder a little the plates of his Gown which he took so hainously that he commenced an action of offence against him which the Romans called de Injuria as if he had broken his arm or some other member What shall I say of Ornaments so costly and so foolish that even the World it self seems to condemn them in regard that being now glutted with the Garnitures of silk and gold it falls to make Embroideries of straw as if it had already learnt and understood that for the use of Garments it is one and the same thing to adorn them with straw as with gold and silver and for this reason Laces and Points made of straw are made use of in lieu of gold and silver But after the divers Inventions of Apparel who can reckon the several wayes invented to please our senses The mixture of several Meats for the taste the confection of Sweet-pasts and Persumes for the smell the melodious Musick of diver Instruments for the hearing the Games Pictures and Shows for the sight which Entertainments have been exhibited even with the spilling of humane blood Witness the Gladiators of Rome and the Bulls of Spain All this variety of pleasures which the appetite hath invented are an evident signe of the poverty and insufficiency of nature since all this multitude of artificial contents doth not satisfie it nor in any sort equal our natural griefs For so sleight a matter is lost a thing so great as is Eternity For these we abolish the Law of God from our hearts and displease our Redeemer who would reward the contempt of those poor and transitory pleasures of the earth with great and special favours from heaven If we will not therefore despise them for what they are in themselves let us
not true and fine gold which she wore but false and counterfeited for although it seemed gold it was but alchimy and yet being gilt she sold it for true gold So the Prosperity of the World comes decked with the goods of the earth which she fells for true goods setting them forth as great secure and lasting when they are nothing less All is but deceit and cozenage which is well exprest by Seneca when he sayes That is onely good which is honest other goods are false and adulterate What greater falshood and deceit than to make those things which are most vile and base to appear so precious and of such esteem that men pretend nothing greater and being more changeable than the Moon to appear constant and secure in so much as we remain so satisfied with them as if they were never to change and being fading and corruptible we seek after them as if they were eternal and immortal remembring nothing less than their end and ours forgetting wholly that they are to perish and we to die It is evident they are false since they promise of themselves what they neither have nor are Those who work in prospective will so paint a room that the light entring onely through some little hole you shall perceive beautiful and perfect figures and shapes but if you open the windows and let in a full light at most you shall see but some imperfect lines and shadows So the things of this World seem great and beautiful unto those who are in darkness and have but little light of heaven but those who enjoy the perfect light of truth and faith finde nothing in them of substance The felicity of this life is but a fiction and a shadow of true happiness and by that name is often qualified in holy Scripture which excellently expresses the nature of it For the shadow is not a body but a resemblance of a body and seeming to be something is nothing The inconstancy also and speedy change of humane things deserves this name because the shadow is alwayes altering and ends on a sodain And as the shadow when it is at length and can increase no further is nearest the end so temporal goods and humane fortunes when they are mounted up as high as the starres are then nearest to vanish and disappear sodainly And therefore one of the friends of Job faid Job 5. I saw the fool that he had taken deep rooting and instantly I cursed his beauty for the more firm he appeared to stand the more near he was unto his fall And David said he saw the Sinner exalted as a Cedar but he endured no longer than he turned his eyes What is to deceive but to publish that for truth which is not and to promise that which shall never be accomplished I leave to the witness of every one how often the issue of their hopes have proved vain not finding in what they desired that content which they expected In riches they hope for peace and repose but meet with nothing but unquietness and cares and many times with dangers and losses For this Christ our Redeemer called riches deceits saying that the Divine Word was choaked with the falshood and deceit of riches He is not content with calling them false and deceitful but calls them falshoods and deceits for what can be more false and perfidious then promising one thing to perform just the contrary The prosperity of this world promises us goods and gives us evils promises us ease and gives us cares promises security and gives us danger promises us great contents and gives us great vexations promises us a sweet life and gives us a bitter With reason it is said in the Book of Job that the bread Job 21. which the worldly man eats shall be converted into the gall of Aspes because that in those things which seem necessary for his life as the bread of its mouth he shall meet his death and when he hopes for pleasure he shall finde gall and no morsel which shall not leave some bitterness behinde it There is no felicity upon earth which carries not its counterpoise of misfortunes no happiness which mounts so high which is not depressed by some calamity For as they anciently painted humane Fancy in the form of a young man with one arm lifted up with wings as if it meant to flye towards heaven and the other weighed down by some great weight which hindred it from rising so humane felicity how high soever it soars hath still something to depress it §. 2. If we will evidently see how deceitfull are the things of this world this is a convincing argument that no man after he hath enjoyed what he most desires is content with his condition which apparently shews their deceit neither doth any man cease to desire more though he possess the greatest and most ample fortune in the world which also argues their falsehood since they satisfie not those who possess them No man but envyes the life of some other and grievs and complains of his own though far more happy Constantine the Great who was arrived at the height of humane felicity Euseb in Orat. de laudibus Constan said his life was something more honourable than that of Neat-heards and Shepheards but much more painful and troublesome Alfonsus King of Naples said the life of Kings was the life of Asses for the great burthens which they bear So as in the book of Job it is said Job 22. that the Giants groan under the waters In which place as Albertus Magnus explicates it by the Giants are understood the mighty ones of the earth upon whom it sends troubles and vexations for so the name of Waters signifie in that place of holy Scripture which makes them groan under the intolerable weight of them They are like the Giants which in great Cities are shewed at their solemn Feasts that which appears is some great and stately bulk covered with Gold and Silks but that which appears not is the little poor man which carries it upon his shoulders sweating groaning tyred and half dead with the weight The Sumpter-mules of the Grandees of Spain at their first coming to Court are loaden with great wealth of Silver Vessel Tissue-Beds and rich Hangings their Sumpter-clothes imbroidered their Winding-staves of silver their Cords of silk with their great Plumes their Bells Bosses and other Furniture But although their load be rich and sumptuous yet in fine it is a load and oppresses them and they are ready to faint and sink under the weight of it So is Honour Empire and Command Even King David confessed as much and sayes That his loyns were as it were disjoynted and he was bruised and wearied with the burthen Some Kings have said that which is particularly related by Stobaeus of Antigonus Stob. Ser. 3. who when he was crowned King of Macedonia said O Crown more noble than happy if men knew how full thou art of cares and
Gregory explicates in these words He is first troubled with a weariness in seeking how to compass sometimes by flattery sometimes by terrours what his covetousness desires and having obtained it the sollicitude of keeping it is no less vexatious He fears Theeves and is afrighted with the power of great ones lest they should by violence take his wealth from him and if he meet one in want presently suspects he may rob him and those very things which he hath gathered together he fears lest their own nature may consume them Since then the fear of all these things is a trouble and vexation the miserable wretch suffers in as many things as he fears St. Chrysostome also sayes that the rich man must needs want many things because he is content with nothing and is a slave of his avarice still full of fears and suspicion hated envied murmured at and made the enemy of all men whilest the poor life which walks the Kings high-way secured and guarded from Theeves and Enemies is a Port free from storms a School of wisdom and a life of peace and quietness Hom. 47. in Mat. And in another place he sayes thus If thou shalt well consider the heart of an avaritious and covetous man thou shalt finde it like a Garment spoiled and consumed with moths and ten thousand worms so corrupted and overcome with cares that it seems not the heart of a man Such is not the heart of the poor which shines like gold is firm as a rock of diamonds pleasant as a rose and free from fear theeves cares and sollicitudes lives a an Angel of heaven present onely to God and his service whose conversation is more with Angels than Men whose treasure is God not needing of any to serve him since he onely serves his Creator whose slaves are his own thoughts and desires over which he absolutely commands What more precious than this what more beautiful But the little help which humane life receives from temporal riches cannot be better exprest than by that which David sayes Psal 33. The rich have wanted and were a hungred but those who seek the Lord shall not be defrauded of all good If then the abundance of wealth cannot free us from the necessities of the body how shall they rescue us in the griefs and cares of the minde Neither are honours more favourable unto humane life What anguish of heart doth the fear of losing them cost us and what shifts are we put to to preserve them great are the inconveniences which many suffer to sustain them even to the want of necessary food Exod. 5. For as Pharao exacted things impossible from the Children of Israel commanding that no straw should be allowed them for the burning of their bricks and yet that the same Tax and number should be imposed as before The same tyranny is exercised over many by the World which takes away the stock and substance which they formerly had to sustain themselves and yet commands them still to maintain the same pomp and equipage which they did when they enjoy'd it so that many are forced by their honour as they term it to maintain a Coach and Lackies which they need not when they have scarcely wherewith to feed their hungry bellies In others what melancholly and sadness is sometimes caused by a vain suspicion that some have thought or spoken ill of them so many are the mischiefs and vexations which this counterfeit good draws along with it that many have given thanks to God that he hath taken this burthen of honour from them that so they might live in greater quiet and repose Plutarch sayes That if a man were offered two wayes whereof the one led to Honour and the other to Death he should choose the latter Lucian desiring to express it more fully feigns that one of the Gods refused his Deity because he would not be troubled with being alwayes honoured He invents this lye to make us believe the truth which we have spoken The excess also of pleasures what miseries doth it heap upon us what infirmities doth it engender in our bodies what torments and resentments in our consciences for as he who wanders out of his way without reflecting on it is by the briers bushes pits and unevenness of the ground put in minde that he hath lost himself which although he be otherwise well accommodated yet troubles and afflicts him So the wayes and paths of a delicious man cry out unto him that he goes astray and must therefore cause a melancholly and a sadness in his heart Hom. 10. in Ezechiel Well said St. Gregory that he was a fool who looked for joy and peace in the delights of the world for those are the effects of the Holy Ghost and companions of righteousness which are farre removed from the cares and vanities of the earth Besides all our pleasures are so intermixt with trouble and importunities that it is the greatest pleasure to want them Epicurus who was a great studier of pleasures Hieron contra Jovinian did as St. Jerome writes enrich all his books with sentences of temperance and sobriety and he hath scarce a leaf which is not filled with pot-herbs fruits roots and other mean food of small trouble the sollicitude in setting forth of banquets being greater than the delight we receive in their abuse Diogenes in the same manner and other Philosophers despised pleasures as prejudicial to the commodities of life passing for that cause their lives in great poverty Crates flung all his goods into the Sea and Zeno was glad his were drowned with a Tempest Aristides would not admit the bounty of Calicias and Epaminondas was content with one Coat living in poverty and temperance to the end he might live with content and honour and free from necessities which are often greater amongst the rich than the poor Riches make not their Masters rich who live in perpetual covetousness and are never satisfied with their Coffers Wherefore the Holy Ghost speaking of those who are called Rich and of the Poor of the Gospel sayes those are as it were rich and enjoy nothing and these are as it were poor and possess all things For which reason St. Gregory noted that our Saviour Christ called not the Riches of the world absolutely Riches but false and deceitful Riches False in regard they cannot continue long with us Deceitful because they cannot satisfie the necessities of life § 3. It is more to be feared when the goods of this life cause the evils of the other and that they not onely rob us of the content of the present but occasion the torments of the future and after one hell in this life throw us down into another after death Well said St. Jerome in one of his Epistles that it was a difficult thing to enjoy both the goods present and to come to passe from temporal pleasures to eternal and to be great both here and there for he who places his whole
to the Common-wealth known to posterity But in Heaven there is no need of this artifice because those who are there honoured are immortal and shall have in themselves some character engraved as an evident and clear testimony of their noble Victories and Atchievements The honour of the Just in Heaven depends not like that of the Earth upon accidents and reports nor is exposed to dangers or measured by the discourse of others but in it self contains its own glory and dignity Cuiac ad tit de dignit The dignities in the Roma Empire as may be gathered from the Civil Law were four expressed by these four Titles Perfectissimus Clariffimus Spectabilis Illustris most Perfect most Clear Specious and Illustrious These Honours were onely in name and reputation not in substance and truth For He was often called most perfect who was indiscreet foolish passionate and imperfect He most clear who had neither clearness nor serenitity of understanding but was infected with dark and obscure vices Those specious and beautiful from whom a man would flye twenty leagues rather than behold them and those illustrious who were enveloped in the darkness of vice and ignorance without the least light of vertue That we may therefore see the difference betwixt the honours of Heaven and those of the Earth which are as farre distant from one another as truth from falsehood we must know that in Heaven the Blessed are not onely called most Perfect but really are so both in soul and body without the least imperfection or defect are not onely called most Clear but are so each one being adorned with that gift of brightness that they shall cast out beams more clear than the Sun and if the Sun be the most bright thing in nature what shall they be who seaventimes out-shine it Nor shall they be onely said to be spectabilis or specious and worthy to be looked upon but their beauty and comeliness shall be such as shall not onely draw the eyes of all to behold them but shall stirre up their affections to love and admire them In the like manner they shall not be titularly but really Illustrious for every one with his own light shall be sufficient to illustrate and enlighten many Worlds If one onely false title of those which are truely enjoyed by the Blessed were capable of making the Roman Empire to respect and honour the possessor what shall the truth and substance of them all do in Heaven 1 Mac. 2. With reason did Mathathias call the glory of this World dung and filth because all honours and dignities of the Earth in respect of those in Heaven are base vile and despicable What greater honour than to be Friends of God Sons Heirs and Kings in the Realm of Heaven Apoc. 4. St. John in his Apocalyps sets forth this honour of the blessed in the 24 Elders who were placed about the Throne of God and in that Honour and Majesty as every one was seared in his presence and that upon a Throne cloathed in white and lucid Garments in signe of their perpetual joy and crowned with a crown of Gold in respect of their dignities To be covered in the presence of Kings is the greatest honour they conferre upon the chiefest Grandees but God causes his Servants to be crowned and seated upon Thrones before him and our Saviour in the Day of Judgement makes his Disciples his fellow Judges §. 4. Certainly greater honour cannot be imagined than that of the Predestinate For if we look upon him who honours It is God If with what With no less joy than his own Divinity and other most sublime gifts If before whom Before the whole Theater of Heaven now and in the Day of Judgement before Heaven Earth Angels Men and Devils If the continuance For all eternity If the titles which he gives them it is the truth and substance of the things not the empty word and vain name By all this may appear the cause why eternal happiness being a mass and an assembly of all goods imaginable yet is called by way of excellence by the name of Glory because that although it contain all pleasures contents joyes riches and what can be defired yet it seems the Glory and honour which God bestows upon the Just exceeds all the other The honour which God gives in Heaven to glorious Souls may be seen by that which he gives to their worm-eaten bones upon Earth whereof St. Chrysostom speaks these words Where is now the Sepulcher of the great Alexander In 2. ad Corinth Hom. 26. shew it me I beseech thee and tell me the day whereon he died The Sepulchers of the Servants of Christ are so famous that they possess the most Royal and Imperial City of the World and the day whereon they died is known and observed as festival by all The Sepulcher of Alexander is unknown even to his own Countrymen but that of these is known to the very Barbarians Besides the Sepulchers of the Servants of Christ excell in splendor and magnificence the Palaces of Kings not onely in respect of the beauty and sumptuousness of their buildings wherein they also exceed but which is much more in the reverence and joy of those who repair unto them For even he who is clothed in Purple frequents their Tombs and humbly kisses them and laying aside his Majesty and Pomp supplicates their prayers and assistance with God Almighty he who wears the Diadem taking a Fisherman and a Maker of Tents for his Patrons and Protectors What miracles hath not God wrought by the Reliques of his Servants and what prodigies have not been effected by their bodies St. Chrysostome writes of St. Juventius Chrysost in Serm. de Juven Max. Sever. in Ep. ad Socrum and St. Maximus that their bodies after death cast forth such beams of light that the eyes of those who were present were not able to suffer them Sulpicius Severus writes of St. Martin that his dead body remained in a manner glorified that his flesh was pure as Chrystal and white as milk What wonders did God work by the bodies of St. Edward the King and St. Francis Xavier preserving them incorrupted for so many years and if he do those great things with their Bodies who are under the Earth what will he do with their Souls which are above the Heavens and what with them both when their glorious Bodies shall arise and after the Day of Judgement united to their Souls enter in triumph into the holy and eternal City of God CAP. III. Of the Riches of the eternal Kingdom of Heaven THe Riches in Heaven are no less than the Honours though those as hath been said are inestimable There can be no greater riches than to want nothing which is good nor to need any thing which can be desired and in that blessed life no good shall fall nor no desire be unsatisfied And if as the Philosophers say he is not rich who possesseth much
some their lives St. Bernard explicating the 90. Psalm reports that a certain religious person being ready to die beheld two Devils in that horrid and ugly shape that he cried out as if he had been distracted Cursed be the hour that I entred into Religion and then holding his peace not long after with a quiet and appeased voice and countenance he said Nay rather blessed be the time that I became of this Order and ever blessed be the Mother of Christ whom I have alwayes loved from my heart And then turning to those who were in prayer he said unto them Marvel not at the turbation of my spirit for two Devils appeared unto me in that monstrous and horrid form that if there were here a fire of sulphur and melted mettal which were to last unto the day of Judgement I would sooner pass through the middest of it than turn again to behold them If then two Devils caused such amazement what shall the sight of legions doe each exceeding other in deformity If the Devil be so ugly and terrible in this life what shall he be in his proper place of damnation and especially so many together Many are affrighted very much passing onely through a Church-yard onely for fear of seeing a phantasm in what a fright will be a miserable damned soul which shall see so many and of so horrid shapes St Gregory reflecting on that which is spoken in the book of Job Job 10. That in Hell shall inhabit everlasting horror sayes in this manner How can there be fear where there is so much grief We grieve for a present evil and fear for that which is to come and he who is arrived at the utmost of misery hath nothing more to fear and not to fear is a kind of good and no good can happen in Hell He answers That as death perpetually killing the damned leaves them alive that they may die living so pain torments them and in such manner affrights them that they are still in fear of greater succeeding pains Their fight also shall be tormented with beholding the punishment of their friends and kindred Egesippus writes that Alexander the Son of Hircanus resolving to punish certain persons with exemplary rigour caused 800 to be crucified and whilest they were yet alive caused their wives and children to be murthered before their eyes that so they might die not one but many deaths This rigour shall not be wanting in Hell where Fathers shall see their Sons and Brothers their Brothers tormented The Torment of the eyes shall be also very great in regard that those that have given others scandal and made others fall into sin shall see themselves and those others in that Abyss of torments To the sight of these dreadful and grievous apparitions shall be added that nocturnal horrour and fearful darkness of the place Nicholas de Lira sayes In Exod. 10. sayes that therefore the darkness of Aegypt was said to be horrible because there the Aegyptians beheld fearful figures and phantasms which terrified them In the like manner in that infernal darkness the eyes shall be tormented with the monstrous and enormous figures of the wicked spirits which shall appear much more dreadful by reason of the obscurity and sadness of that eternal night The Hearing shall not onely be afflicted by an intolerable pain caused by that ever burning and penetrating fire but also with the fearful and amazing noises of thunders roarings howlings clamours groans curses and blasphemies Sylla being Dictator caused six thousand persons to be enclosed in the Circus and then appointing the Senate to meet in a Temple close by where he intended to speak unto them about his own affairs to strike the greater terror into them and make them know he was their Master he gave order that so soon as he began his oration the Souldiers should kill this multitude of people which was effected Upon which were heard such lamentations outcries groans clashing of Armour and blows of those merciless homicides that the Senatours could not hear a word but stood amazed with terror of so horrid a fact Such shall be the harmony of Hell when the ears shall be deafned with the cries and complaints of the damned What confusion and horrour shall it breed to hear all lament all complain all curse and blaspheme through the bitterness of the torments which they suffer Sur. in ejus vita 14. Apr. St. Lidwin being in an extasie saw a place so dreadful made of black stone and of such a depth that it would fright one to look into it The Saint heard there within most fearful groans cries and howlings noise and horrible knocking as it were of hammers wherewith those within were tormented She was so astonished to hear this that if all the noise and lamentations of the world were joyned together it would be of no trouble in respect of it The Angel told her That was the habitation of the damned And demanding of her whither she had any desire to see it she said No she would not see it because only hearing what there was done caused her an unsufferable grief The Smell also shall be tormented with a most pestilential stench Horrible was that torment used by Mezentius to tye a living body to a dead and there to leave them until the infection and putrified exhalations of the dead had killed the living What can be more abominable than for a living man to have his mouth laid close to that of a dead one full of grubs and worms where the living must receive all those pestilential vapours breathed forth from a corrupted carcass and suffer such loathsomness and abominable steneh But what is this in respect of Hell when each body of the damned is more loathsome and unsavoury than a million of dead dogs and all these pressed and crowded together in so streight a compass Isaias in respect of their stench calls them dead bodies Isai 34. when he sayes The stench of their carcasses shall ascend And St. Bonaventure goes so far as to say that if one onely body of the damned were brought into this world it were sufficient to infect the whole earth Neither shall the Devils send forth a better smell For although they are spirits yet those fiery bodies unto which they are fastned and confined shall be of a most pestilential savour And in this manner a Devil who had appeared unto him being put to flight by St. Martin left such an horrible stench behind him that the Saint deemed himself to be already in hell and said unto himself If one onely Devil having been here hath caused this what will all the Devils together and damned men doe Libel de provid num 3. In the Book of the Doctrine of the Fathers it is written that a pious Damsel being carried by an Angel to see Hell she saw her own Mother there put into a Cauldron of boiling pitch up to the neck and great numbers of vermin swarming
would he be unto so merciful a benefactor He hath done no less for us but much more For if he hath not drawn us out of Hell he hath not thrown us into it as we deserved which is the greater favour Tell me if a Creditor should cast that Debtor into prison who owed him a thousand Duckets and after the enduring of much affliction at last release him or should suffer another who owed him fifty thousand Duckets to goe up and down free without touching a thread of his garment Whether of the Debtors received the greater benefit I believe thou wilt say the latter More then are we endebted unto God Almighty and therefore ought to serve him better Consider how a man would live who should be restored to life after he had been in Hell Thou shouldst live better since thou art more indebted to Almighty God Lib. 4. Dialog cap. 36. St. Gregory writes of one who though he had not been released out of Hell but onely was upon the point of damnation yet led afterwards such a life that the change was admirable The Saint sayes that a Monk called Peter who before he retired to the desert was in a trance for some time as dead and being restored to his senses made this relation That he had had a sight of Hell and that he had seen in it great chastisements and innumerable places full of fire and that he knew some who had been very powerful in the World hanging in the midst of the flames and himself being now at the brink to be cast into the same he saw on the sudden a bright shining Angel who withheld him faying Return to thy body and confider well with what care and diligence it suits with thy profession to lead thy life from hence forwards So it was that being returned to his body he treated it with such austerity of penance watches and fasts that although he should not have spoken a word his manner of life did publish sufficiently what he had seen Secondly we are taught to exercise an invincible patience in suffering the afflictions and troubles of this life that by enduring these thankfully we may escape those of the other He who shall consider the eternity of those torments which he deserves will not grumble at the pains of this short life how bitter soever There is no state or condition upon earth how necesitous how poor how miserable soever which the damned would not endure and think it an infinite happiness if they might change with it Neither is there any course of life so austere which he who had once experienced those burning flames if he might live again would not make more rigorous He who hath once deserved eternal torments let him never murmure at temporal evils let his mouth be ever stopt from complaining of the crosses or petty injuries offered him in this life who hath committed offences worthy the pains of the other From this consideration there was nothing which the Saints would not willingly suffer no penance which they would not undergoe Apoc. 14. Wherefore St. John the Evangelist after he had spoken of the smoke which ascended from the torments of the damned for a world of worlds and and that they did not rest by day nor night presently adds Here is the patience of the Saints because seeing that all the troubles of this life were temporal and the torments of the other eternal nothing that they endured seemed much unto them Chrysost To. 5. Epist 5. ad Theod. So did St. John Chrsostome and advises us to do the like bearing with patience all temporal pains whatsoever with the consideration of the eternal From the consideration of little thing saith he let us frame a conjecture of the great If thou goe into a Bath and shalt find it excessive hot think on Hell If thou art tormented with the heat think on Hell If thou art tormented with the heat of some violent Fever pass unto the consideration of those eternal flames which burn without end and think that if a Bath or Calenture so afflict thee how shalt thou endure that River of fire Homil. 2. in 1. Ep. ad Thess And further the same Saint When thou shalt see any thing great in this present life think presently of the Kingdom of Heaven and so thou shalt not value it much and when thou shalt see any thing terrible think on Hell and thou wilt laugh at it When the concupiscence or desire of any temporal thing shall afflict thee think that the delight of sin is of no estimation and that the pleasure of it is nothing For if the fear of Lawes which are enacted upon earth be of that force that they are able to deterre us from evil actions much more will the thought of things to come and that immortal chastisement of eternal pain If the fear of an Earthly King divert us from many evils how much more shall the fear of a King eternal If the fight of a dead man detain us much more shall the thought of hell and that eternal death If we often think of hell we shall never fall into it We ought also often to call to minde the evils of the next life that we may more despise the pleasures of this because temporal felicity uses often to end in eternal miserie All that is precious in the world honour wealth fame pleasure all the splendour of the Earth is but smoke and a shadow if we compare the small duration of them with the eternity of those torments in the other world Put all the Silver in the world together in one heap all the Gold all the Precious-stones Diamonds Emeralds with all other the richest Jewels all the Triumphs of the Romans all the Dainties of the Assytians c. all would deserve to be of no other value than dirt ignominy and gall if to be possessed with hazard of falling at last into the pit of Hell Let us call to mind that sentence of our blessed Saviour What will it avail a man to gain the whole world if he lose his soul If they should make us Lords and Masters I say not of great wealth but of the whole world we should not admit of it with the least hazard of being damned for ever Let one enjoy all the contents and regalo's imaginable let him be raised up to the highest pitch of honour let him triumph with all the greatness of the world All this is but a dream if after this mortal life he finds himself at length plunged into hell-fire Whosoever should consider the lamentable day in which two Sons and three Daughters and his Wife the Emperess were put to death in presence of the Emperor Mauritius and afterwards himself was bereaved of life by command of a dastardly Coward and vicious fellow no doubt but he would esteem as very vain and of no worth all the twenty years of his Raign in his powerful Empire and Majesty though his punishment was not
it prepares for us are eternal whose greatness though it were not otherwise to be known might in this sufficiently appear that to free us from so many evils and crown us with so many goods it was necessary that he who was eternal should make himself temporal and should execute this great and stupendious work so much to his own loss CAP. IV. The baseness of Temporal goods may likewise appear by the Passion and Death of Christ Jesus THe greatness of eternal goods and evils is by the Incarnation of the Son of God made more apparent unto us then the Sun beams since for the freeing us from the one and gaining for us the other it was necessary so great a work should be performed and that God judged not his whole omnipotency ill imployed that man might gain eternity Yet doth not this great work so forcibly demonstrate unto us the baseness of things temporal and the contempt which is due unto them as the Passion and Death of the Son of God which was another work of his love an other excess of his affection another tenderness of our Creator and a most high expression of his good will towards us wherein we shall see how worthy to be despised are all the goods of the Earth since to the end we might contemn them the Son of God would not onely deprive himself of them but to the contrary embraced all the evils and incommodities this life was capable of Behold then how the Saviour of the world disesteemed temporal things since he calls the best of them and those which men most covet but thorns and to the contrary that which the world most hates and abhorrs he qualifies with the name of blessings favouring so much the Poor who want all things that he calls them blessed and sayes Of them is the Kingdom of heaven And of the Rich who enjoy the goods of the earth he sayes It is harder for them to enter into heaven then for a Camel to pass the eye of a needle And to perswade us yet more he not onely in words but in actions chose the afflictions and despised the prosperity of this life and to that end would suffer in all things as much as could be suffered In honour by being reputed infamous In riches by being despoyled of all even to his proper garments In his pleasures by being a spectacle of sorrow and afflicted in each particular part of his most sacred body This we ought to consider seriously that we may imitate him in that contempt of all things temporal which he principally exprest in his bitter death and passion This he would have us still to keep in memory as conducing much to our spiritual profit as an example which he left us and as a testimony of the love he bore us leaving his life for us and dying for us a publick death full of so many deaths and torments Zcnophon in Cyro lib. 3. Tigranes King of Armenia together with his Queen being prisoners unto Cyrus and one day admited to dine with him Cyrus demanded of Tigranes What he would give for the liberty of his wife to whom Tigranes answered That he would not onely give his Kingdom but his life and blood The woman not long after requited this expression of her husband For being both restored to their former condition One demanded of the Queene What she thought of the Majesty and Greatness of Cyrus to whom she answered Certainly I thought not on him nor fixt mine eyes on any but him who valued me so much as he doubted not to give his life for my ransom If this Lady were so grateful onely for the expression of her husbands affections that she looked upon nothing but him and neither admired nor desired the greatness of the Persians What ought the Spouse of Christ to do who not onely sees the love and affection of the King of Heaven but his deeds not his willingness to die but his actual dying a most horrid and cruel death for her ransom and redemption Certainly she ought not to place her eyes or thoughts upon any thing but Christ crucified for her Sabinus also extolls the loyalty and love of Vlysses to his Wife Penelope in regard that Circe and Calypso promising him immortality upon condition that he should forget Penelope and remain with them he utterly refused it not to be wanting to the love and affection he owed unto his Spouse who did also repay it him with great love and affection Let a Soul consider what great love and duty it owes to its Spouse Christ Jesus who being immortal did not onely become mortal but died also a most ignominious death Let us consider whether it be reasonable it should forget such an excessive love and whether it be fit it should ever be not remembring the same and not thankful for all eternity hazarding to lose the fruits of the passion of its Redeemer and Spouse Christ Jesus Upon this let thy Soul meditate day and night and the spiritual benefits which she will reap from thence will be innumerable Albertus Magnus used to say Lud. de Ponte P. 4. in introduc That the Soul profited more by one holy thought of the Passion of Christ than by reciting every day the whole Psalter by fasting all the year in bread and water or chastizing the Body even to the effusion of blood One day amongst others when Christ appeared unto St. Gertrude to confirm her in that devotion she had to his Passion he said unto her behold Daughter if in a few hours which I hung upon the Cross I so enobled it that the whole world hath ever since had it in reverence how shall I exalt that Soul in whose heart and memory I have continued many years Certainly it cannot be exprest what favour devout Souls obtain from Heaven in thinking often upon God and those pains by which he gained tor us eternal blessings and taught us to despise things temporal and transitory But that we may yet reap more profit by the holy remembrance of our Saviours passion we are to consider that Christ took upon him all our sins and being to satisfy the Father for them would do it by the way of suffering for which it was convenient that there should be a proportion betwixt the greatness of his pains and the greatness of our sins And certainly as our sins were without bound or limit so the pains of his torments were above all comparison shewing us by the greatness of those injuries he received in his passion the greatness of those injuries we did unto God by our inordinate pleasures We may also gather by the greatness of those pains and torments which were inflicted upon him by the Jews and Hangmen the greatness of those which he inflicted upon himself for certainly those pains which he took upon himself were not inferior to those he received from others But who can explicate the pains which our Saviour wounded by the grief he conceived at
it is a kind of impudence to use God as a Medium for the obtaining of that which does or may separate us from him who is our chief and utmost end Guigo Cathusianus sayes Guigo Carthus in Medit. that he who prayes for temporal things uses God Almighty as the Spouse does her Husband when she desires him to bring her with his own hands some vile slave with whom she may adulterate So we desiring temporal goods encrease our affection to the things of the earth which make us forget the love of our Creator and praying for them pray for the instruments and occasions of offending him Let us not commit this treason against our Lord God but let us ask what may redound to his glory and our own profit which is only that which is spiritual and eternal to wit his grace his knowledge the imitation of his Son the contempt of the world and what is conformable to his holy will This we may safely ask and this he will certainly give us because it is for our true good And therefore in the prayer which our Lord himself hath taught us when we have said Thy will be done we proceed in a bolder manner and say in an imparative way Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses having then a kinde of certainty of obtaining when we have first conformed our prayers to the divine will and it is then as Origen notes a singular confidence we have in God to command what we pray for The third error in our petitions for temporal goods is that we pray for things vain without substance or profit for such is all temporal greatness and felicity short vain inconstant transitory and unworthy the heart of man which ought wholly to fix upon the eternal and trample the rest under foot like that mysterious woman in the Apocalyps who was surrounded and penetrated by the Sun which filled the heart and bowels but trod the Moon under her feet the Sun which is perfectly circular being a Symbol of eternity and the Moon which is defective and mutable a figure of the temporal The Sun hath its own proper light the Moon none but what she borrows from the Sun In the same manner the eternal is a good in it self and desirable for it self the temporal hath no good at all but what it acquires by being a means of obtaining the eternal All humane felicity is but vanity smoke thorns deceit and misery With what face can a Christian demand such stuff from God Almighty and such is all humane prosperity in Gods acceptance Chrysos hom 79. in Mat. Out of which consideration St. Chrysostome speaks in this manner A Roman Judge will not understand thy allegations unless thou speak unto him in the Roman tongue In the like manner Christ will not hear thee unless thou speak unto him in his own language and thy mouth be conformable unto his In the language of our Redeemer riches are thorns honours smoke and pleasures vipers and therefore he who prays for things of this nature prayes but for so many evils And as there is no Father that if his Son instead of bread demand a Scorpion will give it him so God to those whom he loves and holds as Children when they ask him temporal goods denies them because he sees they are not good for them For this reason the honour demanded by the Wife of Zebedaeus for her two sons was denyed by our Saviour with this answer That they knew not what they asked demanding that for a good which was not and in room of the honour which they desired in a temporal Kingdom he gave them Martyrdom which they thought not of which conduced to real and eternal happiness Let us learn therefore How and for What to pray that we erre not in a matter of such importance For if the error be so much greater by now much the matter in which it falls is of greater moment an error in matter of prayer must be most great especially having a divine precept and an infallible promiss that if we demand what is necessary for our Salvation in his name we shall not fail of obtaining it Let us not therefore ask that in the name of our Saviour for which he would not die but that which he bought for us with his precious blood and life which is the blessings of heaven and our eternal felicity For this let us sigh for this let us pray and let us reflect how great and faulty a carelesness it is not to pray ever for that which imports us so much as heaven and for which only we have a certain promise to be heard and not for other things which the world esteems and time consumes CAP. VII How happy are those who renounce Temporal goods for the securing of the Eternal IF all which hath been said suffice not to make us despise the goods of the earth for the gaining of those blessings we hope for in heaven and if neither the example nor remonstrances of our Saviour will serve to make us esteem the Eternal and contemn the Temporal but that we will for all this preferre the one though little and base because present before the other though great and immense because to come Yet let our present interest and the word and promise of the Son of God move us which certainly if seriously weighed will not onely perswade us to despise but totally to renounce the goods of the world as many of the Philosophers have done that they might more freely enjoy the pleasures and commodities of this life and many Saints for the hopes they have had of the other Let us here call to mind what was said by the Saviour of the world Mat. 19. Whosoever shall leave father or mother or brothers or sisters or house or land for my sake shall in this life receive a hundred-fold and after death life eternal In which words we are to consider the greatness of the promise and the importance of that for which so great things are promised Without doubt it must be of high concernment to renounce our temporal goods since the Son of God invites us to it with so great promises and if it be convenient to renounce them as things poysonous and hurtful to us we can have no excuse for not despising them or at least if we do not despise them yet we can have no reason to love and prefer them before the eternal Much and extremely much it will concern us to despise that which is convenient for us to leave and as much to pluck from our hearts the affection of those things which are not fit for us to possess Neither is it much to say that it is advantagious for us to renounce these temporal things since St. Bonaventure judged it necessary and therefore according to the Apostle sayes That the root of all evil is avarice from which and from pride which accompanies it all sins have their birth food
three kinds of goods whch the world so much esteems He so despised Riches as he had not a garment or ragg to cover his nakedness He so much contemned Honour that to the end he might be more humbled and scornned he conversed with fools and made himself one of them and so renounced all Pleasures that he persevered in perpetual fasts forsaking and giving away his food amongst his companions Ex M. S. Graec. Hist Patrum Let us now relate another story of equal fortitude in the contempt of the world but in a weaker sex In Thabenna upon the banks of the river Nilus in a Monastery of 300 Virgins consecrated to God there was amongst them one called Isidora scorned despised and held for a fool by all the rest the which so nourished that opinion and in such manner shewed her self distracted that she did not for all this forbear so to exercise the works of charity and humilliation towards the others as if she were a slave to each one of them Her imployment was commonly in the Kitchin where she made clean and washed the dishes The others upon no occasion would sometimes buffet her call her fool sot and mad-woman whereat she either held her peace or laught like some simple Ninny by which art she freed her self from sitting with the rest in the Refectory not eating any thing but the scraps and remainder of others She went alwaies barefoot with her head covered with some dirty cloth and although she were the scorn of all yet she was never heard to speak any thing in her own defence or shew the least resentment of any thing they did unto her Pallad c. 42. de S. Pitirum At the same time there lived in Porphirite that great man of penance and of equal fame and goodness called Pitirum unto whom an Angel appeared and said Thou hast little reason to glory in thy so many yeares austerity and observance of a religious life Come and thou shalt see a Maid more holy then thy self Goe to the Convent of the religious in Thabenna amongst whom thou shalt finde one with a Diadem so the Angel called that foul cloth which the humble Virgin that she might be more despised wore about her head Know said the Angel that this Maid is better than thy self her patience is daily excercised by a number of women she is despised scorned and treated as if she were a dog and yet permits not her thoughts to be troubled or distracted from God by any thing And thou being here alone sufferest thy thoughts to wander up and down the whole world Which said the Angel departed And the Abbot Pitirum at the same time in complyance with what was commanded went towords the place appointed and being so famed for sanctity easily obtained leave to see the Monastery And the Abbess and all the Nunns came forth to enjoy the comfort of seeing so singular a man for sanctity as also to receive the benediction of the Bishop who with one of his Deacons accompanied him The Abbot not perceiving her amongst the rest whom he sought for demanded if none of the Religious were wanting and they answearing None replyed It is impossible for I see not her whom the Angel of the Lord shewed me Whereupon they said There onely wanted one who was a fool and remained in the Kitchin The Abbot commanded her instantly to be fetcht which with much adoe she resisting all was possible they did by force The holy Abbot instantly knowing her by that covering which the Angel called a Diadem fell prostrate at her feet saying Mother I beseech thee bless me and by thy holy prayers recommend me unto our Lord. The other religious astonisht at the accident said Take heed Father what you do This is a fool and deprived of her senses To whom the Abbot It is you are fools This is wiser than you or I and I would to God that at the day of Judgement I might be found in as happy a condition as she The Nunns amazed at what they heard kneeling at the feet of the Abbot demanded pardon for the injuries they had done unto the servant of God confessing their faults One the scoffing at her manner of cloathing Another her buffetting her Another her flinging water in her face Another her plucking her by the Nose In fine none but had done her some affront or other Whereupon the Abbot returned home much comforted and the religious from thence forward gave her such respect as was due unto her vertues But she not enduring to be so much honoured and esteemed left the Monastery for then enclosure was not of obligation as now it is and went to some other place where she might be more despised at least her vertues not so much known Who sees not here the world trodden under foot by this religious Virgin who lived with such content humiliation and patience in the middest of so much poverty esteeming herself happy in being a slave and scorned by all Nissen in vita Thaumaturgi Admirable likewise is that Story related by St. Gregory of Nessen of a certain Philosopher called Alexander who being very beautiful of face and of a goodly stature and presence yet knowing by the light of faith which perfects Philosophy the vanity of the things of this World and their danger was resolved despising himself and those gifts of nature to live in labour and humility And that his beautiful face might neither be occasion of sinning to himself nor others he went unto the City of Comana and made himself a Collier hoping thereby either to be altogether unknown or at least forgotten There he remained a long time all tattered in apparel and his face so besooted as he seemed as if he were a coal himself insomuch as he was esteemed the most vile and despicable person of the whole City It happened that their Bishop being at the same time dead St. Gregory Thaumaturgus came thither intreated by the Citizens to bestow a Bishop upon them whereupon the people presented unto him the most noble and learned persons of their City that he might out of that number make choice of whom he pleased But the Saint advised them that for so great a dignity as that of Bishop they should not onely look upon those parts which shine and appear glorious in the world but upon vertue and sanctity and that therefore they should also present unto him others although of a meaner condition To whom some in a scoffing way replyed If such people be fit to be made Bishops let us propose Alexander the Collier it seeming unto them that there was not in all the City a meaner or a more contemptible person than he The Bishop moved by God hearing him named commanded him to be called And made him Bishop Our Lord causing him who despised himself to be honoured of others and placed him who was hidden and covered under his own lowness and humility upon the Candlestick of his Church And