A DRAUGHT OF ETERNITY. Written in French by JOHN PETER CAMUS Bishope of Belie. Translated into English by MILES CAR Priest of the English College of Douai. AT DOUAI, By the Widow of MARK WYON, at the sign of the Phoenix. M.DC.XXXII. TO THE NOBLE AND VIRTUOUS LADY THE LADY ANNE ARUNDEL, WIFE TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE, COUNT ARUNDEL LORD OF WARDER. MADAM, This FIRST DRAUGHT 〈◊〉 Lineament of the BLESSED and ACCURSED ETERNITY, which hath the reputation of a Masterpiece of one of the prime & master-pencills of that flourishing and well spoken France, seems to me neither unworthy, nor unfit to be presented to the veiwes and thoughts of our English Catholics. The subject is most sovereign to remove contentions, and move to wholesome thoughts, thoughts of Peace and not affliction. The Author a Bishope. Worthy to be heard for his Reverence. Sweet withal, and peaceable, and pleasing to every one. And as powerful, so pious in speech. If I should instile him a wonder of knowledge. A milken flood of French eloquence. Renowned for innocence of life and piety. The invention were not mine. If I should demand, who could ever comprehend the greatness of the wonders with which this famous Bishope doth daily enrich the world, since even the number of his works will shortly wax incomprehensible, being an undraynable fountain of inventions, whence all the world doth quench its thirst, making whole volumes of his thoughts, MONSIEUR DE LA SERRE that renowned Historian of France, would glory to be the author of the demand. If I should term him a flood of eloquence flowing this day through all France, in the multitude and variety of his sermons and noble writings; and speak of the happy sallies of the incomparable fullness of wit which every one admires in him; that honour of France and of Bishops SALES (whom a strait spiritual consanguinity made him repute and call his Father) would esteem the speech but spareing. Deign then, MADAM, this small work with the protection of your Honourable name, and permit it to pass out under the same, as a poor testimony of your charity's manifold obligations to many, A DRAUGHT of whose worth, I must confess, I had a respectful ambition, to have made a light and grace to my weak endeavours therein; yet feared indeed, how so unskilful a pencil, and in so great a distance, could take to life so gracious a Prototype: I know, the Sun communicating its heat and light to Regions furthest remote, makes men of meanest skill promise themselves ability to set it out in its true colours; while yet they, whom a sound knowledge hath placed nearer unto it, laugh to discover the poor painters errors. I am not ignorant, that as in faces, so in graces of the mind, the most exquisite and peerless do most entice Art to attempt, and yet do most labour, and furthest outgo it. 'tis a hard task to take the true picture of Charity. Especially that which (according to our saviour's counsel) is exercised in secret; at least, in the secret of a hart, which a pious intention locks up from all touch of vanity, or humane respect. But this point I know also, your Honour's Goodness will easily permit me to pass over, yea her virtue will impose silence upon me. I will therefore obeying, draw Tymant's veil over this inimitable visage, this beauty and life of all your perfections: and will leave that mark of mine own insufficiency, a testimony, to after-ages, of your unspeakable worth. Licence in the interim, my pencil, such as it is, rudely to essay the expression of that, which the honour and hap, I had some time to see your Honour, left deeply imprinted in my hart, whereof the Ideas are yet, and ever shall be fresh and lively. A truly Catholic ZEAL to see JUSTICE and PEACE kiss. A singular GOODNESS OF NATURE obliging and engaging all. The law of CLEMENCY, (an ormament as goodly as rare in that height of honour) in your tongue, shining together with a heavenly PIETY, in all your words, in all your actions. A BOUNTVOUS HAND open to the needy; and palms stretched out to the poor. In fine a truest mark of nobleness, a richly pious CONTEMPT of nobility and riches. My Table is too little, my skill too slender, to comprise, or set out in any just proportion, those troops of virtues, which, in your hart, do wait upon their sovereign Queen, CHARITY. Madam your Bounty would give a large field to a skilful hand. But our profession and practice being not to praise, but to pray: we will ever pray for your Honour's prosperity, and leave your works to praise you, in the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem. Your Honour's most humble and obliged Servant MILES CAR. A word to the Reader. CURTEOUS Reader, The Author will have you know, First that this little work, was the fruit of one of his Spiritual Retraites. The Manna which he gathered in the Sacred Desert of Penance. A child of Prayer rather than of study; begotten at the foot of the Cross: brought out in the abundance of his hart: speaking to the hart rather than to ear. Thence he desires the hart may rather peruse it then the eye, at least that it may be eyed in piety, fear and simplicity of hart. Secondly, that, though he were prevented (howbeit without his knowledge) in this subject, by two most excellent pens, DREXELIUS, and LA SERRE, yet he falls in with neither of them, but walks a middle way: for leaving the first in his diligent search of Antiquity; the second, in his affections, elevations of mind, motions, and rich amplifications, he applies himself only to the meditation, or simple Contemplation of Eternity. Thirdly that in the version of diverse passages of the holy Fathers etc. he was not scrupulous in tying himself to their terms (their sense was his aim: in that he is faithful) Say the like of holy Scripture. Hence the Translator will crave pardon, if faithfully following his author, he give not always the words of Scripture, though he mark it in another letter, to bring more light and life to the reading, While the humble majesty thereof, is, at least, pointed at. A TABLE OF THE STROKES OF THIS DRAUGHT OF ETERNITY. The first STROKE. THat Eternity is little considered. Page 1. 2. That all the evil in the world, comes from want of thinking of Eternity. p. 8. 3. How profitable it is to think of Eternity. p. 10. 4. Eternity is the proper thought of a spiritual man. p. 13. 5. The sensible man thinks not of Eternity. p. 19 6. Sin deprives us of the consideration of Eternity. p. 22. 7. Things present do hinder the contemplation of Eternity. p. 26. 8. That we put a rate upon present things rather by their nearness then worth. p. 31. 9 The weakness of Faith, makes Eternity less considerable. p. 36. 10. Origen's error touching the Eternity of the pains of Hell. p. 42. 11. Eternity cannot be defined. p. 46. 12. That Eternity is incomprehensible. p. 48. 13. Eternity is ineffable. p. 50. 14. An imperfect description of Eternity. p. 53. 15. What Time is. p. 56. 16. Eternity compared to Time. p. 62. 17. An elevation of the mind to God, upon the comparison of time to Eternity. p. 67. 18. Man's life compared to the world's continuance. p. 70. 19 The force of the thought of Eternity. p. 74. 20. That this life is only lent us to think upon Eternity. p. 80. 21. An entry to the consideration of the accursed Eternity. p. 88 22. The horror of this subject. p. 92. 23. It is an universality of evils. p. 95. 24. The pains of sense, and first of the sight and hearing. p. 100 25. The pains of other two senses, the Smelling and tasteing. p. 107. 26. The pain of the sense of touching. p. 110. 27. A sith to God. p. 116. 28. Of interior pains. p. 118. 29. The Prison of Hell. p. 127. 30. Of the pain of Damni. p. 131. 31. The continual grief. p. 135. 32. The Eternity of the torments of Hell. p. 144. 33. Of the desperation of the damned. p. 153. 34. Pains without intermission. p. 156. 35. Whether it were better for the damned not to be. p. 161. 36. Why there pains are eternal. p. 166. 37. An Apostrophie to God and the soul, upon the accursed Eternity. p. 171. 38. A passage to the blessed Eternity. p. 181. 39 The fineness of this subject. p. 186. 40. That the eternal felicity is the petfection of all good things. p. 189. 41. Of the place of the Blessed Eternity. p. 195. 42. Of the magnificence of the place: p. 199. 43. Of the essential happiness of the blessed. p. 207. 44. The happiness of the point of the soul. p. 215. 45. Of the felicity of the powers of the soul, and first of the memory, p. 221. 46. The advantages of the understanding. p. 227. 47. Of the light of Glory. p. 236. 48. Of diverse degrees of Glory. p. 240. 49. In what measure the beautified understanding sees God in Heaven. p. 245. 50. Whether the beautified understanding sees all in God. p. 252. 51. The pleasures of the Will. p. 256. 52. The felicity of the inferior portion of the soul. p. 264. 53. Of the dowries of the beautified soul. p. 268. 54. Touching the qualities of the glorified bodies. p. 271. 55. The pleasure of the Senses. p. 276. 56. A continuation of the precedent subject. p. 283. 57 Of the Aureola. p. 287. 58. The Blessed society of the Elect. p. 292. 59 The Excellences of this holy Society. p. 296. 60. Other excellencies. p. 302. 61. A continuation of the excellencies. p. 308. 62. A flight of the mind towards this happy company. p. 317. 63. Another flight of mind. p. 320. 64. Eternity is the fullness of Beatitude. p. 326. 65. Means whereby to arrive at this happy Eternity. p. 334. 66. A continuation of the former discourse. p. 345. 67. Another mean. p. 352. 68 That this thought of Eternity is the abridgement of all spiritual life. p. 363. 69. A continuation of the former discourse. p. 368. 70. Of the essential Eternity. p. 376. 71. That this essential Eternity is all things. p. 384. 72. An application of the Heart to this essential Eternity. p. 391. 73. An aspiration of Hope. p. 403. 74. A practice to engrave in our heart the memory of Eternity. p. 409. 75. Other endeavours. p. 420. 76. An other memorial of Eternity. p. 424. 77. The moments where upon Eternity doth depend. p. 444. 78. The present moment. p. 450. 79. The eternal doom. p. 458. 80. Adoration of the essential Eternity. p. 474. FINIS. ATTESTATIO. LIbrum hunc, cui titulus A Draught of Eternity, Authore Rever. mo IOANNE PETRO CAMO Episcopo Bell. diligenter perlegi; adeoque nihil in eo Fidei aut bonis moribus contrarium reperi, ut aeternâ laude & lectione dignum judicem: ac proinde, ob quem, tam Interpreti quam Authori aeternam debeant, ad aeternitatem aspirantes. GVILIELMUS TALBOTTUS S. Theol. Professor. APPROBATIO. HIc liber, cui titulus, Crayon de l'Eternité, gallico Idiomate à R.mo Domino D. JOANNE PETRO CAMO Episcopo Bell. Conscriptus, & in Anglicum sermonem opere Rd D. MILONI● CARRAEI versus, cum nihil contine● contra Fidem seu bonos mores, ut mih● docti & Fide digni viri testimonio constat● imprimatur. Actum Duaci die 26. Maij● 1632. GEORGIUS COLVENERIV● S. Theol. Doctor & Professor, a● librorum Censor. A DRAUGHT OF ETERNITY. That Eternity is little considered. THE FIRST STROKE. O People devoid of the spirit of counsel, and unprovided of true providence: God grant thou wouldst be wise, and understanding, and that by a mature foresight, thou couldst reach to the end of future things. These are the words of the great law giver of the jews, taxing that Nation of inconsideration, of an incircuncised heart, and a stiff neck, and laying the greatest part of their faults, upon the little attention they had to foresee future things. To which purpose saith S. BERNARD excellently well. In these words of Moses, three things are recommended unto us. Wisdom, Understanding, and Providence. And I conceive them to be assigned, and applied to three times, to represent in us a Draught of Eternity. Which we will do in this manner; in moderating things present by wisdom; in discering things passed by the judgement which we will make of ourselves; and by an exact prudence in disposing ourselves for the time to come. An●certes, wisely to dispose of thing present, and seriously to recogitate things past in the bitterness of ou● soul, is the abridgement, yea the top of all spiritual exercises, and the form of all interior discipline. To th'end that, according unto the Apostles Counsel, we may live in this life soberly, and piously, by observing sobriety in the use of things present; by redeeming with a worthy satisfaction, time unprofitably spent, without gathering any fruit towards our salvation; and by opposing the Buckler of Piety, against the dangers which do menace us for the time to come, Tell me now my dear Athanasia, whether that with which the divine MOSES did so justly and truly upbraid the Israelites, may not, and ought not by as good right, be cast in the ●eeth of the new Israel of God, a people of acquisition; and of an acquisition so painful and bloody of ●he souls of the greatest part of Christians, redeemed with so great a price, and with so plenteous a redemption since worldlings are so lulled a sleep in the region of the shadow of death, that they lose the remembrance of this so wholesome a thought of Eternity, which should never be razed out of their memory in any moment of this mortal life? Let us wish in their behalf, that which the great conductor of the children of JACOB wished for his brethren, who was held the sweetest and mildest amongst men, (what ever be reported of the sharpness of his spirit amongst the waters of contradiction) and let us pronoun of men buried in the dust of this life. I would to God, that the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, and Counsel would descend into their souls, and the divine goodness grant that it way be found in ours, to speak with S. BERNARD, tha● we may sweetly dispose of thing present with wisdom; condemn our former offences by a judicious understanding; and foresee things to come by a clearesighted counsel. God grant we may be wise in our present behaviour; understanding to correct our life past; and provident for the time to come; that by God's mercy, we may die the death of the just, and our end way be like unto theirs; and that the end of our life may be precious In the sight of the just judge, who provides crowns to such as have lawfully fought. Heaven's grant, my Athanasia, that our soul departing this life, may be like unto the lamp, whose flammes ●re fed by an aromatical oil, and which never smell so well, as when ●t is extinguished: and that it doth ●nfranchise itself out of this clayie ●ouse of our body, for no other end ●ut to breath out itself towards ●eauen, leaving the earth embalmed with a good odour in JESUS CHRIST; as it is written, that the memory of the just should be sweet, as the sent of perfumes powered out. Which shall be, most dear soul, if from this valley of tears, we provide steps in our hearts towards the blessed eternity; and if upon each occasion, we elevate our thoughts thitherwards, thoughts which shall be to God, as that little rod of smoke compounded of all the perfuming ponders. Whereof mention is made in the heavenly Epithalamion: and if separating ourselves from the troops of those who sleeping in a letergy, amidst their riches, delights, and vanities, shut their eyes against the clear light of eternity, and repulse the rays of the Sun of justice. Alas, these wretched slaves to the● own riches, possessed by the which they think they possess●● sleep at their ease; pass in an imaginary felicity, the moments of their days: but at their awaking, they find their hands empty; put into the weights they are found light; and which is yet worse, in one point, in an instant they descend into eternal torments. So slept SAMSON, after he was bereft of his force. TOBY when he had lost his eyes: and Isboseth when he was deprived of life. God looked down from his heavenly mansion, saith the kingly Prophets, to see whether amongst men their were any of a good judgement, and a wise foresight, who sought him as he merits; that is, with his whole heart. But he found that every one diverted from his service, and converted themselves to vain and unprofitable things, forsook the Creator for the Creature, Eternity for a moment, whereupon none doth do good, no not one. The ways of Zion, that is, of the Blessed Eternity, weep to see themselves forsaken and abandoned, none frequenting their solemnities. O Eternity how considerable thou art, but o the misery, and misery wpon misery, how little thou art considered! That all the evil in the world, comes from want of thinking of Eternity. II. YET, Athanasia, we may affirm it with an undaunted boldness, since with an undoubted truth; all the evil in the world, comes through default of this consideration. For Eternity being well weighed, is a light which doth dissipate the shadows, and disperse the clouds of sin. Thy judgement o Lord, are razed out of his memory that offendeth, and thence it is, tha● he defiles all his ways, and falls at every foot, saith the divine Psalmist. Where you are to note, that in this place, he speaks of that judgement, whose irrevocable verdict, shall bring some to eternal rewards, others to eternal pains. Contrariwise the same Prophet confesseth, that he betook himself to the works of justice, out of the apprehension he had conceived of the chaste fear of this eternal judgement. How can an Archer, (unless by mere chance.) Hit the mark he remarkes not? and how should he arrive at Eternity, that thinks not of it, nor directs his course that way? And with what face, can one that will not follow God's commandments, beg of him, that he would conduct him in the way of eternity? The general desolation of the earth, saith JEREMY, yea the abomination of desolation, is, that none considers in his heart, that is, seriously, this great and universal end of Eternity, and thence their are so few clean and ruminating beasts which can be offered to God in the Sacrifice of justice. Whence so many shipwrakes in the world, that vast and spacious sea (where so many weak mortal vessels are split against the manifests shelves) but through want of the Compass, & for that we direct not our thoughts in the point of Eternity? How profitable it is to think of Eternity. III. COntrariwise next to God's grace, one of the Principles of eternal salvation, is to think of it: It is a mark so fair & ample, that he that looks upon it, hits it. And who ever hath a firm and stayed aim cannot miss this Butt. The means to attain to it, are easy; the ways sometimes uncouth, are now plain and bet: the mountains reduced into plains. The commandments are not hard: the yoke is sweet, and the burden light. Is it not true Athanasia, that we run in the ways of the divine commandments when heavenly love extends our heart towards the glorious Eternity? 'tis this fair RACHEL that makes our days seem moments; and our labours delights, when we think of that pourchace. Is it not this thought that doth furnish us with eagle's wings, to take a flight without stooping from the wing, by continuing perseverantly in good: and aids us with wings of a done, to mount up to our true repose, which is no other than Eternity? Mark with what courage this Eagle speaks, with what sweetness and promptitude this done: I have thought of the days of old, and thought again of the years of Eternity. Would you not say, that that were the Centre, where all the lines of their desires meet: that that is their one necessary. It is the hair, in which all the headhaire of the sacred spouse doth end, and the point, wherein all the rays of her sight, are received and stayed. That this point which had never any beginning, nor shall have end, is that little seed in the Gospel whence the great trees of all virtue's spring: the little stone of DANIEL, which grows up to a main mountain, MARDOCHEES little source; which after it had branched out itself into fair floods of good works, becomes an ocean of light? Which makes we stick to this Truth, that as the want of this thought of Eternity, is cause of the ruin of all the lost souls: so when man praiseth God in this thought, the rest of his thoughts, do lead him through the paths of heroical virtues, to the solemn Feast and delightful Sabbath of Eternity: For the just shall live for ever, and their reward shall be with our Lord; who is himself she guerdon of his followers and servants. Eternity is the proper thought of a spiritual man. iv O Thought, Athanasia, passing all other thoughts, and from whence issue, as the beams from the face of the Sun, all other good thoughts! o oil that swims above all other liquours; oil of the wise virgin's Lamp; oil of the widow that never fails; fountain of oil springing towards eternity! Certes there is no thought more worthy the spirit of man, an immortal spirit, a spirit brother to the Angels, then that of Eternity: for it is the thought of God, he being eternity itself: throw thy thoughts upon God, sings the divine Psalmist, fix, o man, all thy cares in this heavenly object, walk in his sight, and be perfect. what do I say perfect, it is to be already in a degree of Beatitude, and a Beatitude far greater, then that whereof the fair Queen of Saba spoke, when she named those Courtiers blessed, who are daily in the presence of the wisest of Kings, Since that he, who doth contemplate the King of Kings and Sages, yea wisdom itself, draws from the glorious presence of him who is far other then SALOMON such advantages, as may be admired, but never expressed, nay nor yet conceived. o who will favour us so much that all our conversation may be in heaven, as was his, who was rapt up into the third Heaven, if not the continual thought of this eternal object, which is the Centre of our wishes and desires? o Eternity, thou art the true Sun, where the legitimate young Eagles are tried. Thou art the glorious star towards which all well composed hearts, like spiritual Turne-soles, do incessantly turn their view; hearts flourishing with good desires, & loaden with fruits of good works, their flowers being fruits of honour and honesty, that is, extremely honourable. The great Apostle being returned out of that strong and wonderful rapture, and that heavenly schowle, where he had learned the secreets, which it was not lawful for a man to speak, being in earth with open and entire eyes saw nothing at all, (so was he dazzled with the rays of eternity!) or if he saw any thing, it was but dirt, and dung; and the great spiritual Giant of our age, as the devout AVILA styles him, the Founder of the Company of jesus, when he came out of his Ecstasies. o, quoth he, how dirty and diminutive is the earth in my sight, when I consider the beauty and goodliness of Heaven! All seems abject to true bred souls that ends not in eternity, nothing is able to bond their desires, save that object which hath no bounds. What can I desire in heaven itself, which is the measure of Time, and consequently limited: what can I pretend in the earth, which is too wretched and miserable to engage my affection, which takes a far higher flight. No, o thou God of my heart, goes on the Psalmist, I will have nothing but thyself, thou art my part forever. True it is, I have but a mortal condition in this valley of tears, yet my pretensions are not such, they reach to immortality. If the passage to eternal solace, lie through the fire and water of sufferance, in lieu of being disamayed at it, I will be comforted in it, knowing that he who alone is of himself immortal, becoming mortal for the love of me, made his entry into the Temple of Honour, through that of Labour, not permitting himself access to his own glory, but through the door of dolour. And again, doth not Faith deliver as an Oracle, this Apostolical speech. The light and passing moments of tribulation, do load us with the weight of eternal glory. Nothing did so powerfully move that generous maid of our days, the Holy mother TERESA, to so many heroical enterprises which she undertook for the advancement of God's glory in his Church, by the reformation of a whole Order, as this thought of Eternity: for being as yet very young, she animated herself to piety, and to the desire of heavenly things, while she conferred with her little brother (o Little Angels upon what can your thoughts be placed but eternity!) and by this word NEVER which by way of emulation they did often iterate (their thoughts being far more deep and penetrating in that their tender age, than their words) she laid the foundation of that goodly edifice of perfection, which God hath made appear in her, making choice of weak things, to confounded the strong, and by this spiritual Amazon, fastening confusion upon the house of the world, and the Prince of darkness, a place more disordered, than the house of Nabuchodonosor. All that is temporal, is reputed as nothing, to a soul whose whole pretensions are set on Eternity. It is the bird of Paradise, which never comes upon the ground, but by the thread of mere necessity. Every other object is unworthy of her courage, unworthy to possess any place in her affections. It is the true, and only thought worthy of an immortal, and reasonable spirit. The sensible man thinks not of Eternity. V But alas the sensible man is not capable of it. I term him a sensible man, who deprived of the knowledge of the nobleness of his being, the lively Image of the divinity: walks after the troops of brutal passions, feeding the Boar of his sensuality, the Lion of his wrath, the Dragon of his pride, the wolf of his avarice. This man being advanced to the honour of reason, and called to the lote of Saints, by the light of grace; hath suffered this light to be obscured, hath not understood who called him to this happy portion, and therefore he hath been compared to horses without reason, and hath been made like unto them. This man hath his eyes fixed in his head, not seeing a hairebread above it, or below his feet, a deplorable blindness! He is like to those wicked old men who would attempt upon the honour of the chaste Susanna, who hung down their heads towards the earth, lest they might see heaven. The fire of concupiscence falling into his heart, hinders him to see the Sun. And albeit natural light tell him, that his soul is immortal, yet he turns it not upon eternity; because his owle-like eyes, are not able to sustain so grateful a splendour. No, for the shine of the daystar which is so lovely in itself, and so beloved of pure eyes whose apples are strong, is dreaded of such as have a weak and watery sight. O how miserable is this unfortunate man, this child of darkness, this almost blind, and so weak-sighted Heli, that he cannot see the lamp of Zion's eternal Temple, save only when it is extinguished; how miserable, I say, is this man, since the light that is in him, is darkness, & covered with so many ashes, that it is quite smothered: and what great hazard he runs of losing the eternal light of glory, who walks in so palpable darkness, and is buried in the shadows of so black an oblivion! Sin deprives us of the consideration of Eternity. VI YOu will happily ask me, o Athanasia, whence proceeds so deep a blindness, and so deadly a numbness in this poor man, who rarely or never thinks of eternity. To speak the truth, the heavens stand astonished, and the guards of those heavenly Gates quake with desolation in it; because that miserable man in the same instant, commits two grievous crimes, leaving the source of life of the blessed eternity, to build unto himself with the length of time, and in earth, running cisterns, which can hold no water; because here below we all die, and flow as waters upon the face of the earth, till we be arrested in our coffin. I need not seek far to find the origine of this disorder, sith that sin is the prime cause of this blindness. My virtue hath forsaken me, quoth the king of penitents and Prophets after his fall, and the light of mine eyes is no longer with me. That each sinner is blind, is a truth so clear that it needs no proof: Leave them there, saith our Saviour speaking of certain offenders, they are blind, in a blindness signified by that of Toby, and Samson, and by the palpable darkness of Egypt. And if while the sky is loaden with fogie mists, we neither discover Sun nor heaven, or to speak with David, while rain makes black and darksome clouds appear: much less can the soul covered with the film of sin, see and contemplate him, who shines from above the eternal mountains; for the true and divine wisdom, takes not up his resideme in a soul defiled with the malice of sin; nor in a body subject to sense and passion. And if, nor the light of the sun, nor of a torch can be discerned through gross bodies, as might be a wall; much less can eternal thoughts shine in a soul, where sin erects a wall, which doth separate from his grace, who makes not only, as job saith, the East, and the stars, but even Eternity itself. o miserable soul, who feeds the flocks of thy dirty passions in a land far distant from God, far from true felicity; for salvation is far from sinners. Lost souls! since such as stray from God do perish. o God whom thou dost forsake, shall be forsaken; well may their names be written in the land of the dead, but never in that of the living, nor in the Register of the glorious Eternity. jesus preserve us, my Athanasia, from so daunting a malediction, us I say, who by the grace of God, do detest, the disastrous night of sin, being received out of the tempests of darkness. We who love the day light, and sweetly walk therein; we who put of the works of darkness, and put on armour of light to walk honestly before God, Angels and men. We who protest that we were neither borne nor do live, for any other end but incessantly to contemplate, not the Heavens and the Sun, as that ancient Anaxagoras said of himself, but the blessed Eternity, and the first cause thereof. We who sing with the royal Prophet. Mine eyes are always towards the eternal God: I have him always before my face: he is the only object of mine eternal thoughts. Things present do hinder the contemplation of Eternity. VII. THere is yet another thing, that causeth worldlings to lose the memory of Eternity; and the sight of this POLESTAR, in the navigation of this mortal life. Do you desire to know it, Athanasia? It is the things present. The world is full of a kind of people, who are only worldly wise, knowing only terreane things, and with these they have their understanding endarkned, as the Apostle speaks, who search only the things that are upon the earth, not the things above; and who resembling the unclean beasts, have their eyes so fixedly turned upon the earth, that they cannot recover them to heavenward, unless themselves be overturned. That we are not to admire, that Eternity hath so few contemplatours, seeing that the ancient Philosopher hath so many disciples, who said, that the things which are above us, do no ways concern us. Verily as it is impossible with one eye to see heaven and earth, and to behold in the same place the Arctic and Antartique Pole, though a man were even placed under the Equature, or the Equinoctial line; so is it impossble, that the mind of man should in one thought accompany present and future, temporal and eternal things. Those twins are incompatible, and would cause in it too griping convulsions: Things visible are temporal, and eternal things are not seen, saith the Doctor of the Gentiles, like as one of the Poles is invisible unto us, and far more Pilots know how to sail, under that of our Orison, then under that of the Antipodes, that being unknown unto us, and subject to other stars, and other rules of navigation. We must not therefore wonder that so few direct their course towards Eternity, and that TIME hath so great a train; since the MAXIMS of temporal and eternal things are not only different, but often also contrary, and always further distant than Heaven and Earth. The soul betwixt these two Extremities is like unto the child in the EMBLEM, being hoisted up by the wings of it desire to things of the next life, but kept down to things of the present life, by the stone of this earthly habitation, abating the flight of the Spirit towards things above. It is this Talon of lead, mentioned by the Prophet, which sways down to the ground, such as desire to be freed from it, and yet cannot, so faint hearted they are to performe● the good which they desire only with an imperfect will! For if they desired it with an absolute will, and to that effect employed the power they have, Grace would never quite them in so fair a way. Thus did the youngman in the Gospel, who shown himself so desirous to undertake the ways of eternal life, whereof he made so earnest a Petition to our Saviour: but when he had learned that to enter thither by the strait way and narrow Gate, he was to forsake his present possessions, to aspire with more facility to the Treasures of Eternity, he returned sad, and administered occasion to the son of God to make that sweet discourse to his disciples, of the difficulty of entering into heaven, with the load of riches. For which cause saint Augustine termed the love of present things, the glue which glewes the feathers of the mind, and hinders her flight towards Eternity. While the Crystal is sole, and in her native purity; it is transparent, and in it are seen the objects put before it: but being once spread over with lead or quicksilver, our sight is stayed in the Glace, and by reflection, we see the picture of what is before it, and not at all that which is behind it. A neat and purified spirit, not soiled with the lees and scum of terreane affections, Hath by the light of Faith a clear Prospect upon Eternity, and the things of the next life: But as soon as it applies itself to earthly objects; It discryes nothing but the fading shapes of this world. And as hounds fall easily at default in the Spring, when the fresh smells of flowers, make them lose the sent of the game they poursue: So the mind that is carried to the search of heavenly things, runs counter, misled by the nearness of present things. That we put a rate upon present things rather by their nearness then worth. VIII. FOr though many of those that are carried away by their allurements, know well that they are not comparable in worth to eternal things, yet rather by their neighbourhood then valour, they make a strong impression. Who would not say that the full moon is greater than the stars, it appearing as another Sun amongst the lesser lights, which the night discovers in the heavens: yet is it not so, as the Astrologers assure us, but her proxmitie causeth this mistake. Present things obnoxious to the decay of time, are so short in continuance; that they are but flying vapours, as soon bet down, as blown up, seeming rather appearances, or the shadows of a dream, than solidities; while yet being nearer, they appear to the eyes of such as muse, or rather abuse themselves therein, more worthy of consideration then eternal things, which are not limited in their extension, nor have end in their being. And who knows not, (to keep in our comparison) that the influences of this star, the night's great eye, are more forceable than any other, excepting that which is the fountain of all light, and which doth communicate it to all the rest? We must say the like of things present, that by reason of their nearness, they strike the soul, by the senses, a more violent blow, than the future do, which are beheld, as a thing in absence. Whence we have a MAXIM; that present objects move the powers, which things in distance do but slowly shake. But all this proceeds from want of Faith, as hereafter we will declare; for if this virtue were closely united in the minds of those, that do believe her propositions, she would make things hoped for, appear as present, invisible things visible, according to the definition thereof delivered us by the great Apostle. The Moon appears in diverse shapes, or altogether disappears, according to the different oppositions of the earth, between it and the Sun. We may say the like in the matter we treat of, that Eternity is seen, or shut up from souls, according as they are more or less infected with earthly affections. o Love of the world how long wilt thou obscure the fair light of heavenly love: o thick cloud why dost thou shut from so many eyes, the aspect of the glorious rays issuing from eternal lights? behold this torch thrown down: the wax which while it was below the flame did feed it, is the very bane of it: The love of inferior things, guided according to the order of Charity; doth not impeach eternal love; but when perishable things are preferred before those that are permanent, than this clear lamp, which shines to our feet to conduct us in the way of eternal peace, being smothered with material things, dies out. o Smoke! o unfortunate dung! how many Tobies thou beatest blind? Iron doth naturally run after the Loadstone, yet many things hinder this stones attraction, as when it is rubbed with garlic or greese, when it is near unto a Diamant, or when it is placed in too great a distance from the iron. And our souls, who of their own natures are immortal, by their own instinct do tend to Eternity, as to that which they most affect; but as soon as the garlic or greese of the pleasures, and delights which are tasted in things present, do attrape them; or when the lying lustre of worldly honours keeps them at a gaze, it is not strange, that Eternity, which they behold as a thing a far of, doth so little work upon their affections. Shall I speak in a word what is the Remora, which stops the ship of our hearts, under the sails of our desires sailing towards Eternity? it is, that every one seeks himself, and not the glory of God. It is, as that old Antipheron, that in every thing having our eyes turned upon ourselves, in every thing we seek our own interest. Few hate their souls in this world to gain them to Eternity. Few renounce all things present; and yet fewer themselves, who are more, not only present, but pressing, to follow jesus Christ, and to do the will of God in earth, as it is in heaven. The weakness of Faith, makes Eternity less considerable. IX. But what do I say to do the will of God, Alas! how many wicked, how many mad men, say in their heart, their is no God. Our lips are to ourselves, who is our Lord? Come let's crown ourselves with present roses, before death, the death of all pleasures, make them fade away; let not a flower of vanity, of lose desire, of lucre, put up the head in the meads of this mortal life, which we take not a taste of, before the grave shut us up. And it is there that this want of belief makes us lose the view of the North-star of Eternity which I give for a third cause. Yes, quoth our Saviour himself to his Disciples, do you think that the son of man coming to judge the world, in his last coming, shall find Faith in the earth? and do we think there is Faith in this end and dreges of ages wherein we live? Verily if we form a judgement of Faith by works, as the scripture teacheth us, it will easily be gathered by the fruit the world brings out, that there is neither Truth, nor Faith, nor Memory of God's justice, or Eternity, left in the heart of man. All err from their mother's womb, and stray from the paths of equity, being heavy hearted, & slow to believe that which is taught them by faith touching things to come. They love vanity, and seek after falsity and lies. o how deceitful are the children of men in their weights, suffering themselves to be deceived in the Vanity of their senses. Let us consider this more nearly, and practically. Faith tells us many glorious things of the City of God, where he reigns eternally with his Elect, where he makes his love take root as in a fertile field. It tells us, that this Kingdom is of all ages; that all the Blessed are Kings; heirs of God, and coheirs with jesus Christ. That God is there, all in all filling them with an eternal felicity: that his power is an eternal power: That his Kingdom shall have no end. And in our Crede we protest, that we believe life everlasting the life of the world to come, That such as do well shall enter into the blessed Eternity; and the wicked into an eternal torment. That is one of the principal articles of our Faith, and as it were, the pin upon which the rest move and turn: for if all should die to us together with the body; if there remained no hope if another life, doth not the Apostle say plainly, that under our Christian law, we were the most miserable creatures alive. But o God how weak and faint is faith in these articles, if we look upon the lives of most Christians? o sinners, who believe so well, and live so ill, having only a dead Faith, not quickened with Charity, nor seconded with works suiting with your belief, do you not blush to see your hands contrary to your tongues, your actions to your words, and so great contradiction in yourself, by the continual war which your will makes against your understanding, whence is bred in your heart that remorse and griping, that gnawing worm, which permits you not even in your pleasures, false follies and superfluities, any contentment, that is pure and without mixture of bitterness, tempering your laughter with grief, and oversowing a thousand thorns amongst the roses of your fleeting delights. o miserable wretches! willingly would I say, either live as you believe, or believe as you live, not crucifying a new again the sun of God by your vices, and that far more cruelly and unworthily, than the executioners did to the cross betwixt two thiefs, upon the Mount-Caluarie: for the scripture assures us, that if they had known him, as you profess to do, to be the King of glory, they had never treated him so barbarously; but you barbarously crucify him, not now in his passing and passable life, nor upon Mount-Caluarie, nor yet betwixt two thiefs, but even set at the right hand of the majesty of the Highest, and reigning in the Eternity of ages, betwixt the Father and the Holy Ghost. What do you think, Athanasia, of the infidelity, or cruelty, of the most part of wicked livers, who have the face to profess themselves of the faithful? Yet if they believed as they live, their actions would be like their belief, and as ethnics, upon whom the light of truth hath not shun, they would be less punished: but the servant that knows the will of his master, and doth it not, merits he not a double punishment? And these wilfully blind creatures, deserve they not to fall into the accursed ditch, full of snares of fire and brimstone, and to have part in the chalice of eternal tempests and tormoyles? Origene's error touching the Eternity of the pains of Hell. X. ANd it happens sums times that for the punishment of this contradiction betwixt their life and belief, God permits them to fall into a reprobate sense, and suffers them to perish in the Deluge of their error, leaving them in the obscurity of their understanding, to walk in the vanity of their thoughts, poursuing the desires of their hearts, following the straying rowtes of their own inventions. Alas who would not tremble, who would not quake with fear, to see this mighty, this prodigious, this incomparable wit, Origene, fallen into this error, to believe that after a long continuance of torments, the damned should be drawn out of Hell, to enjoy the vision of God: and this, because he could not comprehend eternal torments, which are so righteous in God's justice. This so learned, and well disposed a man, who knew all the Scripture, did he not find in a thousand places of these divine writts, that there is nothing more inculcated, nor more solidly proved, then eternal fire, than the immortal worm, then eternal death? So true it is that Faith and experience are incompatible, that to understand we must believe, and to believe, we must captivated our understanding; and the soul that doth embark herself upon the Ocean of the mysteries of our belief taking humane reason for her guide suffers a woeful shipwreck in the midst of the course of her navigation. While the discovery of the Indians had not yet brought us the news of a new world, situated under another Pole, and another Horizon than ours, the opinion of the Antipodes was laughed at; learned men improved it; and S. Augustine himself held it ridiculous. But this concerns this world only, not eternal salvation. The error is far more dangerous which stumbles at the Eternity of pains, because it takes also away the Eternity of recompenses: overthrows the truth of the soul's immortality, brings a foot again the fopperies of transanimation, or passage of souls out of one body into another, and breaks down the fundations of all truth. Yet this great wit, and withal of so good a life, suffered shipwreck upon this shelf, blinded in his own imaginations, as the ancient Philosopher, who lost his sight; by fixing it too setledly upon the globe of the Sun, experiencing the Truth of this oracle, who too curiously searcheth into the secreetes of the divine Majesty, shall be oppressed which the greatness of his glory. It shall suffice us for the present, to oppose the strong buckler of our belief against this error, a buckler, not only of a double, but a centuple temper, and not pearceable by the darts of humane reason, since the scripture (which we will show in its place) doth minace nothing more frequently, nor establish nothing more strongly, then eternal punishments prepared for the Devil, his Angel's Apostates, and all such as by sin shall betake themselves to that revolted crue's side. We will ponder the reason of this eternal curse, as the order of this subject shall require. Eternity cannot be defined. XI. NOw I set upon the hardest piece of my task, to wit the beginning; and who knows not that a good beginning is half the deed doing? And who can be ignorant, that to enter into a discourse, and put ones self upon it by a reasonable conduct, an overture must be made unto it, by the definition of the subject which a man is about to handle? And here it is, that even at the very threshwood, my pen falls out of my hand, since the matter, whereof I am about to represent a poor draught, is none of those that can be defined: for I pray you, Athanasia, this word, Definition, doth it not sound as it were some finite thing? And what proportion can an infinite thing bear with a finite, or what line can measure an infinite thing? Now Eternity being of this nature, who sees not, that no definition can comprehend or compass that, which in itself hath no bound. To what end then should we offer to shut up wthin the terms of a definition, that which never had beginning, nor shall have end? were it not to essay to shut up the Ocean in a shell, according as an Angel in a child's likeness said to S. Augustine, while he projected in his understanding, that admirable work of the Trinity which he left us? And tell me, how can that flow from a slender pen, or be expressed by a drop of ink, which cannot enter into the imagination, nor the understanding of man, who being finite, is in no sort able to contain an infinite thing, such as is Eternity? In vain therefore have some great and curious wits strained themselves in defining a thing indefinite, and which is much better conceived by admiration, than discourse. That Eternity is incomprehensible. XII. FOr in your opinion, Athanasia, what is Eternity but God himself, who is not only eternal, but Eternity itself, and wherein that which we call Eternity doth so subsiste, that without its being, which is eternal, Eternity should not be at all. When therefore we name Eternity, let us say with the great Stoic speaking of the terms of Fortune, Providence, and destiny, that we only change God's name into another, and that it is the divinity which we name by paraphrase. For sithence, according to the Diuine's Axiom, all that is in God is God himself, because, he is all Essence without any accidents, all the qualities which we apply unto him by way of Attributes, to speak of his greatness, according to our weakness and manner, that is, in a stutting wise, are no other thing than himself, though diversely considered by us, his unity comprehending in itself by way of eminency all the multiplicity of our thoughts. So that when we name his Wisdom, Goodness, justice, Pour, Immensity, Eternity, and a thousand other magnificences we attribute unto him, we consider this Sun in his beams, which are all begun and ended in himself. It is he then that hath not only immortality, as the scripture faith, but even Eternity: and who being without beginning or end, (though the beginning and end of all things) is by a necessary consequence Eternity itself. judge you now, Athanasia, if it would not be, not only a temereity, but even a manifest folly, to essay the defining of him, who is, as an aunciant father said, incomprehensible to every thought, and ineffable to every created tongue. Eternity is ineffable. XIII. ANd how do you think, said the same father, that that should fall within the compass of a style, or be expressed by words, which never entered the ear, which was never discovered by the eye, nor was ever apprehended by any humane conceit: and he speaks there of the felicities, which God hath prepared in his Eternity, for such as love him, and such as he hath predestinated to his glory. What will then Eternity itself be, if its beams be so dazzling, its delights so ineffable? A small scantling of this Beatitude appearing in the eyes of S. Peter upon Mount-Thabor, did blind, or ravish & transport him in such sort that not knowing what he said, he demanded of his dear transfigured master, to erect there three Tabernacles, as though he had would before his sufferances, have established his repose in that place for ever. The prophet having seen only the Almighty, in passing, as the divines speak, was so estonished at it, that receiving from him Commission to denounce his pleasure to his people, he cried out, Lord I am a child who am only able to cry, a, a, a, I cannot speak: the least communication of the Almighty being ineffable. And the great Apostle being rapt up into the third heaven, where he learned news of Eternity, confessed after he was returned out of his rapture, that they were secrets that could not be related. And Moses having only seen God by the shoulders, that is to say, in his works, as some interpreters understand it, he is taken with such an admiration, that having received commandment to denounce unto Pharaoh Heavens doom, he pretends for excuse, his tongue's disability, which is an evident sign, that the Almighty, is ineffable, as well in himself, as in his works. Whence the ancient Egyptians in their simbolical divinity, represented the Deity in the shape of a Crocodille, a beast which is said to have no tongue, to intimate, that it is not possible to speak as one ought of a majesty so high, and elevated beyond all understanding. An imperfect description of Eternity. XIV. TRue it is notwithstanding (to th'end we may give some overture to a thought and a discourse in a subject, which of itself is incomprehensible and ineffable) that considering Eternity as a certain thing abstracted from the Divinity, in quality of a divine Attribute, we may in some sort, not indeed define, yet describe it, and form some imperfect draught thereof, where we may, by better reason, add that, which that ancient Painter was wont to put upon his admirable Portraitures, Appelles made this, signifying thereby, that he had not given the last touch to his work; or else, that his imagination past that which his pincell had put down. Without saying then with Simonides, who was asked touching the Deity, that the more he considered it, the more he found to be considered in it, being a bottomless Abyss. And without respiting the resolution of the point, for the space of a hundred years to come, a time wherein we shall not be upon the face of the earth, following the Areopagians, who remitted to a like term, the decision of an invincible difficulty. We thinks we may say of Eternity, that it is no other thing, than a continuance which having no beginning, shall also have no end. In these few words (in my conceit) as in the hollow of one of those mirrors, which from their effect, are termed burning glasses, the beams of this great Sun of Eternity are received. Whose present being perpetuated, is of a more large extent then either the time past or time to come, since they are bounded by time, but Eternity is infinitely beyond any time imaginable. I am not ignorant, that this shortening description brings down the mountain Athos, to be a moat in the Sun; makes the Sun be seen in a Basin; and imitates the Geographers who show the whole universe in the compass of a small Map. But even as the same Geographers being come to the extremities of any Land, made known unto them by their Art, represent unto us the Sea's illimited vastness, giving us thereby to understand, that they make no further discovery: so in this matter of Eternity, all that we can do, is to make us lose our view in the boundless sight, of a thing past, which never had beginning; and of a thing to come, which shall never have end. Whence it comes to pass, that as there is no pencil that can ever represent the Sun to the life, nor the air's transparencie, nor yet the fires liveliness; so is there no plume of so high a flight, as to arrive at the representation of Eternity. And that Ancient Painter; who put such a rate on his own Pieces, as that he said of them, that they were painted only for Eternity, would have had his hands full in representing Eternity itself, for which he said he laboured with such art, and strife of mind. What Time is. XV. But to come to that indirectly, which we cannot directly attain unto, me thinks we shall bring some light into this obscurity, by comparing contraries together; and by considering Time which we know, we may make ourselves some way to the knowledge of Eternity, at whose greatness we stand amazed. So the Apostle teacheth us to search out the invisible things of God, by the footsteps of such things as he hath made visible unto us. But is it possible that Time, which is so little and diminutive a thing, should raise us to the knowledge of Eternity which is incomprehensible and ineffable? The Geometritions, who take the measure of all bodies from a point which is not, and which not being found in nature, is only in the imagination, make a breach to this thought, and make us hope the effect of the proposition of that incomparable Ancient Mathematician, who demanded only a point out of the earth, wherein he might place his engine, to shake the whole mass of the universe, which hath no other foundation, as the Prophet saith, than its own weight and stability. What is Time then properly speaking, but an instant, as little perceptible, as the mathematical point? It is a moment cutting of things passed from things to come; and which, more quick than quicksilver, runs away being pressed, and slides out of his hand, that strives to hold it. In naming it, we lose it, so subtle and glib is it by nature. It were to weigh the fire, and measure the wind, according to the terms of the Prophet, to strive to stay this Protheus: In an instant he vanisheth: and while you think to show him with your finger, he is gone. To count time past, with Time, were impertinent, since now it is not; nor hath that which is not, any qualities, saith the Philosopher's Maxim. And yet should we less justly, attribute unto Time, the time to come, which as yet having no being, can be no other wise instyled, then with the name of nothing. What is Time then, but an instant, so closely environed, or rather, asseiged with a not-beeing, that in thinking to hold, or show it, it is already slid from its being in nature. Such as have endeavoured to show its incomprehensible littleness, give it a little more scope, imitating therein the Geometritions, who draw their points into lines, their lines into superficies, and their superficies into bodies, upon which they exercise the Rules of their Art. For to make us understand, that Time is no other thing, than the measure of the PRIMUM MOBILE, they were constrained to gather together as many instants, as are contained in 24. hours, composing thereof a reasonable distance, whereupon to enlarge their discourse. Wherein they have followed Democrites fantasy, who composed the world of a collection of atoms, bringing to a gross body many petty percells, which according to the signification of the word, have no body at all, which are empty and almost chimerical imaginations. As then (following the Maxims of Philosophy) Arithmetic, being come to the number of ten, which is a full and perfect number, is forced to begin again, extending its multiplication to infinity; and as all that is written, is framed out of 24. letters; even so, the course of the PRIMUM MOBILE, whose violence draws about with it all the other Spheres, is ended in the distance of 24. hours, though in proper speech Time be but an indivisible, and almost imperceptible instant. Wence the length of ages, years, and months, is drawn from the multiplication of days; as also the length of days from that of hours; and hours by the assembling of many instants. Whereupon the Scripture in the Acts, and in the first Epistle to the Thessalonensians, join together those words, Time's, and moments, to teach us that Time (a thing which should be so precious unto us, and whereof alone, according to an Ancient, the avarice is laudable) consists only of moments; moments so short and light, that the Scripture in an other passage, represents them only, by the twinkling of an eye. Go mortells and plot great matters; let your projects, in your imagination, reach to Eternity: you who have only the present time, that is, a moment, in your power, and a moment which is lost in the very instant, in which you think to grasp it, being a shadow which flies such as follow it. Who would not stand amazed at the blind madness of most men, who build their hopes upon things so frail; and comforting themselves in the expectation of a fortune, say as they believe, that Time works all; miserably forsaking the pretensions of the blessed Eternity, for flitting moments, which like to lightning, meet with death in their birth. Unadvised Atalantases, who for apples not of gold, but gilded only, stop the course of their best designs, and lose the apples, or rather, the crowns of Eternity. Eternity compared to Time. XVI. TO what end shall we now place thy great torch of Eternity, before the eyes of those blind wretches, who are dived so deep into the darkness of Time, that they are not able to sustain the shine of so glorious a light? Yet let us not omit, Athanasia, for the consolation of the good, to strike sparks of fire out of Time, which we have represented in so small a shape, and reduced to simple moments, to the extent of that vast Eternity, whose immensity doth swallow up all ages imaginable. I must confess there is always some imperfection, in the comparison of things disproportionable. For to say it is to place a fly by an Elephant; a moat by a mountain: to compare a drop of water with the whole Ocean; and earth to Heaven, which in regard of the Heavenly Spheres, appears but as an imperceptible point; all this is to say nothing; or if to say any thing, it is to make known the weakness of man's wit, and imbecility of his imagination. Let's hoist up the sails of our thought, and say, that Eternity doth as fare out strip years and ages, as the great Sun the lesser stars, eclipsing all their light as soon as it appears in the Horizon. And if Antiquity represented Time in Saturn who devoured his own children, for that it doth incessantly nible away the moments, hours, days, months, years, and ages: Eternity infinitely passing Time doth swallow it up as a point; and when Time shall cease to be, Eternity shall thrust out its continuance into a NEVER, which shall never have end, as it never had beginning. It is too sparingely spoken to call it an Abyss that cannot be sounded: that it is an Ocean receiving all the waters of the world, without being augmented. Nay rather let us apply unto it, that which the Ancient Philosopher applied unto the Divinity, that Eternity is a circle, whose centre is extended every where, and whose circunference hath no bounds. O Eternity cries out a devout personage, who is able to conceive what thou art? I propose unto myself a thousand years; I conceive a thousand thousand years; I pass in imagination as many millions of ages, as are moments in time, from the beginning of the world, and yet have I found nothing that comes near to Eternity. o Eternity thou shalt continued for ever and ever: what is it to say for ever and ever? It is to say everlastingly. But what will everlastingly say? it is a thing that passeth the reach of all humane capacity. If we say with the Angel of the Schowle, that it is an immoveable durance whose continuation shall never fail, how shall we compare it with Time, whose continuance is cut of by every moment, and which would cease to be, if God by an only word should stop the motion of the Heavens. If we say with the Apostle of France, that it is an immortal thing, incorruptible, invariable, having its being all at once: how can we compare it with Time which is a variable, corruptible, changeable, mortal thing, and whose being consists only of a succession of instants? a transitory being, which subsists only by a flux of moments, which tend continually to ruin, and change as many faces, as it contains instants, which made job say, that the life of man doth never remain in the same state. For since it is but a succession of days, who knows not, that though some days resemble others, yet are they never the same? If we say with a Christian philosopher in his Consolatio Philosophiae, that Eternity is an indivisible and accomplished being, without end or limit, who sees not that it is the true conterpoise of Time, whose imperfect being is bounded with every instant? If we say with another Doctor, that it is a present without either preterperfect, or future Time; and a spheere whose centre is continually without any circuit at all, who sees not that it is to drink up Time into a nothing, to place a thing so little, beside so huge a thing? Yes verily, heaven and earth shall pass, and shall be worn like a garment, but Eternity shall be still itself, and its constant and perpetual youth shall never wax old. An elevation of the mind to God, upon the comparison of time to Eternity. XVII. O Eternal God who art author of Time, yet makest thine abode in Eternity, & whose government, and Royalty doth extend itself PLUS VLTRA: adorable Deity who art from Eternity to Eternity: that is to say; without beginning or end, subsisting eternally by thyself; who art seated upon thine eternal Throne: whose power is an eternal power; and whose Kingdom is the Kingdom of all ages: bring to pass o great God by that mercy, which thou eternally builsted in heaven, that the consideration of the immense and incomprehensible greatness of eternity, may be so lively imprinted upon our heart, that the affections which link them in so strong bands to transitory things, and to the moments of things temporal, may be so weakened, or rather brought to nothing, that nothing may stay us here below, or hinder our course toward the goal of eternal felicity. Take us by the right hand, o Lord, conduct us to thy glory, by the royal way of thy heavenly will and lead us in the eternal way Thou o great jesus, son of the eternal living God, who art, our way, Truth, and life direct our steps in the way of true life. And which is this true life, but life everlasting? which is nothing else but to see thee in the bosom of the Father, who begets the great TODAY of Eternity. Raise up the abbated courage of mortals, and readvance their drooping thoughts towards their origine. Let them take so full a taste of the Manna of the blessed Eternity, that things possessed in Time may become loathsome unto them. Let them repute all time vain, in respect of Eternity. Grant, o Lord, that this wholesome thought may be so deeply engraven in our memory, that it may serve as a thread to conduct us in the Labyrinth of the world's malice; and that we may pass through the use of temporal things with so well a directed conduct, that we may not lose eternal. Man's life compared to the world's continuance. XVIII. ANd if all the continuance of Time be so little in respect of Eternity, as I have declared unto you, what shall the course of man's life be, if we compare it, I will not say to Eternity, (for the distance is too great) but only to the continuance of the world? How many men (termed by the old Philosopher the little worlds) hath this world (which the same Philosopher termed the great man) devoured? How many lives have and shall run out, since the beginning of the world, to the consummation thereof? Truly it is not imaginable, though other wise finite and limited by number and season. If you ask the wisest of men, who was wise too by a heavenly wisdom, to what he doth compare the shortness of man's life, he will tell you that it resembles a shadow, which suddenly vanisheth; a courser which passeth with a mimble speed; a vessel on the sea under full sails in a favourable gale which swiftly glides over the waves; The flight of a bird, which with a strong and lively wing cuts the air; and an arrow, which being shot from a strong and forcible arm, flies home to the mark. If you move job upon this point he will tell you, that the days of man are very short upon the earth; that his life is a vapour, as soon cast down, as drawn up: that it is a wind, whose measure is short, nor can it be extended, a measure so small, saith the Psalmist, that its substance is a very nothing: and withal a measure which is in his hands, who keeps the key of life and death: It is not in the hands of men, to th'end that living in so great an uncertainty, he may not rely upon the continuance of his days nor trust to the common course of nature, an error too too ordinary. Measure me a blast of wind, and weigh me a flame, said a Prophet, speaking of the lightness & vanity of earthly things, the shape & desire of which pass like a flood. But be it, that all these things had some weight, and solidity, yet since their use cannot exceed the course of this mortal life, one may clearly discover, that they leave but upon a slender reed, and an earthly foundation. For if our life, compared to the world's continuance, be but a moment; what a inconceaveable part of a nothing will it be, if we add, that the world's continuance, (what ever we fain to ourselves of the length of it) is but a moment in respect of Eternity? A thousand years before the face of the Eternal God, saith the Psalmist, is but as yesterday which is past. And all the years of men, is but as the watch of a might which is reputed for nothing. This causeth job to say, that all the glory of man, is as a dream that vanisheth, and cannot be recalled; and that it passeth like unto a nightly vision. Verily all these descriptions dictated by the Holy Ghost, are lively pictures of the vanity, and Nothing of man's life, whose durance is so short, that an only instant doth often separate the Cradle and Grave. All that we see is but a point, saith the great Stoic, yea less than a point, if any thing less can be imagined. Shall we then grudge at the moments of tribulation which do afflict us therein, which being well husbanded do work in us a crown of eternal glory. No No, what sufferances soever do vex us in this dying life, they enter into no comparison, with the glory which shall one day be revealed unto us. The force of the thought of Eternity. XIX. NO never, Athanasia, though our mind turn itself on every side & make choice of subjects most pregnant to move it, and to give it the most forceable impressions, to embrace good, or avoid evil, never shall it light upon any thought so fruitful to produce this effect, as the thought of Eternity. O moments, you are but chaff, and dust before the face of this great wind. This is the great van which can separate the corn from the chaff, and separate precious from vile things. Eternity is that Moses his rod, able to devour the serpents of our sins; and to draw water from rocks, that is, can beget compunction in the most flinty heart. It is a violent blast, which drives us forwards towards the Desert of penance; which urgeth us to return into the Sheepfold of grace, if by error we have strayed from it, or by sin, like lost sheep. It is the end of all ends; the end of all consommation, and the extremity of extremities, whither the wiseman doth send us, if we desire to abstain from sinning everlastingly. For if death; if judgement ensuing; if the terrors of Hell, serve for a bit to the strongest mouth, and for a restraint to the most desperate soul; what will it be if we add thereunto the importance of an Eternity? If we consider the Blessed Eternity, it is a jonathas his honey: if the Accursed, it is a Toby's gale, sovereign to cure the thickest and deepest blindness. There is no Film which falls not from the 〈◊〉 washed with this water. No Torrent of sin, which may not both be sustained and repelled by this strong bank. It is a Sun which doth break & disperse the clouds of vice which strive to hide the light of grace. Let's approach then, Athanasia, to this Torch, and our darkness shall be blown over. If we desire to be borne again to Heaven, let us, imitating that only bird, consume ourselves in the beams of that great star. And if the thought of the world's last day, judge of all the other days, filled S. Hieromes' heart with such dread, that it made him lose both food and repose, his sleep being interrupted, by the terrible found of the Archangells' trumpet, which sounded incessantly in his imagination: what weight shall that eternal doom have in our hearts, which shall crown the just with roses that cannot fade; and shall involve the wicked in quenchless flames, which being kindled with the blast of God's wroth, shall continued as long as the Deity itself. No, I do not believe, that all the Antidotes which Spiritualists prescribe against the poison of sin; that all their remedies put together in one mass, can have the like effect, in the purging of a soul, that the importance of an Eternity well pondered, can work therein. O Lord thou hast given a sign to those, who have thy fear imprinted upon their hearts, that they may avoid the arrows which thou shutest from the bow of thy wrath; and that, by flight, they may free themselves from the eternal torments which do attend them: torments by which such only are overtaken, as for want of foresight and consideration, dread them not, as an ancient Father doth teach us. O how happy is the soul, whose eyes God daynes to open, over so perilous a precipice, that thereby she may avoid it, and please our Lord in the Land of those that live in his grace. For they that pass their days in this happy Abode, are not subject to this seconde death, which hath no resurrection (for out of Hell there is no redemption, or escape) Their eyes own no tributary tears, since they are not afflicted with the torment of malice, nor doth their feet stumble in the way of salvation, which is that of the blessed Eternity. Think of the last end, saith the wisest of men, and thou shal● never offend. If then the thought o● death, and of that which followe● death, hath so much force in a soul that is occupied in it, as to divert it from all evil: what will it do I pray you, in a well composed heart, which can judiciously ponder the weight of things, when it shall come to think, that temporal death is but an instant which separates the soul from the body; and that the particular judgement which doth immediately follow this separation, is passed in a moment: marry that the decree of this judgement is of an eternal and uninterrupted continuance. Why, the threat of a temporal death, and the loss of a flourishing estate, written upon a wall by a celestial hand, was able to seize the soul of Baltazar with so daunting a terror, that the scripture assures us, that all his bones were thereby disjointed: so throughly did fear possess both body and soul! How forceablely then shall the fear of an eternal death, work in a judgement, and in a heart that thinks seriously of its salvation. Will it not in this thought pronounce with the kingly Prophet: All my bones were troubled, that is to say, all my powers were disordered: and again: All my bones shall say unto thee, o eternal Lord, who is like unto thee? That this life is only lent us to think upon Eternity. XX. O moments of this mortal life, how carefully ought you to be managed, since by you, as by so many steps, we mount to Eternity! I, for God hath only placed us in this region of death, to breathe continually to that of the living: nor are we in this Desert, for any other end, then to travel to the Land of Promise. Which shall one day be distributed amongst us, according to the line of distribution. The Angels at their first creation, were placed in a state of grace, and full freedom; and had a time to resolve their choice of glory or reprobation, by obedience, or revoulting: and following their election, that great division was made, which doth eternally separate the Blessed, who kept their principality; from the accursed, who fell from Heaven into the Abisses below. Men, afterwards created of so noble substances, to repair the ruins of those that were fallen, have also the time of their life to resolve and determine what shall become of them for all Eternity. For which cause they were created strait and free; fire and water were put before them, that they might make election of which they liked. And they apply according to their own will, the use of their freedom, nor are they to impute it to others than themselves, if by their own malice misfortune befall them. He that shall sow benedictions shall reap benedictions; but he that shall commit wickedness shall draw a curse upon his own head, and that an eternal one, according as it is written: Go you accursed into eternal fire. For at last, in the period of our life, when as time shall be no more to us, certain it is that God will examen our works, be they good or bad, and according to them, will reward each one. Then every one's praise or blame, shall proceed from the mouth of God. Now we are in the forked way of virtue or vice, which was shown to the young Hercules, as an Ancient Author writeth. It is in our power to take towards the right or left hand; and to sow the seeds in this life, whose fruits we shall gather in the next. Certes as the lines drawn from the Centre of the earth, might go to the circumference of the Heavens: so according to our comportment in these short moments which we are to live in earth, the definitive Sentence of our eternal Abode, shall be given. It is our part therefore, timely to think of our affairs, and to foresee what shall become of us: for the scripture doth teach us, that we shall reap according as we have sown. He that shall sow in spirit shall reap eternal life. The chaste Susanna being pinched with bitter perplexities, while those two infamous firebrands of dishonesty, threatened her the ruin of her reputation, unless she condescended to their lewd desire, chowsed rather to fall innocent into the hands of men, then stained into his, to whom nothing is hid, who tries the hearts and reynes: and who can cast the body and soul into eternal torments. Me thinks sure each considerate heart, will take her part; and will purchase at the price of transitory and momentary pleasures, endless pains. For 'tis a thing too horrible to fall into the hands of the living God; the God of vengeance, terrible over all those of the earth. Contrariwise he will easily and willingly embrace all kind of pains and sufferances, who shall weigh as he ought, that is, in the weights of the SANCTVARIE, these words of the sacred ORACLE That we are to enter into the Kingdom which knows no end; to the residence of Glory, through many tribulations: since that our Saviour jesus Christ, was as it were forced to suffer, before he could enter into his eternal Felicity, which he had wholly obtained, and which, was necessarily due unto him. The Parobolicall history of the wicked Richman, and the poor Lazarus, is a rich Table, representing this truth unto our eyes set out in lively colours. Every one knows the different success of the one and the other; and what answer Father Abraham made to this miserable reprobate's complaints. Call to mind, Son, that thou tookest thy pleasures during thy life, and that Lazarus, suffered many afflictions. Now your estates are much changed: for he is replenished with joy and delight; and thou oppressed with desperate grieves, and with punishments which shall never end. O double Eternity! thou art like to those figues which were presented unto the Prophet, whereof some were strangely bitter, the others extremely sweet. The Blessed Eternity is a LAND OF PROMISE and rest, whose fruits are of an unmeasurable greatness, and incomparable sweetness. The accursed, is a foreign Region, full of disorder; a daunting desert, far removed from the face of God: where the fiery serpents do sting without cure, and kill without all hope of recovery. O ETERNITY! The more I consider thee, the less do I know thee, and the deeper I endeavour to dive into thy bottom, more bottomless I find thee! Thou art the flood of the Prophet, which cannot be passed, neither at the ford, nor otherwise. The Giants groan under thy waters, nor can any beast, even though it were an Elephant, pass over thee by swimming, to use S. Gregory's words. All that can be said of thee, is nothing in regard of that which should be said. Though a man speak all he is able, yet can he not sufficiently express thee, even to represent the least stroke of thine infinity. Birds, although they cannot soar to the highest region of the air, leave not for all that to fly: And what if we cannot comprehend Eternity; yet ought we not cease to speak what we conceive of it, though we cannot conceive, what we ought to speak thereof. A man may enjoy the light of the Sun; walk in its resplendent rays; and now and then steal a look upon it; though he be not able to have his sight still fixed upon its globe. We are to do the like in this subject of Eternity: and be it, that our sight doth disperse and lose itself in the immensity of its extent; yet are we from time to time to consider it, since life is ●ent us for no other end, but to be spent, for the most part in this attention. This is that which the Prophet terms, courageously to attend God, and with patience to support this attention. And the Apostle: To attend the blessed hope, of the coming of the great God. I Lord, said the great S. Augustine, burn, cute, pinch, slice here below, so that I may not perish eternally. An entry to the consideration of the accursed Eternity. XXI. But do you not think it high time, Athanasia, that we should draw nearer by the consideration of both the Eternity's, and that, for our spiritual profit we should make a kind of particular examen, and as it were, an Anatomy. We will begin at the accursed Eternity, that we may follow the method which the Spiritualistes observe in the reformation of the soul, beginning with fear, according to that of the wise man; the fear of our Lord is the beginning of true wisdom. And is it not true wisdom to think seriously and timely of eternal salvation, and to direct our steps towards the paths of this peace, which passeth all understanding, nor shall at any time be troubled with the noise of wars, but shall enjoy with God, the abundance of a plentiful repose. I have done judgement and justice, that is, I have behaved myself justly in all mine actions, saith the Royal Prophet. Will you have the reason of this uprightness? because I have dreaded the severity of the eternal judge. And another Prophet brings in Sinners converted to the father of mercies, speaking in this wise. O Lord through thy fear we have conceived good purposes, and by it, we have at length produced and brought forth the spirit of salvation. The needle, following the Contemplatives worn similitude, goes always through before the silk; and sharp and piercing FEAR (according to that word of David: Lord pierce my body and soul with the FEAR of thy judgements) is still the forerunner of joy, joy the inseparable fruit of the tree of true Charity. I see then, that there I must begin: but a secret horror doth fasten upon mine imagination, when I represent unto myself so mournful and daunting a matter. It is a far other thing the● that place of horror, and solitude, whereof the Prophet speaks: for it is the very herbour of eternal horror, eternal reproach. It is the accursed den, where DEATH doth eternally inhabit. What Memori● hath not this remembrance in abomination? What Understanding doth not fly a consideration so odious. What Will hath not an aversion from a subject so distasteful? What Fantasy doth not turn itself from so sad an object? What Pen in lieu o● writing would not fly away from a matter so much to be fled? What Ink black enough to equalise the blackness of those coals of desolation? This notwithstanding, my Athanasia, the most holy and most wise, do admonish and council us to think frequently of it, and to descend into Hell living, that we may not descend thither dying, saith a Father of the Church subtly and truly. True it is, this medicine is bitter, and its bitterness may cause a kind of drunkenness, and distraction of mind, marry it is a wholesome distraction, and its convulsions gives health and holiness to the soul it doth seize upon. It is that volume of the Prophete's, bitter in the mouth, but restorature in the heart. What abundance of people fall into this gulf, for want of forefeeing it. Let us cast ourselves into it by foresight, Athanasia, but as Dyvers into the sea, to bring up the pearls of good and holy resolutions. The horror of this subject. XXII. IT is nevertheless very hard, that I may not say impossible, to be hold this subject in the face without astonishment. For if the very words, eternal Reprobation and Damnation, make the most constant and resolute courage quake; what will the consideration of their effect do? A woman became once a Statue of salt upon the aspect of an abominable town burnt with heavenly fire, the inhabitants whereof descended into Hell alive. I would to God that the sight of the accursed Eternity would make us as immoveable as statuas to bad actions, and would Season us with the salt of true wisdom. Moses' had an horror and an apprehension of his rod, while departing out of his hand, he saw it transformed into a serpent, and although God commanded him boldly to take hold of this beast by the tail, yet durst he not do it without trembling. O Athanasia, what heart is so resolute, as to behold the rod of God, rod of direction in his Kingdom, changed into a rod of iron, driving away the reprobate, as earthen pots, and in a rod of fury, and not quake with a just fear, sith that even the heavenly. Intelligences, the celestial Virtues assured of their salvation, shall be moved with fear, when the great judge shall come at the consommation of the world, to hold his last Assizes. That which the Poetes fabulously relate of their Medusa, and of the Sun's retrogradation lest it might give light to the horrid and unnatural banquet of Thyestes', are but weak strokes of the sacred horror, which the consideration of the cursed Eternity doth imprint, upon a soul. The reprobate to prevent the definitive and irrevocable sentence of their eternal condemnation, shall one day invoke the mountaignes to fall upon them: and to bury them in an eternal oblivion. And if the heat of the Babylonian furnace did affright all the beholders with the fiery flashes which it vomited out: what must the aspect of that eternal furnace (made hot with the wroth of God, and maintained in a continual heat with a blast of brimstone), needs work in a heart, that hath its sight sharpened by Faith? It is an universality of evils. XXIII. I Will discover unto thee all sorts of good, saith God to his favourite Moses, in manifesting myself unto thee. Yes, for in the vision of God all felicity is comprised, as also all sorts of evil in the privation of this object of the sovereign Beatitude. For if the supreme Felicity, according to all the Divines, be a perfect collection of all good; doth not the rule of Contraries oblige us to believe, that the top of the sovereign infelicity is a collection of all evil. Go to then, my Athanasia, let us represent unto our minds all the calamities and torments imaginable and unimaginable, and let us load the shoulders of one only with this heavy mass; and let us affirm, that such is the least part of the sufferances of the damned. In this world calamities are always in a manner particular, so that it is an extraordinary thing, to see the same party assaulted with two or three at the same time: and when the defease is violent, it dures not; for that either the disease ceaseth, or the patiented oppressed with it, ceaseth to be. In Hell it is not so; for all the torments which we can comprehend, yea even those which are incomprehensible, meet in the same instā● upon the damned's head, upon whom scourges are reunited, and ruine● multiplied; even as the Eagles, to make use of the Scriptures comparison, and haulkes do in troops seize upon carrion. O God, said the good job, that man of grieves, and oppressed with infirmities and miseries, thou hast rolled upon me all the billows of thy wrath. And David in a like air, I am come to th● broad sea, and the tempest hath swallowed me up: how much better do these words suit with the reprobate, who perceive the heavy hand of the Divine justice upon them, without all hope of solace? To them it belongs to read in the book of Lamentations, maledictions, and misfortunes, which the Prophet did sometimes write by God's command to reclaim Israel from its vice and destruction: to them, I say, who are fallen to the bottom of all miseries. The great Angel of the Schowle, S. THOMAS, giving a reason why all calamities conceavable do fall upon the damned, saith after S. BASILE, that in the end of the word, when fire shall generally purge it, there shall be a separation made of all pure and impure things in the elements, and as that which is pure shall be reserved for the pleasure and content of the Elect; so that which is impure shall be cast into the Sink or centre of the earth, where the common opinion placeth Hell, to be a continual torment to the damned, being most just, that as by their sin they abused all creatures, so they all should conspire to torment them, as it is written in the book of wisdom. That all the world shall fight for the service and glory of the justice of God, against the mad men. Propose unto yourself then, o Athanasia, a person reduced to that point of misery, that at one instant he should be afflicted with all sorts of pains, not only in the principal members, but even in the least parts of his body, so far forth, that he should resent particular stingings through every poor. Speak the truth, to behold the most vile and wretched creature on the earth in this dismale estate, would it not move horror in your heart? And yet, Faith doth assure us, that the torments of the damned are far other, and that all this collection of evils, is but a poor part of their cup. And Verily, most reasonable it is, that such as employed all the powers of their body and soul to offend the sovereign and eternal Goodness, should in every of them be eternally punished by the Sovereign justice. The numberless number of those pains are expressed in diverse passages of holy Scripture, where it speaks, of Fires, Ice, Darkness, Blindness, Gnash of teeth, Tears, Hunger, Thirst, Diseases, Swords, Howl, Gale, Absinth, Prisons, Worms, Serpents, Whirlwinds, Tempests, Fournaces, Thunders, Wheels, and a number of other scourges, whereof we find every lease full. The pains of sense, and first of the sight and hearing. XXIV. ANd whereas general discourses seem not to be so efficacious as particular ones, let us descend, Athanasia, from the generality of those eternal pains, to the particular consideration thereof. The Contemplatives divide them into penas sensus, and penas damni, whence comes the word damnation, and it is incomparably greater than the former, though it far less strike upon the imagination of vulgar minds. The Sight, amongst the exterior senses holds the first place, and the privation thereof, is numbered amongst the greatest miseries of this life, by the just TOBY a worthy witness of so troublesome a discommodity. Now Faith doth teach us, that the damned shall be in thicker obscurities than those of Egypt, and that the tempest of darkness shall possess them for ever. And in the Holy Scripture Hell is marked out in these words, exterior darkness. For an Eternity, saith the Prophet, light shall not be discovered therein; for although God be there, as it were in every place; and that darkness cannot obscure his natural light, yet his will is, that in this dry Lake, that is, void of all consolation, the darkness cover the face of the Abyss; and that the eyes of the damned, though otherwise capable of sight, see nothing but that which may trouble and torment them. The fire of the divine angar being once fallen down upon them, they shall never more discover the Sun, in punishment of the abuse of this noble sense in time past, and that in lieu of contemplating the Heaven, they have made their looks dwell upon the earth and creatures. And although light be as inseparable a quality of fire as heat; yet as of old when the three children were thrown into the furnace, the divine power leaving the light, did suspend the heat of the flame that it should not attempt upon those innocents: so in Hell, he will permit the heats activity upon the reprobate, and yet will deprive the fire of light, to leave them in obscurity amongst the dead of ages, buried in an eternal oblivion, and far removed from the light of his face. So shall our Lord divide the flame from the fire, saith the Psalmist, that is according to some interpreters, he shall separate the light from the heat. And even as during the palpable darkness, which God did of old spread over Egypt, while the Israelites enjoyed a delightful light, the Idolaters were either blind, or afflicted with frighting visions: so in Hell, amidst the pitchy blackness of that region of the shadow of death, if at any time the damned enjoy some obscure glimpses, seeing as though they saw not, it shall be only to espy the hideous shapes of amaysing fantomes, and horrible visions of Devils, whose aspect shall be more insupportable unto them, than the rest of their tortures. So that, if for the thickness of this smoke, and the blackness of these obscurities, the privation of the use of this sense be an irksome torment unto them: the short use, which at times they shall have of it, will only serve to add to their torment, always unfortunate both blind and seeing. I will omit the particular pains of this delicate part, which, as the Physicians observe, in its dainty littleness is obnoxious to so many different diseases, which shall be yet diversified both in quality and quantity, according as the reprobate shall have abused that noble Sense, which had been in Heaven one of the principal organs by which the joy of our Lord had entered into their hearts. O God with what frights shall their souls be tortured by the sense of hearing, a sense, by so much more lively and capable of pains, as it hath more commerce with the mind. Ah! what a mad music will there be heard, of howl, scrikes, gnash of teeth, and groans of desperation! If the thunder clapp and trumpets sound, which did resound upon the mountain where God delivered his law to MOSES put all Israel in such an ALARM, and struck the hearts of the people with such astonishment, that they said unto their law giver, Let not our Lord speak unto us lest we should die. What a death shall it be in death itself, to hear the voice of many waters, or rather the overflowing torrents of so many maledictions and horrible blasphemies, which rage and despair shall draw from their execrable mouths full of the stinch of a hellish brimstone. o how jarring the discord, and how detestable the roar of those victimes of the eternal fury! The ears of those eloquent Orators, and pleasing Poetes, who had taken so great complacence in the grateful fall of their measured periodes, and in the sweet cadence of their rhymes, shall find themselves at that time in a wonderful disorder. The ears of those Princes which admitted only silken words, and the oil of sinners, that is, flattery; who took content to be praised in the desires of their heart, and blessed in their iniquities; who found no better music then that which their own praises made, as ALEXANDER said, who was as great in vanity as valour, will then be struck with terrible accents. The ears of those Adonises (this word signifies Song) those Ninnions of the Goddess Venus whose baits are dishonest songs. Those of these effeminate Musicians, and dainty Dames who must be lulled a sleep by singing new airs, more pernicious than those of the Poetes Syrenes, shall then have their ears filled with dreadful plaints, resembling the voice of the Stork or Dragon, to whom a Prophet compares his own, while he lamented the incurable wounds of the people of Israel. But the damned shall be principally frighted, and shall quake to hear the thunder clape of the heavenly wrath, which shall continually resound in their ears. Whereas the just, saith the royal Prophet, shall be in the eternal memory of God, and shall not fear the dreadful crack of his wrath. The pains of other two senses, the Smelling and tasteing. XXV. ANd if Hell be the world's sink, and the Receptackle of all the filth of this great Frame, and with all a deep dungeon, where the air hath hardly any access; how great must the stinch and infection needs be, of so many corruptions heaped one upon another, and how insufferable the smell of that infernal brimstone, mixed with so many corrupted matters? When we read the sufferances of certain Martyrs, who were afflicted with smells and vermin in dark prisons, we esteem those lent martirdomes as painful as the violent. Nay some natures there be that can so little support evil smells, that to enter into a Hospital makes them swoone: And yet what is all this in comparison of the infamous exhalation of this gulf of horror of which we speak? Alas, Athanasia, LAZARUS his sisters though very affectionate to their brother, could not endure that JESUS CHRIST should cause his grave to be opened, by reason of the stinch, which they apprehended would issue out of it, albeit he were but dead for the space of four days. O infernal Cave without all vent or breathing hole; receptacle of filth and dung; eternal grave of such as die continually and yet cannot die! with what abominable filth art thou not filled? you dainty offenders who live only amidst parfumes and Roses, who are daily loaden with all the Parfumers drouges, than it is, that in steed of sweet odours you shall rot in execrable smells, for punishment of that, that by your evil example, you were in your life time an odour of death to death, and not, an odour of life to life, and a good odour in JESUS CHRIST as pious people are. Then shall be said of you, that which a Prophet pronounced of Israel in Captivity; those that were clad in purple, and imbaulmed with parfumes, have embraced dunghills. With what afflictions shall not their taste be tormented. For besides the gale of dragons, whereof the scripture saith they shall drink: and the bread of grief, which shall be their common food, a continual hunger and thirst shall terribly tyrannize over them. They shall endure the hunger of mad-dogges, saith the Psalmist: And as touching the thirst which the burning heat of the revengeful flame shall cause in them, the story of the wicked Richman doth furnish us with an authentical proof. Just judgement of God upon those who in their life time crammed themselves with the world's fading delights, crowning themselves with roses, and spoiling all the flowers of the meads of pleasures! All the most horrible famine that Scripture and histories propose unto us, are but weak pictures to that which the damned shall suffer in this unfortunate Residence of eternal miseries. The pain of the sense of touching. XXVI. THe sense of touching, the grossest of all the rest, yet the furthest extended, affording more hold to misery, in my opinion, shall be more afflicted then the rest, and the subject upon which the most cruel punishments shall be exercised. Yes, Athanasia, for all the torments which the Scripture doth propose unto us, as prepared for those which by the divine justice shall be cast into the dark Dungeon of that eternal Gaol, seem to fall upon this only sense. They shall pass saith JOB, from snowy waters, that is, from the extremity of cold, to intolerable heats. Whole floods of fire and brimstone shall shower down upon those unfortunate wretches, and again, a part of their chalice shall be fire, hale, snow, ice, and the boisterous blast of tempests. You see that all this belongs to the sense of touching. And indeed this eternal fire, whither the reprobate shall be condemned by the last sentence; and this Pond of fire and brimstone, whither they shall be cast headlong, shall work principally upon this Sense. The hatchet is already put to the root of the tree, said the forerunner of Messiah; and that which shall yield no fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire. He hath already taken the van into his hand, put into it the corn and chaff, being resolved to separate them, and reserueing the one for his Granary, to cast the other into a fire which shall never be quenched. And if amongst the torments which humane justice hath invented for the punishment of crimes, there is none held more rigorous than that of fire, by reason of the great activity of this element: what shall the heat of that fire be, which shall be the executioner of the justice of the God of vengeance, whose Zeal shall be inflamed against the wicked, and shall kindle the fire which shall eternally burn in the extremities of Hell, as MOSES doth express it. The Contemplatives strive to persuade us, that the material fire which we experience here below, is but as a painted fire, in respect of that, whose flame doth cause a horrible combustion, saith EZECHIEL, which shall never be extinguished. The Reprobate, saith S. JOHN, shall drink the wine of God's wroth, and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone, and the smoke of his torment shall assend for ever and ever, that is, shall never end. And here it is, o my dearest soul, to purge thee from the roust of thine iniquities, and to make thee absolutely and for ever renounce sin, an accursed cause of so horrible an effect, that I must brand thee with a wholesome mark, and make the descend in thought, into those disastrous flames, ask thee with the Prophet isaiah, whether thou art able to live in this devoureing fire, and whether thou wilt make choice of thy habitation in eternal flames. I must urge thee upon this point, o my soul! and without using distinctions or evasions, without all exceptions, thou must answer my demand. This fire is prepared for the Devil and his revolted Angels, saith the holy Euangilist, consider, whether thou will enter into this accursed crew, and take part of the dreggs of their chalice. There is no mean, either must sin be forsaken, or thou thyself be given up a prey to this eternal torment. It is long since this sentence was pronounced, which teacheth us, that we are either to do penance in this life, or eternally to burn in the next. To avoid these straits and slip away to the right or left hand, is impossible; Heaven and earth shall pass, but the words of truth shall never pass. If thou be not altogether blind, and if the light of reason be yet with thee, I doubt not but thou wilt make a happy choice, and to escape so dangerous a gulf, thou wilt cast thyself into the arms of grace, and Divine mercy, which admites only the penitent, and repentant prodigals: go then, my dear soul, upon this thy holy resolution, and beg of the Divine clemency, that he would finish his work in thee, and that he would bestow grace upon thee, to accomplish that, which it hath made thee will, and begin. For unless God build, in vain doth a man go about to build; and all that is not established upon the foundation of his assistance, cannot choose but be ruinous. A sith to God. XXVII. O Great God who art a consuming fire, whose words are fire and as a hammer bruising the hardest stones. Who appears in the burning bush, when thou wilt give a law of terror and dread unto the world; and sends that of love in fiery tongues, whose Zeal is as burning as fire, and whose lamps are fire and flames, whose jealousy is strong as death, and hard as Hell. Who makes the fire of thy Divine justice issue from amongst the thorns, to destroy the tallest Cedars of Libanus, who kindlest the reprobate as coals with the fire which proceeds from thine irritated face. Who continues the furnace where they are plunged, in its wonted heat, by the torrent of burning brimstone which flows from the face of thy just indignation. O God of revenge, let this thought make so lively an impression in our imagination, that we may be thereby roused out of the lethargy of pleasures, concupiscence, and worldly ambition which keep us asleep. Let the fire, which walks before thee as executioner of thy terrible justice, and which doth consume thine enemies, to wit the reprobate, never depart from our memory; may it be unto us a torch, and pillar of light, in the darkness of the world and our errors; a Lamp to our feet, and a light to our ways whereby we may discover the gulf which will swallow us up, unless we prohibit the feet of our affections, to follow wicked ways, and command them to walk in the ways of thy law. Thou o Lord, who didst deliver the three children out of the Babylonian furnace (a figure of that wherein the reprobate burn for ever) preserve us from those abominable flames, where thou art continually blasphemed; and exempting us from the sharp and burning once of thy wrath, place us in the light and bright ones of thy love, where like Pyralides, and sacred Salemanders, we shall live happy, without pain, or consummation, singing honour praise, and benediction unto thee for the Canticle of our deliverance. Of interior pains. XXVIII. LEt us now come, Athanasia; to the consideration of interior pains. And let us judge of the torments of the soul, as well by the advantages which it hath over the body, as by the large share it hath in the malice of sin, which is consummated in the will. If a Stoical philosopher had light enough to discern, that every disordered mind is its own Tormenter: what a torture shall the reprobate find in their own hearts, in this accursed place of disorder, which is replenished with the horror of an eternal confusion? There their understanding shall be darkened with clouds: because they shall be overtaken with a night of obscurity, and be covered with the thick shades of death. I will omit the subtle schowle questions, whether they shall be entangled in errors and ignorances, whereof those accursed inhabitants of that black prison seem to complain in the book of wisdom, when they say, that the Sun of understanding doth not enlighten them. Upon this subject I will only stick to that undoubled truth, which teacheth us, that they are fallen for ever into a reprobate sense, which causeth their will (still following that which the understanding proposeth unto it) being bend to vice like a crooked bow, as the Psalmist terms it, to hate God with an implacable and extreme hatred. But if some subtle disputant go about to teach us, that since the will cannot hate Good which is its proper object, it is impossible that it should conceive a true hatred against God, who is the sovereign good: we will answer him with the Angelical S. THOMAS, that the damned do not hate God in himself, because they know him not such as he is, (as do the Blessed who by reason of that knowledge cannot leave to love him) but only in his works: for the understanding of the damned conceiving God as Author of the torments they endure, causeth their will to be incensed against him with a mortal and raging hatred: And whereas, nor God, nor the pain, which they suffer can cease to be, their courage ceaseth not, and their will is continually tortured with this unsufferable aversion. Their memory also shall have its peculiar torment: for if the blessed in Heaven rejoice in the labours & reproaches, which they endured for the love of God, and that through the fire and water of tribulations they are entered into rest: the memory of pleasures past shall be an extreme torment to the reprobate, when they call to mind, that for those transitory moments they are fallen into pinching and endless pains. They shall roar out with ESAV to have sold their heavenly inheritance for a mess of pottage. For comparing in their mind pleasures passed with those that are eternal, and apprehending the approach of torments whose cruel pangs they feel, will not this memory, think you, draw upon them an insupportable affliction? With what Phantomes and monstrous imaginations shall their fantisie be tortured? Frame a judgement of it, by that which happens to such as in this life, finding themselves guilty of grievous crimes, fear to fall into temporal justice. They may indeed sometimes be in a secure place, but never in security. They may be hid from the eyes of men, and be placed out of their reach; but never shall they be able to hide themselves from themselves, or escape the assault of their own conscience. While they wake they are vexed with fears and suspicions: their sleep is interrupted with wicked dreams, dread doth still haunt them: at each one's approach they quake with fear, and the Furies having seized upon them, grant them neither Peace nor Truce: their dissipated thoughts put their hearts upon the Rack. Now if the apprehension of humane justice, which hath power only over the body, give so daunting Alarumes to the imagination; what will the sense of the darts of the Divine justice do, which are so many vessels of death and burning arrows shot at the damned soul? But who can express the strange Chaos, and horrible confusion which shall inhabit the inferior appetite of the lost crew? For if all the disorder of man's life spring from his passions, which as blustering blasts are shut up in the two caves Concupiscible, and irascible: what disorder, judge you, must those wretched souls needs feel in that part, what contradictions in themselves, what convulsions, what rage, what fury? Alas that noble passion, LOVE, Queen of all the rest, the Sun and salt of life, that passion which might have made them happy for ever, if they had turned it towards God, that soveraignely amiable object, being as it were razed out of them, the perpetual aversion they have to love, shall afflict them as the pangs of a woman in childbirth, who cannot yet be delivered. S. CATHERINE OF SIENNA being upon a day present while a possessed person was exorcised, the Devil being commanded to declare his name, he answered with a hideous how leing; I am the accursed DEPRIVED-OF-LOVE. At which the Saint was so moved, that she thought she should have fallen down in a Trance. Touching the passion of hatred, it shall be outrageous in the damned, whence shall proceed their continual blasphemies against God, and the perpetual maledictions and imprecations which they shall make against the creatures. And if they have any Desires, they shall be execrable ones, to see all the world partakers of their pains: not that they are at all solaced thereby, but only to give way to the incredible malice, of which they are full. Their aversion from all good shall be as much tormenting, as in itself it is execrable. Of joy, there must no mention be made in that place of dolour: But contrarwise of an incredible Sadness, which shall oppress them without all consolation. The heat of Anger shall redouble the heat of their flammes. Hope banished from their hearts, shall leave the place void to Despair, which shall be one of their greatest and fiercest Tormentors. And be it that an impudent and shameless audacity shall open their blaspheming and stinking mouth against Heaven, yet shall an eternal horror make them quake, though indeed nothing can befall them, worse than that which they already endure. Thus shall they be tossed with the blast of those tempestuous winds, being burdensome and insupportable to themselves. And though their body be within Hell's bosom, yet shall they bear about with them another Hell in their own bosoms. They shall vomit out venomous words against themselves being weatherbeaten by their passions, as with contrary winds upon the sea of so many calamities. They shall be devoured with the sharpest gnawing of the bloody birds of their inordinate affections. They shall be given up in prey to their own rage, as the Poetes Actaeon to his own hounds. The Prison of Hell. XXIX. ANd if liberty be reputed so great a good, that all the goods of life, yea life itself, without it, are esteemed as nothing, whence it is, that amongst the joys of the blessed, the liberty of the children of God is placed. What conceit are we to make, my Athanasia, of the eternal captivity of the damned, in a prison so horrible as that of Hell? O Lord how true it is, that he that sinneth, adjudgeth himself to a perpetual slavery: but a slavery far other then that which Israel suffered in Egypt, where the Devils are far more cruel than pharao's officers, who put the Hebrews to dig and delve the earth. A prison, saith S. CIRILLE, all on a fire, and where the darkness shall never be enlightened with any ray of light; where pestilent and gnawing worms live in spite of death. Who would not fear, saith S. BERNARD, this worm that cannot die, this place full of fire, this smoke, this stinking brimstone, those blasts of tempests, those thick and black fogs of exterior darkness? For what light, I pray you, can penetrate into the bowels of the earth, whither every living creature descended, of those that revolted from MOSES, as the Psalmist teacheth us, and as we gather out of the book of Numbers. For to doubt whether Hell be in the Centre of the earth, a place furthest remote from the glory of the blessed, seems to me a thing impossible, after one have well weighed the places of Scripture, and of Fathers, pointing out this truth. ISAY, speaking of the descent of Messiah into Hell, Hell which is below the earth, saith he, was troubled in thy arrival. And the same Messiah is made speak in this sort by Ecclesiasticus: I will penetrate the inferior parts of the earth, and I will visit all those that sleep therein. And the very Devils in S. LUKE besought our Saviour, that casting them out of the bodies which they possessed, he would not send them into the Abyss. S. CIRILLUS ALEXANDRINUS speaking of Hell, terms it a black Cave under ground, replenished with darkness, smoke, and all miseries, where the damned souls are as in a dungeon. TERTULIAN calls it a Treasure of fire shut up under the earth. And S. AUGUSTINE teacheth in diverse passages, that Hell is under the earth; as also S. GREGORY the Great. There is the lake, or rather the cistern without water of consolation, whither those unfortunate souls are banished. A prison far other then that which was so irksome to JOSEPH, since that those accursed souls are there bound hand and foot, afflicted with ineffable torments. And which is yet worse, without all hope of delivery. To which if we add the company of Devils, whose complices they made themselves, by revoulting, with them, from their Creator, I do not think, that any thing more horrible can be conceived. Alas the stateliest house in the world, being designed to any one for his prison, appears forthwith to him graceless and disagreeable, so powerfully doth love of liberty possess men's minds! what will that house be where all imaginable and unimaginable evils make their general Assembly, following the conceit of the great Roman Muse? Of the pain of Damni. XXX. But amongst all those evils, Divinity teacheth us, that none is comparable to that which is called the pain of damni, whence damnation, and the damned take their names. No, not all the exterior ones, nor yet all the interior ones, which briefly we have represented, can any way enter into comparison with this, which alone, doth further surpass them all in greatness, than the highest celestial spheere, doth surmount this earthly globe. Which I will endeavour, to make you understand, Athanasia, by this consideration. In sin there are two principale malices, the first, is the aversion from the Creator; the other, is the conversion to the Creature: which God declares by the mouth of his Prophet in these words: my people at once commit two evils, they forsake me, who an the fountain of live-water, and they make unto themselves broken Cisterns which can hold no water. To this second malice, belongs that pain of Sense, whose miseries we expressed in the precedant stroke: but to the abandoning of the Creator, appertains the pain of damni, which consists in the eternal privation of the sight of God, wherein is placed the highest point of the immortal beatitude. Now, I apprehend, saith the Father with the golden mouth, that part of glory incomparably more great than all the other torments. And the same adds, that ten thousand torments like to those of the damned are nothing being compared to this privation. Wherein this Doctor is followed of all the rest, and the school doth teach it as a constant truth, which cannot be called in doubt, without shaking the grounds, and violating the principles of Christianity. S. THOMAS strikes further into it: for though the pain of damni be equal in all the damned, and that of sense unequal, according to that which is written, that the torments are proportioned to the unlawful delights: and although as well those of sense, as of damni, be equal in respect of the Eternity of their durance; yet doth he hold, that the pain of sense, and that of damni, do differ almost as much as a finite and infinite thing: for certain it is, that touching the senses, the punishment of the reprobate comes far short of their demerits, the Divine goodness not being able to contain his mercy, even in the effects of his greatest wrath: but as for the loss of an infinite good, where in the pain of damni doth consist, who sees not, that this punishment is in some sort infinite? And if insensible things find no rest till they be reunited unto their Centre, since they were not separated from it but by violence; how intolerable must the state needs be which doth separate a soul for ever from its true principle, which is God, without all hope of return. O rebellious Absalomes'! for an Eternity you shall be banished from the Court of this heavenly Father, who doth no longer accnowledge you for his children! Prodigals that you are, who by your revoults and deboistness have dissipated the substances of this eternal Father's grace: then shall there be no more time of repentance left for you: and in this perpetual separation from his face, you shall remain for an Eternity in that foreign land covered with the shadow of death, because you did wilfully separate yourselves from the Author of life. God will reject you eternally, eternally shall you be deprived of the light of his countenance and of the light of that glory, which is the part and portion of the Blessed. For ever shall you lament the loss of this priselesse treasure; as Michol spent tears, and could not be comforted for the loss of her Gods. You shall sob, but in vain, in vain shall you moan the loss of the God of Gods, whose dear presence had as throughly replenished you with happiness, as his absence doth oppress you with disaster. The continual grief. XXXI. THe geife of this so irreparable a loss shall be so bitter in those wretches, that we may count it, Athanasia, for one of their greatest torments. For when they begin once to consider what they are, and what they might have been; and for what dolours they have changed the inconceaveable felicities, which were prepared for them in the sight of God; the fruitless repentance of their folly, will so vex them, that thence shall spring those tears, those gnash of teeth, and those groan, which the scriptures do allote them. Thence that immortal worm, which incessantly shall gnaw them, mentioned by ISAY, a worm which S. THOMAS, and all the Doctors hold to be spiritual, not corporal, and that it consisteth only in a perpetual repentance, and remorse of conscience, which shall sting them, no otherwise then worms are wont to gnaw the bodies in which they are bred and fed. For this grief rising from the remembrance of their sin which is the cause of all their evils, and of so deplorable a privation of the sight of God, shall live continually in their memory, and shall cause a sharper remorse in them then all their other tortures. When they shall call to mind so many secret inspirations, so many exterior exhortations, so many interior motions, which they had felt, to reclaim them from their wicked ways; when they shall reflect upon time misspent and lost, which they might have made use of for their conversion, and for the redeeming of their unfortunately spent days. When they shall represent unto their thoughts, how often they were warned to forsake the ways of sinners, and not to sit in the chair of pestilence, to which they turned a deaf ear and would not understand welldoing. And when they shall come to contemplate the unfortunate estate, to which the contempt of so many remonstrances shall have reduced them, together with their negligence in not making use of occasions past, which will never more present themselves unto them: o God with how fruitless an abomination of their crimes, and with how furious and mad an indignation shall they be transported? But lets rather hear them in their own words, expressed by the holy Ghost in the book of wisdom, where he brings them in, speaking in this sort. We have strayed and wandered from the ways of truth, nor have we been enlightened with the light of justice.. The Sun of understanding hath not cast his beams upon us, where you are to note by the way, that these children of the Devil speak thus, following their Father's spirit, which is the spirit of Lies, since sufficient grace to be saved, and necessary light to discern what is good, is denied no man, God desiring that all should be saved, and should come to the knowledge of truth. But let us hear the continuation of those unjust plaints. We gave ourselves over to the ways of iniquity, and to the paths of our ruin; we have wandered in painful ways, being ignorant of the paths of our Lord. Here you see how they mix cokle with the good corn, wheat with Chaff, I mean, they mix truth with falsities, putting darkness for light: For true it is, the way of vice is painful and loathsome, and to speak with the Prophet, it is beset with thorns: but it is most false to affirm, that they knew not the Divine pleasure, since the light of nature, and the light of Faith, MOSES and the Prophets do more then sufficiently point it out; wherein they offend doublely in seeking to excuse their sins, and become so much more liable to punishment, that having known the will of their great master they did it not. Let us closely follow the groans of the reprobate, and see how the Rack compels them at length to confess the truth: what hath pride profited us; what advantage have we gotten by the vanity of riches? all that, is passed as a shadow; as a Post, that rides at full speed; as a ship sailing on the sea under full sails, leaving behind her no marks of her passage: as a bird swinning in the air, whose trace is not found; as an arrow which flying cuts the air, and the air presently reunites itself. So have our days run by, without leaving any mark of virtue: we have spent in malice, all the Time which was liberally bestowed upon us, to work our salvation, in fear and trembling. We have passed the course of our age in apparences, and in the vanities and false follies of the world, and in an instant we are fallen into Hell. In this sort, do those wretches gnawn with a continual sorrow, unprofitably repent themselves, and groan under the pressure and affliction of heart, which is the Hell of their Hell. How did the Egyptians, think you, grieve, who contemned JOSEPHES' counsel to make their provision of corn, during the seven years of plenty, which were so abundant, that wheat was no more esteemed than sand, while, during those others of famine, they were constrained to give the most precious things they had, yea even their ●owne liberty, lest famine might drive their souls out of their bodies. What a lively sense of grief shall they be touched withal, while they shall consider, that their former abundance caused in them many offences; and that their present want is the punishment of the same offences: but especially when they shall see PHARAOH made Master of all their goods, as well movable as immoveable, and that of his simple subjects, they are become his slaves. O how hearty they would have wished that they had given credit to the good JOSEPHES' prophicies, who advised them to be mindful in their plenty, of the hard time to come, and to make good provision in time of harnessed, while their granaries and Cellars overflowed on every side. But how light is this temporal misery if it be compared to the eternal sorrow which shall torment the reprobate, advertised by so many remonstrances as well by writing as by word of mouth, which bet upon their eyes and ears, and made them inexcusable, in not having redeemed lost time; and in having, by the hardness and inpenitence of their heart, heaped up a treasure of anger, in the day of our Lord's anger. What a remorse shall they feel, to see that their wounds wax old in the face of their imprudence. And that while they might have purchased an eternal and priselesse felicity for a glass of cold water given in the love, and for the love of God; yea have borne away the crown of glory, by natural and necessary actions being done in grace with conformity to Gods will (at so easy a rate doth the supreme Goodness sell heaven!) and that these truths were so frequently proposed unto them by the Gospel, and the preachers thereof, who as trumpets made them resound in their ears, they not being moved with all this, less sensible than the walls of Hierico, who fell at the sound of the priestly trumpet. What a heartbreak it shall be unto them to think how little they enjoyed, and for how little a space they possessed the same: what benefits they have lost; from how fair advamtages they are fallen: how little was demanded at their hands, for a priselesse glory: together with the torments passing conceit, which they shall endure without all hope of end. To speak the truth, as there is no head so strong that turns not, nor body so stiddie that shakes not, at the aspect of a deep descent; so me thinks, there is no brain that is not troubled, by bending its attention towards the eternal sorrow, which shall incessantly gnaw upon those miserable caitiffs. The Eternity of the torments of Hell. XXXII. But when all is done, Athanasia, reason must render the Ghost, and humane wisdom must be drunk up in the consideration of the Eternity of those pains, which we have set out in weak colours: For if those torments, how ever great, how ever long, were to have end, yet hope would in habit the bottom of Pandora's boat, nor should this hope be void of some spark of consolation. But alas! in saying never, we say a term without term, and which, for the time to come, shall continue as long as God shall be God. The Reprobate, saith the sacred text, shall be forsaken of God eternally. Eternally shall God be angry with them, and that without reconcilement. This Abyss never renders any thing it once swallows up, the souls that are once cast headlong thither, never return. Out of that Gaol there is no redemption. There, no thoughts of God, but such as are blasphemous; no praise is rendered him in that accursed dungeon. The flame of the Babylonian furnace burned 49. handfuls high, but could never raise itself to the fiftieth, a number of JOUBILIE and Pardon, as figure of that whereof we speak, where there is no remission of sins. There, saith the Psalmist, are the damned devoured of death, no otherwise then sheep do graze: for as the grass puts up again under the sheep's nibbling tooth, so shall the reprobate be continually struck with the sting of a living death, and still as they shall be devoured by it, they shall revive to new punishments, wherein the truth of that shall be seen, which the Poetes did only fabulously relate of the liver still renewed, as by the vultour it was devoured. The wicked, saith the holy Gospel, shall be cast into the fire, and they burn, in steed of saying they shall burn. A wonderful speech, which by a present tense, in lieu of a future, doth represent the Eternity of this endless torment. For after a thousand ages, & as many million, as centenaries of million of millions, one may still affirm of these accursed souls, they burn: while incessantly they pay the revenue of a rent, whose principal they shall never extinguish. No, for Eternity being, a perpetual Today, and a continuance remaining still in the same being; how can that run by, which stands still in the same state? And if there be any thing new, it shall be the Canticles of joy, which shall continually be new in the blessed Eternity: In the accursed, the reprobate shall suffer, and daily shall attend new sufferances, and their sense still lively, shall never be hardened thereby. Their being accustomed to endure, shall not make their torment lighter, or less insupportable. Whatever ever calamities we suffer in this life, be they never so great and grievous, they dure only for a time, saith the Prophet DANIEL, but to the damned, time shall not be. Let's call to mind, saith S. PATION, that in Hell there is no place left for repentance. For the time thereof is past. Happy is he who by a good confession foreruns the face of the judge justly irritated with our crimes: who doth promptly perform all the good in this world, which his hand is able to work. And who doth well in every thing, while in this life precious time is lent him. For now it is the hour to rise from the sleep of the death of sin: for our salvation or damnation are nearer than we believe. But, will it please you Athanasia, that to give life to this Draught we may borrow from this subject of the Eternity of those pains, the colours of some excellent pincell of antiquity. Hear S. AUGUSTINE then, or rather see how he sets out this eternal misery in its colours. As for the accursed souls, saith he, their death, is without death; their end without end; their term, without term. For their death shall be still living; their end shall still be beginning; and their term shall never expire. Death shall stifle without killing them. The Torture shall bruise without destroying them. The flame shall burn them, without affording light at all; for this fire shall be dark; and horror shall inhabit this darkness; and darkness shall increase the torment of the flame. Thus shall they be set upon with the sense of dolour and horror; incessantly suffering and dreading. S. GREGORY the GREAT, almost in the same air, gives us assurance of the Eternity of pains. In this torture of the reprobate, saith he, death is immortal, and end endless. Because death life's there continually, and continually the end gins anew. Where be now, saith S. BERNARD, the children of the flesh, the lovers of the world, whose conversation in earth, was amongst vanities and delights; what have we left of them but corruption, and a most distasteful memory? They had a life of it in the earth, they eat and drunk delicately, they lived at their ease, and in an instant they descended into Hell. Their flesh in earth serves only now for wormes-meate; and their soul burns in eternal flames. For what did their glory and vanity serve them, what benefit did they reap of their transitory joys? what advantage did their great power bring them? say, what hath their foul pleasures, and abundance of wealth left them? To what a low ebb is their soaring ambition reduced! Alas the extremity of their joys was followed with tears and gnash of teeth, which shall never have end: and out of their short delights, they are fallen into torments, rigorous beyond measure, and long without end. From the mouth of these two or three reprochlesse witnesses, let us draw this word of Truth, that the undoubted Eternity of these pains of Hell, puts upon them the seal or mark of infinity, since one shall never see an end of their continuance, or of their entire consummation. If I took as much content in filling pages, as I precisely study brevity, I might have here a large field, by giving my imagination leave to run, in those vulgaire similitudes, or conceits, which give to weaker wits slender Ideas of Eternity, so far forth as man's understanding can reach. But I omit the little immortal bird drawing dry the Ocean, by drawing thence every hundred thousand years one drop of water. I leave the number of the stars, of the leaves of trees, the sands of the sea, and all the Arithmetic of the most skilful masters at the end of its line, and other the like conceits, which I blame not, for the respect I bear to the great and devout personages, who did apprehend them fitting, good and fruitful, not only for the common, but most advanced souls. I will pass, I say, these thoughts, leaving them to each one's invention, as their gust or spiritual profit shall move them. For my part, Athanasia, I confess unto you simply and sincerely the hardness of my own hart, wherein they made but a weak impression. Of the desperation of the damned. XXXIII. But in recompense hereof, I was wonderfully moved with the consideration of the furious and inconceaveable despair, which the Sight of this horrible Eternity of pains shall cause in the hearts of the damned. And truly, as the worm which eats the apple, is bred in the self same fruit, so shall this eternal despair, like to a gnawing worm, issue out of the self same Eternity whence it doth springe. True it is that the torments which the damned shall suffer in all the members of their body, and in all the faculties of their soul, are extreme. Yet the consideration that they shall never have end, adds another extremity to this extremity, which passeth imagination, and which will incite these accursed wretches, fallen into a reprobate sense, to open their mouth against Heaven, and to horrible blasphemies against God, as much, or more, than the sense of their punishments? And if the Prophet said, that he would cry like a dragon, and groan like an o●trige, over the desperate and incurable wounds of Israel, how much more terrible shall the how ling of the reprobate be, animated with a spirit of despair and rage, in seeing their calamities void of all hope of redress? So that it is the opinion of ALBERT THE GREAT, and DENIS THE CARTHUSIAN, that this thought of Eternity, shall much more afflict them, than all the pains of their tortures. Which the great S. AUGUSTINE expresseth in these terms. Being tormented without interruption or end, they shall live deprived of all hope of pardon, all expectation of mercy, wherein doth consist the greatest of their calamities. For if they could but hope that their torments would have end, after so many millions of years as all the creatures, even to the world's end, shall have had hairs on their head, be this number as great and incredible as it will, yet is it finite, and this imagination of an end would in some sort solace their sufferances. But whereas there is no end proposed unto them, they give themselves over to despair, and impatience doth double their pains. This moved the Prophet to say that their worm shall not die, and their fire shall never be extinguished, never be consumed, because this worm of despair shall torture their understandings, while the flame burns their body: being most reasonable, that those who with body and soul offended an eternal God, should be punished in body and soul, and be adjudged unto pains that should last as long, as God should be God, that is for ever. Pains without intermission. XXXIV. THis so dreadful despair, shall yet be augmented, Athanasia, by a consideration which I find, no less singular, then remarkable: to wit, that those pains shall not only be eternal, but also without intermission. For the damned shall not only pass in an instant, from one extremity to another, and as JOB saith, from frozen waters, to devouring fires, but their torments shall be continual, and continually in a point unsufferable, and without intermission at all. No part of repose, or abatement of pains are there to be hoped. 'tis a war that shall never have truce. In the sufferances of this life, be they never so great, there is always some moderation or place to breath in; in that they stay not still in the same state. As the heavens do incessantly roll: So all that is under those rowleing spheres, are obnoxious to changes and revolutions. The seasons do continually change, and continually renew the face of the univers. The Moon increaseth and decreaseth. The Sun doth advance itself, or put itself in a greater distance from us. The sea hath its ebb and flowing: and the springs, rivers, and floods, run day and night to find the Sea. Man's age runs daily to decay. Kingdoms and Empires, have their times to flourish and fade. Diseases are lightened, in that they come but by fits, and by the hope we have to end, or mend. In adverse fortune we are comforted, by expectation to find her favourable. The sharpest and most violent sickness, hath its intervals, & qualifications. Sleep is the common charm of grieves, and often by its dreams, it raiseth the condition of the most miserable (for the space it continewes), above the happiness of the most happy. But in Hell, sleep flies from the eyelids of the reprobate, nor doth rest, seiourne near unto them. Their tears do never dry up: their Ague is continual, and without intermission. Without relaxation they die in living; without relaxation, they live in dying. And if a rain continuing for 40. days only, was able to drown the whole world: o God what a Deluge of miseries shall choke those miserable souls, upon whom, without release, floods of fire, and darts of fury and malediction, shall shower down. And if things most aggreeable, turn disagreeable by continuance; in so much that the Manna, a food no less delicious than miraculous, became loathsome to the Israelites; And if eating every day the same dish, makes us loathe the most toothsome and exquisite bit: if ways that lie through great plains, though otherwise fair and facile, seem tedious: And if none would purchase the possession of a crown, upon condition, to lie without stirring in a most delicate, and richly parfumed bed for the space of thirty or forty years. What shall it be I pray you, continually to lie extended, upon inconceaveably hot burning coals, and amongst execrable stinches, and all the torments that can be imagined, without repose, without intermission, without comfort, without hope, and without release, for a whole Eternity, O you that are deaf, saith isaiah, hark; o you blind, behold! But who is blind, but he that is slave to sin; who is deaf but he that is made slave to his vices? And thou who seest so many things, seest thou not this? And thou that hast thine ears open, hearest thou not this? But alas how many are there in the world, who have eyes, but not to see, and ears but not to understand truths so manifest? O Lord, thou who dost every thing so well, who makest the blind see, and the deaf hear: open the eyes, and ears of those, whom the vanities and filth of the world do make blind and deaf; To th'end that those that do run to their ruin, and do precipitate themselves into horrible misfortunes for want of foreseeing them, may by the fear of thy judgements reclaim their footsteps from those so slippery ways. O God who is able to relate the power of thy wrath, and to know, without amaysement, the effects of thine indignation? o how horrible a thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God hands so heavy, that JOB being only touched with the tip of one of the fingers thereof, and that for a small space too, invites all creatures to take pity of him; o how burdensome and insuportable are they to the reprobate! Whether it were better for the damned not to be. XXXV. Form a judgement of it out of this consideration, Athanasia, that without respite they search after death and it comes not; they shall wish for it, and it shall fly from them. Upon which the Divines move a fine question; to wit, whether it were not better for the damned to be no more, or never to have been at all, then to subsiste without anihilation amidst so many living deaths. To which the Angel of the schowle, S. THOMAS, makes answer with no less subtility than solidity, that the non-esse being considered purely in itself, is the evil of evils, and the most miserable condition imaginable, and that thus, it cannot in general be desired. But being taken as delivering us, from a being accompanied with all sorts of miseries; and as it is a privation of so many calamities, it may be wished for of those who are in so deplorable a state. Whence it is said in the Gospel of that reprobate which betrayed the son of man, and who through despair hanging himself was burst in the midst. It had been better for this man that he had never been. And JOB in the extremity of his afflictions curseing the day of his birth, wished that he had never bone. S. AUGUSTINE confirms this opinion when he saith: The wicked and impious persons that are plunged in eternal fires, shall live in despite of themselves; for they would be glad, if it were in their power, to end so accursed a life; but none will oblige them with the benefit of such a death as would make them senseless of their pains. And again, the Scripture daignes not this continual sufferance with the name of life; for to be continually in such extreme torments, seems not so much to be a life, as a perpetual death. Whereupon in Sacred writ; this damnation, is called a seconde death, to distinguish it from the first, where unto all that are upon the face of the earth, are liable. And albeit it be called death, yet is none extinguished thereby; for to live in continual torment, is not to live, but to dic. The same Doctor, in another passage, saith to the same purpose. If the damned souls live in those eternal pains, where the unclean spirits a● tormented, they are rather to be said t●dy then live, and that eternally. Fo● there is no worse nor more dreadful death, then when death cannot dy●▪ Pope INNOCENTIUS gives authority to that belief, in these terms. Then (speaking of the accursed Eternity) death shall be immortal. 〈◊〉 death how much more sweet should thou be, if thou didst extinguish so dolorous a life, then to constrain one t● live in such hellish torments; and which is yet worse, torments of so long continuance. I, for the number of years in Hell, is numberless. The last year of those punishments shall never arrive. After a thousand million of years, there will remain as many again to be counted, and those also being sommed up; we are to begin anew again. CAIN after five thousand years of a living death, is, as in the first day of his tortures: and after a thousand million ●f million of years, he shall begin ●new to suffer. And though the ●icked richman hath thirsted two ●●ousand years in the flames which ●oe burn, but not consume him, he 〈◊〉 yet to expect, and shall expect for eternity, one drop of refreshing ●●ater, which shall for ever be de●yed him. When humane justice ●oth adjudge a criminal to exqui●te tortures, for some great and enormous crimes; to die is reputed a ●uour, since by that means, he is ●eed from the cruel torments which ●reife doth imprint in his body. But 〈◊〉 the Divine justice which is executed in Hell, there is no stroke favourable; where one is to languish ●or ever in a death which cannot ●ie. Which is a Hell in Hell, worse ●hen a thousand Hells. Why there pains are eternal. XXXVI. But let's withdraw our view▪ Athanasia, from so horrible▪ spectacle, whose top is Eternity. And let us put the last finga● to this draught all red with flames with the reason which Divines give of the Eternity of those pains. I● there any thing more conformable to the Divine justice, say they, the● to punish those eternally, who fo● lose pleasures, vanities, and transitory toys, have contemned th● torrent of eternal delights, glory riches, since that by the rule of equity, the punishment is to have proportion with the fault? Further, ad● they, he that dies in mortal sin renouncing grace, which is as th● Herbingar, and Porter of Glory, i●surprised by death, in a state of s●peruerted a sense, and in such an aversion from God, that it is credible, that if he had lived for ever, he had still persisted in his malice, and had been buried in evil days, in so much, that by losing his life, he did not, for all that, lose his will to offend, which makes him perish in his reprobation, and makes him worthy of an Eternity of pains. Again, seems it not reasonable, that he should be punished in Gods great Eternity, who hath offend God in the little Eternity of his life? Let us add to this, that all which is in God being God himself, because he is all being, all essence, all substance without accidents, and consequently, his justice being equal with his mercy, if he reward a cup of cold water given in his grace, and for his love, with an Eternity; why should we find it strange, that he should eternally punish sin, that accursed nothing, or rather that proud Giant, which doth oppose his darksome privation, against that divine being, soweraignely lightsome. Yea, this truth, though heaven and earth pass, shall stand in force for ever, that God shall destroy everlastingly, all that shall work iniquity, and that being driven from the sight of his face, they shall suffer mortally eternal pains. Those accursed souls shall one day hear the foolish Virgin's dismission, who came without the oil of grace and Charity. Begun, the gate of the eternal marriages, are shut against you for ever. Begun I know you not. And this daunting sentence, which shall be without Appeal, is pronunced in the burning Court of the world's comsummation. Go you accursed into eternal fires, prepared for the Devil and the partakers in his revoult. The Manna which of old, fell for 6. days upon Israel, ceased to fall the seaventh; and he that neglected to make provision of two measures thereof, the day before the Sabbath, with fasting was forced to pay his negligence. Such as in the time of this life, lent to negotiate and labour, have been slothful in gathering the Manna of grace; shall not be received in the other life, which is the time wherein all work ceaseth. The sluggard, saith the wiseman, who in winter fearing the cold hath neglected to till, shall reap only in his field briers and nettles in harvest time: and poverty, and hunger shall encompass his gate. For which cause the same wiseman calls him prudent and considerate who tills and sows in its season; threatening him with confusion and misery, who sleeps and takes his ease, while he is to put his hand to the work. Verily such a man deserves to be compared to horses and mules, who have no understanding, and yet not to a generous horse neither, but even to a jade, who having still at his sides so quick and bloody a spur, as that of the thought, especially, of the accursed Eternity, doth not strive to draw himself out of the dirt of vice, and to spring swiftly on in the course of virtue. Alas what doth not a sick-body endure to be quite of his disease, what bitter potions doth he not take down, what bleedings lance burnings. In a word, what doth he not resolutly undergo to recover his health, and to prolong for a time this mortal and miserable life; and yet to draw ourselves out of the gates of death, and those also eternal, and out of the horrible tortures whereof this little draught makes a weak representation, shall we use no endeavours? An Apostrophie to God and the soul, upon the accursed Eternity. XXXVII. OEternitie! o powerful, rigorous, and jealous God God of Revenge! o Lord thou art just, and all thy judgements are justice and equity itself. I adore them great God, yea my soul cast upon the earth, and my mouth joined to the dust, I confess that all thou dost, proceeds from a true and just judgement; and that all thy ways are replenished with justice. For who am I dust and ashes, a worm and not a man, to enter a dispute with thee? Who if thou wouldst observe and examine our faults, who is able to sustain thy face, and to enter into judgement with thee? Yet as thou art soveraignely Good, thou permitst men to discuss matters with thee. And being Truth itself, thou art willing, that they should propose unto thee the things they conceive to be just and true. In this Confidence, o Lord, approaching towards the Throne of thy mercy, after the consideration of those eternal pains I have now contemplated, I hope thou wilt permit my poor soul to make a weak sally towards thee. Lord those souls which thou dost banish, to those endless flames, which derive all their heat from the fire of thy wrath, are they not the workmanshipe of thy hands? And is not thy work mercy itself, as thy nature is goodness itself? Why then dost thou shut thy ears to their cries, and of a pitiful Father, to those accursed souls, thou becomest, an inexorable, and severe, I dare not say, a cruel judge, as thy servant JOB terms thee, whom thou didst try in manifold sufferances? Where are thine aunient mercies o Lord? hast thou forgotten to pardon, which is thine ordinary coustume? Why, hast thou rejected them for ever, and can they never appease thy anger? Ah! no Lord they know well, that which they demand is not for thy glory; they that have been prodigal of thy favours; that are not worthy to be called thy children, that can pretend nothing in the inheritance of salvation, nor in the portion replenished with light reserved to thy Saints. Their deeds of darkness hath rendered them unworthy of that bright day which knows no night. Being no longer thy children, they cannot be heirs of thy Sanctuary; heirs of the Land of the living; nor coheirs with JESUS CHRIST whose precious blood, and merits, they have trodden under their feet. Nay Lord, even they, do not demand to departed out of Hell, nor to be freed from those pains, which are justly inflicted upon them; for to appear before thy wrathful face, would be a hell and a Torture unto them, incomparably more rigorous than all the torments they endure. Their only desire is to be reduced to nothing, since they have commit the works of sin; which is a true nothing. But if thou deign them unworthy of this unfortunate favour, at least after many ages of pains, can they not expect some moment of release? shall not some little drop of refreshment and solace, after many thousand of years, be sent to water their withered lips, their thirsting throats, their burning tongues? Say Lord, wilt thou for ever laugh at their living death? Wilt thou not for ever bow to their begging? O the God of my heart! o the part of mine everlasting inheritance! What's this that I hear in the bottom of my heart? what dreadful Echo makes resound therein these words of horror? I will be inexorable unto them eternally. Softly, my soul, make a stand here, step not a foot further. Dost thou not see the fiery sword in the Divine Justice's hand, threatening over thy head, if thou advance a foot. Dost belong to thee temerarious wretch, to sound God's Majesty? Fearest thou not, to be overwhelmed with his glory? Dost thou not see that these reprobates are relinquished by the spirit of his heart, & precipitated into an eternal oblivion in this second death? Leave them there then, and kissing the son, that is, adoring the highness of the Sceptre of this Divine justice, rejoice together with the just in this just revenge: and wash thy hands in the ruin, and blood of those sinners. And drawing light from their darkness, compound a wholesome treackle of the venom of their infelicity. Cast thine eyes rather upon the malice of sin, and by an effect so horrible, form a judgement of the greatness of the Cause. Think if thou seest a loving Father justly casting his son into a burning furnace; that thence thou oughtest to conjecture an enormous crime in the child; as well by reason of the greeviousnesse of the punishment, as by the Father's rigour. o Eternal Father, whose mercies are numberless, what an inward hate must thou needs conceive against the unjust, and injustice; since thou dost punish so rigorously, and so eternally, the souls thou bought at so great a price; as is the blood of thine own son, blood which cried better than that of Abel, blood able to fetch out any stain, to wash of all offences, and to render them sknowie white, whom sin had made coal-black, so that this ISOPE, this sopewort be applied in a fit time, in a time capable of receiving this plenteous redemption. Where are our thoughts, o my soul, how doth not dread put us into a trance, while sin presents itself unto our eyes, what a monster must it needs be, for whom so darksome a Dungeon and boisterous tempest is prepared; and since that God who is infinitely good, is irreconciliably irritated against those reprobate souls? How oft, my poor heart, have we merited those horrible punishments? waste not as oft as we withdrew ourselves from our duty by mortal crimes, sinthens all the Devils there were damned for one sin? And are they not then so many singular obligations we have to God, who expected us so long to repentance? in not suffering his vengeance to to take us in the manure. If we slile the Doctors, who by their care and skill, recover us, out of a dangerous sickness, our Esculapeses. If a delivery out of prison draw such an obligation upon us, towards the workers thereof; If a Prince's grace do so much engage us to him; as likewise the favour of being freed from fire or water, to our deliverers. What shall we render to this good God, who, as often as we have offended, hath recovered us from death, and death everlasting? Death whose torment, doth far surpass, all that can be said or thought of it. Propose unto thyself, o my soul, a thing that shall never happen, according to the order of the Divine Providence and justice, though otherwise possible to him that can do all, that God had drawn out of this dark hole into which redemption enters not, some one of the damned crew, to give him time of repentance for his sins: and consider what thankes he would render to his Creator for so great a benefit; and how well he would husband this precious time, to regain himself out of the midst of his dreadful tortures. Now, my dear soul, thou must needs have lost all sense and judgement, if thou accnowledge not the benefit of preservation to be no less, than this imaginary deliverance, since it withdraws thee from the same torments, merited by so many faults. Why do not we then spend ourselves in thankes giving, why are we negligent in redeeming lost time, slothful in running to the remedy of Penance. The only Table of safety after the shipwreck of grace? O God full of Goodness, who desires not the death of a sinner, but his conversion and life. Ah! I beg this favour of thee; that at least I may perform some part of that, which he would do, whom, by thine extraordinary power, and mercy without precedent, thou migstest have delivered out of this Gulf of horror. Ah! Lord I know this only part, would work my whole penance: for never would mine eylidds wax dry, the apples of mine eyes would ever swim in their fountains, night and day should I weep. My cheeks should always be watered, and my tears should be my daily bread. I would embrace all sorts of exterior and interior sorrow, to avoid those devouring flammes, and the eternal rageing of that abominable Mansion, where thou art perpetually blasphemed. O God my mercy! Save me from the jaws of those roaring Lions, prepared for their prey. Remove me from before the sharp horns, of those savage Unicorns. Indew me, o Lord, with the spirit of Compunction, and Penance, which is so necessary to avoid this Abyss. And thou, my soul, why dost thou dwell upon this thought of horror, why art thou vexed in it? Lift up thy heart and hope in the mercy of the Highest. I, thou shalt yet again praise him, the time of his mercy is not expired to thee. He is the salvation of thy face, and thy true God: no no by his assistance and grace, thou shalt bear no part in the abominable blasphemies of the region of the shadow of death: but thou shalt be agreeable unto him, and shalt sing his praises in the Land of the Living. A passage to the blessed Eternity. XXXVIII. Happy land of the living! Athanasia, LAND OF PROMISE flowing with the milk and honey of Divine favours and blessings (Land without thorns) free from the captivity of JACOB. How glorious things are reported of thee, o City of God Sacred city, whose fundations are placed upon the holy mountains of Eternity, who art watered with an impetuous flood of felicity and glory, and with torrents of celestial delights. How lovely are thy tabernacles! O mansion of the God of virtues, my soul and body do swoone in the contemplation of thy wonders. O Lord how happy are they, who do inhabit thy house● they praise thee for ever and ever. Blessed is he whom thou hast elected, and received into thy arms, he shall remain for ever in the wishful porches of thy heavenly Zion. Certes, Athanasia, my heart changing this unfortunate object (wherein my pen was employed in the precedent strokes,) to this other, wholly delightful one, of the blessed Eternity, doth resent the same joy, which the Mariners do experience, when after a rough storm, they meet with a calm: the same alacrity which doth enlarge the victor's hearts, when after a dangerous battle they triumph over their foes, and divide the plenteous spoil. Now it is, that I may usurp the words of the Divine Epithalamion. Winter is past, the rain and snow are blown over, and flowers begin to appear in our land, but flowers that are of fruit of honour and honesty, admirable fruits of the Land of Promise. There it is, that God doth wipe away the tears of his saints. There are there, no grieves or plaints: for all sorts of evils do vanish in the presence of this universal felicity, even as shades do disappear in the light's approach. And as wine doth taste sweeter after bitter amandes; and honey after the taste of wormseed; as deformity doth raise the lustre of an eminent beauty, it being the property of contraries the one to advance the other by their neighbourhood: so after the harsh contemplation of so many astonishinge torments, the splendour of the eternal glory, doth shine in mine eyes, as a lightsome day following out an obscure night. Such as do exercise their Arts about fornaces, are accustomed from time to time, to relieve their weakened sight, in beholding some pleasing table, or to recreate them upon some delightful prospective. Sweet light of the heavenly Jerusalem, whose lamp is the lamb, who hath blotted out the sins of the world, how fitly thou art represented to my eyes a little to solace them, after they have poursued the view of that burning furnace, which the wroth of God keeps eternally hot in the centre of the earth? But on the other side, as they that come out of a dark dungeon, have difficulty on a sudden to sustain the splendour of a clear day: so this sudden return from darkness to light; from dolour to delight; from sorrow to joy; from unhappiness to hap; from death to life; and from punishments to felicity, doth give a certain assault to my hart; so true it is that the passage from one extremity to another doth astonish the most constant mind! The best experienced Mariners, having once passed the line, are always a little troubled when they are to alter the course of their navigation, and to sail under another Pole, guided by other Cards, other stars. And yet o happy change since we pass from tears to langhter, from punishments to reward, and from pain to glory. The fineness of this subject. XXXIX. But who can without ravishment, o Athanasia, express the sweetnesses with which this incomparable subject doth replenish our understanding? O God if on day we shall come to behold, that which nowme understand of the glory of thy City, with what trance shall we be seized, when we shall be made like unto thee, in beholding thee such as thou art, and shall be transformed into thy Image, and shall be conducted by thy spirit from light to light. It will be a far other thing then the ravishment of JACOB upon the sight of his fair RACHEL: for what comparison is there betwixt the Creator seen clearly and not in a glass, and a caitiff creature. Those beauties, in that disciples revelations whom JESUS loved, is to the life represented unto us by this glorious Jerusalem, which he doth compare to a Bride richly adorned coming out to meet her Bridegroom. A fit comparison, since this glorious Eternity, is no other thing then the eternal banquet of the marriages of the lamb. O fair JYDITH! who would not willingly endure the labours of the siege of Bethulia to enjoy thee! and who dare complain of these moments of tribulation of this afflicting life, spent in the conquest of thee? All the beauties of the Bridegroom and Bride, which are by the fingar of the Holy Ghost so delicately put down in the Sacred Epithalamion, which we instile the Canticle of Canticles, are but shadows compared to the measure of the light of glory, which God in his blessed Kingdom hath prepared for his saints! O choice souls, who like to other ester's, are designed for the embracements of this eternal ASSVERUS, what can be found that can enter into comparison with your felicity, since it shall pass all humane sense and capacity? No neither the flourishing Jerusalem, nor yet the Triumphant Rome can in any thing come near unto this happy Abode. For she draws her light, from him who is wholly light, and darkness cannot comprehend him, and who doth inhabit an inaccessible light. O my eyes let fall your eylides over your apples, and be blind to all that is fair upon the face of the earth. For nothing can be pleasing in presence of this excellent object, of the eternal house of the God of Eternity. O God aid my sight, and enrich me with an Eagles ey, but let it be a heavenly one, that I may not be dazzled with the aspect of so great a splendour. That the eternal felicity is the perfection of all good things. XL. EVen as (Athanasia) the accursed Eternity is the sink of all the evils imaginable, as we have already shown; so is the blessed a collection of all the good things that can be wished; for there the desire shall be replenished with all that good is. And the Divines to give us some knowledge of it, do defime it: An eternal, immutable, and certain condition, devoid of all evil of fault or pain, and odorned with all the advantages of nature, grace, and glory. So that, saith S. AUGUSTINE together with DAVID; this estate is absolute in every point, seeing that the hungry soul is there saciated with all the good things that can be desired. We have called it an eternal condition, in which we see what a fair advantage it hath over the crowns and Empires of the earth, which stay so short a time upon one head, and the joy of whose possession, is mixed with a continual fear of losing them: for it is written of the Kingdom of all ages, that it shall never have end. We added, that it was not subject to change, in which we discover a notable difference betwixt this eternal felicity, and the temporal ones of this world, which never continue in the same estate. All that is here below, are sensible of the perpetual turning of the Primum Mobile. For this eternity being God himself, which of his own nature is immutable, it cannot be diminished: yea some Doctors do hold, that the Blessed shall continually experience new accidental glory, which shall be unto them a perpetual subject of new songs. We have said that it is certain and sure: because the impeccabilitie of such as shall be made participant thereof, by the freindshipp of God as the wiseman's terms it, shall deprive them of all fear of falling from it; besides that the sentence of the reprobate being irrevocable, that of the blessed shall be of no less continuance. And of what continuance? of the very fame with Gods being. But o feast of contentments where none of those which do enjoy are disgusted, no Israelite loathing this hidden Manna for the sweet and delightful point of desire, shall remain devoid of all pain amidst the pleasure of the fruition; so that by how much more they possess what they desire, by so much more they desire to possess it. Whence one of the Apostles said, that the Angels in heaven, desire to behold the glorious face of JESUS set at the right hand of his Father in those places above, not that they see it not, but because the more they contemplate it, the more they desire to contemplate it. In such sort, that as in Hell the continuance of torments doth not harden the reprobate, whose pains are still as green and sensible, as they were the first day. So in Heaven the Roses of glory do never fade, nor doth custom dull the continually lively taste of those incomparable delights. Go then o worldlings o children of the earth, and forsake goods of such quality for the transitory goods which do possess you, if we may give so good a name to those small blossoms of contentments, that flourish and fade at once, which you gather here below with such strife of mind; blossoms environed with thorns. Yes for either those goods are false, or at the most, not purely good: and who soever would take the pains to separate from their bulk, the evils wherewith they are mixed, should find that chaff, feathers, and smoke have weight, in respect of their lightness. For which cause our Saviour doth exhort us in the Gospel, not to treasure up riches in the earth, where they are subject to rust, and to the theife's violent hand, but to heap up riches in heaven where all is safe and sure. No, none can possibly heap up riches in these two so different Abodes, Heaven and earth; for the Beautitude of the Kingdom of heaven, is promised to the poor only; witness the example of the incompasionate Richman: and our Saviour's declaration of the almost impossible difficulty of the rich-man's entry into Heaven. O how advised is he, who herebelow gathers together the treasures of grace, and who conveys them through the hands of the poor, in bills of exchange into the Eternity of glory, where such money is currant: for it is written, that good works follow them that die in our Lord and that good trees are known by their fruit in this land of the living, where he reaps benedictions, that hath sown them in the land of the dead. And I pray you, how should not Eternity be the perfection of all the good things, which the senses and heart can never comprehend, sithence God himself is the very great reward, of such as possess it: very great in deed, sith they are rewarded beyond their service, every perfect gift, and every best present proceeding from the Father of lights. Who doth not see that he himself is an undrainable fountain of all goodness, being all desire, wholly to be desired, and the fullness of all desires. He is that one necessary thing which compriseth in itself, by way of excellency, all that is to be desired. Delights without end are in his right hand, riches also and glory, wisdom, goodness, power, greatness, beauty, the source of salvation, and the bottom of all beatitude, as the Psalmist doth excellently sing. My salvation is in God, he is my glory, my aid, and all my hope is in him. For assurance of this truth, MOSES demanding of God the happiness to behold his face, I will show the all good, said our Lord unto him, in appearing unto thine eyes. Of the place of the Blessed Eternity. XLI. I Doubt, Athanasia, these general discourses sets your mouth on water, and makes you desire to fill your appetite with more particular meats. To comply with your inclination, I will serve you up for the first dish, a Draught of the place of this eternal Beatitude. Truly I might say that it is situated in his bosom, who makes Eternity itself, and who being infinite, cannot be bounded by any place, being present in every place by his being and power; since that all is his, all comes from him, and all is in him, in him, I say, in whom we live, move, and are. But that you may not lose yourself in those IMAGINARY SPACES where this infinite thing makes abode, which cannether be comprised by the Heaven of Heavens, nor of heaven nor earth which he filleth with his immensity, nor by any other place, I will tell you with all the gravest Doctors of the Church, that God from the beginning of the world did create this Kingdom which he provided for his Angels and Elect in the Heaven called Empireall, that is to say of fire; not that it burns, but by reason of the brightness of its flame, and the splendour of its light. This highest Heaven was unknown to the ancient Astrologers, and is yet to the new, unless by the light of faith, revealed by God to the Church and her Doctors. For the Astrologers, like to all those that make profession of other mathematical disciplines, grownding only upon sensible demonstrations, and making a judgement of other places, by the diverse motions of the stars; and this that we speak of being invisible and immoveable, is placed above the knowledge and laws of Astrology. It is then a firm, stable, and invariably settled heaven, called in holy Scrip. The firmament of heaven the heaven of Heavens, the Land of the living, the Seat and Throne of God: and in Geneses, Heaven created from the beginning, as BEDE, ALCVINE, TOSTATE, and the Master of the sentences do interpret it. And there all the Fathers do establish the mansion of the glory of God, together with his Angels and Blessed, following these words of holy writ. We have a Mansion in heaven, not made with the hand of man. And our Saviour said to his disciples, your reward shall be plenteous in heaven. And again before his Ascension, he said unto them, I go to provide you a place. And what place is this, but that where he is set at the right hand of the Majesty in the highest? S. BASILE THE GREAT, S. CLEMENT Rom. S. CLEMENT Alexan. S. JOHN DAMASENE, PHILO JUDAEUS, STRABON and S. THOMAS amongst other Divines, do warrant this opinion. Of the magnificence of the place. XLII. THus much concerning the situation, Athanasia, but for its magnificency, what tongue can express it, what pen describe it, since our thoughts and senses cannot attain thereunto? O Israel how great is the house of God, how ample his possessions! his Abode is goodly, high, immense, and infinite, these are the words of the Prophet BARUCH. O eternal wisdom 'tis thou then, that dost powerfully extend thy force from one extremity to another, disposing all things with an incomparable sweetness: thus speaks the wise man. O how happy should I be, said the good TOBY, if I could see the light of Jerusalem. O God, said DAVID, how I am in love with the beauty of thy house, and with the place of the habitation of thy glory. And if the glory of God incompassng the Temple of SALOMON, that miracle of man's Art and industry, added a grace unto it, which did raise this masterpiece above all the works of the earth: what shall that place be, where the Saints, in the light of gloric, see the increated and inaccessible light of the Deity. O you DAVID's houses of Cedars hide yourselves, house of SAULTUS which SALOMON built for his pleasures upon the Mount-Libane; yea even you beauties of Libane hide yourselves, fair tops of Carmel and Saron. Veil thyself o thou throne of SALOMON, thou incomparable, yet humane work; for who dare make the handeworkes of man, enter into comparison, with the mighty workmanship of God? What Palace, even of those that appear the most proud and magnificent durst one compare with the King of glory's, incomparably more great, more wise, and more powerful than SALOMON; since all the pomp of this son of DAVID, is less prised in the Scripture, than the simple nakedness of a place in the fields, yea in this veil of tears. Hath this wretched and miserable world, any similitude whereby we might make a conceit of the excellency, where tears and complaints are permitted no entry, sith it is crowned with all the contentments and perfections that can be desired. In vain doth S. JOHN in his revelations represent unto us this heavenly Zion, as a City all of gold and precious stones, these being but shadows of its true greatness, since the Heavens which we discover, with the Sun and all the other stars are but the pavement of the eternal firmament, the inhabitants whereof tread under their feet the front of the brightest stars. All this univers, the object and wonderment of the beholding eye, and all this great world which hath so many lovers and admirers, is but a miserable stable full of dung and dirt, in comparison of this seat of glory of God's elect, & the God of the Elect. O great Apostle, how good reason thou hadst in contemplation of this eternal Felicity (which consists in the sight of the true God, and of that JESUS which he sent) to esteems all the rest dirt and dung? These visible heavens which in so high a strain sing the glory of their maker. These nights and days, which do proclaim his praises through all the earth: and so many wonderful works which do raise our minds by sense, towards the greatness of this Architect, who sustains this great bulk with three fingers, are but the footstools of the Throne of the eternal Solomon, and stairs only by which we mount to his glory. If we should here give bridle to our consideration, and permit our mind to walk through the multitude of different creatures, which by their variety do so beautify the face of the univers, do you not think, Athanasia, that it would be a course of too long a breath, and such, as was a subject to so many, the pens of antiquity, amongst others S. BASILS', S. AMBROSES, and origen's in their Exam. and the Expounders of Genesis. Let us content ourselves to draw from this spacious prospect, this inference. If the world, a place of Nature, be a Stage, wherein is presented so many pleasant things: how ravishing shall those beauties be, which God shall manifest unto his friends in the Mansion of his glory, the Paradise of his delights? If he permit the wicked, his enemies, such as offend him, to enjoy in this visible world so many delights and pleasures; what will he communicate to those, whom he daignes to crown with his heavenly and eternal favours, in the State of glory? A Stoical Philosopher speaking of the felicity of blessed souls, according to the light of nature, obscured with the shadows of Paganism, could say, that as much difference as there is, betwixt the dungeon of a woman's womb, and this great world; so much is there between the wonders of this heavenly beatitude of virtuous souls departed from their bodies, and the greatest beauties which are seen in heaven and earth. To what length are we to drive this dissimilitude, we that are enlightened with the light of faith, and taught by so many faithful promises, as are contained in the Scripture touching this blessed and unconceavable Eternity. O Israel how goodly are thy tabernacles, how delightful thy Pavilions: gardens watered with floods and fountains are not so flourishing, nor are the valleys abounding with fruit, so abundant. These are the words of a Prophet, who yet doth but sparingly express the delights of this happy Abode: where the light is continual, and the days without nights, by reason of God's presence, who is wholly light, and who doth not suffer those that do follow and adore him, to remain in darkness. Whereupon the spirits which do serve before his Throne are called Angels of light. It is a resplendent Residence, not standing in need of those tortches, the Sun and Moon, which are only made to give light, to this low and elementary world, the heavenly Lamb being the Lamp, which doth lighten the eternal Zion. A Residence, where the flowers do continually accompaignie the fruits, and where the extremity of heat and cold are banished, to make place to an agreeable temperature, and far other then that earthly Paradise (a garden of delight) wherein were placed our first Parents, created in original justice. A Residence in conclusion, wholly constant, and of an eternal durance. From whence death is excluded, and the qualities, subject to bring in alteration and change, are banished; and where all the inhabitants shall in some sort be made participant of the immutability of God. This stability, is, in my opinion, as it were, the crown of this fair place, even in that name, far differing from the figure of this world, which incessantly slides away, not unlike to one's shape in a mirror, which in an instant is both formed and passed according to S. JAMES. O City of peace! o triumphant Jerusalem! o Court of the eternal Solomon! when shall we come, when shall we appear before the face of this King of glory? when shall we be led into his Cellars? when shall we pass through thy peaceable gates, gates dearer to God than all the Tabernacles of JACOB? O delightful Abode, o wishful Residence; if ever I forget thee, let me not only forget my right hand, but even myself: for if I lose thee, am I not eternally lost, without all hope of redress, or mercy? Of the essential happiness of the blessed. XLIII. But you will ask me, Athanasia, what will be the highest point of the glory of those that do inhabit this place of delights. O my dear soul, if never mortal eye saw what they see, how do you think I shall be able to express it, with tongue or pen? Is it, in your opinion, any thing which can fall within the compass of a discourse, or can be put down upon paper? Howbeit we will declare unto you that which we have discovered, by the obscure light of faith, rather in a glass after a dark sort, then openly, face to face, which is reserved for the next life, as a reward for having believed it, without seeing it. It is therefore the constant doctrine of the Catholic Church, that the essence of the eternal glory doth consist in the sight of the sovereign well-beloved, in the love of the sovereign well-beholden: do you understand these few words well, Athanasia, which do lay open unto you, all that you are to believe in this matter of the essential felicity of the Blessed? For leaving a part all the thorny disputes and contestations of the school, upon this point of the vision of the understanding, or of the fruition of the will, the principal faculties of the soul, wherein doth reside the happiness of this supreme glory, whose object is God. Omitting, I say, their debate, who will place Beatitude in an act of the understanding; and theirs, that will have it to consist in an Act of the will, we will follow the common consent of Doctors, and all the schools, who rejecting, in this behalf, all partiality, have now for a common Maxim: That it consists in two acts, of the understanding and will, grownding therein upon the Scripture, which now assigns the one, now the other, and sometimes both together. As when we read, that eternal life, is to know one only God, And again. That we see now obscurely, but in glory face to face. And in S. JOHN, we shall see him such as he is: which doth sufficiently prove, that supreme felicity consisteth in the intimate vision of God. When again we mark this passage, thy Elect, o Lord, shall be drunk with the abundance of thy house, and thou shall give them to drink of the torrent of pleasure. And in the Gospel, enter into the joy of thy Lord. And again, your joy shall not be taken from you, by which is sufficiently shown, what part the will is to have in the essential glory. And who would not gather hence, that it consisteth in the vision, and fruition of the two faculties; God, who is infinitely greater than our hearts, filling them both with unimaginable delights, being, in quality of Sovereign Truth, the object of our understanding, and as he is the Sovereign Good, the object of our will, its repose and Centre? But when the Psalmist sings. Taste and see, how sweet is our Lord, doth he not join them both together, being no less proper to the will to taste, then to the understanding to see, and herein we follow the interpretation of the learned HUGH OF S. VICTOR. And yet after the same Divine Psalmist, had said, thou shall give them to drink of the torrent of pleasure, doth he not add? and in thy light we shall see light. This opinion is confirmed by a Bull of Benetts the twelfth, who defines, that the souls of the Elect, are blessed by these acts of seeing and enjoying. And the Roman catechism, put out by the Council of Trents order, placeth essential Beatitude in the vision and fruition of God. It were an easy thing to show, that the ancient Fathers of the Church, placed the essential beatitude, sometimes in the one, sometimes in the other Power, and sometimes also jointly in both, but the brevity which I proposed unto myself, from which I do insensibly stray, makes me cut of many pieces of those great Oracles, which would wonderfully beautify this stroke. Let's soberly content ourselves with this small reason. If the Blessed soul, did not embrace the heavenly Spouse in his glory with both her arms, which are the understanding and will, doubtless she would not be wholly satisfied: for who knows not even by experience, that the will is not carried with less bent toward Good than the understanding towards the Truth. Whence I gather, that necessarily her desire must be replenished with all sorts of good things, according as the Scripture doth teach us, and the ensuing strokes will give us more amply to understand. Therefore to speak properly essential Beatitude doth consist in the perfect union of the soul to God, being made, as the Apostle terms it, oneself same spirit with him: which is done in the soul by God's inward penetration, called by the Divines, nor can we express it in any other term, an illaps; which, me thinks, upon necessity, we may make use of in our tongue, as well as of the word Relapse; finding that neither more rude, nor more improper than this, which is received, and authorised by custom. Now this illaps of God into the soul, doth replenish it with the glory of God himself, and doth as it were, deify it, according as S. JOHN speaks: we know that we shall be made like unto him, when we shall see him, as he is. So that the soul shall be filled and replenished with God, as the Moon, when she is perfectly full, with the light of the Sun: or as a sponge when it is throughly wet, and filled with liquor. And God uniting himself unto her, as the fire is united to the burning iron, following the Contemplatives ordinary similitude, shall be joined unto her, and shall unite her so inly to himself, that she shall be as it were transformed into God, who shall be, as saith the Spouse in the Canticles, entirely hers, as she again shall be entirely his. Which caused S. BERNARD to pronounce those holy and loving words; our Beatitude, and our reward is to see God, to live with God, to live of God and in God; to be with God and in God, who shall be all in all. Now where this sovereign Good is, who can doubt but there is also the sovereign joy and Felicity, true Liberty, perfect Charity, eternal Assurance, and assured Eternity. In God is true Gladness, complete Knowledge, perfect Beauty, continual Peace, Piety, Bounty, Light, Virtue, Honesty, Sweetness, true Life, Glory, Praise, Repose, gracious Friendship, and greatfull Concord. Hitherto are the words of this mellifluous Doctor. The happiness of the point of the soul. XLIV. But perfectly to understand, in what this essential glory doth consist, we must call to mind, Athanasia, the division of the body and the soul, whereof the Prophet speaks, administering an occasion to mystical Divines to divide man's soul into three degrees, the inferior, superior, and supreme. Or if you had rather, into three portions, the lowest, the highest, and the middle. And they seat Appetite in the lowest region, the powers in middle, but in the highest the point of the mind, the flower, unity, or essence of the soul, the Latins men's, the Grecians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the Hebritians, Nesamah, for all these words, do but signify one and the same thing. Now to speak only in this place of the highest, God being Spirit, a most pure Act, and most-one essence, although in glory he be united to every blessed soul, yet is his union more excellent, and eminent in this highest portion of the soul, then in those below, even as we observe in man's soul, which is all in all the body, and all in every part thereof, yet is more nobly, that is, it doth more nobly exercise its functions in the head, then in the other members of the body. So say the Mistikes, that this highest portion of man's soul is the Spouse his bed, Salomon's couch, his Cabinet, and the place of his more particular delights. There is the Divine essence united to the essence of the soul; there the spiritual marriages (marriages the fullness of our eternal felicity) celebrated, whereof so much mention is made in the holy Scripture. For as the Bridegroom and Bride are two in one flesh, by the sacred band which doth tie them together; so the Blessed soul, by this union with her Principle, and application to her end, becomes one spirit with him, through the excess of that Charity, which is the band of all perfection. Thus is the soul transformed and transfigured into light by the spirit of God, made participant of the Divine nature, and conformable to the likeness of his Majesty. 'tis true, that we are by nature made to the likeness and similitude of God, whose picture is so lively expressed in the soul, which is one in Essence, and trine in faculties: Yet much more by grace, which makes us, as it were, certain lookingglass, wherein that glorioule Sun makes the rays of his light and love meet, while he expresseth his perfections therein. Yet the Saints who are in glory, whose faces are marked with his splendour, and do shine like the Sun for perpetual eternities, are yet incomparably more lively pictures of the Divinity. For even as the Sun meeting with a thick and darksome cloud in the air, doth sometimes so deeply imprint its beams upon its face, that it appears another Sun; so are the Blessed in Heaven so transformed into God, that they show as so many Gods, and as so many dearest children of the Highest, as DAVID delivers it. This excellent beauty, with which the Divine presence doth adorn them, was cause, that S. JOHN espying an Angel, whom he took for God, had adored him, if that spirit, no less humble than glorious bright, had not given him to know that he was his fellow-servant. And in my opinion, in this near resemblance to God, the very top of the eternal glory of the blessed, is placed. For what, think you, is God's own glory and felicity, but the life which he hath eternally of himself? the most clear knowledge which he hath of his immutable Truth; and the most ardent love which he hath towards his own infinite Goodness? His Beatitude consisting in the vision, love, and fruition, which the Divine and increated Persons of the Blessed Trinity, have, of their own mutual knowledge, Love, and eternal, perfect and infinite complacence. Now the soul of the Blessed being raised to the vision, love, and fruition of the same Divine People, and of their Divine and most indivisible Essence, ought not her supernatural and inineffable life, by the resemblance which is betwixt her and God's felicity, to be said to be the accomplishment of her glory? since that, without all fear of change, she is wholly attentive to the clear contemplation of the prime and sovereign Truth, inflamed with the love of the supreme and increated goodness, and hath the fruition of the infinite and unspeakable sweetness of God. O truly living and happy life! when shall it be that we shall live in thee, and by thee? when shall we, o my soul, inhabit this heavenly Jerusalem built as a City, and with her glorious Citizens be made participant of him, who is still himself, immutable, and whose years never decay? Of the felicity of the powers of the soul, and first of the memory. XLV. THis essential Beatitude, Athanasia, is extended, and doth spread itself out, yet diversely, in the lower degree of the soul, to wit there, wherein the three principal faculties or powers do reside. For even as the Prophet to raise the widow's dead child, did shorten himself upon this little body, and did apply his mouth to its mouth, his hands to its hands, and his feet to its feet: So God, who shall be all to all, shall fill all the soul, with the abundance of his bounty, and shall communicate unto it a Divine life, which shall not fear the assaults of death. The memory being entered into the liberties of our Lord, shall call to mind the effects of his justice, and no less those of his mercy: for she shall sing; no, never will I forget thy iustifications, o Lord, since in them thou hast given me life. Filled with this ravishing, and no less pressing then present object, she shall breathe out the remembrance of his sweetness, and shall exalt his adorable judgements. This remembrance shall be her sovereign delight. O how she shall call to mind the sweetness of the duggs of this incomparable goodness, far passing the fuming wines of worldly delights. In how high a strain shall she take the memory of this supreme sanctity! Alas how can she forget him, whom she hath so inwardly present, and who shall be more in her then herself, and to whom she shall be so strongly tied in adavantine, and diamantine chains, that nothing shall ever be able to divert her. Blessed memory replenished with the fairest Ideas that can possibly inhabit a heart! and which then, shall be a Magazine and memorial of heavenly wonders! whether she make reflection upon things past, how dear shall she conserve the memory of the incomparable obligations which she shall have to this Creator, Conserver, Redeemour and Glorifier of her being. Such as grace shall have led from greatest sins to repentance, favours before bounding, where malice did superabound, o God how highly shall they sing the sacred Canticle of the Divine mercy? And those who by the same grace shall have conserved the first stole of their innocence; and being preserved from the abomination of desolation (whose deluge doth overflow the whole universe) shall have been drawn to the safe harbour of salvation by the chains of love and humanity, will not they have reason to bear a part in the fame Canticle, and to pronounce, that that mercy which conserved them unstained amidest the world's impurities, is a portion of that which is eternally grounded and built in Heaven. The royal Prophet calling to mind, out of what an Abyss of miseries the Divine goodness had reclaimed him, recalling him so sweetly to the accnowledgment of his faults, conjures his soul and all his interior powers to bless God, exciting his memory never to permit his benefits to fall into a disloyal oblivion; for he it is, that pardons, saith he, all thine infirmities; who cures all thy wounds; who recovers thee from eternal death; and who crownes thee with his mercies. O God what must this King of penitents needs say in heaven, if he spoke thus in this veil of tears, reduced by a holy repentance from his iniquities, to the state of grace. When the Saints, whom God hath pardoned many faults (for there are in Heaven penitent sinners of all kinds) shall see themselves delivered from the innumberable torments which they contemplate in the accursed Eternity, and which they had as oft deserved, as by their malice they had been separated from God, will they not have great reason to say with the Psalmist? Thy mercy, o Lord, and thy justice shall for ever be the subject of our song, upon this shall our Psalme-singing be employed, whilst we walk in this immaculate way in which thou hast put us. And if the memory of pains and perils past, even in this world, be so delightful, how much more shall the Saints and martyrs, who have suffered much for the Almighty's sake have cause to rejoice in this memory. While they walked in the way of this mortal life, they sowed in tears, but in the heavenly Zion, they shall reap an eternal joy. They shall sing this pleasant Song: We have passed through fire and water, but in the end we are entered into refreshment. And they shall bless those light and transitory moments of tribulation, which brought them to eternal glory. And if their memory do stay upon the present felicity which they feel, and of which they have a lively sense, with what contentment shall they not be crowned, in tasting the ineffable goodness of God, who rewards them infinitely beyond their merits? Yea, if they enlarge themselves upon the time to come, (if their be any time to come in the immoveable and ever-present state of Eternity) and if they consider the new discoveries of gusts and contentments, which they shall continually make in the Abyss of this infinite Beauty and Goodness of God, have they not a large field of joyfulness and thankesgiveing? I will omit the Sciences with which she is furnished by him who is called the God of Sciences, and who teacheth men science, and especially that Queen of Sciences DIVINITY, which consisteth in the Contemplation of God, and which is the true knowledge of Saintes. For I pray you what do not they, saith S. GREGORY, know, who see him that knows all? The advantages of the understanding. XLVI. Our manner of knowing and understanding, during this mortal life, stands in need of the meditation of senses, whence this Philosophical Axiom, nothing enters into the understanding, which passed not first through the senses. And verily, that which comes to the knowledge of sense, is but superficial. For example, how doth our sight know, but by a species or representation which the object of this sense, sends out to our eye, which the Master's term, species sensibilis, and is the cause that we see, and know by sight. What soever enters into the knowledge of our understanding by this gate, is admitted in no other sort. In like manner it is of other senses touching sensible and corporal things. There are others more spiritual, as the Notions, or Principles of Arts and Sciences, which our understanding conceives by speculation. But how doth it conceive them, but by a subtle, delicate, and spiritual Image, which is called Species intelligibilis. And then, by how many windings doth this species pass? how many changes and alterations doth it endure, by the Common sense, the fantasy, the understanding styled active, and then by the passive, before it put on the proper shape to become intellectual? Lo then, how our natural knowledge is form by species and Images. Yea even the knowledge of Faith, though supernatural, enters not into our soul, but under some kind of composition, some simple, universal and abstract cloud, which is Faith. Hence it is, that the Apostle speaking of that kind of knowledge, by Faith, compares it to an obscure sight, and as it were to that of a glass. And who knows not that we see but merely in a glass, by means of the species which are form in it, a species which forms another in our eyes. So our understanding which is the eye of our soul, doth not assent to the truths of Faith revealed by God, but by hearing them by the voice of the Church and her Pastures: (For Faith is by hearing) or by reading them in the Creed and Canonical books. But it fares not so, Athanasia, with the knowledge of the understanding in the blessed Eternity. For there it shall see God without species, without representation. The Deity uniting, joining, and applying itself in such sort unto it, that that inward presence shall be in lieu of species. O dear God how nearly doth this union approach unto unity, and with what wonders is this application filled! The very proper essence of the Divine Truth being received into the understanding without all Image or species. And then the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall conserve and possess the hearts and understandings, that is to say, the wills and understandings of those happy souls. O who is able to express the incomparable happiness of those, who without veil, without glass, without obscurity shall see face to face, (being enlightened, and freed from all dimness and confusion,) that glorious face which the Psalmist with such instance pursueth? O what a glory shall it be to behold, without being oppresst with the greatness of so high a Majesty, those adorable, ineffable, incomprehensible mysteries of the most holy Trinity! what a gracious favour shall it be, openly to discover the eternal generation of the WORD, issuing out of the Father's bosom, a generation, of which the Prophet pronounceth with admiration, who is able to relate it? what a communication shall it be to see the Divine communications? yea the communication of communications, which is that of the eternally reciprocal love, and reciprocally infinite, of the Father to the Son, and the Son to the Father, whence is produced as from one same Principle, the Holy Ghost? Because the Father and the Son having but one will which doth love, and one goodness which is loved, the fountain of this production can be but one. O mystery of mysteries! which it is better to admire then to deciphere, and better to speak nothing of it, than too little. I had rather, in this place which is not allotted to thy explication, imitate the Seraphins, who do veil their eyes and feet, and fold their wings; and content myself, in protesting my belief and allegiance in these words of the wellbeloved disciple of JESUS CHRIST: There are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost, and those three are one. I adore thee o great God in the Trinity of thy persons; and in the unity of thy essence, and I do sink, and become nothing before thine infinite greatness. What joy, Athanasia, hath this beautified understanding to discover this great mystery hidden from the world's creation, to wit, the Hypostatical union of the eternal Word with the flesh, which we call Incarnation. What a number of secrets are contained in this great secret? what a number of wheels are fastened in this one wheel? that is, what mysteries do depend of this mystery? and what a fire amidst this wheel, fire which our Saviour brought into the world, to the end it should burn all the hearts of the faithful with his love, what delight shall it be to behold this Abyss of beauties and perfections, which are in God by way of excellency, and infinitely above all that we are able to imagine in the Attributes which we frame of him. In this heavenly vision, as in the lively fountain of all light, the shades of errors, doubts, opinions, and ignorances shall vanish, which do environ and encompass us in the almost palpable darkness of the Egypt of this life. Faith itself, which revealed unto us so many meruelles of God, and of his glorious City, shall disappear in this happy Abode, where we shall see, according as we shall have heard and believed. Nether shall Hope be any more, because we shall enoye that, which by Hope we expected. Charity alone shall never fail: never shall any thing cause her holy flame to die out; contrariwise, in glory she shall be accomplished, and come to the height of her perfection. What a delightful entertainment shall it be for the understanding, to consider the windings of that wonderful clock of the Divine Providence, as well in the government of the world in general, as of all the souls in particular? and what thankesguing shall it render to the fatherly care of the Divine Goodness, whilst it shall admire the ways of God in the means which he hath used, so amiably to draw it to so great a felicity? O height of the riches of the knowledge and wisdom of the highest, shall it cry out, how wonderful are thy ways, and how incomprehensible thy judgements. Then shall it be, that to the confusion of the great Dragon, homicide from the beginning, that this word shall be seen accomplished: you shall be as Gods knowing good and evil: For the understanding cured of all disease of ignorance, and enjoying all good exempt from all evil, shall perfectly know them both. Of the light of Glory. XLVII. But before I pass over this felicity of man's understanding which he shall enjoy in Heaven, I must tell you one thing, Athanasia, which cannot be concealed from you, without depriving you of a pleasant and important knowledge. True it is, that a created understanding shall behold God above in his glory; without the help of any Image or species at all; yet not so, as the Angelical Doctor shows very well, as that it sees him by the face of its natural sight, which is as little able to sustain the brightness of the increated light of the Divinity, as the night-birde to endure the Sun beams. How then shall the created understanding see the Divine Essence without any species? By the light of Glory, as the Divines term it, a special grace by which God doth fortify and enable it: a created light making the understanding which it doth inhabit, strong enough to approach the otherwise inaccessible light of the Divinity, as doth the Eagle the Sun. And it is of this Grace Harbinger of Glory, that S. THOMAS understands that passage of the Apostle in his Epistle to the Romans: God's grace is eternal life. And that: eternal life, saith S. JOHN, is to see God. It is of this light of Glory, that all the Doctors understand that saying of DAVID: In thee o Lord is the source of life, and in thy light we shall see light: that is to say, by the aid of the created light, wherewith thou shalt cloth the understandings of thy Elect, they shall be able to fix their intellectual sight upon the brightness of Saints, which is thy Deity. Even then as in this life we know the things of the world by a natural light; and those of grace by the light of Faith, an infused and supernatural light: so to see God in his Glori●, which is an increated light, the understanding must be assisted by a created light, which doth dispose it to sustain the shine (which would otherwise dazzle and blind) of that infinite brightness. And thus (holds on the Angel of the School) the Essence of God shall be seen by the understanding, without all species on the part of the Divine essence; but on the part of the understanding, this created light of Glory strengthening it, shall be to it as a certain representation to take in and receive the light of the Divinity. Nor is their subtlety to be regarded, who would make us believe, that as the Sun is seen by its own light; so the increated light of the Divinity is seen by itself, without the mediation of any created light, understanding as it were literally those words of DAVID; In thy light we shall see light, that is, the light of thy Divinity by itself. For as we know the things of Grace by the infused light of Faith only, so are we to say the like of the knowledge of the things of essential Glory, which consisteth in the vision of God, named by the Divines Intuitive Beatitude. And again, who granted those subtle Speculators; that the light itself of the Sun, is the cause it is seen, since its beams do rather weaken and blind, then strengthen and perfect our sight; witness that wilful Philosopher, who lost his eyes by setting them too fixedly upon the Sun. And verily the same would happen to the created understanding before the increated light of the eternal Majesty, and it would be oppressed with that infinite and inaccessible light, if God did not dispose it to this felicity, by a particular aptitude, in strengthening it by the light of Glory. Of diverse degrees of Glory. XLVIII. ANd it shall be this light of Glory, Athanasia, which shall make the diverse mansions, which the Scripture mentions to be in the house of the Heavenly Father, the blessed Eternity. For as one and the same fountain doth divide itself into diverse chamnalls, in a greater or less quantity, according to their sundry capacities: so the understandings of the Blessed, shall see the increated light of the Divinity, proportionably to the created light of Glory, which God shall form in them, according to the diversity of their merit. For there, every one shall be rewarded according to his works, sith works follow the dead to punishment or felicity. And as the starts which appear in the Heavens, receive more or less of the Suns light, the fountain of theirs, according as they are less or greater. So, saith S. PAUL writing to the Citicens of Corinth, the degrees of glory shall be different, as one star differs from another in brightness. For to affirm with JOVINIAN that Beatitude is equal in all the Blessed, is an error fully refuted by S. HIEROME (who wrote against this Heretic) and condemned by the Counsels. True it is, saith S. THOMAS, that on the part of the Object, which is God beholden of all his Elect, Felicity is equal, but the inequality proceeds from the fruition of this object, according to the capacity or incapacity of the understanding which doth contemplate the same. But what is the cause of this measure? The light of glory. And whence the measure of this light, but from the greater or less Charity which inhabits the heart? For as following the dimerit of offence, the eternal pains are different, so the Divine justice will have the reward diversified according to the worth and degree of Charity, which is as pure gold, the measure of all merit. A consideration which being well pondered, would set a sharp spur of desire to the sides of our heart, to advance and perfect us in this Queen of virtues, and carefully to manage the occasions of well-doing, and all the moments of this mortal life, since according to the rank of this quality, we shall bear away greater or lesser advantages of Glory, the least degree of which, is better than the Empire of a thousand worlds. And if the blessed souls were not satisfied and content, as indeed they are, with this full, pressed, and overheaped measure of felicity falling into their heart: And if any kind of sorrow could have entire into a State so replenished with happiness, this would it be, that they had not employed all the instants of their life to make progress in that virtue, which makes them so much more capable of the power of our Lord, as it is found to have been more eminently in them. O how true it is, that he who sows spareingly shall reap in the same measure. And he that sows in benedictions, shall reap a plenteous crope of benedictions. O centuple of this life! how oft shalt thou be centupled in the life to come? In those Divine and celestial Abodes, called by the Scripture MANSIONS, some are placed higher than others, saith S. AUGUSTINE, and do behold God more clearly. And S. GREGORY speaking of the same subject, The great and little, saith he, are in Glory, but they enjoy it more or less, according to the diversity of their merit. Nor are we upon this word Mansions to imagine to ourselves, separated Cells, or Quarters a part in the heavenly Jerusalem, where there is a perfect society amongst the Blessed, together with a Community of all good things, each one rejoicing no less in another's felicity then in his own, all this holy company having but one Soul and one Heart in God, the one and only Object of their desires. But by that word, saith S. THOMAS after S. AUGUSTINE, we are to conceive diverse degrees of Charity and rewards, which are had in this plentiful Rest, where the Saints do reside for ever, as in the happy repose of the LAND OF PROMISE. In what measure the beautified understanding sees God in Heaven. XLIX. IT is no small question, Athanasia, to know how far the understanding fortified with the light of Glory, doth extend itself in the contemplation of the Divine Essence, which it beholds without all help of species or representation. But the Angel of the school gives a worthy satisfaction to this holy curiosity, in teaching us that God, according to JEREMY, being, by reason of his infinity, incomprehensible to every created thought, can never be comprehended by any understanding, with what ever light of Glory they be adorned and assisted. Because every creature being bounded, is not capable to comprehend an infinite Object. Hence we have that fine and necessary distinction, that the blessed shall see God, All indeed, but not totally; they shall see him all, because being most simple, he cannot be seen but he is all seen. But again, whereas he is infinite, there neither is, nor can be any capacity out of himself which can totally comprehend him, nor embrace that immense infinity, which is only known of himself. We have some semblance of this Truth, which cannot be seen, unless it be all seen, and yet is it never totally seen, though it be even a limited creature, and hath nothing comparable to the Creator. So do the fish and fowls enjoy the vast extent of the Sea and air, yet what fish did ever swim in all the waters; and what bird did ever with flight measure the airs extent? All this notwithstanding is possible, because it is finite. But the Divinity which is boundless cannot be totally seen. For who did ever sound the depth of such an Abyss? And who hath ever known the sense of our Lord? Herein is discovered the impertinency of AETIUS and ENNANIUS old Heretics, who affirmed that God could be comprehended by a creature, as though, forsooth, an illimited thing, could be shut up within limits. An impertinency pertinently refuted by those great lights of the Church, S. BASILE, S. GREGORY OF NAZIANZENE, S. CHRISOSTOME, S. AUGUSTINE, and after them, by the Angelical Doctor. Yet this doth not impeach the full and entire satisfaction of the Blessed; nor doth the natural incapacity which they find in themselues to behold God totally, any white vex them: yea contrariwise it doth augment their joy and contentment, which hath no other offspring than the love of God, a love of friendship, which doth rather respect the greatness and glory of the object beloved, then it's own interest; what a pleasing ravishment shall possess them; to behold the most simple, only, and incomposed simplicity of that Divine beauty, which they contemplate, all, though not totally, by reason of its incomprehensible infinity? In beholding it, their desire is filled with every good thing: And beit they see it diversely, as we have shown, yet are they throughly content, according to the common similitude of a glass whereof the least is as well filled with a little, as the greatest with much liquor. And after the desire is saciated with the fruition of this ineffable Good, with what an excess of joy are they taken, to know, that this adorable Deity hath an infinite company of other graces and perfections, still remaining to be seen & relished, which are not totally comprehended nor known, save only by himself. Man doth then raise himself above himself; and lifts up his heart. But God, greater than all hearts, doth yet rise higher, nor can he be encompased by any other than himself in his full extent. O how ravishing and admirable is that they behold! And how good cause have they to sing with the Angels the three Sanctuses to so dreadful a Majesty, in so high a strain, that the Gates of Heaven shall tremble at it; and to pronounce: Thou art great and exceeding laudable o Lord; and who can worthily enough sing thy excellences in thy sacred City, in thy holy mountains? Though all creatures should overset themselves, yea melt away in joy and admiration, yet shall they never arrive at the least of thine infinite excellencies. Hence it is that the HYMN of silence is the best suiting praise, that can be offered unto thee, in thy Heavenly Zion. Yet o God, how much more admirable is that which those souls do not discover in thee, since it surpasseth all created understandings, even strengthened with the light of Glory? And to what a violent pain would the desire of knowing thee totally, and loving thee deservedly, that is infinitely, put them unto, if thy sweet and fatherly providence, (lest the purity of their unspeakable joys might be stained with the mixture of any discontent) did not change the knowledge they have, that they cannot totally comprehend and embrace thee, into a sovereign delight, that the glorious Object of their view and love, is so immense, that it cannot be perfectly and entirely known and beloved, but by thyself, by reason of the Divine infinity of thine infinite Divinity. Mean while they draw from this great ALL, as from an undraynable fountain, all their common and particular delights, diversely glorious, according to the diversity of the light of Glory which is distributed unto them, whereby they see him more or less, with proportion to their Charity and merit. We have some dark resemblance of this here below in the use of our Senses. For is it not true that the same Picture is diversely beholden, according to the variety of their opinions and skill that do behold it? Is not a dainty music diversely received into the ear of the hearer, according as their organs are disposed, and they are attentive unto it? And to conclude this discourse with an excellent similitude: The miraculous MANNA which pleased every palate, was doubtless of a divers relish to the Israelite, yet never any of them, nor jointly all of them felt ever all the tastes with which God did endow that heavenly and Angelical bread. We may say the same of the sight of God, the highest point of eternal Glory: a sight which S. JOHN in his Revelations terms a hidden Manna, for the reasons which we will reserve for that stroke wherein we set out the pleasures of the Will. Whether the beautified understanding sees all in God. L. BEfore I come to the Beatitude of the will, I desire to show, Athanasia, whether, as the understanding enlightened with the light of Glory sees God all; so it sees all in God. We cannot have an answer to this difficulty from a better mouth than from the ORACLE of the School the Angelical Doctor, who teacheth us, that like as no created understanding can totally comprehend God; so consequently can it not see in God all that he doth, or is able to do, that being reserved to God alone, who is of an infinite capacity, or rather infinity itself. Marry it shall see more or less, according to the measure of the light of Glory by which it is sustained. He shall see in God all that he shall see, yet shall he not for all that, see all which God seethe. Not because all that which God seethe is not visible in himself, but in regard of the created understandings limitation, whence it cannot comprehend an illimited thing. Nor is it to the purpose to affirm, that the Blessed, who shall resemble the Angels, shall see like those heavenly spirits in the WORD (the true Mirror without all Spot the likeness of his Father's Goodness, and figure of his substance; the splendour and candour of his light, being God of God, and light of light.) All things as in a Mirror, being a thing commonly known, that he that sees a Mirror, sees all things represented therein. For to make that objection vanish like smoke, we need only to reply, that it is true indeed when we speak of a Mirror which is comprehended by the eye. But this Mirror of the WORD and the Divinity, being incomprehensible, how can it be imagined, that a finite and limited understanding can comprehend that which is incomprehensible? God therefore doth only communicate himself infinitely unto himself, by reason of the infinite capacity which he hath to give and receive such a communication: To creatures it is sufficient that he communicate himself, with proportion to their sufficiency to receive him. For how can they justly desire any more, after they be replenished with the fullness of God so far forth as their capacity and ability can admit? But let us consider further, Athanasia, how excellent this sight of things in God shall be, by the manner of seeing, which shall be much more perfect than though they were seen in themselves, in their nature and proprieties, or else by their species and representation. For the beautified understanding being united unto God, and beholding the very Divine Essence without species or image, shall by consequence see all the creatures in this Divine Essence, without Species or representations, in a far more complete and high manner, then though they were seen in themselves, because they shall see them in the same manner they see God, whose proper Essence shall supply the Species of things, all which it contains in a most eminent manner. O incomparable glory of the blessed understanding, since thou shalt see the Essence of God, (without species, without mediation, face to face) and in it, all things! Thou shalt be blessed, like unto God, and shalt enjoy the felicity which God himself enjoyeth, sith his Beatitude consisteth in the loving contemplation of his own Essence. The pleasures of the Will. LI. ALthough the advantages of the understanding be such as we have set them out in the precedent stroke, yet is the Will always his Mistress, and all his labours and actions are directed to her. He is her Page, her Torchbearer, her Forerunner; it is he, that discovers the GOOD, and proposeth it to the Will to be loved, who after she hath known it, she embraceth it. For according to the Philosopher's Axiom. The will is not carried to an object it knows not. Now this Divine Essence seen without the mediation of Species by the understanding, being the essential and infinite Goodness, whence all that is good amongst creatures doth flow, the will shall so closely, attentively and invariably unite herself unto it, that no creature either in Heaven or earth shall ever be strong enough to separate her from this Charity so perfect and accomplished. And out of this inseparable union of the will with the Sovereign Good, her Rest and Centre, a fountain of water of life running to Eternity, shall spring up in the soul, and thence shall flow a flood of continual joys and delights; so shall they be absorbed in the pleasures of our Lord, and as it were drunk up in the Abisses of Divine sweetnesses. And if the wiseman say, that all good things did accompainie wisdom in him, how much rather may the blessed soul pronounce the same in the possession of the Divine wisdom, and that eternal Kingdom, which in the Gospel we are exhorted to search after, with promise, that in possessing of it, all good shall befall us: For being accompanied with a complete Charity, Charity the bond of perfection, by a necessary sequall she shall be attended by all the Virtues, whose acts she shall exercise with an incredible delight and facility. And this loving fruition of God by the Will, is that hidden Manna, whereof mention is made in the Apocalypse, reserved for the victorious inhabitants of the triumphant Jerusalem. For as the Manna of the Wilderness did contain in itself all kind of savours: so this union of the Will with the essential Goodness of God, doth comprise all the favours heart can wish, in a most eminent● manner. There is nothing in the pleasures, honours, and riches of created things, which is worthy to be compared to this treasure. The Manna was a celestial Food, taking its name from the admiration of those who tasted it; for the word imports What is this? and was spoken by the Israelites, when they saw it fall from Heaven. And this gust of the will can be no otherwise expressed, but by rapture: so far doth it outstripe all humane capacity. It is called a hidden Manna, for that being unknown to the world, it is only known of such as do experience its sweetness, inconceaveable sweetness; which caused the Kingly Prophet to cry out, o Lord how great is the multitude of the sweetness which thou hast treasured up for those that walk in thy fear. O God might I dare to express in this poor Draught the unspeakable contentment of the Will in her union and application to the Goodness of the Divine Essence, to the Divinity of the essential Goodness? O powerful Virtue of Faith, to what a high point of light dost thou raise our souls in this veil of darkness? Yes, Athanasia, even as the understanding shall be applied to the Prime Truth, which is God himself; so shall the beatified will be inseparably joined to the Essence of the Divine Goodness, and shall be eternally fed and sustained with God's own substance: in some sort; as a tender child, who hangs at his mother's breast, is nourished with the substance of the mother's milk. And thus shall be accomplished that of the Prophet, I will lead her into a place a part, and will speak unto her heart: and I will give her the milk of my dugs. Rejoice Jerusalem with alacrity, that thou mayst be filled with the milk of consolation, and that thou mayst suck and take delight in the full abundance of his glory, thou shalt be carried to the paps, and thou shalt be dandled and lulled upon the knee. O Church Militant in earth, poor bleare-dyed LIA with weeping in this valley of tears, not discovering the Sun which shines in the Triumphant, be comforted, in that thou art not forsaken or abandoned of thy JACOB: no, for he is with thee to the world's end. Thou enjoyest his embracements, which makes thee fruitful, in the feast of his grace, to wit, the most holy Eucharist: for in this banquet, thou art fed with the substance of his flesh and blood, applied to the substance of his children, to th'end they may learn by this wonderful mystery, that in the perpetual feast of Glory, he will in like manner apply unto the Essence of their souls, his Divine Essence, and that there, they shall taste and see how sweet he is. True it is, that here below that Divine humanity is veiled with Sacramental species, but above in the banquet of the Lamb's marriage all shall be discovered; Enigmas shall cease; and the understanding and will shall see and taste without image and species the beauty of the Divine Goodness; the goodness of the fair Divinity. Then, as S. AUGUSTINE saith, the prize and crown of virtue, shall be God himself, who gave the virtue. Who shall be seen above of the Blessed without end, loved without distaste, praised without intermission. So that this recompense is the greatest that can be, since it is neither Heaven nor Earth, nor any other creature, but the very Creator and Lord of all. Who though most-one and most simple, yet doth he comprehend in himself in an infinite eminency, all the perfections of all things. Whence it comes, that the Blessed shall in him alone behold and enjoy all things, according to each one's measure of Glory. And as creatures are in some sort here below, the mirror, wherein is seen the beauty of the Creator; so above, God shall be the Mirror wherein the creatures shall be seen much more perfectly then in themselves. But in fine, Athanasia, the top of the felicity of the beautified will shall be placed in her perfect love, the accomplishment of her true end, and in that invariable and immutable conjunction, with her ravishing Object the Sovereign Good, which will make her wholly Divine, wholly transformed into the Will of God, and to speak with the Contemplatives, wholly deified. The felicity of the inferior portion of the soul. LII. LEt us now descend; Athanasia, to the lowest degree of the soul, and let's give a light touch of her Beatitude. Who is able to comprehend what goodly and ravishing Ideas, the three faculties of the soul shall make resulte in the imagination; and how withal, this light and gliding Mercury shall be stayed in God, whose presence shall arrest all the motions of this stirring, unquiet, and flitting faculty. And if we make a step lower into the appetitive part, where the Concupiscible and Irascible passions are lodged, motions which do stir up such tormoyles, tempests, and disorders in our inward house in this life; who would be able to express the heavenly order, and goodly government that Reason, which then shall be, their absolute Mistress and Governant, shall establish amongst them? And what a sure and happy Peace shall reign amongst those people, who whileome were so subject to rebellion, while they sat in the darkness of this life, and in the region of the shadow of death. Then there will be no Love but of God, in God, and for God: no Hatred, but of that which shall be contrary to this sovereign Love.. No more desire but that which doth accompainie the fruition of the Divine object, which is continually to enjoy, and eternally to behold that glorious face which the Angels continually desire to behold, albeit they continually behold it. There shall be no more aversion or flight, but from that which shall be contrary to that sacred desire: or rather, there will be no more aversion at all, because this passion presupposing evil, it shall have no Object in this place of felicity, where infelicity is not permitted entrance. joy shall be perpetual, and always in our Lord, since this sacred Residence is called the joy of our Lord: nor can the scourge of sorrow approach his Tabernacles of confidence and joy, far other than those which S. PETER wished upon the Mont-Thabor. Anger is a monster banished from this Palace of Love.. Even Hope itself shall vanish in the possession of that, which with patience was expected. Despair thrown headlong into Hell for ever, shall not recover itself from that fall, to inhabit this place of delight. Chaste Fear full of respect, and wholly candied in Love, shall remain in Beatitude for ever and ever. And with what courages shall not those valiant Champions be enriched, who are there adorned with so many crowns, having already past their combats, and lawfully fought. But to speak in a more noble and high strain of those motions, which we term passions here below, because we suffer by their mutiny, and revoults, we should rather say that they shall be happily changed into reasonable affections; and that humane reason being united to the prime and sovereign, that is, the Divine Reason, shall make use of all those faculties for the service and glory of the Creator, applying all to his honour and praise, and making them in a glorious manner wait upon CHARITY, whose proper Empire is to rule soveraignely over reasonable affections, and to bestow upon them an honourable employment; So shall the soul, as the Psalmist sings, and all her interior faculties bliss God. Of the dowries of the beautified soul. LIII. I Have espoused thee in Faith, I have espoused thee for ever, said God to a faithful soul by one of his Prophets. Whence you see, Athanasia, that herebelow, the betrothing is as it were passed between God and the soul, when she adheares to him by a lively Faith, that is, quickened with love and Charity: but that the consummation of the marriage, which is followed with an indissoluble knot, is performed only in the Blessed Eternity. These two sorts of espousals are figured by the eare-letters, and bracelets with which ABRAHAM presented REBECCA by the hands of ELIEZER for the pledges of their marriage. For earrings are symbols of Faith, which doth insinuate itself by the ear, where the word of God entereth: and bracelets are tokens of love, whose true proof is the work saith S. GREGORY: and is not the work signified by the arm and hand, the principal instruments of operation? Now in every well-ordered marriage, the Bride receives some dowry of the Bridegroom, whereupon in this great Sacrament of JESUS CHRIST and his Church and the faithful Soul, which is a member of this Church the mystical body of our Saviour, the Doctors do assign dowries to the soul which enters into Glory, according to that doctrine of isaiah; our Lord hath clothed me with garments of salvation, and hath adorned me with a chain as his Spouse: And that of S. JOHN in his Apocalypse, who compares the triumphant Jerusalem to a Bride well decked, being so adorned by her spouse. And touching those dowries in particular, they reduce them to three heads, conformably to the three powers of the Soul, and to the three Divine virtues, which God infuseth herebelow into the hearts of the faithful, Faith, Hope, and Charity. For they say, that the Memory is endowed with the possession of God, which doth refer to Hope: The understanding with vision or knowledge, in reward of Faith: and the Will with the Divine Fruition, in recompense of Charity. This is the triple band, which in Heaven shall inseparably tie us to God, a heavenly band which can never be broken! Touching the qualities of the glorified bodies. LIV. LEt's now make a passage, Athanasia, from the interior to the exterior: from the felicity of the Soul, to that of the body: and let us say, that to those dowries, which I have deciphered in the former stroke, admirable qualities shall be adjoined, which without destroying the being of the body, shall work wonderful changes, and make them far more noble than they are in this mortal life. We shall all rise again, saith the Apostle, that is, as well the Elect as the Reprobate, but all shall not experience this happy change: for the bodies of the damned shall remain passable, heavy, gross, and dark; but the bodies of the Blessed shall become impassable, subtle, light, and resplendent. And to these four qualities it is, that the Doctors have reduced the dowries of the glorious bodies. impassibility is a quality which shall make the body of an incorruptible temper, not obnoxious to change, exempt from hunger, thirst, cold, heat, grief, infirmity, and from every thing that can subject us to death, or pain. Glorified bodies cannot burn nor suffer in the fire, nor be drowned in the water. In a word, nor can the tooth of Time, nor any other force destroy them. They shall enjoy a continual youth, like to a flower that cannot fade; a vigorous health, against which sickness can attempt nothing, a quality of the heavenly bodies that suffer no alteration. Which made the Apostle say, that that which was sown in corruption (he means the corpse laid in the grave) shall rise incorruptible, and that which is mortal shall put-on immortality. And again, the dead shall rise to incorruption. The second dowry is subtlety, which shall endue the body, as it were, with a spiritual quality. I do not say that it shall become spirit, for that is the error of some ancient Heretics refuted by S. AUGUSTINE in his books of the City of God: nor yet, that the glorious body shall be made air, an Heresy which S. GREGORY in his Morales ascribes to EUTICHIUS Bishope of Constantinople, but I say, its subtility shall be so great, that it shall pass through another body, as through Heaven and earth, which the Master's term Penetration of dimensions. And of this dowry is understood that of the Apostle, this sensible body shall rise again spiritual, (that is, resembling the spirit in sundry things) yet in such a spirituality, as shall not deprive it of its palpability, according to that saying of our Saviour to his disciples after his resurrection: touch and see, a spirit hath neither flesh nor bones, as you see me have. And the same Saviour did show the subtlety of his glorious body, while he issued out of his Tomb not opening it, and entered into the Hall where the Apostles were, the gates being shut. The third quality shall be an incredible Agility, and such as S. AUGUSTINE teacheth, that the body shall be where the Spirit desireth, not that this motion, saith S. THOMAS, is performed in an instant, and without a mean, but that the swiftness of the passage, shall be, in a sort, imperceptible, and like to that of fire or lightning, as saith the wiseman. For the rest, saith isaiah, they run without labour, and travel as far as they list, without being weary at all, because this body sown in infirmity, shall rise again, saith the Apostle, in such vigour, (a vigour which S. THOMAS takes for Agility, or mobility) that it shall be indefatigable, and shall perform in a small time, an incredible journey. The fourth and most noble dowry shall be Brightness, of which it is said in S. MATHEW, that the Justice shall shine like the Sun in the Kingdom of their heavenly Father: and again, that they should fly like sparks, as it is in the wiseman. And S. PAUL writing to the Corinthians, assures them, that that which is sown in infirmity shall rise up in glory, that is, in brightness, according to S. THOMAS his interpretation, grounding upon the same Apostle, who saith presently after, as one star differs from another in brightness, so shall the glorious bodies differre after their resurrection. And the same Apostle speaking to the Philippians tells them, that our Lord will reform the body of our humility, and will comforme it to his brightness, a brightness whereof he gave a proof in his Transfiguration upon the Mount-Thabor; of his Agility by walking upon the waters; of his subtlety in his birth; and of his impassibility escapeing often times, without hurt, out of the hands of the jews, who one while would stone him, at another time would throw him headlong down, while as yet the time of his suffering death for our sake, was not arrived. The pleasure of the Senses. LV. THe glorious body being in this sort, as it were transformed by the four qualities which I have touched in the former stroke. O, Athanasia, judge you how exquisite the pleasures of the senses shall be, which they shall enjoy in Organs so perfectly well disposed. It is a delightful question in Divinity, to know, whether the dowry of impassibility shall exclude the act of the senses, which S. THOMAS deneyes, by no less than subtle arguments, and shows contrariwise, that the perfection of those qualities shall render the pleasures of the Senses more pure, and their delights more excellent. He seems to make some exception of the Sense of tasteing, for that the Kingdom of Heaven being neither meat nor drink, but joy and Peace in the Holy Ghost, and the beautified body standing in no need of food to sustain it, he thinks that this Sense made to relish meats, remains unprofitable; and he would rather attribute unto it, a delicious humidity upon the tongue, which makes it feel the taste of a hidden Manna; then to believe, that this faculty should be there without its peculiar delight. And it is not without reason, that Beatitude is compared in the Scripture to a great feast, and that the Sacred Canticles mention so many sweets, honey combs, dainty and inebriating wines; and that the heavenly Spouse invites those to drink and eat who are called, invited and admitted to his eternal marriages. For though we cannot fully conceive in this life what the endless delights shall be which God hath in his right hand to bestow upon his Favourites: yet doth Faith teach us, that there are secrets locked up in the treasures of his wisdom, to do that which we cannot comprehend. Our Lord, saith isaiah, will make a solemn banquet in his holy mountain for all nations, replenished with all sorts of good things, and delicate meats, a banquet far other then that of ASSVERUS, which the scripture delivers in such pomp, in the book of ESTER. O how happy shall he be, saith the Holy Evangelist, who shall eat bread in the Kingdom of Heaven; and shall be invited to the marriage of the lamb. Behold, saith the Saviour of our souls, what I have prepared for you in the Kingdom which my Father hath given me, that you may eat and drink at my table. And S. LUKE speaking of this Eternal banquet: Amen I say unto you, saith he, the Son of man shall gird himself, and shall make his Elect, sit at his table, and he will serve them according to their rank. And the Psalmist: the desire of the Elect, that is, their appetite, shall be replenished with good things; and the same speaking of himself, I shall not be saciated, saith he, till the glory of our Lord shall appear unto me. Can the delights of the taste be more plainly set out? By how much the eye passeth the other Senses in dignity, by so much its delights shall be more worthy of consideration. O God what ravishing spectacles shall they behold, and how all the world's rarities shall show vile and obscure in regard of the wondrous splendour of the heavenly Jerusalem! How shall the diversity of the glorious bodies adorned with so many recommendable qualities, ravish them! But leaving the Angels and Saints of the lower ranks, o blessed eyes, what joy shall you not feel, in the vision of that glorious visage of JESUS CHRIST? which the Angels have beholden for so many ages, and shall behold for ever and ever, so far from being wearied of it, that they shall be delightfully saciated with it. O Deified humanity, the sovereign glory and felicity of the eyes that behold thee! o resplendent Sun of the east, o star the light of the world! o Lamb who art the Lamp of the eternal Zion! how happy are they, who, in these Tabernackles of assurance, shall incessantly behold thee upon the Divine Thabor; and shall adore thee like the Elders of the Apocalypse; before the Throne of thy Majesty in the highest! JOB beholding in spirit this happy Abode, ravished with content, said, I know that my Redeemour life's, and that at the last day I shall rise again, and shall issue out of the ground, being a new again clad with the same skin, with which now I am environed, and that in mine own flesh I shall see my God, my Redeemour, whom with mine own eyes I shall behold and with no others, and this hope laid up in my bosom, is my sweetest consolation. O Goodly Paradise! it is in thee, that the ears shall hear those secret words, which S. PAUL heard in his Rapture, and which he durst not speak again. o blessed ears! it is in this place that you shall hear the words of spirit and life, yea words of spirit & life everlasting. o Saintes! then shall you say, we will hearken what our Lord shall say unto us; yes, speak Lord, for thy servants are attentive. And if the Queen of Saba did repute Salomon's courtiers happy, because they daily heard the discourses of wisdom, which issued from his mouth; what shall it be to hear him, who is incomparably more than SALOMON, and who is wisdom itself? o how delightful shall the discourses of Saints be; how delicious their song and harmonious music! nay the Saints dance for joy in this holy place, and God's praises do continually resound in their mouths. Be hust heavenly Musicians, who so highly sing the Glory of God. Silence ye warbling birds. Consorts of the world be still, while the Musicians of heaven tune their instruments, and play of their Harps, till they entone with one consent of hearts and voices the Song of the Lamb. The Song always new, of him, who alone works wonders. A continuation of the precedent subject. LVI. But do you not perceive, Athanasia, the sweet charm of all the parfumers odoriferous Sentes? By means of those which you shall find in the Canticles, raise up your mind, I beseech you, to those delightful Sweets wherewith the Saints do embalm the Throne of the Lamb, the odour of whose garments surpass all aromatical spices. Those, who in this world by their examplaire virtues have been a good odour in JESUS CHRIST, and an odour of life to life, shall be then so sweetly parfumed, that our Saviour will say unto them, as ISAAC did to JACOB; behold the odour of my children, like unto that of a flourishing field, and heaped with benedictions. It shall not be enough for the sense of touching to be exempt from pain, by the privilege of impassibility, but further, though it be the grossest of all the Senses, yet, enriched with the dowry of subtlety, Agility, and brightness, it shall have also its particular delights, marry such, as are innocent (for, as is in the sacred Text, there shall be no more marriages, but every one shall be as the Angels of God) and as pure as the very sunbeams, although it be environed on every side with a torrent of pleasures, which shall penetrate men in more places, than they have pores in their body. I omit the glorious m●arkes, and particular contentments of the bodies which might have suffered pains, and mortified themselves for the love of God; for as sinners shall be tormented according to their lawless pleasures; so shall the Elect be rewarded according to their sufferances. For which cause our Saviour said: you are happy when you are persecuted, because your reward shall be plentiful in heaven. For the love of you, said the Psalmist●; speaking for the Saints, we have been mortified, and led like sheep to slaughter. But o Lord, saith the same, how thy friends have been afflicted, and, as the vulgaire translation hath, honoured; how their principality, that is, their Glory, was confirmed. And again, according to the multitude of their grieves, consolations abounded in their Hearts. O my wretched body what ought we not to endure herebelow, to arrive at the t●oppe of such felicity? whither the● Saints are come through fire, wheels, gibbets, swords, haire-shirts, disciplines, austerities: and whither the King of Saints entered by suffera●nces. O miserable body! too delicate a member to live under a Head crowned with thorns, and wholly covered with blood. Tell me accursed carcase▪ and victim of death, what privilege thou pretendest, that thou dar'st presume by a manifest injustice, wallowing in soft lux and delicacies, to enter into a Kingdom, all whose gates are made with Crosses; in a Paradise, where none enters, that is not pierced with the fir●e sword of a loving mortification? Hear this doom, or rather this thunder clapp, o my body, and thou o my soul, If thou dost not mortify with the spirit the actions of sensuality, thou shalt die? marry if thou mortifiest them, thou shalt live. And again, mortify your members which are upon earth, and carry still in your body the mortification of JESUS CHRIST; so shall you be as dead, but to th'end you may live eternally. Of the Aureola. LVII. BEsides the essential Glory which the Blessed shall enjoy, Athanasia, in the sight of the Sovereign well-beloved, in the love of the Sovereign well-seene, the Divines do note certain accidental ones, and as it were accessory to the prime and principal, which they have named Aureolas, grounding upon a passage of Exodus, where there is command given to make a little crown called Aureola over the Ark, besides the crown of gold with which it was to be wholly environed. Now this Aureola doth chiefly reside in the soul, albeit by a certain rebounding (saith S. THOMAS, as also DENIS THE CARTHUSIAN) and overswelling, it breaks out, and spreads itself over all the body, and doth even outwardly appear with a certain peculiar grace. And if Essential Glory be different, according to the diverse degrees of Charity and merit, this accidental, of which we speak, shall be varied, following the variety of labours and victories. For as there is division of graces, so is there of rewards to. Ordinarily these Aureolae are divided into three kinds; whereof one is attributed to MARTYRS, who have conquered the world: the second to VIRGINS, who have surmounted sensuality: the third to DOCTORS, who by their learning have defeated the Arts and errors of the Prince of darkness. And if these Aureolae be compared together, the common consent gives the first rank and preeminency to Martyrdom: for there is no greater charity, then to give one's life for that which he love's. Never durst any, saith S. AUGUSTINE, prefer Virginity before Martyrdom, Chastity being but a lent martyrdom, whereas to die in torments, is a violent one. A second is given to virgins, who follow the Lamb where ever he goes, clothed in white stoles. The third to Doctors, who were the salt of the earth, the light of the world, and the Lamps of Israel. And when I say the Aureola shall be given unto Doctors, I neither understand the learned, nor those that shall only have taken the degree of Doctor ship in earth, and buried their Talon, and hid their Lamp under the Bushall: For such Doctors shall enjoy in Heaven the simple guife of Charity only, a thing common with the rest of the Elect; for as DANIEL saith; they shall be bright as the Firmament. But such, as shall instruct others in the way of salvation and righteousness, shall sparkle and shine as glorious strarrs in perpetual Eternity's. Those than it is, that have taught and communicated to the ignorant sound and wholesome doctrine, who shall carry away the Aureola of Doctors. For as he is not crowned who hath only the ability and strength to fight and vanquish, but he that in effect doth fight and overcome the enemy, according to that: none shall be crowned, but such as have lawfully fought: so those only that had knowledge, & made others participant of it, shall partake of the Aureola of Doctors, according to that of the Gospel, he that shall teach and do what is good, shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven, Some understand those words of the Apocalypse of this Aureola: I will bestow on him that shall overcome, a hidden Manna, and a white stone wherein shall be graved a new name, which none shall know but he that receives it: and that of isaiah, speaking of the Continent under the name of Eunuches: I will give them a Mansion within the compass of the walls of my house, and an excellent name amongst the children of men. As then, here below in earth, men are ordinarily distinguished by their clothes: so shall those three bands have some particular sign or mark, which shall make them notable amongst the rest of the Blessed. The Blessed society of the Elect. LVIII. ANd if an ancient Philosopher, Athanasia, following common sense, said, that felicity is not full and accomplished without society, what company is comparable to that, which the Blessed enjoy in Glory? Though God be sole and one in Essence, yet hath he society in the distinctions of persons, and thence is not solitary in his Beatitude. What shall it be to behold the Society of the three Divine persons united together in the unity of their being? yea even to be united to this high Society, in the band of Charity, which is that of perfection! what shall it be to be associated to the humanity of JESUS CHRIST, our brother, according to Flesh, as he was Son of man, which for our sake he took upon him: whence we are made children of God; and if children, heirs; and if heirs of God, coheirs of JESUS CHRIST in the inheritance of Glory. O how happy shall they be who are inrowled into the holy FELLOWSHIPE of JESUS CHRIST, and made partaker of his heavenly and Divine conversation? And if it be written, that even in this world, he that is in Charity, remains in God, and God in him; and that he that keeps the Commandments, is made the Tabernacle, and lodging, of the three persons of the Sacred TRINITY: what are we to say of the state of consummated Grace, which is Glory, where Charity is complete? O Divine Society! And if after the Divinity and humanity of our Saviour, we turn the eye of our consideration upon the admirable beauty of her who is the holy of Holyes, yea the MOTHER of the holy of Holyes; and who next unto God, to whom is due the worship of Latria, we honour with Hyperdulia, what could be imagined more ravishing, since she is the mother of that very Son, who was eternally begotten in the splendour of Saintes, in the breast of the eternal Father? were it not a spareing speech, to attire her with the Sun; to make the Moon her footstool, and stars her crown? yes verily, since her Son and her God, are her great crown, and incomparable joy, according to that of the wiseman: a virtuous Son is the crown and joy of his Father and Mother, And from this quality of MOTHER OF GOD, which is in some sort infinite, there rebounds in her such an abundance of grace, that she is not only invested with them, but over-inuested; not only full, but over-heaped, so that next to the humanity of thy adorable Son, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost of her pure blood, there is no created object in Heaven that dare approach her beauty. It was written of ESTER that she was extremely fair, incredibly graceful, marvelously amiable, and gracious in the eyes of every one. But nothing below was powerful enough to gain the Heart of the Heavenly ASSVERUS, save only the Divine Mary's perfections. O vessel of Election, choice piece of the massive gold of fair and pure dilection, beset with all the precious stones of virtues; what a joy shall it be to the Elect, thy little children, sith thou art the mother of their Saviour and Father, to live eternally in thy happy company? What sense of obligation shall they testify unto thee, who by thy powerful prayers received so many sundry graces in earth? Yea that which is the top of all graces, their admittance into the Palace of immortality? what a delight shall it be to be associated to the troops of Angels, whose conversation is entirely sweet and devoid of bitternesses, and to be made partakers of their splendour and beauty, yea to become like to them, according as it is written; the Elect shall be as the Angels of God; which is easy to be believed, since that in some sort, they shall be made like unto God, when they shall see him face to face, and such as he is. What a glory shall it be to be made an eternal Citizen of that delightful Jerusalem, built as a City; to be participant of the same freedom which the Saints of God enjoy, without all fear of falling from it, or of being ever banished from that Residence of permanent and eternal abode. And if in the time of the Triumphant Rome, it was reputed so great a privilege to be made free Denisan of that famous City, as than LADY CONQVERESSE of a great part of the world: And if while Jerusalem flourished under SALOMON's reign, it was so wishful a thing to live there, and to have a share in the delights and triumphs which were there ordinary. O heavenly Society where God reigns in and amongst his Saints eternally; where triumphs and pleasures are perpetual, and that in a life that shall never pay tribute to death, how much more art thou to be desired? The Excellences of this holy Society. LIX. But let us not content ourselves, Athanasia, with a general sight of this holy company, but that we, may take more gust, and reap more fruit from this speculation, let us walk our thoughts amidst the particular excellences thereof, and let us weigh it, as we ought in the weights of the Sanctuary. If earthly Cities be esteemed for the multitude of their inhabitants, as was the great NINIVE of old; since that, ROME, CONSTANTINOPLE, and now the incomparable PARIS, who for the abundance of her riches, and the number of her inhabitants, seems in deed, as in name, an Abridgement of Paradise: What esteem is to be made of the numberless number of the heavenly Jerusalem. No, saith JOB, the number of God's Champions, upon whom the light of his countenance doth shine, cannot be counted. A thousand thousand Angels, saith DANIEL, serve him, and ten thousand million assist before his throne. And if the first choir of Angels surpass the number of men; and that Choir be the lest in number, as in all other qualities, how great must the number of the eight former quires needs be, if according to the opinion of S. THOMAS, followed by DENIS THE CARTHUSIAN, the number of Angels doth as much outstripe that of men, who have been, now are, or shall be, as heavenly bodies do put down the elementary in quantity? As for the Elect who are to succeed in the vacant Seats, and to repair the ruins, of the Angel's Apostates, they shall be in so great abundance, that S. JOHN saith in his Revelations, that their number cannot fall under the laws of Arithmetic. Count if thou canst the stars in the Heavens, and the sands on the Sea shore, said our Lord of old to ABRAHAM, and know that thy posterity shall be yet more numerous. In what number shall the children of the God of ABRAHAM ISAAC and JACOB be, who could out of stones raise the children, of that great Patriarch, the Father of the faithful, and believers. O Lord grant that I may be enrowled in the book of life, which shall contain all their names, new names, which shall proceed from thy mouth; and that I may confess thee, in that great Church, and triumphant assembly; and that I may bless the amongst that people full of gravity. And it is an excellency no less grateful to contemplate the fine distinction of ranks in that incredible multitude, without all division or jealousy. For if in the Babilone of the Reprobate, there be a horrible confusion and disorder: in this Jerusalem, Mother of the Elect, there is a well governed Order by the Divine wisdom, a thousand times fairer, then that which we daily behold in the composition of this great universe. There are many Mansions in my Father's house, saith our Saviour CHRIST. The Angels are divided therein, into three principal Hierarchies, and each of these Hierarchies into three orders, which make up nine Quires of all those heavenly Spirits. Thus are the troops of the Army of the God of Hosts ranged: of which it is said in the Sacred Canticle, speaking of the Spouse of the great and Heavenly SALOMON: what can you espy in the Sulamite but troops of Soldiers well ordered, whence she is terrible as an Army put into Battle array. And though the Elect, Associates of the felicity of Angels, as being their brothers, be disposed of, according to the divers degrees of their Quires: yet shall they keep their own particular titles, by which they shall be distinguished from one another, and known for such as they were in the service of God in his Church Militant. Thus shall the Quires of PATRIARCHES, PROPHETS, APOSTLES, EVANGELISTS, MARTYRS, VIRGINS, CONFESSORS, and all the rest of the Faithful, who even in the world, overcame the world, be seen in a goodly order. Other excellencies. LX. THis multitude and Order is accompanied with another excellency, which consists of an admirable union and correspondancie, proceeding from one and the same spirit, to wit the spirit of God, which doth animate and govern this heavenly company. There, DAVID would have juster reason than here below, to sing. o how good and pleasant a thing it is; to see brothers live unanimously together. Their accord and union doth resemble the oil of the high Priest AARON, which running down from his head, spread itself upon his beard, and from thence fell upon his collar, or as others say, to the hem of his garments. The sweet and peaceable Society of Doves, Bees, Pismires, sheep, and of Cities and Common wealths well governed, is but a weak and unworthy draught of the agreeable intelligence which pass betwixt those heavenly inhabitants. No, for all their pretensions being one, and their employments being wholly about that one necessary thing, of that Mary's best Parte which shall never be taken from her, their connection is rather to be termed an unity than an union, since in them is accomplished that excellent word of our Saviour's, beseeching his heavenly Father, that such as follow and believe in him, should be one, as he and his eternal Father is one. So shall all their desires be filled with perfect unity, which is God: and all their thoughts meeting in that unity, the Divine Spouse by good reason may say to that holy assembly, his own mystical body: My Sister my Spouse, thou hast wounded, and borne away my Heart in one only of thy heirs. For as a woman that doth grasp and gather together in her hand, her long tresses, makes them all end in one only hair: so all those elected troops, having but one only desire, which is to please God, the loving heart of this God all of fire, and which is Charity itself, can it possibly but be pleased in this their preparation of mind? From this perfect union doth arise the excellency of a complete Community, which is the true and consummated Communion of Saintes. A Communion by which each one in his own person, doth possess God and his Kingdom, with such peace, and so exquisite a Charity, that not the least apprehension of any partiality can enter into their hearts. There shall all propriety be left, and of the contrary side, there shall be so bountiful a communication, that those that are highest seated in glory, are full of affection towards the lowest, and as far forth as they are able, make them participant of their abundance; and the lowest again, shall as much rejoice in the exaltation of the highest, as in their own; for in this perfect Community mine and thine shall be given over, each ones particular good belonging to all, and the goods of all, belonging to each one in particular, each one rejoicing as much in an others good as in his own, by reason of the great Charity which shall be infused into their hearts by the holy Ghost. Hence they are all continually set at one table, fed with the same substance, the Divinity; drinking in the same cup eternal delights; employed in the same exercises, serving one and the same Master, and that, with the same spirit, who being in all, and being all in all, he unites them all together, by uniting them all to himself. This sacred band of the Divinity, and this Charity of God tying and uniting them together, adorns this happy Society with another excellency, which is that of Peace and Concord: Peace of God which passeth all understanding, and which doth connect them together like unto the grains of a Pungranade which appear when it is cut open, to which the holy Spouse in the Canticles compares the red cheeks of the Church his Spouse. And if the word, concord come from the union or agreement of hearts, how should not they be united who have one only heart, and that quickened with one only soul, all their hearts being set on God their only Treasure, and their adhering to that only principle of all Good, making them one very spirit with God? As concerning the Peace which follows this Concord, as the beams the Sun, it is the very name of this higher Jerusalem, which signifies VISION OF PEACE, and of which it is written, that it is bounded with peace. And in isaiah, that God doth visit it in peace, and in peace which can never be changed, or troubled with any dissension, because Gods absolute command shall find an absolute submission in all their hearts. In that heavenly City, saith S. AUGUSTINE, CHARITY is the Sovereign LAW: TRUTH the QUEEN; PEACE the FELICITY; ETERNITY the LIFE thereof. There; shall be a true peace, and such an one, as shall never be traversed by any: a peace which passeth all delight. From that Peace springs a serenity of mind, a tranquillity of heart, a band of Love, a communication of Charity, and a rest in God which can never be changed. So speaks that Great Doctor, of that eternal Peace, which the world neither gives, nor indeed knows. A continuation of the excellencies. LXI. But, Athanasia, should I be able to conceal the excellency of the beauty of that holy company? o, cries out the wiseman, how beautiful is the chaste and fair generation, truly, the memory thereof shall be immortal before God and man. If he affirmed this of earthly families who live in honour, what may be said of the generation of the Blessed which shall be crowned with eternal benedictions? How should the Angels and Elect choose but be fair, since their souls shall be decked with all the ornaments of virtues, and their bodies enriched with the glorious qualities which before we have declared. There can be no stain upon them, for nothing that is defiled, or is imperfect, can enter into this Sanctuary of Eternity. And if MARDOCHEUS little fountain became an Ocean of light, what beauty can the Elect want, who are united to the fountain of all that fair or good is, which is he, whose essence is very Beauty and Goodness: And who rules in heaven by the sweet and delightful Empire of his incomparable beauty. No, Athanasia, if all the beauties which do sparkle in the whole world were gathered together (I except neither the Sunne nor the Stars) they would be in no sort comparable to the least grace of the Elect. judge then what a shine of beauties, must needs arise, from so innumerable a number of so different beauties, that some Doctors have proceeded so far, as to say that all the Angels are of a different species. o God what numberless species of beauties! And as touching the diversity of humane sisages, it is so visible, even in this world, that it needs no other proof but experience. And what diversity of beauties shall there be in the diverse quires of Angels, and the diverse degrees of the Blessed? Let us make an end, without ending (for who knows not that a Draught, though never so perfect in the nature of a Draught, is yet but an imperfect picture) and let us give the last touch to these excellencies, by that, which may be called the excellency of Excellencies of this Blessed Society; It is, that it shall be endowed with all the perfections which grace and glory can shower down upon creatures. For sith Beatitude is a perfect collection of all kind of good things, why shall we not also affirm, that those that do enjoy it, are, by consequence, possessed of all the perfections which might in any sort perfect this felicity? Now though sovereign and essential Beatitude, as well that of this life, as of the life to come, doth not consist in any created good, and consequently, neither in Honours, Riches, nor Pleasures, the three Classes to which are reduced every good, be it honourable, profitable, or delightful; but in the only fruition of the increated Good, which is God, the essential fountain of all Goodness. Yet as the most ridged Philosophers, have not denied that Glory, Reputation, means, and lawful pleasures, do contribute to temporal felicity; so Divines are not so strict as to deny that those qualities do concur in Heaven to the accidental Beatitude of the Elect. I dare therefore as boldly as truly affirm, that besides the virtues which are the beauties of the soul; and the beauties which are the virtues and graces of the body, which virtues shall be all together, and that in a high measure in all the Saints, since that this heavenly City is thereupon called The City of virtues, the City of God, the City of the God of Virtues, DAVID saying, they shall go from Virtue to Virtue to see the God of Gods in Zion. Besides the virtues, I say, the inhabitants of this glorious City, shall be most holy, most illustirous, most noble, and most eminent in all kinds of greatness, qualities, titles, perfections, without all mixture of baseness, abjectness or imperfection. Alas in this poor and miserable world, there are a thousand weaknesses and miseries mingled with the most prosperous honour in the earth, and often times they serve only to make the vice and weakness of such as are advanced unto them, more appearant. The greatness of their fortunes serve only to aggravate their fault, & if their qualities do rather move us to pity then envy, their blame-worthy manners do more move to envy then pity. By how much the place is higher, whither the Ape climbs, by so much he is more ridiculous, and for want of his tail discovers all his infamy: whereas upon the ground his deformity doth less appear. There are certain great-ones whose scandalous proceed, which would be covered in the throng, if they were but of a common condition, seem only to appear in the face of the Sun, to fasten shame upon their foreheads, to perceive in themselves such abject minds, in qualities so high. Certes, saith the great Stoic, imagine what greatness you please in man, it never passeth the limits of humanity. Though a man be mounted upon a Throne, his stature is no greater for all that. To take the dimensions of a Statue, one is never to measure the Base: nor to take the height of a man, do we measure him with his dignity, of which he is often unworthy. He that is seated in a high seat, sits in the same manner that he would do, being set in a lower place. Stiltes and footstools make not a man taller, though he appear higher. A noble outside doth not raise an abject mind; nor doth the brightest lustre of nobility, always light upon the greatest head. There is nothing perfect herebelow; there are no roses without thorns, no wheat without cokle, nor corn without chaff. This world is an Ark, wherein are clean and unclean beasts. A Park where goats and sheep live together. A net wherein both good and bad fish are found. The rain and Sun do equally fall and shine upon the fruitful and fruitless ground. But in Heaven it fares not so; nothing that is either impure or imperfect can have entry there. In that fair place, saith S. BERNARD, SALOMON 's wisdom will appear folly, his knowledge ignorance; ABSALON 's beauty shall be reputed there deformity. SAMSON 's force shall pass there for feablenesse. The longest term of life in our foreelders will appear a death; and all the riches of all the Kings of the earth, shall be there, very poverty. Say the like of all great place, honours, pleasures and contentments of the earth, to which we asscribe the name of good things. Verily being compared to eternal things, they shall have the true shape of true evils, such as indeed they are, when the lawful use thereof is turned to abuse. And if the conversation, and company of the wise, great, vallourous, understanding, virtuous: and of personages who are illustrious, either in regard of their quality or merit, is so witchingly pursued in this world; where there is no gold without dross, where nothing is complete; what a bless shall it be to a soul to perceive herself associated for ever with so many Angels and Elect, all filled, by the King of immortal ages, with all and imaginable perfections? A flight of the mind towards this happy company. LXII. But o my soul who will bestow upon thee the wings of a dove to fly up into this eternal repose? Who will grant thee the wing of an Eagle, to take a strong flight, and not to fall from the wing? What prosperous gale, save that of grace, shall fill the sails of thy desires, to make them sail upon the Sea of this world, to that Harbour of salvation? Why do we not make haste, o my soul, to enter into this happy tranquillity, amongst this holy nation, this people of acquisition, who is set in an abundant peace, a rich and magnificent repose? What dost thou do in this Land of Egypt, where thou drinkest nothing but troubled and dirty waters, leaving the pursuit of that stream of water of life, which springs towards Eternity? Alas! dost thou not sigh upon the protraction of thy mortal pilgrinage? doth it not vex thee to be so long detained amongst the inhabitants of darkness? Canst thou be in peace amongst such as hate Peace, and take a malicious pleasure in crossing thee? Go to them, and sleep not between the two paths of the two Eternity's. Take the silvered wings of the white dove, which are guilt in their extremities; and full of innocence, purity of heart and Charity (qualities which make passage into the Tabernacles of the heavenly Hill) fly into the porch of that celestial dove-cote, whether the Sacred Spouse calls thee. S. GREGORY THE GREAT, whom PETER his DEACON did see so often accompanied with a dove, which witnesseth that the holy Ghost spoke by the mouth of that holy Pope, and flowed out of his pen, will lend thee the flight of a dove, to bear thee up to this Society of Saintes, by his holy words. As often as we consider the great reward which is promised us in Heaven, how vile doth all earthly things appear in our sight. For what tongue is able to speak, or understanding to comprehend the incomparable delights of the heavenly Jerusalem? the happiness to be ranked amongst the Quires of Angels? to assist before the Throne of Glory of the Highest, and the company of those blessed spirits? the felicity which is tasted in beholding the splendour of the Divine face? the contentment of being freed from the fear of death; and the pleasure to have assurance of a perpetual incorruption? What mind is so far benumbed and frozen, as will not take heat and feeling from the desire of so great a good; and wish speedily to be transported to the place where he hopes to enjoy an endless joy? But none comes without labour to so excellent a reward, whence S. PAUL saith, that none shall be crowned but such as have lawfully fought. And if we be taken with the greatness of the reward, let us not be amazed with the pains we are to undergo in obtaining it. We must still go forward, and without looking back over our shoulders, we must persevere in the way. If the roughness of the way affright us, let the consideration of Eternity, our end, and country, encourage and comfort us. Another flight of mind. LXIII. IF after the wings of a dove, which the successor of the Son of a dove, S. PETER, hath now lent thee, thou wilt take those of the Eagle, who builds his nest in high places, but of an Eagle which is able fixedly to behold the Son, and who never stoops from his wing, of whom can you better borrow them, o my soul, then of that great Doctor, who holds the same rank amongst the Fathers of the Church, that S. JOHN holds amongst the Evangelists, and who is that great Eagle which is nourished with the sap of the Cedars of Libanus. You will easily imagine that I speak of S. AUGUSTINE. Let us borrow then this second flight of that superlative wit in these no less affectionate, then sublime terms. If you were, saith he, every day to suffer extreme torments, yea even for a long space to support the tortures of Hell, to behold JESUS CHRIST in his glory, and to be admitted into the Society of his Saints, for so great a good, were not all sufferances, I will not say supportable, but even ? Let then the Devil lay Ambush for us, let him provide temptations, let fasting break our body, let our flesh be overcharged with austerities, let labours oppress us, let watchings dry us up, let this man torment me, let that man persecute me, let me be frozen with cold, scorched with heat: let head break in pieces, heart ache, contenance wax wamne; let me become wholly abject, let my life pine away with grief, and the years of my life in groanings: let my bones rot, it imports not, so I find repose in the day of tribulation (he understands the day of general judgement) and that I may rise again amongst the Elect. For who can conceive what shall be the glory of the just, how great the joy of Saintes, when their faces shall shine like the Sun? when the Saviour of the world shall number his people of acquisition, and shall range them into diverse orders in the house of his eternal Father, rendering to every one according to their merits, and giving heavenly things for terreane things, eternal for temporal. There, saith the same Doctor in author place, the Angelical troops make a ravishing music; there, is keep a feast of a perpetual solemnity with such as do daily arrive, departing out of their mortal pilgrimage. There are seen the company of PROPHETS, the assembly of the APOSTLES is manifested there; there the invincible Armies of MARTYRS are discovered. There is the holy congregation of CONFESSORS: there, the Choir of venerable MUNKES, there that of DEVOUTE WOMEN who at once overcame the weakness of their own sex, and the delights of the world. There the young VIRGINS elder in virtue then in years; there are the sheep and tender lambs, that have escaped out of the jaws of the wolves, and from the inveigling snares of this life, whence they do now celebrate a perpetual feast, and though their glory be different, yet is their joy common. There, Charity reigneth in her full perfection: for unto them God is all in all, whom they behold and love without end or intermission, whom in loving they do praise, and in praising do love, and all this without weariness or travail at all. O my soul how happy thou shouldst be, if being delivered out of the prison of this wretched body, thou mightest be thought worthy to hear the sacred songs of that celestial harmony, and the praises of the eternal King of that glorious Empire, sung in an admirable air! O how accomplished should thy honour and glory be? for so it would come to thy turn to entone that gracious Alleluia which is in the mouth of all the Elect. Let us yet add that iert of the wing, or rather stroke of the same Father's Pen, before we conclude these flight's and ejaculations of mind. From this sacred Residence all fear of poverty is banished, all weakness, misery, infirmity; none there is angry; none doth envy his neighbour's happiness; none stands in need of eating or drinking; There is no ambition, nor desire to be great: There is no apprehension nor of Hell nor Devil, nor yet of death of body or soul. Contrariwise there is a life full of alacrity through the assurance they have of immortality. Disorder can have no footing there, where all things are maintained in a constant Peace, and conserved in a perfect concord. join to all this the pleasure there is to live in the company of ANGELS, to enjoy the grateful conversation of all those excellent and sublime SPIRITS, and to behold the Armies of Saintes, more bright than the stars of Heaven. To contemplate the Sanctity of PATRIARCHES, the Hope of PROPHETS, the Crown of MARTYRS, the white and flowery Garland of VIRGINS. And as for the SOVEREIGN KING who keeps his Residence in the midst of that glorious people, what tongue is able to speak his praise? That bird of Paridice which hangs still in the air, doth she not intimate unto us by her ingenious hanging, the inconceaveable greatness of that glory? Eternity is the fullness of Beatitude. LXIV. But in fine, Athanasia, if you will't see the garland and crown of this glory, adorned with so many bright precious stones, you must fix your eyes upon its Eternity: for if all those glorious advantages could end, amidst all those felicities, one would be accompaigned with a misfortune; which would distaste all his joy, and would make him resemble the great-ones of the earth, who amidst all the honours which Politic Idolatry doth sacrifice unto them, are continually stung with the thought of death, which shall in the end mow them down, even like unto other men; and burying them in dust, shall equalise their Sceptres with hatchets. Kings with all their Pour escape not its dart; nor do Giants with all their force avoid it. Herein appears Origen's error, who walking upon the wings of the wind, perished (like to that old Milo Crotoniensis) by his own strength, while he was of opinion, that the Elect after a long residence in Heaven, should fall at length from that felicity, like as he had held before that the pains of the damned should not be eternal, one absurdity drawing on another. An error excellently well refuted by S. AUGUSTINE in his books of the City of God, as also by the Angel of the School. An error in fine, which aims at the ruin of the immortality of the soul, which is more than a bestial blindness. And certes, besides that in a thousand places of holy Scriptures, the life of the Elect in Heaven is said to be eternal, and death to be defeated for ever; as also the fire which shall torment the damned, is named eternal; it is also clear in right reason, that Beatitude, which is a sufficient good, or rather the collection of all good, would not be complete unless it did exclude all evil and misery, especially the misery of miseries which is death, or annihilation. For take away the perpetuity of the life of the Blessed, and they would be afflicted with a continual sorrow for the loss of the beloved felicity, and a most distasteful bitterness, would disturb the sweetness of the peaceable fruition. Add that Beatitude cannot be imperfect on the part of the Object, which is God, all whose works are perfect, and his gifts without repentance, which he never revokes but for sin, which can never have access to the Blessed, confirmed in grace by Glory; And unchangeably united to God, whose nature is goodness, his works mercy. And who can neither will, nor can abide iniquity. Again that word of our Saviour's to his Disciples, is an Oracle of infallible truth, and a promise which shall remain for ever; Your joy, saith he, shall not be taken from you. God's servants, the Elect, shall adore him in beholding his face, and they shall reign for ever and ever, that is eternally, saith S. JOHN in his Revelations. And S. BERNARD explicating that of the Psalmist, I will fill my friends with the length of days, and will show them my SALVATION: what is longer, saith he, then that which is eternal; what continuance more long than that which hath no end? O how good an end is eternal life, how good is that end which is infinite! How fair is the day which hath no Sunne-setting, nor is followed out by night? and what is this day, but the eternal VERITY, the true ETERNITY. O Society of the Blessed eternally true, and truly eternal, those are they only, who may be truly said to be living, and enjoying a life truly long in heaven, which knows no end; as they are truly dead, and that of a long death, who continually die in Hell, where they continually live without tasteing the fruit of life. S. BERNARD's meditation, shall make way to S. AVCVSTINE's, touching the Eternity of that blessed life. O life, saith he, which God hath prepared for his friends, thou art a life full of happiness, crowned with assurance: a quiet life, and excellent life, a pure life, a chaste life, a holy life, a life that knows no death, a life without sorrow, without labour, without grief, without vexation, without corruption, without variety or change, a life adorned with every beauty, accomplished with honour: a life that is not laboured with envy, nor subject to anger, where Love reigns in its perfection, and from whence fear is banished; where the day is eternal, and the hearts of all is but one; where God is seen face to face, and this vision is food to those that behold him with an ardent affection. O how thy shineing brightness doth delight me! and how agreeable are thy felicities to the desires of my heart! The more I consider thee, the more I love thee, I swoon with desire in contemplating thee, yet that desire instead of afflicting me, affords me an extreme content, and thy memory is more sweet unto me then the honie-combe. O happy life! o Empire of eternal felicity, (where death hath no jurisdiction) which shall never have end. Where the succession of time hath no reign, nor vicissitude, where the day hath no night, where change can get no footing, where the victorious Champion accompaigned with the troops of Angels, his head being environed with a crown of glory, incessantly sings to God the Song of the heavenly Zion. How happy shall my soul be if after her departure out of this mortal pilgrinage, she may have the happiness to see thee, and to contemplate thy beauty, thy walls, thy gates, thy Palaces, thy places, thy noble citizens, and thine omnipotent King seated in his admirable Throne of Majesty. Thy walls are built of precious stones of an inestimable value; thy Gates are enriched with peerless gems. Thy streets are paved with purest gold, and in them the Divine praises do continually resound. Thy houses are made of foursquare stones, beautified with Saphires, wrought with vinebranches and grapes of gold. None enters within thy confines, who are not pure, for all that is defiled, is repulsed. The light which doth enlighten thee, is neither from Lamp nor torch, nor Sun, Moon nor stars, it is God alone proceeding from God, that light which doth spring from light, who is thine eternal and universal light. The King of Kings resides continually in the midst of thee, waited upon with a numberless number of Courtiers and Officers, more resplendent than the lightning, more bright than the flame. Will you yet further give ear to the same Saint, hear then what he saith of that lively Eternity, that eternal life. The wicked, saith he, shall go into eternal fires, but the just into eternal felicities. That is, the eternal life which is promised us. And whereas men take no greater content here below then to live, behold how life is promised them; and whereas they dread nothing so much as death, see how an Eternity of life is proposed unto them. What dost thou love o man? To live. Thou shall enjoy this great benefit. What dost thou fear? To die. Thou shalt be exempt from it. Yet is it not all, to live long, to live for ever, but the top of felicity is to live happy for ever. What can we add to this Oracle of truth delivered in so good terms by that incomparable wit, but fruitless words in a subject so fruitful, that the abundance thereof doth oppress him that handles it? Means whereby to arrive at this happy Eternity. LXV. But we are rather, Athanasia, to search out the means to attain to this great happiness, then to enlarge ourselves upon curiosities to know it, or lose ourselves in the admiration thereof, since it is written, that not all that shall say Lord Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but those that do the will of our Lord, that is, such as shall live according to his law, and shall make force against his holy city. Dost thou desire to enter into true life, said our Saviour to the young man, who asked his counsel which way he was to hold, keep the Commandments. Of all the ways which are taught us by the holy scripture, and the writings of Doctors to work our salvation in fear and trembling, I will only touch two, which, next unto God's grace (without which we are able to do nothing) I find very necessary. The Philosopher Epictetes made all his philosophical Precepts turn upon these two poles or pins. SUSTAIN and ABSTAIN. I am persuaded that all moral Christianity may turn upon the same pins. The one doth teach us to suffer difficulties, labours, & pains; the other, the perfect contempt of worldly vanities, pleasures and riches. If we have these two wings, nothing shall be able to hinder our flight towards the blessed Eternity, the heavenly Jerusalem, the mother of the living. Water shut up in a narrow pipe, doth spirte up so much the higher. The narrow way of sufferances is that which doth make spring up in us the fountain of life, which doth run towards Eternity. All the scripture cries out this truth unto us, who so ever will come after me, to wit to glory, let him take up his Cross, and follow me, saith our Saviour. Happy is he who suffers tribulation, for being once tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which God hath promised to those that love him. And who are those that love him, but whom he doth chastise, and whom he doth cloth with the livery of sufferances. Because thou wast agreeable in God's sight, it was necessary that affliction should try thee, was it said to the good TOBY. Are not the Just tried like gold in the furnace, to discover whether they be worthy of God. What Christians can be ignorant of this decree which was written with the blood of the Lamb, upon the threshwood of their doors. That we are to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven through many tribulations. And that all those that would live piously in JESUS CHRIST, must endure the scourge of persecutions, to be found wheat worthy to be laid up in the Granary of Eternity. For which cause S. JAMES doth exhort the faithful to rejoice in their afflictions, knowing that patience is the proof of their Faith, and that the work of Patience is perfect, that is, doth perfect him that doth it. Tribulation, saith the Apostle, worketh patience, and Patience probation, and probation Hope, and such a hope, as confoundeth not in its expectation. Though we are now for a small time to be afflicted with many tribulations, yet it is, that the trial of our Faith may appear more precious than gold before the face of God, who according to his great mercy doth regenerate us by a lively hope to possess the heavenly inheritance, which cannot be corrupted nor changed. Then we shall behold, we shall admire; and the plenty of good things shall dilate our heart. Then with an incredible joy we shall be drunk up in God our SALVATION. Then the tears shall be wiped from the eyes of the Elect, they shall weep no more, grief and pain shall no more torment them, because all that, is blown over, that is to say, they entered not into those eternal Bowers but through the fires and waters of tribulation. Truly he were justly reputed an unworthy soldier, who would desire to gain victory better cheap than his Capitaine: and how did our Capitaine and Law giver JESUS CHRIST enter into the glory which was due unto him by nature? was it not by sufferance? Let us behold then the Exemplaire of the mountain, but the mountain of Caluarie, before we take into our consideration, that of Thabor. Let us look upon the Author and Comsummatour of our faith, JESUS CHRIST, who choosed to undergo the Cross, while glory was proposed unto him. Let us imitate the Apostle who was so loyal to his Master, that he bore in his body the stigmates and marks of his crucified Lord. O how joyful the Apostles were, when it happened that they were to endure something for the love of CHRIST, knowing what an eternal weight of glory, that sufferance treasured up in heaven for them. And if the Asserians upon the sight of IVDITH's beauty, did comfort themselves in the extremities of that siege, with the hope they had to enjoy the fair creatures, who were in the City. What extremities of miseries were we not willingly to endure, to be possessed of the inestimable felicities, which we have represented? If by labours, saith S. AUGUSTINE, it must be achieved, from this instant I invoke you, o all ye torments of the world, I conjure you to burst out upon my head, and shower down a main upon me. Let tribulations be multiplied, and press in troops upon me; let infirmities, vexations, poverty, want, adversity make head against and oppress me. Let every one persecute me, let all creatures bandy against me; let me be the Butt of all their arrows, let me be the scorn of men, and the reproach of people, let my days be ended in pinching pains, yet will I be too content, so that after this sharp winter I may gather the flowers of the eternal Spring, and that I may be ranked amongst the Elect who are bright with beams of Glory. I cannot be weaned from the plentiful and yndraynable dugs of this great and fruitful Doctor, without sucking a long draught, to give some colour and life to this Draught of mine. Mark then, how he doth encourage us to sufferances for the attaining of Eternity. If we diligently ponder the reward that is proposed unto us, all that we suffer will seem little and light, and we shall repute our pains unworthy of so great a recompense. For is it not true that we should buy eternal rest at a just Rate, though we were to pay a perpetual labour for it; and to purchase an eternal felicity at the price of an eternal sufferance, Marry if you were employed in an eternal labour, when would you come to an eternal reward? O the eternal Goodness! who hath made our tribulation temporal, and yet to this passing pain, he hath allotted an endless pleasure. Place a thousand thousand year's before-Eternitie, and yet what do you do, but compare a limited with an illimited thing? Add to this, that God did not only prefix a certain term to our labours, but that a short one to; for what is the life of man, but the continuance of a few days? Though a man therefore were oppressed for the whole course of his life, with all sorts of torments, labours, grieves; though prisons, hunger, thirst, and irksome ulcers should accompaignie him to his grave; were it not yet an affliction of a short standing: the days of man are few in number, his labours short and light, and yet are followed with an endless Kingdom, with an eternal Beatitude. After these short sufferances, we shall be possessed of the Society of Angels and Saints, the inheritance of JESUS CHRIST, God himself, an inestimable price for so small a labour! Wherefore, saith he in another place, let us love eternal life, and let us learn how much we are to labour for it, by the example of those who do passionately love this mortal life fearing to lose it: for when any sickness gins to threaten them death, what do they not do, I do not say to escape it, for that, is not possible, but only for a time to protract deaths fatal blow? How much doth a man struggle when death doth catch him by the neck, to escape out of its claws, he flies, he hides himself, and gives all that doth possess, to keep his body in possession of his soul. At the price of all his fortunes he is ready to ransom his life. If he be fiercely sick, he freely endures all the pains that the Surgeons put him to; he obeys the Doctors order; takes down the bitterest pill in the Apothecary's shaped; he neither grugheth price nor pain, so he may escape the grave: he is willing to consume all his substance, to prolong for some few moments more, his consumeing life; and yet to live eternally how few are willing to endure a little discommodity? But if worldlings prolong their miserable days, with so much instance, vigilancy, precausion, prodigality, pain, and torment, what ought not they to do, whose brave and generous minds, eye nothing that is less than Eternity? And if they be esteemed prudent who spare nothing to conserve a miserable mortal life, how imprudent must they needs be, who for an immortal one, will use no sort of violence neither against their body nor soul? A continuation of the former discourse. LXVI. VErily, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground, die: itself remaineth alone and fruitless. And unless we do mortify ourselves here below, there is little appearance, and yet less hope, that we shall live everlastingly in Heaven. In the building of salomon's Temple there was no noise heard of hammars, nor saw because the timber was disposed and fitted by Carpenters in the Forest; and the stones were cut and polished in the Quarries, so that being led unto the Mount-Sion, it rested only to apply them. It is the like of the united stones whereof the heavenly Jerusalem is built, to wit the Elect, out of the Quarry of this world they were to be sent ready, and so to be disposed in their places in that TEMPLE OF PEACE. For which cause, some of them have been sawen, cut, carved, hole, burnt, wounded with swords, that they might be applied to that eternal building; for they are the structure and building of God, saith the Apostle. No, there is no other passage to this TEMPLE of VIRTUE, but through the GATE OF LABOUR. And the Kingdom of Heaven is promised only, in the Sermon which our Saviour made of Beatitude, to the humble of heart and persecuted, that is, to such as suffer tribulations. The King's coin, with which letters of exchange are paid in that country, are Labours; and the Saints do repose in their labours, for there, their works do sollow them. And if a woman with child, saith the holy Gospel, do patiently endure the pangs of childbirth which are so extremely violent, for the joy she hath to bring forth a reasonable creature into this miserable world: what pains then ought we to fear, so our body be happily delivered of our soul to Eternity; and that when our house of clay shall be demolished, we may find one in heaven build, not with the hand of man, but with God's own hand, wherein we shall live, inhabit and be for ever. And if the labours of winter and summer, and the length of a plainefull service, was reputed as nothing of JACOB, being pricked on by the love be boar to RACHEL; who will not to be impatient at the short and light labours of this life, while he hath Eternity before his eyes? Go to then, saith a Prophet, let's take courage, and let not our arms repose, for a great reward is promised to good actions. Work faithfully what thou art able while time is lent thee to labour. Behold the reward, and nothing will seem painful unto thee. I have given my heart to the Divine iustifications, saith the Psalmist, in respect of the reward promised them. For the reward of such as keep God's law is great. Know you not, saith the great Apostle, that many run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the Price. And they certes, that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we run in the race of virtue, for an immortal and incorruptible crown. Let's so run that we may obtain. Those, saith the same Doctor of the Cross, that are afflicted, are disposed thereby to great rewards, and if they be tried by God, it is to th'end, they may be worthy to have a part with him; and that he may with his own hand bestow upon them, a Kingdom of honour, and a diadem of beauty. For God crownes his Elect with glory and honour, and doth establish them above all the works of his hands. Let us not therefore be discouraged, saith S. PAUL, for we have not as yet resisted sin, nor fought to blood: we that are not ignorant that our Guide JESUS CHRIST, entered not into the Sanctuary of Eternity, by means of the blood of sheep and goats but by powreing out his own; at that price obtaineing for us an eternal redemption. But I here, heap up proofs, in confirmation of a truth, which even Novices in Christian discipline cannot doubt of. Let us therefore stay our steps, and shut up this first means in these golden words of S. AUGUSTINE. O soul, what I have is vendible; consider whether you will buy it. And what hast thou to sell, o Lord? Rest, saith he, buy it. At what rate, saith the soul? the price thereof is Labour. But what labour is required for an endless rest? If you will make a just valuation, an eternal labour is due to an eternal peace. 'tis true indeed, yet fear not, o soul, God is merciful; he knows well, that if thou wert eternally to labour for this pourchase, thou shouldst never attain unto the promised and desired rest; and therefore, that thou mightst attain it, he will not have thy labour to be eternal: not that the Eternity of glory would not deserve it; but that thou mightest be sure to bear it. It is worth an eternal, and yet is bought for a temporal labour. In an other place, the same Father, doth enlarge and continue this consideration. When eternal life, saith he, is promised us, let us place before our eyes, a life exempt from all the tormoyles and troubles which we taste in this, and thou shalt more happily find out the calamities and miseries which are not to be found in that blessed life, than thou canst the infinite bless wherewith it is replenished (he would say, that as God, so it, is better known by negation then affirmation). And yet, wonderful Mercy! this inestimable favour is to be sold, If thou wilt, thou mayst buy it: nor art thou to be troubled how to procure wherewithal to pay; It is not worth more than thou hast, or rather, respects not at all, what thou hast, but only, what thou art. This Eternity is worth thyself, and yet worth no more than thou art; give thyself, and 'tis thine. Why dost thou dodge, why dost thou stand upon the price. Dost thou apprehend, that to make the payment, thou art to be sold indeed: no thou art not; pay thyself such as thou art, and the purchase is made. Alas I am poor and miserable, wilt thou say, nor shall I be received as currant money. But I dare assure thee, that in freely giving thyself thou wilt become good coin: for to give one's self in confidence of such a promise, is to be good. And being once good, thou wilt become a reasonable price, and thou shalt not only purchase, what I told thee of, salvation, health, life, and life everlasting; but further, neither weariness, labour, hunger, thirst, nor any other pain what soever, shall molest thee. All the good that can be imagined, shall be there: all the evil that can be imagined shall not be there; and the continuance of that happy state, shall be eternal. I am able to make no further discovery for neither eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard, nor heart hath conceived the felicities of that glory; and how should that fall within the compass of my tongues, or penn's expression, which never yet entered into my heart? Another mean. LXVII. IF patience in adversity beget the blessed hope (hope, saith the Apostle, which confoundeth not) of happiness in our hearts: a holy contempt of transitory toys, is no less forceable to make us take a happy flight towards the heavenly Zion, and to make us relish celestial things, disdaining those base and earthly ones. In the balance of man's heart, the fall of the one scale, is the others rising; and ordinarily, the worldling is deceitful in his weights, weighing profane dross with the SANCTVARIE weights; which the spiritual man, doth not, nor those, who (by attending to that which belongs to their salvation) have all their conversation in Heaven. The first step, that doth separate us from earth, doth advance us towards heaven. The Gods of the earth are seated on high, saith the Psalmist, upon which passage, a Father of the Church saith, that those Gods are the high-soaringe souls, which like to the bird of Paradise, do never stoop to the ground; and who may say with the Apostles, behold we have forsaken all; and who for this pious renounceing of all, do hear that Divine promise: you that have left all, shall receive an hundredfold, herebelow, and life everlasting, after this mortal life. This earthly trash is a heavy burden, and doth exceedingly hinder those that strive to climb the mountain of God. But if, by a holy contempt, we tread upon the same burden, it raiseth us thitherward. A faithful speech, and worthy to be carefully laid up in our heart. Love not the world, nor yet that which it terms good, for its figure doth pass, and vanish like smoke. ESTHER had good reason to contemn those royal pomps and magnificences, and to put on mourneing weeds, since she foresaw that she was about to be a Widow, and that all those, would presently disappear as shadows; being far more prudent than that proud Queen whereof mention is made in the Apocalypse, who being seated in her Throne, and gayzing upon herself in her ornaments and glory, as a Peacoke in the variety of his glorious plumes, pronounced with as much vanity as untruth, I reign; nor shall I ever become a widow, nor yet ever resent the dint of adversity: but she suddenly fell from her vain hopes: And with damage and confusion she experienced, that worldly felicity is like to a flower, which flourisheth in the morning, but at night fadeth; like to grass growing upon the tiles of a house, which withereth away, even before it appear fully green. This was it, which one of the ancient Sages aimed at, saying; crystal is glittering and glorious to the eye, marry in use, brittle and subject to breaking. But heavenly felicity is of a more temper; for (besides that, according to JOB, the heavens are build of most brass; and are composed of a matter which wears not a way, being exempt from all corruption or alteration) the Eternity of glory, which is promised to the Elect, is equal to the continuance of God, who shall never have end. And therefore, though that, which the wisdom of the world and Sense, esteems true good (notwithstanding that even its vanity, is a true sign of the falsity thereof) should, by its allurements and enchantments, make a most violent impression upon the most resolute mind; yet the shortness of its continuance, being compared to an Eternity, shall appear as little bright or gracious in the eye of a settled judgement, as the lesser stars in the presence of the Sun. This true esteem made the great Apostle repute all terreane things as dirt and dung, while he proposed unto himself the Conquest of Eternity. And the Psalmist, touched with the same apprehension, cried out; what is to me in Heaven? and besides thee what would I upon the earth, nothing verily, o the God of my hair and the part of mine inheritance for ever. O when shall I see the day, the happy day, in which I shall appear before thy glorious face, the only object of mine eternal bless? Tears are my food day and night, while my desire doth incessantly press upon me, with this demand, where is thy God? In very deed, even as the Sun which causeth the day, doth at his approach drive away the darkness, which in its absence doth cover the earth: so the light of Eternity doth no sooner shine in the soul's Orison, but the thick and foul vapours of terreane affections are dispersed. 'tis in vain, my soul, for thee to search for consolation in transitory things. Let thy thoughts be only placed upon the Eternal God, and thou shalt be throughly replenished with a joy, which shall bereave thee of all sense of calamity. Rise up, o Lord, and let thine enemies be dispersed. Appear only before mine eyes, and the world, thine enemy and mine, shall be put to flight: They shall vanish like smoke, and shall melt away as wax before the fire. This Dagon shall fall to ruin before the Ark of thine Eternity. He doth pass, together with his concupiscence, but thou shalt remain for ever; thy years run not by, and thou art still the same. What can then an immortal soul do in this valley of tears, miseries, and death, who thou touchest with a sense of the fortunate Lands of Eternity, and with a desire of those eternal Hills, but sigh and breath in the Egypt of this mortality, after the milk and honey, which runs in abundance in the Land, which thy Goodness hath promised unto her, taking comfort in this expectation while protracted hope doth afflict her? It is a special grace which God bestows upon his Elect, saith S. GREGORY, in filling their hearts, with a hope, as it were certain, of attaining the heavenly country, while they wander through the wilderness of this earth, to th' end that they might behold, as it were, below them, and as a thing unworthy of their consideration all transitory things; and that, for the love of Eternity, they should tread under their feet, by a holy pride, the most prosperous pleasures, riches, honours in the earth. And this is that which God speaks by the mouth of one of his Prophets to a soul that follows him, I will raise thee to the highest places of the earth: and what are those high places, but the abundance of wealth; the height of honours and dignities, which have the reputation of things high placed, by those, whose desires are abject, and crawling upon the ground. But if once man's heart fix its sight upon Eternity, it then clearly discovers, how abject and base all those things are, which before he esteemed so high: for as those that are upon the top of a high mountain, do apprehend the things that seemed great unto them being in the bottom of the valley, as little points: so those that walk in the ways of Eternity, do esteem temporal things as nothing, and that which before seemed to be placed above their head, is now found under their feet. The same Doctor saith in another place, nothing makes the calamities which we suffer in this transitory life more sharp and bitter unto us, than the inconsideration of the eternal rewards which are promised us. But if a soul be once so happy, as constantly to turn her eyes towards those eternal riches, which cannot perish, all that is transitory shall be to her as nothing. The same Pope, explicating that passage of the Divine Epithalamion, where the Spouse saith that her Spouse, had led her into his wine-cellar; what do you think, saith he, did that Lover, understand by the wine-cellar, but a secret and profound contemplation of Eternity? A contemplation which doth so oversett the soul, which takes it in abundance, that she is made, as it were, drunk there with all: but with a drunkenness of good purposes, and which by a laudable change of life, and a wholesome amendment of manners, tends to the heavenly country, and eternal delights. S. AUGUSTINE upon the same subject is of the same advice, when he counsels the devout soul, neither to swell in prosperity, nor to be dejected in adversity, grownding upon the faithful promise which God hath given her of Eternity: a promise which will make her contemn temporal felicities, yea even the calamities of this life, if she take the eternal fire into her consideration. And if one of the Ancients, speaking of the vain ambition of humane pretensions, knew, and following his knowledge, could say, that, what goodly fortune soever one were possessed of, did but yet appear vile and worthless, to him that hoped for a better and larger; who would not judge, that he, who should lodge his hopes in Eternity, should find no more rest in these short moments, than the dove of the deluge upon the waters, which covered the face of the earth. And if the children of Egypt upon the tasting of the heavenly Manna, that admirable bread of the desert, did no more plain the loss of their flesh-potts and onions: So after a sound judgement, have once relished, by a settled purpose, the delights of the blessed Eternity, earthly pleasures do but loath & disgust him. He doth easily wean himself from the empoisoned milk of the Serpents of this world, having once tasted that meat, which doth nourish for an Eternity. That this thought of Eternity is the abridgement of all spiritual life. LXVIII. I Can here express many wholesome effects, which this thought of Eternity causeth in those, who do frequently, and seriously ruminate it in their hearts. But I conceive, Athanasia, that they are all comprised in this proposition, to wit, that all spiritual life is comprehended in this so profitable and and necessary consideration. For what archer can hit a mark, without aiming at it; and since all this life is but an introduction to Eternity, how should one possibly arrive there, unless he begin timely to tend towards it, and address all his steps and actions to that end. If every Agent do work for some end; and if our principal and sovereign end consist in our eternal union with God in glory, ought we not in this mortal life to take the path, which doth conduct us to this end? If then (as I have shown in the first strokes of this Draught) all the good and evil which is done in the world, proceed from the neglect, or use of this thought of Eternity: doth it not follow, that this thought is the very thread, which must direct us in the windings of the true life, that is, the spiritual life? All those that do handle spiritual matters, do divide such as peculiarly addict themselves to the practice of piety, into three Classes or ranks; Beginners, Proficiants, and the more perfect; making the first walk in the way which they call Purgative; the second in the Illuminative; the third, in the Vnitive. In the Purgative they rank those, who like unto new Champions, do crucify their flesh with its concupiscence; mortify the motions of their sensuality, by the vigour, and holy rigour of mind; who chastise their body and bring it into subjection; renounceing world, blood and Hell; in a word, labouring to spoil themselves of the old man, with his wicked inclinations, and vicious habits. Walking in the ways of penance, and mortification; and making head against vice, lest Sin might reign in us; and lest that Dagon might prevail against the Ark. Now nothing doth so effectually plane and smouth the rough and rugged ways; nothing doth so forceably press the Sinner to depart out of the Egypt of his iniquity; and to forsake that accursed land of the shadow of death, as the apprehension of eternal pains, according to that of the Prophet, Lord through thy fear we have conceived the spirit of Salvation. And the Psalmist, I have done judgement and justice, because I dreaded the irrevocable sentence of the Almighty. And indeed, as there is nothing which doth so speedily free a field of roots and rubbish, as the application of fire to the brambles and undergroth, whereby it becomes thorny and wild; so nothing doth cause a man more quickly to renounce vice; nor more efficaciously purge the soul, than the horror of eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his Angels. This is to put the hatchet to the root of the bad tree, lest it might bring forth the fruits of corruption. Let not therefore the thought of the accursed Eternity, depart out of our memory: and we shall see the Divine truth, which issued from the mouth of the wiseman, fulfilled in us, that we shall never offend: for it would be to us, as a buckler against the fiery darts of temptations: and if we chance to fall into sin, it would be as a sharp spur, to make us spring out of the ditch of so dangerous and deplorable an estate. There is no remedy so sharp and bitter, that doth not seem sweet unto us, if we compare it to those consuming and eternal flames. There is no passion so irregular, but it becomes orderly, and subject to reason, when an eternal pain represents itself unto us. There is no temptation that doth not vanish, nor vice that doth not departed, when he that is assaulted with it, doth setledly ponder, that that which doth delight, is but momentary, but the torments due thereunto, are eternal. This is the effect of the consideration of Eternity, in the Purgative way, and the force which it hath to reclaim us from wickedness. A continuation of the former discourse. LXIX. AS for the Illuminative way, whose property it is to incite us to goodness and virtue: what difficulty is incident to the pursuit of virtue, which is not surmounted by the price of so great glory, which is proposed unto us in Eternity, as I have already at large declared. For the words of thy lips o Lord, saith the Divine Psalmist, that is, upon the hope of thy promises, I have kept the hard ways. JACOB having espied that mysterious ladder (a figure of Beatitude) durst close with an Angel, & never leave wrestling with him, till he had wrested a benediction from him. And was not MICHOL with SAULS' crown (being proposed for his guerdon who should vanquish the Giant) the motife, which did so generously incite DAVID to so glorious an enterprise? O Lord, sings the Divine Psalmist; I ran in the way of thy Commandments, when thou didst open and dilate my heart; And yet what is able to dilate it more than the thought of Eternity? O how fair are the feet, that is, the affections, of a foul which directs her steps, towards those eternal Hills, through the paths of piety, erecting stairs in her heart, to ascend up to the heavenly Zion, by the steps of virtues. This is she which doth ravish the Angels with admiration, when they discover her ascending out of the desert of the world, as a little rod of smoke composed of all the aromatical spices. It is written in the Apocalypse that the first foundation of the holy City Jerusalem is made of jasper, a stone marked with all the several colours which are dispersed amongst the other stones; whereby is intimated unto us, that the eternal Zion hath its foundation upon all the virtues: and that he who pretends the attaining of it, must resolve to embrace them all; otherwise he will not be permitted access. Now what virtue is not acquired by this consideration, what good habit is not contained therein? Let us cast an eye upon those which are the principal, and, as it were, the root of all the rest; and we shall find Eternity to be the Sea, whither all these little brooks run. What is FAITH but the argument of things not appeareing. And are not eternal things, those which do not appear? for so the great Apostle doth teach us. What is HOPE but an expectation of eternal bliss, and the coming of the glory of the great God? In thee, o Lord, have I put my hoped, saith DAVID, and I shall not be confounded for ever. What is CHARITY, but a Virtue, which, according to the Apostle, remains for ever? even when FAITH and HOPE shall cease to be, and Prophecies shall be made void: and such as are rooted, and founded in this Virtue, do in some measure comprehend the length, breadth, height, and depth, of Eternity. What is PRUDENCE, but a wise foresight of future things, and principally of the next life? for the life which ends in this world, is called a Death by the Apostle; yea yet in sharper terms, a sensual, terreane, malignant life. And it was this prudent thought of Eternity, which MOSES perceived to be wanting in Israel, while he termed it a Nation devoid of Council and judgement and wished from his heart, that that people would become wise, understanding, and foreseeing the time to come. Touching FORCE and TEMPERANCE, we have shown in the former stroke that this thought makes one abstain from, and contemn earthly things; and doth in courage the heart to all kinds of sufferances and crosses for the Conquest of Eternity. Concerning JUSTICE (since eternal Glory is termed the crown of justice, and that no injustice can be permitted to make entry there) who can deny but the fruits of the thoughts of Eternity, are the very same with those whereof DANIEL speaks, which is, to free the soul from sin, and to lodge eternal justice in its place. And doth not the Psalmist say, that the just shall live for ever. PATIENCE also doth springe from this thought, sith the Kingdom of Heaven is promised to such as do practise it in persecution. And who will not become HUMBLE under the powerful hand of God, when he shall seriously consider, that the Kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit; and that the humble shall be saved, and advanced: and that the proud of heart are cast headlong down, with Lucifer, into perpetual flames. And who will not turn MEEK and mild, when he shall reflect, that the promised Land of Eternity, is their inheritance? Who will not be devout and fervent in all the exercices of piety, whether it be prayer, fasting, Almsdeeds; or in the practice of interior or exterior mortifications, if he fall duly to consider, that the violent do bear away the Kingdom of Heaven. Who will not embrace, or at least, who will not love and honour the Evangelicall Counsels, when he reads what great rewards are promised, to the Continent, obedient, and voluntariepoore? Run in this sort over all the virtues, whose pursuit and practice, is the proper employment of the Illuminative way, and you shall find, that whether they be Theological, or moral infused, they have all for their Object a supernatural end, as faith the Angel of the school; and consequently, all of them aim at Eternity, as all the lines of the circumference at the unity of the Centre. As for the unitive way, which consists in a certain adhering to the sovereign Good, which is God, the very essential Eternity: we will show in the ensuing stroke, that the essential Eternity, being no other thing, properly speaking, than God himself, there is no thought at all, which doth more immediately, nor more generally unite us unto him, then that of Eternity. Whence I draw this Conclusion, that the consideration of Eternity, is truly that one necessary thing, which is so highly commended in the Gospel, even from the mouth of the son of God, and called, MARY'S BEST PART which shall never be taken from her. judge you then, Athanasia, of what importance it is, to think frequently, yea incessantly of Eternity, since it is, as it were, the pin, whereupon all spiritual life doth turn. Of the essential Eternity. LXX. HItherto, Athanasia, we have not given thee a strait and clear, but an indirect view of Eternity; we have shown it thee only sideling, as BALAAM beheld the army of Israel: we have only pondered the two arms thereof, not the body: It's effects only, not its cause; and, as one would say, we have seen the shoulders only, not the face; the accidents, not the substance thereof. For albeit the Divines teach us, that it is a whole and perfect possession, of an endless life, yet doth not this description quiet my understanding, in that it doth not represent Eternity as a thing created, and out of God; and which being applied to creatures, will indeed have no end, yet presupposeth a beginning; God alone being truly eternal; that is, without beginning or end: he being the beginning and end, of all that hath being by participation of his. But now, Athanasia, I will propose unto you the essential Eternity, which is no other thing than God himself. And God too, not as punishing in the Eternity accursed, nor as rewarding in the blessed Eternity, but as being in himself, as his own essence, to his own Eternity: and that true increated and essential Eternity, in which this created Eternity consisteth, whereof we have shown some strokes before. O what an Eternity is this, Athanasia, and whither is the flight of my thoughts carried, since it toucheth upon the glory of the Divine Majesty, in the highest regions? Here it is, that the wing and sight of an Eagle, were required, to raise one's self up into the highness of the riches, and wisdom of God, who is incomprehensible in all his ways. And to behold this Sun of the East, which is the fountain of all light, and which cannot be obscured. And here, not the black and dark lines of a first Draught, but even the bright raises of the Sun, were more than requisite, to bring light and life to the deciphering of him, who from all Eternity, doth inhabit an inaccessible light, and who could not be sustained by a created understanding, unless it were fortified with the light of Glory. All those Divine perfections, which Divinity considers in God, under the name of Attributes, are in him, his own only and incomposed Essence: for being a pure Act, he doth not admit in himself any composition at all; or multiplicity of qualities, being all Essence, all substance. But we are constrained by our own infirmity to speak so of God, according to our ordinary manner of conceaveing and discourseing: calling him Good, just, Merciful, Infinite, Eternal, Omnipotent, as we do diversely cast our thoughts upon his works, rather than upon himself, who in his one and only being, doth comprehend, by way of eminency, all the perfections which are found in Goodness, justice, Mercy. So that he is not only essentially good, but he is even essential Goodness, all that is good being good by the only communication and participation of this essential Goodness. Now to give a name to this supreme excellency, is a work proper to the same excellency, which as it alone doth perfectly know itself, so it only is able to name itself. Whereupon the Angel speaking unto SAMSON's Father, and representing unto him the Divine Majesty, said: why dost thou inquire my name which is ADMIRABLE, that is, which thou canst not conceive, but by admiration. Howbeit, amongst the multitude of Divine names, wherewith the holy Scripture is full; and which the books of the Doctors of the Church propose unto us, there is none more generally received, then that, which God by his own mouth imparted unto MOSES, who demanded his name, that he might denounce it to such as should inquire after it. I AM WHO AM, said our Lord; and if they ask thee who sent thee unto them, tell them, he that IS commanded me to come unto you. This name, IS, saith the Angel of the school, is the most proper of all the Divine names, as being the most significative; for it doth not express any form at all, but only a simple being; or rather the being of beings, as that great Genius of nature termed it. And God being his own Essence and Being, cannot be more properly named then by the name IS: which caused S. JOHN DAMASCENE to say, that the principal name of the Divine names, is, He who IS, because he is as an infinite Ocean, an illimited substance. Again, this name suits well with God, in that, it doth express a continual present time, which doth show the essential Eternity of God, in whom, saith S. AUGUSTINE, in his books of the Trinity, there is neither time passed, nor time to come. Now this Eternity is so essential to God, that if he were not eternal, he would cease to be God: and that created Eternity, whereof Divines speak, doth only subsiste in the increated Eternity of God himself, and, if we may so say, it is imperfect; for though it shall never have end, being a continual present without any measure of time; yet had it a beginning, since God alone, of all the things which have being, hath no beginning. Nor do we see any title in holy Scripture more frequently attributed unto God, then that he is Eternal. I live eternally saith our Lord. The Kingdom of heaven is eternal. Our Lord is great eternally. Our Lord is seated in an eternal Throne. God is not moved eternally. Those that hope in him shall not be confounded eternally. The name of his Majesty is Eternal. He is his Elect's eternal part. Mercy is established eternally in Heaven. His Word and Truth shall dure eternally. He hath made an eternal Testament. God is living and Eternal for ever and ever. He is an Eternal Dominatour. He doth inhabit the eternal Jerusalem. His power is an eternal power, and his Kingdom in generation and generation. And many the like passages all through the holy Scripture. Now, he is not only eternal, but is even the very eternal Essence, or the ESSENTIAL ETERNITY. So that to think of Eternity, is to have God for the only object of our thoughts. And to apply the essence of our immortal soul, to his essence, who alone of himself hath immortality, is it not the perfection and fullness of our essential Beatitude? If therefore, I extol the thought of Eternity above all other thoughts, by reason of that great & infinite Object, am I not grounded upon a reason? Is not the immensity, and incomparable perfection thereof able to ravish and drink up all our interior and exterior faculties? following that of the Psalmist, My heart and my flesh have rejoiced toward the living God. That this essential Eternity is all things. LXXI. AS God is eternal, Athanasia, or rather Eternity itself, so is he also infinite, or rather infinity itself. Infinite according to his essential greatness which is immense and boundless: Infinite also in his continuance which is without limitation too, to speak with the Prince of Schoolmen. He is every where by his existence, and doth existe in every thing, filling Heaven and earth, and all that is therein. In a word, he is in every place, and beyond all place, by his essence, presence, and power. But he is in the Blessed Eternity after an admirable manner: for the Scripture doth assure us, that he is all things in all his Elect. There, saith S. AUGUSTINE, God is the universal good of all the Saints, and the perfect Beatitude of all their desires: there, he is light and colour to their eyes: music to their ears, honey to their taste, or rather a hidden Manna; and a delicious balm to their smell. In him they have the diversity and beauty of sundry seasons, the freshness of the Spring; the brightness of the Summer: the fruitfulness of the fall of the leaf; the rest and repose of winter: In fine all that which may delight their senses, or solace the faculties of their soul. There, saith S. BERNARD, God is plenitude of light to the UNDERSTANDING: multitude of Peace to the WILL: and eternal consolation to the MEMORY. To be short, those shadows of good, which are scattered over terreane things, as drops of dew, and are distributed rarely and only by parcels, are eminently in God, and as it were in an infinite Ocean. If fleeting toys do so desperately delight such as are taken with them, that their reason is enchanted, and their wisdom drunk up therein: how shall they be taken with him, whose hands are filled with infinite delights? If this mortal and created life be so precious, how precious shall he be, who hath not only life in himself, but who is life itself, and in whom we live and are. If the acquaintance of perfect creatures be so pleasing a thing: how much more sweet is the perfection of the Creator, which is so complete, and the very model of all perfection? If these fading earthly beauties be so gaining and engaging: how ravishing shall his beauty be, which is admired by the Sun and Moon, and in whose presence the stars are not bright? If the antiquity of nobility have such a rate put upon it, by the vanity of those that do adore it; how much more is his to be prised, who is the old of days, whose begining is without beginning? If worldly honours and fortunes be courted by so many, how much more is he to be sued for and pursued, whose house is replenished with glory and riches. For if it be he who made all things good, and communicated unto them, all that is delightful or wishful in them, must we not infallibly persuade ourselves, that he reserved the excellency thereof for himself, but an excellency which doth infinitely surpass all that we are able to imagine. What happiness, saith S. AUGUSTINE, shall their be in the Blessed Eternity, where there shall be no evil at all; nor any thing wanting that is good. There our labour shall be to praise God, who shall be all in all: Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, o Lord, for ever and ever they shall praise thee. He who gave the virtue, shall be the reward thereof; promising himself as an inestimable price, by the mouth of the Prophet, saying, I will be their God, and they shall be my people; I will be all things to them which they can honestly desire, life, salvation, food, abundance, Glory, Honour, Peace, and all kinds of felicity: for so is that sacred word to be understood; God shall be all in all, that is, he shall be the fullness of all their desires. There, the Elect peaceably enjoying a sacred repose, and an eternal Sabbath, shall see how sweet our Lord is, being filled with him, who shall be in them all that can be desired. O my God, thou art my dear Truth, my true Eternity, my eternal felicity! The same Doctor speaking of this essential Eternity, which is God himself, comprehending in himself all goodness, discourseth of it in this sort: There is neither corruption, defect; old age, nor frowardness in thee; but contrariwise a perpetual peace, a solemn glory, a joy without end, a continual solemnity. Thou art true alacrity, and a flower of peerless beauty, of youth, and perfect health: There, is neither yesterday nor to morrow in thee, but a perpetual TODAY: thine is salvation, life, and peace; o great God who art all things! what glorious things are spoken of thee, since in thee is the true Abode of all those who live in true joy! In thee, there is no fear, no sorrow; desire passeth presently into satisfaction, being answered with a speedy and plenteous possession of all that is desired. O God thou dost inebriate thine Elect with the plenty of thy house, and with the torrent of thy pleasure thou shalt make them drink; because with thee is the fountain of life, and in thy light we shall see light, when they shall see thee in thyself, and all things in thee, and thee in all things, with a sight, that shall not be interrupted, which is the top of their eternal felicity. And in another place he saith upon the same subject. Love's Eternity and thou shalt reign for ever with JESUS CHRIST, if JESUS CHRIST be thine only end: And again. Unite thy heart to God's Eternity, and thou shalt be eternal with God. It was an apprehension and feeling of this, which drew that asperation so frequently from the mouth and heart of S. FRANCIS. O my God thou art mine ALL. And doth not that passage of the heavenly harmony which S. JOHN heard in his Revelations allude to this? Benediction, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, honour, and power, and strength to our God for ever and ever. AMEN. An application of the Heart to this essential Eternity. LXXII. But that which most importeth, Athanasia, is to know, how we ought to apply our thoughts to this essential Eternity, which is the very Divinity. This is rather to be done by a prone and loving humility, then by a haughty and swelling knowledge; Lord my heart is not exalted, neither are mine eyes loftie●nether have I walked in great matters, nor in marvelous things above me, cried out the Royal Psalmist. My thoughts have been humble, knowing that thou lovest the humble heart, and that he that extolles himself, makes thee ascend yet higher, and put thyself in a greater distance from him. Be thou praised o Lord for ever, in that thou hidest thyself from the wise, and great wits, and revealest thyself to thy little humble ones. I have given you some directions, Athanasia, to avoid the accursed Eternity, and to attain the Blessed: yet I must here tell you, with the great Apostle: behold I teach you a way far more excellent, more short, noble and efficacious. Consider an Archer that shuts at a Butt, he takes his aim neither too high, nor too low; neither of this nor that side; but sets his eye and arrow just upon the midst of the white. Will you believe me, Athanasia, upon this subject, you shall imitate his manner and aim; and without looking either to the right or left hand, that is, without either considering the powerful hand of God in the accursed Eternity, or that which distributes crowns and rewards in the Blessed, you shall fix the eye of your contemplation upon the eternal God, and upon his essential Eternity; and approaching unto him in an humble confidence, you shall be illuminated, and your face shall not be confounded. No no, Athanasia, fear not it is he; be confident he hath overcome the world. Fear not to be oppressed with the glory of so high a Majesty. His delights are to be with the children of men. He is still at their Gate, and knocks to have entry, and to make his abode with them, and to enrich them with good things. He doth not only not disdain that we should love him, but he disdains that we love him not; and complains that he is made a solitude in Israel, and that he is not beloved: and that the ways of the eternal Zion weep, that none do frequent their solemnities. Let us therefore go with confidence to the Throne of his Grace, if we desire to have part in his Glory. Let us permit him to wash the feet of our affections, if we will with S. PETER, have Society with him. This God then who is an essential Charity, doth not only permit us to love him, but even commands it, and that under pain of death, death everlasting. The first and greatest of his Commandments, is all of the Love we own him. This love did once unite the Divine and humane nature in the Person of the WORD; and did so fare exinanite the eternal Son of the eternal Father, as to become man, to take upon him the form of a servant; to appear in earth, and to be conversant with men. A love which may well raise man towards God, since it could bring God down to man. A love, the band of perfection, which unites the equal, and doth equalise such as it doth unite; A Love, which having once personally united, as S. AUGUSTINE saith, the light of the Divinity, to the clay of our mortality, is able to elevate our desires even unto God, and make us participant of the Divine nature, which is done by Charity, infused into our hearts by the Holy Ghost. It is this Divine Love, which separating our affections, not only from dangerous and superfluous things, but even from things which are not evil, yet are subject to be loved with excess, and with too strong and inordinate a passion, shall make us behold all created things in God; and will so govern our inclinations, that we shall affect no creature but in God, for God, and according to God: wherein consisteth the perfect practice of that Divine Commandment, which commands us to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our spirit, with all our strength, and even above all things. For a soul that is come to this degree of perfection, that she love's nothing but in God, and God in all things: in proper speech, love's not many things, nor is not in the folicitude inseparable from the multiplicity of lovely objects, but she love's but one only thing, which is God, the one true necessary thing, and out of whom all is but misery and affliction of spirit. And because in all that which the order of Charity proposeth unto her to be loved, she love's God alone, she love's him equally in all, and as courageously in her enemy, as tenderly in her friend; because she love's him only out of all other things, and without all other things, but nothing at all without him, or out of him. If it be ESTHER alone that ASSVERUS loveth, saith my blessed Father in his Theotime, why should he love her more when she is parfumed and adorned, then when she is in her common attire? If it be our Saviour only that a soul loveth, why should she not as well love the Mount-Caluarie, as Thabor, sith he is as truly in the one as the other: and why should she not pronounce as cordially in the one as in the other; It is Good for us to be here. She can love our Saviour in Egypt without loving Egypt; why then shall she not love him in the banquet of SIMON the LEPROUS, without loving the banquet? And if she love him amidst the blasphemies which are vomited out against him without loving the blasphemies, why shall she not love him parfumed with MAGDELAINES precious ointments; without loving the parfumes or smells? It is a true sign that one love's God only in all things, when one love's him equally in all things, since he being always equal to himself, the inequality of love towards him, must needs spring from some thing which is not he. Whence the soul that love's God purely and singulary, love's him no more with the whole universe to boot, than all alone without the universe, because all that which is out of God, and is not God, is as nothing to her. O pure soul! who love's not even Paradise itself, but because God is there loved: and is so soveraignely loved in his Paradise, as, that if he had not a Paradise to bestow, yet would he neither be less loulie, or less beloved of this generous soul, who knows not how to love the Paradise of her God, but only her God of Paradise, and who puts no less rate upon the Caluarie where her Saviour was crucified, than the Heaven where he is glorified. O how well doth this saintly Bishope speak, my Athanasia, whose terms I durst not paraphrase; nor disguise or change his venerable words, lest I might lose his devout sense, expressed in words of so great energy, and so full of spirit and virtue, that all the flaunting terms of worldly wisdom, seem to me far less persuasive & powerful. How forcibly and sweetly doth he teach us in this discourse not to look upon the two hands of God, that of justice and vengeance, and that other of Mercy and reward, but to search after his face alone; and to fear and love him for himself, not for the punishments which he threatens vice; nor for the reward, which he proposeth to virtue: because he is altogether to be honoured, worshipped and served for the love of himself, yea although he had neither Paradise for reward, nor yet Hell for Punishment. The blessed and accursed Eternity, are only to be considered as things accessory. Our prime intention, and chief attention are to be set upon the Divine Eternity, or the eternal Divinity, unless we would lose the title of the children of God, and through fear of eternal punishments, or desire of eternal rewards beesteemed slaves and hirelings. Let's love God, Athanasia, and let him dispose of us as he pleaseth. Let us be in his hands, as clay in the hand of the Potter. Let him make of us vessels of honour or ignominy. Be it nobly or ignobly, so we be his, it sufficeth. Let's turn our eyes from rewards or punishments, and let us fix them upon our lord Let us behold his amiable face. Let us set our view upon his hands, but as a faithful handmaid upon those of her Mistress. Let us receive indifferently that which comes from the right hand of prosperity, and the left of adversity. Although he should even kill us, let's hope in him. And let us hope without hope, yea even against all appearance, that nothing shall separate us from his Charity. Let us cast all our thoughts upon him. And in steed of staying our thoughts upon the created, and as it were, the accidental Eternity, of Heaven or Hell, let us only be fastened upon the essential Eternity which is God himself, who hath in his hand the extremities of the earth. And who keeps the keys of eternal life and death. Let us not so dwell upon the thought of Heaven or Hell's Eternity, as that we do not more think of his Eternity who made them both; this, for the Devils and their associates; that, for the Angels and the Elect. O eternal Divinity! o Divine Eternity! thou art he whom I consider, and whom I seek for; to thee only it is that I aspire: for without thee, the created Eternity would not be, since it doth not subsiste but by the eternal essence of the essential Eternity, which is no other than God himself. And yet further to purify mine affection, and bring it to its full perfection, henceforth I will not so much love the Eternity of God, as the God of Eternity, though God be that same Eternity, and that same. Eternity be God himself. And if, by the imagination of an impossible thing, one could be in Hell with his grace, his accursed Eternity would not be dreadful: nor is the Blessed Eternity to be desired, but that eternal life is to see God eternally, eternally to depend upon him. O eternal God who is like unto thee, who is like unto thee; who is like unto our Lord God, who inhabits in the places above! And what Eternity can be compared unto his, from whom proceeds all Eternity, seeing he hath made the ages of ages! O Great God, direct my ways in thy presence, and make me walk before thee in perfection, that is, perfect, in such sort, my intentions, that forgetting mine own interest, and neither staying myself in the blessed or accursed Eternity, I may only look after thine essential Eternity, which is thyself, to whom be honour and glory from generation to generation, for ever and ever, in the Eternity of Eternity's. Amen. An aspiration of Hope. LXXIII. But o Lord will it not be too great a presumption for a worm of the earth, to raise itself towards thine infinite Eternity, and promise himself one day in thy glory, to be united thereunto? Yea verily it were a manifest vanity, if a soul should persuade herself, that of herself, and by the strength of her own wing she could wind herself thither. But as of herself she can do nothing; so together with thee, being fortified by thee, what can she not perform o great God, since she holds her whole being of thy Grace? What may she not, what ought she not to expect from thy grace, since it is written, that thy grace is eternal life? And again with what confidence must not her heart needs be encouraged, when she shall cast the eyes of her consideration upon the great price, and infinite merits of thine eternal Son, o eternal Father a Son, who hath laid her open the way to Eternity, not by the blood of goats or calves, but acquiring unto her by his own blood an eternal and plenteous redemption. O my soul what are we not to hope from the Mercy of so good a God, and who hath loved us with an eternal and excessive Charity; a Charity so excessive, that he bestowed his own Son, to be the propitiation for our Sins. When we were dead by our crimes, his grace restored us to life. Our Saviour dying upon the Cross, did quicken us by his death, and the same reviuour doth promise us a like resurrection; and ascending unto heaven, he goes to prepare us a place before the Throne of his glory. Which made the great Apostle writing to the Ephesians, say, that God who is rich in mercy, for his exceeding Charity wherewith he loved us even while we were dead by sins, quickened us together in CHRIST, by whose grace we are salved: and hath raised us up with himself, making us sit with him in the celestials in JESUS CHRIST showing to future ages the abundant riches of his grace, through his benignity towards us in JESUS CHRIST. And the Prince of the Apostles S. PETER: Blessed be God, and the Father of our Lord JESUS CHRIST, who according to his great Mercy hath regenerated us unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of JESUS CHRIST from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and incontaminate, and that cannot fade conserved in the Heavens in you. For what ought not, those to hope for, who are inrowled, as members, in the mystical body of the Holy Church, whose head he is, being most reasonable, that the Champions should follow their Commander in his triumph, if they did accompany him in his Combats under the Banner of the Cross. You that have followed me, said he to his Apostles, you shall be set upon seats, in the Kingdom which my Father hath prepared for you in Eternity. There it is, that the Elect like unto Eagles, shall flock about the body of the glorious humanity of our Redeemour; and where, crowned with the crown of justice, they shall lay them down at the feet of this Lamb Conqueror of the earth, and who vanquished the world. And if the eternal Father hath given us his Son, how will not he give us all things with him; especially since this Son hath the key of DAVID (key, Sceptre of his Empire) upon his shoulders. A key with which he opens and none can shut. Behold, saith S. JOHN, what Charity the eternal Father hath communicated unto us, that we should be named and be his Sons: and if his Sons, his Heirs also, Heirs truly of God, and Coheires of CHRIST. It was this holy hope, that moved the Psalmists heart so generously to launch out, as by so many flight's, towards the blessed Eternity. Come let us ascend into the Hill of our Lord, and into the house of the God of JACOB. Hope in him all ye congregations of the faithful: for those that hope in him understand the truth of his promises, & those that are faithful in his love, do place their confidence therein. Those that hope in him shall not be confounded for ever: for such as put their confidence in him shall be no more shaken than the Mountain of Zion; but replenished with joy in the expectation of the eternal felicity, they cried out; I rejoiced when I was told, that we were to go into the house of our Lord. And indeed what is not a man to hope, of an infinite Bounty? what ought not one to expect from so solemn promises, and whose truth remains for ever? No Lord, never, never will I forget thy iustifications; for it is by them that thou hast given me life. I do firmly believe, that, if my soul do constantly adhere unto thee, thy right hand will receive one, into thy bosom. O how happy are those whom thou hast chosen and taken as thine, for they shall dwell in thine eternal Court for ever and ever. Let's make no doubt of it my soul, he that by his grace moves us to tend to this goal, will not forsake us in the midst of our course and in so fair a way, but, since his works are perfect, he will heap grace upon grace, and will make us happily arrive at the Port and point of all consummation. O God draw us after thee, (sith it is thee alone whom we search, and whom we covet in the night of this life) and we will run in the odour of thy parfumes. Receive us according to thy word, to th'end we may live in thee, and of thee, and confound us not in our expectation, which is wholly in thee, our unchangeable felicity, and only Eternity. A practice to engrave in our heart the memory of Eternity. LXXIV. IT is not all to sow, Athanasia, but the principal thing is to reap the crope. The Theory is fair, like unto RACHEL, but yet barren: but the Practice is fertile, like LIA, though less agreeable in the eye. It is not enough to make specious speculations: unless our actions do answer unto them, all is worth nothing: yea they serve paraduentures to lead us into ruin; for the servant that knows the will of his Master, and doth it not, shall be bet with many stripes. All that say Lord, Lord, shall not enter into glory, but those that shall observe the heavenly Father's Commandments. To enter into the Marriage of the Lamb, it is not enough to have the Lamps lighted, but there must be oil in them too. Hell is full of the chaff of good desires: but the Granary of Heaven, receives only the wheat of good works. Let us descend therefore to the Practice, before we sound the retreat; and let us put the last singer to this DRAUGHT by spiritual endeavours, whereby to imprint deeply in our hearts, this wholesome memory of Eternity, be it the Blessed, accursed, or Essential. It is reported that the great TAMERLANE, who in his time was the scourge of God, and the terror of the world, was wont in Camping himself before a Town (which shut the Gates, and resolved to withstand the dreadful forces of his troops) to put out the first day of the Siege a white Bannar, in sign of pardon, mildness and mercy, in case they should freely tender themselves up into his hands. The second day he caused a read one be hung out, to signify that in the composition, some of them should pay for it. But the third day he set out a black one, as a sign of his indignation, and to protest unto them, that there was no place left to Clemency; but that taking the Town by force, he would offer up all the inhabitants victim to DEATH, without all respect to age or sex. These three colours, Athanasia, wherewith DRAUGHTS are made (for ordinarily they are minuted upon white paper with vermilion and black) do represent unto us, those three standarts, and the reference which they have to the three sorts of Eternity's, which I have deciphered unto you. The white, as the ground, doth put before your eyes the Essential Eternity, which is the proper essence of God, the eternal foundation of all created Eternity. If we deliver ourselves up to his love and mild Clemency, we may confidently expect from this so sweet a God to them that seek him, that white stone promised to the Elect in the Apocalypse, which shall be a better mark of the reward of eternal salvation, to such as have whitened their soul in the blood of the Lamb. The read colour, which contains light in it, and is the colour of the Rose, doth prefigure unto us the Blessed Eternity, where the Roses do never fade; and where the Elect behold the light of the Divinity in the light of Glory. But withal this bloody colour doth intimate, that none arrives at this Felicity, but by the price of the blood of the Lamb; and that through the fire and water of many tribulations and sufferances, They shall be saved, according to the Apostle, yet as by the fire, of anguishes and labours. But alas how nakedly doth the black colour, a colour of mourning, sadness, and night, represent, that accursed Eternity; wherein, are exterior darkness, without all hope of day; where are gnash of teeth, and the rest of the Calamities, which rudely and weakly we have drawn. O Athanasia, to th'end that those banners, no less daunting than the Archangell's trumpet; or rather, to th'end that that which they represent, may never departed out of our view: and that this thought may not be blotted out of our soul, make a full resolution to exercise yourself in the ensuing Practices. Sithence Habits are not begotten in us, according to all Philosophy, but by often iterated Acts. If your heart be truly touched with a desire of eternal salvation, it will be like unto the Sailor's needle touched with a Loadstone, which turns continually towards the North, so your thoughts will incessantly direct themselves towards Eternity; now, towards the Blessed; now, towards the Accursed; now, towards the essential, this last embracing the two former, as the Firmament the inferior Spheres. And though the method which I am about to propose unto you, to help to stay your mind upon this Object, may seem at the first sight very simple, I would advice you, not to despise it for all that, as did NAAMAN at first the advice of the Prophet, to wash himself seven times in Iorden, if he would be delivered of his leprosy. Call to mind, that the matter of the Sacraments, which are the instruments of Divine graces, is very simple and common, yet under the veil of so slender appearances, lie hid, the infinite treasures of wisdom and Goodness. Why, even the Scripture itself sends us to Pismires, little birds and flowers to gather from them profitable lessons and instructions. Take then for your first PRACTICE (if I may have belief with you, that which hath brought a wonderful profit to some souls of mine acquaintance) to think as often of Eternity, as you hear the cloak strike, night or day. Let this sound put you in mind, that step by step you do so approach to your end, that by an insensible progress you draw near your grave; which ought to be the Gate of Eternity. And then soaring in spirit beyond transitory things, which do vanish as a shade, aspire to that blessed Eternity, not subject to the measure of time, which is the course of the Sun or the PRIMUM MOBILE, and say: when shall my feet be established upon the lively Rock, that my steps may no more slide, and that the firmament being as a pavement, I may walk upon the face of the stars. This will come to pass, my Athanasia, if you do carefully, and duly, manage the hours and moments, of which we are about to speak: and if, while time serves, you will do good deeds, which do address and bring us to Eternity. For the second PRACTICE take those three times, The morning, Noontide, and Evening, whereof DAVID makes mention, saying: In the evening, morning, and the midst of the day, I was mindful of God. And to help your memory, be attentive to the ANGELUS DOMINI BELL, which doth admonish us to recite three times the Salutation of the Angel, in honour of the Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God: and join to this pious custom the memory of Eternity, by thinking, that the Immortal became mortal, and the Eternal for your salvation did subject himself to Time, in uniting his Divinity to our humanity. How good occasion doth this descent of the Son of God into earth administer unto you, to raise up yourself to Heaven, and there to seek a permanent City for ever, in the holy Zion. Undertake this holy exercise by task, and for the space of some days; to th'end that custom may beget in you a habit, frequently to think of Eternity. For the third PRACTICE: oblige yourself by a firm purpose (yet without vow) to say every day at some hour most comodious for you, three PATER NOSTER's. And in reciting them, to think of the Blessed, accursed, and essential Eternity, which is God. Uniting yourself to the last by Love: by desire to the Blessed: detesting the accursed, rather by the correction of your manners, and amendment of life, then by empty words. For as we come not to the celestial Eternity without doing good; so we avoid not the accursed, but by flying evil. When you recite your beads, or the Crown of our Blessed Lady, a prayer very familiar to all those who make profession of piety. Let this crown of flowers, put you in mind of the flowers, which never fade, whereof the Garland of Eternity is wrought. Let the round form of this Crown make you mindful, that the Sphearicall figure which hath neither beginning nor end, is the Symbol of the essential Eternity, which never had beginning, nor shall ever have end. This you may use as a fourth PRACTICE. None can live like a good Christian, who doth not twice a day, at least, wind up the Cloak of his heart, and think of his ways, to wit, in the morning and evening: These are two times, which he that desires to live according to God, and to direct his footsteps in the paths of Peace, ought never to omit. Take then some little part of that time, to cast a look upon Eternity, that total continuance, which is never followed with evening nor morning. And beseech God Almighty, that you may so pass through temporal, that you may not lose eternal things. This shall be a fift PRACTICE for you. Let's pass to Other endeavours. LXXV. THere is nothing so frequent in the mouth of Christians, Athanasia, as the Prayer which our Lord and Master made to direct us to his heavenly Father, according to his words and spirit, to th'end that having his will in our mouth, we might be heard for the reverence of it. If you will believe me, as often as this holy Prayer shall pass through your lips, you shall call to mind the Essential Eternity by apprehending that you speak to the Eternal God. You shall think of the Blessed Eternity, in making this petition: Thy Kingdom come: and of the accursed Eternity in pronunceing that other: Deliver us from evil, since it is the collection and fullness of all evils. And let this advice pass for THE sixth ENDEAVOUR OR PRACTICE. You may do the like when piety shall move you to salute the Blessed virgin in the words of the Angel, and the Church. And when as you shall beseech her to assist you, by her intercession in the hour of your departure out of this life, call to mind that this hour shall be the time, and instant, which shall decide your Eternity. A moment, in which you will stand in great need of her assistance, to avoid the perils of Hell, and to acchive the Land of the ●ueing. Let this be the SEAVENTH PRACTICE. I say the same of the Apostles Creed. When you recite it, weigh the Articles thereof in the weights of the Sanctuary. The Communion of Saints of the Triumphant Church, with those of the Militant, And Life everlasting, and they will serve you as MEMORIALS to engrave in your soul the Memory of Eternity. Behold the EIGHT PRACTICE. Whether you assist in the solemn song of the Divine Office; or you recite your bowers apart. Remember, that for diverse reasons the holy Church hath ordained, that these two versicles should be added to the end of every Psalm, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. Even as it was in the beginning, and now and ever, etc. And that amongst the others, this is not the least prowrefull, to imprint the memory of Eternity in the minds of the Faithful. Take this for a NINGHT PRACTISE. The jews, that they might continually remember God's law, carried it about with them; yea wore it even before their eyes written upon Phylacteries or pieces of parchment: Understanding literally certain passages of the ancient Covenaunt; whereby it is commanded, that one should always behold them, that is, that one should have them as rules of their actions. I would to God, that Christians were as careful to have still before their eyes the eternal Gospel, and to that effect, they had painted Tables in their houses, to renew the memory thereof. I know some personages, who to this purpose, caused the words of a Prophet, to be written upon the chimney of their chambers in letters of Gold. WHO IS ABLE TO LIVE FOR EVER IN A CONSUMING FIRE, AND AMIDST ETERNAL FLAMES? This is facile and Fruitful, and shall be counted for the TENTH PRACTICE. An other memorial of Eternity. LXXVI. BEsides these former PRACTICES which are very familiar, I will yet bestow upon you, Athanasia, a very facile Memorial, to make you think of Eternity upon every occasion. It is the use of Aspirations, or Reflections, which the Doctors of spiritual life do so highly recommend, to such as desire to live piously, and according to God. If you will please to make use of it, you will shortly find by experience, that all things will raise you towards God, who is the essential Eternity, wherein you will represent unto yourself the different Ideas of the Blessed or accursed Eternity. All the creatures being as so many Mirrors unto you, shall discover the Image of the Eternal God. And which way so ever you turn yourself, the invisible and eternal God shall appear in visible and temporal things. All that can fall within the knowledge of your senses, shall bear you above yourself to him that passeth all understanding. Or at the least, you may make reflection upon the eternal delights or colours, which do attend you in the blessed or accursed Eternity, according to your comportment in this life. And to afford you some small scantling of that so familiar an exercise to those that are conversant in the knowledge of Saintes: As oft as you shall behold this universal object of heaven and earth, which was S. antony's great book, wherein he read in capital letters the Author's greatness, whom all this admirable fabric cost but one small word, what will hinder you to say with DAVID, o Lord how wonderful is thy name through all the world: thy magnificence is extolled beyond the Heavens; Heavens which are but the works of thy hands: Heavens which shall pass, while thou shalt still remaync thyself, since thy being is Eternity itself. In contemplating the sundry beauties which God hath disper●●● in the world, ravishing the beholder's eyes with admiration, let us say with an ancient Father, if God permit the ●se of so many goodly things even to his enemies, what will he reserve for his friends in the life to come? In beholding the Sun, the world's only eye, the fountain of light, from whence all the other stars borrow their brightness, doth not occasion present itself, in which we may consider the increated light of that God, who is all light, and whom darkness cannot obscure, who doth inhabit an inaccessible light; who is the Sun of justice: who is the true light, by which every one coming into this world is enlightened. And to lift up our thoughts towards the Sun of justice, the Orient from above, towards that heavenly City which stands in need of no Sun nor Moon, because God's brightness doth lighten it, and its Lamp is the Lamb. When the day doth enlighten us, and discover unto us so many beauties which the nightly veil doth hide from our eyes: Alas, may we say, when shall the fair day of Eternity appear, which shall be followed by no night, and where we shall see the light of the Divinity in the light of Glory? And when the night, mother of sleep and rest, shall spread her dark mantle, all beset with stars, over the face of the earth, if we desire to withdraw our thoughts from the sad night, of the accursed Eternity, marked in the Scripture with the name of exterior darkness, a night which shall never see the day of Grace or Glory, what shall hinder us, in beholding so many torches which sparkle in those celestial vaults, upon a clear night, to propose unto ourselves the Blessed, who shine as stars for perpetual Eternity's, differing in bliss & brightness, as one star differs from another. Why may we not also contemplate the essential Eternity of God under this Symbol, since it is written, he set his signet upon the darkness. That his night is as bright as day; and his darkness shineth like light. So shall the night afford us a grateful light. And during the obscurities we shall lift up our hands towards the holy places, blessing our Lord, till our change shall draw near, and that we shall see him no more after a dark manner but face to face. If the Sun's course within his annual circle, show unto us the diversity of seasons, the flowers of the Spring, and the fruits of the fall; may not these things bring him unto our consideration, who is the flower of the field, and the lily of the valley, whose lily is most flourishing; him, in a word, who is the fruit of life, the fruit of the blessed virgin's womb, the Son of the Eternal God; whose flowers are fruits of honour and honesty. And the seasons of Summer and winter in the distempered excess of their heats and cold, are they not figures of that infortunate Eternity, where the damned pass out of icy waters into flames? If we look upon the Elements whereof all the mixed bodies are composed, do not earth and Fire prefigure unto us the accursed Eternity, since the earth contains the fire of Hell with in its Centre, which shall never be extinguished. And are not the Air and Water a picture of Paradise where the Blessed do fly and swim as fool and fish in the essential Eternity? Is it not written, that the Elect, after the Doom of the last Assizes shall be taken up into the air after JESUS CHRIST? and that in heaven they shall drink of the torrent of pleasures eternally, and swim in those impetuous floods, which do make the City of God joyful? Whether we make reflection upon our own or other men's lives; or whether we consider in an others death, the picture of our own, which we cannot escape: is it not a just occasion to think of the life which shall never dye, and of that second death, which shall never live, although indeed it can never die neither? If, according to the Apostle, we may eat and drink to God's glory; why may not we also in taking our repast think of the satiety, which we hope for in his glory, when, as most happy children of the Deity, we shall be set at our heavenly Father's table, fed with the same food with himself, because we shall enjoy the same Beatitude, by which God is happy: for being happy of himself, in himself shall be our eternal happiness, when we shall be made partakers of him, made like unto him, comformable to his Image, and (to use the term of the holy Scripture) partakers of his Divine nature. While we take our repose in our bed, why may we not think of him that is eternal? and reflect upon the repose which he prepares for us in Eternity, if in the time of this mortal course we fight lawfully for him. O God, thou art my repose for ever and ever, I have made choice of the bosom of thy goodness to remain therein eternally. Who will give me the wings of a Dove to fly up to that assured repose; and to pass into the place of the admirable Tabernacle even unto the house of God? We may entertain ourselves with the same thoughts upon Sunday, the day of rest and repose: seeing we are commanded to cease from corporal labours, to be free to contemplate the Divine Goodness, and that delicate Sabbath, which the Saints enjoy in Eternity; for there it is, saith the holy Ghost, that they rest from labours, and where they reap in joy, what they had sown in tears. Upon festival days, whether it be of the mysteries of our holy Faith, or of the solemnities of our Saviour JESUS, of his holy mother, or of Saintes, can we be employed in a better thought, then with the desire of imitating them, to meet them in Eternity, by walking in the paths which they have marked us out? For in vain should we boast that we are members of JESUS CHRIST, and children of Saints, if we refuse to walk as they have walked; that so following their example, we may come to be made worthy unto the part of the lot of Saints in the light of eternal felicity. Upon work days, which the Church Office calls ferialls, we are to think, that none comes to the eternal Ferialls but by labours and sufferances. Whereupon the Scripture counseleth us to walk towards goodness while the day lasteth, and carefully to put our hand to the work, while time is favourable, and the day proper to work our salvation in. Whether we be sitting, standing, or walking, every posture of our body represents Eternity. Sitting should reduce unto our memory the empty Seats of the Angels fallen from Heaven, which remain for us to fill and repair their ruins. And the Seats also prepared for those who are to judge the world together with our Saviour. If we stand, let us think of that which the Psalmist saith, we were strait upon our feet in thy porches o Jerusalem. If we walk, at every step we are to be mindful to advance in the way of Jerusalem. And that not to go forward in the way of God is to go backward. In attireing ourselves let us think of the Blessed, who are invested with light, as with a garment: and of those pure creatures, which in Heaven follow the Lamb where ever he goes, in habits which put down the snow in whiteness. O God may we sigh out, when shall we be clad with thyself, invested with JESUS CHRIST, adorned with the wedding garment, and be admitted to the eternal banquet of the marriages of the Lamb. When we hear the word of God preached unto us by the mouth of the Preacher, why should not that word of God, stir up our hearts to that God WORD, to that word eternal, an essential WORD eternally uttered by the Father, the Splendour of his Fatherhood, Light of Light, Image of his substance, towards that WORD in whom all things were made, and who hath truly the words of life, and life everlasting. O Divine, sacred, and essentially eternal WORD, it is of thee as of their true bread, that the Elect do feed in Heaven, thou art he, whom they preciously conserve in their hearts. O Truth of God, o God of TRUTH thou remaynst for ever. Heaven and earth shall pass, but this eternal WORD shall never pass. When we assist in the Divine Office, and praise God in the midst of his Temple, why may not we excite our hearts towards that perfect praise, which God himself doth give unto himself in Eternity: or to that which the Angels and Elect do render unto him in Heaven, when they call him thrice, HOLY, in so grave a tune, and so full a music, that the gates of Heaven are moved in it. Benediction, praise, and virtue be to him who is seated upon the Throne, and to the Lamb, who hath redeemed us in his blood, from every Tribe, people, and nation, and hath placed us in his eternal Kingdom. But principally when we are present at the CATHOLIC SACRIFICE, wherein the Lamb without spote who takes away the sins of the world, is offered to his heavenly Father, in an unbloody manner. o God than it is, that we ought with all the Court of the Church Triumphant, to incens the holy Altar, with incense everlasting in an humbly loving adoration, which riseth up as an incense burnt before the face of God. Then it is, that we are to do our duties to him, who is Priest for ever according to the Order of MELCHISEDECH: and who being an eternal Bishope, not needing to pray for himself, yet made his entry into the Sanctuary of Eternity, not by the blood of beasts, but by his own, offering himself up to his Father an oblation for the sins of all mankind. Like as all things seem yellow to such as are sick of the ganders; and as that which is seen through a coloured glass, doth appear to be of the same colour: So when a soul hath accustomed itself by frequent aspirations to think of Eternity, every thing, be it what it will, recalls this Object to her memory. The beauty of Towns and Palaces doth presently represent unto her the riches of the incomparable Jerusalem, such as it is described in the Apocalypse; and that Palace of the Divinity far other then that of DAVID and SALOMON, which the Scripture doth so richly describe. An old Hermit beholding the Roman TRIUMPHS in their magnifical Pomp: what shall the triumphant Jerusalem be, quoth he, if such splendour and glory be seen even in earth? O Lord, will we say with the Psalmist, how happy are they that live in thy house, far beyond those that live in the Tabernacles of Sinners! O how goodly are the Tents of JACOB for ever! how the Mansions in the house of the Heavenly Father, are diversified, and ! How amiable are thy Porches, o Lord God of virtue's my soul is transported in consideration thereof! These worldly magnificencies which we daily see, aught to be so many ladders to a good soul, to ascend to those that are eternal, which are only to be found in his Abode, who is great and laudable in his holy City, and his eternal Hill, whose greatness is infinite. The sight of humane miseries will make the like impression in her by sending her down to Hell alive, to behold there, calamities incomparably greater, in their extremity, and eternal continuance. Yea if she behold malefactors led to execution by humane justice, it makes her think of the eternal justice of God, which is inflicted upon the damned, without all hope of ease or delivery. Nay if she do but see a beast die, she is moved to pity those poor creatures, whose Felicity expires with their life. If she take into her consideration the great ones of this world, that which is written occurs unto her mind, that the Powerful shall be powerfully tormented. In beholding Kings and Princes she doth rather pity then envy their condition, when she calls to mind, that they shall die like other men. That all their glory shall pass as the flower of the field; and that their Diadems and honours of so short standing, hath nothing comparable to that Kingdom, where the King of Kings reigns with his Elect, whom he makes participant of his Royalty, but a Royalty that is everlasting, a Kingdom that knows no end. If she cast her ey down upon the poor and little ones, who are here below the refuse of the world, and the scorn of men, she apprehends them happy, because to them, as to a poor LAZARUS, an eternal Kingdom is promised. If war and peace occur unto her thoughts, they do forthwith draw with them the memory of both the Eternity's. The accursed, where there is a continual war without Peace: The Blessed, where there rain a happy Peace without all fear of war. Yea hereby, she falls upon the Essence of that eternally great God, who in the Scriptures, is sometimes styled the God of Peace, sometimes the God of armies, and revenge. The sight of the Sea, floods, rivers, and fountains, make her remember the same: for she thinks of the fountain of Paradise, of the source of life springing towards Eternity; she thinks of the flood of the City of God, and of the infinite Ocean of the essential Eternity, of the eternal essence: whose is the Sea, saith DAVID, and who made this receptacle of waters. In what estate soever, a soul that is seasoned with this holy exercise, be, whether in prosperity or adversity, in joy or grief, in consolation or desolation, in privation or fruition, in pleasure or pain, in sickness or health be she in grace or disgrace with the world, in plenty or want, be it amidst riches, or in the press of poverty, all doth cooperate to good. And all this placeth Eternity before her eyes, beholding the accursed, in afflictions; the blessed, in contentment: and the eternal God in every thing, & every thing in the eternal God. To whom keeping an invariable fidelity, in the various change of things, she pronounceth courageously with the Apostle, whether we live or die we are our Lords. I will bless him at all times, his praise shall be continually in my mouth. Whether he draw us up to Heaven, or he depress us down into the Abisses below; whether he do mortify, or quicken us, his love shall be so strong unto me (love which is more strong than death or Hell) that nothing shall ever be able to separate me from his charity. Yea she will rather be unmindful of herself, then forget this dear Jerusalem of that Eternity, wherein she hath cast the Ankre of all her hopes, and of her salvation. Exercise yourself therefore frequently and faithfully in this Practice of Aspirations and jaculatory Prayers, which are so familiar to all those that profess true piety: and you will find by experience, that as by means thereof you come to see God in all things, so shall you easily discover thereby in every thing the Blessed or accursed Eternity (since Fortune and misfortune are the two basons, or rather the two Poles of this life, and the two Casks or tunns, of Providence, according to that ancient Philosopher's conceit) or at least to contemplate therein the essential Eternity, which is God, the Centre wherein all our desires and asperations do end. The moments where upon Eternity doth depend. LXXVII. O God, Athanasia, what am I about to say, this Eternity which shall never have end, is not yet, in respect of us, without beginning, and it is that which the Divines call Euiternitie; for God alone, being his own Eternity, is without beginning or end. But all other creatures who were made in TIME had a beginning; yet true it is that both Angels and men shall be eternal, marry, in the time to come, for they had a beginning, and were not from all Eternity. Now as we have had a beginning, and shall have no end, (whether our wicked life do precipitate us into eternal punishments; or our good endeavours, assisted by God's grace, make us a way to eternal life.) So our passage to the blessed or accursed Eternity, depends of a moment as of its principle. O Athanasia, how attentive ought we to be to understand that dreadful moment whereupon depends our Eternity. If you ask me which it is, I will discover unto you, in the next stroke, that it comprehends all the moments of this mortal life. But as in a plenteous heruist, there are always some ears of come more notable than the rest; and amongst the stars, those which are nearest the two Poles are the most remarkable; so amongst the moments of which our mortal life are composed, I would wish that we should have a principal care of the two, of which I am about to speak. The first is the precious moment in which the Divine grace doth touch our hearts, called by the Scripture the time of our visitation, a moment of such importance, that being rightly received, it is the blossom of our blessed Eternity, but being ill managed, it is the beginning of our accursed Eternity. Woe be to thee, said our Saviour weeping, o Jerusalem, because thou hast not discerned the time of thy visitation. O God, Athanasia, how we shall be astonished, when before the Tribunal of the just judge, where we must all appear, we shall hear our selves accused of so many negligences, for that we have either despised the Divine inspirations, or that we have abused so many heavenly graces which could have given us life, if we had been dead by sin; or life more abundantly, if we were already in grace; according as it is written. How much was that slothful lover of the Canticles grieved, when she perceived that her Spouse was passed by, who had stood at her Chamber door quaking with cold and beseeching entry by so many loving invitations, and advantagous' promises? She riseth, but to late; she runs full of desolation into diverse places, but fines him not, till after a thousand and a thousand labours, affronts, & reproaches. But what a heart break shall it be to the reprobate soul, when after her condemnation she shall clearly see, how many occasions of working her salvation she had neglected; and how many means she had to free herself from the torments to which she shall see herself adjudged for ever? We sennselesse, say the damned speaking of the Elect, esteemed their life (who wrought their own salvation) madness, themselves, dasterous and dishonourable, but now we see, their lot is in the inheritance of Saintes. On the other side, what a consolation shall it be to thee Blessed, when they shall consider, that their well employed moments of affliction in earth, had wrought in them an eternal weight of Glory. Let us, therefore be careful of ourselves, Athanasia, Let us mark what our Saviour speaks in our hearts, and doubtless we shall understand words of Peace, and reconcilement. Blessed is the man that heareth him, and watcheth at his doors daily, which we do, when we are earefull to gather up his inspirations, as the drops of a heavenly dew which begets precious Pearls in our hearts, and the holy unions of our soul with God. Let's still be on foot, and as it were, stand Sentinel upon our ways; let us think in what sort we walk; let us turn our feet into the Paths of the Divine Law. The SECOND MOMENT is that which makes a separation betwixt our soul and our body, that is, the instant of our departure out of this life, a moment which is our last, and is to be judge of all those that went before. For as the Tree remains for ever where it falls; so shall we continue for ever in the, state in which we are found in the instant of our death. And such as God shall find us then, such will he judge us. For if all this life be but a weighing to Eternity, death is to be termed the door of Eternity, yet a double door, passing the good to felicity; the wicked to eternal miseries. And if PHILIPPE MACEDO, to contain himself within the bounds of temperance and modesty in his Kinglike greatness, made a Page advertise him every morning that he was a Man, and consequently, mortal, lest he might have framed some immortal conceit of himself: How much more ought a Christian, continually to call to mind that double Eternity, which attends him after death. The present moment. LXXVIII. But besides these two moments which I have proposed unto you, Athanasia, I do so much desire that you would attend, and apply yourself to the consideration of Eternity, that I would wish from my heart, that all the moments of your life were employed in that exercise; that I might apply to you that of the Prophet, you are a nightly Sentinel of this life, and might one day see you, amongst the wise Virgins in the eternal banquet of the marriage of the Lamb. I could wish that at every breathing, you would cast an eye towards Eternity; that at every beating of a pulse, every thought, word, action, you would make some reflection upon a subject of such importance. It is said that the weakness of Antipheron his sight, making the air become as thick as a mirror unto him, made him continually see his own shape: and I wish to God, that the force of your fight were so piercing, that in all things you might behold the picture of Eternity, according to the method I have proposed unto you. For when all is said, if you desire indeed to know, the moment whereupon the good or bad success of your Eternity depends, I will assure you, it is THE PRESENT MOMENT. Enter therefore into yourself by a wholesome inversion, return into your own heart, make a visit in the Jerusalem of your interior man with the lamp of a sincere examen. Consider in what state you stand. Whether you are not in the state of disgrace, and set in the chair of pestilence, and in the region of the shadow of death and darkness of sin. Give ear unto the voice of grace which cries out unto you, rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and CHRIST will illuminate thee: he is the true light which doth illuminate every man that comes into this world, and he that follows him walks not in darkness. This Sunne of justice makes his beams shine upon the good and bad. Open thine eyes, and receive his splendour, and be not rebellions against the light. Why wilt thou perish o house of Israel? approach unto him who is the light of the world, and thou shalt be enlightened, and thy face shall not he confounded. He shines in every time and place, and none is able to hide himself from his heat, or light. He is a Sun that doth continually send out his raises, we need only to open our eyes, and every moment they shall be filled with light. I stand at the gate, and knoke, saith he, and if any one open unto me, I will come unto him, and will take my repose and repast with him, for I will sup with him, a repast, Athanasia, to which repose doth immediately follow. In every instant of your life, these words are spoken to your heart. The night is past, the day is come, let's us cast of then the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light, that we may honestly walk in the light of Grace. You know what the Poetes learned fables, teach, touching OCCASION, and how one is to lay hold upon her, she passeth like lightning, in the twinkling of an eye, and being passed, in vain do you call, or endeavour to stoup her, since she is bald and affords no hold; and withal deaf and inexorable to such as recall her. If you hear me, saith our Lord by a Prophet, you shall eat the pleasant fruits of the earth, but if you hear me not, I will destroy you, and will laugh at your destruction; for I am a strong and jealous God, and make such disdainful as disdain me. When I come to a soul I will be received; and when I come in quality of Spouse, I desire to be met; and that my grace be not received in vain. My spirit shall fly the dissembler, and such as do not receive him; so as is beseeming that sweet guest of the soul. And though I operate all the good which is in the soul, yet will I that she cooperate, performing a part of the way, or at least admitting my favours into the bosom of her consent, and remembrance. I will give sight to the blind, but I will also have them to demand it. I will willingly cleanse the unclean, yet will I have her endeavours in recurring to my Goodness. I will willingly give the pap, marry upon condition that she shall suck it. I will freely enlighten, yet will I have her to receive my light. I hate those remiss and drowsy souls who prolong their conversion from day to day, and who of their own part will do nothing: for though I created them without them, yet without them will I not save them. I will create in them a clean heart, and renew a right spirit in their bowels. I will render unto them the joy of my salvation, and confirm them with my principal Spirit, yet of their part I will have them to put of their old ADAM, with his ill customs, and put on the new, accompaigned with justice, Sanctity, and Truth. Thus it is, Athanasia, that our Saviour speaks to the souls, which seriously and duly think of their conversion, and Eternity. Every moment he useth these kind of discourses in the bottom of our heart. Let's be good husbands thereof. If this day his voice sound in your ears, wax not hard hearted, for otherwise, if you will not accnowledge his ways, he will swear in his wrath, that you shall never enter into his eternal Rest. Sluggard how long wilt thou sleep? how long, o ye heavy hearted, Will you be in love with vanity, and seek after a Lie. Are you ignorant that the Goodness of God, hath long enough expected your repentance; do you not know what an ancient Father saith, that the Holy Ghost is an enemy to slothfulness and delays? Do not delay your conversion, saith the wiseman, nor defer it from day to day, lest you be prevented by a sudden death, and wishing for time of repentance, you find it not. Who is not to day fit for his conversion shall be less fit to morrow, because one sin, saith S. GREGORY, by its own weight, weighs us down to another, one Abyss invoking another. Know then, Athanasia, that every moment is proper to convert ourselves unto God. And what is a true conversion, but an aversion from the Creature, and a returning towards the Creator, that is, a contempt of the world which passeth with its concupiscences, and an application of the Spirit to eternal things. So shall every present moment serve you for a gate, by which you may pass from TIME'S and MOMENT'S to ETERNITY. The eternal doom. LXXIX. ANd here it is, my Athanasia, where I am to imitate the torch, which being upon the point of dying out, casts the greatest light: for before I finish, and put the last fingar to this Draught, I must send out fire and flames: which I will do, by proposing unto you, the most forcible and efficacious motive that can be imagined, to cause you to think continually of Eternity. And what is this sharp spur, Athanasia, but the definitively eternal Sentence, which the just judge of the living and the dead, shall pronounce in his general judgement at Doom's day, when he shall make an eternal separation betwixt goats and the Lambs; the choice wheat and darnel; the wicked and the just? And if S. HIEROME had so deeply engraven, in his heart, the memory of the resurrection of the dead, which shall be performed upon the sound of the last Trumpet, that at every moment, whether he waked or slept, he apprehended that he heard that voice of terror: Rise o ye dead, and appear before the Tribunal of the living God: how much more reason have we to think of the issue and conclusion, than the preparation of this solemn judgement, since the sentence doth irrevocably decree what shall become of us for all Eternity? Before and above all things, said PACOMIUS, let us keep before our eyes the last of all the days: and all the moments of our life, let us think, and throughly think of Eternity. A remarkable Sentence, and even worthy to be engraven with an iron pen, not only, in a plate of lead, but in the hardest marble and flint stone, as said the good JOB. The mother of Simphorian said unto her son while he was haled unto Martyrdom, my dear child, the fruit of my womb, the beloved of my vows, turn thine eyes towards Heaven, consider him that reigns there for ever: renounce him not for a moment of life: the pains of death will quickly be passed; but the reward shall never end. And S. FRANCIS, to encourage his Religions to the linger martyrdom of a religions life, said unto them; Brothers, great are the things which we have promised unto God; yet infinitely greater things, God hath promised unto us: The labour is short: the reward is eternal. The pleasure doth post by; the pain is permanent. Many are called, few are elected, & every one receives according to his works. But especially at that great day, which is the judge of all the rest, every one shall be rewarded according to his works; and God shall reveal that which is shut up in darkness, and shall manifest the secrets of hearts. A day so dreadful, that the powers of Heaven shall be moved; the Angels shall quake with fear, when the Almighty shall come to judge the world. It is not my purpose, Athanasia, to entertain you with the horrors of that day, which would require a whole volume. I will only place before your eyes the eternal Gospel, or rather the irrevocable sentence, which shall proceed from his mouth, who shall judge the people in equity, who shall judge nations; and to whom his Father hath given all judgement in heaven and in earth, and which shall issue from thence like lightning and thunder, fare more dreadful than that which did appear upon the top of the mount Sina, when our Lord delivered his law unto Israel, by the hand of MOSES' Mediator between God and the people. O Saviour of the world, thou shalt be then a lamb Dominatour of the earth, to the good; but to the reprobate a roaring Lion. When the Lion gins to roar in the Forest, there is neither passenger, nor yet wildebeasts, that do not quake, and hide themselves. O how shall the damned dread thy voice resembling that of thy thunder in the wheel of thy fury, since they shall invoke the mountains to fall down upon them, to hide them before the face of thy wrath; for who knows the force of thine indignation: or who is able to some up the effects thereof. How penetrating shall the two edged sword be, which shall proceed from thy mouth, whilst thou shalt thunder out against them that eternal doom, which shall reach even unto the division of their soul and their spirit, of their joints also and their marowes. GO YE ACCURSED INTO ETERNAL FIRE. O, Athanasia, who is able without astonishment to utter, without swonding to understand, so dismaying and dreadful words? Be gone. Alas dread Lord whither shall they go, to avoid the encounter of thy spirit, and to convey themselves from before thy wrathful countenance? art thou not in Heaven, in Hell, and every where? dost thou not even fill heaven and earth? dost thou not hold the universe in thy hand? and doth not thy power comprehend all things? Be gone. But to whom shall they betake themselves? art not thou he, who hath the words of eternal life, who art even thyself life everlasting? Be gone. Whither wilt thou have those Prodigals to retire themselues? do what they can, they cannot go out of thee, since in thee, all things have motion, being, and life. Be gone. But whither shall those ABSALON's resort for succour, being eternally banished from the Court of the eternal DAVID, King of ages, immortal and invisible? Be gone. O what a word! or rather what a Thunder bolt, able to strike Lucifer down into the Abyss of Hell! oh Saviour JESUS! in the day of thy flesh, in the time of thy sufferances, when, like an innocent Lamb thou wast lead to be sacrificed, if this word. It is I, was able to prostrate upon the ground the troops of Soldiers: How shall that word of reprobation precipitate them, whom thou drivest eternally from the Paradise of thy presence? Be gone. o banishing sword of the Angel of the high Council: who dost banish for an Eternity the Betrayers of the heavenly inheritance! Be gone. o! Athanasia, if the Ancient prophets were struck with such astonishment, while God, appearing unto them under diverse forms, did impart unto them his will and pleasure, as to his friends, and Ambassadors, to be the Interpreters of the same to the people: and if the only vision of the Angels of light put them into a trance, as we read even of S. JOHN in his Apocalypse, falling prostrate at the feet of the Angel, as though he had fallen down dead. If Israel, while he heard God thunder and lighten upon the Mount-Sina, said unto MOSES, speak thou unto us, and we will understand thee, but let not our Lord speak, lest we may dye, and continuing in his apprehension, if we hear any more, said he, the voice of our Lord God, infallibly we are dead (for what flesh is able to sustain the word of the living God, speaking out of the midst of flames, as we hear him?) how dreadful I pray you must the condemning voice of the inexorable judge needs be? The Prophet isaiah, seeing, in spirit only, the destruction of babylon, was touched with so deep a compassion, that he affirmed, that his reines were filled with dolour, and his anguish was like to that of a woman in childbirth, that he fell backward in hearing its Condemnation, was troubled in beholding it, withered away with apprehension, and was involved in darkness through amaysement thereof. Then, saith the same Prophet, speaking of the last judgement; the day of the fury of the God of Hosts, shall be terrible to the proud, arrogant, and haughty. Then, saith JEROMIE, they shall be confounded who not have considered that eternal reproach. Then, goes on isaiah, The Almighty will make the Majesty of his voice be heard, and will manifest the fearful force of his arm, in the consummation of his wrath, and in the flame of devouring fire. For even as a fire, saith the Psalmist, which burneth a wood, and as a flame that burneth the mountains; so shalt thou pursue them in thy tempest, who shall be the object of thy wrath. Then, the Almighty, saith the wiseman, by his own virtue, shall trample under his feet the neck of the proud and powerful. Be gone accursed. O God what a second thunder bolt shall fall upon the heads of the Reprobate, by this eternal curse: a curse, which doth comprehend in itself, in an eminent manner, all the torments, which everlastingly they are to endure in Hell. Be gone thou accursed figue tree. Be gone barren trees, twice dead, rooted out of the blessed earth, and are only fit to be cast into the fire. Be gone, you are not worthy to take up place, in the garden of my delights: where I plant none but trees that bear good fruit. Go you accursed into eternal fire. Go into devoureing flames: take up your Abode in eternal fires. The blast of my wrath shall kindle the brimstone of the furnace, wherein you burn, as long as I shall be God. Athanasia, I leave to your meditation, the rest of this horrible sentence, which in the twinkling of an eye shall be put in execution, ingeniously confessing unto you, that my quakeing pen doth fall from its flight; as did the birds of old, which flew over the accursed lake of Pentapolis. But let's turn our eyes from this tragical spectacle, let's give an attentive ear to the sweet voice of the Spouse of the elected foul. o how delightful shall this voice be, and how justly may the Elect say with the Psalmist, o how sweet is thy word, o Lord, to our taste, yea, it is more sweet than the honey comb. Lo here the sentence of their eternal felicity. Come o what an actractive word is this, able even to draw out of the Abyss of nothing, that which yet hath no being, sith God doth call that which is not as that which is, giving being to that which is not, by his powerful word. Come. With what promptitude shall the Elect spring up into the air, to present themselves before their Spouse, and to obey his blissful commands, wholly to be desired, yea the crown and accomplishment of all their desires. Though they were as unsensible as iron, this loadstone will draw them, TWO, it will draw them after itself in the sweet odour of this invitation. Come. This word doth intimate a perfect union of grace and Glory, which shall transform the Blessed into God, participating of his felicity, and shall translate them into the inheritance of the children of the eternal Father. Come ye blessed, o benediction far passing that of the old Patriarches, and which contains in it the fatness of the wishful soil, and all the dew of Heaven, quite putting down the dew of Hermon, which doth disperse itself all over the Mountain of Zion. O how blessed are they who are blessed by our Lord who made Heaven and earth: They shall dwell for ever in the Land of Promise, a Land of benediction, freed from all captivity by the presence of our Lord. A Land which doth flow with the milk and honey of Divine blessings; a Land abunding with the bread of Angels, with heavenly Manna, where the Elect possessed of a constant peace, shall enjoy a plenteous repose. In this happy day, allotted for justice and Mercy, an invariable plenty of Peace shall befall the just, and the Moon of change shall be taken away. Here it is, Athanasia, that I would invite you to ruminate with me, that Divine sally of love and desire of the great S. AUGUSTINE. Bring to pass that I may love thee o Lord, and if I love thee not yet enough, effect that I may love thee more. Certes, it is not possible for me to know, in what measure I want necessary love; this only I know, that all plenty which is not my God, is to me mere misery and want. O how happy is he, saith the Psalmist, who hath his desires filled with him. And who indeed can be said to be completely rich, but he that is saciated with his glory, and inebriated with the abundance of the delights of his house. Come ye blessed of my Father and receive the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world. O what a Kingdom! o what a crown! Crown of gold, beset with signs of sanctity, glory, and honour, liveries of valour! Come my beloved, saith he to those elect souls, come and you shall be crowned. This eternal and infinitely happy Kingdom, saith S. ISIDORUS, in what ever respect it be considered, is promised to all kind of people; and yet, (o humane blindness!) few speak of it, few think of it, and that but rarely too. Worldly entertaynements are stuffed with frivolous and impertinent discourses: rarely do we hear any news of Heaven and that heavenly life which shall never have end. This is a miserable straying from the right way. Our life is lent us to breath after Eternity. Nor it is suitable to the condition of a Christian to hope for any glory or felicity which is not eternal. Those that do undertake any long voyage, or famous pilgrimage, as that of the Holy Land, do entertain themselues in the way with on other thought, then that of the place whither they tend, solacing their weariness with the sweet memory of that which they hope to see there. O Athanasia, what ought we to do in this sade exile (where we are Pilgrims and Passengers, after the manner of our forefathers, where we wander and stray from God) but to place our thoughts upon the country whither we travel, upon the City of permanent abode, whither we breath, and to refresh our labours by the blessed hope of the wished period of our pilgrimage: and withal to imitate the Traveller (who contenting himself upon the way with pure necessaries, holds on without stop or stay, or looking backward) making use of temporal things only, to advance us in our way to Eternity. O how full of glory is this Kingdom, sings the holy Church, where all the Saints do reign with God. And who will give force to the wings of our desires, to aim and fly towards this mark, during the whole course of our mortal life: a happy course, if it arrive at so wishful an end. But now it is high time, that to free our pencil we give the last touch to this Draught by an Adoration of the essential Eternity. LXXX. O Great God Eternal Essence! ESSENTIAL ETERNITY! why, it is thee in fine, which before and above all things, I desire, and seek for. And if I aspire after the Blessed Eternity, the reason is, because it is no other thing than thyself, who art, and who doth make eternal life, which without thee and out of thee, would neither be nor estimable. Behold all my desire is before thee, and I pour out my prayer in thy presence, which hath no other aim but inseparably and eternally to unite myself unto thy Goodness, to hold it, and never to be separated from it, to seek thy face, to search for thy fair countenance, the only Object of mine eternal felicity. Give thyself unto me, o my God: behold I love thee, and give thee my whole heart. Thou desirest not the man but for his heart; nor the heart but for love; nor love, but to communicate thy goodness to a reasonable creature, and by such communication to make it eternally happy. Thou wouldst, o Lord, have me aspire after this communication, the top of our sovereign Beatitude, when thou commandest me to pray unto thee that thy Kingdom come. It is this only thing, which I beg of thy bounty, that I may dwell with thee, that is to say, in thee, for all Eternity. I love the beauty of thy house which is no other than thine own essence, and the sole aim of my desires, is the place of thy glory. Let me rest therein for ever and ever, and according to my election and dilection let me dwell there everlastingly. Yet that I may enter thither according to thy pleasure o my GLORY, o my MERCY, o my God, my Light, my Salvation! Lo how I lay down all my pretensions and proper interests at the Gate of thy holy Zion, renouncing from my very heart the spirit of bondage and servile fear, which would make me fly the accursed Eternity for no other reason, (o disaster!) then that I should be there the eternal Object of thy wrath, and hatred: renouncing also that mercenary spirit, which would make me wish for the Blessed Eternity for other ends, then to love, bless and praise thee therein for ever. No Lord, I will have no other motive to love, and look after thee, than thyself, who art soveraignely amiable and desirable. I will behold thee directly in thyself, and apply myself entirely unto thee, because thou art my God, and because o my dear God, thou art what thou art. Thou art all my riches, all my pretensions; for that I know in seeing thee, I shall see, and possess in thee all good things. Thou thyself art the reward of every good work: and he is unworthy of all laurels, who seeks for any other but thyself; for thou art a far more ample recompense to those ●hat love thee, than man is able to conceive. It is to thee then alone, o Divine Eternity, o eternal Divinity, that I consecrate all my desires, all my thoughts. It is to thee, o eternal Being, that I consecrate all my being, in time and Eternity. It is to the Trinity of thy Divine Persons, to whom I dedicate the three powers of my soul. To the ADORATION of thy powerful fecundity I consecrate my MEMORY o eternal Father. To thy WISDOM, o eternal Son, begotten of the Father by his understanding, I dedicate my UNDERSTANDING. To thee, o HOLY GHOST, the reciprocal Love of the Father and the Son proceeding from their one will, I offer up my will. O Father of light, grant me the LIGHT of thy Glory, that one day I may clearly see, that which I now believe by the light of FAITH. O eternal WORD bestow thyself upon me, that I may possess in Heaven, that which I seek by HOPE. O Holy Ghost, make me partaker of thine infinite BEAUTY, to th'end I may one day enjoy that which now I embrace by CHARITY. Yes Lord I am wholly thine, be thou also wholly mine, and receive me according to thy word, and let me not be confounded in my expectation. Thou art mine Eternity, like as thou art my salvation and my hope. Thou art the only Eternity which I pretend; grant that I may praise thee everlastingly, and according to thy word, espouse my soul in a lively Faith, espouse it for ever: For with all the sincerity of heart, and purity of intention, that I can possibly conceive and speak, I give thee this assurance of my fidelity by a solemn protestation in the words of the Divine Psalmist. No Lord I will nothing neither in Heaven nor earth but thyself: for thou art the God of my heart, and the only part which I pretend in the Eternity of Eternity's. FINIS.