יהוה  
Annos aeternos in ment habui.  
Memorare novissima tua.  
THE SWEET THOUGHTS OF DEATH, and Eternity.  
Written by Sieur de la Serre.  
AT PARIS, 1632.    

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY NEVIL, BARON OF ABERGAVENY.  
SIR,  
YOU may behold here a senseless Statue, made to the Life, but without Life, till the Promethean Fire of your well known piercing judgement gracing it, give it a true subsistence. It hath a Mouth without Words, Words without Spirit, till you the Maecenas, through your Honour's gracious acceptation, afford it strength & energy. As for the Heart, expressed in the pure Intention of this Address to your Honour, it is wholly yours; nor needs the spoils of feigned Deities, to give it breath, to make it more your own, than now it is. Or rather if you please, you have here two newborn Twin, put forth thus naked as you see into the wide World, to shift for themselves; and like to be forlorn, unless your Lordship, pitying their poverty, take them into your Honourable Patronage, and safe Protection.  
France hath had the happiness to give them their first birth; your Honour shall have the trouble to afford them a second: That to have bred a Spirit able to conceive and bring forth such issues; And your Lordship through your noble Favour, to make them free Denizens of this Kingdom. Or lastly, to speak more properly, I here present your Lordship with the Sweet Thoughts of Death, and Eternity, expressed in our tongue. Not to undertake, to make that sweet unto you, (which otherwise were bitter) who through a fair preparation of a Christian and virtuous life, have confidence enough to look grim Death, in the face; and with good serenity of conscience, to wait on Eternity: but rather that your Lordship, would please to commend the same to others of like quality, who following the vogue of the allurements, pleasures, and delights of this world, may have need of such noble Reflections, as Monsieur de la Serre, Author of this Work, well versed with people of that rank, hath learnedly, and piously shown to this more free and dissolute age. So shall your Honour, do a charitable work of mercy, the world be edified, and I well satisfied, to have put to my hand.  
Your Honour's most humbly and truly devoted. H. H.   

THE TABLE OF CHAPTERS.  
Chap. 1. OF the sweet Thoughts of Death. 
pag. 1.  Chap. 2. What Pleasure it is to think of Death. 
pag. 6.  Chap. 3. That there is no contentment in the world, but to think of Death. 
pag. 22.  Chap 4. That it belongeth but only to good Spirits, to think continually of Death. 
pag. 30.  Chap. 5. How those spirits that think continually of Death, are elevated above all the Greatness of the Earth. 
pag. 41.  Chap. 6. A Contemplation upon the Tomb of Alexander the Great. 
pag. 50.  Chap. 7. He that thinks always of Death, is the Richest of the world. 
pag. 61.  Chap. 8. A Contemplation upon the Tomb of Croesus. 
pag. 66.  Chap. 9 That he who thinks always of Death, is the Wisest of the world. 
pag. 73.  Chap. 10. A Contemplation upon the Tomb of Solomon. 
pag. 80.  Chap. 11. A Contemplation upon the Tomb of Helena. 
pag. 90.  Chap. 12. That of all the Laws which Nature hath imposed upon us, that same of Dying, is the sweetest. 
pag. 113.  Chap. 13. How Worldings die deliciously without ever thinking thereof. 
pag. 119.  Chap. 14. Goodly Considerations upon this important verity; That whatsoever we do, we die every hour, without cease. 
pag. 124.  Chap. 15. The Tomb of the pleasures of the Sight. 
pag. 127.  Chap. 16. The tomb of the Pleasures of the Sense of Hearing. 
pag. 130.  Chap. 17. The Tomb of the other Pleasures, that are affected to the Senses. 
p. 132.  Chap. 18. How he who hath imposed the Law of death upon us, hath suffered all the pains thereof together. 
pag. 135.  Chap. 19 The pleasure which is found in Living well, for to Die content. 
pag. 143.  Chap. 20. The Picture of the Life, and Death of a sinful Soul. 
pag. 148.  Chap. 21. A goodly Consideration, and very important both for life, and death. 
pag. 159.   

THOUGHTS OF ETERNITY.  
The Triumph of Death. 
pag. 3.  The Glory of Paradise. 
pag. 55.  Of the Infernal Pains. 
pag. 190.  The Hour of Death. 
pag. 145.     

Of the sweet Thoughts of Death.  

CHAP. I.  
THERE are no sweeter Thoughts, than those of Death. Spirits being raised to the knowledge of Divine things, do ever occupy themselves in counting the time of their banishment in this strange Land, where we sigh under the burden of our Evils. Slaves live not, but of the hope to see themselves at liberty: their prisons and their irons are objects, both of horror and dread, which put their souls upon the rack. The Sun shines not for them at all, and all the sundry pleasures agreeable to their senses changing their nature, serve but to afflict them. So as in their captivity, they breathe the air of a dying life, whose moments last for ages. We are those slaves so enchained within the prison of our bodies, as exiled from the paradise of our delights, where the first innocency of our parents, had established us a Mansion: so true it is, their disobedience hath changed our bodies into prisons, and the delights of our Souls into thraldom. What feelings then, may we have in this servile condition, whereunto we are brought, but those of an extreme dolour, and bitter sorrow, to see ourselves deprived of the Soveraygne God, where Souls do find the accomplishment of their rest? The hearts being holily enamoured, speak so sweet a language both of sighs & sobs, in the absence of that they love, as if the Angels were touched with envy, they would desire to learn it, to make thereof a new Canticle of glory in their Eternity.  
Of all the dolours that may tyrannize a soul, such as know what it is to love, find not a more intolerable, then that of the absence of the Subject with they love perfectly indeed. And if it be true, that affections draw their force from their merit, what should our love be towards this Saviour, whose perfection so wholly adorable, cannot brook comparison but with themselues. And how be it this great God be infinitely lovely, yet would he needs be borrowing a hart of nature, to resent the draughts of our love, & to dye on the Cross of their wound. What excess of goodness? How may they resist the sweet strokes of his mercy? He espouses our Condition, for to suffer all the miseries thereof; (sin and ignorance only remaining without power against his person) in so much as dying, he changed the countenance of death, and makes it so beautiful, as generous hearts at this time, sigh not, but in expectation of their last sigh, since even the selfsame moments that lead us to the Tomb, conduct us also to immortality.  
The pains which my Saviour hath suffered on Mount Caluary, have been fruitful to bring forth diverse punishments, in favour of the infinite number of Martyrs, who loved not life, but to ressent its death. His Nails have forged them others of that sort. His Thorns have thence produced new Thorns; and the form of his Cross hath made them to invent some others of the like; and the turning upside down of his, hath served S. Peter for a Couch to dye in. For joy rather, then of pain, I would say, that all the deadly instruments of the passion of my Redeemer have been the preparatives of the Triumph, that a million of souls have carried away in their Martyrdom. The Scourges have been for S. Bartholomew, the Nails for S. Andrew, the Sword for S. Paul, the wounds for S. Francis, and the Cross serves on earth, for a new subject of Envy, for the whole world together, since that every one can pretend no better then to this glory to sacrifice his life, upon the same Altar, where the Author of life hath been immolated.  
O how the amorous plaints of that great Apostle make all to resound with a sweet melody! Me thinks the sweet accents of his cries do even ravish my Spirit through mine ears. The time of my life is too long (said he in the strength of his Passion) I am troubled to reckon up the moments of its durance. When shall it be, that I shall live forth of myself, to go to live in him, whom I love much better than myself? Quite contrary to those guilty Souls, who stand discoursing of death as of a loss, where he desires it for recompense: So as the Sun had never a fair day for him, and Nature so beautiful in its diversities, and so fruitful to bring forth so many wonders, was barren for his contentment; in so much as the objects of his pleasures was quite without the world: and yet through a Miracle worthy of him, he lived, and died of Love at once. O sweet Life! But yet more happy death! The Swan after she hath measured diverse times, the humid spaces of the banks, even tired out with living, calls for death unto her succour, with accents of melody, so sweet and so pitiful withal, as that it cannot choose but then, even yield to the assaults of Compassion. This bird being richly dressed up with innocency, proclaims the truth of her Death to Forests, to Champaygnes, and to Rocks by the sad accents of her tuneful notes, whose harmony doth ravish all those, that have sense of feeling in them, and gives them a desire to die with her. This Divine Apostle, dying on the shore of his tears, represents to us this bird. For being now weary to live so long time absented from his life, he sends up his amorous sighs to Heavenwards, & with a voice full of allurements, cries out, how he desires to abandon his body, for to go, to behold the God of his Soul. The harmony of his cries, so powerfully attracts the hearts unto him, as all those who are able to hear but the Echo of it, and to perceive its sweetness, do borrow wings of all sides to fly out of themselves, while the Earth is in contempt with them. You Souls of the world, I invite you here to hearken to this Consort of Music, where the Angels hold their part; but you must purify your senses, if you willbe ravished with Pleasure, and joy..   

What Pleasure it is to think of Death. CHAP. II.  
A TRAVAILLER strayed from his way, and puzzled in the full of the night, within a thick forest, finds himself on a sudden brought into straits, through a thousand assaults of fear, wherewith his Soul is strooken. He casts his eyes on every side, but sees nothing but shadows of horror which presage the sunset of his life. The noise of the impetuous winds that puts a garboil into the boughs, beat so roughly on his ears, as he breathes but in a deadly fear, more intolerable well nigh than death. His imagination being troubled, lets him see in dream, in the midst of the darkness, as many precipices, as the steps he makes on his way. In so much as he believes every moment he is buried quick in some pit or other, with the whole burden of his evils. The fear of being devoured by the savage beasts, makes him to apprehend a new punishment, whose dolour redoubles evermore, through the sensible appearance of some evident danger. The heavens & earth being hid alike from his eyes within obscurity, for remedy represent to him despair, & in effect, his judgement being now stupid with terror, hath not the liberty of discourse but to conclude upon his loss, all things the while contributing to his most disadvantage. Himself sees not himself awhit, as if already he were quite besides himself; & the little sense he hath left him, serves him but to suffer evils, which in their excess do rob him of his speech.  
Thus brought to this extremity, where death is more present with him then life, since he wholly dies and lives but to halves; he lifts now at last his eyes to Heavenwards, where he discryes a ray of light to disclose through the birth of the Aurora, which serves him as a Beacon or Watch tower to remit him into the path of his way which he had lost. The day by little & little makes the shadows of death, with environ him, to vanish out of sight, & with the hope of living, affords him the contentment to behold the precipices which he hath escaped: in so much as he arrives to the places of his desires with a great deal more pleasure than he felt pain.  
Let us now say, We are these Travaylours, wandering in the thick Forest of this world, during the darkness of Sin, which enwraps us one every side. The winds of temptations bluster without cease in our ears; every step we seem to make forwards, leads us into the Tomb, since we die every hour; and the abysses are always open to swallow us up, as culpable of a thousand sorts of crimes. Being brought to this estate, the Heaven hides itself from our eyes, as not able to pretend awhit for its glory: So as being oppressed with diverse disasters, we breathe the air of a life, full of annoys, and of unsufferable afflictions.  
The light of Eternity, which shines to us in the port of the Sepulchre, is this goodly Aurora, whose day disperses the shadows of our night for ever. What contentment to arrive at this port amidst so many stornes? What happiness to enjoy the brightness of a Sun, which is not subject to Eclipses, after so many tedious nights? We are all Pilgrims, who continually travail, from this world into the other. The darkness of sin is the shadow of our bodies, since they accompany us without cease. What incomparable felicity, to go forth of ourselves, to find out that day which should illumine us eternally? What may we desire in Slavery, but Liberty? In darkness, but light? and in Travail, but Rest? This earth is a prison, let us never think then, but to recover our liberty. This unlucky dwelling is a place of obscurity, let us gape after the light. This fatal Mansion, is fertile only but with thorns and troubles, let us get forth of its bounds, to find the true tranquillity: and according as we shall approach to the good of death, so shall we distance ourselves from the evils of life.  
O sweet death where our miseries termine themselves▪ O cruel life, where our disasters take their beginning! O welcome death where our annoys do find their sepulchre! O dread life where our dolours find their cradle! The most afflicted draw all their consolation from the hope of death. Are we not of this number, as subject to all the disgraces of Lot, and to the cruel laws of Fortune? With what sweeter hope may we mitigate our pains, then with that of a speedy breaking the chains of our captivity? If we died not every hour, there would be no contentment to live. For what likelihood is there that a travailour should take any pleasure to stop in the midst of his way, during the time of a storm? Now the world is never without tempests: What remedy were it to make a stop at a flash of lightning, or a crack of Thunder, in the midst of the way of our life?  
Being pressed with a storm, and encompassed with Rocks, shall we not be sending our desires before hand to the port, with this grief, for not having wings to fly more swiftly thither? So as if the ship of our life, cannot land but at the shore of the sepulchre, is it not at this port whither we are to aspire every moment, to put us in the Lee from Shipwrecks, whereof so many wise Pilots have run hazard? I have no fear but of old age, said Zenon, For of all evils, that of life is the most intolerable. In effect, if we think on the diverse torments, that pull away our life, by little and little from us, we should be of Socrates his opinion, who of all the moments of our life, prizeth none but the last. O happy moment▪ & irksome to those that go before! I am troubled (said David) in the house of men: when shall I arrive into that of my Lord? He was always going thither, but the way seemed so long and tedious to him, as he sighed continually after the end of his journey.  
All things tend to their Centre; the Stones being raised from the earth, do borrow wings to their weighty nature, to descend down beneath, where they always have their look. The Rivers, though insensible are touched with this amorous curiosity to revisit continually their Mother. And the Pyramidal flames of fire do witness they burn, but with desire of joining themselues with their first beginning. And howbeit their endeavours are unprofitable, yet have they never other scope. The Heaven is our Centre; with what more violent passions may we be quickened then with that of being ravished from ourselves, to join as Atoms to their unity, & as rays to the body of their light? Those Torches of the night whose number is infinite, and beauty incomparable, not so gallantly show us their twinkling baits, but to enthrall us with their wonders. They shine not to us, but to show us the way of their Azure vaults, as being the only place of our repose. And it seems the galloping course of the Sun, goes not so turning the great globe of the Heavens▪ but to show the way from aloft unto the Inhabitants of the Earth.  
If some one had the gift of prophecy, & that it were foretold us, in a certain time set down, that we were to possess an ample fortune, be it of goods or greatness, all transitory a like; were it not credible, the day of this attendance would be to us of a long putoff? How many sighs, as witnesses of our languors, should we be sending forth, before this felicity so promised? The greatest dolour we could possibly suffer, would be but of impatience; for through force of passionately desiring this good, all sorts of evils would be insensible to us. The Sun that posts so swift would then go sluggishly, and its diligence could not stay us a whit, from accusing it of sloth, as often as we gazed upon Heaven.  
Let us now consider, the mystery of this Proposition, and say, that our Saviour and the King of Prophets hath given us this assurance from his mouth, that the last instant of our life shallbe the first of our immortality; and so on the day of our death, should we possess an infinite number of felicities, be they in immortal goods, be they in the greatnesses of nature itself. From what sweet disquietnesses, might we seem to be exempt in the expectation of this happiness? The holy Souls who breath in this world the air of grace, live not, but of the joy they have of continually dying. With how many sighs of love, and languour, smite they Heaven at all hours? All the fair days the Sun affords them to their eyes▪ seem to be so sad & lowering, as hardly do they mark the difference between the light and darkness, because they love but the eternal days, which are to shine to the birth of their felicity. And this is the day of death, where ceasing to be men, we begin to be as Angels.  
S. Francis wounded on all sides with a thousand darts of love, sighs in the presence of his Master, for grief that he cannot dye of his wounds. He contemplates the wounds of his Redeemer, and his looks have this Divine virtue with them, as ●o make his soul to ressent the smart. And through the force of his sweet torments, the amorous passion wherewith he is taken makes him to ressent the dolours of his Master, in so much as the marks thereof themselves are imprinted in his stigmatised Body ●hen it is, that soowning with joy, ecstasied with pleasure, and ravished with a thousand ●orts of felicities wholly Divine, he sequesters himself from the earth, to approach unto Heaven. He feels himself to dye of love, without being able notwithstanding to lose his life: for though his wounds be mortal, since all termine at the hart, yet their cause is immortal. So as dying in his life, and living in his death, he dies, he lyues, without dying, and without living. Of dying, what appearance, since he is sunk in the spring of life? Of living who would believe it? Let us then say, that if he die, it is of a Death a thousand times more sweet than life; and if he live, it is of a life of ecstasy, which feels nothing of the humane.  
This sweet Saint, seeing himself under the wound of the blood of his Master, believed verily he should make shipwreck, through force of desiring the same, in so goodly a sea, whose tempests were so much the more grateful to him, as love served itself of his sighs, to drive away the storm. And in truth, how could he lose himself in the presence of his Saviour, whose Cross serves him, as well for a watchtower, as for a Haven in the midst of the torments, which his wounds have caused to grow in him? He would feign have found some rock, within this sea of love; but the Pilot who steers the ship of his life, is a Port of assurance for all the world; since he commands the winds and tempests.  
What pleasure needs must this great Saint take, to see himself thus smitten with the self same wounds of his Master? The Cross fails him; howsoever yet he hath it in the hart. The Crown of Thorns he misseth; but what say I? he wears it in his Soul. But then at least, he seems not to be deprived, but of Nails and Gaul? I deceive myself. For as for the nails he caries the marks thereof, as well in hands, feet, as side; and for gall, the tongue takes very greedily the sweet bitterness thereof. O great Saint thrice happy! Tell us the pleasure which is to dye, since you die so sweetly in the ecstasies of your felicities? How irksome needs must life be to you, and the earth be in contempt with you, in this transportation of joy, whereunto you are raised?  
S. Stephen hath beheld the Heavens opened; and you his hart, who hath created them. S. Paul hath seen so admirable things as might not be told; and you felt such delicious as cannot be expressed. S. Peter hath been dazzled through a beam of glory; & you by one of love, whose light having pierced your darksome body, hath made it transparent to the eyes of all the world: so communicating its divine qualities thereinto, as the marks thereof remain eternal. S. john hath slept upon the bosom of his Master; and by a sweet transport your hart got through, and sought, within the bosom of his hart, your most assured repose. This same disciple hath been a witness of his torments; and you participant of his pains, with this glory yet moreover, of bearing as well the wounds in the Soul as the marks on the body. So as your favours are so dear, as none dare envy them for fear of presumption, though otherwise they be most worthy of envy.  
I wonder the thoughts of Death should be displeasing, since we die with pleasure in the life we lead. There are none so blind in the knowledge of themselves, that know not how they die every hour; were it not just then, that we should think upon that which we are continually a doing? And wherefore shall we not take pleasure at this thought, if it be the most profitable & sweet that we are able to conceive? It is impossible to think of death, but we must needs be thinking of Eternal life which succeeds the same: or rather say we, It is impossible to think of the Sovereign God, and not to think of the imaginary evil of death. And where shall we be finding of thoughts both sweeter and dearer, than those of our Sovereign Good? So as if, for the raising of our spirits thither, we are to pass into the imaginations and ideas of death; the light of the Sun which shall serve us for object, shall disperse all those vain shadows, which subsist not but through a false opinion.  
The star of the day, never shows more beautiful than when it hath escaped, through flight, from a shoal of clouds which do hide its light. Those obscure clouds, so strongly relieve the flash of its light, as thence it appears to be radiant in excess. The like may we say of our Reason, being as the Sun of our life, that from the time it escapes from all these vain shadows of fear and dread, which do veil its brightness; it appears so shining, as it serves for a torch to pass very confidently withal, from this life to the other. The Will loves but the Good; it is the Needle that is always a pointing at this Pole. It is the Iron, which incessantly follows this Adamant, as its only object: In such sort, as we are not capable of love, but to purchase the good which is presented unto us, be it false, imaginary, or true. And therein is judgement given us to know the difference, that is from the one, and the others.  
Now, that life is a false good, there may no doubt be made, since it hath no other foundation in it, than misfortunes & miseries. That it is an imaginary good, we are enforced to believe, whiles its pleasures are but of fancies and dreams. But that death is a true good, we are to hold for certain, since it is the end of the term of our exile, of our captivity, of our sufferances. For we cannot enter into glory but by the gate of the tomb, where being reduced to our nothing, we return to our first beginning. Sweet then are the thoughts, which make the life fastidious and death pleasing; & yet more sweet the desires, that termine all our hopes in Heaven. Such as know not the Art of dying well & diliciously, are unworthy to live. Impatience in the expectation of death, is more sensible to a holy Soul, than the greatest pleasures to a man of the world. We cannot love life, but in cherishing the fatal accidents, that are inseparable from it, which made Terence to say, That he loved not any thing, of all that which was in him, but the hope of a speedy dying.  
In effect, there is no greater consolarion in life, then that of death. For were it immortal, with all the encumbrances that cleave unto it, of all the conditours that are found in nature, that same of man would prove to be the most unfortunate. The afflicted love not, but by the sweet expectation of death, and the others of the hope of a second life, with reason imagining with themselves, that if on earth they be touched with some pleasure, they shallbe one day accomplished in Heaven with all desirable delights. And through the good of our death it is, that we possess the sovereign good of eternal life. It is the entry of our felicity, & the passage from the false and imaginary, to the true and always permanent. He is yet unborn, whose hart being glutted with all sorts of contentments, hath never gaped after new pleasures.  
There is not a Soul in the world, how happy soever it think itself, that points not its pretensions beyond that same which it possesseth. We hold it good to be rich, our desires are always in chase of Good. We are raised to the top of the greatest dignities; we build new Thrones in our imagination, not finding on earth scope enough to satisfy our Ambition withal. In so much as man hath always unrest in the repose, which he hath once proposed to himself; which makes us sensibly to perceive, that the object of our desires, is forth of nature; and that if we sigh in the midst of our felicities, it can be but of the hope we have to possess some greater than they. We have lived long enough then, in Tantalus his Hell, where we are continually a thirst, without being ever able to drink. We must be using of some violence with ourselves, and go courageously before death, since it is that which withhouldes this second life from us, wherein abides the accomplishment of our happiness.  
To dye, is but to cast into the wind the last sigh of our miseries. To dye, is but to make a partition of ourselves, commending the body to the Earth, & the Soul unto Heaven. To dye, is but to bid a last adieu to the world, preferring the company of Angels before that of men. To dye, is to be no more unhappy. To dye, is to despoil us of our infirmities, and to revest us with a nature exempt from sufferances. O sweet death, since it leads us to the spring of life! O sweet death, since it gives us the Eternity of glory in exchange of a moment of dolour! O sweet death, since it makes us to revive for ever, in a felicity immortal!  
O ye Souls of the world, think then always of death, if you will taste with pleasure, the sweetness of life. For it shallbe even in this last moment, where you shall receive the Crown of all the others; you may sigh long enough in your chains, you are never like to be delivered thence, if death come not to break the gates of your prison. Go before it then, and carry in your countenance the desire of meeting it, rather than a fear to be touched with it. We should suffer with a good cheer, that same which we must of necessity endure. What say I endure? Were it a pain, to approach to the end of ones evils? Were it a pain to become for ever exempt from their sufferances? Let us rather say, a Contentment, since thereby do we get forth of sadness, to enter into joy. Let us call it a Happiness, since so we do abandon the dwelling of misfortunes, to live eternally in that of the felicities of Heaven.   

That there is no contentment in the world, but to think of Death. CHAP. III.  
DEATH hath its delights, as well as Life. job was never more happy, nor more content than at such time, as he saw himself upon the Throne of his dunghill, oppressed under the burden of his miseries. He died so deliciously in the depth of his dolours, as he would have suffered always, and have died incessantly in that manner. His wounds served him as a mirror to his love. For in looking thereinto, he became amorous of himself; but yet loved he not himself, but to dye continually: so pleasing was death unto him, thereby to obey him who had imposed that law upon him. Love changes the nature of things. From the time that a Soul is chastely taken with this passion, it never suffers for the subject which it loves. The pains and torments thereof are changing the name & quality within the hart. They are Roses rather than Thornes. For if it sigh, it is of joy and not of pain: if it be necessary to die, to conserve this lovely cause of its life, it is no death to it, but a mere rap● of contentment which severs it from itself, in favour of another self, which its loves more than itself: In such wise, as it begins to live content, from the point it begins to dye in; or rather to take its flight, towards the object it hath proposed to itself, of the full perfection of its love.  
From this goodly verity, do I draw this like consequence. That the hearts wounded with divine love do never sigh in their torments, but of the apprehension they have of their short durance: & Death, which to us seems so foul and deformed, upon the sudden, changing its countenance, in their respect appears a thousand times more beautiful than life. Whence it is, that they are always thinking thereon, to to be always content; since it is the point where their pains do termine, & where their felicities begin. The most pleasing thoughts, which our spirit can tell which way to conceive, can have no other object then that of contentment, of profit, and of virtue; in so much as they are the three sorts of goods whereto our will is tied.  
Now, where shall we find more pleasure than in the thought of death, since it is the great day of our Fortune, where we take possession of the delights of Heaven? Where more profit, then in the self same thought; since the sovereign good, which is promised to us, is the But, the End, and Object thereof? And where more virtue, then to think always of Death; whilst with the arms of these sweet thoughts we triumph over vice? I believe it is impossible to taste pleasures without thinking of death, in regard these delights are continually a flying away, and incessantly die with us: in such wise, that if we cannot ressent the contentments but within their fruit, & in running always after them; they are rather displeasures, than pleasures, and therefore we hold there are no greater delights, than those of thinking of Death, as being the only mean to make them eternal.  
When I resent unto myself S. Laurence extended upon the devouring flames, but yet more burned with the fire of his love, then with that of his punishment, how he cries out with a cheerful voice, in the midst of the heats which consume him, to be turned on the other side, as if he thought he should not dye, but by halves, being so but half burned; I do feel myself ravished with the same jumps of joy, that transported him. Death is so welcome to him, as he deliciously rolls his body on the coals, as if they were very beds of Roses. So as if he be touched with any pain at all, it is for not suffering it; for that his life being all of love, finds its element in the fire that consumes it, and therefore he sighs of gladness in the height of his torments. In effect, how shall he expire amidst those heats, if his hart be all aflame already, & his Soul of Fire? For if he were to be turned into ashes, the stronger must needs prevail. So as he cannot be consumed, but through the fire of his love. O sweet encounter! O welcome combat! And yet more dear the Triumph! Death assails him with flames, it assaults him with heats, but the fire wherewith he is holily burned, triumphs, & reduceth him to ashes, so to render them as consecrated. This great Martyr never tasted in his life more sweet pleasures than that of feeling himself to die upon this bed of flames, because resenting death, he felt the delights of immortal life, whereof he made himself a crown.  
Kings, Princes, and all those who are raised to some great fortune, confess it to be a great pleasure to die, since they die every hore so sweetly amidst their greatnesses. I say, so sweetly, for their spirits and their senses are so strongly occupied with their continual joys, as the Clock which keeps account of the hours of our life, may sound long enough its 24. hours a day, and they heed it no more, then if they were stark deaf. And the night full of horror, which represents to us the same of the Sepulchre, cannot fright them any more, then if they were quite blind. Needs must the charms of their pleasures be strong, to make them insensible to that which toucheth them so near. S. Augustin said, how the greatnesses of the world, aspersed a kind of leprosy on the soul, which even benumbed all the senses of the greatest Potentats of the earth. In effect, all their sighs, all their actions do but carry the countenance of Death with them, & yet perceive they no whit thereof. A strange thing! To live, and not to think of life at any time, or rather of Death, since to live and die is but one thing! It is yet true notwithstanding, that we die without ever thinking of death; wherein do we spoil ourselves of the sweetest contentments of life, because our whole felicity consists in dying well; and the means to incur a glorious death is always to think of the miseries of life, to the end to be encouraged through hope, to possess the eternal glory which is promised unto us. We do naturally love ourselves with so strong affections, that all the powers of the world, are not able to burst the chains thereof.  
But what more mighty proofs may we afford of this verity, then that of thinking continually of Death, since the same is the day of our Triumph? When shall I begin to live not to dye for ever? saith the Royal Prophet. Our life is a continual combat, and the day of our Death is that of our Victory. All the Martyrs though they were in the thickest of the fight, and always in the action of defending themselves, yet in this war of the world, thought themselves very happy to find the occasion, where they might make to appear the last endeavours of their courage in the midst of torments; for that they found in Death the crown of immortal life. O sweet life, and cruel the attendance!  
As often as we carry our thoughts beyond nature, and even to Heaven, our spirit remains wholly satisfied therewith, because that in this divine pitch, where it sees itself elevated above itself, it begins to live the life of Angels. The earth is in contempt with it, and when the chains of its body fall off in their first condition, it suffers their tyranny through constraint. So that, if it be permitted us at all moments to abandon the world in thought, to have thereby some feeling of heavenly delights; should we be our enemies so far, as to contemn these divine pleasures, in grovelling without cease in our miseries, while the only means to be touched with it, is to think on Death; since there is no other way in life, to find the felicity we seek for?  
We may piously say that the Virgin purest, & most holy lived on earth a life little differing from that life which is lived in Heaven; her spirit all divine entertained itself always with the Angels, or rather with God himself; while she had the glory of bearing him within her sacred womb, or in her arms; In so much as her life was a voluntary Death, all of love, seeing that through love, she took no pleasure but to dye, so to possess more perfectly the only object of her life. She prized not her days but in the expectation of their last night, as knowing its darkness was to produce the brightness of an eternal day, whereof herself had been the Aurora. O how sweet would it be, to be able to live in that sort, for to dye deliciously! It is not a life truly immortal to be always thinking of death, if death afford us immortality? How fastidious is the life of the world, the Prophet cries? Let us now then be joining our voice to his cries, and say, that death only is to be wished for. All the holy Souls, which in imitation of my Saviour, have adorned themselues with thorns, have been turning the face to the tombwards, there to gather Roses. With death it is, where they termine their dearest hopes. So as if they live content, it is not but through the sweet hope which they have to dye.  
O ye profane Spirits, who sacrifice not but to voluptuousness, pull off the hood of passion that thus blinds you, to destroy those altars of Idolatry, whereon you immolate yourselves, without thinking of it, for punishment of your crimes. If you will know the true pleasure indeed, it consists of thinking of Death, as of the Spring that produceth our delights. Our Crowns are at the end of their career, nor shall we ever come to possess the Soveraygne God, to which we aspire with so much fervour and unrest, but by the way of Death. When shall I cease to live with men, saith David? He is even troubled amidst the greatnesses of the earth. His Sceptre and his Crown are so contemptible to him, as he would willingly change his Throne with the dunghill of job, on condition to dye with his constancy. To live, is no more than to be sequestered from that which one loves: and after God, what may we love? After him what may we desire? So as, if now these holy affections & these divine wishes cannot look on glory, but in passing by the Sepulchre, let us think continually on Death, as of the way we take, & which we are yet to make. This is the only mean to render us content, for that these thoughts are inseparable from the eternal felicity which is promised us.   

That it belongeth but only to good Spirits, to think continually of Death. CHAP. FOUR  
SUCH as know the Art of familiarising death with life, through continual remembrance of their end, do never change the countenance in any perils. They look to resume both their blood, and life at once, with the same eyes they behold the things which are agreeable to them: so as they remain invincible in their miseries, through the knowledge they have of their condition. Wounds never hurt their souls, and all the maladies wherewith they may be touched, afflict but their body only. Their good Spirit habituated with the ordinary encounter of a thousand sad accidents inseparable from life, tastes their bitterness in its turn, and feels their thorns without any murmuring. The end of all actions ought to be the first aim of the judgement that conceives them, if it will shun the grief of having done them. So as from the time that we are capable of reason, are we to serve ourselves of it, to consider the necessity of our mortal and transitory condition; that the continual object of our end, may serve as a condition & means to arrive happily thereunto.  
The wiser sort are those, who repent at least, for that which they have done; & true wisdom consists in not committing folly. And what more great may a man admit, than that, to never think of death, since it is the end where all our actions receive their prize or pain? Remember thou Death (the Wiseman saith) and thou shalt never sin. O glorious remembrance, who raisest us to so high a degree of honour, as never to offend God, which is the only perfection of the Soul, next to the knowing him, and loving him withal! O glorious remembrance, which changest our frail and guilty Nature into one which is wholly innocent! O glorious remembrance that makest us deliciously to breathe the air of Grace, since they live in the estate to dye every hour, for to live eternally! O glorious remembrance, which on earth makest us the inhabitants of Heaven? O glorious remembrance, where the Spirit finds both its Good, and repose.  
When I represent to myself the pitiful estate of our Condition, I am afraid of myself: for disasters and miseries do so attend us at the heels, as there is almost no medium between dying and living. We sigh without cease, the whole air we breathe, & our very being that so tumbles always towards its end, wisheth not, but it's not being, whither every instant leads it without intermission. What better thoughts may we now conceive, then of these verities; since it is too true, that we are borne unhappy, for to live miserable, until the point of dying? And the only mean to change this misery into happiness, is every moment to think upon it, for fear of falling ever into neglect, or forgetfulness of ourselves.  
There are feeble Spirits, who dare not carry their thoughts unto the end of the career of their life; they even faint in the mid way; their shadow affrights them; they fear every thing they imagine, without considering the object of their fear subsists not but in their fancy only, and how by that means, to become ingenious to torment themselves. To fear death, is to fear that which is not, since it is but a mere privation; and to have a further fear of the thought is to fly the shadow of his shadow which is nothing. Wherein these Spirits do but feed their own weakness, living in death, and dying in their life, without dreaming once of Death. But what goodly matter (will they say, so to maintain their error) for one to think of that, which naturally all the world abhors? Is it not to be miserable enough to be borne, and to live, & dye in miseries, without one be burying his spirit before his Body, through the continual memory of his end? It is even as much, as to make one's self unhappy before hand, so to dream of the evils, which we cannot avoid. It is enough to endure them constantly, when they arrive, without going to meet with them, as if it could ever arrive too late.  
Feeble apparences of Reason! Admit that Nature abhors Death, as the ruin of this straight union of the body with the soul, know we not also how this nature, blind in all its passions, and brutish in all its feelings, takes always the false good for the true, not being able to work, but by the Senses, which as material, take its part? To believe now that our miseries augment, by this thought, that we live & dye miserable, were much; while on the contrary we do blunt the point of their thorns, in so thinking of them, in regard this continual consideration of our misfortunes in this life, makes us to take the way of virtue, for the attaining one day, the glory, and felicity of the other. To imagine it also to be a grief, to dream assiduously of Death, as of an inevitable evil, is a mere imagination which cannot subsist, but within itself. For we are never to think of Death, but as of a necessary good, rather than of an infallible evil, since otherwise, it i● nothing of itself. We should only represent to ourselves that we are to change both condition and life; and how this change, can be no ways made, but at the end of our course▪ whither we are continually running and that without pause awhit. Our being of itself destroys itself, by little and little, withal things else of the world beside. It is a funeral Torch burning by a Sepulchre, that shines as long as the wax of our body lasts, while even the least blast of disaster is able to extinguish it for ever. For howbeit the earth be large and spacious, yet hath it no void place, in its whole extent, but where to point every one his Tomb; even as nature, which though fruitful of itself to produce many wonders, yet finds an impotency withal to engender twice its living works.  
The Fables inform us well, how Eurydice was delivered from her chains in Hell but not from her prison; she had the power to approach unto the bounds of the dismal place of her captivity, but not to set herself at liberty. So as if the Poets, within the Empire which they have established to themselves, have religiously held this inviolable law, of not to be able to dye twice; with what respect ought we to adore the truth so known to every one, and so sensible to all the world? And the knowledge which we have thereof, should uncessantly draw our pirits, to these thoughts, to the end they sstray not, in the labyrinths of sin, which is the only Death of the Soul.  
When I represent to myself the faces, which these men of the world do make when they are spoken to of Death, I have much ado to believe, they are capable of reason, since they fail thereof, in the consideration of this important verity, that they are but mere putrefaction, and a little dust, ready to be cast into the wind in the twinkling of an eye: That walk they where they will, they but trample their Tomb underfoot, since the earth seems to challenge its earth whereof they are moulded and framed. They shut their ears to the discourses that are made to them of Death, which they are one day to incur; and open them to hearken to the Clock, whose hours & minutes insensibly conduct them into the Sepulchre, whither willingly they would never go. In so much, as howbeit they are hasting every moment to death, yet they dare not be casting their eyes on the way they hold, as if the sight could forward their paces: wherein truly, I can not abide, nor excuse their pusillanimity, since the danger whereinto they put themselves, produceth an irreparable damage.  
This same is an infallible maxim, That such as never dream of death, do never think of God, forasmuch as one cannot come at him, but by Death only. On the other-side, not to think ever of the end, which should crown our works, were as much, as to contemn the means of our Salvation and so to forget our Saviour who with his proper life, hath ransomed ours. The eye cannot see at one and the self same time two different objects, in distance one from the other. The like may we say, of the Spirit, though its powers be divers, yet can it not fasten its affections upon two subjects at once, unequal and several one from the other. If it love the Earth, then is Heaven in contempt with it: if it have an extreme passion of self-love to its life, the discourses of death are dreadful to it. And by how much it sequesters itself from thoughts of its end, the less approacheth it to God through those very thoughts. Lord, I will think of my last days (said the Prophet) for to remember thee. This great King and great Saint withal, did believe the memory of Death was inseparable from that of his Master, since dye he needs must one day himself.  
O sweet Death, and yet more sweet the remembrance, if it be true, that it powerfully resists against all manner of vice! We cannot know good spirits, but through good actions, & there is none better in life, than then of preparing one's self for death. Whatsoever we can do which is admirable indeed looseth the whole admiration, if it have not relation thereunto, nor may a man be thought to have lived, but to die rather, who thinks not ever of this sweet necessity, whereof the law dispenseth with no man. The greatest perfection consists, for one to know himself, so as the Spirit cannot make its Eminency appear, but by beholding itself in its nature, created to render the continual homage of respect to its Creator. And being abased in this necessary submission, it should consider that its immortality bounds upon either an eternal pain, or else on a like glory, and that it is not at all, but to be happy for ever, or eternally unhappy. Upon these considerations, it may found the verity of its glory, since it could not tell how to purchase either a juster, or a greater than that of knowing well itself. For as then, its divine thoughts make it to take its flight towards the place of its origin, not prising the earth, but to purchase there the merit of Crowns, which it pretends to possess in Heaven.  
Among the infinite number of errors, which make the greatest part of the world to be guilty of crime, this same is one of the most common of all; To esteem (forsooth) those extremely, who are eloquent, be it of the tongue or pen, and to put them in the rank of the more excellent Spirits: As those also, who through a thousand sleights, being all very criminal, can tell how to amass a great deal of riches to arrive to the highest dignities. Thus do the spirits of the world, and are so esteemed by such as they. But I answer with the Prophet, how all their wisdom is folly before God. The good spirits indeed are always adhering to good, and there is no other in life, then that, to be always thinking of death, for to learn to die well. Since in this apprenticeship only, are comprised all the sciences of the world. Eloquennce hath saved neither Cicero, nor Demosthenes. Riches have undone Croesus; & greatnesses have thrown Belus King of Cyprus out of his Throne, into a dunghill. To what purpose serves it, to know how to talk well, if we speak not of things more necessary, and more important of our saluavation? To what end serves it to be rich, since we must needs be a dying miserable?  
On the other side, there is no other riches then that of Virtue; and I had much rather possess one above, than the crowns of all the Kings of the World below. What pleasure may a man take to behold himself raised to Thrones, since he must needs in a moment, be descending into the Sepulchre? What is become of all those, who have been mounting the degrees of Fortune, & been seen on the top of most eminent dignities? Disastres, or time which changes all things, have let them fall into the Tomb; so as there remains no more of them, but the bare remembrance, that sometimes▪ they have been. Consider we then, and boldly let us say, how it belongs to good Spirits only, to be every hour: thinking of Death, since we die every hour▪ That these thoughts are the most sublime, where with a good soul may entertain itself: That of all the ways which may lead us to Heaven, there is none more assured, then that of continually thinking of the last instant, which must justify or condemn all the other of our life; for that our actions take their Rule from these thoughts to receive the price of them. All the rest is but vanity, and mere folly.  
Out of these thoughts, there is no good; Out of these thoughts, there is no repose. Who thinks not of death, thinks of nothing since all seem to termine at this last moment The most happy are miserable, if this thought make not up the greatest part of their happiness. And the richest are in great necessity, if they dream not of that, of their mortal condition. Whatsoever is said, if Death be not the object of the whole discourse, they are but words of smoke, that turn into wind. Whatsoever is done, if Death be not the object of the actions, all the effects are unprofitable. In fine, all glory, all good, all repose, & all the contentment of the world, consists in thinking always of Death; since these thoughts are the only means to attain the eternal felicity, whereto they termine. And a generous Spirit cannot give forth more pregnant proofs of its goodness▪ then in thinking on the Death of the body, whiles even of this moment depends the life of the soul.   

How those spirits that think continually of Death, are elevated above all the Greatness of the Earth. CHAP. V.  
IT is impossible to know the world without contemning it since the disastres and miseries, wherewith it is stuffed, are the continual objects of this knowledge. And from the point that our judgement hath broken the visards of the false and imaginary goods, which under the mask of their goodly apparences deceive our will, it suddenly abhors in them, that very same which passionately heretofore it seemed to cherish. Whence it happens that we can never enter into knowledge of the world, but we acquit ourselves of it at the same time through a sorrow, for not having despised it sooner; since all its goods are but in appearance only, and its evils in effect. So as, if it be a Tree we may boldly say, that miseries are the leaves thereof, misfortunes the branches, and death the fruit. And it is under the shadow of this unhappy Tree, where our forefathers have built our first tomb.  
Man may seem to disguise himself, if he will, under the richest ornaments of Greanes, & with the fairest liveries of Fortune. Well may he trample Sceptres and Crowns underfoot, in the proudest condition, whereto Nature and Lot might have raised him up. He is yet the same; I mean a piece of corruption, shut up in a skin of flesh, whereof the worms have taken possession already from the moment of his birth. Let him measure as long as he will a thousand times a day, the ample spaces of the world, with this proud ambition, to make a conquest of them all; yet he must be fain to let them fall, if he would find the true measures of them without compass, enclosed all within seven foot of earth, which shall mark out his Tomb. If he assemble with the same ambition, all the Thrones of Kings, for to make them serve as Altars, whereof himself shall be the Idol; he shall not choose but lend his ears to the Oracles of sweet Necessity, though cruel for him: for he must die, and consequently serve one day as a victim upon those very Altars, where they shall be yielding of Sacrifices to his, person.  
Let him bestow Empires, as favours, Kingdoms for presents, and whole Cities for the least recompense, and then when he returns into himself, for to know what he wants, he shall find, that he needs no more, but a piece of a sheet to shroud (with all his miseries) the horror of his infection and corruption. Let the Sun never rise, but to give light to his triumphs, if he join not ●o his victories those other of his passions, ●e shall celebrate but his own overthrow, ●nd triumph on himself without thinking of it. Let the heavens be raining on his head as many felicities, as there are disasters on earth; all his happiness concludes with Death, while by the way of his prosperities, he goes on every moment to the Sepulchre▪ In fine, although through his great possession of goods, he know not what to desire, not what to look for; yet shall I not forbear ere the less to put him in the rank of the most miserable of the world, if virtue be not the richest of his treasures. For not changing his condition awhit, in the accomplishment of his greatnesses, and of all his delights, he is always the same, a little ashes, a little dust a little earth. And howbeit of the ashes of the wood of Libanum, of the dust of Azure, or of some more noble or fertile earrh; yet is all but mere putrefaction, and the crust of all these goodly apparences is full of infection.  
I esteem him very happy, great & rich, who contents himself, with the meriting of these greatnesses, these felicities, and these riches: for the glorious contempt which he makes of them, for being abused in the knowledge of himself, he beholds all the world beneath him, and desires but the continuation of his repose; since in the only thought of Death, he possesseth all the goods of life. The great Monarches of the world seek the intentions of living happy in their greatnesses; & he, the mean of dying content in his miseries: they are always in care, to extend the bounds of their Empire; & he pleaseth himself to bond his ambition, with what he possesseth, since he wants not any thing for his voyage. They make a mass of riches; & he takes glory in poverty, knowing that the richest are robbed at the end of the course of ●ife, and that we go forth of the world, in ●ike manner as we enter into it, with the first habit of those miseries, which we have inherited from our parents. In such sort as ●hinking perpetually of Death, in the way where it is to approach every moment, he casts not his eyes upon greatnesses, but to have pity on those who possess them. He contemplates not the favours of Fortune, but to publish the inconstancy thereof. So ●f he regard Thrones, it is but to measure ●he depth of the precipices that environ them, since all crowns for him are made both of tore and thorns. And the Sceptres as light as reeds, give him not any other Envy ●hen that of trampling them underfoot, instead of holding them in his hands, since ●hey are the marks of a glory of smoke, which resolves into nothing, to return to its first beginning.  
There is no doubt, but such as think continually of Death, are raised above all the greatnesses of the earth, because Eternity is the object of their thoughts. So as if they desire greatnesses, they wish they may be eternal: if they envy Treasures, they mark the possession of them beyond Nature, to the end Inconstancy of time may not bereave them of them. They have no ambition for this vain glory of the world, which the least mischance may change into infamy; nor for these Crowns, which a little wind of disgrace, makes to fall from the head. All their glory is to think of death, for to be able to attain at the last instant of life, the Crown of immortality, wherein consists the perfection of all felicities possible to be desired.  
Greatnesses are of the same nature, with those who possess them, they are but smoke, they are but wind; for we see them to vanish away in the twinkling of an eye, with their subject. So as if they seem to subsist, notwithstanding in their continual flight they are changing the countenance every hour. To be great above the common sort of men, in honours and in riches only, i● to be miserable, if the true greatness of man consist in meriting all, and possessing nothing. In so much, as he who thinks o● Death in despising the felicities of this life, makes himself to be worthy of the glory of the other; and in these only thoughts is he raised so above himself, as if he were capable of vanity, he would not know himself. For from the time, that he joins the thoughts of Death, to the verity of his mortal condition, he tastes before hand in the midst of his course, the sweetness of the goods, which he pretends to receive at the end. I would say, that the sensible imaginations which he hath of dying continually (as there is nothing more certain than it) makes him to tread under foot, all the greatnesses of the earth, since that his soul directs his looks unto Heaven,  
In effect, were it not as much, as to offend a Prince, to offer him at sea, the Crown of a Kingdom, in the midst of storms and tempests, wherewith his ship were miserably tossed? or else at such time, as he were seen to be taken with a mortal disease? For he might answer very pertinently, they should attend him, to make him those offers on the shore, or when he were recovered of his health. Now, we seem to represent this Prince, since like unto him, do we float upon this sea of this world, where the Ship of our life, is incessantly tossed with diverse misfortunes. Fortune comes to present us in the fury of this tempest both Sceptres and Crowns; would it not be accounted rash now for us, to receive them at her hands, in this pitiful estate whereinto we are reduced, & not to hope for a calm or cessation, for fear of seeing our hopes quite buried with our life, in a cruel shipwreck, whose danger even follows us as near, as the shadow doth the body? So as if she make us the same offers, during the mortal malady wherewith we are seized from the moment of our nativity (since we begin to die, from the instant that we begin to live) were it not a folly to accept them? And for us to answer her, and to wish her to expect till we come upon the shore, is a vain attendance; while there is no other port, in the sea of life, then that of the tomb: and to attend also for the cure of this contagious malady; which we have taken of our parents, were to expect that same, which shall never come to pass. So as indeed we should be throwing all these Crowns at her head, and make use of the Sceptre, she presents us with, as of a staff to be avendged of her for her perfidiousness, & to testify to her that our constancy scorns her levity; and that our contentment & repose, depends not awhit of the rolling of her wheel, if we learn every day to live forth of her Empire.  
Let us conclude then and say, that spirits that know well the art of thinking of Death do mark out the thrones of their glory in heaven, not being able to find any thing on Earth, that were worthy of their greatness. Hence it is, they take such pleasure, to die without cease and to increase their contentment yet further, that they always are thinking upon it. O sweet remembrance of death, a thousand times more sweet than all the delights of life! O cruel forgetfulness of this necessity, a thousand times more cruel, than all the pains of the world! O sweet memory of our end, where begins our only felicity! O glorious oblivion of our mortal condition, the only cause of our disasters! Let us not live then, but to think on the delight of Death; & let us not dye but to contemn the pleasure of life: let us forget all, but the remembrance of Death. Let us love nothing, but its thoughts: and never essteeme, but the only actions which have relation to this last, since this is that alone, whence we are to receive either price, or pain.   

A Contemplation upon the Tomb of Alexander the Great. CHAP. VI  
O ALL ye Great Kings, Lo I here summon you to appear about this Tomb, to behold therein the worms, the corruption and infection of the greatest, the happiest, the mightiest, & the most dreadful Monarch of the world; & to say all in a word, of Great Alexander; whose Valour could never admit comparison; whose Victories have had no other bounds, than those of the Universe; and whose Triumphs, have had all the Heavens for witness, all the Earth for Spoils, for slaves all Mortals, for Trumpet Renown, & Fortune for Guide. Descend then, from your thrones upon this dunghill, where lies the companion of your glory, and your greatnesses. Behold and contemplate this Portrait of yourselves drawn to the life, after the original of your miseries.  
Cyrus, approach you unto this unlucky place, upon your Chariot all of massy gold, and come attended with that magnificent pomp, which made all the world idolatrous in admiration of it; that the infinite number of your subjects, may be an infinite number of witnesses, to convince you of vanity and folly, in beholding this Victorious Prince here besieged by all sorts of miseries, with in a little hole, which serves as bounds and limirs to his power.  
Consider, how this great Taker of Towns is surprised himself by the worms; how this Triumphant soldier is defeated by them, & how this Invincible captain, hath been vanquished by death, and brought into this deplorable estate, wherein you see him. Are you not ashamed to be seated in that glittering Chariot; since needs you must descend thence to enter into this dismal dwelling, where the worms attend your corruption? This great number of subjects, which environ you on all sides, to set forth your glory, is a troup of the miserable. For they dye in following you; and on which side soever you go. Time conducts you all together into the Tomb.  
Impose your laws upon all the people of the Earth, yet needs must you receive those same of Death. Build you as long as you will a thousand proud Palaces in your Empire, you cannot hold them but in fee-farm though you be the proprietary thereof, because every moment you are at the point of departing. Well may you deck yourself up with the richest robes of vanity, and play the God here beneath, with Crown on the head and sceptre in the hand; yet look what you are, consider what you are like to be, & contemplate your miseries at leisure, in the mirror of this sepulchre. To day you louvre on Heaven with an arrogant eye; and to morrow you shall be seen metamorphozed into a stinking piece of earth. To day you make yourself adored of such as have no judgement, but in the eyes only; and to morrow shall you be sacrificed in the sight of all the world for expiation of your crimes, and hardly shall be found a handful of your ashes, so true it is, that you are nothing.  
Xerxes, descend you a little, from the top of that mountain of annoys, where they sad thoughts do hold you besieged within this Vale of disasters and of miseries, to behold therein, the pitiful overthrow of the proudest Conqueror of the world. Spare your tears, to mourn upon his Tomb, if you will but acquit yourself of the justest homage, you may yield to his memory. You weep before hand, for the Death of your soldiers, in foreseeing their end, with that of the world. What will you say now of the death of this great Captain who for a last glory, after so many triumphs is devoured of worms and metamorphosed into a stuff all of corruption, encompassed all with horror and amazement. So as if you will needs be satisfying yourself, afford your tears for your own proper harms, since you are to incur the same lot, without respect, either of your greatness, or power. All your armies are not of force enough to warrant you from Death: you must bow your neck under the yoke of this necessity, whose rules are without exception, whose law dispenseth not with any.  
Alexander is dead, Cyrus his predecessor hath died also, after a thousand other Kings who have gone before him, and you run now after them: but to me it seems, you carry too great a port of Greatness with you. The earth whereof you are moulded & framed, demands but her earth; you must quit yourself of all, and your sceptre and crown shall not be taken for more, at that last instant, then as sheephookes: for that if we be different in the manner of living, we are yet all equal in the necessity of dying. Now therefore, it is a vanity to say, you are of the race of Gods. Come & see here, the place of your first beginning, for as you are borne of corruption, so you return to putrefaction. If you doubt thereof as yet, approach with your infected flesh to these rotten bones, & with your clay to these ashes: If they differ in aught, it can be but in colour only.  
Tell me, to what end serve all those Statues of your resemblance, which you caused to be erected on the lands of your Empire, since time destroys & ruins the original? Think you, belike, they dare not meddle with those pourtraits, which are but vain shadows of a body of smoke? You trouble yourself too much, to make it credulous to the world, that you are immortal, as if this belief could afford you immortality. If you have but never so little knowledge in you, know you not your own misfortunes? If you have sense, have you no feeling of your miseries? I know well you are a King, but a King of the dead, since all those to whom you give the law, do receive it from Time, which makes them to dye every hour. Admit you be the chief of men, yet if they be miserable all of them together, as subject to a thousand sorts of accidents; may we not well say, that you are the unhappyest of them all. You play the omnipotent, when you are set upon your Throne of snow, not considering the while, that within your Palace, as well as without, you are but a heap of dust, which every little blast of wind, may scatter on the ground to dissolve it into nothing.  
Apelles, thou took'st a pride to be called the Painter of Alexander; come then, and see the subject of thy glory, if thy heart serve thee to endure the horror of it. This same, is that Alexander, whose Majesty so dazzled thee heretofore, and whose stench at this time so infects the whole world. I mistrust thy audacious pencil to be able to represent the greatness of his miseries to the life. Dost thou remember him at such time as thou drewest him, armed at all points, upon his Bucephalus, even upon the point of his forcible retaining the last crown of his Triumphs, not having ought to conquer else beside? And sometimes again sitting on his Throne with the Crown of a Conqueror on his head, and with the Sceptre of the Empire of the world in his hand? Durst thou maintain now, these ashes are the draughts of thy original? if thou wilt save thy credit from reproach, do thou imitate Thymantes, draw the curtain over Alexander's face, that he may not be known, so is he no more himself.  
And thou Lisyppus, who employed so oft, hast made use of such rich materials to maintain this great Monarch on foot; these rotten bones, which make up this Carcase which thou seest, have been the subject, both of thy glory, and thy labours. If it be true, that water eats into the stone, then weep thou freely on thy own works, to destroy them thyself, since their object is buried, while time prepares their Sepulchre.  
Cesar, Mark-Antony, Pompey, Annibal, and Scipio, step you a little aside from the way of your Triumphs, to come, and see as you pass, the miserable spoils of this great King always victorious, of this great Monarch always triumphant. Approach you unto his Tomb, behold, contemplate, & smell the horrible corruption; would you say this carcase here that stinks so abominably, were the body of that invincible Alexander? whose valour hath despoiled the earth of its Laurelles, and who being not able yet, to bond his ambition, with the compass of one world, goes seeking him another; howsoever in digging the earth, he hath found but the place of this Sepulchre, where he is buried with all his greatnesses. All those gallant Courtiers, that followed him, are changed into worms, and are nothing else but mere putrefaction; and their proud Palaces into this little trench; and all their ornaments into these spider's webs, which encompass him round.  
Cast your eyes upon these images of horror: This is the draught of him, who styled himself the son of jupiter-ammon, & who exacted Altars from men, to make himself adored. judge you now of the perfection of this Idol. Go your ways into all places, where your ambition guides you, conquer all, triumph upon all, and for a last victory make Fortune herself as your Tributary, that the rolling of her wheel may receive its motion from that of your wills; all these Victories, and all these Triumphs, accompanied with all the glory of the world, shall not warrant you awhit from Death: nor shall all the perfumes of Arabia exempt your flesh from putrefaction.  
Cesar, dispute no more with Mark-Antony about the Empire of the earth: Nature would have you to take up this difference between you, since neither of you both can justly pretend, but to seven foot thereof. And if you can hardly believe it, measure you the spaces of Alexander's Tomb, who hath worn the Crown upon his head, which you desire. This is the only mean to finish your quarrel, rather than to quenh your fury, in the blood of your subjects. Cesar, play not the proud man so, in the midst of thy felicities; it is now a long while, since that death hath stood waiting upon thee, under the Throne where thou sittest in the Senate, for to let thee know, and perceive at once, that he mocks at thy greatnesses, and contemns thy power, by drowning thy life within thy blood.  
Stoop a little to the pitch of thy vanity Mark-Anthony, there is no likelihood at all thou shouldst ever be triumphing over thin enemy, since thou canst not so much as vanquish thy passions, which is the best victory that we can possibly obtain of ourselves. Thou shalt even lose the Empire of all the Earth, where thou shalt find so shameful a Tomb, as they shall not dare to speak of thy life, by reason of thy Death.  
Hannibal, thou gloriest much in entering in Triumph, within thy proud City of Carthage, after so many, and so great victories, which raise thee to the highest Throne of Honour; but tak'st not heed the while, that if thou leadest thine enemies in triumph, vices seem to triumph upon thy soul, fitter that miseries do the like with thy body. And again, if Fortune favour thee to day as king, she will dregg thee to morrow as a slave. To day the Laurels grow on thy head, and to morrow thorns shall grow beneath thy feet▪ to let thee see that nothing is certain in the world, but change, since it changes every hour, in making all things else, to change their countenance withal. I do even flout at thy vanity; for the witnesses of thy glory, & very Carthage itself, which is the theatre thereof, shall follow soon after the course of of thy ruin.  
Pompey, flatter not thyself thus in thy prosperities, the very same Sun, which hath seen them grow up, shall see them wither ere long. It is true that all the world even trembles at thine arms. Renown hath no voice, but to publish thy valour; but how then? knowest thou not, how the self same fate which affords thee Crowns & Sceptres, takes them away again when it pleaseth? Victory pursues thee every where, both on sea and land; but this is but for a while. After the moment of thy birth, death aims at thy head, to pull off all the Laurels thence, wherewith thou hast so often crowned it; and knowing that the sea hath no rocks for thee, it hath scored out thy Sepulchre already on the shore.  
Weep, weep you great Kings, at the sight of these miseries, or rather at the feeling of your own. If the greatest of the world, be nought but corruption, what shall become of you? If this invincible Monarch, who had so many marks of immortality with him, be the prey of worms, & sport of the winds, what shallbe your lot? Whereto may Fortune seem to reserve you? Go to then, I grant you, whatsoever you can possibly demand; I afford your ambition an age of life, an Empire of a new world, & a happy success to all your desires. What shall become of you after all this, since this long life, this glorious Empire, & all your felicities together must have an end, with this world? As often, as you shall issue forth of your condition, for to enter into the forgetfulness of yourself, you do send your thoughts into this tomb; and you shall suddenly return from this wandering. Do not flatter yourself; your Crown is but of earth, as the head that wears it. Your Sceptre is but a stick of wood, subject to corruption, as your hand is that holds it: and the rest of your ornaments are but a work of worms, whereof you are the prey. judge you then, whether your vanity, can subsist any long time, upon such feeble foundations, or no.  
You are accustomed likely, at such time as you build some proud palace or other, to go a walking in the compass thereof, taking pleasure to admire the goodly situation, where you have destined the place of your dwelling: do you the like with your tomb, go visit every day the solitary place where you are to lodge for so long a time; and this will be the only mean, to make death even as sweet unto you, as life itself; and to bury your pride, your vanity, and all your vices together, before your body; according to the saying of the Wiseman, for he that thinks continually of death, shall never stray from the way of virtue.   

He that thinks always of Death, is the Richest of the world. CHAP. VII.  
I MARVEL much, that Cicero should put this Truth into Paradox; That he (forsooth) is the richest, who is most content, whiles there is nothing more certain than it. For the Soul hath no other riches, more properly her own, nor more in affect, then that of contentment. In what condition soever, where a man finds himself with repose of Spirit, may he well be said to be perfectly rich. True treasures are not of gold of silver, or of other things of like value, but rather of good actions, since by their price one may buy Eternity. Besides whose fruition, what may we desire? Besides whose glory, what may we pretend? Withal the riches of the world, we can buy no more, than the world itself. Alas, what good in the possession thereof, if it be wholly stuffed with evils? See we not every moment how it quite destroys itself, and that it runs without cease, to its end, as the Sunne to its West?  
The richest are ordinarily, the most unfortunate of all others: for that having by lot of nature, some little Empire on earth, they fall absolutely to attribute the Sovereignty thereof to themselues; & in the vain thoughts of their greatnesses, seem never to sigh but for them, nay they even die with them. O dreadful Death! He then may be only said to be rich, who makes profession to follow virtue; his way being bordered with Thorns, represents to us that same of Death, whose Roses are at the end of the course, to crown our labours withal. In so much as we cannot love virtue, but with the continual thoughts of Death; since to see its Body, we had need to sever ourselves from the shadows of the Earth. We much admire some feeble ray of its image only, under the obscure veil of our mortal condition; but that only in idea, and as it were in a dream. We had need to awake yet once more, and come to be reborn from our ashes again, as the Phoenix, in the presence of the great Sun of justice.. I would say, that we must needs die one day, for to revive eternally in the accomplishment of all the felicities of Heaven.  
Alexander hath no greater a treasure, then that of his hopes. The aim or scope of his Fortune was always upon the future; and what goods soever he possessed, he every day yet attended for more, as if he had some intelligence with Chance, to receive from its prodigal hand, all the effects of his desires. The merchants, that go in pursuit of riches upon the Ocean, live not but of the hope of their mercenary conquest. How miserable soever they find themselves, on the way of their navigation, they so mainly forget themselves, in the sweet thoughts of their expectation, as they think themselves the richest of the world; and they will sooner be losing their life, in the midst of the rocks, than the belief they have thereof. So much their imaginary hope seems to carry them away.  
Let us say then, more boldly, and with more reason, that such as termine all their hopes to the Eternity, as to the only object, which is able to quench the thirst of our souls, still increasing more and more, may be said before hand, to be the richest of the Earth. For their hope, is not that of Alexander, whose vows were addressed to Fortune; & much less, that other of those old Martiners, as changeable as the sea that guides them; but another quite different, that for foundation hath but Virtue, and in the hope of possessing one day the treasures of Heaven, they take the pains to purchase them, through the continual meditation of Death, as the only lesson that teacheth us to live well. They pass deliciously their time in the expectation of their last day on earth, and like to those merchants, stand counting all the hours of their voyage, with impatient desire to see out of hand, the very last of them, so to be always perfectly happy. And howbeit this voyage be long, and troublesome, yet they esteem themselues so rich withal, as they, would not change their hopes, for all the gold of the world.  
In effect, we must needs confess, that the only hope of glory, joined with virtues is the only good of life, for the attaining one day, of the possession of them; where a holy soul may find the full accomplishment of its desires. But it is yet to be considered that this hope, and all these virtues can have no surer foundation, then that of the continual thoughts of Death, since all our good doth absolutely depend of this last hour, wherein the important sentence of our life, or Death is to be signified unto us. Hence it is, that man being holily rich, heaps up good works, during the course of his life, as divine Treasures, to enrich his soul with all the eternal felicities, which may accomplish it with glory and contentment. He lives always contemnt and rich at once, in this pleasing thought (forsooth), that he will never seem to dye, until such time as he be quite dead. Whence it happens that he tramples underfoot very generously all sorts of greanesses and riches, through the knowledge he hath of those, which his spirit possesseth without ever being touched with other envy, then to finish readily his voyage, to make exchange for Death, with a life exempt from Death. So as we may well maintain, that he, who is always thinking of Death, is the richest in the world; seeing that even such thoughts only, may make him to purchase the treasure of Eternity, wherein consists our sovereign Good.   

A Contemplation upon the Tomb of Croesus. CHAP. VIII.  
YOU Rich-men of the world, who know no other God, than Gold and Silver, come and see the treasures, which the greatest King of the Earth hath carried with him, into the Tomb. And this is the mighty King Croesus, to whom the mines served him for a Coffer the Indieses for a Cabinet, and the Ocean for a new river of Pactolus, where he vainly endeavoured to quench the thirst of his guilty avarice, and of his most haughty ambition. Represent unto your memory his passed greatnesses, and behold now his present miseries. If you think of the riches of his life all of roses, consider the poverty of his Death all of thorns. If you remember the magnificences of his Court, turn the lease at the same time, to see the horrors of this his dismal solitude. If you muse yet on the rich ornaments of his golden Palace, see & contemplate through your tears, the corruption which is enclosed with him in the Tomb. If you have seen him seated on the highest top of greatnesses, behold him now with the same eye abased on the dunghill of misery. He hath lived, he hath reigned as an Idol within the Temple of Fortune, on the proudest Altar of Vanity, but the torch of his life, is put out, the date of his reign is expired, the Temple of his glory is demolished, the Altar of his Empire is destroyed, and this carcase which you see, is the Idol that serves as a prey unto the worms.  
Gobrias, do thou cause thyself, to be drawn here by thy Lions, on thy Chariot of massy Gold, before thou diest. The deceitful glasses of thy goodly Mirrors, hide from thine eyes, the truth of thy defects, & let thee see, but the guilded case of thy rich apparences. On the other side, they but represent to thee by halves, while this Sepulchre shall depaint them forth to thee at large with the same draught, and with the self same lineaments, which Nature hath marked upon thy body, from the moment of thy birth. In coming hither, to visit this place thou shalt not stray awhit out of thy way, since every moment of Time, directs thy steps unto the Sepulchre. Enter a little into the knowledge of thyself, and revert from thy wandering. Thou reposest for the most, upon a Couch all of gold: And what pleasure takest thou the while, to pass some nights upon this bed of Flowers, since thou must lodge so long a time, upon a clod of earth, whereof thou art framed & moulded? thou takest all thy repasts upon a silver Table, thou seest this carcase, whereof thou art the original, how it serves for a table & meat all at once for the worms to feed on? Why dost thou prise so much thy treasures? Behold to what estate is he brought, who hath possessed all those of the World. At his birth he had for portion, all the good of the earth▪ and in dying he hath inherited all the miseries of nature. Imagine that which he hath had, and see what is left him. He hath purchased all, & yet possesseth nothing, nor canst thou avoid his lot, whilst thou holdest the same way of his life: hence it is, that I point thee out thy sepulchre all ready within his Tomb.  
Polycrates, come see the coffer of the Treasures of Croesus, to glut thy covetous appetite with all; his rotten bones I mean (whose marrow the worms devour) the stench of this prey covered with a linen sheet, newly waif together with the infection. Behold now all, which this mighty King was able to save from the Shipwreck of his life and riches all together. These are the lamentable relics, as well of his Majesty, as of his greatnesses; and thou run'st into danger of the same rocks, so sailing in a like sea, if thou change not the Pilot. Take profit then from the damage of another, & master thy brutish passions, that prepare for thine enemies, the triumph of thy life.  
And thou Lucullus, come and visit the Sepulchre of this great Prince, before thou unpeoplest the air of birds, the land of savage beasts, and the sea of fishes, if thou wilt see displayed the vanity of thy enterprises. Thou takest a glory, while thy life lasts, to afford entertainment to all the world: Behold awhile, how thou art like to be entreated after thy death. 'Cause thy tables to be furnished with meats, the most delicious that are, yet of necessity must all the company, serve one day as a last course for the worms. Let thy festival days, hold out for a whole year together, the Sun which shines upon thee, will not fail to conduct all thy banqueting guests into the Sepulchre; In such sort, as look how the time devours itself, so likewise dost thou seem to devour thy life by little and little, with the same food that doth nourish and maintain it. What reckoning canst thou make of all the glory of thy prodigious magnificences, if it have no other foundation with it, then that of corruption? For all the proud preparations of thy Feasts do metamorphoze themselves into infection, with thy miserable subjects, which have caused the expense.  
You mercenary Souls, who are not capable of love but for your treasures, nor of passion but to make you Idolaters of them, you stand counting your Crowns every day, and you keep no account by order, of a wise foresight of the small time which is left you to enjoy the same. To what end serves you your Book of accounts, where you reckon up the sums which are due unto you; if you want understanding to calculate that which you owe to your conscience, whose interests termine themselves, either to your loss or safety? You unbury the gold and silver out of the earth, not considering the while, that you are going to occupy their place in the same earth. You buy with their money, the pleasures of your life, and you sell those of your death: for living in delights, you die in torments. Know you not that whatsoever is on earth, is but Earth?  
Wherefore tie you then your affections so to that, which you cannot love without hating yourself? what will you do, when you die, with your treasures? I doubt very much you will leave them to your children; but yet the crimes which you have committed in procuring them, shall still be abiding with you: so as, to make your Heirs pass deliciously this life, you shall lose the eternal, which is promised us. You damn yourselves, for them, as you were not borne, but for others. Quit the world, before it quit you, & bid an eternal adieu to its vanities. Croesus' was all gold, as you are, and now is he all dust. The flash of his riches, did dazzle all the world, except Solon, who discovering his miseries, in the midst of his greatnesses, maintained him to be poor with all his treasure. Go you sometimes, before your death, and imagine the hour which you breathe in to be your last, and then consult with the Oracle of your judgement, for to know the good which you would have done, before this cruel separation of yourself from yourself. And after it shall have taught you your duty, suffer not yourself to be overtaken by the sundry disasters, which every moment may be taking away your life. Serve yourself of your Riches, without glewing your affection to them. Since you are the master of them, suffer them not to be your master. You have found them in the earth, and there let them rest for you, nor let any one be fetching them forth. Well may you be hiding them in your coffers, for a time, but the day of Death discovers all, & it is in your hands to make up the last account, either of the profit, or damage, which they shall peradventure have caused to you. You might have purchased Heaven with your alms; where it may be you have rather bought even Hell with your prodigalities. You might have built Temples to the glory of him, who hath bestowed them on you; & you have offered them in sacrifices, upon the Altar of your passions, to the Idols of your souls.  
Will you never open your eyes to discover the precipices, which encompass you round? Will you be always cruel to yourselves, to the preferring of the mansion of the earth, before that of heaven; the delights of the world, before those of Eternity; and the vain riches of here beneath, before the treasures of the eternal glory? Imagine you that before you were borne you were nothing; that being borne, you have but quickened a piece of corruption, whose life conceales the infection, and whose Death betrays the same. Say now then you Rich men as Croesus, shall I term you miserable with Solon, since Death takes all away from you, save only the sorrow of having lived so ill a life?   

That he who thinks always of Death, is the wisest of the world. CHAP. IX.  
VERITY is the object of all Sciences. And of all verityes there is none more known, nor is more sensible than that of our mortal condition, since we die continually without cease. In so much as the best science of the world consists in the knowledge of ones self. The disasters and miseries that befall us every hour, are goodly schools for us to become learned. As for me, I hold, that the only meditation of death, instructs us in all that which is necessary for us to know. Who doubts, but that he who thinks always of his end, is a great Divine; if all the goodly Maxims of this divine science, termine at the eternal life, which follows death? That he is a Philosopher, we must needs believe; for if Philosophy learn us the art of reasoning, we can serve ourselves of reason, no ways better, then to be always a thinking of death, and the contempt of life. That he be an ginger, is a mere necessity, because, through the moving of his life, he understands that same of the stars, which shine upon him; imagining with himself, that as he goes by little and little, to finish his course in the Tomb; so likewise the Sun approaches to the end of its lucid race, where it is to find at last its utmost.  
That he is a Mathematician, the resemblances are too plain, since that according to the measure of the knowledge he hath of himself, he can measure the height, depth, and breadth of all things, being of the same nature with him. That he should be ignorant of Arithmetic, it were not credible; for since he can tell how to count all the moments of his life, he must needs be very skilful in numbers. I should think, he had skill in music too, since he puts his passions in accord, to charm his spirit with their sweet harmony. He must of necessity be a great Physician since he busyes his soul so, in the chief health of his innocency, to attain immortality, in musing always upon Death. So as with reason might we hold him, to be the wisest of the world: and the wisest that are to authorise my saying, may well be glad to imitate him.  
Aristotle, thou hast ill employed thy time to stand so much in discourse of the world, without knowing the miseries thereof. For if thou hadst had the knowledge of them, why hadst thou not followed the example of Alexander, in seeking forth a new one, not for to conquer it, as he, but for to live in, eternally happy? And as his valour had put the conceit into his head, so might thy spirit have given thee the same project. It is plain therefore, thou hast spoken of the Earth with the language of heaven, and of heaven with the language of the earth. Thou hast made an Anatomy of nature, discoursing with judgement, of all the second causes which do make the springs of the whole to move. Thou hast given the definition of all things, but only of thyself; as if thou couldst not have remembered them all, but with forgetting thyself. Thou wast busyed much in counting the number of the heavens, without assigning thy place there put aloft. Thou hast noted the diverse motions of the Sun; thou hast spoken of its Eclipses, without once informing thyself of the cause, which hath given it the being, and light.  
Thou hast discoursed very aptly of the revolution of ages, and of the continual vicissitude of time; without taking any heed to the perpetual inconstancy of thy life. Thou hast maintained, that whatsoever subsists in the world, runs post to its ruin; and yet, as if thou perceivedst not thyself to run awhit towards the Tomb with the rest of created things, thou hast spoken not a word of this second life, wherein abides the perfection of all our happiness. Thou hast yielded the Sun to be eclipsed. Thou hast afforded the Moon to take diverse countenances upon her. Thou hast given leave to Serpents to be changing their skin, and to the Phoenix to revive of its ashes; and cruel to thyself the while, thou hast taken away the hope from thee of ever arising again. Thy spirit hath been like to a torch, which consumes itself to give others light. For thou labourest to discover to men all the goodliest secrets of nature; and hast voluntarily hidden from thyself, the secrets of thine own salvation. Thou hast lent Ariadne's thread to an infinite number of spirits who were entangled in the labyrinth of the world, without once being able, to get forth thyself, though the knowledge of its causes and effects: & thou hast even damned thyself. Fools, speak not but of thy Prudence, and wise men of thy Folly. It had been a great deal better for thee, thou hadst possessed all the Virtues, then to speak so of them, without them, & in their absence. Thou mad'st profession to teach men the language of reason, and thou hast never been speaking with thyself thereof, thereby to bring thee, into the contempt of the earth and desire of heaven. Thy light hath dazzled thee, thine arms have vanquished thee, & the greatness of thy Spirit hath made thee miserable. For with endeavouring to merit Crowns, thou hast raised thyself above all the Empires of the world, to make thyself to be adored; & that thy Example might serve as a law unto others, thou hast been the first Idolator of thyself,  
Thou wouldst not believe that there was one God in heaven, because thou saidst thyself to be a God on earth. Thou wouldst not speak of the other life, as knowing well, that he who distributes the good, & the evil to each one, should seem to prepare there a Hell for thee to punish thy arrogancy. So as if it were once afforded thee, to rebegin thy course again, thou wouldst doubtless forget the vanity of all thy learning, to be thinking continually of Death, whiles these only thoughts do learn us all manner of sciences. The glory which is left thee, for having spoken of the world, is shut up in the world, and though it should last as long as it, yet shall it always dye with it. Thy reputation is revereneed on earth, and thou art trod on under foot in Hell. Men do honour thy name, and the devils torment thy soul. Behold all the recompense of thy travails. Let us say boldly then, that he who is always thinking of Death is ignorant of nothing; and that, for to be esteemed wise, he should live with his thoughts, as the only object of the glory we hope for, and of the felicity we attend every hour.  
Plato, to what purpose serves thee, that fair Renown, which thou hast caused to survive thy ashes? They speak every one of thee, but if they fetch any argument of thy wisdom, they conclude upon thy folly, while Death dishonours thy life. We may compare thee to Hannibal; for after he had triumphed over others, he let himself be vanquished by himself, having received a law from his passions, & a servitude from his vices. In like manner may we say of thee, that thou hadst courageously triumphed over all thy popular errors, which are thy chief domestic enemies: after, I say, thou hadst left thy goodly actions, for so many examples of moral virtues; thou buryedst the richest Crown, within thy Sepulchre, and that which surmounts all time, and the inconstancy thereof: for at thy Death, thou adoredst many Gods, as repenting thee of the opinions, yea of the belief thou hadst in the course of thy life.  
Thou tookest a great deal of pains to procure the surname of Divine, through thy divine thoughts; but in the highest of thy soaring pitch, thy spirit, as an illegitimate young Eagle, not being able to endure the splendour of the sun of faith, was cast down headlong from the top of the heavens to the lowest of the earth, where dying always in punishments, and reviving every moment in their dolours, it shall live for ever in eternal pains. Let us say then again once more, that all sciences are but mere vanity, except such as teach us to live well, and die happily. And that after this manner, who thinks continually of Death, is the wisest of the world.   

A Contemplation upon the Tomb of Solomon. CHAP. X.  
RETURNE yet once again O great Queen of Saba, to behold this wise Solomon, & come attended with your magnificent train, that even the self same subjects, who were the witnesses of your joy, may be the same likewise of your sadness, in this cruel change, both of time & fortune. You have passed through many a sea, and happily been quit of a thousand dangers on the land, for to visit this great Monarch, as the only Abridgement of the wonders of the world. Put yourself once more into the perils of the same rocks, and into a new danger of so long a voyage, to see the setting of this Sun, the ashes of this Phonix; I would say the Tomb, and corruption of this incomparable, of this inimitable, of this mighty King of Sages.  
What metamorphosis? The splendour of his Riches, had once dazzled your eyes, & now the horror of his poverty, doth beg even tears of your compassion. Heretofore you contemplated his power with astonishment; and now see into what plight of feebleness have miseries brought him. You admired the greatness of his Empire▪ & that likewise of his spirit, joined with the perfection of his wisdom; but now consider how all these goodly qualities have not been able, to exempt him from the Sepulchre, where he serves as a prey unto the worms. You have adored him on the Theatre of his Vanities at such time as he represented the personage of the greatest King that ever wore a Crown; and turning the leaf, within the twinkling of an eye, is this very King, no more than a loathsome carcase, whom horror & amazement hold in pledge, until such time, as he be converted into dust; which he hath been indeed, but that is all. And hardly dare we now maintain him to be he, since that in seeking him out, within himself, is he not to be found: So vanisheth the glory of the world, all flies into the Tomb.  
Solon, since thou hast borne the surname of all the seven Sages of Greece, come & visit this tomb, of the wisest of the world, of this incomparable Solomon. He was great of birth, great in happiness, great in power, great in riches, & most great in knowledge; But behold now, how his rich cradle is changed into this poor Sepulchre; How his felicity, hath taken the visage of misfortune; How his power is bounded in the impotency thou seest him in. He is not great but in miseries, he is not rich but in worms, and in the knowledge of the follies which he hath wrought. Among so many goodly laws which thou hast given to the Athenians, remember thyself of that, which nature hath imposed upon thee, to die at all hours, until such time, as thou be quite dead. Thou dost in vain command thy bones to be cast into diverse places after thy Death; for if they putrify not all at once, each one of them shall produce a stench from the marrow, in the place, where it shallbe buried. Thou must necessarily follow the lot of this great Sage, since you are brothers both of the same condition. Thou hast taught others long enough; learn thou that, which as yet thou knowest not. Thou teachest all the world to live; learn thou thyself to die well. Thy knowledge is but vanity. For though thy precepts be engraven in marble and brass▪ time which devours all things, shall deface the remembrance of them, to so bury thy glory. If thou livest not for thy soul, rather than thy body, they will scarce believe thou hast lived at all.  
Periander, come & behold thy Companion of renown, so as if thou knowest him not, in the estate he is brought into, touch but thy own miseries with thy finger, and thou shalt plainly discover on their face, all the draughts of his resemblance. He hath been King as well as thou, as good, as wise. And if thou bear'st the Surname of Tyrant above him and that he hath not been a Tyrant of his people; yet the vanities of his life have been so. He is dead howsoever; and at the very same time, wherein truly thou beholdest his putrified bones, the fire of thy life hath brought thee by little and little, into ashes, near unto his ashes. If thou tracest the same way with him, thou shalt put the truth of thy salvation into doubt. I would have thee be a Tyrant also, but that only against thyself, to be cruel to thy passions, nor ever to pardon thy faults; otherwise reason shall be depriving thee of the Surname of a Sage, which thy folly hath given thee.  
Pittacus, be thou a partner likewise, to behold the miseries of thy like, and if thou wilt learn thy good spirit wisdom, employ thy reason, and eloquence to chase away vices from thy country, rather than the Tyrant though thy force and courage. Thou sayest, we ought to foresee the accidents afar of, which may happen to us, for to be able to suffer them, with the more constancy, when they light: why thinkst thou not then, always of this accident, inseparable from Death, which pursues us nearer than a shadow the body; not for the suffering of the pains with the greater constancy, but rather with more profit, that Death might make thee a successor of a more happy life? Behold in this tomb, the image of all thy errors. See wherein consists the glory of the world, and this vain renown, whereof thou becommest an idolater. If this great Sage have been so taxed, how shalt thou be able to avoid the blame and shame at once? I leave thee to think and meditate upon it.  
Bias, come and behold through curiosity the ashes of the wisest of the world, to judge whether there be any difference between them, and those of the most fools. I know well, that the horror of the tomb will not astonish thee awhit, since thou hast seen thy country sacked already with a dry eye, and thy children dead before thee. But in these actions it is not, where thou art to make the force of thy spirit to appear. After thou hadst lost all, thou oughtest to have saved thyself to be rich for ever. Thou believest, thy virtue should appear, with saying, that thou carriest all thou hast about thee, and hadst saved all thy goods from the fire of thy town, wherein thou mistakest thyself. For thou wert puffed greatly with thy vanity, and charged with the weighty burden of thy vain sciences. Thou knowest all that, which we ought to be ignorant of, to become well skilled in the knowledge of true virtue indeed.  
And to let thee say plainly thine own folly, so it is, that the precepts of thy wisdom have never yet saved any one of those that observed the same. Thou preachest virtue, and adorest but a false image thereof▪ wisdom consists not but in always thinking of death; and thou hast nothing more dear, than life in the blindness, wherein thou art. Misfortune robs thee every hour of a part of thyself, through continual loss of that, which thou lovest most, and thou art insensible of all these attempts. But herein thou lettest thy vanity appear, rather than any virtue at all, since thou referrest not the effects of thy patience to the absolute cause, which gives thee grace thereunto. Thou Enemy to thyself, thou pullest the wings of thy spirit, that it may not fly above thy nature to know the Author thereof. Consider the glory that shall rest, and be left for thee. The stone of this tomb which thou seest shall wait upon thy flesh to cover it with all, in corruption and infection; and if thou will be reputed wise, think continually upon this verity.  
Thales, thou must be a party likewise, for to come and see, the master of the Sages, in this poor little lodging, which nature hath prepared him from his birth. He hath been far more wise than thou, but yet with all his knowledge, he hath hardly been able to find the way of his salvation. He knew so perfectly, the effects of all the seconde causes, as he forgot oftentimes to yield due homage unto the first and sovereign cause, only adorable. Take thou thy profit then, from the example of his loss. Thou studyest vainly to mark the courses of time, consider rather, how it pulls thee by little and little into the Sepulchre.  
Why breakest thou thy brains, to know from whence the winds proceed, since thou oughtest to fear that of vanity, for it threatens thee with shipwreck? Thou further notest sundry motions of the stars, it sufficeth thee, that that of the Sea be favourable to thee, to shun the rocks of that other of the world, whereto nature hath made thee to embark thyself. Thou makest lessons to thy scholars upon thunder, it is but a very curiosity of thine; thou shouldest not seek for shelters, but for the thunders of divine justice, which shall shortly punish thee for thy foolish errors. If thou wilt be wise indeed, forget thou all what thou knowest, nor do thou ever remember but this verity, that thou art of Earth, and soon shalt thou return into Earth again, as this great King whose ashes thou beholdest, environed with horror and infection. Go now, and make a lesson to thy scholars, of that which thou hast seen, and then shalt thou deserve the surname of a Sage.  
Chilon, step thou a little, out of thy way, to come and see the ruins of this Colossus here of Greatness, whose unmeasurable height astonished all the world. This is the King Solomon, the wonder of all the Monarches of the earth. Demand of him now what he hath done with his crown, with his Sceptre, with his Treasures, with his Courtiers, with his slaves, and where now his pleasures are. And if he answer thee not a word, make the same demands of thine own spirit, and it shall answer for him, that all is vanished like smoke, that all is slid away like waves, that all is rolled thence like a torrent, that all is melt a way like snow; & that all these shadows have pursued their bodies, into the ruin where thou seest it. Thou oughtest to have engraved this precept which thou gavest forth of Nosce teipsum, on thy hart rather, then on the Temple of Apollo. For this knowledge is not compatible with thine errors. Thou hast given forth this second Precept, Of never coveting too much, wherein truly, thou art not culpable at all, since thou desiredst not enough. Thou assignest all thy pretensions on the earth, as if thou wert borne but for it; it seems the Sun never rises, but to convince thee of ingratitude, since for the goodness of its effects, thou never didst homage to the cause from whence hath it received the being and the light it hath. If it had as many tongues as beams, it would have published at once, both his glory, and thy forgetfulness. Confess then the error of it, if thou wouldst have men justly to attribute wisdom to thee.  
Ceobulus, come thou in thy turn likewise, to visit the King of Sages, not in his Palace, but in the little house, which the harbingers of death have appointed for him. Thou bestowest thy time but ill; for thou shouldest be making of verses, and thou art full of them thyself, to wit, of worms. So as if thou love thy Poesy so much, make verses on thy worms, describe thy miseries, and never speak but of thy misfortunes; otherwise, shalt thou lose the Surname thou hast of a Sage. Thou seest well how the science thou professest, teacheth not but vanity, & how all the world is the great master of it. True wisdom consists in possessing all the virtues, and thou yet livest in the hope of attaining the first, which is to know one's self. Solomon was wiser than thou art, and yet with all his knowledge, and wisdom both, was he taxed of folly. He hath been the greatest of the world, & this little trench which thou seest containeth all his greatnesses. The lands of his Empire are comprised within this little hillock of earth, whereinto he is reduced: if thou wilt forgo thy vanity, behold somewhat near, his miseries, and thou shall learn all the Sciences of the world in the meditation of his nothing. You Sages of the world if you establish the foundation of your glory on your prudence, all is but vanity. Behold, contemplate, and publish freely the truth you know; I for my part will not learn other science then that of living well, since this is the science of the Eternity, which hath for object an immortal glory.   

A Contemplation upon the Tomb of Helena. CHAP. XI.  
RETURNE thou, O Menelaus, with thy Army, to the conquest of this fair Helena, to triumph now at last upon her utmost spoils. Imagine the Tomb wherein she is enclosed, to be the the proud Troy, which deteynes her from thee. Martial thy Army about her Sepulchre, and let the valiantest of thy soldiers, well armed against the horror and affrights of all the infections of the world, give the first onset to this fortress of miseries. There is no need to reduce her into ashes, since she is wholly full of ashes now. Encourage then thy Captains to the assaults. Thou hast now, no more to deal with an infinite number of men, but rather with an infinite number of worms, as owners, & possessors of the subject of thy victory. But me thinks some new Achilles, or some Aiax hath already demolished the rampiers of this little Troy, wherein thy Helena is captived.  
Approach then, brave Menelaus, with napkin at thy nose, tears in thine eyes, sighs in thy mouth, and plaints in thy soul, to behold the Idol of thy passions, and the object of the triumphs. Behold this fair Helena, whom the greatest Monarches of the world have adored. Behold this fair Helena, whom Theseus took away, and Paris ravished as a thrall of her perfections. Behold this fair Helena, who hath peopled Greece with widows and Orphans. Behold his fair Helena, who hath drowned a good part of the earth with a deluge of blood. Behold this fair Helena, the wonder of all the wonders in the world, the shame of ages past, the despair of such as are to come, & the miracle of her present age. Behold this fair Helena, whom Painters never durst to represent, nor have Poets been able ever to praise enough. Behold this fair Helena, whom no man hath admired but with Idolatry. Behold this fair Helena, whose merits have armed the one part of the world against the other, as if for ●er alone they would have utterly destroyed the Universe. Behold at last this fair Helena, whose life hath cost a million of deaths: behold this stinking carcase which here you see, this heap of putrified bones, and this lump of infection full of worms.  
Command thy imagination, to represent her unto thee, in that estate she was in at such time as thou adoredst her on the Throne of her graces, for to acknowledge sensibly the difference. Demand of her head, what is become of that fair golden hair of hers, so always curled, where Love had wrought a thousand Labyrinths, to make a thousand of the freest Souls to wanderin? Her hair, I say, whose flash dazzled the eyes, and whose wreathes captived hearts? Where is that Alabaster brow, where Majesties appeared in troops, as always ready to impose new laws of respect to mortals? Where are her eyes, which you termed The eyes of Love, since he had not been blind, but for her sake? Or rather those two fair stars eclipsed, from whence thou receivedst both the good and the evil influences of thy life? say we yet more, those two fair Suns, arrived now at their last West, whose splendour ever blinded the whole world? What is become of them? we can hardly discern the dreadful ruins of their being. Where may that godly feature be, whose flowers always spread and disclosed, the winter reverenced much? Where is that mouth of Coral, whose voice was an oracle of good & evil fortunes? Where is that neck of ivory, that snowy bosom, and all the other parts of that body, where Nature had employed the last endeavours of her power? I see nothing but worms. I smell nothing but a stink. All is vanished quite away. The flesh of that Majestical brow, lets her hideous bones appear. Those fair eyes show forth the holes, where the worms have built their Sepulchre. The flowers of this visage are changed into thorns: and this mouth sometimes of Coral is now become a sink of Infection. And for the rest of the parts of the body being all of the same nature with the whole, we may know the piece by the pattern.  
Menelaus, behold the subject of thy affection, of thy pleasures, of thy pains, and of thy triumphs. Behold her, whom thou so dearly lovedst, so highly reverencedst, & ●or whom thou hast a thousand times put ●hy Sceptre, thy Crown, yea all Greece in danger, with thy life, and honour. Behold thy vanity discovered, consider thy ●hame, contemplate thy folly. This heap of Ashes hath made thee to reduce into ashes the proudest City of the world. This stinking Carcase hath been convinced in dying for putting a Million of men to death. This Colossus of miseries, full of infection, hath changed the most flourishing Empire of the world into a mere dunghill. Muster up thine Army about this Sepulchre, that thy Captains and Soldiers may lament with thee thy folly, bewailing the time they have employed for the conquest of this heap of stinking earth. So as, if the Ghosts, wherewith she hath peopled Hell, were able to break their prisons, they would bring a new war upon thee, as the partner of all the crimes, which they have committed, in following thee.  
I attend you, Dames, near unto this Tomb, to make the Anatomy of your beauties, of your sweets, of your allurements, of your charms, of your baits, of your wantonness, and of all your vanities together. It is time for me to unmask your Spirit, to let you manifestly see the truth of your miseries. You make a show to all the world of your body, painted and washed every day with the baths of a thousand distilled waters, and I will show you the infection and putrefaction which is within. You say that a woman is then fair, when she hath a good body, with a handsome garb, the hair flaxen and naturally curled, a soft skin, and as white as snow, a large and polished brow, the eyes blue or black, and pretty big, the chin short and somewhat forked, & the rest of the parts of the body equally proportioned one to the other. But this is nothing yet. This goodly piece must needs be accompanied with some Graces, to be quickened with Majesty. Her flaxen and curled hair had need to be trimly dressed; her skin how soft soever, should be nourished in water like a fish, for to conserve it in its beauty & lustre. The brow had need be taught, to hide its plights and wrinkles, to appear always most polite. Those fair eyes must learn the art of charming hearts; & to have this secret industry with them, to wound in their sweetness, and to kill in their choler. That little mouth of Roses should be always sounding in the cares the sweetest harmony of eloquence, for to calm the harshest Spirits. In fine, each part of the body is to learn its lesson of quaintness, and the spirit that animates the same to teach it every day some vanity or other, and some new instructions to win love withal, or rather folly, as if there were not fools enough in the world.  
Besides, this fair piece had yet need to be decked up with the richest habits that may be found, to give life to her gravity. This gallant hair had need to be wreathed with chains of pearl, and diamonds, to allure the eyes more sweetly in admiration of them, and hearts unto their love. This delicate skin should be heightened through the shadow of a fly. This painted visage should be daubed anew with a huge number of trumperyes, and instruments of vanity, be it in Rebatoes of all fashions, in Pendants for the ears of all colours, in Carcanets of diverse inventions, & in Veils of different stuffs. This body thus quickened with folly, rather than with reason, should be every day tricked up with new habits, to the end, the eyes might not be so soon weary to contemplate the vanities of them. In fine, she should have a magnificent train with her, of Horses, Caroches, and Lakeys, to maintain the greatness of her house.  
But let us now break the crust of these wily baits, that blind our spirits so, and charm our reason, for to make us run into our overthrow. This rich piece is but a faggot, or a bundle of putrified bones, of nerves, and of sinews full of infections, and whose Cemeter serves for a theatre to let us see the miseries of them. Those frizzled locks are but the excrements of nature, engrafted in a soil full of louse. That delicate skin is but a piece of parchment pasted upon blood. Her frail beauty, but that of flowers, subject to the parching of the sun & the scorcching of fire: one drop of the serene, and the only alteration of the pulse, and but one night of unrest only, are enough to ruin it quite. That large & polite Brow is notable to save itself from the assaults of the wrinkles, which from moment to moment take up the place, whatsoever resistance be made against them. Those fair eyes are but as waterish holes, subject to 60. several maladies, all different; being so many mischiefs disposing to their ruin: a little Rheum makes them so ghastly, as they are constrained to hide them, for fear they make us not afraid. That Nose and mouth are two sinks of corruption, from whence infections issue at all moments. And for the rest of the parts of her body, being all of the same stuff, one may well judge of the whole piece by a pattern only.  
On the other side, the action that animate this piece is but a breath of wind, which fills up the sails of our Arrogancy in this sea of the world, where vanity serves for Pilot, to hazard us in the Shipwreck. Those flaxen locks in vain are tricket so on the face, through an art of niceness; the invention is as guilty, as the matter frail and contemptible. Let her wash her delicate skin day by day, the self same water that nourisheth, doth putrify it no less; for according as the sleight thereof makes her appearance to seem young anew, nature causeth the being to wax old. That smooth Brow to no purpose hides its furrows so, whiles Age discovers them by little and little. If those eyes have the skill to charm the hearts, yet have they not the trick to charm their miseries. I grant that little mouth of Roses, for a time may yield oracles of Eloquence; yet we must consider that as the words are form of air, so into air again do they resolve; their glory is but wind, and their harmony but smoke. In fine let the spirits which quicken these fair bodies, know all the lessons of vanity and quaintness that are, may it not be said yet, that the art is black, and as pernicious as the instructions are.  
As for the habits, which deck up this rich Piece, they are but the workmanship of worms, since they have wrought the silk. Those pearls & Diamonds so enchased in the hair, are of the treasures of the Indies, where the Riches of Virtue are unknown: but they are as so many subjects of contempt to holy Souls, who know that Heaven is not bought with the gold of the earth. And for all these toys, that serve thus for ornaments to women, they are but as so many veils, to shroud their defects with all, while they are so full of them. Let them show themselves as beautiful as they will, yet will I count more imperfections in their bodies, than they have hairs on their heads. They appear not abroad till Noon, to show that they employ one half of the day, for to hide the half of their miseries; and during the small time they are seen abroad in, if we look near into all their actions, they give forth a great deal more pity than love. One shallbe always holding a napkin in her hand, for to void a part of the corruption which she hath in her. Another shallbe forced in company to step aside unto the chimney, to spit forth at her pleasure, the infection she holds in her breast. There she shallbe holding her muff upon her cheek swollen with Rheum for to cover the ill grace it hath. here will she never pull of her gloves, for fear of discovering the itch of her hands.  
Behold the lesser defects of women, whiles of discretion, I conceal the greater, but I believe in vain, since all the world beholds them well enough; so as if they would yet see more sensible verityes of their miserable condition, let them approach to this Tomb.  
You Courtiers, I conjure you, by the power of those Beauties, which you have adored so much, to come hither and behold their ruin. What say I? nay horror, infection and putrefaction rather. Theseus, send thou hither thy ghost to this body, where thou hadst lodged so long a time both thy hart and soul. Behold this fair Helena, whom thou hadst stolen away with the peril of thy life, as idolatrous of her imaginary perfections. Search now in her, the baits that charmed thee so, the charms that ravished thee, the beauty that made thee such a thrall, and all those sweetnesses which have forged the chains of thy servitude. Those baits now have no more force, but to allure the worms; those charms have no more power, but to conserve the infection; and those beauties and sweetnesses changing the nature, do afford amazements, rather than any whit of Love.. But yet me thinks, thou art well revenged. For this cruel Tyrant, who had reduced thee so by little and little into ashes, is even now but ashes herself. This merciless woman who would seem to love no man, is hated of all the world. This proud Dame, who made herself adored, serves as a victim to the worms, and sport to the winds. Yesterday her beauty did please thee so much, as thou hadst no eyes, but to admire her; & to day is her foulness so hideous, as thou hast no contempt but for her. Yesterday thou sighedst for her love, & to day the same hart even sighs for her miseries. Yesterday her perfections did ravish thy soul, to make them adored; and to day her defects extort thy tears, and sighs, to bewail in their fashion their ruin. Look then, see here that which thou hast loved so much, and that which thou hatest so mainly. See here, what thou hast admired with astonishment, & that which thou abhorrest with so much reason; what cruel change is this from thyself, with thyself? or rather from the subject of thy love, with the same subject itself? Shall I dare to say, that this stinking Carcase here is the fair Helena? That this heap of rotten bones are the sad spoils of her perfections? And that this little Ashes, is the doleful head of that wonder of the world?  
Paris, Return thou from Hell, into the earth again, for to see the cause of thy disastres. Approach to this Sepulchre, and contemplate the infection & corruption near at hand, with thou hast adored under the name of Helena. How many times hast thou been kneeling before this carcase, & before these rotten bones? How many mischiefs hast thou run into? How many perils hast thou escaped? How many seas hast thou crossed over? How many evils hast thou suffered, for to possess this heap of worms? Thou verily believedst, thou hadst all the riches of the world in thy ship, whiles thou hadst thy Helena therein. The Coffer is open, behold now wherein consist thy treasures. Art thou not ashamed for having so made love to this heap of Ashes? and for having sighed so, a thousand, & a thousand times after this stinking Earth? Thus the glory of the world doth pass away, all flies into the Tomb.  
Your Courtiers, come, yield you a last homage of visit, to this Idol of your passions. I have heard indeed the Persians heretofore, have adored the Sun, and that there have been other Paynims, who in their brutishness have adored likewise diverse sorts of beasts; but I have never seen a more prodigious thing, then now at this day, while they adore even Clay, Corruption, and Infection. There is nothing more certain▪ than that in adoring women, they become Idolatours of their putrefaction; since their body is a sack of worms. Behold the goodly subject of your watchings, of your troubles, of your extravagancies. How is it possible, this heap of ashes here should afford you such ill days, and so long nights? That this sink of infection should make you shed so many tears, and send so many sighs into the wind? Are you not jealous, trow you, that the worms should possess this subject of your affection? Can your wayward courages ere endure these worms should be taking their Fees thereof in your presence, & to your scorn? For they glut themselves of the one part of what you have adored, and for the other, they make a dunghill of it. These are no Fables, these. Look, & smell yourselves, all is but misery and stench. So passeth the glory of the world away.  
I invite you, my Dames, to a feast, which the corruption of Helena's body makes unto the worms, in the presence of Heaven & Earth. This Tomb which you see, is the Hall, where the banquet is prepared; come you hither in troops, attired all in the richest Ornaments you have, as you would go unto a wedding-feast. I licence you herein, to bring a glass with you hanging at your girdle, for to admire with an dolatrous eye, the good Graces you have. And if you afford any whir of intermission at all, cast but your eyes awhile, upon this stinking carcase here, since it is the body of your shadow, and the original of your living pourtraicts. You now see enough, that you are but ashes, but earth, but clay, but mere putrefaction and infection; and yet suffer nevertheless yourselves to called Goddesses; and to heap yet more crime upon crime, you accept the Sacrifices. I have not seen, nor read of so prodigious Metamorphoses, that even very Clay should be raised upon a Throne, and the worms and corruption should be meriting of titles of immortal glory. You suffer them to be kneeling before you, and fear not the while, lest the wind of your vanities be carrying away the dust, whereof you are framed. You walk upon cloth of gold, and after your death, are the beasts trampling under foot your stinking earth. You suffer them to kneel before you: Alas! what a sight to humble ones self, before a dunghill! Deck up, and adorn your carcase as long as you please, the stench at last shall discover the miseries thereof, to the sight of all the world. This handful of ashes, which you see here, is the beautiful Helena, whose allurements charmed hearts, and whose charms did ravish souls. And yet notwithstanding is there left no more of her, than the mere infection, which was bred with her.  
I do even laugh at all your vanities, my Dames, & mock at those who admire them so. When as your beauties do assail me, I break the very crust of them, & approaching to the corruption which is within, it makes me hate them more, than ever any man had loved them heretofore. I take pleasure sometime to behold your sweetnesses, your allurements, your nyceties; but it is only to be touched with compassion of your miseries. For whatsoever is the frailest in the world, is not so frail as your nature is; whatsoever is more variable here beneath, is not so changeable as your being is. I dare hardly eye you any long time, for fear, lest even while I look upon you, you vanish from my eyes, since you die every hour.  
Flatter not yourselves, my Dames, before your Glass; your body is even just of the same nature, with the shadow which you see therein. You are indeed nothing. But if you force me to say, you are something, you are a mere dunghill covered with snow, a sink of infection environed with flowers, a rich coffer full of worms, and in a word, an abridgement of all the miseries of the world.  
You Courtiers take a pride, forsooth, for having carried away a thousand Favours from the hands of Ladies, either through the force of your spirit, or thorough the charms of your subtleties. One brags for having enthralled a Lady with the chains of her own hair. Another for inveigling a new Mistress in his love, through letters written with his own hand. There, one more perfect than the rest shallbe publishing his triumphs. here another more happy yet, shall avouch all his passions to have been crowned. There shall not fail some one that will be ordinarily busying his spirit with these vain thoughts that he was even borne into the world, to tempt the pudicity of Ladies, so lovely he is. But let us pull the wings of this proud one, & make these bodies of earth to walk upon the earth, who raise their Spirits upon Thrones of smoke, believing they do well.  
Thou, that vauntest thyself for enthralling thy mistress with her own chains; what glory it is, whiles the hair, which so charily thou keepest within a box of musk, are but the roots of louse, which shall putrify in sight, and thou shalt sent them anon, in despite of all thy powders & perfumes. So as if thou wilt needs have me call those wreathes of excrements, so full of infection, by the name of chains, they are even the chains which the Devil put into thy hands, to help thee to draw that body, which thou hast idolatrized into Hell; but takest not heed the while, that in drawing it thither, they draw thee; and haling it thither, they hale thee also. Behold a trim piece of Glory to be proud off.  
Thou that hast yet more secret ties of Friendship, with a Lady, written with her hand, and with her blood; if thou thinkst so, thou art rich indeed, if thy treasure consist in a piece of paper, bespotted over, & blurred with black or red: yet to hear thee speak of this favour of hers, they would verily say, thou possessedst the Empire of the world. An intolerable vanity the while. For admit that all the fairest Ladies of the world had signed to thee with their guilty and corrupt blood, that they loved thee perfectly indeed, on which side wouldst thou find thy glory in these assurances? In so promising their love to thee, they but promise thee to get thee damned, since a love so unlawful as that, leads souls into Hell. And And dost thou make any reckoning of these promises then, poor soul? All the testimonies of their passions do witness thy folly against thyself; and takest thou pleasure to blind thyself, with their hood, not to see the precipices that beset thee round? Thou imaginest it straight to be a great honour to be favoured of Ladies: represent to thyself, what a glory it were, for thee, that a piece of Clay being quickened with life, should seem to be beloved of a Dunghill. Whiles thou becommest thus an Idolator of a beautiful body, thou even adorest the worms, the infection and corruption itself, where with it is stuffed. What a crime is this?  
And thou Companion of vanity, and folly at once, that so vauntest thyself to have dispeopled the earth of Myrrhes to crown thy amorous triumphs withal, tell me what is become of this glory, and of this contentment, which thou seemest to exalt so much? I grant, thou hast trampled on flowers: But where art thou now? If therein thou hast found the way of roses, thou shalt enter anon into that of Thornes. For this is the order and course of things in the world, that Pleasure begets Sorrow. Either thy delighs are past, or present: if past, thou art already in the Hell of their privation; if present, thou art likewise in another Hell of their crime, and of the apprehension to lose them. In so much as which way soever thou admirest thy fortune, if it be a body, misfortune is the shadow. What glory dost thou think thou hast gotten by the victory of thy guilty enterprises? Thou hast peopled Hell with an infinite number of souls. Are not these very glorious actions trow you? Thou hast lent thy cunning to the evil spirits, to deceive thy neighbours, as if he were not deceived enough with his own deceypts; and yet still thou braggst thereof, thereby ●o heap crime upon crime.  
I summon you, Courtiers, to appear in thought and imagination, upon the thorny bed, where you shall cast forth to the winds ●his breath of life, and to represent withal to yourself before hand once a day the horror & amazement you shall then have of your ●elfe, when you shallbe calling to mind, the ●essons of the vanity and folly, which you have given to an infinite number of feeble ●pirits, whose companions in loss you have ●uer been. Put off the time to this last hour, to make your account of the favours which you have ever received from Ladies, if you will know the true price of them. Then even then it is, when you shall feel very lively, the assaults of your guilty conscience; the crust of your pleasures shallbe broken, & you shall plainly see, what lies within. Your spirit unmasked of the veil of your passions, shall sensibly discern the truth of its passed offences, but there is no more return to be had unto life, to do penance in, for them. You must go further than sorrows. What sorrow soever I am able to express, is no part of that which you shall suffer. All torments whatsoever being joined together have not gall enough to comprehend the least part of the bitterness of that cruel Adieu, which is then to be made to the world. Then it is, I say, that you shall sigh, but not of love. Then it is, that you shall play the extasyed and dead person, not in presence of your Mistress, but before your crucified judge▪ Your tongue so eloquent before, shallbe then struck dumb, in punishment of your too much speech. So as of force, shall you court Death in your fashion, and according to the sad humour which shall then possess you. You must of necessity be playing your part in this last moment upon the theatre of you● bed. I would be loath for my part to troubl● the Reader, with the faces which you shal● make: it sufficeth that you imagine the one part, and that you doubt not of the rest. Think them of death, you Courtiers, since the Eternity both of glory & pain, depends of a moment. O sweet, and dreadful moment!  
And you, my Dames, you believe you have conquered an Empire strait, as soon as you have once subjected any spirit to you power: to what end do you study so, every day, since you learn each moment but vanity, and new lessons of niceness, be it for action or grace sake; but therein what think you to do? Your purpose is to wound hearts, & you undo souls; for when you make a man passionately in love with you, you do even make him a Foole. You cannot be taking away his hart, without depriving him of reason. And to what extravagancies is he not subject the while, during the reign of his passion, I would say, of his folly? You are all which he loves, and very often all which he adores; what cry me? I should think it rather to please you, then to save himself. If he look upon the Sun, he is but to make comparison between the light of your eyes and that of this beautiful star, which I leave to you to imagine how far from truth▪ He seems to maintain very impudently, in scorn of all created things, that you are the only wonder of the world, and the very abridgement of all that nature hath ever made beautiful; which yet no man believes but he, and you. If he carry up his thoughts to Heaven, he compares you to the Angels, with these words, That you have all the qualities of them. judge now without passion, whether these terms of Idolatry do not fully, & wholly pass sentence, to convince him with a thousand sorts of crimes. And yet do you take pleasure to make the Devil more potent than he is, for to cause others to be damned.  
Return then again unto yourself, and consider how you ought to render an account one day of all those spirits, whose Reason you have made to wander in the labyrinth of your charms. For she that on earth, shall have subjected the most, shallbe the greatest slave in Hell. What glory take you to join your charms with those of the Devils, thereby to draw both bodies and souls unto them? I attend you at this last moment of your life where your definitive sentence is to be pronounced. Think you always of this moment, if there be yet remaining in you, but never so little spark of love for yourselves. When you shall once have enthralled all the Kings of the earth; there would yet be a great deal more shame, than honour in it, since all those Kings were no more than mere corruption and infection. Think of yourselves, my Dames, you are to day no more the same you were yesterday. Time which devours all things, defaceth each moment the fairest lineaments of your face, nor shall it ever cease to ruin your beauties, until such time as you be wholly reduced to ashes. So passeth away the glory of the world, all flies into the Tomb.   

That of all the Laws, which Nature hath imposed upon us, that same of Dying is the sweetest. CHAP. XII.  
FROM the time that our first Father had violated the sacred Laws, which God had imposed upon him; Nature, as altering her nature, would acknowledge him no more for her child. Anon she raiseth a tumult against him, with all created things. The Heaven arms itself with thunders to punish his arrogancy. The Sun hides himself under the veil of his Eclipses, to deprive him of his light. The Moon his sister, defending his quarrel, resolves with herself to be often changing her countenance, towards him, to signify unto him the displeasure she took thereat. The Stars being orherwise innocent of nature, became malignant of a sudden, to pour on his head their naughty influences. The Air keeping intelligence with the Earth, exhales her vapours, and having changed them into poison, infects therewith the body of that miserable wretch. The Birds take part with them, they whet their beaks, & claws to give some assault or other. The Earth prepares the mine of its abysses, for to swallow him up, if the dread & horror of its trembling, were not sufficient to take away his life. The savage beasts stand grinding their teeth to devour him. The Sea makes an heap of an infinite number of rocks to engulfe him in their waves. But this is nothing yet; Nature is so set on revenge against him, as she puts on his fellows to destroy their pourtraite, I mean to combat with the shadow of their body, in causing them to quench the fire of their rage, with their proper blood. In so much as man hath no greater enemy than man himself. Let us go forward.  
To continue these evils, do miseries, enter into the world, accompanied with their sad disastres, and followed with despair, grief, sadness, folly, rage, and a thousand passions beside, which do clean unto the senses, for to seize upon souls. This poor Adam sees himself to be besieged on all sidess if he look up to Heaven, the flash of the lightnings there even dazzles and astonishes him quite; the dreadful noise of thunder makes him to wish himself to be deaf; he knows not what to resolve upon, since he hath now as many enemies as he had vassals before. Adam may well cry mercy for his sin; what pardon soever he obtain thereof, yet will nature never seem to pardon him for it. Whence it is, that in compass also of these ages of redemption itself, wherein we breathe the air of grace, we do sigh that same of miseries. So as if there be nothing more certain, according to the experience of our sense, then that the Earth is a Galley, wherein we are slaves; that it is the prison, wherein we are enchained, and the place assigned us to suffer the pains of our crimes in; can there possibly be found any souls so cuell to themselves, and such enemies to their own repose, as not to be continually sighing after their liberty, after the end of their punishments, and the beginning of an eternal life full of pleasures? What would become of us, if our life endured for ever, with its miseries? if it should never have an end with our evil? & that it had no bounds, or limits, no more than we? For than should I be condemning the laughter of Democritus, and allowing of the continual tears of his companion, since the season would be always, to be always weeping and never to laugh. Then would it be, that cries and plaints would serve us for pastimes, and tears & sighs, should never abandon either our eyes, or hearts.  
But we are not so brought to this extremity of unhappiness; The Heavens being touched with compassion of our evils, and of the greatness of our miseries, in giving us a cradle for them to be borne in, have afforded us a Sepulchre also for to bury them in. O happy Tomb, that reduceth to ashes the subject of our flames! O happy Tomb, where the worms make an end to devour the rest of our miseries! O happy Tomb, where our souls do recover their liberty, & where our bodies do find the end, and term of of pains! O happy Tomb, where we are reduced to corruption, to arise in glory! O happy Tomb, where death even dies with us, and where life revives with ourselves for an Eternity! O happy Tomb, where we render to the earth, the earth of our body, to put our souls in possession of the inheritance of heaven! O happy Tomb, where we pass from death, to life; from sadness, to joy; from infamy, to glory; from pain, to repose; and from this vale of tears, unto the mansion of delights.  
From the time that the children of Israel had tasted in the desert the sweetness of the heavenly Manna; the most delicious meats of the earth, were grown to be contemptible to them; their hearts even changing their nature, fell incessantly gaping after this celestial food. So likewise may I say, that from the instant, wherein a holy Soul is once fed with the food of the grace which is found in an innocent life; the world is an object of horror and amazement unto it; its thoughts & desires creep not on the earth any more; if it sigh, it is but after its last sigh; if it complain, it is only for the long term of its banishment in this vale of miseries. The hope of dying serves it as a comfort in its troubles, and solace in its pains; it lyves in the prison of its body, as slaves in the prison of their crimes, with a necessary constancy, always attending on the last hour thereof, and this last moment where begins the eternity of glory.  
Me thinks the sentence of death, which the divine justice pronounced once to our first Parents, in that earthly Paradise, was much in their favour, against the evils, wherewith their life was fraught. For if God had made the same to be immortal with all mischiefs which succeeded their offence, of all created things had man been found to be the miserablest of them, and most worthy of compassion; but the same Goodness, which moved the Creator to effect this goodly work, did even move him likewise to conserve the same. His sentence was of death, but in the rigour of his justice, he let his merry to appear at the same time, since from the pain of death we pass to the delights of a permanent and immortal life. In so much as this sweet consolation, is inseparable from our torments, for they shall one day finish. O sweet End, since thou breakest the chains of our captivity! O sweet End, since thou makest us to revive, never for to die! O sweet End, since thou putst an end to all our sufferances! O sweet End, since we die to revive for ever!   

How Worldlings die deliciously without ever thinking thereof. CHAP. XIII.  
WE must needs confess how the souls of the world, are so deeply taken, with the sleep of their pleasures, as they are even drowned in their blindness, without fear of the precipices, that encompass them round. joy transports them, gladness ravishes them, rest charms them, hope comforts them, riches moderats their fear, health fortyfies their courage, & all the vanities nurse them, and bring them up in the forgetfulness of themselves, so, as they may never be able to use any violence, for to break the chains of their captivity. A pitiful thing, how they never consider the while, that this joy wherewith they are so carried away, even vanishes quite like a flash of lightning; that this gladness wherewith they are ravished, destroys itself, with its own violence, in running incessantly unto its end; That the repose which charms them, concludes with an eternal unrest; that the hope which comforts them, quite changes itself by little & little into despair; That these riches which do moderate their fear, during their life, augments it at their death; that the health which strengthens their courage, whiles the calm and tranquillity of their fortune lasts, doth bread them a thousand storms through the absence thereof, where they run danger of ship wrack. And finally that all those vanities, which serve them as a Nurse, and School mistress to train them up in vices, are as so many bad Pilots which make a traffic of their loss and ruin.  
When I image with myself, the blindness whereto the men of this world are brought, I cannot choose but be moved with compassion for them. Is it not a strange thing and worthy of pity, that they run as fast as ever they can unto Death, without cease, without intermission, without fetching of their breath, and without ever taking any heed of the way they hold, as if they lived insensible in all their senses? The Sun, which riseth every morning, sets every evening, for to let them see, how the light of their life, should have at last, a last setting as well as it. The Age, which makes them hoary, and which keeps reckoning of their years, through the account of the wrinkles which it causeth to grow on their face, preacheth nought else, but the necessity of their departure. All their Actions termine not a whit, but to the ruin of the body, from whence they fetch their motion, since every action of itself still tends to its end. How can they choose but think of death, if all the subjects which are found in Nature, do even carry the very lineaments thereof in the face? The Sun dies in running his race. The Moon dies in her perpetual inconstancy. The air dies with its corruption. The birds seek death in flying. The brute beasts in running, and the fishes in swimming in the water. The seasons dye, in springing again as well as the trees. The flowers dye, with the day that hath seen them blow forth. The earth dies in the order of time, since her years are counted. The Sea sinks itself by little and little into its proper abysses. The fire consumes itself in its heat; and Nature itself that serves for a second cause, in the generation of all things, destroys itself, by little and little with them.  
I speak nothing of men, since they have nothing more proper than Death. What means, trow you, to forget this sweet necessity of dying, whose law very happily dispenseth with none? yet for all that, do not doubt but there are many in the world, who would never be dying: but this were a childish language of theirs, so far from reason, and common sense, as one had need to declare himself to be a stark fool, for to excuse himself of the error, or rather of the crime. We do all ways contemn the good unknown; and as we naturally live in the apprehension of losing that which we possess, we cleave to the present; so true it is that all things do escape us, and fly away from us. What a life were it for us to live eternally in the miserable condition, wherein we are borne? What a life would it be, to be always breathing in sighs, in mourning, & in plaints? What a life were it to die never, and to suffer without cease, since miseries and pains are the miserable accidents of our bodies? it would even be a living death, or rather a dying life, a thousand times more cruel and intolerable than death itself. Happy then, yea thrice happy is that last instant, which makes us get forth of the Empire of time! most pleasing is the moment, which leads us into the Eternity! O sweet agony, full of ecstasy and ravishment! O glorious joseph, guide now my pen in this fair labyrinth of death, wherein it is wandering, to touch at some thing of your last ravishments, when as you gave up your soul on the lips of himself that created them.  
Life hath nothing so delicious as your death: you die in the arms of the mother of life, and of life itself. And shall I say, that is a death? You amorously expire on the mouth of your Redeemer, that is to say, on the gate of Paradise; what joy! The pen falls out of my hand, as if it were sensible of these incomparable pleasures, wherewith the end of your holy life was crowned, but I hope to recover it again very shortly, for to speak more worthily thereof, if these secret Vows, which I have already offered you, may be grateful to you. Let us say then confidently, that of all the actions of life, the last of death, is the welcomest of all, to such as have lived well; and it is permitted to all the world to live well.   

Goodly Considerations upon this important verity; That whatsoever we do, we die every hour without cease. CHAP. XIIII.  
THE inhabitants of Nilus are so accustomed to hear the dreadful noise of its waters always roaring, as they have no ears to feel the incommodity thereof. Let us say the same in a diverse sense, of men in the world, that they are so habituated to this sweet feeling of dying, without cease, as they perceive not themselues to die awhit. They breath, in dying, the air of the Death which they sigh forth, without thinking ever of Death. A strange thing to live continually in Death, and to die every day in life without once dreaming of the necessity of their end, whither they run always! They do nothing else but die, and they have no care but to live. For if they speak, the air whereof they form their words, causeth the lights to dye, which is the Clock of life, the respirations the minutes; these minutes are counted, and one succeeding to the other, the lasts strikes the hour of Death. If they eat, the very food that nourishes them, doth putrify in their bodies, as in a dunghill, in sign that they are full of corruption; and this infection by little and little ruins the infected vessel wherein it is enclosed. If they sleep, they exteriorly carry the countenance of death, which they hide within. In fine there is no action, wherein they may be any ways employed, which is not a Symbol of Death.  
If the foolish errors of these men of the world, concluded not in an irreparable damage, they would afford as much pleasure as they move pity. For one gets into his Caroche, with purpose to go to some fair house of his in the Country, without considering the while, how that very way of his walk, is even the same of Death, whither Time, which is the Coachman, leads him insensibly with all his company. So as if they go not to lie, for this day's journey, at the lodging of the Tomb, it is put of for the morrow after. Another embarkes himself in a Pinnace for to sail into the Indieses, & himself is a Pinnace the while, embarked in the sea of the world, from the moment of his birth, sailing without cease, at the pleasure of the wind, wherewith age doth replenish the sails, and that without once being able to land, but in the haven of the Tomb. This Gallant here shallbe going in post, to see his Mistress, and he hath no other object in all his course, then to arrive as soon as he can, to the place where she lodgeth. Fool as he is, he considers not the while, how that every step he puts forward on his way, he approacheth the nearer to the Tomb, whither he runs with full speed, upon the same Post-horses he takes to compass his amorous desires. Another there, will be going more easily in a Litter, and with less incommodity for fear the heat or cold may seem to prejudice his health; but let him go as easily as he will, yet Death will not fail to lead his mules in such sort, as he shall but pass only by his houses of pleasure, so to go forwards in his way directly to the Tomb, what digression soever he seems to make, to put it off.  
Think on this truth, my Dames, during the calm and tranquillity of your fortune; the spring time of your life, will not always last: even as the seasons of the year succeed each other, so those of age pursue one another. But as we see often how the intemperance of the air, causeth the winter to arrive in the midst of summer; take heed the intemperance of your humours, produce not the winter of death in the midst of the spring time of your life. In vain do you set forth all your deceitful marks of immotality, the time scorns them, and I laugh at them. For if to day you be something, tomorrow are you like to be nothing: So passeth away the glory of the world, all flies into the Tomb.   

The Tomb of the pleasures of the Sight. CHAP. XV.  
LET all the fairest Objects, which are in Nature appear in my presence, to behold each one in its turn, the foundation of their Sepulchre. Let the Heaven show forth, open to view, its serene countenance; the Sun his lively brightness; the Moon her silver day; the stars their twinkling sparks; the Air its fair nakedness; The birds their warble, & their richest robes of plumages, enameled with every sort of colours; The Trees the ornament of their blossoms, and the decking of their fruits; the Meadows the tapestry of their greene's; and Mountains the mossy stuff, wherewith they cover their crumped backs; the forests their thick branches; the savage beasts, the extravagant beauty which Nature hath impressed in their brutish kind, through the diversity of the forms which they represent; the Earth, the inside of its coffers, replenished with all sorts of riches; the Rivers, the Crystal of their streams; the Fountains, the liquid glasses of their waters; the Sea its huge waterish mantle; & the fishes, the infinite number of their figures, wholly different. Let the world yet give forth new wonders, and beauty exhibit to our view its fairest living pictures; yet all those objects, taken altogether, are no more than a little dust, enclosed in the crust of artificiousnes, which Time quite ruins, by little and little.  
Thou man of the world, who seest but only by thine eyes, in cherishing thy life so with the pleasures of the sight, admire yet once in thine Idea, the objects, whose beauty heretofore thou hast adored; then represent to thyself according to the argument thou canst draw from the nature of their being, what is become of them, or what are they like to be. If it be some proud palace, wherein the order, the riches, the magnificence, & the industry of the workman be in dispute about glory, to know who shall carry away the prize; consider that Time destroys it at all hours, and that it shall never give over, till it see the ruins of it.  
If the charms of Art do charm the sight, in admiration of the fairest colours, laid on a rich subject, think but a little of the frailty of those accidents. For all the beautifullest colours that are, do fetch their birrh from that of flowers. And can we see any thing more changeable, or of so small a date as they? So as if the allurements of the beauties of Nature, do ravish thy soul by thy eyes▪ defend thyself forth with through the knowledge thou hast of their misery; since in effect the fairest Lady in the world, is but a mass of flesh, which corrupts every moment, until such time, as it be wholly form to corruption, and this corruption into worms.  
As for all other things whatsoever which thou mayest have seen, being no whit more noble than it, thou Mayst well be judging of their defects by the consequence. In so much as whatsoever the Heavens, have glittering, the Earth rare, Nature gay, & Art more admirable, if thou servest thyself of the touchstone of thy judgement, to know the matter which supports the image, thou shalt soon find all to be no more than dust; and so mayest fear lest it happen to fly in thine eyes, to make thee blind, if thou lookest but too near upon it.   

The Tomb of the Pleasures, of the Sense of Hearing. CHAP. XVI.  
YOU Souls of the world, who suffer your liberty to be taken away through your ears, with the deceitful charms of Sirens: You I say, who sigh for joy, for delectation, and ecstasy, amidst the pleasures of a sweet harmony, either of voices or instruments, lend your guilty ears to hear the reasons, which seem to condemn your errors. I doubt not a whit, but the purling of a silver brook, the sweet running murmur of a fountain, the pretty warbling of birds, and the amorous accents of a delicate voice, joined with the sweet allurements of the melody of a Lute, are of force enough to captive your spirits under the empire of a thousand sorts of delights. But yet return a little from this wandering of yours; Content yourself, with the loss of liberty, and save your reason to repair your damage.  
At such time as you stand listening to the humming noise of this river, & to the murmur of this fountain, imagine this truth the while, That all passeth away, that all slides along like to the waves. Their language preacheth nought else. Those birds even call for death, at the sound of their chanting like the Swan. And if the harmony of a voice, or Lute so charm you, consider awhile how the pleasure of this melody is form of the air, and that in the same instant, it resolves into air again, so as the delights even die in their birth. You let your ears be tickled with the charms of Eloquence; imagine you that since it is true, that as neither Cicero, nor Demosthenes were exempt from the Tomb, or corruption, with all their fair elocution, so shall you never be able to persuade death with all your gallant discourses, to prolong the term of your life, but a moment. True Eloquence consists in preaching Virtue, and true Harmony to hold reason always at accord with the Will, for to desire nothing but what is just.   

The Tomb of the other Pleasures, that are affected to the Senses. CHAP. XVII.  
OPEN your eyes, you worldlings, to discover plainly the truth of your crimes: You take your pleasures to cherish daintily your bodies, as if you knew not their miseries. But why say I, your pleasures? Can you take any contentment, to stuff your putrified body, with a new matter of corruption? Whatsoever you eat is a symbol of Death, & so shall you die in eating. You do nothing but heap dung upon dung, & add but infection to infection. I grant that your life, passeth ever its days in continual banqueting. But I would fain have you let me see the pleasure which is left you of all this good cheer at the latter course. Is this a contentment, trow you, to have the Belly stuffed with a thousand ordures, to put your spirit on the rack with the stinking fume of meats, not well concocted, which arise up in the brain? Is it well with you to have the head drowsy, the pulse distempered, the spirit benumbed, & reason astray?  
Behold here a part of the delights which succeed your delights, and you have no care but to pamper your bodies, as if you lived but only for them, not considering the mean while, how the same very food, which affords them life, even brings them to death. Inebriate yourself with these brutish pleasures, and by the example of the new Epicures, have no passion but to conserve them; yet of necessity, must the imaginary paradise of your life, conclude in a true Hell on the day of your death. For all these roses shallbe changed into thorns in that last moment. Glut you, and crumb your bodies for to satiate the worms withal. But this is nothing as yet. Your souls being the companions of your evils, must needs be everlastingly punished in an eternity of pains. O dreadful Eternity! It seems in a fashion, that those men of the world may well be excusing their vanity, that causes them to carry both amber and musk about them, since they are all full of of infection and corruption, which makes me believe, that they fear, least men come to sent the stench of their miseries, & so engage them, or rather enforce them to serve themselves of this cunning. In effect, all these odours, and these perfumes smell so strong of earth, as we cannot love the smoke without running into danger of the fire. So as those who tie their spirit to these vain ideas of pleasures▪ are in love with shadows and despise the bodies. They smell very well, that smell not ill; and such as habituate their bodies to Perfumes, can never endure the stink of the mortuary Torches, which shall encompass their b●d, at the hour of death.  
I speak to you, my Ladies, who do so passionately affect these foolish vanities. I remit you ever to the instant of Death, for to receive the judgement of your actions, full of shame and reproach. Deal you so, as your soul may savour well, rather than the body; since the one may every moment be cited to the presence of God, and the other serves as a prey for the worms. It were better your teeth should savour il, than your actions; for those are subject to corruption, and these here shall live eternally, either in pain or glory. I leave you to think of these important verityes.  
For the pleasures of Touching, being of the self same nature with the rest, and having no more solid foundation than they; we may draw the consequence of the same argument with them, and conclude; how this imaginary pleasure cannot seem to cleave but to weaker spirits, who love only the earth; because its object is so vile and base, as we had need to abase ourselves, to observe its aims. Let us resume the airs of our former discourses, and say that the pleasures of the world, do not subsist in the world, but through the name only, which is given them. For in effect they are nothing but a dream, & the shadow of a shadow, whose body we never possess. Such as love them are not capable of love, since they fix their affections on the pourtraicts only of imagination, and of the Ideas which the wind defaceth every moment. True contentment consists in thinking always of death. And this is the only pleasure of life, since it termines in the delights of Eternity.   

How he who hath imposed the Law of Death upon us, hath suffered all the pains thereof together. CHAP. XVIII.  
I NOTE an excess of love in the History of that great King who being touched with a generous desire, to banish vice for ever from his Kingdom, & to bring in Virtue, there to reign in peace; among an infinite number of Laws, which he imposed on his subjects, the pain of pulling out the eyes, was decreed for his punishment that should violate the most important of them. The ill luck was, that his only Son, should fall the first into that crime. What shall he do? And what shall he resolve upon? For to quit himself from the assaults both of love and pity, which nature gave him, every moment he could not do; since the half of his blood, takes away fury from the other half. What likelihood for one to arm himself against himself, to excite his arm to vengeance, to destroy his body? He hath no love but for the guilty, & how shall he have passion to destroy him? He sees not but by his eyes, and how shall he be able to see him blind? In fine, he sits not on his Throne, but to keep him the place; & how shall he possibly mount this throne to prononce the sentence of his punishment? Of necessity yet the error must be punished if he will not soil the splendour of his justice, which is the richest ornament of his Crown, and the only virtue that makes him worthy of his Empire.  
Nature assails him powerfully, Love gives him a thousand batteries, and even Pity often wrings the weapons from his hands; and yet Reason for all that, seems to carry away the victory. There is no remedy, but needs must he yield to Nature, Love, and Pity; but yet finds he a way to make justice triumph in satisfying the law. He pulls out one of his son's eyes, for one half of the punishment, and causes another to be plucked forth from himself, for to finish the chastisement. What excess of Goodness.  
Let us draw now the mystical Allegory from this history, and say, That our Redeemer represents this just King, at such time, as in the terrestrial Paradise, he imposed this law of obedience under pain of death upon man, being the Son of his hands, as the noblest work of his Creation. This man being the first borne, becomes likewise at that same very time the first guilty in contemning the commandments of his Soveraygne: He eats that fatal Apple, or rather opens with his murderous teeth that unlucky box of Pandora, stuffed with all manner of evils. The punishment even follows his offence so near, as he instantly incurs the pain of death. But what a prodigy of love! The Creator being touched with the miseries of his creature, takes away the rigour of the law, without destroying it quite or infringing the same: I mean, that he severs death from death in causing the guilty to arise again from his ashes, for to live eternally. And the means, whereof he serves himself, is to dye with him, and in the Chalice of his passion to drink all the bitterness of death, for to change the nature thereof. In such sort, as this way of death conducts us now to eternal life.  
O sweet Death, a thousand times more plesing than whatsoever is most pleasing in the world! O sweet Death, a hundred, and a hundred times more delicious, than all the pleasures united together! O sweet Death, where the body finds repose, the spirit contentment, & the soul its whole felicity! O sweet Death, the only hope of the afflicted, the sole consolation of the wisest, and the last remedy for all the evils of the world! O sweet Death, and a thousand times more admirable, than his goodness that imposed the law, since through the same very Goodness, he would needs be suffering the pain itself, for to take away the pain. Who durst refuse to drink, in his turn, in the Chalice where God himself hath quenched his thirst? Let us go then very holily to Death; for to go cheerfully thither, is to make love and virtue lead us into the sepulchre, if we mean to find therein a second cradle, where we may be reborn anew, never to dye any more.  
I cannot forget that goodly Custom of the Egyptians, that when as a Son being armed with fury, should pass to that extremity of cruelty, as to take away the life from him, who had given him the same, he incurred this sweet punishment withal, to be shut up for three whole days in prison together with the body, whose Parricide he was: & I should think, that such as had imposed the law, had this belief, that the terrible and dreadful object of the crime, was a torment of force enough for the guilty, to extort the last tears from his eyes, & the utmost plaints from his soul. For in effect Nature never belies itself, it is always itself, it may well afford some intermission of love & of pity, but yet at last, it snatches the hart from the bowels, through a violence worthy of itself.  
Let us see now the backside of this Meddall, so to draw forth the mystery, out of this moral verity. We represent to day, this guilty son, since we have put our Redeemer to Death, who is the common Father of our souls. The punishment, which the law of his justice, hath now imposed upon us, it to look continually on this Tree of the Cross, whereon our crimes have made him to expire, for to repair their enormity withal! O sweet punishment! For spilling the blood of him, who hath filled our veins, the law exacts no more of us then tears! For having nailed him on the Cross, justice enjoins us no other pain, then that of nailing our eyes on the same pillar whereupon he is nailed! For having crowned him with thorns, he would have us to trample under foot, the roses of our pleasures! In fine, for putting him to Death, he demands no more at our hands, but sighs and tears for to testify our sorrow for the same! Who could refuse to afford him this pity, or love, who for our love hath had such pity upon us? His hart hath been melt to tears of blood, upon the Altar of the Cross; and shall we not drown ourselves, in the sea of our tears, being so pressed with the storm of our sighs & plaints; Shall we suffer the rocks to upbrayed us of insensibility? The Sun hath been darkened at the sight of our crime, and shall not we wax pale for sorrow, of committing the same? The Moon had been hiding herself for shame, and shall not our countenance awhit be covered therewith? The earth hath quaked, and shall not our hearts seem to tremble for fear? The veil of the Temple hath been rend in twain, and shall our bowels remain entire? In fine, Nature hath suffered, and shall we be exempt from suffering, at the sight of our Redeemer nailed upon the Cross?  
Weep, weep you mine eyes, all the water of your humid springs; pour you forth boldly the last tear on this Cross, where my Saviour hath spilt the last drop of his blood. Do you imitate the Sun, in your little course, drown yourselves within the sea of your tears, if you would, like to him be arising again from your West, and shine without him in the East of an eternal light. And thou my hart, untie thyself a little, from all the feelings of the pleasures of the world, since the only roses of true contentment, are found amidst the thorns of the Crosse. The whole felicity concludes in this point, of never having any other, then that of carrying the cross. This is the ladder of jacob, which serves us to mount up to Heaven with all. This is the brazen Serpent, that cures our souls from the poison of the vanities of the world. Without the Cross there is no pleasure, nor repose in the world. He that caries the cross with him, may well say, more confidently than Bias did, that he caries all his riches about him. For therein alone are comprised all the treasures of the world; therein consists the accomplishment of our happiness. O dear Cross, the only wish of my soul! O dear Cross, the sweet object of mine eyes! O dear Cross, in which alone I put my hope! O dear Cross, upon which alone, do I establish the foundation of all my felicities! O dear Cross, where my wishes find their end, & my envy, its utmost limits! O dear Cross, dear Instrument of my victory, and rich Crown of my triumph! I pretend to nothing else in the world, but the Cross, I abandon all for it. For as I revive not but through it only, so will I die with it, and deliciouly expire upon its couch. And this is the only means to be unsensible of Death.  
You Souls of the World, I present you with the Cross, as with a new Ark of No, to warrant you from the deluge of the divine justice, and that dreadful day of judgement. Can you refuse to kiss the wood, whereupon you have nailed your Saviour? Behold the wonder! He hath exchanged your cruelty into love. For he hath afforded you the invention, to nail his hands, that he might have always his arms so stretched forth to embrace you withal. The like may I say, that he caused his Feet to be so nailed, to attend you at all hours, since every hour is he ready, in his will, to pardon you. O prodigy of goodness! O miracle of Love! Lord grant I beseech thee, I become not ungrateful, for so many favours done me! Teach my hart a language, wholly divine, to thanke you divinely for them; whiles I can offer you no more, for a whole acknowledgement of all, than the only grief of not having any thing worthy of you.   

The pleasure which is found in Living well, for to Die content. CHAP. XIX.  
IT is impossible to express, the pleasures of a holy Soul, its contentments are not to be so called, its sweetness hath another name, its extasyes & ravishments cannot be comprehended, but by the self same hart which feels them. For not to lie, it hath joys wholly of Heavene it tastes the delights most divine, and with a like grace, it carries its terrestrial Paradise with it. If its thoughts seem to touch upon earth, it is but only for its contempt, for anon they take their flight to heavenwards, as the only object, which they do aim at at all times. In fine, as they are immortal, they never regard but the Eternity. The pains it endures, have no bitterness with them, but only in name, the miseries do even change their quality in its presence, as if they awed its courage. If misfortune chance to light upon it, with some sad accident or other, it receives it as a present from Heaven, rather than as any disgrace of fortune. If death seem to snatch away from it, what most it jove's, it pays nature the tears it owes it, and at the same very time, satisfyes reason through generous actions with its constancy. If it lose all the goods which it had for portion on earth, it complains not awhit, but of itself, while its offences seem to deserve a great chastisement.  
On the other side, as it placeth not its affection on the riches of the world, fortune can take away nothing from it, but what it is willing to lose; because it hath nothing proper, but the hope of possessing one ●ay the richest treasures, in a Land which is wholly situated out of the Empie of Time, and inconstancy thereof. Let it thunder, let the sea mount up to the Heavens, upon the back of its waves; let the wars dispeople towns, and all the disasters of the world make all together an Army to set upon it, yet remains it firm, and stable as a rock in the midst of this Sea▪ & if it fear any thing, it is but the fear of offending God. O sweet fear! more noble than all the courages of the world! Thus lives it content amids the broils, whereof the world is so full. Thus lives it most happily amids the sad accidents which land every hour on the shore of the world. Thus enjoys it a sweet repose amids the troubles, and continual tribulations of Mortals. It loves not health, but to employ its life in the service of him, who hath bestowed it upon it. If it laugh, it is for the joy it hath, that it never had any such beneath, since the Redeemer had never been gathering but thorns: and if it weep, it is for the grief of its proper miseries, rather than for those of its body, being very solicitous to conserve entiere, and without blemish the image and semblance of its Creator, whose impression it had received on the first day of its being.  
In fine, it is capable, neither of pleasure nor yet of sadness, but for the only interests of its salvation, whose thoughts are ever present with it. And is not this a sweet life? So as if Time strike the hour of its retrayt from its first disposition to death, it deduceth a last, for to yield up itself into the hands of him that created it. In vain doth evil seek to afflict its senses, the light of its constancy would be always appearing through the shadows of its sad countenance. To what condition soever had it been raised unto▪ it takes no care to quit the greatnesses, because it had never tied its affections thereunto. The Sun may well arise, and set again; yet she beholds it always with the self same eye. It's East and West are equal to it, though they be different, attending without anxiety, the West of the torch of its life. The labour which it hath, to prepare itself for death, is not very great, since still it hath lived in this preparation. Notwithstanding as we cannot employ all our time in so important a business, it deliciously spends the remainder of its life therein: It smiles to behold all the world to weep about its bed, and being not able to speak any more to complain of their plaints, it sighs to hear them sigh. For it suffers, not but what it sees others to suffer. All the grief is in the body, and if it seem a little, to reflect upon it, it is but a grief of love, with sighing in expectation of its last sigh, for to behold the only object of its good.  
Let the wife cry, the children pull their hair, and the nearest of its kin be carrying on their visage the sadness, which they have in their hart; let the best friends be partners of this condolement, and every one in his fashion complain of the disaster so befallen him; yet she alone stands praising the heavens for it, and blesseth the day, and hour now ready to produce this last moment, where the eternity of its glory should begin Well may death seem to make its visage pale, but not the hart, for lo it appears in these last extremes more refulgent than ever, like a candle which is ready to go forth; it hath the voice of a dying Swan, which is able to charm all the dolours that environ it round. The Devils are astonished to behold it so devoid of astonishment; the force of its invincible courage▪ doth so weaken their power, as they are constrained to pretend nothing, to triumph at. In such sort, as with the arms of Virtue, it caries away the crown unto the end of the race, even dying with the desire it hath to dye, rather than of sorrow, for not living long enough. Thus through force of the sighs of love, it sends forth at last, through a last push of love, the last sigh from the bowels, and so flies away upon its wings, unto the fellowship of the Angels into Heaven, where its holy thoughts had now along time established their dwelling. O sweet dwelling! O happy death, which conducts us thither! O welcome dwelling, and most delicious, the moment which affords the Eternity thereof.   

The Picture of the Life and Death of a sinful Soul. CHAP. XX.  
OF all the miserable conditions, whereto a man may be reduced, that same of living in Mortal Sin, is the most unhappy and unfortunate. The Slaves in the Galleys are a great deal more happy, than such a one. For their bondage is limited to a term; and that of sin to a pain of an eternal servitude. It is impossible, a guilty man should live content, in the midst of all the pleasures of the world, for his crime is his hangman and torture. If he be present at banquets, the remembrance of his offences is mingling of some aloes in his delicious meats. If he quench his thirst with the sweetest nectar in the world, the same very thought willbe distilling a drop of gall into his Cup. If he walk into some goodly garden, the imagination of his faults being always present with him, makes him to feel the Thorns of the Roses he admires. If he go a hunting, the Torturer of his guilty conscience runs after him. Let him go where he will through the world, his crime is his shadow, which follows him throughout. Whatsoever he doth, he is ever ready to think of what shall become of him, & what fortune soever he possesseth, it is never great enough to put his spirit in repose.  
The least accident that happens to him brings him to Death's door, because that finding himself to be guilty, he lyues always on the point of paying for his crime. If it rain, he imagines strait the Heavens are prepared to pour a new deluge upon him, for to punish him with. If it thunder, he persuades himself presently, that the lightning hath no other aim, then to light on his guilty head. If the weather be fair, he sees a summer without, & a winter within; for his brutish passions produce a continual tempest in his soul. If fortune present him with Sceptres, he regards them, but as one apprehending them shortly to be taken away from him, since he deserves them not. In fine he wanders in vain, in the labyrinth of all vanities, and returns to himself again at all times, to confess of force, that he is the most wretched of the world, in the most of all his greatnesses.  
If he be taken with a sickness, behold him on the rack; there are not Priests enough to be found, nor Religions to confess him, & yet knows he not what to say. For the number of his offences, are without number, and his troubled memory, can but only represent to him, the least part of them. The disease seems to press him hard in the mean time & his pains do put him anew on the rack. Of all whatsoever is represented unto him, there is nothing likes him so much, as the Physician doth; but he is now in the point to try his last remedy, after he hath turned over all his old Books. The Doctors are assembled together about his bed, but it is only to bid him Adieu, in a language which he understands not. Behold all the comfort they give him; in so much as to see the Physicians so assembled about him, and set by his bed in chairs of Gravity, one would say, they were the Princes of the Senate, that come to pronounce the sentence of Death upon this guilty wretch. He hearkens attentively to them, without hearing them. For the fear he hath of understanding all which they say, makes him even deaf to the half. The Syncopes, are the Hangmen, which present themselves to him, for to execute this cruel sentence of Death. Then the hope of his curing, begins to leave him. Behold him yet once again in the strongest pangs of his agony. He would confess the evil he hath done, and that which he endures doth hinder him from it. He would recount the history of his life, but the dolours of his present Death, will not permit him to do it. His hart through its vehement sighs, his eyes through their forced tears, and his Soul by its necessary sighs, do pray his tongue, each one in its fashion, to disclose their crimes; but the same cannot speak, the rigour of a thousand punishments makes it to be dumb.  
On the other side, his spirit in the disorder wherein it finds itself, can have no other thoughts then those of sorrow, for eternally abandoning that, which it loves so dear. He knows not how to express a last farewell to his pleasures. Whatsoever represents itself to his eyes are so many objects, that renew his pain. If he take heed unto the beams of the Sun, with peer into his chamber window for to take their leave of his eyes; he remembers immediately all the pleasures he hath taken through help of their fair light, in a thousand and a thousand places, where it hath been a witness of those errors of his. If the weather be foul he thinks upon that time, which he hath ill spent, imagining withal, that the Heavens being touched with compassion of his disasters, do even weep before hand, and bewail the loss they endure of his Soul. It seems to him, that the sound of the bells doth call him to the tomb, and that of the Trumpets unto judgement. He sees nothing about him, that astonishes him not. He hears nothing that affrights him not. He feels nothing but his miseries: his tongue is all of gall, & wheresoever he lays his hand upon himself, he touches but the dunghill of his corruption.  
If his spirit seem to return to him again, by intermission of the trance wherein he is, he quite forgets the hope of good, through the ill he hath committed, not being able to dispose his soul to any repentance. The sight of his friends importunes him, that of his children afflicts him, and the presence of his wife serves him as a new addition to his sorrow. They behold him not but weeping, & he is never strooken with other noise, then with that of the cries and plaints of his domestickes. The Physician goes his ways out of the chamber, to give place to the Confessor. And the one knowing not how to cure the body, the other hath difficulty to heal the soul, by reason of the despair wherein he is entangled. judge now to what estate must he needs be brought. His speech; that fails him by little and little. His sight is dim, with his judgement, and all his other senses receive the first assaults of Death. They present him with the Cross, but in vain, for if his thoughts be free, he thinks but of that which he bears of force. They may cry long enough to him to recommend himself unto God, the deafness he hath had before to his holy inspirations doth astonish him now also at this hour.  
How many deaths endures he, before his death? How many dolorous sighs casts he forth into the air, before the breathing his last? All the punishments of the world, cannot equal that which he endures. For passing out of one little Hell of pains, he enters into a new, which shall not have end but with eternity? What good then would he not willingly have wrought? But his wishes are as so many new subjects of grief in this impotency, whence he is never to see himself delivered. Into what amazement is he brought? The Sun denies him its light, so as if he behold his misfortunes, it is but only by the light of the mortuary Torches, which give him light, but to conduct him to the tomb. O how the Hour of these last extremes, draws forth in length! Each moment of his life snatches out the hart from his bosom every moment, without putting him to death. On which side soever he turns himself, both horror and despair beset him round. He caries Death in his soul, for that which he is to incur; Death on his body, for that which he now endures; Death in his senses, since they die by little, and little: in so much as all his life is but a living Death, that consumes him slowly to reduce him into ashes.  
Being now brought to these straits, the wicked spirits employ the last endeavours of their power for to carry away the victory, after so many conflicts had. What means of resistance where there is no pulse, no motion no voice, no tongue? His spirit is now in extremes, as well as his life; and his hart being hardened, is now ready to send forth its last sigh in its insensibility, as if it died in dying. His eyes are now no more eyes, for they see no more. His ears may no more be called so for they hear not awhit; and all the other senses, as parts, precede the ruin of their whole. The Soul only resists the cruel assaults of Death, in beholding its enemies in continual expectation of their prey; but the hour presseth, it must surrender. O cruel necessity! In fine, for to finish this bloody Tragedy, the Devils carry it away to Hell, for recompense of the services, which it had yielded to them. And this is the lamentable end of sinful Soul.  
You Souls of the world, who live not but through the life of your pleasures, behold the fearful Death, where the life termines. And since the heavens, the earth, the elements & whatsoever else in nature moves & changes without cease, do you think to find any constancy, and stability in your delights? Know you not, that with the very same action wherewith you run along, withal your contentments, you run unto your Death? and that during the time itself, that Time affords them unto you, he takes even them away from you? We lose every hour what we possess, what care soever we take in conserving the same. My Ladies, Keep well your gallant beauties from the burning of the Sun. If that of the Sun, or of the fire, be not able to mar them, yet that of Age and Time doth ruin them; notwithstanding all the industry of Vanity, which you have to employ about them. Put your fair Bodies into the rack of another body of iron, to conserve the proportion thereof; yet time but derides your inventions. For it assails you within, and you defend yourselves but without only. You have dared the Heavens enough, with an arrogant eye; you must needs be stooping with the head now at last, for to look on the earth, whence you are form. You must needs bow the neck to the yoke of your miseries, and resume again the first form of your corruption. In going to dancing, to feasts, and to walk abroad, you go to Death. In vain do you command your Coachman then to carry you to such a place, since Time, as I have said, conducts him also that caries you thither. In so much, as on which side soever, you turn yourselves, you approach unto the tomb.  
After you have tasted all the pleasures of the world, what shallbe left you of all, but a grief of the offences in the soul, the sad remembrance of their privation in the memory, & this sadness in the hart, for having made it to sigh so after your ruin? I doubt very much, least death do astonish you; but if you never do think upon it, it will astonish you a great deal worse, when you shall see it indeed. If to live and die, be but one and the self same thing, make the Thought of death▪ while you live, so familiar to yourself, that you never think of any other thing, since you never do other thing but die. So as if to fear it, and never to think of it, do make its visage the less hideous, I would counsel you, to banish this Thought out of your spirit, but so, as you be in good estate. But on the contrary, the forgetfulness you have of it, makes it so dreadful unto you, at the least remembrance thereof that comes into your mind, as you seem almost to be in danger of dying, by the only fear of dying. I cannot abide the weakness of those spirits, who apprehend an evil so much, which they cannot avoid; whereas the evil of the fear which they have, is often times a great deal more bitter, then that which they fear. But the only mean to be cured of this fear, is to live always in that of God. For the strongest apprehension of Death proceeds from the great number of the Offences, which one hath committed in his life.  
A good man fears rather to live too long then to die too soon, because he hopes for the recompense of his travails, at the end of his course; whiles the wicked can attend but for the chastisement of his sins. So as for to banish this fear from our soul, we had need to have banished the offences thence. The innocent hath no fear, but for the judgement of God, & this fear is inseparable from his love; he fears him not but through love, so as this very fear produceth contentment, and banisheth sadness in the mean tyme. I leave you this truth to meditate upon, that a life of Roses brings forth a death of Thornes.  
Let us say now for Conclusion of this work, that if one will avoid this manner of Death, he must always be thinking of Death. There is nothing more sweet, than these thoughts, nothing more welcome than this remembrance. Without the thoughts of Death, there is no pleasure in life: without the thoughts of Death, there is no comfort in annoys: without the thoughts of Death, there is no remedy for our evils. In fine, to finish all, he who is always thinking of Death, doth think continually of the means of attaining eternal life. O sweet thoughts! I would not have my spirit, to be capable of a thought, but only to think every moment of death, since it is the only good, the only contentment, and the only Repose of life.   

A goodly Consideration, and very important both for life, and death. CHAP. XXI.  
I SHOULD think there were no greater pleasures in the world, then to contemn them all at once; since in effect, the best spirits do never find repose, but in the contempt thereof. I know well, there are certain chaste Pleasures, which we cannot miss; but as the soul hath its senses affected like unto the body, we are to hinder our spirit, from mixing its feelings, with those of Nature, ever feeble and frail, thereby not to taste its delights too deliciously. Our judgement hath been given us as a Torch, to guide our steps by our actions, and our thoughts, in this sea of the world, wherein we are as Slaves in the Galley of our bodies; and the pleasures we seek therein are the rocks, where we find our shipwreck. I know well also, that we are to be strongly armed for to defend ourselves, while our proper senses do so war upon us. But in this manner of combat, the excess of pain, produceth the excess of glory, let us break the crust to see this verity discovered.  
The greatest Saints, and the wisest men have been forced to confess, after a thousand proofs of experience, that we can not taste any manner of contentment, without the grace of God. Thou Covetous man, in vain thou rests thy unrests on the coffers of thy treasures. I deny thee to be held content, for if thou reasonest, even reason condemns thee. If thou servest thyself of thy judgement to be able to do it; what argument soever thou makest, it but fully concludes against thy opinions. So as thou canst never enter into the knowledge of thy vain pleasures, without departing from that of thyself. In a word, thou canst not be a man and be content together, in thy miserable condition; since reason, and thy contentment can never subsist in one subject. Thou Ambitious man, I would lend thee wings for to fly to the heavens of fortune; & it seems to me already, that I see thee seated in her throne; but look what greatness soever thou possessest, thou dar'st not say for all that, thou wert well content, for fear the truth should hap to belly thee. And knowest thou not, how Ambition, and Repose do always break fellowship, the one with the other? That Pleasure and Fear cannot couple together? and that desires as well as hopes do make the soul to be thirsty? Represent to thyself then, the disquietness which thou findest in thy greatnesses, since thy Ambition cannot limit its aim within their fruition. How the pleasures of thy possessions are mixed with the fear of their short durance; & that by vehemently wishing more & more, thou mak'st thyself unhappy. In such sort as thou mayest not dare, to call thyself happy, without flattering thyself, or rather without blushing for shame.  
You Courtiers, let me see the pictures of your felicities, & bring to light what seems most to afford it the lustre and splendour it hath. I grant that in the midst of the spring time of your life, love and fortune, with a prodigal hand, have bestowed upon you what they had most rare, & beautiful with them; yet would you dare to maintain with all this, that you are content during the reign of your Empire. Whereas if any one have the boldness to persuade weak spirits thereunto, let him truly recount us the history of his pleasures. I know that he will straight be showing us some Roses, but I know withal, that he willbe hiding the Thorns under their leaves, as frail as his contentments, though they were of the flowers of a restless remembrance, gathered in the sad memory of things past; since delights are of the same nature, always dying, and subject to receive their tomb, from the very same day they first sprung up. As for the presents of Fortune, if she give them with one hand, she takes them away again with the other. So as, her favourites are ordinarily the most unhappy of all, because that in snatching away the goods from them again which she hath once bestowed upon them, she drags them often along, for to bury them under their ruins. And will you call that a pleasure?  
My Dames, you have but one fair wedding day in all your life, whose feast you do secretly celebrate in your impatient desire and longing hope: but will you confess me the truth, that it is but a day of rain & tempest? For you cast forth a thousand sighs to the winds, and pour out as many tears, being so moved through the farewell you give to yourselves, whiles you give yourselves to another, without knowing, for the most part, your owner: which yet were nothing, if the clauses of your contract did not sign you out, the death both of the one and the other, & the incertainty also, who shallbe the first. For you must confess, that if you love yourselves perfectly indeed, you die every hour, of the apprehension you have of an evil, which neither the one nor the other can tell which way to avoid. I will not speak a whit of the accidents and miseries without number, which are inseparable to this condition; I leave the knowledge thereof to those, who have had the experience. But I pray you to confess freely, if you be content with the felicities that remain to you, or no?  
Thou Covetous man, return then to thyself, after thou hast pulled off the hood of thy blindness, for to publish, how the sole treasure of Grace can enrich the soul, with all sorts of contentments; and that with out this good, are all goods false. Thou Ambitious man, the divine justice now puts thee on the rack, to make thee confess this truth, that in the only possession of Grace, are comprehended all the desirable greatnesses that are, since he that possesseth it, is the greatnest of the world. You Courtiers, all the Favours which you seek for, are but wind and smoke. It is time now to acknowledge your vanity, and to bid a last adieu unto the world. The Kings & Princes, whom you court so, are even as miserable as yourselves, since they can afford you but transitory goods. Alas! for a handful of earth, will you relinquish the pretensions you have to heaven? If you will bestow your time well, then court you an omnipotent King, as our God is, whose Favours have no price, whose Graces are infinite, & whose Goods are eternal, as his Glory is, wherewith he crownes our labours.  
Know you not, that his Almighty hand stays, and moves again, when he pleaseth the wheel of fortune? How this blind Goddess receives from his providence, whatsoever she gives, and that she so serves, but as a channel to convey both disasters & prosperities into the Earth? So as if your hart do sometimes fetch sighs of love, after those objects of dust, do you then command your spirits not to stand so gazing on the beauty of a river, that glides away incessantly like its waves. For whatsoever may be seen fair in Nature, is but a feeble ray, and a first Idea of the purest of this sovereign and adorable Essence, wherein consists the accomplishment of all perfection, as the only inexstaustible spring, from whence they issue, without spring or beginning. Represent unto yourselves, that whatsoever seems so fair to day, shallbe changing the countenance to morrow. In so much as for to find a permament beauty, and of lovely qualities indeed that might always abide in its purity, we had need to acquit ourselves of the world's circuit or bounds, & to carry our thoughts into Eternity, as to an only mansion where all things are eternal.  
This is the lesson of that great Prophet, when he cried, Lord, when shall I be able to quench my thirst in the spring of thy eternal pleasures? In vain do you seek for a fountain of delights, to quench the thirst of your hart withal; for what greediness soever you have to drink, after you have drunk, you shall find yourselves more a thirst then ever; and the reason is good, which is, that the water of this fountain, retains the nature of the soil that produceth the same; whence it is, that all the goods of the world are not able to satiate the Ambition of one holy Soul, as being created to the possession of infinite goods. After one contentment had, they sigh anon after another, and so after another and another, without cease. Our spirit being quickened with a divine object, points always its looks, beyond what it possesseth, it permits itself sweetly to be drawn like the iron, by its divine Adamant, for to unite itself unto it, as to its end, whither it tends without cease or intermission. In effect what would become of us, if our desires & hopes were buried in the tomb? Such as know what it is to live, live not but of the hope of a sweeter life, & in this sweet hope do find nothing that is worthy of them, but the contempt they make of all things. O generous contempt of the world, wherein consists our whole glory!  
You Courtiers, I leave you to think upon it, until such time as you be disposed to put it in practice, for to exercise withal your more hidden and secret virtues. My Dames, you will permit me to tell you the truth. The fairest day of your life, is that of Death. This is that nuptial day of your Soul with its Creator, a day of pleasure, rather than of tears, since therein do you bid an eternal Adieu unto the world, and to all its miseries. A day of gladness, rather than of sighs, since you give yourselves through love to him, who of his goodness hath afforded you all things. In the expectation of this happy day it is, that the fairest days should be tedious to you. Never cast your eyes upon your glass, but to count the wrinkles, which age makes to grow by little and little on your brow, as so many presaging marks of Death approaching.  
Represent unto yourselves sometimes, how all the pleasures which you have had are passed, that those you now enjoy do pass, and that those which you are like to taste, shall also pass away; & then imagine with yourselves in what lamentable case shall you find yourselves, at the end of the course of your life, with all the Thorns of your withered Roses? with how many assaults of grief, shall you have your hart them battered? With how many alarms the soul affrighted? and with how many tortures shall the one, & the other be racked? Perform betimes what good soever you would willingly have had done at this last hour, and take you away their power, and liberty from upbrading you one day, for the evil, whose pains you shall carry in that last day. It seems, as you lived not, but to repent you at your death, for having lived so ill, not considering the while, that slow repentances are ordinarily changed into despair.  
I bewail you, my Dames, as often as I think of the infinite number of the vanities which do busy your spirit. How much time you bestow every day in trimming up that dunghill of your body, as if your guilty industry, were able to drive away the miseries from thence? You do all what you can to make yourself beloved: and know you not that nothing is more lovely than Virtue? Do you then purchase them altogether, so to make you beloved of all the world and not only for a day, but even for ever. The beauty whereof you make such account is a fading quality that subsists not, but in its continual change; it flies along with you into the Tomb, but it passeth more swiftly than you; for it even gets before you by the half way. When you are arrived but to the midday of your life, is it come to its full West. When you enter into your Autumn, it arrives to its Winter, where it finds its ruin. Alas! that for a small number of days, you will stand so much to please men, and be displeasing of God for a whole Eternity? O dreadful Eternity! how profound are thy Abysses!  
My Dames, as often as this guilty desire shall possess you to offend God, in your foolish vanities, think a little of the Eternity of the pain, which is to attend your crimes. For one moment of false, and imaginary pleasure, you put yourselves in danger of suffering eternally an infinite number of true evils indeed. What expect you of the world? It abounds but with miseries. What look you for of Fortune▪ She is prodigal, but only in misfortunes. All Riches are but of earth, all Greatnesses of smoke, and all Honours of wind, & as for the lovely qualities, which are affected to the body, they even die with it. In so much as Virtue only, I tell you again, is exempt from Death. You never think but of taking your pleasures, without considering the while, that in passing away the time so, you suffer to slide away in haste, the small remainder of life that is left you. In loving life as you do, you should be striving to prolong your days and on the contrary you seek digressions to pass them over, without taking any heed thereto, as if you went to slowly unto death, and that the way to the Tomb appeared too tardy and tedious to you: wherein truly you take pleasure to deceive yourselves.  
Do not so flatter yourselves, my Dames, you must needs die, there is nothing in you that dies not every hour. Your fair golden hair, which you daily so put unto the torture of the iron, doth even die by little & little with you. For in changing its appearance, it becomes of the colour of Death. The wrinkles of age do soil the polished glass of your brow, for to mar its beauty and grace. Your fair Eyes, which I will here term two Suns, for to please you, do run like to the Sun, without cease unto their last West, whither Death conducts them through the help of their proper light. The Lillies of your Cheeks, do wither every hour, and the Gillyflowers of your lips do fade every moment. The ivory of your teeth corrupts with the breath of time, and of age. The snow of your Neck melts, and all the lovely qualities of your spirit, wax old in their continual decay.  
I admit you to be more beautiful than Helena; Helena is no more, she is even passed away like a flower, and you are just in the same way of her ruin. Her charms did ravish the whole world, & your baits subdue the best part of mortals: but as all is dead with her, so all dies with you. The time of her Empire is expired, that of your Reign runs always away. She hath been, she hath lived, they have admired her with astonishment, they have honoured her with sacrifices, but all the Temples of her glory are demolished, all the Altars are ruined, all the Idolatours are reduced to ashes, & scarcely remains there any memory of these things, since even the very age, which hath seen them, is buried with them in the abysses of the passed.  
You must dye, my Dames, and all those graces, wherewith you captive Spirits, shall never obtain any favour of Death. You must dye, and all those enticements, wherewith you ravish spirits, have not allurements enough for to violate the laws of nature. You must dye, and all those charms, where with you captive souls, have not the power to charm death in its fury. You must dye and all those pretty graces that make you so admirable, cannot exempt you from the Tomb, nor corruption. You must dye, and all your perfections together cannot hinder the hour of your death for a moment only. You must dye, and to speak more plainly to you, your golden hair must needs perish; your eyes so clear & fair must needs make a part of the dunghill of your body. The delicate skin of your face, must needs discover it's putrified bones, and all your beauties together by changing the countenance, shallbe taking the form of dust, since you are nothing but dust: Nor do I fear yet to lie, since in effect you are nothing. You must dye, & all your rare Coulises serve but only to consume you; all your Physicians have no medicine for to cure the malady of your mortal condition. You must dye, and therefore are you careful of your health in vain, since age pardons not any; yea you die living, and do you what possibly you can do, the term of your life is always sliding. You must dye, nor do all the moments of the day tell you of any other thing. The hours continually strike this verity in your ears, & the Sun never sets, without telling you, in its fashion, how it only foreruns the time of the setting of your life.  
We must dye, I say, at last; for we dye with out cease; and after so many sighs of miseries, we must cast forth to the wind, the last of our mishaps. We must dye; the sentence is given, the execution is made, and the same continues every day, before our eyes, whence they are so accustomed to weep. We must dye, but since there is nothing more certain, we must always be in disposition to die at all hours, since we die every moment. We must dye, but we are to revive eternally in glory, since we are created, but for it only. We must dye, but we must be reborn again from our corruption, for not to dye for ever. Let us die boldly then, since needs we must, but let us dye in innocency, for to shun the death of death. We must dye, but we must rise again before that sovereign judge, who is to give us the recompense of our travails, or else to impose the pain of our crimes upon us. We must dye, but it is but for once, and of that only moment depends our whole unhappiness, or felicity. We must dye, but we must yield account of the life past, to receive the guerdon, or pain which is due thereto for ever. We must die, and to delyver us happily from the danger of this sweet necessity, must we live well. You must dye, you Souls of the world; each one seems to carry his tomb with him. Laugh you always, sing continually, be you every day at your banquets, and take your sports in a continual chase of diverse pleasures, after all which notwithstanding must you needs die, and in this cruel separation of you from yourselves, your laughings change to tears, your songs of gladness into lamentable cries of sorrows, and all your banquets, & pleasures into bitter plaints, which torment your hart, and put your soul upon the rack.  
There might be some manner of satisfaction perhaps, to hear the discourses which men of the world do hold, if their blindness the while do not afford matter of compassion. One takes pains to recount all the pleasures he hath taken, during his life; another keeps account of the good fortunes he hath had, a third assures us that he hath possessed heretofore a great number of treasures; & a fourth endeavours to persuade as many as will believe him, that he hath been on the top of the greatest dignities. What discourses of smoke are these? For he that hath tasted so many contentments, hath nothing left him, but the sad remembrance of the having once had the possession of them. Another, who yet now thinks on the good fortunes which once he hath had, makes himself a new unhappy, through the memory of his passed felicities. He that casts his eyes on the ashes of his riches, insensibly consumes himself, in the self same fire that consumed them. And another that rears up his head aloft, for to behold through his tears, the place from whence he fell, even looseth the force for ever to rise again, notwithstanding that it be good for him, to sleep often, so to be a framing of these dreams. For even as all those pleasures, and goods are slid, & vanished away, with the things that seemed the most durable; so all the contentment, & all the goods which may any ways appertain unto us, shall fly away; and the worst is, that we run after them, for to sign out our Tomb in their Sepulchre.  
Solomon hath had so many pleasures; Croesus passessed so much riches; Alexander received so great honours, & Helena so many praises for her incomparable beauty. But Solomon is no more but dust, with all his riches; Alexander, but earth with all his honours; nor Helena any more than corruption, with all her graces.  
Trust you not then to your pleasures, you great Kings, for their Roses shall wither, and their Thorns endure for ever. Put not your hopes in Riches, since they are of earth as well as you. Despise you Honours since all glory is due to Virtue only. And you, my Dames, employ from henceforth all your cares and labours, to deck your Souls, rather than your bodies, if you will have Angels enamoured, and men to be emulous, of you. For so every one shall strive for glory, to imitate you in this glorious enterprise. This is the counsel I give you; and with it, will I finish my Book.   
The end of the sweet Thoughts of Death.   

THOUGHTS OF ETERNITY. Distributed into four Parts.  

To wit The Triumph of Death.  
To wit The joys of Paradise.  
To wit The Infernal Pains.  
To wit The Hour of Death.   
Written in French, by Sieur de la Serre: & translated into English.  
Permissu Superiorun, M. DC. XXXII.   

THOUGHTS OF Eternity.  

The Triumph of Death.  
O HOW sweet is it, to think continually on eternal things! All flies away before our eyes, & in the course of their fight by little and little, life escapes away from us. The Sun doth well to rise every day anew; the moments of its Reign are measured within the order of Nature; It must of necessity follow the decay of time, whereof it is the dial; and after it hath presided to all the unhappy accidents here beneath, it lends the light of its torch at last to its proper ruin. Though the stars of the night appear thick in the Heavens, with the same aspect, always glittering in wonders, yet can they not choose but wax old; every instant robs them of somewhat of their durance, since they shine within Time, for not to shine within Eternity. Though the heavens, being quickened by the sovereign Intelligence of the Primum mobile, renew their paces every year within the round spaces of their Circles, their turnings yet are counted; and though they return again by the same way, they incessantly approach to the point that is to termine their Course.  
The Fire which entertains itself in its Globe, insensibly devours itself; for that Region of its dwelling is a part of the body which consumes itself. The Air, that takes up all, yet can not fill up the voidness of the Tomb which the last instant of time prepareth for it. Though the Phoenix-King of its subjects find a second Cradle within its first Sepulchre, yet at last another self, shall arise again from its Ashes, though yet unlike, since it shall not have the same power to communicate the same virtue to the Species of its of spring. So as it shall dye at last through sorrow of its sterility. Though the Serpent shift the skin never so much, yet doth its Prudence extend no further, whiles Age falls a laughing at its cunning, in devouring up its being.  
The Trees that do every year wax young again, continually grow old. The Spring, the Summer, and the Autumn, are of force indeed to make them change the countenance, but not their Nature: and the Brooks affrighted with this continual vicissitude, go flying into the bosom of their Mother, believing they are shrouded but in vain: for the Ocean carries their Wrack within the valley of its waves. The Seasons growing from the end of one another, as the day from the end of night, shallbe disjoined, and severed by a new Season, which with it shall bury all the others. The fairest mayster-peeces of Art, forasmuch as they are laid upon the ground, pay cotinuall homage to the ruin of Time, as he that presides within his Empire: witness those wonders of the world, which subsist no more than in the memory of men, for a sign only of what the famous Athens, the triumphant Carthage, the proud Troy have been heretofore, they are now buried so deep in their ruin, as one can hardly believe they have ever been. They go seeking them in histories, but the memory of their reign is so old, as they are no otherwise found, then in Fables only.  
Let us speak of diverse People rather than of Towns. That great world of men which the Earth hath borne a thousand times on its bosom, and the Sea upon its waves, was drowned at last in the river of Xerxes' tears, for which he prepared a tomb an hundred years before. The Kings have followed their subjects in this common shipwreck, & all the Pourtraits of Apelles, and the Statues of Lysippus, & of Phidias have run like hazard with them by this inviolable necessity, that the shadow ever follows the body. Well might Alexander cause himself to be surnamed Immortal, but yet purchased not Immortality. He took the pains to seek out another world, and in the midst of his Triumphs had need of no more, than seven foot of earth to be buried in.  
Cyrus would fain have it believed, that he was Invincible, yet could Death know well how to find the defect of his Arms, like as that of Achilles. Nero would needs be adored; but he was sacrificed in punishment of his crime. Croesus' the richest of all men carried nothing into his Tomb, but this only grief of having had so much Treasure, & so little Virtue; his riches exempted him not ● whit from the evils whereof our life is full, and at the end of his term he died as others, with the Poverty incident thereunto. Cesar, Pyrrhus and Pompey, who had so many marks of Immortality, had the worse sort of Death, since they all three were unhappily constrained to render their lyves to the assaults of a most precipitous Death. The which doth let us see very sensibly, how things that seem to us most durable▪ do vanish as lightning, after they have given us some admiration of their being.  
The wise men, as well as the valiant (all slaves of one and the self same fortune) have paid the same Tribute to nature. Plato, Socrates & Aristotle may well cause a talk of them, but that is all; for with their learning they have yet been ignorant of the Truth. They have loved their memory a great deal more than themselves, following a false opinion for to please that of others, wherewith they were puffed up in all their Actions. They are passed away notwithstanding, and their divine Spirits have never been able to obtain this dispensation of the Destinies to communicate their divinity to bodies which they have vivified: so as there is nothing left of them, but a little dust▪ which the air and wind have shared between them.  
The seven Sages of Greece are dead with the reputation of their worldly wisdom, which is a Folly before God. They were mere Idolatours of their worldly Prudence, which is a Virtue of the fantasy, more worthy of blame, than praise, when it hath but Vanity for the object. As many Philosophers as have studied to seek the knowledge of natural things, without lifting the eye a little higher, have let their life run into a blindness of malice, and have left nothing behind them but a sad remembrance of their pernicious errors.  
Let us speak of those marvellous works wherein Nature takes pleasure to give forth the more excellent essays of her power; I would say, of those beauties of the world, which ravish hearts before they have means to present them to them: As of a Helena, of a Cleopatra, of a Lucretia, of a Penelope, and of a Portia. All these beauties truly were adorable in the East, even as the Persians Sun; but in the South the fervour of their Sacrificers began to extinguish; and in the West they destroyed the very Altars that were erected to their glory. Their Baits, their Charms, & their Attractions following in their Nature the course of Roses, have lasted but a day of the Spring, they have vanished with the Subject whereunto they were tied, nor doth there remain any more of them, than a mere astonishment of their short durance. Thus it is, that the best things run readily to their end: Time devours all, and his greediness is so great, as it cannot be satisfied but with devouring itself.  
Who were able to number the men to whom the Sun hath lent its light since the birth of the world, and by that means keep account of the proud Cities, of the magnificent Palaces, whereof Art hath given the Invention to men, to the shame of Nature: the imagination is too silly to reach unto this But. And yet how great soever the Name thereof be, the shadows of their bodies appear no more to the light of our days; the steps of their foundations, and the memory of their being are buried within the Abysses of Time, and nothing but Virtue can be said to be exempt from Death. All things of the world having learned of Nature the language of change, never speak in their fashion, but of their continual vicissitude. The Sun running from his South to its West, seems to preach in its language nothing else unto us, but this cruel necessity. which constrains it to fly repose, and to commence without cease, to warp the lightsome web of days, and length of Ages. I admire the Ideas of that Philosopher, whiles he would maintain that all created things do find their beginning within the concavity of the Moon, without doubt the inconstancy of this Star afforded him those thoughts, since every thing subsisting here beneath, is subject to a continual flow and ebb.  
The Heavens tell us, in running round their circles, how they pull all with them. The Stars illumine not the night, but to the coming of the last, which is to extinguish their light. The Elements, as opposites, reign not but within the time of the truce which nature afforded them, since the ruin of the Chaos; and their enmity therefore is yet so great, as they are not pleased but with destruction of all the works they do. If they demand the Rocks & Forests what they are doing, they will answer, they are a counting their years, since they can do nothing but grow old. The fairest Springs, and the youngest Brooks publish aloud with the language of their warbles, and of their sweet murmur, that every thing in the world inseparably pursues the paces of its Course; yea the Earth itself which is immoveable, as the Centre where all concludes, being not able to stir, to fly far from itself, lets itself to be devoured by the Ocean, the Ocean by Time, and Time by the sovereign decrees which from all Eternity have limited its durance.  
S. Augustine endeavouring to seek out the sovereign God within Nature, demanded of the Sun, if it were God; and this Star let him see, that it borrowed its light from another Sun without Eclipse, which shined within the Bower of Eternity. He made the like demand of the Moon, whose visage, always inconstant, made answer for it, and assured this holy Personage, that it had nothing divine, but light, within it, which yet it held in homage of the Torch of day. He enquired of the Heavens the self same thing, but their motion incompatible with an essence purely divine, put him out of doubt.  
How many are there seen of these feeble spirits who seek the sovereign God within Greatnesses? but what likelihood is there to find it there? Thrones and Empires subsist not, but in the spaces which Fortune affords them; her bowl serves them as a foundation. Alas! what stability can we establish in their being? Crowns have nothing goodly in them but the name only; nor rich but appearance: for if they knew how much they weighed▪ and if the number of cares & thorns which are mingled with the Rubies & Pearls wherewith they are enriched could be seen, the most unhappy would be trampling them underfoot to avoid the encounter of new misfortunes. Kings and Princes are well the greatest of the Earth, but yet not the happiest; for that their Greatness marks their ruin in their Eminency, and the Laws of the world persuade us to believe, that great Misfortunes are tied to great Powers.  
Whence it is that great monarchs do never seem to resent little dolours, nor suffer any thing with feeble displeasures. The least storm with comes upon them, is a kind of ship wrack to their resentments; all their wounds all mortal, they cannot fall but into precipices; and the crosses of their Fortune make them to keep company with job on the dungill. Let them tread Cloth of Gould under their feet, as Tiberius did; let them satiate their hunger with pearls as did Marke-Antony; let them metamorphize the feelings of their Palaces like to a starry Heaven, as Belus King of Cyprus; and with the help of Art let them hold the seasons at their beck for their contentments, as Sardanapalus: notwithstanding needs must these Magnificences, and these Pleasures vanish before them in an instant, to let them see the weakness of their Nature, since the inconstancy of Time is annexed to all that which subsists here beneath. In such sort, as their Greatnesses, and delights do insensibly glide away with life; & though their reign hath been full of flowers, the remembrance thereof brings forth but thorns.  
If Kings establish the foundation of their greatnesses upon their Crowns, let them cast their eyes upon their figures, round & ever moving, and thereby shall they know the instability thereof. And then besides, it is no great matter to be able to command a world of people, if they make their laws absolute, through force of Reason, rather than that of Tyranny. There is a great deal more honour to merit a Crown then to possess it, which made Thales Melesinus say that a virtuous man enuoyed all the riches of the world, if virtue be the greatest treasure of it. So that if they trust in their Sceptres to defend themselves from the strokes of Fortune, they consider not the while she is able enough to snatch them out of their hands, and cruel enough to metamorphize them into a sheephook, and to reduce them to such a state, as shall move Pity rather then Enuy.  
What vanity were it for one to have a Sceptre in the hand, and a Crown upon the head, if with all these marks of Greatnesses he approaches to the Tomb, to bury up the Glory of it? What pleasure to see the greatest part of the world to be under him, if they have altogether the self same way of Death? The great ones run as swift as the little, in this career, where Miseries & Misfortunes accompany our steps. How is it possible, that man which is but dust & ashes, can find assurance in Greatnesses? Ah! What say you then, is it not well known that dust and ashes are so much the more subject to be carried away with the wind, as they are set in a higher place? The Mountains are always environed with precipices, and thunders never turn their faces, but to the highest tops. So as, they who apprehend a Fall, should clip the wings of their Ambition, for not to fly too high. But if one would seek for Greatnesses, it were necessary to be in virtue. The Magnificences of Darius his Army served but as a funeral pomp to his Death. The Preparations to his Triumph were the instruments of his Overthrow. In so much as the Laurels of his Hopes crowned him not, but in the Tomb, in sign that in dying he had vanquished all the mishaps of his life. So do we see the Glory of the world to fly before our eyes with such swiftness, as we can hardly follow it, through the amazement wherein she hath left us.  
I admire the last thoughts of Celadine▪ when as he ordained, that after his Death they should cause his shirt to be showed to the whole Army, and that he who carried it should cry aloud, Behold here that which the greatest of the world seems to carry from the world. This valiant Captain knew the verity of his miseries by the vigil of his Shipwreck, seeing that of all his Treasures he could carry away with him but the value of a Shirt. This is the share of the greatest Kings. Nature thinks good to afford them Sceptres in the cradle, & she must rob them in the Sepulchre. And howbeit they are borne as little Gods on Earth, yet stick they not to dye like other men; so as if they differ in the manner of living, they are all equal in the necessity of dying.  
S. Lewis would rest upon a bed of Ashes before his Death, to let us see, that he was but Ashes; yet is it to be considered that the belief which he had, proceeded from the divine Fire wherewith he was inflamed; and resenting in that manner the divine flames, by little and little he went consuming of his life; he would become ashes upon ashes, both through love and humility. David did charge himself with a sack of Ashes, to diminish the flash of his Greatnesses, and the trouble that possessed him. The knowledge of himself persuaded him, to serve himself with this cunning, showing forth without, what was within. His Flesh covered his ashes for to cover his defects, and he would have his Ashes to cover his flesh, for to discover the miseries of his Nature.  
When I consider how the greatest of the Earth, are of Earth, and that all their Riches, and all their Greatnesses may not be had but in flying towards the Centre of their ruin, where they finish with them; I cry out, as that Philosopher did, how the world is a Body of smoke, which the Air of Time disperseth by little and little: for the eyes behold, quite through their tears, the continual decay of the best objects, and they can hardly be known within their inconstancy, so different are they from themselves. It is a pleasure to read the Histories of Ages past, because all the wonders which appear upon the Theather of their Reign, are but dreams, and vain Ideas that subsist not but by the opinion of those that will lend credit unto them. It were in vain to seek Rome at this day within Rome, when scarce can be found within the Temple of memory, that of the ruin of its Altars. Tiber only which is always a flying, hath remained stable, and permanent. The golden Palace of Nero, the Stoves of Diocletiant, he Baths of Antoninus, the Sephizone of Severus, the Colossus of julius, and the Amphitheatre of Pompey; all these proud wonders have not been able to resist the encounters of a first Age; and the second hath caused the day of their ruin to spring with it. So as the Labourers, the works, & their proprietaries have followed the lot of the decay, which was natural to them. If they inquire what are become of those magnificences of Cyrus, those pomps of Mark-Antony, those prosperities of Alexander, & those greatnesses of Darius; I shall answer with that Philosopher, that they have passed away like a wave without leaving any sign of their being behind them.  
Philip, that great King of Macedon, gave in charge to one of his Pages to awake him every morning, with the sweet harmony of this discourse, forsooth, To remember that he was man, & by consequence subject to death. This Generous Prince was afraid to be dazzled by the flash of Fortune, and to forget himself in the presence of his Greatnesses, which therefore made him to impose this law upon himself, of musing every day on the Miseries of his condition, for fear least forgetfulness should convince him of this vanity, which ordinarily is annexed unto great prosperities. He set open his ears to the sound of this verity, that he, and all his Greatnesses were nothing else but dust, and that the cruel necessity of dying was continually occupied in building him his Tomb, to bury there with him both his Glory, & his Fortune. Remember, that you are Man, said the Page to him, or to say better (lest yet the name of Man may seem to flatter you) that you are a little Corruption shut up within a skin of flesh, quickened with a little breath of life, whose light may be extinguished with the least wind; you are, notwithstanding all that, the greatest of Men, but yet are not your Greatnesses exempt from Death, nor the Miseries that forerun its arrival.  
Remember that you are man, and that your Sceptre and your Crown shall not ransom you from the Tomb. Remember that you are man, subject to a great deal more disasters, than the Heaven hath Stars, and the sea Rocks. Remember that you are man, that is to say, the shutle-cocke of Fortune, & brought into so deplorable an estate, as you can afford but matter of Pity in consideration of your Miseries. Remember that you are man, to serve as pasture one day to the worms, and as matter to the air and wind for to play with your dust, as with a subject proper to their sports. Remember that you are man, yet a slave of this sovereign, and absolute power, whose Sceptre and Crown you hold in homage, not knowing the limits of the time of your Reign. Remember that you are man; it may be for an instant, or else for an hour, or yet for a day; the which should make this remembrance always present to you, how your condition is mortal & transitory. You are man, dying without cease, and running without intermission towards the Tomb, withal things of the world.  
This great King was afraid to wander within the Labyrinth of his Greatnesses, & this fear of his was founded upon the reason of humane weakness, wherewith we are all borne. He saw himself raised upon the highest Throne of Fortune, with the power to command a world of people as tributaries all of his Authority? His Arms always victorious found no resistance but in sight of Humility. His enemies envious of his good hap would change both their hatred and their envy into admiration. So as being accomplished with the sweetest prosperities which are found in life, he feared with reason the shifting of the wheel, and justly apprehended the turning of the Medal; as he was most cunning in the knowledge of the maxims of the world, which had taught him by experience, how Tempests attend a calm upon the waters, & on the land griefs do succeed contentments. Hence it was, that he took such pleasure in the acmonishment of the Page, when as every morning he so made him, to remember that he was Man, & that it was time to rise, to look into the accidents wherewith our life is full. This great Prince is dead in musing upon Death, and he that advertised him so, pursued full near the paces of his course. The King, the Sceptre, the Crown, the Riches, the Greatnesses, the kingdom and all his subjects together are vanished from our eyes, and are slid into the Abysses of Time, where things that seemed most durable to us, are quite buried.  
Nabuchodonozor led the Princes of jerusalem as prisoners into Babylon, but the jailor, the Prisoners, and the Prison itself are ingulfed within the nothing. The Emperor Maximilian caused his Coffin to be carried before him, taking much pleasure to behold the house, where he was to make so long sojourning. Away then with all these vain Greatnesses of the world, since they so post away like a Torrent, since they melt like snow, and since they pass like a lightning. All those, who now are their Idolatours, shall one day sacrifice themselves with grief, for having run so long time after those vain shadows: for as many as love them, love not themselves; all those who gape after them are enemies of their proper senses, forcing by an extreme Tyranny their will to run the way of precipices. The stairs that serve to mount up by, have the same use in descending; so as from the highest top of Thrones & Empires, there is seen no other way than that of the fall. By those ways of Greatness they mount not up to heaven: the glory of the Earth shuts up its course within the earth; whence it comes that the Palms & Laurels, which Honour doth prodigally share to men, do fade & wither, how green soever, in the same soil where they began to spring.  
Well may they reckon up the Crowns which Alexander. purchased with his combats, but not let us see their matter, since all is dead with him. They speak much of Scipio's triumphs, but that is all▪ for time hath imposed silence to the Oracles of all the Muses that published his renown. Let them bring forth hardly if they can, upon the Theatre of the world the happiest Monarch of the Ages past If Hannibal appear the first, they shall seem to represent him, but as after having been Conqueror of a world of men, he was vanquished by his own vices, and consequently reduced to such a point of infamy & misfortune at once, as they talk rather of his defeats then of his triumphs. If Pompey appear after him, they shall consider how his disasters defaced the lustre of his first prosperities. If Cesar come in his rank, they shall mark how the Thorns of his death did wither the Roses of his life. The great Pyrrhus cannot appear but overwhelmed with the burden of his misfortunes, through the blow of a stone, or rather by a heap of earth in sign that his greatnesses; and his Trophies were to be buried in the earth by a relation of the nature of this Element, with that of his Glory. Nero may here appear with splendour during those five years of his reign, but so remembered, as that having caused his Statues to be adored, he was trampled under foot in punishment of this vanity. Parmenides enjoyed a calm of life, but he found rocks and tempests in his Death by the poison that was given him. Pelosidas was happy in his Spring, in his Summer, & in his Autumn, but the Winter of his old age made him resent a great deal of more miseries, than he had tasted pleasures in his younger years. Marke-Antony was raised to so high a degree of Honour, as he stood in competency with his brother-in-Law about the Crown of the whole world at once; & yet notwithstanding his miseries made him an homicide of himself, through a stroke of despair. Maximus came to the Empire from the lowest degree of a servile condition, but from the time that he was on the ridge of Greatness, did Fortune make him to descend so low, by the same degrees he mounted up with, as his Misfortunes had no relation with his Prosperities. Thus passeth the glory of the world, leaving a great deal more astonishment behind, then ever it afforded admiration.  
If a great Architect should seem to persuade us to believe, that our dwelling house were on the point of falling, and that we were in danger to be buried in its ruins; I would imagine with myself, we should live always in pain, to avoid the effects of his presages, seeking with all solicitude the means to eschew those perils. So as if I turn the Meddall, it will appear, this tottering, and ruinous house to be nothing else, then that of the world, & whereof that great Architect, who hath laid the first foundations, hath afforded us the truth of this assurance, that it shall fall to ruin very soon. The Heaven, and the Earth shall pass away. What solidity then can we establish here beneath in this soil, as well of Poverty as of Infamy, since it shakes under our feet through its continual vitissitude? The ruins thereof appear without cease before our eyes, & in the course of its deficiency, our life pursues the same way. And nevertheless with what blindness do we fall a sleep, in the ship of our deliciousness, not considering how it floats upon the stormy sea of the world, as abundant in shipwracks as the land of Mishaps. We must never turn away our eyes from the object of Inconstancy, since it is natural to all that which hath subsistence here beneath. The Monarchy began with the Assyrians; It passed to the Persians; from the Persians to the Macedonians; from the Macedonians to the Romans, and at this day the Empire is in Germany. In so much, as after that this so famous, and illustrious a Crown, shall have run through the four corners of the earth, it shall resolve into earth, following the course of those that shall have possessed the title, either by right of hazard, or by the right of Birth. So as, if Heaven & Earth do pass, whatsoever shall bear the image of the creation, is comprised within this revolution of Ages, where all concludes in a last end. There is nothing so great in the world, as the Hart which contemns all Greatnesses. Time, as Master of all which is in Nature, le's forth Crowns and Sceptres to Kings; to some for a day, to others for a month, to some others for a year, and to others for more; but after the term is expired, it gives no more days; one succeeds in the place of another▪ under one and the self same Law of condition. Let the infinite number of Kings here present themselves that have reigned upon Earth; and if every one hath had his Crown, it may likewise be said, that each hath had his Tomb.  
Then seek not Greatnesses, my Soul, but in virtue, and in the glorious contempt of things of the Earth. Thou seest how Magnificences have not charms but for a day, their glittering fadeth with their light, and what foundation soever they have, they carry in their being the Necessity of their ruin. To what end shouldst thou raise thy Ambition upon Thrones, if they be States of unhappiness, and inconstancy? Envy not Kings, their Crowns, nor Sceptres, since it is the title of a transitory glory. Felicity consists not, for to rule with Empire, but rather to find repose of life in the condition wherein he is borne. And what more sweet repose can one look for, then that of desiring nothing in the world? This is a pleasing pain to be always in unrest, to find that sovereign good which we seek for; I would say that Eternity, where delights are durable in their excess. When thou shouldst be exalted above all the Greatness of the Earth; what happiness, and what contentment would be left thee, since the Time of their possession glides without respite, with the pleasures where with they are quickened: In such sort as if at the rising of the sun thou receyvest Sacrifices in homage, at the setting thou shalt find thyself stripped by Fortune, or by Death. Fix not thy thoughts then, but on the objects which hold touch with Time; nor seek thou ever to run after things that fly away. Thy immortal nature cannot eye but Eternity; sigh then incessantly after its Glory, if thou wilt one day have it in possession.  
There be some who seek their repose, & all their pleasure in Riches, as if Gould had this Virtue to eternize their contentments. Set not thy hart upon things of the world, saith the Apostle. When the Poets would speak of Riches, they put before us the Gold of the rivers of Hebrus, and Paectolus, to let us see how they fly away from our eyes, as the waters. Put case a man should possess all the treasures of the earth, yet should he not seem to be richer awhit for all that, since he were but the guardian, and not the owner of those treasures. Riches consist not in possessing much, but rather in contenting one's self with a little. Croesus could never satisfy his covetous desire during his life, which induced his enemies to fill his Body with the gold wherewith he could not fill his Soul. What Folly to seek Eternity in Riches, where is ordinarily found but Death. This very man here made account to stuff his Coffers with Gould & Silver, & knew at last, that his Treasures were so many fatal Instruments that served for nothing but to take away his life; so as being deceived in his hopes, he became solicitous to conserve very charily the means of his loss, & of his ruin. He therefore that goes to seek for the Riches of the East, puts himself to the mercy of the waves; and in seeking the repose of his life approaches so near to Death, as he is distant from it no more than the thickness of the shipboard. What feebleness of humane Spirit, to put in hazard whatsoever one holds most dear on Earth, for the purchase of a little Earth! I had rather a great deal be job on the dunghill, than Croesus on the woodpile; for the one flouted at Fortune in his miseries, and the other had recourse to Solon, to repent himself for not having followed the way of Poverty, rather than that of Riches, since the latter led him to Death.  
Crates the Theban considering that he floated without cease within this vast sea of the world, despised Riches, for fear to suffer Shipwreck with so heavy a freight. The Wheel may well run about, but can never get forth of the limits of its Circle: so likewise man may well travail, & run over the world to heap up treasures, but he fetches the turn only of the Circle of his life the while; of necessity most the Ship be landing at this last port of the Sepulchre, where he finds himself as poor, as when he entered into the cradle. I know not for whom the Richman travails, for before the journey of his travail be finished, his days are run out, and being on the point to reap the fruit of his passed pains, death gathers those of the repose of his life. The Mercenary souls who lend forth their conscience to Interest, instead of their Money▪ sell, as in told Coin, the portion they pretend in Heaven, for a little Earth. Blind as they be, they spin the web of their captivity, & forge the Arms which are one day to revenge the enormity of their crimes. Abused souls! they consider not how all the Gold of the world is yet now in the world howbeit the greatest part thereof hath been possessed by an infinite number of Mortals, and so shall leave them behind them as others, how rich soever they be now, without carrying aught else into the Tomb, but grief for not having made so good use of them, as they should.  
To what point of misery, was reduced the impious Richman of the Gospel in a moment, after he had possessed an infinite number of Treasures? He behoulds himself in estate of begging a drop of water for to quench his thirst. To what end served all his pleasures past, but to augment his present pains? He employed his Riches to purchase Hell, and all his goods to gain the evil he endures. O humane Folly! To put one's self in hazard to loose Eternity for enjoying of a fading Treasure! Good is not good, but as permanent; and yet look they after transitory delights, that subsist not but in flying. Demand they of Cyrus, what hath he done with all his Riches, & he will answer, he hath left them in the soil that brought them forth. Xerxes hath enjoyed them as well as he, and as he, so hath he borne no part thereof into his Sepulchre. They may cause monuments to be built to their Memory, but Time that devours all, hath wrought new Tombs, for their Tombs; in such fort, as if yet there be memory of their death, it is but only by reason of their life. They make a question, which of the two was more rich, either Alexander or Diogenes, the one whose Ambition could not be bounded with the whole extent of the Earth; and the other whose desire & hopes were shut up in the space of his Tub. For me, I do hold with Diogenes, since he is the richest who is best content.  
I could never yet imagine the pleasure which Caligula took to wallow upon Gold; for if the lustre of that mettle, contented his eyes, he might have beheld himself a far of, since the eye requires a distance proportioned to the force, or feebleness of its looks; but deceived as he was, he considered not the while how this Gold, & He, differed not awhit, but only in colour, since they were both of Earth: And in effect they can not authorise its pleasure, but through the relation which was there of the nature of the one, with that of the other. The Poets represent to us how the Golden fleece was guarded by a Dragon, like as the Golden Apples of Hesperides; and the Moral which may be gathered from these Fables, is nothing else but the danger, and pain which is inseparable from the conquest of Treasures.  
The Historians observe, that in all the Countries where this mettle abounds, the inhabitants are so poor, as they have scarce a rag of linen to cover their nakedness withal. What may we imagine in contemplation of this Verity, but that all the Gold of the Earth cannot tell how to enrich a man while the riches of the world are borne and dye in a poverty worthy of compassion? Then seek not, my Soul, other Riches, than those of Eternity. Thou canst not tell how to buy heaven withal the gold of the earth; and without the enjoying of its felicities, all goods are counterfeit, & all Sweetnesses but full of Bitterness. Imagine thee now to live under the Reign of a golden Age, and that through an excess of Fortune thou treadest under foot all the Pearls of the Ocean, and all the golden harvest of the Indies. And not to lose thyself in this imagination, consider the estate of this felicity, & taste in conceit, a part of the pleasures which thou wert to possess, if effects should answer to thy thoughts, and then boldly confess with the Wiseman, how all these transitory goods are treasures of Vanity, & that in the just pretensions thou hast to an Eternal glory, all these atoms of Greatness can serve thee no more, but for object of thy contempt.  
Suppose thou wert the absolute Mistress of the world, what good couldst thou hope for in the fruition thereof, if all be replete with evils? Crimes have Temples there, & Vices have Altars. All the Idols are of golden Calves, and such as make profession to follow Virtue, are within the order of a malady of a contagious Spirit, according to the common opinion. So as, through a Law of Time, the most laudable Actions are subject to reproaches. Leave then all the goods of the Earth to the Earth, since thou art not borne for them, & seek as a pledge in the sweet thoughts of Eternity, for the accomplishment of thy delights. The world is not able to satiate thy desires, since it hath nothing in it, that is not transitory. And howbeit, it be sustained in its inconstancy, it leaves not to wax old in changing, & to ruin itself by little and little, in ruyning all things. Think never then but of Eternity. Speak not but of Eternity. Let thy desires, and thy Hope's regard but Eternity. Let always Eternity be in thy memory, & the contempt of the world within thy hart. If thou be'st capabel of Hatred, be it but for the Earth; and if thou be'st capable of Love, be it but for Heaven, since it is the mansion of Eternity.  
There are others who seek their contentment in magnificent Palaces as if they were shelters of proof, against disasters and misfortunes. Charles the VIII. took pleasure to build very proud Fabrikes, as believing it may be, to close his eyes in dying, through the Splendour of their wonders; but his lot, an Enemy of his hopes, snatched away his last breath, being sound of health, upon a straw bed, and in place encompassed round with Misery. Heliogabalus likewise was deceived of his purpose, for being on the point when the ●enormity of his Crymes had passed sentence of his Death on behalf of the Gods, he shuts himself in the fairest hall of his Palace, and prepares for his Enemies all the Richest instruments of Death he could recover, as thinking to sweeten the bitterness thereof with so goodly arms: but his foresight was unprofitable, for the Gods permitted, that as he had tasted the sweetest pleasures of life, he should feel in Death the cruelest dolours. Hermenides had, to much purpose surely, caused very stately Palaces to be erected in the dominion of his Empire, since he was to die in his Chariot, as in a rolling House that should conduct him to his Tomb. That famous Temple of Solomon was twice ruined by the Assyrians, then re-edified by the jews, and again was ruined by the Romans. And after that Traian had caused that Magnificient Bridge to be built upon Danubius, the waves never left roaring until such time as they had buried in their bosom the last mark of its being. These Pyramids of Egypt which with their sharp points seemed to outface the Heavens have been quite overthrown by time, within such an Abyss of ruin, as they put them now in the rank of dreams, and fables.  
Besides, it seems in all these magnificent Fabrikes how Art & Nature contribute but a backewardnes. The Stones and Timber are made to be dragged by force, and if they lend but ears to the bushes of this constraint, they shall mark how the wagons that bear them, and the Engines which sustain them, seem to groan under the burden, as if they complained of their Folly. I esteem a far greater pleasure to die under the roof of a Cottage, then under the fret-worke ceiling of a Palace, because in that they cannot be touched with grief to abandon the dwelling, and in this place, the Riches they admire therein, seem to make us very sensible of the privation. To what end served the great Buildings which the Queen Semiramis caused to be erected on the face of the Earth, but for matter of shame and confusion in their Ruin? The Queen of Saba had a whole town for her House, and after her Death, both she, and all her Greatnesses were enclosed within a little space of a Cubits breadth. What folly to go about to build upon a Territory, where one lodges not but in passing as a Pilgrim? From the time we are borne, if we were but capable of Action we should be occupied in making our Sepulchre, since Time seems to lead us thereunto unto with an incredible swiftness. So as if the infirmity of building do seize & possess us, let us build Temples to the Glory of him who prepares the Eternity.  
What is become of that proud Babylon, is it not credible that its only ruin eternised the name? The Locrians built a Temple to the Sun, but the Moon its Sister being jealous of this Glory, obtained of the Destinies the sentence of it ruin; for during the reign of the Night, the Air, and wind did satiate, their hunger with its Ashes. When I think of this dreadful vicissitude of Time, which altars all things, unto the point of making us quite to lose the remembrance of them, I contemn whatsoever is presented to my eyes, and make no reckoning thereof, since so in a moment the fairest objects change the face. If your first Father were now risen again, he would quite forget the world, for a thousand times in an age hath it changed the countenance. Let us love the change then in this inconstant and transitory life, and let every one follow his lot without constraint & without tyranny in the way of virtue, for to arrive at this pleasing habitation of Eternity.  
Man makes greatly to appear both his vanity, and his Pride in these Buildings, where he would seem to establish, if he could, the foundation of some shelter, that might be of proof against the storms of death. But the crime of his unknowledgement is so enormous a thing, as seems to pull on his head the thunders of Heaven. Learn thou Earth (saith Wisdom, speaking of man) to put thyself under foot, it is thy property so to be trampled on: for if thou flewest in the Air▪ it could be but as dust, so as thine Arrogancy cannot subsist but in folly. If man would consider without cease to what point he is reduced, his spirit would not be able to conceive but thoughts of Humility. Before his birth he was nothing; after his birth, he is so small as we dare not speak it, for in a word is he nothing but a dunghill, covered over with snow, where the disposition of corruption prepares a food, and nourishment for the worms: whereof then should he seem to wax proud, whose end is poverty and corruption? So as if he take any vanity at the Suns rising for the Greatness he possesseth, at the setting of this Star, we shall all be equal.  
Mark attentively (saith S. john Chrysostome) the sepulchres of Dead men, & seek round about for some signs of their passed Greatnesses. For if those Tombs do send forth any flash of Magnificence to thine Eyes, convey thy Thoughts thereinto, and thou shalt find but corruption. Their joy is extinct with their life, their pleasures passed over with their days, and all their riches are abiding in their Coffers, for to publish their folly touching the unprofitable care they have had in heaping them together. They have left their Palaces at the first term of their possession without so much leisure only as to account with their Host. Earth, that art but Earth, in thy nativity, Earth in thy life, in Earth the end! wherefore art thou proud, since thou art but flesh in appearance, & putrefaction in effect? I commend greatly the custom of those of the Molucca's, who build not their houses but for the time only they imagine to live, and so dying oblige their children to do the same. Arpilaus King of the Medes had caused a very stately Palace to be built, where he would end his days: but from the instant that Time had struck the hour of his retreat, his enemies entered into this Palace, and cast him forth of the window. Cleophon the Lydian died overwhelmed with the ruins of his house, and julianus notes how he had no other tomb. Rid thyself, my Soul, from these vain ambitions, so to lodge in Palaces, knowing how the worms in pledge do harbour with in the house of thy body. Thou beholdest so many goodly Edifices, whose Gold and Marble seem to defy Time, as not able to destroy them, yet within an age they abate their pride and with easy paces begin to follow the way of their ruin, retaining something of the nature of those workmen. job had a far better grace upon his dunghill, then on a Throne, for what spectacle was it to put ashes & corruption upon cloth of gold? Leave these palaces to men of the world, who blind with a brutish ignorance do establish the foundation of their pleasures in them. Thou knowest, that death enters every where, and since thy God died in a desert Mountain, wherein the excess of his Misery he had not a drop of water to quench his thirst, shut thine eyes to the glistering of those guilded feelings, and suffer not this foul reproach at any time to expire upon flowers, whiles thy Saviour gave up the ghost on thorns. Do thou follow him then in his glorious actions, & build thee a Temple within thyself, where each moment of thy life thou mayst address to him vows thou art to make for Eternity; since the goodly Palaces of his dwelling are of proof against the inconstancy of the world.  
If the imagination could attract to itself all the objects in distance from it, to represent them in an instant before thy eyes; how many mischiefs should we behold? How many Deaths, and how many dying lives? They hold, there is no vacuity in nature, I will easily believe it, since miseries seem to take up all. This is the accident, so inseparable to man, and which accompanies him to his Grave. Every one hath his dolours affected in like sort as his pleasures are, but some ripen as they put forth, and others gather strength in their feebleness, to eternize their durance. How dreadful would this Theatre of the world seem to be, if one should behold all the Tragedies which are acted therein. Phirra quenches her fury with her father's blood. Eumenideses is revenged of her mother through poison. Curtius buries his brother within his cradle. Pernesius plucks out the eyes of his sister Aetna. And Symocles, being an enemy to his race, sets the Palace on fire where his parents were assembled; and I should think the fire of his choler was the first spark of that consuming fire. Nero seeks nourishment, for to satisfy his cruelty in the bowels of his mother; but God permitted the Executioners should hold the place of delinquents on the day of their death, when they gave up their life to the assaults of a thousand dolours, a great deal more cruel than Death itself.  
Consider all these dismal accidents, my Soul, which happen every moment. One is consumed with fire, as Pliny, another is hanged, as Polycrates; here one is cast down headlong, as Lycurgus; there was another burned with a thunderbolt, like Esculapius. There have some been drowned in the sea, as Marcus Marcellus. Curtius was swallowed up in a bottomless pit. Eschyllus the Philosopher had his head crushed with a Tortoise shell▪ Cesar was slain by such as he took to be his friends. Cicero's head was cut off upon the boot of his caroche. Euripides was devoured by dogs. Cleopatra died with the sting of a serpent, or rather with that of her despair. Socrates is poisoned; Aristo dieth of famine; Seneca through the point of a launcet. Cold took away the life from Neocles; Tarqvinius Priscus was strangled with a fish-bone; Lucia the daughter of Aurelius dies with the point of a needle. Elacea drowns her life in the ice of a glass of water. Anacreon is choked with swallowing but the kernel of a raisin. And Fabius the praetor suffered shipwreck in a mess of Milk, and the encounter with a little hair was the Rock he fell upon. Sophocles and Diagoras died of joy, and Philemon with too much laughing, as well as Zeuxis. Fabius Maximus died in the field, as Lepidus. I will nor make use of the examples of our ages, since they are so fresh; and it sufficeth that their memory is as sad as odious.  
Thou seest then, my Soul, how death disports himself with Crowns; Thou seest how he tramples Sceptres under foot, & how in the press of the world, his Sith spareth not any one. Such a one to day lines Contented, who to morrow shall dye Miserable. One moment only severs us from death and mishap, there is no other respite between living and dying, then that of an instant, which makes me verily to believe, that Being, and not Being in man differ not awhit, since he lyues not but dying, and moves not but to bond his actions in the Tomb whither he posts without stop. Earth! Who art but Earth! Earth within the cradle. Earth in the course of life, and Earth in the end! Stay a while, and if Time which leads thee will not suffer it, consider in so hasting to the funeral, how the Earth goes to join with Earth, and that whatsoever is in the world, doth follow step by step, to resume its first form in the dust. They would fain have made job believe on his dunghill that he had lost all, and that in his loss he was brought to the last point of misery; but I imagine the contrary, for he sitting on his dunghill, was found to be in his proper heritage: and by how much deeper he was buried in corruption, so much was he the forwarder in the possession of himself, if it be true, that man is nought but mire and dirt.  
Let Kings make a show of their Greatnesses, either in feasts, as Lucullus, or in apparel, as Tiberius, or be it in other sorts of Magnificences, all their instruments of glory, are of Earth, and vanish into smoke as well as they. If the ashes of Kings and Subjects were mingled together, it were impossible to distinguish the one from the other, since they are all of the same Nature, and all carrying the face of a like form. The greatest monarchs are men for Death. This flash of life which so dazzles the eyes of subjects, fades away like the beauty of the rose at the setting of the Sun. How many Kings have there been in the world since the birth thereof, and yet were it impossible to find out the least mark of their Tombs, whiles some are buried in the Ocean, as Lertius; others in the flames, as Hermasonus; some here in gulfs, as Lentellinus; & others there in the ample spaces of the air, where their dust is scattered, as that of Pauzenas King of the Locrians. And of all together can there hardly be gripped an handful of dust: so true it is, they are turned to their nothing.  
Ah! how now, my Soul, wilt thou see buried with a dry eye, whatsoever Nature hath more fair, the Earth more rich, & Art more precious? Wilt thou see dye every moment the subjects of thy Love, or rather a part of thyself, through the alliance thou hast made with the body, without abating thy vanity, and humbling thy arrogancy? What expects thou in the world, if all its goods be false, and evils true? There is no assurance to be found but in Death, nor consolation to be had, but constantly to suffer its Misery. Honours, they are all of smoke, Glory of wind, Greatnesses of Snow; and riches of Water, sliding from one to another without being possessed of any. Repose is not to be had but in imagination, & pleasure but in a dream. The Thorns spring continually, and the Roses blow without cease. Sweetness makes but its passage only here, and bitterness his whole abode. If this soil do bring forth flowers, they are but of Cares; if it bear fruit, they are but Pears of Anguish.  
Tears are here continual, because the annoys are always present. joy is not seen but running, and sadness makes here a full stop. It is a place where Piety is banished as well as justice; and where Vices reign, and Virtue is made a thrall. Where the fires of Concupiscence do burn, and where those of Luxury reduce the chastest hearts into Ashes: whence it comes, that that great Saint demanded wings to carry him into the desert. Hope is here uncertain, & despair assured. Happiness appeareth but as a lightning, and Misfortunes establish their dwelling, with Empire. They can desire nothing here, but in doubt of success: they can expect nothing, but with fear to lose their tyme. Felicities, even while they are possessed, do free themselves by little and little from this servitude of being tied to us: So as if they destroy not themselves in their sublimity, time snatches them from us at all hours, and leads us away with them. What is the world but a den of thieves? but an Army of Mutineers? but a mire of Swine; a Galley of Slaves? A lake of Basilisks? and therefore the Prophet saith; shall I never leave a place so foul, so filthy, and so full of treasons and deceits?  
Needs then, my Soul, must thou lift up thine eyes to Heaven, since the Earth is merely barren of thy contentments. Thou seekest the Sovereign good, and it hath but springs of Evil. Thou seekest Eternity, and whatsoever is therein, is but unconstancy. Change thy thoughts; the treasures which thou seekest for, are not here beneath, since this is the ordinary mansion of Poverty and Misery. The objects here most frequent, are but Tombs; nor do we ever open our eyes but to see them laid open. Our ears are touched with no other sound then with that of Sights and Plaints. The scents of our putrefaction occupy the smelling; and the gall of a nourishment, dipped in our sweat, unfortunately feeds the taste of our tongue. So as turn we which way soever we will, the gulfs, the rocks, the fires, the punishmen, and mischiefs follow us, as near as the shadow doth the body.  
Consider attentively, my Soul, the importance of these verities, and make thy profit of another's harm. Represent to thee, the horror and amazement whereto the world was reduced with all those marvels, at such time as the Sun withdrew from it his light. All those proud buildings so enriched with Brass & Marble, those famous Temples, where Art is always in dispute with Nature striving to set forth their works▪ appear to be no more, but Collossus' of shadows, that strike thine eyes aswel with astonishment, as with terror, during the reign of darkness; and imagine how the pourtraite of this horror, draws before hand its being from the Original, since in the latter day the world shall take upon it the visage of horror, of terror, and of ruin. Represent unto thyself besides, in order of these verityes, how the shadows which cover but half of the earth by respites, shall very shortly be filling up the space of the whole Circle, according to the decree which hath been made thereof before all ages. In so much, my Soul, as since the day must end at last, quenching its torch within the most ancient waters of the Ocean, seek betimes another Sun above all the Heavens, that may not be subject to Eclipses; and whose light being always in the East, may make thy happiness to shine within his splendour, not for a day, for a year, or for an age, but for an Eternity.  
O sweet Eternity, with how many delights enchauntest thou our spirits, while we address our thoughts to thee. They may not taste thy baits, and not be ravished from themselves with incomparable contentments. We wander, I confess, whiles we seek thee, but thy Labyrinths are so delicious, as we are always in fear to get forth thereof. The hearts which are taken with thy love, without knowing thee, sigh after thy pleasures; & howbeit they have never tasted its sweetnesses, but by way of Idaea, yet find they no repose, but in hope to possess them one day. O sweet Eternity! what feelings of joy and happiness dost thou breed in Souls created for thy glory! How tedious is the way of this mortal and transitory life, to them that live in expectation of thy pleasures! They resemble the Mariner being tossed with storms & tempests, who through tears, measures with his eyes a thousand times, in a moment, the humid spaces of the waves for to discover the Port he aspires unto: for they sailing in like manner in this Sea of the world, and continually dashed with tempests of misfortunes, do count the hours, the days and the months of their annoys, in the long pretention of landing at the port of the Tomb, to be reborn, from very Ashes, in the mansion of thy glory.  
O sweet Eternity, what sensible repasts have thy contentmentes with them! The more I think upon thee, and the more I would be thinking of thee, my Spirit, rapt in this divine Elevation, is so violently pulled from itself, as it lives of no other food, then that of thy divine thoughts! O how happy is he, who establisheth in thee, for an Essay, the foundation of his felicity! My Soul, if thou wilt be content in the midst of thy pleasures, think of Eternity. The only imagination of its delights, shallbe stronger than thine annoys. What grief soever thou endurest, imagine with thyself, how it is but for a time, and that the joy of Eternity can never end. The Fast the Hayrecloth, and all the sufferances of an austere life can never shake thy constancy, if thy desires have Eternity for object. What accident soever stays thee, in the way of thy pilgrimage, lift up thine eyes to Heaven for to contemplate the Beauty of the mansion whither thou aspirest. Thou seest, how for the purchase of a little glory of the world men expose their lives to a thousand dangers, and to possess one day that same of Eternity wilt thou not hazard thy body, which is nought else, but corruption, to the mercy of torments and pains?  
Consider, my Soul, the instability of all created things, and put not thy trust in the earth, since the waters, snow, & sands are the foundations thereof. As often as the marvels of the world attract thee insensibly to their admiration, break but the crust of those goodly apparences, and thou shalt see within, how it is but a School of Vanity, a Fair of Toys, a Theatre of Tragedies, a labyrinth of Errors, a Prison of darkness, a Way beset with Thorns, and a sea full of storms and tempests. That it is but a barren Land, a stony Field, a greenish Meadow whose flowers do shroud Serpents, a River of tears, a mountain of annoyances, a vale of Miseries, a sweet Poison, a Fable, a dream, an Hospital of febricitants where every one suffers in his fashion. Their repose is full of anguishes, and their unrest is replenished with despair. Their travels are without fruit, and their joys are but counterfeit; where no content is found above a day, & all the rest of the life is nothing else but wretchedness. So as if the evils wherewith it is propled, could be counted, they would surpass in number the atoms of Democritus, who could reckon the maladies of the body, the passions of the Soul, and all the dolours wherewith our life is touched. Now then, if it be true that we die every moment, is not every moment, I pray, a Death to us?  
Let us go then, my soul, to God, since he calls us; the Sun lends us not its light but to show us the way to him. The Stars shine not in heaven, but to let us see the paths, & tracks thereof. So as if the Moon do hide herself from our eyes by Interstitions it cannot be but of choler, as sensible of the contempt we show of her light. Let us go to this holy Land of Promise, and pass the Red Sea of sufferance and punishments, in example of our Saviour, who with no other reason, then that of his Love, would purchase, through his blood, the Glory he attained to. The world can afford us but Death, Death but a Tomb, and the Tomb but an infinite number of worms, which shallbe fed with our carcase. They run after the world, & the world is nought but misery; they do love then to be miserable. What blindness, my Soul, to sigh after our mishaps, & passionately to cherish the subject of our loss? Let us go to this Eternity where the delights, ever present, reign with in the Order of a continual moment. Let us get forth of this moving circle, and break the chains of this shameful servitude, wherein to Sin hath brought us.  
Away with the world, since whatsoever is in it, is but mire and dust; it is but smoke to the eyes, putrefaction to the nostrils, the noise of thunder and tempests to the ears, thorns to the hands, & smart to our feeling. All those who put any trust therein are utterly deceived. All those who follow it, are absolutely lost. All those that honour it, are wholly despised, and all those who sacrifice to its Idols, shallbe one day sacrificed themselves, in expiation of their crimes. Besides, we see, how all that know it, do abandon it, for if it promise a Sceptre, it reaches us a Shephook. Thrones are seated on the brim of a precipice; nor doth it ever afford us any good turn, but as the vigil of some misfortune. Away then with the world, and all that is within it, since all its wonders now are but dust. Whatsoever it hath more rare, is but Earth; whatsoever it hath more fair, is but wind. Every King is no more, but a heap of Worms, where Horror, Terror, and Infection astonish and offend the senses that approach unto it. Corruption (saith the Wiseman, speaking of man) vaunt thou as much as thou wilt, behold thyself brought unto the first nothing of thy first Being.  
Let us not live, my Soul, but for Eternity, since it is the true spring of life. Out of Eternity is there no repose; out of Eternity, no pleasure; out of Eternity, all hope is vain. Who thinks not of Eternity, thinks of nothing, since out of Eternity all things are false. Let us behold but Eternity my Soul, as the only object of glory. All flies away except Eternity: it is it alone, which is able to satiate our desires, and termine our hopes. I will no other comfort in all my annoys, then that of Eternity. I will no other solace in all my miseries, then that of Eternity. After it, do I desire nothing, after it do I look for nothing▪ I live not but for it, and my hart sighs not, but after it. All discourses are displeasing to me except those of Eternity. It is the But, and end of all my actions; it is the object of my thoughts. I labour, but to gather its fruits; all my vigils point at the pretensions of its Crowns. My eyes contemn all the objects, except those that convey my spirits to its sweet Ideas, as to the only Paradise I find in this world. Whatsoever I do, I judge myself unprofitable, if I refer not my actions to this divine cause; whatsoever I think, whatsoever I say, and whatsoever I imagine, all is but vanity, if those thoughts, if those words, & those imaginations rely not, in some fashion, on Eternity. In fine, my Soul, if thou wilt taste on Earth, the delights of Heaven, think continually of Eternity, for in it only it is, where the accomplishment of all true contentments doth consist.   

The Glory of Paradise.  
AATER that rich Solomon had a thousand times contented his Eyes in admiration of the fairest objects, which are found in Nature; That his Ears ever charmed with a sweet Harmony, had deliciously tasted in their fashion, the most sensible repasts they are affected to; That his Mouth had relished the most delicate meats, where the Tongue finds the perfection of its delight: after, I say, he had quenched the thirst of his desires in the sea of all contentments of the world, and satisfied the appetite of his senses, in the accomplishment of the purest delicacies, he cries out aloud, That all was full of vanity. The Pomp of these magnificences may well represent themselves to his remembrance, but he cries out before it, That it is but vanity. His riches, his Greatnesses, his Triumphs, & all his pleasures, served him as a subject within knowledge of their Nature, for to exclaim very confidently, that all was full of vanity. What pleasures now after these delights may mortals taste? What Riches may they now possess, after these Treasures? To what Greatness may they aspire, which is not comprised within that of his Empire? To what sort of prosperities may they pretend, which is not less than his happiness? And yet nevertheless after a long possession of honours & delights, which were inseparable to his sovereign & absolute power, he publisheth this truth, that all is full of smoke, and wind, and that nothing is sure here beneath, but death, nor present, but miseries.  
Souls of the world, what think you of, that you reason not sometimes in yourselves to discover the weakness of the foundation, whereon your hopes are piched? You love your pleasures; but if it be true, that knowledge should always precede Love, why know you not the nature of the Object, before it predominate the power of your affections? Again, you love not things at any time, but to possess them. Ah what! & know you not, the delights of the world do pass before our eyes, as a lightning, & that in their excess, they incessantly find their ruin? you think yourself content to day because nothing afflicts you; do you call that pleasure to run after pleasure? for it is impossible for you to possess that imaginary contentment, but in running after it, since it flies so away without resting. Let them represent to themselves the greatest contentments that may be received in the world, & at the same time, let all the diverse Spirits, who have tasted the vain Sweetnesses appear, to tell us in secret, what remains to them thereof.  
Thou Miser, tell us I pray thee, what pleasure hast thou to shut up thy golden Earth, within thy coffers, to lend it to the interest of thy conscience, and to make it daily to increase through thy guilty cares, and thy fruitless watches? If the vain Glory to be accounted rich, possessed thee, thou hast been never so, but in opinion, and appearance only, since in the state whereunto age now brings thee, all the Riches thou hast heaped together, and which yet thou art gathering, are fruits whereof thou hast but the flowers, by reason of their frailty. Thou mayest carry the key of thy Coffers long enough; thou art but the keeper of thy treasures, and as a mere Depositarian thereof; for thy avarice lets thee from disposing them, and consequently to give forth thyself to be the true owner of them. If thou couldst have any moment of cessation in thy folly, I would demand the reason of thy actions, to know where thy hopes do bound, and what glory is the But thereof? It may be thou wouldst dye rich: what feebleness? knowest thou not, thou hast need but of a sheet only for to cover thy Miseries withal. Hast thou heaped up money in thy Cabinets, with purpose to erect thee some stately Monument after thy death? Fool as thou art, thou hast passed all thy life without considering where thy Soul shall lodge after thy death; and thou studiest now to prepare a house for thy body, or rather for the worms, which shall gnaw the same, as if putrefaction were some rare and precious thing.  
If thou hast a desire to leave thy children rich, true Riches consist not but in Virtue only, & with its sweet liquor, oughtest thou to milch their infancy, & to murse them continually with its divine nourishment. Suppose through excess of happiness thou 'gainst the whole world (a sport of Fortune) and by a blow of a sad mischance, whereto thy vices shall have smoothed the way, thou lose thy Soul in the last moment of thy life, what glory past, what-domage present? The Reign of thy Greatnesses shall finish so; and that of thy pains shall then begin. Verily thou shalt have possessed all the goods of the earth, but in truth likewise shalt thou feel therefore all the evils within the order of a divine justice, which shall make thy dolours eternal. Be thou convinced them by reason not to follow the way of a life, the most unhappy that ever yet quickened the body, and confess with me how there hath been but one Matthew Apostle, whom this vast sea of the world hath saved from the shipwreck, whereinto the weight of gold & silver went about to engage him. Bias despoiled himself indeed of all his Riches, but not of all his errors. Laertius Nevola puts over the right of majority to his brother, and consequently his richest pretensions; but in despising one good he embraced not the other. Consider I pray to what point of poverty was the Richman brought unto in an instant, since of all his Riches, there was not left him means to buy a drop of could water, to quench his thirst.  
Confess then, Miser, thy pleasures to be false, and how they subsist not in thy spirit, but through a deceitful opinion that blinds thee, to cast thee into a pricipice. The keeper of a Vineyard that resembles thee, without imitation of thee, is a great deal more happy than thou art, for after he hath stirred the earth, he gathers at the end of his daies-worke, in the repose a sweet sleep, the fruit of his pains; and thou on the contrary, the thorns of thy thorns, since an eternal torment succeeds the dolours of thy dying life. So as Covetous men in seeking of gold & silver, in the bowels of the earth, find hell without piercing into it, which is the Centre thereof. Thou proud and ambitious Man, tell us, I pray thee, what are thy pleasures? I know well how thy Spirit full of vanity pitches thy hopes upon the highest Throne of Fortune, & that blind in the knowledge of thy faults, thou findest no glory, which is not far beneath thy merit. But wherein consists thy Contentment, if it be to expect Thrones, and attend to Crowns? Did one ever see a feebler pleasure, since the nature of it is nothing else but wind and smoke? Thou tramplest the Earth with a disdainful foot, as if thou hadst reasons enough to persuade us, that it were not thy Mother. Thou out-facest the heavens with an arrogant look, and the force of thy ashes is dispersed in the air, not being able to fly any higher, Again, thou makest no doubt, that if the Heavens have found thunder to punish the insolency of the Angels, it were like to want new punishments to chastise the vanity of men? It may be thou flatterest thyself with this vain belief, that being raised above the common sort, thou hast been form in some new kind of mould, and that thou art so dispensed with, in this law, condemning us to the sufferance of all manner of pains.  
Return I pray thee, from this wandering, and open thine eyes to consider thy ruin. Thy Pride, and thy Arrogancy are the plumes of the Peacock, sustained by two foundations of Misery, figured by the feet of this Fowl. Carry thy head as high as thou wilt, it must necessarily fall of its pride in declining to the Earth. And if thou lettest thyself be dazzled with the glittering of thy sumptuous Apparel, this verity convinceth thee of folly, since all thou wearest, is but the work of worms: nor do I wonder now, that they devour us so, after death, for it is but to pay themselves for the pains they have taken, in laying the web, wherewith we cover our nakedness. So as, if thou regardest thyself near, thou shalt see how the worms of thy apparel, cover those of thy body; & that therefore thy Arrogancy hath no other foundation, then that of thy corruption. And upon this assurance tell me now, what are the delights of thy vanity?  
And you great Monarches, who find the Earth too little to bound, within its spaces, the extent of your Empire, do you, I pray, make us participant of your Contentments, and tell us something of the Sweetnesses which you taste, during the reign of your absolute powers. It is a pleasure, you will say, to command a world of people, & to impose them laws after your own humour. A feeble Pleasure! Whiles it proceeds, but from a Sovereignty which subjects the spirit of him that commands; because indeed he ought to correspond with the actions of his Subjects. You do what you will yourself. It is true; but that is not the way to content yourself, if your deeds be not exempt from reproach. If they fear you, it is but for the knowledge they have of your Tyranny. If they love you, to what end serves the affection of your subjects, while you seem not to merit the same? You go into all places wheresoever your desires call you, without ever meeting with resistance in your designs: but why follow you not the path of virtue? Displeasures rather than delights attend you at the end of the Career. I know well how Greatnesses, Riches, and all Magnificences are always in pledge with you; but therein ought you to consider the while how the glory which environs you, seems to fetch the same course which the Sun doth, and how it flies away without cease towards its West, whence it shall never rise again. Be it so, that your looks seem to astonish the stoutest, and that they favour the more happy. Those looks in their sternness, cannot wound but the culpable, no-engage in their sweetness, but spirits which feed of smoke.  
There is no doubt but your power is admired, but not envied of the wiser, because the greatness of your might, concludes very ordinarily in vanity. We must confess that the honour, & life of men are in your hands. But you must needs confess withal, that your heads also, are beneath the Sword, which is fastened to the feeling of Heaven, or rather suspended in the air by a little thread, and how the least of your crimes may pull upon you the chastisement thereof. So as, if you take pleasure to bathe you in the blood of Innoenccy, as an Otho, or a Caligula, the divine justice prepares your last bath in your proper blood, where your Soul suffers Shipwreck with your body. What then are your delights? In what garden do you gather their flowers? Verily you have all things at your wish, but what pleasure is it to wish for transitory goods, whose privation causeth a great deal more sorrow, than the fruition afforded contentment? If your Crowns, and Sceptres are agreeable to you during life, they will cause a horror at your Death; for that you ought to give account of your swaying them. You are but Lieutenants only in the Land of God, during the time of your Reign. The hour approaches wherein you are to justify the Sovereign actions of all the moments of your life, to know (in truth) in what fashion you have disposed of the Greatnesses, and of the Treasures, whereof you were no more than mere Depositarians. Do you now then refer all your pleasures to this last instant, and you shall know how the way is a great deal more thorny, then that of a low condition, and void of Enuy.  
Tell us I pray thee, Lucullus, what are become of the delights of thy proud Feasts? I admit, that the prodigality of thy Magnificences, hath unpeopled the air of Birds, and the sea of fishes, and that Art hath exposed to view, as in a stall, her last inventions, to glut the appetite of thy foolishness. Where are now those contentments? Where is this Pomp, where is this lustre, where are the Palaces of these banquets, where are the Cups of Gould, where the Meat, where the Cooks, where are the Stewards, where the Guests, and the waiters of thy Feasts? All is slid away without their memory. And if the Histories (Lucullus) do yet remember thee, it is but only to represent thy folly to Posterity. What contentment may they take in feasts, if the sweet wines wherewith they satiate their hunger, be changed to corruption? They take pleasure to devour their pleasure, like as in the Chase they find contentment in running after their sports. The honey which they put into the mouth, becomes bitter in the stomach: for what incommodities seem they not to suffer who have filled their belly withal the sorts of Meats? And to what shame and infamy submit they not themselves, while they drown their reason in wine, their honour, and their conscience all at once? is it not to be cruel to one's self to precipitate his paces to the Tombwards, as if we died not soon enough?  
Again, for whom take we the pains to treat our bodies so, if not for the worms, since the flesh is destined to them? All the fat which we gather, is but for them, for the small time we live is not to be put into account. Why, consider they not how every Banquet, hath its last course, & every wedding-day its morrow; and that the joy of these feasts seems to pass away, as swift as the day, which lends them light? What a goodly custom was it among the Pagans to serve in at the last course of their Banquets, an Anatomy upon the table, in sign how the worms were shortly to reduce the bodies of the invited to that estate? How many are there now adays, who in the blindness of Epicurism put all their Gallantry in making of good Cheer? But what excess of Bestiality the while to take such pleasure to pamper the body on the way of death, whither it runs posting without cease? I grant thou hast drowned to day thy Troubles in thy Glasses, and hast glutted thine appetite with meats the most delicious of the world: what shallbe left thee thereof to morrow, but gall in the mouth from the surfeit of thy riot? I say, but bitterness in thy hart, & repentance in thy soul? Thy Crosses renew again more strong than ever, by reason of the privation of thy delighs. Thou must begin again to morrow to soothe thy sensuality, and the day following the same torments which thou hast suffered now already, shall succeed thy joy. So as when all the life should be a feast, the last service thereof were always to be feared, since a life of Roses brings forth a death of Thornes. Cram then thy body withal sorts of meats, as long as thou wilt, he that shall have fasted the while, shallbe a great deal more content than thou, upon the last day of thy Banquets. So as, if thou hast the advantage to be fatter than he, the worms shall far the better for it, in thy grave.  
You senseless Souls that love but the pleasures of the Table, I advertise you betimes that the Feast is ended, and the Company brook up: each one is retired with himself. But there is now another manner of news, which is, that many of your Companions are dead; one, as Ninus, with too much drink; another with feeding over much, as Messina. He there hath fetched an eternal sleep, as Bogrias; & he here hath cut his wife's throat in his wine, as Thessalius. To what end think you? They are the last services which misfortune presents at the last Course of your feasts, the poison whereof is covered with sugar; take you heed then, & play not with such formidable Enemies. It is all that you can do to eschew the dangers in the world, with the light you have of Reason; and you are drowning the same in your Banquets, without fear of suffering Shipwreck with it.  
Away with these Pleasures of smoke, which fill not the body, but with new matter of putrefaction, I abhor you, & detest you with a hatred which shall never die. Since my God hath put Thorns on his head, why should not I be putting them in my hart? I will from henceforth quench my Thirst within his Chalice, and gather the fruits of my nourishment in his deserts. My Saviour hath fasted all his life, and shall I pamper myself every moment? Let death come upon me, rather than such a wish. I love thee, my Soul too well, to prefer the pleasures of my Body before thy contentment. Take then thy pleasure in the Thoughts of Eternity, since for thy entertainment they are able to produce the true Nectar of Heaven, and the purest wine of the Earth.  
And you, profane Spirits, who sacrifice not but to Voluptuousness, confess you now, that Lazarus was a great deal more happy in his Misery, than was the impious Richman in his Treasure. The one died of Famine in the world, and the other dies of Thirst in Hell. Again, what a thing were it that all wedding-feasts should be held on the Sea, where the least tempest might trouble the solemnities, & metamorphize them into a funeral pomp? And yet nevertheless is it true, that the souls of the world give themselves to banquet upon the current of the water of this life, where rocks are so frequent, and shipwrecks so ordinary. One drinks a dying, to the health of another who drowns in his glass some moments of his life; and so all, Companions of the same lot approach without cease to the Tomb which Time prepares them. O how sweet it is (said that Poet) to banquet at the Table of the Gods, because in that of men, the last service is always full of Alöes. But I shall say after him, what contentments without comparison, receive they at the Angel's Table? It is not there where the soul is replenished with this imaginary sweet wine, nor with these bitter sweetnesses of the world. The food of its nourishment is so divine, as through a secret virtue it contents the appetite without cloying it ever.  
Sigh then, my Soul, after this Celestial Manna, always fruitful in pleasures, so sweet as desire and hope are alike unprofitable in their possession, if what they possess in them may be imagined to be agreeable to them: nor suffer any more thy body (since thy reason may master its senses) to heap on its dunghill, corruption upon corruption, in the midst of its banquets and Feasts, where they prepare but a rich harvest for the worms. If thy body be a hungry, let it feed as that of job, with the sighs of its Misery. If it be a thirst, let it be quenching its thirst with the humid vapour of its tears, as that of Heraclitus. And if it revolt, let them put it in chains and fetters, for so if it die in torments it shall be resuscited anew in Glory.  
Sardanapalus, appear thou with thy Ghost here, to represent in Idaa, those imaginary pleasures which thou hast taken in thy luxuries. O it would be a trim sight to see thee by thy lascivious Elincea, disguised in a woman's habit, having a distaff by thy side and a spindle in thy hand; what are become of those allurements which so charmed thy Spirit? What are become of those charms that so ravished thy soul? What are become of those ecstasies, which so made thee to live besides thyself? those imaginary Sweetnesses, those delicious imaginations, those agreeable deceits, and those agreements of objects where thy senses found the accomplishment of their repose? Blind as thou art, thou considerest not awhit, that Time seems to bury thy pleasures in their Cradle, and even in their birth; how they run Post to their end through a Law of necessity, fetched from their violence. The profane fire wherewith thou wast burned, hath reduced thy hart into Ashes, with thy body; and the divine justice hath metamorphized the imaginary paradise of thy life into a true Hell, where Cruelty shall punish thee without cease for the crime of thy lust. I confess that the Sun hath lent thee its light during an Age, for thee to taste very greedily the pleasures & sweetnesses of transitory goods. But that age is past, the sweetnesses vanished, thy pleasures at an end, and all thy goods, as false, have left thee dying but only this grief, to have believed them to be true.  
Brutish Souls, who sigh without cease after the like passions, break but the crust of your pleasures, and cry you out with Solomon, how the delights of the world are full of smoke, and that all is vanity. He lodged within his Palace 360. Concubines, or rather so many Mischiefs, which have put the salvation of his soul in doubt. I wonder not awhit that they hoodwincke Love, so to blind our reason, for it were impossible our hearts should so sigh at all hours after those images of dust, but in the blindness whereto the powers of our soul are reduced. O how a Lover esteems himself happy to possess the favours of his mistress! He prefers this good before all those of the earth beside. And in the Violence of his passion, would he give▪ as Adam, the whole Paradise for an Apple, his Crown for a glass of water, I would say, that which he pretends, for a little smoke. He gives the name of Goddess to his Dame, as if this title of Honour could be compatible with the Surname she bears of Miserable. He adores notwithstanding this Victim, and offers Incense to it upon the same Altar, where it is to be sacrificed. His senses in their brutishness make their God of it; and his spirits touched with the same error authorise their Idolatry, without considering this Idol to be a work of Art, covered with a crust of Plaster, full of putrefaction, and which without intermission resums the first form of Earth, in running to its end. Would they not say now, this lover were a true Ixion who embraceth but the Clouds? for in the midst of his pleasures, death changes his Body into a shadow full of dread and horror. He believes he holds in his Arms this same Idol, dressed up with those goodly colours, which drew his eyes so in admiration of her, & he sees no more of her then the ruins of the pourtraite, where the worms begin already to take their fees. Away with these pleasures of the flesh, since all flesh is but hay, & that death serves not himself of his Sith, but to make a harvest of it, which he carries to the Sepulchre. What Glory is there in the possession of all the women in the world, if the fairest that ever yet have been, are now but ashes in the Tomb? All the flowers in their features are faded as those of the Meadows, and the one and other have lasted but a Spring. Souls of the world, demand of your Eyes, what are become of those objects, which so often they have admired? Ask your Ears to know, where are those sweet Harmonies, which have charmed them so deliciously? make you the same demand of all your other Senses, and they shall altogether answer you in their manner, how their pleasures are vanished in an instant, as the flash of a lightning; and that they find nothing durable in the world, but grief for the privation of the things which they loved. Admit you have all sorts of pleasures at a wish; for how long time are they like to last? It may be a moment, it may be an hour; and would you for a little number of instants, be reigning so long in your vices?  
Thou seest then, my Soul, how false is the Good of Greatness; and that of Riches how imaginary it is. How the pleasures of Banquets, full of Alôes, die in their spring, and the delights of the flesh have no other foundation then that of corruption. It is now time, my Soul, that I let thee see sensibly this difference that is between the contentments of the Earth, and those of Heaven, to the end, that in the knowledge of their nature, the one so contrary to the other, thou mayst shun those pleasures that fly away, & sigh for love after the delights of Eternity. There is this difference (S. Augustine notes) between eternal & transitory things, that before we possess the transitory goods, we passionately desire them; and from the time we enjoy them, we fall sensibly to mislike them. On the contrry, the desire of eternal things we never think of; yet from the time we possess them, we are not capable of love, but for them. Consider a little, you Mortals, what this is but an age of pleasures, whose last moment seems to make us forget all the others that went before; in such wise, as there rests but a vain Idea of the Time past. Search you somewhat curiously withîn the memory of ages, into that of days, which have run away, count their hours if you will, and you shall confess, that it seems to you to be but yesterday, since our first Father was chased out of the terrestrial Paradise; so true it is, that Time passeth, and swiftly glideth away.  
The Sage Roman said; That if to these long years we add a great number of others, and of all together make up a Reign of a life, the most happy that ever yet hath been seen, if we needs most destiny a last day, to perform the funerals of all the others, and upon that day a certain hour, and in this hour the last moment; a great part of our life will go way in doing ill, the greater in doing nothing, and the whole in doing otherwise then our duty required. There is always a thirst of the delights of the world, and though we seem to quench the same in its puddle springs, yet is it but for a moment; for the heat willbe renewing again, and the desire of drinking will press us then more than ever. Untie thyself than, my Soul, from all the feelings of the Earth, and with a pitch, full of love, elevate thy Thoughts to this sweet object of Eternity. If thou aspirest to Greatnesses, represent to thyself how the happy spirits trample underfoot both the Sun and Moon, and all those Stars of the Night, whose infinite number astonish our senses. S. Paul was but lifted to the third Heaven, and yet nevertheless could he not express, in his language, the marvels which he admired. And S. Peter on the Mount Thabor, being dazzled through the glittering of one sole Ray, most confidently demands permission of his Master, to build in the same place three Tabernacles, having now quite forgot the Earth, as if it had never been.  
Alas, O great Saint, with what ecstasies of joy shouldest thou be accomplished in this divine Bower of Eternal felicities, if one feeble reflection of light, so ravished thee from thyself, as made thee breath so deliciously, in a life replenished with clarity, as thou didst put in oblivion the darkness of the world where thou madest thy abode? What might thy Glory by now? To what point of happiness might we seem to termine it? Thou possessest the body, whose Shadow thou hast adored; thou behouldst uncovered that divine Essence, whose Splendour makes the Cherubims to bow the head, for not being able to endure the sweet violences of its clarity. judge with what feeling I reverence thy felicity, if the only throughts I have of them do make me happy only before hand. The Kings of the world, my Soul, establish the foundation of their Greatnesses upon the large spaces of the earth, and all the earth together is but a point in comparison of Heaven. And therefore the only object they have in their combats & triumphs, is no other than that of the Conquest of this little point.  
Get forth then, my Soul, of its Circumference, since thou art able to aspire to the possession, not of the world (for it is but misery) but of a mansion whose extent may not be measured, and whose delights are eternal. Wouldst thou have Thrones? The Imperial Heaven shall be thy footstool. Wouldst thou have Crowns? The same of immortal Glory shall environ thy head. Wouldst thou Sceptres? Thou shalt have always in thy hand a sovereign power, which shall make thy desires unprofitable, not knowing what to desire out of thy power. Hast thou a desire to have treasures? Glory and Riches are in the house of our Lord: And not this transitory glory of the world which changes into smoke, but another wholly divine, that depends not a whit upon Time, and which reaches beyond all ages. Not those riches of the Ocean, nor those of the Land, which are unprofitable in their virtue, & full of weakness in their power; but of Riches that have no price, and which make thee owner of the Sovereign Good, where all sorts of felicities are comprehended. If thou be delighted with Banquets, hear the Prophet what he says; Lord, one day alone affords more contentment in thy house, than a whole age in the feasts of the world. The divine food wherewith the happy Spirits are fed hath not in itself only these sweetnesses in quality, but it nature. So as, this is a virtue essential to it, continually to produce what soever they way imagine in its chief perfection. We rejoice in thee, O Lord, in remembering thy breasts, a great deal more sweet than wine.  
They write of Assuerus, that he reigned in in Asia, over one hundred & twenty seven Provinces, and that he made a Banquet in his City of Susa, which lasted an hundred and fourscore days, where he set forth with Prodigality, all the Magnificences which Art and Nature, with common accord could furnish him, at the price of infinite riches. But the end of this Feast did blemish the Glory of its beginning and continuance, for that all the pleasures which die, are not considerable in their Birth, nor in the course of their Reign. Hence it is, my Soul, that the only delights of these Banquets, which the King of Kings prepares for thee, are worthy of thy desires, since they shall last for an Eternity. Those there have begun upon Earth, for to finish one day; and these here shall begin in Heaven for never to have end. Some are borne, and dye in Tym●; and others are borne in Eternity to endure therein as long as it. Wouldst thou lodge in Palaces? The Rich house of our Lord shallbe the habitation of the just. But what house do you believe it is? Represent unto thyself, that when they enter into the Palace of some Great Prince, they find the particular seats of all his Subjects, before that of his dwelling. The like is it in this stately Palace of the Universe, which this Almighty King hath built with a word only, where all his Creatures make their abode, as in certain Tenements which he hath destined to them. The Air serves them for a Cage, the Sea for a Fishpoole, the Forests for a park, the Champaigns for orchards, the Mountains for their Towers, and the diverse Villages are as sundry places of pleasure, which Kings & Princes hold as tenants of Time.  
Walk then boldly, my Soul, within this vast Palace of the world, since it is the place of thy dwelling. The starry Heaven is the feeling thereof; the Moon the torch of the night, and the Sun that of the day: the birds learn not to sing of nature, but to charm thine ears, through the sweet harmony of their warbling. The Sun, the Aurora, and the Zephyrus take pains each one in its turn to cultivate the Earth, for to help it, in the shouting forth of its delicate Flowers, from whom beautiful Iris hath robbed the pourtaite of their colours for to dress up her Ark, whence it is that thine eyes continually admire it. The trees ever stooping under the burden of their fruits, grow not but for thy delight. The woods, they people their trunks with leaves, of purpose to make thee taste the pleasures of their shades, in the chiefest of the heats. And the Rocks though unsensible, contribute to the perfection of thy contentment a thousand goodly fountains, which with the murmur of their purling, fetch sleep into thy eyes, for to charm sometimes the annoys of thy life. The Meadows do never seem to present themselves to thee, but with the countenance of Hope, knowing well how it comforts the whole world; & its Champaign's, as witty to deceive thee, do hide their treasures under golden Cases, to the end to dazzle thine eyes through the glittering of so goodly a show.  
And now, my Soul, if in this Palace where the Subjects of him who hath built the same, do sojourn, thou seest but wonders every where; to what degree of admiration shalt thou be raised, when passing further, thou discoverest the dwelling of the sovereign Master? Thou needst but mount up an eleven steps only to behold the spaciousness of the place where is assembled all his Court. Go then fair and softly, because upon every step thou shalt be discovering of new subjects of wonder, and astonishment at once. The first step is the Heaven of the Moon, whereby passing only, thou shalt admire the clarity wherewith it is adorned, to give light to all those that mount, which is noted in the Palaces of great men, where the Stayer-cases are made very light-some. The Moon presids in the midst of its Heaven, and within its Circle is it always waxing and waning, where the divine Philosopher Plato hath established the spring of the Idaea's of all the things here beneath; and then consider how in the space of this, degree might a thousand worlds be built.  
The second Stayre is the Heaven of Mercury. The third, the Heaven of Venus. The fourth that of the Sun (names which the Astrologers assign unto the Heavens.) Contemplate here at leisure, this Stare of the day, whose benign influences do make the earth so fruitful, & whose light gives pride to colours, and consequently the virtue to all beautiful things to become admirable. It was this very Sun which joshua arrested in the midst of its Course, and which the Persians heretofore have adored, not considering the while it was subject to Eclipses, & how it borrowed its light, and all its other essential qualities from a sovereign & absolute Cause, which had given it the Being.  
The fifth Stayre is the Heaven of Mars. The sixth of jupiter, and the seaventh of Saturn. They eight Stayre is the Firmament, The ninth the Primum mobile. Stay here a little, my Soul, upon this Step, for to listen as you pass along to the sweet Harmony of the moving of the Heavens, and of all that is in nature; for by the swinge of this Heaven, as with a Mayster-wheele, are all the springs of the world moved, and are no otherwise capable of action then through its moving. But the motion is so melodious through continuance, & through the justness of the correspondency of all the parts with their ground, as Plato that great Philosop was not touched with any other desire, than that of hearing this Harmony.  
The tenth Staire is the Crystalline Heaven. here it is, my Soul, where thy feeling, and thy thoughts are to be attentive. This tenth Step is beyond the limits of the world. Thou beginst but now, to enter into the Mansion of the Glory of thy Lord, mingle respect here amidst thy joy, & join humility with thy contentments. Thou beholdest thyself now illumined with another light, then that of the Sun & Moon not suffering intermission in its durance. It shines always, and thou mayest know in the near admiration of its divine Clarity, the price of the delights it communicats to thee. Let us finish our voyage, and mount we now to the Imperial Heaven, whither S. Paul was rapt, & where he saw wonders, which had no name; where he tasted Sweetnesses, whose Idaea's are incomprehensible; and where he felt pleasures, whereof his very Senses could not talk, even when they had the use of speech. But thou mayest yet cry with S. Stephen, how thou seest the Heaven's open: for now behold thee upon the last step, and at the gate of that great Imperial Heaven.  
It is not permitted thee, my Soul, to enter into a place so holy and sacred; do thou only admire by order, the Porch without, and the infinite greatness of the miraculous wonders there, whence all the Saints, incessantly publish the Glory of the Omnipotent who hath wrought them. Contemplate the perfect Beauty of the Angels, each one in his Hierarchy, that of the Archangels, that of Powers, that of the Virtues, that of the Principalities, that of the Dominations, and that of the Seraphims, with this Astonishment to behold how in clarity they surpass the Sun. Admire all the happy Spirits, each one seated in the Throne of Glory which he hath merited, the Virgins, the Confessors, the Martyrs, the Apostles, the Prophets, and the patriarchs, being raised all to the degrees of Felicity, which they have purchased.  
Represent unto thyself besides, the incomparable happiness, wherewith the Immaculate Virgin Mother of our Saviour, is accomplished. Cast thine eyes upon her Throne, and even ravished in astonishment of her Greatnesses, publish with confidence how they are without comparison, and that the Sun, the Moon, and all the Stars are of a matter to vile, and profane for her to tread upon. And if thou wilt be casting thy view upon the Tabernacle of thy God, do thou shroud it from the flash of his rays, under the Robe of the Cherubims; and being ravished as they, in the dazzling where they breathe accomplished withal sorts of felicities, adore the divine Object of their Glory. And while thine eyes, shallbe tasting, in their fashion, the delights which are found in the admiration of things perfectly fair, lend thine ears to that sweet harmony, wherewith all those happy Spirits make up a Consort in singing without cease, Holy, Holy, Holy is our Lord; the Heavens, and Earth are filled with the majesty of his Glory.  
O divine melody! How powerful are thy streynes, since through our thoughts they make themselues so sensible to our hearts! With how many different pleasures, and all perfectly extreme, art thou ravished now, my Soul! With what ravishments of joy art thou transported besides thyself? In what sweet ecstasies art thou not wandering? After what sort of goods, canst thou seem to aspire unto? Thou beholdest all Greatnesses in their Thrones, Riches in their mines, Glory in its Element, and the Virtues in their Empire. Thou tastest the true Contentments, in their purity, after a manner so divine, as thou possessest all without desiring any thing; & yet nevertheless not all, since the object of thy delights is infinite; which makes thee taste new Sweetnesses, not in the order of increase of pleasure, but in that of the accomplishment of the rest, as being always perfectly content.  
Nor yet is this all, my Soul, to make thee admire, in Idea, the Meruailles of all these divine objects of glory, and of felicity. It behoves me now to represent unto thee beside, the straight union that joins the happy Spirit with his sovereign Good, I would say, the Soul with God. But how may it be done? God cannot produce a Species, or an Image of himself, which is able to represent him, in regard the Species and the Image are always more pure, & more simple than is the Object whence they proceed. Now, what Species, or Image may be purer, and more spiritual than God? Besides that, all the Species, and all the Images are so determined in the form of the thing they represent, as they cannot seem to represent another. And it is true, that God is not a thing determinate, because it hath not a particular Being, separated from others; in such sort, as he eminently contains each thing, as the Apostle saith, Portans omnia verbo virtutis sue. There is no Species, which is able to determine this God indeterminate; there is no Image created, or produced that can represent this God increated. Hence it is that God cannot unite himself to the Soul through a Species or Image, as we do other things. The Divines say, that God unites himself to the Soul, per se, really; & they call this union, per modum species. But for to clear the obscurity, which is in all this mystery, you must note, that when as God unites himself to the Soul, he elevates the same to a being which is supernatural and divine. In so much, as it resembles God himself; not so, as it looseth its proper Essence, but within the perfection whereto it is elevated, it derives from the Object which communicates to it, all the glory that it possesseth, 〈◊〉 relations to his similitude; in such sort as in regarding this happy Soul, they behold God.  
Moreover, it may be said more clearly. that God unites himself to the Soul in such manner, as the Fire, is united to the Iron: & forasmuch as the Fire; as agent, is more noble than the Iron, it convertes the Iron into its semblance, with so much perfection, as one would say, the Iron had changed its proper form into that of the Fire; yet notwithstanding the Iron looseth not awhit of its essence. Now this union of Fire with Iron is a real union, per se, and not through Species, nor through Image. So God who is called the (Deus noster ignis consumens est) is united to our Soul, per se, really, and receiving the same into himself, reduceth it to a being supernatural, and deified; in so much as it seems to be no more a Soul but God himself. A verity, which S. john publisheth when he saith, we shallbe like unto him. From the Time, that a Soul is united with God, he illumines it with a light of glory, to the end it may see him, and contemplate him at its pleasure, and with him all things which are in him, formally and eminently (to use the terms of the Schoolmen,) in so much, as it is ignorant of nothing within the perfection of its wisdom.  
O admirable Science! Then shall it be, when it shall clearly see within the Abysses of divine secrets, that which God did before he created the world. How he produced eternally another himself, without multiplication of Deities, and how between the producent, and the person produced, proceeds an eternal love of him who engenders and of him who is engendered, which is this adorable Trine-unity. It shall see beside how this God, being engendered Eternally in himself without mother, might be borne once on earth of the most glorious Virgin without Father. With what Providence he governs all things; with what Goodness he created Man; & with what Love he redeemed him. How he justifies invisibly without forcing the liberty; How the works of his justice's accord with those of his mercy; How he saves through his grace; How he leaves them reprobate without fault; How his infallible Science agrees without the Contingency of things; How the Predestinate may damn himself, and the Reprobate be saved, though the Science of God remain always infallible, and immutable as it is. The verity of all these secrets shallbe represented to its eyes, more clear than the Sun.  
O what Science, my Soul, or rather what incomparable felicity proceeds from all these sundry pleasures? When shall this be, that thou criest out with the Queen of Saba, speaking to thy Lord, in like manner as she spoke unto Solomon: What wisdom is thine, O great King, what glory, and what magnificence admire they in thy Kingdom? What City is this same, replenished with so many goods; what delicious meats and what precious wines, do they taste at the table of thy banquets? What lustre of greatness appears, in all those, that attend upon thee? Renown may well publish thy praises in all places of the Earth, if all the Heavens together are not large enough to contain the rumour of them. O happy Spirits, who reign in the mansion of this immortal glory! I wonder not awhit, at your so trampling under foot the Crowns and Sceptres of the world, in just pretention to the felicity you possess. What fires, what torments, and what new punishments, would not one suffer for to purchase this sovereign good, where repose is so durable? Gibbets, Hangmen, & all the instruments of Death, are as so many Trophies of the glory, which succeeds shame and pain. O how these divine words of S. Augustin, do cause a sweet melody to resound, while he says; Let the devils prepare me from henceforth as many ambushes as they will; let them address the last assaults of their power to encounter me; let fastings macerate my body; let Sackcloth and Cilices torment my flesh; let tribulations oppress me under their weight; let the long vigils shorten my life; let him there give affronts of his contempt, and here of his cruelties; let cold freeze the blood within my veins; let the scorching of the Sun tanne me; let its parching reduce me into ashes; let aches clean my head in pieces; let my hart revolt against my Soul, my visage lose its colour, & all the parts of my body stoop to their ruin; let me yield my life to the suffering of diverse torments: let my days slide away in weeping & continuull tears; and let the worms, in fine, take hold of my flesh, and the corruption of my bones: All this would be nothing to me, so I might enjoy Eternal Repose in the day of Tribulation.  
I will believe it, O great Saint: for what is it to endure all the evils of the world within Time, for to possess all desirable goods in the bower of Eternity! O sweet residence, where joy eternally endures, and where delights are immortal! Where nothing is seen but God; where they know nothing but God If they think, it is of God; if they desire, it is God himself. And howbeit the hearts do there sigh without cease for love, those sighs proceed not, but from the contentments of fruition, where Love always remains in its perfection. Let Antiquity vaunt as much as it will of the Temple of Thessaly, of the Orchards of Adonis, of the Gardens of Hesperides, of the pleasures of the fortunate Lands: Let Poets chant the pleasures of their Elysian fields, and let humane Imagination assemble in one subject whatsoever is more beautiful and delicious in nature, & they shall find in effect that all is but a vain Idea, in comparison of the immortal pleasure of this Seat of Glory. Let them imagine a Choir of Sirens, and let them join thereto in Consort both the harp of Orpheus, and the voice of Amphion; Let Apollo and the Muses likewise be there to bear a part: all this melody of these consorts were but an irksome noise of Winds & Thunders in competency of the divine harmony of Angels. Let them make a Perfume of all what Sweets soever that Arabia & Saba hath had; let the Sea contribute thereto all its Amber, and the flowers all their Balm; such a perfume notwithstanding would be but a stench & infection, in regard of the divine odours, which are enclosed in the Emperialll Heaven.  
O how S. Paul had reason to dye of love, rather than grief, in his prolongation to review the felicity which he admired in his ravishment! I desire to dye in myself, for to go to live in him, whom I love a great deal more than myself, said he, at all seasons. O sweet death, to dye of Love, but yet the life more sweet, that makes this Love eternal! Me thinks the sad accents of that great King David strike nine ears, when he cried out aloud, This life to me is tedious in the absence of my Lord. This Prince possessed the goods of the Earth in abundance, and Greatnesses and Pleasures equally environed the Throne of his absolute Power: in such sort, as he had all things to his heart's content. But yet for all that, he could not choose but be troubled in the midst of the delights of his Court, since so we see his hart to send up sighs of Sorrow unto Heaven, to live so long a time on Earth.  
What sayst thou now, my Soul, of the Greatnesses & Magnificences of this divine Palace, where Honour, Glory, and all the Majesties together expose to view whatsoever else they have more precious and more rare: where Beauty appears in its Throne in company of its graces, of its sweetnesses, of its baits, of its allurements, and of its charms; where, with power always adorable it attracts the eyes to its admiration; & through a virtue, borne with it, subdues their looks to the empire of its perfections. In such sort, as the eyes cannot love but its object after admiring it, they are so taken with the marvels, wherewith it abounds: where Goodness exercising its sovereign power forges new chains of love to attract the hearts unto it; and after having made a conquest of them, it nourisheth them with a food so delicious, as they never breathe but of joy, transporting them wholly in the accomplishment of their felicity. In such sort, my Soul, as all the pleasures together being elevated in their first purity are there found to be collected in their origin, to the end the Spirit might never be troubled to seek its desires.  
Consider the difference that is between the Contentments of the Earth, and those of heaven; I would say, those of the Palace where Creatures make their abode, and of those where the Omnipotent lodgeth. Thou hast seen within this first Palace, the Meadows enameled with flowers, the Champaygnes covered with rich harvests, and the Valleys peopled with a thousand brooks; but these spring up at the peeping of the Aurora, and wither at its setting. These harvests fetching their being from corruption, return in an instant to their first beginning, after they have run danger, to serve as a prey to tempests, and disport to the winds. And these Brooks, feeble in their virtue, may well moderate the ardour of a vehement thirst, but not quench it wholly, since the fire thereof always renews from its ashes. On the contrary, within this celestial house, the Lillies wherewith the Virgins are crowned, and the Roses which the Martyrs wear equally on their head, remain always disclosed as if they grew continually. The harvests there are eternal, & in beholding them, their divine nature hath this property, that it satiates the Soul through the eyes, after so perfect a manner▪ as it is ravished in its repose. The Fountains are of bottomless Springs of all the immortal delights that may fall under the knowledge of the understanding; & howbeit they quench not thirst, yet have they power to do it: but to make their sweetnesses more sensible, they entertain the drought within their Souls, without disquietness, to the end, that being always a dry with a thirst of love full of pleasure, they may always drink, that so without cease they may rest contented.  
Within that first Palace the chanting of the Birds did charm thine ears; and within this here the sweet music of the Angels ravisheth Spirits. Within that terrestrial dwelling, the Spring, the Summer, & Autunme were incessantly occupied in producing thy pleasures, & in this celestial bower an Eternity accomplisheth thee, withal the goods whereto imagination may attain. There beneath had you diverse houses of pleasure for to walk in; and here on high, the first thought of a desire is able to build a number without number, within the spaces of the Heavens, with a perfection of an incomparable Beauty. So as if thou be delighted with the Courts of the Kings and Princes of the world, to behold the Greatnesses that attend upon them, turn away with a trice the eyes of thy memory from those little Brooks of a transitory Honour, & admire this inexhaustible Ocean of the immortal Glory of the Heavens, where all the happy Souls are engulfed, without suffering shipwreck. Be thou the Echo then, my Soul, of those divine words of the Prophet David, when he cried out so, in the extremity of his languor; Even as the Hart desires the current of the living waters; so, O Lord, is my soul a thirst after you, as being the only fountain, where I may quench the same.  
Thou must needs, my Soul, surrender to the Assaults of this verity, so sensible, as there is nothing to be desired besides this sovereign good, whose allurements make our hearts to sigh at all hours; How beautiful are your Eternal Pavilions? and how exceedingly am I enamoured with them (saith the same Prophet?) My soul faints, and I am rapt in ecstasy, when I think, I shall one day see my living God face to face. O incomparable felicity! ●o be able to contemplate the adorable perfections of an Omnipotent! To behold without winking, the divine Beauty of him, who hath created all the goodly things that are! To live always with him, and in himself! Not to breathe but the air of his Grace and not to sigh, but that of his Love! Shall I afford the names of pleasures to these contentments, whiles all the delights of the world are as sensible dolours, in comparison of them? For if it be true, that a flash of a feeble Ray, should cause our eyes to weep in their dazzling, for the temerity they have had to regard very steadfastly its light; is it not credible, that the least reflection of the divine brightness of the Heavens, should make us blind, in punishment, for glancing on an object so infinitely raised above our Power? In so much as whatsoever is in Eternity can admit no comparison, with that which is comprehended in Time▪ The Felicities of Paradise cannot be represented in any fashion, because the Spirit cannot so much as carry its thoughts to the first degree of their divine habitation. Hence it is that S. Paul cried out, That the eye hath never seen the Glory which God hath prepared for the just. Whatsoever Saints have said hereof may not be taken for so much, as a mere delineation of its Image. And when the Angels should even descend from the Heavens to speak to us thereof, whatsoever they were able to say, were not the least portion of that which it is. It is well known that Beautitude consists in beholding God, and that in his vision, the Soul doth find its sovereign good; yet for all that, were this as good, as to say nothing: for howbeit one may imagine a thing sweet, agreeable and perfectly delicious in the contemplation of this divine Essence; yet were it impossible this good imagined, should have any manner of relation with the Sovereign, which is inseparable to this Glory. Let us search within the power of Nature, the extreme pleasures, which it hath produced in the world hitherto from our Nativity, and their Flowers shallbe changed at the same time into thorns, if but compared to those plants of Felicity which grow in the Heavens. Gold, Pearls, the Zephyrus, the Aurora, the Sun, the Roses, Amber, Musk, the Voice & Beauty, with all the strange allurements that Art can produce, for to charm our senses with, & to ravish our Spirits, are but mere Chimeras, and vain shadows of a body of pleasure, form through dreams, in equality, to the least object of contentment which they receive in Paradise. Which makes me repeat again those sweet words with S. Paul, When shall it be, Lord, that I die to myself, for to go live in you? And with that great other Prophet; I languish, o Lord, in expectation to see you in the mansion of your Eternal glory.  
What Contentment, my Soul, to see God If the only thought of this good so ravish us with joy; what delights must the Hope produce, and with what felicities are they not accomplished in its possession? The Spirit is always in ecstasy, the Soul in ravishment, and the senses in a perfect satiety of their appetits. Dissolve then, O Lord, this soul from my body, for I die always through sorrow of not dying soon enough, for to go to live with you. When as those two faithful Messengers brought equally between their shoulders that same goodly bunch of Grapes from the land of Promise, the fruit so mightily encouraged the people of Israel to the Conquest thereof, which had produced the same, that all fell a sighing in expectation of the last Triumph. Let us turn the Medal, and say that S. Stephen and S. Paul are those two faithful Messengers of this land of Promise, since both of them have tasted of the fruit, & have brought to Mortals the happy news thereof. So as if in effect we would behold another Grape, let us mount with S. Peter up to the Mounth Thabor, where our Saviour made the Apparition, through the splendour of the Glory which environed him. And it is to be noted they were two to bring this fruit, since there were two Natures united to one Person only. So as, my Soul, if curiosity and doubt transport thy Senses to behold the body of those beautiful Shadows of Glory which I represent to thee; hearken to S. Stephen, while he assures thee that he saw the Heaven's open. Lend thine ear to the discourses of S. Paul, when he saith, How all which he had felt of sweets and pleasures in that bower of felicity, cannot be expressed, because it cannot be comprehended.  
The desire which S. Peter had to build three Tabernacles upon this mountain all of light, enforceth thee to give credit, and believe through this show of fruit, that the soil that bears it, abounds in wonders. And that thus we are to pass the Red-sea of torments and of pains, within the Ark of the Cross of our Saviour, for to land at the Port of all those felicities. They are put to sale, my Soul; so as if thou shouldest say to me, what should be given to buy the same; demand them of thy Creator, since he it is that first set price upon them, on the mount Caluary. The money for them, is Patience in adversity, Humility in Greatnesses, Chastity in presence of profane objects, and finally the Exercise of all virtues together, in the world, where Vice so absolutely reigneth. And if thou wilt buy them with that Money which is most currant, and whereof God himself made use, thou art to take thee to the Scourges, the Nails, the Thorns, and the Gaul, and by a definitive sentence to condemn thy life to the sufferance of a thousand evils.  
But let it not trouble thee awhit to pronounce this Sentence against thyself: for if thou cast thyself into the burning furnace of divine love, thou shalt find the three Innocents' there, in company with the son of God, where for to sing forth his glory, thou shalt bear thy part. If thou cast thyself into the Sea of thy tears, jonas shallbe affording thee room within his little Oratory, for the publish together the divine marvels of the Omnipotent. If thou crucifiest all thy Passions, S. Peter will lend thee another half of his Cross, to participate of his Triumph; so as in the extremest dolours, shalt thou be tasting the extremest delight. What may happen to thee in thy sufferances worse than Death? Ah, what is more glorious then to suffer and die for love! And after God, what may we love besides him? What may we desire, since his divine presence very perfectly fills us, aswell with happiness as with Glory? If we must needs be stoned, as S. Stephen was, what joy to have our Soul enforced to go forth of the body with the strokes of flints, that those very stones might serve as Stairs to mount up to Heaven by?  
If we be to be laid on the gridiron as S. Laurence was, shall we seem to complain against the fire, for reducing us to ashes, while we are but ashes ourselves? And then a Hart which is truly amorous, doth burn of itself; in such wise, as the flames of the world, cannot but help it to die readily, which is all it desires. If we be drawn in pieces with four horses, as S. Hippolytus was, are they not sweet streynes of pleasure, rather than of pain, for to have the life snatched away with the arms and legs, for the Glory of him who hath created the Soul of that body? And beside, what an honour was it to S. Hippolytus to see his Spirit carried on a triumphant Chariot, so drawn with four horses to the Palace of Eternity? If one should be flayed with S. Bartholomew, what a happiness, trow you, would it be to him, who living but of the love of God, should behold this amorous life, by a thousand wounds, to abandon Nature itself? & after having made of his blood a Sea of love, to find on its waters the port of Eternal joy? If they throw us down headlong, from a pinnacle of the Temple, as S. james was, how sweet a thing to be oppressed under the weight of this Cross! Should we have so little courage amidst so many companions, who with their blood have tracked us out the way of glory.  
The Pagans who even buried their hopes in their Tomb; not pretending other good, then that of a vain Renown, have let us see some kind of magnanimity in their actions; for whatsoever horror and amazement Death may have with it, yet could it not daunt them awhit, till the last shock of its assaults. Mutius vanquished the fire with one hand, which vanquished all things in seeing it devoured with its flames, without being moved with it. Rutilius found his country in his exile. Socrates' drunk up a glass of poison to the health of his Spirit, for to give testimony to his friends, that he was not sick of the fear of death. And Cato, he made of his bosom a sheath for his poniard. Ah! and what! Shall all these Souls of the world have offered such glorious triumphs to virtue without knowing it; and we trample its Altars, and profane its Temples, after we have adored them? for though all be impossible to base Spirits, yet a generous hart can do all. What a shame were it for thee, my Soul, to fly those perils that give Crowns? canst thou not boldly thrust thyself pellmell into a throng of ten thousand crucified, fifty thousand beheaded, an hundred thousand rent with Scourges, two hundred thousand overwhelmed, & murdered with several punishments, wherein cruelty exercised its tyranny? Of a million of poor Hermits, and of Religious who have happily yielded up their life to the rigorous austerities of a number without number of dolours? And finally of two Millions of holy Souls, all sacrificed on the Altar of the Cross?  
Darest thou go to Paradise, by a way all strewed with roses, knowing thy Saviour to have passed by that of Thorns? What a shame is it for thee, to be in Paradise alone without having suffered a little evil for him, who should bestow so much good upon thee? What wonder shines in this divine Thought, that he who hath created the world, should have suffered all the evils thereof for recompense? He hath made the Thorns to grow, for to crown his head withal. He hath form in the Earth the mines of Iron, for to forge the nails; and with the liberal hand of his Providence, hath he watered the trees, which furnished the jews with those stakes whereunto he was tied; and at the same time fed, & protected the false witnesses that accused him, the judges that condemned him, and the Executioners who tormented him. It is true, in the order of his justice, he condemned Adam to death, and in the order of his love he executes the Sentence upon his own life. He would have miseries to reign in the world but it was but for himself, since he hath suffered them altogether.  
So as, my Soul, if in the extremity of thy Sorrows, the feebleness of thy courage should make thee to let fall some complaint, turn thy face to the Crosse-ward to admire the glory which is inseparable to it. One cannot go from one extreme to another, without passing through the midst; I would say, that from the Paradise of the Earth, we cannot ascend to that of Heaven, without passing through the fire, which is that midst where we are necessarily to be purified, like as gold in the furnace. But since the generous are more animated through Hope of Recompense, then fear of pain; be thou touched, my Soul, with the sweet feelings of the felicity which is promised us, rather than with the rigour of the Flames which are prepared. Thou wouldst yield to Love rather than to Force, to the end thy desires be not mercenary. And represent to thyself that as the punishments of the guilty are eternal, so are likewise the joys of the blessed immortal. After the tasting of a thousand years of pleasures, they have not yet begun; after an hundred thousand years of rest, they find themselues in the first moment according to our manner of speaking. After a hundred thousands of millions of years of contentments of joy & felicity, they are always in the first point of their happiness, with so perfect a joy of the knowledge, as they do nothing but rejoice in those delights. In so much, as even as long as God shallbe God, shall the Glory last, where the happy Spirits are filled with all sorts of pleasures, and consequently for ever.  
O Eternity, how profound are thy Abysses! The Imagination cannot sink its plummet into the bottom of them, but is always grieved to have so ill employed its Time. After it hath thought all its life on the marvels, or rather on the miracles, which are enclosed within thy labyrinths, it dies in the impotency of approaching to the entry. This Dedalus hath no thread, this Career hath no stop, this Circumference hath no Centre, nor this Line a point. Eternity termines to God alone, & God alone to Eternity. O incomprehensible Mystery, that a God should recompense a sigh of Love, with an infinite love! one moment of pain with an Eternity of Glory! For having tasted never so little of the vinegar of his Chalice, to quench our thirst for ever, in the torrent of these divine Sweetnesses! For having shed one tear of repentance, to make us live eternally in joy and smiles! For having fasted one instant, to satiate us for ever with meats the most delicious, which are found in Heaven. And finally, to recompense one night of travail, with a day of eternal Repose.  
Think never, my Soul, but upon this Eternity? What pleasures soever thou tastes in the world, represent to thyself they shall one day finish, and that in their end all the Thorns of their Roses shall assemble to make thee feel the sorrow of their privation; if thou wouldst have content, be it not but for Eternity; it is to dye continually, for to live with men, and it is to live always to live with God. It were to be unfortunate to be happy on Earth, since the true way of felicity is Heaven. Felicity is as immortal as immortality itself, and whither Time cannot reach to, because it is out of Time. In such wise, my Soul, as thou shouldst learn to speak this divine language of the Angels, whose Echo the Prophet is, when he saith, I languish, O Lord, in the expectation of seeing you in the mansion of your glory. Let this Languor devour thee, to the end, that dying of love for thy God, who is soveraignely lovely, thou mayest go to live for him, since this is the only Spring of life.   

Of the Infernal Pains.  
THE Great King Ezechias was brought to such a point of fear and astonishment, when the Prophet assured him he should dye the morrow after, as that if his lot had reserved him for shipwreck, he had now run that danger in the Sea of his tears. That fatal Sentemce took away his life before he died; for from the moment that the same was once pronounced unto him, he breathed but the air of Approaches to an inevitable death, where all Sorrows heaped together in one what they had of bitter or rigorous, to torment anew his afflicted Spirit. This poor Prince had but Sighs & Tears to defend himself withal against the batteries of a sovereign Will. He plains, but of himself; he cries but only to move Pity; he arms his hand with fury against his bosom, and with redoubled blows smites his breast, believing he laid hard on his hart the while, as complice of the crimes, whose punishment he carried. What shall he do? the night steals away insensibly, and the light which shall succeed his darknesses, is not to shine, but to show him the way to the Tomb. Sleep hath already taken its leave of his eyes, for fear of being drowned in his continual tears. Repose abandons his spirit in fear of Death which possesseth him. In so much as being reduced into a last point of Sufferance, he apprehends that every sigh which he casts to the wind, is to be the last of his life. The remembrance of his faults so forcibly aggravates the punishment, as he dares not think of them, but with the sorrow of heaving commited them: a Sorrow indeed, so powerful, as disarmed the divine justice of its Thunders.  
This great King lifts up his hart through Fear dejected, & constrains it to seek for hope in that midst of despair. He humbly confesseth the truth of those crimes, but with the same tongue wherewith he publisheth them, he protests before his God, & his judge to commit them no more; and for assurance beseeches the same God, and the same judge to cast down his eyes into the depth of his Soul, to see the feelings thereof; in so much as he was heard. Isay the Prophet receives commandment to revoke the Sentence of his Death, to prolong the term of his life, and to make the Sun turn back for some part of its way. O admirable Goodness! The whole course of the Universe is changed, rather than to refuse a man's request who promiseth to God to change the course of his life! But what difference between the Sentence which the Prophet pronounceth on the behalf of God to a guilty King, & that which God himself shall pronounce on that great day of his justice to the criminal Souls? They are both verily two Sentences of Death; but the one is signified in Time by a living man, to a man that is living yet; & the other is proclaimed out of Time by a God, to Spirits which are criminal, & incapable of repentance. Besides, we see how the first Sentence was revoked through grace, while the other remains inviolable by Reason. Mercy moderates the rigour of that there, & justice augments the pain of this here with an Eternity! O most dreadful Sentence!  
There was with the Persians a certain Prison, whence the guilty were never to go forth, which they called by the name of Lethe, as who would seem thereby to represent a place of Oblivion, & where the Thoughts of men do never approach. This Prison may well be compared to that of Hell, from whence the Thralls do never get forth, nor where the happy Spirits do never descend in thought. It is a place of forgetfulness, since God remembers not the wicked Souls, but to cause them only to be tortured by the instruments of his justice: They have no other dwelling then that of their sepulchres, cryeth out the Psalmist; which is as much to say, as they shallbe buried eternally in the tomb of Hell; or as S. Augustine saith, they shallbe full of life in the midst of their torments, in being always renewed again amidst their pains, without ever dying. O cruel life! Seing it is more unsupportable than Death! Let the most afflicted Souls appear, forsooth, upon the Theatre of their Martyring; let jultius recount at large the history of his sufferances. Let Persindas represent to us sensibly the cruelty of his punishment, at the light of the Sun, where he is exposed all covered with honey to the mercy of the Flies. Let Lepidus Crassus communicate with us through Contagion, a part of his evil at such time as they straight bound his body to a carcase, to the end the stench might serve as a Torturer to tyrannize his life to death. Let Phocinas the Locrian, show us clearly by the light of the Fire which consumed him, the torments wherewith he was tyrannised, in feeling himself by little and little reduced into Ashes.  
Let Pamindus the Philosopher express to us, in the Amazement of his mortal silence which the punishment of his tongue cut out had brought him to some feeble dolour of his smart. Let Lysander buried in the brazen Bull by the Tyrant of Syracuse make us to hear the sad accents of his cries for to publish with the language of his plaints, the truth of his torments. Let Lelius Cools discover in his countenance, the terror and the anguish of his hart, upon the Cliffs of the Sea, from whence he was cast down headlong. Let Martius Nevola mixing the wind of his sighs with those that enkindled the flames which consumed him, convey to our ears the sad harmony of his last groans. Let Virgilia the wife of Lertius the Roman, relate to us at leisure the trances of Martyring of a hart empoisoned by the cunning Enemy, who by little and little extinguished her in a long course of years, to make her sensible by degrees of all the rigours of death. Let Emilia represent to us, in her despair, the anguishs of a dying Soul, amidst the press of her disastres. Let the wife of Brutus send to our eyes the smoke of the burning coals, that consumed her bowels, to let us feel the heat wherewith she was burned. Let Messina, before she plucked out the Hart from her bosom, partake us with her torments, where through a Sentence of her fury, she condemned herself in making the one part of her Body to serve as a Hangman to destroy the other. Let Eugenia making a halter of the silk of her Harp, give us some testimony of the dolour of her precipitous Death. Let Cleopatra infect the Air with the Poison, which devoured her life, for to make us Companions of her evils.  
All these kinds of Martyring, these Tortures, these dolours, these uncouth torments and these evils without example, and these tyrannies exercised by men, more cruel than Tigers and Bears, can admit no comparison with the least pain of the damned. The Thorns of these sufferances, are Roses; and the bitterness of these anguishs is but honey. One moment of the pains in hell is more intolerable than an Age of Afflictions in this world. Let them lend their ears to the lamentable cries of Ampilaus King of the Pyroti, when as being fastened to his rich Couch with the rude chains of a thousand dolours procured through a Sciatica, his torments plucked out the hart from his bosom without snatching away the life, and with a cruel encounter drew his Soul to his lips without suffering it to go forth. To bewail the rage whereto his evil had brought him, makes him to throw out fire by the eyes, rather than to power out water; to complain with Sighs, of the excess of his sufferances, learns him a language so dreadful, as the noise of Thunder is not more terrible than that of his voice, made hoarse with the force of crying. They do well to deck his bed with the richest ornaments that may be found, to bring him rest, while his body is a Bush of Thorns, wherewith his Soul is straitly hedged in: In such sort, as the points of its thorns do afford him a thousand pricks of dolour & martyring, whose very thought is full of horror. They may cast their looks of pity on him long enough, while Cruelty, which incessantly butchers him, makes them so feeble in his succour, as he always breathes in the death of his pains without being able ever to dye.  
But turn we the Medal, and lend the ear of our imagination to the warnings of of that great King Pharaoh, bound in hell on a bed of devouring flames, which burn without consuming him, and which consume him, without reducing him to ashes. What inequality of evils, and what difference of cries? The one in time feels very piercing dolours upon a couch of Thorns, and the other suffers a thousand pains, all eternal, upon a bed of fire. He there yields up his miserable life, to the last shock of a cruel torment; and he here reviving always of his Ashes amidst his punishment, lyues not but to dye in his sufferances of a death eternally living. The former comforts himself with the hope of a Tomb, & the latter finds increase of his torments, in the despair of ever seeing an end. Let them think a little on the sensible torments, wherewith Tegonus, that great Prince of Almain was afflicted, when as his hart served before hand as a Coffin for the worms, which gnawed him without cease to devour his life. A punishment as cruel as prodigious: this was a living death, gliding in his bosom, where it forged darts of incomparable dolour for to martyr him withal. He wants for nothing in the midst of his Greatnesses, and yet wants he all, since all fails him of his content. His subjects are about him to receive his Commandments, but he knows not what to command them for his succour. The remedies they offer him are unprofitable in the ignorance of his malady; for the skilfullest Physicians of them understand not the cause thereof, which makes them ingenious without thinking of it, to afflict him a new, in steeping his mouth with a thousand sorts of bitternesses. He cries out in the extremity of his languors, but each one by his eyes makes answer to his tongue, in weeping at the noise of his sobs and his complaints. And after having suffered as many deaths as he sent forth sighs, he paid at last the tribute which he owed to Nature.  
Cast yet the view of your imagination upon the backside of the Medal, to hear the cries, a great deal more hideous, of another Prince abiding in Hell, being touched with the malady of a worm which gnaws him eternally, without devouring him. He sees all his Subjects about him, as culpable as he, but in the astonishment they are in, they answer him but by the eyes only, as unable to succour him, or to help themselves. The Devils are his Physicians, who not knowing the means to cure him, invental sorts of punishments to tyrannize his Soul. But what difference of pains? That Prince of the world finds this consolation in his afflictions, that after the worms shall have devoured his Hart, his life shall have an end with the end of their prey, and consequently his punishment. And on the contrary this Prince of Hell, finds always the beginning of his evils in the end of his pains. The worm that gnaws him, is immortal like as the prey which it devours: In so much, as his dolours remain extreme in their excess. The one turning his Face to the Tombwards, beholds there his sufferance buried with him, and the other sees himself buried yet living within a tomb of Fire, which through a cruel property entertains that which it burns, to the end it may never want matter.  
What may be imagined more insupportable, than the torment wherewith Charles King of Navarre died of? The Physicians knowing he had a very little life left him in the body, employed this vain device for his comfort, forsooth, to sow him up in a sheet steeped in Aquavitae, of purpose to prolong his life; but the ill luck was, that the servant who had sowed him therein, burned the end of his thread instead of cutting it asunder, where to say better, he burned the whole sheet, and the King that was shut within. Represent we to ourselves now the fearful cries of this unhappy Prince, who being enchained in a straight Prison all of Fire, casts forth the last sighs of his life, in the Flames, quickened with so excessive an heat as they may not be compared but to choose of the Furnace. They come to his Succour, but Death at that instant, touched with pity, prevents the help they could afford, in finishing his evils with the end of his life.  
But look we yet still in the backside of this Madall, upon the torments and cruelty which a new King suffers in the midst of Hell, being fast enchained within a burning prison, where he always burns without ever dying. What difference of Torments! The one is left to the mercy of devouring flames, being watered with a water which increaseth the heat; employing in vain for his Succour, the endeavour of his voice; & the other environed with despair, endures the pain of eternal Fire, which burns him without taking away his life. You see very sensibly, O you souls of the world, how the pain which one suffers in this vale of tears, cannot be compared, how cruel soever, with the least dolours of the damned. I I grant the Stone, or Gravel, the wind-cholicke, the Sciatica, and a thousand other Maladies beside, deliver you into a restless combat of punishments, and torments, yet their sharpest fits, their piercing points, their gall, and their rigours are true pleasures, joys, and ravishments of Spirit, in comparison of the sufferings of Souls eternally criminal.  
Let Lucius Fabius maintain as long as he will, in the discourse of his miseries, how the last day of his life had lasted three Months, he living the while without being able once to close the eyelids at the approach of sleep. Let Theocrates, publishing his unhappiness, vaunt contentiously in the presence of the most afflicted Soul, how he had lodged thirty six years in a bed, in company with a thousand sorts of pain, which visited him one after another. Let the unfortunate Caricles, trailing without cease the dirt of his body, through that of the streets of Athens, for the space of sixty years, move compassion in the hearts of those, which never had it, in consideration of his Misery; yet is the lamentable history of all these evils a very Canticle of joy and gladness, in comparison of the sufferances of the damned. For if Fabius have watched three months in the world, Cain never sleeps in hell: if Theocrates have passed his Thorny life in a like couch, & that he never came forth to re-enter into the Tombet; it is fifteen hundred years or more since the Richman hath lodged in a bed of flames, in the midst of Hell, without hope that the ice of death shall ever slake the heat of its fires. Let Caricles trail his living carcase, in the diverse ways, which lead him to the Tomb, he finds yet a Port after so many storms; but Pharaoh may be dragged long enough, by the devils in Hell, ere there be any death, or sepulchre for him, which may afford him an end to his pains. So as the difference is so great between the evils of the one, and the punishment of the other, as one cannot think of it, but with a profound astonishment: How profound, O Lord, are the Abysses of thy justice!  
You Souls of the world, pull off the veil that blinds you so; Break you the racks of your Passions, that withhold you in your vices. To what purpose, think you, is a moment of pleasure, while it robs you of eternal glory, and brings you forth a Hell of dolours? A little shivering of a Fever makes you to quake for fear. A fit of Heat makes you to breathe the air of a burning life, & to sigh at once with the ardour which consumes you quite. Alas! What would you do in Hell, where the Cold of Ice, where the Heat of the flames shall by turns torment you eternally? One glass of a potion, one little twitch with a launcent, two nights without sleep, within a bed very softly made, brings you to the last gasp. Ah! What shall it be in those darksome places, where a gall, more bitter than gall, shallbe always in your mouth! Where a thousand strokes of the launcets of fire shall pierce you, not in the vein, but to the hart, with a wound always bloody, and ever new, for to eternize the pain thereof; where a perpetual unrest shall banish rest for ever from your spirit, and sleep from your eyes.  
There was a great Personage of our time who had so great a horror of Medicines, that all the evils whose dolours he had proved were a great deal less sensible to him then their bitterness; In so much, as after he had tasted the gall thereof diverse times, this conceit came into his mind, that when there should be no other punishment in Hell then that of taking continually medicines, it would be insufferable. But I should think that if all the gall, and all the bitterness of the Earth were put together in a vessel, one would take that liquor for imaginary Nectar, in comparison of the puddle, & salt waters, whereof the damned are made to drink. Bethink yourselves, profane Spirits, who establish in the world the foundation of your repose. Open your eyes to behold the disastres which environ you. You seek a Paradise on Earth, but you find not in it, any other Centre then Hell. What pretend you? Pleasure's can accompany you no further than the Tomb, you must quit their company wirh life. Now what a grief hath one in dying to abandon the seat of delights for to enter into that of torments?  
Admit, one had passed very pleasantly a hundred years of life, at the last moment of that time, what satisfaction remains him thereof, since by the law of divine justice, it must necessarily ensue, that every one in his turn shallbe gathering the thorns of all his Roses? Every joy hath its sadness, every fortune its crosses: so likewise may we boldly say, that every pleasure hath its pain. If we let our first life run out in contentments, the latter shall become immortal in punishments. This is an inviolable decree pronounced by God himself, upon the Mount of Caluary, that he who will not follow the way which he hath taken upon him▪ for to go to Heaven, shall never enter therein. Flatter not yourselves, you Princes of the Earth, who being raised upon Thrones of snow and smoke, forget yourselves so much in your Greatnesses, as you become Idolatours of your good Fortune. If you be borne puissant, consider how your power is of glass, and that with all your Treasures you shall not be able to purchase a moment of assured life. All the advantage you have above others, is to be able to hide your faults with the more artificiousnes, under your sumptuous habit; but upon the uncertain day of your Death, shall you make demonstration of your misery; and the Corruption which you carry within, must necessarily appear without. Think you that the Empire which you have here beneath, extends any further than the Sepulchre? Even as at your birth you were wrapped in Clouts; so likewise dying, will they be folding you in a sheet, how rich soever you be. And your Diadem shall remain in your Palace for to Crown others withal, in the self same way where they are to follow you, since they likewise are continually to dye.  
But this is not all, you are also to pass the examine of your life before a sovereign judge, and dreadful in his justice.. You shall have no other succour than that of your works. If they be good, their recompense is prepared; and if they be naught, than pains attend them. In what amazement, and in what terror is a Soul brought unto before the face of his God, whiles his crimes accuse him, and condemn him to everlasting fires? O how the judgements of God are different from those of men, cries that great Saint! You delicate Souls, whom a little grief makes to look pale with fear, astonishment and feebleness, what will you do in Hell, where evils are in their excess, without finding any end in them? The noise of a fly troubles you, and that of a Caroche hinders you from sleep. Ah! What shall that be in those darksome places, where the dreadful cries of the Torturers, and of the guilty shall continually strike your ears? If you pass but one might only in the world without a wink of sleep, you fall to complaining after you have fetched a thousand & a thousand sighs, in expectation of day; & there below, within those obscure dwellings, the darcknesses are eternal, like as the disorders and disquietnesses are.  
One winter's day kills you quite within the goodly prisons of your chambers, & a summers-day within that of your Halles, built of proof against the heat of the sun for to avoid alike, the incommodityes both of cold and heat; And in Hell shall you always burn, if the cold of ice do not give you some respites to the torments of your fires, and by that means one punishment come to succeed another. Hence it is that the Prophet cries; Lord have pity upon me, in the day of thy justice.. O day full of horror & amazement! Where the living flames, after they have devoured the world, shall prosecute the guilty Souls in the deepest Abysses, for to exercise the justice of the Omnipotent! What unprofitable cries, what vain laments! They may sigh long enough, for the voice of their repentance shallbe so feeble, as it shall not be able ever to convey its accents to the cares of God. But what disorder also of a just cruelty? The innocent shall curse the guilty Father, and shall rejoice in his torments, as in so many effects of the divine justice; for the punishments of the damned make a part of the felicity of the happy Spirits, rejoicing in the justice of God, as well as in his Mercy. The cries of the accursed Souls, O Lord, are as so many Canticles of thy Glory, since they publish incessantly the truth of thy justice..  
O impious Souls, in your voluntary blindness! Why will you not suffer your reason to see how the pleasures you taste in this world, do bring the consequence of the evils, which you suffer in the other? When will you confess, that the hope which makes you to embrace with so much affection the future, is vain and deceitful, & that it hath for foundation of its promises, but the argument of your Misfortunes. You run after imaginary goods; & in the end of your Carriers, you shall find but true evils. Since repose seems as naturally sweet unto us, why have we not the Eternity thereof? Our life is a new Hell of annoys and disquietness, and yet nevertheless within the Hell of this life, we build to ourselves another Hell, to live there eternally. What a prodigy of cruelty do we seem to exercise against ourselves, for to sell an immortal felicity, for a moment of pleasures? So as if the joy which is promised us, hath not baits which are powerful enough to attract us to it, let the pain which follows the offence, purify our desires, & justify all our enterprises.  
O, how S. Augustine makes, on this subject, a sweet harmony to resound in our ears, when he saith; I love thee not, Lord, for the fear I have of thy Hell, nor for the hope of thy Paradise, but rather for the love of thyself. How many mercenary Souls do we see in the world, who have no other object in their actions, than that of Glory, or that of pain; & in a word who love not God, but for his Paradise, nor fear him awhit but for his hell. What affection? As if virtue had not Charms enough to make itself beloved without the help of recompense, and of pain? Alas, Lord! what manner of respects would the wicked afford you in this world, if you could be without Paradise, or if you had not a Hell, for to exercise your justice in? since with all your felicities, & your punishments, they so deeply forget the Greatness of your infinite Glory, and your equal power, as to live without yielding to your divine Majesty, but the least homage of thought. Who as if they were Gods themselves on earth, regard not Heaven, but to look on the Stars.  
My Soul, Love then thy God, for his own sake, since he is perfectly lovely; nor ever think of his Paradise, but in thinking of him, since he is thy sovereign Good. Fear him in like manner, without musing on the Thunders of his justice, with an amorous fear, which hath for object, but Humility, and Respect. So as, if in this world the Good be always good, content thyself with the satisfaction, which is inseparable to it. For Virtue hath this proper to it, that of itself, it recompenseth those who put its precepts in practice; even as Vice incessantly racks and tortures those, who follow it. All laudable actions produce in generous hearts, certain feelings of joy, so extreme, as when Renown shall have no Laurels nor Palms for to crown them with, yet he that is the Author of them, shall not complain thereof, since he hath been already rewarded for it, even before he looked for any certain recompense at all. And the contrary is noted in pernicious & criminal effects. pain can hardly be severed from the Offendor, nor the Hangman from the Guilty. A secret torment glides in his entrailes, and himself serves as a Hangman against himself, for to tyrannize upon himself: So true it is, that divine Virtue of itself communicates the good of its Nature, and Vice the evil. But let us not go forth of Hell with our thoughts, for not to enter thereinto in effect.  
Flatter not yourselves so; my Dames, as to think that Hell belongs not to you; it is for the guilty. judge yourselves without passion, whether you be exempt from crime or no, since at all times, & at every moment you offend God diverse ways. If you will mount up to Heaven after your Death, first descend into Hell during your life, and represent to yourselves lively the deplorable estate, whereto the miserable are reduced; I mean those Souls, which have lodged heretofore in as beautiful bodies, as yours are; and pursue you with your thoughts the toilsome occupations whereunto they are eternally condemned. You rise in the morning to take a liquor all of Amber for its sweetness, and of Pearls for its price; and going forth of your bed, you enter into your sumptuous Cabinet, where your fair Mirror attends you, to represent you as fair as ever. There it is, where you consider at leisure the dumb▪ Oracles of its deceitful Glass, of purpose to learn of it some new secret or other in favour of your Beauty, be it to shadow it with a little fly, or with some tress of hair, dishevelled in disorder on your cheeks, & upon your brow, lest the wrinkles cause not a fear in your Thralls. What new charms, what graces never seen before, do you borrow from the care you take, to cultivate the Flowers of your face of Earth?  
You pass over at your pleasure three hours of time, and a full whole day if the humour take you, to teach your eye with what grace, how, and with what force it should cast its look, for to wound the hart withal; with what smiles, and with what proportion, you should open the mouth, to let the double rows of your pearls appear, or rather to speak truly, of your rotten teeth, which incessantly devour the pleasures of your life. You shamefully lay open your bosom, all of Snow, which melts with the glance of the eye; and by a means which you have taught it, you make it sigh with pauses, for to move the rocky hearts with its sweet pulses. What crime so plain to make the whole world guilty? For the furthering of these errors, you dress up your body, all of dust & earth, with the richeh Ornaments, and then it is, that imitating the Peacock, you wax proud of the beauty of your plumes, without casting your eyes the while upon the miseries which serve you as foundation. What turnings & windings of Vanity do you fetch before your glass? But which way soever you turn, if you open the eyes of your spirit, you shall see the corruption which you cover under a frail skin, bedawbed all over with a plaster. Issuing forth of your Palace, you go to visit the Temples to profane them, for instead of adoring God, who hath guided your steps thither, you make your Vassals to adore you there, & through a guilty power snatch away the vows, and sacrifices which belong to their Creator.  
You are now returned again into your Palace, you count the number of your conquests; your naughty Genius always in action to deceive you, persuads you to believe that your eyes work the same miracles, which the Thunders do, since they wound the hearts, without any feeling of the bodies; and in this belief you commit a thousand crimes of vanity. In the mean while a Page comes to call you to the Table, where all the delicious meats are served in, by order, before you. And during the repast, after an eloquent Parasite shall have charmed your Spirit, with the melody of praises, which you deserve not, a Music of instruments charms your ears with new allurements of Sweetness. They present in the plates of your latter course, the sweetest spoils of the four Seasons. And while of custom the Musicians are tuning the Motect of your Perfections▪ you solicitously inquire of some one of yours, what manner of weather it is? If it chance to rain, you shut yourself up after dinner within your Cabinet of pleasure, for to hear in particular the sweet voice of a Page, whom you cause to sing the Air which best agrees with your passion. The rain is blown over, and the Caroche attends you at the gate of your Palace, for you to walk abroad, in the company of those who are most agreeable to you, into the Forests and Parks, whose ways are bordered with flowers, and enriched all along with clear fountains, where the water appears so limpide, as persuades hearts with the dumb language of their purling, to quench in their silver streams the thirst they feel.  
In the mean time the Sun is set, to cause freshness to arise from the humid embraces of its dear Thetis; and than it is, when the Air pours on the plants, the drops of the sweat, which the heat of the Sun hath caused in it, during the time of its course, whiles the Birds fall a bathing themselues, in singing in the little waters of this dew. The night comes slowly on, and its return seems to bring you a thousand pleasures; for during the repose of its reign, an infinite number of suns, whereof art is the workman, hung upon the ceiling of your chamber, illumine its objects for to make the beauty thereof appear. What idle discourses are there brought forth in jest? The flatterers play anew their parts in the presence of your blind Spirit, and in their Comedies they represent to you, the fabulous History of your Acts, worthy of praise, with warrant of their credit, but full of reproach according to the truth. The Time notwithstanding is slipped away, they call you to Supper, where the appetite is contented with delicious meats, whose sweetness art seems to vary diverse ways. After the repast, you return to your Cabinet, or rather into your terrestrial Paradise, where the Music attends you, for to charm the senses of your ear, since those of the eyes, of the smell, & of the tongue have been satisfied already.  
The Clock which ever wakes, doth admonish you, without thinking of it, how the night is slid away for to fetch us day again, which sweetly constrains you to pass from the repose of your waking to that of sleep, for to give more liberty to your spirit to entertain itself with dreams. But then to bring you a sleep more sweetly, you still cause delicious Music to be sounded even to your bed. The Damosels bring in your bags, & prepare your night-stuffe, which attends you at your glass, where before you undress yourself, you admire anew the Sweetnesses, the Graces, the Moles, the Charms, the Allurements & the curiosity of your Beauty, & with an Idolatrous eye, you often contemplate the imaginary perfections of your face. Then glauncing your eyes on the very same eyes, you love them now more than ever, in remembrance of the new conquests they have made that day: your cheeks of lilies & roses, your neck of ivory, your snowy bosom, & alabaster hands; these are the foolish terms of your servants which have part in this affection, as having contributed their power to the achievement of these conquests. And then do you cultivate yet more, according to your custom, by a guilty care, those Roses and those Lillies of your feature, that they whither not in the absence of the Sun, I would say, during the Eclipse of that of your Eyes, whose sweet influences make them to blow forth.  
At last they lay you on a bed most refulgent, all gorgeous in riches, and whereon it seems, as if the happy Arabia had poured forth a part of its odours; and to attract the sleep more sweetly into your eyes, you cause to be sent for some pleasing Music of a Voice, which ravishes your senses with so much sweetness, as they die with joy, without dying notwithstanding. Are not these great pleasures, trow you, if they could last? I speak to Souls who seek their Paradise on Earth. But the common calamity so prevails, as these delights even die in their birth, & their privation affords them a great deal more torments than doth their presence produce sweetnesses.  
Let us cast now our eyes at the last, on the backside of this Medal, & consider the cruel Metamorphosis of these contentments, in the intolerable punishments which Eternally torment a damned Soul. Let us behold the cruel exercise of its painful progress in Hell. You must take no great heed to the terms of Day, of Matins, of Evening, or Morning-calles, whereof I serve myself in this ensuing description, for that I am forced thereunto, to keep some order in my discourse. The devils in the morning then, come to awake this damned Soul, howbeit indeed, she sleepeth not a wink through the dreadful noise of their howl. These are the Chambermaydes which fetch her out of her bed all of fire, for to conduct her into a Cabinet all of Ice, not of Myrrors, for she durst not have looked thereinto, for fear of the fear of herself, so hideous and dreadful she is. These wicked Spirits do help to dress her after they have made her take a draught of Sulphur within a rotten Vessel, where the worms do breed in shoals. One combs her head, and that with a comb of iron with sharp points which makes the blood to follow. Another colours her cheeks with the red of Spain with a pencil of fire. He there washes her face with puddle water, & scalding hot withal; and he here puts on a robe of living coals on her back; and in this equipage a new Devil more hideous than death presents himself to her, & serves her as an Usher to conduct her to a burning Chariot, to convey her not to a Temple, but to the foot of a dreadful Altar, where she is cruelly sacrificed without losing her life.  
They lead her afterwards in the same chariot into a dismal Palace, where she finds the tables covered, and set with all sorts of poisonous and contagious Serpents, wherewith they feast her. All that dinner while a hideous noise of howl, and dreadful cries, serves for the Music to charm her ears withal. After repast is she brought back again to her Cabinet, where all the objects of horror, and amazement are assembled together for to afflict the sense of her sight. And after that, a Devil sings her an Air, whose ditty is the Sentence of her condemnation, and this verity the burden of it, How the pains she endures shall be eternal. What a Song? The time of her walking approaches, they bring then the fiery Chariot before the gate of her darksome Palace. She mounts into it, and thence rage despair, fury and cruelty draw her into an obscure forest of Cypress, where the Owls and Ravens do screech incessantly; so as she hears but the noise of death, not being able to procure death. She is now returned, she finds the same Table spread again, and with the like Cates, whereof she feeds of force, to the noise of a like Music to that of dinner. Being risen from Table, the Devil that hath the charge to wait upon her, comes again into her Cabinet and sings her likewise the same Canzonet of her dreadful Sentence, with the self same burden as before, How the pains which she endures shallbe eternal. In the mean time they bring her to a bed of thorns, whereinto they cast her at such time as she was wont to take her rest in the world; and thus passeth she over the night in these torments, without ever seeing any end thereof. Is not this a fearful life?  
Behold, my Dames, the exercise of those who have imitated you in your pleasures. Behold the employments of their whole progress. These are no fables I tell you, for like as the noise of the swinge of the world doth hinder you from hearing the sweet harmony of the motions of the Heavens; so the self same noise seems to hinder you likewise from understanding the hideous cries of a Cain, of a Pharaoh, of an impious Richman, and of a thousand of others your like, who have hitherto after so long a time been burning in Hell, and so shall burn for ever, without hope to see any end of their panes. That depends now on you, my Dames, to choose to you one of these two lives here. If you be tasting of honey in your youth, you shall have but bitterness in your old age. If you gather the Roses in your spring, the Thorns shallbe reserved for your winter. Choose hardly, behold yourselves expressed as Ulysses at the entrance of two ways, far different the one from the other. That of Virtue is stwowed with Nettles, and covered with Stones, & that of Vice is enameled with flowers, and bordered with brooks, whose sweet murmur invites you to follow the traces of their course. So as if you would needs know, where both these ways do termine themselves; the one in eternal Death, and the other in Life. And herein the example of an infinite number, which have been saved by the one, & lost by the other may seem to put you out of doubt. All the Saints, & in word, all those who are in Paradise have held the first, & all the damned have wretchedly followed the other. Demand you of the Richman what way he took? he will answer you, that he hath always walked upon Flowers, & that he never met with Thorns, till the arrival at his Sepulchre. Make you the same demand of Lazarus, & you shall hear of him, that he hath never trod but upon the Earth, all covered with briars, nettles, and sharp stones, and that even at the end of his travails he found the beginning of his glory.  
Think not, my Dames, to be gathering of the Flowers in this world, and then to be reaping of the Fruits in the other. All things are created in a Species of Contraries, which serves as a Cement to hold them together. The fair weather of your life seems to menace Rain at your Death, and God grant it be not a Flood of unprofitable tears, where without thinking thereof, you find not your Shipwreck. The calm of your days presages the storm of your nights, and take heed you find not some rock in the time of the tempest. I must needs confess, how the Poets have hid very excellent verities under the veil of their Fables; that Cerberus with three heads, whom they figure to us in hell, is nothing else but the devil, who as a Monster of many heads eternally devours the damned. Their Ryver of Cocytus, or Phlegeton, demonstrates to us the torments of death. The lake of Avernus' where troubles and sadness inhabit, what else may it seem to represent unto us, than the dismal dwelling of the wicked Spirits? The great Famine they feign of Tantalus, le's us clearly to behold the scarcity and penury of all goods which the damned have. The Vulture of Titius which incessantly preys on the hart without devouring it, doth figure nought else, than the worm of unprofitable Repentance, which gnaws without end those unhappy Spirits. The wheel wherein Ixion is tortured, as likewise the Pitchers which the Danaides filled in vain, are as so many witnesses of the Eternity of pains of the damned Souls; which lets us see how even those who establish their true Paradise in this world, have built them without thinking of a Hell in the other, where they are everlastingly punished.  
O cruel Eternity! What torments dost thou truly comprehend in thy long durance there beneath in Hell, where a million of ages in punishments cannot form a first moment of some end! After one hath endured and suffered an infinite number of pains, during as many years as there hath been instants in the Time since the birth of the world, may he not well affirm, that he had lived in those torments, but for the space of an hour only, if he were to live always in dying, & always to dye living, in Hell, without release or respite? My Dames, I speak to you, because you have the Spirit wandering in vanity. If you sigh for anguish in expectation of a Day, upon a bed of roses, with what impatience will you be racked in Hell, during those Eternal Nights? You shun the breath of the fire, and the burning of the Sun, as the enemies of your beauty; why fear you not rather the tanning, and burning of the eternal flames? Let me dye rather, said Nero's wife, then to become foul and wrinkled. Would you be conserving your beauty which is so dear unto you, for a few days, and live without it eternally in Hell? If you could but behold the foulness & deformity of one damned Soul, the only remembrance of the horror, and amazement of that object, would be an intolerable punishment to you.  
If Nature have not a stronger tie of love then that wherewith it hath enchained us with ourself, is it possible, my Dames, that you can exercise such a cruelty against yourselves, as not to wish to live content, but in the world, where your pleasures are like to dye with you? If Hell affright you not for its punishments sake, let the Eternity thereof breed a terror in you, to be unhappy for ever. To be in the company of devils for ever, doth not the thought thereof only seem to astonish you, since there is nothing more true than it? If nature, as a Stepdame, hath denied you the fortitude of men, at least it hath given you the force of a Spirit, for to know your errors. Love not your beauty but to please the Angels, rather than men, since it is a divine quality, whose admiration appertains to them. To burn always! Alas. Seem you not to resent, in reading the lamentable history of the punishments of Fire wherewith the damned are tormented, some little sparkle of its flames, through a strong apprehension of incurring one day those pains? I speak here to Thee, who readest these verities, to bethink thyself of this singular grace, which God seems to vouchsafe, in permitting this same Book to fall into thy hands, so to discover this sentence, which I have signified to thee on the behalf of God; That if you change not your life, you shallbe damned eternally. O cruel Eternity!  
O My Soul, think always of this Eternity, what torments soever thou sufferest in this world, say thou always with job, My evils shall one day have an end. O how happy was this man to be exposed on the dunghill of all the miseries of the world, as on a mountain, where tuning the Harp of his feelings, and of his passions, to the Key of his Humility, & of his Patience, he sung the glory of his Lord in the midst of his infamy. What canst thou suffer here beneath, more cruel than the pains of the damned? And yet if thou shouldst even suffer a part of their punishments, without the privation of grace, thou shouldst be happy, because those evils would termine one day, to the fruition of thy sovereign good. Then trample thou the thorns under thy feet, give thyself in prey to dolours & sufferances, nor have thou ever any other consolation then that of job, in saying without cease, My evils here shall one day finish.   

The Hour of Death.  
WE MU die: This is a law of necessity▪ whereof himself who made the same, would not be exempted. We must dye: This is a sentence pronounced, now for these six thousand years, in the Palace of the Terrestrial Paradise, by an omnipotent God, whose infinite justice hath not spared his proper Son. We must die: All such as hitherto have been, have passed this way; those who now are, do hold the same; & they who are not as yet in approaching to the Cradle, do approach to the Sepulchre. We must die: But we know not the hour, the day, the month, nor the year: we know not the place, nor the manner of the Death, whose pains we are to suffer. We must die. Since we hold the life but as borrowed of him that created the same. We must dye, it is an evil that hath no remedy; all our children must die, as our Fathers did, after they had showed them the way, which our Grandfathers had tracked for us. We must die at last, since we die every hour, because the air which we breathe, being none of ours, we cannot serve ourselves of it, but as others do in passing on till to morrow. We must dye, since that all which is in us continually tends to death, without release or intermission. The very fetching of our breath are counted, as well as our steps. In so much as all our actions are not wrought, but for a certain term, whence Time conducts us by little and little to death. We must die: This is a verity which experience proclaims to all the world; and to the end no man may ever doubt thereof, the Son of God hath signed the Sentence with his blood on the mount of Caluary.  
You must dye great Monarches, what marks of immortality soever you have. Be you as eloquent as you will, Demostenes is dead; be you never so valiant, Alexander is laid in his Tomb: If you have force for your inheritance, Samson is buried under the ruins of the Temple which he demolished. If you be fair, Absalon is reduced into Ashes. If rich, Croesus is no more of the world; if wise, Solomon is now not living; if happy, David is expired in the midst of his felicities. In fine, what quality soever you have, it is always inseparable from the mortal condition wherein you are borne. You must die and appear in this fatal Couch, not with your gorgeous Attire, nor Royal Mantles, but rather with shirts, well steeped in a cold sweat, where your lives are to run shipwreck. To carry your Crowns upon your heads, they are so feeble, as they cannot endure the weight. To hold your Sceptres in your hands, candles rather would beseem you better, to afford you light to find the Sepulchre. Your Subjects are already assembled about your beds, to see anew this verity, that you are all equal in the necessity of dying. Those Titles of Majesty, which they afford you, have no more grace with them amidst your miseries.  
Me thinks, in truth, it is very much to call you Men, since you begin to be no more so. It is even just now that you are to die, the day is come, the hour approaches, death is already on the way to your Palace, you may do well if you please to put your Soldiers in Sentinel, for to stop him in the entry. Behold how he knocks at your Chamber door, you must necessarily vouchsafe for to speak unto him, since he comes on the behalf of God, to signify the sentence of death unto you. I doubt me that you have the Spirit much occupied, in the apprehension of your present affairs, and that you would willingly put of the account to some other day, but that may not be; Time hath struck the hour, which is to bear sway at the end of your days. What sighs, what sobs, what plaints cast you forth to the wind? the remembrance of your Greatnesses past torments you now, while your guilty consciences put your souls on the Rack, like as the dolours already have put your bodies. For to cast your eyes upon the guilded Ceilings, were to increase the horror of the Sepulchre which they prepare you. To behold likewise your Courtiers who stand about you, the displeasure you find to leave them, makes you to turn your view another way. Whereas it were better to set your eyes on the approaches of Death, and in the feeling of your present Miseries, to publish in dying this verity, that you are but ashes, dirt, & corruption.  
Diogenes was walking one day in a certain Churchyard, where he entertained his sad thoughts in the meditation of death, at what time Alexander surprised him by a sudden approach, & demands of him what he was doing in so dismal & solitary a place? I am busied, said the Philosopher, in seeking out the bones of Philip your Father, amidst so great a number of these you see here, but the pain which I take is unprofitable, because they are all equal. This Answer is full of Mysteries, for it seems to represent us to the life, this Verity, That the greatest Kings of the world differ not awhit, but in goods and greatnesses only, from the wretchedst that are, since in the Tomb they resemble each other so much, as it were impossible to mark any difference between them.  
But me thinks, the hour is already spent, and that Death knocks harder now at the Chamber door then before. Behold how he enters in, carrying his scythe in the one hand, & an Hourglass in the other, to let us see that if he mow the hay of your life with his scythe, the sand of the Hourglass which he carries, being taken for the Foundation of your vainglory, is even now run out; so as if there remain any little behind, it is but only to give you leisure, to open your mouth, for to cast forth the last breath in this last moment. O fearful moment, whereon depends the Eternity of Glory, or the Eternity of pain! This is that last breath which condemns, or justifies all those who have gone before. O fearful moment, wherein is pronounced the Sentence of our second life or Death! O fearful moment, since it presides the birth of our wretchedness, or of our felicity! O fearful moment, wherein all our good, or evil consists! O fearful moment, wherein Paradise is offered, or Hell afforded! O fearful moment, wherein we are made companions for ever of the Angels, or of the devils! O fearful moment, where the Soul before God, finds the Eternal recompense of its good deeds, or everlasting pains of its crimes!  
O fearful moment! what joys, what sorrows, what pleasures, and what dolours dost thou comprise in thy short durance! As often as I think on thee, I do tremble with fear, for this moment is a great deal more dreadful, than death itself. This only moment is it, my Soul, whereupon the Eternity depends. Employ thou all those of thy life upon the thoughts of this last. Thou approachest unto it every hour, every instant robs thee of somewhat of thy former life. Whatsoever thou dost, thy body doth nothing but dye, & from its transitory life, depends thy eternal life, for out of the Earth canst thou merit nothing for Heaven. Think thou always on this last moment, where Crowns and Punishments are prepared; Crowns of an infinite glory; Punishments of a dolour immortal. All thy actions shall there be receiving their price or pain: Price of Paradise, or pain of Hell. Hence it is that the Prophet cries; I shall remember the day of my death for to live eternally.  
Cast your eyes now upon those Kings, extended dead upon their rich Couches. What say I, those Kings? can Majesty & corruption be compatible together? What appearance of belief, in beholding them to be such, that they are Kings▪ since all their Royal qualities are dead with them? Would not a man say, they were heaps of Earth, so raised above the Earth, where the worms are beginning to take their fees? Approach to this fatal couch, you proud Spirits, who measure the globe of the Earth through this vain belief, that you merit the Empire of it, and in your imagination contemplate the while those that possess them in effect, and you shall behold them quite through tears laid stretched at your feet, without pulse, & without motion. Their Majesties are full of horror, and miseries in their turn have taken hold of their own, since they are all borne mortal, and consequently miserable; what strange Metamorphosis from Colossus' of Greatnesses, quickened with a life full of splendour and of glory, to be changed in an instant into an heap of dirt, whose putrefaction infects the whole world?  
You Monarches, Kings, Princes, be you Idolatours of your Greatnesses as much as you please, I attend you at the end of your Career, to let you see on the backside of the Medal, that you are but corruption; & if you doubt thereof, let him that survives another, approach to his Tomb, & he shall sensibly know, that there is nothing more true in the world. Thou miser, approach to this mournful Couch, there is place enough for thee. Thou needs must dye, the hour is struck; but tell me, how much gold and silver dost thou leave in thy coffers, and to what end serve they but to purchase thee Hell? Thou must yield an account of thy extortions and oppressions. Death comes to summon thee on the behalf of God, to appear within an hour before the Tribunal of his justice, to hear thy sentence of death pronounced by his own mouth. What wouldst thou not give to prolong, yea but a day only, the term of thy departure? But all thy treasures cannot buy thee a moment of life, thou must dye.  
O cruel necessity, and yet more cruel the dolour, which now seems to martyr thy soul! Thou must dye; Thou mayest weep long enough, for death is blind; thou mayest cry as fast as thou wilt, while he is deaf; for to hope that the Greatness of thy miseries may move him to Pity, he neither hath hart, nor bowels; & if he live notwithstanding, it is for nothing but to enforce all the world to die. Thy hour is come thou must dye; Alas! How many deaths dost thou suffer, ere thou losest thy life. Thou leavest thy children rich, it is true; but diest miserable thyself, in the state of damnation. Behold thee well recompensed for the pains thou hast taken, in heaping so much wealth, forsooth, to lose thy soul! Cruel to thyself! Thou hast not lived, but for others. Infidel! thou hast betrayed thyself. Murderer! thou hast snatched away thy life, with an unnatural hand, employing thy care to fill thy coffers with gold and thy soul with crimes.  
You Misers, if you read the history of these Verities, derive your profit from the damage of others, & for the avoiding of these piercing griefs, and the intolerable dolours of this last moment of life, employ all the others to thoughts of the Eternity of glory, or of pain. And imitating the Prophet, say with him: Lord I will remember me of the day of death, for to live eternally. You must appear, my Dames, each one in her turn in this lamentable couch. The watch which Death seems to carry in his hand, hath struck the hour already of the departure of the fairest. She must needs dye, but assist, I pray, at this sad spectacle. Me thinks I see her now far different from that which she was wont to be. Alas! What a change! I seek for the Majesties which I have sometimes seen in her brow, and I find nothing else but horror, and amazement there. I demand of her eyes, what is even become of them, for they are buried so deep in her head, as they but loose sight of them who seek for them. Her cheeks as stitched one to the other, do hinder her from opening the mouth, in such sort as her tongue can speak no more than a sad language of sighs, to call upon Pity, to contemplate her miseries withal. Her arms very carelessly stretched forth, even die with their feebleness; In fine her body of Earth devours by little and little the flesh that covers it.  
Who would say now, seeing this Dame in the state whereunto she is brought, that she was the other day the fairest of the City? Her company was a duncing with her at such a time, where all the Gallants that were there, fell a striving to court her most. One valued the Gold of her hair; another the ivory of her teeth. This here, admired the snow of her bosom; and he there, the alabaster of her hands. The casts of her eyes did wound many of them, and the allurements of her graces, increased yet the number. The more indifferent to love, would become great Masters thereof, with the sight of her perfections: and yet nevertheless is it true (a strange thing) that her hair heretofore of gold, and now staring as it were, hath lost its lustre; that her teeth of ivory are become black with the blast of death; that the snow of her bosom is dissolved; that the alabaster of her hands is faded; that the species of her eyes are dulled, so as if they wound as yet, they are but the wounds of Pity. That her graces are without grace, and that in fine all those, who admired the same heretofore, come to repent themselves, and such as had loved her when time was, are now displeased with themselves, for having ever so much as dreamt of her.  
What cruel Metamorphosis, my Dames! If you cannot give credit to the faithful report, which I make you of these verityes, cast but your eyes upon this doleful Couch, and you shall see a living image of yourself, or rather a dying of one, now brought to the last extremes. You make such account of your charms, behold them in the Tomb; you prise your baits so much, contemplate the same in ruin; you cherish your Sweetnesses so dearly, consider their feebleness; you make a show of your deliciousness and your allurements, behold to what pass they are now brought. Vaunt you of the Roses of your face, as much as you please, they are no more but Thorns. If you lay forth to view the whiteness of your delicate complexion, see you not how pale now dolour harh made it for to take away its beauty? All those locks so curled in nets of love; all those eyebrows so carefully elaborate with a trembling hand; that face so washed and plastered over with a secret art; those painted lips; that neck so erected through force of endeavour; those curious actions, those smiles, those Vn-voluntaries of hers, and all those agreeable fashions are vanished now in an instant, and horror and dreadfulness possess their place.  
Alas! how the pourtraite of this Dame▪ which I see there hanging at her bed's head, is different far from its original? The shadow of that body moves to love, the body of this shadow to pity. The allurements of this liveles image are all full of charms, and the draughts of this beauty yet living, wounds with fear, instead of love. The hour in the mean time seems to pass away, and she must die. Alas! what dolours do they feel in this cruel departure? From what pain are they exempt? This poor Dame beholds herself abandoned of all the world and which is worse of the Physicians themselves. She sees not but by the light of mortuary torches, which are lighted round about her bed. A confused noise of sighs & plaints doth smite her ears; Her own savour begins to infect her, and her feeling is exercised with the sufferance of a thousand sorts of pains, and all very different in themselues. Whatsoever she beholds afflicts her, because all the objects which are represented to her, do carry the image of her dolefulness with them. Her Parents & her Friends are about her indeed, but they are as so many executioners that put her hart upon the rack by reason of the grief she feels to forgo them for ever.  
Her only Brother comes to her, to give her a kiss, all bedenwed with tears, and his moaning plaints do even pluck out the hart from her bosom, as knowing them to be the very last. Her Father oppressed with sorrow comes to bid her the last Adieu, but all of sighs, in regard her evil now grown to extremes, seems to put him to silence; in so much as his tears and sighs are feign to speak for him to his dying daughter; who makes him answer in the same language, both of the eyes & hart, without being able to let fall a word. Her mother hath her eyes glued upon her pale and diffigured countenance; and in this dumb action of hers, whereto an excess of dolour hath brought her, she suffers a great deal more pain to see her dye, than she had pangs before to bring her forth. And so in order all those that loved her, and whom she dear loved, came in, to yield her this last duty of visit. But howbeit they premeditated somewhat to say unto her, their tongues became mute at their approach, and their eyes made supply of discourse in their fashion. For what means is there to speak in a doleful place, where Death goes imposing an eternal silence? The Priest approacheth to the bed, with a Crucifix in his hand, which he presents to this foul sick wretch: she takes it with a trembling hand, knowing it to be the Cross, whereupon the Omnipotent judge was nailed. If she cast her eyes upon his Crown of Thorns, she draws them into her hart, by her looks, in remembering the roses, which she had deliciously trod under her feet during her life: But there is now no more time to be carrying the same into the soul, because her senses, as half dead, are unsensible of their prickings.  
If she regard the visage of this her Saviour all covered with comtempt, she sinks down with the confusion of the outrages, that she hath done to herself, remembering the guilty care which she hath taken, in plastering her face of earth, and ruyning in that manner with a sacrilegious hand the sacred workmanship of heaven, and of Nature; and for having employed the better part of her time in these errors, to the disparagement of her soul, as if the same were corruptible like the body. The torments which her God, and her judge hath suffered for her upon this Cross which she holds in her hand, and which she never had borne in her hart, do shamefully upbraid her now, for the delights of her life. Then falls she a sighing at it, but her sighs of wind are taken but for wind; she weeps thereat, but her tears of water, are taken but for a little water, since she cannot wipe away the blot of her crimes, because their spring derives not from the hart; and that her tears proceed from the fear of present death, rather than from a sorrow of life past.  
There need no other witnesses to condemn her withal, than the wounds of her Saviour; for as he had suffered all the pains of the world, so she had tasted all the pleasures. Alas! if she could but turn back again, and return to the midst of the course of her life; if her words might have the same virtue, which those of joshua had, for to command the Sun to return back again to its East, to afford her leisure to do penance in; is it not credible, my Dames, but that she would be dipping the bread of her nourishment, within the water of her tears, for to bewail her sins? But that is in vain to desire the return of life, since she must die and the hour is already struck. Alas! how many living deaths devour this poor body, before her life be snatched away at last? What strange torment seems to rack her soul? she dies with sorrow, for not being able to live any longer, and notwithstanding every moment of life is to her an age of dolour. She is so engulfed in torments, as she imagines, that all the afflictions in the Earth, are assembled in her Chamber, or rather in her Soul, since now she is brought into extremes, through the force of anguish. Sorrow for the past, apprehension of the future, horror of the Sepulchre, and the uncertainty she is in of her salvation, do hold her spirit continually on the rack.  
That little which she sees, is but to bid Adieu to the light; that little which she understands, is for her last: and being thus brought into this extremity, now it is when the devil lets her see to the life, the portrait of all the offences which she hath ever committed, to the end the enormity of them being joined with their number, might make her to turn her face to despair. To make yet an exact Confession, all her Spirits are in disorder, and the powers of her Soul so feeble, as they can serve but for resentment of her evils. She would fain speak, but a mortal stuttering withholds her tongue half tied; and on the other side the smart of the pain which she suffers, is so sharp, as she cannot open the mouth but to cry. A dolour without cease torments her continually: her dying life is wand'ring every moment, in the punishments she is in, & when she finds herself, it is but to lose herself again in her syncopes, which are the forerunners of her Death. The eyes bolt out of her head, as if they had this knowledge, that they were unprofitable unto her; her mouth awry, and half open, gives passage, by the eye, unto her bowels, to behold the torments she is in. It is now time, my Dames, you present her with a Mirror, for to employ her last regards, on the sad contemplation of the dreadful ruins of her beauty; what faces makes she the while? her hideous look affrights not only little children, but even likewise the most courageous.  
Behold yourselves, my Dames, within this glass, if you will but apparently see the faults which are hidden under your own, from point to point, or rather under the Spanish white, wherewith you are painted. Behold into what estate are reduced your allurements, your charms, your sweetnesses, and your baits, which you so put in the rank of adorable things. These are no Fables, no Illusions, nor Enchantements, these; you have seen the other day this foul dying wretch, with a lustre of beauty, that dazzled all the world, who to day seems to move you to pity, and horror at once. Mark well all her actions, but quickened with dolour and dread: these are the true examples of those, which you shall one day suffer, it may be to morrow, or even to day who knows? And then, dare you wax so proud of your beauty as you do, while the crust thereof is now thus broken as you see, in the presence of so many persons, who have seen, how the inside was all, but full of corruption?  
In this mean while, the sick person dies by little and little. It is now time, to make the funeral of those fair eyes, since their light is thus extinct. The Priest may cry in her ears long enough, for death hath taken up his lodging there, and every one knows that she is deaf. Her hands, & her feet are without motion, as well as without heat; the hart seems to beat as yet, but it is only to bid Adieu to the Soul, which is now a departing; and to tell you whither▪ I leave you to think. Such a life, such a death. Let me only say, That the judgements of God are far different from those of men. Approach then, to this corpses, you profane Spirits, & through a sensible sorrow of having ever heretofore adored its Beauties, participate with its death. Behold its hair, which once you termed golden, and wherewith Love used to serve himself, to tie the Freest; the lustre now is vanished from it, the beauty is defaced, nor can it serve for aught, but to move pity. That brow heretofore so full of Majesty in your eyes, and where the Graces appeared in troops (these are your terms is now become an object of hate, & contempt. Those eyes which you called, your Suns, resemble now two Torches newly put out, whose stink drives away as many as approach unto them. The Roses of those cheeks are changed into Thorns; the coral lips are now of alabaster; the ivory neck is now of earth; the bosom now is no more of snow, but all of ashes; & finally this whole beautiful body, is flesh no more, but even dirt. And if you will not believe me, approach nearer, & you shall resent the infection▪ thereof.  
Behold, O you Courtiers the Idol of your Passions. What a shame is it now for you, to have adored this carcase, so full of worms and putrefaction? You made of its presence, during its life, an imaginary Paradise, and now you would make it a true Hell. Heretofore you could not live without seeing her daily, and at this time, you even dye, with the only beholding her. It is not yet three days, since you kissed the picture with an action of Idolatry, & now at this present, you dare not to cast your eyes upon the original, so dreadful and formidable it is. Represent unto you then, for your satisfaction▪ that all the fairest Dames of the world shallbe reduced one day to this piteous estate; and that all their graces, which are borrowed of Art, accompany them no more, then as a day of the Spring; in so much as if they wax old, they pass the most part of their age out of themselves. For without dissembling with the times, a Dame when she is grown in years, is fair no more, she lives no longer in the world, they put her in the rank of things which are past, & whose memory is lost.  
Look when a beautiful face comes to your view, and make you at that instant an Anatomy of it: if you cast your eyes upon her fair eyes, represent to yourself in that moment, how they are subject to 63. diseases, all different one from another, and that one drop of defluxion produceth a contagion in those who behold them. Her nose which you judge so curious, is as a Silver box full of ointments, for one cannot defend himself from the infection which issueth thence, but with Musk and Civet. Her mouth is ordinarily infected, with the corruption of her teeth. If the Hands of this fair body seem to please you, know you not how she steeps then every day in lie, for to make them white; I would say, that she is fain to wash them every moment to take away the spots & foulness of them. In fine, whatsoever you see of this beautiful body, is but plaster, & what appears not otherwise, but mere corruption.  
Dress then, and trick up yourselves, you Dames, as long as you please; yet shall you not change, for all that, the nature you are of. If you charm the world through your false allurements, the world charms you with its vain promises. Do not flatter yourselves, you are but clay, infection, and corruption. So as, if nevertheless you enforce any love, it is but through imposture; for that, covering your face with a new visage, it is easy to deceive those who have no judgement but in the eyes. If then you would leave of Vanity, muse always upon Death, since you may happen die at any hour, be it in banqueting, be it in walking. Go whither you will, your paces conduct you to the Tomb. And at such time, as you stand before your Glass, in the action of washing your face, imagine how it shall putrify one day, and perhaps to morrow, and that all the care you take, to make it white, will not hinder the worms from devouring the same. Yet after you have employed about it, a whole vial of sweet water, shed at least one salt tear of sorrow for your sins, to wash your most enormous Soul.  
What a shame is it then, for you to trick & trim up your body so every day, whereof the worms have already taken possession, and to abandon your soul on the dunghill of your Miseries, whereunto your crimes have brought you? Harken to the Hour that even now strickes: what know you, whether if shallbe your last? do you find yourself, trow you, in a good estate, to present yourself before a dreadful judge, who hath so many Hells to punish the guilty? Your companion is dead already, and you take no heed, but even run after her, every moment without cease, or without any respite. How then is it possible, that you can run so to Death, in the estate of damnation, wherein you are? Rather imitate the Parthians who in flying, triumphed of their enemies. And weep for sorrow of your life, in running to Death; and sigh in way of repentance to the last gasp. Imitate also that great Personage who caused himself to be painted on a B●ere, with his face bare, his hands joined together, even in the very same posture wherein he was to be laid forth after his Death, and every morning would he go to make his prayer before this picture; which succeeded so happily with him, as he died without any trouble, or disquietness.  
Sirs, I have represented to you in the beginning of my Book, how there is nothing assured in this world; the which, me thinks should oblige you first to lift up your eyes to Heaven, for to see the Eternity of the glory which is there promised unto you; and then as all dazzled, to cast them down again, with the help of your imagination, into Hell, whose punishments also in part I have described to you. Then returning to yourself, consider how these felicities, and Eternal pains depend on a moment; and this is the moment of Death, whereunto you approach every hour. Repose yourself then, every day, for a quarter of an hour, upon this doleful Couch, where this late beautiful Dame hath expired; & divert your Spirit in this time of grace, to think upon that, which you would then be thinking of, when you shall come to be tied thereunto with the chains of dolour & anguish. And these be the true Thoughts of Eternity.   
FINIS.