THE HOLY COURT IN FIVE TOMES: The FIRST, Treating of MOTIVES, Which should excite men of Quality to CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.  
The SECOND, Of the PRELATE, SOLDIER, STATESMAN, and LADY.  
The THIRD, Of MAXIMS of CHRISTIANITY AGAINST profaneness, Divided into Three Parts, viz. DIVINITY, GOVERNMENT OF THIS LIFE, & STATE OF THE OTHER WORLD.  
The FOURTH, Containing the Command of REASON over the PASSIONS.  
The FIFTH, Now first published in English, and much augmented according to the last Edition of the AUTHOR; Containing the LIVES of the most Famous and Illustrious COURTIERS; taken both out of the OLD and NEW TESTAMENT, and other Modern Authors.  
Written in French by NICHOLAS CAUSSIN, S. J. Translated into English by Sr. T. H. and others.  
LONDON, Printed by WILLIAM BENTLEY, and are to be sold by JOHN WILLIAMS, in Paul's Churchyard. MDCL.   

THE HOLY COURT.   

 bookseller's device of John Williams? DEUS EST NOBIS SOL ET SCUTUM   

Caeca Cupido ruit caecusque Cupido Via Regia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 
THE HOLY COURT  dixi Dij estis et filij excelsi omnes 〈…〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 
〈…〉 Solomon ex ad perfectum Vsque perduxit  Reg. 3. G. G. sculp.   

To the MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY OF HENRIETTE-MARIA, QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN.  
A COURT adorned with virtue, and sanctified with piety, is here, most EXCELLENT QUEEN, to your view presented; which having once already in pure and Native colours received light and life from the bright eye of your Royal BROTHER, would gladly at this time, in a harsher language and ruder garment, adventure your gracious acceptance.  
The subject is serious, the discourse useful, and proper for those, who in Court so serve Princes, that they neglect not an humble acknowledgement to a more transcendent Greatness.  
It hath pleased GOD, as a singular favour to this Kingdom, to afford us in your Majesty a pious Queen, who exemplarly maketh good, what diffusedly is here handled. Let then lesser lights borrow beams of radiance, from your greater Orbs; and persist You, Glorious Example of virtue, to illuminate and heat our Northern Clime with celestial ardours. Add to earthly Crowns, heavenly Diadems of Piety.  
Here shall a HOLY COURT be found fairly delineated; nor can I see how it will be in the power of persons of best eminence, to plead ignorance, and pretend inability; they having such a Book to direct them, and such a Queen to follow.  
Led then with alacrity, most Sacred MAJESTY, and may propitious Heaven so prosper your holy desires, that the Greatest may have matter to imitate, and the whole Nation to admire.   

TO THE KING OF FRANCE.  
SIR,  
THis Treatise of the Holiness of Courts, before it be published, comes forth to behold the great and divine lights, wherewith God hath environed your Majesty, whom he hath chosen out to sanctify the COURT, by means of two reflections, which are, the Example of your virtues, and the Authority of your Laws. As for example, You supply as much as in a Prince may be desired, who hath brought innocency into the Throne of Majesty, as an earnest-penny of Royalty, and whitened the very Flowers-de-luce, by the purity of your heart and hands. This argument, in my opinion, should powerfully operate in the hearts of Frenchmen: For it would be a disorder in Nature, to see bad subjects under a good Prince, to plant vice in the Kingdom of Virtue, and to have a body of mortar, and feet of clay, affixed to a head of Gold. It is fit impudence should be extremely shameless, not to blush, when the sparkling lustre of a Crown casteth into the eyes the glimmering flashes of so great a Piety.  
Where example cannot reach, Kings have Laws, which are given them from Heaven, as hands of gold and iron, to recompense merits, and chastise crimes. And as your Majesty, SIR, from your most tender years, hath showed a singular propension to the detestation of Impiety, and maintenance of Justice, that causeth me to say, Your Majesty hath great means to make the COURT essentially holy, which the disability of my pen cannot express but on paper. It is a work worthy of a Christian King, who standeth in the midst of Kings, and Nations, as heretofore the statue of the Sun in the midst of public passages.  
Royal hands cannot be better employed, than to erect the Trophies of Sanctity. That is it which all the first have done; CONSTANTINE in the Roman Empire, CLODOVAEUS in France, RICAREDUS in Spain, ETHELBERT in England, CANUTUS in Denmark, WENCESLAUS in Poland.  
All those, who have taken that way, have been glorious in the memory of men: whilst others, that have prepared Altars and Tables to Fortune (as saith the Prophet Isaiah) erecting Monarchy on humane Maxims, have built on the quicksands of imaginary greatness, which hath served them to no other purpose, but to measure their fall. Vice and Voluptuousness cannot immortalize men; since they have nothing lasting in them, but the sorrow of their infancy, and the infamy of their name. All the greatness and happiness of a Prince, is to make in his virtues a visible image of invisible Divinity, then to imprint the same on his subjects, as the Sun doth his brightness on the Rain bow.  
SIR, Your Majesty knoweth it by proper experience; God hath made you to read the decrees of good success, written as it were, with the rays of your piety. By how much the more you are affected to the service of the great Master, so much the more the good success of affairs hath followed your desires. You have seen your battle's end in bays, and the thorns of your travels to grow all up into Crowns. And as we are ever in this world to merit, so we ought to hope, that so many worthy acts, will also with time take their just increase; and that you shall sow new virtues on earth, to reap felicities in Heaven: Lastly, that he, who hath given you the entrance of Solomon into the Kingdom, will grant you the exit of David. This is the vow which offereth to God  
SIR, Of Your MAJESTY, The most humble, most faithful, and obedient Subject, N. CAUSSIN.   

TO THF NOBILITY OF FRANCE.  
SIRS,  
THis Work, as it is composed for your sakes, offereth itself to your hands, without bearing any other ornament on the brow, but the reflection of Truth, any other recommendation, than the worth of the subject. It is not the abundant store of sanctity in the Courts of our Age, which maketh this styled the HOLY COURT; but this Frontispiece only carrieth the name, because this Book beareth the model. which verily with more ease is moulded on paper, than printed on the manners of men. Yet we may affirm, that God, who draweth the sons of Abraham, from the midst of flints and rocks, doth in all places reserve Saints for himself: and he that will consider it well, shall find that in all times the Courts of zealous Princes, have had their Martyrs, their Confessors, their Virgins and Hermits.  
I have a purpose, when my leisure will permit, to divulge the lives of Kings, Princes, Lords, men of state, and likewise also of Queens, Princesses, and Ladies, who in the course of the world, have flourished in much sanctity, beginning from the Court of David, and then concluding in our Age; to the end the multitude of examples may place the Sun in full splendour before their eyes, who take the greatness of their condition, for pretext of their remissness.  
For the present, because Reason should carry the torch before History, I will satisfy myself, with publishing this Christian Institution, which treateth of the MOTIVES and OBSTACLES men of Quality have to Perfection, with the practice of virtues, most suitable to their condition; the whole attended by two books of Histories, that very amply contain the good and evil of Courts. I consecrate this small labour, at the feet of the Church, among so many worthy Writers, which make her wholly radiant in gold, not unlike that Bird, which, as the Kings of Asia contributed great treasure to the building of a Temple, she having no other wealth, went thither to present her Feathers.  
It remaineth, SIRS, that you make the COURT holy, and you shall sanctify the world: your examples may do much therein; when you shall advance the standard of piety, a plentiful Train will follow. Behold how all those, that have framed their fortune upon vice, have built on abysses; they have sowed wind (as saith the Prophet) to reap tempests; their hopes are cracked, as clouds swollen with the vapours of the earth; and their felicity like a golden statue hanged in the Air on a rotten cable, hath melted upon their head. Never any man hath had good fortune in impiety. He that looseth his conscience, hath nothing else to gain nor lose: Nothing to gain, for that nothing remaineth for him, but unhappiness; and nothing to lose, because he hath lost himself. So many crimes and impieties daily float on the face of this Age, that you must stretch out your arms against iniquity. If you have your hearts fixed where God planted them, you shall place the confidence of well doing, in the life of the most timorous; and shame of ill doing upon the brow of the most impudent. Your hands shall always be in a readiness to overthrow vice, and your feet shall not walk, but on Palms of victory.  
The Church extendeth her hands out to you, and imploreth the aid of your authority, and good examples. You are in the house of God, as Joseph in that of the Lord of Egypt. The Master hath put all into your hands, defile not the honour of his bed, since with his finger he hath imprinted the lustre of his glory on your fronts. If you be among men, as Mountains over valleys, be Mountains of perfume, of which Solomon speaketh in the Canticles; and not those hills of the Prophet Osee, which have nothing but snares, and gins, to serve for stumbling-blocks to those, whom they should enlighten. If you be elevated in the world, as cliffs above the Sea, be watchtowers, not rocks. If you be Stars, be Suns, to be the Chariots of light and life, and not comets, to pour malignity on the four quarters of the world. Be ye assured, that how much the more you are united to God, so much the greater shall you be; the more conformable you are to the will of the Sovereign Master, so much shall you behold the earth in contempt under your feet, and Heaven in Crowns over your heads.   

The DESIGN and ORDER of the Book.  
TO speak properly, we have but two great Books, the Heaven and the Bible, which never perish; The others have an Air, and a certain continuance amongst men, and at the last arrive unto their period; But the most part of those who at this day do write, do come into the world, as drops of rain into the Sea, of which the Ocean takes no notice, neither of their coming in, or their going out. In so great a crowd of Writers, I have put forth my first Tome of the HOLY COURT, as under that consideration, esteeming that I brought but a little dew, into a great River, and having spoken some Truths by the way; I should bury myself, from my birth, in the Tomb of so many Books, which is excusable by the law of necessity, and honourable by the multitude, and the qualities of those that writ.  
Howsoever, I see that GOD, who governeth our lives and our pens, hath been pleased that this Work should be had in some respect, and having exceeded the merit of the Author, it should also exceed his hope, producing some fruit, and withal some comfort to my travels, which I cannot now judge to be ill employed.  
This hath again put my pen into my hand, to follow the continuation of it, to which so many personages of Honour have brought so many reasons to induce me, that having but little leisure to undertake this second Work, I have had the less boldness to refuse it.  
Those who complain, that my pen hath not swiftly enough followed their desires, are to remember, that though Slowness be a mother a little to be blamed, yet her Children are not deformed; The bringing forth of good Books ought not to resemble that of Birds, concerning which an Ancient writeth, that they come out of the Belly of their mother before they are born; we ought to give them form, and a long time to foster them in the Mind, before they appear in public; For in precipitation it is a poor attempt to be able only to hope for nothing, but to err hastily, to repent at leisure. I do more fear the Reproaches of precipitation, than deliberation, for in this mortal condition wherein we live, our most perfect Actions are but heavy assays, and the most gross proofs of perfection.  
This may be said without any diminution to the merit of some celestial Spirits, who make promptitude and goodness to march together with an equal pace, it being not expedient, that those who cannot follow them, should glory in the infirmities contrary to so great abilities. For me, I content myself with the approvement and admiration of other men's works, reserving nothing but industry for my own. And though for all my pains I cannot of myself find in my own work satisfaction enough to content the Readers, whom I acknowledge so favourable to me, yet so it is, that I find I have brought something which bears some correspondence with their desires.  
This I can assure them, that the contraction of the precepts which I have drawn into so few words, being able to stretch them into Volumes, are not without their profit, and that Histories are made most choice of in that nature, where (besides their majesty which lays forth the most specious affairs of the Estate of Empires, since the beginning of their Christianism) they have a certain sweetness with them, which sound spirits will find to be so much advanced above all Fables and Romances, as the pleasures of Truth do surpass all illusions of Sorcerers.  
You shall here perpetually observe a great Theatre of the Divine Providence, where (God knows) I have no other Design, than to advance Virtue, and to beat down vice, without reflecting on any of the Personages of these times, no more than if I wrote under the reign of Charlemaigne or S. Lewis: I must entreat these spirits of Application, which know not how to behold a work, without making it subject to their own fancies, imagining every letter to be the Echoes of their own thoughts, that if they have any Commentary to produce, they would rather make a gloss upon their own Dreams, than on my Books. We live not yet (God be thanked) in an Age so miserable, that we dare not sacrifice to Truth without a disguise, seeing it is the glory of our Grandees, that we may openly make war against Vice, as against an enemy, and not of our party.  
For, to speak sincerely, having laid my first Tome at the feet of the sacred person of our great King, I considered what great and glistering lights there were in all their Orders within his Court, which might serve as Models for my Treatise, but to avoid the affectation of all compliance with this world, I did expressly forbear it, my own nature and my long Robe having so far estranged me from all worldly pretences, that it would be a disease unto me, but to salute a man, if he had not Heaven and the Stars to return me for it.  
As concerning the manner of writing which I have observed, I shall easily confess unto my Reader, that it proceeded rather from my Genius, than from Art, and though I have been curious enough to observe whatsoever the Greek or Roman Eloquence hath happily brought forth, yet I must acknowledge, that there is a Ray of God himself, which entering into our spirit, and mingling with our nature, is more knowing and effectual, than all precepts whatsoever. And this I can affirm for the instruction of youth, to those who have demanded my advice, concerning the qualities and conditions of styles. It is true, I have perused variety of Books written in all Ages, and I have acknowledged that the most sensible amongst them, have been raised both in their conceptions and their words, above the common reach, and always without affectation. Others have been passionately taken with some fine niceties, which are the capital Enemies to persuasion, and above all, to be eschewed in the Discourses which are made of Piety, whose nerves they do enfeeble, and whose lustres they do foil; we may see that those, who from the chair do speak unto us, either by account or by writing, although it be with terms discreet enough, yet they leave a less impression on our hearts, and sometimes are so violently carried away to serve their own reputation, that they forget their engagements to the Truth. We may observe some, who through too much spirit, seek out byways of conceptions of common sense, and extravagant words, and so strongly adore their own thoughts, that they can suffer none but themselves on their own paper, which is the cause, they seldom meet with the right use of humane understanding, being the true Citizens of Plato's Commonwealth, capable to control all things, but to perform nothing. Others there are, who glory in a sterility, and are wilfully angry against God, because in some part of the Heavens he placed so many stars. These can endure nothing that is generous, without snarling or biting at it. They conceive Beauty and Light to be blemishes, because they are above their capacities. Lastly there are some, who in their continual Allegations, do so lay forth themselves in the praise of others, that they make their Discourses like those pictures of Helena, which are all of gold: There is nothing but Drapery to be seen, you cannot distinguish the foot from the hand, nor the eye from the ear. But I will enter no further into the consideration of our times, having learned rather to respect than censure the indifferent Works of our Writers. But to speak sound, I never thought it expedient, either to persuade unto, or to follow the same fashions. And as in this work I have not altogether renounced the learning and the ornaments, which I thought to be convenient, but have inchased them in it, so I would not fill my papers with Quotations and strange Languages, this Labour being undertaken rather to persuade the Great-ones unto Virtue, than to fill the Extracts and Annotations of the Students.  
I have so moderated the style, without letting myself lose to the empty language of Compliments, which had been beneath my Subject, that I conceive I have rendered it easy to be understood, even to those apprehensions which make no profession at all of learning.  
It is the only Design that I have, to speak so as to be understood, persuading myself, according to the saying of Philo, That Word and Thought are two Sister germans, and that the youngest is born, only to make the eldest known. I study more for weight of sentences, than for ornament of words, pretending nothing to the glory of mundane Quills, which we see every day appear amongst so many Authors of this Age, who would be more perfect, if they would apply themselves to more grave subjects, and in some fashion imitate the Sun, who being admired thoughout the whole world, doth not know how to admire itself.  
Nevertheless it often comes to pass, but not to the more lofty Writers, who are ordinarily endued with more modesty, but to certain men extremely profane, to idolise their own inventions, to condemn all Treatises of worth, and to esteem, that one cannot be eloquent in our tongue, if he writes not Vanity or Impureness.  
Certainly, if a question were made to judge of the French eloquence, the riches of Babylon are not so exquisite, that they may stand in comparison with the beauties of Zion. As long as letters and men shall continue, there shall continue the praises of so many excellent Books, which have come from the hands of so many Illustrious Prelates, and other qualified persons, nay, and of the secular State, who have exercised their style on chaste and honourable Arguments, and worthy all commendation. I speak this by the way, having at this time no design to enlarge myself on the recital of the number of those able men, who have now the pen in their hands, nor praise those of my own Robe, who have given their holy labours to the public, and who I know may be followed by a great number of excellent Spirits of the same society.  
For that which concerns me, I am acquitted of my promise, and I conceive, that I have sufficiently expressed in these two Volumes, the whole reach of my Design; for the rest, I conceive that the Books of Devotion which are to be made public, aught to be rare, and to be very well digested, because there is already extant so great a number of them, that the number of the Authors will suddenly exceed the number of the Readers.  
Satiety will cast a cloud on the brightest Beauties, and though a thing may be very good, yet we ought not to surfeit with the excess thereof, for fear that good Offices be turned into misprisions, and Charity render itself too importunate. But so it is, that we must confess that Pieces well wrought, are never seen in so great a number, as to bring any fastidiousness to them who do know their merit.  
Here do I stop my pen, and if there appears any worth in this Volume, I look upon it as on the Mirror planted on the wall of a Temple in Arcadia, where those that beheld it, in stead of their own face, saw the representation of the Divinity which they adored.  
Even so in all this which may bring any profit to the Reader, I see nothing of my own, but I acknowledge the Father of lights, who is the Beginning and the End of all which we do make praiseworthy. And I beseech him, if there be found any thing attractive in these Discourses, that He will, like the Loadstone, draw up the Readers, and carry them to the love of their Creator, to whom is due the tribute of all honour, as to him who is the Beginning of all Perfection. It is indeed the only consolation which we can receive from our labours. For, not to dissemble the Truth, he that cares more to write than to live, flattering his pen, and neglecting his conscience, shall have work enough to defend himself from the Scurf, the Rat, and from Oblivion. And when in a passionate life he shall carry with him the applauses of the world, it shall be as a small sacrifice unto him of smoke abroad, to lodge a fire and tempest in his own house.  
It is reported, that the Stars contribute their beams to enlighten the Infernals, and I can affirm, that all the lights of Understanding and Reputation, shall serve only to inflame the torments of a reprobate soul, who shall shut his eyes against God, to open them only to let in Vanity.  
In the end, after many Editions of the HOLY COURT, as I desired here to put the last hand to it, I am now retired into the solitary place of Quinpercorentin, for the love of the truth; where the honesty of the Inhabitants have made me to find it as my Country, which other men have taken for a place of banishment: There on the banks of the Ocean, at the feet of a Saint, who is the Tutelar of the Village, perceiving that God had sweetened to me all the bitterness both of men and of the times, by the infusion of his Paternal Consolation, I have composed more Treatises, both of Doctrine and Piety, to render in some sort, my silence profitable to the public, of which one day I will give a good account unto my Readers, if God shall grant me life.  
Amongst other things, I have digested into good order, this Work of the HOLY COURT, and I have enriched it with a remarkable Augmentation of the Lives and Eulogies of the Illustrious Personages at Court, as well in the Old as the New Testament.  
Now I do produce it to the light, after that by the singular favour of Heaven, the obstacles are removed, and Truth acknowledged on the Throne of Lights, with which God hath round environed it.   


THE TABLE OF THE Chief CONTENTS of the First Tome of the HOLY COURT.  

FIRST BOOK.  
Motives to stir up Persons of quality to Christian Perfection.  MOTIVE. Page. THat the Court and Devotion are not incompatible. 1 I. Name of Christian. 2 II. Nobility. 4 III. Eminent Dignity. 5 IV. Riches. 8 V. Corporal endowments. 9 VI Endowments of the mind. 11 VII. Courage. 13 VIII. Education. 15 IX. Court a life of penance. 17 X. Gratitude. 19 XI. Example. 21 XII. Punishment. 22 XIII. Reward. 24  

SECOND BOOK.  
Hindrances that worldly ones have in the path of salvation.  OBSTACLE. Page. I. WEak faith. 26 II. Error in faith & in Religion. 30 III. To live according to opinion. 37 IU. Inconstancy of manners. 39 V. Masked life. 41 VI Ill manage of time. 43 VII. Liberty of tongue. 45 VIII. Curiosity in bearing affronts. 47 IX. Carnal love. 49 X. Superfluous Attire. 51 XI. Envy. 54 XII. Ambition and Avarice. 56 Conclusion. A bad Courtier's life is a perpetual Obstacle to virtue. 58  

THIRD BOOK.  
Practise of VIRTUES.  SECTION. Page. I. DEvotion for Great-ones. 60 II. Wherein consisteth all Devotion and Spiritual life. 61 Character of the spiritual man. ibid. Character of the carnal man. ibid. III. First combat of a spiritual man, against ignorance. 62 IU. Practice of faith. ibid. V Four other lights to disperse ignorance. 64 VI Twelve Maxims of salvation. ibid. VII. Twelve Maxims of wisdom. 66 VIII. Practise of Devotion and Prayer. 68 IX. Necessity of confession. ibid. X. Practice of confession. 69 XI. Practise of examen of conscience. 71 XII. Practise of receiving. 72 XIII. Practise of hearing Mass. 74 XIV. Practise of meditation. 75 XV. Practice of vocal prayer, and spiritual reading and frequenting Sermons. 77 XVI. Second combat of the spiritual man, against pusillanimity. 78 XVII. Twelve Maxims to vanquish temptations, 79 XVIII. Remedies against the passions and temptations growing from every vice. 81 XIX. Shame in well doing. 82 XX. Affection towards creatures. ibid. XXI. Indiscreet affliction of mind, and sadness. 83 XXII. Third combat of the Spiritual man against impurity. 85 XXIII. Practise of chastity. 85 XXIV. Practise of temperance. 86 XXV. Practise of modesty. 87 XXVI. Practise of prudence, and government in conversation. ibid. XXVII. Against another impurity, to wit, desire of having, and first of poverty of the rich. 89 XXVIII. Practise of justice. ibid. XXIX. Practise of thankfulness. 90 XXX. Practise of charity. 91 XXXI. The practice of humility and magnanimity. 92 XXXII. Practise of patience. 93 XXXIII. Practise of daily actions. 94 Instructions for Married. XXXIV. Misery of marriages ill managed. 96 XXXV. Evils of marriage grow from disorders therein committed. 99 XXXVI. Selected instructions for the married. 101 XXXVII. Instructions for Widows. 102 To Maids. XXXVIII. Praises of virginity, and of the modesty they ought to observe in their carriage. 104 To Fathers and Mothers. XXXIX. Concerning bringing up and instructing children. 107 To Children. XL. Of piety towards parents. 110 The fourth Book treateth of Impiety of Courts, and Unhappy Policy. page 114 The fifth Book setteth forth Fortunate Piety. page 137   

A TABLE OF THE TITLES and SECTIONS contained in the Second Tome of the HOLY COURT.  

THE PRELATE.  SECT. Page I. THat it is convenient the Nobility should govern the Church. 165 II. That the Nobility should not aspire to Ecclesiastical offices, but by lawful ways. 167 III. Of the Vocation or calling of a Prelate. 168 IV. Virtues requisite in the carriage of a Prelate. 169 V. The second virtue of a Prelate, which is Fortitude of spirit, against Avarice and Riot. 170 VI. The third Quality of a good Prelate, which is purity of life. 171 VII. The fourth perfection of a Prelate, which is observed in Zeal and Charity. 172 VIII. The fifth excellency of a Prelate, which is science and prudence. ibid. IX. The Motives which noble Prelates have to the duty of their profession. 173 X. The Examples of great Prelates, are very lively spurs to Virtue. ibid.  

S. AMBROSE.  I. HIs Calling. 175 II. A short Elegy of the life and manners of S. Ambrose. 179 III. His Government. ibid. iv His Combats, and first against Gentilism. 182 Oration of Symmachus to Theodosius and Valentinian the Younger, for the Altar of Victory, Exercise of Pagan Religion, and Revenue of Vestals. ibid. V Oration of S. Ambrose against Symmachus. 184 VI. The triumph of S. Ambrose in the conversion of S. Augustine. 188 VII. Dispositions to the conversion of S. Augustine. 191 VIII. Agitations of Spirit in S. Augustine upon his conversion. 194 IX. Accidents which furthered this conversion. 195 X. The Admirable change of S. Augustine. 196 XI. The Affairs of S. Ambrose, with the Emperor's Valentinian the Father, and Gratian the son. 199 XII. The death of the Emperor Gratian, and afflictions of S. Ambrose. 202 XIII. The Embassage of S. Ambrose. 204 XIV. The persecution of S. Ambrose, raised by the Empress Justina. 206 XV. Maximus passeth into Italy. 208 XVI. Affliction of S. Ambrose upon the death of Valentinian. 210 XVII. The tyranny of Eugenius, and not able liberty of S. Ambrose. 211 XVIII. The differences of S. Ambrose with the Emperor Theodosius, & his death. 213  

THE SOLDIER.  I. THe excellency of warlike virtue. 217 II. He Entrance into the palace of Valour, and the illusions of the Salmoneans and Rodomonts. 218 III. The Temple of Valour, and sage Precepts given by the Christian Soldier, to refute the manners of the times. And first, That Piety helpeth Valour. 220 IU. Manifest proofs, which declare that Piety and Valour are not things incompatible. 222 V Against Duels. 224 VI Against the ill manage of arms. 225 VII. Against sensual Love & Impurity. 228 VIII. Against the perfidiousness of interests. 230 IX. Short and notable Instructions. 231  

CONSTANTINE.  I. THe providence of God over Constantine. 233 II. The Nobility of Constantine. 235 III. His Education and Qualities. 237 IU. His entry into the Empire. 238 V. His prowess against Maxentius. 242 VI. The death of Diocletian, and feats of Arms performed by Constantine against Lycinius. 243 VII. The vices and passions of Constantine before his Baptism, with the death of Crispus and Fausta. 245 VIII. The calling of Constantine to christianity. The progress of his conversion and Baptism. 247 IX. The acts of Constantine after his Baptism. 248 X. The endeavour of good works, with the virtues and laws of Constantine. 249 XI. The Zeal of Constantine in the proceed in the Council of Nice. 251 XII. The government of Constantine. 254 XIII. The death of Constantine. 255  

THE STATESMAN.  I. THe excellency of politic virtue. 263 II. He Table of Babylon, drawn from sundry conceptions of the most singular wits of Antiquity. 264 III. The destruction of Babylon, and the government of the Divine Providence over the Estates of the world. 266 IU. The Table of the City of God, otherwise called, The City of honest men, drawn out of many excellent conceits of ancient Authors, and things practised in some former Commonwealths. 268 V. Sage Precepts drawn out of the Monuments of the divine Agathopolis. 271  

BOETIUS.  I. HIs great Nobility. 276 II. The eminent Wisdom and Learning of Boetius. 278 III. His entrance into government of state. 280 IU. The entrance of Theodorick into Rome, and his happy Government by the counsel of Boetius. 282 V. The Honours of Boetius, and alteration of Theodorick. 287 VI. The imprisonment of Boetius. 291 VII. The death of Boetius. 293  

THE LADY.  I. THat the HOLY COURT cannot subsist without the virtue of Ladies, and of their piety in the advancement of christianity. 297 II. That Women are capable of good Lights, and solid Instructions. 298 III. The ten Orders of women, and the vicious qualities, which Ladies ought especially to avoid. 299 IU. The tenth Order of Women, full of Wisdom and Virtue. 302 V. A brief Table of the excellent Qualities of a Lady. And first of true Devotion. 302 VI Modesty. 303 VII. Chastity. 304 VIII. Discretion in the manage of affairs. 305 IX. Conjugal Love. 306 X. The care of children. 307 XI. The conclusion of the Discourse. ibid.  

CLOTILDA.  I. HEr Birth and Education. 307 II. Clodovaeus requireth Clotilda in marriage. 308 III. Embassage to the King of Burgundy, for the marriage of Clotilda. 310 IU. The arrival of Clotilda in France, & the life she led in the time of her Wedlock. 312 V. The prudence which the Queen used in the conversion of her Husband. 313 VI. The conversion of Clodovaeus. 315 VII. What Clodovaeus did by the persuasion of Clotilda after his Baptism. 316 VIII. The good success which God gave to Clodovaeus after he became a christian. 317 IX. The life of Clotilda in her widowhood. Her afflictions and glorious death. 319  

INDEGONDIS.  X. ISsued from the blood and house of Clotilda, she transporteth the Catholic Faith into Spain. 323 XI. The persecutions of Indegondis. 324 XII. The Retreat of Hermingildus, and his conversion. 325 XIII. The Reciprocal letters of the father and the son, upon their separation. 326 XIV. The Treaty of peace between Levigildus and his son, by the mediation of Indegondis. 327 XV. Hermingildus is wickedly betrayed. 328 XVI. The letter of Hermingildus to Indegondis, and his generous resolution. 330 XVII. The death of Hermingildus. 331   

A TABLE OF THE MAXIMS AND EXAMPLES Contained in the third Tome of the HOLY COURT.  

The First Part of the Third Tome, touching the Divinity.  I. Maxim. OF Religion. page. 339 I. Example. OF the esteem we ought to make of faith and Religion. 342 II. Maxim. Of the Essence of God. 343 II. Example. The power of God over faithless souls. 346 III. Maxim. Of the excellency of God. 348 The greatness of God compared to the abjectness of man. 349 III. Example. Of the weakness of man, and inconstancy of humane things. 352 IU. Maxim. Of the providence of God. 354 The foundation of truths of the providence of God. 356 IU. Example. Divers observations upon providence. 358 V. Maxim. Of Accidents. 359 V Example. Of the providence of God over the estates and riches of the world. 363 VI Maxim. Of praedestination. 365 VI Example. Of the secret power of praedestination. 368 VII. Maxim. Of the Divinity of Jesus. 370 Of the revelation of the Word Incarnate, and how all creatures bear witness of his divinity. ibid. VII. Example. The triumph of Jesus over the enemies of Faith. 373 VIII. Maxim. Of perfections of Jesus which make him to be beloved. 375 Excellencies in the person of our Saviour. 376 VIII. Example. Of the admirable change of worldly love into the love of Jesus Christ. 379.  

The Second Part, touching the Order of this present Life.  IX. Maxim. OF Devotion. 381 IX. Maxim. OF dark Devotion. 382 IX. Maxim. Affected Devotion. 383 IX. Maxim. Transcendent Devotion. 384 IX. Maxim. Solid Devotion. 386 IX. Example. Of solid Devotion. 387 X. Maxim. Of interest. 389 X. Example. Of liberality and the unhappiness of such as seek their ends by unlawful ways. 392 XI. Maxim. Of craft. 394 XI. Example. Of craft. 397 XII. Maxim. Of revenge. 399 XII. Example. Of reconciliation. 402 XIII. Maxim. Of the Epicurean life. 404 XIII. Example. The dreadful events of sensuality. 470 XIV. Maxim. Of sufferings. 408 That the Divine Providence excellently appeareth in the afflictions of the just. ibid. XIV. Example. Of constancy in tribulation. 411.  

The Third Part, touching the State of the other World.  XV. Maxim. OF death. 413 XV. Example. OF the manner how to die well, drawn from the model of our Lady. 416 XVI. Maxim. Of the immortality of the soul. 419 XVI. Example. Of the return of souls. 423 XVII. Maxim. Of Purgatory. 425 XVII. Example. Of the apparition of souls. 428 XVIII. Maxim. Of eternal unhappiness. 430 XVIII. Example. Of the Day of Judgement, and pains of hell. 434 XIX. Maxim. Of sovereign Beatitude. 435 XIX. Example. Of contentments of Beatitude. 438 XX. Maxim. Of Resurrection. 440 The condition of the glorified bodies. 441 That the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foundation of ours, and that we should behold the sweetness and glories of it as the sources of our eternity. 442 XX. Example. Divers observations on the length of Life, and desire of Resurrection. 445  

Conclusion of the MAXIMS.  I. Obscurity and persecution of truth. 446 II. The definition of sensuality; the description, division, and sundry sorts of Libertines. 447 III. The causes of sensuality well described by the Apostle S. Judas. 448 IU. The ignorance & nullity of sensuality. 449 V. The effects of sensuality, and punishment of the wicked. 450 VI Hideous usage of the wicked for the sin of impiety. 451 VII. Advice to youth, and such as too easily give way to impiety. 452 VIII. That the remedy of our evil consisteth in zeal towards Faith.   
Division of the DIARY. 

I. ACTS OF DEVOTION.  
II. PRACTICE OF VIRTUE.  
III. BUSINESS.  
iv RECREATION.    
A Table of the SECTIONS.  

THE FIRST PART. Concerning Devotion.  SECTION. Page I. THe importance of well ordering every action of the day. 456 II. At Waking. ibid. III. Five good actions to begin the day. 457 IU. Of Adoration, the first Act of Devotion. ibid. V An example of Adoration. 458 VI Of Thanksgiving, the second Act of Devotion. ibid. VII. A pattern of Thanksgiving. ibid. VIII. Of offering or oblation, the third Act of Devotion. ibid. IX. The manner of offering ourselves too God. 459 X. Of Contrition, the fourth Act of Devotion. ibid. XI. A Form of Contrition. ibid. XII. Of Petition or Request, the fifth Act of Devotion. 460 XIII. A Form of Petition. ibid. XIV. Of the time proper for spiritual reading. ibid. XV. An abstract of the Doctrine of Jesus Christ, to be used at the Communion. ibid. XVI. What we are to do at the Celebration of the blessed Sacrament, and other ensuing Acts 461 XVII. Devotion for the days of the Week. ibid. XVIII. Devotion for the hours of the day. 462 XIX. Of Confession: A very necessary Act of devotion; and advice thereon. 463 XX. An excellent prayer of S. Augustine for this exercise, taken out of a Manuscript of Cardinal Sacripandus. ibid. XXI. Of Communion, the chiefest of all acts of devotion; with a brief Advice concerning the practice of it. 464  

THE SECOND PART. Of the Practice of Virtues.  I. TWelve fundamental Considerations of Virtues. 464 II. Seven paths of Eternity, which lead the soul to great virtues. 466 III. Perfection, and wherein it consisteth. 467 IU. Of Virtues, and their degrees. ibid. V Four orders of those that aspire to perfection. 470 VI. A short way to perfection, practised by the Ancients. ibid. VII. The means to become perfect. ibid. VIII. How we ought to govern ourselves against Temptations, Afflictions, and Hindrances, which we meet with in the way of virtue. ibid. IX. Remedies against Passions and Temptations which proceed from every vice. 472  

THE THIRD PART. Of Business.  I. BUsiness; of what importance. 473 II. Two heads to which all business is reduced. ibid. III. Of the Government of a Family. ibid. iv Of Direction in Spiritual matters. 474 V Advice for such as are in office and government. ibid.  

THE FOURTH PART. Of Recreation.  I. REcreation, how necessary. 475 II. Of the pleasures of the Taste. ibid. III. Of Gaming. 476 IU. Of Dancing. ibid. V Of wanton songs and plays. ibid. VI Of walking and running. ibid. VII. The four conditions of Recreation. 477 VIII. Of vicious conversation; and first, of impertinent. ibid. IX. Of vain conversation ibid. X. Of evil conversation. 478 XI. The Conditions of a good conversation. ibid. XII. Conclusion of the DIARY. ibid. EjACULATIONS for the Diary. 479 PRAYERS for all Persons and occasions. 480  

A TABLE OF ALL THE Gospels, and Particulars of our SAVIOUR'S Passion, mentioned in the ENTERTAINMENTS of LENT, with their Moralities and Aspirations.  UPon the words of Genesis, cap. 3. Thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return. page 481 Upon the Gospel of S. Matthew, cap. 6. Of hypocritical fasting. 482 Upon S. Matthew the 18. Of the Centurion's words, O Lord I am not worthy. ibid. Upon S. Matthew the 5. Wherein we are directed to pray for our enemies. 483 Upon S. Matthew the the 6. Of the Apostles danger at sea. 484 Upon S. Matthew the 4. Of our Saviour's being tempted in the desert. 485 Upon S. Matthew the 25. Of the Judgement-day. 486 Upon S. Matthew the 21. Jesus drove out the buyers and sellers out of the Temple. ibid. Upon S. Matthew the 12. The Pharisees demand a sign of Jesus. 487 Upon S. Matthew the 15. Of the woman of Canaan. 488 Upon S. John the 15. Of the probatick pond. 489. Upon S. Matthew the 17. Of the transfiguration of our Lord. ibid. Upon S. John the 8. Jesus said to the Jews, Where I go, ye cannot come. 490 Upon S. Matthew the 23. Jesus said, The Pharisees sit in Moses chair, believe therefore what they say. 491 Upon S. Matthew the 20. The request of the wife of Zebedee, for her sons James and John. 492 Upon S. Luke the 16. Of the rich Glutton and poor Lazarus. ibid. Upon S. Matthew the 21. Of the Master of the Vineyard, whose son was killed by his Farmers. 493 Upon S. Luke the 15. Of the prodigal child. 494 Upon S. Luke the 11. Jesus cast out the devil which was dumb. 495 Upon S. Luke the 4. Jesus is required to do miracles in his own country. 496 Upon S Matthew the 18. If thy brother offend thee, tell him of it alone. ibid. Upon S. Matthew the 15. The Pharisees asked, Why do thy Disciples contradict ancient Traditions? 497 Upon S. Luke the 4. Jesus cured the fever of Simons mother in law. 498 Upon S. John the 4. Of the Samaritan woman at jacob's Well, near Sichar. 499 Upon S. John the 8. Of the woman found in adultery. 500 Upon S. John the 6. Of the five fishes and two barley loaves, ibid. Upon S. John the 2. Of the whipping buyers and sellers out of the Temple. 501 Upon S. John the 7. The Jews marvel at the learning of Jesus, who was never taught. 502 Upon S. John the 9 Of the blind man cured by clay and spittle. 503 Upon S. Luke the 7. Of the widow's son raised from death to life at Naim by our Saviour. 504 Upon S. John the 11. Of the raising up Lazarus from death. 505 Upon S. John the 8. Of our Saviour's words, I am the Light of the world. ibid. Upon S. John the 8. Of these words, Who can accuse me of sin? 506 Upon S. John the 7. Jesus said to the Pharisees, You shall seek and not find me: and, he that is thirsty, let him come to me. 507 Upon S. John the 7. Jesus went not into Jury, because the Jews had a purpose to take away his life.  Upon S. John the 10. The Jews said, If thou be the Messiah, tell us plainly. ibid. Upon S. John the 7. Of S. Mary Magdalen's washing our Saviour's feet in the Pharisees house. 509 Upon S. Mary Magdalen's great repentance. 510 Upon S. John the 11. The Jews said, What shall we do? for this man doth many miracles. ibid. Upon S. John the 12. The Chief Priests thought to kill Lazarus, because the miracle upon him made many follow Jesus. 511 Upon S. Matthew the 21. Our Saviour came in triumph to Jerusalem a little before his passion. 512 Upon S. John the 12. Marry Magdalen anointed our Saviour's feet with precious ointment, at which Judas repined. 513 Upon S. John the 13. Of our Saviour's washing the feet of his Apostles. ibid. Moralities upon the garden of Mount Olivet. 514 Moralities of the apprehension of Jesus. 515 Aspiration upon S. Peter's passionate tears. ibid. Moralities upon the Praetorian or Judgement-Hall. 516 Moralities for Good Friday, upon the death of Jesus Christ. ibid. The Gospel for Easter day, S. Mark the 16. 518 The Gospel for Easter Monday, S. Luke 24. 519 The Gospel on Tuesday, S. Luke 24. 520 The Gospel on Low-Sunday, John 20. 521   

A TABLE Of the Treatises and Sections contained in this fourth Tome OF THE HOLY COURT.  

The First TREATISE. Of the necessity of Love.  SECTION. Page. 1 AGainst the Philosophers who teach Indifferency, saying, We must not Love any thing. 1 2 Of Love in general. 3 3 Of Amity. 5 4 Of Amity between persons of different sexes. 7 5 Of the entertainment of Amity's. 11 6 Of Sensual Love, its Essence and Source. 14 7 The effects of Sensual Love. 17 8 Remedies of evil Love by precaution. 18 9 Other Remedies which nearer hand oppose this Passion. 19 10 Of Celestial Amity's. 22 11 Of the Nature of Divine Love. Its Essence, Qualities, Effects and Degrees. 25 12 The practice of Divine Love. 27 13 A notable Example of Worldly Love changed into Divine Charity. 29  

The Second TREATISE. Of Hatred.  1 ITs Essence, Degrees, and Differences. 32 2 That the consideration of the goodness of the heart of God should dry up the root of the Hatred of a neighbour. 33 3 That Jesus grounded all the greatest Mysteries of our Religion upon union, to cure Hatred. 34 4 Of three notable sources of Hatred, and of politic remedies proper for its cure. 35 5 Natural and Moral Remedies against this passion. 37 6 Of the profit may be drawn from Hatred, and the course we must hold to be freed from the danger of being Hated. ibid.  

The Third TREATISE. Of Desire.  1 WHether we should desire any thing in the world; the Nature, the Diversity and Description of Desire. 39 2 The Disorders which spring from inordinate Desires, and namely from Curiosity and Inconstancy. 40 3 The four sources out of which are ill rectified Desires. 42 4 That the tranquillity of Divine Essence, for which we are created, aught to rule the unquietness of our Desires. ibid. 5 That we should desire by the imitation of Jesus Christ. 43 6 The Condemnation of the evil Desires of the World, and the means how to divert them. 44  

THE FOURTH TREATISE. Of Aversion.  SECTION. Page. 1 THe Nature and Qualities thereof. 44 2 The Sweetnesses and Harmonies of the heart of God show us the way how to cure our Aversions. ibid. 3 The consideration of the indulgent favours of Jesus Christ towards humane nature is a powerful remedy against the humour of disdain. 47 4 The Conclusion against disdain. ibid.  

THE FIFTH TREATISE. Of Delectation.  1 THat Delectation is the scope of Nature. It's Essence, Objects, and differences. 48 2 The baseness and giddiness of Sensual voluptuousness. 49 3 The Sublimity, Beauty and Sweetness of heavenly delights. ibid. 4 The Paradise and Joys of our Lord when he was on earth. 50 5 Against the stupidity and cruelty of worldly pleasures, 51 6 The Art of Joy, and the means how to live contented in this world. ibid.  

THE SIXTH TREATISE. Of Sadness.  1 ITs Description, Qualities, and the diversity of those who are turmoiled with this Passion. 54 2 Humane Remedies of Sadness, and how that is to be cured, which proceedeth from Melancholy, and Pusillanimity. 55 3 The remedy of Sadnesses, which proceeds from divers accidents of humane life. 56 4 That the Contemplation of the Divine patience and tranquillity, serve for remedy for our temptations. 58 5 That the great temper of our Saviour's soul in most horrible sufferings is a powerful lenitive against our dolours. 59 6 Advise to impatient souls. 60  

THE SEVENTH TREATISE. Of Hope.  1 THe Description, Essence and appurtenances thereof. 61 2 That one cannot live in the world without Hope, and what course is to be held for the well ordering of it. ibid., 3 That God not being capable of Hope, serveth as an Eternal Basis to all good Hopes. 63  

THE EIGHTH TREATISE. Of Despair.  1 ITs Nature, Composition and effects. 65 2 The causes of Despair, and the condition of those who are most subject to this Passion. 66 3 Humane Remedies of Despair. 67 4 Divine Remedies. 68 5 The Examples which Jesus Christ gave us in the abyss of his sufferings, are most efficacious against pusillanimity. 69 6 Encouragement to good Hopes, ibid.  

THE NINTH TREATISE. Of Fear.  1 THe Definition, the Description, the Causes and effects thereof. 70 2 Of the vexations of Fear; Its differences and Remedies. 71 3 Against the Fear of the accidents of humane life. 72 4 That the Contemplation of the power, and the Bounty of God, aught to take away all our Fears. 73 5 That the Example of a God-man ought to instruct and assure, us against affrightments of this life. 74  

THE TENTH TREATISE. Of Boldness.  SECTION. Page. 2 THe Picture and Essence of it. 76 2 The diversity of Boldness. ibid., 3 Of laudable Boldness. 77 4 That true Boldness is inspired by God, and that we must wholly depend on him to become Bold. 78 5 That Jesus hath given us many pledges of a sublime confidence to strengthen our Courage. 79  

THE ELEVENTH TREATISE. Of Shamefactnesse.  1 THe decency of Shamefacedness. It's nature and definition. 81 2 Divers kinds of Shamefacedness. ibid. 3 The Excellency of Shamefacedness, and the ugliness of Impudence. 83 4 Of Reverence due to God. ibid. 5 Of the Reverence which the Holy Humanity of our Lord, did bear to his Eternal Father. 84  

THE TWELFTH TREATISE. Of Anger.  1 THe Origen of Anger, its Nature, Causes and Diversities. 86 2 Three principal kinds of Anger. 87 3 The Contemplation of the serenity of the divine Spirit, is the mistress of meekness. 88 4 That the example of our Saviour doth teach us the moderation of Anger. ibid. 5 Politic Rimedies to appease such as are Angry. 89 6 Moral Remedies against the same passion. ibid.  

THE THIRTEENTH TREATISE. Of Envy and Jealousy.  1 THe Picture thereof. 91 2 The Definition of Envy, its several kinds, and first of Jealousy. ibid. 3 Two other branches of this stock, which are Indignation, and malicious Envy, with Calumny its Companion. 93 4 Humane remedies of Envy. 94 5 Divine remedies drawn from the benignity of God. 95 6 The merciful eye of Jesus, serveth for an antidote against all sorts of Envy. 96 7 A Detestation of Envy. 97  

THE FOURTEENTH TREATISE. Of Mildness and Compassion.  1 THe great misery of Man, makes Compassion necessary in the world. 98 2 The Essenc of Compassion, and how it findeth place in hearts most generous. 99 3 Moderate severity is necessary in Government; but it ought to be free from Cruelty. 100 4 The goodness of God beateth down the rigour of men. ibid. 5 The Mercies of the incarnate word are able to soften the harshest hearts. 101  

HISTORICAL OBSERVATIONS Upon the four Principal Passions, which are as four Devils, disturbers of the HOLY COURT.  OBSERVAT. Page. 1 THe disasters of such as have yielded to the Passion of Love; and the glory of souls which have surmounted it. 107 2 Observations upon the Passion of Desire: wherein we may behold the misery of Ambitious and turbulent spirits. 112 3 Observations upon Anger and Revenge. 117 4 Observations upon Envy, which draweth with it Jealousy, Hatred and Sadness. 121   

A TABLE Of the LIVES and EULOGIES of Illustrious Persons contained in the Fifth Tome.  
Monarch's. 131 David. 139 Solomon. 151 Justinian. 158 Charlemaign. 172 S. Lewis, King of France. 177 Judith. 181 Hester. 187 Josuah. 196 Judas Machabeus. 197 Godfrey. 207 George Castriot. 209 Boucicaut. 211 Bayard. 214 Joseph. 218 Moses. 227 Samuel. 235 Daniel. 241 Eliah. 248 Eyisha. 265 Isaiah. 260 Jeremiah. 263 S. John Baptist. 267 S. Paul and Seneca. 271 Mary Stuart. 291 Cardinal Pool. 313 A Treatise of the Angel of Peace to all Christian Princes. 1    

THE HOLY COURT. FIRST BOOK. Of Reasons, which should excite men of quality to Christian Perfection.  

That the COURT and DEVOTION are not things incompatible. The FOUNDATION of this TREATISE.  
THe wise Hebrews have observed a matter worthy of consideration for the direction of Great-ones, to wit, that between the bed of the Kings of Judea, 
The gloss upon Isaiah ch. 38. observeth also Juxta parietem Templi Solomon extruxit palatium. A notable observation of the Hebrews.  and the Altar of God, there was but one single wall; and they add, that David, one of the most holy Monarches, had reserved for himself a secret postern, through which he passed from his chamber to the house of God, that is to say, the Tabernacle; which served as a sanctuary for his afflictions, and an arsenal for his battles. They say likewise, he left the key of this sacred postern to his Posterity, a key a thousand times more precious than Fortune the golden Goddess of the Romans, giving to it the imitation of his virtue as an everlasting inheritance. Achaz was he, who stopping up the gate of the Temple, 
Parali. 2. 28. clausit januas Templi.  shut against himself the gates of God's mercy, and thereby opened the passage to his own confusion. This is to instruct Princes, and all persons of quality, that as the element of birds is the air, and water of fishes, so the element of great spirits, if they will not betray their own nature, nor belly their profession, is piety.  
Yet notwithstanding, it is a wonder how the Court, where the most noble spirits should reside, hath in all Ages been cried down in matter of virtue. You will say, hearing those speak who make many fair and formal descriptions of the manners of Courtiers, that the Court is nothing else but a den of darkness, where the heavens and stars are not seen 
An admirable definition of the Court drawn out of divers ancient Authors  but through a little crevice; that it is a mil, (as the Ancients held it) always skreaking, with a perpetual clatter, where men enchained as beasts of labour, are condemned to turn the stones: That it is a prison of slaves, who are all tied in the golden guives of speciors' servitude, yet in this glitter suffer themselves to be gnawn by the vermin of passion: That it is a list, where the combatants are mad; their arms nothing but fury, their prize smoke, their career glassy ice, and utmost bounds but precipices. That it is the house of Circe's, where reasonable creatures are transformed into savage beasts; where Bull's gore, Lions roar, Dogs worry one another, Viper's hiss, and Basilisks carry death in their looks. That it is the house of winds, a perpetual tempest on the firm land, shipwreck without water, where vessels are split even in the haven of hope. Briefly, that it is a place where vice reigneth by nature, misery by necessity, and if virtue be found there, it is but by miracle.  
Such discourses are often maintained, with more 
The Answer.  fervour of eloquence than colour of truth. For to speak sincerely, the Court is a fair school of virtue, for those who know how to use it well. In great seas great fishes are to be found, and in ample fortunes, goodly and heroic virtues. This proposition, which putteth an incompatibility of devotion and sanctity into the life of men of eminency, seemeth to me very exorbitant for three reasons. The first, for that it is injurious to God: the second prejudicial to humane society; and the third showeth it to be false by the experience of all Ages. To prove these three verities 
The Defence of the Court.  is to ruin it in the foundations; the proofs whereof are easy enough, which we will begin to glance at, that hereafter we may deduce them more at length. For as concerning the first, it cannot be denied to be a great injury to almighty God, to strike at his heavenly and paternal providence. This is to touch him in the apple of his eye, and in the thing which he esteemeth most precious. Now, so it is, this maxim which establisheth an impossibility of devotion, the first wheel of virtue, in the life of Great ones, imputeth a great defect unto the government of God. The divine providence is a skilful posie-maker, who knoweth artificially how to mingle all sorts of flowers to make the Nosegay of the elect, called in holy Scripture Fasciculus viventium. It constituteth the different manners of lives, different qualities, and conditions. It leadeth men by divers way to the same port. It is that which maketh Kings to reign, 
1. Reg. 25. 29.  and giveth them officers as members of their state, and by this means frameth the Court of Great-ones: But if after it hath so made and composed them as of the flower and choice of men, it should abandon them in the tempest, without polestar, without rudder, without Pilot, were not this with notable deformity to fail in one of the prime pieces of its work-manship? Judge yourself.  
For the second reason, it is most evident, that to further this impossibility of devotion, in the course of Courtiers lives, is to cast them, through despair of all virtues (which cannot subsist without piety) into the liberty of all vices, which they will hold, not as extravagant sallies of frailty, but as the form of a necessary portion of their profession. And as the rank they hold, maketh them transcend other men, who willingly tie themselves to the manners and affections of those on whom they see their fortunes depend; that would be as it were, by a necessary law to precipitate mankind into the gulf of corruption.  
To conclude for the third reason, this proposition is manifestly contradicted by an infinite number of examples, of so many Kings and Princes, of so many worthy Lords and Ladies, who living in the Ocean of the world as the mother pearls by the dew of heaven, have preserved, and do yet still preserve themselves for ever in admirable purity, and in such heroic virtues, that they cannot gain so much wonder on earth, but they shall find in heaven much more recompense. This is it, which I intent to produce in this Treatise of the Holy Court, after I have informed the mind with good and lively reasons, which as I hope by the grace of the holy Spirit of God, shall make all persons of quality, to behold they do infinite wrong to take the splendour of their condition for a veil of their impieties, and imperfections. Virtue is a marvellous work woman, who can make Mercury of any wood; yea should the difficulty be great, the victory would be more glorious: but all the easieness thereof is in their own hands, and the obligations they have to tend to perfection, are no less important than those of Hermits, as I intent shall appear in the process of this discourse.   

The first MOTIVE. Of the obligation which secular men, and especially persons of quality have to perfection, grounded upon the name of Christian.  
A Great abuse is crept into the minds of secular persons, who hold vice in predominance and virtue under control. It is, in that they esteem Christian perfection as a bird out of their reach and a quality dis-proportionable to their estate. As for myself (saith one of these) I have made provision of virtue, according to my quality, I pretend not to be a S. Francis, nor to be rapt as a S. Paul to the third heaven. I find there is no life but with the living, and to hold time by the forelock while I can. Let our pleasures take that scope which nature presenteth to them: were we as wicked as Judas, if we have the faith of S. Peter, the mercy of God pardoneth all. An impertinent discourse as I will hereafter declare. On the other side, there are women who chatter, and say: I will not be a S. Teresa, it is not my intention to be canonised. I love better to see my diamonds in my life glitter on my fingers, than to carry themafter my death on my statues. I better love a little perfume whilst I yet breath air, than all the Arabian odours after my death. I will have no ecstasies nor raptures. It is enough for me to wallow in the world. I may as well go to Paradise by land as by water. Such words are very impure in the mouth of a Christian, nay, so prejudicial to eternal salvation, that through the liberty of speaking too much, they take away all hope of doing well. For pursuing the tender effeminacy of that spirit, they take the measure of virtue very short and disproportionable, their intentions being infirm, the works are likewise the more feeble, not squarely answering the model of knowledge; from whence proceedeth a general corruption. I affirm, not all Christians ought to embrace the perfection of S. Francis and of S. Teresa. No. There are some whom the Divine providence will direct by other aims: But I say that every Christian is obliged to levelly at perfection, and if he hath any other intention, he is in danger to lose himself eternally. A bold saying, but it is the sentence of S. Austin: You should always be displeased with your 
Aug. Serm. 11 of the Apostle. Semper tibi displiceat quod es si vi● pervenire ad id quod non es. Si dixeris sufficit periisti. A notable speech of S. Augustine.  self for that which you are, if you desire to attain to that which you are not: and if you chance to say, it is enough, you are undone. And who are you that dare limit the gifts of God? And who are you that say, I will have but such, or such degree of graces, I satisfy myself with such a sanctity, I have proceeded far enough in a spiritual life; let us set up our staff here? What wickedness is this? Is not this to imitate that barbarous and senseless King, who cast chains into the sea, to tie the Ocean in fetters? God hath given us a 
Xerxes.  heart of a larger latitude than the heavens, which he will replenish with himself, and you will straiten it like a snail, to lodge him in narrow bounds whom the whole world cannot comprehend. Judge if this proceeding be not very unreasonable, and if you yet doubt, weight two or three reasons, which you shall find very forcible, and by them you will conclude with me, you have no less obligation to be perfect, than the most retired Hermit that ever lived in the most horrid wilderness of Egypt.  
The first reason I propose to underprop this assertion, is drawn from the nature and essence of perfection. At what mark think you should one aim to arrive to this scope? If I should say, will you be perfect? bury yourself alive in a sack, put a halter about your neck, go roast yourself in the scorching beams of the Sun, go roal yourself in snow and thorns; this would make you admire, your hair stand an end, and blood congeal in your veins: But if one tell you, God 
Perfection engrafted upon love.  hath as it were engrafted perfection with his own hands, upon the sweetest stock in the world, what cause have you of refusal? Now so it is, as I say, There is nothing so easy as to love: the whole nature of the world is poured and dissolved into love: there is nothing so worthy to be beloved, as an object which encloseth in the extent thereof all beauties and bounties imaginable; which are the strongest attractives of amity: yea it forceth our affections with a sweet violence: to love is natural, not to love is monstrous.  
Then here admire the charms of Divinity, which hath placed all the perfection of man, in the love of his Creator and Saviour, to love an infinite good which one cannot hate, and not become a devil. 
Chrys. serm. 94. Tenerae militiae, delicati conflictus est amore solo de cunctis, criminibus reportare victoriam. The warfare of Christians delicate.  S. Peter Chrysologus crieth out: A more delicate warfare never was seen, than to conquer all by love. Ask I pray, of all Divines, if charity be not the quintessence of perfection? Ask of all Religious men where they pretend to place it? in sackcloth, or hair-shirts? They will answer you, No. In the vows of poverty, chastity, obedience? No. These are most undoubted ways to perfection, but they are not properly perfection. In what then? In the love of God, which 
Cap. 63. Iren. lib. 4. Eminentissimum charismatum.  S. Irenaeus expresseth by a most elate epithet: Eminentissimum charismatum, the most eminent of all the gifts of God.  
The Master of the Sentences and some other Divines, 
The excellency of charity.  have placed charity so high (in which we establish perfection) that they have presumed to say, it was the substance of the Holy Ghost, united and as it were incorporated to man's soul; adding, that as light is called radical light in the Sun, light infused in bodies transparent, colour in bodies which we call coloured: in like manner this charity as it is (say they) originally and radically in God, is the holy Ghost; as it is united to the substance of our soul, it is grace; as it maketh sallies out upon our neighbour, it is charity.  
This Doctrine is very subtle, and really giveth a very high idea of the merit of Charity: but if we 
Notable opinion of some Divines.  would wholly examine it according to the strict rigour of Schools, and weigh it in S. Thomas his equal balance, we shall find Charity is not, to speak properly, the Holy Ghost, but as it were the first ray of Divinity, which bringeth with itself all perfections. This beam, if you will, is as it were in your power; God every day presenteth it unto you, as freely as the Sun doth his light; it only behoveth to will, it behoveth seriously once to resolve to love an object so amiable, and then behold yourselves perfect. Notwithstanding if you lay your hand on the bottom of your conscience, you shall ever find it in its proper interests, in humane respects, in intentions and affections nothing sincere, in the love of creatures. This is to coin false money in matter of love; this is to put God under the Altar, and the love of himself above, that it may have the better part of incense. What think you of this indignity? See you not the obligation of being perfect still remaineth, but the effect is ever pretermitted?  
For the second reason, I say, the perfection of man 
Imitation of Jesus Christ, abridgement of wisdom. Matth. 5. Estote perfecti, sicut & Pater vester caelestis perfectus est. Greg. Nyssen. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. In the book of the life of Moses. Humanity of Jesus. An excellent conceit of Origen. Origen 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Indeclinabiliter eosdem motus suscipie●at.  consisteth in the imitation of God. Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect: and very well S. Gregory Nyssen assureth us, that this imitation is an abridgement of all wisdom. Now who is able to mount by force of wing, and fly into the bosom of the eternal Father, thence to draw a portrait of his holinesses? Certainly no creature can aspire thereto. And what I pray, hath God, all goodness, all wisdom, done? He hath imprinted all his perfections upon our Saviour, the true figure of his substance, as if one should impress a golden seal upon virgin-wax; which made Origen say, his most sacred humanity was as the foot-step and shadow of the Divinity, and agreed with it as equal well-made dials with the Sun; whereupon the spirit of God calleth all Christians, and saith to them: Imitate courageously, behold your Prototype, behold the model of your actions. He saith not, I have two Images of my substance, I have two Sons, I send them both upon the earth; one shall be for men of eminency, the other for the multitude: Behold one delicately 
One same Jesus for the Nobles and plebeyans.  curious, crowned with roses for the nobility; behold another crowned with thorns for the vulgar. It is mere dotage to imagine it. And see you not, it is like sottishness since all Christians bear the same name, the same livery, participate of the same God, the same Sacraments, and pretend to the same Paradise, to think perfection is not appointed but for a silly handful of men, separated from secular life, and that others are excluded? Miserable creatures who to soothe their own remissness plant their own condemnation upon their foreheads!  
Briefly to conclude, the title and dignity of a Christian, draweth with it great and just obligations, which you cannot countervail but with an exact endeavour of perfection. Do you think one requireth too much of you, who have been nourished and trained up in the Church of God, if you be demanded (at the least) to show resolution and courage to resist a sin, as some Heathens have done in their infidelity? And to produce in gross three examples, upon the three most ordinary temptations, behold with S. Austin, Polemon, who telleth you: I was an insidel, a 
S. Augustine Epist. 130. saith of this, Non humano operi tribuerim, sed divino. Polimon praised by S. Augustine.  young man deprived of the knowledge of the true God, resigned over to all sort of intemperance; wine, love, play, rashness were the Chariot, which drew my youth to downfall. I was no sooner entered into the school of a Heathen Philosopher, as myself, but behold, I was wholly changed. And thou, O Christian, dost thou think it will be lawful for thee amongst so many important and forcible instructions, so many enlightenings, so many inspirations, to play the smith's old dog, and lie sleeping under the anvil? This man here, upon the only word of a man, layeth down his flowery crowns which he bore on his head, his drunkenness, his unthrifty riots, and where is there a worldly woman at this day, who at the end of a Sermon, enkindled with zeal, dissolveth one piece of her gaudy dress?  
Behold on the other side Spurina, who saith in 
Spurina.  S. Ambrose: I was a Gentile, bred in the corruption of an age, where virtue was in declination, and vice on the top of the wheel. I was endowed with an exquisite beauty, which by right of natural force gave me the key of hearts: and I seeing it was too much affected, and courted by wanton eyes, and served for a stumbling-block to chastity, I purposely made scars 
S. Ambrose in the exhortation to virginity. Deformitatem sanctitatis meae fidem, quàm formam irritamentum alienae libidinis esse malus.  in my face, extinguishing with my blood, the flames of them that sought me. For I loved better to seal my innocency, as with the seal of voluntary deformity, than to possess a beauty that served only as a bait for another's lust. O thou Christian woman, who dost paint thyself with an ill intention, seeking to gain that by imposture, which thou canst not attain by truth, and not satisfying thyself with adulterating thy beauty, sparest not to discover among company a scandalous nakedness, to show in thy breasts the impudence of thy forehead! Consider a little what thou wilt answer to this Paynim with all thy curiosity, when her blood, her wounds, scars, her beauty disfigured, which served as a sacrifice to her chastity, shall accuse thee before the inevitable tribunal.  
Behold likewise, Lycurgus is elected King of the 
Greatness of Lycurgus.  Lacedæmonians, if so his dead brother should leave no heir in his wife's body. The perfidious and unnatural Queen, sendeth this message to the King new chosen: SIR, I am with child, and according to the laws of the country, it may fall out the fruit of my body may snatch the Sceptre out of your hands. I see the kingdom is a dainty morsel, hard for them to disgorge, who once have swallowed it. If you will be wise in your own affair, I know a means by a potion, to put your crown in safety, and by anticipation, taking away the life of this little creature, settle your throne for ever. Only be mindful of me your faithful handmaid, who with loss of my own blood, tender this grateful office. Hereupon Lycurgus detesting in his heart the treachery of this ravenous she-wolf, dissembleth, and answereth: MADAM, Let the infant come into the world; be it male or female, it importeth not: we always shall find means enough, whensoever we shall think good to dispatch it. As soon as the child was born, which proved a boy, he took it in his arms, he assembled the Magistrates and people, and covering the little Creature with his royal Robe, saith: Sirs, long live justice and loyalty. Behold your King, I am but his vassal. O Christian, what sayest thou to this Pagan, that would not purchase a Kingdom by the single sin of another? Yet many times a little interest makes thee neglect all that which is divine, in Faith, Justice and Religion. It is not required of thee thou shouldest be a S. Antony, a Macarius, an Angel of the desert. It is demanded of thee, that for God's honour, thou show some small resistance of sin, which these infidels have done for a shadow of virtue, and it shall suffice. Dost thou not behold, that thou art enforced not only for good fashion, but for necessity to this Christian perfection, which thou imaginest to be far separated from thy condition?  
Conclude (O ye Noble men) out of this discourse, that the obligation which you have to be perfect, is most evident, since you have JESUS CHRIST for a sharer, the charges easy; it consisting not but in loving a goodness, which one cannot hate, and which never any one can love, if he offer not the homage of his proper interest to his divine Majesty. Behold all perfection.   

The second REASON. Drawn from Nobility.  
HAving in general declared the obligation all Christians have to become perfect, let us in particular behold the reasons which invite Nobility to perfection. I doubt not if you maturely ponder those which I have to propose, you shall find them no less obliged to the solid eminency of all Christian virtues, than Hermits themselves, and this by the right of their condition: so as that which seemeth to enlarge their scope to a life of greater liberty, rather serveth as a bound of their duty, and a bridle for their dissolutions. Let us take the first reason, which is their Nobility. It is an argument that cannot proceed but from a low judgement, or a spirit soothed with its own effeminacy, to say he is Noble, he is a Courtier, he is a Statesman; his quality toeth him not to perfection, his virtue must be measured by the ell of the world; if he were over virtuous, the excess of his sanctity would be prejudicial to his fortune. What an extravagant humour is it to fix ignominy upon the front of Nobility in the first beginning? He is Noble, he therefore should be the less devout, and less virtuous. Change the Gamuth, and say: He is Noble; he hath therefore the more obligation to be perfect. Nobility hath put the yoke of a happy necessity upon him, which he cannot shake off without much cowardice. And to make you thereby behold that Nobility is a bond of Christian virtue in all eminency, no man will deny but that by how much the more God giveth powerful and effectual means to man to arrive at a good end, so much more obligation he hath to carry himself with fervency of affection; and in case of failing, his neglect is made the more faulty. The servant to whom the Master hath given five talents to negotiate with, ought much more to profit and bring gain home, than he that received but one single talon. Who can deny 
Nobility first gift of God. Mihi Deorum immortalium munus & primum videtur & maximum, in lucem statim felicem venire. Panegyr. Constant.  this, if he will not belie the light of nature? Now so it is. Great men have many more talents of God, for the traffic of virtues, than others have; and behold the first of all, which is the happiness of their birth. An Orator making a solemn Oration in the praise of Constantine the Great, in the City of Trier, let fall these words: The first and greatest gift of heaven, was to be born happy, and as soon to be in the lists of felicity, as of nature. The Scripture itself recommendeth Nobility in the persons of the three valiant children, held in the Captivity of Babylon; in that of Eleazar, and others. It is a wonder how S. Hierome in the Epitaph of S. Paula, hath not omitted that she was descended from Agamemnon. Which would never have been mentioned, were it not that Nobility is valued amongst the temporal goods, which are distributed to us by the providence of Almighty God. Now that Nobility is a good instrument to conduct to perfection, appeareth by an irrefragable reason, which I intent to express. I will not say what might be proposed, and fortified by experience, that the bodies of Noble and Gentlemen are ordinarily better composed, and as it were more delicately moulded by the artful hands of nature; that they have their senses more subtle, their spirits more agile, their members better proportioned, their garb more gentile, and grace more accomplished: and that all these prepare a fair shop for the soul, to exercise her functions with greater liberty. Let us rather 
Nobility not tied to blood Omnis propemodum sanguis est concolor, sicubi forte alter altero clarior inventus sit non id nobilitas efficit sed sanitas. Petrarch. l. 1. de remediis dialog. 16. The souls of men different in qualities.  say with Petrarch: If Nobility were not tied but to flesh and blood, it were a small matter; since it is very difficult to distinguish between the blood of Caesar's and Porters. Nor yet will I touch what might pertinently be disputed, that the souls of men extracted from the treasures of Heaven, though they be all cast in one mould, and be of the same kind; may notwithstanding be created by God with qualities very different, as we behold in the flowers of a beautiful meadow, which are of the same name and nature, a very great dis-proportion in figure, colour, and other accidents: semblably between the stars and precious stones, which are of the same substance, one will have a lustre more sparkling, another more dull and blunted. This maketh us probably believe, that the souls of men, when they are infused into bodies, although they be essentially marked with the same stamp, may have some accidental perfections one above another; and that this great diversity which we observe therein, making one man appear of gold, another of lead, doth not only depend on the varieties 
Mercur. Trismeg. in Cratere sive Monade Cup of spirit.  of Organs. Mercury Trismegistus was of this opinion when under the bark of a fable, he represented souls unto us which before they entered into the body, drank in the cup of spirit, not all of them, but those which happily encountered that fortunate success. For he feigneth, according to the inventions of his brain, that God sendeth a messenger upon the earth, to wit, one of his Angels, who placeth a large cup as big as (it is to be supposed) that of Semiramis was, which as Aelian reporteth, weighed a thousand and four-score pound: and this cup is full of a celestial liquor, of power to make men subtle and spiritual: the messenger maketh his proclamation, and saith to every soul: Up soul, drench thyself deeply, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  and drink with all thy force in this cup of spirit. Thereupon they drink, some more, some less, which maketh a great diversity of understandings. Some wholly abstain, who when they have entered into the body, have no other share but the gifts of reason, which necessarily is a prerogative of their nature: but as for spirit they are deprived, as being absolutely stupid, and extremely shallow. It is a wonder how these ancient Sages have pleased themselves in these fabulous discourses. Needeth there so much outward cover to give us this maxim, that all souls have not one and the same relation to accidental qualities, though, as Aristotle teacheth us, they are in their own essence, as unchangeable as numbers in Arithmetic?  
This diversity of spirits presupposed, one may say that great and noble men are more privileged from the time of their birth, and that with some probability. 
Double understanding.  So Philo hath given to Kings and Potentates; a double understanding, the one for the rule of themselves, and the other for the government of their estates. But not to soothe the Nobility with feeble 
Mens ista aurea quam de communi Deo plusquam unus hausisti. Auson in panegyri Gratian  and superficial reasons, it behoveth they know, that although one should admit this accidental diversity in the Oeconomie of humane spirits, yet would the consequence not necessarily ensue, that they always thereby should be the better provided. God maketh no difference of persons in this distribution. There are spirits that have come into the world from among the cobwebs of a nasty cottage, who have filled Ages with admiration of their greatness. Others have been clothed in golden glitter and purple, who have been miserably stupid and dull: and although fortune doth still hold to the oar, who deserve to be at the stern; yea, and some be at the stern who merit to be at the oar, yet the providence of God doth manage it as best pleaseth himself for certain ends, which our foresight cannot penetrate with the best light. What infallible motive shall we then derive, to establish the obligation which toeth the Nobility to virtue above others, since we rather seek weight of reason than colour? Behold one 
shamefacedness of women.  which cannot well be denied by a well-rectified judgement. It is, that as God hath given to women, I know not what instinct of shamefacedness, which enforceth them as it were with a sweet violence, to the defence of their honour; and this in them is so powerful a touch from Heaven, that they cannot discharge themselves thereof; rather they feel it in every part, unless they be wretchedly insensible. Pliny affirmeth the same, who saith their 
Plin. lib. 7.  bodies after death, float in such posture upon the waters, 
Pronae fluitant pudori carum parcente natura. Where is the motive of virtue in the Nobility.  that they hid the nakedness from humane eyes, whereof nature, during life, hath been so careful. Even as God hath engrafted the love of modesty upon this sex, so likewise he hath affixed a spur of honour upon the spirit of Noblemen. This is the portrait of Phidias which cannot be taken away without breaking the Minerva. This is the character wherewith God will imprint virtue in them. They are all naturally sensible in the points of honesty, or else degenerate from their Nobility.  
Behold, I pray you, the force and power of this spur which God hath used for the good of Nobility. They would fly if it were possible to Heaven, and penetrate the depths, to avoid the least stain of dishonour. What flames actually would not they go through, to what breaches, assaults, musket-shots, to what images of death, which make nature to tremble with cold fear, do not they expose themselves, to conserve or acquire reputation? The spirit of lies, seeing they cannot be altered in this spur of the inseparable honour of their condition, what doth he? Not being able to wrest it from them, he rebateth the point; nay rather he rebateth the brain, and makes them place the point of honour in infamy, knowing very well that this is an effectual means to ruin them without discovery. A wonder! They rather will become Apostates from Christianity, than from the spur of honour. They meet in the field, cut one another's throat, and empty their quarrels through the channels of their blood, for that they think the thing is honourable. Judge now, and conclude what I am to say: if they would suffer this spur to pursue that course which God hath begun in their souls, persuading themselves what is most undoubted, that the most ignoble act which a Gentleman can do, is to serve sin, would not they quickly become perfect? would not they be invincible against all vices, and ever in possession of virtue? This argument is very strong, and will admit no evasion. Noble spirit, thou naturally lovest honour more than thy life, and therein thou dost well: Thou art a Christian, if thou wilt 
Against such as betray their Nobility.  not renounce thy baptism and the blood of thy Saviour; Christianity teacheth thee that the highest and most solid honour thou canst ever pretend unto, is to put vice under foot, and virtue over thy head; why stayest thou to make resolution?  
Unworthy that thou art, if thou goest about to tie Nobility to flesh and blood, or to some old rotten ruins, to some monuments, which cover a nothing under the golden traces of an Epitaph. Ridiculous that thou art, if with full mouth thou vantest a paper-Nobilitie, yea which is not thine: as if a blind man should boast his Grandfather had had good eyes, and a stammerer that his great Grandfather had been en excellent Orator. Miserable that thou art, if after thy Ancestors have planted the French Lilies amongst the Palms of Palestine, sincerely led thereto with the zeal they bore to their saith, thou betrayest religion, virtue and conscience, by a brutish life drenched in wild passions, and framest to thyself under a head of gold, a foot of clay. God who breatheth on the intentions of men, reproveth such a Nobility: and though these mongrels should make themselves as white as Swans, God esteemeth them as black as Moors. All 
Amos 9 Nunquid ut filii Aethiopum vos estis mihi Israel?  Nobility before this great Judge, is nothing in comparison of justice and perfection. Yea so it is, that in Holy Writ the Nobility of No is valued, Hae sunt generationes Noe. No vir justus erat atque perfectus. Behold a marvellous manner (saith Saint John Chrysostom) to delineate a Genealogy. The 
Nobility of No, wherein Gen. 6. Chryst in Genes.  Scripture beginneth and saith, Behold the Genealogy of Noe. It seemeth to make way through all the Patriarches from whom No was descended. It seemeth to make a rehearsal to us of all their titles and signories, of their acts and achievements: and presently endeth in saying, Will you know the Genealogy of No? he was a just man, and a perfect. Behold all his Nobility. On which subject S. Ambrose 
S. Ambr. li. de No & arca. Virtues the race of souls. Probati viri genus, virtutis prosapia est: sicut hominum genus homines, ita animarum genus virtutes.  hath an excellent saying: Nobility hath no better a character, than that of sanctity: the race of men, are men, but the race of souls are virtues.  
Noblemen, if you desire to be esteemed worthy your rank, do not as the little Sea-crabs, who by chance finding the shells of great fishes empty; enter into them without saying, by your leave, and make boasts of a borrowed habitation. Cover not the giddy fantasies and illusions of a spirit, drunk with self-love, under a vain veil of Nobility. Rather 
Notable Act of Boleslaus. Cromer lib. 5.  do as Boleslaus the fourth, King of Poland, who bearing the picture of his father, hanged about his neck in a plate of gold, when he was to speak or do any thing of importance, he took this picture, and kissing it, said: Dear father, I wish I may not do any thing remissly, unworthy of thy name. Rather do as that brave Eleazar, mentioned in the 
Nobility of Eleazar.  Book of Maccabees, who being assaulted with all sort of batteries, blandishments, menaces and torments, to make him counterfeit but one sole sin against his own law, he fixed his eyes upon the true point of honour, upon the consideration of his Nobility. Out alas (said he to himself alone) the whiteness 
Excellent speech of a noble man. 2 Machab. 6. Caepit cogitare ingenitae nobilitatis canitiem, atque à puero optimae conversationis actus.  of that venerable hair, with which thy head is covered, after it hath grown hoary in the exercise of thy religion, hath it not yet taught thee where the point of honour lies? It is not enough for Eleazar, not to counterfeit impiety, but to profess virtue; even at the price of his blood. Now God grant I may not serve as a stumbling-block to the youth of this City, since God will make this day a Theatre of my constancy. I will not belie the law of my Master, I will not dishonour the School in which I was bred and brought up. My soul shall fly out of this body, wholly innocent, discharged of infidelity, into the bosom of my Ancestors, and the honour of my life shall be conveyed into the ashes of my Tomb. These words mixed with his blood, stopped his mouth and life with one and the same seal.  
Behold you not a Nobility worthy the sight of Angels, the imitation of great spirits, and the admiration of the whole world?   

The third REASON. Drawn from the greatness and dignity of Gentlemen.  
SAint Augustine hath spoken very prudenlty, discoursing 
Aug. Sol. 14. Nebis magna indita est necessitas justè rectéque vivendi quia cuncta facimus ante oculos judicis cuncta cernentis.  upon the presence of God, to wit, that of necessity it behoveth us to be virtuous, since we are perpetually discovered by the eyes of the great Judge, before whom neither the bottomless abyss, nor hell itself hath darkness enough to hid us. If this exercise of the presence of God were as familiar to us as it is effectual, it would be a powerful motive to cleanse all the impurities of our intentions and affections, and quickly would give us leave to arrive at the top of perfection. A wise Hebrew said very well, 
Wise Counsel Ribbi in Apotheg. Hebrae.  to extirpate sin from the earth, it behoveth every one to figure himself a great eye, always wakeful upon our actions, an ear always open to observe our words, a hand indefatigably ever writing and summing up the account of our works. But seeing our soul, while it is in this mortal habitation, folded up in flesh and blood, stirs itself but lazily to the consideration of things purely spiritual, expecting the senses by which she operateth, should give her the alarm; God, all-wife, all-good, serveth himself with an efficacious means to fix us in the contemplation of his presence, which is the consideration of men in themselves, the most perfect images of God that can be found in this great universe. By how much the more we are encompassed, and as it were shot through with the eyes of beholders who view, serving as witnesses of our actions; so much the more doth our obligation of perfection increase. The greater part 
Maxima pars peccatorum tollitur si peccatorum testis assidat. Sins committed for want of witnesses. Senec.  of sins are committed for want of witnesses, saith very pertinently a grave ancient Writer. If Venus should make a veil of clouds to cover all her favourites, (as fables imagined) the earth would soon be filled with adulterers, and quickly become a Gomorrah. Nothing dismantleth vice so much as its own nakedness; take the mask from it, and you bereave it of the means of progression.  
It is from this point I intent to draw the first reason, which bindeth the Nobility to great perfection, especially those who are of state and dignity, seeing that how much the more they are eminent in honour, so much the more they are proposed as an aim to the eyes of all the world. If a little planet happen to be eclipsed, who can tell the news thereof, but some cold-foundred Mathematician, who perchance beholdeth it in the shady obscurities of the night? But if the least change happen that may be to the Sun, every one lifteth his eye to Heaven; he cannot make a false step, but the numberless numbers of men which inhabit the four quarters of the earth, do observe it. The like thing is seen in the life of Great 
Life of Great men enlightened.  men, and private persons. If an Hermit in his Cell suffer himself to be transported upon some motion of choler, who knoweth it but his cat or table? And if it be a religious man in a Covent, his imperfections are manifested but to few, which would be of force to cherish their vices, if they did not take their aims rightly leveled towards God. But as for great ones, all the eyes of men are fixed upon them, nor can they suffer eclipse but as suns; so darkening the whole world with their shady obscurities, that they, who in their own error have eyes of moles, are Arguses and Lynxes, to see and censure the actions of men of quality. Great men vicious, resemble King Ozias; they all carry their leprosy upon their forehead. Then I demand of you, this admitted, that they cannot hid themselves no more than the Sun, and that they all have honour in special recommendation, fearing the least blemishes of fame; do you not behold them between the desire of honour, and fear of contempt, as between the hammer and the anvil, enforced, as it were, with a happy necessity to do well, since to do ill is so chargeable?  
You will say unto me this intention were impure, to carry one's self in praiseworthy actions by the paths of humane respects; to which I agree: But withal add, it may easily be purged and freed, if you prefigure in your mind, that so many men as watch upon our actions, are so many messengers of God; if you consider them not as men, but as Angels of this Sovereign Majesty, who are assigned for the inquisition of your actions. This contemplation well imprinted in your spirit, shall by little and little proceed, rarifying the most gross thoughts, as the Sunbeams do the vapours of the earth, and you shall change this necessity you have to do well, by the honest enforcement of those who enlighten you, into a will so free and disinteressed, that you will ever after put on a resolution to remain in the lists of virtue, although all the world should be blind. You will resemble the Sun, who placed in Heaven by the Creators' hand, if happily he one day should chance to have no spectators of his light, would shine as radiant for the eyes of a Pismere or silly Bee, as for the greatest King in the world. S. Augustine 
Aug. de Civit. Dei. l. 6. c. 10. Do●●● Archimi●●● senex jam decrepitus, quotidie in Capitolio Mimum agebat, quasi libenter Dii spectarent, quem homines desi erant. An observation of S. Augustine upon ● Comedian.  maketh mention of an old Comedian, who in his younger days, after he had a long time played in the Comedies, which those blind Idolaters had instituted to the honour of their gods, with the general applause of the people, the glory thereof did so intoxicate him, that playing for the gods, he acted all as for men: when he grew old, and not so followed by his ordinary troup of Auditors, he went to the Capitol, and made much ado to play his Comedies alone before the statues of his false gods; doing all (said he) then for the gods, and nothing for men. If this poor Pagan had not failed in the principles of true Religion, he had hit the mark. It is true, men many times serve to polish our actions; their presence is to us a sharp spur, which makes the spirit to leap, and bound beyond itself. The like whereof is seen in Orators and Preachers, to whom their Auditory sometime serves as pipes to Organs. Such penetrate the clouds, born upon the wings of the wind, who otherwise had low flagged in the dust, void of the estimation of men. It would be a miserable vanity to have no other aim, than always to play for men, and never for God. It is fit that all these creatures should serve us for ladders, to mount up to Heaven. And this it is wherein men of state, who are in eminent place, have much advantage; they are in a great Theatre, which is to them a powerful spur to do well; yea so forcible, that it was a wonder admired by the judicious Cassius Longinus, to hear it 
Longin. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Ajax.  said, that a Grecian Captain, seeing himself in a dangerous encounter, involved in night and death, desired not of God the safeguard of his life, but only so much day as might suffice to see himself die valiantly.  
Behold the force of this motive, to give up a life the most precious thing in the whole world, to enjoy one glimmer of a daylight, which could serve to no other purpose, but to enlighten his death. Then, Noble men who are seated in dignity, I leave it to you to conclude, if you, perpetually being in the midday, and in the rays of so many as behold you, who illustrate your life, and make your death lightsome, have cause or not to slacken or grow remiss in the course of perfection.  
For the second reason I say, the foil setteth off the sparkling of the diamond, and greatens the lustre of virtue. How doth a man know what he is, if he see not himself in the occasions of good and ill? The triumph of virtue, as Plato said very well, is to have 
Erit illi gloria aeterna, qui potuit transgredi & non est transgressus. Eccl. 31. Epitaph of Vacia. Qui res & homines fugit, quem cupiditatum suarum infaelicitas relegavit, alios faeliciores videre non potuit, qui velut timidum, atque iners animal metu oblituit: ille sibi nen vivit, sed quod & turpissimum, ventri, somne, libidini. Sen●c. ep. 55. Theophylact. in Collectan. Graec. Epi. An excellent passage of Theophylact. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  sin in power, and virtue in will. To be able to sin, to be thereunto solicited by attractive pleasure, and yet not to commit it; this is all which a good man can do. A solitary life is not always laudable, if it be not guided by divine and supernatural helps, as that of Saints. For what honour is it for a retired man, to have this Epitaph of Vacia inscribed upon him: Here lieth be, who fled from the world and the affairs thereof, confined to himself by the misery of his passions; who could not endure any man to be more happy than himself: who hide himself for fear; who in present liveth not, either for another, or for himself, but for his belly, sleep and pleasure. Behold a poor praise, and which well showeth, virtue doth not always consist in the flight from greatness, but in the conquest over passions, which is by so much the more glorious by how much the adversaries are more invincible. Theophylact said, that gold is like the river Rhine, for one cause; which is that anciently those warlike Nations inhabitants of Germany, used it to prove their children in, as we use to try gold with a touchstone. As soon as these little creatures were born, they carried them to the Rhine, and plunged them in that river, and then knew by certain signs given by the child, either in wrestling with the waves, or in showing much terror and affrightment, whether he would be courageous or cowardous. He that bore himself bravely in this merciless element, was their true son. Men are not tried in Rhine, said this learned Author, to see whether they be men, but in Pactolus, in a river of gold: place them in honours, reputation, in affluence of riches, this will procure you a never-erring judgement of their virtue. What knoweth one how he, who is born and bred all his life time amongst cobwebs, would use cloth of gold if he had it? What knoweth one how humble a man may be, who is as soon found in misery as in nature, by the course of his lineal extraction? Who knoweth how abstinent one would be in the full delicacies of a great feast, who hath never seen upon his table but cabbages and turnips? Who knoweth how remperate another would be in commanding over men, who never hath exercised his power, but over dogs and calves? It seemeth all virtues, either are no virtues, or are stifled in a low condition, if we speak morally. But to see a man poor in spirit in abundant plenty 
Great virtue of Great men  of riches; humble in large trains of attendants, which he daily beholdeth prostrated at his feet; temperate in a thousand occasions of excesses which hourly are presented to him; moderate in a fortune ever upon increase; peaceful in the clattering clamours of affairs; uniform and equal in the vicissitude of humane accidents; a man who can do all 
August. tract. 13. de verbo domini. Magna virtus est cum faelicitate luctari, magna faelicitas à faelicitate non vinci.  he would, and will do nothing but what is reasonable; a man that suffereth not his appetites to fly like little butterflies, fluttering amidst the concupiscence of creatures, but limits them in the lists of modesty, and not touching the earth but with the soles of his feet, fixeth the better part of himself in Heaven; this is to behold a perpetual miracle.  
We must then necessarily aver, if we will not belie our judgement and reason, that in the greatest occasions of ill, is showed the greatest reflection of good. Great felicities are so ticklish, that it is more easy to live on the dunghill of Job with patience, than in the manage of great Kingdoms with moderation. Saint Bernard said to Pope Eugenius, He is truly great 
Bernard. ad Eugen. l. 2. Magnus cui praesens faelicitas si arrisit, non irrisit.  on whom fortune hath smiled, and not deceived him. It is a heavy burden to bear a great fortune. This is daily seen in the spirits of this Age: there needeth but a little sparkle of felicity to dazzle their eyes, to puff up their skin, to drench them in pride, in ingratitude, in tyranny, in a deluge of dissolutions. One sole hour, which a favourite may have in the prosperity of the Court, will make him forget a friendship of thirty years standing; a most evident mark of a weak spirit. On the contrary, to pass from a poor garden, into a King's Palace, as Abdolomin did, and 
Abdolomin.  handle the Sceptre with the same humility of heart, without prejudice of authority, that one would do a spade, is a virtue which rarely hath an example upon earth, but is admired in Heaven itself. It is a virtue which cometh to men from the treasures of God, not from their pedigree. It is the fairest object, which the Sun drawing aside the curtain of the night, discovereth upon earth. And I doubt not but the divine providence hath purposely held some religious Monarches in the world, as our S. Lewis, for example to declare how high Christian perfection may ascend, which is to plant humility upon the diamonds of regal crowns; to lead in Court an Hermitical life; to command greatness and humility, which seldom are of alliance, mutually to embrace as sisters.  
Add for the third reason, which is received by the common consent of all men living in the world, that tribulation serves as a furnace for virtue: the more stout and masculine it is, the more it glitters in affliction. What knoweth a man that hath always been bred in a lazy languishing life, as the trees of Sodom in the dead sea, with what measure perfection is measured? Prosperities are like a veil tissued with 
Prosperity,  gold by the fingers of fortune, to cover the ulcers of vice: and adversity is the Theatre of generous spirits, who feed themselves with afflictions, as the Sun with salt water. What a glorious spectacle is it to behold, saith S. Cyprian, an invincible courage, counter-buffed 
Cyprian de mortal.  with storms and tempests, on whom it seemeth Heaven will burst and fall in pieces, to behold him, I say, amongst the threats of the air, ruins of the world, always standing upright, as a great brazen Colossus, scorning these as mists, and small flakes of snow?  
What a brave word is it, to hear a man say in a 
Quanta sublimitas inter ruinas generis humani stare erectum. Sen. de provide. Digni visi sumus Deo in quibus experiretur quantum humana natura potest pati. Typotius in Symbol. Quasi meridianus fulgur consurget tibi ad vesperam, & cum te consumptum putaveris orieris ut lucifer. Job 11. 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  world of contrarieties, which oppose him, God be praised, who hath deemed us worthy to serve as a trial of humane nature, to see to how high a pitch patience could mount? What a Majesty it is to be able to bear this fair ensign, wherewith our Lewis the Twelfth, with a generous affection was much pleased, which was a celestial cup, advanced in rays of gold, amongst eclipses, with this motto, Inter eclipses exorior. And surely virtue never shineth so much as when she is in eclipse; which it seems the Holy Ghost would mysteriously signify in these words of Job: Thou brave spirit who strugglest against tempests, thou shalt find thy noon in the evening, and when thou shalt esteem thyself annihilated, thou then shalt elevate thyself as the morningstar. It is a wonder that in this passage, he useth an Heb●ew word for two purposes, signifying two contraries, to wit, to shine, and to be darkened. It is to show us, that obscurity which cometh 
A worthy letter in Job.  from adversity is a true and perfect light.  
It then being admitted, which all mouths do preach, and pens do write, that adversities are necessary to make up a great virtue; we will thereon conclude, that perfection will be more suitably accommodated to the lives of Great men, than any other though never so good, since they are those, who daily are exposed to the greatest hazards. The crosses of religious and private men, are but mere paper in comparison of those which happen to the Great men of the world. The learned Sinesius saith, they 
Sinesius de regno ad Arcadium. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  are illustrious on every side; one while they mount as high as Heaven, another while they descend even to the abyss; their change is never in the mean, and their fortune is pointed out in extremities: this manifestly declareth, that as their fortune hath no bounds, so they should not limit their virtues. O men of honour, it is a brave thing to see you courageous in disasters, as Eagles, who fly confronting that part of heaven where raging tempests most reign, not unlike Dolphins, who leap, and bound with full career in the tumultuous waves; or as vast rocks, who erect their crests against the clouds, and mock at the foamy waves, billow-beating their feet. This is truly the element of virtue, resembling the precious stone, called Ceraunia by the Grecians, as one would 
Ceraunia.  say, the Thunderer, for it is bred among thunders, and is found in places, where Heaven all swollen with anger, hath cleft the masterpieces of the world's great magazine. So after the black vapours of obloquy, after the misty clouds which have dis-coloured our reputation, after envy, rage, after brutish furies, after oppressions of innocence, after the death of kindred, after faithlesness of friends, after disgrace, after thunders shot from the Capitol; when you behold a heart firmly fixed in a fair situation, which enfoldeth itself within itself, and sucketh in the tasteful sweetnesses of a good conscience, then behold a thunder-stone, which gladdeth Angels, and dazzleth eyes fearful of his lightning flashes.  
Conclude then upon this whole discourse, that greatness is the very element of great virtue; and if you yet hereof doubt, learn the same from the authority of God, who hath judged greatness so necessary an object for virtue, that he hath conducted all his greatest servants to perfection, if not by the enjoying of greatness, at the least by contempt thereof; and never had they been so great, if struggling with greatness, they had not scorned to be great. Our Saviour, to show he was the example of perfection, would appear great in refusing a world, which Satan had (as it were) unfolded before his feet. He would the virtue of the greatest of all men, should appear in the refusal of the greatest of all titles, when S. John Baptist denied the name of Messiah. He showeth the greatness of his faithful servant Moses, in the contempt of Pharaoh's kingdom. He gave Nero's Court to S. Peter, and S. Paul as the Amphitheatre of their glory. He likewise many times hath drawn Hermits from the unfrequented deserts, to make them manage great matters in the Catastrophe of their lives, in the palaces of Princes; so necessary it is to have to do with greatness, to act something important. If God hath transferred to Court (as it were on the wings of impetuous winds) those that were by birth and profession alienated, to work wonders there; what Theatre (O ye Noblemen) expect you more suitable than this, to place virtue in her fairest seat? Or what obligation can you have more strictly binding to perfection, than yourselves?   

The fourth REASON. Proceeding from riches.  
IT was a thing very strange amongst the plagues wherewith Egypt, ever bend to resist the spur the more deeply to wound itself, was chastised by the angry hand of God, to behold Nilus, that great and goodly river wholly become bloody: but yet more marvellous to see that from one and the same river, the Egyptians drew blood, and the Israelites a lively 
Joseph Antiquit. Jud. l. 2. c. 5.  and crystalline stream.  
The like ordinarily is seen in the lives of good and bad rich men. The bad draw into their storehouses gold and silver, heaped one upon another by rapines and violence, as in a river consisting of the veins and blood of the poor. The good, in the honest abilities which Heaven hath graciously given them, find pure water, which they suffer to distil for the public good, as through the conduit of their liberalities. All that which the holy Writ and eloquent tongues of the Father's thunder out, replenished with threats, horror, and malediction against riches, is not understood but of those whereof the vices of men, and not the condition of the things, have made the use damnable. Such riches are deceitful shadows, which cover an apparent good under an undoubted evil: they are hands, that take their Master by the throat; they are poinyards with a golden haft, which delight the eyes with vain seem, and pierce the heart with mortal wounds; they are precipices, furnished with precious jewels, such as Heliogabalus desired to illustrate his death with; they are heights, which are not measured but by their falls; they are deadly poisons steeped in a golden cup. For this 
Eusebius Emies. Hom. de Sancta Epiphania nisi sit Episcopus Rhegiensis. An tu hunc hominem potentem & faelicem vocas, qui in suam mortem fortis est? Cui proventuum fallax umbra praesentium aeternorum congregat causas malorum? Quis beatam dixerit validam in suum jugulum dexteram? Quis laudet velocem ad ardua praecipitia festinantem? Quis ejus miretur ascensum, quem de summo prospicit esse casurum? An illum faelicem vocas qui gemmato atque aurato sibi poculo venena miscet?  cause Eusebius Emyssenus said: Poor man, who admirest those that are on the top of the wheel of the favours and riches of the world, whereunto they have ascended by iniquity, are maintained by violence, and cannot descend but by headlong ruin! How blind are you to have thoughts so unmanly and unworthy of a Christian? Esteem you a frantic man to be stout and courageous, who stabs himself with a poniard? Say you, he hath a brave steady hand, who hits his own heart right with a dagger's point? Say you that man is happy who holdeth the shadow of good in his hands, to produce to himself an eternity of evils? Who hath ever said, He who nimbly mounteth on a rock to precipitate himself, was an ableman? Who hath said, seeing him on the steepic cliffs top ready to fall, This man is happy, all the world hath an eye upon him? Who hath said of him, that hath a golden cup in his hand filled with poison, This man is fortunate to drink in so rich a goblet? And you yet daily say the same, when you behold a man in the iniquity of ill gotten goods covetous, ungrateful, disloyal, perfidious to God and men; you think him happy, and see not that he twisteth his own ruin in threads of gold and silver. Such riches are damnable. It is true. But who maketh them damnable? The perverse disposition of men. Take away vice which is not of the essence of riches, you will find they are a great prop to virtue, and a powerful motive to perfection, for those that possess them. It is to you, noblemans, to whom S. Hierom 
a Hierom. Epist. ad Demetriadem. Vestri generis e●● & habere & calcare di●●ias.  addresseth this worthy saying: To you it appertaineth to have riches, to tread them under your feet, and not carry them on your head: the more they are under you, the more they raise you, and the more they elevate you to perfection. The reasons are manifest and pertinent.  
First, it is a matter very difficult to preserve a great virtue in a great poverty, it being given but to very few souls; yea, and to those of the best temper. The poorer sort ordinarily have so much employment to think how to live, that little time remaineth for them to think how to live well. The 
Difficulties ●f the poor in virtue.  belly that hath no bread, hath no ears; and precepts of wisdom are found very short and insufficient, among people perplexed and overwhelmed with want. A father of a family who beholdeth poverty in his house, besides a multitude of children ranked like Organ-pipes, whom he must , feed, and provide for; who seethe creditors attending on him at their day, sergeants dogging him, processes that afflict him,  casually to die on the one side, his house utterly to sink on the other side; his debts not payable but with bankrupting, and rents to fail him at a need, hath full enough to do to cast time, as the proverb saith, behind his back. Necessity many times is the mother of vice, and when one hath no more goods; he is in danger to do that which is not good. Behold why the Wiseman asked of God, 
Mendicitatem & divitias, nè dederis mihi, tribue tantum victui meo necessaria, nè necessitate compulsus furar, & perjurem nomen Dei mei. Prov. 30. 8.  if not great riches, at the least exemption from poverty. You who have, be it great or indifferent means, are not brought into this penury, if you call not that a penury, when you cannot satisfy an exorbitant concupiscence, which hath no other pleasure than excess, nor other bounds but infinity. You see in your house a settled estate far distant from the multitude of discontents, under which so many mortal men do groan; ought not this to serve you for some small motive to perfection? See you not in Genesis, how God, willing to exercise Adam in a contemplative life, caused him to find at his first coming, house, table, bed, and  laid? If it had then behoved him to take pains to get his dinner, and build himself a house, as little birds do their nests, than had he had pain and care; but to the end he should have full liberty for his Master's affairs, God took all obstacles from him, that he might have no cause to accuse any man in his miserable misfortune, but his own ingratitude. O you Noblemen, God 
Privileges of Nobility.  useth you as Adam in terrestrial Paradise, he suffereth you to eat the corn at ease, which others have sowed, and the wine which others pressed; he causeth your meat to come to your tables, as if it were born by certain invisible engines; he holdeth the elements, creatures, and men in breath, not only to supply your necessities, but your well-beseeming accommodation: and can you then think he requireth a thing unreasonable of you, if giving you all things above other men, he would have you virtuous as other men?  
Secondly I say, poor-men, admit the case they be not so pressed with painful necessities of life, and that time passeth with them a little more sweetly, they may perhaps deafly attend devotion in the silence of a little family; but their virtue is not strong enough in the wing, to take a long and distant flight, nor have they arm enough to undertake great enterprises. Their little authority maketh their words not to have much weight, nor their actions (how laudable soever) to be of power to draw others to imitate them. Besides, rich men sometimes have an aversion from doing well, for fear they should have virtue common with the poor, from whom they would (if it were possible) be separated even in elements; but great men are ever powerful 
Authority o● great men to strengthen their devotion.  to authorise good works. I leave you to think, if many not through malice, but by the servile slavery of complacency, do praise even their vices and imperfections, what will they do with their virtues? For we must not suppose, (as saith the Wiseman) that the state of hell is wholly established upon earth, and good conscience eternally banished: many are vicious more through infirmity (as not being able to resist the tyranny of opinion and custom) than out of affection they bear to vice. If it happen, rich men advance the standard of piety, all the world rangeth themselves under their banner: some that were willing and not daring to do it; others though unwilling, were drawn along with a swinge of superiority, which they would not contradict. This is an argument which I will hereafter deduce more at large, when I shall speak of example. And from hence, O you rich men, judge, if God giving you such a liberty and reputation to do well, you make ill use thereof, what neglect you fall into, when you employ your authority to raise vice with a strong hand, and put virtue in dis-estimation. Anciently pearls were called ushers, because they made way 
Pearls are ushers, saith Seneca.  for Ladies who were adorned with them. Rightly may now riches bear the like name; every where they are obeyed; every where they make place: it is a good reason, if all the world serve them for ushers, they do the same office for piety, without which all their goodly lustre will be but unjust pillage. Then shall they potently reign, when they have restored virtue to her throne.  
Finally, to conclude with a third, and in my opinion the most formal reason, which evidently declareth how riches are absolute obligations unto you of Christian perfection: it is, that God seemeth to have enchased all in the charity which is exercised towards our neighbour: Give alms, and behold 
Luc. 11. 41. Date Elemosynam & ecce omnia munda sunt vobis. Alms the works of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Synes. in Epistol.  yourselves wholly pure. This practice of giving alms is so excellent, that God hath chosen no other for himself. His nature is to give, and to do good, as fire to heat, and the sun to illuminate, saith the eloquent Synesius. And to speak unto you the richest word which ever came out of the mouth of a Paynim: It is Pliny, who after he had well wandered through all sects of Philosphers, describing the essence of God, pronounceth this goodly sentence, That 
Deus est morteli juvare mortalem, & hoc ad aeternam gloriam via. Plin. l. 2. c. 7. Cant. 5. Manus ejus globi aurei, pleni mari. Where our translation saith, manus ejus tornatiles, aureae, plenae Hyacinthi. Hands of God a golden bowl full of the sea.  the greatest divinity is, to see a mortal man oblige his like, and that it is the shortest way to arrive at eternal glory. We also see in the Canticles, the hands of the Spouse compared to golden globes, which in them hold the sea enclosed. These hands are of gold, to denote to us the munificence of God, by this symbol of charity: His hands are globes made round, there is nothing rugged, clammy, or bowed; nay they are smooth, neat, polite, to pour his blessings incessantly upon men. They always empty themselves, and are always replenished; for they are filled with a sea of liberality which never will be exhausted.  
God then having bounty so natural and intrinsecal in him, will needs see it shine in his servants, and therein establisheth salvation and perfection. Which admitted, who seethe not, O you rich men, you have a particular obligation above all others, since God hath elected you to be the Stewards of his goods, the messengers of his favours, and the conduits of his liberality? Religious men, who have given the tree and the fruit all at once, have nothing more to give. The indifferently rich are ordinarily full of appetites, and produce no effects. You have power in your hands to discharge the duties of all the world, you have met with the Philosopher's stone, you have the books of a heavenly alchemy in your coffers, you have a golden rod, which can turn the dirty pelf of India into celestial substance. Consider what greater ties of duty can you have, what more pressing necessity to be perfect, than to have the instrument of perfection in your full power? Persuade yourselves no longer that riches are impediments of glory and salvation; for this unhappiness proceedeth not but from corruption and ill custom; if you take them on a false bias, they are of lead, to drench and drown you; if on a good, they are feathers to bear and lift you up to Heaven. Profane 
Chariot of Sesostris applied to the rich. Pharios currus regum cervicibus egi●. Luc. l. 10.  story maketh mention of one Sesostris King of Egypt, who triumphantly road in a chariot drawn by Kings, he was so swollen with the success of his prosperities. It was to take the way of hell in the chariot of pride, so to triumph; but you may in the chariot of charity, all glittering with gold and silver, harnessed out with poor men (each person whereof representeth the Sovereign King who raiseth all Imperial sceptres) take the right way of Paradise, 
August. med. Si ista terrena diligitis, ut subjecta diligite, ut famulantia diligite, ut munera amici, ut beneficia Domini, ut arrham sponsi.  and that by the means of riches. Then judge whether they lead to true felicity or no. If you love these terrene things, you do well; love them boldly, but as the objects of your glory, as the instruments of your salvation, as a gift of your friend, as a benefit from your Master, as the earnest-penny of your spouse, as the pledge of your predestination.   

The fifth REASON. Drawn from perfections of the body.  
IT is a lamentable misery to behold how sin hath so perverted the nature of things, that it not only giveth ill under the appearance of good, but also sometimes evil effects to that which is good. Behold for as much as concerneth the perfections of the body, (not speaking here of health, or strength, wherewith the Great-ones are not always the best provided:) beauty, grace, or garb, which seem to be more connatural to them, they are so cried down by the corruption of manners, that one knoweth not what apt place to give them either among things good or evil. S. Augustine speaketh with indifferency 
Lib. 15. cap. 21 de Civitat. Dei. Pulchritudo corporis bonum Dei domon sed proptere● etiam id largitur malis nè magnum bonum videatur bonis. Beauty condemned by idolaters themselves. Petrarch. l. 6. de remed. Dialog. 2. Habes hostem tuum domi delectabilem, & blandum: habos raptorem quietis, tortoremque perpetuum: Habes materiam laboris uberrimam, discriminum causam, fomentum libidinum, nec minorem quaerendi odii, quàm amoris aditum. Habes laqueum pedibus, velum oculis, alis viscum; super ficie tenus fulget decor multa, faedàque t●gens & horrenda levissimae cutis obtentu, sensibus blanditur & illudit.  in these terms: Beauty of body is a benign gift of God, but he bestows it often on the bad, that the good may not deem it a great good. Not only the writings of Saints, and of most austere religious, have made great invectives against beauty, but even those who at other times have with passion praised it, condemned it, as soon as they became wise. Petrarch, that worthy spirit, after he had adored a humane beauty, doth suddenly cast down the Altars thereof under his feet, and dis-avowed in ripe age, that which foolish youth had made him vehemently commend. For what saith he not in his book of the vanity of the world, which he entitleth the Remedies of Fortune? You who establish your glory in the beauty of the body, know, you have an enemy under your roof, and which is worse, a flaettering and with-delight-tempting enemy. You harbour a thief, who stealeth your repose and time, two the most pretions' things of the world. You lodge an executioner, who always will hold you to the rack and torture. You entertain a subject of toil and affliction, a motive of warfare and contention; an incendiary of sensual appetite, which is no less capable of hatred than love. This deceitful beauty putteth a snare on your feet, a veil over your eyes, and birdlime on your wings. It is a superficial grace, which covereth with the smooth delicacy of the skin loathsome and horrible stenches; so with her poison charming the drunken senses. Another 
(a) Tab. d'inconst.  saith, it is the nurse of love, the spur of sin, and that virtue lodged with beauty, hath always a slippery foot, as being in the house of a dangerous hostess. S. Chrysostom 
(b) Chrysost. homil. de vanit. pulchr. musieb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Defence of beauty, as the gift of God.  in an Homily which he made upon the vain beauty of women, hath delicate observations, not being able sufficiently to admire the sottishness of those cold-starved Amorists, who hasten to roast themselves in the ashes.  
Notwithstanding all these say of wise men, we must affirm that beauty and graceful comeliness of body, is a great gift of God, able to do infinite good, when they once hold correspondence with sincere virtue: and therefore they rather ought to be esteemed among the motives of well doing, than the instruments of mischief, it being unreasonable to condemn a benefit of God the Creator, for the abuse of men, since no man blameth the candle that clearly burneth in the house, though butterflies sing their wings in it. For proof whereof I will produce three reasons only, which seem forcible enough to convince the understandings of wise men, and evidently declare to all those that are endowed with corporal beauty, the injury they do to God, when they abuse the beauty of the body to the hindrance of the soul, and drag the gifts of God along in the dust.  
First it is undoubted, that to attribute the work of corporal beauty to any other original than that of the wisdom and goodness of God, were to apostatise from Christianity, and to rank ones self among the Manicheans. God necessarily approveth beauty, since he himself is the author thereof. He hatched it in his bosom, as light in the East, and distributively spread it upon all the creatures of the earth, as the rays of a bright day. Man hath been 
Natural beauty of man praised by Poet.  from the beginning the best provided for, since God hath made him as it were a Scutcheon whereon he hath portrayed all the titles of the most excellent beauties of the world. Origen saith, he is fair as the 
Origen in haec verba. Vocavitque Deus coelum firmamentum. Homo ipse coelum est. Job 38. Chrys. in Genesim. Quae major dignitas quàm iisdem hominem vestibus in dui, quibus ips●●et dominus, juxta illud: Dominus regnavit, dec●rem indutus ●st Ambr. l. de digni. human. condition. Favorinus. l. de excellentia hominis. Excellent observations of Favorinus.  firmament, which we see enamelled with so many stars, that resplendently shine, as torches lightened before the Altar of the Omnipotent. S. Chrysostom, that the Angels are the morning stars, whereof mention is made in Job, who incessantly praise God, and men are the evening stars, fashioned by the hand of God, with the same beauty in proportion to do the same office. And S. Ambrose, that God the Creator, for singular testimony of love, hath granted to man the same graceful habiliments with which he himself is garnished, all which are nothing but beauty. Behold whether this be not highly to raise the merit of beauty? I add hereunto also two considerations very pertinent, which Favorinus hath judiciously observed in the book he composed of the excellency of man. It is, that the Creator, who hath given beauty to man in proportion, hath by the same mean impressed in his heart a love so tender, that every well understanding man would rather desire to be reduced to nothing, (an estate which some have less accounted of than that of the damned) than to be translated according to the imaginations of Pythagoras, into the form and figure of some ugly and monstrous beast. The other reason is, that the wisest Nations (as he observeth) detesting the beastliness of those, who have clothed the Divinity in shapes of beasts, have made express decrees, forbidding all painters, gravers, and image-makers to represent God in any other figure than of man. And the reason they give is very admirable: for you would say if you heard them, they had already some knowledge of this great alliance, which should be made between the Divine and humane nature, when they said, That God was not a lover of horses or birds, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  but a true lover of men, and that he was much pleased to be conversant with those who were most virtuous and capable of his presence. Ponder with yourself whether this beauty (which God from the infancy of the world hath so carefully lodged in man) ought not to be esteemed an important thing, and a strong motive to virtue?  
For the second reason I say, that God making use of it in good occasions, it is an infallible mark he 
Beauty an instrument of God.  approveth the nature thereof; for never doth he purposely make use of things unlawful, to make the greatness of his counsels and works succeed. Now it appeareth, that he oftentimes hath chosen beauty as an instrument of his wonders, a lightening-flash of his power, a bright torch of his victories. As when he purposed to stay the violent stream of Olofernes arms, he could with an omnipotent hand have touched the rocks, and made men to rush out in armed equipage, yet notwithstanding without stretching his hand to any other miracle, he raised the beauty of a widow, to triumph over the flourishing legions of the prime Monarch of the world, and himself added a certain air, or gracious garb of attractive parts in Judith, to surprise this barbarous commander, 
Judith 10. 4. Dominus hanc in illam pulchritudinem ampliavit ut incomparabili decore omnium oculis appareret.  drunk with love and wine, in the snare of her eyes. He fought with the self same engine, with the same arms against the proud and insolent Aman; for when he was ready to command the throats of infinite numbers to be cut, as sheep marked for the slaughter, God set a frail beauty before him, which made him leap from the height of fortune's wheel, to the strangest calamity that may be imagined, and changing in an instant King Ahasuerus from a Lion 
Esther. 8.  into a Lamb, confirmed the safety and liberty of her people.  
Would you have greater proofs, of the estimation which God maketh of beauty wedded to virtue, than his affording it so glorious triumphs? Hath not the Son of God consecrated the same in his own most illustrious Person, and in that of his most holy Mother, whom ancient traditions (joined with the interpretation of the Fathers upon the texts of Scripture) show to have been endowed with an admirable grace and singular beauty, to serve even as an adamant to captivate hearts, and sweetly range them under the yoke of the Gospel? I am not ignorant, that Clemens Alexandrinus thought our Saviour 
Clemens Alex. pedagog. l. 3. c. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Error of Clemens Alex. Isaiah 35. 2. Vidimus cum, & non erat aspectus.  was willing purposely to deprive himself of corporal beauty, as from the possession of riches, searching out in all things the greatest lowliness; but in this proposition he hath grounded himself upon a passage of the Prophet Isaiah, which describing the Saviour of the world, in the day of his passion saith, We have seen him, and he had neither favour nor beauty. This foundation is ruinous, and this Author doth not otherwise than as a painter, who to represent the Moon in her proper nature, should delineate her in her eclipse. Other Authors, grounded on this passage of the Psalm 44. speciosus forma prae filiis hominum, assure us our Saviour expressly selected for himself an excellent beauty of body, and a supreme grace of speech. Nicephorus relateth certain lineaments of 
Niceph. l. 1. c. 40. Beauty of our Saviour.  his stature, colour, and proportion of his body, which he drew out of antiquity, in all parts lovely and specious. And S. Epiphanius speaking of the beauty of the blessed Virgin, saith, She was Majesty itself. Judge, and behold, since God (voluntarily despoiling himself of honours, riches and greatness of the world, to give us an example of humility) would notwithstanding sanctify beauty in himself and his Mother, what value you ought to set upon this Heavenly gift, and whether it be lawful for you to profane it. Moreover I affirm, that the Creator hath not only cherished beauty, but hath likewise held in account the instruments employed to the service thereof. It is a wonder that in Exodus 
Fecit labrum aeneum cum basi sua de speculis mulierum, quae excubabant ant ostium Taber nacli. Exod. 38. 8. Mirror for women. Theodoret in Catena Zephyr. Cyrillus de spiritu, & veritate. l. 9 Procopius in Exod.  he commanded Moses to make a brazen basin, with a foot to bear it, for the Priest to wash in, and to furnish and adorn it with looking-glasses, who kept (as it were) centinel before the gate of the Tabernacle: To what purpose was it to fasten these mirrors in a holy place, to this sacred vessel? T●eodoret, Saint Cyril, and Procopius observe, that the Egyptians went to the sacrifices of Isis, clothed with a linen garment, holding a sceptre in one hand, and a looking-glass in the other, and that the Hebrew women afterward appeared in the desert in the same manner. But God, who would show the spoils of Egypt were reserved for his greatness, caused them to lay aside these mirrors, to consecrate the use of them in his own Tabernacle The Hebrew Interpreters yield another reason, to wit, that the Israelites seeing themselves to languish in Egypt, in the fetters of a painful bondage, had resolved to abstain from the act of marriage, that they might get no children to inherit their misery. But God, who intended another web, different from that which the thoughts of men wove, stirred the women, who tricked and adorned themselves so well with these Egyptian looking-glasses, that they enkindled the chaste loves of their husbands, buried under the ashes of their servitude, to produce a posterity, by help whereof the Nations of the earth should be blessed. And this action of the women so pleased Almighty God, that he afterward caused these mirrors to be placed in his Tabernacle, which they had used to grace that beauty, which had been the cause of so much good. It then being so, see you not God hath made himself a favourer, and a protector of corporal beauty; who then dare to condemn it?  
In the third place, I add, this command which 
Power of beauty.  beauty exerciseth over hearts, is not a thing due to human forces, to the end that nature become not ambitiously proud; it is God who (as it were) imprinteth with his finger upon the foreheads of men, and especially of great ones, the beams of grace and majesty, to make them more reverenced of the people, which he doth to excellent purpose; but the creature sinisterly abuseth the gifts of the Creator.  
Maximus Tyrius saith, that a fair soul in a fair body 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  is as a river, that windingly creepeth with many wavie turn within the enamel of a beautiful meadow, and ravisheth the whole world with the admiration of its excellency. A brave Orator in a Panegyric he made of Constantine, who was one of 
Beauty of Constantine.  the goodliest Princes of the earth, saith that nature was sent of God as a gallant Harbinger, to compose 
Te cum milites ●ident, admirantur & diligunt, Jequuntur oculis, ani. more tenant, Deo so obsequi putant, cujus tam pulchra forma est, quàm certa divinitas.  a body for him suitable to his great spirit, as a stately house for a beautiful Lady in it; and that only this exterior form made him to be beloved and esteemed of all the world, no less than a God descended from Heaven. Which is also much more admirable in the other sex. How many Monarches, after they had with horror terrified the world, have been seen to become tributaries to a mortal beauty, captives to their slaves; and how many to buy out their bondage, have yielded at the feet of silly women, to do services, and commit follies unworthy to be remembered on paper? Bathsheba was neither a Lion, a Goliath, nor a Saul, yet notwithstanding with the glance of an eye, she powerfully quelled him who tore Lions, trampled Goliath under feet, and resisted all the arms, power and legions of Saul. The Philistines▪ found not cords strong enough to bind robustious Samson in; yet Dalila quickly captived and fast tied him with one hair of her head. Solomon had a heart as deep as the sea, yet women found the bottom of it. It is a wonder what Pythagorical trans-animatious this beauty of body maketh, which causeth it to be acknowledged and esteemed every where a true tyranny without an executioner, as Carneader calleth it. Doubtless the impostures, 
Carneader apud Lactantium.  the sinister intentions, the unchaste loves, the abuses which are affixed to beauty, proceed from the sleights of Satan, and depraved will of man: but the lustre and commanding power thereof, is the real gift of God, which operateth that in human bodies, which the Sun doth in the clouds, to form a Rainbow in the Heavens.  
Ladies, think hereon; you to whom God hath 
Abuse of damnable beauty.  imparted this grace, this delicate composition of body, whether it be not a great motive to you, to serve him well, and to employ it wholly to his glory? You shall be accountable for your beauty at the Judgement-day, even to the least hair of your head. If you harbour an ill hostess in this goodly mansion, which God hath builded for his service, a wicked soul, an unchaste soul; if you make glorious vaunts of borrowed coin, of a fading flower, the spoil whereof time, age, sickness, and death will divide between them; if you display a scandalous nakedness, to kindle the fuel of lusteful affection; if you seek the courtship and unlawful love of men, with a gift which is not yours; if you so often consult with your looking glasses, and take so much pain gaudily to dress and attire yourselves for a mere vanity, which you turn into an absolute profession, you shall be the marks of the wrath, and vengeance of God. This great Justicier, will suffer this malediction pronounced by the Prophets, to fall upon you, That your carcases shall one day be drawn 
Ejicient ossa de sepulchris, & expandent ea ad solum. Hier. 8.  out of their tombs, shall be showed to the eyes of Heaven, and to the rays of the Sun; and it shall be said, Behold the bones of them who heretofore have boasted the frail beauty of a little white skin, spread over these corrupt impurities! Worms and serpents now triumph thereon, as in a town taken by force, the bodies are a prey of putrefaction, and the souls have hell for their tomb.  
O what a Catastrophe is this? Preserve your beauty for God, men love it as the hunters the flesh of the bore, but God cherisheth it as his Temple. Handle the matter so, that all the extent of its reputation and power may be limited to the service of its Creator. It shall have command sufficient, if it obey him that created it. A good Author relateth, 
Lud. Vives.  that a strong town debauched, was heretofore reform by the beauty of women, who seriously addicting themselves to virtue, never beheld any of all those with a good will, who required them by the way of lawful marriage, that had not first ranged themselves in the lists of devotion and piety. This was an effectual means to extirpate vice, and gloriously advance the standard of perfection in such sort, that in short time the face of the City was seen to be changed. Practise the same, and God will bless your beauties, when they shall offer all their homage to his Altars.   

The sixth REASON. Drawn from the beauty of the soul.  
THe beauty of the body compared to that of 
Excellencies of the soul remarkable.  the soul, is but as a candle in comparison of the Sun. All the greatness, Empire, and signory of man, doth only flow from the excellency of the soul, as a streaming brook from the fountain head. If the body be a fair shell, the soul is the pearl. If the body be the lantern, the soul is the light. If the body (as S. Ambrose saith) be the triumphant chariot of the peaceable Solomon, the soul is the Queen, which sitteth thereon to guide and govern it. If the body be as the green moss of some sea-neighbouring rock, the soul is the diamond, which within hideth its lustre. It is the wellbeloved of God, which is fallen from his mouth into this mortal prison; it is that which advantageously is marked with his stamp and image, it is that which beareth the rays and exterior lineaments of this great Majesty; it is that on which the Creator hath distended 
The soul clothed with royal purple of God. Ezech. 16. Expandi amiction meum super te.  his royal purple, as is said in the Prophet Ez'chiel: And this royal garment is no other, than a collection of all the perfections of creatures, contracted in the soul of man, as the figure of the world would be in the circumference of a ring. And as heretofore Aaron the Highpriest of the old law, bare upon his robe the whole world, embroidered and heightened in Goldsmith's work: in the same manner our soul beareth in its liveries all created excellencies, which are most lively representations of the perfection of the Creator. The seventy Interpreters in the fore-alledged place of the attire of the soul, called it by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which is very 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  obscure; our Translation soundeth it, a thin and slender garment; indui te subtilibus: Origen deriveth it 
Aug. Solil. 30.  from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth hair, as it were saying, that this habit of the soul, is an attire woven with most fine hair, & so subtle, that the most strong and sharpened sights, cannot penetrate the contexture. Faith teacheth us it is a substance, which 
What the soul is.  is not substance of Elements, nor substance of God, but a substance created of nothing by the Word of God, reasonable, intellectual, spiritual always active, always lively, so capable, that nothing but God can replenish it. He that will know more than the eternal 
Si credit immortalis est ad vitam: si non credit immortalis est ad poenam. Id. de Symb. ad Catechume. n. 3. c. 3.  Wisdom hath revealed, and will not believe it immortal for his glory, shall feel it immortal by the eternity of punishments, saith S. Augustine. It is not my present purpose to speak either of the excellency or immortality of the soul, having fundamentally treated these questions in other discourses: I only speak of this part of the soul, which we commonly call the spirit. It is undoubtedly true, that 
Spirit, wherefore?  all men have one soul of the same kind, but very different in their functions and qualities. In some this their soul sleepeth perpetually in flesh and fat, and abideth as a sword beset and garnished with Diamonds, always sheathed in a scabbard of straw and mortar, without a stroke striking; all we can do, is to find some sparkling glimmers of common sense and reason therein. In others this soul glittereth and twinkleth from its most tender years, afterward it penetrateth the clouds, and diveth into bottomless abysses, with great promptness, fervour, and vivacity; and that is called the spirit, which ordinarily we behold in great and noblemen, excellently well thereunto disposed: for they are for the most part docible, intelligent, capable; from whence I draw a great motive of the obligation they have in this point seriously to dispose themselves to virtue.  
Constantine the Great, heretofore made a law, by which he forbade to adorn the Country to the prejudice of the City: If any body after the publication 
Law of Constantine God. Inst. l. 8. tit. 10 Si quis post legem hanc civitate spoliata, ornatum, hoc est marmora, & columnas, ad rura transtulerit, privetur ea possessione quàm ita ornaverit.  of this law, be found to transport the ornaments of Cities, to wit, Marbles and Columns, to Countrey-dwellings, let him be deprived of the possession thereof, Oh alas! Our soul is the City of God, garnished with so many fair embellishments, titles, trophies, so many triumphant arches, so many graces! Yet notwithstanding, O Noblemen, it often happeneth, you forsake the City to build in the Country, to leave your souls barren, languishing, bare and naked, whilst you in the mean time stretch all your sinews, all your veins, to the decking and easeful commodities of the body. You deserve to be deprived of your possessions and inheritance, since you manure it so carelessly.  
I will only propose two or three reasons, to demonstrate 
Abuse of spirit, how reprehensible it is.  how unworthy a thing it is, to apply a noble spirit to trifles and sottish toys, which easily may be proved, but not sufficiently commiserated. First, it cannot be denied, but that every thing which exceedeth the limits of its own nature, thereby becometh very irregular: we see all the elements, plants, beasts, and all creatures of the world, do constantly hold the rank, which God the Creator appointed them. The fire always retaineth its heat; the water though it be boiled on burning coals, returneth to its natural coldness: honey assumeth not the nature of wormwood, the Lion playeth not the Ape, nor doth the Eagle become an Ostrich, to trail her wings on the ground. Now the nature of the spirit, how much the more noble and elate it is, so much the more it ought to transfer itself to the consideration of things divine, to wit, from whence it cometh, whither it goeth, what within itself it acteth. This is (saith the Oracle of Roman Philosophy) an infallible 
Senec. praef. l. 1. nature. quaest. Hoc habet argumentum Divinitatis suae, quòd illum divina delectant, nec ut alieni● interest said us suis.  mark of a divine spirit, when it pleaseth itself to discourse of things divine, and is entertained in these contemplations, as with her familiar and peculiar affairs. Judge then what indignity it is, to bury this vigour and light of the spirit, which God so freely hath communicated to you, in frivolous employments and petty fopperies, which discolour the lustre and honour of your name. What a shame it is to say this Sovereign hand hath moulded man to be the King of creatures, and he betraying his nature, maketh himself the Comedian, the mimike stage-player 
Man a Stage-player of the world.  of all creatures, acting all sorts of personages but the good, and that which his own excellency is obliged unto. Which verily is the same the great Tertullian 
Tertul. de spect. c. 2. Homo omnium flagitiorum actor non tantian opus Dei, verumetiam imago est, & tamon corpore & spiritu à suo discivit institutore.  deplored: Man is the work and image of God, who having apostatised from his Creator as well in mind as body, maketh himself an Actor of all the evil personages in the great Comedy of the world. Yet that seemeth more tolerable in persons who are not eminent, either in judgement, learning, or spirit; but Great-ones, whom God hath created advantageously to transcend all others, and who should live and converse among men like Angels, to play the Hogs and Monkeys, abasing themselves to I know not what kind of childishness of spirit, and to a life corrupted with the curious delights and voluptuousness of the body; consider (I pray) whether this be not a thing as unreasonable in its own nature, as prodigious in the effects.  
Secondly, It is to do a great wrong to ones self, to live in such fashion; yea it is a mere frenzy which is not made probable to any man, but by the multitude of mad men. See you not very well, that to employ some rich and precious instrument, to a base and sordid use, is an act of a man who hath lost his wits? If you see a great Monarch employ his purple 
A great indignity in the abuse of the spirit.  robe to stop an oven with, and his sceptre to shake hay, you would cry, Out upon it: and yet the soul which God hath given you, incomparably more precious than the purple and sceptre of Kings, you suffer to wallow in the filths of flesh, you apply it to perpetual idle discourses, to vanities, quarrels, and revenges. Is not this wholly to abuse the gifts of Almighty God? It is said, Nero took delight to dig 
Folly of Nero.  the earth with a golden spade, and when there was question about cutting the Isthmus of Corinth (a design which long time troubled his brain) he went thither, led on with musical violins, holding in his 
Mausonii dialog. de Neron●.  hand the golden spade, with which he began in the sight of the whole world, to break the ground; a matter which seemed ridiculous to the wisest living in that Age. For my own part, I find it more strange, that a noble spirit should amuse itself in things frivolous and impertinent. For, to dig the earth with gold, was to bring back gold to its course, since it first sprang from the entrails of the earth: but for a heavenly spirit to delve in ordures, stenches and dunghills, this is it which is wholly inexcusable, especially in the Nobility.  
In the third place, I say that such manner of proceeding 
Sacrilege of fair souls.  is manifest sacrilege, for two reasons: the first is, it retaineth wickedly and traitorously, a thing sacred, for a profane use. S. Augustine in an Epistle 
Aug. Ep. ad Lucentium.  that he wrote to Licentius, a young man of a noble spirit, which a liltle too loosely he abused in the vanities of the world, presseth this argument in these terms, If by chance you had found a golden Chalice in 
Si calic●● aur●m invenisses in terra, denares illum Ecclesiae Dei. Accepisti à Deo ingenium spiritaliter cure●●, & ministr●● inde libidinibus, & in illo Satan● propin●●●eipsum.  the streets, you would take it from the ground, and give it to the Church, otherwise it would be a sacrilege. God hath given you a soul all of gold, so excellent it is, so delicately purified; and you use it as an instrument of sensuality, and make of it a vessel of abomination, wherein you present your soul to Satan as a sacrifice. Fear you not the anger of God?  
The other reason is, You not only withhold a vessel consecrated to the service of the Omnipotent, but you attempt upon the image of God himself. This fair spirit which he hath given you, as the flower and quintessence of your soul, is a true character of the Divinity, and you hasten to prostitute it to public affections. Remember, I pray, it hath 
Images of Emperors, how much reverenced. Senec. de benof. l. 3. c. 26.  heretofore been held a capital crime, to carry the Emperor's picture into a place undecent, or uncleanly: and expressly Paulus, a man of eminent quality, as one who had been praetor, was accused and prosecuted as criminal under Tiberius, for that he took a chamber-pot into his hand, having a ring upon his finger graved with the Emperor's form. And can you think it will be lawful for you to carry, not a dead figure, but the living Image of your Heavenly Father, into the impurities and pollutions, which your exorbitant passions extrude, as the scummie froth of folly? Is not the blame most formidable, which God by the mouth of the Prophet Ezechiel, pronounceth against an ungrateful 
Ezech. 16. 17. Et ●ulisti ●asa decoris tui de ●uro meo, atque argento meo, & fecisti tibi imagines masculin●s, & fornicata es in eyes; & olcum ma●●●, & thymiama meum posuisti eoram ei●  soul, in such manner abandoning itself? Ingrateful and wicked as thou art, thou than hast dared to take away the most precious vessels framed of my gold and silver, to make masculine idols, and so to satisfy thy fornications. Thou hast caused my oil to burn, and incense to smoke before their altars. What ingratitude is like to this? Alas, what idols are daily made of the gold and silver of God, when so many brave spirits are employed to figure chimaeras and monsters in their own sensual wills? What oil burneth, and incense smoketh before the devil's altar, when 
Abuse of an idolatrous spirit. Si quis Christianus ●le●m ●ulerit ad Sacra gentilium, vel Synagogam Jud●●rum festi● ipsorum di●bus, aut lucer●● accenderit, de societate pellatur. Canon. Apost. 70. Hell of science.  so many talents, so many perfections, are unprofitably wasted in vice and vanity? In the mean time, the 70. Canon of the Apostles excommunicateth those, who only bear oil to the Jews Synagogue, or the Paynims Temples. And in what account shall we hold the Christians, who make a perpetual sacrifice of all the faculties of their souls, to the corrupt vices and follies of the world?  
Wise men affirm, that beside the fire which shall devour the bodies and souls of the damned for ever, there is a hell of science and conscience, which shall particularly torment those who have been endowed with a generous spirit, and have ill employed it. When Adam opened his eyes to see his nakedness, his spirit and knowledge served him for a keen knife to transfix his soul, his ignorance in that kind was a great part of his felicity. What disastrous misery shall then befall those unhappy spirits of the damned, when they shall know their abilities, all the good things they might have done, and all the ill they have done? Although all the flames and tortures should surcease, they would find their hell in the eye of their own knowledge, and in their own understanding. No eye to a man is more troublesome than 
Bern. l. 3. de consider. Nullus ●●lestior oculus enique suo, non est aspectus quem tenebresa conscientia suff●gere magis volit, minus possit.  his own. It is that which the cloudy conscience desireth most to avoid, and can lest do it, saith S. Bernard, speaking of the eye. Ponder hereon (O Noblemen) whether this motive meriteth not to be seriously considered. Hell vomiteth up brave spirits, who after they have served for instruments of vice, are now become the food of flames. Augment not the number. The knowledge of God, of ones self, and the study of virtue, is a fair employment of a Noble spirit, wherein man cannot be too seriously busied, nor more fruitfully.   

The seventh REASON. Proceeding from Courage.  
OF all these reasons before alleged, which serve as a spur to the Nobility, seriously to embrace perfection, I see not any comparable to Courage, which is a force of spirit, consisting in two principal points, as Aristotle and S. Thomas 
Aristot. 3. Eth. 22. q. 125  observe, to wit, to undertake and suffer great things with judgement, and by the excitement of honesty. This courage among all the excellencies of the spirit, 
Courage compared to the river Tigris by S. Ambrose. Ambros. in haec verba. Gen. 2. Nomen fluminis tertii Tigris, Quodam cursis rapido resistentia quaequ● transverberat, noque aliquibus cursus ejus impedimentorum har●● obstaculis. Greatness of Courage.  is powerful, elate stirring and astonishing: and very well S. Ambrose compareth it to the river Tigris, which among all streams hath its current most swift and violent, so as with an unresistable impetuosity, it combatteth and surmounteth all obstacles opposed against it. Thus (saith he) Courage flieth through perils, breaketh throngs, and works itself a passage through a world of contrarieties. This courage is an Eagle which confronteth storms, a Lion which opposeth all violences, a Diamond which never is broken, a Rock which scorneth waves, an Anvil which resisteth all the strokes of the hammer. It is a thing which with admiration ravisheth heaven and earth, to behold in the flesh of a frail and feeble man, a spirit to make trial of all accidents, which is amazed at nothing, which surmounteth all difficulties, and which would rather cast itself into the gates of hell with undoubted loss of body, than into the least suspicion of remissness. This striketh the spirit with admiration, and be it either in military actions or civil, Courage is highly valued, though success always answer not good enterprises; and enemies most cruel are enforced to admire a valour and vigour of spirit, that never bowed under an evil which it was not able to vanquish.  
The History of Herodotus relateth, that one called 
Herodot. & Suid. in voci. Death of Callimachus.  Calimachus in the battle of Marathon, being found by the Persians stuck all over with arrows like a hedgehog, standing boult upright amongst a heap of dead bodies, as if he had been under-propped by the counterpoise of the same arrows, they were so astonished with the dauntless valour of this dead man, that they held himas immortal. Never did Seneca 
Senec. de constantia sapient.  so demonstratively show the strength of his eloquence, as in praising the courage of Cato. This man (saith he) hath not opposed, nor fought with savage beasts; it is for hunters: He hath not pursued monsters with fire and sword, he lived not in an Age in which it was believed, that a man supported Heaven with his shoulders. Behold why he was not esteemed 
A notable praise of strength of Courage.  as a Hercules nor as an Atlas, who notwithstanding fought with greater monsters than Hercules. He carried another manner of burden than did the fabulous Atlas. He alone combated against ambition (a monster of many heads) against the vices of a degenerate City, and which daily, like an old house, was sinking with the excess of weight. This incomparable 
St●●i● s●lus, & ●●dentem R●●publicam quantum modo una retrahi manu poterat retinuit: donec vel abreptus, vel abstractus comitem se ruin● di● sustentate dedit. A singular commendation of Cato.  man supported the Roman Commonwealth, as long as he could; yea even when it fell into the abyss of a thousand lamentable confusions, he yet held it up with a hand prompt, always upon the brink of the precipice; and not being able longer to underprop it, overborn as he was by the violence of mischiefs, he chose his tomb in the sepulchre of his Country. What greatness, what Majesty! Undoubtedly courage hath so much lustre and glitter, that obstinacy itself, which is a vice in all things else very hard and rude, being clothed with the mantle of courage, findeth much reputation amongst men. Now this generosity of which we speak, is a faithful and an inseparable companion of true Nobility. All great men ordinarily have a courage 
A lance graven on the skin. Dion. Chrys. Orat. 4.  very high, and even as certain brave Lacedæmonians were born from their mother's womb, with a lance portrayed and characterized upon their skin; so all Noblemen seem to bring magnanimity into the world, from the day of their birth. This might be a marvellous motive to lead them in a strait and direct line, to great and valiant actions, were it not that the evil spirit instantly spreadeth a film over their eyes, and makes them feel impressions of mere sluggishness, under the false veil of courage.  
Two things, O Noblemen, will make you exactly accountable before the justice of God. The first, to abuse this gift of courage with vanity. The second, to defile it with cruelty. The one savours of childishness, the other of barbarism. What can one imagine 
Baseness of courage in certain Noble men.  more weak and childish, than to have received a courage from God, capable to conquer Heaven, and to employ it in petty fopperies, wherein the thoughts better part, and the days actions are wasted, to court a Lady, to gourmandise a banquet, nicely to quarrel upon the interpretation of a word, to suck up wind, to feed a fond curiosity with other affairs, to buy plumes of feathers, to censure men's apparel, to dress himself up for dancing, to play at dice, to hold a racket in a Tennis-court, to play the Buffoon in a feast, to utter a secret, to forge a calumny, to envy one greater than himself, to despise equals, to baffle inferiors, and a thousand other such like exercises, which are the rust and moth of the spirit. Behold into what, these brave courages, which should plant the Flower-deluces in the east, are dissolved. Is not this a shame? Is any thing more punishable, than so to abuse the gifts of God? Is it not a goodly thing to behold in Poets a Jupiter, 
A Jupiter painting goats on the clouds, what it signifies. Philost. in Appolon. lib. 21. cap. 10.  who hath forsaken his fiery chariot and winged horses, letting all go at random, in the mean time to busy himself in painting upon the clouds, sometimes Goats, Apes and Centaurs? Behold what Great men do, when forsaking the duty of their charges, and the obligation of their professions, they vilify themselves in inferior actions, bestowing therein a great part of their time, and (as it were) their whole spirit.  
Vanity would also be more tolerable, were it not that it changeth into cruelty, which is apparent in the beastly quarrel and bloody duels, that transform the nature of men into a brutishness absolutely savage and tyrannous. We must draw iron out of 
Against duels  the entrails of the earth, to make it (as it were) first to blush with shame, before it be ruddy with blood, to see itself employed to such a use, to behold itself sharpened by the hands of men, to cut and transfix men: differences must be determined with the loss of life. These miserable creatures, sometimes for the interpretation of a word, sometime through promptness of spirit, provoke one another to single combat, they send a letter of challenge, the place of meeting is appointed; they choose Godfathers, as if they would make a baptism with a sacrifice of furies, they procure Seconds, who well see, that to go upon cold blood to hazard their lives in an unhappy combat, against a man that never had offended nor known them, is a sublimity of folly; notwithstanding on they go tyrannically, led along by the laws of vain honour, which hath no other foundation but the sottish brainsick-folly of men. All of them have for the most part more outward show than malice, their hearts tremble with cold fear, in the consideration of the peril to which they expose themselves, yet their lips leave not to sound vainglorious bravadoes. They seek out solitary places like Sorcerers, and sometime they go by Moonshine to act this hateful outrage, not seeing at all, that God beholdeth them with as many eyes of vengeance, as the firmament hath stars. At the end 
Reasons.  of all this, they think to do an act full of courage, most Heroic and manly. What shall we say here? that this passion is a rage more than brutish, which hath for inheritance the death of the body, the eternal and irrecoverable loss of the soul, the inevitable anger of God, the indignation of Kings, the thunder of laws, the execration of the just, the malediction of heaven and earth? No, this is not it which I now intent to speak. For seeing I treat of generosity which obligeth the Nobility, first to Almighty God who giveth it, secondly to virtue which seeketh it as a most necessary instrument, I must show that in this action of duels, pretended to be all courage, there is nothing less than courage in it. And although they were not liable to the vengeance of God, for being infringers of laws both divine and human, by this detestable manner of proceeding, yet they would be ever greater culpable, to blast and defile with this abject humour and remiss spirit, the gift of courage, which is particularly granted to them out of the treasury of Heaven.  
I know not what false spectacles are clapped over the eyes of the Nobility, by the spirit of lies, forged in the shop of hell, which oftentimes make them to take glass for Diamond, and a Kestrel for a Falcon. Yes verily, you have a certain bird in the mystery of faulconry, called the Hobby, which coupleth with the race of Falcons, Goshawks, and Sparhawks: Yea 
Kestrels of Nobility.  this wretched bird doth also mix with the Saker and Lanaret, she flieth after the Falconers, and hover over the field, if the dogs spring some little bird, she sowceth upon it, making boasts over this feeble creature, seeing she hath neither heart nor resolution to grapple with the great ones. Justly herein behold the model of a Gallant, who maketh profession to present the letter of challenge to call others to duel: he hath degenerated from true Nobility and real courage, which is produced in goodly and great actions, undertaken for the service of God and his King; he hath no longer left in him aught but a little fierce rebellious spirit, to peck at those whom his own temerity judgeth more weak than himself. And shall then this man be taken for a man of courage? O Noblemen, see you not that true 
Duel is not an act of covage.  actions of courage are too high and eminent, to impart their worth and honour to lackeys and horsboys? Now it is so come to pass, that there is not any inferior footman nor petty groom of a stable, that will not watch to take revenge by duel, that will not endeavour to determine differences by some kind of single combat. There is not any vain braggart descended from ignoble plebeian parents, under the pretence that he carrieth a pen in his ear, (which peradventure might be the sword and lance that his father or grandfather made boasts of upon a shred of parchment, to gain 6 d. a day) that striveth not to have a sword of a good temper, to provoke his adversary to single combat, and the more in famous he is, the more audaciously he furnisheth himself out for this enterprise, presupposing that this is a true means closely to cover his base condition. Anciently in the wisest and most valorous Kingdom of 
Who entered into duels anciently.  the world, those which engaged themselves in these duels, were people gathered out of the dregs and lees of men, slaves, vagabonds, and loitering rogues, furnitures for a gibbet: then judge you, if it be not a madness to say, you desire in all things to separate yourselves far from the multitude, to enworthy and distinguish your Nobility, and yet in this one action alone, you lessen and vilify your courage, even to the condition of the most captive and abominable creatures of the earth.  
You will say, That is true, but a man cannot refuse a duel when he is urged. Why? Because shame 
Great want of generosity in duels.  and ignominy always attend, say you, on these denials. See you not by this answer, you give arms against yourself, and freely confess that a duel is not an action of courage? For to lay apart the ordinances of the Church, take but the laws of Aristotle, 
Ethic. c. 8.  a worldly man as yourself, and more than you, doth not he most pertinently demonstrate in his Ethics, that it is not an action of valour, when a soldier is valiant, while his Captain hath set the enemy on one side, and a river on the other, to enforce him to fight? or because a Sergeant of a band is ready to transfix the veins of his back with a halberd, if he retire? Virtue which is not virtue, but for avoidance of dishonour, is true pusillanimity under the veil of false courage. I then demand of you, who more tyrannically assaulteth a man, either the Sergeant of a band, who thrusteth a sword into his reins, or the point of honour which possesseth his brains? Without all doubt you will agree with me, that there is no tyranny comparable to that of this mad duel, which is called Point of honour. And in the mean space, because (forsooth) this goodly Sergeant of a band enforceth you, and beareth you forward upon the hips with the helve of a halberd, you must hasten to a duel, you must go to precipitate yourself into the throat of hell, whereas otherwise were it not for the shame of the world, you would not stir a foot. Behold a brave act of courage.  
What then shall we answer to those who provoke you? That which conscience permitteth, and Doctor Bannes adviseth; that you seek not dens nor caverns, that you go into every place with your head erected, and if they shall be so temerarious as to assault you, they may find you upon that defence which the law of nature permitteth. Behold a good answer for a Doctor, but the world is not paid in such coin. Answer them as the wisest among worldlings, Augustus Caesar to Mark Anthony, who challenging him in single combat, he caused in plain terms to be said unto him, that when the despair of the success of his affairs should reduce him to the furious rage of hating his life, yet he would find out other ways to die much more honest, than by this butcherly frenzy. Yea but this is an answer of a coward. This coward in the mean time established the prime Empire of the world, struggling by strength of arm against a torrent both of arms and opinions, which hindered his passage, constraining the whole world to yield obedience to his valour; and he that challenged him with all his magnanimity and courage, died in the arms of a woman; rage and effeminacy sharing the rest of his life, as well as the triumph of his death. Behold you not a goodly courage? Howsoever the matter stands in refusing of a duel, the dishonour of the world cannot be eschewed. What is the world? A mass of mad men. If you have sworn to please them by sacrificing your blood, your life, with the damnation of your soul, are you not then the most miserable slave that ever was fettered in the guives of a rigorous servitude? Are you not a soul prodigiously servile, so far off are you from having one sole point of courage? We then must go out of the world? Leave it, if you cannot live without the damnation of your soul; be gone, break the chains immediately. But I am too much bound, it is fit the goat browse where he is fastened. What counsel shall one give you? You can neither go nor stay. Resolve then to live in the world, trampling under your feet the opinion of the world, subjecting the laws of the earth to the Empire of Heaven, and then fear not but you shall have courage enough.   

The eighth REASON. Proceeding from education.  
ONe of the greatest benefits which man can receive 
Force of education.  at God's hands, is the favourable blessing of good education. It is it which polisheth and purifieth nature, as one would do a precious stone, wholly defiled with earth and filthy ordure; it is it which maketh men become Angels, and without it the goodliest and best natures would perpetually dwell in brutishness. The History of 
A wolf-child.  Germany telleth us, that heretofore a child was taken in the forests, which was presented to Henry Landgrave of Hassia. From four years old he had been bred among wolves, the wolves taught him to go on four feet as a bruit beast, he went a foraging with the wolves, he divided the prey with the wolves, he slept amongst the wolves to be the more warm; to conclude, he wholly became wolf. When he came to be made tractable and tame, they were enforced to tie his hands to staves, to teach him to go as men do, yet did he break all to return to the condition of a wolf: so powerful is the force and tyranny of education. Another sucking the milk of a sow, took a singular pleasure to wallow in the dirt; and lambs nourished with goat's milk, retain the roughness of hair.  
Hereupon judge, O you Noblemen, what obligation you have to the Divine Majesty, and what motive to tread the paths of perfection, since ordinarily (as I intent here to prove) you meet with all those things which may conduce to the happiness of good education. How many spirits think you are there in 
Defect in education.  the world, that for want of education remain as diamonds buried in a dunghill, which if once you unearth and free from rust and putrefaction, will set the sun before your eyes? Behold an infant blessed with a beautiful body, a fair spirit, but yet born with a yoke on his neck, the yoke of poverty and servitude. 
Misery of want.  The condition of his birth hath shut him in a cage, what means then, I pray, hath he to work wonders? As soon as ever he beginneth to open his eyes, he beholdeth himself to be born in a house hanged round about with cobwebs, he beholdeth his father and mother to groan under the burden of a needy life, his brothers and sisters to roll the same stone. There is no question made of civil education, instruction, or knowledge; bread must be sought for, so much solicitude must be had only to live as bruit beasts, that no leisure will be found to think how to live like a man: and admit it were thought on, there are no books in this poor cottage, but rotten wormeaten walls; no arms but the anviles of a shop or forge; no other music but their obstreperous clatter, no other Master but the necessity of learning nothing, no other lesson but ignorance and misery. Behold, seeing you might have been reduced to this condition of life, what have you done to God before your being, to be that which you are? He hath not been content to give you blood, wealth, qualification, spirit and courage, but also he alloweth you the happiness of good education, which setteth and composeth all the natural parts into a fair way.  
You demand of me, whether I judge seriously the education of Great-ones and men of quality to be such? I affirm, at the least it hath all the possible means and opportunity so to be, in which consisteth the knot of obligation we seek for.  
And without going further, is it not an uncontrollable proof which sufficiently declareth, that even the education of Court is worthy recommendation, to say that God, seeking out a school for the greatest Statesman that ever was in the world, chose no other place than the Court of a King? You know 
Education of Moses at Court.  what a man Moses was, how great, how eminent, how much beloved of Almighty God, who elected him to be a conduct and captain of six hundred thousand men at arms, to give him a regency over the elements, and a power to replenish the four quarters of the world with the greatness of his prodigies. What did he to breed him, and frame him to so high and supereminent a condition, to so heroic virtues? Did he suffer him to be bred as other Hebrew children, in fear, in bondage, in poverty, which overwhelm the goodliest and best dispositions, as soon as they begin to set forward? No, he brought him to the Court of Pharaoh, he caused him to be nourished in the exercises of Nobility, to swallow all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who then were in reputation to be the wisest men in the world. This is it, which S. Stephen said in the Acts, Eruditum omni sapientia Aegyptiorum. 
Acts 7. 12. Learning, and Courtliness of Moses. Philo de vita Moses.  And Philo in the book he hath written of the life of Moses, unfolding to us the history of his education, saith, he learned in the Court of the King of Egypt, Arithmetic, Geomitry, Music, as well contemplative as practic Philosophy, and the secrets of Hierogliphics. But to show Noblemen how lawful it is to learn Court-civilities and garbs, without contracting the vices, the same Moses who learned all lawful sciences from the Egyptian Doctors, never would suck milk from nurses of the same Nation, which might infuse any bad influence upon his manners. God held the very same course in the education 
Daniel and his companions bred at Court. Pueros in quibus nulla esset macula, decoros forma, eruditos omni sapientia, cautos scientia, & doctos disciplina. Dan. 1.  of the Prophet Daniel, and of those three holy children, who planted the trophy of their faith among the burning coals of an oven; he caused them to be educated in the Court of King Nabuchadnezzar, he caused them to learn the Chaldaik language, to be trained in literature, to be afterwards presented to the King, well instructed in all sorts of sciences.  
From hence you may judge that education of great men, is a matter full of worth and recommendation, since God, who disposeth all with so excellent oeconomy in favour of the just, hath pleased to give to his greatest minions and favourites, the Courts of Kings for a school. And in effect, we must aver 
Why men of quality are best bred.  there is the best education, where the best tools and instruments of great actions are, and these are found in the houses of personages of quality. Education of children is begun in the choice of nurses. Poor people take such as necessity permitteth, many times surcharged with imperfections and disproportions of nature, which make corruption creep into the child with the milk; the rich and those of quality elect them with all possible advantage, which gold, credit, or authority can procure. This choice of nurses is of no small importance. The Scripture observeth that King 
Glossa Lyr. in Daniel. Nabuchadnezzar nursed by a Goat.  Nabuchadnezzar having been from his infancy exposed in a forest, and nourished by a wild goat, contracted thereby brutish manners, so that degenerating into a vehement stupidity and most barbarous pride, it made him afterwards by the just punishment of heaven, return to the life of beasts, among whom he had been bred.  
The same happened in the person of the Emperor Caligula, (a portentous prodigy of man) who seemed 
Dio. Cassius. nurse of Caligula.  to be born for no other purpose, but to show the world the mischief which a great power can perpetrate in a great brutishness. It is held this corruption came to him neither from father nor mother, who both were reputed the most honest and prudent in the Roman Empire. But it is said, that (perhaps) of purpose to make him one day martial, they gave him a masculine brave nurse: For she was hairy on the face as man, she drew a long bow, she ran at the ring, she curveted a horse like a rider, but in other kinds she was mischievous and cruel, and made her little nurse-child superlatively inheritor of her vices.  
If then the goodness of nurses be one of the principal favours which happeneth in education, who will have them if not Noblemen? As soon as Ladies and women of quality are ready to be brought in bed, every one will present them a nurse, every one will offer one of their own choice, there is not a visitant nor gossip that will not roam from house to house for this purpose, and redouble journey after journey. It falleth out oftentimes, that after the mothers do neglect personally to give their children suck, and use so much curiofitie in the election, drawn by considerations merely terrene, that overmuch choice maketh them to elect ill. The children of rich men become droughty amongst a mass of fountains, wherewith they are presented to suck from their infancy; and those of poor men, amongst the incommodities of nouriture, grow up as safforn under hail; God counterpoizing to the one their over much solicitude of human helps, and supplying the want in the other. Notwithstanding it cannot be denied, but that a moderate choice of nurses, ever accommodated to God's greater glory; is most available to the infant, and that persons of quality have this favour much more transcendent than others.  
After the nurses, come the governor's and governesses. The poor creatures are instantly abandoned, and cast amongst a little crew of children, their ordinary companions and play-fellows, and there have they all liberty to besmear one another as a Collier's sack. In the houses of great-ones, there is always some sage woman, who giveth the first tincture and impressions to the souls of children, and beginneth to trace on their tender hearts, the first draughts of the fear of God. When the infant is capable to learn any thing, the poor creature much wanteth instructions; for the Chariot of learning is now adays moved with the arms of gold and silver. Great men make all arts and sciences 
Art's tributary to great men.  tributary to their fortune. If books be wanting, goodly libraries are erected with money. If good teachers, all the best spirits and choicest Masters make haste to enter into the houses of Great-ones. There is not a Grammarian, Geographer, Chronologer, Rhetorician, or Philosopher will fail them. If they could not otherwise have it, but that they must fetch learning from the furthest confines of the earth, to infuse it into their brain, they would have it at what price soever. If they be to be trained in Military exercise, the bravest Academies are opened to them. If the parents show themselves (though it be never so little) affected to devotion and virtue, they that never were bend thereto, will be pliable and seek rather to make sale thereof, than to use it.  
Verily you, O Noblemen, behold that the help of education is great, and wholly in your own hands. Judge now then, the injury you do to God, and the wrong you inflict on yourselves, when you abuse these bounties of Heaven. Wherein 
Bad education of Noblemen, & why?  do we abuse it then? In two principal points. The first in neglecting good instruction. The second in subverting it by vice contrary thereunto. How is that? First many fathers and mothers at 
Fathers and mothers compared to Ostriches.  this day, resembling Ostriches who lay their eggs in the open way without hatching them, little regard to till the minds of their children, by planting therein the fear of God, to gather afterward a rich harvest of eminent virtues, suitable to their condition. But if a proposition be made, to expose them to the height of the wheel of worldly honours, with the fresh gale of favour, then are they eagerly busy. Is not this it which the Prophet Jeremy did deplore, 
Filia populi mei crudelis quasi struthio in deserto. Thren. 43.  when he said, Jerusalem was cruel as an Ostrich in the deserts? Such fathers there will be found in the world, who without any guidance or direction, thrust their sons into the throng of many hazards of being undone, and will not spare to send them into the fellowship of devils, into the contempt of Religion, and lose liberty, so that it may be a degree to advance their fortune. What Christianity is this? Guevarra a great Courtier, saith, 
Guevarra in the Alarm to Courtiers, translated by Monsieur Hardy.  that parents which so send their children to Court, without prescribing how they ought to demean themselves, and not allowing them some person, who may seasonably reprehend their imperfections, should do much better to load them with irons, and place them in the house of fools, because there they are bound that they may become more wise, and in the Court, they are let lose to make them more foolish. If a young man, have deserved the wheel, do but put him into the hands of his own will, a more butcherly executioner you cannot give him.  
The other point is yet more perilous, when they 
Great corruption of Nobility.  are not only neglected, but are purposely bred in pride and sensuality, which are the two rocks whereon these young souls make shipwreck. One of the wisest men of the Roman Empire, complained of the time he lived in, wherein they first built palaces before the mouth was form; that young 
Ante palatium eorum quàm os instituimus: in purpuris repunt, in lecticis crescunt, gau demus si quid licentius dixerint. Verba nè Alexandrinis quidem permittenda deliciis, risu & osculo excipimus. Fabius Quintilianus.  boys were wrapped up in scarlet, that they grew up in litters and coaches, without ever scarce setting foot to the ground, and that their lips were kissed for having spoken some sottish foppery. This was somewhat tolerable amongst Heathens; but to see Christian children bred up in pride, in flatteries, in perpetual apish toys, services and submissions, which raise their high spirit, is it not a prodigy? These little Thrasonists are no sooner out of the shell, but instantly they establish a jurisdiction in the family, they make a nose of wax of their parents, drunk with love and childish indulgence, to lead and turn them where they list; they do and undo what they please, and indeed exercise even then a petty tyranny, to make themselves afterwards lose and unfettered Lions. And they seeing all things are permitted them, do instantly take that vogue, which depraved nature doth present unto them, they follow the tract of pleasure 
Domestics vicious, how abominable.  and voluptuousness, so fattening and engrossing their souls, that all the lustre of the spirit is wholly buried and extinct. Their houshold-servants who nearly attend them, seeing their favour may this way be gained, desperately corrupt them, proposing vices to them, of which they never had the least knowledge.  
Hereupon, fathers and mothers, take heed; cankers 
Education of children recommended by excellent passages of Fathers.  which devour bodies, and pestilences which suffocate hearts, are not so dangerous as are these creatures, unworthily slavish in the most prodigious servitude that may be, when under pretext of wel-wishing, they thrust your children into vice; before their eyes are open to distinguish it. Know, that children are, as saith Clemens Alexandrinus, the flowers 
Clemens Alex. 2. paedag. c. 8.  of marriage, nothing is so easy to be corrupted, a little contagious breath will tarnish and dry up all their beauty. Understand they are your possessions and inheritances: possedi hominem, per Deum, said the first mother of mortals. If you leave them unmanured, all overrun with thorns and briers, you shall become answerable to the justice of Almighty God. Look well unto it, saith S. Hierom, that they 
Hier. ad Laetam.  carouse not in the cups of Babylon, and be not strucken with the hammer, the noise whereof will resound through the earth, otherwise they will one day be nails and lances 
Erunt vobis quasi clavi, & lance● in lateribus. Num. 33. Reg. 42. 23.  in your sides, (as saith the Scripture) to transfix you even to the heart. In the fourth book of Kings 42. children ill brought up, were devoured by Bears, to teach parents that since they have done less than Bears, who shape their whelps by much licking and smothing them, they therefore by Bears were bereft of them: and such infants (saith S. Cyprian) will one 
Cyprian de lapsis. Perdiait nos aliena ●ersidia, parents sensimus ●arricidas.  day complain at the tribunal of God, saying, The perfidiousness of others hath betrayed us, our fathers and mothers have been our parricides. In like manner, youth, take heed how you abuse the gift of your good education, and the many instrumental means which God hath granted you for the exercise of virtue, otherwise you shall pay the losses thereof in the length of a corrupt and miserable life, and your bones in old age shall be filled with the follies of youth, which shall sleep with you even in your tomb, and drag your souls into the bottomless precipice, from whence there is no recovery.   

The ninth REASON. Which maketh it appear, the Court is a life of penance.  
AMongst the motives which the exact Masters of spiritual life propose to Religious men, to invite them to perfection, they set before their eyes, that they are all stirred up to virtue, when they already are in the arms of penance. The like with just reason we may say to Courtiers, the more to inflame them to fortify themselves in great and glorious virtues, to wit, that arriving at Court, they enter into a house of penance, where they every day have a thousand occasions of suffering, which is the shortest way to perfection. That the Court is a place of public penance, appeareth for the reasons which I intent now to produce. First, Antiquity hath called penance, by the word Envy, as Tertullian 
Tertul. Apol. c. 40. Invidia Coelum tundimus.  hath done, who saith, We strike at the gates of Heaven, as with the hammer of envy; that is to say, with penance. This name hath been given, either for that it doth make God as it were envied, if he pardon not, seeing the estate of penitents so deplorable; 
Penance called by the name of envy.  Invidiam facit Deo, nisi ignoscat, as the most learned Bishop of Orleans hath noted in his observations upon Tertullian: or for that the Latin word invidere signifieth originally not to see any thing, but to turn the eye aside as from a sad object; and the habit, estate and condition of the penitents was heretofore so lamentable, that the nice and curious averted their eyes from them, and could not endure so much as only to behold them. Howsoever it be, the title of envy doth excellently well agree with the Court. That is the nest where envy hatcheth her 
Envy of Court.  eggs, the throne where she exerciseth her Empire, the Altar where she hath many sacrifices, and were she banished from all the corners of the earth, we then should search for her among Courtiers, their life always being between the two scales of the balance, whereof the one is called envy, the other misery. This is it which obligeth them to an extraordinary perfection, that they may perpetually stand upon their guard, and avoid the least defect. This is it, which if they know well how to use it, doth absolutely shut up from them the gate to all excess; for if envy (according to the proverb) will offer to shave an egg, what will she not do in a meadow?  
Secondly, the ancient Canons and Doctors of 
Five degrees of penance among the Ancients. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  the Church, as S. Basil, observe five degrees of penance. The first was called sorrow, which was a state of tears and groans. The second is called audience, which was a degree to which penitents, after an infinite number of sighs, were admitted to hear the instructions and preach of the word of God, whereof they were before deprived. The third, humiliation, which was when the penitents were admitted 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  to a certain part of the Mass, but not at the Sacrifices, for they went out before the consecration, a little after the newly instructed Christians, the Priest repeating over them a certain prayer, during which time they made a low obeisance, their face bowed to the ground. The fourth degree is called consistence, where the penitents had leave to 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  hear Mass at the full length as others, but not to make any oblation, nor to communicate: for that was reserved to the last degree, called communion, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  where they obtained a full reconciliation in the participation of the holy mysteries, as the fore-alledged Bishop hath most excellently explicated.  
Of these five parts of penance, Courtiers for the 
Practise of these degrees at Court.  most part exercise those which are most irksome, and very seldom sparticipate in the consolations of the other more sweet and benign. If penitents have a degree of tears and lamentations, where are sighs and groans more frequent than in Court, for the many disasters which ordinarily occur in their affairs? One may well apply to them that passage of Job, expressed in S. Gregory the Great, The Giants or men 
Job 20. Gigantes gemunt sub aquis. Estate of tears.  of the earth, do groan under the waters. Out alas! how many times the poor miserable creatures, after a world of travels, pursuits and hopes, which are dreams without sleep, seeing themselves transported into disgrace, with a furious torrent of envy, sigh and mourn in an Ocean of calamities? One frown of an incensed Prince, is more formidable to them than the eye of a Basilisk, yea more terrible than the crack of a Canon. The favours they enjoy, are winged and slippery; all the contentment they can possibly receive in ten years, will not afford so much joy to their hearts, as the repulse of one sole day, coming as a stroke of thunder, afflicteth them and makes them give ground, if they have not recourse to heavenly consolations. See you not how Absalon reestablished 
Obsacro ut videa● facie●● Regis, quod si memor est iniquitatis meae interficiat me. 2 Reg. 14.  in Court, yet deprived of the King his father's sight, bore this disgrace with so much anziety of mind, that he asked a bloody death for his remedy? What will the look of a Lion be, if the only deprivation of a favourable eye, be so ill to be digested? What will become of so many other contrarieties, which at every turn transfix so many brave designs, so well projected? Where will not occasion of many most bitter sorrows be found, among so divers accidents, which cause us to stand at all times prepared for blows? If penitents be in a state 
State of humility.  of humiliation, wherein, as other Interpreters observe, they not only humbled themselves, prostrated on the earth at the Priest's benediction, but they lowly laid themselves under the feet of all the world; where I pray are souls found, born more to servitude, more pliant, more abased, than the Courtiers? They bend like the fisher's angling-line, they stoop, they turn, and wheel about to all purposes, that they may arrive where they pretend. They buy all their honour at the price of great submissions, their scarlet at the price of sordid ambition, and glory with the coin of slavery. That is it which S. Cyprian excellently well observed: Behold ●e this 
Cyprian ad Donatum. Qui amictu clariore conspicuus fulgere sibi videtur in purpura, quibus hoc sordibus emit, ut fulgeat? Quos arragantium fastus prius pertuli●? Quos superb●●fores matutinus saluator obsedit?  Courtier, who gazeth on himself in scarlet? If you knew how many base submissions the flashing lustre of this bright garment cost him, if you knew what scorns, what repulse, what contempts, even of such as were more arrogant than himself, he hath swallowed; how many proud gates he hath (as it were) besieged every day, going to perform his compliments; and how many times he hath made himself a stirrop-holder, or footboy for the service of a disdainful Prince, to gain this train which now attendeth him, you then would have more pity of his person, than envy of his fortune. An ancient 
Quot tumentium contumeliosa vestigiae ante praecessit, ut ipsum etiam salutantium comes postmodum turbat praecederet.  Courtier being asked, how he had grown old in Court, did not he answer: by receiving injuries every day with thanks? Many men fatten with disgraces, as faithful dogs with bastonadoes.  
Behold how Courtiers participate with penitents in pains, and not in comforts. For penitents after many austerities come to enjoy with tasteful contentment the hearing of the word of God. A Courtier 
A notable answer of an old Courtier. Injurias accipiendo, & gratias agendo. Senec. 2. de Ira. c. 35.  after a thousand and a thousand mortifications, shall not gain ofttimes one good word from his Prince. Penitents, after they had been throughly turmoiled, came to the state of repose and consistence, but Courtiers are always upon the wheel, not finding a firm footing of constancy to fix themselves on. The penitents came in the end to the participation of mysteries; and Courtiers with all their ministries of iniquity, seldom enter into the temple of hoped honour, and if they do enter, they find not the mystery which can satisfy all their appetites.  
Behold you not a rough penance? Behold you 
Comparison between a Conrtier and a Religious man.  not a patience able to make Saints, yea Martyrs, if they did only measure themselves with the ell of torments? Guevarra, who had lived in a cloister and a Court, found the penance of Religious men was much sweeter than that of Courtiers. A religious man many times stayeth long in one house, and buildeth at his good leisure a little nest, to die in the sweet-smelling odours of good life and holy conversation: and it seemeth (said he) the malediction of Cain, is fallen upon Courtiers; for they are always in motion, as strangers, and every day change inns and hosteries. A religious man obeyeth but one only, a Courtier hath so many Masters as he hath passions and pretensions, which fetter his liberty, a good never to be estimated by a valuable price. A religious man maketh an account of his demeanour to his superior: a Courtier hath a thousand controllers of his actions. So many parts and members as the estate of the King hath, are to him so many chains, so many observances. He must (saith this Author) serve the King, wait on favourites, visit Noblemen, court Treasurers, give to doorkeepers, frugally endear Auditors, entertain Provosts, gain harbingers, flatter paymasters, do for his friends, dissemble with his enemies. All which things infinitely exercise obedience, and attract unspeakable slavery. If a Courtier once do what he can, he is a thousand times made to do what he would not, and admit he be a favourite of the Prince, he is a slave to all the officers, and to all respects and relations by which he holds his fortunes, as if one should hold a wolf by the ears.  
A Religious man maketh a vow of poverty; such a Courtier there may be found, who without vowmaking, findeth himself the most part of his time miserably poor; great fortunes, yea those who carry all at the end of their account, finding themselves hunger-starved and wretched. A poor Religious man at dinner time findeth his napkin laid, and without taking of further care, the gifts of God arrived, as seasonably as if Elias Crow had brought them. Such a Courtier is to be found, who ofttimes lodgeth in some crooked narrow lane, he eateth on some hired table, lieth on some borrowed bed, and abideth in a chamber without door or portal, and at the end of all comes an host, who surpriseth him when he hath nothing to content him; at which time his affliction is greater to discover his poverty, than to feel it; less it grieveth him to be miserable, than to have a witness of his wretchedness. Such an one hath been seen possessed of above 2000 ducats of yearly rent, who neither had bread, fuel, spit, nor kettle in his house, but every day a register ready of great men's boards, where he might go to beg a dinner. What beggary is this? Guevarra addeth also to this specious poverty of a Courtier, that Grooms rob him, Cators bring in false reckon, Buffoons importune him, Ladies of Court unplume him, other women less honest filch from him. When every one beholdeth him unfeathered, they hasten to pull the plumes off his wings, and if his wings fail him, he no more shall have friends nor succour.  
A Religious man having made a vow of chastity, hath very great and undoubted means to observe it, provided by his rule; the chastity of a Courtier is always in snares and combats, his battles are perpetual, his victories most rare, the obligation notwithstanding of continency sticks upon him, and his transgressions are reserved to God's vengeance. A Religious man hath his watch for the service of God, and notwithstanding hath his season of watching, repast, and study all distributed with a prudent economy: the Courtier hath neither repose nor repast certain, for the service of the world. He dineth when it pleaseth his Alexander; and his sleep is no more his own than his liberty, of which he is despoiled before he go to bed; a thing notwithstanding so precious, that whosoever well knoweth the price thereof, would not lend it out, though he had the whole world for a pledge. A Religious man maketh voluntary abstinencies, with merit and consolation; your Courtier fasteth oftener than he would, with demerit, without comfort. Briefly, a Religious man weareth hair-cloath, and the Courtier thorns and cares, which never forsake him. A Religious Recluse, hath as it were no body to please but himself: a Courtier who endeavoureth to content all, many times satisfieth no man: if he hold his peace, he is a lourdane, if he speak, he is a babbler; if he spend, he is a prodigal; if a good husband, covetous; if he stay in his lodging, he is an hypocrite; if he make many visits, he is a busybody; if he be bravely attended, they say he is a fool; if he eat alone, he is miserable.  
In fine this great Courtier Guevarra, after he had represented the fashion of the time, and disposition of the Court most lively, draweth this conclusion, That the life of Court is not a life, but rather a public penance: and that we ought nor to call Courtiers living men, but interred alive, because they die as often as they understand that another is more in favour of the times than themselves.  
Judge then upon all this which I have here discoursed, whether one ought to fortify himself so much the more with virtue and courage, by how much he beholdeth himself exposed to great and perpetual occasions, either of sin or misery? Whether the Courtier have less obligation to virtue than the Religious, since he seethe himself at all turns in greater and more evident perils? Judge, if this be a favour of Almighty God to have a subject of penance, and a fair field to exercise patience, how Courtiers herein are made happy, and how many palms they might reap, if they would add the application of spirit, sincerity of intention, and spiritual direction to the exercises of their profession. Through the want of these virtues, thinking to gain all, they lose all, merit escapes them, and all their life the bad thief's cross abideth with them. And that which is most deplorable, is, that they adore their punishments, and like the tribe of Zabulon, of whom scripture speaketh, 
Deut. 31. Inundationem maris quasi lac sugent.  they suck in the water of the sea as milk, and all bitterness seems sweet as sugar to their depraved tastes.   

The tenth REASON. Which dependeth on acknowledgement, or gratitude.  
HAd Noblemen and worldly Great-ones no other spur to incite them to perfection, but the acknowledgement of so many benefits which they have received from the liberal hand of God, it were always a potent motive to a heart truly generous, who feareth ingratitude more than death.  
It is not without mystery, that God in the beginning of the world's creation, of twelve names attributed unto him, he taketh that of Elohim, derived 
God named Obliging in the beginning of the world.  from an Hebrew word, signifying to tie and oblige, making himself at the very first known to man, even in the world's infancy, under the title of obliging, to teach him that he is born among benefits, the acknowledgement of which should become natural to him. That great man Philo the Jew, in 
A notable discourse of Philo.  the book he entitled noah's Plant, figureth unto us a certain tradition of the Sages of his Nation, to wit, that God the Creator, after he had framed the world as a Scutcheon of his Nobility, a contracted table of his titles, a mirror of his greatness and wisdom, demanded of the Prophets, or the Angels then in glory, what they thought of this work; and that one among them, after he had highly commended the architecture of this goodly universe, said freely, that he also therein yet required one perfection, to see a seal upon so many brave and rich inventions. What is it (saith the Eternal Father?) I would desire (replied he) a strong voice, powerful, harmonious, which born upon the wings of the winds and clouds, upon the Chariot of the air, might replenish all the part of the world, and incessantly echo forth night and day in praises and thanksgiving for your incomparable benefits. Verily a goodly invention, and worthy of an Angelical spirit, yet notwithstanding God hath sufficiently provided for this defect. For framing the world as a large clock, he hath proportionably given to man the place which this celestial spirit seemed to require. And that it might not be otherwise than so, the first wheel of this great clock of the world, is the primam mobile, the continual motion, 
The world a Clock, and how.  the secret influences of Antipathies and Sympathies, which are as it were hidden in the bowels of nature. The hand thereof, is this goodly and beautiful embowed frettizing of the heavenly orbs which we behold with our eyes. The twelve signs. are as it were the distinctions of the twelve hours of the day. The Sun exerciseth the office of the steel and gnomon to point out time, and in its absence the Moon. The lights and stars contribute thereto their lustrous brightness. The sea, the azure of his waves for ornament. The earth serves for counterpoise. The stony quarries, the metals, and the plants, for an Emblem to ezercise the wisest in the knowledge of this great workman. The living creatures are the small chimes, and man is the great clock, which is to strike the hours, and render thanks to the Creator.  
This acknowledgement of course is due to God from all men, and the failing herein is greatly punishable for two reasons. The first is, That God hath with his finger engraven it in the nature of the world. The second, That he extraordinarily recommended it in the new and old Law. As concerning what toucheth the law of nature; benefits are the wings of love, more swift than tempests; they 
Natural graitude, excellent proofs of it. Aelian. l. c. 22. Plin. l. 10. c. 5. Aelian. l. 8. c. 3.  overtake birds in their flight. We behold in history, where on one side a Stork cometh to cast a precious stone into the bosom of a maid, which had healed her of a wound; and on the other side an Eagle, that seeing the body of a young man burned, which had fed and cherished her, cast herself with alacrity into the flames of her enkindled pile. Good turns are golden nets, which catch the swiftest gliding fishes; we find the proof hereof, when the Dolphins assembled with troops upon the Seashore, where they celebrated the obsequies of one called Ceranus, who had before freed them from the snares of the fishermen. Benefits are sharp-pointed arrows, which throughly penetrate the heart of Tigers and Lions. We find it in the history of Androdus, who because 
Interroga juments & docebunt te, & volatilia agri, & indicabunt tibi. Agnovis bos possessorem suum, & asmus praesepe domini sui: Israel autem non me cognovit. Isaiah 2. Gratitude in the law of God.  he had pulled a thorn out of a Lion's foot, made a beast of service of him, and led him through all the City of Rome, gentle and meek as a lamb. O how strong birdlime is a benefit! all generous birds are taken with it, there is none but some certain ill-conditioned Owls which escape from it.  
Noblemen, will you think you do too much, if you should acknowledge the benefits of your Creator, since beasts the most savage, recompense good turns received from slaves, and forgetting their nature, cannot but remember a benefit, though small? As for the written law, what virtue is more often recommended, than gratitude and thankful acknowledgement? God giveth not any benefits without preparing monuments. If he deliver his people out of Egypt, a lamb of Passe-over, under the title of gratitude, is to be offered for ever; if he give Manna, a pot thereof is reserved in the Tabernacle; if he work wonders with Moses rod, it is preserved for an eternal memory. Gratitude is the key of the land flowing with milk and honey; ingratitude is a channel from whence all the plagues of heaven pour down upon rebellious and contumacious heads. Is it not very remarkable, that the Israelites were more 
Excellent observations upon this: Exaltationes Dei in gutture corum, & gladii ancipites in manibus corum. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Psal. 49. Jud. 5. v. 14. Interp. 70. Interpetum. à Rupert. in Genes.  careful to carry with them into the deserts, timbrels to praise God with, than arms to defend themselves? Praises go before curtlaxes, and all warlike engines. The Captains of the valorous Deborah, are for the same cause termed in Scripture Notaries, because they went into the war with pen and sword. The sword to fight with, and the pen to write the praises of God. If you demand of Rupertus, why in Genesis, when all creatures are spoken of, there is not one word of the sphere of fire: he will answer you, that fire because of its barren unfruitfulness, is the symbol of ingratitude, and for that purpose it is not once mentioned in the place where question was made of the sacrifice of acknowledgement. If you ask of S. Chrysostom, why God, coming to give a law to his people, appeared amongst briers and thorns, he will tell you, it was to show to this ungrateful people, the deformity of their ingratitude, signified by those thorny plants. S. Ambrose likewise 
Ambros. 1. 6. Hexam. c. 4.  observeth it was the providence of heaven, to give young Toby an Angel and a god for companions of his voyage. The Angel to do him good offices, and the dog, who is most sensibly mindful, to cause him to remember a benefit. See you not the world and the law are extended and disposed, one in his creatures, and the other in all his precepts, to impress gratitude in our hearts? One of the Ancients 
Marcus Aurel. 1. Antonius de vita sua. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  said, that to die ungrateful, was the most infamous death might be imagined. Would you then (Nobles) have your bodies buried in Churches, in places most eminent and conspicuous, yet spare not to make ingratitude a sepulchre for your souls?  
Add hereunto presently a consideration well worthy to be pondered, that by how much the benefits you have received from the liberal hand of Almighty God are great and glorious, so much the more is it a hideous thing, to repay them in the coin of ingratitude. Fellow the footsteps of the 
Excellent practice of S. Augustine to encourage himself to gratitude.  Oracle of Doctors, S. Augustine, pursue the practice which he used to inflame himself to grateful acknowledgements. Go ye upon the brink of abysses, and speak to Nothing, which is not at all, nor ever was, nor ever shall be. Cast up your age and demand of it, Where were you so many years? It will reply to your heart with dumb words, and tell you, That which you have been, it is. And what have you done to God, to be at this time, that which it is not? Take into your hand a Diamond, it will tell you it hath essential being with you, but it liveth not; and what have you done to God to have life above the same? Go to Cedars and Palm-trees, and you shall understand, they have life common with you, but you sense above them. Under what title was it due to you? with what money did you purchase it? Go to Eagles and Lions, and they will tell you, they have sense common with you, but you have reason, an incomparable good above them: You have judgement, memory, understanding, freewill; you are men, and they are beasts. What have you done to God to be made man? to be a reasonable creature capable of an infinite good? What have you done before your being, to be that which you are? What sacrifice have you presented, being as then in nothing, to be born into the world supereminently prelated above all the creatures of the world? Well, admit you had deserved your being: Where have you merited your well-being? Say you had merited to be men, where have you deserved to be Christians? to be selected by the hand of God from so many infinite nations which daily people hell? to be washed with the blood of his Son, to be regenerated by the waters of baptism, to be impressed with his own stamp, to be beautified with his grace, supported with his merits, enlightened with his knowledge, protected under his wings and the shelter of his Angels, to have all the means and opportunity to begin in the world a celestial life, and afterward to reign in Heaven for ever, and there to remain absorbed in an ocean of pleasures and felicities?  
At what price have you bought all that? Are you not a jadish mule to suck such a teat, and then to kick with your heels?  
But you say it is common to you with all Christians. 
Particular obligations of Noblemen.  I answer, the Sun is no less the Sun to you, for that it enlighteneth the eyes of a Pismear. But behold what personally toucheth you, and that which you cannot forget without disloyal ingratitude.  
Nature hath cast all men in one and the same mould, all are equal according to birth, all equal in death, who useth to measure with the same ell Linsy-woolsey and cloth of Tissue. But what inequality is there in the conditions of life? It seemeth when the course of each man's estate and fortune is well considered, there is more difference between man and man, than between man and beast.  
How many creatures are born ever in the fetters of miserable servitude, and salute life with a yoke on their neck? And behold you are not only born free, but Noble, but great, but eminent, you come into the world like Diadumenus, with a diadem of honour on your foreheads.  
How many do you behold born with very great disproportion of body, with bunched backs, crookedness, maladies, deformities, which they are enforced to carry with them from their mother's womb, to their grave? And behold you are born with a body well composed, that nature hath framed to serve as a Cabinet for the soul, which God would lodge in.  
How many stupid, gross and obscure spirits, unjointed judgements, irregular brains are there in the world? And yet God hath given to you a spirit capable of all kind of lights, knowledges, a judgement well grounded, a faithful memory, and all the moveables of a fair soul. How many children come into the world as little abortives, and are afterward left without instruction, guide, or conduct, as lees and dregs of the creatures of the earth? And behold how all things cooperate to your education.  
How many millions of mortals daily dissolve into poverty, in a wretched and needy life, in extreme miseries, which make them feed upon gall, and every day to drench part of their life in tears? And behold you are born to great patrimonies, infinite riches, large revenues; behold not only men and beasts, but all the elements also are kept in breath to contribute to your services, your magnificence, your felicities, your delights.  
How many are at the foot of the wheel, trampled on and oppressed under the tyranny of men, many times more cruel than wild and savage beasts? And behold you are on the top of the wheel, behold you are upon the highest spheres of honour, feared of your enemies, cherished by your equals, adored by your inferiors; doth this seem nothing to you? Or if it seem fit to you to cast it up with your account, tell me if you have it from yourselves? Tell me if you were before your being able to merit all these favours from Heaven?  
Take now the balance yourself, and judge, if it be not a lose and barbarous ingratitude to steal the silver and gold, of God, to make idols to Baal, to light your lamp at the Altar-fire of the Omnipotent, to make pillage afterward of his Temple, to take bread from the Master of the house with one hand, and to stab him with the other? And this is it which you do, when you wholly abuse all these gifts of Heaven in impiety, injustice, ambition, lust, envy, rage, in a brutish and stinking life. This is it, which bringeth astonishment even to the gates of heaven, and causeth the heavenly Father to speak these lamentable words of Jeremy: How comes it to pass that my well-beloved hath committed so many outrages in my house? Have I then (O my beloved) lodged thee in my Temple, have I nourished and bred thee from thy cradle with a fatherly hand, to betray mine honour and defile the glory of my Altars? See you not that in doing this, you wove the thread of your eternal ruin?  
Weigh seriously (O Noblemen) what you are, what you can, what you have, what you are worth, and in good time take hold of this maxim, not to desire to be, nor to be able, nor to be valued, but for him to whom you owe all your being.   

The eleventh REASON. Drawn from the effect which examples should produce.  
ON what side soever I turn me (O you Great ones) I find motives for you in every place of duty, spurs of honour, and inevitable obligations of virtue. Behold one of the most principal, to wit, Example: Yea the example of great men is one of the most potent charms, as well for good as ill, that may possibly be found in nature. See you not how the spirit of lies, who keeps an open shop of all wiles and active pliantness, hath not found in all hell an engine better able to engulf mankind in a thousand lamentable confusions, than to set before him the bad example of great-ones, who by cunning sleight and tyranny came to that height as to cause themselves to be accounted as God? Satan having 
The world heretofore perverted by the example of great-ones.  set them upon the Altar, puts himself in possession of their hearts: for coming to show to these blind idolaters an adulterous Jupiter, an unchaste Venus, a bloody Mars, he whispered in their ears, The God whom you adore, and for whom you erect Temples and Altars hath done this and that, and are you better than he not to do the same?  
Depraved nature which no sooner hath being, but that concupiscence entereth thereinto, being already vehemently transported into exorbitancy by general inclination, and coming afterward to feel the swinge of this so alluring example (in those who were not only esteemed great, but God's immortal) ran to mischief with full speed, erected trophies of its own dishonour, and covered its ulcers with a golden veil.  
The great wit Julius Firmicus, hath excellently 
Julius Firmicus de errore profan. Religion. Adulterio delectatur quis? Jovem respicit, & inde cupiditatis suae fomenta conquirit: probat, imitatur, & laudat quod Deus suus in Cygno fallit, in Tauro rapit, ludit in Satyro Tyranny of Example. Aug. Confes. 2. c. 3. Audiebam eos cantantes flagitia sua, & tanto gloriantes magis quanto magis turpes essent: & libebat facere, non solùm libidine facti, verùm etiam laudis: fingebam me fecisse, quod non fecerim, nè viderer abjectior, quo eram innocen●●or, & nè vilior haberer, quia eram castior.  well observed this reason in the book he composed of the errors of profane Religions. Is man an adulterer? He casteth his eye upon Jupiter, and draweth from the Idol of his false god, the enkindling tinder of his lust. He approveth, he imitateth, he praiseth his god, because be deceiveth a simple credulous maid in the figure of a Swan, ravisheth another in the form of a Bull, and afterward in another encounter, personateth the shape of a Satire.  
What may be said more of the force and tyranny of example, than to say with S. Augustine: Not only the vicious pursue vice in full speed which leads the way, but even those who have the fillet of shamefacedness upon their brows, suffer themselves hastily to run after the torrent of examples, and suppose to have a portion in the fortune of great men, when they have a share in their vices. I heard my companions who boasted their wickedness, making themselves so much the more glorious, by how much they were more beastly and dishonest. And needs would I do as they, not so much through appetite of doing ill, as for complacence to be applauded for ill. It often happened to me to counterfeit the ill which I had not done, doubting to be innocent, for fear of being reputed a man of no worth, and loath to be esteemed chaste, lest chastity should make me contemned by the world.  
Behold, O Noblemen, what power Example exerciseth upon the hearts of men. Blame none but yourselves, if you create not a new world, that you banish not vice from the earth, and make a golden 
Importance of the example of Noblemen.  Age return again. God hath placed you upon the highest steps of greatness, and causeth you first of all to see the storm and calm. God hath planted you with his hand as stars in this goodly firmament of honour, upon your influences depend the whole course of this inferior world. If they be good, they bring health, solace, and life into the whole world. The people are as the sea, and you are the winds which raise or depress them when you please. The people are like the Polypus, who changeth colour according to the diversity of objects; and you are the rocks, to which he is tied with a long chain of servitude; you take his liberty and give him colour. The people is as Ivy which creepeth and clingeth 
Velleius. Facere recte cives suos Princeps optimus faciendo docet, cumqu● sit imperio magnus, exemplo magis est.  according to his support; you are the Colossus and walls which underprop it. The people hath a heart of wax and clay, and you are the Master-potters to give what proportion you please. A good Prince showeth the way of doing well to his subjects in well doing himself, and though he be great by the title of power, he is much greater and more potent by the force of example.  
Hereupon I leave you to judge the great offence you commit, when by ill example you make vice to pass for law, vice which would have no force nor vigour at all, if you did not give arms and weapons into its hand, to sack and subjugate all the world.  
First, you commit a great sacrilege abusing authority, 
Great sin through bad example.  which is a ray of the omnipotency of God, impressed on your foreheads to enlighten and sweetly incline your inferiors to duty; and you make boast as if it came from yourselves. Thiefs that you are of the treasure of God; you have rifled the chief of his coffers, which is that absolute power by which he is God; you have taken from thence a pearl which himself afterwards ensigned into your hands, which himself fixed upon your head, to give you, as it were, a participation of his own essence, and you unworthily retain it, without making it tributary to its Creator. My God, it is true, that he who seeketh his own glory from thine ornaments, is a 
Aug. Sol. 5. Qui de bono tuo gloriam sibi quaerit, & non tibi quaerit, hic sur est, & latro.  very thief and a robber, who endeavouring to filch God's honour from him, stealeth Paradise from himself. What sacrilege, I pray, can you think comparable to this?  
Secondly, what an indignity it is to do that, which the ill example of Great-ones operateth, so to put vice into grace, and virtue into neglect? Think you 
Ill example the work of Antichrist.  not, if proof be made unto you, it is the work of Antichrist, but that will suffice to make you detest it? And what will Antichrist do? To what will he bend, and dispose all the sinews and arteries of his power, but to set vice on the Altar; and you will beforehand prepare a way for him? All that which Jesus Christ hath said and done, all that which he hath sweat for, all that he endeavoured, all that he hath wept, all that he hath bled, he hath done to blot out and extinguish with works, with words, with sweat, with tears, with blood, the work of sin.  
And you forsooth will again erect the statues; If sin coming from you were esteemed as sin, it would always be unreasonable, but less dangerous. But now it happeneth not to be so reputed. The sins 
Desinunt esse probri loco purpura flagitia.  which in a mean fortune would be thought sins, when they are dressed up with a diadem; or covered with a scarlet cloak, become the virtues of the times, which is a thing most abominable. And by your ill example, you are the cause of this illusion of mankind, which holdeth vice for virtue, and crime for trophy. Observe what punishment a false coiner deserveth. Advise with yourself if idolatry be the first and chief of all sins, what would he merit who were not only an Idolater, but the author and inventour of a new idolatry?  
And bad example doth it. When you, O Noblemen, degenerate, you impress sin with the stamp of virtue, you place it upon the Altar, you are the cause that a thousand and a thousand present oblations to it; you make a stable for horses of the Temple of honour, and you being by the world esteemed as little gods, employ all this reputation to destroy the honour of the true God, through the example of your wicked life. You make a dunghill of Heaven, you 
Caenum de Caelo facitis & errantes animos per abrupta praecipitia crudeli calamitate ducitis, cum hominibus peccare volentibus facinorum viam de Deorum monstratis exemplis Julius Firm. Photius in bibliotheca.  cruelly and miserably dragging wand'ring souls through headlong precipices, when to cause them to sin the more freely, you show them the examples of the petty gods of the earth. These are the words of Julius Firmicus. What ingratitude will make Heaven blush, and the earth to shake, if not this? If you well weigh this consideration, it will never escape you to do an act of ill example, or if passion should happen to be exorbitant, at least you should imitate that bird which by antiquity was called Just, because she hide her excrements which she knew to be very pernicious, for fear it should infect men; so you rather should bury your ill deportments in night and obscurity, than expose them to public view.  
For the third reason, consider what wickedness it is to thrust the knife into the throat, not only of a multitude that adores your fortune, and glorieth in the imitation of your vices, but also to pollute all posterity with the authority of your crimes. Every Age teacheth us we may do what hath been done, and 
Admonetur omnis atos fieri posse quod aliquando factum est; exempla fiunt, que jam esse facinora destiterunt. Cyprian ad Donat. Eccl. 1. Sicut aeramentum aerugina: nèquitia. Figure of ill example. Exod. 21.  crimes become examples, saith the eloquent S. Cyprian. Your sin is like much rust, which cleaveth close to all your successors, and how much the greater you are, so much the more precipitation and malice it hath.  
Say not, you are personally culpable and no more; that you are not to answer to God, either for the sins of those who live with you, or those that come after you.  
Which is so much otherwise, that the Scripture ordaineth, who shall open a common cistern without shutting it again, if it happen that  fall therein, he was bound to repair this loss. Your brother doth he not more nearly approach to God than a bullock or a horse? You have opened to him the gulf of scandal and corruption, he is fallen into your snares, you shall give an account to God for a soul redeemed with the price of his blood.  
Although you have caused but one small spark of 
Exod. 22.  fire to fly out, if it happen to blast and burn the fruitful fields, and destroy the corn of your neighbour, you are bound by the law to make the possessor satisfaction. A flashing sparkle of concupiscence which proceedeth from your eyes, and afterwards enkindleth a great fire of vices and calamities, shall be imputed unto you in the day of judgement. And what satisfaction for such damage?  
But on the contrary (O Noblemen) when you seriously embrace virtue, you ravish and appease the most savage spirits by your authority. Nothing resisteth this sweet violence. Goodness born in the chariot of greatness, hath darts so sharp and flaming, that they make the flint-stones to melt. The present times invite you, the most distant admire you, all posterity blesseth you, and God most gloriously crowneth you.  
It is said when the Rainbow in Heaven boweth 
Plin. lib. 12. cap. 24. Rainbow upon flowers.  his crooked horns directly upon the flowers, he imparteth to them a most celestial odour, which infinitely reviveth their kind. God hath fixed you in the sphere of greatness, as heavenly arches; you know from whence he hath extracted you, and that no otherwise, than the Rainbow in Heaven; you are but a petty vapour, but this Sun hath guided you, enriched you, enamelled you with so many perfections, that justly we may call you the children of admiration. Be you then to mankind that, which the Rainbow is to plants, leave it to the odour of a good conversation which may become natural, you shall reap here below true and solid glory, contentments so tasteful, that a man may more easily feel them than express them; and in Heaven your recompense shall be equalled to the profit, which your example shall have made on earth.  
I know not what may be produced more pressing to a generous heart, to oblige him to perfection.   

The twelfth REASON. Drawn from punishment.  
CLemens Alexandrinus observeth, that the belief 
Clemens Alex. Stromat. 5.  of one God, and the faith of one judgement, are in the soul of man by like consequence necessary; and that the Heathens in the dead obscurity of infidelity, were not able to shut their eyes against this verity.  
There is no soul in the world so barren, which by force of the light of nature conceiveth not, that if there be certain rays or reflections of virtue, diffused through the actions of men, the same aught to be in God, as in their source, with a radiant lustre of supereminence. Wherefore? Because, as Dionysius Areopagita 
God, a great Thesis. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. S. Dionis de divin. nomini. c. 2. August. de Trinit. l. 8. c. 3.  saith in the book of divine attributes, God is a great Thesis, which hath but one word for expression, but this draweth along with it all essences, verities, and perfections. And for the same cause S. Augustine calleth this Sovereign Majesty, Bonum omnis boni. Now so it is, that we behold shining in men (though otherwise very imperfect) certain traces or draughts of Justice, and we observe they are naturally addicted to the love of this virtue, were it not that passion maketh them belie their hearts, and betray their own nature. We must then necessarily conclude that Justice is in God, as water in the fountain, lines in the centre, and beams in the Sun.  
Justice and Mercy are the two arms of God, 
Justice and mercy.  which embrace, bear and govern the whole world; they are the two engines of the great Archimedes, which make Heaven descend upon earth, and earth mount to Heaven. It is the base and treble-string of this great lute of Heaven, which make all the harmonies and tuneable symphonies of this Universe.  
Now, as Mercy is infinite, so is Justice. The divine Essence holdeth these two perfections, as the two scales of the balance, always equally poized. Judge hereupon, O Noblemen, if the favours and mercies of God are so eminent with you, what part shall Justice have amongst you?  
David, who had felt the scourges, cried out as in 
Psal. 89. Quis novit potestatem irae tuae, aut prae timore tuo iram tuam dinumerare? Sap. 6. Horrendè & citò apparebit vobis, quoniam judicium durissonum his qui praesunt, fiet. Exiguo enim conceditur misericordia, potentes autem potenter tormenta patientur. Non enim subtrabet personam cujusquam Deus, nec verebitur magnitudinem cujusquam.  a deep ecstasy, Oh my God, who can be able to know the force of thy anger! Who can be able, amongst so many perplexities and affrightments, to recount the effects of thy indignation! True it is, thy Justice doth most extraordinarily appear on the rebellious heads of sinners, but especially upon the Great-ones of the earth. These words of the Wiseman are terrible to any that will maturely consider them: You, who hold the highest place amongst men, and live without fear or awe of that Majesty which hath constituted you where you are, know God will visit you, and appear to you with speed and horror. A most rigorous judgement shall be executed on those who command over others. Mercy is for the little ones and humble; but if you persevere in your wicked life, as being potent, you shall powerfully be tormented. God is not a man to soothe you, to distinguish your persons, and treat with you with observance of your qualities. Beware. The reasons why the chastisement of great men shall be most severe, are clear and evident, the principal whereof I will briefly here produce.  
First, by how much the more a sin is committed 
Knowledge of good and evil, makes the sin the more foul.  with exact knowledge of good and ill, so much the more punishable it is, because it participateth the more of the venom of malice. Ignorance unto many is part of their sanctity, others with open eyes run headlong to ruin. Now, can it be denied but that great men (ordinarily being endowed with good spirits, capable judgements, and most happy memories, and they instructed by so many Doctors, both speaking and dumb) should have much more light and knowledge than the ordinary sort of men. Behold why degenerating, it cannot be but they must needs break a thousand bonds that held them in their duty, blunt a thousand sharp points, a thousand inspirations from Heaven that feelingly touch their conscience, the which cannot be done without great and determinate malice, which rendereth their sin the more enormous, and their heads the more punishable. This is the reason Divines give touching 
Why bad angels were punished without mercy.  the punishment of the Angel apostate. A strange thing, that God coming from Heaven upon earth, to take human flesh, to distend his imperial robe upon man (who lay on a dunghill) drawing him out, washing him, guilding him over with grace, (the true seed of glory) in the mean time left the bad Angel without mercy, for a prey of punishment which shall not end no more than God himself. Wherefore is this, but that the Angel offended with an 
Ob perfectam cognitionem, & solutum animi impetum peccatum Angelorum incomparabiliter gravius. Vide Gregor. l. 4. Moral. c. 9 Marvellous Justice.  absolute and deliberate malice, as one much more illuminated, and Adam suffered himself to slide into sin rather by surprisal, by infirmity, by complacence to the humours of his wife, as S. Augustine observeth, than purposely or contemptuously? Alas! me thinks this horrid punishment of the contumacious Angel, should make the blood congeal in the veins of all the Great-ones of the earth, who offend their Creator with as much malice as they have knowledge. Ask (O Noblemen) of the Divine Justice, from whence it proceedeth that these evil spirits have been so roughly handled? If beauty could mollify the rigour of a Judge, they were adorned with an incomparable beauty above all creatures. If the excellency of nature be esteemed, they were the most lively Images of the Divinity, amongst all things created. If the spirit contribute thereunto, they penetrated by their active vivacity, even from Heaven to the deepest abyss. If the glory of God were in this act considerable, they were creatures who could love, bless and glorify God eternally. If evil had been to be prevented, this great Judge saw there would arise from their damnation an infinity of blasphemies, and invincible obstinacy, a long web of contrarieties opposite to the advancement of his honour amongst men, a subversion of the world. All this might have been avoided in giving them one small hour of repentance; which with what fervour, detestation and dolour would they have embraced? Yet notwithstanding without regard to this beauty, this grace, this excellency of nature, these praises, this good or ill, behold them taken in the boiling ardour of their crime, strucken with the thunder of the Divine Justice, thrown down, broken in shivers, captivated in prisons of fire, left to the sword of vengeance, to eternal tortures, never seeing amidst their darkness and sulphurous flames, one sole beam of the eyes of Mercy. O terrible sentence! inexorable sentence! Oh unhappy spirits! O judgements of God What a terror, what a bottomless depth you are! Judge now (O ye Great men) if the crimes of knowledge and malice are so rigorously punished, what will become of you, if you live neglective of the Divine Majesty, you being among the people, as were the Angels among other creatures?  
Secondly, no punishment is more sharply nor 
Punishment of the ungrateful sacrifice of jealousy.  lawfully inflicted than upon the ungrateful, who deserve that all the elements with their best forces, should conspire in the avengement of their offences, since they violate a law engraven on this universe by the hand of nature. Their punishment is the sacrifice 
Non fundet oleum nec imponet thus. Num. 5.  of jealousy, spoken of in Scripture, whereon neither oil nor incense is poured: there is no more oil of mercy to sweeten their torments, no more incense of prayers to appease God's anger; nothing is the●e but thunder, lightnings and vengeance. Now it appeareth that Noblemen and Great-ones, cannot departed from the service of God, without a deep mark of ingratitude, for the benefits which I have touched before; and you thereon will necessarily infer, they transcending others in condition, should not in case of failing or neglect, expect an equality of punishments. God will call Heaven and earth 
Horrible execrations of God upon great men vicious.  to their Judgement, and then speak to them in the presence of all creatures, with a voice of thunder. Harken ye (O you Princes of the earth) I made you as Eagles, I gave you strong wings to lift you up to mount Libanus, and to extract pith from the Cedars. I advanced you in spirit, in judgement, in courage, in riches, in reputation, in honour above other men. I imprinted the rays of my power upon your fronts, to infuse the regard of your persons into the hearts of the people. I held Heaven, and earth, men and beasts in breath, to contribute to your authority and services. And you have taken arms, employing all my treasures to make war against me, you have lived, not as reasonable men, but as bruit beasts, without God, without law, without ever casting your eyes to Heaven, but to vomit out blasphemies in the face of it. If I have put power into your hand, you have employed it in oppressing the weak: If justice, you have perverted the use of it, and made the balance incline to the tyranny of your passions. What can such an ingratitude expect? I leave the conclusion to yourselves.  
In the third place, seeing the bad example of great 
Exemplar crimes deserve exemplar punishment.  men is most pernicious to the inferiors, by the strength of their authority (which draweth their weak souls to a servile imitation) God expressly counterpoizeth the insolence of their vices, by singular and remarkable punishments, to the end that those who are attracted by the lustre of their fortune, may be affrighted with their falls. It is true, we are in this world as owls in the night, our eyes benumbed and surcharged with terrestrial humours, which hinder us throughly to penetrate this cloud of the Divine Providence. Notwithstanding, God darteth forth as it were out of these clouds, certain flashing sparks of fire and light, to make you read in the punishment of so many ill-living great men, the unrelenting rigour of his justice.  
High steeples are not so often rend and defaced by 
Strange punishments.  the violence of thunder, as are Crowns and Diadems on the heads of wicked Princes with Heavens chastisements. Read sacred and profane Stories, what strange punishments are there of great men? One showeth a desire to leap into Heaven to plant his throne among the stars, yet God maketh him eat hay with the beasts, enforcing him to die alive, not only to honours and the nature of man, but to lead a life in bruitishness: This was Nabuchadnezzar. Another in the midst of the fervour of a feast, heareth the great clock strike his hour, and seethe the hand of a man on the wall, drawing a dreadful sentence against him: This was Belshazzar. Another dieth eaten up with louse, as Herod. Another, loathsome with infections, as Antiochus. Another hanged on a tree, as Absalon. Another on the gibbet which he had prepared for him whom he accounted for his slave, as Haman. Another dying by his own hand, not being able to find any other in the world more cruel than himself, as Nero. Another maketh himself a sepulchre with drunkenness, as Alexander. Another is massacred in the midst of the Senate, as Caesar. Another from the throne of the Roman Empire, goeth to prostrate his foe, the Persian, to become thereby a foot-step for him to mount on horse back, as Valerian. Another is carried about in a Cage, as Bajazet. Another is strucken with lightning, as Anastasius. Another is slain in his camp by a hand invisible, as Julian the Apostate. Great volumes might be made, if one would compile all these mortalities; they make Theatres to resound, and Tragedians deplore.  
Consider (O Noblemen) if in this world good and ill are given to us as it were in picture, (since the figure of the world passeth away, saith the Apostle) 
Praeterit figu●a hujus mundi. 2 Cor. 7. Sagitta tua transeunt; vex tonitrui tui in rota. Psal. 76. 19  and since God useth such rough rods to chastise the vices of great men, what will that be in the other world? The arrows of chastisement do presently pass away, but the voice of thunder, the sentence of judgement shall go like a wheel, and the execution shall have no end. If there happen unto you a loss of goods, it is an arrow that passeth; loss of children, an arrow that passeth; sickness, an arrow that passeth; disgrace, an arrow that passeth; temporal death, even a feathered-arrow which doth nought else but pass away. But eternal death is the thunder in the wheel, which never passeth. To be drenched in a lake of sulphur as a victim of vengeance, in a fire enkindled with the breath of God's anger, to see nothing but devils, to abide in nothing but torments, to suffer pains in every sense, to find hell in his own conscience; to have no other life but an eternity of torments, is a thing to be feared above all things most dreadful.  
Paulus Orosius, in the history he dedicated to Saint 
Paul. Oros. l. r. c. 10. Chariots of Pharaoh.  Augustine, observeth that the tracks of Pharaohs chariots, after his detestable death remained a long time upon the sands of the Red sea, to serve as an example for posterity. Behold (O Noblemen) the bloody footsteps of so many and so many Great-ones, who have gone before you, whose spoils are perhaps (as yet) in your hands, their bodies in putrefaction, and their souls in torments! Resemble not 
State of worldlings.  those that pillaged the soldiers of Sennacherib, who strucken with the revengeful hand of Heaven, found men of ashes in golden arms; they took the gold, 
Desperate death.  without thinking at all of the ashes, which scattered by the ways. Take good heed, how you suffer yourselves to be deceived with the glimmer of the honours of these ill-living Great-ones, lest you be surprised with their death and catastrophe. The day of death will come, be it sooner or later, the post is on the way who bringeth the date hereof. If you have lived ill, a thousand terrors, a thousand frightful fantasies will then besiege your heart, altogether drenched in the bitterness of death. A tumultuous army of thoughts shall strike an alarm to your repose: some shall represent unto you your goodly palaces, many times cemented with the blood and sweat of poor men, which you must forsake, and pay all in one gross sum; other, all the goods which you shall have invaded either by violence or subtlety, whereof you shall be stripped, and shall go to the judgement of God, devoid of riches, and surcharged with accounts: others shall decipher unto you the follies of your youth; other will depaint unto you the day of judgement and hell, before you sensibly make proof of them. The Lady which sleepeth by your sides, and ever holdeth the fire and spur in your hearts, moving you to new violences and extortions, to foment her pride and entertain her pompous vainglory, shall leave you then to wrestle with death, and shall seek the safety of her own affairs. Your eldest son, for whom you presently pawn your soul to all injustice, and exhaust your own abilities as the spider, to make him great, shall willingly outrun the steps of death to close your eyes, and scarcely shall there be found in the house some poor old woman to shroud your body in a winding-sheet, to be put into a coffin. In the mean while, the soul separated from the body, shall be presented to the judgement of God, to receive the inevitable sentence.  
Alas! doth he not sleep a long and deadly sleep, who is not awakened with the sound of such a trumpet?   

The thirteenth REASON. Taken from Reward.  
AN Ancient said, that the two most powerful 
Punishment and Reward, Deities of the Commonwealth.  Deities of Commonwealths, were Punishment and Reward. These likewise are the two bases, and as it were the two fundamental laws, upon which God the Creator hath established the policy of the Universe. As he is a severe revenger of offences, so he is most liberal in rewards. The Scripture 
Miserationes ejus super omnia opera ejus. Psal. 144. Justice by weight, Mercy infinite. Pondus & statera judieia Domini. Ponam in pondere judicium, & justitiam in mensura. Prov. 6. Isaiah 28. Joel 2. Essundam de spiritu meo super omnem carnem. Isaiah 40. Qui mensus est pugillo aques, & palmo coelos ponderavit.  teacheth us this in very remarkable terms, speaking of the Justice of God, and gives it him in strict measure when there is no question of chastisement, as if it were an act disproportionable to his nature, and his ordinary practice. But when he is actually disposed to pardon a sin, to reward a good work, to crown a virtue, he poureth out his graces as out of a golden tonnel, with a free and plenteous provision. For the same reason, the Prophet Isaiah saith, He measureth the waters with his fist, and poyzeth the Heavens with his palm; that is to say, he giveth chastisements and afflictions, signified in the Scripture by the waters, with a sparing and close hand, but as concerning rewards represented by the Heavens, he pours them on all parts, with his sacred and bounteous hands. Fear not then (O Noblemen) that you, having vowed a faithful service to your great Master, shall be in any kind frustrated of the recompense, which he hath established for his servants. He hath always the reward in his hands: If 
Merces mea mocum est. Apoc. 22.  he present on one side the sword of Justice to sinners, on the other he extendeth unto you the olive of peace and benignity. Figure to yourselves the great Emperor, bearing in his arms an Eagle with two heads, who in one beak held a thunderbolt, and in the 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Maximil. 11. apud Tipotium.  other a branch of Palm, with this motto, Every one in his time. God runneth the same course; if he hath thunderbolts to crush rebellious heads, he hath palms to crown the faithful services which men of quality render to him. And without speaking here of rewards (O Noblemen) common to you with others, if you be constantly ranged in the way of virtue, you shall find that God will liberally give you three things, which those of your condition ever hold in great esteem. And what are those? A house competently rich, a solid glory, a flourishing 
Three sorts of Great men make fortunes.  posterity, and how is that? Amongst those who enjoy great fortunes, some build like moths, others like swallows, the rest like halcyons. Those build like moths, who raise houses of injustice and iniquity, which in the same proportion as they are reared to the clouds, unperceivably sink into hell, wear, waste and in the end quite vanish away. This is the goodly consideration of holy Job, speaking of the palace of the wicked: He hath built his house 
Job 27. 18. Aedificavit sicut tinea domum suam.  as the moth. And how doth she build? With destroying. You will say this little creature, harboured in some cloth or old garment, maketh much ado, he gnaweth and gnaweth day and night, as endeavouring to build a lodging for himself, and in gnawing discovereth himself, the end of his travel is his loss and nakedness. O how divine is the Scripture, to represent so natively to us the blindness of the great and rich of this world, who suppose they can make magnificent and happy houses without the foundation of the fear of God All in doing this build as the moth, that is to say, 
House of the moth.  in gnawing; they have plots and designs in the Country, in the City, in every place, they have Overseers and Architects; they employ the mason, the carpenter, they raise houses of pleasure, they make magazines fretted with gold and silver, they buy, they purchase, they contrive in their imaginative brains their rents and revenues, and measure all things with the ell of eternity. Notwithstanding one would be amazed to see that all this goodly building of fortune, composed of injustice, concussions and rapines, cemented together with the sweat and blood of the poor, falleth by little and little into ruin; and when this cometh into the judgement of God, the foolish moth, who hath so gnawn to feed and cover himself, findeth himself naked, hungry, ashamed, and extremely miserable.  
Those build like swallows, who also much labour 
House of swallows.  to erect houses, but with little success of fruit for posterity. Swallows after they have well built in Summer, forsake us in Autumn, and leave no other memory of them but of mortar, straw, and dung: so, many Noblemen ofttimes build palaces, make huge purchases, and that with unspeakable industry, but because they proceed therein with sinister and impure intentions, God suffereth not their posterity to enjoy it. We see houses empty as swallows nests in Autumn: Some men will ask, who built this house? Answer will be made such a one, a mushroom of the Court, coming from nothing in one night, in all other things faithless to God and men, who hath not left any thing memorable behind him but his vices; and thus all the fame of this man consisteth in picking of straws, which are temporal riches scattered here and there, and in the dung of an ill name which he leaveth to posterity. Behold an aim ill taken, for the raising of fortunate buildings!  
But as for you (O virtuous Noblemen) God permitteth you to build as Halcyons. How is that? Two notable properties are observed in the nest of the Halcyon. The first is, that the architecture of it is so strong, so durable, it cannot be broken or cut even with the violent stroke of iron. The second, that it is so proportioned to the bird, as if it were sowed to her body, in such manner that no creature can therein be received but the architect himself. Justly behold the conditions which God hath given to your houses, when they are built upon the fear of his holy Name. They are strong, of force, lasting against all the strokes of fortune, nor is there any violence, which can open them to destroy them. It is the infallible promise of God: The house of the 
Domus impiorum delebitur, tabernacular vero justorum germinabunt. Prov. 1. 11.  wicked shall be demolished, but the tabernacles of the just shall flourish. Moreover they have a certain benediction, which disposeth all things in good order, the rule of expense proportioned to the quality of their persons, the Oeconomie sage and prudent in such sort, that all things are managed there with measure and compass, as in the Halcyons nest: And as an ancient Writer hath said, older is the world of worlds, which retaineth all things in their lustre and uniteth them with a seam and lasting band, When once it is fixed in the families of Great ones, which happeneth by the means of piety, where it always produceth the same effects, which it doth in this great Universe.  
The second reward, is the honour so much desired by noble spirits. It falleth out, that the wicked are sometimes raised to the greatness of the world, but they are therein as Comets, as stars of mud and earth, who taking a false lustre, make show for a time in the air of vanity; and afterwards they are scattered, casting pestilence and poison into the four quarters of the world. On the contrary, real Noblemen, are like true stars planted and enchased by the hand of God, even in the firmament of honour, to enlighten an eternity. Their glory is fixed with nails of adamant: Calumny may perhaps shake it, but never overthrow it; yea time itself confesseth, that there is neither pincers nor hammer can work this effect. It is God that promiseth this: Whosoever shall glorify 
Quicumque glorificaverit me, glorificabo eum: qui autem contemnunt me erunt ignobiles 1 Reg. 2. 30. Fantasies to gain honours.  me, I will glorify him, and those which despise me, shall become ignoble. Hereupon judge, how solid the honour of Great men truly virtuous is, since it is fastened to the honour of God himself; who glorieth in honouring them. A thousand and a thousand Princes, and fantastic great Ladies, have galloped honour upon the full speed, and with a discomposed spirit have invented imaginary forms to find credit and admiration in the hearts of men. Some have caused mountains and rocks to be cut, to raise statues to themselves, as Semiramis. Others have taken crows, parrots, and other birds, counterfeiting human speech, and have taught them a lesson, which was to salute them as gods, afterward enfranchizing them for the open field, have sent them into the air to carry these salutations, and impress in the minds of men, a false idea of their divinity: so did Psapho.  
Others have taken the figures of Eagles, Lions, and Serpents, (as certain Kings of Egypt) to strike a terror into the souls of mortal men: others have left Medails, triumphant Arches, Colossuses, goodly Palaces, theatres, Amphitheatres, as the Roman Emperors: others have placed themselves openly upon Altars, as Caligula, who set the figure of his own head upon the statue of Jupiter. Posterity hath exploded all this the times have derided it, oblivion hath swallowed all of them; or if it hath not set its biting tooth therein, it hath been for no other cause, but to leave them to a hateful and detestable memory, a thousand times worse than forgetfulness. Much otherwise, Great men that build their fortunes upon the foundations of the fear of God, from small and feeble beginnings have come to so high a pitch, that they have replenished all tongues with their praises, all hearts with their admiration, all Ages with the monuments of their glory. For it is God alone that causeth men to take aims of true and solid greatness, and who with a puissant arm dasheth and overwhelmeth those spirits, which suffer themselves to be transported with the torrent of vanity, courting airy smokes, empty apparences, and flying clouds, whereby they produce monsters in stead of deserved honour, seated fairly upon the firm rock of constancy. God hath in such wise shown himself to have greatness in his own hands, that extracting men from the dregs and froth of the earth, he hath made them mount so high, that oftentimes Imperial heads, radiantly glittering with Rubies and Diamonds, have bowed under the ashes of a poor fisherman. And who seethe not, that the true and only mean to enter into the possession of honour, is straight to unite one's self with this Divine Majesty, from whence on man reflect all the lustrous rays of greatness?  
For a third reward, this sovereign Mover and Architect of our lives and fortunes, doth propagate also the glory of Fathers to their children, and giveth them a flourishing posterity, which makes them eternally live in the memory of men, by the most lively images of their virtues. It is often observed that Noblemen, who have established tyranny in the world, have neither been fruitful nor fortunate in their posterity; and as nature is scanty in the propagation of wolves designed for spoil, which otherwise would bring all the world into desolation; so Almighty God by a secret economy of his divine Providence, permitteth not that great men (who have made themselves disturbers of public peace, and infringers of laws both divine and human, whereof they ought to be protectors) should make the bruitishness of their savage souls, to survive them in their posterity. But as for those who are arranged in the list of sanctity and modesty, God hath (as it were) immortalised their blood in their posterity, as we see it happen in worthy and illustrious families. But to what value amounteth all this which I have said, in comparison of that crown of glory which God placeth on the heads of Noblemen in the other life, when they have virtuously governed in this mortal mansion? O what a brave death it is to die under the shadow of the Palms of so many heroical virtues! Oh, it is the death of a Phoenix, to die in the odours of a holy conversation, to change his sepulchre into a cradle, and even draw life out of the Tomb! Oh what an immortality it is, to survive eternally in the mouths of men, but much more to live in Heaven, enjoying the knowledge, love, life, and felicity of God O Nobles, betake yourselves betimes and in a good hour, to the way of this temple of honour, by the exercise of holy virtues, which are like Elias chariot, all flaming with glory, to carry your purified souls even to the height of the Imperial Heaven.    

THE SECOND BOOK. Of Hindrances, which worldly men have in the way of SALVATION and PERFECTION.  

The first OBSTACLE. Faintness and weakness of Faith. Against Atheists.  
HAving sufficiently proved the obligations which Great-ones and men of quality have to perfection; let us now see the hindrances which may stop the increase thereof, as well to take from them all pretext of false liberty, as to denote the confusions, very frequent in the corruptions of this Age. The first is a certain languor and debility of faith, which openeth the way to all sorts of vices; so that putting all the greatness of the world into a false seeming, it beholdeth Paradise, and all the blessings of the other life with blear-eyes, and clouded with a perpetual eclipse. And that you may well 
Two sects of men.  conceive this, let us observe, that in this Age greatly changed by heresy, liberty and vice, two sorts of men are to be seen, whereof the one doth symbolise with just Abel, and the other are of the sect of Cain. These two brothers began to contend together even in the world's cradle, as Jacob and Esau in the belly of Rebecca. Abel had a soul impressed with a good stamp, religious, docile, pure, perpetually fixed in the chaste apprehensions of the Divinity. Cain quite contrary, an impious soul, greatly infected with the serpent's breath, black, variable, wavering in faith, and in the virtue of the Divine providence. He verily is the father of Atheists, and S. Bernard hath properly 
Bern. serm. 24 in Contic. Fideicida antequam fratricida. Procop. in Genes.  said, He killed faith before he murdered his brother. Procopius calleth him the son of the earth, because this unfortunate creature perpetually looked downward, having already as it were buried in the tomb of oblivion, the lights and knowledges of heaven. From thence proceeded the irreverence of his unbridled spirit, his wicked sacrifices, his envy against his brother, afterward his fury, murder and blood, and lastly a deluge of calamities. The only example of his disaster should suffice to terrify those, who following him in his impiety, make themselves undoubtedly the companions of his misfortune: but since it also is expedient we proceed herein by discourse and reason, I observe the causes and remedies of this infidelity. Faintness and debility in 
Three sorts of consciences from which impiety springs.  faith, and consequently atheism, is form in three sorts of consciences, to wit, the criminal, the brutish, the curious. Atheism proceedeth from a criminal conscience, when a soul findeth itself involved in a long web of crimes, and as it were overwhelmed in the habits of sin. In the mean time God doth inwardly 
Horrible state of a sinful conscience  torture, prick forward, and scourge it, and then all bloody and ulcerous as it is, not able longer to remain within itself, but tasting so many disturbances in its proper mansion, it searcheth evasions and startingholes, expatiateth in the pleasures and delights of the world, to dissolve her many griefs, and findeth in every thing her gnawing worm. She looketh back upon the path of virtue, which she hath either forsaken or never trodden, as an impossible tract, the spirit of lies representing it unto her all paved with thorns and briers: she re-entereth into herself, and saith in her heart, that there is none but God who afflicteth her, and that necessarily she must free herself from him; for our felicities are measured by the ell of our opinion, and no man is miserable, but he that apprehendeth his own unhappiness. Then soothing herself with these humane discourses, she herein much laboureth to acquit herself from God, from the belief of judgement, of hell, and the immortality of the soul. Notwithstanding she cannot, (albeit these wicked spirits have scoffed at the mysteries of Religion with their companions, as if they would put on a bold forehead, and an impudence strong enough to endure a stroke so dreadful) but contend against the essence of God. Care findeth them in their bed, and is pinned to their silken curtains, the thoughts of a Divinity, which they supposed to have totally banished from their hearts in pleasures, upon 
Et ubi Deus non timetur, nisi ubi non est? Tert. de prescrip. 41. Ponam eam possessionem Ericii. Isaiah 14. 2.  the least afflictions return, and make themselves felt with very piercing points, which headlong throw them into despair. The Prophet Isaiah hath divinely prophesied of such a soul: I will make her the inheritance and possession of hedgehogs. Verily the miserable caitiff hatcheth in her entrails a thousand little hedgehogs, which as they increase, make their pricks and darts multiply a thousand gnawings, a thousand apprehensions, as uncapable of repose as apt to afflict a conscience.  
Such heretofore was the state of Nero: for this 
Condition of Nero.  barbarous monster, who so often had dipped his hand in blood, sought out a bath of delights to bathe himself in; he ran up and down to pry into all the inventions of the pleasures of the world, to rid himself from the arrow which he had in his heart, and to dispoil himself for ever of an opinion of the Divinity. This was a matter for him impossible. When he was at feasts, sports, or Theatres, the apprehension of God stung his heart as a Bee, and there left the sting. If he slept upon roses, the shadows of dead men approached to his downy bed, to require an account of their blood. He scoffed at religion, and feared it; one while he despised sacred things, and at another time they made him tremble with horror. He sought out waters of expiation to wash his sins, and never opened his eyes to those which S. Peter and S. Paul presented to him. His soul was torn with pincers within itself, as on a perpetual scaffold of exquisite torments: when it would issue out of itself, it was like a wild colt, coursed and chased by men and beasts; or as a bull stung with a gadfly, who fain would run for himself, yet still findeth himself with himself. Judge (O Atheists) what a life this is?  
The second cause of Atheism, is the sensual love 
Brutish conscience. Clemens Alex. pedag. Plotin. apud Philo. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Irr●verens & infrunitus animus.  of favours, pleasures, ease, and delights of the world, which oftentimes degenerate into the mere bruitishness of a soul which sleepeth in fat and grease, so intricated and confounded in earth, that it looseth all knowledge of Heaven. Clemens Alexandrinus saith, that it happeneth to souls, which are great lovers of sensual pleasures, to engross and thicken themselves in such sort, that as Plotinus very learnedly writeth, they live not but as a plant. These spirits are much inclined to Atheism. for as the Wiseman observeth, after the concupiscences of the belly, cometh unbrideled irreverence, which serveth 
Eccl. 23. 6. Leu. 1. 16. Vesiculam gutturis projicies in loco quo cineres effundi solent. ●●. 13. ●aturati sunt & ●levaverunt ●● suum & obl●●i sunt mei.  as a harbinger to impiety. God desired not that in offering a bird (as a sacrifice unto him) the gorge should be presented, which is the little magazine of the meat, but commanded to cast it into the ashes: which is to declare to us, that carnal men are most uncapable of celestial things, and very fit to be dragged to the dunghill and ash-heap. The more they are affected to things present, so much the more, yea even in deep draughts, they drink down the forgetfulness of Heavenly things. All those say with Esau, To what use will this goodly prerogative 
Genes. 25. Quid mihi pr●derunt primogenita?  of primogeniture serve me? this title of the children of God, this happiness of future life? If there be no sensual pleasures nor carnal contentments in Heaven, I will have none. They become the true disciples of 
Alcor. Aazoara. 2.  Mahomet, who in his Alcoran, describing the Turks Paradise, placeth there good water, good fruits, rings, carcanets, silken tapestry hang, and such like. All these things they would enjoy but the water, which they willingly would change into wine. What swine are these.  
The third cause, if not of formal Atheism, at the 
●●rious conscience.  least of weakness and faintness in matter of faith, is when a soul will proceed in matters of Religion by politic and humane ways, and suffer itself greatly to be plea●ed with curiosity, which incessantly moveth it to draw the curtain of holy mysteries, to enlighten them with the torch of reason, and to behold all that passeth there. Such spirits are not so malign nor stupid as the first and second, notwithstanding they are weak and very ignorant, since they fail in the first rule of wisdom, which discovereth to us that it is an absolute folly of a discomposed judgement, to be desirous to measure things divine, by the rule of sense and humane experience. They turmoyl themselves, and bate like a hawk upon the perch, and often say in their heart, that which the Apostle S. Peter observeth in the person of infidels: Where are these promises? Where is the 
Pet. 2. 3. Vbi est promissio? ubi est a●ventus ejus? ex quo enim ●ermierunt patres, omnia ●erseverant ab initio creaturae  coming of the Son of God? See you not that times revolve, men come and go, all things have their ordinary course; and we must expect no other miracle? They imagine that all the counsels of Heaven should turn and roll according to the projects of their understanding, and that if God had his eye open, (as it is said) upon the economy of the world, both this and that would succeed as they have contrived in their feeble brain, which is a great illusion. Such kind of men would willingly speak with spirits, to hear them tell tales of the other life, they would know (as S. John Chrysostom saith) what habit, what clothing the Son of man weareth, covered under the species of the Sacrament, how the Angels are form, of what colour the devils are, nothing would please them better than to talk with one really possessed, to know things future, to divulge predictions, to behold prodigies and miracles Briefly, it seemeth they have no other purpose but to believe in God, by the devil. Such kind of proceed are very exorbitant and unfortunate, for the reasons which I will presently produce.  
First (O you wretched souls) who betake your 
●easons to settle a soul. Impious curiosity pulls out both its eyes.  selves to this way, see you not, that by this means you pull out the two eyes, which God hath placed within your souls, which are as the Sun and Moon in the firmament, to wit, the eye of faith, and that of natural prudence. You seem to yourselves sharp and clear-sighted, and are more blind than moles. For tell me, for as much as concerneth the light of nature, can there be found a folly more gross and absurd, than to behold men (who are born and bred in Christianity as in their proper element, after a thousand and a thousand witnesses of the truth of their religion, which even the very marbles do speak, and stones proclaim) to make themselves so wise and able, as to seek out other proofs than those which have won worlds to the Gospel? 
An unworthy way to treat with God.  You would have a God, that should give you new signs & tokens, to confirm you in faith; a God which servilely will be captivated to please the tickle of your curiosity: Senseless men as you are, this were not to have a God, but a lame Idol. Are you not 
Insuspicabilis secreti, reverendaeque majestatis cognitio est, deum nosse nisi deum. Tert. Apol. 28  very blockish to treat with God much more wickedly than one would do with a mean man? If you had passed your word to two friends, you would praise him with all freeness, that should rest satisfied therewith, and would condemn the other whom you should find fearful, inconstant, and ever upon mistrust, yet would you that God should favour your infidelity by extraordinary ways? What apparency is there for this? All curiosity is damnable, 
Curiosity dangerous. Curiositas reum efficit non peritum. S. Zeno. Serm. 2. de silii gener. Chrys. de fato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Sixtus in Biblioth. PP. De Deo etiam vera loqui periculum est. Hesychius in levitic.  it is an ulcer that ever itcheth, and which without ceasing is iterated by continual scratching, it is as a horseleech which draweth out all the bad blood, and filleth till it burst. It is a magpie, a biting worm, which taketh men by the ears as well as dogs. But above all it is most pernicious in matter of Religion. Sixtus an ancient Author, cited in the Bibliotheke of the Fathers, hath spoken a thing very remarkable: When a man speaketh of God, yea with all verity, we must always therein proceed reservedly, as if we trod upon thorns. It were better (saith S. John Chrysostom) not to know him, than to know him ill. Hesychius teacheth us, one must approach to him as to fire; too great a distance maketh us quake with cold, and over near approaches burn us.  
Secondly judge, whether any body would not 
Perverse proceeding of the wicked.  say, it were a great weakness of understanding, to be desirous to proceed in matter of Religion by such knowledges, as are common with bruit beasts, and forsake those of men? And yet this is it which you do, when leaving the eye of understanding, and the light of a rectified judgement, (which God hath given man by privilege of excellency) you will hear see, and touch, begging a truth from brutish sense, which is absolutely to raise them above their reach. See you not how the Moon, by her interposition eclipseth the Sun, and when you in matter of faith interpose sense, you obscure the light of judgement (the true sun of your soul) which dictateth to you, that it is a thing most reasonable the creature should submit himself to the Creator; that it carefully keep itself from daring to comprehend him in the universality of his nature, and shut up this vast Ocean in a little cockle-shel. It is a pitiful thing to hear, that these curious spirits should suffer themselves to be surprised by a quack-salving impostor, who casteth mists afore their eyes by force of delusions, and to contend with God who giveth them as many obligations and assurances of his promises, as there are letters in the Scripture. This 
Deus tot & tantis voluminibus cavet, & debtor non tenetur. Chrys. serm. 25.  is not only to crack the eye-string of a reasonable judgement, but also to pull out the eye of faith, all pure and celestial as it is. You demand proofs of your Religion (frantic man) look back upon the birth, the progress, and state of the Church. This is the great sign, the Lady clothed with the Sun, 
Apocal. 12.  which one cannot be ignorant of without a prodigious blindness.  
Admit it were nothing to have for proof so great, 
Invincible proofs of piety.  so universal, so constant consent of all the Prophets, to presage many Ages before the effect, the birth, life, death of the Messiah, the establishment of the Church, the conversion of the Gentiles, so determinately and punctually, that even the most diabolical spirits, who had from all times these Scriptures in their hands, seeing this consequently to happen which succeeded in the economy of Christianity, were enforced to yield to truth.  
That it were nothing to have seen through all Ages, a thousand and a thousand miracles, in Heaven, in earth, on the sea, done in confirmation of Christianity, in the sight of the most witty and malicious, who bent all their endeavour to censure, reject, and contradict them. Notwithstanding, the evidence was so palpable, so strong, so invincible, that Tyrants, yea the most enraged bloody executioners, convinced with the proofs thereof, let fall the sword, which they had taken in their hand, for the slaughter of Martyrs, and stretched out their necks to the persecutors to be beheaded. That it were nothing, to tell what a good Author upon account taken, hath observed, that there hath been eleven millions of Martyrs of all sexes, ages and conditions, who have sealed the Religion which we profess, by effusion of their blood, and in this list an infinite number of persons of eminent quality, who considerately proceeded in the least occasions, that have abandoned the easeful accommodations of their fortunes, their estates dignities, yea their sceptres and diadems, to deliver as a prey to most enormous and exquisite torments, a most precious life which they might have led in honour, in reputation according to the world, in pleasures, in delights, in wonders. That it were nothing to say that after persecutions there sprung up an infinity of brave spirits, intelligent, clear-sighted, furnished with all sorts of human knowledges, as the Justins, Tertullias, Cyprians, Augustine's, and so many other of the same profession, who after they had seriously and judiciously examined the state of Christianity, have embraced it, professed it, defended it, some with their pen, some with sweat, and some with their blood.  
The Heavers are not enamelled with so many stars, as the Church hath had great men, the prodigies and lights of the world, who by their learned writings have illustrated the verities of our Religion. I leave you to think, if among so many great Suns, which have garnished Heaven and earth with brightness, one should behold a ridiculous reeremouse to creep out of a hole, and say it is not day, and that all these suns are but darkness, whether he deserve not to be burnt, and stamped to power? That all this which I have said (being very strong and specious) enter not into the list of account: what may one answer to two things, which are 
Great force in two points  very eminent in Christianity, the consideration whereof is of power to settle the most wavering spirit, to wit, the marvellous proceeding which hath been held in the establishment of our Religion, and the most pure sanctity of the doctrine thereof? What is there humane in this law, which is established against all humane ways, by a success so strange and admirable, that it engulfeth all spirits in wonder? Where were in these beginnings, eloquence, favour of Princes, their revenues, their estate, their arms, their soldiers? Where were the promises of honour, reputation 
Establishment of the Church  dignity? Where were the moving allurements of sense, and all that which useth to feed and foment sects? From whence cometh it, that the Church 
Sola Ecclesia persecutionibut stetit, marlyriis coronata est. Crudelitas illecebra est sectae, plures efficimur quoties metimur à vebis, semen est sanguis Christianorum. Hier. in vita Mala Tert. in Apol. c. 50.  alone hath increased under tempestuous storms, in persecutions, in the slaughters of three hundred years, during which time there was no engine, which hell used not, no torment which the devil invented not, no inventions which the Great-ones of the earth with powerful hand conspiring, executed not? All the plastered pretended sects, which have seemed desirous to take this away, are quite vanished: From whence it cometh to pass, that the Church alone hath maintained itself in a bloody tempest of three Ages, in the contradiction of a thousand Sects: From whence it proceedeth, that the cruelty of Tyrants hath served for encouragement to the faithful, and the blood of Martyrs for seed to posterity. Where can a Religion be found which with such innocency and purity of life, such humility, solidity, sanctity, and which is more, with the arms of disgraces, poverty, despicable contempt, austerity and torments, hath changed the estate and face of the world, hath planted the Cross in the capital City of the Empire, above the thunder-bearing Eagles of the Emperors, and the ashes of a poor fisherman massacred for this law, above the Diadems of Kings?  
What would the ancient Caesar's say, if they risen again from their graves, to behold in Rome, where all the Monarchies were established and incorporated, where all the devils and furies were cantonnized, as in their last and strongest fortress; in Rome from whence came all the fulminating thunders and bloody Edicts against Christians, where the sword of persecution was sharpened to reap a harvest of heads, where was a Pantheon, the magazine 
Wonderful proceeding.  of all their false Deities, to see there the state of the supreme 
* Alii (nec minùs Christiani) a litter sentiunt.  Bishop of Christians, to see there a Church erected to Peter the fisherman, much more magnificent than ever was the Pantheon? Say human wisdom, if the SAVIOUR of the world at the age of twelve years, when he began publicly to testify he was come to redeem the Kingdom of his Father from violent and unjust usurpers, had asked counsel of you touching the proceed which ought to be held in this business, what had you advised him? Had you not demanded of him, where are your treasures? Have you not inexhaustible riches to oppose an Empire, which hath a hundred and fifty millions of revenue? No, I pretend to have no other riches but poverty. Have you some five hundred thousand men in pay, for ten years to maintain one army on Nilus, another on Euphrates, one on Rhine, another on the Ocean, another within the entrails of the Roman Empire? No, I purpose not to levy for execution of this design but twelve poor men, seafaring men, without strength, without industry, arms, or so much as a staff. Have you a thousand brave Orators, men of great learning, eminent eloquence, who will endeavour by the charms of their flowing tongues, to attract the people and dispose them to their wills? No, I have none but simple, ignorant people, idiots, that go out to preach the Cross. What would you have said thereupon? O folly, how do you think to come to honour by ignominy, to riches by poverty, to greatness by the infamious punishment of the Cross, to immortalilitie by a bloody death? And yet behold it is done. What say you? Is there in all this process any thing that is human? Must we search out other miracles for confirmation of faith?  
Add hereunto, that the devils craftily counterfeited 
Sanctity an irrefragable argument.  wisdom, power, force, by deceitful, violent, and brutish ways, but never could they constantly feign humility, patience, purity, sanctity. Sects which have taken this dissembled mask, have not been able long time to keep it, they all have shivered, and broken with pride, presumption, private and public impurities, with ordures of execrable sacrileges. The spirit only of Christianity hath always appeared as a true spirit of piety, humility, patience, charity, continency, chastity, mansuetude, contempt of the world, virtues so noble, so elate, so heroic, that the life alone of a Christian, being with conformity directed fairly to the doctrine of our SAVIOUR, is a perpetual miracle, able to convert worlds. All that which the great Philosophers of this Universe could not attain with the flight of their feathers, the Christian toucheth with his hand, he hath demonstrated more in his works, than they have said in their books; they have built Commonwealths on paper, and our religion hath raised Monarchies of real virtues. And if the wicked, who stagger in their belief, had addicted themselves to the exercise of good works, never would infidelity have made prey upon their understandings, but for that they suffered themselves to be transported with the overflow of pride, presumption, curiosity, of toys, vanities, and carnal sensualities of the world, God in just vengeance suffereth them to fall into a reprobate sense.  
Oh lost soul, which givest way to this faintness and remissness in thy religion, consider a little attentively all that I have said hereupon. And if truth content thee not, thou mayest well hereafter expect the lot of Cain, the absence from the face of God, perpetually frightful anxiety, terrors and menaces from heaven, the indignation of the sovereign Judge, the hatred of men, the ill success of thy affairs, extraordinary maladies, desolation, the life of a sad howling wolf, a tragic death, and detestation of thy posterity.  
Even Atheists amongst the confusions of Paganism, have seldom or never found assurance therein: some have been sacrificed to flames, as Diagoras; others 
Diog. laert. Paulus Diac. l. 15.  eaten up with louse, as Pherecydes; others devoured by dogs, as Lucian; others thunder-shot in a hath, and turned to ashes in the twinkling of an eye, as Olympias; others have suddenly lost human speech, and have bellowed like bulls, and in this roaring have yielded up their souls, as Simon Thuvan a wicked pedant 
Polydor. l. 5.  in the year 1201. others have burst in pieces in an infamous privy, infecting the sinks and public sewers, with their souls (much more stinking) as did the wicked Arius; others have lost their sceptre and eyes, as a King of the Bulgarians; who was deprived and blinded by his own father Trebellius, as soon as 
Sabel. l. 6. Lun. 85.  he returned from a Monastery, where he had retired himself with armed power, to chastise the Atheism of his son. We are not yet in an Age so caitiff, where brave and courageous Magistrates are wanting to bridle the impudence of those, who would advance these detestable Maxims of impiety. We have seen in fresh memory, the Decree of that great and illustrious Parliament of Paris, that condemned to the fire the Authors of such abominations, which powerfully stayed the violent course of black and beastly impieties, that dispread themselves under the mask of goodness; which shown an heroic zeal, both of the glory of God, and general integrity and maintenance of laws, for which God hath reserved to them a crown of immortality. This Decree hath been attended with favours from heaven, which even in an instant hath sweetened notably these punishments, and invited the blessings of all good men that have with thanksgiving lifted their hands to heaven. We had seen a little before the ashes of some to fly in the wind, perhaps into the eyes of those which 
Picus Mir. Ep. 1. Magna insania Evangelio non credere, cujus vevitatem sanguis Martyrum clamat, Apostolicae resonant voces, prodigia probant, ratio confirmat, elementa loquuntur, d●●ones confitentur: sed longè major insania, si de veritate Evangelii non dubites, vivere tamen quasi de ejus falsitate non dubitares. Advise to cold Catholics.  imitate them in their doctrine. If they expect any other arguments, it will appear their frenzy would have no other remedies, but the searing-iron and fire.  
As for other Catholics who believe as the faithful, and live as infidels, pronouncing JESUS CHRIST with their mouth, and renouncing him with their hands; I pray them to ponder a saying of one of the rarest wits which the world hath a long time had (it is Picus Mirandula) expressed by him in these words to his nephew: It is a prodigious folly, not to believe the Gospel, the truth whereof is sealed with the blood of Martyrs innumerable, testified by the Apostles, proved by miracles, confirmed by reason, published and declared by the elements and creatures insensible, confessed even by the devils: But it is a much more notorious folly, not to doubt at all of the verity of the Gospel which one professeth, and yet to live, as if he made no question of the falsity thereof.  
What a mockery it is, to carry the name of a poor SAVIOUR, and to burn with enraged avarice? of an humble SAVIOUR, and suffer himself to be exposed to tempestuous winds of exorbitant ambition, which breatheth nothing but breaches and shipwrecks? of a crucified SAVIOUR, and to live in a mass of flesh, wholly effeminated with delights and curiosities, even to the making their spittings to swim in gold? of a meek SAVIOUR, and to carry under the name of a Christian, a Gorgon's eye, the anger of an Asp, the heart of a Tiger, a soul full of revenges, of gall, of blood, of Monsters, of beastly bruitishness? O God, what Christianity is this! Salvianus speaketh a word very remarkable: 
Salvian. 4. de guber. Dei. Omnis Christianorum culpa Divinitatis injuria est. Atrocius sub sancti nominis professione peccamus. Ipsa errores nostros religio quam profitemur accusat.  We cannot sin without making ourselves capable of spiritual treason in the highest degree; the sins of Christians are sacrileges, the name which they bear condemneth their life, without any other form of process. These colds of the north, this yciness which some Catholics show in their belief, is greatly scandalous and prejudicial to verity: because the misbelieving which see them live in such exorbitancy, cannot persuade themselves they firmly believe the Gospel which they profess, but that all their religion is but an exterior countenance, and rather an idle amuzement of words, than a true list of virtue. This bringeth a horrible prejudice into the Church of God, which should even rend our hearts, if we yet retained one only vein of that noble blood the Martyrs profusely spent for the defence of the truth. The remedies for these essential impediments 
Remedies.  in the act of Christianity, are to take away and cut off the causes of this infidelity.  
1. To prepare a conscience chaste and timorous, which never will make itself an hostess for mortal sin; and if by chance it give harbour thereunto, to dislodge it presently: for sins heaped one upon another by a dissolute deadness of confession, make a savage and brutish soul which seeketh nothing but to be freed from God, though it be a matter impossible.  
2. Not to taste the blessings, contentments, or honours of the world, with too much ardour; they easily ensnare our affections and make the forgetfulness of Heaven slide into an insensible soul.  
3. To eschew curiosity▪ principally in matter of religion, as the canker of faith. We must resemble the Cuttle, a very wise fish, who during storms, fixeth herself firmly upon the rocks, without motion: amongst the floating thoughts which a dark cloudy conscience may suggest, always to hold one's foot on the rock of S. Peter, fixed and stable: to trust the direction of the Church, and not to forsake our hold. It is the most palpable folly which 
Non plus sapere quam oportet sapere, sed sapere ad sobrietatem. Rom. 1.  can creep into the brain of man, to desire wisdom contrary to the wisdom of Saints, which is humility.  
4. To exercise yourself diligently in good works, as prayers, abstinencies, frequentation of Sacraments, and alms-deeds. Faith is given to you, as an inheritance of Heaven, whosoever endeavoureth not to husband it, looseth it.   

The second OBSTACLE. 
* Cautè hoc caput & non nisi cum delectu adhibito legendum.  Error in Religion. Friendly and wholesome counsel to the Nobility of the pretended Religion.  
AN heresy discovered, is a face unmasked. 
S. Hieromn the letter to Ctesiphon. Haereses ad originem suam revocasse, canfutasse; Haereticorum sententias prodidisse superassi est.  Take away the vizard, you disarm her, pull away this semblance painted with hypocrisy, wherewith she hath plastered her face, you sufficiently refute her; you need but to know her to overcome her, and when the head of her arrows are bare, they have no more force. Catholic Doctors have hitherto courageously endeavoured to take from her this veil and adulterated colours: yea even she at this time hath so favourably for you unmasked herself, that a man must pull out his eyes, if he will not behold her deformity in her rebellion, justly detested by the sage and moderate of her own side.  
And I beseech them to consider that this egg which they abhor, is laid by the Raven that broodeth in their bosom, and it is a great blindness to break the eggs of the Asp, and cherish the serpent which hath laid them.  
Good and generous souls, which yet retain some sparks of a French spirit, do well see these proceed are not according to Scripture, which so severely recommendeth the honour of Kings, and therefore they sound a retreat, they fouled up their ensigns, freely confessing they have erred as men, and protesting not to persevere in mischief like devils. There are none but enraged spirits that will be healed by the experience of their own ill, and bury themselves in their ruin; wise men always make a medicine 
Optimum est aliena insania frui.  for themselves of others folly.  
Go to then, you who after so many voices from Heaven, do still stagger, and advise if you ought to return to the Roman Church, which is the womb of your beginning and bosom of your repose, give me leave, that I may take this film from your eyes; grow not outrageous, to what purpose should you stand quaking in these frightful agonies? Exercise a little patience, I do not doubt but you will bless the hand which layeth hold on you, when you shall come to see the light. I come not with sword in hand, to put a religion into your heads with main force; I come to you full of compassion of your misery, full of affection for your salvation, full of the desire of your ease, of your contentment, of your glory. Do you refuse me? A truth doth not gall your ears: when you have understood and diligently considered it, if it please you not, you may reject it. But I beseech God the Father of light and mercy may open your heart and eyes, to resolve you herein accordingly 
Importance of the choice of religion, matters very considerable.  to his holy will. It is a matter of no small importance to handle the affairs of salvation. We well know we have an immortal soul, which shall survive to all eternity, either in the bosom of the glory of Heaven, or in the flames of the damned; we well know by what gate it entered into this life, and where it at this present sojourneth, but we understand not by what passage, when, or how it shall issue out. We have nothing here more certain than death, nothing more uncertain than the hour and manner, nothing so assured in the other world, as to find there a judgement of God, a Heaven for virtues, a hell for sin: nothing so doubtful as the determinate sentence of your process, nothing so absolutely confirmed, as that one cannot be saved without true Religion; and 
Truth worthy to be embraced. De fide ad petrum. Diacon. c. 48. Qui extra Ecclesiam Catholicam praesentem finiunt vitam, in ignem aeternum ituros, Quantascumquae elemosynas fecerint, & si pro Christi nomine etiam sanguinem fuderint, nullatenus posse salvari.  nothing so controverted by the malice of Satan, as the verity of religion. Notwithstanding if you err in the choice, you make shipwreck before you weigh anchor, and so long as you remain in error, nothing can save nor deliver you from eternal damnation. For it is a belief of all Christianity, witnessed by Saint Fulgentius in the book which he composed of faith, that all those who shut up the course of their life out of the true Church, although they have filled the world with hospitals, and shed their blood for the name of Jesus Christ, cannot free themselves from the eternal torments of hell. See wretched soul, if at this dreadful hour of death and God's judgement you find yourself miserably deceived by your Ministers under the pretext of Scripture, whither will you have recourse? Verily whatsoever is said to you, you well know in your conscience that dying in the faith of S. Lewis, S Bernard, S. Francis, who have directly opposed yours, you have all the possible assurance of a good religion: nor do I think you have so laid down all shame, that you condemn so great and illustrious personages.  
You are not ignorant that all innovation is dangerous, 
Assurance of the Catholic.  but principally in matter of faith. They that follow the main current and generality of a religion ancient and well-grounded cannot perish but by falling from heaven, cannot stumble in their belief but by intombing themselves in the ruins of Christianity, which God neither can nor will suffer to be lost, according to his promises.  
They which adhere to novelties, sail in a sea of monsters and tempests, without polestar, without rudder, without Pilot, without any other guide than their own judgement, which cannot choose but very easily deceive them.  
If there be flames in hell employed in the punishment 
Danger of novelty in religion.  of sinful souls, there is no doubt but they shall chief be inflicted on them, who have laboured to rend the garment of Jesus Christ, to break the connexion's and seams of the Church, to strike at the lawful powers ordained by God, to throw disorder, fire, and blood into the state of their Prince. What horror will it be in this great and general day, when you shall see your innocence by association of religion, engaged to the enormity of so many disastrous crimes, which you must expiate with pains, which shall have no other limits but eternity? Enter again into yourself a little, and afford so much patience as to know yourself. For if you desire to proceed with all security, I advise you three things.  
First, to have a spirit throughly discharged of 
Three things necessary to dispose one's self in religion. First to avoid prejudice. Mirror of Smyrna. Pausanias.  anticipations, bold animofities and apprehensions, which raise mists even among the most resplendent lights of truth. It is said that heretofore at Smyrna a city of Greece, there was a false mirror kept in the Temple, which did represent the most beautiful and amiable faces, with notable deformity, and on the contrary gave to creatures ugly and misshapen, a lustre of borrowed and wholly imaginary beauty. Your Ministers in the false glass of their Doctrine, represent the Roman Church to you, this lovely and chaste spouse of Heaven, as a monster composed of all sorts of abominations, you have your ears perpetually beaten, with the seven hills of Rome, with Antichrist, with the horned beast, with Idolatries and superstitions, which they maliciously obtrude to us. If you remain fixed in these persuasions, how can you do other but hate that which you know not?  
On the contrary, you are made to behold a sect which you well know to have been begun by a general revolt from superior powers, by scandalous sonsualities, and an infinite number of cruelties, as a celestial Doctrine, beautiful, radiant, under the pretext of Scripture, which is a mere subject to fancy; and considering it under this veil you love it, and as Nero, who through an emerald beheld the flames and blood of his country, and found it a pleasant mirror, so whilst you view the pretended Religion under a veil, all seemeth beautiful and goodly to you. Take away for one hour at least this partial prejudicated spirit, drunk with passion; and take another, calm, reposed, settled, which hath an indifferent care for each part.  
The second thing is, you must not too much 
Second disposition, to avoid the spr●it of quarrels and eager contentions. Indeflexo motis adversandi studium persistit, ubi non rationi voluntas subijcitur sed his quae studemus dectrinam coaptamus. Hilarius. 10. de Tri. Truth in the calm. Non in commotione Dominu● In sibilo aurae tenuis. Reg. 3. 19 Omnes disputare malunt, quam vivere. Sense. A singular axiom of Chrysol. and Tertullian. Qui sidem quaerit rationem non quaerit. Quid A thenis, & Hierosolymis? Quid Academiae & Ecclesiae? Nostra institutio de porticu Salomonis est, quae monet Deum in simplicitate cordis querendum. Chrys. serm. 58. & Tertul. de prescrip.  stick upon petty curiosities of a thousand controversies and unprofitable disputations. Truth ordinarily is therein ill handled under the shadow of cherishing it, it is haled this way, and that way, with such boldness, that it seemeth every one would dis-member it, and each man take his share away with him. After so many stabs and stoccadoes on this side, and that side, no other fruit is derived but yea and no, and the soul ofttimes findeth itself as much void of peace and reason, as it is full of gall and darkness.  
You know what is written in the vision of the prophet Elias: God is not to be found in the rustling of impetuous winds, in boisterous storms, in turmoils, in fire; but in a gentle gale, which bringeth light and refreshment in its wings;  
Likewise, verity fit to handle the conversion of souls, is not ordinarily in these ardent and contentious disputations, where the prizes of fast and lose are played, but in the repose of a quiet spirit, temperate, moulded in the hands of a prudent docibleness. For faith runneth a different course from human sciences. To say, why this? and why that? to sift the causes, the effects, the tenants, the utmost bounds of a point, it is the vulgar tract of inferior schools. Faith which hath God himself for object, who is a bottomless abyss of light and perfection, cannot demonstrate all that it believeth, otherwise it would not be faith, nor God would not no more be God. He that seeketh faith, seeketh not reason. Athens hath nothing to intermeddle with Jerusalem, nor the Academy with the Church. Our school is the porch of Solomon, which teacheth us, we must search for God with simplicity of heart, and not with frivolous curiosity. Faith moveth upon two poles, the first is to believe what God hath revealed; the second to believe, because he who is an eternal truth, hath revealed it, without any other restriction, specified modification, or humane distinction. What wrong doth the Creator to us, if he would have us believe more of him than we are able to comprehend? It is not for the iron to ask of the Magnet or Loadstone, from whence those charms and secret influences come, wherewith he attracteth and captiveth him. It is enough that he follow. When God proposeth a verity unto thee by the voice and general consent of the Church, (poor man) thou kickest, thou friskest, thou dost appeal to human reason, to sense, to judgement, which have wings too short and insufficient to undertake such a flight.  
Whilst thou therein proceedest in the manner, thy faith will be no true faith, but a fantasy which will entertain thee with false illusions, and leave thee real torments. It is a great science in matter of Religion to have a holy and conscientious ignorance. All Heretics (saith Tertullian) 
Omnes tument, omnes scientiam pollicentur. Sapientiae haec veritas ' est interdum sapere quod nolis. Hilar. 5. de Trinit. initio. Third disposition Purity of life.  promise reason and knowledge. All of them assail faith with human understanding. God teacheth us another way, which is to adore his mysteries with submission of spirit, and make of our own proper judgements a sacrifice on the Altar of faith.  
The third thing which you are to have in great recommendation, is diligently to purge your conscience from the rust of sin. The spirit of God is pleased and fed amongst lilies, and nothing so much hindereth heavenly doctrine as impurity of life. Pearls are dissolved in vinegar, and truth in a heart made bitter with the corruption of vice. If you desire that it should come to you, observe three things exactly. First endeavour, as much as you can possibly, to free yourself from a certain spirit of presumption, which puffeth men up and inebriateth them with the love of their own judgement, before they be throughly awakened, and from hence it cometh that they affectionately embrace themselves, and make such esteem of their own thoughts, words, maxims, that all seemeth gold. This is a pernicious illusion, and which stoppeth up all excess to our Saviour, who is much pleased to converse with the humble.  
Secondly, live with great purity of soul and body, 
Qui diligit cordis munditiem amicum habebit Regem, incorruptio facit esse proximum Deo. Prov. 2. 2. Sap. 6.  carefully preserving yourself from being engulfed in sensual affections, pleasures and ordures of flesh, which bury the soul in a puddle, and make it uncapable of all good. God hath not upon earth a more pleasing hostess than purity of heart. 'Tis that which procures for us the amity of the Sovereign King, and placeth us near the Divinity. Finally labour to adorn yourself with Charity, and the very bowels of pity towards the poor and persons afflicted, assisting them according to the ability which you have; and when you, fortified with such arms, shall daily knock at the gates of Heaven, by incessant prayer ask grace, speaking and conferring ofttimes with some Catholic Doctor, virtuous, charitable and peaceful, I have infinite hopes the Father of light will dart upon your heart his beams, and give you leave to know the truth.  
In the mean space, ponder a little in your heart 
Four very notable points to discover the falsehood of the pretended.  four notable points, which will make you discover the falsity of the pretended Religion.  
The first is, the beginning. The second, the progress. The third, the foundation of the Doctrine. The fourth, the fruits. Behold four touchstones to judge aright of Religion. If all this do well accord with reason and verity in the pretended Religion, I give you leave to follow it; but if all therein be tottering and ruinous, I beseech you open your eyes a little, and view your misery, after you have so often shut up your ears against reason, and your heart against charity.  
Then first of all consider, whether this Religion 
Original.  you profess be ancient or new. If it be ancient and the Religion of the Apostles, you ought to follow it; if new, you ought to condemn it; no man doubteth. Now, it is as new as novelty itself: which is proved, first by the name thereof, since every Religion which is called reform, ought necessarily to have been deformed; for a thing is not reform which never had deformity. This is clear. And every Religion which is said to be reform in things essential, as are Sacraments, was then before deformed in matters essential, and so deformed, that in a word it was no longer a Religion.  
For it is as impossible a Religion can subsist without the verity of faith and Sacraments, as to say that a man can be a man without a reasonable soul. Now this Religion of which we make question, according 
Pretended religion new, and therefore none at all.  to your saying, was deformed in essential things, to wit, in Sacraments, whereby it appeareth it was no more a Religion, than a lying truth, to speak properly, is truth itself.  
Wherefore we must conclude, that those which boast they have reform it within these hundred years, have made it wholly new: as if the Sun had been annihilated for a thousand years' space, and that God came to restore it, it would be an absolute new Sun; so is this Religion wholly new. Behold then, 
The proof thereof is evident.  if every new Religion (as is most evident) carry its condemnation, see you not, that this same which you profess, is false, since it proveth itself to be new, and only discovered since Luther and Calvin.  
And think not, this novelty is only proved by reason. It is your own confession in the 31. article, where you openly profess, the Church hath not only been reform, but absolutely made new: this sole innovation (if you judge aright of it) should give you occasion to suspect it.  
The sage Commonwealth of the Lycians heretofore 
Novelties ever suspected by the wise.  ordained, that all those who would propose any noveltic in matter of law, should deliver it in public, with a halter about their necks; to the end that if their propositions were not found to be good and profitable, the authors thereof should be strangled in the place.  
And what can one think of them, which have brought in such huge novelism in matter of Religion, so disastrous, and so prejudicial to Christendom by the effusion of so much blood? Judge yourselves, 
Force of argument.  and weigh at leisure the force of this argument; you shall perceive it is very hard to find evasions against 
Weak evasions of Ministers.  this verity. For of two things you must confess one, either that the Church hath wholly been extinct the space of about a thousand years, and then was newly repaired according to the ancient model of the Apostles: or that it hath always been on foot, but invisible and unknown.  
These two evasions are very vain and frivolous, as 
First evasion refuted.  you shall understand, thereunto a little applying your judgement. For, to speak of the first, expressed in the 31. Article of your Faith, that the Church hath been newly reform: First, this is against the word Reason. 1 of God, who to his Church promiseth an assistance without interruption, even to the end of the world. These are his words in S. Matthew: Behold I am 
Matth. 28. 2.  with you all the days, even to the consummation of the world. He admitteth not one sole day of interruption, and you make one of a thousand or eleven hundred years.  
Secondly, you make a Jesus Christ disarrayed, a Reason. 2 Church reduced to nothing, for the space of ten Ages, which is very intolerable, and shall never be, nay not during the time of Antichrist's persecution. Reason. 3 Moreover were it so, you must deny the providence of God, so to have abandoned to a general desolation, a work fast cemented with the blood of his Son; yea he, who hath a care even of the nests of the little halcyons. Finally you must say, that Jesus Christ was an Impostor, and unable: an Impostor to have promised a Church without interruption; unable in that he could not preserve it: all which is blasphemous.  
To affirm the second, that this Church hath always 
Second evasion overthrown.  been, but yet unknown and invisible, if all men were changed into beasts, it might happen they would be thus persuaded: But if they yet retain one dram of human capacity, it were impossible; so impertinent is this proposition.  
For first of all, because you will affirm nothing without proof out of holy Scripture, it is demanded of you, where is it spoken of this unknown Church, of this invisible Church? Much otherwise, 
In sole posuit tabernaculum suum: in manifestatione posuit Ecclesiam suam. August. in Psal. 18.  she is compared to a City planted upon a hill, to the Light, to the pavilion in the Sun, as the Scripture teacheth us, and S. Augustine proveth it by the same Scripture, upon the 18. Psalm.  
Secondly, if this Church were unknown, whither should the Gentiles have addressed themselves for their conversion? or those that were doubtful for their resolution? or all the faithful for their direction? God referreth them all to his Church. Is it not a mere mockery to send them to a thing invisible?  
Thirdly, if there be no proof in Scripture which averreth this, some human reason at least is required. Can a proposition more reasonable be made, than to ask of those who maintain a thing to have been in former Ages, to produce some marks thereof? That they show, how for a thousand years of desolation their Church hath been in being? That they set before us one sole history which witnesseth how in the thousand, two, three, four, and five hundred years, there was found a company of brethren who professed an universal sum of all the articles which these men now maintain?  
The Phoenix is very rare; but yet it is said in such 
Alla●us est Phoenix in urbem anno urbis 800. P●●● l. 10. c. 11.  and such a year, a Phoenix was seen in Rome. Do we find that any man saith the like of the pretended reformed Religion? There is not a word of it. We find the Waldnese, Circumcellians, Gnostics, Borborites, and Beguins, who have held some piece of our Heretics belief, and we likewise behold, that all have been condemned as Heretics. But there is not one to be found, who hath framed this body of the pretended Religion, as it is at this day composed. What meaneth this? Is it to have one small sparkle of the understanding of man, to affirm such a thing to have been, and not to know how to produce one proof?  
Is not this to play Aesop's ass, that vaunted he had 
Aesop's Ass.  great secrets of wisdom to communicate to other beasts; and to authorise it, he hide himself a long time in a dry pit, from whence he came with a Philosopher's cloak, saying, That whilst he had been invisible, 
A notable passage of Tertullian.  he had much addicted himself to sciences, and the knowledge of truth. In the end it was known he was an ass, and with many blows and bastonadoes 
Asinus de puteo modo venis, & jam exclamas: Dic qui sis, à quo venias, & quod sit tibi jus in nobis? Tertul. in Marc. l. 4. c. 23  he was sent back again to the pit from whence he came. This is the parable which Tertullian spoke to the Heretics of his time. You now come forth, as an Ass out of Aesop's pit, and you cry out: Tell me, who are you? From whence come you? who sent you? What right have you upon us to extinguish the belief of our forefathers? Do you not behold a beginning of the pretended shameless and ridiculous Religion, which well proveth its nullity?  
The second consideration on which we must rest, 
Second point, progress and publication of the sect.  is well to balance the progress, advancement, and publication of this sect. If you find it conformable to the ancient manner of the Primitive Church, follow it: If it be directly opposite, have you not great reason to abandon it? Now Sir, so it is, and behold how.  
The true Church from her infancy, hath had four marks most evident. The first is a profound humility. The second a great love of virginity, chastity, and continency, witness Athenagoras, a most ancient 
Reperire apud nos est permul●os viros, & mulieres qui in celibatu consenescunt. Rom. 12.  Author, who maketh mention of this great purity of body, and saith: It is the mark of the excellency of our Religion. The third, a great obedience to Superiors, recommended by S. Paul to the Romans: Let every soul be subject to superior Powers. The fourth, a sweetness and an admirable patience in persecutions. Behold what appeared in the publication of the Gospel. If you observe any thing like 
Consider the force of this proof.  in the progress of the pretended Religion, then have you cause to have a good opinion of it. But if you therein do see all her proceed opposite to the same, conclude it is not of God. And tell me, what are her proceed in the fore-alledged points?  
It cannot be doubted, but that the virtue of humility 
First mark.  is the foundation of faith, and one of the most noble characters of Christian Religion. Where humility 
Prov. 11.  is (saith the Wiseman) there is wisdom, and God is pleased to dry up the roots of proad people. Now 
Ezech. 10.  all heresy is inseparably tied to a proud spirit, from whence it took beginning, derived nourishment, and receives increase.  
We might allege an infinite number of testimonies to this purpose. But we do not now tell you 
Epiphan. hoeres. 19 Illebertus' hoereticus sub Zacharia.  how two heretic women of the race of Elxay, did as it were, cause their spittle to be adored, nor how one Hildebert gave the paring of his nails to his sectaries for relics; so true is it, that heresy being a sprout of the evil spirit, still retains the mark of that pride, which having once assayed to disturb Heaven, never suffers the earth to enjoy repose.  
It is well known how in the last Age one called John Leyden, by trade a botcher, and ringleader of 
Corvin and Florimon.  Heretics in Germany, having first published a law of plurality of wives, went into the field, drawing along with him huge troops of unchaste creatures; where, after he had played the prophet, he caused himself to be chosen King, took a triple diadem, erected a proud pavilion, wherein he gave audience, established his Court and Potentates, choosing out rogues and reprobates, at that time attired in cloth of gold and silver, and other costly stuffs, which having but a little before served for ornaments on Altars, were now cut in pieces by the hands of these Harpies, and employed to cover infamous bodies, that rather deserved to be involved in sulphur and flames. When this King of Cards marched through the City, you would have taken him for the great Duke of Muscovia, or some antic King of Jerusalem. A Page mounted on horseback, bare a Bible covered with plates of gold before him, another carried a naked sword, willing thereby to express he was born for the defence of the Gospel. Besides, he commonly had in his hand a golden globe, whereon these words were engraven: King of Justice on earth. Anne Delphonse, the first of fourteen wives this Impostor had married, went along with him, covered with a mantle furred with ermines, clasped with a great buckle all of massy gold.  
This would seem strange, if we had not lately known the insolence of rebels, and their imaginary regalities, which are mounted to such a height of fury, that they draw very near to the like frenzy. Yet will we not at this time instance hereupon in any thing concerning this article. We only say, that to separate Religion from rebellion, and the manners of men from doctrine, the maxims of Sectaries make an absolute profession of the most enraged vanity that may be observed in the course of human life. For if the Scripture doth so strictly recommend 
Rom. 12. Non alta sapientes sed humilibus consentientes. Prov. 35. Ne innitaris prudentia tuae.  unto us in the practice of humility, not to make ourselves over wise or able, not to rest upon our own judgement nor proper prudence, to hearken to our forefathers, to obey Pastors who have lawful succession, to work our salvation with fear and trembling at God's judgements, what may we think of a sect, which authorizeth a peculiar spirit, which hath ever been the seminary of all schisms and disorders, which without distinction putteth the Scripture into all hands, to judge of points of faith, from whence have risen amongst them an infinite number of divisions; which teacheth to account as dotages all that which the piety of our forefathers reverenced, all that the wisest and most religious men of the earth decided, which teacheth to spit against light, and trample under foot the commandments of Pastors and Prelates; to flatter one's self with assurance of salvation and predestination, in the greatest orbitancies and neglects of life?  
Verily it is an admirable thing to behold how the petty spirits of artificers and silly women busy themselves herein, and to what a degree of pride they come, when abused by I know not what imaginary texts of Scripture, they grow big with the opinion of their own ability. What pride more irregular, than to see men not content with the Religion of Charlemaigne and S. Lewis, nor of the Churches and tombs of their Ancestors, to become so curious, as to think their Kings and Pastors to be Idolaters, and all the better part of mankind bestial, from whom they separate themselves as from people infected with a spiritual contagion, and do all they can to deify their own opinions? What pharisee ever came near this height of pride?  
If there were any the least spark of humility, a good soul would say within itself, What do I, or where am I? It is an old saying, He that too much believes in himself, is a devil to himself. I think I am grounded on the word of God: but have not all heretics had the same foundation, which they in conclusion found only to subsist in their own imagination? Why should I separate myself from the main body of the ancient Church, to satisfy the itch of my peculiar judgement? It is not credible that so many men of honour and worth, who are clear-sighted in all other things, should be deceived in this, they may have had doubts and opinions as we, but they have overcome them by humility and reason, they have stuck to the body of the tree, they have followed the general consent of people, which rather live in uniformity than adhere to novelty.  
Let them not be figured to me as Idolaters, idiots, and men superstitious; they have far other aims than these. The wisest and most temperate of our side, believe them not to be damned in their Religion. To what purpose then is all this, to handle a business apart, to be separated from our near allies, from Sacraments, Church, tombs, and to be the cause of so many divisions, spoils, and bloodshed? I plainly see we must hereafter live in reunion. It is the spirit of God which commandeth it. If I have beliefs in my heart different from the ordinary, I ought not divulge them to create schisms and scandals. I should inform myself. I should obey, it is fit I somewhat yield to the love of those who look after me for my good, and the authority of such as command over me by justice. I cannot perish in making a sacrifice of my proper will, for peace and the common good to those whom God hath appointed me for guiders and superiors. This is the great science, which I will hereafter seek in the government of the inward man. Behold what an humble creature might say: but insolency, the inseparable companion of heresy, proceedeth much otherwise.  
And as concerning purity, let us not go about to 
2. Mark.  speak of the vices of particular men, which are excesses of nature, not laws of profession. For to say there are vices in one body and in one sect, is to say nothing; but to say these vices are confirmed and authorized by the maxims and examples of the same sect, this is to say all.  
Now this is it which we behold in the proceed of the Pretenders. For it cannot be denied but we ought to keep promise with men, and by a much stronger reason, what we promise to God? Yet notwithstanding the principal of the Pretenders have taught by word, and practised by example the doctrine of the whole body; which is, that one may break a vow of chastity, to wit, of a thing very good, for it is praised by the mouth of our Savour and S. Paul; of a thing very reasonable, for millions of 
Matth. 17. 2 Cor. 7.  Saints have practised it in the beginning of the Church; of a thing most holy, for the scripture hath given it the name of sanctity: to break a vow sealed 
Thessal. 4.  as with the seal of the invocation of the holy Trinity, and the blood of Jesus: to break it not by frailty but profession against the doctrine and practice of all antiquity. Is this a mark of the true Church?  
Take the third mark, obedience, most natural to 
3. Mark.  the primitive Christians and all just men, who are called a Nation of obedience, and you shall find in 
Eccl. 3.  the infancy of the pretended religion, a revolt against all ecclesiastical and secular Powers, continued in all times, and in all the parts of the world, where she might be introduced with such cruelties, as we know by experience.  
Take lastly the fourth mark, which is the dovelike 
4. Mark.  sweetness that shone in the first Christians, even in the times of persecution, and you shall find in the pretended Religion there is nothing but Conventicles Consistories of state, factions, armies, ransackings, and horrors, which make all good consciences to tremble. Should I enlarge upon this discourse, I could mention matters able to make marbles weep: but I will not labour to be eloquent in our evils, which I seek to sweeten what I may, not intending to exasperate any.  
Only I ask, what will your prime Sectaries answer 
Publication of the pretended, how far from true Christianity.  to the Church at the day of judgement, when she shall say: My first Children bore neither rod nor stick to plant faith in the hearts of men, and you have published a Religion all bristled with swords, and sooted over with the smoke of Canons, all sprinkled with the blood of Catholics. My lawful children at the publication of the Gospel, spoke not one bitter word against executioners, among the most exquisite torments which might be inflicted. And you, what vein, I pray, have you spared in my body, from whence you drew not rivers of blood to distain the lilies of France.  
Your forefathers built Churches for me, and you 
See Monsieur de Saints in the Book of saccage.  have demolished them: They erected Altars, and you have pulled them down: They advanced Crosses to me, and you have broken them: They have consecrated Priests for my service, and you have massacred them in my arms. The Apostles taught me to place the bodies of Saints under Altars, and you have taken them from that repose, whereunto nature consigned them, from that repose many times afforded to malefactors, you have divided them between fire and water; yea you have infected elements, making them as executioners of those venerable bodies, whose footsteps they honoured. And of what bodies? of a S. Irenaeus burned at Lions; of a S. Hilary at Poitiers; of a S. Aygnan at Orleans; of a S. Martin, and a S. Francis of Paula at Tours, not to speak of others. The Apostles teach us to honour Kings, and you have loaden them with reproaches, even to the figuring of King Charles the ninth, with marks most unworthy, in a coin you stamped with crosses and Church Chalices, yea to the disenterring of the heart of Francis the second, interred at S. Cross in Orleans, and the wasting it in flames.  
Judge now (O you Pretenders) whether a Religion which carried on the brow thereof, acts so barbarous, pollutions so hideous cruelties so execrable, can possibly have the least spark of piety.  
For a third consideration, examine well the 
3. Point. Foundation of Catholic Religion. Augustin. contra ep. fun.  foundation of this new Religion, and you shall discover the deceit thereof. Catholic religion hath for foundation all that, which may settle a fair and generous soul, as S. Augustine observed. If the word of God should hold the chief place, and serve as a basis for this great building of the Church, (as is most reasonable) we incessantly challenge Ministers to show us one only text express, formal, and irreproveable, contrary to the articles of our faith. For hitherto they have produced nothing but semblances to deceive inferior judgements, being unable to make them good before understanding and capable men.  
If a lawful succession and mission of Pastors be required, which is absolutely necessary for the establishment of an Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, we show that from the Apostles hitherward, our Prelates and Bishops do all successively follow one another. If the authority of Counsels demanded, which are the sinews, the mouths and living oracles of a true Religion, let them be looked on in the revolution of so many Ages, and they will be found altogether for us.  
If the interpretations of Fathers and Doctors (who were the lights of their times, the instruments of the holy Ghost, and Secretaries of the Divinity) have any weight with a soul well composed to establish a truth, then especially when they all with one accord and consent do speak; they loudly condemn the error and novelism of our Adversaries.  
If miracles, which were wrought in the sight of all mankind, with so much approbation, that they have evicted confession from the most incredulous, and reverence from the most stupid, weigh down the balance, it is on our side. If the study of perfection and holiness of life be infallible marks of true faith, you may as soon tell the stars in the sky, as reckon up the number of holy personages, who have flourished through all Ages amongst us, and who therein are daily noted with such excellencies, that living as Angels, they speak like true Oracles of the Divinity. Finally, if we will give any credit to ancient monuments, the marbles in Churches and tombs of our Ancestors speak for us.  
Behold verily the powerful and invincible reasons 
Most wholesome advice how to resolve on choice of Religion. Augustin. contra ep. fund.  which made S. Augustine resolve upon the Religion we profess. Many great considerations (said he) with much reason keep me in the obedience of the Catholic Church: The consent of people and Nations hold me: The authority of the same Church, which is risen up by miracle, nourished with hope, augmented by charity, established by its antiquity: The succession of Bishops holds me therein,  beginning in the See and authority of S. Peter, to whom God recommended 
Evangelio non crederem nisi me Ecclisiae Catholicae commoveret authoritas. Contra ep. Manich. Most weak foundation of the Pretenders.  the care of the flock, is maintained to this present time. Lastly the name of Catholic holds me in it. He addeth, he would not believe the Gospel itself, if he were not convinced by the authority of the Church.  
Let us now see whether you have better choice, and more consideration than this worthy man, who is one of the prime wits of the world. Let us see what your Ministers oppose against so many infallible proofs, to cover their want of antiquity, mission, succession, miracles, sanctity, judgement, and reason. They cease not to buzz out every where a false pretext of Scripture, which verily is the greatest illusion that ever was. For these wicked ones, seeing themselves battered on every side from the beginning of this reformation, knew well in their consciences the Scripture was against them. Yet notwithstanding (said they, to mock at the faith of mankind, and lead them into Atheism) we must avoid the decisions of a Power lively and lawful, we must only take colour from the holy text, we will make it say what we list: we will maintain nothing is to be believed but what is written, and that which is written, we will disguise with our glosses and consequences, to catch those, who think they have some wit. Behold the only means to colour our pretences.  
You then who are endowed with sufficient and 
Reasons which show the nullity of this foundation.  solid judgement, consider a little how deceitful, weak, and ruinous, this foundation is. First it appears the devil and all Heretics of former times have 
1. Reason.  taken the same foundation, ever saying the Scripture was on their sides, which is most untrue. Notwithstanding behold to what pass all heretics came. Munter proved by Scripture he was the Prophet 
Neque enim natae funt haereses nisi dum scripturae bonae intelliguntur non bene. August. ad Consentium. ep. 222.  David; George, a diabolical man, that he was God; Eon condemned by the Council of Rheims, that he was the true Messiah, even by the same Scripture.  
Secondly, the world having been two thousand years and more without Scripture, the first were 
2. Reason.  written in Hebrew by abbreviation with such ambiguity, that every one following his own opinion, might frame a Bible to his own liking: Yea sometimes such diversity was found in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and  letter, that where one read David, another read a bowl, where one the liver, another a pillow, where one beauty another a savage beast; where one the word, another life, where one read the li●●●g, another the dead. And you who neither know Hebrew, Greek nor Latin, on whom will you rely?  
Thirdly, upon passages written in every express 
3. Reason.  terms, as, This is my body; the spirits of men have forged two hundred opinions quite different, what then will become of difficulties more thorny? Julian Bishop of Toledo wrote a volumn of apparent contradictions 
Juliani 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  in Scripture, which in substance hath none, but which notwithstanding seem many times to say things directly contrary; such obscurity there is in some passages. Whom should we believe? Do you not see this were a means to maintain eternal divisions, if there were not Judges to decide differences in a kingdom, but that every one should carry the cause according to the proportion of his loud crying, to make his texts and allegations to be of force? What would this come unto? And you would bring the like disorder into the Church.  
Fourthy, in the ancient law the Bible was in the 
4. Reason.  Ark, and no man durst open it, and turn it to resolve controversies upon this Rule, but did expect the decision thereof from the Priest's mouth, who had a lawful succession. The lips of the Priest are the 
Malach. 2. 7.  storehouses of knowledge, and from his mouth you shall inquire the law; said the Prophet Malachi.  
Fiftly, the wisest men in the world after they had 
5. Reason.  maturely thought upon it, found no other way to determine controversies, but to have recourse to the decision of a Head. Such is the opinion of S. Irenaeus, S. Augustine. and S. Hierome, Vincentius Lirinensis, and all other.  
Sixthly, it is the commandment of God: When any 
Ezech. 44. 24. A most just proceeding.  controversies shall be raised, my Priest shall hold sessions, and shall judge: For of necessity we must have an authority commanding, magistral, and decisive.  
For Conclusion, can one speak any thing more 
6. Reason.  just, than that in case any place of Scripture hath obscurities in it, it were to much better purpose to hear thereupon the decision of ancient Fathers disinteressed from our controversies, than to enforce ourselves to pass upon the judgement of a passionate Adversary, without warrant or authority. When in the year 1523. heresy began first in France, and that there was but one Minister, a wool-carder called John Clerk in the City of Meaux, where should we find the interpretation of Scripture, in the mouth of this carder, or in a lawful Council? Judge, behold what you go about: you may hereby see how much this pretext of Scripture is malicious, shifting, and frivolous.  
I add, that they overthrow themselves by those 
7. Reason.  ways wherewith they seek to establish themselves: For if we ought not believe any thing but that which is written, in what place of their Bible will they find, that twenty thousand passages must be taken out of ours? In what place will they show us the books of the Macchabees are not Canonical? In what place, that Sunday must be kept holy and not Saturday? In what place that vows must be broken? In what place that jesus Christ is eaten by the mouth of faith? and so many other places, which make us sufficiently understand they ruin themselves by their own hands.  
Finally, for the fourth consideration, take the 
4. Point. Math. 7. Effects of heresy.  maxim from the Son of God: To judge well of a sect, you must judge by the fruits and the effects. What fruits and what effects have we seen to come from this pretended Religion? The fear of God stifled in the hearts of men by a presumption of their salvation, Christian discipline oppressed by liberty, chastity trodden underfoot by unbridled luxury, the standard of rebellion advanced against the sacred persons of Kings, a million of French exposed to slaughter, four thousand Church-vesteries 
Monsieur de Saints in his Book of saccage.  pillaged, five hundred Churches demolished, France so many times given over as a prey to strangers, corruptions so strange, desolations so dreadful, acts so barbarous, that they make the hair stand an end on the heads of all good men, which have never so little understanding. A stile of fire were needful, or a pen of a damant steeped in blood to express them.  
Ah poor France! France the paradise of earth, eye of the world, pearl of all beauties! How many times by the means of this heresy hast thou seen thy bosom, heretofore crowned with ears of corn and guilded with harvests, all bristled with battalions? How many times hast thou seen the land covered with blades, and the sea with ships? How many times hast thou felt the arms of thy children to encounter in thy proper entrails? How many times hast thou seen flames of brother's hostility fly through thy fat and fruitful fields? When hast thou not sweat in all the parts of thy body? When have not rivers of blood been drawn from thy veins? but such blood as was able to cement together huge bulwarks for the defence of our Country, or to serve for seed for flower-deluces, to make them grow and be advanced in the plains of Palestine, and they have been sacrificed to furies.  
Innocency seemed to afford infants shelter from the tempest, yet the sword of heresy found a passage into their tender bodies. Age rendered old men venerable, yet would no pardon be granted to their grey haits, moistined with the massacre of their children. Virgins were guarded in their mother's arms as a Temple of God, yet have they been dishonoured. So many personages of eminent quality have served as an aim for their impiety, their pains have been sport for them, and their deaths a spectacle. What hair would not stand an end with horror, and what eye not weep forth blood, when we speak of these disasters, which yourselves detest? Nor can you sufficiently wonder at the cruelty of those, who have taken the liberty of such barbarous outrages, and so bloody tragadies.  
I pass over this discourse as over coals covered with ashes, and would willingly be silent, were it not that, as it was fit to expose massacred bodies to view thereby, to cure the madness of the Milesian maids, so must. I discover some bloody effects in the pretended Religion, to raise a horror against it in good souls. Why also have you in this time renewed so many wounds, which were not well closed, and for want of a little obedience so lawfully due to the most just Prince of the world, do you make a civil war to exhaust France of gold and blood after such expense, and so many blood-letting?  
If these acts seem so base and inhuman to you, why abhor you not the sect which produced them? If God curse him who is the cause of scandals, were it not fit, if you have some belief stranged from common sense, rather a thousand times to stifle it in the bottom of your conscience, than to divulge it with these disturbances, divisions and spoil of a Country, which you should love as men, and honour as true Children? Were there some stain in the house of our Mother (which never was) must you therefore call her whore, drag her along by the hair, and carry fire to burn her house, in stead of providing water to quench the flames? Is it not better to become patiented, to sweeten the acerbities of times, spare wounds on ulcered bodies, or at least to be satisfied with silence, in a matter where you can pretend no right of correction?  
What was that so exorbitant which the Church commanded, for which you separated yourselves, and took arms to defend the wranglings of our Apostates, made afterward your Apostles? What Maxims have we so rough and unreasonable, that they must be taken away with the sword, there to plant reformation? Consider a little the notable corrections and admirable policies, which Arch-heretics have invented to introduce them into the Church. I will here with all sincerity, recite the 
Maxims of the Catholic and the Pretended.  Maxims of the chief Sectaries, of which some have afterward affrighted you, and you have disavowed them, as you daily do by others, God making you plainly see in the inconstancy and great diversity of your Doctrine, the little confidence you should put therein.  
The Catholic Church teacheth, that God would have all the world saved, as the Apostle hath expressed in the Epistle to Timothy; that he desireth good 
1 Tim. 2. 4.  of which he is the source, and that he communicates himself to all his children.  
The Pretended say, that God absolutely desires evil, yea doth it willingly, predestinating men without any regard, some to life, others to eternal damnation, as if a father who had daughters should cut the throat of one most innocent, and marry the other wealthily, having no reason for it but his will, which is most execrable impiety pronounced by the author of this sect, in the book of his Institutions, and chapter 21. where he saith: Men are not all created to the like condition, but that life eternal is preordained for some, and eternal damnation for others.  
The Catholic Church speaks of our Saviour, with most profound and religious reverence. The 
Calvin in Evang. Mat. 27. Institut. 2. cap. 16.  Author of the Pretended, makes him inferior to his Father, calling him the second King after God, and attributing ignorance to him, despair on the Cross, and the pains of the damned, which are things most horrible. The Catholic Church holdeth Jesus Christ is the only and sole Mediator of redemption, and that there is no other name either in heaven or earth, in which, and by which we can be saved, and for that cause she honours it all she can, extending and multiplying the fruits of honour and praise not only in his own person, but in his dear friends also, which are the blessed Virgin and the Saints, whom we pray unto as the fruits of his Cross, and take them for Mediators of intercession, grounded therein on the word of God, which commandeth the friends of Job to take him for intercessor, 
Job 42.  though he were in this transitory life; and not at all doubting, if the soul of the evil rich man prayed unto Abraham out of hell, but we on earth 
Luc. 16.  may be permitted to call to our aid, souls so faithful, so much honoured by God, and whose praises he reckons his own greatness.  
We likewise reverence holy images, since it is an ancient custom in the Church, the marks whereof we yet behold in Tertullian, who might have conversed 
Tertul, de pudicitia. c. 7.  with the Disciples of the Apostles. The Pretended quite contrary, feigning they honour Saints, as one would Socrates or Photion, perpetually mock thereat, break down their images, call them by the name of idols and false gods.  
The Catholic Church holdeth man hath free will, 
Genes. 4. Deut. 30. Eccl. 15.  supported in this article upon so many passages of Scripture. The Pretended dispoil man of all liberty, which is to destroy the worth of his conditions, and to deprive him of the best part of his essence.  
The Catholic Church holdeth the blood of our Saviour is a treasure infinite, and very able to purge away all manner of evil, and to merit all good, but that it is applied to us by works of satisfaction and merit, and purgative pains in those who stand in need of it, as a medicine which profiteth the sick man, by the co-operation he bringeth. The Pretended teacheth, good works are not necessary to salvation, but only faith justifies, which is to open a gate to the corruption of good manners, and to all kind of liberty.  
The Catholic Church believes a Purgatory for souls, which going out of the body are not yet purified, grounded therein on 19 or 20. passages of Scripture, all understood by the ancient Fathers according to our belief. The Pretended, having disturbed the ashes of the dead, deprive them of the assistance and prayers of the living, contrary to divine and humane laws, and the manifest practice of all antiquity.  
The Catholic Church makes a Sacrament of marriage according to S. Paul, and the interpretation of most eminent Fathers of the Church. The Pretended make their marriages like those of Barbarians.  
The Catholic Church holdeth the reality of the body of CHRIST in the Sacrament of the Altar, and believe that under the Sacramental species, which are sensible and corruptible, our Saviour subsisteth with a glorious body, which is called by S. Paul a spiritual body, because it is dignified with qualities and conditions of spirit, though it lose not the essence of a body: She adoreth therein with all humility, that which she cannot comprehend sufficiently, after express passages of Scripture, the decision of forty Counsels, the testimony of five hundred Authors, ancient, grave, and sincere. Adding from the authority of the most illustrious Council of Nice, that it is the unbloudy Sacrifice presented for the expiation of the sins of the world. The Pretended will place in stead of it chimaeraes, imaginary figments, cessation of Sacrifices, and abominable desolation.  
The Catholic Church publisheth confession and remission of sins by the ministry of Priests, as the Son of God did institute it in S. John. The Pretended shaking off so wholesome a yoke, hath made himself a 
John 10.  way to liberty and dissolution.  
The Catholic Church acknowledgeth a visible Head on earth, established by the express word of Jesus Christ in S. Matthew, averred by all the holy Fathers, 
Matth. 15.  confessed by the continuation of a lawful succession in the revolution of so many Ages. The Pretended seek to bring into the house of God an anarchy of the children of Belial.  
The Catholic Church is the bright star of truths. The Pretended is a furious Comet, which throws disorder and poison into all the parts of the world.  
To say truly, should an Angel have spoken to it, yea could it create a golden Age, never might this design be accomplished by ways so furious and turbulent. But having cost France so much gold and blood, what hath it done but that which is mentioned by the excellent pen of Cardinal Berule in the Preface of the greatness of Jesus: A Church without Apostles, Apostles without mission, Pastors without sheep, sheep without Shepherds, Faithful without Churches, Christians without Baptism, Prophets without miracles, Temples without Altars, Altars without Sacrifices, a Religion without ceremonies, a Law without obedience, a Faith without works, and a Charity without effects.  
Behold excellent pieces, and well worthy of a reformed Church.  
In the name of God weigh at leisure these considerations 
Humamum fuit errare, diabolicum per animositatem in errore manere. August. de verbis Apost. serm.  which would deserve a whole volume, and since you are convinced by reason, kick no longer against the prick, go no more about to forge difficulties, nor say how shall I put this in execution? What means have I to do it? What will such and such say? What will our whole side say in general? Must I confess I have erred? and a thousand other thoughts which are true illusions. You shall no sooner set your foot in the Roman Catholic Church, with so many men of note lately converted, but all these fantasies will vanish, you shall live in peace of conscience, and shall receive before God glory immortal.  
O that we might quickly see that great day, wherein France may no longer speak but with one tongue, wherein the names of Lutherans and Calvinists may be banished out of the memories of men, wherein all Frenchmen reunited under one faith, one law, one Head, one Church, may eternally bless the name of Jesus. What joy! what comfort! what embracements of both sides! what consolation for so much afflicted kindred, which waste themselves with grief and sorrow for these poor stragglers! what satisfaction for the sacred person of the King! what honour for France! what peace for the Church! what edification for all the world! what triumphs for Heaven! what blessings of God will fall upon their heads, who shall give example of this reunion, and shall consent to the peace, safety, and honour of this Monarchy.   

The third OBSTACLE. To live by Opinion.  
THe tree of the knowledge of good and evil 
Over much wit troubleth us.  doth also yield fruits which cost us very dear: we labour here with too much application of wit, which goeth up and down searching and prying into all the objects of the world, often forsaking the better for the worse. S. Thomas most judiciously 
S. Them. 1. 2. quaest. 8.  observeth, that there is much difference between the natural appetite, the sensual, and the intellectual. The natural aimeth always at things which are really 
Intellectual appetite faulty.  good for her and proportionable, the sensual is scattered, the intellectual much more, to desire evil plastered over with the semblance of good. The plant desireth moisture with which it is nourished, and will never take a stone for the dew. Man having too much wit and sense, not contenting himself with things that really are good and truly consonant to his nature, forgetteth others in his idea which are good in appearance, and evil in substance. Notwithstanding, appearance taketh upon her▪ when 
Appearance.  she hath seduced the sense, and conquered the imagination, to dive even into the Cabinet of the Prince, which is the understanding, and putting false spectacles upon his eyes, to make him believe that black is white, glass is diamond, and darkness light. It is necessary that the will should dance to this tune, and pursue the good which is represented unto her by the understanding, be it true or false; from hence there glide into the condition of humane life a thousand extravagant illusions. It is even at this day, that 
Semblances the children of opinion and lying.  truth hath lost her garment, falsehood is clothed with it; and Opinion in this Courtlike habit hath really and actually produced little monsters, but such as yet holding and retaining the malice of their father, and levity of their mother, attire themselves with certain veils, which make them seem beautiful; they fly up and down like little Cupids, they make a trade of deceiving, and practice with so much subtlety, that they ensnare even the wisest. Behold our unhappiness; 
The world the Island of dreams. Verar. Hist. l. 2.  we are in this world as in the Island of dreams, whereof Luctan speaketh. We dream broad-waking, and such dreams which are by so much the more perilous, by how much we the less look into the danger. A man who hath dreamt all the night, as soon as he beginneth to open his eyelids, mocketh at his own fantasies, and saith they were dreams: we dream all the days of our life, and say they are verities. We run after the false imaginations, as children after butterflies. When the great night of our death draweth near, we begin to discharge ourselves from this waking sleep, and from this sleeping vigil, we find we have death at hand. And as for the butterflies which we so eagerly followed, after we have broken our heads and shins in their pursuit, we neither have their legs nor wings in our hands. Behold one of the greatest impediments of perfection.  
Alas Noble spirit! thou wouldst be truly noble if thou couldst shake off this golden yoke, the opinion whereof hath so surcharged thee, consecrating thy bondage thereunto by a precious imposture. But who will do it? Had not he anciently a notable subject 
Mercur. Tris. Souls in the torrent of opinion.  hereon, who said when he considered the estate of the world, the souls of men seemed to him to be all thrown headlong from the Palace of verity, into the torrent of opinion, all of them tumbled into the mercy of the waves, and few were to be found that would bravely settle themselves to row against the stream.  
Seneca hath well observed, and touched the true 
Senec. de beata vita. Opinion the source of all corruptions.  source of the corruption which at this day reigneth upon the earth. We live not according to reason, but by relation to the life of another, and from thence cometh 
Non ad rationew, sedad similitudinem vivimus: inde ista tanta coacervatio aliorum supraialos ruentium. Against the life of opinion.  that we fall one upon another by heaps, as blind men into a ditch.  
To take away this confusion, I produce only three considerations, which are very pressing and pregnant. The first, that this life which is so lead by opinion is very ridiculous. The second, that it is base and servile. The third, that it boweth under a cruel tyranny, from whence it may with a little courage dis-infranchize itself. And first I demand, if it be agreeable to a noble and generous heart, to forsake the gravity incident to his nature, and to embrace idle toys and fopperies? No man will consent hereunto, but he that will betray his reason. Now so it is, that all the opinions which at this day intoxicate the world, are not builded but upon the flying sand, upon the giddy humours of windy brains, upon the passions and affections of a debauched and corrupted multitude. Where the sheep feedeth that goeth 
Cornel. Tac. hist. 2. Multitudo vulgi more magis quam judicio, post alius alium quasi prudentiorem sequitur. Strange giddiness of opinion.  before, they which follow must graze though they die for it. Every one attendeth his companion, as the wisest, and he that venteth folly with the greatest confidence, is the best welcome. What monsters, what prodigious fancies of scattered and uncollected spirits have not been received for laudable actions, being favoured and authorized by opinion? It is a thing ridiculous, and almost incredible, to see the chimerical conceits that it hath persuaded, making them to be taken not by a particular man, or one sole family, but by a whole and entire Nation for maxims of wisdom.  
The Mossins', a people, performed all the actions 
Apollonius 2. Argonaut. vers. 138.  of most secrecy in public, yea even those which are ordained for the necessities of nature, and treated the affairs of the Commonwealth in their houses, constantly believing it was very requisite so to do. The Tibarenes, as soon as their wives were delivered, 
Idem ibidem.  bound up their heads with a kercheff, lay down on their bed, and made themselves to be attended like the childbed women. The poor women in the mean time were up and about the house, endeavouring to make ready baths for their husbands, and to dress and season their viands, to tend and cherish them, as if they had born all the pain of feminine travel. Can you have any thing more ridiculous? And yet opinion made it appear very reasonable. There are such to be found, who place all their honour and glory in drinking hard and eating freely: to call a man a robber, a thief, an adulterer, were in this Country nothing, to say that such an one were not a great gourmandizer, nor a great drinker, would be to do him an unpardonable injury. Others placed all the excellency and dignity of man 
Aruncani. Lips. politic.  in carrying a huge log of wood a great distance, and by this trial chose their Kings. The greatest burden-carriers and porters were there great Lords. Others did kill and eat their aged parents for a ceremony of Religion. And opinion made this good. What also do not those people of India, and other parts discovered in our days? Some think it is honourable to turn their back to salute one. Others thrust their finger to the earth, and after lift it to heaven, to do reverence. Others gather up the spittle of their Prince, and speak to him through a hollow trunk. Others offer to their gods their old shoes in sacrifice. A man would laugh when he heareth speech of it, and yet we see that the proudest Monarches of the world, who supposed they had shut up all wisdom in their laws and customs, trampled virtue under their feet, and placed Dragons, Bats, and Quartan-agues on their Altars. Behold what opinion can do. These follies you will say are not now in practice. He that would well examine all the fantastic humours of apparel, all the giddy conceits of sports and pastimes, the folly of compliments (which at this time reign amongst men) should find things as ridiculous as these: as it were to adore an humble, poor, crucified God, and yet to be mad after greatness, riches, and curiosities. To believe that one perpetually liveth under the eyes of God, yet to behave himself like a wild colt at his own fantasy, neither knowing God nor man. To expect a judgement, and to live in continual injustice. To know that we must return naked to the earth, and yet to dispoil the whole world to  ourselves. To build as if one should always live; eat and drink as if we should never die; some men to trace up and down the streets with a plume of feathers on their head, and fetters on their heels; women to bestow a fourth part of their life time in dressing and besmearing themselves, to make themselves gross on one side, and little on another, to raise turrets on their heads, to put shackles on their heels, to be transported with so much solicitude about a ruff, as if they had a Venetian Commonwealth to manage: Others to confound with courtesy whom they would gladly eat with salt: Others to kill one another about the interpretation of a word, and a thousand such like things, which are indeed most impertinent. Notwithstanding opinion disguiseth them, opinion besotteth them, and opinion giveth credit to all this. Do you then think it a matter worthy of your generosity, to serve follies under the shadow that fools approve them?  
Do you not behold for the second reason, that you being free of condition, and not having the power to digest some reasonable service, you notwithstanding undergo the basest servitude that may be imagined? A young Lacedaemonian, whom fortune had made a slave, rather chose death than to carry a chamber-pot to his Master, saying, it was unworthy of his condition; and yet opinion maketh us to bear a fools babble, opinion maketh us carry, not in our hands but in the prime piece of man, the head, a sink of old dotages, amassed altogether by light, idle, fantastic spirits, & afterward confirmed by laws, by the tyranny of custom. What shall we call slavery if this be none?  
I call your consciences to witness, if you sometimes shall begin to breath in a more free air, and see the bright day of the Children of God, you in yourselves will blame all these inventions of the worldly life, which enforce you to feel tormenting racks in your attires, in your recreations, in the compliments of conversation. O how often are verified those say of the sage Roman inserted by S. Augustine in the sixth book of the City of God: When you shall come to consider all the train of ceremonies 
A notable saying. August. l. 6. de Civitate Dei. c. 10. Si cui intueri vacet quae faciunt, quaeque patiuntur, invenient tam indecora honestis, tam indigna liberis, tam dissimilia sanis, ut nemo dubitaturut fuerit furere eos, si cum paucioribus furerent: nunc sanitatis patrocinium est insanientium turba. Abderites. Caelius. l. 30. c. 4.  and hypocrisies of Court, you will find them ill agreeing with honest minds, unworthy of free men, and not different from fools; and in effect you will confess, that no creature should doubt to term them follies, if the number of sots were less: the best veil they have is the multitude of fools. Do you not behold a goodly pretext? as if moles were the less blind, because they have companions in their darkness. Behold a point of servitude extremely unworthy of a noble spirit, to say that one condemneth in his conscience an act which he putteth in practice, that he instantly may obey a vain opinion of the world. It is said the Abderites after they had beheld the tragedy of Andromeda and Medusa, became all frantic, even from the least to the biggest, and ceased not to sing, to clap their hands, to cry, to whistle through the streets, and to have no discourse nor thought of any thing but Medusa and Andromeda. If then you had entered into their city, you had played the fool for fear to be despised by fools. Is not this an intolerable weakness of spirit in a well-composed soul, to have good lights and knowledges of Almighty God which incessantly beat upon our understanding, and yet to play the fool, and to comply with another's humours?  
For the third reason I say, this belief which is given 
3. Reason. Tyranny of opinion.  to opinion, passeth into a wicked and scandalous tyranny over Christians: for by the force of cherishing and fomenting these maxims in the heart of the world, they are transferred into nature. Vices are not contented to be vices, but by this tyrannical law of opinion form in the ideas and lives of persons of quality, they make themselves to be adored under the colour of virtue.  
Cardinal Jaques de Vitry relateth that a Country-fellow 
A pretty observation of Cardinal Jaques de Vitry.  carrying one day a young sucking pig to the market, certain pleasant wits who had agreed upon this sport, every one of them severally encountering him in divers cross ways of the streets, and ask him what was his purpose to carry a dog to the market, did so intoxicate his brain, that beaten out blow after blow with such like interrogations, he absolutely persuaded himself that to be true, which he first supposed was begun for sport, and cast his pig with shame upon the pavement, and thinking it a true dog, gave the other opportunity to gain by this sleight.  
Behold what the tyranny of opinions redoubled one upon another can do. They made this poor man believe that this pig was a dog, although all his senses suggested the contrary. And I leave you to think what this torrent of the false Maxims of the world doth not, falling with unresistable fury upon a dull and half dead faith. It weakeneth all that which is Christian in a soul, and planteth a wicked Idol of humane respects, which causeth, that all actions are measured by the rule of vulgar opinions. And if there be yet any relics of a good conscience, this tyrant smothereth them, as a Pharaoh, and wholly perverting the nature of things, giveth boldness to sin and shame of well-doing to virtue. Behold a mean to drench all mankind in the gulf of confusion. Is not this then abominable? If these considerations of the folly, servitude, and tyranny of this life (which are spun according to the web of the opinions of the world) cannot serve for an antidote for our ill, at the least think the day will come, when truth shall take place, and vice vanish into smoke. It will happen unto you as to Tigers, for whom hunters, when they have taken away their whelps, affix looking-glasses in the ways to amuse the savage beasts, and in the mean time they save their own lives by the help of flight. The Tigers 
Illusions of Tigers.  forthwith most affectionately stay, thinking they shall draw their little captives from the reflection of this mirror, and set them at liberty; in the end they strike it till it is broken, losing together both their young ones, and the instrument of their deception.  
These opinions which you now adore, these dreams, these fantasies, which you behold in the specious glasses of the world, shall be lost at the hour of death, and you must render an account to the Sovereign Judge, for that you have against his laws erected that Idol of worldly respects, and always made Heaven bow under the will of the earth. What are you to do? Of necessity to cast away the opinions of the world contrary to the doctrine of Jesus Christ. You say, it is impossible to live in the world without pursuing the ways of the world, and accommodating one's self to the doctrine thereof. Forsake it then, break your fetters, enfranchize yourself; when you no longer hope in it, you shall no more be in danger to fear it. What would it avail you to have in your life the whole world for an inheritance, and after death, hell for a prison? Why are you daily handling your sore, making it itch by your tenderness? You need but one blast of wind, one stroke of the air, to put yourself into the assured haven of the liberty of the Children of God.   

The fourth OBSTACLE. Inconstancy of manners.  
MErcury Trismegistus said, that the seed of 
Mercur. Tris. serm. 4.  Heaven was immortality, and the seed of the earth was inconstancy. All here below is filled with this grain, in every place it produceth its effects, but principally in man; he hath more in his heart, than all the rest of the world; it is the true image of instability, as Aristotle affirmeth. And 
Arist. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Fable of inconstancy.  very well it is said, that inconstancy exiled for ever from the Palace of eternity, came upon the earth as to the real place of her inheritance, and would needs there cause herself to be painted. It was plainly told her there was no pencil so bold which durst undertake this work, because she was sometimes great, sometimes little, sometimes gross, sometimes slender, sometimes strait, sometimes crooked, sometimes white, sometimes black; finally, ever unsettled and uncapable of stay in any place; that notwithstanding she might address herself unto Time, for he was a notable workman, who intermeddled in all things. Time after he had well eyed and observed this Inconstancy, resolved to paint her, and at that season finding no table better primed for his purpose, he painted it on man.  
It is a goodly invention, which bringeth to us an undoubted verity, marked and designed out as with a pen of adamant by holy Job, when he speaketh 
Job 14. 2. Quasi flos egreditur & conteritur, & sugit velut umbra, & nunquam in eodum statu permanet  of man in these express terms: The flower which shutteth up his date in the course of one morning and evening, if it be not hayl-stroken at midday; the shadow which ever flieth from the hand that would grasp it, and all which you may imagine to be transitory is nothing in comparison of the inconstancy of man. Philip a good Author, who flourished about the time of S. Hierom, and hath written a Commentary upon Job, searching out the causes of the instability of man's heart, hath these remarkable words: Inconstancy 
Animus hominis quia star● noluit cum potuit, jam non potest stare cum velit, sed semper desideriis variatur, ut quietus actionem desideret, occupatus quietem. Philip in Job.  is a chastisement of sin. The spirit of man would not rest itself with firm footing upon the foundation of contentments which God presented to it in the state of grace, and therefore the Sovereign Judge, for punishment, suffereth him to go continually floating as in a tempestuous sea of thoughts, without either finding bottom or shore. He is ever turmoiled with new desires and disturbances. If he be employed, he wisheth repose, and if he hath never so little repose, be is vexed and requireth business. And although all men resent the effects of this inconstancy, yet she notwithstanding oftentimes beareth sway in the Palaces of Great men.  
There are to be found many Endymion's, who embrace the Moon; hearts wheeled about in strange labyrinths, surcharged with quicksilver and changeable atoms; spirits which perpetually are upon turbulencies, gnawn with a certain itch of novelism, distasted with what is past, and always perplexed with what is to come, they hear all the minutes strike, but the hour of repose they know not. The causes of this exorbitancy are manifest, and the consideration is profitable, that remedy may thereunto be sought. To some it happeneth by a certain natural levity of a spirit, ever gliding and jumping upon all sorts of objects, as a butterfly amongst flowers. To others by a certain facility which they have to take distaste upon the sudden against all things, yea even the most delightful. To others by a certain greediness, 
Senec. de tranquil. Salvian. l. 1. gubernat. human. Humanae mentis vitium, magis semper vede quae dosunt.  which maketh them ever to have things present in scorn, and things to come in esteem. They resemble the dog in the fable, they no sooner have the substance, but forsaking it they reach at the shadow, and afterward passionately seek what they did forego. To others by a certain curiosity and impatience of too much repose. They do, as those, who having no great desire to sleep, cast themselves upon a bed of ease, turning from one side to another, until they found sleep by their own weariness. To others by a distemper of passions commixed together, which sharply by't them like vermin. To others by certain timorous appetites, in such sort that they dare not do all they desire, and cannot obtain all they dare wish for; this ever holdeth them with a throat open for prey, which by its flight leaveth them nothing but a mere illusion. To others by a certain mouldiness of a dull spirit, which cannot dis-involve their thoughts, nor fairly accommodate their purpose to establish them in any kind of a confident life. They resemble that little bird of the sea, called 
Aetian. 12. de animal. Suidas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Cinclus, which during his whole life (as it is said) useth no endeavour to build his own nest, but goeth ever wand'ring up and down, if other for pure pity do not contribute of theirs. All this inconstancy of life is an essential obstacle which totally hindereth the progress of perfection, the reasons whereof are most evident.  
The first is, that one can execute nothing in matter 
Reasons against inconstancy.  of virtue, if he have not an aim and purpose well rectified, otherwise it is not to live, but to fright crows and pies with fancy. Now so it is, that all those who dance this jig of inconstancy, have neither but nor scope of assurance; they perpetually are transported where the storm carrieth them; they are always strangers in their own Countries, and guests in their proper houses; you would say they had but one sole motion, one sole action in this life, which is to turn topsie-turvie all things, and to do nothing; and if they do good, it is when they least think of it, and oftentimes they find they must leave to live, before they have once thought why they were born. S. Thomas saith: The property of a reasonable nature, 
S. Thom. 1. 2. quaest. 1. Sine proposito vagantur, quaerentes negotia, nec quod proposuerunt agunt.  is to work for an end, otherwise it is a brutish action. And although the ends seem greatly different and scattered in the universality of creatures, notwithstanding they are all recollected in God, as beams in the Sun, the center-light. IT is that at which necessarily we must aim, to find the Temple of repose. Quicksilver creepeth up and down and trembleth, until it hath found gold with which it may commix: in like manner the heart of man boundeth and skippeth here and there in its own disturbances. There is nought but jumps and sallies, but ebbs and floods, but accesses of fire and ice, until such time as it is united to its Creator, submitting itself to some constant and regular manner of life, thereby to serve his Divine Majesty. Saint Augustine very lively explicateth the misery of this 
S. August. sol. 13.  wand'ring life which he had made trial of, and the happiness he enjoined when he courageously settled himself to a stable state of virtue. You would say hearing this spoken, that this soul like a small current of water, separated for some time from God his true source, gliding along by the senses, as by rusty and defiled pipes: There the soul is ever perplexed and involved, finding pain in repose, and thirst in abundance, until returning to its original 
Ex quo me ab ●ni●ate bonitatis tuae summo & uno bono temporalium rerum multiformitas lapsum me per carnales sensus dissipavit, & ab uno in multa dicisit, facta est mibi abundantia laboriosa, & eges●●● copiosu.  head, it cometh to relish most delicious contentments, which make it say to God: My God I now know, that no good can be bad without thee, the true, only, and Sovereign good; in every place where I am without thee, I neveram without pain All the good which is not God, seemeth unto me a mere penury. You manifestly behold, how this instability of life, for that it aimeth not at the scope at which our thoughts should be leveled, not only alienateth you from tranquillity, but exposeth you to most thorny difficulties, and in the end to deplorable disasters.  
The other reason, which maketh in constancy very 
2. Reason. He must lick his bear.  prejudicial to all virtue, is, that one can do no great thing, unless he fashion it as the Bear doth her whelp by licking. Time and frequent diligence are necessarily required, to make good habits bud in the heart of man. The plant which is often transferred 
Senec. epist. 1.  from one place to another, seldom beareth fruit. Viands which the stomach doth not leisurely entertain, are ill digested: remedies, perpetually changed one in the neck of another, kill the body: The wound, which continually is vexed, cannot consolidate: The 
Vagus scholaris non fit magister.  wandering seholler never becometh a good Clerk. We of necessity must break and came ourselves to the thing we undertake. He that is every where, is not where. And yet notwithstanding, this is an inseparable property of inconstancy, never long to leave the mind in any honest exercise, that so it may take a perfect tincture, from whence it cometh to pass, that all her child-beds are false conceptions, and her productions abortions.  
Saint Anthony advised a soul desirous of advancement, 
Advise of S. Anthony. Apotheg. P. P.  three things. First, to addict itself much to the exercise of the presence of God. The second, to take the holy Scripture for the rule of his actions. The third, to hold firm footing in constancy. You will say, that Marcus Aurelius Antenius had learned 
Antonius. de vita sua.  this precept of the Christians: for in the first book of his life, he casteth out of the Temple of virtue certain people, which he calleth by a very significant Greek world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as one would say, balls cast 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  into the air, and he addeth, that it is needful to reclaim and accommodate one's self to time and occasion, to obtain our desire, which rules Syncleticus, 
Gallina nisi ona foverit, ●ullos non excludit. Freveniac mobilis transitus maximum perfecti operis impedimention. Vel. Patercuus.  famous in the deserts, observing, was accustomed to say, If the been brood not her eggs, she hath no desire to make them disclose. And not to speak of Saints, a wise Historian hath well observed: The greatest hindrance which can come to the perfection of a good work, is to go perching, as a bird from bough to bough, without ever staying.  
Why do you not then make a serious resolution, 
Excuse of Courtiers.  to forsake all these weaknesses, & devote yourself for some good time to constancy? You answer: It cannot be done, we are in the Court, we are in the world, we live in the kingdom of inconstancy, what means have we to deliver ourselves from these laws? If we were Heremits, our recreation would be to tell the hours of the day, and to make them ours by a prudent Oeconomie; but here we follow the wind of necessity, the torrent of society transporteth us, we no longer are ourselves. It is a lamentable thing, to put purposely the disease 
Answer.  into despair, for fear of recure. How unjust are we to accuse all that which is about us, and ever to spare our culpable heads: we complain of the time which slideth away from us; places and societies do us wrong, which would be ever profitable if we would ourselves; the businesses kill us, which we might make the instruments of virtue; all things afflict us, we accuse Heaven and earth, and have no burden more weighty than ourselves. What necessity is there to lay the faults of your own levity upon things insensible? Your inconstancy is your vice, it is your own nature. Were it not a goodly thing to behold the Tarand (a creature which Aristotle and Philo 
Arist. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Philo de temulentia.  speaketh of) who passing through a garden, taketh so many colours as there are divers plants; to complain that these herbs, and not his own skin do wrong to him, who is mutable and penetrable with all sorts of impressions? This happeneth not to any other creatures, why to him? Wherefore should the Polypus and Camelion contest against objects? A thousand gallant Courtiers, a thousand persons of quality have lived, and still live all their days in assemblies, in affairs, with a life so regular, that all goeth in measure and compass: the days and nights have not more equality in the equinoctial, than they in all their mannages of affairs. And you through a certain remissness of heart, weakness, a false idea, or rather through a very soothing of nature, suffer yourselves to run without bridle upon all occasions, (changeable creatures) resembling the various colours of the doves breast, which one knoweth not how to distinguish. See you not that this is to betray your own manhood? What ought you to do to avoid this Obstacle?  
First, to enter into yourselves to consider what passeth there, to behold from what root, from what source this tumultuary life proceedeth, to take away the cause, to suppress the effect.  
To apprehend seriously the end for which man is created, to bend all your sinews and arteries to arrive thither, to use creatures as means and instruments of happiness, by the way of use, not fruition.  
To purge the soul from sins, which oftentimes raise this storm, by a good general Confession, and seriously cut off those passions which most seditiously assault you.  
To accommodate all your daily actions by the advice of your Spiritual Father, and to make a good resolution strictly to observe it, as much as in you lieth.  
To consider, how many Pagans, to make themselves eminently excellent in some faculty, have determined of their own mere motion to be confined to caverns, and shaved like fools, for avoidance of company, and retirement to that which they intended: so did Demosthenes the Orator; why should not we to save our souls do that, which he did to refine his language?  
If any weakness occur after these good purposes, not to disturb yourself for it, supposing constancy impossible, because it falleth out you are inconstant, to correct what is past, to order what is present, to prevent things to come, and to fortify yourself even by falls.   

The fifth OBSTACLE. Dissimulation.  
ONe of the greatest obstacles of virtue is, for that man liveth in the world as on a stage, perpetually with a mask on his forehead; every one would seem that which he is not, and none will avow what he is. Those which come nearest to God, are the most simple, because the divine nature is simplicity itself. The most remote, are the most double and palliated. This simplicity, the prime 
Simplicity the chief virtue of Saints.  virtue of Saints, which hath guilded the face of the golden Age with its rays, is so alienated from the custom of our times, that not so much as the name thereof is known. It is taken to be foppery, although it be the quintessence of prudence. To be simple, is to make the heart accord with the 
What it is to be simple.  tongue and hands: It is to have in all your deportments a natural and genuine sincerity, exempt from fraud, from vanity, and hypocrisy. It is a thing almost as rare in Court as a white raven; the mask is better beloved than the visage, the resemblance than the essence, opinion than conscience. The most part of Courtiers are monsters with two tongues, and two hearts; few are there which take 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Devise of Amphiaraus.  not Amphiaraus devise the quite contrary way, who said, he would be, and not seem. At this day in matter of virtue, men better love to seem what they are not, than to be what they seem. It were a ridiculous vanity said Saint Gregory Nazianzen, if 
Greg. Nazian. in D. jambie. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  an Ant should take an Ape for a Lion, and the poor Ape should afterwards fall into the throat of the Wolf, it should be small contentment to be esteemed by this little creature a Lion in fantasy, and to be devoured by this other beast in verity. And yet notwithstanding corrupt depraved nature doth elect all her virtues and felicities in picture, and punishments in essence. I have much wondered at an ancient 
A rare medal of Mark Anthony.  medal, which Villalpand in his Epistle in the Frontispiece of his book which he dedicated to Philip the third, King of Spain, affirmeth to have fallen into his hands. In this medal was seen on one side the magnificent Temple of Jerusalem, with certain Hebrew characters much deformed with rust; on the other side there was the figure of Mark Anthony, well engraven with this inscription; Solomon. This invention came from Herod, a great flatterer of Roman Princes, on whom he saw his fortunes depended, and verily he followed Mark Anthony's standard while good success waited on his colours, but afterwards beholding that all yielded to the victorious arms of Augustus Caesar, he sought and obtained his favour by all possible subtle endeavours. Howsoever he caused this beautiful medal to be made, which gave to the veriest sot among Princes, the name of the wisest amongst Kings, and Mark Anthony, who neither had piety nor religion in his soul, beheld himself even willingly stamped in this coin, as the true Guardian and Churchwarden of the Temple of God; so much man affecteth the very shadows of good, after he hath lost the substance. At this day this passion outrageously predominateth even to fury; in all places there is nothing but counterfeiting and affectations. Hypocrisy reigneth in painting, in habits, 
The kingdom of hypocrisy.  hypocrisy is in compliments, hypocrisy is in businesses, hypocrisy lodgeth in all ages, all sexes, all conditions; hypocrisy goeth even to Altars. Ambition, avarice, luxury, and other vices, although deeply rooted, forsakes man when he forsakes himself; it is only hypocrisy which attendeth him to his grave, and will sleep under his ashes: so many golden lies are witnesses thereof, which perpetually do enshrine carcases. Man is so made to seem what he is not, and to dissemble that which he is, so double and so replenished with mutable essences, that he himself is deceived in himself, and taketh himself for other than he is. Men are not contented to corrupt their apparel, their language, hair, visage, soul, body, sciences, arts, but they also will violate virtues, the daughters of the Divinity; they dispoil them of their natural plumes to cloth vice. If there be excess 
Counterfeit virtues.  of cruelty in the chastisement of some crime, it is called justice; if choler be predominant, it is termed zeal; if effeminacy of heart creep in, it is entitled meekness; prodigality borroweth the name of mercy; niggardliness of good husbandry; cowardice of prudence; obstinacy of constancy; inconstancy of facility and circumspection; weakness of courage, of humility; pride of liberty; laziness of tranquillity, disturbance of spirit, of vigilancy; precipitation of fervour; dulness, of good counsel; and not to keep promise with any man, is said to be equal with all men.  
Saint Gregory the Great, excellently moralizeth 
Greg. moral. 3. c. 22. Job 40. Sunt nonnulla vitia, quae ostendunt inse rectitudinis speciem, sed ex pravitatis prodeunt infirmitate. Reasons against hypocrisy. Baseness of this vice.  this in the book of Job, where he showeth that the most part of men are all gristle, which hath the resemblance of bones, but not the solidity of bones; they have the appearance of virtue, but not the firmness. What remedy is there for this abuse deep-rooted in nature? I will only produce two reasons, well worthy of consideration. First, that (speaking to noble hearts) it seemeth to me it is to produce a most irrefragable motive of detestation of any vice, when the baseness and ignominy thereof is discovered, for that is it which hath most power over generous spirits. Now so it is, this hypocrisy which maketh you (O Noblemen) always to live disguised, is quite contrary to the condition of a brave and generously elated spirit. Because if it be impressed with a good stamp, it naturally loveth the liberty and freedom, which unavoidably is oppressed in these palliations, crouchings, and counterfeitings. They are the tricks of Apes and Foxes, and in no sort are suitable to the nature of a generous Lion.  
Besides, seeing God openeth unto us the great 
Hypocrisy confuted in the great book of the world.  book of the world, as a piece of parchment guilded and traced with his pencil, for us therein to read that which is for our instruction, if we will consider diligently the most sublime things, we shall find they naturally strike at this vanity which maketh you to display apparences to the eyes of men outwardly, having nothing solid within. It seemeth that all the masterpieces of this celestial and elementary world, as it were by a common consent, do hid all what they have of most eminency and worth, bearing for devise: I hid the better part. It is true, 
Parte sui meliore latent.  that Heaven showeth itself wholly relucent in stars and brightness, but covereth his powerful influences, which by their secret extent give motion to this great house of nature. It is true, the air maketh his meteors to appear to the view of the whole world; but this secret virtue which doth penetrate us even to the heart, and bringeth life and refreshment to us upon its wings, who can tell me what colour it is of? The fire unfoldeth his flames to us, but this commanding heat which conquereth and softeneth the hardest metals, do we behold it? The caim sea delighteth us with his smiling countenance, at that time especially when it becometh (as it were) frizzled and curled by some gracious and gentle gale, and coloured with the beams of a bright Sun which beat upon it; but this lustruous beauty, what is it in comparison of the treasures, which he concealeth in the storehouses of his abysses? The earth itself likewise maketh her boast in the spring, varied and enamelled with her natural pieces of painting, and sparkled with a thousand petty flowers, which stand as the eyes of the meadows; but these do eclipse each evening and morning: Quite contrary, the metals which the earth encloseth, and as it were engulfeth in the entrails, after they are wrought and polished by the artful hands of Lapidaries, retain a lustre of a long date, which resplendently shine upon cup-boards of Kings and the Great men of the earth. What lesson of nature is this, to hid all which it hath of greatest value? And what corruption of nature in man, to hold in the bottom of his heart stench and dunghills, and to plaster it over with a vain hypocrisy?  
God hath not only imprinted this verity of 
Hypocrisy condemned by the laws of heaven. Sport of God, and what. 1 Cor. 1. Quae stulta sunt mundi elegit Deus, ut confundat sapientes, & infirma mundi elegit Deus, ut confundat fortia, & ignobilia mundi, & contemptibilia elegit Deus, & ea quae non sunt, ut ea quae sunt destruere●.  which I speak, in the great book of nature, but he hath, as it were, engraven and stamped it with his hand, in the monuments of the old and new law. The pastimes of Great men are theatres, Tilt-yards, and Amphitheatres, and the sport of the Divine wisdom in this Universe, is to hid treasures under the bark and mantle of some persons, base and abject in appearance. In the old law a stammering shepherd is chosen to carry the word to a Monarch, to shake and overturn with a poor wand, the pillars of his Empire, to divide seas, to calm billows, to open the bowels of rocks, to command all the elements, and fill the world with wonders. In the new law simple fishermen, almost as dumb and mute as the fishes themselves, are chosen to catch in their nets Philosophers, Kings, Cities, Provinces, and Empires. Behold the ordinary custom of God to hold pearls in shells, sweet perfumes in very abject boxes. The true mark of greatness in the judgement of God, is, at first blush externally not to appear great. On the contrary, it is the act of a flat, ridiculous and benumbed vanity, to be desirous to furprize the eyes with a counterfeit and captious beauty, which afterward appearing in its native colours, makes the deformity thereof the more disfigured. What a shameful thing it is to a heart which hath 
Deformity of hypocrisy.  never so little resentment of nobility, to erect a resplendent sepulchre, to boast exteriorly marbles, guildings, characters, titles, and to have nothing within but bones, put refaction and ashes; to cast a certain lustre through the ignorance and obscurity of an Age, become brutish, and then to be in effect but a silly worm; to live in the world as a snail, to make long silver traces, and to be nothing else but froth; to have the back covered with velvet like a cushion, and the belly stuffed with hay; to make ostent of leaves and verdure like a wood, and to be replenished with serpents! Is it possible, that a noble heart, when it hath no other super-visour but its own conscience, can suffer these shames? A gentile spirit said to an old man, who caused his grisly hairs to be painted with the lustre of green youth: Poor fool, although thou couldst deceive the whole world with thy hair, yet death well knoweth they are grey. So when 
Scit te Proserpina canum.  an hypocrite shall happen to conceal his juggling from all those who accompany him, which indeed cannot be done (men now being endued with penetrating eyes) yet one cannot deceive the eye of his conscience, quicksighted to pierce such falsehoods with bright reflection. I say nothing of the shame and ignomy that must be undergone after it is discovered and taken with the manner, like a cutpurse: I speak nothing of the racks, tortures, affrightments and perplexities, in which they live who desire to entertain these seem. A great wit hath well said, that such 
Stephanus Edvensis in Reg. 3. 18.  people are the oxen of Baal, who are cut for sacrifice in little gobbets, but notwithstanding receive not fire from Heaven; these miserable creatures macerate and kill themselves, to sacrifice themselves to the appetites of the world, without ever tasting the consolations of God which they have renounced. Let us lay their pains apart, let us admit that with these laborious endeavours, they might always live cloaked, always hidden from the eyes of the world, yea even from the all-piercing eye of their own conscience.  
It is most manifest, and considerable for the second 
2. Reason.  reason, that it is impossible to deceive God, whose eye replenished with lightning flashes, transpasseth through the abysses, and maketh hell itself confess it hath not darkness enough to shadow it from his face Now so it is, that God condemneth, reproveth, chastiseth with the particular indignation of his heart this plastered life, and therefore as the 
Leu. 11. 18. The swan and the Ostrich rejected by God.  Interpreters of the Scripture observe, he rejected the swan, notwithstanding the whiteness of her feathers, and the sweetness of note which is ascribed to her; nor would he ever admit her in the number of his victimes, because under pure white feathers she hideth a black flesh. For the same reason he never would have the Ostrich, who hath only the ostentuous boasts of wings, and no flight, so much he detesteth appearance fruitless and effectless. First or last he will (saith holy Job) take away 
Job 18. 19  the mask, so that the life of hypocrites shall be as the spider's web in the judgement of God; they shall think they have sped well, but even to have hidden themselves: all shall be resolved into thing, to make them appear what they are, in a most ignominious nakedness. They now are Panthers, who have their skins spotted with mirrors, that search out secret fountains to wash away the ordures and impressions of their crimes, as it is related of this creature. But the day of God will come, when (as the Prophet 
Waters of Panthers. Isaiah 15. Aquae Nimrim siccabuntur.  Isaiah saith) the Panther's waters shall wholly be dried and soaked up; that is to say, as Ailredus interpreteth it, that all the counterfeitings and dissimulations of the world, shall find no more water to whiten them. We all naturally fear the publication of our vices, so sensible we are in the touches of honour.  
Those poor Milesian maids, who moved with enraged despair, ran to halters and steepy precipices, could never be diverted from this fury, either by the sweet admonishment of their parents, or rigorous menaces of Judges: but when by decree the naked bodies of those who had violated the law of nature, by this most wicked attempt, were cast upon the dunghill, the only apprehension of nakedness, and of the nakedness of a body bereft of sense, stayed the course of these execrable frenzies. And without speaking of ancient Histories, William Bishop of Lions relateth, that a certain Damsel painted, in an Age when simplicity was in great esteem, as she went along in a procession, behold by chance an Ape came 
Trick of an Ape.  out of a shop, who leapt on her shoulders, and took off her coif, and made a little deformity appear, covered under painting and dissimulation, whereby she felt herself overwhelmed with dolour and confusion. If the small affronts and disgraces which we receive in the world, have so much force, what will it be then when the Sovereign Judge shall take away the scarf, and make a cauterised conscience appear? What will it be, when with as many torches and burning lights, as there then shall be of Angels and of the elect by his side, he shall penetrate even to the bottom of a lost soul? Where then shall be his plaistering, where his dissimulations and hypocrisies in the abyss of this confusion? It is a thing which we rather may meditate on in silence, than express in words.  
Upon these considerations, resolve with yourselves to build your salvation upon the firm rock of truth, and not on a vain reputation, upon the slippery moving sands of human apparences. Imitate that good King, father of S. Lewis, who bore a sceptre made like an obelisk in a ring, with this devise: Volo solidum 
Tipotius in Simbol.  perenne, as who should say, all his intentions aimed at heaven and eternity,  
Make a determinate purpose as much as possibly you may, to avoid in your apparel, in your hair, in your words, in your actions, all sorts of affectation, of hypocrisy, of folly, as things base, sottish, ridiculous 
August. l. 83. quaest. Summa & divina virtus est neminem decipere: ultimum vitium est quemlibet decipere.  and wicked, ever remembering this sentence of S. Augustine: A great and divine virtue is to deceive no man: The last and most mischievous of all vices, is to deceive the whole world.   

The sixth OBSTACLE. Ill husbanding of time.  
A Notable fable maketh the spider and the silkworm 
A notable fable.  to speak together, telling their fortune in a pretty pleasing manner, and greatly replenished with moral instruction. The poor spider complaineth she laboureth night and day to make her webs, with so much fervour and diligence, that she unbowelleth herself, pouring forth her substance and strength to accomplish her work: yet notwithstanding her endeavour so little prospereth, as that after she hath brought this her web to perfection, a silly servant comes with a broom, and in an instant undoes what she could not produce perhaps scarcely in ten years. But if it happen she escape from this persecution, which seldom is seen in great men's houses, yet all the fruit she may expect from so much toil, is but to take some wretched fly in her web. Behold you not herein sufficient cause to bewail her misery? The silkworm quite contrary, boasteth herself to be one of the most happy creatures which lives on the face of the earth. For (saith he) I am sought after as if I were a precious diamond, I am exported from foreign countries, happy is he who best can lodge, breed, entertain and cherish me; men bend all their industry to serve my easeful repose and commodities. If I travel, my pain is well bestowed: but be it how you will (silly spider) that you take flies, I captivate Kings. The greatest Monarches of the earth are involved in my threads; Queens and great Ladies make of my works the entertainment of their beauties; and the Potentates which will not depend upon any, are dignified by a little worm. The four corners of the earth divide my labours with admiration; and not being able to go higher, although I reach not to Heaven, yet I behold the Altars glitter under the embellishments which issue from my entrails. And verily there is great difference, between the travel of the spider, and pain of the silkworm. The industry of these two little creatures do naturally figure unto us two sorts of persons, whereof the one laboureth for vanity, the other for verity. All men coming into this life, enter thereinto as into a shop of toil, which is as natural to them, as flight for birds. A great man after 
Adamus de Sancto Victore. A worthy Epitaph. Conceptio culpa, nasci poena, necesse mori.  he had well considered this sentence of Job. caused these words to be inscribed on his tomb, well worthy of ponderation, that is to say: Man entereth into being by the gate of not being, as he, who is as soon in sin as in nature; his birth is a punishment, his life a travel, and his death a necessity.  
And very well Tertullian observeth, that God the 
An excellent conceit of Tertullian. Homo pellitus orbi quasi metallo datur. Tertul. de pallio.  Creator clothing man with skins after his fall, (which is the attire of slaves and servitors whom we send to delve in mines) thereby would signify to him, he should enter into the world as into a my to labour and dig, until he had found a tomb. This pain then being necessarily resolved upon, one of the most important points for direction of life, is, to take a good employment, and well to bestow your time, since through want of this good endeavour, life is filled with a busy slugginess, with unprofitable labours, with remorse, with shame, which oftentimes draggeth after it an eternity of pain. It is one of 
Two great obstacles of salvation.  the greatest confusions which at this day predominateth in the lives and actions of men of quality. Some are overwhelmed with affairs even from morning till night, and think upon every thing but themselves. Others roll in a laziness full of most vain occupations, and never understand the principal business, which is the point of their salvation. We greatly fail either in knowledge or courage, to handle one of the chief passages of our life, which is the expense of time; we do as one in elder time said: We labour in the main point, as if it were but an 
Athen. l. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  accessary, and we afterward take the accessary as if it were the principal. All the petty trifles which concern the ease and accommodation of our bodies, have their regular time, and seldom are forgotten, drinking, eating, sleeping, sporting, exercise that pleaseth, be it never so painful, have their season; the affair of salvation hath none at all, if it take not some small time even by stealth. Behold how corruption is engendered, that may be remedied by the consideration of two or three reasons which I will propose unto you.  
First know, it is true what the Wiseman said: You 
Reasons and remedies. Senec. ep. 1. Quem mihi dabis qui aliquod pretium tempori ponat; qui diem aestimet, qui intelligat se, quotidie mori? Nature the price of time.  oftentimes complain of divers necessities of life, one saith he hath need of health, another of liberty, another of credit, another of favour, another of apparel, another of money: no man deploreth that he hath need of time, which indeed is the most precious merchandise. And yet notwithstanding Zeno assured us, the thing which man most wanted in this life, was time. One cannot better approve the value which is to be set upon any thing, than by showing the rarity and necessity of it. Time is not only precious, but absolutely necessary. Then think whether you ought to hold it dear or not. Time is very hard to be known, how difficult (think you) will it then be to possess it? All the brave spirits of the world have voluntarily put themselves upon the torture, only to discover what time was; yet could they not so much as touch the wings thereof. Pythagoras' said, it was the soul 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  of the world; others, that it was Heaven; others, that it was motion; others, the measure of motion. S. Augustine a most admirable wit, struggleth with 
August. Confess. l. 11. c. 41.  himself upon this question, as a bird in a string: He saith he knoweth, and he knoweth not, what time is. He 
Quid est tempus si nemo ex me quaerat, scio: si quaerenti explicare velim nescio. Psal. 71. v. 10. ubi Vulgata, dies pleni. Heb. aquae plenae.  knows enough to hold his pe●ce, and knoweth not enough to speak. I leave for you to think, if this spirit all composed of fire and lightning, could not know time, how can you have it in your power? The Scripture compareth it to a most swift river, which cometh not but to pass along, and creepeth not but to glide away. All mortals little and great, stand on the brink of this river, to fish for time. But do you know with what instrument? With a five; which is the 
River of time  cause that they hold nothing. One fisheth ten years, another twenty, another thirty, another forty, another four-score. Out alas! All hath passed through a five, there remaineth nothing for them; yea even the little infant hanging on the teat of his nurse, which he had sucked but one day, as yet hath no more. There remains but a poor moment, which we hold as an eel in our hands: at every turn it escapeth from us; one moment driveth another, as the wave of the sea thrusteth forward the wave. You see, this merchandise is very hard to be kept, and to recover such a loss, is a thing humanely impossible. To measure 
Esdras. 4. 3. 39  the wind to weigh the flame, to call back a day passed, are three effects of like impossibility. God hath reserved to himself the government of this great dyal of the world; he himself figureth out the hours, and will give this commission to no man. If the Sun 
Jam tum famulata videbant. Sydera venturum praemisso nomine Jesum. Sedulius. Isaiah 38. 8. Stephanus.  was stayed in the time of Josuah, it was done, saith Saint Chrysostom, in reverence of the name of Jesus, of whom this great Captain was the figure.  
If it recoiled back ten degrees in the time of Ezechias, it was to signify the mystery of the incarnation, when the eternal Word abased himself under the nine Quires of Angels, even to the uniting himself to human nature, the tenth and last of reasonable creatures. This large dyal of Heaven is not touched, but for the great and various motions of the world, and the principal mysteries of our faith: to think such a change should be made for you, were a great folly. Take time while the Sun striketh on your line; if you will put the hand of the dyal upon the hour of the present day, you shall not depend upon the expected approach of to morrow. See you 
Time irrecoverable.  not if one rend a garment, it is made up again; if a jewel be lost, it may be found again; if a house be burnt, it is re-edified again, many times much fairer than ever it was. There is nothing, save time, but returneth; you shall sooner find the Philosopher's stone, than time lost. All riches are but as chaff in comparison of time. There is no worse thief than he that stealeth from himself so unvaluable a merchandise, either in doing ill, or in doing nothing.  
The second reason, which maketh this estimation 
Necessity of time.  of time so recommendable, is the necessity we have of it. King Antigonus spoke wisely, when he said his war was the warfare of time, as well as of arms. And very properly may we say the same. All our Christian warfare, all our martial discipline, all our exploits consist in laying hold of opportunity, and well husbanding of time. A little time well employed, which will be found at the day of our death, in our own hands, can put us in possession of a happy eternity. If you have not time, well may you have rivers of gold, and magazines of pearls, but Heaven you shall never have.  
Saint Gregory Nazianzen doth sagely tell us, that 
Greg. Nazian. in jambicis. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Merchandise in request in the other world.  life is an open Fare for all the world to trade in. And verily it is an admirable Mart, where the merchants, if they will be well advised, may barter a vale of tears for a Paradise of delicacies; earth for Heaven; and a moment for eternity. All consisteth in well using time; this is the only merchandise in request in the other world to which we go. Some infinitely labour to adorn themselves with the mire and dirt of the Indies, to wit, with gold and silver, which is as absurd a folly, as if one to climb to Heaven, should make himself wings of a scuttle filled with earth. Others hunt after glory and honour of the world, which is but a mere counterfeit semblance, in comparison of the happiness of Saints; yet they notwithstanding would carry it to Heaven; as if one should undertake to bring by waggon, a vessel of stinking water an hundred leagues off, to make sale of it, where streams run of eternal fountains. Will you know the merchandise which is of sale in Heaven? Tribulation, for there is none, and Time, for there is nothing but eternity. Carry thither a little pain patiently born, a little time well employed, and behold you become rich for ever.  
Judge now, if time be so estimable and necessary for your salvation, what value you should set upon it, and whether it be not an intolerable thing to waste it in fopperies and trifles. Time is ill husbanded by three sorts of people. Some employ it in doing ill; others in doing nothing; the rest in doing too much. In doing ill, the vicious; in doing nothing, the idle; in doing too much, the vain and unhappy. All are as it were equal in losing time, although unequal in the manner of losing it, and in the reward for having lost it. And not to speak here at all either of crimes or negligences, (which are two dangerous rocks for the ship which transporteth time) some sigh under a true laziness, but painful and straitened; others are delighted with vanities and mere follies; many are involved in business up to the elbow, and yet because they do not take their aim well (in that they do not travel for Heaven, and are wholly ignorant of the place and path of the rendevouz) all their life is a most laboursom loitering. They make much ado, as little children about butterflies. They 
Labour fl●lto●um affliget ●os, qui nesciunt in urbem ergere. Eccl. 10. ●consultus il●is vanusque ●ursus est, qua●is formicis per ●●rborem repen●ibus, quae in summum cacumen, deinde ●nimum, inanes guntur. Senec. de ●rancq. c. 12. The idle employment of some great men. ●ee Guevara, idleness the ●usiness of some great men.  run up and down like rats, who are infinitely busy to carry a rotten nut into their hole. They strive as fishes in a pond, to take the bit one from another. They wander backward and forward, like aunts upon the body of a tree. Others make fools of themselves with mere babbles, and it is a wonder to behold the childishness and apish tricks of employments, which are found in the lives of men of eminent quality. See in the ancient Histories a Domitian, upon whose shoulders God had placed the burden of a vast Empire, yet laying aside all other affairs, he every day reserved some hours to himself, to stick flies through with a bodkin, and thereunto intended as to one of the most serious affairs of his Kingdom. Hartabus King of the Hyrcans, caught moles; Bias King of the Lydians stabbed frogs; Aeropus King of the Macedonians made lanterns. Behold you not goodly employments for Kings?  
Are not there (I pray) as very triflers to be found amongst Christian Nobility at this day? We see men even in this Age, who waste all their time in combing their hair, washing their beards, in striving to have their stockings sprucely put on, to new hatch their swords, to draw on new boots, to inquire for rich garters, to make provision of girdles and hangers, to cheapen beaver hats, to buy feathers, to trample up and down the streets, to hold a racket, to play at dice, to dance the cinque-apace, to gourmandize a banquet, to throw rotten oranges at one another, to prattle with women, to vaunt of that which they have never done, to envy the happy, to contemn the miserable, to breathe perpetually out of one and the same mouth, either calumny or scoffs; never to utter a serious word, as if one had abjured all reason; and lastly never to speak well, but when they intent to speak ill. What an unfortunate and travantly kind of life is this? When such kind of men have ended their course, deserve they not to have the Epitaph of an Ape inscribed on their tombs, since they servilely have thus betrayed their manhood?  
On the otherside, we behold women who have no other trade, but to think on new fashions for apparel, to buy stuffs, to make thereof rich petticoats and gowns, to bargain for jewels and precious stones, to raise their chopinoes higher, to look in their glass above a hundred times in a day, to call a Council upon one hair of their head, to have Angel-water, the powder of Cypress, to be ever learning some new invention of imposture to bear on their foreheads, which God himself hath consigned with his own finger, to be the seat of shamefacedness, to devise curiosities in their chambers, and to complain of all the world, to soothe their own impatience, to brave it through the streets in their coaches, to roam up and down to gossipings and childbed women, to tattle with spruce Carpet-knights, to search through impertinent curiosity into all kind of businesses, to know nothing and to speak of all things, to deafen half the world with their chattering, and to hold the other in breath & study to do them service, to bestow a fourth part of their life in clothing and attiring themselves, another in babbling, another in dancing and playing, the rest in sleeping; what remaineth for God?  
Behold goodly husbanding of time, behold how the Exchequer of God is managed, and then who will be amazed to see that a life spent in these goodly exercises and employments, is replenished with darkness, with confusion, with a sluggish and lamentable forgetfulness of the life to come? The remedy for this disorder is to consider,  
I. How many damned souls do now groan in 
Remedies.  flames, which all the Oceans cannot extinguish, for having contemned time, which you yet enjoy at your ease. He that could only grant to them one little moment of these excellent days which you prodigally waste, through what thorns, what fires, what ice would not they pass to expiate the errors of their passed life? From what Sceptres, what Empires, what Diadems, would not they voluntarily and freely dispoil themselves to purchase one hour of time, and employ it in the rigours of a most austere penance? Yet you suppose, it may be lawful for you to live in this childish stupidity.  
II. How many think you at the very instant, when you read these lines, are there of souls newly dislodged from bodies, brought to the tribunal of God, condemned to flames for this ill expense of time? What know you at how little a thread the sword of Justice hangeth over your heads? And you notwithstanding resemble snails, which sing when their houses are on fire.  
III. Take so much pain to avoid an eternal unhappiness, as to raise to yourself a little treasure out of the thrift of time, by taking every day, be it never so little leisure, to retire yourself within yourself, to behold from whence you come, and whither you go, and what passeth within you; study in the book of your conscience, which must be laid open, and perhaps sooner than you think for.  
iv Prepare courageously, by the advice of those who guide your conscience, a little oeconomy of all your actions in the day; keep them strictly, as much as you may possible, and if you happen to lose time, do not like spendthrifts who lose and know not what they lose; see why, and how you lose, that you may seasonably give remedy thereunto.   

The seventh OBSTACLE. Intemperance of tongue.  
THis superaboundance of time and idleness which ordinarily is amongst Courtiers, doth undoubtedly cause in them so violent an overlashing of tongue, that now adays it swelleth like another deluge overflowing all mankind. Evagrius a good 
Evagrius apud Melissam. The tongue compared to the Almond tree.  Author cited by Melissa in the Bibliotheke of the Fathers, hath produced a passage very remarkable, to wit, that among trees the Almond blossometh first of all, and is the first that is pinched with frost; and amongst the parts of man the tongue first of all cometh forth to the field, and is the first surprised in the snares of Satan. If all those who at this present might be taxed for their tongues, should lose the use thereof, the world would be replenished with dumb men; but the evil spirit handleth his business much otherwise than the fowlers. These catch birds to bereave them of liberty: he layeth hold on the tongue, to give it a false freedom to speak all things. Three sorts of tongues at this day are most powerfully predominant in the occasions of the world; the vain, the slanderous, and the scoffing.  
The vain seemeth to me to have been mystically signified by the Prophet Isaiah, under the title of a 
Isaiah 18. Vaeterrae cymbale alarm.  feathered cymbal. The cymbal was an instrument composed of thin plates of brass, with certain small bars of iron fastened and cross billeted in the plates, wherewith they made a great noise. Others think the cymbals are bells, which according to the opinion of some were consecrated to the service of the Church by Pope Sabinian. It is not at this day that bells are in request, but as for feathered bells, they are things unheard of. And yet notwithstanding 
The tongue a feathered bell.  the tongue is not only a bell, according to the allegorical interpretation of the words of the Prophet, but a feathered bell. The bell goeth not out of its steeple, but the tongue cannot contain itself in its palate. She maketh herself wings by the help of feathers and paper, and after endeavoureth to pass the seas, and to bear fire very far into the world. A slight word spoken merrily in the secret retirement of a closet, shall sometimes be told again an hundred leagues off, and shall enkindle in the hearts of many, a fire able to put all into combustion. The 
The tongue of the cymbal.  tongue of the cymbal, as it is a cymbal, is not the worst, it offendeth more through complacence than malice. It is a tongue truly vain, which feedeth itself with a petty affectation of discourse, with slight lies, with trifling flatteries, with prattle and tattle. In this predicament we ordinarily place the tongues of indiscreet women. The Giants after the inundation of waters, would build the tower of Babel; 
Otiosae, verbosae, curiosae, loquentes qu● non oportet. 1 Tim. 5. 13.  but women in the deluge of tongues raise the turrets of babble: through an excess of idleness, indiscretion, and curiosity. In the same rank are the tongues of an infinite number of effeminate Gallants, who waste all their time in courting women, compliments, affectations, mere fopperies: had they no other ill in them than never to pronounce a serious word, yet are they culpable enough; but lying and flattery wait on them, as the shadow doth on the body. A great note of the corruption of this Age, is the liberty of lying, which reigneth even in the mouths of many men of quality. It seemeth now adays that to lie is no longer a vice, but a necessity of nature. The Sages termed truth to be a 
Verity.  sea which is never moved, a haven where no man suffereth shipwreck, a way which wearieth not, a gate which never is shut against any: but at this present it is a sea where few merchant's sail, a haven little frequented, a way which to many seemeth to be stopped up with thorns and briers, and a gate which almost is never opened.  
It is said Augustus Caesar, after a long enquiry into all parts of his Empire, found but one man who was accounted never to have told a lie, for which cause he was deemed capable and worthy to be the Sacrificer in the Temple of truth. If at this day the like inquisition should be made, I much fear the Altar of Verity would rather be without a Priest, than the shrine of lies without victims. Little Children in their beginning practise this trade; the spirit of imposture openeth the way unto them by the tongue, making them in lies to find the key of all vices. In speaking falsely one is so accustomed 
Lying the key of vice.  to lying, that he liveth therein as in his proper element. It is practised with as much boldness, as a man would desire advantage to defend a just verity: the ordinary proceeding of these counterfeit spirits will make us henceforth believe, that to assure a thing with so much confidence is to affirm it is false.  
Lies are most especially every where predominant 
Impertinent prattle.  in prattlings and flatteries, which in my opinion are come to the height of extremity, so exorbitant they are. And it is no wonder, since the spirits of men are so disposed thereunto, that those which have lost all the marks and impressions of virtue, will yet retain the tribute, which is praise. They see themselves voluntarily to babble, and self-love hath veiled their eyes with so gross an ignorance, that they may do it with much impudence, and yet it seem modesty. The malediction pronounced by the Prophet Ezechiel 
Vae, qui consuunt pulvillos sub omni cubito manus.  against those who have little pillows of all sorts for the nice to lean upon, may now well be renewed; never hath there been so many flatteries seen. The children of great men are soothed by all kind 
Flattery inebriateth great men from their cradle.  of tongues, and made drunk with their praises before they be throughly awakened, and seeing they are always bred in curiosity, it seemeth when any truth is proposed them, a Phoenix is brought from the other world. Servile souls, which bend themselves like the fisher's angling-line, seeing their preferment dependeth upon their impertinent prating, and that the Altars of this false greatness will be served with such smoke, spare it no more than one would water in a river. You shall find few or none that will tell the ape he is an ape; this liberty of speech is extant in histories, but not at all in our manners. The gout seeketh out the houses of rich voluptuous men, and flattery the mansions of the eminent: that is it which the Wiseman would say in the Proverbs according to the original translation 
Prov. 30. Simia manibus nititur & moratur in domibus Regis Apes in the Court of So lomon.  The Hebrews literally understand it by the apes which Solomon caused to be transported by sea; with those apes came flatterers and buffoons to the Court of this great King, which was the beginning of his unhappiness Those which flatter, and those which willingly are flattered are much of the nature of the ape, and all this tattle of Court is indeed a mere apishness. Behold why that learned Prelate Faius, 
Faius in manipulo.  whose manuscripts have very lately been extracted out of libraries, doth most natively represent this verity unto us under the veil of a fiction.  
He feigneth two men, the one an extreme flatterer, 
A pretty tale of an ape.  the other just and a truth-speaker, came to lodge in the house of an old ape, at that time encompassed with a plentiful race. The ape asked of the flatterer what opinion he had of him. This man accommodating himself to the time, gave him many specious praises, saying, he was a vermilion rose, and those that environed him were the leaves; that he was a Sun, and those that were about him were the rays, that he was as valiant as a Lion, and all his offspring was a race of young Lions. Behold saith the ape, it is well, and commanded a present to be given him. When it came to the truth-speakers turn to say some what, he revolved with himself that he could not tell a lie, that his nature was always to be true, that if his companion had a reward for telling a lie, by much more reason he should be welcome delivering the truth. He thereupon freely said to him, he was an ape, and all those that attended him were apes like himself; for which cause the apes provoked, assailed him fiercely with their teeth and nails. Behold the condition of this Age: we cannot brook a truth, our ears being always stopped with perfumed words, entertained with false praises and servile complacences. Truth findeth no admittance, and if happily she hit upon it, her words are thorns, they tear the skin. The most indissoluble friendships in appearance are dissolved by a little freedom of a friend. Then it is nothing strange if prating and intemperance of tongue be in such force, since the soft temper of spirits of this time cannot endure any the least liberty of speech. As we are excessive in praises, so we hold no measure in reprehension. Those who are absolutely sensible of the touches of honour, and cannot tolerate a truth, think that all other are insensible, so prodigal they are of another man's fame. They cut, carve, chop with the tongue on every side, and you may find a feast, where more raw flesh is devoured than either boiled or roasted Calumny 
Calumny.  doth at this present resemble the tail of the scorpion, which either stingeth, or ever is ready to transfix; it hath never been seen more fiercely inflamed. It is the wound of frogs described in ●xodus. 
Et ascenderunt ranae operueruntque terram Aegypti. Slander the wound of frogs.  It was a great scourge to behold these ugly creatures issuing out of Nilus, to go crawling up and down the silken furnitures and golden plate of Pharaoh, as well as over the poor cottages of beggars. And a greater punishment it is at this day, to hear these slanderous tongues pour forth their venom upon all sorts of persons, and to assail, as well the Mitres, the Diadems, and Scarlet, as the russet coat. Every one showeth the strokes of calumny; every one demanding oil and balm for his wounds, doth notwithstanding covertly hold a sharp lancet to wound another's estimation. The honour of Magistrates, of 
Fabius declamat. Pessimum humanarum mentium malum est quod semper avidiùs nefanda finguntur, & affirmationem sumit ex homine quicquid non habet ex veritate. Two devils breath out calumny.  Ladies, of young virgins many times most innocent, is not spared, most faithful servitors are traduced by the wills of calumny; men are bold to speak any thing, since many are willing to believe all. Verily behold the greatest malignity that can be in the minds of men, which is, that they are pleased to dissemble an evil, and that which hath no foundation of verity findeth colour and countenance from the mouth of a calumniatour. Two evil spirits ordinarily breathe out calumny: the one planteth himself in the tongue of the detractor, the other in the ears of the hearer. They are two sundry winds, whereof the one cometh from the gate, the other from the window. When they toss this tennis-ball one to another, you see terrible sport.  
After calumny cometh likewise scoffing, with immodest and wicked words, which are also put into the mouths of little children to make them witty and pleasing. The little creatures do not yet 
Scoffing the harbinger of Atheism.  know whether they have a tongue or no, and we perceive they already are initiated in the work of Satan. This spirit of scoffing and impurity, which pleaseth itself with uncleanness of language, is a harbinger of Athiesm, that marketh him out a lodging: and as it is said, that the sea-rat goeth before the whale, in the same manner gross and senseless impiety such as it is, maketh use I know not of what kind of silly scoffing spirits, which are taken to be the wise of the world, under the colour that they can compose some bald sonnet, whilst they themselves readily give the word when to laugh at it. These are 
Buffoons the flies of Egypt. Exod. 8. 27.  the curiosities, the entertainments, the Idols of meetings. Aaron striking the dust with his rod madeflies to spring up, the greatest scourge of Egypt: I cannot tell who it is that hath stirred up the ashes of Rabelais, nor who hath been versed in this putrefaction, but by a manifest vengeance from heaven we daily behold new vermin to arise, which endeavour to gnaw and dissipate all that which hath any piety or fear of God in Christianity.  
Blind creatures, you know not the evil, and therefore 
Aug. in Psal. 99 Siquis forte propterea non cognoseit quia non advertit, advertat de caetero: atque utinam inveniat quod advertat, nè Deus inveniat quod evertat. Sed tamen quia non quiescunt nasci spinae in male exultantibus, advertamus jubilationem improbandam, offeramus Deo jubilationem coronandam.  you make no account to correct it: you find not what to reprehend therein, but God will find for what to destroy you. You have thorns in the midst of your feasts and recreations, which will pierce you even to the drawing of blood. Take away the solaces of a Pagan, and present to God the alacrity of Christians; know you not, that the grasshoppers of the Apocalypse have the visage of virgin, and the tail of a scorpion? All these tants and scoffs have the seeming appearance of generosity, but the poison is in the tail.  
Behold in part the disorders which at this day proceed from three sorts of tongues, the vain, the reproachful, the scoffing; without speaking at all of oaths, perjuries, blasphemies, which have the language of hell. What a deluge of corruption issueth from one small member of man? Alas! what remedy is there for all this, it being one of the greatest obstacles of salvation and Christian perfection?  
The mischief is not only in the tongue, it is in 
Remedies.  the heart, and thereto remedy must be applied, considering both the deformity and punishment of the like vices. The vain tongue which is practised in babble, lies, flatteries, and impertinent chatter, ordinarily proceedeth from a sleight, shallow, idle spirit. As it is sleight, it is full of foppery; as shallow, it is servilely subject to complacence; as idle, it seeketh employment in vanity, not being able to find it in virtue. This imtemperance of tongue is an effect of ill-governed idleness, and there it is where the searing-iron must be applied to make it a serious soul, much pleased with entertainments worthy of a man, able to resist idle toys, and to settle it in a firm posture, in good employments, to the end it may have no leisure to diffuse itself in vain superfluities. The 
Lips of the spouse. S. Thomas in Cant. 4. Eccl. 18. Sicut vitta coccinea labia tua.  lips of the bride (as S. Thomas notably observeth) are compared to a carnation ribbon, to inform us, that the ribbon serves women to bind up their hair, and the discretion of lips ought to tie up our thoughts, lest they be scattered in a thousand follies of speech. S. Ambrose interpreting these words of the Wiseman: Sepi possessionem tuam spin● (which admonish to make a hedge of thorns about our inheritance) saith: We have not any better possession than our 
Possessio tua mens tua est, aurum tuum cor tuum est: Argentum tuum eloquium tuum est. Ambr. 1. officior. c. 2.  soul, no better gold than our heart, no better silver than our words; it is about this treasure we ought to make our wall. Rivers are tributaries to the Ocean for all their drops of water, and you at the last judgement of God for every word. Is not this worthy of a little consideration to stay a vain tongue?  
As for the reproachful; the one proceedeth from a 
From whence calumny proceedeth.  very stupid and gross in consideration, from an ill liberty, from a dangerous custom, which maketh that one sometimes slandereth not purposely, and this must be corrected by prudence and careful observation: the other taketh birth from an enraged soul, full of gall and acrimony, which casteth its froth out by the tongue, finding torment and punishment in another's happiness, and searching out its contentment in the diminution thereof: but it there encountereth a new torture, beholding its reproaches as the foam of the sea, which beateth on the foot of rocks, and flieth not to the steepy top. Great minds dissipate calumnies by the innocency 
Horror of calumny.  of their life, as the crystal current of rivers carry along the small flying dust All the arrows of reproach return upon the calumniatour, who oftentimes liveth in this world as a solitary wolf, tormented with a thousand mortal affrightments of a wicked conscience, which make him to begin his hell in this world, and finish it in the other without end. For what mercy can there be for a calumniatour who dieth in obloquys? So many reproaches are so many manslaughters, wherewith (all bloody) he goeth to the judgement of God, to receive the reward of his wickedness. Saint Clement witnesseth, 
S. Clomens ep. 1. ad Jacob. Sunt homicidae interfectores fratrum, & sunt homidae detractores corum.  that this is the doctrine of Saint Peter, who distinguisheth two sorts of homicides: The one of the hand, the other of the tongue, both punishable with one and the same pain. There is no other remedy but to take away brotherly hatred by charity, and seriously bridle this untamed tongue, until it be mastered.  
As for the scoffing tongue, it proceedeth from a 
Danger of scoffing;  ridiculous soul, light, feeble, and languishing, in the relishes of God; and if it further pass on to mock at things sacred, it is a bud of the same impiety. Such goblins and prattling devils are not commonly cured by reason; their hearts are wormeaten, and become rotten with infidelity; they are the sons of Cham, (unbridled and dissolute creatures) which will fall into a thousand disasters in this life, if they do not powerfully amend themselves, and shall in the other world find a heap of anger and vengeance for punishment of their crimes. Their laughter is the crackling of thorns, or song of snails in the flames. Fly (O Noblemen) such plagues, and well 
Tongue the incensory of the Divinity.  remember what a great person said: That your tongue is as the incensory of the Divinity: use the matter so, that your words may be presented to the throne of God, as the true perfume of Heaven.   

The eighth OBSTACLE. Curiosity in the resentment of affronts and disgraces.  
AS men are alured by vain praises, and bathe themselves in flatteries as in rose-water, so are they extremely sensible of affronts, whether they be real disgraces, or have no subsistence at all but in the imagination. One cannot touch this string of point of honour so slightly, but it will echo forth some sound. The least word of disdain raiseth a storm 
Apprehensi. on of affronts  in the mind, a disgrace is a clap of thunder, and one scornful countenance of a Prince, breedeth more fear and terror than a canon. These worldly respects cause a main impediment in the exercise of virtue, and a soul, which shall feed itself with such apprehensions, shall always live in fetters. It is good to observe the causes and remedies thereof, to draw consolation from thence.  
You (O Noblemen) apprehend injuries, obloquys, 
Querelae sunt nauseantis anim●, in quas fere ●elicati & foel●ces incidunt. From whence this niceness proceedeth.  and disgraces; from whence suppose you do these apprehensions proceed? Of too much felicity ill digested. You have a stomach of paper which can concoct nothing, it is so inebriated with the tastful sweetness of some never-ceasing prosperities, that with the least disgust it is overthrown: and yet notwithstanding, to live now a days in the world, you must procure an Ostriches stomach, who swalloweth even iron itself.  
Secondly, this proceedeth from a spirit proud and clate. We observe, that those who upon all occasions are ready to give affronts, are most tender in receiving any. They cut a large thong out of another man's leather, but if you prick them never so little, you even pull their skin over their ears. It is the course which was noted in the monster of nature Caligula: 
Caligula a great scoffer. F●rendarum contumeliarum impatiens, facienuarum Cupidissimus.  He had a tongue unbridled to scoff indifferently at all kind of objects. If any man challenged him for it, he was enragedly offended.  
Thirdly, these affronts ofttimes are such as our fantasies make them; if we help them not out with our opinions, their arrow entereth not to make an affront. We must believe it to be such, otherwise all injuries are but as stones cast into the wind, which have no force. It is recounted▪ that Cornelius a Senator shed many tears in full Senate, when Corbala called him bald Ostrich. Seneca admireth that 
Senec. de Constan. Struthiccamelus depil●tus.  such a man, who in all things else had showed himself most courageously opposite against other injuries, lost his constancy for one ridiculous saying, which might have been smothered in laughter, whence it first took birth; because this blow was rather given him by his own imagination, than by the tongue of his enemy.  
Fourthly this niceness in the resentment of injuries 
Nimio otio ingenia natura infirma, & muliebria inopia verae injuriae lascivientia.  ordinarily taketh its being from a soft and effeminate spirit, which knoweth not what an affront is, and had great need to encounter some true and real thing, that it may no more become haughty with vain shadows. This is it, which most judiciously that great Oracle of Latin Philosophy hath observed. For remedy to this obstacle I will produce 
Remedies.  two very considerable things.  
The first is, that if a generous heart could once be persuaded that the most noble revenge which might be drawn from affronts were to scorn them, and that such is the manner of all great spirits, he would make unto himself a buckler of diamond 
The study of great souls should be to do good, and suffer wrong.  against all these petty inferior disturbances. Now I affirm all the greatness of a fair soul fit to have heaven for a theatre of its actions, should resolve to do good, and suffer ill: to know not only how to tolerate an ingratitude but how to fasten benefits. S. Augustine upon the 93. Psalm proveth this verity 
August. in Psal. 93. Convitia fiunt stellis, cum dicitur illa stella Mercurie est, & illa Saturni: quid ille cum audiunt tanta convitia? nunquid moventur? numquid non exercent cursus sues? Sic & homo qui in natione perversa & tortuosa habet verbum Dei, sicut luminare est ●ulgens in caelo  unto us by a fine induction, which he draweth from the stars. Injuries (saith he) are daily done to the stars, One saith, behold the star of Mercury, behold Saturn: is it not then a great wrong to these beautiful stars, enchased by the hand of God in the azure vault of the heavens, to put them into the possession of I know not what kind of petty pilferer, or of an old dotard who is said to have devoured his own children? These stars, which are as it were the eyes of the Omnipotent, to behold all that which passeth hcer below, are they offended with the injuries which men do them? Have they ever turned out of the way for that? Have they ever lost one sole step of their regular motion? No assuredly. So you (O Noble men) whom God hath placed in the sphere of greatness to enlighten men, what importeth it you if a perverse and wayward people slander your reputation? Never shall you be great, if you know not the way of doing well and suffering ill. Do like the Sun and stars, shine and glitter in the firmament of sanctity, and give detractious tongues leave in the mean time to lick up dust. Saint Cyprian, in the treatise which he composed 
Cypr de patientia. Est nobis cum Deo virtus communis, inde patientia incipit, inde claritas ejus & dignitas caput jumit. Patience the nature of God.  of patience, mounteth yet a little higher, and after Tertullian pertinently declareth, that patience in injuries is a ray of the Divinity, and the true virtue of Nobility. What patience it is in God, so many Ages to have suffered Temples of Idols, erected to the contempt of his name? To make days and times still to circumvolve, rivers to glide, winds to blow, autumn to put on a saffron robe, grapes to ripen, the elements to serve, and hold total nature in breath, for a thousand and a thousand sacrifices to hell? To cast flowers from heaven with a bounteous hand upon contumacious heads, who well deserve the stroke of the thunderbolt? What patience is it in the Saviour of the world to behold the Sun eclipsed all the stars to put on mourning weeds, the whole frame of this universe to be troubled both above and beneath his Cross, and he in the mean time to remain affixed in this chair of patience without motion?  
This magnanimity in injuries, is the true stamp 
Admirable remedy of David. 2. Reg. 16.  with which God for his imitation impresseth all Noble and great spirits. See (I pray you) what remedy King David used against the malevolent tongue of Semei: he fled from an unnatural son, and in flying fell into the violence of an enraged tongue, which darted against him shafts of fire, and transfixed him even to the heart. Behold his Captains ready to pull him down, like mastiffs. But David replied, No: I will that he live, and what know you whether this be not now a powerful trial from the divine providence, who hath sent this man for an exercise of virtue? My God, O that only the odour of my Sacrifice might ascend even to thy Altars! Saint Ambrose admireth so much 
Ambr. Apol. 1. de David. c. 6. O altitudo prudentiae! O altitudo patientiae! O devorande contumeliae grande inventum! Ecce verborum contumelia parriciaii levavit erumnam.  this greatness of courage, that he crieth out: O profound wisdom! O bottomless patience! O what an invention it is to swallow one mischief, and endure another! David made as it were a plaster of the reproaches of Semei, for the wound which his parricide son had fixed in his heart. If great men govern thus, and you so much love greatness, why do you not rather imitate them than play the silly mouse, seeking to by't that which toucheth you, and drenching yourselves every time in a glass of water, engulf yourselves with sadness in the least petty injury?  
The second thing, is always to have an assured 
Retreat into the conscience in affronts.  retreat in your heart, and in the sweetness of a good conscience. When a disgrace happeneth to you, you are like an unfeathered bird, shame faced and dejected, for that you have believed with confidence that all these loans of fortune were your own. You are like a jack-daw trimmed up with the feathers of many birds; you have most imprudently thought in your heart that all these garnishments were of your own body, and have neglected to make true and natural wings for yourself. When the birds come to peck at you, and take away their own feathers on all sides, you then discover your ignominious nakedness; but had you preserved the plumage which nature presented to you, you had taken a strong and confident flight even to the Temple of repose, not caring for these borrowed feathers, nor all these silly scriches of these fluttering and unruly birds. What a goodly theatre is a good conscience? And what a beautiful arcenal is it to have still the arms of virtue in a readiness? A good man goeth 
Greatness of an honest man.  out of these  favours and all this specious train of fortune, as a fair jewel drawn out of a case. True it is, the case thereof may seem rich and well adorned with mean and slight embroideries, but it-self is far more resplendent than all that ostent. Our eyes do not penetrate sufficiently through this trim of the world's goodness. It is a golden veil, which may as well cover snow as a coal; as soon as this case is taken away, the radiance of this jewel is beheld in the days of brightness, refulgently shining with the rays of a constant equality of spirit, of an invincible patience, and with an inestimable meekness of heart towards all the world. Happy night of disgrace, thou hast not darkened this fair star, but rather made it appear such as it was.  
One of the greatest wits that ever was under heaven, 
M. Aurel. Antonin. l. 4. de vita sua.  the Emperor Antoninus, in the fourth book which he wrote of his own life, so much commendeth the retirement which a wise man maketh within himself, that he assureth us that in all the palaces, 
Delicious abode of the soul.  gardens, orchards, delicacies of all the Kings of the world, there is nothing so delightful as the house of a good conscience. There it is where man is involved in his little shell, and retiring himself out of the salt of wates, liveth with the dew of heaven; there it is where the soul, which was wholly scattered in so overwhelming a multitude of affairs, foldeth itself within itself; there it is where it beginneth to such in its own sap; there it is, where it accommodateth, and prepareth its hive as a busy be, and endeavoureth to gather its honey; there it is, where it entereth into a new world, an intelligible world, a peaceable world, a world smiling 
Ibi aeris liquidi serena temperies per sudum igneo colore rutilans.  with sweet serenity of air and radiant lights, as S. Cyprian There it is, that we pass into the society of so many eminent and admirable personages, who have flourished in the memory of all Ages, doing all the good they could, and receiving ill from the ungrateful with a pleasing countenance, no more troubling themselves then doth the Sun to behold the clouds which he hath drawn out of the mire and fens of the earth, to make him a scarff of. He knoweth he shall ever have the upper hand, and that they may take from him the aspect of mortal eyes, but cannot deprive him of his own light. It is in this Temple of repose, where we behold all the 
Temple of repose.  Saints as Eagles in a storm, surcharged with sufferings, but made invincible with the arms of patience. We behold one afflicted in the loss of his goods, another in the death of his kindred, another in his own body, another in his reputation, another in all, whom tribulation tormenteth in all his members. All that is mortal shrinketh under injuries; but all these arrows go no further than to the superficies of the skin, and touch not the constancy of a well-composed mind, which seethe them fall under his feet. O what greatness! O what felicity!  
Certain ambitious Kings have sought the way to build an Heaven on earth, as Cosroes King of Persia, who caused a Palace to be built like a Heaven, which had the garnishment of a Sun, of a Moon and Stars artificially counterfeited: he also made below rain to pour down, the winds to blow, tempests to rage, he in this celestial throne beheld radiant beams over his head, and all this noise and clamour under his feet. That which this Monarch did for mere vanity, you may put in practice by a most solid verity. You may for the present with the exercise of prayer, the grace of Sacraments, and a generous contempt of all which is without you, raise a heavenly Temple of repose and tranquillity, where you shall not fear the bitings of calumny, nor the mutations of the world. A Pagan amidst the 
Brave words of Stilpho. Ereps●è ruinis dornus & incendiis undique relucentibus, per flammos per sanguinem fugi, filios me as quis casus habeat an pejor publico nescio, solus, & signior, & hostilia circa me omnia videns, habeo quicquid mei habui, quia nil quicquam meum, nisi me puto.  burning ruins of his City, unsheathed swords, blood, and massacres, when the Temples fell upon their gods, and all was in confusion, could say: Behold me escaped from the ruins of my house, from the fires which shined on all sides, I have found my way through blood and flames, I know not what is become of my daughters, perhaps there is somewhat worse put upon them than the sword or fire: behold me alone, despoiled of all my goods, and now become old, all hostilities raging round about me. Hap what hap may, I have whatsoever I at any time possessed: for I never esteemed any thing mine own but myself. Demand of rich men where their possessions are? Of the voluptuous, where their loves? Of the usurers, where their accounts? Of the ambitious, where their Court? All that is lost to them, because they thought it their own, because they presently sought it in the ashes of their City: As for myself, I will find all my possessions and all delights in the peace of my heart. An Infidel to say and do all that, yet we after so many precepts of the eternal Wisdom, so many sermons, so many exhortations, so many supports, so many helps, so many examples, so many promises, so many recompenses, so many obligations, and so many necessities, which force us thereunto, still to be curious, and not to be able to tolerate one silly disgrace! May we not well say we have great need of afflictions, which might a little instruct us to imitate the lives of Saints? For it is undoubted, we putrify with long prosperities, as in a dead sea, which produceth nothing. It is necessary that God strike, and then, as Jonathan, we shall open our eyes, and suck in honey from the end of the rod which scourgeth us, when in the chastisement of a father, we shall find the consolation of true children.   

The ninth OBSTACLE. Carnal love.  
IF at any time the powerful and health-giving hand of the Angel Raphael were necessary in the world, not to cure the eyes with the gall of a fish, but to tie and bind up in the deserts, this lose and wanton spirit of carnality, which the Scripture calleth Asmodeus, it is principally in this Age that we have great need thereof, wherein dishonest and intemperate vice reigneth so prodigiously, that it seemeth not willing to make of the rest of this whole Universe but one element of fire. Asmodeus at this time triumpheth, and 
Triumph of Asmodeus.  boasteth his Chariots covered with laurel to the weeping eyes of chastity: his horses curvett and bound without bridle, and with unspeakable insolence he daily transporteth an infinite number of souls to hell. If you desire to know the equipage of his detestable Chariot. Saint Bernard will 
Bern. ser. 29. Cantica de cu●ribus Pharaonis.  tell it you, and you in his discourse may observe the causes which produce and cherish luxury, that you may hereafter apply profitable and convenient remedies.  
The Chariot of Asmodeus is a chariot of fire, from 
His chariot.  whence on all sides the sparkles of concupiscence fly to inflame unchaste hearts. This is not a common fire, but a fire enkindled with the flames of hell, the very image of that which devoureth damned souls, ceaselesly burning without diminution, and giving nourishment to its ardours with its proper damages. The first wheel of the Chariot (saith this great Saint) 
His wheels.  is called gourmandize; the second, titillation of the flesh; the third, excess in apparel; the fourth, idleness; which undoubtedly are the four vices that serve as principal instruments to this loathsome devil, and very well are termed the wheels of his Chariot. It is said the Chariot of War is moved with two arms, one of iron, and the other of silver; but this of Asmodeus rouleth about the arms of Ceres and Bacchus.  
Gourmandize is attended by the wanton pleasures of the body: these pleasures then, which should be stifled with hayr-shirts and sackcloth, are involved in linen and scarlet; in stead of ready shaking off these sparkles, they are fomented and wasted in a lazy and idle life. Behold, how sin passeth along. To 
His horses.  this chariot horses and Coachman are necessary. S. Bernard appointeth only two, whereof one is called prosperity, the other abundance. From this time forward Asmodeus becomes a much greater Lord, he augmenteth his train, harnessing also two other horses, whereof the one is called liberty, and the other impudence. Prosperity (always smiling) doth nothing but daily breath out, and evaporate new delights. Abundance supplieth him with all which is needful for the entertainment of this ravenous beast, although she cannot discharge all the expenses thereof, so insatiable she is. The liberty of entertainments and conversations ceaseth not perpetually to blow the fire. If there be any shred of the veil of shamefac'dness 
His Coachman. Sap. 4. Dei immemoratio animarum inquinatio.  as yet hanging about the brows, impudence teareth it away. All this equipage is lead along by a wicked Coachman, which is called the forgetfulness of God. Then good leisure is had to run with full speed into the bottomless abyss.  
Certain brave spirits of the world, pursuing as it 
Of inconstancy l. 2.  were this way of Saint Bernard, to figure out a spiritual thing by corporal representations, have built the Palace of false love, (the plague, and frenzy of the soul) with admirable art. This Palace is all built on hopes: the stairs are of ice, made in such manner, that he who most ascendeth, most descendeth; the halls, chambers, and wardrobes, are all furnished and hanged with idleness, dreams, desires, and inconstancies; the seats and chayrs are made of false contentments. It hath affliction, torment, and fraud for engineers; uncertainty, fear, false opinion, and distrust for Guard. All this Court is composed of 
Court of Asmodeus.  heartless, soft, and effeminate men, which are, and are not. His Chancellor, surmise; his Counsellors, lying and deceit; the Steward of his household suspicion; his viands apparences; his drink forgetfulness; his Chamber-waiters, laughter and babble; his music, sighs, despairs and revenges. Do you not behold a brave Prince? But without amuzing ourselves with all these inventions of the brain, I say the greatest obstacle, which may be imagined, to seclude us from the happy access to life eternal, is to resign our heart as a prey into the power of this brutish passion. The reason is most evident, because it is a true mark of 
Sin of the flesh a mark of reprobation.  reprobation, and we see by experience the souls which addict themselves to the sin of the flesh, not so much by frailty as by profession, become wholly carnal, stupid, beastly, and ordinarily pass out of this life through the gate of some notable disaster. I will here produce two or three causes of the undoubted condemnation of this sin, which seem to me very powerful to imprint in the heart of man a perpetual aversion, as it were with a branding-iron of fire. The 
jujurious to the incarnation of the Word.  first is, that it is injurious to the incarnation of the Son of God. Consider well what I say. This mystery of the incarnation wherewith God put on our weakness, took servile flesh, made himself our brother, transplanted our nature from a barren and cursed soil, into the delicious habitation of the Divinity, is so great, so majestical, so marvellous that it enforceth silence and admiration in the four quarters of the world, adoration in Thrones, trembling in the Seraphins, bowing in the Heavens, darkness, terror, and amazement in all nature. Now this mystery being as it is, in all its height, greatness, latitude, inexplicable profundity, is personably betrayed and dishonoured by the sin of the flesh. Wherefore? Because, as S. Paul saith, other sins make their sallies out of the body, but this reposeth and subsisteth 
Quo altiùs carnem attolleret non habuit. August. de praedestinat. Sanct. c. 15.  in the body, in the same specifical nature which God so pvissantly and highly hath exalted, that he therein hath confined his whole power and greatness, not being able to create any thing greater than Man-God.  
Judge what a sacrilege it is to do a personal affront to the most immaculate and most virginal flesh of Jesus, sitting on the right hand of his Father Eternal, 
August. de verbis Apost. Serm. 18. Par●● in te Christo, cognosce in te Christum. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  in the habiliments of glory; and yet carnal impurity would if it might, carry thither the effects of its malice. Before the incarnation of the Son of God, the sins of the flesh were simply sins, but after this ineffable union of the Divine nature with the humane, they became monsters. And you see likewise that the holy Fathers call some by this name, and by other terms full of execration.  
The second reason which much augmenteth the 
Ancir. Concil. can. 17. Fury of lust. Tertul. de pudic.  enormity of this sacrilege is, that not only it debaseth a nature which God hath exalted even to God, but also engulfeth it in an action sordid, blockish, brutish, reputed so unworthy, that the Scripture disdaineth to name it. S. Epiphanius searching out the 
Epiphan. bears. 55. & 67.  cause why the Holy Text maketh no mention of the Genealogy of Melchisedeth, bringeth a reason from the Hebrews, which affirms this eminent man to be born of unchaste parents, as a rose from thorns, and that the Scripture useth not to name such men, in detestation of their sin. And verily you see the practice hereof. In Genesis No abstained from naming 
Cenes. 9 M●ledictus Chanaan.  of Cham, though it were to curse him; it seemeth this name of a son marked out by these deportments of filthy sin, would defile the malediction itself, if it had been pronounced. For the same reason the Tribe of Sim●on is not numbered, when question is made of blessing the Patriarches in Deuteronomie, because from this Line, issued that wicked 
Deut. 33.  Prince who sinned with the Midianitess. In the new Testament, in the Genealogy of the Son of God, 
Num. 25. 6.  Bathsheba is not called by her own name, but by her 
Eaque fuit Utiae.  husbands. Magdalen in the time of her sin had no 
Matth.  other name but of a sinner. It seemeth Isaiah hath 
Isaiah 14. 20.  truly prophesied of such voluptuous people: The race of the wicked shall be buried in perpetual oblivion. 
Non vocabitur in aeternum nomen pess●morunt. Luxury the sin of the heel.   
Some other Interpreters subtilizing this passage of the 48. Psalm. Iniquitas calcanei circundabit me, say, luxury was called the sin of the heel, which was not improper: yet not for that reason which some in my opinion have without ground invented, affirming there is a vein which answereth to the heel, that serveth as a fiery match and an incentive to lust: but because this sin is low, and debased amongst other vices, as the heel under other parts of the body, and in respect it is tied to the heels, which is to say, that leaving high and elevated objects, only worthy of the love of men, as are virtues and graces, it applieth itself to baseness and beggary, to a dunghill covered with snow, to a beauty passing away like a dream, and which hath no other character of its merit, but the judgement of a mad man. So the pantofles of Judith bewitched the eyes of 
Judith 16.  Holofernes. This Lady was beautiful as a star, and adorned as a Temple, yet notwithstanding this blind lover suffered himself to be inconsiderately surprised with the heels of a woman, to show that lust is base in all its objects and pretences. Behold why some sage Hebrews have written, that certain 
Sandalia r●puerunt ocules ejus.  infernal spirits remembering themselves of their ancient nobility, abhor to tempt men with the sin of luxury, as a thing unworthy their thoughts and industry, giving this commission to some other more gross devils, and more terrestrial. Alas! what shall we say, if we go about to plant upon the forehead of a nature honoured with the hypostatical union of the Word, a sin which maketh even the devils themselves to be ashamed? May we not well say, if there be a mark in the world which plainly discovereth a reprobate soul, it is this, seeing it is so impudently opposed to the venerable mystery of man's redemption?  
The third reason, which maketh us believe this 
Hell of love.  dishonest sin hath great alliance with hell, is, that it carrieth already the marks thereof in this world. What are they? Darkness, fire, stench, the worm, disorder. Behold the principal liveries of hell, all which are to be found in the sin of luxury. Darkness, because it maketh the soul dark, gross, clouded with black vapours of folly, which extinguish all the radiance of judgement, and very aptly it is said of those infamous firebrands, who solicited the chaste Susanna, that they turned away their eyes that they 
Daniel. 13. Declinaverunt oculos suos nè viderent . Hier. l. 1. adversus Jovinian. The fire of it.  might not see the Sun. Saint Hierom hath very well relished this passage of Seneca: 
(a) Amor insaniae proximus, foedum & minime conveniens animo sospiti vitium, turbat consitia, omnibus inutilem, ipsi novissimum amori facit. Si digito a●●gero incendam syloam simul omnem. noisomeness.  Love and folly go hand in hand; it is a passion which never lodgeth at the sign of health; it turneth the spirit up-side down; it maketh man brutish, unprofitable to all, and in the end to love itself.  
Fire. All those unfortunate lovers speak of nothing else but of their flames, they are always in fire like the Salamander, they perpetually have the mount Aetna upon their shoulders: one of them saith, he will do nothing but touch a forest with his finger, thereby to burn and wholly waste it. And verily it is a hellfire, which hath gluttony for fuel, pride for flame, unclean words for sparkles, infamy for smoke, ordure for ashes, hell for centre, as saith S. Hierom.  
noisomeness and dishonesty are inseparable companions of the sin of the flesh The voluptuous cannot endure their like, and when passion hath cast its fire, they are troublesome and insupportable to themselves. Which well is witnessed by the many nasty and shameful diseases which never had been known in the world, if they had not entered by the gate of this infamous sensuality.  
The worm. This sin is no sooner committed, but it 
It's worm.  hath its executioner attending thereon, it hath the worm of damnation, which diveth and pepetrateth even into the bottom of the heart of him that committeth it, and then especially when he findeth as yet some relics of a good conscience remaining in his soul, remorse to have lost the incomparable treasure of purity, perplexeth it perpetually. Concupiscence of 
Appetitus fornicationis anxietas est, satietas poenitentia. The disorder of it.  wicked love is full of anxiety, and ever in its satiety it finds repentance.  
Disorder. You may as well tell the leaves of the trees, the sands of the sea, and the stars in the sky, as number the disorders which have vomited and still overflow upon the face of the earth, by means of the sin of luxury. If there be poison to be dissolved, love mingleth it. If swords be forged and filed to transfix the sides of innocent creatures, love hammereth and polisheth them in his shop. If there be halters to be fastened wherewith to strangle, love weaveth and tieth them. If there be precipices, love prepareth them. If there be massacres, love contrives them. If you go about to find little embryos even in the mother's womb, to be bereft of the life which they have not as yet tasted, love is the author and actor of these abominable counsels. All the mischief and crimes which have in former Ages been perpetrated, love hath done them and daily invented them.  
It hath from all times pushed and shouldered good order out of the world. It hath been the butt and aim of all the vengeances of God. It hath been strucken with fire and brimstone from Heaven, swallowed in the entrails of the earth, drenched in the waters of a general deluge. Yet it escapeth, yet it perpetually armeth, yet it walloweth itself in blood and slaughter, yet it holdeth the sword of justice ever perpendicular over the head, and in conclusion it is esteemed but as a sport. Is not all this of power sufficient to make it be believed, that this filthy vice is an infallible mark of reprobation? Fly (O Noblemen) this fleshly pestilence of mankind, and never suffer it to exercise its tyranny over hearts consecrated by the precious blood of the Lamb. All consisteth in flying far from the occasions thereof. If you love danger, you shall perish therein. If you had the best intentions which did ever bud in the hearts of Saints, yet if you seek out occasions of doing ill, they become crooked and distracted. Nature being, 
Remedies.  as now it is, corrupted, the ignorance of vice better serves our turn, than all the precepts of virtue. Our affections attend on our knowledge, the absence of objects maketh us to forget all our most inflamed desires. To live in lust and idleness, to have our eyes always in pursuit, unchaste books in our hands, to hear comedies and impure stageplays, to have gluttonous discourse in our mouth, to frequent buffoons and lose livers, to converse familiarly with women, these are not the instruments of chastity: it is ●ather to put oil into the flame, and then to complain of much heat.  
Petrarch in his books against vanity, giveth remedy 
Petrarch. l. 1 2. c. 23. de remediis. Occupatio & liber & incultier habitus, & villus asperior, & secessus, inque unum aliquid jugi● intentio; a●●aec testis charus & verendus, frequent admonitio, dulces minae & si quando res exigat, asperae. Cyprian de bono pudor. Ante ocules obversetur defermis atque dejectus peccati pudor, nihil corpori liceat, ubi vitandum est corporis vitium. Cogitetur quam honestum sit vi●●●se dedecus, quam inhonestum victum esse à dedecore.  to the wounds, which seem to have been inflicted in the time of his loves. Love creepeth into idleness; handle the matter so, that he may always find you busied. Love is pleased with curiosity of attire, give him hayrcloth. He is entertained with feasts, subdue him with austerity. He will fall upon some object, scatter and confound him. He laboureth to find out a lose and unbridled spirit, hold yours extended upon some good affair. He requireth liberty, private places, night, darkness, let him have witnesses, and enlighten him on every side. He will be governed by fantasy, keep him dutiful, both by admonitions and menaces. S. Cyprian found nothing more powerful to conquer a temptation of dishonest wantonness, than to turn the other side of the medal; and as this sin hath two faces, so not to stay upon that which looketh amiable and attractive to deceive us, but to behold that which under a black veil showeth itself to be pensive, sad, shamefaced, desperate and full of confusion. The great Picus Mirandula said, the most part of men yielded to temptation, because they never tasted the sweetness of glory, which is drawn from the victory over a sin. Above all, it is behoveful to use the advice of a wise Arabian, who represented to himself perpetually over his head, an eye which enlightened him, an ear which heard him, a hand which measured out all his deportments and demeanours. The exercise of the presence of God, joined with prayer, frequentation of Sacraments, often invocation of the Mother of purity, and the Angels, Guardians of chastity, daily blunt a thousand and a thousand arrows shot against the hearts of brave and undaunted Christian Champions. Add hereunto, that it is good to live in a ceaseless distrust of ones self, which is the mother of safety: that you may not fall into the fire, it is good to avoid the smoke, not to trust one's self too much to those petty dalliances, which under pretext of innocency, steal in with the more liberty. Mother of pearls produce sometimes windy bunches for true and native pearls; and the will, through complacence of passion ill digested, in stead of good love, bringeth forth silly abortions of amities, which are nothing but flashes and wild fantasies, yet such as may notwithstanding dispose an empty soul to some finister affections.   

The tenth OBSTACLE. Excess in diet and apparel.  
THe world was as yet in her cradle, & man was 
Terrestrial Paradise the chamber of justice.  no more than born, when God making a Palace of justice, of terrestrial Paradise, pronounced against him the sentence of labour and pain, and afterward wrote it, as with his finger in the sweat of his brow: Thou shalt eat thy bread 
Gen. 3. 19 In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane. Noblemen appeal from the sentence of labour.  with the sweat of thy brow. Noblemen perpetually appeal from this sentence as if they were not men; it seemeth labour is not for them. Let nature hold to the chain and labour those grosser bodies, which are moulded of the clay of Adam, they have forsooeth bodies composed of I know not what kind of starry matter, which never must sweat, nor take pains, but in a dance. What a folly it is? Ought not he to be dissolved into sweat, since he is to be reduced into ashes? He cannot free himself from the sentence of death, and why shall he decline painstaking, seeing it proceeded from one and the same mouth in the same time, and upon one and the same subject? But behold the reason, which is, that to satisfy the sentence of labour, sureties are found: the houses of rich men are filled with officers and servants, who take pains in their fields, prune their vines, carry corn to the mil, who go even into the ocean to fish for habits and attires for them, and most times live within four fingers of death, to give them means to flow in delicacies. Only death it is, that taketh no surety. For which cause man dieth in his own person, and laboureth by deputy. If death would a little give way, no Great man would die but by Attorney. Out alas! O the justice of God, how equally dost thou still hold the balance! They that would not here labour as men, thou makest them take pain like infernal spirits, thou dissolvest the sweat of poor peasants in the consolation of their souls, and thou seasonest the delights of rich men with care, melancholy, dolour, jealousy, envy, anxiety, terrors, and remorse, which are able to make them sweat blood.  
Were there no other proof, this manifestly enough declareth to us how odious this curiosity of Great men is to the Divine Majesty, and how punishable, since its own delights are change● into chastisements. Yet notwithstanding, I will produce some reasons, that the unworthiness of this wicked excess may punctually be touched with the finger, which now adays overfloweth the whole face of the earth.  
First I say, it is extremely unreasonable to be desirous 
Remedies and reasons against excess.  to live in the world with reason against all reason; to endeavour to put a reasonable creature into a condition of life, where it of necessity must belly the law of God, and its proper nature. O Noblemen, God would that you enter into the world like othermen, as into a vale of tears, and you will arrive there as in a garden of delicacies. He would that you come thither, as to the mines to dig; and you go thither as to a dicing-house to play; he would that you make passage into a servile flesh to obey, and you will command. Is not this a sin against nature? 
Cross of nature. Nemo impune nascitur, omnis vita supplicium est.  To come into the world, is to come upon a cross; to be man, is to stretch out the hands and feet to be crucified. The first bed that an infant maketh coming from his mother's womb, is on the cross. He is as soon in a cross, as in nature, and suffereth this punishment for no other cause, but for that he is born a man.  
The Emperors of Constantinople had in their Palace 
The purple chamber of Emperors. Anna Commena lib. 6. Luitprand. de rebus. Europe. Cyprian de patiented. Procellas mundi quos ingreditur, statim suo ploratu & gemitu rudis anima testatur.  a secret chamber, which they called the Purple, in which the Empresses for a ceremonious formality were brought to bed and delivered, thinking by this means to abolish the acerbities which are as it were affixed to our condition. But these petty Porphyrogenites (so these children of Emperors were called, because they were born in scarlet) were notwithstanding born with a cross, and saluted life as others with tears and groans. The children of Kings come all into the world through this gate of miseries, they are born, as with a diadem on their foreheads, and yet fail not to be natures little prisoners. It is accounted a goodly thing to give them guilded cradles, and silken swathing-bands. This is to adorn their chains, but not to break them; they are as well captive in them, as heretofore the prisoners in India, who rotten in poverty and calamity, even in golden fetters. It is a decree of Almighty God (O Great-ones) that you must be born with the cross on your back, and you will cancel it; if this yet might be practised with some reasonable evasion and mediocrity, it would seem more tolerable: but now adays this excess is so enraged, that it will plant the trophies of pride and voluptuousness upon the calamities of mankind. What is not done upon tables? What is not done in apparel? Men cloth as if they were always to live, and eat as if they should every day die. We prepare an Altar to a false Deity, 
Tyranny of the belly.  which at this day with unspeakable violence swayeth in the world. It is a brutish god (if you desire to know him) for never had he an ounce of of brain: A blind god, who hath no eyes to behold the miseries of the earth: A deaf god, who hath no ears to hear the complaints of the afflicted: A truantly god, who hath no hands to take pains: An  god, who hath no feet to travel on: An effeminate god, who hath no heart to undertake any good, nor courage to suffer ills A gluttonous god, 
Philip. 2. Quorum Deus venter est, & gloria in confusione ipsorum Tertul. advers. Psych. Deus tibi venter est, & pulmo templum, & aqualiculus altar, & sacerdos coquus, & spiritus sanctus nidor, & condimenta charismata, & ructus prophetia v●tus est.  who gourmandizeth all: An unclean god, who polluteth all. This false god, according to the Apostle, is the belly. His temple (saith Tertullian) is the lungs; his Altar the paunch; his Priest the Cook; his holy Ghost the smoke of meats; his grace the sauces; his prophecy, that which may not civilly be spoken. As he in his person is enormous, so is he no less prodigious in his tyranny. It is a wonder to see how he hath his officers in every place. For him war is waged against the air, and clouds; birds are disnestled from the Kingdom which nature hath allowed them: For him the face of the earth is turned into a shambles: For him seas are sounded; depths are plummeted, shipwrecking storms and direful tempests are ferried over. Man willingly would penetrate heaven, and delve even to hell to find out new sacrifices for this fleshly and carnal god, and himself being alive, he is made the sepulchre of so many massacres, that it is a miracle how one man can live, who daily burieth so many dead creatures in his entrails. All this hurly-burly which 
Gourmandize.  emptieth the air, earth, and seas, is made for a stomach four fingers broad, for which a little bread and water would suffice in necessity, and in superfluity the whole world is too little to satisfy. We know not what course to take to find out new curiosities for the palate. We sup up oysters alive, we seek out mushrooms; we will know what taste hath the flesh of tortoises and snails. These poor little creatures had good cause to believe that their meanness would enfranchize them: but sottish and fordid gluttony draweth a tribute from all; and I think their taste will shortly be taken with serpents and ravens.  
But let us not only accuse the belly; the eyes devour more than it. They are delighted to behold fishes to swim in a sea of sugar, to see forests, nets, hunt, birds, wild beasts, houses, castles, fields, arms of sugar; had licourousness of taste so much power as it hath little brain, it would make a world of sugar, and then would dissolve it, to be always ready to form new at his pleasure. The ears will 
Pleasure.  hold their part in this consort, and therefore they must be tickled with the most exquisite music both of voice and all sorts of instrumenes, which serve as wings and chariots to immodesty. Then come the dances of the Corybants, the frisks, capers, ballets, court, liberties, impudencies, and all sorts of voluptuous pleasures, which make the body dissolve into all corruption. With what conscience can a Christian expect Paradise, living in this manner? Doth he think hell hath no flames but for the rich glutton mentioned in the Gospel; and that he pursuing the same ways, shall be freed from the like punishments? Hell casteth up such people who here waste their life in delicacies, that they may not otherwise 
Ducunt in benis dies suos, & ●n puncto ad inferna descen●unt. Job 21. 13.  live than in the immortality of fire, of the worm of conscience and darkness.  
As concerning excess of apparel one cannot say too much, so great is this superfluity, and ever shall the discourse be unprofitable, the mischief being so confirmed and uncapable of remedy. Therein it is that women display all the vanity of their sex, all the industry of their spirit, (being curious and inventive enough in their own interests) and all the presumption of their nature, which is but too ambitious, and, as saith Tertullian, there it is where they 
Totam circumferunt in istis mulieritatem.  bear all the glory of their sex. I speak not of those who attire themselves modestly, dutifully, and as it were necessarily for comely ornament; I speak of those miserable sacrifices of vanity, who study nothing else but to deck themselves up beyond their condition, estate, and means, oftentimes with an ill intention, many times with the spoils of the poor. Masks of hypocrisy, who find no other employment 
Indignity of excess in apparel.  in this life, but to counterfeit; no other desire, but to seem what they are not. For verily, if you should see all their jewels and trinkets in one heap you would say it were the pillage of a city. It is an admirable thing, that one little carcase should drag so great a train along with it. They go adorned (saith the Scripture) as Temples, and certainly they are very like those Temples of Egypt, which hide a Cat or Rat under golden Pavilions. Is not this a sin inexcusable before God, to make all the elements take pains to cover a miserable nakedness, which is nothing else but a mere scar of sin? Is not this a great illusion to bolster out a dunghill (which perhaps we must carry to morrow to a grave) as if it were to be erected upon Altars? Oh, miserable creatures, what have the worms to do, which shall gnaw your bodies, if your hair be of three of four parishes, your eyebrows pulled with little pincers, your eyes disguised, your cheeks put in a vermilion tincture, your stench drowned in musky odours, your garments plaited, bombasted, lose hanged, surcharged with pearls, precious stones and chains, to serve as snares to 
Sottish jealousy of excess.  catch some foundered lovers? It is not the solid beauty of objects which allureth you, but a mere opinion: because such an one hath it, you therefore must needs have the like. If you were persuaded that the fat or dung of a Crocodile were fit to whiten the skin, you then would go even to Nilus for it. And if one should tell you that two flint stones of the Moluccaes' would become your ears, and that already such and such did wear them, you would rather hazard the kill of your own body; than deprive yourself of them.  
You see the unreasonable proceeding of this superfluity? But I say much more: It is cruel and injurious to God and his Church. What rocky heart would not be cleft, and icy eye dissolved into tears, 
Riot cruel, and injurious to God and his Church.  if it did bend itself to behold the exorbitancy of these wicked delights? To say that three parts of Christendom lived perpetually on gall and tears, were drenched in a forsaken, miserable, and necessitous life, were covered with blood and oppressions, whilst others glutted themselves in superfluity of palate-pleasing curiosities, even almost to bursting, never deigning so much as to set a foot on the ground, making their excrementitious spittings to swim in gold, beholding themselves in the vainglorious ostent of their bravery, always wantonizing, still sportively dallying. Woe to the rich men of Zion, who put their 
Amos 6. Vae qui opul●nti estis in Zion, & confiditis in ment Samariae: Optimates, capita populorum, ingredientes pompaticè domum Israel. Bibentes vinum in phialis, & optimo unguento delibuti, & nihil patiebantur super contritione Joseph.  trust and confidence in the mountain of Samaria. Woe to the Great-ones, who make boast in the house of Israel, who drink delicate wine in their cellars, and live involved in the most exquisite perfumes, without ever caring for the affliction of the poor.  
I know the belly hath no ears, but I know not what mouth it may have to defend itself at the judgement of Almighty God, when the hunger of so many needy penurious wretches, consumed with want before your gate, shall accuse you at the Tribunal of this formidable Judge. I know these Courtiers want not prattle enough, but I cannot imagine what they can answer before the Judgement of God, if the Angels should come to drain these inordinate habits to make blood distil, & to speak those affrighting words, of the Prophet Jeremy: Behold the blood 
Words of Jeremy formidable. Jer. 2. 34. In alis tuis inventus est sanguis pauperum.  and life of poor men, which I have found in the folds of thy garment. Judge what Christianity this is, and what hope you may have of future life, living in these delicacies, strucken with the thunders of so many maledictions. Ah, if you adored a God crowned with roses or pearls, it would be a matter nothing strange; but to prostrate one's self daily before the 
* Haec & hujusmedi per transennam inspicere sat erit.  Crucifix charged with nails and thorns, you living in such excess and superfluity in flesh, dissolved in softness, how can that but be cruel? The Christians of the Primitive Church were scrupulous to bear coronets of flowers on their heads, according to the custom of feasts, remembering their Master had carried thorns; and Clemens Alexandrinus judgeth, that to seek 
Clemens Alex. pedag. 1. c. 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  out such effeminacy is a mere mommery, and a manifest mockery of the venerable passion of the Son of God. With what eyes can you behold the Crucifix covered with blood and wounds, holding it honourable to bear flowers, rubies, and diamonds, not for once, but to drench all your life, if it were possible, in the nice delicacies of the flesh? How can one excuse such a manner of proceeding? By what mark would you be known for Christians in the other world? The livery of Christians is patience, and very well those brave courages, which breed us to the Church by their blood, may bear for their arms, a hand cleaving mountains with fire and vinegar, crowned with this devise: No passage is shut up from 
V●rtuti nihil invium. Virtue of the first Christians.  virtue. Verily these valorous Champions sparkling with the lightning rays of charity, lifted up their Christian palms in the midst of hazards and forced Heaven with a pious violence. Men were seen who obtained as many Martyrdoms, as they endured torments, and who suffered more tortures than they had members; their bodies upon the wheels armed with sharp sciffers, under iron hooks, under burning pincers, flying in pieces were many times again gathered up by the faithful Christians, and even then put into tombs, themselves surviving their own funerals. In 
Remorabantur in luce detenti quorum membris pl●ni●erant tumul●. Sanctus Z●no de Sancto Arcadio.  this state they climbed upon the sharp rocks of this painful way of heaven, carrying thither more wounds than members.  
What answer you to this, you children of Saints? Your forefathers to purchase Paradise have wandered in wildernesses, strayed up and down mountains and caverns of the earth, clothed with goats-skins and camels hair, and you now adays have no heart to any thing, but to the vainglorious humour of bravery. Tell me not, that in case of persecution you will be most faithful to God: I will answer that which Tertullian said: I fear this neck snared with 
Tertul. de c●●tu foemin. c. 13. Timeo cervicum ne margaritarum & smaragdorum laqueis occupata lecum spathae non d●●.  wreaths and ropes of pearl and emeralds: I fear the sword of persecution can find no place there. Children of Saints, your Grandfathers have heretofore passed so many lents, lying upon hard boards, eating roots, living in infinite frugality, and now forsooth the least fast striketh you down. Of what complain you? Is it for that you still swim not in sugar, and therefore the Church is too hard to be served? A thousand dispensations must be procured under false colours and surreptions. You cannot fast, you cannot do that which you never had a will to do. What a shame is it (you children of Saints) your fathers and mothers to gain Paradise, although they lived in riches as you perhaps do, put them under their feet to serve as ladder-steps to heaven, and you now adays place them over your heads, to sink yourselves even into the abyss. How would you then that one should know 
Jul. Firmic. de errore profanar. reli. Erul escite, o miseri summitatem, aliter vos Deus ferret: cum cohers vestra ad Dei judicantis tribunal accesserit, nihil v●biscum deserretis, quo Deus qui vos fecit, agnos●at. Non frustra in mellis copia pennas habet apicula, nectit enim haerentem Aug. ad Roman.  you in the other world? You ought to be ashamed of the name which you bear, of your Baptism, of your profession, you thereunto affording so little correspondence. God hath made you for another end, and far otherwise; you no longer retain any mark, whereby you may be known.  
What are you to do? I. To believe there is no Paradise for those that will live in pleasures, capital enemies of the Cross of the Son of God.  
II. If your birth have ranked you in an eminent state, live therein, and entertain it, rather for a certain necessity of beseeming comeliness, than for the love of concupiscence. Live therein as the be on honey, well observing your wings: be not entangled therewith, which is very hard to do.  
III. Make not unnecessary expenses above your means. What a shame it is daily to behold frogs desirous to puff themselves up like bulls, even till they burst? No man can keep a mediocrity: man will extend his wings beyond his nest; his retinue, table, apparel, presents, all is excess, what one poureth forth on one side, must be spared on the other. To entertain great profuseness, great avarice is necessarily expedient, which cannot be maintained but by wretchedness, by rapines, by injustice, by oppressions, which absolutely shut up the gate of salvation.  
iv Bear ever about you in secret some mark of 
Mortificationem Jesu in corpore vestro circumferente●. 2 Cor. 4.  mortification of Jesus Christ, as the Apostle appointeth: suffering some incommodity in clothing, drinking, eating, sleeping, and the like; disdain not to exercise yourselves in acts of humility, and love above all the visits and consolation of the poor afflicted. This is it will save you.   

The eleventh OBSTACLE. Envy.  
WE likewise find in an excellent little book, entitled the Apothegms of the Hebrews and Arabians, a saying of those ancient Doctors of the law, which with much moderation must be understood: To wit, that three sorts of people shall never undergo the judgement of God, nor pass through the flames of purgation. First, persons greatly necessitous: Secondly, those who are in public office: Thirdly the ill married.  
Persons necessitous (saith this Author) because poverty and misery are most ardent fires which purge and cleanse the rust of iniquity: Those who are in public office; for what need have they of judgement, since the whole world judgeth them? Those that are ill married, because a bad wife is a portative purgatory. These words are spoken at random with too much extent and liberty. For it is most undoubted, that if these three kind of people live in integrity and make profit of their burdens, it will be a wholesome means for them to escape the rigour of God's judgement; but absolutely to exempt them from the jurisdiction of this sovereign justice, is to speak over rashly. They have much better hit the mark, who said, that two sorts of men anticipated their hell in this world; the lovers, and the envious. For in effects there is a hell of love, and a hell of envy. The hell of love is for those who inordinately, excessively, and with full fruition of creatures do love to the prejudice of the Creator. Out Alas! who can recount the shiverings, the fevers, the accesses of fire and ice, the gnawing worms, the biting vultures of these unfortunate ones, who having shaken off the yoke of sovereign beauty, have made themselves slaves of a putrified body, the spoil whereof the elements shall quickly share? It seemeth the Prophet Esay was 
Erit t●rra eorum in picem ardentem, nocte & die non extinguetur, in sempiternum ●scendet fumus ejus.  desirous to describe their miseries in these terms: Their souls shall be as a land of pitch and brimstone, perpetually boiling in their own passions, and ever smoking with black vapours of a brutish ignorance. Yet notwithstanding this hell of love amongst so many rigours hath sometimes certain sparkles of hope, a sowr-sweet of pleasures, which kindle themselves like flying fires, and are wasted even in their birth; bubbles of water which are blown up and cracked in a moment; but the hell of envy is an admirable hell, for it is a voluntary hell, where nothing pleaseth, and each thing tormenteth: a hell which containeth fire in it, and affordeth no light; a hell, which always hath the worm present, and never the remedy; a hell which surpriseth by the eyes, and diveth even into the heart; a hell which incessantly devoureth and never consumeth; which hath mischiefs without hopes, toils void of repose, and torments without mercy; which is as the common fever of all the gall of this universe, which exerciseth rage and fury, which hath the wanness of death without dying, and the cares of a disastrous life without life. To divert the hearts of men from it I can propose but two reasons, the first shall discover the malignity, and the other the calamity thereof.  
It is true that all vices are steeped in the venom of malice, which should be a powerful motive for those to fly them who naturally love goodness: but 
Greg. Thaum. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Basil. Seleuc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Cyprian de● zelo, & livore. Greg. Niss. in vita Mosis.  envy hath I know not what kind of particular influence, which maketh it infinitely odious and execrable. S. Gregory Thaumaturgus saith it is a wasp of Satan, which stingeth men as the gadfly doth oxen. S. Basil of Seleucia calleth it the mother of murders, S. Cyprian the moth of souls, and S. Gregory Nyssen a disease of nature, a poisoned gall, the root of vices, the mother of death, and a voluntary Phthisical consumption All the ancient Father's breath out fire & flames when they discourse of it, and indeed never can they speak enough of it. Besides their authority which is of great value, reason herein is very potent. For we must needs affirm, that by how much the more a vice participateth of the nature of Devils, who are as it were the patrons of si, by so much the more it is a vice, and envy is of the same condition, for it is the sin by singularity of denomination called the sin of the Devil. As in heaven the first was the sin of pride, so the first on earth was that of envy, committed by the spirit of impurity; and S. Augustine excellently saith, envy is a vice 
Sap. 2. invidiâ diaholi mors introivit in orbem terrarum. Aug. l. 2. de doct. Christianâ.  merely diabolical, a sin which defileth the Devils, and irrecoverably damneth them. It shall not be said to Satan in the sentence of his damnation, that he hath polluted the beds of men by his adulteries, that he hath taken the goods of other men by his rapines, that he hath seized on demains and possessions, driving away the lawful owners, but that he hath envied the felicity of man. The same Author saith on the Epistle to the Galatians, that this vice 
Homini stanti invidisti. Aug. in Epist. ad Galat citatur in glossa. In zelo invidiae tota sua viscera serpens concutit, in haec imprimenda quasi pestem vomit.  hath the property to pour into the heart of men the poison of the enemy. Yea so it is, that particularly the infernal serpent, when he imprinteth the sin of envy in the heart of man, doth turmoil his very bowels, and extremely striveth as it were to vomit the blackest pestilence which hell containeth.  
Discourse even with yourself whether the envious be not tainted with a special malignity, since that beyond all other sinners they transcendently suck in the breath of the serpent. This black malice more easily discovereth it-self in this than in all the other mortal sins, which are verily great exorbitancies of nature, but they seem to have some pretext, which mollifieth the evil. The thief robbeth for his profit, the carnal man seeketh out his unlawful lusts to extinguish the fire of his passion, the covetous man saith he is upon good husbandry, the ambitious flattereth himself with the thirst of honour, which hath heretofore born sway upon Altars, and so of other sins, their malice hath always some heat of passion of appearance of good to excuse them. But the envious what can he propose but a cold malignity, a black cruelty, a will determinately ill without sembleance of good? Yea you shall find many that are in infinite abundanceas, dogs couched on hay, who will not eat thereof, for it is not their custom, nor are they willing other creatures for whom God hath ordained it, should come near it. Many there are as Tantalus ever in the midst of fountains, yet drink not, and perpetually beholding him with a jealous eye that would taste thereof.  
The fable of the two envious men so celebrated, is not feigned; we too much approve it in our manners. For it being permitted them to choose what each would ask, on this condition, that his request being allowed him, his companions share be doubled; the first, who was extremely covetous, had all his desires fixed in the earnest demand of gold and silver, but discoursing with himself that by ask, he should do a pleasure to another, this only consideration stayed him, and never would he afterward open his mouth to make such a request; the other made choice to lose one of his own eyes, that his companion might have it doubled, and be deprived of both.  
How many are there at this day in the world, who embarked with their enemies in the same vessel, care not to perish, so that they dying may glut their eyes with the death of those whom they hate: A most strange malignity to forget the preservation of ones own person, to which we are by nature straight obliged, to ruin another. The eyes of Gorgon's, the hissing of serpents, the aspect of basilisks, are nothing in comparison of an enraged Courtier, when he beholdeth him to be carried on the wings of favour whom he would gladly see utterly confounded without recovery. Do we not behold the eyes of a dog, when the fortune of another is envied, and the heart of a stag, when question is made of the works of courage? Where are not men to be seen, who devour one another alive with mischievous aspects, and carry even on their foreheads, the gall of their envenomed hearts? Where are not such malign spirits to be found, who play at fast and lose, thrusting him in an instant down to the lowest part of the wheel who was at the top. At the Court all things most commonly fall short but malice and envy. It is verily the extremity of misery, when great ones do with an open ear too much grace the designs of the envious, making themselves as it were instruments of a furious pancher, for the ruin of the innocent. If we ought to stop our ears with wax among the songs of Sirens, here we have need to have them all of diamond. What can the envious man expect from this diabolical malice, but the reward of Cain, in the separation from the sight of God and perpetual affrightments? O Cain, jealous 
Bern. ser. 24. in Cant. Quid miraris, o Cain, si non respicit ad te qui ita divisu● es in te? si manum devotioni, quid animum das livori? non concilias Deum tibi discors tecum, non placas, sed peccas, & si necdum fratricida, jam tamen fideicida teneris.  Cain, Thou art amazed that God regardeth not thy sacrifice, & seest not thou art divided and severed within thyself, I shall have somewhat to do with thy wicked sacrifice. It is to much purpose to turn thy hand to an act of religion, and thy heart to envy. This which thou dost is not to appease God, but to provoke him. It is to present him with sacrifice in the one hand, and a poniard in the other, said S. Bernard.  
And truly to touch the second reason, although the devilish malice of this vice cannot gain conquest over hearts to divert them, yet ought the calamity it draweth along with it, to beget in our souls a perpetual horror thereof. This sin is no sooner born but it hath its torments and executioners attending. All that which may truly be called miserable cometh to us from envy, and the hatred of our neighbour. First it bereaveth us of an infinite number of blessings which we might enjoy by the means of charity. Nothing is so rich as the love of God; all beauties, all riches, all possessions are tributary thereunto, Yea, love in loving, I know not by what kind of powerful alchemy, draweth all to it-self, changeth all into it-self, and maketh the whole world it's own. This is the discourse which S. Augustin made of it. O prodigy! Will you know 
Aug. l. quinquag. homiliarum homil. 15. tom. 10. Congaude illi cui Deus gratiam aliquam donavit, tua est. Habet ille forte virginitatem, ama illam, tua est. Tu habes forte majorem patientiam, diligat te, & sua est: ille potest satis vigilare, si non invides, tuum est studium ejus. Tu forte potes amplius jejunare amet te, suum est jejunium, quia tu per charitatem in illo es, & ipse in te est. Particeps sum emnium timentium te. Psal. 118. 63. Ex alienis bonis quae si di liger●tis vestra sacereti● bona; non diligen●o, vestra facitis mala. Grego. in pastoral.  an effectual means how to become in a short time rich, wise, fortunate, and holy? You have nothing to do but to love. Virginity pleaseth you, and have you it not? Love it in your brother and sister to whom God hath granted it, it is yours. This man hath more knowledge than you, and you perhaps more patience than he, love his knowledge, and be your patience, and you both shall be contented. Another is more watchful than you, and you fast better than he; love his watchfulness, and let him love your fasting, and then behold you shall become watchful, and abstinent. That which I say of virginity, patience, knowledge, industry, and abstinence is also to be understood of all other blessings, which we by loving make our own. Such was the exercise of David, who tasted the good of another as peculiar to himself: he sanctified himself in all Saints, he instructed himself in all the Sages; he enriched himself in all the rich, he participated withal the just. Behold you not here the admirable Philosophy of love?  
This being true, as it is most evident, consider the evils and disasters which proceed from envy: So many blessings, as the Sun daily discovereth to you in so infinite numbers of creatures, may by loving be yours, and in not loving every happiness, each prosperity of your neighbour is an iron lance in your side, a thorn in your heart, and a nail in your eye. Have we so few misfortuns in the world, that we must seek them in the prosperity of others? The earth vomiteth up miseries, which daily draw tears from our eyes, sighs from our hearts, and compassion for our most obdurate souls: yet not content therewith, instead of searching out some lenitive for our wounds in union and charity, we envy our neighbour, thereby bereaving ourselves of all comforts, and deep drenching us in all the miseries of the world. For what evil is comparable to that of envy; to be perpetually like a wretched owl, not able to endure the daylight of another's prosperity; to be as a ravenous vulture, who flieth from sweet savours and searcheth out carrion, to imitate the fly which delighteth among wounds, and ulcers? What a life is it to run up and down taxing the imperfections of your brethren, and never 
Qualis est anim● tinea in malum proprium bona convertere aliena illustrium prosperitate torqu●ri, aliorum gloriam paenam suam facere, & velut quosdam pectori suo carnisices admovere, qui se intestinis cruciatibus, lacerent, & secreta cordis malevolentiae ungulis pulsent? Cypri. de zelo, & livore.  to open an eye to the splendour of their virtue? What a life is it to make the evil of another, your good; to have his prosperity your executioner, his glory your punishment, ever to bear an ill disposition in your breast; to carry talons, nails, and sharp combs of iron in your own proper entrails, and never to end your sin, to make thereby your torments immortal? This is it which the eloquent S. Cyprian spoke in these terms. Although through envy some profit or parcel of good might be drawn from the subject envied, by extenuating the honour or good of a neighbour, with some benefit applicable to one's self, yet God oftentimes permitteth, that by the means of envy, the glory of those who are so maligned, is made more illustrious. So the brothers of joseph in being desirous to make him a slave, gave him opportunity to become a Lord over all Egypt. So the envy of Saul, when he least thought of it, set the crown on David's head, and affording him matter of affliction, gave him occasion of triumph. So Maximian the Tyrant through the jealousy of the honours attributed to Constantine, contributed all that which a desperate envy could invent, and a great virtue surmount. He first made him General of an army which he sent against the Sarmatians (a people extremely furious) supposing he there should lose his life. The young Prince went thither, and returned victorious, leading along with him the Barbarian King enchained. It is added hereunto, that this direful Prince excited by a most ardent frenzy in his return from this battle, engaged him in a perilous encounter with a Lion, which he purposely had caused to be let lose upon him: But Constantine, victorious over Lions as well as men, slew this fell beast with his own hands, and impressed an incomparable opinion in the minds of his soldiers, which easily gave him passage to the throne, by the same degrees which were prepared for his ruin. We must have an Euristheus to make up a Hercules. Envy many times layeth the first stone of the Temple of virtue, she beareth pusillanimity on her forehead, and the condemnation of her impotency in heart, to serve as a trophy of courage and a badge of valour.  
What course do you then think to take for conclusion, both you who envy, and you who are maligned. If envy be a diabolical vice and a hell of calamity, why do you not assume to you the bowels of a charity truly Christian, to love the gifts of God himself in your enemies? First accustom yourselves to be contented with your estate, and that condition of life which God hath allotted you. For from thence springeth the envy whereby each one thinketh the field of his neighbour more fertile than his own, each one beholdeth with a jealous eye all above him, and hath no sight to contemplate what is under him. Every one would change that which he is, into that which he cannot be, but by mischief or jnjustice. The ox in the fable saith, if he were a horse well furnished and caparisoned as that glorious beast (who doth nothing but prance or curvett in a field or street) he would work wonders: none should be more able nor fit to draw a coach than he; to go into the wars none should be found more courageous than he: But behold him perpetually in the wain under the hand of a peasant, what means hath he to do any brave thing? Yet admit you should lay foot-cloths and rich abiliments on him, he would ever be an ox. Why do you disturb yourself about the change of your condition, and not rather say: My God, thou guidest lives, estates, and conditions; it is a music which thou composest of many accords; it is a table of many colours; it is a body of many members, why should I make a false harmony, an extravagant colour, or a prodigious member? It sufficeth me to be a party in this music, this table, this body: set me high, set me low, let me be white, let me be black, make me head, make me foot. My God it is in thee to give me my part, and in me to play it well. Why should I kick against the spur like a jade? Why, being but a miserable earthen pot, should I argue against my Potter? If the man whom I envy meriteth this good fortune, I wrong thy justice to malign him, and if he deserve it not, is he not more worthy of compassion than envy, since all his greatness will serve him but for a burden in this life, and a condemnation in the other. If all make for me in loving, why should I through want of love deprive myself of so great a power, which of all things is the most easy? Why shall I create a hell in myself, where thou hast a purpose to erect a Paradise.  
You who are maligned, to oppose envy render yourselves truly virtuous, know there are no shadows without light, nor envy without some gift of God. If the faggot smokes when it beginneth to burn, when the flame shall have gotten the upper hand, there will be no smoke at all. Natural Philosophers observe, that the rainbow in the Heavens is not easily form at noon-tide in the scorching days of summer, because the Sun vigorous in his exaltation dissipateth, wasteth, and dispelleth the clouds. When you shall be mounted to the highest pitch of heroic virtue, envy shall neither have bow nor arrow to assail you; all shall stoop to your eminence, and calumny itself shall crack, when truth shall dart resplendent flashes into all eyes. Vinegar is said to be used for precious stones, which have their fire frozen over, and their lustre eclipsed: you must have a little touch of acerbity to enlighten your valour. The Moon seemeth for a time to darken the Sun when it is eclipsed, and yet she daily rendereth the tribute of her light. Envy, which maketh a show to eclipse you, will make your praises multiply by its slanders, your repose by its battles, and your crowns by your humiliation. No man accounteth it strange that cantharides fix themselves upon roses, they no less are roses for being blasted by this petty caterpillar: It is well known they are not satisfied but with the fairest flowers; you have nothing to do but to shake them off; and thereby enjoy the odour of the beauty of the Queen of beauties.  
Fear not to be despised, because you are envied, if you do not beforehand debase yourself to envy through imbecility of heart. Nay rather the most envied will be sought out for a mark of an eminent virtue. The envious will be the more dissipated; envy will be trampled under foot, and merit crowned by the hand of justice.   

The twelfth OBSTACLE. Ambition and avarice.  
AFter so many rocks, after so many counter-buffs and perils, behold the shelf of shipwreck, Ambition, which is a furious avarice to be able to do all and to have all. It is an itch which great men 
Ambition an itch.  bear upon them from their mother's womb, to stir up in them a perpetual scratching; an itch, the malignity whereof oftentimes turneth their brain even to the making of Heaven to bow under the rules of the earth. Amongst the difficult questions which the Angel 
Angelical enigmas. Esdras 44.  proposed to the Prophet Esdras, one was to weigh the fire, and the other to measure the wind, the last to number the veins of the abyss. Ambition is a devouring fire, who can poise it? It is a wind, who can fathom it? It is an abyss, who is able to recount the sources and issues thereof? A wise man saith very well, that the middle of the earth hath been found, the depth of the sea hath been founded, the height of the Riphean hills hath been measured, the remotest limits of the hollow caverns of Caucasus have been discovered; the head-spring of Nilus hath not escaped, only in the heart of man we cannot find the bounds of the desire of commanding. This passion is no longer a mean folly, it is arrived to the height of rage, the evil is so great it is unknown. Man is so far from discovering the remedy, that he as it were despaireth of health. It is enough if some lenitive may be applied. That great wit Hypocrates, wished 
Desire of Hypocrates. Hypocrates Epist. ad Abderit.  a consultation of all the Physicians of the world, to advise upon the means how to cure covetousness. It is now above two thousand years ago since he had this desire; after him a thousand and a thousand Philosophers have employed their endeavour to recover this pestilent fever; all have lost their labour therein, the evil increasing in the multitude of remedies, the sick men are all frantic: when the wind of ambition hath raised them to the height of the wheel, they will never descend but by a precipice. It is a most particular favour of God, if it happen that an ambitious man doth once open his eyes to know himself, to measure himself, to put limits upon his desires; and yet notwithstanding the motives and obligations which he hath thereunto are more manifest, as I will make it appear in the sequel of this discourse.  
First the Scripture speaking of ambition, called it 
Reasons and remedies. Psal. 18. 14. Ab alienis parce servo tuo. Ambition a Foreign vice. A singular description of man.  a foreign vice. Pride in man is not in its element, it always seeketh height, and man is even lowness itself. What is man, if we consider him in his own nature without the assistance of grace, but an excrement of impurity in his conception, a silly creature in his birth, a bag and sponge of ordures in his life, a bait for worms in his death? The soul is in the body, as in a Chariot of glass: The days are the courriers, which perpetually run upon a full gallop: The four wheels are vanity, weakness, inconstancy, misery: The way is of ice; the goal is death; and the end oftentimes is a precipice. The pleasures thereof (as saith Plato) are winged, and wholly armed with pricks and stings, to leave in flying a sharp point in the heart; the dolour and discontents thereof drench it in a cup full of gall, and its feet are of lead, never to forsake it. Can then such a creature be possessed with ambition, such a dunghill nourish pride? All that we behold both above and beneath, 
All the world teacheth us the lesson of humility.  on the right, on the left hand, in this great house of nature, serves as a lesson of humility for us. Heaven which circumvolveth over our heads enamelled with stars, created in a higher place than we; the earth which we tread under our feet, which serveth us for a nurse, afterwards for a sepulchre; the little air we breath, without which we cannot live; the water which in its wonder hath swallowed up wisdom; and afterwards the bodies of the most knowing men of the earth (as we read of Aristotle) beasts, whose spoils we carry about us, our body which according to account, hath for its portion about three thousand diseases, our soul which knoweth not what shall become of her, and which cannot tell whether she shall serve as an immortal fuel to those devouring flames that have no limits but eternity, or no; All preach to us our baseness, all thunder out the terror and affrightments of God's judgements; and amongst so many subjects of humility you (O Noblemen) have leisure to puff up yourselves, and to fill your minds with the gentle breathing blasts of imaginary honour. At the least, if needs you must elevate yourselves, if you of necessity must take a great deal of state upon you, choose the best way: but (insensible as you are) what 
Ambition the life of a slave.  do you take upon you, becoming ambitious? the life of a slave, the life of Cain. This is the second consideration which I propose, of power sufficient to instruct a soul that will give never so little predominance to reason. We all naturally love liberty, and suppose, that to be of ones self is an inestimable good. 
Inestimabile bonum est suum esse. Senec. ep. 67. Misery of the ambitious.   
Now the most captive Galley-slaves are not greater bondmen than the ambitious. The slave hath a chain and a captain who proudly insulteth over him; an ambitious man hath as many fetters as he hath appetites, as many servitudes as pretensions, as many slaveries as manners of ambition. His Captain is his unguided passion, which tyrannizeth over him day and night with all possible cruelty. The slave practiseth and tameth himself in his own condition: the ambitious is always savage, he always flieth before himself, and never overtaketh himself, to enter into himself. He is in no place, because he would be every where, and yet notwithstanding he is tormented every where, his fever burneth him where he is not. The slave freeth himself with money, the ambitious man findeth gyves of gold and silver The slave findeth no chain so strait, but that it sometimes giveth him leave to sing; the ambitious is never free out of himself: there are nothing but objects of frenzy, firebrands of concupiscence; and within himself there is not any thing but worms, flames, and executioners. The slave findeth at least liberty in death, and death which carrieth the key of all close coverts cometh last to unlose all the bands of his servitude; an ambitious soul as soon as it is parted from the body, is consorted with devils in their tortures, as it imitated them very nearly in their passion. What a life, what a death is this? Find you any comparable, if not that of unfortunate Cain? The Scripture saith 
The life of Cain. Genes. 4. 16. Hebr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Procep. in Genes.  that he withdrawing himself from the sight of God, did inhabit the land of instability: and Procopius thereto addeth an ancient tradition, that he perpetually saw certain spectres with swords of fire, which brought horrible affrightments upon him. Is the ambitious man better used? Is not he perpetually separated from the face of God, seeing (as saith S. Hierom) man is divided from the Divinity, not by the degrees 
Hier. Epist. ad Damas'. Peccantes recedunt à Deo affectuum non locorum spatiis  of body but of soul▪ which are the affections? And how much more the soul is scattered in the waste emptiness of ambition, which is indeed a mere vanity, so much more it strayeth from this sovereign Majesty, which is the only verity. Is it not in the Kingdom of inconstancy? In every place where he setteth his feet, there is nothing but slippery ice or downfall. The saying of the Prophet is accomplished 
Psal. 34. 6. Fiat via illorum tenebrae & labricum & Angelus Domini persequens eos. Extreme disaster.  in his person: Let their way be made dark and slippery, and the Angel of our Lord persecute them. Behold all the most lamentable extremities, which may be imagined in a voyage; ever to go upon ice, and thereon to walk in the obscure darkness of the night, and to have behind you in the rear a Sergeant, who hasteneth you forward; and all this is found in the life of the ambitious. What passage is not slippery in the favours of the world, all which are feathered and full of mutable conditions? What darkness is there in a wretched creature, who hath no pity at all of himself, who maketh a liberty of his fetters, honour of his ignominy, and trophies of his torments? What Sergeant is more troublesome? What spectres, and what swords of fire more teribble than the pricks of this enraged passion, which as much and as violently forceth man, as a bull gored with a goad, rusheth through some headlong precipice? Where is it that the ambitious man can find place of stability and centre of repose? If he be in quest of honour, (and when is he not?) behold him in a whirl-pool, in fire; behold him in the feverish accesses of heat and cold, which afford him no intermission. Admit he obtain what he pretendeth unto, no sooner is he engaged in one way, but his feet itch to transfer him to another. If he be upon terms of repulse, behold 
Envy.  him drenched in desperate and furious envy, which maketh him daily die as many deaths, as there are others more happy than himself. Verily the wheel of Ixion is a silly fable in comparison of the tortures of the ambitious. That was a sport which 
The wheel of Heliogabalus. Lampridius i● Heliogab.  Heliogabalus did, when he took his Courtiers and commanded them to be tied and trussed fast to a great wheel, and then rolled and turned them up and down in the water, taking infinite pleasure to see them sometime aloft, sometime below, sometime to taste the sweetness of the air and sometime to be deeply plunged in the water, whereof necessity they drank more than enough. Ambitious men daily act the same play, but they personate it tragically: their life is wholly composed of leaps, bounds and skips; they are the very reeds, the very shuttlecocks of inconstancy, they are mere windblown haloones, which are tossed this way and that way, sometime with the foot, sometime with the hand. They are enforced upon all occasions to bear the fools babble, and they miserable have drunk with so long and deep draughts of the water of forgetfulness, that they cannot awaken themselves from their drunkenness, until death come to close up their eyes.  
Were it not a thousand times better to plant coleworts, and roast chessnuts, than to live amongst so many servile complacences unworthy of a noble spirit, so many frustrated pretensions, so many illusions, so many scornful repulses, so many hopes, which crack like a cloud, and raise a tempestuous storm, where shade and sweet refreshment is expected? It is a wonder to behold men to betray their reason, to 
Captivity of charges.  court the fortunes of Great men, to bereave themselves of comfort, repose, and liberty, to be surprised in a mill full of skreaking noises in a confused turmoil of difficult and thorny affairs, poorly to beg a little favour, which perpetually escapeth them, and oftentimes breaks as a glass in the beauty of its lustre. 
Petrarch. dialog. 47. l. 1. de remediis. Sua negotia gerere laboriosum, quid censeas aliena, precipue potentium quibus placuisse perpetua servitusest, displicuisse discrimen? Ex quo ambitioni servire caepisti tibi vivere desiisti. Vilis tibi est anima, virtus, fama, quies, otium, securitas. Vix diligunt Reges nisi qui omnibas neglectis se eorum libidini servum fecit.  Petrarch, well acquainted with these considerations, spoke these most remarkable words: Miserable ambitious men, every one hath so much trouble to spin the web of his own affairs, and to bring them to a good end, and thou with much cheerfulness of heart priest into other men's business, yea into the affairs of Great-men, whom it is impossible to please without perpetual servitude, nor displease without most evident danger. After you began to serve others, you ceased to live to yourself, life, virtue, renown, repose, safeguard, all is lost to thee. Great men love none but such who forsake all to make themselves slaves to their passions.  
What swears of death, saith Monsieur D'Ancre, never to have one hour of rest, to be enforced to give audiences, troublesome, tumultuous and clamorous; to hear and receive suits and unjust supplications; to be embroiled in affairs replenished with knots and thorns; to make manual signatures devoid of conscience, that you may not displease a Great man; to grant unlawful decrees, wicked commissions, attended by infamous executions.  
Although the pretensions of ambition were a whole world, can they deserve to be purchased with the prejudice of conscience? What would it avail man to be absolute Lord of the whole Universe for a time, and a sacrifice of hell for ever? But that which maketh the madness of ambitious men much more ridiculous and deplorable, is, that they all their life time take pains for wind, for smoke, for nothing. The world useth them as Laban did poor Jacob: after 
The ambitious travel for Rachel and find Lea.  he had been roasted, congealed, afflicted, hammered on all sides, he thought to have a fair Rachel, and found a blear-eyed wench by his side. Every day a thousand fair promises, a thousand hopes, a thousand fancies, and no effect. This fair Rachel, this pretended honour, after so many services cometh not; disgrace, much more ugly than was Lea, is to be found in the same bed of repose.  
It oftentimes happeneth, the greatest men who have 
Quosdam cum in consummationem dignitatis per mille indignitates irrepsissent, misera subit cogitatio ipsos laborasse in titulum sepulchri. Senec. de brevit. vitae. c. 19 Tragical events. Esther.  passed some thirty, some forty years, to build a fortune with a thousand disturbances, a thousand indignities, find, they must part with this world, and that they have heaped up nothing but a poor title to make a fragment of an Epitaph on their tomb: that is it which the Latin Philosopher bravely pronounced. Yet are these the most fortunate. Others without ever setting foot into pretended greatness, fall piece-meal into ruin. They are tragical stageplays, where the successes of the ambitious may be read both in sacred and profane histories. An Haman hanged on a gibbet fifty cubits high, to be beheld a far off, and on a gibbet which he had prepared for a man whom he deigned not to rank amongst the number of his slaves. An Absalon after he had disturbed the Court 
2 Reg. 18.  of his father, found snares in the hairs of his own head to entangle him (as it is said) to a fatal tree, and die transfixed with the sharp points of three lances. An Abimelech, after he had made his enraged ambition 
Judic. 9  float in the blood of threescore and ten of his own brethren, crushed under a tile, thrown from the hand of a woman. Nabuchadnezzar became a beast. Semiramis slain in a brutish passion by the hand of her own son. Caesar gored with many stabs of daggers in the Senate-house. Pompey after he had caused golden mountains to be carried in triumph, finding no more land to conquer, he having gained so much, wanted five or six foot of ground to make him a sepulchre. Another who had taken for ensign a world, with the helm of a ship, and his Motto, Hoc opus, showing that 
Riorius apud Typotium. Euxenides. Guevar. Courtis. 26. 4.  his ambitions transported him not to any lower pitch than the world's conquest, found himself to be in a worse estate than if he had been a swabber in a ship. Another favourite of Ptolomey King of Egypt, mounted to so high a degree of honour, that he had but two discontentments in this life; the one, that he could grow no more, so great he was become; the other, that the King with all his revenues seemed to him too poor to add any increase of riches. Few days after, this miserable creature was surprised by King Ptolomey courting a Mistress of his, for which contempt in that instant the Lady was enforced to drink poison, and the unfortunate Courtier was hanged before his own lodging. Another minion of the Emperor Constantius, after he had managed the 
Julius Capit.  affairs, wars, revenues, household, and person of the Emperor, was disgraced, and put to death, because he presented to his Master (at that time incensed with choler) a pen ill made for writing, to sign certain dispatches withal. Macrinus a hunter, a fencer, 
Eunapius in Aedes.  a scrivener, became an Orator, than a Fiscal, next praetor of the Palace, than Emperor, and lastly was massacred with his son Piadumenus. Ablavius most powerful under Constantine, torn in pieces under Constantius as a victim.  
What circumvolutions, what comedies, what tragedies, what examples to those, who in this world have no other aim but to become great, casting under foot all laws both divine and humane? Out alas! It is said that Cambyses King of Persia, to teach 
Herod. l. 5.  justice to a certain Precedent of his, who newly then entered into office, commanded him to cover the chair of judicature with the skin of Sesamnes his father, put to death and flayed, because he had been an ill Judge. What should he do being seated on this 
Note.  woeful Tribunal, upon the blood of his father, but become wise by a dreadful experience? An infinite number of ambitious men are in office and magistracy mounted upon the ruins and blood of their Predecessors, who have made most wicked and deplorable trials, and have pursued the same ways, without fearing the like event.  
I. Learn (O Noblemen) that all the greatness of 
Instructions.  the world cannot make you great, if not by contempt of it. All therein is little, and yet to despise that little is a great matter.  
II. Know, that your fortunes ought to be as the 
Sixtus in bibliotheca Patrum. Non est minimum in humaenâ vitâ negligere minima.  halcyons nest, which seemeth sowed to her body. Matters most aptly proportioned to our nature, are the best. What face soever a man sets upon it, he is little. Much turmoil of government and affairs may well hinder him, but never make him happy.  
III. You must use the honour which God hath 
Semper circumveniunt montem Sir, & nunquam ad terram promissionis perveniunt. Petrus Blesensis p. 40  allotted you, as the coin of his coffers, for which you in his last judgement are accountable, and must limit your pretences and desires with mediocrity: otherwise you shall be as they who wandered perpetually about the mountain of Sir, without ever arriving at the land of promise.   

Conclusion of the Second Book. That the life of a bad Courtier is a perpetual obstacle to virtue.  
TO approve good by words, and pursue evil in effect; to condemn the world, and adore it; to desire heaven, and be fixed to the earth; to love one's self excessively, and live perpetually contrary to the better part of ourselves; to seek for peace, and live in an everlasting warfare; to lodge in one same heart fire and ice, sickness and health, joy and sorrow, death & life. To command imperiously, and obey faintly, to be ever abroad, and never out of prison, to dream without sleep, and sleep without repose; to be divided to all the world, and never within ones self: To wish that which cannot be had, and contemn what is possessed: To seek after that which hath been despised, and hourly to change resolution: To exercise no piety but by constraint, nor reason but by fits: Not to avoid one sin but by another, and to descend into the precipice with open eyes: To take up the buckler after the wound received, and to be cured by the overthrow of health: To slake thirst with salt water, and quench fire with sulphur: To have no constancy, but for evil, nor amity for any thing but that which deserveth it not: To have sottish actions, and glorious pretexes; as much faith as the ice, and assurance as the wind.  
To be the slave of a thousand false Deities, and not to reflect on the true Divinity: To prefer the fetters and onions of Egypt, before the liberty and palms of the heavenly Zion. To leave Paradise to follow the gardens of Tantalus, and those enchanted Islands which recoil backward according to the proportion we think to approach them: To carry under a smooth countenance, a heart spotted as the skin of a panther: To join a voluptuous life to a penurious; avarice to prodigality; servitude to predominance; nobility to baseness; pride to misery; and envy to pity. To promise without faith, swear without regard, command without reason, appoint without order, affect without choice, hate without cause, walk without a path, and to live perpetually banished from one's self, so to become too much tied to one's self. This is the life of a Courtier, who hath alienated himself from the life of God. Add hereunto, that vice is commonly waited on with a most painful life, wherein if endeavour be not used to sanctify it by virtue, there is found a hell anticipated, where a Paradise is imagined.  
Petrus Blesensis Chancellor to the Archbishop of 
Epist. 4.  Canterhury, having some time attended in the Court of the King of England, recounteth the evils he there found by experience, in a letter which he addressed to the Chaplains of the same Prince. There he complaineth, the Courtiers many times suffer for hell all those pains which S. Paul endured for Heaven: For they are exposed to dangers both of sea and land, rivers and mountains, thiefs and false brothers, to fasting and watching, to weariness, and to all the incommodities of human life.  
He hath seen (saith he) bread and wine served up, which one could not put into their mouths without shutting their eyes, such loathing it enforced, and viands that killed men under the show of nutriment. He hath known Lords draw their swords for a  which deserved not a battle among hogs: He hath seen a Prince who delighted to be attended by officers suddenly surprised, to whom he gave notice of his remove when they had physical drugs in their bellies, and made them oftentimes run themselves out of breath through forests and darkness, and at other times to pine away in expectation of all that which would but frustrate their hope. He hath seen harbingers troublesome before they received gifts, and most ungrateful after they had them, who made no scruple to put an honestman out of his lodging, and to pull him both from table and bed, that he might lie in the streets. He hath seen at Court porters worse than Cerberus, with whom the memory of a benefit lasted not three days, and who took pleasure to make those stand in the dirt and rain that had obliged them.  
Buffoons and jesters found ever free passage, nothing but virtue and honesty had a wainscot face shown them. Finally, all the plagues of Egypt dwelled there, frogs, flies, ulcers, rivers of blood, a land of iron▪ a heaven of brass: such a confusion of men and beasts, of affairs and concurrences, of game and quarrels, that this kind of life seemed to be a little figure of hell.  
I pass under silence what Lucian hath written of the misery of servitors and officers of great men, in the treatise which he to that purpose made for his friend Timocles. There you behold one not yet become an arrant gull, who thrusts himself forward to make a fortune in the house of a rich man; he beginneth to get the favour of some servants, who make mops and moves at him behind his back, when they have taken his gifts: he clotheth himself in fashion, and puts on the livery of him whose grace he seeketh; he multiplies his paces and visits daily, never gaining one good countenance from my Lord nor my Lady. In the end if it once happen he be looked on or spoken to he is somewhat amazed, and maketh answer little to the purpose, which occasioneth laughter: One observeth his reverences, another casts an eye on his posture; another takes account of his words: He is found to be somewhat sottish, yet is he not out of hope, so that he may be favoured. Thereupon he must troth up and down the streets, and employ his best friends to purchase his slavery: On the other part inquisition is made into his life, as if they would choose him Governor of a Province, and in the end of the matter, it is found he is taken in but to keep a little dog. This is it which happened to Thesmopolis the Stoic Philosopher, for a Roman Lady that kept him in her house, after she had called him aside, and used much discourse with him concerning his capacity, his virtue, and worth, she resolved to bestow a great office on him, which was to take charge of her little bitch that was ready to whelp.  
When all obstacles and oppositions are dissolved, if one enter into the house of this Lord, he seemeth to pass into Heaven, so willingly the golden yoke is put on, which murdereth him under the show of enriching.  
In the mean time the old servants look on this new-come guest, and if he be any thing lettered, or have some talents of wit or ability, they fear lest he should grow too far into the good liking of the Master: Behold the cause, why they disgrace him as much as they can, even to the framing of histories upon his genealogy and life, which prove very prejudicial to him.  
If bargain be to be made upon wages to be given him, they put into the list of account, the name, the quality, the titles of the house, and some suborned flatterer shall say, the service he doth to so great a personage ought to be in the stead of recompense: yet notwithstanding they spare not to amuse him upon the hope of great gratuities yearly given, of favours, and imaginary courtesies.  
For this (saith he) he must pass over bloody days, and restless nights, drop sweats of death, live wretchedly, swallow affronts, praise all that which is blame-worthy, and condemn what is laudable; flatter, lie, smile in losing, and ofttimes serve for a laughingstock, as an ape tied to his clog: He must bear coronets of flowers, and titles, like an old pillar of a tomb, and in effect have nothing, no, many times not so much as the wages bargained for, wherewith he cannot be paid, but by breaking all hope of payment.  
To conclude, the Court resembleth those crafty Courtizanes, who entertain witless amorists with words, and never afford what they promise, until those fall into the inability of giving, and these into distaste of receiving.  
That man is in some sort excusable who takes pain to taste some excellent viand: but to waste one's self with labour and travel, to see another man feed, under the colour that he will afford us some part of that he enjoyeth, how can it be but ridiculous?  
If you will have the Court in a piece of painting, represent unto yourself (saith he) a goodly golden portal upon an inaccessible mountain, all environed with precipices, where nothing is to be seen but arms and legs broken, but maimed and miserable people. Within riches sitting, all of gold, and very lovely: The Courtier beholdeth her with an eye full of admiration and astonishment: Hope clothed in a particoloured garment, goes before him, and taking him by the hand, encourageth him to make his approach to this Divinity. Then followeth deceit that delivers him over to servitude, servitude to travel, which perpetually toileth him in an infinity of most painful labours Travel, when it hath throughly worn it out, gives him up to old age, already grisly pale, and invaded with many maladies. From thence ignominy seizeth on his person, and draggeth him along against his will into despair, which is the cause hope flieth from him, and vanisheth into smoke. Then he is no more suffered to pass through the golden portal, by which he entered in, but through some wretched backway postern, that he may not behold the frightful spectacle of a poor decrepit old man, naked, gorbelled, and wan, who hideth his shame with one hand, and strangleth himself with the other. He hath no better thing to meet withal at his going out, than repentance, which weeping waiteth on him in the way, the more to augment his misery.  Happy he, who not being able to sanctify the miseries of the world, at the least seeketh for a retreat in the sweetness of repose.   

THE THIRD BOOK. Of the practice of VIRTUES.  
The READER shall observe this Book, being composed for a more familiar instruction, is the less enlarged in discourses and allegations, but (as is most convenient) more knit and succinct in precepts. I have purposely made it decisive and in manner of Aphorisms, as the Ancients handled moral things, to make them the more compendious and profitable.  

The first SECTION. Devotion of Great men.  
OF more worth (saith S. Gregory Nazianzen) 
Nazian. in Iamb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  is a good dumb work, than an eloquent oration without effect. A golden tongue and a leaden heart, never matched together. It is nothing for one to have the trumpet on his lip, who hath not the torch in his hand, according to the example of those brave soldiers of Gedeon. The voice of great S. Athanasius was a thunderclap, and his life a lightning flash, saith the fore-alledged Author, because words never thunder well, if examples enlighten not.  
To what purpose is it to warble like a lute, and to be deaf to the harmony thereof? To carry wherewith to shift and cleanse others, as the ass of the hothouse, and be himself perpetually bemyred and slovenly? To buzz up and down like a drone or humble-bee, and neither make honey nor wax? All the Devotion of a soul truly Christian tendeth to practice, as the line to its centre. Our wisdom (said S. Cyprian) is a prudence of works, not of words or 
Cyp. l. de patientia. Philosophi factis, non verbis sumus: nec magna lequimur sed vivimus.  paper. This is it, which hath given me occasion, having treated of motives, obstacles, and remedies, which men of quality may have in the way of spiritual life, briefly to prepare a little practice of virtues, which more concerneth their condition, to behold them afterwards appear in the history of Courts, which I purpose to begin in this present volume.  
It much importeth at the very first entrance, to make a good idea of Devotion, which many plaster over in their own manner, and attire with their passion, making that sometimes serve for vice which beareth the sceptre of virtue. Some imagine devotion to be nothing but an ordinary practice of unseemly gestures and motions, such as little puppets would make, if they were animated with some small quantity of quicksilver. Others make use of devotion as Dionysius the Tyrant did of Philosophers, not that he loved them, but that folding himself in their cloaks, he thought he should be honoured by the people. So shall you find sometimes in the world, those who for a vain interest of reputation, will clothe themselves with the robe of false devotion, as if one should seek to shelter himself under a wet sack. I speak not here of devotion which concerneth Religious men, nor that which is in the sweetness of contemplation, but I affirm the virtue of devotion, according to S. Thomas, is nought else but a prompt will to the service of God. Noblemen have cause to aspire thereunto.  
I. A good devotion in Great men, is to have a 
True devotion of Great men. Sentite de Domino in bonitate. Sap. 1.  great and faithful feeling of the Majesty of God, not serving him with exterior semblances, but sincerely, cordially, constantly, holding all the maxims of state and condition under the rules of conscience; and disposing themselves rather to hazard all, than to lose God by one sole sin.  
II. A good devotion, to clip the wings of the covetousness 
Note these points and examine them often. Animae irreverenti & infraenatae nè tradas me. Eccl. 23. 6.  of riches and greatness: covetousness, which never findeth measure but in extremities, nor other period than a precipice. Take heed of a soul without bridle. without reverence.  
III. A good devotion, not to reach at the goods of the Church by any false pretence, represented in the Court of Rome, by any black or covert deceits, sowed together with white thread, nor afterward to charge a man with titles, like an old sepulchre, and hold to himself the patrimony of Jesus Christ, therewith to fatten dogs and feed hawks, or such other infamous creatures, which live on the sins of others. Finally, these goods are Eagles feathers, 
In felle amaritudinis, & in obligatione● iniquitatis. Actor. 8.  which eat and consume others: whilst a soul is lodged there, it remaineth in a bitterness replenished with gall, and in the perplexed intrications of sin.  
iv A good devotion, not to encroach upon the possessions of your neighbour, nor enforce the good 
3 Reg. 21.  Naboth to sell his land for the accommodation and content of your Lordship, but if he will leave it, to 
Isaiah 5. 8. Vae, qui conjungitis domum. ad domum, & agrum agro copulatis usque ad terminum loci. Nunquid habitabitis vos soli in medio terrae? Dissolve colligationes impietatis, solve fasciculos deprimentes. Isaiah 58. 6. Salvian. l. 5. de guber. Quot Curiales tot Tyranni.  give him a good price, a reasonablerate, a full satisfaction. Woe to you (said Isaiah) who annex house to house, inheritance to inheritance, as far as the land stretcheth. Would you dwell alone in the midst of the earth?  
V A good devotion, in things which one may rightfully exact, to be stayed, just, temperate, not covetous, no Harpy, no Tyrant, but to extend the bowels of compassion towards the poor, who are our flesh and blood, to open the eyes, not to invent new impositions that may draw the marrow from the people, but to take away or lessen the old, that necessity requireth no more. Salvianus complaineth that in his time there were as many Tyrants as Lords and Courtiers. And that is the cause why God gave the Roman Empire as a prey to Barbarians, being Masters more mild than the covetousness of great ones.  
VI A good devotion, to discharge his debts and 
Non morabitur opus mercenarii tui apud te usque ad mane Levit. 19 13. Diligite justitiam qui judicatis terram. Sap. 1.  promises, and never suffer the wages of the poor hireling to lie hid in his coffers.  
VII. A good devotion, to attend public charges which you are to undergo, especially those that concern distribution of justice, with understanding conscience and diligence: understanding, to know the affairs; conscience, to handle them faithfully; diligence, not to draw out the expedition of causes in languishing delays, so prejudicial to the public.  
VIII. A good devotion, in banishing superfluity 
Tertul. de cultu foeminar. Discutiendae sunt deliciae, quarum mollity, & fluxis fidei virtus effaeminari potest  of apparel and taste, excesses, curiosities, houshold-vices: To cause modesty, frugality, employment, and virtue to reign; and to be the first himself to light the torch to his family You must necessarily expel delights; for their tenderness and excesses weaken and enervate all religion.  
IX. A good devotion, to make choice of servants, to instruct, or make them honest, and to esteem no man faithful in your service who is disloyal to God: Not to be desirous to keep a bad servant for ones 
Attend tibi à pestifero, fabricat enim mala. Eccles. 11. 35.  own interest, though the whole house would be changed into gold by his hands.  
X. A good devotion, to hinder disorders and sins, which are committed in public, when you have authority in your hands, without showing yourself insatiable to revenge your own proper injuries, and more cold than ice in the quarrel of God. When a 
In cujus manu est ut prohibeat, jubet agi, si non prohibet admitti. Salvian. l. 7.  man hath the power in his hands to stay a sin, to permit it is to commit it. These are points of devotion, which we must hereafter moreamply digest.   

The second SECTION. In what all Devotion and spiritual life consisteth.  
YOu who aspire to spiritual life, know there are three sorts of man in you alone, the Vegetal, Animal, and Intellectual; and that all your 
Three sorts of man in us.  perfection consisteth in putting the Vegetal and Animal man under the feet of the Intellectual. A great number of men are now adays vegetals, that is to say, who so live as if they had no other soul but the vegetative as plants, and lead the very life of the mushroom. Others are animal, who make their souls wholly evaporate in sensual love, in choler, rage, in brutishness. Few shall you find who are intellectual, who work with reason and understanding. And behold wherein consisteth our excellency and repose, to wit, in raising the intellectual man, many times currishly trampled on under the feet of concupiscence, to his proper sphaer, which is the knowledge and union with God.  
To arrive to this point, it is good to note a worthy doctrine of Hugo of S. Victor, to wit, that there 
Hugo miscel. 2 codic. lib. 3. pag. 17. Notable doctrine of Hugo.  is above us a creating Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; in us a created Trinity, understanding, memory, will; about us, a dangerous Trinity, titillation, delectation, consent; under us, an unhappy Trinity, into which we fall by sin, ignorance, weakness, impurity. Reason falleth into a triple ignorance, of good and evil, of true and false, of suitable and disproportionable. Memory into three kinds of thoughts; affectionate, being such as concern sensuality; burdensome, as appertaining to the toils of life; idle, as all vain thoughts are. The will suffereth itself to be surprised with three kinds of nets, which are concupiscence of flesh, concupiscence of eyes, and ambition of life.  
A man reduced to this state, resembleth King Nabuchadnezzar, who went out of his throne to eat hay with brute beasts; so the miserable man, after he hath forsaken the seat of reason, goeth into the stable with his bestial passions. The true and only means to free yourself from such unhappiness, and to return to your first dignity, is to open your heart to the graces and lights of the Holy Ghost, and to dispose yourself to practice of virtues, which directly resist these three plagues of spiritual life, ignorance, weakness, impurity. These are the three monsters which a spiritual man ought necessarily to subdue, that he afterwards may enjoy an assured repose.  
Now to the end you may the more perfectly understand the difference between the carnal and spiritual man, I will in this discourse following set their characters before your eyes.  

The character of the carnal Man.  
THis is a man who liveth according to man, that 
Drawn from Prosper de vita contempl. lib. 3. Secundum seipsum vivere.  is to say, according to himself, who applieth all to himself, and makes of himself his scope, his end, his Divinity. He goes whither he list, he converseth by humour and fantasy, he sleepeth when he will, and as much as he will; he eats, & drinks, & laughs, without rule or measure; he speaks without discretion or reservation. All that which is sweet to the smelling, soft in touching, pleasing to the eye, delicate to the taste, charming to the ear, seems to be created for him. He passionately seeks after it, and hath no other law in his passions but the power of his bruitishness, nor maketh any distinction of things permitted and prohibited in the licence of all pleasures.  
All spiritual actions are hateful to him: his soul, after 
A charitate sui conditoris & illustratoris resilit. Foras in exteriora sic projicit. Sensatarum rerum imagines representa●  it hath lost the good for which we were made, wandereth at random in the vast emptiness of creatures, and issueth out by the gates of all the senses, to glut its concupiscence.  
If it happen he be deprived the contentments he pursues (as oftentimes the Divine providence frameth obstacles enough against his depraved desires) he entertaineth himself with the idea of his pleasures, that he may leave nothing in his soul untainted with corruption, he makes his memory guilty by the representation of his passed lust; he heareth without voice, he smelleth without odour, he tasteth without relish, he sees without colours, he toucheth without body, and createth imaginary sins to gain real torments.  
All his pastime is only among dogs, horses, curiosities 
Illa rudis est, illa dicacula, illa deformis, illa formola.  of the throat, or love. All women, who have made any impression on his thoughts, are perpetually remembered in his discourse: one in his opinion is fair, and another courteous; one is rude; and another wily; this is plain, and that painted: the head-dressing of one pleaseth, the chopin of the other: behaviour is graceful in this, discourse in the other.  
In the end this immortal spirit is fixed to flesh, and sold to lust, to serve as an instrument for devils in this life, and to afford fevel for the flames of Divine vengeance in the life to come.   

The character of the spiritual Man.  
THe spiritual man is properly be, who treadeth in the paths which the Saviour of the world traced 
Partly drawn from the same Prosper l. 2. de vita contem. c. 21. l. 3. c. 1. & lib. 1. 12.  out unto us by his example: who contemneth the prosperities which Jesus Christ despised, who feareth not the adversities which he most courageously hath endured, who freely teacheth what he taught, who doth what he did, who hopes what he promised, and followeth where he led the way.  
This is he who meditateth how to satisfy reason, not sensuality, who more willingly acteth that which may edify than delight; who rebateth the point of carnal desires, by spiritual pleasures, who subjecteth the flesh to the spirit, who preferreth the present time before they uture; who will do all which he will according to the rules of the will of God. He never slandereth; he never despiseth any man but himself; he knows not what it is to malign the prosperous, to persecute the miserable, to court the rich, to seek out his proper interests, to enlarge his estate by unjust practices, to soothe his senses, to content his curiosity, nor to entertain his pleasures.  
He is neither puffed up with pride nor precipated by ambition, tickled by vainglory, nor inflamed with desire of honour; not over born with delights nor gnawn by hatred, not troubled with contentions, not terrified by force, nor softened by pleasure. Boldness makes him not impudent, iniquity unjust, obstinacy of heart untractable, inconstancy variable, rigour opinative; fury witless, gourmandize curious, disobedience rebellious, vanity a vaunter, infidelity treacherous, easiness of nature fickle, cruelty harsh, perverseness jealous, revenge choleric, nor malignity injurious. His whole life is admirably interlaced between action and contemplation, which make on earth a figure of Angels ascending and descending, giving us in this life already a taste of the benefits which we hope in the other.  
Active life makes him profit in the world, contemplative showeth him the way how he may surmount the world: The one goes to it by degrees, the other flies to the top: The one makes him holy, the other perfect; the one causeth him to pardon injuries, the other placeth him beyond the sense of an injury; the one teacheth him to mortify passions, the other establisheth him in the empire over all passions; the one directeth him to clothe the nakedness of the poor, the other makes him to be despoiled of himself; the one unlooseneth the fetters of prisoners by his hands, and the other enchaineth him to God; the one giveth succour to the afflicted by his means, and the other voluntarily makes him afflict himself in the imitation of the sufferings of Jesus Christ; the one hasteneth to a neighbour, and the other abideth in God; the one hath exercise, the other joy; the one conquereth, the other possesseth; the one knocketh at the door, the other entereth in; the one despiseth the world, the other enjoyeth God.  
Finally, the spiritual man is a man covetous of eternity, prodigal of life, little careful of the present, certain of the future. A man who seems no longer to have any commerce with the world, and who hath nothing so familiar as a life that is as it were buried in death, and who flieth above sepulchres like an Angel, who holdeth not of the earth, but by the slender root of natural necessities, and already toucheth heaven with a finger. A man who is as yet in flesh; though he hath made an eternal divorce with flesh, who is underfoot to all the world by humility, and above all the greatness thereof by contempt of it: who binds himself, to be at liberty; who crucifieth himself, to combat; who mortifieth himself to be the more vigorove, who withereth, to flourish again, and daily dieth, that he may never die.    

The third SECTION. Of the first monster which the spiritual man should resist, to wit, Ignorance, and of the practice of virtues by which it is subdued.  
THe greater part of men have dexterity in delving 
From whence our evils come.  the ground like moles, 
(a) Oculis capti fodere cubilia talpae. Virgil. Geor  and have no eyes to behold the Sun. Yet all evils proceed from ignorance and the want of the knowledge of God. 
(b) Primae scelerum causae mortalibus aegris, Naturam nescire Dei. Silius l. 4.  This is the first Monster which we must assault, the first obstacle we must take away. And for this effect observe a wholesome doctrine, to wit, that God is the Sun of all the Intelligences, and that from this Sun five 
(c) Five rays of the soul. Dignity of faith. Aug. apud Gulielm. Lugdunens'.  rays of a lively and quickening light are diffused over the darkness of our understandings. These five rays are faith, understanding, counsel, wisdom and prudence. The first and most excellent light is faith, because the other rays do well enlighten the soul in those operations of which it is, as it were the fountain, but faith alone raiseth him above himself to his beginning, which is God. 
(d) Fides res est audax atque improba, perveniens quo non pertingit intelligentia: ipsa, ascendit super Cheruban, & volat super Seraphim senas alas habens.  Faith is a virtue bold and urgent, which attains to that the understanding cannot reach unto, mounteth above Cherubins, and flies above Seraphins, though they have six wings. A man without faith is as the Pilot of whom it is spoken in the Proverbs 
(e) Prov. 21.  that fell asleep and lost his rudder. What virginity is to the body, the same is faith to the soul. It is the firstborn of virtues, the beginning of spiritual life, the life of the understanding, as charity is the life of the will, the pillar of the cloud 
(f) Et erat nubes tenebrosa, & illuminans noctem. Exod. 14. 30.  which hath two faces, the one dark, because it believeth the things which are not apparent, the other lightsome, for that it believeth with an infallible assurance.   

The fourth SECTION. Practise of Faith.  
THat you may well practise the acts of faith, 
What faith is Hebr. 12. 1. Sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non apparentium.  you must know the nature, object, and motive thereof. Faith (saith S. Paul) is the foundation of hope, and the proof of things not apparent. The foundation of hope, in regard all whatsoever we hope in matter of Religion, is grounded upon faith, as the statue upon its basis: the proof of things not apparent, because it is an infallible argument of truths whereof we have not as yet evident notice. S. Bernard 
Voluntariae quaedam & certa praelibatio nec dum propalatae veritatis Bern. de consider. It's object. S. Thom. 2. 2. q. 1. How we should believe.  addeth, that it is a first-tast certain and voluntary of truth yet not manifested. The Goldsmith laboureth upon gold, silver, and precious stones as upon his proper object: and the object which employeth faith are the mysteries revealed unto us by God, and proposed by his Church. Such mysteries ought to be believed for no other motive, but for that God the eternal Truth hath revealed them. The arguments which are drawn from the prophecies, miracles, numbers of Martyrs, purity of the evangelical law, from the correspondency thereof with reason, from the admirable success and consent of all the mysteries, from the conversion of the world, from the means which the Church hath used to establish itself, from her firm constancy amidst persecutions, from the wisdom & sanctity of the professors of our law and such like things, which I have produced in the first obstacle of the second book, are most powerful considerations to introduce us to faith, and to make easy and familiar to us the acts thereof: but they are not properly motives of faith. In the same manner, 
How faith works. A fine comparison.  as the soul draweth knowledge from sense, and yet notwithstanding is above sense; so faith, though she serve herself with these considerations which are able to command the most contumacious spirits, yet is she admirably raised upon a more supereminent sphere, and will abide no other touch but of the eternal Verity, which darteth a forcible lightening-flash into the soul, able to dazzle, enlighten, and surprise the most prosperous liberty that may be imagined. Thence the soul cometh to believe, not by 
Wherein faith consisteth.  humane discourse, by miracles, by doctrine, by sanctity, but because God speaketh inwardly unto it and giveth it so powerful a touch, that she judgeth infallible whatsoever is revealed and proposed unto her by the Church. Behold to what point the good S. Elzear Count of Arian was arrived, when he said he tasted matters of faith with such certainty and resolution of understanding, that, when Monsieur Miron (held for a prodigy of knowledge in his time) and all the most famous Doctors would have persuaded him the contrary of what he had embraced in the simplicity of his heart, all their subtleties could not be able to give the least shock to his spirit. This admitted, the acts of faith are,  
I. To submit proper judgement to God with all 
Touchstone to know whether one have faith.  simplicity and humility of spirit, who speaketh unto us by his Church, by Scriptures, by Traditions, by Counsels, by Canons of the sovereign Pastors of the Church.  
II. To believe firmly all the Articles of faith which are proposed to us, as well those concerning the Divinity as the humanity of our Saviour; those which concern the Sacraments and ceremonies, as those which appertain to the order and government of the Church.  
III. Thoroughly to retain the summary of the Christian doctrine, to inform yourself of the explication of every Article, not for curiosity but duty. To read, repeat, meditate, ruminate them very often: To teach them to the ignorant in time of need: But above all to give direction to your family, that they may be instructed in those things which belong to the knowledge of their salvation. It is an insupportable abuse to see so many, who drag silk at their heels, and have Linx's eyes in petty affairs, to be many times stupid and brutish in matter of Religion, and in the knowledge of God.  
iv To abhor all innovation and liberty of speech, which in any the least degree striketh at the ancient practices of the Church.  
V And therefore it is necessary, as our Father 
Judicious notes of S. Ignatius concerning sincere faith.  S. Ignatius hath observed, to praise and approve Confession which is made to a Priest, and the frequent 
* Haec Authoris 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notanda, non probanda.  Communion of the faithful, interpreting the devotion of others in a good sense.  
VI To recommend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to love, practice, persuade others to the laudable custom of being present thereat, as much as may be. To esteem Church-music, prayers, Canonical hours, Supplications, Processions, and such like.  
VII. To praise the Orders of Religion, the vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, works of supererrogation and evangelical perfection, ever generally preferring virginity and continency in discourse before marriage.  
VIII. To esteem of Relics, to recommend the veneration and invocation of Saints; to be much affected to the service of the most blessed Mother of God; to approve of pilgrimages, which are orderly performed, Indulgences, and Jubilies, which the glorious King S. Lewis recommended to Philip his son in his last words.  
IX. To have a religious opinion of the abstinences and fasts instituted by the Church, and of the manner of penances and mortifications which religious and other devout persons piously practice.  
X. To maintain the commandments of the Church and ordinances of Superiors, both by word and example; and though their lives should not be conformed to their doctrine, yet not to detract nor murmur at their actions in public or private, thereby to alter in the people's belief the reverence and respect to their dignity: but as much as shall be expedient privately to admonish them of their defective carriage in their charges.  
XI. Highly to esteem the doctrine of sacred Theology which is taught in schools, and to make account of the great Doctors, whom the Divine providence hath raised in this latter Age valourously to oppose heresies.  
XII. Not to insist in ordinary discourses upon exaggerations, comparing men who live in this Age with the Apostles, Doctors, and Saints of antiquity.  
XIII. To fix ourselves upon the resolutions of the Church, that what our own peculiar reason would judge to be white, we to esteem it black when the decrees of the Church itself shall be so; always preferring the judgement of the Church before our private opinion, knowing that humane reason, especially in matters of faith may easily be deceived, but the Church guided by the promised Spirit of truth, cannot err.  
XIV. Not in considerately to be embroiled in the thorny controversies of predestination: Highly to commend grace and faith, but warily without prejudice of freewill, and good works.  
XV. Not so to speak of the love and mercy of God that one may seem thereby to exclude the thoughts and considerations of fear and divine justice.  
Behold the ordinary rules to preserve yourself in faith. If you now desire to know how this virtue is purified and refined in man's heart, and in what consisteth the excellency of its acts, behold them here. You must carefully take heed of having only a dead faith without charity or good works, which S. Augustine calleth the faith of the devil. It is a night-glimmer, obscure, and melancholy; but lively faith is a true beam of the Sun. The acts of a strong and lively faith are:  
I. To have great and noble thoughts of God, as 
Heroic acts of faith. Matth. 8.  that brave Centurion of whom it is spoken in S. Matthew, who supposed the malady, health, death, life of his servant absolutely depended upon one sole word of our Saviour, and thought himself unworthy he should enter into his house. Cassius Longinus a Pagan 
Cassius Longinus libro. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  so learned, that he was called the Living Library, one day reading Genesis, could not sufficiently admire the sublime speculations which Moses had of the Divinity, when he wrote of the world's creation, & that God at the sound of one sole word made the great masterpieces of this universe to rise out of nothing, as heaven, earth, water, the Sun, and Moon.  
II. To believe with great simplicity, removed from all manner of curiosity and nice inquisition. God 
Si levaveris cultrum tuum super eo, polluetur. Exod. 20.  would not the point of the knife should be lifted up on his Altar to cut it. So likewise the point of humane spirit must not be raised on the Altar of faith, nor the curtain drawn to enlighten the mysteries with the torch of reason. S. Lewis was most perfect in this degree, who would not stir a foot to behold a miracle in confirmation of his belief.  
III. To believe with great fervour, esteeming nothing impossible to your faith, as did that simple shoemaker, who under a King of the Tartars, removed 
Paulus Veneus l. 1. c. 18. de reb. orient.  a mountain in the sight of the whole world, by the fervour and simplicity of his faith.  
IU. Not to stagger nor be afflicted when you ask any thing of God in your prayers, holding it undoubted that it will be granted, if it be for the greater glory of the Sovereign Master, and your more advantageable profit. You must always hold your hands lifted up in some kind as Moses did, even to the 
Exod. 17.  setting of the Sun, to vanquish our Amalekites.  
V To have a generous heart and full of confidence in adversity, not to admit distrust during the storm; but with firm footing to expect the consolation of heaven, even when we shall be in the shades of death, as said the Prophet.  
VI Little to prise temporal goods in comparison of eternal: To be ready to dispoil one's self from all the pleasures and commodities of the world, if there be any danger of faith, as that brave Courtier 
Hebr. 11.  Moses, who forsook the contentments of Pharaohs Court, to be afflicted with his own people.  
VII. To give alms liberally, with a firm belief, that the hand of the poor is the treasury of God.  
VIII. To employ even life itself, as so many Martyrs have done, and to seal your faith with your own blood. This is the most heroical act; but yet it ought to be guided by discretion.  
Now to make easy the acts of faith.  
I. It is good oftentimes to consider how reasonable, glorious, and full of merit this act is. Reasonable, 
How acts of faith may be made easy.  to submit the creature to the Creator; glorious, to see the Sovereign Lord so served and honoured, that for the defence of one sole word but once pronounced by his mouth, a thousand and a thousand good servants are ready to bestow their lives; full of merit, in as much as we give a free consent, voluntary, and pious, and not being enforced by manifest evidence.  
II. To be often confounded in the weakness and incapicity of our understanding, which is found so short in the knowledge of many petty things. There needeth no more but the foot of an Ant to stay it, and a glass of water to drown it. What stupidity then is like this, to be desirous to make one's self over-wise, and to judge that impossible which cannot be comprehended in matter of Religion?  
III. To apply your mind to the consideration of motives, which may form in your spirit a probability of that which is proposed unto you, as are those I have noted before, and which will give good entrances to the inspirations of God.  
iv To retire from the toil of senses, which do nothing but disturb when you consult with them in things spiritual; and to raise your soul above flesh to be illuminated by the Sun of Intelligences.  
V To take away the obstacles of all sorts of impurity, and namely of pride & all disordinate affection.  
VI To strike at Heaven gate with prayer, seeing faith cometh unto us from treasures of the Father of light. Faith so planted, fortified, and manured by good works, illuminateth a soul. All the savage and cruel beasts, all the brutish passions, chimaeraes, dreams, irresolutions, which went roaming up and down in this great forest of confusions, amongst the shadows of night, are scattered so soon as this radiant Sun beginneth to dissipate darkness with his divine rays. Then is it, that a soul wholly clad with 
Hope.  the clear lights of hope (which causeth it to expect the blessings of the other life) goeth on with a great and constant resolution, as one who hath for support the infinite power of God, who is as faithful in his promises, as rich in rewards.  
Behold how this monster ignorance is overthrown by the arms of light.   

The fifth SECTION. Of four other rays which serve to dissipate ignorance.  
BEsides the torch of faith, God also gives us the 
Beam of understanding.  light of understanding, of counsel, wisdom, and prudence, which are as unvaluable riches, wholly replenishing the soul with splendour, as saith the Prophet Isaiah. The gift of understanding doth free us from a certain bruitishness, which is the cause that men tying themselves only to external and sensible things, are perpetually out of themselves: at which time understanding calls them back again, and makes them to re-enter into their house, to see the beginning, progress, and end of the life of man; from whence he cometh, whither he goeth, what will become of him.  
Counsel enlighteneth us in things doubtful, to 
Of counsel.  take a good way.  
Wisdom putteth us out of an apprenticeship, and 
Of wisdom.  draweth us from a certain childishness, which maketh men as little ones and carnal, mutually entertaining themselves with temporal things. And the knowledge of God raiseth and causeth them to turn their faces directly towards Eternity.  
Prudence considereth good and evil, according to 
Of prudence.  the quality and quantity thereof. It examineth the circumstances of actions, and showeth us what ought to be done in such a time, such a place, and such occasions.   

The sixth SECTION. Twelve fundamental Considerations of spiritual life, partly drawn from that worthy man John Picus Mirandula.  
FRom the five rays explicated before, proceed 
Note, that it is good often to meditate these maxims, either one a day, or all together.  great and goodly lights by direction of which a life wholly new is begun. John Picus of Mirandula, a great and remarkable man, held for a prodigy of wit, much tasting the content of spiritual life, enlightened by the rays of a wisdom absolutely celestial, establisheth twelve Considerations which we ought continually to meditate on, for the practice of the knowledge of God.  
I. The first, the nature and dignity of man, to wit, 
1. Consideration nature and dignity of man.  that the first and ceaseless endeavour of man should be of man himself; to see what he hath been, what he is, and what he shall be. What he hath been, nothing; what he is, a reasonable creature; what he shall be, a guest of Paradise or of hell, of an eternal felicity, or of an everlasting unhappiness.  
What he is according to nature, a masterpiece, 
Greatness of the soul.  where many prerogatives meet together; a body composed of a marvellous architecture; a soul endowed with understanding, reason, spirit, judgement, will memory, imaginations, opinions: A soul which flieth in an instant from one pole to the other, descendeth even to the centre of the world, and mounteth to the top; which is found in an instant in a thousand several places, which embraceth the whole world without touching it, which goeth, which glittereth, which shineth, which diggeth into all the treasures and magazines of nature, which findeth out all sorts of inventions, which inventeth arts, which governeth Commonwealths, which disposeth worlds. In the mean time she beholdeth about herself an infinite number of dogs, that bark at her happiness, and endeavour to by't her on every side.  
Love fooleth her, ambition turmoileth her, avarice 
Tyranny of passions.  rusteth her, and lust inflameth her, vain hopes soothe her, pleasures melt her, despair over-bears her, choler burns her, hatred filleth her with gall, envy gnaweth her, jealousy pricketh her, revenge enrageth her, cruelty maketh her savage, fear frosteth her, sorrow consumes her. This poor soul shut up in the body, as a bird of Paradise in a cage, is altogether amazed to see herself assailed by all this mutinous multitude, and though she have a sceptre in her hand to rule, she notwithstanding oft suffereth herself to be deceived, ravished, and dragged along into a miserable servitude.  
From thence behold what man is through sin; vanity, weakness, inconstancy, misery, malediction.  
What he becometh by grace, a child of light, a terrestrial Angel, the son of a celestial Father by adoption, brother and coheir of Jesus Christ, a vessel of election, the temple of the Holy Ghost.  
What he may arrive unto by glory; to be an inhabitant of Heaven, who shall see the stars under his feet, which he hath over his head, who shall be filled with the sight of God, his beginning, his end, his true, only, and original happiness.  
II. The benefits received from God considered 
2. Benefits of God.  in general, as those of creation, conservation, redemption, vocation, and in particular the gifts of the body, of the soul, of nature, of capacity, ability, industry, dexterity, wariness, nobility, offices, authority, means, credit, reputation, good success of affairs, and such like, which are given to us from Heaven, as instruments to work our salvation. And sometimes one of the greatest blessings is (that which few esteem a benefit) not to have all these advantages, which lead a haughty, weak, and worldly spirit even into a headlong precipice; but quite contrary, good disadvantages (in the opinion of the world) put him into the estimation of heavenly things. Man beholding what he hath been, what he is, what will become of him, from whence he proceedeth, whither he goeth, and how the union with God his beginning is his Scope, But, and Aim; if he doth that which reason dictateth to him, he instantly takes a resolution neither to have vein, sinew, nor artery, which tendeth not to his end, to conquer his passions, and no longer to serve creatures, but so far forth as he shall know them profitable to lead him to his Creator. Every creature speaketh these words to man: O man keep what 
Bernard. de gradibus humilit. Serva commissum, expecta promissum cave prohibitum.  is given to thee, expect what is promised thee, and avoid what is forbidden thee.  
III. The third consideration is the passion of the Son of God; a bottomless abyss of dolours, scorns, annihilations, love, mercy wisdom, humility, patience, charity, the book of books, the science of sciences, the secret of secrets, the shop where all good resolutions are forged, where all virtues are purified, where all knots of holy obligations are tied, the school where all Martyrs are made, all Confessors, all Saints. Our weakness, our faintness, come not but for want of beholding this table of excess. Who ever would open his mouth to complain of doing too much, of suffering too much, of being too much abased, too much despised, too much turmoiled, if he considered the life of God delivered over and abandoned for him to so painful labour, so horrible confusions, so insupportable torments? O my God, my wounded God As long 
S. Bonav. in stimul. Nolo vivere sine vulnere cum te videam vulneratum. 4. Example of Saints.  as I shall see thy wounds, I will never live without wound.  
iv The examples of all Saints, who have walked in the royal way of the cross. When we consider the progression of Christianity, and the succession of so many Ages, wheresoever our consideration setteth foot it findeth nothing but the blood of Martyrs, combats of Virgins, prayers, tears, fastings, sackcloth, haircloth, persecutions, afflictions of so many Saints, who have as it were won heaven by main force. Such have been found, who had heretofore filled sepulchres with their members 
S. Zeno homil. de Sancto Arcadio. Remorabantur in luce detenti quorum membris pleni●erant tumuli.  torn with engines and swords of persecution, and were yet alive to endure and suffer in their bodies, which had more wounds than parts of body to be tormented. Is it not a shame to have the same name, the same Baptism, the same profession, and yet to be always desirous to tread on roses? To be embarked in this great ship of Christianity with so many brave spirits, which even at this day hourly do wonders in the world, and to go under hatches to sleep in the bottom of the vessel, as needless outcasts, and the very scorns of reasonable nature?  
V The peace of a good conscience (the inseparable 
5. Inward peace.  companion of honest men) which sugareth all their tears, which seasoneth all their acerbities, which dissolveth all their sharpness; a perpetual banquet, a portative theatre, a delicious torrent of inexplicable contentments, which begin in this world, and which many times are felt even in chains, prisons, and persecutions. What will it be when the consummation shall be made in the other world, when the curtain of the great Tabernacle shall be drawn, when we shall see God face to face, in a body impassable as an Angel, subtle as a ray of light, swift as the wings of thunder, radiant as the Sun, when he shall be seen amongst so goodly and flourishing a company in a Palace of estimable 
August. Nes●io quid erit, quod ista vita non erit, ubi lucet quod non capit locus, ubi sonat quod non rapit tempus, ubi ●let quod non spargit flatus, ubi sapit quod non minuit edacitas, ubi haeret quod non divellit eternitos. 6. Condition of this life well described  glory, and when one shall lead no other life, but that of God, of the knowledge of God, of the love of God, as long as God shall be God? What will this life be, nay, what will this life not be, since all the goods thereof either are not, or are in such a life of lights, which place cannot comprehend; of voices and harmonies, which time cannot take from us; of odours, which never are scattered: a feast which never is finished; a blessing which eternity well may give; but of which it never shall see an end?  
VI It is to be considered on the other side the condition of this present life: A true dream, which hath the disturbances of sleep, but never the repose; a childish amuzement; a toil of burdensome and ever-relapsing actions, where for one rose a thousand thorns are found, for one ounce of honey, a tun of gall, for blessings in appearance, evils in substance. The most happy there count their years and cannot reckon their griefs. The carriers of the greatest honours are there all of ice, and oftentimes are not bounded but with headlong ruins. Its felicities are floating Lands, which always recoil backward at that time when we think to touch them with our finger. They are the feasts of Heliogabalus, 
Lamprid. Heliogab.  where there are many invitations, many ceremonies, many reverences, many services, and at the end thereof we find a table and a banquet of wax, which melts before the fire, and from whence we return more hungry than we came. It is the enchanted egg of Oromazes, wherein this impostor vaunted to have enclosed all the happiness of the world, and in breaking it there was found nothing but wind. All these pleasures flatter our senses with 
S. Eucher. in paranesis. Omnia haec conspectui nostro insidiosis coloribus lenecinantur: vis illa oc●lorum attributa lumini, non applicetur errori.  an imposture of false colours: why do we suffer those eyes to be taken in the snares of errors, which are given to us by heaven to behold the light, and not minister to lying? Yea, that which greatly should distaste us in this present life, is, we live in an Age stuffed with maladies, as old age with indispositions. We live in a world greatly corrupted, of which may be said, It is a monster whose understanding is a pit of darkness; reason, a shop of malice, will, a hell; where a thousand passions outrageously insult over it. Its eyes are two conduit-pipes of fire, from whence fly sparkles of concupiscence; its tongue, an instrument of malediction; its visage, a painted hypocrisy; its body, a sponge of ordures; its hands, the talons of harpies: and finally it seemeth to have no other faith but infidelity; no law but its passion; no other God but its own belly. What contentment can it be to live with such a monster.  
VII. If there be pleasures in life, they do nothing 
7 Quality of worldly pleasures.  but a little slightly overflow the heart with a superficial delectation: Sadness diveth into the bottom of our soul, and when it is there, you will say it hath feet of lead never to forsake the place, but pleasure doth soothe us only in the outward parts of the skin, & all her sweet waters, run down with full speed into the salt sea. Behold wherefore S. Augustin 
August. Conf. l. 6. cap. 5.  said, when any prosperity presented itself to his eyes he durst not touch it. He looked upon pleasure as on a fleeting bird, which seemeth as it were ready to be seized, and flieth away as soon as ever she sees herself almost surprised,  
VIII. Pleasures are born in the senses, and like 
8 Their shortness.  abortives are consumed in their birth: Their desires are full of disturbances, their access is of violent, forced, and turbulent agitations: Their satiety is farced with shame and repentance: They pass away after they have wearied the body, and leave it like a bunch of grapes, the juice whereof is extracted by the press, as saith S. Bernard: They hold it a goodly 
Bern. Serm. 10. in Cantic. Nulla maior voluptas, quam voluptatis fastidium. Turtul. de syect. 9 The end.  matter to extend their fullness: They must end with life, and it is a great hazard if during life itself, they serve not their host for an executioner. I see no greater pleasure in the world than the contempt of pleasure.  
IX. Man which wasteth his time in pleasures, when they are slipped away much like waters engendered by a storm, findeth himself abandoned as a pilgrim despoiled by a thief: So many golden harvests which time presented to him are passed, and the rust of a heavy age furnisheth him with nothing but thorns, sorrows to have done ill, and inabilities of doing well: what then remains to be said, but that which the miserable King said, who gave his sceptre for a glass of water: Alas! must I for so short 
Lysimachus.  a pleasure, lose so great a Kingdom?  
X. Evil always beareth sorrow behind it, but not 
10. Difficulty of penance  true penance. It is a most particular favour of God, to have time to bemoan the sins of our passed life, and to take occasion by the forelock. Many are packed away into the other world without ever having thought of their passage, and such suppose they shall have many tears at their death, who shall not have one good act of repentance They bewail the sins which forsake them, and not God whom they have lost. True contrition is a hard piece of work: 
Facilius inveni qui innocentiam servarent, quam qui congruè poenitentiam agerent. Ambr. l. de unica penitent. c. 10. 11. Death.  How can he merit it who willingly hath ever demerited?  
XI. In the mean time death cometh apace; it expecteth us at all hours, in all places, and you cannot attend it one sole minute, so much this thought displeaseth you. The decrees thereof are more clear and perspicuous, than if they were written with the beams of the Sun, and yet we cannot read them. His trumpet soundeth perpetually more intelligibly than thunder, and we understand it not. It is no wonder that David in the 48. Psalm calleth it an 
Psal. 48. 5. According to the Hebrew. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  aenigma; every one beholdeth the table, and few knoweth the sense of it. Notwithstanding it is a case concluded, we must take a long farewell from all things which appertain to life, that can be extended no further than life itself: and it is a case resolved that serpents and worms must be inherited in a house of darkness. It is a goodly lesson, whosoever can well learn it. To know it well once, it must every day be studied. Nothing is seen every where but watches, clocks, and dials, some of gold, some of silver, and others enchased with precious stones. They advertise us of all the hours, but that which should be our last: and since they cannot strike that hour, we must make it sound in our conscience. At the very instant when you read this, a thousand and a thousand perhaps of souls unloosened from the body, are presented before the Tribunal of God, what would you do if you were presently to bear them company? There is but one word: Timely despise 
Diordorus apud S. Maximum serm. Omnia ista contemnito, quibus solutus corpore non indigebis. 12. What followeth death Apoc. 14 Tertul. de anima. c. 53. Hug. l. 4. de anima.  in your body the things of which you shall have no need out of your body.  
XII. Your soul shall go out, and of all the attendants of life shall have none but good and bad by her sides. If she be surprised in mortal sin, hell shall be her share; hell, the great lake of the anger of God; hell, the common sewer of all the ordures of the world; hell, the store-house of eternal fire; hell, a depth without bottom, where there is no evil but we may expect, nor good which may be hoped.  
Behold the twelve considerations which this most worthy man used to direct himself in the course of a virtuous life; and they so far had prevailed upon his soul, that he resolved after he had finished certain works which he then had in hand, to distribute all his goods among the poor, and go barefoot through the cities, towns, and villages, carrying a Crucifix in his hand, to preach the cross & the blessings of the other life, employing his whole talon which God had given him to his service. But death prevented him.   

The seventh SECTION. Twelve Maxims of Wisdom, which arise from the twelve precedent Considerations.  
FRom these Considerations twelve goodly Maxims 
Often examine your life by these maxims.  of wisdom arise, greatly necessary for any who would enjoy true happiness.  
I. The first is, to give to every thing its estimation, 
1. Could value.  since the beginning of our unhappiness proceedeth from a false value which we set upon creatures. It marvellously importeth to estimate every thing according to its worth. That good man Epictetus, said 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  more than one would think, when he gave this advice: My friend if thou lovest a pot, remember thyself to be a pot. For want of the knowledge of the price of what we love, we put God under the Altar, and vice above, to allow it the best part of the incense.  
II. For this cause it is necessary daily to endeavour 
2. Light of mind in the choice. Osee. 12. Balance of Chanaan.  to enfranchize ourselves from the opinions of the world, and to use, not the balance of wicked Chanaan, of whom the Scripture saith, Chanaan in manu ejus statera dolosa, but the balance of Jesus Christ, which is the Cross. There we ought to weigh the pleasing and the profitable, good and evil, sour and sweet, time and eternity, and to proportion our judgements, resolutions, designs, actions, proceed, to this great balance which cannot deceive us. And as we are exteriorly to resist this torrent of popular opinions, so we interiorly have our passions which we must necessarily extirpate, that we may give a judgement upon every thing with full liberty, otherwise they cast chaff into our eyes, and so blind us  
III. To live here as a pilgrim of the world, disarrayed 
3. To live a pilgrim.  of all: To esteem nothing our own but ourselves. All that which maketh us defy, quarrel, contest, accuse God and man, is, that we have thought ourselves to be proprietaries of those things of which we have but only the use. We must (saith Epictetus') take all the blessings and honours of the 
Epict. Encheri. l. c. 12.  world as a passenger, who going out of a ship, gathers cockleshells upon the sand, yet ever hath his eye upon the ship to which he is engaged. Saint Chrysostom maketh such account of this maxim, that he saith, There is but one virtue in the world that causeth all other virtues, which is, to carry one's self as a pilgrim of this world, and a Citizen of Paradise.  
iv To have a very good opinion of the providence 
4. Opinion of providence. Non fecit & abiit.  of God, who covereth as it were under the shadow of his royal mantle, all creatures. S. Augustine saith, that God hath not made the world, afterward to leave it, like a Carabin who hath shot off his pistol. He governeth and descendeth it, as the good nurse who driveth away the wasp from her infant's face whilst it securely sleepeth. He yieldeth himself accountable for all the hairs on our head. And dost thou 
Aug. hom. 14. tom. 10. pag. 103. Times ergo ne pereas, cujus capillus non peribit? Si sic tua custodiantur superflua, in quanta securitate est amima tua? Non perit capillus quem cum tondetur non sentis, & perit anima per quam sentis?  then (saith S. Augustine) fear to perish, confiding in God? One hair taken from thy head without thy knowledge or feeling, shall not perish; and shall thy soul be destroyed which is the root of all thy thoughts, and of all thy understandings? If God so preserve thy superfluities, what will he do to thy treasures? Trust with confidence in the providence of God, if you desire always to live content. If your life be a feast, the Divine providence is the salt which seasoneth it. If that be a pilgrimage, this is the staff. If that be a night, this is the break of day. If you will fight, it is a steely buckler. If you sleep, it is a bed of repose. Our life is composed of three shadows, which are time past, time present, and the future. Will you have a good share in them all? said that admirable Emperor Mar●us Aurelius: Dispose time passed to forgetfulness, 
Marc. Aurel. Anton. l. 2. de vita sua.  the present to sanctity and justice, the future to providence.  
V To know the ways of this sacred providence, we must take heed not to be too wise, like some arrogant 
5. To fly evil innovation.  and scattered spirits, who boast to wander and alienate themselves from the way which all Saints have held, and searching out new paths, find every where illusions and precipices. All these lovers of innovation and proper judgement, are Pharaoh's Counselors, who have drunk in the cup of giddiness.  
There is likewise found a little book of Apothegms, 
Interrogare sapientem dimidia sapientia est. Homo sapiens est quamdiu quaerit sapientiam: ubi putatse ad ejus culmen pervenisse, desipit. 6. An assured butt.  translated out of Arabic into Latin by Drusus, which hath these remarkable words: To consult with the wise, is to be already half wife. A man is wise so long as he seeketh wisdom, but when he supposeth he hath throughly attained it, than he becometh a fool.  
VI To have an assured scope to aim at, not only in general, which is to seek in all things the greatest glory of God, and ones own salvation, but also in particular to make and propose to yourself a regular and well-pondered course of life. Some have so many affairs that they have not leisure either to live or die, others have nothing to do, and are perpetually wandering, and as it were looking for the key of their house, and never entering into it. We 
Vacation.  must take in hand some employment and moderate retirement, therein following the inspiration of God, an intention pure to live in the place which shall be most proper for us, to unite ourselves to him according to our capacity, following withal the consultation which we ought to make with our own natural constitution, the direction of those who know and govern us, provided they be disinteressed from their own passions. It is a business of no small importance to have good success herein. Some find without thinking thereof, conditions which seem made to their nature, as the nest of the Halcyon is fit to his body. Others, for that they have made a false step, are enforced to by't the bridle all their life time, if by patience they do not correct the defects of their carriage. Above all things it is convenient here to purify your intentions, and if you must be embarked in the Court life, not to come thither as a Jannisary or a Mamaluck, to make a fortune, and do nothing else.  
VII. To embrace a true and solid piety, such as 
7. Solid piety.  our Forefathers have consigned over to us in all simplicity, and such as the Church instructeth us. Not to plaster nor disguise it for the accommodation of these petty ends: Such a practice is a great abomination, and cannot in conclusion avoid dreadful and dangerous accidents. You must serve God interiorly with great sincerity of heart, and most pure thoughts of his Majesty; exteriorly applying 
Synesius de regul. ad Arcad. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  yourself to ordinary services and ceremonies with most sincere freedom, without superstitions, scruples, vanities, presumptions, singularities. Behold (saith Synesius) the basis of the estate and total greatness of man.  
VIII. To frame to yourself a soul which is in a certain temper of integrity, consisting in well 
8. Honesty.  following the light of nature, and the touch of Heaven, which teacheth us we must do to another all that which we would have others to do unto us, and not to offer to another what we dislike in ourselves. Behold the roadway of honesty, which whosoever forsaketh to become crafty, ever byassing to his pretended advantages, shall in the end of his account, find himself deceived. That great forementioned Emperor Antoninus saith, the wisdom of man consisteth in three points: well to behave 
Antonin. l. 5. de vita sua.  himself towards God, which is done by Religion; with himself, which is done by mortification of his passions; and with men, which is effected by sparing and tolerating them, every where doing good, and after he hath done good, to have his ears prepared to hear evil.  
IX. To govern his desires within the limits of his 
9 Government of pretensions.  capacity and modesty. It is a great note of folly to attempt all things, and do nothing; to be turmoiled with the present, and to have always the throat of an enraged concupiscence gaping after the time to come; to be vexed with himself, and not to be of power to repose within himself; to make the steps of honour the degrees of his ruin; to raise a fortune like a huge Colossus, to make it fall upon his 
Senec. ep. ●●. Contemnere omnia quivis potest, omnia habere nem●.  own shoulders, and to leave no other witnesses of his greatness, but the prints of his fall. It is a thing very difficult to have much, and impossible to have all, but it is so easy a matter to despise all, that it consisteth in nothing but in a bare refusal.  
X. To procure such an equality of spirit, so even 
10. Tranquillity.  so regular, that he scarcely feel the approach of happiness, and when it is lost, not to make any show of it. To behold the good of another as his own, and his own as another man's. To hold riches and honours as a river that glideth to day for you, to morrow for another. It is the nature thereof always to run gently; what wrong doth it to us? When prosperity laugheth on you, look back upon adversity which cometh in the rear, and remember you have seen tall ships lost in the harbour, even as it were in jest. S. Augustine pleased to repeat that verse of Virgil: Mene sali placidi vultum, fluctusque quietos 
August. ep. 113. & alibi.  Ignorare jubes? desirous thereby to signify to us, that we should no more confide in the prosperities of the world, than to a still sea, which in his overgreat calm ofttimes presageth the near approaching tempest. Brave and valorous Captains heretofore made a Sacrifice to war in the midst of peace, and in the midst of war dressed Altars to Peace; to declare that in good, we should live in distrust of ill, and in evil, in hope of good, but in both the one and the other ever in equality. This verily is one of the masterpieces of wisdom, which God imparteth to spirits greatly resigned, and who have passed through the most thin and slender searces.  
XI. To behave one's self prudently in all kind of 
11. Discretion in affairs.  occasions, to examine the tenants and utmost bounds, the original, progress, end. Never to judge, till you have seen the bottom of the business, and therein to carry yourself so, that if success cannot wait on your desires, you may not justly accuse either any crooked intention, or want of discretion. We are masters of our wills, but God hath reserved to himself the command over events.  
XII. To be always ready to departed from hence 
12. Meditation of death.  cheerfully, when death shall sound the retreat. Saint Chrysostom saith finely: This life is a nest framed of straw 
Chrys. hom. 2. in epist. Pauli ad Coloss.  and mortar: we are the little birds, shall we putrify in the stench of this filthy nest? If devotion hath made us wings, why are we slothful? Let us bravely mount and take that flight which our Eagle tracked out unto us in the day of his Ascension. Remember, the quintessence of all wisdom is the meditation of death. It is a business we should learn all our life time to exercise it once. The faults therein committed are irreparable, and the loss without recovery. This consisteth in three things, resignation, dis-engagement, and union. As for resignation be not too faint-hearted, nor suffer yourself to be called upon to pay a debt, which so many millions of men have discharged before you, and which so many millions shall likewise pay after you: show to those who visit you, patience in your sickness, resolution at your last hour, and not to desire any thing but spiritual assistances.  
As for your departure, go out of the world as the chicken out of the shell.  
I. Dispose of your temporal goods in time by making a just, clear, and perspicuous will. 2. Restore the goods of another. 3. Pay your debts as far as you can. 4. Lay open your affairs. 5. Give pious legacies, to charge the Altars of mercy with the last victims, 6. Reconcile yourself, and above all things beware you carry not with you too much confidence and inordinate affection into the other world 7. Take order for the education of your children. 8. Dispose of offices, if you have any, with an upright conscience. 9 Forget not the labours of your poor servants. After this disengagement draw the curtain betwixt yourself and all creatures. By a good confession unite yourself to your Creator, by the sacred viaticum, extreme unction, by acts of faith, hope, and charity, by good suffrages of the Church, good admonitions, good purposes, good remembrances of the death of our Saviour, yielding your soul up upon a Crucifix, as a child who sleepeth on the breast of his nurse.   

The eigthth SECTION. The Practice of Devotion and Prayer.  
ONe of the shortest ways to gain wisdom is to be devout. Devotion is as it were the flame and lightening-flash of charity: and it is properly a prompt and affectionate vivacity in 
Voluntas qu●dam prompta tradendi se ad ea quae pertinent ad Dei famulatum. S. Th. 2. 2. quaest. 82. S. Dionys. de divin. nomin. cap. 3. Prayer in mount Tabor  things which concern the service of God. It principally shineth in prayer and in the exercise of the works of mercy. Prayer, as saith the great Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, is as it were a chain of silver, which from heaven hangeth downward to draw man up from earth, and unite him to God. It is the mount Tabor, where an admirable transfiguration is made of the soul into God: It is the spirit which speaketh to God, which poureth itself on God; in conclusion it is coloured by God, even as jacob's ewes did denote their burden to be of 
Genes. 30.  the same colour of which those wands were that they steadfastly beheld. It is it which the Apostle pleased to say, Beholding the glory of God, we are transfigured 
Corinth. 2. 3. Gloriam Domini speculantes in eandem imaginem transformamur, à claritate in claritatem tanquam à Domini spiritu.  into the same image from brightness to brightness, as by the spirit of God. Prayer is the conduit of grace. It is (as very well S. Ephraim hath said) The standard of our warfare, the conservation of our peace, the bridle of our impatience, the guardian of temperance, the seal of virginity, the advocate of offenders, the consolation of the afflicted, the sepulture of the dying. For the just are buried in prayer as the Phoenix 
Praise of prayer.  in perfumes. Prayer doth all. A Christian without prayer is a Bee without sting, who will neither make honey nor wax. It is to little purpose to propose unto you the mysteries of faith and the maxims of Christian wisdom, if you use not meditation to ruminate them. It is as meat cast into a stomach without digestion, which will do more hurt than good, not of its own nature, but by your indisposition which is bad. From hence proceed the desolations of the earth. From hence are derived so many falls, so many miseries, for that men apply not themselves to taste the things of God in prayer.  
That which ought to incite us to this exercise, is, 
Necessity of prayer.  first the necessity, which is so great, that in matter of spiritual life, it is as requisite to pray, as in the animal to breath. We are choked with flesh and fat 
O● meum aperui & attraxi spiritum.  and the flames of concupiscence, unless we upon all occasions open our mouths to take the gentle air of God.  
Secondly, the pleasures we therein take, in process of time, is verily that which the prophet Isaiah calleth Sabbatum delicatum, the delicate Sabbath. As 
Isaiah 58. Sabbatum delicatum. Pleasure. Sola, prima, ac luminosissima veritas cibus est nostri intellectus. Sola prima inundantissimáque bonitas cibus nostri nobilis ac sublimis affectus. Perfection of the soul. Albert. de virtut. c. 37.  much as to say, the delicious repose of the soul. The corporal eye (as saith the learned Prelate William of Paris) maketh its repast upon the beauty of the fields, the flowers, the heavens, the stars, and on all the objects which are found in this universe. But the eye of contemplation by the means of prayer nourisheth itself with the excellency of God and the perfections of Jesus.  
Thirdly, the purity and perfection of the soul, which is derived from this exercise, aught to serve us as a special spur. There it is (saith Albertus Magnus) where we carry our mouths even to the source and wellspring of virtue. There it is where God is known, and knowing him that we love him, and in loving him we search him, in searching him we take pains, and in taking pains we find him.  
In the fourth place, we have the example of our 
Pernoctans in oratione Dei. Luc. 6. 12.  Saviour who for our instruction spent the nights in prayer, the example of the Apostles and all Saints, who have practised and recommended this exercise to us.   

The ninth SECTION. The necessity of Confession.  
MEn resemble snails, every one carrieth his own house with him, a house wholly replenished with darkness, although it ever seem lightsome: A house, which hath neither door nor window, though therein be a thousand witnesses which see all that passeth with as many eyes as heaven hath stars: A house composed of labyrinths, yet cannot the Host hid himself in it: A house whereinto the sun peepeth not, and yet may even the very lest atoms be seen: A house, wherein there are perpetual plead, yet never any issue of process but with issue of life. Finally, a house which hath two faces altogether different, the one called hell, the other Paradise. In a word, this house whereof I speak, is the conscience. It is full of darkness, for the thoughts 
Nullus molestior oculus cuique suo. Bern. l. ●5. de confiderat.  of men are involved in such a cloud of obscurity, that neither the devils nor Angels themselves see any thing therein, yet is it lightsome, for ever the eye of proper conscience reflecteth thereon. There is no door nor window, for all is very close shut up; yet do a thousand witnesses fix their eyes thereon, for the conscience alone is called a thousand-witnesses. It is composed of labyrinths, for there are all flexibilities and subtle mazes: in this labyrinth the host 
Putásne Deus è vicino ego sum & non Deus de long? Hierem. 23.  cannot hid himself; for it is ever day-pierced by the eye of God, before whom neither the abyss nor hell itself hath darkness enough to hid it. The sun peepeth not in there, for in effect its light which displayeth all the objects of the world before our eyes, cannot discover the simplest of our thoughts; yet may the very least atoms be seen, for there is not any thing so subtle which can free itself from the eyes of God. They perpetually plead there; for every moment 
Aula Sathanae, hortus deliciarum, & aureum reclinatorium. Bernard. de interiori domo. Ambr. in illud rerela Domino viam tuam.  the conscience challengeth us even upon the least sins, and the issue of the process concludeth not but with the end of life, because at that very hour the decisive sentence of our eternity is given.  
In fine, this house hath two faces, whereof the one is called hell, to wit the evil conscience, and the other Paradise, that is the good and innocent, which we cannot throughly settle in this great corruption of the heart of man but by a good confession.  
Too much shade hurteth seeds which begin to 
Idem.  grow, darkness dulls them, and the eye of the sun serves them as a father. Assure yourself the buds of virtue hold the same course, there must be day to bring them into the light, and he who will hid his life, shall lose all the fruit he may hope thereof. 
Bernard. de interiori domo. cap. 37.  Confession is the price of our immortality, the city of refuge given us by God: but if it be once ill managed it is not a confession, but a double confusion, for feigned misery excludeth true mercy, nor did ever presumption well accord with pity.  
Among the most especial exercises of devotion are confession, communion, meditation, spiritual lection, and the fruit we derive from the word of God. Concerning the practice of confession we will only speak with much brevity thereof, for at this present there are great store of books which teach this method. Hear a true observation made by Saint 
August. tract. 12. in Joan.  Augustine, That the beginning of our good works, is the accusation of our evil. If you desire utterly to forsake the animal life to submit to the spiritual, put in the forefront a good general confession. 
Gulielm. Paris. de Sacrament Poenitent. l. 12. Matth. 17.  Confession (saith S. Ambrose) is the price of our immortality: It is the tribute of Heaven, signified by the piece of coin which S. Peter found in the mouth of a fish.  
Necessity seems to require it, for the reasons which 
General confession the beginning of spiritual life.  follow. First, how many sins are left by the way, how many by culpable ignorance, sometimes through fear, and shame, and other reprehensible manner? Secondly, what invalidities and nullities of confession may happen, now by the defect of the Priest, who perhaps hath not sufficient jurisdiction, sometime through your own indisposition, who neither will have sorrow nor good purpose of amendment, and sometime for other circumstances? Thirdly, who 
It's utility.  seethe not that the foundation of a life truly Christian, is humility? And we know not how better to attain this virtue, than by representing to ourselves, no longer by piece-meal, but wholly in gross, the youth, follies, the slackness, negligences, infidelities, and impurities of our passed life. All that coming to pour itself upon our consideration, like a great squadron, necessarily stirreth in us a great confusion and dolour for our ingratitude. In the fourth place, we ordinarily see those who duly make this act, unfolded and delivered in all its particulars, do come as it were out of the furnace, sparkling with radiant brightness, to form a life absolutely new. You therein observe a conscience most ●urious, intentions better rectified, actions more purified, a promptness better awakened for the service of God, a modesty more regular in prosperity, a heart more elevated in adversity, a more generous contempt of the world. Briefly although one should reap but this only good which is the peace and tranquillity of conscience, it would always be a matter marvellously recommendable. And we know by experience, many consciences tormented with divers remorses and scruples, have after a general confession, found themselves wholly pacified, and have begun to breathe a more benign air of the mercies of God. To proceed therein, it is good well to sound your heart aforehand, 
The manner.  and to cescend into the knowledge of yourself, which is a work of no small importance.   

The tenth SECTION. The Practice of Confession.  
THe heart of man is a little abyss which seemeth 
Heart of man Pravian cor hominis & inscrutabile. Hier. 17.  neither to have bounds, bottom, nor shore. It is malicious and inscrutable, said the Prophet. The Hebrew readeth in the same place, that it is a supplanter, who escapeth from us like an eel, when we think to hold it, and oftentimes it overthroweth us. The great S. Macarius assureth us it is 
Macar. hom. 43.  a little vessel, but full of caverns, labyrinths, precipices, lions, serpents, and other venomous beasts. Moreover self-love, which oftentimes like a wicked 
Knowledge of ones self very hard.  watchman placeth himself at the gate of our heart, will not suffer truth to approach. It maketh him think, it is too crude, dry, austere, old, wrinkled to be presented to such a Prince. In the mean time it relateth all things to the heart to its own advantage, 
Self-love.  and entertaineth it with a thousand curiosities of conceits. It maketh all vices to be beheld therein in full proportion, and virtue in eclipse.  
This admitted, necessarily the assistance of God is to be implored in a very particular manner, to obtain the knowledge of ourselves, and to labour therein courageously and stoutly without flattering ourselves. God threateneth in the Prophet, he will lay a heavy correction upon us, leaving us to ourselves. 
Psal. 49. Arguam te, & statuam contra faciem tuam.  It seemeth we now have our heads turned backward, never to know what passeth in our hearts. But God in the day of judgement will turn it before, and, if we take not very good heed, to our confusion. S. Augustine triumpheth upon this passage: 
August. in Psal. 49. Quae post dorsum posuisti ante faciem ponam: videbis foeditatem tuam non ut corrigas, sedut erubescae. Tolle te à tergo tuo, & constitue te ante te.  That which thou hast put behind thee, I will place before thine eyes. Thou shalt see thy impurities, not to correct them, but to confound thee. Turn thy face, go behind thyself, and set thyself before thyself.  
The manner will be after an humble and serious invocation of the Holy Ghost, to call to mind all your life, according to the course and progress of ages, remembering yourself of the places where you have made abode, the persons with whom you have conversed, the affairs which you have handled, the sins to which you have been most inclined, and which most afflict your conscience. Observing also (if it be possible) the number of those which are most heinous, which if it cannot be done, do not search them out with pensiveness and anxiety.  
The order which ought to be observed, is, to run 
Multa D. Th. opusc. 64. de medo confitendi & puritate conscientiae.  through the law or the ten Commandments of God, and those of the Church, taking every one in his place. As upon the first Commandment, to examine the sins of infidelity, of contempt of holy things, of impiety, forceries, divinations, magic, dreams, superstitions, distrusts of the mercy of God, presumptions of one's own ability, languishment, coldness hypocrisies, impurities, sacrileges in the service of God; speaking distinctly upon every word, wherein and how I by what motive and to what purpose.  
II. Upon the second, unnecessary oaths, false oaths, blasphemies, execrations, profanation of things sacred and words of Scripture.  
III. Upon the third, the exercise of labour, traffic, of civil and criminal justice, and other works forbidden on Sundays.  
The irreverence committed on this great day, in neglecting to hear the whole Mass, or some notable part thereof, and employing all your time in excess of tongue, dances, masks, follies, sensualities.  
iv Upon the fourth, contempt, hatred, distaste, ingratitude, irreverence, disobedience towards father and mother, kindred, and Superiors: Neglect towards your subjects, vassals, and houshold-servants.  
V Upon the fifth, the clamours, enmities, quarrels, violences, faithlesness, injustices, oppressions, poison, abortions, slaughters, malice, outrages, cruelties committed against your neighbour. The ill usage of your own person, by perplexity, despair, or impatient desire of death.  
VI Upon the sixth, fornications, adulteries, incests, whoredoms, ravishments, secret marriages, sacrileges, self-softnesses, pollutions, ill use of marriage, and other infamous luxuries, which Tertullian termeth monsters. Add all that which attendeth on wantonness, as dishonest thoughts, unchaste words, lascivious glance, kisses, touches, books, pictures, comedies, love-letters, dance, masks, too free conversations with evident danger of sin, and sometime charms, love-potions, or other attractives, characters, and witchcrafts.  
VII. Upon the seventh, thefts, pilferies, robberies, connivance with thiefs, falsification of instruments, of letters, seals, wills, contracts, schedules, obligations, false purchases, false buy, false sales, false coins, deceits, defraudations, surprises, usurpations of the goods of the Church, simonies, usuries, delays of reasonable payments, injustices, litigious wranglings, excessive expenses, foul play in game, cruelties toward the poor, and such like things.  
VIII. Upon the eighth, false witnesses and solicitations thereof, calumnies, defamatory libels, lies, impostures, hypocrisies, dissimulations, flatteries, treasons, confusion of your neighbour.  
IX. Upon the ninth, erterprises and designs contrary to marriage, by seducing the parties with words, signs, gestures, letters, gifts, attractions, with deliberate purpose and unbridled desire of sin.  
X. Upon the tenth, disordinate thirst of riches, principally to the prejudice of your neighbour.  
Upon the commandments of the Church, the omissions of Mass, or notable negligences and distractions in hearing it on feasts commanded. The sin against abstinence from meats and fasts appointed; against the use of Sacraments of confession and communion; against the observation of times fit for marriage, against faith and sincerity in the payment of tithes.  
Amongst the sins against the law of God and ordinances of the Church are comprehended the seven sins, which we call mortal and capital. As against the first Commandment, the sin of pride, in the great opinion of yourself, the obstinacy in your own judgement and will, the disobedience to Superiors, the ambition of honours, vanities, vaunts, follies. The sin of sloth, in slackness, ill expense of time, negligence, remissness of courage, pusillanimity. The sin of gluttony, in making a god of ones belly. The sin of avarice upon the seventh. The sin of wrath and envy upon the fifth. The sin of luxury upon the sixth. Behold an abundance of matter to be examined in a general confession. All is proposed which may have happened. I do not say that we must rest upon every point scrupulously, to search into that which never hath been, and (as they say) shave an egg. Every one ought more particularly to descend into 
Particular sins.  the vices of his own nature and profession; as Lords and Gentlemen to examine the sins of pride, tyranny, curiosity, delights, in looking after their pleasures more than the profit of the public, in exacting things not due, in usurping the pains, goods, sweat, blood of vassals, and, being men, to have served themselves with men in all prodigality. In neglecting the keeping of peace and justice, the duty, charges, and reparation of places to which they stand obliged. In giving estates, offices, benefices, to vicious and uncapable persons. In violating ecclesiastical rites. In notably damnifying, for the pleasures of hunting and hawking, the fields and possessions of others. In stopping the course of justice by favour. In vexing, tormenting, imprisonning, condemning through passion, without lawful proof. In overlashing, in ambition, lust, bragging, excessive expenses and such like things.  
Judges and Magistrates, of ignorance, malice, negligences, as being intruded into their places without capacity, by favour and money. In behaving themselves carelessly, without serious study of that which is their profession. In not sound, seriously, and solidly examining processes, but contenting themselves with superficial notice. In giving sentence for money and favour, and many times against men unheard, without order or form of justice. In going out of the circuit of their jurisdiction, to encroach upon the authority of others. In bearing themselves with passion in affairs. In entertaining bad officers, in prolonging processes by cautelous references or affected laziness. In soliciting the wife and daughter, who plead upon promise of favour. In exercising on festival days acts of judicature without necessity. In neglecting the government and weal-public, for the accommodation of his own affairs. In tollerating scandalous sins against the honour of God.  
Women, about their pomps, curiosities, excesses, 
Practise of ordinary confession.  dissolutions in apparel and dress, pride, fierceness, boldness, impatience, quarrels, loves, jealousies, court, idleness, and so of the rest.  
For those who often confess in ordinary confessions, it sufficeth to examine their thoughts, words, deeds, omissions. Of thoughts, some are burdensome, 
Thoughts of four sorts.  some affected, some bitter, some vain. The burdensome, as those which proceed against faith and honesty, to persons who much are alienated from ill affections; and such thoughts ought rather to be despised than examined. The affected, as those of complacence, of curiosity, of our own commodity, and of some passion a little exorbitant towards creatures. The bitter, as those of suspicions, jealousies, disdains, aversions, choler. The vain, as those which are brought forth at all moments in the childishness of a scattered uncollected heart, and fly therein as birds do in the air. It is as impossible as unnecessary to take an account of them. It is sufficient to confess in general, and to declare the habitudes and dispositions of his heart.  
Words are the interpreters of our soul, and the 
Words the chariot of the soul.  chariots which carry our senses and affections: Some carry rice, others honey, the rest vinegar. They carry rice, who are over-joyous, recreative, impertinent, idle, facetious. They carry honey, who have petty affectations, courtships, lies, exaggerations, complacences, flatteries, soothe, boastings. And they bear vinegar, who are somewhat rude, fierce, disdainful, biting, riotous, and ill-spoken.  
Deeds concern God, your neighbour, and your 
Works.  self. For that which appertaineth to God, you must first accuse yourself of defects in the exercises of devotion, as prayer, vocal, mental, meditation, examen, spiritual reading, the Sacraments. For that which appertaineth to your neighbour and yourself, you have four horses in the chariot of imperfection, which transport many of your actions, to wit, vanity, impatience, curiosity, negligence.  
Vanity intrudeth itself into all parts, saith Cassianus: into apparel, going, speech, into watch, prayers, into abstinencies and fasts. It combateth in the midst of virtues, to triumph over virtues. It presenteth itself as well to the victorious, as to the assailant. Impatience, in so many contentions and encounters with your neighbour, and if one have no other adversary he struggleth with himself. Curiosity, in too much seeking his own commodities and ease of body. Negligences in offices, in managing of affairs and charges: omissions, as of good resolved purposes of prayer, and laudable actions, which one ought to do either by justice, or by charity, or by vow, or by rule, or by promise, or necessity. One may upon this choose seven or eight imperfections which most molest him, to be therein short.  
Behold as it were the matter of Confessions. For the form to unfold one's self, no man should make strange, if some for the comfort of their memory, having run over the abridgement and summary of matter of Confession, do make an extract of that which concerneth them, principally in general Confessions. The wisest of the Roman Emperors, Augustus, was so considerate, that treating upon some affairs with his wife, he spoke to her by writing, to avoid mistaking. Can a man take too much consideration in an affair of so great importance, which passeth with God?  
When the principal points are marked out, they must be explicated in intelligible terms. There are 
Three sorts of consciences.  some large consciences who have nothing to say, some scrupulous, who desire to say all, and some reasonable, who proceed therein with mediocrity. To say he is a great sinner, that he hath broken all the branches of mortal sins, that he hath not served God so well as he should, and that if he have done such or such a thing, he asketh pardon, that is to say nothing. You must specify and descend to particulars, propose the act, deliver it with lawful and necessary circumstances, touch the motive without extravagancies, and the intention which hath excited us to do it, and continuance of the sin, to represent the state of the soul to the life. Yet for all this you must not so much think upon this preparation nor the means to unfold yourself, that thereby the principal part of penance be neglected, which is contrition.  
This contrition is a sorrow to have offended God, 
Contrition.  not principally for the deformity of sin, and the fear of punishment (for that is nothing but attrition) but for that this sin is committed against God, infinitely good, and infinitely amiable; and for that one maketh a firm resolution to be confessed, and to preserve himself from sin in time to come. Behold the point of contrition, which to attain you must seriously and advisedly represent to yourself the greatness, goodness, power, wisdom, justice, love, mercy, benefits of God; opposed to your malice, weakness, 
Hostility of sin.  baseness, ignorance, presumption, misery, ingratitude, and well figure to yourself the hostility of mortal sin, to obtain an eternal detestation against it. To consider how it ruineth riches, honours, credit, reputation, posterity, and Empires. That it soileth the glory of an innocent life, and leaveth a character of infamy. That it overthroweth bodies, health, good grace; that it openeth the gates of sudden and unexpected death. That it maketh man blind, dumb, deaf, wicked, senseless, stupid, savage, and many times furious and enraged by the remorse of conscience. That it dispoileth a soul of all the graces, beauties, excellencies, privileges, love, favour of God, hope of life and salvation. That it killeth it, and rendeth it more cruelly than a tiger or panther. That a life of God was needful to take away such a blemish, and that if a soul be spotted at the hour of death, an eternity of flames cannot deliver it, and such like.  
In sins which seem least, you shall always have great cause of contrition, when the benefits of God shall be represented unto you, which he particularly and personally hath conferred upon us, opposed to our childishness of heart, tepidity, slackness, infidelity, negligence, ingratitude. As for the proceeding 
Proceeding in confession.  to confession, the preparatives being well made, it is needful to choose a Confessor who hath four qualities, jurisdiction, reputation, knowledge, discretion, and after you have confessed to him entirely, faithfully, sincerely, to accomplish the penance enjoined you with obedience, promptness, and punctual diligence, afterward to take a new spirit, to resist temptations, and to busy yourself in good works with more courage than ever.   

The eleventh SECTION. The Practice of Examen.  
THe practice of Confession is made more easy 
Necessity of examen.  by the examen of conscience, as well general as particular. Think not too much is required of your profession, if there be speech used to you of the examen of conscience. Not only the Philosophers have made it, as Pythagoras, Seneca, Plutarch, but poor barbarous Indians, by the relation of Apuleius, took an account every evening of the good and evil they had done each day. This is it, which is required of you. Prepare daily a little Consistory of justice in your conscience; see what passeth within yourself, acknowledge your defects, and amend them to prevent the justice of God.  
It is said the eclipse of the Sun causeth the earthquake: and the eclipse of reason by ignorance of the interior man produceth great disorders in the 
Culielm. Pari●iens. c. 12. Sacro poenite. In hoc Tribunali sedet misericordia, assidet autem justitia, ubi quicquid contra poenitentem inscribit justitia, totum delet misericordia, acumen styli velut ●igens in cord poenitentis.  soul. For the wicked spirit (saith Procopius) upon the first of Kings, endeavoureth to use us as did the Ammonites the inhabitants of Jabes: They seek to pull out our right eye, and to bereave us of the sight of ourselves, to bury us in great and deep confusions. But let us make use of all the lights which God hath given us, to cast reflections into the bottom of our thoughts. The conscience is an admirable Tribunal, where Justice pleadeth and Mercy sentenceth. All that which the me writes, the other blotteth out, putting as it were the point of the pen upon the heart of the penitent.  
A good Interpreter of the Scripture relateth the 
Delrio ser. de Conscientia.  vision of a wise man, who on a day sought for the house of conscience, and it seemed to him he beheld a City built with goodly architecture, beautified with five gates, which had as many narrow paths ending in one larger way. Upon this way stood a Register, who took the names of all passengers to record them. Beyond that he saw two Tribunes, attended by a great concourse of the common people, who governed the inferior parts of the City: above was beheld a Citadel, wherein a great Princess commanded, who had a sceptre in hand and crown on her head.  
By her side was a Lady very ancient and venerable, who in one hand held a torch with which she lighted this Queen, and in the other a goad wherewith she pricked her, if she governed not according to her direction.  
The wise man amazed, asked in his heart what all this train meant, and he heard a voice within, which said unto him: Behold thyself ere thou art ware, arrived at the house of conscience, which thou ●oughtest for. These five gates thou seest are the five senses. The way where they all meet is common sense: All the people which enter in by heaps, are the objects of the creatures of the world, which first touch our senses before they pass into the soul. This Register who writeth down the names, is imagination, that keeps record of all things: These two Tribunes are the two appetites, the one is called the appetite of concupiscence, which is ever in search after its desires, the other the appetite of anger, extremely striving to strike at all obstacles which oppose its good, either real or pretended: This mass of people thou seest, are the passions, which make ill work in the inferior parts of the City: This Princess in the Citadel with crown and sceptre, is reason: The ancient and venerable Lady by her side, is conscience: She hath a torch to show the good way, and the goad to prick those that wander: In a word, if 
Dictamen rationis, spiritus corrector, & paedagogus animae. S. Thom. 1. p. q. 79.  thou desirest to know what conscience is, it is a sovereign notice of good and ill, which God impresseth on our hearts as with a hot iron, and is very hard to be taken off.  
Happy he who often visiteth this interior house God hath given him, and pondereth all his thoughts, his words, and actions, to adopt them to the measures of the eternal law.  
You know a general examen hath five parts: 
Parts.  Thanksgiving, invocation, discussion, petition, resolution. In thanksgiving, we thank God principally for the benefits received that day. In invocation the light of heaven is required to know our sins, and amend them. In discussion an account is asked of our soul, running through the hours of the day, of thoughts, words, works, and omissions. In petition pardon of our sins is implored. In the upshot of all, good purposes are made to correct one's self by the assistance of grace. If you think to live in such purity, that you may find nothing more to examine, it is for want of light or application of mind. Know there are six things ever to busy the most perfect in their examen.  
The first, to ponder the roots of our defects, errors, 
Six things in examen to employ the most perfect.  imperfections. The second, to see the remedies which may be given thereunto. The third, to distinguish true and solid virtues from those which are no other than virtues in appearance. The fourth, to pick out in all our works the intentions and motives which transport us, and what the affections are which at that time govern our soul. The fifth, to see what wanteth of perfection in good works which we do, and how they may be performed with the most accomplishment. The sixth, to compare our gains, our losses, our increase, our decrease in matter of virtue.  
A particular examen is made, when one undertaketh 
Particular examen.  to wrestle with one vice alone, and to extirpate one sole imperfection. For he that will sometime strike at them in gross, resembleth the soldier of Sertorius, 
Plutar. in Sertor.  who tugged at a horse's tail, by strength of arm to pull it quite away: Another more wise pulled it off hair after hair, and so prevailed. The like happeneth in our vices and defects. He must pull them away by little threads, who will effectually correct them. Wherefore, one riseth in the morning with a thought not to fall that day into such an imperfection, and to oppose it in every place, as some enemy which one would vanquish. After dinner retiring himself apart, he doth three things. The first, to ask an account of his soul of the relapses which have been made into this imperfection. The second, to note the number, making so many pricks with a pen. The third, to purpose to arm himself for the rest of the day. After supper the like exercise is made, and so one findeth out from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, what profit is made. There is no imperfection so deeply rooted which is not pulled away by the grace of God, you remaining in the constancy of such an exercise.   

The twelfth SECTION. The practice of Communion.  
ALl those who dispose themselves to a life more Christian, know they have not a means more wholesome nor effectual to acquire and preserve the grace of God, than the Sacrament of the Altar, and for this cause it is fit both often and duly to have access thereunto. But a beautiful looking-glass 
Communion without preparation, what it is.  in a golden frame in the house of a blind man; an excellent lute in the chamber of the deaf; a goodly diamond in a truss of straw; a honeycomb in the throat of a dead lion, what availeth all this? The blind man seethe not, the deaf heareth not, the diamond sparkleth not, the honeycomb nourisheth not. And what profiteth likewise the blessed Sacrament in a faint, languishing, and indisposed soul? Imagine according to that which the learned 
Eucharist the foundation of Paradise.  Rupertus saith, that the Blessed Sacrament is the fountain of terrestrial Paradise, which watereth the whole Church with its delicious refresh.  
All the faithful draw from thence, but all come 
Three sorts of hearts.  not with the same disposition. Some bring thither a heart of paper, that is to say, a childish heart which padleth in the water and no whit profiteth. Others, a heart like a sieve, that lets all go through, and retaineth nothing but a little moisture. The rest a heart of a sponge, which is abundantly replenished with the favours and mercies of God. If you desire to communicate fruitfully, make a present to your celestial spouse (who is pleased to feed among lilies) of a lily of six leaves. There are six remarkable qualities 
Lily with six leaves to communicate  which must be had to accomplish this exercise. Two before communicating, desire and purity: Two in communicating, humility and charity: Two after communicating, thanksgiving and renovation of the inward man by the oath of fidelity.  
You must then endeavour from the eve of the day 
Desire.  you are to receive, to make a furnace of desires in your heart, that so you may say with the Prophet Jeremy: I feel in my heart a burning fire, which fixeth 
Jer. 20. Factus est i●▪ cord meo quasi ignis exaestuans claususque in ossibus meis, & defeci ferre non sustinens.  itself even in my bones, and the violence thereof is such that I cannot bear it. Let us go to this sacred table as the thirsty Hart to the stream of waters, as an hungry creature to a feast, as the bridegroom to the wedding a thousand times desired, as the covetous to a ours of gold, as the conqueror to spoils. Is not there matter sufficient to serve as a spur to your desires, since there is our beginning, our origin, our treasure, our sovereign good?  
The mother of young Toby sighing said: My son, 
Tob. 10. Omnia simul in te uno habentes non debuimus demittere te.  all our treasures, our riches, our honours, our contentments, our delights were in thy person, and therefore we ought never to be separated from thee. But it is verily in this subject, we have true cause to speak these words. All is in the sacred Eucharist; the body, the blood, the soul, the life, the humanity, the divinity of 
Greatness of the Eucharist.  Jesus Christ, all that which he hath derived from the Eternal Father, all that which he hath taken from our nature, he yieldeth us in this blessed Sacrament, and doth as the be who robbeth the flowers of his Master's garden, to restore all again in honey. All the perfections which our Lord hath conferred on his own Person, are seasoned to us in this high and majestical mystery, as in a honeycomb. It is an extension of the Incarnation of the Son of God: He was once hypostatically united to one sole man, but here he is united to all men as oftentimes as they receive him by a visceral transfusion of himself, as one should melt one piece of wax within another (as saith S. Cyril.) And then who would not desire such an union of a Saviour so merciful with a sinner so miserable? of a sovereign Physician with a sick man so remediless? of a King so powerful with a vassal so wretched? of a Father so benign with a son so refractory? May we not well say, that they which taste not this celestial viand have their relishes much dulled with the leeks and onions of Egypt? May we not affirm that they lead no other life but of a mushroom? Ought we not all the night before to make our hearts sparkle in good desires and jaculatory prayers, when we go to the bed of our celestial bridegroom.  
Endeavour then to awaken and cherish your desire with a thousand aspirations and elevations of heart, and have always in your mouth some good words, which may be the pledges and earnest-penies of your intentions. Behold the first leaf of the lily.  
The second is called purity. I speak not of that 
Second leaf of the lily, purity.  which concerneth the purging of mortal sins by confession, which is wholly necessary, and cannot be omitted without sacrilege; I speak of purity more subtle and fine, which consisteth in faith, affections, and intentions. You ought first to have a singular 
What ought to be the faith of a good communicants.  faith, and a most worthy and serious understanding of the mystery, not only in believing what the Church teacheth us of this Sacrament, either of the reality of the precious body of our Saviour, or of transubstantiation; but to believe it sincerely, clearly, firmly, without curiosity, restriction, or hesitation; not as those who convinced, and as it were confounded with reason, do in some sort believe, and upon the least occasion repent in their faithless heart what they have believed, & make to themselves a faith floating and racking up and down, like clouds under the breath of the winds. When you go to receive the Blessed Sacrament, you must do as Abraham did in his Sacrifice, hold the bondmen and ass, which are your senses, at the foot of the hill, and let your will and understanding ascend, lightened with the torch of faith, even to the height, to sink itself down into those resplendent nights of the wisdom of Heaven.  
For purity of intention, which is the character of 
Intention.  our actions, I would have nothing side-ways nor bearing upon any bias: I will not that you communicate for some humane respect, some civil decency, or to please those whose favour you desire, nor for some trifling vanity, and sometimes hypocrisy, or other ends and aims which are far estranged from the ways of God. You must communicate with intention to unite yourself to God your beginning, to whiten and gild yourself with his sights, to enkindle yourself the more in his love, to retain the memory of that Sacrifice which he offered on mount Calvarie, that is to say, of his most venerable passion; to appease the anger of God for as many sins as are committed; to implore the assistance of Heaven for the necessities of the Church, as well for the living as dead; to obtain for yourself and persons of whom mention is made, some victory over temptations, some new virtues, some temporal grace, in as much as shall concern the spiritual state. Briefly, for thanksgiving for the benefits which we receive from his Divine Majesty, both in general and particular.  
Purity of affections consisteth principally in two 
Purity of affection.  points: To banish from your heart all animosities, revenges, quarrels, punctillioes, and readily to reconcile yourself before you come to the Altar: The other is to free yourself, not only from affections dishonest and unlawful, but also a little exorbitant, which one may have to any creature whatsoever. It is convenient your heart be then as a chrystal-vial filled with clear water, wherein the least moat of uncleanness may be seen. It is to put Adonis in the 
Adonis in the crib of Bethleem.  crib of Bethleem (which heretofore the infidels did) when we communicate still retaining impure passions with a deliberate purpose.  
Germanus Patriarch of Constantinople in his Theory 
Germ. Patriarch. in Theoriâ.  saith the pixe, which is the vessel and restingplace where the Blessed Sacrament is put, is called Ciborium, as one would say the Ark of lights, to teach us that at the only sight of this Sacrament, we must dispel all thoughts of darkness which have possessed our soul. And for the better obtaining this purity, it is good to practise some devotions in the eve of receiving, as mortification of tongue by retirement and silence, as abstinence, or some other exercise of humility or work of mercy. When the day cometh, 
Exod. 5. What ought to be done on the day of Communion.  run to this heavenly Manna in the morning: Amuse not yourself too much in decking and accommodating your body, nor in scattering and disordering your mind in vain cares and sollicitudes, but keep the vessel of your heart as a well stopped pot, to pour it out at the table of your spouse. It is at the instant of receiving that you must imitate the Seraphins of 
Third and fourth leaf of the lily. Imitation of Seraphins. Isaiah 6.  the Prophet Isaiah, to hold all your wings still but only two, which are humility and charity: These are the two wings on which you ought to poise yourself at your pleasure. First, grounding all in reverence before the eyes of this ineffable Majesty, abasing yourself even to the centre of your nothing, treading under foot all presumptions, vanities, follies, by a most perfect humility of spirit. Secondly, to 
Moving wings.  stir up lively and ardent affections with all the endeavour of your heart, and if that suffice not, offer all to God in the union of his only Son, and merits of the most Blessed Virgin Mary.  
To cherish the affections of these holy virtues, you must have your prayers, meditations, and considerations upon the Blessed Sacrament well prepared and digested with variety, that you may still hold your devotion in breath, as: 
Exod. 3. Considerations for Communion. Moses before the burning bush. Solve calceamentum de pedibus tuis, locus in quo stas terra sanctaest. Reg. 44. The Hostess of E●izeus.   
I. To represent Moses in the bush burning, seized with a holy fire, who heard these words: Put off thy shoes, take away thy sensual affections, the land here is holy; yea it is the Holy of Holies: This is the noble fire which inflameth Angels in heaven and pure souls on earth, which is enchased within the species of the Sacrament. What ought you then to do?  
II. To represent unto yourself that your soul is as the Hostess of the Prophet Elizeus, the good Shunamite, who prepareth her heart as a lodging for the King of Prophets, thanksgiving as a table, humility for a seat, and charity for a candle lighted.  
III. To represent to yourself that it is a Ruth, 
Ruth. 2. 8, 9 Vnde mihi hoc u● invenirem gratiam ante o●ulos tuos? & ●osse me dig●areris peregrinam mulie●em?  who accounted it a great favour to be esteemed by Booz and to have leave to glean in the fields after his harvest men, and acknowledging with gratitude so small a benefit, she said with her face prostrated on the earth: From whence cometh this favour which I have gained in your presence? From whence proceedeth that you deign to know me who am but a poor foreigner? What ought you to say?  
iv That it is as the humble Esther before Ahasuerus, 
Esther. 7. 3. Quae est petitio tua, Esther, ut ●etur tibi? Et quid vis fieri▪ Etiamsi dimidiam partem regni mei petieris, impetrabis.  and that it kisseth the golden rod, and moreover that it understandeth these words: What is thy demand, Esther? Tell me, to the end it may be granted. Whae wouldst thou have me do? If thou askest me the moiety of my Kingdom, thou shalt have it. Answer, you would have nothing but the King, and that he alone sufficeth you.  
V That it is as Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, 
Mephibosheth 2 Reg. 9 Et tu comedes panem in mensâ meâ semper. Quis ego sum servus tuus, quoniam respexisti super me, canem mortuum? 1 Reg. 1. Jonathan.  to whom David spoke these words: My meaning is, you shall eat at my table all the days of your life. What answered this little son of the King thereupon? Alas, Sir, who am I your poor servant that you please to cast your eye upon me, a dead dog, such as I am?  
VI That it is as Jonathan, who extremely tired, dipped the end of a wand which he carried in his hand into an honeycomb, and lifting it to his lips, at that instant behold his eyes, before heavy and oppressed, became clear again, and his body reassumed new and fresh vigour. There needeth but a little consideration to a well composed spirit, both to cast it presently down by humility into the centre of nothing, and to raise it by love even above the imperial Heaven. One may likewise every time he receiveth, 
Other considerations.  prepare divers meditations to entertain himself more at large, either before or after the mystery.  
I. As meditation upon the history, considering 1. The eating of the lamb. 2. The washing of feet. 3. The institution of the Blessed Sacrament.  
II. The names, as Eucharist, Communion, Sacrifice, Bread, Viaticum, and other such like, practising yourself to search out the reason of every one, with application of spirit, to derive from thence things agreeable to the name which one meditateth: As upon the name of Communion, the resolution of peace, concord, and charity.  
III. The figures, as the bread and wine of Melchisedech, the Paschal Lamb, Manna, the bread of Elias, meditating upon the histories and conformities which they have with this Divine mystery, and the fruits we ought to draw from thence.  
iv The causes of the institution. 1. As to serve us for a memory of the Passion. 2. An incitement of love and charity. 3. For spiritual nourishment. 4. For Sacrifice. 5▪ For a pledge of beatitude, considering whether we answer to the intention of the Son of God in this action. After receiving you must rest upon the two last leaves of the lily, which are thanksgiving, 
Fifth and sixth leaf of the lily. What you are to do after Communion.  and renovation of spirit. You than must adore this great guest whom you have in your heart, with all the powers of Heaven and creatures of the earth, to play your part as if you were a little string of the great harp of the world. To offer to God the whole world as a votive-table hanged on his altar, collected in the perfections of his only Son, who is wholly yours, being so freely given to you, so solemnly, so irrevocably, as he whose Divinity, soul, life, flesh, and blood you have in this incomprehensible Sacrament. To give him thanks for the infinite riches he hath placed in this sacred humanity which you enjoy, and for that he hath given you his Son for father, brother, Master, Leader, Redeemer; for the good he communicateth to all faithful people by the means of this inexhaustible fountain of grace, for the special favours he hath done to you and yours, for the natural talents with which he hath adorned you, and likewise for the various change of comforrs and discomforts with which he hath interlaced your life. Briefly, for the present visit which he hath made in the house of your heart, so ill prepared.  
After adoration and thanksgiving, followeth petition for the faithful and unfaithful, whose conversion we desire: For the Church and all the Prelates which govern it, namely him whom he hath appointed to be our Pastor: For the person of the King and all the Realm: For his kindred, friends, benefactors living and dead. To ask for yourself seven gifts, which a holy Virgin (by the relation of S. Bonaventure) daily begged of God. 1. Effectual grace 
Bonavent. 1. 6. med. c. 3.  to accomplish the law of love. 2. To love all that God loveth. 3. To hate all he hateth. 4. Humility, chastity, obedience, contempt of the world, garnishment of all virtues: 5. That God would make his true Temple of our soul and body. 6. That he would give us his vision in beatitude. 7. That he may be divinely served in this place where you receive the Blessed Sacrament, and in all the other parts of Christendom. To conclude, to make in the end a renewing of the oath of fidelity, which we have sworn to our great Master, and to employ our time in his service with more diligence than ever: and since we are upon the palmtree, let us gather the 
Fruits of Communion.  fruits, which are spiritual food, strength against temptations, heavenly alacrity, light of understanding, flames of charity, union with God, augmentation of virtues, hope of glory, renovation in all our faculties and functions, and namely let us often stay upon some particular object of virtue, which we would ask of our guest in favour of this celestial visitation.   

The thirteenth SECTION. 
* Parcè haec & in transcursis tantian delibet Lector, ut Canis è Nilo.  The practice to hear Mass.  
TO hear Mass is verily one of the most serious actions of all spiritual life. Had one all the understanding and reverence of Angels to be present thereat, it would never be enough. Saint Dyonies the Areopagite saith, that exactly to discharge 
Dyonis. de Eccle. Hierarch. c. 6. Vspue ad extramas imagines. An excellent saying of S. Bonaventure. Cum fueris tous alteratus, t & divinus effectum, ita ut nihil videas nisi Deum, tunc accede.  this duty we must purify our heart, Usque ad extremas imagines, so dispoiling it, that it may be free from all imaginations and humane representations: and that is it which Saint Bonaventure hath more clearly expressed, principally speaking of Priests who celebrate: That the time when they ought to approach, is, when they feel themselves wholly changed and become divine, in such sort that they behold not any thing but God. Philo the Bishop addeth, that the Sacrificers are as the ivory neck of the spouse, which must serve as a channel for the Holy Ghost to make his graces distil upon the rest of the members that are present at this Sacrifice.  
The first practice and most ordinary to hear Mass for those who understand the words there spoken, is, to follow them with application of spirit, and to accompany the silence of the Priest with some meditations or vocal prayers.  
The second is, to stay one's self upon the signification of all the parts of the Mass: As at the Confiteor, to represent to yourself man banished from Paradise, miserable, suppliant, confessing, deploring his sin. At the Introite, the inflamed desires of all mankind expecting the Messiah. At the Hymn of Angels, Glory be to God on high, the Nativity. At the Prayers, thanksgiving for such a benefit. At the Epistle, the preaching of the Praecursour S. John. At the Gospel, truth preached by the Saviour of the world, and so of the rest.  
The third is, to divide the Mass into certain parcels; and behold a very considerable manner. Represent to yourself five great things in the mystery of the Mass, from whence you ought to draw so many fruits. These five things are, representation, praise, Sacrifice, instruction, nourishment.  
Representation, because the Mass is a perfect image 
Five notable things in the mystery of the Mass. Radicati & superaedificati in ipso. Col. 2. c.  of the life and passion of our Saviour, and therefore the first fruit you ought to gather from thence, is, daily to imprint more lively in your heart the actions and passions of the Son of God, to conform yourself thereunto.  
Praise. So many words as are in the Mass aim at this purpose, to give praise unto God for this ineffable mystery of our redemption; and to conform yourself to this action, you ought to bend all the endeavour of your heart to praise God, whether it be by vocal or mental prayer.  
Sacrifice. It is a most singular act of Religion, by which we reverence and adore God for the infinite glory of his sovereign Being. And the Mass is a 
Mass a Sacrifice.  true Sacrifice by eminency, where the life and blood of beasts is not offered, but the life of a Saviour, which is more worth than the life of all Angels and men. Cedrenus recounteth that the Emperor Justinian 
Cedrens. in Compen. hist. Wonder of Justinian.  caused an Altar to be made in the Church of Saint Sophia, wherein he used all sorts of metal, of precious stones, of the richest materials which might be chosen out amongst all the magazines of nature, to incorporate all the beauties of the world in onesole masterpiece. And verily this Sacrifice is the prime work of God, in which he hath as it were locked up all that which is great or holy in all the mysteries of our Religion. It was the custom daily to proportion the Sacrifices to the benefits of God. When in the old law he gave the fat of the earth, they offered the first-fruits to him: But now that he hath granted to us the dew of Heaven so long expected, his only Son, we must render to him his Son again, which is done in the Sacrifice of the Mass. And the fruit you should derive from this consideration, is, at the elevation of the host, to offer Jesus Christ to God his Father by the ministry of the Priest, and to offer it. First, for a supreme and incomparable honour of the Divine Majesty. Secondly, for thanksgiving for all benefits received and to be received. Thirdly, to obtain protection, direction, and prosperity in all your works. Besides offer up all your powers, faculties, functions, actions in the union of the merits of Jesus.  
Instruction. Those who understand the words of 
Instruction. 4. of Mass.  the Mass, may draw goodly instructions from reading the Epistle, the Gospel, the Collects. All in general teach us the virtues of honour and reverence towards the Divine Majesty, seeing this Sacrifice is celebrated with so many holy, sacred, and profoundly dutiful ceremonies. Of gratitude, since God being once offered in the bloody Sacrifice of the Cross, will also be daily presented to God his Father, in the title of gratitude: And that ought to awaken in us the memory of observing every benefit of God, with some remarkable act of devotion: Of Charity towards our common Saviour, and towards our neighbour, since we see a life of God spent for our redemption, and all faithful people.  
Nourishment. The eye liveth by light and colours, 
Nourishment. 5.  the Bee by dew, the Phoenix by the most thin and subtle vapours; and the soul of the faithful by the nourishment which it receiveth in the Blessed Sacrament, which is purely spiritual. This nourishment is not only derived from the Sacramental Communion, 
Spiritual Communion.  by the real presence of the body of our Saviour, but also by the spiritual Communion which is made, when in the Sacrifice of the Mass, at the time of the Priest his communicating the same dispositions, apprehensions, and affections are entertained, as if really and actually one did receive. For this purpose it is fit to do three things. First, to excite anew in yourself the acts of self-dislike, and contrition for your wretchedness and imperfections. The second, to take spiritually the carbuncle of the Altar, not with the pincers of the Seraphin, but with acts of a most lively faith, a most resolved hope, and a charity most ardent, to open boldly the mouth of your heart, and pray our Saviour to enter in, as truly by the communication of his graces and favours (which are the rays of this Sun) as by the real imparting of his body and blood, he gives himself to those that communicate. The third, to conclude all your actions with a most hearty thanksgiving.   

The fourteenth SECTION. Practise of Meditation.  
OF four worlds which are the Architype, Intelligible, Celestial, and Elementary, prayer imitateth the most perfect, being a true image of the oeconomy of the holy Trinity, which according to the maxims of Divines cannot pray to any (having no Superior) yet affordeth a model for all prayers: For prayer, as saith Tertullian, is composed of reason, words, and spirit: Of reason, as we may interpret by the relation it hath to the Father: of words, as it is referred to the Word; of spirit, by the the direction it hath to the third Person. Now this principally agreeth with meditation. For it is that divine silence & delicious ravishment of the soul which uniteth man to God, and finite essence to Infinite.  
It is that plenitude and that tear spoken of in Exodus, according to an ancient translation: Plenitude, 
Exod. 22. 29.  because it replenisheth the soul with the splendour of consolations and sources, which distil from the Paradise of God: Tear, yea tear of myrrh, because it distilleth under the eyes of God, as doth the tree which beareth myrrh under the rays of the Sun. It is a wonderful thing to behold this little shrub, which doth not perpetually expect to be cut with iron, that it may drop forth its pleasing liquor, but the Sun reflecting on the branches thereof, becomes as it were a midwife, and maketh it bring forth what is sought after; which caused an excellent wit to say, that it drew life out of its blows, and made a dug of its wounds.  
Oh happy soul that resembleth this generous plant, and which  with pious desires, holy affections, and sincere intentions, produceth apprehensions and works a thousand times more precious than myrrh, when in the meditation the rays of Jesus Christ (who is the true Sun of justice) strikes the heart!  
The practice of prayer consisteth in mental, vocal, 
Necessity and easiness of meditation.  and mixed. Mental is that which is exercised in the heart; vocal which is form in the mouth; mixed participateth of both. Think it not to be a new thing not severed from your profession, to meditate. It were so if one would make your brain serve as a lymbeck for subtle and extravagant raptures, disguised in new words and forms. But when one speaketh of meditation, he adviseth you to ponder and ruminate the points and maxims which concern your salvation, with all sweetness, that fruit most agreeable to your condition may be derived from thence. The faintness, weakness, infidelity, ignorance, dryness, which reigneth in your souls, cometh from no other source, but the want of consideration. Take this worthy exercise courageously in hand, and you shall feel your heart fattened with the unction of the Holy Ghost, and your soul of a wilderness to become a little Paradise of God. Be not affrighted hereat, as if it were a thing impossible for you: use a little method, and you shall find nothing more easy and familiar. What have you so natural in vital life as to breathe? And what more proper in the intellectual than to think? Your soul hath no other operation, for night and day it is employed in this exercise. The Sun casteth forth beams, and our soul thoughts. Gather together only those wandering thoughts which are scattered amongst so many objects into your centre, which is God: Employ one part of the spitit, industry, invention, discourse, which you are endowed withal for the managing of worldly affairs: Employ them I say in the work of your salvation, and you shall do wonders.  
I undertake not here to raise you above the earth, nor in the beginning to plunge you into the seven degrees of contemplation, whereof S. Bonaventure speaketh in the treatise he composed thereof: I speak not to you of fire, unction, ecstasy, speculation, taste, of 
What you must understand to meditate well.  repose, or glory, but I speak that in few words which you may read more at large in the works of so many worthy men, who have written upon that subject. First know what meditation is, secondly how it is ordered.  
Meditation properly is a prayer of the heart, by 
Definition of meditation.  which we humbly, attentively, and affectionately seek the truth which concerns our salvation, thereby to guide us to the exercise of Christian virtues. That you may meditate well, you must know the causes, degrees, matter, and form of meditation. The 
Causes.  principal cause thereof is God, who infuseth himself into our soul, to frame a good thought, as the Sun doth upon the earth to produce a flower. It is a goodly thing to have the spirit subtle and fruitful. It is to work without the Sun (saith Origen) to think to do any thing here without the grace of the Holy Ghost.  
The first degree which leadeth to good and serious prayer, is a good life, and principally purity of heart, tranquillity of spirit, desire to make yourself an inward man. Saint Augustine reciteth a saying of Porphyrius very remarkable, which he deriveth 
Aug. l. 9 de civet. Dei. c. 23. Deus omnium Pater nullius indiget, sed nobis est benè cum cum adramus, ipsam vitam, prec●m ad cum sacientes, p●r inquisitionem & imitationem de ipse.  from the mouth of this perfidious man, as one should pull a thing stolen out of a thief's coffer: God the Creator and Father of this whole Universe, hath no need of our service, but it is our good to serve him and adore him, making of our life a perpetual prayer, by a diligent enquiry of his perfections and imitation of his virtues. Observe then, the first degree of good prayer is good life.  
The second (as well this Author hath noted) is the perquisition, to wit, the search of verities by thinking on the things meditated, which are the sundry considerations suggested to us by the spirit, in the exercise of meditation.  
The third is the affection which springeth from these considerations: Our understanding is the steel, and our will the flint: As soon as they touch one another we see the sparks of holy affections to fly out. We must bray together the matters of prayer as Aromatic spices with the discussion of our understanding, before we can extract good odours.  
The fourth is the imitation and fruit of things we meditate on. It is the mark at which our thoughts should aim, otherwise if one should pretend nothing else but a vain business of the mind, it would be to as much purpose to drive away butterflies, as to meditate. Good meditation and good action ought to be entertained as two sisters, holding one another by the robe.  
As for the matter of meditation, you must know 
Matter of meditation.  that all meditations are drawn from three books. The first and most inferior is the book of the great 
Three books of meditation  world, where one studieth to come by knowledge of the creature to the Creator. The second is the book of the little world, where man studieth himself, his beginning, his end, qualities, habits, faculties, actions, functions and the rest.  
The third is the book of the Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ our Saviour, who verily is a guilded book, limmed with the rays of the Divinity, imprinted with all the characters of sanctity, and from thence an infinity of matter is drawn, as those of benefits, of four last things, of the life, death, and passion of Jesus, and of all the other mysteries. You must digest every one in his time, according to the opportunity, taste, and capacity of those who meditate. Some appropriate meditations to every day of the week, others make their circuit according to the month, others follow the order of the mysteries and life of our Saviour, as they are couched in so many books written of these matters.  
The practice and form of meditation consisteth in six things. The first, to divide the subject you would 
Practise and form contained in six articles.  meditate on into certain points, according to the appointment of some Director, or the help of a book: Article. 1 As if you meditate upon the knowledge of ones self, to take for the first point, what man is by nature. For the second, what he is by sin. For the third, what he may be by grace.  
The second, a little before the hour appointed for Article. 2 meditation, to call into memory the points which you would meditate on.  
The third, after you have implored the light and Article. 3 assistance of the holy Ghost, that he would be pleased to direct this act to his glory, and that you have framed to yourself a lively thought of the presence of God, and that actually you may meditate to select the points and articles proposed, sweetly, attentively, affectionately: and not to want matter for every point, it is good to weigh the causes, the effects, the tenants, and utmost limits of the mystery we meditate on.  
As in the first point of the knowledge of yourself, 
Seven ways to dilate one's self in meditating in abundance upon sundry thoughts contained in this third article.  What man is according to nature? A reasonable creature, intelligent, capable of the knowledge of God. Who made it? God himself: He would that his Divine hands (saith S. Basil) should serve him as a womb. What are the essential parts thereof? A soul, a body, an understanding, a memory, a will. What are the accidentals? A general mass of so many little parcels, as have their names and entertainments. O the powerful hand which hath composed such a masterpiece! Where was it made? In the earth, and not in Heaven, to teach him humility. And to what end made? To praise God and serve him, and to save himself in praising and serving him. Who hath concurred to its creation? God. Hath he made use of Angels? No: He would attribute the honour of such a work to himself. And how did he make it? He was not content with one single word, as in the creation of the world, but he put his hand thereto, to show it was a more supreme effect of his power. And when did he make him? After other creatures, to prepare the world for him, as a cradle, as a Temple, as a Hall to banquet in, and such like things. You see these circumstances, who, what, where, what help, wherefore, when, and how, in every subject of what kind soever will lead you along.  
The second manner to dilate yourself when you meditate history, is, to represent the divers persons with their words, actions, and passions. As in the mystery of the Resurrection. The soldiers shivering for fear, the Person of our Saviour all enlightened with splendour, saying: Courage, I have overcome, all power is given to me in Heaven and earth; I come to wipe away your tears, to make your faces bright-shining, to put you into possession of an eternal felicity, and such like things. On the other side Magdalene who seeketh her Master, and not content to behold the Angels, speaketh these words, which Origen prompteth her: All these goodly comforters 
Onerosi sunt mihi omnes consolatores, quaero Creatorem, & ideò mihi gravis est ad videndum omnis creatura. Ego non quaero Angelos sed etam qui secit me & Angelos.  are burdensome to me: I seek the Creator, and therefore I cannot see any creature without anxiety. I seek not Angels, but him who hath made both me and Angels.  
The third to represent things to yourself by certain images, figures, and similitudes: as Hermas cited in the Bibliothec of the Fathers, who meditating on the joy of worldlings, imagined to himself a delicious meadow, enamelled all over with flowers, where certain fat and plump sheep cropped the grass, and skipped to and fro with many jumps in the delights thereof: And in an instant this meadow became vast, plain, dry, lean, parched, and barren, and the same sheep appeared starven, scabby, and full of botches, a rude surly shepherd driving them to feed among thorns and brambles. Afterward he applied all that to the voluptuous, and made to himself a perfect representation of their life, to avoid their unhappiness.  
The fourth, to extend yourself by comparing of one thing to another, as did Saint Gregory Nazianzen, 
S. Gregory in his Hymns.  meditating upon the love of God. Tell me confidently (O my soul) what thou desirest? for I will please thee. Thou wouldst perhaps have Gyges his enchanted ring to gain a kingdom. Thou wouldst have all that which is in thy hand changed into gold (the desire of the fabulous Midas.) Thou wouldst covet palaces stuffed with gold and silver; rich possessions, curiosities, boundless honours. Poor distracted man, dost thou not see thy God is all that, and above all that, and incomparably more than that? Thy God is the true riches, the true glory, the true repose, without him all thy blessings would be curses, and with him all thy afflictions may be turned into felicities.  
The fifth, to make sometimes a dialogue, God, and the intellectual creatures, sensible, & insensible interchangeably speaking, as did S. Aug. meditating upon 
Aug. Solil. 31 Circuibam omnia quaerens te, & propter omnia derelinquens me. Interrogavi terram, si esset Deus, & dixit mihi quòd non. Tu quis es? unde hoc tale animal, Domine Deus meus, unde nisi ●●u?  the perfections of God. He went wheeling round about the world, and asked in heaven, in earth, sea, and depths, addressing himself to every one in particular, Are you God? And these creatures answered, No, those have lied who deified us. And after he had run all over the world, he entereth into himself, and saith to himself: Who art thou? From whence cometh this creature (my Lord and my God) from whence, but from thee? By these ladder-steps he mounteth to the knowledge of his Creator, and plungeth himself in the abysses.  
The sixth, to make sometimes a gradation ascending from degree to degree, as in meditating on these words of S. John: God so loved the world that he 
Joann. 3. Sic Deus dilexit mundum, ut filium suum unigenitum daret.  gave his onely-begotten Son. If God should only appoint a bird to bring the news of thy salvation, would it not seem to thee to deserve many thanks? But what if a reasonable creature? What if a man endowed with all manner of excellencies? What if an Angel? What if an Archangel, a cherubin, a Seraphin? What if all the angels and all the blessed spirits? But all these in comparison of his Son are but as a little drop of water to the vast Ocean. And he hath given thee his Son. O prodigy! O superabundance of love!  
The seventh, easy and fruitful, is, to ponder that which you meditate on with application to yourself, attentively considering the actions and words of our Saviour to form ours. To examine carefully your deportments, and see how oftentimes they wander from this rule of perfection; to repeal them, to square them, to levelly them as much as you can, according to the model which is set before your eyes.  
After the discussion of every point, the lights follow 
4 Article of the manner of meditation.  in the fourth place, which are maxims and conclusions drawn from the discourse we have made. As if we have meditated upon the knowledge of ourselves, to derive this fruit from thence: That we have nothing of ourselves, but ignorance, weakness, 
Lights.  vanity, misery. That we are wholly Gods. That it is a sacrilege to live for ourselves. That we cannot have a worse Master than our own liberty and scope, and such like things.  
In the fifth place come the affections, which are Article. 5 flaming transportations of the will, bend to pursue 
Affections.  and embrace the good it acknowledgeth, as when S. Augustine having meditated upon the knowledge 
Aug. Solil. 11. Serò te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua, & tam nova: Serò te amavi, & tu intus eras & ego foris, & ibi te quaerebam: & in istâ forniosa quae fecisti ego deformis irruebam.  of God, broke forth into these words: Alas! I have begun very late to love thee; a beauty ever ancient, a a beauty ever new. Too late have I begun. Thou wert within, and I sought for thee without, and have cast myself with such violence upon these created beauties, without knowledge of the Creator, to defile and deform myself daily more and more. To this it much availeth to have by heart many versicles of the most pathetical Psalms, which serve as jaculatory prayers, and as it were inflamed arrows, to aim directly at the proposed mark.  
For conclusion you have colloquies, which are reverend Article. 6 and amorous discourses with God, by which 
Colloquies.  we ask of him to fly the evil, or follow the good discovered in the meditation. And of all that which I say, discussion, light, affection, a colloquy may be made upon every point, but more particularly at the end of the prayer. And note, in every prayer, especially in colloquies, you must make acts of the praise of God, in adoring him with all the Heavenly host, and highly advancing his greatness and excellencies. Of thanksgiving, in thanking him for all benefits in general, but particularly for these most eminent in the subject we meditate. Of petition, in ask some grace or favour. Of obsecration, in begging it by the force of holy things and agreeable to the Divine Majesty. Of oblation, in offering your soul, body, works, words, affections, and intentions; afterward shutting all up with the Pater Noster.  
Behold briefly the practice of meditation. If you 
Another manner of meditation more plain & profitable.  yet desire one more plain, more facile, and greatly profitable, often practise this same. As the true meditation of a good man is (according to the Prophet) the law of God, and the knowledge of ones self, meditate the summary of your belief; as sometimes the Creed of the Apostles, sometimes the Pater noster, sometimes the Commandments of God, sometimes the deadly sins, sometimes upon the powers of your soul, and sometimes your five natural senses. The manner shall be thus. After you have chosen a place and time proper, and a little sounded the retreat in your heart from temporal affairs.  
First, invoke the grace of God to obtain light and knowledge upon the subject you are to meditate.  
Secondly, if it be the Creed, run over every Article briefly one after another, considering three things, what you ought to believe of this Article, what you ought to hope, what you ought to love: How you hitherto have believed it, hoped it, loved it: How you ought more firmly to believe it hereafter, to hope for it more confidently, to love it more ardently.  
It if be the Pater Noster, meditate upon every petition, what you ask of God, the manner how you ask it, and the disposition you afford to obtain it. If the Commandments of God; what every Commandment meaneth, how you have kept them, and the course you will presently hold, the better to observe them. If the powers of your soul and five senses; the great gift of God, which is to have a good understanding, a good will, a happy memory; to have the organs of eyes, ears, and all the senses well disposed for their several functions. How you have hitherto employed all these endowments, and how you will use them in time to come.  
Thirdly, you shall make oblation of all that you are to God, and shall conclude with the Pater Noster and Ave Maria. Another manner very sweet for 
Another way  those who are much affected to holy Scripture, is mixed prayer, consisting in three things.  
The first, to make prayer to obtain of God grace and direction in this action, as it hath been said above.  
The second, to take the words of holy Scripture, as a Psalm, a text of S. John, S. Paul, and such like things; to pronounce it affectionately, pondering and ruminating the signification of each word, and resting thereon with sweetness, while our spirit furnisheth us with variety of considerations.  
The third, to make some resolution upon all these good considerations, to practise them in such and such actions of virtue. Lastly, to end the meditation with some vocal prayer.   

The fifteenth SECTION. Practise of vocal prayer, spiritual lection, and the word of God.  
THe practice of vocal prayer consisteth in 
Practise of vocal prayer three ways.  three things; to observe whom we should pray unto, what we ought to pray for, and how to pray. For the first, we know what the Church teacheth us, how next unto the Majesty of the most Blessed Trinity, incomparably raised above all creatures, 
* Praemonitus, praemunitus.  
To whom to pray.  we pray to the Angels and Saints, who are as it were the rays of this great and incomprehensible Sun, from whom all glory reflecteth. Above all creatures we reverence the most holy Mother of 
Praise of the Blessed Virgin.  God, who hath been as a burning mirror, in the which all the beams of the Divinity are united. Origen calleth her the treasure of the Trinity: Methodius, the living Altar: Saint Ignatius, a Celestial prodigy: Saint Cyril, the Founderess of the Church: Saint Fulgentius, the Repairer of mankind: Proclus of Cyzike, the Paradise of the second Adam, the shop of the great Union of two natures: Saint Bernard, the Firmament above all firmaments: Andrew of Crete, the image of the first Architype, and the Epitome of the incomprehensible excellencies of God.  
All that may be said redoundeth to the glory of the workman who made her, and advanced her with so many preeminences; yea that alone affordeth us a singular confidence in her protection. The devotion towards this common Advocate of mankind is so sweet, so sensible, so full of consolation, that a man must have no soul not to relish it. Next, we 
Angels.  honour those Angelical spirits, who enamel Heaven with their beauty, and shine as burning lamps before the Altar of this great God of hosts. We have a particular obligation to our holy Angel Guardian, whom God hath deputed to our conservation, as a Celestial Centinel that perpetually watcheth for us. We behold in Heaven with the eyes of faith, an infinite number of chosen souls, who read our necessities in the bosom of God, written with the pen of his will, and enlightened with the rays of their proper glory, who apply this knowledge to their beautified understanding. Behold the objects of our devotion. As concerning that which we ought to pray and beg for, our great Master hath abridged it for us in our Lord's Prayer, a true Epitome of the celestial 
Lord's prayer.  wisdom; as if one would comprehend all this great Universe in the round circuit of a ring. From thence it is that all prayers are derived, as all waters flow from the Ocean.  
From the union of this excellent prayer with the 
Rosary.  Angelical salutation, the Rosary is composed; a prayer as singular as familiar to the whole world, whether it be simply recited, or whether one proceed therein by the way of meditation upon the mysteries, as many pious and devout books do teach.  
We have besides this the Psalter of the Kingly 
Psalter.  Prophet, which operateth that in the Church which the Sun doth in Heaven: It illuminateth, heateth, and makes fruitful all the good desires and devotions of Christianity. Consequently there follow many well digested offices, many Collects, Litanies, Prayers, collected from holy Scriptures and Fathers. You have a plentiful treasury of them compiled by Henry Kispenvigius, able to satisfy the most curious devotions. But all is not in multitude. The Breviaries, Hours, and Manuels of devotion say enough. Those who have obligation of saying some office, ought seriously 
Government of vocal prayer.  to think of the discharge of their consciences upon this point. But you which have it not, it is reason, with the advice of your spiritual Father, you task yourselves upon some daily exercise seasoned with some variety, that every day you may repeat it with exact diligence: and moreover you have many jaculatory prayers drawn from the psalms or other books for all manner of necessities, as well spiritual as temporal, and a list of the persons as well living as dead, for whom you are to pray.  
When you have the matter digested, it remaineth 
The form.  yourself add form thereunto, a serious attention, a profound reverence, a fervent love. You must imagine with yourself, that with those holy old men of the Apocalypse, you stand before the throne of God, with a vial or cup in the one hand, (which 
Cup and harp in prayer.  is your heart replenished with holy thoughts as with odoriferous balm) and a harp in the other, which is the collection of so many notable prayers. Serve yourself well with this celestial harp. Do not as one Neanthus, who having inherited Orpheus his 
Neanthus. To use itwel.  harp, thought to do wonders, and played so ill that dogs affrighted with his untuneably skreaking noise, tate him in pieces. It is not enough you have so many holy prayers which sound like the string of God's harp, consigned to you by Jesus Christ himself and so many holy personages: you must use them well, lest you find your punishment even in the sacrifice of propitiation. Take heed you sacrifice 
To sacrifice the calf without flower.  not (as S. Gregory saith) the calf without flower, which is, to make prayer with lips without application of heart.  
Four things will greatly serve you to resist distractions 
Remedies against distractions.  and dryness which happen in prayer. The first, before prayer, and in the time of prayer, frame to yourself a lively and strong idea of the presence of God, and when any distraction occurreth, recall your thoughts into their centre, by often renewing your intentions in the beginning of every part of prayer.  
The second, not being charged with any office by obligation, make a few vocal prayers, and stay upon every word the space of a breathing fit, in the mean time pondering both the word which you pronounce and the person to whom you speak, and your baseness and unworthiness. This manner is very sovereign and available to pray.  
The third, to follow the counsel of Cassiodorus, to take this vocal prayer which you rehearse, as if it were particularly made for you, or that it originally had born the very like sprouting buds in your heart. So ought you to connaturalize it, and punctually espouse all the effections which the Author of this prayer had when the Holy Ghost did dictate it unto him. You must rejoice, bewail, hate, and love upon David's harp, as by a certain divine inspiration.  
The fourth, often to ask of God the gift of prayer, to offer him all your devotions in union with those of our Saviour, and to chastise your neglects by some voluntary satisfaction. To water and moisten your prayers, and retain them in full vigour, it is needful that as you speak to God in the exercise of prayer, he speak to you in books, and by the mouth of Preachers. Wherefore make a resolution to employ daily some part of your time in the reading of some devout book, as well that which containeth precepts as examples. Go not as it were boot-haling with an unsteaddy curiosity, which swalloweth all and ever remaineth hungry; but fix your thoughts and affections upon that which you read, in such sort that you may be imbrued and coloured with a firm tincture. Good books are as the cave 
Good books the cave of Sibylla. Spiritual reading and Sermons.  of Sibylla. Cassius Longinus saith, the inhabitants of that cave had a certain rapture of prophecy; and in often revolving the writings of Saints, the spirit of Saints is acquired.  
And as for Sermons, take heed of that canker of worldly spirits, who hear Preachers as Athenian Orators, or as one would a curious lute-player, or a Comedy in the Burgundian hostery. If he who preacheth to you have no other intention but to please you, nor you any other purpose but to soothe your own curiosity, he hath wearied his lungs, and you in the mean space have had the itch in your ears; the time will come when he shall have the worm in his heart to gnaw him, and you the tingling in your ears for your punishment. The seller and the buyer shall be paid with the coin of reprobation. Who speaketh not, and who heareth not, to do and become better, abuseth a word signed with the blood of Jesus Christ, the loss whereof is most dangerous and the account inestimable.   

The sixteenth SECTION. Of the second combat of the spiritual man against weakness.  
ALl that on which I have before very largely discoursed, serves to dissipate the darkness of ignorance, and to replenish a soul with the knowledge of God, with good maxims, good desires, and good purposes: and doubtless nothing would be found more easy and familiar than to do well, 
Temptations remoraes, of the soul.  were it not temptations come athwart us, which are the remoraes as it were and hindrances of the soul. And therefore it is necessary to frame to yourself an undoubted courage, high, and resolute, to resist with an invincible hand, and to strike at an infinite number of obstacles which present themselves in all sorts of occasions, and which bring upon our souls accesses of fire and ice; fire of concupiscence, ice of pusillanimity, to form in the end an absolute inability of virtue. This inability is vanquished by the grace of God and virtue of fortitude, which warranteth courage to undertake, and strengtheneth it to bear what reason dictateth. And 
Sufferers more courageous than undertakers.  although to undertake seem a thing very glorious, it is notwithstanding the hardest task to endure a temptation, to oppose it with unmoved foot, to wrestle with it, to trample on it, and in the end by virtue to erect trophies over it.  
Saint Thomas very judiciously yieldeth the reasons. 
S. Thom. 1. 2. q. 123.  1. Because he who is assaulted seemeth ever in worse state than he that assaulteth: for encountering he always presupposeth himself to be stronger. Now it appeareth, he who undergoeth some brave action of courage is the assailant, and he who withstandeth a temptation, is opposed, and sometimes shaken without thinking thereof; which is far more troublesome and hard, and therefore draweth after it much more resolution in case a good and generous resistance be made against it. 2. The assailant beholdeth the peril as future, and he who is tempted seethe the temptation even almost within his gates, in his heart, in his bowels. 3. The assailant often dischargeth his pistol like an harcubusier before he have leisure to know the danger, and readily retireth: The other who suffereth, burneth as with a gentle fire, and in the mean space if he be patiented, he long time stayeth with a reposed rest, yet not striking at all; which is a thing worthy of an eternal crown. The Alexanders, the Caesars, who flew like Eagles to the conquest of worlds, oftentimes yielded themselves up to the least temptation. Their strength was disguised, not real.   

The seventeenth SECTION. The arms against temptation, contained in twelve Maxims.  
THe means to resist temptations, is not to frame 
The means to resist temptations.  to yourself a spiritual insensibility which feeleth nothing: It is hard to obtain it, so sensible self-love is, and when one hath it, he rather is a stone than a man. It is not to drive away one temptation by another, and do one mischief to be freed of another. For to pursue such courses, is like washing one's self with ink. It is not to hid one from all kind of encounters, and never to do well for fear to have occasion of a combat against ill: but to resist it courageously in that sort as I will show. That great  John Picus Mirandula hath collected twelve notable maxims, the practice whereof is most profitable to enable yourself in spitual combat against impotency.  
I. Maxim. That you must be tempted, on what 
Thesal. In hoc posui sumus. Temptation our trade.  side soever it happen. It is our profession, our trade, our continual exercise. The Eagle complaineth not of her wings, nor the Nightingale of her song, nor Peacock of her tail, because it is by kind; and it is as natural for man to be tempted, as for a bird to fly, to sing, to prune her feathers. If you forsake not the way of spiritual life fearing to be tempted, and turn head to worldly contentments, hold it for an infallible verity, you therein shall be much more engaged; and which is worse, without comfort, honour, merit, or recompense: you shall leave a paper-Cross, which if you knew well how to manage, would load you no more than feathers do the bird, you will forsake it (say I) to take another, hard, uneasy, and bloody, which would invest you in the confraternity of the bad thief.  
That great Prelate of France, Sydonius Apollinaris relateth, 
Sidon. Apol. l. 2. c. 1.  that a certain man called Maximus, being arrived at the height of honour by unlawful and indirect ways, much grieved from the first day, and breathing out a great sigh, spoke these words: O Damocls, I esteem thee most happy to have been a King only 
A remarkable speech of Maximus. Foelicem te, Damocles, qui non uno longius prandio regni necessitatem toleravisti. Travel of worldlings.  the space of a dinner time. It is now a whole day that I have been so, and can no longer endure it.  
II. Remember that in the affairs of the world we fight a longer time, we travel more painfully, we reap more fruitlessly. The end of one toil is the beginning of another. In pains taking there is no hope, but ever to labour. A temporal toil draweth after it an eternity of pain.  
III. Is it not a mere folly to believe a Paradise an eternal life, a Jesus Christ, who made unto himself a ladder of the cross to ascend to the throne of his glory, and you in the mean while to be desirous to live here with arms ? To see the Master open 
Indignity of curiosity.  the way of Heaven through so many thorns, and the servant not to be willing to tread but upon flowers? To see under a head, all wasted and worn with suffering, delicate members, as one should make to a Colossus of brass, feet of flax.  
iv Were there no other fruit in temptation, but 
Greatness of temptation, conformity to jesus Christ  the conformity which we thereby have with Jesus Christ, the sovereign Wisdom, it would be highly recompensed. A brave Captain said to a soldier who died with him: Although thou hadst been unknown all thy life time, it is no small honour for thee to die this day with thy Master. And who would not hold it for a great glory to have the Son of God for Captain, for companion, for spectator, for theatre, for guerdon in all his afflictions and tribulations? Who would not account it a great dignity to be daily crucified with him? To distend his hands and arms upon the Cross, in withholding them from violences, rapines, ruins, wherewith the spirit of lying transporteth us? To fetter your feet, and hinder them from running after the unbridied desires of your heart? To make bitter your tongue in subduing the pleasures of taste? To cover your body with wounds, in suppressing the incitements of flesh by a holy mortification? To lessen yourself by the contempt of honour, according to the example of him, who being able always to walk upon the wings of Cherubins, would creep amongst us like a little worm 
Galat. 9: Ego stigmata Domini Jesu in corpore meo porto. Distrust of ones self.  of the earth? What a glory were it to say what Saint Paul said: I hear the marks of my Saviour Jesus on my body?  
V. Not to confide in humane remedies when you undertake to overcome a temptation. It is not a thing which dependeth merely upon us. It is necessary God go before, and we thereto contribute our free will. If he watch not over our heads, it will be a hard matter for us to keep centinel. No creature is so feeble as he who holdeth himself for strong, being only armed with his own confidence. Many 
Concilium Arausicanum. Multa in homine bona siunt, quae non facit homo bona: Nulla vero facit homo bona quae non Deus praesiet ut faciat homo. To stand always upon your guard. I saiah 21. 8. Super speculam Domini ego st●.  good things are done in man, which man doth not: And min doth no good, which God doth not. Who thinks to resist temptations without his help, is like him, who hasteneth to the wars, and stumbleth at the threshold of his own door. And therefore an effectual means in this battle, is to insist much on prayer, especially at the first entrance of a temptation.  
VI When you have vanquished a temptation, take very good heed you leave not your rank, and wholly slacken your courage, as if there were no more enemies to be opposed. As distrust is the mother of safety, so overmuch security is the gate of peril. If your enemy still roam up and down like a roaring lion, become you on the other side a watchful lion in the sentinels of the God of hosts.  
VII. Content not yourself only to be beaten, 
To combat your enemy.  but assail your enemy. When Satan lays a snare to entrap you, make it an instrument of merit. If he present a good work to you, which glittereth in the world, thereby to tempt you with pride, make a good work of it, and leave vanity, referring all to the greater honour of God.  
VIII. When you are in combat, fight with alacrity, as if you already were certain of victory. Turn away the eye of your consideration from what you suffer, and hold it perpetually fixed upon the reward. A great unhappiness, which maketh many to fall 
What is the cause that many yield.  headlong into temptation, is, that they have their minds so stretched and bend upon the thought of pain, they cannot abide to behold the reward which waiteth on them. When the forty Martyrs were in the frozen lake, thirty nine of them looked back upon the future crown, and one of them unhappily thought of nothing but his punishment. All of them remained victorious except this wretched creature, who soiling the glory of his patience, came out of the pool to die presently after in his infidelity. Do you not think that which comforted our Saviour on the Cross, in that bottomless abyss of calumnies and dolours, was a mirror of glory, where he saw all his sufferings in crowns? Behold the course which is to beheld. To stay a little on the present, and rest in a strong apprehension of the future: And ever to have these words of S. Paul in your heart: A short moment of our tribulation worketh in us an 
2 Cor. 4. Momentaneum & leve tribulationis nostrae, aeternum gloria pondus operatur in nobis.  eternal weight of glory. Fight then with courage, as if it were the last temptation which should assail you, and be persuaded that herein is the extent of your predestination. When you have overcome it, govern yourself like a man readily pressed to enter again into the lists, and make one victory the degree for another.  
IX. Though you be valiant, brave not danger, 
Not to tempt temptation.  tempt not temptation, casting yourself into the occasions thereof through presumption of heart. He that much affecteth hazard, in stead of finding glory therein, shall trace out his own tomb.  
X. A sovereign means to conquer temptations, is, seasonably to discover the countenances of them, to open your heart freely to your Ghostly Father, to declare your thoughts, to know them well, to consider their nature, and to see their power they have over your soul. It ordinarily happeneth what the good Epictetus saith: It is not the thing that troubleth us, it is our fantasy. How many temptations 
A sovereign means.  would be vanquished by slighting them, if one took but a little leisure to laugh at them? We make Elephants of flies, and of little dwarves who by stealth pinch us, we frame Giants. We resemble young children, who for fear of a vizard, hid themselves with tears in their nurse's bosoms: but take away the mask, and give them it to handle, and they will make sport with it. How many things seem terrible and impossible to us, which we find ridiculous and easy to overcome, if we never so little touch them with our finger? In temptations of pusillanimity, it is good to represent to yourself these false Giants as dwarves: But in that of lust, you must not despise any thing, rather lay hold of little threads, as if they would become huge cables. Both in the one and the other there is nothing to be done, but to dash these little Babylonians against the stones. Withstand beginnings, and suffer not your enemies to fortify themselves to your disadvantage.  
XI. The stone of offence and scandal to many, 
Sweetness of victory of a temptation.  is, that they lively present to their imagination the sweetness of sin, and never consider the pleasure which is derived from the victory over sin. As soon as man is plunged in the puddle thereof, behold a blushing soul, drenched in pensiveness, melancholy, and despair, whom a loathsome pleasure, which passeth away as a dream, furnisheth from a dream with a heap of scorns, sorrows, and confusions: But quite contrary, that soul which hath resisted, findeth herself content, generous, advanced, satisfied with holy comforts, which come from the Paradise of God. Few men revolve this thought, which Saint Cyprian much recommendeth: Behold why the number of the damned is very great; and yet notwithstanding doth it not seem to you very reasonable, that man, who a thousand times hath yielded to temptation, should once in his life time taste the sweetness which is in the victory over a temptation, to rejoice for ever? Many have been diverted from a great and manifest precipice, by considering these words: Well, go to: To yield to sin, what will be the end thereof? To purchase repentance at so dear a rate! To render up a renown of so many years, as a prey to a most unhappy moment of pleasure! Where is the faith promised to God? Let us at least seek out some place where he is not: And where is he not? So many stars, so many Intelligences wherewith the world is replenished, are so many eyes to behold thee: Himself looketh into the bottom of thy conscience. Ask leave of him if thou wilt sin. But how ask, and how obtain? Exercise a little patience, and this temptation will vanish away as a cloud. Thou goest about to commit a sin, the pardon whereof is very uncertain, but it is doubtless through all eternity, when thou hast committed it, God himself cannot make it to be undone.  
XII. Think not you are the less acceptable to God when he suffereth you to be tempted, yea with dishonest thoughts, which to chaste souls are extremely irksome. Alas, why? If S. Paul, that Cherubin, scorched with celestial ardours, who fixed his foot upon the front of the stars, if we follow the opinion of S. Ambrose, Theophylact, and Oecumenius, felt the stings of concupiscence in a flesh rapt to the third Heaven, think you for having some good dispositions of well-doing, you ought to be freed from wars of nature, which ever keep in humility your soul a little too indulgent to itself?   

The eighteenth SECTION. Remedies against passions and temptations which proceed from every vice.  
I. TO consider that passion is a motion of the sensual appetite, which proceedeth from the imagination of good or evil, with some agitation of the body.  
II. That there are eleven passions, six in the appetite of concupiscence, which are love, hatred, desire, aversion, joy, sadness. Five in the appetite of revenge, which are hope, despair, boldness, fear, anger.  
III. That there are two means to vanquish all passions, whereof the first is a precaution of mind against the occasions and vain apparences of all things of the world; and the second a serious entertainment of the mind in better things, as prayer, study, labour, affairs: But above all you must beg of God the light and strength of his holy grace, which infinitely surpasseth all humane remedies,  
We here add some preservatives against passions and the most ordinary vices.  

Against carnal love.  
I. To consider the barrenness of worldly loves, which are the true gardens of Adonis, wherein nothing is gathered but wretched flowers environed with many thorns.  
II. To set a true estimate upon things, and not to be deceived with apparences.  
III. To keep watch over your senses, to avoid the opportunities and occasions of sin, and above all to have recourse unto God, upon the first impression of your thoughts.  
iv To free yourself by main force from the presence of objects, to be delighted with serious purposes and good employments.  
V To present to yourself very often, the defect, ingratitude, levity, inconstancy and treachery of creatures, which we most servilely love.   

Against aversions, hatreds, and envies.  
I. To esteem nothing great in this life, is the way to envy nothing.  
II. To love only the great inheritance of the land of the living, which never becomes less by the many and several divisions made to those who possess it.  
III. To consider attentively the motives which excite us to love our neighbour, as the participation of the same nature, same life, same blood, and like profession, and such other reasons, which are as so many knots of amity.  
iv The wretched life of Cain to live in envy, troubles, disturbances, and rage of a distempered spirit, which causeth the immortality of its being to contribute to the eternity of its pains.  
V To behold how envy ere it is ware, serveth many times to the advancement of those who are envied.   

Against covetousness, worldly hope, and joy.  

I. The disquiet of an hungry mind.  
II. The unsatiableness of desires.  
III. The wars and battles we must ofttimes undergo to satisfy one sole desire.  
iv The dishonour of denial insupportable to a generous soul.  
V The dependence and slavery we must endure, to please those from whom we expect the accomplishment of our desires.  
VI the frailty in offending God through too much greediness of temporal things  
VII. The poor and short pleasure taken in things we most ardently desire.  
VIII. That God many times affordeth us the accomplishment of our desires as a punishment of our imperfections.    

Against sadness and despair.  
There is a holy sadness, as that we entertain upon the passion of our Saviour, or for our sins, which is a gift of God, and not a punishment.  
There is another furious, which hath no ears, and which is rather cured by miracles than precepts.  
There is one natural, which proceedeth from humour, and another vicious, fostered by evil habits and neglects of salvation.  
I. Against this last, we must consider our desires and affections ofttimes make up all our sadness, and that the true means to lessen the cares which consume us, is to sweeten the sharp and ardent love we bear towards worldly things.  
II. The small account we make of God, is the cause we many times are troubled at frivolous things, either distantly threatening us, or already happened. He that would truly love this great God, who deserveth all the love both of Heaven and earth, should not suffer fear or sadness for any thing, but the loss of the love of God, which no man looseth if he be not willing to for go it.  
III. Nought but tears of the damned is remediless. He that may be in the way of Paradise, should not make a kind of hell on earth; and who may hope this great All, should never be sad for any thing.   

Against evil confidence.  
I. That to be confident in evil things, is to have a desperate instrument of ones own misery, which entertaineth all exorbitancies of the heart to make them the more punishable.  
II. That there is no assured confidence against the power of God, which in an instant ruineth the posterity of the greatest Tyrants.  
III. That the strongest things are wasted by the weakest. Lion's have been eaten up by flies, and rust (though contemptible) consumes the hardest metals.  
iv That to be confident through presumption of strength, is the highway to become ridiculous in enterprises, and unfortunate in all successes. We must not go about to soar to the sun with the wings of a Reare-mouse, nor sail on the Ocean in the shell of a Tortoise.   

Against fear.  
I. Neither to desire nor love any thing inordinately, is the pathway to peace, where fear never harbours.  
II. To have a strong charity towards God, and to love him fervently, with persuasion of his reciprocal love. This is the means to enter into a firm confidence. For what evil may we fear against us when God is with us.  
III. We many times fear evils which are the fources of great blessings, some are not truly evils, other much less than we make them, and many will never happen. Why will you abide where you are not, and put yourself on the rack in your imagination.  
iv He who resolves to suffer all that God will have him, takes in hand a powerful remedy against all sorts of fears: For he who is a Master over sorrow, commandeth terror, since the evil present is much more troublesome than the future.  
V There are natural fears much tied to flesh, unless they be vanquished and sweetened by frequent custom with the things which are feared, and conversation with men confident and courageous.   

Against anger.  
I. To consider how it depriveth us of six things very precious, to wit, of wisdom, justice, civility, concord, truth, and the splendour of the spirit of God.  
II. How it suddenly transfigureth a man into a little monster.  
III. How it is hurtful to the state of health, which we so tenderly love.  
iv That it abaseth the person surprised with it, and especially if he be in some eminency of life and dignity.  
V That the effects thereof are cruel, the spoils pernicious, events shameful, and falls for the most part irrecoverable.  
VI The contentment to have kept back an evil word, which had destroyed a good affair.  
VII. The abstinence from curiosities and niceness of life, cutteth asunder the sinews of anger. The less curious a man is, the more humble he is, and the more humble, the less sensible is he of the crosses which happen to things without us.  
VIII. We must prevent occasions, and not afford them too much power over our hearts in all those things, the loss whereof may trouble us.  
IX. To eschew the occasions of places, of persons, recreations and affairs, which use to disturb the peace of our minds.  
X. If one feel himself inwardly moved, to bridle the tongue, that so the apprehensions of the heart may not break forth. To reenter into yourself.  
To ask truce of your passion, steadfastly believing that you shall pardon many offences, if you begin to understand before you grow angry.   

Against vanity.  

I. To represent to ones self very often the extreme vanity of all worldly things.  
II. The misery of the present state, wherein all things invite us to humility.  
III. The vanity of opinions, which afford us nothing but wind.  
iv The blindness, incapacity, inconstancy, perverseness of men's judgements, who often love and admire all that which is the most vicious.  
V The frailty of honour and reputation, which is sought by unlawful ways.  
VI The tortures and torments of a vain spirit.  
VII. The ostentation in good successes, the discouragement in bad  
VIII. The surprisal of his practices and imperfections, which cannot be hidden from the most judicious.  
IX. The worm which gnaweth all good works by the means of vanity, and the shameful deprivation of eternal comforts to attend the search of earthly smokes.    

Against gluttony.  

I. Represent unto yourself the miserable state of a soul brutish and bemired in flesh.  
II. Hardness of heart.  
III. The dulness of understanding.  
iv The infirmities of body.  
V Loss of goods.  
VI Disreputation.  
VII. What a horror it is to make of the members of Jesus Christ, the members of an unclean creature.  
VIII. What indignity it is to adore and serve the belly as a bestial and base god.  
IX. The great excess of sins which proceed from this source.  
X. The punishments of God upon the voluptuous.    

Against intemperance of tongue.  

I. To consider that it is the throne of vainglory.  
II. An evident sign of ignorance.  
III. The gate of slander.  
iv The harbinger of scoffing.  
V The Architect of lying.  
VI The desolation of the spirit of piety.  
VII. The dissipation of the heart's safety.  
VIII. The inseparable companion of idleness, as saith S. John Climacus.    

Against Sloth.  
The indefatigable labour of all creatures in the world both civil and natural.  

II. The facility of good works after grace given by Jesus Christ.  
III. The anxiety of an inconstant and fleeting sp●rit.  
iv Shame and contempt.  
V The confusion at the day of Judgement.  
VI The irrecoverable loss of time.     

Of three temptations which hinder many in the way of perfection, to wit, shame of well-doing, overmuch affection to some creature, and pensiveness in well-doing. The nineteenth SECTION. Against the shame of well-doing.  
MAny would quickly be in the way of a life truly Christian, having souls of an excellent temper, and pious relishes of God, but that they have one temptation; who would believe it? it is the shame of well-doing. Their souls are big with 
eagle's stone.  good desires, resembling the eagle's stone which ever hath another in it, and never brings it forth. So have they in their hearts (according to their own opinion) a good resolution seriously to embrace devotion: but the fear of what men will say, scattereth as many good thoughts as the heart can conceive. What practice of remedies will you have against this pusillanimity, effeminate soul? Only consider what you do, and if you be ashamed, it can be of nothing but of yourself. 
unworthiness to be ashamed of welldoing.   
First I ask, who maketh you blush in the service of your spouse? Do you blush at his poverty? At his deformity? At his ignorance? Or tell me, what decay have you observed in him to imprint a blushing vermilion on your face? Poor? How can he be so, since he maketh all rich? Deformed? How can he be so, since he is original beauty spread over all the creatures of the world? Ignorant? How can he be so, since he is the Eternal Wisdom? Tell me then, what have you to be ashamed of? Some will say, that you would seem to be virtuous and devout. Do not so, but be so indeed. If you have not cause to blush for Heaven, why should you blush for virtues, which are the daughters of Heaven? Behold what sacrilege you commit: shamefacedness is made for vices. It is the veil wherewith nature covereth them when they endeavour to hid themselves, and you will shadow virtues. Alas! the Martyrs have become red with blood to preserve devotion, and you blush with shame to betray it. A feverish respect towards some creature which passeth away in the turning of a hand, hindereth perhaps thirty or forty years of virtue. O misery!  
Secondly, what have you so much to excite and 
Number of the devout should settle you.  drive you forward in well-doing? Think you yourself to be at this present the only creature in the world which tasteth devotion? A thousand and a thousand well qualified have advanced the standard of piety. If the number of the bad authorise wickedness, why should not so goodly a troup of honest men furnish us with confidence enough to vanquish one impious fantasy, which verily is nothing, nor hath any substance, but what your remissness affordeth it?  
Then tell me in the third place, what is it you so 
Doubt and childishness of this shame.  much fear, to addict yourself wholly to devotion? The twinkling of an eye, a silly smile, a breath of words, which quickly passeth and hurteth none? And behold why you forsake God. What is more easy to be overcome than all that? A little silence answereth all. It is not required of you you should oppose your arms against the violent stream of a torrent. Silence only is demanded, and to hope well, which are the two easiest things of the world. Will 
Isai. 11. In silentio & spe erit fortitudo vestra.  you put a great affront upon a babbler, who flouteth at your devotions? Answer him not. All he saith is to put you into passion; your impatience pleaseth him, your silence confoundshim. In the end he cannot say so much, but that you may hear much more. He hath but one mouth, and you have two ears. Let Michol revile, and persist you in dancing 
2 Reg. 9  before the Ark, your patience shall stop all mouths, and in the end purchase all crowns. But you fear 
What ' you should fear.  you cannot persevere in the way of virtue, and that many changes may cast some aspersion of inconstancy upon you. You do well to fear yourself, if you so much expect perseverance from yourself. But if you look for it from God, ought you not to have more hope of his goodness, than fear from your own infirmities? You are not advised to make your devotions eminent by some notable alteration, extraordinary in the exterior, accompanied with ceremonious enforcements insupportable to your condition. No: But undertake a devotion sweet, facile, and conform to common use, which hath less of outward semblance, and more of inward worth: So shall you the better preserve it, and it shall be the more profitable for you.   

The twentieth SECTION. Love of creatures.  
AFter shame, cometh likewise a snare much 
Adhering to creatures marreth all.  more dangerous, to wit, the love of creatures. Many souls seem already to poise themselves and soar into the sky, but there is some little thread, wretched, and weak, which fettereth their feet. One cannot forsake such a lodging, another such an exercise, a third such a custom, a fourth such a company, which in the mean space dissolveth the course of his good purposes, maketh his heart become childish, and sometimes dull and stupid to the relishes of God. Amongst all encounters this is the most powerful 
Passion of love.  which proceedeth from the passion of love, and sometimes among persons who have their souls most pure, and such as are in their own opinions far removed from this mischievous passion, yet are not without peril. If this should come like some other gross and carnal love with an arrow and torch in hand, one might more easily defend himself; but it 
Love is like to infects.  approacheth with a little sting, subtle, slender, and as it were wholly spiritual, that one cannot well perceive it in the beginning. It resembleth those little flying worms which Phaedon speaketh of, that unperceivably 
Phaedon. apud Sencec. ep. 49. Adeo tenuis illis & fallcus in periculis vis est, tumour indicat morsum.  sting: When they have fixed their sting, we do not know they have stung us, until we see some swelling rise upon the skin. So in such petty lovedaliances we see not the wound nor sting, we know not what we suffer, what we do, what we undertake, what we desire. One doth hardly know that he loves: notwithstanding the soul is puffed up, and goeth out of its limits, and is dissolved into an Ocean of disturbances, which are very prejudicial to purity. It were better to have as it were some kind of 
The danger thereof.  leprosy, than such a passion: For that would infect but the body, but this diveth in the end even into the bottom of the soul, weaveth its web in the marrow, forageth all over that which hath vigour in our inward parts, leaveth meagerness and sterility, and maketh our heart like to those abortions of pearls which have been blasted with lightning, having instead of a bright substance, nothing else but an exterior film.  
What shall one do in this case? It is a very easy 
Preservative.  matter to give a preservative that may keep us from the blow, but it is very difficult to draw the soreness from the wound. You need sometime but the very wind of your hat to turn away a thunderclap, that it may not strike where it seems to be aimed; the thunder maketh his claps as remediless as sudden and violent: even so this passion in the beginning may be dispelled with a very little heed and dextetity, but when passage is made for it into the heart, it raiseth a tempest. But in conclusion, what means is there to stay it? It will be told you, you must have recourse 
Ordinary remedies.  to prayer, to meditation of the Cross, the day of Judgement, the invocation of the Blessed Virgin and Saints, the frequentation of Sacraments, fasting, the austerities of penance, and these are good remedies: Yet you notwithstanding will say, what prayer can one make when he is engulfed in a passion which perpetually buzzeth in his brain? Do like Ionas, cry out of the Whale's belly, call from the bottom of the abyss with many jaculatory prayers. But to what use will austerities serve? the body is subdued, it is true; but yet passion remaineth still in the bottom of the soul. It nought importeth: the weakness of flesh by little and little cutteth the sinews of passions which are inherent in the flesh. All this, you will say, is likewise feasible, provided I be not thereby separated from the company of such a one. And behold the inconveniency; you will perpetually put oil into the flame, and not have it burn.  
I. The most sovereign remedy, is, what you least 
Sovereign remedies.  desire, though you make show of desiring health. All that which cherisheth the malady, is the presence of the object. Our passions resemble echoes: Do you not see that echoes the further you go 
Passions are echoes.  from them, the less repercussion there is, they lessening and losing themselves in the air. This affection, that speaketh so loud by reflection of the countenance which you daily behold with so much contentment, will quickly vanish by a little absence. But one day alone of separation is an Age to you: Suffer this Age, and the time will come it shall not last an hour with you.  
II. Verily all well considered, the play is not 
Folly of this passion.  worth the candle. Must you inflict so many pains upon your bodies, so many torments on your mind, lose so much time, make so many ill tongues talk, to please I know not what petty, wicked, and foundered desire, which you know not what it is, not to what it tendeth?  
III. If you knew what you desired, you would be ashamed of yourself, you would have cause to be amazed that so noble a spirit should suffer itself to be transported with such follies. The notable Raymond 
Cure of Raymond Lullius.  Lullius, who passionately was enamoured of a Lady, wise, and honest, when purposely to cure his frenzy, she shown him one of her breasts eaten and gnawn through with a canker, and extremely hideous to behold, Stay simple man (said she) behold what you loved; he at that instant coming to himself, spoke: Alas! was it for this I lost so many good hours, that I burned, became entranced, that I passed through fire and water? All lovers would say the like were the scarff taken from their eyes.  
iv It well appeareth you want some great affront, 
Want of employment.  some real pains, some serious employment. It is the superfluous excess of idleness which dissolveth your heart into these effeminacies. You were better have some mischievous process against you, than all these trifling entertainments. Frame some good employment to free yourself from a bad. Remember 
Hier. add Rustic. Viocre non licet, & fornicari licebit?  that which was said: When one hath no leisure to live, he hath no leisure to love.  
V Represent to yourself that a thousand undaunted courages (for that they have twice or thrice resisted passion constantly) have found themselves free, at liberty, in peace and tranquality of spirit, wholly admirable, and you for want of a little resolution daily tumble and involve yourself in your fetters. Make a little resistance, cast away I pray all 
Strength of reason.  these little urchins which afflict you. Is an absence so troublesome, that to avoid it you must torture your body, vilify your spirit, and yield your reputation up as a prey to slander? You shall no sooner put the wedge into the block, but it shall be done; you shall have a soul victoriously elevated over passion, which shall rejoice amidst the trophies thereof.   

The one and twentieth SECTION. Against sadness.  
HAve you never represented to yourself the poor Elias lying under the Juniper tree, oppressed with melancholy, and saying to God with an effectionate heart: My God it is enough; take 
Reg. 3. 19  my soul. I am no better than my forefathers? This passion often happeneth in persons who are entered into the list of a life more perfect. Anxiety crosseth them, sadness gnaweth them, melancholy afflicteth 
Sadness the snare of Satan.  them, and Satan (willing ever to fish in a troubled water) serves himself with this disturbance of mind, to make them return back again to the false pleasures of the world. What remdy, what practice shall we confront this mischief with? Let us use David's harp to charm this dangerous devil of Saul. You are sad, say you: It much concerneth you to sound your heart, that you may know from whence this pensiveness proceeedeth, and apply fit remedy thereunto. Sometime sadness cometh from an indiscreet zeal, when one will of his own accord undertake austerities, neither ordered nor digested by counsel. He cannot find good success, yet is ashamed to go back again, which is the cause he is tormented between the hammer and the anvil. Sometime it proceedeth from a great immortification 
Causes of sadness. Immortification  of passions, which at the entrance into a spiritual life (he beginning to pick quarrels with them) put themselves into the field, assailing and turmoiling the mind. As it is said, a little fish called the wasp of the sea, in the dog-days stingeth and disquieteth the repose of other fishes. It is perhaps as yet in your soul: neither day nor night, winter nor summer, cold nor heat, but good and evil struggle who shall get the upper hand, and this war troubleth you. Sometime it proceedeth from a great tenderness of heart, and a passionate love of ones self. It seemeth to a little girl who weepeth in the nook of a chamber, that the whole world is interessed in her sorrow, and that every body should bemoan her. Nothing is like to her unhappiness, her burdens are 
Tears of self-flatterers.  of lead, and all others are as light as feathers; or if you weep not with her, she becometh the more melancholy, and if you do sorrow with her, she taketh a higher tone to deplore her grievances. There is many times much niceness in our sorrows, and oftentimes our tears are nothing else but mere fopperies. From this self-love proceedeth vanity and complacence, which serve us with wormwood to season our morsels withal.  
The man who is overmuch pleased with himself, 
Self-love.  necessarily displeaseth many, and to gain too great a friend within himself, he purchaseth sundry enemies without himself. All things cannot happen to his wish, and as good successes inebriate him with contentments, so evil torture and immoderate contristate him. Briefly, bad melancholy often riseth 
Jealous eye.  from a jealous and envious eye: The good hap of another is a straw in his eye, which ever will trouble him, if charity bring not her helping hand. Behold here a lamentable mischief. All the perfections of another are ours when we love them in another, and when we hate them they are thorns in our eyes, which extremely torment us. Have we not pain 
Parùm alicui est si ipse sis foelix, nisi alter fuerit infoelix. Salvian. de gubern. Dei. lib. 5.  enough within ourselves, but we must plant crosses in the prosperity of others? Sound your heart, and see whether your sadness proceeds from one of these five sources, or from many of them together. Take away the cause by the favour of God's grace, by the help of your endeavour, courage, and resolution, you shall have the effect, and enjoy a peaceable soul, like Heaven smiling in a bright serenity.  
My sadness, say you, cometh not from this occasion. Would to God it were so. You were already sufficiently happy, if all I have said were not of force to make you sad. From whence cometh it then? From the accidents which befall me on every side; and if nothing happen to me, I am unquiet with mine own self. If you think to live wholly without sadness, 
Sadness a plant of our own growing  you must frame a new world for yourself. Sadness is a bitter plant which groweth in your garden: you must know at one time or other what taste it hath. To think wholly to free yourself, is to make yourself a King in the cards, and only to brave it in paper, like the ancient Philosophers who had their hands shorter than their tongues. Our Saviour was contristated in the dolorous garden, watered with bloody sweats, to teach us the perfection of a Christian is not in being sensible of sorrow, but to moderate the same with resolution.  
The best remedy is that which Jesus Christ hath 
Remedies.  showed to us, to wit, Prayer. It is a wonderful contentment to speak to God, and to tell him your afflictions. Behold you not in a garden-bed how those poor tulips are shut up with melancholy under the shady coldness of the night? And you may well say the Sun within his rays beareth the key to open them: For so soon as he riseth and courteth them a little with that eye which exhilarateth total nature, behold they unloose themselves, dilate themselves, and witness their joy for the arrival of this planet. The like happeneth to your heart, it sometimes long remaineth benumbed and frozen for want of having recourse to prayer. Learn a little to talk with God by jaculatory prayers. Learn to complain yourself to God, and to seek the remedies of your wounds in his mercies, and you will find a great lightning and alacrity.  
The second, to have a spiritual Father or a discreet and faithful friend, to whom one may unburden his conscience with all confidence and security. The cloud, how dark or surchaged soever it be, in that proportion it emptieth itself, cleareth, and the heart unburdening its calamities in the ear of another, becometh more bright and lustrous.  
Thirdly, some spiritual Fathers advise a discipline, to suppress interior sadness by exterior sorrow: But this remedy is not for all sorts of men. Saint 
Hier. ad Rusticum. Hypo●ratis magis fomentis, quàm nostris moniti● indiget. Remedies of Hypocrates. Not to play the Timon.  Hierom is a better Physician, who ordained for certain melancholy men, rather to use the fomentations of Hypocrates, than to afflict their bodies, and distil their brains in other practices. You must take very good heed you make not yourself a Tim●n, and hate men and life, entertaining yourself in hypocondriac humours, which throw a mind into the gulf of disturbance. God willeth us to take moderate pleasure in creatures, which he hath made for our content and ease, that we may enjoy them in time and place, every one according to his condition, profession, and rule of wisdom. Synesius saith, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Pleasure lays hold of the soul. Somnus & balnea dolorem mitigant. S. Thom. 2. q. 138. Date siceram merentibus, & vinum iis qui amaro sunt animo. Prov. 2.  the Creator hath given the feeling of pleasure to sense to serve as an arrest to the soul, and to hold it in good quarter with the body. Saint Thomas among the remedies of sadness, prescribes sleep and bathing. The Scripture itself counselleth us to give wine and other fitting draughts for them to drink, who have their hearts oppressed with bitterness If one think to make a great sacrifice to God, resting perpetually, stretched and involved in a pensive austerity of spirit, as being desirous to avoid all pleasures of life, he deceiveth himself: It hath happened, that many running in their own opinion to Paradise by this path, according to peculiar fancy, have found themselves on the borders of hell.  
Fourthly, to remember our life is a musick-book, 
Our life is a musick-book.  seldom shall you find there many white notes together in the same line: black are mixed among them, and all together make an excellent harmony. God gives us a lesson in a little book which hath but two pages, the one is called Consolation, the other Desolation: It is fit for each of them to take its turn. In the day of adversity think of prosperity: In the day of prosperity remember yourself of adversity. That great Prelate of Cyrenum 
Synes. in hymno.  said, that the Divine Providence hath mingled our life, as one would do wine and water in a cup; some drink the purest, some the most compound, but all taste a commixtion.  
Fifthly, if you exactly compare our condition to that of an infinite number of miserable creatures, who groan in so many tedious and disastrous torments, you will find your fardel but a dew. But we have a certain malignity of spirit, which ever looks back on the good it hath not, to envy it, and never considers the evil from whence it is freed, to render thanks to God. Behold some are in the bottom of a dungeon in fetters, others are bowed in painful labours from the rising to the setting Sun, to get their bread. Some have the megrim in their head, the gout in their feet and hands, the stone in their kidneys. Others are overwhelmed with business, loss, misfortunes, strange and portentous accidents, yet carry it out with courage. Your heart is nipped with a little sadness, and behold you despair; what effeminacy of spirit is this? It is said hares seeing themselves pursued on every side, had one day resolved to drown themselves, but coming to the brink of a river, and beholding frighted frogs who cast themselves at all adventure in the water to escape: Courage (said they) we are not yet the most miserable treatures of the world, behold those who are more fearful than we. Ah how often should we say the same, if we saw the miseries of others!  
Sixthly, is it not a goodly thing to behold a man, 
unworthiness of sadness.  who probably speaking is in the favour of God, who is here nourished with Sacraments, with Christ's body and blood, with the word of his Master, who liveth among so many helps and comforts, spiritual and temporal, who expecteth a resurrection, a Paradise, a life eternally happy and happily eternal, in so beautiful a society of Saints, to frame pensiveness and scruples to himself of his own head, to afflict himself like a Pagan or a damned soul, that hath no further hope? It is related that God one day, to give an antipast of beatitude to a holy man turmoiled with sundry cogitations, caused an unknown little bird to chant in his ear in so melodious a manner, that instantly his troubled spirit became clean, and pure, and held him rapt many years in the most tasteful delicacies may be imagined. O if you often had strong imaginations of Paradise, how your melancholy would melt and dissolve, as snow before the Sunbeams!  
Lastly, sing spiritual canticles, labour, employ 
Noble tears.  your spirit without anxiety, and if needs you will weep, lament your imperfections, bewail the miseries of the poor, sorrow for your curiosity, lament the passion of your spouse, grieve and sigh at your impatience, after this glory of Paradise, weep over the deluge on the earth, look back like a chaste dove on 
Dulces lachrimae sunt ipsi fletus jucundi, quibus restrintur ardor animi, & quasi relaxatus evaporat affectus.  the ark of your good father No, the father of repose and consolation: Then will I say of such tears with S. Ambrose: O the delicious tears, O the pleasing complaints, which extinguish the fervours of our mind, and make our affections sweetly to evaporate!   

The two and twentieth SECTION. The third combat of the spiritual man against impurity.  
ALl impurity of life, ariseth from three sources (whereof S. John speaketh) concupiscence of 
Joan. 2. Three sources of impiety.  the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and pride of life. Let us now see the practice of virtues which oppose these three sorts of impurities. Against concupiscence of the flesh, temperance, chastity, modesty do wage war: Against the concupiscence of eyes, to wit, the unbridled desires of temporal blessings; poverty, justice, charity, mercy, gratitude: Against pride of life, humility, obedience, magnanimity, patience, clemency.   

The three and twentieth SECTION. Practise of Chastity.  
Chastity is a virtue which represseth the impure lust of the flesh, a celestial virtue, an Angelical virtue, which maketh heaven and Angels descend upon the earth, and in this kingdom of mortality planteth the image and titles of immortality. Clemens Alexandrinus maketh mention of certain 
Clemen Alex. strommat.  enchanted mountains, at the foot whereof was heard a voice as of people preparing themselves for battle; a little further, the encounter and conflict; and on the top, songs and triumphs. Behold as it 
Three sorts of chastity.  were the condition of three sorts of chastity. With some it beginneth with labour and uncertainty; there is at the first toil and resistance against lust, but the even thereof is not known. With others it is become more manly, as being already practised in combats. With others it triumpheth after a long habit, yet notwithstanding whilst here on earth it abideth, it is never absolutely secured.  
The acts thereof are, 
Acts.   
I. To renounce all unlawful voluptuousness of the flesh.  
II. To abstain from carnal acts, not only those which are unlawful, but sometime such as are permitted among married folk upon just occasion, or for some certain time, which is very ordinary; or perpetually, which is singular and remarkable in the lives of some Saints. So Martianus lived with his wife Pulcheria, and Henry the Emperor with the Empress Chunegundis.  
III. To repress all the desires and concupiscences of flesh, and if one have any feeling thereof, not to give consent thereunto.  
IU. Never to stay at all upon thoughts and imaginations of things dishonest; but so soon as they present themselves, to chase them away and extinguish them in your heart, no otherwise than you should quench a burning hot iron in a fountain.  
V To mortify your senses, which are most commonly 
Eyes. Oculi patellae luxuriae. Isidor. apud S. Bern. tom. 1 serm. de luxuria. Salvian. l. 3. de gubernat. Oculi tui videbunt extranea, & cor tuum loquetur perversa. Prov. 23. 3.  the forerunners of sin, and above all to restrain your eyes, which according to the opinion of S: Isidore, are as dishes wherein luxury serveth up the viands of voluptuousness. They are the windows, the allurements, the snares, the conduits of love: It buddeth in the eyes, that it may at leisure blossom in the heart. And therefore it is fit to stand upon your guard with so subtle and vigorous a sense, which often filleth the soul with appetites and flames. I do not say that one should look upon nothing, and always live as if the soul were buried alive in the flesh; but I affirm, you must divert your sight from objects which dart a sting into a mind sensible of such penetrations. As for the ears, there is no doubt they may serve as handles for love, and that it hath taken many that way. An evil word hath fingers to incite the flesh: He who heareth it, and he that willingly speaketh it, is not innocent before God. Smelling blasteth chastity, and taste roughly assaulteth; but kisses and unchaste touche● cut her throat.  
VI To fly idleness, reading of love-books, comedies, stageplays, immodest pictures, feasts, private familiarities, lose company, and all occasions of sin.  
VII. To have in detestation even the shadows of impurity. To speak, to proclaim in every place the praises of chastity, and for this purpose to love penance, mortification of the body, labour, rough and harsh apparel, modesty, even to the seeming somewhat wayward, the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the meditation of the four last things, devotion towards the most blessed Virgin, and all that may conduce to the maintenance of honesty.  
VIII. To remain firm in great and forcible temptations is verily the trophy of chastity. Since (as Plato hath said) the triumph of virtue is to have the power, not the will to sin. It was a notable act of 
Chastity of Charles the 8.  continency in Charles the vl, ardently to love a maiden endowed with an exquisite beauty, to have her at his dispose, and yet to abstain for one sole word 
Lips. in monitis politic. lib. 2. cap. 17. Exemplo 12. addit datos puellae 500 aureos.  which this poor creature spoke to him, brought even into his chamber: For she by chance perceiving the picture of our Lady, cast herself at the King's feet, shown him this image, crying out with a face all bathed in tears: Sir, I beseech you for this Virgin's sake preserve the honour of a silly maid. At this word spoken for a young King enkindled with love, and absolute in power, to conquer the motions of lust, is it not a matter that meriteth much applause?  
IX. To contemn great rewards and high advancements of fortune, for the preservation of chastity: 
Johannes Moschus in prato. A courageous Lady.  As did that noble Lady of whom John Moschus speaketh, who seeing her husband consume in perpetual prison for debt, not able any way to relieve him, was reduced to terms of extreme and miserable want, and besides pursued by a man of prime note, with all sorts of allurements, offers, and accommodations, which might shake and stagger an afflicted heart, and enforce her to condescend to a sin, which seemed to have necessity for a patroness; she notwithstanding stood firm like a rock, preferring chastity poor and patiented, before a rich and delicate dishonour. I could also nominate creatures as pure, as strong, adorned with most excellent natural parts, more chaste, more wise, more fortunate than Lucrece, who with as much industry as courage, have refused powerful and passionate men, that sought them with such excessive benefits, as would have overwhelmed any inferior chastity. But they, not to commit one only sin, covered under the curtain of the night, have despised treasures, to guard another jewel in an earthen vessel, who for this act deserve to be raised above the stars.  
X. To withdraw the chastity of others from this sink, with liberal alms, great labour, infinite incommodities: As that worthy Hermit Abraham 
Abraham the Hermit.  did, of whom Surius speaketh, who loaden with years and merits, went into a brothel-house in disguised habit, to reduce a Niece of his that went astray: as at this day many honest matrons, worthy of eternal memory, spare nothing to gain poor abused doves out of the falcons talons, and dedicate them to Altars, where soon after they work wonders in matter of virtue.  
XI. To suffer in your body great torments, yea 
Hieron. in vita Pauli & Sabel. l. 5. c. 6.  death itself for the defence of chastity, as many holy virgins have done. As that youth, reputed the son of a King of Nicomedia, who fast tied on a bed of flowers and wooed by a Courtizane with intention to corrupt him, spit out his tongue like a dart of fire and blood in the face of this she-wolf. A tongue, 
Lingua silet, clamatque silens loquiturque pudorem, sanguine quae pinxit sola pudicitiam. A bold attempt of Didymus.  which in dumb eloquence speaketh to all posterity, and proclaimeth the honour of chastity.  
XII. To expose yourself to great sufferings for the preservation of others chastity: As that brave Didymus, a young beardless Gentleman, who beholding a poor Christian maid, named Theodora, thrown into a brothel, caused her to escape by giving her the habit of a man, and himself remained for pledge in the attires of a woman, expecting the fury of executioners 
Ambr. lib. 2. de virgin. Quasi adulter ingressus, si vis, Martyr ●grediar. Vestimenta mutemus; conveniunt mihi tua, & mea tibi; sed utraque Christo. Tua vestis me verum militem faciet, mea te virginem. Bené tu vestieris, ego melius exuar.  who gave him the crown of Martyrdom. Saint Ambrose makes him speak to the maid to this effect: Sister, I am come hither as an adulterer, and if it please you I will go out a Martyr: Let us change habits, I pray you: we are as I perceive both of one stature: My apparel very well fitteth you, but yours will set much better upon me, and both will agree in the service of Christ Jesus. My attire shall make you a virgin, and yours me a Martyr. You shall be most fortunately clothed, and I more happily despoiled. It was so done. Didymus was apprehended, and Theodora understanding it, run back like a lioness amidst the swords to die with him.   

The twenty fourth SECTION. Practise of temperance.  
TEmperance, taken in general, is a virtue which 
S. Thom. 2. 2. quaest. 141.  represseth the appetites of concupiscence in things that please the senses, especially of touch and 
Temperance the first tribute of sanctity.  taste. The temperance of touching consisteth in chastity; that of tasting is properly abstinence and sobriety. It is the first virtue which God seems to have required of man from the worlds in fancy; the first tribute of sanctity and innocence, which our first parents could not leave without losing themselves and all posterity. A virtue, which is the horizon that separateth vegetative man from the intellectual: A virtue, which raiseth us from the earth, and bringrth us near to heaven: A virtue which makes a noble soul shine in a mortal body, as a torch of odoriferous wood in a Crystalline watchtower. On the contrary, a body surcharged with kitchin-repletion holdeth the soul as one would a smoking snuff of a candle in a greasy lantern.  
The acts of this virtue are,  
I. In refection to have no other rule but necessity, 
Refection of body. S. Aug. Conf. 1. 31. Hoc me docuisti, ut quemadmodum medicamenta sic alimenta sumpturus accedam.  no other aim but the glory of God, and entertainment of the body for the service of the soul. Saint Augustine after his conversion came to meals (as himself saith) as into an infirmary to take a medicine.  
II. To take all the necessities of body as the Egyptian dog doth the water of Nilus, running, thereby saving himself from superfluous excess. To take them as the soldiers of Gedeon drank at the fountain, in the hollow palms of their hands, cheerfully, not prostrating themselves on the ground; or as the dove taketh grains of corn, pecking her meat up with her bill, and turning her eye to heaven.  
III. To eat and drink with all civility, decency, discretion; and seeing we must use this necessary trade of a beast, to do it at least like a man.  
iv To abstain from prohibited meats in times limited by the Church, exactly to observe fasts devoutly ordained by the same authority, and practised by our Ancestors, not becoming nicely curious, nor repining at Lenten abstinencies. To prescribe also a law to yourself of some fasts of devotion upon certain days of the week, and especially friday, as many noble personages have done, and daily do. Galen that great Physician advised to 
Fast of Galen Joann. Saris●. Policr. lib. 8.  make a fast from ten days to ten, in the manner of a physical prescription, affirming it was an excellent mean to defend one's self from great and dangerous maladies.  
V To be very sober in drinking, to take little wine, and mingle it well. Drunkenness (saith Saint Ambrose) is a superfluous creature in the world: It 
S. Ambros. de Elia & Jejun. A drunkard what.  is the scorn of nature; it is an old shoe soaked in water. A man is no longer a man, but a bottle perpetually filled and emptied: He lives like a But, which doth nothing but leak and roll up and down; and when the head thereof is knocked out, you find nothing there but lees and dregs: wine is a familiar or spirit which possesseth him, and is the milk of Venus which nourisheth his concupiscence. All his life is an interlude, and drunkenness his tomb. All men truly great are sober. It is utterly to degenerate from Nobility to be addicted to this infamous vice. You who serve Kings, who are in their Royal seats 
Vae qui potentes estis ad bibendum.  as the Sun in the heavens, remember yourselves that heretofore in the Sacrifice of the sun honey was offered, not wine.  
VI To be very temperate in the quantity of viands: 
Phylocorus Histor. lib. 12.  For it is a very great shame to make one's self as it were a living sepulchre of all sorts of butcheries, and build to yourself a tomb of fat, with excess in eating, as did the wretched Dionysius spoken of by Aelian, who had grooms of his chamber about his bed ever ready night and day to prick him with needles, with distances between, lest his fat conspiring with sleep should suffocate him. On the other side, it is dangerous to destroy your stomach by scrupulous and extraordinary observations of your own inventing, which may put you into a course of providing pain for yourself and attendance for others.  
VI Not to be so curious in the choice of delicate meats, but to take them indifferently according to your quality and profession. It may happen, that a Noble man feeding on a curious dish with sobriety, may observe temper, and another cracking his guts with beans fall into a nasty superfluity of gourmandise. The virtue of temperance is not so much in the matter as the manner. It is written, that a great Roman Lord, being retired into the deserts of Egypt to attend contemplation, was one day visited by an Aeyptian Monk, who had all his life time been a gross peasant bred among cows and cattle, and had an iron stomach, which in excessive quantity devoured the most sordid and despicable meats. This man much scandalised to see the Roman Monk feed on that which seemed delicate to him, and to drink a little wine at his repast, forsook his Cell with small account of his host, and much presumption of his own temper, when the other miraculously penetrating into his thoughts reprehended him, and he at that time easily acknowledged himself very short of his perfection whom he despised.  
VIII. Not to have your mind employed on sauces 
Shameful law of the Sybarites  and kitchin-cookeries, as those lazy Sybarites, who made such account of a new kind of broth found out, that by an express law they permitted the author thereof to enjoy it alone one whole year, before the invention should be communicated to any other.  
IX Not to enlarge your thoughts upon viands 
Strange greediness.  with a greediness and profusion of spirit, as if one would swallow the sea and fishes therein, as Epicharmus writeth of a certain gentleman, who bowed his whole body in eating, crashed his teeth, made a noise with his chaps, blew his nose, rubbed his ears, made a certain sound in his throat, all his body went a long with it. A true mediocrity of feeding, is, to be neither too greedy and gluttonous, nor too abstinent or transported; but modest in your countenance, prompt to help, prudent to see what is done, and to prevent want in others. It would ill become 
Notable distraction.  a Noble man so to abstract his spirits at the table, as those good religious men of whom it is recorded in the history of the Anchorets of Egypt, that they took capon for cabbadge: They were at Theophilus the Patriarch of Constantinoples' table, and did eat like mad men, thinking they still had been in their Monastery. It happened the Bishop carving to the eldest of them, gave him the wing of a capon, and courteously said unto him: Father eat hereof, doth not this capon seem good meat to you? He coming as it were out of a trance: How? is this capon then, Sir? I pray you pardon us for we took it for cabbage, else verily none of us had touched it.  
X. Not to outrun the hours of repast through impatience: not to be so addicted to serve our curiosities and delights, that thereby we leave not a good dinner to do a good work. Is it not a shameful thing of one Hugucchio, who lost two towns as 
Hugucchio lost two cities for a dinner.  Jovius relateth) for fear he should lose a good meal, so that it being at the same instant in his power to give order for a revolt which was plotted, he rather chose to sit out his dinner, and by this means forsook a fair opportunity?  
XI. To content one's self with a little upon occasion, as the young Theodosius, who thought he had made a good meal when he had eaten certain fops of bread steeped in water, within the Cell of an Hermit. The wise Hebrews have a proverb, which saith: Man is known by three things; by anger, by his purse, by his glass. It is a note of a well mortified spirit 
Man known by 3. things.  when complaints are never made of wants that happen in service for the mouth  
XII. To speak willingly of sobriety, yea even in a feast, like the Persians; or frame some other honest discourse which may give refection to the soul while the body taketh his, and beg perpetually of God to deliver us from the necessities of the body, and that he weaken in us these base concupiscences of the flesh, that we may preserve for him this his tabernacle in all purity.   

The five and twentieth. SECTION. Practise of Modesty.  
MOdesty is a branch of temperance, a goodly 
Modesty is important.  and eminent virtue, which seemeth as it were to incorporate our soul, and make her visible in her actions, whose office is to guide the motions, gestures, words, mirth, habit, gate, and garb, and all that which appertaineth to the exterior ornament of the body.  
Her actions are.  
I. To govern the tongue, to speak truth in time 
To speak, what?  and place, roundly and freely, without deceit, palliation, boasts, impostures, detractions.  
II. Never to have a bitter and furious silence, prying into another's words, nor to use a tattle unmannerly, clamorous, and tiresome, catching the word out of another man's mouth, as little chickens do, who snatch bits one from another, It was the comparison which father Gontery of happy memory used.  
III. Not to be magistral, with a counterfeited gravity, nor riotous, haughty, fierce, rude, no buffoon, nor loud laugher: A fool (saith the wiseman) crackleth in laughing, as thorns in the fire.  
IU. Not to have your tongue either of too high 
Tone of voice.  or low a tone, but moderate, distinct, in sweet, honest, ordinary, intelligible accents.  
V To have the composition of your countenance, 
Countenance.  pleasing, gracious, modest, without crabbedness or affectation; the carriage of your body native, comely, free from extraordinary gestures: Not to have a giddy head, like a linnet, always shaking, no wrinkled brow, nor crumpled nose, no perplexed visage, nor eyes wand'ring, wanton, or proud.  
VI The apparel neither superfluous, fantastik, nor 
Habit.  dissolute, without too much affecting new fashions, nor peremtorily out of your own conceit tying yourself to the old; but to attend your own condition, and remain in the lists of the modesty which is most practised by the wisest. Above all let women beware they set not to sale to carnal eyes that nakedness of their breasts, which may serve for baits for sin. The Scripture saith, Whosoever shall cause sparkles of fire to fly into another man's corn, shall be acountable for all the damage which the flames shall make.  
VII. To acquire modesty, it is good to represent 
Means to acquire modesty.  to yourself often before your eyes our Saviour conversing upon earth, and to pray him he will give us a soul pure and radiant, like a star, which impresseth his rays upon the body as the Sun on a cloud, in, and through all, to edify our neighbour.   

The six and twentieth. SECTION. Practise of prudence and carriage in conversation.  
HAve you observed a fish in the natural history, 
Isidore. Uranoscope.  which the Grecians call Uranoscopus, as one would say the beholder of heaven? This admirable creature, contrary to the nature of others, hath but one eye which is as it were a vertical point fixed directly in the top of his head, ever elevated, and perpetually open, to discover so many labyrinths of snares and treacheries as commonly are in the sea. Some will say it is Tobias his fish, a notable creature, which not only contributeth his gall to illuminate the eyes of the body, but his example to enlighten the eyes of the mind. It is a true Hierogliph of prudence, which telleth us we should at this day converse in the world as in a sea full of monsters, tempests, rocks, perils, surprises, and that we must have the eye of prudence throughly awakened and purified, to preserve and maintain it among so many hazards. This prudence in a word (according to S. Bernard) 
S. Bernard. serm. de V●lico.  is nothing else but the knowledge of good and evil, which showeth how we should demean ourselves, and the ways we should tread, in the course of our life and affairs. It is one of the principal virtues, because 
Importance of prudence.  all our actions depend on it. Yea prudence holdeth them as it were enfolded in the plaits of her robe, and unfoldeth them according to place, time, persons, occasions, which to know, is to know all.  
It is said, a French King enquiring one day of a man, who was held in great reputation of wisdom, after divers instructions to govern himself and guide his Kingdom, this wise man took a fair large sheet of paper, and for an infinite number of precepts which others use to produce upon this subject, he only wrote this word: Modus, Measure or Mean, 
All wisdom reduced to one word.  thereby inferring, that the whole mystery of our wisdom and felicity consisteth in doing things with grace, fashion, and measure, and that is it which prudence teacheth. We speak not here in particular of the Religious, oeconomical, military, politic, monarchical, but in general of the direction of life in ordinary conversation: For that seemeth annexed to the virtue of modesty. Imagine to yourself that prudence, as antiquity hath presented it unto us 
Prudence a hand sprinkled with eyes. Five fingers of prudence.  in their Hierogliphs', is a hand enchased with eyes, which hath five remarkable fingers, wherein all discreet actions are contained. These five fingers are memory, understanding, circumspection, foresight, execution: which is to say, that for the practice of this virtue,  
I. A good memory is necessary, to remember things 
Memory.  passed, as well what one hath read in books, as those which are observed by proper experience; for that much conduceth to inform the judgement: And besides, he that in all actions hath not memory, when there is occasion to manage some affair, oftentimes findeth he hath not well called to mind all particulars, which putteth him into confusion. Behold why (as all men have not servants for memory, as had the Kings the great men of Persia, and Romans) it is necessary to have recourse to registers, records, and table-books to help yourself. Some are of so happy memory, that they go (as it is said) to gather mulberries without a hook, to the well without a pitcher, into the rain without a cloak, 
Understanding.   
II. To be intelligent and able to judge well: and for this purpose he must endeavour to know the men with whom he converseth, their nature, humour, their capacity, intention, and proceeding, to penetrate affairs even to the marrow, not contenting himself with the outward bark and superficies. To 
Docibility.  consider them in all senses, all semblances. To put a tax upon things according to their worth, not to run into innovations, and cunning inventions, which disguise objects. To take counsel of the most understanding, 
Choice.  saithful, and disinteressed men, to condescend to good counsels by docility of spirit after they are well examined, ever to rest upon that which hath most honesty, integrity, security.  
III. In every deliberation which one makes upon 
4. Rocks of prudence.  any occasion to preserve one's self from four very dangerous rocks, which are passion, precipitation, self-conceit, and vanity. Passion coloureth all businesses with the tincture it hath taken. Precipitation goeth headlong downward into ruin. Self-conceit, not willing to forgo some hold, gnaweth and consumeth it-self. Vanity maketh all evaporate in smoke.  
iv To have a great circumspection and consideration, 
Circumspection. Pagulus Junius.  not to expose yourself but to good purpose. To do like that sea-crevis, which hideth himself till he hath a shell over his head, and striketh no man. To spy occasions out, and mark how the little hedgehog doth, into what quarter the wind changeth, to alter the entrance into his house. To stand always upon your guard, to discover the ambushes and obstacles which occur in affairs. To hold the trowel to build with one hand, and the sword in the other to defend yourself. Well to observe these four precepts: To have your face open, but your thoughts covered from so many wiles, which perplex our affairs: To be sober in speech: Not lightly nor easily to confide in all men, nor on the other side to show too much diffidence.  
V To be very vigilant in affairs, to foresee what 
Foresight & vigilance.  may happen in occasions, and prompt to find out means which may forward the execution of a good design. You find yet to this day in some old medals for a Hierogliph of prudence, a mulberry-tree 
Hierogliph of prudence.  having a crane upon his branches, and on the stock thereof a Janus with two heads: To teach us, that one proceedeth in matter of prudence, first, by not precipitating, no more than the mulberry, the wifest of all trees, which is the last that blossometh, to enjoy them with the more security, and thereby to avoid the pinching nips of frost; In watching as the crane doth, who abideth in an orderly centinel: In casting the eye upon what is past, and foreseeing the future, as this ancient King of Italy, to whom for this cause is given a double face.  
VI To use dexterity, promptitude, and constancy 
Execution.  in the execution of things well resolved on; that is the type and crown of prudence. Many brave resolutions are seen without fruit or effect, which are like eggs full of wind: All is but a shadow and a mere illusion of prudence. Seasonable time must be taken, for as Mithridates, one of the greatest Captains of the world, saith: Occasion is the mother of all affairs; 
Occasio omnium gerendarum rerum mater. A notable medal.  and time being well taken, you must execute warily, effectually, constantly. Ferdinand Duke of Bavare seems to have made a recapitulation of the principal actions of this virtue upon a piece of coin, where was to be seen, prudence like a wise virgin seated on the back of a Dolphin, and holding in her hand a balance, with this motto in three words: Know, Choose, Execute quickly. The virgin bearing the 
Cognosce, elige, matura.  ensigns of wisdom, said, you must know: The Balance, that you must ponder and elect with mature deliberation: The Dolphin with his agility, that you must set a seal upon your businesses by a prompt execution.  
VII. In the conclusion of the whole, the best wisdom 
True prudence.  is to distrust your own judgement, and to expect all from heaven, often ask of God not a wisdom humane, crafty, and impious, which is condemned; but the wisdom of Saints, which investeth 
Cogitationes mortalium timidae & incer tae providentiae nostrae, sensum autem tuum quis sciet, nisi dederis sapientiam? Sap. 9  us with the possession of a true felicity. The thoughts of mortal men are fearful, and their providence uncertain. My God, who is able to know thy meaning, if thyself give him not wisdom? Behold the virtues which guide the senses and conversation of man, against the disorders of flesh and blood, the chief plagues of nature. Let us now survey those which oppose the second impurity, to wit covetousness.   

Of the uritues which oppose the second impurity, called covetousness, to wit poverty, justice, charity. The seven and twentieth SECTION. Poverty of rich men.  
THere are three sorts of poverty; poverty of necessity, poverty by profession, poverty of 
Three sorts of poverty.  affection. Poverty of necessity, is that of the wretched, a constrained, needy, and disastrous poverty. Poverty by profession, is that of Religious, professed by their first vow, which is meritorious and glorious. Poverty of affection, is an expropriation from the inordinate love of terrene goods.  
We speak not here to you (O Noble men) of the poverty of rogues, which is infamous, nor of that of the Religious, which to you would be insupportaable, and to your condition unsuitable; but of the poverty of affection, the practice whereof is necessary for you, if you desire to be Citizens of Heaven. The practice is,  
I. To acknowledge all the goods and possessions 
Practise of the poverty of affection.  you have, are borrowed, which you must infallibly restore, but when, you know not. You live here like birds, who are always hanging in the air, where either fortune dispoileth, or death moweth the meadow, and then it never groweth again. It is a great stupidity of spirit, a great unthankfulness to God, if you account that to be yours which you may daily lose, and which in the end you shall forgo for ever. Think not you have any thing yours, but yourself. If 
August. ep. ad Armentar. & Paulinam. Divitiae si diliguntur, ibi serventur, ubi perire non possunt. Non sublime sapere, & nec sperare in incerto divitiarum. 1. Tim. 9  you love riches, put them in a place assured for eternity.  
II. If you be not poor, live in riches like the poor. Oftentimes place yourself in thought, even in that state you were born in from your mother's womb, or in that state you must return unto in the earth. You than will have no cause to become proud of your riches, when you shall see yourself encompassed with false feathers, fastened together with wax, which with the first rays of the other life will scatter and fly away.  
III. Never suffer gold and silver to predominate over you like a King, but hold them under obedience like a slave. All these things come from the earth, and are made for the use of an earthly body: What esteem can a Soul make of them, unless she become terrestrial? If you regard necessity, you have but very little need of them: if your own sensual appetites, you shall never satisfy them. Leave concupiscence, and serve necessity.  
iv Live in such a manner, that if you did know it to be purely and simply the will of God, you should from this day be despoiled of all your wealth, and nothing left you but so much as would suffice to entertain life, you notwithstanding would show this change to be acceptable to you, saying with holy Job: God hath given it to me, God hath taken it from me, his name be praised. Theodoret makes mention 
Martyr of poverty. Sames.  of a very rich man, a Persian by nation, and a Christian by profession, called Sames, from whom the King of Persia took all his plentiful possessions, depriving him of gold, silver, garments, stock, revenues, and retinue; and not contenting himself with that, gave his wife and house to a servant of this holy man, further enforcing him to serve as a slave to this varlet, most ungrateful and barbarous to his good Master. Behold herein whither humane miseries may arrive. Notwithstanding Sames, a rock of constancy, was never a whit shaken, having this maxim well imprinted in his heart, that for accessories, we must never lose the principal.  
V Govern your house in all frugality and modesty: Make the expenses which you know to be necessary and agreeable to your estate, not as a possessor, but as steward, and know you shall be accountable 
Divitem te sentiant pauperes.  of the poors portion before God. Apprehend not so much the future time, either for yourself, or children, nor afflict yourself for present or passed loss. Likewise when you have good success in your affairs, pass over it as a wary Bee over honey, not clamming your wings, according to the notable sentence of S. Augustine in his Epistle to Romanian. Living in 
August. ad Romani. ep. 113. Non frustrà in nullis copià pennas habet apicula, necti● enimhaerentem.  this manner, although you have Croesus his wealth, you shall live happily poor. It is said, that a great Pope with all the riches which he had, and daily distributed for supply of needy mankind, was thought to be poorer (and as I may say, more expropriated) than a silly Hermit, who had nothing in his Cell but a Cat, he now being become a Master over his own affections.   

The eight and twentieth SECTION. Practise of Justice.  
THat which the air is in the elementary world, 
Necessity of Justice.  the sun in the celestial, the soul in the intelligible, justice is the same in the civil. It is the air which all afflicted desire to breath; the sun which dispelleth all clouds; the soul which giveth life to all things. The unhappiness is, it is more found on the paper of Writers, than in the manners of the living. To be just, is to be all that which an honest man may be, since justice is to give every on what appertaineth to him.  
It's Actions are,  
I. To subject within us the body to the soul, and 
First Justice.  the soul to God: For the first actions of injustice are to place passions upon Altars, reason in fetters, and not to search for the Kingdom of heaven, but in the sway of our own private interests.  
II. Concerning him who sits in place of magistracy, to have an ardent zeal for the maintenance of laws, to bend all his endeavours, to apply all the forces of his mind and courage to authorise justice, to strengthen his arm against the torrent of iniquities, and to put all his peculiar interests under the discharge of his employments. He must have a great spirit to carry himself in that manner, and especially in a world of corruptions. A good and perfect justicer, like unto Job, is a Phoenix. Ages as scarcely produce 
Job. 19  him, and when he dyeth he contristates the whole world. Where shall you find him who can attribute to himself this rare commendation couched 
Justitiâ indutus sum, & vestivi me sicut vistimento diademate, judi●io meo. Oculus fui caeco & pes claudo: Pater eram pauperum, contere●am molas iniqui, & de dentibus illius auferebam praedam. Helmodi Chronicon. Admirable Justice without favour.  in the books of this worthy man: I am clothed with justice as with a garment; I am adorned with righteousness as with a diadem; I have been an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame, a father of the poor, I broke the jawbones of the unjust man, & took the prey out of his teeth.  
III. Not to know the favour either of parents, friends, flesh, or blood, when there is occasion of doing an act of justice, as Canutus' King of Denmark did, who after he had examined the process of twelve thiefs and condemned them, found one who said, he was extracted of royal blood: It is reason (saith the King) some grace should be done to him, wherefore give him the highest gibbet. So the famous Zeleucus to satisfy the law, pulled out one of his own eyes, and the other of his son. So Andronicus Commenus caused publicly to set one of his favourite on the pillory, and commanded all those who wrought mischief under the hope of his favour, either to leave injustice, or life. So the Emperor Justine suffered one of his greatest minions to be apprehended at his own table by the Provost, and thence dragged to execution.  
iv To abhor those who betray justice either for 
Peremptorium est in principe vel auram adorari munerum, vel favorem quaercre personarum. Cassiod. Ignis devorabit tabernacul● corum qui munerà accipiunt. Job. 15. Oath of Magistrates under Justitian.  money, revenge, love, or any other passion as monsters of nature, murderers of mankind, to hold them anathematised with the great excommunication of nature. Not to admire their fortune, nor in any sort to participate in their riches, to become a companion in their crimes, holding this undoubted, that the fire of God's judgement will devour their Tabernacles who practise these corruptions. In the form of an oath exhibited under the Emperor justinian, the Magistrates swore to maintain Religion and justice, according to their power, and in case of corruption they wished upon themselves by way of execration the trembling of Cain, the leprosy of Gehezi, the lot of Judas, and all that which may astonishmen.  
V To have ears always open, and bowels of compassion ready to hear the complaints of widows, orphans, afflicted, and forlorn people, who endure all the torments of the world to break through the press to manifest their miseries. The Emperor Trajan hath done many brave and eminent 
Notable act of Trajan.  acts, but none of his achievements were so resplendent as the justice he readily afforded to a virtuous widow. Her son had been slain, and she not being able to obtain justice, had the courage to accost the Emperor in the midst of the City of Rome, amongst an infinite number of people and flourishing legions which followed him to the wars he was then going to take in Valachia. At her request Trajan, notwithstanding he was much pressed with the affairs of a most urgent war, alighted from his horse, heard her, comforted her, and did her justice. This afterward was represented on Trajan's pillar, as one of his greatest wonders. And it is said, he was highly commended and admired by S. Gregory the great.  
VI To do good and to execute justice with expedition, not stretching the leather with the teeth, as said the good King Lewis the 12. taxing the delays, reverences, and neglects of Judges. The Chronicle 
Strange act of Theodorick. Chron. Alexandrinum.  of Alexandria relateth an admirable passage of Theodor. King of the Romans, to whom a widow named Juvenalis made her complaint, that a suit of hers in Court was drawn at length for the space of three years, which might have been dispatched in few days. The King demanded who were her Judges, she named them; they were sent unto and commanded to give all the speedy expedition that was possible to this woman's cause, which they did, and in two days determined it to her good liking. Which done, Theodorick called them again: they supposing it had been to applaud their excellent justice now done, hastened thither full of joy. Being come, the King asked of them: How cometh it to pass you have performed that in two days, which had not been done in three years? They answered: The recommendation of your Majesty made us finish it. How? replieth the King, When I put you into office did I not consign all pleas and proceed to you, and particularly those of widows? You deserve death, so to have spun out a business in length three years' space, which required but two days dispatch. And at that instant commanded their heads to be cut off. The good Juvenalis was so strucken with admiration for such an act, that she came to the King to render thanks, and to offer candles to him as to a holy Saint. And would to God Theodorick had still persevered in such integrity.  
VII. Not to be contented with conscience alone, but to have science also, well to examine matters, and to observe the forms of right: Not to cause any body to be punished or tormented by precipitation without sufficient poofs. It is a lamentable thing, when through a desperate hast an innocent is bereft of that in a moment, which never can be again restored although he should live an hundred years. But it is to be wickedly unjust, when that is also confirmed by malice and cruelty, which 
Mad cruelty of Piso. Senec. de ira. lib. 1. c. 16.  was begun by mistaking: As happened to Piso, who rashly condemned a poor soldier to death, wrongfully suspected of the murder of his living companion. As the innocent man had now his neck under the sword of his executioner, this camerado of his, supposed to be slain by him, appeared living and in health. The Centurion, who attended the execution, brought them both back again with much concourse of people, to present them to Piso. This furious judge enragedly ashamed of the first sentence which he overhastily had given, commanded they should both be put to death, and that also the Centurion should be added to them: One because he was already condemned, although guiltless, another because he was thought to be dead, and the third, because he would preserve in the Judge wisdom and innocency. This Barbarian shortly after paid for this fault joined with many others, by a merveilous turn of Fortune, and a most shameful death.  
VIII. To be more inclining always to mercy than severity; yet notwithstanding well to take heed, lest this mercy degenerate into a softness very prejudicial to the maintenance of justice. Also to visit prisons, to see what is fit to be done, and not suffer prisoners to consume in a tedious and irksome misery without true cause of delay.  
IX. To extend the hand, that honest men may be maintained, protected, recompensed for services done to the Commonwealth, and Malefactors punished, and used according to their demerits, since reward and punishment (as Democritus said) are the two Divinities of Weals-publike, and the two poles on which the affairs of the world do move.  
X. As for the justice of particular men, it is to 
Justice of particulars.  obey Laws and Magistrates, keep peace and concord among their neighbours: To wrong no man in his honour, body, goods, allies, reputation, nor any thing that appertaineth to another, either by word, deed, or by sign.  
XI. To be true in words, loyal in promises, faithful in proceed, to handle the affairs which one manageth roundly and freely without dissimulation, deceit, treachery, to avoid usury, and all unjust gain, to pay debts, not to withhold servants or hirelings wages, to be ready to satisfy those whom one hath offended, often to beg of God that in the day of his great Assizes we may appear in the robe of Justice, to expect with all confidence the benign breath of his mercies.   

The twenty ninth SECTION. Practise of Gratitude.  
ONe Of the noblest acts of justice, is the acknowledgement 
Benoficia pulveri; si quid mali patimur marmori insculpimus A singular saying of Sir Thomas More. Amb. l. 6. Hexan. c. 4. Tolies dog.  of a benefit. A virtue very rare in this Age, where (as well Sir Thomas More said) good turns are written in sand, and injuries and revenges on marble. Saint Ambrose assureth us it was not without mystery young Toby took a dog for the companion of his voyage: God would he should learn acknowledgement of benefits in the nature of this creature, the Hierogliph of gratitude.  
The acts of acknowledgement, are,  
I. Not to deny, dissemble, nor ever to forget a benefit, 
Gratitude of Hebrews. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joseph. Anti. l. 4.  but to acknowledge it, retain it, praise, extol it, as the ancient Hebrews did, who set marks on their arms, and ensigns at their gates, for the remembrance and acknowledgement of a benefit received. It is a great shame to be ashamed to owe a benefit, and to avoid the sight of a benefactor, as if his presence upbraided either our ingratitude or disability.  
II. To be thankful, not only in the presence of the benefactor by some little vain ostentation of acknowledgement, but to publish it to others in time and place, and to retain it as it were engraven in a respective memory.  
III. To recompense him according to power, not only in proportion but superabundantly, which that it may be the better effected, to consider what is given to us, from whom, when, and how. A benefit is ever best accepted from a friendly, frank, and free hand, and many times from whom it is least expected, in a pressing necessity. A benefit from a harsh man, given as it were frowardly, is a stony loaf of bread, which necessity enforceth us to take, not freewill. It is no gift, when that is given which can no longer be withheld; as Emanuel the Emperor, who 
Sordid liberality of Emanuel Conunus.  seeing his full coffers in the hands of the Persians, said to his soldiers: Go take them, I give them to you. It is a negligent and remiss giving, when the extreme want of a poor man is expected: As the fountain of Narni, which never distilled its streams 
Leander in umbrià.  but on the eve of a famine. A small courtesy seasonably done deserveth much, and that was the cause why King Agrippa made a poor servitor, named 
Joseph. lib. 18. antiq. Thou mastus the second man in a kingdom for having given a glass of water.  Thaumastus, the second person of his kingdom, for that he had given him a glass of fair water in his great necessity, when under Tiberius he was tied to a tree before the Palace of the Emperor, and endured a most ardent thirst.  
iv As it is not good to suffer a benefit to wax old, so it is not always expedient to recompense it so readily, as if we bear our obligation with impatience, and that we had an opinion this benefit came to us from a hand besmeared with birdlime, with intention to grasp another. The best way is to let your observances creep into credit, in time and place, with so much the more precaution as they ought to have the less of ostentation.   

The thirtieth SECTION. Practise of Charity.  
SAaint Ireneus (as we have said) calleth charity a 
Eminentissimum charismatum. S. Iren. l. 4. c. 63 S. Maximus Occonem. cent. 1. 38. Reg. 4. c. 2. Plenitudo legis Charita. Aug. tract. in epist. Joan. Derothem 5. Bibliothec. PP. Doct. 6.  most excellent present from heaven, the top and zenith of all virtues, gifts, and favours of God. Saint Maximus saith, it is the gate of the Sanctuary. which leadeth us aright to the vision of the holy Trinity. It is the double spirit which Elizeus required, wherewith to love God and our neighbour. Behold the whole law, behold all perfection. You are not much to afflict yourself (saith S. Augustine) to become perfect. Love God, and then do what you will: For if you desire to know whether your love towards God be real and not counterfeit, mark how you love your neighbour. By how much the lines draw nearer one to another, so much the more they approach to the centre: By how much the nearer you approach to your neighbour in love, by so much the nearer you are to God.  
The Actions of this Royal virtue are, 
Acts of Charity.   
I. To have an affectionate delight in God, for that he is God, alwise, all-good, all-powerfull, all-amiable, all-just, all merciful; the original fountain of all wisdom, goodness, power, beauty, justice, mercy. Most hearty to rejoice that he sitteth in the throne of glory, as in an abyss of splendour, adored without intermission by all the celestial powers, by all the Saints, by all the exalted Spirits. To desire that all the creatures in the world might adore and serve him, that all understandings were replenished with the knowledge of him, all memories with his benefits, all wills with his love. Such was the affection of that good Friar Giles, companion to Saint Francis, who was much moved in beholding the beauties of God, and afterwards wept bitterly because, as he said, love was not beloved enough. 
Amor non amatur.   
II. To be sensibly sorrowful for the impieties, heresies, infidelities, errors, sins, dissolutions, which have covered the face of the earth. To resent the injuries done to God, as one would the rebukes of a good father, of a loving brother, or of some person most tenderly affectionate, as the apple of your eye. It is an admirable thing to see in Scripture a poor 
Mervelous zeal of a Lady.  Princess, daughter in law of Heli, falling in travail upon the news brought her of the taking of the Ark of covenant, and death of her husband and neighbours; for her neither to think of father, brother, husband, no nor the pains of her childbearing, nor to complain of any thing but of the surprisal of the Ark, and to have dying these words on her lips: Farewell the glory of Israel, since the Ark of God is taken 
2. Reg. 4. Translata est gloria de Israel, quia capta est Arca Dei.  away; what zeal is this in a woman? And now adays one cannot lose a greyhound, a curtal jade, a bird, but all the house is filled with noise and outcries, whilst for injuries done to God the hearts of men are very insensible.  
III. To love all mortal men as creatures made to the image of God, but above all, the faithful, in the quality of persons destined to the sovereign beatitude: to wish them true blessings, as justification, grace, virtues, spiritual progression, glory. Moreover to desire they may be fortunate in riches, honour, credit, good success in their affairs, if such comforts may conduce to procure them beatitude.  
IU. Never to despise, never to judge rashly, never to interpret other men's actions in an ill sense; but to compassionate their infirmities, bear their burdens, excuse their weaknesses, make up and consolidate the breaches of charity happened by their fault, to hate imperfections, and ever to love men, yea even your enemies. Therein the touchstone of true charity is known. The means to preserve one from his enemies, is to pardon enemies, said S. Augustine. One 
Disce diligere inimicum, si vis cav●re inimicum. Aug. in Ps. 99  of the goodliest spectacles, able to attract Angels to to the gates of heaven to behold it, is neither theatres, Amphitheatres, Pyramids, nor Obelisks; but a man, who knoweth how to do well and hear ill, and to vindicate himself from ill by doing well.  
Cardinal Petrus Damianus relateth, how he being a student at Faenza, one told him of an Act of charity happened (as I believe) in his time, at the same place, of which he made more account than of all the wonders of the world. It was a man, whose 
An excellent passage of charity.  eyes another most traitorously had pulled out, and this accident had confined him in a Monastery, where he lived a pure and unspotted life, yielding all offices of charity according to the ability of his person. It fell out this cruel creature who had done this mischievous act sickened of a languishing malady, and found himself enforced to be carried to that fame place where he was whom he had bereft of sight. His heart said within him, he would never endure him, but for revenge would put out his eyes. On the contrary, the blind man made earnest suit to do this act of charity to him withal the most fervent endeavour, as if he had sought some great fortune from the hand of a Prince. Behold he prevailed, he is deputed to the service of the sick man, and he dedicated to him all the functions of his body, except the eyes which the other had pulled out. Notwithstanding (saith the Cardinal) he wanted not eyes, having those of supreme charity and patience. You would say this good blind man was all eyes, all arms, all hands, all heart, to attend this sick man, so much consideration, vigour, diligence, and affection he used. And what should they here say, who upon the least affronts burn with a revengeful spirit.  
V. Not to have a lazy and languishing charity, which is only in idea, but to be diligent, cordial, strict; not for particular ends, but the taintless maxims of virtue. It was a great folly in those Philosophers called the Contemplators, who placed perfection in sitting with arms , without doing any act to assist in the society of men. Witness the prime Prince among them, named Pirrho, who beheld the stars whilst his companion Axaquus falling into a ditch cried out for help: They both were found, the one 
Laert. l. 6.  in this misery despairing, and the other contemplating. It was said to the Master: What do you here, my friend? Why endeavour you not to draw your companion 
Stupidity of Pirrho. Sine, mediter ut bonus sim. Plin. l. 2. Deus est mortali juvare mortalem, & haec ad aeternam glorian.  out of this ditch? No other answer would he make: Let me alone. I meditate how to become an honest man And behold him a lazy truant, without any further search in giving aid to this miserable man. In the whole history of Pliny the best word is this: It is a Divinity for one man to do good to another, and behold the most assured way of eternal glory.  
VI For this purpose you ought to know not only at your finger ends, but to have both in heart and hand the works of mercy spiritual and corporal. You must dispose yourself with especial endeavour to 
Alms.  alms-deeds. There is the school of rich men, it is their lesson, their philosophy, their heavenly Alchemy, their justification, their salvation, their glory. The practice of alms is not now to be required. It is easily found. There are as many ways of mercy, as there are miseries in mankind, which are every day exposed to our eyes: A thousand fold happy are they who seriously bend themselves to comfort such, every one to the proportion of his power. How many brave and noble spirits are industrious in that kind? Some (as the Emperor Titus) thought they had lost a day wherein they had obliged no man. Others daily fed some poor creature, in whom they acknowledged the person of Jesus Christ. Others went up and down into public streets, to find out the necessities of men, to relieve and consolate them. Others humbled themselves continually to the services of the sick and indigent. Others taught this practice to their little children, almost from the nurses' breast; as soon as they began to stutter out words, they were made orators for the poor. Others distributed their revenue in equal portions to Churches, needy persons, and for their own maintenance. Others gave the first fruits of all their increase of profits. Others founded and instituted a thousand excellent works of piety. Behold good life herein, fair hope, and generous charity. And is it not to be the scorn and scandal of mankind 
Ista verò injustitia magna, ut egeat Dominus & habeat unde luxurietur filius tuus. August. l. de disciplina Christiana. Val. 4. c. 8.  to amass riches for worms, for moths, for children many times wicked, drunken, lose Libertines, who will play and disport upon their parents tombs? It were a notable inscription if one should put these words upon your monument, which Valerius gave to one called Gillias':  
QUOD GILLIAS' POSSIDEBAT, OMNIUM QUASI COMMUNE PATRIMONIUMERAT: HIC IPSIUS LIBERALITATIS PRAECORDIA HABUIT, ET DOMUS EJUS QUASI QUAEDAM MUNIFICENTIAE OFFICINA. What Gillias' had, was the possession of all mankind. This man had his heart and entrails composed even of Charity itself: His house was a shop of bounty.   

Of Virtues that oppose the third impurity, which is pride of life. The thirty first SECTION. The practice of humility and magnanimity.  
TO say that Noble men and persons of quality have no need of the virtue of humility, is to say that sick men have no need of health. Humility is the element and orb of virtues. It is the gate of Christianity (saith S. Cyprian) and we ought not to 
Primus Religionis introi●us. Cyprian. de Nativitate Christi. Humility of great men. M●gna virtus est humilitas honorata,  think that man will be loyal to faith, who is unfaithful to the virtue of Jesus Christ, to wit, humility. It is necessary for all men, but especially great ones, who are more roughly assaulted by the storms of pride: And if this virtue be a contempt of its own excellency, where shall you find out this excellency to find out the contempt thereof? Shall it be in mean and inferior spirits? They naturally are in their own way of baseness, but not therefore in the path of humility. The most exact humility is that; which hath more of honour, and less of the sense of honour, saith S. Bernard. The stars are beheld in the bottom of a pit, and profound humility maketh the most radiant splendours appear in greatness. The sun dispelleth the grossest vapours, and draweth the thinnest and subtle to himself: How much the more you lessen yourself, so much the nearer you shall approach to the Sun of true glory. If you desire to practise this celestial virtue, behold the actions.  
I. Do not intoxicate your brain with a mad vanity 
Acts. Pride of Nobility reprehenlible.  of noble race, which causeth many to dig out and disentomb their Grandsires', as it were from the ashes of old Troy: and as Ausonius saith, in so carefully searching out uncertain parents, they many times give occasion to think they have none certain, Nobility is not to be blamed, since it is the happiness of good extraction, but to be vauntingly puffed upon this occasion, is a mere folly He that should revolve and rifle the whole mass of mankind (saith Plato) should find there is no King, which cometh not from servitors, nor servitor who cometh not from Kings.  
II. Not to affect, nor seek after humane praises, flattery, complacence, tickle of reputation, which 
Names of land.  inebriate all shallow brains. Nor through affectation to display a large list of titles and qualities. The time hath been when men named lands; at this day lands denominate men. So many abject villages, boroughs, hamlets, brave it in paper, and set our memories on the rack to name one man, who should rather be named and renowned for virtues, which are the inheritance of men. Our Ancestors, who raised their titles upon noble actions, were men of heaven: but now when we so passionately seek to acquire names of the earth, we well thereby declare we are men of the earth.  
III. When one is arrived by virtue to some fortune and condition eminent, not at an instant to turn 
Modesty in its exaltation. Humility of Primistaus and Pope Benedict the 11.  his brain as with a voluntary drunkenness, and forget not only his poor parents but himself also, affecting wry-mouths, crabbed looks, disdains, ill countenances, and much exterior seeming, to blot out the memory of his extraction. The good Primislaus being come from the fortune of a peasant to the Sovereingty of Bohemia, caused his country-cassock and high shoes to be kept in the Church, and yearly represented to him, to renew the memory of his blood, and thereby cherish his own humility. Pope Benedict the eleventh, the son of a silly peasant, his mother being brought unto him in a rich and sumptuous habit, with intention much to please him, turned his eyes away, and said he could not acknowledge this woman for his mother. But she afterwards returning to him in her rustic attire, he acknowledged her, and yielded all the duties of a good son. Their hearts were deep in humility, & not of these petty spirits, who are ashamed of their beginning, and resemble those beasts, which think they are well hidden if their heads be covered, showing the rest of their bodies.  
IU. Neither to make yourself Fierabras, nor the Knight of the burning sword in matter of valour. Those who most brave it in words, are found very short in performance. The world is full of Rodomonts, 
Rodomonts'.  who only are transported with arrogant and sudden furies, as Rabsaces in the Scripture; but few are found truly valorous. When Homer maketh his brave Captains march, he gives them silence for guide. Contrariwise he maketh cowards to babble and chatter like crane's: The one pass along like great rivers, letting their streams glide softly with silent majesty; the other do nothing else but murmur like little brooks; A sign of not being valiant at all, is to strive to seem valiant.  
V To boast the beauty of body, is to have a 
Vanity of beauty.  great defect in the judgement, which is the beauty of the soul. It is verily a desperate vanity, when a Lady, under the colour that some scribbling Rhymer hath given her the locks of Aurora, the eyes of Venus, the port of Juno, the feet of Thetis, makes herself the Queen of Antioch, and glorifies herself many times with a beauty merely imaginary. Queen 
Ridiculous pride of Queen Stratonica.  Stratonica, wife of Seleucus, had not one hair upon her head, yet notwithstanding gave six hundred crowns to a Poet, who had celebrated her in his verse, and sung, that her hair had the tincture of the Marigold. I know not how this soothing flatterer meant it, but this Queen became very proud, which made her so much the more ridiculous. Although this beauty were true, it is but white and vermilion skin distended over a carcase, which covereth many ordures: It is a dunghill blanched with snow, an Idol of fools, a flower of the field, which hath (as it were) for horizon the instant of its birth. We may 
Mirabar celerem fugitiuâ ●tate ruillam, Et dum nascuntur, consenuisse rosas.  well give it the epitaph of the Rose:  
Here lies the Rose in one day come  
From the first Blossom to a Tomb.  
VI A much more notorious folly it also is to boast and brave it in apparel, which are plasters of the scars of sin, to wit, nakedness; borrowed feathers from all kind of birds, unpunished thefts, witnesses of our poverty, which causeth us to beg the assistance of all creatures to cover our shame. What an indignity is it to be desireous to brave it above ones state, quality, or port, and to arrive at this height, ofttimes to bear the fat and marrow of the poor in the plaits of garments? Nay these many rapines are not sufficient to entertain this enraged prodigality. Debts must grow which cannot be discharged: Silk 
Habits.  must be dragged at your heels, and a Sergeant ready behind you; to show gold, and hid misery and sin; to adorn a body, as if it were a Temple of Egypt with all possible splendour, and to lodge within it the soul of a Rat. What infamy is it to behold in a banquet a Roman Lady, called Lollia Paulina, carry about her in chains, carcanets, and precious stones, a 
Plin. l. 9 c. 35. Paulina bare about her a million of gold.  million of gold, and her father, who had despoiled all the Roman Provinces to  this only daughter, drink afterwards poison, overwhelmed in the despair of his own affairs? Is not the chamlet coat of the greatest of all our Kings, S. Lewis, is it not of power to confound all Courtiers of both sexes, who having nothing worthy of praise in them, would dignify themselves with apparel, showing they have like Peacocks a little head, little brain, beautiful feathers, and a long tail?  
VII. Not to be proud for riches, for they are a river which now this day pass along by your lodging, and are no more yours than the river of Seyne. Nor to look with a surly face in great fortunes and dignities; for it is a vizard in a Comedy, which must presently be pulled off. Not to value yourself 
Super eminence of person.  highly for a happy memory; for it is as it were the belly of the soul, many times filled with much windiness: nor for wit, for it is often but thin, like the spider's web, fit to catch flies and nothing else: nor for the judgement, for much to confide therein is a dangerous leprosy in the heart of man.  
VIII. To measure yourself by your own rule, 
Modesty.  to know your own ability, not overmuch to presume of your own forces, not to undertake a great burden, and shrink under the weight of it. To speak little of yourself, and of all that which is your own, not to overprize, nor deject yourself, to do good without speaking of it, to obey the commandments of Superiors faithfully, readily, courageously, to moderate desires, to love mediocrity in all things, to have a sweet, affable, and respective conversation. 
Megnanimity   
IX. If you be truly humble you will necessarily have the acts of magnanimity, which are to undertake great things for the honour of God: For there is not any thing so potent as the humble man, who expecteth all his power from heaven. To contemn the promises and menaces of great men, when they request or command you to do any injustice.  
X. To drive from you with courage any obstacles, 
Arist. Eth. 3.  which present themselves to divert you from a good work: to make little account of all the states and dignities of the world: To enter into it, stay in it, go out of it, ever with the same countenance. To take honour as a tribute, which you are to put into the coffers of God. To abide continually both in adversity and prosperity within yourself. To recompense a benefit liberally, never to detract, to praise sparingly, beg seldom, admire nothing lightly, nor complain of any man. To hold rank among great men without vanity, and to humble yourself to inferiors through charity. Not to undertake many things, but perform brave things. To hate flattery as a plague, hypocrisy as a poison, complacence as a mockery. To do and speak freely, what is reasonable. Not to remember injuries. To aim rather at true honour than profit.   

The thirty second SECTION. Practise of Patience.  
BEhold that which setteth a seal upon all virtues, 
Praise of Patience.  patience, ever the first in the list and last in the triumph. It is the crowned pomegranate which hangeth among bells in the lowest border of 
A notable observation upon the habit of the High Priest.  the high Priests robe of the old Law. It was a goodly thing to carry all the world on his habit, all was imperfect without the crown of patience; she it is which hath the bell, to teach us, that all virtues are very excellent, but it belongeth not to them to proclaim victory without patience and perseverance. Other virtues are as those ancient Painters, who subscribed at the foot of their table, He painted, he made: but patience may affix, I have made, I have perfected, since it giveth full accomplishment. It is the school of Christianity. So learned are we (saith S. Ambrose) as we have patience: so much do we participate 
Ambr. super Proverb. Tantò quisque minùs ostenditur doctus, quantò minùs ●stenditur patience. Vita PP.  with God as we can suffer by his example. He hath taken a body to be able to suffer, and to make himself altogether the mirror of sufferers, and the reward of those who have patiently endured. If we suffer not to imitate him, our soul is no longer ours: For it is the word of the Son of God, that we possess not this soul but by the means of patience. If we leave it, we lose all. For the practice of this virtue, I require not you should be a Saint Macarius, who for having killed 
Patience of S. Macarius.  a gnat which stung him, went (as if he had committed a great act of impatience) for the space of six months, exposing his naked body to all the flies, gnats, and wasps of the wilderness, to be revenged on himself. This patience is not for your purpose, learn one more easy.  
I. That you a little bear with yourself. All folly 
Patience of ●reat men, what.  hath this property with it, that it is perpetually in disturbances, ever weary of the present, and with open mouth gaping for the future. It leapeth like 
Acts.  quicksilver, it boundeth and skippeth from thought to thought, from purpose to purpose, from place to place, as the Stag from the hillock to the mountain, from the mountain to the hillock. And all that proceedeth from impatience of heart.  
Take for the first act of patience to reclaim your 
First patience to endure one's self.  self within yourself, not to be still upon change, to rest with firm footing in the conditions, professions, employments, recreations, in which through duty you are engaged.  
II. To spare men as saith the Emperor Antonius) 
To spare men and endure men.  and suffer men. You would have men speak, laugh, go, and spit, even after your fashion, that is the way to please you. Superiors molest you, equals trouble you, inferiors can do nothing to content your appetite, the noise of a door, the wind of a window, a glass broken, a mess of broth over-salted, a fly in the kitchen negligently driven away by a servant makes you enraged. You have more disturbances than the winding Euripus hath waves. This proceedeth from the great weakness of your understanding, effeminacy of flesh, tenderness of education, custom of curiosity, sickness, and giddiness of spirit. If you do not seasonably prevent the mischief and daily accustom yourself to tolerate some inconvenience with sweetness and patience, you will become a monster in conversation, insupportable to all, and in conclusion troublesome to yourself. What an indignity is it, that a man full of rebellions against God, should desire that men and beasts serve him according to all his humours? Some slight fellow will be so observed in punto, and a thousand and a thousand Kings have endured a million of indiscretions of their servants with patience. Is it not said that Philip the second, King of Spain, having written a letter with his own hand, with much study and labour, to be sent to the Pope, when he asked for sand to cast upon it, his Secretary half asleep poured the ink in the standish upon it? This would have put you into a fury, and yet behold a man of this eminency bore it without speaking one angry word to his servant.  
III. From hence you shall learn to suffer calumnies 
Calumnies.  and slanderous words, not raising a storm in your mind about the interpretation of a doubtful word, not to frame differences about the leg of a fly. Not to be amazed at forged imputations, which trench even upon the Diadems of Kings and Mitres of Popes. The buckler wherewith you must resist them is contempt and innocence. It is said, the Basilisk desirous to infect a lookingglass killeth himself by repercussion of vapours which proceed from his own body, and the calumniator doth the like, when he meeteth with a pure unspotted life: It is a smooth glass, which slayeth him with his proper arms. Speak only these royal words of David, a 
1. Reg. 36. Patience of David. Si Dominus incitat adversum me, odoretur Sacrificium meum.  King and Prophet: My God, if thou suffer this persecution against me, at the least I beg the sacrifice of my patience may ascend to thy Altar in the odour of sweetness. S. Ambrose, as I have demonstrated before, hath observed, that this great man was so disposed to patience, that being persecuted by his son Absolom, and at the same time furiously pursued with the foul slanders of Shimei, he took the clamorous tongue of this detractor, 
Verborum contumelia paricidia levavit aerumnam.  to make as it were an Antidote of it, and apply it to the sorrow he received from the parricide of an unnatural son.  
IU. Patiently to endure a malady: It is a hard 
Malady.  matter in vehement pains, but that some outcries and exclamations escape nature. I know not what heart that Gentleman had of whom the table of constancy speaketh, who played on a lute when his leg was cut off with biting saws and burning cauteries, without breathing forth one silly sigh. That is not exacted of you, but that you use some moderation, and above all you have a soul resigned, principally in dolours and small maladies, which give you leisure enough to re-enter into yourself.  
V. Finally to swim in a strong stream, you must 
Heroic acts of patience.  fortify yourself, against all humane accidents, as are the hurly-burlies of fortune, (which in a moment thrust a man down to the bottom of the wheel) banishments, imprisonments, shipwrecks, loss of goods, infamous accusations even of innocency itself, crimes, calamities, death of friends, near kindred, fathers, mothers, brothers, children, and all that which hath sadness and horror in nature. Out alas! what lightnings, thunders, tempests on all sides? What traps, what snares? O man (miserable creature) drenched in the water of thy tears, which are more familiar to thee than the sea and rivers to fishes; where wilt thou save thyself, if thou put not thyself 
Patience the Sanctuary of mortals.  under the shelter of patience? All is replenished with miseries, and to be desirous of exemption is a petty apostasy in nature. Tribulation is the King's highway, beaten and tracked with the sacred steps of thy Master, and with a countless number of Saints, who all of them have made their afflictions the degrees of their glory. Behold thy Jesus, he is the brazen serpent, planted in the wilderness of this world, which healeth all the bitings of our impatience. Behold patience, it is the salt of the Prophet Elizaeus, which purifieth the polluted waters, and sweeteneth all the bitterness of life.   

The thirty third SECTION. Practise of daily actions.  
ALl our virtues are included in our actions, and our actions in the hours, the hours in the 
Every day a table of life.  day, and the day in the month, the month in the year, and the years in the Ages. Every day is 
Means of perfection  a brief table of our life, and the means to make one's self perfect quickly, is to perform all our daily actions with mature consideration and perfection. Behold a portrait, the lineaments whereof I have taken from a man endowed with great wisdom, religion, and in-integrity, whom I would willingly name, did I not fear to offend his humility, able to endure any thing but his own praises.  
I. It is a long time since the sun for your benefit hath dispersed the shadows of the night, that you may rejoice at the sight of the great spectacle of the works of God; and yet your curtains are still shut to entertain you in the dusky image of death. Get out 
Motive to pass the day well.  of your bed, and think this goodly star, which maketh you begin the career of this day, will this day run more than ten or twelve millions of leagues. And you, how many steps (I pray) will you set forward to draw near to virtue? This indefatigable harbinger is gone forth to score you out the lodging of a tomb, so many minutes are so many points deducted of our life. Will not you follow the counsel of the Son of God, and do well whilst it is day? A great night will speedily involve you under its wings, wherein you shall no more have further means to travel.  
II. Take every day as a day in harvest. Take it as 
Day precious.  a day of a fare, or mart; take it as a day wherein you are to labour in the mines of gold; take it as a ring, which you must engrave, adorn, and embellish with your actions, to be in the evening offered up at the Altar of God.  
III. Represent unto yourself a notable consideration of S. Bernard, that your actions pass, as not passing: For every good work you do, is a grain of seed for life eternal. Say as did Xeuxes that painter so renowned. 
To paint for eternity.  Aeternitate pingo, I paint for eternity.  
iv Fellow the counsel of S. Thomas. Do every 
Counsel of S. Thomas,  action in the virtue of Jesus Christ, desiring to have all the good intentions and affections of the Church militant and triumphant: Do it as if thereon depended 
S. Thom. de moribus divinis.  the praise of God, the good of the whole world, all your happiness, and as if it were to set a seal on all your works.  
V Begin from the evening the purpose of good 
To provide on the evening for the day to come.  works which you are to perform the next day, what points you ought to meditate on, what vice you should resist, what virtue exercise, what affairs you are to handle, to make all appear in its proper time with a well matured providence. It is the thread of Ariadne, which guideth our actions in the great labyrinth of time, otherwise all runneth to confusion.  
VI Have so much curiosity in you, as sometime 
Diligence in the morning.  to know of what colour the daybreak of morning is, outstrip the steps of light, according to the counsel of the Wiseman, to praise God. Take good heed lest you imitate that hog Epicurus, who boasted he had waxed old without ever beholding the sun rising or setting. It is a good custom to rise in the morning, but very difficult to persuade women so, and all the Antipodes of nature, who change day into night, and night into day. That famous Apollonius held in his time for an Oracle of the world, coming very early in the morning to Vespasian's gate, and finding him awake, conjectured thereupon that he was worthy to command an Empire, and said to one who accompanied him: Undoubtedly this man 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  will be Emperor, seeing he is so early a stirrer.  
VII. All that which you are to dispose the day 
Three parts of the day.  unto, is divided into three parts, Devotion, Business, Recreation. Devotion must carry the torch and open the door to all our actions.  
VIII. Make account at your first awaking to 
Awaking.  give all the first fruits of your faculties, senses, and functions to the divine Majesty. Let the memory presently put itself in mind, that it ought to do the work of God. Let the understanding cast a consideration upon its Creator, like a flash of lightning. Let the will be enkindled with his love. Let the heart shoot forth some fiery shafts, some desires and some affections wholly celestial. Let the mouth and tongue endeavour to pronounce some vocal prayer to the most Holy Trinity. Let the hands figure on the forehead and breast the sign of the Cross, since they are lifted up to heaven. Let the arms and feet shake off the sluggishness of sleep, as S. Peter did the chains at the voice of the Angel. Behold a good beginning, how to offer one's self to God. The hair was pulled from the victim, and put into the fire before it was sacrificed; so must you draw away at your awaking those slighteractions, to give beginning to your Sacrifice.  
IX. This action should serve as a preparative to another more long and serious devotion, which you are to make in your closet, when first you come out of your bed. If you have so gorgeous garments to put on, that necessarily you must bestow some notable time to dress you, it is a miserable servitude. Observe you not it should be done to render your tribute to God? Then cloth yourself indifferently, 
Exercise of the morning.  as much as shall be necessary for comlyness and health. Afterward with bowed knees use five things, Adoration, Thanksgiving, Oblation, Contrition 
Five things to be practised.  and Petition.  
Adoration, in adoring God prostrated on the earth, resounding like a little string of the world's great harp, and offering to the Creator this whole universe as a votive-table hanged upon his Altar, wholly resigning yourself to his will. For this act, it is very expedient to use the Hymn of the three children in the furnace, who called all creatures as by a check-roul, to the praises of God.  
Thanksgiving for all benefits in general, and particularly for that you have happily passed over this night. The Church furnisheth us with an excellent form of thanksgiving in the Hymn Te Deum laudamus.  
Oblation, of your faculties, senses, functions, thoughts, words, works, and of all that you are, remembering the sentence of S. John Chrysostom, That the worst avarice is to defraud God of the oblation of yourself. Offer to God the Father your memory, to replenish it with profitable and good things, as a vessel of election; to the Son your understanding, to enlighten it with eternal verities; to the Holy Ghost your will, to heat it with his holy ardours: Consign your body to the Blessed virgin, to preserve it under the seal of purity.  
Contrition in general for all sins, and particularly for some vices and imperfections which most surcharge you, with a firm purpose to make war against them, and extirpate them with God's assistance.  
Petition, not to offend God mortally, nor to fail with grace, light, and courage to resist those sins to which you are most inclined. To practise those virtues which are most necessary for you. To be guided and governed this very day by the providence of God in all that may concern the weal of your soul, body, and things external. To participate in all the good works which shall be done in the Christian world. To obtain new graces and succours for the necessities of your neighbours, whom you then may represent, and this by the intercession of Saints, wherewith your prayer should be seasoned. 
Spiritual lesson.  It is then to very good purpose to spend some quarter of an hour at the least in reading some spiritual book, imagining it as a letter sent from God to you, for direction of your actions.  
X. When you put on your apparel, to acknowledge 
Clothing.  your great servitude, so to serve with much industry the most abject and brutish part of man. To think you garnish a body, which even this very day may be a putrified rottenness. What time and diligence had Jesabel used in the last day of her life to adorn and deck a body, that was trampled under the feet of horses, and gnawn by dogs some few hours after?  
Mass must be heard at a due hour, in the manner 
Mass.  before related, and that is a most especial act of devotion.  
XI. The second employment of the day, is in 
Affairs.  the affairs which one mannageth, whether it be for the public or for your own particular, in the government of your family, or discharge of some office. A good business is a good devotion, and nothing is so much to be feared as idleness, which is a very antheap of sins. He who taketh pains (said the ancient Fathers of the desert) is tempted but by one devil; he that is idle, by them all. There is no person so noble or eminent, that ought not to find out some employment. If iron had the reason of understanding, it would tell you, it better loved to be used by much exercise, than to rust and consume in the corner of a house.  
XII. In the practice of charges, offices, affairs, to use knowledge, conscience, dexterity, diligence. Knowledge in learning that which is profitable to be known, for the discharge of duty, in informing one's self of that which cannot be guessed at, in hearing counsel, examining and weighing it with mature deliberation. Conscience, in administering all things with integrity according to laws both divine and humane. Dexterity, in doing all things discreetly, peaceably, with more fruit than noise. In such manner that one show not anxiety in affairs, but like that Prince of whom in ancient time one said, That in the most busy occupation he seemed ever to have the greatest vacation. Diligence, observing occasions well, and performing every thing in time and place,  
He that hath never so little spirit and good disposition, shall always find wherein to employ himself, principally in the works of mercy both spiritual and temporal, amongst so many objects of our neighbour's miseries.  
XIII. Time of repast, recreations, sports, and visits 
Recreation.  should be very regular, for fear nature be not dissolved in a lazy and bestial life, greatly unworthy of a noble heart. Away with gluttony, play, detraction, curiosity, scoffing, babbling. Let the conversation be as a file, to smooth and cleanse the spirit, and ever to adapt it to its proper functions.  
XIIII. One should not in affairs, recreations, retirements, omit at some times to elevate his heart to God by jaculatory prayers. Happy are they, who 
Elevation of heart to God  in every hour of the day do make unperceivably some little retreat in their hearts, casting their eye like a lightning-flash upon the hour past, and foreseeing the direction of the next. Above all, after dinner it is fit to reenter into ones self, and to see the good order which hath been given for the execution of the morning's good purposes.  
XV. In the evening before you go to bed, you 
Evening.  are to use examen of conscience, Lytanies, and other vocal prayers, with the preparation of the meditation of the next day; happily to shut up the day with acts of contrition, faith, hope, charity, prayers for the living and dead. Thereupon settle yourself to sleep with some good thought, to the end according to the Prophet, your night may be lightened with the beauties of God. If any interruption of sleep happen, mark it out with jaculatory prayers and elevations of heart, as anciently the Just did, who for this cause were called the crickets of the night. This doing, you shall lead a life replenished with honour, repose, satisfaction towards yourself, and shall each day advance one step forward to eternity.  
The marks which amongst others, may give you a good hope of your predestination are principally twelve. First. A lively, simple, and firm faith. 2. Purity of heart, which ordinarily is free from grievous sins. 3. Tribulation. 4. Clemency and mercy. 5. Poverty of spirit disengaged from earth. 6. Humility. 7. Charity towards your neighbour. 8. Frequentation of the Sacraments of Confession and Communion. 9 Love to the word of God. 10. Resignation of spirit to the will of your Sovereign Master. 11. Some remarkable Act of virtue excercized by you upon occasion offered. 12. Devotion to our Blessed Lady: In honour of whom you shall do well to observe daily three things. First, to present unto her an oblation every hour of the day of the Angelical salutation, when at the striking of the clock you recall your heart to yourself. Secondly, to excercise some mortification of mind or body, by some motive of the imitation of her virtues. Thirdly, to give alms to her honour either spiritual or temporal.  
This have I enlarged in a little manual called THE CHRISTIAN DIURNAL.   

Instructions for the Married. The thirty fourth. SECTION. Of the misery of ill governed marriages, and to whom we may impute it.  
THE great evils in ill managed marriages, made S. Gregory Nyssen and S. john Damascene say, 
Nyss. lib. de hom. cap. 18. Damasc. l. 2. de fide ortho. c. 30.  wedlock had not been invented, but to serve as a remedy for the wound of concupiscence, and that if the first Authors of mankind had remained in original justice, the world would have been multiplied in a manner wholly Angelical, rather than by the ordinary ways of marriage. Notwithstanding S. Augustine and S. Thomas, who diligently looked into it, assure us marriage was treated in the state of innocency by natural ways, since Eve was created before sin, and given to man to serve as a companion for him in the world's propagation. But if the divine providence would have pleased to have made choice of other means for this increase, he had created millions of men in the beginning of the world, like unto Angels, and not one man alone, nor one sole woman, who were set in the front of all Nations of purpose to produce them with that progress of time and succession we therein observe. I pronounce, marriage had been without the ardours and disturbances of concupiscence, the pains of childbearing, disloyalty, riots and discontent: but rather entertained with a tender love of the man towards the woman, and a perfect obedience of the wife towards the husband, with a sweet education of children, free from poverty, loss, and all sorts of troubles. Christian Religion endeavoureth to recall wedlock to the purity of the first institution, whilst good liking accordeth with the commandments of God, and the immutable laws of eternal Justice.  
There is a most remarkable thing written of the Peach-tree, that in Persia, which was the first and only place heretofore of its growth, it was venoumous and mortal, but being carried and transported into other countries, as Egypt, Greece, Italy, France, it wholly changed nature, and losing with the country its malignity, bare, and to this day beareth fruits relished with muth tastfulness. The like is marriage, a strange plant if you leave it in its Province, that is to say within the limits of nature, extremely passionate, and irregular; beware of poison and death: but if you transplant it into the Evangelical Law, and manure it with order, continency, and that restriction which the law of God dictateth to you, you shall derive delectation and profit from it, for the solace and ornament of humane life. Nay we must affirm, the exorbitancies which now reign in the world, and which draw so many miseries along with them, make married people very often feel most harsh conditions, and to render marriage a soil as natural for cares, as it is barren for roses and violets.  
Marriage now adays throughout the greatest part of the world is a poesy of thorns, we know not whereto lay hold of it, on what side soever it be touched it pricks the fingers. Marriage is the ivy of Jonah, exteriorly verdant with some appearance of cheerfulness and delight, but the worm of grief and anxiety gnaws the root within Marriage is the plant which the Indians call the thorny bodkin: it is all over sprinkled with stars, and the rays of these stars are nothing else but prickles: Maidens take heed, one may think to gather a star, who shall find a sharp thorn.  
Marriage is the balm of Arabia, whereunto little vipers hasten to make their nests: such an one sees the leaf and scents the good odour, who perceives not the little serpents of a thousand disturbances which lie hidden there-under.  
Marriage is the island of dreams of which the Ancients speak, where a thousand griefs are presented, covered at first with the veil of pleasure; you would swear they were little Cupids, who say, Come to me young man, come to me, come hither 
Nescis quia Ismael est qui tecum ludit.  fair maid, come hither. They are entertained, they are courted, in an instant they take off the mantle, and appear as they are, with ugly countenances and horrid shapes. Marriage is a stormy sea, where nothing is to be seen but ruins, tempests, and shipwrecks; one cries mercy, and another help, save if it be possible; and there are very few who arrive at the haven without infinite hazard.  
Marriage is a long pilgrimage, which finds but three hosteries: The first is called false pleasure, the second repentance, the third calamity, and if you go any farther, you shall meet with despair.  
The first difficulty there encountered, is, that of a freeman you become a bondslave, and the sweet liberty which nature impressed on the heart of all living creatures, is the first trophy you must hang up over the bridal bed: The wife (saith the Apostle 
Mulier sui corporis potestatem non habet, sed vir: similitèr vir sui corporis potestatem non habet, sed mulier. 1 Cor. 7. ) hath no power over her own body; that jurisdiction is reserved to the husband: nor can the husband reciprocally dispose of his own body, for it is in the power of the wife.  
Nay did she know into whose hands she consigned this precious treasure, it would be some comfort to say thus much at the least. If I be a slave, I will choose a good Master. But thou silly maid, who hast been so tenderly bred, and hatched up under the wings of thy parents as a chaste dove, art put into the hands of a husband, as into the talons of a falcon. When he wooed thee as a suitor, he made show of much mildness, he was a lamb, nay rather a wolf in a sheepskin. No sooner was marriage consummate, but the mask was taken off, he shown what he was, a gamester, a man choleric, base, barbarous and tyrannical, that held this wretched dove in his bloody claws, making her hourly vapour out her life through the sighs of her sorrows. Young man, who as yet art not fettered in the bands of marriage, thou makest love to a maid with infinite services, and for that purpose thou learnest to dance the cinque-apace, thou clothest thyself in silk, and cuttest thy beard in fashion, thou dost crisp and comb thee, thou dost court thy hair, and knowest not thou seekest for a Master. Thou thinkest thou hast found a precious stone, but thou meetest with a counterfeit: Thou thinkest she is a lamb, but she proves a wolf, yea a serpent which beareth fire and flames: thou must take her at adventure, and such as she is must keep her. Oxen and asses are tried before they be 
Nulla uxoris electio, sed qualiscumque venerit habenda. Hierom. contra Jovin.  bought (says Saint Hierom) but wives are taken without notice of their humour and deportment.  
Nay, which is worse, this poor maid with huge sums purchaseth her slavery. Fathers and Mothers have sweat hard for the space of twenty or thirty years, to amass a portion: Behold they have attired, decked, and adorned her like a temple, and she is led out with the sound of violins, as to the galley, and many times thrown into the arms of a husband who wasteth all. And the young man to become a slave, makes a thousand journeys, offereth a thousand supplications, a thousand thanksgivings, and as many salutations: Ah poor creatures, if you be weary of your liberty, are there no prisons, caverns, nor chains more pleasing?  
Galley-slaves who toil at the oar, hope after five years, after ten years, or some term prescribed them, to be discharged from bondage. The ill married are enforced to expect death for freedom from their fetters; and there is not any Deity to which they offer more vows and candles than to death, which is notwithstanding the terrible of terribles.  
I give you leave to think, when two contrary humours meet, as fire and water, a holy man with a spiteful and an immodest wife, or a noble spouse with a wicked husband, what an affliction it is. Saint Augustine relates that certain thiefs, cruel and bloody, to torture captives resolved on an execrable barbarism, which was, to join and straightly tie a live body with a dead, and so let the poor patient expire amongst ordures and insupportable stenches. It is the very like, when a holy and pious wife meets with a husband impious, wicked, and unnatural: she alive by grace and virtue is joined to a rotten carrion, which intolerably tormenteth her, and if she in such occasions exercise patience, she gains so many crowns as there be hours in every day.  
Let us pass further, and not here conceal some 
Raram facit mixturam cum sapientiâ forma, & nihil est tutum in quo totius populivota suspirant. Molestuni est possidere quod nullus habere vel amare dignatur. Pauperem alere difficile est, divitem ferre tormentum. Mulier cum parit tristitiam habet.  roses of marriage mingled among thorns. If beauty be therein, jealousy doth easily slide into it; and doubtless it is more aimed at, and is more subject to be surprised by temptations: If there be deformity, it much altereth the band of affections. If there be riches, and ample fortunes, they are exposed to much embroylment, great travel, and infinite peril; for the strokes of thunder ruin not any thing so often, as the tops of high steeples: If there be poverty, it is a misery intolerable. Are there children? wives, you know how dear they cost you. They who are tortured on the rack, suffer nothing in comparison of a poor creature, who is constrained to be delivered of her fruit by a travel extraordinary, hideous, painful, and oftentimes in seeking to give life to another, she there leaves her own. This sometime happeneth, because those children come into the world laden with benefices, mitres, and crozier's. Abuse precedes birth; they are fathers before they are children: It is not yet known whether they be males or females, and all the world sees they already are charged with ecclesiastical live. Mothers, you still bear them in your entrails; their fortunes, their accidents, their maladies, their deaths, through a reflection of nature imprint on your hearts all their passions, all their disasters; you are transfixed with as many martyrdoms as evils happen to your children; nay, should all succeed prosperously and according to the course of nature, yet must you a second time produce them to honours, estates, and fortunes. This pain perpetually ties you to the rack: To have them upon your hand, and not wherewith to provide for them, is a very sensible sorrow, yet richly to endow them is to give them where withal to enkindle their lust, entertain disobedience, and cherish vice. You think after your travels they will afford you the like, who oftentimes prove lewd, ungrateful, and malicious wretches, that waste the wealth you amassed for them, as it were on your tombs. Behold the slender scantling of the toils and perplexities of marriage, drawn from the Doctrine of holy Fathers. I wonder not at all, those ancients in the ceremonies of marriage carried before the bride a torch made of black thorn, and never of any other wood; to testify wedlock was replenished with difficulties very thorny. Nor shall I any more admire their custom, who in like manner caused the new wife to touch fire and water. For to say truly, she passeth through the boiling ardours of many dolours, through the waters of infinite many afflictions, and may repeat that versicle when she hath met with some ease: I have passed through 
Psal. 65. 12. Ecce transivimus per ignem & aquam, & eduxisti not in refrigerium.  fire and water, and thou hast set me in repose and comfort.  
Now, it is not sufficient to have expressed the inconveniences of marriage, if we also declare not the causes and remedies thereof: and this (Reader) is the reason, why I desire you to proceed in your attention. Men who will always conclude to their own advantage, speaking of this matter, cast all upon women, and ordinarily affirm we must not ask from whence the evils of marriage come, it is enough to say one cannot be married without a wife, and that woman is the source and seminary of all the miseries and disasters which happen in this affair.  
Behold a very slippery place, what shall we answer? It seems that generally to condemn women, were to produce more testimonies of passion than marks of judgement. They are the mothers of men by nature, nurses by charity, and as it were handmaids by patience. It is the devout sex, the sex of compassion and pity. They daily do many good things, they secure the necessities of the poor, they visit hospitals, prisons, the sick; they replenish Churches, and edify families with examples of piety; and can you then speak ill of them? Notwithstanding, as we are not to flatter them, so it is undoubted that those who have once resigned themselves to evil, and become libertines in sin, are the cause of many ills, and practise much frailty in their sex, and cunning in their behaviour, to disturb families and the affairs of the world, if not guided by virtue. If we now will consult with the Ancients both Greek and Latin, they will tell us wonders; but let us hearken to Holy Scripture and Fathers. First 
Immisit Deus soporem in Adam, cumquè obdormivisset, tulit unam de costis ejus, & replevit carnem pro eá, & aedificavit Deus costam quam tulerat in mulierem. Adam particeps Angelicae curiae intravit in sanctuarium Dei. August. l. 9 de Genes. ad lit. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aquila. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Symach. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Tertul. Accidentium spiritus.  in Genesis chap. 2. where the creation of woman is declared, it is said, that God caused a profound sleep to steal upon Adam, and that being asleep he drew woman out of his side. These words are very considerable. What meaneth it that God before he made woman, caused sleep to steal into the eyes of Adam? I will not here tell you, that some have glossed, that he could not have admitted this production of woman in any other manner: but I affirm with the Septuaginta, this sleep was an ecstasy, with Saint Augustine that it was a repture, and with others a trance of spirit: For he then had need enough to fortify himself with consideration, since woman came into the world, who would bid him many battles. Poor Adam fell into an apoplexy, into a convulsion, into swooning fits, as already feeling the cross thwart, passions, and afflictions, he should receive from woman.  
Moreover who can but admire the phrase, which the Scripture useth in this creation, where it is said woman was built. Good God what meaneth this? thou already hadst erected so many goodly buildings, Heaven and earth, the high and low stations of the world, thou hadst created Adam with a plentiful concurrence of many parts, and yet the Scripture saith not, thou then didst build, but when woman was to be created, God built, God made his first piece of architecture. And why? It is because woman is a house, wherein the heart of man should inhabit, who is, alas! there but too often captive? Or is it, that a woman costs as much in making, as a fair house? To build a house you must have so much sand, lime, stone, timber, ironwork, manufactures hands, strokes of hammers, masons, carpenters; and to dress and attire a woman so many coiffs, kerchiefs, cawls; so many false hairs, paintings, gowns, petticoats, chopins, verdingals, whalebones; so many carcanets, gold chains, jewels, gems, attendants, that a house were almost as soon built, as a woman furnished.  
What doth she when she is built? Saint Augustine saith, she becomes the scholar of a serpent, the gate of sin, the fountain of error, and the rust of piety? Good God what unhappiness is this? If from the side of man a flaming dart or keen sword had been drawn, they would have done less hurt than an evil woman; which I speak without prejudice of the virtuous. The first woman ungrateful towards God, a traiteress to her husband, a murderess of her race, made a bridge for Satan to pass into the world, and needs would lodge him in her heart, whom God had confined to the deep pit of hell.  
Others, who have prostituted themselves to evil for these five thousand six hundred and thirty years that the world hath circumvolved, have acted upon this large Theatre of many forms, so many bloody tragedies, that they make histories to blush thereat. The daughters of Loath, the Thamar's, Athaliaes', Jezabels, Vasties, Helenaes', Fredegondaes' approve it, and their ashes also incessantly produce others into the world, Work-mistresses of all mischief.  
Alas Mothers! instruct your daughters well whilst they are young, breed them up in the fear of God, frame them to duty, imprint on their tender hearts as with a searing-iron, the love of chastity, modesty in their behaviour, and devotion in their souls.  
And you young men, who suffer yourselves to be cheated and deceived by impudent women, permitting them to bewitch you with love-drinks and wicked attractives, open your eyes and behold the precipice before you, and then I doubt not you will abhor it. Trust not their familiar conversation 
Efficacissimum est glutinum ad capiendas animas mulieris. August.  and dalliances; know they are full of danger, and that there is not any can resist them without the particular grace of God. Strength little availeth; the sampson's sunk to the ground: Wisdom is to seek; the solomon's fell: Valour therein is short; the Davids found it: Sanctity is not free from their batteries, the Elishaes' were persecuted by women, and the John Baptists therein lost their heads: That venerable face, those eyes inflamed with heavenly rays, which won reverence from the wild beasts of the desert, could not mollify a female dancer. That wise head where the maxims of eminent virtues resided, was taken from the shoulders of a Saint, carried in a dish to a banquet by the sacrilegious hands of a shameless woman: That tongue from whence distilled a stream of honey, was pricked and pierced with a bodkin wherewith the wretch used to curl her hair. Now according to the counsel of Saint Chrysostom, take into your hands this bloody head, ask of it, O head which should never die, who hath drenched thee into the wanness of death? Who hath bathed thee in this blood? Who hath put out thine eyes, the torches of the elect, and thunder-strokes of the wicked? Who hath laid an eternal silence on that tongue, which first of all announced the Kingdom of Heaven? The love of women. Lions and Tigers reverenced me in wildernesses, and women massacred me in a King's Palace, women mingled my blood with wine, and made me as a pompous morsel of their tragical banquets.  
When I say this, I not only accuse women, but carnal men, who suffer themselves to be alured and surprised with sottish love, and trampling under foot the honour of God, the presence of Heaven and Angels, the conjugal bed, and faith promised to their wives, wallow themselves in execrable adulteries, which fill families with opprobry, confusion, and tragedies; why say I families? nay, Kingdoms and Empires: and if we will well examine it, we shall find the greatest part were turned topsie-turvie by foolish love.  
O you that sigh, hearing speech of the furious disorders this unhappy sin brings into the world, I beseech you with Saint Paul, by the very bowels of our Lord's mercy, offer your bodies to God as an host lively, holy, and acceptable to the Divinity; and you especially who are in the state of marriage, entertain your beds honourable and chaste, cemented with a perpetual knot of faith, love, and peace, that God may please thereon perpetually to shower down from on high his holy benedictions, and after the course of this painful life, crown you with comforts in the glory of the Blessed.   

The thirty fifth SECTION. That the evils of marriage ought not to be imputed to sex, but sin; and of the disorders committed in this Sacrament.  
IF the unhappiness of marriages proceeded only from women, we might necessarily conclude they were always unfortunate, as never being without a woman; but since experience daily teacheth there are of them excellently governed, we must not impute to the condition of sex that which proceeds from the vice of depraved nature. Though the Scripture condemn evil women, yet it bestoweth so great eulogies on the virtuous, that they are able to dazzle calumny, and enlighten virtue. One while woman is called, A Lamp which shineth on a holy candlestick: 
Lucerna splendens super candelabrum sanctum. Eccles. 26. Erat lucerna arden's & lucens. Joan. 5. 55.  a title only given to persons eminent, as it was said of Saint John Baptist, He was a burning and resplendent lamp. The body of this Lamp is the rib created by the hand of a great Workman, the soul is the fire of it, virtue the light, grace the oil, devotion the match and nourishment, and marriage the holy candlestick whereinto it is put. Another while, she is called a Sun: As a Sun (said the Wiseman) rising in the world from the palace of God. Whereby he 
Sicut sol oriens mundo in altissimis Dei.  would have us to understand, that a Mary should so near approach to the Divinity, that she was to possess the highest place above Angels, Thrones, Virtues, and all Intelligences. Sometime the same Scripture, to declare the rank a virtuous woman holds in the world, presenteth unto us a balance, in one scale a woman, and in the other all the riches of the world, and woman is the weightiest. A chaste woman, is a 
Gratia super gratiam, omnis penderatio non est digna continentis animae.  grace above all graces, admitting no comparison. And besides holy Writ, replenished with the virtues and remarkable acts of famous women, the Wiseman seems also to have undertaken as a task, the praise of women, in the panegyrics of the one and thirtieth chapter of the Proverbs. There he compareth woman to a ship carrying victual from a far distant country, desirous to signify that she is laden as much with virtues, as a ship with merchandise. Do you seek for devotion in her, a most estimable ornament of souls? Behold how the great Saint Augustine by singularity calleth this sex, the devout sex. Their first mother, as I told you, was created in terrestrial Paradise; and they are perpetually at the gates of celestial Paradise, either praying or harkening to the word of God. Were there not women, who accompanied our Saviour with his holy Mother in so many painful pilgrimages, succouring his necessities according to their abilities? And is it not a prodigy, that on the day of that bloody and dolorous passion, which shook the pillars of Heaven and made the Apostles fly, women were found who followed the Son of God with heart, affection, presence, tears, sighs, even to the foot of the Cross; terrors of arms, fury of soldiers, earth rend in sunder with sorrow, and Heaven wholly covered with darkness, unable to force affrightment into these souls to stop the current of their holy undertake? Besides, they have done so many services to the Church, yea so many wonders, that not only Cities, but whole Kingdoms have many times been converted and brought to the knowledge of God by the means of women. Desire you prudence in them? Behold a poor Thecuite, who treateth with King David of Absaloms' reconciliation, with such dexterity, that she obtained whatsoever she asked. See in the History of Esther, how by the treachery of Aman, swords were drawn out of scabbards to be thrust into the throats of an infinite number of poor innocents', throughout all the Provinces of the Kingdom, at which time God raised a young captive, an Esther, who so well knew how to temper the spirit of this harsh and haughty King, that she made him open his ear to innocency, and shut them up from flattery and cruelty: withhold the wings of thunder already shot over the heads of those poor Citizens, and turn them against the guilty. If you among them seek for justice, the history of the ancient Gauls will show you, that anciently they decided differences among people, and often stayed arms ready to encounter, planting the Temple of peace in the midst of furies and liberty of arms. Yea God himself for the government of his people, was pleased to make use of a Deborah, whom 
Erat Debo●a pro Prophetis. Jud. 4.  the Hebrews called by the name of a Bee, for her wisdom, valour, and industry.  
You will perhaps think strength is wanting in this 
Tugloria Jerusalem, tu ●●titia I●rael, ●u honorisicentia populi nostri, quia fecis●i virilièr. Judith. 15.  sex: Behold Judith, who consecrated her victorious hand to the defence of her country, and slaying Holofernes, defeated a whole Army spread over Judea, and surging on every side like a furious deluge. And if you will thereunto add the histories of later times, see a shepherdess, a simple maid, commonly called jeanne la Pucille, who opposed herself as a wall for the defence of this Kingdom against English arms, with such military prowess, that she seemed to bear fire, blood, war, and victory in her hands.  
Let us then no longer say that woman is the seminary of evils happening in marriage: but rather that they are vices which proceed from both, when the husband and wife take the liberty of doing ill.  
The first disorder is, that such matches are almost never made but for covetousness. We do not well to call this an iron Age, it is all composed of gold and silver. Heretofore marriages were made 
Si uxorari oportel, sit amor in causâ. Hieron. in. ep. ad Ruffin.  for love, which caused them to be of a lasting condition, and to be indissoluble: but now adays avarice alone predominateth. We thought love was the most powerful Archer of the world to transfix a heart; but avarice is found to confront him. Had a maid now all that which fools use to couch in their writings, the brows of Juno, the eyes of Venus, the hands of Miverva, and feet of Thetis; if she be 
Oculos suo ●statuerunt declinare in terram  not rich, were she Pandora herself, if she bring not where withal to gild the hand of her husband, it is no match for him.  
And from hence it comes, that marriage is not as it were marriage, but a mercenary traffic, a fare, a market, where reasonable creatures are sold like bruit beasts. Ancient laws testify, that heretofore nothing was given with maids in marriage but their apparel, mean enough I warrant you: It was for men who sought them, to endow them. This is practised still in the new world, to wit, in China. It is a treasure there to have many daughters, men buy them with large sums of money, which they give to the parents that breed them; now they purchase men, and with huge portions buy their bondage. This makes their parent's hair to wax grisly, and impoverisheth families, which fear to be over-burdened with daughters; because one cannot be rid of them, nor drive them away but with a rod of silver, so much this mischievous avarice, this fever of the heart, this voluntarily frenzy hath prevailed upon the spirits of these times. And were the maids in this case such as they should be, seeing the covetousness of men, they would rather resolve to take God for a husband in the state of virginity, than yield their bodies and riches up to a husband, who seeks after nothing less than themselves. S. Hierom relateth an excellent passage of Martia daughter of the great Cato, who said, that among so many Gallants as made love to her, there was not any fit for a husband. Say the like, maidens, avaunt mercenary husbands who have the fever of money, marry them to the mines of Peru, and not to virtuous maids.  
The second evil I observe, is riot, which now adays wasteth body and goods, and becomes more insatiable than hell. It is asked why avarice swayeth in marriages, and wherefore husbands are so greedy of portion? because indeed they stand in need of it to entertain the bravery and vanity of their wife's apparel. It is a prodigious thing to what height this folly is mounted: Lawyers are much troubled to reckon up all the attires and trinkets of women, what pain shall then the husband suffer to buy them?  
O woman, what makes thee so passionately to desire these gauderies? Thy first mother, whose garments were cut out by the hands of God, was contented to be clothed with skins, and now seas must be sailed over, and the bounds of elements broken, to seek out dress for thee. Miserable that thou art, who inordinately deckest thyself, and for an ill purpose! Kowest thou not thy garment is to thy body, as the plaster to the wound, or any ivy leaf to stop a cautery? S. Isodore said, before sin Adam and Eve were clothed with light: O precious attire! The Sun will have no other mantle than his own rays, nor the risen any other robe than her scarlet; because nature hath sufficiently adorned them: So man, had he continued within the limits of original justice, would not have wished any garment but innocency. Sin is come, which hath by reflection impressed an ugly scar both on soul and body; and needs must gold and silk be sought out to involve it. A man in former Ages was seen, who having feet of wood, shod them with golden pantofles: O miserable, and ridiculous vanity! Woman doth the like to cover her wretched body, which one of these days must putrify, and which hath received the wound of sin and death. All the most exquisite beauties of nature must be drawn together; yea marry, if it could afford any comfort and ease to the body: but you shall many times behold a young gentlewoman groan as at a torture, under the weight of her garments, yet she for all this will have, and adore her own punishment. The great Chancellor of England, and glorious Martyr Thomas Moor, was he not pleasantly disposed, when he said to one who complained of heat: Ah silly creature, what wonder is it? thou carriest upon thee meadows, vine-yards, mills, mansions, and Islands, in the value of Jewels; how canst thou possibly be cool? This was the cause why Tertullian complained 
Tertul. de habitu muliebri. Brevissimis loculis patrimonium grande praefertur; uno lino s●stertium inseritur; saltus & insulas tenera cervix fert, graciles aurium cutes ealendarium expendunt.  before him: A little Cabinet makes show of a large patrimony. Twenty three thousand Crowns are disbursed for one rope of pearls. A woman's neck puts on woods and Islands, and her ears which are so curious, waste ample revenues,  
But the matter most to be lamented, is, that it often happens, the servile and unfortunate husband buys all this bravery at the charge of the poor, and if any perhaps wring these gorgeous garments, there will be some danger the blood of the poor may distil from it.  
The third disorder is the discord which proceedeth from the ill government of men, from the obstinacy of women, and jealousy of both. And verily we may affirm the sleight vanities of wives, are much more tolerable than the disorders of men. It is no ordinary folly, but rather a rage and madness to see a poor woman full of children, groan under the heavy burden of a household charge upon her hand, daily fading and withering away like a plant without juice or moisture, to live on gall and tears, and in the mean time a disloyal husband to consume in excess of diet and game (the instruments of Satan) that substance God gave him for the entertainment of his family.  
O ungrateful and unnatural wretch, who to give way to thy passion tramplest underfoot the commandments of God and honour of marriage! This money which thy cruel hand so profusely scatters in game, if thou wouldst well understand, is the blood of this poor creature which was so charily to thee recommended: It is the sweat of her parents labours, they are her proper entrails which thou piece-meal tearest in this fatal dicing-house. I do not say thou art a homicide, there is some difference between thee and a murderer. The murderer in an instant taketh away life and bodily pain both together; but thou who livest in perpetual riots, thou drawest the vital parts from this afflicted turtle one after another, which thou oughtest to love as thyself. Thou cuttest the throat of thy family, of thy poor and unhappy children, who are thine own blood, which thou shouldest fervently affect, hadst thou not renounced nature, and entertained the heart of a bruit beast for that of a man; what say I a beasts heart? the Lamiaes 
Lamiaes nudaverunt mammas, lactaverunt catulos fuos: filia populi mei crudelis sicut struthio in deserts. Hier. Thren. Si quis suorum & maximè domesticorum curam non habet fidem negavit & est infideli deterior. 1 Tim. 5.  have bared their breasts, they have given suck to their young, and there is not any but the daughter of my people who is cruel as the Ostrich of the desert.  
Knowest thou to whom S. Paul compares such a man? to a Cannibal, to a Barbarian? No, he tells thee he is worse than an Infidel: If any one neglect his own, and namely his domestics, he hath renounced faith, and is become worse than a Pagan.  
On the other side the obstinacy of woman is a horse hard in the mouth, headstrong, untractable: and I can no longer wonder (said one) that she was made of a bone, since many times her head is so hard; which brings infinite trouble on a family. The Ancients dressing up the statues of the Moon in humane shape, set on her shoulders the head of the Sun, to show, a virtuous wife should have no other will, nor other intentions nor glory, than the will, intentions, and glory of her husband, if they be reasonable. It is the doctrine of S. Paul to the Ephesians: 
Mulieres ●iris suis subdite sint sicut Domino, quoniam vir caput est mulieris, sicut Christus caput est ecclesia. Ephes.  That wives should be obedient to their husbands as to Jesus Christ himself, because the husband is head of the wife, as Christ of this Church.  
But if she withdraw and disunite herself from this tye of obedience, and incessantly vex her husband with her obstinacy, this will be to him a martyrdom almost insupportable. The rocks of Caucasus are much gentler than a wicked woman: which verily you may see in the history of Job, to whom the evil spirit granted a wife to be the accomplishment of his afflictions. For this holy man, after the loss of his large possessions, so strange, so sudden, so dreadful; after his poor children were murdered and undone, had for tomb the ruins of their own house; after he saw himself changed into a scurf, covered over with ulcers, and placed on a dunghill before the eyes of a city whereof he had been Lord, he then thought the rage of Satan was satisfied: but he made use for the last piece of battery, of a spiteful and malicious woman, who seeing her husband in this plight, said unto him: Do you still remain in your simplicity? curse 
Adhuc permanes in simplicitate tuâ? benedic Deo & morere.  God and die.  
But amongst all these disorders, no influence is more malign than jealousy, which cruelly tortures marriages, when it hath once bewitched the weak brain of man or woman, interpreting all the actions of each part in evil sense. Why went she to such a place? Did she not smile upon such an one? Did she not cast a pleasing glance upon such an one? Why spoke she of such an one? And why shown she compassion in such a man's mishap? Questionless she loves him, her affection grows cold towards me. Behold the idol of false zeal, whereof the Prophet Ezechiel speaketh at the entrance into the temple of jerusalem.  
Behold how before the temple of marriage, which is holy and sacred, man placeth the statue of jealousy, and daily offers a thousand sacrifices of sinister suspicions, ill digested fantasies, purposes wicked and injurious, to the prejudice of one who is in heart both chaste and modest.  
A woman oftentimes is made loyal by thinking her loyal, and he who doubts faith well observed, puts himself in danger to ruin it by his suspicion. There are some care not to forsake innocency, when they have lost reputation, and when they entertain the opinion, their actions are ill interpreted, they are in danger to do all sorts of mischief. It is far better to think well of an hundred faulty, than ill of one innocent. It is a notable mystery to judge of hearts, nor is it any wonder that God reserved it to himself. Besides, as jealousies are very prejudicial to wedlock, so they cause many tales and matter of mirth to arise in a City  with curious people, who many times fatten themselves with the mishaps of another, and it often happens that from jesting they draw men and swords in revenge to act horrible tragedies. Happy they who know how to prevent by wisdom all those miseries which may grow from malice and misfortune, or discreetly correct by patience, what prudence cannot avoid.   

The thirty sixth SECTION. Very profitable instructions for the Married, drawn from the choice of holy Fathers, and abbreviated in a short discourse.  
NOw will I descend to instructions suitable to this subject, and let you know (O husbands and wives) you should greatly take heed in all your deportments, as well in the beginning, middle, as the end. It very much importeth to begin with a good choice, and to enter with prudent consideration, and strong resolution unto the Sacrament of marriage: For that ought a long time to be deliberated, which is to be done but once for the whole life. What sense is there to thrust some forward upon marriage with a forck, when they have no disposition thereunto, and divert others who are more notably called to this kind of life? What rigour of parents, to tie young people by command to matches from which they have infinite eversion? Is it not enough to have the contentment of sage direction over a freewill, without usurping a petty tyranny upon the functions of nature? I do not tell you, you must readily obey all those who marry by the eye, without calling reason to counsel, or having any other guide in a matter of so great importance than the exorbitancy of their sensuality: But for my part, I hold it unfit to be violent by striking at the reasonable inclinations of children, for the accommodation of interest; otherwise, marriages are made without love, to create love afterward without marriage. It is a ridiculous thing to put wedded couples into the nuptial bed, without any foreknowledge, as if they had been brought thither in a sack. So likewise should you not draw these treaties at length, lest they drag with them some disorder, and waste love before the beginning thereof. Love, which commenceth by fervours of a fire of tow, very often endeth in ice. Happy they who have the blessing of success, and are favoured from above to make an equal alliance between good hap and virtue. It was a great simplicity amongst those Ancients, who offered sacrifices to Fortune, to make their beards grow handsomely, and not to crave the benediction of God in their marriages. Fathers and Mothers give riches (said the Wiseman) but a wise wife is properly the 
Demus & divitiae dantur à parentibus: à Domino autem propriè uxor prudens. Prov. 19 14.  gift of God. If one have matched ill, he must correct by prudence what wants of felicity. Beware, O husbands, for in this kind of life, which so straight ties you, you are accountable to God, to yourselves, to your wives: To God you own a sincere conscience, that you may serve him worthily in the vocation wherein he hath established you, to become a member of humane society. Beware you hasten not to marriage as to a duty of nature, and not a Sacrament; if so, you wed like a Sarazin, not a Christian. Those, saith the Angel to Tobit, are in the power of the fiend Asmodeus, who banish God from 
Tob. 6. 17.  their hearts, and have no other intention in marriage but to satisfy their brutishness. Observe marriage as an invention of Almighty God, to produce man on earth, and to make elect for heaven. Entertain it as a golden ours, from which vessels of election are to be taken for the other world. Love your condition, and think you have a great privilege, since you are to afford Heirs to your houses, Citizens to cities, Religious to Monasteries, and Angels to Paradise. Look upon God in the midst between you both, since he perpetually beholdeth you: The nearer lines draw to the centre, the more they approach one to another: The nearer you are to God, the better shall you be united. If you build not the foundation of your house upon the fear of his Divine Majesty and sincere devotion, you raise fortunes like a Colossus of glass, which will shiver in pieces over your head.  
After you have resigned this your conscience to God, you own to yourself the government of your senses and use of reason; and (as it appears) you are, O men, strictly bound in marriage the more to render yourselves men, since God placeth you therein to afford men to the Christian Commonwealth. It is necessary you draw from the fountain of wisdom more wit and more light, since you are to make use of it to enlighten a wife and children, who depend on your direction.  
As for the duty of both, I find if marriage be a Lily, it must have six leaves, which are Respect, Love, Loyalty, Support, Direction, and Help. It is fit love begin by a certain Regard which man and woman should bear one to another all the time of their life. For the functions of this society permitting a great familiarity, if it be not, counterpoised with a chaste reverence, soon degenerateth into contempt. The wives Respect aught to pass even to obedience, which the Apostle S. Paul so punctually recommendeth to Christians, and the husbands should be mixed with a 
Mulier collateralis vir●. Gloss. in Gen.  tenderness and moderation, to let him know, God drew woman out of his side to make her his companion, and not his slave.  
It is good for the entertainment of this respect, that both of them accustom to conceive a good opinion of each others abilities: For where there is , honour will hardly be found, because it is tied to worth, as the shadow to the body. For this purpose they must endeavour to cover the defects they may have by nature, by other virtues in their power, and to persevere in a belief of sufficiency in each one's condition.  
To this respect the Love is added, which should be rendered according to the precept of S. Paul, in the matter of conjugal duty. For it is an intolerable thing, and wherein God may be grievously offended, when a woman imagineth that to be married is nothing else but to have a Coach to herself, to buy stuffs according to her own fantasy, to become brave, and have no regard to obligations essential amongst the married. But we may truly affirm all love of sense is very low, if it tend not to those eternal sources of amities, which distil from the Paradise of God, and learn to love by grace and reason, that which is to be loved. God, to cement this love together, drew woman out of man (saith Tertullian) as some part of 
Tertul. de resur. carnis.  a liquor from the vessel which contained it: He made two of one, to put them both afterward into one. It is to tear each others flesh, and gnaw their bones, to waste one another by discord, the most capital plague of marriage.  
Holy love is always accompanied with mutual loyalty in any thing which concerneth conjugal chastity, as being the knot of affections and foundation of all the happiness of the married. O wife, a ring is given you of a circular form, to teach your loves are limited within the nuptial bed. The ring, which heretofore bore the seal of promise, to signify your heart ought to be sealed with charity, and closed up from all other pretensions. Believe not those make-bates who tell you, good is of its own nature communicable, and that a fair wife is not for one alone, that chastity is a note of deformity, and that a husband and a friend are not things in compatible. These are not words, but hisses of the serpent. Fear the least blemishes of honour, and do not so much as cast an eye upon the smoke of this coal, which now adays burneth so many unhappy souls. Love not to be wooed and courted by so many eyes and lips, nor to behold such worldly pleasures, to become pliant to others, or to attempt to afford love, and receive none back again. Out alas! these slight entertainments breed many acerbities. They are enchanted apples which poison all who taste them. Men likewise, remember the best lessons of loyalty which your wife can learn, she must derive from your example. Think not because you are a man, all things are permitted you, and that your sex is a sanctuary for your crime. If you be the head (saith S. Augustine) 
Caput ducat, corpus sequatur. August. Serm. 49.  move it that way whither you would have the body follow. You are the more bound to conjugal chastity, because you ought to be the most wise & strong, because you have the most employments to divert your temptations in the affairs of civil life, and lastly because you have most liberty, and may make your evil most general by disturbing many wedlocks, as it happeneth to reprobate and inordinate souls in this kind.  
I add to loyalty mutual bearing with defects and imperfections, which is a singular virtue in marriage. For we being in this world as in a territory where good and evil easily mix together, there is no plant which hath not its worm, nor beauty which suffereth not diminution. There are not any married couple so accomplished, who have not vices, defects, and imperfections, which who practise not to digest through Christian patience, shall become not unlike a sea-calf, said to be always moody against his fellow. The husband and the wife are upon the river called Life in marriage, as in a boat: If there happen a leak, and it receive water, they must seek to stop it presently, and if you have nothing to put into it, rather set a foot upon it, than pierce round about it to make the leak wider. A word or indiscreet action hath escaped; to what purpose is it to reproach or pick quarrels with a man or woman upon it on all occasions? Rather use the speediest remedies you may, and if none be at hand, bury it in silence.  
Finally, know you enter into marriage for direction and assistance; and though direction be principally proper to man, notwithstanding it is a poor business to see a woman have neither care nor government in her family, imagining she from morning till night should have no other employment but to dress herself, and many times to be attired when divers think of unclothing to go to bed. It is a shameful thing to prattle all the day long, and make a whole city troth upon her tongue, and yet be ignorant of what is done in her own house. A virtuous wife should not only govern her family, but with wisdom and discretion temper her husband's passions; and if such things escape him, redress them rather by love than power. If God heretofore caused a she-ass to speak, to instruct a false Prophet, why should he not at a need draw a good word from the mouth of a discreet woman, to set man into a fair way. Know we not that the last unhappiness of Pilate was not to have believed his wife, much more enlightened by God than himself?  
As for help, it is so necessary, that next after the comfort of posterity marriage is constituted for that end. It is not enough to assist a mortal body in its infirmities, but so much as one may mutually to manure a soul immortal; you must between you share all your prosperities and adversities: I say prosperities, to moderate them; and adversities, to honour them: you must mutually strive to lend a shoulder, and if your burdens be weighty by the yoke of necessity, sanctify them by your patience. You must think it is a blessing even from God, to be chosen out to preserve a husband, or a sick wife, since this infirm creature is the Image of God, and your proper flesh, to whom you render duties, which perhaps at this time seem thorns unto you, but shall one day be crowns if you know how to make virtues of your necessities. Be not discouraged through pusillanimity, but do like the Dolphin, who raiseth himself with much alacrity against the sea-waves during the tempest. Understand you not the Holocaust must burn from evening till morning? Burn in this fire of love and tribulation, expecting to see glory in the daybreak to crown your perseverance. Though God allot you no issue, yet no whit the less love your comfort: God oftentimes suffereth barrenness of body to afford fruitfulness of virtues.   

The thirty seventh SECTION. Instructions for Widows.  
PErfect widows are in the Church as the horizon of Marriage and Religion; they participate of both conditions, when they be in the world for the example of the world, for the government of their children and family; but they also have a share in the life of the Religious, when they wholly dispose their hearts to God.  
We sometimes see a bank of earth, which keepeth two seas from intermixing, but being taken away, those two waters will pass along together, and engulf themselves one within another. O how often said you, during the knot of marriage, that if God once took away your husband, you would wholly be for him? Conjugal obligation and affairs of the world was your bank and your obstacle; but now God hath taken it away, dissolve your heart into his.  
This is the passage where you are expected: Here it is where proof shall be made of your constancy. When you have deplored the death of your husband as a wife, you must learn to bear it like a Saint. It is a wretched virtue not to know what else to do than bewail the dead, and be desirous to derive glory from the peevishness of your sorrow. If we could draw aside the curtain of Heaven, to see the state of souls already passed out of mortal bodies to the promised recompense of the faithful, how much we should be ashamed and confounded at the weakness of our tears: we should see this great Eternity seated in a chair of diamond, all sparkling with stars and brightness, holding a flaming mirror in its hand, at which time it would let us behold a goodly harmony of all the beatitudes these glorious souls now enjoy, separated from the contagion of our mortality: then wiping away the tears from our eyes, it would say to us with a voice replenished with sweetness and majesty: Why bewail you these kindred and friends, who live better than ever in my bosom, absorbed in a torrent of eternal felicities?  
An hundred and an hundred-fold happy are the dead, who depart in the favour of God Behold them for the time to come discharged from labours: Behold them freed of a thousand and a thousand cares, fears, pains, passions, maladies, wants, ignominies, and all those evils which divide our miserable life: Behold them folded within the arms of the Sovereign, where they reap the good works they sowed on earth. You are much troubled, O widow, that this your spouse is at this present of the household of God, an inhabitant of his mansion, and a possessor of his glory. Have you so many tears to lament miseries, that you waste them in felicities? as if it were a great unhappiness to pass from the servitude of the slave of the world, to the liberty and joy of the children of God.  
This is admirably well expressed in the 21. Chapter of Exodus, where God at the going forth of Egypt, shown himself to Moses, Aaron, Nabal, Abiud, and all the most eminent of this Nation, having saphires for his footstool (which are stones of a celestial colour;) whereupon a learned Commentary drawn from the Hebrew Interpreters most divinely answereth, that God would say unto them: You have laboured in Egypt with much patience about mortar and tiles; and behold all your tiles turned into saphires, into heavenly stones, to build of them the footstool of your glory. This is it which the most Blessed Eternity saith to us concerning the dead whom we deplore. It is not fit any longer to take pains with tiles and mortar; businesses, cares, troublesome affairs of the present life are past; there is not any thing but repose, peace, glory, and felicity. Behold that which comforteth all solid and generous souls, with lively, fruitful, and eternal consolations. Will you have a singular resignation in the death of your kindred, which may daily happen and fall out of necessity? Behold Saint Lewis, when news was brought him of the death of his mother Queen Blauncb; he soon perceived by the countenance of the messengers, who were the Archbishop of Tyre and his Confessor, they were ready to tell him somewhat able to afflict the heart of man, before they could open their mouths: Let us go (saith he) into my Oratory; (for it was the magazine where this great King took up arms to combat against worldly disasters:) and when they came thither, speak now, what have you to say? Sir, God who had a long time lent you your mother for the good of your person and Kingdom, hath taken her out of the world for her own repose. At these words S. Lewis fell upon his knees before the Altar, and lifting up his hands to heaven, said: O my God, I give thee thanks thou ●●st afforded me my dear mother whilst it was thy will, and that now according to thy good pleasure thou hast taken her to thee. It is true, I loved her above all the creatures of the world, and she well deserved it; but since thou hast bereft me of her, thy Name be for ever blessed.  
Conclude your tears as he did, but never the resolution of your widowhood. It were to be wished a good vow might fix it with a nail of adamant: but that should be done with discretion; for all in woman being frail, her tears can have no constancy. You may have read in the history of the unhappy Politician, the sorrow of Glaphyra the wife of Alexander, son of Herod, whom his father most cruelly put to death to satisfy his chimaeraes and suspicions. Never woman more passionately resented the death of her husband: her lamentations were yell, her tears torrents, her words furies, her countenance despair, and life a little hell. There was no light to be seen after the eclipse of her Sun, no world after her little world, nor life after the loss of the moiety of her soul. In the mean space some babbler insinuating hereupon, and saying, she did ill to afflict herself for a death which could not but be happy, since it was free from the sense of pain; and that for herself (it was true) her loss was unspeakable, but the providence of God made it reparable by a second wedlock, which would wipe away her tears, and that in her constancy the world approved all but the resolution she took to remain for ever miserable. She so much with time mollified her courage upon the like remonstrances, that she married the brother of her dead husband, and after him a third, the King of Mauritania. Josephus relateth 
Joseph. 17. Antiqu.  that the first night of her wedding, the soul of her husband appeared to her, and said: Glaphyra, you have approved common bruit, which says women are light. Where are now your tears? Where your sorrow? Where the vows you made me? Your words were full of promises, your promises of oaths, and your oaths of perjuries and infidelity. For after my father's cruelty had violently pulled away this my immortal soul, which now speaks to you, you laid aside your great grief, which seemed would never have an end, and yielding yourself up to the importunities of ill proposed suits, you have admitted my brother into your bed, entertaining my memory and ashes, as if I had been but a shadow; and not content herewith, after his decease you married the King of Mauritania; and behold you now have turned your wanness into vermilion, your tears into pearls, and sorrow into gold and scarlet. You are drenched in delights over head and cars, and take so much pleasure among the living, that you forsake the memory of the dead. Now know, although you be so ungrateful towards me, I have not forgotten you; nor shall it be long before you be with me. The poor Queen was so terrified with this vision, that she was quickly taken into the other world, leaving (saith the history) by the publication of this apparition, a notable proof of the immortality of our souls.  
Yet we do not forbid second wedlocks: but all widows are advertised they must proceed with great discretion, and that according to the Apostles counsel, the greatest perfection rests in widowhood. But above all, so use the matter, that this widowhood be not idle, that your children may find you a true mother, the Church a perpetual votaress, virgins a protectrice, the poor a charitable nurse, Monasteries a good friend, orphan's a tutoress, the house one retired, societies an example of good odour, and God above all a faithful servant. To encourage you to this resolution, you shall presently hear Saint Hierom speak, who used words to this effect in the Treatises he wrote unto two widows:  
You have learned in marriage the troubles of marriage; God was pleased to give you this school to instruct you for widowhood by your own experience. You have vomited up the choler which surcharged your stomach, would you take it up again to hear it in your mouth? Would you return to the snare from whence you went? Fear you the world may want, if you bring no children? Let it fail through virtue rather than be supported by weakness. All those who are married, have not children, and such as have, are many times enforced to curse their fruitfulness. To whom (say you) shall I leave all this wealth, since I am mortal? To God, who cannot die: To Jesus, that you may make an heir of your own Master. Your father will be afflicted at it, but God glorified: your family mourn, but the Angels will rejoice. Let your father do what he will with his riches; it is not to him to whom you own your birth, but to Jesus the Author of your regeneration.  
Beware of those venomous creatures, who seek their gain from another's charge, and who tell you there is no sense that a young woman should waste her youth in sad solitude, and neither taste the delight of children, nor reward of pleasure. If you have posterity, why desire you a second marriage? and if you have none, why fear you not a second sterility? If you be a mother, you perhaps set over your children, not a nursing father, but an enemy; not a parent, but a Tyrant. Needs must you forget your own children in the pursuits of your loves, and trick up yourself in the defection from your orphans, who as yet scarcely know how to lament or understand their own misery. Allege not here unto me, wealth, affairs, and services: No woman takes a husband, but to lie with a husband. Otherwise what a folly were it to resign up her chastity to multiply her riches? What will it be when a husband shall persecute you having your estate? What will it be when you no longer shall be suffered to love the children by your first husband, and that you must hid yourself from doing them any good, and hate them, to show you have renounced the ashes of the dead? If you have children of a second wedlock, be you never so good, you shall be a stepmother: If you spare aught from your son in law, you will be cruel; and if by accident any ill befall him, it is you did it; if you deny him meat, you are ingrateful, and if you give him any, you have poisoned him.  
It is time you bury to yourself all these pleasures in the tomb of your husband. Counterfeiting cannot make a fair accord with tears, nor doth grief permit the pomp of attire. Meagerness and fasts should be your pearls, and prayer your perfumes. If a Queen of Carthage said heretofore of her husband, He that espoused me in the first wedlock took my heart and love with him, let him enjoy, let him possess them unto the grave; If she set glass at so high a rate, what shall we do by gold and pearls? If a Pagan widow in the law of nature condemned all the pleasures of marriage, what may be expected from a Christian Lady, who owes her chastity not only to a dead husband, but a living God, and with whom she ought to live and reign for ever? The reputation of chastity is a most delicate Lily in the person of women: It is a very beautiful flower, but there needs no more than a little breath, a little bad air to corrupt it, when age bendeth towards vice, and that she hath the freedom of a husband's authority, whose shadow many times might serve as a bulwark to chastity. What doth a widow in so great a family, and amongst so many servants, whom I would not have her to despise as servants, but regard with some modesty, remembering with herself they are men? If the state and quality of her condition require a retinue, let at the least some ancient grave man be seen to bear sway, who by his good life may commend the honour of his Mistress. I know many of them, who having shut their door against strangers, have had an ill report raised by occasion of their household servants, who ministered matter of suspicion, either through excess of their bravery, or their gentle garb and handsomeness of proportion too lovely; either for their age proper to wantonness, or the vanity of a haughty spirit, or confidence in the favour of their Mistress.  
All that by prudence should be prevented, which the world through malice may imagine. I desire not to see about you a household Steward so spruce, nor any servant who may savour of an effeminate Comedian, no wanton musician (the true instrument of Satan) to poison your ear with his warbling. Have nothing remiss, nothing which may smell of the stage in your family, but rather Quires of widows and virgins, to be an honour to your sex, and to serve as a recreation in your most innocent delights. Let the reading of godly books never be laid aside, and let your prayers be so frequent, that they may serve as a buckler to repel the fiery arrows of evil thoughts, which ordinarily assail youth. Let virtue consummate the good, which intemperance had prepared for itself. Redeem virgins, to present them to the chamber of the spouse. Take care of widows, to mingle them as violets amongst virgins and Martyrs. It is a garland you shall give to God for his crown of thorns, wherein he bore the sins of the world.  
It is very hard, and almost impossible to cut away all the seeds of passions, which we may call avant-passions, because concupiscence sootheth our senses, and insinuateth itself very subtilely: but it is in the power of the will to dismiss or entertain them. The God of nature said in the Gospel, evil thoughts, homicides, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness-bearings, blasphemies, 
Matth. 15.  proceeded from the heart. The spirit of man is more propending to evil than good, from the first cradle of infancy, and in this battle of the spirit and the flesh, whereof the Apostle speaketh, our soul is almost 
Galat. 5. 1.  wholly floating, and knows not to what part to incline. No man comes into the world without bringing vice and ill inclinations with him; and he is the best who hath the least evil, and can preserve a fair body amongst many little infirmities.  
The Prophet said he was troubled, and that thereupon 
Psal. 76.  he held his peace. He tells you one may be angry without sin, like Architas the Tarentine, who said to his servant: I would chastise thee, were I not angry; which showeth it was no sin, but a simple passion, for otherwise anger puts not the Justice of God in execution. That which is spoken of one passion, may be understood of another. It is proper to man to be moved with choler, and for a Christian to overcome choler. So the flesh desires carnal things, and by the itch thereof draweth the soul to mortal pleasures: But it is your part to quench the heat of lust by the love of Christ, and to conquer the flesh when it seeks liberty, by the help of abstinence, in such sort that in eating it may search for nourishment, not lust, and bear about the spirit of God descending into it, with a firm and even pace. Every man may be subject to passions, which are common to nature: We are of one and the same clay, of the same element. Concupiscence may as well be found in silk as in wool: It neither fears the purple of Kings, nor contemns the poverty of beggars. You were better have the disease of stomach, than will. Rather let the body obey, than the spirit; and if you must needs make a slippery step, do it rather with the foot than modesty, not flattering yourself before sin with pretence of a future penance, which is rather a remedy of misfortunes than an ornament to innocents': For you must ever defend yourself from wounds where sorrow serves for remedy.   

To Maids. The thirty eighth SECTION. The praises of virginity, and the modesty they ought to observe in their carriage.  
THe great S. Basil calleth virginity the perfume 
S. Basil apud Melissam. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  of the living God; and I note from the thirtieth chapter of Exodus, this perfume of God which is spoken of, was composed of four ingredients, to wit, of Galbanum, Myrrh, Onyx, and Incense. Galbanum is the juice of an aromatic herb, as white as milk, and which borrowing its name from milk, figureth unto us the whiteness and purity of virginity; Myrrh it is mortification; Onyx a kind of little oyster, from whence issued a most odoriferous savour, signifies its constancy; and Incense in flames its patience in tribulations. But as for purity, I say reasonable nature hath engraven on the hearts of all mortals, and namely maids, so particular a love of integrity, that souls the most prostituted to sin, have ever had some remorse and feeling of the honour they had forsaken.  
Should I prove this by a passage of Scripture or a Father, it were the less effectual; because it may be said, chastity ought to be praised by such lips, I will evict this verity from the confession of a Pagan, to let you understand it is a voice of nature. Behold a passage of Seneca, whom I have ever much admired: 
Senec. natural. quaestion. l. 1. c. 16. Est aliqua etiam prostitutae modestia, & illa corpora publico objecta ludibrio aliquid quo infelix patientia lateat obtendunt; adeò lupanar quoque verecun●um est.  It is a wonder (saith he) that prostituted women still retain some modesty, and that those bodies which seem not to be made but to serve as an object for public uncleanness, have ever some veil for their unhappy patience. The infamous place itself is in some sort bashful. See the cause why there never hath been any people so lose and exorbitant, which afforded not some honour to chastity, convinced by their own conscience. But we must likewise affirm it was never known to be true purity, until the standard was advanced by Jesus Christ, and his most Blessed Mother.  
We find even among those who lived in the law of nature some shadows of chastity. We have from the relation of Tertullian, that one Democritus voluntarily made himself blind by earnest looking on the Sun, that he might not behold the corporal beauty of women, shutting up two gates from love, to open a thousand to wisdom. But what chastity is this (I pray) since himself confesseth he did it not for any other purpose but to be freed from the importunities of lust, seeking out therein his own peculiar ends, not the honour of the Creator? A Christian Champion proceedeth much otherwise: He hath eyes for the works of God, and none for concupiscence. He pulleth not out his 
Tertul. Apolog. Christianus uxori suae s●li masculus nascitur, animo adveraùs libidinem ca●us est. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Meliss. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. (a) O continentiam gehennae sacerdotum! diabolus praecipit & auditur; nihil apud eum refert alios luxurid alios continentiâ occidere. Tertul. ad uxorem.  eyes to bereave himself of the spectacle of this universe, but teareth from his heart all the roots of depraved thoughts, to prepare therein a Paradise to our Sovereign Lord and Master. He sees all, and desires nothing: and although he touch at the sense of it, stays not in the consent. There is never a more undoubted triumph of chastity, than to deprive one's self of the instruments of evil. For as very well Climachus saith, the dead are never crowned, nor any man justly praised for having the impotency of doing ill. We find in ancient Rome Vestal virgins, and in the City of Egea, and Temple of Delphos: We are not ignorant that many have made profession of virginity; but what virginity? a virginity mingled with idolatry and secret impurities, lose liberty, and thoughts resigned to all kind of objects. Which caused Tertullian to say: (a) O goodly continency, which offers sacrifice to hell!  
Virginity amongst Christians admitteth not one sole glance with deliberate consent, one dishonest thought, if voluntary. It reverenceth its secrets, and tells it not, Let us sin, none see us, there is nothing 
Quis me videt● tenebrae circumdant na, quem vere●r? delictorum meorum non commemera●itur Al●●ssimus. Eccles. 23. Oculi Domini multò plus lucidiores sunt super , circumspicientes emnes vias hominum, & prosundum abyss.  but darkness round about us, which cannot accuse us, our sins shall be letters sealed up from God. Nay much otherwise, the eyes of God are two flaming torches more resplendent than the Sun itself, which will drench us in the abyss, and for this cause we keep chaste our most secret thoughts. O excellent, and admirable purity! O the true juice of Galbanum! O the true tribute of heaven!  
Consider now the second ingredient of the perfume of God, which is myrrh, to wit, mortification of senses. Where shall we find throughout the whole Synagogue, and all antiquity a chastity preserved with so many austerities and mortifications, as in true Christianity? Saint Ambrose in an Oration he made against Symmachus, mocketh at Vestal virgins, who made a show to embrace virginity, living in superfluity and delights; which is as if one would quench hot embers with oil, or hope for beauty from the daubing of a coal. Mortification of appetites hath ever been esteemed by Saints as a Pallissado of the delicious garden of chastity, and formal reason proveth unto us, that to cut off a vice subsisting in the flesh, necessarily the sinews of the flesh must be taken 
Eccles. 10. Qui dissipat sepem mordebit cum coluher.  away. You may have as many fruits of honesty, as there are of it in terrestrial Paradise; you may have an infinite number of virtues, the ordinary companions of purity of body. If you destroy mortification, the serpent will enter into your garden and sting you.  
O Maids, you infinitely betray the glory of your soul, when you think to preserve the treasure of purity in vanity, bravery, and curiosity, which have ever been accounted the nest of immodesty. How 
Quis miserebitur incantatoria serpente percusso? Eccl. 12. 13.  can you imagine that living in banquets, pleasures, dissolute sports, among stageplays, love-pamphlets, and continual occasions of sin, you can keep to God the faith you promised him in your confessions. You deceive yourself, you have betrayed your bulwarks, and ruined your ramparts; the serpent will rush in upon you to suck your blood, and then will be a fit time (indeed) to cry out murder.  
You take delight to play with aspics, and then say they have stung me, give me a remedy. Must you needs confide in serpents? Must you needs approach 
Circuierunt in melotis, in pellibus caprinis, egentes, angusti, â afflicti, quibus dignus non erat mundus: in solitudinibus errantes, in montibus, speluncis, & cavernis terrae. Hebr. 11. 18.  so near to a creature untractable? With what arms think you did the Church in its first beginning preserve this gift of chastity, and raise it to such a degree, that it filled the world with astonishment, but by flight from occasions, but by rigours and austerities of life? What flames of sensuality did not they quench who lived in wildernesses covered with skins, companions of bruit beasts, feeding on roots pulled up with their nails, and steeped in the sweat of their foreheads?  
All passed times have infinitely commended a Joseph 
Reliquit sua tanquam non sua, quae adultera suis manibus detinebat, & aliena judicavit, quae ab impudicitiâ poterant comprehendi. Ambros. de Joseph.  for leaving a cloak in his flight in the hands of an unchaste Mistress: He forsook his own (saith Saint Ambrose) as no longer accounting it his, since it was in the hands of an adulteress, and thought a garment touched by the hands of an unchaste woman was no longer for joseph's wearing. If this act be laudable, what shall we say of those who have not left a simple habit already polluted by an evil touch, but quite forsaken and abandoned in their best health, their own bodies, although most chaste and innocent, to preserve purity of soul by an extraordinary mortification of flesh? What shall we say of a Christian maid, of whom Isodore of Pelusium 
Isod. pelus. l. 2. ep. 53.  speaketh, who seeing herself solicited by a young man, shaved her head close to the skin to cure another's love, depriving herself not of a coiff, not of a petticoat or gown, but of an ornament which is on women's heads as flowers in meadows? What shall we 
Acepsimas ut refert Theodoretus & Menaea Graeca.  say of those, who to chastise a slight glance rather curious than unchaste, have put irons about their necks, that so they might perpetually look on the earth, as unworthy to behold heaven? And what of others, who were threescore years without sight of any creature? Is not this properly to cast off, not a cloak as Joseph, but the body as if it were dead? Is not this to live in mortal flesh as if he had it not? And can you 
Quid est dicere volo habere quod vincam, nisi volo habere quo peream? vide ne unde te putas habere triumphum aeternum incurros opprobrium: inter omnia enim Christianorum piacertamina sola sunt dura praelia castitatis, ubi quotidiana pugna, & rara victoria. August. de vi●andà famil. mulier. to. 9  think God hath sold virginity to such, at the price of so many travels and mortifications, and will afford it you in pleasures and continual conversation amongst men, since where there is most battle, is most merit? What else is it to say, I will have wherewithal to overcome, but that I will have wherewith to undo myself? Beware lest you purchase an eternal ignominy, where you promise yourself a triumph. For amongst all the battles in Christian Religion, none is more sharp than that of chastity, where the danger is daily, and the victory very rare.  
If you regard the third ingredient of this perfume, which is the Onyx, solid and permanent, the symbol of constancy; where can you meet with a virginity more bravely defended than among Christians? For if constancy (as Saint Thomas teacheth) consist in surmounting all difficulties and obstacles which offer to cross a good affair, who hath overcome more innumerable in quantity, more sharp in kind, more various in quality, than virginity? Domestic enemies are ever most to be feared, and such there are who have torn Lions, that could not rend from their hearts the least passion: But virginity, how many times hath it within its own body extinguished the flames of concupiscence by courageous and magnanimous acts, as are those which we find in the lives of so many holy creatures? How often did some roll themselves in ice and snow, as Saint Francis? How often did others drag themselves over thorns, all torn and bloody, as Saint Benet? How often did others fight against fire with another fire, taking in open hand the prime element to vanquish the principal passion, as Saint Marcian? It seems to me when I hear of these combats, I may apply a notable place of the Seventy fourth Psalms to them: Help, O my God, help; the earth of this mortal flesh is all 
Liquefacta est terra, ego confirmavi columnas ejus, confregi potential, arcum, scutum, gladium, & bellum. Factum est in pace locus ejus, Illuminans tu mi rabiliter de montibus aeternis. Psal. 74. & 75  on fire, it is consumed, if you assist not. What have you to fear, faithful soul? answereth the God of hosts. Be firm in your good purpose, it is I who will strengthen the columns and foundations of the earth: It is I who will shiver in pieces the bows, arrows, quivers, bucklers, and swords; yea all the temptations and powers of hell opposed against thee. My God, thou madest it; O what peace I now find in my heart, what great and divine lights descend upon me from the eternal mountains.  
Behold the interior combats, but if you regard the exterior, what violences, what warlike engines have not been employed against virginity? The teeth of Lions and Tigers were only to be feared in beasts, yet they have been sought out in forests and wildernesses, to be encouraged against virgins, and virgins have vanquished them. How many times hath a Lion been seen let lose against a silly Christian maid in an Amphitheatre, to lick her feet, and in fight of four-score thousand people adore his prey, taking upon him that courtesy, which in men was wanting? Coals, which cast up devouring flames, frying-pans, boiling cauldrons made their hair stand an end, who afar off beheld them without danger, yet virgins felt them on their bodies, virgins overcame them, virgins stood free from hurt in the midst of these horrors, singing the praises of God, and the triumphs of chastity. Wheels armed with sharp irons to make bodies fly in pieces by gobbets, were 
O quàm pulchra est casta generatio cum claritate! immortalis est enim memoria illius etc. Et in perpetuum coronata triumphant, in coinquinatorum certamine praemium vincens Sapient. 4.  the practices of Satan, never seen, heard, or thought on, yet being applied to the bodies of virgins, virgins blunted and rebated them with their tender and delicate flesh.  
Now, that none may object all this to be done by wily tricks of extatick souls, and that there could not be a true constancy observed therein, which is only seen when there is a firm settling for some good space in the exercise of a virtue, you find an infinite number of them, who waxed old in great combats, great afflictions, great austerities, great flatteries, yet never left their resolution. And to let others pass under silence, who are innumerable, I will only remember a maid of Alexandria, endowed with an exquisite beauty, and sued unto with all possible importunities, who hide herself in a sepulchre of the dead, and lived twelve years in a little cell, made to lodge such as had nothing to do with the world, she being found in this manner, and asked what she meant to do; made answer: I preserve the treasure 
Thesaurum castitatis s●rv inter aren●s calvarias, und● nulla flamma erumpit. Raderus.  of chastity amongst these dead carcases, from whence I behold not the sparkles of concupiscence to fly. O my God, what constancy is this! what vigour of spirit! what adamantine courage! and what may weak souls say to this, who yield at the first brunt, and seem to have nothing in the world more easy and familiar, than to lose that which can never be recovered.  
To conclude, constancy being never consummate without perseverance to the last breath, behold the fourth ingredient of the perfume of God, which is incense, and you shall see that as incense is melted on coals, so many have been dissolved in torments for the defence of chastity. Some have presently yielded up their lives, others were burned with a slow fire, delivering their bodies up to flames, as freely as one would be despoiled of a garment. Witness that young man mentioned by S. Hierom, fast tied with silken cords upon a bed all strewed over with flowers, who in such posture having nothing at liberty but his tongue, spit it out all bloody in the face of a lewd woman, who came to tempt him. Witness 
Raderus in viridario.  another maid called Lucy, who lived a virgin among many others, and whose exquisite beauty was sought unto with vehement solicitations by a powerful Lord, who having command and authority in his hands, sent messengers of his fury to seize on this innocent lamb; and whilst they were at the gate menacing to kill her, and to set all on fire if this poor creature were not delivered into their hands, the maid came forth; who is there, Sirs, said she? What demand you? I beseech you tell me whether there be any thing in my power to purchase your Lord and Master's love? Yea, answered they, in a flouting manner, your eyes have gained him, nor ever can he have rest till he enjoy them. Well, go to then (saith she) only suffer me to go to my chamber, and I will give satisfaction in this point. The poor maid seeing herself between the hammer and the anvil, acted a thing at that time which could never have been done without the particular revelation of God; she spoke to her eyes, and said: How my eyes, are you then guilty? I know the reservedness and simplicity of your glances, nor have I in that kind any remorse of conscience. But howsoever it be, you appear to me not innocent enough; since you have kindled fire in the heart of a man, whose hatred I have ever more esteemed than his love: Quench with your blood the flames you have raised. Whereupon with a hand piously cruel, she digged out her eyes, and sent the torn relics imbrued in her blood to him, who sought her, adding: Behold what you love. He seized with horror, hastened to hid himself in a Monastery, where he remained the rest of his days to expiate his loves. O incomparable patience! I would go further, but she stays me. For what can I speak more, having said this? Is it not enough to show chastity can do little of itself, but that it dissolveth as incense on the burning coals of charity? To give away the light of the day, the sweetest of all creatures; to give up her blood drop after drop; to give her torn eyes, so to avoid a sin, which faithless souls account but a sport! Infinite many pusillanimous people, justly chastised for their sins cannot endure the least sting, but with complaint and murmur against God; they burn, but it is as laurels, crackling in the flames: but this virgin in the sharpest rigours of a most sensible torment burnt sweetly, courageously, silently. O what a perfume of the living God is virginity! If the smoke of the bodies of the damned, and despairing Babylon perpetually mount to Heaven in a sacrifice of vengeance, may we not affirm this delicious perfume of virginity will on the other side ascend as a sacrifice of honour, whilst there is Religion and Altars, men and Angels? O women, prodigal of a good irrecoverable! Ah wretched maids! Ah young witless women, that give for a momentary delight a treasure for which the Church hath shed so much blood! Ah inexcusable treachery, to give to a bold libertine what is taken from Jesus Christ! Ah pusillanimity, to yield at the first shock, by delivering up a gift of God, for which so many virgins have persisted under the teeth and paws of Lions, under the sharp irons of tyrannical wheels, in cauldrons of scalding hot oil, in the tearing out their eyestrings, in dislocation of their bones, and massacring their bodies, yea even to the last breath of life.  
Unhappy victim made a prey to dishonour, what wilt thou answer to an Agnes, a Tecla, a Katherine, a Lucy, when they shall show thee their palms, their blood and wounds, more bright and radiant than the stars in the sky? And what will they say? behold what we have suffered for a virtue, which thou hast so slightly valued as to trample it under foot, and through a strange prostitution hast thrown into their eyes who required it not. O mothers, breed your daughters piously, and preserve them as pledges charily recommended unto you by Almighty God. What a shame, what an ignominy, nay, what a fury, to behold maids now adays ill taught, bold amongst men as soldiers, wanton as leaping kids, and impudent as Sirens! who hath ever sequestered shamefacedness from the soul that did not separate modesty from the body? How can you account a gadding housewife, a dancing reveller, an idle wanton to be modest, since the strongest chastities have now adays much ado to defend themselves from calumny? Snares are laid on every side, as well upon the mountain as the valley. There is not a stone whereon some scorpion sleepeth not. Never was the lust of impudent men so inflamed, and yet you dally without fear or danger. Harken to the advice of S. Hierom, concerning the instruction of maids, with which I will conclude this discourse:  
Let a maid, who ought to be the Temple of God, be so 
Hierom. ad Laetam.  instructed, that she neither hear nor speak any thing which tendeth not to the fear of God: Let not impure speeches approach her ears: Let her be ignorant of worldly pleasures: Let her tongue in her tender years be seasoned with the praises of Jesus Christ: Let her banish young men from her company, who have any lose fashion in their behaviour, and let the maids themselves who come amongst them, be alienated from worldly commerce, least having been ill disciples of sensuality, they thereby become the worse Mistresses. If she also learn to read, let her letters be made of box or ivory, and be all called by their names, that so they may be a recreation for her eyes, to serve as instruments for her instruction. Let her in good time practice to write, and let her tender hand be guided on the paper, to trace the letters which are showed her: Let her have some reward for doing well; for in this her minority these sleight ornaments prove to be an allurement to virtue. Let her have companions for emulation, and entertain a generous envy against their praise: Let her not be chidden if she be of a heavy spirit, but encouraged by the help of commendation: Let her take delight to overcome, and be as loath to be vanquished. Heed must be taken she hate not study and travel, lest the bitterness she may conceive in her infancy, spread beyond her most innocent years. Let the first letters she gins to call, compose some holy names, to prepare her memory to piety: Let her have a governess grave and modest: Let her entertain her companions with serenity of countenance: Let her become affable and amiable to all the world. Accustom her not to wear pendants in her ears, to paint, to load her neck and head with pearls: Change not the colour of her hair by art, nor frizle or crisp her with fire and irons, lest it prove a prediction of infernal flames. Take heed she be not touched with the hammer, which now adays strikes all the world, to wit, Vanity: Let her not drink in the cup of Babylon, which is Impurity; beware she go not forth with Dinah, to see how the maids of the country are attired: Let her not be a dancer, nor gaudy in apparel. Poison is not given but by rubbing the goblet with honey, nor doth vice deceive us but under colour and pretext of virtue.  
Above all, let her see nothing either in father or mother, the imitation whereof may make her guilty: Let her be disposed to the reading of good books, and never appear in public without the advice of her mother: Let her not entertain some spruce young Amourist to cast wanton glances, nor let her bear particular affection towards any of her servants, who may whisper in her ear, but cause them to speak aloud, that all the rest may hear. Let her orderly every day offer her devotion to God; be very sober in her deportement, and delighted with works worthy of her condition. Let her be most obedient; nor ever so hardy as to see any, or undertake aught, without their leave who govern her. Doing this, she shall save her soul, and edify all the world.   

To Fathers and Mothers. The thirty ninth SECTION. Concerning the education and instruction of their children.  
O What a goodly chain of gold is Charity, which with its many links enchaineth the world! The more closely it shutteth, the more strength it affordeth: The more it toeth our hearts, the more it fasteneth our felicities. The first liberty of a reasonable creature, is the thraldom of an honest love, wherein fathers and mothers have a great part; for their union floweth from the bowels of nature, and none can falsify it who violate not the first laws of the world. The father loves the son as a portion cut from himself, naturally the son loves the father; and so often as he wandereth from this love, he is like a fish out of the water. This was the conceit which S. Ambrose had upon the passage of Genesis, Let the 
Producant aquae reptile. Genes. 1. Quam bona mater sis aquae hinc considera, o homo, docuisti altercationes parentum in filios, separationes, odia, offen sam: disce ergò ab aquâ quae sit parentum & filiorum necessitudo. Genes. 9 Maledictus Chanaan servus servorum erit.  waters bring forth fish. Let the good mother be the water, and good children the fish, saith he. God once commanded the water to bring forth forth fish, and instantly it obeyed, and ever since for almost these six thousand years that the world wheels about, the water feedeth its fishes without murmur, and the fish never go out of the water but by constraint. O man, who hast taught divisions between father and son, mother and daughter, thou shouldst be ashamed: Entreat the water to teach thee, and the fish to show thee thy lesson. It is a strange thing the Patriarch No, justly provoked against an unnatural son, who had revealed the nakedness of his father, shooteth the arrow of malediction, not against the head of the guilty son, but his children; He cursed not Cham, but Canaan; and if you ask why, Theodoret upon Genesis answereth, No would not curse him whom God once had blessed: For this had been to take off the seal of the Sovereign Master, and raze his edicts; but S. Ambrose says very pertinently, that No the more to punish his evil son, cursed him in his race, as if the wounds which fathers receive in the affliction of their children, were more sensible to them than their proper and personal hurts. Take away the beam from the Sun, and he shines not; the stream from the fountain, it drieth up; the member from the body, it putrifies; the son from the father, and he no longer is a son. This admitted and resolved, we draw a necessary consequence from the reciprocal love between two; and since we must hereafter speak of the duty of sons towards their parents, let us now pursue the course begun, and mention the duty of parents towards their children.  
One would not at first perhaps believe what I say, but it is most undoubted: Parents are in some sort more obliged to their children, than children to parents. For who is more bound than he, who by justice both divine and humane, oweth most? Now what own children to their parents? The life they received, which they cannot render again, and therefore are not bound to it: Well may they own the honour which falls upon themselves, well the helps and services in case of necessity: But the father, so soon as the infant hath set foot into being, is very straightly obliged to provide him two things, nourishment, and instruction according to capacity. These are the two heads of this discourse, wherein I purpose to show (O fathers and mothers) that you commit a great sin when you abandon your children, to become a prey of misery, ignorance, and iniquity,  
The reasons are evident: For first, you sin against the grand Law of nature, written by God with a stile of fire, not only on the hearts of all living creatures, but even on plants, which is to cherish what they have produced. Grapes hang on the vine, fruits on the tree, and take with time their just increase from the juice and substance of the wood which brings them forth. The lamb knows his dam among a thousand to suck her, and asks the tribute of nature: Eagles bear their young on their backs: Serpents throw themselves many times into boiling cauldrons to save their eggs: The Pelican, as the report is, lets herself blood, to make a bath of it for her brood. And you in this vessel of the vast world, wherein all creatures row alike in this point according to the course of nature, would you be an unprofitable burden? Deserve not you to be banished from all the parts of the earth, and not to enjoy any thing but fire, or nothing to settle on, since the one is barren, and the other devoureth all? Secondly, see you not that neglecting your children, you do like an adulterer, not a father? For what seeks the adulterer, posterity? No: To afford a child to the world, servant to God, a Citizen to the Commonwealth? No: To have a creature, who may serve for the exercise of his charity, to be an object of his providence, and an encouragement for his diligence? No: what pretends he then? loathsome and lewd lust: And what do you else, when after consummation of marriage and the birth of a son, you carelessly leave him without providing for his necessities? Besides, if (as saith Tertullian) it is to be a homicide antedated 
Homi●idii festinatio est pr●hibere nas●i. Tertul. in Apol.  to hinder the generation of a man, what will it then be when he is already born and registered amongst mortals, through remissness and sloth to suffer him to die with hunger, cold, thirst, and misery? When wrinkles and grisly hairs shall seize on your forehead, when old age shall bow your back, and necessity cast you into calamity; with what face dare you crave help from that son or daughter, whom you all the time of their life have neglected? Were it not well all creatures made complaint over your ashes?  
This man will perhaps answer, As for my part (God's name be praised) I have had a care of my children. They want nothing necessary for sustentation of life. Is it enough to give them necessaries? But how do you give them? without love, and void of charity; as a stony loaf given and taken by constraint. Fathers and mothers, it is a strange thing to 
Partiality of parents.  see your odd proceed: One loves the male, another the female: One the girls, another the boys: One this, because he is nosed like himself, the other that, because she hath her eyes, gate, and speech: The father takes his Idol to his side, the mother hers, and in one and the same house set up Altar against Altar: If you strike my little Deity, I will not spare yours: If you bring not incense to mine, I will overthrow yours. Childish and ridiculous people! to cast affection on children through sensuality, passion, and fury, perpetually to fall out about children, to let them suck discord with their milk, from the example of those who begot them; what is it else but early to put a sword into the hand of these little creatures, but to tear one another, and to cherish factions and partialities before their eyes be open to understand them?  
Let them look to it who govern in such manner (saith the other;) as for myself I take no other care than to breed my children well, and regard them all alike. What do you call breed them well? Behold another vice: Some offend through negligence, others with too much indulgence. You term well-breeding the child to cram him up to the throat, and let him have all he asketh. Senseless creature, see you not first, you do a great injury to God? He hath trusted a child in your hand to be bred like a man, and you have made a lump of flesh of it, a bears whelp, and think there is nothing to be done but to lick it, that it may grow. Secondly, it is a base thing to say, the Sovereign Creator having made you a Father, Master, Directour, and Governor over this infant, you should forget the character God hath engraven on your face, and make yourself a slave of a gluttonous belly, and an irregular concupiscence. Besides, you put spurs to his vices to make him run headlong into the precipice, you noose haulters to strangle him, you light torches to consume him. For what good can be hoped, nay what evil not expected from a child bred up in pride and effeminacy? Hear 
Disentienda sunt deliciae quarum mollity & fluxu fidei virtus effeminari solet. Tertul. de cultu foemin.  Tertullian speak: Take away the curiosities and superfluities. It is not the life of a Christian: He hath renounced faith who breedeth his children in riot. Is it not a goodly thing to see Hercules spin silk, with those hands which were made to vanquish monsters? Know, God hath put us into the world to hue monsters more pernicious than hydra's or Cerberus, and not to make coronets of roses. You cannot breed your children in voluptuousness, and not thereby render their souls soft and effeminate, which quite extinguisheth the flame of a generous spirit; and yet you complain, that coming to the degrees of maturity, they are fit for nothing but to live lazily and pick quarrels. But it is no whit to be wondered at: It is the tincture you gave them from their most tender years. You have made them all their life time to dance to the tune of their own proper wills, light, fond, and childish, and now you would put the bridle over their necks, and make them lead a serious life. Know you not what happened to the horses of the Sybarites, an effeminate kind of people, who were so intoxicated and addicted to dances and balls, that not so much as their horses but learned to dance? In the mean time their enemies awakened them, and so closely pursued them, that they were enforced to take arms for the defence of their lives. They drew into the field a brave squadron of Cavalry, the flower and strength of the City; but a fiddler seeing them approach, mounted on these dancing horses, promised their Adversaries to deliver them into their hands whilst they were dancing. And instantly he began to strike up his violin, and the horses to bestir themselves in dancing, to break all their ranks, and put the Army into disorder; which shame fully made them become a prey to their enemies. Behold (O indulgent parents) what happeneth to your children: You have always bred them in sottishness, sports, and liberty, the fatal plagues of youth: when they must come to combat, to undertake some brave affair, some thing important for the good of their Country, for the honour of your house, for the advancement of themselves, they stand eclipsed. Nay, perhaps it might be tolerable to behold them benumbed & stupefied in worldly affairs, but they are deaf, blind, and dumb in matters concerning God; so that whilst you seek to make great and powerful Lords of them, you (ere ware) have drawn the malediction 
Genes. 3. 14. Supra pectus tuum & ventrem tuum gradieris. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 70. Interpr.  of the serpent upon them, and made them creep on their bellies, as much as to say, according to the interpretation of some Fathers, to spend their thoughts, study, and affection, upon the care and education of the body, to the prejudice of the soul. Yet you would have those creatures to be instructed in the law of God: How can it be? Do you not well know that Moses seeing the Israelites dance with full 
Exod. 32. Sciebat Dei sermonem non posse audire temulentos.  bellies about the golden calf, broke the tables of the Law? If you demand the reason, S. Hierom will tell you, he knew the Law of God was not for sporters, dancers, and drunkards, and that in the Kingdom of intemperance an eclipse ensues, not only of the Divine law, but of nature also.  
I come to the second point, which is instruction, so much recommended in Scripture. If you have 
Filii tibi sunt, erudi illos, & cura illos à pueritiâ illorum. Prov. 7.  children (saith the Wiseman) instruct them, and take great care of them from their childhood. You must think your children be as Temples of God recommended unto you from the hand of God himself. It is an intolerable thing to have good cooks, good lacheys, good grooms, good horse-boys, to serve the belly and stable; and a father who sends his son to school many times ignorant whether the Master be black or white, good or bad, mild or harsh, religious or wicked. If kine or hogs are to be driven into the fields, one is sought out who knows the business: but to train up a child of a good family, an idle fellow many times is trusted, who hath in him no talon at all but malice and ignorance. Fathers and Mothers, fear you not God will say unto you: My house is forsaken, I freed it from evil spirits, I withdrew it from the power of devils, I purged, decked, and adorned it; I put it into your protection, I consigned it into your hands; what have you done with it? Why have you polluted it, and why suffer you it still to lie drenched in ordure? You have put the lamb into the wolves keeping, you have given the victim to the slaughterman, you are the cause of his unhappiness, you have twisted the cord of his ruin so soon almost as the web of his life. Fathers and mothers do well, if they become as great Saints as are the Hermits of the desert; but if they neglect their child, they render themselves guilty before God of one of the greatest injustices in the world. The Scripture in praising the great Patriarch No, 
Noë vir justus & perfectus in generationibus suis.  doth not only say he was a good man in his own person, but in his whole race, so far as his power extended.  
As much honour and glory as it is to leave a good Citizen to the Commonwealth, so much dishonour and infamy it is to afford it ungracious wretches to trouble its repose, dis-unite peace, and embroil affairs. They are such of whom the Scripture speaketh: They shall be nails in your eyes, and lances in 
Erunt vobis clavi in oculis, & l●nceae in lateribus, & adversabuntur vobis in terr● habitationis vestrae. Num. 31.  your sides, and they shall oppose you in the land of your abode. Cruel father that thou art, who quite dead and turned into ashes, afflictest the Commonwealth by children ill instructed; thou woundest and tearest Christianity. Were it not justice thinkest thou, to break up thy tomb and disturb thy ashes, for having voluntarily bred a little viper for thy country, to which thou art accountable for thy life? And from hence it cometh to pass, that fathers who have carried themselves so negligently and perfidiously in their children's instruction, are the first who drink down the poison they mingled for others, overwhelmed with toils and miseries, for the continual disorders of these extravagants. O how often they make complaint like the Eagle in the Emblem of Julian, when strucken by a mortal arrow partly framed out of her own wings, she said, Out alas, wretched bird that I am! must I breed feathers to serve as a swift chariot to the steel which transfixeth my body? Must I bring forth children to give me the stroke of death? What remedy then for this unhappiness, which creeping into the bowels of the most flourishing Monarchies, depopulates and deprives them of good subjects, and furnisheth them with shadows of men? What remedy, but to observe three things in this matter? First, to give a good tincture of Religion to your children, pious apprehensions of God, and a filial fear of his judgements. Secondly, to manure them with arts suitable to their understanding and condition, to settle them in the world upon some good employment, lest having nought to do, they become fit to act any evil. Thirdly, to accommodate them, as much as possibly and reasonably may be, with exterior moveables, called the blessings of fortune, that necessity open not them the gate of iniquity; and then leave the rest to the providence of God, whose eye is always open over his work. Behold the course most fit to be observed: Piety goeth foremost; for as the eloquent Prelate of Cyrene's saith: It 
Cynes. ad Arcad.  is not only the foundation of houses, but of whole Monarchies.  
Parents now adays seek to do quite contrary, and set the cart before the horse; they voluntarily imitate the stupidity of those Egyptians, who prepared Altars to a Reer-mouse, for no other reason but that she is weak-sighted, and is a friend of the night. Now they preferred darkness before light, by right of antiquity: but these do much worse; for putting Heaven and earth into one balance, they set an estimate upon terrene things, to the vilifying and confusion of celestial. Nay, there are mothers to be found so malicious, as was one named Clotilda, not the Saint, but a mad woman, who being put to her choice either to consent her sons should enter into a Monastery to become religious, or resolve to see them lose their lives, Kill, kill, said she; I had rather behold them dead than Monks. How many are there now adays, who for a need would suffer their children to become Pages to Antichrist, to make a fortune; at the least would well endure to see them preferred to honour in the great Turk's Court, with shipwreck of their Religion? There are few Queen Blanches, either in courage or worth, who rather desired to behold her children in their grave than in sin. They must now adays be either Caesars or nothing. None fear to put them into infamous houses, into scandalous places, to give them most wicked Teachers, to thrust them into snares and scandals under hope of some preferment: Nay, with how many travels and services, crouchings and crimes, do these miserable creatures purchase their chains? All 
Non omnes curia admittet: castra quos ad liborem & pericula recipiant, fastidiosè legunt; bona mens omnibus patet. Senec. Ep. 44.  cannot find a fortune in Court. Warfare picks out those with a kind of disdain, whom it entertains for labours and hazards of life. Only virtue shuts not the gate against any, yet it is daily despised.  
Unfortunate fathers and wretched mothers, live on gall and tears, rise and go to bed with gnawing care, to set an ungrateful son on the top of fortune's wheel, who quickly grows weary of them, and after their deaths, gluts himself with the delights they with so much industry prepared for him, mindless of those who obliged him: Nay far otherwise, he unfolds the riots of his unbridled youth even upon their tombs. God grant this evil may pass no further, and that the father and son do not one day reproach one another in the flames of hell, that the one ministered matter of damnation, and the other gave accomplishment. William the learned Bishop of 
Guliel. de Lugdun. tract. de avarit. rubric. 11.  Lions, relateth, that a young Hermit, retiring into a horrid wilderness to attend the exercise of penance, saw his father and brother, whom he had left in the world, embroiled in ill causes, at that time deceased and buried in everlasting fire, who made hideous complaints, the son questioning his father as author of his ruin by amassing unjust riches for him, and the father answering, the son was the source of all his calamities, since to make him rich he had spent his miserable life in perpetual anxiety, and now suffered eternal punishments in the other world, for loving a disloyal son more than Almighty God. Cursed blindness, to buy tortures and gibbets with afflictions and crosses! O fathers and mothers, let your first care extend to those whom you begat, to teach them virtue, rather by your example than others instruction. These young creatures are your shadows, your echoes; they turn and wind themselves easily to imitate those who gave them life, and from whom they hope both wealth and honour. woe to the father and mother, who make their children witnesses of their crimes, and not content to be evil, make their sin immortal in the immortality of their descent. An infant, though but two years old, should be used with much regard, as if it were an intelligence enchased in this little body. It is a great sacrilege to impress the first tincture of vice on those, who as yet rest in the innocency of baptism. The good Eleazar being advised to dissemble his Religion to save his life, or at least to make semblance of eating hogs-flesh, beholding round about him many youths who expected the end of this combat, pronounced these worthy words couched in S. Ambrose: God forbidden I should serve for an incentive 
Ambrose. l. 2. de Jacob. Nequaquam contingat mihi ut sim senex incentivum ju venilis erroris, qui esse debet forma salutaris instituti. Adulterio delectatus aliqui●? Jovem respicit, & inde cupiditatis suae fomenta conquirit. Julius Firm. de error. profan.  to the vices of these young people, who should rather be a pattern of wisdom. God forbidden I defile my grey hairs with this execration, and that posterity may take notice I opened the gate to impiety by my example. That is undoubted which Julius Firmicus spoke: Nothing hath so much advanced the power of Satan, as the making of sinful gods. The young man looking on the statue of Jupiter soothed his own lust, and drew the nourishment of his sin even from Altars. So doth the son, who beholds himself in the vices of his father, and takes paternal authority for pledge of his wickedness. I leave you to think, if in Exodus 22. He who unawares suffered a silly spark to fly into his neighbour's corn be guilty of the fires hurt, as we heretofore told you, what will it be with a father, who in his house shall enkindle the torch of iniquity to inflame his whole family? First then lay the foundation of piety, and consequently find employments for your children, lest they consume in idleness, which is the seminary of all vices.  
Charlemagne soon put his sons to exercises, and commanded his daughters to sow or spin, that the gate might be shut up against lazy sluggishness of spirit, wherewith the soul suffers it-self insensibly to slide into all sorts of corruptions. Yea, great discretion must beused in this point, not to enforce children to undertake vocations wholly disproportionable to their humours and qualities, to make them thereby row all the rest of their life against the stream. Saint Basil in the Epistle to Eudoxus praiseth the Athenians, who tried the nature of their children before they put them to any profession, proposing unto them sundry instruments of all kind of arts, and easily admitting that to which they most inclined. As for accommodation, you must therein reasonably provide according to your estate, and not according to the extravagant ideas of this insatiable Age. It is an admirable thing to see to what a height these offices and huge marriages are mounted: I think they will fly into the Kingdom of the Moon. The time hath been when a man was thought rich who had fifty crowns of yearly rent: We find when the marriages of the daughters of France exceeded not six thousand crowns paid down. Nay which is more, daughters were bought; and now they purchase husbands with prodigious sums. This is it which wasteth spirits, which renders instructions unprofitable, and throws all our evils into the despair of remedy. If you knew well how to order this matter, you would find repose and facility in the rest of the government of youth; and when you have done that which belongs to you, leave the rest in the hands of the divine providence, who well understands how to handle the web of our lives, and to apply every one to what is fittest for his salvation. If all I have said (O fathers and mothers) be not sufficient to instruct and persuade you, I would draw hither out of the other world Hely the Highpriest, severely punished by the revengeful hand of God for negligences committed in the education of his children. He would cry aloud unto you. I am that Hely, heretofore the prime man amongst the people of God, that Hely, from whose lips passed so many brave oracles; that Hely, who with the wink of an eye made the people obedient; that Hely, who shined as a pharos in the Tabernacle of God; and in the mean space for permitting youthful follies and indiscreet liberty to my children, see me become the object of the most inflamed anger of God which may be imagined against one of my profession: Behold me cast from the Highpriest hood as a rotten member, my house everlastingly deprived of that honourable dignity, all my posterity condemned to die under the scourge of God, and not any one of them ever to attain to man's estate; another enriched with my spoils, which my Nephews shall never see but to whither with grief, in consideration of the felicity of their rival; my two sons sensual and voluptuous slain in one day, my daughter in Law dead in childbed; but above all, through my sin, the Ark of God taken away by enemies, and dishonoured by Infidels; and lastly, myself buried under the ruins of my country as the last victim of God's justice. O Sovereign Creator of Heaven and earth, how terrible thou art! nay, how just, nay, how severe, to chastise parents for the sins of their children! but how reasonable in this their punishment? Fathers and mother's fear, fathers and mothers shake under the hand of the Omnipotent: fathers and mothers, be satisfied with your own sins, and carry not your children's into the other world; instruct them so, that in their education you may find the discharge of your consciences, they good doctrine, and you rest and comfort to have well bred them.   

The fourtieth SECTION. Advice to children concerning the duty they should render to their fathers and mothers, contrary to the contumacy of irregular youth.  
THe Wiseman said it was a hard matter to 
Funiculus ●●plex difficile, rumpitur.  break a triple cord. A triple law, divine, natural, and civil, hath straightly bound children to the honour and duty they ordinarily yield to parents. He is forsaken of God, an enemy of nature, and an infringer of public tranquillity, who would be exempted.  
First I say, nature distilleth with the soul those amorous infusions of amity, which children have towards their fathers and mothers. The beam belongeth to its sun, the river to its fountain, the branch to its tree, and the child to his progenitors. They are not Storks alone who have taught us the law of reciprocal love: Lions, though of nature untractable, of life savage, even in their roaring moods, which make woods and mountains tremble, give us a lesson of this charity. Lion's whelps, whose paws itch and blood boileth in their veins, go cheerfully a hunting to seek out food for their fire now worn with age. And hunters have often observed an old Lion lying in the entrance of a cave, and a young one to come laden with booty, putting it into the paws of the other who expected it. He received the prey making show of a thousand thanks to his whelp, which freely divided the prize according to the law of nature. These inclinations are found even in birds of rapine, who pull the prey one from another to feed those with it who begat them.  
Albertus Magnus noteth, that fowlers seeking for goshawks found one in a vast wilderness perched upon a tree, not offering to stir from them, but seeming wholly . They wondering why this bird flew not away at the sight of men as well as others of her kind, perceived she was weak, blind, lame, and wasted with decrepit age; whereupon they hide themselves, expecting the coming of other goshawks, when instantly behold two hastened thither laden with meat which they pulled in pieces, and thrust into the beak of the poor old one. They made no doubt, but these were the young who fed the dam. O what charms of nature! Nay rather what providence of God Is not he an Apostata to the great Law of the world, who violateth charity due to fathers and mothers?  
As for humane Laws, what have they in them more noble or Religious than the charitable offices of children towards those who begat them? If we believe the history of the Persians, there have been some found amongst them who voluntarily made wounds 
Aelian. l. 16. de animal. c. 7.  on themselves to bury therein some part of the bodies of their parents reduced to ashes? A matter truly very strange, and which confoundeth the ingratitude of children, who deign not to preserve the memory of their fathers so much as in their hearts, much less their ashes on their bodies.  
Hath not Tertullian written, that certain people called the Nasamones through much reverence held 
Tertull. de animâ c. 57 Herodot. l. 4.  their meeting over the tombs of their Ancestors, as upon Oracles? Doth not Herodotus make mention of the Issedons, a people of Scythia, who enchase the heads of their deceased Ancestors in gold, and reverence them as things sacred? And although there be in this action reprehensible superstition, yet it is much more tolerable than the Law of the Egyptians, who burned incense to rats and crocodiles.  
On the other part Nicholas Damascene assureth us, the Pisidians presented the first fruits of all the viands 
Nicho. Damasc.  of a feast to their fathers and mothers, thinking it an unworthy thing to take refection without honour done to the Authors of life.  
Yea, Plato passeth so far as to call parents' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one would say household Gods, the 
Plato. leg. 11.  pledges of Religion, the relics, and choicest pieces of the household measure. Solon would never establish the Law against parricides, saying, God forbidden a monster should ever come into our Commonwealth. Against impossible crimes there needs no prohibition. Did not Romulus the like in the institution of his Commonwealth? He never inserted one word of the sin of parricide as if it had been a mere Chimaera: and verily six hundred years passed in the city of Rome amongst Pagans, and not so much as the name thereof known. The first stained with this barbarous cruelty was one Lucius Ostius, detested afterwards through all Ages. Men not knowing what punishment to invent for this monstrous sin, it was said such should be thrown into the water, shut up in a sack, with an ape, a cock & a viper.  
Finaly Aristotle, who is ever in argumental discourses, will not make use of any for the honour 
Arist. 8. Top.  of parents: For saith he, that man who doubteth of the honour of Gods and parents, let him be instructed, not with words but sharp punishments.  
As for the divine Law, what hath it more authentically recommended than this band of charity? What doth it inculcate with more espect, after the honour of God, than duty towards parents? For whom are recompenses awarded, if not for the piety of children? And for whom menaces, but for their rebellion? Saint Thomas in his seaventh little treatise observeth, how in the Decalogue after that 
S. 77. om. op. 7.  which concerneth God, immediately followeth the precept of the honour due to the Authors of our life, for the resemblance they have to God. And Philo saith, this commandment is the knot and tie of 
Philo in vitâ Mosis. A quo est omnis paternit as.  all the Law. Saint Augustine writing upon the passage of Saint Paul, God from whom all fatherhood proceedeth, saith, that God is the Prince of all fathers, and fathers the Vicars of God, because they give children) although with dependence on the Sovereign Cause) both being, education, and instruction.  
This duty of children towards parents being proved by the triple knot of the Law natural, civil, and divine: I will now enlarge upon the four parts thereof, which are, love, reverence exterior and interior, obedience, and secure. I say love; for what child is there can hate his father if he be not unnatural? How (o wicked son) can the hatred of a title so sacred, so sweet, ascend into thy heart, if thou art not become a bankrupt in nature? If Tigers, and Lions had the like obligation, they would honour him, and thou persecutest him? Ah! but he is unreasonable, troublesome, and insupportable, what wilt thou not say? He is thy father, and therefore to be supported: behold the rock whereon all the waves of passion should crack asunder. But I know not what antipathy I have contrary to his nature, I cannot rellishe him. Must we talk of nature, when there is question of the God of nature? Know you not what the excellent Martyr S. Justine said, To live according to nature, is to live like an Infidel? If your nature cannot 
Justin ep. ad. Zenam & Serenam.  agree with one whom you are bound to love, you must bridle that ill nature, you must put reason into command, and passion into fetters. Tell not me, you have endeavoured to mollify it, but find it untractable. Rather say, you are refractory against the yoke, which nature hath put over your neck from your mother's womb, for which cause see whether in the judgement of prudent men who may advise you, you yield him that duty which God commandeth.  
The second part of your tribute is reverence. For it is natural to fathers and mothers, who by the light of reason are tenants of that honour which both age, nature, and the commandment of God hath put into their hands: and if any thing happen to the contrary, it galls their heart, and transfixeth them more sensibly than one can imagine. For which cause the Wiseman said. Honour thy father both in 
In opere & sermone, & omni patientiâ honora patrem tuum Eccl. 15.  word and deed with patience.  
It is a malignity and a most intolerable baseness, to see children of poor or indifferent extraction advanced either by the gale of favour, or by their travel and industry to some public charge, who no sooner have set foot therein but their brains turn, and they scarcely acknowledge those who gave them life and breeding, which is the first movable of all the wealth they either possess or may hope. But yet far more barbarous are they that despise their parents, who heretofore rich and wealthy, are now despoiled even to nakedness, and drawn dry to the very marrow, to place them in dignities: This is a tyranny, which deserveth that all the ravens from the brooks and lay-stals should fly with fury upon him to pick out the eyes of this offender, who hath dared to contaminat himself with such an attempt.  
Ungrateful creature, thou art ashamed of nature, thou blushest at the divine providence, what say I blush? nay thou dismembrest it; a father who is the ornament of thy head, and happiness of thy house if thou knowest how to use him, reduced by thy insensibility, thy cruelty, into the condition of a servant, whilst thou perhaps feedest dogs, hawks, or some fatal harpies worse than dogs or hawks. Where is thy brow, thy blushing, thy understanding? Oh but he is poor. True, because thou hast despoiled him, because thou hast wasted him, because he voluntarily made himself poor to make thee rich.  
Tell me, was it not an honour to King Agathocles, who from being the son of a potter raised his fortune to a Throne, was it not (I say) an honour to mingle on his cup-boards earthen vessels with his rich pieces of gold and silver plate, that he might not belly his birth? Nay, so far was he from blushing, or from being ashamed at it, that he made boast and trophy of it: What then would he have done by his poor father, if he set such a value upon the mean implements of his cottage? And thou wholly Christian as thou art, canst not behold without confusion of thy countenance what a great Captain, a great King, a great Statesman sought to proclaim to all the world.  
Contempt of the person of fathers entereth sometimes so far into their souls, as it hath transported them into horrible and tragic acts. Never have I read any thing upon this subject with more amazement, than that mentioned in Justine, of a certain African, named Cartallus, who was by the people's consent raised to an eminent degree of dignity, and casually upon some solemn embassage sent into a place where his father, with many other, was banished. He looking on himself at that time like a peacock gloriously furnished out with the rich ornaments of his employment, thought it was not suitable to his honour to admit that his father should so much as see him. The unfortunate father became so enraged with this refusal and pride of his son, that instantly he raised a sedition, and mustering together a tumultuary Army of exiles, he fell upon his son, although a Magistrate, took him, condemned him to death, presently prepared a high gibbet, and attired (as he was in gold & scarlet with a crown on his head, caused him to be fastened to this fatal tree for a strange spectacle. What fury of despised nature is this, and what butchery?  
Let us pass on to the third tribute, obedience, which (as an Ancient said) is the mother of felicities: It is the first band of families, and chief foundation of Monarchies. S. Gregory Nyssen hath a notable observation, saying, that Moses of set purpose caused the Hebrews to wear earrings, giving them thereby to understand, their beauty and grace was in the ear, to wit, in obedience; and verily in Exodus the people 
Exod. 32. Tollite inaures filiarum vestrarum auribus, & asserte add me. Filius noster iste protervus & contamax est, monitis mostris audire contemnit, comessationibus vacat, luxuriâ atque convitiis: Lapidibus eum obruet populus, & morietur. Deuter. 21. (a) Aelian. var, hist. lib. 1.  beginning to revolt, their earrings were taken from them, as from men unworthy of this privilege. That which is expressed in Deuteronomie is much more bloody and terrible, where the father and mother are permitted to bring forth a disobedient and refractory son in public, and upon their own deposition, to cause him to be stoned to death by the people. It seems this Law was well understood by a silly Peasant (a Mardonian by Nation) named Rachones, (a) who being the father of seven sons, perceived the youngest of them played the little libertine and unbridled colt: What doth he to bring him back into the stable? First he endeavoured to cure him with fair words and reasons, but finding him to reject all manner of good counsel, he bond his hands behind him, carried him before a Magistrate, accused him, and requires he may be proceeded against as a delinquent against nature. The Judges, who would not discontent this incensed father, nor hazard the life of this young man, sent them both to the King, who at that time was Artaxerxes, The good man went thither, resolved to seek his son's death, where pleading before the King with much fervour and forcible reasons, Artaxerxes stood amazed at his courage. But how can you (my friend) said he, endure to see your son die before your face? He being a gardener, as willingly (said he) as I would pull away leaves from a rank lettuce, and not hurt the root. The King perceiving this resolution and zeal of justice in the poor man, of a gardener made him a Judge, and severely threatened his son with death, if his carriage were not better.  
See young man, behold wicked son, who disobeyest thy father and mother, not in a slight matter or of little importance, but in such as concerns thy life, safety, and reputation; see what thou mayst expect from the justice of God, since that of men hath so much severity in this point.  
You dare dispense with yourselves in the Laws of piety and Religion, not showing, even on festival days any more feeling of God than a beast; doth this seem tolerable? you haunt the company of buffoons, wicked and wretched creatures, which wast the means that are not yours, weaken your body, violate your reputation, and defile your soul, and is not this a crime? You make resolutions and frame chymaeraes without advice either of father or mother, you bring them into debt, you treat clandestine marriages, you thrust those alive unto their graves who gave you life; and can you think the vengeance of God will ever have leaden feet? Faithless and brutish as you are, how many fathers for far less faults have inflicted severities on their children, dreadful even to those who read them. Marcus Scaurus in the Roman history sent this message to his son, who fled with the rest of his Army defeated by the Cimbrians: Son, you are born of a father, who knows either to vanquish or die, rather send me your bones than return alive after the death of your honour. A father could not endure the flight of a son, which was very excusable in a general defeat, because it seemed to cast some blemish upon his family; and you who surcharge your house with reproach and confusion, would you escape unpunished? Another father, Aulus Fulvius, understanding his son had ranked himself in the faction of Catiline (a wicked wretch, who supported and debaushed all the youth of Rome) caused him to be taken in the place, and condemned to death, and this young man begging pardon with all manner of suppliant entreaties had no other answer, but, Son I begat you to make war upon Catiline in your Country's quarrel, not in Catiline's cause to assail your mother. And who can but wonder at another Torquatus, that had a son in great employments of the Empire, flourishing in honour, age, and reputation; who being accused by the Ambassadors of Macedonia, to have ill carried himself in their Province, when he had it in charge; this father with the Senate's permission would himself be Judge in the son's cause, heard the accusers two whole days together, confronted witnesses, gave his son full scope to defend himself and to produce all that he could for his justification, in the end on the third day, he pronounced sentence: It having sufficiently been proved unto me, that my son Syllanus hath ill acquitted his charge, and taken money from the allies of the Roman People, contrary to the command of Laws and honesty, I declare him from this time forward unworthy both of the Commonwealth and my house. The unfortunate son was so overwhelmed with melancholy upon this judgement given by his father, that the next night he killed himself, and the father esteeming him degenerate, would not so much as honour his funerals with his presence. Good God what severity! what thunders, what lightnings against the disobedience of sons among Pagans. And you wicked sons, in Christianity, where the Law of love should oblige you to the duty, which I prove unto you with an adamantine knot, do you think all is permitted you? And you fathers, are not you most worthy of your unhappiness, when you cherish by a negligent and soft indulgence the disobediences of your children, which you should root up from their infancy, and not suffer them to grow to the prejudice of your houses, with so many bloody tragedies as are daily seen in the mournful theatre of the world's 
Fili suscipe senium tam patris tui, & non contristes eum in vitâ illius & si defecerint sensus, veniam da, & non spernas eum in tuâ virtute. Eccles. 3. Qui time● Deum honorat pare●tes, & quasi Dominis serviet iis qui segenuerunt.  miseries?  
Let us conclude upon the fourth duty of children, which is secure: Son receive the old age of thy father and mother in thy bosom: Take heed thou do not contristate them in any kind: Beware thou scornest them not, if they chance to fall into any debility of spirit: Assist them with all thy might. It followeth: The child which feareth God never fails either in the honour or aid he should yield to his parents: nay more, be shall serve them as a servant his Master. We need not here seek out examples in holy Scripture, or where the Law of nature is handled; the more our proofs are taken from Infidels, who had nothing at all but the light of reason, so much the more clour and weight they have. I will not make mention here of a Roman daughter 
(a) Fulgos l. 5. c. 3.  who fed her father from her own breasts, condemned to die of hunger between four walls; you may sufficiently see that often recorded in writing. Yea, under Peter of Castle there lived a man that never ceased weeping until he were put to death instead of his father, who was to be executed. I speak nothing now at all of that, but cannot omit an example recounted in Bibliotheck of the great with Photius, who telleth on a time there happened in Sicily (as it hath often been seen) an eruption of Aetna, now called mount Gibel: It is a hideous thing, and the very image of hell, to behold a mountain which murmurs, burns, belches up flames, and throws out its fiery entrails, making all the world fly from it. It happened then, that in this horrible and violent breach of flames every one flying, and carrying away all they had most precious with them, two sons, the one called Anapias, the other Amphinomus, careful of the wealth and goods in their houses, reflected on their father and mother both very old, who could not save themselves from the fire by flight; and where shall we (said they) find a more precious treasure than those who begat us? The one took his father on his shoulder, the other his mother, and so made passage through the flames. It is an admirable thing that God in consideration of this piety, though Pagan, did a miracle: for the monuments of all antiquity witness, the devouring flames stayed at this spectacle, and the fire roasting and broiling all round about them, the way only through which these two good sons passed was tapistred with fresh verdure, and called afterward by posterity the holy field, in memory of this accident.  
What may we answer to this, what can we say, when the virtues e●en of Pagans dart lightening-flashes of honesty and duty into our eyes? What brazen or adamantine brow can covetous and caitiff sons have, who being rich and abounding in means, deny necessary things to those who brought them into the world, yea have the heart to see them struggle with extreme misery, whilst they offer a sacrifice of abomination to their burning avarice? Wicked son, wretched daughter, know you what you do when you commit such a crime? You hold the soul, blood, and life of your progenitors in your coffers, you burn them with a soft fire, you consume them with a lingering, and shameful death; you are accountable before God for what they suffer. And for whom is remorse of conscience? For whom infamy? For whom necessity? For whom punishments in the other life, but for such as in this manner abuse a treasure so recommended by God? Take heed (O children) take heed of breaking this triple cord of the Law divine, natural, and civil, which indissolubly tie you to the exercise of that piety which you have abjured. Take heed of irreverence, disobedience, and ingratitude towards your parents; expect not only in the other life the unavoidable punishments of God's Justice against such contumacy, but in this present life know you shall be measured with the same measure you afforded others. You know the history of the miserable father dragged by the hair with the hand of his son unto the threshold of his door, where seeing himself unworthily used, Hold son, saith he, it is enough, the justice of God hath given me my due; I committed the like outrage heretofore against my father, thy Grandfather, which thou at this instant actest upon me: I dragged him hither, and behold me hither haled: Go no further. O Justice! O terror! O dreadful spectacle! Great eye of God, which never sleepest over the crimes of mortals. O divine hand, which ever bearest arms of vengeance hanging over the heads of rebellious children! How terrible thou art? who can but fear thee? who will not hereafter tremble at the apprehension of thy judgements?  
Children be pious, live in the duty you have vowed and resigned to your progenitors, and to all your superiors: Live full of honour and glory in this world, live in expectation of palms and crowns which you shall enjoy in the other world. And you likewise fathers and mothers, embrace charity towards your good children with all affection, and if any forget their duty, and afterward stretch out hands humbly to your obedience, receive them into favour, exercise mercy towards them as you desire should be done to you by God our common father. But if you still groan under the ingratitude of wicked children, and the fear of future evils, wipe away your tears, sweeten your acerbities, season your bitterness with the comfort of a good conscience. When you have done all you can and all you ought to do, leave the success to God, and say unto him, My God who hast seen the cause of my afflictions to proceed from myself, accept my good desires for the works of this evil child, my sufferings in satisfaction, and my patience for sacrifice.    

THE FOURTH BOOK. Of the impiety of COURTS.  

The unhappy Politician.  
HItherto, having proposed the motives and obstacles that men of quality find in the way of Christian perfection, I have made a collection of the most wholesome instructions, which may guide them to the wisdom of heaven. Consequently I purpose, according as time and leisure will permit, to write the history of the holy Courts, pursuing the course which I proposed in the Preface. But this volume being become big already in the press, requireth nothing but the seal upon it. Behold the cause why I have been willing to affix it thereon with two books of grave and admirable histories, which may serve as a scantling of the whole piece I intent. The scope of all this work is to declare a most worthy saying of S. Augustine, That nothing is so miserable as the prosperity of the wicked, nothing so happy as true and solid piety.  
To bring these two verities into their full lustre of light as well by example as precept, I have chosen two Courts very different. The one is the Court of Herod, the other of Theodosius the younger. In the one the disasters of impiety are beheld, in the other the happiness of virtue. Verily I have cast the eye of my consideration upon divers histories, and have seen none which may make great men more sensibly apprehend how those who rule in Courts and places of dignity by mere policy and humane prudence, accommodating Religion to their own interest, are deceived, than the life and death of this unfortunate King of Judea. He had an infinite natural judgement, an admirable penetrating wit, a courage unspeakably dauntless. A man who derived from nothing, advanced his fortune even to the Regal throne, and established it amongst so many thorny affairs, as to make himself admired by the wisest of the world. But because he built upon this Maxim of impiety, that Religion and Law must be made to serve our proper interests, he led a life full of crimes and disturbances, concluded with the most disastrous death that may be imagined. That also which hath made me resolve upon this history (drawn from Josephus, with some other little fragments and memorial, dilating it according to the talon of my stile, without using any other transcription,) is, that besides the unhappy Politician, you shall read therein Innocence persecuted in the life of a Lady, who hath been a true mirror of patience, and whom I purpose to propose as one of the greatest ornaments of our holy Court. It is from hence I may truly gather a most beautiful rose amongst the sharpest throns show calmest serenity in the roughest storms, and seek the honeycomb in the lion's throat, since I in Herod's Court endeavour to find out the patiented and chaste Mariam, the true Table of innocence, 
Mariam wife of Herod, the picture of patience.  unworthily used.  
The sufferance of this poor Queen would deserve to be consecrated with a pen of Adamant, in the Temple of Eternity, since she is able to dazzle the eyes of the most hardy, to replenish the mouths of the most eloquent, and ravish the minds of those who admire no vulgar things. God, who ever raiseth the glory of his Elect as it were upon the depth of the greatest miseries, seeing the soul of this Princess amongst the most eminent and illustrious, thought he must give her a large field for encounter, to reap the richest palms of patience, and he gave her Herod a bad husband, a barbarous persecutor, an infamous executioner: but ever more suitable to the patiented Mariam in the quality of a persecutor and a hangman, than in the office of a husband. To conceive the strength of this anvil, we must know the force of the hammer which beateth on it. To speak sufficiently of the singular virtue of this Queen, we must thereunto oppose the malice of Herod: we necessarily must behold how this disloyal man holding his life, sceptre, and crown, from the house of Mariam, for recompense thereof took from her, her sceptre, crown, and life, after he had drawn her bowels out, causing her nearest of kin to be put to death before her eyes, then casting her all bloody upon the pile, where the bodies of her parents and brethren were burned, as the last sacrifice of his fury, yet never at all startling her invincible patience. Every man speaketh of Herod, as of a man of mortar steeped in blood, as of a Tyrant, who would murder mercy itself; but every one knoweth not the wiles he used to possess himself both of the Queen Mariam and sceptre of David, oppressing the one with all ingratitude, and governing the other with unspeakable mischief.  
About some fifty years before the Nativity of our 
The estate of the Kingdom of Judea before Herod came to the crown.  Lord and Saviour, the kingdom of Judea, which had subsisted▪ although amongst strange eclipses and horrible vicissitudes, from King David, almost a thousand years; after it had so many times tottered, and so often by many shocks and concussions been established, in the end found its total ruin and tomb in the discord of two brothers. At that time Hircanus 
Hircanus.  reigned, a good man but a bad King, who neither had fortitude, valour, nor courage. He used as much remissness in his charge, as he practised innocence in his manners His overmuch easiness made him degenerate into a certain stupidity, and being unapt to do ill, he rendered himself capable to be an instrument of all kind of evils, by being too easy for the impressions of another. He acknowledging his own weakness, freely resigned the dignity and burden of rule to his brother Aristobulus, a valiant and 
Aristobulus.  hardy man, who had little success and many enterprises.  
In the mean time Palestine, during the inconstant 
Antipater the father of Herod affected the Kingdom of Judea.  wavering of this Royalty, was much courted by her neighbours; but above all by Antipater, father of Herod, an Idumcan by Nation, an Arabian in manners, wealthy, factious, able to overturn a large Empire by his subtle wiles, had for a long time a plot upon the Kingdom of Judea. He well foresaw it would be a matter very difficult for him to force a passage for his wicked ends, whilst this courageous lion Aristobulus bare sway; but were he dismounted and Hircanus seated again in his throne, all would be in his own power. What doth this Arabian then? he soweth in the souls and minds of the people seeds of revolt against Aristobulus, saying, They were very remiss and disloyal, so to suffer Hircanus their lawful King to be dethroned, to whom nature had granted Empire, to transfer the Kingdom to a mutinous and turbulent spirit, who quickly would with ill manage make them feel the ruin and desolation of all Palestine. That they had forsaken a King blameworthy in nothing but in surplusage of goodness, to take another; who having made entry into principality by the gate of infidelity, could not reign but in the disastrous misery of his Country, Although Hircanus should yield up his right, be were dispensable in this his modesty. The more unworthy he should esteem himself to rule, the more were his worth. The glory, which he endeavoured to decline in the undervaluing of his own person, would wait upon him even to his tomb. Yea, should they object to him his great sweetness & facility of nature, it were more suitable to the piety and gentleness of the Jews. If doves were to choose themselves a King, they would rather have a statue than a sparhawk.  
This wily spirit by such like remonstrances quickly found much credulity, partly in the minds of those who affected innovation, partly amongst such as were guided by justice; but all saw not how under the colour of public good, he sought to raise a Monarchy for himself or his heirs. He, thus having already put the iron into the fire, gained the heart and opinion of Hircanus by all kind of observances and testimonies of amity, which was a matter not hard to do, this Prince suffering himself to be governed by those who made show of any the least affection towards him. Behold him now as 
Cunning of Antipater.  Procurator, Tutor, and Master of this flexible spirit, whom he so under pretext of friendship possessed, that the actions of Hircanus sought no other issue, no other extent, but as they were guided by the thought and counsels of Antipater. Notwithstanding, when he proposed to him to make war against his brother, to repossess himself of the Royal Throne, he found his heart all of ice, & was fain to use his best endeavour to enkindle him, by reason of the excessive coldness of nature. In the end he on day plainly discovered to him. That this abrenunciation of rule which he had transacted with his brother, was a thing incompatible with his honour and life. What eye would not be dissolved into tears, to behold him despicable and wretched, whilst his brother lived in all superabundance and pomp? It were to confound the Laws of nature, it were to authorize tyranny, to say, that little thiefs should live in fetters, and Aristobulus, who had usurped a Kingdom, sit in silken robes and resplendently glitter in diamonds. That a Kingdom was a shirt, which never was to be put off but with life. That they were tales of lazy Philosophers to affirm that Diadems were tissued with thorns, their Rubies and Diamonds never having pricked any man. The life which Hircanus then led was good for a Religious Essean, but not for a King. To conclude, that the people desired with passion to see him reestablished in the throne of his Ancestors. He plied the ear of the Prince with so many forcible words, that he already began to gain him: but yet found himself combated by two powerful reasons, the one was his oath, by which he had renounced principality, and the other his weakness. From the oath Antipater absolved him, saying he had sworn to a sin, and that there was no obligation to execute it. For inability, he made overture unto him of Arabian succours, which he had in his power. So that finding him wavering upon this wicked passage, he cast into his soul black jealousies of his brother, as of him, who after he had usurped his estate, would enterprise on his life, counterfeiting conspiracies framed against him with so much art, that Hircanus yielded himself up, and gave him an absolute commission to make war or peace, as best pleased him. This concluded, the apple of discord is cast; Antipater faileth not to solicit Arethas the Arabian King, who cometh with a huge Army to fall upon Palestine, not without barbarous hostilities and lamentable desolations, even to the near straitning of Aristobulus, and the holding him besieged in Jerusalem, the capital City of his Kingdom.  
But as the greatest serpent devoureth the lesser, it 
Pompey in Palestine  happened about the time of these undertake, the Romans under the conduct of Pompey the Great making their Eagles to glitter in Syria, and leading an Army of fire, before which the petty Kings were but as chaff, forced the Arabian to retire into his kingdom, they marching in all parts victorious, and undertaking to give law, peace, and war to whom they pleased. The two brothers fail not to seek the gracious favour of the Roman, every one in his own way, with their best endeavour, well seeing, that therein was the main of the business. Aristobulus as the more free, courageous, and royal, found in the very beginning most favour, having presented to the Roman, amongst other largesses, a golden vine, one of the most curious workmanships of the world, which was afterward seen to serve as an ornament in the Capitol. In the end, behold the two brothers contesting at the feet of Pompey, to plead, not for a meadow or a wine-yard, but for a Kingdom, little considering, that putting their fortune into the hand of a stranger, who had no other law but his own ambition, under the shadow of arbitration he would fix his talons. Antipater beholding from the beginning the balance to bend towards Aristobulus, as unto him from whom the Romans had most cause to hope readiest service for their pretences, spared not to disgrace him, to lay aspersions on him, to cast the Romans into a distrust of his spirit, and perpetually play the sleeping dog before Pompey, in such sort that Aristobulus, overseeing well that this pernicious man abusing the name and weakness of his brother, sold them both to the Romans, stood upon his guard, having more animosity than ability to resist the army of a vast Empire. The poor Prince shrinking under the burden of such an enterprise, is taken, put into fetters, with two of his sons, and as many daughters, and was lead to Rome to serve as a sport in Pompey's triumph. Jerusalem is 
Aristobulus prisoner, Jerusalem tributary.  made tributary, the High-Priests place given to Hircanus, and all authority in the hand of Antibater. It was a spectacle which drew tears even from those who before loved not Aristobulus, to behold this unfortunate King in fetters, with the Princes his sons, and those much to be deplored Princesses, his daughters; all heirs of their father's miseries, who left their country, where they had flourished with so much honour, to seek amongst tedious and irksome voyages both by sea and land, servitude, or death, which ever is the ordinary vow and prayer 
Antipater established.  of the wretched. Antipater as yet all bloody gathered the Palm of this victory, and establisheth his little Monarchy, which he a long time had plotted. Hircanus resembled an old sepulchre, which retaineth nothing but a bare title, all was acted by him in appearance, and nothing for him in effect: the other entertained and courted the Romans with his money, gave presents, sent and received Ambassadors, practised supports, gained correspondencies, corrupted powers, ruined resistances which opposed his greatness, and made this poor Highpriest in all things to bear the seeming sceptre. Then seeing him daily become more weak than himself, to secure this state upon his own sons, he makes the eldest, to wit Phaselus, Governor of Jerusalem, and giveth to Herod his 
Unhappy Politician.  youngest the Tetratchie of Galilee. Some time after, having sucked down all the wind which his ambition presented to him, and not knowing what more to do, he drank a cup of poison, which in a banquet was offered to him by the sly cunning of Malicus his enemy. Behold the current of humane things. These Spirits enragedly mad after greatness, which they pursue with all manner of toil and sinister practices, are as those little bubbles that rise on the water in time of a tempest; they increase and crack in a moment.  
Antipater being dead, his two sons Phaselus and 
Beginning of Herod.  Herod divide the succession; each one holdeth firmly his share, and striveth to possess the heart of Hircanus, making him always personate his own part. Herod as soon as he was in office, even in the life of his father, being as yet but fifteen years of age, well discovered what he would be by his natural inclinations, which proceeded from him, as flashing streaks from a cloud, to be instantly turned into lightning. He had a malign spirit, crafty, ambitious even to fury, and whose fingers perpetually itched after blood and slaughter. And verily he defiled his tender years and first beginning of principality with effusion of humane blood, falling not only upon one called Ezechias, reputed a Pirate, but he also cut in pieces with him many Jews, without either warrant or knowledge of the cause, which involved many innocents' in this ruin. The mothers of those people massacred by young Herod, went out of the Temple disconsolate, with their hair dishevelled; requiring justice of Hircanus, who was no other than a mere idol of principality. Notwithstanding, much importuned by the cries and lamentations of these weeping women, and incited by the Peers of his Kingdom, he ordained that Herod should appear before a tribunal of justice. In this action the young man sufficiently shown the boldness of his spirit, and fierceness of his courage. The other who were accused came to this Parliament of Judea altogether in mourning habit, he thither went as to a feast or a Theatre, waited on with a flourishing retinue, clothed in scarlet, frizzled, perfumed, and besides with the recommendations of the Romans, who sent nothing but armed words, commanding the Judges to pardon without any other process. He then being but fifteen years old, so amazed the Judges and Advocates with his very fashion and countenance, that of all those who were prepared for long plead against him, there was not one to be found that had the heart to mutter in his presence. One of the Judges called Sameas, an honest man & more hardy than 
Liberty of a judge  the rest, cried out aloud to King Hircanus there present, Sir, I wonder not this young Lord cometh in such equipage to this bar; every one doth what he can for his own safeguard: But I admire that you and your Council suffer him thus to proceed, as if he came hither not to be adjudged, but to murder the Judges: you presently through favour will enfranchise him, but he one day by Justice will assail yours. And verily of the whole Senate no one escaped, whom Herod, being come to the full manage of the Kingdom, put not to death, except him, who delivered his opinion with such liberty. It is reported of Sameas, that when afterward there was question moved to receive Herod for King, the rest constantly opposing it, he freely said, he gave his voice to Herod; and some amazed thereat, Let it not seem strange unto you (saith he) God in his indignation 
Grave speech.  will give unto you a bad King, and a worse he cannot find than Herod, He is the scourge you stand in need of to chastise your infidelity. Hircanus then seeing the Judges animated by Sameas, more inclining to the balance of justice than mercy, caused him secretly to be shifted away. For he embosomed him with love, and so hatched the serpent's egg in his breast.  
Herod, nothing inferior to his father in policy, pursuing his plots and examples, inseparably united himself to the Romans, gaining them with all manner of services, and entertaining Hircanus to serve his turns, as a shadow, with all manner of complacence and flattery. The Kingdom of Judea seemed as yet, not to behold him but at distance, his brother Phaselus, as the eldest, held the best part. Aristobulus, whom you have seen led in fetters to Rome, had also two sons, the eldest of which was called Alexander, father of this chaste Mariam whose patience we decipher. The other was Antigonus, with whom Herod had much occasion. Or both he discharged himself in 
Great revolution in the Kingdom of Judea.  process of time. For the unfortunate Alexander, successor to the unhappiness of his father Aristobulus, putting himself into the field, with such troops as he could amass together in the disaster of his fortune, was in favour of Herod oppressed by the Romans. Antigonus, having escaped out of captivity wherein he was held at Rome, with Aristobulus his father, gave Herod matter enough to work on. For putting himself into the Parthians power, he wrought so much with promises and hopes, that they undertook to establish him in his Royal throne. And thereupon they arm both by sea and land, and handle the matter so by force and policy, that they stir up Hircanus and Phaselus. Herod with much difficulty saved himself, and though he had a courage of steel, was so astonished with this surprise, that it was a great chance, he had not ended his life upon his own sword. Hircanus unworthily used by the commandment of his nephew Antigonus, had both his ears cut off, and thereby made for ever uncapable of the High-priestood. Phaselus' the brother of Herod enraged with the turn of fortune, voluntarily knocked out his own brains against the side of a rock.  
Herod, who always cleaved to the fortune of the Romans as ivy to a wall, seeing his affairs reduced to an extremity, imploreth their assistance, representeth the outrages of Antigonus, the hostility of the Parthians, signifieth the services of his father Antipater, promiseth on his part all the world, and so handleth the matter, that beyond his expectation he is declared King, and at that instant Antigonus enemy of the people of Rome, as a fugitive and ally of the Parthians. Herod pursueth him with might and main, aided by the Roman forces. The miserable Antigonus after a very long resistance was imprisoned, becoming the very first of Kings, who, by commandment of Mark Anthony, was executed with a punishment most unfit for his quality and condition, and among the Romans not usual, leaving his head upon a scaffold in the City of Antioch, for no other cause, but for the defence of the inheritance of his Ancestors. But Strabo saith, Mark Anthony could find no other way to make Herod to be acknowledged for King, while there was yet any of the blood Royal left capable of rule, so much this people loved their natural King, and abhorred a stranger.  
After these slaughters, Herod mounteth to the top 
Entry of Herod to the crown.  of the wheel, behold all the thorns (as he thinketh) pulled out of his feet, he now had nothing to grapple with, but an old man, an infant, and two women, the last remainder of the noble race of the Asmodeans. Hircanus was the aged man, who in truth grew old among the thorns and horrible changes, of his state. He was as yet captive among the Parthians, but the King, although a Barbarian, had so much commiseration of his so greatly afflicted goodness, that he permitted him to live with all free liberty in his City of Babylon. This poor Prince, who had passed his whole life void of ambition, bore the change of his fortune with great equality and temper of mind. The Jews, who at that time inhabited in the Parthians dominions, beholding him all wounded, disfigured, wretched, abandoned, disarrayed, did notwithstanding honour him as their King with so much respect and reverence, that he had almost found a Kingdom in Captivity. Herod, who saw this man might serve as a colour for those spirits, that would aim at him in the swinge of his affairs, as yet not well confirmed, dispatcheth an express Ambassador to the Parthian King, with many presents and letters, sweetened with silken words, wherein he besought him not to bereave him of the greatest contentment he could possibly have in this world, which was to be grateful to those who had obliged him. Hircanus (said he) was his benefactor, his Protector, his Father, and since God had given him some repose in his affairs, it was an unspeakable comfort to him to share the sceptre, greatness, and affluent content of Kings, with a friend so faithful & worthy to be beloved. The King of Parthia willing to gratify King Herod, whom he beheld supported by the Roman Empire, the power whereof he more feared than honoured the virtue, gave free leave to Hircanus to go whither he would, he put the business in consultation with the prime Peers of his country, who much dissuaded him: But through the easiness of his singular nature, which ever swallowed the bait without consideration of the hook, he yielded himself to the dissembled courtesies of Herod, and returned directly to Jerusalem, where he was received with infinite demonstrations of amity.  
Behold the whole Regal family in the hands of this Tyrant. Hircanus had but one only daughter named Alexandra, a woman no whit of her father's temper, for she was extremely haughty, and had much ado with herself to by't the bridle in this servitude. She was mother of two children, one son, and one daughter; the son was the little Aristobulus, and the daughter Mariam married to Herod.  
Mariam was accounted the most beautiful Princess 
Marriage of Mariam to Herod. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Euphonie Mariam.  of the earth; for Gellius, who went prying after all the beauties of the world, to make relation thereof to Mark Anthony, having well considered all the most exquisite Masterpieces of Nature, when he beholdeth Mariam in Palestine, he protesteth all other beauties were terrestrial in comparison of this, which seemed to have been composed amongst the the heavenly Orbs. This man saw nothing but the exterior bark, and was rapt with admiration, but her form was not worthy esteem in comparison of the noble qualities of her mind. She was a grandchild of the great Maccabees, well versed in the Law of God, discreet, wise, stayed, circumspect, courteous, chaste as Susanna, but above all courageous and patiented; who lived in Herod's Court as Job on the dunghill. Never beauty and virtue were so disgraced in any match. This creature which had power to make so many brave Princesses to sigh for her, and who might have beheld so many obsequious services done at her foot, hath now Herod for her husband, who had nothing humane in him but lineament and figure. It was to match the Lamb with the Wolf, the Dove with the Falcon, and to tie a living body mouth to mouth with the the dead, to marry such a Lady to so Prodigious a Monster. But he, who already had power in his hand, passionately sought her, as well for her in comparable beauty, as besides for ever to establish his state, considering the alliance of this little creature, descended from so many Kings, would cover the obscurity of his house, and gain him more reputation among the Jews,  
Hircanus' grandfather to Mariam and Alexandra her mother, seeing Herod was Master of his desires, the Sceptre already in his hands, although by injustice and tyranny, measuring all things by his fortune, not person, judged this way might be yet advantageous, and that his wife might mollify him, and make him favourable to the Royal blood. The generous Lady well foresaw that the putting her into Herod's hands was to cast her into the Lion's jaws. But not to gainsay those to whom she had been taught to sacrifice her whole life, and to obey the Laws of necessity, she underwent the yoke, fortifying her Royal heart against all the stormy tempests, which seemed already to menace her. Behold her married, Herod loveth her, as the hunter venison, for his appetite and advantage; his love being not of power to make him lose one silly grain of his ambition or cruelty. This perverse 
Herod depresseth the Royal stock.  and violent spirit, who held the Kingdom as a wolf by the ears, ever wavering, yea even, in the secure safety of his affairs, endeavoured nothing but to rid himself of those, whose spoils he possessed, the respect of this good Queen being not able to sweeten or soften his savage humours. He well shown how little affection he bore towards her allies, when it might any way import his pretended interest, even at that time when there was question to substitute a Highpriest in the place of Hircanus, who having his ears cut off with much deformity, necessarily fell into the irregularity ordained by Law, which forbade him Altars. Herod daily saw the 
Aristobulus the brother of Mariam put from the High-Priesthood.  young Aristobulus in his Palace, son of Alexandra, and sole brother of his wife, a most accomplished Prince, to whom every one destined the Mitre. He sets his eyes a-wandering, and finds out on the further side of Euphrates in the City of Babylon an unknown Jew, named Ananel, and createth him Highpriest. This was a pill, which Alexandra the mother of Aristobulus, and Mariam could not swallow, yet thought fit to dissemble it. She saw her house manifestly dejected, in that her son after so many obligations was dispossessed of an honour, to which, blood, nature, and the consent of the whole world called him, to give it to a man of no value, she could not so well digest her choler, but that she thundered more loudly, than the misery of the time and malice of Herod permitted.  
Mariam still reposing in the calmness of her 
Prudence of Mariam.  noble spirit, declared to the King in her natural sweetness, That he was, the support of her house, greatly decayed, and at that time upon such terms, that she had no care to pretend to sceptres, she only desired to breathe her last in the world with honour. If he should give a Mitre to her brother Aristobulus, it were to make a creature, from whom he had no cause at all to fear, his throne being throughly established, and he being one from whom reasonably he might expect any thing, having the tender youth of this Prince as a soft piece of wax in his hands. This act would make him rule in hearts, as well as in Provinces, when he should be known to be a father and a Protector of a young son of Hircanus, whose virtue he always had honoured. Briefly, that the honour which she had by matching with him seemed not complete to her, whilst she saw her allies kept from degrees, wherein he might establish them without prejudice of his authority.  
Herod suffered himself this time to be gained by 
The youn Aristobulus created Highpriest,  the charming sweetness of Mariam, and having deliberated the affair with his Council, he resolved to give the High-Priests place to young Aristobulus his brother in law, which was performed with much ceremony. He assembleth his friends in the hall of his Palace, then sending for Alexandra, he made in the presence of them all a premeditated speech, complaining of her, & saying, she had a mutinous & turbulent spirit, which sought nothing but to embroil the affairs, and take a Sceptre from him which heaven had caused him to purchase with so much travel and pain, to put it into the hands of an infant, to the prejudice of the Queen her daughter. Notwithstanding that, forgetting all injuries, he could not neglect his own disposition, which was to do good even to those that wished him ill; in confirmation whereof he gave the High-Priesthood to her son, his purpose having never been other, and the subrogation of Ananel having not been made but during the time of expectation of maturity in the tender age of an infant.  
This ambitious mother, according to her sex, 
The ambitious woman.  and indeed beyond her sex, upon the offer of this High-Priests place, was so sensibly transported with joy, that tears gushed from her eyes, and she at that instant freely protested to Herod, That she had endeavoured all she could possibly to keep the Mitre in the Royal family, supposing it an unworthy thing to transfer it elsewhere: but as for the Kingdom, she never had pretended thereunto, and that such resolutions should never enter into her thoughts. Whensoever it should please Almighty God to call her out of the world, she would die well satisfied, leaving her son Highpriest and her daughter Queen. As for the rest, if she had exceeded in some words, she was excusable as a passionate mother towards a son, who well deserved to be beloved, a mother in law of the King to whom kindred and alliance permitted somewhat the more liberty, and a daughter of a King to whom slavery was a hard morsel, and her stomach unable to digest it. But hereafter, since he used her so courteously, he should have no cause to complain of her obedience. Hereupon they shook hands, and behold they are friends.  
But out alas! The amities of the world are like the felicities thereof. If the amities be deceitful, the felicities are tied to a rotten cable, or grounded upon the moving sand. The poor mother rejoiced for a little sense-pleasing flattery of her feverish ambition, and saw not that her son was not (to speak really) the Highpriest, but a sacrifice of the savageness of Herod. The discreet Mariam, who by long observation had learned to hold prosperity as suspected, suffered her heart not to be so dissolved into joy, but that she stood still armed against the counterbuffs of Fortune.  
The feast of the Tabernacles, greatly celebrated 
Entrance of Aristobulus into the High-Priesthood.  amongst the Jews, being come, Ananel, after he had served as an o in ciphering, is shamefully rejected; Aristobulus beginneth to excercise his charge. He was at that time but seventeen years of age, yet of a gallant stature, tall, and strait as a palm tree, radiant as a star, and very like his sister. When the people beheld him clothed with the pontifical habiliments, which were replenished with majesty, and to go towards the Altar and perform those ceremonial rites with so much gravity and comeliness, he appeared as a new Sun, which broke out of the clouds, and came to gild the world before covered over with darkeness. All the hearts of those poor Hebrews, which so much had sighed in the civil wars, freshly bloomed, and newly opened themselves, as roses at the benign, and gentle aspect of this young Prelate. His excellent natural graces enchased in the majesty of his robes, rendered an incredible lustre, which dazzled the eyes of all beholders. Some stedfasty beheld him and became as statues, yet showing by their tears their eyes were not made of marble. Others spoke to him with infinite dumb testimonies of a never-silent hearty affection. The rest made resentments of their hearts burst forth from their lips, not being able to withhold acclamations too free and profuse for the season, but for their love excusable. They remembered the virtue of the ancient Maccabees, who had delivered them from Idolatry; they knew the wretched Hircanus was no other than a shadow following his own funerals; they retained the fresh memory of the grandfather of this young Highpriest, Aristobulus the Great, who had been carried & bound fettered to Rome like a galleyslave; they were not ignorant how Alexander his father and Antigonus his uncle, had lost their lives by opposing the government of a stranger: This young Prince only remained free from so many shipwrecks, and in the green tenderness of his youth they saw all the hopes of their Country to bud and blossom. And as one is credulous to hear what he affecteth, they persuaded themselves, Herod, who at the beginning had demanded the Kingdom in the name of this young Aristobulus, would come to let go his hold, giving way to justice, and for this cause they with the more liberty enlarged themselves in these applauses; but poor creatures, they reckoned without their host. Herod having beheld this countenance in the people, instantly observed that according to his own Maxims he had played the Clerk, and that this was not his ordinary manner of proceeding; entering at that time into a furious jealousy, he maketh the Highpriest, and his mother, and wife, to be so narrowly watched, that neither within nor without the Palace they could stir a finger, but Herod 
Malice of Herod.  was advertised of it. The prudent Mariam amongst these suspicions lived still in grace, sweetening upon one side and other all acerbities as much as businesses of that nature would permit. But her mother Alexandra touched to the quick to behold herself amongst so many spies, she, who was ever desirous to converse and live with all royal liberty, resolved to play at double or quit, to break the guyves of specious servitude, or yield her neck to Herod's sword, if it should come to pass her calamity transported her into such extremity. What doth she? Cleopatra, that Queen who had filled the world with her fame, was then in Egypt, and naturally hated Herod, as well for his barbarous disposition, as for particular interests of her own person: For she knew he much had intermeddled in her affairs, and given Mark Anthony counsel to forsake her, yea to kill her. This Tyrant was so accustomed to say, Kill, that he easily advised others to use the same medicine, which was with him to his own maladies frequent. It is a strange thing, that Cleopatra one day passing through Judea, he resolved to send her into the other world, thinking therewith to gratify Mark Anthony, but was dissuaded by his friends, saying it was too audacious to attempt, and able for ever to ruin his fortune. The design was never published: But Cleopatra had cause enough besides to hate Herod, which much emboldened Alexandra to write to her in such like terms.   

ALEXANDRA, to the Queen CLEOPATRA, Health.  
Madame,  
SInce God hath given you leave to be born the most 
Letter of Alexandra to Cleopatra.  accomplished Queen in all qualities, it is fit your Greatness serve as a sanctuary for the innocent, and an Altar for the miserable. The wretched Alexandra, who hath much innocency, void of support, and too many calamities without comfort, casteth herself into the arms of your Majesty, not to give her a sceptre, but to secure the life of her and her son, the most precious pledge which remaineth of heaven's benignity. Your Majesty is not ignorant that fortune having made me the daughter and mother of a King, Herod hath reduced me to the condition of a servant. I am not ambitious to recount my sufferings, which I had rather dissemble; but whatsoever a slave can endure in a galley, I bear in a Kingdom, through the violence of a son in law, who having stolen the diadem from my children, would also deprive them of life. We are perpetually among spies, sharp knives, and black apprehensions of death, which would less hurt us, if it were more sudden. Stretch out a hand of assistance to the afflicted, and afford us some petty nook in your Kingdom till the storm be overblown, and that we may see some sparkles of hope to glimmer in your affairs. Glory thereby shall abide with you and with us everlasting gratitude.  
Cleopatra having received these letters, made a ready answer, and invited her to hasten speedily into Egypt with her son; protesting she should esteem it an unspeakable glory to serve as a sanctuary and refuge for the affliction of such a Princess. Resolution of departure is taken, but the execution is a hard task. The poor Io knows not how to withdraw 
Enterprise of Alexandra  herself from this many-eyed Argus. In the end, as the wit of woman is inventive, especially in matters that concern their proper interests, she, without discovering aught to any one, no, not to her daughter Mariam, fearing lest her nature too mild should advise her rarher to rest in the lists of patience than to attempt ways so perilous, she I say, only advising with her own passion in this business, caused two beers to be made (a matter of ill presage) to put herself and son into, thinking by this means to elude the diligence of the Guard, and so to be carried to the sea, where a ship attended her, and by this way save her life in the power of death. But by ill hap a servant of hers named Aesop, who was one of those that were appointed to carry the beers, going to visit one called Sabbion, a friend to the house of Alexandra, let some words fall of the intention of his Mistress, as thinking to to have spoken to a faithful and secret friend of hers. The perfidious Sabbion had no sooner wrung the worm out of this servants nose, but he hasteth to open all to Herod, supposing it was a very fit opportunity to work his reconciliation, he having a long time been suspected and accounted to be of Alexandra's faction. Herod after he heard this news, wanted not spies and sentinels. The poor Lady with her son is surprised upon the beers, drawn out of the sepulchre of the dead to return to the living, ashamed, and disgraced, that her Comedy was no better acted, little considering that after her personated part had failed, she could nothing at all pretend to life. Herod notwithstanding, whether he feared the great credit Cleopatra had, or whether he would not wholly affright Alexandra, thereby with the more facility to oppress her, contained himself in the ordinary dissimulation of his own nature, without speaking one sole word unto her. Although very well in the face of this painted hypocrisy was seen, that the clouds were gathered together, to make a loud Thunder-crack, & raise an unresistable tempest.  
The caitiff, after he had given so many deaths 
Pitiful death of young Aristobulus.  in the horror and affrightment of arms, would inflict one, even (as it were in sport) upon a fair summer's day. Being at dinner at the house of the miserable Alexandra, feigning to have buried in deep oblivion all what was past, saith, that in favour of youth he this day would play the young man, and invite the Highpriest Aristobulus his brother in law to play at tennis with him, or some other like exercise, The sides were made, the elumination was enkindled. The young Prince; hot and eager, played not long but he became all on a water, as at that time happened to many other Lords and Gentlemen. Behold they all run to the rivers, which were near this place of pleasure where they dined.  
Herod, who knew the custom of Aristobulus, and well foresaw he would not fail to cast himself into these cold baths, suborneth base villains, who under the show of pastime should force him to drink more than he would. All succeeded as this traitorous wretch had premeditated. Aristobulus seeing the other in the water, unclothed himself quickly, and bore them company. There was no cause why he should swim, sport, and dally upon this element, ever dangerous, although less faithless than Herod. The poor sacrifice skipped up and down, not knowing the unhappiness which attended him. But the accursed executioners remembered it well: For spying their time in this fatal sport, they smothered the poor Highpriest under the waters, in the eighteenth year of his age, and the first of his High-priesthood. This bright Sun, which risen with such splendour and applause, did set in the waves, never to appear again, but with horrid wanness of death on his discoloured visage.  
Humane hopes, where are you! True dreams of 
Vanity, and misery of the world.  the waking, airy fantasies, fleeting fires, which shine not, but to extinguish yourselves, and in being put out to bereave us of light, leaving us the evil savour and sorrow of losing it! This Prince so accomplished, that nature seemed to have framed him to be the object of thoughts, the love of hearts, the admiration of souls; this Prince, in whom was stored all the glory of the Royal house of the Asmoneans; this Prince, who was to marry the Mitre with the Diadem, and raise all the hopes of a lost race; behold him by a most treasonable practise smothered in the water, in an age, in a beauty, in an innocency, which made this accident as full of pity, as it was unfurnished of remedies.  
Upon this news the whole City of Jerusalem was 
Sorrow upon this death.  in as great a confusion, as if Nabuchadnezzar returning from the other world had been at the gates thereof: In every place there was nothing to be seen but tears, groans, horror, astonishment, yell, representations of death: You would have said that every house bare their firstborn to burial, as was seen heretofore to happen among the Egyptians. But above all, Alexandra the disconsolate mother afflicted herself with uncurable sorrow: sometime she wept, prostrated on the body of her son, and sought in his eclipsed eyes and dead lips the remnant of her life. Sometime she rolled her eyes like a distracted lunatic, calling for fire, sword, halter's, and precipices, to find in them the catastrophe of life. The sad Mariam, although infinitely patiented, had much ado to resist the impetuous violences of an incomparable sorrow. She loved this brother of hers most dearly, as her true image, as the pledg-bearer of her heart, as the hope of her house, all rent in pieces: All confounded as she was, the good daughter reflected on the wound of her mother, and stayed near the corpse of her brother, as if she had been the shadow of the same body. Then turning herself to God, she said to him with an affectionate heart: My God, behold me presently in 
Singular resignation.  that estate, wherein I have nothing more to stand in fear of, but your justice, nothing more to hope, but your mercy: He for whom I feared, for whom I hoped, all that which one may fear or hope in the revolution of worldly occurrents, is taken from me by a secret judgement of your providence, ever to be adored by my obedient will, although not to be penetrated at all by the weakness of my thoughts. If I yet among so many acerbities, suck some sweetness out of the world, in the presence of delicious objects of which you have bereft me, behold me wholly weaned, hereafter I will find therein nothing but wormwood, to the end that renouncing the comforts of the earth; I may learn to taste those which are proper to your children. Behold how fair and reposed souls draw honey from the rock, and convert all into merit, yea even their tears. The impatient, like Alexandra, afflict themselves without comfort, torment themselves without remedy, and many times become desperate without remission.  
What shall we say? Herod himself in this sad consort 
Extreme hypocrisy of Herod.  of sorrow, would needs play his part. He maketh externally appear in a dissembled hypocrisy, all the symptoms of a true sorrow. He detesteth play, he accuseth fortune, he complaineth Heaven had sinisterly envied him an object, on which he desired much to make all the love and respect appear he bore to the Royal blood, from whence he greatly derived his advancement. He most ceremoniously goeth to visit the Queen and her mother, and when he findeth them weeping about this dead body, scalding tears flowed from his eyes, whether it were he had them at command to make his dissimulation the more great, or whether he verily had at that time some resentment of grief, beholding on one side this little blossom so cruelly cropped under the sith of death, and so many celestial beauties, which had for limit and horizon the instant of their birth; and on the other side considering these poor Queens, drenched in a sea of sorrow, which had force to draw tears from rocks. This traitorous creature had yet some humanity in him; and I could well believe that nature had at this time wrung these tears by violence from his barbarous cruelty, notwithstanding he feigned willingness to stop his passion with manliness, afterwards turning himself to the Ladies, he said: He was not come so suddenly to wipe away their tears, which had but too much cause to be shed, as for himself, he had enough to do to command his own: Nature must be suffered to have her sway; time must have his, and would apply a plaster to this sorrow. That he would perform for the memory of the dead, whatsoever an only son might expect from a passionate father, and a puissant King; that hereafter he would be true son of Alexandra, true husband and true brother of Mariam, since God was pleased to redouble these obligations in him by the loss they had suffered.  
O the powerful tyranny of the appetite of revenge! 
Tyranny of revenge.  Alexandra whom one might have thought would burst into contumelies and reproaches (as well knowing Herod, what face soever he set upon the matter, was Author and plotter of this death) held herself constantly in the degrees of dissimulation, not showing to the King any discontent on her part, and all for the hope she had to be opportunely revenged in time and place. Herod retiring, thought he had acted his part well, free from any suspicion of offence, seeing Alexandra spoke not a word, who heretofore too frequently accustomed to complain in far less occasions. To apply the last lenitive, he caused the funerals of the dead to be celebrated with such pomp and magnificence, that nothing could be added thereunto, as well in the order of the equipage, as in the curiosity of the perfumes, with which the body was embalmed, and the magnificent furnitures of sepulchre. The most simple and ignorant supposed all this proceeded from a real and sincere affection; but the wisest said, they were the tears of the crocodile; that Herod could not cordially deplore his death which had taken a straw out of his eye, and put him in full possession of the Kingdom of Judea. Alexandra 
Herod accused.  joining the passion of her sorrow to her resolution of revenge, immediately after the obsequies, faileth not to give notice to Queen Cleopatra of all that had passed, with so pathetical a letter, that every word seemed to be steeped in tears of blood. Cleopatra, who was apt enough for these impressions, suddenly takes fire, and affecteth the affair with that ardour she would her own cause; she rouseth up her whole Court, she storms, she perpetually filleth Mark antony's ears, crying out, it was a thing insupportable to see a stranger hold a sceptre, to which he could pretend no right, to massacre the heir with so much barbarous cruelty, to torment with servitude poor afflicted Queens, contrary to all equity, reason, and Royalty of their birth. Anthony, who knew Herod to be his creature, and the work of his own hands, would not willingly understand these complaints. Notwithstanding to please Cleopatra, he swore a great oath, he would examine the business in sending for Herod, and if he were found culpable of such a villainy, he would inflict an exemplar punishment upon him.  
Behold Herod cited to Laodicea, where Mark Anthony was to remain for a certain time, whither he was summoned to appear and purge himself of the murder of Aristobulus, of which he was supposed to be the Author. This was a clap of thunder to this disloyal wretch, which most powerfully awakened him, when he least thought of it, and put such terrors upon him as are not to be imagined. Upon one 
Herod's affrightment.  side he had before his eyes the image of his offence, and the voice of blood, which rung in his ears; on the other side he saw all his fortune depended on Mark Anthony, who at that time handled nothing but by the counsel of Cleopatra his mortal enemy, and whom he well knew to have an enterprise in hand upon the Kingdom of Judea for her advancement. But nothing so troubled his brain as a furious jealousy: For he imagined that Anthony, a lose and wanton Prince, one that courted all the Princely beauties of the world, would do the like to his wife, whose picture he formerly had, and that with the more ease to enjoy her, he would make him serve as a sacrifice for his fatal loves. This spirit of his was torn and distracted on all sides, and in all objects discovered precipitation and affrightment: one while he seemed to resolve to undergo a voluntary banishment, sometime he supposed death more suitable, other-while he framed to himself some purpose of resistance: but nothing appeared to him better than to delay, and draw the business out at length as long as he could.  
Anthony pressed with the voyage he undertook to war against the Parthians, sent instantly for him; delays and excuses thrust him further into suspicion. Necessarily he must go, or resolve to lose all. He taketh leave of his mother in law Alexandra, and Mariam his wife, without seeming to be amazed, without complaint, without giving testimony of his discontent, as if he had a short journey of pleasure to make. Last of all, he had his own mother, and his sister Salome in Court, to whom he much recommended vigilancy over the deportments of those whom he esteemed to have wrought him the mischief. Then drawing his uncle Joseph aside, he spoke these words to him: Uncle, you know the occasion that transporteth me to Laodicea, which truly is very difficult, seeing my innocency assaulted by powerful and secret malice, which would be so much the more dreadful, if it had as much effect as passion: But I hope to find daylight through the storm, and that you shall see me return triumphant over calumny through my integrity, as I have already raised trophies over hostility by arms: If God shall otherwise dispose of me, it is a mere plot prepared against me for the beauty of my wife, on whom Mark Anthony may perhaps have some design, and this may be a cause to shorten my days, and he thereby to get more liberty for his unbridled passion. But I for the present conjure you, by the love which I have born you, by my fortune which you reverence, by blood and nature; if happily you hear I am otherwise used than my quality and innocency permit, never let the death of Herod be waited on with the injury of his bed: Preserve the Kingdom for yourself and your blood, and cause my wife instantly to take her leave of this world to accompany me in the other: Kill her courageously, lest 
Horrible jealousy.  another enjoy her after my death: If the souls of the dead have any feeling of the affairs of the world, that shall serve me for a solace.  
Joseph much amazed at this manner of proceeding, doth notwithstanding promise him he would perform all according to his will, if necessity so required; but that his fortune ever powerful and invincible made him conceive other hopes in all kinds. Thereupon he set forward on his way, carrying along with him the richest parcels of his treasure, to make a present of them to those, whom he should most stand in need of, showing in all things else, as much confidence in his countenance, as he hatched despair in his heart.  
When he was arrived at Loadicea, he found strange 
Great pleading against Herod.  informations prepared against him, which strongly charged him with the murder of Aristobulus. It was showed to Mark Anthony, how Herod ever had a design upon the sceptre of Judea with a desperate and enraged ambition: That nothing so much perplexed him, as to see Aristobulus alive, to whom he in conscience knew the Kingdom in such sort belonged, that himself durst not demand it of the Romans, but under the title of Regency, whilst the right heir grew to maturity: That he had converted this Regency first into an Empire, afterwards into a Tyranny, removing as much as he could the Royal blood from dignities, to advance men of no worth; witness Ananel placed in the High-priesthood of which Hircanus was despoiled; and that which made him alter his resolution therein was, not good affection, but importunity, and evident danger of popular commotions, which he well foresaw rose upon this rejection of the blood Royal. That Aristobulus being preferred to the High-priesthood, received with all alacrity and applause of the people, he shown this action to be most hateful to him, being not sufficiently able to cover the fury of his envy under the ordinary mask of his hypocrisy: That after this time he had not ceased to persecute the dead Prince and his mother, in such sort, that finding no longer repose among the living, they were enforced to put themselves into the coffins of the dead, to be carried to the sea, and from thence to be transported to Egypt: That he had caused them to be surprised in the act, and in sequel thereof had not afterward sought any thing more than to be rid of them: That the young Prince was drowned in the water, not alone and separated from the rest, but manifestly smothered by the insolent youth of the household and bosom of Herod.  
All this process (as was then said) was so evident, that had it been written with the rays of the Sun, one could not wish more perspicuity. The voice of blood cried to Heaven, which the traitorous wretch could not stop. The picture of this poor Prince, which had a little before his death been carried into Egypt, was presented with a singular admiration of his beauty: His ghost was made to speak, which asked justice of Mark Anthony, for having been so unworthily, so inhumanely murdered in the flower of his tender years, by the most horrid treason that ever was perpetrated. The tears of the disconsolate mother were not omitted in her absence. Cleopatra made this whole Tragedy to be presented, the combat was much enkindled, and the battery was forcible. Herod, who wanted no eloquence in his own occasions, replieth with a countenance very lowly and modest:  
Prince, and you Sirs who are of the Counsel, I hold the 
Apology of Herod full of craft.  sceptre of Judea, neither of Hircanus nor Alexandra, never having had any purpose to flatter them for this end, yea much less to fear them. You know (Most Illustrious Anthony) the Kingdom is in my hands; I hold it of you; from you all my greatness ariseth, and in you all my hopes are concluded. If you command, I am at this present ready, not only to leave the sceptre, but my life also, which never have I been desirous to preserve but for your service. But it troubleth me, the way of death being open to all the world, the path of reputation, which is more dear to me than life, should be shut against my innocence. I am persecuted by women, and much I wonder, how the soul of Queen Cleopatra wholly celestial, can nourish so much spleen against a King, who never hath failed in any respect lawfully due to her merit. For Alexandra, it is not strange that she raise such a storm against me; her fierce and haughty spirit hath always opposed my patience, endeavouring by all means to disparage my government, to pull a crown from me, which a more puissant hand than her Ancestors hath placed on my head. What appearance is there, that being by the favour of the Romans a peaceable possessor of a Kingdom, the which even by the consent of my adversaries I sought not (so regular was my ambition) I should attempt a horrible crime, which cannot fall but into the mind of a monster? No man will be wicked in cheerfulness of heart; the memory of the recompense which man proposeth to himself, ever beareth the torch before the crime. To what purpose should I attempt upon the life of Aristobulus, to settle my affairs? They were already established, your gracious favour (most Noble Anthony) hath afforded me more than all their machinations can vanquish. But I perpetually have kept back the blood Royal from dignities: What keeping back is it, when I have cherished them in my own bosom, as much as possible? Every one knows Hircanus, the prime man of this Royal family, being held as a prisoner among the Parthians, I bent all my spirits, employed all my credit to have him set at liberty, and to procure his return to Court, where he now liveth in full tranquillity, enjoying all the privileges of Royalty, but the careful solicitude of affairs. It is known, I have divided my crown and bed with his grandchild Mariam, making her both Queen of people, and wife of a King. I have given the High-Priesthood to her brother Aristobulus of my mere and free will, not enforced by any constraint (as being absolute in the manage of my own affairs) and if in aught I delayed him, it was because the minority of his age ran not equal with my affections, but in effect he hath been beheld Highpriest at eighteen years of age, which is a favour very extraordinary. Alexandra his mother, who maketh way to this business, hath ever had all the liberty of my Court, except the licence of ruining herself, which she passionately pursueth. For what reason had she to hid herself in a coffin, and cause herself to be carried in the night as a dead body, to steal from my Court, and after she had wronged me in mine house, to traduce me among strangers? If she desired to make a voyage into Egypt, she needed to have spoken but one word, it had been sufficient: But she pleaseth herself in counterfeiting a false peril in a real safety, to thrust into the danger of life those who make her live in all reposed assurance. I having discovered this practice, did not let fall one word of bitterness against her, desirous she should enjoy at her ease the sight of me as a spectacle of patience, & thinking all folly sufficiently punished with its own proper conscience, Certain time after, the death of this young Prince happened, which draweth tears of compassion from me (for I loved him) and much it troubled me, his mother perverted the sweetness of his excellent nature, and cut more stuff out for his youth, than he was able to stitch together. He is dead, not in my house, but in the house of his mother, dead, by an accident which no man could prevent; dead, sporting in the water, a faithless element, where a thousand and a thousand have without any such purpose perished; dead, among the youth of the Court, with whom daily be disported himself. His own mere motion bore him into the water, the bravery of his youth caused him to dally even in danger itself, without any possibility to divert him, and his own mishap hath drowned him. It is to tie me to bard conditions, if Alexandra will make me both accountable for the youthful levitieses of her son, as if I were his governor, and of the frail inconstancy of elements, as if I were Lord of them.  
This pernicious spirit spoke this with so much grace and probability, that he gained many hearts: So much force had eloquence even in the hands of iniquity. Behold him now on the shore out of peril, remaining in antony's Court in all liberty, to attend the sentence of his justification. In the mean time, being (as he was) wise and liberal in all occasions, by force of presents he purchased the hearts of the chief, and made all the accusation of Cleopatra appear to be the passion of a woman ill advised. Mark Anthony himself said to Cleopatra, she did ill to intermeddle so much with foreign Kingdoms, and that if she took this course, she would raise enemies prejudicial to her estate. That Herod being a King, it was not fit to use him like a subject, and that it would be her happiness rather to have him a friend, than an enemy.  
As these things were handled in antony's Court, the Queen Mariam and her mother Alexandra ceased not to be observed by the solicitous diligence of the mother and sister of Herod. Joseph his uncle 
An act of great stupidity in Joseph, uncle of Herod.  played the Gaoler, and often visited Queen Mariam, sometime to treat some affairs with her, sometime in the way of compliment. This man began to burn like a butterfly in the eyes of this incomparable beauty, and much affected her, although he saw himself far off from all manner of hope. Notwithstanding he found some contentment to have fixed his affection in so eminent a place. This passion made him foolish and full of babble, having already rudeness enough of his own nature, which made him utter strange extravagancies. For one day, there being occasion to speak of Herod's affection to Mariam his wife, Alexandra the mother mocked thereat in an exorbitant fashion, and indeed somewhat too bitter, according to her custom. Joseph, who was desirous to entertain the Queen in the good favour of his Master, were it out of folly or drunkenness, said: Madam, your mother Alexandra may tell you what pleaseth her: But to give you a clear and ample testimony of King Herod your husband his love, know, that in case he happen to be put to death, he hath commanded me to kill you, not being able to abide in the other world without your company. At these words the poor Ladies looked pale with horror. Out alas, the frantic man (said Alexandra in her heart) what will he do living, if after death he intent to destroy those who are yet alive?  
In the mean time many bruits (the dreams of the credulous) were spread through Jerusalem, that Herod was dead, that Mark Anthony had caused him to be executed, he being convicted of the murder of Aristobulus; whether these rumours were divulged by Herod's enemies, or whether himself caused them to be secretly buzzed, to try the face and disposition of the times. The wise Mariam seemed to believe nothing; Alexandra grew passionate, and bated like a hawk on the perch, entreating Joseph with all possible supplications he would remove them from Court, and conduct them to the Court of Guard of the Roman Legions, disposing them into the hands of Colonel Julius, from thence to pass to Mark Anthony; for she vehemently desired this Prince might see her daughter, persuading herself that so soon as he should behold her, he would be taken with her beauty, and do any thing in her favour. These intentions being obliqne, were unhappy in the success, and all Alexandra's pursuits served her for no other purpose but to vent her passion.  
In the end Herod returneth victorious, with authentic 
Return of Herod.  testimonies of his justification and Anthony's amity, notwithstanding the endeavours of Cleopatra, God, reserving this parricide for a life like Cain, attended with a death most dreadful. His mother and sister failed not presently upon his arrival to serve him up a dish of their own dressing, and to tell him the design which Alexandra had to put herself into the power of the Romans. Salome, envious against Mariam even to fury, steeping her serpentine tongue in the gall of black slander, accused her of some secret familiarity with Joseph; whereupon Herod, who was extremely jealous, thought in that very instant to ruin her, and so drawing Mariam aside, he demanded of her from whence this correspondence grew which she had contracted with Joseph? The most chaste Queen, who never went out of the lists of patience, shown herself both with eye, visage, countenance, & word, to be so penetrated with this cursed calumny, that well the traitorous wretch perceived how far she was alienated from such thoughts; and verily being ashamed to have uttered such words, he asked pardon of her, bemoaning with scalding tears his credulity, giving her many thanks for her fidelity, and making a thousand protestations of an everlasting affection.  
The good Lady, who was displeased to behold such hypocrisy, said covertly to him, That truly it was an argument of love to his wife, to desire her company in the other world. He, who understood by half a word, presently perceived what she would say, and entered into such desperate fury, that he seemed as a mad man, tearing his beard and hair of his head, and crying out, Joseph had betrayed him, and that it was apparent he had great correspondence with Mariam, otherwise so enormous bruitishness would never have escaped any man, as to reveal such a secret. Thereupon he commandeth Joseph should be killed in the place, to serve as a victim at his return, not consenting to see him, nor hear one sole word of his justification. It was a great chance he had not at that time finished the sacrifice of his intemperate cruelty, and that to satisfy his chimerical humour he had not put Mariam to death. But the irrefragable proofs of her innocency, and the impatient ardours of his love, withheld the stroke; only to make the sparkles of his choler fly further off, he discharged it upon Alexandra, shutting her up for a time, keeping her a part from the Queen her daughter, and doubtlessly resolving with himself, it was in her shop, where all these counsels plotted for his ruin were forged and filed.  
Certain time after, Herod saw himself embarked 
Troublesom affairs of H●rod.  in another business which he thought to be at least as perilous as the former. Mark Anthony, who always had lent his shoulders to underprop him, after he had for a long time striven against the fortune of Augustus Caesar, fell to the ground in the Actiack battle, ending his hopes and life with a most mournful catastrophe. This accident struck the Tyrant more than one would think, seeing his support ruined, his affairs, which he supposed to have been so well established, in one night dissolved, and that he had him for an enemy, who was in a fair way to become Emperor of the world. His friends and enemies judged him as a lost man: He, who already had escaped so many shipwrecks, despaireth not at all in this extremity, but resolves to seek out Caesar, who was then at Rhodes, and prostrate himself at his feet. But before he set a step forward, he did an act wholly barbarous and inhuman.  
Hircanus, the true and lawful King, who by his 
Most lamentable death of Hircanus.  sweetness and facility had first raised Antipater, and afterward saved Herod's life, seating him in the Regal throne, to the prejudice of his own allies, was as yet alive, worn even with decrepitness, for he now was past eighty years of age. The Tyrant, fearing lest he, being the only remainder of the blood Royal, should again be reestablished in the throne, by the suppliant request of the people who much affected his innocency; seeing him already upon the brink of his grave, threw him headlong into it, tearing out his soul with brutish violence, which he was ready to yield up to nature. Some held this was mere cruelty without any colour of justice, wherewith this diabolical Prince was wont to palliate his actions. Others writ, that Hircanus' days were shortened upon this occasion.  
Alexandra being not able to put off her ambition 
Ambition of Alexandra causeth the death of her father.  but with her skin, seeing Herod gone upon a voyage from which it was likely he should never return, solicits her father Hircanus, shows him the time is come wherein God will yet again make his venerable age flourish in Royal purple. The Tyrant is involved in snares, from which he can never free himself. Fortune knocketh at the gate of Hircanus to restore the Diadem, which is due to him by birthright, and taken away by tyranny. It only remaineth that he a little help himself, and his good hap will accomplish the rest. Hircanus answereth her: Daughter, the time is come wherein I should rather think of my grave, than a Regal throne. You know what opinion I had of greatness in an age and condition, wherein rightfully I might cherish it. I voluntarily forsook it, preferring repose before all the crowns of the world. Now that I am in the haven, would you recall me into the storm? Daughter, leave such words; I have seen too many miseries, speak to me of my grave, not of sceptres.  
Alexandra replied, that although in his own person he not at all pretended to life, nor to the fortune of the living, he notwithstanding ought not to neglect his blood, but permit justice to be done, and meddle with nothing, but by writing a word or two to Malichus the Lieutenant of Arabia, who would aid him with money and forces, as much as should be needful. In conclusion, he was bound to save both his daughter and grandchild from the ravening teeth of this Tiger. She deafened his ears with so many reasons, that in the end he yielded, and treateth with Malichus, who should safe conduct him with a good troup of horse. The letters are put into the hands of one called Dositheus, a cousin of Joseph (whom Herod lately had caused to be massacred) to be with all safety delivered. But the perfidious wretch betraying the blood of his ally and the fortune of Hircanus, in stead of carrying the letter faithfully to Malichus, delivered it into Herod's hands, who commandeth to require an answer and bring it to him, thereby to discover the practice thereof, and understand the Arabian's purpose, He faileth not to promise Hircanus all assistance, inviting him with much earnestness to be with him as soon as possible. Herod having discovered the whole plot, sends for Hircanus, and asked if he received not some letters from Malichus? Yes, answered he: but they contain nothing but compliment. The other demanded, Had you not some present with those letters? He confesseth that verily Malichus had presented him with four horses to draw his coach. Thereupon without any other form of process, the Tyrant made this venerable old man to be murdered, embrewing the hoary hairs in the blood of him, who had been a sosterer, a father, a protector of him, yea, all. Then after he had imprisoned Alexandra and Mariam in a strong fort, under the custody of Joseph his treasurer, and Sohemus the Iturean, he goes directly to Rhodes, leaving the absolute charge of his Kingdom to his brother Pheroras.  
The history telleth not the sorrow of the Queen 
Al●xandra and Mariam prisoner's.  and her mother for the death of Hircanus. It is probable all was a long time concealed, as from such who were held in a strait prison, and had conversation with no man. Alexandra gnawed her bridle of impatience: Mariam resisted the dull languishments of this captivity with a generous constancy, and endeavoured to sweeten the discontents of her mother. All her comfort was in God: For how could she speak or think of any thing else? My God (said she) you steep all creatures for me in wormwood. If I heretofore have loved them, and sucked some sweetness from the world, for an ounce of honey you have given me a pound of gall. From the time I began to bear a Diadem on my head, I have felt nothing but thorns, and Royalty hath been nothing to me but a specious slavery. My God, how long shall it continue? Shall we not behold that bright day to shine over our heads, which is perpetually in its Eastern rising, which may dry up our tears, and breaking the bands of our captivity, place us in Abraham's bosom, the liberty of the elect?  
These poor Ladies stayed there, perpetually penned up between horrid walls, beholding nothing but rocks and savage wildernesses, which to their sorrow seemed to resound compassion. They knew not in what state the world was, much less the affairs of Court. At every season the Gaoler came to visit them, they expected nothing but news of their death. The Guard in the beginning shown themselves severe in their countenances, and reserved in their words; all was full of horror, affrightment, and melancholy silence. In the end (for there is no 
Mariam conferreth with Sohemus  iron but will be softened in the fire) Sohemus visiting them more oft, according to the commission he had, felt fiery arrows fly from the eyes of Mariam, so sharp, that they transfixed his heart with compassion, judging it a hard thing to hold a Queen in captivity, who was able to enthral all hearts with so many supereminent excellencies as Heaven had conferred upon her. He began to show her a pleasing countenance, and Mariam seeing him one day in a good humour; took confidence thereby to know some news of the other world. Sohemus (said this Lady to him) you now behold us in a most woeful state, and much unworthy our qualities; but the day perhaps will come the storm may blow over. Mischief and misery knock not always at one and the same gate. You know who I am, and that in obliging me, you engage not an unable creature, much less an ungrateful. Tell us in a word, to what end doth King Herod hold us here, and of what condition are the affairs of the times?  
Sohemus at these words felt his heart assaulted with most violent counterbuffs: on the one side he represented to himself the avengement of Herod, freshly exemplified in Joseph; on the other side he was so touched with compassion of those words this noble Lady spoke to him, that the ice of his heart dissolved, and began already to evaporate through his eyes. Mariam finding him waver, spoke boldly: Sohemus, it is a word which can no whit prejudice you, being stored up in deep silence, and which may much advantage us for the security of our affairs.  
Sohemus, supposing either that Herod never would return again in the quality of a King, or that he being under the protection of Mariam might easily work his reconciliation, openeth his heart unto her, and saith: Madam, I put my secrets and life into your hands; yea I desire to die before ever I undertake to execute this barbarous command which Herod hath imposed upon me, in case the affairs he negotiateth at this time with Caesar succeed not according to his wish. And what is it? (saith Mariam to him.) Madame, I tremble only to think of it: It is a matter, which concerneth your life. My friend (replieth the good Queen) it is his ordinary guise, he enjoined his uncle Joseph as much upon his first voyage. But is there no means to deliver us from this? Sohemus answereth, that Pheroras brother of Herod had charge of the Kingdom, and he being a man extremely distrustful, ever had his eye upon sudden surprisals. Well then (said this poor Princess) we must die: on what side soever he turn me, I behold nothing but the image of death, with which I am already grown acquainted. Sohemus' comforted her with his best endeavour. But she then shutting up her ears from all earthly comfort, opened her heart to celestial contemplations, daily more and more purifying her soul both in the water of tears, and in the boiling furnace of afflictions. O the providence of God That is true which the Scripture saith: Your ways are now in the abyss, and your paths on the waters. Who could discover such tracks, whilst this most chaste and innocent Queen, amidst the dark obscurity of a prison, daily drowneth one part of her life in tears?  
Herod, who was now embarked, all bloody with 
Arrival of Herod at Rhodes.  massacre committed on the person of Hircanus, found the sea, winds, men, and all his affairs successful. This Proteus, who made his wit comply with all accidents, seeing he could not conceal the service which he had done for Mark Anthony, ever playing the dog sleeping under the feet of his fortune, resolved to colour and cloak them with the mantle of virtue. He knew Augustus was a Prince born to goodness, generous, just, and that he endeavoured to make faithful servants in this change of affairs, which he began to undertake; he deceives him under the shadow of virtue, with the colour of constancy, and pretext of fidelity. Behold he presenteth himself to the Emperor, and speaks in these terms:  
O Great Augustus, behold here my person and crown 
His speech to Augustus.  at your feet: It is good reason that all depend upon your Greatness, since God is pleased to put the Empire of this Universe into your hands. For mine own part I cannot deny what I have been, no more than I will dissemble what I ought to be, and what I will be. I have hitherto been a great friend of Mark Anthony: It is true; and had he believed me, as he hath done Cleopatra his Mistress, you, Caesar, had felt bow far I was your enemy, and he, how much I was his friend. But this miserable Prince cozened by this creature, took money of me, and counsel of her, to destroy, in so doing, his fortune, and raise yours upon his own ruins. I have followed him even to the brink of the grave, and not fallen therein, since my death could nothing advance his service. He is in that state and condition, wherein I am able to render him nought but tears. To you (O Caesar) are due the services which I tender with much heartiness, if you shall please to accept them, on this condition, that you enforce me not either to hear or speak evil of my old master, whom being no longer able to serve, I notwithstanding aught after death to love.  
Augustus took pleasure in this liberty, and thought this man was made of the wood whereof good servitors are composed, not seeing the subtlety of the fox, who measured all according to his own interests. He than taketh the crown which Herod had laid at his feet, and set it on his head, saying: I desire you may live peaceably in your Territory; only be faithful to me, as you have been to Mark Anthony. Herod after this so favourable access, ceased not to put himself forward into the grace of Augustus, by seeking out all occasions to procure it, and namely in the voyage the Emperor made into Egypt, wherein he perpetually attended him, and performed many singular offices. This business so prosperously dispatched, he triumphantly returneth into the City of Jerusalem, to the amazement of the whole world.  
Here it is that the virtuous Mariam endeth her 
Accusation and pitiful death of Mariam.  career, to serve as a sacrifice in the lamentable triumphs of her husband. Let us behold how this bright flame is extinguished, we shall from thence expect no evil odour; the good vapours of her life will wait upon her even to death. So soon as Herod was arrived in his capital City, he hasteneth to salute the Queen his wife, whom he had already caused to be set liberty, being secure of his affairs, and was the first brought her the news of his happy success in this voyage. He was so puffed up 
Sottish love.  with his prosperities, that he could not contain himself, and the love of so amiable an object (which he then beheld in his presence after so many dangers) did so unloosen his tongue in excess of vaunts, and and superfluity of words, thinking he made himself very acceptable with such impertinencies. Mariam much perplexed to hear him, and being free and generous in all her actions, shown not to take much pleasure in these his idle boastings, which passion likewise made to appear somewhat childish. He thinking at the first this was nothing but a trifling humour of melancholy, which would quickly vanish into smoke, flattered her the more with words, playing the wanton beyond his custom. Upon these dalliances the poor Lady sighed often, remembering herself of the secret commandment very lately given to Sohemus. He well saw by this her countenance she was not content, and beginneth to enter into suspicion that Sohemus had used the like intemperance of tongue, as Joseph. He at that time knew not what face to set upon it, so much was he turmoiled: love, anger, jealousy, suspicion, drew him with four horses. He could not be angry, as he would, nor knew how to love what he affected. This proud spirit, unacquainted how to bow under any one but to deceive him, was ashamed to behold himself dis-armed, and to become a counterfeit in amorous courtships, not so usual to his nature. He then seeing this mommery succeeded not, was the more afflicted, and thought it was time to brandish his sword. But love proved of more force than anger, and withheld the stroke. He retired, shaking his head, and muttering I know not what between his teeth; as cursing love, which made him merciful in despite of his own disposition. Out alas! Can one find out a more spiteful hatred than in women against women, when jealousy hath laid hold of their brain? Cypre, an Arabian by nation, mother of Herod, and Salome his sister, seeing him so passionate, ceased not to blow the coal with their tongues, and enkindle him with many calumnies, which the Tyrant partly believed, yet could not suddenly resolve to give the blow. He was long time debating with himself, without power to conclude any thing. In the end an unhappy day comes, in which about noon, being retired into his chamber, he sendeth for Mariam, who instantly came thither; but conjugal rites being required of her, she stuck in the refusal, saying, The law of nature forbade her to company with a man, who had murdered her father and brother, speaking of her father Alexander, who by the pursuit of Herod; had been oppressed by the Romans, and of her brother Aristobulus so cruelly smothered. Here Josephus the Historian, after he had highly praised Mariam, as a most chaste Queen, and truly endowed with an admirable faith (for such are his words) taxeth her with a little disdain, which was (as he said) engrafted in her nature, for that she rejected the dalliances of her husband. But he that will well consider how Herod had used her nearest of kin, most unworthily massacring them, and how holding the sceptre from her house, he used her not in the quality of a Queen nor a wife, but of a poor sacrifice, which he caused to be shut up, commanding to murder her as often he he fell into any danger of his own life, for fear some other should enjoy her after his death, shall find the Lady had most just cause to make him this answer. Herod notwithstanding, who would not afford such liberty, was so moved with these words, as it was a great chance he had not laid violent hands upon her, showing by his eyes sparkling with anger, his shrill voice, and hands lifted up, he would proceed to force. And as he stamped up and down, transported with rage, acting his anger like a fencer without Mariamne's reply to any one word, the perfidious Salome, thought it was now high time to strike her stroke. She sent a trusty servant, 
Strange mischief.  whom she a long time had suborned, to cause him to depose a calumny, as wicked as ridiculous; to wit, that Mariam having a purpose to give Herod a love-drink, had addressed herself to him, who was cupbearer to the King, to corrupt him with many promises, to which he never had given ear. For the rest, he had such instruction given him, that if perhaps Herod should ask what this potion was, he should answer without further difficulty, it was the Queen's invention, and that herein she only required the service of his hand.  
This wicked fellow entered into the chamber in cold blood, and very seriously makes oath hereof: whereupon Herod, who was already enkindled, becoming more inflamed than ever, thought within himself he must no longer wonder from whence these his impatiences in love proceeded. At that instant he caused an Eunuch to be laid hold on, one of the Queens most trusty servants, supposing nothing was done without his knowledge: He putteth him to the torture, causing him to be most cruelly tormented, of purpose that his body very feeble, not being able to endure the violence of tortures, and on the other side having nothing to say against his good Lady, in whose conversation he had never perceived any thing but honour and virtue, should for a long time remain in very great perplexities. In the end he let a word fall, saying, he had seen Sohemus talk a long while in secret with Queen Mariam, as framing some relation to her, and that after this very time, he well perceived she was troubled. Herod had no sooner heard this word: It is enough, said he, take him from the torture, and let Sohemus be called. Sohemus knew nothing what had passed, and lived in great contentment, having very lately obtained a good government by the Queen's recommendations: He was wholly amazed, they laid hold upon him, and would enforce him to confess the discourse which he had with Mariam during this specious imprisonment. But he persisting in denial, is massacred in the place Herod retired into his cabinet, 
Death of Sohemus.  drinking in deep draughts the gall and poison of his deadly choler, and contriving in his heart the fury which he soon after was to show in public: For without giving any truce to his spirit, he assembled his Prive-Counsel, and sendeth for the Queen, who expected nothing less than such proceeding. This monster, who always endeavoured to give colour of justice to his most exorbitant actions, beginneth a long speech, which he had prepared at leisure, and while every one was in horror and silence, not knowing what would be the catastrophe of the Tragedy, except the courageous Mariam, who was armed with an invincible constancy against all exigents, he speaketh unto them in such like words:  
SIRS, It seemeth God will counterpoise the prosperities 
Oration of Herod against his wife.  of my state, by the misfortunes of my house. I have found safety in winds and tempests, in so many painful voyages as I have undertaken, so many thorny affairs, which I have ended, to find a storm in my own Palace. You are not ignorant how I have cherished the whole family of Hircanus within my bosom, in a lamentable time, when it was in decay and confusion: for recompense whereof, as if I had hatched the eggs of a serpent, I have got nothing but hisses and poison. God knoweth how often I have dissembled, and how often I have cured myself by patience. Notwithstanding I cannot so harden my heart, but that it may be softened, and ever become penetrable to a new wound. Behold the Queen my wife, who following the steps of her mother, is always ready to disquiet my repose. As soon as I was returned from the voyage so full of danger, as you know, I brought her news of the happy success of my affairs: She showing the little account she made both of my state and person, at that time heard me with so great disdain, that what endeavour of courtesy soever I used, never could I extort from her pride one good word. And afterward not contenting herself therewith, she proceeded to very bloody injuries, which I love better to conceal, for the honour of yours ears, and come to deeds. Behold one of my faithful servants, who testifieth, she would have suborned him to give me a love-potion, to wit, a poison, of purpose to turn my brain, or take away the life which God reserveth for me to acknowledge the many good offices, which you all in general, and each one in particular have afforded me. Thus you see how I am returned, my head crowned with laurel, honoured and courted by the prime men of the world, to serve as a sport for the malice, and a mark for the treachery of a woman, whom I cannot reclaim by the force of love nor benefits, no more than if she were a Lioness. Consider what you ought to do, I deliver her into the bands of your justice, not willing to direct myself herein by my own advice, to the end posterity may know, that my proper interests are ever seated beneath the truth.  
Herod speaking these words, would seem less passionate, putting all tortures upon his natural disposition, pliable enough: But he notwithstanding so vehemently fretted, that all the Counsel knew well he was in heat of choler, and that his purpose was no other but to ruin the poor Queen. She is summoned to answer at that instant, without an Advocate. The glorious Amazon, Grandchild of the Maccabees, 
Admirable modesty of the poor Queen.  and Inheritrix of their patience, being presented before this wicked tribunal, 28. years before the coming of the Son of God, did then, what he afterward taught us most remarkably by his example: Never from her mouth was heard one syllable of impatience, never did she use one sole word of recrimination; and being able to declare to the Counsel a thousand and a thousand outrages, received by herself, and the persons of her nearest allies, she swalloweth all these bitternesses with a patience more than humane: Only, saith she, that as concerning the essential Article of this accusation, to wit,  
The love-potion, which was objected against her, it was a thing in the judgement of all those, who would truly weigh it, very far from her thought: since she had always more feared King Herod's love than hatred. Lastly, that she made no reckoning of life, wherein she had suffered too much sorrow, yea much less of the Court, from whence she never received any contentment; and that if they would oppress her by false testimonies, it was easy to gain victory of one who made no resistance; more easy to take the Diadem from her head, and her head from her shoulders; but most hard to bereave her of the reputation of a Princess of honour, which she had of her Ancestors, and would carry to her tomb.  
The poor creature was like a silly sheep in the Lion's throat, or among the paws of many wolves: They proceeded to sentence, all tended to baseness. It was supposed the King was willing to be rid of her, and that sufficed. Never was any one to be found, who had the courage to plead the cause of this innocent Queen, or in any sort to mollify the passion of Herod. All those consciences were oppressed either with crimes or cowardice, from whence it came to pass these false Judges did more for the Tyrant than he desired; for they all resolved upon death. He himself was surprised with horror, though he were wholly a bloody man, and commandeth she should be kept in a prison of the Palace, with delay of execution, thinking perhaps by that means to make her more pliant to his passion. But the enraged Salome who had raised this storm, not willing to do any business to halves, approached to the King her brother, and shown him such birds were not to be kept in cages; that his life and crown thereby ran into hazard; that already all tended to a revolt, and that if he delayed this execution, he hastened the ruin of himself and his whole state. Whereupon Herod let fall this word: Let her be taken away. And behold instantly an officer dispatched to the good Queen, who brought her the news of the last hour of her life; saluting her with a low reverence, and saying: Madam, 
Invincible patience, and very admirable.  the King commandeth you must presently die. She without any disturbance said: Let us then go (my friend) it cannot be so soon for King Herod, but it will be as late for me: and speaking this word, she set forward, and went directly to the place of execution without change of colour, having a sweet aspect, which drew tears from the whole world.  
To crown her patience, as she was ready to receive the stroke of death, Alexandra, her own mother, the companion of her imprisonment, the Guardian of her thoughts, who had ever been one heart with her, betraying blood, nature, and all piety by a mischievous trick of state, thereby avoiding the suspicion of Herod, as consenting to her daughter's humour, came to charge her with most bloody injuries; 
Barbarous act of Alexandra.  and it was a great chance she had not taken this poor Lady by the hair, to dreg her up and down the pavement; saying to her with the foam of boiling choler, That she was wicked, and extremely proud, and well deserved to die in that manner, by showing herself refractory to so good a husband.  
Behold verily the greatest indignity which could happen in such an accident. There is no better honey, nor worse sting, than that of bees; no better amities, nor greater injuries, than of allies. The patiented Mariam only made her this answer: Mother, let my soul pass in peace, which already is upon my lips, and trouble not the repose of my death: and with a generous silence, shutting her mouth up to further replies, 
Heroic silence.  and opening her heart to God, the only witness of her innocency, most unworthily used, stretched out her neck to the executioner, to seal with her blood the last testimonies of her patience.  
Josephus speaketh not expressly enough of the punishment, she doubtless being executed in the manner at that time ordinary, which was to behead offenders 
Most pitiful death.  of that quality. This daybreak, which bore still in the rays thereof joy & refreshment to the poor afflicted souls, through the horrible confusions of tyranny was then extinct in her blood. Yea, the eyes of all the standers by bathed in tears, beheld her in her eclipse, when that forehead full of Royal Majesty was seen courageously to affront approaching death, which maketh the most confident to tremble, and when this alabaster neck was stretched out, and bowed under the shining steel, to be separated from this beauteous body, a shivering horror crept into the 
What horror.  bones of all the beholders, and there was no rock so hard which afforded not the water of tears, before she poured out her blood. The head was separated from the body, and the body from the soul: But the soul never shall be divided from God, raising to death such a trophy of patience. The limbs lay all cold and stiff extended on the place, and the voice of innocent blood, which already penetrated the clouds to ask vengeance of God, was instantly heard, as you shall understand: only I beseech you stay to behold the Portrait and Elegy of the good Queen by us here inserted.   


MARIAM REGINA   
MARIAM REGINA, MACHABAEORUM STIRPE INCLYTA, HERODIS PESSIMI OMNIUM VIRI UXOR OPTIMA, FORMA CORPORIS SUPRA CAETERAS EXIMIAANIMI ETIAM VIRTUTIBUS MAJOR, INTEGERRIMAE PUDICITIAE, ET INELUCTABILIS PATIENTIAE FOEMINA INIQUISSIMIS CALUMNIIS OPPRESSA, MARITI GLADIO REGIAS CERVICES DEDIT, ANNO ANTE CHRISTI NATALEM VIGESSIMO OCTAVO.  

Upon the Picture of MARIAM.  
FOrtune a heavenly beauty did engage  
To a fell husband, who through boundless rage,  
Practised fierce tyranny, and foul debate,  
As well in love, as in his Royal state.  
She lived on gall, upon the sword she died,  
Soon in the Lamb's blood to be purified.  
The Cross so to prevent, in pains partake  
With patiented God, mishaps thrice-happy make,  
Which after death immortalize her story,  
And from her body take less blood than glory.  
Thus from the world this holy Queen removed,  
Breathes forth affections to her God beloved;  
And her great soul to heaven in silence rears,  
Purged in her flame, & washed with her tears:  
Who bravely so both lives, and leaveth breath,  
Makes of a dying life, a living death.   
THe disloyal husband, who so inhumanely had treated a Lady worthy of all honour, as soon as she rendered up her soul, as if he had been strucken by some invisible dart, cried out with grief, and said, he had done an act worthy the wrath of 
Fury of Herod after the death of Mariam.  God; then dreadfully howling, he ceaselesly invoked the memory and name of the poor dead creature, to whom he by his sorrows could not again restore, what had been taken from her by the sword of the executioner. Wheresoever he went, he still was accompanied with the image of his crime, still tormented and assailed with black furies, monsters, and hideous sights. He tried all sorrs of festival entertainments, dance, and delights, to divert this ill, but it still augmented; in such sort that he was enforced to abandon all the affairs of his Kingdom, though he had been very eager and ardent in this employment, and became in the beginning thereof doltish and dull, not knowing what he did: For often in the time of dinner he spoke to his servants, and commanded them to call the Queen, as if she had been yet living; they slipped aside without making answer, and the whole Court was drenched in terror and silence. In the end, not being able any longer to endure the walls of his Palace, as if they had upbraided him with his cruelty, he ran into the forests like a mad man, where he got a strange malady of the mind, and so horrible a frenzy, that the Physicians were to seek, saying freely, it was a blow from Heaven. God, who yet reserved him for greater calamities, would not at that time take away his life. The wicked mother Alexandra, who so outrageously had complained of her daughter upon the scaffold, instantly died, tasting the bitterness of death, and losing her glory. Last of all followeth a plague, which took away even many of Herod's Counsellors, and all that was nothing but the scourge of Heaven, in avengement of this death so deplorable, and never sufficiently lamented.  
Mariam of her chaste wedlock left two sons to 
The sons of Mariam bred at Rome.  Herod, Alexander and Aristobulus, who were very young, able to suffer much in time to come, but as then incapable of feeling their own miseries. Herod to take from them the sense of this cruel tragedy, and to raise them likewise by the degrees of good education, to the glory of his sceptre, happily puts them aside, and sends them to Rome, to be bred in the Court of Augustus Caesar, held at that time the Academy of Kings, and prime school of the world. Some years being passed, he had a desire to make a voyage into Italy to salute Caesar, and by that opportunity see his children, whom he found excellently trained, and so accomplished, that he purposed with the good leave of Caesar, to carry them back into Judea, which he did. These young Princes returning into Jerusalem with Herod, ravished all the people with admiration. They were of a gallant presence, strait, active, quick-spirited, courageous in the exercise of arms, well-spoken, affable, as lovely as the person of the Father was odious. Men looked on them, as one would upon the two stars of Castor and Pollux, after a storm; they replenished all with alacrity, and seemed already to win all hearts, to approve their titles to the Crown. Those notwithstanding, who retained the memory of the usage of poor Mariam their mother, could not abstain from tears.  
Pheroras brother of Herod, and Salome his sister, 
Calumny is plotted against them.  who both had dipped their fingers in the blood of the innocent Queen, entered into affrightments and apprehensions unspeakable, seeing the blood they had shed, should one day sway over their heads: Wherefore they began silently to calumniate them, and caused by trusty instruments, many bruits to pass into the ears of Herod, which intimated, That the Princes his sons, in consideration of their mother's wrong, had a great aversion from the father, and that they never seriously would affect him. Herod, who as yet in the heat of his affection, and could never be satisfied with beholding them, gave no credit to this calumny. But rather seeing them now upon the confines of maturity, sought to match them highly, plotting for Alexander the daughter of Archelaus, King of Cappadocia, named Glaphyra, which was assented unto; and for Aristobulus, he caused him to marry the daughter of Salome his cousin german, so plastering over the domestic enmities, which ever after found many factions. Alexander and Aristobulus conversed together with great freedom, and uttered whatsoever they had upon their hearts, speaking of the death of their mother in such manner, that they shown a great resentment thereof. Pheroras and Salome, close-biting and watchful, ceased not to provoke them to speech, and whatsoever they said, either through vanity, or slight disposition to anger, or in the liberty of secrecy, was instantly by a third person related to the ears of Herod. The subtle Salome holding still a power upon her married daughter, who was a simple creature, put her upon the rack, to tell her all that her husband and her brother in law had spoken in the privacy of their mutual conversation. She than recounted the words these poor Princes had through simplicity and bravery spoken, to wit, that Aristobulus vaunted himself, The Kingdom belonged to the children of Mariam, as to the line of the true Queen; as for Herod's other sons, who were spread abroad in very great number (for he had nine or ten wives) that he might make Registers of them in some petty Towns, and that they should do well to learn to write and read. She added, that Alexander said in boasting, he was a better man than his father, notwithstanding that conversing with him, and seeing him of a jealous humour, he restrained himself, as in a scabbard, and durst not discover himself for fear he should give him some suspicion of his power. That hunting or walking with Herod, he did as it were bow and contract himself together, that he might not appear taller than his father: that if he were to shoot in a bow, he purposely made himself unskilful, thereby to take all occasion of envy from him. It was a notable act of wisdom to do it, but a great folly of youth to breath out many words, as innocently spoken, as treacherously interpreted; and above all an infinite simplicity to commit their secrets to a woman, whose heart is as fit to keep what it ought to conceal, as a sieve to hold water.  
When Pheroras and Salome had a long time filled the ears of Herod with these trifling reports, seeing the suspicion began to take footing in his mind, and that the affection of a father cooled towards his children, they struck the iron while it was hot, and wished him seriously to take heed of his sons, for they spoke big, and had boldly said, That all those who were imbrued in their mother's blood, should not carry the punishment into the other world: for verily as they were vexed upon the remembrance of the dead; such like words had escaped them. Herod was much amazed at this liberty, and thought he must repress their boldness by some counterpoise. What doth he? To humble the hearts of these Princes, 
The young Antipater son of Herod, exalted.  he selecteth among his children one called Antipater, his son by Doris, nothing noble, and who had shamefully been hunted out of the Court; he putteth this his son in the turning of a hand upon the top of the wheel, not that he had a purpose to raise him, but to use him to counterbalance the children of Mariam, reputing him an instrument proper for this end. For certainly this Antipater was of a dark spirit, close, and mischievous, much of his Father Herod's disposition; as it was presently to be seen. When he was advanced, he resolved fully not to descend but with loss of life, and to hold that Kingdom as well as others, by some notable trick. Behold why he played the Proteus, and changed himself into all forms to gain credit with Herod, who then began to like him very well; and he the more to fortify himself, spared not under hand to aggravate the calumny against the children of Mariam, and after he had thrown the stone, withdrew his arm so cunningly, that it seemed he had not touched it: for he always was conversant with Alexander and Aristobulus with much respect, as with his Masters; yea when he made false tales to tickle the ears of his father, than feigned he by a counterfeit modesty to take their cause in hand, and defend them so discreetly for his own advantage, that thereby he cast them further into suspicion. King Herod judged, that to countenance him, it were to good purpose to send him to Rome, which he did, allotting him a flourishing retinue, and an infinite number of recommendations. There it was that he much embroiled businesses, writing to his father, That he had discovered at Rome strange plots, that he should take heed of his brothers Alexander and Aristobulus, that they had practised ill dispositions in every place, that their purpose had no other aim but to shorten his days, and dispossess him of his Empire. This had so much the more colour, for that these miserable Princes galled with their repulse, could not dissemble their discontent; they ever casting forth some words, which gathered by the spies of Pheroras and Salome, never fell to the ground.  
Herod sighed to see that he having pacified all abroad, the fire should kindle in his own house, and thereupon had some desire to arrest his sons, but he would attempt nothing upon their persons without Caesar's command, referring all to him, both for his ordinary complacence, and safeguard of his own affairs. After he had revolved this affair, with a thousand anxieties in his heart, wherein he bore the chief extent of his counsels, he resolved in his own person to carry his sons to Rome, and accuse them before Caesar, In the whole course of this long way from Palestine to Italy, he held himself close and reserved, not making the least disgust against his children appear, that he might not occasion in them any suspicion. Being arrived at Rome, he learned Augustus Caesar was then in the City of Aquileia; without delay he went thither, conducting with him Alexander and Aristobulus, who were received by the Emperor (who was as their father) with all demonstration of love. In the mean time this miserable father spying his opportunity, demands day of Caesar for an audience, which he affirmed was of great consequence; it was granted him, and he came at the time appointed, bringing these two poor delinquents, who doubted nothing, nor at that time sought any thing but to laugh and pass their time with their ancient acquaintance. When they were in the midst of a brave assembly of Princes there present, Herod breathing out a great sigh, said:  
Behold me, GREAT CAESAR, a happy King by your favour, and an unfortunate father through the disgrace of my house. If nature had denied me children, fortune should see me without miseries: all my disasters proceed from my own progeny. It much troubleth me, to defile your ears (worthy Caesar) with the recital of so great wickedness, but necessity, which hath no law, enforceth me, and your justice which establisheth all laws, inviteth me. Behold my two unnatural sons, who after they had received the honour to be bred at your feet, after they had obtained from me all the favours which could be expected from a King, by your gracious clemency sufficiently powerful, and from a father of his own nature most indulgent, betraying the glory of the education they had at your hands, & forgetting even the nature and blood they received from me, have attempted a crime, which I dare not name. I live too many years in their opinion, and too long enjoy a Kingdom, which with so much labour I purchased. I have opened to them the gate of honour, that they may enter, after that natural death shall close up mine eyes: and they will pass through by the portal of parricide, preparing ambushes for my life, to snatch away the spoil steeped in my blood. Behold I prostrate them at your feet, not willing to retain any right in mine own displeasure, neither of King, nor father, but that which shall be decreed for me by your justice. Yet notwithstanding (O Great Caesar) I would beseech you to bestow upon my old age, which you have pleased so much to honour, some repose in my own house, and free me from the hands of these parricides. So likewise I think it not expedient for children so ungrateful, who have trampled laws both divine and humane under foot, to live any longer, and still to have the Sun in their eyes, to serve as a witness and an upbraiding of their crime.  
Herod spoke this with a marvellous vehemency, so that he put the whole assembly into an astonishment, and these poor young men, who had as much innocency as simplicity, seeing themselves charged on the sudden with such a tempest of words, made the apple of their eyes to answer, and weep in good earnest. They endeavoured to speak, fearing lest their silence might make them culpable; but the more they strove, so much the more the sobs choked up their words. Augustus Caesar, who was a judicious and courteous Prince, saw well by this their aspect, these young men had more mishap than malice, and casting a gracious eye upon them, Courage, my children, be confident (saith he) answer at your leisure, and be not troubled. All those there present bare already much compassion towards them, and Herod shown even by his countenance he was moved, so eloquent are the tears of nature. Alexander seeing the eyes of the whole assembly very favourable, took heart, represseth his sighs, & being (as he was) eloquent speaketh in these terms: MY LORD AND FATHER, Your Majesty 
Apology of Herod●s son before Augustus.  hath not brought us so far to the Altars of mercy, to offer us up as a sacrifice to revenge: we are at the knees of Caesar, as in the Temple of Clemency, whither being conducted by your warrant & command, it maketh us say, your words are sharp, but proceed most sweet. If calumny had so altered your excellent nature, as to make you take resolution upon our lives, to the prejudice of our innocency, you might have done it in Palestine, as a father and a King; the sentence and execution were in your own hands. But God permitted you to bring us to the Court of Augustus, not to leave the head where the crown was designed, but rather to return it back victorious, and free from slander. It is a very strange thing to pretend the most enormous of crimes against persons of our reputation and quality, without saying wherefore, or how. Nothing is spoken of letters, poisons, complots, conspiracies, suborned servants, it is only affirmed we are parricides, and proofs are pretermitted. If this be sufficient, you shall have in the world no more innocency, but that which calumny shall disdain to fix her tooth in. Our enemies, who for many years have spun this web, never could allege any other thing, but that we were old enough, and of sufficient courage to do it, and that we might perform it in revenge of the death of our mother Mariam. As for the first reason, who seethe not how weak it is? If nothing but age and valour be necessary to perpetrate a parricide, it is to fill the whole world with blood, to put all fathers into jealousy, and all sons into crime. For the second, which concerneth our dead mother, she left us in an age, wherein neither could we as yet bewail nor feel her misery. After we came out of our childhood, we have not been willing to search into your counsels, to sift out your resolutions, the issue of them ought to make us, not more audacious to undertake evil, but more stayed and advised to do good. We only have afforded tears to her, not to bemoan her death, for such were unprofitable, but to satisfy our passion, seeing our enemies ceased not to disturb the ashes of her, whose blood they had shed. Father, if our tears, which proceed from so just a resentment of nature, be in your Court accounted criminal, where shall we any more find safety but in your justice? Never in the so sensible apprehensions, hath any word of bitterness escaped us against you, but rather against those who abuse your authority to the ruin of yours. We have no cause at all to hate your life, but to love it by so much the more, as you have judged us capable above the rest of our brothers to succeed to your Crown. You have set all the marks of regality upon us, all the blessings we could hope for, & to ask more would be to require liberty to overthrow us. To what end should we seek by parricide a Kingdom, which is purchased for us by your favour, that so heaven, earth, & seas, conspiring with Caesar, might shut the gate against us, for which we should have been desirous to make a key steeped in the blood of our father? Your majesty hath begot us, perhaps more unfortunate than now would be expedient for your estate, but never shall we be so sottish nor impious, as to do a mischief, irrecoverably to undo us. Most honoured father, suppress the suspicion which you have conceived, or if you be pleased still to retain it, we both will leave this life, of which we are not so fond affectionate, that we would be willing to preserve it to the displeasure of him that gave it.  
This Oration, accompanied with the tears of this young Prince, struck all the standers by with admiration, and as they were both beheld with lowly looks, expecting the Judge's sentence, every one was enkindled with desire to justify them. Caesar casteth his eye on Herod to see his countenance, who shown himself much moved with compassion, and could have been content never to have thought of such an accusation: for verily this action in the apprehension of those present, much hurt him, and caused his credulity to be condemned. Augustus, who would not confound them, pronounced, that undoubtedly his children had done ill to displease him; but as for the pretended crime, he should raze it out of his papers. These young Princes were too well born and bred to proceed so far: there remained for them hereafter to live in good correspondence, and renew this holy knot of nature, which could not be dissolved by so good a father, nor children so futurely hopeful. This said, Herod embraced his sons one after another, much weeping, which drew tears even from those who were not interressed in this affair. After all manner of compliments were done, behold them upon return with their father and brother Antipater, who had caused all this goodly Tragedy to be played. Notwithstanding, this wicked creature overwhelmed them with courtesies and congratulations, as if he would make bonfires of joy in his heart. Thus dissimulation goeth along in Court, till such time that God taketh away the mask.  
Being returned to Jerusalem, one year was scarcely spent, but that calumny set new snares to entrap the innocency of these poor Princes. Pheroras resolved to excite Alexander with jealousy, telling 
Horrible malice.  him in great secret, Herod his father made too much of the beauteous Glaphyra his wife, daughter of King Archelaus, supposing it was a powerful means to turmoil his spirit, and enkindle it with fury against the King his father, and this way to precipitate him into ruin. These words upon the matter were most sensible to this generous heart, and then he began with a jealous eye to pry into Herod's actions, who, it is true, familiarly conversed every day with this Princess, endowed with incomparable beauty, but in conclusion he observed no other thing in such conversation, but loving entertainments of a father-in-law towards a son's wife, worthy to be cherished for many excellent parts. Alexander notwithstanding, after this advertisement of Pheroras, turned this honey into poison, interpreting all in an ill sense, and was so transported, that one day entering into his father's chamber he discovered the jealousy and suspicion he had conceived with sighs and tears of rage. Herod found himself much troubled with this accident, and thinking it a thing unworthy his person to justify himself to his son, with many words to excuse that which was not, he only said: My son, who hath put this into thy head? The other replieth, he knew much of it himself, and Pheroras had confirmed it. Pheroras was instantly sent for, and Herod, who ofttimes used him as a servant, casting a furious glance of his eyes upon him, Rakehell (saith he) what hast thou said to this young Prince? It is not a word thou hast put into his ear, but a sword into his hand against his father; for verily he would no more endure a companion of his bed, than I in my Kingdom. Ingrateful creature shouldst thou not rather tear out thy own heart, than entertain such a thought of thy brother? Such crimes as this never were in our house, nor ever will be, unless thou bring them hither. Get hence, and let me see thee no more, I ordain tortures for other delinquents, but for thee, since thou art so wicked, I leave thee to thy own conscience, not being able to find a fit executioner.  
Pheroras, who was not much astonished with this noise, answereth, he knew nothing but what Salome, who was there present, had told him, as indeed this came from her. But the subtle woman casting out at that instant a loud complaint, and tearing her hair, saith: It was a lamentable thing, that she of all the world should be persecuted for being only faithful to her brother. Herod knew not what to think, and sighed in his heart, beholding the dissensions of his house, and in the mean time saw not that his own ill example was the influence of all these maledictions. He did nothing else to Pheroras, but sequester him for a time, for although he seemed much moved with anger, he was not exasperated against any in good earnest, but those whom he thought would practise against his state; and such Pheroras appeared not to be, for he was a libertine, who had married his own servant, attracted by dalliances, refusing the daughter of a King, and all his designs aimed at nothing but sensuality. It was thought this was not sufficient satisfaction in Pheroras for such a crime, and that this might still feed a distrust between the father and son. Behold the 
An●ipater son of Herod calumniateth his brothers.  cause why the pernicious Antipater, who ever was gracious with Herod, making use of this opportunity, beginneth his battle more furiously than ever, and having perceived some familiarity between Alexander and three Eunuches, the most intimate of Herod's chamber, he underhand giveth notice, that the conspiracy of Alexander against his father, was now absolutely contrived, and that the chief Eunuches of the chamber and privacy of Herod, had a hand therein. Behold them presently apprehended and put to the torture: These bodies, corrupted with ease and delicacy, feeling themselves so roughly racked, spoke what they knew and what they knew not, and in the end delivered nothing but boasts and vainglorious bravadoes of youth, which had escaped the mouth of Alexander, that is to say, That those Eunuches were very fools to be so affected to this old man, who caused his hair to be painted, like a spruce younker. He had done all well enough: His time was past, theirs was coming, the Kingdom could not forsake them, having justice, force, and credit in their hands, and so many valorous men, who would not in time of necessity forsake them, and such like things, speaking nothing of that which Antipater pretended, yet too much for a jealous spirit.  
It was a pitiful thing then to behold, how this miserable Court was dismembred. It was nothing but calumniations, threaten, summons, distrusts, examinations, tortures. All men looked upon one 
Court of a Cyclops.  another, and every one supposed, there was no other security, but in preventing his companion. A thousand sottish things were daily deposed, that were of no effect. There were found not passed one or two, who extremely racked upon the torture, to free themselves, said, Alexander had dishonoured his father at Rome, as much more inclining to amity with the Parthians than with the Romans; and as torments were incessantly redoubled in favour of Antipater, they spoke at random whatsoever they would have them, to wit, That Alexander and Aristobulus had conspired to kill Herod by poison, then to go to Rome to demand the Kingdom, which had no probability. And when it was asked where this poison was, they replied it was in the Castle of Ascalon, and the whole matter searched into, there was nothing to be found. Alexander notwithstanding is arrested, he generous, 
Alexander son of Mariam imprisoned.  and much offended to see so many tortures, said stoutly to Herod, bitterly scoffing: To what end is it to make all these slaughters, seeing you will have it that you are deceived? I have conspired, and if you desire to know with whom, with Pheroras your brother, and Salome your sister, and Ptolemy, and Saprinius your Counsellors. Kill all the world, and you alone shall reign.  
He spoke too much to be believed, and delivered it 
He is delivered by Archelaus.  in an accent which sounded nothing less. Howsoever, he was for certain days imprisoned, until such time as Archelaus King of Cappadocia, his father in law, advertised of this disaster, came to the Court of Herod. He took great care not to affront him, nor tell him that he wronged himself to be so credulous: this was not the manner to treat with a man, who extremely desired to justify his actions. The Cappadocian striketh sail, seeming to have great compassion to find him in such trouble, saying, His children had done ill to disquiet him in that manner: that be came not to excuse his son in law, but to chastise his daughter, if she were found blame-worthy. Herod was so comforted to hear him speak in this sort, that the tears stood in his eyes, and Archelaus seeing he had found the ready way of persuasion, began by little and little to declare unto him, that in truth the Princes his sons had showed a little too much insolence, but that their facility was much abused, and it would be good to take heed thereof. He did so well, that at the last he dissolved the calumny, and Glaphyra being there present, with her eloquence and tears obtained whatsoever she would for her husband; so that the poor prisoner was instantly released.  
Herod in the mean time lived like a Cyclops in his Cave, perpetually in the obscurity of an infinite number of distrusts, still upon the point of acting new cruelties; and being observed to be capable of all sort of suspicions, the wicked Antipater failed not to furnish him with matter enough to foment his jealousies, and by the same means advance his fortunes. A wicked Grecian came to the Court of Judea, named 
Last endeavour of calumny.  Eurycles, who took upon him to be a Prince, and gave presents to Herod, to insinuate himself into his friendship. The unhappy King relished this man, and ranked him in the number of his intimate friends. He was lodged with Antipater, and observing that he at that time bore the greatest sway in affairs, he endeavoured by all means to win his favour, which he did, familiarly conversing with Alexander, and undermyning him, that afterward he might carry truth and falsehood to the ears of Herod, who gave him much credit.  
Three years were not fully passed; but behold calumny casteth the rest of her venom. Two soldiers of Herod's Guard, cashiered for some sleight offence, were afterward indiscreetly entertained in the house of Alexander, who loved them, seeing them sufficient men, and capable of good employments. Behold them accused of conspiracy, immediately apprehended, and put to torture. The vehemency of torment made them say, that at the solicitation of Alexander and Aristobulus they had a plot upon the person of Herod, to kill him in hunting. At the same time the governor of the Citadel of Alexandrina, (which was one of the strongest Fortresses of the Kingdom) is accused to have been willing to deliver it into the hands of these young Princes; which he denied strongly and stoutly. But his son, provoked against the father for some disgrace, said the deposition was true, and at the same time produced false letters of Alexander, which seemed to confirm the same, held notwithstanding to come from the hand of Secretary Diaphantus, a store-house of falsifications.  
Herod would have no more proofs, he caused his 
Alexander & Aristobulus sons of Mariam imprisoned.  two sons to be apprehended, resolving to ruin them: and verily every man at that time accounted them lost. When these things were in hand, Melas a Counsellor of the King of Cappadocia, came into Judea, to understand the knot of the business: he found it much envenomed, and desperate of remedy. The wicked father caused his sons to be fetched out of prison, to examine them before Melas, and to confront them with the depositions. Alexander asketh where the accusers were: it was answered, they were already dead. He replieth: It was an unjust proceeding to put them to death in the guilt of a lie, drawn out by force of torments, for ever to shut up their mouth from verity. As for himself, and his brother Aristobulus, they never had any other purpose but to fly to Cappadocia, and from thence to pass to Rome, to free themselves from the unquietness of their father. When Herod heard speech of the voyage of Cappadocia, he entreated Melas to inquire particularly of Glaphyra, if she more clearly would utter any thing touching this design. Glaphyra then was sent for, and when at her approach she beheld her husband in fetters, it was a dreadful thing to see her afflictions. Alas! my dear husband (said she) are these the favours of your father? is this the diadem be hath promised you? And thereupon her heart oppressed with grief, stopped up the rest of her words. Tears stood in the eyes of the miserable Alexander, who passionately loved her, and all the company was so troubled with this spectacle of pity, that those there present to examine, looked one upon another, and forgot the formalities of justice. Herod asketh Alexander, if his wife were not partaker of all his secrets. He answereth, Such was her desert and discretion, that he concealed nothing from her. The poor Lady was a little amazed at this word. Notwithstanding, with great simplicity she said, she was ignorant of all that had passed, as the child not yet born, yet was very ready to tell a lie to save her husband, and that she never would disavow it, although he should charge her with some crime. Alexander touched to the quick with this terderness, said to her: Madam, be not astonished; you very well know I never had any other plot but to carry you into Cappadocia, to visit the King your father: Behold all our offence.  
This cured not Herod, but made him extend his suspicion upon King Archelaus, taking it ill, he should go about to withdraw his son without his privacy. He commanded the prisoners to be set at liberty, and in the mean time sendeth new Ambassadors to Rome, to purge himself from some slanders wherewith he was charged, and to obtain of Caesar full liberty to dispose of his children according as justice should require; which was assented unto. The young Princes are disgraced and soiled with strange calumniations at Rome, so that no man durst undertake their defence. He very glad to have such 
Arraignment and death of the innocent.  dispatches, being (as he was) a man precisely formal, and ever giving colour of justice to his passion, assembleth the Counsel to frame an Indictment against his sons, admitting all those whom he saw mischievously bend to countenance his bad purpose, and sequestering others who might cause some obstacle; amongst the rest Archelaus, expressly nominated by Caesar to examine this business. Moreover, that which was an act of great injustice, he never would suffer his children to appear before the Judges, to be heard in their justification: but himself alone entereth into this Assembly, full of gall and poison. Never was he seen to be so out of countenance, passion having wholly transfigured him, in such sort that he spoke and acted things little consonant to his gravity. His friends were to seek in him, and he seemed rather a savage beast than a King. Sometime he accused, and lamented within himself, sometime he stammered, and cut himself short. He produced letters of his sons, that had no value in them, as was those of their journey into Cappadocia, and yet as if he had got a great victory, he cried out: Sirs, what say you to this? Behold you not great malice? O that I had been dead before I had known any such thing! Sometime he said he referred himself to justice, and that through passion he would do nothing passionately. Sometime he published, he had not summoned this Assembly to judge, but to approve his opinion, to the end posterity might the more abhor parricide. Then he cited Deuteronomie, which permitted fathers to stone their rebellious children to death, and played the Scribe or the Divine: then he shown Caesar's letters, of which he made more account than of his Deuteronomie, and insisted thereupon as if the offenders had already been peremptorily condemned by the sentence of Augustus. When they came to voices, Saturninus the Roman, a Consular man of great authority, absolutely dissuadeth this cruelty, saying, Himself was a father, that he knew the price of children, and that Herod would repent him of this precipitation. This good man had three of his sons with him, all gallant personages, and well entertained in good employments, who spoke in favour of these poor Princes. But to no purpose. After them standeth up Volumnius, a rude man, who drew to his faction all those which practised to serve Herod's passion, who altogether most unjustly concluded upon their deaths. As soon as this decree was published, an old soldier of Herod's, named Tyron, very passionate for the innocents', went directly to the Palace, demandeth to speak to the King alone by himself, which was granted him. This honest man taking him aside, gave him a sharp admonition, even to the reproaching him that he had lost his wits, in commanding his true heirs to be put to death, to advance a Viper, who in the end would secretly sting him. Herod harkened to him in the beginning with great patience, but speaking overmuch, he asked him, Who are those that take exception at this judgement? Myself (saith the good old man) first, and such and such men of quality, whom he named. Herod caused him to be cast into prison, laid hold of the rest, and condemneth them all to death. Afterwards causeth his sons to be carried to Sebaste, and directeth the most cruel of his Guard to strangle them in prison.  
These unfortunate Princes, who expected nothing less than such a sentence, seeing the dreadful faces of executioners, and the fearful image of death before their eyes, looked pale with horror, and asked them, Who brought you hither? But they pulling them aside as sacrifices, and discovering the instruments of their cruelty, soon shown wherefore they came: for without making any other answer, they took them by the throat, and putting the fatal cord about their necks, by main force strangled them, devoid of mercy.  
The poor Glaphyra, who as yet lost not the hope of her husband's liberty, having at that time prepared a new battery to dispose her father in law to clemency, heard the tidings of the death of Alexander, and withal of her own widowhood. She a good space remained in a trance, then mute as a statue, last of all a little recollecting her spirits, and casting out a sigh from the bottom of her heart, Woe is me! (saith she) I thought not Herod would have proceeded thus far. Tell him the sacrifice of his cruelty is not finished, for behold one part of the Victim is yet alive. Alexander, my dear Alexander, who for ever in my heart shall survive, needs must you end your innocent life by this infamous punishment? Must you have him for executioner, whom nature allotted you for a father? At the least I might have been called to receive the last groans of thy pensive soul, to embosom thy final words, and enchase them in my heart. Then turning herself to two little children, which she had by her sides: Poor orphans, what a father have they snatched from you? Alas! you are timely taught the trade of misery. The poor Lady night and day disconsolately afflicted herself, and being no longer able to endure the Court of Judea, no more than a Lion's den, she was sent back into Cappadocia, to the King her father. Herod kept with him the two sons, under colour of their education, but in effect to establish himself, fearing lest their name should serve for a pretext of some revolt.  
O the providence of God It seemeth you much slacken to fall upon guilty heads. These young Princes, sons of so virtuous a mother, so well bred, so well educated, accomplished with so many excellent parts, declared lawful successors to the Crown; these Princes, who had been seen (not above five years before) to return in triumph from Rome to Jerusalem, like the two twin-stars, who guilded all Palestine with their rays; these Princes, that promised so many Trophies, so many wonders, behold them in the sweetness of their years, in the flower of their hopes, at the gate of the Temple of honour, for a small liberty of speech unworthily massacred, in stead of a Diadem on their heads, a halter about their necks, and caused to be strangled by two Sergeants, that so they might breathe out their Royal souls under the hand of a hangman. Behold the brave apprenticeship which Herod exercised three year together about the time of the birth of our Saviour, to prepare himself for actions much more enormous. It was said of Silla, that if Mercy had come upon the earth in humane shape, he had slain her. But Herod did much worse. There remained nothing for him, after so many slaughters, but to imbrue himself in the blood of fourteen thousand Innocents', and attempt upon the Son of God himself, which presently after happened, and of which every one by relation of the Scripture taketh notice.  
It is time to behold the recompense those wicked 
Antipater the son of Herod from the too of the wheel.  souls received, for having dipped their fingers in so much blood, and so many tragedies, to the end we therein may observe the proceed of the Divine Providence, which spareth not, first slightly to touch and assay by some visitation those, which it afterwards reserveth for the eternal pains of hell. The detestable Antipater, who had directed all the passages of this wickedness, seeing the two Heirs of the Kingdom removed quite away by his practices, thought he had already a foot in the Throne. He continueth his cunning and malice, ever masking himself with the veil of piety, as if he had an unspeakable care of the life and state of his father, while he in the mean time had no other aim, but quickly to make himself absolute Master of all, fearing lest the disposition of Herod, which was very fleeting, might alter; and for this cause he went up and down daily practising very great intelligences. But he was hated by the people like a Tiger, and the soldiers, who saw him imbrued in the blood of his brothers, so beloved by all the Nobility, could in no sort relish him. Above all, the people were extremely touched with compassion, when these little children of Alexander and Aristobulus were led through the streets, who had been bred in Herod's Court. All the world beheld these poor Orphans with a weeping eye, and with sorrow remembered the disasters of their fathers. Antipater well saw, it was fit for him to withdraw himself, and decline envy, and not sing his wings in the candle, fearing his father in process of time (who in such matters was subtle enough) might discover his purposes. Notwithstanding, he was so secret, that he avoided to ask leave of Herod to sequester himself, for fear to minister matter of suspicion to him. But he caused letters closely to be written from Rome to his father, by friends whom he had wrought for that purpose, which imported all he desired, to wit, that it was necessary he should be sent to Rome to break the erterprises which the Arabians plotted against the state of Judea. Herod having received these letters, instantly dispatched his son Antipater with a goodly train, rich presents, and above all the Will of Herod, which declared him King after the death of his father. Behold all he could desire in the world. But as the eye of God never sleepeth, and surpriseth the crafty in their own policies; it happeneth the mischievous Pheroras, who had acted his part (as we have seen) in this lamentable tragedy, departed this life, by a sudden death, and poisoned (as it is thought) by the maid-servant whom he had married.  
Herod being requested to come into the house of 
Conspiracy of Antipater discovered.  his brother, to take examinations upon the fact, unexpectedly learneth how his son Antipater had given poison to the dead Pheroras, at such time as he was out of favour, to poison the King his father, whilst he was at Rome, that he speedily might return into Palestine with a Crown on his head. This was deposed even by the son of the controller of Antipater's house, and circumstanced with grounds and particulars so express, that there was not any cause of doubt. Herod demanded where this poison was. He answered, it was in the hands of the widow of his brother Pheroras. She being examined upon the fact, goeth up into a higher chamber, feigning to fetch it, and being mounted to the top of the house, she through despair, fell down headlong, with a purpose to kill herself. But God suffered not the fall to be mortal; they much heartened her, and promised all impunity, if she freely would deliver the truth. She telleth that true it was, her husband had received the poison of Antipater, and had some inclination to give the blow: but that a little before his death, he repent himself, and detested such wickedness, and with these words, she drew out the poison, which afterwards was known in the death of delinquents to be very mortal. At the same time Bathyllus, set at liberty by Antipater, was taken coming from Rome to Judea, to advise Pheroras to hasten the business, and bearing with him a new poison, if the first were not of force.  
In the mean time Antipater wrote to the King his father, that he laboured earnestly at Rome to dissolve obloquys, and accommodate his affairs with clearness; that he hoped to come to a period in them, and quickly return into Judea. Herod was desirous to lay hold upon him, sendeth him this letter:  
My son, the frailty of my age, and debility of my body, daily instructeth me that I am mortal. One thing comforteth me, that having made choice of your person to succeed me in my estate, I shall behold the decrepitness of my age flourish again in your youth, and as it were bury my death in your life, since I shall live in one part of myself, to me most precious. I wish you presently were with me, not so much for the assistance I expect from your piety, as for the prejudice your absence may impose on my fortune. Fail not with the good leave of Caesar, to return hither as soon as you can, delays nothing advance our affairs.  
This bait was too tempting to defend him from 
Subtilty against subtlety.  the hook: upon this news he would, as it were, fly to Jerusalem; he dispatcheth his affairs, takes leave of Augustus, and hastily posteth to obey his father's commandments. It was an admirable thing, that in the way he never had any notice of that which passed, so hated he was both of God and men. Yet so it was, that being in Cilicia, he learned his mother was disgraced, which much astonished him, so that he resolved to retire back again, but one of his counsel (perhaps wrought by Herod) shown unto him, that if nothing were plotted against him, he ought not to fear; and if any calumny were forged, he rather should hasten to strangle it, otherwise his absence would thrust him further into suspicion. This counsel he believed, and notwithstanding the remorse of his conscience, he took the way to Judea. When he was arrived in the port of Sebaste, he began 
Woeful event of Antipater.  to enter into greater apprehensions of his own unhappiness than ever. For upon the same haven, where he before had beheld so great confluence of people, which made many loud acclamations at his departure, not for the love they bore him, but for obedience to Herod, who so would have it, he perceived the chance of the die to be now changed; he was entertained with respectless countenances, and that some beholding him, scornfully muttered between their teeth, as cursing him for shedding the blood of his brothers. He was too far engaged to retire back, and the vengeance of God already had scored him out his lodging. He goeth directly from Sebaste to Jerusalem, and hasteneth to the Palace magnificently attired and well attended. The Guard suffered him to enter, commanding all those who accompanied him, in the King's name, to withdraw. He was much amazed to see himself taken like a bird in a snare, notwithstanding he went forward, and entereth into the Hall, where his father expected him, accompanied by Quintilius Varus, newly sent from Rome as Governor of Syria. After he had made an humble obeisance according to the custom, he came to kiss his father, but at that instant he heard the roaring of the Lion. For Herod retiring back, said unto him: Avaunt thou murderer of brothers and father: the kiss of a father was not instituted for thee. Behold Quintilius thy Judge. Advise with thyself what thou art to morrow to answer upon crimes whereof thou art accused.  
He strucken with this word as with a thunderclap, withdrew, bearing terror in his face, and the image of his crime in his thoughts. He in the next chamber found his mother and. wife weeping, with many laments already preparing his funerals; amazement so seized him, he had not language to comfort them, nor so much as tears to bemoan his own mishap. He spent the whole night in great afflictions, finding by experience it was much more easy to commit a crime than excuse it. The next morning he is sent for by the Council, where he found the King his father with Quintilius Varus, and many Counselors of State: Yea, letters were then intercepted, 
Antipater accused before his father.  very lately written by his mother, which signified all was discovered, and that he should carefully beware not to return and put himself into the hands of his father, if willingly he would avoid the throat of the Lion. This was represented unto him at the entrance to the Council; he expected nothing but the instant of strangling, so much his conscience tormented him. Behold the cause, why casting himself on his knees, he besought his father not to condemn him before he was heard.  
Herod replieth! Impious villain, what hast thou to say? Hath God then preserved thee to be the last scourge of my old age? Thou knowest I have extracted thee from the dregs, to place thee over thy brothers, above and beyond all hope. I have given thee my money, my revenues, my authority, my favour, my secrets, my heart and Crown into thy hands, in a Will signed with my own hand, and thou canst not a little stay, till thy father's eye is closed by natural death, to enjoy it? It was thither thy purpose aimed, when with such heat thou didst pursue the death of thy brothers; nothing have I done in their inditements, but by thy information and advise. Wicked creature, I fear lest thou hast stained me with their blood; thy crime now makes their innocence appear.  
At these words he bitterly wept, the memory of Mariam and his unfortunate children coming into his mind. He was so oppressed at his heart, that he was enforced to entreat Nicholas Damascen, who was as his Chancellor, to pursue the rest. Antipater preventeth him, and speaketh in his own defence, That he was much wronged in giving credit to slaves and silly women to his prejudice, that he had received letters from Caesar, whom a man could deceive no more than God himself, which gave a most ample testimony of all his demeanours, and of the satisfaction he had given to Rome. That he never had failed in duty towards his father, and that it were a passage of extreme folly to put himself into an uncertain hazard for a Crown, which he had as it were already in his hands. Briefly, without any further discourse, be offered himself to be used like a slave, and to be put to the torture for proof of his innocency. And therewithal he dreadfully tormented himself in such sort, that he began to move all the company.  
Nicholas Damascen, who was a rough garnster, taketh the word out of his mouth, he confronteth the witnesses, he interrogateth, urgeth, involveth, and puts him into confusion, and thundereth a very bloody invective against him, which at large is couched in Josephus history, where like an Orator he exaggerateth all the circumstances of his crime. Behold you not (saith he) a brutish stupidity, to conspire against your father, having as yet the blood of your brothers before your eyes, and all the assurances of the sceptre in your hands? Needs must you perpetrate a parricide, to make yourself possessor of a Crown, which was acquired for you by so solemn and authentical a Testament? Look you after nothing but the blood of your father, to set a seal upon it? yea, of a father, whose life is so dear to all bonest men, and of nature so indulgent to love his children that have never so little merit. An ingratitude able to make Heaven blush, and earth tremble under your feet. An ingratitude worthy that all the elements should conspire to punish it.  
This man ceased not to discharge against him words of fire with a masculine eloquence, and the miserable Antipater prostrated himself on the ground, and prayed God to do a miracle in favour of him, to make manifest his innocency, since he found himself so oppressed by the malice of men. It is wonder (saith the Historian) that those, who during their life have believed no God, would yet acknowledge him at their death. This man lived as if there were neither Heaven, God, nor Angels, and now seeing himself in the horrors of death, prayed the Divinity to excuse his crime. Varus saith unto him, My friend, expect not extraordinary signs from Heaven in your favour, but if you have any good reasons, boldly produce them. The King your father desireth nothing more than your justification. Thereupon he stood confounded, like a lost man. Varus taking the poison that had been before represented to the Council, caused it to be given to an offender already condemned, who instantly died, and all the assembly arose (as it is said) with manifest condemnation of Antipater. His father esteeming him absolutely convicted, required of him his complices: he only named Antiphilus, who brought the poison, saying this wicked man was cause of all his unhappiness.  
It was a great chance Herod at that time had not caused the sentence of death to be executed upon him: but according to his ordinary proceeding, he resolveth to inform Caesar of all that had passed, and to send him the whole process formally drawn, to order all at his pleasure. In the mean time Antipater is straight imprisoned, expecting hourly, as a miserable victim, the stroke of death.  
Herod at that time was about seventy years of age; 
Horrible state of Herod in his latter days.  and already felt, through imbecility of body, the approach of the last hour. It was a very hard morsel for him to digest. Never man better loved this present life. Very freely would he have forsaken his part of the next world eternally, to enjoy this, though he in effect was therein most unhappy. Towards the end of his days he grew so harsh, so wayward, then so choleric and furious, that his household servants knew not how to come about him: they handled him in his Palace as an old Lion, chained with the fetters of an incurable malady. He persuaded himself he was hated of all the world, and was therein no whit deceived, as having given too great occasion thereof. The people almost forgot their duty with impatience, and could no longer endure him.  
As soon as his sickness was bruited abroad, Judas 
The golden Eagle thrown down.  and Mathias, the principal Doctors of the Jewish Law, who had the youth at command, persuaded the most valiant of their sect to undergo a bold adventure, which was, that Herod having re-edified and adorned the Temple of Jerusalem, and (as he had always showed himself for the accommodation of his own estate, to be an Idolater of Caesar's fortune) to set upon the principal gate the Roman Eagle, all glittering in gold. This much offended the sight of the Jews, who could not endure any should place portraitures of men or beasts, or any other figures in their Temples, so much they abhorred such monsters, which their fathers had seen adored in Egypt. Behold why this Judas and Mathias, who were the chief, thinking the sickness of Herod would help them, began earnestly to exhort the most valiant of the young men, who every day frequented their houses, to take in hand the quarrel of God, according to the spirit of their Ancestors, and to beat down this abomination, which they had fixed upon their Temple. That the peril was not now so great, Herod having enough to do to wrestle with his own pain: but if it should happen they lost their lives, to die in so glorious an act, was to be buried in the midst of palms and triumphs.  
There needed no more to encourage the youth. Behold a troup of the most adventurous came forth about the midst of the day, armed with axes and hatchets, who climbed to the top of the Temple, and hewed in pieces the Eagles in the sight of the whole world, Judas and Mathias being there present, and serving for trumpets in this exploit. The noise hereof instantly came to the Palace, and the Captain of the Guard ran thither with the most resolute soldiers. He much feared some further plot, and that this defacing of the Eagle, might prove a preamble to some greater sedition. But at the first, as he began to charge, the people retired, which the more encouraged him for pursuit. Forty young men of those who had done the feat, were taken in the place, Judas and Mathias, who accompanied them, deeming it a thing unworthy to fly away, and that at the least they ought to follow them in peril, whom they had brought into danger. Being presented to Herod, and demanded from whence this boldness proceeded, they freely answered, Their plot had been fully agreed upon among themselves, and if it were to do again, they would be in readiness to put it in execution, in regard they were more bound to Moses than Herod. Herod amazed at this resolution, and fearing greater commotions, caused them to be secretly conveyed to Jericho, whither himself after, though crazy, was carried, and assembling the principal, spoke to them out of his litter, making a long narration of the good offices he had done in favour of the whole Nation, of the Temple he had built for them, of the ornaments with which he had enriched it, adding, he had done in few years what their Asmonean Kings could not perform in : And for recompense of his piety, at noon day they had hewed down, with notable boldness, a holy gift, which he had raised in the Temple, wherein God was more interessed than himself; for which he required a reason.  
These now, fearing any further to incense him, declined the danger, and put him upon their companions, leaving them to the pleasure of the King. At that time the High-priesthood is taken from Mathias, and another Mathias, who was held to have been the author of the sedition, burned alive that night with his companions, at which time an eclipse of the moon was seen, that made this spectacle much more dreadful.  
Herod in few days, after he had tried in vain, and worn out all humane remedies, was reduced to that horrible state of malady, which is rightly described 
Fearful malady of Herod.  by Josephus and Eusebius of Caesarea. God would have him in this life taste in long draughts the cup of his justice, wasting that caitiff carcase with linger torments. Behold the cause why he was touched with a manifest wound from Heaven, and assaulted with a furious squadron of remediless dolours. He, who from his young days had been inflamed with a desperate ambition, felt at his death a fire, which devoured his marrow and entrails with a secret and subtle flame. He; who all his life time had an enraged hunger to heap up treasures, even to the opening of David's and Solomon's sepulchres, to extract booty from thence, was afflicted with doglike hunger, both horrible and shameful, which caused him day and night to cry out for meat, yet never was satiated. He who had made so many voyages, and gone so many paces to make himself great, saw then his feet swollen with bad and phlegmatic humours. He, who in his life had caused so many tortures to be inflicted, felt outrageous and intolerable colics which racked him. He, who had taken life away from so many men, was seized with an Asthma, which hindered his breathing. He, who esteemed prudence and humane policy for the sinews of his estate, felt in his body cramps and convulsions of sinews, which gave him many shakes. He, who shed the blood of the poor Mariam, who slew her sons to make the kids (as saith the Scripture) boil in the milk of their dam; briefly, he who wallowed in the blood of about fourteen thousand innocents', of purpose to involve therein the Saviour of the world, died in his own blood, afflicted with a cruel flux. He, who abused his body with prodidigious luxuries, had dying, his secret parts filled with louse and vermin, with an ignominious Priapism, a malady not to be named.  
Shall we then say the Divine Providence of God hath no eyes to be wakeful for the punishment of the wicked? This desperate wretch, in stead of adoring the justice of God at his death, and kissing the rod which had chastised him, dreameth of new slaughters, publisheth an Edict, by which he sendeth for the principal of the Jews of every Province to Jericho, whither he caused himself to be carried, and shutting them up in a Theatre, calleth his sister Salome, and her husband Alexas, and then speaketh to them in these words:  
It troubleth me not to die, and tender the tribute 
Notorious cruelty.  which so many Kings have paid before me; but I am afflicted that my death shall not be lamented as I desire, if you assist not. Know then, for this purpose I have sent for all the Nobility of Judea, whom you have in your hands. As soon as my eyes are closed, put them all to the sword, and let not my death be divulged till first the fortune of these same people be known to their friends, by this means I hope to fill Judea with tears and sighs, which shall make my soul leave my body with the more contentment.  
The wretch in saying this, with many scalding tears besought his sister by all that which she esteemed in the world most glorious, most sacred, as if he had asked Paradise of her, and that necessarily she must promise it to content him at that instant with oath, though afterward it were never executed. In this act alone he well declared he had the spirit of a ravening wolf in the skin of a man, and that the thirst of humane blood was become natural to him.  
As he was framing this notable Testament, letters 
Death of Antipater.  were brought him from Rome, written by Caesar's command, which certified him that A●me, a Jewish Lady, of Livia's train, the wife of Augustus, had been condemned for sinister intelligence with Antipater, and for that cause punished with death: as concerning his son, he wholly left him to his disposition. This man in the very point of death, still sucked vengeance with marvellous sweetness. Upon this news he taketh courage again, and calls for an apple and a knife, busying himself in the paring of it. But in these employments, as his pains redoubled, he waxed weary of life, which he so much had loved, and at that instant one of his grandchildren, named Achiabus, who stood near to the bed, perceiving he roled his eyes full of rage, and made a show as if he would have stabbed himself with the knife he had in his hand (which much affrighted the young Prince) held back his arm, as well as he could, and began to make a terrible outcry, as if his Grandfather had yielded up the Ghost; whereupon the whole Palace was in an uproar. Antipater, who from the prison heard all this tumult, supposing Herod was at the last cast, his feet itched in his fetters, and did not as yet despair of the Crown, offering, as one would say, mountains of gold to his Keeper, to set him at liberty. But, O the judgement of his God his Gaoler, in stead of giving ear to all his rewards, went directly to his Father, and relateth to him, how Antipater used all possible means to get out of prison, and take possession of the Kingdom. Herod howling and knocking his head, How (saith he) will the parricide murder me in my bed? I have yet life enough left to take away his. Then lifting himself up, and leaning on his pillow, he calleth one of his Guard, Go you immediately (saith he) to the prison, and kill this parricide, and let him be buried in Hircanus' castle, without funeral pomp. This was incontinently executed, and such was the end of this wicked wretch, who had disturbed earth and hell, to place himself in his father's Throne, according as certain Mathematicians had foretold him.  
Few days after his death, Herod, having declared Archelaus for Successor of the Kingdom, contrary to his first will which was disposed in the behalf of Antipater, after he had accommodated his two other sons with such shares as seemed good to him, and given 
End of a Politician most disastrous.  large legacies to Augustus Caesar, yielded up his wicked soul in rage and despair, in the LXX. year of his age, and XXXVII. of his reign.  
A Prince (saith Josephus) who all his life desired to be Master of his laws, and a slave of his passions, and who, notwithstanding all his great felicities, aught to be reputed the most miserable on the earth. Behold in what terms this Author, a great statist, speaketh it, to teach humane policy, there is no prudence, wisdom, counsel, greatness, nor happiness, where God is not present. For laying aside eternal torments of the other life, wherewith this barbarous man dying in punishments, was encompassed, I assure myself there is neither peasant, nor handi-crafts man, if he be not mad, would give one day of his life for the thirty seven years of Herod's reign, which he passed in continual apprehensions, thorny affairs, perilous voyages, sinister distrusts, frosty fears of death, barbarous cruelties, remorses of conscience, the forerunners of hell, leaving besides a short and unfortunate posterity. Behold his Picture and Elegy.   


HERODES ASCALONITA   
HERODES ASCALONITA, VULTU FERUS, ANIMO BARBARUS, LUTO ET SANGUINE MACERATUS, A QUO NIHIL AD SUMMAM CRUDELITATEM PRAETER DEICIDIUM ABFUIT, DEICIDIO VOLUNTAS NON DEFUIT: VULPINA FRAUDE REGNUM JUDEAE INVASIT, AN. MUNDI TER MILLESSIMO NONGENTESSIMO SEXAGESSIMO QUINTO. REGNAVIT IRAE SERVUS, JURIS DOMINUS, FORTUNA FOELIX, CYCLOPAEA VITA INFOELICISSIMUS. DESIIT CAELESTI PLAGA FERALIS MORBI, ANNO REGNI TRICESSIMO SEPTIMO, VITAE FERME SEPTUAGESSIMO, CHRISTI OCTAVO.  

Upon the Picture of HEROD.  
A man no whit with civil grace endued,  
Of visage hideous, of manners rude,  
A monster made of massacres and blood,  
That boldly God, Heaven, Nature's laws withstood;  
Ill words within no certain limits fall,  
But who once mentions Herod, speaketh all.   
BY the carriage of this Court one may see whither vice transporteth great fortunes. In the person of Aristobulus and Hircanus, you behold that the canker is to a body less dangerous, than the discord of brothers to a state.  
In the person of Antipater, a friend for advantage, who seeketh to fish in a troubled water, in the end fisheth his fill, but is drowned in the act; to teach you, there is no policy so great, as to be an honest man, and that he who prepareth snares for another, diggeth his own grave.  
In the person of Pompey, an Aribitratour, who worketh his own ends under the colour of justice, who buildeth his ambition on the ruins of state, in the end, the earth, which faileth him for his conquests, denieth him a sepulchre. He found no more Countries to conquer, and scarcely had he six foot of earth to make him a tomb.  
In that of Hircanus, too much credulity, too much facility to please others humours, too much pusillanimity in the government of Justice, which headlong threw him into a life as miserable, as his death was cruel and bloody.  
In that of Anthony, a passionate Judge, who turneth with all winds, and suffereth himself to be carried along by the stronger, without consideration of Justice.  
In that of Joseph and Sohemus, that it is perilous to treat with women, though free from ill purpose, and much more dangerous to reveal a secret, which who will safely keep, must make his heart a sepulchre for it.  
In that of young Aristobulus, how the most beautiful hopes are storm-beaten in the bud, and that you must walk upon the prosperity of the world as on ice; that it must be handled like glass, fearing always they break not in the lustre of their brightness.  
In that of Alexandra, a boundless ambition, designs without effect, afflictions devoid of consolations, torments without patience, and a death without deserts, and all this because she gave not a good temper of virtue to her soul.  
In that of the sons of Mariam, innocency persecuted, and a little vanity of tongue desperately revenged.  
In that of young Antipater, policy deceived, the cloud of humane hopes cracked, punishment and revenge ever attending an offender.  
In the person of Herod, an enraged ambition, which giveth motion to all his crimes, a double soul, crafty, cautelous, politic, mischievous bloody, barbarous, savage, and withal in the best of his tricks benumbed, doltish, & dal, thinking to make a fortune to the prejudice of religion and conscience. A goodly fortune, to make himself great, and live in the hatred of all the world, in the remorses of a Cyclopean conscience, a thousand times aday to call upon death, not being able to die, and in the end to die in a body leprous, stinking, louzey, and death to tear his soul from him with scabs, stench, and louse, to make it survive its torments in an eternity of flames. See you not here fair fruits of humane wisdom, impiety, and atheism?  
In that of Mariam, a soul raised above the highest sphere of true greatness, a soul truly royal, holy, religious, courteous, merciful, wise, affable, and endowed with an incomparable patience, who as an Eagle strong of wing and courage, soaring above the storms of the world, maketh herself Mistress of tempests and thunders, which for that they had served as an exercise of her constancy, and perpetual battles for her life, shall through all Ages attend the immortality of her glory.    

THE FIFTH BOOK.  

Fortunate Piety.  
WE have hitherto beheld a Court, which rather resembleth Polyphemus cave than a King's Palace, to teach Great-ones, there is no bruitishness so savage, wherinto ingratitude towards God, and vice, doth not precipitate a forsaken soul. Let us now see, that as unbridled passions are of power to make a hell of a Prince's Court, so the practice of piety and other virtues, make it a true Paradise. Behold the Court of Theodosius the Younger, a Prince, who seemed to be born for nothing else but to ally the sceptre to virtues, and manifest what royal greatness can do, guided by the rules of piety.  
It is no small miracle to behold a holy King. If 
Ring of God.  God affected the curiosity of wearing a ring, as well in effect as the Scripture attributeth it to him in allegory, the most agreeable characters he would engrave therein, were the names of good Kings, who are his most lively representations, as those, who wed together power and goodness, two inseparable pieces of God, but very incompatible in the life of man, such are the corruptions of this Age. Some live in 
Four sorts of life.  the world transported with the torrents thereof, and that is weakness. Others fly the world, and in flying ofttimes carry it along with them, and this is an illusion. Others separate themselves as well in body as affection, and this is prudence. But few are found, who bearing the world on their shoulders through necessity, do tread it underfoot by contempt of vanities. That is it which this great Prince hath done, whose Court we here describe: for being seated among people, he built a desert in his heart, and in a vast Ocean of affairs he lived as fishes, which keep silence within the loud noise of waves, and preserve their plump substance fresh in the brackish waters. I go not about to place Theodosius the Younger in the rank of the bravest and most heroic spirits, you hereafter shall see others more courageous and warlike; but I purposely have selected this history, drawn from the Chronicle of Alexandria, Zonaras, Zozomen, Raderius, and others, to teach certain vainglorious people, who make no account but of those trifling spirits, fierce, mutinous, and unquiet, stamped with the coin of impiety, how much they miss of their reckoning; seeing this Emperor, with the sole arms of piety and modesty, carried himself in a very long and most prosperous reign, amidst horrible tempests, which seemed ready to rend the world; and other rash Princes, who made show to swallow earth and seas, were drowned in a glass of water.  
God made his birth and education singularly to 
Extraction of Theodosius.  contribute to the sanctity of his life. He was descended from Trajan, called the good Emperor by supereminence of worth: his Grandfather was the great Theodosius, a man, who in wariness had no superior that preceded him, and in piety no better second than his Grandchild. The Emperor Arcadius was his father, a most generous Prince, who in the very beginning of the fifth Age, to wit, the year after the Nativity of our Saviour, four hundred and one, saw this infant rise as a bright star, at that time when he ended the course of his life, as the Poets feigned the Sun reareth himself from the bed of aged Tithon, to illustrate the world. His nativity was foretold 
His birth foretold.  by the mouth of Saints, his most tender infancy consecrated by the destruction of idols; God at one and the same time putting him in the number of the living, and in the rank of Protectors of the Church, by a most remarkable act, of which behold the narration.  
Saint Procopius, an Hermit endowed with admirable 
Prophesy of S. Procopius.  sanctity, illumined with the spirit of prophecy, living in the Isle of Rhodes, praying daily for the destruction of some remnants of idolatry, which reigned in the Roman Empire, when by good chance two holy Prelates, Porphyrius and John, the one Bishop of Gaza, the other of Caesarea in Palestine, sailing for that purpose to Constantinople, went to lodge in the Hermitage of this holy man. He having received them with all respect answerable to their qualities, and entertained them according to the poverty of the Cell, understanding they traveled to the capital City of the Eastern Empire, of purpose to obtain an Edict from the Emperor, absolutely to destroy the Temples of idols, and bridle the insolences of Pagans, who stirred with so much the more boldness as the drooping faintness of the government of those times promised them impunity, he was infinitely comforted to see so great personages undertake so worthy a work, and God then prompting him these words, he saith: Courage Fathers, the glory of this conquest is due to your piety: Go stoutly to Constantinople, and acquaint the holy Bishop John Chrysostom with this design, resolving to execute what he shall think fit. For the rest, know the Empress is nine months gone with child, and that which is more, she beareth an Emperor in her womb: upon the mother and the son who is to be born, depends the expedition of this affair. They very glad of this prediction, left the good Hermit Procopius, and in ten days arrived at Constantinople, where presently they visited S. John Chrysostom, who received them with much respect and very great contentment.  
The affair being put into deliberation, the Bishop of Constantinople saw well that the Empress might therein much assist, and that God ordinarily useth the piety of women to advance the affairs of Religion. Notwithstanding he durst not present these two Prelates to her, fearing his recommendation might be prejudicial: for he very lately had a sharp difference with the Empress. It was Eudoxia, a woman 
Eudoxia mother of Theodosius.  of a great spirit, and who naturally loved virtue, as milk in her infancy, but she had a heart extremely haughty, and quickly would be offended if any thing of great consequence were undertaken against her authority. Behold wherefore S. Chrysostom, who was of no pleasing disposition, as one who had a spirit alienated from ordinary compliments, sometimes towards those of his own coat, reprehending her openly at many meetings in the point of glory, wherein she most desired to be soothed, raised her indignation to the clouds. She was as yet in the height 
Her humour.  of her passion against him, and therefore he judging it to no purpose for him to solicit her, caused the two Bishops to be presented by the means of one called Amantius, an attendant of Eudoxia's chamber, a very wise man, and of great credit with his Lady. She who knew her childbed time at hand, gave very free access to religious men, as hoping all good success by help of their devotions; and seeing these two Bishops 
Bishops treat with the Empress.  were very particularly recommended to her by Amantius, in quality of persons endowed with a very eminent sanctity, she was unsatisfied till she had seen them, and having most courteously saluted them, excusing her bigness with child to have hindered her passage to the door of their reception, according to the usual practice towards persons of their worth, she forbear not most affectionately to conjure them to employ their most fervent prayers to obtain of God a happy delivery for her. The holy Bishops, after they had wished her the childbirth of Sarah, of Rebecca, and Saint Elizabeth, began to declare the cause of their voyage, unfolding in very express terms the indignity of this Idolatry, the insolency of Pagans, the contempt of things sacred, the oppression of people, the lamentable mischief it would be to behold the worshipping of idols still to flourish, which to abolish, the Saviour of the world had so much sweat, so much wept, and shed so much blood; and to see it predominate as it were in the eyes of a most magnificent Emperor, and a most religious Empress, who had all the means to extirpate it. That in such a field the palms of eternal glory should be gathered, and that better they could secure their estate, than by destroying the work of Satan, to erect the trophies of Jesus,  
Eudoxia taketh fire, being thereto otherwise well 
Zeal of Eudoxia.  enough disposed, and promiseth to recommend the business to the Emperor, to obtain the dispatches they required for their better contentment. The Bishops retired, expecting the effect of this promise. The Lady faileth not to offer her requests, and strike the stroke with her best dexterity. But Court affairs proceed not always on the same feet, which the desires of the zealous move upon: she findeth the Council engaged in these retardations, who think it to no purpose to roll such a stone, That idolatry should 
Judgement of Arcadius his Council.  be left to bury itself, and at leisure dress its own funerals. That the means to ruin it, is to remove the heads of the sect from all kind of honours and public dignities: to forbid the exercise of superstition and Conventicles, which they make in private houses, to subdue Idolaters, and burn them, as it is said, with a soft fire: That the demolishment which should be made of those great Temples of Idols which yet remained, would make much noise, and yield little fruit; that this might thrust rebellious spirits into manifest despair; and in a word, it was feared; it might be a means to turn the coin of the Emperor's coffers another way, who drew a good round revenue from the City of Gaza, which even at that time was in hand.  
The consideration of interest, which ever holdeth as 
Porphyrius unfoldeth the prophecy.  it were the ascendent in the spirits of men, transported at that time the belief of the Empress, who would no further proceed in this pursuit. She caused the Bishops to be assembled, signifying to them, how having treated this business with much fidelity and solicitude, she could not find the Council disposed to this resolution; that they must have patience, and suffer the fruit to ripen before it be gathered.  
Thereupon Porphyrius, Bishop of Gaza, the principal Agent, as being the most interessed, well perceiving the Empress had not used the utmost of her credit, saith to her in a discreet and effectual manner: Madam, that your Majesty may not fear seriously to employ your endeavours in the business now in question, I promise you in recompense, that God will give you a son, which you bear in your body, and that quickly you shall see it to sway the sceptre by your side. Women desire nothing more than to conceive male children: But if it concerneth establishment of houses, they passionately love their sons. Eudoxia, who notwithstanding all the forcible words of Porphyrius, had before not undertaken the affair but slightly, upon this promise made to her of a male child, and of a son to be Emperor, protesteth to employ herself wholly therein, and in such manner, that she not only would cause the idols of Gaza to be thrown down to the ground, and absolutely raze the Temple, but (which was not to be expected from her zeal) she addeth, she would build in the place of the Temple (it being demolished) a most magnificent church. Porphyrius thanking her for so much favour, taketh leave to retire to his lodging, attending the effect of the good man's prophecy. Eudoxia faileth not in few 
Birth of Theodosius.  days to be delivered of a fair son, who is our Theodosius the Younger. As soon as he beginneth to breathe air, behold him covered with royal purple, declared Augustus, with intention to associate him the year following to the Empire of his father. All the world was poured into joy at the birth of this infant, there was nothing but sports, largesses, and public alacrity; so much happiness they promised themselves for this little Theodosius, in whose infancy already were seen all hopes of the public to bud.  
The Empress seven days after her delivery, showing herself very grateful to God, caused the Bishops to be called, and received them at her chamber door, then holding her little Theodosius, covered with a royal garment in her arms, Fathers (saith she to them) behold the fruits of your prayers, bless the mother and her infant. Then bowing her royal head under the hands and benediction of the Bishops, she presenteth to them the fruit of her childbearing to be marked with the sign of our Redemption, which they presently did.  
The good Empress having made them to sit down, 
Dream of Porphyrius.  Well then (saith she) what shall we do for discharge of our promise? Porphyrius taking the word, relateth to her a dream he had the night before upon this subject: which was, that he seemed to be at Gaza, a City of his Bishopric, in the temple of idols, named the temple of Marna, and that the Empress coming to him offered him a book of the Gospels, entreating him to open it and read therein whatsoever he should first encounter, and that upon the opening thereof, he found these words couched in the Gospel of S. Matthew: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall have no power against it: and that thereupon the Empress should say: Courage, in good time. That (saith she) 
Pious stratagem of a woman.  very well accordeth with the design I have figured in my mind, for the expedition of our affair. In few days I hope the son whom God hath given me, shall be presented at the holy font of Baptism: In the mean time prepare some very ample request, whatever you think good of, and upon return from the Christening, just at your going out of the Church, present it confidently to my son. I will instruct him that shall carry him in his arms, to take it, and do what then shall be needful. When he is returned to the house, I will do the rest, and hope so much from the merciful hand of God, that we shall have all we desire. The Bishops assembled, fail not to present their request, causing therein to be inserted, not only the destruction of the Temple, but also many privileges and immunities, in favour of their Churches.  
The day of Baptism being come, all the City is 
Baptism of Theodosius.  adorned and hanged in such sort, that it seemed a little Heaven, where the Sun and Stars smiled out of their houses. The infant is carried in solemn pomp to the Font, washed, and regenerated with the water of Baptism, by the hands of S. John Chrysostom, who gave him the name of Theodosius his Grandfather, and then adopted him for his spiritual child. Baptism ended, they went out of the Church in very good order: The Princes and Lords of the Court glittered in robes of their degrees, as stars; the Court of Guard was in very good equipage, the number of those, who attired in white bare burning tapers in their hands, was so great, that they seemed to equal the lights of Heaven. The Emperor Arcadius was there in person, appearing that day with a most singular majesty, as he who had given an Emperor to the world. Near to the father the little Theodosius was carried, who drew tears of joy from all the people. The Bishops, Porphyrius and John, beheld this goodly procession to pass along, and in the mean time spied their opportunity. They failed not to approach near, as the Empress had instructed them, and with a lowly obeisance presented their petition to the infant. The Gentleman who bore him in his arms, received it and opened it, as if he would make the little Theodosius to read it, afterwards skilfully guiding him with his hand, he made him bow his head, upon which he cried out aloud, speaking to the Emperor who was near: Sacred Majesty, our little Master agreeth unto all whatsoever these good Prelates have asked of him: and in speaking this, held the petition upon his breast. The people credulous and desirous to flatter the Emperor, thinking the infant had made this inclination of his own motion, began at that instant to thunder with loud acclamations of joy, congratulating with the Emperor, that he had a son, who through forwardness of judgement, already received petitions.  
As soon as they were come to the Palace, the mother, who had contrived all this business, made it to be read to her over and over, as a thing she had never thought on before, and straightways commandeth in the presence of the Emperor to open the petition once again. There was to be read the destruction of the temple of Marna, and many immunities which the Bishops earnestly demanded. The Emperor knew not which way to turn him, well knowing he had very lately rejected this suit at his Councel-table, resolving with himself to refuse it the second time. But the battery was too forcible. Eudoxia declared, it was an ill presage not to ratify the first grant her son had made, by a kind of miracle, in such an age, such a habit, on such a day, and among such shouts of the people. I know not who could have resisted such sweet violences.  
Arcadius, will he nill he, was constrained presently 
Marna destroyed by the infant Theodosius.  to sign the petition, without restriction or modification; and which is more, to constitute express Commissioners for the execution thereof, who failed not upon the urgent solicitation made by the Empress, to raze the temple of Marna, and build a most stately Church in the place.  
Behold how potent and religiously cunning women 
Women stout to do good.  are, when they addict themselves to good. But God made all these passages conduce to the glory of his wellbeloved Theodosius, willing that hell should howl and tremble already under the feet of an infant, who was no more than born, to make him one day dreadful to all the powers of impiety.  
The joy the parents conceived for the birth of 
Contentions between the Empress, Eudoxia, and S. Chrysostom.  Theodosius was not long. I know not through what mischance Eudoxia contested again with S. Chrysostom, upon a wilfulness, as forcible in the pursuit as unfortunate in the issue; for it steeped the remnant of this poor Princess days in bitter distastes, and headlong threw her into a death disadvantageous to the reputation of her life: to teach Great-ones, and above 
A good document for Great-ones.  all Ladies, to bridle their passions, and never to oppose the authority of the Church. The Mitres of Prelates are as the Crowns of the Kings of Egypt, they carry aspics which insensibly sting those, who too near approach with intention to offend them, having justice on their side. It was a shameful spectacle for Christendom, to see upon this great Theatre of the world, a woman contest with a Bishop, and hazard her reputation against the most eloquent tongue of the world. This Princess was ardent in any thing she enterprised, and made all affairs dance to the tune of her intentions: she so powerfully wrought the Bishops, that they assembled a little Council of Prelates, passionate, and pliant to her will, who passed a sentence of condemnation against Chrysostom, 
S. Chrysostom banished.  under pretext of a scroul, charged with a tedious contexture of calumnies, invented against this holy Prelate. Eudoxia would free herself, and to give contentment to the people, it behoved her to proceed therein with some colour of justice. Behold him banished into Bythinia. It was a bold act to tear out of the throne of Constantinople, a man, who filling the sails of eloquence, as easily moved the people as winds do the sands of Lybia, which stir at their pleasure. The people of Constantinople spared not to murmur, as do the waves of a mutinous sea, and their mutterings were seconded with an earthquake, which happened there at the same time; all tended to a revolt, if Chrysostom had not been repealed from this exile by the Emperor's authority.  
Being returned to his See, he altered nothing of his former manner, crying out, thundering, and violently beating down the vice and corruptions of that Age. And as by chance Eudoxia caused a silver statue to be dedicated to herself in a public place, at the consecration whereof many sports, dances, and disorders were used; this gave new occasion to speak, which so vexed the Empress, that she resolved to ruin him whatsoever it cost her. Arcadius shown himself a little soft and obsequious to the humour of his wife, who spared no wiles, inventions, credit, nor violence, to bring her enterprise to pass. She came in the end (unhappy as she was) to be as prosperous as she wished in this pursuit. S. John Chrysostom is exiled to Cucusa, a town in Armenia, which hath nothing more remarkable in it, than to have been honoured with the banishment of this worthy man. He swallowed so many toils and incommodities in this exile, that there he left his life, the more to illustrate the glory of his death. Divers prodigies happened at Constantinople, as messengers of the anger of Heaven, armed for revenge of his injustice. Among others a violent storm of hail, which much astonished all the City, and four days after, Eudoxia died in 
Death of the Empress.  travel, having long endured many bitter throws. It is held her sepulchre shook, until such time as the body of the Saint, carried in triumph through Constantinople, seemed by the presence thereof to fix her tomb, who had furnished him with so many disturbances in his life.  
The Emperor Arcadius made no long abode in this world after the death of the Empress his wife, and S. John Chrysostom; behold him surprised with a malady, which he presently knew to be as it were a forerunner of his death. After he had settled the affairs of his conscience, he ordered those of his Kingdom, and though he had his brother Honorius Emperor of the West, he would not rely upon him for the guardianship of his son; all great men are jealous, and many times diffident of their own blood: But he appointed as Tutor for his little Theodosius (who then was only eight years of age) Isdigerdes King of Persia, his friend, who deputed a great Prince named Antiochus, to establish an absolute peace with the Emperor, and offer him his aid against all pretences that might be raised against his state. Artemius, a Consular man, very wise and faithful, took the stern of affairs in hand, which most prosperously he managed in the great troubles and revolutions of the Western Empire.  
Theodosius was left an Orphan with four sisters, 
Qualities of Pulcheria sister of Theodosius.  Flaccilla, Pulcheria, Arcadia, and Marina: but above all the rest Pulcheria possessed his heart from his infancy. She was the pearl of Princesses, and one of the wisest women which ever managed the affairs of a Kingdom. She had a strong and pleasing spirit, a solid piety, an awakened wisdom, an incomparable grace to gain hearts to her devotion. Her brother made such account of her rare virtues, that he associated her for a companion of his Empire, holding her in the quality of a Queen. She was only two years elder than himself: the one was thirteen, the other fifteen years old. In the fifteenth year of her age, behold her already so capable of government, that she was Regent of the Empire, and as it were a mother to her brother. Artemius, who had instructed her in state affairs, could not sufficiently admire the vivacity of her wit, the solidity of her judgement, the equity of her counsels, and the happiness which ordinarily accompanied her resolutions. She then resolved to live in perpetual virginity, not as some have thought, to take away the jealousy of a husband towards a brother, and to hold the government always, wherein she so happily thrived; but for a mere inclination she had to the love of Chastity. She easily persuaded her sisters to the same, who took their flights to Christian virtues under the wings of this Eagle.  
The holy virgins, to make the offer of their virginity the more solemn, gave an Altar of gold, garnished 
Altar of gold  with precious stones to the Church of S. Sophia; as presenting upon this monument the incomparable treasure of their purity, and making humble prayer for the prosperity of their brother's Empire. This infinitely pleased Theodosius, and the more Pulcheria resigned herself to virtue, the more reputation she got with the young Emperor. She than began seriously to make religion, justice, and peace to flourish in the Empire. And seeing the person of her brother was it which ought to speak by example to all the world, the good Lady embraced the care of his education, as the most important piece of her government. First, with an admirable wisdom she sequestered 
Education of Theodosius.  all those who might cause any vices to slide into the soul of this young Prince, well knowing, no plague was so much to be feared in the Courts of Great men, as to expose the ear of a child to the hisses 
Plague of Great-ones.  and venom of serpents, which cast sin into the soul before they have eyes open to behold it. She hated, as the shadows of hell, all those subtle Artists of fortune, who to confirm themselves in authority, oftentimes thrust Great-ones into vice, and catch them by sensual pleasures, as birds are with lime, to entangle and snare them all together. Secondly, she procured worthy men to attend near the person of the Emperor, who royally might train him in the exercise of piety, wisdom, arms, and letters, as much as is necessary for a King. She herself, who was well versed in the Latin and Greek tongues, and no whit ignorant of the precepts of the wise, often discoursed with her brother.  
That God, who made Kings, had charged him with a crown, the more to oblige him to be the best man in his Empire. That if he would gloriously reign, be must begin by the sway of himself. That by how much the more he acknowledged the dependante he had of God, to be united to him in the quality of an instrument, so much the more he should command over men. That our souls were as the mirrors of the Divinity, which by how much the more pure, so much the more were they disposed to receive the rays of wisdom to their benefit. That vices in mean men were simply vices, but in the souls of Kings they were monsters. That if he would reign happily, he must establish his throne upon two columns of diamond, Piety and Justice; the one would give him to God, and the other would give men to him. Moreover she exhorted him to make himself of an easy and open access to the necessities of all who should prostrate themselves at his feet. To bear very much reverence to persons Ecclesiastical, advancing the affairs of religion with all his endeavour. To be very merciful towards the poor and sick. To gain the hearts of all his subjects by sweetness, therein imitating the Sun, who neither breaketh doors nor windows to enter into houses, but penetrateth very peaceably with the benignitic of his favourable beams. To conclude, she often represented the examples of good Princes, as of Constantine the Great, and of his grandfather Theodosius, who because they took a happy way, had on earth enjoyed a most blessed Kingdom, and immortalised themselves in the memory of men, with much advantage, reaping whilst they lived, the first fruits of the glory, of which they now in Heaven have an ample fruition. On the contrary, those who desired to have their passion reign, with, and above them, in their thrones, were involved in a brutish life and extreme calamities, pursued with the execration of posterity, and torments of eternity.  
The blessed Pulcheria, with so much grace did make these good instructions distil into the soul of her brother, who was already naturally disposed to the pursuit of good, that he took therein unspeakable contentment, and resigned his heart to be handled as a soft piece of wax in the artful hand of such a wisdom. Notwithstanding, as it is a matter very difficult so to banish vice from Prince's Courts, but that there always will be found some wolf covered with the skin of a sheep, so amongst these who guided the youth of Theodosius, there was a certain man called Chrysaphius, a subtle and crafty spirit, with too far insinuating himself into the favour of the Prince, cast in the end some blemish upon this fair soul, and made work enough for Pulcheria, as we shall see hereafter. But at that time all was very peaceable: Pulcheria replenished the heart of her brother with wisdom, the Court with good examples, the Altars with vows, and the world with benefits. And all so prospered in her hands, that it seemed the golden Age, foretold to be under the government of a Virgin, was returned to the world.  
The Emperor was now arrived near the limits of his twentieth year, and it was thought very expedient to tie him in the bonds of a chaste marriage, to which he should bring the innocency of an Age, bred either in the contempt or ignorance of vice. Pulcheria cast her eyes both within and without the Kingdom, to find a wife suitable to his humour, at which time the providence of God, that guideth our lives and affiars, gave an admirable testimony of his authority, leading a maiden, poor, unknown, needy, as by the hand, first to Constantinople, afterward to the marriagebed of the Emperor. So many Queens and Princesses affected this alliance, and every one promised it to themselves, flattering their hopes therein, when to the wonder of the world God caused the lot to fall upon a silly creature.  
Leontius a Paynim Philosopher, bred up in a poor 
Admirable adventures of Athenais.  cottage, had one only daughter, which at that time was as a diamond hidden in a dunghill, no man knowing the worth thereof: God drew it from this darkness to make it glitter in the prime Court of the world. This is the admirable Athenais, who was singularly privileged from Heaven with beauty of body, but incomparably heightened with gifts of the mind. Her father instructed her from her tender years, and enabled her in Philosophy, Rhetoric, Poesy, and other arts, wherewith usually they are adorned, who are ingeniously bred. This maid lived by learning, as the be by the dew, and all her pleasure was to study, thereunto invited by two powerful motives, first, the fervour of her spirit, sparkling like a flaming wheel, and secondly, ambition of sex, which made her desire to transcend men in their best faculties. That which the Poets have feigned of Pallas, is a fable, but he that should behold Athenais might see a true Pallas. It seemed she was some Intelligence, who had left the Heavenly Orbs, to come to be enchased in this beauteous body, and converse with men. It was said her father, well read in the knowledge of stars, foretold the good fortune which should happen to her, and that making his will, he left all his wealth to two sons he had, to wit, Genas and Valerius, making no mention of his daughter so much beloved, whereat she being sad, Let Heaven alone (saith he) dear daughter, your fortune will be good; more shall you have than your brothers. Thus man is often pleased to mix the verity of histories with some fables, to give reputation to predictions of Mathematicians, as if the stars had some power upon that which absolutely dependeth on the pleasure of God, or as if one must study much in the book of the planets, to say, that a maid bright as a star, and wise as Minerva, was to come to great fortune. Howsoever it be, as soon as her father's eyes was shut, the wicked brothers, greedy as Griphons', used their sister most inhumanely. Interest had neither eyes for the beauty, nor ears for the eloquence of Athenais: behold her despoiled and driven from her father's dwelling, enforced to retire to the house of a poor Aunt she had in the City of Athens.  
She must make this shipwreck to arrive to a good haven: she were lost, had she not had such a loss. This Aunt gave her notice of another kinswoman in Constantinople. They both resolve to visit her, and mediate something by her means. Behold they are now in the capital City of the Empire, not well knowing who brought them thither: but God, who was their guide, secretly contrived this work. The good kinswoman of Constantinople competently entertaineth and lodgeth them, very glad she might exercise her charity on a creature so well deserving. The City was much pleased with the gracious acceptance Pulcheria gave to all afflicted persons, and the justice she rendered to those who were oppressed by violence. The good women, cousins of Athenais, thought they should not do amiss to complain to the Princess of the wrong she had received from her brothers, and espying their opportunity, they both took her along with them. It was not now needful to beg much the favour of admittance, the maiden bore her letters of recommendation on her forehead. Pulcheria at her entrace was dazzled with the brightness of her aspect, and when she began to unloose her tongue, never was Siren so attractive with songs, as she with words. Pulcheria not only heard with patience, but greediness, still fearing she would make an end of her discourse, such pleasure she took therein. Many questions she asked her, and above all very particularly enquired of her kindred, how she had been bred, and whether she were a virgin: which having judiciously found according to her desire, she put the business into suspense to hear it again another time, by the course of audience ordinarily given: and from that time she had a strange design in her heart, to make her wife of the Emperor her brother.  
Politicians, who will measure all things by their own ell, and penetrate into the purposes of the whole world, judge this manner of proceeding was a great wisdom in Pulcheria, ever desirous to sway and possess the spirit of her brother. She foresaw if he married some great Princess, she might bring with the titles and Crowns of her Ancestors, pride and disdain into the house, and that so many alliances as she might have, might divert Theodosius his mind on many objects: That she being of noble extraction, would rule without a companion, and therefore it was better still to hold the highest place in the government: That she should make choice of some virtuous and handsome maid, though of mean parentage, to frame her as her creature, dispose of her where she best pleased, and then last of all conform her to her own will. Thus many judge of others intentions by their own dispositions.  
But it is much more likely Pulcheria, a creature wholly celestial, guided herself by other motives; the honour of God, piety, peace, and her brother's contentment. He already had signified to her, he would not captivate himself in an enforced and ceremonious marriage, and that he desired no other portion with the woman he should marry, but virtue and beauty; which was the cause the Princess supposed this maiden was fitly sent from Heaven, in the time he was in treaty of marriage. She failed not to make relation to her brother concerning an Athenian maid, who was presented to her upon a suit in law, which she commenced against her brothers, who unworthily had used her, and was indeed the most beautiful, innocent, and best spoken creature, which might be found throughout the whole Empire. She thereunto added no other thing at this time. It is enough to put matches to the fire, without commanding them to burn. Theodosius upon the report his sister made of this incomparable beauty, asked if there were no means to see her. Pulcheria answereth, she had given day to hear her cause. The Emperor, whether it were he used not to be present in such audiences, or whether he would hear her speak to her own sex with the more natural propriety, fearing he should give her too much respect if he presented himself in judgement, made his sister to sit in the tribunal, himself resolving to see all that should pass through a secret window prepared for this purpose. Athenais faileth not to come on the day and hour assigned, to plead her cause. Then was plainly to be seen the Empire, which humane beauty and an eloquent tongue have over earthly powers. The confident maid, having before broken the ice when first she spoke to the Princess, speaks now to her with much liberty:  
MADAM, I shall have cause to love my shipwreck 
Athenais pleadeth her cause.  all my life time, since it hath given me opportunity to arrive at your feet, as to the port, where all miseries are poured out, to be changed into felicities. Your Majesty may see the violence of my brothers is great, since it hath constrained me to undertake this voyage with much toil, and now presently to trouble your ears with my complaints, which the softness of my nature should cause me to smother, were it not they are extorted by a powerful hand, which is that of necessity. Had my brothers granted me so much of my father's goods (which was mean enough, yet for my enablement sufficient) but one sole silly cottage, I patiently would have satisfied myself without pressing their fortunes. But they have not left me one inch of land, and which is more, have driven me from my father's house (where I ever have inhabited) with exceeding much incivility, which I had rather dissemble, it being not my intention to accuse my own blood, to which I always have wished as much good as to myself. By their own saying, I have no other fault, for which Lought to be banished and despoiled, but certain privileges of nature. They allege unto me for all reason, that I may hope for a good fortune, and that it was sufficient even in my father's judgement. If imaginary hopes are of power to dispossess true and lawful heirs, what may we hereafter expect to be solid in the world? As for my own part, I have nothing to do with such fantasies as they form to themselves: I desire not great fortunes, but content myself with that mediocrity my birth hath allotted me. A little wealth shall suffice to put me in safeguard against the accidents of a necessitous life, and sweetly to manure the sciences my father left me as a portion. Hereupon, Madam, I most humbly beseech your Majesty will be pleased to be informed of this I affirm, and if you find it, as it is, true, to do me justice, which I must seek in your Court, it being banished from all the world beside.  
She spoke these words with so much grace, that all those there present were ravished therewith, persecuted beauty never wanting compassion throughout the world. Every one wished her well, each one became her Advocate, yet some were pleased to importune her with many curious questions in this affair, to put her upon replies, and make her exercise the vivacity of her excellent wit, wherein most happily she gave satisfaction.  
Theodosius beheld all this with affectionate tenderness: The eye and tongue of this creature mutually divided his heart; at one and the same instant love surprised him by the eyes and ears. Pulcheria, without making any other proposition, promiseth all favour to the suppliant, and having dismissed her, goeth to visit her brother, who had the arrow of chaste love deeply fixed in his heart. Resolutely he saith to his good sister, that never would he have other wife than Athenais. They were now upon the point to proceed in the marriage: but it was found she was uncapable of that Sacrament, being not as yet baptised. Her Paynim father had bred her in Paganism: better she knew the theogony of Hesiodus, than the Genealogy of Jesus Christ, better Homer's I liads than the Books of the Gospels, better the Apothegms of Pythagoras, than the Commandments of God. All the Court, which had been rapt in a dmiration with her pleading, was much troubled to see so fair a soul drenched in infidelity: some seriously treated with her about her conversion. Atticus the Patriarch of Constantinople, employed himself therein to the utmost of his power. Paulinus a great favourite of Theodosius, who was now upon some terms of jealousy with him, by occasion of a late accident, made himself as it were a prime agent in this business, seeing his Master affected it so ardently. And being well read in Divine and humane learning, beyond the profession of a swordman, and most eloquent to explicate himself, he marvellously by his conference advanced the conversion of Athenais. In the beginning she was 
Her conversion.  obstinate in Pagan doctrine, and fortified herself upon all propositions with Homer's Iliads, which she alleged as her Gospel; and when the great indecencies were opened to her, which this Poet attributeth to these heathen gods, she sheltered herself with subtleties, as a hedgehog with his quills, evading by obliqne interpretations, drawn from the allegorical sense, so that much ado there was to disarm her. In the end, God, who would have her to be his, unsealeth her eyes, and makes her behold, as in the glass of a bright mirror, on the one side the impertinences of idolatry, and on the other the greatness, majesty, verity, solidity of our faith. As soon as the first reflection began to fall directly upon her understanding, behold all the wild fancies of her opinions were scattered, to give place to the truth. Never any soul more savourly tasted its conversion, never any creature more affectionately resented the benefit of calling to Christianity. She bathed herself in the knowledge of our mysteries, as in a sea of delights, and in short time became so skilful in the law, that she wrote in Homer's verses the principal acts of Jesus Christ: and even as Mary Magdalene with the same hair wherewith she had weaved nets for wanton love, made a towel to wipe the feet of our Saviour, so the devout Athenais consecrateth from henceforth all the graces of her wit and learning, which she had misused in vanities, to the trophies of Jesus.  
She was baptised at Constantinople with joy and incredible magnificence, named Eudoxia at the holy Font of Baptism, confirmed in Christianity, nourished with holy Sacraments, wherein she was entertained with most sensible devotion. The ceremonies ended, Pulcheria caused her to be called, saying:  
Eudoxia, my Sister, it is now time you forget the house of your father, and that you withdraw the suit against your brothers. God, who hath granted you the life of the soul and lights of faith, hath magnificently provided for the ornament of your person, for he hath chosen you to be the lawful wife of the Emperor Theodosius, our most honoured Lord and brother. All is agreed on, and such is his resolution, nothing more remaineth but your consent.  
The holy maid, astonished at such words, covered her forehead with the vermilion of shamefacedness, and prostrating herself at the feet of Pulcheria, besought her to entertain her only in her Palace with her maids, in the quality of a servant, to wash the feet of others, as Abigail spoke. But the more she shown humility, the more she seemed recommendable, and Theodosius, to whom virtue served as a powerful motive, was after her conversion much more inflamed to love her. She must yield herself to the will of God. Behold her wife of the Emperor, the marriage was solemnised on the 7. of June in the year 421. with all pomp correspondent to the majesty of so great an Emperor, and the joy of such a marriage.  
Her brother's understanding the good fortune their sister had, afflicted as they were with their own conscience, fled like wild men, no man pursuing them. But the good Queen, consecrating the first acts of her Christianity to forgetfulness of injuries, caused them to return, and obtained of the Emperor for the one the government of Sclavonia, and for the other a most honourable place in Court. God knows, the good women, who with so much charity had assisted her, were not forgotten. Nothing was changed in her but sect and condition, all the virtues of humility, modesty, and affability, remained with her, and how much the higher she was raised, so much the more she undervalved herself, as if she had fore-seen the storm which should afterward assail her.  
Hither it is I call all noble and great men, who 
Sanctity of Theodosius his Court.  flatter their sensuality by a false imagination of impossibility in the way of perfection, while they abide in Courts and greatness, in company and affairs. The Court of young Theodosius was at that time the prime Court of the world; that of the Roman Emperor was fallen into eclipse. Thither was the confluence of all Nations, the ebb and flood of great affairs, a profound peace, an absolute power to satisfy all sorts of desires with attractive objects and delights, ever ready to be reaped; and in the mean time what a life led the new couple? what a life Pulcheria and her sister? what monastery more regular than the Court of this Emperor? what virtue, what chastity, what sanctity, what devotion, was ever found in Cloisters, which hath not here been seen with so much the more lustre, as it is more difficult to have all vices a power, and all virtues in will? If in religion the first account be made of devotion, which is the master-wheel of all great actions, this Court was as the Tabernacle of the ancient law, which born amongst armies, environed with hosts of men, bristled round about with pikes and javelins, ever retained a sweet silence, a chaste religion, a sacred veneration, and perpetually had holy fire in centinel, victims and prayers in sacrifice.  
So the Palace of Theodosius amongst all the clamours of affairs, all the rumours, tumults, and accidents, which upon one side and other occur in a large Empire, never so much slackened as to lose the sweetness of prayer, which was as the Manna these Royal souls daily gathered in the desert, which they had planted in the midst of their hearts. Pulcheria, as the Abbess, governed the devotion of all the rest, by her counsel and example. As soon as break of 
Note here, O Noblemen, a Holy Court.  day drew the curtain of Heaven, to discover the works of God, they adored the workman, and assembling in their household Chapel, sung the praises of God, following therein the course of the Church-prayers. The whole time was there circumvolved in compass: The divine office had the first fruits; affairs and recreations had likewise their turn, nothing was exorbitant, where all was done by weight and measure. If in religious life so much esteem be had of poverty, as of walls and rampires of the City of God, where shall you find a more admirable poverty, than in this Court? Is it not a prodigious thing to be spoken, that this good Emperor, for whom seas and rivers ran, for whom the earth opened her bosom with so much prodigality, for whom she kept so many Magazines of gold and silver within her entrails, beholding himself among the revenues of a great Empire, so husbanded them for the entertainment of things necessary, wherein he was ever magnificent, that he suffered no excess in his own person? He used all his blessings as things borrowed, and sometimes in his own particular, would not permit the expense of his diet exceed the value of the work of his own hands. He painted very well, and took pleasure, so much as affairs would give leave, to delineate the holy Scripture in most noble characters, saying to his familiars, it was reason, since all the world took pains in his Kingdom, himself should have a trade, and that as others, he should learn to dip his bread in the sweat of his brow, and his body being of the same composition which others are, it was fit to exercise the same labours.  
Such innocency was very far from the profusions which are made in Prince's Courts, with the expense of the people's blood, a matter that beyond all other burdens would surcharge them at the Judgement-seat of God. The Emperor's sisters, to imitate him, had always their works in their hands, that they might leave no passage open to idleness. If in religion 
Excellent chastity and modesty.  chastity be esteemed, here the conjugal supereminently flourished between Theodosius and Eudoxia, virginity in Pulcheria and her sisters Marina, Flaccilla, Arcadia, was as redolent balm, which ascended to Heaven in a perpetual sacrifice. The very name only of dishonesty, was not so much as known in this Palace, yet all things were therein learned but vice and idleness. Glances of the eye were simple and dovelike, words pondered, ordinary discourses of the imitation of Jesus Christ, and virtues of Saints, carriages full of respect, honour, and majesty. This chastity abode among the chief in Court, and was spread over all the rest by the odour of good example, as do the rays of the Sun, which involve the whole world, without ever parting from the original fountain of light. If in religion obedience be esteemed, this Court was the very model of well obeying and commanding. Those holy souls had made a law to themselves most exactly, to observe all the Commandments of God and the Church; to reverence the Prelates of the same, to cherish, assist, comfort the religious, and all Ecclesiastical Orders with most cordial affection, tempted with holy reverence, in such sort that the most austere Monks could not be more punctual in religious obedience, than all of this Court were in the government of their consciences. God for reward, imprinted on the Emperor's forehead the rays of his Majesty, which made him so much the more awful, as he less of purpose sought to make himself such.  
If in religious Orders, they live in perpetual exercise 
Mortification  of mortification, what life more mortified, than to behold so much humility in sovereign greatness, so much chastity in vigorous youth; in an absolute power to do all, so much retention? In so much science, so much conscience? so much temperance, among so many occasions of delights? Besides the fasts of the Church, which were there exactly kept, abstinence was observed on the wednesday and friday in every week. The Emperor gave the example, his wife and sisters imitated it, their table was rather a perpetual list of temperance, than a provision of dainties.  
It was observed, the good Prince travelling one 
A worthy act  day through the heats of summer, full of dust and sweat, his Court being in great scarcity of water, behold a peasant cometh, who presenteth him with a draught of cool water in a fair crystal glass: he was in his passions so mortified, that as an other David, after he magnificently had recompensed the good man's present, he gave it back again to bestow where he pleased without once touching it, thinking it unreasonable he should flatter his own taste, during the thirst of his followers.  
He sometimes stole away in hunting, and went to dine with some Hermit, where he fed on a little slice of mouldy bread, and drank the clear water of the fountain, protesting afterward it was one of the best repasts he had made, for commonly it was seasoned with sacred discourse and wholefom counsel. In his apparel, although he appeared full of majesty, according to his quality, yet he oftentimes hid under his royal purple, the old frock or hair-shirt of some holy Anchoret. In public shows he also abstained from gazing, that seeing, one would have thought him blind. His virtues were so much the more, as they had the less of affectation. He was in conversation among men, as a man, and yet therein preserved himself pure as an Angel.  
If religion be the hive wherein the honey of good doctrine is made, Theodosius was most studious and well versed in divine and humane learning: he oft spent one part of the night in study, that he might employ the day in his affairs; and that which is an admirable note of infinite sweetness and facility, this good Emperor, for whom a thousand and a thousand would have thought themselves most happy to pass the night in watching, he for fear of interrupting the sleep of any the meanest servant, caused by art a marvellous 
Admirable lamp.  lamp to be made, which perpetually flamed, oil running thereinto by certain little passages or conduits, which easily were turned. There was no Prelate so learned, who admired not his great promptness to repeat by heart all the texts of the Bible: and as for the Civil law, he was so conversant therein, that he caused by his direction that notable book of Imperial Constitutions to be compiled, which to this day beareth his name.  
Briefly, to show that Theodosius in his Court yielded nothing at all in perfection to the most austere Hermits, Glycas recounteth, that a holy Anchoret, who had passed forty years in the horror of a dreadful penance, as he one day was touched with some sleight imaginations of his own merit, God revealed unto him, that in those forty years he had done nothing in the desert in matter of perfection, which the Emperor Theodosius had not performed in his Court. This put into his heart so sharp a spur to know the 
Arrival of an holy Hermit, and his discourse with Theodosius.  conscience of the Emperor, that he went directly to the Court, where he was very courteously received: and considering with himself how the Prince was clothed, used, served, honoured, he had much ado to understand where this perfection was. In the end, one day speaking to him apart, he conjured him for God's sake to recount some good works he did. Theodosius felt a marvellous strife in his soul, in the contention between his humility and obedience: Humility sought to hid itself, but the obedience he ought to yield to a man, who conjured him with so many signs to tell him in the name of God what he did, and to testify a truth, prevailed with him. After he had bewailed his imperfections, he recounted with much modesty his prayers, abstinencies, alms, mortifications of hayrcloth, and such like, and then added, that being sometimes enforced to be present in the theatres, to wit, in sports and pastimes, wherein the wisest were spectators with much liberty, he at that time in such manner withdrew his sight, that none of those levitieses entered into his eyes: so that amongst so many horseraces, shows, oftents, pomps, & noise, he was ever in a perpetual tranquillity. The Hermit was so amazed to hear of such mortification of sense and appetite, in occasions so moving, that away he went, no further presuming of himself, but singularly edified by the life of the Emperor.  
If then in his retired life only he equalled the perfection of Anchorites, who now may sufficiently value the virtues of a King, which necessarily must be showed in public, after they have been watered with the tears of his prayers, and sweetly manured in the solitude of his heart. He was so wise and discreet, 
Great virtues  that all his actions and words remained perpetually in as just an equality, as do the nights and days under the Equinoctial; so mild, that he not only desired to save the living, but also to raise the dead; so merciful, that all the miseries of the poor which came to him, went no further than himself; so just, that he made a golden Age of his Kingdom; so much he obliged the Church, that it seemed his hands were fatal to overthrow all the monsters of heresy, as are the Eunomians, Encratites, Macedonians, Novatians, Donatists, Nestorians, and other such like: and how much the more he endeavoured to advance the Kingdom of God, in stopping all impiety with incomparable zeal, so much the more God, who maketh Kings to reign, established his sceptre, causing the Heavenly powers to fight for him, and holding the winds and tempests at command in his favour. Witness the notable victory he obtained against Roylas, who having passed Danubius, with all the forces of Scythia and Russia, came pouring like a furious torrent upon Constantinople. God so stayed this Barbarian in favour of his wellbeloved Theodosius, that he turned him into ashes with a thunderstroke, and blasted his whole Army by the violence of horrible tempests. On the other side, Baravanes King of Persia, 
Notable victory.  breaking the treaty of peace, came into the field with innumerable forces, to swallow the Eastern Empire, associated with Alamondar the Saracen King, who drew along with him no less than an hundred thousand men: and all this was scattered in an instant, a panic terror being crept into the disorder of this vast Army. This is to teach those, who make no account of Princes, if they be not hot-spurs, rash, and many times impious, what a devout Emperor can do.  
But since there is no beauty in creatures so perfect, 
Defects of the Emperor.  which is not soiled with some blemish, it cannot be denied but that this excellent Prince had (as others) his defects. Among the rest he is blamed not to have used sufficient industry in affairs, but to suffer himself through too much facility, to fall into the complacence of others humours. He sometimes signed dispatches without well examining them, through overmuch confidence in those who were much conversant about him, and being of a singular integrity, measured all others by himself.  
Pulcheria his sister, to correct this negligence, resolved 
Rare act of Pulcheria to correct the hasty precipitation of her brother.  one day to draw a transaction in formal and express terms, by which Theodosius gave and consigned into her hands his wife Eudoxia, to use and handle her at her pleasure. He, without reading the contents of the writing presented unto him, according to his custom, let his pen run, and signed it. Pulcheria wisely made use of this her grant: for gently leading the Empress into her chamber, she there held her as a prisoner. The other demanding the reason, this transaction was produced, signed by the hand of her husband. The good Queen knew not what to think, and shown rather a disposition of offence than laughter. Notwithstanding her complaints, she was held in captivity, and Theodosius ask where the Empress his wife was, it was answered, she was in the Princess his sister's chamber. She is in good company (saith he) but I wonder what tedious business can keep them so long together: Go bid her come hither. He was so passionately affected, that the hours he spent without beholding her, seemed years unto him. A Gentleman deputed thereto, bore this message to Pulcheria. She persisting in her game, with a serious countenance sendeth word to the Emperor, he should not expect her, and that she was not at his command. Theodosius was amazed at these words, and could not imagine what game his sister meant to play, having never hitherto known any such levity in her. He presently hasteneth into Pulcheria's chamber, And what devise (saith he) is this? Where is my wife? The poor prisoner stretched out her hand to him; Pulcheria opposed it, and showeth she was hers, to buy, and sell, and dispose of at her pleasure. And as the Emperor admired much these so extraordinary proceed, in a person of his sister's humour, she caused him to read the writing, signed with his own hand; then, adding good counsel, Behold, (saith she) most Sacred Majesty, the goodly order precipitation & negligence bring to affairs. The holy Emperor took this advertisement in good part, and promiseth he never more would sign dispatches at this rate. But Eudoxia was vexed at this 
Honour's change manners.  sport in good earnest. She was in an estate wherein she would no longer be overawed; she knew the power she held over her husband's heart, having already given him pledges of her fruitfulness, to wit, a daughter named Eudoxia, who was afterward married to the Emperor Valentinian. It much troubled 
Athenais, a poor maid preferred by Pulcheria, could not brook her.  her that Pulcheria still retained some small predominance over her, and shown a spirit of command: she resolved with herself, that her person at this time required another consideration; that such tricks had heretofore been well enough accepted in that estate she was in, but not as now she is: It is too great a game to play upon diadems. These petty resentments of the point of honour easily creep even into the purest souls, and who seasonably stops them not, findeth his heart drenched in the gall of certain aversions, which weaken charity. I know not what calling-card this goodly game cast between the two Princesses, but from that time the one would no longer be commanded, and the other pursued her ordinary course, which was to command. These hearts formerly united, were now upon breach, which notwithstanding never outwardly appeared, so retentive they were on both sides. God would exercise both, and put them into the surnace of tribulation to purify them, and take away some dross, which by long prosperities is easily contracted. He first began with the Empress Eudoxia, to whom he suffered a most sensible accident to happen, the narration whereof behold, which verily is pitiful. But who will think it strange to see Eudoxia fallen into the sinister opinion of Theodosius, seeing the same hath chanced to many Saints, yea to her, who hath born the standard of all sanctity, the most Blessed Virgin.  
Upon the day of Epiphany, as the Emperor returned 
Sinister accident.  from Church, with great pomp and magnificence, a certain country man, a stranger and unknown, broke through the press, accosteth Theodosius, who was of most easy access, and presenteth him with an apple of an extraordinary size, esteemed at that time as a rare fruit. The Emperor receiveth it gratefully, and commandeth to give the good man presently about the value of one hundred and fifty crowns. As soon as he was returned to the Palace, he goes to visit the Empress, and full of joy giveth her this fair present, which he had taken of the peasant for a great rarity. Out alas! this verily was the 
Apple of discord.  apple of discord, infected with the breath of the serpent, which horribly rend asunder this poor Court. The good Empress, having understood that Paulinus, a great favourite of Theodosius, was in bed sick of the gout, to please and comfort him sent him the apple, not mentioning from whom she had received it. Paulinus was seized with so great joy, seeing such a courtesy from a person so eminent used towards him, that the contentment he received at that time, charmed the pain of his gout. He so admireth this goodly fruit, that he judgeth it worthy of Imperial hands, and without delaying resolved to send it to the Emperor, excusing himself through indisposition of health, that he was not himself the messenger. Theodosius knew the apple, which he had very lately put into the Empresses hand, he turned it on every side, and judged it to be the same: thereupon a furious jealousy, as if it had been breathed from hell, began to lay hold on this gentle spirit, all the objects of what was past, returned to thicken this black vapour, to frame a cloud thereof, and resolve it into a storm. It is true, the Empress loved Paulinus with a most chaste and innocent love; one must have had the heart of a Tiger not to love him. He was a Lord very much affected by her husband: it was he who partly had drawn her from the obscurity of Gentilism by his learned and friendly conferences; he, that had procured her Baptism; he, that had wrought her marriage; he, that yielded most faithful service to their Majesties in the chiefest charge of the Empire, wherein he had been most nobly employed: all which made him worthy of great respects, besides that, he was of a very royal conversation, which had great power over all those who treated with him. The good Lady, who ever had her pen in hand to work some piece of her invention to the glory of Altars, which she affected, was pleased to communicate her labours to Paulinus, and discourse with him of holy things. All these conferences, which ever had been for the honour of an entire reputation, and which before yielded nothing but honey, were all turned into gall in the heart of Theodosius, by this lamentable jealousy wherewith he was possessed.  
He instantly sendeth for Eudoxia, the more deeply 
The evil of a sleight lie.  to sound her heart, demanding what was become of that fair apple he had given her. The poor Princess was overtaken, and seeing herself between the hammer and the anvil, I know not what gesture appeared on the brow of her husband, but she well perceived this fair soul was not in its ordinary situation. She therefore declining suppliant entreaty, thought to underprop her innocency with a lie, and said she had eaten the apple. Virtue hath nothing to do with the veil of untruths to cover itself, it is not her custom. Had she freely told what she did with the apple, as her intention was most sincere, all the malignity of suspicion would have been diverted. But this sudden surprisal a little altered her judgement, and all she did was to remedy the passion she saw to be enkindled in the heart of Theodosius, by the eyes, which are as the mirrors of our soul. The Emperor urged her upon this answer: She, who already was involved, tumbled herself further into the snare, and that she might not seem a liar, swore by the life and health of her husband, she had eaten the apple. He to convince her of this impudence, drew this fatal fruit out of his Cabinet: It is then flown from your stomach into my chamber without corruption; behold I have found a wonder. The Empress at the sight of this fruit, endured the same symptoms in innocency she had done in crime; for she becometh very pale, and was so confounded, that she had not courage enough to speak one only word. Theodosius in an instant retireth like lightning, and withdraweth into his Cabinet, having his heart wholly drenched in gall and bitterness. The poor Eudoxia on the other part poureth herself into tears without comfort, as her misery seemed devoid of remedy.  
Here was a rough trial which God sent to these innocent souls, and yet we need not wonder, since Saint Joseph (as I have said) one of the most perfect husbands which the earth ever bare, gave too much scope to his suspicion, upon the chastity of her, who was more pure than Angels. Love jealousy, anger, and sorrow, divided the heart of the Prince in the sad retirement of his Cabinet, and drew strange sigh● from him.  
A silly maid (said he) come of nothing, who was tossed in a storm as the tennis-ball of fortune, without support, without means, without favour, to have been preferred before such and so many Princesses who sought my alliance, raised even to my bed by lawful marriage, to plant dishonour there; to have been ennobled with a diadem, and negligently to pollute it by her ingratitude, and Paulinus, whom I trusted as myself, that he might satisfy his desires with all the greatness and beauties of my Empire, (for all was in his hands) to proceed so far as to attempt the bed of his Master! Where shall we hereafter find fidelity? We must search for it among Tartars and Scythians, for it is banished from Christianity.  
It is not well known who in these confusions suggested to the Emperor this wicked counsel, to destroy Prince Paulinus. The soul of Theodosius was too sweet to resolve on an act so tragical, without others motion; so likewise it is not credible it should proceed from Pulcheria, who was in affairs more reserved, and ever guided by the rule of conscience. However it was, the history saith, the poor Paulinus, who knew nothing of that which passed, was cured of the gout the same night, by a very rough and most bloody phlebotomy, for he was put to death without any form of process. Other have written, he was first banished into Cappadocia, and there oppressed by the faction of his enemies. O God, what may not depraved love do, since sincere amity cannot avoid suspicion, attended by an accident so strange! Some have said, nothing else followed, but the sequestration of Paulinus, and that should more pleasingly run from my pen, which abhorreth blood: But as the Scripture, speaking of David and other holy Kings, hath not dissembled their faults, I will not so paint Theodosius exteriorly, that I cover this aspersion of too much credulity, precipitation, and revenge, in this matter, which proceeded even to blood, as the Chronicle of Alexandria assureth us.  
It is a fearful example, to see a soul so mild, by the disturbance of a passion and some pernicious counsel, transported so far, to teach Great-ones they cannot maturely enough consult in the like occasions. The father of this Paulinus had been High-Steward in the Court of the Emperor; Paulinus himself from his infancy had been bred with Theodosius, participating in all his counsels and pleasures of youth; he was grown so high, that nothing but the hand of his Master could ruin him. He lived in the reputation of a great man, and his words were heard in Court like Oracles: Yet notwithstanding behold him, to satisfy jealousy, miserably massacred, and the glorious services he had done to the Crown recompensed with a direful catastrophe. It is unknown why the Divine Providence permitted the same. It oftentimes holdeth the affairs of the world under the veil and silence: but we must presume, all which it permitteth, is done with justice. When the afflicted Empress understood the death of Paulinus, so sudden and unexpected, she well saw the Emperor was tainted with the venom of most cruel jealousy, and that all her apologies would be fruitless. The poor Lady saw nothing about her but darkness, fantasies, and affrightments. The clock which struck, ever seemed to her the last moment of life, yea, and that in her opinion over-slow to end her miseries. When her soul was able to surmount the storm, she said to God with an affectionate heart: Alas! God of justice 
Strange affliction of Eudoxia, and her words.  (for I dare not implore thy mercies) thou hast well touched me on that part which was most sensible in me. Although I had seen my diadem thunder-stricken by thy hand, fall into dust at my feet, though thou hadst taken this creature from my side, which thou hast afforded us as a pledge of our marriage, though all infirmities and manners of death had conspired against me, I doubted not always to have had courage enough to bear myself above wind and tempest. But what light of spirit would not be eclipsed, what temper of heart would not be lost in these dolorous afflictions? Thou hast lifted me up, as they do little children to the branches of a tree, to make me fall down headlong, and crush me with a ruin as ignominious, as my fortune was eminent. Were I now under the poor roof of the house from whence 
Vanity and inconstancy of worldly affairs.  thou drewest me, I should be too happy. You have exposed me to the midday light, that I might not be unfortunate, without making all the world witness of my wretchedness and disgaace. And yet (my God) thou knowest my eyes have ever been chaste, and that never any other love entered into my heart but that of a lawful husband. It is better to suffer in innocency than crime: but it always is a thing worthy of compassion, to behold chastity unworthily persecuted. That poor innocent hath gone before me into the other world, and hath served as a sacrifice for his Master's jealousy: his services ought not to have been crowned with such a recompense. It is my friendship, as chaste as unhappy, that hath betrayed him: my sins are so great, that I cannot do good but by doing ill. My God expiate them by death, and only deliver me from the bands of dishonour.  
Thus went the afflicted turtle mourning in the solitary retirement of her heart; the nights were irksome to her, so much was her sleep clogged with dreams and fantasies, which with the more horror represented her calamity: and when the Sun arose to bring comfort in his rays to all creatures, he found the eyelids of this poor Princess all watered with tears, which he could not dry up.  
In the mean time the Court of Theodosius was in a sad silence. It was not well known what tragedy was played. The Emperor shown a melancholy distracted spirit; the Empress bore the image of her sorrow in her dejected countenance; Pulcheria abode in a prudent dissimulation, and an admirable advisedness. The sudden death of Paulinus made it to be suspected there was some strange accident. Every one discoursed according to his opinion. At that instant Eudoxia was seen to be removed from Council and manage of affairs, deprived of the Imperial bed, abandoned by all those who before adored her; she was dead to the evil life, and only survived to see her own funerals. It was thought Pulcheria, who was desirous to make a sequestration, (fearing lest her 
Departure of Eudoxia.  presence might again enkindle the fire covered under ashes in the Emperor's heart, to possess it to the prejudice of affairs) caused the counsel of undertaking the voyage of the holy land, to be suggested to her underhand. But it is more credible far, the good Empress took this resolution upon her own motion, for the reason I will deliver.  
A devout Roman Lady of a noble house, named Melania, who filled the deserts, Cities, Provinces, and Empires, with her fame, passing into Palestine, there to wear out the rest of her days in peace, went by Constantinople, and was received at the Emperor's Court; where seeing Eudoxia endowed with an admirable spirit, but yet untrained to the sweetness of things spiritual, she endeavoured to give her a taste. The Empress, who at that time was in the prosperities and delights of a flourishing Court, thought she should handle devotion, as a Captain Philosophy, and it was enough to taste it outwardly. But when this sad accident, like the steel, began to strike on the flint, it made the sparkles fly out in good earnest. She was on fire to forsake the Court, where she no longer was what she had been; she sighed after those places of the holy land, as the thirsty Hart for the streams of a fountain. I well believe she took counsel at that time of Chrysaphius, a powerful Eunuch, who had governed Theodosius from his infancy, and was much reputed in Court, closely countermyning the overmuch authority which Pulcheria had, according to his opinion, in affairs; but he took good heed openly to affront her, satisfying himself to act his part by Eudoxia, according to directions she gave him. This man, very understanding in businesses, found it was to good purpose to retire back, to come on the better, that it was necessary the Empress should give way for a time, and that her absence would make her the more desired, and that he in the mean space would do all good offices for her with the Emperor, and act his part in time and place. Conclusions of the voyage are made, leave was not hard to be obtained of the Emperor, seeing his instrument Pulcheria was thereunto wholly disposed. When it came to a separation, which was a thing very sensible in minds so long time, and with such ardour mutually loving, the good Eudoxia could not refrain to say to her husband with tears in her eyes:  
SACRED MAjESTY, I am upon terms to see you no more in this world; for which cause it is fit I discharge my Conscience. Behold me ready to departed, not only from the Court, but this life, if you so ordain. I sorrow not for greatness, nor delights. I have ever thought the prosperity of the world was a current of fresh water, which looketh not back on any thing, and hasteneth to pour itself into the salt sea. I only grieve, that having brought to your Court two inestimable Jewels, virginity, and the reputation of a child of honour, the one, which I ought rather to have given to God, I dedicated to your bed, and the other is taken from me by your suspicion, grounded upon a sudden surprisal of a word spoken from a heart perplexed to see you troubled. You have caused the Prince Paulinus to be put to death, and in doing this, you have not bereft me of a lover, but yourself of a good and faithful servant, and God grant the voice of blood accuse you not before the tribunal of the Sovereign Judge. I hope God, who is the Protector of innocents', will one day take my cause in hand, and when truth shall give light through your suspicions, you at least will render me the honour, which I ever only have sought to be conveyed into the ashes of my tomb.  
Theodosius knew not how to answer her but with the moist dew of his eyes, which began to do the office of his lips; a few such words were enough to turn his soul topsie-turvie. Pulcheria readily made the stop, saying, that which was passed could not be recalled, over which God giveth us no other power but of forgetfulness. That the Empress might in good time go to satisfy her devotion, and that were she herself free from the bondage of affairs, it would be one of her greatest contentments to bear her company.  
Thus Eudoxia departed, travelling directly to Jerusalem, 
Voyage of Eudoxia into Palestine.  and with her the grace and alacrity of Court. All Constantinople was filled with sadness, at which time the plains of Palestine were already comforted with the first rays of this bright daybreak. Wheresoever she passed, the people ran thither by heaps to behold her, she was received with much applause, with eloquent orations, and all demonstrations of hearts affections; and particularly her approach was much celebrated in the City of Antioch. For it is said, the Senate going out to receive her, she replied at an instant, as she was sitting in her golden Caroche, to the Oration pronounced before her, and undertook to praise this famous City with so much grace and judgement, that the principal and most eminent of the City, ravished with such courtesy, dedicated two statues to her, the one of gold in the Senate-house, as to the Empress, the other of brass in their Library, as to the tenth Muse. Entering into Jerusalem, she was received as an Angel from Heaven, but above all, the Clergy rejoiced at the abode she meant to make there, well knowing the Church should thence derive great succours in its necessities. Some persuaded her David had prophesied she should re-edify the walls of Jerusalem, because in the fifteenth Psalm, where these words are read, In bonâ voluntate tuâ aedificentur muri Jerusalem, the Septuagint have translated, in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The interpretation was not amiss; although it were not literal, it had the effect: For the pious Empress in process of time, made many most worthy reparations. There she began to live as in another world; she seemed to herself to have cast from her shoulders, the burden of a huge mountain, she now breathed a far other air than that of Court, she had another taste of things divine. All her study was to pray, meditate, and hear exhortations and spiritual conferences, to read and learn holy Scripture, to sow charities, that she might reap merits, to visit the Cells of Anchorets, to see how their garments and girdles were made, to observe their manner of living, to multiply Monasteries, to  Virgins, to heap up relics together, and such like things.  
Theodosius understanding her carriage, and the 
Chrysaphius laboureth the return of the Empress, in the mean time seeking his own ends.  good entertainment she had every where, thought it was the work of God, who favoured her innocency, and at that time the flames of his chaste love began to burn more forcible than ever. He loved her with a love mingled with respect of her merit, and compassion of persecuted innocency. He was pleased to have her spoken of in private, and hear the life described she led in this new world. Chrysaphius perceiving him to take fire in good earnest, followed his opportunity according to promise, and one day seeing the Emperor well disposed, adventured to say:  
SACRED MAjESTY, How long will you deprive us of this Saint? Must needs the deserts of Palestine so long time possess her to our prejudice? It is a wonder your Palace hath not been able to endure a Virtue, which maketh itself to be seen, heard, and adored in the savage wildernesses. The poor Lady hath well paid for a little sudden surprisal of speech. Know besides, she never hath failed in fidelity to your bed, and hereon I would swear upon the holy Evangelists, and expose my hand to the fire: But God hath already sufficiently declared it by the sequel of her deportments. What is done, is done: we cannot restore life to the dead, but we ought to yield honour to the living, which hath unjustly been taken from them. It is an obligation of conscience. Who hindereth we cannot suddenly see her by your sides? Theodosius answereth: It would be my desire, but thou seest the impediment, I fear my sister will not like it. Chrysaphius replieth: Truly my Lady your Sister, aught to be satisfied with the absolute command your Majesty giveth her in all the affairs of your Kingdom, without attempting on the contentments of your marriage, or the honour of this good Princess, whose faults she should rather cover with her royal purple, if any such had escaped her, but of necessity she ought to honour her merits. Let me alone, and I will give her satisfaction.  
Theodosius giveth him absolute Commission, and thereupon, as it is most probable he adviseth the Empress to return to Constantinople, with small noise, and much haste, and so plotteth, that the Emperor under colour of going a hunting, saw her, spoke to her, treateth with her of her return, which presently was published, and all the City, which passionately affected her, ushered her in. Behold her arrived, as if she had flown in the air, and received with much honour and magnificence into the Palace. Pulcheria amazed at this accident, setteth a good face upon it, entertaineth her with strict embraces, congratulateth her pilgrimage, speaketh to her of nothing but of Monasteries, Crosses, Relics. In the mean time very closely showeth, she did not well like him who had contrived this. Chrysaphius imagining 
Chrysaphius, an heretical Eunuch, projecteth to ruin Theodosius his Cou●●  he had to do with an Imperious Maid, seasoned from her youth in government, who never would forgive him this fault, resolveth to play at fast and lose, thinking he had credit enough to do this by the means of Eudoxia. For the love which Theodosius bore to her upon her return, was a torrent, which after it hath a long time been restrained, breaketh the forced dams, and with vigorous impetuousness drowneth the fields. He was so ardent and passionate, that he seemed unable to deny her any thing. This was the cause, why Chrysaphius, whose name is as much as to say, a seamster of gold, having already made a seam of his trade, stitched another together more strong than the former. He boardeth the Emperor under the wings of Eudoxia, in the heat of his affections most ardent: Both joining to make the battery more forcible, declare to him, That MADAM his Sister, daily desired to gain repose, as she had often said, and that it was a thing lawfully due for the long services she had yielded to the Crown. That it was a wonder, how she, having dedicated herself to the Church by the vow of virginity, could persevere so long in Court. That hereafter Theodosius had one, who held with him the first place in all favours, on whom be might repose himself, and was thereunto obliged by reason, which was his wife. That the spirit of Pulcheria was not suitable to the humour of Eudoxia; when one star riseth, the opposite must fall.  
Theodosius apprehended this business as the most slippery path he had ever trod: but what cannot love and the soft enticements of a woman do? Wearied out with ceaseless importunities, he yieldeth, he sendeth for Flavian the Patriarch, and intreateth him to put his sister Pulcheria in the rank of virgins, who are dedicated to the service of the Church, were she willing or unwilling. Flavian, much amazed at this manner of proceeding, telleth him he should take good heed of this resolution, that he undertook one of the greatest passages of State he had ever done in his life, and that the danger thereof was much to be feared. The Emperor replieth, he hath well pondered it, that such was his will, and he must speedily see it executed. The Patriarch (Pulcheria being exceedingly affected by all the Clergy) adviseth her to withdraw without further resistance, otherwise he should be forced to do that which would much trouble him. The good Lady understood well 
Virtue of Pulcheria.  what he would say, she had already smelled the plot, and was unwilling to do any thing unworthy of her virtue: for seeing her fortune altered by the change of the Emperor her brother's will, she freely despoiled herself of the manage of affairs, as from a shirt, which one hath long worn, and retiring from the Palace, went to lodge in a house somewhat distant from Constantinople, where she lived in marvellous sanctity. Virtue is as the Geometrical Cube, on what side soever it be cast, it always findeth its basis.  
Behold then a new face of government, which beginneth 
Chrysaphius entangleth the Emperor and his wife in the heresy of Eutyches.  under Chrysaphius and Eudoxia: But the mischief was, an old dotard, called Eutyches, came into the field to sow an heresy, holding the body of our Lord, after the union with the Word, was no more of the same nature that ours are, but that the humanity was wholly dissolved into the Divinity. The hypocrite so covered his opinion, that he shown not to teach this doctrine, but for the reverence he bore to the Son of God. This became a stumbling-block to many good souls. As he advanced this proposition, the Bishops opposed to suppress it, and he for a shelter cast himself into the arms of Chrysaphius, who not contented to embrace this business with all fervour, embarketh likewise therein the Emperor Theodosius and Eudoxia his wife, first through great simplicity, afterward by a strange unhappiness, which almost brought them to destruction, if the Divine goodness had not otherwise disposed. Theodosius, the holy and pious Emperor, persecuted the Religious and Saints. He wrote to Pope Leo in favour of Eutyches, he caused false Counsels to be held, and covered the seditious under the protection of his arms, even to the authorising the attempt committed on the person of the good Patriarch Flavianus by express letters. What doth not a playstered sanctity for the subversion of the simple? What doth not a bad servant, when once he possesseth the easy nature of his Master?  
Pulcheria, who some years before had seen the heresy of Nestorius to arise, and had partly stifled it when she was in the manage of affairs, by her excellent direction, never was deceived in the choice of a side, but most constantly tied herself to the doctrine 
Great prudence to stick to Altars and the true Church.  of the See Apostolic. That gave a particular benediction to all her erterprises, and made her sway in the people's hearts, as she caused true religion to flourish on Altars. All the Eastern and Western Clergy esteemed her, and lent their assistance to maintain her authority, which was no little support. All those who have sought to strike these Powers, have therein lost their endeavours. And very well Aristobulus King of the Jews, one of the greatest Statesmen who had governed that Kingdom, being upon his deathbed, freely confessed, the foulest fault he had ever committed in matter of policy, was, to have opposed the Pharisees, who then had lawful authority over affairs of Religion; and gave his wife Alexandra counsel to practise and hold good intelligence with them by all possible means. The very same which he advised out of reason of State, Pulcheria practised by consideration of piety, and ever held herself firm on the rock of S. Peter, as it it is said, the mothers of pearl fix themselves to rocks during the tempest. If the wicked Eutyches had appeared in her time, she had consumed his heresy as the ice of one night under the rays of the Sun; but it was then the kingdom of darkness. Chrysaphius perpetually besieged the ears and heart of the Emperor Theodosius, disguising all affairs to him, according to the sway of his own passion. He drew along with him the good Eudoxia, who became too curiously intelligent in matter of religion, and lost herself to follow rather the aims of her pregnant wit, than the tracks of holy humility, more agreeing to her sex.  
Pulcheria, who understood all this goodly business, was much perplexed to see her brother and sister in law, after they had shaken off the yoke of her good precepts, to fall into a little apostasy: and not being able to get access to talk with them, she made the apple of her weeping eyes speak to God in continual prayers. She wrote to Rome, sometime to the Emperor Valentinian her cousin, sometime to Eudoxia the Younger, his wife, daughter of our Eudoxia, sometime to Pope Leo himself, soliciting them for the reduction of these poor wandering sheep: she every where disposed squadrons of religious persons, to force God with the arms of prayers. All the powers of Heaven and earth conspired at that time: The battery was strong enough to move a heart that never yet was obdurate.  
In the end Theodosius awakened, as out of a long 
Theodosius awakened.  sleep, opened his eyes, and with horror saw the precipice, whereinto he was ready to fall. He detesteth the disastrous Eutyches, and leaveth him to the censures of the Church. Pulcheria four years after her banishment, returned in triumph to the Court, with the general applause of all sorts. Her first care was to seize on the person of Chrysaphius, and by form of justice to send him into the other world, that he might no longer trouble this, wherein she shown, that living otherwise as a be in the delights of virginity, she had not so much honey, but withal a sting.  
The poor Eudoxia well perceived her Mistress was returned, and her heart bled to behold this change. She no longer remembered the condition of Athenais, and she who before would not be but under the feet of Pulcheria, could not endure her now by her sides. It is a strange thing, how the air of the Court doth, as it were, necessarily breath ambition. These two pure souls, which seemed in the beginning (as an Ancient hath said) able to abide together in the eye of a needle, when they were in concord, found the whole world in their discord too little for their separation. Eudoxia, tired with the many revolutions of Court, returneth to Jerusalem, as a Pilgrim, with a great oath never to set foot again in Constantinople: and verily she had her tomb in Palestine, as we shall see anon.  
Theodorus in the collection of his history, insinuateth to us, that she never undertook this voyage till the death of the Emperor Theodosius her husband, which happened shortly after. You would have said that his good sister was come of purpose to dispose his soul for this passage. He was about fifty years 
His death.  of age, and had already ruled forty three years, with a most happy reign, had not this apple of discord been, which outrageously disturbed the peace of his Court, and steeped his life in many acerbities. That which is read most probable of his death, is, that riding a hunting at full speed, and falling from his horse, he hurt the reins of his back, so that of necessity he must be carried back to his Palace in a litter, at which time he plainly saw his last hour approached, and signed his innocent life with the seal of a death truly Christian. A Prince in all things else of a most sincere life, religious, learned, mild, courteous, patiented, in whom nothing could be blamed, but the overmuch facility of his nature, which many times made his heart of wax to be moulded in the hands of those who were nearest unto him, and this was in a manner the cause of his ruin. But it was well for him he betook himself firmly to the good counsels of his sister, who dearly loved his good, and aimed at nothing but the glory and repose of his Empire. We have here inserted his Pourtraicture and Elegy.   


IMP. F. AUGUST. THEODOSIUS MINOR   
FLAU. THEODOSIUS JUNIOR, ARCADII ET EUDOXIAE FILIUS, OCTO ANNORUM PUER ORIENTALE CEPIT IMPERIUM, ET PER ANNOS QUADRAGINTA TRES PULCHERIAE SORORIS AUSPICIIS, ARMIS ET LEGIBUS FAELL CITER ADMINISTRAVIT: PRINCEPS DE MELIORI NOTA CHRISTIANUS, VITAE INTEGERRIMAE, DIVINIS LECTIONIBUS INTENTUS, PATIENTIA ET CLEMENTIA SUPRA CAETEROS CLARUS, OBIIT CONSTANTINOPOLI ANNO CHRISTI CDLII AETATIS XLIX.  

Upon the picture of THEODOSIUS.  
A Sceptre free from pride, a goodness sweet,  
A life not feigned, but where true graces meet.  
As Zeal he for sole favour did advance,  
So Heaven his shield became, the Cross his lance.   
HE had no male issue by his wife Eudoxia, and 
Marriage of Pulcheria, and new government.  the Empire might not fall to the distaff, which seemed to invite these two Princesses, who till this day had swayed in government, to sound the retreat. But Pulcheria was become very necessary for the state, and as yet had not lost the appetite of rule. Theodosius having cast his eyes, by the advice of his Council, upon Martianus, to declare him Successor in his Empire, Pulcheria married him, only under the title of wedlock, with mutual consent of both parties to keep virginity. This woman was made to govern men and Empires. She was already fifty years old, and had managed the State about thirty seven. Behold she beginneth a new reign, with the best man of the world, who only had the name of a husband, and in effect served and respected her with as much regard and humility, as if he had been her own son. She could not in the world have made a better choice. This great man was naturally inclined to piety, justice, compassion towards the necessities of mankind. He was very valiant, for he 
Marvellous accident of Martian●s.  had all his life time been bred among arms, and during his Empire no barbarous Nation durst stir, so much was he feared. It was a wonder by what bias God led him directly to the height of worldly honours. He was of base extraction, a Thracian born, of a good wit, and a body very robustious, which made him find a sweetness in war. He going to Philippolis to be enroled in the list of soldiers, by chance it happened he found a dead body upon the way, newly massacred. This good man, who was very compassionate, had pity thereon, and approached to give it burial; but this charity was like to have cost him his life: for being busily employed to enterre this body, one laid hold on his throat, as if he had been the murderer, and that he made this grave for no other intention but to bury his own guilt. The poor man defendeth himself in his innocency as well as he could, but conjectures prevail beyond his defence: He was now under the sword of the executioner, when by good hap the homicide was produced, who had done the deed, convicted by his own confession. This man thrust his head into the place of the innocent, and Martianus brought his away to behold it one day glitter under the rubies and diamonds of the Imperial Crown. This was not without long trials of his ability, which transferred him from degree to degree, through all the hazards of a long and painful warfare. He was then mature in years, in account one of the greatest Captains of the Empire. Behold why Pulcheria could not be deceived in her choice. This good husband, who held his wife as a Saint, was wholly directed by her counsels, and she daily purified his soul in religion and policy: He became in short time so brave and perfect in this school, that he was accounted one of the most accomplished Emperors who had born the sceptre since Constantine. God well shown his 
Good success of Martianus.  love and faithful protection towards Martianus, when in the second year of his Empire, he diverted the furious Attila from the East, who even now roared over the City of Constantinople, as a thunderstroke before it broke in shivers.  
This Attila was a Scythian, a great Captain, who promised to himself the Empire of the world, and for that cause had taken the field with an Army of 700000. men, composed of strange and hideous Nations, who had gone out of their country like a scum of the earth, ranging themselves under the conduct of Attila, for the great experience he had in the manage of arms. He notwithstanding was a little man, harsh, violent, his breast large, his head great, the eye of a Pismeer, his nose flat, his beard close shaved, beginning already to wax grisled. He walked with so much state as if he thought the earth had been unworthy to bear him, and ●●ough merely barbarous, the desire of honour so possessed him, that being one day at Milan, and seeing pictures, where the Roman Emperors were represented, who had Scythians, his Countrymen, cast at their feet, was so enraged, that instantly he sent for a painter, and caused himself to be drawn, in a very eminent golden throne, and clothed in royal robes, and the Emperors of Rome and Constantinople bearing bags on their shoulders filled with crowns, than made them to be poured at his feet, alluding hereby to the vast sums of money he in good earnest extorted from the Empire, and which Theodosius gave him afterwards to divert the course of his arms; thinking that speedily to dispatch such an enemy out of his territories, it was only fit to make for him a bridge of silver. This man seemed created to shake the pillars of the earth, and for that cause made himself to be called The scourge of God. There was no infant so little, in the arms of the nurse, who hearing Attilas named, did not think he saw a wolf. He considering that Martianus, a most valiant man, at that time swayed the Eastern Empire, durst not come near, but hastened to fall upon the West, where Valentinian the Younger reigned, son of Honorius, cousin of Theodosius and Pulcheria, a wanton and dissolute Prince, as you shall understand in the course of this history, losing his life and Empire by his sensuality. So it was that Attila, attempting first upon the Gauls, found work enough; for the Romans, French, and Goths (not unlike dogs, who after they have worried one another, rally themselves together to resist the wolf) by a common consent, heartened each other under the conduct of Aetius, Moroneus, and Thyerry, against this Barbarian, and having given him battle, defeated one part of his army in the Catalonian plains: but he failed not to pack a way, creeping along like a great serpent, which loaden with redoubled blows given by peasants, hath received a maim in his body, and notwithstanding saved his head.  
God, who derideth the proud, and in his Amphitheatre is pleased to make, not Lions to fight with bulls, but the weakness of the earth against the most insolent greatness, reserved the conquest of this monster to Religious persons and women. It is a wonder, he coming to Rome as to the period and butt of his ambitions, all inflamed with great desires, in this clattering of harness, and loud noise of Armies, all the world trembling under the scourge, the brave Pope. S. Leo went out to seek him, and preached so well unto him, that being come thither as a lion, he returned as a lamb: for Attila entertained him with marvellous respect. So had he done before to S. Lupus, Bishop of Troy's, granting him whatsoever he could desire. All his Captains were much amazed. for among other titles, this Hun had the name of being inexorable to suppliants; and it then being curiously asked of him, who made him at that time lose his fury, he confessed he saw a venerable person by Leo's side (it was the great Saint Peter) who threatened him with death, if he condescended not to what the good Pope desired of him.  
Attila then leaveth Italy and passeth into Sclavonia, without being wished for again but by one sole woman. Alas! who would believe it? Honoria sister of the Emperor, cousin german to Pulcheria, fell in love with this monster. I know not what she had seen in his picture, which commonly was painted with the horns of a bull on his forehead: it was not in my opinion his fair eyes, nor goodly nose, which made him sought after, for he was one of the most deformed creatures of the world: Yet he notwithstanding was reputed a great Captain and a puissant King. This blind Princess so breathed the air of ambition, that though he were wholly Pagan and hideous, she no whit was affrighted: for verily her passion was so much enkindled, that she secretly dispatched one of her Eunuches with express letters, beseeching Attila he would demand her in marriage of the Emperor her brother, and she should account it a great honour to be his wife. This Scythian entered into a much greater estimation of his own worth than ever, beholding himself sued unto by a Roman Lady of noble extraction, and thereupon grew so eager, that he immediately addresseth an Ambassador to the Emperor Valentinian, to require his sister of him in marriage, and the moiety of his Kingdom; otherwise he was not gone back so far, but he would return with his Army to enforce his obedience.  
All the world was now strucken with terror, when by good chance he saw himself, for some pressing occasions, engaged to return into his Country, where all these lightnings were quickly turned into a shower of blood. After he had sweat under harness, like another Hannibal, who in the end of his conquests was bruitishly besotted in the bosom of a Capuan Lady, this haughty King of Huns, as soon as he came into his Country, wholly engulphed himself in wine and love. Besides a great rabble of creatures which he had to satisfy his lust, he became in his old days passionately enamoured of a gentlewoman named Hildecon, whom he married with sports, feasts, and excessive alacrity. That evening, after he had freely drunk, according to his custom, he retired into his nuptial chamber with his new spouse, and the next morning was found dead in his bed, floating in a river of blood, who had drawn blood from all the veins of the world.  
Some said it was an eruption of blood, which 
Death of Attila.  choked him, but others thought Hildecon, lead thereunto one knoweth not by what spirit, nor by whom solicited, handled her pretended husband as Judith did Holofernes. Behold how God punisheth the proud. A despicable dwarf, who commanded over 700000. men, who foraged every where, environed as with a brazen wall, who boasted in the lightnings of his puissant arms, who razed Cities all smoking in blood and flames, who wasted Provinces, who destroyed Empires, who would not tread but on Crowns and Sceptres, behold him the very night of his nuptials, full of drink, massacred by a woman, having not so much as the honour to die by the hand of a man.  
The same night that Attila yielded up the ghost in his own blood, our Saviour appeared in a dream to the good Emperor Martianus, and showing him a great bow all shivered in pieces, saith: Martianus, behold the bow of Attila which I have broken; thou hast no further cause to fear thy Empire. Thus you see, how God fighteth for the pious even while they sleep.  
This scourge being so fortunately diverted, Martianus and Pulcheria attended with all their power to the consolation and ornament of the universal Church, under the direction of the great Pope Saint Leo, whom their Majesty's most punctually obeyed. At that time were seen the relics to march in triumph into Constantinople, of the good Patriarch Flavianus, massacred by the practices of heretics; at that time the exiled Bishops were with honour reestablished in their seats: At that time the Council of Chalcedon was celebrated, where the Emperor Martianus, though wholly a soldier, made an Oration, first in Latin for the honour of the Roman Church, then in Greek his natural language. At that time heresy was fully condemned, and impudence surcharged with confusion: At that time an infinite number of goodly Canons were confirmed by the Council, and strongly maintained by the authority of the Emperor: At that time justice was fixed in the height of perfection. Briefly, at that time the whole world was infinitely comforted by the good order and liberalities of this holy Court.  
It was an admirable Empire, and a happy marriage, and nothing could be desired more in this match but immortality. But the holy Virgin Pulcheria being about fifty years of age, not so much loaden with years as merits, wearied out with continual travel and care, which she had endured almost forty years in the manage of affairs, found her repose in exchange of the Court of Constantinople for that of Paradise. She died in a most pure virginity, which she carefully had preserved all her life time, leaving the poor for her heirs, who were her delight, after she had built in her own life time five Churches, and among the rest, one to the honour of the most Blessed Virgin Marie, which surpasseth all the other in magnificence, besides many hospitals and sepulchers for pilgrims. Torches made of aromatic wood, cast out their odoriferous exhalations when they are almost wasted; and the virtuous Pulcheria made all the good odours of her life evaporate in the last instant of her death. She who had lived as the Bee in the tasteful sweetness of purity, died as the Phoenix in the Palms, not of Arabia, but of conquests, which she had obtained over the enemies of our nature. We have here annexed her Picture and Elegy.   


AUGUSTA AEL PULCHERIA   
PULCHERIA FLA. THEODOSII JUNIORIS SOROR AUGUSTA, VIRGO ET CONJUX, AUGUSTORUM FILIA, SOROR NEPTIS, UXOR; PROPUGNATRIX PONTIFICUM, MAGISTRA IMPERATORUM, CUSTOS FIDEI, MUNIMEN ORTHODOXORUM, ECCLESIAE ET IMPERII DECUS, NOVA HELENA, NOWM ORBIS MIRACULUM, ANNO CHRISTI CLIII. AETATIS LV. IMPERII XXXIX. AD COELESTEM AULAM PROFICISCITUR.  

Upon the picture of PULCHERIA.  
A Golden Virgin in an iron Age,  
Who trampled under foot infernal rage,  
A barren wife, a fruitful maid, unstained,  
That all the world within her heart contained:  
Mother of people, Mistress over Kings, brings.  
And who 'twixt Church and Law firm union  
She in herself bright Sceptres did behold  
Joined to the Cross, Altars to Crowns of gold,  
The married life unto virginity,  
And glorious greatness to humility.  
If virtue were a substance to be seen,  
Well might we here suppose this happy Queen  
Should lend her body, that it outward may  
Resplendent lustre to the world display.   
Greatones may here behold, the shortest way to the Temple of Honour, is to pass by that of Virtue. Never woman was more honoured in her life, never woman more glorious in her death. That great Pope S. Leo, S. Cyril, and all the excellent men both of the East and West, have employed their pens in her honour. So magnificent and noble acclamations were made to her in Counsels, that nothing would be wished more glorious. A little before her death in the Council of Chalcedon, they cried out, Long live the Empress most Sacred, Long live PULCHERIA, Long live the Second S. Helena: God preserve the Saint, Preserve the Orthodox, Preserve Her who is the Guardian of Faith;  
What trophies of Alexander's and Caesars are comparable to such honour? Raderus, who hath learnedly written her life, maketh a collection of her titles, and calleth her the holy Pulcheria, ever a virgin, always sacred; a virgin out of marriage, a virgin in marriage; daughter of an Emperor, wife of an Emperor, Mistress of Emperors, Protectress of Popes, Guardian of faith, Bulwark of the faithful, Honour of the Church, Glory of the Empire, the new Helena, the new Miracle of the world, the new Example for posterity. The titles which Saints have given her, and her name in the quality of a Saint, have been couched in the Menologe of the Grecians and the Roman martyrologue, the 10th September, a month wherein she passed from this world to the glory of Saints, in the year of our Lord 453. And Martianus her husband being not able to live without this celestial soul, fled quickly hence after her, to enjoy the recompense of his piety. Of whom behold here the Picture and Elegy.   


P. F. AUG. IMP. MARCIANUS   
FL. VALERIUS MARTIANUS, SOLA VIRTUTUM COMMENDATIONE AD IMPERIUM EVECTUS, PULCHERIAE CONJUGIS INTEGRAE INTEGER CONJUX, MODERATUS DOMI PRINCEPS, FORIS ATTILAE FURORI MODUM IMPOSUIT: QUASSATUM IMPERIUM CONTRA PARTHOS ET VANDALOS CONFIRMAVIT PRUDENTIA, ET ORTHODOXAM FIDEM ADVERSUS EUTY CHEN TUTATUS EST FIDE: VIXIT AETATI SATIS, IMPERIO PARUM, SIBI SEMPER VICTURUS OBIIT ANNO CHRISTI CDLII. IMPERIO VI MENS. VI  

Upon the picture of MARTIANUS.  
A Man without estate, Soldier untrained,  
Husband not wived, an Emperor unstained:  
Whose strength, triumphant acts, and virtues bright,  
We may his proper children call aright.  
What did he not, since in himself he made  
No change, but to a Sceptre from the spade?   
LEt us return now to our pilgrim Eudoxia, who 
Eudoxia lived in the holy land in the Eutychian heresy.  lived in the holy land, not being in the way of sanctity. A woman endowed with a goodly body and a fair spirit, hath the charge of a vessel very hard to be steered; more of such suffer shipwreck than reach the Haven. The good Princess departed from Constantinople in grief, gall, and anxiety, which proceeded from the change of her fortune, and that which is more, seduced also with the heresy of the wicked Eutyches. Theodosius her husband yielded at the first encounter, and submitted under the obedience of the Church: Eudoxia still persisted, so apt the nature of women is to maintain an error with obstinacy. She had but too much wit to be deceived, and yet not prudence enough to discover the deceit. A wolf clothed in the skin of a sheep, that is to say, one Theodosius, a false Monk, who had gained her under appearance of sanctity, and much wrought upon her during her abode in Palestine, wholly plunged her in the mire of heresy, which she supported in his favour, and endeavoured to illustrate by the subtility of her wit.  
How was it possible but this heresy of Eutyches, masked with the false zeal of reverence towards the Person of the Son of God, might not ensnare a woman, very easy to take impressions, which had semblance of devotion, since even divers holy Hermits, who numbered many years in austerities and penance, before they were well informed, suffered themselves to be transported with this novelty? Among others the great Gerasimus was seen to fall; that Angel of the desert, who tamed Lions and used them as Mules, was beheld involved in the snares of this infamous Apostata, from whom he afterward freed himself by the mercy of God. It was a lamentable thing to see this poor Empress, who had forsaken all the greatness of Court, to live in retired solitariness, thus caught in the nets of her own judgement. She thought daily to amass infinite heaps of good works in the exercises of piety, which she incessantly practised, and it was but dust she bore in her hands, blown away by the wind of presumption. God would not lose this fair soul, which he had enchased in a beauteous body, to make her in the end of her days, an exact miracle of virtue; and as she kicked somewhat too eagerly against so many testimonies of verity, he resolved to break this feminine pride with the iron rod of another very sensible affliction. 
Eudoxia's affliction in her daughter.  She was then in her own opinion out of the danger of inconstancy, but had still one part of herself upon the Imperial Throne, who received all the violence of the storm, to make the effects thereof pass into her heart by the painful counterbuff of a love, which could not be renounced without a petty apostasy in nature.  
Eudoxia her only daughter, inheritrix of the name 
Strange disorders in the Roman Empire.  and beauty of her mother, was married to Valentinian Emperor of Rome, to be the subject of a woeful tragedy, and to make posterity behold, that too eminent greatness is often ruined with thunder. This Valentinian sister's son of the Emperor Honorius, cousin of Theodosius, not being able to content himself with the springs of his own house (according to the proverb) and repose himself in the beauty of a Princess so accomplished, as he in lawful wedlock had espoused, daily went a hunting after change in the infinity of forbidden loves. The sensuality of this 
Lust ruineth Empires.  Prince so much displeased God, that for this vice he ruined in his person this great Roman Empire, which so many times had caused her victorious chariots, loaden with Palms and Laurels, to pass over the heads of the Kings and Monarches of the world, so often had it been shaken, and so many times established by concussion; needs must a wicked sin of luxury interpose irrecoverably to entomb it.  
The Emperor than beholdeth with a wanton eye the wife of an eminent Senator, named Maximus, and seeing this Lady was honest and loyal to her husband he thought her a bird not easily caught. Behold he resolveth to try all the privileges of his power, and break all the bands of equity to give vent to his passion. What doth he? Behold he inviteth Maximus to a sumptuous and royal banquet, which he had prepared, miserable man! who knew not this feast was a snare laid to entrap the honour of his wife. After supper Valentinian inviteth him to play, under the colour of passing away the time, which he most willingly did, and so heateth him in game, that after he had lost all, he gageth down the ring off his finger, wherewith he used to seal his letters. Valentinian won it, greatly rejoicing, not so much for the value of the gem in it, which was of great price, as to have found a passage to his treacherous design. He presently dispatcheth a gentleman with this ring, who bare news to the Lady, that her husband sent for her to the Palace to salute the Emperor. This was a very well coloured pretext: Notwithstanding it cast most strong apprehensions into the soul of his Lady, who too well knew the deportments of this Prince. But considering this precious pledge of her husband, held for an undoubted earnest-penny of his command; she goeth, and consecrateth all the difficulties which she conceived, to the obedience towards her Lord. The poor Lady was no sooner arrived, but was ravished and violated, to satisfy the brutish lust of a man, more drunk with love than wine.  
The Palace of a Christian Emperor, which should be a Sanctuary for the chastity of Ladies, is by an act, black and villainous, defiled. The chaste turtle, who would not survive her honour, as soon as she returneth to her lodging, exclaimeth against her husband with outrageous words, thinking he had consented to this disaster. Go (saith she to him) ingrateful and unnatural man as thou are, to prostitute the honour of thy wife to the bruitishness of a Prince, abandoned by God and men: dost thou not yet feel the executioners of thy conscience, which reproach thee with thy crime? Maximus, much amazed at such words, What is the matter, or where have you been, foolish woman? saith he. She showing the ring, Dost not thou yet acknowledge thy disloyalty, silly and perfidious man? behold that which will accuse thee before God. He, as she began to unfold herself, too soon found his own shame, enjoineth her to silence and dissimulation, and hath no vein in him which tendeth not to vengeance.  
Valentinian had a brave and valiant Captain, who supported the whole Empire: this was Aetius, very lately adorned with the spoils of Attila, whom he in a pitched battle had vanquished. Maximus thought he must ruinated this pillar to make the whole house to fall, and therein was not deceived. But being a man full of craft; so dissembleth what was past concerning his wife, as if it had never come to his knowledge, only he endeavoureth to gain the good opinion of a powerful Eunuch, named Heraclius, who was the Emperor's instrument, and having already gotten him at his devotion, suggesteth to him in great secret, he had learned from a good hand, that Aetius, Lieutenant General of the Emperor, was much puffed up with the victory he obtained against Attila, and that he on all sides practised confederacies both within and without the Kingdom, to make himself absolute Master of all; that under the shadow of entertaining the French and Goths in good correspondence with the Empire, he purchased them for his own service with the Emperor's revenues, and that nothing remained for him but to set the Diadem upon his own head, which quickly he would do, were he not with all speed prevented. Heraclius faileth not roundly to relate all this to his Master, who was already stirred with jealousy towards Aetius, seeing his fortune took so high a flight, that it seemed to mount above wind and tempest. Valentinian, a hair-braind Prince, perpetually drunk with lust and choler, without any further inquisition sendeth for Aetius to the Palace, and with enraged passion, How (saith he) Traitor, is it thou who undertakest to bereave me of the Crown? and saying that, taketh out a poniard which he had in his bosom, and killed him with his own hand. An act both bold and barbarous.  
The poor Aetius, who had born the brunt of an Army of seven hundred thousand men, who first confronted a man that shaken the pillars of all Empires, who returned from the Gauls amply loaden with victorious Palms, one of the most glorious Captains that ever was, at that time shown at Rome as a prodigy of valour, fell dead as a sacrifice at the feet of his Master, receiving by the just judgement of God, that entertainment he before had given to Bonifacius the great Governor of Africa. Valentinian, as if he had acted a Masterpiece, went presently to one of his wisest Counselors to boast thereof, ask of him if he had not well played his prize The other replieth: Sacred Majesty, if you had taken a hatchet with your right hand, and cut off your left arm in stead of giving this accursed blow, you had not done so ill. And I believe you too soon will feel the loss you have received. These words were not without effect, for the death of Aetius being presently after divulged, it put the soldiers into fury, who loved him as a brave and valiant Captain, under whose standard they had given so ample testimonies of their worth. Two of the most hardy of them, Ostias and Transtilas, after they had massacred the Eunuch Heraclius, assailed the person of the Emperor, who was at that time in the field of Mars, and desperately murdered him, it being impossible to free himself from their hands, God permitting this in revenge of the murder lately committed, and so many adulteries wherewith this miserable Prince, degenerating from the blood of Theodosius, was polluted.  
Maximus, who cast the stone, and afterward withdrew his arm, causing all this tragedy to be acted to his own advantage, after the death of Valentinian, as being most eminent, obtained the Empire with little resistance, and his wife during these erterprises being dead (perhaps through discontent for her own disaster) seeketh the marriage of the Empress Eudoxia, wife of Valentinian and daughter of our Athenais. The poor Princess drenched in a deluge of sorrow for the death of the Emperor her husband, showed in the beginning to be deaf in this motion of marriage: but as the spirits of women are mutable and soothed with glory, in few days forgetting death, she resolveth to live among the living, and for accommodation of her affairs, weddeth Maximus. Behold him in a short time in the Throne and bed of his Master, revenging himself of one wickedness by another much more execrable. But vice in greatness hath ever a staggering foot. Maximus was no sooner entered into the Palace, but his head ached, and the remorse of conscience distracted him: His most trusty friends heard him sighing say, he esteemed that ancient Damocles happy, who was a King but the space of a dinner-while; so much already was he disquieted with the Empire, as if he had soreseen his own catastrophe. It chanced one day this unhappy man, familiarly discoursing with his new spouse, let a word escape him, which cost him his life: for to give her a great token of his affection, he confessed himself to have intermeddled in the design of Valentinian his death, not so much for the desire of the Empire, as of her beauty. Eudoxia was strucken with strange horror at these words not supposing her first husband had been deprived of life and sceptre by his practices, and therefore resolving to be revenged, she covereth her plot with dissimulation, and bendeth all her powers to content his humour. She saw how her mother had been used at Constantinople, so that from thence probably she could expect no succour. The fury of revenge transported her to an 
Wicked revenge of a woman.  act very hazardous, which was to call Gensericus King of the Wandals, in sect an Arian, reigning in dffrick, to make a voyage into Italy, which he did with a huge Army, by means whereof he easily possessed himself of Rome, where all was in disorder: And as he thither came, rather led by his unquencheable avarice than any motive of justice or piety, he riffled all that which was rich and excellent, even to the treasures of the Temple of Jerusalem, whereof some had still been preserved at Rome, ever since Vespasian. Maximus, after he had reigned two months, is knocked down and rend like a sacrifice. He who in all charges had well thrived with honesty, when he began to practise treachery, found that which a great Prelate had said 
Sidon. Apol. lib. 3. Ep. 13.  scorpius ultimâ parte percutis.  in his history, That great men's fortunes like scorpion's carry their venom in their tails.  
The Empress Eudoxia, who to satisfy her feminine passion, had made all this goodly innovation, in the sight of the great Pope S. Leo, who was spectator of all these calamities, mended not her market: for she with her two daughters, were by this Barbarian carried into afric, one of which bore her name, and was married to the son of Gensericus, who afterward possessed the sceptre: and the other was Placidia, sent in the end with her mother to Constantinople, after the death of Martianus. Behold terrible accidents.  
Eudoxia our pilgrim, after recital made to her of 
Conversion of Eudoxia.  all this tragedy, be 'gan seriously to open her eyes, and laying her hand just upon the wound, acknowledged so many disasters had befallen her, for that she had strayed from the true faith. Thereupon to settle her wavering spirit, she deputeth an Ambassador to holy Simeon Stilites, near the City of Antioch.  
This Simeon was a prodigy of man, who lived in a 
Stilites.  body as if he had been but a spirit. For figure to yourself a pillar forty foot high, and on this pillar some little shroud fixed there as a birds nest, open and exposed on all sides to the injuries of weather; there this great man, to raise his body to God as well as his heart, placed his abode. It was a strange lodging, where he could neither lie nor sit in any fashion, but ever stood bolt upright, without roof, without coverture, his hairs being somewhat whitened with snow, and his beard full of ysicles, sometime roasted with the boiling heats of the Sun, and in the midst of all this he passed his days and nights in contemplation, eating but once a week, and that very sparingly.  
To this famous Hermit then, who was the Oracle of Christendom, Eudoxia sendeth Anastatius, a trusty Bishop, who in much secrecy laboured her conversion, to consult with him upon doubts of faith. Simeon answereth in these terms:  
Poor Princess, the malice of the evil spirit, who saw the great treasures of thy rare virtues, would needs winnow and sift thee. Theodosius the false Monk, a minister of Satan, hath corrupted thy fair and glorious soul. But courage, my Daughter, thou shalt die in the true faith, consult no more with me, thou seekest water far off, having the fountain near at hand. It he hoveth to address thee to Euthymius, who will serve as thy director in a happy way.  
This answer being related to Eudoxia, she caused this Euthymius to be sought out on all sides, who should undertake this business. He was a venerable Hermit, having become hoary in the exercises of a long penance, and one who was hard to be found out, so much he avoided light and the conversation of men. Notwithstanding God permitted him to be found, and brought, as it were by force, to the place where the good Empress was. She seeing this blessed old man, prostrated herself at his feet, saying: Father, I have lived long enough, since I have the honour to behold you, it is from your hand I expect the remedy of all my evils. The holy man raising her with much sweetness, Daughter (saith he) the evil spirit hath too much abused your credulity: It is time you open your eyes to see the scourges of God. All your ills have proceeded of nothing but infidelity. And if now you desire to be cured, there is but one word: Stand no longer upon disputation, but follow the Counsels of Nice and Constantinople. Behold the rule of your faith, which you shall learn of John Bishop of Jerusalem.  
Euthymius, after he had thus spoken to her, returneth to his Cell, and she goeth directly to the Temple of Jerusalem, attended by an infinite number of Religious, lifting their hands to Heaven in thanksgiving for this conversion. She abjureth the heresy of Eutyches, between the hands of the Bishop, and absolutely reconcileth herself to the Catholic Church, with so much fervour and zeal, that she ceased not all the rest of her days to extirpate impiety, & amplify the church in all parts of the East where her power extended.  
The good Empress than led a life wholly celestial, 
Worthy life, and glorious death of Eudoxia.  her soul being purged in the furnace of painful tribulation, afterward purified more and more in the love of God, held not of the body but by a slender thread. Her heart was an incense, daily dissolved into the flames of her charity, sending to Heaven its fragrant exhalations Her two eyes were the conduits, by which penance with a powerful expression, distilled tears, which are as the nectar of the love of God; her hands like those of the Spouse, true globes of gold, replenished with an ocean of bounty, poured through the cities and deserts of Palestine. In every place nothing was to be seen but Churches and Hospitals, but houses for the poor built at her cost; so that an Author named Cyrillus, who lived in her time, assureth, it was a thing impossible to number them, God being willing to dispose her passage out of this life by the exercise of so many good works. And being upon the confines of her last year, she went to visit a magnificent Church of S. Peter, which she had founded, and one day reposing near to a cistern, where she laboured for the good of the said Church, she began to cast her eyes upon a great number of Monasteries, all near one to another, which were in the charge of her good father Euthymius, then fetching a deep affectionate sigh, she spoke these words of the 24. Numeri: O Jacob, 
Numb. 24. Quam pulchra sunt tentoria tua, O Jacob, habitationes tuae, O Israel  how fair are thy pavilions! O Israel, how excellent thy tabernacles! Then turning herself to a gentleman of her train, Go (saith she) seek out Euthymius, and entreat him to do me the honour, that I once again may speak to him. If he shall say, he speaketh not with women, tell him I no longer know what sex is, and that I converse only with Angels. Euthymius in his cell had by revelation, that this Saint should quickly pass to a better life, and he came directly to bring her the news thereof. The Empress saluted him very courteously, and disposed her heart to speak to him touching a certain sum of money, she desired to give for the entertainment of his Monks: but the good man divining the thoughts of her heart, saith to her: Madam, trouble not yourself for this money, there are other affairs which more concern you: know, you very shortly must departed out of this world, and now you ought to have but one care, which is to entertain your soul in that state you desire it should part out of this life. Eudoxia at the first was amazed at this discourse. It seemeth souls (as Plato saith) go not but with grief out of fair bodies, but this was too much disengaged to do in the end of those days any unresigned act. After she had a long time talked to Euthymius, as one would with Angels, she gave him the last adieu, full of hope to see him at the Rendez-vous of all good men. Returning into jerusalem, she had no other care but to set a seal upon all her good works, then distributing whatsoever she had to the poor, she expected the stroke of death freely, and resignedly: her soul was taken out of her body throughly ripened for Heaven, as fruit which only expects the hand of the Master to gather it. She was about threescore years of age, having survived Theodosius her husband, and Pulcheria, Flaccilla, Marina, Arcadia; for all of them went before her into the other world: she was married at twenty years of age, she spent twenty nine in Court, and as it were eleven in Jerusalem: she deceased in the year of our Lord 459. the 21. year of Pope Leo, and the 4. of the Emperor Leo, Successor of Martianus. A woman very miraculous among women, who seemeth so much to have transcended the ordinary of her sex, as men surpass beasts. More than an Age is required, ere nature can produce such creatures. They are born as the Phoenix, from five hundred to five hundred year, yea much more rare. A great beauty, great wit, great fortune, a great virtue, great combats, great victories; to be born in a poor cottage, as a snail in his shell, and issue out to show itself upon the throne of an Empire, and die in an hermitage! all is great, all is admirable in this Princess: But nothing more great, nothing more admirable, than to behold a golden vessel, with sails of linen, and cordage of silk, counterbuffed by so many storms, over whelmed, and even accounted as lost, in the end happily to arrive at the haven. Behold her Potraicture and Elegy.   


AUGUSTA EUDOXIA   
EUDOXIA AUGUSTA, THEODOSII JUNIORIS CONJUX, EX HUMILI FORTUNA IN MAGNUM IMPERIUM TRANSCRIPTA, SCEPTRUM VIRTUTIBUS SUPERAVIT, CELESTIS INSTAR PRODIGII FOEMINA, INGENIO, FORMA, VITA, SCRIPTIS, ET RELIGIONE CLARISSIMA: CUM VICENIS NUPTA ANNOS XXIX EGISSET IN IMPERIO, ET UNDECIM FARM IN PALESTINA, HIEROSOLIMIS RELIGIOSISSIMO EXITU VITAM CLAUSIT ANNO CHRISTI CDLX, AETATIS LIX.  

Upon the picture of EUDOXIA.  
Fortune unparallelled, beauty her own,  
A spirit that admits no Paragon.  
Divine, immense, although it seem to be,  
'Twas but the Temple of the Deity.   
HEr example drew an infinite number of great Ladies, to contempt of pleasures and vanities of Court, to seek the Temple of repose in the deserts of the holy Land. Among others Queen Eudoxia her Grandchild, who as we have said, was married into afric, treading the world under foot with a generous resolution, came with her Crown to do homage at the tomb of her Grandmother, kissed her ashes, as of a holy Empress, and was so ravished with the many monuments of virtue she had erected in the holy Land, that there she would pass the residue of her days, and choose her tomb at the foot of that from whence she derived her blood and name.  
It is a great loss to us, that the learned books written by this Royal hand have been scattered; for those varieties of Homer, which are extant, are not Eudoxia's. Photius, much more subtle than Zonaras, to judge of the works of antiquity, maketh no mention thereof in the recital of the writings of this divine spirit, but of her Octoteuch, which he witnesseth to be a worthy, heroic, and admirable piece. Behold that which is most remarkable in the Court of Theodosius.  
And verily, for as much as concerneth the person of the Emperor, he did enough to make himself a Saint, by living so mortified in his passions, in the delights of a flourishing Court. It is a mere bruitishness, a very plague of man's soul, to make no account of Princes, but of certain braggarts, vain, brainsick, and turbulent spirits, who fill histories with vainglorious bravadoes, whoredoms, murders, and treacheries: these are they, of whom the spirit of flesh, (an enemy of God) proclaimeth false praises, and such an one seemeth to himself sufficiently great, when there appeareth a power in him to do ill. A calm spirit, united, docible, temperate, though he have not so many gifts of nature, is a thousand times to be preferred before these vainglorious and audacious, who are only wise in their own opinion, valiant in rashness, happy in vice, and great in the imagination of fools. It is good to have the piety of Theodosius, and to let overmuch facility work in praying, and pray in working; to have the beak and plumage of an Eagle, and the mildness of a Dove; to lay the hide of a Lion at the feet of the Stature of piety.  
As for Pulcheria, she was the mirror of perfection among the great Princesses of the earth, yet not without her spots, but still giving water to wash them away. And for Eudoxia, you find in her what to take, what to leave, many things to imitate, few to reject, but an infinite number to admire. Behold in the end the Fortunate Piety, which I have set before your eyes as a golden statue, not only to behold it in passing by, but to gild your manners with the rays, and adorn your greatness with the glory thereof.  
Who will not admire the prosperity of the Empire of Constantinople, in the manage of Theodosius, of Pulcheria, of Martianus, under the rule of piety, and not say, Behold the world, which trembleth in all the parts thereof, under the prodigious armies of Barbarians, who seem desirous to rend the earth, and wholly carry it away in fire and blood from the centre? Behold the Roman Empire, which hath trodden under foot all Sceptres and Crowns of the earth, ruined, dismembred, torn in a thousand pieces in the hands of a vicious Emperor, who buried it under the shivers of his Sceptre: and behold on the other side, God, who preserveth his Theodosius, his Pulcheria, his Martianus, among these formidable inundations, which cast all the world into a deluge, as heretofore he did No in the revengeful waters, which poured down from Heaven to drown the impurities of the earth. What nurse was ever so careful to drive a fly from the face of her little infant while it slept, as the Providence of God shown itself affectionate in the conservation of these elevated souls?  
Observe the persons precisely, and consider each in particular: What happiness in the Empress Eudoxia, whilst she laboureth for the glory of Altars: God gave the heart of her husband into her hands, the world in honour at her feet, and a little Theodosius by her fide, who in his infancy maketh all the hopes of his mother to bud: But as soon as this poor Princess, forgetting her duty and self, contended with S, John Chrysostom, behold her cut down with the sith of death, carried away in her flower, deprived of the contentment and glory which she possessed. Behold she received a breach in her reputation, which cannot in the memory of all Ages be repaired. Her bones are in horror and dread, till such time as S. Chrysostom, banished by her commandment, and returning dead to Constantinople, came to serve as an anchor for the floating ashes of this unfortunate Empress.  
Consider this little Theodosius, who even at his birth maketh the Idols to fall, the Pagan temples to sink, and hell to howl under his feet. What glory was it to bury the remainders of Idolatry, what a trophy to extirpate under his reign so many monsters of heresies? What celestial comfort, to see in his time so many learned writings to be laid at his feet? to see so many worthy men flourish, so many Saints, as Leo's, Cyrils, Chrysostoms', Simeons' Stilites? to see the Church all garnished with stars and lights? to sway a Sceptre more than forty years in a peaceful Kingdom, among so many tempests? and which is more, to fall into some defects by sudden surprisal, and expiate them by a happy repentance? to see himself drawn by a powerful hand from the brink of a precipice, and in the end to yield up his soul in the midst of Palms and good odours of a glorious life? See you not a Fortunate Piety?  
Behold Pulcheria, as an Eagle on the top of apyramide, which ever hath her eye on the Sun, and seethe all storms broken and confounded under her feet. Was there ever a more fortunate Piety? To say that a maid at fifteen years of age, swaying Emperors and Empires, enchaining all hearts of the world, to make herself on earth a Crown, might boast to have had the Universal Church for trumpet of her praises, and from the government on earth to mount to Heaven by so happy death, born as on a Chariot of liberality and magnificence! Where may one more manifestly see the happiness of true and solid piety?  
Behold Athenais, a silly maid, who had not so much as a poor cottage for shelter, as soon as she embraceth piety, and offereth the faculties of her soul to the honour of Altars, behold her raised upon the throne of the prime Empire of the world; afterward, as she came a little to forget God, he sent her a very sharp affliction, but as soon as she hath again recourse to the arms of devotion, the cloud of calumny cast on her forehead dissevereth, the storm passeth away, and her face all glittereth in glory, and which is most admirable, God layeth hold of her even in the gulf of error, whereinto a wicked hypocrite had cast her, reconducteth her to Altars, receiveth her soul in peace, and causeth her to reign both in herself and blood in all the three parts of the world: for she held in person the Sceptre of Asia, her daughter Eudoxia was married to the Emperor of Rome, the Capital City of Europe, and her Grandchild was Queen of afric, miraculously finding a Kingdom in her own captivity. Is not this a fortunate piety?  
Add also hereunto Martianus, a poor peasant, who now had his neck under the sword of the executioner, falsely accused of a crime whereof he was innocent, and God taketh him by one hair of the head, delivereth him from shame and peril, marvellously guiding him to the government of a great Empire, giveth him innumerable prosperities, and indeed maketh him another Constantine. Ought not impiety to burst with rage, and confess that happiness, greatness, benedictions, and favours of Heaven are for piety?  
Here it may be, you will also have some remembrance of the Court of Herod, where you have seen the poor Mariam in virtue so ill entreated, and will think that piety in this creature was unfortunate. But if this thought occur, would it not condemn all the Martyrs, and all the Saints, whose lives notwithstanding we ought to judge most happy, since that vanquishing the petty misfortunes of the world she hath fallen into the bosom of felicity? Tell me, one hour of life in patience and tranquillity of soul, which this good Queen had among so many strange accidents, is it not more worth than the thirty seven years of her husband, all clouded with crimes, disturbancies, and fury? Tell me, is it not a happiness and an incomparable glory, that God would partake in persecutions with this good Princess, suffering himself by this selfsame man to be pursued, who had been the hammer of all her afflictions? Is it nothing to die in the Amphitheatre of patience, in the Theatre of honour, by the same sword, which was afterward unsheathed against Jesus Christ? Is it nothing to give up the life of a Pismeer in exchange of an immortal glory on earth, and a happy repose in Heaven.  
And if you besides desire to see her fortunate piety according to the world, is it not a blow from Heaven, to say, that all the race of Herod issued from his other wives, was unlucky, miserable, execrable, deprived of their father's Sceptre, chased away, exiled, scourged with whips from Heaven, and the grandchildren of Mariam, remained last in royal thrones? Tigranes' her Grandchild descended from Alexander, was King of Armenia, crowned by the hands of the Roman Emperors. Agrippa the Great, issued from Aristobulus, who having been fettered with an iron cain, through the cruelty of Tiberius, was sent back to his Kingdom by Caius Caesar, and honoured with a golden chain of like weight, with the same of iron wherewith he had been fettered.  
Agrippa the youngest, under whom S. Paul pleaded his cause, was preserved from the horrible sack of Jerusalem, as Lot from the flames of Sodom, and reigned in Tyberiade and Juliade, even to decrepit age.  
Berenice grandchild of Mariam, was extremely courted by the Emperor Titus, entitled the world's darling. Another called Drucilla, was married to Faelix Governor of Judea, of whom is spoken in the Acts, God likewise recompensing the virtue of the mother in the children by some temporal favours: and all those who disposed themselves to virtue were fortunate, to make it appear by evident testimonies, that unhappiness ariseth from nothing but impiety.  
These two Courts, the histories of which we have here represented, in my opinion sufficiently show the unhappiness of impiety, and fortunate success in the lives of Great-ones, when they are guided according to the laws of Heaven.  
If I hereafter shall continue this work, I will unfold, according to the succession of Ages, the Eulogies of great men, who in the practice of the world flourished in all piety, to cast confusion upon the foreheads of such, who being heirs of their blood and fortunes, alienate themselves so far from their merit. Yet cannot I absolutely promise any thing. First, because the exercise of preaching and other ministeries, afford me little leisure to write: and although I might have some time for this purpose, yet have I some other labours upon the holy Scripture of a longer task, which would require their season. Secondly, I see many worthy men, who much more ably can perform it than myself: my talon is small, and my pen is slow, it can hasten nothing, I must ponder my works before I publish them, though very imperfect. They ever seem to me too soon to take flight and light; I would as it were perpetually hold them by the wings. Briefly, it is no small labour to find so many Saints in Courts. You know the Philosopher, who searched for men with a candle at noon-tide, and had much ado to find any: How much more difficult think you is it to meet with Saints, especially in the decrepitness of this Age, wherein there is little vigour, and many maladies? If you require books of me, I say, give me Saints, although verily I rather should endeavour to engrave sanctity in my manners than writings. The time will come, when books shall be gnawn by moths on earth, and works in Heaven esteemed.  
LAUS DEO.    

THE HOLY COURT.  
THE SECOND TOME, TREATING OF 

The PRELATE,  
The SOLDIER,  
The STATESMAN,  
The LADY.    
Written in French by NICHOLAS CAUSSIN, of the S. of JESUS.  
Translated into English by Sr. T. H.   bookseller's device of John Williams? DEUS EST NOBIS SOL ET SCUTUM 
LONDON, Printed by WILLIAM BENTLEY, and are to be sold by John Williams, at the Crown in St. Paul's Churchyard. 1650.   

To the RIGHT HONOURABLE EDWARD D'SACKVILE, Earl of DORSET, Baron of BUCKHURST, Lord Chamberlain to the Queen's Majesty, Knight of the Noble Order of the Garter, and of his Majesty's most Honourable PRIVIE-COUNCEL.  
RIGHT HONOURABLE,  
THe eminent and well deserved place your Honour holds in the Court of her Majesty, to whose gracious favour the first part of my Work was heretofore humbly consecrated, emboldens me in the adventure of this present address to your Honour; nor shall there, I hope, any notable disproportion appear to the eyes of the judicious, that I thus purposely select your Honour to wait on her HIGHNESS in a printed Dedication, who at Court in so near a degree daily attend on her Sacred person.  
The great and general applause with which France hath entertained the whole Work in the original, gave encouragement to my pen to continue that first labour in the translation of this Second piece. Here may be seen the Court of a great and glorious Prince, standing conspicuous to all eyes, like a goodly fabric raised on four fundamental columns; two of which, the Soldier and the Sates-man, may not improperly seem to reflect on your Honour.  
The first, when in the fair occasions of his Majesty's fit employments, his just reason shall at any time call you forth into action: The second, in the present and frequent use he hath of your well matured counsels: Both which, by masculine courage and sober wisdom, aptly personated in CONSANTINE and BOETIUS, are here presented to the life, as strong patterns for imitation. It is your Honour's patronage that thus brings them with the rest into the fruition of English air, and me by this opportunity into the grateful acknowledgement of many favours received from your Honour, which since I cannot make known by more real demonstrations, I offer this poor endeavour to supply the plentiful desires of him, who resolves to persist,  
The humble devoted servant of your Honour, T. H.   

TO THE WISDOM of GOD INCARNATE.  
ETernal WISDOM, Supreme INTELLIGENCE, behold me prostrate before the abyss of your great and Divine lights, to offer up the homage of my person and book, acknowledging the nothing both of the one and other; and protesting to have neither spirit nor pen which is not of You and for You, who are the source of good thoughts, and accomplishment of all praiseworthy discourses.   

The Design and Order of this BOOK.  
WE have, to speak properly, but two great Books, Heaven and the Bible, which shall never perish: The rest bear some sway, and have some lasting among men, yet in conclusion we find their ends; but the most part of those which are written in these days, fall into the world as drops of rain into the sea, of which the Ocean neither feeleth the approach nor departure. I exposed my first Tome of the HOLY COURT; amidst such a throng of Writers, as it were with this conceit, thinking I carried a little dew into a great River, and that when I had spoken some truths, as it were passing along, I should in my birth, bury myself in the tomb of so many volumes; which is excusable by the law of necessity, and honourable for the multitude and quality of those which are there to be found.  
Notwithstanding I see that God, who guideth our lives and pens, hath been pleased this work should gain some estimation, and that, as it hath exceeded the merits of its Author, so hath it surmounted his hope, exposing itself with some fruit and comfort, by an endeavour which I shall never think ill employed.  
This hath again put the pen into my hand, to continue what I had begun, whereunto such Honourable personages have persuaded me, with motives so reasonable, that having small ability to undertake a second labour, I had likewise less power to refuse it.  
Such as complain, my pen hath not soon enough satisfied their desires, must remember, that though tardiness be a mother somewhat unpleasing, yet are not the children therefore deformed. The production of good Books should not resemble that of certain birds, which according to the saying of an Ancient, issue from their mothers before they are born; 
Symposius.  but we must a long time form and foment them in our minds, that they may appear in public: for it is a very poor business, by precipitation to be able to hope no other thing, but through haste to fail, that you may repent at leisure. I rather fear the reproach of rashness than delay, because in this mortal state wherein we live, all our perfectest actions are no other than gross essays of perfection.  
This may be spoken without extenuating the worth of some celestial wits, who make expedition and goodness walk hand in hand; it being absurd, that those who are unable to imitate them, should boast infirmities opposite to their abilities. For my part, I content myself to afford good liking and admiration to the Works of others, reserving nothing else but labour for mine own. And although, notwithstanding my endeavour, I never find sufficient satisfaction in this Book, to please those Readers whom I have found so propitious, yet doubt not but I have in some sort answered their desires.  
For in this second Volumn I treat of the Courts of Constantine the Great, the two Valentinians, Gratian, Theodosius the Elder, Theodorick in Boetius his cause, Clodoveus, Clotilda, Levigildus, Hermingildus, and Indegondis, in such sort, that I have selected the principal sanctities of Great-ones in the first six Ages of Christianity, which will not be slightly valued by those, who better love to finish a Work than unboundedly distend it.  
Moreover also, to be better than my promise, in my first Volumn having taken the Court in general, I here descend into particulars: and there being four sorts of persons which compose the life of Great-ones, that is to say, the Prelate, the Soldier, the Statesman, and the Court-lady, I have made a brief Table of the conditions necessary in every state, couched in four discourses, pursued with as many Books of Histories, which contain excellent models of virtues, proper to all orders and states of life, in persons most eminent.  
I can assure my Reader, these Summaries of Precepts, which I have so contracted in so few words (it being in my power to enlarge them in divers Volumes) are not unprofitable; and the Histories are so chosen, that besides their majesty, which unfoldeth the goodliest affairs and passages of Empires in the beginning of their Christianity, they have also a certain sweetness, which solid spirits shall find as much to transcend fables and modern eloquence, as the satisfaction of truth surpasseth the illusions of Sorcerers.  
You shall perpetually therein observe a large Theatre of the Divine providence, wherein, God himself knoweth, I have no other aim, but to dignify virtue, and depress vice, without any reflection upon the persons of these times, no more than if I wrote in the Reign of Charlemagne or St. Lewis. I hearty entreat all those spirits of application, who cannot hold their nose over a piece of work, unless they find it to suit with their own fantasies, imagining that all literature is the echo of their own thoughts, that if they have any Commentary to produce, they would rather make glosses upon their own dreams, than my Books. We are not as yet, God be thanked, in so miserable an Age, that we dare not offer sacrifice to truth without a disguise, since it is the glory of Great-ones, openly to wage war against vices, as their greatest enemies.  
For to speak truly, after I had presented my First Tome at the feet of the sacred person of our great King, I likewise considered in his Court rich and resplendent lights, in all orders, which might serve as models for my Treatises: but to avoid affectation of all worldly complacence, I have purposely declined it; my nature and habit having already so alienated me from all worldly pretences, that it would prove painful to me to court any man, if he had not Heaven and the Stars to give me for reward.  
For so much as concerneth the form of writing, observed by me in this Second Volumn, I will truly confess to my Reader, that I have therein proceeded, rather guided by my proper Genius, than art or cunning. And although I heretofore have been curious enough to read and observe all what ever Greek or Roman eloquence hath produced of worth, yet I confess there is a certain ray of God, which encountering with our spirit, and mixing with nature, is more knowing than all precepts; and I may affirm this for the instruction of youth, which hath asked my opinion concerning the qualities and conditions of stile. True it is, I have handled many books, written in all Ages, and have found the wisest of them to be elevated in conceits and words, above the ordinary strain, but always free from affectation. Others are so passionately enamoured of certain petty courtships of language (which are capital enemies of persuasion, and which we most especially aught to avoid in discourses of piety, the nerves whereof they weaken, and blemish the lustre, since even those who speak to us out of Chairs, by word, or writing, although in terms discreetly modest, make the less impressions on our hearts) and many times so seek after their own reputations, as they forget how much they are engaged to truth. We see some, who through overmuch wit, search out strange ways, conceptions different from common understanding, words extravagant, and in all other things so vehemently adore their own imaginations, that they cannot endure any but themselves in paper (which is the cause they very seldom meet with the habit of humane understanding, as being true Citizens of Plato's Commonwealth) of ability to control all, and to do nothing. Some glory in barrenness, and would willingly be displeased with God, that he hath more plentifully sown stars in some parts of the Heaven than in others: They can brook nothing that is generous, without snarling at it, and taxing it, supposing beauties and splendours are defects, because they surpass their capacities. Finally, there are some, who so furnish themselves with the worth of others ceaseless allegations, that they frame discourses like to those Helena's all of gold, where we can behold nothing but drapery; not being able to distinguish the hand from the foot, nor the eye from the face. I enter not into the consideration of our times, having learned rather to regard the Works of the meanest Writers than censure them. But to speak sincerely, I never thought it fit to advise or pursue such courses: And as in this Work I have not wholly declined learning nor ornament of language, which I supposed apt for the purpose, endeavouring many times to enchase them with seemly accommodation; so have I been unwilling to replenish my leaves with Authors and foreign tongues, this being undertaken rather to persuade virtue among men eminent, than to fill the common places of young Students.  
I likewise have so intermingled my style, that not descending into a petty language of compliment, which had been below my subject, I thought to make it intelligible, yea even unto those who make no profession of arts or study. My only aim is to speak, and to be understood, persuaded thereunto by the saying of Philo, That speech and thought are two sisters, they youngest whereof is created that the eldest may be known. I have more laboured upon the weight of sentences than ornaments of words, not at all pretending to the honour of earthly pens, which we daily behold to grow in so many Authors of this Age, who would be much more absolute, did they apply themselves to graver subjects, and in some sort imitate the Sun, who affording admiration to the world, hath none himself.  
Notwithstanding it often happeneth, not with the most eminent Writers, who ordinarily are endowed with much modesty, but certain extremely profane wits, to idolatrize their own inventions, to condemn all treatises of worth and value; that it is impossible to be eloquent in our language, but in the expression of vanities and impurities. Truly, if question were made to judge of French eloquence, the riches of Babylon are not so exquisite, as to be compared with the beauties of Zion.  
Whilst there are letters and men, there shall ever be praise for the excellent Books, which come from the pens of so many worthy Prelates and other persons of quality; yea, even from the Laity, who have exercised their style upon arguments, chaste, honourable, and well-worthy of all recommendation. I speak this as it were by the way, having at this time no purpose to enlarge upon recital of an infinite number of able men, who stand ready with pen in hand; nor likewise to commend those of my habit, who have exposed their excellent labours to public view, and which I know might be well waited on by a large number of choice wits of the same Society.  
But for as much as concerneth myself, I have already discharged my promise, and doubt not, but that in these four models, I have sufficiently comprised the whole scope of my design. For the rest, I think the Books of devotion that are published, aught to be rare and extraordinarily well digested; because such is the quantity of them, that the number of Authors will quickly exceed the proportion of Readers. Distaste is a worm, which sticketh on the most resplendent beauties; and although a thing may be excellent, we must not therefore glut any man with superfluity, lest good offices turn into contempt, and charity make itself tiresome. Yet so it is, that we must confess, pieces well selected and curiously handled, can never so superabound in number, as to offend those who can distinguish of merit.  
For if it be true, as I have heard, that there are many good and learned Religious men of divers Orders, who prepare themselves to write upon this same subject, I am very glad, and protest it shall be acceptable to me, because so they may perfect what I have begun, with more profit than myself.  
Note here the cause why I stay my pen, and if there be aught good in this Volumn, I look upon it as that mirror, which was fixed on the wall of the Arcadian Temple, where those who beheld themselves, saw in stead of their faces, the representation of 
Pausan. in Arcadicis.  the Divinity they adored. So in all this which here may profit my Reader, I see nothing of mine own, but in it acknowledge the Father of Light, who is the source and end of all which is in us esteemed laudable, and whom I humbly beseech, if there be any thing attractive in this Discourse, he would be pleased to draw it upward, as the adamant, transporting such as shall read it, to the love of their CREATOR, to whom is due the tribute of all honours, as to Him who is the beginning of all perfections. This is the only comfort of our labour: For, not to dissemble a truth, he that more regardeth to write than to live, courting his pen, and neglecting his own conscience, shall always have trouble enough to defend himself from moths, rats, and oblivion. 
Centrum terrae validius accenditur, ex limpiditate flamma caelestis. Viennâ ex Ptolomaei Almagesto.  And though he should be laden with the applauses of the whole world, in a passionate life, it were but to gain a silly sacrifice of smoke without him, to harbour fire and tempests within his own house.  
It is said, the Stars by contribution of their rays, strengthen the activity of hell fire; and I may say, all the lights of understanding and reputation, will serve but to increase the torments of a reprobate soul, who shuts his eyes against God, not to open them to other object than vanity.   

TO THE NOBILITY, Dedicated to the CHURCH.  
SIRS,  
THe benefits you have received from God, and examples the Weal-public expecteth from you, are so essential obligations of duty, that when we speak of the piety of Great-ones, you instantly are selected out to hold the first rank therein, and to be the cause that virtues, which ever are voluntary, may turn as it were into, title of necessity. For, to join the Clergy to Nobility, is to connect two things together, which are both in Nature and the Gospel, very eminent. It is to profess one's self an honest man by birth and dignity, to stand on a pinnacle, and serve as a torch, to change your word into law, and life into example.  
The Bishops of all Ages have been esteemed amongst men, as the stars in the firmament, whereof the Prophet Daniel, speaketh; as the Senators of Heaven, the Fathers of the Commonwealth, the Interpreters 
Daniel 12. 3. Dionys. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, De Ecclesiasticâ Hierarchiâ.  of God, the Mediators of the marriage contracted between the Lamb and the Heavenly Jerusalem.  
This is the cause why we ever think it is to desire a good work, to desire a Bishopric, taking the words of the Apostle in a sense, which flattereth sensuality, informeth not the conscience; but now, that the passage to Offices and secular dignities, is closed up from many with bars of gold and silver, whom birth seemeth to invite thereunto, they hope to repair themselves on the spoils of the Church, where such as proceed by sensual and worldly ways, oftentimes find poison and death hidden under a seeming sweetness.  
For Sirs, we must tell you, your dignities, how eminent soever they be, are like the roof of the Temple in Jerusalem, which had flowers among guilded prickles; in my opinion to teach Bishops, that Mitres bordered with 
Villalpandus upon Ezechiel out of Josephus de bello Judaico lib. 6. c. 6.  gold, and diversified with stones, have notwithstanding their points and prickings.  
Had we as many eyes open towards Heaven, as Heaven openeth to behold here below the most secret actions of men, we should be strucken with horror to see an Ecclesistical dignity fall to the lot of a depraved soul, which changeth all the abilities thereof to incentives for sin, and to make of his proper honours the true snares of his soul.  
But it is a common disaster, that the smoke, which in the book of Toby driveth away the devils, doth here daily surprise men. We stick on apparences, and if we retain some Maxims of verity, we use them as letters written with the juice of a lemon, which can hardly be read but by the help of fire.  
So that when the day of Judgement shall manifest itself by fire, and that at the departure of the soul, 
Hermanus Hugo de primâ scribendi origine.  flames shall be presented to enlighten it, even to the bottom of the conscience, then shall it be when all the knowledge of virtue, which we here on earth retain so poor and languishing, shall appear with inflamed characters for our condemnation.  
It is an admirable thing, which the good Cardinal Hugo, who flourished about four hundred years ago, as he lay on his deathbed, where with much advantage the vanities of the world are discovered, and when perhaps some too indiscreetly flattered him upon the splendour of his dignity, spoke in the voice of an Oracle: Take away these vanities, for I protest, if it were to do again, I had rather die in 
The life of Hugo.  a Monastery covered with leprosy, than with the scarlet robe of a Cardinal.  
Yet notwithstanding this man had been so little idle, that besides the Concordances of the Bible which he composed, and the Commentaries he made upon the whole Corpse of holy Scripture, he so courageously employed himself in the exercise of good works, that being drawn out of the excellent Order of S. Dominick, he retained all his former virtues, which found no change in him, but that they added to their native beauty the lustre of authority. I speak this, not to inform Prelates, from whom I should receive instruction, but to represent to so many of the young Nobility, as we now daily behold advanced to Ecclesiastical charges, the peril there is in Prelacies, which are not guided by the paths of a good conscience.  
It is a monstrous thing (said holy S. Bernard) to hold the highest place, and have the lowest courage; 
Bern. de consid. lib. 1. cap. 7  the first Chair, and the last life; a tongue magnificent, and a hand slothful; much noise about you, and little fruit; the countenance grave, and actions light; great authority, and no more constancy than a weathercock. It were a better sight to behold an Ape on the house top, and smoke in a candlestick, than a man dignified without merit.  
On the contrary part, when science and virtue agree with Nobility, to make up a good Churchman, it is so glorious a spectacle, that it may be said, God to produce it on earth, hath taken a pattern from himself in Heaven. I wish no more faithful witnesses than this Prelate which I shall present unto you in this first Treatise, after I have made a brief Summary of precepts, which I have purposely comprised in very few pages, to render them the readier for the understanding; well knowing, there are store of books largely enough dilating on this subject, the length of which I have avoided to attend the matter.  
I wish it may have an effect in your hearts worthy of your courage, that honouring your dignity for virtue, virtue may ennoble you with titles of true glory.   

THE HOLY COURT. SECOND TOM.  

THE PRELATE.  

The first SECTION. That it is convenient the Nobility should govern the Church.  
I Begin by the Altar to measure the 
Aeternitas mundi ex obedientiâ ad intelligentiam motricem. Apudi Matthiam de Viennâ, qui liber impressus anno 1482.  Temple of the Holy Court, and set a Prelate before your eyes, who bare Nobility into the house of God, and there furnished himself with all the virtues, which made him speak like an Oracle, and live as a true image of the Divinity. The Platonists say, the whole order of the world dependeth on Intelligences, which bear sway in the motion of the first Heaven; and we in imitation of them may say, all the good of Christendom proceeds from the examples of Ecclesiastical men, to whom the Son of God hath consigned his authority on their brows, his word in their mouths, his blood and Church into their hands. For if bees, engendered of the body of a bull, carry in their entrails the very form of that bull from whence they are derived; by a much more just title the people 
Ulysses' Aldobran. de apibus.  will bear the marks of those, whom God hath given them for Doctors and Fathers, whether it be by correspendence of nature, through custom, or by imitation, which ever hold a very great predominance over spirits disposed to receive their impressions. Behold the cause why a Prelate, who liveth conform to his profession, imprinteth the seal of the Son of God, on all those souls he governeth, and produceth himself in as many objects as he hath imitators of his virtues. As on the contrary part, he who liveth ill in great Nobility and dignity, is a Seraphin in appearance, but a Seraphin without eyes, without heart, without hands, which hath wings of a profane fire, able to burn the Propitiatory, if God afford not his helping hand.  
And forasmuch as we at this day see the Nobility aspire to Ecclesiastical charges, and many fathers to dispose their children thereunto, sometimes with more fervour than consideration, it hath caused me to undertake this Treatise for the Nobility which dedicate themselves to the Church, as well to show the purity of intention they ought to exercise therein, as to give them a fair discovery of the goodly and glorious actions they ought to pursue in the practice thereof. I here will first offer you a simple draught, which I afterward intent to adorn with the greatness of S. Ambrose, as with more lively colours.  
Plato rejoiced to behold Princes and Governors of Commonwealths to become Philosophers, and we have cause to praise God, when we see the children of Noble houses to dispose themselves to Priesthood, not by obliqne and sinister ways, but with all the conditions which their blood requireth, and sacred dignity exacteth in so noble a subject.  
Why should we deny them Mitres, Crosiers, and eminency in the Church? So far is their birth from ministering any occasions of the contrary, that it rather affordeth them favour both to undertake such charges with courage, and discharge their conscience with all fidelity.  
The reasons hereof are evident. For first, we must aver, that by how much the more honourable the charges are, so much the rather they are proper for such as make profession of honour; provided always on the other side, they have qualities suitable to those ministeries they pretend to exercise. And are there any in the world more ambitious of honour than Noblemen? Ostentation is the last shirt they put off, and where can you find a more solid and eminent honour, than that which is derived from the lawful administration of Ecclesiastical functions?  
Aristotle saith, Truths which transmit themselves 
Arist. lib. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Xenophon. l. 4. de factis & dictis Socratis, tribuit etiam Socrati. Strabo Geograph. l. 14. Aelian. l. 14. c. 34. Var. Eus. in Chron. Agathias histor. l. 2, etc.  through the common sense of every man, get into credit as it were by the decree of nature. Now such hath been the esteem of all Nations, that Kingdoms and Commonwealths being established upon Religion and temporal jurisdiction, as on two columns; Religion so much the more excelleth politic government, as things divine transcendently surmount humane. And for this cause, favours, privileges, and preeminences, have ever been given to Priests in the greatest and most flourishing Monarchies and Commonwealths of the world, as we may see in Histories, and in the policy of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Grecians, Romans, Gauls, and other Nations.  
The honour of Priesthood gained so much on the hearts of all people, that the Monarches of the earth seemed not to rule but with one arm, if they made not in one and the same person the alliance of Priesthood and Royalty: so that oftentimes they shown themselves as depraved in their proceed, as greedy in matter of honour.  
The Roman Emperors, who stretched their authority as far as the point of their lance could be extended, and who needs would be Commanders of arms, to become thereby Masters of laws, failed not to join the Mitre with the Diadem, and as soon to make themselves great Prelates as great Emperors: thinking by this means to have the more power over the hearts of the people, and the less opposition for resistance, when they had depressed the forces, which might give some remarkable counterpoise to their greatness. And it is an admirable thing, that the first 
Baron. ad annum Christi. 383. num. 6. Gratianus primus nomen Pontificis respuit.  Christian Emperor's, as Constantine and his children, still retained the titles of the great Pontifices of Gentilism, as a Maxim of State, lest foregoing this fantasy of dignity, they should behold themselves bereft of some jewel of their Crowns.  
This is to authorise my proposition, which saith, true honour belongeth to Ecclesiastical charges, when they are well administered; since the Monarches of the world, from the very abuse of these dignities, have derived glory: but to desire them for honour, is to dishonour the dignity by the unworthiness of your desire. So many Ixion's now adays cast themselves athwart the smoke to court a cloud, that there is almost no love left, but for false Deities. That which maketh Ecclesiastical men honourable, is, well to use their titles, and embellish their charges with the ornament of their lives. Otherwise all this petty gaudery, which we see sparkling round about them is very little. It is not the Mitre which maketh the Bishop, but to be esteemed worthy of the Mitre by transcendency in virtue, is to be more than a Bishop without merit.  
Sometimes we beholding the Meteors of the air, 
Superiora non habent coronas, quia nè ventos quidem. Senec. natural. q. l. 1. c. 1.  imagine to see Crowns about the Sun and Stars, which really are nothing but vapours, composed of gross air, which illusion coloureth, our imagination figureth, and the wind scattereth. This is to make fools believe there are Crowns encompassing this mighty Star. The Sun is adorned sufficiently with his proper rays; should he borrow his brightness from the vapours of the earth, he would no longer be the Sun: Even so is it, when with a terrestrial and impure eye we consider some exterior marks of Ecclesiastical dignity; we think such things make Prelates, and we therein are deceived, for they are vapours of the earth, which the wind sooner or later will dissipate. He that will be truly resplendent, must within himself bear the source of his own light.  
Herein consisteth the most excellent form of honour, when a Prelate allieth sincerity of life to the dignity of his place, and that to serve as an example for all noble spirits, who make election to be of the Church, he advanceth his extraction by the lustre of virtues, which are as rays reflecting from the Divine greatness.  
I say for a second reason, that when Noblemen hold Ecclesiastical offices, and therein employ their whole extent of duty, we may hope from their ministeries, not only more radiance, but secure also, as from such as command with greater authority, and make themselves to be obeyed with more advantage.  
It is undoubtedly true, that God sufficiently maketh it appear he hath no need of men, when purposing to stretch out his arm to some extraordinary actions, he oftentimes extracteth creatures from dregs and dust, to set them in thrones, and establish them with such authority, that he causeth the powers of the earth to bow under their commands, who bear the decrees of Heaven; which hath been seen in the infancy of the Church, and in the sequel thereof, through all Ages: Yet must we say, that as our Saviour, 
S. Thom. 3. part. q. 30.  although he had a science increate as God, a science infused as a Prophet, a science of beatitude, as he who was possessor thereof from the first moment of his life; notwithstanding to accommodate himself to the laws of that nature which he had assumed, spared not to work by humane science, which Divines call experimental; so in the government of the Church, though he sometimes operates without any regard had to dependence on the ordinary course which himself hath established, as when he took simple fishermen to make them Masters over the Sages, and Instructers of Monarches, yet at other times proceeding in a common strain, and more usual to nature, he chose men of note and authority, to employ them in the large confines of his Empire and jurisdiction.  
So drew he Moses from Pharaoh's Court, to make him the God of Pharaoh: so for Princes among the Gentiles, which he meant to unroll under his standard, he elected Kings and Sages: so after he had constituted his Church under the government of a poor fisherman of Galilee, he took one derived from the blood of Emperors, whom he made his Successor, to wit, S. Clement: so he caused in divers occasions Ambroses, Gregory's, Leoes, Calixtuses, to arise, and so many others of most honourable extraction, that they might bear Nobility as a dowry into the bosom of the Church, which they had so happily governed.  
This Nobility was to their dignity as a guilded case to a rich tablet, as gold to the diamond, beauty of body to the soul, habiliaments to the grace and garb of body. They had more lustre, more splendour, more resolution; and the subjects, who have not always intentions so pure in rendering honour to ecclesiastics, as not to regard the exterior ornament of their qualities and conditions, became more obsequious to their commands, having not boldness enough to contradict even those, who by right of their birth had as soon entered into Empire as life.  
How many times had secular powers been seen to transgress their limits, to usurp on the Church, and what disorder had we beheld to arise from the prosecution of this confusion, had not the hand of God raised ecclesiastics of noble houses, of great authority, of much courage, to sustain the shock, to tie the hands of the factious, and punish the boldness of the most daring, to call back (as Job saith) the prey out of the teeth of iniquity, and make a Diadem to himself wholly composed of actions of justice, magnanimity, religion, in this manner more resplendent, than if he had possessed all the pearls of the Orient?  
What a fair field of battle, what goodly palms, what bright glory hath a noble soul, to make itself a brazen wall for the defence of the Church, and obtain of God the blessing pronounced by the Prophet Isaiah, in favour of the Highpriest Eliachim? 
Isaiah 22. Figam illum paxillum in loco fideli, & erit solium gloriae domui patris sui, & suspendent super cum omnem gloriam d●mus patris ejus.  What a glorious honour is it, to be set in a place of trust, to be planted by the hand of God, to serve as a prop for the house of God, to be the seat of glory for the Lord of Hosts, to carry the moveables, riches, and greatness of the Church on his shoulders?  
Finally, for a third reason, to conduct the Nobility to Ecclesiastical dignities, is to bring it into its house. All things willingly return to their source. The waters cease not to glide along, to render themselves to the Ocean. The rays of the Sun touch the earth, not forsaking their star; the branches of the tree offer the homage of their verdure, leaves, and fruit, to the root; he goeth well, that hasteneth to his beginning.  
Now so it is, that the greatest part of Church endowments came from the Nobility, who then despoiled themselves to cover the Altars, and now many unveil the Altars to  themselves. If you (O Noblemen) desire to enjoy the patrimony which your Ancestors have left to the Church, you ought not to seek it by unlawful, mischievous, and tyrannical ways, but by means proportionable to the intentions of those, who laid those rich foundations. And what intentions had they, but to cut the trees 
Ezech. 17. Quercus Basan dolata in remos navis Tyri, divites saeculi Ecclesiae appliciti. Hieron. super Ezech.  of Basan, to make oars for the vessel of S. Peter, but to lay their wealth at the feet of God, who according to the Prophet, made himself a foot-step of Saphires, to serve as a ladder for glory; but to entertain on earth an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem, to grant to the Church men of science and conscience, men of courage and fidelity, for the ornament, support, and maintenance thereof?  
If you approach thither, with such an intention, I am of opinion the gates ought to be opened unto you, and that you should enter into yourself to govern the house of Jesus Christ, and not destroy it. We have, thanks be given to God, a great King, all whose inclinations dispose him to goodness, as lines to the centre: as much love as he hath for justice, so much zeal hath he for the glory of Altars. As God is pleased to sow the stars on the azure of the firmament, so hath he a sensible delight to furnish the Church with good Prelates, because they are the stars of the earth. Merit under him is in possession of good hopes, and hope is not far distant to be consummate in fruition. He is pleased to gratify the Nobility with the goods of the Church, but he will, his intention be seconded by the merit of those that shall enjoy them. Take the ways of wisdom and virtue to enter into your inheritance, which ever are most assured and the most honourable. The time hath been when one must, as it were, have done evil to receive good; if now good be offered to those who do it, who would willingly be vicious, and sow crimes to reap miseries?   

The second SECTION. That the Nobility should not aspire to Ecclesiastical offices, but by lawful ways.  
Profane Lucian spoke truer than he thought, 
Lucian. in Jou. Trag.  when he feigned Gentilism was filled with gods, whereof some were made of wood and stone, subsisting by the prerogative of antiquity, which age and time gave them; the other much more lately form, were of gold and silver, resenting the profuse prodigality of the latter Ages. This caused a divorce in the Temples: the gods of earth were still willing to hold their ranks, showing besides the antiquity of their original, that they were framed by the confident hands of admirable workmen, and had lineaments excellently polished. The gods of gold and silver, dignified by the riches of the stuff of which they were composed, spoke proudly, and needs would have priority, since the metal whereof they were made, transcended much in the estimation of men. The matter was put into deliberation in the great Parliament of Olympus, and the golden gods carried it, not by merit, but by authority of their riches.  
Should this scoffing spirit be raised again in these our days, to make a Satire on the manners of these times, he could not be better fitted. For to speak, not universally of all Ecclesiastical Nobles, since thanks be to God, there are many, who most happily have linked to Nobility all the other qualities requisite to their condition; but considering in gross the disorder and corruption, we may well say the gods of gold at this day have the upper hand. We heretofore saw divers spiritual men, extracted from low condition, who arrived to dignities by the degrees of labour, integrity, knowledge, and were finally croziered and mytered by the strength of much merit. These men appeared in the Church of God, as those ancient Statues made by the hand of Policletes, Phidias and Sysippus; there was not a lineament in them which spoke not. But when gold and silver began to sway more than ever, the rich alured with the wealth of the Church, broke a way through by the help of contentions, authority and command, which silver gave them over the courses of human things; they, maugre industry and virtue, have made golden gods, which banish as it were all the gods of the earth, notwithstanding the excellent forms, and all the gifts of nature and grace they could possibly acquire. It seemeth for these men the Church is at this day become a great Oak over-turned, where men hastily, on every side run for prey; there is not a hand so little, that will not become outrageous to bear away some spoil thereof.  
But you noble and generous spirits, who in your minorities dedicate yourselves to the ministeries of the Church, behold the first step you must tread. Be careful herein, as your lives and salvation are dear unto you; aim well your carrier, enter by the gate of honour, to free yourself from the disturbances of life and troubles of death. Be ye assured it is the abomination of the desolation, foretold by the Prophet Daniel, 
Daniel. 9 27. Act. 8. 27.  the gall of bitterness, and perplexity of sin, declared by the Apostle S. Peter, to enter into an Ecclesiastical benefice by unlawful and strained ways, without vocation. The reasons hereof are evident.  
First, the Saints have called this vice, the iniquity of Libanus, alluding to these words of the Prophet Habacuck: The Iniquity of Libanus shall cover thee: 
Habac. 1. Iniquitas Libani operiet te.  where the text spoke to those, who despoiled the holy Land, because the mount Libanus is a holy hill of Palestine, all covered over with fair Cedars, much renowned in the Scripture; from whence it cometh, it mystically signifieth the Church: and those are truly covered with the iniquity of Libanus, who surcharge themselves with the weight of inexorable justice, for attempting on the highest pieces of the patrimony of God, which are the offerings of the faithful, left for the maintenance of Ecclesiastical state.  
This iniquity of Libanus, is the sin of Zeb, Zebeus, and Salmana, who are branded with perpetual infamy, for plotting against the Tabernacle of God. The Prophet said, that encouraging one another they cast out these inconsiderate words: Let us go and possess 
Psal. 82. 12. Haereditate possideamus Sanctuarium Dei.  the Sanctuary of God, as our proper inheritance. And what, I pray, do such like now adays? Hold they not the goods of the Church, as one would a Tenement, to pass it from hand to hand, from nephew to nephew? Although they oftentimes in their conscience judge them most uncapable, yet needs must they take good heed how they forgo any thing: the chairs must be filled with honour, with flesh, and hay, and rather will they set shadows on a pinnacle, than render to God what is due to him. And what will happen to these Salmanaes' or Salmoneans? even that which the same King and Prophet said: They shall turn about as the wheel of the potter, incessantly 
Pone illos us rotam.  wand'ring from purpose to purpose, from ambition to ambition, from bargain to bargain, in a thousand embroilments of spirit, till death come, who shall 
Confringe● rotam super cisternum. Eccl. 12.  bruise them (as saith the Wiseman) on the cistern, and shall scatter them for ever from the face of God.  
It is no small matter to invade the treasure of Kings, since it is the blood of the people, the sinew of war, the knot of peace; and the bloud-suckerrs of State which abuse it, sooner or later shall pour their lives out in the dust. And what do you think is it, to abuse the patrimony of God (whereunto so many good souls have ofttimes contributed their blood and sweat) and to enter therein as a Fox, a Lion, without any other intention but to slay and devour the flock, which they ought not so much as to shear?  
The crimes which do affront the Divinity, ever bear their punishments behind them. Crassus' felt among 
Plutarch. in Crasso.  the Parthians the Religion of the Temple of Jerusalem, which he had despoiled; the fortune of the Romans was made a prey, the Army routed, the treasures forsaken, the lives of so many mortals exposed to the dint of sword, to chastise the avarice of one man, who durst invade the goods consecrated to the Divine Majesty. Whilst he stretched out his Harpies hands on the goods of men, God suffered him: so soon as he set his talons on the moveables of the Temple, he felt the steel of Barbarians, as revengers of his sacrilege.  
A hand from Heaven before for the same cause, charactered the dreadful decree of a Babylonian King, which hath served as a Tragedy for all posterity: 
Daniel. 5. 15. 2 Machab. b. 3.  and afterward Heliodorus in the Machebees, was prodigiously punished by exterminating Angels, who in the midday scourged him in the sight of all the world, employing the Heavenly whips on his body for the same crime, as he had bestowed his hardiness and hand to steal a jewel from Heaven.  
If you say there is much difference between the sacrilegious, who steal the treasures of the Church, and those who by ways unlawful, seize on benefices, which they unworthily hold to the confusion of Christianity: I answer, there may be the difference that would be between a public robber, and a private thief; the one proceeding with open force, the other more cautelously, causing his venom to creep, is by so much the more pernicious, as under the skin of a sheep, he bears the heart of a wolf.  
Add hereunto for a second reason, that the Baltazars, Crassuses, and Heliodoruses, and the Heretics of our time, who have made open war against the treasures of the Temple, having nothing at all hurt the reputation of the Church, which as the Polestar is ever in motion, and never setteth: but the unjust usurpers of Priesthood, who sometimes enter into charge with extreme defect of science and conscience, besides that they unprofitably devour the patrimony of the Son of God, do burden his spouse with eternal reproach.  
It is observed, that in these deplorable times, where all seemeth to tend to the subversion of Laws, still some new monsters have appeared, who by their birth have declared the disasters that should happen to the world.  
The tenth Age, which was the true iron-age, wherein all vices were in force, all sciences in eclipse, all abuse in credit, and as it were all crimes in impunity, afforded neither Satyrs, Chimaeras, Centaurs, nor other monsters against nature: But for a certain presage of great evils, which we afterward saw to overflow all Christendom, children of great men were seen, who had nothing great in them but vice, as being such, who were born for disgrace, bred in disorder, naturalised in sin, to enter during their minority, into Ecclesiastical charges, to debase authority, and abolish merit. A Pope, John the eleventh, enormiously 
Baron. ad annum Christi. 931. Joannes 11. M●zoriae filius matre etiam tum amoribus florente. Curopalates & Baron. ad annum 926.  vicious, having the malice of a man most debauched, and the age of a child unexperienced, to sit in the chair of S. Peter! A Theophylact, son of the Emperor, by the absolute power of his father, to seize on the See of Constantinople, to become afterwards a Merchant of horses, which he so violently affected, that besides the prodigious race of two thousand, which he ordinarily bred, he many times left the Altar where he sacrificed to the living God, to hasten to see some Mare of his that had fole in the stable! Our France hath not been exempt from this 
Fr●doardus histor. Rheme●. lib. 4. cap. 17. Monstrum, inquit, nunquam haitenus in orbe Christiano visum.  unhappiness: for in the same age, Hugo, a child of five years old, was constituted Archbishop of Rheims, to possess the seat of the great S. Remigius, which was to parallel the foot of Hercules to the leg of a fly.  
All Christendom was amazed to behold such promotions, and held them in the rank of Comets, which make terror to march before them, and after them sterility, massacres, and disasters. Were there no other consideration but the interests of the Church, this ever ought to touch a heart, which as yet retaineth some vein of Christianity, nor should it ever give consent to any preferment, which might appear so disadvantageous to her, whom Jesus Christ hath by his blood, made his lawful spouse. But besides the detriment of Religion, for a third instance, the manifest loss of young men is incurred, who are engaged in Ecclesiastical dignities, not being accommodated with conditions necessary to undergo such a burden: much better were you to send them directly to the house of fools, than to expose them upon the pinnacle of the Temple with so little discretion: for in this prison of mad men they should find those that would tie them, thereby to stay their folly; and in these false dignities, they meet with liberty, which freeth them, to precipitate them into all sorts of vices.  
Fathers and Mothers, God pardon you, what a torch do you set on fire, to burn and consume the house of God, when blind with affection, and benumbed in judgement, you so embrace your young apes, that you strangle them with excess of indulgence? To enkindle ambition in the veins of these young sots, almost at their coming out of the cradle, to set them on the top of the house, over men's heads, with an arm and sling of silver, be they vicious, be they impious and dissolute, be they stupid and heavy as earth, so that they have the breath of favour and oars of silver (as had the rowers of Queen Cleopatra) needs must they be placed on the top of the Turret, to be seen the further off. Many times charges of great importance, and superintendence over the heads of so many mortals, are given to men, to whom a silly farmer's wife would not have committed the keeping of a cow. The Idumeans enterprise upon the Sanctuary, and these owls endeavour to drink up the lamp-oil of Churches, by an ambition of so strong a flight, that it will admit no limits but infinity. Have you no commiseration of the public? The Commonwealth is at this day an old song (say you) whereof little care is to be had, we desire to know more than an air, which is that of our own proper interest, since it is an act of prudence well to accommodate one's affairs. Yet are you no whit ashamed of yourselves? though silver furnish you with a brow of metal to regard no man, yet is it a shameful thing to be desirous to erect in the world the tree of Nabuchadnezzar turned topsie-turvie, where fourfooted beasts are above, and little birds beneath? Were it not a goodly thing to see horses, asses, and bulls to neigh, bray, and bellow upon the branches of trees, while the small birds of Heaven, so many celestial spirits, thrust from the rank which wisdom and virtue giveth, go mourning up and down among the thorns of a necessitous life? But we must prefer our children, answer you. Who says the contrary? Raise them on the steps of actions, Christian, solid, and illustrious; cause them to pass through the Temple of virtue, before they go to that of honour; examine their talents, their capacity, their ability, otherwise you do not advance, but precipitate them into public scorn, into loss of reputation, and danger of soul.  
This benefice is not a benefice, but a malefice, but a golden snare, a carcanet of Medea, a Trojan horse, which will produce arms. You, in procuring such an honour, resemble those idolatrous parents, who sacrificed their children to the God Moloch (that is to 
Seldenus de Diis Syris. pag. 78.  say, to the Sun) and caused them to be burnt alive in the hollow statue of the Sun, not caring to forgo their lives, so they might lose them in those flames and lights, which were the Hieroglyphics of honour. Oh mere madness! for the life of a fly, which we daily share with death, to be willing to dam yourself and posterity; to stand on the brink of the abyss, and not deign so much as only open your eyes to behold the precipice?   

The third SECTION. Of vocation or calling.  
IF you desire to know how you should proceed in the preferment of your children to Ecclesiastical degrees, first understand it is true, Mercury is not made of all wood. If question be concerning a husbandman, merchant, artificer, or shepherd, we try the nature of the children, and endeavour to accommodate each one of them according to their dispositions and natural inclinations.  
Suppose you it is only fit for the Church to expose them at adventure, without election or discretion? What exorbitancy is it to think it lawful to take the simplest and weakest for Priests and Religious? What tyranny to divert some with all sorts of cunning and violence, and thrust others on as it were with a fork? To have in all your proceeding no other aim but the benefit of your family, to force the Laws of Heaven to bow under the interests of your house, to give that to God, which you cannot settle elsewhere, and if any accident happen, to take that from God which you have given him? Hereby it cometh to pass, that after many years, we behold birds, which change both their plumage and kind upon some very slight cause (not speaking of those who do so by way of counsel and conscience) the scarlet Cloak succeeding the Church Cassock, and the sword the Breviary: wherein they do much worse than the wooers in the house of Ulysses, who being not able to gain access to the Mistress, made their address to the servants. But these forsake the Lady, whom they have espoused, to court the chambermaids; professing all their life time the infidelity of their promises, by the exchange of their habits.  
Vocation is most necessary for admittance into the Church, which appeareth in two points: The one ordinary, the other extraordinary. Extraordinary calling hath marks and signs that draw near to a miracle. So we see those who have been great and eminent in the Church, have had some Genius, which hath even in their infancy made the first glimmers of their greatness to appear, drawing the whole world after them with astonishment.  
So Moses, though he were a little child, tossed Pharaoh's 
joseph Antiq. lib. 2. cap. 5.  Diadem like a shuttlecock; which gave a very ill presage to the Egyptians of their approaching ruin. So Elias seemed from his mother to suck fire with milk, which was a prediction his mouth should one day be (as indeed it was) the Arsenal of the God of hosts. So the cradle of S. Epiphanius (as Ennodius 
Epiph. de Prophetis. Ennodius. Anonymus in ejus vitâ. Raderus. Crantzius l. 4.  relateth) was seen all on fire: A vine in a vision issued out of the mouth of little S. Ephraem: A flaming pillar environed the head of S. Modestas: And it is written that Gregory the seventh, who from a base extraction was born to the throne of S. Peter, heaping together the chips he found in his father's shop, who was a Joiner, and arranging them in divers figures, innocently wrote, without thinking thereon, as a child in sport, Dominabor à mari usque ad mare.  
All these callings, and many other of the like kind, are known by extraordinary signs: the rest take the ordinary way, and are observed to be in the good nature of children fit to be dedicated to the Church, which is a matter very considerable. If you ask wherein this good nature consisteth: I answer, It is not in the influence of stars, nor in the Genius, as Pagans have placed it, nor simply in the beauty of mind, in the goodness of constitution, health, strength, vigour of body, though these may much contribute thereunto; but it appeareth in two principal rays, of which the one is tranquillity from passions, by making a reposed calm in a soul, fit to entertain the spirit of God; the other, which ariseth from the first, is the docibleness of a mind tractable, with ease to dispose itself to inclinations of honesty. Behold these two principal heads, whereon this excellent nature of an inestimable price is established.  
And first, forasmuch as concerneth the tranquillity of passions, it is undoubted, that every man being composed of four elements, by consequence draweth along four roots of all the motions thereof, which are, Love, Fear, Pleasure, Sorrow. There is not a man which feeleth not some touch. But as every sea hath his winds, though Mariners observe that some are more tossed than others, so though every soul have its passions, we must confess there be some of them are mildly disposed, and others more roughly distempered. You see men, who from their most tender age taste of strange extravagancies, choler, harshness, rage, despite, which maketh them to be of a spirit fantastical, uncivil, and obstinate, against which you must ever fight with an armed hand. Others from their cradles are endued with a peaceable soul, as a sea in the time that Halcyons build their nests on the trembling agitation of waters; they have inclinations to virtue wholly Angelical, in such sort, that they seem to be as it were conveyed therein, as fishes in their element. From this repose from passions, ariseth the second condition of good nature, that is, docibleness of spirit, the beginning of education, and happiness of life. For as Divines require in those who receive faith, a certain Religious affection to divine things, discharged and purified from all spirit of contradiction; so in matter of moral virtue and piety, we stand in need of a tractable soul, which fixeth itself on good instructions, as the ivy cleaveth to trees and pillars. Go not then about, when you make choice of an Ecclesiastical man, to tender some Esau, some spirit of the field, who is only pleased with arms and slaughter of beasts: Take rather a Jacob under the pavilions, a sweet and temperate spirit, that is, wholly disposed to the sound of virtues.  
But you, Noble Spirits, who have met with this excellent 
Ezech. 28. Omnis lapis pretiosus operimentum tuum, & foramina in die quâ conditus es preparata sunt.  nature, I may speak the words of the Prophet unto you: God hath given you a soul wholly covered with precious stones, enriched with gifts and admirable talents; he hath enchased it in a body endowed with a singular temperature, as a diamond set in the head of a ring. Much hath he given you, and therefore much requireth at your hands.   

The seventh SECTION. Of Virtues requisite in the carriage of a Prelate. The first is Wisdom.  
DO you demand what God requireth from you? I answer, five principal virtues; which were very well represented in the ephod of the Highpriest of the old law, as S. Gregory the great 
(a) Greg. de Pastor. p. 2. cap. 3.  hath well observed. This ephod was a certain mantle that covered the shoulders, composed of four colours, of hyacinth, purple, white, and scarlet, the whole wrought all over with threads of gold, interlaced with curious work-manship. Why this dressing? why these colours? To teach you seasonably to bear on your shoulders the conditions requisite to your profession. The hyacinth, or skie-colour, signifieth the first thing you ought to do, is, to fly, as the plague of virtues, from these travantly and unworthy spirits, who have no other object in the possession of the goods of the Church, but fleshpots and play: you are to frame for yourselves a soul totally noble, wholly elate, merely celestial, which conceiveth strong resolutions one day to dedicate itself to God, not in a mercenary manner, but with the utmost endeavour of its power. Think not 
(b) Mediocre nè putes quod tibi commissum est: Primùm, ut alta Dei videas, quod est sapientiae, Deinde ut excubias pro populo Dei deferas, quod est justitiae, castra defendas, tabernacula tucaris, quod est fortitudinis: Teipsum continentem ac sobrium praestes, quod est temperantiae. Amb. de O●●ic. lib. 1.  (saith S. Ambrose) that being called to an Ecclesiastical state, you have a slight commission from God. Wisdom requireth you consider the mysteries of Heaven, and that you be highly raised above the ordinary strain. Justice willeth you to stand centinel for the people, who expect aid from your prayers. Strength desireth you to defend the Tabernacle and Camp of the God of Hosts. Temperance ordaineth you live with singular sobriety and continency. You are (said Saint Isidore of Damieta 
(c) Isido. Polusiota lib. 3. ep. 2  placed between divine and humane nature, to honour the one with your sacrifices, and edify the other by your examples. A Priest 
(d) Sacerdos debet esse Christi alumnus, à peccatis segregatusrector, non raptor; speculator, non spiculator; dispensator, non dissipator; pius in judicio, justus in consilio, devotus in Choro, stabilis in Ecclesiâ, sobrius in mensâ, prudens in letitiâ, purus in conscientiâ, assiduus in oratione, patience in adversitate, lenis in prosperitate, dives in virtutibus, expeditus in actibus, sapiens in sermone, verax in predicatione. Alphons. Torrez.  ought to be as a young child, issued out of the school and bosom of the son of God, even as an Angel, to govern the Church, not to despoil it, to treat with God in prayer, not to handle a sword. He should be entire in his judgements, just in his resolutions, devout in the Choir, firm in the Church, sober at table, prudent in recreations, pure in conscience, serious in prayer, patiented in adversity, affable in prosperity, rich in virtues, sage in words, upright in preaching, and free in all good actions. Great S. Denis the dreopagite, 
(e) S. Dionys. ep. 3. ad Demophilum.  addeth a notable sentence, saying: That he who most especially seeketh to transcend others in holy Orders, ought most nearly approach to God in all sorts of virtue.  
For which cause your education should not be in the ordinary way. If you have brothers that are to be bred for the world, let them live in the practice and fashions of the world. O how unworthy are you of the hopes to which God calleth you, if you envy them the favour of the house, and of those, I know not what kind of petty trifles of their own profession! Your condition is much other, if you follow that spirit which guideth you.  

(f) Bern. l. 4. de consid. c. 6. Vbi de comitatu Episcopi inter mitratos discurrere calamistratos non decet.  Heretofore Monasteries were the chief schools of Kings, and the Great-ones of the earth, to cause them to suck in virtue with the milk: your abode should be in places, where you have engaged your heart and your faith; which best can prepare and manure you for the life you have chosen.  
It is truly a scandal to your profession, if you be ashamed to wear a habit proper for an Ecclesiastical man, and blush at the standard of your warfare: A shame likewise, if you must be terrified by way of menaces to make you say your Breviary; or if it be needful to allure you thereunto by I know not what kind of worldly allurements: these verily relish of the unworthiness of a childish spirit. 
(g) Onus personale sacrificium laudis & fructus labiorum. Suarez. de orat. l. 4. c. 12. ex Clement. 1.  See you not that benefice draweth an office after it? that no man should enlarge your conscience by soothing your neglect, and extenuating the obligations you ought to have? If you observe not therein that which you shall be advised by a sage and exact spiritual Father, you may very well most dangerously wander. We are in the Church (saith S. Bernard) 
(h) Seminemus hominibus honum exemplum per aperta opera: Seminemus Angelis gaudium magnum, per occulta suspiria. Bern. serm. 30.  to sow joy and good example: Joy for Angels, by our devotions and the secret aspirations of our prayers; example for men, by our good works. The mind in the judgement of Philo 
(i) Occidente sole anima in totum exonerata sensibus, mole rerum sensibilium, veritatem vestiget in Consistorio domestico. Philo de vitâ supplicum.  should hold a little household Consistory, where discharged from sense and the mass of sensible things, it may study the knowledge of itself, and the search of truth.  
You should love your condition even from your tender age, and live in the Sanctuary like a young Samuel. The toil of affairs and secular recreations, is not for you. Leave the onions of Egypt to sensual souls; your entertainments are in the society of Angels. 
(k) Sobriam à turbis gravitatem, seriam vitam, singular pondus, dignitas sibi vendicat Sacerdotalis. Quomodo potest observari à populo, qui nihil habet secretum à populo? Quid in t● miretur, si sua in te recognoscit? Ambr. Ep. ad Iren.  Priestly dignity, to which you aspire, requireth a sober gravity, alienated from the ordinary way, a serious life, weight, and maturity. How would you have the people honour you, if you have nothing above them? How should they admire you, beholding vices and imperfections in your manners?   

The fifth SECTION. The second virtue of a Prelate, which is Fortitude of spirit against avarice and riot.  
THe second livery of your colours is the purple, which adviseth you to have a strong and truly noble soul. When there is occasion to defend the glory of God, you must have the arm of God 
(a) Si habes brachium sicut Deus, & simi●● voce tones, circunda tibi decorem, & in sublime erigere Job 40.  and the thundering voice of God, not to gain respect by austere looks and affectations of severity, which many times proceed from much infirmity of spirit.  
The Council of Aix saith, 
(b) Meminisse oportet quia columba est in divinis Scripturis Ecclesia appellata, qua non unguibus lacerate, sed alia piè percutit. Con. Aquisgran. Con. 134.  the Church is a dove, which teareth no man with her talons, but is pleased sweetly to strike with her wings: The true gravity of a Priest consisteth in manners, not countenance. 
(c) In constantiâ Sacerdos si● adamantinum signatorium: Men● nostra siguram sui semper custodiens characteris, universa que occurrerint sibi ad qualitatem sui status signet atque transformet, ipse oc●o insigniri nullius incursibus possit. Cassian. Collat. 6. c. 12  It ought to be a seal of diamond, firmly to preserve the characters of virtue, and sign others by example. This fortitude will come upon you, by accustoming not to comply with any vice whatsoever. There is not a worse slavery than to put your liberty into the hands of sin. It is a long chain, and hath many gordian knots: cut them resolutely, as did Alexander, and conquer the Kingdom of your passions, which is of more worth than the Persian or Indians. Above all, if you desire to rule, avoid two rocks most dangerous for a Churchman; whereof the one is the thirst ever to get a new, the other laziness and profuseness in a living already acquired.  
Think not to advance your state, and increase the number of your benefices, otherwise it were to seek out God for bread, not for miracles: It were for living to lose well-living, so to become a bad merchant, not a good Pastor. What cause have you of disturbance? A reasonable benefice is enough for you. If you desire to have a shoe over-wide, and not fit for your foot, you deceive yourself. Say not you are poor, there can be no poverty where you have God for inheritance, and he whom God all-rich, sufficeth not, deserves to be perpetually poor. This desire which men without ceasing have, to be ever on increase, much villifieth ecclesiastics. It affords them as many dependences as they have pretensions. It makes them servilely soothe the passions and vices of those Great-ones, from whom they expect a recompense. It robbeth them of the Kingdom of God, to tie them to the chain of men; who many times are more enthralled than galleyslaves.  
It is a great shame to intrude wickedly hereinto, to surprise an honour by the way of a dishonour. Saints have obtained benefices by flying them, and now we must run over the heads of a man and beast, to overtake them. That brave Architect Vitruvius thought it very strange, that an Artisan presented himself to a great man, to be employed in his own faculty and profession, and thereupon spoke a most remarkable sentence: 
(d) Vitruvius' in praefat. l. 6. Caeteri Architecti rogant & ambiunt ut architectentur: Mihi à Praeceptoribus est traditum rogatum non rogantum opertere suscipere curam, quòd ingenuns color movetur pudore, petendorum suspiciosum.  I see Architects who beg, and underhand sue to be employed: As for myself, I have learned of my Masters, that we should not ask of any man, but rather be entreated by others, to use care and endeavour. He must be blameless, who blusheth not to require that which may be denied him. What would this noble spirit have said, had he seen Churchmen to debase themselves, not only to supplications, but to services most unworthy their quality, to obtain cure of souls, which others in solitary wildernesses have fled from, through briars and thorns, among savage beasts?  
You should imitate that worthy Grecian wrestler, of whom Clemens Alexandrinus 
(e) Clem. Alex. storm. l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. An excellent passage of King Robert. Glab. Rudolphus l. 5. c. 1. Idem refert Juret. ad ep. 157. Yvonis Carn. Quidam tribuunt Henrico Imper.  speaketh, who after long preparation, going to combat stayed himself on the way, and looking on a Statue of his god, said unto it: I have done my duty, do you yours. Become a good man, and a deserving, and believe God will not fail to give you what shall be most behooveful.  
Our great King Robert, made one day upon this occasion, an observation for ever to be remembered, noted by Glaber an ancient Author. He saith, that a certain Abbot having presented the King with a goodly horse, in imitation of those who fish in giving, and cast out one gift as a hook to draw another, hoped this horse would run so well for his Master, as to bring him home a Bishopric. But the good King seeing the sinister intention of this man, sent him to the Church, commanding him to return with his Crozier, which he quickly did, proposing to himself in his mind an augmentation of live, as his avarice had represented to him. But as soon as the King espied him afar off: Hold down that Crozier (saith he) you are unworthy of it, since you think to have it from a man: To the which he obeyed, though much ashamed, and was as one dropped out of the clouds. Our Robert, endowed with a natural goodness, was not willing he should too long suffer this disgrace, but commanded the Crozier to be put into the right hand of the image of our Saviour, which stood directly upon the Altar, then turning himself to the Abbot: Take (saith he) your Crozier, and learn, that it is he there that gives it you. I would not have you so much as give thanks to a mortal man, but that you freely use it, as the honour of your charge requireth. What a King? What a lesson?  
As for the other rock, which concerneth the use of goods, God forbidden, when you come to maturity of age, that you employ the patrimony of Jesus, the sweat and blood of the faithful, in good cheer, excess, and play, to fatten beasts, or men worse than beasts, who live but on the sins of others, to raise unto yourself a heap of anger in the day of judgements. God forbidden, the buildings of an Abbey should fall to decay, the Altars become naked, the images of Saints shivered in pieces, the lamps and lights be eclipsed, the walls weep, and spiders there spin their webs, rats run up and down, and Religious men famish: that Priests there should present themselves before the Altar with ridiculous habits, which taste of a Tavern, whilst I know not what little niece drags silk at her heels, at the charge of the Crucifix.  
My God who will bring back to us a Guy the Gross, that flourished in the time of S. Lewis? I would kiss his ashes, and put them, were it possible, over Mitres and Crowns. 
(g) Vita Clemen. 4. apud. Alphonsum Ciaconium.  This great personage, first a Proctor, married, and father of two daughters, his wife dying, was made Priest; from a Priest Bishop of Puy, from thence Archbishop of Narbone, afterward Cardinal, and lastly Pope. It was expected that his two daughters, which he left to the world, should become great Princesses: but the good Pope made one Religious, with a pension of thirty pounds, and married the other, giving her for full dower three hundred pounds in marriage, to a nephew-Priest, who promised himself many titles, Mitres, and Crosier's, of three prebend's he possessed, he took two away, commanding him to content himself with one alone, and by his letters signifying, it was not reason his advancement to the Papacy, which gave him cause of terror and tears, should minister matter unto his of pride and riot. This act of simplicity is a thousand times more admirable, than if he had made his daughter's Queens of Antioch, and turned all his house into gold.  
Behold the prudence of S. Augustine, of whom Possidius 
(h) Nec suos consanguineos in suâ vitâ ac morte more vulgi tractavit; quibus dum adhuc superesset, id, si opus fuit, quod & caeteris erogavit, non ut divitias haberent, sed ut non egerent, aut mimès egerent. Possidius de S. Aug.  writeth: He used his own kindred as the rest of the faithful, giving to them, if the case so required, not to enrich them, but to free them from necessity, or at least to make them live in the less penury.  
To what purpose should you be prodigal of an estate whereof you are but a steward 
(i) Non cui propriae sunt, sed communes Ecclesiae facultates. Prosper. lib. 1. de vitâ contemplatiuâ cap. 6. Sacerdotes bonorum Ecclesiae non possessores sed dispensatores sunt. Aug. Ep. 50. ? One part thereof is due to the Ministers of the Altar, another part to the poor 
(k) Mendici Dei sumus, ut cognoscat ille mendicos suos, cognoscamus nos nostros. Aug. serm. 5. de verbo Domini. , and a third part to the fabric. If there be any magnificence in the Church, it belongs to the public, particulars should be satisfied with modesty. Why should you pass into the other world, charged with crimes and debts, drawing the malediction of Heaven and earth on your heads?   

The sixth SECTION. The third quality of a good Prelate, which is Purity of life.  
YOur third attire is of white linen, which signifieth the Angelical purity you should observe from your most tender years, to carry it with you to the Altar. The Prophet Isaiah 
(a) Mundamini qui fortis vasa Domini. Isaiah 52.  telleth, they should have their vessels very clean, who are chosen to bear the vessels of God. And for this purpose all the Saints advise us to avoid the daily and familiar conversation of women, who are manifest snares of chastity 
(b) Verè continentes assiduas mulierum etiam probarum familiaritates fugit. S. Ephrem. de temperantiâ. Non potest cum Deo toto corde habitare qui faminarum accessibus copulatur. Faemina conscientiam secum pariter habitantis ex●rit. Hieron. ad Nepotianum. . Believe me, it is one of the most important points of your carriage. A Prelate abiding within the limits of this purity, would appear in the commerce with men, as if he came from a Choir of Angels. But as soon as he falleth into a licentious life, he forsaketh the dignity of his character, and goeth out from the throne of Majesty, as the unfortunate Babylonian King, to feed on hay among beasts. The night discovereth not more stars in the Heavens, than it openeth eyes on the earth to observe his most secret pleasures, ears to hearken to his deportment, and mouths to divulge them through all Provinces. He is looked on as a strange bird, that is newly gone out of his element; and God permits, that having sold his soul for hogs-draff, he should still rest unsatisfied, finding each-where a long web of perplexities, and a rolling wheel of immortal punishments. To some he serves for matter of mirth; too others as a shuttlecock; he giveth occasion of tears to few, of indignation to all. Men for him are wounded with jealousy, and women, have they never so little honesty, abhor him. There are none but certain Harpies, which (as saith Cardinal Petrus Damianus) fly round about Altars to pillage them, who bear him the like good will, as Ravens do to carrion. He lives in a kind of stupidity of spirit, in continual indisposition of body, disgrace in his temporal fortunes, the fable of the world, the object of Heaven's anger, and earth's execration. Finally, he resembleth an old sepulchre, that hath nothing in it but stench and titles. Happily then ponder in your heart, what the life of a Priest ought to be, who is the house of God, of the cabinet, and as it were of the bosom of God. To think a wickedness, is a crime; to commit it, a sacrilege; to bear it to the Altar, is a sin which hath no proper name: there are titles and offices of all vices. Oh how pure should that mouth be, which approacheth to kiss the son of God Oh how clean should those hands be, which are chosen to purge away the world's ordures! Oh how chaste aught that heart to be, that is bedewed with the blood of the Word Eternal!  
What a horror, when a faithless soul from the bed of wolves, goeth out to find the Lamb, and carrieth the pollutions of the earth to the Sanctuary of the living God: like to that beastly Empress Messalina, spoken of by the Satirist 
(c) Faeda lupanaris tulit ad pulvinar odorem.  who bore to the Imperial bed of Claudius her husband, the infamy and noisomness of places, which should not be so much as named in the Palace of a Roman Emperor.  
S. Peter 
(d) Instrueba● Petrus discipulos, actus vitae suae omni horâ custo●ire, & in omni loco Deum respicere, firmiter cogitationes malas cordi suo advenientes mox ad Christum allidere. S. Clem. Ep. 1. ad Jacobum.  said, we must break all ill thoughts by the exercise of the presence of Jesus Christ, as the waves are dashed against the rocks. And S. Chrysostom 
(e) Necesse est sacerdotem sic esse purum ut in Coelo collocatus inter ips●s Coeli virtutes medius staret. Chrys. de Sacerdotio.  advised Priests to be pure, as if they were in Heaven amidst the Angels.  
Chastity, saith holy Zeno, is happy in virgins, strong in widows, faithful in the married, but with Priests it ought to be wholly Seraphical. It is fit he should have little of the body, who is made to manage and handle the body of the Son of God. It is fit he should have small commerce with the flesh, who knoweth how to incarnate the living God in his hands. A carnal soul ready to sell his patrimony for a mess of pottage, as the unworthy Esau, is more fit for hogs, than the Sanctuary. They heretofore sacrificed to the Sun without effusion of wine, and those who sacrifice to the Master of the Sun, aught to entermarrie sobriety with chastity, which are ever mutually linked together. The banquets of rich seculars (said S. Jerome 
(f) Convivia vitanda sunt secularium, maximè eorum qui honoribus tument. Consolatores nos pot●us maeroribus suis, quàm convivas prosperis noverint. Facile contemnitur Clericus, qui s●pe vocatus ad prandium, ire non recusat. Hieron. Ep. 2. Neposian. ) are not so proper for Churchmen. It is much fit to comfort them in afflictions, than to accompany them in their feasts. A Priest who is still present at weddings, is never well esteemed of. He that would behold the modesty which is to be observed at the tables of Ecclesiastical men, let him at the least take a model upon that which Tertullian writeth in his Apologetike of the Primitive Christians. Our table, saith he, hath nothing in it which tasteth of sordidness, sensuality, or immodesty; we eat there in proportion, we drink according to the rules of temperance, so much we satiate ourselves as is necessary for men, that must rise in the night to offer their prayers to God. We there speak and converse as in the presence of God, our hands washed, and candles lighted, every one reciteth what he knows of holy Scripture, and of his own conceit, all to the praise of God. Prayer endeth the banquet, as it gave beginning thereunto. From the table we go to the exercise of modesty and honesty: You would say if you saw us, it were not a supper we had in hand, but a lesson of piety.   

The seventh SECTION. The fourth perfection of a Prelate, which is observed in Zeal and charity.  
YOur fourth mark is scarlet, the sign of the ardent charity and zeal you ought to retain towards the house of God. The buckler of brave Champions of the God of Hosts should be 
Num. 2. Clypeus fortium ejus ignitus, viri exercitus in coccineis.  a buckler of fire, and all his soldiers must appear in crimson cassocks. You must early learn to bay the hare's skin in the hall, that you may afterward go into the field for the hunting of souls. You must become a wall of fire, to serve as a rampart in the house of God. You must be a star, to run over and enlighten the little world recommended to your charge. You must oppose the power of great-ones, the strength of the sturdy, the wiles of the crafty, the close practices of the wicked, to divert ill actions, advance good, leave unprofitable, destroy vice, plant virtue, chastise delinquents, recompense men of merit, protect the poor, justify the innocent. You must be an eye to the blind, a foot to the lame, arm and hand to the maimed, a Sanctuary to all the world. You must have as many chains to oblige men to you, as God hath given you means of well-doing. Let the miseries which in a right line would hasten to you, if it be possible, may pass no further than you: Let your house be a shop, where from stones the sons of Abraham may be raised.  
The Highpriest heretofore bare the whole world on his habit, of which he was as it were the Advocate; and you must think, when you are in office, all the world is on your shoulders, and that both the living and dead shall have a share in the duty which you shall render thereunto. It shall be your act to carry the torch of example before the people, to instruct men to cure and comfort their infirmity, to pray, and sacrifice both for the world of the living, and those whom death already hath divided from our conversation.  
What charity think you can you have to be discharged from these obligations? You must learn 
Nullum omnipotenti Deo tale sacrificium, quale est z●lus animarum. Greg. super Ezech. hom. 12.  to love souls, as the most precious moveables you have in the world, to please yourself with the places, where the objects of your zeal are, and the knots of your charge, rather than the Courts of Princes; when you shall have untamed spirits to govern, let them serve as an arrest for your heart, a subject for your industry, an exercise for your virtues. Satan, in Job, went round about the earth to entrap man; Do you think you do too much, in your opinion, if you advance some steps to save men? No was shut up in the Ark with about three hundred kinds of beasts, peaceable among the waves and destruction of the world, because such was the will of God: and you cannot rest among souls created according to the image of the Divinity, whereunto you are by duty engaged under the peril of your soul. What a shame is it for a Churchman, if he cannot live unless perpetually among horses, dogs, and apes, when God summons him to the charge of souls? Julius Caesar wondered to see men, who dandled apes, having children in their houses; and who cannot but admire, if God allotting you so many spiritual children, you perpetually kiss monkeys, play with little dogs, and carry hawks?   

The eighth SECTION. The fifth excellency of a Prelate, which is Science and Prudence.  
FInally for conclusion, you must sprinkle gold over your Hyacinth, purple, and crimson. These are the rays and lights of knowledge and prudence, which are as necessary for a Prelate, as the eye for a beautiful body. Discretion (saith S. Bernard is not a simple virtue, but the governess of all virtues, the guide of passions, and the Mistress of manners, which if you take away, virtue becometh vice 
(a) Discretio non est tam virtus quim quaedam moderatrix & ●●riga virtutum, ordinatrixq●e affectuum & morum doctri●. Tolle hanc, & virtus vi●i●● erit. Bonav ph●ret. l. 2. c. 27. Bern super Cantic. . Prelates (as Pope Zozimus assureth us) are the eyes of the Church, and if these eyes be eclipsed, what darkness may we expect over the other parts of the body?  
We must not tell a noble spirit, how shameful a thing it is to be in high degree of dignity, and play the golden beast. You cannot brook this affront, the very infants and the dumb world speak, and with a finger show it you, as did the Ass of which Ammianus 
Tribunali ascenso audi●b●tur destin●●●●s rugien. Ammian. l. 27. c. l.  writeth, who in the City Pistoia mounted at midday into the tribunal of a Judge, & began with much earnestness to bray, as if he had done well to the purpose.  
It is a lamentable thing, if for your sake we be enforced to say, that fortune is a daughter of a good house, but that she postitutes herself to servants; that the Church is absolutely wise, but becomes the share of the ignorant. It were a ridiculous thing if on you the fable of the owl should be verified, which telleth, that the small birds had found a rose on the way, and preparing to sing for mastery, they appointed Judges to give it to the victorious, under title of recompense for his song, as the prize of his conquest. But as they were disposing themselves for trial, came a mischievous owl in the night, and carried away the flower without singing. Can a noble heart well endure this application should be justly made upon him, and to be held an infamous bird, which hath stolen away the flower due to the little nightingales? Glass will not present the figure objected, if it be not leaded; whatsoever you may have either of lustre or talents, will have no subsistence, if you lead not your head with the strength of endeavour.  
Should you have the pome-granate, which is the fruit of Kings, and were you of the blood Royal, if you have not little bells on the border of your garment, as had the Highpriest of the old Law, to make the doctrine of the word of God to resound, you would be despised. Why then do you intermeddle with so many toys and petty trifles of children? You should be an Alexander, who better loveth the lance of Achilles, than the lyre of Paris. You must in these schools be fed with the marrow of lions, as that young Prince, and not entertain yourself with catching of flies. When you grow aged, you should not be in a Bishopric, like a blind Cyclops in a hollow cave.   

The ninth SECTION. The Motives which Noble Prelates have to the duty of their profession.  
IN the Name of God, permit you may be rectified in these five virtues, which I have before alleged. The obligations which you have hereunto, if you well consider them, are very great. First, you see that such as are of the same blood with you; endeavour to make good what they profess. Those who manage arms, will part with nothing of the glory of arms. The most timorous would be flayed, and piece-meal torn for a poor punctilio of honour, which is ofttimes merely imaginary. They fly among naked swords, flames, and musket-shots, to purchase a little reputation, which hath not ever the reward it expecteth. And you, O Noblemen, that are in the pay of the Sovereign King, whose liberality cannot deceive you, in a most honourable profession, and which should not be blemished with remissness, would you spare your endeavour to do something worthy your birth? Do you not behold a flourishing Nobility round about you, which being consecrated to the Church, discovereth marvellous hopes unto us? Some do as the vines of Smyrna, that whilst they are in blossom, bear their fruit. There is nothing now every where but study and fervour. There are those who win Troy the magnificent, now wholly inflamed, and will you under hatches lie snoring in the ship?  
In the second place, see who you are. You are destined to treat the cause of men with God; 
(a) Omnis Pontifex ex hominibus assumptus pro hominibus constituitur in iis quae sunt ad Deum. Hebr. 5.  would you betray it? You are selected to be the Oracles of God; would you make yourself a weathercock? you are chosen to be the Ark of the Testament; would you become a vessel of reprobation? You are an Angel, and in hope a little God; would you be an Angel of darkness, and a god of straw? Apply yourself wholly to God, to whom you own all. It is not a matter of discretion for you to do well, it is a point of necessity. Angels hover over your heads, and men are on every side to observe your actions. Those who are blind as moles in their own errors, have the eyes of a Linx to espy your imperfections. 
(b) Aristotoles lib. 4. Politic. c. 15. v●cat Magistratus. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lumina obeliscis praefix●, quod sacerdotibus proprium. In te oculi omnium diriguntur: domus tua, & conversatio quasi in speculo constituta, magistra est publicae disciplinae. S. Hier. Epist. 3.   
Do you not enjoy a goodly honour, when it shall be said of you, that you have a dignity which becomes you, as a ring of gold the snout of a hog (as speaketh the Scripture, 
(c) Prov. 12. Circulus aureus in naribus suis.  and when the King, who is pleased to take the pain to look into the deportments of men Ecclesiastical, who are of eminent extraction, shall perceive you are in the Church as an unprofitable burden, 
(d) Principatus sine meritoris sublimitate, bonorum titulus sinehomine, dignitas in indigne, ornamentum in luto. Salvia. l. 1. ad Eccles. Cath.  to disgrace the charge which honoureth you, and that all those that name you, when you happen to be mentioned in honourable assemblies, will wish a cloud of darkness at noonday, to cover the shame of their foreheads?  
Add that the Church stretcheth out her arms and intreateth you would not suffer her laurels to whither in your hands, to defile her victories, nor eclipse her lights. She hath seen many miseries, many hath she born, many vanquished; but never felt any wounds more dolorous than those which fell upon her by vice, 
(e) Nescio criminum an numinum turbam Tert. advers. Valentinianos' de eorum diis cap. 8.  ignorance, and the negligence of her Prelates. That is it which hath opened the gate to heresies, which hath fomented infidelities, enlarged impiety, disposed the brows of the wicked to impudence, the tongue to slander, the hands to rapine, which hath darkened the present times with horrible confusions, and which vomiteth upon the times and Ages of posterity. Will you increase these calamities, and with your corruptions make a bridge for the faithless to ruin Christianity? For that perhaps shall be the last scourge, which God will use to punish the abuses of ill Prelates, and the sins of the people in general.  
For conclusion I demand, what will become of you in the end at the last judgement of God, under which the Angels tremble, who govern the world? What will become of you, when you shall be accused to have been a viper in the Church, a scandal to the simple, an ill example to the most corrupt, a fiery torch that would inflame the house of God? Where may one find punishments sufficient to inflict on you, and where can you get members enough to furnish out so many punishments, when the stones and marbles of those places you have possessed, will crack in pieces to fly into your eyes? On the contrary, if you take the right way, which I propose, you shall lead a peaceable life in the security of a good conscience, rich in honour and ability, honourable in reputation, terrible to the wicked, reverenced by honest men, fertile in good actions, abundant in infinity of fruits, fruitful in recompenses, prosperous in successes, glorious to posterity, attended on earth with the odour of virtues, and crowned in Heaven by Eternity.   

The tenth SECTION. The examples of great Prelates are very lively spurs to virtue.  
TO come to this effect, often represent before your eyes the lively images of so many worthy Prelates, who have flourished through all Ages, and behold them as stars, which God with his own hand hath planted in this great firmament of the Church, as well that he there might make his glory shine, as here to prepare a way for our direction. Think sometime within yourself what a spirit one S. Nilamon 
Martyrol. Rom. ad 6. Januar.  had, who died with terror, as they bore him to the Throne of a Bishop, for which so many other pine away with ambition, he foregoing life with apprehension he should lose his innocency? What humility in S. Peter of Alexandria, who being the lawful 
Baronius.  Successor of S. Mark, would never mount to his chair, but contented himself to sit the residue of his days on the footstool, until after his death, the 
Chron. Alexandr.  people, having attired him with his Pontifical habit, did carry his body to the seat which he never had possessed? A man truly humble, whose death must be expected to honour his merit, as if honour were incompatible with his life. What zeal in Eustatius Bishop of Epiphanium, whose heart was so surprised with only notice of the profanation of a Church, that he fell down dead in the place, making himself a tomb furnished with the triumphs of his own piety, a thousand times more precious than gold and richest diamonds? What liberality in Saint Exu●erius Bishop of Tholouse, to give away the gold and silver of his Church, for the necessities of the poor, yea, even to the carrying of the Blessed Sacrament in a little basket of osier? What charity in Saint Paulinus, who after he had in alms spent his whole patrimony, which was both very rich and abundant, sold himself, and voluntarily became a slave, to redeem the son of poor widows? What faith in Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, to remove mountains, and command over elements, with as much liberty as a Master over his servants? What power in S. Leo and S. Lupus, to stay Attila, and make head against an Army composed of seven hundred thousand men, drawn from the most dreadful Nations of the earth? What confidence in S. Martin, to submit his shoulders to receive the fall of a huge tree, on condition he might thereby banish the Idols? Let us lay aside all other actions, which are miraculous: behold the lives of those, who have traced a more ordinary way. Imitate the contemplation of a S. Denis, the fervour of a S. Ignatius, the constancy of a S. Athanasius, the contempt of the world of a S. Hilary, the generosity of a S. Cyprian, the austerity of a S. Basil, the mildness of a S. Augustine, the majesty of a S. Ambrose, the vigilancy of a S. Gregory, the vigour of a S. Cyril, the wisdom of a S. Remigius. Propose to yourself the acts of S. Vedastus, Herculanus, Eleutherius, Medardus, Lucipinus, Nicerius, Romanus, Sulpitius, Pretextatus, Germanus, Amandus, Claudius, Lambertus, Wo●phranus, Swibertus, and many such like. Consider the deportments of S. Thomas of Canterbury, S. Lewis of Tholouse; and above all, let not your eye pass over Saint Charles Boromaeus, whom God hath made resplendent in our days, to teach us that no Age is secluded from sanctity.  
A man is powerful to persuade virtue, when in one and the same instant he allegeth threescore thousand reasons, each of which weigh a Crown of gold (hath one of the best Writers of this Age said:) and so did S. Charles, forsaking threescore thousand crowns of yearly rent for one morning's Mass.  
He was a Bishop, who often fasted with bread and water, even in the time of feasts; who every day said his Breviary on his knees, and moistened it with his 
The Reverend Father ●inet.  tears; who celebrated Mass every day with a majesty more than humane; who had two retirements in the year to attend to spiritual exercises; who read the Bible on his knees, shedding brinish tears; who gave alms above his ability; who in person waited on the infectious; who wore haircloth under his scarlet habit; who slept on the bare boards; who stirred not out of his Diocese; who visited it on foot; who in his charge made himself indefatigable; who ever was the foremost in good works, in the Church, in the hospital, with the sick, at a Sermon; who was most exact in not giving orders nor benefices, but to persons very capable and of good life; who never did any matter important, without communicating it to the Pope and his Cardinals, whom he as an Oracle, honoured. These are the words of this  Author, which seem to have very little bulk, but much weight. Is it not sufficient to make you undertake by necessity, that which you cannot refuse without crime? No longer think upon piety as a thing impossible, and do not like ill Physicians, who make the sick despair of health, because they cannot cure them.  
These latter Ages are not so barren of good men, who are most excellent plants in the orchard of Almighty God, but that it hath born, and doth still produce plenty of good Prelates, who honour their profession by the merit of their virtues. If you cast your eye upon those, whom the nearness of time doth make us as it were almost to touch, you shall behold a Cardinal George of Amboyse, who was marvellously potent, but employed all his power to the maintenance of the Church and State, and never sought to be great, but to oblige inferiors, nor approach to the Court, but there most gloriously to serve his Prince.  
A Zimenes, Archbishop of Toledo, who amidst the magnificence of Court, retained the austerity of a Religious man; who was such an enemy of pomp and ostentation, that he hath been seen to visit his Diocese on foot, without train or attendance; who employed his ample revenues, to make war against Saracens, build Monasteries, found Universities, imprint those admirable Bibles in many languages, which are the treasures of all the Libraries in the world. A Pool, who was not only free from the ambitions and avarice of the world, but made as small an account of his body, as of his shirt, since he being violently persecuted by King Henry the Eight, plainly said, that for defence of the faith, he would as willingly disarray himself of life, as of his habit, and would ever be as ready to enter into his tomb, as into his bed to sleep. You shall there behold the four Cardinals of Bourbon, who have equalled their virtues to the blood of Kings, and the purple of their sacred College. The great Cardinal of Lorain, who hath had the honour to anoint three of our Kings with his own hands, to assist in their Counsels, to enlighten them with the rays of his spirit, to defend them by his fidelity, fortifying his hand from his tenderest youth, for the conservation of the State. In all these pomps he wore austerity under scarlet, he preached, and ardently cathechized the most simple of his Diocese, he supported, as an adamantine pillar, the faith, which was both in France and Germany so shaken by the unspeakable disorder of the times: he received the remannts of the English shipwreck with most pious liberality, he instituted Religious Orders, he raised Seminaries, he on every side armed against impiety.  
A Cardinal of Tournon, who served four Kings, to wit, Francis the First, Henry the Second, Francis the Second, Charles the Ninth, and that in France and Rome, in all the most important affairs; being likewise arbitrator of the great Potentates of the earth, with a most remarkable loyalty, a prudence inestimable, a courage invincible. A Baronius, who hath eternised himself by the endeavour of his hands, a thousand times more honourable than all the Monarches of Egypt in their rich Marbles, Pyramids, and Obelisks. But from whence think you have the large blessings of his labours proceeded, but from a most innocent life, which was as the Sun without blemish? but from a most ardent charity, which caused him for the space of nine whole years to visit hospitals morning and evening, to help the necessities of the poor? but from a most singular piety, which wasting his life in the fervour of his prayers, consumed also his revenues with good works in most sacred liberalities?  
A Tolet, a Religious man out of Order, who, raised to the dignity of a Cardinal, employed the most part of the hours of day and night in prayer; living on nothing almost but herbs and pulse, fasting the saturdays with bread and water, and adding a particular Lent besides the ordinary, to the honour of the most glorious Virgin Mary, as the Reverend Father Hilarian de Costa, observeth in the Treatise of his life. Cardinal D'Ossat, writing to Monsieur Villeroy, affordeth him the titles of sanctity, learning, prudence, integrity, worth, fidelity, and saith it is an admirable thing, to see the handiwork of God in raising this great man for advancement of the affairs of France, and absolution of the late King of most famous memory. And the great Cardinal Peron, in a letter he wrote to this triumphant Monarch, dated the second of September, in the year 1595. saith among other things, speaking of the negotiation of Tolet upon this affair: Besides that he hath renounced all worldly respects, to embrace the equity and justice of your cause, that he hath shut up his eyes from the natural obligation of his Prince, Country, Parents, that he hath trampled under foot all sorts of menaces, promises, and temptations; he hath also taken so much pain both of body and mind upon this treaty, that we much wonder he shrunk not under the burden; combating sometimes by writing, sometime by conference with those who were opposite, removing and animating such as were stupid, and in sum, carrying this business with such zeal and constancy, that your Majesty could not hope for so many trials, not to say, so many masterpieces, yea miracles, from the most affectionate and courageous of all your servants. Behold the testimony of a most untainted Prelate.  
I say nothing of the excellent Bellarmine, nor of that prime man among the learned, the most illustrious Peron, nor of the great light of sanctity my Lord Bishop of Geneva, whose lives are printed. I likewise behold most eminent personages on the Theatre of France, who as celestial bodies, have sufficient height and lustre, and are of ability to exercise a pen more powerful than mine; but since I have put myself upon limits, not to speak here of any man now living, I better love to resemble those, who being not of stature able to affix crowns on the head of the Sun's statue,  flowers to it, to make their odour mount to the Heavens. So since I cannot crown their merit with humane praise, I will offer up prayers and vows for their prosperities, with all submission due to their eminent qualities. As it is not my humour profusely to enlarge upon the panegyrics of the living, so is it not my intention to insert all the dead in this little Treatise. If you seek for those, who speak and write purposely, 
Greg. pastoral. curae lib. c. 4.  you will be overwhelmed with a main cloud of witnesses, which will show you men who have been greater than Kingdoms, who have paralleled the passed Ages, edified the present, enlightened the future, and upheld great fortunes by a much greater sanctity. All these will tell you, we have nothing immortal in us, but the riches of the mind, and all this exterior lustre of the world which charmeth the eyes of men, is but a cloud in painting, a petty vapour of water, a fable of time, a dyal, which we then only behold, when the sun of honour reflecteth on it, and which must in the end be buried in an eternal night of oblivion. Let us now see the great S. Ambrose, whom we among thousands have selected to serve as a model for this first discourse. You therein shall observe a man of a most noble extraction, endowed with admirable parts, and who by necessity of duty, and considerations of charity, was conversant in the Courts of Emperors, and in the infinite perplexity of many affairs, which he with all manner of prudence and courage handled, showing in his deportments a vigorous sanctity, chosen by the Divine Providence, to make as it were the whole State of Christendom most eminent.    


E C DOCTORIS AMBROSII   
St. AMBROSE.  

The first SECTION. His Calling.  
THe first mark of perfection, which we require in a good Prelate, to wit, Divine calling, is in great S. Ambrose so manifest, that were it written with the rays of the Sun, it could not be made more perspicuous. We may in some sort speak of him, what he said 
(a) Amb. l. 1. Comment. in Lucam. cap. 1. Vngebatur & quasi bonus athleta exercebatur in utero matris, amplissimo enim virtus certamini parabatur.  of S. John Baptist, That it seemeth God began to prepare him from his mother's womb, to exercise his virtue one day in main battles. First, it is a thing remarkable, that seeing resolution was taken in Heaven, to make this Prelate one of the most courageous and eloquent men of the world, he should be extracted from the Nobility, which is ordinarily full of generosity, being derived from a father, honoured with one of the chief charges of the Empire, which was the Lieutenancy over the Gauls. Besides, he came into the world first breathing French air, which hath been esteemed (according to S. Hierom) 
(b) Hieron. adversus Vigilantium. Sola Gallia monstra non habuit, sed viris semper fortissimis & eloquentissimis abundavit.  the Country of the most noble and learned spirits of the earth: and Sidonius 
(c) Sidonius Apol. carm. 1. Invicti perstantanimisque supersunt, Jam prope post animam.  another Prelate hath said, the valour of a Frenchman extendeth further than his life; for he liveth even then, when the soul and body are divided. Secondly, as we have observed before, God many times declared the calling of infants by sundry presages: It was a great sign of the eloquence of Saint Ambrose, to behold a swarm of bees 
(d) The cradle of S. Ambrose.  all together settle on his cradle, which was at that time brought out into a court of his father's Palace, that the child might thereby take a little fresh air. The nurse seeing these little honey-creatures buzz about him, much nearer than she could have wished, coming and going to his lips, was affrighted, and thought to drive them away; but the father, who walking in the same place with his wife and daughter, beheld this pretty sport, made a sign she should hold her hands, lest by exasperating these little creatures, she might provoke their stings. In the end, they peaceably forsook the place, and soared away so high, that they lost sight of them. At that time Ambrose, father of our great Prelate, spoke aloud, as with the spirit of prophecy: This infant shall be great. And verily, these bees much better alluded to S. Ambrose than to Plato, who is said to have had the like hap in his infancy. For we must affirm, the eloquence of Plato had honey in it, and no sting: but this of S. Ambrose, besides the exceeding sweetness thereof in peaceable arguments, had, when there was occasion of combat, stings that pierced to the quick.  
We may well say, he was the most elaborate in his style of all the Doctors of the Church, especially if we speak of the Latins. For many, as S. Hierom, and S. Augustine, oftentimes dictated with much vehemency of spirit, what came to their mind: but S. Ambrose did not so much accustom himself to dictate to a writer; for he in composing ever had his pen in hand, 
(e) Ambros. Epist. 65. ad Sabinum. Nobis autem quibus curae est similem sermenem familiari usu ad unguem distinguere, & lento quedam figere gradu, aptus videtur propriam manum nostro effigere stylo, etc.  to polish his works at leisure, and as we say, lick his own bear.  
Add hereunto another sign of his vocation, in the childish sports he exercised without consideration, as did heretofore Saint Athanasius, being then, as he, an infant, which was, to cause his sister, and the children which attended her, to kiss his hand; as the hand of a Bishop, he therein taking much pleasure. It seemeth, God sometimes showeth children as with his finger, the way they should pursue. It is an admirable thing, that ther● was in Paris found a young beggar, called Mauritius, so far transported in his own fancy, that he one day might become Bishop of Paris, that many offers being jestingly made unto him in his infinite necessity, to move him to renounce the right he pretended to the Bishopric of this ample City, it proved merely impossible: which a wealthy man perceiving, he so furthered him in study, as in the end he came to the degree, which to himself he had prefigured. What shall we say? God unlooseneth even the tongues of mothers, to speak prophetically touching the state of their children. Witness a most honourable Lady, named Ida, mother of three sons, Baldwin, Godfrey, Eustace, who one day sporting with her, and hiding themselves under her gown, and many times showing their heads with divers pretty childish dalliances, the father casually coming thither in the midst of their play, as they were all covered with their mother's garment, demanded, Who have we there? The Lady readily answered, not knowing what she should say, It is a King, a Duke, and a Count So it proved: Baldwin was King of Jerusalem, Godfrey succeeded in the Duchy of Lorraine, to his father the great Godfrey of Bovillon, and Eustace was Earl of Boulogne. God made use of this woman's tongue, as of the hand of a dyal, which pointeth out the hours as the great wheel guides it, leaving no memory where it touched. Ambrose did the like at that time, directed by the spirit of God. He made himself Bishop in his own imagination, but when he pursued the way of his proper reason and natural judgement, he therein used all resistance, not thinking he was called thereunto.  
In the third place, his calling was altogether extraordinary and miraculous, in that being sent into the Territory of Milan in the quality of a Governor, Probus, who substituted him, merrily said: Go, 
Vade, age, non ut Judex, sed ut Episcopus.  rule like a Bishop, rather than a Precedent, recommending mildness unto him, that he might apply a lenitive to the great rigours that were used in matter of justice. This fell out much otherwise than Probus and Ambrose had projected, for as the history telleth, Auxentius, an Arrian Bishop, who had much longer lived than was fit for a man so wicked, some little time before deceased at Milan, the Metropolitan place of his Diocese, and when there was question to proceed to election, there were many difficulties between the Catholics and Arrians, every one coveting to create a Bishop of his own party. The emulation which was much enkindled, threatened to draw blood from the veins of both sides before it could be quenched. Ambrose, as a Magistrate, went thither to redress it. And behold at the same instant a little child, as if it had been an Angel, descended from Heaven, cried out in the midst of the assembly, Ambrose must 
The election of S. Ambrose.  be created Bishop. This loud voice was seconded by all men, as a voice sent from the mouth of God. The fire of dissension was quenched in an instant, the most outrageous courages forsook their arms, and thought on nothing but to raise Ambrose, who was not as yet baptised, to bear him by ordinary degrees to the Episcopal chair.  
There were some obstacles herein on every side. 
Concil. Nicenum. Can. 1. Miserum est eum fieri ●●gistrum qui necdum dificit esse discipulus. Innocentius primus ep. 12. ad Aurelium. Hieron. Ne milesantequm Tyre, ne pr●●s magister sis, quàm discip●lus.  For first, it was against the laws of the Church to choose a Bishop, since the Council of Nice condemneth those Prelates, who give Orders to Priests presently after baptism. Secondly, there was an Edict of the Emperor, which forbade the advancement of his Officers and civil Magistrates, without his express consent. In the third place, Ambrose, who was wholly dedicated to a secular life, had neither vein nor artery which inclined to election. But who can resist the spirit of God, when he is pleased to strike a stroke with his own hand beyond the imagination and judgements of men? All difficulties one after another, were taken away: and this election was approved, not only by the holy See, but of all the Eastern and Western Bishops, who much rejoiced and congratulated with S. Ambrose, by their letters. The Emperor Valentinian gave his assent thereunto, boasting, he had sent such good Governors to Provinces, that they were thought capable of Bishoprics. There was no body but Ambrose to subdue, who used all sort of engines and practices to divert this purpose. He, who ever of his own nature was exceeding mild, feigned himself bloody, causing racks and tortures to bepublickly exercised on offenders, yet needs would they have him for Bishop. He, who was most chaste, made men and women of ill life haunt his house and descended even to the shadow of sin, to flee the light of glory, yet ceased they not to pursue him. He fled, and after he had for a whole night traveled hard, thinking he was far off, found himself at the gates of Milan, from whence he departed. In the end he was forced to yield to the spirit of Almighty God who gave him such evident tokens of his calling. Needs must he undergo the charge he so constantly had refused, and where humane prudence looseth its sight, we must suffer it to attend the direction of Eternal Providence.   

The second SECTION. A short Elegy of the life and manners of S. Ambrose.  
I Will do as Geographers, who put the whole world into a little map. I intent to comprise in few words, that which deserveth a volume, and give you a brief table of the life and manners of this great Saint.  
S. Ambrose was a man, in whom it seemed virtue 
Rare endowments of a Prelate.  was incorporated, to make itself visible to mortal eyes. Goodness, which cometh to others by study, seemed his by nature, since he had consecrated his infancy by the ignorance of vice, and whiteness of innocency. Others think it ill to commit a sin, and with him it was a great vice to omit a virtue. When he lived in the house of his father, with his good sister Marcellina, he attended to the practice of virtuous actions; they both were as flint-stones, which by proximity make the sparkles fly: so the holy emulation they used in the pursuit of good, enkindled the sensible apprehension of God in their hearts, by a mutual reverberation. He went from this school, as Samuel from the Tabernacle, to bear innocency to the Episcopal Throne, and there to receive dignity. His life served as a rule, his example as a torch, his learning as an ornament, and his very silence as an admonition.  
If you regard the virtues, which ordinarily lay the foundations of spiritual building, such as are sobriety and continency, Ambrose undertook fasts for delight, commonly eating but once aday, and that with moderation; he tied himself to the one for the love of the Cross, and admitted the other by way of necessity. This exercise much served him to conserve his purity, which most inviolably he kept even in the very course of secular life, as it was found in his private papers, where he very ardently begged of Almighty God, that he would give him grace to maintain in his Episcopal dignity, the gift of chastity, which he had afforded him in a secular life. He daily risen from his bed, as the Phoenix from her nest, having no other flames, but those of that great Sun, which scorcheth Angels in Heaven, and the most Angelical hearts on earth. From this temperance proceeded his admirable conversation, which gained all hearts. and who so well knew how to join the wisdom of the serpent with the simplicity of the dove. He was prudent with good men, sharp against the practices of the wicked, yet crafty never. His discourse came from him with such an Oeconomy, that the ignorant found instruction therein; the curious, light; the learned, solidity; the eloquent, grace; the vicious, terror; the virtuous, edification; the timorous, confidence; the afflicted, consolation; and the whole world admiration. There was nothing idle in this man, all spoke in him, all tended to praiseworthy actions; his study was holy letters, his care to express in his manners what he had read in books; he was prompt in all which he did, and had but one hindrance in the world, and that was prayer, which he would never have left, if discretion had not taught him to forsake God to find God. His intentions were most sincere, his negotiations honourable, his silence discreet, his words ever profitable, his heart full of compassion; and although the eminency of his life raised him above all men, yet the sweetness of his nature made him familiar with all such as stood in need of his assistance. As much as his zeal made him terrible to those who durst contend with his Master, so much his mildness rendered him communicable to all the world: his exterior employments nothing diminished his interior, nor did retirement for contemplation hinder the manage of affairs.  
Never was he imperious, but to support the Empire of the Saviour of the world. As he elevated himself towards Heaven, when there was occasion to defend the Church, so he humbled himself to lowest degrees, when he was to condescend to humane infirmities. Honour always seemed to him the tribute of God, and whilst he lived, he constantly yielded it to his Master, without keeping aught else for himself, but the burden of his ministry. His continual exercise was to instruct Monarches exhort people, convince heretics, comfort the afflicted, feed the hungry, cloth the naked, redeem prisoners, entertain pilgrims, show the way of salvation to the erring, save the desperate from shipwreck, inflame the lukewarm, cherish the fervent, provide for all those who were under his charge, and punctually to act all the duties of his profession.  
He thought all the miseries in the world were properly 
Expressa ab Hil●r. Arcl.  his, and bewailed them as his own. He likewise accounted the good hap, commodity, and advancements of his neighbour, were his own riches and enablements, as if in one sole heart, all the hearts of the world were included. There was neither need of Porter nor Page in his house, to give him notice of such as would speak with him, for he was ever exposed to commerce, as writeth S. Augustine. Every one ran to him, nor did any man think the time long in his company; such pleasure they took in his conversation. The needy who arrived at his house, went not away without relief. From the time he entered into office, he consecrated his whole patrimony to the poor, giving as it were all he had, without reserving so much as himself. Although transitory goods are consumed, faith never is wasted. Faith serveth for alms, and alms fail not to faith. These temporal assistances gave passage to grace and spiritual visits; by which he endeavoured to sweeten, as with oil, the yoke of Jesus Christ, and adorn with virtue the souls of all his subjects, as his own heart, which was a true receptacle of charity. Never was man more beloved or feared than he; so well did he know to dispense these two different affections. Every man reverenced him as his Lord, and observed him as his father; each man thought he found his country, kindred, and accommodations, where S. Ambrose was.   

The third SECTION. His Government.  
THe Ecclesiastical government of S. Ambrose, is the rule of all the noble actions of the Clergy, as heretofore the sickle of the Sanctuary was the model of other coins. This great man hath left such an idea hereof in his writings and manners, that the sensual find therein how to consider their end, the lukewarm wherewith to be inflamed, the imperfect to be corrected, and the most perfect what they may daily learn. His fair soul was as the Ibis, a bird of Egypt, which buildeth her nest in the palms. It was perpetually conversant in great contemplations, and had no more impressions of the earth, than the supreme sphere of celestial bodies.  
The principal Maxim on which he established the perfection of his Ecclesiastical life, was that which he afterward digested in writing, in the Epistle to 
Epist. ad Irenaeum, quae est secunda libri tertii in ordine vige●ima.  Irenaeus, whereof I have spoken heretofore: Go to Ambrose, (saith he within himself) behold thyself a Priest, and which is more, a Bishop. This condition requireth a sober gravity, alienated from the manners of 
The foundation of an Episcopal life.  ordinary men; a life wholly serious, weighty, and solid, in degree of singularity. It is a folly to think the dignity of a Bishop consisteth in the exercise of ceremonies, or exterior gestures in public. How shall he be regarded by the people, who hath nothing in his manners different from the people? What wouldst thou have the world admire in thee, if it behold nothing in thee above itself, if it find its imperfections there, if after it hath blushed at one vice to which it is subject, it observe thou hast placed it in the throne of dignity with thee? Since needs I must be a Bishop 
(a) Quaeramus nobis viam inaccessam sermonibus insolentium, inviam operibus imperitorum.  let me seek out a life free from the tongues of the most insolent, and which hath nothing common with the works of weak-ones.  
Following this rule, he in his heart detested the practice of those, who enter into charge by sinister ways, and seek after nothing therein but exterior lustre or temporal commodities: in such sort, that speaking of such a Prelate in the book which he composed of Episcopal dignity, he saith: 
(b) Lib. de dignitate Sacerdot. c. 5. Oculis quidem carnalibus videtur quasi Episcopus magnus, & divinis obtuitibus inspicitur quasi leprosus magnus. Caro suscepit dignitatem, & amina per●idit honestatem. Caro deminatur populis, & anima servit demoni.  We behold him with carnal eyes as a great Bishop, and God with his eyes, which cannot be deceived, sees him as a foul leper. Flesh took the dignity, and the soul hath lost honesty. Flesh predominateth over people, and the soulis a slave to devils.  
It is no hard matter to persuade a man to virtue, who believes it to be his principal business. This sage Prelate, having laid the foundations of good and sincere intentions, applied himself so to his charge, that day and night he admitted no other thought. For, leaving the manage of household affairs to his brother Satyrus, he addressed himself wholly to Episcopal functions, which he exercised with so much perfection, industry, and readiness, that Paulinus, an eye-witness of his actions, said, He did as much alone, as five other Bishops.  
First, seeing he succeeded a man who had sown dissension, he found it was very necessary often to preach Catholic verities, which he performed with much fruit, but labour indefatigable. For, coming from the order of Magistracy to Episcopal dignity, he must learn that which his first profession never had taught him: and although he might in such necessity have made use of others labours, notwithstanding he, who prudently thought fit, that the doctrine we teach should bud in our hearts, and take beginning in our inventions, to produce it with the more utility, put himself seriously to the reading of Scriptures and holy Fathers that were of his time, to bring forth afterward in his soul what he should speak and observe; for it was the counsel, which he afterward gave to Bishop Constantius. You 
(c) Collige de pluribus locis ●quam quam effundunt nubes propheticae, ut terra tua humescat, & demesticis irrigetur fontibus. Lib. 3. Ep. 1.  must (saith he) gather together the water, which distilleth from the Prophets, as the clouds from many places, to the end your land may be moistened and watered with their familiar fountains. His preach were solid, pure, gently flowing, and full of good instructions, and although his discourse had much sweetness in it, yet had he not so sucked honey from those bees which courted him in his cradle, that he retained not their stings. A nature too flexible resembleth the air, which as soon giveth place to beggars, as Caesar's; and as there is nothing more insupportable in a charge than a spirit opinionative, so nothing is more fruitless than a weathercock, who turneth with every wind, and hath no other direction, but the passions of all those that nearest approach him. S. Ambrose endeavoured to cure all the world, as much as he might possibly, with sweetness, mixing ofttimes his own tears with those of his penitents: but if he met with obdurate and rebellious hearts, he took upon him a marvellous predominancy both of authority and eloquence, to tame vice and disarm insolence. Constantine 
(d) Constantius medicus de liquidis.  a great Physician observeth, that it is not good to feed those with honey ormilk, who are dangerously wounded; for seldom by this course is death escaped. Our great Bishop made the like judgement upon the maladies of the soul, and never bend himself to cherish by supple indulgences, those hearts which he saw to be ulcered with any malice. His admonitions were not upon idle discourses, for they were seen to be waited on with good effects, and as it were a general reformation in all orders.  

(e) Reformation of the Clergy.  He began to measure the Temple by the Sanctuary: for esteeming that the sinews of words are laudable examples, he endeavoured to make a good Clergy, to serve as a mirror for the Laity. The waters of Jordan heretofore offered homage to the feet of Priests, because they bore the Ark on their shoulders. There is not any thing that gives not way to a good Ecclesiastic, who carrieth sanctity in his heart; his words are thunderclaps, when his life is the lightning. Behold why this great Saint desired nothing so much, as to see the house, not of Caesar, but of Jesus, free both from crime and suspicion of it. Above all, he strove to extirpate two plagues, fatal and opposite enemies of all sanctity, avarice and lust; not only desiring the Priests of his Diocese should have chaste bodies, but innocent hands also, and not covetous to draw superfluities to their condition of life. He voluntarily bred them in poverty and frugality, as in the first mansion from whence the glory of the primitive Church proceeded, well knowing, the augmentation of riches doth not equally increase piety.  
One would not believe what choice he made in Ecclesiastical preferments, even to the refusing many times of some, who had been very much recommended unto him, and had nothing to give occasion of rejection, but some petty uncomeliness in gesture or exterior parts; that alone offended the eyes of Saint Ambrose, who was not willing to see any thing but lustre in his Clergy. And although such things seemed idle to many, yet was he no whit in his judgement deceived; for having one day dismissed two for one sole levity in their gate, he found they afterward made shipwreck of faith, and already discovered the unconstant perfidiousness of their mind, in this wanton action of their carriage.  
Where reasons could not avail, he employed a severe censure, having no regard to exterior semblances, when there was occasions to chastise a crime. Witness one Gerontius, who lived in Milan, under his rule, a man of a spirit most pregnant, and curious beyond his profession, who was not contented to seek into the secrets of physic, and excessively endeavour to polish his tongue, which was very pregnant, but he descended to some folly of Necromancy. Now this man having an itch of speech, and especially of all that which he thought might make for his advantage, vaunted in some company that he one night had taken one Onoscelides, that is to say, a devil, who appeared to him with the legs of an Ass, and that he had shaved him, and led him to the mill: whether it were that he in effect had seen such a spectre, his brain being already much disposed to illusions, or whether it were through vanity and imposture, that he boasted himself of what he had done, as it oftentimes happeneth to such kind of men, who make trophies of great crimes, whilst it raiseth them in the opinion of the world above the ordinary sort. These words being related to Saint Ambrose, he very sharply reprehended him, and imprisoned him in his own house, in joining sundry penances for expiation of this fault, most unworthy of a Deacon of the Church of Milan, such as he was. He, who was not capable of such a remedy, fled, and went to Constantinople, with intention to disgrace S. Ambrose, which he did as much as possibly he might. There by the soft insinuation of his wit, joined to an incredible vain tattle, in stead of seeking out a wholesome plaster for his ulcers, he covered them with cloth of gold, in such sort, that through the favour of Great-ones, whom he had gained, he was preferred to the Bishopric of Nicomedia. S. Ambrose effectually wrote to Nectarius, discovering the impostures of this man, and beseeching him for the honour of the Church, and his own proper interest, he would not suffer that Episcopal See to be defiled with ordures that astonished heaven and earth. Nectarius employed all his power in this affair, desiring both to discharge his own conscience, and oblige the Bishop of Milan: but he found this Impostor had by his charms got so much favour, that to remove him was very difficult. The glory hereof was reserved for S. John Chrysostom, who afterward removed him, as soon as he was preferred to the dignity of Patriarch of Constantinople.  
Behold the severity this great Pastor used in the institution of his Clergy: and as he saw that good Religious men and women served for a great ornament 
Religious cherished by S. Ambrose.  of the Church, so he took a most particular care to entertain them and manure them as worthy plants of the garden of the Church. Never could be rest till he saw a Monastery erected in the suburbs of Milan, where many holy personages dedicated themselves to a solitary life, to perform on earth what the Angels do in Heaven. As for Virgins who took the veil irrevocably to consecrate their virginity to Jesus Christ, he trained them up in the Church, with so much study, fervour, and zeal, that we cannot imagine more. For he dedicated to them the first fruits of his labours, writing in their favour the books of Virginity, which he composed in the first year of his charge, in a most flourishing and elabourate stile; where to show the respect he bore to this profession, he spoke these words unto them:  
My holy daughters, It is not yet three years since I undertook 
Excellent speeches to virgins.  this charge, and you know from whence I was drawn, and the small time given to dispose me to so weighty a burden: notwithstanding, I afford you the fruits of my tongue, since I have learned more in your manners than in books. The flowers which grow in my discourses, come from your garden. It is not precepts for Virgins, but examples drawn from the life of Virgins. Your manners have breathed a certain grace into my soul, & I may say, that all that which my endeavour hath of good odour in it, is derived from your prayers. For who am I but a barren thorn? But God, who heretofore spoke to Moses among thorns, will now to day speak by my mouth.  
His Sermons and books had so much effect, that Virgins came from the utmost limits of Christendom to be veiled at Milan; which S. Ambrose seeing, he could not wonder enough that he persuaded virginity where he was not, it not being in his power sufficiently to multiply it according to his desire, in places where he resided 
(f) Hic tracie, alibi persuadeo: si ita est, alibi tractemus ut vobis persuadeamus. L. 1 de virginibus. .  
He caused the Bishop of Bologna to come unto him, led on by the same spirit as himself, to assist in this design, of whom he one day said in full assembly: 
(g) Adest piscator Bononiensis, aptus ad hoc piscandi genus: Da Domine pisces qui dedisti adjutores.  Behold the fisher of the Church of Bologna, fit for this sort of fish; Lord afford fish, since you have given us coadiutours. And considering that some murmuted at these his proceed, as if the world should instantly fail by this means, he shown in a most eloquent Sermon, that no one had cause of complaint either married or unmarried; the married, because they had wives, not virgins: the unmarried, because they should find sufficient; and that the carnal, who opposed virginity under pretext of multiplication, resisted by this means the chastity of marriages, where continency is oftentimes exercised, even by necessity: as for the rest, we are not to believe the world will be ruined through virginity: For, admit it should fail, it would ever be a matter more honourable for it to decay by virtue than concupiscence. But it is so much otherwise, said he, that we should lay hold of that, which we see by experience in the Churches of Africa and Alexandria, where there are most virgins, they have the greatest number of men.  
This employment nothing lessened the assistances, which he afforded for the instruction of those who lived in an ordinary course.  

(h) So perstitions and excesses, taken away.  Above all, he endeavoured to root heresies out of their hearts, and certain customs of Gentilism, which easily stole in by contagion into the houses of the faithful. Among other things, there was a Pagan-guise much practised at Milan and other places of Christendom, which was, to celebrate the first day of the year with riots and disorders: a matter much resenting the Bacchanals. He so cut off this abuse by his great authority, that of a day profaned with so much sensuality, he in few years made it among Christians a day of penance and fasting: which for some space afterward was observed in the Church, until such time as the memory of the superstitions of Gentilism was wholly extinct. Others entertained this foolish belief, that when the moon was eclipsed, she suffered much through the persecution of ill Angels, who then endeavoured to exile her; and therefore they went out of their houses with many pans and cauldrons, making a loud noise to dissolve, as they said, the design which evil spirits had against the Moon. The sage Pastor made an express homily against this superstition, wherein he much confounded those who were infected herewithal. Moreover, it being a custom very ancient, and introduced by the Apostles, to make in Churches, which then were the houses of the faithful, Agapes, that is to say, banquets of charity in favour of the poor, this by little and little was changed into liberties unworthy of Christianity. For sensuality had got such ground, that stifling charity in this action, it rather seemed a sacrifice to the belly, than an act of piety. S. Ambrose abolished all these rites, and cut off such abuses even in the least root, that it was never seen again to sprout in the Church. S. Augustine, in cited by his example, practised the like in Africa, and afterward caused the decree to be inserted in the third Council of Carthage.  
In the proportion that he extirpated vice, he planted solid virtues in the hearts of the faithful, whom he ordinarily entertained with these ensuing instructions, counselling other Bishops to do the like. 
(i) Purity of intention.  First he sought in all places to form in minds a strong imagination of the presence of God, unwilling that Christian virtues should be petty hypocrisies, guided by the natural extent of humane respect, but rather intentions wholly celestial; and for that cause he said: 
(k) Si quis solus est, seipsion prae caeteris erubescat.  If any man be alone, let him regard himself more than any other in the world.  

(l) Covetousness opposed.  Secondly, seeing the inordinate desire of riches was a petty apostasy of faith, and root of all disorders, he very often did beat on this anvil, labouring by all sort of good endeavours to withdraw hearts from the love of earth, that he might raise them to Heaven. Among other things, you have these excellent words in the epistle to Constantius: 
(m) Multaoneri, moderata usui. Viatores sumus vitae hujus multi anbulant, sedopus est ut quis benè transeat. Saj ienti nihil alienum, nisi quod virtuti incongruwn. Quocunque accesserint sua omnia. Totus mundus possessio ejus est, quoniam eo toto quasi suo utitur. Ep. ad Constantium.  To enjoy much, is to have a great burden: Great riches are a vain ostentation; the indifferent, for use. We are all Pilgrims in this life; all the business is not in going, perfection consisteth in a ready passage. To what purpose do you so torment yourself with the desire of boarding? Be wise, and you shall have sufficient. A virtuous man thinks nothing is without him but sin. Wheresoever he sets his foot he finds a kingdom. All the world belongeth to him, because he useth all the world as his own.  
In the third instance he made sharp war against the ambitions and vanities of the time, disposing minds as much as he could to Christian humility by this Maxim: 
(n) Ambition. Nihil interesse in quo statu quis se probabilem praestaret, sed illum esse sinem bonorum, ut quocumque quis statu probaretur. Illud praecipuum, ●t magis mores commendarent statum, quàm statu● mores.  The greatest knowledge in the world is well to act your part: It importeth not in what condition of life we are, so that we discharge our conscience, and the duty of our places. We must so use the matter, that our manners may recommend our condition, and not derive their worth from our dignities.  
In the fourth place, he used infinite care to maintain conjugal chastity in the lives of the married, oftentimes showing by pregnant reasons, that lust 
(o) Luxu. ●●.  was a fire, which burned the garment of the soul, and wasted mountains even to the bottom. And because bravery is ordinarily the nest where dishonesty hatcheth, he courageously opposed profuseness in that kind, using sharp reprehensions against women, vain and dissolute in attires. One day amongst the rest, he proved they were as in a perpetual prison, loaden with punishments and condemned by their own sentence 
(p) Excess in apparel. Hinc collum catend, construing it, inde pedes compes includit. Nihil refert àuro cerpus o●eretur aut ferro, si cervix premitur, si gravatur incessus; nihil pretium juvat, nisi quod vos mulieres ne pereat vobis poena ●repidatis. Quid interest aliena sententia an vestra vos damnet? Hinc vos etiam miserabiliores quàm qui publico jure damnatur, quòd illi optant exui, vos ligari. Lib. 1. de Virginib.  It is pity (saith he) to see a woman, that hath upon the one part a great chain about her neck, and on the other guives about her feet. What matter is it whether the body be charged with gold or iron, if the neck be alike bowed under a yoke, and the gate bindred? The price of your bands serves for no use, but to give you cause to fear your torments. Miserable that you are, who condemn yourselves by your own proper sentence; yea, more miserable than criminals, for these desire nothing but their own liberty, and you love your captivity.  
In the end, he much recommended charity, justice, government of the tongue, flight from ill company, and modesty in all deportments; whence it came to pass, that he wrote those admirable books of Offices, which set out all Christian virtues with an eminent lustre. The good Prelate was in his Bishopric, as the Pilot in the ship, the soul in the body, the sun in the world, labouring in all kinds, and having no other repose, but the vicissitude of travails.   

The fourth SECTION. His combats, and first against Gentilism.  
IT is time now that we behold our strong Giant 
Evident danger of Christendom.  enter into the list against monsters; for armed with weapons of light, he enterprised sundry battles against Sects, vices, and the powers of darkness, which sought to prevail. I will begin his prowess by the encounter he had with Symmachus, Governor of the City of Rome, who endeavoured by his eloquence and credit▪ to re-advance the profane superstitions of Gentilism. This combat was not small, not less glorious for the memory of S. Ambrose, with him that will well consider it, the danger was very great, for the name and design of Julian the Apostata, as yet lived in the minds of many men of quality, and of malign spirits, who had conspired with time to stifle Christianity, making corrupt and imaginary Deities to re-enter into the possession of the world. This Symmachus was the Ensign-bearer, a subtle man, well spoken, and of great authority; to whom the Emperors had caused a golden Statue to be erected with the title of The Prime man of the Empire, both in reputation, wisdom, and eloquence: and for that cause he promised himself he had power enough to set God and the devil upon one and the same Altar. He practised to disguise Pagan Religion by his artifices, drawing it from the ordures and bruitishnes thereof chanted by Poets, to give it a quite other face, and represent it with a mask, which he had framed out of sundry Philosophers under the reign of Julian, to render it the less odious. And seeing the times favoured him, by reason that after the death of Gratian, a most Christian Prince, Valentinian, who was an infant under the guardianship of an Arian mother, held the stern of the Empire, he resolved therefore to fish in a troubled water, and by surreption obtained certain Edicts in favour of Paganism, against which S. Ambrose framed most powerful oppositions. I will render you here the two plead in those terms they were pronounced, to confront the babble of a Politician with the eloquence of a Saint.  
The understanding Reader shall heat observe two most rich pieces of eloquence, which I have rendered rather as an Orator than a Translator, to give them the lustre they deserve. I am desirous you may see in the Oration of Symmachus, what a bad conscience can do, which hath eloquence to disguise truth, and how we must ever judge of men rather by their works than their words.  

The Oration of Symmachus to Theodosius and Valentinian the Younger, for the Altar of Victory, exercise of Pagan Religion, and revenue of Vestals.  
SACRED Majesty's,  
SO soon as this sovereign Court, wholly possessed by 
Note that he feigneth Theodosius as present, who knew nothing what had passed.  you, hath seen vice subdued by laws, and that you through your piety have tazed out the memory of passed troubles, it hath taken upon it the authority, which the favour of this happy Age hath afforded, and discharging the acerbities long time retained upon the heart thereof, hath once again commanded me to bring you its complaints in a solemn Embassage.  
Those that wish us not well, have hitherto bereft us of the honour of your audience, thereby to deprive us of the effect of your justice. But I now come to acquit me of two obligations; the one as Governor of the City, the other as Ambassador: As Governor I do a work which concerneth the Weal-public and as Ambassador I present you the supplications of your most humble subjects.  
Dissensions we have no more amongst us, for the opinion 
All the Pagan Senators agreed not before upon this Embassage  is ceased, that one to become a great Statesman, must be particular in his opinions.  
The greatest Empire which Monarches may enjoy, is to reign in the love and estimation of their subjects: so is it also a matter intolerable in those that govern the State, to nourish their divisions to the hurt of the public, and establish their credit upon the loss of the Prince's reputation.  
We are far distant from those imaginations; for all our care perpetually watcheth for your interest, and for that cause we defend the decrees of our Ancestors, the rites of our Country, and fatal happiness thereof, as a thing which concerneth the glory of your age, to which you gave a new lustre, when you publicly protested never to enterprise any thing upon customs established by our Ancestors.  
Behold wherefore we most humbly beseech you to restore the Religion, which so long hath perserved this Empire. If we will remember those Princes under whom we have lived, though divided in Sects and opinions, we shall find some have retained the Religion of their Ancestors, the other not rejected it. And if authority of the dead suffice not to give us example of what we should do, at the least let us take it from the dissimulation of the living, who in tolerating ancient ceremonies have discovered they had no purpose to condemn them.  
We at this present require the Altar of the Goddess Victory may be restored to us, thereon to offer our sacrifices. Is there any man in the world such a friend to the Barbarians our enemies, who will oppose this design? The experience of passed times teacheth us wisdom for the future. It is time we avoid so many dreadful prodigies which menace as, and at lust yield the honour to the name of Victory, which we have denied to its Divinity. Victory, o Sacred Majesties, hath already powerfully byod you, and will yet much more oblige you. It is a work for the wicked, who never have had experience 
A subtle insinuation of Symmachus  of its benefits, to hate the honours thereof: but your worth cannot choose but adore that which serves as a favourable support for your triumphs.  
Victory is a Divinity that hath her Altars charged with vows of the whole world. The man is most ungrateful, who will dishonour that which he professeth to desire: and were it not an action of justice to afford veneration where it is due, yet ought we not to be deprived of the ornaments of our Senate.  
Suffer our old age, most sacred Majesties, to leave to posterity the Religion received from our Ancestors, when we were as yet in our infancy. The love of ancient rites is a marvellous tie. The Emperor Constants, 
Constans the son of Constantine the Great.  who would have cut it off, therein lost his labour, leaving an example to others to decline severity, which nothing availed him. We, who are much affected to the eternity of your Name and Divinity, must so use the matter, that the succeeding Ages may find nothing which requires alteration in your actions.  
Where shall we hereafter swear to your laws and commands, when we shall find all the Altars demolished? Who shall serve as a terror to the perfidious to arrest their falsehood, if they no longer apprehend the Divinities, which they in foregoing time reverenced? We are not ignorant that all this great Universe is filled with the presence of God, and that there is no place of safeguard for perjuries: yet it is a matter most important to repress the liberty of crimes by the visible presence and marks of an ancient Religion. This Altar of Victory is the knot of our concord, and the mansion of public faith. All that which giveth authority to our Decrees, is, that we pronounce them after we have sworn fidelity upon Altars: and shall we then without difference profane an Altar so Religious, where we at other times have taken oath, and profane it under the reign of Princes, who more entrust the security of their persons on the faith of their subjects than force of their arms? But the Emperor Constans is said to have showed the way 
Constans was allied to the Emperor, for which cause he speaketh warily.  thereof. Why do we imitate in a Prince who hath so many other perfections, that, which hath worst succeeded with him, and which he never had done, if good fortune had made him see another to miscarry before him? The faults of a predecessor are not unprofitable to a successor, who from them will derive profit: and ofttimes a man lays the first ground of his virtues on the vices of another. It happened, that this good Emperor foresaw not the discontent which would arise from this action, the matter being as yet new and without precedent: we who now have other knowledges than he, cannot have the like excuses for our errors. Your Majesties shall find in this Prince actions enough worthy of imitation, which you may pursue with more glory and less envy. Neither did he cut away any thing of the privileges of Vestal Virgins; he replenished the Temples and Ministeries of the Gods immortal with Nobility, and was willing coin should be taken from his coffers, to defray the charges of ancient ceremonies. Coming to Rome he marched through all the streets of this eternal City, accompanied with his Senate, most glad to behold him: with a favourable eye he saw the Temples, which bore the titles of our Gods on their foreheads; he enquired the original of their goodly buildings, and applauded the founders. And though he were of a Religion different from ours, yet was he not desirous to make his piety triumph in the extinguishment of that of our Ancestors. He preserved for the Empire its ancient customs, well 
Maxims of a Pagan.  knowing, that in matter of Religion each manhath his opinion, his rites, and ceremonies; all which require freedom.  
The spirit of God, which governeth this great world, hath distributed its protectors to every City; and as 
He speaketh as a man ignorant of faith.  Heaven hath given us souls, so it every where decreeth, certain geniuses and fatal powers for the government of mortals, which oblige us to regard them more by the profit we derive from them, than any other consideration. All the reasons which we here below have of the Divinity are obscure, and we cannot know God better than in his benefits, in the memory, and experience of posperities from him derived.  
If antiquity be of power to give any weight to a Religion, why shall we not maintain a faith established by so many Ages? Why shall not we follow the steps of our fathers, who have so happily succeeded their grandfathers? Propose to yourselves. that Rome at this time presents itself before your eyes, and in these terms speaketh to you:  
O most excellent and just Princes, who are the true 
Subtle discourses.  Fathers of the Country, have regard to the old Age whereunto I am arrived, in pursuing the piety of my founders: give me leave to exercise the ancient ceremonies, since they are not such as I ought to repent myself of, and to practise my ordinary guises, since liberty is the inheritance of my birth. The Religion of which you would bereave me, is that which hath vanquished the world, that which hath chased Hannibal far from my walls, and driven the Gauls from my Capitol. Have I then been preserved among so many armies and perils, to be now at this day dishonoured by my children? Have I then given Law to the whole world, to receive it in my elder days from simple fishermen? I yet do not know what they will teach me, but I well understand, the correction of old age must needs be heavy, and in much danger also to become the more ignominious. I honour the Gods of my Fathers, the Gods of my birth; I beg peace of them, will any man teach me aught else? I think after we have well disputed, we shall find we have all but one and the same God, but that we honour him under sundry titles. We all live subject to the same stars, we all are covered with the same Heaven, involved all 
Dangerous maxims used afterward by Heretics. Phil●strius de haeresibus.  in the same world; let us s●ffer every one to seek out truth according to his poor industry. God is a great secret: it is no wonder if we endeavour to find him by so many divers ways.  
But I leave the disputation hereof to those who have more leisure than I: I come not to give a battle, but to present you with our humble prayers. I would willingly know whether your Majesty's coffers have been throughly filled since the small revenues have been taken from those poor Vestals, which before they enjoyed? 
Vestal virgins  They see themselves frustrated of the recompenses, which the most avaricious Emperors have decreed them, and in so great a liberality of your Majesties, which enricheth all the world, they alone have cause to complain of necessity.  
It is not gain which leadeth them, but the honour to 
Moving words.  receive the wages due to their chastity. It is to violate the holy veils, which attire their heads, to deprive them the ordinary privileges of their profession. The poor maids ask nought else of you but a bare title of prerogative, as their great poverty hath freed them from surprise of their enemies: for nakedness is that alone which violence cannot disarray. The more you have cut off from their privileges, so much the more have you rob them of the honour of their charges, since their virginity which is vowed to public safety, hath so much the more merit, as it findeth the less recompense. God forbidden your treasures which are most innocent, should be defiled with prey drawn from the Vestals. The revenues of good Princes still increase, rather from the spoil of enemies than loss of Priests. There is no gain can recompense the wrong done them by this decree. The further off your dispositions are estranged from all manner of avarice, so much the more is their condition miserable, since they behold themselves so tormented under such great clemency, and frustrated of a happiness, which they cannot lose but with honour. For were they despoiled by Harpies, we should deplore their misery in the compassion we take of their innocency: but the world, which seethe them deprived of their fortunes under Emperors so reserved and moderate, will say, needs must there be crime on their part, since on yours they behold nought else but sanctity.  
Possessions bequeathed to virgins by the last Will of those, who deceased in the devotion they bore to their Temples, are still withheld: I humbly beseech you, O sacred Pontifes, who sit in the place of justice, why would you make void the public Religion of your Empire with the succession of a particular? Let dying men make their Wills with all security; suffer them to departed with this belief, that they have princes not covetous, who will maintain what they shall bequeath in leaving the world, of their abilities. It is your honour and contentment, to see such a happiness in the state which you manage, and likewise to deliver dying men from the disturbances they may have upon the nullity of their Testaments. Is there any thing in the world that more concerneth the Roman right, than the Roman Religion? How would you have the change of property to be called, made upon moneys, which their nature nor the laws have not put into the condition of unclaimed and perishable goods? Legacies are permitted to freed men, slaves are not denied the petty profits given them by Wills. Is there none but virgins, and those virgins so noble, yea virgins vowed to the exercise of Ceremonies, fatal for preservation of this Empire, must be deprived the possessions, which come to them by lawful ways of inheritance?  
What availeth them to consecrate the chastity of 
Symmachus magnifieth the Vestals.  their bodies to public safety, to lay the foundation of an eternity for this Empire on the aid of their prayers, to tie to your standards, your arms, & your eagles, the favour of heavenly assistances, to present vows powerful for the whole world, and be bereft the rights that are denied to no man? It will hereafter be better to serve men than Gods, since we, desirous to make our Empire religious, make it ungrateful,  
It is not the sole cause of the Vestals which I plead, it is that of all humane kind; for the dishonour of their profession is the source of all our evils. The law of our forefathers hath honoured these holy maids, and all those that are vowed to Altars, with some small revenue, and some very just privileges. This hath ever been for them maintained, until new ordinances were made by some Bankers, who degenerating from the care of their Ancestors, have employed the revenues dedicated to virginity on the entertainment of certain Porters. From 
Famin.  thence consequently came that great dearth, the effect whereof the whole world hath felt, where lean harvests have deceived the hopes of every Province. Let us not accuse the earth of this disaster, for it is innocent: Let us not quarrel against heaven, for it is just: Let us not complain the worm hath gnawn the ear of corn, or wild oats have choked the fruits of the earth: Our sacrileges have made the year drouthy, and good reason it were, the whole world should he frustrated of a benefit it hath taken from Religion. Were there any example of our unhappiness in former times, we might say this famine happened by a certain revolution of years, fatal in such accidents. But where shall we find any thing like to this in the passed ages? Where shall we find a sterility so knotted together by the malignity of the air? Where shall we find that the people hath been enforced to have recourse to wild plants and accorns of the forest Dodonia, to satisfy their hunger?  
When did our Fathers ever behold a spectacle so cruel, whilst they cherished the ministers of Religion at the charge of the public? When did they ever shake oaks but for hogs? When did they ever pull berbs up by the roots to feed men? When did the fields, which for the most part accustomed interchangeably to rest, as it were on purpose, fail in one and the same year? Hath this been when the people shared their provisions with the Vestal Virgins? Liberality used towards Priests graced the years' revenues, and it rather seemed a remedy against barrenness, than a largesse of piety. Now God in the necessity of each one avengeth the detention of a benefit, which be would have common for all the world.  
Some one will say, it is no wonder, if we refuse to entertain a strange Religion at the charge of the public. God forbidden your Majesties should think the revenues, which were heretofore ordained for the Vestals by the Commonwealth, should at this present be summed up as the coin of the Weal-public.  
As the Commonwealth is composed of particulars, so hath it no more right over donatives, than it hath on particular persons. Yourselves, who govern all, preserve for each one what appertains to him, and would have justice extend itself further than your power. Consult, if you please, with your magnificence, and it will tell you, that what you hitherto have given to so many particulars, is no more a public good, for the gifts are no longer theirs who bestowed them, and that which was in the beginning a benefit, by custom and succession of time, becomes an obligation. It is to affright the consciences of your Majesties with panic fears, to think to make you believe you give to our religion, that which you cannot take from it without injustice.  
I pray God the secret assistances of all Sects may favour your Clemency, and that this same, which hath so long time aided your Ancestors, if it can no longer stand in credit with you, may at least keep you in its protection. We will on your Majesty's behalf afford it all rights, and it towards you shall continue ordinary favours. We demand nothing new in requiring the exercise 
He speaketh of Valentinian  of a Religion, which hath preserved the Empire for your father (now with the Gods) and which hath blessed his bed with lawful heirs of his crown. This good Prince being entered into the condition of the Gods immortal, beholdeth from Heaven the tears of these poor Vestals, and well sees customs cannot be violated, which he with so much affection maintained, but by the diminution of his authority. Afford at least this contentment to your good brother, received into this celestial company, as to see a decree corrected, that was not his own. Cover an act under oblivion, which he had never suffered to pass, had he foreseen the discontent of the Senate, and for which the deputies were diverted, which we sent unto him when he was alive, for the fear his enemies had of his equity. It much importeth the public to take away a foul blame from the ashes of a good Prince, and justify the passed by abolishment of the present.    

The fifth SECTION. The Oration of S. Ambrose against Symmachus.  
MOST SACRED Majesty,  
ALthough your Minority gave us undoubted signs 
It is drawn from his reasons, conceptions, and as it were from all his own words.  of the strength of your spirit and constancy of your faith, yet the rank I hold near to your person obligeth me to prevent the surprises of a crafty discourse, which creepeth amongst so many golden words as the serpent amongst the flowers.  
It is ill the Governor Symmachus hath employed so fair a tongue on so foul a subject. The deceit of his eloquence makes us suspect the weakness of his Gods: for ever a bad cause seeketh that support in words, which in truth it cannot find. Such are the ordinary proceed of Pagans, when they speak of their superstitions.  
Their Orations resemble those ancient Temples of Egypt, which under golden Tents lodged Idols of Rats and Crocodiles. But the Scripture teacheth us rather to live than talk, and recommendeth the contempt of language to oblige us to solidity of virtues. That is the cause, why (most sacred Majesty) after I have entreated you to take my discourse rather in the weight of reasons than number of words, I will answer to three points, which the Governor seemeth to comprise in his speech. The first toucheth the Religion of Pagans. The second the revenues of Vestals. And the third the cause of the famine we have felt. 
A singular refutation of Symmachus his strongest argument.   
I understand in the first article it is Rome which speaketh with her eyes full of tears, & sighs at her heart, demanding the exercise of Pagan superstitions, because they are such (saith the Governor) which drove Hannibal from the walls, and the Gauls from the Capitol.  
It is to publish the infirmity of false Gods to defend them in this manner; and better we cannot refute Symmachus, than by showing him armed against himself. For I ask, if those Gods are the Protectors of this Empire, why they so long time suffered Hannibal to triumph in the ruins of Italy? Were their hands so short they could stretch them no further than their walls and Temples? As for the Gauls, what shall I say? I much wonder how the governor doth mention it, since it is in effect a thing most ridiculous, to say, that the enemies being in the heart of the City, all these protecting Gods should stand idle in their Temples, in such sort, that all histories have published, the people of Rome owed their preservation, not to the Gods or sacrifices, which nothing availed them, but to the gagling of a goose, which by good hap awakened the drowsy Sentinels, if it be not, that Symmachus, as he is inventive enough, will say, that Jupiter had then forsaken his burning Chariots and thunderbolts, to shut himself up in the throat of this gosling. But as a lie is ever industrious to hurt itself, did not Hannibal adore the Roman Gods; If it be true, that they always bear victory in their hands, why did not Hannibal surprise Rome with the assistance of those Gods? Or why did not the Romans vanquish Hannibal in all their battles? Why had both the one and the other oftentimes the worst? On what side soever you turn, you must see Gods conquered, who cannot deny their impotency, if they avow not their nullity.  
It is not Rome then that speaketh in this manner as Symmachus makes it, never gave she him this commission: but she says by the mouths of her brave Captains:  
Romans, what have I done to become a butchery, and 
Rome speaketh with Majesty.  to be imbrued with the blood of so many creatures? Victories abide not in the entrails of beasts, but the arms of soldiers. It is not the death of oxen hath made me subdue Monarches, but the valour of men. Camillus by force of arms displayed my standards on the Capitol, which your ceremonies suffered to be taken away. Attilius exposed his life for the trial of his fidelity & safety of the Weal-public. Scipio Africanus found triumph, not among the Altars of the Capitol, but in the field of battle. If you desire to see the goodly effects of your superstitions, behold Nero, who was the first that drew the sword of Caesars against the Christians; behold Emperors monthly made, and unmade like the moon; behold those who were the most zealous in your ceremonies, whereof some having shamefully entrhalled the world's Empire to foreigners, & the other promising themselves great victories under the favour of their Gods, have found servitude. Was not there then an Altar of Victory in the Capitol? From whence I pray proceeded so many sinister accidents, if good hap be divinely destined to those who obey it? I much repent me of these barbarous ceremonies, though too too late. You that have made me so many times become red with blood, suffer me once to be ruddy with shame, that I so lightly have been deceived, to the end I may not blush to see myself converted with all the world. And tell me not, I pray, that I am old. Decrepitness is not in years, but in manners. It is never too late to learn one's salvation, and it is ever seasonable to do good. Shame is but for those, who have neither power nor will to correct their vices.  
Come & learn a new warfare of Christians with me, which 
Notable answers to the liberty of Symmachus.  in earth beareth arms, and in Heaven its conquests. From whom should I learn the mysteries of Heaven but from him that made it, and not from man, who doth not so much as know all that passeth in his own house? Whom would you have me confide in the matter of belief we ought to have of God, but God himself? How shall I take you for a Master, since in the seeking to teach me, you confess your own ignorance? You say, God is a great secret, and must be sought by many ways: but he who once hath hit on the ready way, why should he amuse himself with crooked turn? You seek him blindfold, and we find him in the light. You inquire him with suspicions and minds disturbance, and we find him in the revelation of the wisdom and verity of God himself. It is a malicious stupidity to think we can serve this sovereign Master in all sorts of Sects. As there is but one sun in the world, so is there but one truth. It is a straight line which is to be made, but one way. All other superstitions are crooked lines, that have as many semblances as defects. How can we reconcile our Religions, you adoring the works of your hands, and we accounting it an injury done to God to worship the works of men? How shall we have one and the same God, if you adore stocks and stones, which our God instructeth us to trample under foot? To whom shall we entrust this verity in such a great diversity of opinions, but to a Man-God, whose words were no other than prophesies, wisdoms, and verities; his life innocence, sanctity, and virtue; his actions power, wonders, & miracles in all parts of the world? What secret spirit set the Cross on the top of your Capitol? You demand proofs of the Divinity, and I show you the conquest of a world, under the feet of one crucified: the less this action hath of man, the more you behold therein the work of God.  
Then Symmachus, you redemand the Altars of Idols, of 
Grave words for the Emperor.  whom? Of a Christian Emperor, whose heart is in the hand of God, & arms are for the protection of faith. Would you have him employ his chaste and innocent hands, which he never lifted up but to the living God, to repair the monuments of a false Deity? In what History find you, that the Pagan Emperors have built Chapels and Temples for us? And think you our great Prince hath less zeal for truth than his Predecessors for falsehood? They have made all the parts of the world ruddy with our blood for defence of their Idols: but God hath blasted their purposes, and overthrown by his power, what they would have raised by their injustice. Would you that a Christian Emperor should from the ruins of your Gods, restore for you, in contempt of his own Religion, objects of sin on the Altars?  
But let us a little further see the sequel hereof. They demand 
A pertinent reply to the act of Vestals.  revenues for the Vestals, for they cannot otherwise serve their God. Behold how courageous the Gentiles are. We have embraced and maintained our faith in poverty, injuries, and persecutions, and they cry out their ceremonies cannot subsist without their own interest. It is a shameful thing to sell virginity, and to fix themselves on profit through the despair of virtues. What armies have these maids to maintain, who have such care of their revenues? Their number exceedeth not seven, which they have chosen amongst so many thousands to guard a mercenary virginity, that still reserves a night to make experience of marriage. Is it for this they must be mitred? for this scarleted? for this endowed with a thousand privileges, and entertained in magnificent Caroches, with a train of Princesses to brave it through the streets of a City? Behold the holy virgins and poor maidens of Symmachus. By my consent let him reflect the eye of his understanding and body on the state of our Religious women: he shall see companies replenished with honour, integrity, shame-facedness, who know how to use the gift of virginity as it ought to be. They wear no atyres nor pompous mitres on their heads, but a poor veil which borroweth its worth from the lustre of their chastity. They know not what belongs to attractives of beauty, for they have renounced all curiosities of the world. Purple and superfluity never dwells in their house; but rather fasts and austerities. It is not their custom to flatter, or sell at the price of honour and privileges the purity of their bodies, but much otherwise, they do all as if their sufferings were to be the recompense of their virtues. Never will they learn the trade of setting their flesh to sale to the best bidder, & sell the abstinence from pleasures to them that offer most: well knowing the first victory of chastity, is to triumph over greediness of riches, which are the most dangerous baits of sin.  
If we should give great revenues to all the maids which are now ready to receive the veil, what treasures would furnish out such an expense? And if they dare affirm that none is due but to Vestals, is it not an impudence to be desirous to deprive Christian virgins from goods given in favour of virginity, as if to be Christians were to be the less chaste, or as if the Religion they profess, were on their foreheads a mark of infamy? Who can endure under the reign of most Christian Emperors, customs, which are only tolerable in the Empire of Nero's? Symmachus demandeth moneys of the Commonwealth for entertainment of his Vestals, & we by certain modern laws have been bereft the successions, which we might expect from particulars, without making complaints; so temperate we are in our proceed. Some ecclesiastics likewise have been made to renounce their patrimony, to be freed from Court-obligations, and enjoy the privileges of the Church. Were this done to the Pagans, they would cast flames from their mouths, for how could it be but very troublesome to purchase the vacancy of a holy ministry with the prejudice of his means, & in consecrating himself to the safety of the whole world, to have necessity for recompense in his house? Wills are valid in favour of the ministers of Idols: Be they never so profane in superstition, so abject in condition, so prodigal of their honour, they are not frustrated of what appertains to them by this article. There be none but the Priests of the living God, who are deprived of common right, because they are vowed to service of the public. Their manners most innocent are not punished, but their degree; as if it held the rank of crime: That which a superstitious widow bequeatheth to sacrificers of Idols, shall remain inviolable; & what a Religious widow leaves by Will to a Priest of the eternal Religion shall be condemned as a nullity.  
I speak not this now by way of expostulation, but to show how I suppress lawful complaints by strength of patience. They answer, they touch not legacies given to the Church in general: And I require of them, who ever hath rob the riches of their Temples? Christians have heretofore been bereft their substance, which is the marrow of men; of air, which is common to all living creatures; of earth, which none ever have denied to the dead, since even the enraged sea hath ofttimes sent back the bodies of our Martyrs to the haven, as it were to give them burial. I notwithstanding say not a word, nor do I now accuse any man of cruelty, the condemnation whereof the victory of the Cross hath gained of the whole world. But if a piece of land be seized from a Soothsayer, who contrary to all Religion holdeth wealth given in favour of Religion, all the world must be summoned with an alarm. If they will possess lands by our examples, let them imitate the charity we practice for the public. Where are the prisoners they have redeemed? the poor they have fed? the banished they have succoured? Of all our wealth we nought retain but faith, the rest is spent in the necessities of men, and they think it reasonable to employ it in massacre of beasts, to see if they have not the death of Princes in their entrails. Is not this insupportable?  
Yet notwithstanding their Gods, saith he, have revenged 
An answer concerning the death.  on our heads the injury done to their Priests, by a general famine. That is it which hath caused us to eat roots & barks of trees, which hath made us shake oaks to eat acorns, and envy hogs their food, since we unjustly detain the sustenance of men. Behold great prodigies, and which never happened to the Gentiles. To whom doth Symmachus think he tells these fables? To us, who know the Pagans were heretofore so accustomed to eat acorns, that for this only cause deified their oaks? It is possible their Gods should appoint that for punishment, which these have so oft bought with price of incense & blood of beasts? And then, what injustice were it that for a small handful of sacrificers & South sayers, who pretend to be interessed herein, these cruel Divinities should take revenge by a general desolation of all Provinces? How should they so long stand with arms across in the ruins of so many Temples, fallen on their Idols, to come to contest with us, upon a just retention of the superfluities of a silly Sacrificer? Behold now already how many years the Pagan Sect hath been declining, hath any one seen for all this the river Nilus overflow to revenge what hath passed at Rome, since the conquest of Egypt hath been tolerated under the arms of the Cross? And if these Gods have this last year avenged their injuries, enforcing us to feed on acorns, why this present year, when the contempt of their name is much greater than ever, have they not made us eat thorns? The living God be praised, who busbandeth good & evil for us with a most wise economy; we have seen the billocks smile under the beauty of vines, we have beheld the earth curled with ears of corn, and to yield us so plentiful harvests, that they have given joy to some, admiration to others, and satisfaction to the whole world. Yea we can say, the last year hath not been so barren, but that it hath left in many Provintes marks of the fruitfulness thereof. The Gauls have been more enriched than ever, the Sclavons have sold corn which they never sowed. The Grisons have had such store that they have given to their neighbours more cause of envy than compassion, and those who were friends in a great scarcity, are made enemies in large fertility. Genova and Venice have tasted the commodities of the fruits of autumn, and in a word, the year hath not been every where so prodigious as the eloquence of the Governor  
Nay, these objections are more tolerable, but that which we cannot endure nor dissemble with your Christian Majesties, is, that the Gentiles out of bravery dare affirm, they offer sacrifices to their Gods in your names, and they protect you. Who hath given them this commission? Who makes them account your connivences so criminal, as to take them for commandments? Let them guard their defenders whom they have hitherto ill protected, and let them not presume their Gods, being so feeble for preservation of those who yield them such honour, should be able to shield others who handle them with such contempt.  
Yet must we (saith the Governor) defend the ancient 
A reply concerning the antiquity of Paganism.  Religion. Nothing is elder than the truth, which hath seen the world in its cradle; but a false Religion, the more ancient, the more dangerous it is, since it is an antiquity of errors, the presumption whereof time doth augment. Virtues are not measured by the ell of times, but the greatness of perfections. If we in like manner will consider the works of nature, we shall find the last to be the best.  
The world, as you say, was nought else in the beginning, but an assembly of little atomies, which flying in the air wove one within another the web of this great work: afterward it became a confused mass, full of horror & darkness, till such time, as the great workman came to separate the elements, adorn the heavens with lamps, & distend light over the face of this universe. Then the earth disarraying itself, as from a robe of sorrow, seemed to admire the sun it had never seen. Consider you not how the day at its birth disperseth darkness, with a little dawning of brightness, which insensibly increaseth till the time it discovereth itself in the glittering light and fervours of the midday? Behold you not how the moon, which monthly waxeth and waneth, now seemeth lost to us, then shows herself as it were a little thread, straight she becomes a well-formed crescent, afterward in the proportion that she looketh on the sun she is augmented, and lastly composeth for us a great globe of light? Know you not how the earth was before rude, not having felt the iron coulter, but so soon as the husbandly labourer began to exercise a power upon it, and cultivate the barren plains, they took upon them a much other aspect? for mollifying in this tillage all which was wild, they spread out unto us grapes and harvests, where we before had seen nought else but nettles and briers. See you not also how at the point of the first season the earth is wholly bare, then in the springs progress it beginneth to produce certain small flowers, which are as the eyes of the meadows; but eyes, which spring and eclipse in one and the selfsame day; and the best of all is kept for the latter season? And we ourselves, when we are born, are nothing else but a little lump of flesh, which is polished with time, and changed into a more lively infancy, but still ignorant, until our soul be perfected by time, for than we leave the rudiments of minority to become perfect men. Behold the course which Religions have held in the world: all that which is gone afore, hath been either in part gross and carnal, or deceitful and lying, by the cunning of the devil. Grace in latter times hath set a seal on the work it began from the birth of the world. If things the less ancient be the less perfect, we must prefer the Chaos before the sun, acorns before harvests, March-violets before grapes, and say we have done ill to cover the earth with silver, and change shepherds cottages into the gilded marble of the Capitol.  
But they are industrious to wound themselves crying up the ancient ceremonies. If this antiquity be so recommendable, why did Rome yearly change her Religion, as certain birds do their feathers, introducing daily some innovation in matter of superstitions, derived from the same Nations they by their arms had captivated? Shall it be said she will open her Temples to all the Idols of the earth, and only shut them up from heavenly verities? He now here speaketh to us of a victory, which is a gift of God, and not a Goddess: a gift, which is oftentimes granted to the strength of legions, and never allotted to the impiety of superstitions. They will set up their Altar in the midst of a sovereign Court, and say, that maugre our opposition we must swallow the smoke of their sacrifices, hear their goodly music, and receive the ashes of their profane victims on our forehead, where we bear the character of the living God. Is it not absolutely to outbrave Christianity under most Christian Emperors? What shall now presently be done at Court by the better part of the Senate which is Christian? It will be necessary that they either in refusing untruth oppose your Edicts (if the unhappiness of the time should make them favour a request so uncivil) or by connivency confess their sacrilege. I will speak freely, it is not an Altar they desire to plant in the Capitol, but rather faith, which they now would tear from our hearts. If you command such a sin, you commit it.  
The Emperor Constans, of most worthy memory, being as yet but a Catechumen, would not so much as behold this Altar, for fear that by the sole sight thereof his conscience might be polluted: he caused it presently to be taken away, and will you restore it, to make them hereafter swear to your laws before false Gods? What need have we of such an oath? The Senate is assembled by your commands, and for you. To you they owe their fidelity and conscience, not to Gods who are of no account. It preferreth you before their own children, but not before their Religion; then is it a charity much greater than your Empire, to preserve that piety which safeguards your Empire. All here below in the affairs of men is most uncertain, all therein is transitory; and great fortunes, which have the sun in their face, have ice under foot: we possess nothing immortal but true Religion, which raiseth us above Monarches to equal us with Angels. Pompey, after he had measured three parts of the world, more by his triumphs than travels, is defeated, repelled, banished, and dead on the frontiers of the Empire, by the hand of a half man; and the earth which seemed too scanty for his conquests, was seen to fail him for a tomb. Cyrus, after he had overcome so many potent enemies, after he had equalled his victories to his clemency, is vanquished by Tamaris, and his head, crowned with so many laurels, served as a matter of sport for a woman, who drenched it in a leathern sack filled with humane blood, saying unto him, Satiate thee with that thou so much hast desired. Hamilcar, Captain of the Carthaginians, one of the most superstitious Princes that ever the earth bare, after so many trophies, threw himself through despair into the fire, which be had caused to be kindled for the sacrifice of his Gods, seeing it had no whit availed him. I will not say Christian Emperors shall ever be fortunate in temporal affairs: but I dare affirm, that if we must needs be afflicted as men, although we should lose all, yet never ought we to forsake Religion, as Julian that unhappy Monarch hath done, who joined the shipwreck of his faith to the loss of his Empire.  
Most sacred Majesty, remember that all the men of the world fight for you, and that you should combat for 
Ambros. epist. 11. ad Valent.  the true Religion, without which, there is neither protection in the Empire, nor safety in the world. If there be occasion to resolve a matter of arms, make address to your Council of War; but if a point of Religion be handled, you neither ought nor may determine it without the advice of your Bishops. You should see them all here assembled, if the practice of our enemies had not prevented them. I answer for all, and in the name of all I implore the piety and justice of your Majesty, that no man here may pretend to abuse your Minority to the prejudice of your soul. Take heed how you precipitate any thing in this affair, without imparting it to the Emperor Theodosius, whom you have hitherto honoured as a father.  
If you do otherwise, I will not conceal that from you which my profession commandeth, and conscience obligeth me to tell you: You will come to the Church, but you will find no Bishop there; or if you do, it will be but to resist you. What would you answer him, when he should tell you, The Church hath nothing to do with your liberalities; since you have adorned the Temples of Gentilism, you shall never build the houses of Zion; the Altar of Jesus Christ cannot endure your offerings, since you have erected Altars for Idols. Your word, your letter, your signet, is the work of your heart, of which our enemies make a trophy, and which you cannot deny. Your service can no longer be pleasing to the Saviour of the world, since you are engaged to false Divinities. Think you to serve two Masters? Think you it will be lawful to entertain Vestals to the contempt of Religious women of your name and belief? You have no more to do with Bishops, since you have preferred Sacrificers to the devil before them. What answer you to this? That you have committed a fault pardonable in a child? Every age is perfect for Jesus Christ, and there is no infancy, but is replenished with God, if it render itself not unworthy thereof.  
Little Infants heretofore have confronted executioners, and born away the crown of martyrdom, and will you betray our altars? What will you answer to your good brother the Emperor Gratian of holy and glorious memory, when he shall say, My brother, I never thought myself vanquished by mine enemies, whilst I left the Diadem on your head. It hath not grieved me to die, since my place was replenished with so good a Successor. I freely have forsaken the Empire, being persuaded the ordinances I made in favour of Religion would remain inviolable to posterity. Brother, these are the spoils I gained over devils: these are my titles and trophies; these the pledges of my piety and monuments of my faith, which you have since taken away from me by your Edicts. What may an enemy do more? You have violated what I so piously ordained for the glory of Altars. It is a thing which he who so unworthily bare arms against me, never did. The sword which transfixed my body did me less hurt than your Edicts: more sensible am I of the wound you impressed on my cinders, than that which the Tyrant fixed on my members. The one took from me the life of body, but this bereaves me the life of memory and virtues. On this day it is that I lose an Empire, since I see myself deprived of that I always preferred before Empires, and that it is taken from me after my death, yea by the hand of a man, whom I infinitely loved. Brother, If you have done this of your own accord, you have condemned my faith; and if by constraint, you have betrayed your own: and being wholly dead as I am, you make me die in you, who are of myself the better part. On the other side, think you not but that the Emperor Valentinian your father, whose name you bear, will say unto you, Son, you have done me much injury, so to condemn my conscience, and to believe I ever had any purpose to tolerate superstitions so prejudicial to Christianity. I punished all crimes that came to my knowledge: But never have I heard of an Altar of Victory nor profane sacrifices to be made in a Sovereign Court before the eyes of all Christendom. Dear son, you greatly dishonour the respect which is due to the memory of your father, if you think he oweth his Empire to superstition, and not to his Religion.  
I hearty beseech God, most Sacred Majesty, if this affair be so important, as you see, to your conscience, to the memory of your father, the ashes of your brother; your own reputation, to the judgement which posterity shall give upon you, and that which transcendeth all other considerations, to the universal Church, you now do what you will one day wish to have done, when we shall appear before the eyes of the whole Church Triumphant, to the end your actions may be free from reproof, as my counsels are of Repentance.  
Who could resist these thunderbolts? Symmachus reputed at that time, as we have said, the prime Statesman in the Roman Empire, both for eloquence and authority, was ashamed of his superstition, and in pleading for Victory lost it, well showing it was nothing, since it had so little countenanced a man who ascribed so much unto it, which made Ennodius 
Dicendi palmam Victoria tollit amico, Transit ad Ambrosium: pl●s favet ira Deae. Ennodius.  say, Symmachus in pleading for Victory, hath lost the victory, left by him in the hands of S. Ambrose, plainly discovering, the Goddess was very unreasonable, to forsake those that served her, and gratify such as offended her.   

The triumph of S. AMBROSE in the conversion of S. Augustine. The sixth SECTION. Of the Nature and Condition of this great Man.  
I Come to one of the most remarkable actions of 
The greatness of S. Ambrose in this conversion.  S. Ambrose, resplendent in the conversion of great S. Augustine, the benefit whereof heaven and earth have divided, since this incomparable man serves as a support for the Church Militant in the revolution of so many Ages, and an ornament to the Church Triumphant through all eternity. It is none of the least gifts from Heaven, that our Ambrose was selected for an affair of so great importance, that the whole world might find its interests therein, and for a victory so eminent, that were the Angels as capable of envy as they are  with charity, as they have loved the Conquest, they would envy the glory thereof. Happy voice of thunder, which made this hind to bring forth her young, after the throws and agitations of twelve years. Happy the Beseleel, who so well hath laboured in the 
Exod. 31.  Tabernacle of the living God. Happy the David, who hath subdued this Rabbath, so many times shaken 
2. Kings 12.  by the arms of great Captains. Happy the Alexander, who with the sword of the word hath cut so many Gordian knots, as held this great Spirit in disturbance. I here defy all the Amphitheatres which have been in the world, and so often mixed the blood of men with that of Lions and Elephants: I call those spectacles, which so many times have attracted the eyes of Caesar's. I desire the jousts, turneys, races, chariots, triumphs, and those magnificences may be proposed, which have drawn blood from all the veins of the world, to establish superfluity; and that it may be considered whether there were ever combat comparable to this which I present; where a holy Bishop entered into the list against the prime Spirit of the world, where God sits enthroned, where the Angels, ranged before the gates of Heaven, contemplate, where three parts of the world expect the issue of this duel, where Heaven applaudeth, the earth trembleth, where hell frowneth, the devils howl to see themselves deceived of their prey: Where the victorious Ambrose triumpheth, where the unvanquishable Augustine yieldeth, to be confirmed by his fall, to be raised by his abasing, fortified by his weakness.  
Gentle Reader, I entreat you, as my purpose is no other but to enchase in this history of S. Ambrose the acts of ecclesiastics, who to him are so particularly tied, that you think it not strange if I more at large distend myself upon a narration so proper for the subject which I treat of: I doubt not but the manner wherein I shall unfold it will render it wholly new, as the greatness thereof made it honourable, and the utility still seasoneth it with some particular delight.  
That we may here well observe the ways of the 
Impediments in the conversion of S. Augustine.  Divine providence in the direction of man's salvation, and the strength of S. Ambrose quickened with the Spirit of God, it is necessary to consider the powerful oppositions, that so long time hindered this conversion, which I reduce to three principal heads, Curiosity, Presumption, and Carnal Love.  
It is a dangerous pestilence in matter of Religion to take the wind of Curiosity, which ordinarily fixeth itself on the fairest Spirits, as it is said Cantharideses rest on the beautifullest Roses. A great train of vices is ever waited on by a great curiosity, and he that can well know them, shall find, that to be Curious is to forsake innocence, to draw near to sin, according to the eloquent S. Zeno, Curiosity maketh 
Curiositat reum efficit, non peritum. S. Zeno 2. de aeternâ Filii generation●. Curiosity & the description thereof.  more offenders in prison than learned in schools; and ever the desire to know what God would have hidden, is paid with ignorance of ones self.  
Were I a Painter or Pourtrayer, to represent to youth the vanity of this passion, I would make the statue thereof on a moving globe; what can be more inconstant? I would give it wings; what is lighter? I would sprinkle it all over with eyes; what more watchful? I would fill it with ears; what more industrious in the discovery of so great a diversity of things? I would give it a mouth perpetually open, for it is no sooner filled by the ear, but emptied by the mouth. I would lodge it at the sign of Vacuum; for what is more vain? I would afford it spiders webs for attire; what is more frivolous? For table and viands, smoke; what more slender and hungry? I would ordain for officers many liars and impostures, for such people are its favourites: Before it a certain itch of general knowledge should go; for it is the ordinary messenger thereof: at the right hand Opinion, for it is it which deceives her: at the left, Tattle, it is that, which instructs her: after it I would set disturbance of Spirit, ignorance, and misery; for it is its inheritance in the end.  
Augustine, as it were from his most tender years, made himself tributary to this false Deity; and instead of taking the way of true Religion by the paths of holy simplicity, needs would he dive into it by reasons and humane subtleties, which alienated him as far from truth as they were of power to incline him to vanity.  
He had a great wit as it were like a prodigy, and 
The wit of S. Augustine.  it seemeth that afric which produced him, would then bring forth nothing which was mean: It must still bring forth huge monsters, or mighty men. He notwithstanding was over-sharp, being not as yet in his consistence, but resembled the glass of a mirror, which cannot render forms till it be leaded. So this admirable wit through want of the virtue of humility, which is in men as lead in the mirror, sparkled with a vain presumption, which bringeth with it no other profit, made more illusions in eyes than it left good examples in manners. Now to specify the qualities of this excellent nature, we must consider it from his tenderest years; since the disposition makes itself soon appear in children, as the rose in his bud.  
Augustine began almost as soon to study as to live; 
His inclinations.  for he burned from his younger days with a thirst of knowledge, so eminent, that he surmounted his age. And for a note of his curiosity, which already rather aimed at splendour than utility, young though he were, he resembled the children, who make themselves Preachers before they can read. Nothing was he pleased with the elements of Grammar, which he reputed too low for his spirit. He would climb without a ladder, and scorned to learn of a Grammarian how the name of Aeneas was written; but rather readily disputed whether Aeneas had been at Carthage or not. Greek to him was a pill, which he swallowed not but by constraint, and better loved he to speak Latin by custom, than the rules of Donat. All his delight was to know fables and histories, to weep over the disastrous loves of poor Dido, and to be angry with Juno with so good a grace, that composing thereupon certain imitations of Virgil, he ravished his Masters and companions in the school; which made it well appear he one day should become more fruitful in strong imaginations (which are the principal pieces of eloquence) than religious in choice of words and polished in periods. His father, who discovered the riches of this wit, had an ardent desire that he might swim in a large water, for he as yet studied at Oran a petty village of afric, having not the means to go to Carthage.  
Want of enablements is many times a counterpoise to the height of the understanding: but in depressing it he crowned it, since generous studies (according to Plines saying) are lodged at the sign of poverty, and ever sciences are refined by necessity. Augustine, not then knowing what God would do with him, sought to make a fortune, and such likewise was the will of Patricius his father, who more desired to see him eloquent than chaste. Behold why the good man, who had much courage and little means, strove beyond his ability to send his son to Carthage, the most famous University of afric. As great fishes are found in great seas, so Augustine had there wherewith to satisfy the passion of his curiosity, and measuring his own strength with that of others, saw matter enough how to make his wit be held in esteem, to which he already had sufficient inclination.  
He was not contented to exercise himself in eloquence, which in all Ages hath had much reputation among arts, as the fullest of noise and that which unfolds itself with most ostent; but he throughly studied Philosophy and all other sciences, which are of power to make an able man, in such sort that there was not then a book which he had not with undefatigable industry perused. The poor young man went like a torrent whither passion transported him, and where the blast of ambition breathed, having the feeling of Christianity in him very faint: for much better he loved to measure the world in his vanity, than possess it in the love of God; not as yet considering the difference between a good country swain, who at full ease enjoyeth the fruits of his tree, whereof he knoweth no other secrets, and a Philosopher that observeth the ten Categories, and remains almost famished, not tasting of any one fruit. His curiosity failed not to transfer him to judicial 
Astrology.  Astrology, wherein he employed much time, still thinking to discover some secrets in this labyrinth of fools, which better knoweth how to involve minds than give them satisfaction. He happeneth one day to confer with an old Physician, a man grave, and of great capacity; who seeing him passionately in love with these books of Astrology, said, Son, if you desire to transcend others in any profession of the world, rather take eloquence, in which, as far as I can see, you have greatly profited, than to stick on vain sciences unworthy of your judgement. Verily I will herein confess the ignorance of my youth, I have been as much addicted to judicial Astrology as ever was any man of my condition: for I not only sought the satisfaction of my mind, but the establishment of my fortune. Notwithstanding I have wholly left it, through a most undoubted knowledge that we cannot resolve on any thing solid therein. Judge you what you please, but ever a well rectified spirit will be ashamed to profess a science not supported by reason, and which knows almost no other trade but to deceive. This at that time somewhat startled him, but stayed not his purpose, so much he loved to deceive himself, and so much he resolved to find out this secret in the end. But ever as he waded further, not discovering firm land, he found trouble in a barren labour, and much vanity, where he to himself proposed some solidity.  
Nothing confirmed him so much in contempt of this folly, as the discourse he had with Firminus, a young man of eminent quality, sick of the same disease that he was: for the curiosity of Astrology ceased not to incite him, as being born of a father an ginger, a man of honour, but so curious, that he calculated the very horoscope of cats and dogs that were whelped in his house; yet so little had he profited therein, that at the same time his son came into the world, a servant of his neighbours being delivered of a male-child, he foretold, according to the rules of his art, that both of them being born under one same constellation, should run the like fortune: which was so false, that this Firminus his son being born of a rich family, progressed far into the honour of the times, whilst the son of the servant, notwithstanding the favours of his goodly horoscope, waxed old in servitude.  
This young man, who made this narration, though convinced by his own experience, still suffered himself to be beguiled with his proper error, so difficult it is to take away this charm by force of reasons. Our Augustine by little and little dispersed those vapours, both by the vivacity of his own excellent judgement, and the consideration of others folly. He was likewise solicited to attempt a kind of magic, much in request among the heathen Philosophers of that Age; which was to seek predictions from the shop of the devil, by means of the effusion of the blood of beasts, and sometiemes of children. But God who as yet held a bridle on this uncollected soul, and would not suffer it to be defiled with those black furies, gave him in the beginning so much horror upon all these proceed, that a Necromancer promising him one day to bear away the prize of Poesy in a public meeting of Poets, if he would assure him of a reasonable reward, he answered, that were the Crown to be given in those games of profit, of gold wholly celestial, he would not buy it by such kind of ways, at the rate of the blood of a fly. Which he partly spoke through some sense of piety, partly also by the knowledge he had of the illusion and barrenness of such sciences.  
He was much more troubled about the Articles 
His Religion  of Faith; for though from his childhood he was educated in Christian Religion, under the wings of his good mother S. Monica, yet suffering his mind to mount up unto so many curiosities, he had greatly weakened the sense of piety. And being desirous to penetrate all by the help of humane reasons, when he began to think on the Christian maxims of Faith, he therein beheld much terror and abyss. He came to this condition, that not content with the God of his forefathers, who taught him holy counsels, and the universal voice of the Church, he put himself upon mastery, now wholly ready to shape a Divinity on the weak ideas of his own brain.  
The Manichees at that time swayed in afric; who having found this spirit, and seeing he might one day prove a support to their Sect, they spared nothing to gain him: and he being upon change, it was not very hard to bring him into the snare. This Sect sprang from one named Manes, a Persian by birth, and a servant by condition, who having inherited the goods of a Mistress whom he served, from a good slave which he had been, had he remained in that siate, became by study an ill Philosopher, and a worse Divine; for mingling some old dotages of the magic of Persians with other maxims of Christianity, partly by the help of his purse, partly also by an infinity of impostures derived from his giddy spirit, he made himself head of a faction, protesting he was the holy Ghost. His principal folly consisted in placing two Gods in the world, the one good the other bad, who had many strange battles. The body, as he said, was the creature of the evil God, and the soul a portion of the substance of the good, entrhalled in matter. And following these principals, he gave a fantastical body to the Saviour of the world, esteeming it a thing unworthy of the Word to be personally united to the flesh, which he held in the number of of things execrable. Behold the cause why those who were ingulfed in this Sect, made show to abstain from meat and wine, which they termed the dragon's gall.  
I do not think that ever Augustine fully consented, to all the chimeras of Manes, which were innumerable, but at the least he relished this Sect, in the opinion it had of the original and nature of the body and soul, and in many other articles, even to the believing (as himself witnesseth) fables most ridiculous. Great God who thunderest upon the pride of humane spirits, and draggest into the dust of the earth those that would go equal with Angels! What Eclipse of understanding! What abasing of courage in miserable Augustine! To say that a man, whose eye was so piercing, doctrine so eminent, and eloquence so divine, after he had forsaken the helm of faith and reason, became so abandoned, as to make himself a party of the Sect of a barbarous and fantastical slave, who in the end for his misdeeds was flayed by the command of the King of Persia; as if the skin of this man could no longer cover a soul so wicked.  
Behold whither curiosity transporteth an exorbitant spirit. Behold into what so many goodly gifts of grace and nature are dissolved. Behold now the Eternal Wisdom besotteth those, who forsake him to court the lying fantasies of their imagination.  
A second obstacle went along with this extravagant 
A second impediment, Presumption.  curiosity, to settle him fixedly in error, which was the presumption of his own abilities, an inseparable companion of heresy. He that once in his brain hath deified crocodiles and dragons, not only adoreth them, but will persuade others, that he hath reason to set candles before them, and burn incense for them. It is a terrible blow, when one is wounded in the head by his proper judgement, whose ill never rests in the mean. We come to the end of all by the strength of industry: Stones are pulled forth from the entrails of men, the head is opened to make smoke issue out: but what hand hath ever drawn a false opinion out of the brain of one presumptuous, but that of God? All seemeth green, saith A istotle, to those who look on the water; and all is just and specious to such as behold themselves in proper love. Better it were, according to the counsels of the ancient fathers of the desert, to have one foot in hell with docibilitie of spirit, than an arm in Paradise with your own judgement.  
Augustine, not to acknowledge his fault, would 
August. I. deduabus animabus contra Manachaeos'.  ever maintain it, and thought it was to make a truth of an error, opinionatively to defend it. He had that which Tertullian saith is familiar among heretics, swell and ostentation of knowledge, and his design was then to dispute, not to live. Himself confesseth two things long time made him to tumble in the snare: the first whereof was a certain complacence of humour, which easily adhered to vicious companies; and the other an opinion he should ever have the upper hand in disputation. He was as a little Marlin without hood or leashes, catching all sorts of men with his sophisms; and when he had overcome some simple Catholic, who knew not the subtleties of Philosophy, he thought he had raised a great trophy over our Religion. In all things this Genius sought for supereminence; for even in game where hazards stood not fair for him, he freely made use of shifts, and were he surprised, he would be augry, making them still believe he had gained: as a certain wrestler, who being overthrown, undertaken by force of eloquence to prove he was not fallen. This appeared more in dispute than game: For having now flattered himself upon the advantages of his wit, he was apprehensive in this point of the least interest of his reputation, and had rather violate the law of God, than commit a barbarism in speaking, thereby to break the law of Grammar, to the prejudice of the opinion was had of him. It was a crime to speak of virtue with a solecism, and a virtue to reckon up vices in fair language. When he was publicly to enterprise some action of importance, the apprehension of success put him into a fever: so that walking one day through the City of Milan with a long Oration in his head, and meeting a rogue in the street who confidently flouted him, he fetched a great sigh, and said, Behold, this varlet hath gone beyond me in matter of happiness. See, he is satisfied and content, whilst I drag an uneasy burden through the briers, and all to please a silly estimation. The ardent desire he had to excel in all encounters, alienated him very far from truth, which wils, that we sacrifice to its Altars all the interests of honour we may pretend unto: and besides it was the cause, that the wisest Catholics feared to be engaged in battle with so polished a tongue, and such unguided youth. Witness this good Bishop, whom holy S. Monica so earnestly solicited to enter into the list with her son, to convert him: for he prudently excused himself, saying the better to content her, That a son of such tears could never perish.  
Besides the curiosity and presumption of Augustine, 
3. Impediment, The passion of love.  the passion of love surprised him also to make up his misery, and to frame great oppositions in matter of his salvation. But because this noble spirit hath been set by God, as the mast of a ship broken on the edge of a rock, to show others his shipwreck, I think it a matter very behooveful to consider here the tyranny of an unfortunate passion, which long time entrhalled so great a soul, to derive profit from his experience. The fault of Augustine proceeded not simply from love, but from ill managing it, affoarding that to creatures, which was made for the Creator. Love in itself is not a vice, but the soul of all virtues, when it is tied to its object, which is the sovereign good; and never shall a soul act any thing great, if it contain not some fire in the veins. The Philosopher Hegesippus said, that all the great and goodliest natures are known by three things, light, heat, and love. The more light precious stones have, the more lustre they reflect. Heat raiseth eagles above serpents; yea among Palms, those are the noblest, which have the most love and inclination to their fellows. These three qualities were eminent in our Augustine. His understanding was lightning, his will fire, and heart affection. If all this had happily taken the right way to God, it had been a miracle infinitely accomplished: but the clock which is out of frame in the first wheel, doth easily miscarry in all its motions, and he who was already much unjointed in the prime piece which makes up a man, viz. judgement and knowledge, suffered all his actions to slide into exorbitancy. As there are two sorts of love, whereof the one is most felt in the spirit, the other predominateth in the flesh, Augustine tried them both in several encounters. First he was excessively passionate even in chaste amities; witness a school-fellow of his, whom he so passionately affected. He was a second Pylades, that had always been bred and trained up with him in a mervellous correspondence of age, humour, spirit, will, life, and condition, which had so enkindled friendship in either part, that it was transcendent: and though it were in the lists of perfect honesty, yet being as it was too sensual, God who chastiseth those that are estranged from his love, as fugitive slaves, weaned his Augustine, first touching this friend with a sharp fever, in which he received baptism, after which he was somewhat lightened. Whereupon Augustine grew very glad, as if he were now out of danger. He visited him, and forbore not to scoff at his baptism, still pursuing the motions of his profane spirit: but the other beholding him with an angry eye cut off his speech with an admirable and present liberty, wishing him he would abstain from such discourse, unless he meant to renounce all correspondence. He seemed already in this change to feel the approaches of the other world: for verily his malady augmenting, quickly separated the soul from the body. Augustine was much troubled at this loss, insomuch that all he beheld from heaven to earth, seemed to him filled with images of death. The country was to him a place of darkness and giddy fancies; the house of his father a sepulchre; the memory of his passed pleasures a hell: All was distaste, being deprived of him for whom heloved all things. It seemed to him all men he beheld were unworthy of life and that death would quickly carry away all the world, since it took him away whom he prized above all the world. These words escaped him, which he afterwards retracted, to wit, That the soul of his companion, and his, were expressly but one and the same, surviving in two bodies, and therefore he abhorred life, because he was no more than half a man, yet would he not die, for fear the part of his friend, which yet lived in himself, might perish.  
All this well declared he had great dispositions to love, and that to what side soever his affections tended, they never would be with mediocrity. It seemed now all things conspired against him to kindle a coal in his veins, which the revolution of many years could not extinguish. First, as nothing is more dangerous to foment this passion than ill example, he lived in a place, as contagious for chastity as the North wind for plants. Saluianus a great Writer speaking 
Salvian. l. 7. de gubernat. Tam novum est impudicum non esse Afrum, qu●m Afrum non esse Afrum.  of afric, which bred S. Augustine, saith, It was the Country of loves, and that it was as strange a man should be an African without being an African, as to be an African and not lascivious. Secondly, these dangers so frequent, which seemed to require much retention found liberty enough in the house: for the tears of the blessed S. Monica were not as yet sufficient to stay the course of insolent youth, since the father little cared: for that he having one day beheld his son in the baths, spoke some free words, which served rather as a spur for sensuality than a motive to continency. In the third place, as the eye must be open to direct occasions, so he therein used so little study, that having a soul as it were of sulphur, so much was it disposed to take fire, he hastened to throw himself into the midst of flames.  
He haunted the company of Libertines, who are the most dangerous enemies to chastity, and being of a humour very gentile and pleasing, gave love, and reciprocally received; and although he had none, needs must he counterfeit. When he came to Carthage, about the sixteenth year of his age, there was not a street where love spread not his nets. He as yet knew not well what it was to love, and yet desired to be beloved, and grew weary of living in innocency. He hated his liberty, and sought a hand which captived him. He went to theatres there to behold loves represented, where he servently was enamoured of the passions of imaginary lovers: yea, his very eyes hunted in the Church after objects of concupiscence, by glances too too dissolute; for which he confessed to have been very particularly chastised by the hand of God, since he mingled the sanctity of the place with the enterainment of the profane actions. This ulcered soul threw it-self out of its compass, and took wind and fire on every side. It seemed to him he must excel in vice as well as in science. He made himself more vicious than he was, to appear more gentile in the eyes of evil men, and there remained for him nothing more as it were in this point but one shame, not to have been sufficiently impudent. In the end he fell into the snares he desired, and was involved in admirable labyrinths, where ever the end of one love was the beginning of another.  
This life so carnal was a perpetual hindrance to the visitations of God. For as Platonists say, stars cannot exercise their virtue on the sphere of fire: So all the light of good counsel had no force in the flames of such a passion. His spirit was depraved by sensuality, alured by the bait of worldly beauties, and darkened with the obscurity of his blindness, in such sort, that the light of the spirit of God in him found no place, If there be a vice in the world which tieth the soul to flesh, and makes it stupid to the feeling of God, it is this foul sin: and although it be not wholly incompatible with science, yet never accorded in the wisdom of heaven, which is more conversant in the taste of heavenly things, than in knowledge.   

The seventh SECTION. Dispositions towards the conversion of Saint Augustine.  
BEhold the principal impediments of the conversion of S. Augustine: but God, who insensibly wove this work, and draws good even from the evil of his elect, caused him to use the remedy of the scorpion that stung him. For as he pursuing his ordinary curiosity, plunged more and more into solid sciences, he began by little and little to distaste the doctrine of the Manichees, finding it very strange, that a man should make all kind of dreams and sottishness to pass for verities, under the false seal of the holy Ghost. Those of his faction, who saw him waver, oft lent their helping hands, too weak to support him; and knowing their own inability, promised quickly to cause the prime man of their Sect to come from Carthage, who should disengage his mind from so many doubts, and afford him ample satisfaction.  
They failed not in their promise: for in few 
Faustus and his qualities. Pretiosorum poculorum decentissimus ministrator. Conf. 5. & 6.  days the false Bishop Faustus arrived; who was as the sword and buckler of the Manichees. He was a man of a fair presence, had charms in his tongue, and many attractives in his conversation, able to ensnare the most subtle wits. He instantly set himself to frame some studied discourses upon the maxims of his superstition, which were heard with great applause by the whole faction. For indeed he was an Eagle among Parrots. These men supposing that Augustine was fully settled in all their apprehensions and approbations, asked him what he thought of the Bishop Faustus, and whether he were not an incomparable man? He very coldly answered, he was eloquent, and throughly able to tickle an ear: but his malady daily increasing, could not be cured by a man, who perpetually speaketh, and shuffles up the matter; and therefore besides his goodly sermons, there was need of a particular conference, where he might fully discharge his mind. Faustus' endowed with a natural courtesy, thinking he had to do with a young spirit, whom he with words would amuse, accepts the disputation; where instead of finding a crane he encountered an eagle, who handled him roughly from the beginning of the battle. This man made him presently appear to be of base gold, and that this talent was no other, than that he was an indifferent Grammarian, had read some orations of Tully, the memory whereof were very fresh in him, some epistles also of Seneca, with a mixture of poesy, but in the books of his own Sect, he had very little knowledge. All that which made him esteemed in public consisted in a grace of language, which proceeding from a fair body was exposed with the more exterior pomp. Behold that which now throughout the world authorizeth an infinite number of men, who are in the opinion of ignorant, or the indifferently knowing, as flying fires in the air. When Augustine put him upon the solstices, equinoctials, eclipses, the course and motion of stars, wherewith the books of Manes are replenished, this man then found himself in a new world: but yet was wily; for he was not as the sottish Manichees, who promising evidence upon this doctrine, made as many slips as steps: he roundly said, his curiosity had never born him so far that way, and that he better had loved to contemn such things than study them. As for the rest, the doctrine of Manes depended not upon the knowledge of eclipses, since never had it been eclipsed. Augustine perceived his Doctor was not 
Non usquequequ● imperitus erat imperitiae suae. Confes. 4. c. 7.  wholly ignorant, since he understood at the least how to acknowledge his own ignorance, but was otherwise absolutely distasted with the divinity of the Manichees, seeing so little support in Faustus, who was the primepillar of the faction; and the snare which he would make use off to stay him was the beginning of his liberty. It was to make a banquet of flowers and songs for one almost famished, to seek with words to give him satisfaction.  
In the end, after a long abode in afric, he resolved to go to Rome, not so much to find verity in its source, which as yet he proposed not to himself to be in the Church of Rome, as to dissolve the irksomeness of teaching Rhetoric at Charthage, the youth whereof was extremely insolent: His friends propounded unto him for his aim a far other air, much different successes from his former labours, and another recompense for his merit; adding besides, it was a sweeter climate, where young men held within the lists of good discipline, yielded their Master's full satisfaction. It was the strongest bait could therein be found; for the sweetness of his spirit was incompatible with the boldness of the scholars of Carthage, which was the cause that secretly stealing away from his good mother, who could not with her tears hinder the voyage, he set sail for Italy, and came to Rome. Behold him in the chief Theatre of the world, where he began to show himself, and entertain an Auditory in his Chamber, to be known, and forthwith appear in public Courts, where he learned, the students of Rome gave their Reader good words, but the time of payment being come, they inconsiderately many times forsook the Teacher to exercise elsewhere the like deceit, which infinitely displeased him: and seeing that by good fortune a Rhetorician was sought after for Milan, he handled the matter so, by the assistance of some Manichees whom he yet courted for his own ends, and by the favour of Symmachus praetor of the City, that this charge was stayed for him.  
Behold him then at Milan, where the providence 
Hidden passages of divine providence in reclaiming souls.  of God had marked out his lodging. Behold him in the field of battle, where he was to be assaulted. Behold him in the Amphitheatre, where he should be disarmed. Behold him in the sphere, where he must be illuminated.  
As we have beheld the strong oppositions which stopped up the way in the salvation of this great soul, let us now see the means God used for his conversion. Here is an admirable spectacle, and worthy the consideration of noble spirits, since of all the works which God doth out of himself, nothing hath so much manifested his wisdom, bounty, mercy, and power, as the conversion of men. We observe in the effects and experiences of nature, that one thing draweth another in four special manners, to wit, sympathy, motion, heat, and secret atraction. Sympathy say I, or natural conformity; so the stone tendeth downwards into the bosom of the earth, because it there finds reposes: Motions; so the hammer drives the nail, and one man leads another by the hand: Heat; so the sun raiseth up the vapours of the earth, after it hath subtilised and heated them: Secret atractions; so amber draws the straw, and the adamant wyns the iron. The spirit of God, ingenious and powerful in our conversions, makes use of these same four attractions to draw us to him. Attractions, which are able to gain the harshest, disarm the most savage, heat the remissest, and startle the stupid. Attraction of sympathy, consisteth in good nature and sweet inclination, which the Master-workman▪ giveth us for virtue. Attraction of Motions is seen in the conversion of good company, where examples of piety sweetly stir a soul to that which is its good. Attraction of heat is insinuated by the word of God, which is a sword of fire to make strange divisions between the soul and flesh. Secret attraction, is a most particular touch from God, who taketh men by ways hidden, interior. and extraordinary. So, many times we see conversions infinitely strange. Such was that of S. Paul 
Notable conversions.  who felt a blow in the blood of S. Stephen, when he shed it by so many hands as he gave consents to the fury of his executioners. Such was that of the Juggler Genesius under Dioclesian, who in a full Theatre scoffing at the ceremonies of Christians, at the same time became a Confessor of the faith, and Martyr of Jesus Christ. Such was that of Mary, niece of Abraham the Hermit, who was gained to God in a supper which she had made in a bourdel. Such likewise was that of Irais a poor maid-servant of Alexandria, who 
Martyrol. Rom. 16. Martii & 22. Septemb.  as the Samaritan going to draw water, left her pitcher to run to Martyrdom, and joining herself to Christians which were led to execution, bore away the first crown. Such was that of a thief, who forsook his wicked life, beholding a yond Monk that eaten wild roots, and another converted, having seen Paphnutius the Hermit drink a glass of wine who never 
Joannes Aegid. de doctrina Patrum titul. Charit. num. 6  had drunk any before, and then only did it by a resignation of his own judgement and proper will into the hands of another who commanded it: The thief at that instant thus concluded. That if this holy man were so enforced by virtue for an action so contrary to ordinary life, he himself might well by the help of resolution undertake the same predominance over his passions, and of an ill man become a Saint, as he did. Briefly, such was the conversion of Parentius, a man of quality, who exercised a place of judicature in a City of Italy: For having seen a young swyn-herd, who taught his companion a trick to make his hogs readily run into into the Sty, which was to say to them: Enter hogs into the sty, as wicked Judges into Hell; and then perceiving that these beasts readily obeyed this word, he laughed hearty; but presently changing all his mirth into serious actions, he set himself to ponder on the difficulties he found of salvation in the great corruptions of justice, and was so touched, that he took the habit of Franciscans, where he so far proceeded in 
Chronic. Minorum.  virtue, that he became General of the Order, and visited barefoot all the houses of S. Francis. It must be confessed there are great privileges of God's providence in such affairs. I am willing briefly to recite examples of these secret attractions, because they are very famous; and I set before you the four sorts of conversions, by reason they will not be unprofitable to make us discover the singular oeconomy of God in that whereof we are now about to treat.  
The Saviour of the world used all these pieces in the conversion of S. Augustine, as we may observe in his progression. For first, concerning attraction of sympathy or natural conformity, it is true, that this great man was of an excellent nature, and though 
The oeconomy of God in the conversion of S. Aug.  it were a long time smothered up in flesh and blood, yet was it as a sun in eclipse, which should one day appear in full liberty, and illuminate the body, which then was its obstacle. In his most tender infancy, he made amorous inclinations to his Creator appear. For than he had recourse to prayer, as to a Sanctuary of his small afflictions: and like a child placing felicity in that which touched him nearest according to his esteem, he ardently besought God that he might escape the chastisement of rods, and disgraces of the school. He was of an humour free and liberal, gracious, mild, affable, obliging, and full of compassion toward men in want, which is a good way to represent great actions of virtue, and dispose one to receive the spirit of God in abundance. Affections, with tears of sweetness and devotion, were to him very familiar, which appeared on the day of his being made Priest, some time after his conversion; for he spared not to weep in that ceremony, where by chance a simple man interpreting that this happened to him through disturbance, that he was not yet a Bishop, who so well deserved it, he came near to comfort him, saying He should be patiented; that Priesthood was the next degree to the dignity of a Bishop, and that in time he should enjoy the accomplishment of his desire. S. Augustine afterward related this speech to his friends, as an example of the error of judgements made upon men's actions. As for his vices, he had nothing therein black or hideous: for his loves though inordinate, were bounded in limits most tolerable; and his ambitions were not haughty and disdainful, but consisting only in a sleight vanity to make show of that which he had either of wit or learning; a passion very natural to those who feel themselves endowed with any perfections. Otherwise he had no design, pretence, engagements, as have they, who often cover their petty interests with the pretext of piety, and are ever ready to embrace the Religion wherein they find most accommodation for their temporalaffairs. Augustine was so free from worldly avarice, that he knew not what it was to make a fortune, or reach at wealth. Scarce would he ever learn to carry a key, possess money, in a coffer, and take accounts, as observeth Possidonius in his life. All his mind was upon books, and all his intentions aimed to the finding out of truth that he might offer homage to her for all he had, and faithfully serve her all his life, after he once had well known her. These dispositions gave a full passage to such as were to treat with him.  
On the other part, attraction of motion, which cometh from good example, was to him very advantageous in the person of his good mother S. Monica. And if certain people, as the Lycians, took the name of their mothers, as of those, whom they thought most contributed to the production of man into the 
Herod. l. 2.  world, Augustine had great cause to take the title of his nobility from S. Monica, who brought him forth more profitably for the life of grace, than that of nature.  
This woman verily was the pearl of women, whose life had not great lightnings of ecstasies, not raptures; for all her virtues passed with little noise, like 
The qualities of S. Monica.  to great rivers that glide along with peaceful majesty: but all was there very inward, as in her who ever was hidden within the better part of herself. Much hath she done in affoarding a S. Augustine to the Church; and whosoever cannot discover the secret virtues of the sun, let him content himself to measure it by his rays. She pretended to consecrate her Virginity to Altars, God drew her to marriage, to gain from her a Doctor for his Church. This Saint knew not as yet what she did; when in her tender years by a laudable custom she risen from her bed in the deep silence of night, to offer her prayers to God, and when she shortened her diet at each repast, to divide the moiety of her life with the poor: but the spirit of God, which guided her, disposed her then by these actions to some matter of importance. She was married to a Pagan, and one of a humour very untractable; which she so softened by her long and discreet patience, that in the end he set aside all his moody extravagancies, as it is said the furious Unicorn sleeps in a maiden's bosom. It was with her a great consolation to have married an infidel, and after some years to see him die a Christian, saying to God, She had received a lion, and restored a lamb. All her care aimed only at this son, whom she first saw ingulfed in a life most licentious afterward, by mishap involved in the heresy of the Manichees. The poor mother endured nine entire years the throws of this spiritual childbirth, the most sensibly that may be imagined. What grief and sighs in her retirement? What fancies in her sleep? What prayers in the Church? What alms in necessities of the poor? What prudence and discretion in all her proceed? She sought out all the passages into this spirit, which she could imagine: but seeing it was a torrent not to be restrained by her forces, she peaceably expected the assistance of Heaven. She despaired not of his malady through fear to cure him. She undertook not in the fervent accesses of his fever to upbraid his disorders: She went not about manacing him with fire and cauteries: But did as God, who acteth no ill, but ever so useth the matter, that the evil is extenuated. When she could not speak to her son, she caused the apple of her eyes to speak to God, deploring all night, and watering the Altars, not with blood of victims, but that of her soul, which were her tears. We may say, that as the waters which have pearls in them, run for the most part to the south, so this holy woman being in afric, a Southern Region, 
Aquae defluentes ad Austrum generant margaritas. Tarentinus Philosophus,  became in the abundance of her tears the true fountain of the South, fit to bear a great pearl, which afterward brought forth for Christendom many millions of pearls. Never had the Angel Rephael so much care of young Toby, as this celestial intelligence of her son, being perpetually in Centinel, and observing the visitations of God's providence. Her Paralytic was ready at the fish-pool, and expected nothing but the stirring of the water.  
Behold she came from Africa to Milan, through so many perils both of sea and land, such travels and sufferings, to conclude her deliverance. She found her son much already shaken by the shocks which the eloquence of S. Ambrose had given him. Soon the holy woman knew it was this great Bishop, whom God had chosen to set a seal upon this work of the conversion of a man so important: and her son relateth, that from that time she esteemed S. Ambrose as a very Angel of Heaven 
(a) Diligebat illum virum sicut Angelum Dei. In Ambrosii ora suspendebatur ad fontem aquae salientis in vitam aeternam. Conf. 6. in c. 1. . She was still in the Church to behold him, ever she hung on his lips, as the sources which distil from the Paradise of God.  
Here is the attraction of heat, or rather the sun that must on high exhale this cold vapour, after so much resistance it had made against the spirit of God. Augustine himself very particularly deciphereth, how being at Milan, he saw the Bishop Ambrose, known through the whole habitable world 
(b) In optimis notus orbiterrae.  as one of the best men upon the earth, who ceased not to administer to his people the word of God, which in it bare corn, oil, and the wine of sobriety. This man of God, saith he, at my arrival embraced me, as a father would his son, and shown he was much pleased with my coming to Milan, obliging me with many charitable offices. Behold the cause why I began to affect him very much: not so much yet as a Doctor of truth (for I expected it neither from him nor any other Catholic) but as a man, who wished me well. I continually was present at his sermons; in the beginning for curiosity, to espy and sound whether his eloquence were equal to his great reputation. I was very attentive to his words, little caring for the matter, and I found he really had a stile very learned and sweet, but not the cheerfulness and acquaint attractions of Faustus 
c Sermonis erat eruditioris, minùs tamen hilarescentis, atque mulcentis quàm Fausti.  though for substance of discourse there was no comparison: For Faustus recounted fables, and this man taught most wholesome doctrine. Behold the first apprehensions that Augustine had touching the ability of S. Ambrose. In the end he continuing to hear him for delight, truth entered through his ears, which were only opened to eloquence, and he found in the beginning, that our Religion had not those absurdities which the Manichees obtruded, and were it not true, it might at least be professed without impudence, which he could not hitherto be persuaded unto. The old Testament, which with the Manichees he so much had rejected, seemed to him to have a quite other face, after the learned interpretations of S. Ambrose. The chimeras and fantasies, which environed his imagination, were dissolved at the rising of some petty rays from him. Notwithstanding it was yet neither day nor night in his soul: Error was below, and Religion had not yet the upper hand. His spirit over-toiled with so many questions by the wiles of Satan propended to neutrality, being neither hot nor cold, as it happened to those, who forsake truth through the despair they have how to know it.   

The eighth SECTION. Agitations of spirit in S. Augustine upon his conversion.  
BUt God still enflaming his chaste desires, he bent himself to consider S. Ambrose, whom he perpetually had for object; and seeing how this man was honoured by the chief Potentates of the earth, & how he flourished in such glorious actions, all appeared complete in such a life, but that it went on without a wife; he thinking at that time the want of a great burden to be a main misery. He as yet proceeded but to the bark of S. Ambrose, observing only what was exterior, and not penetrating into those great treasures of lights, virtues, contentments, and heavenly consolations, stored up in the bottom of the conscience of this holy Prelate. He had vehement desires to speak to him somewhat more familiarly, to understand his opinion, to ask questions at large, to discover his heart all naked, and unfold the miseries of his passed life: And because (saith he) I stood in need of a man full of great leisure to receive the ebb and flow of thoughts which were in my soul, now I found all in Ambrose, except time to hear me: not that he was difficult of access, for he was ever in his Hall exposed to the service of the whole world; but my unhappiness was, to be like the Paralytic of the fish-pool, still outgone by others more strong than myself. What diligence soever I used, I found Ambrose environed with a large troup of solicitous men, whose infirmities he comforted to my exclusion; and if any little time remained for him, it was employed either in repast, which was exceeding short, or at his book. The good Prelate studied in his Hall in sight of all the world, where I oft beheld him, and saw that in reading, he only ran over with his eye one page of a book, then ruminated it in his heart, not at all moving his lips, whether it were that he would not engage himself to discourse upon his reading to all there present, or whether it were, he did it to preserve his voice, easily weakened with much exercise of speech, or for some other cause. I thought time was very precious to him, and seeing him so serious, I supposed it a kind of impudence to interrupt him. After so long a silence I went away with the rest, not having opportunity to speak to him.  
Verily this discourse showeth a mervellous repose of spirit in S. Ambrose: and as it were over much modesty in S. Augustine: for it was a wonder that he who ordinarily lived at Milan in the reputation of a great wit, and was already known by the Bishop to be such, broke not the press at one time or other, to gain some hours of audience in affairs of so great importance. I should think either that he used a forbearance too shamefaced and irresolute, or that S. Ambrose would not enter into disputation with a young man as yet so well persuaded of his own abilities, before he had suffered him to ripen, and to be throughly seasoned by the resentments of piety. However, it put the mind of S. Augustine into great disturbance. Behold (saith he) almost eleven years, that I have sought the truth, and see I am arrived at the thirtieth year of my Age, yet still perplexed. To morrow infallibly it must dissolve: stay yet a little; perhaps Faustus will come to Milan, and tell thee all. But how will he tell that which he shall never know? Let us hold with the Academics, and say all is uncertain, for every man mantaineth what he list. It is the property of man to imagine, and the nature of God to know. But the Academics (behold gallant men) do leave a spirit in perpetual dotage. Let us rather set our feet on the steps of Catholic Religion, where we planted them from our tender age. It is not so cloudy as the Manichees suppose it, Ambrose hath already much freed me from errors: let us pursue the rest. I, but Ambrose hath not leisure for thee. Let us read: where shall 
Disturbances of mind in S. Augustine.  we find necessary books, and where have fit time? Thy scholars busy thee all the mornings; take at least some hours after noon to enjoy thyself. But when shall I admit the necessary visits of friends that must be entertained? and when the preparations for my lectures? and when my recreations? Let all be lost, so I may gain myself. This life, as thou seest, Augustine, is most miserable, and death uncertain. If it catch thee upon a surprise, in what estate wilt thou leave this world? And where dost thou think to learn that, which here thou hast neglected? But how if death also should conclude the faculties and life of the soul? It is a madness to think only on it, since all the greatness and choice of Religion, wisdom, and sanctity fights for the immortality of the soul. We should never so much employ the spirit of God in so great advantages as he hath given us, if we had no other life but that of flies and aunts. Augustine, thy evil is thy sensuality. If thou wilt find God, thou must forsake thyself, and from this time forward bid a long adve to worldly pleasures, Thou art deceived: when thou hast left them, thou wilt have the repentance, to have done that too soon, which thou oughtest not to do; nor canst thou any more make an honourable retreat into the world. Let us live, we have good friends; we may in the end have an office, a wife, means, and all sort of contentments: There are too man● miserable enough through necessity, that consent not to it by any act voluntary. To conclude, a wife and the truth of the Gospel, are not things incompatible.  
Behold how this poor spirit turmoiled itself in the retirement of his cogitations, as himself hath declared in his Confessions. He beheld the life of Saint Ambrose and his chastity, with an eye yet benumbed and surcharged with terrestrial humours, and it reflected some rays upon him; but he found it so high mounted in the throne of its glory, that the sole aspect affrighted him: he measured continency by his own forces, not by the grace of God. Behold why he 
Confes. 6. 11. Amans beatam vitam, timebam illam in sede suâ.  despaired of a single life, and thought a wife was a chain, sometime unhappy, but ever necessary. He lived at that time with Alipius and Nebridius, two noble Africans, his intimate friends, who followed him charmed with his doctrine and sweetness of his conversation: and from this time they proposed that life to themselves, which they afterward led. He often put them upon the intention to establish a good manner of life, to pass the rest of their days in the study of wisdom. Alipius, who was very chaste, maintained this could not be done in the company of women, according to an ancient saying of Cato, who affirmed, If all the world were without a woman, it would not be exempt from the conversation of gods. Augustine, that was less chaste than Alipius, and much more eloquent, prepared himself to dispute this question strongly and firmly against him, so that it seemed (saith he) that the old serpent spoke by his mouth, so much he connected together reasons and allegations to maintain his opinion. The good Alipius was much amazed to behold such a great spirit so tied to flesh; and as he attributed much to all his opinions, respecting him as his Master, it was a great chance he had not drawn him into voluptuousness through a simple curiosity of experience. This miserable snare stayed all his good purposes, and needs must he break them, to put this great soul into full liberty.   

The ninth SECTION. Three accidents which furthered this Conversion.  
IT happened, either by the industry of holy Saint Monica, who failed not to observe opportunities for the salvation of her son, or by a secret inspiration of God, that the woman, whom he had brought with him from afric, and with whom he had always lived in fair correspondence, preserving to him inviolable faith, as if she had been his lawful wife, resolved to leave him, saying: That she had now fulfilled the measure of her sins. That it was time to think upon a retreat; that she should die with this only grief, not to have tears enough to wash the offences of her youth so unthriftily wasted. For the rest, never man should possess her after him, and that all her loves should be from this time forward for him who made her; only she recommended unto him a son which she left, praying he would show himself as a father and mother unto him.  
Augustine was much amazed at this speech. It seemed his heart was pulled away from him, to see himself separated from a woman he so faithfully had loved: and on the other side he was full of confusion, to behold that she shown him the way which he sought, he not yet feeling himself strong enough to follow her example. It was not in his power to stay her any longer, nor to approve what she did. His spirit was pensive and divided, not knowing upon what to resolve. After the departure of this woman, the mother, who as yet knew not the will of God, speaks to him of marriage, and he cast his eyes upon a young virgin of a very good house, which much pleased him, who, though she were two years younger than the lawful age of marriage permitteth, he resolved to stay for her; but in the mean space he found out new loves, taking another unlawful woman in the place of her whom he had forsaken.  
Yet for all that he desisted not from the enquiry of truth, feeling none of all those engagements more than that of love, which made the sharpest resistance against him; and seeing he could not accost S. Ambrose in his great multiplicity of affairs, with that facility he wished, he made his address to Simplicianus, 
Holy Simplicianus.  Priest of the Church of Milan. He was one of the most venerable men that was then in Europe, endowed with infinite piety, and excellent literature. For this consideration he was delegated by his holiness to serve as a spiritual Father to S. Ambrose. Otherwise he was so humble and modest, that to give his Bishop the upperhand, he very often counterfeited ignorance in questions which he right well knew, consulting with S. Ambrose as an Oracle, because of his dignity, and giving a perfect example to all, of the duty we owe to the Prelates of the Church.  
Besides these ornaments of virtue and science, this holy man had strong attractives in the facility of his conversation, and sweetness of entertainment: so that a certain particular grace was seen to shine in his face, which was the cause every one desired to speak to him for his conversation, nor was any one weary of his company. Augustine having met with this Simplicianus, whom he called the Man of God, throughly openeth his heart unto him, relating all the disturbances of his life passed. Simplicianus most tenderly embraceth him, and shows the Port now much nearer than he imagined. For, as he mentioning, that among other readings, he had perused the books of Plato, translated by Victorinus a Senator, and heretofore Professor of Rhetoric in the City of Rome: I like very well (saith this good old man) that you have read the books of Plato, rather than the impieties of other Philosophers. I doubt not but you have observed many passages in this good Author, which make for our Religion: but since you have read the Translation of Victorinus, and much esteem of it, why do you not imitate him in his conversion? You must understand that I most familiarly knew him, when we were at Rome: he was a very learned old man, having his hairs grown white in the long study of all sorts of sciences, which he taught, manured, and illustrated the space of so many years, partly in declaiming, partly by writing. There was not almost a Senator in Rome, which acknowledged him not for his Master, and he arrived to such a degree of reputation, that they erected a Statue unto him in consideration of his great learning. Who could ever have hoped in the decrepitness whereunto he was come, to see him born again among the little children of the Church? Notwithstanding, to show you the force of God's spirit, after the reading of almost all the books in the world, he set himself in the end of his age, to peruse the Bible and other Writings of Christians, where he found himself surprised at unawares, saying afterward to me: Simplicianus, know I am a Christian. I thinking he meant to scoff me: I will not, said I, believe any thing, till I see you at Church. And imagine you (replied he) the walls of a Church make a Christian? He spoke this, much fearing to offend the Cedars of Libanus, which were his parents, eminent in quality, though Infidels: but he afterward was well resolved never to blush more for the Gospel. Let us go (saith he) to the Church, I am a Christian. I was at this word so transported with joy, I could no longer contain myself. I led him to the Church, and caused him to be instructed in the Articles of our Faith, and commanded a name to be given him among those that required holy Baptism. When he came to make his profession of faith, some one, thinking to please him, would have him pronounce in secret. No (saith the good old man) in public: It is no longer fit to be ashamed of so glorious an action. As soon as he was mounted into an eminent place to pronounce the Articles of his belief, all the world which knew him, began to cry Victorinus, Victorinus. The admiration was so great, the contentment so universal, the joy so sensible, that it seemed every one would snatch him from thence, to set him in his heart.  
Oh God how you honour those that faithfully serve you? Behold him now, who in stead of tying himself to those dying Palms of Rhetoric, is fastened to the tree of life, which never perisheth, and is eternised with a glorious memory in the estimation of Christendom. Who would not think himself most happy, by following his example to participate in his crowns? For mine own part, I will truly confess unto you (dear son) that at such time as Julian the Apostata forbade all the Christians to use humane learning, I was as much addicted to it as any man of mine age, being then in the flower of youth very curious: but seeing matter of faith was in question, I most freely forsook those Sirens, to arrive at the haven of salvation, where I speedily hope to enjoy your company. For so excellent a nature as yours, is not made to be lost. It were overmuch to resist the inspirations of God; your age and fashion require you to lay arms aside.  
This discourse quickened with love, reason, wisdom, and examples so sensible, penetrated far into the heart of S. Augustine, causing him to speak these words, which he did afterwards couch in his Confessions: I knew not what to answer, convinced by varieties 
Confess. l. 8. c. 5. Non erat omnino quod responderem veritate convictus, nisi tantùm verba lenta & somnolenta, modò, ecce modò: sed modò & modò non hahebant modum, & sine paululùm, in longum ibat.  so palpable, but in dull and drowsy words, saying always, this shall soon, very soon be: yet had this soon no measure in it, nor did this delay I desired find any end.  
God recharged again, and laid a fresh battery upon Augustine by the mouth of a secular man. A certain gentleman of Africa, called Pontianus, who following the Emperor's Court, came to visit him in his lodging, found by chance on the table, the Epistles of Saint Paul. This being a man much given to devotion, and who knew Augustine to have a wandering wit in the curiosities of profane books, smiled to see him now seeking out his entertainment with an Apostle. Augustine replied, there was no cause of wonder, for it was now become his principal exercise. The gentleman seeing him in this good humour, sets before him divers discourses of piety, and among others, some narrations of the life of Saint Anthony. Wherewith Augustine and his companion Alipius were ravished, having never before heard this great Saint spoken of: So little curious were they to know that, which could not be omitted but by such as were willing to be perpetually ignorant of themselves. The other proceeding in his discourse, represented to them the companies of Religious then in great account, esteemed by all the world as the paps of the Bride, replenished with celestial odours, which streamed even as far as the deserts, with immortal sources of their milk; and added, that they had a Monastery in the suburbs of Milan, erected by Saint Ambrose, wherein were many great examples of virtue. They heard this man with some small shame to be ignorant of so large a treasure, even at their gate, whilst they turned over the writings of many wits which lived in flames, tormented where they are, and applauded where they are not. This good man seeing they relished this excellent discourse, following the point, said: Being one day at Trier, with three gentlemen, my companions, as the Emperor after dinner beheld the Attorneys, and race of horses with all his Court, it came into our heads to go take the air in certain gardens near the City. Two of the four of us walking along, arrived by chance at a little Celestina, where they found Hermits, and a book of the life of Saint Anthony. One takes it up, reads, and admireth it, and in reading is so moved, that he determined in his heart to change his course of life. And being no longer able to contain himself (so replenished was he with the love of God, and confusion of his own infirmities) he turned to his companion, and said: And what (I pray) do we seek with all our travels? Whither tend all our ambitions? Why bear we these arms? What pretend we with so much toil? To gain the favour of a man, which is more light than the wind, more frail than glass, more thin than smoke? Out alas! by what perils hasten we to a greater danger? By what steps mount we up to a promontory of ice, where our foot is ever upon the precipice? Behold, I may from hence forward be the friend of God, if I will. He persisted to read this book, all on fire, and became big with a new life, which he brought forth; then again he cried out as a man rapt with an ecstasy: It is done; I have broken my hands, from this step, from this hour, in this place I am resolved to serve God. Go (my dear friend) if you will not imitate me, at the least oppose not my resolution. The other replieth: I am wholly yours; God forbidden I forsake you in so fair a way, by frustrating myself of so honourable a warfare, and so rich a reward. Behold them from gallants in an instant become Hermits. I and my associate enquired for them in the mean space on every side, and about evening found ourselves in the same Cell, condemning them that they must be sought for, and saying it was now time to end our walk with the daylight, and return to the City. They seriously made answer: They had found their lodging, we might do well to go whither we pleased, but they were throughly determined never to departed from thence.  
I thought in the beginning it was a counterfeit merriment, but better sounding it, upon relation what had passed, I in effect saw they were men wholly changed. We were ashamed to leave them, and as yet felt ourselves much unable to follow. In conclusion, we parted with many tears, we dregging our hearts in the dust, they by supereminence lifting the better part of themselves to Heaven. We went to bear this news unto two Ladies, their betrothed wives, who, enkindled with the same spirit, afforded a free consent thereunto, vowing their virginity to God, at the time when their marriage was almost on the point of consummation.   

The tenth SECTION. The admirable change of S. Augustine.  
WHile Pontianus related this, Saint Augustine was enchained to his discourse, and already felt flashes of lightning and battles in the bottom of his conscience, which he had much ado to dissemble. It seemed that God took him as a fugitive, who was hidden behind him, to set him in full view before himself. He saw himself (saith he) in this discourse as in a mirror, foul, crooked, disfigured, and  with blemishes and ulcers. When he made comparison between his own unworthiness, and the life of those brave Champions, a holy horror of his vices so surprised him, that he seemed desirous to be dis-engaged, and to fly from himself. And in this conflict he was still much confounded before his own eyes. The resolution of these two gentlemen unveiled his memory, embroiled from his youngest years, when he remembered he had great inclinations to serve God in the state of continency, and to have begged it of him, who is the Author thereof, but with so much weakness, that he feared that God would not then take him at his word. He much wondered how these men in one afternoon could resolve on an affair of so great importance, and that he in the space of twelve years stuck fast in the snare. In the end, he could contain himself no longer, but broke the air with a deep sigh, saying to his faithful Alipius: What is this? What have we heard? These simple men are raised, and win Heaven by a brave warfare, while we with our knowledge wallow in flesh and blood. Do we blush to wait on them? Nay, rather let us be ashamed not to follow them.  
He spoke this very suddenly in great agitation of spirit, which appeared in his forehead, in his eyes, visage, colour, and voice. Alipius very sad, beheld him, judging there was some transportation in this act. From thence he stole into a garden (which was very near the chamber where they discoursed) as a man distempered, knowing well what he had been, and not as yet understanding what God would do with him, at the least he had an intention to give free liberty to sighs, which he could withhold no longer. Alipius thinking there should be nothing concealed from him, step by step follows him, and both in private began a good work. Augustine said in this retirement: My God, what binder's me that I break not 
An admirable combat.  my chains to day, to put myself into the liberty of thy children? What monster is this? Behold my will commandeth my eye to be opened, my hand to work, my foot to walk, this is done without resistance: now this same will commandeth itself to forsake a wicked puddle, and set itself in the path of virtue; why so much resistance? Doubtless it will and it will not, otherwise it would be obeyed. I am yet fastened to the earth by some great root, and to day I must cut it off. See you not, Augustine, two messengers from God, to wit, shame and fear, armed with whips, which are by thy sides to wine thee from the way of thy customary pleasures? Turn thy face boldly, cut off from henceforth all the knots, which have hitherto entangled thy liberty. It is done; Behold me free. I deceive myself; I am not as yet where I think. Then let us do it now without further promise. What is that? I feel, what I do, and do not; notwithstanding I believe what is good, and recoil not; I draw near, I mount up; the cause why I stay is but to take breath. In the end, by pure force behold I am there; I touch, and almost reach the good so oft desired. Out alas! I say, almost. For in effect I touch not, nor as yet hold any thing. Must I so much doubt to die to death, and live for life eternal?  
As I was (saith he) upon these resolutions, near approaching my happiness, if I did see behind me the image of that I left in forsaking the world, I might see abysses and horrors which congealed my heart, and yet notwithstanding I stood fair, not proceeding nor retiring, as a body hanged in the air.  
Behold in an instant all the sensual pleasures of my youth, which I had so cherished, were presented to my imagination, as Nymphs and Sirens. They seemed to pull me by the garment, and say: Augustine, What? Will you forsake us after we so sweetly have trained up your youth? Wherein have we disobliged you, but in suffering you to enjoy contentments which the law of nature permitteth? You now become very hardy in this transportation of your thoughts. It is a fever which possesseth you, it will pass away, and you will be much ashamed to have no longer made use of us. You hasten to go awry, which shall cost you dear if you take not heed. When you have done, you will be ashamed to return this way back again, and for fear to be thought a fool, you will live miserably all the rest of your dries. What? can you live without us? You are not so ignorant of that which God hath created for you. You have affection for beauty, and will have as long as you live. To love, and not enjoy, is to be set on the torture; and to be there voluntarily, is to lose your wits. What? this moment of time here being ended, are we yours no longer? What? shall neither this nor that be permitted us for ever? Is it enough when one saith for ever? What hell is there in the world, if it be not to be deprived for ever of what we most affect?  
These blameless Sirens altered not their discourse; for still they battered me with such like words; but found I had changed mine ears. Behold the cause, why as I then shown myself very resolute, they much lessened their holdness. Their speech was no longer a command, but a request: and when I turned my face from beholding them, it seemed their voice was lost in the air, like a languishing echo, to which proximity affordeth no more reverberation. The more I fortified myself with reasons, the more they desisted. All they could do was but to speak some slight words softly in mine ear, or by stealth pull me by the cloak, to cause me to turn my face once again towards them: but I stood firm as a rock, beholding the beauty and sweetness of the life, to which I felt myself called by God.  
It seemed unto me that I saw before mine eyes fair chastity, the mother of holy loves, encompassed with a large troup of virgins and chaste ones, all white with innocence, and resplendent with light of glory. She smiled upon me with a brow more brightsom than the clearest summers day, and stretching out her arm full laden with palms, Come confidently (saith she) why do you any further dispute with your thoughts? Forsake those Sirens, they too much have abused the flower of your age. I will acquaint you with their deceits, their vanities, and infamies, if the experience of a dozen years have not taught you more than I am able to discover. What else have you done the space of so many years, but till a barren field, which promised fruits, and gave you thorns and ill savours, sprinkled with some slight blossoms? As for their words, were they not full of promises, their promises of oaths, and their, oaths of perjuries? What illusions and fantasies have you experienced? And if you have in some sort enjoyed them, hath it not been worse than your own desires, so much was it mingled with gall, and attended by remorse, which made you bear gibbets and tortures with your pleasures? Must you purchase a hell with so many mischiefs, which seemeth wide open to receive the desperate? Where think you to find pleasure out of God, from whom all pleasures are? I am not hideous nor barren, as your thoughts, O Augustine, do figure me: I am the mother of holy delights, ever fruitful by the visitations of God. My joys are gardens, which never whither, since they perpetually are watered with immortal graces. Ask those children, those maids, those men and women. Behold of all ages, and all conditions: Ask them, if they ever found any bitterness in my conversation. You turmoil yourself upon the frailties of flesh; how simple are you? why cannot you do what such and such have done, who have waxed old in virginity? Think you they have other flesh, blood, and other qualities than you? You equal them in all, except in a strong resolution to be a slave no longer. Imagine you that all this they do is by their own power? God gives them the will, God grants the power, God affords them the accomplishment. Child of diffidence, why do you still handle your infirmities? Cleave to God, as doth the ivy to the wall, and fear not that ever he will bereave you of his support, if you to him remain faithful.  
He entertained his mind with such cogitations, and it seemed unto him this consideration at that instant drew all his misery, as from an abyss, to represent it before his eyes. Then was it when the secret attraction, which consisteth in the particular touch of the Holy Ghost, did manifestly appear. Behold the prophecy of David accomplished: Behold the God of Majesty 
Psal. 28. Vox Domini super aquas, Deus majestatis intonuit: vox Domini super aquas multas.  who thundereth. Behold the voice of God on the waters, and on the great waters, since it forceth tears to issue out in abundance. Behold the voice of God, which cometh with a strong hand, since it over-beareth all resistance. Behold the voice of God, which cometh with magnificence, since it operateth so glorious a conversion. Behold the voice of God, which breaketh the Cedars of Libanus, since it overthroweth all the pride of the world. Behold the voice of God, which divides the flames since it scattereth the fires of concupiscence. Behold the voice of God, which shaketh the desert, since it removeth from the bottom to the top the sterilities of this desolate soul. Behold the voice of God, which prepareth the Hind for her deliverance, since it removes all the obstacles.  
He was near his Alipius, who expected the issue of these agitations of mind, and suddenly behold he felt in his heart a tempest raised, which in it contained fire and water, and seeing the cloud began now to be divided with the ardent sighs and fountains of tears, which he poured forth, he left Alipius the Secretary of all his thoughts, to engulf himself further into retirement, and give free rains to his passion. He threw himself under a figtree, which Isidorus of Pellusium holds to have been the tree of the first unhappiness of the world, so, as if to wipe away this stain, it had then been the beginning of his happiness. There he made rivers run from his eyes, which were wasted with his heart in a noble sacrifice of love, and seemed willing to wash the victim with the waters of Libanus, before they were burnt in the fire of Zion.  
Thereupon he cried out with redoubled sighs: My God, how long? My God, how long? No longer remember the sins of my foolish youth, but treat with me according to the greatness of thy mercies. Shall we yet say, to morrow, to morrow? And why not to day? And wherefore is it not time to give end to a life so exorbitant? I am troublesome to myself, nor can I any longer endure myself. Must I ever be to Heaven an object of vengeance, and to earth an unprofitable burden? My God, how long? My God, how long? Speaking this with an abundance of brinish tears, he heard a voice sweet and harmonious, which said these words as it were singing: Take and read, often repeating them. Admiration stopped the flood of tears, and he began to examine in himself, whether such a voice could come from any neighbour-place by some ordinary means. All which well weighed, he found it could not be humane, but that God by this voice instructed him what he was to do. He went from this place thither where he left S. Paul's Epistles with his friend Alipius, imagining, that as S. Anthony had been converted by the reading of one word in the Gospel, on which he casually happened, God might likewise work somewhat in his soul by the words of his Apostle. He openeth the book with a holy horror, and the first sentence he encountered, was that which said: It was time to live no longer in good cheer, feasts, and the 
Rom. 13. Non in commessationibus & ebri●tatibus, non in cubilibus & imjudicitiis, non in contentione & aemulatione, sed induimini Dominum Jesum Christum & carnis providentiam ne ●●ceritis in concupiscentiis vestris.  drunkenness of the world. That it was time to live no longer in unchaste beds, quarrels, vanities, and emulations, but that we must be clothed with Jesus Christ, as with a robe of glory, no more obeying the flesh, nor the concupiscence of the heart.  
There was no need to read any further. Behold in an instant the ray of God, which did directly beat upon his heart, and opened to him a delicious serenity. Behold him throughly resolved. He showeth this passage to his faithful Alipius, as the decisive sentence of a long process, which he had with sensuality. And Alipius casting his eyes upon the subsequent words, found: 
(a) Rom. 14. Infirmum autem ●n ●●ae re●ipite.  Receive him who is weak in faith. Behold me (said he) If you determine to forsake the world, take me for your companion. They rose and went both to the good S. Monica: Mother (saith Augustine) you shall not need to take the pains to find me out a wife. Behold me a Catholic, and which is more, resolved to leave the world, to live in continency. The resolution is made, and concluded with God, there is no means at all to retire. Had not God withheld the soul of this holy widow of Naim, it was already upon her lips to fly out for joy, beholding this dead son, this son of so many tears, to come unexpectedly out of his tomb, and present himself before her eyes with a splendour of incomparable light. She made bonfires of joy in her heart, and triumphed with celestial alacrity, blessing God, who had stretched out the power of his arm on this conversion, and who by the bounty of a true father, had surmounted the vows of an afflicted mother.  
Augustine in the mean while thought sweetly to begin his retreat from the Rhetoric Lectures wherein he was engaged. There yet remained but twenty days to the time of vacation, which had the continuance of twenty years, to a man, who then entertained far other affections: notwithstanding, through great wisdom and modesty, he would not break with exterior pomp, by publishing a change of life in the City of Milan, but suffered the time to steal away with little noise. When the term expired, he quietly discharged himself thereof, and likewise freed himself from the importunity of fathers, who passionately sought him to be Tutor to their children for his great capacity, he alleging for his excuse, that the exercise of the School had brought a difficulty of breathing, and an indisposition of the breast upon him, which threatened him with a ptysick, if he desisted not. This was very true, but yet not the principal point of his resolution. Behold how this great man avoided the occasions of ostentation, and the divers interpretations he might make to himself for a gloss of actions: and although God (as he said) had put into his heart flaming darts, and juniper-coals against slanderous tongues, he chose rather to take away occasion of calumny, than to see himself put upon the necessity of defending himself; very far different therein from the nature of those, who make great flourishes, to end them in nothing.  
After he was discharged from his professon of Rhetoric, he retired himself into the Grange of Verecundus, where he stayed a long time, as yet a Catachumen, leading a most Angelical life, spent wholly in prayer, and the study of holy letters. From thence he wrote to S. Ambrose of the errors of his passed life, and the estate wherein he presently was by the grace of God, as also of the aid he had contributed to his conversion, demanding besides what book he should read, the better to prepare himself for the grace of Baptism. S. Ambrose certified him of the contentment he took in this so particular visitation of God, and advised him to read the Prophet Isaiah; but he seeing he could not yet understand it, did defer it till another time, wherein he might be better practised in holy Scriptures.  
In the end, the day so many times desired being 
S. Ambrose baptised S. Augustine.  come, wherein he was to be born anew by Baptism, it being in the thirty fourth year of his age (as Cardinal Baronius accounteth it) he went from the Grange of Verecundus to the City of Milan, where he was christened by the hand of Saint Ambrose, and had for companion of his Baptisin his faithful friend Alipius, and his only son Adeodatus, at that time about fifteen years of age; so prodigious a wit, that his father could not think upon it without astonishment. I had nothing 
Horrori ●●ibi erat istud ingenium.  therein (saith he) my God, but sin; the rest is from you, who so well know how to reform our deformities. But all was there admirable, for at the age between fifteen and sixteen years, he already surpassed many great and learned men. He also verified the saying of Sages, affirming, these such sparkling wits are not for any long continuance upon earth, for he died some years after his return into afric, leaving a repose in the father, who already apprehended the course of this 
Ingenium nimis mature magnum non est vitale.  youth: and although he grieved to see him taken away in the flower of his age, yet on the other side he was much comforted in the innocency of his life, & hope of his immortality, knowing it was the will of the gardener, who had gathered the fruit according to his good pleasure, to lay it up in store. After this baptism, there were nothing but hymns, songs, lights of eternal verities thanksgiving, and tears of joy.  
This done, he must take the way of Africa, and they 
The death of S. Monica.  were now arrived to the port of Ostia, expecting the opportunity of navigation, when the holy and venerable mother▪ Monica, of fifty six years of age, and worn with many labours, rendered to nature her tribute, and soul to its Creator.  
This admirable woman resembleth the Ark in the deluge, which after it had born the whole world in the bowels thereof, amongst so many storms and fatal convulsions of universal nature, reposed on the mountains of Armenia: So S. Monica, when she so long time had carried in her entrails and heart a spirit as great as this universe, among so many tears and dolours, so soon as she was delivered of this painful burden, went to take her rest on the mountains of Zion. A little before her death, beholding Heaven from a high window, which opened on a garden, she seemed there already to mark out her lodging, so much she witnessed resentment and ecstasy towards her son Augustine, who at that time made this admirable colloquy with her, couched by him afterward in his Confessions. The conclusion was, that she said unto him: My son, I have now no more obligations to the world, you have discharged all the promises of Heaven to me, and I have consummated all the hopes I might have on earth, seeing you a Catholic, and which is more, resolved to perfection of the life you have embraced. When it shall please God to call me, I am like fruit ripe and falling, that holdeth on nothing.  
Soon after she betook her to her bed, being surprised with a fever, which she presently felt to be the messenger of her last hour. Behold the cause why she being fortified with arms and assistances necessary for this combat, took leave of Augustine and his brother there present, affectionately entreating them to remember her soul at the Altar, only meditating on Heaven, and neglecting the thought of the land of Africa, which she had seemed at other times to desire for the sepulchre of her body.  
And as her other son said unto her: Madam, my mother, we as yet are not there, we hope to close your eyes in our own country, and bury you in the tomb of your husband; this holy woman seeing this man would still tie her to the present life, and divert her from cogitation of death, which to her was most sweet, beheld him with a severe eye, and then turning herself towards her son Augustine, Harken (saith she) what he saith; as if we absent from Africa, must needs be further from God. She often cast her dying eyes towards this son, who was her precious conquest, and who in her sickness served her with most particular assistances, affirming, that Augustine had ever been a good son towards her, and though he had cost her many sorrows, he never had forgotten the respect due to a mother.  
Verily there was a great sympathy between the soul of such a mother and such a son, which was infinitely augmented after this happy conversion, and therefore we must give to nature that which belongs to it. The child Adeodatus, seeing his Grandmother in the last agony, as possessing the affections of his father, threw out pitiful out-cries, in which he could not be pacified And S. Augustine, who endeavoured to comfort them all upon so happy a death, withheld his tears for a time by violence, but needs must he in the end give passage to plaints so reasonable. The Saint died as a Phoenix among Palms, and they having rendered the last duties to her, pursued the way begun directly for afric.  
Behold how the conversion of S. Augustine passed, and though many cooperated therein, yet next unto God, S. Ambrose hath ever been reputed the principal Agent; and for that cause his great disciple said of him: 
(b) Aug. contra Julianum Pelagianum. l. 1. c. 6. Excellens Dei dispensator, qu●m veneror ut patrem, in Christo enim Jesu per Evangelium ipse me genuit, & eo Christi ministerio lavacrum Regenerationis accepi.  Ambrose is the excellent steward of the great father of the family, whom I reverence as my true father, for he hath begotten me in Jesus Christ by the virtue of the Gospel, and God hath been pleased to make use of his service to regenerate me by Baptism. Whilst stars and elements shall continue, it will be an immortal glory to the Bishop Ambrose to have given the Church a S. Augustine, of whom Volusianus spoke one word worth a thousand: 
(c) Volusian. Epist. 2. Vir est totius gloriae capax Augustinus. In aliis sacerdotibus absque detrimento cultus divini toleratur inscitia: at cum ad Antistitem Augustinum venitur, Legi deest, quicquid ab eo contigerit ignorari.  Augustine is a man capable of all the glory of the world. There is much difference between him and other Bishops. The ignorance of one Churchman alone, prejudiceth not Religion, but when we come to Bishop Augustine, if he be ignorant of any thing, it is not he, but the law which is defective, because this man is as knowing as the law itself.   

The eleventh SECTION. The affairs of S. Ambrose with the Empeperours Valentinian the father, and Gratian the son.  
LEt us leave the particulars of the life of S. Ambrose, to pursue our principal design, which is to represent it in the great and courageous actions he enterprised with the Monarches of the world. Let us not behold this Eagle beating his wings in the lower region of the air, but consider him among lightnings, tempests, and whirlwinds; how he plays with thunderclaps, and ever hath his eye where the day breaketh.  
The state of Christianity stood then in need of a 
The state of Christendom.  brave Prelate to establish it in the Court of Great-ones. The memory of J●lian the Apostata, who endeavoured with all his power to restore Idols, was yet very fresh, it being not above ten years past since he died, and yet lived in the minds of many Pagans of eminent quality, who had strong desires to pursue his purpose. On the other side the Arians, who saw themselves so mightily supported by the Emperor Constans, made a great party, and incessantly embroiled the affairs of Religion. Jovinian, a most Catholic Emperor, who succeeded Julian, passed away as a lightning, in a reign of seven months. After him Valentinian swayed the Empire, who had in truth good relishes of Religion, but withal a warlike spirit, and who to entertain himself in so great a diversity of humours and sects, whereon he saw this Empire to be built, much propended to petty accommodations, which for some time appeased the evil, but took not away the root. He made associate of the Empire his brother Valens, who being a very good Catholic in the beginning of his reign, suffered himself to be deceived by an Arian woman, and did afterward exercise black cruelties against the faithful, till such time as defeated by the Goths, and wounded in an encounter, he was burnt alive by his enemies in a shepherd's cottage, whereunto he was retired; so rendering up his soul in the blood and flames where with he had filled the Church of God.  
The association of this wicked brother, caused much disorder in the affairs of Christendom, and often slackened the good resolutions of Valentinian by coldness and tolerations, which were rather esteemed the fever of times, than men.  
S. Ambrose entered into charge, as is most probably thought, about the end of the reign of this Valentinian, and had not much occasion to intermeddle with him; yet from his entrance showeth he would become a Lion. For seeing in the State some practices in Magistrates, which turned to the prejudice of the Church, he with much freedom and generosity complained to the Emperor; and though this Prince was one of the most absolute who had swayed the Sceptre, he was no whit offended, but answered to S. ●mbrose: It is a long time I have foreseen your nature, 
Thood. lib. 4. cap. 6.  and the liberty you would use when a Mitre was set on your head. Yet notwithstanding did I never oppose your election, and though I might exercise the resistance which the laws allow me, without any other authority, yet I gave my consent, for the desire I have to behold a stout man in this charge. Do what the laws of God appoint you, the times are sick, and need a good Physician.  
This so favourable beginning promised good effects 
The death of Valentinian the father.  for the future. But this Prince lived not long after: for, having reigned about twelve years in a very harsh manner, he being haughty, and excessively choleric, it happened that hearing one day the Deputies of a Province in Bohemia, who excused themselves upon certain incursions and roberies imputed unto them, he entered into so violent and thundering distempers, that they laid him on the bed of death; for, from the Councel-table he at that instant was carried into his chamber. The veins of his body shrunk up, his speech stopped, his members were turmoiled with horrible convulsions, and his face spread all over with purple spots. In conclusion, he was wasted with fervours of anger, more dangerous than the dog-star, which in few hours took him hence, who under the sword of the Roman Empire had made so many Armies of Barbarians to tremble, to teach us we have no greater enemies than ourselves.  
Valentinian left two sons, the one by his first wife Severa, which was Gratian: The other by Justina, which was Valentinian the Younger. Let us see how S. Ambrose treated with them both.  
The holy Bishop, who had already exercised so much authority over the father, retained it on the sons with so much the more privilege, as their age and the necessity of the affairs of the Church required. Valentinian some years before his death, foreseeing as it were what would happen, declared his eldest son Gratian Successor of his Empire, and from that time associated him to his dignity. As he was a Prince very awful, and who among his sharp proceed, spared not to mingle many sweet attractives when he undertook an affair, so he made himself appear in his latter days as a setting Sun in his Royal Throne, and having made a most specious Oration to all his Captains and soldiers there then about him, flattering, and calling them companions by way of Courtship, he exhibited many large demonstrations of amity to them: then taking his little son Gratian 
Gratian the son of Valentinian.  by the hand, clad in an Imperial robe, being then of fourteen or fifteen years of age, he told them, that this was his Heir, whom they were one day to have for companion, and who should with them tread underfoot the powers opposed against the Roman Empire: adding, he should equal his father in valour and in affection, due to their good services, but surpass him in sweetness, having been made happy with a better education than himself. This young youth (as saith his history) was beautiful as a star, for his eyes sparkled like two lightening-flashes, his face very amiable, and complexion mingled with white and red. When the soldiers beheld him in this habit, they began softly to strike their targets, and at that instant the trumpets sounded with a thousand acclamations to salute him.  
This action was the cause that the sudden death of his father, made him instantly Emperor with his uncle Valens, who yet lived, when for a singular trial of friendship, he divided his dignity with his brother, the little Valentinian, who was not yet above five or six years old, being then left an orphan under the charge of his mother Justina. Afterward the great necessities of the Empire, made them likewise associate Theodosius to the Crown, one of their father's chiefest Captains.  
The young Gratian, who was endowed with an excellent disposition, presently put himself under the wings of Saint Ambrose, to direct him in affairs of his salvation and conscience, which he esteemed the most important of all might concern him. Our great Prelate entered so far into his soul, that living and dying, nothing was so sweet nor familiar in his mouth, as the name of Bishop Ambrose. And well to discover the apprehensions of this fair soul, and the easy entrance it gave to all the forms of virtue proposed by this great Saint, you must observe, even in the judgement of Pagan Historians, who never graced him above his merit, that he was the most accomplished Prince for his age, which ever bore the Diadem of Caesar's. And if a life so precious could have been redeemed with the blood and tears of the faithful, it had replenished the Church with sanctity, the Empire with glory, and the whole world with wonders.  
The beauty of body which he enjoyed, contained a spirit wholly celestial enchased therein, for it was full of generous viva city; and as fire out of his sphere seeketh its nourishment in the conquests thereof, so he lived by sciences and lights, that they became tributary by his judgement and travel, as well as men by his arms. He laboured much in the matter of eloquence, 
Excellent qualities of the Emperor Gratian.  seeing it was then a study as it were absolutely necessary for Emperors, to reign over people, and that words were the cement, which united wills and arms for the safety of the public. By good chance he had Ausonius for Master, esteemed even in the judgement of Symmachus, the most able man of his time; most happy Master of an excellent scholar, who made him change the school of Rhetoric, for the purple of Consulship. Gratian was naturally eloquent, nor was it hard to manure so generous a nature. When he pronounced some Oration, he had early in his young years, the majesty of his father, conjoined with an admirable modesty, and a little a crimony, which gave an edge to his actions. The ordering and inflection of his voice, were rarely proportioned: He seemed eloquent in pleasing arguments; grave, in serious; polite, in laborious, and when the subject required fervour and invective, his mouth spoke tempests. This enforced no diminution upon his military exercises, wherein he was infinitely dexterous; whether he were to run, wrestle, or leap, according to the custom of the Roman soldiers, his agility made the world wonder; or whether he were to manage a horse, or handle arms, the Masters who had trained him up, confessed he had dainty passages, inimitable for any practice. The Pagans, who would blame him for diversity of Religion, have never said aught else of him, but that he was to good an Archer, and over-fervent in hunting of wild beasts. That notwithstanding, set him in the estimation of warlike men, and as he was singularly affable and liberal, so was there nothing to be found in the world more charming than his nature.  
Saint Ambrose, having understood his spirit, much affected him, and endeavoured to join the most solid virtues to so many fair natural parts; and above all, perceiving that among so many Pagans and Arians, who stretched out their snares on every side to surprise him, it was necessary to prevent them, he laid in his Royal soul deep foundations of faith, and most chaste grounds of Religion, to which Gratian shown himself from the beginning much inclined. There is also a letter found, written in his proper stile, and with his own hand, where when he had heard the learned instructions of his Prelate, he demands them in writing, and because it is an excellent monument of his spirit and Religion, I will here insert it.  
The Emperor GRATIAN, to Ambrose the Religious Bishop of God Omnipotent.  
I Have a vehement desire to see myself united to you 
Apud Ambros. in praefat. I. de fide.  by corporal presence, as I ever have you in my memory, and as I cohabit with you in the better part of myself, which is the soul. I beseech you (most holy and Religious Bishop of the living God) hasten unto me, to teach me what I believe before I have sufficiently learned. For it is not my purpose to argue upon matter of faith, better loving to lodge God in my heart, than conclude him in my words. My desire only is to open my soul at large to the Divinity, to receive its lights the 
Excellent faith and modesty of the Emperor.  more abundantly. God will instruct me, if it shall please him, by your words, since I confess and reverence his most Sacred Majesty, well observing not to call Jesus Christ a creature, or to measure him by the weakness which I acknowledge in mine own person: but rather I avow our Saviour to be so great, that our thoughts, which are almost infinite, can add nothing thereunto. For if the Divinity of the Son could increase, I would dilate myself in it for augmentation of his praises, supposing I could not better gain the gracious favour of the Celestial Father, than in glorifying the Son Eternal. But as I fear no jealousy on God's side, so for my part I make no account to esteem myself so great an Orator, that thereby it may be in my power to add any thing to the glory of the Divinity by my words. I acknowledge myself to be infirm and frail, I praise God proportionably to my forces, and not answerably to the measure of his greatness. As for the rest, I beseech you to afford me the Treatise of faith, of which you heretofore gave me a taste, adding thereunto the Disputation of the Holy Ghost, in such sort, that you prove his Divinity by the Scripture and reason. Hereupon I pray God (dear Father, and true servant of God, whom I adore) that he many years preserve you in safety.  
This Letter, he that will consider it, shall find to be full of much sense; and verily Saint Ambrose was so ravished herewith, that he confesseth never to have seen nor read at that time the like. This good Emperor (saith he) wrote to him with his own hand, as Abraham, who himself prepared the dinner for 
Genes. 18.  his guests, not giving commission thereof to his own servants. He wrote holy words unto him, as if he had an ear in Heaven; and which is more remarkable, it was in a time when he was upon the point of a journey to resist Barbarians, and therefore he purposely took the arms of faith from this great Bishop. For observe, this young eaglet from the second year of his Empire found business enough For Athanaricus King of the Goths, entered into Thracia with a formidable Army: and as Gratian amassed together all his Eastern troops to make head against him, the Ba●barians imagining with themselves that the Western Empire was unfurnished, fell upon the Gauls, whither the Emperor went with admirable expedition to secure them, and it was at the time when he wrote this letter, and most particularly recommended himself to Saint Ambrose, taking the standard of faith from him, to bear it in the front of his flourishing Legions. This was not without 
Triumphant victory.  very notable success: for by relation of Ammianus Marcellinus, he bore himself most valiantly in this journey, although very young, undergoing toils, and ever appearing in the head of the army to encourage the soldiers by his presence, which so enkindled them, that they resolved to confront the enemy, as soon as might be, and defeated them at Strasbourg, with so horrible a slaughter, that of seventy thousand Barbarians, threescore and five thousand covered the field with their massacred bodies, leaving young Gratian to make a harvest in the chief field of Mars, moistened with the palms of his own sweats, but above all, blessed by the prayers of great S. Ambrose. As the Emperor returned from this conquest, he received letters from the holy Prelate, where among other things, excusing himself that he had not accompanied him, he saith:  
It is not the want of affection, Most Christian Emperor 
Affectionate words of S. Ambrose to the young Emperor.  (for what title can I give you either more true or more glorious?) It is not, I say, the want of affection hath absented me from your person, but modesty joined to the decorum of my profession; yet at your return I present myself before you, if not with bodily steps, at the least with the whole affections of my heart, and all the vows, wherewith I could charge the Altars; and in this, the duty of a Bishop principally consisteth. But it is mistaken to say, that I came before you, as if I had been separated from you, having perpetually attended you in mind, marching along with you in your thoughts, heart, and good favour, which is the most noble presence I can desire. I measured your journeys, I went along with your Army, I was in your camp day and night, with all my cogitations, and with all my cares; I stood centinel with my prayers, and those of my Clergy, at your Imperial Pavilion. How much I was little in merit, so much the more did I raise myself in diligence and assiduity. And rendering this duty for you, I did it for the whole Church: herein do I use no flattery, for you love it not, and well know it to be far from my nature, and the place which I hold, but God is a witness with us both, how much you have comforted my heart by the sincerity of your faith, to whom he hath afforded such prosperity, and so much glory. I owe this acknowledgement both to the public and your particular amity: for you have granted me the repose of my Church, you have stopped the mouths of the perfidious (and by my good will I wish you had as well shut up their hearts) and this have you done with marvellous authority, fortitude, and faith.  
The holy Emperor ceased not afterward to oblige the Church in all occasions, by the favour of his Edicts, and shown himself so openly zealous, that even he, first of all the Emperors merited the title of Most Christian, given afterward to our Kings. His Predecessors who professed Christianity, ever suffered their reputation to be dishonoured with many blemishes, which much weakened the worth of their actions; but Gratian was the most royal and sincere of them all; for he so little complied with the 
Zeal and virtue of Gratian by the direction of holy S. Ambrose,  Gentiles, that their Priests coming together to offer him the title and habit of Great Pontife, which all the Christian Emperors had yet for ceremony and reason of State, retained, this good Prince confidently refused it by the counsel of Saint Ambrose; and although the Gentiles were so much moved, they could not abstain from words of menace, he contemned all humane respects, where the glory of God was interessed. As for the rest, to consider further the energy of the discretion of this holy Bishop, it is to be noted that the faith of Gratian, his tender plant, was not a languishing and idle faith, but much employed in the exercise of good works, which Ausonius, a worldly man, could not sufficiently admire in his scholar, well seeing he knew much more than his Master.  
He who observed the most particular actions of 
Singular qualities of a young Prince  the life of this Emperor, hath left in writing, that from the time of his childhood, never did he let any day pass, without praying to God most devoutly, daily rendering some vow to Altars; and that those who knew his most secret thoughts, gave assurance he lived in unspeakable purity of heart, and moreover, he was very sober and abstinent in his ordinary course of life: and for as much as toucheth and concerneth chastity, it might well be said, that the Altar of Vestal Virgins, where perpetually burned a sacred fire which purged all, was not more holy than the chamber of Gratian, nor the couches prepared in the Temple for ceremonies, more chaste than his Imperial bed. He had the heart of a mother towards his poor subjects, and the beginning of his Empire was consecrated by the comfort of the people, for whom he much sweetened the taxes and subsidies, freely cutting off what was due to his own coffers; and to take away all cause of enquiry in time to come upon that which he liberally had granted, he commanded through all Cities, papers, and obligations of public debts to be burnt. Never bonfire more clearly blazed than the same; not a creature complained the smoke hurt his eyes. Every one praised the Emperor, beholding, that as his benefits were not frail and transitory, so the evils he took away, were never to return.  
How could he but do well for the public, seeing 
Admirable charity in an Emperor.  he was most liberal towards particulars? He was not contented to visit the sick, but himself led Physicians along with him thither, causing them to minister at his charge, and in his own presence, that which was necessary for their recovery. He was seen after the defeat of the Barbarians which I spoke of, to run into the Tents of his soldiers to inquire the number of the hurt, and himself with his own victorious hands to touch the wounds, and cause them instantly to be dressed, hastening and encouraging the surgeons. And if any poor soldier through distaste refused to take broth, he would sit down by him, and charm him with such sweetness of words, till he obtained of him that which conduced to his health. He ceased not to comfort the most afflicted, to congratulate with the most happy, to inquire into the necessities of all the world, even to the making the packs of a poor subject to be carried by his own mules: and all this did he indefatigably with singular promptness and alacrity, void of ostentation, giving all and reproaching no man.  
Behold the fruits of the good education of S. Ambrose, which well showeth, that in making a good man of a great Prince, the whole world is obliged.   

The twelfth SECTION. The death of the Emperor Gratian, and the afflictions of S. Ambrose.  
OUt alas! Eternal God, who art elder than the beginning of time, and more durable than the end of Ages, must great gifts be so freely given to the world to become so short? My pen abhorreth to pass beyond the blood of this poor Prince, in whom the earth had nothing to wish but immortality. Behold what a wound it is for the Empire, what sorrow in the Church, and a touchstone to the virtue of S. Ambrose.  
Gratian, after the death of his father, had reigned about seven years, when behold a monster started up in England, to dispossess its natural Prince, and cast fire and confusion into the Empire. It was Maximus, who according to the relation of Zosimus, was a Spaniard by Nation▪ companion of the great Theodosius, and Captain of the Roman troops, which were then in great Britain.  
This wicked man, vexed to the quick that the Emperor 
Maximus rebelleth against his Prince, and his wicked disposition.  Gratian had associated Theodosius in the Empire, without ever mentioning himself at all, resolved to enter into the Throne by tyranny, since he could not arrive thither by any merit. Never Tyrant used more industry to cover his ambition than did this man: Never hath any sought more support from the dissimulation of sanctity and justice; yet I beseech those who make account by the like ways to bring their purposes to pass, to learn by the success of Maximus, that if the arm of God sustain not an affair, the more exaltation it receiveth, the deeper ruins it findeth.  
Maximus then, a son of the earth, who had nothing great in him but the desire of reign, made himself sometime an English man, other-while a Spaniard, ever leaning to that side, where he saw most support for his affairs. As an English man, he laboured to have it thought he had some correspondence of affinity with Saint Helena mother of great Constantine, and he was so impudent as to take the very name of that family, causing himself to be proudly called Flavius Clemens Maximus. As a Spaniard, he would be reputed the ally of Theodosius, whom he saw to be powerful in the affairs, and whose force he more feared, than loved his advancement. As for Religion, he well discovered by the effect that he had no other God but honour. Notwithstanding like those who provide oil to burn in the lamps of Idols, as well as in that of the living God, he embraced all sorts of Sects, making his arrows of every wood, so to hit the white of honour.  
Verily, if there be any vice deserving the execration 
Detestable hypocrisy.  of all mankind, it is that which distendeth snares over Altars, and which under colour of piety and zeal, entrappeth men, Cities, and Provinces, with a kind of theft, which seeketh to make itself honourable under pretence of piety and Religion. This was very familiar with this bad man: for seeing many Pagans of quality, who bitten the bridle, expecting the re-establishment of Idols, he underhand entertained them with very fair hopes. On the other side, he favoured the Synagogue of Jews in secret, supposing these men being lost in Religion and conscience, might one day serve his turn, though but to fill up ditches. But then beholding the Catholic Church in an eminent height, he openly courted it, and that with demonstrations of respect and service, which might seem to proceed from none but the most zealous.  
Letters also of his were found written to the Emperor Valentinian the Second, where he made many declarations of the duty he owed to the Catholic Church, so complete, that they seem much fit for the mouth of a Bishop, than of a Tyrant. He speaketh of God like a Saint, saying: 
(a) Peri●●●●, mihi crede, divina te●tan●●r: Insanu●, ubi error ex●fabilis non est, ibi velle peccare. Baron. an. 387. 35.  Great hecd must be taken not to contend with ones Master, and that sins committed against Religion, admit no excuse. He talks of Rome 
(b) Rom● Ve●●rabilis, enjus hac parte Principitat●s est. Epist. ad Siricium eod. anno sect. 65.  as a Pope, calling it in full voice, The most Venerable, and Princess of Religion. He seemed to sweat blood and water in defence of S. Ambrose, whose virtue he infinitely feared, it being joined to a liberty, which never accustomed to bow under tyranny. In another Epistle, where he writeth to Pope Siricius, he tells, how going from the Font of Baptism, he had been transported to the Imperial Throne, which being ignorant of the life of the children of God, he esteemeth an incomparable favour from Heaven, and in recompense thereof promiseth all service to the Church of Rome, satisfying himself only to execute that, which should be commanded him, without any desire to enter into the knowledge of the cause.  
Moreover, if he saw any forlorn Heretics, who were feeble in faction, and much out of favour, he ran upon them with all manner of violence, and then showing spiders webs, of one side filled with little flies, and on the other side all broken by creatures of a larger size, he raiseth mighty trophies, thinking so to piece out his fortune by the effusion of contemptible blood. In this manner he caused Priscillian, and many other of his Sect to be put to death, who were Heretics possessed with a black and melancholy devil; and such as in truth, according to the laws both divine and humane, well deserved punishment, but not according to the proceed were observed in their process, much blamed by S. Martin and other wise Bishops, who took notice of passions over-bloudy, even in the ecclesiastics, that sought after spoil.  
O God it is verily one of the greatest unhappinesses 
Virtutibus vitia. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Aristot. Origen. Basil. Albertus' in Paradiso animz, Prologue.  of humane life, to say, that vices keep shop near to virtues, and often deceive the best experienced merchants with their artifices. That is most true which is spoken by Albertus the Great, Master of Saint Thomas: Severity counterfeiteth justice: melancholy calleth itself gravity: babble stealeth into the name of affability, as doth dissolution pass under colour of free mirth. The prodigal saith he is an honest man; the covetous, provident; the self-conceited, constant; the crafty, prudent; curiosity borroweth the title of circumspection; vainglory, of generosity; presumption, of hope; carnal love, of charity; dissimulation, of patience; pusillanimity, of mildness; indiscreet zeal, of fervour in matter of Religion: and the worst of all is, hypocrisy puts on the mask of sanctity. Yet if with these 
Pretext of devotion dangerous.  semblances and borrowed faces, they only deceived vulgar souls, it were somewhat tolerable; but it is a thing most deplorable, that the subtle, who have no other God but their own interests, by slight complacences and petty affectations of devotion, ensnare noble and Religious souls, who, measuring all by their own innocency, daily afford more support to credulity. A little outward show handsomely expressed, ravisheth men with admiration, and causeth Altars to be raised to them, for whom God hath prepared gibbets. There are also many silly 
A parable of the fowler.  birds, who seeing the fowler with blear and running eyes, role a huge pair of beads in his hands, say, this is a holy man, and full of compassion: but the more judicious answer, We must not regard his eyes nor beads, but the blood and rapine which is in his hands.  
Had Maximus been beheld upon this side, he had never deceived the world, but his plastered devotions served his turn to amuse easy natures, whilst his ambitions cleft mountains to climb to the Throne of Caesar's. Pope Siricius, beguiled with the mask of this false piety, gave demonstration of much affection to him; and when he was declared Emperor, many Bishops used with him at Trier sundry compliments, which too near approached to servitude. There was none at that time but our Saint Martin, who held a strong power over this spirit: and the wily Maximus, who well foresaw there was no resistance to be used against a stroke of thunder, submitted with all pliantness and postures, to draw this great Prelate to his amity. He, who heretofore made himself to be petitioned unto by the Bishops, received the commandments of S. Martin as decrees, and endeavoured to yield him all satisfaction.  
One desire only he fixed in his heart, which was some one time to invite this holy man to his table, to wipe away all the ill reputation of which the most judicious could not be ignorant: but S. Martin constantly refused it, until Maximus upon a time having made a thousand protestations of the sincerity of his intentions in that point, which concerned the usurpation of the Empire, the man of God, whether persuaded by reasons, or mollified by so many prayers, went thither, and used there passages of generosity, which you shall know.  
In this banquet were present the false Emperor 
Sulpitius in vita S. Martini. cap. 23.  Maximus, with his brother, and his uncle, a Consul, and two Counts. S. Martin for his honour was placed in the middle, near the person of Maximus, and when about the midst of dinner, the cupbearer presented a goblet to his Master, he for a singular testimony of his affection, put it into the hands of the good Bishop, seeming to have a holy ambition to drink therein after it was consecrated by the touch of his lips: but S. Martin not using any other compliment, when he had drunk, gave the cup to his Deacon, as esteeming him the most worthy person of the feast next himself. Maximus, who infinitely seemed to be pleased therewith, although he inwardly felt himself gauled with this liberty, did so outwardly dissemble it, that he caused S. Martin to be applauded through all his Court, protesting that none but ●e was worthy the title of a Bishop, and that he had done at the table of an Emperor, what the other Bishops would never have acted in the house of a mean Judge. On the other side, the wife of Maximus, who already possessed the title of Empress, made herself a Magdalen at the feet of Saint Martin; and although never woman touched this chaste creature, he suffered her to exercise all sort of ceremonies towards him, undergoing a thousand troubles to rid himself of her importunities. This seemed not strange in the age of threescore and ten, and in the reputation of sanctity wherewith he had filled the world, that a woman should kiss his feet: but it was a thing very unusual to behold a Princess, humbled in the dust of the earth, to perform this office: She regarded neither purple, diadem, quality, nor Empire, she had no eyes but for S. Martin, being blind to the rest of the world.  
After this first banquet, Maximus and the Lady went to the Saint, and besought him again to take a bad dinner, which the Empress would in private prepare for him with her own hands: and although he in the beginning refused, it was impossible for him to escape from these Saintlike invitations. For these are snares which catch eagles as well as sparrows. Needs would the Queen do all offices in this second feast: She played the cook, dressed the dining-room, laid the cloth, gave to the holy man water for his hands, was his cupbearer, and waited on him all the time of his meal, standing bolt upright as a servant, with her mind intentive on her office. Dinner being ended, she did eat the scraps and remainder of the table, which she preferred before all the Imperial delicacies. Verily, we may say women are violent in their affections, and, when once they go the right way, their virtues have no mean. I will not seek to penetrate the Lady's intentions, which I suppose were very good; but considering the proceed of Maximus, there is great cause to think he endeavoured by his infinite courtship, to charm the nature of Saint Martin, which to him seemed somewhat harsh. Yet the great man, endowed with the spirit of prophecy, freely told all which should befall him.  
Behold some part of the disposition of Maximus, which I was willing to present on paper, that it might appear of what condition they ordinarily are, who bear arms against the obedience due to Kings, who are the lively images of God. The Tyrant began a revolt in England, and from that time determined to establish the City of Trier in Germany, as the seat of his Empire, and thence to raise a pair of wings to fly above the clouds, which were Italy and Spain. He chose for his Constable, a man very consonant to his humour, and of great resolution, who caused himself to be called the Good man, the better to colour the wickedness of his Master. With this bad Counsellor he endeavoured to stir up the soldiers, and on every side drew the warlike troops to his party. The good Emperor Gratian speedily armeth, to stifle tyranny in the birth thereof, and in person goeth to encounter his adversary. He had then very freshly drawn good soldiers from the Kingdom of Hungary to his assistance, of whom he made much account. Others seeing that he much esteemed of them, were stung with jealousy, and grew cold in their Master's behalf. The poor Prince being on the point to wage battle, found himself carelessly and traitorously abandoned by his legions, who daily stole away to increase the Army and strength of Maximus.  
This black and hideous treason much amazed the Emperor, who complained, as the Eagle in the Emblem, that his own feathers gave him the stork of death, seeing his soldiers, who should have born him on their wings, delivered him to his enemy, through a neglect, which shall make the Roman history to blush eternally. So that seeing there was no safety for his person, he sought to regain Italy as soon as possible, accompanied only with a full troup of horse, consisting of about three hundred men.  
Maximus well discovered, that he would at any price whatsoever have the bloody spoil of his Master: For he charged this Good man to pursue him with all violence and not to desist till the prey were in his clutches; which he did, taking horses with him, who ran like a tempest, and could well endure any tedious travel. In the end, he met with the Emperor at Lions, and fearing he might escape, bethought himself of a mischievous stratagem. For he secretly caused the Emperor to be informed, the Empress his wife was in danger of her person, if he stayed not some while to expect her, because she was resolved to follow him; thinking no place capable of safety or consolation where her husband was not.  
This false report much softened the heart of Gratian, who was as good a husband as an Emperor; he therefore resolved to hasten to the Empress, though not without evident danger of his life. There is an unspeakable power in the love of neighbours, which is the cause that birds and fishes are ofttimes voluntarily caught with twigs and nets not fearing to put their life in danger, where they see some part of themselves to be. This Prince, who in the extremest disasters of his fortune, was full of courage, and flew every where like a flash of lightning, to give order to his affairs, at the news that the Empress was on her way to follow him, was much terrified; nor was 
Pitiful death of the Emperor Gratian.  there an object of peril which he framed not in his thoughts: Moment's seemed days unto him and days as Ages. A thousand santasies of affrightment summoned his heart in his solitude. There was no living for him, if he beheld not his dearest love in his arms. She was a Princess of much merit, daughter of the Emperor Constantius, born after the death of her father; whom Gratian faithfully loved, though he as yet had no issue by her.  
The Tyrant understanding his game succeeded to 
Socrat. lib. 5. cap. 11. Zozom. lib. 7. cap. 13.  his wish, made a litter to pass along much like to that of the Empress, and disposed his ambushes round about in the way. The Emperor perceiving it afar off, and supposing his wife Constantia was in it, spurs his horse, and flieth with those wings which love and joy gave him, being at that time followed by few of his people. The murderers assailed and massacred him, but he still showing the courage of a Lion, bore himself bravely amongst swords and halberds, leaving the mark of his hand all bloody on a wall, as S. Hierom hath observed, and ever having on his lips the 
Cruentae manus vestigia, parietes tui Lugdune testantur. Hieron. ep. 3.  name of S. Ambrose. His body, after the soul departed, was taken up to be presented to Maximus, as the monument of a faithful assassinate.  
O God who shall here be able to cleave a cloud, to read through so much darkness, and so many shadows, the secrets of your Providence? This poor Abel butchered by the hand of a Cain, with a cruelty so barbarous, a manner so perfidious, and a success so deplorable! A Prince, who sheltered the whole world under the valour of his arms, forsaken by the most trusty servants of his house! An Emperor most Religious, separated by death from the assistances of Altars! A Monarch most just, given as a prey to injustice! One of the best Ma●●●rs of the earth slain by servile hands, and used like a beast among the halberds, and courtelaxes of his own servitors! So many rare qualities as were in him, leave nothing else to mortals, but the sorrow to have lost him.  
A man, who deserved to have lived Ages, torn from his Throne and life in his 28 ●h year, after a reign so advantageous to the Church, and wishful to all the world! O Providence! Must he pass away, as the foam glideth on the face of the water? Must he be hayl-strucken, as the Crown Imperial, the honour of a garden, in the height of his beauty? Must he whither, as lightning causeth pearls in their growth, leaving them in stead of a substance, nought else but a shell? O God What blood of Abel's must be shed in all Ages, to teach us a lesson, which telleth, the reward of our children consisteth not in the favour and prosperities of the world, but that seeing in such innocency they are so roughly handled, your justice hath infallibly disposed them for another life, where they live covered with the purple and glory of your Son, whose sufferings they have imitated.  
The poor Constantia, wife of Gratian, hearing this lamentable news, was seized with overwhelming sorrow, and as soon as she came to herself again, Ab Gratian (saith she) my Lord, and dear husband, I have then found an evil worse than your death, which is, to have been the cause of the same. Must my name be so much abused? Must the love of a creature so caitiff as I am, engage into danger a life so important as yours?  
I began my unhappiness from the day of my birth, being 
Ambros. in Psal. 61. Meminit Gratiani, morsist● magis est peccati fuga, quàm morientis detrimentum.  born after the death of my father Constantius, nature not permitting me to see him, who gave me life. That little age I have, hath not ceased to be turmoiled with many uncertainties, which enforce me to reap thorns in the fortune of Caesar's, where the world imagineth roses. Yea, I avow (my most honoured Lord) that this accident hath outgone all my apprehensions. For although I figured you mortal as a man, I could not suppose that he in whom all my charities and hopes survived, should be taken from me so suddenly, in a fortune so eminent, in an age so flourishing, with a death so unworthy of his goodness, not leaving me at the least a son in my entrails to be born of me, as his mother; and which is worse, that I instantly must (Ob my dearest Gratian, the sweetest amongst all men living) redeem your bloody body with the price of gold, from the hands of a wretched slave. My God, I confess I have no strength to bear these calamities so violent, if you afford it not.  
The news of this death, which flew like a fatal bird through all the world, transfixed the hearts of all good men. The little Valentinian resented it beyond his age, seeing himself deprived of a brother, whom he so faithfully had loved. S. Ambrose, though most courageous, felt himself as it were surprised with sorrow and sadness, not being able to unlose his tongue to pronounce any funeral Oration. All the Court was infinitely affrighted, as if Maximus had already been at the gates of Milan to finish the catastrophe of the Tragedy. Justina the Empress, mother of young Valentinian, taking the care of affairs for her son in minority, instantly made her address to S. Ambrose, and besought him to undertake an Embassage, and present himself before Maximus, so to divert the stream of his arms, which came to pour themselves on Italy, and to demand the body of his pupil; humbly praying, not to neglect him dead, whom he alive had so faithfully served.   

The thirteenth SECTION. The Embassage of S. Ambrose.  
OUr great Prelate courageously undertook the business, fortifying his heart with assistances of Heaven, to treat with the murderer of his son, for one may well say, the love he bore to the dead, equalled that of fathers towards their children.  
The acts of his first Embassage are lost, although the effect hath been sufficiently published. Which was the diversion of the arms of Maximus, so much feared by the Empress Justina. But as for the Emperor's body, it was impossible to gain it from him; for Maximus said, he withheld it upon a point of State, well knowing this spectacle would have no other effect, but to exasperate the memory of what was past, and that the soldiers through fury might revenge the dead body, much ashamed they had betrayed their living Emperor.  
This wicked man insatiable in his desires, and perfidious in his promises, soon repent to have signed the peace, complaining that Ambrose had with his fair words cast him into a sleep; he was full of impetuous passions, and incessantly threatened to pass into Italy, nor should any thing hereafter hinder his intentions, which made S. Ambrose enterprise a second Embassage, at the solicitation of the Empress Justina, of whom we have a most faithful narration from the pen of the Saint himself, in an Epistle which he wrote to the Emperor Valentinian, to yield him an account of his Commission. There he relateth, how being arrived in the City of Trier, where Maximus had placed his Throne, that he the next morning went to the Palace to speak to him in private. The treacherous man, who with so many Legions could not endure the counterbuff of truth, delivered by a Bishop, thinking to silence him, sent one of the gentlemen of his chamber, to demand if he had any letters from Valentinian to deliver him, if so, he should receive answer, but that he might not speak to the Emperor himself, but in full Council. S. Ambrose replieth, that was not the audience, which is usually given to persons of his quality; that he had most important affairs to handle, which might better be privately expressed in his cabinet, than at the Councel-table. He prayed the gentleman of his chamber, to let him know this his request, which indeed was most civil. He did so, but brought back no other answer, but that he should be heard in Council. The good Bishop said, that was somewhat too far from his profession; but he notwithstanding would omit nothing of his duty, preferring the memory of the dead, and the affairs of his living Prince, before all the interests of his own person.  
He came then to the Councel-table, where Maximus 
Majesty of S. Ambrose.  sat on his Throne, who seeing S. Ambrose, risen up to give him the kiss, according to the custom of that Age: but the Bishop taking place among the Counselors, who very honourably invited him to sit uppermost, freely said to Maximus: I wonder how you offer the kiss of peace to a man of whom you are ignorant, for were I well known in the rank I hold, you should not see me here. Maximus amazed at this liberty, could not say aught else, but, Bishop you are in choler. S. Ambrose replieth: I have more shame than anger in me, to see myself in a place where I should not be. Notwithstanding (saith Maximus) you might have learned the way, having been here once already. It is a double fault in you (replieth the Prelate) to have summoned me twice. Thereupon Maximus: Why came you hither? To demand peace of you (answereth S. Ambrose) which I have required as of an inferior, and you now enforce me to seek it as from an equal.  
The proud man who thought himself lessened, if compared to the Emperor Valentinian, was moved at these words, and cried out: How equal? By whose favour? By the favour of God (answereth S. Ambrose) who hath preserved that Empire in Valentinian, which he gave him. Maximus at this word entered into violence. It is you (saith he) that have deceived me, and your goodly Count Bauton, who under pretext to preserve the Empire for a child, made other accommodations for himself, and for this effect is joined with Barbarians, to invite them to pass into the Empire. And who hath more credit than I, to cause them to march under my Standards when I list? I have thousands under my pay, by whom I can be served before all the men in the world; and had you not stopped the course of mine arms with your goodly Embassage, no man living had been able to oppose me. He spoke this with quick flashes of choler.  
The holy Bishop coldly answered: It is dishonourable in you to reproach my Embassage, and put yourself upon these extravagancies. For to whom appertaineth it to defend widows and orphans, if not to a Bishop? That is it, which the law of my Master commandeth me. Judge in favour of the orphan, and defend the widow, and deliver the weak from oppression. Notwithstanding, I will not give so much credit to my Embassage, as to persuade myself it hath stayed the course of your arms. What squadrons have I opposed against you? What walls? What rocks? Have I stopped up the passage of the Alps with mine own body? By my will could I so have done; I should account all your objections as a glory to me. But you yourself sent the Count Victor, whom I met at Mentz, to treat of peace: Wherein hath Valentinian deceived you, if he have granted the peace, which you demanded of him? In what hath the Count Bauton played false with you, unless you term it deceit to be faithful to his Master? In what have I beguiled you? Was it then when you said, that Valentinian need not put me to the trouble of this Embassage, but come himself in person, as a son to his father; and that I freely answered you, There was no likelihood to see a Princess, widow of a great Emperor, to put herself into the way with her son, tender of age, and feeble of body, to pass the Alps in the extremities of winter: and that as for the child, whom you desired only to see, the mother so much affected him, she could in no sort suffer him to be separated from her? Is not this the answer was given to your Ambassador in the City of Milan, when I was then present with you? What deceit find you in this proceeding? Did I ever promise you the coming of the Emperor, and have I failed you in my faith? Have I diverted your troops? Have I stayed your Eagles? Where are those Barbarians, which the Count Bauton caused to pass into Italy? Verily if he who is a stranger should have called people of his Nation to the succour of his Master, it would be very excusable, since you, who are so much interessed in the preservation of the Roman Empire, threaten us that you have Barbarians under your pay, whom you can make to overrun us when you please.  
Behold a little, the difference that is between the sweetness of Valentinian, and your menaces: You are much troubled not to have fallen upon Italy with Barbarian Legions, and Valentinian hath graciously diverted the foreign Gauls, whom be had invited to his service, whilst you in the mean time make waste on the Grizons, with your Barbarians: he hath bought peace for you with his own money, and you with ingratitude repay him.  
Behold your brother, who is now by your side, and you shall see an irreproachable testimony of the Emperor's clemency. He held in his Province, and hands, that which is most dear to you in the world. Every one thought it was reason to revenge the ashes of the Emperor Gratian upon a near ally of him, who was the author of his death, and yet Valentinian upon the news of the assassinate committed upon his most honourable brother, and in the greatest fervour of his most just passion, hath so moderated himself, as to send him back with honour, whom he might with justice have hereft you. Compare yourself presently with him, and make yourself Judge in your proper cause. He hath restored you your brother in perfect health: render him his at the least thus dead as he is. Why do you deny him the ashes of his brother, since he hath not refused your satisfactions yea to his own prejudice? He hath afforded you a man in like degree of alliance, though in quality much different. He hath granted you one alive; render him one dead to yield him the last offices. A Tartarian covered with sand a Pirate, which he by chance found dead upon the sea shore; and you deny us to bury with our own hands the prime Monarch of the world? You take from a Queen-mother, from a widow-Empress, from an orphan-Emperour, the bones of a son, a husband, a brother, whom you have deprived of life and sceptre. The bodies of reprobates are taken down from the gallouss, to put them into the arms of their mothers; what hath the body of Gratian done to be bereft after death, the charity of his Allies? Why do you forbidden us tears, which very Tyrants themselves, who have torn eyes out, have never denied to the afflicted? You fear (say you) it may exasperate minds, that is to say, you fear a death, which you have caused, and which you have unworthily procured, even then, when you might and ought to save it by all ways of justice and humanity. And tell me not he was your enemy, you were his, but he never yours. For hostility comes from an usurper, and defence from a lawful Prince. You do well to justify yourself upon this attempt, but there is not a man will believe your justifications. Who sees not you hated his life, whose burial you hinder?  
Paulinus addeth, that for conclusion he dealt with him as one excommunicate, and seriously adviseth him to expiate the blood he had shed, by a sharp penance.  
This liberty of our admirable Prelate amazed all the Council: and Maximus, who never thought that a Priest in the heart of his State, in the midst of his Legions, in the presence of his Court, could have the courage to tell him, that which he would never endure to hear in his Cabinet, commanded him speedily to departed from the Court. All those who were friends of the holy man, advised him to be watchful upon the ambushes and treason of Maximus, who found himself much galled, but he full of confidence in God, put himself on the way, and wished Valentinian to treat no otherwise with Maximus but as with a covert enemy, which did afterward appear most true. But Justina the Empress, thinking S. Ambrose had been over-violent, sent upon a third Embassage Domnin, one of her Counselors, who, desirous to smooth the affairs with servile sweetness, thrust them upon despair of remedy.   

The fourteenth SECTION. The persecution of S. Ambrose raised by the Empress Justina.  
WE may well say there is some Fury, which bewitcheth the spirits of men in these lamentable innovations of pretended Religions, since we behold effects to arise which pass into humane passions, not by an ordinary way. Scarcely could Justina the Empress freely breath air, being, as she thought, delivered from the sword of Maximus, which hung over her head, tied to a silken thread, when forthwith she despoiled herself furiously, to persecute the author of her liberty. O God, what a dangerous beast is the spirit of a woman, when it is unfurnished of reason, and armed with power! It is able to create as many monsters in essence, as fantasy can form in painting. Momus desired the savage bull should have eyes over his horns, and not borns over his eyes: but Justina at that time had brazen horns to gore a Prelate, having eyes neither above nor beneath, to consider whom she struck. Authority served as a Sergeant to her passion, and the sword of Monarches was employed to satisfy the desperate humours of a woman surprised with error, and inebriated with vengeance. Saint Ambrose like a sun darted rays on her, and she, as the Atlantes, who draw their bow against this bright star, the heart of the world, shot back again arrows of obloquy. As women well instructed and zealous in matter 
Herod. lib. 4.  orientem execrantur.  of Religion, are powerful to advance the Christian cause, so when they once have sucked in any pestilent doctrine, they are capricious to preserve their own chimeras. The mistresses of Solomon, after they had caused their beauties to be adored, made their idols to be worshipped: so Justina, when she had gained credit as the mother of the Emperor, and Regent in his minority, endeavoured to countenance the Arian Sect, wherein she was passionate, that the sword 
Sect of Ariant  of division might pass through the sides of her own son into the heart of the Empire.  
The Arians had in the Eastern parts been ill entreated under the Empire of Theodosius, and many of them were fled to Milan under the conduct of a false Bishop, a Scythian by Nation, and named Auxentius, as their head, but who for the hatred the people of Milan bore to this name of Auxentius, caused himself to be called Mercurinus.  
He was a crafty and confident man, who having insinuated himself into the opinion of the Empress, failed not to procure by all possible means, the advancement of his Sect, and did among other things, very impudently demand a Church in the City of Milan, for the exercise of Arianism.  
Justina, who in her own hands held the soul of 
Justina an Arian demandeth a Church in Milan.  her son Valentinian as a soft piece of wax, gave it such figure as best pleased her, and being very cunning, there was not any thing so unreasonable, which she did not ever colour with some fair pretext, to dazzle the eyes of a child. She declared unto him, that the place she possessed near his person, well deserved to have a Church in Milan, wherein she might serve God according to the Religion which she had professed from her younger days, and that it was the good of his State, peacefully to entertain every one in the Religion he should choose, since it was the proceeding of his father Valentinian, which she by experience knew had well succeeded with him.  
To this she added the blandishments of a mother, which ever have much power over a young spirit: so that the Emperor persuaded by this Siren, sent to seek S. Ambrose, and declared unto him, that for the good of his State, and peace of his people, it was in agitation to accommodate his thrice-honoured mother, and those of her Sect, with a Church in Milan.  
At this word S. Ambrose roared like a Lion, which made it appear he never would yield to the execution of such requests. The people of Milan, who honoured their Prelate as the lively image of the world's Saviour, when they once perceived that Valentinian had suddenly called him, and that some ill affair was in hand, they left their houses, and came thundering from all parts to the Palace, whereat Justina was somewhat astonished, fearing there was some plot in it, and so instantly commanded the Captain of the Guard to go out and disperse the rude multitude, which he did, and presenting himself with the most resolute soldiers, he found no armed hands to resist him, but huge troops of people, which stretched out their necks and cried aloud, They would die for the defence of their faith and Pastor.  
These out-cries proceeding as from men affrighted, terrified the young Emperor, and seeing the Captain of his Guards could use no other remedy, he besought S. Ambrose to show himself to the people, to mollify them, and promise, that for the business now treated, which was to allow a Church to the Heretics, never had those conclusions been decreed, nor would he ever permit them. S. Ambrose appeared, and as soon as he began to open his mouth, the people were appeased, as if they had been charmed with his words; whereupon the Empress grew very jealous, seeing with the arms of sanctity, doctrine, and eloquence, he predominated over this multitude, as the winds over the waves of the sea.  
A while after to lessen the great reputation of S. Ambrose, 
Strange conference pretended by the Empress.  she determined to oppose her Auxentius against him in a public reputation: and though she in her own conscience well understood that he in knowledge was much inferior to S. Ambrose, notwithstanding she reputed him impudent enough, and a great talker, to stupefy weak judgements. She persuaded herself, that of two things one would happen; either that S. Ambrose, refusing disputation, would leave some suspicion of his inability, or, accepting it, engage his authority. This powerful woman, unable to bow heaven, resolved to stir hell. She obtained a Mandate from the Emperor her son, by which it was enjoined to S. Ambrose to be on a day nominated at the Palace, to confer in his presence upon points of Religion against Auxentius, on this condition, that Judges should be appointed for both parts, to decide their difference. The Tribune Dalmatius was the bearer of this Mandate, who wished S. Ambrose by word of mouth, that he should hasten to name the Judges, which he intended to choose for his party; and that Auxentius had already nominated his, who were all Pagans, to take away thereby the suspicion might be framed against those of his Sect. He caused also certain words silently to slip from him by the subtlety of Justina, by the which he advised him handsomely to escape, and go whither he thought good, if he would not accept of this challenge. S. Ambrose had a strange horror upon this Mandate, seeing how the cunning of a passionate woman, & the impudence of a shameless Heretic tyrannised over the feeble spirit of an infant, enforcing him to demand this hateful Conference, which seemed to be permitted for nothing, but to expose the venerable Mysteries of our Religion to the scorn of Pagans. He would by no means go to the Palace to excuse himself, fearing he might seem to transfer a cause merely Ecclesiastical, to a Prince's Court: but he made a grave answer to the Emperor, which is now extant in his Works, where among other things, the Arians condemning his refusal, and taxing him of contumacy for giving occasion of jealousy to the Emperor, 
Lib. 2▪ ep. 15.  upon the overgreat authority of S. Ambrose, he saith: Sacred Majesty, He that accuseth my refusal of 
Resolution of S. Ambrose.  contumacy, accuseth the law of your father of injustice. He, who was a man most accomplished in arms and great affairs, who signed his faith with the seal of his constancy, and the wisdom of his counsels by the happiness of his State, ever witnessed both by his words and Edicts, that it appertained to none but Bishops to judge of Bishops. You, who are tender of age, little experienced, nay, a Catechumene in faith, will judge of mysteries, which you have not yet learned. If this seem reasonable unto you, the laity may hereafter mount into the Chair, and have those for their flock, whom they have had for their Pastors, which can never be done but by perverting the order of this Universe. God forbidden I should choose Judges of the laity, to make them either Prevaricatours of faith, or victims of the vengeance of our enemies. It sufficeth me to leave my life therein, which I so long have consecrated to the defence of the Church, and not engage others in the peril. I hold the faith of the Nicene Council, from which neither the sword nor death shall ever separate me. I am ready to defend it at the Church, not in the Court, where never had I been, but for you; and whereof I better love not to know the customs, than learn the cunning. As concerning this which I hear, that your Majesty offereth me peaceably to retire where I shall think good; God himself knows with how much endeavour I avoided the burden your father himself, of glorious memory, laid on my shoulders: Now I cannot with freedom discharge myself in conscience, since the Bishops, my associates, cry out aloud unto me, that it were one and the same crime in my person, either to leave or betray the Altars.  
Justina, much moved with the liberty of these words, complained in her Palace, that among so many Legions there could not be a man so faithful, as to deliver her from the importunities of a Priest, promising offices and singular favours in Court, to any that would lead him into exile.  
One named Euthymius offered himself, who having purposely hired a house near to the Church, provided a Coach well furnished to carry away S. Ambrose at his coming from divine Service: but never was i● possible for him to perform his promise, by reason of the great press of the people, which perpetually environed their Pastor. But much otherwise, this miserable undertaker, the year circumvolving, the same day whereon he resolved to execute his design upon the holy man, after he had shamefully been disgraced, was banished, and carried away in the same Coach he had prepared for S. Ambrose; as it is said, Perillus' Author of Phalaris his bull, was the first that hanselled it; and Hugh Ambriot, who caused the Bastille to be built, was the first that went into it in the quality of a Prisoner, there to end his days. Another named Caligo●ius, a Groom of the Chamber to the Emperor, threatened S. Ambrose to cut off his head with his own hands; the holy man answered: If God permit 
Genebrar. Chronic.  thee to execute what thou sayest, thou will act but what Eunuches do, and I shall endure that which ordinarily the Bishop suffer.  
Some time after, as if Heaven had fought against the Prelate's enemies, this wicked man, although an Eunuch, being accused of some impurity by a Courtesan, passed the dint of the sword, which he would have drawn against his Bishop. In the end, the Empress resolved to play out the rest of her game, and exercise the whole extent of her power. She obtained bloody Edicts, which she herself made to satisfy her own passion: She armed her Auxentius, as the instrument of her fury: She caused it to be published aloud, that all ecclesiastics, who would not deliver the Church which was in question, should be held as criminals of treason. She caused Squadrons of insolent soldiers to run up and down the streets, and cast terror into the minds of the most confident. That was the time, when the bruit of peril wherein S. Ambrose was, being spread through the City, universally drew all the people to the Church, each one endeavouring to make a bulwark for him of his own body, and never forsaking him either day or night. Tribunes and Captains were dispatched to him, who signified the Emperor's pleasure, which consisted of three articles. The first was, he should speedily deliver the holy vessels, and all the moveables of the Church. The second, he should leave the place questioned in the Empresses dispose. The third, that in all haste he must go out of Milan, and that he should have free liberty to travel whither he pleased. The Bishop made answer, That those holy vessels were the inheritance of Jesus Christ, and as the Emperor had not abandoned the state of his Ancestors to Tyrants, so Ambrose would never betray the patrimony of his Master. Were gold and silver demanded which were his own proprieties, be would make no difficulty to afford them, but as for the goods of the Church, they were sacred pledges, which the Emperor had no right to require, nor he to give. Then, for the Church demanded, It was the house of God, which his Predecessors Dionysius, Eustorgius, Myrocles, and others had courageously defended & conserved, not to be profaned by Arians, but reverenced by Catholics. Moreover, for that which concerned his banishment, it was a thing now incompatible with his life, for he more feared God, who had given him this charge, than the Emperor, who would take it away; and that if Valentinian were ready to do that which an exorbitant power permitted, Ambrose was bend on his part to suffer whatsoever a good Pastor ought to endure for his flock, yea, should his body be torn piece-meal under the rack of persecution, yet his spirit should remain fast fixed to the Altar.  
The history of the vine of Naboth was then read in the Church, and one part of it, where there passed in figure, was here expressed in verity. The denial of Saint Ambrose being reported in the Palace, the soldiers had commandment to invade the Church on every side, like a Town besieged. Never was a 
Strange spectacle.  spectacle beheld more intermingled with terror and piety. The Church of Milan was then as a Tabernacle of the Lord of hosts, which marched between the battalions under the conduct of the burning Pillar. There was nothing without, but soldiers, lances, pikes, and swords; within, but prayers, sermons, hymns, and canzonets. One while this admirable Prelate offered Sacrifice at the Altar, with great effusion of tears; then he mounted into the Chair, to encourage and consolate the people; presently he introduced the symphony of Psalms; anon he gave answers to the Emperor's Deputies. He traveled indefatigably, and appeared as another Judas Machabaeus, sometimes in the head, sometimes in the rear, and sometimes in the midst of the Army. He was in his Church like the Patriarch No in his Ark, confident in perils, peaceable in tempests,  in all violences conspired to his ruin. The people by his example in the tumult of the whole City, and deluge of roaring waters, were in this Tabernacle of peace, as if they had enjoyed the antipasts of Heaven. All were divided by companies to pray and watch, as in Heaven the Quires of Angels.  
The good mother of S. Augustine was then by chance in Milan very far engaged in the business, for she was a Mary, sister of Moses, who served as an example to all other women. At that time it was, when God more and more to comfort his faithful creatures, discovered to S. Ambrose the sacred bodies of S. Gervasius and Protasius, who heretofore had been martyred for the faith. When the holy Relics were seen to be drawn out of vaults still bloody, every one was inflamed with an incredible zeal for defence of Religion, much like the Elephants in the book of Maccabees, who were stirred up at the sight of the juice of grapes. There was nothing but lights, musical consorts, exultations, and triumphs.  
The miserable Empress, who caused all things that passed, to be hourly related unto her, was now come to the condition of rage. Nothing was heard in the City but prohibitions, menaces, penalties, chains and imprisonments. In the end, the Provost was sent to Saint Ambrose, to persuade him, that he at the least would allow a Church in the suburbs, to satisfy Justina, and appease the sedition. The people prevented his answer, and cried out aloud, that could not be done. S. Ambros● stretched out his hands, and shown his neck, signifying he was ready to receive fetters and swords, yea, to be sacrificed on the Altar, rather than deliver up the Altar. They went to take the Church in the suburbs by force: the people ran thither to stand upon the defence thereof. The Imperial Ensigns thereon already fixed, in sign of possession, were abused even by little children.  
It is a strange thing that Heaven, earth, and all the elements, men and women, great and small, noble and ignoble, ranged themselves on Saint Ambrose side. Yea, the soldiers themselves who were sent to take possession of the Church where the holy man was, entered therein, which at the beginning gave occasion of much terror to the most timorous: but they lifting up their peaceable hands, cried out aloud, They were come to pray with the Catholics, and not exercise violence on any man; letting also the Emperor know, that the Church belonged to him, as to a Catholic Emperor, there he should pray, there receive favours from above, there be in the Communion of true Christians. If it appertained to Heretics, it would no longer be a place where the Emperor should feed on the Lamb, which is never eaten but in the true Church. His wicked mother ceased not to bewitch his mind, and breath in his ears, that Ambrose aimed at his State: for which cause a Commissary was dispatched to the Bishop, who roundly told him, he only desired to know one thing of him: Whether he would usurp the Empire, to the end he might hereafter be treated withal as with a Tyrant?  
S. Ambrose made answer, That his tyranny was infirmity, and his arms prayers and tears, which made him powerful before God. That heretofore Priests had given Kingdoms, but not usurped them. That there were some Emperors, who had desired Priesthood, but that Bishops never had aspired to Crowns. That Priests had often felt the sword of Tyrants, but Tyrants themselves had not at any time seen the sword of Priest's un-sheathed against them. Let Maximus be asked, whether he were a Tyrant, for he was very well able to make relation of strange things. His tyranny was to serve the Emperor at the Altar, and to be sacrificed, if God suffer, in serving him.  
It well appeared this was to run his head against a rock, to think of such an affair. The Emperor fearing to engage his authority any further, by the advice of some good Councillors, gently struck sail, leaving all matters whole and entire. S. Ambrose, who then in the Church explicated the history of Ionas, much wondered, how the tempest being ceased, he in an instant came out of the whales belly.   

The fifteenth SECTION. Maximus passeth into Italy.  
YOu need but to cast a little earth abroad to scatter an army of Aunts, to break their Oeconomy and sport, making them rather to think upon flight than the pleasure of their pillage: so whilst Justina with the Arians was still employed in riots, and practices how to be revenged on S. Ambrose, making use of the innocent spirit of her son, and authority of the Empire to satisfy her revenge, God raised an accident which made her think of other matters.  
Domnin her goodly Ambassador, who departed from Maximus loaden with presents and fair words, little thinking thereof, was presently waited on by an army of the Tyrant, who had in him as much fervour as fire, and more infidelity than ice. So suddenly fell he upon Italy, that it was a great chance he had not taken the mother and her young-ones upon the nest. All which the Empress Justina could do, was speedily to save herself with her sons and daughters, to set sail on the sea, and pass to Thessalonica, a City of Greece, much renowned, were it but in S. Paul's Epistles.  
Maximus finding no resistance, flowed like a torrent over the fair fields of Italy, and made furious havoc; though to take away the blemish of the blood of the Emperor Gratian, and to gain the reputation of a good Prince, he shown in the end some moderation.  
It is verily a miracle of God, that he having been treated with by S. Ambrose with so much liberty, as we have said before & holding still the bloody sword in the ruins of Italy, in a time when he might have done any thing which his passion dictated, he so bridled himself, that he not only abstained from wronging the holy Prelate, but for his sake used the whole Territory of Milan with the more humanity. It seemed the City of Milan under the influences of its Pastor, had the virtue of those sacred forests, which tamed wolves: It tied up the throat of a ravenous wolf, and made him court his prey. Yet though she were without peril, she was not void of fear, seeing so many armed troops round about her, and smelling the smoke of those fires which wasted her neighbours. Then was the time, when the admirable Bishop acted things likewise worthy of his person. For, all the Citizens wavering, and almost ready to leave the City desolate, to save their lives, he by his eloquence and authority held them back so well, that he seemed to have enchained them. This scourge (saith he) proceedeth 
Ambros. serm. 99 Prudence and Charity of S. Ambrose.  from our disorders: let us cease to sin, and God will give over to afflict us. It is a folly to fly from your country. If you desire to be safe, fly from your sins. The arms of Maximus will have no power over bulwarks of sanctity. Besides, as it is said, he is bad, who is good for none but himself, the charitable Prelate, not content to consolate and confirm his own, but seeing that all Italy was filled with extreme miseries, not only spent all the means which he had to comfort them, but employed therein the very gold and silver vessels of the Church, for which cause the Arians sought occasion to calumniate him, disposing themselves to condemn virtues, since they could find no vice to lay hold on.  
The holy man answered that which he afterward couched in his offices. It is the effect of a most ardent 
Offic. lib. 1. cap. 18.  charity to compassionate the miseries of our neighbours, and to aid them according to our power, yea, above our power. I rather choose herein to be accused of prodigality, than inhumanity: there is no fault more pardonable, than that of bounty. It is a strange thing to find men so cruel, as to be troubled, when they see a man redeemed from death, an honest woman delivered from the violence of Barbarians, which is worse than death, or poor forsaken infants, drawn from the contagion of Idols, which they are forced to adore with menaces of death. Let our enemy's murmur as long as they please, but I more affect to keep souls for God, than to treasure up gold.  
Whilst all this passed in Italy, Theodosius came to 
Interview of Theodosius & Justina.  visit Justina and her children at Thessalonica, who failed not to present all their complaints, and solicit him to undertake the war against Maximus. But he therein at first shown himself very cold; insomuch that (not to disguise the truth partly touched in Zosimus) although Theodosius was a very great Captain, as one who arrived to the Empire by his own merit, notwithstanding seeing his fortune now at the height, he was pleased to taste the repose and delights of the Court, under the shadow of his own palms, and not contest again with any man, fearing the hazard of wars, and the slippery foot of felicity. Moreover Maximus, who defied the force of all the world, played the fawning dog before him, and sent express Ambassadors to draw him to some agreement. This so wrought, that when the offended Empress sounded an alarm, Theodosius endeavoured to pacify her with fair promises and good hopes, saying, Nothing must be precipitated; that Maximus would become dutiful; that it was better to give him some bone to gnaw on peaceably, than enkindle a war which would never be extinguished, but with rivers of humane blood. But the Lady infinitely vexed, pursued this affair with all extremity, and was much displeased to see, that he who held all his advancement from her husband, herself, and her children, shown some remissness in so urgent a necessity. She bethought herself of an excellent stratagem, which was, to inflame the war with the fire of love. The Emperor Theodosius had lost his wife Placilla, and was much inclined to a second marriage.  
Justina, who heretofore had enjoyed the short tyranny of beauty, making two Emperors Maxentius and Valentinian the Elder, tributary thereunto, was no longer in season to afford that which might very easily win Theodosius: but she had a daughter, named Galla, then in the flower of her age, and a perfect image of the mother; she determined to pierce this man by the arrow of the eye of this Princess, which was most easily done, for she took her along with her to dissolve this heart of ice; and casting herself at his feet, humbly besought him by the service he heretofore had vowed to the house of great Valentinian, by the ruin of her orphans, and by the blood of poor deceased Gratian, whom he had associated in Empire, to take the matter in hand. In the same proportion as she uttered those words with great fervour, the daughter composed herself to weep with a good grace, and even as tears in such persons have a strong spur in them, Theodosius beholding her, felt the wound of Turnus, when he beheld Lavinia in the like case. He quickly took the Empress and her daughter up, promising all assistance, and from that time plainly discovering that he was powerfully touched. He also failed not in few days to require Galla in marriage, which the mother promised him, as soon as she had irrevocably engaged him in the war she pretended. The marriage was hastily enough solemnised, and from the festival hall they passed into the field of Mars. Maximus, who saw Theodosius entertained his Ambassadors with words, not giving them any absolute answer, much doubted the affair, and bend his whole force upon defence. He did all which humane prudence may, that hath not the eyes of God. He set his Goodman, the furtherer of all his treacheries, to sea, commanding him to guard the Archi-pelagus with a great fleet. On the other part, he gave commission to his brother Marcellinus to keep passage of the Alps with a strong Army. He himself with the most resolved troops descended into Sclavonia, to prevent his enemy.  
Theodosius advertised of all this, after he had most particularly invoked the assistance of the God of hosts, he put himself on the way to cast the lot of the world's Empire. Never was there a more prosperous war. It seemed the Angels of Heaven led the Emperor by the hand; and that the blood of Gratian so traitorously shed, raised Furies in the Camp of Maximus. The encounter of the two Armies was at Sissia, where those of the contrary party accounted themselves strong, having the river for bulwark, which separated them from approaches, terrible to their treachery. But the brave soldiers of Theodosius, nothing amazed, although already much wearied, and all dusty with the long journey they had taken, laying hold of occasion by the forelock, speedily passed the river, and furiously charged the enemy.  
These wicked men were so astonished to see themselves surprised by such an action of courage, that so soon as they had taken a view of them, they turned their backs. Maximus, hardy for a black 
Overthrow of Maximus.  mischief, and remiss in a field of battle, shamefully abandoned his Army; instantly the earth was covered with bodies, the river filled with blood, and good success reserved a part to the clemency of the victor. Theodosius pursued his fortune, and grappling with Marcellinus, who was no abler man than his brother, defeated him, returning now very fresh from the victory he bore away in the first battle. And as at the same time he had notice that Maximus was retired into Aquileia, he, who desired to cut away the root of war, went thither with his army to besiege it. The justice of God fought powerfully against this Cain, and the time was come, in which with his blood he must wash the spots of his crime. God, who in punishments holdeth some conformity with the sin, would that as this miserable creature had stirred the military men against his Prince, he should be betrayed by the same soldiers, in whom he had all his hopes reposed. It is a strange thing, that these people abhorring the wickedness of this man, took, seized, and shamefully despoiled him of the very habiliments and marks of Emperor, which he had arrogated to himself; then tying and binding him like a Galleyslave, they presented him to Theodosius.  
It was the greatest extremity of unhappiness, which might befall him, to say, that in stead of measuring with his dead body the place he should have defended, living with his sword in hand, he was used as a King disarrayed, to let him be seen by all the world as a spectacle of infamy.  
Theodosius beholding him so humbled, had some pity of him, and reproaching him with his treachery, demanded who caused him to enterprise this tragedy? He being a coward and a flatterer, answered in so humble terms, that he discovered to have had this belief, that his design no whit displeased his Majesty; in other things excusing himself with great submission, and making it appear, he was a true lover of life. He never had so good an opinion of his wickedness, as to hope for an ordinary death, yet seeing the Emperor changed colour, and spoke to him in a sweeter tone, he was in some hope to obtain life, when the enraged soldiers haled him, and tore him in pieces, 
His death. Inter innumeras manus fertur ad mortem. Pacatus.  or, as others have written, delivered him to the hangman, who cut off his head.  
At the same time Theodosius dispatched Count Arbogastus to seize on his son, who was a young child, as yet bred under the wing of his mother, whom Maximus caused to be called the Victorius, and had already declared him Caesar, when suddenly he was taken and massacred, to accompany his father.  
The Good man, his Admiral, understanding the general discomfiture of affairs, voluntarily drowned himself, preventing the hand of a hangman which would not have failed him, but all the water in the sea was not sufficient to wash away the stain of his Master's blood from his soul, since the eternal flames never can free it.  
Behold the issue of Maximus, after the rapine of four or five years. Behold to what the designs of the wicked tend, who under pretext of Religion, seek the advancement of their temporal affairs. Behold to what hypocrisies and goodly humane policies, which make use of God as a mask for their wickedness, are finally reduced. Behold a stroke of thunder, which hath left nothing on earth behind it, but noise and stench. O bestial and bewitched men, who having so good lessons of the justice of God, written with the blood and sweat of so many miserable Sacrifices, pursue still the ranks, to be companions of the like misfortune.  
S. Ambrose is much glorified for treating with this man, who deceived so many others, as with one excommunicate, unwilling to be so much as saluted by him, who vowed so many services at his feet; and freely foretelling the misery should befall him, if he appeased not the celestial vengeance with a sincere repentance.   

The seventeenth SECTION. The affliction of S. Ambrose upon the death of Valentinian.  
WHosoever hath said that Sceptres are made of glass, Crowns of perfumed thorns, and the ways of great men are all of ice, bordered with precipices, hath said no less than truth. It is verily a thing most strange that the golden ceilings of Palaces tremble over crowned heads, and that in the heat of feasts, the hand of Heaven visibly on the walls figureth the sentence of their death. In the mean time we desperately love the vanities of the world: nothing is thought on, but to set our foot on men's throats, that we may the more eminently be seen, to draw the blood of this universe out of its veins, to cement up the ruins, and tie ourselves to a miserable world, which daily falleth apieces even in our own hands. The poor Valentinian was restored to the Throne by Theodosius, after the death of Maximus, and had only past three or four years in peaceful tranquillity, disposing himself to good according to the latitude of his own heart, and giving way to be wholly governed by the Counsels of Saint Ambrose, whom he heretofore had persecuted. When behold him taken away at the age of one and twenty years, by a horrible treason, which did as it were mingle his blood with that of his brother Gratian.  
The good Prince passed into France, being then at Vienna near Lions, accompanied by the Count Arbogastus, 
Arbogastus.  a Frenchman by Nation, who had lived till then in singular good reputation: for he was a man of worth, having a well-composed body, a quick spirit, a generous behaviour, and much practice in the exercise of arms, which had so dignified him, that he held the prime place in the Empire, to the which he had rendered good services. He was very well beloved by the soldiers; for besides his excellent parts, he bore an irreconciliable hatred to avarice, and appeared so little curious to enrich himself, that being so great a Captain as he was, he would be Master of no more than an ordinary soldier. This seemed commendable in him, but he was so desperately proud and choleric, that he would have all things carried according to his own counsels, much offended with the least contradiction, and accounting himself so necessary, that nothing could be done without him.  
On the other side the young Emperor, who was jealous of his authority, seeing that through his presumption he took too much upon him, he in all occasion sought to depress him, which the other ill digested: but he continuing in this arrogant and harsh disposition, Valentinian violently moved, did resolve to be rid of him. Behold why one day, as Arbogastus approached to his Throne to do him reverence, he looked awry on him, and gave him a ticket, by which he declared him a man disgraced and deprived of his charge. He furious, as a dog who biteth the stone thrown at him, after he had read the ticket, tore it in pieces in the presence of the Emperor, through extreme impudence, and cried out aloud: You gave me not the charge which I hold, nor is it in your power to take it from me This he spoke, presuming of support from the soldiers, whom he had ever esteemed. From this day forward he ceased not to make his distastes appear, and to bend his spirit to a mischievous revenge.  
There was by misfortune at that time in the Court one named Eugenius, who was accounted a witty man, but cold and timorous, that heretofore had professed Rhetoric, and acquired a good talon in speaking. Arbogastus supposed his own boldness would make an excellent temper with the coldness of this man, and having along time much confided in him, he made him an overture to seize on the Empire, which he at first refused. But the other having promised him the death of Valentinian, and his sword for defence, gave consent to a most enormous assassinate.  
All men were amazed, that the poor Emperor in a fatal morning was found strangled by the conspiracy of Eugenius and Arbogastus, aided by the Gentiles▪ who desired nothing but the liberty of Paganism.  
This news brought a most sensible affliction upon Saint Ambrose, for the Emperor was assured, that the Bishop came to Vienna expressly to entreat his return into Italy, which having understood, he reckoned up the days, and expected his arrival with unspeakable impatience. But S. Ambrose, who would not by importunity thrust himself into unnecessary affairs, as he through charity was unwilling to be wanting in necessary, having understood that the Emperor was daily upon his return, deferred this voyage, which had been most requisite to hinder Arbogastus, over whom he had a great power. Valentinian advertised of this delay, wrote to him, and earnestly pressed him to come, adding, he meant to receive Baptism at his hands, for he was as yet but a Catechumen. The good Prelate having received the Emperor's letters, speedily undertook the journey, using all expedition, when at his coming to the Alps, he heard the deplorable death of the poor Prince, which made him return back again, and wash (as he saith) his own steps in his proper tears, most bitterly every moment bemoaning the death of his dearest pupil.  
The Providence of God was very manifest in his 
Manners of Valentinian. Ambrose de obitu Valent.  death, for Valentinian was drawn from Empires of the world in a time, when he seemed now fully ripe for Heaven. It is an admirable thing how the direction of S. Ambrose, whom in his latter days he only affected, had metamorphosed him into another man. In the beginning, he was thought to be overmuch delighted in tourneys and horseraces: he so took away this opinion of him, that he would hardly permit these sports in the great festival entertainments of the Empire. The Gentiles, who made observations on all his life, had nothing to reproach in him, but that he excessively delighted in the slaughter of savage beasts, whom he caused to be taken and fed for his pleasure, saying, it diverted him from cares of the Empire. He, to satisfy all the world, caused instantly all those creatures to be killed, and disposed himself to attend the affairs of his Council, with so good judgement, and so great resolution, that he seemed a Daniel in the midst of the Assembly of Elders. These envious people having watched him so far, as to observe him at the table, objected, he anticipated the hour of his repast; yet he so addicted himself to abstinence, that he was seen in feasts rather seemingly than effectually to eat: for sometimes in entertaining others he fasted, tempering devotion and charity with a singular discretion. Finally, to give testimony of his infinite chastity, it was told him there was in Rome a female Comedian, endowed with a singular beauty, having attractives which ravished all the Nobility. This understood, he deputeth one expressly to bring her to the Court: but they being passionately in love with her, corrupted the messenger, so that he returned without doing any thing. The Emperor rechargeth, and commandeth that she with all expedition should be brought. It was so done, but she coming to the Court, the most chaste Emperor would not so much as only see her, but instantly sent her back again, saying, That if he being in a condition which gave him the means to satisfy all his pleasures, and in an Age which ordinarily useth to be very slippery in matter of vice, and which is more, not married, abstained from unlawful loves; his subjects might well do somewhat by his example. Never servant (saith S. Ambrose) was more in the power of his Master, than the body of this Prince was under command of the soul; nor ever Censor more diligently examined the actions of others, than he his own.  
Though all these dispositions infinitely much comforted the holy Prelate, and namely, the desire he expressed to receive Baptism two days before his death, ask every instant if Bishop Ambrose were come, notwithstanding his heart was transfixed to see him taken away in a time, when he went about to make himself most necessary for all the world. His death was generally bemoaned by all men, and there was not any, nay, not his enemies, which for him poured not out their tears.  
It is said that Galla his sister, wife of the Emperor Theodosius, at the news of his death, filled the Court with inconsolable lamentations, and died in childbed, which came by excess of grief; for which Theodosius was pitifully afflicted.  
The other sisters of the Prince, who were at Milan, ceased not to dissolve into tears, before the eyes of S. Ambrose, who had no word more effectual to comfort them, than the assurance that his faith and zeal had purified him, and the demand he made of Baptism had consecrated him, to the end they should no longer be in pain with the ease of his soul.  
The good Bishop took a most particular care of his obsequies and burial, where he made a Funeral Oration, found yet among his Works. In the end remembering his two pupils: Go (saith he) O you most 
S. Ambrose speaketh to the souls of his two pupils.  happy, gone as you are out of the desert of this world, dwell now in the everlasting delights of God, united in Heaven, as you have been on earth. If my prayers have any force before God, I will not let a day pass of my life, that I remember you not: I will not make a prayer, wherein I insert not the names of my dearest Pupils Gratian and Valentinian. In the silence of the night the apple of mine eyes shall be waking and full of tears for you, and as often as I approach to Altars, my sacrifices shall mount to Heaven in the odour of sweetness. By my will (dearest children) if I could have given my life for yours, I should have found consolation for all my sorrows. Then turning himself to his sisters, those mournful turtles, whom this good Prince had so passionately loved, that in consideration of them, he deferred his own marriage, fearing lest the love of a wife might diminish his charity towards them, the good Bishop thus spoke unto them: My holy daughters, I will not bereave you of tears; this were to be over ignorant in the resentments of your hearts. I wish that you bewail your brother, but bemoan him not as lost, he shall live more than ever in your eyes, in your breasts, in your hearts, in your embracements, in your kisses, in your memory, in your prayers; nor shall any thing draw him from your thoughts: but you ought now to consider him with a quite other visage, not as a man mortal, for whom you were ever in fear, but as an Angel in whom you dread nothing: An Angel, who will assist, comfort, and hold you day and night in his protection.   

The seventeenth SECTION. The tyranny of Eugenius, and notable liberty of S. Ambrose.  
IN the mean while Eugenius, drawn from the school to the Throne of Monarches, to serve as a specious game for the fortune of the times, changeth his ferula into a sceptre, and makes himself an Emperor, like the ice of one night. The faithless man, who had been a Christian, shutting up his eyes then from all consideration of piety, and only opening them to the lustre of this unexpected greatness, made himself an arm of tow, forsaking the direction of God, to support in humane policy. He put all his hope in the sword of Arbogastus, and counsel of Flavianus, a Gentleman of prime quality, and much versed in judicial Astrology, who promised him a golden fortune, if he would leave Christian Religion, to re-advance the worship of false gods, towards which Eugenius, blinded with his presumption, discovered great inclinations.  
He chose the City of Milan, to begin the web of his wicked purposes, where S. Ambrose did not desire him, not through fear of his arms, but for the horror he had conceived of his sacrileges. The false Emperor failed not to write to the holy Bishop to require his friendship, which he would make use of to support his authority: but holy Ambrose shown so generous a contempt of his letters, that he deigned not so much as to make answer, until such time that being informed how Eugenius underhand favoured the Sect of Pagans, having already allowed them this Altar of Victory, for which so many battles had been fought, he wrote to him a most courageous letter; where, not touching his election nor affairs of State, as than not well known, he reprehendeth him for his impiety, and said among other things:  
I owe the retreat, which I made from Milan, not attending 
Epist. Ambros. ad Eugenium.  you, to the fear of God, which shall perpetually be the rule of my actions. The grace of our Saviour shall ever be more precious with me, than that of Caesar's, nor will I at any time flatter a man to betray my conscience. I wrong no person, if I render to God that which is due to him; and I profit all men, when I conceal not a truth from great-ones. I understand you have granted to Pagans that which constantly hath been denied by Catholic Emperors. God knoweth all the secrets of your heart. It is a very ill business if you unwilling to be beguiled by men, think to deceive God, who seethe all that is to be done, even to nothing. The Gentiles, who so much have importuned you to satisfy their passion, taught you to be urgent to make a good refusal of that which you cannot give, but with committing sacrilege. I am no Controller of your liberalities, but an interpreter of your faith. Give of your treasures what ever you think good; I envy no man: but you shall not give any thing of the rights of God which I will not resist with the utmost extent of my power. You make a goodly matter to present offerings to Jesus Christ; you will find few▪ that make account of these dissimulations; every man hereafter will regard, not what you do, but what you have a will to do. As for my part, I enter not now into consideration of your estate, but if you be true Emperor, you will begin with the service of the divine Majesty: This is it which I cannot hid from you, because my life and flattery are two things incompatible.  
As for the rest, the Emperor Theodosius seeing the tyranny of Eugenius in a readiness, well foresaw necessity must needs put arms into his hands to be managed with piety. Whilst the infamous Eugenius made slaughter of beasts, amusing himself on the consideration of their entrails, from thence to judge the events of war, the brave Theodosius prostrated himself before the Altars of the living God, covered 
Theodosius maketh the Court holy.  with haircloth, imploring the assistance of Saints for his succour, and all the prayers of souls the most purified, which at that time lived within Monasteries. He departed from Constantinople with these aids, causing the Standard of the Cross to march before him. Eugenius was already encamped on the Alps to hinder the passage of his adversary, and had in a manner covered them with Statues of false Gods, as of Jupiter and Hercules, so bestial was this man.  
The Emperor seeing he needs must fight, commanded Gaynes, Colonel of the Goths, who led the vanguard, to break the trenches of his enemies, which he quickly did: but they being yet very fresh, and having a notable advantage of place taken by them, sustained the first assault with much resolution, and infinite loss on the Emperor's part; for it is thought that Gaynes, who was a valiant Captain in his own person, yet too wilfully opinionative to force this passage of the Alps, lost there about ten thousand men, which were killed like flies: so that needs a retreat must be made, very shameful for Theodosius his army.  
Eugenius, whose head was not made for a diadem, thinking the whole business ended, after so great a slaughter of his enemies, was so puffed up with this success, that he rather thought how to glorify his victory, than foresee his defence. The sage Emperor on the other side, seeing his Army grown very thin, and the courage of his soldiers wavering, more steadfastly made his address to God. He was seen upon the top of a rock prostrate on the earth, and crying aloud, My God, you know that I in the name of your 
Remarkable piety of Theodosius.  Son enterprised this war, and have opposed the arms of the Cross against Infidelity. If in me their rest any blame, I beseech you to revenge my sins on my culpable head, and not abandon the cause of Religion, lest we become a reproach to Infidels.  
The same night God for his assurance shown him a vision of two Apostles, S. John and S. Philip, who should be, as indeed they were, the Conductours of his Legions. The next morning about break of day, he ranged his forces in battle array, and charged Eugenius, not as yet thoroughly freed from his drunken prosperity: And when he saw that those who had the vanguard proceeded therein somewhat fearfully, remembering themselves of the usage of their companions, he did an act of admirable confidence, for he alighted from his horse, and marching on foot in the head of his Army cried out: Where is the God of Theodosius? At this word the aid of Heaven 
Victory of Theodosius over Eugenius. Ambros. in oratione funebri Theodosii  was so propitious, that a furious whirlwind was raised, which persecuted the enemies of Theodosius, casting a huge cloud of dust into their eyes, and returning all their own darts back to their proper faces, in such sort, that as it is confessed by Claudian, a very obstinate Pagan, it seemed the good Emperor that day had the winds and tempests at command, and that he had nothing to do but to give the word, to make them obedient to his Standards. Heaven fought for its beloved Theodosius, and all the powers of the air were in arms to favour his victories. The soldiers at this instant were all changed, so much hope had they in their hearts, & fire in their courages.  
Bacurius, one of the Emperor's greatest Captains, with his inflamed Legions, broke through the ranks, penetrated the strongest resistances, and gained the Alps. Eugenius, his people dejected as men fallen from the clouds, could not sufficiently admire this alteration. The discreetest among them disposed themselves to treat of peace, crying aloud, that never would they bear arms against a man, who had the air and winds in his pay.  
Theodosius sortified them with his clemency; all dispositions by a most remarkable miracle of God, who exerciseth his power as well over hearts as winds, were changed in an instant, and that which is admirable, the most faithful to Eugenius promised the Emperor to put him into his hands, which they performed: for they went to take this miserable man, who sat on his Throne entertaining his goodly imaginations, and crying, Bring him alive, (speaking of Theodosius) when they laying hold of his collar, and most shamefully binding his hands: It is you (said they) we must bring alive to Theodosius, and that instantly. They trussed him up like a beast astonished, and presented him to the Emperor, who having reproached him in presence of all the world for his impiety and treachery, caused him presently to be put to death, to make an end of his imaginary Empire.  
The wicked Arbogastus who had at other times been so happy, when he followed the counsels of S. Ambrose, seeing the ill success of his designs, became so enraged, that himself thrust two swords through his own body, being not able to endure life nor light, which seemed to upbraid him with his crimes.  
Some hold that Flavianus died in the throng, that he might not survive his own shame: others think he escaped, and that Theodosius extended his ordinary clemency to him.  
Briefly behold the course of the tyranny of Eugenius, still more and more to verify the Oracles of S. Ambrose. The Emperor came to Milan, where he cast himself at the feet of the holy Bishop, attributing these victories to his wisdom, counsels, and virtue of his prayers.   

The eighteenth SECTION. The differences of S. Ambrose with the Emperor Theodosius, and his death.  
Philosopher's say, there are four things which divert thunder, to wit, wind, rain, noise, and the light of the Sun. And behold a thunderclap arrested by Saint Ambrose, with the wind of his mouth, the holy rain of his eloquence, the noise of his voice, and resplendent light of his most unsported life.  
Theodosius verily was a great Prince, but as it is so difficult to be on earth, and not participate of earth, as that the Moon being distant by so many thousand leagues, yet seemeth to bear the marks thereof on the forehead; so is it very hard to be in Court, and not resent the manners of the Court, and souls esteemed the most temperate, not to have some blemishes appear on the face. This brave Emperor was naturally inclined to choler, which was enkindled by the breath of those who conversed with him, nourishing himself with the food of overmuch credulity. For this cause he had two great contestations with S. Ambrose, which eminently manifested the authority of the holy Bishop.  
The one was for a Synagogue of Jews; the other 
Synagogue burned.  for the murder committed at Thessalonica. The matter for the Jews was, for that one of their Synagogues was burnt in the East, at the solicitation of a Bishop, with which Theodosius offended, as if it had imported much prejudice to his Edicts, caused a careful Inquisition to be made, and adjudged the good Bishop, who was said to be the Author of this fire, to rebuild the Synagogue, now turned to cinders. Saint Ambrose, although he had a peaceable spirit, and that he in his Diocese had never undertaken the like, avoiding popular commotions as much as he might, which ever transport affairs into some excess, yet could he not tolerate the rigours used against Christians, on this pretended injury, but he very sharply wrote thereof to Theodosius, as it appeareth by the letter which is yet found among his Works; some words whereof behold:  
My life passeth away in many cares, wherein I am 
Ambros. epist. 17. lib. 2.  engaged by obligation of my charge: but I must avow that I never resented any thing more lively, than to see myself as it were accused of sacrilege before your Majesty. I beseech you patiently to hearken to me; for if I 
Grave words of S. Ambrose.  be unworthy to be heard by you, I cannot be heard of God for you. You do wrong to commit your prayers and vows to me, to be carried to Altars: if you deny me the audience of your ears, you declare me by the same sentence unworthy to bear your complaints to the ears of the living God. It is not a thing to be done by a good Emperor to take away the liberty of speech, nor for a good Bishop to conceal a verity contrary to his conscience. All that which Monarches have in them most amiable, is, to love liberty, even in the tongues of the soldiers; but by a much stronger reason, ought they to cherish it in the mouths of Bishops. There hath ever been a notable difference between good and evil Princes, which causeth that the one desires the liberty of their subjects, and the other love nothing so much in them as slavery. God commandeth us to bear his word to the face of Kings, and not be ashamed of justice. I do not intrude through importunity, but present myself of duty. That which I do, I do for your good, and in consideration of your safety. If I derive not the effect which I pretend, yet ever will I better love to be by your Majesty esteemed troublesome, than unprofitable or infamous. You have commanded inquiries should be made of those who have burnt the Synagogue of the Jews, to inflict punishment, and that the Bishop by whose solicitation this fire hath been kindled, should be condemned to re-edify the wasted buildings. What have you done (O Emperor) in imposing such a command, which by necessity will make of a Bishop, either a Prevaricatour or a Martyr; although neither the one, nor other be proper for your time? I desire a Bishop may be found so fervent as to burn a Synagogue of the Jews; and for that cause you have deputed for him a Commissary, to the end, that if he obey your commands, he should betray his own law; and if he resist, make you to do that which the nero's and Domitian's have acted. Behold to what this affair will come, if you take not heed. For my part, I propose to myself, that the Bishop will rather incline to matter of Martyrdom, than of treason: he will say that he hath stirred up the people, sounded the alarm, taken the flaming firebrands in hand, and that he will expose himself for his whole flock. O happy lie, which shall serve others for absolution, and him for a Crown! But what need is there to inquire into the absent? Behold me present, behold me avowing the act. I publish, and protest, if needs you will have it so, I myself burned this Synagogue now in question, that there might no longer be a place where Jesus Christ should be denied. And do not tell me, that I have not burned any in mine own Diocese; Heaven hath done it for me, Heaven hath prevented the negligence, which I then thought to be reasonable. And if men have in it seconded the will of Heaven, would you send one of your Counts to punish them, and rebuild the Synagogue of the Jews at our charge, that so the hand of a Captain, which carrieth the Standards of the Cross, may not henceforth bear them, until be hath been defiled with a sacrilege intended against the Cross of Christ.  
We have heretofore seen on the front of the Temple of Idols, how they have been built of the spoils of Cimbrians, but we shall hereafter read over the portal of Synagogues, that they were made with the blood of Christians, by the commandment of a Christian Emperor. The Jews passionately desire to see Christians at the chain, and they shall find a Christian Emperor minister of their furies. You will make them triumph over the Church of God, you will cause them to put our tears and afflictions among their days of Festivals, and the victories they will gain upon us; with those they have had from the Amorrheans and Cananeans.  
He pursued this subject with great vigour of strong reasons, and good words, and seeing the Emperor made no reckoning of this advise given him in particular, he failed not, according to promise, to speak of it in public, in a Sermon he made of the waking-rod of Jeremy; where descending upon the history of Nathan, who reproached David for his sin, by consideration of the benefits he had received from God, he made a long apostrophe to the Emperor Theodosius, to him applying the word of God: I have then made thee Emperor of a private man, I have subjected barbarous Nations to thee, I have afforded thee issue to succeed in thy Empires, I have given thee peace, I have put thine enemies fettered into thy hands, I have opened land and seas to thy Legions, I have sheltered thee under the buckler of my protection, I have confounded the counsels of thy adversaries, to make thy erterprises prosperous, I have rendered thee dreadful to people, marking thee on the forehead with the rays of my Majesty, that thou mayest re-edify the Synagogue of the Jews.  
He spoke many things in the like terms, with so much lightning, thunder, and tempest, that Theodosius was wholly amazed, nor could say any thing else to him coming from the pulpit, but: Bishop you have preached to me to day. Sacred Majesty (answereth S. Ambrose) it is for your good. It is true (replieth the Emperor) I did ill to give this command. And for that (saith Saint Ambrose) I will not go to the Altar to offer the pledge of our salvation for you, till you have revoked this Edict. I from this present revoke it, saith Theodosius. On this assurance which you give (answereth the Bishop) I will offer sacrifice.  
As for the other contestation of Saint Ambrose with Theodosius, which was concerning the murder of the Thessalonians, of one part the matter is so notorious, that it needeth no declaration, but on the other it is so important, that it were a crime to let it pass under silence.  
The Thessalonians in a popular commotion, slew one of the Emperor's Captains, who had caused a Coachman to be imprisoned. The news reported at Court, incensed all men of arms, who think, wearing swords, they have right over the blood of people. Theodosius could do no otherwise but show himself offended with this death: For the Emperors than thought the soldiers were as necessary for their fortunes, as feathers for birds. As the thunder already roared in the cloud, and the thunderstroke of the Imperial Eagle menaced the miserable City, tainted with this murder, S. Ambrose came thither very fitly, who much sweetened the affairs, and wholly disposed the Emperor to clemency. But as it is the wind which worketh all the mischief on the Sea, this element being of its own nature very peaceful, so they are ill officers, who often cause those disturbances which happen in the lives of Great men, their good natures very frequently affording them inclinations to sweetness. These Captains which possessed the ears of the Emperor, ceased not to breathe and murmur so strongly, that after the departure of S. Ambrose, they raised fire and tempest. Theodosius giveth freedom to the soldiers, for the revenge they were to exercise upon the City of Thessalonica: They who were willing to drown all their passion in blood, bethought themselves of a wicked and barbarous invention, putting the poor people into a large public place enclosed with rails, commonly called the Circus, where ordinarily games were presented, divulging they had an admirable spectacle to show, for entertainment of the Burgesses of the City. Curiosity of its nature is ever credulous, and he that hath the image of pleasure in his head; regardeth the bait, not considering the hook. These unfortunate men ran by heaps to take place in the morning very early; they were entertained in the beginning with certain fopperies, which they beheld with much satisfaction, clapping their hands at every word, and crying, Vivat Rex, When behold 
Massacre of Thessalonica.  from the rails, where tourneaments were expected, horsemen covered with steel were seen to issue out, with sword in hand, who set upon this multitude enclosed as in a pitfall, and made a lamentable slaughter of these silly sheep. The blood streaming among so many out-cries and horrible images of death, was a hideous spectacle, even to those who were out of danger. As a coal enkindled, ever gaineth more and more, eating out his way, it was not known whether any resistance redoubled this fury, but going out of the compass of the Circus, they ran all the City over, in such sort, that in the space of three hours there were numbered about seven thousand bodies slain in the marketplace.  
O you Great-ones, whom God hath set over the heads of men the higher, to behold the images of your own misery, and not to crush and rend them in pieces; what Ocean will suffice to wash your mouths when to content a vanity of spirit, you let words fall, which carry along with them the massacre of mortals? The sea is less furious, a thunderclap less dreadful, the gall of Dragons and poison which swelleth up the neck of Aspics, is much more tolerable, than an inconsiderate word proceeding from the mouth of a Great-man, which unlooseth the hands to violence, and shuts them up to justice. In three hours, behold a poor City divested of Citizens, and peopled with dead bodies, become a desert Island encompassed with a river of blood: so many women calling upon their husbands, and so many little children crying for their fathers among the dead, who had voice no longer to answer.  
Theodosius never to himself proposed this mischief, but his word falling into the hands of men of war, fleshed in revenge, could by no means be recalled.  
When S. Ambrose, being in the company of other Bishops, heard the news of this pitiful tragedy, it drew sobs from his heart, and tears from his eyes. The Emperor tormented in his conscience, caused secretly the opinion of the good Bishop to be sounded, and instantly knew that he, who in matters of much lighter importance had not spared him, would handle him in this action according to his demerit. Whereupon he immediately by letter denounced him excommunicate, and that if he came to Milan, he could not otherwise entertain him, but as one excommunicate: His sin having reduced him to that state, that the very sight of Altars would be a crime, unless he resolved upon a perfect penance.  
Theodosius in this matter well discovered his mind was good. Some other, beholding himself in condition of a power to disturb the Church, would have resisted the rod with moody extravagancies, and imperious menaces, or admit he would have taken more temperate ways, had sought the means of dispensation from the ordinary rigours of a public penance, for reverence due to his person: but this good Emperor, knowing his malady stood in need of a good Physician, made choice of the most severe, and never had any rest in his soul till he saw Saint Ambrose; much better loving to be reprehended by him, than flattered by another. He came to Milan, and taking the ready way to the Church, the holy Bishop caused speedily all the gates to be shut, and went out of the circuit of the sacred place to encounter him, and at the first meeting, spoke to him in this manner:  
It is not credible, Ob Emperor, that you as yet know 
Brave words of S. Ambrose to Theodosius.  the enormity of the murder you have committed. As choler at that time blinded you, so now the opinion of your greatness, and rays of your Diadem dazzle your eyes; yet ought you not to reflect on the earth from whence you were extracted, and to which you must return. It is fit you think the purple which covers your body, cannot defend you from putrefaction and worms. The state wherein you then shall be, aught to serve for a counterpoise to the elevation of that, which at this time transporteth you out of yourself. You command over men, who are of the like nature with yourself, who are derived from the same elements, who have equalled you in birth, and shall also parallel you in a tomb. God hath made you man, and Emperor, to use them as men and subjects; and they by your commandment are worse treated than the most savage beasts.  
With what eyes pretend you to behold the Church of the living God, who is your Sovereign Master? Have you any other than those, which are poisoned with the gall of your anger? With what feet will you touch these marbles, which are not made but for the feet of the faithful? Shall it be with them, which go upon slaughters? What bands will you extend to Altars? Have you any other than those, which yet distil the blood of those unfortunate victims? Dare you with those hands to take the body of the Son of God? Dare you to lift his blood to that mouth, which hath denounced the sentence of this massacre? Retire, retire, add not crime to crime. Take about your neck the yoke of penance, which is the only remedy of your evils.  
Theodosius amazed at this liberty, made no other answer, but that David had been a great sinner as well as he; but so soon as he opened his mouth, the Bishop replieth: Well then, since you speak of David, imitate him in his penance, as you have in his sin.  
Thereupon the Emperor departed, and went to his Palace, touched with an amazed grief, where he endeavoured punctually to perform the works of penance imposed upon him by the holy Prelate. He already had passed about eight months in this estate, when the feast of Christmas being come, he fetched many deep sighs, and shed abundance of tears, bitterly deploring his condition, for which cause Ruffinus, who was at that time the chief favourite of Theodosius, and after that cut in pieces under the reign of his children, perceiving it, asked him the cause of this unmeasurable sorrow. Then Theodosius redoubling his sobs: Ab Ruffinus, you are merry (saith he) and see not where the evil woundeth me. Have not I cause to bemoan my mishap with bitter tears, seeing the Altars, made even for slaves and beggars, cannot endure me, and needs must I be cut off, as a rotten member, from the society of men and Angels? For I am not ignorant, that what is bound on earth by the mouth of Priests, shall be bound in Heaven.  
Ruffinus, who then thought himself as strong as Heaven, said, If there were nothing else but that which afflicted the Emperor's mind, he would quickly afford a remedy. Theodosius replieth: You know not Bishop Ambrose; but I know, neither thy credit nor industry can aught avail me. Ruffinus notwithstanding insisted, protesting he would instantly persuade the Bishop what ever he pleased. He failed not to find out the Bishop, but the Saint gave him a very sharp reprehension, advising him rather to dress his own wounds, than intercede for others; for he partly understood, that he had a hand in this fatal counsel. Ruffinus notwithstanding, plied it all he could, and endeavoured to charm this man with fair words, saying finally for conclusion, he would immediately accompany the Emperor to the Church. S Ambrose, who was ever very serious, answered: If he come thither as a Tyrant, I will stretch out my neek: but if in quality of a Christian Emperor, I am resolved to forbid him entrance. Ruffinus well saw the Bishop was inflexible, and went in haste to advise the Emperor, not yet on this day to hazard his approach to the Church. He found him on his way, as a man distracted, that had the arrow in his heart, and hastened for remedy: and he saying he had dealt with the Bishop, It is no matter (saith Theodosius) let him do with me what he please, but I am resolved to reconcile myself to the Church.  
S. Ambrose advertised that Theodosius came, went 
Aedicula jaculatoria.  out, and expected him at the door of a little Cell, separated from the body of the Church, where ordinarily salutations were made Then perceiving him environed with his Captains, Come you, oh Emperor, (saith he) to force us? No (saith Theodosius) I come in the quality of a most humble servant, and beseech you, that imitating the mercy of the Master whom you serve, you would unloose my fetters; otherwise my life will fail. What penance (replieth the holy man) have you done for the expiation of so great a sin? It is (answereth Theodosius) for you to appoint it, and me to perform it.  
Then was the time, when to correct the precipitation of the Edict made against the Thessalonians, he commanded him to suspend the execution of the sentence of death for the space of thirty days; after which, having brought him into the Church, the faithful Emperor prayed, not standing on his feet, nor kneeling, but prostrated all along on the pavement, which he watered with his tears, tearing his 
Psal. 118. Adhaesit pavimento anima mea, vivisica me secundùm verbum tuum.  hair, and pitifully pronouncing this versicle of David: My soul is fastened to the pavement, quicken me according to thy word.  
When the time of Oblation was come, he modestly lifted up himself, having his eyes still bathed with tears, and so went to present his offering, then stayed within those rails, which separated the Priests from the Laity, attending in the same place to hear the rest of Mass. Saint Ambrose asked him, who set him there, and whether he wanted any thing? The Emperor answered, He attended the holy Communion: of which the sage Prelate being advertised, he sent one of his chief Deacons which served at the Altar, to let him understand that the Choir was the place of Priests, and not of the Laics, that he instantly should go out, to rank himself in his order, adding, the Purple might well make Emperors, not Priests. Theodosius obeyed, and answered, that what he had done was not on purpose, but that such was the custom of the Church of Constantinople. Yea, it is also remarkable, that returning afterward into the East, and hearing Mass at Constantinople, on a very solemn festival day, after he had presented his offering, he went out of the Choir, whereat the Patriarch Nectarius amazed asked him, why his Majesty retired in that manner? He sighing, answered: I in the end have learned to my cost, the difference between an Emperor and a Bishop? To conclude, I have found a Master of truth, and to tell you mine opinion, I do acknowledge amongst Bishops, but one Ambrose worthy of that title.  
Behold an incomparable authority, which was as the rays of his great virtue and sanctity, from whence distilled all that force and vigour, which he had in treating with all men.  
I imagine I hitherto have exposed the principal actions of S. Ambrose to the bright splendour of the day, and so to have ordered them, that all sorts of conditions may therein find matter of instruction. It hath not been my intention to distend them by way of Annals, but historical discourses, proper to persuade virtue: So likewise have I not been willing to charge this paper with other particular narrations, which may be read in Paulinus, Sozomen, Ruffinus, and which have exactly been sought out by Cardinal Baronius, suitable to his purpose. I conclude, after I have told you that Paulinus his Secretary witnesseth, he writing by him a little before his death, saw a globe of fire, which encompassed his head and in the end entered into his mouth, making an admirable brightness reflect on his face, which held him so rapt, that whilst this vision continued, it was impossible for him to write one word of those which Saint Ambrose dictated.  
As for the rest, having attained the threescore and 
Death of S. Ambrose.  fourth year of his age, he was accounted as the Oracle of the world; for they came from the utmost bounds of the earth to hear his wisdom, as unto Solomon, and after the death of Theodosius Stilicon, who governed all, held the presence of Saint Ambrose so necessary that he esteemed all the glory of the Roman Empire was tied to the life of this holy Prelate. In effect, when on the day of holy Saturday after his receiving the Communion he had sweetly rendered up his soul, as Moses by the mouth of God; a huge deluge of evils overflowed Italy, which seemed not to be stayed but by the prayers of this Saint. Let us (I beseech you) pass over his death in the manner of the Scripture, which speaketh but one word of the end of so many great personages; and let us never talk of death in a subject, wholly replenished with immortality.  
Oh what a life, what a death, to have born bees in his first birth on his lips, and at his death globes of light in his mouth! What a life, to be framed from his tender age as a Samuel for the Tabernacle, not knowing he was designed for the Tabernacle! What a life, to preserve himself in the corruption of the world, in a most undefiled chastity, as a fountain of fresh water in midst of the sea! What a life, to arrive to honour and dignities in flying them, and to have ennobled all his charges by the intefrity of his manners! What a life, not to have taught any virtue before he practised it, and to become first learned in examples, before he shown himself eloquent in words! What a life, so to have governed a Church, that it seemed a copy of Heaven, and an eternal pattern of virtues! What a life, to have born on his shoulders the glory of Christendom, and all the moveables of the house of God What a life, to have so many times trampled the head of Dragon's underfoot, and rendered himself the Oracle of the world, and the Doctor of Monarches! And what a death, to die as in a field with palms planted by his hand, manured by his industry, and watched with sweats!  
What a death, to have built himself before his death a tomb stuffed with precious stones of so many goodly virtues! What a death, which hath made it known that S. Ambrose was born for all the world, and could not die without the tears of all the world; since as every one had his interests in the life of this Prelate, so he found in his death the subject of his sorrow! What a death, to die with these words in his mouth: I am neither ashamed to have lived, nor fear to die, because we have a good Master! What a death, to return to Heaven as the dove of the deluge to his Ark, bearing words of peace, as an olive-branch in his mouth! What a death, to see vice trodden under his feet, Heaven all in crowns over his head, men in admiration, the Angels in joy, the Arms of God laden with recompenses for his merits!  
Prelates, who please yourselves with Mitres and Crosier's, would to God this incomparable man, as he is the ornament of your Order, might be ever the model of your actions. And if your dignities make you be as Mountains of Sinai, wholly in lights, flames, and thunder-strokes, let the innocency of your life, render you (by his imitation) Mountains of Libanus, to bear the whiteness of snow in the purity of your conversation, the odour of incense in your sacrifices and devotions, and fountains in the doctrines and charities you shall distribute to the whole world.    

THE SOLDIER.  

TO SOLDIERS.  
O Brave and courageous Nobility, whose Ancestors have fixed the Standards of the Cross upon the land of Infidels, and cemented Monarchies with their blood; to you it is I address these lines, for you it is my pen laboureth, excited with a generous design in hath to honour your profession. Here it is, where I present the true figures of valour: Here I display the palms and crowns, which environed the head of your Fathers: Here I do restore the value of fair and glorious actions, reserved for your imitation. Enter with a firm footing and a confident courage into this Temple of glory, persuading yourselves that there is nothing so great in the world, as to tread false greatness under foot, and deify virtues. Worldly honour is the feast of Gods, said an Ancient, where the ambitious are not invited, but in quality of IXION'S and TANTALUSSES, to serve there as buffoons: but that which consisteth in valour, joined to integrity of manners, aught to be the object of your affections, the recompense of your labours, and trophy of your memory. Reflect only with a favourable eye on this poor endeavour which I consecrate to your benefit, and afford by your virtues effect to my prayers, and accomplishment to my writings.   

THE SOLDIER.  
The first SECTION. The excellency of Warlike Virtue.  
IF the profession of arms were as well managed, as it is excellent and necessary in civil life, we could not have eyes enough to behold it, nor tongues sufficient to praise it: and although our spirit should arrive to the highest top of admiration, it would ever find wonders in this subject, not to be attained.  
We seem to hear the Scripture speak, that God 
God of hosts.  himself affecteth the glory of arms, when he causeth himself to be surnamed the God of hosts, and when the Prophets represent him unto us in a fiery Chariot, all environed with burning Legions, at which time the pillars of Heaven tremble under his feet, the rocks are rend, abysses frown, and all the creatures of the universe shake under the insupportable splendour of his Majesty. In effect, this great Monarch of 
Town belieged by God.  Heaven and earth ceaseth not to make war; and if we will consider his proceed, we shall find it is more than fifty Ages, since he hath laid siege to a rebellious City, which hath for ditches, abysses of iniquity; for walls and rampires, obstinacy; for towers and bulwarks, mountains of pride; for arms, resistance against divine inspirations; for artillery, tumult and insolency; for houses dens of hypocrisy; for Palaces, labyrinths of dissimulation; for tribunal and bar, impiety; for Temple, proper-will; for Idol, self-love; for Captain, blindness; for soldiers, exorbitant passions; for counsel, folly; and for constancy perverse opinion.  
This City in a word, is the heart of man, against 
The hurt of man.  which God daily wageth war, to give us liberty by our captivity, advancement by our fall, greatness by our abasing, and life by death, which maketh us die to all dead things, to live for immortality. God would that we fight by his example, not only with spiritual arms, but sometimes with material: and it is a thing very considerable, that Abraham, the first Father of all the faithful, was a warrior; since S. Ambrose 
Ambros. Offic. lib. 1. cap. 24. Fide primus, justitiâ precipuus, in praelio strenuus, in victoriâ non avarus, domi hospitalis, uxori sedulus.  reckoning up all his titles, according to the Scripture, showeth he was a good Religious man, a good Justice, a good Captain, a good host, and a good husband. Yea, also it is a passage much more admirable to say, what Clemens Alexandrinus hath observed, that the first Army of the faithful which ever was, marched, not thinking thereon, under the figure of the Cross, and the name of Saviour, although it were about two thousand years before the birth of the Messiah.  
The fourteenth Chapter of Genesis teacheth us, that nine Kings came into the field with their troops, to fight, four against five. Those of Sodom and Gomorrha were there in person, who like effeminate Princes turned their back at the first encounter, and in flying, fell into pits of sulphur. Their defeat gave leisure to the enemy to pillage all the Country: where poor Lot, the nephew of Abraham, was taken, having by mishap, chosen his habitation in a Territory, fertile in wealth and iniquities.  
The news coming to the ears of Abraham, he speedily armed his houshold-servants, who were to the number of three hundred and eighten, and with shepherds assaulted Kings, whom he valorously vanquished, bringing back his kinsman, and all the booty which his enemies had taken. Behold the first battle renowned in Scripture, where this brave Doctor of Alexandria, before alleged, very well subtilizeth and saith, that the number of Abraham●s soldiers is represented by three Greek letters T. J. H, whereof the first signifieth the Cross, and the other two the name of Saviour, God being desirous so to consecrate the first arms of believers, by the Mysteries of his Greatness, to declare, that the warfare which is well managed, is his work and glory. Likewise we do not find that the name of Sun hath been given 
Warriors suns.  in holy Writ to a living man with so much lustre and applause, as to a soldier, and the best of soldiers: I speak of Samson, which is so much as to say, Sun in our language; where it seemeth the Scripture leadeth us by the hand, to make us acknowledge that military profession, which is under good direction, so much excelleth the ordinary vocations of men, as doth the Sun the stars. For letters, yea, eloquence and arts, which are set out with so much lustre in the estimation of men, are covered under the wings of military virtue, as very well the Roman Orator hath acknowledged. We do not read that ever the Sun stood still to hear the graceful words of an eloquent tongue, nor to behold the theatres and Amphitheatres of the Romans, nor the Olympic games of Grecians, nor all the other objects of admiration, which are in the industry of men: But we do well know from the Oracle of truth, that this great Star, admired by all the world, immovably stayed, as charmed by the voice of a soldier, the illustrious Josuah, at that time, when he acted so many brave feats of arms; as if it would admire his prowess, and enlighten his conquests▪  
And what is there also more admirable in the 
The greatness and excellency of a brave Captain.  world, than to see a man, covered with steel, who curvetteth on a generous horse, and hasteneth, his head bowed, to throw himself through the battalions, all bristled with lances and swords, through so many musket-shots, so many hail-showers of iron, and so many dreadful images of death, which he as freely defieth, as if he were immortal, and as little spareth life, as if he had a hundred to lose? What a spectacle to behold him in a furious conflict, like a thunderbolt in the cloud, which forceth his prison, and breaks all resistance, flying upon wings of fire, and the whirling roar of thunder, to shake the height of rocks? What an affrightment to see him in another posture, scaling a wall, all beset with arms and terrors, and hastening into danger with the same pace and visage, as another to a feast? What support and what consolation for poor people (whom injustice and hostility would butcher, as sheep ordained to slaughter) to perceive a brave captain, with a flying squadron, dissevering the malignity of those forces, conspired to the ruin of innocents', and by the splendour of his arms changing all the storms into calms?  
O what a beauty is it to receive wounds in those combats, from whence floweth more glory than blood! O what greatness to reap palms in midst of so many thorns! O what a felicity to behold his battles attended by so many laurels, congratulations, and applauses of the people, preserved by this military virtue! How can all be in this profession but glorious, seeing death itself, the terrible of terribles, showeth a face all smiling to those, who are buried in their valour, as in the true tomb of honour?  
It seemeth holy Histories do likewise describe these 
The delight of history to praise Captains. Induit se loricâ sicut Gig●s, similis factus est leoni in operibus suis, & sicut catulus leonis rugientis in venatione.  great Captains with some delight, when they make them march in the war. So they tell us 
(a) 1 Mac. 13.  of Judas Machabaeus, who having put on his arms appeared like a Giant, and that he in the battle was seen like a roaring Lion, seeking out his prey. So they describe in the second of Kings 
(b) 2 Reg. 23.  the prowess of David, and other valiant men, who flourished in this time with most particular Eulogies. So they depaint unto us in a very admirable manner the strength and stratagems of Gedeon against the Midianites.  
Valour is matter of astonishment, which transporteth all men both great and small, witty and dull, to honour its qualities. Aristotle, the politest judgement which hath been in former Ages, so much wondereth at this warlike force, though far distant from his profession, that he composed an excellent Hymn in praise of it, which is yet to be found in Diogenes Laertius: Where he calleth it a virtue most painful for mortals, but the fairest ornament of Civil life: A virtue, which hath such attractive beauty, that the most generous hearts seek for death with strife to enjoy the lustre of its glory. If then this valour have such attraction, considered only within the limits of nature, how will it be if once advanced by the assistance of grace and virtues, which take all that is harsh from it to make it shine with rays of a true and happy majesty? Is there any thing more lovely in the whole world, than to see a valorous soldier furnished with qualities of piety, prudence, justice, liberality, goodness, honesty, and with all other graces, which are in a sweet disposition, as stars sown in the azure of celestial globes?  
Oh Nobility, if you knew your own excellency, and could conform your life to your dignity, what lustre and support would you afford to Christendom? It was the faith of a soldier, and of a soldier issued from Paganism, which the mouth of the living God hath exalted above all the piety of the Israelites, when he so highly commended the Centurion of the Gospel, for acknowledging the Saviour had as much power over maladies and things insensible, as an absolute Captain over his soldiers. It was a soldier, whom Saint Peter by the revelation of the Angel did first of all consecrate to faith, as the first fruits of Gentilism. They are warriors which so often replenish our Martyrologes with their names, our memories with their veneration, and mouths with prayers offered up to them. These hearts have at all times been capable to receive seeds of most noble virtues, and now adays they are suffered to putrify in neglect, ordure, and bruitishness. Oh Nobility, deceive not yourselves in the acknowledgement of the badges of your profession, nor flatter yourselves under a false mask of valour. I will here represent to you the Palace of military virtue, and show the way you must walk in, to arrive thither, not suffering yourselves to be seduced by chimerical fantasies and illusions of greatness, only big-swollen with smoke, and which when they have promised to make mountains, produce nothing but rats and vermin.   

The second SECTION. The entrance into the Palace of valour, and the illusions of Salmoneans and Rodomonts' ..  
THe ingenious Delben, who hath composed all Aristotoles moral Philosophy in excellent Tables, figureth unto us at the entry into the Palace of valour, an enraged Mistress, called Audaciousness, which seduceth an infinite number of Salmoneans or Rodomonts, under colour of virtue. It is true, she is dumb in this piece of painting, but I resolve to show her full of life in this Treatise, and discover to you the sly practices and damnable maxims, which she makes use of to deceive the spirits of this Age; to the end, that the knowledge of the evil may with more facility furnish us for application of remedies.  
Suffer me here, O Reader, to imitate the great S. Isidore, 
S. Isidorus de conflictu vitiorum & virtutum.  who the more natively to represent the horror of vices, makes them dispute against virtues, putting into their mouths all their lewd maxims. Afford me the liberty, that I may manifest the disorders, which are at this day in the corrupt Nobility, by the mouth of a Rabsaces, the wicked soldier, who undertaketh to give precepts to youth, and dictate most pernicious counsels, which shall afterward be refuted by the Christian soldier.  
Note and behold the damnable precepts of Rabsaces, the false Soldier, which contain a true Satire of the manners of the depraved Nobility.  
IMagine to yourself, that this dangerous Master goes before the Nobility, which seeketh after the glory of Arms, and that he taketh by the hand a young man, whom he sees apt for his impressions, and showeth him, in stead of the true mansion of fortitude, a Palace all of wind, built upon quicksilver, where palms and laurels grow like the fruits of Sodom, which fly into ashes when we think to touch them. Thereupon he thus discourseth with him, wherein you shall too well know the manners and inclinations predominant in the petty Salmoneans of this Age.  
Sir, behold you are in the Palace of valour, and I am he whom you search for, I purposely present myself before you, to receive you with open arms, and dictate precepts from my lips, which shall make you to equal the glory of Caesar's and Alexanders.  
I affirm the time hath been when brave soldiers took the sword from the Altar, to employ it for the honour of Altars, and lived in the exercise of Arms, as in the Temple of the God of hosts: but these kind of actions are more found in ancient histories, than in the manners of men that live at this present. If thou wilt be a soldier of the time, I wish 
First disorder of the Nobility. Great impiety.  thee to become a petty Cyclops, and know very little what God or Religion is, but to swear by the one, and profane the other. I should fear lest this devotion may not soften thy courage, which is esteemed at this day not to be of temper good enough, if it have not much impiety. Thy oaths shall be thy 
Life brutish and infamous  Sacraments; thy mysteries, the cabal of the wicked; the table, thy Altar; the dishes, thy Sacrifices; and thou shalt account thy sword, as a Deity, which thou shalt bear hanging at thy girdle, without further search. If needs thou must for ceremony go to Church, pass along as if thou wentest to a dancing, free from apprehension of the Divine Majesty, for that may make thee melancholy: and when thou art there, without any distinction of profane or sacred, dispose thyself to laugh and gear upon all occasions which are presented: for indeed we must pleasantly pass away this little ill time. Thou shalt set thyself into divers postures, which shall savour much of a juggler, to keep the decorum of men of thy condition; and if there be nothing to be talked on, nor jest to be broken, at least thou shalt turn thy head on every side, and make thy eyes and thoughts hunt after objects which may please the sense. I well know, that all this (taken according to the model of ancient piety) is held for a great sacrilege: But thou art very capable of it; and if thy countenance deceive me not, thou wilt never be one of those scrupulous ones, who think the Churches are made for nothing but prayer.  
Thou shalt learn in good time to lie, swear, forswear, 
2. Disorder, The tongue blasphemy of and calumny.  slander, and blaspheme: for it is very ordinary Rhetoric in the mouth of our Salmoneans. Go not about to search into old Histories, as Charles the Eighth, who hewed through the Alps, conquered the Kingdom of Naples, and made Constantinople with its Ottomans, to tremble with the only shadow of his name, yet durst not so much as swear by his faith. We are no longer in such kind of times; men now are so accustomed to lie, that needs must oaths mount by degrees up to the clouds, to assure a truth, although with extreme swearing it is taken for a lie. And were there no other reason of swearing, but to make an able man, since thou canst not be valiant with thy arm, cut through confidently with thy tongue.  
Let brags and Rodomontades never dry in thy mouth, no more than water in huge rivers. If thou 
3. Disorder, The abomination of duels.  wilt have one of the greatest virtues of the times, thou must be froward and peevish, and speak of nothing but duels, of challenges, and assignments of the place; and as soon as thou shalt hear some speech of any man of valour, thou must say, thou much desirest one day to see him with sword in hand, and that thou hast heretofore seen others, over whom thou hadst great advantage. Swear in good earnest, that such a one hath done thee wrong: but that thou wilt evict reparation from him, sealed with his blood: dispute, swagger, tell tales, make quarrels arise about a pin's point, press to be a second to this man, and that man, but ever engage others, and as nimbly as thou canst draw thy pin back again from the game. Believe me, the whole mystery consisteth only in setting a good face on't. If thou canst counterfeit wounds, as Heretics false miracles, thou shalt not do much amiss. For all valour now adays bendeth that way. It sufficeth, it be said, thou art a man to kill or be killed bravely. It is true, that anciently some duels were permitted in time of war, enemy against enemy, and executed in the view and presence of Captains of both parts, who beheld them with much solemnity. So the brave Chevalier Bayard, the eye and arm of French warfare, slew Alphonsus de Soto-major, a Spaniard, in the field of battle, before the eyes of both Armies, who beheld this spectacle. This made the soldier very confident to enter into lists with military laws in presence of his Captain, against an adversary of another Nation. Where shall we now adays find the like valour? Of necessity night, private places, and ugly corners must be sought out, to fight a duel: yea, I leave thee to consider what a goodly spectacle it would be, if one from a Theatre might behold the countenance of these Rodomonts, most violent in words; you should see them tremble, wax pale, quake, be amazed, troubled, and in the end be slain, like wretched swine; but this is not honest, we therefore must find out some scarff to cover the cowardice of these clandestine combats.  
The more a man is ignoble, cowardous, or unhappy, so much the more ought he seek out such kind of duels: I say ignoble, though I am not ignorant it hath heretofore been the trade of slaves; but opinion hath made it now a way for Gentlemen. Behold why those, who find themselves to be of base extraction, do the more fervently seek out such occasions, as if they should thereby blot out their ignominy. I say cowardous, for it is to become confident in a base business, where lackeys and butchers may be Masters. I say unhappy, for it is the means to consummate his misery, without having many witnesses: needs must the desperate find some gate to escape from life, as would enraged beasts from a list, by leaping over the rails. In the end, when thou shalt die in this combat, thou hast nothing to lose, but a wicked soul. And though thou art most wretchedly slain, our Salmoneans will say, thou diedst in the bed of honour, and that sufficeth to be valiant to the world.  
When thou art in the war, thou shalt be a kind of 
4. Disorder, Tyranny in war.  Barbarian, in such sort, that the Peasants shall take thee to be more than an Army of Huns or Tartars. If thou hast any command, thou shalt march all puffed up with vainglory, and make thyself known by the disasters of the poor. If thou be called on, to put thy hand to thy purse, thou shalt pay thy hostess with threats, and thy soldiers with impunity of crimes. Thou shalt endeavour to lengthen out the war as long as thou canst, and if thou couldst kill peace itself it should suffer, transfixed through the body with thy sword, as the greatest enemy of worthy actions. Thou shalt not hazard thyself to go much among musket-shots, unless those muskets be charged with powder of Cypress, as an Author of this time hath told us, where pistolets were shot in stead of bullets.  
Trouble not thyself to number up thy wounds; 
5. Disorder, Impurity most dissolute  thou shalt ever more easily reckon them than thy crimes. As for that which concerneth the vice of impurity, I ordain no more limits to thy lust, than health to thy reason. Heretofore men affected to become better, and a young Cavalier, who made love to a Lady by the lawful ways of an honest marriage, shown himself virtuous to be beloved, such correspondence was there then between love and virtue: men always endeavoured to lodge their affections in a good place, to become honest by the imitation of their loves, which is the most pleasing way that may be found to innocency. All was treated with so much honour, that the least spot of blame was apprehended much more than death: at this day matters go not so. If thou wilt follow the course of times, and the proceed of Salmoneans, thy pleasures shall be without order, as thy concupiscence without measure: Thou shalt make a trophy of dishonour, nor shalt thou have other scope in thy love, than vice; nor other means, but those which thy bruitishness shall provide thee. Thou shalt make no difference between the bed of married, that of virgins, and women prostitute; and when thou hast seduced an unhappy maid, thou shalt vaunt it, as if thou hadst gained a City.  
For this purpose it is fit thou entertainest bravery, 
6. Disorder, Perpetual wickedness.  thy belly, and game, for these will be the furies most familiar to thy humour: thou shalt take the most costly stuffs out of the shops of Merchants, to cover thy stench with gold and scarlet, and thou shalt hold all the best Artisans in breath to serve thee. When thou must pay thy debts, thou shalt revenge benefits by force of injuries, and close up thy infidelity with all sorts of ingratitude. If thou hast 
7. Disorder, barbarousness in government of those under you.  subjects, thou shalt use them like slaves, and govern them with all rigour, exercising violence on their bodies, and rapine on their goods: one shall feed thy dogs, the other thy horses, the other thy servants, which ordinarily are petry Tartarians, whose insolency fostered by the Masters and Lords, doth all which may be expected from a servile soul, that hath authority in its hands; yea, thou shalt endeavour to make good men believe, that what thou hast done is for their preservation; as was said to the poor shepherd, from whom the sacrificers of Hercules had more sheep than would have served an Army of wolves. Thy table, notwithstanding the tears and necessities of the public, shall ever be abundant in delicacies, and for thy recreation, thou shalt play thy gold with a full hand, although it be the blood of so many men, to whom thou art beholden. Thou shalt be the chicken of the white hen, and needs must the riches of the wealthy, the industry of tradesmen, the virtues of innocent, even hunger itself, and the miseries of the most wretched, be tributaries to thy riots.  
I wish, that exteriorly thou appear with an open 
8. Disorder, Perfidiousness.  visage, a smiling countenance, a very honest deportment; but be thou inwardly full of cauteries, and be thy heart always replenished with more stains, than the most spotted skin of a Panther. Thou shalt 
Abominable manners.  sell thy soul to ambition, and to advance thy fortune, shalt neither hearken to God, Angel, conscience, nor virtue: Thou shalt have no regard to the person either of father, mother, brother, or sister, but the measure of all thy amities shall be thy own interests. Thou must not think any thing unjust, when it shall be for thy own accommodation, nor be thou scrupulous in matter of conscience; of what side soever profit accrue, it hath ever a good savour. Thou shalt, to suit with the time, bear a mind more black than the abyss, and to ruin an innocent, shalt not spare such treacheries and treasons as have heretofore been accounted most horrible: but the custom of the Age, which is so naturalised in vice, causeth that we now grow familiar with monsters. Thou shalt raise gain out of all, if thou canst; and let there not be a vice, that yields thee not tribute. Thy words shall be full of cunning, thy cunning of promises, and thy promises of wind. Finally, thou shalt live in Christianity, as a Janissary at the Porta of the great Turk; and for recompense, when thou shalt end thy days, which cannot last very long, thou shalt directly go to the Paradise of Mahomet, with those great lights, Sardanapalus, Epicurus, Bajazet, and Selimus.  
Behold the infamous and pernicious discourse, which this wicked Master held with this young man: wherein you may observe a true Satire of the lives of many, who entitle themselves Noble, although their manners are far worse than these my words, and that the imagination of a writer cannot so much feign, but they in their profane actions will express much more. Let us now behold the Palace of true valour, and take an antidote against the poisons of the times.   

The third SECTION. The Temple of Valour, and sage Precepts, given by the Christian Soldier, to refute the manners of the times. And first, that Piety helpeth Valour.  
THe Soldier pursuing his way, entereth into the Temple of Valour, where, according to the excellent conceits of the painter before mentioned, he beholdeth on the frontispiece of the Palace a goodly tower of Crystal, adorned with lights, as the Globe of glass, in which the Persians heretofore bare the image of the Sun: or else by the imitation of that huge Pharos of Alexandria, which enlightened the sea on all sides, to guide vessels to a safe haven. This was expressly set down to signify the great and divine lights of wisdom, which are in a true Christian valour. This Palace seemed wholly built of rocks of the colour of iron, streamed with little veins of blood, which well shown it was purposely done, to represent the invincible courage of the pupils of this virtue. The Halls were all hanged with prowess and victories: and in stead of columes, it had great Statues of the most valorous men of the world, who flourished in the revolution of so many Ages. Valour bare sway within it, sitting, not on gillyflowers, or roses, but encompassed with thorns and sufferings, ever armed, and still with sword in hand, with which it cut off an infinite number of monsters, and chased away all Salmoneans from its house.  
In this Palace was the brave Eleazar, who, as soon as he from far perceived this young Soldier, he caused him to draw near, and spoke to him in these terms:  
Son, I doubt not but you found at the entrance into my jodging a wicked Sorcerer, who hath by the ear empoisoned you: It is necessary you cleanse it, to make yourself capable of the singular precepts of valour and wisdom, which I am now presently to afford you, seeing you for this cause are come hither into my Palace. It hath been told you, that to be a good soldier, you must become a little Cyclops, 
Refutation of the first disorder.  without any feeling of God or Religion: for devotion were but to weaken your warlike humours. Those who have said this unto you, have told nothing new. It is an old song, which they have drawn out of Machiavelli, who thinking to make a Prince, have made a wild beast, and yet would persuade us it was a man; but those that believe it, are such only as bear their eyes on their heels. Let us not serve our 
Piety the first virtue of a soldier.  selves with this Philosophy of flesh, which maketh valour and devotion, as two things incompatible. Verily I go not about to require of you an affected, enforced, and ceremonious piety, that is out of the limits of your profession. I would have you a soldier, and not a Monk: but assure you the prime virtue of art military, is, to have good thoughts, and pure beliefs touching the Divinity, then to practise suitableness thereto by offices and exterior actions of piety.  
When I speak this, I am so strong in reasons, that 
Reasons which show that true piety is the soul of military virtue. Chap. 13. and 11.  I dare take our enemies themselves for Judges. Behold the subtle Machiavelli, who upon the Decades of Titus Livius, showeth Religion is an admirable instrument of all great actions, and that the Romans made use thereof to establish their City, pursue their erterprises, and pacify tumults and seditions, which risen in the revolution of State. Because it was (said he) more conscience to offend God than men, believing his power surpassed all humane things. So we see, that all those who would form, cherish, or advance a State, although they had no true Religion in their souls, have taken pretexts, as Lycurgus, Numa, Sertorius, Ishmael the Persian, and Mahomet. I demand of you thereupon (my soldier) if by the testimony of this man, who hath made himself our adversary, false beliefs have had so much power upon minds, that they have rendered them more docible to virtue, more obedient to Sovereignty, more adventurous to undertake things difficult, more patiented to tolerate matters displeasing, more courageous to surmount those which make opposition; if, I say, the sole imagination of a false Divinity, accounted to punish misdeeds and recompense valour with a temporal salary, was powerful enough to make Legions fly, all covered with iron, through so many perils, must we not say by the confession of our very enemy, that a true Religion, as ours is, which promiseth so many rewards to virtue, and punishments for crime, not for a time, but for all eternity, if it be once well engraven in hearts, shall produce so many worthy effects beyond those of other Sects, as truth is above lying, reality above nothing, and the sun above the shadows?  
From whence think you do so many neglects grow, but from coldness in Religion? For how can a soldier but be valiant, when he is confidently persuaded it is the will of the living God that he obey his Prince, as if he beheld a Divinity upon earth; and that burying himself in the duty of this obedience, being well purified from his sins, he takes a most assured way to beatitude? How can he be but the more courageous, having received absolution of his sins, by the virtue of the Sacrament, since by the Confession of all Sages, there is nothing so perplexed, so timorous, so inconstant, as a conscience troubled with the image of its own crimes? How should it spare a transitory life, having a firm belief of immortality, since the wisest have judged, that the valour of ancient Gauls, which was admired by the Romans, proceeded from no other source, but from a strong persuasion which the Druids had given them, touching the immortality of our souls? How could he be but most confident, if he steadfastly beheld the eye of the Divine Providence of God, perpetually vigilant for his protection? How could he be, but most fervent, if he did but figure the Saviour of the world at the gates of Heaven, with his hands full of rewards? See you not that all reason's combat for us, as well as experience?  
I will not flatter Christians, under pretext that I call myself the Christian Knight, nor ought I betray my cause under the shadow of modesty: Let all the ancient and modern Histories be read, let military acts be examined, and courages poized in a just balance, I challenge the ablest Chronicler to present me any valour out of Greek or Roman History, where the most admirable prowesses are to be seen, that I do not show them perpetually paralleled, yea, surpassed by the courage of Christians. When I read 
The Acts of Pagans.  those histories of elder times, I behold Grecians that triumphed, for having vanquished Xerxes; who, to say the truth, was a Stag leading an army of sheep: never was any thing seen so perplexed. And although there had been no opposition, yet was this great body composed of a lazy stupefied army, only strong to ruin itself. I see a young Alexander, who, to speak truth, was of an excellent nature, though the most judicious observe great error in his carriage, he ofttimes being rash, and many times insolent; but it was well for him he had to do with such gross Novices, whose eyes were dazzled with the simple glimmer of a sword, for had he come to encounter the arms of Europe, his Laurels doubtless would have been seen to wax hoary in the Northern snows. I see the Roman Caesars, who invade, or those which are already effeminated by their proper vice, or such as are wanderers, and disunited, not to have an assured State to resist their enemies. My ears are perpetually filled with the acts of Cynogirus, who having both his hands cut off, bitten the arms and ships of his enemies with his teeth; of one Otryades, who wrote his victory with his own blood; of one Sergius, who fought four times with the left hand, which Pliny observeth in his History, as a prodigy; of the one-eyed Horatius, who defended a bridge against the Army of his enemies; of a maid named Claelia, who passed over Tiber on horseback; of one Sicinnius, that had been in  combats, and bare away thirty six spoils of his enemies, with five and forty wounds at divers times. I will not extenuate their prowess, nor take away from them the honour they deserved; for to say there was no valour nor vigour in these ancient courages, were to proceed against common opinion. But we now adays see many Aristarchuses in the world, who have spirits so retrograde, that when we speak of bruit beasts, they highly glorify them above men, as if they were of the race of Ulysses his soldiers, who, as fables tell us, were turned into hogs: so when we come to compare the valour of Christians with that of Infidels, they find nothing, which on our part may give them content, so much have they either of malice, or stupidity.  
Let me die, if in the sole life of Captain Bayard, 
Prowess of Christians.  warlike achievements may not be observed, which in manage and valour surpass those of Alexander's and Pompey's: and he that would number all the heroic actions which have been performed in our wars, sometimes by silly soldiers, sometimes also by Christian women, might as soon reckon the stars in the firmament. And had I now undertaken to make a simple enumeration of great Captains, which have flourished in Christendom, it would weary pens, fill books, and confound readers.  
I would willingly know whether Constantine, going out of an Oratory where he prayed with the Bishops, before he had so many battles, was less valiant against Maxentius, Maximianus, Licinius▪ If Theodosius in recommending himself so particularly to the prayers of Monks, have the less done his devoir against Maximus and Eugenius? Whether Heraclius were the more remiss for carrying the Image of our Blessed Lady in his hands, when he subdued Cosroes King of Persia in three pitched battles? Whether Clodovaeus did the less good, when he caused his standards to march under the conduct of the prayers of Saint Martin? Whether Charles Martel were weakened in his devotions, when at the only battles of Towers he cut in pieces three hundred threescore and fifteen thousand Saracens, with the most hideous slaughter that ever was seen? Whether Charlemagne in being so firmly tied to Altars, felt his arm to fail against the Lombard's, Saxons, and Moors? Whether the sword of Godfrey of Bovillon, after so many actions of piety were the less keen, when it cloven the Barbarians at a blow, from the crown of the head to the girdlestead, and glisteren in azure all covered with rays of Palms and Laurels? Whether Bellisarius in being a good Catholic, did the less charge the Goths? And whether Simon Momfort in taking his sword from the Altar, were the less dreadful to the Albigean Heretics?  
Assuredly there is nothing so strong, nothing so invincible, nor triumphant, as a valour which marcheth under the laws of Christian Religion. The Turkish Nation, which seemeth to be born to brandish the sword, and to have ample transcendency in matters of arms, feareth not so much the Persian and Tartarian standards, as the banners of Christians. And Baronius in an Epistle dedicatory of his Annals, which he wrote to the Great Henry the Fourth, of famous memory, observeth, that they hold it as a fatal prophecy among them, that their Empire shall never be destroyed, unless it be by the hands of Frenchmen. If they have obtained victories against Christians in so many wars, it hath ever been our divisions that have disarmed us, our ambitions that have devoured us, our Apostata-brothers who have betrayed us, our Infidels who have acquainted them with our intentions, our industries, and arms, our mutual quarrels which have wasted us, our sins that have chastised us, the hand of a powerful God which hath excited the Saracens to purify, under some colour of temperance and justice, those lands which ours had defiled by so many ordours and sacrileges, for otherwise there could not be any force in the world able to resist Christian Princes, were they well united.  
We know it by the success of the battle of Lepanto, and the prowess of George Castrioth, called Scanderbag, who with a flying camp defeated seven Generals of the Turkish Army, in seven great battles, wherein he slew two thousand men with his own hand, and in the end made Amurath stark mad, to see himself defied, beaten, and maimed by a petty Lord, and with so small numbers. What could this brave courage have done had it been assisted with men, gold and arms, answerable to his merits?  
Are you not then very ridiculous, O Soldier, when to be accounted valiant, you play the Cyclops, and fear lest devotion might weaken your courage? Accuse not your Religion, for it is holy: accuse not devotion, for it is innocent. Rather accuse your own impiety, your own neglect, your own unworthiness of spirit, and your own baseness: that is it which enfeebleth you, and causeth that you are only valiant to play the beast. No man looseth courage, but he that never had it, and no man hath it, if he beg it not of the true God of hosts. Where should we seek for light but of the Sun, for water but in rivers, and heat but in fire? And where think you to find true strength, but with the God of the strong? The more you shall be united to him, the more able shall you be; not that he will ever give you strength of body, as to Milo, that you may bear an ox; but in serving him, you shall have from him the courage of a man, who hath his root in reason, his increase in piety, and his Crown in true glory.   

The fourth SECTION. Manifest Proofs, which declare that Piety and Valour are not things incompatible.  
IT is an intolerable thing to see certain young Roarers, who think to make themselves esteemed valiant by profession of impiety, and have as it were but one shame, which is, not to be shameless at all, as if we had never seen, nor as yet was ever heard in the world, of soldiers furnished before God and men with great and Divine virtues, who fail not to be as courageous as Lions. Let us not search out Saints of the martyrologue, let us only behold among a thousand, one man, whose life was very lately printed, written in a low stile, I mean the Marshal Boucicaut, who flourished in France 
Mounsieur Godefroy hath published this written by an ancient Author.  under Charles the Sixth. These petty Rodomonts, who make boast of duels, mere cowardice covered with an opinion of courage, durst not behold this Captain without doing that which heretofore was done to the statues of the Sun, that is, to put finger on the mouth, and admire. For, not to speak of his other acts of prowess, it is he who was present 
The Marshal Boucicaut.  at that furious battle, wherein Bajazet the Turkish Emperor, waged war against the King of Hungary; where there were many Frenchmen, the Duke of Burgundy, then called the Count of Nevers, being there in person.  
The history saith, that the Turk coming to fight with dreadful forces, began so furious a charge, the air being thickened with a black cloud of arrows, that the Hungarians, who were reputed good soldiers, much trembled at this assault, and fled away. The French, who ever had learned in all battles 
Piety and valour of a French soldier.  to vanquish or die, unwilling so much as to hear any speech of the name of flight, pressed into the Turkish Army, notwithstanding the stakes and piles fixed in the earth to serve as hindrances, and attended by some other troops, broke the Vanguard of the Turks, by the counsel and example of this brave Marshal; whereat Bajazet much amazed, was ready to retire, at which time it was told him, there was but a very little handful of French men, who made the greatest resistance, and that it were best to assault them. He, who kept his battalions very fresh, returneth and came to fall upon these poor soldiers, now extremely tired. Never did angry Lion exercise such violent force amongst the javelins of hunters, as was then the prowess which shined in this generous Captain. For, he having no further purpose but to sell his own life, and those of his companions, as dear as he could, so negligently betrayed, he with the French Cavalry, and some few other people who stuck to him, did such feats of arms, that it was thought twenty thousand Turks were slain in the place. In the end, this prodigious multitude, able to weary out the most hardy, although it had been but to cut them to pieces, did so nearly encompass our French, that the Count Nevers, with Marshal Boucicaut, and the most worthy personages, were taken prisoners.  
The next day after this dismal battle, Bajazet sitting 
Horrible spectacle.  under a pavilion spread for him in the field, caused the prisoners to be brought before him, to drench himself in blood and vengeance, which he so passionately loved.  
Never was spectacle seen more worthy of compassion: the poor Lords, who had done wonders in arms, able to move Tigers, were led as it were half naked, straight bound with coards and fetters; no regard being had neither to their blood, which was noble, nor youth, which was pitiful, nor their behaviour, most ravishing; these Saracens, ugly and horrible as devils, set them before the face of the Tyrant; who in the wink of an eye, caused their throats to be cut at his feet, as if he meant to carouse their blood.  
The Count Nevers, with two other Counts of Ewe and March, had now their heads under the symitar, and their lives hung but as it were at a thread, when Bajazet having heard by his interpreters, that they were near kinsmen to the King of France, caused them to be reserved, commanding they should sit on the ground at his feet, where they were enforced to behold the lamentable butchery of their Nobility.  
The valiant Marshal Boucicaut in his turn was produced, covered with a little linen cloth, to massacre him over the bodies of so many valiant men. He, who was wise, and particularly inspired by God in this extremity, made a sign with his fingers before Bajazet, who understood not his language, as if he would declare himself the kinsman of the Count of Nevers, who beheld him with an eye so pitiful, that it was of power to rend rocky hearts. Bajazet being persuaded by this sign, that he was of the blood Royal, caused him to be set apart to remain a prisoner; where he afterward by his great prudence, endeavoured the liberty of those noble Gentlemen, and his own. I cannot think these petty Novices of war will compare themselves to the valour of this man, accomplished with such heroic prowess.  
Let us come, if it please you, to consider him at 
Piety of a soldier.  leisure, whether he were of the number of those, who profess themselves wicked, that they may seem valiant. He was a man, who in time of peace, whilst he governed the City of Genoa, daily heard two Masses, with so exemplar devotion, that he never suffered any man to speak to him in the Church; where he said the Office with singular attention, for which he so accommodated his company, that you should never see the least action of uncomeliness in Divine service, which he did not severely punish. But the Historian addeth, that who had beheld his people at Mass, would rather think he saw Religious men than Soldiers. Noblemen are of power to bend their families to what they please, were it not that through softness of spirit, they many times give way to the torrent; and contenting themselves to be good, make all the rest nought by the easiness of their natures. I speak not here to you of a Canonical Saint, a Hermit, a Religious man, a Priest; I speak of a Marshal of France, of a most ardent warrior.  
Behold, I pray, whether piety be incompatible 
Notable devotion of a soldier.  with arms. This brave Captain happily made his Will, disposing of all his devotions, his affairs, and charge: each day he executed some part hereof, doing all the good he could during his life, not expecting the casual portions of others piety, as those, who cause the torch to be carried behind, to light them when they have lost their eyes, and indeed never do well, but when they are in a condition to be able to do no more. The charitable Lord informed himself very particularly of the necessities of the bashful poor, set their names down in his Registers, as the rarest pieces of his cabinet, appointed on every side his alms to poor Religious, to widows, to orphans, to needy soldiers, namely those, who through inability of old age and sickness, could labour no more. He visited Hospitals, giving, according to his means, round sums of money to furnish and acommodate them; if he walked in the streets, he ever had charity in his hands, that himself might give all he could, for he therein took a singular contentment: and never was he seen to be so merry, as when he had distributed good store of money; this was his hunting, his game, his delight.  
He bore a singular devotion towards the friday, in memory of the passion of our Saviour; and whilst he was able, did eat nothing on that day but fruits and pulse, abstaining from all which participated of the life of beasts; and clothed himself likewise with a most simple habit, desirous to show exteriorly some taste of the reverence we owe to the blood of the Son of God. Besides abstinencies commanded, he ordinarily fasted the saturday, which is dedicated to the memory of the Blessed Virgin. He never fed at his repast but on one dish, and though he had great quantity of silver vessels, he caused himself to be served in pewter and earth, being glorious in public, and in his particular, an enemy of worldly pomps and vanities.  
I leave you to think, how much this kind of life is alienated from the curious Nobility, to whom we must daily give so many privileges and dispensations, that it seems it is for their sakes needful to create another Christendom, besides that which hath been established by the Son of God. A man would say, to see how they pamper their bodies, they were descended from Heaven, and that thither they should return, not passing through the sepulchre, for they deify it, and to fatten and gild a dunghill covered with snow, sport with the blood and sweat of men.  
Superfluity of taste being so well repressed, all went 
Sage government of a family.  in true measure in the house of this good Marshal: his retinue was very well entertained according to his quality, and he had a very solemn custom by him religiously observed, which was speedily to pay his debts, and as much as he might possible to be engaged 
To pay his debts.  to none. It is no small virtue, nor of slight importance, if we consider the Nobility at this time, so easily engulfed in great labyrinths of debts, which daily increase like huge balls of snow that fall from mountains, and which require ages and golden mines to discharge them.  
Is it not a most inexcusable cruelty before God and men, to see a busy Merchant, a needy Artificer, every day to multiply his journeys and steps before the gate of a Lord or a Lady, who bear his sweat and blood in the pleyts of their garments? And in stead of giving some satisfaction upon his most just requests, it is told him he is an importunate fellow, and he many times menaced with bastonadoes, if he desist not to demand his own. Is not this to live like a Tartarian? Is not this to degrade one's self from Nobility, Christianity, and Reason? Is not this to thrust the knife into the throat of houses and entire families? Allege not unto me▪ that it is impossible for you to pay at that time what is demanded. Why well foreseeing your own impotency, have you heaped up debts, which cannot be discharged? Why do you not rather admit the lessening of your port? Why cut you not off so many superfluous things? Are not your sins odious enough before God, but you must increase them with the marrow of the poor? From hence ariseth the contempt of your persons, the hatred of your name, the breaches and ruin of your houses.  
This man in well paying his debts, was served and 
A singular discretion.  respected of Officers, like a little Deity: there was no need to doubt, nor to make a false step into his house. Never would he suffer a vice, or a bad servant, were it to gain an Empire. Blasphemies, oaths, lies, slanders, games, quarrels, and such like ordures were banished from his Palace, as Monsters; and if he found any of his family in fault, he dismissed them, lest they should infect the other; yet not scandalising them, nor divulging their offences. At the table he spoke little, and did voluntarily entertain himself with example of virtues in the lives of Noblemen, not opening his mouth to discourse of his own proper acts, but with singular sobriety.  
In his marriage he demeaned himself most chastely, and had such a horror against impurity, that he would not so much as keep a servant who had a lustful eye. Behold the cause, why passing one day on horseback through the streets of the City of Genoa, as a Lady presented herself at her window to comb her hair, and one of the Gentlemen of the Marshal's train, seeing her tresses very bright and beautiful, cried out, Oh what a goodly head of hair! staying to behold her, the Lord looked back on him with a severe eye, saying: It is not well done; it is not fit, that from the house of a Governor, a wanton eye should be seen to glance.  
In this point and all the rest which concerned the commerce and repose of Citizens, he rendered so prompt and exact justice, that it was a proverb amongst those of Genoa, when any one was offended, to say to him who had wronged him: If you will not right me, my Lord Marshal will. The other understanding it, ofttimes rather chose to submit himself to right, than expect a condemnation which was inevitable. He so by this means gained the good opinion of the people, that the inhabitants of the City sent to the King, beseeching he might continue the government to the end of his days: which having obtained, it seemed to them, they had drawn an Angel from Heaven, to fix him at the stern of their Commonwealth.  
At the time that the Emperor of Constantinople, then dispossessed of one part of his Empire by the great Turk, came into France to demand succour, and had obtained of the King twelve hundred men, defrayed for a year; many widdow-Ladies were seen at the Court, who complained of injustices and oppressions by them endured after the death of their husbands; whereby this good Marshal was so moved with compassion, that with much freedom he instituted an Order of Knights for the defence of afflicted Ladies, which he surnamed The Order of the white Lady, because they who made profession of it, bore a schuchion of gold enamelled with green, and thereon the figure of a Lady in colour white: thus sought he by all occasions to do good, and shown himself a great enemy of idleness, the very moth of minds.  
He ordinarily risen early in the morning, and spent about three hours in Prayer and Divine Service: at the end whereof he went to Council, which lasted till dinner time. After his repast, he gave audience to all those, who would speak with him upon their affairs, not failing to behold his Hall daily full of people, whom he speedily dispatched, contenting every one with answers sweet and reasonable: from thence he retired to write letters, and to give that order to his Officers, which his pleasure was should be observed in every affair: and if he had no other employment, he went to Vespers. At his return he took some pains, then finishing the rest of his office, ended the day. The Sundays and holidays either he went on foot in some pilgrimage of devotion, or caused the life of Saints, or other victories to be read, daily more and more to dispose his manners unto virtue. When he marched in the field, he had an admirable way, not to oppress any of his company, nor would he permit, even in the land of an enemy, that the least disturbance should be given to ecclesiastics.  
Behold you not here a life worthy of a French Cavalier? Oh Nobility, this man was not a petty Roister, who makes boast to fight in a meadow; but a soldier, who during the wars with the English, kept the field of battle three times, thirty days together, against those brave soldiers who would oppose him, from whence he went out all sparkling with glory and wonders.  
I would here willingly add a Bertrand of Gueselin, Count of Longuevil, & Constable of France; whose life Monsieur Menard hath given us, written by a pen of that ancient Age, in old language: you shall see a man, who after he had solemnly dedicated in the offertory of a Mass his soul, body, and arms, at the Altars, fought six or seven times hand to hand, exercised strange feats of battle and arms; stood in the midst of combats, bold, and confident as in his chamber, being otherwise furious, strong, and stout in the press. You should see a man sage in counsels, prompt in execution, whom an enemy found near at hand when he thought him thirty leagues off. A man in all things else free from fraud or dissimulation, cheerful, courteous, obliging, and liberal of his own, employing his moveables and the jewels of his wife, for relief of poor soldiers. Then you may judge, whether to be valiant, you may live in the Court of a Christian Prince like a little Turk. Where is your judgement? and where your reason?   

The fifth SECTION. Against Duels.  
I Do assure myself some will not forget to tell 
A condemnation of Rodomontades and Duels.  you, that to be valiant men of the times, you must be outrageous in slanders, in blasphemies, in audacious words, in duels, challenges, which are the mighty valours of this Age. Well then, my soldier, following this course you will learn to swear and blaspheme. I speak not how great this crime is, nor how much you render your ●●ngue punishable in disposing it to this language of devils; but I will say one thing, which is very certain, those which seek for glory out of vice, have not always been made eminently prosperous. All you may do in purchasing hell by these execrable oaths, will be to acquire the goodly qualities of a base clown.  
And as concerning Duels, I undoubtedly hold, 
Authors of duels.  that if this infamous soldier, who hath abused you, were willing to speak the truth, which his conscience will dictate to him, he rather gives it you for an honest coverture of cowardice, than for true valour. The world is not so doltish as to measure courage by the model of Moors, slaves, and horse-boys, who were the first executours of these but cherries. How can you persuade us that a confused mass of these petty mutineers, who have nothing else in their mouths but these duels, may be valiant men? We are not so ignorant, but that we well know courage never makes good alliance with servitude and effeminacy. But the most part of this kind of men, are servile spirits, who submit to an infinite number of shameful and tyrannical laws, for a little smoke. They are bodies withered with laziness, who are 
Laziness.  many times entangled in their garters, and stand in need to have rings for winter and summer, to change according to the seasons. They fear the lancet of 
Juvenal. 1. l. 1 satire.  the Surgeon, they cry out aloud for a sleight fever, and will needs be tended like women in childbed: Imagine with yourself, what valour can be herein. Were they beaten and stamped into powder in a mortar, a hundred of such like Rodomonts would not make up one half ounce of warlike fortitude. But there is a little despair and rage, which boileth in a passionate heart, to counterfeit virtue. God forbidden, we should take chaff for gold, hemlock for parsley, or an Ape for a man. We know valour, by report of great Captains, resteth in mature deliberation and coolness, as in its true element. When I behold one of these silly braggarts, who hasteneth to the field for a base fear of some shame, or upon some liver-heat which tormenteth him, I make as much reckoning of it, as if I saw an angry hen. Do you think Sichem was a courageous man for enduring to be circumcised for the love of Dinah? My opinion is, it was an act of much cowardice to permit himself to be cut with a razor in the most shameful part of his body, to please a silly female Jew, who when it was done, had great cause to turn this painful sacrifice into scorn and laughter. This poor Courtier to satisfy a wily wench, for a foolish imagination of point of honour, hasteneth to be cut in pieces in the field: unhappy man, he thinketh to marry Dinah, and finds Proserpina; he proposeth to himself a worldly glory, that may rank him in the number of the valiant, and meeteth a bloody death, which at one blow killeth body and soul. Let me die, if it be not the poorest thing to behold them in such adventures. For if one did see them, they would make those burst with laughing at their idleness, who were willing to bemoan their misery. I have drawn from this massacre, such as were more amazed than a bridled goose, and more ghastly than a dead man four days after his funeral, taken from his sepulchre. These silly creatures endured all this to make a wretched bruit run up and down in Paris, that they were in the end beaten, and had with so many cold sweats of deaths done that, which their Lackeys, who are somewhat more stupid, would a hundred times with more willingness of heart have undertaken. Behold you not who is worthy either of compassion or contempt? Yet you flatter them with a pretext of courage, which you enforce them to purchase at a costly rate. When you applaud such actions, and tell how brave a combat was performed behind the , and that both of them came thither with much resolution, you are men guilty of blood: It should suffice you to have your judgements so dull in the estimation which ought to be made upon valour, without rendering your tongues so tragical. Their trembling swords would become very lazy to consummate the mysteries of furies, if your words armed not despair, to play out the rest of the game.  
Perhaps you will say, you know those who have fought duels; who notwithstanding were valiant in Armies. I deny not this. I affirm not that a valiant man cannot fight a duel; but I deny that he is valiant for fight a duel. David had been an adulterer, and became a Saint; but it is not for having been an adulterer that he was a Saint; nor shall any one have the reputation of valour among understanding men, for committing a crime. For if this duel were ever an infallible mark of courage, I demand wherefore have we seen those, who have showed themselves most importunate to provoke others to combat, most fiery to hasten thither, most factious to be herein opinionative, and in the mean time, when they came to bear arms, where they must witness true valour for the service of their Prince, such encounters have happened, that they so despairingly run off, that they have passed through forests two leagues over, and not seen a tree, so much affrighted they were. It is not necessary to name them, happily they are already too much renowned in the Histories of the times. And yet you will make much account of these goodly swaih-bucklers.  
Assure yourself the most part of those, who show 
Courage of duel like to that of the possessed.  such boiling fury in these barbarous acts, are as Lunatics possessed with an evil spirit. You would be amazed to see a little girl so strong, that there must be twenty men to hold her. From whence, I pray, hath she this force, but that she hath the devil in her body? And tell me, a young Gentleman, who many times hath father, mother, wife, children, honours, riches, pleasures in his life, would he go upon cold blood to deprive himself of all this? Would he contemn the sacred Edicts of his Prince, now very lately renewed by the zeal of our great Monarch? Would he descend with open eyes into hell, if he had not some black spirit of the abyss, which dreggeth him to the last mischief? He doth that for a cold countenance, an extravagant word, and a caprich of spirit, which he would not either for God, the King, or the whole world. We may well say this is the malady of inferior houses, and you take it for valour? A poor coxcomb forsooth, called a second, who putteth into compromise at the discretion of a cracked brain, all that which is most dear unto him in this world, and what he hopeth in the other, going to be the victim of death, or the murderer of a man, whom he never saw or knew, or if he have seen or known him, so far as to love or honour him, would he play all this goodly prize, if he were not possessed with an evil spirit? Yet you admire this. Why do you not rather wonder at the countenances, the twindges, and distorted mowings of the possessed?  
I begin to persuade you to reason (say you my Gallant:) You are an enemy of this race of Cadmus, derived from the teeth of serpents, and think not these petty wranglers of the times, with all their letters and challenges have any valour: But if a brave spirit be urged to fight by such kind of men, should he refuse it? Verily there are main differences in duels, in the causes which make them, and the proceed of such as execute them. If you must needs go to duel, pass thereunto, as David, in sight of an Army, with permission of your Prince or your Captain, against some Goliath, who hath defied you. Go thither with intention to defend the honour of your Nation, and to weaken the contrary faction. Behold who is worthy. If you must go to duel, go thither when your King or Lord shall command you to accept the combat, to end some notable war, and stay a great effusion of blood, but by the hazard of two Champions. Behold who is glorious. But if you hasten thither upon some chimaera of spirit, which you call by the name of honour, upon some ambiguous word, to which you frame an interpretation against yourself, for a cold countenance, a surly brow, for a desire which you have to become pledge of the follies of some fellow, witless, and a slave to his own passions; if you hasten thither for the love of some unchaste woman, to whom you sacrifice humane blood, how can you be excusable? For if you tell me your honour is more precious unto you than your wealth and life, and therefore, that as the law of nature permitteth you to defend both your riches and body at the point of your sword, against a robber and a homicide, from whom you cannot otherwise disengage yourself, you have the same right for the defence of your reputation, which is in man as the apple in the eye. I answer, that being so surprised upon the sudden by some assailant, who provoketh you, threatneth you, and thrusteth his sword into your sides, if you use not a lawful defence, it is not then said that you are bound to fly, with some kind of ignominy. Nay, I will say besides, that if true honour were interessed in refusal of a challenge, he that should accept it, might likewise according to the laws of conscience seem somewhat tolerable: But from whom ought we to derive this estimation and judgement of true honour? Is it from certain sleight braggarts, and witless people, who have sold, themselves to passion, eternally to renounce prudence? Behold goodly Judges of honour: Behold who well deserveth to prescribe unto us the rule and price of the most precious thing in the world.  
If we desired sincerely to establish the judgement to be made of the point of honour, we ought to search into the resolutions of the Church and Civilians: but these kind of people are suspected by you, as being alienated from the profession of arms. Let us inquire it in the mouths of warriors. Was there ever a braver soldier than the late King of most famous memory? And hath there likewise ever been a Prince more dexterous in arms, and more fortunate than he that now reigneth? Since their Edicts condemn duels, both in those who challenge, and such as are challenged, although much different in their proceed, what do we need any other judgement to decide the point of honour? But Kings and Princes sovereign (say you) notwithstanding their Edicts, approve those by word of mouth, who show courage in such like actions. Who dare reproach them with this? Who dare tell them to their faces, that they belly their Edicts by their particular judgements? Who sees not such words are purposely invented by those men, who seek for pretexts to their false liberties? Why these Edicts, dictated by reason, agreed unto with judgement, supported by justice, provoked by piety; to the writing of which, Jesus Christ would contribute his own blood, to spare the blood, and with it the souls of so many, as are lost, and whom to save, he gave up his own life? Where should we learn the rule of honour, the judgement, and will of the Prince, but in Oracles and virtues, which he hath consigned to the memory of all Ages? I entreat you, trouble my head no more with these dastardly combats and detestable massacres; let this be no longer, but for the infamous and melancholy bloud-thirsters. One Bachet, understanding that a Turkish Captain had called his companion into duel, What, saith he, are there no more Christians? And have not we cause to say▪ Are there no Saracens nor Moors, and other Infidels, to turn th●●dge of the sword against our entrails?   

The sixth SECTION. Against the ill manage of Arms.  
FRom hence it is likewise, that you are taught in time of war to play the little Cannibal in arms, and to cast nothing but fire and blood from your throat, that menaces may march before you, and havoc and desolation after. Barbarous as you are, do you think because you have a sword by your side, you are therefore a Master over the life and blood of mortals? Never was iron drawn out of the entrails of the earth, but either against wild beasts, or men who are worse than beasts; and you employ it to torment innocent people, whom you ought to protect under your wings. It is a strange thing, that men who are made for the support of men, and who are not strong but for defence of the feeble, are now adays more pernicious than wolves, hail, serpents, inundations, fire, plagues, and famines. Behold that which maketh warfare odious, behold that which disgraceth an honourable profession, behold that which poureth upon the heads of Great-ones, who countenance such actions, the cups of God's anger, mingled with gall, wormwood, and poison of Dragons.  
The tears of poor labourers, widows, and orphans, which are enforced by those who entitle themselves friends, with cruelties that would justify the Saracens and Moors, cease not to mount to the Throne of God, to ask vengeance on those, who, to satisfy their ambitions, glut their appetites, and fish in troubled waters, enkindling war's intestine, timorarious, and unjust, not regarding the disorders, which ordinarily arise from these wicked counsels. Oh God it is a very great matter, that a man can make a hundred thousand swords to be unsheathed in an instant, which have no eyes to see where they strike, nor hands to pull them back, when they once have received motion. That a man, who hath but one life, should expiate so many deaths, so many violences, so many outrages, as are committed by the unbridled soldiers! Much courage must be necessarily used, to make military discipline be observed, and if these furious corruptions cannot be hindered, it were better to abandom the charges and commands, than to cement them up with the blood and tears of so many miserable sacrifices.  
The brave Belisarius, who was one of the most 
Justice of Belisarius and Aurelianus.  excellent Captains in the world, having caused two soldiers to be empaled for some crime, seeing others to murmur at it: Know (saith he) I am come to fight with the arms of Religion and Justice, without which we can expect neither victory nor happiness. I desire my soldiers should have their hands clean to kill an enemy. Never will I suffer any man in mine Army, that hath fingers crooked or bloody, were he in arms as terrible as lightning. Force is of no worth, 
Procop. l. 1. de bello Vandal.  if it have not equity for companion. Hear a soldier speak. He might perhaps have learned the same lesson from the Emperor Aurelian, who wrote to one of his Lieutenants: My friend, If thou wilt be a Captain, nay, if thou wilt live, contain thy soldiers in their 
Vopisc. in Aurel.  duty. I would not that a peasant should so much as complain that he hath been wronged in the value of a chicken, nor that any hath taken a grape from his vine without his permission. I will make him give an account even to a grain of salt, or a drop of oil unjustly exacted. I desire my soldiers should be rich with spoils of enemies, and not the tears of my subjects. I would have them carry their riches upon their swords, not into their cabins. I would have them ●aste in the houses of their hosts, and that there be no speech of any quarrels.  
And is not that strange which Marcus Scaurus 
Excellent discipline.  writeth, that there have been seen Regiments encamped round about a great tree laden with fruit, and the soldiers to departed the next morning, not doing so much wrong, as to take one apple from the Master of the place? And who would not be amazed at that which Lampridius speaketh of Alexander Severus, that his soldiers marched to the Persian war, like Senators, and that the Countrey-peasants loved them as their brothers, and honoured their Emperor as a God? Is it not a shameful thing, that Infidels must teach us a lesson of modesty, and that this Alexander, who had learned a lesson from Christians, which was, not to do that to another which we would not have done to ourselves, observed it so exactly even in the liberty of arms, that he thereby became as it were adored by his subjects? And in the mean time we behold Gentlemen, who never having wanted good precepts, exercise tyrannies on their subjects, both in peace and war, such as Scythians and Arabians would abhor to do. War cannot now adays be made, but that it seems Attila with his Army is raised up, once more to pillage France. It is not enemies they seek to surprise, but purses: and they are ever criminal enough, who have some, though but small wealth to lose. I know not where to seek for his unhappiness, to find it in its source. The soldier excuseth himself upon necessity, the Captain complaineth of payment, the one filcheth, and the other quarrelleth, whilst the disorder is immortal.  
O brave and valorous Cavaliers, ought not you herein to second the good intentions of our great King, and banish such infamies, not only from France, but even from the memory of men? If you desire to see how you are to bear yourself in war, I will not go about to seek out a Saint Martin for you: Behold a man, whose life not long since hath been published, to serve as a model for the Nobility: we yet touch him as it were with a finger; for he died under the reign of Francis the First, having served three Kings in their Armies the space of two and thirty years. It is the valiant Terrail, otherwise called Chevalier Bayard, born in Dauphin. I willingly make use of his example, both because one of our most warlike Kings, the son of Francis the First, would needs be knighted by his hand, to witness the honour he bore to his valour, as also, for that I see therein many noble passages, which taste of the virtue of a true French soldier. He was a courageous 
Military virtues of a brave French soldier.  Captain, of excellent direction, valiant, and magnanimous, of whom was said, that he had the assault of a wild bull, the defence of the bore, and flight of the wolf. I set aside his warlike deeds, I take some of his virtues, which I here will make use of. This Royal courage had no other aim in arms, but the glory of God, the service of his Prince, the honour of his profession: whereof we have an ample testimony in a short Elegy, which his Secretary made upon him, saying, That after these two and thirty years' service, be died almost as poor as he was born. Much is spoken herein, and I think Bayard more glorious under this title, than if he had born the Duchy of Milan on his back. He had the true piety of a good soldier: For every morning he prayed to God most devoutly, and would not permit any man should enter into his Chamber during the time of his devotions: he was so obedient to those who commanded in the Army, that he never refused any Commission imposed upon him. Yea, well foreseeing that the last charge enjoined him by the Admiral Bonnivet was most dangerous, and as it were impossible, yet he went thither, sacrificing his life to the commandments of the Lieutenant of his Prince, that he might not digress from his ordinary custom. There was he slain by the most generous manner of death that might happen to any Captain of his quality. He was a Lion in arms, who with a choice company of men, selected by him, and trained to this profession, wrought such admirable effects, that there was not any battle won, of which he was not ever the principal cause. Never was any man more terrible to an enemy in the conflict; but out of it, it was said, he was one of the most affable and courteous men of the earth. He was so ill a flatterer of Great men, that to gain a Kingdom he would not be drawn to speak any thing but reason. His practice was to honour the virtuous, speak little of the vicious, less also of his own deeds of arms, never to swear, do favours to all who required, as willingly as if himself were to receive the benefit, to give secret alms according to his ability, in such sort, that it is written, that he, besides his other acts of piety, married at the least a hundred young maids. Behold of what elements his soul was inwardly composed.  
As for the manner of his carriage in the war, he 
Marvellous contempt of money.  as little cared for money as the dirt of the earth, and desired not to have any but to give. Witness an act of great liberality, which is related of him. He by fair law of arms, took a Spanish Treasurer, who carried with him fifteen thousand Ducats; one of his Captains, named Tardieu, swore, enraged with choler, that he would have part of the booty, because he was in the expedition. This good Captain smiling, said to him: It is true, you were of the enterprise, but are not to share in the booty; and were it so, you are under my charge, I therefore will give what I think good. This man entered into more violent fury, and went to complain to the General, who having well considered the business, adjudged it wholly to Bayard. He caused his Ducats to be carried to a place of safety, and commanded them to be spread on a table, in presence of all his people, saying to them: Companions, what think you? Do you not here behold fine junkets? Poor Tardieu, who had been put by his pretensions by express sentence of his Captains, looked on this money with a jealous eye, and said: If be had the half of it, he would all his life be an honest man. Doth that depend on this? saith this brave spirit? Hold, I willingly give that, which you by force could never obtain, and so caused at the same instant seven thousand five hundred Ducats to be told out to him. The other, who in the beginning thought it was but a mere mockery, when he saw it to be in good earnest, and himself in possession of that he desired, he cast himself on both his knees at the feet of Bayard, having abundant tears of joy in his eyes, and cried out: Alas my Master, my friend, you have surpassed the liberality of Alexander, how shall I ever be able to acknowledge the benefit, which I at this time do receive at your hands? Hold your peace (said this incomparable man) if I had power I would do much more: and thereupon causing all the soldiers of the Garrison to be called, he distributed the rest of the Ducats, not keeping one sole denier for his own use,  
I ask of you whether this were not a heart of pearl, wherein there could not one lest blemish of avarice be found? Yea, also when he passed through the Country, even in a land of conquest, he paid his expense. And one saying unto him, Sir, This money is lost: for at your departure from hence, they will set this place on fire. He answered, Sirs, I do what I ought, God hath not put me into the world, to live by rapine.  
Pursuing this course, he did an act at the taking of 
An excellent act of Chevalier Bayard.  Bressia, a City of Italy, for ever memorable, which I will here deduce as it were in the same terms as it is couched in his History. Which is, that being set in the head of the Perdues, he first entered and passed the rampire, where he was grievously hurt in the top of his thigh with the thrust of a pike, so that the iron stuck in the wound: he nothing terrified, said to Captain Molard: I am slain, but it is no matter, let your men march confidently, the Town is won. Hereupon two soldiers bore him out of the throng, and seeing the wound streamed forth much blood, they pulled off their shirts, and rend them, to bind up his thigh; then in the first house they hit upon, they took a little door off the hinges, and laid their poor Captain upon it, to bear him the more easily. From thence they went directly to a great house, which they supposed to be very convenient for his accommodation. It belonged to an honest Gentleman, who was retired into a Monastery to avoid the fury of soldiers: For the saccadge of this City was so dreadful, that there were reckoned, as well of Venetians who defended it, as Burgesses, to the number of twenty thousand slain. The Lady stayed in this house with two fair daughters, who had hidden themselves in a barn under hay. As they knocked at the gate, the mother arming herself with resolution, openeth it, and beholdeth a Captain all bloody, born upon this plank, who presently set Guards about his lodging, and demanded a place to retire unto. The Lady leadeth him into the fairest chamber, where she cast herself at his feet, and said: Sir, I offer this house unto you, and all within it, for I well know it is yours by the law of arms. I only beg of you, you will be pleased to save me, and mine honour, as also of two poor maids ready to marry, which my husband and I have bad between us. The Captain answered: Madam, I do not know whether I shall escape this wound or no; but I faithfully promise you whilst I live, there shall be no injury done to you nor your daughters, no more than to mine own person. Only keep them in your chamber, and let them not be seen: Send for your husband, and assure yourself you have a guest, who will do you all courtesy possible. The Lady much comforted to hear him speak in that manner, obeyed, and employed all her care to give him good entertainment. She presently perceived she had lodged an honest man, when she saw the Duke of Namures, the brave Gaston de Foix, General of the Army, come daily to visit him, and that these men in a City of conquest, spoke of paying for all they had taken. The good hostess waited on him, as on an Angel of Heaven, so much honour and virtue saw she to shine in him. When he was cured, and that he spoke of dislodging, to be present at the battle of Ravenna, where his General passionately desired him, the Lady, who accounted herself as his prisoner, with her husband and children, considering if her guest would rigorously use her, he might draw ten or twelve thousand crowns from her, resolved to give him a present, and coming into his chamber with a servant of hers, who carried a little steel box, she presently threw herself at his feet, but he readily raised her up again, not suffering she should speak one word, till she was seated by him: at which time she made this speech, well observed by the Secretary of Bayard:  
SIR, The favour which God hath afforded me in the taking of this City, by sending you into this house, which is wholly yours, hath not been less, than the preservation of the life of my husband, mine own, and that of my daughters, with their honour, which they ought to esteem more precious than life. Besides, your people have lived with such temper here in my house, that being not able to complain of any injury, I have cause for ever to commend their modesty. Sir, I am not so ignorant of the condition, whereunto the misery of war hath reduced us, as not very well to see, that my husband, myself, and children, are your prisoners, and that all the goods in the house are at your discretion, to be disposed of to your liking. But knowing the nobleness of your heart, which is incomparable, I am come most humbly to beseech you, to take pity on your poor captives, and to use us according to your accustomed liberality. Behold a poor present which we offer, entreating it may be acceptable. In speaking this, she took the box out of the hands of her servant, and opened it before the good Captain, who saw it to be full of fair Ducats, at which he smiled, replying: Madam, how many Ducats are there in this box? The poor woman, who thought this smile proceeded from some discontentment, answered: There are in it but two thousand five hundred; but if you be not satisfied, we will find more. Nay Madam, replied the Captain, I can well assure you, that should you give me a hundred thousand crowns, you could not do me so much good, as you have done in the courteous entertainment I have here received. In what place soever I shall remain, while God gives me life, you shall have a Gentleman ready at your command. As for your Ducats, I will none, I render you thanks, take them up again. I have ever more esteemed people of honour than crowns, and think not, but I go as well satisfied from you, as if this City were at your disposition, and you thereof have made me a present.  
She again prostrateth herself on her knees, and the Captain lifting her up, answered: No Sir, I should think myself for ever the most unhappy woman of the world, if you accept not this present, which is nothing in comparison of the infinite obligations I owe to your worth. Well, saith he, since you give it with so good a will, I accept it for your sake; but cause your daughters to come hither, for I will bid them far well. These good creatures had charitably assisted him, during the time of his infirmity, in the presence of their mother, many times touching the lute, whereon they played very well, for his recreation. They fell at his feet, and the eldest made a short speech in her mother language, to thank him for the preservation of their honour. The Captain heard it as it were weeping, for the sweetness and humility he therein observed, and then said: Ladies, you do that which I ought to do, which is to give you thanks for the many good helps you have afforded me, for which I find myself infinitely obliged. You know men of my profession are not readily furnished with handsome tokens, to present fair maidens withal: But behold, your good Lady mother hath given me two thousand five hundred Ducats; take each of you a thousand, as my gift; for so I am resolved it shall be. Then turning to his Hostess: Madam, saith he, I will take these five hundred to myself, to distribute them among poor religious women, who have been ransacked; and I recommend the charge thereof to you; for you better than any other understand where there is necessity. At this time, the Lady touched to the quick with so great a piety, spoke these words, couched in the History in ancient language: O flower of Chivalry, to whom no other may be compared! our blessed Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ, who for sinners suffered death and passion, both here in this world, and in the other, reward you. The Gentleman of the house, who at that time heard the courtesy of his guest, came to thank him with bended knee, making offer of his person and his whole estate. The young Gentlewomen, who were skilful at the needle, made him a present of two bracelets, woven with thread of gold and silver; and a purse of crimson satin, very richly wrought. He very graciously receiving them, Behold, saith he, I have more than ten thousand crowns: and instantly he put the bracelets on his arms, and the purse in his pocket, assuring them whilst these gifts lasted, he would wear them for their sakes. Thereupon he mounted on horseback, accompanied with his true friend, the Lord D'Aubigny, and about two or three thousand men; the Lady of the house, the daughters, and the whole family, as bitterly deploring his departure, as if they should have been put to the sword. I demand of you, if the stars were to descend from heaven, whether they might find more love and respect? Where be these silly fencers, who are as comets of fire and blood, to bear murder, pestilence, and poison into houses, who make the pillars of buildings to tremble with the force of blasphemies, who load whole families with injuries, wounds, and scars, who pill and ravage like Harpies, fed with humane blood? Should they do nothing else all their life, but heap up mountains of gold and silver, they could not arrive to the least part of the contentment which this good Captain enjoyed, who sought no other recompense from his great actions, but the satisfaction of his conscience, and the glory to have done well. Thus is it, O Noblemen, that hearts are gained, to make a crown of immortality: Thus is Heaven obliged, and earth tributary to virtues.   

The seventh SECTION. Against sensual love and impurity.  
I May well say, that among all the qualities of a Nobleman, there is not any hath a sweeter odour than temperance, which represseth the voluptuous pleasures of the body. Let no man flatter you in the passion of love, as if it were a prime virtue of your profession. Believe me, it is the worm which gnaweth all great actions, the moth which eateth all the vigour of spirit, the stain which defileth all, the fairest ornaments of life, the labyrinth which hindereth all generous designs, the rock which wracketh all vessels, the gulf which devoureth bodies and souls.  
The wise Secretaries of nature have observed, that 
Divers kinds of love.  all creatures which have the breath of fire, have the tail of a Dragon. Nor likewise do we ever see carnal love vehemently inflamed, but that it produceth some serpentine, hideous, and disastrous issue. I affirm, fire penetrateth into the marrow of the total nature of the Universe, but hath effects very different, according to the subjects wherein it resideth. It otherwise scorcheth in Heaven, otherwise in hell, otherwise in the bodies of beasts, otherwise in sulphur and gunpowder, and such like bodies able to receive its action. It filleth the stars in Heaven with a flame full of lustre and honour: It tormenteth the damned in hell, it entertaineth the life of creatures, it wasteth all bodies dry or oily, to reduce them either into ashes or smoke. Take my comparison, and say with me, there are lovers who burn as Heaven, others as hell, others as bodies well composed, others as oil and wood.  
The first lovers have the ardours of Heaven, who entertain chaste and spiritual love for things Divine. These are pleasures, which the jealous eye cannot espy, the slanderous tongue cannot by't, bad report is not accustomed to defame; which equals have no cause to envy, nor can Tyrants, armed with horror of so many torments, find the means how to take it from Martyrs. When we love God, we find him every where, we speak to him every where, we serve him every where, and every where we feel the services done to him, have their recompense. We talk to him as well in the whales belly as in the flaming furnace; witness Ionas and the three children, who found Chapels wholly built in the entrails of fishes and flames; because the love of God, the wisest architect of the world, had framed such for them.  
The second lovers burn as hell, who live perpetually in stinking, wicked, and infamous concupiscences, in dark, extraordinary, and desperate passions, who are in sensuality as in an abyss, fettered with a long chain of servitude, never having any part of the air, or light of the children of God.  
The third are as bodies mixed, who entertain conjugal, honest, and moderate amities; such as are found in good marriages, which are used according to God, in all honour and sanctity.  
Those of the fourth order, enkindle one another, as so many little bodies that daily minister fuel to the fire, wasting spirit, flesh, and means, in certain frivolous and giddly loves, which after much use, make men of vapour, ashes, and smoke. You now adays shall find, that affections purely conjugal are very rare, and celestial loves much more; but every where there are many men, who burn like hell or pitch.  
There are four sorts of love, which have been great 
Four sorts of love.  enemies, and still are, to the reputation of a good soldier: the one is the love of sensuality, the other of fantasy, the third of servitude, and the fourth of fury. On what side soever you turn your face, assure yourself, Sir, you shall find nothing beautiful in this ugly beast.  
Love of sensuality, which subsisteth only in voluptousness 
Love of sensuality.  of body, is a brutish, base, and wandering love, which is ever employed to spy out and trade for flesh, having no other design, but to satiate an unworthy concupiscence, more unsatisfied than fire, the abyss, and hell. If nature had created you some Mustapha to grow fat in a Seraglio, & that you had never heard speech of good or honour, it were tolerable: but to see a brave soldier, well born and bred up, to pass his life in laying snares for chastity, to search out of both sexes such as make traffic of the sins of others, to train up a wicked servant to be the messenger of your passions, to promise, swear, forswear, to seduce poor forsaken maids, to cast them from necessity into disgrace, and from disgrace into despair, how can it be but abominable.  
Think you the earth is made to be replenished with your sins, and charities to be instituted to support your crimes? It is idleness that serves as a store-house for your passions, and it is your remissness which doth not so much as vouchsafe to seek out a remedy. If you be resolved to lead such a life, give up your sword, for you dishonour it. It is no reason that it alone should retain the virginity, which all your other members have lost. You cannot well serve two mistresses, Venus and Bellona, since they are so different. And go not about to propose to yourself that Samson, David, and Caesar, made them well accord together: believe me, when they came to be lascivious they ceased to be valiant.  
It was neither with the looking-glass nor comb of Dalila, that Samson slew a thousand Philistines, but with the jawbone of an Ass. Whilst he preserved himself from women, he was a sun, and a thunder-blot; a sun to enlighten his Nation, a thunderbolt to destroy the Philistines. So soon as a woman had shaved him, he of a sun became a coal, of a thunderbolt a vapour, and of a man a lame jade, who from the field of battle, was sent to mill, no longer having eyes, but to deplore the disaster of his loves with tears of blood. When David in the list overthrew the Giant, he had not then received the wound from Bathsheba's eye. But after he had seen her at the fountain, his eyes ceased not to cast forth floods, and love dried up all his Laurels, that they had very much ado to wax green again in the water of so many tears. Hold it also for undoubted, that Caesar being in the snows of the Gauls, thought not of committing adulteries at Rome; the business or war took from him all the taste of love, and never did he submit to the imaginations of a beast, till he retained no more designs worthy of a man. Voluptuousness never acteth any thing great, but hath destroyed all that is great. And when God is pleased to overthrow Empires, he chooseth soldiers who have chaste hands, to chastise the effeminate. So Arbaces vanquisheth Sardanapalus: So Alexander, who would not look upon Queens, his prisoners, but with an eye of chastity, defeated the Persians, bondslaves to luxury: So the Goths gained the Empire of Rome, as saith Salvianus, God being willing to purge the earth, which the Romans had defiled, by the arms of a Nation more chaste than themselves, it being reasonable, that those should enjoy their goods, who would have no share in their vices.  
The love of fantasy is more sottish than malicious 
Love of fantasy  or sordid. There be Cavaliers, who persuade themselves they are the bravest men of their Age, and that all Ladies, who sometimes love vapour where it is not be loved, must of necessity have love in store for them. They enter into so great vanities, as they cast their affections upon none but Princesses, or eminent beauties, esteeming the rest of the world too base for the entertainment of their affections. They resemble those birds of Egypt, who will not build their nests but upon Palms; nor will they love but in a high place. Of this quality were Endymion and the Emperor Caligula, who in the end distasting all the women in the world, transferred the ambition of their loves above the sphere of fire, supposing they were hardy enough to take the Moon in marriage. One would not believe the frenzy of this passion, if we had not by experience seen men of most base extraction, with much content to entertain their thoughts upon the loves of the Queens of Antioch and Sicily, transporting themselves with joy, whensoever it was told them they were entered far into their gracious favours. This is it which maketh me say, that we in two things know the greatness of our soul, to wit, that it can frame a world to its knowledge, as God hath created one in nature; and can lodge the thoughts in so high a place, that the poorest beggar of the world can entertain affection for the most eminent person of the earth. The rich, who do as it were forbid the use of elements, cannot deny love, but it is a gross infirmity to love out of the sphere of your power, that which you can no more enjoy than the Moon in the Heavens. If we will love aloft, let us love him who hath made us. When once we have passed far into his heart, we shall find all the greatness of the world much lower than our feet.  
If you, my soldier, entertain these fantastic loves, I from this present will send you to the Strophad Islands, with those who search for the hand of glory, the Philosopher's stone, and quadratura circuli, and who ofttimes distil the money out of their purses, with that little brain which is left them, through the same limbeck.  
I fear you rather have the love of servitude, and 
Love of bondage.  make a Goddess of a piece of flesh, to which it is your glory to sacrifice your liberty, being so blind, as to kiss the fetters of your slavery, instead of breaking them. Verily it is a pitiful thing to see a man burn in ice, and congeal in fire, having the colour won, the visage meager, the eyes hollow, the cheeks sunk, the spirit giddy, the reason uncollected, and the heart wholly feverish, for the love of a creature who flouteth him. To see a man who walketh in his solitude, and creepeth like a spectre, not knowing whether he be of the number of the living or dead, who speaketh, writeth, who prieth, who hopeth, who feareth, laugheth, sigheth, waxeth pale, blusheth, desireth, detesteth, dieth, riseth again, sinketh into an abyss, and then toucheth Heaven with a finger, who playeth a Comedy of a dozen Personages in one hour, and passeth through more metamorphoses in a day, than Ovid in three years.  
Oh what a miserable thing is it, saith the golden mouth of Constantinople, to seek to be roasted in ashes, and so desperately love a beauty, which is only fair in the fantasy of a feverish brain, and of which in a short time the most liquorous worms would scorn to make their dunghill! O my soldier, let such a frenzy never enter into your heart; you were better serve a Turk or an Arabian, than such a love. It is the punais-worm, which bites while she liveth, and after death maketh her infection to be felt. Why go you about to idolatrize a woman? Have you not slavery enough at home, but you must needs seek it abroad? Withdraw yourself in good time from this captivity, gain the haven before the storm surprise you; for if you once be engaged, there is neither arm nor oar can serve to bring you back again. Is it not a comely thing, think you, to behold a soldier, who hath a sword by his side, able to hue monsters, to seek to play the coxcomb in quest of a wily wench, that exerciseth the most infamous tyranny over him that ever was heard of? It is said Omphale took the Diadem from a King named Hercules, and set her slippers on his head: That Dionysius the Tyrant wrote the expeditions of his Kingdom with his hand, and that Myrrha canceled or signed them at her pleasure: That King Athanaricus tied the strings of Pincia's shoes: That Themistocles caused himself to be purged and let blood with his captive Mistress. He that should see all the follies of the entranced lovers, might observe an infinite number of matters much more strange.  
In serving a scornful piece, who makes you die a thousand times a day, you can ofttimes hope for no other thing but ever to serve, and if you come to the end of your pretensions, brag not so much; you perhaps have nothing, but that which servants, or persons more unworthy, have obtained before you. This well deserveth indeed to betray your honour, and to commit such silly actions; but if you open your eyes to see the end of this goodly stage-play, you shall do as those, who caused themselves to be shaved when they escaped a shipwreck: you would not let so much as a hair remain upon that young head, which suffered itself to run at liberty after such sottish loves.  
If you plunge yourself further into this passion, you 
Love of fury.  shall find fury, which toeth cords, which mingleth poisons, which sharpeneth swords, which openeth black caverns, which erecteth gibbets, which kindleth coals, which prepareth racks, which produceth all that may discover the proceed of an engaged love, and which maketh an arrow of all crimes, to hit the mark it aimed at.  
Were I in your place, I would tear from my heart the sleightest cogitations which occur by this folly, as cankers, vermin, and serpents; and I would ride on post, if it were possible, beyond the elements, with purpose to avoid such encounters. All the bravest soldiers have made boast of chastity. It was the trophy of Cyrus, to whom God for this cause gave all the treasures of Asia: It was the triumph of Alexander, who in recompense had the conquest of the Persians: and the Emperor Julian, who made profession 
Julianus apud Ammianum.  to imitate him, although he had renounced all the Sacraments, would never forsake chastity, which he had learned amongst Christians: saying, This virtue made beautiful lives, as Painters fair faces. But not to search any further into the ruins of antiquity, look what your Bayard did upon this point: behold an admirable passage, which I will relate in the same words as it is expressed in his history.  
They had caused a young maid to be conveyed into 
A Royal act of military chastity.  his chamber, which was one of the fairest creatures of the world, and indeed she was endowed with an Angelical grace, but that her eyes were swollen with extremity of tears. When the Captain saw her, How now, fair maid, saith he unto her, what say you? Why come you hither? The poor creature fell on her knees, and said: Alas Sir, my mother hath commanded me I should do what you would have me; yet I am a virgin, and never had I any disposition to do ill, were it not necessity enforced me thereunto; for my mother and myself are so poor, that we perish for hunger: and I wish to God I were dead, before I commit this act, or at least that I were not in the number of unhappy maids. The noble Lord touched to the quick with the words of this creature, answered her, having tears in his eyes: Verily, pretty soul, I will not be so wicked, as to take that from you, which you so faithfully have kept for God. Thereupon he caused her to beveiled, covering her with a mantle, lest she might be known, he lighted a torch, and not recommending her to any other, conducted her himself, to rest in the house of his kinswoman. The next day he sent for the mother, and said to her: Are not you a wicked woman to betray the honour of your daughter, which ought to be more dear unto you than life? You deserve a punishment so much the more rigorous, as that I understand you are a Lady: for in doing this, you wrong Nobility. The poor woman wholly confounded, knew not what else to answer, but that they were as poor as might be. Is there no man, saith he, who requires her in marriage? Yes truly, saith she, an honest man, a neighbour of mine, but he demandeth six hundred florins, and I am not worth the one half of it.  
Then the brave Bayard drew out his purse, and said, Hold, here are two hundred crowns, which are of more value than six hundred florins of this Country to marry your daughter withal. I add also thereunto a hundred more to clothe her, and a hundred to relieve your poverty; but my will is you dispatch it in three days: all which was accordingly done with an unspeakable joy of the mother and daughter, which made them live thenceforth very honourably.  
O Nobility, I present not here unto you an Hermit, it is a Captain, it is a French soldier, who was composed of no other flesh, bones, nor blood, than you, while he in the mean time performeth an act of a Religious man the most mortified: he exerciseth the liberality of a King, he equalleth therein, and as it were surmounteth the heroical deeds of the greatest Saints. It is true, that S. Nicolas saved the honour of virgins, contributing thereunto his gold and silver: It is true, that in doing it he generously triumphed over the covetousness of temporal goods: but he served not in this action, as a triumph to himself, which is verily the choicest piece of eminent virtues. Behold a Cavalier, who vanquisheth both avarice and love, the two most dangerous rocks of the world. Bayard commandeth his purse in a fortune not the best accommodated, which meriteth not the least applause; but Bayard commandeth himself in a flourishing age, in a vigorous body, in presence of an object so amiable. I beseech you let us no longer say, that chastity is only found in Cloisters, it is every where, where the fear of God is, where generosity or real virtue is. What can so many wretches answer to this, who fill the world with sins, the Nobility with disgraces, their bodies with diseases, their name with infamy, and load so many poor abused creatures with miseries and despair? What can so many spruce Gallants answer, who brave it through the streets, and make ostents in borrowed feathers, and in habits, standing indebted to the Mercer for the stuff, and to the poor Tailor for the fashion, paying neither the one nor other? True jackdaws of Esope, who deserve that all other birds should assemble to pull their plumes off, which they have stolen to entertain their vanity. What will here so many gluttons and gamesters answer, who eat and rend up the entrails of men by their bloody riots? Is it possible, that this soldier should have four hundred crowns, which was then a huge sum, to give in one only alms, and those who in bravery talk of nothing else but pistolets, the belly, and game, have not a denier to throw to a poor body?  
I will also show ●ou an essential virtue of your profession, which is a certain mixture of honesty, justice, and loyalty due to the King, the Weal-public, your conscience, even towards your enemies themselves, in the example of this admirable man, justly called The Captain without fault.   

The eighth SECTION. Against the perfidiousness of interests.  
THere is given to you for the accomplishment of these goodly precepts, a great virtue of the time, which is to betray faith, Altars, and all that which is precious in nature, or magnificent in Religion, to advance your fortune, without any fear at all to trample on the throats of your most faithful friends, that you may go directly to the Temple of Honour, or the riches of the world. Poor Janisary, think you that to be the shortest way? Have you never learned, that if you take fidelity out of the world, you pull down the principal Altar of the Temple, the sanctity of humane hearts, the commerce of men; the repose of life, the knot and band of all felicities? Perjury, saith an Oracle, hath a son without name, feet, or hands, and who wandereth 
Oraculum Epicylidi redditum, apud Nicaetam.  up and down throughout the world, and crusheth in pieces the heads of the perfidious, even to the fourth generation. You in the subsequent discourses shall behold the goodly successes of such proceed: I for this present tell you, to strengthen these precepts, that were faith and integrity banished from the rest of the world, they might be found in the heart of a French soldier.  
Our excellent Bayard, from whom I more affect still to derive this model, than from any other, made it well appear in an affair, where the life of the most eminent man of the Church was interessed. He was at that time in Italy, sent by the King to assist the Duke of Ferrara against the army of Pope Julius, than much opposite to France, although so many other worthy Popes hearty loved our Nation. See the cause, why he sent to the Duke one Mounsieur Augustine Gerlo, a Gentleman of Milan, a traitor, and factious to persuade him to forsake the French alliance with intention to destroy them, and that in recompense he would give him his niece in marriage, and make him Captain General of the Church. This Prince would not in any wise understand him, but he handled the matter so by his policy and advantageous promises, that he gained this Augustine, who gave him his hand, that he in few days would destroy the Pope, by the help of a mischievous morsel, which he could easily give him. The Duke of Ferrara understanding these propositions, went to find out the noble Bayard in his lodging, and made a long discourse to him of the evil disposition of Pope Julius, and the enterprises he had, both on his life, and of the Frenchmen, of purpose to enkindle him for revenge. Then he pursued his opportunity, and made overture to him of the treason of this wicked Gerlo. Bayard beheld him, and said, How Sir? I could never have imagined that a Prince so generous as you, would consent to such a mischief: and had you done it, I swear by my soul, before night I would have given the Pope notice of it. How? answered the Duke, he would have done as much either to you or me. It is no matter, replieth Bayard, this treachery displeaseth me. The Duke shrugged up his shoulders, and spitting on the ground, Mounsieur Bayard, saith he, I would I had killed all mine enemies in this sort: but since you dislike it, the matter shall rest, and you and I both may have cause to repent it. We shall not if it please God, replieth the good soldier; but I pray you put this gallant into my hands, that would do this goodly piece of service; and if I do not cause him to be hanged in an hour, let me supply his place. The other excused it, saying, he had given him assurance of his person.  
Behold you not a brave spirit? See you not a man of a Royal conscience, and of an honesty in all things like to itself? Where are these petty spirits of the abyss, more black than spectres and infernal furies, who have neither loyalty for their Prince nor Commonwealth, but as it may concern their own interests, who swallow treasons as big as camels, to gain a fly? They would make truth itself to lie, were not their issues ever tragical, abominable, and hideous.   

The ninth SECTION. Short and notable Instructions.  
MY soldier, follow the precepes, which the great S. Augustine gave to Captain Boniface. 
August. ep. 80.  Observe faith and virtue in Arms, which never will be prosperous on earth, if they be not fortified with blessings from Heaven. Beg of God, with David, to deliver you from your necessities, which are your passions: he doth nothing to overcome visible enemies, that have power over bodies, who surmounteth not the invisible, bandied against the health of our souls. Make use of the world, as a thing borrowed: do good with its goods, and become not bad. They are goods, since they come from God, who extendeth his power over all things both celestial and temporal. They are goods, since God gives them to good men; but they are not also great goods, since he affords them to the wicked. He takes them away from the virtuous, to try their virtue, and from the perverse, to chastise their crimes. It is true, strength, health, victory, honour, wealth, are indifferently the portion of all men; but conquest over passions, virtues, salvation of soul, immortality of body, glory, honour, beatitude, are the proper inheritance of Saints. Love these goods, desire them, seek them with all your endeavour, do alms-deeds to get them, fast as much as your forces will permit: all here below passeth away but good works.  
Think when you go to the wars, that the strength of your body is a gift of God, & that it is not fit to arm against your sovereign Masters proper benefits. Keep promise even with your enemies, make peace with all the world voluntarily, and war for necessity to acquire the good of peace. Be peaceful even in Arms, for such men are called the children of God. If it be necessary to kill an enemy in fight, let mercy be always exercised in the latter end of the combat, principally, when there is no further fear of rebellion. Adorn your manners with conjugal chastity, sobriety, and modesty. It is a ridiculous thing to conquer men, and be vanquished by vices; to escape the sword, and be overthrown by wine. If you want means, seek it not on earth by wicked practices, but secure rather in Heaven that little you have, by the exercise of good works.  
Flee these rocks of Nobility, which we have hitherto spoken against, and above all bridle presumption, choler, the tongue, and sensuality.  
They are slaves, who cannot keep in the mean, between servitude and Empire, where either chains must be had to master them, or a Throne erected to honour them. Pesumption, if you afford it entrance, will make you of a man a baloon filled with wind, a scarecrow of honour, a temerarious thing void of courage, an undertaker without success, a fantastic without shame, which in the end shall become burdensome to itself, and odious to all the world. Choler and folly are two sisters, which have in all things the same qualities; or if there be any difference, it is, that the one with more fury maketh havoc in an instant, and the other produceth her effects with more leisure and cheerfulness: whilst you are subject to this passion, no man can confide in you in matter of judgement, no more than to weathercocks in the point of stability: you will have all other vices in-seed, and perpetually live in the sorrow of time past, disturbance of the present, and uncertainty of the future. As for the tongue, it is that which containeth all the good or evil of man: It is the needle of the great dial of the soul, that must show all the hours. It is the trucheman of our thoughts, the image of our actions, the interpreter of our wills, and the principal key of conversation. He that will now adays live in the world, saith the famous S. Nazianzen, must have a veil over his 
Nazianz. in Iamb.  eyes, a key on his ear, a compass on his lips. A veil over his eyes, not to see, or in seeing to dissemble many things; a key on his ears, to shut them up against so many follies and ordures, which proceed from bad mouths: and a compass on the lips, to measure and square out all his words with discretion. So many secrets unnecessarily discovered, so many infamous slanders, so many inconsiderate tales, so many frivolous promises, so many impudent lies such perjuries and execrable blasphemies, so many disasters which oft happen for a sleight speech, daily teach us, that words have no handles to hold them by, and better it is to trip with the foot than the tongue.  
Sensuality, if you powerfully resist it not from the first reflections which reason may present, will make you a thing of nothing. The three spirits, wine, love, and game, will fetter you with a prodigious slavery. You will become a living sepulchre, a tomb of surphets and slaughters, a gulf of calumnies, a mere hobgoblin without repose, which shall continually handle cards and dice, to bereave you of your purse and understanding, so to make a spoil of your goods, a frenzy of your reason, and a perpetual fever of your life.  
Your condition ought not to make you pretend power over men, if you seasonably enterprise it not over your own passions. Beware how you enter into the list among so many noble spirits, there to discover your weakness, and to add nothing to the lustre of the honour of so many worthy Ancestors, but to render your own crimes the more remarkable. Show yourself herein a reasonable man, and endeavour that all your actions may be as lines, which grow from the centre of wisdom, to be produced with all felicity. Remember things past, rectify the present, foresee those to come. Above all, learn to set a true estimation upon every thing in the world, and suffer not yourself to be surprised by the illusions of so many objects, which when they have charmed the eyes, and overthrown reason, leave nothing behind them, but sorrow to have done ill, and impotency of doing well.  
In conversation take the measure of yourself, and the like of those with whom you deal, to husband and accommodate yourself reasonably to all the world; yielding to every one the respect which his merit seems to require. The exercise of devotion will not hinder you from the endeavour how to become an able man in your profession, from being honest, civil, discreet, affable, liberal, obliging, stout, courageous, patiented, which are the principal qualities of a Courtier.  
It is not desired, that to be devout, you should have a spirit drowsy, sluggish, overwhelmed, not that through overmuch simplicity you make profusion of yourself, in an Age, where bounty seemeth to be the prey of insolent spirits. Wisdom will teach you neither to intrude nor pour out yourself; to dissemble through virtue that which ought to be concealed; to adapt yourself to companies and affairs, to believe nothing lightly, nor to promise nor decide any thing without consideration; to persevere in certain things not ill, because you have begun them; not to be harsh, nor too much complying, since the one tasteth of brutishness, the other inclines to flattery. To propose to yourself good and evil, which may arise from an affair, to moderate the one, and tolerate the other. Above all, honour the King next after God, as the source of all greatness, and the fountain of the most noble lights, which reflect on Nobility. Honour him with profound respect, as the lively Image of God. Love him sincerely, serve him with all fidelity. If you be employed in affairs and governments, endeavour to persist therein with conscience and honour, which are the two mansions of a great soul. If you have merit without employment and recompense, say not therefore that all is lost. It is a good business to be well at rest, to manure your spirit, to enable yourself with reading and peaceable conversion, to govern your house. Learn nothing, but what you ought to know. Search that only which you may profitably find; desire nothing, but what you may honourably wish for. And be not conceited to run after a spectre of imaginary favour, nor to mount to a place, where you cannot stay without fear, nor fall without ruin.  
So many great Monarches, so many Princes, Lords, and valorous men, who are come from Courts and the profession of arms, to enter into the Temple of piety, assure us, this life is capable of Saints, and that no man ought to despair of virtue, but he who renounceth it. If the brevity of this Treatise would permit, I would willingly set before you, a David, a Josias, an Ezechias, a Charlemaign, a S. Lewis, a Hermingildes, a Henry, a Stephen, a Casimire, a Godfrey of Bovillon, a Wenceslaus, an Edward, an Elzear, an Amideus: I would make you see flourishing Squadrons of Martyrs, drawn from warfare, amongst which you would admire a Maurice, an Exuperius, a Sebastian, a Marius, a Mennas, an Olympiades', a Meliton, a Leontius, a Maximus, a Julian, an Abdon, a Sennen, a Valens, a Priscus, a Marcellus, a Marcellinus, a Severinus, a Philoromus, a Philoctemon, and so many such like. Finally, I would show in the latter Ages men worthy of all honour, eminent in arms, and ennobled with singular piety; but I now content myself to draw from Eusebius, Theodoret, Nicephorus, Zozimus, Socrates, Sozomenus, Cedrenus, and above all Cardinal Baronius, the life of Great Constantine, who hath been the very prime man amongst Christian princes, and hath witnessed, especially after his Baptism, a masculine piety, and a great example of sanctity.    


IMP. CAES. FLAVIUS CONSTAN AUG.   
CONSTANTINE.  

The first SECTION. The Providence of God over Constantine.  
I Will show to Christian Nobility its source in the life of the prime Gentleman of Christianity. If we respect antiquity, greatness, and dignity, we shall not find a Prince either more anciently noble than he, who first of all among Emperors deserved the title of Christian, or more truly great than he, who so happily engrafted the empire of the universe on the tree of the Cross; or more justly honourable than he, who cemented his honour with the blood of the Lamb. It is the admirable Constantine, 
Greatness of Constantine.  who so perfectly allied valour to piety, Monarchy to humility, the wisdom of the Cross to the government of the world, the nails and thorns of the passion, to the Diadem of Kings and delights of the Court, that he hath left matter of meditation for the wise, of profit for Religious, of imitation for Monarches, and of wonder for those who admire nothing vulgar.  
Behold a marvellous Theatre of the providence of 
Theatre of Divine Providence.  God, whereunto I would willingly invite all those spirits,  with humane policy, and devested of heavenly Maxims, who are only great by the greatness of their ruin, to see how the breath of God demolisheth the Towers of Babel, to raise the walls of Zion, how the subtle are surprised in their subtlety, how the science of men becometh blind in its proper lights, how the vigour of the world is slain by its own hands, how stability is overturned by the supports it chooseth, how the spirit of flesh at unawares contributeth to plant the Gross on the top of Capitols and heads of Monarches, by the same ways wherewith it promised to over-cloud them with darkness and abysses.  
I here produce a Constantine, bred up very young in the Court of Diocletian▪ who had an intention to become a scourge to Christianity: but God surprised him therein, as Moses in the Court of Pharaoh, to stop the stream of persecution, to calm the tempests of the time, confound Idols, and raise the Church on the ruins of Gentilism.  
Reader, stay a little on the frontispiece of this history, and behold how the Eternal Providence led this young Constantine by the hand, like another Cyrus, to humble the Great-ones of the earth before his face, and to give him hidden treasures; to take 
Isaiah 49.  from him so many bars and impediments, to open for him so many gates of iron, and to cause so many Kings to turn their faces and afford him their place.  
There was at that time twelve heads, which already either wore the diadem, or thought themselves capable of it. Diocletian and Maximian held the highest place: They had chosen for Successors Galerius and Constantius Clorus, father of our Constantine. Galerius had made two other Caesars, Severus and Maximinus. Maxentius, son of Maximian, violently drew upon himself the Purple by main force, Lycinius furiously opposed him to gain it. Constantius, Dalmatius, Hannibal, brothers of Constantine by the father's side, beheld this goodly game, and might well hope to have some part therein, as being legitimate sons of Theodora, whom Constantius Clorus had espoused when he rejected S. Helena. Constantine saw himself the furthest off, through the disgrace of his mother, yet did the anointment of God make choice of him, dispersing all the rest by such and so divers ways, as we shall afterward behold, to place him in the throne, only absolute and independent, and to establish him with a long continuance of years, and a large posterity, had it pursued the way which he traced.  
Consider what then was the state of the Church, 
The state of the Church under Diocletian.  and view the wonders of the powerful hand of God. Dioclesian had undertaken to raze from the memory of men the name of Christianity; and being an imperious man, who would as it were that the Heavens and elements should observe no other course but according to his will, and engaged very far in this affair, bore himself with such excess of cruelty, that for about three hundred years, that the Christians were persecuted, there had nothing been like the persecution raised under his Empire.  
Then was the time, when in full assembly of public games, which ordinarily were presented at Rome, the cries of an innumerable multitude were heard, who to flatter the design of the Prince, loudly proclaimed two and twenty times; Christiani tollantur, Auguste, Christiani tollantur, Let the Christians be taken away, O Emperor, let the Christians be rooted out. Then was the time that dreadful Edicts of persecution were affixed on every place, that the earth was covered with blood and massacres, and slaughters dispersed as it were in all the parts of the habitable world. Christians were accounted as the dregs of mankind, the scorn of the earth, and object of all cruelties. Some were shut up in caves, not daring to appear in public, excluded from commerce and society of men, deprived of necessities, which nature would have to be common to all the world, they not being permittted to draw water from wells, or to buy a handful of herbs in the market, unless they presented incense to Idols, purposely fixed in public places. Others crept up and down in the deserts, among wild beasts, and sometimes roasted with heat of summer, and sometimes congealed with cold of winter, tearing up with their nails the grass, which they mingled with their tears before they are it. Others were led into theatres, Amphitheatres, and Tribunals of Judges, where old men of four-score and an hundred years of age were seen. Lady's very honourable, most tender maidens and little children, brought into the flaying house there to die, before they knew what it was to live.  
All the tortures which the Busiris and Mezentiuses knew not, were then invented, and exercised on the bodies of Christians: there was no speech but of racks, combs of iron, molten lead, boiling cauldrons; but how to crush men under presses as in the time of vintage; but of shutting bodies up in vessels, armed within with counterpointed nails, and rolling them in this moving prison down the descent of hills; but of anointing them with oil and honey, and exposing them to wasps, in the boiling ardours of the sun; but of hanging women by the feet in their nakedness, to serve as a spectacle for lustful eyes.  
It is not credible such horrors could enter into the hearts of men, without some particular impression of malign spirits; yet Diocletian thought it was a great point of state, and the true means irrecoverably to banish Chistianity.  
Behold the cause why he spared none, yea not pardoning even his niece Susanna, nor his wife Serena, whom he caused to feel the edge of the sword for professing Christianity. It was desired the Martyrs should be numbered, but this was impossible, for when it appeared that one month reckoned up seventeen thousand, and the rest carried the like proportion, the Christians prepared themselves rather to die than to keep any further record of them. The Emperor also caused all holy books to be exactly sought out, to commit them to the flames, thinking it was a singular policy to suppress our Religion: but it is a thing extremely prodigious, and an invincible argument of the Divinity of our faith, that notwithstanding all these endeavours, the Church was like the burning bush, which derived glory from its proper flames. She increased under the sword of persecution, borrowing her ornaments from ignominy, her riches from losses, and life from her tomb. It seemed that every drop of blood which distilled from the bodies of Martyrs, was a grain of seed to make others spring, which in the end wearied executioners, blunted the edge of swords, wore out all the instruments of torture; yet was Diocletian for all this nothing mollified.  
A man would wonder, from whence he should 
Conditions of Diocletian.  conceive such hatred against Christianity: but he that will consider his nature and ordinary proceed, shall find, that besides the suggestions of Hell, he had inclinations disposed to such cruelties. He was born of very base birth, nursed up in blood, addicted to the Religion of the Gentiles, so far as to make himself the most superstitious. Whilst he abode in France, as yet a young soldier, a Druid who much intermeddled with divination, foretold him he should arrive at the Empire, when he had killed the fatal bore. He being of a spirit ambitious and credulous, went purposely a hunting, and ordinarily chased bores, to see if a Crown would spring from their blood. But that was not it which the evil spirit pretended. There was at the Court a Lord, named Aper, as much as to say the bore, father-in-law to the Emperor Numerianus, a man powerful & factious, who after some years possessed himself of the Roman Empire by crime and treachery. Diocletian adventured to kill him, not so much for hatred, as he said, as for desire to fulfil the prophecy of the Druid, and he having thrust his sword through his body, being already arrived to the highest degrees of warfar, and well beloved of the soldiers, was proclaimed Emperor. This election made him greatly esteem the false Religion of Pagans, and to take deep roots in his superstition; which was much augmented by the Priests of Idols, mortal enemies of Christians, who persuaded him, the Gods that had given the Empire, demanded of him in requital the extirpation of Christianity, and that his hand was fatal to cut and burn the heads of the Hydra, which his Predecessors could never destroy. This afforded him matter of vanity, which he very easily apprehended, and it being also softly whispered in his ears, that the Christians had a plot upon his state, and promised themselves in their prophecies an everlasting Empire, he grew moody even to rage, employing all manner of engines to give counterpoise to their exaltations. Besides, he being ever desirous to appear exactly absolute in his commands, and effectual in his erterprises, thought he must never give over persecution, till he had buried the memory of the Christian name; and he voluntarily suffered himself so to be flatttered upon this subject, that no man could do a thing more acceptable than to tell him he had extinguished the wicked Sect, and established the honour of the Gods immortal. Columes also and Monuments were dedicated to him with this inscription, SUPERSTITIONE CHRISTI UBIQUE DELETA, which witnessed, these honours were yielded him, for having throughly purged the world from the superstition of Christ: but his conscience suggested the contrary, wherewith his spirit, fierce, and cruel, was horribly amazed.  
O God we may well say, there is neither force nor counsel can oppose your designs: your divine Providence, shut up in a cloud, roareth over crowned heads, in a moment overthroweth the mountains of winds, which the Tyrants raised one upon another, and makes the silly wisdom of the greatest politicians, appear like an owl unfeathered, and ashamed at the rays of the midday.  
Diocletian, who was reputed the sublimest, and most 
He leaveth the Empire.  courageous man of the world, upon a sudden resolved to forsake the Empire, and to hid himself in some grot, like a beast, timorous and wretched. He abandoneth the sceptre and purple, to retire himself into a little countryhouse, and with his own hands to manure a garden.  
This gave matter enough of surmise to all the 
Reasons.  world, which could not penetrate his intentions. It was believed by no man, that he did it for humility, for these apprehensions found no place in the heart of a man, who caused himself to be adored, and presented his shoes, embroidered with precious stones, to be kissed by them, who came to salute him. He notwithstanding publicly professed, that he addicted himself to this life through a generous contempt of the vanities of the world, being fully satiated with honours of the earth, and having accomplished all the hopes of the most ambitious; so that he knew what the fortune of the Caesars was, and that Diadems were charged with more thorns than pearls; that there was but one way to contentment of life, which was to despise what others a doted: and pursuing this; he wrote a letter to a friend of his, who persuaded him to reassume the Empire: If you saw the lettuce which grow in my Garden, planted with mine own hands, you would think me too good a Gardener, to become a miserable Emperor.  
This man would needs play the Philosopher, which he had never learned, and endeavour to colour this change which he had made, with apparences of virtue; but the most understanding judged it was the disease of Timon, and a melancholy enraged, that had transported him into this retirement. He was extremely confounded, to have drawn blood out of all the veins of the earth, to stifle a Religion which flourished in its proper ruins. It seemed unto him, that a million of spirits of the dead, encompassed his bed, to require from him, an account of their lives: he began to apprehend something divine in this Religion, which he had so out ragiously persecuted▪ and withal to fear a horrible punishment in the revolution of the affairs of his estate. Behold the cause why despair, anxiety, and eminent peril, made him voluntarily to despoil himself, as a man ready to be drowned, believing still, that be should have a better pennyworth of the punishments of Heaven, in the person of a Gardener, than in that of an Emperor. He anticipated his punishment, serving for executioner to himself, and leaving an Empire, which seemed as it were as fast tied to him as his soul, to make, being yet alive, an honourable recompense to the truth, which he had so unworthily offended. He persuaded Maximianus, partaker of all his crimes, to be also the companion of his fortune and both of them retired, leaving in their places Galerius and Constantius, the father of our Constantine; ignorantly giving the Empire to him, who had already brought forth a son, who should ruin all that which these two had built.  
Let us now behold his extraction and qualities, beginning from the eminencies of his birth; and let us find in his time the wicked Hermit in the bottom of his cave.   

The second SECTION. The Nobility of Constantine.  
IT is said▪ when nature made the wild lily, she also 
Plinius Campanilla. Ruaimentum natur● lilia facere discentis.  taught how to make lilies: and I may say, when she created the grandfathers and parents of great Constantine, she then began the work of a perfect Emperor, which she afterward finished in the person of this Monarch, whose life we writ.  
Nazarius observeth, that he was descended from 
Nobility of Constantine.  the Emperor Flavius Claudius, a Prince so renowned, that it was said, the moderation of Augustus Caesar, the virtue of Trajan, and piety of Antonius were assembled together, to harbour in his heart. He sustained one of the most furious incursions of the Barbarians, which ever was upon the Roman Empire, for be in one sole battle defeated three hundred and twenty thousand, and deserved a statue of gold, which was erected for him in the Capitol having reigned only two years.  
Constantius Clorus the father of our great Constantine, was as the rose amongst thorns; for he lived among those Barbarous Emperors, who made the world shed tears of blood, with so great sweetness, temper, and continency, that France and England, where he ordinarily resided, loved him as their father. That which gained him the good will of people▪ was, that he rendered himself affable to all the world▪ and thought no treasure greater than the love and affection of his subjects, He was a capital enemy 
Notable moderation in Constanti●s.  of extortions, and levies of unjust moneys, even to the lessening rather the train of his house, than to overcharge those, which other Governors had ofttimes so ill entreated.  
He being as yet but nominated for the Empire, 
Eusebius.  Diocletian understanding his deportments, whether he would teach him frugality, or that he feared lest the bright lustre of the integrity of Constantius might eclipse him, one day reproached him with his poverty, and sent Ambassadors to him expressly to see his husbandry, and exhort him to heap up treasures, as well as other Caesars. He desirous to appear 
Excellent passage.  magnificent at this meeting, spoke but one word, which was to give the people notice he wanted money. It was a pleasing spectacle to behold how all the world ran to him with full hands, every one offering him what he had, with a love so cordial, and so prompt alacrity, that nothing might be said to be more affectionate. He in few hours amassed together 
A judicious experiment.  great treasures, which he shown to these Ambassadors of Diocletian, who were much amazed thereat. But the brave Prince after their departure, restored all had been presented unto him, saving, he loved better to see riches in the coffers of his subjects, and to retain their loves for himself, than to have all the treasures of the Indies in his house, without friendship.  
It was verily a fair and generous lesson, which he taught the Great-ones of the earth, who through excess of avarice heap together all that, which they must forsake, and in great abundance of wealth have a main want of two things which ought to be eternal, to wit, Love and Truth.  
Constantius did all this by ways of moral virtues: for although he had very good inclinations to Christianity, he was no Christian by profession, being as yet straight associated to the great persecutors thereof: yet because the accidents of time and place might permit it, he freely made use of Christian Officers, judging those would be most loyal in his service, who were most constant in piety. And to this purpose Eusebius addeth, that he being one day desirous to make trial of the faith of Christians which were of his train, commanded them to sacrifice to Idols; which the most faithful constantly refused, resolving rather to forsake Court and life, than to be traitors to the character of their Religion. Others yielding to the stream of the times, and hope of worldly favours, shown themselves somewhat 
To be faithful to the King one must be loyal to God.  more pliant to his will, which he having perceived, dismissed them all; supposing they might well be perfidious to their Prince, since they had been disloyal to their God. And as for the rest having highly commended them, he afforded them extraordinary preferment.  
One would wonder from whence such sincere affections 
Helena.  should arise, in so ill education as he found among Persecutors of the faith. But for my part, I think we ought to impute this change, next after God, to the holy and courageous Helena, whom he espoused in his first marriage, and who was mother of our admirable Constantine. This incomparable Lady, that sought the Cross with more industry, than others do Empires, hath engraven her praises with an adamantine pen in the memory of all Ages. It is strange why certain modern Grecians, as Nicephorus and others, have been so desirous to attribute to Greece this creature, so that striving to make her a Grecian, they have made her an outcast. I have not so much leisure in this treatise, as to amuse myself in recounting and refuting their fabulous narrations, being naturally an enemy of men affectedly eloquent, who have no other profession but to lie in good terms. I speak that which is the more probable, agreeing 
It is the opinion of Polidorus lib. 10. Of Radul●h in his Poly. chron. l. 4. cap. 29. Of Hunter. lib. 1. Of O●●●. in the Treatise of Roman Emperors, Of Harpsselaius in his histor. Eccles of England. Lipsius is of another opinion.  with what is written by Cardinal Baronius, whose opinions are ordinarily most sincere. Helena was an English woman by Nation, daughter of one of the best qualified men of this great Island, who lodged in his house the Lieutenant of the Roman Empire. Zosimus the historian, who could neither love Constantine nor his mother, morally hating Christianity, reproacheth her, that she was no Lady, and speaketh as of a woman of base extraction: but we may well say, that his history, when he speaketh of faithful Princes, hath mingled much gall with his ink. Certain it is, that Helena being a stranger, could not be in the Roman Empire of reputation equal to so many Princesses of the Court, from whom Constantius might at that time expect alliance, yet was very honourable in her own Country, not so much by Nobility of blood, as that of faith, wherein in my opinion she already was instructed; there being many Christians in England under the Empire of Diocletian. For I hold with S. Paulinus, that she was the first Mistress of her Son in the faith, and that we should not have had a Constantine, if God had not given us an Helena, Princeps Principibus Christianis esse meruit, non tam suâ quàm Helenae matris fide, saith this great Bishop.  
Constantius at that time, Governor in great Britain 
Beauty and grace of S. Helena.  for the Roman Emperor, being lodged in the house of her father, did cast his eye upon Helena, who was endowed with an absolute beauty; by reason whereof, as we may conjecture, she was afterward called Helena in the Empire, this name being not otherwise familiar with the English. With this eminent comeliness of body she had modesty, and a singular grace, which was a ray imprinted by God upon her forehead; as he did heretofore to the virtuous Hester, to make her amiable to all the world. It is true, which Eustatius a Greek Bishop said, that beauty which hath no grace, is a bait floating on the water without a hook, to be taken, and to catch nothing: but when these two things do meet, they exercise much power over hearts.  
And at that time Constantius felt the eyes of Helena had made more impression upon his soul, than could the sword upon his body: and being a Prince of a singular continency, so highly praised by the Pagan's themselves, he would not require the daughter of his host by any other means than those of a lawful marriage, which Zosimus hath not wholly denied in this point, more respective, than some Grecians, of Christianity. The father seeing the honour 
His marriage.  done him by his host, made no difficulty to resolve upon it; and the prudent Helena with as much ease condescended to the will of those to whom she owed her being. She entered into marriage for the universal good of the Church, to which she should bring forth a Constantine. Her first care was to soften the warlike humour of her husband, by the temper of sweetness and goodness, which she gave him in such sort, that in so great a rage of shedding of Christian blood which than reigned, he kept his hands the rest of his days most innocent.  
This marriage was as the sacrifice of Juno, where the gall of the offering was never presented. There was so much love on both sides, that the spirit of Constantius lived only in that of Helena, and Helena as the flower of the sun perpetually followed the motions of this bright star, together with all the good dispositions of her husband. The young Constantine, born in the same Britain, seemed also more firmly to knit the knot of these chaste loves, when behold an obstacle which interposeth.  
Constantius is sent to succeed in the Empire, and is 
Inconstancy of men.  declared Caesar by the Emperor Maximianus, on this condition, that he should forsake Helena his wife, and marry Theodora the daughter-in-law of the same Emperor. An Empire is a mervellous flash of lightning in the eyes; it dazleth and shuts them up from all other consideration. This good husband, who had so much affection for his dear spouse, suffers himself to be won by the ambition and easiness of his nature, which bowed much to the wills of those who seemed to wish him well, and by the lustre of the purple presented to him. Maximianus would needs play the Tyrant aswell over loves, as men, and plotting marriages, placeth his daughter in the conjugal bed of Constantius, to plant him in the Throne of Caesar's.  
S. Helena, of more worth than an Empire, understanding 
Virtue of S. Helena.  the news, bore this alteration with great constancy, not complaining, either of the chance, force, or disloyalty of Constantius, but accounted it an honour, that to refuse her no other cause was found, but the good fortune of her husband. She more feared than envied Sceptres, and was hidden in her little solitude as the mother of pearl under the waves, breeding up her young Constantine in such sort, as God should direct her. Constantius touched with this admirable virtue, lived in body with Theodora, and in heart with his Helena. He gave contentment in the East to a man Imperious, and served the times, to have his will another day: But he was in the West, in the better part of himself. Besides, when he was absolute, and that he must needs divide the Empire with Galerius his Colleague, he voluntarily resigned the rest of the world unto him, to have France, Spain, and his I'll of England, where the moiety of his heart remained.  
It is a very hard matter long to restrain an honest 
Love of Constantius and S. Helena.  and lawful love. It is said when Sicily was torn from Italy by an arm of the Sea, which interposed it-self a-thwart, palm-trees were found by the violence of waters rend asunder, which in sign of love still bowed the one to the other, as protesting against the element, which had separated their loves: The like happened to Constantius and Helena: the torrent of ambitions and affairs of the world having parted their bodies, could not hinder the inclinations of their hearts. Constantius returned into Great Britain, there to live and make his tomb; for he in the end died in the City of York. And as he being on his deathbed was asked which of his children he would have succeed him, since besides Constantine he had three sons by Theodora; at that time forgetting his second wife and her offspring, he answered aloud CONSTANTINUM PIUM, I will have no other successor but the PIOUS CONSTANTINE, which was approved by all the Army.  
Thus God, the Master of Sceptres and Empires, willing to reward the modesty of the virtuous Helena, laid hold of her blood, to give it the Empire of the world; in the end, leaving the sons of Theodora, to whom Maximian promised all the greatness of the world.   

The third SECTION. His Education and Quality.  
A Great Orator hath heretofore said, speaking 
Gregor. epist. 6. l. 5. ad Childebertum. Quantò caeteros homines regia dignitas antecellit, tantò caeterarum gentium regna regni profectò vestri culmen excellit.  of Constantine, that he appeared as much above Kings; as Kings above all other men. It is the Elegy, which afterward S. Gregory gave to our Kings. Verily he was accomplished with a spirit and body in so high a degree of perfection, that there needed no more but to see him, to judge him worthy of an Empire. Nature sometimes encloseth great souls in little bodies ill composed, as fortune hath likewise placed Kings in Shepherds Cottages. It is an unhappiness deserving some compassion, when a great Captain is of so ill a presence, as to be taken for one of his servants, and be made to cleave wood, and set the pot over the fire, to prepare his own dinner, as it heretofore happened to Philopaemen.  
Constantine took no care for falling into such accidents. 
Beauty of Constantine.  It seemed, as Eumenius saith, that nature from above had been dispatched, as a brave harbinger, to score out a lodging for this great soul, and to give him a body suitable to the vigour of his spirit, so well was it composed. He was of a stature straight as a palm, of an aspect such, that the Orators of that time called it divine; of a port full of Majesty; his eyes sparkled like two little stars; and his speech was naturally pithy, sweet, and eloquent; his body so able for military exercises, that he amazed the strongest, and so sound, that he had no disease. In these members so well proportioned, reigned a vigorous spirit, very capable of learning, if the glory of Arms had not wholly transported him into actions of his profession. His father well informed of his fair qualities, caused him to come into the East, where he took a tincture of good letters, at the least so much as was needful for a warlike Emperor, and applied himself seriously to the exercise of Arms, wherein he appeared with so much admiration, that he was already beheld with the same eye, one would an Achilles or an Alexander, were they alive again.  
Diocletian, who had not as yet forsaken the Empire, would have him at his Court, to work him from apprehension of Christianity, to which he might be already much disposed, and draw him to the hatred of our Religion. It was a most dangerous school 
He was bred in the Court of Diocletian.  for this young Prince; for education ordinarily createth manners, and we are all as it were, that which we have learned to be in our younger days. Constantine notwithstanding gathered flowers in this garden-bed, not taking the breath of the serpent which was hidden there-under. He soon learned from Diocletian military virtue, prudence to govern soldiers, good husbandry in revenues, authority to become awful: but he took nothing either of his impiety or malice. This Barbarous man in the beginning passionately loved him, and would perpetually. have him by his sides; but when he saw that passing through Palestine and other parts of his Kingdom, the young Constantine was more respected than himself (so much his carriage, especially compared to the harsh countenance of the Emperor, had eminence in it) he began to grow into suspicion; and as it is said, desired secretly to be rid of him. But Constantine prevented the blow, retiring under an honourable pretext to the Court of Galerius, the associate of his father Constantius, who most willingly left this son with him in pledge, thereby to hold some good correspondence with him.  
This Galerius was a creature of Diocletians, who 
Constantine at Court of Galerius.  had heretofore declared him Caesar, yet still retained such power over him, that when he had displeased him, he made him run on foot after his coach, not deigning so much as to look upon him. He in the beginning very courteously entertained the son of his faithful friend, affording him all manner of favours, but in process of time he conceived a strong jealousy, beholding in this young Mars more excellent parts, than he had done in all the Courts of the world besides.  
Excess of virtues stand in the account of crimes with malign eyes, so as to be culpable one must be an able man. Galerius resolved to overthrow Constantine for those qualities which made him amiable to all the world; and not thinking it safe to take him away by main force, he made war against him, like a fox, persecuting him in that manner, as sometimes Saul did the invincible David. He found by chance, that a King of the Sarmatians made an incursion on the territories of the Roman Empire, and shown himself ●o furious, that none durst any more encounter him than an enraged beast. Galerius gave commission to Constantine to bid him battle, thinking it was a most honourable pretext to be freed from him, and that he had a reasonable excuse with Constantius the father, when he should show him his son dead in the bed of honour. The young man, who shut up his eyes to danger, and only opened them to glory, went thither readily; and all succeeded so prosperously, that he not only broke the troops of the Sarmatians, but also led this King along enchained to Galerius. This man, who received not so much joy to see an enemy at his feet, as sorrow for the prosperity of a friend, very coldly commended this encounter, and determined with himself to involve the virtue of Constantine in other battles, still seeking in his valour the matter of his ruin.  
It was at that time a thing very ordinary, to make condemned men to fight with savage beasts in an Amphitheatre, thereby to give contentment to those who are delighted to behold such spectacles. Galerius called for a combat of Lions, and beheld it with Constantine, who was very impatient to see that such as undertook the assault of those beasts performed it, in his opinion, so coldly. He therefore had a desire to adventure himself therein. Galerius, who observed him overstrong for men, thought he might find his tomb in the belly of Lions. Note, how under colour of withholding him, he thrust this young virtue further on, already much enkindled with his proper flames. The valiant Prince descendeth in person into the list, and assaileth the Lion, whom he slew with an incomparable strength, whereupon so loud acclamations, and such extraordinary applauses were raised through all the Amphitheatre, to the honour of brave constantin's, that it alone was sufficient to make the treacherous Caesar burst with anger.  
Envy is a mischievous vice, it resembleth those mountains which throw their burning entrails against flowers, that blossom on their tops, as the envious 
Envy.  dart gall and flames against those men, who bravely bloom over their heads.  
Galerius made the son of his friend reign in hearts, by the same ways wherewith he endeavoured to deprive him of life and Sceptre. In the end, he still persisting in his wickedness, and not ceasing to prepare new ambushes, some men of good understanding advised Constantine to withdraw himself from the malignity of this wicked man, which he did, forsaking his Court, without leave taken, and speedily returning into England, where at that time his father expected him with much impatience. Zosinius saith, that in this voyage he took the post-horses which best fitted him, and maimed all the other, to take from his enemies the means of pursuit.   

The fourth SECTION. His entry into the Empire.  
IT was in this revolution of times that Diocletian and Maximian having dispossessed themselves of the Empire, and Constantius having swayed certain years with a most prosperous and peaceable government, died at York, a City of England, to the great grief of the West, which he had so prudently governed. Constantine by good chance was there and nominated by his father for the Empire, a little before his death; which judgement was approved with such consent of the soldiers and all the people, that he had scarcely as yet wiped away his tears, when the purple was cast on his shoulders, and he saluted Emperor. The good son, who thought on nothing but to render the last duties of his piety to the memory of his father, found this honour unseasonable, and would have declined it by all means: but a grave Orator hath said in his Panegyric, there 
Quis te Cyllarus, aut Arion posset cripere, quem sequebatu● Imperium? Eumenius.  is no horse so swift, which can steal from mortal eyes a man, whom the Providence of God pursueth with Empire in hand. He is constrained to yield, though through modesty he would not be absolutely pronounced Emperor, but contented himself with the title of Caesar, well foreseeing he was to have many great affairs upon his hand, before he could be peaceably established in his throne.  
The first shock he had, came from two Kings of Germany, to wit, Assacar and Gaisus, who passing the Rhine with huge troops, endeavoured to overwhelm the Gauls, thinking to surprise a young Emperor, as yet uncollected in the uncertainty of his affairs. But he nothing amazed, speedily encounters, defeats, and takes them, leading them enchained in a triumph, whereupon succeeded an accident, which I should rather attribute to the humour of Diocletion than of Constantine. For, after he had taken his pleasure 
Constant. an. 2.  upon these two Kings, he delivered them over to wild beasts in a combat, which he caused to be presented, for the entertainment of the people. And although the Orators of his time much applauded this in him, as an act of justice, for the great havoc they both had made, notwithstanding having regard to the quality of the persons, this proceeding cannot be excused from cruelty, never made familiar to the manners of Christians.  
This foreign war drew along with it civil wars, 
A wonderful spectacle of the affairs of the world.  wherein the powers of the earth encountered together, with incredible servours, and terrible 〈◊〉. Behold a marvellous game, and a great spectacle of the vanities of the world: you shall see seven Princes, who aspired to the Monarchy, haling each one to himself a piece of the purple, which they r●nt in pulling, and despoiled themselves of it in seeking to put it on. The most fiery of them all, who would swallow the whole earth, could not have so much as five foot to cover his body.  
Maxentius, the son of Maximian, companion of Diocletian, a man lost in conscience and reputation, condemned by the judgement of his own father, who thought him unworthy to succeed in the Empire, understanding that constantin's was dead, and that they had chosen his son the young constantin's, born of an English mother, entereth into desperate furies, and being then at Rome, ready for the purpose, caused himself to be declared Emperor, by the soldiers whom he had gained, alluring them by the means of large promises. Galerius, who after the death of Constantius, and the retirement of Diocletian and Maximian, thought himself the nearest to the Monarchy, laboureth speedily to hinder the tyranny of Maxentius; and having already made two Caesars to succeed, to wit, Severus and Maximinus, he dispatcheth Severus with all diligence, to suppress Maxentius: and as this Severus was now gone out of Milan, bending towards Rome, with Legions of African soldiers, Maxemins prevented him, defeats him, as well by treason as force, takes him, and causeth him to be unworthily strangled. Galerius desperately incensed with this outrage, would needs fall upon the West, all full of lightnings and flames; but the distrusts of the safety of his territories stayed him, and made him create another Caesar, named Lycinlus: after whose nomination he survived not long, for he died of an incurable ulcer, Heaven revenging his misdeeds by a horrible malady and an enraged death. After his decease, these two Caesars, who were both of his faction, Lytinius and Maximinus beheld one another which a jealous eye, and made show of concestation; but Maximinus dying at Tharsas, of a very sudden death, decideth the difference by an irrevocable resignation.  
In the mean time Maximian, who despoiled of 
Maximi●● the ancient companion of Diocletian would needs return to the Empire, & his Oration upon that subject.  the Empire, before he had a will to resign it, as yet retained blood sparkling in the veins, like a young man: and seeing they had lifted his son to the Throne, whom he had ever reputed a man of no worth, burnt with jealousy, and burst with anger. He therefore hastened to find out his old Hermit Diocletian in his grot, 
(a) At Car●ntium a little village of Sclavoni●, which Zosimus maketh to pass for the City of Charters by a notable equivocation, reading Carmuti, for Carunti.  and endeavoured to persuade him by all means possible to reassume the Empire.  
Shall we endure (saith he) Great Augustus, this youngster so proudly to insult over the patrimony of the universe, and make sport with the majesty of the Roman Empire? Your authority transperted me to a resolution, to which, that I may speak freely, I never had any great inclination: but I patiently bore it whilst I saw Galerius and Constantius in the government of the Empire, who seemed two heads very fit for a Crown. But now behold my Maxentius, to whose trust I would not have committed the house of a  Burgess of Rome, to govern it; behold a young Britan, and another I know not who, true mushrooms sprung up in a night, that would divide between them Europe, Asia, and Africa. God knoweth, what I speak, is not through ambition, but seeing the house of our fathers, and our own all on fire; it is very good reason we bring water to quench it. What do you here in this miserable grot? You are not made for it: the Eternal Providence, which should have fixed you on the government of the world, so necessary are you for it, is ashamed to see you among hests and peasants. To speak freely, you do amiss, and it is very ill interpreted; your great courage hath ever better hitherto loved to err, than avow a fault: and I still was of your opinion, while time permitted; but at this present, when the world runs all into confusion, expecting no reparation but from your hands, with what water can you wash the stains of the blood, not of one man nor of two, but of a whole world, which shall stick upon your forehead, and of all posterity, if to obey a fantasy of spirit you suffer the Empire to be lost? Think you when these young men shall be Masters, you shall enjoy this groat in safety? You have too much courage, and Tyranny hath too much distrust, to leave you so much as life, when it can uncontrollably take it from you. Let us go presently and reassume the Diadem; we shall no sooner stamp with a foot, but we shall make all the world follow us in arms, for our service. If you still affect this kind of retirement, you shall thither return again, when we have pacified all: but believe me an Empire is a shirt, never to be put off but with life.  
These persuasions were very moving: notwithstanding Diocletian, who concluded all his wisdom in the obstinacy of his resolutions, replieth:  
Maximian, I absolutely renounce all the friendship which is between us, if ever you speak to me of such affairs. What levity have you observed in my proceed, to persuade me to this change? I protest before the 
A brave reply of Dioclesian.  God's immortal, I will never return to the government of the Empire, no more than into my mother's womb. Miserable man that you are, have you yet so little experience of the vanity of worldly things, as to prefer a rag of purple before your liberty? I do not know what contentment you may take in government, but for my part, I protest I then slept on thorns, and fed on gall. I neither enjoyed day nor night either rest or travel, nay not sleep; ambition depriving me of things which criminals find under fetters, and which nature is pleased should be common to all the world. I must live by exterior shows, countenances, and smokes; and if others once did what I would have them, they made me a thousand times do what I would not. It is said, a Planet which hath its exaltation in one sign, finds ever its counterpoise in another. If I had any good success on the one side, I was ever paid on the other with some discontent. My desires were infinite, and though I seemed very potent, I never had the hundredth part of what I wished; and verily I knew not myself what I would have, so many things desired I, which daily taught me mine own impotency. What a goodly delight have we to cover the earth with arms, and the Sea with vessels, and fetch a great circuit to seek out a felicity, which we never find? What liberty, to live a slave of the world, to possess the world? What riches, to beg even from the sweat of a peasant, to entertain riot? What tranquillity, to live perpetually in torment.  
Your conscience knows this to be true, which I say: When you and I would intermeddle with affairs, according to the obligation of our charges, what care must there be for revenues? what travel for military matters? what watching for justice? what noise upon the complaints of so many Provinces poured out at our feet? what fear of surprises? what distrust of friends? what deadly sweats for treason? what anxieties, and what apprehensions of so many lamentable events, which would happen to others before our eyes? If we resigned the care of affairs to two or three men of our cabinet, they disturbed one another, and sold us to their ambition under colour of service. In the end they caused us to carry the seeming Sceptre of all their follies, and made us accountable for all the havoc, injustices, and miseries of humane kind. Is not here cause enough to desire such slavery? If you and I had bodies of whales to cloth, and stomaches to be fed with huge sums of gold every hour in the day, I would say, that needs we must return to these kind of spoils to content us. But we have to do with few things, and for a little space. I swear unto you, that from the time I betook me to this retirement, it hath seemed that all the: elements were for me, and that I never was more powerful, more rich; or contented. I have found all that, which I sought for, health, repose, truth, wisdom, arts, and the Gods. Go not now about to colour your specious oration with pretexts of the public good, I well know where your ambition itcheth: believe me, he is nearest to heaven, who least careth in whose hands the earth is. What importeth it, that young Constantine, Maxentius, and Licinius divide the world? I shall see them strive together, like ar●s about a grain of earth. If the world must be lost, as it is very likely, I had rather it were in their hands than mine. I very well see the Empire is sick to the death; I have forsaken it, like an old Physician, & will hear no more speech of it, than of a body in the coffin. Believe me, neither you nor I can do any thing for its health but to witness our inability. All those who have admired our resolution in forsaking the Diadem, will be the first that will cast the stone against our inconstancy, if we weakly go about to require again that which we so generously have abandoned. God forbidden I should enter into a fantasy to despoil myself of a glory, that never any one Monarch had before me, which is the contempt of a world, when I had it in mine hands. If you be resolved to lose yourself, do it without company; your friendship ought to pretend nothing upon me to the prejudice of mine honour and conscience. And whereas you propose unto me the danger of my person, I do not think that envy will extend itself over the coleworts and lettuce of this little garden, planted by mine own hands: and should they come thither, I have already lived long enough, according to the course of nature, enough to satisfy the desire, which I had if glory, and too much to see the miseries of the world. I will not think much to render up this life, which I have upon my lips, to him who gave it me.  
We must needs say this man had a great understanding, and goodly Maxims: For had not mischief given him the spirit of a hangman against Charistianitie, he might be accounted in the number of the greatest Emperors. Maximian was much amazed at the constancy of his resolution. Notwithstanding, the desire he had to return to his former honour being insatiable, he spared not to take the purple again, and bear himself as Emperor, protesting it was the desire of public good, which put the Sceptre into his hands.  
It is an admirable thing, how his ambition was 
Maximian the baloon of fortune.  discountenanced. He, who promised himself, much respect, was hissed at by the soldiers, as a man vain, unconstant, and shallow; was chased out of Italy, and Sclavonia, and other places, which he sought to possess, and reduced as it were to such terms, as to see himself at the mercy of his son, which he apprehended as the last of his afflictions: Although some have thought there was collusion between the father and the son, for the accommodation of their affairs. He wished now to be in the bottom of a cave with his Diocletian: but since he had begun the play, he must finish his act. The subtle man, who well foresaw that Maxentius, a brainsick Prince, was upon ruin, resolved to league himself firmly to the fortune of Constantine. Behold why being retired in haste towards him, having engaged his house in the Empire, it was not difficult for him to find access there, as also for that the new Emperor in this great concourse of arms and affairs, was very willing to make use of the counsel of a man refined in policy.  
Maximian entereth so far into the heart and judgement of Constantine, that to tie him the more to himself, and wholly cement up his own affairs, he gave his daughter Fausta in marriage to him; whom the young Prince espoused in his second wedlock, having first of all been married to Minervina, by whom he had two children, Crispus, and Helena. This marriage of Fausta was solemnised with much magnificence, and the son rendered so much honour to his father-in-law, that he seemed to retain nothing of the Empire but the name and habit, dividing with him the rest of his power.  
We may well say the spirit of Maximian was turbulent 
3. Disposition  and insupportable; for not satisfying himself with all this excellent entertainment, he thought he was nothing, if he wore not upon his forehead the Diadem which he had forsaken. He began to set things in order at the Court, and to prepare factions in such sort, that he seemed to have no other purpose but to set his son and his son-in-law together by the ears, to enjoy both their spoils. In the end he put his design very far upon the fortune and life of Constantine, & being as he was vain to talk of his erterprises namely to his daughter Fausta, whom he esteemed to be of a good disposition, he opened himself so much to her, that he made, as saith the Wiseman, of his lips the snare of his soul. For the young married wife, having more affection in store for her husband than her father, and who having already the taste of Empire, would not yield it up to him, to whom she had owed her birth, hastened to tell all to Constantime, advising he should take heed of his father-in-law, and that he was a wicked man, who would if it were possible deceive all the Gods of Olympus for the desire he had to reign. Maximian well perceiving that his daughter had discovered the plot, and that there was no further safety for him at the Court of his son-in-law, secretly stole away, and endeavoured to regain the East; but was taken tardy at Marseilles, and there strangled, to give an end to his life & all his designs. Some have written that he hanged himself through despair of his affairs; others, that it was by the commandment of Constantine: Others have said, that his son-in-law 
Eusebius.  was willing to save him, but the public hatred born against Maximian prevented clemency, which I think the more probable. Verily I would not disguise the exorbitances practised by Constantine before his entrance into Christianity; for he cannot be justified upon some disorders: But since Zosimus the historian, who pardoneth him in nothing, chargeth him not with this death, I see no cause why we should accuse him  
Behold the desperate end of Maximian, after he 
Victor Nazarius. Non omnia potes, Dij te vindicant & invicem.  had persecuted the Church, embroiled Empires, all armed the whole world, by the extravagances of his ambition, an infamous halter taketh a little air from him, which he thought he could not freely enough breath, whilst any man stood more eminent than himself. Let us now see the good government of his son.   

The fifth SECTION. His prowess against Maxentius.  
MAxentius had reduced the City of Rome into 
Constant. 7.  such a condition, that there was no forest of thiefs wherein the lives of Citizens were not more safe than in their houses. He who held his advancement from soldiers, for recompense gave them the privilege of all crimes; so that in the brave orations which he made to them, no words were more frequent in his month, than these, Fruimini, dissipate, prodigite: Enjoy, riot, spend; and what he said in words, he first of all taught by example. What ever avarice could do in rapines, prodigality in profusions, cruelty in massacres, luxury in adulteries, a barbarous life in all kind of bruitishnes, returned upon the great Theatre of the world, in the person of Maxentius. When he had caused houses to be rifled, and unworthily massacred the best qualified Senators, he betook himself to the honour of Ladies, which he endeavoured to taint with all sorts of artifices. Among other things it is recounted, that 
Strange Tragedy.  having cast his eyes upon a Lady, a Christian by profession, and wife of a Senator of an honourable rank, he dispatched villains, who served him in such like ordures, to attach her, with sword and violence in their hands. The timorous husband said to the Emperor's Guard, he would refer this matter to be treated at the will of his wife. She understanding what was practised went presently out, and shown to these wicked messengers, that she was not now in a fit state to be presented before the Emperor's eyes, and prayed, they would give her a little time to put on her attires; which they most willingly condescended unto. The courageous woman, inspired as it was thought with a particular instinct from God, cast herself at the feet of our Saviour, holding a poniard in her hands, and thereupon began to say: What shall we do, O holy chastity, which I with so much 
Simil. S. Ambros. l. 3. de virginibus.  loyalty have preserved in the conjugal bed, never having admitted a foreign love to enter into my heart? Shall we now abandon thee to the pollutions of a Tyrant, forsaken both by God and men? Let us rather die. Die? It is one of my great desires, but to die by my own hands is a sin. Yet the inspiration of God dictateth to me, he will not be offended with the remedy, which is only left me to decline my happiness. I will follow the spirit and leave nothing to the flesh, wherewith to displease God. If there be a fault in it, my hope shall smother it, and my blood shall wash it away. Upon these words, interrupted with sighs, she thrust the poniard into her bosom, giving end to her life, to eternize her honour.  
The Bawds who expected her at the gate, wondering much at the length of time she bestowed in dressing, entered into the chamber, and found her drenched in her own blood: wherewith they were so amazed, that fear gave them wings to fly, and make relation to the Emperor of what had passed: but the wretched Pharaoh, was not for all this any thing mollified, still continuing his sacrileges with magic and horrible witchcrafts, until such time that Constantine came to awaken him.  
Behold one of the noblest acts of valour, which hath ever been among all the Emperors, that either have preceded or succeeded the great Constantine. For having sought peace by all manner of reasonable ways, and seeing Maxentius would by no means hearken unto it, but that he caused his images and statues to be broken and dragged over dunghills, he resolved to assault him with a just war, in which he began, although not publicly, to abandon the false Gods, and resign himself into the hands of the Saviour of the world, thereunto invited by that excellent vision of the Cross, and other circumstances, which I reserve for subsequent Sections, where I intent to speak of his calling to Christianity.  
It was from this time he took the fatal banner, called the Labarum, wherein the name of our Saviour was written in certain cyphers.  
The Army of Maxentius was composed, by the report of Zosimus of an hundred threescore and ten thousand footmen, with eighteen thousand horse; forces so terrible, that they were able to stop the most adventurous.  
Constantine amassed together Gauls, and from England, and France it-self, in the name of inhabitants upon Rhein, all the forces he could get, and put into the field about ninety thousand footmen, with many horses of service, which only amounted to eight thousand. It is the supputation of Zosimus, although others sufficiently declare the troops were far less. He, who by relation of Eusebius was then about thirty years of age, although others make him younger, showed in the manage of this Army, all the qualities which might be desired in the most accomplished Captain. For he marched from the Rhein unto the walls of Rome, with singular order, and unparalelled dexterity.  
When he entered into Italy he found many resistances both of men and Cities, who endeavoured to stop his passage, in such sort, that needs he must give two or three battles, which he most courageously won, forcing the rebellious Cities, and very courteously using those who rendered themselves into his hands. In the end he resolved to besiege the City of Rome. Maxentius, who might have tired him out with long delays, resolved to oppose, and with all expedition join battle, considering in the vast multitude of his forces, which were very fresh to set upon an Army, already wearied with so great a journey.  
Besides, he had many notable works over Tiber, on the bridge Milvius, which the Romans now call Ponte-mole. His enginiers promised him, that with certain buckles of iron they would build and demolish the bridge as he should think good: So that when his Army was to pass, it should go upon firm ground, and when Constantine with his troops set foot upon it, they were but to let a certain engine lose to drown the bridge and cast it into the river. It seemed to Maxentius he had two strings to his bow, either to overthrow Constantine in the field with a huge Army, or entrap him with the stratagem of this bridge, when he was engaged in the battle, and that he had given him a taste of pursuit.  
Upon this resolution he passed the Tiber with his Army. Constantine, most glad to have drawn him out of the walls of Rome, arrangeth his battalions with marvellous dexterity, and disposed his soldiers to the fight. Behold two dreadful Armies, which looked one upon another like to huge clouds full of storms, ready to pour down upon the heads of many mortals. The lot is cast, and the quarrel of the Empire of the world must be determined in few hours. The brave Constantine resolved with that small proportion of horse he had, yet men most daring, to assail the Cavalry of Maxentius, and for a singular testimony of his valour, and the trust he had in God, he first of all appeared in the head of his Army, and with many paces set forward before the rest, making his horse curvet in a martial manner. It was an easy matter to know him, for his arms shined all with gold, and his helmet was set with precious stones. His enemies began to fall roundly upon him; but the Captains of Constantine, seeing their Emperor so generously to outbrave danger, followed him with such fervour, as if every one of them expected an Empire for recompense. They fell like lightning upon their enemies, who were much amazed at this first charge; yet they notwithstanding made good resistance, but maugre all their endeavours, those of Constantine broke through, and defeated them.  
Maxentius beholding his Cavalry, in which he 
Maxentius defeated.  reposed all his hope, to be so ill handled, resolved upon a retreat, to make use of his bridge, and drown Constantine engaged in the pursuit of those that fled. But oh the justice of God The wicked man, as saith the Royal Prophet, falleth into the ditch which he himself had digged. It is not known whether those besotted engineers failed in their design, or whether the great numbers of those that fled caused this ruin: but the bridge broke under Maxentius his feet, and threw him into Tiber all bloody, like another Pharaoh in the red sea, with all the principal of his Empire, who environed his person. He amazed at so violent a fall, hoped yet to recover the other shore, being excellently mounted, where he was seen to wrestle a certain time with the waves, which in the end swallowed him up. There was in the beginning a great slaughter of those, who made resistance: but in the end seeing their Emperor drowned, they yielded all to the mercy of Constantine, who stayed the victorious sword in the hands of soldiers, to consecrate it to clemency.  
He did well to search for the body of Maxentius in Tiber to take off his head, which was fixed on the point of a lance, and born to Rome and afric, to satisfy justice for the enormous forfeits he had committed when he was alive. From thence this brave Conqueror is received in the City of Rome, as an Angel descended from heaven, for the deliverance of the world. Never was triumph so highly valued as his, because in the trophies of other Emperors, they triumphed for the gaining of some far-distant Province; but in this, lost Rome recovered it-self. The Queen of Nations ceased to be the prey of Nations, & breathed now a sweeter air of ancient liberty. If ever Prince saw a glorious day in all his life, this was it, which shined then over the head of Constantine. They came from all parts of Italy to behold him, and those who had seen him thought they had lived long enough, supposing it unfit to behold any other humane thing. Amongst so many notable spectacles, at that time in the City, none was looked upon, but he; his face was the object of all their admirations, and his valour the matter of all discourses.  
The Senate, to witness the joy they conceived for this victory, prepared him a triumphal Arch, all of marble, one of the stateliest monuments that ever had been raised to the honour of a Conqueror, wherein this Inscription was engraven.  
IMP. CAES. FL. CONSTANTINO MAXIMO. P. F. AUGUSTO. S. P. Q. R.  
QUOD INSTINCTU DIVINITATIS, MENTIS MAGNITUDINE, CUM EXERCITU SUO, TAM DE TYRANNO, QUAM DE EJUS OMNI FACTIONE, UNO TEMPORE, JUSTIS REMPUBLICAM ULTUS EST ARMIS, ARCUM TRIUMPHIS INSIGNEM DICAVIT.  
This said that the Senate and people of Rome dedicated this triumphal Arch to Constantine Emperor and Great Pontifice, happy Prince, and Augustus: because by an instinct of Divinity, and an admirable greatness of courage, he had with his Army freed the Commonwealth from a Tyrant and all his faction, by the justice of his arms: Where, in the Arch on the right hand were read these words, Liberatori Urbis; on the left hand, Fundatori Quietis; which clearly declared him, the Freer of the City, and Founder of Repose. There was likewise inscribed on it the number of years, in which they desired to render vows for this glorious victory. Observe, as you pass along, that the Senate was as yet Pagan, yet knowing the devotion which Constantine bore to the Saviour of the world, though he were not then a declared Christian, they abstained from the mention of Gods, and spoke only of one Divinity.   

The sixth SECTION. The death of Diocletian, and feats of Arms, performed by Constantine against Lycinius.  
SInce I have undertaken to represent the famous warlike Acts of Constantine to show his arrival to Monarchy, I will here insert the end of Diocletian and Lycinius. When Constantine caused his Standards to march against Maxentius, there remained no more of so many Caesars, but Lycinius, who was created a little before the death of Galerius. The brothers of Constantine would alter nothing. Diocletian remained in his retirement. There was none but this Lycinius, who was an old soldier, a man raised from nothing, but advanced by arms, and who had done so good services to Galerius, the creature of Diocletian, in the war which he had against the Persians, that out of mere respect of his valour he was chosen Emperor.  
In all other things he was of a rude and gross spirit, as derived from Peasants, and who all his life had done nothing else but handle iron, either for tillage, or war, not having acquired any neatness of a civil life. Behold the cause, why being ignorant and proud, he extremely hated learning, which he called the poison of the Empire: and had it been in his power, he would have banished all knowing men, that there might be none able to reproach his ignorance. Constantine, as wise as he was warlike, saw well he must manage this spirit, who might much trouble him in his design against Maxentius, for which cause following this counsel, he promised him a share in the Empire, and his sister Constantia in marriage. It is held this marriage was solemnised at Milan, a little after the defeat of Maxentius, where many treaties passed between Constantine and Lycinius touching their principalities, and from that time a most favourable Edict was made for the re-establishment of Christians, & the honour of Christianity; which Lycinius, although a Pagan, refused not to sign.  
Victor addeth, that Diocletian was sent for to the wedding of Lycinius. For it was much desired to hear him speak, and see what he had upon his heart; his spirit being very able to give cause of distrust to two Princes, who were desirous to establish themselves in all security.  
The subtle Hermit on the other side, who feared to be overtaken, made an answer, in which he besought their Majesties to give him leave to live in his Hermitage, and afford him that for delight, which others commonly taken for punishment. That he had not for the time to come any mind upon marriages, and that as his age dispensed him from voyages, so retirement freed him from the vain pleasures of the world. That his presence contributed nothing to this action; that the uneasiness of ways would much prejudice his health. In the end, since the resolution he had made never to enter into the manage of any affairs, had left him no other share but vows and prayers, he would employ them for their prosperities.  
These fair words satisfied not the Emperors, who had a desire to draw the wolf out of the wood, which gave them occasion to write back again to Diocletian letters very sharp, as if they would willingly involve him in the business of Maxentius. At this time the miserable man plainly saw, the vengeance of God sought him out, in the place which he so obstinately chose for his repose.  
When that notable Edict was read unto him, which was made in favour of Christians, and that he understood Churches were already built for them every where, that they assembled to celebrate their feast with all liberty, that Constantine had caused the Cross to be set even in his banners, and that on every side the praises of Jesus of Nazareth were preached: On the contrary, that the Temples of false Gods were shut up, their statues broken, their Altars overturned, and that all Paganism went to confusion; this direful Persecutor than felt an infinite number of vipers to tear his entrails. And seeing besides, 
Victor.  that he with so much sharpness was sent for, he imagined the Christians victorious over persecution, would rend him in a thousand pieces. Thereupon, having his soul extremely perplexed, and his body burdened with diseases, languishing and incurable, he perpetually invoked death, the most amiable of all his Goddesses, to deliver him from the ignominies and toils of life. In the end she too slowly answering his desire, as the most probable opinion speaks, he hastened her pace, taking poison, as a man who could not die by a worse hand than his own.  
Behold the desperate end of the greatest Persecutor which the Church hath ever had: who endeavouring to extirpate our Religion, hath filled our Martyrologes with the names of Martyrs, our Altars, with veneration, Christianity with Crowns, and the world with virtues, and buried himself in the tomb of despair and infamy; to teach all Greatons; that a worse blindness cannot fall upon them, than the persecution of Innocents', whose blood hath a voice in it, which crieth out to the memory of all Ages.  
Lycinius being alienated from the friendship of 
Condition of Lycinius.  Constantine, failed not to put Diocletian into the number of the Gods, although himself were shortly after to be razed from the number of men. This creature, who by report of Heathens of his own factions was covetous, choleric, and lascivious, could not long comply with the humours of Constantine: for he ceased not to torment the Christians which were in his Empire, with excessive cruelties, though himself, as we have said, had signed Edicts in their favour.  
Constantine, who suffered as much as he thought 
First battle against him.  reasonable, seeing his spirit became untractable, armed against him. The first encounter was at Cibales, a City of Sclavonia, where Constantine was encamped upon a hill, and Lycinius in the valley. The battle was very sharp on both sides, it lasted a whole day, from morning till night, they scarcely breathing; & therein Constantine was in much danger, had it not been that the spur of honour that pricked him on, made him do admirable things, which in the end discomfited Lycinius, and put him to flight. He went creeping away, like an old serpent, who had received many blows, but yet retained strength and poison. For having gained Thrace, where he thought himself strongest, he rallied his troops, and disposed himself for another war.  
Constantine stoutly follows him, finding means 
2. Battle.  to pass the rivers, whereof these flying enemies had broken the bridges to cut off their way, and he so sped, that he suddenly was in Thrace, near to the Army of Lycinius. From that very evening he ranged his forces for fight, resolving to give them battle at the break of day. Lycinius seeing they followed him so hard at heels, amde him a virtue of necessity, and animated himself to sustain the shock, having no want of men able to do bravely. This second battle was also very rough, both parties bearing themselves man fully: and the balance of victory seeming not yet to incline either to one side or other, behold five thousand Legionaries of Constantine, that had very long chased Lycinius, not being able to overtake him, arrived in the heat of this battle, and fell upon his Army to enclose it, but he, who was, to say truly, valiant in the art military, defended himself very well, and in the end freeth himself from this fight, with composition to leave Sclavonia to Constantine, contenting himself to reign in Thrace and the Eastern parts.  
This accord was signed with the blood of Valens, whom Lycinius had before created Caesar, and whose punishment Constantine demanded in this treaty of peace, as he who was author of all those Civil dissensions. This peace so plastered up, lasted not long. Lycinius, still upon alteration, could not contain himself within the limits of reason. He gathered together a great multitude of ships, from the coast of Cyprus, Egypt, Venetia, Africa, Bythinia, and other places, and set a great Armado to sea. On the other part, he had an hundred and fifty thousand Foot in the field, with fifteen thousand horse. Constantine well perceived that he aimed at Monarchy, and had set up his rest: This was the cause why he prepared forces to confront him, making a naval Army of about two hundred great ships of war, with two thousand of burden, a foot-force of an hundred and twenty thousand men, ten thousand as well Cavaliers as brave sea men.  
Now was the time the affair of Empires must peremptorily 
Great victory of Constantine  be decided. Constantine armed with the confidence which he had in the Saviour of the world, whose banner was then advanced in all his Armies, knowing that Lycinius was at that time encamped at Adrianople, overtook him passing the river Ister, at this present called Mariza, so suddenly, that at the first encounter he routed all his Army, killing thirty four thousand of his men, and taking a very great many other prisoners, who yielded to his obedience. Lycinius was so amazed with this blow, that he speedily retired to Byzantium, which afterwards was Constantinople, where Constantine pursued, and hardly pressed him. In the mean time Ablantus, who had the charge of the Sea-forces of Lycinius, resolving to give battle, put to sea a great quantity of vessels in a straight, which could not bear such a number. The Admiral of Constantine determined to assault him, with only four-score light ships, who at advantage assailed him, finding him much plunged in his fleet. Night having broken off this first encounter, they began afresh in the open sea, where the tempest handled the vessels of Lycinius so ill, that an hundred and thirty were lost, and the rest put to flight.  
Whilst these things were in doing, Constantine very straight besieged the City of Byzantium, having raised plat-forms that were like huge mountains, which at the least equalled in height the walls of the City, from whence he battered it, and endamaged it with much facility. Lycinius seeing it was not the securest way for him; gaineth Bythinia, where he trieth his utmost endeavour, making arrows of all wood: but all succeeded so ill with him, that of an Army which exceeded an hundred thousand men, there scarce remained thirty thousand. He, who could not yet find in his heart to give over, shuts himself up in the City of Nicomedia, where Constantine furiously assaulteth him; so that seeing himself upon the extreme despair of his affairs, he went out of the City, and cast himself at the feet of Constantine, laying aside the purple robe and Diadem, and only demanding a place of safety, where he might pass the rest of his days, which could not much longer continue, for he was fully threescore years of age.  
A certain Priest of Nicomedia, who lived at that 
End of Lycinius.  time there, and who set hand to this History, saith, that Constantine sent him into France to bewail his sins; but the more probable opinion is, that he put him to death, being weary of his disturbances, and having much distrust of his spirit, notwithstanding that Constantia still lived, and begged of her brother the life of her husband. Constantine cannot be excused to have used most severe punishments even against his nearest kindred, having still in his head the fire of war and ambition, and not being reconciled but very late to the mildness of Christianity.  
Behold how so many Emperors being removed, he remained sole Master of the world, making afterwards divisions to his brothers, the sons of Theodora, as he thought good. He that would attentively consider this arrival of Constantine to Monarchy, and the reign of more than thirty years, which God gave him, shall see more clear than day, that all these favours came not to him, but by the virtue of true Religion, whose Altars he the first of all Emperors exalted.   

The seventh SECTION. The vices and passions of Constantine before Baptism, with the death of Crispus and Fausta.  
I Will not here present unto you a Constantine in outward lineament, as Eusebius hath done, to cover his faults, and only expose beauties to view. It is no wonder that he had vices before Baptism, but it is the miracle of Christianity, to change Lions into Lambs, sinks into fountains, and thorns into roses and tulipans. The ice of winter makes the beauty of the spring, darkness contributes to the lustre of light, nor ever is the sun more bright, than after an eclipse. So grace, which is the splendour of eternal light, makes itself to be seen with more triumphs in arms, where it hath subdued most iniquities. It is certain, that this warlike humour of Constantine, transported him into vanities, ambitions, jealousies, and in some sort into a bloody disposition, which was greatly fomented by the education he received in the Palace of Diocletian.  
Behold a prodigious accident, which happened in his house, by a precipitation ill ordered, the death of his poor son Crispus, poisoned by the commandment of his father, upon a wicked and sinister calumny raised upon him by his stepmother. Verily my pen shaketh with humour, being to touch upon this history, and I know many Grecian flatterers either have passed it over in silence, or been willing to disguise it in favour of Constantine: but the holy Martyr Artemius freely avoweth before Julian the Apostata, who reproached him with it, forbearing to deny a fact, which was very notorious, yet desirous to sweeten it by intervening circumstances. Cardinal 
Constant. 19 Bar.  Baronius is much displeased with Eusebius, who hath spoken nothing of it, as if it were a thing very strange, that a man, who wrote to the son the life of his father, in form of a Panegirick, should not charge his writings with crimes and furies, which men then endeavoured to suppress by all means. Great men have 
Alban. animal. Albertus.  their judgements too tender for such like histories, and ordinarily resemble that creature, which bears his gall in his ear. They cannot hear a true History in any thing which toucheth them, without offence; they must sometimes understand their own lives in the rumours of people: where the one unlimittedly takes the liberty of speaking all, since the other takes licence of doing all.  
The vices of Constantine about these times cannot be concealed. But he having caused his son Crispus to be put to death, and thereunto added the death of his wife Fausta, who had raised the calumny against the innocent, this distich was affixed to the gates of his Palace, attributed afterward to Consul Ablavius:  
Saturni aurea saecla quis requirat?  
Sunt haec gemmea, sed Neroniana.  
It was an allusion to the humour of Constantine, who much loved pearls and precious stones; as also to that, which passed in the matter of Crispus and Fausta, the substance whereof is this: Let us not seek any more for the golden Age of Saturn: Behold one all of pearl; but the Age of Nero.  
Let us speak what we think most probably to have happened in this affair. We have already mentioned, how Constantine in the prime of his youth was espoused in his first wedlock to Minervina, upon 
The first marriage of Constantine.  which the Writers of his time have much praised him, as a Prince very chaste, who to avoid wandering and unlawful pleasures, willingly tied himself to a legitimate marriage, and from that time took upon him the spirit of a husband. It is an easy matter to believe, that this Minervina, whom he married, had taken the name of Minerva, because of the 
Minervina.  wisdom, grace, and beauties, resplendent in her person. It seemeth these great perfections of mind and body, ever draw along with them a certain fate, which affordeth them no long continuance, but rather the lives of roses, that in the evening make a tomb of the scarlet, whereof in the morning they made a cradle. The poor Princess quickly died, after she had brought forth to Constantine at one birth, which was her first and last, two twins, to wit, a son named Crispus, and a daughter, who from the name of her Grandmother, was called Helena, and afterward married to Julian the Apostata.  
This Crispus was verily the most accomplished 
Crispus and his qualities.  Prince of that Age, for he at the very first sucked in piety with his milk, having the most glorious S. Helena for his first Mistress in Christianity. From thence being initiated in the study of good letters, he had for Tutor that famous man Lactantius Firmianus, one of the most eloquent and ancientest Authors of Christianity: who being the instructor of Caesar's, notwithstanding lived in such poverty, that he with much straitness enjoyed the necessities of life. Crispus having manured his spirit with learning, very courageously addicted himself to the exercise of arms; wherein he very well expressed the Genius and dexterity of his father, but with much more grace and sweetness. For Histories assure us, he was of visage most amiable, full of attractives and admiration, which made upon the minds of men so much the more impression, as they were engrafted in a singular modesty, and a goodness so natural, that no man could near hand behold it without affection.  
O God, what fury is there in dishonest love, and how much did it disturb the house of Constantine! If Lords and Ladies, who give admittance to affections and thoughts unlawful, did well consider the acerbities which attend this passion, they would rather tear their hearts out with their nails, than pollute them with such ordures. It is not without cause, what the wise Aristophanes hath said, that love was banished 
So Simon the Magician said, that the soul of Helena had put fire, trouble, and jealousy among the Angel●, but that taking from th● this object of concupiscence he had accorded them. Ph●●astrius de haeres.  from Heaven, as a trouble-feast and disturber of the repose of Divinities. The truth is, where this passion setteth foot, it exileth from thence innocency, and tranquillity, two the most precious pearls of life; and and were there wicked loves in Heaven, there would no longer be felicities. Happy is that life, which hath no eyes for those carnal beauties, and is all eyes to preserve itself, especially in the beginning, from such surprisals.  
The miserable Fausta wife of Constantine, daughter of Maximian, who had received good education in the house of her father, and was of a very sensual humour, even so far as to control the devotions of her husband, and pick quarrels against Religion, which she would never embrace, had in this disorder vehement dispositions▪ sinisterly to admit the love which the beauty of Crispus might easily afford her. This divine feature standing always as an object for the wanton eyes of the Empress, enkindled so much fire in her veins, that another flame must be found to quench it. The children which she had by her husband were nothing to her, in comparison of Crispus; Crispus was in her heart, Crispus in her thought, Crispus in her discourse, wherein she yet had some temper, fearing to discover her passion. Yet could she not forbear but say, Crispus was the idea of perfect men, and the incomparable son, whose worth and virtue would survive with the world. It was much wondered, how a stepmother should entertain so much good opinion of the son of her husband; yet she having hitherto lived within the limits of honour, it was interpreted, all these affections were sincere and innocent. Crispus, who then thought not upon his own defence, in a combat that was nothing but courtesy, took all these favours as witnesses of a most unspotted amity, reciprocally rendering to her much respect, wherewith she shown herself not a little troubled, desiring he would treat with her in a more free fashion: for love had already despoiled her of majesty.  
Saint Augustine hath very well said, that he who will punish an exorbitant spirit, must leave it in its own hands, to serve both as a scaffold and executioner to itself. The unfortunate Fausta, who had already given overfree passage to sin, felt accesses of ice and fire, of desires, of affrightments, of confidence, and remorse. Her conscience accused her in the bottom of her heart, and ceased not to show her the enormity of this fault, when by the help of impudence, she thought to have quenched these little sparkles of goodness, which God soweth in the most forsaken hearts. She knew not how or where to begin this pernicious design. Crispus seemed to be too chaste, his Christian religion made him in her opinion too austere, his spirit was as yet too tender, and not capable of a most powerful wickedness; and although he should consent, where may faithful complices be found, fit occasions, and liberty, to content an infamous desire? The pain which ordinarily attendeth crimes, the rigour of a Constantine jealous of his bed, the infamy, and apprehensions of punishments, coming to fall upon her thoughts made her well to see both the abyss and horror: but passion transported her hood-wincked, beyond all considerations; so that one day taking her opportunity, she accosted the young Prince with words, which sufficiently testified her a lost woman. But he, who would not at the first put her into confusion, with modesty declined what she had said; and interpreted it far from her thought. She, who would no longer appear a Lucrece, being much troubled he should understand in a chaste sense, what she had spoken to an ill purpose, unfolds herself so freely, that the wise Crispus, no further able to suffer this blushless spirit, spoke a word to her rough and hopeless, That if she persisted in this infamous desire, he would give the Emperor notice; and thereupon flew from her like a lightning, and withdrew, leaving her in a despair and rage, not sufficiently to be expressed. All her love then turned into a diabolical hatred, which suggested 
Love turned into rage.  furies and black thoughts, resolving with herself to use him as as the wife of Poti●●ar did Joseph. She served herself with all the arms of grief, which were at that time very natural to her, ceasing not to weep and sigh before her husband, as if she had afflicted herself for another's sin: yet had she so much cunning, that she feigned to hid her tears; and smother her sighs, to render the disguise more dangerous, by a pretext of modesty.  
The Emperor seeing her in this plight, asked the 
A wicked calumny.  cause of her sadness. She answered, it was fit for his Majesty not to know it. He the more persisted to understand what she feigned to conceal, pressing and interrogating her, to draw her calumny from her, with as much earnestness as one would a truth. In the end she declared with many counterfeit horrors, and words cruelly modest, That his son Crispus would have enterprised upon the honour of his bed; but God be thanked, her faith inviolable put her under safety, free from such dangers: And that she demanded no other satisfaction from this miserable man, who was fled, but the remorse of his wicked conscience. Constantine recommending silence unto her, entered into a black and deep anger, proposing unto himself, that the retreat of his son was a note of his crime; he determined therefore to put him speedily to death, and for this purpose, calling one of his servants, the most trusty and best resolved for executions, having under great oaths and execrations obliged him to secrecy, gives him express commandment to meet with his son Crispus as soon as he could, to treat warily with him, not affrighting, nor giving him the least suspicion, and withal to fail not to serve him at his first repast with poison well prepared, so to send him into the other world. This man amazed at such a dreadful command, asked of the Emperor, If he had so well resolved on this affair, as to use a son of so great merit in this manner. Yea, saith he, I have thought upon it, and it is necessary he die: for I must tell you, it not being needful to inform you further, that besides the practice conceived by him, his life is incompatible with mine. The other supposed he had plotted some conspiracy upon the life and sceptre of his father; behold the cause, why he hastened the blow, and being already very familiar with poor Crispus, he accosted him with great compliments of honour and courtesy, feigning to make him merry, because indeed he then saw him in a very sad humour, upon that which had passed between him and Fausta, covering his thoughts as much as he might, to preserve the honour of his wicked stepmother. Hereupon an unhappy banquet was prepared for the innocent, 
Death of Crispus.  which was the last of his life, poison being traitorously given him, there where he lest expected it.  
Verily this death, which way soever we look, is most lamentable. The Tragedies which bemoan it with so much ornament, as that of our Stephanius, have much spirit in them; but taking only the thing in the simple nakedness of the fact, it ministereth matter of compassion to hearts most obdurate: A young Prince, at that time the most absolute in the world, beautiful as an Absalon, valiant as an Alexander, innocent as a Joseph, at that time taken away, when he was at the gates of the Empire which expected him, and taken away by a death so hideous and treacherous, and by the commandment of his father, who caused him to die as one incestuous, not admitting him to speak, nor permitting him to justify himself, nor affording leisure to know himself, nor one small moment of time to prepare himself for death, which is allowed to the most criminal. He was silently involved in the extremity of unhappiness, to shut up the mouth of innocency, and open that of calumny, to rail against his very ashes.  
The generous soul, ever prepared for this passage by the laws of Christianity, which it had so devoutly embraced, issued out of his chaste body, to hasten to the crown of the Elect, leaving incomparable sorrows behind it. Alas! what doth not a wicked affection, a calumny, a suspicion, an unbridled anger, an inconsiderate word? O you Great-ones, will you never learn wisdom by the evils of others?  
As soon as this news came to the Court, the wicked 
The rage of Fausta turned into pity.  Fausta well saw it was an effect of her treachery, and lively representing before her own eyes this poor Prince, whom she before had so much affected, at that time so unworthily massacred, in a beauty, in an age, wherein such as die are most pitied, and in a goodness, which would have given matter of compassion to Tigers and Lions; all her passion and hatred was turned into an enraged sorrow, which made her cry out, and lament at the feet of her husband, confessing she had slain the chaste Crispus, by her detestable calumny, that it was she who had solicited 
Calumny discovered.  him to evil, but had found him a Joseph, endowed with an invincible chastity, and had detested her sin, as it well deserved; whereupon excited with choler, and fearing to be prevented, she had proceeded to this dreadful accusation, and therefore was unworthy to live, since she had slain the most innocent Prince of the world, and stained his own father with his proper blood.  
Constantine amazed beyond description at so prodigious an accident, had neither reply, nor sense of a man, so much wonder had rapt him from himself: but when he saw his holy mother Helena, who had so tenderly bred up the poor Crispus, bewailing him with unconsolable tears, and begging of the father, at the least the body of her grandchild, to wash it with the waters of her eyes, and bury it with her hands, saying, the wicked beast had slain her Joseph; he was pierced to the quick with compassion, mingled with fury. Then the poor sister of the deceased, who seemed nought else but the shadow of her brother, coming also to dissolve herself wholly into tears, near to her Grandmother, this spectacle the more enkindled the passion of the Emperor: And thinking that Fausta well deserved death, being convinced of such a mischief by her own confession, he caused her to enter into the bath, and so in an instant to be smothered with the vapour, which was a punishment wherewith many times they put persons of quality to death.  
Behold the issue of the hideous loves of Fausta, to 
Death of Fausta.  teach all Ladies, that those passions, which begin by complacencies, soothe, and curiosities, very often end in horrible tragedies. In the mean time the house of Constantine remained long drenched in a dead silence, and all was very secretly carried, so that none knowing what publicly to think of the death of Crispus and Fausta, it gave occasion to many to affirm they died for some conspiracy.  
We cannot here excuse Constantine of a violent anger, a precipitation, & a proceeding too bloody. Howsoever, he caused Crispus to die under a false belief of impurity, which he thought was to be revenged, and Fausta punished by way of justice. Behold why this sin, though it hath much mischief in it, yet it hath not the determinate wickedness of the sin of David in the death of Urias, because the one wrought with a manifest knowledge of his crime and the other proceeded therein with much ignorance, and sense of justice. Yet Constantine after these exorbitances was touched with great remorse, which in the end put him actually on the profession of Christianity.   

The eighth SECTION. The calling of Constantine to Christianity. The progress of his Conversion and Baptism.  
I Have always esteemed the saying of S. Paulinus, 
Constant. 19  which we before alleged, very probable, that the faith of S. Helena did not only make Constantine a Christian, but the first of Christian Princes. This good mother without doubt gave him the first tincture of Christianity; but being of an ambitious and warlike spirit, who went along with the main stream of the world, he was not so soon confirmed in the faith and integrity of religion. Notwithstanding, he began to have most lively apprehensions for his conversion about the seventh year of his Empire, which was the year of the defeat of Maxentius; whilst he had this great war upon his hands his temporal necessities opening his eyes, that he might have recourse to spiritual forces. He then endeavoured, as he afterward relateth, 
Beginning of the conversion of the Emperor.  to meditate seriously within himself, that there was some Divine Providence from Heaven, which gave concussions to victories and Empires, without which the counsels of men were cloudy, their Armies weak, and labours vain. Afterward remembering what had passed in the Roman Empire, he saw that those Emperors, who had showed themselves most fervent in the superstition of false gods, and were the greatest persecutors of Christians, had been infamous and unhappy, not beloved of the people, without name, not honoured, issueless, and and for the most part odious and execrable to posterity. He then imagined, that this Religion, which professed so much sanctity, and was grown up in the tempests of three hundred years, had something divine in it, and that perhaps it would not be amiss to invoke in this great labyrinth of affairs, the God of his mother.  
As he then went up and down revolving these discourses in the bottom of his thoughts, casting his eyes up to Heaven, he perceived about the evening, the figure of a great Cross, all composed of most resplendent light, which seemed unto him to bear these Characters, IN HOC VINCE, Vanquish in this sign. This was much more important than the bow in Heaven, which Augustus Caesar saw about the sun, when he entered into Rome to take possession of the Empire. Notwithstanding, Constantine and the Captains, who observed this sign in Heaven, had some distrust, because of the figure of the Cross, which till then was ever accounted of an ill presage. Now, as the Emperor slept in the night, in great perplexity of cogitations, it seemed that the God of the Christians appeared unto him, with the same sign which he had seen the day before, commanding him expressly to carry it hereafter in his Ensigns.  
Following this vision, he caused a Banner to be made, in the manner as Eusebius describeth it, who had seen it. It was as a lance all of gold, which had a piece of wood athwart in form of a Cross, from whence hung a rich embroidery, in which was the image of the Emperor, and about it a Crown of gold and pearl, which bore in the middle the two first letters of the name of our Saviour. This was from that time forward his prime Banner, which the Romans called the Labarum. It was not otherwise different from the standards of the Roman Bands, but that it carried the sacred cipher of this venerable Title, which was not understood by all the world, but held by the Pagans as some devise of the fantasy of spirit. The war against Maxentius having so prosperously succeeded, as we have said, under this propitious standard, Constantine held the Saviour of the world in great veneration, and made the Edicts, which we know, in favour of Christians. Notwithstanding, he for a long time deferred his public and solemn profession thereof, whether it were that the course of great warlike erterprises and affairs diverted his mind, or whether he feared to distaste the prime men of the Empire by this change. It is likewise thought, that his wife Fausta, whom he in the beginning much affected, greatly weakened his love to Christianity; in such sort, that the Christians ceased not to be still ill entreated in this remissness of the Emperor. In the 
Absolute conversion of the Emperor.  end, after the calamity of the death of his son and wife, so tragically happened in his own house, he seriously opened his eyes, about the nineteenth year of his Empire, to seek remedy for his evils.  
Zosimus, a Pagan, leadeth us as it were not thinking of it, to the knowledge of the time, and manner of his Baptism. For he saith, that Constantine, after the death of Crispus and Fausta, had great remorse of conscience; and that not wholly having abjured Paganism, he sought from Soothsayers, and Pagan Philosophers, as others add, the means to purify himself from the blood, which he so unfortunately had shed. It is said that one Sopater, the wisest of the 
Discourse of Sopater.  Platonists, who had sometime lived in his Court, told him these stains of blood would stick on souls, and never be washed out, and that if they departed this life without punishment, they would re-enter into other bodies to expiate in the end those crimes which they had committed, and that there was no other remedy. The Emperor found this Philosophy very harsh, and his spirit being much tormented with very strange disturbances; behold, saith Zosimus, an Egyptian newly come from Spain to Rome: (note that he meaneth the great Bishop Hosius, who was sent at the same time into Egypt by Pope Sylvester.) This Egyptian, saith he, having insinuated himself into the favour of some Ladies of the Court, found by their means access to the Emperor, who failed not to propose unto him the difficulties and troubles of his conscience. This man answered him, that his Majesty should not need to disquiet himself hereupon, and that there was no crime so enormous, which might not be expiated by the remedies which are practised in Christian Religion. To this the Emperor very willingly harkened, and resolved, all delays laid apart, to become a Christian.  
See here the beginning of the Baptism of Constantine. 
His Baptism.  As for the sequel, it is a question much perplexed: for some would have him to be baptised in the suburbs of Nicomedia, upon the point of death, and others at Rome by S. Sylvester, about the 19th year of his Empire. I say briefly, to decide this difficulty, that it is a most unreasonable belief, to think that Constantine the Great, called by the general voice of the holy Fathers, The holy and Religious Emperor Constantine, recorded in memorial and public registers of the Church, which are recited before Altars, as the chief of Orthodox Princes; Constantine, whom the Arians, yea, the most refractory, which have been after him, never durst declare of their faction, to have been christened at his death, by the hand of an Arian Bishop, out of the communion of the Catholic Church. There is not one to be found who favoureth this opinion, but Eusebius, who hath been an Ensign-bearer of the Arians, and who no more ought to be credited in this article, than a Pagan Historian, it being most unequal to take him for a Judge▪ who had made himself a party in this affair. And if some passages be found somewhat doubtful in the Chronicle of S. Hierom, which seem to support this error, it is easy to consider, that this Doctor, who was a merchant enriched with infinite variety of learning, hath made many pieces, which he rather translated and compiled from others, than composed upon his own invention: and the learned are not ignorant, that his Chronicle is accounted in this kind of books, as a work form from observations and opinions of Eusebius, which should not at all alter the estimation we have of Constantine, acknowledged and averred by so many other passages of the same Doctor. And if S. Ambrose in the funeral Oration of Theodosius, said, that Constantine received Baptism being in extremity, we must not 
I● ultimis co●stitutus.  therefore infer, that he was baptised by Arian in the last instant of his life; otherwise he would not call him in the same passage a Monarch of great merit, who left faith as an inheritance for Princes of his posterity. This extremity than is an extremity either of troublesome affairs, in which Constantine saw himself involved, for having so long time deferred his Baptism, or as others say▪ an extremity of sickness, wherewith he was surprised in the City of Rome, and cured by Baptism.  
The opinion of Eusebius being rejected, I ask, whether it be not much more probable, to take that of a Council entire, and very ancient, held under People Silvester about the year of our Lord, Three hundred twenty four, which is said expressly to have been assembled at the same time that the Emperor Constantine was baptised by Sylvester Bishop of Rome, than to adhere to inventions of a passionate adversary? As for other circumstances of this Baptism, which are 
The history of the Baptism of Constantine drawn from the acts attributed to S. Sylvester, is more easy piously to be believed, than effectually proved.  drawn from the acts attributed to S. Sylvester, we must affirm, there are divers things very hard to believe, if we proceed according to humane reason: for we cannot so easily imagine what is expressed in those writings, that Sylvester was hidden in the caverns of the mountain, which afterward bore his name, flying the persecution of Constantine: of which other Authors make no mention, as being contrary to the humour and Edicts of this Prince, who after the victory gained against Maxentius, ever favoured Christianity. Besides it is there said, that Constantine demanded, what Gods were S. Peter and Paul, who had appeared to him in his sleep: Which was not very likely in an Emperor, that so many years before was instructed in the mysteries of Christian Religion. Add also the leprosy of Constantine, whereof no author hath spoken before those acts, and wherewith it is held, that Constantius the son of this great Emperor was much offended, complaining they attributed to his father counterfeit maladies, to cure him in picture. If we must pursue opinions humanely reasonable, I would say, that Constantine could no more be leprous, than our King Clodovaeus of most glorious memory; of whom S. Gregory of Towers 
Gregor. Turon. hist. l. 2. cap. 31. Prodit novus Constantinus ad lavacrum deleturus leprae veteris morbum.  hath said, that on the day of his Baptism he was cured of an old leprosy, intending by that speech, from sin. It is true that Cardinal Baronius doth all which an able man may to clear these difficulties: but there are certain things, which it is more comely to believe piously, than easily to establish by reason. And therefore if the Reader here desire to know my conceit, I hold, it is a timorarious thing to go about to tax and turmoil old beliefs, which though they pass not for articles of faith, are notwithstanding received with edification in common opinions. Varro saith, that no 
Contra mul●os sapere desipere est.  desire to be wise contrary to common understanding, is to rank ones self in the number of fools: and the great S. Hilary hath said very worthily, that the 
Sapientiae pri●ae haec veritas est, interdum sapere quo● nclit. Hilar. l. 8. de Trinitate.  first verity of wisdom is sometime to believe what one would not, submitting our judgement to men of the best understanding: which if it were well conceived, so many young heads would be ashamed to account themselves able men, especially in matter of faith, thereby inordinately taxing all the monuments of antiquity.  
I say then, for these acts, which are accounted to be S. Sylvesters, and namely for those reported by Pope Adrian, as it is not my intention to engage myself upon the proof of them by a way of sleight human reasons, so would I not in any sort impugn, but rather believe them, with a religious simplicity, which is the science of Saints, and ever the most assured.  
These acts tell us, that Constantine still deferring 
History of Baptism according to the acts of S. Sylvester.  his Baptism, and living in much liberty, was strucken with a leprosy, which was a manifest wound from Heaven, wherewith greatly afflicted, he consulted with Magicians to apply some remedy. They gave him deadly counsel, whereof the Kings of Egypt had heretofore made use in the like malady, which was to make a bath of humane blood. This at the beginning seemed to him very strange, but the infirmity which pressed him, had no ears to hear reason: little children were taken of the meanest condition in the City, to cut their throats like sheep, and consecrate their blood to the health of the Emperor. The mother's dissheveled and desperate, ran after their tender infants, even to the gates of the Palace, and howled so dreadfully, that Constantine hearing their cries, and withal the cause of their sorrow, commanded the infants to be restored to their mournful mothers; esteeming it more reasonable to tolerate his evil, than to be cured with so cruel a remedy.  
The night following, S. Peter, and S. Paul appeared to him in a dream, and advised him to forsake all these Pagan superstitions, to re-edify the Churches of Christians, and send for Pope Sylvester, who was at that time hidden in the grots of Mount Soracte, that would discover unto him a fish-pool, which should heal his leprosy. As soon as he a wakened, he recounted his dream to the Lords of his Court, and sent to seek out the Pope, who seeing these Gentlemen come, disposed himself to Martyrdom, thinking they came to lead him forth to slaughter: but understanding from their own mouths much other news, he set forward towards the Emperor, who most courteously received him: and having made a long discourse of matters which had happened unto him concerning his calling to Christianity, he demandeth of him what Gods were Peter and Paul, who had appeared unto him in sleep, and made overture of the fish-pool, wherein he should be washed. The Pope answered they were no Gods, but Apostles, and servants of God. Thereupon he required to see their images, which Sylvester sent for by a Deacon: and having found them like to the faces he saw in sleep, he cried out aloud, that he no longer must defer the fish-pool.  
Sylvester seeing him resolved to be baptised, commandeth a public fast, accompanied with ordinary prayers, catechizeth the Emperor, and counselleth him to take seven days of retirement, to prepare himself for Baptism, and which is more, to lay aside for those days the purple and Imperial Diadem, that he might be clothed with the habit of penance; which he courageously performed. And the day of Baptism being come, as soon as he was washed with these life-giving waters, he was miraculously cured of his leprosy, beholding a light from heaven, and a hand stretched over him. See what is in these ancient monuments, and which Cardinal Baronius rendereth probable, with reasons very consonant.   

The ninth SECTION. The acts of Constantine after his Baptism.  
CONSTANTINE after his Baptism began a quite other course of life: for laying aside all humane respects, which had hitherto tied him to Gentilism for considerations of his State, he caused a Throne to be prepared in the Palace of Trajan, where having sent for the Senate, he declared with the eloquence of a Monarch, the reasons which had moved him to this alteration of Religion, and said:  
SIRS, I doubt not, but the change of Religion, which 
Notable Oration of Constantine, partly drawn out of his acts and Edicts.  I have made, will appear strange to many, who blame all that which they cannot understand, and will understand nothing, but what flatters their presumption. All novelty is odious to those, who love the old age of error: Yet I can tell you, this is no new Religion which I have embraced, but that which was begun in the purified souls of the golden Age, happily finished in our days. The first men of the world had verity in bloom, we now see the fruit, which we may and shall enjoy, if we be not ungrateful to our happiness, and traitorous to our own conscience. Believe me, Sirs, the world is almost grown out of its nonage, for God hath taken pity of the ignorance thereof, and made it see, it was not time any longer to place Dragons and Owls upon Altars, nor other Gods, accounted as monsters, if they would return into the life of men. If our Ancestors, blinded by mishap, have made to be esteemed for Divinities so many criminals, for whom our laws do now ordain punishments, we are not bound to participate with the crimes of the one, nor the errors of the other, under pretext of antiquity. I must confess, that I from my infancy have had great distrust upon the follies which I saw in the superstition of Gentiles, and that which further confirmed me in this opinion, was, that one day I heard the answer of an Oracle, which had long time stood mute, and being demanded the cause of this silence, answered, The Just hindered it from speaking, and we found those Just were the Christians, who then had power to stop the mouths of devils.  
Afterward I began to consider those men, whom I saw so persecuted, and that there was not a corner of the earth that was not ruddy with their blood, yet were they notwithstanding so patiented in their persecutions, that they had prayers on their lips for those, who rend their hearts out of their bodies. This than gave me matter of amazement; but when I came to think on their Church, which flourished among so many storms, and increased under the swords of persecution, this seemed to me more than humane; yet transported with the torrent of common opinions, I still resisted the voice of God, which spoke in my heart, when it opened my eyes, and made me once lively apprehend the dreadful ends of Emperors, who had persecuted Christianity, comparing them to the felicity of my father Constantius, of most glorious memory, who had preserved his hands innocent even to death, free from any stain of Christian blood. This was sufficiently potent to move a soul, which would easily yield to reason: but God redoubling his inspirations, made me one day behold in the Heavens a prodigy, which many saw with me, to wit, the figure of the Cross, composed of most resplendent light, which appeared just at the time I was to wage battle against Maxentius. I call the living God to witness, that I therein read distinctly these words, written as with the rays of the Sun, IN HOC VINCE. And it is a wonder that I deferred still to yield myself up, till such time, that the Saviour of the world advertised me in a vision, to take into my Standards the sign which I had seen in Heaven the day before. I instantly obeyed, and have seen so prodigious effects succeed in the defeat of Maxentius, which you have admired, attributing to man that which was a work of the Divinity.  
I thought then to have discovered what I was, but considerations of state, which had too much force upon my soul, stayed me, and have made me walk along hitherto, in a life more licentious than I intended. I now protest before the face of Heaven and earth, that I am a Christian both in heart and profession; nor shall any motives ever alter that, which I have so constantly resolved on. Yet for all this I purpose not to force any man in his Religion, leaving for this time belief as free as elements: Yet for the charity I hear towards my good subjects, I cannot but wish them as much good as myself. Now all my greatest happiness, and which I esteem more than my Purple and Diadem, is to entertain the knowledge of a living God, which hath been revealed to us by his only Son Jesus Christ, the Doctor and Saviour of the world. His person is full of miracles, his life of wisdom and goodness, his doctrine of purity; and if to conquer our pride, and expiate our demerits, he hath humbled himself to the punishment of the Cross, so much therefore the more ought it to be honourable, since he hath done for us all that, which an incomparable love can do, and endured all that which an invinoible patience may suffer.  
I can do no other but love and singularly honour those who are enroled under his Standard, as my brothers in Religion: and let it not seem strange to any, if heretofore showing myself very liberal to beautify and enrich the Temples of Gentilism, I now apply myself to build and adorn the Churches. I will render what I owe to God and my own conscience, nor shall my subjects, who are of a Religion different from mine, be any way interessed, therein desiring to preserve them, as persons, whom I hope one day to have companions in faith, and coheirs in glory, if they add never so little consent to the lights, wherewith the wisdom of God Incarnate hath replenished the world. I only beseech thee, O great God, on whom all Sceptres and Crowns depend, since you have united the East and West under my hands, you would arrange them under the yoke of your Law, which is the knot of Empires, and source of felicity. I offer unto you my person, mine Arms, my Sceptre, and all mine abilities, humbly begging of you to accept my slender service, and to give me the assisting wisdom of your Thrones, to govern in all honour, all justice, all peace, and amity, the people which you have committed to my charge.  
This Oration was heard by all the world, with 
Admirable change of the world by the Oration and example of the Emperor.  very great applause, in such sort, that for the space of two hours, the cries of an infinite number were heard, who made many acclamations in favour of Christian Religion. Forty times was repeated, UNUS DEUS CHRISTIANORUM, There is but one God, which is the God of the Christians: and thirty times was proclaimed, LET THOSE WHO DENY CHRIST, COME TO NOUGHT: and ten times, LET THE TEMPLES BE SHUT UP, LET THE CHURCHES BE OPENED: And fourteen times, THOSE WHO ARE ENEMIES TO JESUS CHRIST, ARE ENEMIES TO THE EMPERORS: And ten times, THOSE WHO ARE ENEMIES TO JESUS CHRIST, ARE ENEMIES TO THE ROMANS: And forty times, THERE IS NO OTHER GOD, BUT HE WHO HATH SAVED US. AUGUSTUS CONSTANTINE: And fifty times, HE EVER SHALL VAN QUISH WHO ADORETH THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD: And thirty times, LET THE PRIESTS OF IDOLS BE BANISHED OUT OF THE CITY: And thirteen times, LET THOSE ALSO BE EXILED OUT OF ROME, WHO WILL SACRIFICE TO IDOLS: And forty times, COMMAND THEY BE PRESENTLY THRUST OUT OF OUR WALLS.  
Upon these last cries, the Emperor risen up, and making a sign with his hand, required silence which instantly made all this great multitude to hold their peace; and thereupon: No, saith he, I intent not any man should be forced in the matter of his Religion; the services of the world are ofttimes constrained: but those we render to God, ought ever to be voluntary. We have no greater proof of the Divinity, than mercy. God showeth what be is, in so long time, and with such patience, suffering the impieties and ingratitudes of men. I would have all the world know, that I intent not to make Christians by necessity, but by discretion. As it is a crime to deny true Religion to those who require it, so it is an importunity to seek now to impose it by force on such as demand it not. They that will not follow my example, shall not therefore be separated from my friendship. I am the common Father of all in general, and no man ought to be frustrated of the preservation which I owe him.  
These words stayed the out-cries of those, who already transported the affairs into disorder, by an indiscreet zeal, and gave good assurance to the Pagans, so that the Emperor going out of the Palace, they lighted at midday many lamps and torches, to conduct him to his house, with a thousand testimonies of joy and alacrity.  
He at the same time caused certain laws to be published, 
Edicts and conversions.  by which he left the Gentiles at liberty in in the exercise of their ancient superstition, on such condition, that they should abstain to speak in any sort against the honour of the Saviour of the world; nor should at all disturb the Christians: adding, that he intended the sons and daughters of the family, yea the very servants, should not be kept by force in the Pagan superstition, but have all liberty to be baptised when they had a will thereunto.  
O God, what incomparable charms have the examples of Great-ones in them, to dispose men to virtue! Nicephorus saith, that in a very short time there were numbered twelve thousand men, besides women and children baptised at Rome. Yet was it observed, there were few Senators, nor of other politic spirits; so much the wisdom of the flesh is contrary to that of the Cross. Faith is the inheritance of the humble, and all those souls puffed up with presumption of their own ability, stick so fast to the earth, that they lose the sight of Heaven.  
The holy Emperor, who was desirous to render 
Piety of Constantine.  himself as profitable by works and examples, as he became comfortable in his discourses, employed himself with an incredible fervour in all that which concern the service of God, and namely in the building of Churches.  
Where among other things, he did an act worthy of immortality: for the eighth day after his Baptism, passing to the place which was already dedicated to S. Peter, and where he had a purpose to build a fair Church, there in presence of all the world, he pulled off the purple Robe and Diadem, took a spade in hand, and began to dig the earth, to lay the foundation; then throwing the scuttle upon his royal shoulders, he carried twelve burdens of earth in honour of the twelve Apostles.  
It was a spectacle full of admiration, and which gave an unspeakable joy to the Pope and Bishops there present. Notwithstanding the spirits of the times said, it was to abase the purple too much, and vilify the dignity of Caesar's: not considering that the Emperor Vespasian, from whom Constantine was descended, had done the like in honour of Idols, and were withal desirous, that this man should have less zeal for the living God, than others had used in the service of devils.  
But the devout Constantine danced before the Ark, whilst Michol murmured at the window. He had a desire to adorn the place where he was baptised, as the cradle of his Christianity: and made the most admirable Font that was ever beheld, whereof we yet see some signs remaining, which our holy Father Pope Urban the Eighth, hath lately adorned, and embellished with notable endowments: For, among other magnificences, he caused it to be all covered both within and without with plates of silver, and commanded to set up in embossed work the statues of our Saviour and S. John Baptist, with seven figures of Hearts, which poured out water; all which was also in very fine silver, so that it appeared with a marvellous lustre. He commanded for curiosity, to burn balm in stead of oil in the lamps there hanging, desirous to apply the use of this precious liquor to the services of the Church, since Heliogabalus, the most prodigal of the Emperors, had used it in the lamps of his house.  
He was not content to erect two Churches, the one to S. Peter, and the other to S. Paul, which he enriched with innumerable gifts; but he also changed his proper Palace of Lateran, into a Church of our Saviour, which our Kings have afterward done in imitation of him, oftentimes giving their houses to make houses of God. He likewise there established a good quantity of revenues for the poor, which should become Christians, leaving the managing thereof to the discretion of the Pope.  
It would be a prodigious thing, yea very troublesome, to reckon up particularly all the presents he gave, and rends he settled in favour of Churches. It sufficeth to tell you that the Pagans became so jealous, that from that time forward, they began to call him the PUPIL, saying, that the first ten years of his Empire, he had been a good Emperor; the second ten, a robber, despoiling Lycinius and others: But as for the third ten, he had put himself into Tutelage, resigning to the Church the whole manage of his estate. See the ordinary hyperboles of passionate spirits, who behold with an envenomed eye the wealth which is taken from riots and vanities, to be bestowed on the Church. Yet notwithstanding this great Emperor so intermingled magnificence with the husbandry of his revenues, that the people were not neglected, nor did his greatness lose any thing of its lustre  
It is a strange thing, that with all those celestial qualities which God had conferred upon his person; he could never tame the stubborn spirits of the Roman Senate; so much infidelity joined to presumption, admitteth obstacles to the lights of verity. This affront made him undergo another resolution, to build a City elsewhere, which he would equal, to the majesty of Rome, and fashion to his best liking, as he afterward did, changing the City of Byzantium into the royal Constantinople, an eternal monument of his greatness.   

The tenth SECTION. The endeavour of good works, with the virtues and laws of Constantine.  
THis Monarch changed into another man, lived not but by the fire of charity, cleaving to the earth by very slender roots of the necessities of nature: he began seriously to manure the practice 
His devotion  of prayer, discoursing familiarly with God, with a taste so sensible, that it surpassed all delights imaginable in nature and wit; a diligence so great, that being in Arms and under Pavilions, he ever had his little oratory of retirement, where like another Moses he consulted with the Divinity. He harkened to discourses of God with incomparable pleasure; and when he spoke of the mysteries of our faith, which he as it were perpetually did, it was with so great exercise, that his heart seemed to melt with his words. His zeal so transported him, that of the prime Captain of the world, he became a Doctor and Preacher, to procure the conversion of his subjects. He who so many times had carried in his hand the sword of the Empire, to cut off rebellious powers, bore then in his mouth the sword of the word, to fill the world with wonders. What he spoke with his lips, he taught by examples, carrying under the purple a body worn out with abstinence and mortification.  
He so trampled vanity underfoot, to which he 
Humility.  formerly had some inclination, that among a great number of Churches and edifices of piety, which he caused to be built, he would not have his name thereon engraven, reputing himself unworthy, that God should accept such offerings at his hands. And as one day a Bishop, a flatterer, and an Arian, put himself forward to tell him, that after he had governed the world upon earth, he should do the like in Heaven with the Son of God; he felt himself so confounded with this word, that he who ever treated with ecclesiastics with very much reverence could not contain himself, but say: Bishop, let it not fall out you any more use such words concerning me, for they are unto me most hateful: you shall do much better and more suitable to your profession, to pray the living God, I may be both in earth and heaven the least of his servants, than to propose to yourself Sceptres and Empires for me.  
His patience was equal to his humility, whereof 
His patience.  S. Chrysostom hath observed an excellent passage in the oration of Bishop Flavianus to the Emperor Theodosius, where he saith, that as one day in a popular commotion, they stoned the statues of Constantine, there wanted not many about him who endeavoured to inflame him to the revenge of those outrages: to which he smiling, answered, they had strucken a man of stone, but the model remained entire. Now being not ignorant, that the vigour of Christianity consisted in works of charity, he applied himself thereunto with so much fervour, that it seemed his hands were that, which the Hebrew text speaketh of in the Canticles, Hands of the spouse, vessels of gold, replenished with a sea of bounty.  
Before his Baptism, great calamities had reduced miserable fathers to such necessity, that being not able to maintain their children, they sought to be discharged of them by ways most lamentable; of which the good Prince being advertised, he wrote to Ablavius his Lieutenant of the whole Politic government of the Empire, to publish a Law through all the Cities of Italy, in which was intimated to all necessitous fathers, who were unable for the education of their children, that they should present them at a place appointed, there to receive apparel and convenient sustentation: adding, he intended that not only public moneys should be employed to supply such wants, but that he would despoil himself willingly of that which was proper and peculiar to himself, for their comfort.  
If he found any beggars in the streets, he delighted to cloth them, and to behold them in this new plight, making of his Palace a mount Thabor, where men were transfigured, changing their miseries into felicities. He most particularly enquired after the shamefaced poor, who had heretofore been wealthy, & learned from them their fortunes, birth, and want, and as he found their qualities and merits, he gave sometimes lands and entire possessions to those, who were in very pressing necessities. A poor widow, who sighed in a corner of her house, forsaken of all the world was much amazed, that this Monarch of the world, came as an Angel from Heaven, to wipe away her tears, and provide for her poor orphans. A forlorn maid, and even upon the brink of the precipice, by the unhappiness of poverty, found the Emperor had given order for her marriage, and had himself taken the pain to know her future husband, and recommend good husbandry unto him on his part.  
This man was as the Intelligence tied to the government of the Primum Mobile, which is never weary, among so many concussions and motions afforded to total nature. He was a sun, who drew up, and digested all the vapours of the lower world, not intermitting any thing of its course or lights. He was an Ocean, who received drops of water as well as huge rivers: and as there was nothing so high in the world as to be above his greatness, so was there nothing so low, which could withdraw itself from his charitable knowledge.  
He ever had his eye open upon the necessities of mankind, and not contenting himself to provide for them by the ordinary ways of charity, he thereunto added the hand of justice, making most wholesome laws for the tranquillity of the whole world. This good Father of the Universe sought out poor banished men, who had been unjustly despoiled by the rigours of injustice, and restored them to their professions. He proposed to himself in his own repose, the affliction of those who had wrongfully been transported into desert Islands, where they still lived, made slaves under the tyranny of men, and in a worse condition than beasts. He thought upon the miseries they endured, who were condemned by unrighteous sentences to labour in mines. He reflected on the long services of military men, who were absolute in arms, yet oftentimes gained nothing but poverty and ignominy. But above all these considerations, as occasions required, 
His Edicts.  he made most worthy Edicts, for the comfort of so many persons as lived in the acerbities of the world. And for as much as concerned justice, which consisteth in the punishment of crimes and abuses, he was a Hercules, who had perpetually his club lifted up to quell monsters.  
There was a custom in those times of Duels and 
Duels.  gladiatours, which were much more tolerable than now-adays, for than none were employed therein, but slaves, criminals, and men of the sack and halter, who were already condemned to death. And now-adays is found a frantic Nobility, who degrading themselves from the honour of generous spirits, and bearing the sentence of an ignoble action against themselves, make trophies of that which is put upon Moorish slaves for punishment. Yet the great Constantine saw this manner of punishing the base and abject creatures of the world was too brutish and butcherly, and that it would do well to change these duels into Galleys, or some such like thing; for he wrote to Maximus the Superintendent of justice in these terms:  
These bloody spectacles in the civil repose and 
L. 1. de gladiat. Cod. Theod.  domestic peace wherein we live, please me not at all. Behold the cause why I will wholly take away these combats of Gladiatours. For if there be such graceless wretches, who for the punishment of their crimes deserve such a sentence and such condition, I ordain that you rather cause them to labour in the mines, to the end that without effusion of blood, they may feel the pain due to their demerits. Given at Berytus, the first day of October, under the Consulship of Paulinus and Julianus.  
I leave you to think what this Monarch would 
Apostrophe to King Lewis the thirteenth  have said of duels of this time, where they hasten to pour out willingly upon public passages that blood, which ought rather to be shed upon the walls of Infidels, to cement up the glory of the French.  
O Lewis, our great Monarch, it seemeth the God of peace hath permitted the heads of this Hydra to have hitherto budded forth, that they might be made to fall under the innocency of your hands, divinely destinated to so many good works. You have again very lately renewed your Edicts against this pestilence, assuring unto fathers and mothers the blood of their children for the service of your Crown, and taking away a stain which stuck so many years upon the brow of your Empire. Heaven and earth have participated in the contentment which hath succeeded from these good ordinances, as they do in the preservation of the lives of your subjects, and tranquillity of your whole Realm. Let your Majesty so handle the matter, that this Law may hold with nails of adamant, and not lose a glory, which Constantine would have bought at the price of two Empires.  
This brave Prince, who ever had been most chaste, 
His chastity.  made also sharp war against the infamous ordures of lust: for he expelled from the Court, as vermin, certain effeminate men, who had made sale of their souls to dishonour, and at other times made a lamentable traffic of their bodies, insinuating themselves by this means, into the Palaces of Great-ones, and sometime into honourable rank. He degraded them all from Nobility, and forbade them to bear even the marks of men of Arms, tying them to services the most contemptible. Besides, he caused to be taken from public infamies, many poor Christian maids, that had been abandoned to evil by the form of punishment, making express inhibitions to those villains, who live upon others sins, never to undertake the like practices. Briefly, he so abolished the crimes, which had been tolerated under the other Emperors, that S. Hierom writing upon Isaiah, hath given the title to Constantine, that his Empire had vanquished two monsters, the most dreadful that were ever seen by destroying the infidelity and impurity of the earth.  
His prudence descended even to the moderating 
His prudence. Cod. Theod. L. de paenit. Quo facies, quae ad similitudinem pulchritudinis caelestis est sigurata, minimè maculetur. Zozom. l. 1. c. 8.  and changing the punishments of offenders, which had some disproportion; and among other things, he decreed, that characters should no more be imprinted upon the forehead of the miserable, for the respect that is due to the face of man, on the which God hath engraven his image. And moreover, for the honour he bore to the Gross, he forbade it should ever again be defiled with the punishments and executions of malefactors; thinking it unreasonable, that that which was matter of glory to Emperors, should likewise serve as an instrument for the pains of the unhappy. He suffered not any image to be made unto him, either in tables, statues, or coins, whereon the Cross was not ever set; such honour bore he to this 
Honour of the Cross.  venerable sign, which Heretics have ever rejected, with as much malice as stupidity.  
It were an infinite thing for him that would particularly decipher so many noble actions of our Constantine. I content myself to have here set down that in brief, which might have been distended into many chapters, and to make many dishes of it, endeavouring to furnish out more substance for my Reader, than unprofitable amplifications.   

The eleventh SECTION. The zeal of Constantine in the proceed of the Council of Nice.  
THe Emperor Constantine had great cause to say, what he spoke in Eusebius, That he was as the common Bishop of the Church outwardly; so much vigilance and zeal he exercised, to procure all which concerned the maintenance thereof. Behold an accident happening under his reign, which more troubled Christendom, than ever did the torturing racks, the combs of iron, or boiling cauldrons of Diocletian.  
Theologie had been for a long time taught in the 
Original of the Arians.  City of Alexandria, at which time a Priest named Arius, held the regency; who had the reputation to be subtle in seeking out questions, which never had fallen into the thought of man: but otherwise was malicious, and of an evil life. Out alas! that these extravagant curiosities should bring, and daily also introduce prejudice into the Church and repose of the people! It were to be wished that those, who through long idleness, and itch of vanity, amuse themselves to find out novelties in matter of belief, might rather handle the coulter in tillage, or the oar in galleys, than turn over books, and contaminate the honour of Divinity. Satan never found a spirit more fit to perplex holy letters, and embroil Empires, than this wretched man of whom we speak.  
Saint Epiphanius, who might often have seen him, 
Arius and his qualities.  saith, He was of a large body, of a sad countenance, covering under a mask of austerity, hideous monsters. He had an extreme ambition to hold the highest place, and seeing that Alexander, a holy man, was preferred before him in the Episcopal Chair of Alexandria, he entered into desperate jealousies, searching out all possible means to cry down this Bishop, and raise calumnies against him, to dispossess him of his charge. And the life of this Alexander being so unspotted, that not least stain of reproach might be seen therein, he resolved to involve him in some captious disputations, thereby to accuse him to hold opinions not consonant to the doctrine of the Church. It happened that the Bishop in preaching and speaking of the Son of God, put him, as he ought, in equality of power and honour with his Celestial Father, calling him by the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; whereupon this man sought to reprehend him, alleging some passages of scripture maliciously interpreted, of which he made use to establish the unhappy heresy, which denied that the Son was the same essence of God his Father, and took away from Jesus Christ the diadem of the Eternal Divinity, by making him a mere creature.  
Alexander, who was not a man of mean account, but such an one as to his sanctity of life, added solid doctrine, defended himself courageously against the impostures of this malign spirit, very well justifying his belief touching the Divinity of our Saviour: which having been throughly proved in the Assembly of an hundred Bishops, who were first of all called together for this purpose under Hosius, Legat of Pope Sylvester, he pronounced the sentence of excommunication against Arius and his complices. This wicked man, who burst with anger to see this condemnation passed against him by those whom he reputed to be infinitely under him in ability, put himself into the field with very much ostent; the differences he lately had with these Prelates, making him understand his Divinity, was odious, if he therein used not some colour to disguise the malice thereof. He also practised so many wiles, that he dazzled the eyes even of those, who were men very eapable: for after he had deduced his reasons with a great facility of words, and large quantity of specious passages, and that he thereunto added a cold countenance, counterfeiting himself a modest man, persecuted for the truth, he trained spirits not vulgar to the love of his novelties. All the very same proceed have been seen with the heretics of this time, and if so many corrupt souls had not wholly inclined to their own ruin, God gave them sufficient examples in elder evils to avoid the new. We 
Proceeding of Arians.  may well say when we behold these schisms and heresies to arise, that there is some comet of the kingdom of darkness, which insensibly throweth plague and poison into hearts. It is a strange thing that a little sparkle let fall in Alexandria, caused instantly so many fires, that having invaded Egypt, Lybia, Thebais, and Palestine, they in the end involved almost the whole world. No man at that time cared how to live, but every one was ready to dispute. Bishops bandying against Bishops, drew the people distracted with opinions: The Churches, houses, and theatres echoed in the sharpness of contentious disputations, and the Cities forgetting all other miseries, rend one another for the interpretation of a word. Arius, to gain support, instantly seeketh for favour from the Court. And knowing that Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia was of great credit, he used all the flatteries, of which this man was capable enough, to gain him to his side. This Eusebius was eminently furnished with all those dispositions and industries, which the most subtle Heretics have at any time exercised to trouble the Church of God. He was verily one of the worst men then in the Empire, since he had sold his soul to ambition, so much the more pernicious as it was covered with a veil of Religion. It is true which the Hebrews say, that Vinegar is an ill son of a good father, for it is commonly made of the best wine: so there is nothing more sincere than an Ecclesiastic, who liveth in the duty of his profession; but when corruption falleth thereinto, and that he hath once degenerated, there is not a worse sharpness, nor a more dangerous malice. Religion served this wicked man as a buskin for all feet, for it had no other bounds, but that of his own interests; and he ever, like weathercocks on the top of steeples, turned his face on what side soever the wind blew.  
In the persecutions of Christendom he made himself an Idolater; in the garboils of Lycinius he leaned much to his side; and when he saw Constantine absolute in the Empire, never was man more pliable to flatter him. Doubtless he had all the qualities we have seen in Luther, Calvin, and so many other new Sects, who have still sought favour from Great-ones by wiles and most perilous charms. So wanted he not excellent parts, and great eminencies; for he had a spirit very subtle, speech cunning, a face which spoke before his tongue, and as for his extraction, he soared so high, as to make himself the kinsman of Caesar's. The air he desired to breath was the Court, and his Bishopric when he was absent, seemed to him a banishment. Behold the cause, why he drew near to the centre of the Empire as much as he could, in such sort, that being first Bishop of Berytus, he put himself forward to the chair of Nicomedia, afterward took the heart of the Kingdom, and in the end settled himself in the Royal Constantinople.  
This alteration of chairs had in this time a very ill savour, and this life of Court so passionately affected by an Ecclesiastic not called thereunto, could not in any sort find approbation among good men. Great personages are sometimes very lawfully in Court, for the service of Kings and public necessities, but they are thereas the birds of Baruch upon 
Baruch 6. 70. Job 26.  white thorns, as the Giants of holy Job, which mourned under the waters, as those sweet fountains found in the salt Sea. An ambitious man, who heweth down mountains to arrive thither, and liveth not exemplary, deserveth to be regarded therein as a fish out of his element, or the pied bird whereof Jeremy speaketh, whom all the rest assailed with 
Jer. 12. 2.  beak and talon.  
Eusebius notwithstanding little regarded the reputation of a good Prelate, so that he might arrive to the height of his erterprises. To insinuate himself the more into the good liking of the Emperor, he gained Constantia sister of Constantine, and widow of Lycinius, as Calvin did afterward the sister of Francis the first. The good Lady, who being despoiled of Empire by the death of her husband, and had no longer so much employment to number the pearls of her Diadem, would needs then intermeddle with curious devotion, and dispute on the mysteries of the holy Trinity. Constantine after the death of S. Helena his mother, held her at his Court with much respect, that she might the more easily digest the acerbities she had conceived in the loss of her husband, and much easier was it to entertain her in the affairs of the Church, than in those of Empires. Besides, he found it not amiss that she might busy herself in the doubtful questions of Bishops. So pursuing the Genius of her curious spirit, she passed so far, that she became an Arian by the practices of this Eusebius, who having already gotten credit with her, spoke to her of Arius, as of a worthy man persecuted by his own side, for his great abilities; and explicating to her his doctrine in popular terms, which said there was no appearance how a son could be made as old as his father, and that poor Arius had been banished from Alexandria, for that he would not sign this proposition, this drew compassion from her.  
The spirit of Constantia tainted with this doctrine, began already to cast an evil odour upon the Emperor her brother; and Eusebius coming thereupon to make recital of that which passed in Alexandria between Alexander and Arius, set such a face upon the whole business, that he made, as it is said, the Sun with a coal, figuring out the good Prelate Alexander as a passionate man, who could not endure an excellent spirit in his Bishopric.  
'Tis a pitiful thing that great men see not the truth, but through the passions of those that serve them. This poor Alexander, who was a holy old man, and grown white in the exercises of Religion, was then presented to the Emperor by the information of Eusebius, as a fool, who under a grizzled head had extravagancies of youth; in such sort, that Constantine 
Constantine deceived.  vouchsafing to write unto him, taxed him as the author of this tumult, in that he put a frivolous question into consultation, and gave occasion of dispute, which could never have proceeded but from abundance of idleness. And as for Arius, he said of him, that he gave too much scope to his spirit upon a subject, which might much better have been concealed. And for the rest, they should be both reconciled, mutually pardoning each other, and hereafter hindering all manner of disputations upon the like occasion.  
Alexander, who had done nothing but by the Council of an hundred Bishops, seeing himself treated in a worse condition than Arius was, in the Emperor's letters, and considering the blasphemy, which this Heretic had vomited against the Divinity of the Word, was reputed as a trifle, thought verily they had endeavoured to envenom the spirit of Constantine, to the prejudice of the truth. For this cause he informed the other Bishops, and namely Pope Sylvester, of the justice of his cause, answering very pertinently to the calumnies objected against him. On 
Eusebius a true patron of heretics.  the other side Eusebius, who beheld the integrity of this holy Bishop with an ill eye, and who had very far engaged himself to maintain Arius, embroiled the affairs at Court, as much as his credit might permit. In the end, the disputation was so enkindled through the Christian world, that needs must a general Council be held to determine it.  
Three hundred and eighteen Bishops are assembled 
Council of Nice.  at Nice, a City of Bythinia, by the approbation of Pope Sylvester, at the request of the Emperor Constantine, who invited the most eminent by express letters, and gave very singular direction, as well for their journey as their reception. Never was there seen a goodlier company. It was a Crown, not of pearls nor diamonds, but of the rarest men of the world, who came from all parts like bees, bearing (as saith S. Augustine) honey in their mouths, and wax in their hands. There you might behold Venetians, Arahians, Egyptians, Scythians, Thracians, Africans, Persians, not speaking of Western Bishops, who were there already in no small number. It was a most magnificent spectacle to behold on one side venerable old men, white as swans, who still bare upon their bodies the scars of iron and persecution, which were invincible testimonies of their constancy: on the other, men who had the gift of miracles, so much as to force the power of death, and tear from him the dead out of their tombs: on the other part, men accomplished in Theologie and eloquence, who in opening their mouths seemed to unfold the gate of a Temple, full of wonders and beauties. There was to be found that great S. James of Nisibis, Paphnutius, and Potamion. There was Hosius, S. Nicholas the first, Gregory the father of our Nazianzen, Spiridion, and so many other worthymen. The good Pope S. Sylvester could not be present thereat, by reason of the decrepitness of his age, but sent thither three Legates, Hosius, Vitus, and Vincentius. The Emperor received them all most lovingly, kissing the scars of some, and admiring the sanctity of others, never satisfying himself with the modesty and good discourse of all, both in particular and general. Among these children of God, were likewise some Satan's, adherents to Arius, who discovered in their eyes and countenances the passions of their hearts.  
These turbulent spirits fearing the aspect of this awful assembly, softly suggested divers calumnies to surprise the spirit of the Emperor, which very naturally retained much goodness. And for this purpose they presented to him many requests, and many papers charged with complaints and accusations upon pretended damages. Verily these proceed were sufficient to divert this Prince from the love he bore to our Religion, were it not that through the grace of God, he had already taken very deep root in the faith.  
In the end, to do an act worthy of his Majesty, beholding himself to be daily burdened with writings, wherein these passionate Bishops spoke of nothing but their own interests, he advised them to set down all their grievances, and all the satisfactions which they pretended to draw from those who had offended them, and present them on a day designed. They failed not to confound him with libels and supplications: but this grave Monarch putting them into his bosom, said openly: Behold a large 
Zozom. l. 1. cap. 16.  proportion of Accusations, all which must be transferred to the judgement of God, who will judge them in the latter day. As for myself, I am a man, nor is it my profession to take notice of such causes, where those that accuse, and such as be accused, are Bishops. Let us, I pray you, for this time, leave these affairs, and treat we the points, for which this Council is here assembled: only let every one, following therein the Divine clemency, pardon all that is past, and make an absolute reconciliation for the time to come. When he had spoken this, he took all the civil requests presented unto him, and caused them to be cast into the fire; which was much applauded by all those who had their judgements discharged from partialities.  
In the mean space, the Bishops before they entered into the Council, took time to examine the propositions that were to be handled, and leisurably to inform themselves of the pretensions of Arius, who was there present, and who already felt the vehemency of the vigour of S. Athanasius, though he was yet but a Deacon in the Church of Alexandria.  
The day of the Council being come, the Bishops assembled in the great Hall of the Palace, where many benches were set, both on the one side and other. Every one taketh his place according to his rank. Baronius thinketh the Legates of the Pope were seated on the left hand, as in the most honourable seats; which he very pertinently proveth. In the first place on the right hand, sat the venerable Bishop Eustatius, who was to begin the prayer, and carry relations to the Emperor. The Bishops remained silent for a 
Constantius in the assembly of Bishops.  while, expecting his coming; and suddenly he appeared, not accompanied with any Guard or soldiers, but with a small number of friends. Eusebius, who was there present, saith in his History, that never was any thing seen more admirable than the person of this Monarch, at the meeting of this Council. For besides that he was of a most gallant stature, and a singular presence, he was delighted to hold it as it were enchased in rich attire. The purple wherewith he then was clothed, mingling the lustre thereof with the rays of precious stones, which sparkled on his head, made reflections of grace and majesty arise in the eyes of all the beholders. He passed through the middle of the Assembly, and all the Prelates risen up to do him reverence. Then being come unto his place, he stood upright, expecting from the Bishops a sign given him to sit, which being done, and prayer ended, he sat down upon a golden chair very low, which was placed in the middle, to the end he might be encompassed with so great a number of Saints, as a Palm with a row of Cedars. The others also being seated near him, Eustatius, selected out to open the Council, stood up, and made an Oration, whereof we find some pieces in Gregory a Priest of Caesarea, which import thus much:  
We have very much obligation, O sacred Majesty, to 
Oration of Eustatius at ●he opening of the Council.  render immortal thanks to the living God, in that he hath made choice of your person to put the Empire of the world into your hands, and that by your means destroying idolatry, he hath exalted the glory of his Altars, and established Christianity in that tranquillity which we presently enjoy.  
It is an act from the right hand of the Omnipotent, which we durst not hope for in our days, if God had not made you to be born for the good of the universal world. It is a prodigy to have seen you in a short time to calm so many tempests, disperse so many smokes of sacrifices to devils, extirpate so many horrible superstitions, and enlighten such cloudy darkness with the rays of the knowledge of the true God.  
The world, which was before polluted with ordures, is purified, the name of Saviour is known to Nations the most barbarous: The Father is glorified, the Son adored, the Holy Ghost declared; a Trinity consubstantial, that is to say, one same Divinity in three Persons, is acknowledged by all the faithful.  
That is it, O sacred Majesty, which supporteth the greatness of your Empire with those three fingers of power, wherewith it holdeth the mass of the earth, poized as it were to serve as a basis. As your felicity is inseparably tied to its honour, so ought you to reverence, defend, and invincibly protect all that, which concerneth the glory thereof.  
Behold a strange accident, and which is to us more sensible than the persecution of Diocletian. They go about to dis-member the Trinity, and thrust the knife of division into its throne. One Arius, who hath taken his name from fury, a wolf bred among us in a sheep's skin, a Priest of Alexandria, an enemy of the doctrine of Apostles and Prophets, hath proclaimed war against the Son of God, endeavouring to deprive him of the essence, honour, and power, which he holdeth equal from all eternity with his heavenly Father.  
This is it which hath assembled us here to condemn his error, and most humbly to beseech your Majesty, that when you have heard the opinions of all these great men here present, you will hold a steady hand upon the preservation of Apostolical doctrine, and command all those to be cut from our body, who will persever in their damnable opinions, to the end we may breathe the Christian air in all liberty, which the world beginneth already so sweetly to taste under the happiness of your reign.  
Then was the time, saith S. Hierom, when the first trumpet began to sound against Arius After the good Bishop of Antioch had ended, the Emperor beholding all the assembly with a very gracious aspect, spoke in Latin, to retain the majesty of the Roman Empire, and in a moderate tone, those words which are couched in Eusebius, the sense whereof we render:  
Venerable Fathers, I must needs affirm, that I never 
O●ation of Constantine.  desired any thing more passionately, than to enjoy your sweet presences; and infinitely am I bound to God, that he hath accomplished my desires, granting me a blessing that I prefer before all the happiness in the world, which is, to see you all here assembled, and united in will, for the glory of God, and peace of the Church. I pray you, suffer not the storm to surprise us in the haven, thereby to snatch from us the comfort, which we already have in our hands; and if God hath given us victory against Tyrants, let us not turn our arms against ourselves, to tear out our proper entrails. It is most certain these domestic troubles are much more to be feared than all the hostilities in the world. The sword of persecution can dissever nothing but members; but these divisions tend to the subversion of souls; which maketh them so much the more dangerous beyond common wars, as the spirit is above the body.  
God having afforded me so many victories, and so many prosperities, I proposed to myself there remained nothing from me to ask of him, but an humble acknowledgement of his benefits, and leisure to rejoice with those whom I saw through his favour in repose, sheltered under the good success of mine arms, and the authority of my Laws. It hath been a grief very sensible unto me to understand of those revolutions, which have passed in our City of Alexandria, and which have afterward dispersed themselves through the rest of Christendom. I have done all that possibly I might in the beginning to stop them, but seeing the evil increased with so much danger, I have called you hither to apply the last remedy. I beseech you, O venerable Priests of the living God, to preserve among yourselves that concord, which I think I may read in your countenances, and not to suffer yourselves to be deprived of the benefit of peace, since the Divine providence hath selected you to establish it upon Altars, by your prayers for all the rest of the world. Cut off speedily the root of evil, and sweetly pacify these troubles of the Church: you shall do a thing most acceptable to God; and as for myself, who am your fellow servant, I shall hold me obliged as for a singular benefit.  
The Interpreter explicated the Oration of the Emperor in the Greek tongue: Then the propositions of Arius were read. At the reading whereof the most part of the Bishops stopped their ears for horror, as afterward S. Athanasius observed. From thence they proceeded to opinions, where the disputation was enkindled on both sides. Constantine afforded a singular attention to all that was said, peaceably entertained sentences, encouraged all the world, sweetened acerbities which might slide into the heat of contention, and guided all the affairs to peace. In the end, Arius 
Condemnation of Arius.  is condemned, and a form of faith conceived for the equality of the Word with the Father, whereat many Arians much amazed, failed not to strike sail, and yield themselves to the plurality of voices, fearing lest their contestation might ruin their reputation with the Emperor. It is thought Eusebius the Historiographer was of this number; a man of the time, who knew how to comply readily with the humour of those, who had authority and force in their hands. As for the other Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia, who had maintained the faction of Arius with much passion, he saw himself shamefully fallen from the opinion of his great credit, and durst not refuse to sign the doctrine of the Council. Greatly was he straightened in another Session, to pronounce excommunication upon Arius his creature, saying he was consenting to the decision of the Council, under shadow of some perplexed words, which he made use of to cover his opinion. The father's shutting up their eyes to all human reasons, and fortifying their arms against favour, surprised this Eusebius, and Theognis Bishop of Nice, in the condemnation of Arius which they would not sign, declaring them upon this refusal, deprived of their Bishoprics. They interposed the authority of the Emperor, who suspended the execution, on such condition, that they gave satisfaction to the Council.  
Never were men more humbled, namely Eusebius; who thought himself the all-predominant; for he was constrained speedily to retire, and address his request to the Bishops, in terms most suppliant, in which he protested wholly to submit himself to the decrees of the Council; yet notwithstanding he spared not to embroil matters with an infinity of wiles and malice, which made the Emperor open his eyes to confirm their sentence who had condemned him, and send him into banishment, with subrogation of another in his place, though he afterward by ordinary submission was repealed. At that time happened a marvellous labyrinth of affairs, in which began the combats of great S. Athanasius, which are to take up another 
S. Athanasius,  History besides this, it extending much further beyond the years of Constantine. As for the success of Arius, after the banishment of ten years, he still intermeddling with factions, found means to be heard in another Council of Jerusalem, where feigning a penitence artificially counterfeited, he handled the matter so by the practices of Eusebius, who was then in favour, that he was absolved, with commandment given to the good Alexander, Bishop of Constantinople, to receive him into the communion of the Church.  
The holy Prelate stoutly refused it, knowing well it was an hypocrisy, which tended to annul the decrees of the Council of Nice, and bring confusion into the Church. But Eusebius of Nicomedia ceased not to make armed inhibitions, threatening that in case of refusal, he would deprive him of his Bishopric. He, who cared not so much for the loss of his dignity, as the safety of the Church, forsook all these subtleties of Theology, and exhorting his people to a fast of seven days, by the counsel of S. James of Nisibis, who was then present, spared not to macerate his body with austerities, and present to God day and night his humble supplications to divert this scourge. In the end, the affair being very shortly to be determined, he prostrated his face against the earth, before the Altar, and said: My God, if it be true, that Arius ought to morrow to be received into the communion of the faithful, I beseech you let your poor servant Alexander go in peace, and not lose the faithful people with the wicked. But if you be resolved to preserve your Church, and I may be assured you will do it, look on the threats of Eusebius, and deliver not your inheritance to the scorn of the wicked: but rather take Arius out of this world, lest we receiving him, may seem to introduce heresy and impiety into your house.  
The next day Arius went early in the morning 
End of Arius.  from the Emperor's Palace, very well accompanied with Eusebius, and walked in pomp through the streets of Constantinople. He was a man more subtle than confident, and it is thought the apprehensions he had of the issue of this combat, put terror in him, and this terror caused him to step out of the way. Behold the cause, why being by chance in the marketplace of Constantinople, he retired into a public place of ease, to satisfy the necessities of nature. Socrates holdeth, he cast forth a great quantity of blood, and thereupon falling into a swoon, not being able to be helped, he yielded up his wicked soul by a just punishment from Heaven, leaving to posterity a perpetual detestation of his life, with a horror of the very place of his death.  
Eusebius caused the body to be intrerred, Alexander breathed again, and all the Church triumphed upon the admiration of the judgements of God, seeing that he, who had raised so many bloody tragedies, was dead in his own blood; and after he had infected the soundest parts of the world with his poison, vomited up his contagious soul in the public infections, drawing on his criminal head the execration of all Ages.   

The twelfth SECTION. The government of Constantine.  
HAving showed unto you the greatness of Constantine 
Constant. 19 Constantinople erected.  in matters of Religion, let us now behold it in his politic government. It is no slight note of the vigour of his spirit, that he enterprised to make another Rome, and so prosperously to have perfected this his design.  
There is found among the Gentiles a certain Epigram in the ruins of ancient Rome, which said: It stood in need of Gods to make it, but there was but one God necessary to destroy it. What may we say of the courage, prudence, happy success of the Emperor in the establishment of Constantinople? We will not make him a God, as the Pagans, but say he was a man singularly assisted by the providence of God, in the greatness of his undertaking.  
He perceived in this new change of Religion there were in Rome many harsh spirits, and that even among the principal, whom he could not reclaim to Christianity, as his zeal fervently desired. Behold, whether desirous to consecrate to God a place better purified from Idols, where he might be served with more consent and better judgement, or whether he were transported with the desire of honour, and the memory of posterity, he resolved to build a City, which should bear his name, and be as it were the masterpiece of a great Monarch.  
For this purpose he had some desire to build on the ruins of Troy the Great, thinking the fame of the place, renowned for its unhappiness through all the parts of the habitable world, might contribute somewhat to the glory of his name: but he having laid the foundations, God gave him notice in sleep, that this was not the place appointed him, and that he necessarily must change the country: whereat being much amazed, yet still persisting in his design, as not throughly satisfied upon the will of God, it is held, the tools and instruments of workmen were insensibly transported over the sea to the other shore, and that an Eagle settling upon the Level of the Master-Architect, took it up, and hastened to bear it directly to Byzantium; for that is the City, whither 
Zonar. & Glyc●●.  Constantine, forsaking the ruins of Troy, transferred his great designs. It had heretofore been a very fair City, but as arms strike at all which is eminent, so had it been infinitely ransacked by many wars happening in the revolution of affairs and Ages. Yet it still supported itself with some manner of reputation, when this great Prince determined to amplify, every, and perfect it throughly, there to fix the seat of his Empire.  
It is added, that himself marched round about the walls, holding in his hand a half-pike, designing the circuit of his future Constantinople; and as he still went measuring up and down by the aim of his eye, one of his favourites said to him: Emperor, how long will it be ere you make an end? I will finish, saith he, when he stays that goeth before me: Which made men think there was some heavenly intelligence, that conducted his enterprise. At the same time he thought he saw in sleep a very ancient Lady, which in an instant was turned into a most beautiful virgin, whom he adorned, and attired, setting his Diadem on her head. Observe what is said of the beginnings of Constantinople: whether such things happened with all these circumstances, or whether we naturally love to tell some strange tales in favour of antiquity; as if these fictions were able to give it the more credit. One thing is most undoubted, which Zosimus, although an enemy to Constantine, is enforced to admire, that the manage of this great design was so prosperous, that in five or six years a goodly City was seen on foot, which extended about one league in circuit beyond the walls of Byzantium.  
Constantine, who had a holy desire to equal it to ancient Rome, spared nothing of all that, which the invention of men might find out, courage undertake, and power execute. He there built Palaces, theatres, Amphitheatres, Cirques, Galleries, and other edifices, infinitely admirable, so that S. Hierom had reason to say, that Constantine to attire his Constantinople despoiled all the other Provinces.  
It is a Maxim among Great-ones, that to make a huge Dragon, it is fit he first devour many little serpents; and to raise a great City, many much less must be ruined to serve for food unto it. The greatnesses of God are good deeds, those of the world are naturally destructions; for they eat and devour their neighbours, as the tree which we call the Ivy, which insensibly draweth the juice of plants growing near unto it. It is not expedient there should be many greatnesses in the world, they would dry rivers up, as did the army of Xerxes, and would impoverish each other by their mutual contestations. Yet notwithstanding needs must there be Majesty in the civil world, to the proportion of elementary. And for this cause God made Kings, taking a pattern from himself, & commandeth we honour them as his living images: Kings make the greatnesses of the world, which are the effects of their powers: Needs must there be a Constantinople that posterity may see Constantine on the back side of the medal, for I think his virtues have represented him on the other side very honourable.  
At the least, it is a thing exceeding laudable, and well considered by S. Augustine, that in this infinite store of Pagans, which he must yet of necessity tolerate, the Emperor permitted not either Temples of Idols, Sacrifices, or Pagan ceremonies. Well might he be curious to cause from all parts to be brought ancient statues of marble, brass, and other matter, which represented Jupiter, Cybile, Mercury, Apollo, Castor and Pollux, and so many false Divinities, which he set up in theatres, Amphitheatres, or Races, where the courses of horses were used, and in other public places. Eusebius, followed by Baronius holdeth, it was to expose them to the scorn of the people, which is very hard to believe: for I should rather think, that these pieces, being the most exquisite workmanships of the world, and that Constantine vehemently desiring the beauty of this City, could not then resolve upon such a Jewish zeal, as to break and deface them; but contented himself with the distribution of them into profane places to give lustre to his erterprises. Yet must we say, that though we at this present, are out of the danger of Idolatry, rich men of this Age have no reason to set up so, readily in their Halls and cabiners, Jun●'s, Venuses, and Diana's, and so many histories of the 
Tertul. l. de Idol. cap. 6.  Metamorphosis, with scandalous nakedness. Tertullian, an eager spirit, pursueth all this as a crime, and proveth in the book he composed of Idolatry, that all those who cooperate in such works, do worse, than if they sacrificed to Idols the blood of beasts. For they offer (saith he) their spirit, their industry, their travel, and their estate to Satan; and though they have no intention of sin, they minister matter to other of offending God.  
Behold the cause, why Constantine, although he were in an Age wherein Paganism being still in much request, it was very difficult to take away all these figures, notwithstanding he disguised them as much as he could; witness, that a great statue of Apollo being brought to Constantinople, one of the best pieces that ever had been seen in those elder times, he caused a Constantine to be made of this Apollo, changing it into his own image, and commanding some parcels of the venerable nails of our Saviour to be enchased over his head. It is in my opinion to this same image that he added a golden globe in the hand thereof, and over it a Cross with this inscription: Tibi, Christ, Urbem commendo. Besides, he made three Crosses to be erected, the most magnificent that might then be imagined, & set in the midst of a public place the statue of the Prophet Daniel among the Lions, all covered over with plates of gold, to represent a figure of the Resurrection. And as for his Palace, he caused to be portrayed at the very entrance thereof the history of the Passion in a most exquisite work, wrought and tissued with precious stones, very much resembling Mosayk work. All of it being finished, he made the dedication of the City on the tenth of May, and as it is very probably supposed, the five and twentieth of his Empire, consecrating it to God, in memory of the glorious Virgin Mary, and doing great acts of liberty to the people, which he commanded by his Edicts to be continued for perpetuity. Codin addeth, that he caused also sumptuous edifices there to be built for the Christians Senators, which he drew from the City, and made them so like their lodgings they had at Rome, that they were so ravished therewith, as it seemed their houses by miracle had been transferred from Rome to Constantinople. The two chief Churches were those of the Apostles, and of S. Sophia, to whom Constantine gave beginning, but the greatness of the work is due to the Emperor Justinian.  
Our great Monarch, who had his eye open over all, forgot not to establish a good College in his City, whereunto he drew the choice of learned men in all professions, dignifying and adorning it with immunities and great privileges, in such sort, that Aurelius Victor called him the nursing-Father of learning; and pursuing this design, he took a particular care to erect a good Library, and above all to furnish it with good store of holy books, well written, the superintendency whereof he gave to Eusebius of Caesarea.  
Behold the estate of his Constantinople, which he by Edict commanded to be called New Rome, and Sozomen assureth, that in multitude of people, in abundance and riches, it surpassed the ancient: which is not very hard for any to believe, who will consider Rome in the absence of Emperors being then but as a Palace disinhabited; yet could not Baronius endure S. Gregory nazianzen's speech, who said Constantinople as much in his time excelled the other Cities, as Heaven surpasseth earth.  
This would suffice to show the politic prudence of great Constantine; but it shineth also in other points, of which I think this to be most considerable, that he held for the space of thirty years an Empire so great, in a time wherein the Emperors had ordinarily so short a reign, that they resembled those creatures, which enjoyed but one day of life, in an age, when the people were so apt to revolt, that the sea had not more agitations, than all Kingdoms had vicissitudes; in an establishment of Religion very new, wherein commotions are commonly most dangerous. We may well say this Prince had something in him above all that which is humane, to cement together an Empire of so long continuance, in affairs so discordant.  
It is true, that he tolerated the sects of Pagans for mere necessity, otherwise he must have killed the whole world to make a new of it. The wise Prince well saw it was a thing impossible to annihilate superstition in an instant, which had taken such deep root for a thousand years, about which time Rome was built; but in this civil peace, which he gave to all the East, he insensibly undermined the foundations of impiety, and verily by little and little it perished in his hands. His spirit sparkling like a fire could not rest, [but seeing the Magistrates of the Empire were moreover busy, yet not discharging the duty of their places, and that by the greatness of their power they made themselves too absolute, he altered the whole government, dividing their charges, and multiplying the offices of the Empire: For which Zosimus blameth him, not considering it was the policy of Augustus Caesar, reputed one of the most ablest Princes of the world; and that he, who will consider the state of the Empire established by Constantine, shall find so much order in this great diversity, so much wisdom in inventions; so much courage in executions, so much stability in continuance, that he shall have more cause to admire the deep counsels of the Emperor, than find what to blame in his government. The same Zosimus, as a Courtier and a Pagan, extremely displeased with great liberalities which Constantine exercised towards the Churches, furiously taxeth him upon the matter of tributes, 
Tributes.  saying. He invented new, and exacted them with much violence.  
And yet notwithstanding there are no tributes under Constantine, the use whereof is not observed to have been in the Age of the former Emperors▪ For concerning the impost of a certain sum of gold and silver paid by merchants from four years to four, which the Grecians called Chrysargyros, although the name were then new, the manner of it could not be so, since the Historiographer Lampridius, in the life of Alexander Severus, makes mention of the gold of merchants. And as for that which was also imposed upon prostitute women, it was likewise under the reign of the same Alexander: So that he who will compare that, which is done before Constantine, and that after him in this article, shall there find much moderation in his proceed. For so far was it from him to surcharge the people, that he gave a relaxation of the fourth part of tributes; which is so much, as if a King after the space of four years passed, should free his people for a year from ordinary subsides, which would be no small liberality. Now concerning the violence whereof this man complaineth, the Edicts of Constantine testify, that he would not have any man to be so much as imprisoned for moneys due to his coffers. True it is, he had 
Cod. Theod. l. 2. de exactionibus.  a list of the names of men of quality in the Empire, with a tax of their revenues, to enforce them to public necessities, and by this means discharge the poor. Otherwise it is well known this Prince was 
Cod. Theod. l. 2. tit 2. Victor.  so zealous for justice, that he would not suffer even the letters of favour obtained from him, should have any power to the prejudice of ancient laws. And that if any of his favourites had a process, and would beg of him to interpose his authority for him, he would leave him to justice, willing rather to afford him coin out of his coffer, than one sole word of favour, which might dispose the Judges to bend the balance more to one side than another. He had his eye upon his Officers, and retained them in their duties, discovering and chastising corruptions, and banishing with his whole endeavour all crimes that were against the law of God, and public tranquillity.  
He was much seconded in the administration of affairs by the diligence of Ablavius, the greatest favourite of the Prince, and Superintendent of Justice, who was verily a man of Judgement, had he not blemished the gifts of God with insatiable avarice.  
He was surnamed The Baloon of fortune, for the many changes which happened in his person. For it is held, that he was of very base extraction, born in Constantinople, then called Byzantium; and that a Mathematician arrived in this City, upon the instant the mother of Ablavius was to be delivered. This man weary of his way, and very hungry, went into an Inn where he calls for dinner: his hostess was very busy to provide it for him, at which time one came to entreat her to assist a neighbour of hers in her childbirth, for she practised the office of a Midwife. This made her forsake her guest, to help the poor creature, who was said to be in great danger if she gave not remedy. The business being dispatched, she returned to her guest, who was very angry, and murmured with much impatience. She to appease him excused herself upon the necessity of the accident happened: but this notable ginger, hearing speech of the birth of a child, forsook the pot and glass which he dearly loved, and endeavoured to set the Horoscope of this Ablavius, newly come into the world. And thereupon said to the hostess. Go, tell your neighbour, she hath brought forth a son to day, who shall be all, and have all, but the dignity of an Emperor.  
I think with Eunapius, that such tales are rather made after events, to give credit to judicial Astrology, than to say they have any foundation upon truth. It is not known by what means he was advanced, but he came into so great an esteem, that he governed the whole Empire under Constantine, who freely made use of him, as of a man discreet and vigilant in affairs, though much displeased to see him too eager in his proper interests. And it is said, that walking one day with him, he took a stick in his hand, and drew the length of five or six foot on the earth; then turning towards his creature Ablavius, why so much sweat and travel? In the end of all, neither I nor thou shall have more than this, nay thou dost not know whether thou shalt have it or no.  
He was the cause by his factions that Constantine almost caused one day three innocent Captains to be punished with death, being ill informed, had it not been that S. Nicholas then living, appeared in a dream the same night to Constantine and Ablavius, threatening if they proceeded any further, God would chastise them, which made them stay execution.  
Ablavius notwithstanding was so tied to the earth, that the words and examples of his Master had small power over his soul, in such sort, that he had an unhappy end, ordinary with those who abuse the favours of God.  
For after the death of Constantine, Constantius who succeeded in the Empire of his father, taking this man as it were for a Pedagogue, so much authority had he assumed unto himself, and thinking he could not free himself of his minority but by the death of Ablavius, caused him miserably to be butchered, sending two for executours of this commission, men suborned, who saluted him with great submissions, and knees bended to the earth, in manner of Emperor. He, who before had married one of the daughters of the Emperor Constans, brother of Constantius, thinking they would raise him to the dignity of Caesar, asked where the purple was. They answered they had no commission to give it him, but that those who should present it were at his chamber door. He commandeth them to be speedily brought in: These were armed men, who approaching near unto him, instead of the purple, inflicted a purple death, transfixing him with their swords, and renting him as a Sacrifice.  
If the poor man following his Master's example; had been willing to set limits upon his fortune, and taken shelter at least in the storm, to meditate upon the affairs of his conscience, he would the less have been blamed: but natural desires have this proper, that they are bounded by nature which made them. The fantasies of ambition, which grew from our opinions have no end, no more than opinion subsistence. For what bounds will you give to the falsehood and lying of a miserable vanity, which filleth the spirit with illusion, and the conscience with crimes? When one goeth the right way, he findeth an end: but when he wandereth  the fields, he makes steps without number, errors without measure, and miseries without remedy.   

The thirteenth SECTION The death of Constantine.  
IT seemeth great men who have lived so well, should never die, and that it were very fit they still did, what they once have done so happily. But as they entered not into life by any other way than that of birth, as men, so must they issue out from this ordinary residence of mortals, as other men.  
Constantine had already reigned thirty and one years, and was in the threescore and third of his age, living otherwise in a prosperous old age, and having a body exceedingly well disposed to the functions of life; for he incessantly traveled in the duty of his charge, without any inconvenience, ordering military matters in his mind, instituting laws, hearing embassages, reading, writing, discoursing, to the admiration of all the world.  
This good Prince earnestly desired the conversion of all the great-ones of his Court. Behold why, not satisfied with giving them example of a perfect life, he inflamed them to good with powerful words, which were to souls, as thunderclaps to Hinds, not for the delivery of a beast, but the production of salvation.  
A little before his death, he pronounced in his Palace to those of his Court a very elegant Oration of the immortality of the soul, of the success of good and evil, of the providence of God in the recompense of pure souls, of the terror of his justice upon the incredulous and reprobate. This divine man handled these discourses with so much fervour and devotion, that he seemed to have his ear already in heaven, to understand mysteries, and enjoy an antipast of Paradise.  
A while after he felt some little inequality of temperature in his body, which was with him very extraordinary, so sound and well composed he was. Thereupon he was taken with a fever somewhat violent, and causing himself to be carried to the baths, he remained not long there: for little regarding the health of his body in comparison of the contentment of his soul, he was possessed with a great desire to go to Drepanum in Bythinia, a City which he surnamed of his good mother, where was the body of S. Lucian the Martyr, to which he had a particular devotion.  
He being transported into this desired place, felt in this heart an alacrity wholly celestial, and for a long time remained in the Church notwithstanding the indisposition of his body, fervently praying for his own salvation, and the universal repose of his Empire. From thence he went directly to a Palace which he had in the suburbs of Nichomedia, where feeling the approaches of death, he disposed himself for his last hour, with the marks of a piety truly Christian. His Princes and Captains who heard him speak of death, being desirous to divert his mind from this thought, said, He was become too necessary for all the world, and that the prayers of all men would prolong his life. But he, Of what do you speak to me, as if it were not true life, to die to so many dead things, to live with my Saviour? No this here is not a death, but a passage to immortality. If you love me, hinder not my way; one cannot go too soon to God. This spoken, he disposed of his last Will with a constant judgement and courageous resolution, declaring in his Testament the estate of affairs he would establish, even in the least particulars, and very well remembering all his good servants, for whom he ordained pensions and rewards for every one according to his merit.  
He divided the Empire between his three sons, at that time absent; and having distributed their several shares with great providence, he gave to Constantius the Empire of the East, leaving a Will sealed with his own signet in the hands of a certain Priest, whom he appointed to deliver it immediately to his son, which he did: and afterward Constantius so much honoured this man, that being inflexible to all other, he only obeyed him as a God. The dispose of his temporal affairs being settled, he transferred all his thoughts to familiar discourses which he had with God, and yielded up his most happy soul on the Feast of Pentecost, the 22. of May, about midday, in the year of our Lord. 337.  
The soldiers and officers who waited next his person, not thinking his end so near at hand, upon this news were seized with a grief so outrageous, that tearing their , and prostrating themselves upon the earth, they bewailed their Emperor with complaints, which rather resembled yell than moderate sorrow, called him, Their Sovereign Lord, their good Master, & common Father of the world.  
His body was put into a coffin of gold, covered with purple, to carry it to Constantinople; where it was many days exposed in his Palace attired in Imperial habit, receiving the same duties and reverences, as if he had yet been alive, never was there observed toward any Emperor whatsoever either such great concourse of people, or cordial affection: not so much as little children but were touched with a sensible grief, as if they had lost their father. One might have seen among the people some confounded with sad and heavy sorrow, others to break forth into complaints, the rest to pour themselves out in devotions and prayer. When ancient Rome heard the news of his death, she caused the baths and public Places to be shut up, all mirth and solace to cease, that they might lament the loss of a most honoured father.  
The Princes his children speedily arrived at Constantinople, caused his obsequies to be performed after the manner of Christians, conducting the body to the Sepulchre with the Clergy, wax lights burning, and prayers of the Church ordained for the souls of the dead. For Eusebius, who was there present, maketh express mention of the ceremonies, which new Heretics, through great impertinency and malignity have endeavoured to deny for the comfort of the dead.  
It is a mervellous thing to consider what power virtue hath over the hearts of men, and to behold how many divers sects are different in that, which is matter of belief in Divinity, but all notwithstanding agree in the honour due to honesty. The Pagans would needs canonize Constantine in their manner, and made a God of him, representing him in a Chariot, harnessed out with four horses, as flying above the clouds, and a hand stretched from Heaven, which made show to hold him in this most blessed mansion of immortality. The Greek Church hath honoured his memory, as of a Saint; although Constantine had so humble an opinion of himself, that it is very likely he ordained by his Testament, which was afterward seen to be executed in his funerals, that his body should be interred not in the Church of S. Peter and S. Paul, but before the porch: esteeming himself most happy, if after he had born the prime Diadem of the world, he might serve as a porter to a simple fisherman.  
I now ask of you, my Reader, who have considered the beginning, progress, and end of this Monarch, where may you find one more clear in greatness of courage, more generous in his erterprises, more prudent in his carriage, more fortunate in successes, more constant in his perseverance? Poise a little, and put in a balance the glory of his arms, the happiness of his conquests, the wisdom of his laws: what virtue think you had he here occasion to make use of, to set a new face upon a whole world, to oppose Armies with iron, stratagems with prudence, rebellion of untamed spirits with mildness? What arm to resist the torrents of iniquity? What stroke to counterbalance the inclinations of wills, and swift motions of an universal world. 
Greatness of Constantine.  Verily I must affirm Augustus Caesar was a great Prince, for that he changed the face of the State of a mighty Commonwealth, built up a vast Empire; but not to flatter, nor raise our Princes above their merit with the interest of our own cause, we shall find this man had some thing in him much greater. I admit the other seemeth to you more subtle if you consider him in the maturity of prudence he shown in his elder days; notwithstanding if you behold him in all the parts of his life, you shall find great vices therein: I say not only of impurity, or neglect, but of wickedness and inhumanity: which was the cause that he having one day in a banquet taken the shape of Apollo, those about him named him Apollinem Tortorem, Apollo the Hangman. I go not about at this time to search into the vices either of the one or other. I admit that Constantine though descended of the most noble blood of Romans, and as fortunate as ever Augustus, was in his beginning somewhat cruel: Yet no man can deny, but that in military virtue, he in all points surpassed Augustus Caesar, who was never put into the rank of the most warlike Princes.  
Let us not here overprize the supereminency the one had above the other in this point: Let us only compare them in quality of founders of new Estates. The one made a new world civil; and the other a new world Christian. The one to do what he did, found a Julius Caesar, who beforehand cut out his work for him: The other hewed forth a way through rocks, flames, thorns, wholly involved with contrariety. The one arranged men under a civil submission, in recovery of a Monarchy, which is an ordinary thing: The other without arms disarmed them from the affection they bore to their ancient superstition, which every well understanding Judge will esteem a matter very difficult, because ordinarily men are very obstinate to retain the beliefs which they have held from father to son, through the revolution of many Ages. Finally, Augustus said he found a City of stone, speaking of ancient Rome, and had made of it a City of marble; but Constantine might boast to have raised a Rome wholly new in the establishment of his Constatinople.  
It is affirmed by the Pagan's themselves, who never attributed any thing to Constantine above his merit, that he was at the least, say they before bus baptism, comparable to all the greatest Princes of the Empire. Eutropius, a soldier of Julian the Apostata, who little loved Christian Princes, is enforced through a truth to confess, that he was 
(d) Vir ingens. Innumerae in e● animi corpori●▪ que virtutes clar●erunt: fortunà in bel●● prosperâ fuit: verum ita ut non super●ret industrian. The Prince cap. 2. and upon the 1. Decad. chap. 12. 13.  Agreat man, having qualities and virtues of mind and body most innumerable, and that his fortune being very great be had notwithstanding equalled it by his industry and merit. Behold a testimony from the mouth of an enemy.  
I would here willingly demand of Machiavelli, who in the Treatise he composed of a Prince, said: That he which in all things would hold a strict profession of an honest man, cannot long continue in the company of such others as are of no esteem; and that it is necessary for a Prince who will maintain his own power, to learn how he may sometimes be wicked, and to practise it according to the necessity of affairs: And in his State-Discourses well discovereth he is of opinion, a Prince should cherish the Religion which most suiteth with his designs whatsoever they be.  
I should willingly know of all those that pursue 
Admirable providence of God. above all humane Policy.  the like Maxims with this corrupt spirit, what they would here answer me, upon the progression of the fortune of Constantine. Verily behold here a Statewisedom, whereunto the pen of this Secretary, who pretended ability in some petty humane tracks, cannot arrive. Behold a light, whereat all these eyes are dazzled. Behold an abyss, where all carnal men are lost, if we will well reckon them up, we shall find twelve or thirteen, who in several ways argue upon the Diadem with Constantine. By what degrees hath the divine providence conducted him to the Sovereignity of the Empires of the world? Is it by those, which Monsieur Nicholas Machiavelli hath prepared to lead his Prince in? If one must dispoil himself of innocency to be re-invested with the robe Imperial, why did Constantine take the way of Empire by that of sanctity? If use must be made of Religion, as of an instrument of State, and that taken which hath the most credit in the opinion of the people, why went he about to choose Christian Religion, at that time when the most part of the world, was ingulfed in Gentilism? Behold Maxentius, who according to the ordinary custom of the people of Rome, caused the pretended books of Sybilles' to be turned over, consulted with Augurs, offered sacrifices: This gave him a reputation of piety with a people as much infidel as himself: Why did not Constantine pursue the same ways: Why did he set the sign of the Cross on his Standards, esteemed fatal and of ill presage in the minds of the most part of his army? What favour might he then expect from Christians? Would he draw treasures from them? They were despoiled of all. Pretended he to raise huge armies of them for his service? They were so cut down, that one only month saw seventeen thousand heads upon the ground, Did he persuade himself there was much strength in their religion? They were all either massacred, maimed, or banished. Did he look for counsel? They were men esteemed void of learning or policy. Did he hope for credit? They were trampled under foot like dirt in the streets.  
Why then did a man reputed of so excellent judgement, confine his interests to these miserable creatures? He stood in need for the accommodation of his affairs of a Roman Senate, and it was Pagan. He wanted good Captains, & they were in a manner all Gentiles. He must have Forts, and they all held for ancient superstition. What doth he go about? And yet behold in a time wherein his affairs lest seemed to require it, he takes the marks of Christianity, and with them hasteneth to assail the Army of Maxentius, composed of a hundred threescore and ten thousand footmen, and eighteen thousand horse, he himself according to the relation of those, who lived in the very same time, having in this conflict, but very small troops. From whence cometh it, that he in so short a time, and with so few people, defeated such formidable powers? Not to belly the matter, had these men been but earthen statues, they might make resistance. Had they but been an army of sheep, they might weary the soldiers of Constantine to cut their throats. From whence comes it they were so soon defeated? From whence comes it that Maxentius so basely betook himself to the stratagem of a bridge, which he prepared for his enemy? From whence comes it that a Roman Senate, which had confirmed so many Edicts against the Cross, a people bred up in the horror of the crucified, should readily receive a man, who entered into Rome with the Cross, and the name of the crucified upon his Standard? From whence comes it, that on the triumphal Arch dedicated to him, he would have no mention of Roman Gods? At the least, according to the counsel of the Sectaries of the Florentine Secretary, he should dissemble his religion, he should give way to time, he should make himself outwardly a Diocletian, and inwardly, if needs he would, a Constantine, Will any one say, he was at that time a man victorious, who came to give law, and not receive it? But who saw not, that his fortune being as yet in the bud, he was to walk towards Empires as on thorns, fearing above all things to irritate in the change of Religion the principal spirits of the East and West, who were passionately affected towards their Sect? I affirm Maxentius the defender of the Gods, ruinated himself by his ill government. Lycinius was yet on foot; and verily Lycinius an ancient soldier, who had waxed old in arms, and had never arrived to the Empire but by his valour, drew in the end all the party of Gentilism, with forces innumerable both by sea and land, which seemed able to swallow many worlds. He made use of the counsel of Monsieur Machiavelli, he protested he took arms for the defence of the Gods and Altars of ancient Rligion, against a man who sought to introduce a barbarous Sect into the World. Was not this a matter very specious in the times, when the superstition of Gentiles was exalted by Edicts of Emperors to the highest degree of honour? Lycinius notwithstanding is beaten, overthrown, ruined, both by sea and land, although he were one of the most inventive in the subtleties of the art military, of the most resolute for execution, and the most stubborn, to make up again a desperate fortune.  
O you Nobility, what shall we say hereupon? Must we not confess there is one God in heaven, and not any other God, but that of Constantine, who giveth Kingdoms, establisheth Sceptres, and cementeth Crowns? If all this proceeding had been an extravagancy of passion, we might attribute one part of it to the hazard of Wars, the other to the valour of Soldiers, and the last, to the heat of the first encounters. But to hold an Empire thirty and one years, with so great an equality, so accomplished a felicity, so secure a peace, from the time of his last conquest, what may one answer to this?  
From whence is it, that Constantine having forsaken ancient Rome, of purpose to build a fair City, where God might sincerely be honoured, and adored, without any commixtion of Gods or Altars of Gentiles, which he as yet through necessity must tolerate at Rome, yet nothing was changed in the West? Was there want of men to undertake it? The greatest of the Senate were in a manner all Pagans. Were there not people enough to make revolts? They were as much inclined thereunto as ever. Were there not soldiers to support the erterprises of those who had a desire to rebel? There was as many and perhaps more at that time, as at any time before. From whence then proceeded this sweet tranquillity, but that the great Angel-Protectour of Constantine, given unto him by the living God, held one foot on the East, and another on the West, to protect, preserve, and honour a man, who had defended, maintaimed and reverenced true Religion.  
Oh Nobility, let no man go about to confine your 
Advise to the Nobility.  hearts to these slender and wretched policies, which ruin all generosity. Whilst your Ancestors sincerely honoured the God of Constantine, of Charlemagne, and S. Lewis, and whilst they with all sincerity manured the piety of their predecessors, without any mixture of novelties, factions, and subtleties, they flew like Eagles to the conquest of Provinces, and made their arms resplendent almost in so many places, as the sun enlighteneth with his rays. Now they endeavour to persuade you, that following a petty spirit of wrangling, which submitteth religion to interests, you shall make up to yourselves golden fortunes; when indeed experience daily teacheth you, they are but of gilded ice, and are melted under the lightning of God's justice.  
Open your eyes to that, which I present you in 
Successors of Constantine.  this history; behold yet, if you please as you pass along, the sequel and proceeding of the successors of Constantine. He left three sons, the one called by his own name, the other Constantius, from the name of his Grandfather, and the third Constans. Constantine and Constans lived not long: the whole Empire which was divided between three, was reunited under the power of Constantius, who verily was an enemy to the superstitions of Gentiles, for which God gave him in recompense great victories against the Tyrant Magnentius.  
But this unfortunate Prince, instead of following the same belief of his father, hastened to throw himself violently into the novelties of the Arians; whereof Ammianus the Historian, who was a Pagan soldier, very aptly reprehendeth him, saying, he had done himself great wrong, for that instead of preserving Christian Religion in its simplicity, he had imbroiled and falsified it with novelism, using more perplexity to search out subtleties, than gravity to pacify the Church: For he by this means, saith he, stirred up an infinite number of dissensions, which he nourished with disputes and quirks of words; so that under his reign you should never see Bishops but riding post over the fields to hold Synods, thereby to draw all Christendom to the Emperor's party. This was the cause that there were almost no horses nor Couriers to be found for the affairs of the Empire, so much were they employed in voyages which were made for these goodly Counsels.  
He hath excellently well expressed in few words the nature of Constantius; for he was perpetually busied in these litigious wranglings of the heresy of Arians, assembling Conventicles of his false-Bishops to condemn the Orthodox. From whence it came to pass, that hated of men, and forsaken by God, he led a life full of jealousies, suspicions, disturbances, and which is worse, defiled with blood and massacres.  
In the end, having heard the news that Julian the Apostata his cousin, whom he had before declared Caesar, was among the Gauls, and saluted Emperor, and having passed through Italy, came to present himself in Thrace, he went speedily out to resist him, and fell into such desperate furies, that on his way he was surprised with a sharp fever, which so broiled his body, that they durst no more touch him than a burning furnace. This malady in a few days bereft him of soul and Empire, leaving the one to the judgement of God, and the other to Julian.  
Behold what became of this deplorable Prince, in the one and fourtieth year of his age, for having betrayed the Religion of his father; the gravity and modesty observed in him, which was the cause he was never seen to spit nor wipe his nose, nor turn his head in public, nothing availing him to lengthen out his life. Julian, Nephew and son-in-law of great Constantine, for he espoused Helena sister of Crispus, took instantly the government of the whole Empire upon him, and would needs overthrow all that which his uncle had done in matter of Religion.  
Let us consider a little without passion the notable extravagancies of this spirit, who contemning the piety 
Julian with the qualities which Machiavelli giveth a Prince had ill succ. ss.  of Constantine, sought to establish himself by all the ways, which the poor policy of earth suggesteth to those who have renounced heaven. To speak to the purpose, we must affirm, this man had all the qualities which Monsieur Machiavelli gave to his Prince. If dissimulation may be used for a Kingdom, never was a lamb more mild than this young man at the Court of Constantius, to take all suspicions from him, which he conceived of his near allies; and although he already entertained most mischievous thoughts in the matter of Christian Religion, he so covered them by the public profession he made of it, that the very Eunuches who had all charge most narrowly to pry into his actions upon this point, observed nothing therein which tended to alteration in Religion. But far otherwise, about the age of sixteen, he caused his hair to be cut, and vowed himself to the Church, as a Prince most Religious, who thought little on the Empire of the world.  
And after, when he was sent into France, although he used strange superstitions and witchcrafts, rising up in the night to pray to Mercury, to whom he dedicated much devotion; yet did he also notwithstanding celebrate the feasts with Christians: and that which besides is more considerable, when he was proclaimed Emperor, though he had an enraged desire towards it, and that all this solemnity, was throughly agreed upon by his cunning, yet feigned he to have all the aversions in the world against it, and caused himself to be carried to the throne as one would draw an unruly sacrifice to the slaughter.  
What spirit was evermore dissembled than this man's? If, as saith the Secretary, a Prince should endeavour to have virtues in appearance which may render him acceptable in public, though he be not to take much pains to have them in effect, never did any man better put on the mask of much honesty than this. For in the fortune of Emperor, he would seem like the most mortified Stoik of all that Sect; showing himself so chaste, that never might you hear one sole misbecoming word fall from his lips; so sober, that he gave an example to the most austere Monks; so negligent in the neatness of his body, that he much gloried to see vermin run up and down on his beard, which he wore very long to play the Philosopher in all kinds; so patiented, that he many times endured all sorts of affronts and sharp words from mean men, no more moved thereby to anger than a stone.  
If it must needs be, according to the said Maxims, that a Prince to procure estimation, should perform great erterprises, this man was no sooner seated in his Throne, but that he practised admirable policies, and hastened to make war on the Persians, to imitate Alexander the Great, to whose virtues he aspired. If needs some remarkable act must be done in the beginning, he at his entrance professing Paganism, repealeth the Bishops, which Constantius a Christian Prince had banished. If liberality must be used, this man gave all, and said his treasures were better among his friends, than with himself. If excellent Masters in every art and science are to be cherished, this man did it with much passion.  
From whence then proceedeth it, that with all those goodly parts of Machiavels Prince, he hath so little prospered, reigning but one year and seven months, and dying strucken with a blow from heaven, which the Pagan's themselves confess to be ignorant from whence it came; and dying in a frenzy, which caused him to fill his hand with his own blood, and cry, Thou, O Galilean haste overcome, and leaving in his death a memory of his name so odious to all posterity.  
The poor man forsaking the way already so happily beaten by Constantine, unluckily hasteneth to join amity with those wise Politicians, who had all Plato's Commonwealth, who esteemed themselves the most accurate in the government of the World, who promised him by these wiles he practised, the absolute extirpation of Christianity, and to make him the most awful and most glorious of all the Emperors of the world. And I beseech you, what became in the end of all these promises, but dreams, illusions, and vapours.  
Constantius under the holy Philosophy of the cross, reigned more than thirty years. Constantine waged great wars, had great victories, great triumphs, was attended by great Counsels, great Cities. Constantine left a Religion, so established, that the malice of an Arian son, nor the policy of a new Apostata could not extinguish it. Constantine never entered into any battle where he came not off victorious. And Julian in the first war he undertook upon the beginning of his empire, confounded all his Army, led his Captains to slaughter, was himself slain as a victim. And the sage Politicians which he ever had in his army, instead of Priests and Bishops, drew him to death, to serve as a spectacle of confusion for the one, and matter of mirth for the other,  
May we not well say, O Nobility, that these spirits who divert your hearts from the chaste beliefs of your Ancestors, from the purity of faith, the candour of a good conscience, to invenom them with a doctrine of impiety, policy, and treachery; under colour of humane wisdom, are the plagues of States, the ruins of houses, and the fatal hands to annihilate greatness.  
I will not infer for a necessary conclusion, that all such as live in the fear of God and in integrity, must ever have pleasing successes according to the world, in the manage of temporal affairs: this is not a thing absolutely promised to us by God. We have not sold him our fidelity and Christianity upon such condition, that he should still afford us the bread of dogs, and favour us with felicities, which he imparteth to Saracens and Moors. I know good Christian Princes may be afflicted, sometime for the punishment of certain sins, which they with too much indulgence have permitted; sometime for a trial and spectacle of their virtue; sometime to teach us there is another life for the children of God, since they in this same are ill entreated, sometime for causes which the providence of God involveth as in a cloud, replenished with obscurity and darkness. Yet shall you find in reading histories either divine or humane, that all those who have progressed on with true feeling of God, and with the lightnings of integrity, and touches of a good conscience, which nature provideth for every man, have commonly been the most expected, the best beloved, the most happy, and most permanent.  
And to speak with S. Augustine, would not they 
Aug. lib. 5. de civitate Dei cap. 24.  ever be most happy, if they had no other felicity, but to be just in their commands, moderate in their fortunes, humble among services, modest in praises, and faithful servants of God, in Empires? Wherein consisteth the happiness of man, if it be not to fear God, so to fear nothing else? If it be not to love a Kingdom, where we no longer may dread to have companions? If it be not to pardon injuries through clemency, and not revenge crimes, but by justice? If it be not to be chaste in the liberty of pleasures? If it be not rather to command over our own passions, than Cities and Provinces?  
Behold the principal felicity of great Constantine, which you ought, O Noble Men, to take for your model. Do in your own houses what he acted in an Empire: establish there constantly the fear and love of God. Banish vices, as he from his City of Constantinople the Temples and Victims of false Gods; that the honour of the Cross may set a seal on all your thoughts, all your counsels, all your erterprises; that your examples may serve to God as amber, and adamant, to attract so many hearts of straw and iron, as are now in the world, to the love of virtue, that these duels of gladiatours, condemned by Constantine, may be the horror of your thoughts, and detestation, of your hearts; that devotion, chastity, humility, patience, charity, virtues so familiar to this great Monarch, may make an honourable warfare, which shall possess your heart; and that all of them may there reign, each one in particular with as ample Empire, as all of them in general.    

THE STATESMAN.  

TO STATESMEN.  
SIRS,  
SInce God hath put the government of people, justice, and most important affairs into your hands, he hath likewise raised you upon a high degree of honour, to be looked on in offices, no otherwise than as stars in the firmament.  
Your dignities are obligations of conscience, that bend like the chains of MEDEA, and scorch weak souls in purple and gold: but which on the other part afford to generous spirits a perfect lustre of Divinity. The more light a body enjoyeth, say the learned, so much the more ought it to have of participation and favourable influences, for objects which are in a much lower degree than it▪ So likewise must we necessarily say, that your qualities, which grant you nearer approaches to the source of greatness, and embellish you with the rays of the majesty of a Prince, do most particularly oblige you to all the great virtues, which concern the Weal-public.  
It oftentimes happeneth, that those who fly from charges and affairs under pretext of tranquillity of spirit, if they be not well rectified therein, find instead of repose a specious sluggishness; and those, who make profession of arms, if they take not good heed, suffering all the innocence of the Golden Age to languish, make themselves virtues of the iron Age: but your conditions, which have a certain temperance of a life more sweet, accompanied with laudable employments, open the way to you, which maketh and crowneth merits. Yet is there need of a soul very able to preserve itself sincerely in charges, among so many corruptions, and of a heart perfectly purified, to link it wholly to the interests of God, who with three fingers of his power supporteth Estates and Empires.  
That is the cause, why I offer this Treatise, not so much to give Maxims of State, of which there are always enough to be found; as sometimes to awaken a good conscience, which is a true ray reflected from the eternal Law, to the end that among so many temptations of Honour, and such burdens of affairs, it may not lose any part of its vigour. If you deign to spend some hours of your leisure hereon, it perhaps will not be unprofitable; for at least that will let you see a Statesman, as rare as a Phoenix, and as pure as an Angel. But if this consideration furnish you with any good thoughts for your perfection, I shall esteem myself well recompensed for the service, which I in this work have vowed to your eminent qualities:   

THE STATES— MAN.  
The first SECTION. The excellency of Politic Virtue.  
I Have ever made account of the division of virtues which the Platonists use, when they call the one Purgative, the other Illuminative, the third Civil, and the last Exemplar.  
Purgative virtues are those, which give to our souls the first tincture of sanctity. For they take our heart, wholly possessed as it is yet with earthly passions, and discharge it from so many imperfections which ordinarily corrupt nature, to give it a taste of heavenly things. Illuminative afford us daylight, when we have vanquished the agitations of sense, & establish us in the sweetness of some repose, where we begin to behold the entrances, progresses, and issues of the world wherein we are placed, and the course of this great Comedy, called life. The Civil draw us out of ourselves, to apply us to our neighbour, and to render every one his due according to his degree, in the good conversion betwixt man and man. Exemplar proceed much further in perfection; for they expose themselves in public, to serve as models for others, and appear in charges and dignities, in the government of Kingdoms, Provinces, Cities, and Commonalties. This is it which I call here the virtue of a Statesman, taking the word generally, not only for those who are engaged in the manage of Monarchies, Sovereignties, and Republics; but also for such as exercise justice, and other principal charges of civil life. We must 
Excellentibus ingeniit citius defueritars, quâ civem regant, quàm quâ hostem superent. Tit. Liv. lib. 2.  affirm this politic virtue which maketh true Statesmen, is a rare piece; and as it were the cream and most purified part of wisdom, seeing that not contenting itself with a lazy knowledge of virtue, it laboureth to build, adorn, and establish the civil world by the maintenance of justice, without which in the amplest Kingdoms are the greatest thefts.  
If the world be a harp, as saith the eloquent Sinesius, 
D. Tho. 22. q 58. Justicia legalis, praeclarior omnibus moralibus; quia bonum commune pre●minet bono singulari. Tertul. l. 2. adversus Martion. Bonita● Dei operata est mundum, justitia modulata est.  justice windeth up the strings, stirreth the fingers, toucheth the instrument, giveth life to the airs, and maketh all the excellent harmonies. If the world be a Musick-book, framed of days and nights, as of white and black notes, justice directeth, and composeth. If it be a ring, justice is the diamond. If it be an eye, justice is the soul. If it be a Temple, justice is the Altar. All yieldeth to this virtue, and as it is enchased in all laudable actions, so all laudable actions are incorporated in justice. It is an engine much more powerful in effect than was that of Archimedes in idea; for it doth that in Kingdoms, which this man could never so much as imagine in his mind, though ambitious enough in inventions. It maketh, I say, Heaven to descend on earth, and earth to mount up to Heaven: Heaven to descend, in introducing a life wholly celestial in the uncivil conversation of men; earth to mount up, in drawing it from dregs and corruption of a covetous and bloody life, to enlighten it with rays of a prudent knowledge, to embellish it with virtues, diversify it with beauties, and settle it in the centre of repose.  
God maketh so much account of an honest man, 
Genes. 8. v. 27. according to the Hebrew text.  recommended to the government of others, that having chosen Noah to command over only seven souls, shut up in the Ark as in a moving prison, he calleth him his Heart: for to say truly, we must have the heart of God, to bring forth counsels sufficiently able to save men, and to be in the same instant the mouth of God, to pronounce the Oracles of truth. God asketh Job, who is the man on earth 
Job. 8. 33. Ordinem Coeli.  that shall make the music of Heaven? To which I would willingly answer: It is a good Justicier. For in what consisteth this harmony of Heaven? We are not in my opinion to imagine it according to the dotages of some Philosophers, who of it have made unto themselves a celestial music composed of voices and sounds form by the mutual encounter of those admirable Globes. The harmony of Heaven is nought else, but the good order of the sun, the moon, stars, day, and night, and seasons, which daily progress along with a regular pace, and measured motion, not erring in the least point.  
This order, which is so excellent and divine in Heaven, is introduced upon earth by the means of justice, which guideth and governeth all the actions of men within the circuits and limits of duty, so sagely and divinely, that he who would observe so many singular laws which books recommend unto us, should quickly make earth become a little Heaven. For the same reason Origen interpreting 
Isay. 66. Coelum miki sedes est. Efficiuntur sedes Dei, facti prius conversatione & peritia coelestes. Orig. Philostr. l. 1. c. 18.  this passage of Isay, where God saith, Heaven is his Throne, showeth, that the Paradise and Heaven of God upon earth is justice; from whence it cometh to pass, that such as use it, as they ought, are wholly celestial in science, life, and conversation. Was it not this consideration which drew the Babylonians to build the Palace, where judgements were given, in the form of Heaven; for the very stonework was of Saphires, which are of celestial colour, and in the feelings, clouds were counterfeited, and in those clouds certain birds, reputed as messengers of justice, as if they had been delegated to see the deportments of men in discharge of their offices, and to advise them, that giving judgement on earth, they must ever have an eye and an ear in Heaven.  
I also discover this by another observation of 
Jud. 45.  Scripture; for it teacheth me, that the brave Princess Deborah surnamed the Bee, judged the people, and held her Assizes under a Palm: or as it is probable, after the reason both of the one and other were heard, she took a leaf of this tree, and gave it to him who had the right. And from this practice 
Exornétque tuas plurima palma fores. Mortial.  is derived the custom to plant Palms at the gates of great Advocates and Justiciers, which was likewise observed in ancient Rome.  
Now why think you would God have the first sessions of justice to be held under Palms, but to signify that which Philo speaketh of, that as the Palm beareth his heart and strength in the top, so good judges direct their whole understanding and affections to heaven, living perpetually as in the presence of the Divinity, or else, that as the virtues of the Palm are innumerable, so the excellencies of justice are infinite?  
Add also hereunto a passage in a Chaldaic Commentary upon Ecclesiastes, which telleth how Solomon, that great King, under whose principality peace and justice mutually embraced as sisters, to show what account he made of those who well managed matters of right, caused a most sumptuous Palace to be erected for them of most exquisite workmanship, called the House of Judgement, and through excess of favour, ordained they should partake of the wine of offerings, which was presented on the Altars of the living God, and which came from a vine planted and manured by the hand of Solomon himself. Is it 
Exod. 32.  not to place justice in heaven, to admit it to the communication of the honours and offerings of God? So the people of Israel supposing one day that Moses was lost, instantly asked of Aaron Gods to govern them, as thinking there must be some divinity to supply the loss of this great Statesman. Why then do you wonder if S. Augustine in the book he composed of Order, praiseth the practice of Pythagoras who never taught politic science to his disciples, till they had passed through many long trials, esteeming the other arts were apt to debauch the mind, but that this applied lively colours, and as it is said, varnished and perfected up the table.  
It is not very hard at this time to conclude, what the excellency of a brave Statesman is, but the discovery of him is very rare. And I will tell you, that considering well the tables which Delbenius hath made upon Aristotle his Philosophy, and comparing them with other exquisite pieces; I have seen two Cities very different, both which bore the title of Policy: but the one in effect was false Policy, and the other the City of Verity. I will present them unto you plainly and sincerely, according to the like design of S. Augustine in his City of God, and according to the Idaea's of ancient Sages, not plancing at our times, which I will neither praise nor condemn, my nature and profession having disposed me to much ignorance of worldly affairs.   

The second SECTION. The table of Babylon drawn from sundry conceptions of the most singular wits of Antiquity  
WE then have beheld the City of wicked Policy in those ancient paintings, to be built upon ruins, in a land of quicksilver, wholly cemented with blood, Earthquakes are there very frequent, and I know not what kind of outrageous winds blow so dangerously, as if they would tear all in pieces.  
The waters were there infected, the air killed those which breathed in it, the viands produced death under a false appearance of life, The inhabitants saw nothing but wolves and foxes by their sides, ravens and owls on their houses, comets over their heads, serpents and scorpions at their feet, which were there seen as abundantly strewed, as flowers in the enamel of the spring. The gates 
Plutarch. de curiosit. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  resembled those fatal portals, whereof histories make mention, that were never opened, but to pass away carrion and ordure: and withal this the Citizens were so powerfully charmed, that they esteemed themselves most happy, supposing to sleep on thorns was to live among violets and roses.  
It is verily a wonder that without there were some shadows of piety, but within not so much as a Temple. For in truth the Burgesses of this City never looked up to heaven but to blaspheme it, and all of them greedily sought for earth covered with a vail of skye-colour.  
I saw no other Gods there, but Honour, Gain, and Pleasure, to which souls and bodies were sacrificed in much greater number than Solomon slaughtered oxen in the solemnity of his most magnificent Sacrifices. I saw huge caves, where there were all sorts of beasts, and likewise many monsters, that much resembled the Harpies, Gorgon's, and chimeras of antiquity.  
I perceived also some solitary dens, where I was certified great sacrileges were committed, of power to make darkness, which served them for a cover, to blush for shame, being unable to deceive the eyes of God.  
The men which walked in the streets appeared like Centaurs, and were clothed with an habit spotted over like the skin of a Panther. The Chirurgeons who diffected some of them newly dead, gave assurance they had found two hearts in them. Howsoever it is certain they shown, as it is said, marvellous cunning in their words, and had no other pastime all the day, but to lay snares; not sparing their greatest friends: for indeed they were extremely treacherous and cruel in all which concerned their own interests.  
As I more attentively considered their orders and distinctions, I saw there were three labyrinths, very different. In the first, which was at the very entrance, stood the least wicked, who were not as yet practised in black mischiefs, contenting themselves to exercise some slight tricks of wit; for they in good earnest deceived one another, and took much pleasure in mutual cozenage, and called this kind of sport legier-demain, I saw there many creatures that served their masters not forgetting their own affairs, and who mowed the meadow, whilst it was plenty. I saw Merchants some of which foisted in false wares, others disguised them, others overprized them, others swore without end, and some likewise swallowed up perjuries as sweetly as the most delicate viand. I saw Artificers who used many deceits in their manufactures, and better understood the trade of lying, than any other. I also saw some who sold wind, silence, and time, and had excellent inventions to get money. Some by certain influences drew it out, as doth lightning▪ not touching the purse. Others had inventions of quintessences: Others trafficked about stars, and sold good fortune in little boxes of smoke: Others had shops of the secrets of Arts, & made themselves able to give beauty, youth, health & immortalltie, to those that would buy them. Others made dice and mathematical cards: Others lead Bears; others extracted infamous coin from the planet of Venus; others in the quality of mercenaries made Odes and love sonnets for the Pandora's of the time; and which was most ridiculous, certain young wits among all these were seen, who laboured to patch up together rhymes or prose very little to the purpose, to whom Gold and incense was given, with which they were so puffed up, that they esteemed the most solid wisdom of the world to be but mere ignorance in comparison of their works,; One cannot tell all the tricks of this imposture, and how many sleights the spirit, watchful for its own interests, found to come to the end of its intentions. Conscience checked some; but they answered, one could not live in the world without these tricks, and that they were as necessary as to breathe.  
In the second labyrinth I saw the corruptions of 
Cyprian epist. ad Donatum. Inter leges ipsu delinquitur, inter jura peccatur.  justice described by S. Cyprian in the Epistle he addresseth to his friend Donatus, when he speaketh of Rome the Idolatress. All was replenished (saith this Prelate) with goodly Precepts, excellent laws, and sage ordinances: but in the midst of so many lights, God and men were offended with so much impudence, as if these laws were made to no other end, but to be transgressed. Never is innocence so ill entreated, as in the place where profession is made to defend it. The serpents of the desert have less gall and spleen than those Pleaders, whom I saw turmoiled with a spirit of giddiness, and dissevered with the sword of division. Their clamours were so loud that they made the whole house of justice to echo again, as are the waves heard to roar on the shore of the Aegean sea. I saw gibbets, wheels, and boiling 
Fures privatorum surtorum in compedibus publici in auro vitam agunt Cato.  cauldrons prepared for some miserable criminals, because they were yet, as it is said, but little thiefs; but were they much greater, their crimes had rather been crowned than chastised.  
From thence I viewed fields weeping, filled with standing waters, which were said to be gathered together from the tears of Widows, Orphans, and an infinite number of other persons, who live under great oppression. I saw some who were in the water up to the neck, and some who lifted up an arm withal their strength to offer up some papers, wherein were the laws of Charlemagne and Lewis the twelfth which expressly command the causes of the poor may be handled before any other business: but it was replied, such ordinances were quite out of use. These miserable creatures solicited their Attorneys, and they betrayed them; complained to their advocates and they perplexed them; implored the assistance of Judges, and they sold them, notwithstanding were esteemed honest men, and still enemies to these corruptions.  
I saw two great Registers, whereof the one was called the Cabal of favour; and the other the Cabal of money where it is said there were mischiefs as black as the spirits of the abyss, but they must not be divulged. There was also a very great quantity of Pleaders, who sought to stretch out suits, as Shoemakers a piece of leather with their teeth, and mutter out propositions of errors, reviews, incompetencies, rejections, oppositions, and compulsory causes, with so many other hideous words, that I asked whether these men spoke the language of the Canadas or Chinois  
Old Pettifoggers appeared, all over wormeaten with mischiefs, who could scarce breathe from their lips, yet had strong apprehension of death, through fear to leave the exercise of suits. The like was found in souls already half damned, who were very solicitous in manner of treachery; one bare false witness, another invented a contract, another forged a Will, another supposed a crime, another had a shop of all sorts of slanders and diabolical falsifications; the audacious sale of a word prostituted to sin▪ flew between Heaven and earth about twilight with the wings of an owl; and to consummate the sublimity of mischief, right yielded to iniquity. It was to do wrong to the wicked, not to imitate those. Crimes, said they were already sufficiently authorised by the great multitude of complices.  
In the third Labyrinth, I saw men who had little 
Rispelliones.  else of man in them but shape and skin. They were near to an enchanted river, which must be passed and repassed over seven times, as it is said, to become absolute in craft. There were likewise others seen already transformed into unknown monsters, and others who had no more but the little finger or tip of the nose of men. I saw some who were like little Apes, which pushed and scratched one another, and broke through the throng, with all their force to climb up to the top of a tree, which was said to be the tree of Honour.  
At the entrance there was I know not what kind 
Lylius Giraldus in pictura favour is.  of phantasm of Divinity, called Worldly favour. It seemed in appearance to have a body and consistence, but was in effect a true spectre of smoke, clothed with a mantle tissued with clouds and wind. There stood about it Philosophers, who would undertake to derive the Genealogy, and set the Horoscope of it. One said she was the daughter of beauty, the other of hazard, the other of babble; that fortune was her nursing-mother, and that if she had her exaltation in the sign of the Ram, she should find her declination in the Balance. Howsoever, she then appeared very sprightful and spruce. Flattery failed not to court her, throwing roses and flowers-de-luce upon her. But at the same time envy slily stealing into the throng, gnawed the border of her garment. Riches, disdain, presumption and boldness did nothing but cry round about her. Make place, make place, and to raise her the higher, they sought to lay the great God of Justinian under her feet. She was so disdainful of knowledges, she had formerly acquired, that nothing was so cold as her discourse, and if she had eyes, they were for no use but to behold her own interests. When I saw she paced along in a way all shining with ice, and that she danced on a rope, I lost sight of her, not troubling myself any further to follow this spirit: but I understood that all those who promised themselves the seven wonders of the world, had been paid in coin of leaves.  
There likewise I viewed men whom you would 
Aquila Anserinae. Stapl.  have taken for geese, so simple of countenance were they, but they swum in Pactolus, having but one foot only of a goose; for the other hidden under feathers was the talon of a Harpy, which did only attend to catch golden fish. I saw also some plunged in a huge heap of pistolets, so that neither heads nor bodies appeared, but only one tip of a toe made like the paw of a Griphon, as a notable painter not long since delineated covetuousness. Going somewhat further I discovered the Den of Bacchus, where I saw fifes, timbrels, ivy, and goat-skinns, huge smoke of roasts, feasts, and men buried in wine and good cheer. Beyond it they passed to the grots of Lust, where crimes were done, which would make the most innocent pens guilty in writing them; for as there must be an extreme impudence to commit them, so ought much shamefacedness be used to conceal them. Nothing so much astonished me, as to see ecclesiastics without religion, Ladies without shame, young maids tainted, who knew so much of that whereof they should be ignorant, that the most prostituted could teach them nothing.  
Afterward the sport turning into blood, I saw strange teacheries,, horrible circumventions, execrable treasons, which spoke of nothing but of tying halters and mingling poisons, I also saw some who made it their practice to kill men openly, and said there was no safety for them in innocency, but much rather in the enormities of sacrileges.  
I thought I had seen all, when I afterwards perceived a chamber hideously black, said to be the study of Lucifer, and that the brave spirits of this time fludied there, under the regency of Herod, Tiberius, and Pilate, to find out the way how to believe in God no longer, and to know all the refined policy of former ages.  
I should be tedious and troublesome to decipher all the particulars of this prodigious City. The painting hath told much of it, but the greatest unhappiness which I saw there, is, that it is more true than I could wish. For not to touch upon the honour of so many good men, which are yet both in the body of justice, and in all other companies, I must tell you that among the sons of Seth there are many Children of Cain, which make up this Babylon.   

The third SECTION. The destruction of Babylon, and the government of the Divine Providence over the Estates of the World.  
I Courteously beseech you, O ingenious Politician, to run your eyes over these lines which I have traced, to stay a little your haste, and to consider with me the knot of all this policy, the source, progress, issue, and remedy of all these disorders, perhaps you may find more reason in my discourses than your passion can expect. Consult awhile with your heart, sound your soul, go to the bottom of your conscience, I fear there may be some pits of the abyss, and grasshoppers of the Apocalypse, which are those black vapours, that have hitherto eclipsed all the lights of your understanding. I will not conceal from you that there are three sorts of souls, one virginal, another already changed and somewhat corrupted, the rest shameless, such as those which are called in Scripture vast and giant-like-souls. I 
Eccles. 23. the Greek vers. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  do not think to find by your proceed, that you have a virgin-soul, nor will I likewise persuade myself, you have the soul of a giant, which expecteth no other remedy but thunder: I should rather believe you have a stomach depraved by some wicked principles, whereinto either the unhappiness of your education, the presumption of your ability, or tickling-hope of good success in worldly affairs hath thrown you. Will you that I touch with a finger the beginning of your disorder? You have been too much flattered upon the excellency of your wit, which is not, to speak truly, one of the shallowest of the time: but there is much wanting of the singularity you imagine. You have insensibly retired yourself from that great judgement which S. Denys calleth the eternal 
Dionis. c. 1. de divinis nominibus.  hearth of all the most purified lights, and most chaste affections, and by withdrawing yourself have taken a great quantity of false lights into your corrupt understanding, and much coldness into your heart, which have brought upon you a remissness in good manners, and a notable disorder in all the parts of your soul. You have seen heaven, and all the hopes of the other life, as Mathematicians make us to behold in a dark chamber, whatsoever passeth abroad, through a little cranny, in such manner, that all things we see appear like shadows and landscapes turned topsy-turvy.  
Behold what happeneth after you have stopped up all the windows and accesses of heavenly light; you have made a little hole for the moon, and all the blessings of the other life have seemed very slender to your distrustful spirit: you have put on a resolution to make a fortune at what price soever, and to build on earth like Cain, after you have almost renounced the hopes of heaven, In doing this you have played the unruly Ass, thinking to escape from the bands of the dependence you have on God: you have made yourself your blessing, your end your 
(a) Aug. l. 3. de libero arbit. c. 24. Cui bonum non est Deus, sibi ipsi vult esse bonum suum sicut sibi est Deus.  God. Thereupon you have thought of the means you are to hold to arrive at this scope, already framed in your imagination. It seemeth to you all things succeeded according to your wit, travel, and industry used therein, with some small help of fortune, God no whit at all intermeddling with affairs here below. You have drawn absurd consequencies of the prosperity of some subtle spirits, not looking into the bottom of the business. The success of your affairs, which seemed to you most prosperous, notwithstanding your crimes and unlawful proceed, have emboldened you; mischievous spirits, which daily converse with you, have confirmed you. In the end, behold yourself reduced as it were to this point, as to suppose you are to hold on a course in all affairs and governments of the world, which may be crafty, captious, worldly, and independent of divine laws, if not for some popular appearance.  
If this be so, I demand of you, why then in the 
Vide Lipsium in notis ad 3. lib. politic. c. 4. p. 125.  judgement of that great Politician Thucydides, and all other well understanding men, is it observed that these curious wits, despoiled of the fear of God, have always been most turbulent and unhappy in the manage both of their own affairs and the public also; as on the contrary, those who had not so much knowledge and invention, but pursued the general instinct of God, have held their estates better governed in simplicity, more prosperous in the ignorance of evil, and much more firm in the lasting of their felicity? Never was there a more refined wit than Achitophel of whom the Scripture said, 
Consilium Achitophel quasi siquis consulerit Deum. 2. Reg. 2.  men consulted with him as with a God: yet never was there any more unhappy in his practice. For having disposed of the affairs of the Kingdom, and those of his own house, there remaining none to be provided for but his own person, he took a halter and strangled himself, because they approved not one of his counsels.  
When we behold in Histories a large list of these most curious Politicians, who have had so ill success either in their own persons, or in their posterity, as I presently will produce very many; we must undoubtedly say, this kind of way is ever dangerous in its enterprises, but not infallible in the successes thereof. If you become as wicked as a little Poliphemus, it would be very hard to deny a first cause of all the creatures which are in the world, of itself absolute, independent, and eternal, For were the world full of wheels and revolutions, even from earth to heaven, still must we necessarily come to the last wheel, to the last revolution, which is to give motion to all the other, and to take it of no other, and that is God. Were you as brutish as a Lestrigon, you could 
Ratio D. Ans●l●i dialog. de veritate c. 1.  not deny an eternal Verity. For in what time will you say there hath not been a verity? Should you assign the space of ten millions of years, and all that may be imagined beyond it, you would ever find this Verity: and should you say, it was not then, and that in saying so you were sincere, which cannot be; yet would you speak a truth even in denying a truth, so much is her essence necessary: and this eternal Verity which serves as a basis for all other verities, is that which we call God. Were you as unnatural as a monster, you knew not how to deny there were a sovereign Being in the world, which holdeth the first degree of all excellencies in such sort, that we cannot imagine any thing more excellent; and that is God.  
Besides, it is necessary to infer what S. Thomas hath 
D. Thom. opuscul. 2. cap. 21. Quae sunt per participationem relu●untur in id quod est per essentiam.  most divinely said, that all things which are by borrowing and participation, have relation of necessity to that, which is by essence and nature. So the stars, the precious stones have relation to the sun; and things hot to the fire as the scope of their excellency. Now it is certain that men, Cities, and Kingdoms, have but a borrowed being, because they are not made by themselves, and therefore it is necessary to affirm there is an intellectual power in a supreme degree, whereunto all these intelligences, even of men which constituted these States and Republickes, do relate; and this relation is nothing else but providence.  
Verily if you should behold on a Theather about ten thousand white beards, that were come thither to decide a matter by a common consent, would you take yourself to be wise to enter into Council not called, and to reject the opinions of all those, who have delivered their sentences, publishing an opinion absolutely new, and directly contrary to so many good judgements?  
And I ask of you, that were now so many excellent Magistrates raised again, as have governed all sorts of Kingdoms and Commonwealths in the Ages past, should we not see more than a million of men most accomplished in knowledge, virtue, and experience, who had managed the world in the fear, and under the laws of this Divine Providence? It would then be a notable spectacle, to see you enter into the Hall of such a Council with a downy chin, to give all this assembly the lie, and say, There is nothing but humane policy, dissimulation, and the tricks of flattery to be valued in affairs, without the expectation of any thing from God; would you not be ridiculous? Yet this is it which you do, so much hath sin stupefied you. If you have the least spark of the understanding of a man, when you foster such thoughts in your minds, do you think it were fit to prefer some mouldy reasons of a carnal spirit, and the caprices of your sensual imaginations before the voice of nature, and the states of the whole world, assembled together to condemn your bruitishness? If there be no Providence to chastise the perverse, and recompense the just, conclude, we must live in the world like a sparrow-hawk, or Pike, called the Tyrant of the water, and to have no other measure of virtue, but your talon and throat. Is it not to pen the gate to all injustices, perjuries, treacheries, and all possible abominations? For what monster will not that soul be capable of, which conceiveth nothing of God? I have some reason, say you, and for this cause you are of opinion, this belief should be entertained to amuse the people.  
In saying this, you discover a great weakness of judgement; for it must be concluded, according to your proposition, that all what ever was in the world, either of justice, temperance, modesty, courtesy, patience, honesty, peace and tranquillity, were derived from an imaginary belief, touching Providence, from an error a folly, an illusion: which is as absurd, as to say grapes grow upon thistles, & roses spring from the ice of winter. And tell me not, I pray, that a false belief seeks to procure good effects, as it appeareth in the virtues of Pagans. For I hold, that what good the Pagans have done, they have not acted it with relation to the adulteries of Jupiter, nor the murders of bloody Mars: but in honour of a Divinity, which they thought avenged iniquity, and rewarded virtue. In this general belief, which was the true root of their moral virtues, there happened no abuse, although they in particular were deceived in their judgement.  
Your goodly objections of awe proceed from an infamous Diagoras, or Pliny, who thought to have 
Irridendum, agere curam rerum human●rum quicquid est summum, sed credi, & usu vit● est. Plin. l. 2. c. 7.  found a great secret in saying, The belief of a Divine Providence was a jolly invention, because it kept the world in awe. Deserved he not well to be cursed as a Traitor to all mankind? Deserved not he well to be broiled alive in the throat of hell, as indeed he was losing, his life in the flames of Vesuvius, since he vaunteth himself to have discovered a secret, 
O proditorem generis humani. Vives 1. de verit. fidei lib. 9  which would be able, were it true, to let lose the bridle to all profanations and bruitishness of a life the most savage that might be imagined? Ever would it be more to the purpose to tolerate an evil well conferred, than to introduce a good ill digested, say the wise: and what crime is it then to invent false secrets, the ignorance whereof is so wholesome, and the verity whereof would be so prodigiously hurtful? Why do you not rather take into your consideration the sage discourse of the Philosopher Simplicius, who said: When I imagine a god unto myself, I figure a great Master, whom I know of necessity to be endowed with a most stable science, and a most excellent will. And for this cause I conclude, be cannot be ignorant of the things be hath produced, seeing this ignorance falleth not even upon beasts most stupid; and I say, that he knowing them, governeth them without pain, Omnipotent though he be; there being no greatness nor multitude of burdens, which can weaken the forces and vigour of this infinite Spirit. As there is not any thing too great for his capacity, so is there nothing too little for his bounty. Nothing escapeth his Paternal Providence, nor doth he think it a matter unworthy of his care to govern a butterfly, since he esteemed it a thing consonant to his bounty, to create a butterfly. Now for us to think that he knowing, able, and willing to govern the world, is diverted from it through pleasures and contentments he taketh for his own delights, is a most gross imagination; for why should we attribute to God apprehensions and assertions, which we would be ashamed to give to men, if they made not profession to be of the number of the altogether idle?  
Behold how this singular wit discourseth: and verily it is to be wholly ignorant of God, to have any conceit of him less than infinite. Independent Sovereignty cannot admit a companion; and the inexhaustible force of a Creator, who made all, sufficeth to govern all. An Angel cost him no more in the making than a silkworm, and a silk-woms cost him no less to produce it than an Angel. Why do you not judge that which is to be made, by it which is already made? When you entered into the world, the Divine Providence, as a harbinger, prepared your lodging for you, it was not in your power to make yourself then either rich or poor, Master or servant, King or subject; your affairs were dispatched, and your counsel not asked. God also in silence draweth out the web of your life; if you desire to be happy, you have nothing to do, but to contribute your freewill to his work. But if you have set up your rest to become a Politician, contrary to the decrees of Providence, and to bend the bias to your pretended interests, is it not to do the same thing, which a frog should, if she sought to swim against the current of Rhodanus or Danubius? Would not it be as ridiculous, as if a fly should seek to soar up to heaven, and fix her little feet, to stay the course of the Primum Mobile? You say, I press you, and if you 
Against the ancient saying touched by Tertullian: Non licet Deos nosse gratis. Diogen. Laer. lib. 4.  can prosper well in the affairs of the world by these ways of piety and honesty, which are ever annexed to a firm belief of a divine Providence, you would rather take this same than any other. To it I answer that which Laertius speaketh of the Philosopher Byon, who having before been an atheist, & afterward by chance disposing himself to invoke the false gods, became most superstitious in their service, under hope of some temporal commodities, which he thought to gain. O 
Aug. Enar. 2. in Psal. 25. Dicis Deo, Haec est justitia tua ut mali floreant, boni laborent: & Deus tibi respondet, Haec est fides tua: Hoccine tibi promisi, & ad hoc Christianus factus es, ut in spculo stor●res?  great fool (saith this Author) who could not propose gods to himself, unless he made them mercenary, and would needs have the belief of a Divinity depend on the successes of his person and house. God (saith S. dugustine) engageth not his promise to make us happy according to the world, so soon as we become honest men. If you say unto him: O God, where is your justice, to suffer the wicked so to flourish, & good men to be afflicted? He will answer, Where is your faith? where is that promise I have made you? Have you made yourself a Christian to be happy in the world? This were to make a virtue beggarly, wanton, and interessed, which must ever be paid with prosperities: we may well say, it resigned itself to God for good morsels, and not for honesty. It is much to be feared, lest the pleasures of the present, may make it lose the taste of the recompense promised in Heaven, as it is said the dogs, which hunted among the flowers of Mount Gibel, lost heretofore the tracks of the hare.  
If following good Policy, we should be unhappy towards the world, we might ever comfort the captivity of our body by the liberty of our mind, and gild our chains of glory with our virtues. We should enter into the community of great spirits, who have done all good, to endure all evil; we should much more rejoice to be in the bottom of the prison with S. Paul, than in the heaven on earth, which Cosross the Persian King caused to be built. But God is not so harsh to a good conscience, that he desireth to hold it still in the incommodities of present life: but much otherwise, if you will well discourse, there will be found an infinite number of good Princes, excellent Magistrates, and all sorts of persons qualified, who pursuing the way of honesty, have been most prosperous in the manage of affairs. And if you consider your Politicians, who make profession to refine all the world, either you have seen but the first station of their plastered felicity, or have ever found great labyrinths, horrible confusions, fortunes little lasting, dejection in their posterity, hatred, and the execration of Ages.  
I think, I have fully illustrated these truths in the histories which I have written of Herod, Theodosius, Maximus, Eugenius, Constantine, Dioclesian, Constans, Jalian, and divers others.  
And if you yet desire to behold with a ready eye, how there is no policy powerful against God, and how he surpriseth the most subtle, making snares of their greatest cunning to captive them; behold Joseph, sold by his wicked brothers, for fear he should be honoured, and yet see him honoured because he was sold. Behold Haman, who practised the ruin of the Hebrews, to raise himself; and see him raised on a gibbet of fifty cubits high, to humble him. Behold Ionas, who would also be a Politician contrary to the counsels of his Master; yet tempests pursued him, the lot served him for an arrest, the sea for a Mistress of constancy, the belly of a Whale, which should be his sepulchre, for a Palace. He came to the haven by shipwreck, much more safe in the entrails of a fish, than in a ship. Behold Pharaoh, who becomes crafty, and thinketh by ruinating the Israelites, his Sceptre is throughly established: God surpriseth him in subtlety, and makes him know the oppression of this poor people, is the instrument of his ruin. A little child, which lieth floating on the waters of Nilus, in a cradle of bulrushes, as a worm hidden in straw, and whose afflicted mother measureth his tomb with her eyes in every billow of this faithless element, is delivered from peril by the very blood of Pharaoh, to turn the Diadem of Pharaoh into dust, and bury him all inflamed in a gulf of the Red-sea. Behold Jeroboam, who revolting against 
Domus Jeroboam eversa esi, & deleta de superficie terrae. 3 Reg. 15.  his Prince, raised a State by ambition, and a Religion out of fantasy, having seen the Altars crack with the horror of his crime, yet his heart still remaining more obdurate than stone, in the end he is so chastised by the hand of God, that there was not left so much as one handful of dust of his house upon the face of the earth. Behold Absalon, who thought the means to mount up to a Throne, was to make a footstool by force of Arms of the crowned head of his father: yet see him entangled in a tree, transfixed with three spears, and thrown into a deep pit, which left nothing of him alive, but the memory of his misery. Behold Saul, who makes show punctually to obey the law of God under the direction of Samuel, he afterwards learns to become cunning, plotting designs, and seeking in all points his own petty interests: but in the end David, whose life he judged incompatible with his own estate, dismounted him, using no other Policy, but by making himself an honest man.  
Behold the Monarchies of the world, so much disputed on, behold Sceptres hanging on a silken thread, the Empires, and lives of Otho, Vitellins, Galba, Piso, Balbinus, Florianus, Basilius, Silvianus, Tacitus, Quintilius, Maximus, Michael Colophates. Behold the fall of Parm●●io under Alexander, Sejanus under Tiberius, Cleander under Commodus, Ablavius under Constantine, Eutropius under Arcadius, Vignius under Frederick, Brocas under Philip, Cabreca under Peter, and so many of the like kind.  
Either you shall make yourself wholly insensible, or must affirm, that to raise a State, and build a fortune, you are to proceed securely therein, with a very great tie upon the maxims of faith, religion, and honesty, unless you will expect in the course of an uncertain life a most certain ruin. And yet you still doubt to enter into the City of good Policy. Oh, had you once tasted those delights, you would become wholly enamoured of them, but I see it is fit I make a piece of painting for you, to oppose that wicked Policy.   

The fourth SECTION. The Table of the City of God, otherwise called, The City of honest men; drawn out of many excellent conceits of ancient Authors, and things practised in some former Commonwealths.  
I Will tell you than, thet I have seen in the idaeaes of Plato this Divine Agathopolis, and that my mind is still much pleased with the remembrance of this spectacle. Expect not I should describe unto you the Country nor City with curiosity of language, for I leave that to Poets and Orators, who have more leisure than I. Only I entreat you to believe, that all which delicate pens of antiquity have written of Elysian fields, and the fortunate Islands, are in it to be found, with many advantages, which we may much better conceive than express. The Heavens are there smiling, the air wholesome, the waters good, the seasons temperate, the winds calm, the ground fertile, the abode delightful, the hills and valleys watered with goodly fountains, shadowed with many trees, covered with vines, enameled with flowers, tapistred with meadows, bristled with ears of corn; on what side soever you turn, it seemeth the Providence of God hath taken much pleasure to embellish this territory with his own hands.  
I will not speak to you at all of the walls, Towwers, Bulwarks, Bastions, theatres, Amphitheatres, Colossesses, Edifices, and other the like; for herein this fortunate City hath not grounded its greatness, although there were to be seen buildings, as admirable, as if the Angels of Heaven were come down on earth, to undertake the direction thereof. I took it for a good presage; when I saw at the entrance of the City a great number of minds, modest, stout, and resolved, who went to the fountains to draw water, and bore the pitcher on their shoulders, as that ancient Rebecca, of whom it is spoken in Scripture, labouring like bees in a bright summer's day. I saw over the gate of the City a great statue of the Sun in the sign of Libra, which made me suppose, that all was managed within it, as are the days and the nights in the Equinoctial. I was not deceived in the judgement I made upon it, for there were not so much as clocks out of order, in such sort, that they struck all together, and mutually met at every hour of the day.  
It was a contentment to me to walk on a pavement, even and smooth, and to behold streets very fair, where there was neither stench, dirt, channels, coachman, caroche, nor lash of whips, smoke of roasts, criers, much tattle, running up and down, sinks, perfumes of Carpet-knights, waggish tricks of lackeys, nor sleights of cutpurses proud gates of Rodomonts, nor leaders of Bears, nor Mountebanks, nor pettyfoggers, quarrelers, drunkards, alehouses, nor any of those which draw tribute from humane flesh. The whole world there was busied, and there was not an idle boy: only you might see children very young, who played at a most innocent game, and bare in their childish faces the goodness of fathers and mothers, imprinted with an excellent character.  
I learned the principal scope of their great felicity, was a most genuine simplicity, which reigned amongst all the inhabitants; not that they were stupid, or witless; for accosting them, I soon perceived they had spirits clear-sighted and well purified; but all their study was to make a harmony between their heart and tongue, and to proceed in all things they undertook with marvellous freedom: they were infinitely amazed when it was told them, there were in other countries' counterfeit men, who spoke contrary to their knowledge, and thinking one thing in their hearts, affirmed the contrary with their tongues. They thought it impossible, and used comparisons of their clocks, where the wheel and the hand went ever a like pace. And when I insisted, and grounded myself upon experience of what I had seen and heard, they concluded it may well then be said, those men there are spiritual Centaurs, composed of two natures.  
And it being told them, there were Ladies and Gentlewomen in other Provinces, which wore sumptuous apparel, plaited, bombasted, slashed, loaden with precious stones and chains, which had the spoils of the dead upon their heads, draw-bridges tied to their feet, and that they bestowed a quarter of their lives in combing, and plastering their faces: the women of this Country had much compassion hereof, and spoke with tears in their eyes: Alas poor creatures! we may well say they have committed enormous sins, to carry themselves thus. And when it was answered, the greatest ambition which these Ladies had in the world, was to use this custom, they made many signs of the Cross, ask whether they were innocents', they would not absolutely say, fools?  
Hereunto was added a tale, that in the year of an universal peace, there was a Lady, who travelling with her husband into some other Province, had learned a certain manner how to beautify her face, which she very curiously made use of; the rest perceiving it, caused her to play at King and Queen, which was a pastime, where the Lady, who became Empress by the custom of the game, commanded the rest what she thought good, and all yielded obedience to her. The Empress chosen, imposed upon all her train to wash their faces, which this counterfeit woman being enforced to do, as the water dissolved the painting, and that she appeared as she was, the confusion of her forehead was so excessive, that she as it were died with grief, not daring afterward to undertake the like. Their attire port, gate, countenance, words, houses, moveables, tables, recreations, were carried with simplicity, yet accompanied with majesty, civility, decorum, and seasoned with as true pleasures, as humane life may afford.  
I saw many old men of an hundred years and upward, who were yet very fresh, whereat I was much amazed, and one of them looking on me:  
Why (saith he) do you wonder? We live here on innocent meats, whereby it cometh to pass, that we do not so much as know the names of diseases, of which (it is said) you have huge registers, which are the purchasers of your intemperance. We have here no desire to dry up our entrails, and shorten our days; we are all great in the obedience we render to the law▪ all rich in the contentment of our desires; and all pleased with the happiness one of another. We have no passion to tear our hearts, nor cares to prejudice our lives, nor avarice to burn us up alive in our houses, nor ambition to make us wings fastened on with wax, so to fly up to the clouds, and make both land and sea famous by our falls. We have an excellent law, which is, never to proceed against the law of nature; and to tell you the truth, the ignorance of sins, wherein we live, serves us better than all the precepts of virtue do others.  
There is no war among us but against vices, which we rather desire to vanquish, than all sorts of monsters. We know not what plagues mean, because we neither infect the air nor land with blasphemies or blood. The seasons of the year have with us the same equality which our spirits enjoy, and the sun smileth on us in all his mansions, as we endeavour to have a charity perpetually smiling and the bowels of compassion towards our like. When we would behold goodly theatres, we reduce into our memory the vanities of men, to bewail them so much as they are frivolous. We see this great spectacle of the world, which it is very hard to imitate, and to fault it, is a crime.  
The greatest eloquence among us, is truth, and the first science we teach our children, is that which instructeth them not to tell a lie. Above all, we endeavour piously to honour and serve God, uniting us to his Spirit, and submitting our ways to the main stream of his Providence.  
I stood very attentive to hear this old man speak: for I was in a good place; yet not contenting myself simply with what he had said, I needs would see their Churches, their devotions, their laws, and their justice, their commerce, and their Policy. I saw the places dedicated to the service of God, were exceedingly well governed, observed, and frequented, and that their devotion was not a slight fore of apish tricks, nor affected countenances, but a solid belief of the Divinity with most pure affections. They had no great store of bells, nor took any pride to ring them, nor to publish festivals with much noise, nor to set up Fai●● at the entrance into Churches, nor to sell jewels, not wear rich apparel, nor to glory in their kitchens. Their great solemnities were better known by silence and devotion, than by any other exterior ostent. It was a blessing, to behold that heresy had altered nothing, either in their doctrine or manners; for they had ever declared themselves enemies of all innovation: and as it is said that fishes are silent, and draw near to the source of waters; so they banishing from their City all those contentious disputations, set their mouths to the fountains of verity.  
Thither came at the time whilst I was there, an able man, who thought to preach Controversies to them, and difficult distinctions of School-divinity; but the better sort of Frenchmen demanded whether he preached in Hebrew or no. They could not endure any one should perplex their consciences, by vehemently raising up an infinite number of too subtle arguments, and many times unhonest; so much they feared to bring any mixture upon their innocency, finding more assistance in the lights of good nature, than the subtleties of men.  
I considered how at their going from Church, they went to visit goodly great Hospitals, which were excellently well founded, and administered for the help of the poor, as well foreigners as domestics: and I saw the most curious Ladies went confidently into them with charity in their hands, humbling themselves to the services of the most indigent. This made me so enamoured of their government, that I judged it the quintessence of the same Theology.  
And verily, when I sought to inform myself of their laws, I found they had as few, as their soundest men had medicines. They were all grounded on the doctrine of the Saviour of the world, namely on that word, which forbiddeth us to do that to others, which we would not to be done to ourselves. Their state was Monarchal under the government of a good King, whom they honoured as a visible Divinity. This King had a Council composed of the prime men of the world, who lived like Angels, and spoke as Oracles; so much reverence they bore them, that when they appeared in the streets, they were seen to pass along with a certain silence mingled with veneration, as if they had been animated Relics.  
I likewise saw old Captains grown white in foreign wars, under the shadow of Palm-trees, and a flourishing warlike troup, readily disposed to do bravely upon occasion. The obedience was there so great, that if a soldier had his arm ready up to strike, upon the first sound of retreat, he would withhold the blow. All rewards were for virtues, and Fortune much complained, that she in this Country had neither Altar nor credit. Very rarely should you see a man advanced, but by long and faithful trials of his merit: so that honours were there fastened, as it is said, with lime and cement, because they sought for nothing more honourable from great actions, than the contentment to have done them.  
All was there so peaceable, that it seemed this whole City was the nest of Halcyons, which calmeth the brow of Heaven, and appeaseth tempests. The Citizens entertained one another, as the fingers on the hand, every one taking part of the good of his fellow: and it was a matter as rare to see a quarrel, as a monster brought from the utmost limits of afric.  
Needs must I confess I took a singular content, when one day passing through a street, I heard two old men, who discoursed in their language of foreign Countries, and the one said to his companion, that duels and quarrels were used there: the other would not believe him at all, thinking that two men who bore one and the same figure, could not contend one with another: but he persisted, and said he knew it to be true, and that the source of all their debates, was to say: It is mine, It is not: It is so, Yea, No. This narration so enkindled them, that 
This narration is found in the lives of the holy Anchorets.  they resolved to imitate those of whom they spoke, and to have at lest once in their lives a quarrel. But what endeavour soever they used, they would never confidently say, Yea, No. For as soon as one had pronounced, Yea, and began to make show of contestation, the other said, Take it, I yield it. I leave you to think, whether any thing might be seen more pure than these souls.  
In their commerces they so much feared to wrong their neighbours, that you would have said, they studied to deceive themselves, for fear to get from another; and if any one had gained aught by some mis-reckoning, he was half dead, and rose oftentimes at midnight to hasten to make restitution, it being otherwise impossible for him to enjoy any repose.  
I saw their Palace, which was a very beautiful piece, but the manner of suits and processes were there very rare; yet had I notwithstanding a vehement desire to hear them plead, at which time it was told me, that the next day a notable cause was to come to a hearing.  
I failed not to be present thereat, and saw two men of the same condition, like those of whom S. Chrysostom wrote the history, who pleaded for a treasure. 
Chrys. hom. 30 ad Popul. Antio.  The matter was, the one had sold his land, and the other had bought it. The seller quickly laid hold of his money, and the buyer being entered into possession, had begun to till the field, to have corn from thence: but not thinking thereof, he found gold in it; for coming to blow the land, he made discovery of a great treasure. But he, as much astonished as if he had found some venomous creature, or some mischievous piece of witchcraft, went directly to the seller to advertise him of what had passed, and wished him to take his gold again: but the other being unwilling to understand him in that kind, caused him to be called before the Judges. This was a business then handled with so much concourse of people, that never have I seen a cause so notorious. I had much ado to understand any thing of it, but certain broken words. The plaintive spoke, How? Must men be used thus? You have sold me a field, and not given me notice there was a treasure hidden in it, why have you deceived me, why have you used such foul play with me? The defendant lifted up his hands to Heaven, and said: I swear and protest unto you by the faith of an honest man, that I did not this purposely. I sold you my land in all simplicity, not having the least suspicion that there was any treasure. Well Sir, if you sold it with a sincere intention (saith the other to him) God pardon you, but I pray you come and take away your treasure. He again: Why should I take it? It belongs to you. The other: To me? What injustice is this! I bought land, and not gold. You purchased the land, answered the defendant, and all the appurtenances, it is reason that you possess all. The poor plaintif replied, sighing: Would you use me in this fashion, and charge me with such unhappiness? Rather take your land again. I will not, said his adversary: it belongeth to you. Good God deliver me from such an unfortunate chance, I will have care how I engage myself in the like. In the end, the treasure was adjudged to him that bought the land, whereat he was much troubled, so that his friends had business enough to comfort him.  
Oh Age! Oh goodness! Oh golden poverty! How much art thou now estranged from our manners! I saw not there the Tornielle nor criminal process; for crimes were banished from thence, both by great severity of laws, and the excellent disposition of the people.  
Every one was made to render an account very exactly of the means he had to live on. And there was a certain girdle, as that of which Nicholas Damascene speaketh in his Policy, wherewith the just wideness of the waist was measured; and if any one were grown too gross, he had much ado to escape, unless he brought good witness that this happened not to him through idleness or excess of diet.  
If a detractor were found, all his teeth were knocked out one after another: If a thief, melted gold was poured down his throat: If an homicide, he was put to be fed on by vultures in an iron cage: If a blasphemer, his lips were seared with a hot iron, and his mouth so wed up: If a drunkard, he was put into a sack, and thrown into the water: If one unchaste, he was burnt with a soft fire, such horror had they of vice.  
Great volumes would be necessary to recount all the wonders of this celestial Agathopolis, which require some other scope than that which I have undertaken. I will content myself to tell you for conclusion, that I saw in the midst of the City a great Pyramid of white marble, on which was set the statue of Justice, clothed with a robe all embroidered with stars, holding in one hand a book of laws, and in the other an ear of corn; about her were also portrayed in embossed work, truth, wisdom, and the arts; and somewhat lower were beheld the statues of all the great Statesmen, with certain excellent precepts of Policy, engraven in brass; some copies whereof I have drawn out, which I, my Politician, desire to impart unto you.   

The fifth SECTION. Sage Precepts drawn out of the Monuments of the divine Agathopolis.  
HE is the greatest Statesman, who to himself seemeth the least. Imagine not your greatness consisteth wholly to set up the Commonwealth of Plato and Xenophon in your own imagination, nor to lay together a huge heap of precepts, nor to know Cabales or mysteries, nor to make profession of great subtleties and stratagems: we have seen by the experience of all Ages, that in affairs there is a certain stroke of the Divine Providence, which dazzleth all the wise, disarmeth the strong, and blindeth all the most politic, with their own proper lights.  
Ordinarily the most unhappy in States have been those, who have made the greatest show of knowledge, to deceive under humane Policy. That is it which ruined Jeroboam, which undid Saul, which overthrew the Commonwealth of the Athenians, and which made Machiavelli with his great list of precepts to be disastrous in all his undertake. These kind of subtle men better understand the mystery of disputation, than how to live, to discourse than to counsel, and to speak, than to do. They all have as it were three things much opposite to good counsels.  
The first is, that they are variable, fickle, and uncapable of repose; which is the cause, that as the Sun sometimes draweth up a great quantity of vapours which he cannot dissipate, so they likewise, by this vivacity perpetually active, do amass together a great heap of affairs, which their judgement can never dissolve. The second is, that they swim in an infinite confusion of reasons and inventions, resembling oftentimes bodies charged with too great abundance of blood; who through a notable excess find death in the treasure of life. The third is, that seeking to withdraw themselves from common understanding, they figure to themselves subtleties, and chymaeraes, which are as the Towers of the Lamiaes (as Tertullian speaks) on which no man hath thought, or ever will; which is the cause that their spirit floating in this great tide of thoughts, seldom meeteth with the dispatch of an affair.  
Add likewise to this, that God is pleased to stupefy all these great professors of knowledge, and make them drink in the cup of error, in such sort, that we coming to discourse concerning their judgement, find they have committed many faults in the government of Commonwealths, which the simplest peasants would not have done in the direction of their own houses.  
This hath been well observed by the Prophet Isaiah, when he said of the Counsellors of Pharaoh: 
Isaiah 19  The Princes of Tanais are become fools, the Princes of Memphis are withered away, they have deceived Egypt with all the strength and beauty of her people: God hath sent amongst them a spirit of giddiness, and made them reel up and down in all their actions like drunken men. The holy Job hath said the 
Job 12.  same in these terms: God suffereth these wise Counsellors to fall into the bazards of senseless men. God maketh the Judges stupid, taketh away the sword and belt from Kings, to engirt their reins with a cord: God maketh the Priests to appear infamous, supplanteth the principal of the people, changeth the lips of truth-speakers, taketh away the doctrine of old men, and poureth out contempt upon Princes.  
Behold the menaces which the Sovereign Master pronounceth against those who wander from the true way; and therefore, my Politician, without perplexing your spirit with an infinity of precepts, which have been touched by a great diversity of pens, I affirm, that all which you may here expect, consisteth in four things, which are as four elements of your perfection, to wit, Conscience, Capacity, Discretion, and Courage.  
The first and most necessary instruments of all arts, and namely of this profession, is Conscience; which verily is the most ancient Governess of the soul, and the most holy Mistress of life.  
It is that, which will instantly dispose you to the end, whereunto you are to pretend in the exercise of an office. It is that which will tell you, that having given yourself to the public, you are taken away from yourself: that you must not enter into this Sanctuary of justice with a beggarly, base, or mercenary intention▪ but to aim sincerely at God, and the good of the Commonwealth. It is that, which will discover unto you those three wicked gulfs of ambition, avarice, and impurity, which have swollowed all spirits disunited from God. It is that which will teach you, that what is done in Heaven, is proportionably acted in a Mathematical circle; and that which is done in the great Regiment of Angels, aught to be done in the government of men. It is that, which will firmly support you on the basis of the Eternal Providence. It is that, which will render you next unto God, by often thinking on God, and will make you speak what you think, and do what you speak.  
It is that, which will instruct you, that the spirit of man is like a Sundial, which is of no use but when the Sun reflecteth on it; and that you likewise expect not your understanding may have any true light and direction for the government of people, if not enlightened with a ray of God.  
Besides, it will give you means to enter into a holy list of piety and justice, which are the two fundamental pillars of all great estates. Piety will assign you two sorts of devotion, the one common, the other singular.  
The common will cause you piously to honour and serve God, you first having most pure and chaste beliefs in that which concerneth true faith, without any mixture of curiosities and strange opinions: for 
Insuspicabilis secreti reverendaeque majestatis cognitio est, Deum non nosse, nisi Deum. S. Zeno serm. de Nativitat.  it is a very great secret in matter of religion, not to believe of God but what he is; and that man ever knows him sufficiently, who is holily ignorant of him, esteeming him infinitely to transcend his knowledges. Secondly, it will apply you to divine Worship and public ceremonies, in a manner free, cordial, and Religious, for the satisfaction of your interior, and the example of the publlck.  
Singular devotion will move you to consider, how being a public person, and charged with affairs which expect the motion of the Divine Providence, you have a great dependence on Heaven, and that it therefore will show you according to the proportion of your time and leisure, some hour of retirement to negotiate particularly with God, in imitation of Moses, that great Statesman, who had so familiar a recourse to the Tabernacle. For if that be true which S. Gregory Nazianzen saith, that we ought to have God in mind, as often as we breath, it is so much the more suitable to Statesmen, as they have most need to suck in this life-giving spirit, as from the fountain of the Word, by the means of prayer.  
Saint John Damascene in a Dialogue he made against the Manichees, holdeth this opinion, That the greatest Angels are as clocks, which come in the end to languish and faint, if God do not continually draw them upward by the breath of his spirit: so must we say, that the goodliest Spirits, and strongest Intelligences lessen and wax old every moment, if they resume not vigour in the intellectual source, by the virtue of devotion.  
When you shall be instructed in these principles, this wise Mistress, whom I call your conscience, will make you find in a right course the perfection of justice, which consisteth in four principal things.  
The first is, neither to act, nor show to your subjects the least suspicion of evil or sin. For you must begin your government by your own example; and since your spirit is the first wheel whereunto all the other are fastened, it is necessary to give it a good motion. It is held, when the Sun stood still in the time of Josuah, the Moon and all the Stars made the like pause. Governors and Masters have this proper to themselves, that in all they do, they pour forth their spirits into such of their subjects, who are for the most part neither good nor bad, but by the relation they have to the life of those, on whom their fortunes depend.  
The second is, not to suffer an evil, since, as said 
Peceare & non cohibere peccantes, juxta aestima. Dostheus l. Italicorum.  Agapetus to the Emperor Justinian, to commit and permit crimes, when one hath full power to hinder them, is as it were one and the same thing. There are no flatteries so charming, nor importunities so forcible, which should ever make a well composed spirit to bend to the permission of a sin, which he knoweth to be against the honour of God, and the tranquillity of his conscience. Fabricianus a Roman Captain, in ruining a Fortress of the Samnites, kept their Venus, which he sent to Rome for the beauty of the workmanship, and it is thought the aspect of this statue was the first occasion of making his wife an adulteress, and caused him afterward to serve as a victim to the loves of this unchaste woman by horrible massacre. It happeneth oftentimes, that Masters of families, who seem very innocent in their persons, retain scandals in their houses, through a certain pusillanimity and dissimulation, which draw upon them the chastisements of God, and disasters very extraordinary. The Scripture saith, the High Priest Eli was the lamp of God, before 
1 Reg. 33. juxta 70. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  he was extinguished by a wicked toleration of the excesses of his children, which rend his house, and buried him in public ruins. Take good heed there be not some household servant raised by your indulgence, who rendereth your favours odious, and liberalities criminal, by abuse of the power which you have put into his hands. Alkabicius the ginger observeth, there are stars of their own nature benign, and which would ever behold us favourably, were it not the neighbourhood of some others malign altered their sweet inclinations. And there are many Masters and Mistresses to be found in the world, endued with a humour exceedingly good, if the near approaches which bad servants make to their persons did not destroy this temper. That man 
Qualities of an Officer.  is truly stout and happy, who findeth or maketh men of honour well disposed, faithfully affected, industrious, vigilant, laborious, indefatigable, sober in speech, prompt in execution, patiented and able in their charges; for good soldiers make glorious Captains, and good Officers great Statesmen.  
The third condition of the zeal of justice is, that you never be pleased an ill act be done under the shadow that you were not of counsel thereunto, or that it never came to your knowledge. You may very well rejoice, not to have at all contributed to evil, yea, not to the birth of evil; for this were otherwise to betray your conscience, which ought to have the same capacity to abhor all vices, and embrace all virtues, as faith inclineth to believe all verities revealed unto it. I leave you to think, what conscience Sextus Pompeius of elder time had, to whom, as he entertained Augustus and Mark Anthony in his ship, and being in the heat of his feast, a servant came to tell him, if so he pleased, he quickly would put these two Princes into his power, thereby to make him Monarch of the world: He a little while thinking on this matter, said to him who brought the news, Thou shouldst have done it, and never told me of it. This well shown he bore some respect to fidelity, but was very far from that perfection which hateth evil, yea, even that which is out of the compass of ones own knowledge.  
The fourth is, that you must correct disorders, as much as you possibly may, declaring you have a natural horror against all sins, which resist laws both divine and humane, and that the love of honesty hath made you to pass it as it were into your nature. I do not see where the virtue of a great Statesman may show itself with more lustre, than in the exercise of justice. S. Gregory the Great saith, A 
Greg. in Job. 29. Justiti● firmatur ●●lium. Prov. 16.  mixture of oil and wine must be made to heal the wounds of men in such sort, that minds may not be ulcered with too much severity, nor grow remiss by an excess of indulgence. The rod must be used to touch, and the staff to support; love should not soften, nor rigour transport matters into despair. Moses, the first Statesman, burned inwardly with the fire of charity, and was outwardly wholly enkindled with the flames of the zeal of justice. As a loving father he offered his soul to God, even to the wish to be blotted out of the book of life to save his people: as a Judge he took the sword, and bathed it in the blood of Idolaters. He was in all kinds both a courageous Ambassador, and an admirable mediator, pleading before God the cause of his people with prayers, and before his people the cause of God with the sword.  
It is to do all, to execute good justice; God 
Evect●s in ex●●lsum i●●e magis ●itis despice. Cassiod.  hath set you on high for no other cause, but to behold vices beneath: if you exalt them, they will trample you underfoot, you shall perpetually drink the greatest part of the poison you mingled for others; and when you shall break down the hedge, the snake (as the Scripture threateneth) will sting you 
Eccles. 10. 8.  the first. When a good conscience hath accommodated you with this condition, so that you have no other intention but to advance goodness in your own person, and in those who belong to you, you are not a little advanced in the perfections of a great Statesman: yet it is fit, Conscience, Science, and Capacity be had for the discharge of great employments, and especially by him, who makes profession to govern men sometimes as untractable as Hydra's of many heads.  
Campanus Bishop of Terni, of whom we have some 
Campanus Interamne●us Episcop.  Works in the Bibliotheca Patrum, in the book which he composed of magistracy, requireth four conditions in him: A wit vigorous, a carriage neither dejected nor unpleasing a prudence full of maturity, when there is occasion to consult upon an affair; and a promptness to take time in the instant, to execute that which hath once been well resolved on.  
He saith a vigorous wit, for it is very fit the soul should be full of lights and flames which is to serve others for a guide; and as there is no wit so great which hath not many defects, so it is very necessary it be polished by good letters, which unite and incorporate in one sole man the faculties of many others, and by the conference of the wise, which taketh away all that which excellent natures do as yet retain of terrestrial, to make them appear in their best lustre.  
A man, saith this Author, who thinketh to know all, and do all, without having any need of the counsel of others, is necessarily of two things the one, either a God amongst mortals, or a beast among men. The Scripture speaking of the great sea of brass, which Solomon made in the Temple, saith in the book of Paralipomenon, 
2 Parol. 45.  that it contained three thousand measures, and the third book of Kings affords it but two thousand. 
3 Reg. 7. 16.  This seemeth to involve some contradiction, which Tostatus cleareth in saying, this great vessel in truth amounted to three thousand measures, but that there was never poured out any more thereof than two thousand. So is it with the wits of men how capable soever; we are not to cloy them with charges and affairs so far as to exhaust them, but to divide burdens in proportion, since there is none but God alone of ability for all. The presumption of those who will undertake above their forces, so to leave nothing for others to do, much more hurteth than would stupidity.  
He addeth, to wit, the shape of body, which is not 
Nigredo sanguine● regnantem discernit, & praestat humano generi, ne de aspectu Principi● possit errari. Cassiod. Var. l. 1. Ep. 2.  a little recommendable in the stature, figure, port, gate, age, countenance, speech, and even in the very habit. All this when it is eminent, surpriseth minds, and striketh its stroke to give estimation to a man before we enter into his interior: but if the house answer not to the frontispiece, what may we else say, but that nature hath built up a goodly mansion to lodge therein a handsome beast?  
What he hath said in the third and fourth place of prudence natural and acquired, which some have to deliberate and well resolve on an affair, accompanied with a stout resolution and a very strict execution, is verily most necessary in a great Statesman.  
There are ordinarily two great rocks in this sea of affairs, which have in them oppositions very contrary in negotiation of things important. The one is irresolution, and the other obstinacy in opinion. Irresolution ever holds men suspended in the air, and tormenteth subjects who expect their dispatches and directions from the counsel of those who deliberate. Obstinacy through a false presumption of ability, will never forgo what hath been once proposed, and resembleth a rude Portress, which driveth all good advice from the house. One would not believe the hurt this last plague draweth upon all good counsels, and how hard it is to be cured. Verily it is a prodigy, that God, who discovereth from the superior vaults of Heaven to the bottom of the abyss, the least atoms of the world, and who is so clear-sighted, that hell hath not darkness thick enough to hid itself before him; notwithstanding alwise as he is, to dissolve our pride, he feigneth 
Jer. 26. 13.  some repentance in his actions; but we, whose thoughts are timorous, foresights uncertain, actions confused, oftentimes have so much arrogance, as to be desirous to make good our faults, for fear to confess our errors.  
A maxim of Politicians maintaineth, it is to diminish 
Diminutio majestatis fecisse mutanda. Seneca.  authority, to do that which must be undone; for ever it is better to stifle a monster in his birth which one hath begot, than shortly after to foment and nourish it with humane blood. Ahasuerus revoking 
Esther. 16.  the cruel Edict, which he made conceming the massacre of the Hebrews, yieldeth a pertinent reason thereof, saying, This diversity of decrees proceeded not from the levity of his spirit, but from the alterations of times, which make way for affairs that are treated.  
As for execution which followeth deliberation, it is verily the hardest piece: for there are many to be found, who deliberate, as the rat in the fable, to hang a little bell about the cat's neck, to fortify their Commonwealth against surprises. Counsel is received by all with applause; but when they come to execution, every one turns his back. It is not to be imagined, how much a man who executeth affairs prudently resolved on either of himself, or by such as are very trusty, hath eminence above others in matter of government. King Antigonus said, his warfare was rather a warfare of times and occasions, than arms: and Polybius writeth, that the least things, which 
Pol●b. lib. 9  are done in war are those which are handled with sword and violence; but the most eminent are executed by the knowledge, how fitly to manage an occasion.  
Behold in a nearer degree the qualities which form the capacity of a Statesman, not enlarging myself to speak here of others, especially of those that are put into the number of blessings, which the common sort attribute to fortune.  
But a man may have all possible inclinations, and might notwithstanding be ever like those musicians, who performed all their music inwardly, no man hearing any of it outwardly, if he produced not himself in direction, which is the application of all the gifts of grace and nature, that a man can have for the practice and course of affairs.  
This direction will teach you a marvellous secret, 
Nil vile, nil cupidum Judices decet. Claras suos maculas reddunt, si illi, ad quos multi respiciunt, aliqud reprebensione sordescant. Cassiodorus.  which is to proportion yourself to time, place, persons, affairs treated, and to measure yourself in such manner, that your actions may be profitable for all the world. It will bring you forth from behind the curtain, and advance you on the Theatre, to see and to be seen reciprocally by all those who have eyes. There it is, where you are not to present any thing that is sordid, dejected, proud, furious, light, fearful, nor passionate: for great fortunes have this property, to extrude all the blemishes of the heart into the forehead; and although much art may be used to hid one's self, they make a man appear naked, who never is well clothed with habiliments of fortune, if he have not true ornaments of virtue.  
What think you, if men be now adays so curious as to vaunt to see spots in the Sun, where will they not find fault, especially if they have a subject given them? Great excuses serve for no other purpose, but to cover vice, which truth discovereth, and same publisheth, with as many trumpets as men have mouths.  
This sage advice will tell you that it is not necessary you, showing yourself in public, must therefore make all your defects appear, and what ever you bear upon your bear't, as if you had a breast of crystal; but also that the way well to cover your passions is to have none. I say not, you ought to be without resentments and inclinations; for as those places, where there is neither sound nor motion, savour ill; so souls thus deafened are not always the most purified: but I pronounce, you must so repress all motions which comhat against reason, that they sparkle not in public, both to your own disadvantage, and the ill example of those who behold you.  
Philosophers have noted, that thunders which stir about break of day are the most dangerous, and you shall observe if a man in the first rays of his dignity early discover covetousness, love, hatred, revenge, avarice, and other passions, which much hasten to the prejudice of the public, and that the voice of the people be raised up, as the roaring of thunder, he looseth as much reputation, as if he were already corrupted in mind.  
Discretion will also show you the way how to manage your dignity in a manner neither too harsh arrogant, nor haughty; but sweet, affable and communicative: and with it to retain an, honest and temperate gravity, thereby to vilify the character which God hath imprinted on those, whom he calleth to charges and commands.  
It was a pleasant mockery to behold those Kings of Egypt appear daily in new habits, with the figures of beasts birds and fishes, to put terror upon the people, and give subject to Poets to make fables of Protous. This affected gravity, is not in the manners of Great men, who naturally love nothing of singularity above others, but the eminence of their excellent qualities. Our spirits are not so base and childish, as to be satisfied with semblances: they desire some thing more solid: and he is ever best esteemed among the wise, who is more respected for the interior than the outward seeming.  
Discretion will discover unto you the conditions, manners, inclinations, abilities, and wants of those whom you are to govern, and with a finger show you the bent, which way you must incline, to lay hold of men. It is at this day no small matter, to manage humours, which are as different as they are incompatible. The problem of the wolf, the goat, and the colewort, is daily renewed. If a ferryman find himself much troubled to pass these three things severally from one side of the river to the other, that the wolf may do no hurt to the goat, nor the goat to the colewort in his absence; what prudence think you must a Statesman have, to accord so many dogs and hares, hawks and doves? Saint Gregory saith, Paradise hath nothing in it but blessed souls, and hell is filled with miserable: but the world wherein we live, containeth merchants very different. You shall behold under your government a great number of simple, innocent, poor, and afflicted creatures. Think 
A notable practice given by King Theodorick to Cassiodorus. Proprio censu neglecto sine invidiâ lucri morum divitias retulisti: Et unde vix solet reportari patienti● silentium, voces militaverunt tibi loudantium.  God hath principally created you for them, open your heart with an amorous compassion, extend to them the bowels of your charity, stretch out affectionately to them your helpful hands, take their requests, lend ear to their cries, cause their affairs to be speedily dispatched, not drawing them along in delays which may devour them, strengthen your arm against those that oppress them, redeem the prey out of the Lion's throat, and the Harpies talons.  
For this it is, that Kings, Princes, States, and Officers are made. To actions of this kind is it, that God promiseth all the blessings of Heaven and admirations of earth. For this sort of processes are crowns of glory prepared. By this means a man diveth into the bottom of the heart and good opinion of people. This is the cause, that one hath so many souls and lives at command, as there are men, who the more sweetly breath air by the liberality wherewith they are obliged. The greatness of man before God, is not to replenish earth with armies, and make rivers of blood, and to raise up mountains of dead bodies, but to do justice to a poor orphan, to wipe away the tears of a forlorn widow, to steep in oil (as the Scripture speaketh) the yoke of people which live on gall and wormwood. For, not touching here any thing in particular, we know, that in all Realms of Christendom there are very many persons, who sigh under necessities almost intolerable to the most savage, and who daily charge ears with complaints, and Altars with vows for their deliverance.  
Now that we have a King so well disposed to justice, and near his person so sage a Council, a Parliament so zealous for the public good, so many honourable men, endowed with so sincere intentions, when may we reasonably expect the comfort of people, if not at this hour, when miseries are eminent, clamours piercing, and dispositions very good? Alas, if there be any thing in the world, wherein a great Statesman may be seen to oblige the present, and replenish the future times with admiration of his virtues, it is in procuring the advancement of so holy an affair, for which Heaven is in expectation, and the hands of so many thousands of people are daily lifted upon Altars.  
Such and so many Officers, for not having had any other aim in charges, but the accommodation of their own affairs, have passed away like phantasms, leaving nothing here behind them but ordure, nor bearing aught with them into the other world but crimes. They have found, that the souls of the wounded 
Anima vulneratorum clamavit, & Deus in ul am abire non patitur.  have cried to Heaven against them, and that God hath not let it pass without revenge, as speaketh holy Job in the four and twentieth Chapter, where he at large explicateth both the calamity of the poor, and the chastisement of the rich who persecute them. But all those who have constantly addicted themselves to the maintenance of justice, and the consolation of afflicted persons, besides the Crowns which they enjoy in Heaven, live gloriously in the memory of men. Their mouths, which are opened for justice, after 
Regnantis facultas tunc ●●ditior, cùm r●mitti●, & acquirit nobiles thesauros fam●, neglects vilitate pecuniae. Cassiod. l. 1. Epist. 16.  they are shut up as Temples, are truly worthy to have lilies and roses strewed on the marble which encloseth them, and that their posterity may also reap the good odour of the virtues of their noble ancestors, which hath made it march with upreared head before the face of the people.  
You on the other part shall behold travels and laudable actions, which good judgement will invite you to recompense; wherein you must show yourself generous and liberal. For, although virtue be always well enough paid with its own merit, yet must we affirm it to be one of the greatest disorders which may happen in a State, when in sowing benefits, nought else is reaped but ingratitude, and that to be capable of rewards, one must become remarkable in crimes.  
On the other side, there will be many defects presented, that must be corrected, which are either of persons very well conditioned, fallen into some slight offence by surprise; and such as these aught to be handled with much sweetness and clemency; or they are covert vices of some wicked consciences, which you neither aught, nor may as yet manifest; and here much industry and wisdom must be used to dislodge sin, and draw the winding serpent out of his den, as by the hand of the wise woman spoken of in Scripture: or they are public sins, of men resolved, who sin without hope of amendment to the infection of a Commonwealth; and here is it, you are to strengthen yourself with all your power, to take away the evil and evil men.  
These are the precepts which S. Bonaventure giveth in his Treatise of the Wings of the Seraphin.  
This discretion whereof I speak, will show you the manner of proceeding in affairs; for it much importeth to lay hold of them by a certain handle which rendereth them much more easy. We see by experience, that those who make them spectacles of crystal cut into diamond points, for one pistolet on a table, think they see a huge treasure, in such sort their eyes are filled with illusions, and yet their hand if they know not the secret, will be much troubled to find out the piece of gold they seek for.  
This daily happeneth in the course of the world; affairs have an infinity of faces, which present themselves to our thoughts even then, when they are most subtle; but they are hollow imaginations, and he is really an able man, who knoweth how to lay his finger upon the point of a business, and grasp it, as it is said, at the right end.  
You expect not here I should speak to you of the manage of revenues, artillery, arms, sea-affairs, fortifications, petitions, and decrees, they being matters much alienated from my profession, from whence I can derive no glory but by the confession of mine own ignorance. Every one must look into the substance, extent, and the quality of affairs he treateth, must learn what is profitable to be known for the discharge of his place, inform himself of that which he cannot of himself foreknow, willingly hearken to advices, examine and weigh them with maturity. Avoid above all, six obstacles of good affairs, which are, Disorder, Confusion, Passion, Solicitude, Irresolution, Precipitation; to do all things warily, and peaceably, so that no anxiety be showed, like unto Sejanus, a man who had more spirit 
Actu otiosi● similli●us. Velleius.  than conscience, and of whom it is said, that in the midst of his greatest employments, he seemed ever idle.  
There are some who give out many precepts upon every office, and do as if one should make a large discourse to a man by teaching him to go. Experience, which is a wise Mistress, so soon as she encountereth with a man endowed with some capacity, showeth him much more than books.  
Finally, your last livery is Courage, which is exceedingly necessary for men of your profession. Calisthenes a disciple of Aristotle observeth, that the earthquake of the Isle of Delos, was an unlucky presage to the Cities of Buris and Helice, which were swallowed up in a gulf. So when the bodies of Statesmen, which are as this Island of the Sun, tremble and bow to favour, what may we expect but an absolute desolation of Provinces? It is necessary to have a great courage to strengthen the arm against so great authority of iniquities and violences of men of quality, who will confound elements, and mix stars with the dust of the earth, to come to the end of their exorbitant pretensions.  
A great courage, say I, to resist the secret allurements, which occur on the part of allies and friends, especially of powerful women, to whom nature hath afforded such dangerous attractives, that it is many times much easier to defend one's self from the horns of bulls, the tusks of bores, and the throat of Lions, than from the cunning practices of such creatures.  
A great courage in the manage of affairs, and words, that are to be used with certain persons, who are quickly angry and heated in their harness: what a brave virtue is it to endure and temper them with a mildness of spirit, peaceable, and charitable; as it is said, that with a honeycomb fountains of troubled water are cleansed and purified. An Ancient said, that 
Avicen. de diluviis.  he who can well suffer an injury is worthy of an Empire; his only silence will disarm a passionate man, and throw prostrate at his feet the same, who seemed 
See La journée  to roar over his head.  
A great courage also to tolerate the ingrateful, who often cast stones against those, who gave them honey; like unto those Atlantes, who shot arrows against the Sun.  
A great courage likewise in the bad success of affairs, which cannot always prosper according to the measure of our travel and good desires. And to tell you it in a word, a very able courage, when a man is ready to suffer the loss of office, disgrace, banishment, poverty, imprisonment and permit rather to have the heart turned out of your belly, than any good resolution to be pulled from you, which may be conceived for the Weal public.  
If you desire to arrive at these precious endowments, let the Scripture be ever represented before your eyes, as the pillar of clouds and flames, which conducted the army of the living God. There it is, where you shall learn maxims of State, scored out with most vigorous reflections of the wisdom of God, and where you shall trample under foot with a generous contempt so many illusions, which wretched souls seek for in the mouth of Pythonisses and Sorcerers. Read the books of Wisdom, the Prophets, the book of holy Job, and the divine Psalms of the King, chosen out according to Gods own heart. Consider the stream of so many Histories written in this theatre of wonders, which are characters of fire, wherewith the Divine Providence is pleased to be figured to mortal eyes, that we may learn the punishment of crimes, and the crowns of virtues.  
Represent unto yourselves often in your idaeaes, those great Statesmen, who have flourished in the course of all Ages, and derive light and fire from their examples; to illuminate and inflame you in the self same list. Behold him who had been refined above all others in the school of God, I mean Moses: Who 
Moses Dei de proximo arbiter. Tertul. de Monogami●▪ August. l. 22. contr. Faust. cap. 69.  hath there been more humble in refusing charges, more obedient in accepting them, more faithful in exercising them, more industrious in executing the commandments of God, more vigilant in government of the people, more severe in the correction of vices, more patiented in sufferance of the infirmities of subjects, and more zealous in the cordial love he bore to the whole world?  
With these gifts he became the God of Monarches, he ruined the state of his enemies, he unloosed the chains of an infinite number of slaves, he opened seas, he manured wildernesses, he marched in the front of six hundred thousand men at arms, he lived laborious amongst shepherds, chaste in the Courts of Kings, temperate in government, a companion of Angels in his retirement, and as it were 
Omnem istam s●cun●um corpus habitationem, coelestis puritate conversationis obduxerat, mentem r●g●ns, carnem s●●jic●n●, nomine Dei vocatus est, id c●jus similitu●inem se perfect● virtu●is ●b●rtate formaverit. Ambros. l. 2. de Cain & Abel.  a cabinet-friend of God, having continually Heaven for object, and all greatness in contempt. He had blotted out all that which was man in him, by the purity of a conversation wholly celestial. The flesh was in him under such subjection, and the spirit in such Empire, that he merited the name of God, in the resemblance of whom he was transformed by the superabundance of his virtues.  
Behold that great disciple of Moses, Josaah: what piety in the service of the Omnipotent, what sweetness in government, what greatness of spirit in noble erterprises, what patience in difficulties, what prudence in direction, what dispatch in expeditions? It is no wonder if at the sight of these eminent qualities, walls and Cities fell, Giants waxed pale, rivers retired back, the sun stood still, and one and thirty Kings underwent the yoke.  
Behold Samuel, the Father, Master, and Judge of two Kings, the Doctor of Prophets, the Sanctuary of the poor, the pillar of the Church. Is it not a magnificent spectacle to see him go out of charge after so long a government, and so great a diversity of affairs, with a heart so untainted, and hands undefiled, as if he had perpetually conversed with Angels? Is it not a most heroical action which he did in the first of Kings, when after the election of 
1 Reg. 22. Loquimini de me●●●ram Domino, & ●oram Christo ejus.  Saul, having voluntarily resigned his dignity, he shown himself with upreared head in the midst of the people, and gave liberty to all the world, from the least to the greatest, to complain and make information against him before the King newly chosen? If it may be found, that in his magistracy, he ever did the least wrong to any man, he is the●e ready to afford all satisfaction that may be thought fit. But as he had lived most innocently, at this word was lifted up a loud cry, proceeding from a general consent of the people, which highly proclaimed the integrity of his justice. Is not this a praise of more value, than millions of gold and Empires.  
But above all, reflect often on the Wisdom of God Incarnate, J●sus Christ, the Saviour of the world, as the prime model of all Statesmen, which the Prophet Isaiah hath exactly represented in the eleventh Chapter of his Prophecy, where he figureth the Redeemer unto us in quality of a Judge, to serve for an instruction and an example to all posterity. First, for as much as concerneth his perfections, he gave him seven sorts of spirits very consonant to a true Politician, to wit, the spirit of Wisdom and Understanding, the spirit of Counsel and Strength, the spirit of Science, of Piety, and the Fear of God, wherewith he was wholly replenished. Then describing his manner of proceeding, he saith: He shall not judge according to humane apparences, by the inconsiderate views of carnal eyes, and the relation of a rash tongue; but he shall do justice to the poor, and fortify himself with all kind of vigour, for the defence of so many gentle souls, as are oppressed in the world.  
To this purpose he shall strike the earth with the words of his mouth, using his tongue as a rod of correction, and shall overthrow the wicked with the breath of his lips.  
Justice shall be so familiar to him, that he shall make use of it, as of a girdle of honour, or a rich baldric, which brave Captains wear. The effects of his government shall be so eminent, that the wolf under his reign shall be seen to cohabit with the lamb, the leopard with the goat, the calf with the lion, and little children to play with basilisks and aspics: willing in these allegories to signify, that he shall mollify the most savage humours by his laws, to reduce them to the temper of reason.  
Behold somewhat near, how this divine Writer describeth the Policy of the King of Monarches.  
All those who have insisted in his steps, have been glorious in the memory of men; and he that would number up through all Ages so many great Statesmen, should make a large Volume.  
I will not at this time produce Melon Injurios●s, Carmerus, Robert, Aus●ert surnamed the Man of God, Oenus, Godegrandus, Ledwardus, Eginardus, Raoul, Fulbertus, Hildwinus, Monsieur Stephen of France, Guarinus, William of Mountaigue, Henry Arnaudus of Corgues, Rochfort, and the most famous Thomas More; not speaking of so many other lights of Ages, which have illustrated us much nearer, where we may find a large list of uncorrupted men.  
Many have so worthily filled the chairs of justice, that they have deserved to pass forward to Altars, there to possess the prime places of Prelacies.  
I satisfy myself to draw out of Marcianus, Cassiodorus, Baronius, and ancient Manuscripts, the life of Boetius, where you may observe the body of History sufficiently replenished with matters very considerable.    


ANIC. MANL. TORQVAT. SEVER. BOETIUS   
BOETIUS.  

The first SECTION. His great Nobility.  
BEhold here how I make a great Statesman to walk along in his rank, the honour of the gown, and the singular ornament of the purple garment; who hath had the privilege to revive learning in his life, and at his death to bury all the Roman greatness in his tomb.  
It is the most Illustrious Boetius, whom I have selected almost in the first Ages of Christianity, as the most accomplished personage, that hath flourished in the quality of a man of the long robe throughout Christendom. For if you consider his extraction, it was the noblest of his time; if you regard his means, he was of the most honestly rich; if you reflect on his wit, he dazzled the eyes of the most learned; if you behold his innocency, his life was as a pearl without blemish; If you weigh his dignity, he had been three times Consul of Rome; if you inquire after his negotiations and government, you shall find he lived in the greatest revolutions of the Roman Empire, when affairs were most thorny. If you will observe his constancy, you shall see a pillar of diamond not to be shaken with all the counterbuffs of iniquity: and if a brave death may set a seal upon a good life, you will be enforced to admire him, beholding him to die on a scaffold, for the defence of piety and justice, which are the two poles that support all the great Policy of this Universe.  
The unhappiness is, there hath not been some Author found in that iron Age, to have written the acts of this great man in a stile suitable to his merit; we should have discovered marvellous treasures: but since I must make my way through so great a scarcity of Writers, who have handled this subject, I will endeavour to render it as little irksome in stile, as it is profitable in matter.  
As for the first quality I have observed in him, which is his great Nobility, it is certain he summed up a thousand years, since his Ancestors began to be resplendent with singular lustre in the City of Rome; which is no small space, to say, that ten Ages which waste rocks, and wear elements, had not altered the honour of this great Family.  
He was descended from the house of those great Manlii, whose hearts extended as far as the Roman Empire. The most celebrated amongst them, named Marcus Manlius, defended the Capitol against the Gauls in the extreme necessity of the Romans, and redeemed as it were from the abyss the City, which God had chosen to command over so many nations. He was a man truly valorous, who wanted nothing but to have been born in an ample Kingdom, and not in a Republic jealous of the greatness of its subjects: For, he having too much courted the People to the prejudice of Magistrates, was accused to have sought a change of government, and was precipitated from the Capitol which he had defended; to the end the theatre of his glory might be turned into the scaffold of his punishment.  
Never could any thing be seen more deplorable than this brave Captain, when pleading his cause, where he was upon question of his last unhappiness, having produced about four hundred Citizens, delivered from great necessities by his means, than thirty spoils of noble enemies, whom he had slain with his own hand, than ten Crowns, than forty other prizes of valour; as he beheld the incensed Judges much inclining to his ruin, he shown his naked breast, as yet covered over with honourable scars received in so many great battles for his Country; and then turning his eyes & his up-reard hands to heaven towards the Capitol, he prayed the Gods to give the People of Rome the same understanding for the preservation of his person, that they had afforded him for the safety of the Weal-public, in the defence of the City of Rome.  
This spectacle was so ravishing, that it was impossible to condemn him in sight of this noble fortress, which subsisted not but by his valour: but his enemies causing him to be carried into another place, exercised a heavy judgement, and an act odious to posterity, which was attended by great sterilities and pestilences, attributed to the death of this noble personage. The other Manlius very eminent, was he, who slew in single combat the Captain of the Gauls, in sight of both the Armies. For this man advancing himself on a bridge, assailed, and defended by both parts, challenged aloud the most valorous among the Romans to combat man to man; which being understood, Manlius slowly came forth with the leave of his dictator, and having well observed his adversary, who immeasurably braved it, he struck him so nimbly, that he fell down stark dead in the list: then taking his chain off all bloody, he hung it about his own neck, from whence he was surnamed Torquatus; which title did afterward likewise remain unto his whole posterity.  
The third of this race much renowned in histories by an act, one of the severest ever exercised, was that Torquatus, who caused his son's head to be cut off, for having charged and vanquished his enemy without leave. The young mantickled with the honour of his Ancestors, seeing a fair occasion to fight, took the opportunity. And not expecting the permission of his father, overthrew the enemies of the Roman people, in killing with his own hands a man of note, in single combat, whereupon full of joy, he returneth with the applause of the soldiers, and hasteneth to seek out his father, who commanded the Army, bearing in his hands the spoils of his enemies, and saying aloud: Father, behold the cause, why I may be esteemed your son. But the father turning his eyes away, caused the trumpet to be sounded, to gather all the soldiers together, and in the midst of a great Assembly, as General he pronounced sentence against his son, and said unto him: SON, Since without any respect, either of the dignity of a Consul wherewith the Commonwealth hath honoured me, or the majesty of the title of a father, which nature hath afforded me over you, you have fought contrary to my Edict, dissolving the sacred knot of military discipline, which hath hitherto maintained the greatness of the Roman State: I well see you have reduced affairs to such necessity, that either I must forget the Commonwealth, or myself and mine. But God forbidden the public suffer for our faults, and that we must expiate the temereity of one young man, by the disasters of so many innocent persons. Here an act of State must be performed, which is for the present somewhat odious, but shall be profitable for youth through all posterity. My son, I have sense of nature, as a father, and as a Captain I resent also the stashes of this youthful virtue, which is so charming in its illusion: but since I must either by your impunity annual, or by your blood seal the commandment of the Consuls; you being of my blood, I cannot think you so degenerate, as to deny to re-establish by your punishment the Laws of arms, which you by your error have destroyed.  
Thereupon he commanded the executioner to bind him, and lead him to the place of punishment, to be beheaded, wherewith the Assembly was so astonished, as if all the Captains had their heads under the same sword. For every one was drenched in a deep silence, until the blood of this young Prince was seen to gush forth; for then the soldiers spared neither sorrow nor execrations, taking the body by main force to cover it with its spoils, and enterre it with all honour.  
I had a desire to touch this particularly, thereby to teach the Reader, that the great constancy which Boetius witnessed in the whole course of his life, and especially at his death, was in him hereditary.  
It were a long piece of work for him, who would prosecute all the acts of the Ancestors of Boetius, since by the report of Saint Hierom, this family hath been so illustrious, that scarcely can one man be found therein, which hath not enjoyed or deserved the Consulship.  
Wherefore I may well say, it was a very particular Providence of God, upon this admirable man, which being pleased to raise him to the condition of a great Statesman, hath caused him to be nobly born. For although it cannot be denied, but that many descended from very mean extraction, have sometimes exceedingly well improved in the manage of States, yet must we affirm, they have stood in much need of time, diligence, and eminent virtues, to give a counterpoise to this defect of blood. Ordinarily those who arise from these degrees, being derived from base birth, are many times envied, and little respected, whereby finding themselves offended, they often take harsh ways, to become powerful in the minds of subjects by strong hand: whereas such as are of race noble and illustrious, cannot have so few other parts, but that they may easily enter into hearts, as into a house which the virtue of Ancestors hath beforehand wholly purchased for them. And though this seem expedient in all places, yet is it much more necessary in a State, where is a great number of noble men and generous spirits, and where every one thinks himself sufficient enough to perform that which another doth.  
Presumption equalleth them all in ability, at the least according to their imaginations, were it not that the uncontrollable supereminency of houses makes them yield to reason. And although base nobility be very shameful, yet is it much more tolerable than a servile spirit, which hath power in its hands without any moderation,  
There are four things, saith the Wiseman, which cause earthquakes here below, A servant imperious, 
Proverb. 30.  a rich fool, a woman scornful when she is married, and a maid-servant become the heir of her Mistress: that is, saith he, the fourth thing which the world cannot endure. Education maketh manners, and every one is readily that which he hath learned in youth, were it not, that through a great strength of courage ill inclinations are resisted.  
Boetius, who in his excellent Nobility was endowed with so sweet a temper of spirit, seemed to be created of God to govern men. On the other part his family, which was rich and powerful, gave also much increase to his command, as that which alienated him from the corruptions, that easily fasten on a necessitous fortune. A man who feareth poverty, is ever to be feared, and a rich innocent cannot meet with any thing more dangerous than a hungry judge.  
Saint Thomas hath said very well, that a poverty 
Lib. 4. cap. 15. de rogim. Princip.  virtuous and free from covetousness, is an admirable quality for a Statesman: but where shall we now adays find such a poverty, in a time, when riot is so exorbitant, that the greatest houses are therewith impeached? The innocent riches of our great Consul fell out to be much to the purpose, so that they might be employed for aid of the poor, in a time which happened in one of the sickliest Ages of the world, ruined by so many incursions of Barbarians, not naming the other scourges, which then fought against the sins of men.   

The second SECTION. The eminent wisdom and learning of Boetius.  
EXperience, the wisest Mistress of the world, hath sometimes caused the saying of Plato to be questioned, who thought Commonwealths happy when they fell into the hands of Philosophers, or of men who sought to become Philosophers. For in effect it is observed, that those so knowing men meet not always with the bent of common understanding, having their spirits more estranged from civil life. They please themselves with great Ideas, as if they conversed in the Commonwealth of Plato with demigods, not at all yielding to infirmities of nature. And although they use some endeavour to render themselves conversable, yet doth the sweetness of repose inebriate and withdraw them from affairs: but if they force themselves to attend them, noise amazeth them, diversity of humours not always suitable to their understanding distasteth them, labour somewhat painful overwhelmeth them, and the heap of so many incident occasions confoundeth them.  
Add hereunto, that there is much malice in the manners of men, not found in books, and that their actions being very innocent, when they come to measure others by their own level, they find themselves deceived. Besides, the sedentary and retired life spent in the entertainment of their books, rendereth them very timorous, and softeneth their brow, which should always be as it were of brass, to endure the shock of strong impudencies, which may insinuate themselves into the corruptions of the times.  
This may be confirmed by the example of Theodates' King of the Goths, who with all the Philosophy of Plato, wherein he was exceedingly studious, very ill managed his affairs.  
As also by Michael the Emperor, surnamed of the Grecians, Parapanicius, as who would say, The Scholar: for he perpetually had table-books and pens in his hand, to compose Orations, Verses, and Histories, resigning the whole government of his affairs to an Eunuch, named Nicephorus, who through his insatiable avarice drew much hatred upon the head of this Emperor.  
I verily affirm, if you take learning in these excesses, one may very well say, that it would not only become unprofitable, but also dangerous to principality. It is not my intention to prove learned men are capable of the manage of great affairs for the only consideration of the advantage they have in letters, for then Governors of Provinces were to be taken out of the Regencies of schools; but I say, that sciences well managed, add a marvellous lustre to one in government. For first, they vindicate him from stupidity and a savage life, which maketh a man without sight or knowledge of virtue, to be in a State, as was Poliphemus, made blind by Ulysses, in his den. Besides, they cleanse, refine, and store the soul, made to know great and divine lights. Afterwards, they open the understanding by the reading of so many excellent books, and even unloose the tongue, which is an instrument very necessary to manage hearts. Finally, they make a man more mild, civil, and courteous, and I could say also more awful and worthy of credit.  
For if some unhappy Princes were produced, who being unfurnished of other talents, have made ill use of letters, by abusing them through want of judgement, as one may all the best things in the world; this nothing at all in substance lesseneth the truth of our proposition, since we may oppose against them a large list of Lawmakers, Princes, and Governors, who have exceedingly well made use of the knowledge of learning. For if we make account of the policy of God, which is ever the most assured, know we not, that he having chosen Moses to constitute him the Governor of so great a State, was willing he might have a good taste of all the sciences then in request among the Egyptians? And Philo saith, that he there learned Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and all the greatest secrets of their Philosophy, contained in their Hieroglyphics. Know we not that Solomon had a heart as large as the sea, wherein God lodged so many knowledges of things both divine and humane, that he penetrated whatsoever the understanding of man, enlightened with rays from God, might comprehend?  
Are we so little versed in History, that we cannot reckon up the names of all the greatest Princes, who have been very learned, as Alexander, Julius Caesar, Augustus, Adrian, Antoninus, Constantine, Theodosius, Gratian, Charlemaigne, Alphonsus, yea, even Solyman the great Turk? What a could of witnesses should we have, did we now collect all the names and histories of learned Statesmen? For if letters give ornament to such as are wholly eminent in military profession, by a much stronger reason we are to think they are able to advance the lustre of an excellent Governor, vowed to the Robe, and to a life peaceable, as Seneca and Cicero.  
I have been the more willing purposely to use this Preface, to the end that coming presently to speak of the great learning of our Boetius, it might not diminish the credit we ought to have of his ability in state-affairs. It is sometimes so dangerous to be 
Vide Boro. Ann. 990.  learned among gross spirits, that the tenth Age, which was very dull, made as it were the good Pope Silvester the II. pass for a Magician, because he understood Geometry. And it is not above four-score years ago, that to know Greek and negromancy, were as it were one and the same thing in the opinion of the ignorant.  
He that proceedeth by such brutish ways, would take Boetius for a Devil, such knowledge had he: for it must be confessed, that in the revolution of so many ages, there hath not been many seen who arrived to such a degree of science. As our spirits are limited, so every one freely taketh his share, according as his inclination leadeth him, his aim moveth him, his understanding transporteth him, his labour supporteth him: and he that cannot prevail in one science, applieth himself to another, since the diversity of arts is so great, that it is able to satisfy the most curious, allure the most nice,, and encourage the weakest. But as for our Boetius, he entered into the secrets of all sciences, and as there was nothing too holy for his great virtue, so might not any thing be found so elate, as to exempt itself from the vivacity of his spirit.  
Julius Scaliger hath very well given testimony of 
Scalig. in Hypercriti●o.  him according to his merit, when he said, the wit, learning, industry, and wisdom of Severinus Boetius, challenged all the Authors of the world as well Grecians as Latins, not excepting any. He addeth, that all which he composed in Poesy was divine, and that nothing might be found either more elegant or grave; in such manner, that the abundance of supereminent conceits choked not the grace, nor curiosity, took any thing from the propriety thereof.  
And whereas he writeth, that his prose seemed not equal to the verse, but retained somewhat of the barbarism of that Age, I assure myself Scaliger may have taken some works falsely attributed to Boetius, as there are in the great Mass compiled under his name, which have likewise deceived Cardinal Baronius, who imputeth the book of the Discipline of Scholars to him, which is one of the most silly pieces that could come from a man alienated from common sense.  
Among other things this Author saith, that he hath been in the City of Julius Caesar, called Paris to take the air, and that he there hath seen many bad scholars, discoursing of Nations, and giving a face to the University, as it had in later times; which will seem ridiculous to every one who shall consider the life of Boetius, and the times wherein he flourished. It is no wonder, if those who have admitted such works for pieces of Boetius, not through want of judgement, which hath been in these two personages, whom I mention very great, but for fault of giving time to examine them, they there have found matters, which with them have lessened the opinion of such an Author.  
But this is very certain, that all which is extant of this brave Writer, hath in it vigour, grace, purity, spirit, and excellent good consequence: as appeareth in the books of Consolation. As for the rest he hath not so confined himself in this great eloquence, but that he entereth into the most profound questions of Philosophy and Theology: and should he have no other honour, but to make Aristotle first speak Latin, who was unknown in the West, I should make much more account of him, than if he had raised Orpheus up again with his Harp. The great knowledge he had of Geography, Arithmetic, Music, and all which concern the Mathematics, was the cause, when any one stood in need of some piece of wit, they went presently to Boetius, as the only man of the Empire, who was esteemed a true Library, animated with the spirit of all Arts. It is a pleasant thing to read what the King Theodorick wrote to him in requiring a dial of him, to present it to the King of Burgundy. Behold the words of his great Secretary Cassiodorus.  
It is not reasonable to contemn the requests which Kings our neighbours with all confidence make unto us, and especially when they require some slight things, which they account in the number of great treasures, It happeneth oftentimes that the dalliances and conceits of wit obtain that by sweetness, which arms cannot gain by force. If we needs must play, let us so use the matter our sports may be made for the good of the public, and let us search for things serious even in pleasures. The K. of Burgundy intreateth of me with much instance twodyals, the one circumvolved with water, the other with the sun, and he prayeth me to send skilful masters to show him this invention. Let us afford entertainment to this Nation, to the end they may hold those things for miracles, which we here daily use for recreation. I understand the report which their Ambassadors have made of these & the like workmanships, which hath much amazed them, as a thing very extraordinary. Now I know you are so accomplished in all sorts of sciences, that you have tasted in the fountain of all the industries, what others seek to practise by rote. For you, for this purpose remained in the University of Athens, and have so fairly allied together the Roman robe with the Grecian mantle, that their doctrine by your means is become wholly Latin. You are ignorant of nothing that is in the speculative, nothing which is in the practic; and all that, which the Athenians would attribute to themselves of singularity, you have transported into our City of Rome. Your translations have made Ptolemy the Astrologian, Nichomachus the Arithmetician, Euclid the Geometrician, Plato the divine, Aristotle the Logician, Archimedes the Mathematician to speak Latin. All sciences dispersed among so many men, and so many wits, through all ages, are in you altogether united: you have interpreted them all with such perspicuity of discourse, retaining the propriety of language, that should these Authors return to life again they would prefer your translation before their own originals.  
Afterward he enlargeth himself upon the praise of 
Fugam solis aquiparat, quod motum semper ignorat. Inviderent talibus, si astra sentirent. Vbi est illud horarum de lumine venientium singulare miraculum, si hos & umbra demonstrat? Cassiodorus l. variar. Epist. 45.  the Mathematics, then returning to his dial, he saith, it is an admirable thing to see, that a little  steel every day performeth as much way as the sun, and that if the stars had understanding, they would envy dials, and return back again, for fear to be surprised by this pretty sport of men, the hours would be ashamed, that being the daughters of the day and night, they were painted with shadows. In the end, having given full scope to his wit, he concludes and saith: I pray you send us two dials so soon as you can, to the end you may be known by the figures of your spirit, in a Country, where no man shall see the print of your footsteps. I would have them understand that our Senators here are as learned as Doctors, that they may admire your inventions, and esteem them as dreams, so that being awakened, they may confess they have nothing comparable to us.  
Cassiodorus amassed together all the strength of 
Cassiodorus variarum 16. Epist. 40.  his wit, when he was to dispatch letters to Boetius in the behalf of his King. Witness whereof yet is that other excellent Epistle of Music, where we learn that our great K. Clodovaeus, having demanded a singular Player on the Lute of Theodorick, who then reigned in Italy, address was presently made to Boetius to choose him, with a magnificent letter, which still retaineth a notable testimony of his ability.  
Angelus Politianus, who had throughly read him, holdeth opinion, that there is nothing to be found more sharp than He in Logic, more subtle in the Mathematics, more rich in Philosophy, not more sublime in Theology, adding the judgement of Albertus Magnus, and of S. Thomas, who have commented upon his works, and assuring us that his sentences were all as it were without appeal. Laurentius Valla calleth him the last of the learned, thereby willing to say, that all the glory of the excellent wits of antiquity, was buried with him.  
But why go we about to search out the testimonies of Authors, since we have still some of his true works in our hands, which are the mirrors, wherein the wit of Boetius makes itself to be seen with more advantage to all posterity? It may be said, he had too much Philosophy for a Statesman, but the bird is not burdened with her feathers, no more than the tree with his leaves and flowers. What wrong hath he done to the City of Rome, if when he saw himself to be taken from the Commonwealth, and in terms where he could not assist it with his counsels, he honoured it with the riches of his wit, charming the sharpness of troubles with the sweetness of his retirement, and giving an account to posterity of the time which he husbanded for it?   

The third SECTION. His entrance into the government of the State.  
I Will willingly leave all digestion to come to my project, and seeing the life of Boetius furnisheth us, not with many slight matters, wherewith ordinarily volumes are stuffed, when men desire to distend them beyond their merit, I rest on negotiations of government, which show a man as well as doth the needle the hours upon a true clock.  
Boetius happened in a time, which gave him an admirable list to combat in, with firm footing against vices the most applauded, and to place his virtues in the bright splendour of light, not holding them still imprisoned within the precincts of a library.  
Behold here a strong adversary, that fortune put upon him, which exercised his constancy in rough affairs, and caused him in the end to pass by the dint of sword, ending a brave life by a Tragedy very bloody, no whit abating his noble courage.  
This is a history which verily hath given occasion of much horror to spirits the most strong, and execration to mouths the most innocent, to detest the tyranny of a barbarous sword, purpled with the blood of an honourable old man, by whose mouth all learning, and the best maxims of State did speak. It is necessary, my Reader, well to deduce this narration, you first understand the humour, qualities, fortune, beginning, progress, and the end also of this Persecutor.  
You must therefore understand, that the City of Rome, which counteth its age, and continued before the Caesars seven hundred years, and after Augustus, who was the first Emperor, about five hundred twenty three, and generally from the foundation thereof, one thousand two hundred twenty nine, was at that time involved in very great perplexities, the Emperor's living then the age of flowers, and driving one another, as waves to be broken against the rocks.  
One Nepos elected to the Empire, chose for his Constable a man called Orestes, who sought to take the Purple from his Master, to give it to his son, and verily he caused him aloud to be saluted Caesar, and set the Diadem on his head, surnammg him Augustus, though afterward for contempt, the name of Augustulus was given unto him.  
It is a fatal blow from the providence of God, that the Empire of the West, which begun by an Augustus, must receive end by an Augustulus: as that of the East, having commenced under Constantine the Great, concluded afterward in the person of Constantinus Dragosus, vanquished by Mahomet.  
Nepos seeing himself betrayed by him in whom he most confided, sent for Odoacer King of the Heruli to his aid, who like the wolf in the fable reconciled the dogs that worried one another, by eating them. For he defeated these two contesting Princes; and seeing himself march in the fair fields of Italy with swords in hand, attended by strong Legions, the great weakness of the Empire, so many times overwhelmed by civil wars, being unable to oppose his designs, he being entreated to help a friend, payeth himself by his own hands, and makes himself Master of his possessions: Experience ever teaching us, that foreign charities, have fingers somewhat crooked to lay hold on that, which they make show to secure.  
The Emperor Zeno, who reigned in Constantinople, understanding all this goodly business, dispatcheth Theodorick into the West, to make head against this usurper: whether he had a purpose to throw the apple of discord between those two strangers, who in too near a degree closely courted his estate, to make them devour one another, or whether that he cordially loved this man, and that to oblige him, not hurting himself, he freely gave him a matter desperate, he armed, and supported him with gold and strength, to raise him to that throne, not having at that time any will thereunto.  
This Theodorick was bastard-son of Theodomire King of the Goths, born of a concubine called Aureliana. His father who sought for land, which is very easily found out for a tomb, had much afflicted the Eastern Empire, ofttimes making inroads even to the gates of Constantinople; whereat Leo the Emperor, who then reigned being somewhat amazed, endeavoured to gain him by some honest composition, which was done: and the more firmly to bind this accord, Theodomire sent his little son Theodorick, who was not above eight or nine years of age, in hostage to Constantinople. The Emperor beholding him to be of a good disposition and a brave courage, very hearty loved him; and afterward Zeno, who succeeded both to the Empire and affections of Leo his father-in-law, much esteemed this young man, who arrived to maturity of age served him most courageously in brave expeditions of war against the Gepides and Bulgarians, sworn enemies of the Empire.  
This occasion whereof we speak being offered, Theodorick flieth like a Merlin to his prey, and leaving the Court of Constantinople came into Italy, attended by gallant troops, to decide the matter of Empire and life with Odoacer. He being full of fire, handled his adversary very roughly, and defeated him in three battles, making him forsake the field, and enforcing him to immure himself in Ravenna, where he besieged him, for the space of three years, resolved either to lose his head in Italy, or encircle it with a Crown at Rome.  
The father Theodomire being already deceased, his mother the fair Aureliana, who had reigned in affections, entertained an insatiable desire to command over the most important part of the world, and being then in the field, she spared not to excite the soldiers, and advance a spur of fire very far into the heart of her son: whereupon it is recounted that Odoacer, after so long a siege, being reduced to an extreme scarcity of victuals, and seeing he could not any longer subsist, resolved to seek in the hazard of arms, the remedy which he could not find in his languishment. He espied a time, when the assailants tired out with so long a resistance, seemed now to relent, so that by the benefit of a fair night he made a sally with his whole army, composed of people hungry as wolves, and resolved to conquer or die in this last battle. Their sally was so furious and unexpected, that Theodorick, who was otherwise a great Captain, seeing the astonishment and disorder of his soldiers, betook himself timely to flight, when this Aureliana his mother, moved with an ardent ambition, which gave her courage above her sex, came before him, and taking him by the hand had confidence to say: My Son whither go you? You must of two things do one, either fight, or return into the womb of your mother. You have, as far as I can perceive, the enemy at your back, and fear on your forehead: turn your head against the one, and you shall chase away the other: If you persist in this flight, I will rather make a wall of my body to stay you, than render myself a confederate of such an obloquy.  
It is a strange thing, that the words of a woman were stronger than the sound of trumpets, arms, flight, and the black apprehensions of death. This young Prince, changing his fear into a generous shame, speedily rallyeth the troops that were best resolved, and hasteneth to fall upon his enemy, with such violence, that his soldiers seemed so many flying Dragons, who handled their matter so well, that the valiant Odoacer, notwithstanding his best endeavour, was constrained to retire into Ravenna.  
Some time after, seeing his enemy was invincible, he caused him to be sought unto for peace, on such condition, that they should between them, divide the Kingdom of Italy, to which Theodorick, whether that he was wearied out with so long a war, or that he hoped the more easily to join the skin of the fox to that of the Lion, willingly consented to this counterfeit peace. The agreement signed, he entered into Ravenna, and these Princes, who were both very brave soldiers, embraced before the face of two armies, mutually preventing each other with all manner of courtesy.  
But oh good God what cement was ever found able enough to entertain ambition and amity in one constant state? and what world hath at any time been wide enough to lodge too ambitious men without a quarrel? Their conversation too frequent, first sowed contempts and insolences among soldiers of different Nations, afterward jealousy crept into the hearts of the Captains, and distrust into the souls of the Sovereigns, who beheld and observed one another, as expecting who should first begin.  
Theodorick, whether he sought for some pretext, which ever is soon enough found out to colour the greatest mischiefs, or whether he understood of a design intended on the part of his enemy, imagined the earth was not large enough to give elbow-room to his ambition, whilst Odoacer shared the Throne with him; that there was but one sun necessary in heaven, and one King in a Country; that he could not endure a Crown made crescent-wise, but that it was very fit he should furnish out the roundness of its circle; and for the rest that man would soon be King, who first prevented his adversary.  
Hereupon he resolved on a horrible assassinate: for feigning all friendship and affection, he invited Odoacer to a magnificent feast which he had prepared for him to be the last of his life. It is a great matter, that there must be a bait always to surprise men and birds, and that the greatest disasters ordinarily happen in the sports and banquets, when sensuality predominateth, and reason is eclipsed. This miserable 
Procopius saith, that Theodorick took pretext, and treacherously slew him at a banquet.  King of the Heruli, made it well appear by his overmuch confidence, that he had not so much mischief in him, as was afterward imputed to his ashes; for he very joyfully went to this banquet, accompanied with his son and all the principal of his Kingdom, and walked along with great alacrity, having no other intention but to make war against dishes, and nothing less than at that time to entertain purposes of blood and murder. The resolution notwithstanding is taken to make them all pass by the dint of swords, in a place the most delightful, where pleasures seem to make men as it were newly born. They entered into a great 
Sigonius. l 5. Occidentali de Imperio in fine.  hall most magnificently furnished, and sat down at the table; there was no speech in the beginning, but of mirth, the spirit disbanded thinketh on nothing but objects of pleasure, when instantly the signal was given, and the Goths threw swords purposely out to offend the most sober patience of the Heruli. They answered again what choler and wine suggested: Theodorick stood up, and taking his sword 
So an ancient manuscript observeth it, found in a Library at Rome.  slew Odoacer with his own hand; the rest fell upon his son, and the Princes of the Kingdom. Never was there seen banquet of Centaurs and Lapiths more unfortunately expressed. Tables and men were overwhelmed, wine ran mixed with blood, the dreadful cries of the dying made those tremble who were far enough out of danger, and gave matter of pity even to hangmen; yet for all this not a man was spared; the bodies mangled and bloody were cast one upon another, and the poor souls issued forth in the midst of massacres and surfeits to yield an account in the Court-hall of Heaven.  
What horrors of the abyss and furies of Devils see you here? I would know, whether there be any beast in the world that had heaped together in one sole body, the enraged hunger of wolves, the subtlety of foxes, the strength of Lions, the cruelty of Tigers and Panthers, the poison of Basilisks, whether it may be more dangerous to man, than himself, when he is possessed with a mischievous ambition.  
Oh how happy would the lives of men be, were they not infected with these venomous passions, which transform reasonable nature into more hideous monsters, than those which Poets have set over the gates of hell. We shall see in the sequel of this history, how wickedness never escapeth the eye of God, and that if he come with feet of lead to chastise it, he notwithstanding hath an arm of iron, to cut up treacheries by the root.  
This murder divulged, the Heruli took arms to revenge their Prince, but the Sentinels disposed in many places of the City, hewed those in pieces who shown themselves most forward.  
Theodorick made a declaration very ample, wherein he expressed, that that which caused him to resolve on such an action, was nothing but the security of his person, against which Odoacer had a most evident design, which would instantly have appeared in the deprivation of his life and estate, had he not with all diligence prevented his enemy. That he did, what the law of nature ordained in so manifest a danger, but that he will hence forward witness all manner of clemency to such as would throw themselves into his arms, indifferently stretched out to accept the obedience of all the world.  
The great distaste of war every one had at that time, the little hope the most mutinous conceived to revenge their quarrel, and the authority of Zeno the Eastern Emperor, who ceased not to support Theodorick, caused a great silence in arms, and afforded full liberty to this ambitious King of the Goths, to become Master of Italy.  
As for the rest, he seeing Rome was then as it were like a great oak overthrown, where every one hasteneth on all sides to get the spoil, and that the French, Visigoths, and Burgundians might aspire, as he, to the conquest of Italy; he made alliances with all those Princes, and especially with Clodovaeus, who at that time reigned, whose sister he took in marriage. Besides, the Emperor Zeno, that had ever upheld him, happening to die, as Anastatius his successor made show to cause an alteration in affairs, and would render himself absolute in the West, this man knew so well how to play his part, that he diverted his ambitions another way.  
There is also a letter to be found in Cassiodorus, which he wrote to this Anastasius, deputing a solemn Embassage to him for the obtaining of peace, where among other things he saith: That it is good reason they should seek for peace, who have no cause to make war, and that the man wadeth far into wrong, who giveth no testimony of any disposition to receive conditions suitable to justice. As for himself, he acknowledged the Emperor, as the prime dignity raised above all other Kingdoms, and to be the support of the whole world, and that one of the greatest favours from God, which he hath at any time received, was to have learned in the Court of Constantinople, how he ought to govern the Romans. That he knows the authority of the Emperor is the only model of all the policy in the world, and that so much as God hath exalted him above other Princes, so much would be humble himself under this Monarch, from whom be requireth most glorious amity, that be may hereafter apply himself to all that which may appertain to his honour and service.  
The Emperor Anastasius, who according to the humours of his turbulent spirit cut himself work enough out in the East, not going to seek for it in the West, seeing that he set himself into the conditions of a suppliant, when his fortune might already put into his mouth words armed for command, suffered him to gnaw his bone in secure peace. The Romans considering, that besides force of arms he had the consent of two Emperors of the East, willingly received him, under hope they had to see some tranquillity succeed after so many storms, which had afflicted their State.  
Behold how from a Knight of fortune he arrived to the dignity of an Emperor: he being notwithstanding resolved never to take upon him the Title of Emperor, but contenting himself with the name of King, thereby to decline the jealousy of those, who were very capable of it. He that would consider the qualities of his person, which contributed to enthrone him in a place so eminent, shall find, that besides military virtue, he had other parts very worthy to govern, were it not that his spirit was drenched both in humane policy and long prosperities, which served as disloyal nurses to sin.  
It seemeth that Sidonius Appollinaris had studied him, and summed him up even to the hairs of his head, when in the second Epistle of his first book he so curiously describeth him, and saith among other things: He had a body exceedingly well proportioned, the top of his head well circled, his eyebrows thick, his hair long, his nose hooked, his lips soft, his teeth of ivory, his complexion white mingled with vermilion, which quickly blushed, more through shamefacedness than choler, his body very comely, his arms strong, his hands slender, his breast full, his leg plump, his feet small to support a great body.  
He addeth, that concerning his manners, he ordinarily prayed before break of day in the presence of his Bishops, who were Arians, without noise or attendance, and that afterward he applied himself to affairs, and gave audience to Embassages and petitions, where he heard much and spoke little, ever showing himself very intentive in resolutions, and most prompt in the expedition of that which he had resolved on. From thence he went to survey his Arsenal, his Magazines, his stables, and his Treasures; or he went on hunting, being naturally so dexterous in shooting, that infallibly he would not miss the mark. After exercises he took his repast; where he loved to be entertained with serious things, and as for that which concerned his table, there might be seen (saith he) The nativeness of Grecians, the plenty of French, the promptness of Italians, and a discipline truly Royal. If after dinner he played at dice, his custom was to be silent when he won, to laugh when he lost, and never to be angry, but rather to take occasion to speak some good words, and ever handled dice as manly as arms.  
For the rest, he was so good a gamester, that not disquieting himself at all, he rejoiced to see his subjects in humour against him, and so despoiled himself in game of affected gravity, that he seemed to have no other fear, but to be feared. It did him good then to be asked some favour, and such a one oftentimes lost in game with him, who won his suit.  
About three of the clock the burden of affairs of the Kingdom had their turn, wherein he rendered himself very serious till the time of supper.  
Ennodius in his Panegyric saith, that he honoured the Royal purple with the rays of his countenance, and that there was not in the world a habit so beautiful, which he made not more lustrous by wearing it on his body: that his eyes had the serenity of the spring, and that his hands were worthy to give death to rebels, and matter of vows to his subjects: That all which Diadems perform in the person of other Emperors, nature had done in him; and that nothing in him was wanting but an heir: for the truth is, he died, not leaving any son to succeed him.  
Reader, I have been willing to present unto you succinctly the great revolution of the Empire into which our Boetius fell; and the qualities of his Persecutor, who degenerated afterward into so much barbarism. But let us now behold, what he did by the counsel of our great Boetius in the manage of his Kingdom; to the end you may have so much the more horror of wicked ingratitude, who slew this holy man, that was as the Intelligence and Angel Guardian of his State.   

The fourth SECTION. The entrance of Theodorick into Rome and his happy government by the counsel of Boetius.  
THeodorick having pacified the City of Ravenna, and made himself Master of the most important places of his Kingdom, went to Rome with the most flourishing troops of Italy, where he was received in the manner of ancient triumphs; which exceedingly pleased the people, who at that time resembled the earth, which ariseth from the snows of winter, as from a tomb, to become young again with the sweet breath of the spring.  
So many years were slipped away wherein they had not seen any thing but divisions, troubles, famine, and blood; when this Prince came to appear upon the triumphant Chariot, with his golden arms, which gave him a mervellous majesty, besides the graces he had from nature, they thought they beheld a star newly descended from heaven, and followed him with infinite acclamations in witness of affection.  
He being alighted at the Palace, Boetius, who was the principal man of the world in nobility, wit, and learning; was chosen out from all the State to make him an Oration: In which, being then in full vigour of eloquence he most divinely acquitted himself. It is a great loss, that posterity hath not preserved so brave a monument of this rare spirit, to enchase it now presently in this work. From thence the King passed to the Circus, which was a large place appointed for Jousts and Tournaments, and staying himself at a place called the Palm of gold, he caused his throne to be magnificently seated in a place very high raised, and round about him benches for the Senators, who appeared all of them clothed with robes of their order.  
There he made an Oration full of sweetness in presence of all the people, whereby he declared he had a purpose to revive the ancient magnificence of Rome, and vehemently to desire to conform himself to the fashions of those Emperors, who had been the most zealous for the Weal-public: which made the whole world conceive most excellent hopes of his government.  
All the City was then in pomp, like to a noble Lady, who having laid aside sorrow, suddenly appeareth in the bravery of a bright habit. Never day seemed to shine more resplendently to an afflicted people.  
It was in the same time that S. Fulgentius coming from afric to Rome, after he had visited the Churches of the Martyrs, passed along by the Circus at the instant, when all these gallant ceremonies were performed, where he was so ravished, beholding the majesty of the Emperor, the glory of his Senate, the lustre of his nobility, the magnificence of the place, and the throng of innumerable people, that he cried out: Oh how beautiful is Jerusalem the celestial, 
Quam speciosa debet esse Jerusalem illa caelestis, si sic fulget Roma terrestris! Et si in hoc seculo datur tanti honoris dignitas diligentibus vanitatem, qualis honour & gloris tribu●tur Sanctis contemplantibus veritatem?  since Rome the terrestrial at this day appeareth with such splendour! Good God if you allow so much honour on earth, to those who follow vanity, what glory will you give in heaven to your Saints, who shall behold verity?  
The ceremony being ended, the King entertained all the Senate in a feast worthy of his greatness, and distributed liberalities to the people, which seemed to renew the face of ancient Rome. He disposed himself, presently to visit all the places of the City, to know the condition of his Senators, to inform himself of the humour of the people, to observe the state of affairs, and to constitute the government.  
It is most certain, he was endowed with a natural wit good enough, but he had withal so little experience in civil affairs, that he had much ado to sign ordinary dispatches.  
Behold the cause why a nameless Author, who 
Anonymus Author in ejus vitâ.  wrote his life in a very low stile, witnesseth, that he usually signing with four letters, caused them to be cut in copper, and clapping them on the paper fetched the draught of his pen round about, to serve as a model, to the end that by this means he might give somewhat the better form to his writing. This want of experience caused him to tie himself constantly to two great Statesmen, whereof the first was our Boetius, whom he made Master of Offices, 
Idem author testatur.  and Superintendent of his house, in such sort, that all passed by his counsel: the other was Cassiodorus, of whom he made use, as of a most able and faithful Secretary, to dictate all the letters and proceeding of the Kingdom.  
Boetius, whom he in the beginning loved as the apple of his eye, and honoured as his father, gave him the forms and maxims of all that excellent policy, which we behold so resplendent in his government. I will here couch some of them, that Politicians may see the happiness, which commonly waiteth on States guided by the ways of conscience.  
The first maxim was, that King Theodorick, being an Arian, should not only abstain from persecuting and afflicting the Catholic Church in any kind whatsoever, either of himself or by any of his, but on the contrary should cherish, honour, protect and maintain it with all the extent of his authority, because the experience of Ages had made it appear, that those who were interessed in the perplexities of Religions contrary to the Catholic, had prospered very ill: and that not going any further, the deportments of the Emperor Anastasius, who then reigned in Constantinople, made it manifest enough, since he had involved himself in the hatred of the Clergy and people, to support with passion certain novelties: and how on the contrary, ordinary practice had discovered that all Monarches, who had entertained good correspondence and respect with ecclesiastics, were evermore honoured in their government, and much happier in the success of their affairs.  
Theodorick so well observed this maxim, that to 
Theodorus Anagnostes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  witness the zeal he bore to our Religion, he caused the head of one of his officers to be cut off, who having been bred in the Catholic Church, became an Arian, thinking by this means to be advanced into the good favour of his Master. But this brave King, My friend, saith he, since thou hast been disloyal to God, I can never think thou wilt be faithful to thy Prince. Thou shalt wash away the stain of thy treachery with thy blood, to teach posterity, thou must not mingle the interests of God, with the profane pretences of thy fortunes.  
He shown himself very zealous to preserve peace in the Church in a most dangerous schism raised in his time. For Pope Anastasius being deceased, and they proceeding lawfully to the election of Symmachus, there was a Senator of an unquiet spirit, who desirous to make a Pope at the devotion of the Emperor of Constantinople, so to countenance his Extravagencies, banded Altar against Altar: and caused an Antipope to be chosen, named Laurentius, which rend both Senate and Clergy into great partialities. But Theodorick very speedily quenched the fire, and being well informed of the business, seeing Symmachus was first elected, and supported by the soundest part, he mantained him with a strong hand against all the enterprises of adversaries, who durst not in the end resist his authority.  
Besides, having published an Edict against the favourers of the Heruli, who perplexed the Province of Genoa and Milan whither they were retired; that fell out to be the cause of very many miseries and tears among the poor people, who having no support so helpful unto them as the Bishops, threw themselves into the arms of Epiphanes and Laurentius, both great Saints and great Prelates, the one of Pauta, the other of Milan. Epiphanes undertook to speak and said to the King:  
Sir, Should I here reckon up all the favours which you have received from God, I might make you appear more sparing in your desires, than he hath been in his liberalities; since you have asked nothing of heaven which hath not ever surmounted your vows and hopes. But not to speak at this time of so many prodigies, is it not a very great wonder to see you do justice in the throne of your enemy, and to behold us pleading the cause of your servants, with such a confidence, in a place, which the terror of arms had heretofore rendered so dreadful?  
Sir, it is the Saviour of the world, who hath given into your hand this people, which hath charged us with their requests. Take good heed, how you offend him by ill using the gift he hath afforded you. Know how an invisible power hath led you by the hand into so many encounters and battles, that the air, rain, and seasons have favoured your standards, as if they had been to you engaged. Now is the time you must acknowledge so many benefits by your piety, not despising the tears of the afflicted, which are the sacrifices of suppliants. The examples of your Predecessors, who have been cast out of the throne for their iniquity, show, you cannot establish it but in your virtues.  
Upon this consideration, your Country prostrate at your feet, most humbly beggeth, you would be pleased to sweeten the rigour of your laws, not only by doing good to the innocent, but by pardoning the culpable. For very little would our clemency be, if we did only abstain to strike those who have given offence to none, not considering mercy is not made for any but the miserable. In revengeing your injuries you shall do like men of the earth, and by pardoning, share in glory with that great Monarch of heaven, who daily maketh his sun to shine on criminal heads, as well as the most innocent.  
The King made a most courteous answer, saying: There was no reason that earthly powers should resist the prayers of Bishops, who made heaven propitious: and that he remitted to all in general the punishments of death ordained by laws: but in so 
Vitia transmittit ad posteròs qui praesentibus culpis ignoscit.  much that the ulcer must be purged, least by showing himself too indulgent to vices, he might make them pass into example for posterity, the consideration of his state required the Authors of sedition should be removed, to the end their presence might not foment the evil.  
The reply was found very reasonable, and letters of grace instantly dispatched by Urbicus, who was one of the chiefest officers in the Court for expeditions.  
He satisfied not himself with this favour: but calling the good Bishop into his cabinet, having highly commended him, sent him among the Gauls to redeem the Italian prisoners there, by reason the Burgundians in certain incursions had taken away very many: and others overwhelmed with the miseries, which proceed from civil wars, were voluntarily stepped aside. The King gave commission to the Bishops to rally them to their troops, liberally defraying the charges that were necessary.  
There is also found one amongst his letters addressed 
Cassiodor. l. 2. c. 2. 29.  to Count Adela, wherein he witnesseth, that though he had a great desire to preserve his people in full peace and repose, because the glory of a Prince consisteth in the tranquillity of his subjects; yet that he principally intended the Churches should enjoy this favour, since in obliging them, the mercies and blessings of God were drawn on his kingdom: and pursuing this course, he commanded Duke Ida to cause all the Ecclesiastical possessions to be restored, which some had usurped in Languedoc, after the death of Alarick. Observe the good foundations of piety which he laid by the counsel of Boetius.  
The second Maxim was, to bend all his endeavours, and employ his best thoughts for the comfort of the people, because there is not any way more powerful to gain the hearts of all the world, than by sweetening the sharpness of the times present, or the burdens of the passed. We have seen (said he) by experience, that those who are desirous to possess gold without the love of the people, have been very unsafe; that Kings differ not from other men, but in being powerful to do good, and that the common sort measure their greatness only by their bounty: that is it, which heretofore made the Gods of Gentiles, and which maintaineth Monarchies on the firm rock of constancy▪  
Theodorick embraced this care most particularly, 
Cassioder l. 4. ep. 36.  for he punctually enquired after the losses of his poor subjects, and if he found any molested by the passage of some troops, or other like, he released them of taxes and ordinary subsidies, as it may yet be seen in his letters, and namely in, one which he wrote to Precedent Faustus, wherein he commanded him to hold his hand in this business, Because (saith 
Lib. ●. Epis. ●.  he) a body over-burdened sinketh to the ground, and that it were better to despise a slight gain, than to deprive himself of precious things received from the love of subjects. The river which glideth along (said he) though it do no other spoil, still worketh out its channel; so companies of soldiers, which pass through towns and villages, though military discipline be there observed, fail not to bring thither with them much damage, and therefore it was his pleasure, the places should be recompensed which had been overcharged.  
For the same reason, he appointed fifteen hundred crowns of alms to be delivered to the venerable Bishop S Severinus, to distribute them among the peasants, which he knew had been vexed with the harbouring of certain warlike companies. Verily, as it is no small temerity in particular men, who have neither any charge nor knowledge of affairs, to argue great men upon tributes, and the husbanding of their treasures; so would it be a neglect to conceal from them upon occasions the moderation they ought to use herein, since it is so exactly recommended by the law of God, and published in all histories.  
If a stranger raised from the bottom of barbarism, shown himself so Religious in matters of subsidies towards men, whom his arms had newly made tributary, Princes and Lords of Christendom have good cause to consider what they owe to a people, which is given them as to Fathers and Protectors of the public. There is no doubt, but the exorbitancies committed in such like affairs, are most important charges of conscience, which much clog a soul in the agonies of death, and in the dreadful judgement of Almighty God.  
There is also to be seen an Edict of the same Prince, where having understood that in the payment of taxes, the rich made the heaviest part of the burden to fall upon the shoulders of the meaner, and that the undertakers of this business ill behaved themselves therein; he detesteth all these abuses, as injuries done to his own person, and gave full liberty to those who had been wronged to complain to him, that such order might be taken, as he should judge reasonable. This manner of proceeding made him so beloved, that other Princes having passed away like dreams of one night, he reigned thirty years in a most supereminent degree of respect, which those, even of the religion contrary to his own, bore him.  
The third Maxim given him by Boetius was to make himself most exact in the exercise of justice, because it is the basis of thrones, and the spirit which animateth all government: and he so deeply impressed this in his heart, that the desire he had to render every one what was his, was changed in him to a most ardent thirst, and a continual hunger. He selected out the most untainted and uncorrupted Governors he could find, and spoke these words unto them, related by Cassiodorus:  
Use the matters so, that Judges of Provinces may be very careful in the observation of laws; that Tribunals spare not to thunder out sentences against ill manners; that thiefs may fear the gates of your Palaces; that the a dulterer may tremble before a chaste Officer; that the forger may feel horror at the voice of a Herald, and that all crimes may be banished from our territory: That no man oppress the poor; that persecutors be apprehended and pursued as disturbers of public repose. You shall make a general peace when you have beaten down the authors of mischiefs which are committed. Let 
Cassioder. ra●. l. 22▪ Mihipropria cura dilapsi est, postquam generalem coepicogitare custodiam. Opto mei● benè sed quod possit esse common.  Captains contain their soldiers in all manner of discipline, in such sort that the labourer, the merchant, the sailer, and the artificer, may understand arms are not made, but for their defence. I will not likewise that my nearest allies be pardoned in any case of justice; since I have taken the Commonwealth into my charge, I have despoiled myself of my proper interests. I wish well to mine, but in the generality.  
Pursuing the maxims I will recount an admirable passage, which he used among others, to make his justice remarkable. A Roman Lady left widow by 
Manuscriptum P. Sirmundi. Joannes Magnus, & Laurentius Venetus.  the death of her husband, had lost a son born of this marriage, who was secretly stolen from her, and in servitude bred up in another Province. This child grown up a young man, received notice from a good hand, that he was of free extraction, and son of a Lady, whose name was given him, her abode, and all circumstances, which caused him to undertake a voyage to Rome with intention to make himself known unto her. He came directly to his mother, who was much perplexed with certain love-affairs, having betrothed herself to a man, who often promised her marriage, yet never accomplished it. This lover then absent, and detained by urgent affairs very far from Rome, the Lady had the space of about thirty days free, wherein she kept this young man in her house, acknowledging him, and particularly avowing him for her son, throughly convinced by evident tokens, so that than her charity was so great towards him, that she ceased not to weep for joy, in the recovery of her loss.  
The thirty days expired, the Lover returned, and seeing this guest newly come to her house, demandeth of the Lady what man he was, and from whence he came. She freely answered, he was her son. He, whether moved by jealousy, thinking this might be but a colour, or that pretending the marriage of the widow, he would not have a charge of children, plainly told her, if she sent not away this found child from her lodging, never should she have any share in his affection. The unhappy creature surprised with love, to serve his passion, renounceth her own entrails, and readily banisheth from her house this son, over whom she had so many tears. The young man seeing himself as between the hammer and the anvil, in so great a necessity of his affairs, hasteneth to require justice of the King, who most willingly heard him, and commanded the Lady should be brought before him to be confronted by him. She stoutly denied all the pretensions of this young man, saying; He was an impostor and ungrateful, who not contenting himself to have received the charities of a poor creature in her house, needs would challenge the inheritance of children. The son on the other side wept bitterly, and gave assurance▪ she had acknowledged him for her own, very lively representing all the proofs which passion and interest put into his mouth.  
The King sounded all passages to enter into the heart of the Lady, and asked her whether she were not resolved to marry again. She answered, if she met with a man suitable to her, she would do what God should inspire her. The King replied? Behold him here, since you have lodged this guest thirty days in your house, and have acknowledged him so freely, what is the cause why you may not marry him? The Lady answered: He had not any means, which ever is necessary for household expense. And to what may your state truly amount, saith the King? The Lady replied. She was very well worth a thousand crowns, which was a great riches in that time. Well (saith Theodorick) I will give as much to this young man for his marriage, on this condition that you shall marry him. She much amazed, began to wax pale, blush, tremble, and to show all the countenances of a perplexed woman, who sought to excuse herself, but faltered in her speech. The King yet to affright her more, swore deeply she should marry him presently, or tell lawful causes of impediment. The poor woman condemned by the voice of nature which cried in her heart, and having horror of the crime proposed unto her, cast herself at the feet of the King, with much profusion of tears, confessing her love's dissimulation, and mishap. Then this great Prince taking the word from her: Are not you a miserable woman (saith he) to renounce your own blood for a villain who hath deceived you, get you to your house, forsake these fond affections, and live in the conditions of a good widow, taking unto you such support from your son as he by nature ought to afford you. I leave to relate a singular example, upon the same subject, which I drew from the Chronicles of Alexandria, and cited in the third book and one and twentieth Section of my first Tome.  
The fourth Maxim, which Theodorick received from our Oracle, was to place deserving men in offices, and to ground his State upon rewards and punishments, which the ancient Democritus said, were the Divinities of Commonwealths.  
The King laid this counsel up in his heart, and presently made Boetius. Superintendent of Offices and dignities, to the end his judgement might be as the character of the excellent qualities of such as should have principal Commissions. There was no speech at all either of favour, flesh, blood, or nation; all rewards were for men of judgement and virtue: when any one was designed for some office, long and serious inquiry was made of his condition, which being throughly known, the King gave approbation of him, by writing to the Senate, or forgot not to put into account all his services and laudable actions, to the end the sincerity of his proceed might be known, & that he might cast a double lustre upon him, who received so great a benefit from his hands.  
We may behold the practice hereof in many letters, 
Epist. 3. lib. 4.  which are to be found upon this subject, and namely upon the advancement of Cassiodorus to the dignity of a Patrician; where the King writing unto him letters full of respect, makes a narration of his life and functions, wherein he had very well served his Majesty; and then said unto him: Enjoy now the recompense of your travel, and doubly take the interests which you have contemned for the public, for there are no riches more glorious, than to see your virtues crowned both by the testimony of the Prince, and by the praises which proceed from the month of all the world. It is a great happiness to oblige a King to confess, that a subject hath that already by his merit, which he grants him by his liberality.  
This gave so great encouragement to the nobility, to dispose themselves to honour, by the degrees of honesty, that in few years the Court was replenished with persons qualified with parts of science, and conscience, which are the two sources of good affairs.  
The fifth Maxim was, the good husbanding of treasures which are not only the sinews, but the soul, blood, and life of the people.  
It must be confessed, that the States of the world, are subject to great maladies: one while there is a drowsiness in affairs, that is the lethargy: sometimes a humour peccant and malign, composed of passions and errors which besiege the understanding, that is the epilepsy: sometimes obstacles, which hinder the light of good counsel, and they are cataracts, which grow upon the eyes: sometimes obdurations against good advice, that is hardness in the ears: sometimes a malicious silence of truth, that is the squinancy: sometimes oppressions, that is shortness of breath: sometimes want of courage, and those are the evils of the heart: sometimes there is raised an exorbitant avarice, that is the bulimy or dog-hunger: sometimes coldness and remissness to unlock coffers for necessary uses, that is the gout in the hand: sometimes negligences opportunely to take occasions, and that is the gout in the feet: sometimes fiery ambititions and enraged avarice, and they are fevers: sometimes you may observe malignities and intestine wars, which may be called the stone, and nephretick pains, sometimes bloody agonies termed dissenteries: sometimes great corruptions of manners, that is the cachochimy: sometimes sudden disturbances, they are Erysepelies: sometimes stenches of hidden crimes, and that is an infection of the nose, which the Grecians call Lozena: sometimes there are discovered spots of impiety, that is the Leprosy: sometimes an impotency in all the members that is the Palsy; sometimes a faintness over all the vital parts, that is the Ptisick.  
Never should he have done, who would keep an account of all the maladies, which are ever dangerous in their sources, and mortal in their issues: but this Ptisick which drieth up the body, and maketh of a living man a kind of spectre or Anatomy, is one of the least accidents: and this happeneth to a State through the ill manage of Treasures, contrary to the loyalty due to the sacred persons of Kings. That is it, which maketh soldiers to mutiny, which offendeth the great, and giveth matter of indignation to the most reasonable, and of murmur to all the world: whiles the one account in substance the gold and silver which they have purloined, and the other reckon in idea that which is spent, entertaining their thoughts with the desire of a thing afar off, as if one would warm himself with the memory of fire.  
This is it which bringeth contempt of a Commonwealth abroad, weakness at home, and misery on all sides: which maketh the people hungry, and a Prince necessitous in his own house. The effects of this disease are better known than the remedies thereof practised: for there are ordinarily in all States many Reformers, who have verily notable designs upon Treasures; but there is the like use made of them, as of toothpicks before dinner.  
Money is of the sect of invisibles, no man knows what becomes of it in so many hands; those who abuse it have so many kinds of jugling-tricks, which dazzle eyes, whilst they fill their purses. It is a 
Theophrasi. de plantis. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  goodly plant, as that which is called the Affodil or Scepter-royal, which breeds bad little worms, that gnaw all the substance thereof, and hid themselves under the leaves, till such time that getting wings, they become butterflies all speckled over with flowers, and brave it over men in the air, whom they durst not behold upon the earth.  
The States of Great-ones is also an admirable tree, but it oftentimes covereth under its fair verdure, colour, and beauty, men which gnaw like worms, and who frame themselves wings all enamelled with glory at the charge of the public, to take their flight over the head of so many mortals, whom they look upon with a scornful eye, as if they had no further memory of the earth which bore them.  
A Prince cannot more oblige his State, than to have an eye open to all these disorders, and to make his money distil like blood through all the veins of the body, reserving ever good Treasures to render himself helpful to his subjects, terrible to his enemies, honourable to his allies, and necessary to all the world.  
Theodorick became so well versed in this Maxim, that he let not as it were a day pass, wherein he cast not his eyes upon the Treasure of his Exchequer, and that he took not the pains himself to sum up his revenues and expenses, to conform his undertake to his coin. He was most exact to draw into his coffers all innocent gains, and honest emoluments as much as he could, preserving them very charitably for the necessities of the Realm. We may see this in many of his letters, and especially in that which he wrote to Saturnius and Verbusius, where he recommendeth unto them to have a great care of that, which is the best part of his Treasures; and that as he desireth not to burden his people, so would he not have lawful moneys to be lost. He giveth a reason hereof which is very notable: I have 
Cassiod. l. 1. Ep. 19 Indigen tid just fugimus qua suadet excessus, dum perniciosa res est in imperante tenuitas.  reason to avoid poverty (saith he) because it is the mother of excess, and that there is nothing more pernicious than to be poor in Empire. The inquiry which I make after my rights, is the profession of my innocence, & that as I would not avarice & extorsions should reign in my Palace, so will I from thence banish necessity.  
The sixth Maxim was that, which the seventy 
Ex ep. 24. l. 5.  Sages gave among many other to King Ptolemy, when he asked of them the means how to govern well. It was their counsel to have, even in time of peace, warlike troops well entertained and guided, to add Majesty to his State, and terror to his enemies. That is it, which Augustus Caesar did, to constitute his Empire, when he appointed certain revenues, which he would not have employed on any other thing but the entertainment of soldiers. That is it, which the Commonwealth did before him, ever holding in necessary places soldiers well disciplined. That is it, which by the report of Valerius 
Res praeliorum benè disponitur, quoties in pace tractatur.  Maximus gave Cities, Provinces, and Kingdoms to the people of Rome. And Theodorick well acquitted himself upon this counsel when he said: War was never better made, than in time of Peace.  
The seventh was well to fortify the Frontiers, whereof he was very careful, as he witnesseth in an 
Cassiod. l. 1. ep. 17.  Epistle, which he wrote to the Goths and the Romans inhabiting at Tortona, giving them commandment to strengthen this place, and not to expect the incursions of the enemy at unawares. For (saith he) all sudden things are inconsiderate, and it is too late to build up a fort, when one is already in danger. To that he added also the forces on the Sea, which are very necessary to unite the places of his Territory, to dissolve the designs of his enemies, and to make himself great and awful; for the experience of the Athenian wars with the Spartans' sufficiently discovereth in the history of Thucydides, that they ever have most advantage who command the sea-coast. One may see by 
Lib. 5. ep. 16.  the letters that King Theodorick wrote to his Lieutenant Abundantius, with what yehemency he sought to make himself able in this point, giving out straight Commissions to build and rig out great store of ships wherein he thrived so well, that he vaunted the Grecians and Africans, had nothing to condemn in him.  
The eighth recommended unto him, notwithstanding his great forces, to entertain peace and good intelligence with his neighbours, to the end, that being less busied in foreign wars, he might have full leisure to manure his Kingdom with good government, which he did, as we may behold by his Epistles, entertaining those Princes with testimonies of affection, congratulation in their prosperities, consolations in their adversities, embassages and presents, which were more witty than costly. His letter to 
Epist. 41. li. 2  our Clodovaeus well showeth, that he highly valued above all the alliance of France, when he protesteth the safety of the Kingdom is his own proper glory, and that he shareth in all the prosperities which happen to this great King.  
The ninth counselled him to love letters, cherish learned men, who are the Trumpets of the glory of Princes, and make them lead a pleasing and happy life in the estimation of posterity: and consequently to cherish arts, invite brave Masters, maintain Merchants, discourse even with labourers with much sweetness, by the example of Augustus Caesar, which he so exactly did, that he rendered himself very amiable to all the world, in such manner humbling himself to the meanest, that he disdained not to be among Peasants to talk with them in their trades, and for their honour, till the earth with his own hands.  
The tenth was to take away the riot of particulars, and show himself magnificent in public matters, as in buildings, theatres, necessities, and recreations of the people, still undertaking something great for the Majesty of the Kingdom, and commodity of the Commonwealth. Towards which he was transported with much fervour and reason, raising many goodly fabrics, and repairing the honour of places of consideration, even to the equalling of ancient Rome. For he saith in an Epistle which he wrote to one Agapetus, Governor of the City, that he would not subscribe in ornaments to the ancients, since he paralelleth them in the happiness of his Age. As in effect, whilst he observed these excellent maxims, his Kingdom was indeed a Realm of justice, peace, and plenty, beheld by all as the miracle of the world.   

The fifth SECTION. The honours of Boetius, and alteration of Theodorick.  
BOetius was honoured with so great respect for the many excellent qualities resplendent in his person, that from the foundation of Rome scarcely might a man be found of the long robe mounted to such an eminency of honour, by the degree of civil prudence learning, and virtue.  
It is a very notable thing, that not only the King made him three times Consul, but needs he would through abundance of his love, that his sons, who were yet very young, should be advanced to the Consulship. A matter not ordinary, but titular and of favour, and very rarely given, but to those who were singularly to be gratified.  
Himself confesseth, that if joy were to be derived from frail honours of the world, he had cause enough to rejoice on that day, when he saw his two sons carried in Pomp through the City, in a triumphant Chariot, accompanied with the whole Senate, and attended by an infinite concourse of people, who ceased not to congratulate the father and the children, as the offspring of a race, born for the good of the Commonwealth.  
The same day he made in full Senate an oration of  to Theodorick, for the large liberalities extended towards his house, which was delivered with such a grace, that in conclusion they presented him a Crown, as to the King of eloquence. He likewise gave notable largesses to all the people, and appeared in the great Court of the Circus, sitting in the midst of his two Consuls in presence of the whole City, having his heart replenished with content, and tears of joy in his eyes for the affections which the people witnessed.  
To crown all those blessings of fortune, he had married a wife, held one of the most accomplished Ladies under heaven. For, which is very rare, she enjoyed a great spirit, a singular modesty, and an excellent chastity, of whom Boetius sufficiently to praise her, said in one word: She was the image of her father Symmachus, who had given her to him in a most chaste and happy marriage.  
Now this Symmachus, called the pearl and precious ornament of the whole world was a Senator, who seemed to be composed of nothing but wisdom and virtue, for which cause he then lived in much reputation: and all this family of Boetius was in 
Ennodius in epist. ad Boetitan l. 8. epist. 1. Venae purpurarum. Purpurae possessoris luce crescentes▪  such sort esteemed, that Ennodius writeth it was a vein of purple, signifying thereby it contained therein all great dignities, no otherwise than as veins enclose the blood. He notwithstanding addeth, those purples increased by the lustre of Boetius, who possessed them: and after when Rome became the prize of those who subdued it, it being no longer lawful for Consuls to reap Palms in the fields of battles, he equalled the ancient triumphs by the greatness of his judgement.  
Gerebert, an Author who wrote of those times, calleth this Boetius the father and light of his Country, who managing the reins of the Empire in the quality of a Consul, spared not to diffuse by the force of his ability in good letters, all the lustre they had, equalling them with the wits of Greece.  
Tu Pater, & Patriae lumen Severine Boeti, 
Gerebertur l. 2. Epigt. Pithae.   
Consulis officio, rerum disponis babenas,  
Infundis lumen studijs, & cedere nescis  
Graecorum ingenijs.  
Boetius, thou father, and Countreys-light,  
Disposest Consuls office, common right,  
Giv'st studies radiant lustre, and no whit,  
In any thing submit'st to Grecian wit.  
Verily, we may see by that which followeth in this history, the little assurance may be had either in men or favours. If men be vessels who do nothing all their life time but play with the winds, favours are waves of glass, which fail not to shiver themselves against the rocks. We would think the moon much greater than all the stars, were it not that the shadow of the earth, which we make use of to measure it, causeth the contrary to appear: and we might have some opinion, these great dignities of the world, had much eminency above all that which is here below, were it not, that they daily fall into shadows and phantasms of nothing, which well approve, we have much illusion in our eyes, since these greatnesses have taken such estimation in our hearts.  
Jealousy a bad daughter born of a good house, which is that of love and honour, divideth beds and Empires, and hath ever eyes so bleared, that it cannot endure a ray of the virtue or prosperity of another. And for that cause the lustre which proceeded from the house of Boetius, in such manner, as day progresseth from the gates of the East, failed not at all to give suspicions to King Theodorick; who seeing himself a stranger, and ignorant among Romans, and men of so great counsel, being not able to derive any other recommendation to himself, but what the sword gave him, envied so many heavenly riches as were contributed to the happiness of his Empire.  
The change, which then succeeded at Constantinople greatly fortified his distrusts: for it is written that Anastasius an Emperor, who had done nothing in the throne but create schisms, beholding the Laurels of Caesar wholly withered on his head, had some distaste both of life, which he had passionately loved, and of the sceptre possessed with so much ambition. It is certain, that being one day in the Circus, as he espied a furious sedition whispered against him, he voluntarily laid down his Crown, and let the people know by his Heralds he was willing to be rid of the Empire, which for some time appeased the most passionate: notwithstanding, being greatly hated, and foreseeing he could not make much longer abode in the world, he began to reflect on his Successors, desiring to transfer to the Throne one of his three Nephews, whom he had bred up, having no male issue to succeed him. There was difficulty 
Zacharias Rhetor, & M. S. Sirmu●di.  in the choice, and he having a soul very superstitious, put that to lot, which he could not resolve by reason: for he caused three beds to be prepared in the royal chamber, and made his Crown to be hanged within the Tester of one of these beds, called the Realm, being resolved to give it to him who by lot should place himself under it. This done, he sent for his Nephews, and after he had magnificently entertained them, commanded them to repose themselves, each one choosing one of the beds prepared for them. The eldest accommodated himself according to his fancy, and hit upon nothing: the second did the same, He then expected the youngest should go directly to the crowned bed, but he prayed the Emperor he might be permitted to lie with one of his brothers and by this means not any of the three took the way of the Empire, which was so easy to be had, that it was not above a pace distant. Anastasius, much amazed, well saw God would transfer the Diadem from his race; and it is also added, that he likewise knew by revelation, that it was Justine who should succeed, for he having determined to kill him, with Justinian, heard a voice which spoke in his heart and said: He should take good heed to touch those two personages, because they should do, each one in their turn, good services to God.  
Afterward as this Justine being ever near the person of the Emperor, one day by chance set his foot on the train of his robe, the Emperor looking back, Thou holdest me (said he) by the gown, and shalt follow me; but stay a while, your time is not yet come: which much amazed all there present, who thought him to speak like a man distracted, not conceiving what he would say.  
In a few days this Anastasius, who so much feared thunder, that he fled into a Cave so soon as at any time he heard the least notice thereof, was slain by a thunderstroke upon the very stairs of the place which he had chosen for a sanctuary. Justine derived from base birth, and mounted through all the degrees of War to the dignity of the Captain of the Guard, was chosen Emperor; of whom, he being a valiant man and well beloved, Theodorick began to conceive a great jealousy, still fearing he might take out of his hands the Empire he had usurped.  
The beginning of the storm was, that Justine an Emperor most Catholic, treated the Arians of Constantinople, who had been tolerated under Anastasius, with the severity ordained by laws, despoiling them of Churches, which they had boldly usurped. They failed not to address their complaints, and offer up their grievances to the ears of Theodorick: who interpreting the disgrace of his sect to the contempt of his person, entered into violences more fit for a Barbarian than a King, who had been trained up to civility by such good counsels, for he threatened to turn all Rome into fire and blood, if the Emperor Justine did him not right, and for this purpose he sent Pope John, commanding him to go speedily to Constantinople to cause the Churches to be rendered to the Arians, supposing his dignity would procure him full power with the Emperor. The Pope answered, he had made very ill choice of him, for such an Embassage, that the rank he held in the Church permitted him not to be a provider of Churches for the Arians, and that if he had any bad design upon his person, he was ready to stretch out his neck for the defence of the Church, there being no need for him to pass the seas for this, and undertake the voyage.  
This made him enter into much greater extravagancy, threatening the City with a deluge of blood if it were not remedied: Behold the cause, why the Pope was entreated to go to Constantinople, and to find some way how to sweeten affairs, yet to let nothing pass to the prejudice of his conscience. He yielded to the tears of the people and undertook the voyage of Constantinople, accompanied with some of the principal Senators, where the Emperor Justine received him with much submission and unspeakable magnificence.  
Theodorick expecting the issue of this great Embassage, which was not so soon ended, entered further and further into a vast labyrinth of suspicions and jealousies, beginning to distrust Roman Senators, and to monopolise all affairs with his Goths, which was the beginning of his ruin. He at that time did four things which infinitely grieved all good men.  
The first was he advanced two, who appeared like two comets over the heads of mortals: The one was called Congiastus, and the other Trigilla, both men of rapine and concussions, who by their evil deportment did much disgrace the authority of their Prince.  
The second was, that he who heretofore used great moderation in matter of subsidies, bore himself therein most inordinately, by the persuasion of those two Goths, who were prodigiously covetous, and insariable in their avarice.  
The third was, that in a grert scarcity of victuals, he caused all the corn to be taken out of the fields near Rome, enforcing every one by an express Edict, to sell that little which he had upon a very low price for the Kings own granaries, and the entertainment of soldiers; which gave occasion of many tears, the poor entering into despair, if the force of this Edict should be of long continuance.  
In the end, for a fourth violence, he fell upon the most eminent Senators, dispoiling them of their goods, and threatening them banishment and death, under suspicions of treasons.  
Boetius endeavoured to cure Theodorick by all the sweetest ways: but seeing his spirit was become very dark, and much altered in all that which might be said reasonable, not to lose honour and good conscience in the general shipwreck he foresaw, he began to roar like a Lion against the corruptions of this mercenary Court.  
He stoutly set upon these two powerful favourites, and resisted them in the greatest vigour of their credit, with such liberty and constancy, that it well from that time forward appeared this man had his soul in his hand, being ever ready to resign it for the defence of justice. Trigilla, who was the Superintendent of the whole government of the Empire and the instrument of King Theodorick, would fain seem an able man, and to give colour of wisdom and reason to actions disproportionable, namely in that Edict published concerning the great heaps of corn, amassed together in the magazine of the Prince, in the sharp wants and indigencies of the people. Boetius loudly blamed this manner of proceeding, and ceased not to declare the miseries of Provinces in words very effectual, demanding audience of the King, for the good of his State.  
Theodorick, whether he had not as yet altogether renounced the reputation of a righteous Prince, or that he thought his great favourite Trigilla was grounded upon most pertinent reasons, and strong encounters of affairs, which made him stir up these novelties, would needs in his cabinet hear a conference between Boetius & Trigilla concerning the Decrees; where Boetius defended the cause of the poor, with such weight of reasons, prudence, and courage, that he hindered the battery of Trigilla, and prevailed so far with the Prince, that he procured him to revoke his Edicts: whereupon these two favourites with all the faction which followed them, finding themselves immeasurably offended, began more and more to cast into the soul of Theodorick, already much changed, infinite distrust against Boetius, and the whole Senate. And then Paulinus and Albinus, two personages the best qualified in Rome, who had run through all the most honourable charges of the Commonwealth, were very ill entreated by suggestions and suspicions, which these men had raised against them. Boetius, seeing the affairs reduced to such a pass, where dissimulation could not repair them, spoke in the end to Theodorick, in full Senate with all the liberty which his conscience dictated unto him, saying:  
SIR, I am not ignorant that we are in a time, wherein it is as it were much easier to fly, than to speak of the State of this Empire without offence to any, and that all discourse, which at this present may be framed, will ever be suspected by those, who have made even our thoughts criminal to your Majesty.  
Yet must I needs say, it is a matter very hard to be silent in so great revolutions of affairs, since nature hath not created us like crocodiles, who are said to have eyes to weep & not a tongue to complain. I perceive we lose as it were all that which we have of Roman in us, and that in this universal disaster, where all the world should strengthen their arms against violence, men are contented to do, as in a thunder, every one prays the thunderbolt may not fall upon his own house, and very little regards the danger of his neighbour: So likewise we see many Senators, whose dignity ought to put into their mouths good and forcible words, for the defence of justice, satisfying themselves to avoid the blow, and expecting safety in common ruins.  
As for myself I freely protest, that being born of blood, which never learned to flatter any man, and seeing myself in a rank where my silence may prove injurious to the public, since I cannot uphold liberty already too much leaning to its ruin, I will at least support the image of it, and in so general a servitude, speak something, wherein I will either discharge my conscience for the present, or comfort my ashes for the time to come.  
Alas Sir, when I behold you sitting upon the Throne of glory, whereunto the hand of God seemeth to have raised you by miracle, fortified you by discretion, and blessed you with so many prosperities, I cannot choose but remember with the most tender resentments of my heart, the calms of the first years, when you took into your hand the stern of this large Empire. Who ever saw divers metals so happily commixed, as we then beheld different Nations united in one entire body, under your authority? What consent in affections? What correspondence in all orders? What vigour in laws? What obedience in subjects? What agreement in the Senate? What applause among the people? What policy in Cities? What good fortune in arms? What blessing in all the success of your affairs.  
Seemed it not, that God had affixed to your standards and Edicts some secret virtue, which made the one triumph in war, and the other become prosperous in peace; with so much terror and reputation, that even things opposite of their own nature, knit themselves firmly together for your benefit?  
O Sir, what is become of that golden face of your government? Who hath metamorphosed it into this leaden visage? Perhaps you thought it was a part of the greatness of your Majesty to hold a Senate under, to whom all the good Emperors have so much ascribed, that they esteem them as necessary for their greatness, as leaves about the rose to set out his beauty.  
I could tell you Sir, how much these counsels are pernicious, 
Justin. Genev. hist. li. 6.  were it not that the experience of the years of your reign hath taught you more, than all the malignity of men can deface. If you will be pleased to call as yet to counsel your wit and understanding, which God hath replenished with so many fair and noble lights, believe me you shall find this people is as the herb Basil, which rendereth a good savour, as it is said, when gently handled, and createth scorpions when rudely chafed. Hold us in the estimation and condition, wherein you hitherto have retained us, and you shall see nothing more tractable than the Roman people: but if you proceed with those violences, by which some daily pervert your good nature, it is to be feared, lest this severity produce not rather poison, even for those who hope out of it to derive sweetness.  
Our enemies cease not to exasperate you, upon want of respect due to your Majesty, and yet God knows we have so regarded royal authority, that seeing it in most  hands, where it lost its lustre, we suffered it not to lose the fruit of our obedience.  
Allow Sir, the liberty, which ever hath been the most precious inheritance of this Empire, you have placed men over our heads, who to become great and unwilling to seem any thing less than what they are, seek to smother in our miseries, the baseness of their own birth, and believe the means to justify their own carriage, is to take away eyes from those, who have them, and to render tongues mute, lest they may learn a truth. Now adays to be born rich is to become a prey, and to arrive at government with some supereminences of wit, is to raise enemies; all great actions are suspected; and it seemeth that to find safety, we must seek it either in ignorance or idleness.  
We have so learned to obey, that we would not hitherto so much as enter into consideration of the distribution you made of your favours, leaving them more free unto you than are in the sun his rays, and contenting us to honour the character of your Majesty as well on rocks, as marbles and silver. But now when we see the precious interests of the Kingdom, in hands less pure than we wish, what else can we do in so public a clamour, but here most humbly remonstrate, that which the subtle dissemble, the miserable suffer, the good deplore, and even the very stones relate.  
Where is the time, Sir, when we heard those noble words to proceed from your mouth, That the flock may be sheared, not flayed; that a body overcharged sunk to the ground; that there was no tribute comparable to the precious commodities, derived from the love of subjects? And now all the Cities and Countries, bewail the rigorous concussions they feel, to satisfy with their sweat and blood, the avarice of some particulars, who are notwithstanding, as greedy as fire, and more unsatiable than the abyss.  
I exasperated not here our miseries, by an amplification of words: I have, Sir, made you to see, when you pleased to bear me in your cabinet, the tears of Provinces, which softened your heart to compassion, and opened your hands to liberality, so that if your good affections be not altered by some, you are capable enough to discharge heaven of all promises, which it hath made unto us by the happiness of your Empire.  
Unseal those eyes which you so oft have opened for the comfort of your poor subjects, & in what part soever you turn them, you shall behold nought but miseries. Is it not a strange thing, that slaves being sometimes sold to courteous Masters, sweeten the sharpness of their condion by some gentle usage, and that there should be none, but the people of Rome; who yearly buy out their bondage? none but the people of Rome, who were made accountable for the goods pulled from them, and tributary for the shipwreck of their poverty?  
From thence the way is taken to the oppression of Magistrates, and some are persuaded, that throughly to mow the meadow, you must humble the heads of plants most eminent, Paulinus is despoiled, Albinus is guilty of treason, they be culpable enough since they are rich & powerful. It is said, there can be no safety found, but in their disgrace. And who seethe not, that these proceed tend to the ruin of that most noble body, which almost thirty years maintained your royal Crown?  
Out alas, Sir, if we exclaim against witches who poison fountains, how can we be silent, seeing endeavour is used to invenom the soul of the Prince, who is the source of all counsels, to the end we may hereafter find poison, where we hoped for remedy?  
Sir, only behold and imitate yourself; reassume that spirit which made you reign in our hearts, as well as in our Provinces: distinguish flatterers from true friends; harken to those, whose loyalty you have known in the success of so many prosperities.  
Remember yourself, that you were made to reign over man, not as a man, but as the law: to bear your subjects in your bosom, and not trample them underfoot; to teach by example and not constrain by force, to be a father of Citizens, and not a Master of slaves.  
Remember yourself, Kings are given by heaven for the use of people, and that they ought not to have so much regard to the extent of their power, as not to consider the measure of their obligations. Handle the matter so, that the greatness of your Majesty may appear in its goodness, and that this word which you heretofore had in your mouth, may stick eternally in your heart, when you said: A good Prince ought not to fear any thing so much, as to be too much feared.  
This Oration greatly enkindled minds, and King Theodorick was so much amazed at this liberty, that he seemed not well settled in his countenance, he only said in few words, he would give all satisfaction to the Senate, when time had cleared this business, whereof he would inform himself, that it might be treated at the next Session.  
Trigilla, Congiastus, and Cyprianus the principal of the faction of the Goths, seeing themselves touched to the quick, resolved the time was now come, wherein either they must be lost, or Boetius undone; so that after this assembly, they ceased not to besiege the soul of the King, who was become jealous, melancholy, and timorous, with a thousand objects of distrust upon the practices of Boetius, assuring him the conspiracy was wholly contrived and plotted at Constantinople by Pope John and his Complices, at Rome by Boetius, Paulinus and Albinus, who had marvellous correspondencies. Not content with this, they gained some mercenary people, they practised with false witnesses, they counterfeited letters, forged and sealed in the name of Boetius, and said all that which their passion suggested.  
This is it which gave the most dangerous assault upon the mind of the Prince, for he having read their papers, and heard some depositions, which they gave him notice of, would have no further information to be resolved, but speedily assembling the Senate, entered with his papers in hand, showing in his countenance the trouble of his thoughts, and spoke in these terms:  
This last Oration, which Boetius made in this place, was the Trumpet of a conspiracy plotted against my State. I wonder not a whit that he made it his task to disgrace our government with so great ornament of eloquence, to transport your minds into rebellion: but I marvel much how he would promise himself to draw to his party, complices from a body so innocent as yours. All my officers displease him, as an enemy of the good offices are done me; and all the favours which I allot to the merit of mine, are so many crimes in mine own person with this man, who draweth poison from all that which serveth others for nourishment. He, whom the Prince raiseth, serves as an object for his envy, and it hath ever been an injury to appoint him a companion in his honours. He deploreth the miseries of the public, as if he were father thereof; and it seemeth to him all is lost, which justice putteth into any other hands than his own.  
Had the Gepides and Bulgarians foraged over all Italy, be could not frame any other complaints, than be doth of the State of our Kingdom; where thanks be to God, there is nothing so grievous, but it may seem a silver Age, if we compare it to the Empire of those who have gone before us. Besides, our good subjects esteem not themselves so unhappy under me, but that they think my preservation is the source of their felicities. But needs must he have pretext of piety to colour his design and to take upon him a title of protector of the people, to make himself usurper of mine Empire. Verily would ambition be satisfied, I have performed for this man all that, which may be done to such as are the most greedy of honour, raising him to all eminent charges, and given even to his children almost in their infancy, dignities, which have been reputed in this Commonwealth, as prodigies. But in doing this, I sought bottom in an abyss, where it was not to be found.  
I have suffered all these extravagancies so long as I could possible, ever thinking to complain of him was to draw convulsions upon mine own proper entrails: But since forgetting all respect of duty, he cannot be unmindful of his own nature, which is to do evil to those who wish him well, I demand of you in the quality of a King, that justice which you would afford to the meanest of my Kingdom.  
I have not his eloquence to amplify Impostures, but I enjoy some strength of understanding to judge of a truth. Behold here, most loyal subjects, those who will depose the conspiracy he hath plotted against my State. Behold here letters signed with his own hand, which were dispatched to the Emperor Justine, to call him to my ruin. You may judge hereupon, and ordain what shall be reasonable, is being not my intention to pretend here any other satisfaction, than what the laws afford me.  
As soon as he had spoken this, he caused his witnesses to come in, who were one Basilicus, Opilion, Gaudentius, men of lost conscience and reputation. Theodorick notwithstanding caused them to be openly heard, and without exception, against the innocent. Then he began to produce that goodly letter, addressed to the Emperor of the East, which was wholly counterfeited by the damnable impostures of one named Cyprian.  
The poor Boetius found himself at the instant like the just Naboth in the midst of these perverse creatures, and what industry soever he used for the declaration of his innocency, it was oppressed by a powerful faction, which transported minds either through corruption or weakness, to the ruin of virtue.  
The King pressed the Senators to deliver their opinion thereupon: they, who were desirous not to appear suspected, confidently cast the stone against the accused, and thought his condemnation would be their freedom; others, who were enemies, bore themselves in it with much animosity; there remained some few feeble souls who followed the course of violence: so that banishment was decreed against Boetius, according to the intention of Theodorick.  
Verily, if there be any thing worthy of commiseration in the world, it is to behold offenders sit as Judges upon the blood of an innocent, and to consider that afflicting a man with all extremity, they also deprive him of the precious jewel of reputation, which maketh us live in the estimation of honest men, a pleasing and spiritual life, as do many great-ones in the memory of all ages.  
The wise Boetius after he had wasted himself with love and travel for his Country, is taken out of the bosom thereof, as a man treacherous, and put into the hands of the Guard to lead him to Pavia, the place of his imprisonment.  
He was not suffered to speak with his father-in-law Symmachus, for all those who were honoured with his friendship are sequestered; scarcely had he the means to give the last adieu to his wife Rusticiana, who seeing her husband suddenly fallen from so eminent a dignity into such disaster, could not contain from saying unto him with scalding tears:  
Sir, is this than it, which your innocence hath deserved? If the King be resolved to put you to death, why suffereth he still a piece of yourself to live, which hath ever been so dear unto you? I have courage enough to follow you either in exile, imprisonment, or death. But Boetius replied again in few words, that he might not any further increase her grief: Madam, the hour is not yet come, trouble not yourself to see me suffer for justice. It is a title of honour which God hath reserved for his children. The education which you have derived from your good father, and the instructions you have received from me, give me occasion to hope you will bear this accident with a Christian resolution. My daughter, it is not fit that our tears, which fall from so much a higher place as we have been bred in greatness, may show any dejection in the estimation of men. Support yourself a little under your burden, and open your heart to the consolations of heaven▪ since those of earth are mingled with so much acerbities. Then turning to his children all dissolved into tears: My children, saith he, God hereafter will become your father. Make provision of great virtues, which have ever been the inheritance of our house, for all other blessings are but dust and wind. This is the lesson which God giveth you in the change of my fortune. Comfort your good mother by the duty of faithful obedience, and live in hope: Perhaps you shall see me again, if it please God, sooner than you imagine.  
These words were arrows that pierced these faithful hearts, with most just resentments of nature, which could not quickly end, notwithstanding all the lenitives that might be applied.   

The sixth SECTION. The imprisonment of Boetius.  
THe great changes of fortune, which suddenly happen, have this property in them, that they strike our souls as waves not foreseen, and give us the blow before we have leisure to understand ourselves. The poor Boetius seeing himself between four walls, sequestered from the City, which had served as a theatre of glory for all his house, taken away from the love of his own, bereft of his library, and all the most precious accommodations of life, shut up as a victim destined for a bloody sacrifice, found himself in the beginning surprised with an over-whelming sadness, as he hath left expressed in writing. He bewailed with broken sighs his innocency unworthily handled; he traced in his thoughts the marks of his former fortune; he cast his eyes upon his forsaken family, which seemed to him in the Lion's throat; he called into memory the unworthiness of his accusers who had been heard against him, the ingratitude of the Senate that had condemned him for being faithful unto them, the cruelty with which this sentence was executed, the wrack of his means, the loss of his reputation, and all the black horrors which a man declared criminal of treason, figureth to himself.  
In this abyss of disturbances, he was displeased as 
Emeu! cur durs miseros a verteri● à ●e, Et stentes oculis claudere sae●● negas? Lib. 1. Metr. 1.  it were with death, which layeth hold on so many young men that desire nothing but to live, and deigned not so much as to shut up his eyes, which he perpetually moistened with his tears. Hereupon we may see, that the most courageous spirits, in these accidents so strange and unexpected, ever pay some tribute to the natural passions of men. But likewise on the other side, we shall observe the power which a well rectified judgement hath over itself, when we behold it to dissipate all the troubles and agitations of the heart by the vivacity of reason, and use of precepts of wisdom, which he most exactly practised in this his captivity.  
We have also the book of his Consolation, composed in this prison: which is verily in the judgement of learned men, one of the most excellent pieces of work that may be framed on this subject; where he introduceth Philosophy, who visiting and awakening him from this dead sleep of sadness.  
What Boetius (saith she) are you be then, whom I have fed with my milk, whom I have cherished with so good nutriments, and bred up until you arrived to the strength of man's estate? Verily I have given you arms, which would strengthen you against all the strokes of fortune, were it not that you have forsaken them. Know you me no longer? From whence proceedeth this silence? Tell me, is it out of shame or stupidity? I had rather it were derived from a just bashfulness, but as far as I can perceive you are become wholly senseless. Will you say nothing to me? Ah poor man, he is not absolutely lost, but so near as I can guests, he hath a Lethargy, a common disease with those, who suffer themselves to be transported with illusions of the mind. He hath forgot himself, but he will recover, when he shall know me. Let us only wipe his eyes surcharged with terrestrial humours, and covered with a thick cloud of the world.  
This done, Boetius came to himself, and framed an admirable Dialogue with this Queen of spirits, to which I remit the Reader, contenting myself to observe here the principal arguments, which served him for his Consolation, to the end we may learn with him in our afflictions, to fix our resolution on the will of God, and suck honey from the rock, as the Scripture speaketh.  
The first reason proposed to him by this Wisdom 
Lib. 1. pros. 6. Maximus sums salutis, vera de mundi gubernatione sententia.  descended from Heaven, was to ask of him, what opinion he had of the Providence of God, and whether he thought the world moved by chance, or were governed by reason? God forbidden (saith Boetius) that jever come to this degree of folly, as to think that all here below is casually done. I know God ruleth in the world, as in an house built by his own hands, and that nothing happeneth in the affairs of men, but either by his command or permission. Thereupon Philosophy crieth out: Just God it is verily marvellous, that a man who hath such an understanding of the Divine Providence can be sick of the disease, wherewith I see you surprised. My friend, you entered into the world, as into a list or circle, whereof this Providence hath made the circuit with his own hands. It is fit you 
Lib. 1. pros. 1. & alibi.  patiently suffer all that which happeneth to you, within these limits, as an ordinance of God, to which you have submitted yourself. It is he who governeth our lives, our conditions, our fortunes. If you be resolved to give law to the policy of the Omnipotent, from whom you ever aught to receive it, what else will you gain, but to make yourself mutinous, and to render your condition more troublesome by your impatience?  
I pray you think with yourself, if you were embarked in a vessel, you must go according to the impulsion of winds, and not the motion of your affections. If you till and sow, you shall have fruitful and barren years, according to the diversity of seasons; and you would have a fortune ever equal and perpetually stable? you would hold back by force of arms its chariot incessantly circumvolving? Are not you very simple not to know, that if she were not inconstant, she could no longer be fortune?  
Go not about here to question with me upon the afflictions of good men, and the prosperities of evil. What injury doth God to an innocent, if be allot him the share of all those great souls, whom he will not entertain in the pleasures of an idle life, but in the exercise of virtue? Know you not there are fishes that die in standing waters, and are delighted in the bubbling of sluices? Great spirits go all that way, they no more lose themselves in tribulation, than the sun in his eclipse, which only serveth to make him more resplendent.  
And what advantage, think you, do the wicked derive 
Si miserum est voluisse prava, potuisse miserius est. Lib. 4. Prosa. 4.  from the benefits of this life? Is there any thing more miserable than to be transformed into a beast, by the enormity of vices, and to add impunity to so many crimes? You say, they do whatsoever they list; and I say they are thereby so much the more miserable: for if it be an unhappiness to desire an evil, it is a double misery to have the power to execute it.  
If all offenders were punished according to their demerit, they should have some benefit which they have not, to wit, the punishment of their misdeeds, which being a work of justice cannot but be good; they should have some bridle to stay their exorbitancy, some apprehension of the judgements of God; which being stolen from them by long prosperities, what else remaineth for them but to pass to the extremity of punishments, by the extremity of crimes? For my part, if I should throughly punish 
Lib. 3. Met. S. Quid dign●m stolidis mentibus improcer, etc.  a depraved man, I would ordain for him neither wheels, flames, nor tortures, but I would burst him with honours, gold, silver, and riches; and when be were full up to the throat, I would draw aside the curtain, to let him see virtue and Paradise, of which he had betrayed the one and lost the other, by the disaster of his carriage.  
The second question which Philosophy asked him, was, if he knew well who himself was? And Boetius, answering, He was a man of honour, reviving the memory of the great riches and dignities he had enjoyed heretofore. Verily (saith she to him) I well see 
Vide Bern. Lib. 2. de Consideratione cap. 89.  there is much forgetfulness of your condition, and niceness in your complaints. If God had put gold as well as blood into your veins, and given you leave to be born full stuffed with precious stones, or laden with honours and dignities from your mother's womb, you had some cause to deplore that the inheritances of your birth were taken from you: but who are you, or from whence come you? I could tell you how many years it is since you were born a little infant, all naked, creeping on the earth, and having a mouth open to cries and hunger, which had not so much as one little hair on the body to cover it; and now you take upon you the spirit of a Monarch, and think you have nothing, if you possess not all? Verily are you not one of the most miserable, if you do not know how to take contentment in that which is left you, and not still to tie yourself to sorrows for that which you have lost? You have a father-in-law Symmachus, one of the most excellent men in the world, you have a wife, the pearl of her sex, you have children of great hope. How many things would you buy at the price of your life, if you had lost them? and yet you think you are miserable when you possess them, and when they are employed with all their endeavour for your deliverance.  
Your vessel doth yet lie at anchor, and is not altogether broken: I see comfort in something for the present, and hope for the future; and happen whatsoever will, I will save you by swimming. But needs must I freely confess, 
Lib. 2. Pros. 4.  that I find a little niceness in this your act, when you deplore with so much bitterness and affliction the petty wants of your condition. Tell me, I pray you, is there any man in the world, who possesseth a felicity so full and free, as not to dispute with his fortunes, to make his estate more happy? The condition of worldly goods, findeth every where thorns; prosperities never come all together, and although they arrived in heaps, they ever would have a slippery place.  
One is accommodated with honest means, but is of base extraction, which maketh him to blush in good company. Another is very Noble, but is so poor in his estate, that it were much sitter for him to be unknown. Another is born of good rank, and hath no want of riches, but he bewaileth that part which he hath lost, consecrating himself to retirement with wilful tears. Another hath met with a goodmarriage, but his barrenness maketh him amass riches for a stranger. Another hath children, to have cause of great miseries: and to speak in a word, you shall find very few, who well agree with their condition. Through all there are evils, which give happiness to those who are ignorant of them, and borrour to such as have tried them.  
Add also a reason, that these men, very fortunate, are extremely sensible upon the touch, and as there needs not any thing but a peg to stay a piece of artillery upon the way, so the least accident hindereth the glory of their greatness. How many think you are there, who would teach Heaven with a finger, if they had but only the surplusage of your fortune? This place, which you call your banishment, is the country of so many honest men as inhabit it, and if you reason well, you shall find, that there is as it were nothing miserable, if not made so by opinion.  
Finally I ask you, whether ever you have had any thing in the world more precious than yourself? If you answer truly, you will protest unto me, assuredly no: and yet notwithstanding, behold you, thanks be to God, if you will, to have so much and more for yourself, than ever you had, and that neither prison nor fetters may prejudice the liberty of your spirit.  
The third reason, which is very much at large deduced in this divine Work, is drawn from the vanity of all temporal goods, where wisdom proveth by very good reasons, That if the sorrows we have for the world, might be measured at the rate of the things which contristate us, as there is nothing great in this vale of tears, so should there not be any thing capable of much disquiet. Mourn we for metals, which are the nests of rust, and the tinder of concupiscence? for attires, which are the nourishment of moths? for bodies, which are the food of worms? for houses, which are the bones of the earth, piled one upon another with cement and mortar? for precious stones, which are the excrements of an enraged sea, borrowing their worth from our illusion? for honours, which are golden masks and weathercocks of inconstancy?  
What a folly is it to hold retirement for a punishment, which so many brave spirits have taken for a Paradise, and to think ourselves sharply punished, when we no longer behold behind us great trains of servitors, who burden us with their crimes, and make us become answerable for their souls.  
What an error is it to desire to hold riches locked up, which never are what they ought to be, but when they are distributed? For they resemble a dunghill, which stinketh when it is together heaped, and fatteneth the fields, when it is spread abroad. We move Heaven and earth to fly from poverty, and find it in our riches; for great fortunes are now adays so hungry, and have so much ado to maintain themselves, that although the needy are ever the most poor, yet is there nothing more beggarly than the rich, who have a thousand dependences, and a thousand necessities, whereunto their felicity is fastened, as with a chain.  
What a charm is it to think then to be happy, when you manage the affairs of Great-ones; where never is any thing done to please them, if you make not yourself a slave to all their passions, where favours are granted of feathers, and disgraces inflicted of lead? Where your sleep, your life, and your faith is sold for a pleasing phantasm, which lasteth no longer than the dream of one night?  
Deserveth not a man to be strucken down as an enemy of reason, when unloosened from this slavery, he withereth, languisheth, and sighs for his fetters, ready pressed a thousand times to kiss the hands of him, who again would enchain him. 
Prof. 6. l. 3. O gloria gloria, millibus hominum mortalium nihil aliud nisi aurium in statio magna.   
What a mockery is it to affect greatness among men? as if a rat would make himself a lord among mice, and to feed himself with glory, which is nothing but a swelling of the ear. Oh Boetius, Seneca desired under Nero, and Papinian under Antoninus, the solitude which thou now enjoyest; but whilst they endeavoured to break their bands, & leaned to a ruinous wall, the mass of their greatness transported and buried them. Behold thyself retired 
Dum ruitures moles ipsa trahit.  from affairs, into a chamber of Pavia: behold thyself in repose, and among books, the first entertainment of thy young days; why dost thou not now presently make a virtue of the happiness, which the providence of God offereth thee?  
For a third point, he considered the fruits that might be derived from tribulation, when it is well managed. Prosperity (saith this wisdom unto him) is windy, open, slippery, and inconsiderate. Adversity quite otherwise, is sober, reserved, prudent, and circumspect; the one under apparences of felicities, bringeth unto us an infinity of lies; the other, is ever grave and sincere; the one deceiveth us, the other instructeth us; the one blindeth us, the other enlighteneth us; the one polluteth us, the other purifieth us; the one charmeth us, and toeth up our understanding, the other enfranchizeth us; the one separateth us from our sovereign good, and maketh us fall into a thousand sorts of vanities, the other draweth us back, as with a book, to the consideration of eternity; the one createth for us many flatteries, the other discovereth unto us many true friends. Let us suffer a little, Boetius, and if this seem troublesome, think, that as thy prosperities have passed away, so shall thy adversities. The last day of thy life, which cannot be far off, will ever be the last of thy ill fortunes, if thou leave not it, it will forsake thee: it is an ordinance of God, that favours and disgraces cannot be of long continuance, and that for mortals there is no evil immortal.  
Finally, for the last reason, the holy man, who had composed so learned books of the mysteries of our faith, forsaking all the comforts of humane things, drenched himself very far into the consideration of blessings in the other life, of eternity, and the excellency of God. He considered it, as an infinite sea of essence, 
This is inserted in my Journ●●.  bounty, beatitude, which encloseth in itself all being, all good, all verity. He saw the whole Universe in this immensity of God, as a sponge would be in the midst of the ocean, an atom in the air and a little globe of glass, enchased in the first Heaven. He saw in his bosom all glory, all dignities, all riches, all treasures, all pleasures, all consolations, all delights, all joys, and all beatitudes; he walked at ease in those fourteen abysses of greatness, which are in God, to wit, infinity, immensity, immutability, eternity, omnipotency, wisdom, perfection, sanctity, benignity, power, providence, mercy, justice, and the end whereunto all things tend.  
From thence he beheld the Word Incarnate, the true King of the afflicted, and all the Saints laden with crosses and persecutions, thinking himself very happy to mingle his tears with the blood of so many brave courages, who had gained Heaven with violence.  
This consolation overflowing his heart, drowned all his acerbities, and infinitely sweetened the sharpness of his captivity.  
Behold the fruits, which the wise Boetius gathered in his prison; well showing, that virtue is an hostess tractable in every lodging, and who looseth no part of her liberty in chains. It only appertaineth to huge mountains, to bear snow and verdure at one and the same time; and to great souls to retain a holy vigour in the strength of afflictions.   

The seventh SECTION. The death of Boetius.  
IT is a loss, that the Authors which have written of this death, have cut off so short the last act of a life so eminent. There is not any thing, saith one, so curious in a statue, nor so hard to polish, as the nails; and nothing which more clearly maketh the perfection of a man accomplished in virtues to be seen, as a good death. I will here speak that, which I have drawn from the most probable authors, touching the death of Boetius.  
It is certain he was very long in this prison, since he complaineth in the Preface of a book, which he composed during the time of his captivity, that his spirit was in declination, his body being worn with the torments he endured by the rigour of a King of the Goths. Death in the end came to unloose his fetters, by an act very barbarous, exercised by Theodorick on this admirable man.  
He, seeing Pope John had done nothing in his favour at Constantinople, but in stead of causing the Temples of the Arians to be restored, had purified and changed them into Catholic Churches, he entered into a fury more exorbitant than ever, and kept this good Pope in prison at Ravenna, until he was wasted with diseases, yielding up his most blessed soul in fetters, to hasten to enjoy the liberty of the elect.  
Cyprian and Basilius, accusers of Boetius, failed not to kindle the fire with all their power, to ruin him whom they already had wounded. There was sent unto him a Commissary, who was Governor of Pavia, to interrogate him upon matters, wherewith he had been charged. The King promising him by this instrument a reasonable usage, if he would confess all the process of this imaginary conspiracy. Boetius having heard what his commission imported, replieth:  
Tell the King your Master, that my conscience and age have reduced me to those terms, wherein neither menaces nor allurements can work any thing upon me to the prejudice of reason. To require the proceeding of my conspiracy, is to demand a chimaera, which hath never been nor ever shall. Is the distrust of his witnesses so great, that needs he must exact from my mouth the articles of my condemnation? Verily he hath as much cause to doubt my accusers, as I matter of glory to be accused by mouths so impure, that they would as it were justify the greatest delinquents by their depositions. One Basilius chased from the Court, and charged with debt, hath been bought to sell my blood, and having lost credit in all things, finds more than enough for my ruin. Opilion and Gaudentius condemned to banishment, for an infinite number of wicked promises, they being fled to Altars, the King redoubleth an Edict, by which be ordained, if they instantly went not out of Ravenna, they should be branded in the forehead with an hot iron. What may be added to such an infamy? Yet notwithstanding the same day they were received and heard against me. Arrows are made of all wood to transfix me, and the most criminal are freed in my accusation. Some being not ashamed to employ against the life of a Senator those, who would scarcely have been set to confront very slaves.  
This makes me say my condemnation is premeditated, and my death already vowed, and that this search is made for petty formalities, to disguise an injustice.  
King Theodorick playeth too much the Politician, for a man, who hath full liberty to do ill. What need is there to use so many tricks? Tell him boldly from me, that I submit to his condemnation. I was willing to save the Senate, though little grateful for the sincerity of my affections: I wished the repose of the Catholic Church: I have sought the liberty of the Roman people: Here is all that I can say. As I am not in condition to tell a lie; so am I not on terms to conceal a truth. Had I known the means to reduce the Empire into better order, he should never have understood it. Finally, if he be resolved to put me to death thereupon, let him hasten his blow. It is long since I have had death in desire, and life in patience.  
The Commissary much amazed at this constancy, made his relation to the King in very sharp words, which put oil afresh into the flame, to thrust affairs into extremities. The poor Rusticiana, wife of Boetius, knowing the point whereunto the safety of her husband was reduced, made use of all the attractives she could, to mitigate the fury of the Prince: and observing Amalazunta, the daughter of Theodorick, to be an honourable Lady, and endowed with a singular bounty, she recommended her petitions and tears to her. This Lady gave her access to the King, to whom she with her children presented herself in a most deplorable State, able to soften obdurate rocks.  
Alas, Sir, said she, if you once more deign to behold from the throne of your glory the dust of the earth, cast your eyes upon a poor afflicted creature, which is but the shadow of what she hath been. I no longer am Rusticiana, who saw palms and honours grow in her house, as flowers in meadows: Disaster having taken him from me, by whom I subsisted, hath left me nothing but the image of my former fortune, the sorrows of the passed, the grief of the present, and horror of the time to come.  
I would swear upon Altars, that my husband hath never failed in the duty which he oweth to your Majesty; but calumny hath depainted his innocency unto you with a coal, to inflame you with choler against a man, who ever held your interests as dear unto him as his own. I know what he hath so many times said to me thereof, and how he hath bred his children, whom your Majesty now beholdeth at your feet. If we no longer shall take benefit of justice, Sir, I implore your mercy. Look on a woman, worthy of compassion, tossed in the storm, and who beholdeth in the haven the Olives of peace, which you always have desired to equal with your laurels. Suffer me, I may embrace them: The world already hath cause enough to dread your power; give us cause to love it proportionably to your bounty. Alas, Sir, on whom will you bestow it? Fire, which consumeth all, burneth not ashes, and behold us here covered with ashes before your eyes: what more desire you of us? A miserable creature is a sacred thing; the God of the afflicted taketh it into his protection, and will no more have it touched than his Altars. If my unhappiness have set me in that rank, and my sex made me a just object of your pity, Sir, render that to me, which I in this world do hold most precious; and think not we ever will retain any resentment of what is past, when we shall see ourselves reestablished in our former fortune. It is in you to command, and for us to obey your ordinances, and even to kiss the thunderbolt that striketh us.  
It is to much purpose to present music to the ears of Tigers, it hath no other effect but to enrage them the more. The cruel Tyrant presently commanded the Lady to withdraw; adding he would do her justice. And they ceasing not still to multiply suspicions with him upon this pretended conspiracy, as if Boetius had now been presently with sword in hand with the Emperor Justine at the gates of Rome or Ravenna, he fell into such fear, gall, and choler, that without any other formal proceeding of justice, he dispatched the  Commissary with a Tribune, to put him to death, whose life was so precious to the Roman Empire.  
Boetius, who had a long time been prepared both by prayers and the Sacraments of the Church, for this last hour, knowing the cause wherefore they came, beheld them with a confident countenance, and said: Perform your Commission boldly: It is long since I knew, that death alone must open the gates of this prison for me. And having spoken this, he contained himself some while in a deep silence, recommending to God this last act of his life, and consigning to him his soul, which during this imprisonment he had so often whitened with his tears, and purified as in a precious limbeck of eternal charities, wherein all great souls are deified.  
This done, he went forward with a settled pace to the place of execution, which the King would have very secret, not to excite the people; where seeing himself, Behold here (saith he) the Theatre which I have long desired. I protest before the face of the living God, and his holy Saints, that I have ever had most sincere intentions for the good of the State, nor am I culpable of any of these crimes objected against me. If my innocence be now oppressed, there shall come a better posterity, which shall draw aside the curtain, and entertain the rays of truth.  
O Rome, O Rome, would to God thou mightest ●e purified by my blood, and I to be the last victim sacrificed for public safety! I will not now accuse him who condemned me, desiring God rather may open his eyes to see the justice of my cause, and the plots practised upon his own soul. Behold the recompense I gain, for becoming hoary in his service; but God is the faithful witness of all my actions, and in his bosom is it now, where I lay down my life, my body, my soul, and all my interests.  
There was but one poor gentleman waiter, that accompanied him in this passage: who, as he poured out tears near unto him, Boetius earnestly beholding him, said: Where is your resolution, leave these tears for the miserable, and tell my father-in-law, my wife, and children, that I have done nothing here unworthy of their honour, and that they act nothing unworthy of me, by bewailing me with plaints, which would be little honourable for the condition of my death, but that they rather take this accident as a gift from Heaven. They well know I have ever told them, it is not here, where we should expect repose, but in the place, where I hope to prepare them a room. These words spoken, they proceeded to execution by the barbarous commandment given by Theodorick.  
I have read in a very ancient manuscript, from whence I have drawn some particulars couched therein, that a cruel torture was inflicted on this holy man, long time straining a cord about his forehead, in such sort, that his eyes started out of his head, and that in the end they knocked him down with a leaver: which I cannot think to be probable, seeing all other constantly affirm his head was cut off by the hand of a hangman: and Martianus, who most eloquently wrote his life, addeth, that by miracle he some space of time held his head in his own hands, like another S. Denys, until he gave up the ghost, before the Altar of a Chapel very near to the place of his execution.  
His body was interred in the Church of Saint Augustine, to whom he had a particular devotion, and his name put among the Martyrs, as Baronius observeth, because he died partly for the defence of the Catholic Church against the Arians. The place of his imprisonment hath been preserved as a great monument of piety, his tomb honoured with verses, such as that time could afford, where among other things this title is given him:  BOETIUS IN COELO MAGNUS, ET OMNI PERSPECTUS MUNDO. 
The King stayed not a whit after this to put Symmachus his father-in-law to death, and to confiscate all the goods both of the one and other, which was a very lamentable thing; yet notwithstanding the courageous Rusticiana bore the death of her father and husband with so great constancy, that she deserved to draw all succeeding Ages into admiration; for she spoke most freely to the King, reproaching him with his disloyalty, and honoured these two eminent souls as Saints, much offended with herself, if at any time nature won tears from her eyes, as judging them too base to be sacrificed to so flourishing a memory.  
The vengeance of God slackened not long to fall 
Procop. lib. 4.  upon the guilty head of Theodorick: for few days after this act, as he continually lived in the representations of his crime, his imagination was so troubled, that being at the table, when they came to serve up the great head of a fish, he figured to himself it was the head of Symmachus, the last of all butchered, and although much endeavour was used to remove this fantasy from him, it was impossible to give remedy, but he risen from the table like a man affrighted, crying out murder, and felt instantly such a quaking over all his body, and besides such convulsions in all his members, that he must needs presently be carried to his bed; where he was visited by his Physician, to whom he complained with much horror, that he had shed blood which would perpetually bleed against him. The fever and frenzy carried him hence into the other world, where he had a marvellous account to make; of whom we know no more particulars: yet Saint Gregory witnesseth that he learned from the mouth of a man 
Greg. l. 4. & 30  worthy of credit, that the same day he died at Rome, certain honourable persons being at Lipari, a little Island of Sicily, in the Cell of an Hermit, who lived in the reputation of great sanctity, he said unto them: Know ye, that King Theodorick is no more? They replying, Nay not so, we left him alive, and in health. Notwithstanding (saith he) I can well assure you he died to day in Rome, and which is more, is judged, condemned, and thrown into the storehouses of subterranean fire, which we here call the Cauldron of Vulcan. And it was a 
Olla Vulcani.  strange thing, that they being returned to Rome, understood the death of this wretched King, to have been at that very time, told by the Hermit; which was held for a most manifest judgement of God, and made all those to tremble, who heard the relation thereof.  
Athalaricus his grandchild by his daughter, although an infant, succeeded to his estates, under the regency of his mother Amalazunta, who restored all the goods had been confiseated to the widow, that lived afterward, until Justinian got the Empire from the Goths, by the means of Bellasartus: at which time she made all the images and statues of Theodorick to be broken, causing also another process to be framed against him after his death.  
Alas, great God, who governest the state of this Universe, and makest the pillars of Heaven to shake under thy footsteps! what is man who will practise wiles in a matter of policy, contrary to thy eternal Maxims? How hath this wretch ended, losing soul, Empire, and salvation, to pursue a phantasm? He roared like thunder in the clouds, on the theatre of humane things, and then past away, leaving nothing behind but storms, dirt, and mortar: at which time thy good servant Boetius, walking in the ways which thou prescribedst him, is mounted to the glory of the elect, leaving here behind him the precious memory of his name to all posterity.    

THE LADY.  

TO LADIES.  
LADIES,  
I Should do an injury to sanctity, even in the HOLY COURT, if having undertaken to speak of piety of Great-ones in these Treatises, I should pass Ladies under silence, who in all times have contributed to the glory of Christianity so much force beyond their sex, as virtues above nature. God hath employed them in the great affairs of all Ages, since the Word, which from all eternity acknowledged but one Father in Heaven, hath been pleased to acknowledge in later times, one mother upon earth: and that he who is able to  the meadows with the enamel of flowers, and Heaven with the beauty of lights, took flesh and blood of a Virgin, to make himself a garment, and frame to himself a body. And as the chaste womb of a woman served him for a lodging at his first entrance into the world: so when he would issue out amongst so many horrors, punishments, and images of death, when stones were rend asunder for grief under his feet, and Heaven distended itself with sorrow over his head, women were also found near to the Cross, as witnesses of his last words, and survivers of his blood.  
Here, O Ladies, are eternal alliances, which you have contracted with devotion; and he who would bereave you the sweetness of its repose, should banish you from your own houses. So many men as stir up quarrels, seem now adays to have no other profession, but to kill and die upon credit. Those, who are conversant with books, waste themselves in the pleasing tortures of the mind▪ Others, who are involved in the turmoils of public affairs, oftentimes gain nought else but smoke and noise. But when I behold you under the title of the Devout Sex, which is given you by the Church, I find your blessing is in the dew of Heaven, and that you resemble Bees, which are born in honey, or rather those birds of the fortunate Islands, nourished with perfumes.  
Believe me, those of your sex who have not true piety, had they a world of greatness and beauties, and were it that all the riches of this world had rendered itself tributary to their intemperance, would be no more esteemed before God, than the flower of grass, or scum of earth. But such as take the way of holy and solid virtues, enter into a life wholly Angelical, which forgetting sex and natural imperfections, furnisheth itself with the most perfect idaeaes of the Divinity.  
Behold hereof a model, which I present unto you in this Treatise, where, after I have observed, rather by speculation than practice, some blemishes, which might varnish the lustre of so many celestial beauties, I reduce the piety of Ladies into such bright splendour of daylight, that it were to have no eyes, not to admire the merit thereof.  
I have been willing to make this service suitable to my habit, and not unworthy of your considerations, thereunto invited by Ladies, who have happily allied virtue to the most eminent qualities of the Kingdom, and who might serve me for a model, were they in a much better Age than myself. If God, who hath inspired me with these contemplations, grant your performance, I shall have the Crown of my vows, and you, that of your perfections.   

THE LADY.  
The first SECTION. That the HOLY COURT cannot subsist without the virtue of Ladies, and of their Piety in the advancement of Christianity.  
BEhold where I purpose to shut up this Work of the HOLY COURT, which I have brought thus far with labour enough. And since God after those great Works of the Creation, reposed so soon as he had made woman, he thereby shows me an example to give some rest to my pen, when I shall have represented unto you the perfections of a Lady, such as I would wish her, to serve as an ornament for Christianity, and a model of virtue.  
Yet Reader, I must needs tell you, I feared this haven, whereunto I saw myself arrive of necessity, as well for that I learned of the great Martyr S. Justin, 
Justin. ad Zenam. Serenum. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  that a singular discretion must be had to treat with women, and that he doth very much, who can love their virtues without danger: besides, being naturally disposed to brevity, I somewhat doubted lest they might insensibly communicate by my discourse some touches of those great delays, which they use in attiring themselves; and verily I see there are many things may be said both of the one side and other: But as it is an act somewhat uncivil to run inconsiderately into invectives against the sex, so it is an unworthy servitude of mind to be too obsequious to them, and tender vices incorrigible, by a false presumption of virtues.  
I am much bound to my profession, that it sequestereth me from these two rocks, where so many vessels suffer shipwreck. If I must blame you, I will do as he who slew the serpent, not touching the body of his son twined up in his folds; I will strike vice without 
A●on of Crect.  slandering the sex, and if they must be praised, I look on them as the idaeaes of Plato, which have nothing in them common with matter.  
I begin to verify my first proposition, and say, the good life of women is a piece so necessary for Christianity, that it cannot be cut off without introducing a notable disorder: and this I say, because there are many uncollected spirits in the world, who make it their glory to act all against the hair, to oppose the most sound opinions, to give the lie to nature, and do that in the world, which Momus did in fables. Sometimes they set themselves to censure the State, and find somewhat to say of military matters, treasures, laws, and offices: sometimes they frame Commonwealths of Plato in their empty brains, and constitute new forms of government, which never will have being but in their chymaeraes. When they have touched upon the Purple and Diadem, they busy themselves to control God upon the masterpieces of nature, and among other things, that he hath done ill to create a woman.  
Cato the Censor said in his time, That if the world 
Si mundus absque mulieribus esset, conversatio nostra non esset absque Diis.  were without women, the conversation of men would not be exempt from the company of Gods. And a Doctor of the Jews yielding a reason why the Eternal Word had so long time deferred its Incarnation, said nothing else, but that the world was then replenished with bad women, and that four thousand years were not able to furnish out one good one, to serve as an instrument suitable to the greatness of this Mystery. Another having lived free from the bands of marriage, caused to be set on his tomb: Vixit sine impedimento, 
Brisson for.  He lived without hindrance, which was a phrase very obscure to express what he would say: Notwithstanding it was found this hindrance, whereof he spoke, was a woman. This may well happen through the vice and misery wherein the state of this present life hath confined us: but to speak generally, we must affirm, had it been the best way to frame the world without a woman, God had done it, never expecting the advice of these brave Cato's; 
S. Zeno homil. de continent. Aut hostis publicus, aut insanus.  and whosoever endeavoureth to condemn marriage, as a thing not approved by God, showeth, that he is either out of his wits, or a public enemy to mankind.  
The great S. Peter, in whose heart God locked up 
1 Pet. 3. Vi qui non credunt Verbo, per conversationem mulierum sine verbo lucri●i●nt.  the Maxims of the best policy of the world, was of another opinion, when he judged the good and laudable conversation of women, rendered itself so necessary for Christianity, that it was a singular mean to gain those to God, who would not submit themselves to the Gospel. Whereupon he affordeth an incomparable honour to the virtue of holy women, disposing it in some sort into a much higher degree of force and utility, than the preaching of the word of God: and in effect it seemeth this glorious Apostle, by a spirit of prophecy, foresaw an admirable thing, which afterward appeared in the revolution of many Ages, which is, that God hath made such use of the piety of Ladies for the advancement of Christianity, that in all the most flourishing Kingdoms of Christendom, there are observed still some Queens or Princesses, who have the very first of all advanced the Standard of the Cross upon the ruins of Infidelity. Helena planted true Religion in the Roman Empire, Caesarea in Persia, Theodelinda in Italy, Clotilda in France, Indegundis in Spain, Margerite in England, Gysellis in Hungary, Dambruca in Poland, Olga in Russia, Ethelberga in Germany, not speaking of an infinite number of others, who have happily maintained and increased that, which was courageously established.  
Reason also favoureth my proposition; for we must necessarily confess, there is nothing so powerful to persuade what ever it be, as complacence and flattery; since it was the smoothest attractive●, which the evil spirit made use of in the terrestrial Paradise to overthrow the first man, setting before him the alluring pleasures of an Eve, very newly issued out of the hands of God.  
Now every one knows nature hath imparted to woman a very good portion of these innocent charms: and it many by these priviled ges are also powerful in actions so wicked, why should not so many virtuous souls generoully employed in the service of the great God, bear as much sway, since he accustometh to communicate a grace wholly new to the good qualities, that are aimed to his honour?  
I conjure all Women and Ladies, who shall read this Treatise, to take from hence a generous spirit, and never permit vice and curiosity▪ may derive tribute from such ornaments, as God hath conferred on them, it being unfit to stuff Babylon with the gold and marbles of Zion.   

The second SECTION. That women are capable of good lights and solid instruments.  
SInce I see myself obliged by my design to make a brief model of principal perfections, which may be desired for the complishment of an excellent Lady, and that this discourse cannot be throughly perfected without observing vicious qualities, which are blemishes opposite to the virtues we endeavour to establish; I will make use of the clew of some notable invention in so great a labyrinth of thoughts, the better to facilitate the way.  
I remember to have heretofore read a very rare manuscript of Theodosius of Malta, a Greek Author, touching the nuptials of Theophilus Emperor of Constantinople, and his wife Theodora, which will furnish us with a singular entrance into that, which we now seek for; so that we add the embelishment of so many Oracles of wisdom to the foundations, which this Historian hath laid.  
He recounteth, that this Theophilus being on the 
Anno 830. Zonoras' saith, that she was only stepmother, and relateth it somewhat otherwise, but let us follow our Author.  point to dispose himself for marriage, the Empress his mother, named Euphrosina, who passionately desired the contentment of her son in an affair of so great importance, dispatched her Ambassadors through all the Provinces of the Empire, to draw together the most accomplished maidens which might be found in the whole circuit of his Kingdom. And for that purpose she shut up within the walls of Constantinople, the rarest beauties of the whole world, assembling a great number of Virgins into a chamber of his Palace, called for curiosity, The Pearl. The day being come, wherein the Emperor was to make choice of her to whom he would give his heart, with the Crown of the Empire, the Empress his mother spoke to him in these terms:  
MY LORD AND SON, Needs must I confess, that since the day nature bound me so straight to your person, next after God, I neither have love, fear, care, hope, nor contentment, but for you. The day yieldeth up all my thoughts to you, and the night, which seemeth made to arrest the agitations of our spirit, never razeth the remembrance of you from my heart: I acknowledge myself doubly obliged to procure with all my endeavours what ere concerneth your good, because I am your mother, and that I see you charged with an Empire, which is no small burden to them who have the discretion to understand what they undertake.  
It seems to me since the death of the Emperor your father, my most honoured Lord, I have so many times newly been delivered of you, as I have seen thorny affairs in the manage of your State. And at this time, when I behold you upon terms to take a wife, and that I know by experience to meet with one who is accomplished with all perfections necessary for your State, is no less rare than the acquisition of a large Empire, the care I have ever used in all concerns your glory and contentment, is therefore now more sensible with me, than at any other time heretofore.  
It is true, O most dear Son, that the praiseworthy inclinations which I have observed in your Mujestie, give me as much hope as may reasonably by conceived in the course of humane things: yet notwithstanding the accidents we see to happen so contrary to their proceed, do also entertain my mind in some uncertainty.  
That you may take some resolution upon this matter, behold in the Pearl of Constantinople, I have made choice of the most exquisite maidens of your Empire, to the end your Majesty may elect her, whom you shall judge most worthy of your chaste affections. I beseech God, who is Author of Marriage, to direct your spirit in this choice, and dispose it to that which shall be to his greater glory, wherein you shall ever find your contentments.  
When she had spoken this, she drew out of a box a golden apple, enamelled with precious stones, which she had purposely caused to be made, that it might be presented to her, who should be chosen out for the bed of her son, and putting it into the Emperor's hand:  
Behold (saith he) the golden apple, which I leave to your discretion, to give it to the most absolute. You have the Commission of Paris in your hands, but you shall do well to dispose of it more discreetly than he.  
The Emperor, after he had most affectionately given thanks to his mother for so many excellent prooss of her affection, asked of her by what note might one know a wife truly virtuous, and so accomplished as she wished.  
Euphrosina replied: It is no sleight demand, O Emperor, nor can that so readily be resolved, yet by your good favour, I will roughly delineate this discourse with so much sincerity, as not to attribute any thing to my sex, to the prejudice of truth.  
There are three sorts of men, who cannot speak well of us: whereof the first are certain scoffers, who to put themselves into an humour, and to give scope to their wits, have no discourse more familiar in their mouths, than the condemnation of women: and God forbidden, these should be any other than Poets or Philosophers; for they frame discourses of our nature, and extravagances to no purpose.  
I revenge myself commonly upon these kind of men by silence: for it is to cast water on coals, to hear them without reply, and to punish their tattle by contempt.  
Others are men wounded in sport, and who have not well digested some disgraces they have received from women, to whom either vice, folly, or malice hath engaged them more than was expedient for their quiet. These are, as if a dog hurt with a stone, should run up and down to by't all the stones he finds in his way, yea, those which are laid by workmen in the buildings of Churches and houses. They fall upon all women for having been deceived, as they say, by a woman, and cease not to scratch the wound, to renew the smart of it. But who sees not it is a mere passion, to blame the general for the deserts of particulars?  
In the third rank, are certain melancholy furious creatures, or such as have something worse in them than fury, who have not so much proclaimed war against our sex, as denounced it against total nature, which covereth us with its arms in this point, and confirmeth us in our right by their silence.  
Some of these, who are strong in passion, and discover their revenge with pretext of learning, would persuade us, that the meanest spirit of all the men in the world, is more eminent than that of the most capable woman.  
Verily, I will not raise my sex above the merit thereof, thinking we shall ever be high enough, if we abide in the rank which God hath given us.  
But whether we consider reason, or whether we regard experience, they very pertinently make void this chimaera of conceit, which hath taken birth from self-love and folly, as from its two most suitable elements.  
I would willingly demand of these discoursers, whether 
Tertul. l. de animâ. Animae non habent sexum.  they hold souls to have a sex? Never will they avow this opinion, unless they mean to renounce faith and reason. And if our souls be indifferently created by God, why do they thereupon go about to forge distinctions, which have not any subsistence, but in their depraved imaginations.  
If some say this diversity proceedeth from the bodies; who knoweth not, that the disposition of Organs, from which it is thought the goodness of wit proceedeth, is as advantageous in women as men? See we not even at this day in all sorts of conditions men sometimes so abject in wit and capacity, that if one degree should be taken from them, it seems they would have but sufficient to become beasts? And have we not seen in all times women intelligent and capable, some whereof have made themselves appear as miracles in arts, and others showed, that if they were ignorant, we could attribute it to no cause, but to the modesty of their condition.  
I should be too copious if I now went about to enlarge myself upon the goodly Works of Sophia, Erinna, Sosipatris, Cleobulina, Theomistoclea, Telesilla, Zenobia, and Eudoxia. Those who condemn in us the want of wit, oftentimes wish we had less, and would settle a good part of their contentment in our stupidity.  
We hold for an undoubted truth, that God having created us with this equality of souls, we have as much right in knowledges necessary for us in matter of grace, virtue, and glory, as men can have. One thing I may well say, that the complexion of feminine bodies, may distil into our souls inconstancies, infirmities, and passions, which perhaps would take an irregular flight, were they not repressed by piety and reason.  
For my part, I think Simonides hath not very ill expressed the ten Orders, which he hath made of the humours of women, and this will much help you in the choice you are to make, if your Majesty will take so much pain as to be informed thereof.  
In saying this, she caused her Virgins to draw near; and as heretofore those of Sparta shown drunken men to their children, to make them to abhor drunkenness, so framed she a description of the bad natures of women, to procure a detestation thereof, and exalt the merit of the virtuous, by the counterpoise of their contrary.   

The third SECTION. The ten Orders of women, and the vicious qualities which Ladies ought especially to avoid.  
BEhold Maidens (saith she) and advise in good time to lay hold on the tenth rank: for there are nine neither pleasing nor laudable.  
In the first sphere are those, which are of the nature 
Sus toto in volutabro. Pet. 2. 2.  of a hog, creatures unworthy to be named, who soil the honour of their sex, by the disorder of their carriage: for leaving all that which is either honest or generous in our manners, they let themselves lose to all kind of infamous pleasures, of gluttony and lust, which ruineth them in conscience, fortune, and reputation. They are whoups, proud birds, which have nothing but crest, and naturally delight in ordure: they are bats, which cannot endure one little ray of light, but seek to hid themselves under the mantle of night: they are horseleeches, which draw blood from the veins of a house and state, where they exercise their power. They are Sirens of the earth, which cause shipwrecks without water. They are Lamiaes, 
Vide Petrum Damianum in Gomorrheanis.  who have hosteries of Cutthroats, that kill men under pretext of good usage. They are harpies, who surprise even from Altars, and in the end become envenomed dypsades, which enforce an enraged thirst upon those whom they have once bitten. He that speaks this vice of a woman, hath as it were nothing to say of all the evils in the world. And when impudence hath given them a brow of flint and steel to sin, the bankrupting, which is made upon honour, is attended by that, which is committed on virtues and Altars, and there is not any vice in the world, which will not seek to possess itself of the throne, from whence shamefacedness is banished. I beseech you I may speak no more of these scandals of nature, lest I may poison my tongue by the recital of their deportment.  
In the second rank are those, who have the skin of 
Eccles. 9 Laqueus venatorum.  the fox, and the snares of the hunter, to surprise the simple. I speak not at all of certain creatures, who use pleasing and innocent subtleties, as were those of Rebecca and Rachel, which rather relished of prudence than craft: but I discourse of some women, cunning, inconstant, ingenious, and practic. We see by experience, that creatures the less strong, have the more sleights, as if nature were willing to recompense the defect of one part, by the excess of another? So it often happeneth that we ourselves being destitute of forces, which is more proper for men, have recourse to an infinite number of deceits: wherein we think to have some advantage, and by the cunning of our wits, which are nimble enough, and by the superabundance of leisure we enjoy in a sedentary life, and by the fervour of our passions, which being almost never in the mean, do stir up our understanding, to make it produce an infinity of designs. There are women able to give a lesson to the greatest Lawyers in matter of process; so well are they versed therein: they know all the terms of litigious plead better than ever did Labeon or Tribonius, and they so cunningly make use thereof, that they tire the strongest patiences by the tricks and flexibilities which they invent. There are some, who have a sent so penetrating, that they smell from far all which is done in a City, and discover the most secret things to find in some sort their own interests. Others perpetually bear a snare on their tongues, such words have they of double meanings; they know how to measure their dalliances to their own profit; to counterfeit friendship where there is not any; to hid hatred under flattery; to put Rivals into passion and quarrels; to make them fight and play the Fencers at their pleasure, and afterwards to pull some feather from those that are beaten. We do not so much advance our affairs as we would wish by these tricks; for that maketh us odious, and taketh the credit from us, which we should rather derive from the goodness of our manners. And besides, as there is no policy which hath not in the end its countermyne, whilst passion holdeth us in breath to deceive others, oftentimes we suffer ourselves to be surprised by a certain levity, of easily believing all those which flatter us. Fair maids believe me, as there is nothing more lovely than goodness, so is there not any thing more stable than an honest simplicity. We are not born to be Circe's and Medaea's, nor to open a shop of all subtleties; let us be contented that Poets have madea monster of a creature of our sex, which commonly spoke in very ambiguous terms, and they named it Phinx; let us speak truths to make fables false, and beware of the art which they profess.  
In the third rank go along certain natures endowed 
Mulier siulta & clamosa, nihil omnino sciens. Eccles. 9 Tecta perstill●ntia in die fei●●ris. Prov. 17.  with doglike qualities, most insupportable, as are so many women troublesome, importunate, and slanderous, who do nothing perpetually but bay, bawl, or by't. To live with such a creature in a house, is to have a rotten roof, which letteth rain and tempests drop in winter upon the head of the host. There are men who become familiar with Lions, Bears and Dragons; but where shall you find one, who hath made tractable such like humours? The habitations of deserts are delights in comparison of such company. A film in the eye, the gout in the foot, the stone in the reins, the hissing of aspics, thunder, lightning, razors, hooks of iron, make less noise, and do less hurt, than these poisoned tongues, which penetrate even into the entrails.  
A husband which meeteth with so ill a chance, daily acteth that part in his house, which did heretofore Prometheus on the mountain of Caucasus, when a vulture rend him alive, and gnawed his heart, which was only fruitful for his punishment. The wife that meets with a bad husband should not much complain, but yet she findeth that being in subjection, she is not so far distant from the degree, wherein nature hath placed her: but on the contrary side, to see a man ill handled by the impudent exclamations of an imperious woman, is a kind of monster in nature, which moveth pity in some, and astonishment in others. All husbands have not the resolution of the Philosopher Socrates, who held opinion we must endure women, as the dung of pigeons, which pay our patience with their fruitfulness. For verily being crowned with a bucket of water, by his Mistress Xantippe, after a great noise of bitter words, he replied, Such was the nature of the world, because after the thunderclap followed rain. Our age is not so fruitful in such insensibilities: but in like occasions the husband and wife coming to contend with words, a wind is raised at the door & and window, which bringeth a storm into the house. In all times our tongues have been censured, as tempests 
Ulysses' Ald●brandinus.  opposite to public repose: some have compared them to those bells of the forest of Dodona, which made a prodigious jangling: others have said, there needeth not above three of them to make up a Fare; and others have added, It was ill done to say there were words, which came from our mouths, but rather waves and froth of the sea. I cannot but think 
Mulierum verbales undae. Fulgentius.  these Censors speak out of excess; but let us prove them liars by our discretion, and persuade ourselves, that discourses of a woman which have been purified by silence and consideration, have a marvellous virtue.  
In the fourth order are women of the earth, who 
Mulier fatua. Prov. 1.  are of a nature gross, stupid, and dull, that live in the world as superfluous creatures, and know as it were neither good nor ill: the care of their house very little toucheth them; the least business is of power much to perplex their minds; their kindred and allies find little friendship with them, since they themselves have oftentimes the heart of an Ostrich towards their own children, whom they regard as if they were strangers. In the end, they have much ado to endure themselves, so unprofitable they are, and malignant towards civil life: which happeneth to them through depraved habits, and inordinate idleness, whereinto they have suffered themselves to slide from their tender years, or by some other corruptions of a melancholy spirit, which they foment to the prejudice of their repose.  
These kind of natures are good neither in the country, city, house-keeping nor in religion. For we find that in all things we must use endeavour, and that we came into the world, as into a galley, where, if one cannot manage either the stern or oar, he must at the least make a show to stir his arms, and imitate the Philosopher Diogenes, who roled his tub up and down, wherein it was said he inhabited, to busy himself. For my 
August. l. ●. de Civit. Dei. Philo de sacri. Abel & Cain.  part, I like well those people who banished all idle gods out of their walls, and retained such as enjoined travel. For, to live and take pains, is but one and the same thing, and that, which the nourishment we take operateth for the preservation of life, labour doth the like for accommodation thereof.  
In the fifth station you have women of the sea, who 
Non est ira super iram mulieris. Eccles. 15.  much deceive the world by their fair semblances: for they at first appear quiet and peaceable, as a sea in the greatest calm, having no want of grace or beauty, which promiseth much good to those who know them not; but one would not believe how they shift away upon the least wind of contradiction which is raised; how they are puffed up, and become unquiet with anger, love avarice, jealousy, and other passions very active. Such an one seethe the flower of the thorn, who knoweth not the pricking thereof, and such an one beholdeth with admiration those excellent beauties, who cannot believe how many pricks and stings they cover under these imaginary sweetnesses. You shall therein ordinarily observe very great levity and impatience, which maketh them hourly to change their resolution, in such sort, that they think nothing so miserable, as to remain still in one and the same condition. I have seen young widows, who had washed 
S. Zeno Ho●. de continent.  the bodies of their husbands with their tears, wiped them away with their hairs, and as it were worn it by force of kisses, and who not content with these ardent affections, discharging the surplusage of their passion upon their own proper bodies, tore their hair, pulled their cheeks, & were rather covered with dust than apparel. They died every hour, saying, they could not live one sole moment without their best-beloved, and filled the air and earth with their complaints; which was the cause why such as came to the funerals, knew not whether they should bewail the dead, or the dying. Notwithstanding, presently after these goodly counterfeitings, they began again to reform their hair, and change the dust of the pavement into the powder of Cypress: to put painting upon their tears; to adorn with a carcanet of pearl the neck, which they seemed to destiny to a halter; to seek for Oracles from their looking-glass, and to do all things, as if death and love conspired to make their feast in one and the same Inn. I have observed others, who being yet under the yoke, were the best servants in the world: but as soon as they saw themselves at liberty, there were no worse mistresses than they. There are noted to be in the heart of a woman the passions of a tyrant, and should they continually have wheels and gibbets at their command, the world would become a place of torture and execution. Never have I seen passions more hard to vanquish: for in the end the sea, which threateneth the world to make but one element, suffereth itself to be distinguished into ditches by little grains of sand, which stayed it with the commission they received thereupon from God: but when a woman letteth the reins of her passion go, there is not as it were neither law divine or humane, which can recall her spirit to reason. Fair maids, take ever from the modesty of your hearts, the laws which may be given you by justice.  
In the sixth degree are the natures of the Ape, who 
Custodi te à muliere m●l●. Prov. 6.  have a certain malice spiteful and affected; and such spirits may be found of this kind who day and night dream on nothing but mischief. They are filled with false opinions, sinister judgements, disdains, smothered choler, discontents, acerbities, in such sort, that the ray of the prosperity of a neighbour reflecting on their eyes, makes them sigh and groan. And as those Apes which sculck in the shop of a Tradesman, mar his tools, disturb his works, scatter his labours, and turn all topsie-turvie: So these malicious creatures spy occasions to trouble a good affair, to dissolve a purpose well intended, to overthrow a counsel maturely diliberated, to cause a retardation on the most just desires, and frustrate the most harmless delights. How many times do we behold the sun to rise cheerful and resplendent in a bright morning, and every one is abashed to see a mist arise, which in this serenity doth that which blemishes on a fair body? It is said, it sometimes proceedeth from a sorceress, which darkeneth that glorious eye of the day with her charms: And how often have you observed prosperities more radiant than the clearest summers day, which have been cloyed with dusky vapours by the secret practices of a woman, who biteth the bridle in some nook of a chamber? Fair maids, malice is an ill trade: It ever drinketh down at least the moiety of the poison which it mingled for others.  
In the seventh Region there are some kind of owls, 
Mulicrum penus avarissimum.  or wild-cats, certain creatures, enemies of day, of all conversation, all civility, and all decorum: who having received from God many honest enablements to adorn life, and to do good to persons necessitous, so lock up their entrails, that you may sooner extract honey and manna from flints, than get a good turn out of their hands. How is it possible they should be courteous, to oblige their likes, since they are many times cruel to themselves, defrauding themselves of the necessities of life, which are as it were as common as elements, to satisfy a wicked passion of avarice that gnaweth them with a kind of fury? For they endure in abundance part of that, which the damned suffer in flames perpetually, and fearing lest the earth may fail them, they bewail what is past, they complain of the present, they apprehend the future, they love life, only to hold money in prison; and fear not death, but for the expense must be made at their funerals.  
Let us take heed we resemble not those fountains, 
Fountain Garamant. Holunicus. S. Bonaventura in dieta.  which are so cold in the day, that they cannot be drunk, and so hot in the night, that none dare come near them. Let us do good both in life and death with the goods which God hath given us. If men be ungrateful, he will suffer us to reap reward even from his hands. A covetous soul, which in the prosperity of its affairs, and superabundance of riches, heareth not the clamours of the needy, is as the hen, which is said to be deaf in summer; is like a bottle full of silver which affordeth nothing till it be broken; is a mil-wheel which much laboureth, and gaineth nothing; a hog, which never doth good, but at his death. It hath always folly for guide, servitude for dowry, and misery for recompense.  
In the eighth are those, which are said to be composed 
Inveni amarirem morte mulier●m. Eccles. 7.  of a certain mixture of powders very different, which causeth them to be of humours light, giddy, fantastical, in such manner, that they daily make an infinite number of metamorphoses, and one knoweth not in what mould they must be cast, to put them into a state of consistence. You may there observe a spirit, which is perpetually upon change, which ceaseth not to jump from desire to desire, like a bird from branch to branch. A spirit, which will and will not, which saith and unsaith, doth and undoeth, and which continually hindereth itself in its thoughts. All that which you think to be very firmly settled with such kind of persons, is tied with a sliding knot, and there needeth but the turn of a hand to overthrow what is thought to be best established. One thing they retain very constantly in such an ebb and flood of inconstancies, which is obstinately to fix themselves upon their own opinions, and no more to give way to reason, than rocks to waves. It is verily one of the greatest vices which may be in a woman, as being the seminary of all disorders that grow in houses. I have ever learned from Antiquity, that the noblest Spirits are those, which give good counsels, and that such as willingly hearken unto them, come nearest & join with them in a laudable degree of goodness. But such as neither can give good advice, nor receive it from others, are the very worst natures of the world. Preserve yourselves, Maidens, from this imperfection, which is the blemish of a noble courage, the worm of concord, the poison of life, the inseparable companion of folly. Make it not your trophy to be refractory against the advices and remonstrances of those, to whom nature, justice, and reason hath subjected us: otherwise you would travel much, and get nothing in recompense, but the perfection of a mule.  
I set in the ninth place maids, who are of the nature 
Mulier compta. Eccles. 9  of those proud kind of creatures, as of peacocks, or little dogs, which are glutted with curiosities, whilst so many poor people die for hunger in the streets. This order is now adays much spread over the world, for it is filled with nice women, who seem to be born for nought else, but to make it appear how high the desires of exorbitant nature may mount, when a great fortune supporteth them. Many little fisking gossips are seen, who are made up like puppets, so curiously bred, that they seem to be fed with potable gold between cotton and silk. Those are the divinities of fathers and mothers, who raise rain and fair weather in their houses, at the only aspect of their countenances. The joy and sadness of the whole family waiteth on the condition of their humours; they must no more be offended than those stars, which are thought to send tempests upon such as have not saluted them. What may one hope from a soul altogether drenched in these delicacies? Follies attend the increase of age, and multiply by infinite degrees. Reason is trampled under foot, and passion armed with a great power makes itself to be carried on the shoulders of men. Desires are without measure, wills without bridle, passion without moderation, and sensuality without resistance; bravery, tattle, impertinent babble, toyishness, love, afford no passage to truth, and if there be any devotion, it is altogether silken; so coy and curious it is in the choice of persons. Sacraments are good, if they be not tied to hands, where vanity seeketh its interests; yea, pride is planted upon the haircloth of penance; and if God would chastise such creatures to their liking, he must tie up his rods with silk, or else they never would receive correction.  
When they leave their parents to be delivered to husbands, they go to change power, and not nature. A husband is ever uncivil, according to their saying, if they have not permission to do any thing. And as 
Ptolom. Almag. 2.  it is said the moon never agreeth in qualities with the sun, but when she hath eclipsed him; so they find not any concord in marriage, but in the diminution of his authority, whom God hath given them to be their head. They carry along with their portion all the vices of their childhood, which oftentimes accompany them even to the grave. They have no eyes to see adversity, no nor ears to hear it; the miseries of the poor touch them so little, as if they were made of marble, and the care of their family shall never interrupt their pleasures. What a life is it to behold a woman who although she rise in a time when the sun is near noon-tide, notwithstanding, as if she feared the vapours of the serain, she is armed before she come out of her bed, with a restorative from the kitchen, to keep her colour the more fresh.  
From that time she causeth herself to be attired, and clothed like an Idol, by three or four servants, who have more ado to preserve her beauty, than ever had the Vestals of Rome to maintain the sacred fire. One presenteth her with red, another with white, one holds a looking-glass, and another dares not tell her that the time of Mass is already past, whilst my Lady taketh her head-dressing: yet must the Canons of the Church be broken as easily as a glass, to obey the humours of a woman, and to celebrate then, when it is to be doubted whether the sun begin not to bend already to his setting. Mass is passed over with making sour faces, and looking scornful with a good grace, with some slight ceremonies of devotion, which go no further than the outward parts. There it is, where resolutions are made of entertainments of time, to be chosen for the rest of the day. Then follow the visits of childbed women, gaddings, and coaching, dance and banquets, where the prattle is so loud, that a few women could suffice to make the noise of a mil. They much love to hear discourse upon all kind of affairs. They that have not their spirits so subtle, entertain themselves upon trifles and slight compliments, which they have studied for the space of ten years. Others, who can show they have read a great quantity of love-pamphlets, or such like, would seem of ability, so far as to give law to Poets and writers, who have not this kind of relish, love not to please any thing so much, as their own sensuality; and in these lose companies take fire and wind on all sides, to the great prejudice of their reputation.  
I leave it, my Daughters, to the repose of your recollected cogitations, to think what Epitaph may be bestowed upon gentlewomen that lead such a life, but that they have employed themselves in the customary actions of a beast, nay, which a beast daily performs better than they; with this disparity, that they have been more inventive to season their sin.  
Behold what honest women commonly most condemn in the carriage of the vicious and imperfect, which I have abbreviated in few words; being unwilling to enlarge any further upon the other imperfections, whereof I have no experience, having ordinarily so much entertainment with my books and employments, that I have no leisure to study on the manners of this sex.   

The fourth SECTION. The tenth Order of Women, full of Wisdom, and Virtue.  
THe young Emperor took great pleasure to hear the Empress his mother speak so freely concerning the nature of women; and he prayed her to perform her promise touching the characters, which might serve him in the choice he meant to make; whereupon she replied:  
The last and most excellent Order of women is that, which heretofore was called the order of Bees; women truly divine, who seem to have been made upon Celestial globes by the hands of Angels, so sweet is their nature, their virtue so rare, and price so unvaluable. They are in houses as the sun in his Orb, 
(a) Sicut sol oriens in mundo, in altissimis Dei. Eccles. 26.  and he that would equal their worth, should he draw out all metals and precious stones which the earth hideth in its veins, would rather find insufficiency in his purpose, than want of merit in his object.  
Bees (as said an 
(b) Nihil habet mortale, nisi quod moritur apis nullus nisi artifex nascitur. Quintil.  Ancient) having nothing mortal in them but death: they perform actions worthy of immortality. Bees are labourers from the day of their birth; and it seemeth these are framed for the practice of virtues from their cradle. Bees have their little wings; these meditation and action. Those have a sting, these a point of vigour, which is the instrument of all perfections. Those live under a King, and these consecrate themselves to the obedience of Laws both divine and humane. Those are great enemies of ordure, and these live in the delights of chastity. Those travel incessantly, and lose not a day unless heaven enforce it 
(c) Nullus cum per coelum licuit, ●lio periit dies. Plin. l. 1. ; these are perpetually in the exercise of good works, and lose no time but to give it unto God. Those never stay upon withered flowers; and these set not their hearts upon any fading things which are under the Moon. Those have their hives rubbed with bitter herbs, to defend them from venomous creatures; and these use mortification of flesh against the poison of pleasures. Those make themselves counterpoises with certain little stones to fly the better; and these make a counterbalance with humility to soar the higher. Those make honey which serves for nourishment and medicine; these have ever charity in their hands to cure the wounds and acerbities of the life of the poor, succouring their want by their liberalities. Those make the Altars to shine by the help of wax, which they produce; these adorn and enrich all the Church with the travel of their hands or wealth of their Cabinets. What would you to be more noble, or divine? Why then are you amazed, if the Scripture 
(d) Prov. 19 Domus, & divitiae dantur à parentibus, à Domino autem propriè uxor prudens.  hath said, That houses and riches came from parents, but a wise and a virtuous wife from the hand of God?   

The fifth SECTION. A brief Table of the excellent qualities of a Lady; and first of true Devotion.  
THe Gentlewomen that stood round about the Empress, expressed much earnestness to know in few words the excellent qualities of a woman truly virtuous; and Euphrosina, not to frustrate their desire, proceeded in these terms:  
A Lady well accomplished, is like a star with five rays, which are the five virtues, of Devotion, Modesty, Chastity, Discretion, and Charity 
(a) These are the qualities which the Scripture giveth her in divers places. . Devotion formeth the interior, Modesty makes it appear in the exterior with a requisite comeliness, Chastity perfecteth both the one and the other, Discretion applieth it to the direction of others, and Charity crowneth all her actions.  

(b) The first title of a woman, which S. Paul observeth in the Epistle to Titus c. 2. when he calleth her by a Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as one would say, suitable to holy things.  A woman without Devotion, were she composed as a Pandora, and had she all the beauties which the heart can desire, and the imaginations feign; is a Bee without a sting, which will make neither honey nor wax; is a savage beast that nature hath lodged in a painted house; is a case covered with precious stones, to preserve a dunghill; is a Michol, who appeared outwardly with a Crown, and lived inwardly a slave to her passions; is a piece of flesh already half rotten, having not so much as one grain of salt in it. Corruption will creep into her life, disorder into her manners, infamy into her reputation, and despair into her salvation. Devotion is a virtue hereditary to our sex; it is the first portion which God hath granted us; it is the title which the Church hath given us; it is the most eminent mark of our Nobility. If we lose this ornament, I cannot see why we should pretend to live, having renounced the honour of Christianity.  
But to tell you my opinion, Devotion being no other thing but a prompt and vigorous affection, which disposeth us to all that which concerneth the service of God, it seemeth to me, that many among us have great illusions in this point, and oftentimes court a fantasy, thinking to entertain a truth.  
There are of those, who by overmuch embracing Altars have overthrown them, 
(c) Altaris dum venerantur, evertunt. S. Zeno hom. de patientia.  and broken the Idol of Dagon, to set their own judgement up in the place thereof.  
I have seen very many, who have a slight devotion of apish tricks, which only consisteth in a certain light and childish imitation of countenances and gestures, having not any solidity in the interior. For my part, I imagine when I think upon such apparences of piety without effect, that if apes had a little studied our countenances, they would much exceed us in 
Strabo lib. 1. Aelian. de animal. l. 7.  this point: For they are great and mischievous imitators of all they see; witness those, who washed their eyes in a basin full of glue, having observed a huntsman, who washed his with fair water; and he who being desirous to bathe a little infant in imitation of its nurse, hastened to plunge it in a boiling cauldron. How many do we daily see in the seem of affected piety, who so well act all countenances, as if with such merchandise Paradise were to be purchased? And in the mean space they are altogether devoid of true virtues; so that he who could penetrate into their hearts, should find they were like to those pearls, which in stead of a solid body, have nothing but the husk.  
Some take devotion as a slight pastime; others as a light compliment; others bend that way for complacence to the humours of another; others for glory: and although they have consciences as rude as those of the Country, they would willingly draw Seraphins out of Heaven to govern them, to the end that although they cannot have devotion, they may at the least gain the reputation to seek after the perfectest: others are thereto transported for some slender cloak of liberty, and certain accommodations of their own proper interest.  
I do not say, but that there are a great number who have intentions most pure and proceed very piously, but we must affirm, that the defects whereof we speak, may craftily slide into the infirmity of our sex.  
For, what may we say of a creature to whom ten years of devotion, twelve hundred communions, and a thousand exhortations have not yet taken off one hair of vanity? What may we think of her, who eateth the immortal Lamb twice or thrice a week, and daily on all occasions becometh a Lioness in her house? What may we judge of her, who so many times layeth the holy Eucharist on her tongue, as a seal of the Spouse, not being able to bridle or restrain it so far, as to forbear so many indiscreet and evil words? what may one presume of her, who makes a scruple to drink cool in summer, and to behold a flower with delight, yet feeleth no remorse of conscience, to have spoken more slanders in one dinner, than she hath eaten morsels? Verily we betray devotion, which is of itself fair and glorious, when we use it in such sort, and we give matter to exorbitant souls how to justify their sins by our deportments, to which they ever have but too much inclination, and, think that in depainting us with a coal, they make themselves as white as snow. There are others, who desire devotions extatike and ravishing, disguised in strange words, in fashions never heard of, in ceremonies not accustomed. All that which is just, prudent, and moderate, tasteth too much of common; other paths must be found to Paradise; new habits must be cut out for God under the mould of their fancy, to make him known. I am not ignorant, that there are in Religious Orders souls purified from the dregs of the world, which have apprehensions of God most elate; nor would I for any thing condemn such blessings. But when in ordinary life they speak to me of fashions so extraordinary, I ever go along with a leaden pace, so much do I fear, lest for a strong piety, I find a body of smoke. I add also others, who make to themselves a devotion hideous, pensive, & melancholy, which amazeth those who behold it with the only sight thereof; they voluntarily resigning themselves to, as it were, perpetual tortures of the mind. This virtue hath but too much slander in the world; we have nothing else to do, but to hid its beauty, and to give it a mask of terror, to affright those, who have business enough to free themselves from their sensuality. I esteem the devotion most proper for our sex, is that which hath least of affectation, & most of effect. Every one will be able to direct the prayers she ought to make, Confessions, Communions, according to her own capacity, profession, and leisure; using therein the counsel of some that govern her conscience, but let her assure herself, she shall never taste devotion at the fountain head, but in the practice of virtues, and the constancy of good resolutions.   

The sixth SECTION. Modesty.  
AFter the interior is directed by the motions of piety, followeth the virtue of Modesty, which proclaimeth us exteriorly. It is the needle of the dyal, which showeth how our souls circumvolveth times, and the hours of the day: it, which witnesseth the power we have over our passions; it, which formeth us after the model of great souls; it which causeth us to appear in conversation, in a manner not only regular, but sweet, honest, and examplar.  
It is the virtue, which S. Peter the Apostle required 
In incorruptibilitate quieti & modesti spiritus. 1 Pet. 3, 4.  of our sex, when he advised us to hold the inward man in the incorruptibility of a spirit peaceable and modest. This is seen in the carriage, gestures, and countenances; but especially in speech, and habits. We cannot believe how wise we are in simplicity, and how powerful in mildness.  
It is the strongest armour we have from nature. When we manage a spirit, and govern an affair by these sweet and peaceable ways, we astonish the most confident, we disarm the stoutest, and triumph over conquerors, We have nothing to do but to hold our peace, and our silence speaketh by us. But when divesting us of this spirit of sweetness, modesty, and docibility, we put on a fashion haughty, scornful, & turbulent, we are only able in loud noises, which render us contemptible to those who are more powerful than we, troublesome to our equals, intolerable to our inferiors, and hateful to all the world. With this mild temper of spirit, Hester changed King Ahasuerus into a lamb; with the same, Abigail, was much stronger than the arms of David; and Jesabel with her natural cruelty having slain Innocents', ruined Cities, disturbed States, was thrown out of a high window on the pavement, to be trampled all bloody under the feet of horses.  
But as concerning Modesty, which regardeth the comeliness of body & attire, it is a strange thing, how many complaints are made against us upon this point. We have already served for the space of so many Ages as a common place to Preachers, matter of censure for Edicts, a fable for Cities, and laughter to ourselves. In the mean time this love of bravery is so throughly engrafted in our spirits, that we will not despoil us of it, but with our skin. It is an original sin, which all women carry with them from their mother's womb, for which there is no Baptism to be found, & he that should go about to wash us from this stain, we would have an action against him. Yea, were this only usual among great Ladies, for whom earth, rivers, and seas, seem to produce wherewith to satisfy their curiosity, it would appear less strange. but all women are born with this passion, & they so hearty hug it, that there will be almost no distinction made in orders, since there is so much confusion in habits.  
Citizen's wives will become Queens, & if we hereafter would be taken, for Queens, we must become Citizens wives. Perhaps those who censure us in this point, require too much of us, and some are therein transported with so much zeal, that if we would believe them, we should make all the Maries of Egypt to be at Court. Those who intent to treat with us in this manner, by falling upon our hair and attires, touch not our hearts; for could any one truly persuade us to virtue, we should cover ourselves with a sack, so that it might advance the glory of God, and the profit of our neighbour: yet do I think we have some right to comeliness, and propriety in our garments, ever abiding within the limits of the most regular, in such sort, that the wise may not blame our superfluities, nor those who are more favourable accuse our defects.  
But to speak sincerely, there is a kind of frenzy in our proceeding. He who should see the stuffs taken up sometimes at the Mercers to clothe a little body, whereof the worms will quickly make a dunghill, would say they had undertaken to cover some huge Whale: and he who should reckon up all the furnitures of a Lady, as they lie on a table, having never seen any woman, would think it were a Mercery to furnish a little City: we resemble those birds, which have no body, and are as it were nought else but feathers; we use therein so many fashions, disguizes, and invention, that we tyre our spirits; so much study and affection, that many of us make so much business about a ruff, as if we had a Commonwealth of Athens to manage.  
And that which is most horrible, is, these vanities are drawn from the blood of the poor; and in the same proportion as they are extracted, they so impoverish, as I fear posterity may have more cause to curse our dissolutions, than cherish them. Nay, worse is done, when they so vehemently affect to begin the adultery of their bodies by that of the face, that it is insensibly eaten into with painting and poison, as if they would derive beauty from corruption. Then certain fashions of apparel are found out, which seem to be made rather to sell bodies, than to cover them. I do not know what may be reserved for the eyes of a chaste husband, when through all markets the secret parts of his wife's body are exposed as open, as if they were ready to be delivered over to the best bidders. I cannot tell what husbands can be pleased with the publication of this nakedness, if not certain Platonists, who would approve the law this Philosopher made, as it is said, of community of beds, than the doctrine of idaeaes, which would be viands too empty to satiate the hunger of concupiscence. Verily, if we yet retain a vine of the perfect Christianity which swayed in the golden age, we ought to stifle by a generous consent, all these abuses, and make of the spoils of superfluity a Sacrifice of mercy, giving in part for the relief of the poor, that, which hitherto we have dedicated to the fantasies of our spirits. Since we are born with some supereminencies of body, and are the goodliest creatures of the world, why should we go about to beg glory from poisons of the earth, from worms, and spoils of the dead? If opinion have put us unto it, it is now long since withered by the confusion of so many hands, who incessantly gathered it. The glory of the greatest Ladies shall not hereafter survive, but in great modesty.   

The seventh SECTION. Chastity.  
THis is the shortest way we have to the preservation 
It is the quality S. Paul calleth sanctificatione. 1 Tim. 2. Saluabitur perfiliorum generationem, sapermanserit in fide, & dilectione, & sanctificatione, cum sobrietate.  of Chastity, an incomparable virtue, and the richest jewel of our sex. It ought to be as natural to us, as flight to birds, swimming to fishes, beauty in flowers, and rays in the sun. You need not ask, what may become of a maid or wife, who is prodigal of a good, which should be as firmly united to her body, as her hearts: She is capable of all sorts of crimes, and were there question to open all the gates of hell, incontinency alone would put the keys into her hands. There is no beast in the world that is not better than a prostitute, who by the dishonour of her bed hath charged her soul with sins, her body with intemperance, her renown with reproaches, and her memory with execration. We ought so to instruct our daughters in the virtue of purity, that they may not know the least shadow of sins which are committed in the world. I approve not those little Dynaes', who will see and smell out so many customs of Countries, and entertainments; for they too soon learn that, which they too late will forget, and take so much fire in at the ears and eyes, that water enough will not be found to extinguish it. I do not wish a maid, though very young, should be delighted in the company of children which are not of her own sex. I likewise fear those of her sex, who are too curious, their company is sometimes so much the more dangerous than that of men, as we least take heed of a domestic enemy. That Chastity is ever the most stable, which knoweth not so much as what voluptuousness may pretend unto. I will think crows might become nightingales, when any one should 
Hierom. ad Laetam. Securi●ris est continentiae nescire quod quaera.  make me believe, that a creature of our sex, which is delighted to hear or utter scoffs, & speeches of double sense, which cover ordure under golden words, either is chaste, or can any long time continue as she is.  
Let us guard the eyes, mouth, and ears of those young maidens, as Temples dedicated to Honour, and let us do nothing in their presence, which they cannot imitate without sin: let us teach them not to addict themselves, either to pleasures of the mouth, or slight desires, to take and freely possess any petty favours. A creature which much coveteth to have that which her condition cannot afford, hath many enemies in her heart, which will deliver her body over to dishonour, and her soul to confusion. Let us cut off as much as we may so many wanton songs, idle books, infamous pictures, gossiping, dance, and banquets: never is a beast taken but with some bait, nor chastity lost, but that such attractives serve as forerunners.  
There are not so many lost spirits to be found among women well bred, who in sin pretended nothing but sin: but the love of divers Ladies proceedeth rather from vanities of the mind, than weakness of the body. They desire to be in some esteem and admiration of those, who can neither esteem nor admire them, but in the pretensions of their own interests: they take delight to be commended for their beauties, which never any man so profusely applaudeth, as not to hope to be paid for his praises. They are subject to much credulity, whether it be through some easiness of nature too weak, or by overmuch presumption and self-love, in such sort, that they quickly esteem themselves fair, and worthy to be beloved by those who feign affection, not seeing that fishes are taken with nets, and women with the credulity of their light belief. They undertake designs to make servants, who are not of the order of Archangels, to serve them as Raphael did Toby, not pretending power over their hearts and honours. They are infinitely delighted to see a man prostrate at their feet, especially when he hath some qualities, which put him into the estimation of the world. It is a glory among the quaintest to have gained slaves, who love their chains, and who will no longer live nor die but for them. This is the cause they counterfeit themselves to be little Idols, and take many sacrifices of smoke; and although they at that time have not any intention to offend God, notwithstanding they suffer themselves to dissolve among so many offers of services, compliment, and protestations; and in the end feel it is a very hard matter to defend one's self from an enemy, who only assaulteth us with gold and incense. Drops of rain are composed of nothing but water, and do by their continual fall penetrate stones: so, much sweetness of words, submissions, and observances redoubled one upon another, are able to make a rock rend in sunder: how can they but transport a woman, who issuing from a bone, faileth not to retain all the softness of flesh.  
Love sometimes hath wings to fall upon its prey with a full souse, and sometimes it goeth along with a crooked pace. That which it cannot obtain by a prompt heat, it expecteth from a constant importunity. From thence ensue private conversation, and disorders, which make tales in cities, stage-plays, & bloody tragedies, which being begun behind a curtain, are many times ended at the gallows. I do not find a better remedy to stop the beginnings of lust, than to behold the end thereof. A Lady who solicited in matter of dishonour, in the first baits shall draw the curtain, and behold a huge gulf of scandals, injuries, rages, and despairs, will as willingly descend into Hell alive, as consent to this brutish passion. She will seasonably proceed to remedies, and unfold her heart in the secret of Confession, will discover the deceit of it, and by this means avoid an infinity of disasters. Thrice, yea  happy is she, who will take these words as an Oracle, and enchase them in her heart to remember them eternally.   

The eight SECTION. Discretion in the manage of affairs.  
WHen we have begun to polish ourselves by these virtues, Discretion will regularly apply us to conversation and affairs, every one 
A title which the Wiseman expresseth by the word, Sensata, Eccles. 7. And S. Paul useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Tit. 2. much recommending to women, the care of household affairs.  according to her qualities.  
A woman is a poor thing, which hath no employment nor discretion; as there are many to be found, who having lived to the age of ninety years have not learned any thing, but to dress and undress themselves. Why should we have a reasonable soul, were it not to enrich it with knowledges, which are necessary to us, both for ourselves, & the government of those which fall into our hands? As we profess not to be wise, so we have not made a vow of stupidity. We should love as our eyesight the reading of good books, which teach us how to become better, for they are wise companions, and honest entertainments, from whence we never behold jealousies nor scandals to arise. It is not a very barren delight to behold women, who as soon as they have made a silly compliment, have nothing else to say, unless they talk of their ruffs, or some such kind of trifles? At the least, I wish those, who never have been willing to learn to speak, would one day practise to hold their peace: But they deafen the world with their prattle, and daily deliver an Iliad of speeches, wherein there is not so much as one good word. Tell me not these maids so knowing are more subject to caution: I would not have them▪ I say unto you, all learned, as the Sibyls and Muses, but who will envy them an honest science of things, which serve for the direction of manners? There is none but spiders, and such little creatures, that turn flowers into poison. We ought not to fear that a maid, to whom good foundations of humility and devotion are given, will abuse this celestial manna, which is found in sage Writers.  
I have learned from one full of wisdom and experience, that for one young virgin instructed in learning, which hath failed in her honour, twenty other have been found of the ignorant, who have so much the more grossly erred, as they had the less knowledge of their fault. I intent not by this counsel proposed, which is to perfect them by reading, that therefore we give liberty to the curiosity of reading of all sorts of books, and namely those which treat of loves, though in a very gentile manner; for they have a little sting in them, soft as silk, which insensibly enters into the heart; and when they describe this passion unto you with so many exquisite terms and honest inventions, they create so beautiful loves, that in seeking to imitate them, we produce such as are deformed. If we must become learned, we ought to do it in that manner as the Saints, Tecla, Catharina, Eudoxia, Marcelia, Paula, Fabiola, Eustochium, who with the spoils of Egypt, furnished the Cross and Altars of our Saviour: Nor would I advise a virgin to go and hid herself in a granary or cave, to devour books: It is fit she season her reading with works proper to her profession. Let us never suffer her to be idle, but so soon as age rendereth her capable, let us give her some little direction and exercise in the house. For why should we be ashamed to work with the needle, since Augustius Caesar, the founder of Empires▪ reputed such kind of employments not unworthy of his daughters; and that the Romans many years preserved, as a relic, the distaff of Queen Tanaquilla, much more charily than the lance or sword of Romulus; thinking, it was more necessary to give women examples of industry, than furnish men with idaeaes of war? One would not believe, how much the earnestness some have upon a good piece of work, diverteth all other passions, which may embroil the spirit; but whosoever will make trial, shall find that innocence is never better lodged than at the sign of labour. I leave you to think, when a maid hath endeavoured to learn from her tender years, matters fit for housewivery, even to the kitchen, what a goodly light is in that house, whether it proceed from a father, or from a husband, for the direction of the family, the government of men, and maidservants, the example of youth, and the comfort of the family. She maketh herself necessary in the best affairs, there is much repose in her prudence, her health is accounted important, her life precious, her death deplorable, and her memory replenished with honour. The wisest of men Solomon, hath given no other marks to know a virtuous woman, than the Oeconomy she holdeth in the government of her family. She hath considered (saith 
P●ov. 3●.  he) the paths of her house, and hath not eaten her bread in idleness; she hath taken pains in linen and . She is become as a ship laden with victuals and riches. She riseth before day to provide fitting food for her family. She hath made purchase of farms, and entertained traffic. She hath put her hand to work then opened it to the necessity of the poor. All her servants are in good order; her husband, and children cannot sufficiently praise her for her great wisdom. She is a lamp which will never be extinguished in the darkness of night. Behold somewhat near the terms which he useth to reckon up the perfections of a wife, ending with wisdom, and fear of God, which is the first and last ornament.   

The ninth SECTION Conjugal Love.  
IN the end; as love is a generous passion which by 
It is the Epithere which S. Paul giveth to virtuous women, calling them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Tit. 2.  its good government crowneth all virtues, I would advise a married Lady, for the accomplishment of her perfection, to bear a most cordial charity towards her husband. This is no hard matter when there is good fortune and correspondence in marriages: for complacence ever maketh wings for love, and it is held a happiness to love that, which pleaseth our passion. But it is a most pitiful thing, when parents blinded with avarice, and charmed with the sweetness of pretended interests, renew the example of cruel Mezentius, who tied the living to the dead, and endeavoured to match a poor young maid, who surviving in favours & blessings from heaven, with a husband putrified in vices, ordures, and diseases of body. Then is a time when much virtue is to be shown, in putting on a resolution to love a monster, from their most tender years to their tomb. What should we do therein? The law of nature gives us free permission to desire good husbands, but the laws of marriage exhort us to bear them, as much as we may, howsoever they prove. If we love for ourselves, this is impossible; but if for God, we therein shall find duty and facility. A woman cannot seek out a shorter way to the perfection of her sex, than by wedding the humours of her husband, so that they be not opposite to the commandments of God: she who well obeyeth, commandeth well; and when we once have surprised the heart of a man, there is not any thing resisteth our wills.  
Union is a marvellous cement, which so straightly knitteth obedience and power together, that it is a very hard matter to distinguish him who obeyeth, from him that commandeth. We have in all ages excelled in this conjugal piety, & there are hereof so many rare examples to be found, that pens are troubled 
Vives relateth this in the second book of a Christian. Woman, of one named Cl●r●.  to express, as well as ears to believe them. Tender & delicate young maidens have been seen, who inconsiderately married to husbands, worn out with maladies, perceiving from the first night of her nuptials, unguents, ulcers, and evil savours; and finding a counterfeit health in bodies, more fit for a tomb than a marriage bed, yet have not abandoned them, but loved, honoured, and served them, watching sometimes forty days, and forty nights about their beds, never disarraying themselves Some one man hath been found among others, whose indisposition drawing along with it seven years together the stench of wounds that were incurable, the horrible infirmity of members which appeared wholly disfigured, did weaken all the forces of those who were willing to assist him, overthrew the patience of the most faithful, wasted the charity of the most zealous, yea even such as do all for money abhorred to come near him And then to see a young maiden of sixteen years of age, weak of complexion, handsome of body and endowed with a beauty which the most flourishing husbands would have coveted, to tie herself to this dead body, to stir it, touch it, cleanse it, to give it broths, to blow the powder of herbs into the nostrils of it, which distilled an humour insupportable to all the world, to cut his beard, and hair, when no man would undertake this adventure; is it not a miracle of our sex worthy of the admiration of men, the applause of histories and love of all posterity?  
What shall I say of one Eponina, who having espoused 
See Lipsius in his Politics.  a husband much clogged with troublesome affairs & crimes, yea even of treason, was 9 years shut up with him in the vault of a sepulchre; and afterwards seeing him to be discovered, and condemned to death by the Emperor Vespasian, would needs accompany him to execution, & die with him, saying she already was prepared for a tomb, and that she could better tolerate it dead than alive? What should I speak of a Persian Queen, named Cabadis, who seeing her husband detained in prison, came to visit him, not suffering herself to be known; and giving him her garments of a wife, to put on those of a husband, afforded him opportunity to escape, paying afterward with her noble blood the error of her piety?  
Are not these prowesses worthy to be written in letters of gold and azure, to be exposed to the view of all Ages? A thousand-fold happy they, whose concord hath bound love up with chains of adamant, separation never finding place in the knot of marriage, which God hath been pleased to tie with his own hands. Let us for this cause preserve us from jealousy, which useth to grow from the most beautiful loves, as those worms, which are said to issue from the fairest flowers. It is a most unhappy passion, form by fantasy, attired by suspicions, darkened by discontents, said with bad humours by curiosity, entertained with impostures by slander, which gnaweth asunder all that which there is of virtue in chaste affections, troubleth the repose of beds, embroyleth the affairs of households, reateth alliances, produceth monsters, soweth fury and rage, and having tormented all the world, devoureth itself. If our husbands fall into this misery, let us pity them as frantics, and take away from them all manner of occasions which may stir up their imaginations, and if the like malady surprise us, let us not resemble those women, who have traveled in the dead time of night through huge forests full of horror, that they might hasten to watch their husbands, accompanied only with their passions, whereof some fell between the teeth of wild beasts, which to them were more pleasing than the executioner they retained in their own proper entrails.  
We oftentimes in this point more bewail our own interests, than the offence done to God; and it is no strange thing, that she who loveth ill should be deprived of what she affecteth. When there is sin in it, let us deplore it, let us endeavour to remedy it by prayers; by discretion, by patience, by all the most holy industries we may use therein. We shall find ourselves strong in silence and hope; and not in ceaseless complaints, which have no other effect, but to fret wounds, and renew disasters.   

The tenth SECTION. The care of children.  
TO hid nothing from you, women, who are called to the Sacrament of Marriage, aught to be very perfect; because they have as it were in their manage the most precious interest of posterity, they being chosen out to bring forth and educate Children, which are to be members of the body of State.  
It hath often been questioned from whence proceeded the good and evil nature of men; and I find that many have attributed it to the divers aspects of Planets, as by a fatal necessity: But to say truly, this Astrology of fools, and webs of spiders, are as it were but one thing, both being fit to catch flies, and not deceive understanding men. I hold opinion, good mothers make the good nature of children; and it hath ever been observed, that great personages who have flourished in some eminency of virtues, have taken from thence as it were generally the first impressions of sanctity.  
If chaste daughter's chance to be born of incontinent mothers, it is almost as rare as to see nettles bear gillyflowers. Let us preserve our bodies as temples, to bring forth more virtues than flesh for the public, and when God affordeth us issue, let it be one of our chiefest cares to train it up in his service. My heart bleedeth when I consider how now adays many children of quality are bred, which are stifled with servile indulgences under the shadow of dandling them. God sends them as creatures, with which he intendeth to support the world govern Commonwealths, people heaven, and adorn even the conversation of Angels: but to see how they are used, it seemeth that pieces of flesh are engendered, which are only to be licked as bears, to give them true perfections. They are loaden with fat and the kitchen, they are entertained in the full fruition of all the desires of their hearts; they are observed like little Kings, who are not as yet many times above five years of age and already exercise a Monarchy in the houses of their parents. Jesus Christ banished Idolatry from the world with so much sweat and blood, and it is again daily renewed, when children are set up as certain little Idols, to whom all hearts, respects hopes, fears, and homages are sacrificed. I beseech you, let us not cause them to learn that which we should make them forget; let us not accustom them to mimic affectation of words, to pomp of habits, to liberty, to pleasures. Let us attire them for the service of God, and exercises suitable to their sex and condition; and above all, let us take heed they be not poisoned by the ear, in the frequent conversation of such bad company, who seem to be born for nought else, but to infect purity.   

The eleventh SECTION. The conclusion of the discourse.  
THe Empress held ears and hearts suspended with this her discourse, when seeing the hour approach, wherein choice should be made of a wife for the Emperor her son: Behold the time (saith she) my Lord and son, when your Majesty must consign the golden Apple into the hands of her, whom you shall judge to have the best portion of those excellent qualities, which I have recited. And saying that, she caused a goodly room to be opened, whereupon one side were seen pictures of Ladies, who flourished in the more elder Ages in sanctity, in spirit, in courage, and in all virtues mentioned by us, which composed a triumphant Court. There was Sarah, Rachel, Lea, Deborah, Abigail, Susanna, Esther, Judith, Mariam, S. Agnes, S. Cecilie, S. Helena, S. Monica, S. Faelicitas, the ten Sibyls, Zenobia, Amalazunta, Placidia, Pulcheria, Eudoxia, Theodora, Marcelia, Paula, Eustochium, Victorina, Clotilda, Radegundis, and very many other, not comprising those who have flourished within these eight hundred years: which much amazed me, and made me say, that such as affirmed women of honour were so rare to be found, would perhaps have some trouble to find leaves on trees, and water in the river. All these pourtraits appeared with lights of glory in a most pleasing manner, having enchasements all enriched with precious stones. Behold, saith Euphrosina, O virgins, how precious us the memory of holy Ladies. Then turning herself to the other side, she shown with her finger the figures of such as had forsaken honour and virtue, which were pale, pensive, cloudy, and encompassed with flames, as if they came out of hell. There was Semiramis, Phedra, Thisbe, Phillis, Helen of Greece, Clytaemnestra, Cleopatra, Agrippina, Julia, Messalina, Calirrhoe, Thais, Phryne, Rhodope, Flora; and in perspective so great a quantity, that it seemed to equal the sands of the sea, not accounting those therein, who afterward had a share in their misery.  
The Emperor having observed them, entered into the room called the Pearl, where he saw so many pearls selected from all the provinces of his Empire. There was nothing to be seen but stars, lightning, and rays, so much these beauties on every side mingling their lights afforded lustre, which gave him much difficulty how to resolve. There was among others one named Icesia, a maid of much knowledge, to whom the Emperor Theophilus spoke a Greek verse, to which she replied with an admirable promptness; notwithstanding he relished not this spirit, finding it too curious for his humout: but after information taken from his eyes, his ears, and the mouths of those who bred these creatures, he gave the golden apple to one named Theodora, a Paphlagonian by Nation, whom I notwithstanding cannot think to come near her, whom I here represent for a model.    


S. CLOTILDE I.R.C.D.E.F.   
CLOTILDA.  

The first SECTION. Her Birth and Education.  
THE number of Ladies eminent in sanctity 
Ex Greg. Turonensi, Ammonio, Hincmaro, Philippo Bergonensi, Baronio, etc.  is so great, that it rebateth the point of wit to think thereon, and the virtues are so resplendent, that in the commixtion of their lights they dazzle all eyes, in such manner, that it is a hard matter to speak of it, unless we put some limits upon the discourses of so many singular subjects, who set none on their merits. And that is the cause, why out of a great number of Princesses, some of those whose names I have produced, I here undertake one, raised upon the most perfect idaeas; which is the first Christian Queen of France, I mean the most glorious Clotilda, wife of our great Clodovaeus, who verily is much bound to Heaven to have been chosen out for the advancement of the affairs of Christianity in this flourishing Monarchy, with prowesses and successes incomparable; so likewise are we tied to her in an immortal obligation, to have cast the first seeds of piety into the Court of our Kings, that it might with the more authority, enter into the souls of all their subjects.  
The good Princess like to a pearl which cometh from the salt sea, beheld herself involved almost from her birth in great acerbities and horrible confusions, from whence she arose with so much lustre, as she made of adversities the steps to the temple of glory. She was daughter of Chilperick, who contending for the sceptre against Gombaut his elder brother, King of Burgundy, with more temereity than reason, sunk down to the ground, and was forsaken by the people, whom he had excited against this his brother, who verily was a bad King. But God who giveth Sovereign's leave to reign, favouring a just cause even in the person of an evil man, gave victory to the elder. He most truly made use of his fortune; for having surprised his younger brother at the siege of a City, he caused him to lose his head on a scaffold; and not content with this murder, extended his vengeance against the wife of the deceased by an act most unworthy. For causing a stone to be tied to her neck, she was thrown into the river; and it was a great chance he had not inflicted the like upon two other virgins, the lamentable remainders of this unfortunate marriage. But beholding them as yet so young and innocent, he thought their life could not be prejudicial to his estate, and their death might be ignominious to his reputation. Behold the reason why he contented himself to shut the one of them up in a Monastery, and retained the other, which was our Clotilda, with himself, that she might be bred in his Court.  
The holy maid entereth into the Palace of her Uncle, as a sheep into a Lion's den, having no reason to repose much assurance in a man, who still had the blood of her father and mother in his hands. Notwithstanding, great is the power of virtue, when it is enchased in beauty. For this cruel Basilisk, who had an eye of blood and poison, no sooner considered the praiseworthy parts of this Princess, but that feeling himself dazzled with her aspect, and his heart softened with the innocency of this poor orphan, he instantly took compassion upon her, who never inclined to it before.  
He began to behold her with a pleasing countenance, to endear her, to wish and promise her much good. But the good creature, who could not think after so strange an affliction she was any more to pretend to greatness, and pleasures of the world, threw herself between the arms of the Cross, that there she might find those of God: and though in public she stifled the resentments of her sorrow with a discreet patience, not resisting the storm, nor striking her head against the rocks; yet in the secrecy of her retirement she daily dissolved herself into tears, and found no comfort but in the wounds of the world's Saviour.  
My God (said she to him) I adore your holy providence, which drencheth me with gall and wormwood, in an age wherein maidens of my quality accustom not to walk but on roses; perhaps you know my pride hath need of such a counterpoise, and you in all equity have done that which your wisdom thought good. Behold I have my eyes still all moistened with the blood of my father, and the body of my poor mother, which being covered with so many waves, cannot have over it one silly tear from the eyes of her daughter, which fail not every night to pour forth streaming rivers. My God, Your name be blessed eternally: I require nought else of you, but the participation of your sufferings. It is no reason I here should live without some light hurt, seeing you wounded on all sides for my example. Some have been pleased to wish me I should receive and take contentments in the hope of a better fortune; where would they have me gather those pleasures? I am yet upon the weeping shores of the river of Babylon. I fix all my consolations and songs at the feet of your Cross; promising to desire nothing more in the world, but the performance of your holy will.  
There is I know not what kind of charm in holy sadness, which cannot be sufficiently expressed, but such it is, that a soul contristated for God, when it is fallen into abysses, wherein all the world reputes it lost, findeth in the bottom of its heart lights and sweetnesses so great, that there is not any comfort in the world to be compared with them.  
Clotilda was already come to these terms: and if for obedience she had not learned to leave God for God, she had been softened with those tears by suffering herself voluntarily to slide into a lazy sorrow: but considering that whilst she was in the house of this uncle, an Arian heretic, she was bound by God to instruct with her example all those who were to be spectators of her actions, she set her hand courageously to the work, and shown herself so able of judgement in her carriage, and so regular in all her deportments, that her life became a picture of virtue, which spoke to all the world. Although she were derived from the blood of Kings, she shown to have no other nobility, but that which springs from worthy Actions. As her face was free from adulterate beauty, so her soul was exempt from those affected authorities and disdains which ordinarily grow with great fortunes. Her aspects were simple and dovelike, her words discreet, her actions sober, her gestures measured, her carriage honest, her access affable, her conversation full of sweetness and profit. She was a virgin in mind and body, living in marvellous purity of affections, and amities, which she fomented by the virtue of humility, which the Ancients esteemed to be as the wall of the garden of charity: God oftentimes suffering impurity of body to chastise the rebellion of the soul. She was so humble of heart, that she accounted herself as the meanest servant of the house, not scorning at all to apply herself to inferior offices; which she notwithstanding performed with so much majesty, that even in spinning with a distaff she seemed a Queen.  
She was marvellously wise in her counsels, prompt and agile in execution, moderate in all good successes, constant in bad, ever equal to herself. She spoke little, never slandered, envied none, did good to all the world, not pretending her own interests, expecting from God alone the character of her merit, and the recompense of her charities. She had no worldly thing in her person, and as little regarded her attires, as the dust of the earth. She knew almost but one street in the City where she dwelled, which was the same that lead to the Church. Sports and feasts were punishments to her, and she was seldom found in the company of men, unless it were some beggars, whose misery she assisted, Her whole heart went towards God, her feet to the Church, her hands to alms, her eyes to reading books of devotion, her arms to exercises and works of her sex; all her body to sacrifices and victims of her soul.  
Observe, you young maids, who read these pages, of what wood God useth to frame Saints, and that never any happeneth to produce the miracles which Clotilda did in the conversion of a Kingdom, not acting wonders of virtue in the interior of the soul.  
The King her uncle was so ravished with these precious parts, that the excess of his admiration turned into a furious jealousy; for beholding this spirit more masculine than he could have wished, and fearing lest she might be possessed by some other besides himself, he had no purpose to marry her, but kept her so straightly, that one would have said to have seen him, he was the dragon in fables, that ever stood centinel near the golden apple.  
But, oh silly humane prudence, which still rowing against the current of the providence of God, findest as many precipices in passion as thou openest snares for innoceny! This man notwithstanding all his endeavours, which went the contrary way, bred up in his house a maid, whom God had already destined to chastise his cruelty, and make, he unwitting thereof, his Sceptre tributary to a valorous husband, who was to marry Clotilda, and join the Kingdom of virtues to the force of his arms.   

The second SECTION. Clodovaeus requireth Clotilda in marriage.  
CLodovaeus King of France, a man born to make it appear what valour may produce when it is supported by piety, daily advanced his conquests among the Gauls, yet still in so many victories remained a slave to Idolatry. God was willing to win him to himself by the ways of chaste love, and by the means of a wife, which should sanctify his person and house.  
The fame of the beauty and virtues of Clotilda, which spread through neighbour Kingdoms with so sweet an odour, failed not to approach him at that time, when he was upon terms to take a wife in lawful marriage. Love, which many times surpriseth as well by the ear, as the eye, so enkindled him at the report made by his Ambassadors of the perfections of this divine maid, that he no longer retained either heart or thought, but for her. He affected what he never saw, with a love mixed with reverence, felt a more noble flame than he was wont, which scorched him with a generous passion, and excited him to require this Princess, as the type of his felicities. The difficulties proposed upon the effecting of this marriage, augmented desire in him. For he was of a vigorous spirit, who measured all by the greatness of his own courage, and resolved to break through obstacles, to crown his purposes. He addressed himself to his great favourite Arelianus, and having opened unto him the project of this marriage, would needs instantly dispatch him upon a solemn Embassage to confer with the maid, and treat with the King her uncle. This man who understood the suspicions and apprehensions of Gombaut, made it appear unto him, that the conquest of the golden fleece, and the marriage of Clotilda were almost one and the same thing; and that no access could be had to this maid, without first speaking to this bull, who threw flames and fire through his throat. Clodovaeus conjureth him to use all possible industries to satisfy his passion, assuring him he could not oblige him in any matter, whereof he would be more sensible. Aurelianus obeyeth, and taking a ring from the King's finger, with certain other Jewels to present the Lady, hastened towards Burgundy.  
I cannot here conceal, that which Baronius, the Father of Ecclesiastical History was unwilling to omit, seeing it is witnessed by good Authors, and hath nothing incredible therein, but only with such, who think it is a note of wisdom to seem very incredulous.  
We know by what hath been spoken before, that Clotilda seldom appeared in public, if it were not at Church, and cast her eyes on very few, but the poor. God made use of this disposition for her good: for Aurelianus having learned this Lady daily conversed willingly with needy persons, and that it was necessary to seem of this quality to speak unto her without suspicion, took the habit of a beggar, and as the servant of Abraham, sent by the first Father of believers, treated the loves of Isaac in requiring water of Rebecca, who was to be his future spouse; so this man managing the commission of marriage, for the prime King of the faithful, resolved to beg alms of Clotilda, to find means of access to her; and for this cause he stood at the gate of a Church among a great rabble of beggars, expecting till Mass were done, that he might see the Princess come forth. She failed not to perform acts of charity to all the poor according to her custom, and perceiving this man who seemed of a generous aspect in these miserable rags, felt her heart seized with extraordinary piety, beholding one of so good carriage reduced to such misery; and without any further enquiry she gave him a piece of gold. Aurelianus seeing this royal hand so charitably stretched out to secure a counterfeit want, whether he were transported with joy, or whether he were desirous to make himself observed by some act, he lifted up the sleeves of the Princess, which according to the fashion of robes than usually worn, covered all even to her hands, and having bared her right hand, kissed it with much reverence. Clotilda blushed hearty thereat▪ yet passed on further not showing any resentment, nor blaming the beggar as some Authors add. Well saith she in secret to an old Lady, who was her confident friend, Have you observed what this beggar did? The other replied: It was a very easy matter to note it, since this act had painted her forehead with a most lively scarlet: But yet (said Clotilda to her) what think you of it? The Lady answered smiling, What can I else think, but that your rare perfections joined to your liberality have transported him? For my part. I suppose (said the Princess) he hath some other design, and if you think good we will cause him to come to the Palace to beg alms, and thereupon take occasion to be informed of his person.  
Aurelianus failed not to entertain this commandment, which was the scope of his desire, and accordingly to pass to the place assigned him, where Clotilda beholding him sound chid him for his boldness, in lifting up the sleeve of her garment and kissing her hand. He who was a most quaint Courtier, found out his evasion, and said: The custom of his country permitted to kiss the lips of Ladies at salutation: but the happiness of his condition having abased him so low, he could not aspire to the face: Behold the cause why he contented himself with the hand, it being a thing very reasonable to kiss a hand, which is the source of so many charities, since the doors of Churches from whence we expect good, are kissed. Clotilda was much pleased with this reply, and well saw this man belied his habit by his discourse and garb. She therefore importuned to tell who he was, and from whence it proceeded that he was reduced to such misery as to beg his bread. Madam (saith Aurelianus) since your Greatness presseth me thus far, you shall know I am born of a good place, and that it, which hath brought me to this state, is nothing else but the love of a Lady, whom I court, not for myself, but for one of the greatest Princes under Heaven. The maid was very curious to know who this Prince was, as also the Lady sought unto with so much pains. Aurelianus seeing it was now time to speak to the purpose, said: The Lady is three steps from me, for indeed it is yourself. At which she began to blush again, and to show some disturbance of mind: but (quoth he) Madam, trouble not yourself, since I am in a place where I with confidence may speak unto you, your Excellency shall know I am sent by Clodovaeus King of France, my Master, who is the best Prince, and the most valiant Monarch in the whole world. The fame of your most precious and eminent qualities coming to his ear, he desireth to marry you, and hath dispatched me to give you notice thereof, and require your consent. I could have entered into the Court with some very solemn Embassage; but the difficulties the King your uncle enforceth upon you, made me resolve to take this attire, to speak to you with the more freedom. You may well assure yourself, this marriage shall make you the prime Queen of the West, and the most happy in the world; and to approve the authority of my commission, behold the ring of the King my Master, which I present unto you.  
There is not any woman so holy, who is not capable of much delight upon praises afforded her, and who doth not willingly open her eyes to greatness. Clotilda was not so insensible, as not to be touched to the quick with such an Embassage, howsoever she shown in this surprisal, she had within her a heart very faithful to God; for most freely refusing the ring, and interrupting the Ambassador: Speak no more Sir (said she) I know your Prince is a Pagan, and I a Christian: God forbidden that I ever marry an Infidel, were he the Monarch of the world. Madam, replieth the Gentleman, frame to yourself no difficulties upon the difference of Religions, my Prince is not so tied to his Sect, as not to forsake it for your love. But what means will there be said (Clotilda) to gain my uncle? I do not think he hath any purpose to marry me. The Ambassador answereth: If you give me your consent, we will find opportunity to bear you from hence. Not so (replied the prudent maid) it is a course I will never admit. Ah, why Madam? saith Aurelianus: should you do it, who would condemn your discretion? Is it a sin in your Religion to fly from the den of a furious wretch, to resign yourself into the hands of a King? We know how he used your father and mother, and how he also treateth you at this time.  
At this word the Lady poured forth some tears, and said: Do by Ambassadors all that possibly you can, and assure the King your Master, that I hold myself much honoured by the choice he maketh of me, and that he cannot be so soon for God, as I for him, at least in heart and body, when the King my uncle shall give me leave. Upon these conditions I take your ring, which I very charily will keep. All this passed very happily in a Court of the Palace, where she ordinarily spoke to the poor; interrogating them of their necessities; and none perceived there was any other business but the care of the poor, her confident friend only excepted, who had a share in the secrets of Clotilda.   

The third SECTION. The Embassage to the King of Burgundy for the marriage of Clotilda.  
AUrelianus touched Heaven with his finger, that he had so successfully thrived in his commission; and forgot not parcel-meal to relate to the King his Master all the particulars of his voyage, entertaining him above all with a curious discourse made upon the admirable beauty and singular prudence of Clotilda. Clodovaeus burnt with impatience, and would presently have taken the King of Burgundy by the beard to make him let go his hold: but wisdom adviseth him he must observe therein requisite formalities, and that it was fit to send his Ambassadors to Gombaut to require of him his niece in marriage▪ which he speedily did, appointing thereunto his faithful Aurelianus, to whom he allotted a flourishing company of Nobility; which caused such apprehensions to arise in the mind of the Burgundian; that he slept not upon it either night or day. From whence proceedeth it, said he to himself, that Clodovaeus knoweth my niece, since I have hitherto kept her so close, that she hath seen nothing, but the walls of the Church, and my Palace? Is there some eel under a rock? Would he have my estate? This French man is too harsh: I would neither have him for a son in law nor a neighbour. Besides, this maid, who hath seemed hitherto as a lamb in my house, being at my dispose, when she behold herself Queen of France, and have swords at her command, who can tell whether she will not show me her teeth, and revenge on me the blood of her father and mother? I must rather keep her immured within ten iron gates, that she may not escape my power. Behold a great act of State, which I must cunningly play.  
This man environed with such thoughts received the Ambassadors of France very slightly, and having promised with all speed to give them answer, he was wary enough not to discover all the thoughts he had thereupon: but taking the most pleasing pretext, answered, that he honoured the King Clodovaeus, as one of the most valiant Princes of that Age, and should ever account the service done him, as one of the greatest favours he could receive from Heaven: but as for this alliance which he sought, it was a matter he could not think on. First because his niece had never raised her ambition so high, as to pretend marriage with so great a King, having nothing in her person so eminent as might deserve such a husband: and although there were some equality on this side, yet was there on the other part an assential impediment, which was diversity of Religions, it being a thing unheard of for a Christian maid to marry a Pagan, nor could he permit it without betraying the salvation of his nlece, and disgracing himself through the whole world. Aurelianus, who well knew where it itched with him, replied in few words, That for the qualities of his niece he should not trouble himself, that the woman best beloved was ever best conditioned, that it was sufficient she pleased the King his Majesty, who was not ignorant of her perfections: and for the matter of Religion, which was the most considerable, he hoped the King would put on a resolution to become a Christian. The Burgundian replied, this affair was of such importance that he would not confide in successes upon hopes, which are always uncertain, but that he must see an express promise from the King of France; and thereupon dismisseth the Ambassador, thinking he had sufficiently hindered the business. But the brave Aurelianus speedily dispatched a Currier to Clodovaeus, to show unto him where the obstacle lay, and to get a promise from him to become a Christian.  
The King, who was so transported with affection, that he was on terms to refuse nothing, hastily gave the promise required of him: which being afterward presented to Gombaut by the Ambassador, it made him sweat apace; not knowing further what invention to make use off to avoid this fatal blow: notwithstanding he answered, that this marriage was of so great consequence, that it could not be decreed, but in an Assembly of his States, thinking by this trick he might dissolve the design of Clodovaeus, or draw the affairs out at length with such delays, that he should trouble all the world. But this was it which transfixed him; so far humane prudence is cunning to ruin it-self by its proper inventions. For the most active French Nobility so journing in Burgundy in the expectation of the States, sowed in the spirits of the Magistrates and people▪ the great good would enfue to their Nation by this alliance, when they should come to be all united together, as brothers: but if they once refused the request of a great Prince, so replenished with honour and courtesy, they must necessarily proceed to arms, which could not but be fatal to their Kingdom. The Burgundians, hungry after repose, very well tasted these reasons; and the prudent Clotilda spared not silently to strike her stroke, insensibly gaining the chief of the Council to follow her inclinations. Aurelianus, who had a very sharp and clear-sighted spirit, much pressed the States, nor could Gombaut make so many knots, but that he still dissolved them.  
In the end he must come to the point. The States assembled, and the King came thither with a studied speech, wherein he had heaped together with very great subtlety all the reasons which made him apprehend this alliance with the French: but God, who maketh great alterations in Kingdoms, as billows in the sea, so disposed the hearts of the Burgundians, that all allegations opposed against the design of this marriage, seemed but dreams and Chimaeraes. One of the greatest Statesmen rising up, made a long speech, and declared to the King, That the repose of his Kingdom, at which he aimed in all his discourse, consisted in this alliance: That marriages had in all times been rather the knots of peace, than incentives of war: that the comfort which might grow from such an action, would destroy all the acerbities and divisions of factious spirits: that the greatest troubles of Kingdoms had been often pacified by good alliances: that the French were become so powerful it was not fit to deny them any thing: that the request of Clodovaeus was so fair, it could not be rejected without a notable act of incivility: That there was not any beast more cruel in the world, than love changed into hatred, and that it was to be feared least entreaties of a lover might end in the fury of a conqueror: That the offer he made to become a Christian would for ever be glorious to their Nation, for furthering such a piety: That Clotilda had naturally affection for her Country, and wit enough to gain her husband, and wholly transport him to the love of her Nation: That the people were tired with so many wars, which would infallibly grow much more bloody than ever, if they slighted the faithful love of so great a Monarch.  
This man connected so many reasons one upon another, that he prevailed, and almost all came to this conclusion, that they must with all speed send the Princess to the King of France, who required her. The miserable Gombaut finding himself ruined on all sides, said he would use no obstacle; but did think it fit to observe the deportments of his niece; for she had vowed herself to God, and to enter into Religion The Ambassador understanding this last evasion, extremely laughed from the bottom of his heart, and said, if the Princess were that way disposed, the King his Master would not be so earnest in her pursuit, as to cause her to break her vow. But that it was fit she should be heard, which was done: and she being asked thereof, answered, that her devotion had never hitherto transported her so far, as to make any vow of virginity: and although she were infinitely pleased with the sweet retirement she enjoyed in the Court of her uncle, notwithstanding if it were his good pleasure to marry her to the King of France on this condition that he became a Christian, she would not be so indiscreet as to hinder it: Upon this answer of the Princess the Deputies of both Nations there present gave a loud applause, and cried out the marriage was concluded The King himself dissembling his passion forced a smile, and well saw it was high time to forgo what he could hold no longer. He disposed of her train very poorly, as a man naturally covetous, saying, His niece was too fair for him to give her so many rich attires: That the rose was sufficiently beautified with its leaves, and the sun with his rays; and that all humane arts arrived not to the perfections of nature. Aurelianus did not with much earnestness insist hereupon, so much he feared least the disposition of this man might change, and he invent some new tricks to hinder their departure. But he resolved instantly to carry this Princess away. The uncle seeing her upon her journey, began much to flatter her which he had never done before, saying:  
Go too niece, I well perceive, that notwithstanding your devotions, you are of the humour of other women, and affect glory. You are weary to abide with an uncle, you will have a husband, and needs must he be a King. Proceed I shall not be against it, let every one settle their affections where they may expect their felicity. Good daughter, you see how much I endeavour to content you, and how it being in my power to hinder this marriage, which I thought to be little advantageous to my Realm▪ yet have I been willing to cause it to be confirmed in a general assembly of my States, to render your desires the more assured. This affection, which I at this present witness, sufficiently declareth, that I for a long space have entertained most sincere and hearty affections for the good of your house. For that which passed concerning your father and mother, troubled no man so much as myself, God is my record thereof. But, dear daughter, there was a necessity in it. I must obey the advice of my Councol; such are the privileges of Empires: I could not otherwise save the repose of my people, and secure the lives of my subjects. Whensoever I shall fall into the like crime, I wish to be used in the same manner. Behold the true cause, most dear daughter, if there yet remain in you any resentment concerning this death, I suppose you are wise enough to do that herein, which the law of God ordaineth, which is to forget what is past, and not to be ungrateful for the present. If I have hitherto detained you in my Palace very retiredly, it hath been to please your humour, which I saw had sincere inclinations to devotion; and to breed you as a child of honour, which is the portion you are to carry presently with you to your husband. My well-beloved daughter, endeavour to love your Country, and to hold good correspondence with us. You submitted to my humours whilst you lived with me you now must undergo those of a husband, and in complying with them shall be most potent. Forget not the fear of God, which ever hath been a faithful companion to you from your most tender years; and let us often hear good news from you,  
In saying this he kissed her, and the virgin most humbly thanking him for so many remonstrances of affection, with promise to honour him all the days of her life, began to weep: which a Burgundian Gentleman perceiving, who was of her train, said, that so long as he lived he would never confide in the tears of woman: For were there a creature in the world which might make bonfires of joy in her heart, it was his Mistress, who on this day was delivered from the Lion's throat, to become the wife of a great King, and Queen of a vast Empire.   

The fourth SECTION. The arrival of Clotilda into France, and the life which she led in the time of her wedlock.  
NEver ship laden with gold so gladly arrived at the Haven, after so many tedious tempests, and a thousand disasters among Pirates at sea, as Clotilda seemed content to behold herself to tread on the ground, where she was to command, after so long a servitude suffered in a Palace, which had all her life time as it were served her for a prison.  
Clodovaeus expected her at Soissons, with so great impatience of love, that he would have willingly hastened the course of the sun, to measure it by his affections. When he saw this most beautiful Princess, he found she surpassed all the idaeaes he conceived of her, and that her presence far prevailed above her fame. He then embraced her most lovingly, nor could be satisfied with beholding her. For God, who was pleased to make use of this maid for the conversion of a great King, had (as it is said) varnished over the Table of this mortal beauty, and imprinted with his finger, I do not know what kind of graces and attractives, which Clodovaeus never had felt before. She as an humble Abigail cast herself at the feet of a husband, calling him her Lord and King, and protesting she entered into his Palace to live there as his most humble handmaid. The Court stood wholly rapt with admiration to behold the worthy qualities of this Princess, and took part in the contentment of their King. The people ran by heaps on all sides to see ●er; and so many poor Catholics, as were then in France, looked on her as the dawning of the day, which came to charm their cares, wipe away their tears, break their fetters, & gild the times with the lustre of her Majesty. There was nothing to be seen every where, but jousts, tournaments, sports, feasts, largesses to crown the solemnity of these great nuptials. Notwithstanding, the good Queen suffered not herself to be transported with the current of her prosperities; but that in the midst of pomps she held her eyes firmly fixed upon the many benefits she had received from God, and sought out in mind the ways she should take to testify her gratitude, and pour herself as incense upon coals towards the divine Majesty. She had one thorn in her heart, which then entered very far therein. It was, that she saw the King spoke not at all of the promise he had made to become a Christian, and that she having attempted to put him on this discourse, he subtly declined it. She knew not in what manner to speak to him of it, nor where she might make entrance into his heart.  
In the end she resolved to say unto him: Sir, I see your Majesty exerciseth at this time your liberalities towards all the world, and I would gladly partake therein, and receive a favour.  
The King thinking she would beg a gift for a Favourite, or some other person: Ask (saith he) confidently; for you must not be denied. Thereupon she replied: If your Majesty bear so sincere an affection to me, as you make show, I most humbly entreat, that on the first night of my nuptials, I enter not into the bed of a Pagan.  
Clodovaeus answered: Madam, I understand what you would say, It shall be done, but it is not yet time; suffer the fruit leisurably to ripen, and then either you shall gather it, or it will fall of itself. Alas, would you now speak to me of Baptism, and all your ceremonies? Your attractives are not so faint, as to permit me to entertain any other thoughts, than of you: all my devotion should be but of love, and my piety should have nothing but shows; but this is not it, you desire of me. Give me time to look about me, and I will advise on the means, which I will use for the accomplishment of my promise. As for the rest, you ought not to have any scruple to lie with a Pagan husband; for your law saith, as I understand, that the unbelieving husband is sanctified by a believing wife.  
The Queen doubted whether that she should entreat him to defer the nuptials at the least for some time; and deny him all conjugal company till the accomplishment of his promise; but she considered that her conscience was not interessed therein, and the law of God commanded her not to separate herself from her Pagan husband: that if she used so much cunning, it would cause of two things one, which were either to exasperate, and put him off for ever from Christianity, or make him to undertake a dissembled piety, which would still be said to have been besieged with importunities and allurements, and consequently, would never be constant. She resolved to render him all the duties of marriage, and to gain him rather by the example of a good life, and her humble prayers presented on Altars, than by any other way.  
Clodovaeus very well liked her humour in this proceeding, and well saw she was wise; which gave him occasion to honour her much the more. He was about the age of thirty years, when he married Clotilda, and as a Pagan bred up in the liberty of arms, he had not spared to use many love-dalliances; but the affection she bore to this good Queen was so great, that it razed out of his heart all other love, as the ray of the sun scattereth the shadows and phantasms of the night. The holy Lady perceiving the spirit of her husband already moved in hers, and that there was no need of power but example, so composed her manners in her marriage, that she made herself a perfect model of perfections, requisite for this estate.  
Royal Crowns lose their lustre on heads without brains, and brows without Majesty. But this Lady made it presently appear, that although her birth had not made her worthy of a Crown, nor her good fortune had afforded it, her merit alone had been of power to make her wear the best diadem in the world. She practised in the Court of a Pagan King, a strong & vigorous devotion, which was not puffed up with outward shows and vapours, but wholly replenished with wisdom. For she had a fear of God so chaste, that she apprehended the least shadows of sin as death; a love so tender, that her heart was as a flaming lamp, which perpetually burned before the Sanctuary of the living God. Her faith had a bosom as large, as that of Eternity; her hope was a bow in Heaven all furnished with emeralds, which never lost its force, and her piety an eternal source of blessings.  
She had made a little Oratory, as Judith, in the royal Palace, where she attended as much as time would permit to prayers and mortifications of flesh: abiding therein as in a fortunate Island, which made the sweetness of her immortal perfumes to mount up to heaven. Yet did she manage all her actions with singular discretion, that she might not seem too austere in the eyes of her Court, for fear weak souls might be diverted from Christianity, by observing in her carriage perfections transcendent above ordinary capacities. But all that which most passed in a common life, was done by her, and her maids, with much purity, fervour, majesty, and constancy. It was an Angelical spectacle to see her present at Mass, and dispose herself to receive the blessed Sacrament, which she very often frequented, to draw grace, and strength from its source. She honoured Priests, as Messengers descended from Heaven, as well to discharge her conscience, as to hold her Religion in much estimation among Pagans. The zeal of the houses of God, which are Churches, inflamed her with so much fervour, that she had no delights more precious, than either to cause new to be raised, or to adorn those which had been erected, so far as to make them receive radiance from the works of her royal hands. Her charity towards the poor was a sea, which never dried up, and her heart so large, that all the hearts of the miserable breathed in hers. She composed and decked herself daily before the eyes of God, putting on all virtues, as it were by nature and rich attire of Ladies, for necessity. But the King her husband she honoured, as if she had seen the Saviour of the world walking upon the earth: and not staying alone on the body, she penetrated even to the centre of this infidel soul, which she beheld with eyes of unspeakable compassion. She most particularly endeavoured to observe all his humours, and follow the motions of his heart, as certain flowers wait on the sun. All that which Clodovaeus affected, took presently an honourable place in the soul of Clotilda, if he delighted in arms, in dogs, in horses, she for his sake praised arms, dogs, and horses, regarding even the objects of the honest pleasures of her husband, as her best entertainments. Her conversation was full of charms and attractives, which ever carried profit along with them: Sometimes she sweetened the warlike humours of her husband with harmony of reason, sometimes she comforted him upon occasion of troubles, which might happen in the world: sometime she withheld very soberly, and with prudent modesty his spirit, which took too much liberty; sometime she repeated unto him certain precepts of wisdom, and practices of the lives of Saints, and worthy personages, that he might love our Religion; sometime she pleased him with an eloquent tongue, and an entertainment so delicate, that nothing might be said more accomplished. She was magnificent and liberal towards her household servants, most exactly taking notice of the faithful services they yielded to her husband, and kept her house so well united within the bands of concord and charity, that it seemed as it were a little Temple of peace. Slander, uncleaness, idleness, impudence, were from thence eternally banished: virtues, industry, and arts, found there a mansion, and the miseries of the world a safe Sanctuary: For she embraced all pious affairs of the Realm, and governed them with so much equality of spirit, that she resembled Angels, who move the Heavens, not using in themselves the least agitation. May we not very well say, this divine woman was selected out by God to a set golden face on an entire Monarchy, by the rays of her piety?   

The fifth SECTION. The prudence which the Queen used in the conversion of her husband.  
THe holy Queen brought forth a King and a great Monarch to Jesus Christ, bearing perpetually his Court, and the whole Kingdom in the entrails of her charity. She had her Sentinels day and night before the Altars, who ceased not to implore the assistance for Heaven of the salvation of her husband, and she herself often in deep silence of darkness caused her weeping eye to speak to God, and addressed many vows to all the elect for the conversion of this unbelieving soul. She very well considered, that that which oftentimes slackeneth these wavering spirits in their endeavour to find the way of eternal life, is certain interests of flesh, and blood, certain impediments of temporal affairs, some inordinate passion, which tortureth and tyrannizeth over the mind. Behold the cause why she took great care to sweeten the dispositions of her husband, calm his passions, and through a certain moral goodness facilitate unto him the way of the mysteries of our faith. This being done, she took her opportunity with the more effect, and found the King daily disposed better and better for these impressions.  
He already had the arrow very deep in his heart, and began to ask questions, proposing conditions, which shown he would one day render himself. He said to Clotilda: Madam, I should not be so far alienated from your Religion, were it not that I saw therein matters very strange, which you would have me believe by power and authotity, not giving any other reason thereof. You would have me believe, that three are but one in your Trinity, that I adore a Crucified man, and that I crucify myself in an enforced and ceremonious life, wherein I was never bred. My dearest, had I your good inclinations, all would be easy to me: but you know, that all my life time I have been trained up in arms. If I should to morrow receive your Baptism, which blotteth out all sins (according to your maxims) I were no sooner washed, but I should fear to plunge myself again into an infinity of occasions, which might daily present themselves to my understanding. Then would you threaten me with the judgement-day, and Hell, with terrors, able to over whelm my mind. Consider whether it would not be more to the purpose, to let me persevere in my Sect, therein performing all the good I may: Can you think, that for all this I should be excluded from the mercy of God, who will save all men?  
The wise Clotilda replied thereunto: Sir, I beseeth your Majesty not to flatter yourself with this specious title of mercy, for there will be none in the other world for those, who have performed it in this without profit. Now is the time, that God spareth not to stretch out his arms for your obedience; if you despise him, you will lose him without recovery. One can never do too much for eternal life; and whatsoever we suffer, Paradise may still be purchased at a good pennyworth. Alas, Sir, why do you find so many difficulties in our Religion? Think you God doth wrong in desiring to make you believe things which you cannot conceive by humane reason? It is he, who hath made the soul of man, and who accommodateth all the wheels thereof, nor is there any one of them which moveth not at his pleasure. What marvel is it, if man offer the homage of his understanding to God? If weakness submit to strength, littleness to greatness, the finite to the infinite, that which is nothing, to him who is an abyss of essence, goodness, wisdom, and light?  
If you make a promise to any of your servants, although it be unreasonable, and almost incredible, yet would you have him to believe it without reply, and that he take no other ground for this belief, but the greatness and infallible word of your Majesty. One man exacteth faith of another, though both of them are but earth and dust: and you think the Sovereign Creator of Heaven and earth is unjust, to make us believe that, which our brutish senses cannot comprehend: Is this the submission and obedience we owe Eternal Truth? Why should not I believe, that three are but one, that is to say, three persons, one only God, since I daily find my memory, understanding, and will, make but one soul? Wherefore should we scorn to adore a Crucified man? The Cross is so far from weakening my belief, that there is not any thing which more confirmeth it. For if the Saviour of the world had come, as your Majesty, to the conquest of the universe with legions, horses, treasures, and arms, he should in my opinion retain that esteem, which great Captains hold: but when I consider that by the punishment of the Cross, he hath reduced the whole world under his laws, and planted the instrument of his excessive dolours even on the top of Capitols, and the heads of Monarches, I affirm, that all is of God in such an affair, since there is nothing in it of man. Alas, Sir, if you have a faithful servant, who would suffer himself to be tormented and crucified, to make you Master of a rebellious Fort, would not you find more glory in his loyalty, than ignominy in his torments? And think you if the Eternal Wisdom having taken a humane body, and voluntarily exposed it to extreme rigour to wash our offences in his blood, and subdue the pride and curiosities of the earth to the power of Heaven, it hath done aught therein reprehensible? Have we not much more cause to adore the infinite plenty of his charities, than to dispute upon honours, which only consist in the opinion of the world? I beseech your Majesty, figure not to yourself our Religion, as an irksome and austere Law: when you have submitted to the yoke, God will afford you so much grace, that all these difficulties which you apprehend, will no more burden you, than feathers do birds. And although it should happen you after Baptism fall into some sin, which God by his grace will divert, the blood of Jesus Christ is a fountain, which perpetually distilleth in the Sacraments of the Church to wash away all our iniquities. Sir, I fear lest you too long defer to resign yourself to the many advertisements which you have received from Heaven: If you weigh the favours that God hath done to your Majesty, having set a Crown on your head at the age of fifteen years, having preserved you against so many factions, defended you from so many perils, adorned you with so much glory, honoured you with so many prosperours' successes, you shall find, he hath reason to require at this time from you, what he demandeth of your by my mouth. What know you, whether he have chosen out y●●r person to make you a pattern to all other Kings, and constitute you such in France, as Constantine hath been in the Roman Empire, which will render you glorious in the memory of men, and happy in Heaven to all eternity? Verily, Sir, if you yield not yourself up to my words, you ought to submit to the blood of so many worthy Martyrs, who have already professed this faith in your Kingdom: you ought to submit to so many great Confessors, as knowing as Oracles, of as good life as Angels, who denounce truth unto you. You ought to submit to miracles, that are every day visibly done at the Sepulchre of great S. Martin, which is an incomparable treasure in your Kingdom.  
Sweetheart (answereth the King) say no more, you are too learned for me, and I fear lest you should persuade me to that, which I have no desire to believe; and although you had convinced my soul to dispose it to this belief, think you it would be lawful for me so soon to make profession of your faith? You see I am King of an infinite people, and have ever at my commanda great Nobility, who acknowledge no other Gods but those of the Country. Do you believe that all spirits are so easy to be kerbed, and that when I shall go about to take a strange God, will it not make them murmur, and perhaps forge pretexts to embroil something in my Kingdom? For Religion and the State are two pieces, which mutually touch one another very near; one cannot almost stir the one without the other: the surest way is not to fall upon it, and to let the world pass along as our predecessors found it.  
Clotilda well saw this apprehension was one of the mainest obstacles of his salvation, and she already had given good remedy thereunto, practising the dispositions of all the greatest of the Court. Behold the cause why she most stoutly replied thereunto:  
Sir, it is to apprehend fantasies, to form to yourself such imaginations? You are a Prince too absolute, and too well beloved to fear these commotions, but rather much otherwise, I assure you upon mine honour, your people are already much disposed to receive our Religion; and your Nobility, which hath sufficiently understood the vanity to Idols, expecteth nought else but your example to embrace Christianity: Nay, if need were to penetrate rocks, and cut through mountains to gain success for such an enterprise, your travels would therein be very well employed, nor is it fit you fear to lose earth to purchase Heaven. But all the facility is in your own hands, the grape, which you said was not yet ripe almost five years since, is now mature and it is necessary you gather it.  
These words oftentimes presented upon occasions, had quickly a marvellous power over the mind of Clodovaeus, and the iron began in good earnest to wax soft in the fire. For he honoured Churches, and used ecclesiastics with a quite other respect than he accustomed, whereof he gave a most evident testimony in the business which passed with S. Remigius.  
The History saith, the soldiers of Clodovaeus for raging the Country in their liberty of arms, had pillaged in the Church of Rheims a goody and large vessel of silver to pour water into; at which the good Bishop being somewhat troubled, for the reverence he bore to all that which appertained to his Ministry, he sent his Commissaries to the King to make Complaint thereof, which was not lost. For Clodovaeus commanded them to come to Soisson, where division should be made of the booty had been taken from all parts, which was done; and they coming to unfardle all these pilferies, the King, being there present in person, found the vessels, which he presently commanded to be restored to the Commissaries of the Church: but a soldier becoming obstinate thereupon, and much displeased that so goodly a piece should escape his hand, gave a blow with a halberd upon it to cleave it asunder; which Clodovaeus for that time dissembled, fearing to proceed to a reasonable chastisement with any passion: but afterward seeing this fellow much out of order, How? saith he, is there none but you that grow mutinous, and yet are the worst armed of all the troops? And saying so, he took the halberd out of his hand, and threw it to the ground; the other stooping to take it up again, felt a furious blow from the hand of the King, which bereft him of life, in punishment of his temerity.  
The Queen understanding this news, held it a good presage of his conversion, and that which much more confirmed her in this hope was, that being delivered of a goodly son, she obtained leave of the King it might be Christened; which she specdily did: but the infant stayed not long after his baptism, to forsake an earthly Crown, to take in Heaven a diadem of eternal glory.  
Yet Clodovaeus found some slackness in his good purposes, and child the Queen, as being too vehement to dispose all the world to her own Religion, saying, this Baptism might very well have procured hurt to the health of the child; but she replied, that life and death were in the hands of God; that this child was not so much to be lamented for having so suddenly changed from the life of a fly, to that of Angels, but that the Saviour of the world, who holdeth in his hand the keys of fruitfulness could bless their royal bed with a fair issue, when he thought good; and that we should not be amazed at the death of so frail a creature, nor attribute the cause thereof to Baptism, which operateth nothing but good. She knew so well how to excuse her act, that being the second time delivered of a male child, Baptism was as well conferred on this as the former; after which it deceased; whereat the King offended more than ever, blamed her very sharply, saying, that he from this time forward well saw these waters of Baptism were fatal to the death of his children and that she should take heed how at any time to open her mouth to obtain of him such like liberty.  
She endowed with a constant heart, and having taken very deep roots in faith, made an answer worthy of her piety, saying to her husband: Ab, how Sir? What if God hath thought me unworthy ever again to have any issue by my child-beds, were it not reason I adore his holy Providence; and kiss the rods of his justice? I humbly beseech your Majesty not to cast upon the baptism of Christians that, which you should rather attribute to my sins.  
The King all enraged with choler, was so edified with this word, that from this time forward he retained it in memory with much admiration, not being able to wonder enough at the great courage and modesty of his wife.   

The sixth SECTION. The Conversion of Clodovaeus.  
IT is to sail without stars, and to labour without the Sun (saith Origen) to think of coming to God without a particular grace of God. After so many humane speeches redoubled one upon another, the Holy Ghost, worker of all Conversions, spoke with a voice of thunder to the heart of Clodovaeus in the midst of battles, and caused him to settle upon this resolution, which he had pondered the space of many years.  
The occasion was, that the Suevi, a people of Germany, passed the Rhein with great forces, commanded by many Kings, who were personally in the army, and came to rush on the Gauls, with intention to destroy the beginnings of the French Monarchy. Clodovaeus, having received news of this preparation, speedily opposeth them with good troops: for he likewise had drawn together to his aid the Ribarols, people near bordering on the Rhein, who were allied to the French, and had first of all given notice of the enterprise of the Suevi, who in a near degree threatened them.  
The encounter of the two armies was at Tolbial near Cullen, which verily was one of the most desperate, that is found in Histories. The King undertook the conduct of the Cavalry, and had given to Prince Sigebert his kinsman, the Infantry. All of them were extremely inflamed to show themselves valiant in this conflict. Clodovaeus, who proceeded to lay the foundations of a great Monarchy, wherein he would have no companion, thought he must either triumph or be lost. His allies, who were interessed very far in this war, failed him not in any kind. The Almans on the other side had an extreme desire to extend their conquests, and thought their fortune depended on the success of this battle. There was nothing but fire, tempests, deaths, & slaughters, so great was the resistance on either side. In the end, Sigebert valiantly fight, was wounded with an arrow, and born all bloody out of the battle by his son. The Infantry, through the absence of their Colonel, was defeated and put to rout. All the burden of the battle fell upon the Cavalry, which did marvellous exploits, fight before the eyes of their King: but in the end, the shock of enemies was so impetuous, that it broke through, and scattered them. Clodovaeus bare himself like a Lion covered with blood and dust, among the ranks of those affrighted men, cried out with a loud and shrill voice, to rally their troops, he in the mean time fight in his own person, and withal performing the duty both of a great Captain, and valiant soldier. But notwithstanding all his endeavours, terror had so seized on these flying men, that the affair grew desperate.  
And as remedies are sought from Heaven when those of the earth are of no effect, Aurelianus the great favourite of the King approaching near to his Master, persuadeth him to make a vow unto God, to fulfil the promise he had made to the Queen his wife, which was, to be baptised, if he returned victorious from this battle: which he did, calling aloud upon the God of his wife, and promising an absolute conversion to the Catholic faith.  
The word was no sooner spoken, but that his troops rallied themselves up, made head against their enemies, pursued them, ran through, and routed them with so great a massacre, that the fields were all covered with dead bodies. The discomfiture so terrified them on the other side of the Rhein, that the Almans which survived, fearing lest the King puffed up with his victories, might pass the river, dispatched a speedy Ambassador unto him, to yield themselves tributaries to his Majesty.  
Clotilda hearing the news of this battle, and of the holy resolution of her husband, was transported with so great joy, that she went out to meet him as far as Champagne, accompanied with the great Archbishop S. Remigius, a man whom God was pleased to make use of to crown this great work of the salvation of Clodovaeus. For besides his admirable sanctity, acknowledged throughout all France, he had the reputation to be one of the most able and eloquent men of his time; witness Sidonius Apollinaris, who speaketh 
Sidon. Apollinar. ep. 7. c. 9 Flumen in verbis, lumen in clausulis.  of his eloquence with admiration, saying, He thought there was not a man living upon the face of the earth, whom S. Remigius surpasseth not, without any elaborate study at all, through the experience he had acquired of well speaking. His conceptions were inimitable, his language so sweet and polite, that it resembled a piece of ice very smooth, whereon nothing might be seen unequal. His sentences were full of weight, his arguments of force, and his words glided along like a river, and ever bare in them some flashes of lightning at the end of his periods.  
So soon as the King, who was still replenished with sweet idaeaes of his victory, saw the Queen his wife, It is now Madam (saith he) that you have gained: Clodovaeus triumpheth over the Almans, and you triumph over Clodovaeus. The deed is done, my Baptism must no longer be deferred. The Queen infinitely comforted with this word, answereth: Sir, To the great God of Hosts is due the glory of these two triumphs; and your Majesty doth most wisely to render him with the first opportunity what you have vowed. That man giveth doubly, who affordeth readily. Behold one of the greatest Prelates of your Kingdom, whom I have brought along to serve your Majesty in an affair of such importance.  
Thereupon Saint Remigius was presented, whom the King most honourably entertained, and signified he much desired to be rectified by his good instructions: whereat the holy man exceedingly rejoicing for the good which he hoped to derive from thence, made him on the day assigned a Sermon of the knowledge of God, and of the glory of Christianity, against the vanity of Idols, so ravishing, that it transported the King, and all his Court, who ceased not afterward to confine himself to the lips of Saint Remigius; as to a stream of living waters. It is true that S. Vedaestus, who was afterward Bishop 
Anno Christi 499. Clodovaei 15.  of Arras, had already begun to catechise Clodovaeus: but as these holy men pretended nothing but the interests of God, not having regard to any thing which touched their own persons, he most willingly gave way to the dignity of an Archbishop, and to the great ability of a man accounted as an Oracle, contenting himself to assist S. Remigius, and to contribute in this action all which his ministry and service might afford.  
This King going to Rheims disposed himself religiously to receive Baptism under the direction of this Prelate, daily harkening with singular attention unto the instructions of faith, and informing himself with much judgement in all that, which was necessary for his salvation. It is written among other 
Chronic●● manuscription.  things, that when S. Remigius came to explicate the mystery of the passion unto him, he was much moved thereat: so that transported with a generous impatience, he put his hand to his sword, and spoke aloud in anger, That had he with his French been present in the place where this act was committed against his Master, he would have revenged it, with the utmost ability of his forces. The holy Prelate sweetened his warlike humours, and made him capable of every mystery, using therein much endeavour and great perspicuity of discourse. After these instructions, they proceeded to Confession, and ordinary penances, wherein the King shown so much devotion, that laying aside the purple robe and Crown, he covered himself with ashes, imploring the mercy of God in his most fervent prayers.  
When the day of Baptism came, which was the Eye of Easter, Saint Remigius caused the Church of Rheims to be excellently adorned, as the custom of those times would permit, commanding it to be hanged with the richest pieces of tapestry he could find, to be perfumed with sweet odours, and lightened with a great quantity of wax lights, composed of certain perfumes, which rendered a delicate splendour, in such manner, that Saint Gregory of Tours saith, this place resembled a little terrestrial Paradise.  
Some while before the Baptism, the King and Queen sitting with S. Remigius, in the Oratory of S. Peter, attended by few persons of note, behold there came on a sudden a most resplendent light, which appeared unto the eyes of all the world, with rays so sparkling, that scarcely it might be endured; and at the same instant was heard from Heaven a voice, which said, Peace be with you, fear nothing, persevere in my love. This was the time when the new Constantine set forward towards holy Baptism; where being arrived in the presence of all the world, S. Remigius spoke to him these words: Mitis depone colla Sicamber; Adora quod incendisti, incende quod adorâsti. Bow thy neck (O French man) under the yoke of God; Adore that which you have burned, and burn what you adored.  
Thereupon pronouncing his profession of faith, 
Omnipotentem Deum in Trinitate confessus. Gregor. Turon.  and especially that which concerned the mystery of the holy Trinity, he was baptised, In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  
The hand of God, that is not shortened, and which being the Workmaster of nature, operateth when it pleaseth him above nature, useth to honour with some great miracles, the foundations of Religion in certain places, where it is planted. Here he was pleased to consecrate the Kings of France, and the whole Realm to his Majesty, to derive from hence an infinite number of services: and as those great Kings are the first of the Church, and the most perfect images 
In bapismate ejus Angelus ampullam sacri Chrismatis detulit. Vide Morum. de sacris unctionibus l. 2. c. 7. Clemens quartus, alias Guido, scripsit in Jus .  of the Divinity among all Monarches, especially when they declare themselves imitators of the piety of Clodovaeus, so God was willing to renew at their consecration, the wonders he did at the Baptism of his Son, to the end the workmanship might have conformity with its model: for he caused a dove visibly to appear, which bore in her beak the holy Viol, filled with the unction wherewith Clodovaeus and his successors were afterward anointed.  
It is a thing so authentical, that it is rather to be reverenced than disputed: the memory thereof is still preserved in the Epitaph, set over the ashes of Clodovaeus in the Church of S. Genevofue of Paris, which saith, this dove was an Angel; in S. Thomas in the second book of the institution of Princes; in Clement the fourth in his questions and so many other Authors, that it were to do a thing already done, to distend myself any further upon this subject.  
Others have added, That the flower-de-Iuces 
Ita Savarus in Tractatu de sanctitate Regis Ludovicit  were brought at the same time by the help of an Angel, to be set in the arms and Scutcheons of the Kings of France: but that is not well proved. I should rather believe, that the lilies were the Symbol of the Gauls, as the balm of Judea, long time before Clodovaeus: For there are yet certain medals found stamped in the time of the Emperor Ad●tan, who was little above one hundred years after our Saviour Christ, whereon the figure of a Gaul was to be seen, form as an honourable Lady, which seemed to hold in her hand a flower-de-luce, offering it to the Emperor, and yielding thanks for its preservation by this title, engraven on the same coin, RESTITUTORI GALLIAE. I cannot likewise understand, who is that Cilurus cited by Monsieur Capet, in his plead of Rights and Liberties, that maketh mention of a rod sprinkled with flower-deluces, which then appeared in Heaven, to witness the Kings of France should be the true defendours of the Catholic Church.  
We have no want of true miracles nor need we go about to entertain ill grounded fantasies: they who desire to establish false things, gain nought else upon the credulity of humane spirits, but to make truth to be doubted.  
That which I find in this Baptism most probable, is, that Clodovaeus was baptised with his children, his sisters, and more than three thousand Cavaliers, Captains, soldiers, and other Courtiers, not numbering women, and little children; and which is more, the King made an Edict so favourable for Christian Religion, that being published, it converted to the faith almost all the rest of the French Nation, in such sort, that every where there was nothing to be seen, but burning of Idols, and erecting of Altars.  
The admirable Clotilda, who had so long time sighed after this most happy day, being wholly absorbed in reverence and thanksgiving rendered to God, beheld herself crowned with so many thousands of children: and if those women of the old Testament for a slender carnal race, sung Canticles of triumph, what might this Lady both say and do, who, after her coming into France, saw the face of a Monarchy absolutely changed, the Kingdom of God established, and so many souls arranged under the banner of our Saviour, who was pleased so powerfully to make use herein of her prayers and industry?   

The seventh SECTION. What Clodovaeus did by the persuasion of Clotilda after his Baptism.  
THe holy woman daily building upon her foundations, ceased not to dispose her husband to all the holy and glorious actions, which she could think on, that he might in some sort answer the favours he had received from the Divine Majesty. She caused him to bend his affections to the embellishing and enriching of Churches; which he did, beginning with that of Rheims, with so much magnificence, that S. Remigius, who was of a noble and generous courage, had much ado with himself to take all which the King was willing to give: humbly beseeching his Majesty he would apply his liberalities to other places that had more need thereof.  
Thereupon he disposed himself to build the Church of the Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul, whom he honoured as the Fathers of Christianity. It is now delicated to S. Genovefue of Paris; which the King and Queen afterward chose out for the place of their sepulchres.  
One cannot too much glorify this holy place, which hath been as the cradle of the piety of Clodovaeus; and it is a most manifest blessing from Heaven, that it fell into the hands of that sage and religious Prelate, the Lord Cardinal of Rochefaucault, who by his zeal (a most powerful alchemy) daily changeth the bricks and mortar into marbles and gold: and not content with dead stones, hath assembled the living in so many good Religious men, there eternally to praise the greatness of God; and of this heavenly Virgin, Patroness of the place. He could not better serve our great King, than by so preciously honouring the ashes of the first most Christian Prince, and of his holy spouse Clotilda, to tie their protection to his standards.  
In the third place, the blessed woman very deeply impressed in the soul of her husband, the devotion of S. Martin, in such sort, that in all his most thorny affairs he had a singular recourse to this great Apostle of France, making there many vows, and sometimes praying prostrate at his tomb, with the fervour of an incredible piety.  
From whence also proceeded, that not satisfying himself with giving large donatives to his Church, he treated the whole Diocese with marvellous reverence; forbidding his troops when they marched upon any exploit, to take aught else in those precincts, but salt and herbs. Which was so straight observed, that he caused a soldier to pass through the pikes, who had taken hay from a Countryman, saying it was herbs.  
Moreover, to imitate in all eminency the piety of great Constantine, he procured a national Council to be held at Orleans: where he witnessed much respect to the Prelates assembled in that place to decide Ecclesiastical affairs, writing unto them a notable 
Baron. tom. 5. anno 514.  letter, by which he confirmed the rights and immunities of the Church, according to the form of ancient Canons.  
In the end Pope Hormisdas, coming to succeed Symmachus in the holy See, Clodovaeus was the very first dispatched Ambassadors unto him, with a very beautiful Crown, surnamed the Realm.  
It hath been a custom very ordinary in all times, to offer Jewels and Crowns to Altars, in grateful acknowledgement towards the Divine Majesty. So Constantine tendered his Diadem to the Saviour of the world, which is yet at this time to be seen hanging over the Altar of Saint Sophia. So did Mauritius, so Henry the Emperor at Clunie, who made offer to the Church of a World, all over diversified with most exquisite precious stones.  
This is the cause, why the King sent this present, 
Flodoardus Philippus Bergomensis. Savaro. p. 15. de pietate Regis Ludovici.  as the History expressly mentioneth, to be hanged up before the chief Altar of Saint Peter at Rome, in token of the offer he made to God of his person and estate, as the eldest Son of the Church. And he that would well consider the foundation of the History, shall find this Diadem, called the Kingdom or Realm, was a kind of crown come from Constantinople: For it is said, that the Emperor Anastasius, who sought support from the favour of the King of France, against the Goths that swayed in Italy, understanding the great feats of arms done by our Clodovaeus, sent a solemn Embassage unto him, to congratulate, and offer him the title of an honourable Consul, the purple robe, and the Crown, which the Grecians of this time called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
Clodovaeus very gladly entertained this Embassage, and shown himself attired with those ornaments in the Church of S. Martin, where he made a largess of gold and silver: then acknowledging all these prosperities came to him from God after he was baptised, he consecrated this rich jewel, which had been presented to him by the Emperor, in the chief Church of Christendom, to serve as an eternal monument of his Religion. Behold how this illustrious Monarch began at that time to manifest the marks of his zeal, and to cement together the good intelligence which France afterwards had with the Pastor and spiritual Father of the whole world.  
I am bound to touch this as I pass along with all sincerity, being naturally an enemy of these questions which are many times moved with too much fervour and inconsideration, in the point of contestations of the jurisdiction of Sovereign authorities. We are learned enough, when we know that Jesus Christ, who had the source of power in himself, distributed it to Popes and Kings: constituting the one for spiritual government, the other for temporal. It is his pleasure we honour the character of his authority both in the one and other, and not to argue upon fantasies. God hath set them over out heads to admire their lusts, and not to control their power.  
Amongst the follies of Nero, it is reported that one day beholding a space of land, which separated two seas, and held them in excellent order, he had a desire to cut it, that these two seas might encounter, and himself see what countenance they would carry, when they commixed together. Take you good heed (saith the Oracle unto him) otherwise they will overflow to drown you. Leave matters as God hath appointed, and confound not the limits of nature. It is true, Ecclesiastical and civil power are two great seas, God hath limited and divided them by the interposition of spiritual and temporal administration: Both exercise their functions, and live in fair peace. God preserve us from those miseries, which may dis-mantle the wall, and cause them to intermingle together, so that we may behold the world in a deluge of calamities.  
To what purpose is all this? The Sun doth not the work of the rain, nor the rain of the Sun. Constantine 
Communis Episcopus corum que extra exclesiam.  said the Bishops were Bishops in their Churches, in that which concerneth Religion, and God had appointed him for the government of his Empire in matters temporal. Let us rest in these limits, Give we to Caesar, that which belongeth to Caesar: to God what appertaineth to God. We have better learned to live than dispute, and our Ancestors have preserved a Monarchy so flourishing, the space of twelve hundred years, not with disputations and unprofitable wranglings, but with the arms of wisdom, obedience, and courage.  
We have always rendered to the Pope the honour 
1 Pet. 2. Sub diti estote omni human● creaturae propter Deum, sive Regi quasi praecellenti, sive ●ucibus tamquam ab co missis.  he deserveth, as to the Sovereign Pastor of the Universal Church which is under Heaven. We have confessed, and do acknowledge the King true and absolute Monarch in the government of temporal things, singularly honouring him, and with most cordial affections loving him, as an animated pourtraictute of the greatness of the Divine Majesty. God thereupon maketh us to prosper and taste by experience, that there is no science more noble than obedience, nor any felicity, but the accomplishment of the will of the sovereign Master. On the contrary, it is observed in the History of so many Ages, that the wounds from Heaven have on all sides fallen upon those, who have sought to cast the apple of discord into the house of God: The wind blown from their mouthe● returned on their heads, since it is fit iniquity should first kill itself with its own poison.   

The eighth SECTION. The good success which God gave to Clodovaeus after he became a Christian.  
CLodovaeus was no sooner become a Christian, but that it seemed God had tied to his arms some secret virtue, which made him triumph over his enemies, and crown all his erterprises with most glorious successes.  
The first war he undertook after his Baptism, was against Gombaut King of Burgundy, of whom we have very amply spoken heretofore. I much wonder at certain Authors, who measuring the affections of Saints, with the weaknesses of their own spirits, and esteeming it a sweet glory to be revenged upon enemies, from whom some notable injuries are received, have said, that Clotilda excited her husband to the ruin of her uncle, to derive an account from him of the death of her father and mother. This is too inferior a conceit of a Lady, who was arrived to so high a degree of perfection: nay, it was so much otherwise, that she should enkindle the fire of this war, that Gombaut being in the full possession of Clodovaeus to bereave him of life, she withheld the fatal blow, & afterwards seeing he by his ill deportment had lost his Kingdom, she did all that possibly she might to preserve a part thereof for Sigismond, son of Gombaut her cousin-germane.  
That which first of all ruined this unhappy King 
Paul. Emil.  of Burgundy, was his heresy, which drew upon him the vengeance of God: for it being often preached unto him, and he convinced by reasons, offering himself in private to become a Catholic, yet still retained Arianism in public. Behold the cause, why he having divided his heart, God divided his Kingdom.  
The second cause of his ruin was his nature, cruel and covetous, which rendered him uncivil, and an enemy of all order. He sent his Niece as it were in anger to Clodovaeus, giving her not any thing in marriage, but many compliments: Whereupon the King making sundry remonstrances, and afterwards complaints, he neglecting both the one and the other, and answering the Ambassadors, sent to treat with him very perversely, he resolved to make war upon him.  
Add hereunto, that having already put two of his brothers to death, he tyrannised over the third, who to get shelter from the tempest, had recourse to the King of France, who was no whit displeased to take this occasion to possess himself of the Kingdom of Burgundy, which he saw to be very fit for him. Gombaut having learned that▪ Clodovaeus armed in good earnest against him, would needs flatter his brother, whom he had before much exasperated, to win him to his party: but he playing the fox against a fox, having given him fair promises, turned his back towards him, and yielded to the French with all his troops.  
The Burgundian affrighted, fled, and cast himself upon the Rhosne, until such time that he was shut up in Avignon, where Clodovaeus desperately pursued him, pressed him, and thrust him upon extremities: so that the least word of Queen Clotilda, had been sufficient to take away his life. But the King contained himself both for the respect he bore to his wife, whom he well knew not to be delighted with the blood of her allies, and for the discretion which Arredius a Counsellor of Gombaut used toward him. The vanquished King yielded to all the conditions proposed by the Conqueror, so far as to become tributary to France.  
Afterwards the troops of Clodovaeus being retired, this man full of gall and bitterness against Godegisilus his brother, who had levied arms against him, besieged him in Vienna, contrary to all promises made to Clodovaeus, and having surprised him, slew him in the Church with his own hand: which was an act so barbarous, and only worthy of a man abandoned of all sense of Religion. This cruelty was the cause that Clodovaeus returning back again, entered into Burgundy, and possessed himself thereof, to punish the exorbitances of a man, who was as outrageous to offend those who might hurt him, as unable to resist the justice of arms raised against him.  
There remained nothing for him in this shipwreck, but an ignominious and miserable life, which God oftentimes inflicteth for punishment of brother-slayers, as he did to Cain; which he finally ended in Arianism. The holy Clotilda (as I said before) taking pity of the issue of this wicked father, employed all her endeavours to preserve for Sigismond the title of King, and some competent remainders of a fortune, horribly dis-membered by the evil manage of this Prince, blinded with error and impiety.  
From thence, Clodovaeus transferred his arms into Aquitaine, where he had business enough to deal with Alaricus King of the Visigoths. But as I undertook not in this Treatise to enlarge upon the wars of Clodovaeus, nor on his singular valour, but as it may be considered to correspond with the piety he received from Clotilda, I remit the Reader to the 
See Monsieur du Pleix.  History of France: contenting myself to observe two or three passages of the Divine Providence over King Clodovaeus in this war. The first was, that having resolved to turn his arms against this Goth, who drew into his Territories all the enemies of France, and who was an Arian heretic, most inhumanely used the Catholics, which were in his power; he endeavouring to decline this blow, used many wiles to surprise his adversary, and murder him if he could, under colour of emparlance and amity. Clodovaeus notwithstanding, shielded by the powerful hand of God, was delivered from his practices, and although the other was supported by King Theodorick, who was his father-in-law, his countryman, and leagued with other Kings, our brave Monarch replenished with the confidence he had in the cause of God, as one who intended to cut off the root of the Arian heresy, which budded forth in France, courageously marched in the face of the enemy, and with so much speed prevented him, that he rather seemed to have the conduct of an army of eagles than soldiers.  
A second testimony of the faithful love of Heaven, appeared in wonders, which served for a presage of the near approaching victory. The one was, that the King, according to his customary piety, having appointed some men of purpose to offer up his vows at the feet of Saint Martin, they entering into the Church to perform their devotions, heard by good chance the Choir of Choristers, who sung out aloud this versicle of the seventeenth Psalm: Praecinxisti me Domine virtute ad bellum: supplautasti insurgentes in me subtus me. Lord, thou hast engirted me with force and valour for the war: Thou hast cast under me all those, who were raised against me: which being related to the King, he thereupon conceived good success, and setting forward on his way, as he entered into Poictiou, there was seen to issue out of the Church of S. Hilary of Poitiers, a great brand of fire, like unto that flaming pillar which heretofore led the chosen people through so many dreadful wildernesses; in such sort, that it seemed this great S. Hilary, who had heretofore been a light both for the East and West against heretics, enlightened still on the top of the place, where he had been reverenced, a burning Pharos, to illuminate the conquests of a Prince, who hastened to do that with the keen sword, which he had formerly acted with the sharp dint of the tongue. In the end, coming upon the brink of a river swollen up, where he knew not how to find a ford, which much stopped the course of his enterprise, behold a Hind roused with the noise of the Army, took the river in sight of the French, in a place where it was passable, and shown them the way, who prosperously followed. The King encouraged by so many prodigies, encountereth with Alaricus, and gave him battle very roughly, fortune holding the victory in balance about six or seven hours, until the French, animated by the good example of their King, renewed their forces with loud out-cries, and broke with all violence through the files of the Goths. Clodovaeus, who had the flame of a generous vigour, burning perpetually in his heart, much desired to meet with King Alaricus, when perceiving him in the midst of the conflict, he set forward to encounter him. The other already contemned by his own Goths, for having heretofore refused the combat, and seeing his Army in disorder, became valiant in his despair, and put on a resolution, either to vanquish his enemy, or to wash away the stains of his dishonour with his blood. He withdrew himself from the main of his Cavalry, and marcheth on towards Clodovaeus. The soldiers stood still on both parts at this great duel of two Kings. They came to handy strokes in the head of two Armies, and charged one another bravely, being a very long time bloodily bend to battle: but in the end Alaricus felt the thunder, which proceeding from the victorious hand of his adversary, threw him down half dead in the list of combat. Clodovaeus quickly alighted from his horse, to rid him of life; and being about to mend some defect in his cuirass, he was treacherously assaulted by two Goths: but he, having dispatched his adversary, defended himself from both these, and mounted up again on his horse, whom he made to curvet in a martial manner, demeaning himself so bravely in all, that he seemed to be as it were a flash of lightning, sent from the hand of God, rather than a man.  
This defeat ruined the hopes of the Goths, and cut off all the designs of heresy, which subsisted not but by their favour. From thence Clodovaeus marched all covered over with laurels into the Countries of his conquests, with so much good success, that being before the City of Angoulesm, which made show of resistance, the walls miraculously fell down, as did heretofore those of Jericho, he having, by the advice of Apronius his Chaplain, caused some holy relics to be lifted up, whereunto he dedicated a singular devotion.  
What need we here make mention of the adventures which he had with the King's Chararic and Ragvachairus, whom he defeated as it were without blows? This man went every where as confidently, as one who seemed to have a Guard of celestial Virtues by his side: his hands were fatal to purge the earth from many infidel Princes, that infected it with heresy, tyrannies, and sacrileges. Who can but wonder, that in so short a time he extended his Empire from Rhine to Seine, from the river of Loire to Rosne, and from the Pyrenei to the Ocean? Who can but admire, that he was so feared by all the Monarches of his Age, as the Grecians, who have written 
Suidas. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  after that time under the title of King, intended for the more excellency, to speak only of the King of France? Who will not highly esteem his great authority, in that he first of all stamped golden coin, which the Emperors had always forborn through extreme jealousy, causing the marks of his faith to be impressed on this money? And who can sufficiently marvel, that having at his death left four sons to succeed him, he hath besides been followed by seven and fifty Kings, who constantly rendering themselves imitators of his belief, have likewise shared with him in his felicity?  
I demand of you whether one must not become blind, deaf, and dumb, not to see, understand, nor declare, that all the happiness and prosperity of France is inseparably tied to the piety of our Ancestors, since the hand of God, thundering and lightning at the same time upon so great a number of Diadems of heretical Kings, as of Gombaut, Godemar, Chilperic, Godegisilus, Alaricus, and in the end on Theodorick himself, led Clodovaeus by the hand through so many smoking ruins, so many swords, and such flames, to establish him with all his posterity in a Throne, whereunto the great Saint Remegius hath promised an eternity of years, so long as it should remain cemented with the same faith and religion, which first of all consecrated the Lilies to the service of the Divine Majesty?  
The holy Clotilda, amongst all these conquests of her husband, lifted her innocent hands up to Heaven, to apply the forces of the Saviour of the world to his Royal banners. In the end, having drawn him to Paris, after so many bloody wars, and sweetened the extravagancies of his nature, a little too violent, propending to excesses of cruelty, she caused him to taste in his repose, devotion and justice, in such sort, that having closed up his eyes in the exercises of piety, she interred him with a most honourable reputation. 
V Kal. Dec. Depositio magni Regis Clodovaei. Du Pleix.  There is yet to be found an old Calendar of the Church of S. Genovefue, which maketh mention of the day of his death, on the seven and twentieth of November.   

The ninth SECTION. The life of Clotilda in her widowhood: her afflictions and glorious death.  
CLotilda vehemently desired to bring forth male children, for the establishment of her State, and though this affection seemed to be most just, notwithstanding God, who purgeth all the elect in the furnace of afflictions, found a rough Purgatory for this good soul, in the enjoying her desires. She had sons, as she wished, whom she endeavoured with all her power to breed in the fear of God, whilst she might bow them: but these children, who tasted too much of the warlike humours of the father, and had not enough of the piety of the mother, being arrived to an age wherein it was not possible any longer to restrain them, they fell into many terrible extravagancies, which transfixed the heart of the mother with a thousand swords of sorrow.  
It happened that Sigismond, the cousin-germain of Clotilda, for whom she had procured the Kingdom of Burgundy, after the death of his wife, by whom he had a son named Sigeritus, suffered himself to be surprised with the love of a Lady waiting in Court, whom he afterward married, to the great heartburning of the son, who could not endure to see her clothed with the spoils of his mother.  
This stepdame being drawn from servitude and wantonness, to enter into the bed of a King, beholding herself crossed in her loves by this Heir of the house▪ conceived so much gall and rage against him, that she prepared a most fatal calumny for his ruin, accusing him to have a plot upon the life of his father. Sigismond, who was of an easy nature, stirred up with love and ambition, quickly believed this shameless creature: and after he had called this poor young man to dinner, under colour of affection, he commanded him in his sleep to be strangled by the hands of his servants. But the miserable man, delivered out of the gulf of his passion, and seeing himself defiled with an act so black and wicked, publicly confessed his sin, and for it performed a most austere penance: but God, who ordinarily blotteth out the crime, not forgiving the pains and satisfactions due to his justice, deprived him of Sceptre and life, by the hands of his allies, raising up a sharp revenge, to give to such like an eternal horror of his iniquity.  
The children of Clodovaeus, who had already shared the Kingdom of their father, were not yet satisfied, but desired to advance the limits of their division, as far as the point of their lance might extend. Behold the cause why Clodomer, who was the eldest of the legitimate, seeing the Kingdom of Burgundy in this danger, entereth thereinto with great forces, and found little resistance; Sigismond being formerly convinced by his crime. Having possessed himself of the places most important, he took the miserable King, and led him away prisoner to Orleans; to dispose of him according to his pleasure. But Godimer, the brother of Sigismond, who had retired to the mountains, while the French made all this notable havoc, returned with a great power, and having slain the French Garrisons, made himself Master of the Kingdom. Clodomer understanding this defeat, became so furious, that he caused the head of his prisoner to be cut off, with his wife and children by his second marriage, commanding, through extremity of cruelty, to throw the body into a ditch, which was executed. Nor content with this, he re-entereth into Burgundy boiling with choler, with intention to recover all to his obedience: but he found himself assaulted by the Burgundians in a battle, who slew him; and knowing him by his long hair, they cut off his head, and fixed it on the point of a lance, to serve for a sad spectacle to the French.  
This accident afflicted the heart of the mother, who bewailed her son with inconsolable tears, as well because he was the first, whom she had bred with all tender affection, as for that she seeing him dead in the pursuit of so many bloody acts, was full of anxiety in the matter of salvation of his soul. The poor Queen fortified herself, as much as she might, against the violences of sorrow, and armed herself against other accidents which she foresaw might grow from the evil dispositions of her children.  
Clodomer left three sons very young, whom the holy woman bred up in her house, and near her person, into whom the most excellent Maxims of all wisdom and piety were distilled. These little children very well bred, and gently trained by the very good precepts of their grandmother; promised something excellent in time to come, and served as a most sweet lenitive to this disconsolate turtle, to sweeten the acerbities she had conceived upon the death of their father: when behold a horrible frenzy crept into the souls of Childebert and Clotharius her two sons, which is read in all our histories, the brows whereof do blush to leave a blemish of execration on the wicked exorbitancy of ambition.  
It were much fit for the great men of the earth to have gnawing vultures, and sharp razors in their entrails, than to nourish such a passion; which being only puffed up with a smoke, violateth all it hath therein of right or humanity, to fatten itself with blood, and never as it were openeth its eyes, but in the flames of the damned.  
Childebert and Clotharius, sons of the great Clodovaeus and the holy Clotilda, despoiling themselves of all respect, sweetness, and humanity, conceived a mortal jealousy against their little Nephews, imagining their mother would breed them up to their prejudice; and so not taking counsel of aught but their own brutish passion, they resolved to be rid of them. The poor children were perpetually under the wing of their good grandmother Clotilda, who could never suffer them out of her sight; such fear had she of ill habits, which are easily made to slide into the hearts of children by the corruption of evil company. These infamous Uncles besought their mother to let their little Nephews come to visit them, to have thereby some harmless recreation, promising to restore them again speedily into her hands. The holy woman, who could not imagine the execrable malice, which was hatched in the hearts of these unnatural sons, consented these little ones should go, fearing lest the denial she might make, would further exasperate the suspicion of the suppliants. Yet did she even then quake for fear, and bidding them farewel, kissed them with redoubled embracements, raptures, and affections, not being able to contain her passion, nor the presage of her unhappiness.  
The little innocents' went to the slaughter with a smiling countenance, as children who have walks of recreation, and play in their heads.  
When they had them in their full power, they dispatched a messenger to their mother, to bear unto her most unwelcome news. For he was commanded to show her a poniard and a cyzars, requiring her, she would make choice, which of these she should judge fittest for her grandchildren, either to pass them by the dint of sword, or forcibly to shave them and make them Monks.  
Clotilda, extremely astonished at this impudence, answered, As well dead, as Monks: which some very inconsiderately have interpreted, thinking this answer proceeded from an ambition she had, that her grandchildren might reign: but the admirable Princess would say, that we ought not to apply any to the service of God, but voluntaries, and that she had rather see her children well dead, than to behold them in a religious profession by constraint and force. This wretched messenger made to the humour of his Masters, in stead of sweetening the matter, made a very harsh relation of his message, which precipated the evil already beginning to fall into extremity.  
Clotharius possessed with a diabolical spirit, took Thibault the eldest of these children, and striking him down to the ground, thrust his sword quite through his body. The little Guntharus, who was the second, besprinkled with the blood of his brother, whom he saw distended on the pavement, grasped the knees of his uncle Childebert, with lamentable out-cries, saying: O Uncle, save my life, wherein have I offended you? He so quaked in all the parts of his body, and so transfixed him with his sighs, that the other, though he purposed this mischief, was seized with much compassion, and prayed his brother to pass no further. But Clotharius enraged, and more ravenous than a Tiger of Armenia, What? (saith he) you have been of the Council, and yet now hinder me in the execution: I will run you both through with my sword. Childebert amazed, threw the poor victim from his knees, and delivered him to the executioner, who in that very place cut his throat.  
As they were upon these contestations, the third son of Clodomer, named Clodoaldus, was taken away by a friend of the father, and secretly bred up in Ecclesiastical condition, wherein he arrived to so perfect a sanctity, that forsaking the shadow of Diadems and Sceptres, which deceiveth the credulity of the most passionate by its illusions, he hath merited Altars on earth, and a Crown of glory in Heaven. For this is that S. Cloud which we reverence, near unto Paris.  
What imagination is sufficiently powerful to figure to its self the ardent dolours, which seized on the spirit of poor Clotilda when she heard all that passed by the practice of her unnatural sons? What might this soul think so free and purified from the contagions of the earth, which apprehended the shadow of the least sins, when she beheld her house polluted with so horrible sacrileges? Yet still she guided the helm of reason in so tempestuous a storm of passions, and in so dead a night of misery she adored a ray of the Providence of God, which she considered in the depth of her sorrows: she herself not whit affrighted, took up the mangled bodies of these innocent creatures, and gathered together the scattered members as well as she could, saying: Poor Children, I bewail not your death, although it cannot be too much bemoaned. You are dead like little Abel's, like little Innocents', forsaking the earth, profaned with the crimes of your Uncles, to hasten to possess a place in Heaven; you have outrun me, to live hereafter in the bosom of your grandfather. But I sorrow for these cain's, and these Herod's, whose treacherously have murdered you, and who, wheresoever they are, I assure myself do carry pincers and executioners in their hearts. They ought at least to hear respect to the ashes of their father: They ought to have compassion on the tenderness of your bodies: They ought somewhat to regard my age, and the care I have had to breed them, since the death of the King: And had they concluded upon this massacre when they took you from my house, they should have executed you in my arms; I at the least had closed up your dying eyes with my fingers, I had wiped away the blood from your faces, I had encouraged you to death, I had received your last sighs in my bosom. Alas, my pretty creatures! little did I think the kisses I gave you at your departure, were to be the last I should afford in your life. Pure and innocent souls, departed from these bodies in an age, wherein you were ignorant of sins, which never approached your knowledges, much less defiled your bodies! Behold from those Palaces of stars and light your afflicted mother, whom God hath as yet left on earth to give burial to your bodies.  
Speaking this, she caused them to be carried away, that she might bestow them in the tomb of their grandfather, where being herself personally arrived, nature evicted a huge tide of tears from her constancy, and caused her to say:  
My most honoured Lord and husband, who so cordially loved me in this life, will you not open unto me your sacred tomb to entertain me near you? Behold here your grandchildren, which I bring unto you, little blossoms cut off in the tenderness of their age, by the hands of their uncles, your children and mine. Most dear husband, I account you thrice happy, to have been transported into the other world before you saw these lamentable tragedies. Were there nought but their respect towards you, it ought to have restrained them. But my sins alone have deserved this desolate old age, to which God hath reserved me to make trial of the most sensible dolours which might ever fall into my imagination. I will endure them as long as it shall please the Divine Providence, who will draw this satisfaction from my sins, and I with sorrow will waste my body, that hath almost nothing left but the bark, to place it in short time with yours.  
The holy woman daily poured herself out in tears near to this sepulchre, remaining there day and night, as if she had been some shadow of the dead: but in the end to divert herself from this imagination, which was too full of affliction, and that she might the more freely enjoy God, she resolved wholly to leave the Court, and to pass the rest of her days in the City of Tours, near to the sepulchre of S. Martin.  
There it was where she began to lead a life wholly celestial, as one who seemed to have nothing to do with the bodies and conversation of the living.  
It is true, that great prosperities do not easily corrupt souls, which have taken a good temper in the fear of God; yet notwithstanding they wound, and in some sort change them. A little Bee sometimes goeth so long upon her honey, that by much walking there, she entangleth her wings: So a soul, yea one of those which are the most devout, being continually soothed by a long sequel of good successes of the affairs of the world, taketh some small flight out of itself, and seeketh recreation in a smiling and delicate air, which affordeth it nothing but objects of delight: but so soon as adversity hath given its blow, it re-entereth into itself; it foldeth itself within itself; it tasteth itself; it knoweth itself; it findeth God in the bottom of its heart, afflicted and perplexed with the revolutions of the world; it raiseth itself above the ways of the Moon, and the tracks of the Sun, to that goodly Temple of Eternity, where spirits live despoiled from these masses of flesh and bones, which we drag along with us in this mortal life.  
This is the way which the wise Clotilda took so soon as she was alienated from the Court, and disentangled from affairs, which she never had used but for obligation of conscience; she entered into a sweet retirement, where it seemed unto her that nature had not displayed the mountains and valleys, the forests and rivers, but to make her a theatre of the works of God. She relished this retreat, as Manna from Paradise, and tasted this deep silence with incredible delight, after so many confused clamours of the embroilments of Court. It seemed unto her that she then spoke to God face to face; and that she saw all the pride of the earth much lower than her feet. Her soul was whitened with her tears, was purified in her desires, and vapoured out all into God, as it were, through the limbeck of her ardent charity.  
The holy Lady, who had heretofore loved to behold herself shine in the majesty of sumptuous attire, to render herself the more acceptable to her husband, more illustrious in the eyes of her people, was clothed so modestly, that her History telleth, she was seen to be covered with course cloth. She, who heretofore was altogether sparkling with precious stones, appeared now in the livery of penance. She, who had endeavoured temperately to entertain a mortal beauty for the contentment of her dear husband, was wholly wasted with mortifications of the flesh. She, who after so many victories of one of the most valiantest husbands that ever was, had been led along triumphant in the chariot of glory, conversed now with widows and orphans, going as it were perpetually on foot, were it not that the weakness of her body dispensed with her therein, by the counsel of those who undertook the care of her health. She, who had seen all the services of a great Monarchy at her feet, was then continually prostrate at the feet of the poor; whom she served as the living Images of God. She, who had taken some care to manage revenues, as the sinews of State, despoiled herself as it were from things most necessary for life, to secure the necessities of the people. She, who had delighted to build goodly Palaces, had not any affection, but for Monasterics and Churches, which she caused to be erected every where, with so much liberality as her means would permit. This divine woman was as the moon in eclipse, which appeareth wholly dark on the side towards the earth, but faileth not to be most radiant on that part wherewith she looketh towards Heaven. So those who beheld this Princess with carnal eyes in such a state, said she was eclipsed; but God, who in this retirement darted on her rays of glory, through the cloud of the body, caused her to see with eyes of Angels, as a soul wholly invested with the Sun of justice.  
As she was in the sweetness of this repose, news came unto her very hastily, that she must return to Court, to appease the discord between her children, who were ready to encounter one another, and to embroil the Kingdom in the desperate desolations of Civil war.  
The good woman did not as those, who hold retirement from the vanities of the world as a punishment, nor ever are with themselves, unless necessity make them take the way, which they cannot elect by reason. So soon as she understood these importunities, which called her back to the affairs of the world, she hastened to prostrate herself at the sepulchre of S. Martin, shedding forth bitter tears, and saying: My God, you know my heart, and that it is neither for fear of pain, nor want of courage, that I retired from the Court of my children; but that seeing their deportments and affairs in such a condition, that I could not think myself any ways able to profit them by my counsels, I made choice of the means which I thought most likely to help them, which are prayers. And behold me here now humbled at the tomb of one of your great servants, to beg of you by his merits and ashes, to pacify the differences of these unfortunate children, and to behold with the eye of your accustomed mercies this poor people and Kingdom of France, to which you have consigned and given so many pledges of your faithful love. My God, if you think my presence may serve to sweeten the sharpness of these spirits, I will neither have consideration of my age nor health; but shall sacrifice myself in this voyage for the public: but if I may be of no other use, but to stand as an unprofitable burden, as I with much reason persuade myself, I conjure you for your own goodness sake, to receive my humble prayers, and accommodate their affairs; and ever to preserve unto me the honour which I have to serve you in this retirement.  
A most miraculous thing: it is observed that at the same time when the holy woman prayed at the tomb, the Arms of the brothers now ready to encounter to pour forth a deluge of blood, suddenly stopped; and these two Kings not knowing by what spirit they were moved, mutually sent to each other an Embassage of peace, which was concluded in the place, to the admiration and contentment of the whole world. Thus much confirmed Clotilda in her holy resolution, wherein she lived to great decrepitness of age. And in the end, having had revelation of the day of her death, she sent for her two sons, Childebert and Clotharius, whereof this, who was the most harsh, was in some sort become humble, having undergone certain penances appointed him by Pope Agapetus, to expiate many exorbitances which he had committed; for such is the most common opinion. These two Kings being come, the mother spoke to them in these terms:  
I was as it were resolved to pass out of the world without seeing you, not for the hatred of your persons, which cannot fall into a soul such as mine, but for the horror of your deportments, that cannot be justified but by repentance. God knows, I having beheld you so many times to abandon the respect you owe to my age, and the authority which nature gave me over your breeding, never have endeavoured to put off the heart of a mother towards you, which I yet retain upon the brink of my tomb. I begged you of God before your birth, with desires which then seemed unto me reasonable, but which perhaps were too vehement, and if ever mother were passionate in the love of her children, I most sensibly felt those stings, yielding my soul as a prey to all cares, and my body to travels, to breed and bring you up with pains, which are not so ordinary with Queen-mothers'.  
I expected from your nature some correspondence to my charitable affections, when you should arrive to the age of discretion. I imagined after the death of your father, my most honoured Lord, that my age which began to decline, should find some comfort in your piety. But you have done that which I will pass under silence: For it seemed to me your spirits have as much horror of it as mine, which yet bleedeth at it, nor do I know when time will stench the blood of a wound so bydeous.  
Out alas, my children! you persuaded yourselves it was a goodly matter to unpeople the world, to enlarge your power, and to violate nature, to establish your thrones with the blood of your allies; which is a most execrable frenzy. For I protest at this hour, wherein I go to render an account of mine actions before the living God, that I should rather wish to have brought you into the world to be the vassals of peasants, than to see the Sceptre in your hands, if it served you to no other use, but to authorise your crimes. Blind as you are, who behold not that the diamonds of a Royal Crown, sweat with horror upon a head poisoned with ambition. When you shall arrive to that period wherein I am now, what will it help you to have worn purple, if having defiled it with your ordures, you must make an exchange with a habit of flames, which shall no more wear out than eternity?  
Return, my children, to the fair way you have forsaken: you might have seen by what paths the Providence of God led the King your father, to the throne of his Monarchy: you might have also observed the disasters of Kings our near allies, for that they wandered from true piety. That little shadow which you yet retain of holy Religion, hath suspended the hand of God, and withheld the fatal blow, which he would otherwise have let fall upon your state. If you persist in evil, you will provoke his justice by the contempt of his mercy. Above all, be united with a band of constant peace: for by dividing your hearts, you disunite your Kingdoms; and desiring to build up your fortunes by your dissensions, you will make desolate your houses. Do justice to your poor people, who lived under the reign of your father with so much tranquillity, and which your divisions have now covered all over with acerbities. Is it not time to forget what is past, and to begin to live then, when you must begin to die? My children, I give you the last farewell, and pray you to remember my poor soul, and to lodge my body in the sepulchre of the King your father, as I have ever desired.  
The Saint speaking this, saw that these children, who had before been so obdurate, were wholly dissolved into tears, and kneeling about her bed, kissed her hands, having their speech so interrupted with sobs, they could not answer one word. Thereupon she drew the curtain over all worldly affairs, to be only entertained with God. And her malady daily increasing, she pronounced aloud the profession of the Catholic faith, wherein she died; then required the Sacraments of the Eucharist and extreme Unction, which were administered unto her, and by her received with infinite devotion. From thence forward she for some time only lived on ecstasies of her soul, turning that little breath which remained on her lips, to the praises of God: and in the end, rendered up her happy Ghost, the third day of June, on the first hour of the night, pronouncing in the instant of death these words: Ad te Domine levavi animam meam: Deus, meus in te confido non erubescam.  
The History telleth, that the chamber where she died at the instant, when her soul departed out of her body, appeared very lightsome, and that her sacred members yielded forth a most sweet savour, which left to all there present a great estimation of her sanctity. Her body was interred, as she desired, at the feet of S. Gevovefue: for she was so humble, that she accounted herself most happy, to submit her diadem to the ashes of a poor shepherdess. Her memory hath been so honourable throughout all France, that she is yet reverenced under the name of S. Cloth, which is the vulgar word.  
O woman, truly worthy to bear a Crown of stars! gold, silver, and precious stones are too base for you. If statues should be erected suitable to your desert, Diamonds, Emeralds, and Topases, which have been employed on the pourtraicts of the Queens of Egypt, would be of too mean a value in respect of your praises.  
Oh Queens, oh Princesses, nay, oh Ladies, and Gentlewomen, why do not you at the least in your houses, that which she performed in an ample Kingdom? What a glory? What an Empire? and what a triumph, to issue from the house of a King of Burgundy, as an innocent lamb, a poor orphan, married for despite, and to enter into a Court full of idolatries, which seemed then a forest of ravenous beasts, yet knew so well how to charm them with invincible spells of her piety, as to convert a King warlike, haughty, a Pagan, and in converting him to change the whole face of a great Monarchy?  
All that which we retain of Religion, piety, and happiness under God, we owe to this holy Queen. O France, France, my dear Country! how art thou bound to her memory, to her name, to her virtue, and how much oughtest thou to preserve the precious treasure of faith, which she hath so happily recommended unto thee by her example!  
I speak not at all now of the particular favours thou hast received from Heaven: I say nothing of thy flowers-de-luce, of thy holy Viol, of thy Standard, of thy cure of the King's Evil, and other such like. I only mention that which thou mayest boast before the face of all Nations, nor ever shalt thou lose the glory which S. Gregory the Great, an incomparable 
Greg. ep. 6. l. 5. quae est 106.  man, who flourished above a thousand years since, gave thee in his books, when he called thee, the lamp of the whole world, and saith, thy Monarches as much surpassed all other sovereign Princes, as Kings transcend the people.  
I pronounce that, which thou mayest publish as 
Baron. tom. 10. anno Christi. 960. Constant. Octavi. 49.  a privilege very extraordinary, that Constantine the Great made heretofore a decree, which was afterward engraven upon the Altar of S. Sophia, in the prime Church of Constantinople, by which he expressly forbade all his posterity, to make any alliances or marriages with foreigners wheresoever under Heaven, except the French Nation: as if this Religious Monarch had foreseen that they were the Kings of France who should second him in the zeal he bore to the support of the Church. See and consider the favours God hath done thee herein. Behold thy neighbours, behold the powers and sovereignties of the earth, behold the Empires and Kingdoms: where is it, that one alone may be found from the memory of men, which hath received Catholic Religion with more favour, which hath defended it with more courage, which hath preserved it with more constancy? Behold the Roman Empire, and thou shalt see presently after Constantine, his sons to be Heretics, and his son-in-law an Apostata. Behold Italy, and thou shalt see it sheltered under the protection of thy Kings. Behold Spain, and thou shalt see it overrun with Goths, Vandals, and Saracens, and the Sceptre in the hands of Arian Kings. Behold England, and thou shalt see, that it did not seriously receive the faith, till six hundred years were fully expired, after the publication of the Gospel. Poland accounteth but six hundred and two and fifty years since it was Christian: Muscovia six hundred and two and twenty. Thou (O France) alone art it, to whom Jesus Christ being in the agony of his dolorous passion, when he recommended his mother to S. John, and his soul to his father, designed, and miraculously deputed a Pastor, to wit, the glorious S. Denys, who received the first rays of the knowledge of God in this eclipse, which happened at the death of our Saviour, to diffuse his divine lights afterward with his blood upon the mountains, where thy Virgins do as yet lead a life wholly Angelical.  
O France, wherefore hast thou enlightened all the parts of the world with thy conquests? Wherefore thy Kings having communicated themselves with so much sweetness and facility, have they augmented their Majesty by familiarity with the people, which usually dissolveth it? Why have they appeared as Amathists, which shine so much the more as they are often worn? Why hast thou been a Seminary of all great spirits? Why hast thou in all times held predominance in learning and sciences, like unto the Altar of the Sun, from whence light is borrowed to illuminate all other lamps? Why dost thou astonish all histories with the continuance of thy Monarchy, to which there is none to be found comparable in the world? Why hath God so many times enriched thee by thy losses, ennobled thee by thy disasters, raised thee by thy ruins and precipices, — Fecitque cadendo, Ne caderes? Is it not for having preserved this precious jewel of Clotilda, this faith, this Religion, which he hath consigned to thy Kings, and to thy people? Oh blind, if thou knowest it not! Oh insensible, if thou neglectest it! Oh unfortunate, if thou losest it! Go yet, and see the ashes of this good Princess, which are in thy capital City, ashes worthy to be kissed of Queens, honoured by Kings, and reverenced by all people.  
So long as there shall be Sacrifices and Altars, Angels and men, the name of holy Clotilda shall live, and spread itself with a sweet odour through all the Provinces of Christendom; and my pen, which taketh its flight much further than my design intended, shall be the messenger of her greatness, with so much the more fidelity, as it hath confidence in her protection.  
I will also, to crown this work, represent unto you a Lady, issued of her blood, a grandchild of one of her sons, who hath done in Spain, that which this in France; converting her husband to the faith, and by consequence gained the Nation.   

The tenth SECTION. INDEGONDIS, Issued from the blood and house of Clotilda, transporteth the Catholic faith into Spain.  
ABout the year five hundred four-score and three, Levigildus an Arian Prince, reigned in Spain, who seeing the house of France held supereminency amongst all the Kingdoms of the world, sought the alliance thereof; and obtained for wife to his eldest son, called Hermingildus, the daughter of Sigebert, grandchild of Clotilda, named in History Indegondis.  
She was one of the most accomplished Princesses of that Age, in whom beauty, grace, and virtue, made together an admirable harmony, to purchase her the hearts of all the world. Every one lamented that this bright daybreak, which began to enlighten France with its rays, went at her rising into a Country, where the Sun setteth, and that so many singular perfections were separated from that Kingdom which had given them birth. The good virgin, who had no other object, but the obedience she ought to render those to whom nature had subjected her, went well pleased, besides was something satisfied with the title of a Queen, which she might justly one day expect. But little knew she the combats and difficulties that waited on her in the same place, where she hoped to gather nothing else but flowers.  
I do not think hell can ever produce a mischief like unto heresy: which wholly perverting good affairs, instantly hasteneth to drench all the contentments of this innocent soul in a deluge of tears. Alas, a million of tortures well deserve to be employed upon the criminal souls of those, who were the first authors of this monster. For it in all Ages hath disturbed States of Princes, ruined so much generous Nobility, and sowed division among the most settled amities.  
The wise of that time much apprehended the sending of this young maid into Spain, to marry her to an heretical Prince, to place her in a Court wholly infected with heresy, where no other objects should be presented unto her, but error and vice. Behold (said they) a goodly vessel well rigged, well furnished, well guided, which hath sails of linen, cordage of purple, and oars of silver; but they go about to expose it to a rough tempest. Behold an excellent meadow all enameled with most delicious beauties of nature; but they endeavour to oppose it to cruel Northern blasts. Behold a crystal well polished, smooth, and delicate; but they seek to hazard it to the strokes of the hammer. Behold a statue all resplendent with gold, and precious stones; but they trample it under foot. What will a child be able to do amongst so much malice? An age so tender, amongst so many heads grown hoary in sin? A great simplicity amongst so many snares? A maid which hath no recommendation but chastity and obedience, amongst so many wicked commands? Do we think that a father-in-law, a husband, a mother-in-law, will have no power over her spirit? That pleasures will not allure her? That the dignity of a Kingdom will not move her? That the lustre of a Diadem will not dazzle her eyes, and force prevail upon her? If that should be given her which she deserveth, it were fit to afford her all but the power to ruin herself.  
Others said very temperately, that we must not believe, that by gaining a Kingdom she should lose religion: that she was of blood so illustrious, it received no blemish; that she would rather die than dishonour her birth; that she would endure all the torments of Martyrs rather than betray her faith. And that if needs she must make shipwreck of all her fortunes, that the last plank she would embrace, should be a good conscience: that she should be assisted by a good Council, that would never forsake her: that there were as yet in Spain very many Catholics, whose tears she would wipe away, and sweeten their acerbities: That her husband, a young Prince, was not so obdurate, but that she might hope one day to join him to the Catholic faith: Women are infinitely powerful, when they once have gained the heart of a man. In the end, that she must reflect on the example of her grandmother, who had converted her husband, with all his Court; and if then cold and timorous considerations had been used upon this marriage, France might still have been Pagan. If the mother overcame an Idolater, the daughter may well prevail on an Arian.  
Yet they, which spoke thus, judged not the conversion of heretics to be much more difficult than that of Pagans, as well for the intolerable pride which ordinarily possesseth their spirits, as for a certain malediction, which seemeth to be tied to those who voluntarily withdraw themselves from the light, and shake off the yoke of lawful powers.  
Yet notwithstanding considerations of State transported her, and Indegondis would take her fortune, promising herself so much assistance of God, that not only she should stand firm in the piety of her Ancestors, but that if it were possible, she would save her husband: supposing to herself he was neither of marble nor iron, not to be mollified with the attractives of her sex.  
The courageous maid was waited on into Spain, by a flourishing conduct of French Nobility, where she was received with very great applauses, for the reputation which the name of France had acquired in the opinion of all people.  
The King Levigildus her father-in-law, was married upon second Nuptials to an Arian wife, named Goizintha, who was as deformed of body as mind: notwithstanding, she had charmed the heart of this old man, by I know not what kind of sleights, that she held predominance upon affairs, and bend as it were all his wills at her pleasure.  
She shown in the beginning an extraordinary affection to this marriage, and went in person to the Princess, giving her such fair entertainment, that it seemed she went about to over-whelm her with courtesies.  
Yet was it to behold night and Aurora in one and the same Chariot, to see these two Princesses together. For Goizintha, besides other deformities of her person, was become blind of one eye: and Indegondis laying aside so many excellent parts, which she had from nature, appeared on that day in her attaires▪ like unto those Goddesses which the Poets and Painter's form, according to the most advantageous idaeaes of their spirits.  
Hermingildus her husband beholding her so accomplished, easily felt the glances shot from her eyes, were rays from her, but arrows for his heart, from whence he could receive nought but honourable wounds. Never any man bound himself to a creature of the world with a love so forcible, so honest, and so innocent, as did this Prince to this admirable virgin. From the first arrival, and first glance of the eye; he felt his soul transported with a sweet violence, and it seemed unto him this stranger came to negotiate with him a love, much different from that of flesh and blood.  
It is a position, which hath been sufficiently argued by ancient Sages, touching the encounter of amities, which are so diversely applied to objects; sometimes by ordinary ways, as by a manifest reflection of beauty and goodness; sometimes also by passages altogether extraordinary, in such sort, that it is very hard to divine from whence the knot groweth, which toeth two persons who never have seen one another, so suddenly, that it is done in an instant, and so inseparably, that it lasteth even to the tomb. Some have said it proceedeth from secret influences of the same stars, which predominate at their births; a matter, which they verily have much ado to make good. Others have thought it is a work of fortune, and that loves were shuffled together like cards, to marry sometimes a Queen to a Groom. Others have referred it to complexions of the body, and to resemblance, which useth to be the mother of affections, a thing very probable. Others to the qualities of humours, which is daily sufficiently found.  
But besides this, there is a certain secret touch, as in the adamant, not to us throughly known, which readily striketh its blow, and speaketh in a dumb language in the bottom of hearts. For my part, I should think that in this love which Hermingildus bore to Indegondis, there should be some very particular passage of the Providence of God, who was pleased constantly to bind his heart to her, whom he intended to make use of for his conversion.   

The eleventh SECTION. The persecutions of Indegondis.  
NEver Nuptials were more full of content, nor amities more faithful, nor beginning more prosperous, than were these: But there is ever in humane things some mischief, which sticketh on the most smiling felicities, and never giveth wine but with a mixture of dregs.  
I know not what kind of fantasy possessed this wicked stepmother Goizintha, but she became jealous of the chaste contentments of her son-in-law, altogether as it were besotted of this admirable Princess, whom he could not endure out of his fight. She observed their conversation, their discourses, their pleasures, and ever put herself athwart their designs, becoming as troublesome, as if she had been one of those malign spirits which use to possess men.  
Indegondis, although she passionately loved her husband, durst not refuse the flattering entertainment of this stepmother, nor show that she distasted the company of her sex, to seek after a man: but the Prince extremely repined hereat, and could not dissemble the jealousy of his stepmother, saying, She ought to be contented with the credit she had in affairs, not to pry so narrowly into his marriage, and by her importunities take from him his dearest spouse. The other let him understand, this frequent conversation & amity offered her, tended to no other end, but to convert her to her Religion, thereby to render her the more obsequious to his will. And verily she well witnessed this design was deeply engraven in her heart: For she neither spared endeavour nor subtle practice to seduce this innocent Princess, first waging war against her in the shape of a Dragon, afterward of a Lion.  
She told her with much cunning, that God might as well be served in one Religion as in another. That we ought to accommodate ourselves to the place, where Fortune hath ranked us: That it was the chiefest policy of a Kingdom, to satisfy the will and inclinations of the King: That she was not come into Spain to give Law but example of obedience: That her husband never could faithfully love her, whilst she entertained any other sense, other laws, and other Sacraments, than himself: That never could she be a Queen of people, if she embraced not the faith of the people over whom she was to command: That it was a folly to fear the reproaches of France, where the wisest would ever think she had done discreetly, to submit to the times: That if the same faults are pardonable in those▪ who in erring, authorise themselves with a multitude of great complices, no man could argue her justly of a verity, which she had entertained with a whole Kingdom.  
The wicked woman ceased not to afflict the innocent ears of this young Princess with such like words; but she who had not herein a pliant and yielding spirit, protested, that if she persisted to maintain these discourses, it would enforce her to forsake her company, and that it was not needful to use so many subtleties; for sooner should her heart be torn out of her belly, than her Religion from her soul. In saying this, she went out of her chamber, showing unto her an eye sweetly discontented, with a soul well resolved: with which the other offended, notwithstanding dissembled her anger, so much she feared to disturb her; but quickly afterward endeavouring to make this breach up again, she tendered her a thousand protestations of affection, and ceased not to tire her out with flatteries, whereat the poor Indegondis was much perplexed, and could not any longer handle the matter so as not to express her disdain.  
Notwithstanding Goizintha, who lost not hope to seduce her, attempted once again to get her to be baptised after the Arian manner, alleging a thousand reasons; whereunto the Princess answered very wisely: That she was (thanks be to God) well christened in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and that if the water of the Baptism of the Arians had been cast on her head, although she loved her hair as well as any woman of her sort, she would cut it off, and tear away the skin, which had been defiled with such an execration.  
The stepmother hearing these words, shifted away, and said all foaming with choler, That since she would not be baptised after the Arian manner, she would prepare another kind of Baptism for her, which would wash her from the head to the foot: And thereupon enraged, she put herself upon a practice wholly barbarous, which is related by S. Gregory the Great, and many others; to wit, that after she had dregged this poor Princess by the hair, and tormented her even to the effusion of some blood, she caused her to be taken by two or three of her waiting women, commanding them to strip her stark naked, then to bind her with cords by the arms, and in this posture plunge her in a pool, in a very cold season of the year.  
It was a pitiful spectacle to behold the daughter of a king thus cruelly used in the same place where she entered with so many triumphs. The impious Goizintha stood upon the brink of the pool, as she, who bare sway in this torture, & commanded her wicked servants to drench her in the water, not all at once, but by little and little, that she might endure the longer Martyrdom. At every moment the mischievous Queen cried out: Say you are an Arian, and you are safe. The holy maid, who had not so much apprehension of death, as of her nakedness, answered aloud: I am a Catholic, A Catholic I will die: Take away my life in this confession; neither fire nor water shall ever have so much force upon me, as to make me unsay it. She was a long time in this torment with a constancy, which amazed this bloody soul, that so tortured her. In the end, she again took her garments, going out of the water, as from an Amphitheatre of her glorious battle.   

The twelfth SECTION. The retreat of Hermingildus, and his Conversion.  
HErmingildus who knew nothing of what had passed, beholding her somewhat pace, and weakened with such harsh usage, asked her if she felt any pain of body, or affliction of mind, to discolour her so much more than ordinary; but the wise Princess replied, It was nothing, and that there was not any thing so important, as to be worthy of his knowledge.  
He, who well perceived that she by her discretion dissembled some great affront, enquired very curiously of those who might inform him, and somewhat too soon discovered the cruel disgrace, which his mother-in-law Goizintha had put upon his wife. This transfixed him with a dolour so sensible, and so enkindled him with fire and choler in his heart, that if the fear of God, and the sweetness of his wife had not served for a counterpoise to his passion, he had torn this wicked Queen in pieces. But the good Indegondis prostrating herself at his feet, besought him by all that which was most noble in him, not to precipitate the matter into such extremities, and prevailed so well with her natural eloquence, that he was contented to remove presently from the Court, and retire to Sevil, which his father had given him for his livelihood.  
Then was the time, when those chaste loves, which had been crossed by the disturbances of Goizintha, all obstacles being overcome, enlarged themselves as a river, which having broken his banks, poureth itself with a victorious current in the wideness of his channel. Hermingildus could not sufficiently satisfy himself to behold so many virtues in so great a beauty: the modesty, which she had witnessed in this last disgrace, gave him apprehensions of her piety above all may be said.  
Those, who seek nothing in marriage but sensual pleasure, which is more thin than smoke, and much lighter than the wind, cannot imagine how much these fair amities, which are the daughters of virtues, nourish holy delights. These are celestial fires, which are ever in the bosom of God, as in their sphere: It is he, who begetteth them, and breedeth them, they being not constrained to descend upon earth, to beg a caitiff nourishment from perishable creatures, which promise so many wonders, and produce nought but wind.  
These two great souls beheld one another with the eyes of the dove, and were mutually inflamed with affections so honest and innocent, that Angels would not be ashamed to entertain the like fires, since they are those of charity, which is the eternal furnace of all souls the most purified.  
Indegondis perceiving she had already great power in the affection of her husband, and that there was no longer any stepmother to dissolve her designs, solicited him seriously for his Conversion, and said:  
Sir, I must confess unto you, the honour I have received from your alliance seemeth not accomplished, whilst I behold between us a wall of division, which separateth us in belief and Sacraments. Since our amities are come to that point, as to enjoy all in common, and that they unite things most different, why should we divide God, who is most simple of nature? Why should we make two Religions and two Altars, since we now live in such manner, that we have but one table, one heart, and one bed?  
Verily, Sir, if I saw the least ray of truth in the Sect you profess, and some hope of salvation, I would submit thereunto, the more to oblige me to your person, which I love above all the things in the world. But it is most undoubted, that you are ill rectified, that you pursue a fantasy in stead of a verity, and that dying in this state, you lose a soul so noble, which I would purchase with expense of my blood. I boast not to be learned, as you Arians, who have so many goodly allegations of Scripture, that you make the ignorant believe God is all that which to yourselves you imagine.  
Sir, I for my part think the chief wisdom in matter of religion, is, not to be so wise as you are, and to have a little more submission of spirit; for faith is the inheritance of the humble, and never doth the day of God shine in a soul, which hath too much light of man. You well see this heresy of the Arians is a revolted Band, which hath forsaken the high way, to wander cross the fields: you are not ignorant, that this Arius was a wicked Priest, who raised an heresy for despite, that he was not made Bishop; and was rejected, and solemnly condemned in a Council of three hundred and eighteen Bishops. These men were wise enough for you and me; I fix myself upon their resolutions, I follow the generality of the Church, I adhere to the body of the tree, and you tie yourselves to a rotten branch. I have no argument more strong, than the succession of lawful Pastors, than the conformity of the Universal Church, than the succession of all Ages, than the wisdom, sanctity, and piety, which I see resplendent on our side.  
Besides, I come from a Country where we have seen all the Arian Kings our neighbours round about, to have had most unhappy ends: when in the mean time my great grandfather, King Clodovaeus, for having sincerely embraced Catholic Religion, received so many blessings from Heaven, that he seemed to have good hap and victories under his pay. I am not the daughter of a Prophet, nor do I vaunt to have the spirit of prophecy; but I dare well foretell, the Kingdom of Spain, shall not be of long continuance, unless it vomit out this pestilence of Arianism, which lies about the heart of it: I would to God, with expense of my life, I might establish my Religion, then should I account myself the most contented Queen of the world.  
Hermingildus knew not what to answer to the strength of truth and love, two the most powerful things in the world; only he said it was a business which well deserved to be pondered, and that these changes in persons of his quality are subject to much censure, if they have not great reason for caution. The good Princess to give him full leisure to advise thereupon, handled the matter so by her industry, that he conferred with S. Leander, who was a strong pillar of the Catholic faith in Spain. The sage Prelate so well managed the spirit of this Prince, that with assistance of God, and the good offices of Indegondis, who moved Heaven and earth for this conversion, he drew him from error. This brave courage so soon as he saw the ray of truth, needs would acknowledge and freely confess it, taking the Chrism of Catholics with pomp and solemnity, even to the giving a largess of golden coins, which he purposely caused to be stamped a little too suddenly, making his own image to be engraven thereon, with a motto; which said, Haereticum hominem devita: that is to say, we must avoid an Heretic; alluding to his father Levigildus.  
Disputation, which concerneth the estate of Princes is a ticklish piece; where the most part of those who speak of it, use their own interest for text, and their passion for Commentary. Silence and peace, which are the two mansions of a good conscience, are of much more worth, than all the questions which enkindle divisions. I think the best doctrine is that, which best knoweth how to cement up concord among Mitres, Diadems, and Crowns, entertain the obedience of people towards their Sovereigns, and if there be verities, which are the daughters of the abyss, and silence (as those Ancients said) to leave them in the house of their father and mother, where, though they nought avail, they shall ever be better lodged than in public.  
It is not vice, but the times, which divideth Saints, and every one thinketh an affair probable, which he hath taken upon the bias of his own understanding. S. Leander approved the separation of Hermingildus in Spain: S. Gregory of Towers blamed it in France. I enter not into all the considerations of them both, but I think this Prince took ways too violent in his beginnings, levying arms against his father, which were not according to the counsel of his wife; and I will have no other Author, but himself, since he condemned his own design, so soon as he began to become holy.   

The thirteenth SECTION. The reciprocal Letters of the father and the son, upon their separation.  
HErmingildus, extremely incensed at the affront which he received in the person most dear unto him in the world, and who wanted not a Nobility round about him, that enkindled the fire of choler, burst forth in the beginning with violence. The father, an old suspicious man, felt himself much displeased with this alteration, and the stepmother ceased not to throw flames through her throat, and cry al-arm as loud as she could, to transport affairs instantly, unto the utmost point of severity.  
Levigildus notwithstanding, before he would proceed to extremities, sought to do something by letters, which are found couched in the History: wherein this Prince flattereth his son with fair words to surprise him. Behold here the copy of them:  
SON, I would willingly say that unto you present, which I cannot sufficiently express in my Letters. If you have as much confidence in me, as I yet have love towards you, I verily think were you with me, and alienated from the evil counsels of those who abuse the facility of your excellent nature, I might do much upon your spirit, both as a father, and as a King; so that at the least if you fear my Sceptre, you would love my charity, which still openeth its arms to your obedience. I have bred you up from your tender infancy, to make you heir of my Crown; and since you arrived to full age, I have conferred so many benefits on you, that they have surmounted your hopes, and as it were drained my liberalities. I have put a Sceptre into your hand, to serve your father with the more authority, and not to deliver it over to mine enemy. I have caused you to be styled a King, to become a support to my Crown, and not a Lord over mine Empire. I have given you all, to repose my old age upon the hope of your duty, and not to afflict me.  
And yet notwithstanding, after I have done all this, beyond custom, beyond your age, and above your merit, you pay me with impiety and ingratitude. Expect yet a little, and the law of nature will give you that which you seek by ambition. Allege not Religion unto me to justify your arms, it hath been a crime in you to take a Religion contrary to my commands; and an impiety in your Religion, to separate yourself from my obedience. I counsel you as a friend, and command you as a father, to render yourself as soon as possibly you may at my Court, and set yourself in the way of duty; otherwise I fear you may implore mercy, when there will be no other Kingdom found for you, but that of justice.  
Hermingildus deliberated upon the answer he was to make to these Letters: but his Council too fervent, shown him, it was now no time to retire back; that he had to do with a man imperious and turbulent, a mother-in-law irreconciliable, who had no other aim but to ruin him: and that if he took not arms to defend his own life, he would be chased away like a beast, and should not find safety even in deserts. Behold the cause why he wrote back in this manner:  
Sir, I give thanks to my Religion, which hath already afforded me patience enough to bear the sharpness of your words, and which is more, resolution also not to be shaken with the severity of your menaces. I have ever freely protested, that I am tied unto you with immortal obligations, and am besides ready pressed to acknowledge them, even to my last breath, were it not that some now endeavour with you, to render all my duties unjust, and my thoughts criminal. Your Majesty should quickly see me by your sides, if she, who will not behold me at your feet, but in the quality of a Delinquent, had not pre-occupated your heart and ears, to stop up the one to charity, the other to justice.  
What assurance can I have of my life in a place, where she for whom I live, hath been dragged by the hair, and trampled under foot? The wound sticketh so sensibly upon me, that time can neither find a lenitive, nor reason a remedy.  
As for the change of Religion made by me, I go along with the main current of wisdom, and sanctity of the whole world, and where I find my salvation most assured, I cannot live with more authority, nor die with more hope; and if you condemn me for it, your Majesty shall know, that a father requireth obedience out of the limits of nature, when he exacteth it beyond conscience. Sir, I beseech you to add to so many benefits by you afforded me, the liberty of an honest repose, lest our arms may be as shameful for the Conqueror, as miserable to the vanquished.  
Levigildus was more exasperated upon these Letters, and the wicked Stepmother ceased not to rub the sore as much as she might. All designs tended to war: the father upon the one side maketh great levies of soldiers; the son fortifieth Sevil and Cordova, and draweth to his party some Forces of the Empire, having sent an honourable Embassy to the Emperor of Constantinople, which was at that time Tiberius, to entreat great succours. Acts of hostility were practised both by the one and other part, and in the end Hermingildus is besieged in Sevil, where he made his abode the space of two or three years after his departure from the Court. King Levigildus, who was an old fox, endeavoured then to entertain the Catholics with much sweetness, to divert them from his son's side, and gaineth by force of money many mercenaries, who well discovered they had no other faith, but that which their fortune would give them.   

The fourteenth SECTION. The Treaty of peace between Levigildus and his son, by the mediation of Indegondis.  
THe war was yet like to continue very long, had it not been that the Princess, weary to behold these calamities that took beginning from an affront which she had endeavoured to dissemble with so much prudence, besought her husband with great tenderness of tears, to reconcile himself to his father. He touched at that instant with a quite other spirit than he had hitherto felt, prostrated himself before the Altar, and protested before God, that he abandoned all the justice of his cause for the only considerations of piety, and would rather die than prosecute those dissensions any further, to the prejudice of charity. He went out wholly changed upon this her motion, and coming to his wife, said unto her: Madam, behold me resolved to seek out the King my father, since you so desire it. But I must needs tell you, that having forgotten myself in this resolution, I cannot neglect you. The unworthy usage which you have received at Court, requireth you return not thither but in triumph. Never will I admit that you undergo hazard, by exposing you to the mercy of a woman, which perhaps hath none either for you or me. You know the affairs of France are at this time in so great confusion, that you cannot hope there for any retreat to assuage your griefs. We have here a Prince, the Emperor Tiberius, who is our ally, in whose protection I advise you to put yourself, to pass into Africa, and from thence to Constantinople, if it happen that I be otherwise entreated, than your hopes import.  
At these words the poor Indegondis felt herself seized with a great trembling, and wept bitterly, not being able to answer one word. The Prince, seeing he had proceeded too far in afflicting her so faithful heart, sweetened his discourse, and said: Dear heart, why do you trouble yourself at my departure? I hope the affairs will run in a way so prosperous, that in two or three days, we shall see one another at Court; but that which I have spoken, is said, taking all accidents at the worst, to provide the better for your safety.  
They had during their abode here, a little son, which yet hung at the breast: the father taking it in his arms, said: Madam, Behold a most precious pledge of our marriage, which I recommend unto you. Let God dispose of it as shall best please him, but you must breed it up as a King. The mother beholding the infant, redoubled her sighs, and the poor Hermingildus not knowing what would follow, felt himself surprised with a heavy and stupid dolour, which made him break off his discourse: yet notwithstanding he failed not to treat with the Emperor's Lieutenant, to put all that which was most dear unto him into safeguard. But when the fatal day of separation came, these two hearts so united, felt such violent convulsions of grief, as if they than had foreseen the events which afterward succeeded, and that this farewell should be their last.  
Indegondis at her parting, cried out: Sir, whatsoever happen, lose not the treasure of your faith. My good Mistress, replied the Prince, assure yourself you have gained a disciple, who shall never dishonour you: be you merry, I will expect you at Court.  
Alas, what is our life, and the affairs of man! That which is passed is nothing, the present a fantasy, and the future an abyss, where even those who stand on the brink, see not anything. These two great souls, which it seemed were worthy to live an Age to manure their faithful loves, and possess Empires as perpetual inheritances of their merits, go about to be divided for ever with a separation, which would be judged hideous and pitiful, were it not that she hath brought forth a Kingdom to Religion. Some time after that Indegondis was retired, Levigildus understanding his son disposed himself to some composition, conceived much joy thereat: for he feared lest he might be enforced to give battle, wherein he had perhaps found what a man may do, thrust into despair. So soon as he saw some overture of peace, he dispatched his son Recaredus, who was in the Army with him, to gain his elder brother, well knowing they were both of humours very consonant.  
When the younger entered into Hermingildus camp, and had espied him, hestopped suddenly, and cried out: Oh my brother, before I embrace, I desire to know whether I come to a friend or an enemy. But the good brother, without making him any other answer, set forward, and most lovingly embraced him in the sight of the whole Army. The other sighing, Ah brother (saith be) most dear brother, whither have the counsels of those transported you, who desire the ruin of our house? Behold yourself here environed with armies and Legions, and behold on the other part my father, who besiegeth you with all his army. Miserable that I am! What shall I do but make between you both, a wall of my body to hinder your designs? Ah, how brother? are you upon the point to give my father battle? Oh how unhappy would the Sun be which shineth over our heads, if this day, before the setting, he should see his face defiled with the stains of our blood! Brother, it is our Country against which you arm, that stretcheth out to your obedience the same hands it lifted up to Altars for your safety. Brother, it is your father and mine against whom you march: what honour can you get to tear out of his body by violence a soul, which he is ready to render up to nature, & to throw it out yet alive into the flaming ruins of his Kingdom? Have you no other objects to give testimony of your valour? I beseech you, both by the Religion you have embraced, and the blood common to us both, stay your arms, or if you persist in your purpose, kill me rather at your feet, and take me as a victim to purge both the armies. Behold the King, who lovingly expecteth you, and who reckoneth up the moments of my Embassage; I bring you the word of full assurance upon my life and honour. You must come instantly, if you dare believe me, for you cannot procrastinate nor retard this affair, but you must slacken your own happiness.  
These words were powerful enough to transport a man, who was already resolved. Hermingildus having assured him of the good affection he had ever born both to the King his father, and himself, went to the Court. Recaredus flieth with the desire he had to inform his father of the success of his Commission and being arrived, he bore the news of the coming of his brother, wherewith he was infinitely pleased. The Prince followed quickly after, and prostrated himself at the feet of the King his father, saying:  
Sir, And my most dear father, behold here your poor Hermingildus, who will perpetually be yours, what over happen. Those, who have armed your clemency to the ruin of your blood, have chased me from your Court and Palace; but not been able to separate me from your love. I have lived hitherto like a poor exile, and as it were a dead man among the living. If my enemies be not satisfied with my miseries, behold Sir, I stretch my hands wholly disarmed to the power, which nature hath given you over me, ready to live or die at your feet.  
The King, whether he dissembled his passion, or whether he truly were touched with such a spectacle of piety, embraced him with much tenderness, saying: Ah my son, evil same hath depainted you much other than you are. I assure you this confidence which you have witnessed unto me, hath now set you free from all suspicion. You are very welcome, most dear son, where have you left the Princess your wife? The Prince replied, She should speedily be at Court. Goizintha faileth not to be there present, and to show to her son-in-law all possible courtesies; which so confirmed the mind of Hermingildus, that he instantly discharged himself from all distrust, and prepared to send suddenly for Indegondis to come to the Court. A friend notwithstanding whispered him in the ear, that it was not necessary for him to hasten so much, and that he must ever fear a still sea, an old man amorous, and a stepmother too courteous.   

The fifteenth SECTION. Hermingildus wickedly betrayed.  
THis speech was but too true; for the pernicious Goizintha foreseeing, if Hermingildus were once again fully possessed of the heart of his father, whereof there was some probability, he would not fail to revenge himself on her for the affront done to his wife, and if it were not with diligence prevented, he might discover her sleights, and disturb all her faction: She therefore called a fatal Council, wherein she resolved to overthrow this poor Prince. She gained unto her infamous men, who poured into the ears of King Levigildus whatsoever they thought good; she suborneth witnesses, she causeth letters to be produced, and frameth a gross calumny, giving her husband to understand, that this reconciliation of his son was but a matter of disguise, the better to arrive at the scope of his intentions; that he hath sworn the ruin of his father, and that his spirit is become so arrogant, he cannot endure him as a companion in the Empire; that it is a thing undoubted that all the Romans desire to lift him to the throne: That he hath practised alliance with the Emperor of Constantinople, whereof express letters might be produced: and to show this is a business already concluded, he hath delegated his wife, a cunning and turbulent spirit, into Africa, to pass from thence to Constantinople, and to bring with her all the forces of the Empire, to fall upon Spain; that there was no other remedy, but with all speed to prevent his design, and to make him feel the power of despised clemency.  
She spoke so much both of truth and falsehood and her Commissioners were so well practised to forge many suspicions, and represent a thousand accidents in affairs, which seemed to confirm this conspiracy, that in the end Levigildus entered into a frenzy more gross than had possessed him before; and having declared his son guilty of treason, he caused him to be suddenly taken, and shut up in a straight prison. It was a pitiful thing to behold this Prince, a man wholly innocent, seized on in the midst of all the pleasing triumphs of the Court, which they had prepared to honour his arrival, betrayed even at that time, when he least thought thereon and used with so much cruelty. A matter very natural to heresy, where, after they had clothed him with sackcloth, he was so loaden with chains, that he became crooked, not being able at all to lift up his head.  
He then well knew his hour was come, so that renouncing all the pleasures of this life, he began courageously to prepare himself for death. The King accompanied with some Commissioners, whom he had given in charge to draw his process, would needs see him, and beholding him, suffered himself instantly to be transported with great disturbances of choler, calling him ungrateful, parricide, and wicked wretch. The Prince mildly answered: Sir, could I foretell, I should know what I had done, and wherefore I am accused; but since I have no such spirit, I will die in silence. The father replied, his ill conscience suggested thereof enough unto him, and that he knew but too much what designs he had upon the State and the life of his father; that he would have him speak freely, and that if he could justify himself in these points, he would gladly hear him.  
Hermingildus at that time made the Apology, which I have else where expressed in Latin, approaching as near as I might to his own intentions and phrase, and am here ready to render it in our language, that I may not frustrate my Reader of it.  
Sir, said the Prince, the proof of my innocence is as easy, as the defence thereof is difficult. I reposed, next after God, all my confidence in your Majesty, to choke the flame of cruel envy wherewith you see me assailed, and as it were still smoking. I attended to implore your name, to challenge your power, and to have you for witness of my fidelity, unworthily treated by slander; and now I have you for an ardent accuser, and a most severe Judge, nay, which is more, an incensed father. You have caused me to be taken as it were from the table of a feast, by you prepared for congratulation of my return; you have made me to be despoiled of purple; to be bound, and fettered like a galleyslave. I fear lest the justification of my actions, may not be the condemnation of yours; and that in seeking to defend mine own innocence, I be not enforced to accuse the error of my father, which is to me one of the greatest punishments I can suffer. Notwithstanding, since you command I should speak, not that, in the condition whereunto affairs are arrived, I may hope of any thing either by my discourse or silence, but hap what may, I will pour into your ears the last voice of my blood. For did my accusers demand no other thing than my life, I would willingly give it them without reply: but seeing they go about to fasten infamy on mine ashes, I beseech your Majesty, to hear the few words I have to say.  
The business here is not a new crime, it is a very long time since the Queen your wife, and our stepmother Goizintha, began to wove this web against my brother and me, to deprive your sceptre of its lawful heirs, and give your Crown as a prey to her ambition. Would to God I might now call out of the other world, the blessed sold of my dead mother, to be present at this judgement: She would speak, and I might be silent; she would remember your Majesty, how being in the agonies of that fatal hour which took from us this great Queen, she embraced my brother and me, beseeching you by your chaste loves, and inviolable faith of marriage, to be unto us both father and mother. We were then of an age, wherein we could not as yet either feel or bemoan our losses. Notwithstanding, seeing you bowed over the body, which yielded up the ghost, with weeping eyes, we gave our infant-tears to her memory, as a just tribute of Nature: but you taking your little orphans into your bosom, forbade them to mourn, which you could hardly do, and wiping away their tears, promised you hereafter would become to us a father for protection, and a mother for indulgence. I than grew up under your eyes, spinning out the course of my innocent years, and am come to an age capable to bear some share in your hopes. Had you any thing at that time in the world more dear unto you, than your Hermingildus? Dignities were for him, for him Empires, wars were made by him, and peace concluded in his name. Hermingildus was the object of your thoughts, the entertainment of your discourse, the contentment of your heart.  
Your Majesty then resolved to marry me, although very young, you found out for me a wife, daughter of a King, sister of a King, niece of a King, but such an one as by her virtues surpassed all titles of Kingdoms. Ah poor maid, who would have said then, that thou wast reserved to be the subject of so lamentable a Tragedy! I was reputed the most happy man of the world, since for me were born so many singular virtues and perfections, admired by all men. I must confess I loved this Princess, not so much by the ways of an ordinary love, as a certain admiration of her virtues. For I have received the faith by her piety, her example, and her doctrine; holding in her soul the rank of a husband, a disciple, and as it were of her own son.  
Thereupon Goizintha began to possess your heart, and to gain superemtnence in your affairs; so changing your will by her ordinary practices, that she hath turned all your ancient favours into disdain, your confidence into suspicion, your resolution into disturbance, and your mud temper into command. This woman hath so persecuted me, that in your Court I neither enjoyed watch, rest, recreation, nor affairs without danger. But I have willingly passed under silence all that, which touched mine own person, until she fell upon an action so barbarous, which were sufficient to justify the Scythians and Tartars. I have no words to speak it, having so much sorrow to feel it: Enough is said, when there hath been seen a daughter of so many Kings, trampled under the foot of a woman (whose birth I will not reproach, because indeed I well know it not) a Princess most innocent, beaten even to blood by a mother-in-law; a Lady replenished with honour, disarrayed of her garments by unworthy servants, and plunged by little and little into a pool in a cold season, to consummate a Martyrdom, such as the ancient Tyrants never invented more cruel for women, contenting themselves to impose oftentimes only nakedness for a punishment.  
Had I revenged myself of such inhumanity with sword and fire, no man could have thought my proceeding unjust, nor my thoughts unreasonable: notwithstanding, I have still endeavoured to cure myself by the remedy most ordinary with me, which was patience. I in silence retired unto a City which your Majesty gave me for livelihood; resolved there peaceably to pass my days with my wife, whilst we beheld the face of this Court so adverse to our hopes.  
But your Goizintha, as if we had committed a great sin, in not enduring her to thrust a sword through our throats, hath sounded an alarm in your Palace, and afterward in all the Province, declaring me an enemy to the country, an usurper of the Crown of my father, a Parricide, a creature excommunicate, and adding thereunto words much more injurious against me and my wife.  
For my part, Sir, I wish you had rather harkened to our innocence, than served her passion; all than had succeeded better. But after strange Levies were made, you came thundering upon Sevil, to besiege me with a huge Army, so that you seemed to stir all the elements against me. I confess it, I then followed the instinct which God giveth creatures, even the most brutish, to defend their own family and fortune. I took arms, not to offend you, but to safeguard myself and my wife, against the furies of a stepmother, who makes use of all arrows for our rain.  
Yet seeing my armies reduced to that point, that I had no means to escape without giving battle, which must necessarily be fatal to both parts, I renounced for your sake the laws of nature, and am come to render myself up to your discretion. I call to witness the Altars, holy fire, and the Angel-guardians, which have seen me prostrated before them, of the sincerity of my intentions, and of the tears I have shed for you, having not leisure then to bemoan myself.  
Afterward your Majesty sent my brother unto me, to give me assurance of your love; you called me forth, I am come, I have suppliantly entreated, you have received me. I prostrated myself at your feet, you have raised me with so many favours, and so many tokens of good will, that I could require no more for my safety. I ask, who hath changed your affection, who hath tarnished our joys, and withered the olives of peace, but she, who being not able to ruin me with weapon in hand, seeks to have my blood by form of justice.  
Behold my accusation and crime; behold all that which hath made me to be clothed with sackcloth, and chained with fetters ordained for Galley-salves.  
The father, who was of an ardent spirit, interrupteth him hereupon, and demandeth, where his wife was? whether he had not sent her into afric, to pass from thence to Constandinople? The Prince answered, He had only projected this in his mind, not for any other purpose, but to advise upon the safety of her person, not knowing as then how matters would stand, and that accidents had taught him, he was wise enough in his counsels, but less happy than he imagined.  
The King insisteth, and interrogateth, whether he had not treated alliance with the Emperor Tiberius? He thereunto replied, that he had never practised any other correspondence, but to draw from him some Troops, for the defence of his life: and that so soon as he saw some overture of peace, he had dismissed them, resolving to make no further use of them. He then was pressed upon divers questions, to which he made most pertinent answers, showing very evidently to the miserable father, the colours and pretexts which they made use of to ruin him, unless passion should cast a film over his eyes.  
In the end, seeing he could not convince his son to have practised any thing, since the accord was made between them both, he made a strong sally, and willed him freely to answer one word, upon which he would ground the whole proceeding, to wit, Whether he were not a Roman Catholic? That is it, Sir, saith the Prince, which I avow, which I publish, which I protest. For verily it is a crime, which maketh the Judges become pale, and the offenders laugh. The accusation whereof, is a vow all great souls should profess, and the pain is a felicity which Martyrs have bought with their blood. I wish to die a hundred times, if it might be done, for the glory of that goodly title; so far is it too little, with one mouth to confess the praises of God. Command if you please, that my body be hewed and cut in pieces for the profession of the Catholic faith, and then I shall have as many mouths as wounds, to praise my Saviour, and all those wounds shall be as gates of blood, to give passage to my soul to the place, where it is expected by so good company.  
The father said thereupon, he was become a fool; and that no man hated life, but he who had ill employed it. The son replied, The misuse had been in heresy, of which he repent him. And at that instant, the Guard received commandment to re-convey him to prison, where he was so comforted with the visitations of God, that finding with much difficulty means to send a Letter to his dear Indegondis, he wrote to her in this manner:   

The sixteenth SECTION. The Letter of Hermingildus to his dear wife Indegondis, and his generous resolution.  
MY holy Mistress, from whom I have received the faith and true knowledge of God, I writ these lines unto you, clothed with sackcloth, and loaden with fetters in the bottom of a dark dungeon, for the defence of that Religion which you have taught me. If I did not know by experience the invincible force of your heart, and the resolution you practise in affairs which concern the service of God, I had concealed my estate from you, that I might not contristrate objects sensible to nature.  
But (most dear wife) you have a forehead too noble to blush at the disgrace of the Crucifix, and a courage too well fortified, to refuse taking part in the liveris of the Saviour of the world. I protest upon mine honour ' I could never persuade myself, there might be contentment to suffer that which I tolerate, when your innocent mouth preached unto me the reward of suffering, wherewith your body bade heretofore been gloriously covered. But since my imprisonment, I have felt consolations of God so tasteful, that I cannot think it possible to relish in the world any other antipasts of Paradise. You are not ignorant, that my life and conversation, which hath been so long time plunged in error and vanity, deserved not these benefits: but your most pure hands, which you so often have lifted up before Altars for my salvation, have obtained that for me, which much transcended my merit and all my hopes.  
The King my father hath been pleased to hear me, and I have pleaded my cause in fetters, with so great assistance from the Heavenly goodness, that I justified myself in all charges objected against me; and have put the matter into such a condition, that I am no further accused as a thief and homicide, but as a Catholic.  
I speedily expect my sentence, and do not think I am put into the state wherein I am to save my life; but I undoubtedly believe this will be the last Letter you shall receive from my hand. I earnestly beseech your loyal heart, that as in this action which shall close up my days, I intent to do nothing unworthy of you, so on your part, act nothing unworthy of me; betraying the happiness of my death with tears, which would be little honourable to the condition whereunto God hath called me. I put into the hands of the Divine Providence, both you and your little Hermingildus, the only pledge of our holy loves.  
Be courageous, my dearest love, and after my death take the way of Constantinople; to render yourself at the Palace of the Emperor Tiberius, who is a good Prince, and most Catholic. I recommend unto you my poor soul: as for the body, let that become of it, which shall please my father. If the alteration of times and affairs bring you back into Spain, there to bold the rank you deserve, my ashes will likewise rejoice at the odour of your virtues. I hope my death shall not be unprofitable, and that God will make use of it for the good of the Kingdom. You know how many times I have heard you say, that you would have bought the salvation thereof with your blood; you have already in it employed one part, it is my turn to perform the rest upon a scaffold: For in what place soever you are, I promise myself to be most particularly assisted by your holy prayers.  
The good Princess received this Letter, with the news of his death, as we will presently tell you: but in this space of time, R●caredus, the younger brother of Hermingildus, extremely afflicted, that having been a mediator of this counterfeit peace, he saw it end in so deplorable a Tragedy, hasteneth to cast himself at the feet of his father; beseeching him with infinite abundance of tears and lamentations, either to give him the stroke of death with his own hand, or save the life of his brother. The father replied. He was a furious fellow, and a traitor to his fortune, and that be aught to suffer justice to be done, which would give him a Crown. That his brother well discovered himself an enemy to his father and the State, since he would not for his sake renounce only so much as a fantasy Religion; that he was only questioned upon this point, and that if be could persuade him to reason, he was ready to save his life, Recaredus prepared himself strongly to gain him, and asketh leave to go to the Prison, which was allowed him.  
The young Prince seeing his brother covered with sackcloth, and bowed under fetters, was so amazed at this spectacle, that he stood a long time mute as a statue; but in the end, breaking silence with a deep sigh: Ab brother (saith he) it is I, who have betrayed you; it is I, who have covered you with this fatal sackcloth, I, who have bound and fettered you with these cruel chains, made for ignominious slaves, not for your innocence. Brother, behold my poniard which I present you, revenge yourself upon my guilty head. I have been culpable enough, in that I have produced from a good intention so bad effects.  
Hermingildus beholding him with a peaceful eye, answered: Brother, why do you afflict yourself? Fall well do I know your innocence. What innocence? replied the other, if unadvisedly I be the cause of your death by my disastrous Embassage? But good brother, since you are reduced to this extremity, I beseech you forgo the name of Catholic: or, if that seem unworthy of your constancy, dissemble for some time, and content the King my father and yours, who requireth from you no other satisfaction.  
The good Prince answered: Ab Brother! What have you said, you lately persuaded me to an act of piety, at the peril of my life, think not now to induce me to an impiety, although it should concern all the lives and Kingdoms of the world. Behold here the time for you to reign, and for me to die. I willingly die for the honour I owe to my Religion, for which I gladly would suffer death a thousand times, if it were possible. I neither accuse you nor my father, whom I more compassionate than myself, and counsel you to render him all the duties of piety, in the decrepitness of age whereinto he is entered.  
As for our stepmother, I pray you rather to endure her nature, than revenge my death. It is the work of God to take knowledge of injuries, and for us to bear them. When my soul shall leave this miserable body, it shall ceaselesly pray for you; and I hope, most dear brother, you in the end will renounce this poor liberty. which entertaineth you in the sect of the Arians: and if dying men use to divine, I foretell, that being converted to the faith, you shall lay foundations of Catholic Religion in all this Kingdom, which I am about to moisten with my blood.  
Recaredus used all the entreaties he could devise, never being able to shake the constancy of his brother: which much offended King Levigildus, and transported him into resolutions very bloody. Notwithstanding, those who might yet speak unto him with some liberty, counselled him to precipitate nothing in an affair of so great consequence; saying, there was no appearance that Hermingildus had undertaken any plot against the life and State of his father, since he came so freely to present himself upon his bare word; that those who find themselves guilty, use not to come to burn themselves, as butterflies at the candle. That his countenance at this interview, was too sweet, his speech too proper, his deportments too candid, to cover so black a mischief: and as for change of Sect, it was no wonder, if the King having given him a Catholic wife, he had taken that Religion with its love; that it was a compliment of a lover, which age would bend, experience sweeten, and prudence in the end deface: that he had at that time more need of a Doctor than an executioner, since the apprehensions of God were distilled in the heart, by the help of tongues, not the dint of swords.   

The seventeenth SECTION. The death of Hermingildus.  
THe faction of Goizintha, transported beyond all considerations, ceased not to sound in the ears of the King, that Hermingildus was not an offender, whose power was to be neglected: That his crime was not such as might promise him impunity; that the laws of the Country had never tolerated such practices; that he had violated right both divine and humane, becoming a fugitive from his Country, an Apostata in his religion, arebel to the power of his father; in such sort, that to render his wound incurable, he had changed all lenitives into poison. That he had levied arms against his Sovereign, without regard of his age, his name, the majesty of the Kingdom, and the voice of nature, and that there was nothing but the despair of his affairs, which had taken them out of his hands. That he held correspondence with the enemies of the State, to whom he was become an assistant and a companion: and now to make himself as impudent to defend a crime, as bold to execute it, had cast all the fault of his conspiracies upon the Queen, his mother-in-law, and the marriage of his father; showing himself so insolent in his misery, that there was nothing to be expected but tyranny from his prosperity: that it was to be extremely arrogant, even to stupidity, to seek to retain a chimaera of piety, contrary to the will of his father: and that never would he be so constant in his superstition, if he had not leagued all the interests of his fortune with the Catholics, enemies of the Kingdom: That if order were not taken therein, they should be hereafter deprived of the power to deliberate on it, when they had given him all the means to execute it.  
The credulity of the unfortunate father was so strongly assaulted by these discourses, that he resolved to go beyond himself: so that on a night, which was Easter Eye, he dispatched a messenger to the prison, with an executioner, to let him know, he was speedily to make his resolution, to choose either life and sceptre, by returning to the Religion of the Arians, or death by persisting in the Catholic: That he had a sword and a Crown before his eyes, the one for glory, the other for punishment, the choice of either was referred to himself.  
Hermingildus made answer, he had already sufficiently manifested his determination upon this Article; that he would rather die a thousand deaths, than ever separate himself from the Religion which he had embraced with all reason and full consideration. The Commissary replied: The King your Father hath given me in charge, that in case of refusal, I should proceed to execution of the sentence decreed against you. What? saith Hermingildus. He hath condemned you by express sentence, (saith the other) to have your head cut off in this same prison, where you are. Whereupon the holy man fell on his knees to the earth, and said:  
My God, my Lord, I yield you immortal thanks, that having given me by the means of my father, a frail, brittle, and miserable life, common unto me with flies and aunts; you now afford me on this day by these sentences, a life noble, happy, glorious to all eternity.  
Then rising up again, he requested the Commissary he would by his good favour, suffer a Catholic Priest to come to him, to hear his Confession, and dispose him to death. He answered, It was expressly forbidden by the King his father: but if he would admit an Arian Bishop, he should have one at his pleasure. No (saith he) for I have detested, yea, and do still abhor Arianism, even to the death: and since my father denieth me a favour which ordinarily is granted to the guilty, I will die, having no other witness but mine own conscience.  
Which having said, he kneeled down again, and made his confession to God, praying very long for his father, his stepmother, all his enemies, and pronouncing also at his death, the name of his dear Indegondis, to whom he professed himself bound with incomparable obligations. Then afterward having recommended his soul to God, under the protection of the most holy Virgin, his good Angel, and all the Saints, he stretched out his neck to the executioner, which was cut off with one blow of an axe.  
So many stars as at that instant shined in Heaven in the dead silence of the night, were so many eyes open over the bloody sacrifice of this most innocent Prince, from whom a wretched father took away, by the hand of a hangman, the life which he gave him. Had his condition been capable of tears, even Tigers themselves would have deplored him, seeing so much piety, such faith, so much goodness, such worth eclipsed, in a blood so precious, in an Age so flourishing, in a fortune so replenished with hope.  
The news of his death hastened to find out Indegondis, who was yet in Africa, where she also received the last Letter, which her husband wrote to her out of prison.  
The servants that were about her person, began to make hideous lamentations, as if they themselves had been condemned to death. But the courageous Indegondis kissing the letter of her dear husband, then opening it with singular reverence, and reading the last words, which he as it were had steeped in his blood; she cried out:  
Alas! Generous, and faithful heart! you have done all that, which a good man might: you have manfully fought, you are happily arrived at the Crown. Nothing can be desired in you, but the imitation of your constancy.  
Servants, Why do you weep? This is the very day, wherein I am a Queen, and when I esteem myself the most triumphant woman in the world, having my husband a Martyr in Heaven. Give me roses and flowers-de-luce, that I may crown his Image, and honour at the least with these testimonies a soul, which hath left unto us such sweet odours of virtue.  
She had with her, her little Hermingildus, almost dead with the wearisomeness of travel on the way, which indeed had been somewhat easy for the tenderness of his age. The mother beholding him,  
Go my son (saith she) follow your good father: God hath given you a favour in your cradle, that he doth not to all children, which is to be banished for the faith, and to take part in the Martyrdom of him who begot you. Go little innocent, and rejoice with others before the Altar of the Lamb: your mother shall not long stay behind you.  
The child died shortly after, and the good Princess, 
Others say, he was sent prisoner to the Emperor Mauritius, but without ground.  having for a long time combated in a brave manner against the apprehensions of nature, poured forth on a sudden thick sobs, and a main tide of tears, which distilled from her eyes against her will, whereupon she mildly said:  
Alas! my tears, what fitness can you find to bemoan a Martyr? My God, it is done: the father and the son are already at rest, there remaineth nothing but to take the mother. Behold two parts of the world, Europe and afric, which I have filled with my miseries. If you will that I yet pass into Asia, your will be done. But if I no longer be aught, but an unprofitable burden to the earth, what do I here? I have spun out all the web which you gave me; I have ended all the hopes of the world; why stay you, O my God, to receive my soul, which I bear on my lips? She was heard: For in few days, being all wasted with love, travel, and desires, after an exemplar death, she found her tomb in afric.  
What shall I say here, and what shall I do, to shut up this discourse? We have all certain natural softnesses in the bottom of our souls, and some humane apprehensions, which altar the force of our judgement. My pen cannot almost pass over this history, and not commix the waters of mine eyes with mine ink; and perhaps also (you my Reader) cannot peruse it without compassion. It seemeth unto you these chaste loves of Hermingildus and Indegondis are too unhappy; that such virtues are cruelly handled, that such noble courages have met with a fortune sinister, hideous, and persecutive, even to the tomb. You would gladly see these brave spirits, after so many tempests, such thunderclaps and whirlwinds, arrive at a Port of some large temporal felicity. You would behold them with Crowns on their heads, with Sceptres in their hands, with Provinces flourishing in revenues, with prosperities perpetually smiling in their house, with loves free from disturbance, desires void o● denials, affairs without trouble, greatness without change, pleasures without acerbities, and a long posterity fully laden with honours▪ It grieves you, that this poor Prince hath passed away as a pearl, parched up with lightning in its growth, or as an eagle strangled in the shell. You bewail this Princess, that being born in France, she died in afric, separated by the sword from a husband who loved her so tenderly, deprived of a son, who gave so many good hopes, abandoned by all her allies▪ but some poor waiting-women that buried her with sorrow so full of pity, that it was of power to move the monsters of afric to commiseration. Ah ignorant that we are of the works of God, perpetually fixed to the earth, and deprived of those sparkles of fire and light, which burn under the most generous breasts! Let us a little draw aside the curtain, and see through so many clouds one sole ray of the Sanctuary. What injury hath the Divine Providence done to Prince Hermingildus, if for a Crown, which is the weathercock of winds, if for a Sceptre, which is the reed of the times, if for a life, which is the harbinger of death, it afford him virtues, delights, and glories, which outstrip the flight of our thoughts, which dry up our mouths, which outrun our desires, which surmount all our imaginations? What injury, if it make a Saint of him, whose name is couched in Martyrologes, whose memory liveth in writing, whose praise flourisheth in mouths, whose words are nought but honour, and works but blessings; whilst his stepmother Goizintha dies like a dog, and is buried in the opprobry of her name? What injury, if it have so handled the matter, that his father, touched with a lively repentance, hath justified him as an innocent, deplored him as a son, invoked as a Martyr? If it hath sanctified his setters, consecrated the tower of his prison, raised up his ashes above all the Crowns of the Kings of Spain? If it hath given him Altars on earth, and a Diadem of beatitudes in Heaven? Is it to have despised his virtue, neglected his sufferings, disobliged his constancy, and frustrated his travels? What would you have God to have made the virtuous Indegondis? A Queen, delicate, ambitious, covetous, haughty, which had not spit but in gold, walked but on roses, flown over the heads of men, and putrified in delights? How many such like are there, who have defiled their names with reproach, wearied the earth with their importunities, astonished posterity with their deportments, and peopled hell with their crimes? But this Lady having been purified with the burning coals of tribulation, issued from the hands of God as a vessel of glory, to make her lustre resplendent in the sight of all Ages.  
Ah Ladies, who read this piece, and who many times flatter yourselves with the title of virtue, in some petty tracks of devotion, which have nothing but outward semblance, what example of piety see you here? What mirror? what perfection? My eyes dazzle in beholding her actions, and my pen fails in writing her praises.  
What a courage? that a young maid not above fifteen or sixteen years of age, entereth into a Kingdom with intention to conquer it for God, much otherwise than the Caesars, who so many times have devoured it by ambition? What a prudence to tolerate the conversation of a stepmother, whilst she meddled not with her Religion? What liberty of spirit, and what strength of words to defend her faith, so soon as she saw herself assailed in this virtue, which was more dear unto her than the apple of her eye? What patience to endure to be dragged along upon the pavement by the hair? to be beaten even to blood? to be thrown into the river? to be used like the dust of the earth for the honour of J●sus Christ, not challenging any one, not complaining, not seeming offended, nay, not telling her husband (into whose bosom she poured forth her most secret thoughts) the affront she had received, for fear to break peace with a creature, who deserved the hatred of all the world? What wisdom, what grace, what eloquence used she in the conversion of her husband? What love for his soul, what zeal for his salvation, what care for his direction? What authority, to stop with a word the armies of the father and son instantly ready to encounter? What resignation of her own will in this separation from her husband? And what a heart of diamond against a thousand strokes of dolours, to take thankfully a death so bloody, so tragical, so pitiful? To see herself at an instant bereft of a son and a husband, and of all things in the world, offering up unto God in all her afflictions, the obedience of her heart, prayers of her lips, and victims of all the parts of her body? What triumph, when after her death, her brother-in-law, who had participated of her good instructions, in remembrance of her and her husband, was absolutely converted to the Catholic faith, and changing the whole face of the Kingdom, repealed the banished, restored the Bishops to their Sees, Religion into force, Laws into authority, and the whole Province into peace? What miracle, to see sage Indegondis on the top of all her trophies, whereof she tendereth homage to God in the glory of Saints? How ought we here to render to her the offerings of our most humble services?  
Behold here the limits which I proposed to myself, so to give an end at last to these Histories, having thought it more fit and suitable to my employments to abbreviate myself in these four Models, than unboundedly enlarge them; yet it hath been somewhat difficult with me to make a resolution to put forth this second Volume, among so many duties of our ordinary functions, being thereunto solicited by entreaties, which held as it were the place of commands.  
And I may well say, I were stupid and ungrateful, if I should not confess to have been much excited to prosecute this labour by the honourable invitations, which my Lord Bishop of Bellay hath used towards me in his Works, I cannot set too high a price upon his recommendation in such a subject: For he is verily one of the most able and flourishing wits, that ever handled a pen. To see the number of his books, one might say, he began to write so soon as to live, and to consider their worth, it is a wonder, how so many graces and beauties, which other attain not but with much labour, increased with him as in a soil natural for eloquence. If there be any slight discourses, who amuse themselves to argue upon some words of his writings, it is not a matter unusual, seeing we are now in an Age, where there are some who revive the example of those corrupted Grecians, that preferred a sauce made by the Cook Mithecus, before the divine Works of Phidias.  
If this piece have given you any contentment, take the pains to read it over again sometimes at your leisure, tasting the Maxims therein with an utility worthy of its subject. For believe me, the precipitation now adays used in slightly running over all sorts of books, causeth a certain indigestion in the mind, wherewith it is rather choked than nourished. Reading is never good, if the understanding take not occasion thereby, to negotiate by meditation and industry, that which concerneth the health and ornament thereof.    1 TIM. 1. 
To the King of Ages Immortal and Invisible, to GOD alone be honour and glory given, for ever and evermore.   

THE HOLY COURT. MAXIMS OF CHRISTIANITY, AGAINST THE PROFANE COURT, Divided into three Parts;  
WHEREOF 

The I. Treateth of the Divinity.  
The II. Treateth of the Government of this life.  
The III. Treateth of the State of the other World.    
THE THIRD TOME.  
Written in French by NICHOLAS CAUSSIN of the S. of JESUS; and translated into English by Sr. T. H.   bookseller's device of John Williams? DEUS EST NOBIS SOL ET SCUTUM 
LONDON, Printed by William Bentley, and are to be sold by JOHN WILLIAMS, at the Crown in St. Paul's Churchyard. 1650.   

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LADY FRANCES, Countess of PORTLAND, and Baroness WESTON.  
RIGHT HONOURABLE,  
THe excellent endowments of your soul, acknowledged even by envy, and admired by truth, together with your known propension to the reading of pious Books, invites me to this Dedication, as proper for your sweet retirements, and consonant to my intentions, which only aim in some measure to express my humblest respects to your Honour. The matters herein handled, are Instructions, apt to inform the mind by way of Maxims, learned discourses made familiar to less able understandings, and choice Histories exemplifying both, that so all sorts of Readers, though of different capacity, disproportionable judgement, may find somewhat to entertain their curiosity. My scope (Excellent LADY) in this Translation, is through your Honour's hand, and under so noble a Patronage, to convey the third Part of the HOLY COURT into English light, which (as the first breathed air under the benign aspect of her sacred Majesty) may also hope in this latter piece with like happiness to be crowned with your Honour's cheerful acceptation. The height of my ambition is by this poor way to serve you, since more ample demonstrations are wanting to my weak abilities; as likewise not to doubt your noble disposition will be satisfied with such my humble acknowledgements. The advancement of virtue, and depression of vice is my Author's scope throughout the whole Work, which he elegantly pursues, and victoriously atchieveth. Triumphs of that kind best become his grave and serious pen, whilst my task is faithfully in our language to imitate his living figures, though in dead and discoloured forms, and confidently to tell your Honour, that I will ever be  
The most Obsequious Servant of Your Commands, T. H.   

TO MONSIEUR MONSIEUR, THE PRINCE.  
SIR,  
THe excellency of the subject I handle in these discourses, makes me reflect on that of your Greatness, to offer you a Work, which being conceived by your authority, must needs seek for birth under your favour. It is the third Part of a Court absolutely holy, which not unlike the City S. John saw in his profound comtemplations, cannot ascend from our manners to Heaven, unless it descend from Heaven into our manners. I likewise endeavour to fashion it in Books, by the model of things celestial, to imprint it on lives; and I now undertake the defence of truth, which constituting your salvation, and composing your happiness, well deserve to be the most serious employments of your mind.  
It is true (Sir) all Maxims of State, that depend not on the Maxims of God, are effects of carnal prudence, which end in flesh; and all fortunes that rest not on him, who with three fingers supporteth the globe of the earth, rather pursue the way of precipices, than the path of exaltation. The wisdom of the world loves nothing so much, as that whereof it is most ignorant: it runs after honour, not knowing what honour is; ever hungry and still needy, nor having any other aim, but to make itself a Mistress over giddy spirits, to become the slave of all passions. Which maketh me say, there are none but the blind, who seek after it, the miserable who find it, the sottish who serve it, and the forlorn who tie themselves to its principles. But the wisdom of Heaven, which I in these Maxims present you, is so transcendently sublime above all humane inventions, as the light of stars surpasseth the petty sparklings and slitting fires of the earth: It is that which leisurely marcheth by holy paths, to the sources of daylight, and as being present before the throne of God, beholdeth glory and felicity unfolded in his hands. It is the element of great souls, such as yours; and when they once are throughly settled therein, they find tastfulness which turneth into nutriment, and nutriment which passeth to immortality. Your prudence may read in your own experience, what I express in my Treatises, nor need you go any further than your own life, to meet with the proofs of these excellent verities.  
You know (Sir) how the Divine Providence in the first flower of your age, drew you from ill ways, and snatched you out of the hands of infidelity, as a Constantine from the palace of Diocletian, to serve as a Buckler for the Church, whereof impiety would have made you a persecutor. This Providence knew so well how to separate blood from manners, that it caused you to demolish what your Ancestors had raised, and preserving their dignity without touching their errors, to make of the unhappiness of their judgement, the beginning of your felicity. From thence you see with what success the hand of God hath conducted you to the height of this most eminent glory, wherein France at this present beholds you, as a Prince accomplished in the experience of affairs, and times, the Father of good counsels, the undertaker of great actions, endowed with a spirit which seems an eternal fire, and to be paralleled by nothing, but the goodness of your own heart.  
You live peaceable, as in the right sphere of true greatness, where you perpetually reflect on two Poles, God and the King: You seek for the one in the other, and you walk to the God of life, by the most lively of his Images. His Arms are beheld to prosper in your hands, as well as his Edicts in your mouth. You have born thunder, and Olives throughout France under your protection, awful at one time, and amiable at another, but ever prosperous in both. Yea, fully to crown your happiness, the Divine goodness hath afforded you a house flourishing in riches and honours, which comprehendeth in its latitude, two Princes of the blood to serve as pillars for the State. It gave you a wife, who hath made of her fruitfulness, the trophy of her virtues, and entered by love into an eclipse, to become the Mother of lights, and bring forth children to bear the hope of Flowers-de-luce. The eldest Son, whom your Excellency hath committed as a sacred pledge to our College at Bourges, would trouble us to tell you from whence he hath taken such, and so many splendours, and sparkling flames of wit, which dazzle the eyes of those who have the honour to be near him, were not you his Father. He is a Pearl, who maketh it appear by the equality of his Orient, that if Nature have equalled his birth to the greatest on earth, he will equal his virtues to his extraction.  
SIR, I speak this ingeniously, that you may both behold in your own Person, what I treat in my books, as also understand that true piety soweth the seeds of the most solid greatness. But besides, the relation this Design seems to have to the pleasure of God over you, I find much obligation to offer it you as a slender testimony of a singular gratitude in our Superiors and our whole Society, which would willingly suffer their affections to pass through my pen, if it had as much eloquence as the main body tenders respect and zeal to your service. You have been pleased to make it known by your good purposes, to love it by election, defend it by justice, honour it with your opinion, increase it with your liberalities, and if your benefits be ornaments unto it, your judgement serve for Apologies.  
I received a notable portion in your favours, whilst you resided in Bourges, where your Excellency called me to deliver the Word of God, and to confess your virtues in my discourses, as I must acknowledge my discourses to proceed from your virtues. It was by your conversation I perceived, that as there is nothing too high for your understanding, so there is not any thing too low for your bounty. God hath bestowed on you the gift which the Scripture attributeth to the Patriarch Joseph, to oblige hearts with sweetness; not unlike the Engines of Archimedes, which made water mount in descending: so yours, causeth not your humility to descend, but to make it re-ascend to the source of the prime sublimity. Which done, not presuming any thing in regard of your Excellency, but daring all through your courtesy, I present these MAXIMS of the Holy Court, of which many will make their reading, others their precepts: but you will (I hope) frame your virtues of them on earth, to make them your Crowns in Heaven. So wisheth  
SIR, Your most humble and most obsequious servant in our Lord, N. CAUSSIN. S. J.   

The Design and Order of the BOOK.  
I Find (Courteous Reader, my Works do insensibly increase under the savour of thy good opinion, as plants sprout under the aspect of the most benign stars. I had confined myself to that which concerneth the History of Courts, and still rest in the same resolution: But saw a piece very necessary in these times, wanting in my Work, which was the Treatise of MAXIMS, and majesty of our Religion.  
I almost durst not undertake it, (so much the subject seemed to require judgement, preparation, and ability:) But God having inspired me with a strong conceit, I might be favoured by those to whom he hath given full power over me, submitted the slenderness of my wit, to the power of their wills, persuading myself a silly nothing, may become a matter important in their hands.  
You know, how having a purpose to frame a Christian Institution in the HOLY COURT for men of quality, I began with their obligation to Piety; and consequently shown the Obstacles must be vanquished to arrive thither. Then I gave precepts of the principal virtues most concern them, which were waited on with the Histories of Courts, abbreviated into four Models.  
In this (that the good Court may triumph) I represent a combat of two Courts, the Holy, and Counterfeit; the Religious, and Profane; wherein I unsold the victories of the chief Maxims of Christianity, divided into three Parts, whereof the one treateth of the Divivitie, the other of the Government of this present life, and the third, of the State of the other world.  
You may behold how divine the subject is, and that the other Books were only to prepare you to these great lights, the rays whereof I diffused. I must needs tell you, that being surpassed by so many excellent men, who have worthily handled a pen, I have in this seriously sought to go beyond myself.  
I have contracted large subjects into little Tracts, which hath been no small labour; there being not a Maxim whereof I could not have compiled an ample Volume: But imagining conceptions are like hairs, which more easily may be filletted up than dissheveled, I have endeavoured to give you more substance in this Book, than words and amplifications. And seeing all the subjects are very serious, I have sweetened them with excellent Examples, to afford fit nourishment both to Eagles and Doves.  
All which I now offer you in this, is more than my promise, thinking it better to give without promise, than to promise and not give. Your affection sets an edge upon my industry, and if labour waste the body for your avail, and reserve works of the wit for posterity, it shall be as a Cedar, which causing the death of the living, seems to give life to the dead.  
This Tome being replenished with important considerations, cannot be for him who cursorily reads it with those delicious loytering, which slightly furnish out the titles of Books, and thence derive nothing, but wind. Give me (Gentle Reader) the contentment that God may be glorified in your manners by reading this, as I here seek to honour him in his works.   

MAXIMS OF THE HOLY COURT, AGAINST THE PROFANE COVERT.  

First Part touching the DIVINITY.  

The first MAXIM. Of Religion.  
PROFANE COURT. HOLY COURT. That matters of faith being invisible and uncertain, we must tie ourselves to the world, which is visible and certain. That matters of faith being most certain and very excellent, we should fix the whole order of our life unto it.  
1. THere is nothing so reasonable in nature, as to desire good, nothing so eminent, as to know much; nothing so absolute, as to have the power of all: but there is not any thing so profitable, as to proceed to true wisdom by a mysterious ignorance, and to be in in created light by blindness. The soul becometh another world, by the means of knowledge; or rather as God createth a world in essence, that, frameth another in Idaea: But if truth and love do not cooperate therein, man tormenteth himself in his knowledges, and createth evils without end, from which he cannot free himself, no not by issuing out of life.  
The Profane Court (say you) leads you into a visible world, but it is to behold miseries in it: To a world certain, but it is to teach you that happiness being therein un certain, loss is undoubted. All we have in 
The happiness to be born a Christian.  the world is base, caityf, and difficult, without knowledge of the true God. It is but a laboursom turmoil of affairs, an amazement of transitory pleasures, an illusion of deceitful blessings, which trouble us, and starve us in stead of satisfying our desires, or nourishing our hopes: But the knowledge of God is the root 
Scire justitiam, & virtutem tuam radix est immortalitatis. Sap. c. 15. 3.  of immortality.  
I then require of you (O Reader) that in the beginning of this discourse you adore the wisdom of God over you, who hath selected you out of the Mass of so many Infidels, to enrol you in the number of his children, and hath drawn you from the confusions of so great darkness, to call you into the light of Christianity. Behold so many people covered under the veil of shady night, born in error, to live in bruitishness, and die in despair of eternal salvation, and you are enlightened by the rays of God, illuminated by his wisdom, guided by his direction, covered with his protection, nourished with his blood, animated with his life, & are made participant of his felicity.  
If you be desirous in some measure to observe the 
Three tokens of the perfection of a thing. S. Thomas 1. p. q. 6.  excellency of your Faith and Religion, consider, the perfection of any thing is known by three principal notes; Essence, Operation, and Repose. All which, you have visible in the wisdom of Heaven you profess. His Essence is of an infallible verity; his Operations miraculous, and his Repose an unchangeable happiness. For what assurance more solid, than to have a God 
Solidity of our religion.  Incarnate for Author, who is come to cast the seeds of a golden Age, and adopt a new world in the blood of an eternal Testament? Who can better teach us the secrets of God, than God himself? I cannot account 
Varro apud Vincen. tom. 2. Illum quidem eruditorem elige, quem magis mireris in suis: nihil magnisicum docebit qui à se nihil didicerit.  him (said Varro) a skilful Master, who learns nothing of himself: And he hath understood all in the bosom of his Eternal Father, and from his own wisdom, which is no other than his Essence. He was promised from the beginning of the world, preached through all Ages, given as a pledge to the memory of all mankind, so long before his coming was appointed, his time, birth, life, and death. He came at his prefixed time, all environed with prodigies and miracles, all composed of virtues, making greatness to proceed out of the lowliness of his humble and painful life, as lightening-flashes break through the obscurity of night.  
2. What foundations think you hath he laid of 
The foundations of faith  your faith? Men believe men upon a little piece of paper, yea, very often upon the breath of a silly word. And Jesus would not be believed, but by writing his Law with the rays of an infinite number of Prophecies, which were verified in his Person, with the blood of more than ten millions of Martyrs, who suffered for his doctrine; with miracles so visible and irreprochable, that they changed even executioners into Confessors, and Tyrants into Martyrs.  
To speak plainly, he might have tied you unto him, and not made use of so many things: For what is more essential for the foundation of a belief, than the revelation of the first Verity, which might have been known to us by fewer proofs? But behold his goodness, and how he dealeth with our infirmities, as to be willing to strike us so sensibly with reflection of the greatness of our faith, to win us to his direction. The Jews ran after a simple figure, and tied themselves to weak elements. The Gentiles are filled with childish toys, and dotages, which made the most learned amongst them to mock at their religion, and say, That should their gods have appeared alive, in such 
Senec. l. de superstitione apud S. August. l. 6. de Civitate Dei.  manner, as they painted them, they would be accounted Monsters. In the heart of Mabumetans, a tyrannous law is planted with sword and impalements; No man is permitted to dispute upon it, (so many ridiculous and shameful things there are in it) which makes a soul recoil in the very beginning, that hath never so little humanity. But Christian Religion hath appeared in the bosom of glory, ever holy, ever victorious, ever opposed by the wicked, and still triumphant over impiety. It is enriched by its losses, glorified by its persecutions, established by its totter, and honoured by its wounds. God for it hath opened all the most learned lips, directed all the best pens, and for it bound himself with as many witnesses, as there are letters in the Scripture. Have not we then cause to proclaim with Tertullian: O how happy are 
O beatos nos qu●rum causâ Deus jurat! O miserrimos, si nec juranti Deo credimus! Tertul. c. 4. de poen.  we, to say, God engageth his own faith by oath to confirm ours! And are not we worthy of all unhappiness, if we any whit distrust this Eternal Verity?  
3. You perhaps will say, all it teacheth is very high, and that to be faithful, one must (as it were) cease to be reasonable. But tell not me faith is opposite to reason: It is above, not against it; it commandeth our sense to obey God; it laboureth to raise, not demolish; or if it demolish, it is but by ruining rebellion, to establish obedience. What is more reasonable, 
That to be faithful, is to be conformable to reason.  than to subject your reason to God, and to suffer yourself sweetly to pass along in the current of this puissant Authority, which hath drawn so many Ages after it, destroyed so many errors, gained so many battles, and won so many Crowns? Faith is a great gift, although it be the gift of the humble. It is the first life of humane understanding, 
Guillelm. Paris. de moribus, & Guillelm. Lugdun. de fide. Prima vita mentis humanae, etc.  the Jasper stone which serves for foundation of the City of God, the virginity of the soul, the source which watereth all the felicities of mankind. Why are you amazed, when God would have you believe that which is above your understanding, and surpasseth your knowledge? It is a most happy ignorance (said S. Hilary) which rather deserveth reward than pardon, 
S. Hilarius 8. de Trinit. Habet non taus veniam, quam praemium ignorare quo● creda●. Necessity of faith.  when one trusteth to the word of God, in that be cannot comprehend. You see how policy is guided by human faith, without which all the world were nought but disorder, and life a perpetual confusion: And yet you think it a strange matter, that God in his great policy exacteth a faith absolutely Divine, to serve as an entrance into your felicity. If you take away humane faith, and stick fast in the resolution not to believe any thing but what you see, you will become a monster, fit to be excluded from humane 
Si quod nescitur credendum non est, quomo do servient parentibus liberi quos parentes suos esse non credent?  society; you will disturb the beds of the most chaste wedlocks; you will accuse the modesty of the sincerest women; you will make the children to be doubted, not only by the fathers, but the mothers also, who are so often enforced to believe midwives and nurses; you will almost make doubt whether you have a liver, a heart, a spleen, or any lungs, nor will believe you have any thing, but that which you cannot behold without death These are considerations 
S. August. l. de utilitate credendi. Sine hoc nec ipsa exigi potest vita communis. ●ypr. in symbol. Apostol.  which Saint Augustine and Theodoret pursued in the Treatise they wrote of Faith, by which they show the necessity of humane belief, to pass on further to the Divine. Then what occasion have you to make your sense rebel against God▪ who becomes a surety for what he promiseth us; since we every moment, must give credit to the fidelity of most abject persons in the actions of civil life? Who seethe not that to take faith from Religion, is to tear the Altar out of the Temple, the apple from the eye, and the heart out of humane body.  
Do you not consider likewise, that it was an invention 
Great Providence of God in the establishment of faith.  worthy the Eternal Wisdom, to draw us to him by three degrees, which are as three Heavens observable in nature, and above nature? The first is that of science, the second of faith, the third of glory. Science appertaineth not to the whole world: All are permitted to live well, but few to speak well. 
Lactantius.  Some have not will for it, others means. Some have no inclination, others can never make application. Needs must then three parts of mankind be deprived of the knowledge of things most divine, and persevere in ignorance, according to the unhappiness of accidents, without the help of faith which replenisheth us with the knowledge of God. Besides, we find sciences are extremely sophisticate, as well through the weakness of our understanding, as the corruption of our manners. Academies are framed as palaces of verity; yet it is never so ill handled, as in places where show is made to adore it. Under the shadow of defence it is rend asunder, and as the ancient Teletias', it is strangled in making much of it. What inconvenience then do we find, if God, to remedy this misery, hath given us faith, which contenteth the whole world by its universality, as it assureth all well composed minds by its certainty. If the perfection 
S. Thomas. 2. 2. q. 2. art. 3.  of our nature had been limited within natural actions, divine faith had not needed to conduct us: But since God hath called us to a felicity above nature, were it not fit we were directed thereto by a supernatural knowledge?  
4. Consequently look on the Operation of Religion, 
The powerful operations of out Religion. Esther. 10.  the second note of its excellency: you shall see the fountain of Mordecheus, which in the beginning creepeth on with little noise through the meadows, and in an instant turneth into a great river, and this river into light, and this light into a sun; but a sun which affordeth lustre, and water to all the world.  
The powers of the world which glitter with so much pomp, have this almost ever proper to them, to be either unprofitable, or malign. What did those great Philosophers, who framed worlds in their ideas? What did the Plato's, Aristotoles, and Zeno's? Can they ever persuade any one silly hamlet to live under those goodly Commonwealths they instituted on paper? What did the Alexanders, Caesars, and Pompey's, with all their forces, but tend to the destruction of mankind? It is a strange thing that the last 
Plin. l. 7. c. 26. Cruel vanity of Pompey.  of them caused a Temple to be built to Minerva, over the gate whereof he commanded to be engraven, that he had taken, routed, and slain two millions, one hundred four-score and three thousand men; pillaged, or sunk eight hundred forty six ships, made desolate one thousand five hundred thirty eight Cities, and towns. Behold how the great-ones of the earth make themselves remarkable, as dreadful Comets, by the ruin of the whole world. But Jesus in establishing his Religion, would not be powerful but to do good since, He is the Adamant (saith Salvianus) who hath drawn 
Salvian. de provide. l. 4. ●haly●em affectu quasi spirante 〈◊〉 ●●cris sui manibus.  this mighty mass of Iron of all Ages with the hands of his love, and lively affections towards mankind.  
How can the tree be better known, than by the fruits? And upon what may one more reasonably ground the judgement made of Religion, than upon the works thereof?  
What have all other Religions taught, but to cut the throats of children, to imbrue Altars of Idols with blood; but to create ordures and abominations, to cover secret mischiefs with the veil of hypocrisy, to authorise fables, and canonize vice? But Christian Religion is that alone which brought piety into the world, where it was before unknown. It is that which hath crushed murderous and adulterous gods, under the ruins of their Temples, which demolished profane altars, suppressed sacrifices of humane blood, destroyed Amphitheatres, where they gloried to tear men in pieces, which confounded witchcrafts, tamed pride▪ quailed convetousness, stopped the inundations of luxury, repressed extravagancies of ambition, choked enraged desires of avarice, and turned a land of Tigers, Leopards, and fiery Serpents, into a Paradise of delights. It is that which drew from Heaven all the virtues, whereof some had before been unheard of, others contemned, the rest persecuted. It is that which taught humility, chastity, virginity, modesty, temperance, justice, and fortitude: That, which discovered true prudence, which opened the sources of contemplation, which furnished out the Host of religious Orders, which broke so many chains of the world, trampled under foot so many Idols of gold and silver, seated poverty in the throne of glory, erected statues of innocency, established purity even in thoughts. Is it not that which so many Martyrs, Confessors, Doctors, Virgins have done, whose triumphs we daily honour? Is it not upon these, that Jesus having vanquished so many monsters, imprinted the rays of his sanctity, which is preserved, and maintained, even in the corruption of Ages, in the persons of so many as God hath reserved to himself? Must we not confess, that a life led according to the doctrine of Jesus Christ, is a manifest conviction of all errors, and a little miracle in the world?  
5. From thence when we consider by what means our Saviour hath wrought this establishment, which are found so contrary to all humane ways, and how he acteth in suffering, how he draws to him in rejecting, how he is exalted by his abasings, glorified by his ignominy, enriched by poverty; how he doth raise by destroying, how he lives by his death, and is eternised by dying: This is it which transporteth humane understanding into admiration of the greatness of our Religion.  
6. Finally, if you also cast your eye on this last 
The repose which our faith promiseth.  perfection of Repose, you shall well understand, how Alexander, after he had conquered the Persians, being desirous to pass into the Indies, those who thought they were at the world's end, dissuaded him, and said, It was time for Alexander to rest, where the sun 
Tempus est Alexandrum cum orbe & sole desinere. Senec. Suasor.  and the world ended. But our Religion goes much further than the sun, and this inferior condition of the world. It hath the total universe for object of its travel, and the Kingdom of Heaven for its repose. All other Sects proposed pleasures to themselves for object of their pretensions, which might make them desire the body of a horse, or a hog, to enjoy it with the more advantage. But God, lifting us up to himself above the tracks of the sun and time, promiseth the same delights which he hath for himself in the vision, possession, and fruition of that divine face, which makes all the Happy. 
(a) Scimus, quoniam si terrestris domus nostrae habitationis hujus dissolvitur, quòd aedisicationem a Deo habemus, domum non manufactam aeternam in coelis. 2 Cor. 5. Invisibilem tanquam videns sustinuit. Heb. 11. 27.  We know this house of mortar and clay failing, wherewith we are covered, God hath prepared an eternal building for us in Heaven, not made by the hand of man, as the Apostle assureth us, and as we shall deduce towards the end of these Treatises. Thither it is our faith paceth roundly on, beholding with a purified eye, the lights of Heaven, a God invisible as if he were already visible. Unto this life it is we prepare our souls, and begin on earth to make the first essays of Beatitude.  
7. I then demand of you (O Noble men) whether 
Errors of the times. S. Hilarius l. 8. de Trinit. Fidem potius ipsi constituunt quim accipiunt.  all this well considered you ought not to abhor these petty undertakers, who seem to come into the world, not to receive Rules of Faith in it, but to prescribe them. They who cannot reform a silly fly in the works of Nature, will make themselves Monarches in the belief of our faith, and trick up a new this great work of Religion, which derives its accomplishment from God. They believe what pleaseth themselves, to displease the prime Verity, and create a new symbol in the chymaeraes of their wits, to introduce an impiety into Christianity. Needs must they have a fling at the Bible, as if it were the book of a man; labour about the fountain-heads of the four rivers of terrestrial Paradise, the speaking serpent, Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, the red Sea, the jawbone and foxes of Samson, as if the Omnipotency of God were not a pledge sufficient enough, against all these weaknesses and curiosities of wit: which, saith Tertullian, 
Tert. de prescript. Doctrinae demonum prurientibus auribus n●t●.  are doctrines of devils, grown up to please the itch of incredulous ears. We must believe one Article, and leave another; believe the Trinity, and doubt of the Sacrament, Invocation of Saints, Purgatory, Images, and Ceremonies of the Church, as if it were not evident, that whosoever divideth faith, hath none at all. It is not much to the purpose to dispute of Religion, after the sweat of Confessors, blood of Martyrs, and so many millions of miracles. Never would belief be so sick, were it not preceded by the death of virtue, all will be unhappy for them, who lose piety, the root of happiness. But what repose hath a Catholic, who may dying say: I trust to God for a gift, which 
The notable assurance of a Catholic.  cannot proceed but from God. I die in the faith of Constantine, Theodosius, Clodovaeus, S. Lewis, and so many millions of Saints. I go where all the wisest and most entire part of mankind doth go. I follow the authority of eighteen General Counsels, wherein all Ages assembled together the wisest men of the world. I die in the belief of the Church, which is professed throughout all the habitable world. The living and the dead; The stones and marbles of the Tombs of mine Ancestors speak for me: The stars will fall from the Heavens before my faith can be shaken.  
And therefore (O Catholics) strike at Heaven 
That zeal ought to be had towards Religion.  gate by continual prayer, ask of the Father of lights a lively Faith, a most sincere zeal towards your Religion, suffer not your judgement to change in the massy composition of body, plunge it not in sensuality, polish it for the great fruition of God, entertain it with consideration of his beauty, nourish it with antipasts of his glory. It only appertaineth to sensual souls, black, and distrustful, to suffer themselves to fall into pusillanimities and faintness, which lessen the esteem we should have of our vocation towards Christianity. It only appertaineth to carnal spirits, and who want faith in the house of faith, to set the riches and affairs of the world above Religion. But 
Hoc est sidem in domo fidei non habere. Cyprian. de mortalitate.  you (O Great-men) learn hereafter to value yourselves, not by these frail and perishable blessings, which environ you by that skin which covers you, by those false ornaments of life which disguise you, by all those beauties, which never are nearer ruin, than when they most sparkle with lustre. Learn to behold all humane things from the top of the Palace of Eternity, and you shall see them like rotten pieces, which possess a nothing of times infinity. Why do we here entertain ourselves with earthly considerations, as fire, which absented from its sphere, is fed with fat and coals. Let us open our bosoms to these fair hopes wherewith the Religion we profess, sweerly replenisheth our hearts. We no longer are pilgrims 
Ephes. 2.  and vagabonds, nor strangers of the Testaments: but Citizens of Saints, and the domestics of God: built on the foundation of Apostles▪ and Prophets, on the fundamental stone, which is Jesus Christ.  
Let us enter into this goodly train of Ages, into this admirable fellowship of Patriarches, Martyrs, and Virgins. Let us hasten to the sources of light, and never end but in infinity.  

The first EXAMPLE upon the first MAXIM. Of the esteem one ought to make of his Faith and Religion. The PERSIAN CONSTANCY.  
IF the estimation of things eternal, do not as yet 
Drawn out of Theodoret, Cassiodorus, & Epiphanes. Theod. l. 5. c. 38. Epiph. Scolasticus. Cassiod. histor. tripart. l. 10. c. 32. Baro. tom. 5. anno 4201. & alii.  sufficiently penetrate your heart, reflect on that, which so many valiant Champions have done, to preserve a blessing, which you presently possess by grace, and which you often  through ingratitude. I will produce one example amongst a thousand, able to invite the imitation of the most virtuous, and admiration of all the world. In the time when Theodosius the younger swayed the Eastern Empire, the Persians, who had been much gained by the industry of the Emperor Arcadius his father, and afterward entertained by his infinite sweetness and courtesy, lived in good correspondence of amity with the Christians; so that many of our Religion adventured themselves in their Territory; some to make a fortune in the Court, others for pleasure, many for commerce, and the rest there to establish true piety.  
Matters of Religion proceeded then very prosperously, and the most eminent men of the Kingdom shut up their eyes against the Sun, which this Nation adored, to open them to the bright Aurora of Christianity. But as there are some who never enjoy any thing, so there are others who never have enough. Some 
Indiscreet zeal.  Christians not contented with their progressions, which were well worthy of praise, thought they lost all, out of the desire they had to leave nothing undone. Which is the cause, I much approve those Ancients, 
Helinandus apud Vincent.  who placed the images of wisdom over the gates of great houses, with this inscription: Experience is my 
Vsns me genuit.  mother. So the wisest and most experienced thought, nothing was to be precipated, & that mean advancements accompanied with safety, were more to be valued than great splendours which drew precipices, and ruins after them. On the contrary, young and fiery spirits thrust all upon extremity, supposing their power extended to the measure of their passion. Nothing is more dangerous in any affair, than when indiscreet fervour takes the mask of zeal, or that a fever of Reason passeth for a virtue. All his thoughts are deified, his footsteps sanctified, and although nothing be done for God, it is said, all is for him.  
Bishop Audas, a man endowed with great and singular virtues, but extremely ardent, and unable to adapt his zeal to the occasion of times, needs would countenance the humour of the blind multitude, and went 
Audes destroyeth a Pyraeum. Commotions for matters of Religion. Others Baranaves, or Goronaves. Judgement of Theodoret upon this action.  out in the midst of the day to destroy a Pyraeum, which was a Temple wherein the Persians kept fire to adore it. Men quickly inflamed in matters of Religion, fail not to raise a great sedition, which came to the notice of King Ildegerdes. Audas is sent for, to give an account of this act: He defendeth himself with much courage, and little success for the Christians benefit: for the King turning his proper justification into crime, condemns him upon pain of death to re-edify the Temple he had demolished; which he refusing to do, was presently sacrificed to the fury of Pagans. Theodoret blames him that he unseasonably ruined the Temple, and convinceth him by the example of S. Paul, who seeing in Athens many Altars dedicated to false God, contented himself with refuting the error, without making use of the hammer to destroy it, as well foreseeing the time was not yet come: yet withal commanded this man, who rather chose death, than to become an Author of impiety in the re-establishment of this Temple.  
The rage of Idolaters by the Magis (professed enemies 
Terrible persecution.  of our Religion) was not wholly extinct in the blood of Audas, but stirred up a violent persecution, which almost proceeded to the undermyning the foundations of Christian religion in Persia. Men were every where seen to be flayed and roasted, pierced with bodkins and arrows, thereby becoming spectacles of terror and pity, to all those who beheld them. Some were exposed to wasps in the boiling ardours of the Sun: Others thrown into caves, and places filled with infection, to be devoured by rats, and slowly gnawn by ugly vermin: Their members fell in pieces, and their life daily distilled drop after drop, their faith unshaken, which the sword of persecution sought for even in their entrails. Their members were not tormented, for they had none but wounds, for they were all over covered with them: and as torments redoubled one upon another, gave no end to their sufferings, so God found the means to finish their pain, and life by the eternity of their crowns.  
The King seeing so dreadful tortures rather served to publish the glory of the Combatants, than ruin their virtue, resolved upon other cruelties, which being apparently less violent, were in effect much more pernicious.  
There were among the Christians, two Lords of prime quality, the one whereof was called Hormisdas, the other Suenes, who being the two eyes of the Court, and Standard-bearers of Christianity, the endeavour of the Gentiles was most violent against them to force them to abjure Religion. Hormisdas is first summoned 
Hormisdas, & ●he strength of his will.  to return to the Persian superstition, and being sent for to the Palace, the King who much esteemed him, both for his great nobility (for he was of the blood Royal) as also for the services his father had done to the Crown in the quality of the Governor of a Province, unwilling to lose him, he made trial of all sorts of allurements, to gain him to his opinion.  
But the brave Champion stood firm in his belief, telling the King with many excellent reasons, that destroying the faith of his true God in Persia, he would bury the loyalty due to his Majesty in the ruins thereof: which was the cause that Ildegerdes, in stead of yielding the homage he owed to reason and truth, became furiously choleric, so that degrading him of honour, and confiscating all his goods, yea, leaving him nought at all, but a poor pair of linen breeches, he sent him out to keep the camels of the Army; adding to this great inhumanity the most barbarous scorn could be invented against a gentleman, endowed with such excellent parts. But this courageous heart, which had studied the glory of the Cross in the deep abyss of the ignominy of Jesus, drove camels before the eyes of an Army, wherein he had commanded with such alacrity, as others govern Empires, and thought his nakedness more glorious, than the purple of Monarches.  
The King one day beholding him out of a chamber window among the camels, roasted under the scorching Sun, and all covered over with dust, felt his heart mollified by the effect of his own cruelty, and calling him into his palace, after he had laid before him the worth of his extraction, and the noble employments wherewith he meant to honour him, he clothed him with rich apparel, and conjured him by all the ways of friendship, to return to the throne of honour, by forsaking his Religion. But Hormisdas displeased with such discourse, took the robes were cast over his shoulders, and tore them in pieces in the King's presence, saying: Sir, keep your gifts and impieties, and know Hormisdas will never do any thing unworthy his courage: which was the cause Ildegerdes thrust him naked out of the Court, and sent him back again to his camels, where he beware out a long & painful martyrdom.  
The same storm fell at that time upon Suenes, one of 
Suenes persecuted.  the wealthiest and most powerful in the kingdom, and who had a thousand servants in his family. Officers were sent to seize on his whole estate possessed by him, not to maintain riot, but cherish piety; so that in a short time, he saw himself reduced to beggary. But he weighing how Almighty God, who clotheth Heaven with beauties of light, and in the spring-time maketh a garment for the earth, bordered and adorned with so many millions of flowers, had for us put on nakedness; scorned all these violences, and said aloud, They were not near taking away the treasure of faith he bore in his heart, who attempted it on this silly movable of fortune.  
The King, purposely to afflict him the more▪ took all his children from him, to thrust them into servitude and fetters, if they would follow their father's example: wherewith somewhat softened, seeing they snatched from between his arms those, who in the imbecility of age, had more need of his example, than wealth, he kissing them, said: Children, Keep constantly 
An excellent instruction for children.  the faith of your poor father, and leave greatness and worldly fortunes to others. You shall ever be wealthy enough, if you persist loyal to God. Faith will wipe away your tears, will enrich your poverty, glorify your chains, and immortalize the honour of your death. This persecution is a cloud that passeth, but we shall quickly behold a bright day, which neither admitteth end, nor darkness. This constancy which should make all the world 
Stranger persecution of a man.  wonder, exasperated the infidels, so, that daily seeking out all the ways how to torment, and burn him with a soft fire, they advised to give the confiscation of all his goods to one of his servants, who had been the most treacherous, and cruel against his Master. He had nothing left but a wife, who possessed in his heart the place of those chaste correspondencies, which the law of God afforded him, and she in the beginning making a show of willingness inseparably to follow the fortune of her husband, much comforted this generous soul, who thought nothing was his, but what he gained to Jesus Christ.  
But behold a strong battery to take from him the remainders of his consolation. The King caused this woman to be vehemently solicited, to make a divorce from her husband, and to marry his servant, to whom he already had given possession of his great estate. This at the first a little startled the soul of this Lady, she yet having some humanity in her, but saw herself encompassed with many kindred and worldly friends, who suggested according to the maxims of impiety: That it was a folly to forsake a blessing so present, to run 
Violent temptation of a woman.  after a fantasy of felicity. That the command of Kings must be obeyed, who are visible gods on earth. That a husband despoiled of all his means, retaineth nothing of man; but body, nor can any longer be a husband. That she married him to live, and to give life to others by love, not to cut her own throat, and her children's, through wickedness. That a man who renounceth honour, can no more pretend to nature. To conclude, that it is wealth, which maketh men, and that it was no dishonour to marry a servant, who is the favourite of a mighty▪ King▪ We came not into the world to be masters of fortune, but to yield to its Empire. What content can there be to walk up and down Towns and Cities like a beggars, following a husband, the object of the world's laughter, and reserve all is left of his miserable body to swords and flames?  
So much were her ears beaten with such like discourses; 
She yieldoth.  that through a most unspeakable cowardice she forsook her religion and husband, to marry this servant, who seemed noble enough, since he had the golden fleece. The King seeing she had yielded, added for full accomplishment of inhumanity, that Suenes should remain in his own house, as a slave to his wise and servant. Behold here the extremity of all worldly miseries. Yield thyself up (said one) poor Suenes: 
Admirable constancy.  s●est thou not that of so many palaces, and such treasures, there is not left for thee so much as a house covered with stubble; of so many children, none to call thee father? Is it not time to forsake thy faith, since she who slept by thy sides, hath left thee? Wert thou amongst the chains of Lestrigons, and Tartars, thou mightst breathe a more wholesome air: But to behold thyself a slave to thy servant in thine own house, and to have perpetually before thee the infidelity of a disloyal wife for object, how is it possible, but to overthrow the most stable constancy in the world?  
But Suenes assembling together all the forces of his heart, said: O faithless and perfidious discourses! All is taken from me, but they cannot take away Jesus Christ. I follow him in liberty and bondage, in prosperity and adversity, in life and death: whilst one small thread of life remains in my heart, one silly spark of breath upon my lips, I will combat against the gates of hell, and all the laws of impiety. O the power of the spirit of God O divorce from flesh and blood! O spectacle worthy to be beheld by angels over the gates of heaven with admiration! A man to die in so many indignities, such punishments, such deaths, without dying, without complaint, growing wan, or speaking any one word unworthy the lips of a Christian! What is it to be a puissant, but to brave all the powers of earth, and hell? What is it to be rich, but to place all your treasures in the heart of God?    

II. MAXIM. Of the Essence of GOD.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That it is fit to obey Nature; all other Divinity being most unknown. That nothing is so known as God, although not acknowledged through our ingratitude.  
ACynick Philosopher heretofore sought for a man with a candle at noonday: and now adays the wicked seek God in a clear and full light, and when they have found him, become blind by their own lights, in that they see not him, who is not to be known, but in the quality of a Judge punishing their offences. Out alas! what is man without God? Tertullian speaking of the country about the Euxine 
Tertul. advers. Martion. l. 1. cap. 1. Excellent description of Tertullian.  sea, saith, It is a Region separated from the commerce of men, as well by the providence of Nature, as the reproach of its bruitishness. It is peopled by most savage Nations, which inhabit, if we may say so, a wandering cart, that serves them for house; a habitation, which though perpetually in motion, is less inconstant than their manners. Their abode is uncertain, their life wholly savage, their luxury promiscuous, and indifferent for all sorts of objects. They make no scruple to serve in the flesh of their parents in a feast with beeff and mutton, and think the death of such cursed, who die when they no longer are fit to be eaten. Sex softeneth not women in this country; for they sear off their dugs being young, and make a distaff serve for a lance, being otherwise so fervent in battle, that they had much rather fight, than marry. The Climate and elements, are as rigid, as their manners. The day is never bright, the sun never smileth, nor is the sky any thing but a continued cloud. The whole year is a winter, and the wind ever North. Ice robs them of rivers; and if they have liquor, the fire affords it. The mountains are still covered with ice and snow. All is cold in this country, but vice, which ever burneth. Yet I must tell you, (saith he) there is not any thing amongst these wonders more prodigious, than wicked Martion. For where shall we find a monster more odious, or a man in nature more senseless than him, who did not acknowledge the Divinity, and will have the causes, and sublime reasons given him of the Essence of God, which never were, nor shall be: for then there would be somewhat above God.  
The Emperor Tiberius having conceived some 
Humano arbitratu divinit●s pensitatur: nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit. Tertul. Apol. c. 5. Nec quicquam refert Deum neges, an asseras. Arno. l. 1.  good opinion of Divinity in the Person of our Saviour, was willing to rank him in the number of other gods, but it was not executed, because it must pass by decree of the Senate: and God, who is all that which he is by nature, regarded not the judgement of men to authorise his Divinity. You were as good deny God (saith Arnobius) as to make the truth of his Essence depend upon the weakness of humane reason.  
1. I ask of you whether there be any thing in the world more present with us, and more familiarly known than ourselves, our substance, our life, our being? It seemeth (say you) it is the most certain of our knowledges. Now if I show, the science we have of 
God is better known to us than ourselves.  God is far stronger, more undoubted, and invincible, than the knowledge we have of ourselves, I necessarily convince the ignorance of the Divinity is stupid, ungrateful, and punishable with all the rigours of eternal justice.  
I pray tell me, what so certain knowledge can you have of yourself? Have you it by the knowledge of History, which is a reasonable knowledge; by revelation, which is extraordinary; by prophecy, which is mysterious; by faith, which is infallible? I do not see you allege any of these for confirmation of your own being. You have no proofs (say you) more certain, than your senses, which you know notwithstanding to be brutish, deceivers, and deceived in so many objects. You hear yourself speak, you smell yourself, you touch yourself; and for that you affirm you are, although you have not any knowledge of the better part of your body, by the most noble sense within you, but by the help of a mirror. Nay, you know so little of yourself, that scarcely have you observed the number of your teeth: and being far from the particular distinction of the interior parts of your body, should you enter into the great labyrinths of the faculties of your soul, you would quickly find out your own ignorance.  
Compare now the science you have of yourself, with the great proofs which lead you to the knowledge of the Divinity. First, we are born to know God, as the excellent Divine Alexander Alensis discourseth: 
Alex. Alens. quaest. 2. de cognition Dei. A singular consideration of Ale●.  because, if the sovereign Goodness be necessarily desired by our reasonable appetite, we must affirm the supreme truth is no less capable to be known by our understanding: and as we are naturally inclined to the search of this sovereign Good, which may take up all the agitations of our thoughts, so we feel our soul almost without any other reflection, stirred up with a generous desire to be united to the first cause. We behold it through so many creatures as through lattices▪ and it seems to speak to us in as many objects, as we see works of his Goodness. It maketh us restless, it scorcheth us with an honest flame, which teacheth us there is a God, and that we are created for him; nor is there any other creature in all visible nature, which laboureth in such inquisition, but man: This ardent inclination to this knowledge, is not a slight facility of science, and we see constant study is ordinarily recompensed with the fruition of its object.  
2. I likewise hold, God of his part is very well to 
God most easy to be known.  be known, having all the conditions which may make a thing known, as Essence, immutability, simplicity, brightness, and presence. If you there look for Being, which is a necessary object of the understanding, as colour of sight: God, saith S. Gregory of Nazianzen, 
Nazi●●z. I●mbico. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Origenes homil. in number. 23. Faustus de gratiâ. l. 2. c. 7. Deus est quod habet. De● ubique est quis nullibi est.  is a creating Essence, an Essence comprehending all things. If immutability, Origen teacheth, the Divinity sitteth on the top of beatitude, ever constant, never changeable: If brightness, God is all light, as the Scripture manifesteth in so many places: If simplicity, Faustus Bishop of Rhegium showeth, God is all what he hath: If continual presence, Porphyri● confesseth, he is every where, because he is not in any part, as bodies are. The Poet Orpheus in his mysterious poefie, calleth him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as one would say, lightsome and visible, to teach us, all the world is enfolded within his radiance. I will not hereupon infer, that one may have in this world an absolute and perfect knowledge of God, as of a thing finite; but I say, that amongst so many lights, it is not admitted that any man should be ignorant there is a God, Creator of all things.  
3. What Epicurean can dis-involve himself from 
Reason of Mercury Trismegistus. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Trismegistus his reason, who teacheth, that were there not an Essence necessary and independent, all we see, all we touch, all we feel in the world, would have no being; but this is mere illusion. Wherefore? Because the things which may be, and not be indifferently, like so many plants, or transitory animals, one while are, and another while are not. And we may truly say, there hath been a certain time, wherein they neither had being, nor name in the world. Now, as nothing can actuate, and produce itself▪ must we not confess, that had there not been from all eternity a first Agent, which gave motion to so many causes, enchained one to another, whereof they are produced, wherein we presently behold this great world, all had been a nothing. For of two we must grant one, either that the world is created, or not created. If impiety transport a man so far, as to say it is not created, but hath been from all eternity, he would ever be convinced by his own confession, that there were such a Being as we seek for, eternal, necessary, independent, which is nothing else, but God: He would be reduced to this point, that he no longer could deny the Divinity, but was only ignorant what this Divinity is, and in stead of giving this title to a most pure Spirit, as we do, he 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  would attribute it to a body, as to heaven, water, earth; where he would instantly find himself ashamed of his folly, to take for the Divinity, a thing which hath no understanding, and consequently is far less than himself. In stead of a true God, he would make a million of deities, to become as many snares of his error, and witnesses of his bruitishness. But if the world be created, (which it is not lawful to doubt) of three things we must affirm one, Either that it produced itself, or that one piece made another, or that there was one cause external, supreme, not to be reckoned among the rest, which made all the parts of the universe. To say 
Author libri de triplici habitaculo apud Aug. tom. 9 Nihil scipsum create. Quâ enim potentiâ, qui omnino n●● esset, scips●● faceret. De●● innatus, infectus, sine initi●, sine fine, in aternitate constitutus. Tert. l. 3. advers. Martion. c. 3.  a thing made itself, is to affirm it was before its being, and to assever a proposition ridiculous to all humane understanding. But if to evade this manifest contradiction, one will maintain one piece made another; still must he come to a last piece, which was produced by itself, and so fall again into the same difficulty. Behold the reason why we must stick upon a general cause, out of the main mass of all causes, and which affording essence, sense, and intelligence to so many creatures according to the condition, and qualities of every one, remaineth eternal, and . Now he who says this, affirmeth there is a God.  
4. But if some impious creature will notwithstanding 
Instance upon the infinite number of the wicked.  perplex the evidence of this proposition, imitating Sorcerers, who cast mists upon the brightest morning, and say one thing produced another from father to son, but that this still mounteth upward in infinitum, and so think to make us lose our judgement and reason, in the labyrinth of infinities; First, it is answered according to the doctrine of Philosophers: There is 
Force of reason.  nothing in the world actually infinite; and although an infinity of generations of men, beasts, and other creatures were admitted, still must you confess this infinite mass of men, was produced from a cause independent. For that which agreeth to each part of a species, and which is properly by it affected, agreeth likewise to the main of the whole species, as, if it be proper to every man living to understand, and reason, it must be inferred, the whole species is intellectual, and rational: But in this infinite mass of men supposed, there cannot any one be assigned, who was not produced; we therefore must conclude, that all the mass is produced, not by itself (a matter we already have refuted) but from another cause independent of this supposed mass: and this cause is God, which we prove.  
5. Secondly (as lying is ingenious to ruin its own labours) they who suppose this infinity of generations and efficient causes, destroy all sorts of generations, when they think to establish them. For as a quantity cannot be divided into proportionable, and correspondent parts to the infinite, so there are no causes essentially subordinate one to another, which go into this infinity: There must necessarily be in such subordinations a first, which is a cause of a middle, and a middle the cause of a latter. Necessarily all these created 
Theophil. Raynaudus.  essences, and which were but in potentia, presuppose essentially an actual essence, always subsisting, which is a support to all the rest, as the earth hath all the pieces of a building raised one upon another. It 
Ita Ruvius, & Cajet. 1. part. q. 2. art. 3. Vasq. 1. part D. 20. nu. 11.  must be to bring you into the world, that your father acted after your grandfather, your grandfather after your great grandfather by a continuation, distinct and measured, as in a chain from the first link to the last. For were there not a first, a middle, a last, there could not be either order, or subordination; and were there no subordination, there could be no action. If infinite number of wheels must move to make a clock strike, it would never sound, because the swinge being to be given to all the other from a first wheel, this first wheel would never be found, because in infinity there is no first. And although it were found, it could not communicate its activity to the last; otherwise it must pass in a determinate time, an infinite space, which can never be measured. If you depend from father to son, from an infinity of men, to be produced, (as you say) you could not be a man, for you must have passed from infinite Ages, before you could come to the father, who begat you. And if one could pass over infinite Ages, see you not the infinite would be finite? So much you forget all truth, and reason in the chimaeras of your wit. And then what absurdity were it to grant to a Nature so poor, and limited, as is that of all corruptible things a consequence of infinite causes.  
6. But let us withdraw from these thorns, and not 
Cicero 2. de nature. Deor. Quod necesse sit ●raestantem aliquam esse Naturam, quâ nihil sit melius. Scot in 1. dist. 2. q. 2. Si actus purus est possibilis, ergo existit, alioqui non est actus purus qui pugnat formaliss●●e cum quavis potentialite.  urge at this time the reason which heretofore convinced Epicurus, and guided him, (brutish though he were) to the knowledge of the Divinity, when he figured to himself, that necessarily there was in the universe an excellent Nature exalted above all the rest, and the best of all, and that this was God. Nor likewise let us allege what was touched by Scotus, who saith, A pure Act being possible, and there being no incompatibility between essence, and purity of essence, it of necessity must be, because it formally excludeth all power, not yet actuated. Let us also pass over that of 
(a) Arist. 8. Phys. & 12. Metaphys. Lights of God invincible.  Aristotle, taken from the necessity of a first Mover, which Auerroes judgeth very effectual.  
7. I demand of thee (O brutish man) who so often blemishest thy knowledges by the impurity of thy life, can one say a man is hidden, who were showed by a thousand lights, discovered by a thousand voices, a thousand trumpets; represented by a thousand pictures? Nay, all creatures (who will carefully consider them) are lights, voices, images, which shine before the pavilion of the Divinity, which proclaim, which figure, which engrave it on our hearts, with an eternal character. The lessons of the Divinity are common 
〈◊〉 c●●dibus qu●d●●●●●rnae legis tabulae praebentur, ut in paginis elementorum ac voluminibus temporum communis, & public● divinae institutionis doctrina legatur. Prosp. l. 2. de voca. Gentium. c. 4.  to all the world (said Prosper:) we learn them in the leaves of elements, and in the volumes of time: we cannot but remember them, if we forget not ourselves. We admire in Philostratus 
(b) Philost. in vita Herodis Attici. Cleomede l. 4. de mundo. Hoc autem omne invenisse summ● sapienti● est, essecisse, virtutis invictae. Galen. l. 3. de usu partium c. 10. All contributes to the knowledge of God.  an Athenian Herod, who appointed twenty four pages for his son, every one of which bore the title of a Greek letter, that he might learn his Alphabet by calling his servants. But, O ingrateful man! God gave thee a million of creatures, which contribute to thy service, to teach thee his Name, who for his greatness cannot be unknown, and for his goodness ought not to be neglected. I speak not now of all the wonders of the world, whereof use is made to prove the Divinity, because they are sufficiently seen, and that it is the ordinary place, whereon they dilate, who handle this subject. It is impossible, said Cleomede, that a man who will attentively consider five things, appearing in the fabric of the universe; to wit, the contexture of so many, and so different parts, the order of productions, the relation one creature hath to another, their ends, and use, should not admire, and know this great All is made by a Nature sovereign, predominant, and Monarchal, which produced all things of unity, and caused them to re-enter into themselves by the same unity. So many rays in a fun, so many drops of water in a river, so many rivers in a sea, so many branches and leaves on a root, so many sinews from the brain, so many veins from a liver, so many arteries from a heart, so many parts of a creature, so many motions of one principal, conspire together to make us understand this First of Unities. Two strings cannot accord upon a lute without the wit of a man, and so many things high and low, visible, invisible, weighty, light, great, little, hot, cold, living, not living, movable, , sensible, insensible, can they agree without the spirit of God? The lines of Mathematicians drawn upon the sand of the seashore, make a man say who is in a desert Island, that men have passed by; because neither Bears nor Lions trace such like figures: and cannot these vast heavens, with all the enamel of their stars, nor the earth with all the rivers, and seas which moisten it, make us say, Necessarily God went this way? If from the great school of the world, and the general voice of nature thou dost pass to sciences, they all bear on their brows the marks of the Divinity. The Mathematician shows thee the point, which maketh all lines: The Arithmetician, the unity, which causeth all numbers; to tell thee, there is a Creator, who is the centre, and beginning of all creatures: Geometry presenteth thee the compass with one stable foot in the centre, the other moving, to show thee the firmness of the essence not created, and instability of all things created: Astrology proposeth unto thee its motions so regular, and measured; Music its harmonies; Philosophy its reasonings; eloquence its discourses; mechanic, its works and admirable industries, to let thee understand the effects of this increated essence, which traveleth throughout all nature without losing any part of its eternal repose. The knowledge of 
Tertul. adver Martion. l. 1. c. 10. Animae a primordio scientia Dei dos est: nunquam Deus la●ebit, nunquam Deus d●●rit; semper intelligetur, semper audietur, semper videbitur.  a God is given to the soul, as a dower or inheritance of its birth: God shall never be hidden, never shall fail; shall ever be understood, ever harkened unto, perpetually seen. Herod and Nero knew him, being unable to free themselves from this science: The Polyphemuses did believe him in the obscurity of their caves, even when they were devouring the flesh of men: conscience told them news of him, nor hath any man hitherto grown to so much fury, as not at some time to acknowledge his dependence in the affrightment of a mind troubled with the image of its crimes. Nothing will appear to be so well known as God. who makes all things to be understood: whilst in the mean time the ingratitude of me hath reduced him to this point in the world, that he is most forgotten by al.  
8. It is the greatest of evils to be un willing to know 
Ingratitude of man towards God.  him, of whom you cannot be ignorant Our ignorance is convinced by his lights, and our ingratitude overwhelmed by his goodness: And yet man asks if God govern all, why this, wherefore that, why evil, why wicked and wherefore so many miseries in the lives of mortals? He will know the causes of the will of God, which have no causes, but is the chief of all causes; and (doubly stupid as he is) he complaineth of evils which sprang from himself, and accuseth God of nothing, but because his mercy hath not at all times thunder in hand to chastise his crimes. He is enforced to confess a sovereign Being, to which he oweth all he is & confessing serves him so negligently, that it were almost better to have no God, than to believe in one, and make him the object of his neglect.  
Who will open again unto us the lips of Isaiah, to say once more, Harken, O you heavens, which circumvolve over our heads replenished with stars and lights: Harken, O earth, which hast so often trembled with horror of the crimes of so many mortals? To say truly (saith the Creator) had I no other title of recommendation towards man, but myself, my sceptre, Empire, and dignity; honour and gratitude would ever be due to me: But hear what I have done: I have nourished children with incomparable sweetness: I have bred them, and born them in the bosom of my providence, with unspeakable tenderness, yet was contemned by those, on whose foreheads I imprinted the rays of my glory. Forgetfulness alone is insupportable to love: But what shall we say of contempt? What of injury? There hath not been any excellency, or perfection in me which was not invaded and checked, O man by thy vices. Thou hast resisted the Immensity of my Essence by thy avarice, and boundless ambition: my Infinity by thy inordinate concupiscences, which tend to be infinite; my Immutability by thy inconstancy; my Eternity by thy love of transitory things; my Power by thy imbecility and remissness; my Wisdom by thy ignorance; my Perfection by thy wants; my Sanctity by thy vices; my Liberality by thy ingratitude; my Jurisdiction by thy tyranny; my Providence by thy stupidity; my Mercy by thy obstinacy; and my Justice by thy iniquity.  
I no longer complain of Moors and Arabians, who persecuted me; I complain of being wounded in my own house by my unnatural children. If needs I must endure the contradiction of all the world, vetily, O Christian, thy hand ought to be the last lifted up against me. The ox, brutish as he is, acknowledgeth 
Tertul. advers. Martion. l. 1. c. 23. Quid injustius, & improbiùs, quàm ut servus adversùs caput Domini sui subornetur? & quidem quid iniquiùs est, in ipsâ abduc domo Domini de ipsius adhuc horreis vivens, sub ipsius adhuc plagis tremens.  his Master; the Ass loves his crib, who oweth him: what say I? savage beasts, who have almost perpetually slaughter, and blood under their paws, are reclaimed by benefits, and thou becomest obdurate by my liberality. What is there more mischievous, more intolerable, than to see a servant rebel against a Master in his own house, when he lives of his granary, and shakes under his correction? It is not so great a matter to adore with a most submiss reverence, whom thou canst not comprehend, to moisten the earth with thy tears, and appease Heaven with thy penance, and say: 
(a) S. August. fol. 31.  woe the time I knew thee not! woe the blindness that made me neglect thee! woe the deafness which shut up mine ears against thy sacred words! Blind and deaf, I desperately threw myself amongst so many objects of creatures of the world, and beauties which only served to deform me. Thou were with me, I not with thee, and all, which cannot be without thee, separated me from thee. It is too late to begin to know thee, and too late to begin to love thee; but this will be never to have an end but in him, who concludeth all things.  

The second EXAMPLE upon the second MAXIM.  
The Power of the DIVINITY 
Drawn from the Scripture, from S. Hierom upon Daniel, and Josephus, etc.  over Infidels. ANTIOCHUS' the THEOMACQUE, Or Enemy of GOD.  
IT were a very hard matter to find out a soul more prostituted to impiety, than that of Antiochus, surnamed the Theomacque; and a heart more possessed with the fear of a Deity, than Eleazar's. For which cause, the encounter of times, and battles having so well opposed them, we will propose them in this History. This Antiochus, who rendered himself so notorious in holy Scripture, through the exorbitancy of his wickedness, seemed to have derived impiety from his birth; for the Antiochuses, his Ancestors, caused themselves heretofore, to be surnamed the Saviour's, and Gods of the earth.  
He was of a spirit, fierce, close, and crafty, intelligent, 
Antiochus a politic man, who had no other God, but ambition.  bold, audacious, who shown from his younger years to have no other Gods but sceptres, no other Paradise, than fruition of Empires. His father Antiochus the Great, had given him this lesson: For he was an active Prince, but more judicious than his son, who never ceased to disturb his neighbour, and covertly attempt the Kingdom of Egypt by arms, and subtleties, until such time that the Romans clipped the wings of his ambition, as well to stay the progression of his overmuch power, become formidable to the Empire, as to punish him for the dangerous correspondences he held with Hannibal. He was enforced by reason of some agreements and transactions of peace to send his son to Rome in hostage, and that was this Antiochus we mention.  
This young Prince, who already had in his imagination 
He was delivered for an hostage to the Roma●●.  designs of Empire, managed this occasion, and deriving his happiness out of the necessity of his father's affairs, learned therein all the extent of supreme powers on earth, and began to reflect on the Romans, as gods of the whole world. On the other side Scipio, and all the other great Captains, were forward to let the people behold this offspring of the Asian Kings, as a Lion enchained, and finding him vain enough they spared not slight compliments, and court smokes: but ever held in their own hands the highest point of authority, and drew profit out of all affairs.  
During his abode in Rome, his father Antiochus the 
Prudence of the Romans.  Great, overwhelmed under the burden of his ambition, found the catastrophe of his pretensions in a tomb, and his eldest son Seleveus succeeded him, who had a short life, and an unhappy reign. At which time young Antiochus felt in himself a vehement itch of rule, more powerfully than any of his Predecessors had done, for soon understanding his brother's death (who left him the kingdom of Asia, and knowing 
Ambition of Antiochus.  his sister Cleopatra, married to the King of Egypt, was a widow, and the mother of only one child, of whom he hoped to be easily rid, he ardently thirsted to join the two Empires and unite them under his power. Now the Kingdom of Syria appertaining to this young Orphan, the son of his sister, he in the beginning entered thereinto with great modesty, in the quality of a Tutor, and Regent, and not a King, aforehand disposing the people's minds by Attalus and Eumenes, who did him good service in this pretention. This wolf clothed in a lambskin, thought to enter by the same ways into the Kingdom of Egypt, and wrote thus to his sister, That it seemed the Gods had 
His craft.  thrown him among thorns at the time when Kings of his age walked not but on violets, and roses. That being absent out of the Kingdom, he had received sad news of the death of his thrice-honoured father, and immediately of the death of his wellbeloved brother; whose days he wished might have been lengthened with his own years: But that nothing afflicted him so much as to see her a widow, burdened with an infant, whose hands were not so early fit to manage a sceptre. Behold therefore the cause why be now undertook the government of the Kingdom of Syria, which was the possession of his Ancestors, and whereunto she had right by the title of dower. But otherwise, though he were heavily surcharged with two Kingdoms, he was no whit discouraged to share with her also in the cares of Egypt, since, besides charity towards his own, the continual practice of affairs he had at Rome, in the most knowing school of the world, it had acquired him some dexterity and experience in the sway of Kingdoms. That he would make her reign in the affluence and pleasures of a flourishing Court, and prostrate the whole world at her feet. That she should only be troubled to see their submission, as the Gods behold earth from heaven, and that he would be as faithful a Regent, as be hadever been a loving brother.  
Cleopatra had been married to Ptolomeus Epiphanes, and cast as a bait by the father, to catch the Kingdom of Egypt, under hope conceived, that having studied in his school, she would beguile her husband, and bring Nilus to Euphrates: But she opening her eyes, found 
Prudence of Cleopatra against the wiles of her brother.  her flesh was much nearer than the smock, and ever upheld both her husband and son, against her father's plots. She understood the heart of her brother to be desperately subtie, and ambitious, and seeing she could not possess Syria, where he had strongly fortified himself, she easily admitted this his imaginary title of Regency, which she could no longer withhold: But for so much as concerned Egypt, she made answer, That she very humbly thanked him for the compassion he had of her widowhood, and that the Gods who afford the deepest roots to trees the most subject to winds, would furnish her with sufficient courage to suffer so boisterous shocks. As concerning the Kingdom of Syria, his providence had prevented the good opinion she conceived of him, being already resolved to put the Regency into his hands. But as for Egypt, there was no necessity be should rob himself in the freshnese of his youth, of the pleasures so fairly acquired for him, to undergo so many burden some charges in a foreign Country, wherein he would not be honoured, as were the Ptolemees. That her people were somewhat jealous, nor would confide in external power; which might much discontent him in the sincerity he pretended in the manage of her affairs. That she was assisted by a wise Council, with whose did she hoped to maintain her people in perfect peace, and raise her son to the height of the happiness of his extraction, and that it should ever be a singular comfort for her to be assured of the good affection be bare towards her estate, and to correspond with him in an unfeigned intelligence.  
Antiochus, who found not his expectation in his sister's letters, laid down the sheepskin, to put on the Lions, and began to make open war, by invading the Kingdom of Egypt, which was the cause Cleopatra instantly cast herself into the protection of the Romans, although she nothing doubted, but that her brother had thence sought support, and credit: But she on the other side knew they favoured justice, and willingly undertook the causes of widows and orphans. And verily the Senate of Rome, either through the integrity 
Equity of the Senate of Rome to support widows.  of their manners, or to balance sceptres which swayed under them and make none too great to the prejudice of their power, inclined to the widow's part, and commanded Antiochus to retire out of Egypt. He who knew how to court men, went about to gain Popilius Lenas', deputed by the Senate to determine this affair, requiring some delay to withdraw his forces leisurely, of purpose to spend time for the renewing his plots. 
A notable act of an Ambassador.   
But the other, a man resolute, and not to be paid with words, making use of a riding-rod which he had in his hand, drew a circle about Antiochus, and enclosed him within it, saying: There is but one word to be used; Before you come out from thence you must necessarily resilve, either on peace with your sister, or wars against the Senate and people of Rome. He seeing himself so strongly charged, gave way to their demands, and wrote to the Senate, That he esteemed the 
Masked compliment.  Peace which came from their motion, more glorious than all his victories, and heard their Ambassadors, as if the Gods had spoken out of heaven to him: Therein imitating the most supple Courtiers, who in stead of showing their discontent against power, give thanks for a beating. Howsoever, becoming enraged with rancour, 
Horrible persecution of the Hebrews.  to see so rich a prey escaped out of his hands, he discharged all his choler upon the Jews, as those who make their servants suffer for the losses they had in game. He had a spleen against this religious Nation, both through the motive of his own impiety, and reason of State, suspecting them more to incline to King Ptolemee's faction. Behold why he entered into Jerusalem 
Anno Antiochi. 7.  like an enraged Lion with huge troops, in the beginning pillaging the City and Temple, sparing neither the profane, nor sacred, swallowed excessive riches, and plunged the fiery flames of his anger in the blood and tears of four-score thousand people; some killed, divers sold, and many fettered, unable to satisfy his cruelty.  
For presently after came out those wicked and 
Anno ejus. 9  bloody Edicts, which made God a party, with a violent hatred, and let lose the reins of impiety, even to the desire of utter defacing the marks of Religion. The streets of Zion mourned, Priests were banished or massacred, the Altars demolished, Temples polluted with ordures, and uncleanness, by abominable monsters who renewed sacrifices to B●elphegor, and Bacchus in the Sanctuary, heretofore impenetrable to mortal eyes. The abomination of desolation foretold by the Prophet Daniel, which was a statue of olympic Jupiter, was seen to be raised in the holy place, in sight of all the world. The books of the law were sought out through all the houses, and committed to flames, the festivals changed into Bacchanals, all exercise of piety interdicted with whips, wheels, fires, so far that two poor mothers being found administering Circumcision to two little in fants, were drawn through the City, having their lamentable offipring hanged about their necks, and in that posture thrown into a ditch. The whole City was nought else but a spectacle of gibbets and slaughters, the Pagans by some false brothers, conspiring with much fervour to put the King's Edicts in execution. Then was the time Eleazar's combat with the seven young Maccabees appeared, 
Combat of Eleazar.  which is excellently described in the Scripture in Josephus, and the Fathers of the Church, that it were a thing superfluous to endeavour enlargement upon it, with a more ample discourse. I only say, that if God permitted upon one side to be seen the unbridled soul of a man, professed an enemy of all piety; on the other, an admirable spectacle was beheld of fear and reverence, rendered to his Name by the faithful.  
What a prodigy to see an aged man four-score and ten years old, of one of the prime families of his Nation, learned in the Law, of an Angelical aspect to go smiling to punishment? And he cracking even their hearts with compassion, who sat as Magistrates upon his execution, some persuaded him only but to make a show to eat hog's flesh for the King's satisfaction. But he reflecting on the true point of honour, The hoariness (saith he) of this venerable hair wherewith my head is covered, having waxed old in the exercises of Religion, sufficiently teacheth me my duty. It is not fit for Eleazar to counterfeit impiety, but profess virtue. God forbidden, I should forget the law of my God, dishonour the school and doctrine in which I was bred, or become a scandal to these young men, to whom God is now pleased to make a Theatre of my Constancy: The honour of my passed life shall enter into the ashes of my Tomb, and my soul shall fly out of this body truly innocent, and not bear infidelity into the bosom of my Ancestors. Then they tormenting him under the lashes of whips and fervour of flames, he added: My All-knowing God, thou art not ignorant, that it being in my power to free myself from death; not to fail in thy fear, I faint in my life. I make thee the depositorie of my soul, which issueth out of these torn members, choosing rather to die tortured on all sides, than to live one silly moment unfaithful.  
After Eleazar went the glorious mother of the 
The mother of the Macchabees.  Maccabees along, having the spirit of a man in a feminine body. She entered first of all into the combat, although she were the last that arrived to the crown, bringing seven sons with her to death, as to the true source of immortality. This blessed creature stood between two flames, the one of natural love, the other of charity towards God: Both combated, but there was but one prevailed, that she might transcend all things under God.  
As she lived in seven souls, so she was sacrificed in seven bodies: She saw the tongue torn out from one, the toes and fingers of feet and hands cut off from another, the skin pulled away all bloody from the head of this; that, thrown into a boiling cauldron; finally, she beheld them all equal in punishment, as she paralleled them in love. Some while she delivered one to the executioners, another while she received the blood upon her garments, presently the mangled members in her arms; she fought in all and for all, having no other fear, but of their deliverance. But she infinitely fearful for the youngest of her sons, shown him Heaven, than her breasts, the one to have bred him, the other to glorify him. When she saw him dead, than was the time she thought him born, and then with most courage she waited on his execution. O incomparable mother! (saith S. Augustine) who 
August. serm. 109. c. 6.  knew what it was to possess children, since she feared not to lose them. Mother of Martyrs, and eight times a Martyr, who equailed her triumphs to her children's, and her glory to eternity.  
In the end, Antiochus after all this butchery retiring, 
Punishment of the wicked Antiochus.  the living God, who pursued the tracks of this impious man, and who in his eyes bore the lightnings of his justice, raised Mattathias and his children, who with a silly handful of men restored sanctification to the Temple, and liberty to the Citizens; having in four encounters defeated four Royal Armies.  
This wretched creature, and who had no religion in him, though in appearance he made show of that of the Grecians, went to Elymas to invade a Temple of Diana, where great treasures were kept: but was there so ill entreated, that he more hastily returned than came thither, laden with confusion, and in short time heard the discomfiture of his Armies, and victory of the Jews, whereupon he entered into so desperate fury, that he resolved to retire hastily again to Jerusalem, and to make of the whole City but one tomb.  
But the hand of God had already designed his: for 
Joseph Ben Geryon.  it happened being in his coach▪ his horses frighted extraordinarily upon the meeting and roar of an Elephant, gave him so boisterous a stroke, that thrown on the ground, he received a mortal wound, the fire and venom whereof crept so far into his hurts, that he seemed to burn alive like the damned, feeling inexplicable dolours throughout all his body, which became a nest of vermin, and having his soul turmoiled with Spectres and Furies that gave him no repose. At which time the miserable Atheist coming to himself after a drunkenness of so many years, spoke these words, JUSTUM EST SUBDITUM ESSE DEO, ET MORTALEM NON PARIA DEO SENTIRE; professing there was a Great God, to whom we must submit, and never with him contest; when being in the bed of death, he acknowledged impiety had been the original of all his evils, and that should God restore him to his health, he would fill Jerusalem with gifts and wonders, even to the becoming a Jew, and ever proclaim the glory of the Creator. But the gates of mercy were already shut up against this disloyal man, who had no true repentance: his hour was come which made him die, all wasted with putrefaction insupportable to his Army, who could not endure the stench, troublesome to himself, and execrable to the memory of all mankind.  
The Prophets and holy Fathers mention him as a damned soul, and the figure of Antichrist: to teach the wicked out of the deportment of this man, that there is not any one withdraws from God, but flies from his mercy, and falls into the hands of his justice, which pursueth Libertines beyond the gates of hell.    

III. MAXIM. Of the Excellency of the DIVINITY.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That Great men are Gods on earth, whose favours we should adore. That all greatness is wretched before the Majesty of God, who alone is to be adored.  
THere is not any thing hath more perplexed 
Divers opinions of the Divinity.  the minds of men since the beginning of the world, than the divers opinions of the Deity; since the wisest, when they had spent all their abilities upon this question, found nothing more certain than uncertainty. One would wonder why the knowledge of the true God being so important for man, hath been so many Ages obscured and covered in a great abyss of darkness, even from those, who thought themselves the most clear-sighted in the knowledge of total Nature. But who sees not it is an evident punishment for sin, and a most just effect of God's vengeance, who hath permitted truth to be hidden from man, because man would conceal himself from truth, even in the shadow of death, and nothing? They vanished in their thoughts (said 
Evanuerunt in cogitationibus suis, & obscuratum est insipiens cor e●rum. Rom. 1. God in this life handleth the wicked, as the damned.  the Apostle) and their senseless hearts were obscured.  
But that which herein is very considerable, is, that God hath ever handled wicked men, like the damned: for the unhappy souls condemned to hell, have an idea of the beatitude they have lost, which serves for an executioner: And infidels after shipwreck of faith, and truth, which they abandoned, fail not still to retain an opinion of the excellency of the Divinity, not knowing what it is, nor why they should stick to it. It was that wherein Pliny esteemed men more miserable, than beasts: For creatures not made for the knowledge and fruition of a God, are troubled at nothing, nor make any question thereupon, contenting themselves peaceably to enjoy innocent favours of Nature: but the curiosity man hath had through all Ages, to be informed of the state of the Sovereign cause, is a strong conviction of his infidelity. He findeth himself obliged to seek into the knowledge of God, which, as saith Tertullian, is the first vesture of the soul: but this knowledge flieth him so long as he renounceth faith, innocency, and reason, the prime pieces of the intellectual life.  
From thence grew the great diversity of gods, heaped 
Diversity of Gods. Plin. l. 2. c. 7.  one upon another by the Gentiles. For poor humane nature overwhelmed partly by the greatness of this sovereign Essence, partly also clouded by its own ignorance, misery, and sin, being unable to understand a God, most Only, and Simple with one sole touch of the soul, hath made an impertinent dissection of it, dividing it into as many parts, as there are errors on the Altars of Gentiles: whilst every one sought to adore that, which most flattered his imagination, or sensuality. They who were more spiritual, have deified virtues, as Chastity, Concord, Intelligence, Hope, Honour, Clemency, and Faith. Other more absurd, have tied themselves to the worship of creatures, as the Egyptians: Some, who questionless were sottish, have framed gods in humane shape; some old, others young, and many perpetually infants: They have made them male, and female, black, white, winged, and deformed. They made some to rise out of a wind, others from the sea, and divers from rocks. They who were more fearful, and superstitious adored the fever, and tempests, not for esteem of their worth, but through horror of their malignity. They beware their gods shut up in rings, and many times submitted to monsters, denying themselves repose, and repast, to satisfy their superstition. It is the misery which S. Augustine deplored in his City of God, after Pliny the Historian, and other Authors, who handled this subject.  
But such as amidst this great obscurity of Sects, 
God of flatterers.  thought themselves more gentile, and refined in conversation, taking other ways, and leaving old superstitions, began to canonize Emperors. Princes, and the Great-ones of the earth, saying, There were no Divinities more visible, and propitious than these; seeing they daily became the, distributours of glory, and worldly fortunes. The Athenians, who vaunted to 
Remarkable punishment of flattery. Senec. Suasor. 1.  have the most subtle wits of the earth, quickly suffered themselves to fall into such like flatteries, whereof we have a very notable passage in Seneca, who telleth us, that Mark Anthony being a Prince extremely dissolute, was instantly called god Bacchus by his flatterers, and soon came to such shameless impudence, as to suffer this title to be engraven upon his statues. Behold the cause, why entering into the City of Athens, all the men of quality marching before him, and desirous to be acceptable with him, both through humour and affection of favour, they failed not to introduce him with the title of Bacchus: nay, willing to over-value him above other people, they added the hearty offer of their Minerva in marriage, the Guardian-Goddess of their City, who had refused all the gods.  
This Prince was not amazed at their compliment; for he presently replied, Their motion was grateful: But seeing Minerva was a great goddess, he must suitably accommodate her to her dignity, and therefore ordained they should find out six hundred thousand crowns to give her in marriage. An Athenian thereupon replied, Jupiter her father took the goddess Semele, without demand of any portion: But this was to little purpose, their flattery cost them so great a sum, that needs must they afterwards exact it with the people's clamour, many of them affixing pasquils upon Anthony's statue, to deface false applauses by a just reproach. If all flatterers were punished in such measure, the number would be very small: But since they find rewards, where others received nothing but punishment, it is no wonder the Ages are wholly drenched into servile complacence. Never were Christian men seen to be more disposed to slavery. The great eye of Divine Providence is taken away, and all sense of Religion, to adhere to men of gold and silver: They cease not to deify them: and we may truly say, the favour of the rich and great-ones of this Age, is now adays become a false Divinity, which receiveth Incense, and Victims, almost from all hands. Notwithstanding he is cursed by the Prophet, who putteth his trust in man to the exclusion of God, and who thinking to fortify himself throughly in the course of humane affairs, makes to himself an arm of flesh, and hay, to raise fortunes, which will vanish like phantasms.  
For this cause I here purpose to present unto you some passages of God's greatness, to oppose them against the abjectness and infirmity of the mightiest on earth; that so we may learn from this discourse to be replenished with a worthy estimation of the Divinity, and a knowledge of the nothing of the richest magnificences on earth.  

The greatness of God compared to the low condition of men.  
ALL the praise of great things endeth in one ample word; & by how much the more an essence is simple, by so much the fewer words shall we need to explicate it. Of whom must we learn to speak of God but of God himself? And what do we learn 
God is who he is.  from him, but that he is what he is? That is to say little, and that is to say, all. For, as S. Bernard hath excellently observed, call God good; call him great, call 
S. Bernard. l. 5. de consid. Si bonum, si magnum, si beatum, si sapientem, vel quicquid aliud tale de Deo dixeris, in h●c verbo instatiratur, quod est, Est. N. mpe hoc est ei esse, quod omnia esse. Si centum talia add●●, non recessisti ab esse; si ea dixeris, nihil addidisti ad esse: si nihil dixeri●, nihil de eo minuisti.  him blessed; call him wise; call him all you can, you find him included in this word. When God said, I am what I am, he said, He is all he is. Add hereunto a century of attributes, you shall not go far from the essence: If you speak them, you add nothing unto it: if you mention them not, you not at all lessen it.  
S. Denys gives a particular reason thereof, when he saith, that 
(a) Greatness of essence.  essence is the first and last pledge of Nature, the most intimate, most necessary, most independent, most simple, and most perfect of all things in the world. Behold the cause, why the Celestial Father could say nothing better to the purpose of himself, than 
(b) Ego sum qui sum. Eternity of nothing first humiliation of man.  I am what I am.  
Let us here then speak of the excellency of God's Essence comprised under these words: and oppose against it the frailty, and nullity of our essence, that penetrated with the greatness of the Omnipotent, we may be drenched in the abyss of low humility.  
2. Our first abjectness, and which is of power to humble those who think themselves the most able in the world, is, that we have been an eternity in nothing. For if you mount, still a cending upward to the source of time, when you shall have reckoned millions of Ages, you shall find nothing but labyrinths, and abysses of this great eternity without end, and when you shall present to your thoughts all that time, which hath preceded, be it real or imaginary you will be ashamed to see so many millions of years, wherein you had not so much as the essence of a rush, of a butterfly, or a silly gnat. That Rodomont who threateneth to hue down mountains, and thunderstrike mortals, and thinks all the ample house of Nature was created only for him, who swalloweth the world by avarice, and wastes it as fast by riot, thirty or forty years ago was not able to contend for excellency with a caterpillar. 
(c) He●ierni qu●●pe sumus, & ig●oramus, quoniam sicut umbra dies nostri sunt super ●erram. 〈◊〉 8. 9 T●rtul. adver. Mar●. l. 1. c. 8. una & germana divinitas nec de nè vitate, nec de vetustate, sed de sua v●ritate censetur. Non babet tempus aeternitas: omne enim tempus esi. Deus, si vetus est non erit, si est novus non fuit.  What weakness, what confusion of humane essence! But thine (O great God) hath no beginning: It hath seen all times unfolded from thy breast: It hath assigned them measure; and hath taken none from others for itself, but its Eternity. The beginning of the lives and reigns of all Caesars is reckoned, but of God's years no man hath a register. He is neither young, nor old, ancient nor new: Content yourself with saying, He is Eternal.  
3. The second point of our infirmity is, that after 
Humiliation of death.  we have had being for a few years, we shall be (to speak according to the phrase of the world) an eternity in a tomb, as bodies confiscated by death, abandoned to worms, despoiled even to the bones, become dust, and consumed to be reduced into the mass of elements from whence we came. I affirm the soul is immortal; which many times serveth to immortalize its punishments. I affirm the body riseth again, although both being separated so long one from another, no more make up a man. The Axiom of S. Bernard 
Bernard. c. 3. de animâ. In non hominem vertitur omnis home. Estne quicquam in terris tam magnum, quod perire mundus sciat? Senec. l. 4. nature. qq. c. 1.  must be made good, Every man is reduced to be no longer a man. So many persons go daily in and out of the world as small drops of water into the seas. The ocean is no whit altered, either by their entrance in, or passage out. Seneca was astonished, how one could say there were Comets which presaged the death of great men. It is not credible (saith he) the universe should interest itself in the loss of particulars, yea, were it of Monarches. We all bud forth like the leaf of a tree, and die as the leaf; neither our life, nor death any thing importeth this great All.  
Behold, that which much abaseth the pride of the most vainglorious, is, to think upon a beer, and tomb, and reflect on that ample grave, whereinto all mankind insensibly sinketh. That is it which Job called, 
Lapidem calipinis. Job 28. 3. Secretarium horroris.  the stone of darkness. That, which the Ancients named, the secret of horror. The greatest Princes of the earth resemble Alexander's stone, the most excellent of the world in the brightness of lustre: but so soon as it was covered with dust, it had neither force nor beauty beyond other stones: How great, rich, active soever they be, the dust of a sepulchre makes it appear they are nothing. But God alone hath immortality without dependence, because he is what he is. All that which may be, and not be, hath ever some time assigned when it was not, or wherein it shall no more be. One may 
Tu autem idem ipse es, & ann tui non deficient. Saecula cuncta tenens, any omnia saecula solus. Novatiani l. de Trin. c. 31.  at the least find an imaginary time, when the most eminent Powers were nothing, and for so much as concernethmen, it is no difficult matter to give them limits, to which, and in which they no longer shall be men: But of God alone we may truly say, his years not only decrease not, but know not what it is to increase. For the Eternity of God (to speak properly) is very long, and very short: very long in extent, for it spreadeth over all Ages; very short, because in an instant it possesseth all it can have in the infinity of times, being ever like the centre of a circle, which looketh towards all the lines without stirring out of one place.  
4. Our third Annihilation is, that we have much 
Man hath more non-essence, than Essence.  more non-essence, than essence, according to Plato's argument: because if we have the essence of a man, we have not therefore the essence of Heaven, of earth, creatures, nor plants, although some similitude thereof. We are confined, and limited within a particular essence which comprehendeth a soul ignorant and unsatiable, a body feeble and frail; a strange connexion of a nature mortal and immortal; an alliance of a ray of the sun with a dunghill, of a spirit prompt and subtle, with most infirm flesh. But God, who is, 
Excellency of the simplicity and universality of God, in comparison of the world.  what he is, containeth in himself all possible essences, and which is more, containeth them under the sole form of the Divinity The world is bright in the light of stars, resplendent in flames, subtle in air, streaming in eternal veins of rivers, stable on the foundation of the earth, rich in mines, fruitful in plants, displayed in flowers, and all because it is a world, and it a creature. But God in one sole indivisible, and under one sole form, concludeth the fervour of Seraphins, the science of Cherubins, the majesty of Dominations, the height of Thrones, the excellency of Principalities, the strength of Virtues, the superintendence of Archangels, the charitable offices of Angels, the greatness of Heaven, the beauty of stars, the splendour of lights, the activity of fire, the subtility of air, the fruitfulness of earth, the eternal freshness of fountains, and all we may call great, beautiful, or pleasing. God, I say, comprehendeth them under this great title, I am that I am. That is it which 
Ego sum qui sum. Bonum hoc, & bonum illud; ●●lle hoc & illud, & vide ipswn bonum si potenita Deu● videbis non alio bono bonum, ●ed bonum omnis boni. Aug. l. 8. de Trinit. c. 3. Maximus Tyrius. Orat. de Deo. In De● non est nisi Deu●. S. Bernard, de consider. l. 5.  made S. Augustine say: This, and that is good: Take away this, and that, when you speak of God; and behold the Sovereign Good: so shall you see God, who is not good by a borrowed goodness; but the Good of all good.  
This first essence is lovely (said Maximus of Tyre:) And verily it is the chief of beauties. But how think you, is it lovely, like a meadow all strewed over with flowers, or as Heaven all enameled with stars? Take away this meadow, these flowers, this Heaven, these stars, God is nothing of all created things, but it is he, from whom all creatures derive being, beauty, goodness, force, unity, and lasting. I well know what he is not, but cannot say what he is. I am satisfied in speaking with S. Bernard: In the great God, all is God, and there is not any thing in him, which is not himself.  
Finally our fourth misery is, that our essence being 
Mutability of men.  so short and slender, faileth not to be afflicted with so many mutations, so many vicissitudes, that we may say, there is almost nothing less in us, than ourselves. All change (saith the Philosopher) beareth with it some image of non-essence, and therefore we who change every moment are (as it were) nothing in nature to be trusted to. It is not known with what knot, with what chains men should be tied, or fettered, so variable, and inconstant there Proteuses are. Ages altar us, and in changing us change themselves. Infancy becometh adolescency, adolescency is taken off by youth, youth by manhood, manhood by declining years, and those years by decrepit age. If you reckon well, you shall find everyone of these mutations, is a species of death.  
As time altars our bodies, a thousand other things make impression on our minds. Humours, passions, conversations, customs, accidents, vices, and virtues, so often transform us into other men, that one may say, we are the most natural pourtraicts of inconstancy in universal Nature. There is none but God can say: I 
Ego Dominus & nonmutor. Malach. 3. 6. In see ●ane●● innevat omnis, & nihil accipit quod ipse non dedit, esse illi quod est sempiternum, semper est proprium. S. Leo. ep. 93. c. 5.  am the God, who changeth not. There is not any the least shadow of vicissitude in the great abyss of light; as he is one without number, infinite without limits, eternal, free from flood and ebb of time, so he is  without augmentation or diminution. He stands immoveable within himself, and reneweth all various nature out of himself. He takes nothing of men, which he gave them not. Essence, is proper to him, as eternal to him.  
It is a maxim in Theology, that simple forms, which of themselves constitute a Person, make no difference between the subject and nature; that is to say, God is his Deity, his life, his eternity, and all he is, without diversity. It is for things composed of divers pieces to be susceptible of many forms; and consequently of sundry mutations: But God being from all eternity a most pure Act, as he hath not any thing but himself, can have no difference with himself: He hath nothing 
Non sui aliquia optimum, hibet unun optimum, tot●●. S. Bernard. l 5. de consider.  in himself better than himself: He hath no part eminent one above another. For he is without parts; and all that agreeth to him under this title; I am, what I am.  
5. If you are not yet satisfied enough concerning the greatness of this sovereign Being, and demand something more particular, the Word will tell you in S. John what he learned in the bosom of his Father: God is spirit. All substance in the world; or 
Deus spiritus est. Joan. 4. Beauty of spirit.  above the world is spirit or body: but as the body is base and abject, so beauty, strength, power, abideth in the power and jurisdiction of spirit: It is the spirit which doth all; which animateth, which acteth, which quickeneth, which governeth all the instruments of nature; which worketh great miracles in little bodies, and hath nothing so admirable, as itself. The better part in us is spirit; and God is nothing 
Totus spiritus & ennoia, & totus ratio, & totus lumen. Iren. l. 2. c. 16.  but spirit; all spirit, all intelligence, all reason, all light, (said S. Irenaeus.) But what spirit, but God the Father and Creator of spirits, who is as much exalted above the highest Intelligences, as spirits are above bodies.  
Our spirits resemble the fire of this inferior region, a gross, and material fire, which cannot here live, unless you put it to wood, coal, grease, or such like. But the spirit of God is like the fire near to the celestial globes, which Philosophers hold to be tenfold more subtle than air, and not to stand in need of any nourishment in its sphere, but from its self.  
If we consider the four perfections which give us 
Perfections of God. Magnitudinis ejus non est futis. Psal. 145. Exces●u●, & i●mensus. Baruc. 4. Intra omnia sed non inclusus extra omnia sed non exclusus. Isodor. de summo bono. c. 2.  a full Idea of the divine Essence, to wit, infinity, immensity, immutability, eternity, this great Spirit possesseth them by title of essence. Strive not to comprehend him, for he is infinite. Infinite not in a certain manner, not by comparison of one thing with another; not in possibility, but absolutely, actually infinite: as an ample, and most glorious treasure of all essences, and perfections. Assign him no limits; for he is immeasurable, & extended through all measures without measure; not by a local extent, but an indivisibility of presence. He is high and immense. He is in the whole universe without confinement. He is out of all the universe, without any exclusion from it.  
Represent him not to yourself under many forms, if you desire to figure him in his Nature, for he is immutable. Inquire not of his age, for it exceedeth 
Non peragitur in to bodiernus dies, & tamen peragitur, quia in co sunt ists omnia. August. 1. Confess. c. 6.  eternity, such as you may imagine it, The present day passeth not with him, and yet he is in it, since all things are in him.  
But if we regard the three excellencies, which in your opinion more concern divine manners, to wit Wisdom, Goodness and Sanctity; I not only affirm he is wise, but I say he is the abyss which swalloweth all wisdoms: I do not only say he is good, but the 
Sanctimonia, & magnificentis in sanctifiratione ejus. Psal. 95. 6.  source of goodness, nature & bounty; a source never emptied but into itself & which continually streameth out of itself: I do not only say he is holy, but the root, the object, the example, & form of all sanctities.  
Finally, if we behold the eminencies which illustrate him, in repsect of the eye he hath over exterior things, as are power, jurisdiction, providence, justice, and mercy; this Spirit is so powerful, that he can all, but impotency; so predominate, that there is not any thing from heaven to hell, which boweth not under his Laws; so provident, that he hath a care of the least butterfly in the air, as well as of the highest Cherubin of the Empyreal Heaven; so just, that his balance propendeth neither to one side nor other; so merciful, that he pardoneth all. O great God Great Spirit! How terrible art thou to our understandings, and how amiable to our wills! Thou commandest by words, thou ordainest by reason, thou accomplishest by virtue all which is, and giving birth to all things, only reservest to thyself Eternity. Let it not then be strange, if strucken with those rays which dazzled the eyes of Seraphins, we yield to thy greatness, and rather choose to enter by love into thy knowledge, than by knowledge into thy love.  
6. Let us also in conclusion reflect on this munificent Spirit, who replenisheth all the world with his bounty, spreading it over all creatures with incomparable sweetness. Do you not think you behold the 
An excellent similitude of God with the Ocean.  great Ocean which incessantly furnisheth the air with vapours, and waters for all the earth, dividing himself to so many objects, yet perpetually entire in his greatness, and ever regular in the measure of his eternal passages. He is singular in essence, but very divers in his titles and effects; and making his circuit round about the world, every one gives him names after his own manner. Some call him Indian, others Persian, some Arabic, some Aethiopian, and some Britannic; others surname him with epithets quite different, every one deviseth what he list, and in the mean time he ceaseth not perpetually to pass on his way, and not content to encompass the whole earth as with a girdle, he cleaveth the mountains of Calpe from Arbyla, (those famous pillars of Hercules) to enter thereinto, and bedew the world with his pleasing streams. He runs a long way, he makes a great circuit; he advanceth delivious Islands in the midst of his bosom: one while he swelleth upon one side, presently retireth back from another. He is angry, he is pacified: He bears and swal●oweth vessels: He engulphs earth, he killeth flames; he sometimes by long wandering passages goeth under the world, and purifying his waters, distilled through those large sources, maketh fountains and rivers to moisten mortals. And, that nothing may be wanting to his greatness, he mounts up to heaven, there to beget clouds, and entertain storehouses of waters, as in Cobweb lawn, to give afterward the spirit of life to trees, to plants, and all the productions of nature. Oh how admirable is he! Yet is all this but a silly drop of dew in comparison of the divine Essence. God who is all in all things; being not able to be sufficiently known by us, in the simplicity of his Essence, is called by many names, signified by an infinite number of figures, represented in divers attributes, and inexplicable excellencies: Yet say we all we can of him, we affirm he never is so well esteemed, as when we account him wholly incomprehensible: He not only environeth the world with his presence, but beareth it within his arms, and bosom: He formeth it in his Idae's, he accommodateth it in his dispose, he penetrateth it by his virtue, maintaineth it by his wisdom, and establisheth it by his power. He is without, yet not excluded from it; he is within, yet not contained; he is under, yet not drenched, he is above, yet not advanced. He confirmeth sceptres, and crowns, he raiseth Cities, Provinces, and Monarchies, he erecteth States; he circumscribeth laws; he directeth virtues, he enlighteneth stars in heaven, he engraveth the beauty of flowers in the meadows; and traveleth throughout all nature, without taking pains; ever present, yet always unseen; ever in action, yet always in repose; ever searching, yet not needing any thing; ever loving, yet never burning; ever amassing, yet never penurious; ever giving, yet never losing any thing; drawning to himself, yet hath nothing without himself. Good God, what say we, when we say GOD.  
Yet thou (o sinner!) thou yet wilt lift an armed hand against thy Lord, against a God Omnipotent, who notwithstanding will not appear potent towards thee, but to do thee good. Blind and insensible fugitive from the sovereign Essence in the region of nothing, and whither wilt thou go, not to find the reproaches of thy crimes? A caitiff pleasure, a wretched gain, a satisfaction of vengeance, dissolute company take God out of thy heart, to resign thee as a prey to thy passions. Thou wilt adore the favours of men, that are like the rainbow in heaven, and which having made ostent of so many splendours, and varied paintings, leave us nothing but water and mortar. Thou wilt build fortunes upon a foundation of quicksilver, upon a frail reed, upon a man, who beareth all the figures of vanity. Thou wilt seek for Paradise in the Capitol, as said Tertullian. Thou wouldst find sovereign 
Coelum in Capitolio quaeriin, aversi ab ipso Deo & coelo. Apol. c. 4. Isaiah. 30. 3. Decalvare, & tondere super filios deliciarum tuarum. Mich. 1.  beatitude in the Courts of great men, and perpetually estranged from heaven & the living God, thou graspest nothing but Chimaeraes of honour, and feeble images of content. The strength of Pharaoh (saith the Prophet Isaiah) shall be thy confusion, and the confidence thou hast in the shadow of Egypt, shall be the reproach of thy countenance.  
Shouldst thou not now forsake all thy superfluities? Oughst not thou to wear sackcloth, and carry ashes of penance, having buried the children of thy delights (loves and vanities,) which so far transported thee into the forgetfulness of eternal blessings? If God be the Essence of essences, why dost thou please thyself with making so many nothings, by committing sins without number, infidelities without consideration, and ingratitudes void of shame? If God be a Spirit, why holdest thou thyself perpetually fixed to carnal pleasures, which flatter to strangle thee? Look on worldly ambitions, and thou shalt see them bordered with precipices: Reflect on delights, and thou shalt find them strewed all-over with thoms: View the ways of sin, and thou there shalt observe nothing, but remorse. Ought not we at this time to resolve upon consideration of the greatness, and goodness of God, to bear a reverence, and an eternal love towards him? a reverence, by faithfully keeping all his laws, and commandments, and holding his will more dear, than the apple of our eyes; a love, by daily offering ourselves, if it were possible, a hundred times for him, in as many Sacrifices, as our soul hath thoughts, and body members? My God, make me from henceforth to enter into the bottom of my soul, and to silence all these troublesome creatures, all these inordinate passions, which so often bereave me of the honour of thy sight. Appease their storms, and surges, that I may silently speak to thee, and enter with thee into the great abyss of delights, which thou reservest for souls the most purified, that there I may be rapt in contemplation of thy bounties, may be absorbed in consideration of thy beauties, and may wholly dive into thy heart by sacred ardours of thy love.  
The third EXAMPLE upon the third 
Drawn from Josephus, 18. book of his antiquities, and S. Luke. Act. 11.  MAXIM.   

Of the weakness of man and inconstancy of humane things AGRIPPA.  
WHo saith Man, says all vanity: He is a wretched 
Arist.  creature (affirms that Ancient) whom fortune tosseth as a tennis-ball, whom misery, and envy poise in a balance, whom time despoileth, death takes away, and of whom inconstancy makes 
Bernard. l. 2. de consider. c. 9 Fragili corpore, ment sterili, cui infirmites corporis, fatuitus cordis cumulatur traduce sortis.  a continual metamorphosis. He entereth into the world by the gate of sin, with a body as frail, as his spirit is barren: weakness of mortal members, and stupidity of heart are given him as a portion of his birth, and a necessity of his condition. If you (as yet) be not persuaded of this verity, and more esteem to confide in the world, and to frame to yourself an arm of straw, than to seek support from him who sustaineth with three fingers of his power, the whole globe of the earth, King Agrippa (of whom S. Luke maketh mention in the Acts of Apostles, and Josephus in the eighteenth book of his Antiquities) is able to give you a fair lesson of it.  
You have heard in the History of Herod, how this 
Agrippa grandchild of Herod.  unnatural Prince put his two sons to death, lawful children by the chaste Mariam, This Agrippa of whom I speak, son of the youngest, named Aristobulus came into the world with great privileges of nature dexterous, courteous, amiable, pleasing born to court, and entertain the favour of the world, Judaea was a Theatre too straight for his great Spirit, he burned with impatience to be seen in the Court of Tiberius Caesar, where his mother was already become gracious with one of the greatest Princesses of the Empire, Antonia, mother of the great Germanicus, and the Emperor Claudius. It was no hard matter for him to satisfy his desire: For behold him presently at the Court of Rome, where he closely adhered to the person of Drusus, the Emperor Tiberius his son, honoured by all the world as successor of the Empire.  
Agrippa ●o well knew how to gain this great 
Amity's of great men barren.  Prince, by the sweet charms of his conversation, that he could not live without him: but as Tiberius was a frugal man, suffering his son not to fall into any excess, so Drusus was full of free affection towards his favourite, the effects whereof were yet very slender. In such sort, that Agrippa entertaining correspondence with the son of so great an Emperor, more pleasing than profitable for him, daily consumed as the butterflys in the flames of this greatness; so profuse was his expense above his ability. The mother was extremely troubled at it, and restrained (what she might) her son's purse; but he ever found ways to open it again, till such time as she dying, and the son seeing himself at liberty, he flew into exorbitant expenses, and became indebted a third, or a fourth part, more than he was worth.  
This is it which ordinarily overthroweth young 
A pretty touch of Lewis the twelfth to Francis the first.  men, who expect great fortunes, and mighty favours. They think to be presently in the midst of the City, when they afar off see the band of the dyal. They suppose they possess blessings, which will never be had; they promise, are engaged, much turmoil, and passionately hoping, ruin all their hopes. Behold a little the goodly support may be expected from men of the world. Drusus the Emperor's son, who bore all glory in bloom, is taken into the other world, without making any mention at all of his favourite: Agrippa falls from the chariot of favour, and found there was nothing got by the service of his Master, but debts, and discontents.  
He reflects on the father, to see if any ray of compassion 
Affliction of a Courtier frustrated of his hopes.  will dart from his eyes: But Tiberius commanded him to be gone from the Court, saying for a full reason, he could not endure to look on what his son had loved, without renovation of his memory, and grief. The young Prince returneth into Judaea, where, though the grandchild of a great King, he found himself so needy, that he wished to die, not having wherewith to live.  
There is nothing more bitter to men of quality, 
Poverty the chief scourge.  amongst all the scourges of the world, than poverty, which ever draweth along with it four evil companions, dependence upon another contempt shame, and misery. This generous heart thought that death would better his condition: But Cypre his wife, a 
Loyalty of a wife to her husband.  good Princess, chased away this melancholy humour, and descending so low, as the shame of begging for him, procured some little money, that he the more sweetly might pass this miserable life: for verily he sometimes lived at Herod the Tetrarches charge, sometime upon Flaccus, Lieutenant of Syria. But this kind of life being beggarly, & waited on with much reproach, he grew impatient, and resolved to return to Rome, to bury himself in the shadow of favour, since he could not touch the body of it. The poor Princess his wife, seeing there was not any would lend him money, unless she bond herself for him, did it courageously, exposing her person to all the persecutions of creditors, to help her husband.  
But a man much indebted is like one possessed, 
Miseries of a man indebted.  round beset with a Legion of devils; no sooner went one out, but ten tormented him. Agrippa saw himself assaulted by creditors, Provosts, and Sergeants, which more terrified him than arms, or warlike Engines. The most powerful of them all, was a Controller of the Emperor's house, who required a huge sum of money from him, whereof he was accountable to Tiberius' his Exchequer. To this he answered very coldly, he was ready to satisfy, if he pleased to be patiented but till the next day: but that night, he stole away, and went towards Rome, to draw more near to the flame must burn him. Notwithstanding before his coming, he wrote to Tiberius, who was in his Island of Capri, to sound the likelihood of his welcome. The Emperor who long before had his wound throughly skinned, for the death of his Son, wrote back again very courteously, giving him assurance of welcome; and the truth is, he found Tiberius, who entertained him with extraordinary favour, and lodged him in his palace. All his businesses went well, had it not been this controuler, (whose shadow he still saw before his eyes) wrote speedily to the Emperor, That Agrippa was indebted to his Exchequer in great sums, which he had promised to discharge presently, but fled like a faithless man, and discovered by his proceed there was nothing but imposture in his actions.  
This unlucky letter at the first destroyed all his 
Generous act of Antonia.  credit. For the old man, who for all his friendship was resolved not to lose a denier, caused him shamefully to pack out of his palace, and forbade his Guards, to admit him any entrance before he had satisfied his creditors.  
The miserable Agrippa, seeking out a God of money to make his vows unto, went directly without any fear to the Princess Antonia to acquaint her with his misfortune, and beg her favour. The Lady was so generous, and bountiful towards him, that she discharged the debt, lending him money in remembrance of his dead mother, and for that he had been bred with her son Claudius, besides she took singular pleasure in his humour.  
This man whose fortune ebbed and flowed, saw himself suddenly raised, so that entering into amity with Caesar, he made a straight league with Caligula, by the express commandments of Tiberius, who appointed he should follow him. These were two notable ramblers, whom chance had so very well coupled together, as well for conformity of their humours, as the encounter of their hopes. They began a life wholly sportive, not thinking on the time to come, but to hope well of it, nor dreaming of any thing, but that which might make them merry.  
Agrippa persisting in his ordinary delights, undertook 
Flattery of Agrippa.  one day as he went in coach with Caligula to speak of Tiberius, saying, That he was as old as the earth, and that it seemed death had forgotten him: That it was high time he paid tribute to nature; as for himself, he wished nothing else in the world, but quickly to see Caligula Prince of the world in his place, well knowing he should lay hold on a good portion of the felicities which all men were to have under his Empire. He found not that Caligula, although ardently desirous to see himself suddenly Master, shown to take any pleasure in this discourse, so much he feared the Emperor Tiberius. He kept his thoughts in his heart, not trusting his tongue with them, lest stones and bushes might have ears.  
It happened by chance, that Eutyches Agryppa's coachman heard all his Master said, & was some space of time without showing any appearance of it, but afterward being brought before the Provost of the City, at his Master Agryppa's request, for a pilfery committed by him in his house, he said he had many other things to speak, which concerned the Emperor's life, whereupon the Provost carried him to Capri, where Tiberius plunged in his in famous pleasures was sometime without seeing him. Agrippa who would needs excuse himself before he was accused, wholly forgetting the discourse he had held with Caligula, earnestly pressed this servant might be heard, so far, as therein to employ the credit of Antonia, who was very powerful with Tiberius. The Emperor answered, Agrippa need not fret himself so much in this affair, and that it might perhaps be too soon decided for him. This put more disturbance upon him than he had before, so that to satisfy him, Eutyches needs must be sent for, who urged his accusation very coldly, upon which Tiberius who spoke but half a word, and said nothing to Macro Captain of the Guards but Take, take him, neither 
His prison.  naming whom, nor how. Macro that thought not of him at all, who was spoken of in this business, stood much amazed, not knowing whom he meant, which made the Emperor repeat the word again in choler; saying plainly: I command you seize on the person of Agrippa, so that instantly he was taken almost in Caligula's arms, and put to the chain before the Palace gate with other Criminals brought thither.  
It was then very hot weather, and he being extreme thirsty, saw a servant of Caligulas named Thaumastus passing along, who carried a pitcher of water; he called him, entreating he might drink, which the other presenting with much courtesy, he having drunk said: assure thyself, I will one day well, pay thee for this glass of water thou hast given me; if I get out of this captivity, I will make thee great. Thereupon leaning to a tree, an 
Strange prediction.  owl in a strange manner perched over his head, which a certain prisoner (an Almaign by Nation,) a great Soothsayer perceiving, foretold him (as Josephus relateth) that this bird would prove a good Augur, and that he should overcome all his affairs: but when he saw her the second time, let him expect death within five days. Note that these kind of predictions proceed from a cunning sleight of the devil, nor are their issues every prosperous for such as look after them.  
Notwithstanding Agrippa seeing himself in this condition despaired not of his fortune, he is carried to prison, the good Princess Antonia, (whose heart was transfixed) not daring in any sort to speak to Tiberius for him, whose humours she too well understood. All she could do was to recommend him to the Captain that he might be well used, and lodged, to let him take the baths, and have some indifferent keepers.  
He remained there some space with much anxiety, when one day as he entered into the baths, Marsyas one of his servants brought him news of Tiberius his death, whispering it in his ear in Hebrew, to this purpose The Lion is dead. The Centurion who guarded him seeing them talk together in great secret, would needs have his share, and understanding what it was, became so joyful that he merrily supped with his prisoner. Yet other reporting this bruit was false, the Centurion entered into such enraged choler, that finding Agrippa in his bed, he made him arise, fettered him, thought to kill him, for the displeasure he conceived to have so easily witnessed the joy of his heart. But his anger was soon appeased, the death of Tiberius' being most certain.  
Caligula his successor burnt with desire to go instantly 
Admirable change of virtue.  to Rome to deliver his good friend: but Antonia counselled him not so much to hasten this affair, lest it might be thought he did it to brave the decrees of the deceased; which he found to be discreet advice. Behold the cause why after some days were passed, he gave the royal purple, and diadem with his own hands to our Agrippa, adding thereunto a chain of gold, of like weight with that of iron wherewith Tiberius had fettered him, & caused him to sway in Judaea, giving him the Kingdom of Philippis in its whole extent. A year after he got leave of the Emperor to visit his Kingdom, where every one beheld him, with much amazement, seeing him return with a crown, in that place where he had been reduced almost to beggary, Wherefore not to be ungrateful for benefits received from God, he offered his gold chain in the Temple, and made Thaumastus, who gave him the cup of water, Controller of his house; such power hath a slight good turn well placed over a generous soul.  
When he had reigned about four years, Caligula, the little God of his felicity, after a general inundation of all the vices in the world▪ is slain by Chereas', which taught him, great men of the earth are weak reeds that in an instant fall by the breath of God. Every one thought his whole fortune was ruined; but the Emperor Claudius his Successor, with whom being young he had been bred, set him above wind and tempest, adding to what Caligula gave him, all Judaea and Samaria.  
Behold how the Kingdom in the end returned to the race of Mariam, of which it had been dispossessed, and how Providence rendereth insensibly, a justice most sensible. Agrippa seeing himself unexpectedly so exalted, endeavoured all he could to gain the love of his people, to entertain justice and commerce, to raise goodly buildings, & to prepare at certain times public sports, and recreations. But let us still pursue at the heels this frail greatness of men, which having touched the stars, is lost in abysses. This unfortunate Prince so much desired to become acceptable to his Jewish people, that through excess of this thirst, he embarked in an ill business. For being arrived at Jerusalem, at the time when the Church began, which was outrageously persecuted by the Jews, to please them, he cut off the head of S. James, brother of S. John, and at the same instant caused S. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, to be taken, whom he fettered with heavy chains, of purpose very speedily to sacrifice him to the rage of the giddy multitude, had he not been delivered miraculously by the help of an Angel.  
But the unhappy Agrippa perpetually adhering to men, and not fearing to purchase their favours at the charge of innocent and sacred blood, soon found himself overwhelmed under the burden of his greatness: to teach perfidious Princes, the great ruin of their fortunes often proceedeth from the persecution of the servants of JESUS CHRIST.  
The seaventh year of his reign, setting forth magnificent games at Caesarea, the second day of the entertainments, he appeared in full Theatre before the Ambassadors of Tyre and Sydon in a robe of cloth of silver, on which the Sun reflecting his rays, he was presently beheld resplendent as a star, and being about to open his mouth to make a speech, his flatterers began to cry out with loud applauses, It was the voice of a God, not a man wherewith he entered into a desperate vanity, and Josephus says, that at the same instant he saw the Owl, whereof the southsaying impostor spoke, which presaged his death, when suddenly he cried out to his Courtiers: Behold the God you have made, who ceaseth to be a man; you have placed me among the Immortal, but I go to take place among the dead.  
He felt, whilst he spoke this, the gripes of a violent colic, which enforced him to be carried from the theatre to the bed, and from the bed to the tomb. The rumour of his malady being divulged, the people conceived so great a grief thereat, that men, women, and children entered into his chamber covered with haircloth, bewailing him, and praying for his health. He beholding them in the extremity of his pain, wept bitterly, bidding adieu to his family, and people: then remaining for the space of five days in extreme dolour, he yielded up his soul, to serve as an eternal example to posterity of man's weakness, and the inconstancy of humane things.    

iv MAXIM. OF THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That our support should be from ourselves, without expectation of any thing from the providence of God. That the foundation of humane life subsisteth in the providence of God.  
IT is an unspeakable comfort to have 
The belief of a providence is the sweetness of life.  the eyes of God for witness of our sufferings, and when we in justice suffer with courage, to know our patience is enlightened with those aspects, which make them thrice happy.  
The valorous Champions, who contended in the Olympiack games, the spectacle heretofore of the whole world, in that proportion they felt their skin to smart, their blood to drop, their bones crack, were comforted to see upon one side, the Judges of their combats sitting to consider their merit, and on the other, Crowns placed aloft before them, the lustre whereof reflected into their eyes, to charm their pains by the hope of glory,  
From thence we derive an undoubted maxim, that it is an unspeakable comfort to the faithful, who endure some incommodities rough and thorny, to know there is an eye of Divine Providence, which not only seethe them, but becoming a pledge for their travels, promiseth to their perseverance assured recompense.  
2 I observe the admirable Providence of God, in 
His goodness.  that being perpetually questioned by the diffident spirits of Libertines, it ever subsisteth, bearing in its bosom who would destroy it; and which is more, is established by the proofs, wherewith they endeavour to ruin it. I at this present lay aside the reasons, which have so often been refuted: I speak nothing at all of the consent of the wise, of the heaven's motions, of the necessary dependence of creatures, of the architecture of the universe, of the order, and end of every thing, of miracles, of predictions, of spirits, of examples, and so many other arguments ordinarily used to prove Divine Providence. I only maintain one thing, which perhaps will seem strange, but is most undoubted, that the same reasons whereof the wicked make trophy, to evict this belief from the faithful, are arrows which recoil back upon themselves.  
All that which makes them murmur, and cry out 
Manifest proof of providence.  against the Government of a supreme cause, is, that evils are seen in the world, which would not be, if a God, all good, all wise (as we affirm) took care of things temporal. To which I answer, we ought to believe a Providence, since there is evil in the inferior order of the world which we inhabit, and the profit we derive from our evils endeth in the knowledge of the sovereign good. For I ask, from whence know we evil to be evil, but by the existence of its contrary? Had there never been health in the body, we had never known what sickness were: but when at any time we saw a man sound, fresh, and lusty, who suddenly lost his appetite and sleep, by reason of shake and heats felt over all his body, he is said to be, sick, because the order of the good constitution he before enjoyed is changed, and overthrown. Likewise when we see some evil to happen in the world, we presently say it is ill, because it is against the order of good and therefore the very wicked who complain, cannot so do, but by affirming and acknowledging an order, from which this evil is wandered. Now wheresoever there is order, there is necessarily 
Providentia est ratio orainis terum ad finem.  direction and Providence, since we see one cannot so much as tell unto four, and reckon some number, one after another, without the help of reason. You commit a sin, and feel it instantly brings some remorse with it: what teacheth you it is sin, if not the Law? I entered not into the knowledge of sin, but by means 
Rom. 7. 7. Peccatum non cogno●●, nisi per l●gem. Nam concupiscentiam nesciebam nisi lex decerit: Non concupisces. Psal. 63. 8.  of the Law. For I knew not what concupiscence was, if the Law had not told me: Thou shalt not covet, said the Apostle.  
Now what is law, but an order, and a sovereign reason engrafted in intellectual nature, which commandeth, and ordaineth things that ought to be done, with express prohibition of their contraries. What is it else but an eternal rule which guideth the world by the knowledge of do, and not do: an ordinance most holy, which prescribeth all honest things, and banisheth all vice.  
From thence ensueth, we cannot complain of the least disorder, without confessing this eternal Providence 
Sagittae parvulorum factae sunt pla●ae ●orum, & i●●●rmatae sunt contra eos linguae eorum. An answer made to complaints against Providence.  which establisheth all orders. O the wonders of God who causeth the arrows of those who invade his wisdom to return against such as shot them!  
3 Some complain there are things poor and abject in nature which are to no purpose, because brutish man will not know their use, for fear he therein find his own ingratitude. They would have God make the world all of gold, as that Painter, who unable to pencil the beautiful Helen with so great diversity of parts, and conformity of members, filled his table with drapery, which seemed rich, but was little to the purpose. Who seethe not the truth of that singular 
S. Tho. contr. Gentes. l. 3. c. 71. Perfecta benitas in rebus creatis non inveniretur nisi esset ordo bonitatis.  axiom of S. Thomas, that never would there be perfect goodness in things created, were there not some order and degrees in the same goodness. All the grace and beauty of the world would be lost, if the multitude, and disproportion of so many things were taken away, which by an admirable discrepance, & discord infinitely agreeing, consent in the good of this great All: In this it is, wherein the music of the great God consisteth, & you will disturb it: This is his Table diversified with many colours, and you will deface it: This is his commonwealth, divided into sundry offices, and you will ruin it.  
After this so laudable diversity is blamed, the evils 
Evils of nature.  of nature are decried, serpents & poisons are exclaimed at, and all other creatures thought mischievous. Blind that you are, who see not, an evil well placed in the world is not an evil. Fire which burneth straw, makes gold and silver shine: water which drowneth men daily gives life to fishes. If you take his poison from the serpent, you bereave him wherewith to live: and what shall we say, that there may be found such among men, who have turned poison into nutriment. Every creature is good for some use. Let us 
Homines magis subeunt ordinem divinae Providentiae, quam res naturales, qui propinquiùs ordinantur ad Deum, sicut ad sinem. Hieron. Ferr. l. 1. de Triumpho crucis. c. 11.  not then accuse the wisdom of the Creator, but only correct our imprudence. Another saith he complains not there are evils, but they are ill disposed, since good men have the greatest part of them. It is an old quarrel, and which hath so many times been sufficiently refuted, with more vigour of reason, than correction in manners. The heavens, and stars are accused, when a good Prince hath lost a battle, and that having all his life time pursued innocency, ill success hath waited on his standards. Some complain that another, being so just, is plunged in a miserable suit; that the sea which drenched innocents', favoured pirates; that hail fell upon the field with crosses and benedictions; and that death sparing so many unprofitable and guilty heads, took away that excellent man in his prime. Ignorant that we are of the blessings, and evils of life! Have we then taken the character of Christianity under condition to be happy in all worldly occasions? Is it reason since God gave us eternal blessings, he should likewise satisfy us in all these petty trifles? We say the just are not the more happy, because they do not always gain the most in play, & traffic, and that they are not the most favoured with good success in the world: as if a favourite fed with viands from the Kings own dish, should complain the King afforded him not the bread was distributed amongst his Dogs. We would that God having so charily taken us into his protection for our eternal salvation, should also charge himself to deliver us all our packets. This innocent (say you) is oppressed, and this wicked man is prosperous. How know you Gods counsels over both the one and other? This gold (saith S. Augustine) of one side is purified in the furnace, and one the other; that fish you thought happy, hath already the hook in his throat. God hath so long expected your penitence, and you cannot one moment reasonably wait on him. The decrees of his providence resemble letters written with the juce of a limon, which never are read, but by the help of fire. That day when he shall come to Judge the world in flames, will make all appear, which the weakness of our wits cannot comprehend. But without expectation of so long a term, there needs but one Session; there needeth but the quarter of a man's life to teach many 
Gloss. In Job. Tentatio in electis, non est nox sed vespera, quia lucem obscurat, sed non extinguit. Tertul ad Scapul. Animas nostras authoritati in has pugn●s accessimus.  examples of divine Providence.  
Let us stick still to the verity pronounced by the ancient gloss upon the book of Job: Temptation is not a night for elect souls, but an evening, which darkneth, not extinguisheth light. Let us cleave to the resolution, which Tertullian teacheth us: We have engaged our souls by a solemn oath to this warfare of tribulation. Let us not betray our faith, to betray our glory. The Egyptian thorn was ever esteemed in the contexture of coronets, and still a sharp affliction patiently borne hath been highly valued in the diadem of constancy.  
4 If peradventure one spirit be convinced upon this article by a million of examples, which show, if virtue for a time hath been afflicted, yet God in the end crowneth it with immortal garlands; he falls upon the permission of sins, and you find Libertines 
Of the permission of sins.  so abominable, and unnatural as to accuse God to have too much goodness and clemency to tolerate their disorders? Why doth man complain of the evil whereof he is the Author? If a leg be lame, or crooked, the moving virtue which of itself giveth force and vigour is not blamed, but the distortedness, and debility of the part. Why do we not at least use God in the same manner? When we behold a deformed and exorbitant will, let us not say this great Mover commits this irregularity; for he ceaseth not to dispose all creatures to good, but confess the defect is the evil will, which resisteth its Creator.  
What wrong doth God unto us, if he being Governor of this ample City, called the world, will not force any man, but gives every one leave to live according to his condition? He suffereth stones to abide in their own inclination, creatures in their instinct, men in their liberty. He ceaseth not to teach them good, to prescribe and give them means to perform it, and if they do otherwise, they derive from their evils, either justice or repentance. What wrong then doth he, if he make man free, to become the more like himself.  
Have you not seen the notable discourse written 
Faustus. Reg l. 2. de Grat. This Author hath been opposed upon the point of Grace: but he may be favourably interpreted upon many things, since he was afterward reputed holy, as Baronius saith.  by Faustus Bishop of Rheggio, where Wisdom, Power Bounty, and Justice, plead before God one against another, touching man's liberty. Power feared if he were let lose, he might abuse this freewill to his own ruin, and said, he must give all except the power to undo himself: but in the end it was concluded that that which was best and most excellent, should be granted him, to wit liberty, not to be thrown into the world like the stock of a tree, but have leave to do good, & ill, that his extraction might be rendered the more elate, and his actions the more glorious: That power would make him more noble, wisdom prudent, goodness assist him in his combats, and justice crown him in his victories.  
Such let us make him, said wisdom, that he may hasten 
Talem faciamus, quem in dextram partem non trahat necessitas, sed voluntas, qui malum ratione intelligat, bo num virtute peficiat. Talem faciamus cui bonitas in naturâ, malicia sit extra naturam, etc. S. Tho. contra Gent. l. c. 7. Bonum totius praeeminet bono partis. Ad prudentem igitur gubernatorem pertinet negligere aliquem defectum bonitatis in parte, ut faciat augmentum bonitatis in toto.  to the choice of the better part, not of necessity, but of mere good will, that he understand evil by reason, and do good through virtue. Such let us make him, that goodness may appear in his nature, and malice out of his nature. Such let us make him, that he may have good in will, and evil in power: And the first ground of his glory may be the power of sin, and the will not to act it.  
Were it a matter very reasonable think you, that God should cease to do good, because man would take occasion to do ill? Know we not it is a maxim of well ordered policy, never to neglect the public for inconveniences, and defects of some particulars. We are not ignorant freewill is one of the most excellent treasures of reasonable nature, & why should God deprive his workmanship of it, under colour that some particulars would abuse it? Ought we not to content ourselves to behold in the histories of all the nations of the world, how God pursueth, chastiseth, destroyeth both evil, & evil men, sometimes openly, sometimes covertly; to reward good men in the end, and restore virtue to her throne, of which the insolency of the wicked seeks to dispossess them. Let us then for this reason adore the Providence, and acknowledge the proposition I here have proved, that the disorders condemned in nature, aver there is a first order, & a primitive rule, without which nothing can be well disposed.  

Foundation of the verities of Divine PROVIDENCE.  
THere remaineth, having succinctly refuted 
Maxims of Providence.  the objections of profane souls, to instruct, and settle the faithful in this belief, which is one of the greatest consolations of life; and for which cause I affirm, the doctrine of Providence is grounded upon Scripture, upon holy Fathers, and upon reason: Upon the scripture, which give us assurance in so many places.  
Wisdom plainly telleth us, That God made little 
Pusill●, & wagnum ipse fecit, & aequaliter illi cura est de omnibus, Sap. 6. Nun duo passarers ass vaeneunt, etc. Math. 10. In ipso vi●imus, mou●●●● & sumus. Act. 17  and great; and as there is nothing so vast, may escape his Immensity, so there is not any thing so small, which is deprived the blessings of his bounty. His Providence governeth all things from the beginning of the world, & ceaseth not to disentangle this great web of Ages. The tree looseth not one of his leaves, the head one of its hairs, the air one little bird, without his ordinance, as the Eternal Word teacheth us. We derive life, motion, and being from his bosom, in which he beareth us without weariness, and preserveth us without loathing. All the world is a large 
(a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Clem. Alex.  diocese, whereof he is the Bishop, and Eternal Prelate, who indefatigably watcheth over his flock, as saith Clemens Alexandrinus. 
(b) S. Dion. de Cael. Hier. cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  So soon as a creature is in being, it is moistened with sources of the divine Providence, said S. Dionysius. And according to the opinion of S. Augustine, 
(c) August. de Trin. l 3. c. 4. Nihil sit sensibiliter, & visibiliter quod non de interiore invisibili, atque intelligibili aul● s●●mi Imperat●ri● aut jubeatur. aut permittatur.  Nothing is sensibly, & visibly done in the world, which cometh not from the interior, invisible, and intelligible cabinet of this great Monarch, whether it be commanded, or permitted.  
Now observe, this divine Providence is composed of three heads; Knowledge, Disposition, & Government. Knowledge, seethe and considereth all things: Disposition, ordaineth the connexion of parts, and correspondency both of the one, and other. Government, embraceth all things which concern the end, as well to divert the obstacles, as advance the progressions. God hath all these three points supereminently. For as for knowledge, it is most perfect, as we will presently demonstrate. Disposition is such, that all the whole universe in all its parts is ruled, like a paper with music lines. Which made Synesius say, 
(d) Synesius Hym. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Junilius in Genesim, nisi sit. Beda.  the world was the harp of God, and the divers orders of nature were the strings of it. And Junilius an African Bishop, who flourished in the sixth Age, discoursing very subtly upon this subject, shows the relation there is between the civil world and nature, comparing the seven days of the week, with the seven Ages of the world. The government of it is so perpetual, and visible, that Aristotle himself 
(e) Arist, Ep. de principio. The foundations, and four pillars of it. Knowledge of God. Psalm. 146. Sapienti● eju● non est n●●●rus. Deus in omnia sufficies, Dissimulator, & pravaricator perspicaciae su● non est. Tertul. l, de poenit. c, 3.  confesseth, the communication of the first being, maintained all creatures in state, and that without its benign influences, this great All would return to nothing.  
6 But if you ask upon what foundation of reason this doctrine is built, I answer, it is supported by four powerful columes; Science, Goodness, Justice, and the Power of God. His Science is infinite, and and incomprehensible. For he most distinctly beholdeth all things which have been, are, shall be, and may be, in their proper essence, which is the efficient, final, exemplar, and fundamental cause of them. You must not require how this divine Spirit may suffice so many things; since all things in comparison of him, are no more than a drop of dew, compared to the Ocean. He knows all, because he created all; because the world is no world by any other reason, but that God hath known it was a world. The vapours of the earth never weary the sun: it could not breathe forth so much, if he digested not more: so the knowledge of all objects of the world cause no weariness in God, because all therein is finite, and his science is, as is his essence, infinite.  
7 To this science is joined a great goodness, which 
His goodness  is the cause God loveth all he created, and conserveth it with a certain tenderness of affection, and inestimable sweetness. The empire of man ordinarily is harsh, and violent. He diverteth the course of waters, he dries up fountains, he submitteth Lions to the yoke, he placeth turrets on the backs of Elephants, he changeth metals, he counterfeits precious stones, he sophisticateth total nature to accommodate it to his pretensions: but God not forcing the inclinations of things created, applieth himself to each according to the qualities of its essence. He shineth with the sun, and burneth with the fire. He makes showers with the clouds, pearls with the shells, the dew of heaven, gold, and fruits with the earth.  
We understand there are three streamings of this bounty: the one by generation, the other by spiration, and the last by creation. The two first are eternal, the last is temporal, by which he drew the world out of nothing, and having produced it, maintains it both in general and particular, affording even to the least fly, all accommodation according to its nature, and condition. He is not like those Ostriches, which lay their eggs on the sand without hatching them: but compareth himself to the Hen in the Gospel, which toileth and laboureth incessantly, either to hatch, feed, or train up her young-ones: she waxeth lean, she famisheth herself, becomes angry, bristles up herself for her precious brood, and taketh that upon her for love, which she cannot have by nature. It is a shadow of the goodness of God, who ceaseth not to provide for our necessities, to love us as his children, 
Hosea 11. Et ego quasi nutritius Ephraim portabam eos. in brachiis meis, & nescierunt, quod curarem eos. In funiculis Adam traham eos, in vinculi● charitatis. Exod. 2.  to defend us as the apple of his eye. I was (said he by his Prophet) as the foster-father of my people. I bore them all between my arms, they never vouchsafing to open their eyes to my protection. Yet will I draw them to me by the hands of Adam, which are the chains of my charity.  
Behold in Exodus the little Moses who floateth on Nilus in a cradle of reeds: the mother for fear of the rigour of men abandoneth him to death, the sister followeth him with her eyes to see what will become of him: but her weakness could do nothing to warrant him from danger. God in the mean space becomes the Pilot of this little bark, he conducteth it without sails, without rudder, without oars, he bears it upon the waves, he makes it arrive at a good haven. He draweth out this infant, who was as a victim exposed to make of him a God of Pharaoh, one day to drown in the red sea the posterity of those, who would have drenched him in Nilus.  
8 Add to this immenss goodness, justice, an inseparable 
His Justice.  virtue of the Divinity, which seems to oblige God to preserve and direct what he created. But it is to judge most abjectly of this divine understanding, to say as did Averro, he abused his magnificence, and soiled his dignity, if he busied himself in the manage of so many trifles. S. Ambrose judged better when he said: If God wrong himself in the government 
Amb. l. 1. offic. c. 13. Si injuria est regere, multò major injuria fecisse, cum aliquid non fecisse nulla sit injustitia, non curare quod feceris summa inclementia.  of the world, did he not himself a greater injury in creating it. For to do, or not to do, what one is not obliged unto, hath no injustice in it; but to abandon a creature, after it is produced, is a stain of inhumanity. And if we regard the justice, which appertaineth to the government of men; what malignity and prostitution of mind were it to think; souls the most caitive, having some spark of justice, yet God (who must be sovereign perfection) would suffer the world to be exposed to fortune, or delivered over to tyranny, as a prey, and a booty, without any care of it, or inquiry into injustices? There is not any Age which could not furnish out a million of proofs against these mischievous beliefs, if we would open our eyes to consider them, but our distrusts and pusillanimities blind us, and alienate us from knowledge of those truths, which God reserveth for the most purified souls.  
9 To conclude, the last column which should settle 
His Power  our faith in the verity of divine government, is the magistral power God exerciseth over all the world, which he ruleth, tempereth, and directeth with one sole thought, much otherwise than did 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. l. de mundo.  heretofore those practic wits, who vaunted to animate statues, because they by certain engines gave them motion. Wretched, and blind that we are, ever bowed down to the earth, & perpetualy divested of those great lights of Saints! We measure God by the ell of men, we clothe him after our fashion, and we hold impossible to the Divinity, what our understanding cannot comprehend. Shall we never say with the Prophet Jeremiah: O most strong! O only great, and 
Hier. 32: 19 Fortissime, magne, & potens Domine excercituum, nomen tibi magnus consilio, & incomprehensibilis cogitatu, cujus oculi aperti sunt, super omnes vias filiorum Adam.  only potent! The God of boasts is thy name. Thou art great in thy counsels, incomprehensible in thy cogitations, and thy eyes are upon all the ways of the children of Adam.  
We daily see upon men, who are but worms of the earth, so many tokens of God's power. A King speaketh, and a hundred thousand swords hasten out of scabbards at the sound of one syllable. A master of a family builds, and at one silly beck, behold so many artificers, so many mules and horses, some draw materials out of the bottom of quarries, others carry them in wagons, some make mortar and cement, others hue stones, some raise them aloft, others lay them, some play the carpenters, and others polish marbles. There are some who work in iron, and others in brass; all is done to the liking of one man, who is possessed of a little money.  
Do you never consider God as a great King in an army, as a great father of a family in a house, who by his sovereign power governs all he created, not with a toilsome care, but an incomparable facility. He gave in the beginning of the creation an instinct to all 
Guil. Par. de univers. 1. p. par. 3. c. 14. Nascitur aranea cum lege, libro, & lucerne  living creatures, and there is not any so little a spider, which coming into the world, bringeth not its rules, its book, its light; it is presently instructed in all it should do. God speaketh interiorly to all creatures in a double language, with a powerful impression, a secret commandment: he gives a signal into the world, and every one doth his office, every one laboureth regularly as in a ship, and all things 
Deus ipse universa sinu perfectae magnitudinis & potestatis includit, intentus sempe operi suo, vadens per omnia, movens cuncta, vivificans universa. Tertul. l. de Trin. c. 2.  agree to this great harmony of heaven. The little Nightingale in the forests, makes an Organ of her throat, sometimes breaking her notes into warbles, sometime stretching them out at length. The Swallow is busy in her masonry, the Bee toileth all the day in her innocent thefts, the Spider furnisheth out the long train of her webs, and makes more curious works with her feet, than the most skilful women can wove with their hands. Fishes play their parts under the water, beasts of service labour in their duty, small grains of seed, though dead and rotten, give life to great trees, which advance to the clouds. There is nothing idle in all nature, nothing disobedient but men and devils, who employ their liberty to resist him, whose power is as just, as it is eternal.  
10 Let us then concluding this discourse, adore the divine Providence, which holdeth the helm of the universe. Let us behold it, as a watchtower furnished with a thousand fires that abundantly enlighten this Ocean whereon we sail. Let us behold it as a burning pillar in the wilderness of this life. Let us behold it as our polestar, and never lose sight of it. It is our support, our sweetness, our comfort. It is that which cooleth our ardours, drieth our tears, breaketh our setters, and dissipateth our annoys. If we be in darkness, it is the light, if we be anxious, it giveth counsel. If we be in a labyrinth of errors, it is the thread which guideth us, if in danger of shipwrak, it is the haven, and if we be at the gates of death, it is life.  
Away with all curiosities, soothsayers, sorceresses, and superstitions unworthy the name of a Christian. Fie upon despair, and minds affliction. Let us learn in all things which appertain to us, speedily, and effectually to fix ourselves on the will of the will of the omnipotent, let us continually say, God seethe this affair, since nothing escapeth the quickness of his eye: He loves me as his child, because he is goodness itself: He is just, because he is the measure of all justice: He is potent, because there is not any thing can resist his will. Let us expect awhile; the trouble I endure is but a flying cloud, and God will do all for the best, Let us say with S. Augustine.  
O Sovereign Father, who governest the vast frame of heaven, I submit to thy direction. Led me on the 
August. de civet. Dei c. 8. l. 8. Duc me, sum pater, vasti moderatorolympi, quacumque placuit, nulla parendi est mora. Aasum impiger: fac nolle comitabor gemens, malusque patiar facere quod licuit bono.  right hand, lead me on the left, turn to what side thou pleasest. I follow thee without reply, or delay. For what should I get by resistance but to be dragged weeping; and to bear, becoming evil, what I might do sincerely becoming good.  
Heaven, earth, and sea, said Nicephorus Gregorius, 
(a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Niceph. Greg. l. 7.  fight against a wicked man as a fugitive from Providence, and a disturber of Justice.  
Let us learn to sleep securely in this conformity to the will of God, as a little infant on the teat of his nurse. It is at the sight of this providence, that Ionas buried in the belly of a whale, and covered under the Ocean's waves made a chapel of the devouring gulf, which was to have been his punishment, speaking affectionately to God: 
(b) Jon. 2. 4. Omnes fluctus & gurgites tui super me transierunt, veruntamen rursus videbo templum sanctum tuum.  Behold all thy waves and abysses pass over my head, yet I despair not to behold thee in thy Temple.  
It was in sight of this that the Patriarch No shut up in the Ark, whilst wrathful heaven thundered over the earth, the winds were unfettered, the pillars of the world tottered with fatal convulsions, whilst men and houses were torn in pieces to serve as a pastime for the Sea, and that yels of beasts mingled with the cries of so many mortals echoed round about, last when all the world swum, he rested in an incomparable tranquillity, adoring the counsels of God's justice. Sacred Providence, we prostrate on the earth adore thee, vindicate us from the bondage of our passions, make us die to so many dead things of mortals, that we hereafter may live in thy delight.   

The fourth EXAMPLE, upon the fourth MAXIM. Divers observations upon Providence.  
LEt us a little withdraw our minds from discourses to the consideration of examples, like those who labouring on some curious works, refresh their eyes with beholding the verdure of meadows, or lustre of Emeralds. Volumes might be compiled without end by him who would follow the footsteps of divine Providence, in so great a labyrinth of times, and Histories so innumerable. But it is not my purpose in these abbreviations, where I endeavour to suppress much, and well express a few things.  
If you behold this Providence in nature, there are eternal miracles, which astonished the wise animated all voices gave matter to all pens, and filled all the books in the world. On what side soever we turn our eyes, we meet this great Mistress with a hundred 
Providence of God in the ordinary works of nature.  arms, and as many hands, which incessantly travel to do us good. It enlighteneth us in the beauty of stars and lights, it warmeth us in flames, it refresheth us in the air, it delighteth us in the enamel of meadows, it moisteneth us in the streaming of crystal fountains, it profiteth and enricheth in the fertility of fields, so many trees and shrubs, such diversity of fruits, such wholesome herbs, such a great 
Vid. Senec. l. 4. de benef.  quantity of viands so well divided into all the seasons of the year, so many living creatures, some whereof come from the water, others from the earth, the rest from the air, every part of the world bringing its tribute; so many medicinable waters, so many rivers which afford such delicious shores to the land for commerce, and all humane accommodation.  
I now let all this pass, and coming to matters more particular, demand of you who was the cause, 
Particular providence over divers countries. Joannes Metellus.  that in the Canary Island called Ferro, when it is roasted with droughts, and heaven affordeth no succour by showers, nor rivers by waters, there is found a huge tree, which seems to change all the leaves thereof into as many petty fountains: for every on distilleth water, and all render it in such abundance, that it sufficeth both men and their flocks? Who doth all this good husbandry, but the divine Providence? And who is it supplies scarcity of rain in Egypt, & commandeth Nilus to overflow the fields in his limited time, to bear in his inundations the wealth of Pharos, but it?  
Who maketh Antidotes grow in places, where poisons spring, but its wisdom? If afric have many serpents, there are Psylles, which destroy them. If other countries breed store of makes there are Ashen flowers, which drive them away. If Egypt hath a Crocodile, 
●istoria Sinarum part. 4.  it affords an Indian rat, which bursteth it. There are likewise trees to be found which having venomous roots upon one side, yield a remedy on the other. By what hand are framed so many wonders of nature, which make books incessantly speak, but by that of this great Workman?  
But if you on the other side will consider it in the 
Admirable protection of ●en in rare accidents.  protection of men, what doth it not by the ministry of its good Angels? I see upon one side in histories the little King Mithridates involved in lightening-flashes, whilst he innocently sleepeth in his infant cradle, the flames consuming his clothes, and linens, and not touching his body at all. To whom think you should I attribute this?  
On the other side I ponder the prodigy so loudly 
Philippus Anthologia Graec. l. 1.  proclaimed in the Greek Antholigie of a shipwreck, equally surprising a father and a son, which took away the life of the father, and gave the son leave to arrive in a safe harbour, having no other vessel but the corpse of his deceased father, who gave him life by his death, as he had afforded him birth by his life. Who did this but the Master of Life and Death.  
Besides, I read in the relations of Muscovia, set 
Demetrius Legatus.  out by the Ambassador Demetrius, that a country Boor, being by chance clammed in the hollow body of a great tree full of honey, and finding no means to come forth of his liquorish captivity, behold a Bear hasteneth to the same tree, to eat of the honey, whereof these beasts are very greedy: which observed, the poor forlorn creature, not discerning what this might be, but catching hold▪ (as one almost drowned) of any thing which good luck offered him, grasped the Bear, who feeling himself taken, laboured hard to fly through fear conceived and draweth out the peasant, by an admirable accident, wherein it was no easy matter to say, which of the two was most affrighted. Who directed this but the eye of Providence?  
I admire also in the earthquake of Apulia, that happened the year, 1627. the last day of J●ly, (where one writeth that in the City of S. Severin alone, ten thousand souls were taken out of the world) how in the horror of such infinite ruins and sepulchre of so many mortals, a great bell fell so fitly over a child, that it enclosed him, and doing no hurt, made a bulwark for him against any other danger; who balanced the motion of this metal, but the fingers, which distended heaven.  
Will you pass to particulars of Empires? You will 
Providence over Empires.  be rapt with admiration, when you come to consider the beginnings, progressions, and events of every one. You shall see them spring like small veins of water unknown, and with time to take such increase, as to become huge rivers, large enough to overflow the fields. Sometimes it will seem to you, they are only set upon a needle's point, and are ready to ruin; in the mean space there is an invisible hand, which supporteth and re-establisheth them by their proper falls. You admire, how God so long suffers ungrateful, and perfidious Nations to draw them unto him, and afterwards the measure of their sins filled up; if they must be destroyed, it is but to cause others to rise out of their ruins.  
The Assyrians after the reign of thirty eight Kings, changed into Medes, and Chaldaeans: the Medes after the sway of nine Kings, and three hundred and twenty two years, ended in Astyages: The Chaldaeans after two hundred and nine years in Darius the Mede. But they like two rivers, united in the person of Cyrus, to make great the Monarchy of the Persians. The Persians after two hundred thirty years, and fourteen Kings, dissolve into the Grecians: The Grecians are multiplied to Ptolemies, and S●●ucides. All are finally swallowed in the Roman Empire. Rome lost itself after one thousand two hundred twenty nine years, accounted from the foundation to the Emperor Augustulus, who is observed, as the last Monarch before the great wrack, which made the Empire a prey to so many Nations, that had fed it with their blood. From the division of the Roman Empire, sprang our French, Spaniards, English, Goths, Vandals, Lombard's, Polacks, Otomans, and such other Powers.  
If from thence you advance your thoughts to 
Providence over the Church.  the government of the Church, which is the principal work of God, and reflect upon it from its cradle to the present Age, entertaining in your memory its infancy, increase, travels, persecution, glories, and crowns, you will stand amazed at the bottomless depth of the counsels of the Divine Providence.  
What mother ever had so much care, and tender affection over her little infant sleeping in the cradle, as this Providence for the Church and Christianity? It is a remarkable thing, that at the same time when Nabuchadnezzar ruined the Temple of Jerusalem 
Diarium Historicum.  in the East, the Capitol was built in the West, to plant there one day the Cross, and that Rome in the space of one hundred forty two years, having been six times taken, and ransacked by Alaricus, Gensericus, Odoacer, the Heruli, Theodoricus, Belisarius, and Totylas, when one would have thought it were brought to nothing, was ever preserved by God to be the source of lights, and the mother of all Churches  
How many times hath God tied secret virtues to the standards of Christians? How many times made winds and tempests to fight under their Ensigns? How often hath he opened for them lands inaccessible, calmed stormy seas for them, changed deserts into Paradises of delight? Petty handfuls of soldiers to discomfit huge Armies, take Towns impregnable, cleave rocks, and hue through mountains, to do the work of Giants, and find facility in all, which humane reason conceived impossible!  
Read Paulus Aemilius, and Gulielmus Tyrius upon 
Paul Aemil. l. 4.  the conquest of the holy land; and you shall see, that birds of the air seemed in pay with Godfrey of Bovillon: For who can be but astonished to hear it told, how when he besieged Jerusalem, the Sultan having 
Serange accident.  taught pigeons to carry messages, dispatched one of them with a letter which she bore under her wings, to give advise to the besieged? But good hap would have it, that a Hawk, seizing one her just over the Christian army, took her, and made her to let fall what she carried, to inform ours of the enemy's design. How many such like accidents show us the care God hath of his, and that he never suffered them to be overthrown, but to vanquish their vices, and to humble their pride by the counterpoise of foreign Powers?  
What may we say of Counsels? What may we likewise think of great bodies of Justice? How many times have we seen counsels discovered, and resolutions, of which it seemed no creature had a thought? God governed the hearts and tongues of those, who sought to abuse them against him, a great Spirit swayed all those members assembled, and secretly did its work, to the admiration of the whole world. One same motion guided within compass all those stars, as in Archimedes his sphere, and accorded them by their proper contrarieties. Great 
Vis illum veras poenas dare? Sentiat quàm bono patri injuriam fecerit. Senec. contro. l. 1.  God have we not cause to say what he did in Seneca; Throughly to punish the wicked man who woundeth the Divine Providence, I ordain nothing, but that he understand the wrong he hath done to a good father.    

V MAXIM. Of Accidents.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That all is done by chance, by necessity, or humane providence. That all is done by the will of God, except sin.  
THe enemies of Providence use all kind of engines to oppose their own happiness, 
Three squadrons against Providence.  and crack their own eyestrings, that they may not behold the great eye, which pursues the wicked even into the shades of death. I find the Chaldaeans made three squadrons, that we may speak with holy Job, wherewith to assail this great Mistress of the world. Some hold all is done by Chance, and that nothing but Fortune predominateth in the actions and affairs of the world: others, will subject all to the laws of fatal necessity: the third put their whole confidence in carnal prudence, which not unlike reeds, takes away their support, and leaves them remorse.  
Happy he, who amongst so many straits, shelves, and shipwrecks, can hold the right way, ever casting his eye towards Providence, as his Polestar, and never losing sight of it, that he may never lose himself. Let us now endeavour to ruin these three Companies of Chaldaeans by the arms of Scripture, holy Fathers, and Reason.  
It is a pitiful thing to see a giddy soul, which 
The misery of impiety.  seeketh God, and will not find him, making so many errors as paces, so many stumbles as steps, and as many sacrileges as there are creatures in the whole world. The Prophet Esay complained in his time 
Esay. 65. Qui ●onitis Fortunae mensam, &▪ libatis super eam.  of those who dressed up Altars to Fortune, and made Sacrifices to her. But this Sect took with time so great increase, that it filled the whole earth. For blind Gentilism beholding so many sundry accidents in the life of man, the cause whereof they could not penetrate, imagined there was a certain Deity, blind, unequal, and furious, which distributed all conditions, and held good, and bad luck, as day and night in its hands. This Idolatry of Fortune 
Adorers of Fortune. Plin. l. 2. c. 6. Toto mundo, & locis omnibus, omnibusque horis omnium vocibus fortuna sola invocatur; una nominatur, una accusatur, una agitur rea, una cogitatu●, huic omnia expensa, huic omnia feruntur accepta, & in totâ ratione mortalium sola utramque paginam facit. Fantasies of Ancients upon the names of Fortune.  was so general, that Pliny durst say: Fortune alone is invoked throughout the world, in all places, at all times, in all languages; none talk but of her, she only is praised, she only accused; she gives all presents, makes all expenses, and if you well weigh the great book of the accounts of our life, you shall find, Fortune filleth all the leaves of it.  
The Romans who in arms overcame all other Nations, do go beyond them in superstition, not contenting themselves with one sole Fortune, made many, which had no other foundations of their Deities but Chymaeraes of brains bereft of reason, as S. Augustine showeth us in his fourth book of the City of God. One was called Fortune the first born, because they held it was the beginning of all things: the other was all covered over with duggs, and was termed Mammosa, in testimony of its fruitfulness. One was called Fortune the strong; the other feminine, the other a virgin, the other inconstant, the other stable. One was for certain days, another for all times: One for Emperors, all of gold, which they kept in their chambers as a relic, and another for the people, of wood or earth.  
Lastly not so much as young men, but adored a 
Aug. l. 4. de civet. Dei. c. 2.  barbed Fortune, that their first beard might grow in good fashion. Good God what ignorance, what a cloud! See we not▪ how gross these superstitions are, since, the blood of Jesus washed away the stain? Notwithstanding the world is filled with slaves of Fortune who cease not to impute all prosperities, and adversities of life to the hazard of chance.  
2. Now to decide this point: we must know Fortune 
That Fortune is in the power of Providence.  is nought else, but man himself, when without thinking upon it, he makes himself the accidental cause of an effect not pretended.  
A man through despair sought for a halter to 
Arist. de causis Fortuna est causa per accidens in his quae per electionem alicujus gratiae fiunt.  hang himself, and stirring the earth in an unusual place met with a treasure: it was said to be fortune, yet is this fortune nothing else but man, who in searching gave occasion to this effect, which followed▪ though never by him intended. In respect of man this chance is absolutely casual, in respect of the prime cause which is God, it is a Providence. Behold a man crushed under the ruins of a tree, he expected not this tree should fall, and therefore it is his fortune: But God, without whose dispose one sole leaf of a tree droppeth not off, had foreseen this fall from all eternity: which enforceth us to affirm, that all fortunes of men are enclosed within the power of Providence.  
It is a notable doctrine of a great Bishop of Paris 
A notable doctrine of  who saith, God, Father of all essences, begetteth and eternally speaketh his Son, or his Eternal Word, and 
William of Paris. Gulielm. Paris: 1. part. de univer. part. 3. c. 24.  that in this Word he once said all he would do, and all which should happen: in such sort, that there is not any accident, order, or mean in this great connexion of Ages, enchained one within another, can escape the vivacity of his eye, and the extent of his Providence. There it is he hath ordained all the blessings of nature, grace, and glory: There it is he hath seen all the evils of offence, yet willeth he not, nor can he will, they should be of him, or by him, as being unworthy his sanctity, his glory, and goodness. But as for the fortunes and misfortunes of men, banishments, bands, prisons, maladies, afflictions, prosperities, riches, honours, treasures, glories, and crowns, he hath appointed them according to his divine pleasures, to be instruments of good desires, and glorious actions. Wherefore let us never say, good and ill haps of the world come by chance, without God's dispose.  
To me, saith the Great God in the holy Scriptures, 
Meae sunt omnes ferae silosrum, & pulchritudo agri mecum est. Mecum sunt divitiae, & gloria, opes superbae, & justicia. Per me Reges regnant, & leg●● conditores just● decernunt. Si clanget tubs in civitate, & populus non expavescet, si eri● malum in civitate quod Dominus non ficerit. Psal. 49. 10. Prov. 8. 18. Amos. 3. 9  belong all the beasts in the forest, and I behold the beauty of the fields disclosed from my bosom. With me are riches, glory, pomps, wealth, which rest in the protection of my Justice. It is by me Kings hold the reins of Empire in their hands, and Lawmakers open their lip●●o pronounce Oracles. The trumpet sounds in the mid●●●f the City, and the people tremble, not knowing the cause of their misery: But there is no evil of punishment in the City, which I have not caused for most just reasons.  

(a) Second squadron.  The second squadron of our Chaldaeans takeing a quite contrary way to this, will bruitishly maintain all things are done by a fatal necessity, which some attribute to stars, others to divine prescience. For as much as concerneth stars, it is a distinct question, which would well deserve a much longer discourse, than this present design permitteth. 
(b) Vanity of Astrology.  We have showed in some other former tracts, and will also manifest once again, how vain, and frivolous the science of Horoscopes is, being taken in that height, whereunto the vanity of some impostors hath raised it, not here intending to condemn those who handle Astrology within limits permitted by the Church. Let us now be contented to say it is a savage ignorance to seek to infer from the course of planets an absolute necessity upon men's actions, since even judicial Astrologers the most fervent and obstinate, durst never proceed so far. All say the stars make impressions of certain qualities upon bodies, and minds; but that they may be diverted by precaution: which gave authority to the famous axiom of Ptolemy, cited by S. Thomas in the book of destiny, affirming, 
(a) S. Thom. opusc. defat. Sapiens dominabitur astris.  the wise man shall rule the stars.  

(b) Tertull. de Ido. c. 9 Expelluntur mathematici sicut angeli eorum, urbe & Italia: interdicitur mathematicis sicut coelum Angelis. Non potest regnum coelorum sperare cujus digitus aut radius ab●titur coelo.  Tertullian in the treatise of Idolatry, said pertinently, that evil Angels are made prime masters of the curiosity of Horoscopes; and that as they were banished from heaven, so are their disciples from the earth, as by an extension of the divine sentence. He addeth, that man should not at all pretend to the Kingdom of heaven, who makes a practice to abuse both heaven and stars. It seems God pursueth those, who addict themselves to such vanities, as fugitives from Divine Providence. And it is very often observed, that great-ones, who are ensnared in the servitude of this curiosity, have felt violent shocks, and many times most dreadful events. 
(c) Alexander de Angelis l. 4. c. 40.  Henery the second to whom Carden, and Gauricus, (two lights of Astrology) had foretold verdant and happy old Age, was miserably slain in the flower of his youth, in games and pleasures of a Turneament. The Princes his children, whose Horoscopes were so curiously looked into, and of whom wonders had been spoken, were not much more prosperous. Zica King of the Arabians, to whom Astrology had promised long life to persecute Christians, died in the year of the same prediction. Albumazar, the Oracle of Astrology, left in writing, that he found Christian religion, according to the influence of stars, should last but a thousand four hundred years: he already hath belied more than two hundred, and it will be a lie to the world's end. The year 1524. wherein happened the great conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, in the sign Pisces, Astrolgers had foretold the world should perish by water: which was the cause many men of quality made arks in imitation of No●hs, to save themselves from the deluge, all which turned into laughter. The year 1630. was likewise threatened by some predictions, with an inundation should drown half mankind, which proved false by a season quite contrary. It was foretold a Constable of France well known, that he would die beyond the Alps, before a city besieged, in the 83. year of his Age, and that if he escaped this time, he was to live above a hundred years; which was notoriously untrue, this man deceasing in the 84. year, of a natural death. A Mathematician of John Galeazzo Duke of Milan, who promised himself long life, according to his planets, was slain at the same time when he prognosticated this, by the commandment of the same Duke. Another ginger of Henry the seaventh, King of England, advised this great Prince to take heed of Christmas night, was asked, whither his own star would send him that night: to which he answered, to his own house in security of peace: Yet was he instantly sent to the tower to celebrate the vigil of this great festival. One might reckon up by thousands, the falsehoods, miseries, and disasters which wait on these superstitions.  
Who can then sufficiently deplore the folly of 
Existimant tot circa unum caput tumultuantes Deos. Aurelius.  one, who forsaking the great government of God, the fountain of wits, and treasure of fortunes, makes himself a slave of Mercury, or Saturn, contrary to the voice of Scripture, decision of Counsels, Oracles of holy Fathers, Laws of Emperors, consultations of the wise, experience of people, and consent of all the most solid judgements?  
We will not labour to ruin a doctrine forsaken 
Against the necessity inferred of prescience.  both by honour and reason: We only speak against those, who will infer a necessity derived from divine prescience, by force of which, sins themselves, according to their understandings, are directly caused by the decrees of heaven. It is the opinion of Velleius Paterculus, who said, destiny did all the good and 
Ita efficitur, quod est miserrimum, ut quod accidit, etiam merito accidisse videatur, & casus in cu●pam transeat.  evil in the world, and that it was a miserable thing to attribute that which proceedeth from above, to the demerit of men, and to make the ordinances of heaven to pass, as crimes of mortals. This Maxim was defended by Heretics even to fury, and it is a wonder men have been so wicked, as to burden the prime sanctity with all the ordures of the world.  
We well know, if destiny be taken for the ordinance by which God establisheth the lives of particulars, and states of Empires, it is nothing else but the Divine Providence whereof we speak: but good heed must be taken from concluding sins within the list of God's will, who only being pleased to permit them, can not in any sort establish or will them. And it is here an impertinent thing to say, All God hath foreseen shall necessarily happen, otherwise he would be deceived in his foresight, which cannot be affirmed without blasphemy: but he foresaw all future things, they then of necessity will happen. Who sees not it is a childish toy, and that this captious argument must be overthrown, by saying, All which God hath foreseen necessarily, happeneth by necessity, and all he foresaw indifferently, happeneth by indifferency. Now so it is, that of all which dependeth on our liberty, he hath not foreseen any thing necessarily, but indifferently: We must then conclude, that all is done by indifferency, not fatal necessity. Harken to the excellent decision of S. john Damascene. 
Damas'. l. 2. Orth. fidei c. 32.   
God foresaw all things; but he determineth not all 
Omnia quidem Deus praenoscit; non omnia tamen praefinit praenoscit enim ea quae in nostrâ sunt potestate, non autem ea praefinit, quia non vult peccatum, nec cogi● ad virtutem.  things; He well foresaw all which is, and shall be in your power: but he determines not, because he willeth not sin, nor will likewise constrain any man to virtue. 
(b) Plato. l. 2. de republicâ. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Plato in his Commonwealth detesteth all opinions, which seek to introduce into the beliefs of people propositions unworthy of God's goodness, namely those which make him author of sin, adding, we must not endure to hear it spoken or written by any man in a well rectified Commonwealth.  
Who knoweth not, that such are the causes, such the effects? If the causes be necessary, the effects likewise are enchained within the limits of necessity: If they be contingent, they are all in indifferency. Now the prescience of God (to speak properly) is not the cause of our actions, unless it be by mere accident and occasion; than it cannot make them necessary. Is it not true, that the great eye of God equally beholdeth things past, present, and future? And as our eye maketh not things present by beholding them, since a wall is neither white nor black by force of my sight; and as our memory makes not things past, by repassing them by their species; so the prescience of God makes not things future by overseeing them: they are not because God hath foreseen them, but he foresaw them, because they so should happen.  
O man, if thou beholdest him who made thee, thou 
Faust. Reg. de gratia c. 2. l. 2. Si ad factorem, homo, respicis, bonus esse potuisti. Si ad praecognitorem, tu me progestorum tuorum ordine, ut de te malum praenoscerem, compulisti.  mayest have been good. But if thou contemplatest him, as him who knew thee before the beginning of Ages, thou hast enforced him to make an evil judgement upon thee, because thou hast made thyself evil.  
Our action, although it be not the first dated in execution, at the least in the Idea and order of nature, it always foregoeth the divine prescience: if we regard its first intentions, we may all be honest men; if we consider our proceed, we constrain him to foresee of us, what is in us. If prescience imported any necessity, we might conclude God were necessited in all the actions he doth throughout the world, because he eternally hath foreseen them all, which were most impious. Let us not then say: But if God hath so foreseen it, it will happen by an inevitable necessity: for there are three sorts of necessities; one most absolute, as that of the Essence of God; the other natural, as light in the sun, heat in fire; the third is a necessity conditional, as is that, If God forseeth such or such a thing, it shall happen: I say, it is a necessity of supposition, for you presuppose he foresaw it, but instantly you learn he foresaw it not, but because it should be, and that his prescience is no more the cause of our actions, than our memory of the taking of Rochel, and wars with the Huguenots.  
4. After this brainsick band, another riseth, 
3. Squadron of nice ones according to humane prudence.  which comprehendeth the subtle and more refined wits, according to the judgement of the world, who suppose all good success proceeds from prudence and humane industry, without the helping hand of God. They are such, as according to the saying 
Habac. 1. 16.  of the Prophet, sacrifice to their nets, who kiss their hand as an independent worker of great actions, who savourly taste all they do, like Bears, said to lick their paws, when they have eaten honey.  
Greek Authors tell us, Mercury was bred by the 
An observation of the Grecians upon the dependence we have from on high. Mentem tunc hominibus adimit supera illa mens, quae cujuscumque fortunam mutare constituit, consilia corrumpit Velleius. l. 2.  hours, to teach us, all wisdom and humane eloquence not guided nor supported by the measures of heaven, can neither have nourishment, nor subsistence. There is no one more blind, than he who thinks himself clear-sighted in affairs without the prudence of Heaven; all succeeds ill with him, and he findeth by experience, that God gins the change of fortunes, by the corruption of counsels. The reason thereof is very manifest, since we know all created spirits, work not but by the dependence they have upon the increated Essence, as also that all Intelligencies have so much excellency, as they have relation to the first Intelligence, which is the Word of God.  
If we consult with our own thoughts and knowledge, 
Weakness of humane wisdom.  as being near of kin to us, we shall find they have three ill properties; which is, they are heavy, timorous, and uncertain: as heavy, they creep on the earth; as timorous, they glance at all objects, and resolve on nothing; as uncertain, they are perpetually floating, There is none but God, who raiseth them by his exaltation, settleth them by his stability, and stayeth them by his immutability.  
All they, who disunited from the eternal Wisdom, 
Vanity of Politicians, without God's direction.  think to prosper in governments, honours, worldly affairs, are Icaruses, that seek to counterfeit birds with waxed wings; the least ray proceeding from the throne of the Lamb will burn them, and make their height serve for no other use, but to render their falls the more remarkable. If they be lettered, 
Nicephorus Gregoras. l. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  they shall stead them as forests do thiefs, to cover their crimes, and if they have dignities, they shall be unto them, as the golden and silver precipices of the Emperor Heliogabalus, which were not devised but to make his ruin the more memorable. Doth not the Apostle proclaim aloud with a voice of thunder to the posterity of all Ages: I will pull down the wisdom of the wisest according to the 
Perdam sapientiam sapientum 1. Cor. 1. Adducit Consiliarios in stultum finem, & judices in stuporem. Job. 12. 17.  world, I will rebuke the prudence of the most subtle? And did not holy Job repeat the like Oracles upon the dunghill, saying: God oftentimes giveth success of affairs most shameful to the most able Counselors, and he reduceth Judges to a certain stupidity of understanding? Hath not the experience of Ages shown so often in the histories of Pharaobs, Herod's, and all such like, that there is no greater wisdom in the world, than to be an honest man? To be 
Senec. ep. 118. Sapere sapientiae usus est, sicut oculorum videre. 1. Conclusion against those who curse fortune.  wise is to use wisdom, and to make it serve for direction, as the eye for sight.  
5. Let us draw three concusions from these three propositions we have deduced; The first whereof shall be, never to do like those vulgar & abject souls, which is to curse, and detest our condition, and fortune, as it were an effect of some false Divinity, and not a Divine Providence. Remember daily within yourself those words: Nothing is done one the earth without cause. God hath disposed all with weight, and measure. 
Nihil in terrá sine causâ fit Job. 5. Omnia in mensura, & numero, & pondere disposuisti. Sap. 11.   
Recall into your thoughts the singular consideration of Boetius: 
(a) Boet: de consol. Aequo animo toleres oportet, quicquid intra fortunae aream geritur, cum semel jugo colla submiseris.  We must patiently suffer all which is done within the circle of Providence, seeing we have bowed our necks under its laws, by the condition of our birth. 
(b) An excellent resolution upon worldly accidents.  So soon as you are born, you enter within the jurisdiction of God's ordinance, you have undergone the yoke to receive good or evil fortune, as he shall please to appoint. I ask, if you should resolve to give law to him from whom you ought to take it, were you not most unjust, & unhappy? Most unjust, because you would encroach upon God's inheritance; most unhappy, because you could not kick against the prick, but to hurt yourself the more. Were you embarked in a vessel, you must go not according to your own will, but the course of wind, and tide. If you learned the trade of husbandmen, you must cast into the earth, to reap again what will come of it, and you should sometimes have barren, sometimes fertile, and fruitful years. You have entered into humane life, which of its nature is replenished with inconstancies, and vicissitudes: one while there is good another while evil hap. Let fortune roll as God shall please, nothing with him is hazardous Would you be so hardy, as to tie yourself to the wheel of a chariot perpetually running, to stay the course which the Divine Providence affords it? You desire, say you, a stable fortune in the world, and understand not, that were it so, there would no longer be either world, or fortune, since the condition of these inferior things is in continual mutation,.  
When you see the wicked flourish in honour, riches, 
Deorum crimes Sylla tam faelix. Senec. ad Marcia.  and reputation, say not the prosperity of a wicked man is heaven's sin, that God walketh upon the vaults of his palace, and abandoneth the care of worldly affairs. Expect a little, Justice will come, although many times with a leaden pace. How know you, whether God will convert this man by surcharging him with prosperities, to confound his ingratitude? How know you, whether resolving to deprive him for his crimes of eternal blessings, he gives him some use of temporal benefits in recompense of some moral virtues he hath heretofore exercised? Rather say to God: O God how profound are thy thoughts, 
Psal 91. 6. Nimis profundae factae sunt cogitationes suae: vir insipiens non cognoscet, & flu●t●● non intelliget haec. Vis in esse longanimis, & patience, jungete aeternitati Dei, & cam illo expecta qu● infra te sunt. August. in Psal. 91. 2. Conclusion against Fatality.  and how inscrutable to the ignorant, and foolish! Expect the day which will draw aside the curtain, and make you see all the secrets of the world. God expecteth it with so much patience in his eternity, why will not you expect it in your mortality?  
6. The second conclusion shall be, never to adhere to this brutish and savage opinion, which puts a fatality upon all the actions of men and all events. Beware of the foolish discourse of him, who says, If my hour be come I shall die, and if not, I have nothing to fear. For see you not according to these unbridled maxims, all deliberation, all prudence, all order of humane life must be taken away? Were here a fatality, we need no more talk of ships to pass the seas, nor medicines to cure maladies, nor bread to feed the hungry. A man besotted with this folly, might free from danger walk on the waves; for if his destiny bear him, he shall never perish by water; He need not at all make use of medicine, for his death can neither be delayed, nor hastened. What avayls it so much as to eat? For if he must die of hunger, what ever he do he shall fail, and if his destiny threaten him not that way, he shall live in full assurance. Behold here prodigious dotages. But God, hath he not fixed the number of my years, as saith Job: You keep a reckoning of his years and montehs: you 
Job. 14. 5. Numerm mensium ejus apud te est, constituisti ter●i●● ejus, qui preteriri non p●●●erunt.  have set him limits, which cannot be broken?  
I affirm, God knows the number of your days, and hath determined them: Hath he not on the other part obliged you to your conservation by the law of nature? Since you have no revelation from above, that God will have you die in such or such a fashion, you ought to preserve your life to the last breath, and if through rashness you run among precipices, shipwrecks, and musket-shots, without obedience, without reason, without discretion, you are the murderers of yourselves God hath foreseen you must die at such an hour, and of such a death: but he hath likewise foreseen it would happen unto you through a most perverse will, and an enraged temerity, which sought to tempt the counsels of the Omnipotent, against all the maxims of verity. Know you not, God hath set fire and water before you, and that you may take which of them you please? Liberty of 
Tertull. advers. Marc c. 6. Tota libert● arbitrij in utramque partem concessa est homini, ut sui Dominus constanter occurreret, & bona sponte serv●●do, & mala sponte vitand●. Third conclusion against humane prudence, and lazyness. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.   is absolutely given to man to become a Master over all his actions, with a constancy of mind, either voluntarily to keep, and conserve good, or to resist evil with the like freedom, said Tertullian.  
7. The third conclusion will teach us to settle our labour by heaven's direction in a good temperature, so that we stand not with arms  when we should travel, expecting from God's hand what we ought not to expect without our cooperation, and that on the other side we take heed, not so to presume of our own abilities, as to ascribe thereunto all good successes which happen. For both the one and other is hateful before God. We know what the Sage Greek said to a Carter plunged in a mire, who called aloud on Minerva, not seeking to stir himself: My friend, with Minerva you must stir a hand. God is very ready to aid you, but you must on your part use correspondence. Set up sail, and God will give wind, till the earth, and you shall receive Heaven's benediction. But if you think to please yourself with an ill rectified devotion, and not to care for the affairs of your family, will you not be like those barren trees, which make a noise with their leaves under the breath of winds, and never bear fruits? On the other side, beware of thinking to be happy by means merely humane and politic, without Heaven's direction: For so doing, you will build upon quicksilver phantasms of greatness, which will afford you illusions in this life, to drench you in the other into eternal confusions. When you have done all which justice and conscience 
Nec consilio prudenti, nec remedio sagaci divin● providentiae fatalis dispositio subverti, vel reformari potest. Apul. Metamor. 9 He● fatis superi certasse minores. Sil. Ital. l. 5.  dictate, leave successes to God, and know there are strokes from Heaven that cannot be vanquished, either by prudence of counsels, or any humane remedies. We are to be answerable unto God with our good desires, not powers; the petty gods of the earth can do nothing against the Decrees of Heaven. Take these words of S. Paul, not as ordinary, but as Oracles of an immutable Verity: 
(a) Rom. 8. Prudentia carnis mors est, prudentia autem spiritus, vita, & pax.  Prudence of flesh is death: but prudence of spirit is peace and life.  
If you have good success in aught you do, thank God, and look on him (saith 
(b) Bernard. de consider. l. 5. Tob. 6. 3.  S. Bernard) as an Omnipotent Will, a virtue full of affection, an eternal light, a sovereign beatitude, which replenisheth all here below with the abundance of his ever-honoured bounty. But if in doing all you can, you find main oppositions, and irksome afflictions in the world, say as the chaste Sara did, seeing herself injured by her servant: O God, I turn my face to the 
Ad. te Deus faciem m●am converto, ad te oculos meos dirigo. Peto Domine ut de vinculo improperii hujus absolvos me, aut certe desuper terram cripias me, etc.  place whence I expect my consolation. I fix mine eyes on thee, because thou settlest all my hopes. I beseech thee deliver me from the fetters of this disgrace, or deliver me out of this world. Thy counsels are impenetrable to the weakness of my understanding; but I am well assured of one thing, that he who faithfully serves thee, shall never be deceived. If his life be assaulted with afflictions, it shall reap Crowns. If it be exposed to the ardour of tribulations, thou wilt stretch out an assisting hand. If thou exercisest it under thy chastisements, it shall be to make it find out the path of thy mercies.  

The fifth EXAMPLE upon the fifth MAXIM. Of the Providence of GOD over states and riches of the world. EULOGIUS.  
THe Divine Providence is a marvellous workman, 
Drawn from the observation of Paul a Greek Author.  which ruleth here below over the heads of mortals, it laboureth in this great mass of mankind; it takes men of earth to make them of gold, and of those men of gold, makes men of earth. It commixeth slaves and Kings, and causeth the one, not thinking of it, to spring from the other in the revolution of times, as Plato said. But we who know not all its secrets, sometimes blame the works of it, which should rather stir up our admiration, than be subject to our censure. One complaineth the wealth of the world is not well divided, and that the wicked have ever the greatest share. Men who oftentimes know not how to part with a finger breadth of land, but by disjoining most intimate charities, would make themselves distributers of the world's fortunes, as if they looked more narrowly into the world, than he that made it.  
I will here set down a memorable history, drawn out of a rare Grecian Author, named Paulus, who 
Paul Syllegus. l. 3. c. 48.  compiled many Narrations, learned from the best of his Age. He recounteth how in the time of the Emperor Justin the elder, about the year 528. after the birth of Christ, there was in Thebais one named Eulogius, a stone-cutter by his trade, of poor means, but very rich in virtue. Which maketh us say, Poverty resembles the Island of Ithaca (as said Archesilas) which 
Poverty the Isle of Ithaca. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Stob. serm. 93.  though rough and bushy, failed not to breed the bravest men of Greece, whom she made use of as a school for all the exercises of virtues.  
This man, who at that time had no other wealth on earth but his hands, spared not to store up treasures of good works, as pledges in Heaven. He feared 
Virtues of a good poor man.  God, was devout, chaste, sober, abstinent, courteous, peaceful, charitable, and embraced eminent virtues in a mean fortune. It is a strange thing, that notwithstanding his labour, which was hard enough, he fasted most part of his time even to Sunset, and with the little money he got by the sweat of his brows, relieved the poor. He walked like Abraham before pilgrims, he washed their feet, and received them into his little house with all possible charity. Then seeking out needy persons of his own Parish, to give them some refection according to his ability, he extended his compassion even to beasts, not suffering any thing to escape his bounty. One would have said, seeing all this poor tradesman did, he had been some rich Lord, such abundance appeared in so low a poverty.  
It happened, that a holy Hermit called Daniel, who 
Daniel the Hermit made a rash demand.  lived in great reputation; for the excellent endowments of his soul, passing along that way, so journed in the poor cottage of Eulogius, who received him like an Angel descended from Heaven. He, who was a most spiritual man, looking very far into the Mason's life, found therein such eminent perfection, that he well perceived devotion many times lodged with little noise in a secular life, and that God, who is a great Master, had servants every where.  
This so inflamed him to the love of those virtues he observed in his host, that returning to the Monastery, he exercised great devotion, as fasting three whole weeks together, with intention to obtain an ample estate from God for Eulogius. Fervour so transported this good man, that he considered not, that God, who preserveth us to health, loveth us not to curiosity, and that the banquets he made for his greatest servants, as Elias and S. Paul the Hermit, when he for them opened the treasures of Heaven, were only bread and clear water of fountains. Notwithstanding, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  he without intermission, importuned Heaven by his prayers, complaining, God who was most just, gave riches in excess to so many sinners, to puff up their pride, and foment riot, when the poor Mason, who deserved rivers should stream nothing but gold for him, was invaded by harsh poverty, which tied up his hands from virtue. But he persisting day and night to beg the fruit of his request, heard a voice from Heaven, which commanded him to lay aside so indiscreet a request, saying, If his Eulogius left his poverty he would forsake his conscience. But he pertinaciously persevering in the pursuit of his desire, through a goodness wholly blind, answered, He well knew the contrary, and that this good man would never become evil with the blessings of God, but would rather make them mount up again to their source. That were he made rich, it would be but for the poor, and that wealth would change nothing in him, but to make him the more profitable for all the world: adding thereto, he would answer for him body for body, and soul for soul. God, who was willing to let the Hermit find by very sensible experience the temerity of his request, permitted the Mason in an instant to become a wealthy and able man. For, digging in the earth, he there sound a very rich treasure, which made him even in an instant bury his piety. Behold him changed into another man. He, who before perpetually sang the praises of God, among the wants of poverty, like 
Change of fortune causeth change of manners.  a little Goldfinch among thorns, groaned under the burden of this gold, grew pensive, anxious, sad, and suspicious. He forgot piety and himself, to converse with his gold. In the end, he resolved to steal out of his Country, where he was very well known, and to travel to Constantinople, the Port of all Nations, there to unfold the change of his fortune with the more liberty. Yet had he some discretion, not instantly to appear in full view; but to polish, and trick up himself, making some apprenticeship in the school of the world, and of civil life, to correct all that which the defect of his birth had left in him, either of rudeness or imperfection. And being of a good understanding, and handsome presence, he put himself in the conversation of honest men, and drawing near to the fountain of light, began to haunt the Court, to fashion himself for arms in the Emperor's Regiments, where being full of crowns, and daily having opportunity to oblige soldiers, he so well knew how to gain hearts, and purchase the good opinion of all the world, that mounting step after step, he was in some few years made Captain of the Guard to the Emperor Justin. Behold him transported from the element of terrestrial men, into a new sphere, to converse with Gods.  
There he was seized on by a dead drunkenness, 
Riches the mother of vices, and neglect of God.  which change of fortune usually causeth in weak understandings. He no longer looks back on his extraction, but to hid the defects of it. He no more remembers ancient amities, but quite to deface the marks of them. He neither knew God nor men, but for his own ends and services. He walketh up and down the City of Constantinople like a God in a Comedy, wearing rubies, and dragging silk after him, and he who scarcely had iron to forge a hammer or a trewel, will now no longer spit, but in gold and silver. Prayer is a trouble to him, fasts are torments, ceremonies of the Church amusements, and constraints. This eclipse of devotion is waited on by a desperate exorbitance of feasts, game, and love. The more shameful his birth was, so much the more he makes himself ostentous and magnificent, to divert all the suspicion of it. It is the fashion of many Great-ones derived from inferior rank, to drown their former condition in profuse riots, and to do as that Roman, who sought to cover by strength of gold and silver, his father's cottage, who was but a shepherd.  
Being engulphed in these vast delights, the Hermit, 
Vision of Daniel the Hermit.  who knew not what was become of his Eulogius, had a frightful vision, wherein he saw himself suddenly brought before the Tribunal of God. He seemed to stand trembling before this awful Throne, environed with Angels of fire, who held instruments of terror in their hands. The Judge sitting with incomparable majesty, looked on him with an incensed eye, and shown him a man buried in roses, and wasted with riots, saying unto him: Is this then the care thou hast had of thy brother's soul? Afterward turning to the Angels, executours of his justice, Strike (said he) and spare not this respondent. The poor man half dead with fear, presently understood this outcast shown him, was Eulogius, who having found great riches by his means, led a riotous life at Constantinople. He presently threw himself at the feet of the Judge, humbly beseeching him with tears and groans, to suspend the rod of his indignation, on condition he would reduce his friend unto duty.  
Verily, he failed not instantly to hasten to the place 
He went to Constantinople, and spoke to Eulogius.  where he was, and found him in this ample City, the most eminent of the Eastern Empire, in glorious equipage, perpetually near the King's person, or so overwhelmed with visits, affairs, and delights, that it was a whole month before he might speak to him, though he daily much endeavoured it. In the end, it was Gods will one day, he was admitted into his Cabinet; when beseeching him to send away his people, for the importance of the business he was to treat, that done, he presently made himself known, remembering Eulogius of his former poverty, his trewel, and masons life; adding, that by his prayers he came to this eminent fortune, he confidently blamed him for his ingratitude, and infidelity towards God. The other who took no contentment, that amidst his golden glitter and silk, the old rag of his first fortune should be remembered, broke off the discourse, and shamefully driving him out of his Cabinet, asked his waiters what they meant to bring a fool and a melancholy lunatic before him; which was the cause the unfortunate Father Daniel was so loaden with blows, that he thought he should have been slain in the place. Yet all bloody, he crept out of the chamber as well as he could, and lifting his eyes up to Heaven, humbly besought God, steeping every word in his tears and blood, to send Eulogius not more riches and honours, but disgrace and poverty, knowing it was the only means to reduce him to reason.  
This quickly came to pass as he wished. For 
Fall of Eulogius.  the Emperor Justin dying, Eulogius was removed both from the favours he hoped, and those he possessed, which disposed him to a bitterness of heart against Justinian, then seated in the Empire. But it being dangerous to suffer ill affection towards the Prince, to encroach upon the heart, he already was so giddy, that nothing wanted but opportunity to undo himself.  
Behold here a hideous treason plotted against the 
Rebellions and seditions, direful for people.  new Emperor, which aimed to ruin the whole state of the East, and to bury Constantinople in its ruins. Hypatius, and Pompey, nephews of the Emperor Anastasius, who preceded Justin, had also pretences for the Empire, which having been little countenanced, either through want of time, or defect in their merit, failed not to be reproduced in this new State, wherein Justinian's affairs seemed, as yet, much unsettled. These Rebels had drawn to their side huge factions of mutinous spirits, and envenomed the people's minds, by decrying what they could the government of Justinian, under the shadow of exactions of excessive sums of money, levied on all sides. So that in short time, the whole City was seen in arms and filled with malcontents, who under colour of defence of public good, committed shameful outrages, and pillages unpunished.  
The people never fail to favour rebellions, and to second the evil purposes of the factious, for that is the way to put one's self between two dangers, and to be exposed as a prey to all violence. The Emperor seeing the malignity of this storm, and well understanding he could not divert it but by strong resistance, dispatched the Regiments of the Heruli to overrun the Rebels. They being rough gamesters, made a great massacre of the people, whilst the blind iron made no distinction between foreigner, and native. This served more to exasperate minds transported with extremities, saying: They no longer must hope for safety, since the Prince had sold their lives to Barbarians.  
The sedition was so much enkindled, that women and children became parties, ceasing not to throw stones and fire from on high out of windows upon the Emperor's soldiers. They seeing themselves charged of all hands, entered into an inexorable fury, which was waited on by so strange a butchery, that it in an instant covered the streets with blood and dead bodies. The Patriarch beholding all this misery, had recourse to the arms of heaven, since earthly Powers could do nothing, so that he presently advanced a procession of ecclesiastics, who bore the books of the Gospels, and Images of our Saviour. But the Herull became then enraged Elephants with the sight of their blood, nor could they look on any Image but of revenge, or entertain any Gospel but the sword. They only called force to counsel, when reason was banished, and acted all which violent rage might in an unlimited power. You would have said, signal had been given for fire and sword, to commix and confound all that might be disordered. Crimes were freed from chains of laws, and Religion, which useth to become a veil for protection of suppliants, had no obstacle in it to stay the heat of this fight.  
The Emperor, who only required to pacify the sedition, needs would call the people into the Theatre, to sweeten and inform them of his intentions: but the rebellious cried out instantly, it was to deceive, and the more easily to ensnare them: and the excess of their wickedness having taken away the hope of pardon, they took Hypatius, and lifted him on high upon a target, to pronounce him Emperor, in sight of all the world. The whole City stood five days in so horrible confusions, that it seemed a very image of hell.  
In the end, God favouring the right of lawful Princes, Justinian found effectual means to disarm rebellion, attracting some by great liberalities, and dis-countenancing the rest; he so changed the face of affairs, mingling likewise force with industry and favour, that he caused Hypatius the imaginary Emperor, to be taken with Pompey his Associate, and condemning them to death, dissolved the whole conspiracy, which had before been so fatal to the people, that thirty thousand remained dead on the place. Eulogius was far engaged in the faction of Hypatius, so that saving his life by flight; all his goods were confiscated. The miserable man not knowing of what wood to make his arrow, returned to his former trade, and hid himself in great obscurity, to make it a veil for his crimes. Notwithstanding, moved with remorse of conscience, he began in this alteration of state, to make a virtue of his necessity, and to sacrifice his body to penance, which had been vowed to sensuality. The Hermit Daniel afterward met him by chance, and perceiving him much milder, and more tractable than he was at Constantinople: How goes the world with you, Eulogius, (said he) having been the King in a Tragedy, what part play you now?  
To which, all over-covered with shame, he replied, His ingratitude had abused the blessings of God and men, yet for all this not lessened their goodness; and that if Father Daniel would once again pray for him, not to restore him to the Court, where he too long lived in the death of his innocency, but a little to sweeten the sharpness of his poverty, he would be grateful for it all days of his life. The Hermit answered: Confide not in me, my friend, the experience of your follies hath made me wiser than I was. Though poverty be irksome, it is an evil necessary for you. Remain in the condition, whereunto your birth disposed you, and ask not riches again, which would only serve to make you nought.    

VI MAXIM. Of PRAEDESTINATION.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That our Salvation is a thing done, nor need we take care of it. That our eternal happiness is yet in our hands, and expecteth our endeavour.  
1. GReat things are not unlike the sources 
Maluit ortus scrutari, quàm nosse tuos. Lucanus.  of Nilus, whereof the Ancients said, nature made them rather to be looked after, than found: so, many great wits have been employed to inquire the causes of Praedestination, yet all have confessed: It was an abyss of the riches of God's wisdom and 
Rom. 11.  knowledge, whose judgements are incomprehensible, and ways not to be tracked.  
Fear not the judgements of God, which of themselves 
Maxims against fatality.  are nought but justice and goodness; but fear your works, which have so little assurance, and so much iniquity. Say not your salvation is a thing done, and that God having determined it from all eternity, without calling you to counsel, good works can do nothing to advance your happiness, nor bad to increase your unhappiness. Know God, who of his mere bounty calleth you, will neither save nor damn you, but by justice. Think not it is destiny, or necessity gins this business: God by his grace hath put the mould and scissors into your hands, to fashion yourself such as you desire to be reputed. First secure yourself of yourself, by contributing to the graces which prevent you: He who is good to himself, shall never find God evil.  
The great judgement of Tertullian forestalled the disputation of men, when he said: 
(a) Notable saying of Tertullian. Non est bonae & solid fidei, sic omnia ad voluntatem Dei refer & ita adulari unumquemque dicendo, nihil fieri sine jussione ejus, ut non intelligamus aliquid esse in nobis ipsis. Tertul. l. de exhort. castitatis.  It was neither a good faith, nor very solid to refer all to the will of God, and so flatter the world, by saying nothing is done in the world without the Ordinance of God: but we must understand there is some power in us, which God himself expecteth to accomplish the work of our salvation. To say then, The great God hath determined of us in his eternity, without making any reflection upon our works, Is to make a pillow for the sloth of some, and to prepare a precipice for the despair of other. Let us not in this article make God so liberal, that he gives us blessings wherewith we may take occasion to be evil, and think his mercy will countenance our sluggishness. He sleepeth too much at ease, who thinks to carry his happiness behind him. 
(b) Note the danger that followeth, if the consideration of good works be taken away.  What care would you have a man take of his salvation, who thinks it depends not at all upon his care, and what despair will not strike down a feeble brain, who shall imagine all his travels do nothing for his avail towards beatitude, since the conclusion of his good or ill hap, were estimated without any consideration of his merit? A labourer would not trouble himself to till the ground, which were infallibly condemned to barrenness, or to a certain proportion of fruit, and his industry to be idle. And who would care to polish his soul, if his glory were confined without any regard to his free will? All labours would seem nought but wretched accessories, and good works, but frivolous amusements.  
2. But, when we fix our thoughts upon this verity, 
True doctrine of Praedestination.  which says Praedestination to be a Divine Providence, by which certain persons are mercifully drawn out of the mass of corruption, and picked out to be exalted to eternal beatitude by ways infallible, and that it is chief done by the mercy of God, who decreeth in his eternal counsel to prevent us with his grace; and that according to the correspondence we therein ought to use, he judgeth of our good or ill hap, we call it a proposition conform to the doctrine of the Church, advantageous to the glory of God, and infinitely available for repose of conscience. These are the three points upon which we must 
Three points of reasons of this doctrine.  insist in this discourse.  
And first, there is no cause to become jealous upon the words of Saint Paul, and Saint Augustine, who 
S. Paul and S. Augustine interpreted in the matter of praedestination.  seem sometime to attribute all to the mere will of God, without admitting any consideration of our good works. For we must weigh with ourselves these two great men, like two huge seas, that through impetuous power of water, swell so upon one brink, that they seem for a time to leave the other dry. But as the Ocean, after he hath largely dilated himself upon one side, returns within the limits God prescribed him; so these men falling upon contumacious spirits, who rebel against truth, return into a peaceful equality to build the house of God. The one sought to overthrow a Judaical opinion, which maintained the eternal happiness of Praedestination was of necessity tied to the blood of Abraham, to Circumcision, to works, and ceremonies of the old Law; without observation of which, the Jews acknowledged no salvation. Behold the cause why the excellent Apostle, who saw in this a contempt of grace, and a manifest foil given to Gentilism, which he had taken into his protection, strongly insisteth and argueth with a torrent of reasons to confound this arrogance of the Hebrews, who boasted the relics of a dying law, and ran after it with chymaeraes. From whence it comes to pass that all the reasons he produceth, have no other aim but to exalt the mysteries of redemption, and to show, that the origin and beginning of our salvation consisteth in the grace of Jesus Christ, who calleth us to Christianity of his mere mercy, without consideration of the observation of the Mosaical Law, or other works, which preceded this calling.  
And it is in this sense he saith, grace is life eternal, 
Rom. 6. 23. Ephes. 1. 4. 6. Aug. l. de praedest. Sanctor. c. 19  because it is by its means we obtain beatitude; and in this sense, that he assureth us God chose us before the world's creation to be Saints, to wit, according to the same interpretation of Saint Augustine, we were selected in the idaeaes of God from all eternity, to participate in the grace of the Gospel, we thereto contributing nothing on our part. For the first grace being the beginning of all merit, cannot be produced by merit. Finally, it is in the same sense he maintaineth, God loved Jacob, and hated Esau, before they 
Rom. 3. 11.  had done good or evil. For it is to be understood, he gave temporal favours, and spiritual graces likewise to Jacob, which he gave not to Esau, although he had bestowed on him favour sufficient for his accommodation. Otherwise, if one would bring this passage to the point of Praedestination to glory, who seethe not we must conclude, that as Jacob was praedestinated to eternal beatitude, without any consideration of good works, so Esau had been reprobated without any regard of his demerits: which is most false, and condemned by the Church. Let us then undoubtedly hold, that all passages of S. Paul, which he allegeth in this point, have no other scope but to exalt the free gift of redemption, and fruits of the Cross of Jesus, above all legal ceremonies.  
3. And as for Saint Augustine, he labours mainly 
S. Augustine only pretendeth to ruin the opinion of Pelogians.  to ruin from the top to the bottom, the opinion of Pelagians and Semipelagians, whereof the one said, we were chosen to glory immediately by the good works we do by our own natural forces; and the other, to exercise some corrective upon this opinion which seemed too rigid, have written, The works of nature dispose us to grace, and grace to glory. Now our eminent Doctor undertaking to humble this proud nature, which they sought to raise to the prejudice of grace, and the blood of our Saviour, gives many assaults, wherein he hath no other aim but to teach us this Praedestination, which he calleth preparation to grace, is not due to the merits of our freewill; but that God by his merciful bounty poureth it into our hearts, to be the beginning of good works, to which he affordeth life eternal, crowning the favours himself inspired; and in this regard, he with S. Paul exalteth good works, which are productions of that seed of grace, which the Holy Ghost sowed in our hearts. Doth not the Apostle say 
(a) Quos praescivit & pradestinavis conformes fieri imagini filii sui. Rom. 8. Aug. l. de praedest. Sanctor. c. 3. Antequam faceret nos praescivit nos, & in ipsa nos praescientis, cum nondum fecisset, elogit. Aug. l. 13.  God praedestinated those he foresaw would be conformable to the Image of his Son; where four of the most famous Fathers of the Church S. Cyril, S. Ambrose, S. Chrysostom, and Theodoret, no otherwise understand this passage, but that praedestination to glory, followeth the prescience of good works? And what would S. Augustine affirm, when he said 
(b) Quae voluntas Dei injusts esse non potest: venit enim de occultissanis meritis. Apud Mag. l. 1. dist. 41. Manifest reason.  the will of God could not be unjust, and that praedestination proceeded (besides the grace of God) by most secret merits, which were discovered to this divine eye, that discerneth all the actions of men?  
4. Is there a soul so replenished with contradiction, which averreth not, That what God doth in a certain time, he determined to do it in his eternity? Now Faith teacheth us, he in that time by him determined, rendereth life eternal to the just for reward of their merit, as himself pronounceth in S. Matthew: 
(c) Matth. 25. Answer to objections.  And therefore it is necessary to confess, God before all Ages was resolved to give the Crown of glory, not indifferently, but in consideration of good life, and laudable virtues. And for this it is to no purpose to say, the end of our intentions goeth before the means, whereby some infer, God first decreed beatitude, which is the end, then considered good works, which are the address to this end: For I answer, when the end possesseth the place of salary, as this here doth, the merit is always presupposed before the recompense. And although the Master of a Tournament wisheth the prize to one of his favourites, yet his first intention is, he shall deserve it by his valour. God taketh the like inclinations in this great list of salvation; he wisheth all the world palms, but willeth it to them, who well know how to make use of the helps of his grace.  
Thus the most ancient, and gravest Fathers of the 
The doctrine of the most ancient Fathers concerning praedestination.  Church thought; this sentence they agreed on before the impostures of Pelagians in the golden Age of the Church through a most purified ray. And to this purpose Tertullian said: 
(d) Tertul. de resur. carnis. Deus de suo optimus, de nostro justus.  God, who is very good of his own, was ever just of ours. And S. Hilary said most perspicuously: 
(e) Hilar. in Psal. 64. Non res indiscreti judicii electio est: sed ex delectu meriti discretio est.  That Election was not an effect of judgement indiscreet, but that from the choice of merit, proceeded the distinction made for glory. S. Epiphanius expressed the like opinion, That there was no exception of persons in the proceeding of God, but that it passed according to the merit, or demerit of every one. Behold what we may gather from the soundest tradition of the Church.  

(f) The second point of reasons. That God is glorified in that he hath our works for praedestination to glory.  But if we now weigh the second Article whereon we insist, which is the glory of God; it is an easy matter to see this opinion, which appropriateth a certain fatality of divine decrees, without other knowledge of cause, agreeth not with this immense bounty of God, nor the sincere will he hath to save all the world: It is not suitable to his justice, nor to his promises, or menaces he makes to virtues, or vices: besides it tormenteth minds, weakens the zeal of souls, and throweth liberty and despair into manners.  
Why should not a miserable reprobate have cause 
The complaint a Reprobate may make.  hereupon to say: Ah, my Lord! where are the bowels of goodness and mercy, which all pens testify, all voices proclaim, and laws establish? Is it then of honey for others, and of wormwood for me? How cometh it to pass without any knowledge of merit, you drew this man from the great mass of corruption, to make him a son of your adoption, a coheir of your glory, and have left me as a black victim, marked with a character of Death? What importeth it me, that in this first choice you made, you did not condemn me without knowledge of cause? to think no good for me, was to think ill enough for me. Was I than able to row against the torrent of your power? Can I intrude into your Paradise, which you have fitly disposed like the Halcyons nest, whereunto nothing can enter but its own bird? You have built your Palace of a certain number of chosen pieces, in such sort, that the account thereof being made, and proportions valued, one small grain might not be added to increase the number. What could I do in this dreadful exclusion, but accuse your bounty, and deplore my unhappiness?  
Behold what a reprobate soul may object: and 
Aug. de verbo Apost. ser. 11. Si posset loquipecus, & dicere Deo, quare istum fecisti hominem, me peculem? Answer to objections. Glossa in Danielem.  it were bootless to answer, that a bruit beast might complain in this fashion, that God had not made it a man, or the like might be alleged for infants, who die without Baptism: For as concerning beasts, nothing is taken from them, rather much given, when from nothing, being, and life, is afforded them with contentments of nature; and as for little infants, they endure no evil, and are no more disturbed to be deprived of the sight of God, than was Nabuchadnezzar for the Sceptre of Babylon, when he in his infancy was bred among shepherds thinking himself the son of a Peasant, and wholly ignorant of his Royal extraction. But to say, A man who dies at the age of discretion, and is delivered over to eternal flames, was condemned by God, without any other foresight of his works, is it not a cruelty, not worthy of aught but Calvinism? as if a father might be excusable in marrying one daughter richly, and cutting the others throat, to set her on a pile. He who would judge wisely, must fly the very shadow of an opinion so damnable, and all which may seem to favour it.  
6. Now as concerning the Doctrine which establisheth 
The fruits of God's glory derived from our Maxim.  Praedestination upon grace and prevision of good works, it seems to stretch far towards the point of God's greatest glory. It discovereth us his science, in attributing unto him an infinite survey over all the actions of Adam's children before all Ages, by which it seasonably foresaw all that was to be done, by all particulars, in so great a revolution of times: It in an instant affordeth us this most innocent knowledge, seeing we learn by the same way, that the prescience which God hath of our works, is no more the cause of our happiness, than my memory of the firing of Rome, which happened under Nero; or than mine eye of the whiteness of snow, and fresh verdure of meadows by its simple aspects. Nothing happeneth, because God foresaw 
Qui non est praescius omnium futurorum non est Deus. Aug. de civet. Dei. l. 5. c. 9  it, but God foresaw it, because it should so happen by motion of our freewill, and not by the laws of necessity.  
Moreover, the Justice of the great Master is very eminent in this action; for we do not say he works at random, and seeks to make boast of his power in the misery of mortals: but with the Scripture, that he separateth light from darkness with a diamond, to wit, a most strong and resplendent knowledge of the merit, and demerit of men. What sense is 
Notable passage. Adamant diserevit lucem, & tenebras. Eccles. 16. 14. Secundum 70  there to make a power, which takes its glory from ignorance, and is potent in contempt of reason? Is not this to make all terrible, even to its own favours? What sense is it to appoint a Judge to satisfy the whole world according to desert, and to make him sign Decrees irrevocable in favour of some one, before knowledge of all merit? Cannot we make him potent, unless we make him unjust?  
Add also, that in the feeling we have of Praedestination 
Goodness of God. , the mercy of the most mild Father shineth with visible marks. For we do not make him to damn him through a negligence of thoughts, and coldness of affection, which cannot be in a God so active, or a heart so loving: but we believe his goodness extendeth to Cain and Judas, and would they have endeavoured, they had the means to gain beatitude, which never fails any man, if he want not correspondence.  
In the end, we likewise acknowledge in this point 
Si voluisset Esau, & cacurrisset, & Dei adjutorio pervenisset. Aug. ad Simp. l. 4. 2.  the most prudent government of God, who will have nothing idle in nature, nor grace. He could enlighten us without the Sun, and afford us fruit without the earth: but he will his creatures operate, and that one unfold the rays of his substance, another supply with the juice of its bosom. In like manner, he is pleased we make his grace to profit us, to raise our riches out of his favours, and derive our glory from his bounty. He will give a title of merit to our happiness, to advance the quality of his gifts. He will crown in us, what comes from himself, as if it were wholly ours. Why shall we shut up the eyes of his wisdom? why tie up the hands of his liberality? An Ancient said, He more esteemed the judgement of certain men, than their proper benefits. God will, we value both in him, that we enjoy his bounty by favour, and his judgement by merit. The actions of the Sovereign Monarch are free from control, as his gifts from repentance.  
I will leave you now to conclude, what quiet we 
Third point. Repose of Conscience.  may have in our consciences upon the matter of Praedestination. I leave you to think, whether a good soul have not cause to say: O be the Divine Providence praised for evermore, since it so worthily hath provided for me. I cannot adore its counsels, unless I love its goodness. It sweeteneth my pains, it comforteth my cares, when it teacheth me, my eternal happiness depends on him and me; on him, who loveth me tenderly, and on me, who cannot hate myself, unless I derogate from my essence, after I have failed in all virtues. Courage then, we roll not under this fatality which writeth laws on diamonds, and ties us to inevitable necessities. The fodder is not cast, we have yet the metal boiling apace in hand; we may appear on the mould of virtue, we may make ourselves such by the grace of God, as to put our salvation in assurance, our life into repose, and death into crowns.  
I cannot fear God with a slavish fear, since he is nought but goodness: but I will ever dread my works, since I am frailty itself. Let us hereafter live in such sort, as we would be judged. Let us consecrate our life to innocency, and banish all sin. Let us undertake piety, humility, obedience, alms, and devotion towards the Blessed Virgin, which are most assured marks of Praedestination. Let us not presume of our own forces, nor despair likewise of God's mercy. If we stand upright, let us still fear the declining of nature, which easily bendeth to evil, and if we stoop, let us quickly raise ourselves again, making all avail to our salvation, yea, our proper falls. We have a great Advocate in Heaven, who openeth as many mouths for us, as we have inflicted wounds on his body. We have inflicted them through cruelty, and they will receive us through mercy, serving us towards Heaven for a chariot of triumph, as they were to us on earth a mirror in life, and a sepulchre in death.  

The sixth EXAMPLE upon the sixth 
Drawn out of Simeon of Constantinopl●.  MAXIM. Of the secret Power of Praedestination. PROCOPIUS.  
PRaedestination is an admirable secret, wherein 
Marvellous secret of Praedestination.  experience teacheth us, there is nothing which the happy ought not to fear, nor any thing the miserable may not hope. Stars fall from the firmament, to be changed into dunghills, and dunghills of the earth mount to Heaven, to be metamorphosed into stars. The graces of God insinuate themselves by secret ways, and the impressions of the will are extremely nice: all that past, is a dream, and the future a cloud, where thunders murmur in the dark.  
We tremble when we read in the History of holy 
Historia Patrum orientis, & Raderus.  Fathers, that an Hermit, grown white in the austerities of Religion, understanding a notable thief had gained Heaven, by a sigh he cast forth in the instant of his death, was much displeased, and presently became nought, because God was good, blaming his mercy, to try his justice: For one sole censure made him lose forty years of penance, and drew his foot out of Paradise, to deliver his soul to hell. I purpose here consequently to produce a singular conversion, that you may admire, and fear the secret ways of God. Simeon of Constantinople is the Author of it, who enlarged it with many words, but I will abbreviate it into good proportion, which shall render it no whit the less effectual.  
The Emperor Diocletian having pacified Egypt, sojourned sometime in Antioch, of purpose to destroy 
Actor. 12.  the name of Jesus Christ, in the same place where the faithful began to be called Christians. Theodosia, a 
Procopius presented to Dioclesian.  great Lady, came to him, bringing her son along with her, named Neanias, in very good equipage, with purpose to prefer him in Court, and satisfy her ambition. To make herself the more acceptable, she freely protested, her deceased husband died a Christian, that she had often attempted to work him to forsake this superstition, adverse to Gods and men, and that being unable to prevail upon his inveterate obstinacy, she had manured this young plant, (speaking of her son) carefully training him in the service of the gods and Prince, with infinite detestation against Christianity.  
Diocletian, who was much delighted with such accidents, loudly praised the Lady, and casting his eye on Neanias, he found him of handsome shape, good presence, understanding, and valiant, whereof he conceived great hope he might prove hereafter a principal instrument of his desires. That which also pleased him the more, was, that putting him on the discourse of his education, he said his father did all he could to win him to Christianity, but that he ever stuck to his mother's side; not enduring the impertinencies of a Religion, which professeth a son as old as his father, a mother without a husband, a childbirth joined to virginity, a God crucified, a Cross divinized, and such other extravagancies, whereat he set himself a jeering with so much tattle, that he gained the Emperor's heart.  
Scoffs have this proper in them, that they penetrate 
Scoffing dangerous.  very far into jocund minds, and though they proceed from a soft spirit, they often make more impression, than iron. The Emperor so well liked his humour, that he gave him a charge in the City of Alexandria, with two Companies to forage round about, and cleanse the Country from the sect of Christians. The mother conceived much joy thereat, and the son, who seemed already to touch Heaven with a finger, put himself into action, for accomplishment of his Commission.  
But, O the bottomless depth of God's judgements! 
Admirable Conversion.  Behold he going about to surprise, is surprised, and of a Lion is become a Lamb, and of one victorious, a victim. He being near the City of Apamea in Syria, the earth shook under his feet, the air was inflamed with lightning, and thunders roared in the clouds, a voice came from Heaven, which said unto him: Neanias, whither goest thou, and to what purpose is this equipage? He, although much astonished, answered it was for the Christians. The voice replied, Is it then to me you go? But he, having the hardness to ask it, who are you, saw a Cross in the air, and heard these words: I am Jesus the Crucified, Son of the living God, and you shall hereafter be a vessel of election for me. This vision beat him down, to raise him like S. Paul, and of a persecutor, in a moment made him a Confessor. He secretly sent for a Goldsmith, and causing him to make a rich Cross, he embraced it, he kissed it, and carried it hanging about his neck, to engrave it in his heart.  
In stead of persecuting the Christians, he turned his arms against a race of Sarazens, who over-ran the Country, and ravished maids, to satisfy their bruitishness, which filled houses with terror, and tears. The Cross gave great success to his arms, and in short time having chased away this pernicious faction, he went to the City of Antioch, being already fully instructed in the points of his religion.  
The mother, who knew not what had passed in 
Interview between Procopius and his mother.  this maatter, entertains him with much joy, not satisfying herself either with his sight, or in congratulating his triumphs. But he, who no longer cared for any thing under God, said: I have obtained other victories which you know not. And what? replied the mother. Madam I have vanquished myself by the grace of God, and departing hence a Pagan, am returned a Christian, desiring nothing more in the world of you, but since you gave me birth, you will take example from me. How, my son (says the mother) you are disposed to be merry. No, replies he, and drawing out his Cross, behold, said he, the marks of the Religion I profess. She much amazed, drew him aside into her closet, and asked him, who had recommended this abomination to him, and whether he were become a fool? There are none but fools (said he) who with reverence look after deaf, and dumb gods, the time is come these feeble Deities must be abjured, and all the works of darkness: and speaking this he ransacked his mother's closet, which was very sumptuous, breaking and throwing down the golden and silver idols, and withal saying, these silly entertainments were only good to make money of, to distribute among the poor.  
Theodosia was so offended at this act, that without 
Revenge of Theodosia.  any regard of blood, and nature, she went to the Emperor, and related all had passed, resolving rather to deliver her sole son to executioners, than to lose the satisfaction of her revenge. Diocletian as much surprised with astonishment, as inflamed with anger, having praised the mother for her zeal, wrote to Justus Governor of Palestine, and commanded him to seize on the person of Neanias, and to seek by all means to reduce him to obedience, and in case of refusal, to take away his sword, and proceed against him with all the rigour of punishments ordained for Christians.  
The Governor having received the Emperor's Mandate, went with his Guards to the house of Neanias, and signified the tenor of his Commission, withal delivering into his hand the Emperor's Letters, wherein perceiving some blasphemies against our Saviour, he tore them in pieces, and said to Justus: 
Constancy of Procopius.  Execute your Commission. I have a body to suffer, but not a soul to betray my Religion. The other conjured him by all the ways of friendship, to take pity of his age, and not become an enemy to his own life and fortune, adding, timorarious counsels are sources of irrecoverable evils. But the valorous Champion drawing out his sword, threw it at the Judge's feet, professing he was wholly gained to Jesus Christ, whereupon he fettered him, and led him to Caesarea.  
In few days he was brought to the Palace, to answer 
His sufferings for Religion.  upon accusations objected, which he most freely averred, persisting in the confession of his faith, with admirable constancy, which was the cause, the Judge proceeding according to ordinary forms exercised against the faithful, made him cruelly to be beaten with rods, in sight of all the world. Diocletian thought by these shameful and barbarous ways, to stifle Christianity: but these outrages practised upon men of quality, enkindled the courage of Christians, and sowed seeds of Martyrs Many Pagans were seen, who deplored this punishment, beholding a young Lord whom they had lately seen triumphant in courtesy, in arms, and valour, delivered into the hands of hangmen, to be used like a thief. The Martyr perceiving the people's tears, said: Fathers, and Brethren, bewail not my sufferings, lament your own errors; my pains will pass away, but the torment of infidelity shallbe everlasting. Then lifting his eyes to Heaven, he servently besought God to fortify him in his combats, to whom he resigned the total glory. Justus seeing him more courageous than he wished, sent him back unto the prison, where he was comforted with the sight of Angels, and it is said, our Saviour himself appearing, baptised him with his own hands, and gave him the name of Procopius, and heartened him, bravely to finish his combats.  
The next day he came forth of prison, like the Sun out of clouds, his body reflecting lustre and majesty, when they thought him spent with excess of torments. The whole City was filled with rumour, and many soldiers secretly coming to the Bishop Leontius, were converted to faith, whereof the Governor advertised, made them presently to be beheaded, fearing to exasperate the Bands, if he longer deferred their execution. Procopius having once again been tormented, before he was brought back to prison, recommended these first victims to Heaven by his prayers, whose example was quickly waited on by twelve Ladies, full of honour, who made open profession of faith. Justus thinking it was a feminine heat, which would be quenched when torments were applied to their bodies, caused them cruelly to be tortured, commanded their sides and armholes to be burnt, yet they persevered, singing and praising God in the ardour of the most exquisite torments.  
Theodosia mother of our Martyr, being present at this spectacle, felt herself touched to the quick: for the spirit of God entered powerfully into her. It suddenly took off the film, which in her had clouded the light of reason, making her see into the bottom of her soul, at which she conceived much horror.  
Alas then, said she, within herself, who ever 
Change of Theodosia.  lodged a heart so barbarous as thine, in the body of a woman? All the blood thou seest shed, distilleth now to satisfy a revenge thou conceivedst against thine own blood. Thy son is in prison all rent and torn, and if he yet have not rendered up his soul, he keeps it on his lips, expecting (perhaps) thy last words. If thou art not yet satisfied, go bathe thyself in his wounds, and pull away that little life nature gave him by thy means, and which cruelty taketh from him by thy practices. Ah Theodosia, the most rigorous of women, and the most unfortunate of Mothers, though thou hast abjured nature, renounce not the God of nature. Hear the voice which speaketh in thy heart, and render thee to that Jesus, who gins to resign thee up to thyself. Why wilt thou not do, what they act before thine eyes? They have neither hearts of steel, nor bodies of brass, more than thou: but more resolution, because far greater faith. And why shouldst not thou be faithful, by imitating their example. If thou hast provoked God's mercy, thou hast not wasted it. Let us go to Heaven by the purple way, since the Providence of Heaven presenteth it unto thee. The blood of thy poor son yet speaks to thee in so many tongues, as there are drops of it shed in the streets. Let us follow him, and never think that done too late, which soon shall work thy eternal salvation.  
She feeling the combat of these cogitations in her heart, suddenly cried out as in an ecstasy: I am a Christian. The Judge, who feared this act, gave semblance to hear nothing of it, but she redoubled her voice so loudly, and made so solemn a profession, that it was impossible for him to dissemble it: So that seeing she would not desist from this resolution, he was enforced to send her into the prison, where her son remained.  
Procopius beholding her to come fettered with other Ladies, was infinitely joyed at this spectacle, and cried out aloud:  
Madam, my dear mother, who brings you? To whom she answered: Loving son, the cause which put you here, brought me hither to be the companion of your death, since I am the murderess of your life. I have betrayed blood and nature, and delivered 
His imprisonment and martyrdom.  my bowels to executioners, to satisfy passion. Virtue and honour being lost, nought else remains for me, but the happiness to die with you for Jesus Christ. It is Son, at this instant, I must accomplish the words you spoke to me at your return, that I should take example from you, as you birth from me. O God, most honoured Mother, behold here a great touch from Heaven, (said Procopius) I have nothing more to wish in the world, since I this day behold you the precious conquest of Jesus Christ. It is at this time when being a mother by nature, you shall likewise be a mother to me by the example of your piety: You are come to the point whither God would have you, and all that is past, was but to augment the glory of your conversion. Let us go by the way of blood, to the place where the soul of your good husband, and my dearest father, expecteth us.  
These two hearts wholly dissolved into the love of God, spoke in thought, having not language enough to express their affection. Theodosia being in a short time after baptised by Leontius, was led to execution with the twelve Ladies, where she appeared as the singular ornament of this holy Choir, leaving her head in the place, where she had first confessed Jesus Christ, with a constancy so heroic, that she drew tears from all the world. Procopius having been tumbled up and down at divers Sessions before the Tribunals, whipped, roasted, broiled, salted, torn in all his body, the strength of his courage no whit shaken, stretched out his neck to the executioner, and yielded up his fair soul to God, learning in the conversion of his mother, and his own, the divine power of this great Praedestination.    

VII. MAXIM. Of the Divinity of JESUS.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That God will be served in any kind, and that every sect hath reason in its Religion. That none but Jesus is Author of truth and salvation, to whom all creatures bear witness of his Divinity.  
THis Maxim of the Profane Court, is an old dotage of obsequious spirits, who having no zeal for faith, and likewise less courage against impiety, do in appearance approve all Religions, and follow none. That is it which made Symmachus say, God was a great secret, and that it was no wonder every one sought after it, and spoke according to his weak endeavour of it, some in one fashion, and some in another: That is it also which made Maximus Madaurensis write, He was too great to enter whole and entire into the understanding of man; but must be taken piece-meal, every one contenting himself to adore some Symbol of God, which seemed most convenient unto him.  
Behold the shortest way can be taken to arrive at gross impiety; for it is to make a Roman Pantheon of Religion, where you shall have a thousand imaginary Divinities, without one lest glimmer of the knowledge of the true God. Lies for some space accord together, although they spare not to oppose one another; but true Religion hath this property, to tend wholly to Monarchy, and if you speak to it of tolerating other sects, as if they were reasonable, it is to thrust thorns into the feet, and put straws into the eyes of it.  
Jesus hath nothing to do with Belial, the faithful 
2 Cor. 6.  with the unfaithful, nor the Temple of God with the synagogue of devils. All religions which wander from the ray of Christian and Catholic verity, are but chymaeraes of piety, spectres of wisdom and flames, which lead these souls into an abyss of fire and darkness. There is but one Redeemer, to whom are due all services and adorations. And it is my desire for your comfort to show you, that the Authors of all Sects, having in the end appeared so monstrous, it only appertained to the Eternal Son of the Father celestial, to bear the testimony of all creatures for the homage of his Divinity.  

Of the revelation of the WORD INCARNATE, and how all creatures bear witness of his Divinity.  
THe great God, whom the Prophet Isaiah called, the hidden God, and who according to the saying of the Psalmist, had spread round about his throne a veil of darkness impenetrable to mortal eyes, was unscarsed in the crib in the first of his days in such sort, that you need lift up but simple clothes to know him. The Word Incarnate so visibly replenisheth all the world with its knowledge, that a man must be blind not to see its lights, and stupid to resist its love. We will content ourselves at this time, to express three proofs: The one drawn from the voice of insensible nature; the other from reasonable nature; and the third, from divine reasons.  
It is an admirable thing to see, that Heaven and the 
Voice of nature.  elements have been willing to bear a part in the great harmony, which hath manifested the Word Eternal to the world, involved in times, and the increated Wisdom, included in the body of an infant. If we 
Oros. l. 6. c. 20. Suet. in Aug. c. 95. Senec. l. vat. qq. Dio. l. 45.  will look into signs from Heaven, I may say, that at the approach of this Nativity, the Sun appeared encompassed with a marvellous rainbow, willing thereby to give notice, the time of reconciliation was near, and that the great Mediator, who should reunite all things in his Person, came to sanctify the world by a universal peace.  
I might allege what was witnessed by Eutropius 
Three suns.  in his sixth book, and by Eusebius in his Chronicle, how three Suns were seen to shine at one time, afterward united and incorporated in one sole globe; in my opinion, so to denote three substances, to wit, of the Word, the soul, and flesh conjoined in the sole person of our Saviour. I could say, how at that instant 
Plin. l. 2. c. 31.  the Sun was environed with three circles, the one whereof bare a coronet of ears of corn, to testify the plenty, which the Word Incarnate should bring into the world. I could add what Albumazer the Chaldaean wrote in his Introduction, sixth Treatise, and first Definition touching the apparition of a Virgin, in the first aspect of the sign Virgo. But let us rest satisfied, that Heaven spoke aloud, making use of a new star, as of a tongue to declare the living God, and that this apparition became so famous, that even Infidels had authentic testimonies thereof, as we may see in the narration of Chalcidius, a Platonic Philosopher. And it is strange, that Pliny 
(a) Plin. c. 25. l. 2. ●it & candidus comets argenter crinerefulgens, ut vix cont●eri liceat, specie humanâ Dei effigiem in se ostendens.  himself speaketh of a certain star with silver rays, infinitely resplendent, which shown God in a humane figure.  
If we speak of the air, know we not it was illustrated with a great and divine light, which S. Luke called 
(b) Glori● Domini circumfulsit eos.  the glory of God. If we speak of waters; tradition teacheth us, a fountain was seen to spring in a poor stable, which was honoured first with the birth of the Son of God 
(c) Baronius. . If we speak of the earth, hath it not contributed to the revelation of the Word, when it made some of its trees bow, to adore the Saviour 
(d) Sozomen. l. 5. c. Rovillius de plantis. Joan. 1. 32. Matth. 17. 27. Agnovit bos possessorem suum, & asinus praesepe Domini sui. Isaiah 1. ? Did it not bear flowers visibly imprinted with the most noble characters of the living God, as Rovillius depainteth the Granadil? The birds of the air have rendered their homage by the means of a dove, which appeared in the Baptism; fishes in that, which served as a Steward, and Cashmaster to Jesus Christ.  beasts were remarkable in the crib, because we have learned from the Prophet Isaiah, the Ox hath known his Master, and the Ass the crib of his Lord.  
2. 
(e) Voice of prophecy.  If we pass from the voice of nature, to voices divinely humane, as are predictions; what is there more admirable than the universal consent of prophecies? He who should tell us, that a most beautiful statue of white marble had been seen in a Temple, all framed of pieces laid together, made by sundry artisans in divers Ages; in such sort, that one began the head of this statue, having no other determinate design; the other not seeing the head which was made, nor knowing it to be done, made a body, another an arm, another a hand, another a leg, another a foot, in the end, every one made his part, pursuing the same course; none of these excellent Masters knowing aught of his companions works: Notwithstanding, that all these pieces, wrought in sundry Ages, by so many several hands, and in Provinces so far distant one from another, being set together, it was found every piece was so curiously composed, and fitted to the entire body of the statue, that it might be said, All these Sculptours had long agreed together for the accomplishment of such a work.  
If then this discourse in the Idaea's of men, have any place in the truth of Histories, as many have thought, must we not say some Intelligence governed the minds of all these Artisans, to cause them insensibly to consent in all the dimensions of this Masterpiece so excellent and exact?  
Let us here say the like, when we behold the great model of the Word Incarnate, which God placed in the frontispiece of his works, to be admired and adored by all intellectual Nature. We find Prophets divided one from another, the distance of many hundred years, different in age, humour, condition, style, invention, order, and connexion, who could neither see one another, nor agree together in any kind, as were David, Daniel, and Isaiah: yet all without mutual knowledge laboured in the History of the great Saviour of men; one speaketh of his birth, another of his life, another of his doctrine, another of his manners, another of his miracles, another of his death, another of his victories and triumphs. When we take pains to gather together, and consider all these pieces, we find them measured and fitted with such proporrion, that we are enforced to affirm, it is not a work of mortal hands, but an enterprise of the Spirit of God.  
Who inspired the Patriarch Jacob, that prophesied 
Excellent prophecies touching our Saviour. 49. Genes. Non auferetur sceptrum de Juda, etc. Donec veniat qui mittendus est.  so many years before all Prophets, that the Messiah, who was the hope of all Nations, should come, when the Sceptre of Judea was taken out of the hands of Judah's race: which was fulfilled punctually in the time of Herod, who put the true Heirs of this Royal Line to death, to satisfy his ambition, and content his tyranny? Who dictated to the Prophet Daniel, 
(a) Dan. 9 26.  that after the Edict of King Artaxerxes, granted in favour of the re-establishment of the Temple, there should be seventy weeks to the birth of Christ, that is to say, the space of 490. years, which was found true by calculation of the best Historians. Who made the Prophet Aggeus speak with this thundering majesty, 
Agg. 2.  and worthy the lips of the God of Hosts, WITHIN A SHORT TIME I WILL MOVE HEAVEN, EARTH, AND SEA; THE DESIRED BY ALL NATIONS OF THE WORLD SHALL COME, AND I WILL REPLENISH THIS HOUSE WITH GLORY? Was it not the same Spirit, which afterward wrought those great mysteries we see; who then shown them to his faithful servants? It is he who guided the pen of Isaiah, when he proclaimed the Messiah should 
Isaiah 7.  be born of a Virgin: he, who revealed to the Prophet Micah, this birth should happen in Bethlehem: 
Micah 5.  he, who opened the eyes of Zacharie, to see him in the 
Zach. 9  triumph he afterwards made in Jerusalem: he, who deciphered to David all the particularities of his passion 
Psal. 2.  in the second Psalm. This great consent of Prophets without design or art, astonished the Jews, who had the Scriptures in their hands, and could reckon up all the versicles of their Bible. They well saw, it was the  voice of Prophets, but their vanity had so blinded them, that they rather wished to have no Messiah, than to acknowledge him poor according to the world; although his very poverty had been reckoned by the Prophets in the number of his greatnesses.  
3. Perhaps it will appear to be less strange, that the 
Strange testimony of Gentilism.  Hebrews, who were a chosen people, had so many revelations touching the Word of God. But who will not be rapt with admiration, to consider the words, which the wisest, the greatest, and most glorious of Gentilism, left to posterity, concerning this mystery? I speak not of Trismegistus, of Pythagoras, of Numenius, nor of others, whose writings may be called in question I speak of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero. How came that into Plato's mind, which he so eloquently afterward couched in the fourth book of his laws? to wit:  

(a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plato l. 4. de legibus.  That God should be to men the rule and measure of all things, and principally if it were so, or aught to be so in any part of the world, that there were a Man-God.  
From whence think you came it, that Aristotle, who proceeded so advisedly in all his Maxims, let this word fall:  

(b) Non esse Diis immortalibus indecorum hominis induere naturam, quo ab erroribus sevocentur mortales. Caelius refert. l. 17. c. 34.  That it was no unbeseeming thing for the Gods immortal, to revest themselves with humane nature, to destroy the errors, which were crept into the world?  
Who suggested to Cicero, one of the wisest Politicians that ever was amongst men, what he wrote in his Book of a Commonwealth?  

(c) Cicer. l. 3. de Rep. Nec erit alia lex Romae, alia Athenis, alia nunc alia posthac: sed apud omnes gentes, & omni tempore una lex, Deus ille legis hujus inventor, disceptator, lator, etc. Jam nova progenies coelo dimittitur al●c▪ Te duce siqua manent sceleris vestigia nostri, irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras. Virgil.  That the time would come, there should be no other law at Rome, than at Athens: but that amongst all Nations, and in all times, there should be one same, eternal, and immutable law, one common Master, and Emperor over all, which should be God himself, the inventour, teacher, and introducer of this law: and that he who obeyed him not, should fly from himself, as a despiser of his own nature. But in this alone that he would not obey, he were grievously chastised, although he might escape all other punishment.  
It were a thing superfluous, to allege here the verses of the Sibyls, which it is known were so express, that many of the principal of the Gentiles were converted to Christianity, by reading the testimonies these divine women, rendered of the Word Incarnate.  
We all likewise know, God to make this argument the more visible, permitted a little before the Nativity of our Saviour, that Virgil, the most eminent of all Poets, composed that his excellent work, where he expresseth in Latin verse the conceptions of Sibylla Cumaea, and speaketh plainly of a child which should be sent from Heaven to pardon the sins of men, and fill the earth with blessings. And to show this was not alone in the minds of particulars, we read that towards the reign of Augustus, Julius Marathus foretold, Nature should bring forth a King for the world's Empire. Which so amazed the Senate, according to the relation of Suetonius 
(d) Sueton. in Aug. 54.  the Historian, that they forbade to breed up children which should be born within the time this Soothsayer had prefixed. Doth not Josephus 
(e) Joseph l. 7. c. 11. de bello Judaico.  also make mention of the prediction, which said: Nations come from Judea should become Masters of the universe? The Romans understood not this language, but applied it, some to Augustus, others to Vespasian, until such time as truth drew aside the curtain, and made the accomplishment of these predictions, perspicuously appear in the Person of our Saviour.  
Nay not so much as Porphirie, yea Mahomet, and 
Porphyrius. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  devils, but give some Elegy of honour to Jesus. Porphirie in the Treatise he made of the blessings of Philosophy, saith: It is a great matter that devils themselves have spoken in favour of Jesus, confessing him to be endowed with singular piety, for which cause he entered into possession of most happy immortality. And Mahomet, 
Alcoran. Azoar. 1. 4. 11. 13.  That the spirit of God bare record to Christ the Son of Mary; that the soul of God was given him; that he is the Messenger, Spirit, and Word of God, that his doctrine is perfect, and enlighteneth the Old Testament. O God of the universe, how powerful is verity, to derive testimonies in favour of his Word from the very lips of the most profane!  
4. Let us add also some divine reasons in this brevity, 
Reasons of seemliness.  whereunto we have voluntarily confined ourselves. Who sees not that humane understanding, constrained by the consideration of mysteries, doth homage also to the Incarnation of the Son of God? Where is that darkness which can hinder the bright day of faith? What can Infidels say? That this mystery is impossible? Impossible, how? Either on God's part, or man's, or from the repugnance of humane understanding with such like propositions, because by their saying they involve contractions. How, would it not be possible to God, he being Omnipotent, Immense, Infinite? How, according to the confession of ancient Philosophers, can he replenish all the world with his Diunity, and is not able to accommodate himself with enough of it to divinize his holy Humanity? Is it because we say it is united to the Word in this mystery, in a quite other fashion, than the Spirit of God is with the world? I admit it: For the union of it is truly personal. But must it not be confessed, the Word in this divine Essence, as under title of efficient cause, it hath an influence infinite over all the effects of the world, and as under title of final cause, it hath a capacity to limit and measure all the inclinations of creatures; so under title of substantial bound, it may confine and accomplish by its personality all possible Essence? Why shall we tie the hands of Divine bounty in its communications, since it binds not our understanding in its conceptions?  
Is it not a shameful thing that man will estimate, and set a value upon the Divine Essence? If God please not man, he shall not be God. Should we say, man is incapable of this communication? And how is it, that the holy Humanity resisted the Omnipotency of God, to the prejudice of his own exaltation, since it is found as soon in the union of the Word, as in the possession of Essence? See we not in nature, that the rays of the Sun draw up vapours from the earth, and incorporated with them, do create Meteors in the air, not any one making resistance to his exaltation? What contradiction can there be in our understanding against such a maxim, seeing it appears the most famous Philosopher said, This union of God with man, might be very fit, and Plutarch also 
Plutarch. in Numa. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  speaking of the communication of the Creator with the creature, pronounced these words, That God was not a lover of birds, nor other living creatures, but a lover of men; and that it is a very reasonable matter that be communicate himself to his loves, and delights? But this would seem to abase the Divinity. Hear what Volusianus said: I wonder, that he, to whom this whole 
Volusianus. Miror si intra corpus vagientis infantiae latet●, cui parva putatur universilas, etc.  universe is so small, can be shut up within the body of a little child, having a mouth open to cry, as others.  
What uncomeliness is there, if God be united to a little body? Have not Pliny 
(a) Plin. Natura nusquam magis quàm in minimis tota est.  and Seneca 
(b) Servitus magnitudinis non posse fieri minorem. Senec. Homo quippe ad Deum accessit, Deus à se non decessit. August.  said, That nature was ever so admirable as in little bodies, and that it was a slavery in Great-ones, to be unable to be little? I wonder the Sovereign Lord of all things is so long absent from Heaven, and that all the government of the world is transferred to so little a creature. From whence proceedeth this amazement, but from the baseness of our thoughts? If we said, God being made man, ceased to be God, and were despoiled of his Empire, Greatness, Essence, there would be somewhat wherewith to question this Mystery: but when we say God came to Man by inclination of a Sovereign bounty and mercy, not leaving himself, when we say humane nature is received into the Word, as a small source into a huge river, and not losing its Essence, is fixed upon the personality of the Word itself, is it not to honour the power, majesty, and wisdom of God?  
5. In what were the Divinity abased? Can it be in doing a work so noble, so singular, so divine, that it deserveth to entertain the thoughts of men and Angels, through times and eternity? What is more specious, and more sweet, than to represent to ones self the Person of our Saviour, who in himself makes an alliance of all was most eminent in spiritual and corporal nature, to wit, of God, and man; verily, say I, one composed of an unheard-of composition, to render the majesty of his father palbable, and visible, to the hands and eyes of mortals? What dignity, to behold in the world a Man-God, become a part of the world, to possess the Spirit of God from all eternity, who proposed this person as the end of his communications, the bound of his power, the firstborn of all creatures; who held all Ages in breath for him, all hearts in desires, all minds in expectation, all creatures in prophecies? The Book of God hath written me 
In copite libri scriptum est de me. Psal. 39 8.  in the beginning of its first page, said the Word with the Psalmist.  
All creatures of this great universe, all predictions and conceptions of these two great books, the world, and the Bible, tended to the accomplishment and revelation of this God-Man, who should set a golden head upon all nature intelligent, sensitive, and vegetative. All creatures were but leaves, and flowers that promised the great fruit which the Prophet calleth, The fruit of earth sublime. 
Isaiah 4. 20.   
We must religiously speak what deserveth to be heard 
Religiose dicendum, reverentér audiendum est, quis propter hunc hominon gloris & hon●re coronandum Deus omnis creavit. Rupert. l. 13. de glor. Trinit. & process. Spi. Sancti.  with reverence: It is for this incomparable man that God created the world; and all creatures are but as silly rays from the Diadem of glory, which covereth his head.  
What a spectacle to see them all wound up as the strings of a harp, to praise and declare unto men the Name of God, to behold the nine Quires of Angels enter into this consort, and every one of them to honour this first Essence, by so many distinct perfections; notwithstanding all to confess their ability, cannot reach that degree which the Divine greatness meriteth? And thereupon behold here the Word Incarnate, which passing through all the spheres of nature, grace, and glory, enter into the new sphere of the hypostatical union, where it appears as a rainbow imprinted with all the beauties of the father; he manifesteth them to men, and making himself an adoring God, a loving God, an honouring God, he adoreth, he loveth, he honoureth God, so much as he is adorable, amiable, and honourable, through all Ages for evermore.  
Let us unfold our hearts in the knowledge, and love of the Word revealed. Let us adore this great sign, this eternal character of the living God, for whom all signs are. Let us make a firm purpose not to pass over a day of our life, wherein we afford him not three things due to him, by titles so lawful; Homage, Love, Imitation. Homage by adoring him, and offering him some small service directed according to times, in acknowledgement of the dependence we have of him, by an entire comformity of our wills to his: Love, by loving all he loves, and hating all he hates: Imitation, by ever bearing some mark of him upon our flesh, according to the Apostles precept, who said: Glorify, and bear God upon your body. And to conclude, let us often say:  
Feed (O Lord) thy poor beggar with continual influences 
Blosi●.  of this Divinity, I ask and desire with all my heart, thy love may penetrate, replenish, and transform me wholly into thee.   

The seventh EXAMPLE upon the seventh MAXIM. The triumph of JESUS, over the Enemies of Faith. JULIAN the Apostate.  
ALl those who forsake the Word of God are 
Recedentes a te in terra scribentur. Hier. 17.  wretched men, blotted out of Heaven, to be written on earth, and whose names the earth itself being unable to preserve, abandoneth to forgetfulness, or contempt, and very often to execration. This is manifested by many sensible proofs in the examples of the Emperor Julian, who betraying his Religion, and dishonouring the character of Christianity, made himself one of the most miserable Princes that ever was under Heaven, leaving his soul as a prey for devils, his erterprises to ill success, his life to a most bloody death, his person to the scorn and hatred of men, and his memory to the detestation of all Ages.  
Notwithstanding he wanted no eminent qualities, 
Qualities of Julian, which show, that without true Religion all is unprofitable.  which might have raised him; had he not forsaken the source of height and glory. Birth gave him Constantius, brother of great Constantine, for father, Besilina, a most noble Princess for mother, an Emperor for uncle, three for cousin-germains, Constantinople for his native soil, and to serve for a Theatre of great actions. He had a good wit, strong body, tongue eloquent, conversation pleasing, and courage masculine. There was not any science in the world whereof he had not some tincture, he most prosperously mingled arms with letters, and appeared as courageous in the front of Armies, as in learned Schools.  
He very little esteemed his body, so much was his soul divorced from his flesh: worldly riches were nothing at all in his hands, nor did he value them, but to give them. He said, It was for those who had no spirit to beg praise from the body, that he was ever handsome enough who was chaste, and that if Painters made fair faces, chastity beautiful lives. His counsel was, to avoid love as an enraged Master, according to the saying of Sophocles, to live in the command over proper passions, and free enjoying of himself. The Gentlemen of his chamber, and all domestics, who most nearly looked into his life, gave assurance, never was any thing more chaste. He slept little, fed very soberly, continually afflicted his body, accustomed it to travel, in such manner, that he was seen in the snows of Germany, and broiling ardours of Persia, perpetually in the same state.  
After indefatigable toils of the day, he betook himself by candlelight to studies of the night. He almost never lay but on the bare boards, and waked at an hour prefixed, not needing any one to give him notice. He expected so little service about his person, that being at Paris, which he called His wellbeloved City, in the time of a sharp winter, when the Seine was frozen, scarcely would he suffer a fire to be made in his chamber, so discourteously he used himself. He hated riot, superfluities, Balls, and Comedies, and if needs he must sometime permit them, it was more to reprove, than behold them. He afforded good and speedy justice, his heart was patiented, and temperate towards the people, whom he freed what he could from tributes, making his impositions accord with the ability of particulars, and saying, He would leave his treasures to be kept by his good friends, which were his subjects.  
Is it not a lamentable case, that so great a man was so miserably lost▪ with so many excellent parts, For want of preserving the best, which is piety. It is true, that almost all our Historians have written of him with much rigour, dissembling what was good in him, to render him the more odious; but for my part, I am of opinion, the greatness of Christianity more appeared therein, if having showed the ornaments of nature which this Prince had, we make you plainly see, all that very ill succeeded with him, and that we cannot find any other source of his misery, but his infidelity.  
The judicious Readers shall here observe the cause 
The causes of his corruption.  of his ruin, and consider the first education of children is an impression very tender, which being not well managed in the beginning, filleth the whole life with disorders. Tutor's are the fathers of spirits, said 
Tutor's are fathers of spirits.  S. Irenaeus, as having more influence over the resemblance of souls, than carnal fathers over bodies. Ill luck would have it, that little Julian being left young in the guardianship of his uncle Constantine, was recommended to Eusebius of Nicomedia to be instructed in faith. Now this Eusebius was a wolf in a lambskin, who counterfeiting to be very Catholic, ceated not by his credit, to advance Arianism: so that this young Prince fashioned at first by so ill a hand, could not entertain belief and reverence towards the Person of our Saviour. Heresy is the key of Atheism, and when a soul is disposed to contempt of its gracious Mother on earth, it easily learns no longer to acknowledge a Father in heaven.  
He being so ill grounded in the elements of faith, 
Ecebolus an hypocrite.  was put under the discipline of a Rhetorician, named Ecebolus, who turned with all winds, and admitted Religion according to the times. For when he saw Christian Emperor's reign, he for ceremony seemed a Christian. If Pagans swayed, there was none more insolent than he. If Empire returned again to Christians, he placed himself in Church-porches, beseeching every one to tread on him as a thing contemptible. He above all harkened to, and honoured Libanius, one of the greatest Sophisters of his time, but a Pagan till death. He had a spirit mild, and very indifferent upon articles of Religion, he equally received Christians and Pagans into his school, and permitted S. Basil himself to preach to his scholars: but omitted not silently to contrive the means how to re-establish the Altars and Temples of the Gods. He reflected on Julian as the Palladion of Gentilism, and bound him fast to his own person, by the charms of his eloquence, to apply him to his counsels.  
All the little piety which Julian might have learned 
School of Julian.  from a man who had none, began to whither away in a school where all was known but God. Apollo there possessed the name of Jesus, Diana of Mary, Aristotle & Plato were the Prophets, Isocrates the Preacher, and the names of Tritons were there better understood, than of S. Peter and S. Andrew the fishermen. This new disciple took such a taste of eloquence, that it made him forget devotion: he would have given a whole Province for an Epistle of Libanius, and it seemed to him, he who was King of words, might become a King over hearts, and Empires. His spirit of fire took nourishment on all sides, and devoured as well cedars as thorns. He as yet retained some affection towards the knowledge of sacred things, but curiosities predominated in his mind. He penetrated all he could, into the secrets of sciences, to lose the mystery of faith.  
It is the beginning of infidelity, to deifiea man by the tongue, and to think the Kingdom of God consisteth in words. Who hath not faith and virtue, satisfying himself with learning and sciences, resembleth those Indian trees, which bear musky Pears, whose smell is very odoriferous, and taste pleasing; but yield a pestilent juice, wherewith they use to envenom arrows.  
Julian still manuring his studies, and neglecting 
How he became depraved.  piety, became very vain, greedy of slightest applauses, a great talker, a profuse scoffer, extremely curious to know things future, doubtful in faith, temerarious in search of things divine, wedded to his own opinion, obstinate in his errors, and lastly an enemy of Christianity.  
S. Gregory saith, he then observed in him an inconstant 
Judgement of S. Gregory Nazianzen.  wit, a fickle head, a wandering eye, unsteady shoulders, roaming feet, vehement laughter, garbs and countenances immodest, questions ridiculous, answers much worse, and many other things which promised nothing good in him. Maximus, a Pagan Philosopher and a Magician, concluded his corruption, pouring into the bottom of his soul the blackest impiety that might be.  
He was twenty years a Christian, and ten projecting the change of his Religion, still much tottering; yet never daring to let it break forth, for fear of the Emperor Constantius his cousin, who was very suspicious, and one who never would have suffered this alteration of Religion in him. He kept him much under, without train, officers, money; saw him very seldom, and used him with severity: so that Julian feared the Court like fire, and never durst lift up his eyes before Constantius, whom he called the hangman of his family.  
Fear, which is an ill Mistress of duty, held him in under the mask of Religion whilst the Emperor lived, who nothing at all misdoubting his wicked purposes, associated him to the Empire very solemnly. For, having in a great assembly of his States pronounced a brave Oration upon the choice he made of him, he with his own hands gave him the Purple Robe, calling him Brother, and conjuring him to set his shoulders equal with his, to support the burden of Empire; and to knit this amity with a stronger knot, he gave him his sister Helena in marriage, who was not long lived. All ceremonies of dignity and wedlock done, he sent him to govern the Gauls, where he performed many brave feats of arms against the Almains.  
Then was the time when in so great liberty he was 
He is a Christian for policy, and was an Infidel in his soul.  utterly depraved, yet still so reserved, that although already a Pagan in soul, he durst not pass great festivals without going to Church, and performing all the ceremonies of Christian Religion, as he did on the day of Epiphanie whilst he was in France, according to the observation of Ammianus Marcellinus. He 
Marcel. l. 21. Prowess of Julian among the Gauls.  vaunted in an Epistle he wrote to the Athenians, that he had three times passed the Rhine, pacified the Gauls, subjugated all the rebellious towns, delivered twenty thousand prisoners out of the hands of Barbarians, and sent much matter of triumph to Constantius. But whether it were that vanity, by which he extolled his slightest prowesses, made him odious, or whether such as envied his glory, did him ill service with the Emperor, all he did, had not that great splendour which he passionately desired in all his actions.  
Constantius, who ever dreaded this his nature, much like a standing water, caused him to be narrowly looked into at first by trusty men; but he by little and little shaken off this yoke, and made himself to be beloved, as much as he might, among the Gauls, as well the natives of the country, (who were pleased with the freeness of his humour) as the soldiers, whom he secretly won with fair promises and large hopes.  
In the end, whilst the Emperor, who was an heretic, 
Subtlety of Julian to invade the Empire.  began the persecution of the Eastern Church, this man prepared a faction against him in the West. For imagining he was already strong enough, he caused himself to be proclaimed Emperor by secret practices, feigning otherwise to refuse all he desired. He began to play this goodly game with impatient ardour, being then at Paris, for there it was where the legions of soldiers, encompassing him at the shutting in of evening, called him Augustus with loud cries: whereupon he at first made a show he would fly, and hid himself: but at break of day he appeared, gently reprehending the soldiers for what they had done, and apparently seeming to refuse the title of Emperor. They, who were hired to undertake this attempt, cried out so much the louder, as he the more denied the honour offered him. He in the mean time, to omit nothing in this dissimulation, held forth his hand like a suppliant, and entreated this might not be, wherewith they seemed offended, unless he speedily embraced what they presented. He was requested, that to content the Legions, he would instantly grace himself with a diadem. He answered, It was an ornament he never thought upon, nor regarded it at all. Some thereupon cried out aloud; he might do well to put his wife's dress upon his head. But he replied, It were no good presage to adorn a Caesar's head with women's attires. Whereupon some said, he must then make use of rich horse trappings to counterfeit a diadem. But Jalian opposing it, said: He whither would be a woman, nor a horse.  
The Count Maurus, who had the word, pulled off his chain, and put it over his head, the soldiers redoubling their acclamations with much alactity. When altogether unable sufficiently to dissemble this juggling, he not only accepted this diadem, but promised to each soldier five crowns of gold, and a pound of silver, and then presently dispatched an Ambassador to the Emperor with express letters to this purport:  
That the soldiers had saluted him Emperor, which 
Embassage of Julian.  in the beginning he much disliked, endeavouring to repress them as well by authority, as fair speeches, but they persisted so obstinate in their enterprise, that he should have incurred the peril of his life, had be not given them satisfaction. Behold the cause, wherefore he was enforced to take the diadem, with all possible repugnance. But that he more esteemed the judgement and approbation of Constantius, than all the Empires in the world, and besought him not to hearken to envious spirits, who laboured to embroil them, to advance their own ends; but that regarding his birth and loyalty, he would confirm him in the honour conferred, protesting to be nothing the less pliant to his commands, and that the period of his obedience, should be the end of his life.  
Constantius fell into such a fury upon this news, that he deigned not so much as to see his Ambassador, but sent him presently a letter of disclaim, which he desired might be read to the Army, commanding forthwith to lay down the title of Augustus, unless he would leave his life. Julian, who already had passed the Rubicon, hazardeth the business, and advanced towards Italy with his troops: wherewith the Emperor infinitely irritated, made an Oration in the midst of his Army, showing to the soldiers the treason and wickedness of Julian, in terms very pressing, and saying, He went to require a speedy satisfaction, well knowing, God condemneth the ungrateful 
Numen perenni suffragio damnat ingratos. Death of Constantius.  with an everlasting judgement. Hereupon every one cried out, he must needs march on to fight with the traitor and rebel: and verily the Emperor hastened thither by great journeys, at which time he felt himself seized by a fever so ardent, that he burned like an oven, and was besides so troubled all night with dreams and horrible visions, which told him his good Angel had forsaken him, and that it was time to leave life and Empire: which he did, being chastised by God for his cruelty towards Catholics, and by his death, left Julian in full possession of all. He instantly pulled off the mask, and caused the Temples of the gods to be opened, persecuting Christians, not so much by the bruitishness of Diocletian, as with subtle wiles of a wise Politician.  
But behold the invincible force of our Religion, 
Punishments of Julian remarkable.  and how unhappiness is necessarily tied to all their designs, who forsake the true God. He was resolved to shut up the name of Christian within a narrow nook of the earth, calling us by the name of Galileans. But God limiting the erterprises of this impious man, and not confining his own name, hath covered with the beams of his own glory and knowledge, all the parts of the habitable world, and contrariwise the name of this deplorable Prince is ignominious: For although Emperors the most bloody against our religion, are named without addition, never almost is Julian pronounced, but that for a note of eternal infamy, the Apostate is added. He set out an Edict, by which he deprived Christians of the knowledge of letters. Yet God hath permitted millions of Writers to spring up in Christianity, whilst other superstitions, as Judaisme, Gentilism, and Mahometism, being now fallen into extreme ignorance, there is none but Christianism, the mother of sciences, and mistress of mankind.  
He resolved to re-edify the temple of Jerusalem, and having given the commission thereof to Alipius, balls of fire were seen to issue from the foundations, as fast as they laid them, which made the design as frivolous, as the place was inaccessible. He extremely affected honour, yet change of religion made him so contemptible that the most abject people mocked at him, saying, he must shave his beard to make halters, and that he spent so much in sacrifices, that he would unfurnish the world of sheep and oxen. He sought to give himself authority, yet were his laws spiders webs, continually broken by his subjects. In the end, to imitate Alexander, he would undertake a war against the Persians; but after infinite many toils, he was there strucken by a blow from Heaven, which quickly concluded his life, and shut up his mouth by the blasphemy we have heard, when, filling his hand with blood, which distilled from his body, he threw it against heaven, and said: Thou, O Galilean, hast vanquished.  
This miserable Prince, who thought by the help of his false Gods, to command the waves of the sea, and to walk upon Stars, being pulled from the Empire at the age of thirty and one year, and the first of his reign, was carried on a beer, as a sad spectacle for all those who adored his fortune. His death was waited on by the bone fires of Persians, and joy of Christians, whose chains this day were dissolved, his memory was buried in execrations and horrors nor were there any, yea, of pens the most sacred, who had not gall for him: so true it proves, that a man who hath defiled his sanctification, and sets Jesus aside, findeth hell every where, as in all things he sought to oppose the Divinity,    

VIII. MAXIM. Of the Perfections of JESUS, which make him amiable.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That we should love things visible, not troubling ourselves with invisible. That all love is due to Jesus Christ, by reason of his incomparable excellencies.  
ALl the greatest evils in the world do ordinarily proceed from the ill manage of love, which exceeding the limits prescribed by God, causeth every where a deluge, to occasion afterward disasters. Sensual men persuade themselves, one cannot love but by the eyes: And verily they are those, who according to the saying of Clemens Alexandrinus, begin the skirmish in all the battles of worldly love. And if 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Clem. Alex. Nutibus oculorum ibant. Isaiah 3. 16. Baseness of worldly loves. Astomorum Gens vestita frondium lanugine, halitu tantum vivens.  we follow the opinion of the Prophet Isaiah, we shall term them The feet of the heart, since by them it goeth to objects of bodies; to which it inclines.  
But, O good God, how wretched are these loves of things visible! since they idolatrize a little skin, and resemble the people called Astomes, who are clothed with leaves, and live on smoke. The carnal man, who daily crucifieth himself upon so many crosses, as he entertaineth thoughts for the creature he loveth, is taken by the eye, with a little exterior skin, called by the Physicians Epidermis. Pull that a way from this body, which gives him so many martyrdoms, he would think that a monster, he now adoreth for a Goddess. Is not this a strange weakness of judgement, and must we not confess the eyes so inflamed in their pursuits, are very scanty in their fruition, reserving to themselves no other object, than thin colours, which put upon them so many illusions, to occasion so many flames?  
I hold, every judicious man will be enforced, 
Love of invisible things most penetrating.  through the sole consideration of nature, to affirm the most noble loves, yea, the greatest are employed on things invisible. For behold, a woman, who with a most lively and fervent affection loved her husband, be he taken away, and carried to a tomb in the flower of his age, and greatest splendour of his fortune, she presently becomes passionate at it, more through necessity, than election: It is not (to speak truly) the body she loveth; for should that be left to her discretion, it would in a short time become insupportable. What is it then she esteemed most in this person? The spirit, which imprinted the character of its beauty, and vigour upon this mortal flesh: yet that notwithstanding she seethe not at all, nor ever did, which maketh us believe, her love was of a thing invisible.  
We love excellent men, though separated from us by so many lands and seas, yea, by death itself, because we have seen some ray of their wits upon paper: We love virtues, which have neither bodies, nor colours; yea, the Amorists of the world, confess they often feel vehement passions, not for the nobility, riches, or beauty of such women as they court; well imagining, there are other of them much more accomplished in all kind of perfections, who notwithstanding make no impression upon their minds. What is it then they love? That, which they cannot see, speak unto, nor think on; so true is it, that the most penetrating arrow of love, proceedeth from things invisible.  
But if that be acknowledged in natural objects, how much more by just titles, should it be in things divine, which have attractives so much the more noble and entire, as they have qualities more solid and eminent. I will here show, God hath set a Jesus composed both of visible and invisible, upon the frontispiece of the Temple of Eternity, as a lively Image of his greatness, to draw to himself the love of Angels and men.  

Excellencies in the Person of our SAVIOUR.  
1. Greatones naturally delight to do works, 
Works of Great men. 2 Reg. 18. 18. Vocavitque titulum nomine suo, & appellatur manus Absolom. 3 Reg. 10. 18. Non est factum tale opus in universis regnis. Baron. Annal. Just. 31. Cedr. l. 4. c. 30  wherein they heap together the most visible marks of their power. So Absolom, made a proud monument to preserve his memory, which he called The hand of Absolom. So Solomon made a magnificent throne all of ivory, covered with plates of gold, environed with statues of Lions, very gracefully set out, and the Scripture assureth us, there never was such a piece of work through all the Kingdoms of the world.  
So Justinian the Emperor made the Altar of Saint sophy of gold, silver, and precious stones, out of all the rarities in the world, which he caused to be melted, and incorporated into one mass; a wonder never till then known, nor used. So we have many times heard talk of the seven wonders of the world, which are at this time, but seven silly Fables upon a piece of paper.  
I now demand of you, if mortals, who can do nothing 
Singular work of God. A God Incarnate.  immortal, do notwithstanding endeavour to leave contracted works to posterity, for witness of their greatness; what should the Father of glory and sovereign Monarch of the whole world do? Were it not a thing very reasonable, and befitting his Majesty, that having distended the rich pavilion of the Heavens over our heads, which is notwithstanding no other than the works of his own hands, (as the Scripture speaketh) he made a monument, wherein he might employ the strength of his arm, and assemble together all the most delicious attractives of his beauty, and the most conspicuous characters of his power? And this verily is it he did in the mystery of the Incarnation, affording to the earth, a Man-God, of whom we cannot discourse, but must say what S. Hilary did: My understanding feareth to touch the 
Hilar. 2. de Trinit. Filium mens veretur attingere, & trepidat omnis sermo se prodere.  discourse of this great Word, and I have not a word which trembleth not to be uttered before such a divine light. Let us imitate those sacred creatures of the Prophet Ezechiel, which clasp their wings, when they hear the voice of God in the firmament: Let us hearken, and say with reverence, what Saints did of the excellencies of the Person of Jesus Christ.  
2. If we seek his name in the Prophet Isaiah, he 
Excellent qualities of Jesus Christ. Isaiah 9 Candour lucis aeternae.  teacheth us, he is called ADMIRABLE. If we look for his beauty in the writings of the Wiseman, he instructeth us, it is THE BRIGHTNESS OF ETERNAL LIGHT. If we consider the band of two natures in the Person of the Redeemer, and so much riches and treasure arranged in good order, we shall find the Prophet Zacharie compareth them to a Pomegranate. 
Zach. 12. Adrademmon, malogranatum. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. 70. Isaiah 64.  If we reflect on his Divinity, it is THE ANGEL OF THE FIRST FACE, according to the Evangelical Prophet. If we weigh his continuance, HE IS THE ELDER OF THE DAYS, AND FATHER OF AGES. If science, HE IS THE INTERPRETER, 
Revelator secretorum. Genes. 41. Aegyptiis.  AND ORACLE OF DIVINE MYSTERIES. If the harmony of his wisdom, HE IS THE HARP OF THE LIVING GOD, in the thirty sixth Psalm. If his office, HE IS THE ETERNAL BISHOP OF SOULS, in S. Peter. If his effects, HE IS THE RESTORE● 
1 Pet. 2.  OF AGES. All lips are opened with singular prerogatives in honour of the Saviour, and are all dried up in the abundance of his praises.  
It seems Constantinus Manasses said well in his Ecclesiastical Annals, when he named the Word Incarnate, 
Jesus a concurrence of all perfections. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  the universality of perfection: For it is there where God hath engraven as on gold, the last draughts of his love, power, wisdom, consummation of his designs and counsels over men. And it is that, which, according to my opinion, moved the grave 
Pacies' ultim● pulchritudinis. Guil. Paris. 1. p. de univer. p. 1. c. 26.  Author William of Paris, to say, it was the Face of the last beauty. Now know, that to understand this title, it is necessary to consider an axiom of Saint Thomas, which saith, The great diversity of creatures 
Divina assimilatio est causa diversitatis in rebus. S. Thom. opus. 2. c. 102.  in all the orders of the world, hath no other aim but to represent the Divinity by some image whatsoever. And in so much as the Sovereign Essence is infinite, it was expedient to produce many things, that the one might supply the others defects, and all conspire to express some character of Divine perfections. So that God beholdeth himself figured in such variety of beauties, as appear from earth to Heaven.  
But all these beauties being unable to pourtraict him to the life, he painted himself in the mystery of the Incarnation, which is his true table, his design, his work, wherein he included his Essence, and all his Excellencies, and in which he bounded, and limited himself, it being impossible to make any thing more worthy, or greater, than a God humanized, and a man deified.  
He is the visible Image of a God invisible, the firstborn 
Colos. 1. 15. Imago Dei invisiblis primogenitus omnis creaturae, quoniam in ipso condita sunt universa, in ipso complacuit omnem plenitudinem inhabitare. Per cum & in eo se cognose● vult Deus, & celi. Tertul. Appolog. c. 2. Invention of Valentinians.  of all creatures, because in him, and by him, all things were made, and it pleased the heavenly father, that in his Person alone a plenitude of all perfections should inhabit.  
The Valentinians said, God the Father of the universe, is in his Paradise as in the midst of a garden ennamelled with flowers, and that these flowers were the Intelligencies, whom he enlightened with his lights, sanctified with his virtues, animated with his aspects, and quickened with his own life. That he beheld himself in all, and saw therein some draughts of his beauty very well expressed: yet notwithstanding they being most insufficient in comparison of the first Essence, it pleased the Eternal Father to make a Man-God, to be the King of all these Intelligencies, which they termed, Aeons'; and for this purpose they added, That having taken the most exquisite beauties from all the flowers of this divine garden, he fitted and enchased them in the great work of the Word Incarnate. It were too profane Theology to take it outwardly by the letter, and it is no wonder if Tertullian mocked at it, objecting to them they made Aesop's Jay, or Hesiodus his Pandora, of the Redeemer. But if we speak according to true Divinity, 
 sit in omnibus primatum tenens. Colos. 1. 19  we say, this God-man containeth in eminency all the virtues and beauties of Angels, to the end he may, in, and through all, hold the primacy. But to give at this time some limits to a discourse, which of its nature 
Three excellencies of Jesus, wherein all other are concluded.  runneth as it were into an infinity, we say, that as the first Adam falling, was infected with sin, darkened with ignorance, ruined in power; so the second Adam bearing himself as the restorer of humane nature, took three eminent qualities upon him, wherein all his excellencies conclude, which are sanctity, wisdom, and power.  
And to begin with sanctity, we find the word, Holy, 
His sanctity.  was heretofore properly given to three sorts of people. First, to those who were purified by the blood of the Host, wherewith they were sprinkled, for so were the expiations of the old Law performed, to figure the effusion of the blood of Jesus Christ: Saints 
Exod. 24. 8. Ille verò sumptum sanguinem respersit in populum, Hic est sanguis foederis quod pepigit Dominus nobiscum. Sancti quasi sanguinetincti.  were anciently those who were chafed and sprinkled with blood of the victim, immolated in the Sacrifice, say school Divines. 2. This name was appropriated to those who alienated themselves from secular life, and affairs, to serve God. 3. Such as in this separated life, lived much purified from the dregs and contagion of sensuality. This being so, who seethe not, the excellent title of sanctity wholly appertaineth to Jesus Christ, because he purgeth all the Mass of mankind, not only by the sacred effusion of his blood; but likewise being sequestered, and separated from his mother's womb, to the honour of his Heavenly Father, he led a life in the most eminent height might ever be imagined. His sanctity hath three incomparable Prerogatives. First, it is a sanctity not of participation, but of essence, to wit, of necessity, and independency, sanctity being asintimate to God, as his Divinity: That is it S. Dyonisius Alexandrinus would say in the disputation against Paulus Samosetanus, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  that the sanctity of S. John Baptist, and all other Saints, was the work of God; but this in Jesus, was the nature of God himself. Secondly, that it is the original and exemplar cause of all all sanctities in the world, which borrow all lustre of lights from the first sanctity. Thirdly, that it hath been through all times in freedom from sin, as well because the created sanctity of Jesus Christ, was governed by the increated sanctity, as for that it was moistened with sources of capital Graces, and inseparably tied to the beautified vision. O Eternal Word! how worthy art thou to be called by thy Prophet Daniel, The Holy 
Vngetur Sanctus Sanctorum. Dan. 6. 24.  of Holies, worthy the Seraphins should sing for thee eternally the Trisagion, Holy, Holy, Holy, worthy to bear the seal of Sanctity, and to imprint thy characters upon all the Saints. I will establish thee (saith 
Ponam te quasi signaculum, quia te elegi. Agg. 2. 2.  the Scripture) as the true seal of the world, because I have chosen thee.  
4. The great and eminent wisdom is united to sanctity: for as very well saith S. Bonaventure: As 
His wisdom. Sicut in Christo fuit omnis plenitudo gratiae, ita & omnis plenitudo sapientiae. S. Bonavent. Theol. verit. c. 15. l. 4.  all plenitude of Grace was in Jesus Christ, so there was a plenitude of wisdom by a necessary association. It was a wisdom increated on the part of the Divinity, a wisdom beatifying, capital, infused, experimental in the holy Humanity, acquired unto it from treasures of infinite sciences; in such sort, that it had knowledge of all things created, past, present, future, possible, impossible, discovering the most small Atoms from the highest Heaven, to the lowest depths.  
The Word of the celestial Father, God of God, light of 
Verbum Dei Patris, Deus de Deo, lumend ●●ine, sapientis de sapientiâ novit omnia, quae novit Pater, sed einoss de Patre est, sicut esse. Aug. l. 15. de civet. c. 14.  light, wisdom of wisdom, knoweth all the Father knows: but knowledge cometh to him from the Father, as well as Essence. It is the river Tigris whereof the Scripture 
(a) Eccl. 24. Tigris in diebus nowrum, flu●ius Dioryx. Amari abundavi● cogitatio ejus, etc.  speaketh, which overfloweth in the beginning of seasons; the river which spreadeth itself into divers channels to moisten all the wise, which are the plants of his garden. His thoughts are of larger extent than the sea, and his counsels far deeper than abysses.  
The two Testaments, as well Old as New, behold Jesus Christ, as the Cherubins did the Propitiatory: but there is as much difference between the Old and New, as between the grain of corn, and the ear, according to the saying of Job the Monk, in Photius. The doctrine of Jesus Christ surpasseth all other doctrines, because it hath its force and root in the Cross, as S. Hierom speaketh 
(b) Omnem doctrinam suam petibulo roborabat. Hier. ad Aglasiam. : Jesus fortified all his doctrine, by the merit of his Passion.  
Add, that as wisdom is observed in the order and economy of great affairs, when they are well proportioned to their ends, so there cannot be a matter either more important, than that of the eternal salvation of men, or which hath been managed with more choice, order, and success, or which hath succeeded by means more distant from the tracks of humane wisdom. The science of Jesus Christ hath enlightened the most ignorant with the knowledge of secrets unknown to Philosophers, and his word hath been as the eternal seed of so many sundry books, as were hitherto published, and which will increase to the consummation of the world. And although the most able Philosophers, had they been persecuted by Tyrants, would not willingly have lost a tooth for defence of their Maxims, yet the wisdom of our Saviour is such, that having possessed the heart and hands of those who profess it, causeth them to pour out all the blood of their veins, and to use so much courage for preservation thereof, as it afforded them lights in its establishment.  
5. From thence consider, it is his absolute power over 
His power. Data est mihi ●●nis potestas in coelo, & in terrd. Matth. 28. 18.  all things, and note, if you please, that it is manifested principally in three Articles. First, the facility of prodigies and miracles, which appeared in Jesus Christ. For this large house of nature, which we call the world, had no other motion but from his will, and he therein commanded so universally, that he seemed to hold the Heavens and elements under hire, to be instruments of his wonders. He lighted new stars at his birth; he eclipsed the ancient Sun at his death, he walked on waters, as on marble pavements, he caused the earth to cast up the dead four days after. We find many of Pharaoh's Magicians have done false miracles; but it was, saith Saint Augustine, by speedily applying active natural things to passive. We find Saints have done true miracles, but in the quality of Ministers. It only appertaineth to Jesus Christ to do them with an original power, which hath its source in his bosom; with an absolute command, which receiveth not any modification in all nature; with a simple will, which needeth no other instruments. It only belongeth to him to do them for the full manage of the world's government, and to transmit them into the person of Saints, to the consummation of Ages.  
In the second place, I say this power marvellously shineth in the great Empire of the Church, which his Heavenly Father hath put into his hands to build it, raise it, cement it with his blood, illuminate it with his lights, nourish it with his substance, to make laws in it, establish Sacraments, eternize sacrifices, create Pastors, and Priests, and invisibly to rule in it by a visible head, a power not to be shaken even unto the gates of hell; to exercise a jurisdiction over souls, to bind them, to unloose them, pardon sins, change hearts, ordain their predestination according to his will. Finally, this great power appears, in that he first of all opened Paradise, his soul being exalted from the first day of his creation, to the vision of God's Essence, and afterward passing through all the Heavens, to place himself at the right hand of his Father, and put his Elect into the possession of the Kingdom he had purchased by his blood. Have not we cause to cry out thereupon, and say: O happy he, 
Beatus quem elegisti & assumpsisli, habitabit in atriis tuis, replebitur in bonis domus tuae: ●ancium est templum tuum, mirabile in aequitate. Psal. 64. Temple of Justinian.  whom you have chosen, to raise him to the Hypostatical union! He shall dwell in the Palace of the Divinity, and we shall be filled with the blessings of thy house. Thy Temple, which is his sacred Hamanitie, is infinitely holy.  
It is said, Justinian having finished the magnificent Church of S. sophy, which he built with so much industry and charge, such numbers, and such a general contribution of endeavour, of riches, and power of the whole Empire, placed therein a statue of Solomon, who seemed to be astonished, and to hid himself through shame and confusion, to see his Temple surpassed by that of the Emperor. It was a vanity of a worldly Prince: But we in verity, would we represent what passeth here, should paint both Moses, and all the Prophets absorbed in a profound reverence, in the consideration of the Temple of the Church, and the wonders of Jesus Christ.  
6. Let us for conclusion of this discourse, adore that which we cannot sufficiently comprehend, and endeavour to bear an incomparable love to the Person of our Saviour, for the excellencies we have expressed. But if you require the practice of this, I say 
Practise of the love of Jesus reduced to 3. heads. 1. To adhere. Conglutinata est anima 〈◊〉 cum ed. Gen. 34. 3.  it is reduced to three heads, which are to adhere, to serve, and suffer. The first note of faithful affection appears in a strong adherence to the thing beloved, so as the Scripture speaking of love, says, it causeth one soul to clasp unto another. If you begin hearty to love Jesus Christ, you will find you shall think upon him almost insensibly every moment, and, as saith S. Gregory, every time you fetch your breath, there will come a pleasing idea of God to fill your soul with splendours and affection. You will feel a distaste and unsavouriness of heart against all earthly things; so that it will seem to you, that the most pleasing objects of the world, are mingled with gall and wormwood. You will seek for your Jesus in all creatures, you will languish after him; all which beareth his name 
Numquid quem diligit anima mea vidistis. Cantic.  and memory will be delightsome to you; you will speak of him in all companies, you will have an earnest desire to see him honoured, esteemed, acknowledged by all the world. And if you perceive any contempt of his Person, which is so estimable, you will think the apple of your eye is touched. Your solitude will 
Suspiret, ac ●eties se a summo bono anima nostra sentia● recessisse, quoties se ab illo intuitu deprehenderit separatim, fornicationem judicans, vel momentaneum a Christi contemplatione discessum.  be in Jesus, your discourse of Jesus, Jesus will be in your watch, and in your sleep, in your affairs, in your recreations, and you will account it a kind of infidelity to lose sight of him but an hour. Love is a great secret, very well understood by Abbot Moses, in Cassianus, Let our soul (saith he) sigh and think itself sequestered from the sovereign goodness, so soon as it looseth never so little sight of the divine presence, accounting it a spiritual fornication to be separated one sole moment from beholding Jesus.  
For the second degree, as it is not enough in 
Siquis diligit me, sermonem meum servabit. joan. 14.  worldly amities to have affections, languors, and curious lip-complements, but you must necessarily come to some good effects, and considerable offices, which are the marks and cement of true affection; so you must not think the love of Jesus consisteth in slight affectations of idle devotion. He must serve who will love; his will must be wedded, his command entertained and executed, his liveries put on, and we wholly transformed into him by imitation of his examples. S. Augustine to confound the weakness 
August. serm. 19 de verbis Apost. Inhonestos amatores ●stendite. Siquis amore foeminae lasciviens, vestis se aliter quàm amatae placet. & illi dixerit nalo te habere tale birrhum; non habebit: si per hyemem illi dicet, in lacinia te amo, eliget tremere quàm displicere. Numquid illa tamen damnatura est? Numquid adhibitura tortores? Nunquid in carcerem missura? Hoc solum ibi timetur, non te videbo, faciem meam non videbis.  of our love towards God, pertinently maketh use of the practice of profane loves. Behold (saith he) these foolish and dishonest Amourists of the world. I demand, whether any one surprised with the love of a woman, attyreth himself any otherwise, than to the liking of his Mistress. If she say, I would not have you wear such a cloak, he pulls it off: I command you in the midst of winter to take a summer garment, he had rather shiver with cold, than displease a miserable creature. But yet what will she do if he obey not? Will she condemn him to death? Will she send him executioners? Will she thrust him into a dungeon? Nothing less, she will only say, if you do not this, I will never see you more. This word alone is able to make a man tear himself in pieces in the endeavour of complacence, and service. O foul confusion of our life, and prostitution of spirit! A God, who makes a Paradise of his aspects, and a hell in his separation from us, promiseth never to behold us with a good eye, unless we keep his commandments: nor can his menaces but be most effectual, since he hath sovereign authority in his hands. He deserves to be served above all things: service done to him is not only most pleasing, but after this life gaineth recompense. In the mean time we rather choose to live the slaves of creatures, and dwell under the tyranny of our passions, than to embrace the yoke of God. Were it not fit we hereafter order the small service we do to God, as well in our prayers, as actions, in such sort, that there be neither work, word, nor thought from morning till night, which hath not all its accommodations, and is not squared within the rule God desireth of us, with intentions most purified, and indefatigable fervours?  
Finally, the last character of love is to suffer for 
3. To suffer. Satiabor cum apparuit gloria tua. Psal. 16. Satiabor cum aff●ictu● fuero ad similitudinem tuam.  Jesus, the father of sufferings, and King of the afflicted. The Kingly Prophet said: I shall be satisfied when thy glory shall appear to me. Another translation importeth, I shall be well pleased, when I shall behold myself marked with the characters of thy sufferings. Jesus Christ in the great sacrifice of patience made in the beginning of Ages, supplies the person of a great Bishop, putting on flesh wholly imprinted with dolours, a heart drenched in acerbities, a tongue steeped in gall: Round about him are all the most elevated and courageous souls, who all wear his livery, and both constantly and gloriously dispose themselves to this great model of dolours. Would we at the sight of so many brave Champions lead a life lazy, languishing, and corrupt? Know we not all creatures of the world groan, and bring forth, that all elements are in travel, and in a ceaseless agitation? The air itself, (say Philosophers) is perpetually strucken with the motion of heaven, as with a hammer or whip, that this benumbed mass may not hatch any poison. Rivers are cleansed, and purified by the streaming current of their waters. The earth is never in repose, and the nature of great things, is generously to suffer evils. The clock goeth on by the help of its counterpoise, and Christian life never proceedeth in virtue, but by counterbalance of its crosses▪ Our souls are engaged by Oath to this warfare, 
Animas nostr●s authorati, in has pugnas accessimus. Tertul. ad Scap.  so soon as first we enter into Christianity, said the noble Tertullian. Suffering is our trade, our vow, our profession. Love, which cannot suffer, is not love, and if it cease to love when it should bear, it never was what it professed.  
A lover said in Olympius, that when he was only 
Olympius. Te sine, v● misero mihi, lilis nigra videntur Pallentesque rosae, etc.  some little moment absented from the creature he most loved in the world, all the best seasons were irksome, all discourses troublesome, and the greatest delights turned into bitterness. Flower de-luces seemed coal-black in the meadow, when he beheld them in his pensive solitude, roses the most vermilion, grew pale, gillyflowers lost their lustre, the very bay-trees which resist winters cold, could not withstand the sadness caused by this absence; but in a moment they all appeared quite withered to him. Viands with him had no relish, wine taste, nor sleep repose. But so soon as this creature returned, all was animated by her presence. Flower-deluces became white again, roses resumed their vermilion, gillyflowers their beauty, laurels their verdure, wine and viands their tastfulness, and sleep its contentment. But if there happened any harsh and painful accidents, which he must bear for her sake, they seemed a Paradise.  
All worldly loves speak the same; yet are we unwilling to say, or do any thing for this excellent Word of God, which is endowed with a beauty incomparable, exalted above all the beauties of the sons of men. This Jesus, who maketh a Paradise spring from his eyes; This Jesus, who distilleth honey from lips of roses, for the comfort of his elect; This Jesus, who causeth Nations to tremble under the force of his word, as under flaming arrows, and is attired with the conquest and trophies of souls.  
Behold him on the bright empyreal Heaven, crowned with a diadem of honour, and revested with celestial purple, who regardeth us, who beholdeth us, and never ceaseth to draw us unto him. So many brave spirits have followed him, amongst torrents, thorns, and flames, which they found replenished with a sweetness, that charmed their pain in the sight of their best beloved.  
It is this sweetness turned the stones of S. Stephen into flowers-de-luce, and changed the burning coals of S. Laurence into roses. For it, S. Bartholomew despoiled himself of his skin as freely as of a garment, and S. Catharine hastened to the wheel armed with keen razors, S. Tecla to Lions, S. Agnes to the wood-pile, S. Cicely to the sharp sword, and S. Appollonia suffered her teeth to be torn out with as much ease, as the tree suffers his leaves to fall away from him. O the sweetness of Jesus, who makes all the valiant, and knoweth how to turn doves into eagles of fire! Shall we never understand, what it is to love him, towards whom all generous hearts sigh, and for whom all charities are crowned with immortal garlands?   

The eighth EXAMPLE upon the eighth MAXIM. Of the admirable change of worldly love 
Drawn from the Ecclesiastical history.  into the love of Jesus Christ. St. BONIFACE.  
IT is a thing very rare, to see worldly love suddenly transported from the visible to the invisible, from the temporal to eternal, from error to truth, and from wretched passion to perfect charity. Notwithstanding Histories furnish us with some examples, and we often observe, those who were very sensible in worldly affections, when they found a good object, were more fervent and courageous in the love of God. Such were the heart of Saint Augustine, 
Worldly lovers being converted, are the most fervent in the love of God.  such likewise of generous Magdalene. For both of them knew so well to make use of their losses, that they seemed to have served their apprenticeship unto creatures, to learn how the Creator ought to be beloved.  
Architects, when they build vaults and arches, 
A goodly comparison.  make certain counterfeits of wood, which they call Sentries, to serve as preparatives for their designs: but so soon as they thereon have raised true and solid works, they destroy fiction to admit verity. Much so it happeneth to souls as yet sensual; they are taken with slight affections, which many times are not dishonest, but ever light, and far distant from perfection. Yet therein is to be learned what we should do for a God immortal, since we undertake so much for a mortal man. But Jesus insensibly building his architecture in these loving hearts, ruineth all these feign of amity, there to establish his love.  
This which I say, is evidently to be seen in the person 
Aglae a noble dame.  of Aglae, and S. Boniface, whose acts I will here produce to give instruction how to sanctify worldly love by the love of Jesus Christ. This Aglae was a Roman Dame, of prime quality, having a delicate wit in a beautiful body, and powerful passions in a great fortune. She had been married, but becoming a widow in an age as yet furnished with verdant freshness, grace, and beauty, she had not buried all her affections in the tomb of her husband.  
After she had a little wiped away the first tears, which nature exacteth as tribute in such like accidents, she quickly played so much the Courtier in her slight sorrow, that she seemed greatly to desire, as soon as might be, to finish what she had never well begun. She failed not to be sought unto by many gentlemen, 
She is a worldly widow.  who saw her to be accomplished with all parts desired in an eminent marriage; and although she denied not to like their services, yet making no resolution to marry, she was all for herself, and for none else; so much she feared to take a master, in stead of a husband.  
It is nothing commendable in a Christian widow, 
Superfluities of widows.  to make a show no longer to have a heart for the world, so to draw all the world into her heart, to change a moaning life into perpetual chatter, & turn her widowhood into a petty Empire. Aglae was not yet entered into vice, but pleased herself so much to afford the love of her person, and receive none, that ere ware she was surprised, and having disdained masters, saw herself become the slave of a servant.  
She had a Steward in her house named Boniface, a 
Boniface Aglaes' Steward.  witty man, and of a good presence, who managing the affairs of his Mistress discreetly, forgot not his own. He so well knew how to please her, to 
His sweet behaviour.  conform to her humours, to feed her with glory, whereof she was very ambitious, to free her from cares, and fill her heart with joy, that he already possessed no ordinary place in her favours: besides that, he was handsome, he had a singular grace in jesting without offence to any, to utter good conceits, and entertain his Mistress with all the delightful occurrents of the City. Love entereth in very far by this gate. It is not always beauty which surpriseth, for if it be not joined with promptness of wit, and discourse, it is a bait which floats on the water without a hook.  
Familiar conversation with an Officer so pleasing, 
Dispositions to love should be avoided.  was no slight snare in the house of a young widow, who lived easily, and loved pleasure. It is not without cause Saint Hierom would not endure to see about widows, servants so frizzled and acquaint, fearing lest love might render them Masters over their proper Mistresses. Aglae began with pretty love-tricks, which are the little idols of affection, not observing, that all these gentle dalliances in a carriage too free, still thought to be constant in innocency, are not without danger. But by success of time she felt her passion so much enkindled towards this Steward, that she neither thought, spoke, nor lived but for him, not daring to discover her fancies, so much is vice ashamed of its own conscience.  
Boniface, who had an intelligent and ready wit, 
Aglae in love.  well enough imagined from whence these extraordinary favours proceeded, which he received from his Mistress; but the more he saw her grow passionate for him, the more he persisted in his duty; whether that he in the beginning would divert this affection, which he perhaps thought not firm enough, or whether he was willing to kindle the fire by a slight resistance. His Mistress beholding him more serious in this matter than she wished, let him plainly enough understand, that having had the stewardship of her estate, he should have the like of her heart, and entertained him with more courtesy, than was fit for a man of his employment and condition.  
She in the beginning managed her affections with some discretion, following the advice of Boniface, who knew how to hid the matter; his fortune not making him lose the remembrance of what he had been, nor passion, providence in what he might be. Notwithstanding, it being a thing very difficult long 
Disorder of love.  to restrain fury, all composed of fire and violence, the favours of Aglae so plainly appeared, that they no longer could be hidden from the world, which is a hundred-eyed Argus. She occasioned speech of her even to infamy, with so much noise and scandal in the City, that it much abashed all such as had relation to her. But being of a haughty humour, which rather useth to irritate passion by censure, than amendeth manners, she neglected what was said of her, since she stood free from control▪ For love, which had bereft her of innocency and gravity, despoiled her likewise of the care of reputation, (one of the greatest miseries may happen to a wretched soul.) She well saw her kindred neither had the will or power to hinder her pleasure, which made her change close affection into manifest whoredom.  
Love sometimes is weakened by overmuch easiness 
Love is weakened by too much easiness  of entertaining of it. It is like the Polypus, which finding nothing to oppose nor devour, eateth itself by gnawing its feet, and fins. So this passion finding no more resistance, with which it ordinarily is cherished, lessened, and lost itself. Aglae began at first to be weary of the frequency of this infamous familiarity, then recalled again into her heart the sense of honour, next of virtue, and lastly, God more fully touching her soul, set her in open view to herself, and made her entertain a great distaste of this inordinate life.  
Boniface on the other side, felt his conscience much galled, and thought on nothing but to break his chain, which he often begged of God, giving many alms in the height of his uncleanness. Aglae called him to her in this disposition, and said: She was was resolved 
Admirable conversion.  to make an end of the exorbitancies of her life, that it was in conclusion to weary heaven and earth too much by her sins, and that if love had wounded her, repentance would cure her, God having left her no other remedy upon evils passed, than sorrow to have committed them. As for the rest, as he had followed her with so much facility in wickedness, it was no reason he should forsake her in the way of repentance. That she was a woman, he a man, that his sex obliged him to take at the least so much courage as herself, in a matter which concerned eternal salvation, and that desiring to equal him in this resolution, she should have the happiness above him to have prevented him.  
Boniface replied, She might confidently do what she thought good, he would ever account it his glory to wait on her in so good a purpose, and that God could not do him a greater favour, than to change the commandments of his Mistress into precepts of salvation.  
The Lady answered, She found nothing more necessary 
Devotion of Aglae in enquiry after Martyrs.  than to implore the mercy of God by the blood of his Martyrs, and therefore he should take a voyage into the Province of Cilicia, where daily many such were made, and bring her thence some relics. The Steward, who could not forget his sweet nature, said unto her: Madam, you would much wonder, if from the Country of Martyrs I return a Martyr, and that my body be brought back to serve you for relics. Aglae replied, Mock not, but do speedily what I tell you, and think yourself most happy to be at the feet of so many glorious Confessors.  
He failed not to put himself quickly on the way with men, and money, handkerchiefs, and perfumes for performance of his purpose, and handled the matter so, that he was speedily in the City of Tharsus, at that time the Theatre of Martyrs. Scarcely was he arrived, but he heard twenty Christians were led forth into a public place to be martyred, and being already changed into another man, who breathed nothing at all but the glory of God, he stole from his company, and went presently into the open place, where perceiving the Martyrs, he broke through the throng, 
Boniface martyred.  hastened to kiss their chains and wounds, moistening his eyes with their blood, and earnestly beseeching them to pray unto God for him.  
The Precedent Simplicianus, seeing this young stranger meddle so far in a matter whereunto he was not called, commanded him to withdraw: but he speaking with a generous confidence, and publicly professing what he was, he caused him to be apprehended, and to be put to the torture, where he was roughly handled: for the executioners not content to have pulled off his skin with iron pincers, thrust silvers of pointed reeds between the flesh and nails, which caused most exquisite torments. Notwithstanding the valorous Champion had no other words in his mouth in the extremity of his torments, but:  
My Saviour Jesus, I give thee thanks for the favour thou hast done me to day, by letting me suffer for thy sake. It is good reason the body which hath so much offended thee, bear somewhat for thee. If executioners increase my torments, augment the assistance of thy grace, and crown my combat with a faithful perseverance. He spoke with so much fervour, grace, and devotion, that those present were much moved thereat, which the Judge perceiving, commanded melted lead to be poured into his mouth, to enforce him to a cruel silence: but that not succeeding as he imagined, the people mutined, and broke down an Altar, set up there for sacrifice to Idols, whereat the Provost was somewhat astonished, and thinking it not fit at that time any further to incense them, he sent all the Martyrs back into prison.  
The next day he went to the place with more violence and terror, and thinking to terrify Boniface, he shown him a cauldron of hot scalding pitch, threatening withal to burn him, if he obeyed not the Emperor's Edicts. To which the Martyr answered, There was neither fire, sword, nor any horrid torture able to separate him from Jesus Christ; he then showing himself very resolute, without leisure given to say any more, was plunged into the cauldron, from whence he by miracle came forth entire, to the admiration of all the world, which began to work great conversions among the people.  
Simplicianus fearing a second sedition, caused his head speedily to be cut off with an axe, and to consummate a glorious Martyrdom. In the mean space they who were of his company, sought round about for him, at which time they heard there was a young Christian stranger to be executed, who had showed very much constancy in his punishment. They thinking nothing less than of him, said, it was not their Boniface, who ever would more readily be found among Courtesans, than the executioners of Tharsus. Yet coming to the place for curiosity, they found his head upon one side, his body on the other, extremely amazed at what was passed. They bought his body for five hundred livres, and having it in their hands, they asked him mercy with weeping tears, for the rash judgement they had given to the prejudice of his virtue.  
Upon this, they had nothing so much in their desires, as to carry back the body to their Mistress Aglae, supposing they could not give her any relics, either more undoubted or acceptable. The holy woman had already had a revelation from the mouth of an Angel of the glory of Boniface, and being on the way to encounter him, so soon as she met him, she prostrated herself before his body, and said:  
My dear Boniface, I shed not tears over thee, they 
Speech of Aglae to Boniface.  would fall too low to bewail such a death, as thine. Thou goest out a penitent from me, and returnest a Martyr, thou art become a Master from the first day of thy apprenticeship, thou hast vanquished, ere scarce seen, the enemy; yea, the Crown wherewith thou soughtest to glorify other Martyrs, is fallen on thy own head. Ah, how many bloody gates were to be opened to thy generous soul, to afford a large passage to its triumphs. Iron hooks which have dissevered thy holy members, have united thy heart to Jesus. Reeds thrust under thy nails, have confirmed thy constancy. Boiling cauldrons found in thy heart a love more fervent than their flames, and the axe which separated the head from thy body, placed a Crown on thy head. I behold thee with an eye wholly rapt with the beauties of thy glory. I a thousand times kiss thy wounds, and take part in thy trophies, and sanctify myself by loving thee, as a Martyr of Jesus Christ. What then remains, O blessed soul, but that I imitate thee, and though executioners forbear my body, never to spare my pains? That all my life may be but a martyrdom, and that there be not any part in me, which serves not as a victim to the sacrifice of my patience.  
Aglae, having performed her duties, and caused a Church to be built, dedicated to God in memory of the Martyr S. Boniface, entered into a Monastery, and perfected herself in the glorious travels of penance, finishing her course near her wellbeloved, and entombing her ashes at his feet.     

THE SECOND PART OF MAXIMS Of the HOLY COURT.  
THE DESIGN.  
WE have directly looked towards God in the first Part, deducing Maxims which most nearly concern the Divinity. I now descend in this Second, to those which touch the direction of this present life; and consider them in three respects, whereof one tendeth to the service of God, the other to our neighbour, and the last stayeth upon ourselves. In the first, I treat of Piety, against all counterfeit devotion. In the second, I show we must carry ourselves towards our neighbours with justice, sincerity, and sweetness, excluding our own ends, dissimulation, and cruelty. In the third, I entertain what concerns the ordering of ourselves in prosperity against Epicureans, and in adversity against impatience, upon accidents of humane life: wherein I endeavour throughout effectually to observe the disorders which Plato and Aristotle noted, were the causes of the destruction of Families, Cities, and Empires.  

THE SECOND PART. Touching the Direction of this present Life.  
IX. MAXIM. Of DEVOTION.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That if Devotion must be used, we should embrace that which is in fashion, accommodating it to our ends. That we must be devout for God, and that if Devotion be not solid, it is no longer Devotion.  
IT is a matter very considerable, that Devotion is subject to many more illusions than all other virtues, of which we have proof enough from our own experience, although we could find no other foundation in reason. But if the judicious Reader 
The cause wherefore Devotion is subject to so many illusions.  desire to know the cause, I will tell him, that as nothing hath been so much turmoiled and counterfeited as Religion, which hath in all Ages been disfigured by such variety of Sects: so it is no marvel if Devotion, which is according to S. Thomas, as the branch of this tree, find the like contrarieties.  
Body's most delicate, are soon corrupted by extreme impressions: so this virtue, which is of a temperature very subtle, since it is as it were the cream of charity, may easily be perverted by the evil manage of it. Add, that the wicked spirit seeing this exercise is very necessary for us, seeks to envenom it in its sources, to the end we may draw poison from those things which might be our remedy.  
Besides, men either through superabundance of idleness, presumption of ability, through love of their own conceits, or desire of novelty, multiply their inventions upon this matter, and many make golden 
Golden calves taken for Cherubins. The practice of the Lacedæmonians.  calves to themselves in Bethel, in stead of the Cherubins of Jerusalem. The Lacedæmonians ever attired their gods according to the fashions and humours which then swayed in their City: Every one delights to dress up devotion by the pattern of his passions.  
I affirm one cannot worthily enough praise the practice of so many devout souls, which live in singular purity, either in Religious or Civil life: And I may say, it is an Host of the living God, as terrible in his mildness, as he is sweet in his terrors. I honour all the bodies, yea the particulars, with the honour their deserts have acquired. But as the strongest truths fail not to be invaded by some obscurities, so it is no wonder, if in the ordering of virtues, some defects creep into the life of particulars, which should no way prejudice the integrity of the general.  

Of Dark Devotion.  
THere is a dark Devotion, which is rude and 
Gross and afflicting Devotion.  stupid, another nice, a third transcendent, and a fourth sincere and solid. I call a stupid devotion that, which establisheth all virtue in indiscreet and immoderate austerities, which very often kill the body, and extinguish the total vigour of the mind: that, which without any obligation of the Church, or of some particular Order, or sage direction, ties itself to strait and rigorous observations, rather for satisfaction of self-will, than through any other sense of piety, and which placeth in this act all Christian perfection, not minding so many other duties, which strictly bind us to matters more considerable.  
We have heard the Idolaters of the Eastern parts kill themselves with recital of a fearful number of prayers to their Idols, roll in the scorching sands, clog themselves with fetters, and slash themselves with razors, thinking by these ways they may arrive to the top of sanctity. Nor can we likewise be ignorant what is sufficiently declared unto us by holy Scripture, that many of the Ancients were much inclined to these superstitious devotions, establishing therein all the order of spiritual life, in such sort, that they perpetually afflicted their bodies, and in the mean time suffered their hearts to sway in empty vanities, burning avarice, rigours, and cruelties towards their neighbours wholly insupportable.  
Such was the devotion of Pharisees, so often rebuked, and condemned herein by the lips of the eternal Truth. For when you saw them walk in public, you beheld men lean and disfigured, who bare scrowls of parchment on their heads, wherein they wrote some sentence of the Law of God, and tied thorns to the border of their gowns, to prick and torment their heels; whilst the heart uncontrollably committed all disorder. Such also was the devotion of certain superstitious, reproved by the Prophet Isaiah in the 58. Chapter, where God speaketh, 
Isaiah 58.  saying unto them: Who ever hath gone about to exact such fasts from you, and such devotion as you practise? to afflict the body a whole day together, how the head, lie on sackcloth and ashes? Is this then that which you call fasting, and can you think days and times spent in such actions are very acceptable to God? I will teach you another kind of fast: Break off those 
Dissoloe colligationes impietatis, solve fasciculos deprimentes.  bargains you have made with such iniquity, tear in pieces the bundles of unjust and insupportable obligations, let the poor go at liberty, who are overwhelmed with wants. Take the yoke from them which they can no longer bear, give food to the hungry, lodge pilgrims, and wayfarers in your house, cloth the naked, and disdain not your flesh.  
3. This dark Devotion hath three things, which 
Three blemishes of anxious devotion  make it much to be suspected, and are the cause it is not well proportioned to the manner of life of solid spirits. First, when it is extremely subject to novelties, singularities, and pride, which proceed from foolish confidence in ones own judgement. Many, who 
The Bat employeth her eyes to make her wings.  are wise according to their own way, resemble the Bat, which employeth the crystalline humour of his eyes, to make large wings to himself, but yet very useless: so they consume all the lights and inspirations of God, to create wings of pride and vanity, which only serve them to fly in the night, and ignorance of themselves. Now, it is well known to all, that the most fatal plague in matter of religion and devotion, is the desire to seek direction from ones own opinion, which the learned Gerson very well observed, when he singularly well said: 
(a) An excellent speech of Chancellor Gerson. In vitis patrum libro de discretione, littera S. fol. 171. citatus a Richardo Allo. Et quomodo vinum potantem decipit, sic erit vir superbus. Habac. 2.  If you see one walk in the way of proper judgement, although he had already one foot in Paradise, take this foot and withdraw it. For it were better to walk in the shades of death under the conduct of humility, than to have a Paradise in the pleasures of proper fantasy. Drunkenness is taken by wine (said the Prophet) and pride by its own opinion.  
Such there are, who after infinite many pains passed over in religious Orders, have miserably lost themselves, following the cursed ignis fatuus of their own opinion. Had pensive devotion no other blemish, it were always much to be feared: but besides I affirm, that as fishermen fish in a troubled water, so the devil fisheth in the melancholy of a perplexed soul, principally when it is tied to superiors, which govern conscience. We know by the Scripture and Fathers, 
Ecce te●endi● ante pedes nostros laqueos infinitos, & omnes vias nostras variis replevit decipulis ad capiendas animas n●stras: Ecqui● effugiet? Laqueos posuit in divitiis, etc. Aug. solil.  the importunities and smooth practices of the evil spirit to undo us. Satan every where hath laid his nets before us, the whole earth is nought but a snare; snares in riches, snare in poverty, snare in meat, snare in drink, snare in eating, sleep, words, works, in all our actions: but we must confess there is no snare more miserable, nor of greater force, than sadness and melancholy: because it is that which bloweth out the candle, which puts out the light of the mind, and by this means makes sport for the enemy of our felicity.  
Doth not Cassianus observe, that an Hermit named 
Cassian. collat. 2. de discretione. Horrible issue of a hollow devotion.  Heron, who had sweat for the space of forty years under the habit of religion, and grown white amongst so many glorious palms, yet suffering himself to fall into a devotion dark, anxious, and solitary, was so deceived by the subtlety of Satan, that at the latter end of his days, he threw himself into a pit, from whence he was drawn half dead, nor was it possible to make him say, he had done ill in this act so exorbitant and desperate: proper judgement having so bewitched him in this sadness, that all his own resolutions seemed oracles unto him?  
And although a soul seldom falleth into such extremities, notwithstanding for a third instance, we may bring a proof taken out of S. Thomas, who saith, 
S. Thom. 1. 2. q. 37. art. 4.  That seeing sadness is the most venomous of all passions, because it gnaweth the root of the heart, which consisteth in a certain alacrity and largeness, spreading itself from the fountain of life through all the members, it is impossible that any man who ties himself to a pensive and melancholy devotion, can long persevere in the way of virtue.  
Gilbertus' a great Doctor, writing upon this sentence 
Glorificate, & portate Deum in corpore vestro. Notable advice of Doctor Gilbertus. Portari vult Christus non trahi, non est faenum Christus sed flos campi, & fasciculus myrrhae inter ●bera sponsae. Superstitio ●mandos time●, quos colit, violate. Senec. Epist. 114.  of S. Paul, drawn out of the first to the Corinthians, sixth Chapter, Glorify, and bear God in your body, hath these notable words: You must bear Jesus Christ, not drag him. He draggeth him, who is surcharged with him, and who indiscreetly afflicteth himself in the service he doth to the Divine Majesty, not considering Jesus is the flower of the field, or the posy of myrrh between the breasts of the spouse, and not a load of hay, under which you must needs groan like a wheel ill greased.  
4. On these same grounds superstition is raised, which through error feareth all it should love by virtue, and scarcely knoweth God, but by violating his clemency through a false presumption of his severity. What sense is there to enter into devotion, as if one were lifted upon a rack to be tortured, and to think there is no piety in the world, if the body be not torn, and the spirit beaten down.  
One must be crucified in his thoughts by vain apprehensions, infinite many scruples must be nourished, sins imagined which never were sins, and conceits fed, that if one have walked on straws , a great sacrilege is committed. Some impose a thousand fantastical observations upon themselves, some inflict voluntary tortures, and you shall find of them, who leading a life wholly innocent, make themselves hells in their own consciences, watch whither them, dreams terrify them, and if the leaf of a tree wag, it is a spirit which comes to surprise them, nay, if some fatal bird croak in the obscurity of night, it is the voice of a dead man, who bids them prepare to pass into another world.  
Out alas! Is it possible a soul which hath never so little feeling of the Divinity, can think God, infinitely merciful, is as a Minos and Rhodamant, mentioned in Fables, who spitefully comes to pry into all our actions, to number all our steps, takes pleasure to prepare punishments for us, and to raise his trophies on our ruins. Is it so hard a matter to believe a good director, who persuades the contrary, as that for want of a little instruction, labours in religion should be undertaken without relaxation, disturbances without repose, and miseries without comfort?   

Affected Devotion.  
EFfeminate and nice Devotion is of another strain. 
Acquaint Devotion.  For it hath not learned to kill the body for the life of the spirit; but seeketh out witty ways to accord God and the world together, and under pretext of piety, to take those pleasures which may flatter the most refined sensuality. We now adays see many women of quality, who engross this second order, and who being little interior, open themselves with profusion to all, whatsoever hath in it exterior ostent. Some fall into it for satisfaction of their own wills, others by servile imitation and complacence, to the humour of powerful persons, who like the great Orbs of heaven, draw along the lower planets; some through interest of fortune, others for colour of piety, and the rest by amusement. I know some who therein proceed sincerely, and did the wicked and Libertines understand the purity, excellency, and sanctity of so many good souls, who handle devotion as it should be, of which the Church is at this present furnished with a good number, they would be ravished with sight of the interior, and take their lives to be a perpetual miracle. But we must confess, there are many devotes, who wander from these purer paths, to run after a phantasm of piety: and although I here note defects, I would have virtuous souls know, my censure no more toucheth them, than thunder the stars in heaven  
The first endeavour of this sophisticate devotion, 
All exteriorly.  consisteth in making an Oratory, or little household Chappel, in building a little magazine of relics, begged on all sides, with more curiosity than Religion, setting candlesticks and pictures in order, in providing rich ornaments, in inventing new fashions of crewets, in weaving girdles, and dressing up a little mercery of trinkets. And though these actions which concern the care of Altars are very laudable, yet are they often very much perverted, both by the intention, which is vain, and execution, most indiscreet. We many times find in these cabinets so religious and curious, a Venus with our Lady, a Cupid near S. Michael, and a pair of beads hanging on the toes of some little giddy marmouzet. This is to renew the practice of that Lady named Marcellina, of whom Saint Augustine speaketh in the book of heresies, who mingled 
Aug. lib. de haeres. c. 7.  the pictures of our Saviour, with those of Pythagoras. Furthermore these places, which seem dedicated to piety, so follow the humour of their Mistress, as they are accommodated to all: and if they in the morning have seen a Priest celebrate Mass, they will make no difficulty to entertain a Ball that very evening. All this devotion is pompous and proud in 
The pomp, and practices of it.  its furnitures there is not so much as hair-cloths, and disciplines but are made of silver, rather to see the bright lustre of it, than feel the smartings. It hath mysteries and marvellous intrications, which many times look on the earth under a veil of skie-colour.  
It seems to many, the aim of piety is nothing else, but to seek out all its petty accommodations and contentments in the world, to have liberty to do all, game-courtship, costliness of apparel, a caroche to ones self to flutter through the streets; whilst the essential parts of marriage are contemned, affairs of the house neglected, and a husband enforced to murmur, who doth express more impatience in an hour, than the other gaineth devotion in ten years.  
If question be made of choosing a ghostly Father, there are of them, who much delight in change, and if Seneca said, that Roman Ladies in the time when 
Senec. lib. 3. de benefis. cap. 16.  divorces were permitted, reckoned their husbands by the number of Consuls, who altered every year; one may more justly say, that some devotes measure their Confessors by the course of moons, by taking almost every month a new. Other stick so close to one, and set him in so high account above all humane things, that according to their opinion, he alone hath the grace, Sacraments, and blood of Jesus Christ in his hands. But if they must be deprived of him, there is no more piety nor religion for them in the world: the paths of Zion mourn, Churches and Altars are but wildernesses, and the hope of salvation hath lost its lustre.  
Such services and diligence must be used to a slight conscience, as if it were a huge Commonwealth. After the tediousness of a confession, which maketh those to lose patience, who were most resolute to attend it, you must give and receive frequent visits, spin out discourses, and eternal prattle: one cannot suppose they are all of God, who is more honoured by silence; one would hardly believe a soul should need such polishing, which appeareth not to be so much refined in the knowledge of things divine. One thinks, this devout creature through superabundance of charity, beareth all the sins of the house, another, that she tells all the tales in the City; and those, who easily suspect what themselves do without difficulty, imagine there are other ties, which I had rather conceal.  
This devotion is not foolish according to the world; but having learned to make an arrow of any wood, to hit the mark of its interests, she maketh use of a Confessor, pliant and mercenary for this purpose. If any be found in the world who stretch their conscience, who teach to withhold goods ill gotten, to soothe humours, entertain libertines, and lodge sin almost in the bosom of Theology, these are sanctified spirits, and Prophets in fashion.  
There is enough done, if there be outward show enough. If some small alms be drawn out of those great treasuries of gold and silver; and that she communicate often. For since some Priests are satisfied with saying Mass but once a year, it is come to pass that certain devotes, as if they meant to supply their defects, take almost so many Communions as there be days in the year. God forbidden I should blame an exercise so holy, which cannot be too much recommended, but it troubles me they go to it without any feeling of that awful Majesty, and seek access to God as unto fire to make it tractable. Frequent Communions, which ought not to be permitted but with great discretion, as a reward for the most solid virtues, are turned into pillage, according to the greedy humour of a spirit, giddy and inconstant. There needeth but the want of some small circumstance to stay a Priest, and hinder him from saying Mass; but these devotists pass all over, and some of them have found the way, to accord the Communion and a Comedy, upon one and the same day.  
What will ensue of this, but that such women may draw water from the fountains of our Saviour, like the Danaides in the hell of Poets with a five. They often bear profanation to Altars, to bring back vengeance; and know not the many evils which assail them, proceed from the contempt of holy things.  
After so many Communions, these souls profit in 
Callipedes.  spiritual life, as the little Cavalier showed at Rome, who laboured much in running in a wheel, and at the end of his travel, had gone no further than when he began. When was it that a dozen of Communions have taken from them one hair of vanity? Are they less pompous, less powdered, less frizzled, more reserved, more chaste, more discreet? You see to come from thence wily spirits, who perpetually bias all to their own ends, who busy themselves in affairs, who betray the most holy amities, who practise little furies of choler, who render themselves inexorable in the most civil requests, who have hearts of ice towards the miseries of mankind, who make tribute of all, and deify all in themselves, yea, their own follies. I speak this, to make the solidity of solid devotions the more appear, which are practised in the Church, answerable to treatises written by blessed Sales, and my Lord Bishop of bailey.  
6. You may easily judge by such proceed, how 
Reasons of the nullity of this devotion  weak and frivolous all these manners of serving God are. But if you thereunto will apply the lights of reason, you shall observe, that any thing is so much the more solid and firm, as it hath foundation and support upon the Divinity; because Eternity only appertaineth to the Divinity, which rendereth things lasting. Now this Eternity, which is in God as in its source, distilleth by participation into those things which adhere, and are most perfectly united unto him. Behold the reason why we must conclude, that true devotion, which hath much union with God, hath so much the more subsistence. Bees bred of the body of a Bull, bear upon them a little resemblance of a Bull, and the tree in the seed, whereof you shall have some characters engraven, will many times represent them in its leaves and fruits. Every thing naturally tendeth to the imitation of its original. What marvel then, if true devotion which is derived from the Eternity of God, being unable to have eternity of itself, as a creature, hath at least a b●nd strong and durable: whereas quite contrary, this apish devotion being merely terrene, hath no true root in God, nor can draw any nourishment from thence, whereupon ensueth, it must dry up and whither. Every plant which my 
Omnis plantatio quam non plantavit Pater meus, eradi●abitur. Matth. 15. Deus in omni opere fons, & finis. S. Paulinus.  heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted out, said our Saviour in S. Matthew.  
A soul solidly Christian, resembleth the Palm, which beareth its strength on the top: it hath all its vigour in God, and of God. He is the source and end of all good works. And if God chance to fail it, the whole fabric of salvation falls to the ground. Besides, this devotion becomes ruinous, because it wholly depends on consolations derived from creatures mutable, short, unable to content a soul only made for God. Every creature proceedeth from nothing, and if you disengage it from the preservation of the first being, behold it is forth with in its nothing, it cannot furnish you with any thing but wind, to feed you like a wretched Chameleon; which is the cause the creature that sticketh unto it, remains ever hungry. And this is it which S. Augustine hath divinely spoken: My 
Aug. solil. 13. Et tu Domine vita mea beata, fac ut miseriam meam confitear tibi, etc.  God, my life, and my happiness. It is fit I confess my misery unto thee, after so many silly trifles of temporal consolutions have separated me from thee, who art an eternal and an immutable good, I am dissolved, and have been poured through the conduit-pipes of my senses, parted and divided into such and so many objects, and I have every where found hunger, thirst, and penury in plenty itself. For nothing was able to fill me, since I could not perceive in myself a Good, solid, singular, inseparable, which contenteth all desires, and satisfies all appetites.  
Add, that in searching for petty sensual consolations, 
Isaiah 36. 5. Ecce confidis super baculum arundineum.  they are not always had, but one often meets with repulse, with affliction and gall, from whence comes to pass, that false piety, which is tied to these curious niceties, as they fail, it looseth all support and vigour.  
All these kinds of devotion resemble the bird called by the Grecians Clottide, a counterfeit swallow, 
Plin. l. 1. c. 25.  which doth nothing but chatter with such loudness, that she deafens all the world: she much loveth the warm and clear air; but so soon as she feels the first approach of winter, she is stark, creeps along, and hangs the wings as half dead: she will pass the seas with other swallows to seek out heat, & yet she flies scarcely one day but reputes it. To return back, she is ashamed; follow she cannot. It remains she become prey to some unhappiness. Behold justly the image of this plastered devotion. If the false swallow be a chatterer, this devotion is often nought else but babble. If she seek for warmth, this is nourished with temporal prosperities and sensual comforts. If the one be so quailed with cold, the other bears the least adversity with strange impatience. If the one making show to follow, the rest stays in the way, how many souls see we, who not having well run their race in matter of devotion, nor taken God for their scope, rest in inconstancies, agitations, troubles of mind, and in the end break with God.   

Of Transcendent Devotion.  
I Pass to the third kind, called Transcendent 
Transcendent Devotion.  Devotion, which practiseth to pursue unusual ways, and to refine all other devotions by subtlety of wit. Common things, which are often the best, are not for its purpose. It can abide nothing uniform and temperate; but must of necessity raise much noise and ostent, to make itself known. It affecteth unheard-of observations, extracted methods, chimerical words: you would say, it is a rich trader, who hath a shop of spirituality, and huge magazines stored with specious titles; but when you come to look narrowly into it, you shall find there so many leaves and bark, so much vanity and empty merchandise, that this which at first so affrighted the simple, serves afterward for an object of scorn to the wisest.  
We are not ignorant there are kinds of excellent 
Sublime prayer.  ways to treat with God, reserved to souls the most eminent, and that it were a rash attempt to condemn mystical Theologie, wherein so many worthily religious have prosperously proceeded. We know the exercise of prayer goeth by degrees, and that according to Richardus de Sancto Victore, the first, is thought, the 
Rich. l. 1. de contempt. c. 3.  second, meditation, and the third, contemplation. Thought ordinarily is inconstant and indeterminate, Meditation is confined and limited to certain points; Contemplation flieth like an eagle with more liberty, and picks up (as saith Synesius) the flowers of in created 
Synes. in him. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  light, to colour and illuminate itself the more. Thought is a simple impression on things divine, Meditation is a more exact search into the Maxims of our faith; but Contemplation is an  aspect of this first Verity, which feedeth and satiateth the soul with the sweetnesses of God.  
This Contemplation also is divided into divers degrees. 
Divers degrees of contemplation.  For there is one ordinary, which maketh use of imagination and of sensible species drawn from the sight of objects, though it subtilise and purify them by the help of the understanding. There is another termed immediate and perfect, which goes directly to God, without any mixture of fantasies, or aid of creatures; but if it be much discharged from all things create▪ it is called dark contemplation; because the soul being in it wholly dazzled, and (as it were) blinded with rays of the divine Essence, frameth not to itself any sensible idea of God, but beholdeth him by the way of negation, banishing all representations and resemblances of creatures, the more firmly to adhere unto the simplicity of the first Being. But if it proceed in a superior manner, than it mounteth 
S. Ambros. l. 3. de virginibus. Influentibus divinis corporeus peregrinatur affectus, & usus ille exterioris hominis ex●les●it.  to the contemplation, termed the most eminent, which is the whole-sister of the beautified vision, and the last heaven whereunto S. Paul was rapt, a sphere totally inflamed with seraphical love, where the use of sense and exterior man, seems quite annihilated, and the spirit transported to the ineffable conversation with the Divinity.  
Now we must observe upon this discourse, what 
S. Thomos in 3. dist. 52.  the learned S. Thomas said, That whilst our life is shut up in this mortal body, its manner of actuating proceedeth by simple and ordinary ways, which conduct us to the Creator, by contemplation of creatures: and if any one understand spiritual things in this sublime nakedness, which is discharged of images, it is an admirable way, and surpasseth all humane things. First, it is necessary to have a pious affection 
The ordinary manner of proceeding in things divine.  to matters divine, thence we pass to meditation, from meditation to ordinary contemplation, which is attended by admiration, and admiration by a certain spiritual alacrity, and this alacrity by a certain fear with reverence, and fear by fervent charity diffused into the exercise of good works. These are the most assured ways to walk in spiritual life.  
But these transcendent souls will in the beginning 
Illusions of this transcendent devotion.  lift a man up from the earth, and make a Seraphin of him from the first day of his apprenticeship. To meditate well, is nothing else but to make a review of ourselves and actions to adapt them to the commandments of God, and counsels of Jesus Christ. You must fly fervently even to the third Heaven, and remain there rapt, without knowledge whether one be on this side or that side of the world. But alas! how many times happeneth it these Eagles descend from this false imperial heaven, to fish some wretched frog in the marsh of this inferior earth?  
After all these large temples of prayers, gilded with so goodly words we see in the Sanctuary a portrait of a Rat, a soul faint and pusillanimous, shut up in self-love, tied to petty interests, imperiously commanded by so many tumultuous passions, which play their prize, whilst the spirit slumbers in this mystical sleep, and living death.  
They will in the beginning go equal with the seraphical souls of Saints, who arrived at this purity of prayer by great mortifications, and most particular favours from God. But they imitate them so ill, that in stead of being suited with great and solid virtues, they retain nought but ostentous forms, and a vain boast of words.  
What importeth it a devote, who cannot tell how to govern her house, to know the retire, introversion, extroversion, simplification, dark prayer, mystical sleep, spiritual drunkenness, taste, fire, quiet, the cloud of glory, and so many other kinds, which serve to disguise devotion? Know we not many spirits of young women lose themselves herein, and seeking too much to refine ancient piety, have made it wholly to vapour out in smoke, finding themselves as void of humility, as they were puffed up with presumption? From thence often proceeds the curiosity of matters ravishing and extraordinary, to gain to themselves the reputation of great spiritual persons, and to soothe themselves with the opinion of a false sanctity. When one is once gained by a false pretext of error, it is no hard matter to be persuaded all we think on is a vision, all we say is a prophecy, and all we do is a miracle. The evil spirit finding souls drunk with this self-love, hath played strange pranks, which may be read in Epiphanius and Cassianus, and whereof it would be an easy matter to produce many examples, were it not much better to deplore than recount them.  
8. This vanity not satisfied to harbour in the mind 
The word of God altered in chairs, by the extravagant opinions of hearers.  which bred it, extendeth to the chairs of Preachers, where the curious and fanatical spirits of Auditors would willingly hatch chimeras for such, as are yet but young beginners in the mystery. One will have, that use be made of thoughts transcendent and extraordinary, and many times extravagant, entangled with a perplexity of periods, which leave nothing but noise in the ear, and arrogance in the mind: the other, who is most ignorant, startles at this acquaint Theology, and seeks to wrest mysteries, and disjoint men's judgements, thereby to draw upon all sorts of people, discourses of the Trinity and Incarnation, involved in visionary imaginations, and turned about on a counter-battery of affected antitheses; and if this be not as ordinary in all sermons, as was the Delphic sword, which heretofore served for all purposes in sacrifices, it is to be ignorant in the ways of souls elect. The other delighteth in doctrines unheard-of, in a vast recital of Authors, and foreign tongues, as if he went about to exercise devils, and not instruct Christians; some one boasts to allege neither Scripture, Fathers, nor any passage whatsoever, for fear of marring the plaits of his periods: he makes trophy to take all within his own fancy, and to borrow nothing of the Ancients, as if Bees, who rob flowers in the garden to make honey of them, were not much better than spiders, who spin their wretched webs out of their own substance. There are of them, who desire to bundle up an endless train of fantastical conceptions, without Scripture or reason who seem to tell wonders and rarities most ravishing but if any man will weigh them in an equal balance, he shall find vanities, only big with noise and wind. They who have the itch of ear, 
Sapientiae, atque facundiae caupones. Tertul. l. de anima. c. 3.  are devoted to the beauty of language, and bestir them rather to talk, than speak in a sermon. They adore discourses replenished with a youth full eloquence, and devested of wisdom, having no sinews for support, and less sting to transfix a heart.  
Good God how knowing would Preachers be, did they understand (as saith S. Paul) how to speak, both on God's part, before God, and in Jesus Christ, as being shut up within the Word, before they bring forth a word; and Auditors should be well instructed, if they all heard (as saith S. Paulinus) with the ear through which Jesus Christ entereth. To preach God, hatred of vice, and love of virtue, with a discourse firm and rational, and first of all to persuade himself, what he wisheth others may practise; this is the mark whereat all preaching should aim. We have cause to praise God that he hath rendered our Age very fruitful in men able and sufficient in this kind, to whom I bear such respect, and whom I so much admire, that I seek not to censure them. It were to be wished the younger sort would rather frame themselves by their examples, than to be surprised with an itch to please certain ears, and so many unjointed judgements.  
All such as judge of Preachers only by the garb and exterior show, use to deify their vices; and it is a note one doth not always please God when he seeks overmuch to please those who like nothing but extravagancies. Care must be had of Citie-bruits and vulgar opinions, as the Eagle regardeth flies. Light never blushed to be despised by rear-mices, and a prime spirit is not troubled at the sinister judgements which the ignorant make, so that he learn to cast up his reckoning with God, for whom he laboureth. Onions hinder the attraction of the adamant, and all these popular opinions do nothing but disturb a spirit on which they make impression.   

Solid Devotion.  
9 LEt us dis-involve what we may, the devotion of Sacraments, books, and sermons from these sophisticate forms, which varnish the lustre of it, and let us learn to seek it in the purest sources and fountains of our Saviour.  
True Devotion, if you desire to know the condition of 
True devotion. 1 Cor. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hermes.  it, beareth the same liveries which S. Paul gives to Charity: It is patiented, it is not offended with any thing, but that which tendeth to the displeasure of God; it digesteth all acerbities, turning them into its colour and taste; it is sweet and benign; it hath no emulation, but for virtues; it doth nothing unfitly; it hath not any thing to do with the puffings of vanity, nor ambitions, which invade worldly spirits; it seeks not its own ends, it is not moved with anger to see itself despised, it thinks no ill, it rejoiceth not at iniquity, but enlargeth itself cheerfully in the truth, it suffereth all, it believes all, it hopeth all, it endureth all. It is a devotion always joyful, always content, ever active in its duty, not prying through curiosity into others affairs. It hath thoughts innocent, an eye simple, hands clean, little noise, and much fruit. A Devotion which complaineth of none, is troubled at nothing, which speaks little and doth much, which hath more good effects, than slight compliments, more silence than eloquence, more humility in the interior, than ostent in the exterior, which flieth on all the actions of life, as a Bee on flowers, and converteth them all into honey. Oh what a Treasure of peace, what a treasure of love, what a treasure of glory is this devotion.  
There needs but one great word to express great things. Disquiet not yourself upon the multitude of precepts and books, to know how you may arrive to this excellent virtue, which soweth the seeds of perfection in the heart. The first step you must make towards it, is the knowledge of the will of God. Know what he would have of you, what you of him, in what manner he expecteth it, and what desire you have to please him.  
That man offendeth in serving, who understands not how he should serve, and it is ever a main part of obedience, to learn how you must obey. There are things 
An Epistle to Demetrias, written by an Ancient, and translated by a great personage of this Age.  forbidden, and things commanded, some permitted, others advised. God forbids the evil, commandeth the good, permits the indifferent, adviseth the perfect.  
Who puts himself in a way of devotion, puts himself in a way of perfection: but who flieth above nature, ought not for all that to destroy the law of nature. To say one is devout, and fails in the duties of common charity, which commandeth us to do to our neighbours, what we would have done to ourselves, is to have fair titles, and feeble actions.  
That man is not exempt from the law, who would do above the law, and there is not any more obliged to avoid things not permitted, than he, who for the love of God denieth himself such as are permitted. Devotion is not practised to excuse sins, but to perfect virtues.  
A soul truly devout, hath three aspects, which replenish the whole capacity of the duties it professeth; one upon God, another on itself, the third upon a neighbour. It serves in common piety, and above common piety: that applieth it to all the ordinary actions of our Christianity, and the other disposeth it into a more sublime commerce than the common, yet contemns not the common. It hath its retirement, its prayers, its meditations, guided and digested, not for satisfaction of will, but edification. It keeps all the senses well governed in great equality, the tongue under the rule of discretion, the heart in a secure peace, and towards a neighbour carrieth honey in the mouth, charity in the hands, and example in all its actions, which make it live in all the antipasts of Paradise.  
As there is no corporal riches comparable to 
Non est census super census salutis corporis, non est oblectamentum super cordis gaudium. Eccles. 30.  health, so there is not any spiritual wealth in the world, that comes near the alacrity which God distilleth into a heart truly and solidly devout, freely unloosened from earth, to be resigned to Heaven.  
The oil of consolations (said Hugo) drieth up in worldly vessels, but as for the consolation and joy which is drawn from Devotion, it is so exuberant, that there is no vessel here below able well to contain it. It is necessary the heart break into sighs, and 
Renuit consolari anims mea, me●●● fui Dei, & delectatus sum, & exercitatus sum, & defecit spiritus me●s. Psal. 76.  dissolve into desires for the presence of God. I call your consciences (O devout souls) to witness, that I were eloquent if I could make to pass through my pen, what you feel in your hearts. I affirm, that if there be any life in the world, which is able to nourish and foment the joy whereof I speak, it is the Christian life, holily and purely led according to the rules of the Word of God, and I borrow the proofs of what I say, from the great wit Tertullian, who 
Tertul. de spectaculis. Haec spectacul● sancta, perpetua, gratuita. Quid j●●undius quàm Dei patris, & Domini recomiliatio, quàm veritatis revelstio, quàm e●●ris cognitio, quàm tantorum retro crimin●●● venia? etc.  in the Book he composed of games and sportive entertainments, showeth by lively and urgent reasons, there is no game nor recreation in all the world, can be compared to the soul of a Christian, whose conscience is a portative Theatre, where incessantly are presented many admirable shows. All which is powerful and energetical to glad a well-composed soul, and to entertain it in eternal delights, is eminently found in the exercises of piety. If the chief source of peace and alacrity, be to be throughly reconciled to God, is it not in this Angelical Devotion, is it not in piety, that an entire reconciliation is made with our Master, that the stool, the ring, and shoes of hyacinth, are put on to walk in the paths of his commandments? If there be nothing so majestical, so delicious, so pleasing, as the contemplation of truth, whereon our soul liveth, as the eye on colours, the Bee on dew, and the Phoenix (as it is said) on the thinnest vapours of the air; is it not here, where after so many errors, so many fantasies, so many illusions, which turmoiled our mind in the disturbances of the world, we enjoy in purity and plenitude the consideration of the most noble Maxims of spiritual life? If it be a sweet and sensible repose, having obtained remission of sins of the life past, to return into the peaceful harbour of a good conscience; is not here the rock where so many waves are broken, where so many little curs, which cease not to bark in the bottom of a troubled conscience, are appeased, and where the soul becomes a calm sea, beautified and curled with the rays of an enamoured and smiling Sun? Finally, if there be no greater pleasure in the world, than to despise temporal pleasures, and to temple under foot the vanities which Monarches themselves have set over their heads; where are they despised, but in this school of virtue, where mortification of passions is learned, and the exercise of goodly and heroic actions, which give the soul an antipast of Heaven in this mortal life, and an enfranchisement from fear of death? How can a devout soul which lives amongst so many helps, so many remedies, so many comforts give the least advantage to one black and cloudy thought of the world? What can we find out able to contristrate us amongst such succours and lights? O a thousand times happy soul, which having chased away all these illusions of vanity, beholdest with a clear serene eye the ever to be adored rays of this verity!   

The ninth EXAMPLE upon the ninth MAXIM. Of Solid Devotion.  
SOlid Devotions resemble those rivers which run under the earth; they steal from the eyes of the world, to seek for the eyes of God, they study solitudes and retirements, they are wholly shut up within themselves, and it often happens, that those of whom we speak least on earth, are the best known in Heaven.  
I verily think, among all the great examples which may be produced of piety in Courts, there will not any one be found more sincere, or more strong, than that of S. Lewis, as it appeareth by all the acts of his 
S. Lewis the true Table of the most solid Devotion.  life, namely, that which was written by his Confessor. It is an easy matter to judge his was a most holy life, because the most disinteressed, he having no other aim, but to dissolve his person, his Kingdom, his wife and children, into the will of God, to make the world no longer to be aught else, but a Temple of the Divinity.  
The Divine providence drew him out of his Kingdom with an Abraham's faith; gave him among so many lands and seas, the conduct of a Moses, and to set a seal on him of all his greatness, caused him to end his life with the patience of Job. We find many Princes who embraced piety, one after one fashion, another after another, and who have covered great vices with great virtues; but it is a very hard matter to find one either more universal in all actions of virtue, or more free from blame in the point of innocence, than our S. Lewis. David owes all he is more to penance, than to innocency. Constantine the Great, before he was a Christian, saw himself most unhappily stained with the blood of his allies. Theodosius the elder, was inflamed with choler, which cost many people of Thessalonica their lives. Arcadius' persecuted S. Chrysostom, at the solicitation of the Empress his wife. Honorius his brother, who was very pious and innocent, had nothing warlike in him, and ever better knew what the white cock named Rama did, in whom he took pleasure, than the capital City of the world, whereof he was Emperor. Theodosius the younger, entertained love or hatred according as his Eunuches and women dictated.  
Belisarius, one of the bravest Captains which the earth ever bare, had a very commendable soldierlike piety; but did all at the will of Theodora the Empress, observing her passions, even to the taking the Pope, and putting him into prison by her command. Narses who succeeded him, did wonders, and subdued Totila, the most valorous King which ever reigned among the Goths, he was very devout to the Blessed Virgin, to whom he attributed all his victories, but withal so insolent, that to be revenged for a word of disdain, which his Mistress the Empress of Constantinople spoke, he gave Italy over as a prey to the Lombard's.  
Finally, to conclude this Relation, and to speak of that which more nearly concerneth us, Charlemaigne was the greatest Emperor of the world in matter of religion, valour, policy, liberality, sweetness and affability; but the love of women, though expiated by sharp penance, set blemishes on this Sun, which the memory of ensuing Ages, hath much ado to wash off. It is a strange thing, that God chastised the sins of the father in his own daughters, who had very little care of their honour, through too free an education and indulgence of the Emperor, who spared the punishment of his own sins in another.  
There hath not been almost in all the Monarchies, but one S. Lewis, who was so like to virtue, that if it upon one side appeared incarnate to mortal eyes, and on the other shown this great King, there would have been much ado to know which were the copy, and which the principal. He had three things very recommendable in him, religious wisdom in the brightest lustre of the world, humility planted even upon the rubies and diamonds of the Royal Crown, courage and valour invincible, in a devotion incomparable.  
Who would see a manifest token of his wisdom, let him behold how his spirit in the greatest concussions of worldly accidents stood ever in the same posture, without any whit foregoing the ordinary exercise of his piety. One sole action of his life, which was his taking in Egypt, made what I say well to appear. This good King having lost a great battle, which ruined all his affairs, saw the wide fields covered with the bodies of his servants and Nilus' overflowing with the blood of his French, himself surprised and taken by his enemies, and led into the Sultan's Tent among clamours, out-cries, infernal countenances of Saracens, and all the images of death, able to overwhelm a soul of the strongest temper: notwithstanding, though his heart were steeped as a sponge in a sea of dolours and compassion, ever making use of reason, he entered into the Barbarians pavilion, not at all changing colour, and as if he had returned from his walk in the garden of his palace, he asked his pages for his book of prayers, and taking it, disposed himself to pay the usual tribute of his orisons in a profound tranquillity of mind; which I conceive to be very rare, since there needeth oftentimes but the loss of a trifle, to stay devotion, which is not yet arrived to the point of solidity.  
But if you therein seek for a perfect humility consider what passed in the Council of Lions, and see how he laboured to depose the Emperor Frederick the second, who was ruined in reputation in the opinion of almost all the world. Other Princes who have not always their hands so innocent, but that they readily invade the goods of others, when some religious pretext is offered them, would have been very ambitious to be installed in his place whom they meant to despoil; but the universal consent of great men, judged this throne could not be worthily supplied, but by this great King: yet he notwithstanding declined it, as a wise Pilot would a rock, and thought better to choose the extremity of all evils of the world among Saracens, than to mount to the Empire by such ways.  
But that which is most considerable in the matter we handle, may be observed in his valour, never weakened by his great devotion: for he was one of the most courageous Princes in a cold temperature & with reason, that was then under Heaven. It was courage, which taking him from the sweet tranquillity of a life wholly religious, caused him to leave a Kingdom replenished with peace contentment, and delights, to go to a land of Saracens, & live in all incommodities imaginable to nature. It was courage, which caused him so many times to expose his royal and valiant person, not only to the toils of a desperate voyage, but to the strokes also of most hazardous battles: witness, when at his arrival in Egypt, the coast being all beset with Saracens, very resolute to hinder the passage of his ship, he threw himself first of all from the ship into the water, where he was plunged up to the shoulders, with his target about his neck, and sword in hand, as a true spectacle of magnanimity to all his Army, which encouraged by the example, came to the land, as the King had commanded. The greatness of the sun is measured by a small shadow on the earth, and there many times needeth but very few words to illustrate a great virtue. So many excellent pens have written upon his brave acts, and made them so well known to all the world, that it were to bring light into day, to go about to mention them.  
If some say, He is to be a pattern for Kings and 
Divers Ladies excellent in piety.  Lords; Ladies, who should manure devotion as an inheritance for their sex, shall never want great lights, and worthy instructions, if they will consider those, who being more near to our Age, should make the more impression upon their manners.  
If we speak of the endeavour of prayer, look upon 
See the reverend Father Hilarion of Costa.  Barbe Zopoly Queen of Polonia, who continuing days and nights in prayer, all covered over with fackcloth, affixed good success to the standards of the King her husband, and for him gained battles.  
If account be made of the chastity of maidens, and sequestration from worldly conversation, reflect on Beatrix du Bois, who being one of the most beautiful creatures of her time, and seeing the innocent flames of her eyes too easily enkindled love in the hearts of those who had access to her, put herself upon so rough a penance for others sin, that she was forty years without being seen, or to have seen any man in the face.  
If you speak of modesty, let wanton Courtiers behold Antonietta de Bourbon, wife of Claudius, first Duke of Guise, who after the death of her husband, was clothed in serge, and went continually amongst the poor with her waiting-women, to teach them the practice of alms.  
If charity be magnified toward persons necessitous, cast your eye upon Anne of Austria, Queen of Poland, who accustoming to serve twelve poor people every monday, the very same day she yielded her soul up to God, when she had scarcely so much left as a little breath on her lips, asked she might once more wait on the poor at dinner, and that death might close her eyes, when she opened her hands to charity.  
If the instruction of children be much esteemed, fix your thoughts upon Anne of Hungary, mother of eleven daughters, and admire her in the midst of her little company, as the old Hen-Nightingale, giving tunes and proportions of the harmony of all virtues, and so breeding these young creatures, that they all prospered well with excellent and worthy parts.  
If you delight in the government of a family, which is one of the chiefest praises of married women, take direction from Margaret Duchess of Alencon, who governed the whole family with so much wisdom, that order, which is the beauty of the world, found there all its measures, and that if the domestic servants of other Lords and Ladies are known by their liveries, she caused hers to be known by their modesty.  
If you desire austerities, look with reverence on the haircloth and nails of Charlotte de Bourbon, the King's great Grandmother; and behold with admiration Frances de Batarnay, who during a widowhood of threescore years, was twenty of them without ever coming into bed.  
If you praise chaste widows, who can pass without an Elegy, Elizabeth widow of Charles the ninth, who in a flourishing youth, being much courted by all the great Monarches of the world, answered, That having been the widow of a Charles of France, she had concluded all worldly magnificencies, and that nothing more remained for her, but to have Jesus Christ for a spouse. And verily she spent the rest of her days in a conversation wholly Angelical, amongst religious women, whom she had founded.  
If constancy in the death of kindred have place, let the lesson be harkened unto, which Magdalen, wife of Gaston de Foix gave, who having seen the death of a husband, whom she loved above all the world, and afterward of an only son remaining the total support of her house, made her courage to be as much admired among the dead, as her love was esteemed among the living.  
And what stile would not be tired in so great a multitude of holy and solid devotions, and who can but think the choice becometh hard by abundance? unless we will say, such as have been the most persecuted, were the most eminent. Where it seems it is an act of the Divine Providence, to have many times given to vicious and faithless husbands, the best wives 
Good wives of bad husbands.  in the world, as Mariam to Herod, Serena to Diocletian, Constantia to Licinius, Helena to Julian the Apostate, Irene to Constantinus Copronymus, Theodora to the Emperor Theophilus, Theodelinda to Uthar, Thira to Gormondus King of Denmark, Charlotte de Albret, to Caesar Borgia, Catherine to Henry of England. 
Katherine of England. Flor. Remond.  This Lady was infinitely pious, yea, beyond limit. It is good to be devout in marriage, and not to forget she is a married wife, much way must be given to the humours of a husband, much to the care of children and family, and sometimes to lose God at the Altar, to find him in household cares.  
But this Queen only attended the affairs of Heaven, and had already so little in her of earth, that she shown in all her deportments to bemade for another manner of Crown, than that of Great Britain. She for the most part shut herself up in the Monasteries of Virgins, and risen at midnight to be present at Matins. She was clothed from five of the clock, not decked like a Queen, but contented with a simple habit, saying, The best time should be allowed to the soul, since it is the better part of ourselves. When she had the poor habit of Saint Francis under her garments, which she commonly ware, she reputed herself brave enough. The Fridays and Saturdays were ever dedicated by her to abstinence: but the Eves of our Lady's feasts, she fasted with bread and water, she failed not to confess on wednesdays and fridays, and in a time when Communions were very seldom, she had recourse thereunto every sunday. In the forenoon she continued six hours in prayer; after dinner she read two whole hours the lives of Saints, and speedily returned to Church, from whence she departed not till night drove her thence. This was to eat honey and Manna in abundance, in a condition which had too strong ties for the earth, to be so timely an inhabitant of Heaven.  
Whilst she led this Angelical life, her husband, young and boiling, overflowed in all sorts of riot, and in the end came to this extremity, as to trample all laws, both divine and humane under foot, to repudiate his lawful wife, who brought him children, to serve as pledges of marriage and wed Anne of Bollen.  
Since this love, which made as it were but one tomb of two parts of the world, never have we seen any more dreadful. The poor Princess, who was looked on by all Christendom as a perfect model of all virtue, was driven out of her Palace and bed, amidst the tears and lamentations of all honest men, and went to Kimbolton, a place in commodious and unhealthy, whilst another took possession, both of the heart and sceptre of the King. So that here we may behold virtue afflicted, and a devotion so constant, that the ruins of fortune, which made all the world tremble, were unable to shake it. She remained in her solitude with three waiting-women, and four or five servants, a thousand times more content, than had she lived in the highest glory of worldly honour, and having no tears to bewail herself, she lamented the miseries she left behind her. There is yet a letter left, which she wrote to her husband a little before her death, plainly showing the mild temper of her heart, and the force of devotion, which makes the most inflamed injuries to be forgotten, to procure conformity to the King of the afflicted, who is the mirror of patience, as he is the reward of all sufferers.  
My King, and dearest spouse, Insomuch as already the hour of my death approacheth, the love and affection I bear you, causeth me to conjure you to have a care of the eternal salvation of your soul, which you ought to prefer before mortal things, or all worldly blessings. It is for this immortal spirit you must neglect the care of your body, for the love of which you have thrown me headlong into many calamities, and your own self into infinite disturbances. But I forgive you with all my heart, humbly beseeching Almighty God, he will in Heaven confirm the pardon, I on earth give you. I recommend unto you our most dear Mary, your daughter and mine, praying you to be a better Father to her, than you have been a husband to me. Remember also the three poor maids, companions of my retirement, as likewise all the rest of my servants, giving them a whole years' wages, besides what is due, that so they may be a little recompensed for the good service they have done me, protesting unto you in the conclusion of this my letter and life, that my eyes love you, and desire to see you, more than any thing mortal.  
Henry the eight, notwithstanding his violence, read this letter with tears in his eyes, and having dispatched a Gentleman to visit her, he found death had already delivered her from captivity.    

X. MAXIM. Of PROPER INTEREST.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. Every understanding man should do all for himself, as if he were his own God, and esteem no Gospel more sacred, than his Proper Interest. That proper Interest is a tyranny framed against the Divinity, and that a man who is the God of himself, is a devil to the rest of the world.  
THis Maxim of the Profane Court, is the source of all evils, the very plague of humane life, and one may say it is the Trojan horse, which beareth fire and sword, saccage and rapine in its entrails. From thence proceed ambition, rebellion, sacrilege, rapine, 
Disloyalties that spring from this marim.  concussion, ingratitude, treachery, and in a word, all that which is horrid in nature.  
Self-love, which should be contained within the limits of an honest preservation of ones self, flieth out as a river from his channel, and with a furious inundation covereth all the land, it overthrows all duty, and deep drencheth all respect of honesty. Men, who have renounced piety, if they peradventure see themselves to be strong and supported with worldly enablements, acknowledge no other Gods but themselves. They imagine the Jupiter of Poets was made as they: they create little Sultan's, and there is not any thing from whence they derive not tribute, to make their imaginary greatness increase. When this blindness happeneth in persons very eminent it is most pernicious; for than is the time, when not being awed by the fear of a God Omnipotent, they turn the world upside down, to satisfy miserable ambition. And such Princes there have been, who have rather profusely lost the lives of thirty thousand subjects, than suffered so much land to be usurped upon them, as were needful for their tomb.  
Others, whom birth hath not made Caesars, extend 
Practise of worldly men. Ingratitude.  their petty power what they may. They observemen, sound their means, their abilities, their capacities, their wits and dispositions. They accommodate all to their own pretensions, they pull a feather from one, a wing from another; they flatter, promise, charm, and descend even to slavery, to mount up to the honours they aim at, no more afterward regarding their fortune who holp them, than a nightly dream.  
The world is replenished with ungrateful, and barbarous souls, who cannot so much as endure the sight of those, who formerly spent themselves in their service, thinking their presence a reproach of their crime; and there are such to be found, who will make no scruple to sacrifice the blood of their best servants at the Altar of their Fortune. Others, 
Kingdom of particular interest.  who cannot reach to the height of worldly ambition, bend themselves with all their strength to money, whereof they make a Deity, and run with full speed to the gain full hopes of houses. For this, friends dissolve the most stable amities; for this, allies tear one another, families divide, Cities and houses burn: and when I more nearly consider it, I find it is a blessing from God, that women do not often bring forth twins, for they would perpetually contend in this world, yea, in their mother's bellies, who should have the most land, even before they enjoyed air to breath in.  
Of so many noble sciences manured by our Ancestors, there almost remains nothing for us, but wretched images. There is an industry esteemed in the world above all other, called the sleight of hand, which shows how to draw all to ones self, to be enriched with the spoils of others, and to devour many little serpents to become a huge dragon, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  as saith the Greek sentence. Now observe here three principal points, which conclude the perverseness of this Maxim, the first whereof is tyranny, the second sacrilege, and the third disaster.  
First, it is a manifest thing, that tyranny, which 
Reasons against this Maxim, and first its tyranny.  invadeth the state and jurisdiction of the living God, is most impious and audacious: yet the sect which makes profession now-adays to serve God with exterior ceremonies, and proper interests in the interior of the heart, tyrannically usurpeth a right upon the eternal power of the Sovereign Master, which is to reflect upon ones self in all things, as his end and sovereign good. From whence you may very well conclude, his undertake cannot be but tyrannical. Yet more to enlighten our thoughts and strengthen reason, know there is an axiom of Divinity, that God, as he can know nothing beyond himself, love nothing but in himself; so he doth nothing but for himself. For in doing for himself, he doth all for us, since we have not any thing which tendeth not to him as to the scope thereof, which subsisteth not in him as on its basis, which reposeth not in him as in its centre. So doth S. Thomas understand that notable word of Trismegistus, Unity hath produced unity, that is to say, God only, Sovereign, and absolute, created one world, not many, and thence reflected his fervour upon himself, making all for his love and glory. Wherein he ceaseth not to oblige us, since we have neither love, grace, glory, greatness, or contentment, which cometh not from him. I find the interpretation of this passage much more reasonable than theirs, who made Mercury more skilful in the Trinity, than all the Prophets: which is confirmed by the Author of the Egyptian Divinity, who in the fifth Book, fifth Chapter hath an excellent Maxim: The first Agent acteth not for any end, 
Agens primus propter finem non agit, quòd ●o nobilius non sit propter quod possit agere.  having nothing more able than himself, for which he can act.  
It is not so with man. For if he will well rectify his actions, he must act for an end, and for the Sovereign End, which, as saith the worthy Boetius in 
Quod non est ex hoc, sed tantum est hoc, illud vere est id, quod est. Boet. l. 1. de Trinit.  the first Book of the Trinity, is not composed of This, or That; but is simply what it is, without any dependence: and pursuing this end, it is necessary he proportion the means to the butt he aimeth at; for from thence resulteth that which they call good election, which is a science the most rare and necessary of the whole world. Now this wretched Maxim overthrows order so divinely established, and mortifieth what it may in the mind of man, the consideration of the dependence he hath on God. It will enjoy that it ought to use, never to enjoy the Divinity. It diverteth all creatures from the mark to which Divine Providence directeth them, and draws them from the use agreed upon in Heaven; to appropriate them on earth, to the prejudice of the Creator.  
All which is most excellent in creatures, is not for creatures who possess it. Light is in the Sun, but not for the Sun; waters are in the Ocean, but not for the Ocean. God, who gives brightness to the one, and rivers to the other, would that both tend to the commodity of men, thereby to pass on to the glory of the Sovereign Being. The Creator (said an Ancient) made all the most noble creatures for to give themselves, so much hath he banished worldly avarice. Kingdoms are not so much for Kings, as Kings for Kingdoms; for they are made to do them good, and to preserve them, as the goods of God himself. So soon as one is born with fair and worthy parts, he is born for the public, and he who would retain to himself what Providence gave in common, commits a sacrilege in the great Temple of the God of nature: if he perpetually reflect on himself in all things, and draw all to himself, as if all were made for him, he opposeth his Judge, and makes himself a corrival to Sovereign Majesty.  
Besides, ponder here the greatness of this first Being which is invaded, the better to understand the violence of this tyranny. To whom would you compare 
Qui appendit tribus digitis molem terrae, & libravit in pondere montes, & colles in staterâ, etc. Isaiah 40.  God? (saith the Prophet Isaiah.) God, who graspeth the vast extent of seas in his fist. God, who weigheth Heaven with all its globes in the hollow palm of his hand: God, who supporteth the heavy mass of earth with three fingers of his power: God, who poizeth mountains in his balance: God, before whom the world, with all the huge diversity of its Nations, is no more than a drop of dew, or the cock of a balance in the hand of a goldsmith: God, before whom all Monarchies are but dust, and men but silly grasshoppers. Were all mountains like to Lybanus on fire, and turned into victims for his sacrifices, it would be nothing in respect of his Majesty.  
Since then, you little worldling, you politic spirit, will side against God, divide his Empire, raise an Altar against his, preferring your ends to his prejudice, what do you call it, if not tyranny, since it is to enterprise upon the goods of your Sovereign, who hath not any thing indispensable from his laws, no not so much as nothing itself?  
Nay, if you afforded God some honourable association Reason. 2 (though that were tyrannical) it would be 
It is a great sacrilege to make a Divinity of proper interest.  more tolerable; but you allow him a wicked petty interest of honour, of gain, for companion, which you plant in your heart, as on an Altar, and daily present it the best part of the sacrifice. It is to injury a superior, to compare an inferior with him. It is said, the very feathers of the Eagle are so imperious, 
Feathers of the Eagle imperious. Plin. l. 1. c. 3.  they will not mix with the plumage of other birds, if they do, they consume them with a dull file. And think you to mingle God who is an incomparable Wisdom, a riches inexhaustible, a purity infinite, with feeble pretensions, which have frenzy for beginning, misery for inheritance, and impurity for ornament?  
The most barbarous Tyrants, as the Mezentiusses, found out no greater cruelty than to tie a dead with a living body; and you fasten thoughts of the world, dead, and languishing, with God, who is nothing but life. This is not a simple tyranny, but a sacrilege. The Civil Law saith, you must not appropriate to 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Authent. Justinia. Jus canonicum. August. ad Licentium.  yourself sacred gold or silver, nor transfer to profane uses, what hath been dedicated to God; the like whereof is expressed in Laws Ecclesiastical. According to which axioms, S. Augustine said to Licentius, if you had found a golden chalice, you would give it to the Church. God hath granted you a spirit of gold, and I may likewise say, a heart of gold, when he washed and regenerated you by the waters of Baptism: and now so far are you from rendering to your Sovereign Master what is due to him, that you make use of that heart as of a vessel of abomination, to sacrifice yourself to devils. One 
Osea 5. Victimas declinâstis in profundum.  sacrificeth to love, another to revenge, a third to worldly vanity. As for you, behold you are altogether upon particular ends, which take all the victims from God, to throw them into the gulf of avarice.  
A man who hath conceived this Maxim in his 
Lignu● offensionis est aurum sacrificantium. Eccl. 31. 17.  brain, that his affairs must be dispatched at what rate soever, hath nothing of God but for cremony; he hath created a Temple to a little devil of silver, who sits in the middle of his heart. It is the object of all his thoughts, the bait of all his hopes, and scope of his contentments: there is his Tabernacle, his Oracle, his Propitiatory, and all the marks of his Religion. I wonder why in Ecclesiastes, where the common Translation saith, All obeyeth money, another very 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Pecuniae obediunt omnia. Pecuniae respondent omnia. Eccles. 10. 19  ancient letter, and derived from the Hebrew phrase, hath, Money rendereth all oracles, for that is it which properly the word respondere signifieth. But I cease to admire, when I consider the course of the world; for in truth I see money is like a familiar spirit, such as heretofore Pagans and Sorcerers kept in secret places, shut up in a casket, or in some broken head, or the body of a serpent: when they became any thing irresolute, they consulted with their Idol, and the devil counterfeiting voices through wood and metal, gave them answers.  
Now adays the Devil money is in the coffer of the covetous, as in a Chapel dedicated to his name: and the Infidel, if he have any business to perform in his family, thinks not at all to take counsel of God upon it, nor to appeal to conscience; but refers all these erterprises to the devil of silver, who gives him forth crooked Oracles. Shall I buy a Benefice for one of my sons, who hath no propension to the Church, but it must be provided, in what sort soever? The little devil answers, Buy, seeing you have money. Shall I corrupt a faithless Judge, whose soul I know to be saleable, to gain an evil spirit? Do so, since you have money. Shall I be revenged upon such a man, whom I hate as death, by suborning false witnesses, and engaging them by strength of corruption in a bad cause? Yea, since money gives thee this power? Shall I buy this Office, whereof I am most incapable; for never was I fit for any thing, but to practise malice? Yea, since it is money, which doth all. Shall I take Naboth's vineyard by force and violence, to build and enlarge myself further and further, upon the lands of my neighbours, without any limits of my purchases, but the rules of my concupiscence? Yea, since thou mayest do it by force of money: Shall I carry a port in my house-keeping, which is only fit for Lords, sparing nothing from expense of the palate, nor from bravery, in such sort, that my lackeys may daily jet up and down, as well adorned as Altars on sundays? Yea, since thou hast the golden branch in thy hand. Finally, 
Parva loquor, quidvi● nummis praesentibut opta, ●veniet, clausum possidet arca Jovem. Satyricon. Pet.  this is to say very little, but if thou hast ready money, desire all thou wilt, it shall come to pass. For thou hast Jupiter shut up in thy coffer, (said the Satirist.) See you not much infidelity, a great contempt of God, plain Atheism? Moreover, that which likewise makes this manner of proceeding more detestable is, Reason. 3 that besides its Empire incompatible with God, it insinuateth 
False pretext of interests.  with such subtleties and pretexts of religion, as if it were most devout. Black souls of sorcerers, given over to all manner of execration, make open war against God: they say they are altogether for Beelzebub, and keep the sabbath to yield him homage, and have renounced all the functions of Christian piety: in recompense whereof they raise mists in bright mornings, by the power which the evil spirits gives them, that herbs and trees may die, or such like, for their witchcraft extends but to bodies: But this furious passion of interests which now adays so powerfully swayeth, besides that it sucketh the blood and marrow of the people, and bewitcheth souls which come near it with manifest contagion, appears with semblances of religion and true Christianity: although it be impossible to serve two Masters, according to the words of the Saviour of the world, and to accord the devil of proper interests with the Maxims of Jesus.  
Enemies the most dangerous are ever the most covert, it were better almost to fall absolutely into disorder, than to be flesh and fish, hot and cold, to halt sometimes on Baal's side, another while on the Temple of Solomon's part, and never to serve God, but with a shoulder; yea, with all manner of hypocrisy. I wish thou wert hot or cold, but insomuch as thou art 
utinam frigidus esses aut calidus, sed quia teyidus es, & nec frigidus, nec calidus incipiam te ●vomere ex ●re meo. Apoc. 3.  lukewarm, being neither ●ot nor cold, I will vomit thee out of my mouth.  
To all objections of Scripture and Saints, framed against this Maxim, we have but one only answer: It is the world, we cannot live otherwise, the goat must browse where he is tied. He who would live as an honest man, and not be according to the fashion, shall ever be poor. Reason. 4 To which I answer. It is so far otherwise, that 
Benedictio Domini divites facit, nec sociabitur eis afflictio. Proverb. 10.  one cannot be rich, persisting in integrity, that who will well examine families and houses, shall find riches the most stable, most honourable, and delightful were ever on virtues side, as we may see in the examples of Abraham, Jacob, and David, if we will not learn it by our own experience. The blessing of God make the rich, and drives affliction from them.  
But quite contrary, the fortunes which proceed by crooked and sinister ways▪ bring most dangerous effects along with them▪ for before their coming, they cause toils and unspeakable anxieties; but being arrived, they expose a man to public scorn, in stead of making him worthy of regard; since they insensibly are consummate, and in the end, always reserve to him who possesseth them, treasures of anger and vengeance. Would you see the proof of all I have said? Look on the travel bestowed in purchase of ill gotten goods, and you shall find it was for that, the Saviour of the world called riches, thorns, because thorns bear a fragrant flower; but the fruit is very bad, and which is more, they serve for a retreat to vipers. A silly gain, which in the beginning smiles to the eye, is the flower of the thorn: but when it is swallowed with great convussion of mind and body, it proves an ill fruit, as likewise being involved in an impure conscience, it is as the viper among thorns. Will you therein observe public scoth and indignation? When you behold a man of base condition, 
Simon Majolus.  who by unlawful ways is come to great for ●●mes, he is looked on as the flea, which an artificer fettered with a chain of gold, to make matter for gazers O the flea (said one) it is well for her, she wears a golden chain: the basest of vermin, bears the best of metals! Is she not very miserable, to have her liberty so enthralled? Why was she not content to be a flea, and not to become a Lady? Yet was this silly creature innocent: but whosoever excessively raiseth his estate by injustice, deserves he not well to be the object of all the aims of slander, and the anger of God? Our Lord (saith the Scripture) shall whither 
Radices superbarum gentium arefaciet Dominu●. Eccles. 10. Residuum locustae comedit bruchus, & residium bruchi comedit erugo. Joel. 1. Plin. lib. 2. cap. 103.  up the roots of proud Nations.  
Will you see the progression and conclusion thereof: The Grasshopper, according to the saying of the Prophet Joel, hath a share herein▪ to wit, in bravery and riot of apparel; the other part falls to the gluttonous fly, which is the superfluity of diet; and the last is eaten by rust, as are unprofitable treasures of the covetous, who almost all resemble the fountain of Jupiter Hammon, so cold in the day time, one cannot drink of it, and so hot by night they dare not touch it. In the day of prosperity, they have bowels of ice for the miseries of the poor, and in adversity their goods are all on fire pillaged, burnt and carried away, by those who least deserve to enjoy them.  
Finally, the day of Judgement must be undergone▪ to expiate many times by long torments the goods we can no longer enjoy. Do we not understand how the God of vengeance speaks to the rich of the earth, who are rich in iniquity? To thee I come, thee great 
Ezech. 29. Ecce ego ad te Draco magne qui cubas in medio▪ fluminum & dicis meus est sluvius, ponam fr●●um in maxillis tuis, & agglutinabo pisces fluminum tuorum squammis tuis, & extraham te & projiciam te in desertum.  Dragon, who lodgest in the midst of rivers of gold and silver, and sayest, These rivers are mine: I will put a bridle into thy mouth, and will fasten to thy scales so many little fishes, as thou on every side hast entrapped by so many injustices, so many concussions, so many falsehoods, and I will take thee out of thy element, out of thy honours and riches, which thou hast abused, and I will thrust thee into the desert on the sand, reproachful as thou art, faint, and despoiled, nor shall any man compassionate thy misery. Oh, how poor are they always, who are rich with iniquity.  

(a) Against too much horror of poverty, which nourisheth the fervour of interests.  But what if serving God faithfully in his vocation Reason. 5 he must be poor? O poverty, which didst receive the Son of God born, as between thine arms, in a wretched stable, and who sawest him conclude his innocent life in so great nakedness, that it had no other veil to cover it but the blood which gushed from his wounds; must it needs be that having been so much honoured by the King of Monarches and all Saints, who waited on him, thou here below shouldst be reputed as the dregs of nature, the scum of the world, the fury of humane life; must Christians come to that pass, rather to desire to be esteemed crafty, robbers, and excommunicates, than poor? No man 
Nem● tam pauper potest esse quàm natus est, omnia si non concupiscimus, possidemus. Minut. Faelix.  (saith Minutius Faelix) how poor soever, comes to the poverty wherein he is born; we should possess all, had we learned to desire nothing: but the rage now a days frequent, to appear in the world what one is not, the madness which maketh frogs desire to swell like bulls, is the cause many stile a reasonable fortune with the title of poverty, whilst a thousand and a thousand who live in the world, in the midst of extreme miseries, had they hit upon thy fortune, would think them elves equal in point of felicity to Caesar's.  
One esteems himself poor, if he have not thirty, forty, fifty thousand crowns to buy an Office; which is a fearful exorbitance of our Age. One accounts himself poor, if he have not five and twenty thousand crowns to give with a daughter in marriage, when the daughters of France had not heretofore above six thousand. One imagineth he is poor, if vails of an Office make not thirty or forty thousand livres of rent, when the Chancellors of France had not in former time seven thousand. O insatiable avarice, the Cerberus, and gulf of mankind! whither hast thou transported our manners and understanding? No, no, there is not any man truly poor, who is furnished for necessities, without which, life is into lerable to nature: and that which affrighteth (say you) is the gnawing care of house-keeping, which shorteneth your days, and drencheth your life in gall and tears.  
Weak and faithless that you are towards the Divine 
Against the pusillanimous.  Providence, do you not yet behold your distrust, your humane respects, your impatience is the source of all the evils which engulf you? Little birds that fly in the air and clouds; silly butterflies which flutter through the meadows, painted with the ennamel of flowers, and flowers themselves which are but hay, repose with all sweet satisfaction, under the royal mantle of the great Providence that covers all. Birds by his help, find grain fit for them. Butterflies suck out the dew and juice of flowers; and flowers which live but one day, unfold themselves with beauties, that nothing yield to Solomon's magnificencies. There is not any creature so little in the world, which lifteth not up its eyes to the paternal hand of God, distilling dew and Manna, and is never frustrated of its hopes. There is none but you (O wretched creature) who having a reasonable soul, stamped with the image of God, suffer your discretion to contribute to the excess of your miseries; do you not well deserve to be poor, since God is not rich enough for you?  
Whose are the children which give you occasion of so much care? Is it you (O mothers) who have stretched their sinews, spun out their veins, numbered and knit their bones in your entrails? God hath made them, God will direct them, God will bear them on the wings of his providence, God will dispose them where you imagine not. But you would not have them suffer any thing; why then did you produce them into the number of men, if you be unwilling they should participate in the burdens of men?  
If you and they fal●ing from a flourishing estate, 
Resolution of great courages in poverty.  should be reduced to beggary, could you imagine you might be forsaken by the providence of God, yea, although you underwent the strokes of warfare, which his beloved Son did here on earth? What shame would it be for you, if even those who have been in the world as great as Monarches, are come to this estate? Belisarius, who thunderstruck three parts of the world by the lightning of his arms, who had possessed all which a great virtue might deserve, all which a great fortune might give, having seen himself engraven on gold & silver, almost equal to the Emperor Justinian his Master, came to that pass through extreme disfavour, as to stretch out his hand for alms, yea, did it courageously, braving his unhappiness by an abundance of virtues: And you, who are much short of his quality, deject your spirit in a slight humiliation befallen you. Rusticiana wife of Boetius, one of the most glittering beauties of Rome, in public miseries saw herself reduced to such poverty, that she was clothed as a country woman, no whit therewith dismayed; yea, appeared before the face of Kings in defence of her husband massacred: & you cannot endure to be seen at the Church in a modest habit, or a plain neck-kercheff. Alas your opinion, and your curiosity, is the greatest part of your evils!  
Were it not better to undergo all the miseries of the world, in the fidelity we offer to God, than through disordinate love of proper interests, to become a devil? For what fit title deserves he, who doing all for himself, looks on himself as a Divinity, accounts other men who are under him, as fly's and caterpillars, tyrannizeth over inferiors, tormenteth equals, striketh at superiors, breaketh laws both divine and humane, to hasten unto gain or honour, and to anticipate his punishments, makes to himself an hell in his own conscience. If these truths persuade you not sufficiently the way of duty, consider a man of interest in the following example, and see by his success, that there is no greater unhappiness in the world, than to be fortunate contrary to the rules of a good conscience.  

The tenth EXAMPLE upon the tenth MAXIM. Of liberality, and unhappiness of those who seek their own ends by unlawful ways.  
ANTIOCHUS' the GOD.  
I Resolved to present unto you in this History Antiochus 
Drawn from the Prophet Daniel. 11. S. Hierom upon Daniel. Polyenus. Appian.  the God, who made a God of himself, a man as much perplexed as unhappy in his aims; to oppose him against Ptolomeus Philadelphus, who was free and generous, to the end these Princes, as contrary in qualities, as different in their successes, may make you the more sensibly see the truth of this excellent Maxim. When a great fortune and a prompt will meet together, they produce excellent effects of liberality. This Ptolomey of whom we speak, had one by nature, the other from love. For he was naturally disposed to magnificence, and the greatness of his condition seconded his purposes. The revenue he received 
Magnificence of Ptolemey.  from Egypt, might then amount to fourteen thousand eight hundred talents, which were the matter of his bounty, but the form rested in his heart. He thought nothing to be his, but what he could give, and was willing gold should be drawn from his treasures, to relieve men's necessities, as water out of the streams of his Nilus. To know how to give well, is a great science. It belongs not to all (said Socrates) to manage 
Socrat. apud Stobaeum. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  the Graces well. There are some who give so ill, and to such as merit so little, that the Graces being Virgins by condition, are made prostitutes through the sottishness of their usage. But this Prince was as wise in choice of persons, as liberal to distribute favours. He willingly did good to those who made profession 
It is very dangerous to disoblige pious and learned men.  of true piety, and loved learning, well knowing it was to sow seeds in a land not ungrateful. It is observed in all times that Princes and men of quality, who have disobliged the Religious and learned, have had ill success in their affairs, and given their reputation as a prey to posterity. That is it which lost the miserable Antiochus, surnamed the Illustrious: for though his father had showed him an example to oblige the Hebrews, who then stood most eminent in religion and divine knowledges, he unhappily engaged himself to torment them, and by this means heaped after his life a thousand disturbances, and darkened his name in an eternal History.  
Much otherwise Ptolomey favoured the people of God, with all sorts of courtesy. For not satisfied to have granted liberty to more than a hundred thousand jews, who were in his Territories, even to the redeeming slaves at his own charge from Masters who possessed them, he bestowed most costly gifts on the Temple of Jerusalem. From thence distending his benefits to men 
joseph. l. 12. c. 1. Liberary of Ptolomey.  of learning, he furnished that incomparable Liberary, wherein in the end were numbered seven hundred thousand books, and having given the charge of it to Demetrius Phalereus, he caused to be brought thither, as we find in so many histories, the books of the law, with the seventy two Interpreters, who translated them into Greek, to be a singular ornament of his Liberarie. All this passed over with ceremonies, magnificencies, and the wonders which so many Authors recount, the King wept for joy, such affection he bore to things divine, in comparison of which he no more esteemed gold, than dirt. By which means he gained the affection of all men, causing himself to be beloved and adored by the whole world.  
But Antiochus the God, being as the Antipodes, opposite 
Manners of Antiochus.  in manners to him, esteeming himself as a Divinity, thought upon nothing but to satisfy his ambition, augment his revenues, and seek his own ends, to the prejudice of equity, and all the most holy amities. Which was the cause, that undertaking a wicked design of invading the Kingdom of Egypt, he set a huge Army on foot against Ptolomeus Philadelphus, of 
War against Ptol●mey.  whom we speak, without any pretext, but the satisfaction of an enraged ambition which possessed him. Ptolomey, who for the love of books abandoned not the solicitude of war, had put his Kingdom into such order, that he was able to bring into the field two hundred thousand foot, and twenty thousand horse, besides he had two thousand carriages for the war, four hundred Elephants, an hundred and fifty tall ships. So that Antiochus coming with all the strength of Asia to surprise him, found one ready to talk with him: for the Egyptian without any incommodity to himself, tired and supplanted all his endeavours, which were grounded more upon passion, than good discretion. This man loath to return with so much shame, being unable to get a Kingdom, sought to win a wife. He passionately courted Berenice, daughter of Ptolomey, whether he were in love with her, or whether he would make use of this marriage, to give some colour to peace, which could not be concluded without leaving on his face the marks of his temerity. Ptolemy, a Prince very peaceful, readily inclined to the resolution of matching his daughter with him, that he might quit his Territories of him; but it was understood he had been already married to Laodice, by whom he had children, which seemed to make this matter merely impossible. Notwithstanding this unhappy Prince, who betrayed God and men without reflecting on any thing in his designs but proper interest, swore deeply to give assurance, that he kept not Laodice in the quality of a wife and Queen, but of a concubine, whom he would dismiss so soon as the love of a lawful wife should possess his heart. They who desire are ordinarily credulous. It was wished peace might be purchased for the wearisomeness of war, and this Princess must be sacrificed as a victim, without consideration, that as faith and treachery upon one side were incompatible in the person of Antiochus, so on the other Laodice, a Princess much like her husband, would not suffer another to lodge in her bed.  
Notwithstanding, the marriage is concluded, Berenice 
It was ended by a marriage  is conducted to Damietta by her own father, who gave huge treasures with her in marriage, she is put into the hands of this false husband, who carried her to Babylon, the capital City of his Kingdom. 
Berenice daughter of Ptolomey entereth into Babylon.  This beautiful Queen, who had all attractive graces on her cheek, and the caduceum of Mercury in her hands, by reason of the peace she made between two puissant Nations, was received with much applause. Besides there went along with her a great number of mules laden with gold, silver, and all the most splendid riches of Egypt. For the father, who was so liberal towards strangers, had made spare of nothing to his daughter. The solemnity of marriage was performed with extraordinary pomp, there was nothing but games, theatres, public joys; Heaven smiled, and the earth assisted in these Hymeneal rites. There was none but Laodice, who being repudiated, looked on 
Laodice repudiated.  these triumphs with an owl-like eye, and a countenance surcharged with the vapours of her envy, which hastened to raise a tempest.  
She failed not to fly out in the beginning, and to speak whatsoever a desperate jealousy could suggest to her, to embroil affairs, and stir up the Kingdom: but finding herself not throughly seconded, she covered her discontent under silence, and the fury of her revenge, under an appearance of sweetness, supposing craft might afford that which force had bereft her of.  
Beholding herself far distant from Court, and put into a condition wherein she could not disturb any thing, she with a malicious prudence dissembled all that which lay on her heart, feigning to have no other pretence upon the King's marriage, but that she only desired to gain from him some solace, to sweeten the change of her fortune.  
Forth with she wrote a letter to King Antiochus, very cunningly excusing herself of all had passed, and showing:  
That if she at the beginning spoke a little too boldly 
Her cunning.  touching the alteration he had made in his Kingdom, it was a folly pardonable, since it only proceeded from the love she bore him. That the disfavour she suffered by being deprived of a God, seemed at first so harsh unto her, that she could find no means to digest it: But that time had showed her some part of her duty, and her evil fortune daily taught her the humility, she could never learn in Empire. That she acknowledged it was not for her to control his affections, but observe them, and rather to entertain admiration for her who hath the honour to enjoy his love, than envy it. That she now hath no care to think on thrones and sceptres, but that the sovereign happiness, wherein she desires to breath out the remainder of her miserable life, is to approach near his person, more dear than all the world, and to behold with an eye more innocent than she had done, the prosperity of his affairs.  
Antiochus was very well satisfied with Queen Berenice, and already had by her a fair son, who was as the seal of marriage: yet touched at the beginning with some compassion to see Laodice so humbled, he gave her leave to come nearer him, which Berenice all made of goodness, and over-credulous, never sought to hinder.  
She returned with shows of humility, pretext of amity, and admirable conformity. Antiochus saw her, and readily entertained her with discourse and witty merriments, thinking her unable to re-enkindle his affection: but she still had a commanding beauty accompanied with a wily wit, and a voluble tongue of power to win love, which the other very easily laid hold of, though he ever managed it to his own ends.  
The Chronicle of Alexandria hath a remarkable passage, telling, that Perseus looking on the head of Medusa, which he had cut off took in poison from it, whereof he became blind. We must not too much trust these beauties and loves, which after a long course of sway seem dead, when they but disappear. Flames sometimes break out of wrinkles and ashes, to inflame hearts they had heretofore possessed.  
Antiochus quickly felt the sting of this Gorgon, whose insolence he thought he had vanquished. For having formerly surprised him by slight dalliances, she renewed her battery, and by force of her continual conversation, began to possess him as much as heretofore. Berenice retained nothing in all this great pomp of her fortune, but countenances and shows; whilst the other became Mistress of his heart, and had so bewitched the soul of this God, as to make him become a beast. The wicked woman stayed not there, but infinitely desirous to place her son Seleucus in the throne of the Antiochuses, and fearing the mutable condition of this unfortunate lover, prevented his inconstancy, and gave him (as saith S. Hierom) not the Nectar of Gods, but the poison appointed for offenders, to send him speedily unto the other world. Presently after she caused her son to be proclaimed King by the subtle practice of two powerful Favourites, who assisted her in this affair, and at the same time laid hold of the little son of Berenice, and gave him unto two murderers, to butcher him.  
Behold whither the mischief of a woman, abandoned by God, reason, and all humanity goeth, when incensed love, and blind ambition have let lose the reins to disorder. The poor Queen extremely overtaken by this disloyalty, came forth in public with her great sorrow, conjuring all the world with tears and sighs, able to rend rocks asunder.  
To take pity of a poor stranger, their lawful Queen, and who had never sought any thing, but their good: whilst some not content to poison the King her husband, had murdered the little innocent, who was lawful heir to the Crown, and would for full accomplishment of cruelty, serve the mother so: Then showing her bosom, added, She was ready to receive therein the bloody sword, which had cut off the life of her most precious child, in an age so tender and lamentable, if the people thought it might be for the Kingdoms good; but what could it benefit them to see a deplorable Queen torn in pieces before their eyes, who had no other crime, but her integrity towards them?  
The people were so moved with this discourse, that they caused Berenice to save herself in the best fortress of the City, and instantly demanded their young Prince might be brought forth. The murderers (as Polyenus affirmeth) already misdoubting the people's fury, had prepared a suppositious child, who marvellously well resembled the young Prince, and presently producing him clothed in his garments, they for some time appeased the sedition. The wicked Laodice, seeing her business succeeded not to her mind, feigned much to desire a reconciliation with Berenice, and by practice of the ministers of her fury, found means to get some companies to steal into the Citadel, whither she was retired, who cut the sentinels in pieces, and killing all the Queen's officers, came to her chamber to murder her. It was a pitiful spectacle to behold the poor maids, who were about her person; for standing in defence above the strength of their fex, they pulled the weapons out of the soldier's hands, running up and down amidst swords and partisans, like Lionesses, until many all bloody fell at the feet of their good Mistress, leaving an eternal monument of their valour and fidelity. The poor Berenice was amongst the dead, unworthily massacred on the bodies of her servants Three maids survived this assassinate, who bathing the Queen's body with their tears, and humbly kissing all her wounds, clothed her again with Royal garments, and laid her on the bed, invoking Heaven and its powers to their aid. The people flocking with the bruit of this great murder, environed the Castle, and put the murderers to flights, who durst not then boast to have committed this execrable assassinate.  
The Queen's maids on the other side carried themselves very discreetly among such extreme dolours: for as yet forbearing to publish Berenice's death, for fear of giving advantage to Laodice's plots, they shown themselves at a window, and told the people their Mistress had been wounded by the cunning practices of Laodice, but that (thanks be to God) the wound was not mortal, she only stood in need of some little rest, and good attendance, to take breath and be cured, to the end she might acknowledge their good services. Polyenus saith, that the business being drawn at length, and the people desirous to see the Queen, the maids put a counterfeit into the bed, dressed up for the purpose, and framed some words, feigning a low and mournful accent of their Mistress. This cunning held the subjects in obedience, and the enemies in fear, whilst a Courtier dispatched to Ptolomey the son of Philadelphus, advertised him of all had passed. He failed not to hasten speedily to Babylon with a potent army, where he surprised the Conspirators, affrighted with the image of their crime. Callinicus fled, and was afterward slain by a fall from his horse. The wicked Laodice was taken and led to punishment, where the people understanding the death of Berenice, and the dreadful exorbitancies of this wretched woman, meant to have torn her in pieces, loading her memory and ashes with maledictions. The Kingdom was for a time reduced under the obedience of the King of Egypt, who carrying away infinite riches, and establishing Governors in Provinces, returned to his own country. One may see by this history, that men of interest desirous to swallow all by ways unlawful, lose their fortunes, honours, and lives, leaving their souls to the pains of hell, and their memory to the execration of posterity.    

XI. MAXIM. Of CRAFT.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That the life of curious wits is not governed but by fiction, and that the deceiver still finds such as will be deceived. That Sincerity is the Queen of virtues, and that the deceiver is taken in the snare the prepareth.  
CRAFT, one of the prime Maxims of an ill 
Dissimulation  Court, is now adays become the lesson of all Ages, each sex, and condition; and it seems to many, that to prosper well in subtleties, is the flower of wisdom, and utmost period of felicity. All are not fit for arms, learning picks out wits with too much advise, arts are painful, and require in those who profess them some ability, which is not produced but by time and much industry.  
But in the mystery of counterfeiting, dissembling, and guile, every one persuadeth himself he therein can quickly acquire some skill, and be able to triumph over simple silence; and if he must labour in it, to strike the best strokes by the help of the tongue.  
From thence it cometh to pass, that children are framed to this exercise almost from their cradle. Women, yea, they who make account to refine in devotion, keep now adays shops of counterfeiting: the 
Dissimulation reigneth every where.  great-ones think it is their trade; the mean, who are as their shadows, take the same course. The world becomes a Theatre of fictions, where truth hath much ado to be known, so many false visages are put upon it. To speak truly, one would say the earth had changed its nature, and were now become a Sea, where the simple, like poor creeping worms, are abandoned to the malice of the most subtle. It was a worthy speech of the Prophet, who said to God, Alas, Lord! have you then made so many mortals, like silly 
Habac. 1. 14. Fancies homines quasi pisces maris, & quasi reptiles.  fishes, and wretched worms, which have no government? Deceit hath sowed its subtleties every where, it hath every where spread nets and snares, and never ceaseth to drive, take, and entrap: and it seems would catch the whole world with its book. It rejoiceth at its own crime, as if it were a virtue, and maketh sacrifices with the instruments of mischief. It judgeth of happiness by the multitude of preys, and acknowledgeth no other God, but it's own good fortune.  
2. Now as for you, who are persuaded in this Maxim, that to prosper in conversation with men and affairs of the world, necessarily the foxe's skin must be put on, simplicity being too sottish and disarmed to bear any sway in humane life. I pray at leisure 
1. Reason against counterfeiting, the blemish of truth.  consider some reasons which I intent to present, and rather weigh them in the balance of judgement than of Passion. First know, that in the instant you resolve to be crafty, to be a liar, a deceiver, you proclaim war against a great Divinity, which will follow you step by step all your life time, which will discover you when you shall not know it, even to the bottom of your thoughts, which will overthrow all your pernicious intentions, and hold the sword of God's vengeance over your head, even to the gates of hell.  
This puissant adversary against whom you undertake 
The power of truth.  resistance, if you as yet know it not, is truth, the most ancient and admirable of all virtues, which hath ever been, and which shall never end; nay, could you make your thoughts penetrate into an abyss of time, and could you fly through ten millions of Ages, there should you find truth. But if you say, it was not before Heaven and earth, and that in pronouncing this word, you had some reason (which cannot be) at the least denying verity, and speaking truth, yet must you find truth; so necessary is its being. It runs through time (saith S. Augustine) not 
August. l. 2. de liber. arb. Non peragitur tempore, non migrat locis, nec nocte intereipitut, nec u●bra includitur, nec sensibus corporis subjacet: omnibus proxima, omnibus sempiterns, etc.  being under the laws of time; it passeth through all, and shifteth not place; it is hidden in night, not obscured by night, it is in the shadow, not shut up in shadows; it is not subject to sense, since it swayeth over understandings. It is always near us, nay, let us rather say, It is within us, or we live in it; and although it do not occupy place, it possesseth all place in its Empire. It exteriorly giveth notice, it appeareth inwardly, it turneth all into the better, and is not changed by any into worse. Of it, unless belied, one cannot think ill, and without it, unless by flattery of self presumption, we cannot enough discern. What then shall we say more, since God himself is Truth, verity of Essence, verity of Reason, verity of Speech, as Theologie teacheth us. All virtues are truly for him; but he is not called by their names, as he is by the title of truth 
(a) Ego sum via, veritas, & vita. Joan. 14. 10. . It is the apple of his eye, his heart, his solace, his delight, his power, his wisdom, his throne, and dignity. All what God is, is nothing but verity. It penetrateh all virtues, as fire and light do all the parts of the world. There is not any thing so victorious or triumphant in all greatness; for it never ceased since the beginning of the world to crush heads which rebel against light. It hath untwisted so many webs, scattered so many wiles, overthrown so many lies, brought to nothing so many sects, destroyed so many humane powers, trampled under foot so many dragons. And you who pretend to be the cunning and refined spirits of the time, renounce it; you take up arms against it, and are not afraid of it; you think to avoid it, but it will avoid you, and the first of your afflictions shall be to lose sight of it. O my God, what a bold enterprise is it to draw a strong adversary upon us, and to provoke thy justice, when we may enjoy thy Clemency!  
Remember you the son of Cyrus, who closely attempted 
A notable Act or a King of Aethiopa. Herod. l. 3.  on Aethiopia with his arms, and prepared to make war against it? But the King thereof to stay him, was pleased to send him his bow and caused to be said unto him, Adbunc venus, that is, you come against the Master of this bow. He was so amazed at the sight of this armoury, that he surceased from the temerity of his counsels, to provide for the safety of his person. Now had you seen the arms of truth, which from so many Ages have quailed so many monsters, and gained so many victories, you would fear to contest with such a Princess. She will never forsake you, if you renounce untruth, and if you do it not on earth, you will be enforced to do it in hell. Hippocrates gave the eyes of a star to truth, but should 
Hippoc. ep. 10.  he have seen her face more uncovered, he had said it was a Sun, which illuminateth by its light, animateth the best spirits by its vivacity, as it dissipateth the mists of lies by virtue.  
3. Besides, not content with this, when you in this Reason. 2 manner undertake discourses of silk, and promises of 
Dissimulation ruineth humane faith.  wind, to reveal a secret, to lay snares for the simplicity of a man, to satisfy your passion, or serve your ends, you commit another crime most pernicious to humane society; for you seek by these sleights to ruin all belief and fidelity. The Ancients made so much account of humane saith, which is constancy and steadfastness of words consonant to the heart, and performance of promises, that the Romans placed it in their Capitol, close by the side of their prime Divinity, and one of their Poets durst say, Faith was 
Excellency of fidelity. Cato Censorius. Silius. Ante Jovem generatum est tantum in pectore Numen.  before Jupiter himself, and that without it the world would not be, and that it was a Divinity which had a Temple in the hearts of men, the most purified and best worthy of God. If with one single glance of an eye, you might see the world as a huge Theatre, you therein should behold Empires, arms, laws, Cities. Provinces, sciences, arts, riches, infinite magnificencies, you would be enforced to say, the basis which supporteth all this great majesty of Commonwealths, is fidelity, without which, Cities would rather resemble Cyclopean caverns, than Temples of peace and justice. But if you destroy it, not by improvidence or frailty, but by the form of a settled life and by example cause others to imitate you, is it not to overthrow all that which is best established, and to profane whatsoever is most holy?  
4. You perhaps will say, public virtues little concern Reason. 3 you, so you may advance your particular interests. 
Craft shameful to the author of it.  I will not tell you, this answer better becomes the mouth of a Tartar, than a Christian; but I dare well assure you, these ways of craft and deceit, which so much please you are most prejudicial to your honour, and most fatal for your ruin. For first of all, say you be a man of quality, you are not so unnatural, but you have some sense of honour. Now rest assured nothing 
Debasement.  so much villifieth you as to be reputed a crafty man, who carrieth labyrinths in his heart, and snares in his tongue. Dyon Chrysostomus judiciously observed, that nature gave subtlety as an inheritance to creatures, the most feeble and abject, as to Apes, Foxes, Cats, and Spiders: but the most generous, as Eagles and Lions, know not what slights and wiles mean. We must likewise affirm, all the most eminent and divine spirits are very naturally inclined to sincerity: and that it only belongs to inferior souls, and such as distrust their own ability to amuse themselves in search of inventions and tricks, to involve those, who treat with them by the way of sincere freedom.  
See you not, mirrors render forms when they are leaded? & think you natively to represent the draughts of verity, unless your soul be solid and stable, supported by its proper weight, on constancy and magnanimity? Seneca noted, that women the most destitute 
Subtle women.  of strength, are most inclined to fraud and doubleness 
Seneca in Octaviâ. Pectus instruxit delis, sed vim negavit.  of heart, (what I speak, nothing concerneth the prudent and generous, who know how to correct infirmities of sex by virtue) but our daily experience teacheth us, that there are of them very crafty, and such as under a pure and delicate skin, with a tongue distilling honey, often hid the heart of a panther, all spotted over with subtlety, as the skin of this beast with diversity of mirrors. Their throat is 
Novissima illius amara quasi absinthium, & acuta quasi gladius biceps. Prov. 5. 4.  more slippery than oil, (said the Wiseman) but in the end you find effects more bitter than wormwood, and more penetrating than a two-edged sword. What sense is there that a Noble man, who would in all things seem more than a man, should take upon him the vices of women, and inclinations only fit for silly creatures?  
It is a strange thing to see what the light of nature 
Sincerity preserved in the light of nature.  dictated to the souls of infidels, so alienating them from all manner of deceit, that they made scruple to treat with their enemies by way of dissimulation. We learn in Titus Livius, that one called Philippus, 
Tit. Liv. l. 2. Decad. 5.  giving an account to the Senate, what he had negotiated in the Court of the Macedonian King, declaring particularly the course he took to entertain Perseus, under pretext of peace, and to feed him with fair words; the old Senators stood up, and aloud protested much to disavow such proceed, as matters opposite to Roman generosity. Violence (said 
Thucid.  that great Captain Brasidas) though it seem unjust, is always more  in a man of authority than craft, which secretly contriveth some black business under colour of amity. What could there be more odious in nature, than a man, who to deceive the world, might have the art to change faces every hour, and seem sometimes white, sometimes black, 
Hatred and horror of doubleness.  sometimes grey, another while grizly, sometimes hairy, another while beardless; in such sort, as to be merely unknown to those who should treat with him? Now what deceivers cannot do on their faces, they act in their souls, through a strange profanation of God's Image, they take upon them a thousand countenances, and a thousand impostures, to train a poor victim into the snare. They flatter, they promise, they swear, they protest, they call Heaven and earth to witness; you would take all their words for eternal truths: but if you speak to them an hour after, and that it be time to pull off the mask, they with a brazen brow will deny all they said, they will mock at all they promised, and disavow all they have done, with the same lips which before contrived it. What Behemoth, what Leviathan was ever beheld so 
Phot. Bibliot. p. 67.  prodigious in nature?  
I know Ctesias among the great rarities of the Indies, makes mention of a Martichore, a beast which hath the face of a man, and the body of a Lion, who counterfeiteth the sound of flutes to charm passengers, and then entrappeth and kills them with the tail of a scorpion, all bristled with pricks, and which is more, makes the same serve for bow, arrows, and quiver. Needs must this be terribl but to see it before our face, is to have one beast for an enemy, which may by prudence be avoided, which may by force be vanquished, and with weapons mastered: but in a faithless man, you discover under a smiling brow, a thousand plagues, a thousand Centaurs, a thousand Geryons, infinite many Charybdis, and Sirens, who lay snares for you, who undo you, who ruin you, who strangle when they seem to embrace you. Can you then admire, if among the six abominations of the 
Linguam mendacem, cor machina●s cogitationes pessimas. Prov. 6.  heart of man, deceit be one of the first? Laws have not severity enough, arms terror, nor scaffolds punishments to chastise, affright, torment a man with a double tongue and heart, who persecuteth truth, killeth faith, poisoneth friendship, and many times plotteth effects of death even in a banquet, the solace of life.  
5. All this is to no purpose, will some Polyphemus Reason. 4 say, so that one prosper in the world, either by treason 
Craft pernicious.  or craft; little heed must be given to the judgements of certain men, who are only able to bark at our fortune, not to hinder our felicity. Here now is the knot of the business, wherein we must consider, that besides that the ways of treachery are laborious and shameful, they always carry along with them the confusion, misery, and ruin of those who embrace them. Who diggeth a pit (saith the Wiseman) 
Qui sodit foveam incidet in eam, & qui voloit lapidem, revolvetur ●d eum. Prov. 26. 27.  shall fall into it, and the stone shall return back on his head who threw it. The reputation of honesty is so necessary in the manage of affairs, that such as lost integrity of manners, sought to retain the bark, to cherish a renown amongst men, swollen up with smoke and imposture. A deceiver fears nothing so much as to be discovered, and to lay open the face of designs which he closely worketh for the ruin of others. Judge now how hard a matter it is, to practise at this present in the world with such proceed, in an Age most vigilant, and where little children are almost grown wise. What a trouble is it to hid 
Troubles & miseries of dissimulation.  your juggling in a Court, where are so many Argus eyes, who perpetually watch upon all actions. If one be surprised before the act, he must expect to be flouted even by footboys, and used like one who cannot hit upon it to be wicked, although this trade be very easy, and who having sold his conscience to devils, knows not how to evict payment, unless he plead it in hell. But if a man some one time come to the point of what he projected, which he can hardly keep from breaking through the ears of others, they who are deceived, seldom wanting eloquence either in themselves or their own ashes, were they dead, to decry treachery; yet must he hereafter for one trick of craft, lose reputation and credit, two pillars of discretion. All the world will avoid you as a rock or a monster; what ever you do, you have but one heart, and one tongue, to invent and tell lies: but you shall raise a thousand against you by it: For all those who know you practise this trade, and that you make it your endeavour to deceive, will bend all their sinews and strength, to entrap you in the same snares you laid for other; in such sort, that you shall become a prey aimed at (if it were possible) by all the world.  
Where have we ever seen a deceiver to prosper in 
Dreadful events of deceivers.  all his erterprises to the very end? You may as well number the waves of the sea, and leaves of trees, as recount the lamentable and tragical events of all these common cheaters, who never had the power to avoid God's vengeance. The pernicious Machiavelli, who taught the art to deceive, produceth the example of an infamous Prince, whose impostures succeeded so ill, that by mistaking, he drank the poison prepared by himself for another in a banquet, and ended his detestable life. Is not this man abandoned by religion, wit and reason, to seek to persuade treachery with so weak examples? If he will work this way, let us oppose both against him, and the like experience of passed Ages, to set (as it is said) the Sun in full splendour before their eyes.  

The eleventh EXAMPLE upon the eleventh MAXIM. Of Craft.  
VIce many times hath a shop near unto Virtue (as said Origen) and deceives Merchants under colour of selling good commodities. Craft readily counterfeiteth wisdom, and some there are also, who make the wise to pass for subtle. But there is so much difference between them, as between glass and diamond. Craft is a false prudence, which maketh use of subtleties against right and justice; but true wisdom, though it be subtle, is never crafty: For it pretends nothing at all against equity and good conscience.  
If you desire to know wary wisdom, and to distinguish 
The witty conceit of Theodora. Zonara's in Theophilo.  it from craft, look upon what the Empress Theodora did, one of the worthiest women of her Age. She was married to the Emperor Theophilus, an Heretic, and a capital enemy to the honour of Images, which he forbade to be kept or esteemed, upon pain of death▪ Notwithstanding this pious Princess, who maintained Religion in the Empire what she might, and sweetened with much wisdom the wild humours of her husband, spared not to have in private pictures and holy Images, affording them singular veneration. It happened one day, that Dender the Emperor's fool, who played this part at Court, rather through natural blockishness, than dissimulation, came (as he was roaming up and down) into the Emperesse's chamber, and found her reverencing those Images. He failed not in dinner-while to give the Emperor notice of it, at which time he used to entertain him with a thousand merriments, saying aloud, He found Manna (so he called the Empress) with her babies, and that she was suddenly surprised with it. Theophilus presently doubted it was Images his wife honoured, and at the rising from the Table, he sought her out all foaming with anger, and asked, where those puppets were she adored in the presence of Dender? Truly we must confess, devout women have sometimes a marvellous dexterity to excuse a business; for she suddenly hit upon a handsome evasion, which freed her from the importunity of her husband. For in stead of seeming troubled and overtaken, she smiled very sweetly, having therein an excellent grace: Behold Sir (saith she) verily one of the prettiest knacks happened in your Court of a long time. This fool Dender, who still doth somewhat worthy his name, came into my chamber, as I stood before my looking-glass with my women, and confusedly saw our faces represented in the glass, he thought they were images so subtle wittied he is. Is not this an excellent jest? Then causing the fool to be taken by the arm, they set him before the looking-glass, saying: How now Dender, are not these thy habits? The Emperor was so surprised with the witty conceit of a discreet Princess, that he believed she had reason, and all the matter was instantly turned into laughter.  
I term not this example a piece of craft, but a prudence, 
Stratagem of Chares. Polyenus. l. 2.  as the stratagem of a Captain called Chares, who enjoining his soldiers some labour upon his fortifications, and seeing they undertook it coldly, because they feared to mar their garments, which were handsome enough, he presently commanded every one should unclothe, and take the apparel of his fellow. That done, and all the soldiers being persuaded their cassocks would not be spared by those who put them on, they wrought in good earnest, and very quickly performed the task imposed upon them.  
This aught to be styled with the name of wisdom, rather than any other title. But if we observe what passeth in the world, we shall find there are two sorts of crafts. Some are politic addresses and subtleties, which proceed not fully to injustice; but which notwithstanding aim at interest, at reputation and glory, by ways not sincere.  
So there are men who resemble those houses, which 
Baro. de astutiâ. Craft of the world.  have goodly gates, and most magnificent staircases, but never a fair chamber: they have some sweetness of spirit, some readiness and prattle, which is never wanting, but no depth nor capacity, yet will seem able among company: which is the cause, that not daring to examine or solidly debate a point of doctrine, or a business, they presently fly to the conclusion, and find handsome evasions. Others have admirable tricks to seem wise, by making use of another man's labour, and like drones eating the honey which the Bees gathered. Other, in handling affairs, and seeking to get dispatches, amuse and dazzle with variety of discourse, such as they negotiate with, to the end to entrap them. Other, to cross a business, cause it to be proposed in the beginning by a man, who understands nothing thereof, of purpose to give some ill impression of it. Other, break off a discourse they began upon some matter, to draw on the more appetite. Others, make a show to have nothing less in their thoughts, than what they most desire, and let their main texts creep in the manner of a gloss. Other, have tales and histories in store, wherein they can enfold in covert terms, what they will not openly affirm. Other, in things important cause the ford to be sounded by men of less note, and many (as it is said) pull the chest-nuts out of the fire with the cat's foot.  
These are sleight merchandizes taken from the shop of worldly policy, which proceed not so far as to great injustice. But there are black and hideous subtleties, which tend to the subversion of humane society, and deserve to be abhorred by all living men.  
Such were those of Tryphon, (of whom it is spoken in the Book of Macchabees) which were most 
1 Macch. 12.  fatal to the people of God. This wicked man, being the Tutor of young Antiochus, shown himself in the beginning very zealous in all which concerned the good of his service, and having a design to subdue Syria, he would first have surprised the Macchabees, who were then very eminent in arms. But when he saw Jonathas come towards him with an Army of forty thousand men, the fox played his ordinary pranks, he received him with a pleasing countenance, and overwhelmed him with heaps of courtesies. He told him he desired to live with him as a faithful brother, and that he accounted it too heavy a charge, to keep so great an Army on foot in full peace, which could not but be prejudicial to the repose of the people. That he might walk confidently every where how he pleased, without any other armour, than the amity of King Antiochus, which was an assured buckler for all those who would make trial of his protection. This crafty companion not content with mere compliments, carried Jonathas into all the places of his charge, with such honour and respect, that he caused him to be attended as himself, making show, that wheresoever he set foot, there roses and lilies sprang. Never doth any man take with a snare, until he have some bait suitable to the appetite of him who catcheth at it. Jonathas a little loved honour, and his senses were dazzled with the lustre of pomps, and charmed with the sweetnesses of conversation in this subtle fellow. He believed, he trusted, his whole Army was cashiered by the persuasion of a man who wished him not well. He only kept a thousand men with him to be as a Guard, and entered with Tryphon into the City of Ptolemais, where he presently saw himself arrested, and his soldiers cut in pieces. The Impostor, desirous to extend his plot further, wrote to Simon brother of Jonathas, that he should not be troubled at what was past, and that his brother was only detained for some money due to the King, which being satisfied, he should have liberty, only let him send him a hundred talents of silver, with the two sons of Jonathas in hostage, to bring the business to the period he desired. The poor Simon who doubted the plot, had more wisdom to know him, than force to avoid him. For, fearing lest the people might murmur if he accepted not the ways of accommodation proposed, he sent the money and children, whereof the one was despoiled, the other massacred with their father, by the command of the treacherous Tryphon. This factious and cruel man pursued his plot to the usurpation of the Diadem, and dispatch of his pupil. But in the end, after a reign of two years, Heaven, elements, and men conspiring against him, he was knocked down like a ravenous beast, and buried in ruins and public desolations.  
I would willingly know, to whom hath treachery ever been fortunate? Was it to Saul, who after he had so many times promised David the safety of his person, yet not ceasing to persecute him, was reduced to such necessity of affairs, that he slew himself with his own hands, leaving finally his spoils to him whom he meant to beguile? Was it to the unhappy 
2 Reg. 12.  Ammon, who using treachery to draw his sister Thamar into his chamber and dishonour her, was afterward murdered at the table by his brother Absolom? Was it to Joab, who moistened with his blood the Altar whereunto he fled, after he had slain Amasa in saluting him? Was it to Amasis' King of Egypt, 
Herod. l. 2.  who lost both Kingdom and life, for having foisted in another daughter than his own, whom he feigned to give in marriage to Cambyses King of Persia?  
So many Impostors there have been, who in all 
Impostors surprised.  times sought to usurp Sceptres and Crowns by admirable inventions: were they not all shamefully ruined in the rashness of their erterprises? Smerdes the Magician who had possessed the Kingdom of Persia by tricks and incomparable sleights, was he not torn in pieces as a victim by Darius, and other Princes? The false Alexander, who rebelled under Demetrius Soter, after some success, was he not vanquished under Nicanor, and slain in Arabia? Archelaus, who called himself the son of great Mithridates, overcome by Gabinius? Anduscus a man of no worth, who falsely boasting himself to be descended from Perseus' King of Macedonia, and durft confront the Romans arms, was he not subdued by Metellus? Ariarathres, who affected the Kingdom of Cappadocia 
Vol. l. 9 c. 16.  by the same ways, sent to punishment by Caesar? The false Alexius, who durst aspire to the Empire of 
Nicet. l. 3.  Constantinople, slain by a Priest with his own sword, under the reign of Isaacus Angelus?  
Josephus relateth, that pursuing the same ways, 
False Alexander discovered.  there was a young Jew who had been bred at Sydon, with the freedman of a Roman Citizen, who having some resemblance of Alexander the son of Herod, whom the father had cruelly put to death, feigned he was the same Alexander, saying, Those to whom Herod had recommended this so barbarous an execution, conceived such horror at it, that they resolved to save him, yet to secure their own lives upon the command imposed, they promised to conceal him till after the death of his father; which was done, he remaining unknown in the City of Sydon: But that he was now returned as from the gates of death, to demand his right, as being the indubitate and lawful heir of the Kingdom. This Impostor had gained a subtle fellow a servant of Herod's household, who taught him all the particulars of the Court, the better to colour his counterfeiting. He led the Bear through all the City with good success, and great applause of the people, who embraced this false Alexander, as a man returned back from the other world. For besides that the Jews were credulous enough in any thing which flattered them, they were ever much inclined to the race of poor Mariam, whose son this man counterfeited to be: under this pretext he was very welcome into all the Cities where there were any Jews, and the poor Nation freely impoverished themselves, to afford some reasonable support to this imaginary King.  
When he saw himself strong in credit and coin, he was so confident as to go to Rome, to question the Crown against Heroa's other sons; there wanted not those, whereof some countenancing him by credulity, others through the desire they had of alteration, bore him to the throne. He failed not to present himself before Augustus Caesar, the God of fortune and distributour of Crowns, showing he had been condemned to death by his own father through false rumours, but was delivered by the goodness of the God he adored, and the merciful hands of the ministers of execution, who durst not attempt on his person; beseeching him to pity a fortune so wretched, and a poor King, who threw himself at his feet, as before the sanctuary of justice and mercy. Every one seemed already to favour him: But Augustus, a Monarch very penetrating, perceived this man tasted not of a Prince, for taking him by the hand, he found his skin rough, as having heretofore exercised servile labours. Hereupon the Emperor drew him aside, saying: Content thyself to have hitherto abused all the world; but know thou art now before Augustus, to whom thou must no more tell a lie, than unto God. I will pardon thee, on condition thou discover the truth of this matter; but if thou liest in any one point, thou art utterly lost. This man was so amazed with the lustre of such majesty, that prostrating himself at his feet, he began to confess all the imposture. Augustus' perceived by the narration, he was none of the most daring in impostures, and said: Friend, I give thee thy life, on condition thou ransom it in my Galleys; thou hast a strong body, and canst well labour, the Sceptre would have been too full of trouble; I will have thee take an Oar in hand, and live hereafter an honest man, without deceiving any.  
As for the Doctor, who had been Tutor to this counterfeit Alexander, the Emperor observing him to be of a spirit more crafty, and accustomed to evil practices, caused him speedily to be put to death. One might make a huge Volume of such Impostors, as have been entrapped in their tricks; but satisfy yourself with experience of Ages, and if you dare believe me, take in all your affairs a manner of proceeding noble, free, sincere, and true, throughly persuading yourself, what the Wiseman said, That he who goes forward with simplicity, walketh most confidently.    

XII. MAXIM. Of REVENGE.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That it is good to reign over men like a Lion, and take revenge, not permitting fresh favours to abolish the memory of old grievances. That mildness and pardon is the best revenge.  
THis maxim of the profane Court more properly proceeds from the throat of Tigers and Lions, than the lips of men: but being harsh in execution, it is ever direful in its effects. The experience 
How this maxim opposeth common sense.  of Tiberiuses, Caligulaes', Nero's, Domitian's, Herodes, and so many other, who have pursued this with events so tragical, and lives so monstrous, are fit lessons to convince a heart, which yet retaineth some humanity.  
All power employed only to hurt is ever pernicious, 
Notable verities.  and having made havoc, it resembleth the ruins of buildings, which overwhelm not any, but such as they oppress by falling on them. Man is a creature more tender than any other, and must be handled with much respect: Nor is there any blood so base, which ought not to be spared, as much as justice and reason may permit.  
The most part of men in these miseries and weaknesses of nature, seldom hit upon innocence, but by passing through many errors. He who cannot tolerate some one, banisheth all virtue. He must necessarily excuse many things within himself, who pardons nothing in another. If he think himself a God, his nature ought to be mercy, and if a man, the experience of his own faults should render him more favourable to the like in another.  
It is a strange folly to think greatly to prosper by rigour. For all done through fear being forced, cannot be of long lasting, unless the course of humanity fail. The savage beast is then much to be dreaded, when he sees the knife on one side, and rails on the other. There is no strength so feeble, which becomes not fierce upon the defensive, within the limits of necessity. A man who menaceth every one with blows of a cudgel, sword, or fire, should remember he is not a Briareus with an hundred hands, and hath but one life. Now becoming cruel and inexorable, he makes himself an enemy of all mankind, which hath so many hands and so many lives. Such an one thinks he is well accompanied in revenge, who shall find himself all alone in peril.  
Then let us here say, there is nothing so Sovereign 
The scope of the discourse.  for the government of men, as the love of a neighbour, clemency, and pardon, and that the character of an excellent nature is to forgive all other, so much as reason may permit, and to pardon nothing in himself. Love is the first law of nature, and last accomplishment 
Excellency of love.  of our felicity. Love from all eternity burneth in the bosom of the living God: and if he breathe with his Word, as he doth with a respiration substantial, he breathes nought but love. He respiteth this love by necessity within himself, he inspireth it by grace out of himself, and lastly draws all to himself by love. The worthy S. Dyonisius in the book of Divine attributes, 
Division of love. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. S. Dyoni.  distinguisheth three sorts of love, one is called circular, the other love in a right line, and the third oblike. Circular love properly is that which carrieth the soul with full flight into the bosom of God, and there holds it, as in a sweet circle of ravishing contemplations, which transport it from perfection to perfection, never finding end or beginning in the Divinity. Love in a right line is that which tends directly to creatures, by ways not only lawful and laudable, loving them for God, of God and in God but ways likewise easy, and yielding to natural inclinations. Oblike love is that, which holdeth of both the other, and which imitating the Angels of jacob's ladder, climbs to God by creatures, and descends to creatures by the love of God. But behold a love of enemies commanded by God, which seemeth not comprised in this division, so much it seeketh out ways alienated and inaccessible to nature; yet I intent to show, it may be found in the third part of this list, and that it is a love, which by the love of God descendeth unto the love of man to love him according to God: A love which I maintain to be possible, 
Three proofs of this discourse.  glorious, and necessary in three proofs that shall make three heads of this discourse.  
2. To deny the possibility of the love of enemies, is 
First reason, possibility of the love of enemies. Diligite inimicos vestros.  to belly the Gospel and reason; the Gospel which commandeth it, reason which fortifieth the justice of the commandment. The words spoken by our Saviour, Love your enemies, is not a counsel but a commandment: so explicateth the Council of Carthage the fourth, chap. 93. the Council of aged Can. 22. and all holy Fathers, who lent the light of their stile to the first light in the Gospel. Now to say God commandeth a thing impossible, is to make a tyranny of the Divinity, and to make a God like to the cruel duke of Muscovia named Basilides, who commanded from his subjects a tribute of sweat and of nightingales in the midst of winter.  
Reason dictateth to us this commandment is not 
Right of nature.  only of Divine right, but of nature; so far is it from being contrary to nature, that to speak naturally, we judge that should be done to our neighbour, we would have done to ourselves: and we desire to be beloved by all the world, yea, by those whom we have offended; we then necessarily conclude, we are bound to love those who have done us some injury. Besides, we well see, that to seek revenge by proper authority is to destroy the right of nature, and to make of a civil life, the life of a Cyclops, which were to have no other reason than strength, nor limit but the sword.  
Some will say it were good, could love as easily be 
Answer to an objection.  put on as a shirt, but if we have much ado to love things indifferent, how can we affect bad and offensive? Love ever pursueth good as the shadow the body, and God who made both love and nature, will not that it settle itself unless there be some attractive or appearance of good, which inviteth it to love. Now what is lovely in an enemy, in whose person all is odious, yea, the very name? Behold how carnal Philosophy with strong passions, and weak reasons, strikes at the eternal Word; as if in the worst man in the world, there could not ever be found something which may be an object of reasonable love. We are not commanded to affect him with a love of tenderness, but of reason. It is not said, you must love him as vicious, you must endear 
Omne animal diligit simile sibi, sic & omnis homo proximum sibi. Eccl. 13. 19  him as injurious or wicked, for that were to force nature; but we are commanded to love him as a man, to love him as a Christian, to love him as the work of God, and as a creature capable of life eternal: All things in the world (said an Ancient) have two handles, and two faces. Take a good holdfast, look on the good countenance, and you shall find that easy, which you thought impossible.  
Let us also pass with Divinity to a reason more eminent, and say, it is not a thing against nature to love above nature, by the commandment of him who made nature. It is asked, whether a creature can naturally love God more than itself, since all that nature loveth, it loves as a thing united to it itself, according to the 
Amicabilia ad alterum sumumtur ex amicabiltus ad se. Arist. Ehick l. 4. c. 8. D. Tho. 2. 2. q. 26.  saying of Philosophers: & all well considered, the most learned Divines answer, that the soul of man remaining within the lists of natural reason, should love the Creator, more than its own life; because naturally the will well rectified hath a strong inclination to its end, which is the Sovereign Good, and the understanding necessarily judgeth the subsistence of essence increate and independent, which ought rather to be preserved than that of essence create. And if that be done by ways of nature, how may one say it is against nature to love an enemy, when there is the commandment and honour of God in it?  
Nay, it is so much otherwise, that I will add a reason, which perhaps may seem strange, but it is undoubted true. I say, it is much more hard to love one's self well, than an enemy. For I beseech you, why was 
A remarkable consideration.  it that the Son of God so much spoke, laboured, wept, and bled, if not to teach how we should aptly love ourselves? And wherefore were so many Saints, fifty, yea, threescore years at school in deserts, but to learn this hard lesson? And who hath ever thought 
Self-love very hard to be▪ repressed.  any thing more difficult to be repressed than self-love, which powerful in fury, and impotent within itself, forgetful of God, & still mindful of its own interests, ever gluttonous and still hungry, swalloweth like a gulf, sweepeth along like a torrent, beateth down like thunder, and in the end is buried in the ruins it made?  
If well to love one's self, this monster be necessarily be to tamed; who sees not there is much difficulty therein, and that on the other side there is nothing to be done but to love the gift of God in man, which cannot be ill but in your imagination? Why create we so many impediments in the love of an enemy, and find none in the love of ourselves? Were it not natural, 
Effects of the love of enemies in the Law of nature. Senec. l. 3. de irâ c. 38.  why in the Law of nature did Cato smilingly wipe away tough phlegm, which an enemy spit on his face when he pleaded a cause? Why was Socrates content, having received a blow on the cheek from an insolent man, to set over his head the scroul used on ancient tables, Lycus faciebat? Why did Augustus in an absolute sovereign power of revenge, tolerate with so much courtesy a certain writer named Timagenes, who perpetually barked against him? Traitors that we are to nature, so to cover our neglect and weakness with the pretext of nature.  
3. Let us yet add more force to truth, and more 
Second point of proofs drawn from the glory of pardon.  scope to our pen. Let us enter into the second point of this discourse which teacheth us the greatness and glory of a man, who knows how patiently to suffer an injury. The maxims of the world cease not to persecute us, and say: That by tolerating a first affront a second is provoked, that mildness and mansuetude serve as matter of mirth to insolency, and that a man never so much undervalueth himself, as by publishing his little courage in the revenge of an affront. Behold goodly propositions▪ which so oft have drawn blood out of the veins of France in these detestable duels nourishing afterward covert hatred and everlasting aversions. O ignorant that we are of God's greatness, and ever unfaithful to his word! We fear by pardoning to be contemned, when the only reason which God useth in the Gospel to persuade us unto pardon, is the excellency and glory derived from this action: for he 
 sitis filij Patris vestri qui in coelis est, & qui  suum facit oriri super bonos & malos, & pluit super justos & injustos. Mat. 5. Isaiah. 40.  saith. It is the means to become the children of God, who causeth his Sun to shine upon the good and the bad, who lets his showers fall as well on the offenders, as the innocent.  
What beauty, what lustre, what splendour to enter into the number of the children of God What elevation to be transported with full flight into conformities with the Omnipotent! The Prophet Isaiah saith, God measureth the waters with his fist, and poizeth the heavens in the palm of his hand; to signify, he goeth with a shut hand to punishments, signified by the waters, but proceeds with the whole extent of his goodness to reward, represented by the heavens. The rainbow which God hath taken for the symbol of his reconciliation with man, environeth the throne of his Majesty in the Apocalypses; and it is a bow without arrows (saith S. Ambrose) to instruct us, this divine 
Ambros. 16. de arc● & Noe. 17. Arcus contentus at carens sagitta magis terrere vult quàm ferire.  Majesty is sweet and peaceful. So in the Prophet Ezechiel, after the description of this terrible cloud, which serves as a chariot for the God of Hosts, you read these words: 
(a) Et sursum quasi aspectus splendoris.  And upward a face smiling with light; where Theodotion (as saith S Hierom) hath translated: 
(b) Aura in supernis Dei.  The west hath the highest place with the Creator, meaning, the mildness of western winds, and cooleness from scor ching, is in the pavilion of glory, where this Sovereign Monarch inhabiteth. O wonder! God, who is a Sovereign Majesty, Sovereign Greatness, and Sovereign Justice, shown himself in all times so patiented to suffer men, who are the worst of all evils, that he had rather we doubted his Divinity, than make any question of his mildness: he had rather that by so patiently tolerating such infidels & sinners, the lips of blasphemers should receive encouragement to say there is no God, than by taking revenge 
Non est De●●.  on every sin in the heat of crime, it should be truly said there is a God, but he is ever armed with lightnings, & is inaccessible to the miseries of men, as those mountains, which all flaming cast out their entrails. O Prodigy! God maketh it so great a matter to pardon 
Tertul. de pat. c. 2.  an injury, that he rather permitteth his essence to be touched, than his clemency; his title of God to be taken away, than the glory of pardon: Shall we then place greatness in revenge?  
How many Pirates are there, to whom God daily openeth seas? How many Idolaters, for whom he causeth stars to give light, fountains to stream, corn to grow, harvests to become yellow, and vines to ripen? How many ungrateful children, who take benefits from him as hogs do acorns, by grumbling against the tree which gave them, and never casting an eye to heaven? God notwithstanding suffereth them, and confounds their ingratitude by continually conferring favours, in an absolute power of revenge.  
What answer we to that? Shall we make it our glory to do like the silly mouse, which bites that which pincheth her; or rather imitate the perfections of God, who never appears so great as in pardoning great injuries? What may we hope in revenge, but to enter into the community of a brutish life? That is it bears do, tigers, serpents, and so many other creatures, which employ their teeth, horns, poison, and all the arms they have from nature to pursue revenge: Yet many times they measure it by the necessity of their defence: but to pardon an ungrateful man and an enemy, is to go out of our elements, and the base dross of earth, to enter into a sphere of glory and light, ranked in the number of sovereign beauties, to be an associate with so many noble and illustrious souls, who have in all Ages placed their glory on actions of mildness and patience.  
Let us, I pray you, enter into it with a firm footing 
Goodly company of courteous.  & a bright▪ forehead. There shall we see Moses at the feet of the Tabernacle to pray▪ & almost bind up the hands of God, to stay the course of his revenge against those, who persecuted him even to the Tabernacle. There shall we see an Aaron in the majesty of his Priestly habit, bearing all the world, with the incensory and Sacrifice in hand, to appease the anger of God against his persecutors, when heaven was all on fire over their heads, and the earth became a gulf under their feet to swallow them. There shall we see a David bear honourable wounds, which the envenomed tongue of Shimei had thrown on his reputation, and to mount to the throne of Saul by the steps of patience witnessed in suffering Saul. There shall we see all the Martyrs laden with torments, opening as many mouths as they had wounds, to beg pardon for those who persecuted them, and in the midst of all the Martyrs, Jesus, the great and faithful witness, quickening by effusion of his blood, even those who shed his. There finally shall we see Constantine laughing at his statues they stoned, a Theodosius pardoning such as dragged his an Andronicus, who at the taking of a City, embraced in sight of all the world him, who most eagerly had opposed him with all manner of outrage  
Let us now judge which is most glorious, either to enter by pardoning into the most noble and generous society, or in seeking revenge, to become of the number of certain wranglers, ruffians, men of the damned crew, and lastly creatures the most brutish in the world, wholly inclined to revenge.  
4. Let us conclude finally with the third reason, 
Third point of reasons, drawn from necessity. Dimitte nobis sicut dimittimus. Yade prius reconciliari fratri tuo, & tune veniens offer munus tuum.  and withal say, that to pardon injuries is not so much an election of virtue, as a necessity of salvation, since God will not we hope remission of our sins, but on condition we banish the resentment of injuries. Necessity of salvation, since prayer and sacrifice, essential parts of our salvation, cannot subsist without the pardon of our neighbour. And pursuing this precept, we have a tradition from the Hebrews which saith: He who being entreated to pardon, after warning given before competent witnesses, if he shown himself inexorable, was surnamed as with a title of infamy the Sinner, and held as one excommunicate, as a rotten member, and cut off from the society of the faithful. I likewise say, necessity of salvation, since according to S. Augustine, without this virtue all devotion is but 
August. super Joan. homil. 10. Quid prodest quia credis & blasphemas? Adoras illum in capite, blasphemas in corpore, etc.  hypocrisy, all religion blasphemy & all faith infidelity.  
To what purpose is it (saith this Prelate) to believe and blaspheme, to adore God in his head, and blaspheme him in his members? God loveth his body which is his Church; if you dissever yourself from his body, he will not for all that forsake his own members. Hear you not the head which speaketh to you from heaven, saying: O Man, it is in vain thou honour'st me, hating thy neighbour? If any one, whilst he is giving thee low obeisance with his head, tread on thy foot, thou wouldst in midst of all his compliment cry out: Sir, you hurt me.  
What is there either more powerful or persuasive, 
The horror, and confusion of revenge.  than these reasons? Yet notwithstanding among so many lightnings and thunders which encompass us on every side, there are to be found infinite many black souls in the world, which practice hatred, some in secret, some in public, & make vaunts to eternize their revenge in the everlastingness of their punishments. What a horror is it to see a man, who besought and entreated with all earnestness to pardon a brother, who hath offended him▪ answereth with disdain, furious and intolerable, he will never agree nor hold correspondence with him, no more than with a Turk or Moor? Ah Barbarian▪ Shut up that mouth, unhappy creature, and never open it, at least never open it before the wounds of Christ which bleed against thee. Thou wilt embrace no other friendship with thy brother but such as may be found between Turks and Moors. Liar that thou art, seek yet out words more outrageous to express the gall of thy passion: For, if thou knowest it not▪ Turk's and Moors retain the amities and sense of man, whereof thou art despoiled. Turk's even in the general desolation of Moors, entertained them into their Countries, and afforded them helps, which thou hast denied thy flesh and blood. If that seem worthy of thee, take a turban, and become a Turk: But when thou hast put it on, yet shalt thou find laws which will oblige thee to love a man. The Turks have their Behiram, a feast, wherein they pardon all injuries; and wilt thou turn Turk to retain an injury? Out of God's Church, out of the society of men, out of nature, bloody monster as thou art. Where wilt thou any longer find place in the world, when thou once hast pulled down the Altars of clemency?  
That also which is spoken in choler and hasty precipitation, might seem pardonable in repentance, were it not there are some, who in cold blood foster suits, and immortal pertinacities, and which is worst, many times in public showing a fair face, in secret they transfix the heart of a poor man, like unto witches, they rip up the bowels of wife and children, to satisfy a revenge. Barbarous man, eat, rather eat the miserable heart, than pierce it perpetually with thy infernal bodkins. I would in the rest be silent, if there were not women, who being infirm in all things, get diabolical strength for revenge. What may we say of a creature of this sex, who being very slightly offended by another of the same sex, whilst she, advised by her Confessor, disposed herself to all duties of satisfaction, the other looked on her with a Gorgon's eye, and foaming with anger, spitefully reviled her with bloody words, so that nothing now remained but to take her by the hair, and drag her on the floar; which violence reproved by other, she repeated the burden of the old ballad, That she wished her not ill, but would never see her again. Inhuman and furious creature, a Maegera, not a woman, what mouth will you hereafter bring to the Altars, which you seem to honour? Have you any other than that, by you polluted with this poisonous choler? What heart remains in you for God? Is there any part of it not steeped in gall? What expect you at the hour of death, and in the instant of your souls separation, but that God repeat unto you your own words: I wish thee no ill, I will not put thee upon the wheel nor the rack, I have neither razors nor flames to torment thee; but thou never shalt see my face? Wilt thou then cherish quarrels, maintain sides, spread rumours either true or false, secretly undermine the fortune of men, and make thyself as inexorable to reconciliation, as thou art inflexible to reason? Lord have mercy on us, 
Semper jurgia quaerit malus, Angelus autem crudelis mittetur contra eum. Proverb. 6.  a cruel Angel will be sent against thee, an ill suit commenced, a ruinous business, a tedious sickness, a loss of goods, a confusion of understanding, and then shalt thou see, whether fire being in the four corners of thy house, thou still retainest the itch of revenge.  
But, you generous souls, march on by union to the chief of unities, and think the only revenge, is well to be revenged on yourself. If as I have showed▪ pardon be possible, glorious, and necessary, why foment we our curiosities to inflame our fevers? Let us take away these silly humane respects, this slender pride, which often broodeth under silken devotions, and which is the cause, that God is daily beheld and adored upon both the knees, by those who will not see nor speak to any that have committed some slight indiscretion, whilst feigning to honour God the Master with lips, the servant within the heart is strangled.  
Say (O Christian) say to thyself: Am I more powerful 
Goodly considerations to pacific the mind.  in my small family than God in the universe? He daily endureth so many injuries, not threatening mortals with his thunders; what am I, who have ears so tender? Many have forgiven their deaths, and I cannot pardon a cold countenance, a silly word, a slender negligence. Is it a child, is it a young man hath offended? age excuseth him; is it a woman sex; a stranger? liberty; a friend? familiarity. He hath offended, he hath displeased 
Vid. de I  thee once, and how many other times hath he done thee good offices? But this is not the first time; so much the better shall we bear, what we already have suffered. Custom of injuries is a good Mistress of patience. He is a friend, he did what he would not; if an enemy, he hath done according to the world, what he ought. If he were wise, he hath not done it without reason; if simple, he deserves compassion. Who ever bitten a dog because he was bitten by a dog? Or who ever entered into a combat of kicking with a Mule? If he did it in anger, let us give him leisure to come to himself, and he will correct himself without our trouble to give assistance. If it be a superior or man of eminent quality, let us suffer that which God hath set over us; if a person of base condition, why by striving against him, shall we make him our equal? What pleasure hath a woman whose hands are so delicate, to seek to foul them with crushing flies and caterpillars? Let us reflect on the carriage of humane things, we are all faulty, and live among errors. There is no wise man whom some indiscretions escape not. We shall never live content, if we learn not to excuse in another what ourselves are. Are we not ashamed to exercise in a life so short eternal enmities? Be hold death comes to separate us, although we forcibly hold one another by the throat: let us give a little truce to our reason, light to our understanding, and rest to our ashes. JESUS in his last words recommended forgiveness to us, moistened with his tears, and blood. Go we about to tear his Testament, that we afterward may pull his Images in pieces? The blood of Just Abel still bubbleth on the earth, and is unrevenged; shall we then seek to revenge it? O my God, we utterly renounce it with all our hearts, and are ready to seal peace with our blood, that by thy blood thou mayst sign our mercy.  

The twelfth EXAMPLE upon the twelfth MAXIM. Of Reconciliation. CONSTANTIA.  
THere is nothing more certain than that he, who seeks revenge, shall find the God of revenge. It followeth those who pursue it, and when they think to exercise it on others, they feel it falling on their own heads. It is only proper to base and infamous spirits to endeavour to glut themselves with blood, and to delight in the miseries of mortals, but souls the most noble, are ever beautified with the rays of clemency.  
Theophilus, one of the most bloody Emperors that 
Zonar. Theophilus. a bloody Emperor.  ever beware the diadem, an enemy both of heaven and earth, of Saints and men, as he had lived on gall, would end in blood. He felt his soul on his lips flying from him, and saw death near at hand, which he could not escape. It was time, he should now yield up life to others, when it appeared he could no more take it from them: But this wicked man, holding at that time Thephobus, one of his prime Captains imprisoned in his own Palace, upon certain jealousies conceived he was too able a man, and well worthy of Empire, commanded a little before his death, to have his head cut off; and causing it to be brought to his bed side, he took it by the hair, held it a long time in his hands, so much was he pleased with this massacre; then seriously beholding it, he cried out: It is true I shall no langer be Theophilus, nor art thou any more Theophobus. And many times repeating these words, he yielded up his damned ghost like a ravenous wolf, which passed from blood to infernal flames, although certain revelations spoke of his deliverance. Behold how having taken in his youth evil habits of cruelty and revenge, he persevered in them to his death, being besides most unfortunate and infamous in all his enterprises.  
But contrariwise it is observed, all great-ones disposed to clemency, have been very glorious and most happy before God and men. I could here rehearse very many, yet pursuing our design, I rest contented with relation of a notable pardon given by a Queen to a Prince, on a Friday in memory of our Saviour's Passion.  
It cannot be said, but so much the greater and more outrageous injuries are, so much the more difficult is their pardon, especially when one hath full power of revenge in his hands. Now the injury whereof we 
Conradinus.  speak, was the death of poor Conradinus, which well considered in all its circumstances, rendereth this clemency whereof I intent to speak much more admirable. Know then this Prince, son of the Emperor Conradus, went into Italy with a huge army to defend the inheritance of his Ancestors▪ pretending it to be unjustly usurped by the wily practices of Charles of Anjou: He stood at that time in the midst of his armies, sparkling like a star, full of fire & courage, when Pope Clement the fourth seeing him pass along with so much Nobility, said: Alas, what goodly victims are led to the Altar! His valour in the tenderness of his age, was as yet more innocent, than wary, and he had to do with a Captain, whom warlike experience had made more subtle in this profession.  
Charles being ready to give him battle, resolved it 
He gave battle to Charles of Anjou.  was best to weary out this young vigour, & to afford him the bait of some success in appearance, the more easily to draw him into his snare. He gave the leading of one part of his army to a Captain of his called Alardus, commanding him to bear all the royal ensings, as if he had been Charles of Anjou's person. Conradinus thinking he had nothing to do but to conquer what he saw before his eyes for decision of the difference, advanced his troops, which falling like a tempest upon the enemies, quickly dispatched Alardus, who was slain in the battle, as some histories record, carrying from all this ostent of regality, a fatal glory into a tomb.  
This young Mars, supposing the war ended by the death of his Adversary, presently proclaimed victory, at which time Charles of Anjou, who lay hidden in a trench with the activest troops, as yet very fresh, came suddenly upon him. He did all that for his defence, which a brave spirit might in an evil fortune. But his army being cut in pieces, he was enforced to save himself, after the loss of twelve thousand dead in the place.  
His calamity caused him to change the habit of a King, into that of a horsekeeper for his greater security, so much he feared to be known by those, who would decide the dint of war by his blood. He embarked 
His taking.  with his cousin Frederick of Austria, to pass unto Pisa, committing himself in this disguised habit to a Pilot, who much importuned him for his hire. He had not then about him either bread or money, so that he was constrained to pull off a ring, and leave it in pledge to the Pilot to assure the debt. He seeing these young men of a graceful garb, and considering this jewel was not a wealth suitable to their habit, doubted some trick, and gave notice to the Governor, a crafty man, who complying with the times, laid hold of the Princes, and put them into the hands of the Conqueror.  
Charles of Anjou much fearing this young Lion, forgot 
His sentence and death.  all generosity to serve his own turn, and did a most base act, detested by all understandings that have any humanity: which is, that having kept Conradinus a whole year in a strait prison, he assembled certain wicked Lawyers to decide the cause of one of the noblest spirits at that time under heaven, who to second the passion of their Master, rendered the laws criminal, and served themselves with written right, to kill a Prince contrary to the law of nature, judging him worthy of death, in that (said they) he disturbed the peace of the Church, and aspired to Empire. A scaffold was prepared in a public place, all hanged with red, where Conradinus is brought with other Lords A Protonotary clothed after the ancient fashion, mounteth into a chair set there for the purpose, and aloud pronounceth the wicked sentence. After which Conradinus raising himself, & casting an eye full of fervour and flames on the Judge, said: Base and cruel slave as thou art, to open thy mouth to condemn thy Sovereign.  
It was a lamentable thing to see this great Prince on a scaffold, in so tender years, wise as an Apollo, beautiful as an Amazon, and valiant as an Achilles, to leave his head under the sword of an Executioner, in the place where he hoped to crown it. ●e called heaven & earth to bear witness of Charles his cruelty, who unseen beheld this goodly spectacle from an high turret. He complained that his goods being taken from him, they rob him of his life as a thief, that the blossom of his age was cut off by the hand of a hangman, taking away his head to bereave him of the Crown; last throwing down his glove, demanded an account of this inhumanity. Then seeing his Cousin Frederick's head to fall before him, he took it, kissed it, and laid it to his bosom, ask pardon of it, as if he had been the cause of his disaster, in having been the companion of his valour. This great heart wanting tears to deplore itself, wept over a friend, and finishing his sorrows with his life, stretched out his neck to the Minister of justice. Behold how Charles, who had been treated with all humanity in the prisons of Saracens, used a Christian Prince: so true it proves, that ambition seemeth to blot out the character of Christianity, to put in the place of it some thing worse than the Turban.  
This death lamented through all the world, yea, which maketh theatres still mourn, sensibly struck the heart of Queen Constantia his Aunt, wife of Peter of Arragon: She bewailed the poor Prince with tears, which could never be dried up, as one whom she dearly loved, and then again representing to herself so many virtues and delights, drowned in such generous blood, and so unworthily shed, her heart dissolved into sorrow. But as she was drenched in tears, so her husband thundered in arms to revenge his death.  
He rigged out a fleet of ships, the charge whereof he 
Collenutius histor. Neapol. l. 5. c. 4. & 5.  recommended to Roger de Loria, to assail Charles the second, Prince of Salerno, the only son of Charles of Anjou, who commanded in the absence of his father. The admiral of the Arragonian failed not to encounter 
The son of Charles of Anjou taken.  him, and sought so furiously with him, that having sunk many of his ships, he took him prisoner, and brought him into Sicily, where Queen Constantia was, expecting the event of this battle. She failed not to cause the heads of many Gentlemen to be cut off in revenge of Conradinus, so to moisten his ashes with the blood of his enemies. Charles the King's only son was set apart with nine principal Lords of the Army, and left to the discretion of Constantia. Her wound was still all bloody, and the greatest of the Kingdom counselled her speedily to put to death the son of her capital enemy, yea, the people mutined for this execution: which was the cause, the Queen having taken order for his arraignment, and he thereupon condemned to death, she on a Friday morning sent him word, it was now time to dispose himself for his last hour. The Prince, nephew to S. Lewis, and who had some sense of his uncle's piety, very courageously received these tidings, saying.  
That besides other courtesies he had received from the Queen in prison, she did him a singular favour to appoint the day of his death on a Friday, and that it was good reason he should die culpable on the day, whereon Christ died innocent.  
This speech was related to Queen Constantia, who was therewith much moved, and having some space bethought herself, she replied:  
Tell Prince Charles, if he take contentment to suffer 
An excellent passage of clemency.  death on a Friday, I will likewise find out mine own satisfaction to forgive him on the same day, that Jesus signed the pardon of his Executioners with his proper blood. God forbidden I shed the blood of a man, on the day my Master poured out his for me. Although time surprise me in the dolour of my wounds, I will not rest upon the bitterness of revenge. I freely pardon him, and it shall not be my fault, that he is not at this instant in full liberty.  
This magnanimous heart caused the execution to be stayed, yet fearing if she left him to himself, the people might tear him in pieces, she sent him to the King her husband, entreating by all which was most precious unto him, to save his life, and send him back to his Father. Peter of Arragon, who sought his own accommodation in so good a prize, freed him from danger of death, yet enlarged him not suddenly. For his deliverance must come from a hand wholly celestial.  
Sylvester Pruere writes, that lying long imprisoned in the City of Barcellon, the day of S. Mary Magdalen approaching, who was his great Patroness, he disposed himself to a singular devotion, fasting, confessing his sins, communicating, begging of her with tears to deliver him from this captivity. Heaven was not deaf to his prayers. Behold on the day of the feast he perceived a Lady full of Majesty, who commanded him to follow her, at which words, he felt as it were a diffusion of extraordinary joy spread over his heart He followed her step by step, as a man rapt, and seeing all the gates fly open before her without resistance, and finding himself so cheerful, that his body seemed to have put on the nature of a spirit, he well perceived heaven wrought wonders for him. The Lady looking on him after she had gone some part of the way, asked him where he thought he was; to which he replied▪ that he imagined himself to be yet in the Territory of Barcellon. Charles you are deceived (said she) you are in the County of Provence, a league from Narbon, and thereupon she vanished. Charles not at all doubting the miracle, nor the protection of S. Mary Magdalen, prostrated himself on the earth, adoring the power of God in his Saints, caused a fair Church to be built to this most blessed woman, and a Cross to be erected in the place where she left him, which was called the Cross of the place: Thus was God pleased to ratify by so great miracles the pardon Constantia had given to Prince Charles.  
I will shut up this discourse with a passage of so rare clemency of a Monarch, offended in the honour of a daughter of his, by a mean vassal, as it seems could never have fallen but into the heart of a Charlemaigne.  
It is to this purpose recounted, that one Eginardus, 
Curio l. 2. rerum Chronologicarum.  who was Secretary to the Prince, having placed his affections much higher than his condition admitted, made love to one of his daughters, which was in mine opinion natural; who seeing this man of a brave spirit, and a grace suitable, thought not him too low for her, whom merit had so eminently raised above his birth. She affected him, and gave him too free access 
Goodness and in dulgence of Charlemaigne.  to her person, so far as to suffer him to have recourse unto her, to laugh, and sport in her chamber on evenings, which ought to have been kept as a sanctuary, wherein relics are preserved. It happened upon a winter's night, these two amorous hearts, having inwardly so much fire that they scarcely could think upon the cold, Eginardus, (ever hastening his approaches, and being very negligent in his returns) had somewhat too much slackened his departure. The snow mean while raised a rampart, which troubled them both when he thought to go out. Time pressed him to leave her, and heaven had stopped up the way of his passage. It was not tolerable for him to go forward. Eginardus feared to be known by his feet, and the Lady thought it not any matter at all to see the prints of such steps about her door. They being much perplexed, love, which taketh the diadem of majesty from Queens, so soon as they submit to its tyranny, made her do an act for a lover, which had she done for a poor man, it would have been the means to place her among the great Saints of her time. She took this Gentleman upon her shoulders, and carried him all the length of the Court to his chamber, he never setting foot to the ground, that so the next day no impression might be seen of his footing. It is true which a holy Father saith, that if hell lay on the shoulders of love, love would find courage enough to bear it. But it hath more facility to undertake, than prudence to hid itself, the eye of God not permitting these follies should either be concealed or unpunished. Charlemaign, who had not so much affection in store for women, that he spent not some nights in study, watched this night, and hearing a noise opened the window, and perceived this pretty prank, at which he could not tell whether he were best to be angry or to laugh.  
The next day in a great assembly of Lords, and in the presence of his daughter and Eginardus, he proposed the matter passed in covert terms, ask what punishment might a servant seem worthy of, who made use of a King's daughter as of a Mule, and caused himself to be carried on her shoulders in the midst of winter, through night, snow, and all sharpness of the season. Every one gave hereupon his opinion, and there was not any who condemned not this insolent man to death. The Princess and Secretary changed colour, thinking nothing remained for them, but to be flayed alive. But the Emperor looking on his Secretary with a smooth brow, said: Eginardus, hadst thou loved the Princess my daughter, thou oughtest to have come freely to her father, who should dispose of her liberty, and not to play these pranks, which have made thee worthy of death, were not my clemency much greater than the respect thou hast born to my person. I now at this present give thee two lives, the one in preserving thine, the other in delivering her to thee, in whom thy soul more survives, than in the body it animateth. Take thy fair portress in marriage, and both of you learn to fear God, and to play the good husbands. These lovers thought they were in an instant drawn out of the depth of Hell to ascend to heaven, and all the Court stood infinitely in admiration of this judgement. It appears by the narration, what was the mild temper of Charlemaign in this point, and that he followed the counsel of S. Ambrose, who advised a Father named 
Epist. l. 8. ep. 64. Si bonam duxit, acquisioit tibi gratiam: Si erravit accipiendo meliores facies, refutando deteriores.  Sisinnius to receive his son with a wife he had taken for love. For receiving them both (said he) you will make them better, rejecting them, render them worse. The goodness of these great hearts for all that, justifieth not the errors of youth, which grievously offendeth, when it undertaketh resolutions in this kind, not consulting with those to whom it oweth life.    

XIII. MAXIM. Of the Epicurean life.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That the flesh must be daintily used, and all possible contentment given to the mind. That life without crosses, and flesh void of mortification, is the sepulchre of a living man.  
EXperience teacheth us, there is in the World a sect of reformed Epicures, who do not openly profess the bruitishness of those infamous spirits, which are drenched in gourmandize and lust, but take Maxims more refined, that have (as they say) no other aim, but to make a man truly contented. For which purpose, they promise themselves to drive all objects from their minds, which may bring the least disgust, and to afford the body all pleasures which may preserve it in a flourishing health, accompanied with grace, vigour, and vivacity of senses.  
Here may the judicious observe, that such was the 
The Philosophy of Epicurus swayeth in the world.  doctrine of ancient Epicurus. For although many make a monster of him, all drowned in ordure and prodigious pleasure, yet it is very easy to prove, that he never went about to countenance those brutish ones, who through exorbitance of lusts ruin all the contentments of the mind and body: But he wholly inclined to find out all the pleasures of nature, and to banish any impediments which might make impression on the soul or body. For which cause I think 
Thedor. l. 2. Therap. Nicet. 2. Thesau. c. 1. Tertul. apol. c. 38. Hieron. 2. in Jovin. Laertius. lib. 10. Senec. l. de vitâ beatâ.  Theodoret mistook him, when he made him so gluttonous, as to contend with Jupiter about a sop, and that Nicetas, who representeth him so liquorish after honeyed tarts, well understood him not: For Tertullian, S. Hierom, Laertius, and Seneca, who better noted his doctrine; assure us he was a very sober man, and speaketh not in his writings but of pulse and fruits; not for the honour he bore to the virtue of temperance, but for that it seemed he found himself better disposed in this frugality, than in superfluities, the tormentors of health. Yet notwithstanding he is ever greatly reprehensible, in that he so deifieth the contentments of nature, and this kind of life free from bodily pain and minds unquiet, that he makes a Sovereign God of it, honouring and adoring it as a Divinity.  
From this principle he derived conclusions, which led to a life wholly replenished with easeful idlenese, much prejudicial to civil society. For he would not have a wise man intermeddle in state-affairs, nor untertake designs for the good of Commonwealths, for fear of troubling the repose of his mind, and gave a most infamous advice, to taste the pleasures of marriage, without taking care for the education of children, because it was painful: whereupon Arianus in 
Arian l. 4. c. 20.  Epictetus reproacheth him, that his father and mother would have smothered him in the cradle, had they known such pestilent words should come from his lips.  
He nowadays is waited on by many, who take other ways than he did, to arrive at the practice of his Maxims. For they use their bodies to such effeminacy, that they seem single in their kind, and seed their minds what they can with tender thoughts, free from any care or affair, which may divert contentment, so that they suffer themselves with all endeavour to be dissolved in an easy truantly life, wholly to enjoy themselves.  
2. Now you, who incline to this Sect, by ill habits 
1. Reason against this Maxim of riot. Occupatio magna creata est omnibus hominibus, & jugum grave super filiis Adam. Eccl. 40. Isle of amber, felicity of Epicurus. Garcias.  taken in the great service you daily do your bodies, I beseech you consider how far it is allenated both from reason and Christianity. First, see you not that to imagine here on earth a life without pain, is to frame chymraes in your mind; since the world is a soil as natural for thorns, as barren of violets. All the sons of Adam (saith the Scripture) have trouble enough to carry their yoke. Where find you this perpetual quiet of mind, this freedom from bodily disturbances which you figure in your thoughts? It is in my opinion not unlike the little Island of amber-grece, whereof Garcias speaketh, which was perceived by certain merchants, who sailed along on the Ocean. But they much labouring to take it, in such proportion as they advanced towards it, it recoiled back, and when they thought to touch it, it was lost in the waves. I dare affirm you pursue an Island more imaginary than that, running with full speed after the false pleasures of Epicurus. It is a fantasy that mocketh you, and which amuzeth you on the surges of this life, to make you perish, seeing according to Clemens Alexandrinus, sensuality is the 
Clemens Alex. Paedag. l. 3. c. 7.  ship wrack of spiritual life.  
A man must not be born of a mother to escape worldly molestations, since the Scripture, which cannot lie teacheth us, travel is as natural for the children of women as flight for birds. How could there 
Homo nascitur ad laboureth, & avis ad volatum. Job 57 Reason of Simplicius.  be pleasures of body without pain, since pleasures would never be pleasures if they had not been preceded by some incommodities? It is a witty reason of the Philosopher Simplicius, which was well considered by S. Bernard. 
(a) S. Bern. tract. de gratiâ, & lib. arbitrio. Tolle famem, & panem non curabis; Tell sitim & limpidiss●mum fontem quasi paludem respicies; umbram non quaerit nisi aestuans;  non curate, nisi algens.  Take away hunger (saith he) and there is no pleasure in viands; take away thirst, and the most crystal fountains would be unto you but as marshes. Hot things must be had to seek for coolness, and cold to be delighted with heat. If you take away evil and necessity, you take away the most active spur which sensuality hath over nature.  
The world which is so old, the earth so fertile, experience so knowing, and histories so curious, could not this day produce one sole man absolutely happy and content. The great Genius of nature Pliny, who searched into all the corners of the world to meet with a man, such as Epicurus framed in his idea, assureth us, that after a very long enquiry, he found but one, a Musician named 
(b) Plin. l. 7. c. 50. One soleman happy.  Xenophilus, who was said to have arrived to the age of an hundred and five years, free from disquiet or sickness. This is a Rodomontado of Greece, which went about to make him brave it on paper: But might we have penetrated into his heart, and taken all the parts of his life asunder, I am persuaded we might presently find somewhat, for which he should be banished out of the imaginary Palace of felicity. I can as soon believe Xenophilus came into the world free from original sin, as imagine he went out of it exempt from any dolour. It were as easy to sail prosperously amidst the tempests of the Ocean, having no other vessel but a tortoise shell, as to live in the world without suffering. We are condemned to it before we are born, and our tears teach us this decree before we issue from our mother's womb.  
What remaineth (says S. Bernard) to finish the description 
Bern. l. 2. de consid. c. 9 Quid enim calamitate vacat nascenti in peccato? fragili corpore, ment sterili, cui infirmitas corporis fatuit●s cordis, cumulatur traduce sortis mortis additione. The whole world an enemy of curiosity.  of man, and to make him a true picture of calamity, since he entereth into the world by the gate of sin, with a body frail, a mind barren; weakness of mortal Members, and stupidity of heart being given him as a portion of his birth, and a necessity of his condition? The miserable Epicurus, who was the first Author of this lazy life, and who sought by speculation and practice into all he could imagine, bending all his thoughts and actions to this purpose, found he satisfaction in this search? Histories tell us, this great father of the happy had a stone in his bladder, which infinitely pained him: and this being a time, that knew not the operations now in use to deliver mortals from these vexations, he carried his affliction to the grave, dying with enraged dolour. Upon this you shall observe, that it seems God, nature elements, and men conspire to torment one, who seeks with overmuch curiosity, and too seriously the contentments of his body, and the ease of his mind.  
3. But, that I may here produce a second reason, Reason. 2 although you were permitted to please your sensuality throughout the whole latitude of your desires, and the capacity thereof, what should you else do, but serve a miserable body, and tie yourself all your life time to the preservation of a fool and sick man? If 
Rom. 6. Great spirits enemies of the flesh.  you live according to the flesh, you shall die, said the Apostle to the Romans. All great spirits, who have a feeling of their extraction, the beauty and nobility of their souls, take not the necessities of life but with some shame and sorrow. They regard the flesh as the prison of a spirit immortal, and think to flatter it, is to strangle the be●ter part of themselves, which resteth in the understanding. The Philosopher Plotinus, who 
Plotin. Porphiry upon his life.  was renowned as the world's Oracle, could not endure to have his picture taken, saying, he had trouble enough to suffer a wretched body, without multiplying the figures thereof by the help of painting; and you imagine it is a virtue of the times to adore it, and afford it submissions which pass to the utmost period of servitude. How much the more we profit in the liberty of God's children, so much the more we proceed in disengagement from sense, and enter as into the sanctuary of souls, there to consult on truths, and understand reasons, which vindicate us from the dregs of the world, to give us passage into the society of Angels.  
It is a strange matter, that the subtle Divine Scotus 
Discourse of Scotus, concerning sense. Scotus locis disquisit. 1. indicatis.  thinks, that to understand and know objects by sensible representations, passing through the gate of our sense, and striking our imagination, is a punishment from original sin. He finds it is a harsh subjection, to make application to the body, to derive colours, odours, and sounds from it, which notwithstanding seemeth as innocent as the purchase of bees, who suck honey out of flowers: and shall we think there can be any felicity to plunge our judgement into all the voluptuous pleasures of flesh?  
Know we not, it many times doth to the soul, as the 
An observation of Camerarius concerning the heron.  heron to the falcon? He endeavoureth to fly above him, and to wet his wings with his excrements, to make his flight heavy, and render his purpose unprofitable. Alas, how many times feel we the vigour of our reason enervated by the assaults of concupiscence, which contracteth the like advantage from its ordures, for the enthralment of the spirit! And why would we second its violence by our weakness? 
Instance upon the weakness and misery in service of the body.   
I moreover demand of you, what can you hope from so punctually observing your body? You are not a Geryon with three heads and three throats: There needs but a little to fill you. For though your concupiscence be infinite, yet are your senses finite, & many time's pleasure overwhelms them before they afford themselves the leisure of tasting them. If you resolve so curiously to attend the search of pleasures, you should desire the spirit of a horse, to enjoy them with the more vigour and liberty. But what sense is there to have the soul of a man, and seek to be glutted with the mite of the earth: as if one would feed a Phoenix with carrion, on which ravens live? when you have done all you can to make yourself happy by diversity of worldly pleasures, beasts will ever have more than you. For their sensitive souls much sooner meet the height of nature; and as their pleasures are free from shame, so they drag not sorrow after them. They are not gnawn with cares by desiring things needless, they take what the elements afford them, and what the industry of man manures for them, & know not what it is to find poisonous maladies in the most ardent pleasures sensuality may imagine. But admit you were resolved to become a beast with the disciples of Epicurus, yet ought you not for all that, according to your own limits, surpass the bruitishness of beasts. And I pray tell me, where is the beast which hath never so little generosity, would not think itself most miserable, if it were condemned to eat and drink perpetually, and grow lazy in an idle life? They frame themselves very willingly to the exercises nature appointed them for the service of man; and a man thinks it a great Philosophy to consecrate all the parts of his body to sensuality, no whit considering, he is made for the contemplation of things Divine, for the love and fruition of the first cause.  
Avicen, an excellent wit, by the unhappiness of his 
Avicenna lib. de primâ Philosoph. 9 c. 1. apud Javellum. Notable saying of Avicen.  birth ranked in the sect of Mahomet, coming to consider this false Prophet had placed the beatitude of the other life in the enjoying sensual pleasures, was so ashamed of it, that he shrunk from his Prophet, that he might not betray his reason. The law (saith he) which Mahomet gave us, considered beatitude and misery within the limits of the body: but there are promises, and hopes of other blessings much more excellent, and which cannot be conceived but by the force of a most purified understanding. Which is the cause, wise divines ever set their 
Foelicitas est conjunctio cum primâ Veritate.  love on the blessings of spirit, without any account taken of those of sense, in comparison of the felicity we one day pretend to have in the union of our immortal spirit with the first Verity. What can our worldlings answer to this Arabian? Should they not blush with shame, to see a man bred in the school of Epicurus, gone out of it to teach us the Maxim of Christianity?  
4. Finally, to conclude this discourse with a third Reason. 3 reason, although the service of the body were possible, 
Tyranny of riot.  and not shameful to you, do you not well see it is tyrannical, and that Epicurus himself, wholly bend to pleasure, cut off all he could from nature for this only cause, which made him think overmuch care of the body was extremely opposite to felicity? The Platonists 
Opinion of Platonists.  said, our souls were of an extraction wholly celestial, and sent from heaven to serve God on earth, in imitation of the service Angels do to him in heaven, but that many of those poor souls forgetting their original, instead of going directly to the Temple of virtue, stood amuzed in the house of a Magician, which was the flesh, that enchanted them with his charms, & had cast them into fetters, where they were enforced to suffer a painful bondage, from whence there were but two passages, wisdom, or death. To this Synesius 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Syness. him. 3.  made allusion in his Hymns, complaining, his soul from a servant of God was become a slave of matter, which had bewitched it by wily practices. And verily who can sufficiently express the servitude a soul suffers, fast linked to flesh, and which only endeavours to dandle it, hoping by this means to give true contentment to the mind? First, pleasures are not exposed nowadays to all the world, as the water of a river: 
Miser qui porcum esurit, & defecit in saginam. Chrysol. serm. de prodigo. Plato. 9 de Rep.  such an one there is, who hath sold himself for the life of a hog, who will never have his fill of hog's draft, as S. Peter Chrysologus said of the prodigal child. Men covetous of bodily riches would willingly make themselves horns and claws of iron, to speak with the wise Plato, of purpose to take and defend, the one his wealth, the other his loathsome pleasures. Many times iron gates must be broken to purchase a fruition, 
Inorditate love of health.  which draweth along with it a thousand disturbances. Behold how a man who is excessively enamoured of his own health, becomes suppliant and servile to his body. He fears his proper diet, all kind of airs are dreadful to him; nor can he take but with distrust those very comforts which afford him life. He makes of his stomach a soil of drugs; he perpetually consulteth with his Physicians; he tells his infirmities to all the world; he seeks out extraordinary cures, as he often hath imaginary diseases; he lives in an afflicting equality, & would many times rather transgress Gods ten commandments, than fail in one of Hypocrates aphorisms. I leave you to think, what death were not much sweeter, than health so religiously preserved.  
See now on the other side a worldly woman, who 
Slavery of women. Cultus magna cura, magna virtulis i●ria. Cato Censorius.  feeleth her beauty (that short tyranny) already in the wain, and yet would cherish it in the opinion of men, who heretofore adored it; or of such likewise, who may be taken in the same snare. What doth not this silly creature to make herself to be esteemed fair? What time wasteth she not to seem slender, to wash, paint, to divide the white, well to mingle the red, to powder her hair, to make herself ey-browes, to preserve the whiteness of her teeth, to set a vermilion tincture on her lips, little patches like flies on her cheeks, choose stuffs, and think of new fashions. What torture inflicteth she not on her body with those iron stays and whalebones? How many turns maketh she daily before a looking-glass? What perplexities of mind, what apprehensions, lest her defects may appear? And what discontent, when after such torments so miserably ended, she sees herself despised by men, before she becomes the food of worms? What Captain of a Galley was ever so cruel to fettered slaves, as vanity, and love of the body are to the soul? Pursue the tract of all other pleasures, and you shall find them painful and dolorous; and in the end you will be enforced to say, there is no worse bondage than that which is afforded to wretched flesh. The Prophet 
Scribe ei super huxum. Isai 30. 8. Observation upon Esay. Flower of box.  Esay speaking of punishments due to sinners & worldlings, saith, they are written on box, whereupon we may say with S. Hierom, it is to show the lasting of it, since characters graven on such kind of wood, cannot so easily be taken off. But I here consider a secret, which teacheth me box bears no fruit, only satisfied to produce a flower, which otherwise making a goodly show, killeth bees that suck it. The Prophet in this figure presented to us a lively image of pleasure, which surpriseth the eyes by a vain illusion, whilst it conveieth poison into the heart. Rest then assured, you shall never meet with solid contentment of mind, but by the ways the Saviour of the world shown us on earth to transfer us to Heaven. The just are here below, as 
Life of the Just.  little halcyons on the trembling of waters, or nightingales on thorns. They find their joys amongst holy tears, and their delights in austerities of life. There is nothing so Sovereign, as early to accustom to depend little on your body, and quickly to forsake, a thousand things by election, which you shall be enforced to abandon of necessity. When a manner of virtuous life is chosen, and which hath some austerity in it, custom makes it sweet, grace fortifieth it, perseverance nourisheth it, and glory crowns it. How many worldlings daily putrify in a miserable condition, who have from their tender age yielded all submission to their flesh, and how many delicate bodies in monasteries have we seen, which the whole world condemned to the beer from their entering into religion, to go out of haircloth, ashes, & fasts, as a Phoenix from her tomb? A life without crosses is a dead sea, which breedeth nought but stench and sterility: but austerity is like the Egyptian thorn, which had an excellent grace in crowns. We are called to Christianity, to bear a God crucified 
Glorificate, & portate Deum in corpote vestro.  on our flesh, and as it were impressed with the Characters of Divine love. Let us carefully preserve ourselves from prostituting members to sensuality, made to be the Temple of the living God, and the ornament of Paradise. Holy Job was in state so lamentable, that those who beheld him could scarcely tell, whether it were a man reduced into a dunghill, or a dunghill into the shape of a man: Notwithstanding, in the midst of these smarting dolours, which over-ran all his body, and the afflictions which assailed his mind, he received so unspeakable comforts from God, that himself confesseth to have nothing so strange in his own person, as his proper torments. Behold the reason why he exalted 
Mirabiliter me crucias. Job. 10.  himself on his dunghill, as upon a throne of virtue, he adorned himself with his wounds as with a royal purple, he took the Sceptre in hand over all effeminacies of body and pronounced Oracles unto us, which to all Ages show, that there is neither evil nor affliction wherein God maketh not his miracles of our pains, and his glory of our rewards.  

The thirteenth EXAMPLE upon the thirteenth MAXIM. The Miserable event of Lust. AMMON the Son of DAVID.  
IT is not one of the least miseries, of the greatest of all evils, I mean sin, that the ill example which often accompanieth it, doth likewise survive it. It is, to say truly, a most bitter fruit of this direful tree, or rather a scien which it in growing produceth, and which being fed from its sap, stands upright after the fall of it. Nor is it strange, that when once the mercy of God, (only able for this great work) hath stifled the monster sin in the soul of parents, yet fails it not (though wholly dead) to infect their families, and poison their posterity with the stench of its ordure.  
David that great Prince, that King according to God's heart, had lost the affections and sweet indulgencies of it, by an adultery and an homicide. He afterward weepeth, he humbly prayeth, he loudly cries, and God, who is willing to be moved, turneth his eyes from his crimes, and that he may no more hereafter see them, applieth the sponge to cleanse them: yet behold long after Ammon, one of his children, who casteth an eye on these bad lessons, & though blotted out, fails not to read them, and to learn thence the science of his own ruin. This unhappy Prince scorns to reflect on the mild temper, the penance and zeal of his father, to look on his exorbitancies. He cannot see this Sun but in eclipse, and not seeking to make choice among so many eminent virtues, which had made him happy, he will not follow his steps but in a path, where needs he must meet with ill adventures.  
Although the holy Scripture speaketh not of the wicked deportments of this Prince until his incest, yet there is a great probability he began not at the end, nor mounted this tower of confusion by the top, but rather arrived thither by the degrees of a life irregular, effeminate, and freed from the care of the soul, wholly to resign himself to the service of the body and it●s concupiscence. But in so much as loathing, which always waits very near upon the most exquisite pleasures, is wont every moment to put the levity of sinners upon new objects, and in that, besides the pride of those who hate thee, (O God supremely amiable) perpetually mounteth, until their giddiness precipitate them into the abyss. Behold here our wicked one, our 
Ammon plotteth incest with his sister.  Epicure, before there was an Epicure in the world, who rejecteth mean crimes, distasteth common pleasures, and projecteth an incest with his own sister, not considering how unreasonable it is to sacrifice the honour of the royal house, the tranquillity of his father, his soul and salvation, to the distemper of his fancy.  
He turneth his eyes from heaven, and from the God of heaven, whose wonders his father had so often sung unto him; he is wholly for passion which predominateth over him nor entertains any other cogitations but to satisfy it. Already this fever, which takes away his sense, hath inflamed his blood, leaving him nought in his veins, but the fire of hell, which more and more increaseth. The contagion of this unsound soul spreads over the body. Behold (saith the history) he falls sick for the love of his sister, who hath nothing at all in her, which can displease him, but her chastity; because that sets before him the great difficulties of his enterprise. He hath a friend, and this proves his main unhappiness; a worldly wise one, a flattering friend, a companion of his riots: but such amities which deserve not the name, resemble false fires, which seeming all inflamed, are nothing else but smoke very easily dissipated, and whose bright splendour only serves to lead into precipices.  
This was Joadab, one of David's Nephews, who having 
Jodab counselleth Ammon to incest with his sister Thamar.  searched into the change both of his countenance and humour, quickly understood the reason of it from his lips, so that too easily complying with his passion, he lastly gave him this counsel: Lie (saith he) on your bed, counterfeit sickness, the King doubtless will visit you, you shall beg of him that your sister Thamar may come to you to prepare your diet, and he without doubt will assent to it.  
Cruel friend, nay rather soothing enemy, what dost thou? Thou well knowest that thus flexibly to serve the passion of this violent spirit, thou subjectest him to the extremity of all unhappiness. Thou stranglest this Prince whilst thou flatterest him, and in lieu of good offices, givest him a hand to lead him down into ruin. Were it not better to use fire and steel for the cure of this mad man, than to comply with his malady to render it incurable? Were it not better with a bitter, but charitable correction, to purge his bad humours, than to power into him a pleasing poison?  
There is nothing more faithfully or more readily executed, than an ill advice; quickly our amourist is in his bed, he entreateth Thamar of the King, who came to visit him; where behold the father, too good for so bad a son, grants what he demandeth. The poor virgin likewise obeyeth the commands of her father, and the suggestions of her own heart, which had but too much tenderness towards so execrable a brother. She runs like an innocent victim to the knife, which must cut her throat, she follows the bait not doubting the hook, and goeth fearless into a place, where she must lose all. This dissembling sick man at first refuseth 
Ammon dissembleth sickness.  the broths she had prepared to procure him an appetite, but having given command all should departed out of the chamber, desires his sister to bring them in: she who nothing doubted the practice, readily goes in, offers them to him, but the enraged creature seizeth on her, and requires to lie with her.  
The poor Princess surprised in this attempt, seeks 
Thamar's advice.  to temper him with sweet words. Alas, dear brother (saith she) commit not such a violence upon me, remember with yourself this abomination is without example in Israel. Banish such thoughts from you, and take heed you enterprise not an act, which will among the wisest be esteemed an unspeakable folly. Whither shall I go after such a shame, or what will you do, when you have purchased so ill reputation? By all means speak to the King, he is a good father, he perhaps will freely afford you that, which you by violence would take. The enraged monster will not so much as understand her, he forceth her, he finds himself to be the stronger, and makes use of this advantage for the satisfaction of a passion, nay rather of a fury, which even the most part of bruit beasts abhor.  
It is a strange thing, how those who seek their contentment in the contempt of God and his ordinances, make an ill reckoning. They meet with wormwood even in honey: their fingers are pricked whilst they gather roses, the odour of which so soon paineth them, and in a word they see, that loathing concludeth, what was begun by disturbances and impatience. This inconstant spirit promised himself pleasures without anxiety or period, but behold him foiled in the first fruition. This infinite love finds its end in the beginning, or rather its change into aversion & hatred.  
Behold he presently despiseth his sister, yea, excessively; 
Ammon despiseth his dishonoured sister.  mark the Scripture: The hatred was much greater, than was ever the affection. He commands her to be gone, and she exaggerating the second offence committed by him, his so unworthy usage of her after such an outrage, he willeth one of his servants to drive her out, and shut the door after her. Who can describe the griefs and agonies of this afflicted creature, defamed by her brother, and thrust by a groom out of a house, wherinto she came not but to do him service? She cast ashes on her head, rend her garments, lifts her hands over her head, goes away weeping and lamenting like one distract, to seek out her brother Absalon, to give him an account of her dolours and to ask revenge.  
This Prince (one of the most prudent and politic 
Absalon close in his revenge.  of his time) at the first dissembleth his resentment; to make it seasonable appear, he endevoureth to sweeten the acerbity of his soul by fair words, adviseth her to be silent, sheweth when all is done he is her brother, and that she should not take such an injury to the heart. Needs must the smoke of pleasure, turn the course of things into flames, and a momentary contentment transmit sorrow and sadness over to posterity.  
Behold Thamar lives in her brother's house, quite disconsolate, King David is enraged, nor can be appeased, and Absalon hides under the ashes of his dissimulation a fire not to be quenched, but with the blood of this caitive.  
Two years passed, and he spoke neither well nor ill of this act, that he might not by his speech betray the desire he had to avenge it. In the end, at the time of his sheep shearing in Balhazor, he took occasion to invite all the King's children to his house. He invited the King likewise, but he making excuse to charge him with so great a train, he entreats that at the least his brother Ammon might be his guest. He shrinks not back, not upon the first denial, he enforceth by the eagerness of importunity, where behold the miserable man goes with his brothers, not knowing he must be the victim of a Sacrifice, prepared by the Justice of heaven, which hath ever undertaken the revenge of violated chastity. See in the midst of a banquet, when Ammon had taken in a little wine, and was full of jollity, Absalon cries out, kill; and his servants 
Ammon slain.  following the direction he had given them, fell upon him, struck him, and left him dead in the place. The other brothers affrighted, risen from the table, got on horseback, and came to Zion, where they satisfied the King, who thought his whole family had been massacred. They at their entrance cried out aloud, they wept with their father, who gave to the desolation of his house what remained of tears, after those torrents which had heretofore dropped from his eyes, and where his sins had happily made shipwreck.  
The murderer escapeth & forsakes the Kingdom, and David lanquisheth with sorrow for his absence, being unable to endure that one death alone should bereave him of two of his children. Lastly he comforted himself in it, and admired the judgements of God upon his house, who permitted that two of his sons were partakers in his crimes, and had surmounted his adultery and homicide, with an incest and a fratricide.    

XIV. MAXIM. Of TRIBULATION.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That one must be evil to be happy, since the Just are most afflicted. That all is happy for the Just, yea, even tribulation.  
IT is a wonderful thing how the Profane Court dares propose this maxim, refuted by the experience of all Ages, observations of all histories, understandings of all people, and common voice of nature.  
Camerarius in his Problems, wherein he pursueth the tracks of ordinary life, without search into other considerations more Divine, makes a question, why those who are addicted to Religion, are always most happy. And on the contrary, from whence it is, that the wicked are most unfortunate: Affirming it to be observed throughout all histories. Now this Author, who plainly showeth in this Treatise he is none of the most Religious, gently toucheth some reasons, saying among other things, there is some power which pleaseth to depress the wicked, because ordinarily they are of a spirit fierce and insolent; as if impiety alone were not sufficient for their infelicity. The punishments of the wicked are so frequent in histories both Divine and humane, that in so great an Ocean of examples, which may take up more than fifty Ages, scarcely can we produce one sole notable felicity, which felt not some great mishap. That we many times may have cause to make use of S. Augustine's, and S. Eucherius argument, who say, that although God punish not a crime in this life, he doth it to assure us there is a great tribunal, and a puissant justice in the other world. It were a thing superfluous at this time to oppose this maxim by effects, which are so evident, and whereof I think I have produced sufficient observations in preceding Tomes: I had rather here employ reason, and show all to be happy to the just, yea, tribulation.  

That the Providence of GOD excellently appeareth in the afflictions of the Just.  
MEn curious in their censures, and distrustful in their actions, have never ceased in all times to argue with Divine providence about the afflictions of the Just, but I with the assistance of heaven intent at this present to prove the eternal Wisdom maketh itself visibly appear, by the same things wherewith many think to overthrow it. Now I make it good by four reasons: the first whereof shall show, worldly blessings cannot be great but by the experience of evils. Secondly, that tribulation is the noursing-mother of all virtues. Thirdly, that there is no spectacle more glorious among the works of God, than an innocent afflicted for Justice, and patiented in affliction. Fourthly, that it is a proof of beatitude.  
We then deliver in the beginning of this discourse 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  a notable maxim drawn out of Aeneas Gaza, an ancient Author, inserted in the Bibliotheck of the Fathers: Never do we sufficiently know the sweetness of good, without the trial of evil. Joseph mounted upon the triumphant Chariot of Pharaoh by prisons and fetters: David to the throne of Saul by many persecutions: And their great prosperities were much more sweet unto them, because they were foregone by sharp afflictions. We see the same in nature; where the Sun is more resplendent after its eclipse, the sea more calm after a tempest, and the air much brighter after a shower, which made a great Statesman say: Storms 
Maris Coelique temperiem, turbines tempestatesque commendant: habet has vices conditio mortalium, u● adversa secundis, & adversis secunda nascantur. Occultat utrorunque semina deus, & plerumque bonorum & malorum causae sub diversâ specie latent. Plin. in Panegyr. Trajan.  and tempests contribute to the clearness of the heavens, and the smoothness of the sea. The condition of mortals hath this proper, that adversities grow out of prosperities, and prosperities from adversities. God hideth from us the seeds both of the one and the other, and many times the causes of blessings and evils are covered under one and the same appearance.  
One may here object, that if we must always have evil to taste good, we might infer the Angels were not sufficiently happy, because they arrived at beatitude without passing through tribulations, these being the flowers-de-luce of God's garden, which neither wrought nor took pains to be clothed with the robe of glory: we might conclude, God himself had some defect in his felicity, since he always hath a most accomplished beatitude, with exclusion of all manner of evil. I answer to that, there is very much difference between the condition of things eternal and temporal. Angels entered almost as soon into felicity as into being, because they were placed in the upper region of the world, where miseries cannot approach, and who having besides a singular knowledge of God's favour, stood not in need to be aided by the counterpoise of adversities. But as for us, we are not only born in a soil, which is as fertile in calamities, as forests in brids, and rivers in fish; but besides, we are extreme ignorant of God's grace, when we long enjoy prosperity; which is the cause that adversity, though necessarily tied to our condition, maketh us notably open our eyes to know the felicities which follow it, and to understand from what source they proceed. As for that which concerneth the Divinity, it cannot, to speak properly, endure any thing contrary by reason of the condition of its essence, which is fully replenished with all sorts of beatitude. God (said Philon) is incommunicable to tribulations, he is always vigorous, ever free from dolour or pain, perpetually in action without weariness, still plunged in a sea of most pure delights, as being the height, end, and aim of felicity.  
Thereupon unable to suffer, (as he is God) and and yet willing to undergo some special part in the great sacrifice of patience, which began with the world, he took a body, and in that body drank the cup of the passion, showing evidently to all mortals, that tribulations by their darkness avail to the brightest rays of glory, which S. Augustine spoke in very express terms.  
The only Son born of the substance of the Father, and 
Vnicus ille de Patris substantiâ Natus, aequalit Patri in formâ Dei, Verbum quo facta sunt omnia, non habebat ubi flagellaretur, ad hoc autem earne indutus est, ut sine flagello non esset. August. Quia eras acceptus Deo, necesse fuit ut tentatio probaret te. Tob. 12. 13. Reg. 4. 2. 9 S. Aug. l. 2. de mirab. Scrip. Obsecro ut fiat in me duplex spiritus tuus.  equal to the Father in Divine essence; the Word, by which all things were created, had nothing to suffer, as God, and is clothed with our flesh to participate in our punishments.  
2. The second reason, which visibly showeth the secret of Divine providence in the tribulation of the Just, is, that God being the Sovereign Sanctity, was necessarily to procure and plant it in the souls of his elect, by all the most effectual ways which his wisdom had ordained. Now there is not any shorter way to virtue, than a well managed affliction, and therefore it was necessary to maintain adversity in the world, as the nurse of great and generous actions of Christianity. It was necessary (saith the Scripture) to try thee by tribulation, because thou wast acceptable to God.  
It is a matter almost impossible to preserve a great virtue in perpetual prosperity; one must be more than a man, and to have a double spirit: which is excellently well observed by S. Augustine, upon the words of Elizeus: I entreat your spirit may be doubled in me. Elizeus (saith he) begged the spirit of Elias might be double in him, because he was to live in the favour of Court and worldly prosperities, where the way is more slippery and dangers most frequent. His Master Elias had passed his life in many persecutions, wherefore a single spirit was sufficient for his direction, adversity being not so difficultly borne as prosperity. But insomuch as eminent fortunes are subject to deep drunkenesses, and supine forgetfulness of God, the Prophet saith by an instinct of the Divinity: Let your 
Fiat in me duplex spiritus. Boet. de conso. l. 2. pros. 8.  spirit be doubled in me.  
Prosperity under the show of felicity deceiveth us; tribulation is ever true: the one flatters us, the other instructeth us; the one tied up our senses and reason, the other unbinds them; the one is windy, empty, giddy, ignorant, the other sober, reserved, and prudent; the one withdraweth us from real good by the allurements of vanity, the other reduceth us by a wholesome way into the duty from whence we wandered. S. Bernard saith excellently: Prosperity is in 
Quando hoc incautis non fuit ad disciplinam, quod ignis ad ceram, quod solis radius ad nivem velglaciem. Sapiens David, sapiens Solomon, sed blandientibus nimis secundis rebus alter de parte, alter ex toto desipuit. Magnus qui incidens in adversa non excidit vel parum a sapientia, ne minor cui praesens faelicitas si arrisit, non irrisit.  weak and inconsiderate souls, as fire to wax, and the sun's rays to snow. David was very wise, and Solomon much more, yet both charmed by the great success of affairs lost understanding, the one at least in in part, the other wholly. We must affirm, there is need of a strong spirit to subsist in adversity, without change of reason or constancy: but it is much more hard to taste very pleasing prosperities, and not be deceived. This is the cause why wise providence, ever to keep virtue in breath, ceaseth not to excercise it in this honourable list of great souls and we behold, that following these proceed, it thence deriveth great advantages and many beauties. The Scripture noteth that Job 
(a) Job 42. Merserus in Job.  returning into the lustre of his former state, gave titles to his three daughters, much observed: for he called one by the name of Day, the other Cassia, or as some Interpreters say Amber, and the third Amaltaeas' Horn, so the Septuagint translate it. We must not think so holy a man would herein do any slight thing, or not to some purpose. But if we believe Holy Fathers upon it, he meant by these three names to signify the three conditions of fortune. The first, (which was before his great adversities) is compared to the day rejoicing us with the natural sweetness of its serenity. The second, which was that of his calamity, to amber because it is properly in tribulation, where virtue diffuseth her good odours. It resembleth aromatic spices, which more show their virtue when they are pounded and brought into powder in a mortar; or incense, which never lets it so much appear what it is, as when it is cast on coals: so that this motto of the Wiseman may be attributed to it: 
(b) Quasi ignis refulgens, & thus arden's in igne. Eccles. 50. 10.  A resplendent fire, and incense burning in the fire. In the end issuing forth of tedious tribulations, and having been hardened and fortified under storms, it openeth its bosom, and unfoldeth admirable fruits, which fitly make it to be called the Horn of abundance. Whereof we say with S. Ambrose 
(c) Est ergo beatitudo in doloribus, quos plena suavitatis virtus comprimit, & coercet, ipsa sibi domesticis opibus abundans vel ad conscientiam vel ad gloriam. Ambro. offici. l. 2. c. 4.  there is a certain beatitude in dolours, which virtue full of sweetness and delight represseth, from whence it acquireth palms, and inestimable riches, as well for satisfaction of its conscience, as the condition of glory.  
3. For we affirm for a third reason, that God hath not a more glorious spectacle on earth; than a Just man afflicted and patiented. Is it not that which God himself meant in the book of Job, where the Prince of darkness, telling he had gone round about the world, he said not to him: Hast thou seen the Monarchies and Empires, which bow under my Sceptre, and circumvolve under my laws? Hast thou seen Palaces of Kings and Princes, whose turrets penetrate the clouds? Hast thou seen armies all enclosed with swords, making the earth tremble under the clashing of their arms? Hast thou beheld the theatres, beauties, and triumph of greatness? Hast thou considered all the wealth which nature reserveth for me in magazines? He says nothing of all that. What then? 
(d) Numquid considerâsti servum meum Job, quod non sit ci similis in terrâ? Job. 8.  Hast thou looked on my servant Job, who hath not his like on earth? And what maketh him more admirable, than that which Cassianus 
(e) Ex l●cuplete pauperrimus, nudus ex divite, ex valido tabidus, ex in ●yto & glorioso 〈◊〉 il●●, st●r●uilinii factus habitator, & velut qu●●●m corporis sui saevissi●us carnis●●, te●t● rad●●●●●●●i●m & membrerum gle●●s, vermesque è profundis vulneribus ●anibus detrahebat. Cassia. Colla. 6. de niece Sanctorum.  mentioneth? A man was seen abounding in all sorts of blessings, become very poor, having not so much as wherewith to cover his nakedness, fallen from a most perfect health into a prodigious malady, which disfigured his whole body, and having lost so many goodly farms, reduced to the extremity of being the inhabitant of a wretched dunghill: But he out-braving his miseries, and showing himself to be nothing curious, took a rough stone to wipe his wounds, and putting his hand far into the bottom of his ulcers, drew thence the corruption and worms, which made him honourable by the lights of his patience. Have we not cause to cry out with Tertullian: 
(f) Quale in illo viro feretrum Deus de diabolo extruxit! quale vexillum dé inimico sue gloria extulit? Tertul. de pat. c. 13.  Oh what a trophy hath God erected in this holy man! O, what a standard hath be advanced in the sight of all his enemies? I dare freely pronounce it, there is not any approacheth more near to God, than a man laden with afflitions, and become invincible in the arms of patience. And I ask of you what made Toby to be called the Good God 
(g) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Clem. Alex. Paedag 2.  but this admirable virtue? I say although many have been honoured with marks of the Divinity, by reason of their favours and benignities towards men, (there being nothing which so charmeth people as the profusion of benefits) yet interest was the cause great men were flattered with such titles above their deserts; whereas quite otherwise, praise rendered to patience is much more sincere, as being expressed by a certain veneration afforded to a virtue absolutely heroic: which makes me conclude, that men, ravished with the sight of this notable patience which shined in Toby, when having done well evil was retributed, surnamed him the Good God, not for any other reason but his admirable constancy, having this maxim well engraven in their hearts, that God hath not on earth a more perfect Image of his greatness, than a patiented man. S. Denis 
(b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. S. Dionis. Ep. 8.  likewise plainly calleth patience the imitation of the Divinity, and addeth, Moses was honoured with the rays of Divine vision for his singular mansuetude.  
4. Lastly I say tribulation confirmeth us in the faith of future things, as being a manifest proof of beatitude. For reasoning, though never so little by the light of nature, we judge if there be any justice in men, it is in God as in its source, with an imcomparable eminency, and therefore we cannot imagine a Divinity without the inheritance of goodness, and equity, which perpetually accompany it. Now when we see innocent men continually afflicted, who go out of this life by bloody and horrible ways, many times oppressed by the tyranny of men, and having none to revenge their ashes, we necessarily conclude, there is in the other life another justice, and another tribunal, where causes must be decided in a last Court of judicature. We say with S. Paul: 
(i) Expectatio creaturae revelationem filiorum Dei expectat: vanitati enim creatura subjecta est, non volens, sed propter eum qui subjecit cam in spe: quia & ipsa creatura liberabitur a servitute corruptionis in libertatem gloriae filiorum Dei. Rom. 8.  The expectation of the creature looketh for the revelation of God's children: For every creature is subject to Nothing, not of his own liking, but by the ordinance of him, who hath subjected him with hope of rising again: For creatures shall be delivered from the servitude of all corruption into the liberty of the children of God. That was it, which comforted all the Martyrs in hideous torments, when their souls were torn out of their bodies with incomparable violence. For although mortal members yielded to the sword of persecution, yet they beheld, though with an eye drenched in blood and tears, the bright glory which waited on them, and saw as in a mirror the thrones of those prodigious sufferings disposed all into Crowns. There S. Stephen, saw his stones changed into as many rubies to serve for matter of veneration to piety, and an exemple of courage for all posterity. There S. Laurence looked on his flames turned into roses and delights. There S. Felicitas, the mother of glories and triumphs, beheld seven sons, who received her with palms in their hands into the beautiful pavilions of heaven, where all torments made an end to give beginning to infinite comforts. That is it which animated all the just in so great a heap of tribulations, and which made them speak these words of Tertullian: 
(k) Satis idoneus patientiae sequester Deus, si injuriam deposueris penes eum, ult●● est; si damnum, restitutor est; si dolorem, medicus est, si mortem resuscitator. O quantum patientiae licet us Deum habeat debitore n! Tertull. de pat. 15.  God is payable enough, in that he is the Arbiter and Feoff, of your patience. If you commit an injury to him, he is the Avenger of it; if a loss of goods, he is the restorer; if a pain or malady, he is the Physician; since it makes God himself the debtor, who by the condition of his independent nature, being not accountable to any, doth notwithstanding particularly bind himself to patience.  
Let us conclude with four excellent instructions to be observed in adversity, which are expressed in the book of Job; 
(l) Job 1. Tunc surrexit, & seidis vestimenta sua, & tonse capite corruens in terram adoravit, & dixit: Nudus egressus sum, etc.  for it is said: He rend his garments, and having cut off his hair, and prostrated himself on the earth, adored and said: Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked I return into earth.  
Note, that rising up he rend his garments, to show he courageously discharged himself of all exterior blessings, which are riches and possessions, signified by garments. He cut his hair, which was a sign he put the whole body into the hands of God, to dispose of it at his pleasure. For as those Ancients sacrificing a victim first pulled off the hair and threw into the fire, to testify the whole body was already ordained to sacrifice; so such as for ceremony gave their hair to temples, protested they were dedicated to the service of the Divinity, to whom the vow was made. In the third instance, he prostrated himself on the earth, acknowledging his beginning by a most holy humility. And for conclusion, he prayed and adored with much reverence. Behold all you should practise in tribulation well expressed in this mirror of patience.  
First, are you afflicted with loss of goods, either by some unexpected chance, or by some tyranny and injustice? Abate not your courage, but considering the nullity of all earthly blessings, and the greatness of eternal riches, say: My God, although I have endeavoured hitherto to preserve the wealth thou gavest me, as an instrument of many good deeds, yet if thou hast ordained in the sacred counsel of thy providence, that I must be deprived of them for my much greater spiritual avail, I from this time renounce them with all my heart, and am ready to be despoiled, even to the last nakedness, the more perfectly to enter into the imitation of thy poverty. Say with S. Lewis 
Divitia mea Christus, desixt caetera. Omnis copia qua Deus meus non est, mibi inopia est.  Archbishop of Tholouse: Jesus is all my riches, and with him I am content in the want of all other wealth. All plenty, which is not God is mere penury to me.  
If you be tormented with bodily pain, by maladies, by death of allies, say: My God, to whom belongs this afflicted body? Is it not to thee? Is not this one of thy members? It now endureth some pain, since thou hast so appointed, and it complains and groaneth under the scourge: where are so many precepts of patience? where is the love of suffering? where conformity to the cross? S. Olalla, a Virgin 
Quam juvas bos apices le. gear qui tus Christe trophea notant. Prudent.  about thirteen or fourteen years of age, as she was martyred, and her body torn with iron hooks, beheld her members all bloody, and said: O my God, what a brave thing is it to read these characters, where I see thy trophies and monuments imprinted with iron on my body, and written in my blood. A creature so tender, so delicate, shall she show such courage in the midst of torments, such transfixing pains, and cannot I resolve to suffer a little evil with some manner of patience? If be the death of an ally, behold that body, not in the state wherein it now appears, but in the bright lustre of glory, wherewith you shall behold it in the day of the Resurrection, wiping away your tears, say what Ruricius did: Let them bewail the dead, who cannot have any hope of Resurrection. Let the dead 
Fleant ●ntuos qui spom resurrectionis habere non possunt. Flems' mortui mortuos suos, quos in perpetuim existimant interiisse.  lament their dead friends, whom they account dead for ever.  
In the third place arm yourself with profound humility, and looking on the earth from whence your body came, say: My God, it is against my pride thy rod is lifted up in this tribulation. Shall such a creature as I, drawn out of the dust become proud against thy commandments, and so often shake off the yoke of thy Law? I now acknowledge from the bottom of my soul the abjectness of my nothing, and protest with all resentments of heart my dependence on thee. The little herb, called trefoil, foldeth up the three leaves it beareth, when thunder roareth, thereby willing to tell us, it will not lift a crest, nor raise a bristle against Heaven. Lightning also, which teareth huge trees asunder, never falls upon it. My God, I hear thy hand murmuring over my head in this great affliction, and I involve me within myself, and behold the element whereinto I must be reduced, to do the homage my mortality oweth thee. Exercise not the power of thy thunders against a worm of the earth, against a reed which serves for a sport to the wind. Lastly, take courage what you may, in the accidents 
Factus in agonia prolixius erabat. Domine, quid multiplicati sunt qui tribulant me. Multi insargunt adversum me, multidicunt animae me● non est solus ipsi in Deo ejus. Tu autem Domine susceptor meus, etc.  that happen, and by the imitation of our Saviour, retire into the bosom of prayer, which is a sovereign means to calm all storms. Jesus prayed in his agony, and the more his sadness increased, the more the multiplied his prayers. Say in imitation of him: My God, why are my persecutors so increased? Many rise up against me. Many say to my soul, there is no salvation for it in God. But Lord, thou art my Protector, and my glory, thou art he who wilt make me exalt my head above all mine enemies.   

The fourteenth EXAMPLE upon the fourteenth MAXIM. Of Constancy in Tribulation. ELEONORA.  
WE are able to endure more than we think. For there are none but slight evils, which cause us readily to deplore, and which raise a great noise, like to those brooks that pearl among pebbles; whilst great-ones pass through a generous soul, as huge rivers which drive their waves along with a peaceful majesty.  
This manifestly appeareth in the death of Sosa and 
Maffaeus hist. Indicar. l. 16.  Eleonora, related by Maffaeus in the sixteenth book of his history of the Indies. This Sosa was by Nation a Portugal, a man of quality, pious, rich, liberal, and valiant, married to one of the most virtuous women in the whole Kingdom. They having been already some good time in the Indies, and inflamed with the desire of seeing their dear Country again, embarked at Cochin, with their children very young, some gentlemen and officers, and with about six hundred men. The beginning of their navigation was very prosperous; but being arrived at Capo de bona speranza, they there found the despair of their return. A westerly wind beat them back with all violence; clouds gathered, thunders roared, Heaven itself seemed to break into fire over their heads, and under foot they saw nothing but abysses and images of death. If they would anchor, the Ocean tosseth them, if return to the Indian coast, contrary winds blow to stay their passage. Their sails are torn, Mast cracked, Rudder broken, their Ship shaken with surges, beginning to leak, industry of men fruitless, and all let lose to the sway of tempests. To conclude their unhappiness, another Southern wind violently thrust them into the port, where they met with shipwreck. They must avoid this counterbuff, if they would not be buried in the waves. They cast anchor to stay the ship, and leapt into cock-boats, to recover shore with the more safety. Sosa first of all saved himself, his wife, and children, carried with him his gold, silver, and jewels, so much as so imminent danger would permit. The boats after a return or two, were scattered, the cable unto which the anchor of their ship was fastened, broke, the sides leaked, the keel opened, every man sought to save himself, many were drowned, other struggled with the Ocean, golden coffers, painted cabinets, and the goodly riches of the Indies swum with men half-dead, tossed by the waves amongst fardels and packs, and losing life, lost not (as yet) the sight of that which made them live. Some became black with the buffets they received, others bedewed the sea with their blood, yet all desired to reach the haven; so much desire of life possesseth us Scarcely got they thither, but they saw their vessel sink down to the bottom, leaving them not any hope of return. The dead bodies of their companions, with the doleful baggage utterly spoiled with sea-water, were cast up at their feet. On what side soever they reflect, nothing is seen but calamity. Here the dead which begged burial, there the living all drenched in water, laden with wounds, overwhelmed with toil, worn with hunger, to arrive in a savage Country, where having nothing almost to hope, they have all to fear.  
All that poor Sosa could do, was to kindle fire, and draw out some tainted victuals, wherewith to take refection; his heart was seized with apprehension of this disaster, in which he saw all he esteemed most precious involved, notwithstanding clearing his brow, he comforted this afflicted company, and said:  
It was not time to think upon their losses, but to give God thanks he had saved their lives. That they were not so ignorant of the sea, as not to know full well, when one makes account to embark thereon, he must expect hunger, thirst, losses, shipwrecks, and all the miseries of mankind. And therefore when they happen, they must be regarded as things already foreseen, and profit made of evils for expiation of sins. As for the rest, being so destitute of all things in a strange Country, there was no better riches than mutual correspondence, which would preserve the whole body adhering together, as discord infallibly ruineth divided members. He added (fetching a deep sigh) They might behold their poor Lady with their tender infants, in the extremity of peril, and that although both sex and age required they should be somewhat assisted, he would neither spare himself nor his, for the common safety.  
All answered with tears in their eyes, he might confidently lead them where he pleased, and that they had no further hope of their lives, but in the obedience they resolved to yield to his commands. Having then remained thirteen days in this miserable Port, barricadoed with huge stones and coffers, left as remainders of their shipwreck, to defend them by night from thiefs and wild beasts, they put themselves in the way to bend towards the East, directly to a great river, which the Portugese's had heretofore named the Holy Ghost. Sosa went foremost with his wife, who shown a masouline courage in a tender constitution: she had her little children by her sides, whom turn by turn every one carried. Andrew de Vase the Pilot, was in the same rank, bearing the standard of the Cross, attended also by about four-score Portugese's, and an hundred servants who bare arms. Then followed mariners poor creatures, and other inferior people, who were not yet cured.  
The good servants moved with compassion of Eleonora, whom they beheld walking on foot, framed her a kind of litter, and sought all they might to comfort her: but that lasted not long. Needs in the end must the poor Lady travel through places, where nothing was to be seen but wild beasts, and Cafres' more inhuman than beasts; over rocks inaccessible, mountains which raised their heads above the clouds, valleys not to be looked down into without horror, torrents swollen with showers, marshes cloyed with mud, and which was most irksome, they must go at random through ways of which every one was ignorant, nor could any direct them; so that they made an hundred leagues of thirty. Their little store of victual failing, they eat first pieces of rotten whales, and other garbages of the sea, then wild fruits, leaves, and lastly spared not the carcases of beasts, which they found in the desert. From that they fell into a great scarcity of water, and if they would have any something tolerable, they must seek it among Moors and tigers, and buy it at eight crowns the pint. There were many, who over whelmed with these hideous disasters, left the spoil of their bodies to cruel Aethiopians, to birds and beasts, bidding a sad adieu to their companions, with the last words they desired to be delivered to their friends and kindred. But the fears and present calamities of every one, made them to forget the dead with their requests. The unfortunate Sosa oppressed with sorrow, considering so many mishaps redoubled one upon another, and beholding his wife, who to comfort him, shown herself indefatigable both in mind and body, she carrying her children in her turn, and encouraging all the rest, it most sensibly wounded his heart to see a Lady so tenderly bred, endure with such constancy the utmost of worldly miseries.  
At last, after four month's travel, they came to the river of the H. G. ere they were ware, where a petty King commanded, who very courteously received them, partly moved with the sight of so great a calamity, and partly also desiring by this opportunity to make use of the Portingale's favour, whereof he stood in need for his affairs. He let them understand, as well as he could, his desire of their stay with him, in expectation of the commodity of re-embarking. Otherwise, should they hazard themselves to proceed forward on their way in this miserable equipage, they would be in danger to be rob by a neighbour-Prince, one of the greatest thiefs in the Country.  
The more this Barbarian King shown himself courteous, so much the more Sosa grew suspicious of his proceed, and sinisterly judged, that such sweetness in a man unknown, was but the cover of an evil purpose. He thanked him for his favour, and very earnestly besought him to accommodate them with boats to pass the river, which the other unwillingly did, seeing the peril whereinto they hastened to fall. They went, there remaining not above  of five or six hundred men, and having been five days on the river, they landed at adventure, rather constrained by night, than invited by the commodiousness of place. The next day, they descried a squadron of about two hundred Aethiopians, who came towards them, which made them prepare for defence: but troubled at their arms, they showing themselves peaceful enough, the other by gesture and signs discovered their infinite miscries. These people wholly practised in tricks of deceit, and who would make benefit of this occasion, let them with much ado understand, they might pass along to the King's Palace, where they should be very well entertained; which they attempted, but approaching to the City in arms, the King of these Barbarians timorous, and wicked, forbade them entrance, and confined them to a little wood, where they remained certain days, passing the time in a poor traffic of knives and trifles, which they bartered for bread. But this treacherous Prince, who meant to catch them in the snare, seeing they had some commodities, sent word to Sosa, he must excuse him that he denied entrance into the City, and that two causes had put him from it. The first whereof, was the dearth of victual among his people, and the other, the fear his subjects had of the Portugese's arms, they never, as yet, being accustomed thereto. But if they would deliver their weapons, they should be received into his city, and his people consigned to the next towns, to be well entertained. This condition seemed somewhat harsh, but necessity digested all. They agreed with one consent to satisfy the King, Eleonora only excepted, who never would consent to betray their defences in a place where they had so much need of them. Behold them disarmed and separated, some dispersed into several villages here and there: Sosa with his wife, his children, and about twenty other brought to the regal City. Scarcely was he arrived, but all his company were rob, beaten with bastonadoes, and used that very night like dogs; whilst himself had little better entertainment: For this Prince of savages took all his gold and jewels from him and drove him away as a Pirate, leaving him only life and his poor garments. As they went out of this calamity, deploring their misery, behold another troup of Cafres', armed with javelins, who set upon them, and let them know, they must leave their apparel if they meant not to forsake their skins. They were so confounded, they neither had strength nor courage to defend themselves: behold the cause why they yielded, what was demanded, as sheep their fleece. There was none but Eleonora, who preferring death before nakedness, stood a long time disputing about a poor smock with these savages: but in the end, violence bereft her of that, which modesty sought by all means to keep.  
The chaste and honourable Lady, seeing herself naked in the sight of her domestics, who cast down their eyes at the indignity of such a spectacle, presently buried herself in sand up to the middle, covering the rest of her body with her dissheveled hair, and every moment having these words in her mouth, Where is my husband? then turning towards the Pilot, and some of her Officers there present, she said to them with a settled countenance: My good friends, you have hitherto afforded to my husband your Captain, and to me your Mistress, all the duty may be expected from your fidelity: It is time you leave this body, which hath already paid to the earth the moiety of its tribute. Go think upon saving your lives, and pray for my poor soul: But if any one of you return to our native Country, be may recount to those who shall please to remember the unfortunate Eleonora, to what my sins have reduced me. Having spoken these words, she stood  in a deep silence some space of time, then lifting her eyes to Heaven, added: My God, behold the state wherein I came from my mother's womb, and the condition whereunto I must quickly return on earth, one part of me being already as among the dead. My God, I kiss and adore the rods of thy justice, which so roughly, though justly, have chastised me. Take between thy arms the soul of my most honoured husband, if he be dead. Take the souls of my poor children, which are by my sides. Take mine, now on my lips, and which I yield to thee, as to my Lord and Father. There is no place far distant from thee, nor any succour impossible to thy power.  
As she spoke this, Sosa her husband came, having escaped out of the hands of these thiefs who had rob him, and finding his wife in this state, he stood by her, not able to utter a word. The Lady likewise spoke only with her eyes, which she sweetly fixed upon him, to give comfort in the violence of the insupportable afflictions. But he feeling his heart wholly drenched in bitterness, hastened into a wood of purpose to meet with some prey, at least to feed his little children, which were as yet by their mother's side. Thence he ere long returned, and found one of them already dead, to which with his own hands he gave burial, immediately after he went again into the forest, to hunt as he had accustomed, finding no other comfort. His heart was perpetually in Eleonora's, where he survived more than in his own body, & coming to behold her once again▪ or his last, he perceived she was already deceased, with his other child, who died near her; there being only left two poor maids, who bewailed their Lady, and made the wilderness resound with their sad complaints. He commanded them to retire a little aside, then taking Eleonora by the hand, he kissed it, standing a long time with his lips fixed unto it, & nothing to be heard but some broken sighs. That done, with the help of the maids, he buried her near his two children, without any complaint or utterance of one word. In a short space after, he returned into the thickest of the forest, where it was thought he was devoured. So joining his soul at least to hers, who had tied her heart to his in death, with examples of her constancy.     

THE THIRD PART OF MAXIMS Of the HOLY COURT.  
THE DESIGN.  
HAving in this Second Part deduced the principal Maxims which concern the direction of this present Life, we enter into the other, there to behold the power of death over mortal things, and the immortality of our souls in the general dissolution of bodies. We consider them in the several ways they take in their passage, and then see them reunited to their bodies, as in the Resurrection. It is under thy eyes, Eternal Wisdom, and by thy favour we enter into these great labyrinths of thy Eternity's, therein hoping thy direction, as we intent thy glory.  

THE THIRD PART. Touching the State of the other World.  
XV. MAXIM. Of DEATH.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That it is to no purpose to think upon death so far off, and that it always cometh soon enough without thinking on it. That the best employment of life is to bewel prepared for death, and that good thoughts of death, are the seeds of immortality.  
1. IT is a strange thing that men, being all made out of one and the same mass, are so different in beliefs, in reasons, in customs, and actions, as the Proteus' in Poetical fables. Our manners daily 
Diversity of men.  teach us a truth, which says: There is not any thing so mutable upon earth, as the heart of man.  
Yet we see in the world many honourable personages, and good men who travel apace to this triumphant City of God, this Heavenly Jerusalem, looking on the blessings of the other life, with an eye purified by the rays of faith, and expecting them with a hope, for which all Heaven is in bloom. But there 
Opinion concerning the other life.  are an infinite number of black souls marked with the stamp of Cain, who consider all is said of the state of the other world, as if it were some imaginary Island, feigned to be in the Ocean to amuse credulous spirits, and fill them partly with pleasing dreams, partly with irksome visions.  
If these people could find some apparent proofs, they would easily persuade themselves there were no death; but their senses convinced of the contrary from experience of all Ages, they believe that which they dare not think on▪ and commonly die after so brutish a fashion, that a man may say, They had converted the lights of an immortal spirit wholly into flesh.  
But you, generous souls, whom at this present I intent to guide through the hopes and terrors of the other life, observe this first step you must make, to enter into a new world with constancy, not unworthy a soul sensible of its immortality.  
2. Life and death are two poles, on the which all 
Life & death the two poles of the world.  creatures roll: life, is the first act movable and continual of the living thing; death, the cessation of the same act. And as there are three notable actions in things animated, the one whereof tendeth to nourishment and increase, the other to sense, the third to understanding, so there are three sorts of lives, 
Divers kinds of life.  the vegetative, the sensitive, and the intellectual: the vegetative in plants, sensitive in beasts, the intellectual, which only appertaineth to God, Angels, and men. The intellectual life is divided into two other, which are the life of grace and glory. In Heaven (the place of things eternal) reign those great and divine lives which never die and which are in a perpetual vigour, being applied to the first source of lives, which is God. But in the more inferior rank of the world are dying lives, of which we daily see the beginning, progress, and end. Here properly is the dominion of death, and our only mystery is to die well. Some do it of necessity, others every day anticipate it by virtue. Now it is my desire here to show you; That death in the state wherein the world is at this present, is a singular invention of Divine Providence, whether we consider the generality of men, whether we look on the vicious, or fix our thoughts on the just.  
3. Some complain of death, but you would see 
Providence of God concerning the sentence of death, in the generality of men.  much other complaints, if in such a life as we live, there were no death. You would see men worn with years and cares, daily to charge altars with vows and prayers, men insupportable to all the world, irksome to life, inexpugnable to death, men old as the earth, incessantly calling upon the hour of death, and almost eating one another with despair. God hath herein (saith Plato) well provided; for seeing the soul was to be 
Plato in Timaeo. Pater misericors illis mortalia vincula faciebat.  shut up in the body as in a prison, he hath at least made it chains mortal.  
What makes you so much desire life? I find (saith the worldling) it is a pleasure to behold the light, the star, elements, and seasons. There will be much more delight to see them one day under your feet, than there is now to behold them over your head? Are there now so many years you have been upon the earth, and have you not yet sufficiently looked upon the elements? There were certain people among the Pagans, who by laws forbade a man of fifty years to make use of the Physician, saying, It discovered too much love of life; and yet with Christians you may find at the age of four-score, who will not endure a word of the other world, as if they had not yet one days leisure to look into it. But I must still 
Ambr. l. 2. de Abel & Cain. Non advertitis senectutem hanc aerumnarum esse veteranam, processionibusque aetatis miseriarum crescere stipendia, Scyll●o quodam usu circumsonari nos quotidianis naufragiis?  perform the actions of life. Have you not done them enough? See you not that to live long, is to be long in the entertainment of travel and misery, which extend their power over our heads, according as the web of our life lengtheneth? Do you not consider we are in this life as fish in the sea, perpetually in fear of nets or hooks? Will you not say, we live here in the midst of misery and envy, as between Scylla and Charybdis, and that to decline once perishing, we daily make ship wrack? Notwithstanding we are pleased with life, as if man were not so much a mortal creature, as an immortal misery.  
Do you not know life was given by God to Cain, 
Revolution troublesome.  the most wicked man on earth, for a punishment of his crime, and will it rest with you as a title of reward? There is great cause to desire life. Were there no other miseries, (which are but too frequent) this anxiety and turmoil of relapsing actions would tire us. What is life but clothing and unclothing, rising and downlying, drinking, eating, sleeping, gaming, scoffing, negotiating, buying, selling, masonry, carpentery, quarrelling, cozening, rolling in a labyrinth of actions, which perpetually turn and return, filling and emptying the tub of the Danaïdes, and to be continually tied to a body, as to the tending of an infant, a fool, or a sick man? That is not it which withdraweth me, (say you) But I must see the world, and live with the living. Had you been all your life 
Baseness of the world.  time shut up in a prison, and not seen the world but through a little grate, you had seen enough of it. What behold you in the streets but men, houses, horses, mules, coaches, and people, who tumble up and down like fishes in the sea, who have many times no other trade, but to devour one another, and besides some peddling trifles hanged out on stalls? When I have seen all this but for half an hour, I say: O God, how little is the world? Is it for this we deceive, we swear, and make a divorce between God and us!  
But admit we were not interessed in this action, must we not rest on the law of God, who maketh life and ordaineth death, by the juridical power of his wisdom, ever to be adored by our wills, though little penetrable to understanding? Will you I pronounce an excellent saying of Tertullian: The world is the 
Vterus naturae. An excellent conceit drawn from the words of Tertullian.  belly of Nature, and men are in it as children in the mother's womb: the birth of men are the world's child-bearings, death its lying in, and deliveries. Would you not die, to hinder the world from bringing forth, and unburdening itself by the way the Sovereign Master hath appointed it? We have seen Tyrants of all sorts, some invented exquisite torments and trials, others forbade eating and drinking, some to weep, some caused children to be taken from the teat, to strangle them and cut their throats, as Pharaoh and Herod. But never was there any amongst them, who forbade women with child to be delivered. The world hath for a long space been big with you, and would not you have it to be delivered at the time God's counsels have ordained? Were it a handsome thing think you to see an infant presently to have teeth, and articulate speech, and yet (if it might be) would stay in the mother's womb, using no other reason but that there is warm being.  
Judge now, and take the even balance; if the world be the belly of nature, if this good mother bore us the time God's providence appointed, if she now seek her delivery, that we may be born in the land of the living, in a quite other climate, another life, another light, are not we very simple to withstand it, as little infants who cry when they issue out of blood and ordure, at the sight of daylight, yet would not return thither from whence they came.  
4. Behold the Providence of God in that which 
Providence in the death of the vicious Boet. l. 4. de consol. Cum supplicis carent, ines● illis aliquid alteriu● mali, ips● impunit●s. S. Eucher. in paraenesi.  concerneth death in the generality of all men. Let us see in this second point the like providence towards the wicked, the vicious, rich, and proud Great-ones, who spit against Heaven. We must first establish a most undoubted maxim, that there is nothing so unhappy as impunity of men abandoned to vice, which is the cause the paternal providence of God arresteth them by the means of death, dictating unto them an excellent lesson of their equality with other men.  
Mortals circumvolve in life and death, as Heaven on the pole arctic and antarctic, from east to west; the same day which lengtheneth our life in the morning, shorteneth it in the evening, and all Ages walk that way, not any one being permitted to return back again▪ Our forefathers passed on, we pass, and our posterity follows us in the like course; you may say, they are waves of the sea where one wave drives another, and in the end, all come to break against a rock. What a rock is death? There are above five thousand years that it never ceaseth to crush the heads of so many mortals, and yet we know it not.  
I remember to this purpose a notable tradition of the Hebrews, related by Masius upon Josuah, to wit, 
Masius in Josuah. Notable action of Noah.  that Noah in the universal deluge which opened the floodgates of Heaven, to shake the columns of the world, and bury the earth in waters, in stead of gold, silver, and all sort of treasure, carried the bones of Adam into the Ark, and distributing them among his sons, said: Take children, behold the most precious inheritance your father can leave you: you shall share lands and seas, as God shall appoint; but suffer not yourselves to be entangled in these vanities, which are more brittle than glass, more light than smoke, and much swifter than the winds. My children, all glideth away here below, and there is nothing which eternally subsisteth. Time itself which made us, devours and consumeth us. Learn this lesson from these dumb Doctors, the relics of your grandfather, which will serve you for a refuge in your adversities, a bridle in your prosperities, and a mirror at all times.  
Moreover, I affirm death serves for a perfect lesson of justice to the wicked, which they were never willing throughly to understand, for it putteth into equality all that which hazard, passion, and iniquity had so ill divided into so many objects.  
Birth maketh men equal, since they receive nought else from their mother's womb, but ignorance, sin, debility, and nakedness; but after they come out of the hands of the midwife, some are put into purple and gold, others into rags and russets: some enter upon huge patrimonies, where they stand in money up to the throat, & practise almost nothing else throughout their whole life, but to get by rapine with one hand, and profusely spend with the other. Some live basely and miserably necessitous. A brave spirit, able to govern a large Commonwealth, is set to cart by the condition of his poverty. Another becomes a servant to a coxcomb, who hath not the hundreth part of his capacity.  
It is the great Comedy of the world, played in sundry fashions, for most secret reasons known to Divine Providence; would you have it last to eternity? See you not Comedians having played Kings and beggars on the stage, return to their own habit, unless they day and night desire to persist in the same sport? And what disproportion is there, if after every one have played his part in the world, according to the measure of time prescribed him by Providence, he resume his own habit?  
I also add, it is a kind of happiness for the wicked to die quickly, because it is unfit to act that long, which is very ill done. And since they so desperately use life, it is expedient, not being good, it be short, that shortness of time may render the malice of it less hurtful. If examples of their like, who soon die make them apprehensive of the same way, and how seasonably to prepare for death, it is a singular blessing for them. But if persisting in contempt, they be punished, it is God's goodness his justice be understood, and that it commandeth even in hell.  
5. But if at this present you reflect on the death of the Just, which you should desire, I say, God's Providence there brightly appeareth in three principal things, which are, cessation from travels and worldly miseries, the sweet tranquillity of departure, and fruition of crowns and rewards promised.  
First, you must imagine what holy Job said, That 
The sweetness of the death of the just. job 3. Qui expectant mortem, quasi effodientes thesaurum. Tert. de pallio. Homo pellitus orbi, quasi metallo datur.  this life is to the just as a mine, wherein poor slaves are made to labour, that they may hit upon the veins of gold and silver. And Tertullian had the like conceit, when he said, The first man was clothed with skins by the hand of God, to teach him he entered into the world as a slave into a ours. Now as these hirelings, who cease not to turn up the earth with sweat on their brows, tears in their eyes, and sighs in their hearts, no sooner have they met with the hoped vein, but they rejoice and embrace one another, for the contentment they take to see their travels crowned with some good event: So after such combats, such rough temptations, so many calumnies, so many litigious wranglings, such persecutions, such vexations and toils which chosen souls have undergone in the thraldom of this body, when the day comes wherein they by a 
Isaiah 38. In laetitia egrediemini, & in pace deducemini: montes & colles cantabun● coram vobis laudem. Apoc. 21. Absterget Deus omnem laehrymam ab oculis eorum, & mors ultra non erit, neque luctus, neque clamour, neque dolor erit ultra: quia prima abierunt, ecce nova faci● omnia.  most happy death, meet the veins of the inexhaustible treasure, whereof they are to take possession, they conceive most inexplicable comfort. Then is the time they hear these words of honey: Go confidently faithful souls, go out of those bodies, go out with alacrity, go out in full peace and safety: the Eternal Mountains, to wit, the Heavens, and all the goodly company of Angels, and most blessed spirits which inhabit them, will receive you with hymns of triumph: Go confidently on, behold God, who is ready to wipe away your tears with his own fingers. There shall be no more death, no more tears, no more clamours, no more sorrows, behold a state wholly new, what repose, what cessation of arms, what peace!  
Do you not sometimes represent unto yourself these poor Christians (of whom it is spoken in the acts of S. Clement) men of good place, banished for 
Acta Clement.  the faith, who laboured in the quarreys of Chersonesus, with a most extreme want of water, and great inconveniencies, when God, willing to comfort their travels, caused on the top of a mountain a lamb marvellously white to appear, who struck with his foot, and instantly made fountains of lively water to distil? What comfort, what refreshment for the drowthie 
Psal. 35. Quoniam apud tefons vitae, & in lumine tuo videbimus lucem.  multitude! But what is it in comparison, when a brave and faithful Christian, who hath passed this life in noble and glorious actions, great toils and patience, beholds the Lamb of God Omnipotent, which calleth him to the eternal sources of life? What a spectacle to see S. Lewis die, after he had twice with a huge army passed so many seas, tempests, monsters, arms, & battles for the glory of his Master? What a spectacle to see S. Paul the Hermit die, after he had laboured an hundred years under the habit of Religion.  
The second condition of this death, is great tranquillity; for there is nothing at that time in all the world able to afflict, or by acts unresigned to shake a soul firmly united to its God. But what, say you: Just men if they be rich, do they not bear in this last agony some affection to their riches and possessions?  
Nay, so far is it otherwise, that they with alacrity go out of all worldly wealth, as a little bird from a silver cage, to soar in the fields at the first breath of the springtide. I pray tell me, that I may pronounce before you an excellent conceit of S. Clement the Roman, 
Clemens Rom. Recognit.  in the third of his Recognitions: If a little chicken were shut up in an egg, the shell whereof were guilded, and set out with curious and delicate paintings, and had reason, and choice given it either to remain in this precious prison, or enjoy daylight with all other living creatures under Heaven's vault, think you it would abide in a golden shell, to the prejudice of its liberty? And imagine with yourself, what are all the brave fortunes which have so much lustre in the world? they are guilded shells, no way comparable to the liberty of God's children. A good rich man dieth as Abraham, who says in Origen: My 
Dives fui sed pauperi; extorris patria, domus nescius, ipse omnium fui domus, & patria: sciens me non incubatorem, sed dispensatorem divinae largitatis.  God, if I have been wealthy, it was for the poor; I went out of my house, to become a house for those who stood in need of it, and am persuaded, that thou hast made me a Steward of thy goods, to distribute them, and not to brood them, as the hen her eggs.  
But if the Just man die poor, he is by so much the better pleased to forsake wretched lodgings of straw and mortar, to go into an eternal Palace. But doth it not trouble him to leave a wife, children, and allies? He leaves all that under the royal mantle of the eternal Providence, and firmly believes, that he who hath care of the flowers in the field, birds, bees, and aunts, will not forsake reasonable creatures, so they rest in their duty. But if they must suffer in this world, he will make of their tribulations, ladders and footstools of their glory.  
What shall we say of the body? Doth not the soul ill to leave it? The body is to the soul, as the shadow of the earth in the eclipse of the Moon. See you not how this bright star, which illuminateth our nights, seemeth to be unwillingly captived in the dark, but sparkleth to get aloft, and free itself from earthly impressions? So the faithful soul readily untwineth it 
2 Cor. 5. Scimus quoniam si terrestris domus nostra hujus habitstionis dissolvatur, quod aedificationem ex Deo habemus domum non manufactam, sed aeternam in caelis. Job 29. 18. In nidulo meo moriar, & sicut Phoenix multiplicabo dies.  self from the body, well knowing it hath a much better house in the inheritance of God, which is not a manufacture of men, but a monument of the hands of the great Workman. Represent unto yourself Job on the dunghill, a great anatomy of bones covered with a bloody skin, a body which falleth in pieces, and a soul on the lips, ready to issue forth as a lessee from a ruinous dwelling. Think you he is troubled to leave his body? Nay, rather he dieth as a Phoenix on the mountain of the Sun, in the odours of his heroic virtues.  
But that which maketh this death more sweet and honourable than any thing, is the hope of beatitude, whereof I will speak in the nineteenth Maxim. Note, that worldlings die here, some like unto swallows, others as spiders; the evil rich, pass away as swallows, who leave no memory of them, but a nest of mortar and straw; for such are all the fair riches of the earth. The ambitious perish as spiders, who present wretched threads, and some little flies in them; such are also the snares, pursuits, and businesses of the world. But the Just forsake us like the silkworm. For this little creature, had it understanding, would be well pleased issuing forth of her prison, to become a butterfly, to see the goodly halle of great men, Churches and Altars to smile under her works. What a contentment to the conscience of a just man in death, to consider the Churches adorned, Altars covered, poor fed, sins resisted, virtues crowned, like so many pieces of tapestry, by the work of his hands! Hath he not cause to say: I entered into the list, I valiantly 
1 Tim. 4. Bonum certamen certav●, cursum consummavi, in reliquo reposita est mihi corona justitiae. Exhortation to such nice people as fear death.  fought, I have well ended my race, there remains nothing more for me, but to wear the Crown of Justice, which God keeps for me as a pledge.  
6. I yet come again to thee, (worldly man) who so much fearest this last hour. Learn from this discourse to fortify thyself against these vain apprehensions of death, which have more disturbance for thee, than the Sea surges. Is it not a goodly thing to see thee tremble at thy entrance into so beaten a path, wherein so many millions have passed along before thee, and the most timorous of the earth have finished their course as well as the rest, without any contradiction? All that which seemeth most uneasy in this passage, is much sweetened by two considerations, the first whereof is, That God made it so common, that there is no living creature exempt; and the other, That to dispose us to a great death, we every night find in our sleep a little death.  
Wilt thou then still doubt to set thy footsteps firmly in the paths which the world's Saviour, with his holy Mother, imprinted with their tracks? After thou hast slept so many years, and so long passed through the petty miseries of death, shalt thou never come to the great? Why art thou so apprehensive of death? Sickness and miseries of the world will one day perhaps make thee desire that, which thou now most fearest. Were it not better to do by election, what must be suffered by necessity? Hast thou so little profited in the world, that thou hast not yet some friend, some one dearly beloved, who passed into the other life? Needs must thou have very little affection in store for him, if thou fearest the day, which should draw thee near to his company.  
What is it maketh all these apprehensions arise in thy mind? Is it so ill with thee to forsake a world so treacherous, so miserable, so corrupt? If thou hast been therein perpetually happy, which is very rare, courageously set a seal upon thy felicity, and be not weary of thy good hap, which may easily be changed into a great misfortune. Many have lived too long by one year, others by one day, which made them see what they feared more than death. But if thou be afflicted and persecuted in this life, why art thou not ashamed when God calleth thee to go out faintly, from a place where thou canst not stay without calamity?  
Deplorest thou thy gold, silver, costly attire, houses, and riches? Thou goest into a Country where thou no longer shalt need any of that. They were remedies given thee for the necessities of life, now that thy wounds shall be cured, wouldst thou still wear the plasters? Bewailest thou loss of friends? There are some who expect thee above, which are better than the worldly, more wise, more assured, and who will never afford thee aught but comfort.  
Thou perhaps laments the habit of body, and pangs of this passage. It is not death then which makes thee wax pale, but life thou so dearly lovedst. It hath been told thee in the last agonies of death, the body feeleth great disturbances, that it turns here and there, that one rubs the bed-cloths with his hands, hath convulsions, shuts fast the teeth, choketh words, hath a trembling lower lip, pale visage, sharp nose, troubled memory, speech fumbling, cold sweat, the white of the eye sunk, and the aspect totally changed.  
What need we fear all that which perhaps will never happen to us? How many are there who die very sweetly, and almost not thinking of it? You would say, they are not there when it happens. Caesar the praetor died, putting on his shoes, Lucius Lepidius striking with his foot against a gate, the Rhodian Ambassador, having made an Oration before the Senate of Rome, Anacreon drinking, Torquatus eating a cake, Cardinal Colonna tasting figs, Xeuxes the Painter, laughing at the Picture of an old woman he was to finish, and lastly Augustus the Monarch, performing a compliment. But if something must be endured, think you the hand of God is stretched out to torment you above your force, or shortened to comfort you? He will give you a winter according to your wool (as it is said) sufferings according to the strength of your body, and a crown for your patience.  
You fear nothing (say you) of all that I mention, but you dread Judgement: Who can better order that than yourself? Had you been the most desperate sinner in the world, if you take a strong resolution to make hereafter an exact and effectual conversion, the arms of God are open to receive you. He will provide for your passage, doubt it not, as he took care for your birth. He will accompany you with his Angels, he will hold you under the veil of his face, under the shadow of his protection, & if he must purge you by justice, he will crown you by his mercy.  

The fifteenth EXAMPLE upon the fifteenth MAXIM. The manner of dying well, drawn from the Model of our LADY.  
ONe of the most important mysteries in the world, is to die well. It is never done but once, and if one fail to perform it well, he is lost without recovery. It is the last lineament of the table of our life, the last blaze of the torch extinguished, the last lustre of the setting Sun, the end of the race, which gives a period to the course, the great seal which signeth all our actions. One may in death correct all the defects of an ill life, and all the virtues of a good are defaced, and polluted by an evil death. The art of dying well being of so great consequence, it seems God permitted the death of his Mother, to teach us what ours ought to be. The death of the Virgin Mary, is the death of a Phoenix, which hath three conditions, resolution, disengagement, and union.  
I begin with resolution of conformity to the will 
1. Quality of good death, is the indifferency of time and manner.  of God, which is the first quality should be had to die well. That is to hold life in your hands, as a loan borrowed from Heaven, ever ready to restore it at the least summons you shall have from the will of God. It is not perfection not to care for life through impatience, nor to have an ear not deaf to death, through faintness of courage. This resignation was most excellent, and very admirable in our Lady, for two reasons. First, the great knowledge she had of beatitude. Secondly, the ineffable love she bore to her Son. For I leave you to think, if our desires follow the first rays of our knowledges, and if we be so much the more earnest after a good, as we are the better informed of its merit, what impatience 
Patience of our Lady to endure life.  must our Lady needs have of life, since she received a science of beatitude, strong, powerful, and resplendent above all other creatures, God giving her leave to see in Calvarie the abyss of his glories, in the depth of his dolours.  
It is no wonder we so very easily affect life, seeing we are as the little children of a King, bred in the house of a shepherd, as the gloss upon Daniel reporteth, touching the education of Nabuchadnezzar. We know not what a sceptre, Kingdom, or crown is, in this great meaness of a life, base and terrestrial. But had we talked only one quarter of an hour with a blessed soul, and discoursed of the state of the other life, our hearts would wholly dissolve into desires. Which makes me say, It was an act of a most heroical resolution in the blessed Virgin, in those great knowledges she had of Paradise, to have continued so many years in this life, and if you consider the most ardent love she bore her Son, who was the adamant of all loves, you shall find the holy Virgin, who had born all the glory of Paradise in her womb, more merited in this resignation she made, to see herself separated the space of thirty years both from Paradise and her Son, than all the Martyrs did in resigning themselves to deaths strange, bloody, and hideous.  
There is nothing comparable to the martyrdom of 
Martyrdom of love.  love. It is an exhalation in a cloud. It is a fire in a mine; a torrent shut up in ditches; a night of separation lasteth Ages, and all waxeth old for it, but its desires. Now this holy Mother to be thirty years upon the cross of love without repining, without complaint or disturbance, peaceably expecting the stroke of her hour, what virtue, and how far are we from it.  
So now adays throughout the world you see nothing 
Worldly irresolutions of death. Boet. Carm. 1. Eheu cur dura miseros averteris aure, Et stentes oculos claudere saeva negoes?  but mourners, who are loath to live, or faint-hearted that would never die. Some cry out: Come to me, (O sluggish death) thou hast forgotten me, what do I here? I am but a living death, and an unprofitable burden to the earth? Ah (death) hast thou ears of brass, and diamond for me alone? Canst thou not shut up mine eyes, which I daily drown in my tears? Much otherwise, when we see one die young, fresh, flourishing, in honour, wealth, health, prosperity, we cry out upon death as if it were cruel and malicious. To take (saith one) this young betrothed, this poor maid, this husband intended, this excellent man, who so well played the Rhodomont: to lay hold of one so necessary for the public, in the flower of his age! Why took it not away this cripple, this beggar, who hath not wherewith to live? Why took it not away this other, who daily dies, yet cannot die once? O our manners! O dainty conceits! O fit language! Were it not some little humane respect, we would take God's Providence by the throat.  
Whom do we contend withal? The indifferency we daily see in the death of men, where as soon the young is taken as the old, the happy as the miserable, the Emperor as the porter, is one of the greatest signs of God's Providence to be admired Why then complain we that God maketh us to leave life when he pleaseth? It is not a punishment, but a wholesome doctrine, by which we learn the power of the Divine Wisdom. First, when we entered into life, our advice was not required whether we would be born in such or such an Age, such a day, such a year, such an hour; so when we must be gone from hence, there is no reason to ask our counsel. Let us only yield up this last loan, and not murmur against the father of the family. Let us not say, this man should go before, and this after. Who knows them better than God? You complain this miserable creature lives so long, how know you whether he accomplish the years of his purgatory? How know you whether God suffers him to become a spectacle unto you of his patience? Why gnash you your teeth for anger, that this man rich, that man fortunate, and that other so qualified, is taken hence in his flourishing youth? How know you the misadventures and shipwrecks which attended him, had he still continued in the world? You say, he was necessary? why, God will show there is not any thing necessary in the world but himself. 
Vn● a●ulso non deficit alter aureus.   
Poor eyes of a bat, which see nothing but darkness, you would give eyes to Argus, and light to the Sun. If you desire to take part in the prudence of the just, handle the matter so, that for the first sign of a good death, you be ever indifferent to live or die, accordding to our Lady's example. Daily expect death, stand perpetually on your guard. Do as the brave bird the Grecians call Onocratalus, which is so well practised 
Instinct of the Onocratalus. Constancy of faith.  to expect the Hawk to grapple with her, that even when sleep shuts up her eyes, she sleepeth with her beak exalted, as if she would contend with her adversary. Know we are continually among rocks and dangers, that there needs but one hour to get all, or lose all, that the day of Judgement comes with the pace of a thief, and that we must be ready to receive it, and resolute to combat with death, to gain immortality. Hold this concluding sentence of 
Tertul. Idol. c. 2. Hos inter scopulos velisicata spiritu Dei fides navigat, tuta si cauta, secura si attonita. Caeterúm ineluctabile excussis profundum, inexplicabile impactis naufragium, irrespirabile ● devoratis hypocriphium. Second quality of good death. Philo l. 3. de vita Mosis in fine. Notable speech of Philo of Moses his state. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Tertullian, as an Oracle: Amongst the rocks and shelves of this sea, called life, Christian faith passeth on, breaking the waves, filling the sails with God's spirit, ever assured, yet ever distrustful, and perpetually fearless, yet still careful of the future. As for the rest, it sees under its feet an abyss not to be passed by swimming, and inexplicable ship wrack for those who are drenched, a gulf which suffocates all such, as it once swalloweth.  
The second quality of a good death, is the ready and constant adieu given to the world, as did the Blessed Virgin, who was so disengaged from it towards death, that she touched not earth at all, but with the soles of her feet.  
Philo saith, God gave Moses leave to live very long, perpetually in glorious actions, in contemplations, in lights, so that his body was worn, wasted, and almost wholly vapoured out into the substance of his spirit. By a much stronger reason may one say the like of the Mother of God▪ For it is certain her life was nothing else but a divorce from the world. But as Physicians observe, that the breath of storks is purified and made sweet in the proportion as they increase in age, in such sort, that becoming old, they yield forth most odoriferous exhalations: So the life of this holy Mother, which was ever hanging about the heart of her Son, ever in the contemplation of the great mysteries of our salvation, perpetually in the furnace of love, wholly transformed itself into her wellbeloved, as one wax melted into another, as a drop of water poured into a great vessel of wine, as incense wasted into flames. O what sweetness of breath! what odour of virtues in her old age! Her body seemed to be exhaled, and to vapour out 
Harph. c. 49. libri de mystic. Theol.  all in soul; the soul, which is the knot of life, and which possesseth in us the most inferior part of spirituality, dissolved wholly into spirit, which is in the middle, and the spirit melted entirely into the understanding, which hath the highest rank in the soul, and which bears the image of the most holy Trinity. Her memory in a silent repose was freed from all rememberances of the world, her will resided in languishing fervours, and her understanding was wholly engulfed in great abysses of lights; there was not one small thread of imagination, which tied her to earth. O what an adieu to the world! It is very well declared in the Canticles by these 
Cantic. 1. 6. Quae est ista quae ascendit per desertum sicut virgula fumi, ex aromatibus myrrhae, & thuris, & universe pulveris pigmentarii. The three ties of the world. Genes. 12. Egredere de terra tua, de cognationetua, & de domo patris tui.  words: Who is it that ascendeth through the desert, like a thin vapour composed of odours, myrrb, incense, and all the most curious perfumes.  
Which saith in a word, the holy Virgin was wholly spiritualised, wholly vapour, all perfume, all spirit, and had (as it were) nothing of body, massiness, or earth.  
O how many unreasonably fail in this second condition! When death comes to sound his trumpet in our ears, and saith to us: Let us go, thou must dislodge from thy lands & inheritances, never to return again, from thy kindred, from the house thy father gave thee, to wit, thy body; how harsh that is to ill mortified spirits, and which hold of the world by roots as deep as hell, and as big as arms. Go out of thy land. O how hard is this first step, to go out of the land, to forsake the land, not at all to pretend to the land, to the gold, to the silver, to those jewels, that inheritance, to all that glorious glitter of fortune? See the first torment of worldly spirits. Such there have been, who 
Desperate desire of worldly goods. Joannes Nider.  seeing themselves in the last approaches of inevitable death, have swallowed their gold like pills; other to eternize themselves on earth, have caused formidable sepulchres to be built, wherein they put all their wealths, as the Egyptian King Cheopes, who prostituted even his own daughter, to raise unto himself a Pyramid for burial, so enormous, that it seemed the earth was too weak to bear it, and Heaven too low to be freed from its importunity. Besides, he caused to be engraven upon it, that the manufactures alone of this sepulchre, had cost six millions of gold in coleworts and turnips. Others caused to be buried with them dogs, horses, slaves, apparel, dishes to serve them in the other world.  
Yea, it is not long ago, since there was found in 
Anno 1544. Belforest. Goodly monument of the Empress Marie.  Rome a coffin of marble eight foot long, and in it a robe embroidered with Goldsmith's work, which yielded six and thirty pounds of gold, besides forty rings, a cluster of emeralds, a little mouse made of another precious stone, and amongst all these precious magnificencies, two leg-bones of a dead corpse, known by the inscription of the tomb, to be the bones of the Empress Marie, daughter of Stilicon, and wife of the Emperor Honorius, who died before consummation of marriage. About twelve hundred years were passed, after she was buried with all these goodly toys, which (no doubt) gave much ease to her soul. My God, how are we tied to earth! Tell me not, the like is not done now adays, for it is worse, since they were buried after death with their riches, and you (O mortals) alive as you are, build your sepulchres thereon. We see men, who having already one foot in the grave, if you speak to them of the affairs of their consciences, all the spirit yet remaining, is perhaps for two or three hours besieged by an infinite number of thoughts of worldly wealth. Death crieth out aloud in their ears, saying: Go from thy land, and you pull it to you as with iron hooks.  
After that cometh kindred, allies, table-frends, friends for game, buffoons, amourists, and all the delights of former companies. Some weep, others make show of tears, the rest under a veil of sorrow, make bones-fires in their hearts, they seem all to appear about the bed, and to sing this sad song of S. Augustine: 
Aug. Confes. 6. 11. Dimittis ne nos & a momento illo non erimus tecum ultra in aeternum? Et a momento isto non licebit hoc & illud ultra in aeternum?  Alas, do you leave us, and shall we hereafter meet no more together? Farewell pleasing amities. Adieu feasts, adieu sports, adieu loves. This nor that will any longer be permitted from this moment for ever. Behold another very slippery and dangerous step, notwithstanding you must leave it: Death hasteneth, and says: Go from thy kindred.  
In the last, the body and flesh is presented, which seems to say: Ah my soul, whither goest thou? My dear hostess, whither goest thou? Thou hast hitherto so tenderly pampered me, so pompously clothed me, so wantonly cherished me. I was thy Idol, thy Paradise, thy little Goddess, and where will you put me? into a grave with serpents and worms? what shall I do there, and what will become of me? Behold a hard task, principally for such of both sexes, as have dearly loved their bodies, like the Duchess of Venice, 
Damian. opusc. in instit. ad Blanch. c. 11. The prodigality of a Venetian Lady, and her punishnent.  of whom Cardinal Petrus Damianus speaketh, who was plunged into sensuality with so much profusion, that she could not endure to lodge but in chambers full of delicious perfumes of the East, she would not wash herself, but in the dew of Heaven, which must be preserved for her with much skill. Her garments were so pompous, that nothing remainned but to seek for new stuffs in Heaven, for she had exhausted the treasures of earth. Her viands so dainty, that all the mouths of Kings tasted none so exquisite, nor would she touch her meat, but with golden forks and precious stones. God, to punish this cursed superfluity, cast her on a bed, and assailed her with a malady so hideous, so stinking and frightful, that all her nearest kin were enforced to abandon her, none staying about her, but a poor old woman already throughly accustomed to stench and death, yet could not this proud creature part with her infamous body but with sorrow. She was of those souls that Plato calleth Phylosemates, which tie themselves to flesh as much as they can, and after death would gladly still walk round about their flesh, to find a passage into it again.  
Know you what is to be done to die well? Cut off in good time, the three chains which straightly bind foolish and sensual souls. For the first passage that 
The way how to be well provided for death.  concerneth earthly goods, seasonably dispose of your temporal. Entangle not your hands for so short a time as you are to live in great affairs, perilous, and uncertain, which will perplex you all your life, and throw you down to death. Do not like evil travellers, who stay to reckon and contend with their hostess, when it is already fair daylight, and that the guide wrangles and sweareth at them. Digest your little business, that you may leave no trouble in your family after death. Make a Will clear and perspicuous, which draweth not suits after it. Preserve yourself carefully from imitating that wicked man, who caused all his gold and silver to be melted into one mass, to set his heirs together by the ears, who killed one another, sprinkling the apple of discord, and the object of their avarice, with their blood. Say to yourself, I brought nothing into the world, nor will carry any thing away, no not the desire of it. Behold one part of my goods, which must be restored to such and such; these are true debts that must necessarily be discharged. Behold another for pious legacies. Another for alms to persons needy and indigent, another for my servants male and female, and my poor friends who have faithfully served me. They have wasted their bodies and lives, to contribute all they might to my will; there is no reason I should forget them. Nay, I desire mine enemies have some part in my will. As for my children and heirs, the main shall go to them, they will be rich enough, if they be virtuous enough. Behold how the temporal should be disposed.  
And for so much as concerneth kindred, give the benediction of God to your children, and all your family; leave worthy examples of contempt of the world, of humility, of patience, of charity: procure a full reconciliation with your enemies, entertain your friends with sage discourses, which may show you gladly accept God's visitations, that you die full of resolutions to prepare them a place, and that you expect from their charity, prayers and satisfactions for your negligence and remissness. If needs some small tribute must be paid to nature in two or three drops of tears, it is tolerable. But take away these whining countenances, these petty furies, these mercenary weepers, who weep, not knowing why, nor for what they mourn.  
As for that which toucheth the state of your body, it would be a goodly thing for you to be wail it, after you have had so many troubles in it. Go out of it like a Tenant from a ruinous house, go from it as from a prison of earth and mortar: Go out of it as on the sea from a rotten leaky ship, to leap on the shore, and care not much what will become of it after death, so it be on holy land. Souls well mortified speak not of flesh, considering the state of sin, but with horror. Yea, we find in the bequests of one of the sons of S. Lewis, Count of Alencon, these words: I will 
Modesty of a son of S. Lewis.  the Tomb that shall cover my stinking flesh, exceed not the charge of fifty livres, and that which encloseth my evil heart pass not thirty livres. Behold how the son of one of the greatest Kings in the world speaketh of his body, and would you idolatrize yours?  
Lastly, for the third condition of a good death, it 
The third quality of a good death.  must have union with God, whereof our Lady giveth us a perfect example. For it being well verified by Theology, that there are three unions supernatural, and as it were wholly ineffable, the first whereof is the sacred knot of the most holy Trinity, which toeth three persons in one same Essence, the second, is the tie of the Word with humane nature, which subsisteth by the hypostasis of the same Word, and the third, the intimate conjunction of a Son-God with a Mother-Virgin; I affirm, the Virgin being a pure creature cannot equal either the union of the Trinity, or the hypostatical union, yet notwithstanding hath the highest place of all created unions; as she who was united to God when she lived in the world, in the most sublime and sacred manner, the spirits of the most exalted Seraphins might imagine, which was most divinely expressed by S. Bernard: She entered into a deep abyss of divine 
Profundissimam divinae sapientiae penetravit abyssum, & quantum sine personali union creature conditio patitur, luci illi inaccesibili videatur immersa. D. Bernard. serm. in signum magnum. Mater mea quàm appellatis foelicem, inde foelix, quia verbum Dei custodit, non quia in illa Verbum caro factum est, etc. Aug. tract. 10 in Joan.  wisdom, so that she was united to light inaccessible, so much as a creature might be permitted, not arriving to the personal union of God.  
But saying this, I not only speak of the union she had in quality of the Mother of God, being one same flesh, and one same substance with her Son, but of the union of contemplation, devotion, and submission to the will of God, which alone was the centre of her felicity, as witnesseth S. Augustine: My Mother whom you call happy, hath all her happiness, not so much because the Word was made man in her, as for that she kept the word of God, who made her, and who afterward allied himself to humane nature in her womb; as he would say, Our Lady was more happy to have conceived God in her heart, and continually kept spiritual union with him, than to have once brought him forth according to flesh.  
We cannot arrive at this sublime union of the Mother of God: but howsoever at least in the last period of thy life, having bid adieu to the world, and drawn the curtain between thee and creatures, endeavour to be united as perfectly as is possible, to thy Creator. First by good and perfect confession of the principal actions of all thy life, Secondly by a most religious participation of thy viaticum in presence of thy friends, in a manner the most sober, well ordered▪ & edificative thou mayst. In the third place seasonably receiving extreme unction, thyself answering if it be possible, to the prayers of the Church, and causing to be read in the approaches of this last combat some part of the passion. Lastly, by the acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition.  
I approve not the manner of some, who make studied remonstrances to dying men, as if they were in a pulpit, nor of those who blow incessantly in their ears unseasonable words, and make as much noise with the tongue, as heretofore Pagans with their kettles in the eclipse of the Moon. We must let those good souls depart without any disturbance in the shades of death. S. Augustine would die in great silence, desiring not to be troubled with lamentations nor visits, for ten days together, where having hanged some versicles of Psalms about his bed, he fixed his dying eyes upon them with a sweetness most peaceful, and so gave up the ghost. It is good to say:  
My God I believe, assist my incredulity. I know my 
Cr●do Domine, adjuva incredulitatem meam. Marc. 9 Scio quod Redemptor meus vivit, etc. Job 9 Si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis non timebo mala, quoniam tu mecum es. Psal. 22. Quid mihi est in coelo, etc. Psal. 72. Quare tristis es anima mea, etc. Psal. 83.  Redeemer is living, and that I shall see him in the same flesh, which I at this present disarray. Though I must walk into the shades of death, I will fear nothing, because (Oh my God) thou art with me. What have I to desire in heaven, and what would I of thee on earth? My flesh and my heart are entranced in thee, O the God of my heart, and my portion for all eternity. Wherefore art thou so sad (O my soul) and why dost thou trouble me? Turn now to thy rest, because God hath afforded thee mercy.  
Behold how the Virgin, our Lady died, behold how Saint Lewis died, behold how Saint Paula departed, of whom Saint Hierom 
(a) Hier. ep. 27. ad Eustoc. Digitum ad ● tenens crucis signum pingebat in labiis. Anima erumpere gestiens ipsum stridorem quo mortalis vita finitur in laudes convertebat.  said: The holy Lady rendering up her life, put her finger on her mouth, as desirous to imprint the sign of the Cross upon it, turning the gasps of death, and last breath of the soul, into the praises of God, whom she so faithfully had served.    

XVI. MAXIM. Of the Immortality of the SOUL.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. Little care is to be had of the Soul after death, so all be well with it in this life. That we have an immortal Soul, capable of happiness or unhappiness eternal.  
1. A Man who doubteth and questions the immortality of the Soul, showeth in the very beginning, that he almost hath no soul, & that retaining nought but the substance of it to suffer, he hath lost the lights and goodness which might crown it. Never enter these thoughts into any man without making a tomb of flesh for his reason, whilst he so flattering his body, forgets all the excellencies of his soul.  
We must here follow the counsel of ancient Sages; when a Libertine will impugn a verity known by the only light of nature, it is not needful to answer his absurdities, but to lead him directly into the stall, and to shut him up with beasts, speaking unto him the sentence which the Prophet Daniel pronounced against Nabuchadnezzar: Thou shalt hereafter be banished 
Sentence against the wicked. Ejicient te ab hominibus, & cum bestiis ferisque erit habitatio tua. Daniel 4.  from the company of men, and thy abode shall be with beasts and savage creatures.  
All speak, and all dispute for the Maxim of the Holy Court, and although we ought to have full obligation to faith, which manifestly hath set this truth before us, thereunto affixing all the order of our life, and the principal felicity we hope for, yet are we not a little enlightened with so many excellent conceits which learning furnisheth us withal upon it, and which I will endeavour to abbreviate, comprehending much in few words.  
2. I will then say for your comfort, that it hath happened that an Heretic lost both of understanding and conscience, having opposed the belief of Purgatory (heresy being a beaten path to infidelity) came to this point of folly, as throughly to persuade himself that death ended all things, and that these endeavours of prayers and ceremonies which we afford to the memory of the deceased, were given to shadows. He did all a wicked man might to tear himself from 
The belief of the immortality of the soul invincible. Condemnation of impiety in the tribunal of nature.  himself, and belie that which God made him: but it was impossible for him, as you shall see in considering the three chambers of justice wherein he was condemned. First, he entered into the Court before the tribunal of Nature, and thought he saw a huge troup of all the learned men of the earth, and all Nations of the universe, who came to fall upon as a mighty cloud, armed with fire and lightning.  
My God, (said he) what is this? The great Tertullian 
Quod apud multos commune invenitur, non est erratum sed traditum. Tertul.  said, and it is true, that verities which fall into the general understandings of all men, as acknowledged, avowed, and confessed by all sorts of nations, aught to be believed as by a decree of Nature. The example thereof is evident. For all men in the world believe, that the whole is greater than a part, that the superior number exceedeth the inferior. That the father and mother should be honoured, as the Authors of life: That one must not do to another what he would not be done to himself. And because every one understands and averreth this by the light of nature, he would be thought a beast or a mad man who should contradict it. Now from whence proceedeth it, that the belief of the souls immortality, holds the same place with these general Maxims, although it be otherwise much transcendent above our sense? If I regard the course of time, and revolution 
Tertul. de testimonio animae.  of Ages, from the beginning of the world, one cannot assign any one wherein this faith hath not been published by words or actions, correspondent to the life of the other world. And if some depraved spirits have doubted it, they were gainsaid by public voice, by laws, ceremonies customs, protestations of Commonwealths, of Empires and Kingdoms where they took beginning. If I look upon all the Nations of the earth so far distant in climates, so divided in commerce, so different in dispositions, so contrary in opinions, they all agree in this ray of the light of nature, that there is a life of separated souls, that there are punishments and rewards at the going out of the body.  
It is the belief of Hebrews, Chaldeans, Persians, Medes, Babylonians, Egyptians, Arabians, Ethiopians, Scythians, Grecians, ancient gaul's, Romans, and that which is most admirable, after one hath roamed over Europe, afric, Asia, let him enter into the new worlds, which nature hath divided from us by so mighty a mass of seas, shelves, rocks, and monsters, he findeth the faith of the souls immortality began there, so soon as men. It is observed to have been so public with the ancient, that they carried the marks thereof on their garments, and inscribed it on their tombs.  
Men of the best quality of Rome, had little croissants 
Plutar. probl. 71.  on their shoes (saith Castor) to signify their souls came from Heaven, and were to return to Heaven after the death of the body, and therefore there was not any thing in them which ought not to be celestial. The like also is found of tombs, where open 
Camerar.  gates were engraven on them, to show that after death all was not shut up from the soul, but that it had passages into eternity.  
All the most eminent Philosophers, following the bright splendour of natural light, although distant by the course of Ages, parted into sects, divided into so many different Maxims, agreed in this; as Mercury Trismegistus, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Xenocrates, Seneca, Plutarch, Maximus Tyriensis, Jamblicus, Themistius, Epictetus and Cicero, as may be seen in so many excellent Treatises, which I might mention at large were they well enough known. But if sometimes doubtful passages occur in Aristotle and Seneca hereupon, were it not much better to judge them by so many perspicuous and illustrious sentences, which they have upon the life of the other world, than to censure them by some words insensibly escaped in discourse? In which if some thing repugnant to our doctrine may be discovered, it is to be understood of the sensitive and vegetative soul, not the reasonable and intelligent, which these Authors ever set aside, as being celestial and divine.  
3. Never (saith Plotinus) was there a man of good 
Enu. l. 7. c. 10. Nec vult improbus anim●m immortalem esse, ne ad conspectum Judicis aequi torquendu● veniat.  understanding amongst so many Writers, who strove not for the immortality of the soul. But if any one among them hath impugned it, even in the darkness of Gentilism, it hath been observed, there ever was some disorder and impurity in his life, which made him controvert his opinion, to divert the apprehension of punishments due to his crimes. That was it, which Minutius Felix said: I well know many 
Malunt enim extingui penitus, quàm ad supplicia reservari.  pressed with a conscience guilty of crimes, rather desire to be nothing after their death, than to be persuaded of it, for they wish rather wholly to perish, than to be reserved for their punishment.  
He should make an annotation, not a discourse, who would here allege all the authorities of the ancients, which are very ordinary. I satisfy myself with a most excellent passage of wise Quintilian, who in the case of an enchanted sepulchre, comprised all the doctrine of Gentiles upon this Article, when he said:  
Our Soul came from the same place from whence proceeded 
Animam inde venire, unde rerum omni●● authorem, parentem, spiritum ducimus, nec interire, nec solvi, nec ullo mortalitatis affici fato; sed quoties humani corporis carcerem effregerit, & exonerata membris mortalibus le●i se igne lustr●verit, petere sedem inter astra.  the Eternal Spirit, Author, and Father of all things, to wit, the true God, and that this soul could neither be corrupted, die, nay, nor feel the least touch of mortality common to corruptible things. But at the passage out of the prison of body, it was purged by fire, and after this purgation it ascended to Heaven, there to live happy. Which is to be understood of good souls: for polluted and impious, are delivered to eternal torments, by the consent of the wisest Gentiles.  
Behold a man, who in few words heaped together the belief of more than forty Ages which preceded him, touching the immortality of the soul. Paradise, Purgatory, hell, and that within the limits of the light of nature. 
(a) Plato 1. de Legib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Plato saith the same:  
That our soul wears the liveries of the eternal Father which make it incorruptible.  
Algazel in the book of nature:  
That our soul being separated from the body, shall subsist with the first Intelligence.  
Maximus Tyriensis:  
That that which we call death, was the beginning of immortality.  
Dionysius the Geographer forgot not in the world's description, the white Island, whereinto it was held the 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  souls of Heroes were carried.  
Lawyers were not ignorant of it, for when there is any speech of legacies to be distributed on the birthday of the testator, they avouch them to be legacies which must be given in perpetuity, every year on the birthday, by reason, that by death we enter into another nativity, which is that of glory. To the very same, the law of sepulchres hath relation, which 
Marcel. in l. cum quidam. l. 23. de annuis legatis. Theodosiis, & valent. Novella de sepulehris tit. 5. Scimus nec vana sides est, solut●s membris animas habere sensum, & in originem suam spiritum redire coelestem. Tertul. de testim. animae.  saith: We know, and our faith is not in vain, that souls discharged from bodies have understanding, and that the spirit which is celestial, returneth to its original.  
From whence comes this consent so great, so universal, so authentical, in a thing so sublime, so alienated from sense, so eminent, but from the spirit of God? Let us say with Tertullian in the book of the souls testimony: From whence proceeds it, that those who will neither see nor hear Christians, have the language of Christians? I much suspect the consent of words in so great a disagreement of conversation.  
4. I am condemned in this first Court of justice, 
Sentence of God upon the immortality of the soul.  (said the Libertine.) But let us go along to the Tribunal of supernatural light, and see what the divine Wisdom will affirm: Let us follow the counsel of S. Ambrose: He who made heaven, teacheth us the mysteries 
Ambros. in Symmachus. Coeli mysterium doce●t nos De●● ipse qui condidit. Cui magis de Deo, quam Deo cre. damn? Vide August. ep. 4. ad Vincent. Cui veritas comperta sine Deos cui Deus cognitus sine Christo? 3 Reg. 17. Revertatur anima pueri ejus in viscera ejus. Eccles. 26. 23. Exaltavit vocem ejus de terra in prophetia. Tob. 4. 11.  of heaven: Whom shall I believe touching the verities of God, but God himself? And verily, behold the advice God giveth us, to resolve us in doubtful cases, which is, to follow some great and powerful authority, that may draw our spirits with a strong hand out of so many labyrinths. Without it (saith S. Augustine) there would neither be world, rest, light, wisdom, nor religion. And if a decisive authority must be chosen, where shall we find one more certain than that of a Man-God, whose words were prophecies, life sanctity, actions miracles, who by ways secret and incomprehensible, advanced the Cross on Capitols, and gave a new face to the whole world?  
Now without speaking at this time of the Pentateuc, where the Word with his own mouth drew reasons for the immortality of the soul, against the Sadduces, I might allege the book of Kings, where the soul of a little infant returneth into its body, at the words of Elias. I could produce the true soul of Samuel, which returneth from Limbo, and speaks to King Saul, as the Wiseman rendereth this apparition undoubted, which I will show. I might mention the book of Tobias, which distinguisheth two places for souls in the other world, one of darkness, and the other of lights. But let us hear Ecclesiastes, since Infidels will make an arrow of it against us, where after the propositions of the wicked rehearsed in this book to be refuted (which must be well observed) the Wiseman 
Eccles. 12. 7.  decideth and concludes, That the body returneth into the earth from whence it came, and the spirit to God who gave it. Let us hear Wisdom where it is written:  
That the soul of the Just are in the hands of God, and 
Sap. 3. 1.  shall not be touched with the torment of death.  
Let us hear the Prophet Daniel, who saith: 
Daniel▪ 12. 3.   
The true Sages shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and that such as instruct many to justice, shall be as stars for ever.  
Lastly, let us hear our Saviour, who speaketh to us clearly and intelligibly in the blood of all Martyrs:  
Fear not those who kill the body, and cannot kill the 
Mat. 10. 28.  soul.  
Here will we hold this doctrine of the immortality from his own mouth, more than from any other reason: he caused us to make it an Article of faith, he establisheth upon it all our beatitude, why should we then argue and try new conclusions after the decision of God's Word?  
5. I knew well (said the wicked man) this second Court would condemn me, but I am not yet satisfied. After nature and faith, I appeal to reason, I 
Proofs drawn out of reason  will enter into the bottom of myself, to know some news of myself. What a madness is it to appeal from the decrees of God, to reason? And yet was this wretch condemned likewise by this tribunal. For ask his soul, whither wilt thou go? What will become of thee after the death of thy body? Wilt thou not accompany it in death, as thou didst during life? I die (replieth the soul) It is as impossible the light of the Sun become night, and fire ice, as the soul of man, which is the source of life and understanding, should be subject to death.  
For from whence should this death and corruption 
S. Thom. l. 2. contra Gentes. c. 79.  proceed? If thou hast never so little reason, thou well seest what the great S. Thomas, and all the Sages of the world said: A thing cannot die, and be corrupted. but by one of three ways, either by action of its contrary; so heat, cold, moisture, and drought corrupt our bodies, by their mutual counter-buffs and continual combats: or by the want of subject, which serves as a basis or foundation to it; so the eye dieth, when its organ is corrupted: or by defect of the assistance of the cause which hath influence into it; so the light faileth in the air, when the Sun retireth. In which of these three kinds wouldst thou corrupt 
Substantia intellectualis patitur tantum intelligibiliter, qui motus potius est perfectivus quàm corruptivus. S. Thom. l. 2. contra Gentes. c. 55.  me? Should it be by the action of the contrary. I am not subject to bodily impressions, but to those only of the mind, which are rather to perfect than corrupt me. I am not composed of elements, I am not hot, cold, moist, nor dry, I admit no contrariety. But when I 
(a) Anima parvo continetur corpore continetque res maxim●s. Aenesius platonicus.  comprehend in my understanding, white, black, water, fire, life, and death, I accord all contraries. Death (saith 
(b) Lucr. l. 1. Mors coetum dissipat ollis.  Lucretius) is only made for the things which have a collection of parts, and I am most simple.  
Wilt thou rin me by defect of the body? I am of a nature different from body. It was sometime without me, and I shall be a long time without it, for I depend not on it, but by accident and chance. I take somewhat of it as an hostess in this life, but I govern it as a mistress for eternity. I make use of the organs of senses, but I correct senses, and when they tell me the Sun is but a foot broad, I prove to them by lively reasons, it is much greater than the globe of the earth. If I borrow fantasies from imagination, I make truths of them: and in matter of understanding, willing, and judging, which is my proper profession. I have properly nothing to do with bodies, as the Philosopher 
Arist. l. 2. de anima l. 2. text. 21.  Aristotle hath well observed, saying, I could not be before body, but I might remain after the death of body, and be separated from it, as things eternal from corruptible, because I have an action dis-entangled from body, which is contemplation. All that which is idle perisheth in nature: but I have no death, because not idle. I make it my profession to understand, to will, and to love, which I now exercise in a body, but which doth not absolutely depend on body. I make use of my senses, as of my windows: when they shall be no more, and that the panes of my prison shall be broken, I shall not for all that lose sight, but shall see the more easily. Behold you not how even at this present, I never am more knowing, than when I sink into the bottom of myself, and separate myself from commerce of sense. For I am a Mistress (said S. Augustine) who see better by my own eyes, than by those of my servant. wouldst thou destroy me by the want of an influent cause? Needs must God fail, if I should be so defective on that part, since God having created a thing, never reduceth the same to nothing. Material creatures are corrupted by changing themselves into another nature, and return into elements, but I who have no matter, subsist by necessity, absolutely entire, and wholly incorruptible, without suffering these changes.  
Ask likewise thy understanding, and it will repeat 
Radix intellectualitatis est immaterialitas. Avicenna apud Capr●ol. Modus operandi sequitur modum essendi. The operations of the soul are admirable.  the philosophical Axiom: The workman is known by the work; by the operation of every thing its nature is discovered: from whence ensueth, that if the manner which thy soul useth in its functions and operations be wholly spiritual, we may truly say, it is all spirit, all indivisible and wholly incorruptible. Now where is it, that it worketh not with a tenderness and admirable spirituality? First, in the separations it maketh of universal natures, in numbers, relations, proportions, orders, correspondencies, harmonies, in things eternal and divine. Secondly, in judgements, discourses, disputations, comparisons, applications, which it maketh on every thing. Thirdly, in the considerations and reflections it hath on itself, yea, over all its actions, almost in infinitum. If it did not work spiritually, how could it harbour in the memory, so many seas, rivers, mountains, valleys, cities and castles? How could it put so many places into one place, not holding any place? If it operated not spiritually and indivisibly, how could it be whole in each of its actions? The body, because it is body and quantitative, and divisible, what it doth with one part, it doth not necessarily with another, what it toucheth with the hand, it doth not necessarily touch with the foot; but the soul is all in its action. If the soul understand, all the soul understandeth. If the soul will, all the soul willeth. If the soul suffer, all the soul suffereth. For it is in an indivisible. That 
August. l. de spiritu & anima c. 19 Anima in quibuscumque suis motibus tota est. Manilius l. 4. Astron. I am nusquam natura latet, pervidimus omnem.  was it, which S. Augustine judiciously spoke: The soul is all in each of its motions.  
Mortal things can do nothing immortal. But our soul, to teach us its immortality, doth wonderful works, which fear not the  of time, the wheel of inconstancy, nor power of death; it ourlives stones, metals, Egyptian Pyramids, and the world's seven wonders. It is a strange thing to see a humane spirit, which taketh away the veil from nature, and looketh into the bottom, and penetrateth into the very marrow. It entereth into these great labyrinths of essences, it defineth, divideth, distinguisheth, severeth, it appropriateth, maketh marvellous dissections, mounteth above the tracts of the Sun and time, scoreth out the course of the Heavens, the periods of the Stars. It deciphereth eclipses to an instant, and foregoeth by understanding those great celestial bodies, whose motions are more swift than wind or thunder. From thence it expatiateth into the air, there to hear the winds blow, rain pour down, tempests roar, lightnings to flash, rainbows and crowns arise. It descendeth into the deep caverns of the earth, there to meditate on the metals. It floateth on the sea, it reckoneth the veins of the abyss, it keeps a register of so many birds and fishes, so many terrestrial creatures, so many worms and serpents, so many herbs and plants. All this great frame of nature passeth through its consideration, from the cedars of Lybanus, to the hyssop. It createth sciences, it inventeth arts, it findeth out an infinite number of devices. It governeth the great bodies of Kingdoms and Commonwealths with passages of incomparable prudence. Arms and laws, cures of maladies, commerce, navigations, industries of mechanics, and finally, a million of rarities are produced from the sources of the wit of man, who cannot yet understand his own worth.  
Besides, what is more spiritual, more independent on matter, than the action of the will, than freewill, which beareth the beginning of its motion and elevation within itself, not borrowing it from any? What is more divine, than to see a heart more capable than abysses, which cannot be satiated with all the things in the world? The plant is contented with a little dew, the horse with a few oats and hay, because animal, and vegetative nature is limited to certain small quantities. But the immaterial soul, as it is in some sort infinite, bendeth to infinity. 
(a) Omnibus fere ingenita est fame post mortem expido. Et unde anima affectaret aliquid quod velit post mortem, si ribil de postero sciret. Tertul. de testim. animae.  It speaketh of Heaven as of its mansion, and of God, as of the object of its felicity. It desireth to live ever, it taketh incomparable care for posterity, it interesseth itself in the future, which it would never do, were it not its hereditary possession.  
Sleep, which tameth Lions, cannot overcome it. It learns its immortality even in the image of death; there it is where it incessantly worketh, traveleth by sea and land, negotiateth, converseth, sporteth, rejoiceth, suffereth, hunteth after a thousand objects both good and bad, and knoweth (says Eusebius) that having no end in its motion, it hath none in its life.  
And to conclude in a word, what is there more admirable for the proof of our immortality, than this synderesis, this conscience, which is in the body, contrary to the body, and a perpetual enemy of senfual nature, which pleadeth, which questioneth, which strikes us with remorse upon the remembrance of sin? What is there less corporal than a soul, which can see its body burned, flesh pulled off with pincers, and members torn piece-meal one after another, to maintain and preserve a belief, which it judgeth to be true, as did the Martyrs? Never should we behold such a combat between the soul & body, were they not two pieces quite different, the one whereof is sublime, spiritual, immortal, the other low, frail, and mortal?  
We likewise daily see, how the soul wholly retired within itself (as it happeneth in apprehensive speculations and raptures) is more strong and knowing than ever, being touched by some ray from commerce with Intelligencies, to which it hath so much relation. We find by experience, that upon the declining 
Ea● decrescente corpore augeri maxime videmus Aenesius. Illa sine hoc vinit melius, hoc sine ista, nee pejus. Claudius Marcus l. 3. de statu animae. c. 3. Manifest conviction.  age when the body shrinketh, it hath much more vigour in counsels and judgements, which giveth us assurance it cannot any way participate of the corruption of the flesh. Who will consider the effects of the soul in three principal things, which are, Intelligence, Sanctity, and Courage, shall find all therein is divine. And if the wicked, smothering these gifts of God, will put themselves willingly into the rank of bruit beasts, do they not well deserve the place of devils?  
6. Finally, we say we have a soul immortal, because God both can and will make it such. He can, for he is Omnipotent, and it is not a harder matter for him to preserve souls he created, than to derive them from nothing: He will, because he engageth his Eternal word to give us this assurance; yea, he will, because it is manifested to us by the light of nature. One cannot believe a God, unless he believe him just: and it is impossible to think him just, without the belief of an immortal soul, as S. Clement reasoneth after 
Clemens. 3. Recogn.  his Master, the great S. Peter. For what a stupdity is it to imagine this father of spirits, who accommodated the most silly creatures with all the conveniencies of nature, hath neglected man so far, as to afford him a most lively knowledge, and a most ardent thirst of immortality, which principally appeareth in the most holy and worthy souls, to hold a heart in torment, never affording it any means to be satisfied, since in all nature, he never grants any inclination to any creature whatsoever, but that he provideth for its accomplishment?  
But which is more, into what mind of a Tartarian can this imagination fall, that a sovereign Cause most intelligent, very good, and Omnipotent, should be pleased to burn virtue here with a slow fire, to tear it among thorns, to tie it on wheels, afterward to equal the soul of the most virtuous man of the earth, with that of murderers, Sardanapaluses and Cyclopes: Never should these base thoughts take possession of the heart of man, if he had not vilified his reason with great sins, and drowned his soul in the confusion of body?  
Put these profane spirits a little upon the proof of their opinion, and let them consider the reasons of Pliny, of Lucretius, of Panecus, and Soranus; they are not men who speak, but hogs that grunt. They tell you, the soul is not seen at its passage out of the body, as if the corporal eye were made to see a soul spiritual. Doth one see the air, the winds, odours, and the sphere of fire, which our soul incomparably surpasseth in subtility? They ask, what doth this soul separated, 
Plin. l. 7. c. 55. Vbi cogitati● illi? Quomodo visus, auditus? aut qued sine his bonum? Quae deinde sedes? Quae malum ista dementia iterari vitam wort?  where is its sight, its hearing, pleasure, taste, touching, and what good can it have without the help of sense? Spirits dulled with matter, which never gave themselves leisure to find out the curious operations of the soul in the understanding and love, whereupon it lives of its own wealth. They curiously inquire where so many souls may abide, as if hell were not big enough to contain all the Atheists.  
Lastly they add, it is to tyrannize over a soul, to make it survive after death. Who sees not it is the fear they have of God's judgement, causeth them to speak in this manner? And are not they well worthy of all unhappiness, since they so readily become the enemies of an eternal happiness?  
Let us cut off the stream of so many other reasons, and say at this present, This should teach us to treat with the dead by way of much respect, and most tender charity as with the living. It should teach us to use our soul as an eternal substance.  
What would it avail us to gain all the world, and 
The care to be had of the soul.  lose that which God deigned to redeem by his death? Let us forsake all these inferior and frivolous thoughts, which nail us to the earth, and so basely fasten us to the inordinate care for our bodies. Let us manure our soul, let us trim it up as a plot fit to receive impressions of the divinity. Let us prepare it for the great day of God, which must make the separation of a part so divine from these mortal members. Let all that die, which may yield to death. Let the contexture of humours and elements dissolve, as weak works of nature.  
But let us regard this victorious spirit, which hath escaped the chains of time, and laws of death. Let us contemn the remainders of an age, already so much tainted by corruption. Let us enter into this universality of times, and into the possession of 
Diet iste quem tanquam extremum reformidas, aeterni natalis est. Sen. ep. 102.  of eternity. This day, which we apprehend as the last of our life, is the first of our felicities. It is the birth of another eternal day, which must draw aside the curtain, and discover to us the secrets of nature. It is the day, that must produce us to these great and divine lights, which we behold with the eye of faith in this vale of tears and miseries. It is the day, which must put us between the arms of the father, after the course of a profuse life, turmoiled with such storms, and so many disturbances.  
Let us daily dispose us to this passage, as to the entrance into our happiness. Let us not betray its honour. Let us not whither up its glory. Let us not deface the character which God hath given it. We are at this present in the world, as in the belly of nature: little infants destitute of air and light, which look towards, and contemplate the blessed souls. What a pleasure is it to go out of a dungeon so dark, a prison so straight, from such ordures and miseries, to enter into those spacious Temples of eternal splendours, where our being never shall have end, our knowledge admit ignorance, nor love suffer change.  

The sixteenth EXAMPLE, upon the sixteenth MAXIM. Of the return of Souls.  
GOd, who boundeth Heaven, and limiteth earth, ordaineth also its place to each creature, suitable to the nature and qualities thereof. The body after death is committed to the earth from whence it came, and the soul goes to the place appointed it, according to its merit or demerit. And as it is not lawful for the dead body to forsake the tomb to converse with the living, so the soul is not permitted to go out of the lists God's justice ordained for it, to intermeddle in worldly affairs. Notwithstanding as the divine power often causeth the resurrection of the dead for the confirmation of our faith, so it appointeth sometimes the return of souls, for proof of their immortality.  
I would not any wise in this point favour all the shallow imaginations, which entitle sottish apprehensions of the mind with the name of visions, but it is undoubted, there is no Country in the world, nor time throughout Ages, which hath not afforded some great example of apparition of spirits, by known witnesses, and the judgements of most eminent 
Mitte quoque advivus aliqu●● ex mortuit Scriptura lestatur. De cura pro mortuis. c. 15. etc. c. 10. Luc 14.  personages. S. Augustine holds, it is a doctrine grounded on Scripture, experience, and reason, which cannot be gainsaid, without some note of impudence, (although he much deny, that all the dreams we have of the dead, are ever their souls which return again.) Such was the belief of the Apostles in S. Luke, it not being corrected by our Saviour, who was the rule of their faith. Such the truth of the apparition of the soul of Moses upon Mount Thabor. I insist not now upon proof, 
Math. 17  but example, contenting myself to produce one or two out of a great multitude recounted by Authors.  
As for the first, I hold the apparition of the soul 
Apparition of the soul of Samuel. 1. Reg. 28.  of Samuel is most formal in Scripture for any one, who will consider the whole progress of the narration. The history telleth us, that King Saul, after the death of Samuel, was upon the point of giving battle to the Philistines, and that having first addressed himself to God by ordinary means, to learn the way he should observe therein, seeing he had no answer either by dream, or the lively voice of Prophets, he did what infidels, and men desperate do, who seek to get that from the devil, they cannot obtain of God. He commanded his servants to seek him out a forceress, although himself had banished them by his Edicts out of his Kingdom. The servants ever ready to observe their Masters in ill offices, when their own interest concurreth, found a famous Magician, whom the Hebrews affirm to have been a woman of good place, but out of a detestable curiosity, had put herself into this profession. Saul to cover his purpose, and not to amaze her; went thither by night in a disguized habit, only accompanied with two gentlemen, where having saluted her, he demanded the exercise of her profession. But she being crafty, and careful to keep herself from surprises, answered: Sir, go you about to undo me, & yourself also? Know you not the Edicts of King Saul? Saul replied, he knew all had passed, but she might confidently proceed, assuring her of his warranty, and whereas she proposed punishments to herself, she should meet with rewards. But she still doubting, and sticking on distrust, usual in all mischiefs, he engaged his word with great oaths, protesting no ill should befall her for any thing might pass at that time between them. Thereupon resolved to give him satisfaction, she asked if it were not his desire to speak to the soul of a dead man, as also whose it was.  
It was very ordinary with these Negromancers, to raise illusions and phantasms, instead of true spirits of the dead. S Apollonius made Achilles to be seen, 
Philostr. in Apoll. Zonaras. Eunapius Sardianus.  appearing on his tomb as a giant of twelve cubits high; so Santaberemus shown to the Emperor Basilius the soul of his son Constantine; so Jamblicus made to appear in certain baths of Syria two figures of little children like Cupids. All this (to speak properly) had nothing real in it, and it is no wonder, if those who thought Samuel had been raised by a sorceress, believed it was a spectre. But he who well will weigh the phrase of Scripture, and consider, that this spirit of Samuel suddenly appeared before the sorceress had used her ordinary spells, plainly showing, he came merely by the commandment of God, and not by the charms of the Magician, will easily change opinion.  
Verily the Sorceress was much astonished, seeing the dead came contrary to the manner of other, and cried out aloud as one distracted: Sir, you have deceived me, you are Saul, much doubting, it was to him Samuel came. The miserable King, who endeavoured by all means to assure her, fear not saith he, I will keep my promise, what have you seen? She answered: DEOSVIDIASCENDENTES DE TERRA; as who should say, according to the Hebrews phrase, she had seen a venerable person like an Angel, or a God, raised out of the earth. In what shape? replies the King; It is an venerable old man, saith she, covered with the mantle of a Prophet. Then Saul with much reverence prostrated on the ground, and made a low obeisance to Samuel, who spoke to him, and said: QUARE ME INQUIETASTI, UT SUSCITARER? Why hast thou disquieted me, to make me return into the world? Necessity hath constrained me, answereth Saul; I am plunged in a perplexity of affairs, and cannot get any answer from heaven. O man abandoned by God, why dost thou ask of me that, which I have foretold shall happen? Thy army shall be defeated by the Philistines, and thou with thy children shalt be to morrow with me, that is to say, among the dead as I am now: which so fell out. Now the 
Eccl. 46.  Scripture upon this praiseth Samuel to have prophetized after his death: if it were not the true Samuel but a spectre, who sees not it were to tell a lie, and to applaud the work of the devil?  
But to the end you may see this belief was held by Nations, as by a decree of nature, Josephus in the seventeenth book of his Judaical antiquities, relateth the apparition of the spirit of Alexander, son of the great Herod and Mariam, who was seen to his wife Glapphyra, when she remarried again to the King of Mauritania, to reproach her ingratitude and forgetfulness of her first husband, which having amply deduced in the first Tome of the holy Court, in the tenth edition upon an Instruction directed to widows, I forbear here to repeat it.  
Philostratus, in the vl book of the life of Apollonius, maketh likewise mention of a young man much troubled in mind concerning the state of souls in the other life, and saith Apollonius appeared unto 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  him, assuring him the soul was immortal, and he need not to be troubled at all, since it was rather the work of the Divine providence, than of it.  
I willingly pass over many other examples, to tell you that Phlegon a good Author, who flourished about an hundred years after the nativity of our Saviour, and was not of our religion, to favour our opinions, (although honourably cited by Origen, Eusebius, and S. Hierom) writeth a strange history, witnessed by the testimony of a whole City, wherein he then governed. He saith, that at Trails a City 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  in Phrygia, there was a young maid named Philenion, daughter of Democrates and Chariton, who as her story well declareth, was an amorous piece, became courtlike, loved bravery, delighted in too free conversation, and followed the foolish pleasures of the world, true gardens of Adonis, which in the beginning make show of silly flowers, and in conclusion afford nought but thorns.  
God, who followeth the voluptuous by the tract, even into the shades of death, sent her a sickness, which having cropped the flower of her beauty, left her almost nothing but a living carcase, to deliver her over as a prey to death. The miserable maid suffered the boiling fervours of the fever through all her body, not losing the flames of love, which she cherished in her heart. She burned with two fires, not being able either to quench the one or other, and having but a little breath of life left on her lips, she gave to love what already was wholly acquired to death, sighing after a young Gentleman then absent, and not daring fully to manifest her passion.  
In the end, death took away the spoils of her life, with her pretences. The father and mother bewailed her with inconsolable tears, furnishing out very honourable obsequies. And whereas she most ardently affected her dress and little cabinet, they buried with her all whatsoever she held most precious. Six months were now past since her burial, when the Gentleman she loved, named Machates, arriving at Trails came to lodge in the house of his friend her father. The spirit of the maid, which was of the condition of those whom Plato called body-lovers; retaining still the affections with which she went out of her body, appeared one evening to this Machates with words of affection, embraces, and dalliances, which plainly discovered it was a damned spirit, and an instrument of the devil, that tormented the one to burn the other. The young man at the first was much affrighted with these proceed: notwithstanding becoming tractable by little and little, he soon made this spectre very familiar. It happened during this time, that an old servant sent by her Mistress, to see what their guest did, found Philenion sitting near unto him with the same countenance, and the same garments she beware in her life time; whereat much amazed, she ran to the father and the mother to tell them their daughter was alive. They sharply reprehended her for a distracted and wicked woman, as going about again to open their wound which still bled. The servant justified herself, and answered she had not lost her wits, nor spoke aught but truth. Hereupon she so enkindled the curiosity of her Mistress, that she secretly conveyed herself by night into the chamber, yet perceived nothing at all able to resolve her.  
The next day being vehemently excited with the curiosity of knowing what to believe of this apparition, she threw herself at the feet of Machates, and conjured him to tell her the name of the young maid who conversed with him. The Gentleman in the beginning was much surprised, and sought evasions to divert her, but in conclusion either through compassion of the mother, whom he saw in the posture of a suppliant, or by vanity of his passion, which easily unloosened his tongue, he confessed he was married to Philenion, that it was a business accomplished by the will of the Gods, wherein nothing must be altered; and speaking this, he drew forth a little casket, wherein he shown her a gold ring her daughter had given him, with a piece of linen she beware about her neck, protesting she was his wife: so much was he seduced by the subtle practices of the evil spirit.  
The mother having acknowledged the tokens of the deceased, fell down with astonishment, and coming again to herself, she a thousand times kissed, one while the ring, another while the linen, moistening them with her tears, and moving the whole family to sorrow, which ran to see this spectacle. Then again embracing Machates, she signified it would be an infinite favour from heaven to have him for a son in law, but that she entreated as a courtesy one comfort he could not deny an afflicted mother, which was, once again to see her daughter, whom she accounted dead.  
The other promised to give her all satisfaction, and as Phelenion came secretly according to custom to converse with him, he closely sent his lackey to the mother, who advertised her husband of it, and both of them came into Machates his chamber, where they surprised their daughter, at which they were so rapt, that being not able to utter a word, they cast themselves about her neck, straightly embracing and with tears bedewing her, which fell from their eyes. But the daughter with a sad and dejected countenance, fetching a deep sigh out of her breast: Alas (saith she) loving father and mother, your curiosity will cost you dear, for you will lament me the second time. Thereupon she fell down dead, leaving a horrible stink in the chamber, which filled the whole house with terror, groans, and out-cries, in such sort, that the neighbours came in upon the noise, and consequently the whole City ran thither to behold the corpse.  
The magistrates wondering at an accident so frightful, deputed some Citizens nearest of kin to open the tomb, where the body of Philenion could not be found, but a cup & a ring she had received from this Gentleman. The carrion lying in the father's chamber, was by decree of the Senate thrown on the dunghill, the City purged, and as for Machates, he was so overwhelmed with shame and confusion, that he slew himself with his own hands. Behold what an Author recounteth only illuminated by the light of nature, who wrote this history after he had been a spectator of it, of purpose to send a man immediately to the Emperor Hadrian to make a recital thereof unto him, as he saith in a letter he directed to a friend of his. I might have many things to say upon all circumstances, which are not repugnant to that, which Ecclesiastical Authors relate concerning other apparitions of the damned. But I will not exceed the laws of Historians, and it is enough for me here to let you see the belief of the Ancients, and the punishment of God upon souls resigned to sin.    

XVIII. MAXIM. Of Purgatory.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That death is the remedy of all evils, and that the soul separated from the body hath no more to suffer. That the soul, which hath not in this 
Ne dogmata de P●r●atorio pro sa●â ecclesiae doctrinâ nobis obtrudant Pontificii, cavendum est.  world satisfied God's justice, must pass in the other life through Purgatory.  
HAve you well considered in Genesis an 
Genes. 2.  Angel of fire, who with a flaming sword keepeth the gate of terrestrial Paradise, placed as an usher of the entrance into the delicious hall, which prepared by God to entertain the first man of the world, after it had been the theatre of his glory, became the scaffold of his punishments? Procopius 
Purgatory compared to the Cherubins fiery sword.  observeth, that poor Adam at the time of his banishment was placed just over against this Cherubin, and that this centinel of the God of hosts no sooner lifted up his curtle-axe, but he made a terror and icy horror creep into his bones, and in that proportion the sparkles flew from the sword of justice, fears and affrightments invaded the heart of this offender, who being a murderer of his race before he was a progenitor, had brought forth a thousand deaths by the sole bite of an apple. Alas, if the miserable Adam was so astonished at the steel of the Cherubin, which dazzled his eyes, what ought our representments to be, what our apprehensions, when we think on the flames of purgatory, enkindled by the breath of the love and wrath of God? So many souls lie there now plunged, having heretofore conversed amongst us in mortal abode, and we must there perhaps long time remain to burn, and wear off so many ordures, as our soul contracted in worldly affections, if we make account to decline the eternity of torments.  
I am amazed when I reflect on the remissness of Catholics, as well in the provision for their own safety, as the comfort of their brothers souls. And when I have well weighed the course and progress of this great neglect, I find it hath two sources. The first is called infidelity, the second stupidity, which I resolve to convince in two passages of this discourse.  
It is true, that after this direful heresy, blown by the breath of the infernal serpent, hath for this last Age opposed the verities of our faith, besides the lost souls it daily takes away in the torrent of corruption, it hath destilled into the minds of Catholics faintness and infidelities, which now adays turmoil irresolute wits upon many articles, and namely that which is now our present object. Purgatory, will some Libertine say amidst the fumes of wine and good cheer, is not so hot as folk talk. Who ever came back to tell us news of it? God is merciful; think you he takes delight to burn his children, and to cut off the price of his Son's passion who satisfied for our sins? Young souls hear this, and suck in poison by the ear, which chokes their belief, and killeth the exercise of good works. What shall I say against these infidelities, and floating opinions of feeble Catholics? It is not my purpose to cast myself upon a subtle controversy, which doth nothing but hale truth hither and thither. I will lose no time to touch at many passages, I only to the matter express two reasons drawn from two lights, that of nature, and the other of faith, which are able to evict confession of truth from a man, who hath never so little shame or brain.  
2. It is a strange thing to see the great consent of all 
Purgatory proved by the light of nature.  Ages, which agree in a pretention of purgations of the soul, so strong & powerful, that those lights of nature speak as understandingly, as if they were written with the rays of the Sun. All the Gentiles, who lived out of the law, knew not how to gainsay this doctrine. For they were sensible of the noble extraction of their soul, and knew it was defiled by the body, and by sensual works. Behold the cause why they tied themselves to 
The opinion of the Ancients concerning the purgation of souls.  feeble elements to purify it; one while washing themselves in the streams of fountains, another while passing through flames, and sometimes seeking other ways to cleanse themselves from pollutions of the flesh. But it was a pitiful thing they found profanation even in sacrifice. They were not content to purge themselves in this life, but extend it to the souls of the dead, constantly believing they stood in need of remedies, to free themselves from bodily stains.  
Theophilus' Patriarch of Antioch, in the book he directed to one named Antiochus, saith, the Gentiles took out of the Scripture all they wrote of punishments in the other life. And S. Augustine observeth, that having this 
August. 21. de civitate Dei. c. 13.  idea, that all stains of the soul proceeded from the earth, they employed the other three elements to purge them, as he proveth by texts of the Ancients. Synesius 
Synesius epist. ad Joan. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  likewise thought there remained certain visible spots in the soul, which made it appear they were the crimes wherewith it was contaminated in the body, which notwithstanding agrees not very well with the truth we hold of the spirituality of the same soul. And I find he spoke in this text more like a Platonist than a Christian. The Hebrews, the Egyptians, Grecians, and Romans all contended for prayers for the dead, and the truth of purgatory. The Hebrews three times in the 
Morus de Missa. An excellent observation upon the belief of Purgatory among the Hebrews. Apoc. 21. 16. Civitas in quadro posita est.  year celebrated the feast of the dead, and their Priest mounting up into a chair made expressly and ceremoniously foursquare, to represent the City of the blessed according to S. John, rehearsed aloud, and audibly the names of the dead, to recommend them to the prayers of such as were present; prayers so familiar amongst them, that they wrote them upon tombs instead of Epitaphs, in these terms: SIT ANIMA EIUS COLLIGATA IN FASCICULO VIVENTIUM, let his soul be bound up in the posy of the living: As one would say; all the souls of Saints were as an odoriferous posy, whereof every elect constituted a flower. What is this but to make stones speak against impiety?  
What shall I say of the Egyptians, that were so 
Notable purgation of Egyptians. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  impressed with the opinion that souls must be purged in the other life, in so much as they had been drenched in voluptuous pleasures of the flesh, that in the funerals of the dead having opened the body, they took the heart out of the breast and put it into a little casket, then on the bank of Nilus, where ordinarily 
Plutarch in convivio septem Sapientum.  tombs were erected, a herald holding the casket, and showing it to the eyes of heaven, protested before all there present, the deceased now in question had lived piously, and according to the laws of his Ancestors; that if he had offended through bodily pleasures, they wished his soul might be as well cleansed, as they went about to purge the stomach, the instrument of the lusts of the living, thereupon they threw it into Nilus. Behold these poor Pagans how they were moved with a touch from God, (which cannot lie) who says unto them, the dead must be purged, but as for the rest they know not how?  
Shall I speak of the Grecians? And know we not that Plato the prime man of their Nation in his Phedon, spoke so perspicuously for purgatory, that he seemed to have been bred in the Christian schools? I will conclude with the Romans. And can we be ignorant how in the beginning of the Church under the Emperor Domitian, when as yet some Apostles lived, Quintilian, a most renowned Orator, making 
Qintil Declam. 10.  an oration in the City of Rome, in a certain pleading concerning a sepulchre which had been enchanted by magic, protested in terms most express the truth of purgatory saying: The soul being purged of fire, went to take place in heaven, as we shown also in the sixteenth maxim: If you also require authorities of Pagans, who have seen what Christians practised; add to all this, that Julius a very ancient Author, speaking 
Julius' Florileg. l. 3.  of the death of a Lady named Podon, observed in plain terms, that her husband, who was one of the most ancient Christians, made offerings for her, which he called 
Tertul. in exhort. ad castitat. Jam repete apud Deum pro cujus spiritu postules, pro quâ oblationes annuas reddas.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Gifts for ransom of the soul, answerable to what Tertullian writeth, that it was the custom of the ancient Church to pray for the souls of the dead, yea, and to make annual offerings for them.  
We must no longer say for evasion, it is Plato, it is Quintilian who speaketh, but confess with Aristotle, when we see an universal agreement in a proposition, it is not one man speaks, but the mouth of heaven which uttereth this verity. When S. James telleth us, God must be feared, and proves it by example of the devils themselves, he saith not, we must fear God, because 
Daemons credunt, & contremiscunt.  the devils do so, but if any despise him, he is therein worse than devils. Likewise when the holy Fathers produce an example of Pagans, it is not to instruct us by the Pagans, but to show, that to waver in the belief of things they generally held by the sentence of nature, is to be worse than a Pagan.  
3. I say for the second argument, that so often as 
Second proof drawn from the light of faith. Vnde haec, quia ita facienda sunt, disputare insolentissimae insania est.  a truth is proved to Catholics by the universal consent of the Church, and of all Ages, if any one chance to make doubt of it, it is an evident sign, either that he hath a giddy spirit, or is malicious in religion. This proposition is grounded upon the axiom of S. Augustine, who in his Epistle written to Januarius, assureth us, that when we find the tracks of a custom generally observed throughout the whole Church, it is evident that it cometh from the Apostles, or those, to whom God hath given full Authority in the Church, and that to go about to belly or question it, is to pass from folly to insolency.  
Now so it is, the truth of purgatory is established by the opinion, practice, sentence and decisions of all the Church, in such sort, that there is not any verity of our faith more fortified. How is that? Begin with our France: Behold the Council of Chalons upon Saone for prayers for the dead, and the truth of purgatory. Go into Spain, behold that of Braga; into Germany, behold that of Worms; into Italy, behold the sixth Council held at Rome under Pope Symmachus; into Greece, behold a number of Synods collected by Martius; into Africa, behold the third of Carthage. Lastly behold the three Ecumenical of Lateran, Florence, and Trent, which say the same. Doth not this suffice to establish a truth in the wit of a man, who hath never so little understanding?  
Our adversaries, who still bark against this verity, as dogs at the moons brightness, when they have said Jesus made purgation of sins, and that it was said to the good thief, thou shalt to day be with me in Paradise, or produced some other frivolous objections, have showed all their ability.  
I leave you a little to ponder the goodly consequences: Jesus purged sins, there is then no purgatory? Should not we have cause to say in the same fashion, Jesus prayed for remission of our sins, than we no longer stand in need of prayer or penance: and in vain is that S. Luke saith, that Jesus must suffer, and 
Luc. 24. 47.  that penance was preached in his name. As the prayers of our Saviour destroy not our prayers, so his satisfaction overthroweth not ours. He prayed that we might pray; he satisfied, to give strength and merit to our satisfaction, which would be dead and unprofitable, were they not quickened by his blood. To what purpose is it to say the good thief went directly to Paradise, without feeling purgatory? As if we should say, it was necessary for all the world to pass that way. Make yourself a great Saint, and you shall have nothing to do with it. Purge all your sins by a love so fervent, that the purifying flames may not find any thing to cleanse. He who hath paid, owes nothing, and who hath satisfied in this world, shall find unrestrained freedom in the other.  
But think you, in a life which contracteth so many stains, a soul may be raised in an instant above the celestial orbs to the sight of God, before it have passed by those purgations, which the Divine justice ordaineth to every one according to his demerits? Endeavour is used to deafen your ears with piety, wranglings, and unprofitable disputations, to make you believe purgatory is an invention of interessed Priests; it seems this doctrine came into the world but within these two days. But read the Scripture, and see the Fathers who interpret it, you shall find proofs to fall upon you like a cloud for confirmation of this verity.  
When S. Paul in the first to the Corinthians third Chapter said, that the day of God, to wit the day of judgement be it general or particular, shall be manifested by fire, which shall put every one's works upon trial; and that he who upon the foundations of Jesus 
Basil. in Isa. c. 1. Non exterminium minatur, sed purgationem innuit. Ambros. Hic ostendit paenas ignis passurum.  shall build with wood, straw, or hay, to wit with vain and sleight works, shall be saved as by fire, he clearly declared the doctrine of purgatory, unless you be more illuminated than S. Basil and S. Ambrose, who have judged it so: for the first saith he threateneth the soul, not with destruction, but purgation; and the other plainly expresseth, he speaks of the pains of fire, which God hath appointed to purify souls. And it is a poor resistance to object, he said, as by fire, and not by fire: For it is a manner of expression in Scripture, which nothing diminisheth the reality of things, otherwise we should say when S. John wrote in the first Chapter of his Gospel, that men saw Jesus as the only Son of God, that he were only a figure of it, not a truth. And when S. Paul to the Philippians second Chapter witnesseth, he was found as a man, we might infer he were not man. See you not how these silly curiosities of words directly invade the truth? When S. Matthew in the twelfth Chapter makes mention of one sin which shall never be remitted, either in this world or in the other; S. Bernard in his threescore & sixth homily upon the Canticles mainly insisteth upon this passage and takes it as an infallible proof of our doctrine. When the Evangelist himself toucheth the discourse of the prisoner, which shall be put into a place from whence be shall not come, until he have paid the last penny; Saint Cyprian 
Cyprian. l. 4. ep. 2.  says plainly: It is one thing to be a long time purged for sins by the torment of fire, another by the purgation, which is made by the passion of Jesus Christ. When in the same Author it is spoken of divers punishments of choler handled in the fift Chapter, S. Augustine in the first book of the sermon made on the mountain, interpreteth all that of punishments in the other life. When in the fourth Chapter of Toby, it is written of bread to be put upon the graves of the dead, S. Chrysostom, Homily thirty two upon S. Matthew referreth this passage to the custom of the ancient Church, which called both the Priests and the poor purposely to pray for the dead. When mention is made in the fourth of Kings of a solemn fast made for Saul, Bede makes no question but it was for the quiet of his soul: For S. Paul showeth in the first to the Corinthians fifteenth Chapter that it was the custom to mortify and macerate one's self for the dead, and the second of Maccabees saith, it is a holy and a wholesome thing to pray for them. Who knew more, and who saw more in all this than the great S. Augustine, who on the thirty seventh Psalm hath these words: My God make me such in my life, that I may not 
Aug. in Psal. 37. Talem me reddas, cui emendatorio igne non sit opus.  need the fire of Purgatory after my death. Hath the Roman Church hired all these so ancient Fathers to write such texts in its behalf? Is it not a shame that a brainless Libertine with the eyes of a bat should mock at all these lights?  
4. Doubtless, will some say, these reasons are forcible; 
The manner of Purgatory.  but I understand not where this purgatory is, and how souls are there tormented. To that I answer, the Church which walketh reservedly in its ordinances, ever grounded on the word of God, only obligeth us to hold as an article of faith, a third place for the purgation of souls, which is neither Paradise nor hell. As for circumstances of the place and manner 
Nyss. de anima & resurrectione. Chrysost. homil. de Beatorum premiis. Beda l. 3. hist. Angl. ●9.  of sensible torments, it hath decried nothing thereof as an article of our belief. School Divines ordinarily set purgatory in a subterranean place, which is very probable. It may also be, that souls may be purged in the air, in the sphere of fire, and in divers parts of the elementary world, according to the opinion of S. Gregory Nyssen, S. Chrysostom, and S. Gregory the great. It dependeth on the prerogative of God's power, and the ministry of Angels.  
As for punishments, it is most certain the first consisteth 
Miris, sed veris modis. August.  in suspension from the sight of God, a matter very dolorous to a soul, which being out of the body, & far absented from its source, is, as would the globe of the earth be, were it out of its place, or like unto fire shut up in the bowels of mount Aetna. It naturally desireth to rejoin itself to God, and the least retardation it feels from such felicity is most sensible unto it. It mourneth to be deprived from an infinite comfort, when the thirst is most ardent, and to see itself bereft by its own fault; yea, such an one as might easily have been avoided. The second is the pain of sense which is exercised by fire (the great executioner of God's justice) and sometimes also by other ways, known to his providence, as S. Bonaventure and holy Bede teach us. If you say you cannot comprehend how a material thing worketh on a spiritual: I ask of you again, this soul which is in your body, is it of any other kind than those in purgatory? And yet see you not how it daily suffereth in the body? See you not how all the dolours of mortal flesh rebound back again by an amorous sympathy, and a counterbuff wholly necessary, to the bottom of our soul? And yet you ask how it can suffer? Is it not true, our soul containeth in it the root of understanding, & all sensible knowledge, framed and accomplished by the help of the bodies organs? Is it not true, that being in the body it understandeth and feeleth with dependence on the body? But separated, doth it lose this root of understanding and knowledge? Verily not: For it then understandeth with independence on the body. To speak also according to the opinion of some, it may feel out of the body not only by a knowledge naked and intellectual, but experimental in some sort, not unlike the understanding exercised in the body. But there is no more corporal organ, which is as the chariot of feeling. What importeth it? God by his power cannot he supply the organ of body, and necessitate the soul immediately to feel the sharpness of fire, as if it were still in the body? And which is more, some Divines think there would be no inconvenience to say, the soul were revested by God with a body of air, as in a sheath, wherewith it should have 
Corink. de purgatorio. p. 529.  the same sympathy it had before with the body it informed: and this body being incorruptibly burnt, as that of the damned, should cause a painful quality to arise to torment it: which I notwithstanding think not so probable. But I rather believe, the fire not being contrary of its nature to the spirit, might for all that be chosen and appointed by the singular disposition of providence to be unto the soul an afflicting sign, in that it representeth to it in its flames the anger of an offended God, as it shall be said in the subsequent Maxim.  
Alas! O Christians, God grant we may be ignorant of this eternal and temporal fire, and may rather be purged in this life, than expect it in the other.  
5. When I come to the second point of this discourse, 
Against the dulness of those who understand it not.  I cannot wonder enough at our stupidity & lethargy: we believe purgatory and belly our belief by our works. What may we hope in the other life, living so negligently and remislely? God is merciful: Behold our ordinary saying. But see we not in Scriptures the hand of God armed with fiery tempests over the infamous Cities of Sodom and Gomorrha, and the bodies which sacrificed themselves in the flames of prodigious luxury roasted and broiled under the breath of the anger of the Omnipotent? See we not a whole world buried in the waters of a deluge, waves of the Ocean rushing, as in a city sacked, on the heads of offenders, the sea becoming altogether the executioner and tomb of sinners? See we not those beautiful Angels so beloved of God, and so worthy of favour, which also came most resplendent out of his hands, lost by one thought of pride, scorched and precipitated into dungeons of eternal flames?  
Think we to be more to God, than those cities replenished with an infinite number of souls, than a whole world, than legions of Angels? Let us not flatter ourselves by a presumptuous confidence of a mercy, not due to a negligence so faint and dissolute.  
The truth is, no uncleanness enetreth into Paradise: The truth is, the eyes of the supreme Judge cannot endure pollution. For if there be any, it must infallibly be taken off with the file of justice. The torment of purgatory is executed with sharp & transfixing pains, since that imperious element, which raiseth so many terrors in our world, hath there the place of an officer. The continuance thereof is long, by certain revelations that some souls have been there many years: its perseverance & activity dreadful, since the soul is immortal, and incorruptible to its torments. This made the hair stand an end on the heads of all Saints. And 
Job 11. Semper enim quasi tumentes super me fluctus timui Deum, & pondus ejus ferre non potui.  when the great man Job, all composed of innocency & sanctity, thought on this justice of God, he conceived himself to be as a little fish crouched in the water, that heareth all the storms rolling over its head. S. Augustine grown hoary in a thousand valorous battles for defence of the Church, apprehendeth purgatory; & the elect souls, who build all in gold and silver, and precious stones, fear the trial of fire, and we with our edifices of stubble, straw, and hay, walk with exalted crests, as if we had all the assurances of our salvation.  
Where are we, if this torch of justice awaken us not? 
Quis poterit habitare de vobis cum igne devorante?  Perhaps we have made a bargain with this fire, and these punishments, or that we are torment-proof not to feel them. Is there any man who hath learned to abide among burning coals? We are so tender, so nice, so impatient, so the lovers of ourselves, that one ounce weigheth a pound with us. O worldlings! who shall weep over you, since you know not how to bewail yourselves? Your bodies are dainty both by nature and education; yea, your souls much more: you cannot endure the stinging of a be; the very sight of a Surgeon's lancet affrights you, and yet you daily entangle yourselves in a thousand vanities, a thousand courtships, and a thousand worldly loves, which defile your soul, and must at a dear rate be discharged in the other world. We know the Christians of the Indies newly converted, when they felt some temptations contrary to the law of God, ran to their chimney hearths, and thrust their hands into the flames, saying: Sin soul, if thou canst abide fire, if not, go no further. Do the like, touch, if not in effect, at least by consideration, the devouring flames of God's Justice. And if they seem strange unto you, engage not yourself in them by your sensualities.  
6. From the slight apprehension we have of Purgatory, 
Rigour of the living against the souls in Purgatory.  proceedeth another stupidity very unreasonable, which is, that we are very little careful of the souls of the dead; a matter very worthy of blame for two principal reasons. The first is, that the providence of God which disposeth all with so great sweetness, hath as it were tied the salvation of these good souls to the fervour of our prayers, and would have us to be as mediators and intercessors of their felicity, which is verily one of the greatest titles of honour we can receive. It is a note of Divinity to have power to oblige men, faith an Ancient, and 
Plin. l. 2. c. 7. Deus est mortali benefacere mortalem, & haec ad aeternam gloriam via.  there is no shorter way to eternal glory. Now God gives us the means to oblige, not mortals, but immortal souls, and to oblige them in a cause so great and eminent, that if all the treasures and lives of the world were dissolved into one mass, they could not reach to the least degree of the felicity you may procure to these faithful souls.  
By obliging them in this kind, you gain eternal friends, who will entertain no thoughts, but such as may tend to render you the like, and to bear you into the bosom of beatitude, and yet this being most easy for you (as a matter which consisteth in some prayers, alms deeds, and good works) you neglect it: Is not this a prodigious carelessness?  
The second reason is, that by such negligence we betray our soul, which inclineth out of a natural propension to the sweetness and mercy we exercise even towards beasts. It is the argument which the 
Math. 12. 11. Quis erit ex vobis homo, qui habeat evem unam, & si ceciderit haec sabbatho in foveam, manum tentabit & levabit eam. Her. Thren. De excelso misit ignem in ●ssibus meis, & erudivit me, etc. Vigilavit jugum iniquitatum mearum, etc.  Son of God made use of: If a horse, an Ox, a sheep fall into a ditch, there is neither festival nor sabbath withholds; every one who is able, stretcheth out a hand and draws it forth: And behold here not a beast, but a soul created to the image of God, irradiated with the most excellent lineaments of his beauty, which is, to live with Angels eternally, fallen into a ditch, fallen into a boiling furnace, who is afflicted, tormented, imploreth the help of all the world, and whilst we slacken to secure it, hath these mournful words of Jeremy:  
Alas! God the just avenger of crimes committed against his divine Majesty, hath poured fire into my bones to chastise me. Behold me in the nets of justice, behold me now desolate, pensive, and disconsolate both night and day All afflicteth me in this said abode, but nothing is so irksome, as the burden of mine iniquities and ingratitudes. It is a yoke which surchargeth my neck like lead, and pulls me down into the torments, from whence I cannot go without 
O vos omnes qui transitis per viam attendite, & videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus. Quoniam vindemiavit me, ut locutus est Dominus in die furoris sui.  your charities. O you, my dear kindred, friends, and allies, who pass through the Churchyard, made the depositary of my bones, consider and see with the eyes of faith, whether there be any dolour comparable to mine: since God hath cut me off on the day of his indignation, with a strong and inevitable arm. O ingrateful and disloyal son, it is the soul of thy father which speaketh unto thee in this manner, and says unto thee: Son, I have passed my life as the spider, still spinning, ever seeking after worldly wealth, perpetually exhausting my proper substance to enrich thee, I lived on gall and cares, that thou mightest swim in rose-water; I traveled over lands and seas, to build a silver bridge for thy fortune, to set thee on flowers-de-luce and employments of a Kingdom, where is thy retribution?  
My son, I complain not, my eye being shut, my body was troublesome to thee in thy house, and thou couldst not endure it; it was a dunghill must be yielded up to the earth: but I complain, that thou being well informed thy father had an immortal soul, which thou mightest comfort by thy good works, thou traitorously employedst the money, whereof the poor have too much been frustrated, to establish thy vanities, and fatten thee in pleasures. Where is thy liberality? Where are thy alms toward miserable creatures, who die in affliction in the streets? Observe justice, and take example by my disasters.  
Husband, it is thy wife so beloved, that speaks to thee, saying: Ah my dearest friends, where is the faith plighted in the face of the Church? Where are the faithful loves which should have no limit but eternity? Death no sooner absented me from thy eyes, but forgetfulness drew me out of thy heart. I complain not thou livest happy and fortunate in thy new affections, for I am in a condition wherein I can neither envy nor malice any; but I complain, that not only after my death the children, which are pledges of our love, were distasteful to thee, but thou hast wholly lost the memory of one who was so precious to thee, and whom thou as a Christian oughrest to love beyond a tomb. Open yet once unto her the bowels of thy charity, and comfort by thy alms and good works, a soul which must expect that help from thee, or some other.  

The seventeenth EXAMPLE upon the seventeenth MAXIM. Apparition of Souls in Purgatory.  
HIstories tell us, the apparation of souls in Purgatory are so frequent, that he who would keep an account, may as soon number the stars in the sky, or leaves on the trees. But as it is not fit to be too credulous in all may be said thereupon, so a man must be very impudent to deny all is spoken of it, and to oppose as well the authority of so many great personages, as the memory of all Ages.  
He who believes nothing above nature, will not believe a God of nature. How many extraordinary things are there, the experience whereof teacheth us the effects, and of which God hideth the reasons from us? The Philosopher Democritus disputing with 
Solinus Polyhistor.  the Sages of his time concerning the secret power of nature, held commonly in his hand, the stone called cathocita, which insensibly sticketh to such as touch it, and they being unable to give a reason of it, he inferred there were many secrets which are rather to humble our spirits, than to satisfy our curiosity. Who 
Jul. Scal. A Porta. Ca●era●.  can tell why the theamede, which is a kind of adamant, draweth iron on one side, and repelleth it on the other? Why do the forked branches of the nut-tree, turn towards mines of gold and silver? Why do bees often die in the hives, after the death of the Master of the family, unless they be elsewhere transported? Why doth a dead body cast forth blood in the presence of the murderer? Why do certain fountains in the current of their waters, and in their colour, carry presages of seasons, as that of Blomuza, which waxeth red when the country is menaced with war? Why have so many noble families 
Di●●arus Petrus Albinus.  certain signs, which never fail to happen when some one of the family is to die? The commerce of the living with spirits of the dead, is a matter very extraordinary, but not impossible to the Father of spirits, who holdeth total nature between his hands.  
Peter of Clugny, surnamed the Venerable, and esteemed in his time as the oracle of France, was a man who proceeded in these affairs with much consideration, not countenancing any thing either frivolous or light. Behold the cause, wherefore I willingly make use of his authority. He telleth, that in a village of Spain named the Star, there was a man of quality called Peter of Engelbert, much esteemed in the world for his excellent parts and abundant riches.  
Notwithstanding, the spirit of God having made him understand the vanity of all humane things, being now far stepped into years, he went into a Monastery of the Order of Clugny, there the more piously to pass the remnant of his days, as it is said, the best incense cometh from old trees. He often spoke amongst the holy Friars of a vision which he saw, when he as yet was in the world, and which he acknowledged to be no small motive to work his conversion. This bruit came to the ears of Venerable Peter, who was his General, and who for the affairs of his Order, was then gone into Spain. Behold the cause why he, never admitting any discourses to be entertained, if they were not well verified, took the pains to go into a little Monastery of Nazare, where Engelbert was, & to question him upon it in the presence of the Bishops of Oleron and Osma, conjuring him in the virtue of holy obedience, to tell him punctually the truth touching the vision he had seen, whilst he led a secular life. This man being very grave, and very circumspect in all he said, spoke the words which the Author of the history hath couched in his proper terms:  
In the time that Alphonsus the younger, heir of the great Alphonsus, warred in Castille against certain factious disunited from his obedience, he made an Edict, that every family in his Kingdom should be bound to furnish him with a soldier: which was the cause that for obedience to the King's commands, I sent into his army one of my houshold-servants, named Sancius. The wars being ended, and the troops discharged, he returned to my house, where having some time so journed, he was seized by a sickness, which in few days took him away into the other world. We performed the obsequies usually observed towards the dead, and four months were already past, we hearing nought at all of the state of his soul, when behold upon a winter's night being in my bed, throughly awake, I perceived a man, who stirring up the ashes of my hearth, opened the burning coals, which made him the more easily to be seen. Although I found myself much terrified with the sight of this ghost, God gave me courage to ask him who he was, and for what purpose he came thither to lay my hearth abroad. But he in a very low voice answered: Master, fear nothing, I am your poor servant Sancius: I go into Castille in the company of many soldiers to expiate my sins in the same place where I committed them.  
I stoutly replied, If the commandment of God call you thither, to what purpose come you hither? Sir, saith he, take it not amiss, for it is not without the Divine permission. I am in a state not desperate, and wherein I may be helped by you, if you bear any good will towards me. Hereupon I required what his necessity was, and what succour he expected from me. You know Master, said he, that a little before my death, you sent me into a place where ordinarily men are not sanctified. Liberty, ill example, youth, and temerity, all conspire against the soul of a poor soldier, who hath no government. I committed many outrages during the late war, robbing and pillaging even to the goods of the Church, for which I am at this present grievously tormented. But, good Master, if you loved me alive as one of yours, forget me not after death. I ask no part of your great riches, but only your prayers, and some alms for my sake, which will much assist to mitigate my pains. My Mistress oweth me about eight franks upon a reckoning between her and me, let her bestow it, not for my body, which hath no need of it, but the comfort of my soul, which expecteth it from your charities.  
I know not how I found myself emboldened by these speeches, but I had more desire to entertain it, than fear of the apparition. I demanded whether it could tell me news of one of my countrymen, named Peter Dejaca, who died a while since. To which he made answer, I need not trouble myself with it, for he was already in the number of the blessed, since the great alms he gave in the last famine, had purchased heaven for him. From thence I fell upon another question, and was curious to know what had happened to a certain Judge, whom I very well knew, and who lately passed into the other life. To which he replied: Sir, speak not of that miserable man, for hell possesseth him through the corruption of justice which he by damnable practice exercised, having an honour and soul saleable to the prejudice of his conscience. My curiosity carried me higher, to inquire what became of King Alphonsus the Great, at which time I heard another voice that came from a window behind me, saying very distinctly: It is not of Sancius you must demand that, because he as yet can say nothing to the state of that Prince, but I may have more experience thereof, than he; I deceasing five years ago, and being present in an accident which gave me some light of it. I was much surprised, unexpectedly hearing this other voice, and turning, saw by the help of the Moon's brightness which reflected into my chamber, a man leaning on my window, whom I entreated to tell me where then King Alphonsus was. Whereto he replied, he well knew, that passing out of this life, he had been much tormented, and that the prayers of good religious men much helped him: but he could not at this present say in what state he was. Having spoken thus much, he turned towards Sancius, sitting near the fire, and said, Let us go, it is time we depart. At which Sancius making no other answer, speedily risen up, and redoubled his complaints with a lamentable voice, saying: Sir, I entreat you once again remember me, and that my Mistress perform the request I made you.  
The next day Engelbert understood from his wife what the spirit told him, and with all observation disposed himself speedily and charitably, to satisfy all was required. What may we infer upon this, but S. Augustine's conclusion which he left in a book of care for the dead, fifteenth Chapter?  
Holy Scriptures witness, that the dead are sometimes sent to living men, as on the contrary, S. Paul amongst the living was lifted up to heaven. As we ordinarily know not what becomes of the persons of the dead, so we must confess, the dead know not all is done in the world at the time it is done, but they afterwards learn it from those, who pass out of this life into the other, and converse with them. Yet they understand not all sorts of affairs, but those which may be told them, and such as are permitted to remain in their memories, that recount them to souls who must know them. Angels who are present to actions here beneath, may also discover to the dead what the Sovereign Arbiter, to whom all things are subjected, shall appoint to come to the knowledge of the one or other.    

XVIII. MAXIM. Of Eternal unhappiness.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That we cannot be miserable when we are no more. That the wicked being no more for this present life, are everlasting for the pains of the damned.  
THat there is an inevitable judgement of 
Belief of a judgement most general.  God for the damned, fire, darkness, eternal prisons, (O Libertine and profane soul) is not a proposition needs to be proved by many reasons and arguments. It is the subject of all books, the discourse of all tongues, the confession of all people, the great voice of nature, which forgetfulness cannot obliterate, 
Naturâ pleraque suggeruntur quasi de publico sensu. Tertul. de animâ.  impiety extinguish, nor an evil conscience take away. The Hebrews, Grecians, Latins, Chaldeans, Persians, Arabians, Abyssines, Africans, Indians, and not speaking of others, all Nations most remote from our region, most savage in manners, most strange in customs have believed, proclaimed, protested, do believe, proclaim, and protest this through all Ages; and although different in condition, all notwithstanding agree in the faith of a living God, who knoweth, seethe, judgeth of the good and bad deeds of this life, ordaineth rewards for virtue, and punishments for vice.  
It is the order of God, who governeth the world 
The order of God.  with two hands, which are justice and mercy. If you take away one of them, you maim him. It is the condition of humane and Divine things, where contraries are ever counterbalanced by contraries, say 
Notable speech of S. Thomas. S. Thom. opus. 63. Non est infernus peior coelo. Sicut coelum syderibus, sic infernus damnatis ornabitur. The opinion of Philosophers. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Trismegist. in Pimandro. Cle. Alex. strom. 5.  Philosophers. If there be a Paradise for virtues, there must be a hell for crimes. No less doth hell contribute to publish God's omnipotency, than Paradise. As heaven is furnished with stars, hell shall be with the damned, and the justice of the Sovereign will no less appear in the condemnation of the culpable, than in the defence of innocents'. I knew not what made Doctor Tostatus say, that Plato placed hell in the sphere of Mars, since he very well mentions it in the concave of abysses in his Phedon. Trismegistus in Pymander omitted not to speak of avenging flames due to impiety. The Stoics treat among their secrets of the general firing of the world, as witnesseth Clemens Alexandrinus in his stromata. And other Philosophers according to Tertullian speak of secret fire, which must serve as an instrument of God's vengeance. The most stupid have seen it, the most insolent have frowned at it, and the most forlorn are astonished with it.  
And verily it is a hideous thing to behold only on paper, what the Author of the cardinal works of Jesus Christ writeth: To burn in flames which wast not, 
Inconsumptibilibus flammis corpus allambentibus ardere, in proprio adipe frix●s libidines bullire, etc. How the fire of hell burneth.  nor shall ever be consumed, to be scorched through the whole body with remediless fires, to be broiled alive in his own grease, and broiled with stains of his impurities not to be taken off. To see nothing but pits of fire, and flaming furnaces without ease, relaxation, remedy, change, or diminution of sentence.  
Notwithstanding (O Libertine) thou dost ask, how this material fire burneth spiritual souls? It is one of the most unfortunate sciences not to understand hell, but by proper experience, to dispute the activity of a fire as true as the mouth of God, and unfaithfully deny on earth, what must everlastingly be learned under earth. Algazel the Arabian & Avicen said, a damned soul suffers no other pain but the object of its eternal perdition. Algazel and Avicen: behold two goodly Authors to oppose the wisdom of the eternal word. I am of opinion, we learn from devils how to believe in God, and derive our Theology from the lips of the wicked, and our belief from infidelity, as if one should prostitute a Vestal to a lost man. Alas wretched spirit! how worthy art thou of compassion, when not satisfied to play the Epicure in thy manners, thou wilt divide thy Libertinism with Philosophy. If this discourse, which ought to be dedicated to holy horror of God's judgements, 
Gulielm. Paris. de universo.  did permit farther question, one might show with the great Bishop of Paris, that a damned soul kept in a prison of fire, retains all the same senses, as if it were with the body in the midst of flames, since we feel in this life, such vivacity only from the imagination, that it in us produceth the same effects which the presence of objects doth. And this Doctor witnesseth he hath seen and known men, who needed no other purgation but the sight of a medicine. But if the sole idea do thus, what will the real impression of fire work upon a soul, which raised by the Divine power above its ordinary force, leaves a form and a character, as if a hot-iron were stamped on the flesh. We might deduce with S. Thomas, Turrecremata, Cajetan, Isolam, and Ocham, all the exquisite dolours of a soul, that feeleth itself imprisoned as in a cage of fire, and stormeth, seeing itself not only deprived of sweet liberty, but tormented by an imperious element, destined by God for its punishment by extraordinary ways, by a supplement of the antipathy of senses, and which shamefully wrack it, as if a person of eminent quality were insolently abused by some slave come from the Moors or Arabia.  
We should likewise set before you with other Divines 
See S. August. 21. City of God. S. Gregory in the 4. of his dialogues. S. Thomas contra Gentes l. 4. c. 90. Suar. part. 3. and the R. P. Theophilus Raynaud in his natural Theology, where this question is excellently handled.  the quality of a prodigious deformity, caused by fire raised above its condition, which extremely afflicteth an immortal spirit, then especially, when it understands the excellent gifts wherewith God had endowed it, the favours and glories it might pretend unto this most blessed eternity. One might say with many other modern Doctors, that the soul being the root of sensitive qualities, is no less tormented by objects dissenting from sense, than as if sense were present, and hath a spiritual sense, by the help of which, it trieth and feeleth the fire with an experimental knowledge, wholly like the action of sense. All these opinions might be argued with many instancies and reasons, but it being not according to the scope of this design, I say in one word with S. Gregory the Great: There is made in the soul, from a visible fire, a heat and an invisible pain. It is true, the soul separated from the body hath not a natural antipathy and disagreement from fire, but what this imperious element cannot have, remaining within the limits of nature, it obtaineth by a particular ordinance and disposition of God, who chooseth and expressly deputeth it to serve him, as an instrument and a sign in this action, and to be as an eternal messenger of his anger against a damned soul. Now as the Sovereign Judge of the world gave life to Cain for a punishment, so (according to S. Ambrose,) he engraved by the same means a disastrous mark on his person, which continually set before the eyes of this fratricide the image of his crime, and the Divine justice. In such manner, that oftentimes turmoiled during life in the miseries and confusions of his brutish spirit, so soon as he represented to himself this sign, he acknowledged the decree of God, who prolonged his life to lengthen his calamities: So this Divine hand, Omnipotent in its effects, imprinteth fire on a damned soul, as the true token of his justice, the character of his anger, the centinel and executioner of his eternal will, who beareth the face of an incensed God with all his decrees in his own flames, who presseth and lieth heavy on this miserable thing, separated from the sight of God, and resigned through an eternal malediction to the life of devils.  
2. Thou must here understand, O Reader, this 
Foundation of the eternity of the pains of the damned.  truth touching the eternity of the pains of the damned, confirmed by express texts of holy Scripture, and the decision of the universal Church, and by all Ages, is grounded upon the justice of God, ever to be adored by our wills, although impenetrable to the weakness of our understanding: and for confirmation hereof, I think we should not omit the reasons of S. Gregory, S. Bernard and S. Thomas, before we produce that, which to me seems the most formal; for although they are not all necessary in their conclusions, yet they fail not to furnish us with much light, and to give matter of true piety, which is the butt whereat we aim in this discourse. You (O sinner) demand, why is a deadly sin strucken and punished with an eternal pain? I answer you first with S. Gregory 
1. Reason of S. Gregory.  the Great, that if an eternal malice be proved in sin, justice by all reasonable ways requireth the chastisement of it to be eternal: for an eternity of crimes 
Non transeunt opera nostra ut videantur, sed temporalia quaeque velut aeternitatis semina jaciuntur.  must be counterballanced with an eternity of miseries. Now sin in some sort is eternal, and in some manner extends beyond our life, which alone is capable of merit or demerit. For tell me, those stones and kernels of pomegranades, and appletrees, and all other trees created in the first week of the world, were they temporary or eternal? Temporary you will say, for they fell before the tree. And yet behold they propagate to our time, and live in as many trees as there are of their kind on earth, for these five thousand years or thereabouts. The like is it with the actions you do at this present: For they seem to pass in a moment, yet are they so many seeds of eternity. Reader, understand well what I say, behold here a secret, wherewith daily to acquire a rich treasure of merits: make me all your virtues as eternal by the sincerity of your intentions, as they in effect are such in their consequence. When you do a good work, be it prayer, alms, or other act of charity, do it stoutly, in such manner and disposition, that were you eternal on earth, you would eternally renounce evil, and embrace good. So do all the Just, and so do they eternize all good and laudable actions. But sinners, 
Vellent sine fine vivere, ut possint sine fine peccare. Discretus autem judex corda pensa● & affectus, non facta.  who pass out of this life in mortal sin, are so framed, that might you enter into their hearts, you there should find such marks of malice, such characters of sin imprinted, as with a hot iron, that they wish to live eternally, to sin everlastingly. Their life is mortal, but the affections they have towards sin are immortal, for which cause God's justice requires they never be without torment, who would never live without sin.  
And say not to me, behold that miserable sinner 
Admagnam justitiam judicantis pertinet, ut nunquam carcan● supplicio, qui in hac vita nunquam carere volunt peccato.  seized on by the Divine Justice in the heat of his crime, it is not likely he would still persist in his enormous transgression, the boiling of his passion would vapour away, and his spirit be restored to the calm, and reason to its throne. Nay much otherwise, a sinner, who dieth in sin hath the root of affections, which is the heart, so envenomed, that all the sprouts are nought but abomination. And although he were to live an hundred thousand years, should not some servile fear stop the torrent of his corruption, he would spend them in these exorbitancies.  
3. The second reason is drawn from S. Thomas, 
2. Reason. S. Thom. 1. 2. q. 87.  who saith, the nature of mortal sin is a privation of spiritual life, as death is a privation of corporal. Behold a tree which was heretofore thick spread with boughs and flourishing, is now parched and dry, without force, and life. Let it be in this state, so will it remain still, never returning to its first vigour. Behold a man likewise, who hath killed charity in his heart, which is the root of spiritual life, by some most grievous sin, to die in this state. It is the impossibility of impossibilities, that in the other world not capable of merit or demerit, he may change himself. Death 
Semper puniri potest, nunquam potest expiari. S. Bernard. de consid. l. 5. An excellent conceit of Picus Mirandula. Tui ipsius quasi arbitrarius honorariusque plastes & sictor, quam malueris tu tibi formam effinge, poteris in inferiora quae sunt bruta degenerare, poteris in superiora, quae sunt divina ex animi tui sententiâ regenerari. Picus Mirand. de dignitate hom. ●. 208.  ever reigns there where is trespass, and trespass still reigning there, deserves to be punished without intermission. It is always chastised and never expiated, saith S. Bernard.  
And that you may well understand this, represent unto yourself an excellent conceit of one of the greatest wits which ever flourished, Picus Mirandula, in the book he composed of the dignity of man. We are in this world as in the shop of a Sculptour, who laboureth on statues of metal. Behold the burning furnace, behold the metal all boiling, behold many moulds ready at hand. Say you unto him, Sir, make us some curious piece worthy of you, make us a generous Lion, make an Eagle, make a triumphant King, it is now in your power. But if the workman through malice or incivility should say, I will make nothing of it, I am about to make of all this melted metal vessels of ignominy, and so he doth, had not you cause to say unto him, what hast thou done; all is marred, there is no time given for you to repent it, the metal is cast. I say the like after this great man: Behold us in this world as in the house of a plumber or graver; our understanding is the engineer, who laboureth upon the search of a thousand inventions; our will is the Mistress who keeps the metal still boiling, and the metal is our life, and our soul indeterminate. God saith unto us, up friend, be courageous, thou may'st make thyself a little God, perfectly framed to my likeness: Behold, take the mould, cast it confidently. I will make nothing of it, saith the sinner, I am about to make a hog an owl, a serpent, a hideous monster, and behold in effect all so made at the hour of death. The mettle is cast, repentance is unprofitable, since hell vomiteth up good desires, and affordeth no felicities: thou hast made a monster, and thou shalt remain a monster whilst thou art in this estate, which is , fire likewise shall be annexed to thee to gnaw thee, which is the worm in the rotten wood.  
Add for a third instance, that God who is wholly 
3. Reason drawn from the right of God, and from the nature of sin.  infinite, hath right in him to oblige us to the keeping of the law, under an infinite penalty, considering the greatness of his perfection and benefits. The continuance of the pain is not measured by the lasting of actions. A man is hanged, who still so remaineth, for a theft done in a moment. If this be done daily for the reparation of the honour and goods of another man who is offended, although he be a captive and a miserable creature, what shall we think of offences committed against the Divinity? Must we not confess, that sin of its own nature, and by the only consideration of its proper malice, deserveth infinite punishment, since it hath mischief in it, respectively infinite? And as it needed the Incarnation, death, and passion of a Word infinite to wash it on earth, so it must have an eternal punishment to expiate it under earth. What can you find strange in this proceeding?  
I say it is not hell that should put these quaking 
Puniri non est malum, sed fieri poenâ dignum. Peccatum non potest residere ad perpetuum nisi in inferno. Dionys. c. 4. de divin. nom. Solidiss●●i quasi are fusi sunt. Job. 37. The grievousness of sin. Num. 16.  and icy fear into our bones: It is not pain should be strange unto us, but sin It is not an evil to be punished, but to be worthy of punishment. You complain sin is lodged in hell, where would you place it? In heaven? Is it a fit thing, I pray you, to carry dirt into a King's Palace? The heavens according to Job are stronger than iron or brass, and yet you see these celestial bodies able to carry all the glory of God, cannot bear one single sinner, so heavy, so insupportable he is. So soon as the rebellious Angels conceived a sin of pride, heaven cried out murder, and could not endure them; behold them fall from the Palace of glory more thick than flakes of snow or hail on a winter's day. Where would you lodge this mortal sin? On the earth? See you not in the book of Numbers, how after the rebellion of Core, Dathan, and Abiram this earth, which is the foundation and basis of the universe, changed its nature, shaken with frightful tremble, & opened its wide and gaping bosom to swallow these disastrous creatures? Where shall we lodge this sin? On the waters? Behold the waters could not endure one sole disobedience of Ionas? All the air is on fire, all the winds in blusters, all the sea in rage and fury, whilst it is under the weight of this poor sinner. He must be cast into the belly of a whale, although unable to digest, shevomit him up. God himself, 
Laboravi sustinens. Job. 1.  God Omnipotent, in whose hands all this great world is but a drop of dew, complains he cannot endure sin. Where shall we place it then but in the pit of hell?  
But if at least this pain had some end. And see you not, sin hath neither end nor limits in its eternity? Alas, he who would understand this, who would 
Ducunt in bonis dies suos, & in puncto ad inferna descendunt. Job. 21. 13.  open his eyes to behold what I am about to say, and what I conceal, had rather put himself into the arms of hell being in innocency, than among imaginary felicities in crime and sin. If you know it not, O Christians, it is an infinite evil, because it striketh at the head of an infinite divinity, and it is an horrible thing to think on, for that as much as is possible, it annihilateth God and the whole fountain of essences, felicities, and mercies. Do you not consider a transgression 
Enormity of a sinner.  increaseth according as the person interessed is of great and eminent quality? It is one thing to offend a peasant, another thing a Merchant, another thing a Judge, another a King. But he who offends all Kings, and all Judges of the earth, or should thrust a knife into the throat of a million of men, would he not seem very criminal? Nay, were all the greatness, grace, and majesty of a hundred thousand worlds poured and quintessenced in one body, what would it be in comparison of God, but one grain of sand? And then to invade God, in his will to infringe and annul the Divinity, O abyss of confusion! To say unto God Omnipotent, all good, and all holy, You will give me a law and I will play the unbridled colt, I will take it of myself, I will admit no Lawmaker: you created me for your 
Irritam quis faciens legem Mosi sine ulla miseratione moritur, quanto magis putatis deteriora mereri supplicia qui Filium Dei conculcaverit, & sanguinem Testamenti pollut●m dunerit. Heb. 10  self, and I will live for myself, and be the sovereign good of myself; you created a world for my use, and I will people it with monsters, which shall be my sins. You redeemed and reconciled me by the blood of your Son, and I will contemn and trample it underfoot. I should not presume to use these words, had not S. Paul prevented me. You will be a Judge to chastise me, and I make as much account of all your thunder-strokes, as of broken rushes. To despise God as a Lawmaker, as a Creator, as a Father, as a Redeemer, as a Judge, as God, as all, and then say, God did you wrong in making a hell!  
5. Behold there his justice purged, now see its effect in the quality and condition of pains of the damned. What is Hell? It is called Silence, to show we cannot speak of it but by silence. All is said of hell is less than hell. The holy history of Egyptian 
Quality and condition of the pains of the damned.  Anchorites written by Palladius, recounteth an accident very prodigious happened to the great Macharius, which is, that one day this admirable man, 
Strange narration of Palladius.  commonly called the God of Monks (for his speech was an oracle, and his life a perpetual miracle) this excellent man, I say, travelling through the hideous and savage deserts of Egypt, always fixed and bend both with eye & heart upon the contemplation of a future life, met with the head of a dead man by the way, and ere he was ware, set a palmers staff which he had in his hand upright upon it, and behold at the same instant (as it happened in other occasions) he heard to come from the head of this dead man a sad and frightful voice, able to have astonished the most courageous. But the holy, Saint being wholly made for these apparitions of spirits, and armed to the proof against all illusions of Satan, stood still and asked, Whose art thou? It answered, I am the head of one damned. He replied, What threw thee headlong into this wretched misery? Two things, said the dead; misbelief, and vice. Then being demanded concerning the torments he endured, he replied: The soul makes hell, the soul suffers hell, and the soul cannot well comprehend what hell is. What have you on the earth, more odious than horrible darkness? and not to speak of our coals, nor of any of the rest of our greatest calamities, behold our greatest ease. The unhappy spirit cutting off his words, held his peace, and the holy man lifting the head up from the ground, took it in his hand, then deeply sighing with fobs of lively and penetrating grief, he said: O what ease! O what ease! what eternal darkness! blind world, prostituted world, desperate world, oh wouldst thou know, wouldst thou know, but thine unhappiness hath put a scarf before thine eyes.  
I would here conclude this discourse, and substitute in my place this blessed old man, the eye and honour of these deserts, holding this dead man's head between his hands: I would entreat him to ask of it again, what have availed the damned their honours, reputation, riches, riots, pleasures, delights; those wretched lime-twigs, which entangled the wings of the soul, and plunged it into an abyss of infelicities. I would entreat it to tell us what a monster mortal sin is, since to punish it such dreadful dungeons must be built, such racks and tortures. It would tell this with a voice of thunder accompanied with floods of tears, and you would be appalled, tremble, and weep at it with all the just, who never think of hell but with terror and tears.  
O brutish and sensual men, who live in a continual 
Definition of hell.  contempt of God's anger! Ask the great Tertullian what hell is? And he will answer, hell is a treasury of fire, enkindled by the breath of God for punishment of the damned: hell is an ugly and deep sink, 
Arcani ignis subterr●n●● ad panam thesaur●. Abstrusa in viscerib● terrae profundity, etc. Tertul. deanim●.  and a sewer, wherein all the ordures of Ages are thrown. Ask of Hugo of S. Victor 
(a) Profundum sine fundo, why nulla spes boni, & nulla desperatio mali. Hugo victorius. l. de anima.  what hell is, and he will reply, a bottom without bottom, which shutteth the gate against all hopes, and opens it to all despairs. Ask of S. John 
(b) Lacus ira Dei magnus, s●agnus ignis. Apoc. 14. & 20.  what hell is, & he will tell you aloud and plainly, hell is the great lake of God's anger: It is a great pool of fire and brimstone perpetually inflamed with strong and vigorous breaths of the Omnipotent. And what do the damned there? 
(c) Life of the damned. Horreo verutem mordacem, & mortem vivacem: horreo incidere in manum mortis viventis, & vitae morientis. Gulielm. Paris. de univ. p. 1. c. 55. Locus pur● felicitatis nihil habet quod non addat felicitati: locus purae miseriae nihil habet quod non addat calamitati.  They burn and smoke. On what live they? On the gall of dragons. What air breath they? That of burning coals. What stars and lights have they? The fire of their torments. What nights? Of palpable darkness. What beds? The couches of aspics and basilisks. What language speak they? Blasphemies. What order have they amongst them? Confusion. What hope? Despair. What patience? Rage. O hell, O hell! Avaunt, O gnawing worm, avaunt O living death, avant death which never dies, avant life which daily, not dying dies.  
I speak not here of the pain of sense, exercised by this pitiless element, which worketh upon souls as I have showed you in the beginning of this discourse. I let pass this world of punishments figured by vultures, gibbets, tortures, snakes, burning pincers, and all the instruments of terrors, I only speak of the pain which tormenteth the damned by privation from the sight of God. Imagine within yourself a sublime conceit of the great Prelate of France William of Paris, who in a Treatise he made of the universe, pertinently showeth, that as Paradise is the house of all felicity, so hell must be the receptacle of all misery and calamity. Now the blessed, besides beauty of the glory of their bodies, the contentment to enjoy so excellent and triumphant company, have a happiness totally infinite in the sight of God, which is the period of their essential felicity: So likewise in the same measure the damned shall have some object sad and mournful, incomparably dolorous, and according to its nature infinite, which collecteth as into one sum all their calamities. And what is this object? Some will imagine it is the aspect of the great lake of fire, and horrid legions of devils. That truly is horrible, but that is not yet the top of their supreme misery. What is it then? I do assure myself you will at first be astonished with what I shall say, and will hold it as a paradox, but it is undoubted. The darkness of hell is apprehended as a most intolerable evil, and that with just cause. Notwithstanding I affirm the greatest torment of the damned, and height of their notable calamities, is light. I say light of science and knowledge. To understand this, you 
The souls of the damned tormented by their lights. Aspectus Christalli terribilis.  must observe a passage of the Prophet Ezechiel in the first Chapter, where he describeth the majesty of the God of hosts, who prepareth to chastise the wicked: he representeth him unto us like, a hideous crystal mirror, that is to say, God planteth an idea of himself in the soul of a damned creature, as of a mirror of Crystal, and a terrible light, in which, and through which, it beholdeth most clearly and evidently the good it hath lost by forsaking God, and the evil incurred by drenching itself into the sad habitation of the reprobate. It seethe how in losing God, it hath lost a good delicious, fruitful, infinite, everlasting, incomprehensible, a good, for which it was created, and form by the hands of God. A good, which is merely and absolutely lost by its infidelity, ingratitude, wickedness, perverse obstinacy in sin. A good, which it might have repaired in a moment of the time it heretofore had, and behold it now irrecoverably for ever lost. Moreover it sees and feeleth by a disastrous experience, the evil whereunto it is fixed by pertinacity. And that which is also more terrible, is, that as God is replenished with a full and most plentiful felicity, because he hath all his contentments assembled together, so the damned soul, by a most lively and piercing apprehension of the eternity of its pains, beholdeth the evils it must endure beyond a hundred millions of years, and hath them all as present in thought. From these two lights, and two knowledges in the damned soul, spring as it were two snakes, fastened both to the one and other side of its heart, which incessantly and unconsumably suck all the juice and marrow of its substance. The holy man Boetius (the eye of the Roman Senate 
Quid demum stolidis me actibus imprecer, etc.  and ornament of the Church) lets us understand what the punishment of the damned is, when he saith, there needeth neither wheels, tortures, nor gibbets to punish the wicked. He who might only show them the beauty of virtue in the form of a lightening-flash, and say unto them, behold wretched creatures, behold what you have lost by your folly, the sorrow they would conceive for their loss would be so sensible, that no keen raisour, devouring flames, gnawing vultures might put them to a more exquisite torment.  
Now I leave you to think, if the wicked in this life for one sole idea of virtue, which passeth in a moment should conceive such a remorse, what may a damned soul that sees in this hideous crystal, not for a moment, but through all moments of eternity, the infinite good it hath lost, the infinite unhappiness wherein it for ever sees itself involved. Then is it, yea, perpetually gnawn, torn, and tumbled into a huge torrent of inexplicable dolours, which cause it to break into furies, and unprofitable frenzies.  
O Palace of God, saith it, which I have lost! O ugly dens of dragons, whereinto I am headlong thrown! O brightness of Paradise, which shalt be nothing to me! O hideous darkness, which shalt eternally be my inheritance! O goodly and triumphant company of elect souls, with whom I should eternally have lived, had not my wretchedness sealed up mine eyes! O infernal countenances of enraged devils, which shall hereafter be my objects and perpetual companions! O torrent of delights which pourest thyself upon those blessed spirits, how have I turned thee into a lake filled with pitch, sulphur, and scorching flames, enkindled with the breath of the Omnipotents anger! O couch of King Solomon, how have I given thee away for a bed of coals! O God, O God, whom I have lost, and whom I cannot lose! I have lost him in the quality of a Sovereign Good, yet have him perpetually present as the object and cause of my pains. O eternity! It is then true, that ten millions of years hence my evils shall but begin. Cursed athiesm and infidelity of the world, thou wouldst rather feel these torments than believe them. Wert not thou mad? Cruel ambition, thou hast given me the stroke of death. Disastrous riches, you have forged gyves, which now fetter me. Loves, (petty vipers of inhuman hearts) you ceased not to breathe and enkindle sparks, which made these fires for me. Wicked companies, charming companies, traitorous companies, you were the chains of my ruin. O why was not the womb of my Mother, that served for the first bed of my conception, the Sepulchre of my birth! O why the stars, which predominated at my coming into the world, in lieu of their benign aspects, threw they not darts of poison against me? Why did not the earth swallow me in my Cradle? Must I live one sole moment, to live an enemy of God eternally? O God, what an abyss is thy judgement! Let us draw, let us draw aside the curtain of silence, thy spirit can no longer endure me, nor my pen maintain the conceptions of my heart.  
6. It seems enough is said to show the horror of mortal sin, which alone is the cause and procurer of Hell. Think serously on all I have said, and all I have omitted, and if you desire to eschew the unhappiness of a reasonable creature, which I have expressed, observe I pray perpetually, and inviolably these things, which I would if I might inscribe on your hearts in unremovable characters. The first is, that you must diligently seek to fore-arm yourselves against a certain liberty of heart, which neither feareth sin, hell, nor evils of the other life; liberty of heart, which swayeth now adays throughout the world, of which Satan makes use to blunt the darts of heaven, and all the incitements to the fear of God, as being the true way of athiesm, and an undoubted note of damnation. But contrariwise frame unto yourself a conscience termed timorous, a conscience filially and lovingly fearful, which layeth hold without scruple and disturbance, even of the least offences and imperfections. Fear is the mother of safety, and the means 
Nemo saepius opprimitur, quàm qui nihil timet: frequentissimum calamitatis, initium securitas. Velleius.  not to fear hell at all, is to fear it always. In the second place you must effectualy apprehend frequent relapse into mortal sins, which is the second note of reprobation. For when a creature suddenly returneth into enormous sins, and playeth as between Paradise and hell, it is a sign he harboureth in this evil heart a plain contempt of God, and an eternal root of sin, the sprout whereof is an everlasting punishment. In the third place you must still live in the state wherein you would die, and often to call your soul to an account of your actions. Ah my soul! If you were at this present instant to dislodge out of this world, are you in a state to be presented before the inevitable throne of the Sovereign Judge? Have you not some touch of mortal sin? Is there not some restitution to make? some satisfaction not accomplished? Rests there not in your heart some blemish of evil company, & worldly love, which slackeneth your purposes? Let us break, let us break these chains: there is neither pleasure, money, nor honour can hold. You must seek salvation and say: O God of mercy; O most mild Saviour, I embrace thy Altars, and implore thy clemency; deliver my poor soul from the snares of Satan, and eternal death at the great day, when heaven and earth shall fly before thy Justice. I am neither greater than David, nor more holy than S. Paul, not to think of Hell. All my members quake, and blood waxeth cold in my veins, when I reflect on it. O Jesus, O love of eternal mountains, deliver not a soul over to this infernal beast, which will have no lips, but to praise and confess thee, eyes, but to behold thee, feet, but to run after thy commandments, nor hands, but eternally to serve thee.  

The eighteenth EXAMPLE, upon the eighteenth MAXIM. Of Judgement, and of the pains of Hell.  
ALl affairs of the World end in one great affair of the other life, which is that of the judgement God will give upon our soul, at its passage out of the body. A heart, which hath no apprehension thereof, unless it have some extraordinary revelation of its glory, is faithless or stupid to extremity.  
The simple ideas of this day make the most confident to quake: not so much as pictures but have given matter of fear, and if some sparks of knowledge, touching that, which passeth at the tribunal of God, come unto us, it ever produceth good effects in souls, which had some disposition to piety.  
Curopalates relateth, that whilst Theodora possessed 
Curopalates Scilizza.  the Empire of Constantinople with her son, who was yet in minority, one named Methodius, an excellent Painter, an Italian by Nation, and religious by profession, went to the Court of the Bulgarian King, named Bogoris, where he was entertained with much favour. This Prince was yet a Pagan, and though trial had been made to convert him to faith, it succeeded not, because his mind employed on pleasures and worldly affairs, gave very little access to reason. He was excessively pleased with hunting, and as some delight in pictures to behold what they love, so he appointed Methodius to paint an excellent piece of hunting in a Palace, which he newly had built, and not to forget to pencil forth some hideous monsters, and frightful shapes.  
The Painter, seeing he had a fair occasion to take his opportunity for the conversion of this infidel, instead of painting an hunting-piece for him, made an exquisite table of the day of judgement. There upon one part was to be seen heaven in mourning, on the other the earth on fire, the Sea in blood, the throne of God hanging in the clouds, environed with infinite store of legions of Angels, with countless numbers of men raised again, fearfully expecting the decree of their happiness, or latest misery. Below were the devils in divers shapes of hideous monsters, all ready to execute strange punishments upon souls abandoned to their fury. The abyss of Hell was open, and threw forth many flames with vapours, able to cover heaven, and infect the earth. This draught being in hand, the Painter still held the King in expectation, saying, he wrought an excellent picture for him, and which perhaps might be the last masterpiece of his hand.  
In the end the day assigned being come, he drew aside the curtain, and shown his work. It is said the King at first stood some while pensive, not being able to wonder enough at this sight. Then turning towards Methodius, what is this? said he. The religious man took occasion thereupon to tell him of the judgements of God, of punishments and rewards in the other life, wherewith he was so moved, that in a short time he yielded himself to God by a happy conversion.  
If draughts and colours have this effect, what do not visions, and undoubted revelations, which were communicated to many Saints concerning affairs of the other life? Every one knows the wisdom and authority of S. Boniface the Martyr, who converted Germany, sent thither by Gregory the second, and who flourished about nine hundred years ago. This great Apostle of the Northern parts left goodly writings to posterity, being most learned, and we have to this day some Epistles of his taken out of good libraries.  
In the one and twentieth of his letters, written to 
S. Bonifacius. ep. 21.  Aldeburgus, he makes mention of a man, who was raised again to life in his time, the miracle much known, and verified before all the world: for to prove he proceeded very fair into knowledges of the other life, he advertised many men of note of most secret sins, never opened to any living man, and exhorted them for God's sake to true penance. He likewise foretold the death of Ceelredus King of Mercia, who reigned with much tyranny and rapine, whereof he received the reward.  
This great Prelate S. Boniface, then in Germany, sought to inform himself particularly of this wonder, and afterward couched in the forementioned Epistle, the discourse he had with this late raised man. How he asked many questions concerning events happened to him in this so dangerous passage: he tells the story, and relates it with tears in his eyes:  
Alas! how much other are our knowledges at the separation of the soul from the body, than they are in this present life. We here only see through two little holes, which are our two eyes, the bark of objects, a very little distance; but the instant of death discovers unto us much other truths. Represent unto yourself, said he, a blind man, who never saw any thing, if some one come and take away the film, giving him sight, he would then behold things spoken of in a much other manner than he imagined. The like happened to me, for my soul leaving my body about midnight, I instantly saw the whole world with the extension of its lands and seas that water it, as if it had been abbreviated in a table, although to say truth, it was not the universe which was abbridged, but the sight of the spirit dilated by disengagement from the body.  
The world was all encompassed with fire, which seemed to me of an excessive greatness, and ready to swallow all the elements, if its impetuous course had not been stayed by the measures of God's hand. At the same time I perceived our Saviour in the quality of a Judge, environed with an infinite number of Angels, endued with marvellous brightness and excellent beauty: on the other side devils in dreadful shapes, which I cannot now well describe, since my soul is returned to my body. At the same instant, souls newly unloosened from all parts in so prodigious numbers, that I could never believe there had been so many creatures in the world. Then was a rigorous examen made of crimes committed in the life past: And I saw very few souls who had holily lived, whilst they were as yet in this mortal flesh, to fly unto heaven with palms and Crowns. Others were reserved to be purged, as gold in the furnace, and to follow the steps of those happy warriors, who had gone before them.  
As for those who went from this life out of the state of grace, and were in mortal sin, it was a horrible thing to see the tyranny with which the devils used them For I perceived, in places under the earth, pits, which vomited fire and flames, on the brinks whereof I saw those souls in such manner, as we shall see some fatal birds, who bewailed & lamented their disasters with dreadful complaints, able to rend rocks and marbles asunder. Then they were thrown into precipices of fire, bidding a long adieu to all pleasures, without hope ever to behold the face of God, nor pleasing light of the Sun, or to have fruition of any other reflection, but the flames of their torments.  
I who saw these strange passages, leave you to think with what terror I expected the last sentence of my judge. The evil spirits began to accuse me with all violence: you would have said they had reckoned all the steps of my life, so rigorously they mustered up all the slightest actions. But nothing at that time was so insupportable to me as mine own conscience. For the sins which I heretofore imagined to be light, were presented unto me in spirit, as horrid phantasms, which seemed to reproach me with mine ingratitude towards God, and to say: I am the pleasure thou hast obeyed, I am the ambition whose slave thou wast, I am the avarice which was the aim of all thy actions. Behold so many sins, which are thy children. Thou begatest them: Thou so much didst love them, as to prefer them before thy Saviour. It is an admirable thing that I likewise saw the spectre of a man, whom I had heretofore wounded though yet alive. He seemed to be present at this Judgement, and to require of me an account of his blood.  
All these horrors had already engulphed me into an inconsolable sadness, expecting nought at all but the stroke of thunder and sentence of my Judge, at which time my good Angel disposed himself to produce some good works I had heretofore done.  
One cannot say, nor believe the comfort a soul than feels in the remembrance of virtues it exercised in the body. Happy a thousand-fold the hands, which sow alms on earth, to reap them in heaven. It seemed to me I saw so many stars of a favourable influence, when I beheld this little good I had done with God's grace.  
Lastly sentence was pronounced, that for instruction of many, I should again return into life. I must confess unto you, that amongst so many troubles of mind, so many fears and frights, which I suffered before the decision of my affairs (except devils and hell) nothing so much struck me with horror, as to see my body, for which a burial was prepared. Is it possible (said I to myself) that to serve this carrion I so often have forsaken my God Is it possible that to fatten this dunghill, I despised my soul! That I so adored my prison and fetters, as to balance them with the Cross and nails of my Saviour Jesus! For this cause I had some repugnance to reenter into this body, which seemed to me a little hell. But my soul coming back into it, I remained the space of seven days quite stupid, and so lastly strove with myself, till blood gushed from mine eyes, as not having tears sufficient to bemoan my sins. Behold me ready to declare and witness to all mortals by an authentic example the words of the Wiseman, who saith: MEMORARE NOVISSIMA TUA, ET IN 
Eccl. 3.  AETERNUM NON PECCABIS: REMEMBER ALL WILL PASS AT THE LAST HOUR, AND THOU SHALT NEVER OFFEND.  
I beseech the Reader, who peruseth these lines, to put the affairs of his conscience in order, and if he love any thing in the world, to love it for life eternal.    

XIX. MAXIM. Of Sovereign Happiness.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. It is a simplicity to forsake certain pleasures for an uncertain beatitude. That the glory of Paradise is most certain to good men.  
WE live here among the groans of creatures, 
Opinion concerning beatitude.  every one well understands he is not in his right situation, and all the world turns from one side to another, like a sick man in a bed, and if any one lie still, it is rather through the impotency of motion, than the happiness of repose. Our soul well knows, it is the daughter of a good house, that there is another place which expecteth it, another life which inviteth it: It seethe some glimmers of felicity in the mass of this body, but hath much ado to follow them, so many illusions deceive it upon one side, and so many obstacles oppose it on the other.  
The great flood and ebb of perpetual disturbances, 
Disturbances of life. August. l. 2. de Trinit. c. 12. Amor magis sentitur cum prodit indigentia.  show us we are made for some great matter, since among so many objects, there is none which either fully or long contenteth us. We understand our happiness by the continual change of our miseries, and our strong appetite by distaste of all things. Love, which according to Plato is the son of indigence, never is so ill as with its own mother, from whom it learns nothing but its poverty, which addeth a sharp spur to direct it to riches.  
When I read S. Gregory Nazianzen, in the great 
Naz. de itineribus vitae. The divers ways of humane life, according to S. Gregory. That the choice of conditions of life is hazardous.  work he compiled of sundry courses of life, it seems to me I behold a man in the entrance of a labyrinth, much distracted, who will and will not, who desires, waxeth drouthy, is intranced, and become pale, yea, in the height of his delights. It seems to me nature leadeth him through all the corners of her Kingdom, and says unto him: O man, what wouldst thou do to become happy? Behold, I conduct thee through all the parts of my jurisdiction, of purpose to afford thee felicity, which thou seekest. Wilt thou then marry? fie no, saith he, for there is too much hazard in the adventure: single life? it is painful: would you have children? they cloy with too much care: barrenness? it hath no support: riches? they are treacherous to their Master, and many have been in danger to lose life for having too much wherewith to live: charges and honours? they cost overmuch, and are indeed dead trees, whereinto ostriches fly as well as eagles: would you have favour? it is a squib which cracks in the air, and leaves nothing behind it but  paper and smoke: but if the Courts of Great-ones afford good fruit, there is store many times of evil birds, which devour it. Thou wouldst then live in subjection (saith nature) since thou canst not command? He replieth, he could not obey. I will make thee poor, saith she, to teach thee humility: you were as good, quoth he, to put me on the wheel. Thou shalt have beauty; it is the snare of lust: youth; it is the bubbling of time: strength; it shall be inferior to bulls: nobility; it is too full of liberty: eloquence; it is too vain: skill in pleading; it is nought but wrangling. wouldst thou wear a sword by thy side? it is to live either an homicide, or to become a victim of death: retire into some wilderness? it is to languish. Will you have title? it is to become captive: traffic? it hath too much hazard and pains: travel? it hath too much toil: sail on the sea? there are too many storms: stay on the land? it is  with miseries: learn some trade? all is full of craft, and I find none good: manure the earth? I am not able: live idly? that is to rot alive.  
One knoweth not on what side to turn him in the 
Obtiruntur humilitate depressa, nutant celsa fastigio. S. Eucherius. Miseries of this present life.  world; poor states are overwhelmed under their miseries, great totter, born down with the weight of their own greatness. We find by experience, that we here lead a painful bitter, and corruptible life, which is fruitful in miseries, knowing in all whereof it should be ignorant, and many times impotent but to do ill. A life over which elements predominate, which heats burn, cold congeals, humours swell, maladies torment, the very air and viands wherewith it lives cease not to corrupt. A life which loves tyrannize, hopes flatter, cares devour, anxieties oppress, joys make profusely dissolute. A life which ignorance blindfolds, flesh tempteth, the world deceives, sin poisoneth, the devil beguiles, inconstancy turmoileth, time takes away, and death despoileth.  
Now what spirit is so brutish and unnatural, 
Necessary consequence.  which considering upon one side how God accommodateth all creatures, even the least flies, to the full latitude of that felicity their nature admitteth, and on the other side seeing this great abyss of miseries, 
Bonum omnes conjectant, maxim vero principalissimum. Aristot. politic. lib. 1. cap. 1.  wherein we role in this life, doth not judge that God, who in his nature is most wise and benign, hath not so given the King of creatures over as pray to injuries and calamities, as not to have reserved a life of spirits for him, since he is spirit, to please him by an intellectual felicity.  
2. The Sages of Gentilism have looked this verity 
Opinion of the wise. Summum hominis bonum est perfectio per sua intellectiva.  in the face by the sole ray of natural light. For if we consult with Alpharabius the Arabian, he will tell us, that the Sovereign felicity of man consisteth in a perfect dispose of the functions of his soul, as well those which concern the understanding, as such as depend on the will. If we ask of the Philosopher Heraclitus, what wiped his eyes so many times drenched in his tears? He will tell you, that it was the contemplation of a good not imaginable, which expected souls in the other life. If we desire to understand the apprehensions of Metrodorus, we shall learn the soul must ascend until it behold time in its source, and the infinity of the first Being. If we cover to hear Plato upon it, doth not he discourse in his Phedon, that the soul recollected within itself, mounteth to the Divinity, 
Ascend donec saeculum, & rerum videas infinitatem. Plato in Phaedone. Mercur. Trismeg. Pymander. cap. 1. Plotinus Ennead. 1. l. 6. & Ennead. 5. l. 8.  whose image it carrieth, and that in the fruition thereof, it satisfieth all desires? It it not likewise the doctrine of Trismegistus in his Pymander? Doth not he teach us, the soul after death of the body returns to its nature, as a troubled water which purifieth when it is settled. And doth not Plotinus triumph on this subject in publishing, that blessed souls at their passage out of bodies go to the first beauty, which hath power to make all its spectators fair and amiable? There it is, (saith he) we shall live for ever in the palace of verity, which is the mother-nurce, nourishment, and essence of our soul. There it is, that all is all, and where each part becometh a whole. There it is, where happiness is indefatigable, and plenitude never gives a loathing to him who possesseth it. And who knoweth not the raptures of Seneca, when 
Senec. ep. 102.  in the hundred and the second Epistle he speaks of the soul, which goeth out of the body, as from a wretched vessel, to enter into these vast Temples of Intelligences and lights, deriving its nourishment and increase from the same place, whence it took its beginning? May we not say, this truth so loudly professed by men, who lived in a belief different from ours, is a public voice of humane nature, touched by the ray of its felicity?  
Divines teach us our appetite is finite in its essence, 
Infinity of out Appetites. Nubes ad alta levatur, dens●ta vento impellitur ut currat, calore dissolvitur ut evanescat, etc. Greg. in Job. l. 8. c. 10. Eccl. 12. 7. A notable enigma of the Wiseman.  infinite in its productions. It is a miracle to see a heart so little, big with so many desires, and perpetually to go like a wheel inflamed with its ardours, or rather a fire which makes a prey of its own way, and is nourished with proper hunger. It is a cloud (saith S. Gregory) swollen with vapours, tossed with winds, scattered by heat. It daily makes abortion of a thousand production, and when it thinks to have all, embraceth nothing.  
The wiseman speaking of death, saith, it is that which shall break the pitcher at the fountain, and the wheel upon the cistern. Some explicate this literally of the veins and brain. But I had rather at this present say, this pitcher is the heart of man, which ceaseth not to go to the water of the Samaritan, whereof our Saviour spoke, when he said: He who shall drink 
Omnis qui biberit ex aq●s hac si●i●t i●rum. Joan. 4.  of this water, shall ever be thirsty. It is a water which never quencheth thirst, and which sometimes serves for an incentive to insatiable desires. And the pitcher so many times fruitlessly filled with this water, the heart so often drenched in these frail and momentary pleasures, shall split against the rock of death, remaining still at the fountain of concupiscence.  
Nay I will tell you, the heart is a wheel over the cistern of life, which ceaseth not to draw up buckets filled with wind; one while running after one object, another time after another, not finding contentment, and at the last day the wheel shall be broken over the cistern, when man, if not wary, shall be surprised in the labyrinth of his designs, and confusion of his hopes.  
3. Now consider the wisdom of God, who having 
Providence of God in the limits of out appetites.  given us an infinite appetite, would not limit it but by himself: he would be our good, and being unable to be the end of himself, (because he hath no end) he will be ours, to make us in some sort infinite. He will not we put our felicities in commands and honours, because they often resemble the Idol Moloch, which was outwardly of gold, inwardly mortar; and because honour is rather in him who honoureth, than in the honoured. He will not we ground ourselves upon riches; for either they be gems which are the scum of elements; or metals which are the harbours of rust, and enkindlers of avarice; or garments the food of moths; or houses, which are mountains composed of the bones of the earth; or fruits, beasts, and so many other productions of nature, which cannot make us happy, seeing they, besides their frailty, are of a servile nature, being made for the service of men, and not for their glory. He will not we place 
God will replenish us with himself.  our happiness on pleasures, because all blessings of sense go not beyond sense, and for that their condition is either to starve men by their barenness, or strangle them with their superfluities. The best part 
Greatness of God. Isa. 28. 5. Corona gloriae, & sertum exultationis.  of ourselves being the spirit, he will replenish us with himself, who is the chief of spirits. It is he (said the Prophet Esay) who is the Crown of true glory, and the posy of all comforts: the Crown, because his felicity is wholly circular, and fully replenished as the circle without any defect; the posy, insomuch as in his sole essence he comprehendeth all the good of creatures, which are as petty flowers of this goodly garden.  
It is necessary (saith Tertullian) that all greatness 
In unum necesse est summitas magnitudinis eliquetur. Tertul. l. 1. adversus Martion. c. 3. Bernard. l. 5. de consider. c. 5.  and beauties be extracted into one alone, which is the first greatness and prime beauty. He loves as charity, he knows as verity, he sits as equity, he ruleth as majesty, he governeth as chief, he defends as safety, he operateth as virtue, he revealeth as light, he assisteth as piety, he doth all in all things, and such as he is, he giveth himself unto us. I demand of you, whether he deserveth not to be eternally displeased, who cannot content himself with God?  
Nay, that which here maketh his communication the more perfect and admirable, is, that Divines observe their be two felicities in heaven: The one of object, the other formal. That of object, is the 
S. Thom. 2. 2. q. 3.  good by which we become happy, and formal, is the possession of the same good. Felicity of object is that, which looketh towards God without any reflection upon us; formal felicity is that, which respecteth our proper good. We might see God as a 
Similes ei erimus quoniam videbimus cum sicuti est. Joan. 1. 3.  distant mirror, which were not ours, and which had not the power to make us lovely. We might love him with a love of good will, by the sole consideration of his perfections. We might rejoice at his good, without relation to our own benefit: But the goodness of God would not only make us happy with the felicity of our object, but by formal beatitude. He will not well behold him with a lazy and barren eye, but with a vision, which rendereth us like to himself.  
He will not we love him only with a love of good will, but with a love of ardent desire, as our good and repose. He will not we rejoice only because he is God, but for that he is our God, our scope, and contentment.  
4. The point of this beatitude consisteth in a 
The essential point of beatitude is union with God.  perfect union of our soul with God, who is the fountain of spirits, the object of all regular loves, and the circle of felicity. So long as we are in the world (saith the Apostle) we are as pilgrims in a foreign Nation, separated from the sweetness of 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Synesius hymn. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  our dearest Country, and lovely vision of the sovereign cause. We are (saith Synesius) as little veins of water wandered from their fountains, which desire nothing but to be reunited to their source: should you afford them vessels of amber or crystal to contain them, they are never so well as in their origin. We have a strong inclination that disposeth us to know, love, and admire this soveriegn Being, which makes the world bring forth his great ide'as with more ease, than the Sun could produce a ray.  
Now here we must observe, there are many sorts 
Diversity of unions.  of union: The one of dependence, which causeth the creature to depend on the Creator, as light on his star, and heat on the fire, which produced it: The other of presence and most inward penetration, by which God penetrateth all creatures by his admirable infusions, by reason of his immensity and subtlety: The third of grace, by which we are sanctified, and in a sort made participant of Divine nature: The fourth of glory, properly that, which accomplisheth what grace had begun, and setteth a seal upon the plenitude of all our felicities. This being so divided, it is evident, that the union, whereof we here speak, is the glorified and ineffable union, which disposeth the reasonable creature to the highest point of the commerce it may have with the divinity.  
It is very hard to explicate how that is in our soul, because of the weakness of our spirits, which are now so tied to flesh. Some Divines refuted by Chancellor Gerson, and among others, Doctor Almaricus, and Henricus, took this in a very high strain, when they imagined that God coming to fall as a lightening-flash upon the soul of a blessed one, filled it with his presence, force, and love, and so possessed it, that he wholly converted it into himself, in such manner, that from created Being, it passed to increated Being, returning to 
Anima perdit esse suum, & accipit esse divinum.  ideas of God, and into the state it had before the world's creation.  
This opinion hath been rejected, and condemned as a chimaera: for God will not beautify us by ruining and destroying us, but he will our felicity be so wholly of him, that it be notwithstanding wholly to us, and there is no appearance our soul, which is immortal and incorruptible, should be annihilated by the approach of God, from whom it must derive its being and conservation.  
5. We must then conceive this much otherwise, 
Union of glory what: it is.  and believe the union of glory, that makes our beatitude, consisteth in the vision, love, and joy of God, which is the fruition, termed by S. Thomas the ineffable kisses. Imagine you see a needle, which in presence of a diamond runs not to the adamant, as being tied and fettered by the force of this obstacle, but if you take away the diamond which captived it, it goes stoutly and impetuously to its adamant, which setteth it in the place of its repose by ordinary charms. I find something like in the state wherein we are: Our poor spirit naturally tendeth to God, as to the first cause, and can take no contentment but in union with him; yet is it here arrested by the poise of body, by the bait of concupiscence, and tie of sense: but so soon as these obstacles are taken away, and that it feeleth the vigorous infusions of this light of glory, which giveth it wings to raise itself to the Sovereign good above all the ways of nature, it soareth as a feathered arrow unto the butt of its desires; it sinks and plungeth itself into the bosom of God, and there abideth contented with three acts, which essentially compose its beatitude. The first is vision, the root of this so Sovereign happiness, which causeth us to see with the eyes of a most purified understanding, through the rays of 
The three acts of beatitude.  the light of glory, the great God, face to face, with all the immensity of his essence, the length of his eternity, the height of his majesty, the extent of all his excellencies; and with the fecundity of his eternal emanations, the productions of total nature, and secrets of highest mysteries. We shall see him (saith 
Joan. 1. 3. August. l. 9 de Trin. c. 10. Omnis secundum spiritum notitia similis est rei quam novit.  S. John) as he is and thereupon S. Augustine addeth, we shall necessarily derive a resemblance of God because knowledge here principally rendereth him who knoweth, like to the thing known.  
Of this vision necessarily is form a great fire of love divinized, when God like to a burning mirror opposed to a glorified soul, replenisheth it with his ardours, ever by us to be adored. And from this love proceedeth that excessive joy, which is called the joy of God. Vision causeth in us an expression of God; love an inclination delicately violent to the presence of this Sovereign good; joy a profound repose, which seems to spread over our hearts a great river of peace, benedictions, and felicities. Then this beautified soul not being able to be what God is by nature, in some sort becometh such by favour. So that 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Naz. Hymn.  S. Gregory durst boldly say, our soul makes itself a little God, which eternally triumphs in the bosom of the great God. It is properly then when man by an amorous consumption wholly dissolves into his beginning, and not losing what he is, becometh one same spirit with him, not by nature, but by apprehension and affection. He not only will what God willeth, but he cannot will any thing but what God will. He takes part in all his interest, all his greatness, and all his joys, being so divinely incorporated into the family & bosom of this Father of essences. He rejoiceth at the beatitude of all the elect, as of his own; he is rapt with admiration, sometimes at the beauty of the place, sometimes at the delicious correspondence of that great company, sometimes at the unchangeable continuance of his most blessed eternity, sometimes at the garments of glory his body must put on, and he every where beholdeth sources of comfort to spring, which can never dry.  
6. From this favour, besides so many other wonders, 
Three great effects of beatitude.  I see three excellent effects succeed. The first is, impeccability: The second, verity of our knowledges, which shall admit no error: The third, tranquillity of our love, which shall not know what wound or interruption is. And first consider what a good it is 
The great happiness to be impeccable.  to be impeccable, since we not only shall be without sin, but out of all danger of sinning. All that which here afflicteth the most purified souls, is not to be exposed to so many miseries and persecutions, for they know good men are here on earth like flowers-de-luce, begotten by their own tears, and that in the same manner they are produced to beatitude by 
Plin. 21. 5. Lilium lachrymâ suâ seritur.  their proper afflictions; but it is to see themselves in a state of power to lose the grace of God, and to be able to be separated from the first of lives, by an action of death. That is it which made Job, being on the dunghill like to the dunghill itself, as on the throne of patience, to deplore his condition and say: Why hast 
Quare me posuisti contrarium tibi, & sum mihimetipsi gravis?  thou made me, seeing I am contrary to thy divine Majesty? That is it which renders me in supportable to myself.  
Now there shall be in beatitude an impotency of sin, because in full sight of Sovereign good it will be impossible to propend to the least evil, or least disorder, without which there can be no sin.  
Moreover, as our knowledges are here wretched 
Excellency of beatific science.  and starven, there is not a man so knowing in the world, who for one drop of knowledge hath not a tun of ignorance, and who in the little he knoweth, hath not ever many errors, which stick to science as the worm to the tree, or the moth to the cloth. Now there above, the ray of increated light, which shall appear in full lustre, will dissipate all the weakness of understanding, all inconsiderations, all faults, and shall fill us with a most resplendent verity. So that our 
In lumine tuo videbimus lumen.  soul shall be like to that Egyptian pyramid, which perpendicularly reflected on by the Sun, cast no shadow.  
Lastly we see our love is ill guided in this way-faring 
Beauty of beatific love compared to the weakness of worldly love.  life, it sticks upon so many frivolous objects, which are foolish fires, that often lead it into precipices. It is taken by the eyes with blessings, which have nothing more certain in them than their loss, blessings which we ever shall leave by death, if they forsake not us by misfortune. Being surprised it tumbleth therein, and perpetually bendeth to all which feedeth its dolours, and drives away content. All it lest can do, is that thing it most desires; all it seeks, is many times the good it escheweth: It looseth labour to run after a flitting phantasm, and if it stay, it is not but through despair not to overtake all which kills it. But if it come to possess what it loves, it is instantly turmoiled with its happiness, and not having need to labour any more in desires, it grows mouldly in proper fruition. It is willing to be resisted, to enkindle its flame, and resistance thrusts it into rage, as possession into distaste. That is it which maketh me say, the earth being made for us, we are not made for the earth, and that we should seek the place where love suffers neither offence nor interruption. I say offence; for it hath an object which contents all the world, and offendeth none. I say interruption, for if we cease to love in Paradise, it must proceed from God, or from ourselves: If it be by the commandment of God, we cease to love, we shall cease in loving, and in ceasing we shall incessantly love, since we shall cease through love. This cessation cannot come from us, for we shall love without obstacle and of necessity that Sovereign good, which for its infinities will not be beloved but in infinitum.  
O what pleasure, to have but one pleasure, and what joy to derive all joys from their source! Why say we not with S. Augustine: O fountain of life, O vein of living waters, when shall I come to thy delights, and eternal sweetness! I here on earth sigh after thy beauties (O holy Jerusalem) in a land scorched with fervours of sensuality. O when will it be, that I shall come before the face of my God Think you I shall see that fortunate day, that day of comfort, and triumphs, that day which God hath made, and which takes its eastern rise from his eyes? O bright day, which hath no evening, nor knows what the setting Sun is! When do you think I shall hear that word, Enter into the joys of thy Master; enter into a joy inaccessible to sorrow, wherein is all good, with an eternal banishment of all evil? There it is, where youth waxed not old, where life hath no limits, where beauty decays not, where love knoweth not what it is to be cold, nor health to impair.  
O dear City! With weeping eyes we behold thee afar off, we thy poor exiles, but yet thy children, redeemed with his blood, who makes thee happy by his aspects. Stretch out thy arms unto us, O mild Saviour, cast an eye on us from the haven in these storms of life, and give us leave to walk in so undoubted paths, that we may come to the place where thou livest and reignest for ever.  

The nineteenth EXAMPLE, upon the nineteenth MAXIM. Of the Pleasures of beatitude.  
THe joys of Paradise are without example, and as they are here above our experience, so they pass beyond our imagination. Yet well may we conceive, raised bodies shall have some manner of contentment, in the perfect use of their senses and beauty of objects, which shall satiate them with everlasting delights.  
When after a long winter, which covered us in darkness, and buried us in snow, we behold a new world arise under the benign favour of the spring, and consequently the golden days of summer, we feel our heart dilate, seasonably taking in some antipast of the repose of the blessed. What sweetness is it to enjoy delights in a body sound, and a spirit well purified? What contentment to behold those goodly Palaces, where is seen an admirable consort of art and nature, so many Hals so well furnished within, such rich hang, such most exquisite pictures, such marbles, such gildings; and without, mountains which make a natural theatre, tapistred without art to surpass all workmanship, forests, which seem born with the world, hedges, and knots curiously cut, alleys and mazes, where both eyes and feet are lost, rivers which creep along with silver purl about gardens enamelled with most fragrant flowers, caverns replenished with a sacred horror, grots and fountains which gently gliding contend with the warble of birds, and so many other spectacles, which at first sight astonish spirits and never satiate. All this is but a little atom; I do not say of the essential pleasure of the blessed which is ineffable, but of the sole content of the senses of a glorious body, which may in some sort be expressed.  
S. John to accommodate himself to the weakness 
Apoc. 21. and 22.  of our understanding, hath made a description of it in the Apocalypse, where he depainteth this goodly City of the blessed with singular curiosity. It is a pretty thing to consider how Lucian, an excellent wit though a bad man, intruding into our mysteries hath set out in his ideas to the imitation of it the life of the fortunate Island, wherein he says all he can to represent unto us unspeakable delights: but it is so far from what we would, but cannot say, as Heaven from earth.  
When you approach (saith he) to this place, you 
Lucian. l. 2. verar. hist.  discover the walls, extended in length, all built with emeralds, the lustre whereof is extremely resplendent and pleasing. The gates are of a precious and odoriferous wood, which casteth forth at the entrance most delicious favours. When you pass in, you behold a pavement all of ivory, and houses all of gold, set out with costly workmanships. The Temples there are made of huge Berils, precious stones, of the colour of the sea, and Altars of Amethyst. The whole City is environed with a goodly river, which streameth all in balm, three hundred cubits broad, and as deep as is necessary to bathe in. There are on either side stoves, which are great houses of glass, wherein are exquisite baths: They never burn any other wood in them but cinnamon, and in stead of water, a certain dew is preserved, sovereign for bodily health.  
It is a pleasant thing to see the inhabitants of this fortunate City, for you would say, their bodies are no bodies, but naked souls, seen by the help of somethin veil. Yet they stand upright, and sit, walk, see, harken, talk and answer, but have nothing gross or terrestrial in them, as we. Their garments are of purple colour, and of a silk as transparent as spider's webs. No man complaineth there either of poverty, maladies, passions of the mind, or miseries of the world: no man waxeth old, and all such as have the favour to enter into it, remain there incorruptible. They never have either winter or night, but a temperate season, and day which seems to go on with a perpetual morning. There is no ask, whether there be orchards, gardens, flowers, or fruits: for never were the like pleasures seen. Their vines bear twelve times a year, and some fruit-trees to thirteen. Their corn is very fair, and hath on the top of the ear, little loaves of bread, ready made, very tastful.  
I told in the City three hundred threescore and five fountains with chrystaline water, as many with honey, five hundred with sweet water, seven rivers of milk, and eight of most exquisite wine. They make many feasts out of the City, in a beautiful meadow, properly called Elysium, wholly replenished with the choicest beauties of nature, and all round about it is crowned with a great wood which plentifully affordeth shadow. They sit upon couches all composed of flowers, which never whither, and when they are at table, the winds take care to bring them all the most precious viands, except wine, whereof they have no need; for there are trees of Crystal which bear fruits made as glasses, and such cups as we use, and so often as they gather them, they find them filled with a pleasant liquor.  
Mean while Nightingales, Linnets, Goldfinches and Buntings fly over their heads, and having wantonly thrown flowers on the table, which they had gathered in the next meadows, make them admirable music. The clouds also swollen with vapours, drawn from those fragrant fountains, afford a little dew for them to bathe in and recreate themselves. Lastly, that which is very commendable among them, is, they have two fountains, one of joy, the other of laughter, which being once tasted, they become impenetrable to all sorrow.  
Behold all a curious wit may do to describe a life truly contented. We know there is nothing of all this in Paradise, but we are not likewise ignorant there is more than all this, and that whosoever might have the favour only one hour to be with the sun and stars. should there find so brave sights, that all these dalliances of wit so gaily set out by this man, would seem to him no better than the slight verdure of cottage landscapes, hanged out of the windows in comparison of the tuilleries.  
The blessed shall have the pleasure of eyes in the aspect of the humanity of our Saviour, of the most holy Virgin, of so many bodies more lustrous than the sun, of so many beauties which shall never cease to be beauties. The recreation of ears in the mottets and canticles of triumph, which shall be sung to the praise of the ever to be adored Trinity. The contentment of smell in the good odour which shall proceed from glorified flesh. The exercise of taste, not in wine or viands, but in a subtle humour wherewith the palate shall be perpetually moistened, by reason of the noble temperature of body. The satisfaction of touch in conversation with celestial bodies. All this may in some sort be conceived by the figure we have here presented. But the joy of God, and the essential beatitude, whereof I speak in the discourse, cannot fall under our sense. Yet we may imagine the sense of joy a man hath, who unexpectedly goeth out of a tedious and painful imprisonment, or he who prevails in a great and desperate suit, or who enjoys a love infinitely affected, and sees himself tied by chaste marriage to a wife a thousand times desired; or who is raised to some great office and eminent dignity, which may advance him to some high esteem, and bring him store of wealth; or who suddenly, and after many years, meeteth a dear friend whom he thought long since dead: The soul sometimes is so seized with joy, that the body is no longer able to bear it, and remains overwhelmed as it were under roses.  
We know what happened to the good old man 
Gell. l. 9  Diagoras, so famous in histories, which tell us, that in an assembly of Olympike games (the Theatre of all Greece) he having seen three of his sons publicly crowned by the Magistrate, took at first great comfort therein, which multiplied in his heart, as light by the break of day. But so soon as these three young men came near to embrace him, and had all jointly put their Crowns on his head, the good man shedding tears for joy, said:  
Children, I am not to fly to heaven, yet have concluded all my joys on earth, seeing you to day all three together crowned in the bosom of glory, and the full accomplishment of my wishes. It is time to die, since life can add nothing to my happiness.  
And saying these or the like words, he was so intranced with the consideration of good fortune, that he died in the place.  
An honourable Lady of the Island of Naxos, named 
Plutarch. de clar. mulieribus.  Polycrite, was touched with the like passion which took away her life, not bereaving her of glory. For the history saith, Her City being besieged by the Eythreens, and menaced with all the calamities might be expected from a siege, she was entreated by the prime men thereof, to undertake an Embassage for the pacifying of troubles, which she willingly did, and being one of the most beautiful women of her time, and a very good Oratress, she had so much power upon the Prince Diognetes, the General in this siege, that she disposed his heart to what she pleased. In such sort, that going forth in the fear and confusion of all the people, she returned with peace and assurance of quiet, which made them all to come out to receive her at the City gates with loud acclamations, some throwing flowers, other Crowns, and all rendering thanks to her as their Sovereign Preserveress. She apprehended so much joy therewith, that in the very instant, she expired in her honours at the City gate, and in stead of being carried to the throne, was brought to her tomb with the infinite sorrow of all her country. I leave you to think if humane comforts have such force, what will the great joy of God be for these unheard-of spectacles, these continual triumphs and inexhaustible sources. Must we not say, we should there every moment leave our souls in the height of pleasure, were not the happiness of it conjoined to immortality?    

XX. MAXIM. Of RESURRECTION.  
THE PROFANE COURT. THE HOLY COURT. That we must not deny our bodies the benefit of time, since they must perish. That we must use our bodies as the Temples of God, since they must rise again.  
WE may truly say, there is not any mystery 
The resurrection proved more than any other mystery.  in all our faith, which God hath pleased to teach and prove unto us more effectually, than the resurrection. For it being sufficiently averred, that our salvation consisteth in the knowledge of three principal Articles, which are, that of the Trinity, of the incarnation with its extension made to the Sacrament of the Altar, and of the Resurrection; although they be all of like necessity, yet it seems God disposing himself more to our ends than his own, hath more abundantly explained himself in this last mystery, which most concerneth our peculiar profit. It is very true, that for the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Sacrament of the Altar, he was contented to give us some figures of them in the old Testament, not fully showing the effects: but for the Resurrection, he was pleased to establish it, even before his coming into the world, really and actually, by raising many dead by the merits of Elias and Elizeus, as we learn in the history of Kings. It is well enough known, that having afforded to the Ancients very obscure knowledges of the Trinity, and Incarnation, for the Resurrection alone he made the law, of nature, the Mosaical, the order of the world, the form of Commonwealths, and the Evangelical law to speak so intelligibly, that he could speak nothing more perspicuously.  
In the law of nature I understand the chief Secretary 
Scio quod Redemptor meus vivit & in novissim● die de terra resurrecturus sum, etc. Job 19  of the world, Job, who crieth out on the dunghill: I know my Redeemer liveth, and that at the last day of the world I must rise again from the earth, and shall see God in mine own flesh; that I shall see myself in person, and that my eyes shall behold him, and no other: this hope I keep as a pledge in my bosom. A man who lived about three thousand years ago, before all books, all Doctors, and all schools, to speak in so clear terms, so pressing, so peremptory, is it not a prodigy?  
In the Mosaical law, besides formal passages in the 
Ecce ego aperiam tumulos vestros & educam vos de sepulchris vestris. Ezech. 33. Macch. 2. Math. 22. D. Tho. art. 1. ad 2. supplem. q. 75.  prophet Ezechiel: I will open your tombs, and will take you from your sepulchres; besides the generous confession of the Macchabees, we have in the Pentateuch a passage alleged for proof of the resurrection by the Son of God himself, which for this purpose ought to be held, as an argument necessary and invincible. It is so many times said, The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, and therefore needs must these Patriarches believing, not only in the immortality of their souls, for the soul makes not a man entire, but in future resurrection.  
In the order of the world, we have the new birth 
Tertul. l. de Resur. c. 12. and 13. Greg. Mag. 14. mor. c. 10. Cyril. Catech. 18. Macar. hom. 5. de Resur. Nil. Ora. 2. de Pasca. Theod. serm. de Provide.  of stars, days, seasons, planets, of birds, who make a perpetual image of the Resurrection in the world, on which the holy Fathers enlarge with much eloquence. In the form of Commonwealths and policy of the universe, we observe the great care all Nations, the most barbarous, have had of the burial of bodies, not to have been but through an instinct and estimation of the resurrection Which the chiefmen in Gentilism have publicly and notably professed. And although they had very weak knowledge of other mysteries of our faith, and spoke of it with much obscurity, in the point of resurrection, they unfolded themselves most distinctly and expressly.  
Mercurius Trismegistus, in the first chapter of Pymander assureth us of the resurrection of bodies, as a thing infallible. The great Athenagoras showeth, it was the doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato, the two first lights of Philosophy. And verily we have also the writings of Plato, which witness, the wicked shall be judged, and condemned to hell in body and soul; a passage alleged by S. Justine in the tenth of his Commonwealth, and which is more, this singular man to win us to this belief, hath couched a very notable axiom in his Phedon, where he saith, that all, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Plato in Phaedon. Plin. l. 7. c. 55.  which is living in the world, comes from some thing dead. Democritus, who was (as Hypocrates affirmeth) one of the wisest men in the world, wished the bodies of the dead should be honourably used in respect of resurrection, which Pliny could not dissemble. Phocyllides said the same in verses, written as with the rays of the Sun. Nay if we would consult with the tombs of the dead, we shall find, there hath not been any but some wicked and irregular spirits, who have renounced the blessings of the other life, as by public profession causing it to be engraven on their tombs. So did Sardanapalus the most infamous of men, whose epitaph Aristotle having read, said, It was more fit for a hog, than a King.  
So did that wretched woman of Bress, whose monument is yet to be seen in antiquities, causing to be set over her ashes: That after the death of her husband 
Vixi, & ultra ●●tam nihil credidi. Nihil unquam p●ccavit, nisi quod mortua ●st. Brisson. formul.  she had been neither widow nor wife: and that her house served only for a snare to loves: Otherwise that during life, she never believed any thing but life. So did one Julia, who caused also to be inscribed over her bones: That she had lived seven and twenty years without committing any sin, but by resigning herself to death.  
But on the contrary, you observe some of the Gentiles, who professed the happiness of the soul in the other life, and the resurrection even on their tombs. We at this day read in Rome the Epitaph of Lucius and Flavius, two friends, who witnessed, 
In caelo spiritus unus adest.  in die censorio sine impedimento facilius resurgam. Brisson.  They would have but one grave on earth, since their souls make but one in Heaven. And that of Aulus Egnatius who maketh mention, That all his life-time he learned nothing, but to live and die, from whence he now deriveth the joys of beatitude. And that of Felicianus, who having led a solitary life, saith, He did so to rise again with the more facility, being freed from trouble at the day of Judgement. Where the Interpreters under this word Trouble, understand his wife. What voice of nature is this? What touch of God? What impression of verity?  
In the Evangelical law, besides the passages of S. Matthew 22. of S. John 5. of S. Paul 1. to the Corinthians 15. the Saviour of the world remained forty days upon earth after his resurrection, that he might be seen, reviewed, touched, handled, and manifested to more than five hundred people assembled together, as writeth S. Paul in the fore-alledged place, of purpose most deeply to engraft the mystery of resurrection in the hearts of the faithful.  
2. And as for that which concerneth reason, this belief was acknowledged to be so plausible and conform to humane understanding, that never hath there been any who doubted it, were it not some heretics, furious, infamous and devilish, as the Gnostics, Carpocratians, Priscillianists, Bardesanites, Albigenses, and such like enemies of God and nature, or Epicures and Libertines, who finding themselves guilty of many crimes, have rather desired not to be persuaded of the end of souls and bodies, to bury their punishments with their life. For which cause, they framed gross and sensual reasons touching this truth, unworthily blaspheming that which their carnal spirit could not comprehend.  
What impossibility should there be in resurrection 
Reason of possibility.  to an Omnipotent hand? We must necessarily say, it comes either from matter, or form, the final or efficient cause. It cannot come from matter, since our bodies being consumed by death, the first matter still remaineth, and after a thing is once created, never is it merely reduced into nothing. Shall it be said that God, who made thee of nothing, cannot make thee again of the remainders of matter, and that he hath less power over dust, than over nothing?  
The Philosopher Heraclitus saith, birth is a river, which never dries up, because nature is in the world as a workman in his shop, who with soft clay makes and unmakes what he list. Think we the God of nature cannot have the like power over our flesh, that nature hath over the worlds?  
Proceeds the impediment from form? It cannot, since the soul, which is the form of body, remaineth incorruptible, and hath a very strong inclinatiion to its reunion. Proceeds it from the end? No, since Resurrection is so the end of man, that without 
Leoin. l. 2. de mirac. c. 52.  it he cannot obtain beatitude, for which he is created, perfect felicity being not only the good of the soul, but of the whole man.  
Will then impediment arise from the efficient 
Wonders of nature.  cause? And is it not an indignity to deny to the Sovereign power of god the restauration of a body he made, being we daily see so many wonders in nature, whereof we can yield no reason?  
Why doth a liquor, extracted from herbs by a certain distillation, never corrupt? Why is water seven times purged not subject to corruption? Why doth amber draw a straw along, which other metals repel? Why do the lees of wine poured to the root of vines make them fruitful? How with so base ingredients are so goodly and admirable glasses made? Why do men by the help of a furnace and a limbeck, daily make of dead and putrified things so wondrous essences? What prostitution of understanding, to think that the great Architect, having made our bodies to pass through this great furnace of the world, and through all the searces his divine providence ordaineth, cannot render them more beautiful and resplendent than ever? What should hinder him? Length of time? There is no prescription for him? Multitude of men? That no more troubles him than millions of waves do the Ocean, since all Nations before him are but one drop of dew.  

The condition of glorions bodies.  
COnsider, I pray, the state of glorified bodies, and observe, that there commonly are four things irksome to a mortal body; sorrow, weight, weakness, and deformity. These four scourges of our mortality shall cease in the Resurrection, being banished by gifts quite contrary to their defects. We may truly say, among the miseries of body, there is not almost any comparable to pains and maladies, which are in number so divers, in their continuance so tedious, in their impressions so sharp, that it is not without reason an Ancient said, health was the chief of Divinities, and an incomparable blessing. For what is a soul, enforced perpetually to inhabit a sickly body, but a Queen in a tottering and ruinous house, but a bird of Paradise in an evil cage, and an Intelligence tied to attend on a sick man? As the body very sound serves the soul for a house of pleasure, so that which is continually crazy, is a perpetual prison.  
Now observe, that against the encounters of all sorts of pains and maladies, God communicateth to glorified bodies the chief gift, which is impassibility, wherewith they shall be exempt, not only 
Apoc. 21. Absterge● Deus omnem lachrymain ab oculis eorum, etc. Isai 49. Non esurient, neque sitient neque percutiet eos aestus.  from death, but from hunger, thirst, infirmities, and all the diseases of this frail and momentary life. O God, what a favour is the banishment from so many stones, gravels, gouts, nephreticks colics, sciaticks, from so many pains of teeth, head, heart, so many plagues, and sundry symptoms of maladies, which afflict a humane body.  
This good, if maturely weighed, will be thought very great, by such as have some experience of the incommodities of this life. Add also thereunto a singular Theological reason, that this gift shall not be in us by a simple privation, as the non-essence which the Epicureans imagined, but by a flourishing quality communicated by God to our bodies, and which shall have the force to exclude all whatsoever is contrary and painful, only admitting the sweet impressions of light, colours, melodies, odours, and other things pleasing to sense. Note I say, quality, 
Scot in 4. distinct. 49. q. 13. Durand. d. 15. 44. q. 4. num. 13.  for I am not ignorant, Divines dispute concerning the true cause of the impassibility of a glorified body, and that some place it in a virtue and external protection, which God will give them to stay the effect of hurtful causes. In such wise, that according to the opinion of those Doctors, glorious bodies shall be impassable as were the three Children in the furnace of Babylon, not that their bodies were impenetrable to fire, but because God hindered the action of flames on their bodies. But I had rather say with S. Thomas, it is done by a quality internal 
1. part. q. 97. art. 1. and 5. q. 82. art. 1.  and adherent to the bodies of the blessed. Because this manner, besides that it is sweet, easy, and suitable to the magnificence of God, is more noble, more natural, and nearer approaching to the condition of celestial bodies.  
Against the second incommodity of mortal body, which is terrestrial weight, we shall have subtlety; a gift much to be desired, and which also opposeth the beastliness and stupidity, that insensibly cause aversion in reasonable and intellectual nature. We cannot 
Damascen. l. 4. de side. c. ultim. and Ambros. l. 10. in Luc. cap. ultimo.  be ignorant, that many Divines place this subtlety of glorious bodies in a virtue they shall have, to penetrate the most massy objects, not bruising or breaking them, like a spirit, and that it were an error either to say it were impossible to the divine power, or was not done by our Saviour when he came out of his mother's womb, or when he entered into the chamber. Notwithstanding, I think this penetration of bodies should be judged as extraordinary to a blessed body, without having any necessary dependence 
Durand. in 4. d. 44. q. 5. D. Thom. in 4. l. 4. q. 2. art. 2. and 5. q. 83. ●. 2.  of its condition. But I had rather believe with S. Thomas, Doctor Durandus, & the Roman Catechism, that this gift of subtlety, whereof question is here made, consisteth in a great vigour of sense, proceeding from a perfect disposition of organs, and a tenderness of spirits, and besides in an entire subjection and admirable pliantness of the body to the soul, and of appetites to reason; a matter which I esteem more than the penetration of Semiramis walls.  
The third blemish of our bodies, which is weakness and infirmity, shall be excluded by the grace, force, and agility, which will bring to pass that the blessed may go from one place to another, not by a simple ability and equality of the motion of steps & going forward, but an impetuousness, as would be that of an eagle, who should fall upon her prey, or of an arrow shot by a strong hand, according to S. Augustine's opinion. 
August. l. 22. de Civit. c. ultim. Vbi volet spiritus, ibi protinus erit & corpus. Isaiah. 40. Qui sperant in Domino mutabunt fortitudinem.  Doctor Scotus thinks this agility will proceed from the force of the soul, with substraction of weight, which shall at that time be taken away from the body in this state of immortality. Others think, this weight shall only be suspended, and interdicted in its effect, not for ever, but for the space the blessed shall desire, who besides this admirable lightness, shall have great and sprightly forces.  
Lastly, the fourth accident of this mortal and corruptible state, is deformity, which hath sometimes been so troublesome to many souls little courageous, & greatly faithless, that there have been such found in Pagan antiquity, who voluntarily deprived themselves of life, to be delivered from the shame and grief they conceived to be born in a body notably deformed.  
Beauty, although it be often decried, since it began 
Of beauty.  to serve for a bait and to be an instrument to sin, yet it must be confessed, when it contracteth good alliance with the spirit and virtue, namely, that of chastity, it hath qualities so lovely, and excellencies so noble, that without arms or guards it exerciseth power, even over the hearts of Monarches. Zeno said, grace of 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  body was a Voice of flower, & a flower of voice; voice of flower, because it draweth amity to it, as the flower of a garden, not crying out nor tormenting itself; a flower of voice, because it is one of the most flowery eloquences among the attractives of nature. Earthly sovereignties often employ the whole extent of their power, to make themselves beloved, yet never attain it, but this as the rays of the sun, not breaking either gate or window, gets entrance for itself in humane heart, and not alleging any other reason, nor affording patience of resolution, transporteth a soul which lives more in that it loveth, than in that it animateth. And yet what is temporal beauty but a transitory charm, an illusion of senses, a voluntary imposture, a slave of pleasure, a flower which hath but a moment of life, a dyal on which we never look, but whilst the sun shines on it? What is humane beauty but a dunghill covered with snow, a glass painted with false colours, a prey pursued by many dogs, a dangerous Hostess in a frail house, a sugared fruit in a feast which some dare not touch, for respect, and others gourmandize through sensuality? Go, trust so fading a good: Go, betake you to so unhappy a snare: Go, tie your contentments to so slippery a knot. What else will happen unto you but to court a fantasy, which loosening your hold, will leave you nothing but the sorrow of your illusions?  
If beauties must be loved, let us love them in the state wherein they shall never cease to be beauties: let us love them in the glory of their resurrection, where they shall be placed as Queens in their thrones.  
The beauty of glorified bodies (saith Durandus the 
Durand. in 4. de. 44. q. 8.  Divine) consisteth in three things. First, in a pure and resplendent colour, conjoined to a most perfect and distinct proportion of all members, without the least blemish or defect, able to give the least aversion. Secondly, in a singular smoothness, as would be that of a mirror, receiving the Sun beams directly. Thirdly, in an interior light, which, as other Doctors with a general consent do add, will diffuse itself over the body with an incomparable lustre, if it happen not that the blessed, to manifest themselves to feeble, and mortal eyes stay the course of the rays of glory, as did our Saviour in the conference he had with the two pilgrims of Emaus.  
O Beauties which never tarnish! O lights which 
Daniel 12. Qui docti fuerint fulgebunt tanquam splendor firmamenti etc. Math. 13. Fulgebunt justi sicut sol in regno Patris eorum.  know not what it is to be eclipsed! O house of God O Temple of peace! When will the great day come, which shall divest us from all we have mortal, to put us into the bosom of immortality? But we must confess, that among all the considerations may be had upon this subject, we have not any more pleasant or effectual, than the triumphant Resurrection of our Saviour, which is the root and hope of ours. If we desire to sweeten the a cerbities of life, and to replenish our hearts with the antipast of our immortality, let us make a perpetual Pasch in our souls, and reflect on our Jesus, our Phoenix, who goeth out of his sepulchre on the day of his triumphs.   

That the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the foundation of ours, and we must behold his sweetness and glories as the sources of our eternity.  
NAture, which is an expression of Divine understanding, 
Nature delighteth in contrarieties. Discordant accords of the world.  is never so great and admirable, as in contrarieties, and it seems she takes delight to derive the goodliest harmonies of the world from certain disagreeing accords. We admire contrary motions in the heavens, which compose an eternal peace: In the air, a bird which takes life from death, and the beauty of her plumage from a tomb of ashes: On earth, bees bred in the throat of a dead Lion, that find life in a savour able to kill them: In the sea, a fish named the holy fish, which as histories say, taking its original in the Kingdom of tempests, fails not to create, a calm by 
Ael. l. 8. de animal.  its presence: And among fountains, we cannot sufficiently wonder at the water of Dodone, into which a torch falling, is put out, and coming forth, is lighted. 
S. Isodo. de fonte Epiri, and Solinus.   
Jesus, Author of nature, beareth all these miracles in his own Person, to make a miracle in our hearts, and to draw them out of the dust and darkness from which he freed our bodies. He is the great heaven, which by motions of his life holily contrary, unanimously divers, and harmoniously disagreeing, 
Miracles of the person of Jesus. Isa. 46. 11.  hath made the accords of the Church militant and triumphant. He is the bird of the East, whereof Isaiah speaketh, which glorifieth his tomb, and quickeneth his death, to slay ours. He is the Bee of the Celestial Father, which from all Eternity having his hive in the heart of his Father, soareth into the region of death, to sit upon dying flowers which took away his life, and put him into the throat of a lionness, of a death which devouring all, is devoured itself, as saith the Apostle: and from this gulf which yielded nothing, issueth a life to be the seed of all lives. It is the Divine fish of the Sybilles', sacred by so 
1. Cor. 15.  many titles, to consecrate all intelligent nature, which after the rage of so turbulent a passion, makes a great calm in the world, which he establisheth by his fall, quickeneth by his death, washeth by his blood, and glorifieth by his torments. He is the torch which entered dead into the river of Cocytus, whereof holy Job 
Job 21. 53.  speaketh, and came out lighted and all environed with flames of a triumphant glory.  
Let us then say that God, who by his providence 
Jesus entereth into his glory by his merit.  and by a singular predestination, governeth the state of intellectual creatures, in all perfect height and accomplishment of beatitude, hath so tied glory to merit, and merit to glory, that he would not glorify the Angels, without giving them some moment of a wayfaring life, and some exercise of meritorious actions, to obtain the crown and consummation of felicity. And consequently to the same purpose, it is very true, the most holy humanity of the world's Saviour from the first instant of his beginning, was inseparably united to the Divinity, but not to be the lights 
Suspension of actual glory in the body of our Saviour.  and actual splendours which were incessantly to spring from this ineffable union of the Word to the flesh. The Father ordained, and the Son for our love received and freely accepted a suspension of the light of glory, for the space of three and thirty years. And although he had the foundation and root in himself, the exercise of it was stayed, and proposed to him in the end of his race, as the recompense of his painful life, and unspeakable dolours of his death.  
He naturally desired the glory of his body, as our soul sticking in flesh and blood, vehemently covets a full liberty of its intellectual functions; and behold here in this mystery, his desire is accomplished, and this humanity darkened by the space of a long night of life, hidden and buried in the obscurity of an ignominious death, cometh from it as the Sun out of a cloud, and makes a transfusion of himself into the bosom of ineffable lights, which issue from the Sanctuary of the most holy Trinity. In such sort, that it is as a second birth of the most sacred humanity, which being born to the communication of divine subsistence, is here born to glory.  
5. Now observe, if you please, that as the lightening-flash, 
Three properties of splendour in the resurrection of our Saviour.  which appeared in the face of the Angel, messenger of the resurrection, hath three properties; the first is, that it is a subtle part of inflamed elements, the second, that it is endowed with a splendour and sparkling, which dazzleth humane eyes, the third, that it goes from one pole to another with an extreme vivacity, & a shrill sound; So three things are observable in the glory, which our Saviour entertained in his Resurrection: first, that this body taken from the clay of Adam and matter of elements, became in an instant wholly invested in sweet and honourable flames of divinity; secondly, that he appeared with an 
Fles delectationum, amoenit●s deliciarum & veri amoris initium. August. homil. in exurg. Mariae. A Remarkable Psalm. Psalmus David quando ei terra restituta est. Alij, quando fundata est terra. Dominus regnavit decorem indutus est, etc. The triumphant glory of the Resurrection. Emiss. hom. 1. in diem Paschae.  admirable beauty, which made, that S. dugustine gave him this title: The flower of pleasures, and the most purified pleasure of all delights, the root of holy loves; the third, consisteth in the lustre of this great name, which went from the East to the West, from the South to the North, filling the world with his wonders.  
It seems, this was divinely prophesied in the 29. Psalms, which beareth a title very remarkeabe. It is a Psalm sung by David to the Messiah, on the day when his land was restored to him, to wit, his body was rejoined to his soul in the possession of glory, and therefore he saith according to the paraphrase: It is verily on this day our Saviour beginneth an eternal Empire, and a supreme Monarchy in his militant and triumphant Church: It is on this day be clothed himself with a body, endowed with a flourishing beauty, with beauty be took an invincible force which hath penetrated even into hell, as divinely saith 
(a) Aeterna nox inferorum Christo descendente resplenduit, silüit stridor ille lugentium, & catenarum disrupta acciderunt vincula damnatorum, etc.  Eusebius Emissenus. The eternal nights of hell have been visited by the rays of God, plaints and clamours ceased, direful chains fell off, executioners were amazed and the whole habitation condemned to eternal pains, shaken under the feet of this admirable Conqueror. The Prophet pursueth 
(b) Parata sedes tua, etc. Elevaverunt flumina, etc. Mirabiles elationes maris.  The seat of glory, (O Saviour) was prepared for thee from all eternity, and thereinto thou makest a victorious triumphant entry, after so great an inundation of sufferings. All the waves of persecutions have roared over thy head, and have buried thee in the acerbities of death. How much the more this sea of passions immeasurably swelled, so much the more thou appearedst resplendent in the supreme eminency of thy glory and triumphs.  
6. 
(b) The sweetness of the repose of Jesus, and all the elect, in the state of the resurrection.  Transfer your consideration from thence to the effect of our Saviour's glorification, which consisteth in repose and stability, represented by the Angel, which appeared at the resurrection, sitting on a solid stone. This verily is the great day, which we may call the mystical Sabbaoth, and the eternal repose of Jesus. It is said in the mystery of the creation, 
(c) Complevitque Deus die septimo opus suum quod fecerat, & requievit die septimo ab universo opere quod patrarat, & benedixit diei septimo, & sanctificavit illum. Genes. 2. 1. The relation of the resurrection to the creation.  that God rested on the seaventh day, and casting his eye on all these great works, which he drew out of nothing, he thereupon took satisfaction in his spirit, and impressed them all as with the seal of his approbation. To speak according to our understanding, it was an incomparable comfort to the heart of the Sovereign Creator, to behold in six days so goodly a world, where before that time reigned an huge imaginary vacuum, accompanied with a sad horror of darkness: And to consider how a Nothing, in the hands of a great workman was a mighty thing, having been as the ground of the greatness, & beauty of the universe.  
What contentment to see a heaven distended as a Pavilion over all creatures, which already circumvolved with so much impetuousness, and besides to see it enamelled with so great a number of stars in the peaceable silence of the night, and in the day to see it enlightened with a sun, which is the visible Image of God invisible, the eye of the world, the heart of nature, the treasury of heat, light, and influences, that animate, illustrate, and quicken all the parts of this great work. To see a moon to serve for a sun by night, so constant in her in constancy, so regular in her increasings and wanings so measured in all her course, so effectual and fruitful in the impressions she maketh on nature. To see days and nights return into our hemisphere at a time prefixed, to agree as brothers & sisters, to afford time one to another, and to yield it, one in winter, another in summer, with so much integrity, that all therein goes in compass. To see the order of seasons, a delicious springtide strewed all over with flourishing beauties, a summer with harvests, an Autumn with its fruits, and a winter, which is as the depository of nature, dies to live again with the first rays of renovation: To see the Sea so spacious in its extents, so fertile in its productions, so concluded in its limits; to see the flood and ebb of the Ocean the tomb of curiosity, the impetuous stream of rivers, the eternal veins of fountains, the height of mountains, the depth of valleys, the winding of hillocks, the wideness of fields: To see so prodigious a quantity of trees, herbs, flowers, so curious in beauty, so wholesome in their utility, and so divers in their multiplicity: To see so many speckled birds flying in the air, which they fill with their natural music, so many fishes to swim in the crystal of waters, so strange a variety of beasts, armed some with horns, some with teeth, some with spurs, other with saws, many with paws: And lastly man, who contracteth in himself all the draughts and works of the divine hand, and epitomizeth the whole world in his perfections, and beareth the most animated character of the living God. Is it not true that God, casting his eye on this, had a certain delight therein, as the Master of a family, when he sees a house, which he had long time designed to be raised in one night entirely perfect, throughly furnished, and in all kinds accommodated with whatsoever concerns necessity and beauty?  
Here raise your thoughts above all that is mortal 
The joys of the heart of jesus in the first instant of the resurrection.  and momentary: Imagine with yourself the ineffable joy of the heart of Jesus, and the profound repose of his spirit, when at the first instant of his resurrection, he represented unto himself not creatures, elements, plants, and a corruptible world, but a world of wisdom, understanding, love, beauty, force, and felicity. A Church which was to take birth from his 
The goodly world he beheld in his Jdaea's at the day of his resurrection.  blood, life from his death, and spirit from the most subtle spirits of his heart. He then saw this Church as a great Temple divided into two parts, whereof one made the Choir, another the body; In the Choir he beheld an infinite number of Angels, who chanted a song of triumph in honour of his victories. He saw in his idea the number of the elect who should accompany the magnificent legions of Intelligences. He saw about him those sacred first-fruits of immortals, whom he very lately had taken out of Limbo, and himself he beheld in the front of so many clean and purified souls, rejoicing to busy the earth in the memory of his triumphs, and to make heaven happy by his sweet aspects.  
He beheld himself as in a picture in that manner 
Ecce equus albus, & qui sedebat super cum vocabatur fidelis, & verax. In capite ejus diademata multa, vestitus erat veste aspersa sanguine, etc. Apoc. 19  wherein S. John presenteth him in his Apocalyps, all laden with crowns, clad in a white garment embroidered with precious drops of his blood, which gave him a lustre a thousand times more honourable, than that of diamonds and rubies; and after him an infinite number of celestial Courtiers who waited on the triumph of his resurrection. He heard acclamations, which gave him the title of True and Faithful, voices of trumpets, of water, and thunder, which ceased not to resound Alleluja. O what a source of joy did then overflow the breast of God, that treasury of chaste delights.  
From the Choir he cast his eyes on the body of his great Temple, and saw in magnificent ideas all the state of the Church militant, which is compared to the body of it, to wit to a ship, because it is still in the waves of this tempestuous sea. He beheld it with an eye of love and compassion, seeing by his example it increased by its losses, risen in its ruins, and was glorified by persecutions: and considered this little handful of Christians, which multiplying, Age after Age peopled Asia, Europe, and Africa, and spread through the world known and unknown, taking for habitation the same limits the Sun hath in his course: he perceived Nations drenched in the darkness of ignorance, which having no more of man than shape, were transformed at the first light of the Gospel into a life wholly celestial: profane Temples thrown down on their Gods, Idols broken in a thousand pieces, dens of thiefs, full of horror, blood and darkness purified by his doctrine, and the very instruments of his dolours honoured, and advanced on the top of Capitols. He beheld Churches erected on all sides to his honour, Monarches and Queens, who laid their Crowns and diadems at his feet, with praises, sacrifices, and eternal feasts.  
On the other side, he represented to himself so many Doctors, knowing as Oracles, and pure as Angles, who were to be the trumpets of his glory: so 
Cruciate, damnate, atterite, patientiae nostrae probatio iniquitas vestra, crudelitas illecebra est sectae, plures efficimur quoties metimur a vobis: sanguis Martyrum scmen est Christianorum. Tertul Apoll. 50. Kingdom of Jesus.  many innocent Virgins, who should with an immortal character inscribe on their bodies the resemblance of his own most sacred purity: so many Confessors, who hastened to engrave on the most hideous rocks of the desert, the omnipotency of his name, the imitation of his fasts, watch, abstinencies, the image of his deifying conversation. And lastly, more than eleven millions of Martyrs, who defied all torments, affronted executioners, braved death, and scored out with their blood the holy paths of their glory.  
7. I leave you to ponder that, which never can enough be thought on, the repose and comfort of the soul of Jesus, when he beheld in his ideas the great Kingdom, which was to be brought forth in his blood, and established in his Resurrection. And moreover that his Kingdom should be an eternal Empire, never admitting end, death, nor darkness. Humane wisdom, being desirous to be established in Empires by vice, policy, and tyranny, found every where sceptres of glass, crowns of vapours, and thrones of ice, which are broken, scattered and dissolved into nothing under the progress of time, and eye of the divine providence: But the Empire of Jesus, which taketh its beginning on earth, and beareth its conquests into heaven, hath recommended his Sceptre to the bosom of eternity.  
O what a torrent of pleasures flowed over the fair soul of our Saviour in these considerations! Painters naturally love their own workmanships learned men their writings, Lawmakers their politic Institutions military men their victories and trophies. All men in the world have a sensible joy to see their designs brought to perfection. Solomon, even melted with comfort in consideration of the accomplishment of the Temple of Jerusalem. Justinian, could not behold but with much transportation of joy the Church of S. Sophy he had built, Constantine had most pleasing dreams concerning the City of Constantinople, which was as his creature. And what is all this, but chimaeras in comparison of the great work of the Church, performed by the resurrection of the world's Saviour. Have not we cause to say, It is 
Luc. 10. 21. In ipsa hora exultavit Iesus Spiritu sancto. Psal. 131. Ingredere in requiem tu & arca sanctificationis tuae. Amodò jam dicit spiritus u● requiescant a laboribus suis. Apo. 14. 13. The comfort and fruit we should derive from the Resurrection to the imitation of our Saviour. Pulvis es, & in pulverem reverteri●.  to thee, O Jesus, it is to thee, the joys of the holy Spirit do appertain: Joys pure, celestial, divine, distilled from the heart of God, who is the heart of eternal amities. Enter into thy repose after so great a tumult of wars and battles. It is time (saith the Spirit of God) thou rest thy Ark under the pavilion of the eternal Majesty, after so many travels and effusion both of sweat and blood.  
8. Let us more and more settle ourselves in this noble belief, which charmeth all anxieties of this life, sweeteneth all rigours, purifieth all intentions, animateth all virtues, and crowneth all merits. Courage (O Christians,) an immortality, a resurrection, an eternal life, a life of God is gained for thee by the pains, sweats, and blood of Jesus, and he now inviteth thee into the society and communion of this glory. What resolution wilt thou take (O man of mud and mortar?) why dost thou still bow down to the earth, the back whereof thou hast bristled with so many thorns by thy sins? It is not now said unto thee: Thou art dust, and shalt return into dust; but thou art put in mind of immortality. The tombs of Alexander's and Caesars, all sprinkled over with lies and gildings, bear a HERE lieth, but the glorious sepulchre of our Saviour, 
Si ●rexit non est hic.  HE IS NOT HERE.  
9 O Christian, thou becomest the child of a good house, if thou canst understand thy nobility. How 
Si consurrenis. is cum Christo, quae sursum sunt sapite, non quae super terram.  magnificent, how happy art thou to enter into a glory, which is common unto thee with God? Thy country is no longer on earth; forsake, forsake the love of these sleight cottages, these poor ant-hills, which enthral so many spirits devested of those divine seeds, which bud under generous breasts. Behold the great globe all replenished with stars and lights, which encloseth within its extent all lands and seas; the great house of God, where are so many brave Intelligences, part of which are busy in the praises of the Omnipotent, others circumvolve stars, remaining infatigably disposed to their employments. This is the Palace which God hath conquered for thee. A goodly and flourishing company, laden with crowns, stretch out arms to thee, thou still hast thine eye upon the petty trifles of this terrestrial abode, thereon to settle thy affections. Enter, enter (O faithful soul) into the folds and circuits of eternity, all years are for thee, all Ages are open to thee, all the greatness of heaven (if thou wilt be loyal to thy Master) is in thine own hand.  
O! when will that goodly day come, which shall restore thee thy body to render it to God, thy body, no longer a mass of frail, ponderous, and perishable earth, but an immortal, agile, and incorruptible body, privileged with favours, and gilded with bright splendours of the body of Jesus. Raise thyself, (faithful soul) in the sufferings and travels of this life, yield not to temptations and persecutions, which will snatch out of thy hand so advantageous a crown: All the pomp of this world, all this life, yea all which here pleaseth and distracteth hearts, is but a poor praeludium of the great act of the inexplicable contentment which passeth in eternity.  
O man, thou hast heretofore been a little infant in thy mother's womb, amongst blood and ordure, involved in thin skins, swaddled in clouts and swath-bands which nature gave thee, thou wast held in them to prepare for this world, for this life, where thou now breathest air with all liberty; know, this world is a second womb in comparison of heaven, Thou art yet in prison, in obscurity, in fetters, till the coming of the great day, wherein God shall give thee a new body, a glorious body, a spiritual body.  
With these hopes the mother of the young Maccabees saw the members of her children hewed, and cut in pieces under the bloody sword of persecution. With this hope holy Anchorites filled the deserts with their tears, walked on scorching sands, trampled dragons under foot, stifled the concupiscences of flesh in snows and thorns; with this hope Martyrs sacrificed themselves in as many torments as they had members. They preached on crosses, sang in flames, triumphed on wheels, and to merit this glory, thou wilt not resolve to forsake that company, which hath rob thee of thy heart, and dishonoured the character of thy profession. Thou wilt not resolve to suffer a little injury, a slight persecution. Thou wilt not accomplish thy vows, discharge thy obligations, put thyself into some course of a regular piety. And what may we think of thee (O soul, so many times ungrateful and disloyal) if Heaven, open in rewards, cannot yet dilate thy heart to his love, who readily offers them?   

The twentieth EXAMPLE upon the twentieth MAXIM. Divers observations upon the length of life, and desire of the state of Resurrection.  
IT is not my purpose to enlarge hereupon narration of many Resurrections, whereof we have sundry notable examples both in the old and new Testament, and in the lives of Saints, in which kind, there is not an Age which doth not furnish us with store. I only rest upon some observations, which evidently show the passionate desires humane nature hath to the most blessed state proposed us in the Resurrection.  
The Platonists said, The presence of felicity was 
August. l. 22. de Civitate Dei. c. 11. Omne corpus fugiendum ex Platonicis. 2 Cor. 5. 4. Qui sumus in hoc tabernaculo ingemiscimus gravatii eo quod nolumus expoliari, sed super vestiri, ut absorbeatur quod mortale est a vita.  the absence of body, and that we must fly from it as from a prison, to enter into the liberty of beatitude. But the Apostle hath much better said, That we groan in this tabernacle, and are in great pain, not that we desire to be despoiled, but to be better clothed, that all which is mortal in us, may be as swallowed up by life. Verily we have a tender love of our bodies, and even those who do most torment them, do it for no other purpose but to place them one day in ease. We live not without thinking on this Resurrection and immortality, the fruition whereof we shall never find but in Heaven. God hath given us this desire, to teach us we are created for it; but he doth not afford us the performance of it here, to tell us we must seek for it else where. We desire to live long and commodiously; shortness of life taketh away the one, and continual sicknesses bereaves us of the other. So many men have sought for their resurrection here on earth, and have found nought but their destruction. Our body in the declining of age, is not like Vestal fires, to be everlastingly repaired. All in it is lost, all is dissolved; but if any thing therein be reestablished, it is not to the proportion of its primitive vigour. Spirits, without which we cannot live, cease not to alter our life, and the very air we breath, drieth and devoureth us.  
There have been men in the world, who have in this life made boast of great age, as if they had already some scantling of the condition of Resurrection, but they have been very rare, and to speak truly, they have continued long, and lived but a while, since there is nothing long, in a happiness, whereof we find an end. It is a remarkable thing, that the eldest of all the Patriarches 
Pet. 2. 3, 5. Vnus dies apud Dominum, sicut mille anni, & mille anni, sicut dies unus.  in Genesis, who was Methusalem, arrived not to the time which S. Peter calleth a day of God. A thousand years (saith the great Apostle) are before God but one day: And not any one of the first men of the world, with his so many years, mounted to the thousand year of his age. Yea, it is a thing very well to be observed, that in the account the Scripture maketh of the years of Patriarches, the age of women is not considered. And Baronius findeth the Bible never reckoned the days and years of women, but of Sara, Judith, and Anne the daughter of Phanuel, to teach us our lives are short, since those of Eve, the mother of the living, and of so many other mothers from whom men issued, entered not into the line of account in God's Chronicle. We know not how long the first woman of the world lived, but we understand she returned into dust, and that we must tread the like path.  
Greece, the mother of fables, sought to use posterity as they do children: it hath pleased itself to scare us with strange tales of huge bodies, and long lives, but we have more difficulty to believe them, than it facility to invent them. Phlegon a rare Author 
Phlegon. de rebus mirabil. c. 17.  says, he read in Appollonius the Grammarian, that the Athenians desirous to fortify the long Island, which was near to their City, laying the foundation of their fortresses, found a sepulchre one hundred cubits long with this Epitaph, which said: Macrosiris is here interred in the long Island, after he had lived five thousand years complete. These are impostures and Rhodomontadoes, which seek to brave Ages, and cannot affront worms, nor be defended from corruption.  
All about us is sufficient to give us a lesson of the shortness of our life. The corn, on which we live, dies every year to the root. The Vine feels as many deaths as winters, and although it renew every year, it cannot attain to the reasonable age of some drunkards: Fifty or threescore years make up its age, as also of Appletrees, Pear-trees, Plumb-trees, Cherie-trees, and other such like, whereof eating the fruits, we should think the wood which bears them, liveth no longer than we. Tame creatures, which are perpetually among us, live but a while. The age of a horse ends at twenty years. It is a great chance if a dog arrive to that number. The ox will be well contented with sixteen, sheep with ten, cats are between ten and six, pigeons, and so many flying fowl live not long, for we daily eat them soon enough; as if all this should say unto us: What do we so long in the world, since all things that must serve our use last so little. Gold and silver continue long, but last very little in our hands, and though one keep them as well as he can, they keep not ever one Master. If there be creatures which live much longer, they fly from us, as Hearts, Crows, and Swans: you might say, they are ashamed to participate in our frailty.  
Great-ones of the earth have in all times done what they could, with a purpose to prolong their days, so naturally are we desirous of the state of Resurrection, but they have many times abridged them, seeking to lengthen them. Garcias telleth us, that a King of Zeilam having learned the adamant had the virtue to preserve life, would neither eat nor drink, but in a dish which he caused to be made of adamant, through a strange giddiness of spirit; but he failed not to find death in these imaginary vessels of immortality. We make a great matter of it to see men very old; they are beheld with admiration: But if some desire to come to their age, there is not any would have the miseries and troubles of it. This Phlegon, of whom we now speak, who had been one of the most curious Authors of his Age, made a book of long lived men, wherein he confesseth he hath exactly looked into the Registers of the Roman Empire, there to find old men and women of an hundred years, and scarcely could he meet with a sufficient number of them to fill up a whole leaf of paper. But if he would take the number of such as died before fifty, which the Ancients called the exterminating death, he had filled many huge volumes. Pompey took pleasure at the dedication of 
B●ro. in historia vitae & mortis.  his Theatre, to see a Comedianess act, named Galeria Capiola, who reckoned ninety nine years since her first entrance into a Theatre. It was a goodly play of life in a woman, who danced on the brink of her grave: But how many such like have there been? people go into the tomb as drops of water into the sea, not thinking on it. Nay, do but observe all which is Sovereign, & you will find among all the Emperors, which were through so many ages, there is not one to be found, who attained to the age of a hundred years; and four alone arrived to four-score, or much thereabouts. Gordian the elder came to this point, but scarcely had he tasted of Empire, but was over whelmed with a violent death. Valerian, at the age of seventy six years was taken by Sapor King of Persia, and lived seven years in a shameful captivity, his enemy making use of his back as a footstool, when he would mount on horseback. He was at first much greater in the estimation of men than he deserved, and every one would have thought him worthy of Empire, had he not been Emperor. Anastasius, a man of little worth and less courage, who had more superstition than religion, arrived to the age of four-score and eight years, when he was blasted with lightning from heaven. Justinim reckoned four-score and three, which made him wax white in a vehement desire of glory, although being somewhat contemptible in his person, he was fortunate in Captains. They speak of a King called Arganthon, who heretofore reigned in Spain the space of four-score years, and lived an hundred and forty: But this is rather in fables than authentical histories. Of so many Popes as have been since S. Peter, not any one hath possessed the See twenty five years, & scarcely find you four or five four-score years of age. John the two and twentieth, an unquiet and treasure-heaping spirit, was about ninety years, when death took off his triple Crown. So many had Gregory the twelfth, who was created before the schism, but his papacy was as short, as his life was long. Paul the third attained to one above four-scor, and was otherwise a man as peaceable of spirit as prudent in counsel. Paul the fourth, severe, imperious, and eloquent, came to four-score and three. Gregory the thirteenth lived as many; a Prelate wise, courteous, prudent, liberal, who lived too little a while for the Churches good, for which he could not end but too soon. If we speak of the blessed S. John, S. Luke, S. Polycarp, S. Denys, S. Paul the Hermit, S. Anthony, S. Romuald, & so many other religious men, they lived long: And it seems there are many things in religion, which further long life, as contemplation of things Divine, joys not sensual, noble hopes, wholesome fears, sweet sadness, repose, sobriety, and regularity in the order of all actions. But all this is little in comparison of the Divine state wherein bodies shall not only never end, but live eternally, impassable as Angels, subtle as rays of light, quick as thought, and bright as stars.    

Conclusion of the MAXIMS, by an advice against Libertinism, where all men are exhorted to zeal of true Religion, and the love of things eternal. Of the obscurity and persecution of TRUTH.  
INcredulity is an immortal disease, which hath reigned from the beginning of the world, and which will never end but with the world's dissolution. Dreams and lies are many times believed, because they insinuate themselves into the heart by charms; but truth, which will never belly herself, hath much ado to make herself understood, and if she be once known, she is beloved when she smiles, and feared when she frowneth.  
There are four things have ever been much unknown 
Four things much unknown.  in the world, time, wind, terrestrial Paradise, and truth. Time is a marvellous creature, which perpetually passeth over our heads, which numbereth all our steps, which measureth all our actions, which inseparably runs along with our life, and we have much business to know it as well in its nature as progression. It is a very strange thing that there are such as promise themselves to reckon up the years of the world, as of an old man of threescore, and yet we know by the experience of so many ages, it is a great labyrinth wherein we still begin, never to end.  
It was for this cause the Ancients placed the figures 
Hadrianus Junius.  of Tritons on high Towers with tails crookedly winding, to represent unto us the intrication of the folds and compasses of time. And for this also 
Isa. 6. Hieron. in Isa.  in the Prophet Esai, the Seraphins covered the face and feet of God with their wings, to teach us (faith S. Hierome) that we are very ignorant in things done before the world, and in those which shall happen to 
Non est vestrum nosse tempora & momenta quae Pater posuit in sua potestate. Actor. 1.  the end of it.  
If we on the other side consider the wind, we cannot but sufficiently understand the commodities and discommodities of it, which have made the wise to doubt, whether it were expedient there should be winds in nature, because if their influences be good in some things, their furies are extremely dreadful in other. We see how upon one part the winds drench huge vessels laden with men and riches▪ on the other, they tear up trees, they ruin and overthrow houses: We likewise find, they favourably carry the clouds 
Senec. nat. q. l. 5.  to impart showers to all the world, they purge the air, they cause a good temperature in the elements, they are the occasion of commerce and navigations, to make the riches of the world common. We cannot be ignorant of their effects. But as for their causes some commix atoms, other attribute the production of it to the Sun which rarifieth the air, other to vapours and exhalations: Others say they are the sneesing of this vast creature called the world, others think the element of the air is moved of itself. And indeed we can say nothing more certainly of it, than what the Prophet did, That God produceth the winds 
Qui producit ventos de thesauris suis. Psal. 134. 7. Elias Thesbites in Verbo.  out of his treasures.  
As for terrestrial Paradise, it is a question among Divines never to be ended, and which ministereth perpetual business to all Interpreters upon Genesis. Elias Thesbites durst boldly say, that not only the garden of pleasure was still in being, but that doubtlessly many went thither, and the passage into it lay open to them, but that charmed with the beauties and contentments of this place they never returned. Which may be refuted with as much ease as it was invented. Origen and Philo following their allegories made a mystical Paradise and true ideas of Plato, wherein they were imitated by Psellus, who saith, that 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Caldaean Paradise, so calleth he it, was nothing else but a Choir of celestial virtues, which environed the heavenly Father, and beauties of fire issuing from fountains of the first workman.  
Some place it in Indie, others in Mesopotamia, where there would be much ado well to accord these four rivers, but that recourse is had to the violence of the deluge. We must confess there are many things unknown, wherein God will exercise our faith, but not satisfy our curiosity. But nothing through all ages hath been so hidden and unknown, as truth. The Philosopher Heraclitus said, That its Altar was in a cloudy cavern, all covered with shades and darkness, whereinto seldom any came. And verily we see, that since sciences were invented, for the space of so many Ages, we have beheld nothing but wranglings and wars among Philosophers, who seeking to make dissection of the great body of this Universe, have all mutually contended for the defence of truth, as they say: but many defending it, have so ill handled it, that they almost have dis-membered it, and for a solid body, have in the end retained nought in their hands but a phantasm. It only appertaineth to God to produce it, and to make it known to mortals, which he out of his infinite goodness hath at sundry times done: But men blinded, like unto Giants, 
Non credent mihi, neque audient vocem meam.  have ever persecuted poor truth out of a certain spirit of incredulity and contradiction, the plague and poison of wisdom. After the Eternal Wisdom took lips of flesh, to reveal the secrets of Heaven unto us, four squadrons have furiously assaulted it: The one, of Jews, the others, of Gentiles, the third, of Mahumetans, the fourth, of Heretics. And now adays after Heretics, we must add a fifth thereto, which is that of Libertines.  

The Definition of Libertinism, the Description, Division, and divers effects of Libertines.  
2. LIbertinism is nothing else but a false liberty of belief and manners, which will have no other dependence, but on peculiar fancy and passion. It is verily a strange monster, whereof it seems Job made description under the figure of Behemoth, 
Job. 40.  as much to say, as a creature composed of all sorts of beasts, of which it beareth the name. Libertinism likewise is a sin framed out of all manner of sins, whose effects it hath, to possess the miseries. Behemoth (saith he) eateth hay as an Ox; and the Libertine from the table of Angels, is brought back to the stall of beasts, having no other care but to stuff his guts with corruptible meats, having despised the immortal Manna. The one hath his strength in his reins, the parts dedicated to lust, and the other is only vigorous for impurity. The one hath bones of brass, and the other a heart of copper. The one makes show of some gristles framed of iron, the other of some false moral virtues, really nothing but iniquity. Mountains bear grass to feed the one, and the tables of great men plenty, to entertain the other. The one sleepeth in moist places under the shadow of reeds, and the other in victualing-houses and idleness. The one threateneth to swallow Jordan, the river of the holy Land, and Libertinism will annihilate the most sincere part of Christianity.  
We may say of all these impious, what S. Cyprian 
Spiritus insinceri & vagi non desinunt perditi perdere, & deprovati errorem pravitatis infundere. Cyprian. l. de Idol. vanitat. Division.  did of devils: These are impure and wandering spirits, which plunged in sensuality, and having lost the happiness of Heaven, through the contagion of earth, forlorn and corrupt, cease not to ruin and corrupt.  
Now observe they are not equal in malice or quality: But when I somewhat nearer consider their state, I find they are divided into six orders. The first comprehendeth many spirits, who are not of the worst, being somewhat reasonably grounded upon the principal points of Religion, but as much as they fail in all concerneth submission of spirit, so much are they enamoured of their own wit, and become lavish of tongue.  
This often proceedeth either from birth, education, too free conversation, some passion, or from opinion of proper ability, which is the cause they cut and mangle many things very confidently, concerning the honour of the Church, and economy of Religion. One while they strike at the Pope's authority, another while they desperately throw themselves upon the multiplication of Religious Orders, sometimes they censure all Ecclesiastical persons, sparing none: mean while they see not the subversion of Religion, always began by the contempt of Priests. Sometimes they scoff at Confessions and frequent Communions, another time argue against the doctrine of Purgatory, than they slight Indulgences, contemn Saints, Images, and Relics, sometimes declaim against other Ceremonies and Customs of the Church. They ordinarily say, Jesus Christ sufficeth them, and that besides the blessed Sacrament, there is no need to take pains in other devotions.  
Nay, that which more provokes and strengtheneth them in their beliefs, is what they observe in others, who not insisting in the more perfect ways of the universal Church, create devotions to themselves, which much incline to superstition: for neglecting the great and essential Maxims of our faith, they adhere to silly inventions of their own spirit: and you would almost say, the Father, the Holy Ghost, and the Word of God itself, were nothing with them in comparison of particular devotions of some Saints, or some slight observances, which they practise according to their own fancy. But if one happen to reprove them upon it, they are uncivilly offended therewith, and think such as speak with reason, are not within the compass of the upright judgement of faith. I affirm these kind of proceed are not according to the order of the Church, the which honoureth all Saints, yea, and the blessed Virgin, in a degree infinitely beneath the Divine Majesty, nor doth it honour them, but to honour God in them and by them.  
But if some abuse mysteries, must we therefore overthrow Altars? If some popular spirits ill instructed grow superstitious, must one therefore become a Libertine? Must innocency be forsaken the more to hate the guilty? It is a pitiful thing to see good spirits, who make profession of Catholic Religion, and have in some things good apprehensions of piety, to take such liberty of words to themselves, that we know not what to make of them. Ought not they to consider, that a popular error is one thing, and a position of the Church another? If some particulars introduce exorbitant devotions, let them reject, blame, and condemn them. We neither undertake to defend nor justify them. But when we speak of the invocation of Saints, of their Relics, Canonisations, Indulgences, of the authority of our Holy Father, of the Institution of Religious Orders, and so many such like, which are authorized by general Counsels and by the belief of all antiquity, doth not a good judgement see, that to go about to oppose these Maxims, is to do that which S. Augustine speaketh, To suffer one's self to run into a folly, which hasteneth to the height of insolency? He, who admitteth a leak in a ship drowns it, who divideth Religion hath none at all, who resolves to believe this and reject that, believes nothing. All that which cometh from one same authority, aught to be believed with like equality. Our faith is not grounded upon natural judgement, upon wit and discourse, but on the submission we owe to God and the Church, which is the Interpretess of his counsels. He who abideth therein, abides in true wisdom, who goeth out of it, shall find nothing but an Ocean of disturbances, and the shipwreck of his faith.  
The second order of Libertines is of Neuters, wavering and distrustful, who are almost upon the indifferency of Religions, and hold their faith as a hawk without leashes: It quickly flies a way and leaveth them, to replenish more settled brains and more capable souls. In this number you have many squeazy stomaches, who affect to be Masters in matter of Religion, and are extreme greedy of all sorts of innovations. And if there be some bold spirit, who with sensual reason censureth the mysteries of our Religion, that man is according to their taste a brave fellow, and his books deserve to be bound up in gold and purple. The Bible is not wise enough for them, their spirit of rebellion findeth faults and contradictions therein. They are in search of hidden mysteries, as were the Argonauts, who went out to win the golden fleece: And could they lay hold on Mahomet's Alcoran, they will not spare to read it, the more to confound themselves in the labyrinth of their errors. After they have run all over, sounded all, quoted all, they find themselves empty, and have nothing so assured as incertainty, nothing so undoubted as the loss of their faith, which they have almost wholly transformed into a cursed Neutrality, the headlong descent of a horrible precipice.  
The third order comprehendeth idle loiterers, and people of the throat and kitchen, who bear in their ensign for devise, that which is said to have been inscribed on Sardanapalus his tomb: Drink, eat, fill thy 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  self in the ordures of flesh, and think thou hast nothing but that which thou afford to thy sensuality. They all say with Epicurus, As for myself I cannot understand any felicity, unless it be in palates, in lips, in ears, in the belly, and all that which is common to us with beasts. These kind of men have not so much to do as other, they are not solicitous concerning the secrets of nature, curious books, mystical Cabals, the Gospel, not Turkish Alcoran: they have found their God in themselves, and indeed will acknowledge no other but the belly. Their continual employment is to furnish out tables for it, which are its Altars, and to offer unto it dishes and sauces in sacrifice.  
The fourth region containeth the malign, covert, and narrow observers, who yet still retain some fear of the smoke of the faggot: behold the cause, why they dare not declare themselves in open manner. They enter into the fold as wolves clothed in a sheep's skin, and tell the sheep they are much affected to their conservation, but that the dogs must be taken away, which do nothing but deafen their ears with barking both day and night. These are such as sow propositions with a double meaning, and have ever a back-shop to hid themselves in; such as say, Catholic religion is good, if it were purged from so many superstitions, such as deceive young men under colour of doctrine, and when they have hit upon a curious spirit, whom they esteem retentive of a secret recommended, they draw the curtain aside, and reveal the mysteries of iniquity to him. They are such as make disguises and differences, which no man imagined, and make truth combat against A theism with so feeble arms, that it were much better defended, to be left to its own nakedness; such as have a store-house of evil books, more impure than the stable of Augaeus, out of which they derive all their profanations, cloying the ears of the simple with a thousand objections, ever made in the name of a third person, who never dreamt of them: Lastly, such as silently build the Babylon of execrable confusions.  
The fifth rank comprehendeth all those, who have sold their souls to ambition, and particular interest, and have nothing of religion, but seeming and ceremonies. They are such as would make no scruple to set a foot upon the throat of their best friends, to raise their own fortune higher: Such as live fattened up with the Altar, being many times enemies of the Altar: Such as lift their children aloft with an arm of silver, through all the ways of injustice, above the heads of men, and make the Church a prey to their ambition: Such as are present at Divine Service with postures of a puppet-player: Such as go to God's word as to a Comedy, to see and to be seen, more for Adonis than Jesus; and who in conclusion turn all piety into scoffs, retaining nothing of it, but a phantasm to serve their own ends. The sixth manner, is of such 
 introierunt quidam homines, etc. Et hi carnem quidem maculant, dominationem autem spernunt, majestatem autom blasphemant. Hi sunt in epulis suis macule, etc.  as are utterly impudent in words, and Libertines in actions, of whom the great S. Judas made a lively description: Certain men are crept in among us, reprobate and impious spirits, who apply all talents of grace and nature to lust, and to deny him that made them, to wit, our Lord Jesus Christ, Master and sole Monarch of the whole world. Then he addeth, they are such as defile their flesh, and revolt against lawful powers; such as blaspheme the Divine Majesty. They are gluttonous, cruel, and arrogant, who only think to satiate themselves by others hunger; clouds without water, tossed with turbulent winds; autumntrees, barren trees, trees twice dead, trees rooted out of the territory of the Church. They are waves of an enraged sea, which foam nothing but confusions; wandering comets, to which God reserveth a tempest of darkness.   

The Causes of Libertinism well observed by the Apostle S. Judas.  
3. NOte, that this great Apostle doth here touch 
Jud. Epist. Job 20.  four sources of infidelity, which are in this very considerable. The chief and original of this corruption, is a brutish lust, which with much infamy overfloweth as well in pleasures of the throat as sensuality, which he was willing to express by these words, when he said: The impious not only act impurities, 
Hi sunt in epulis suis macula.  but are the impurities themselves. For the Libertines are true Borborites, (so were certain heretics called) as one would say, bemired, because they naturally delighted in uncleanness; they are dissolute people, who have no other God but their belly, good cheer, and unbridled lust; from whence it cometh, their understandings clouded with bodily pleasures, thicken, and become wholly unable for things divine. The people heretofore beloved, is puffed up with 
Incrassatus est dilectus & re●alcitravit, de●eliquit Deum factorem suum. Deut. 31.  fat, hath kicked against, and forsaken its Creator, said Moses.  
Tertullian very well termeth gourmandize the palsy of the understanding: for as a body is deprived of sense and motion, by the corporal palsy, which obstructeth the nerves, so the spirit oppressed by sensuality, is wholly darkened, without any feeling of Religion, or any motion to works which concern salvation. To live in fat, is to shut up the gate of wisdom. 
Opimit●● sapientiam impedit, exilitas expedit, paralisis mentem prodigit, p●isis servat. Tertul. de anima. c. 20.  There is a palsy of corporal pleasures, which wasteth the spirit, and a ptissick which preserves it.  
Nay Oecumenius discovereth somewhat more mysterious unto us, when interpreting the word maculae, according to the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he saith, They are certain rocks hidden under the waves, which surprise sailors, and cause hideous shipwrecks. This very well agreeth to Libertines, and one may call them, according to another translation; rough rocks, bollow 
Confragosa in mari saxa, cavernosa● rupes, & tenias.  stones, and shelves, which are the causes of so many falls. They are in feasts as gulfs in the Ocean, and overtake ere ware, spirits already possessed with the vapours of wine and meats, at which time they are most 
Bos ductus ad victimam, agnus lascivious, & ignoram quod ad vincula stultus trahatur, donec transfigat sagitta guttur ejus. Prov. 7. 2●  open to sottish mirth. Ah how many young men deceived by these impostures, after they have made shipwreck of reason in a tavern, have thereunto added the shipwreck of their faith! He was led as an ox to the slaughter, or as a skipping lamb, not foreseeing his captivity, before the mortal arrow had transfixed his entrails, saith the Wiseman.  
The second cause of infidelity, is a certain barrenness of wit, of judgement, discretion, of Christian virtues, and namely of humility, of good works, and worthy employments, and consequently a swelling of presumption, of imaginary ability, of vanity, of idleness, which is much supported by wicked nature, effeminate education, too free conversation, access of evil company, which render a man absolutely barren. A matter excellently well signified by these words: They are clouds without water, such kind of trees as we see in Judea, unfurnished 
Nubes sine ●qua.  of fruits in Autumn, and despoiled of leaves; twice dead, that is to say, quite rotten. Faith will be manured by the exercises of piety, by presence at Divine Service, by keeping of fasts, by alms, and frequentation of Sacraments: Now these wicked ones, employed in sensual pleasures and evil company, forsake all the characters of their Christianity, which maketh them by little and little fall into a great forgetfulness of God, into disdainful pride, insupportable neglects, and into the maledictions uttered by our Saviour's lips against the unfruitful tree. Of these is understood the decree of Heaven: Earth, 
Jer. 22. 29. Terra, terra, terra, audi sermonem Domtni. Haec dicit Dominus: Scribe virum istum sterilem, virum, qui in diebus suis non prosterabitur. Fluctus feri maris despumontes confusiones suas.  earth, earth, harken to the word of God. Our Lord hath said, Writ down this man as a man barren, who shall never prosper during his life.  
The third source is a tumult of enraged passions, which are waves of the sea, that vomit up their confusions; for these kind of spirits are in perpetual disturbances, nor hath the sea so many waves, as they anxieties, pride puffeth them, ambition precipitateth them, hatred gnaweth them, delights conquer them, choler burneth them, fury transporteth them, hardness of heart makes them untractable, and impudence insupportable. And being unable to restrain their passions within themselves, they throw them abroad as the froth of waves, and scum of confusions. That is it which Saint Ambrose said, 
Tunc videbitur ignominia tua, & adulterium, & hinnitus, & alienatio fornicationis tuae supra colles. Ambr. l. de Abra.  interpreting a passage of Jeremy: Then is it thy ignominy, thy adultery, thy neighing, and strangeness of thy fornication shall be seen to all the world on the mountains.  
Lastly, the fourth root which rendereth their evil very desperate, is, a perpetual inconstancy, excellently compated in the passage of the Apostle to flying fires, form in the air from exhalations of the earth. This sort of men perhaps may have qualities, which may give them some justre according to the world, and make them appear as stars in the firmament, of worldly honour, causing some to reflect on them with admiration of their wit, their eloquence, and behaviour. But they are (to speak properly) stars of earth and smoke, like unto that S. John calleth the 
Apoc. 8.  star of wormwood, which being not of the stars, enchased by the hand of God in celestial globes, but flying flames enkindled by some gross exhalations, proceeding perhaps from a dunghill, fall back again 
Crinemque volantia sydera ducunt.  on earth from whence they came. If they sometimes take certain semblances of virtue and penance, they have no solidity in their good purposes: If they be touched and raised by some good inspiration, they are not constant, but having sowed certain rays of hope, fall back again into their mire, and falling, throw plague and poison among company.  
Add also to this discourse of the Apostle, two essential causes of our evils. One whereof is, that the disorder and impurity of manners being very ordinary among young men, who are children of the rich best qualified; parents, in stead of repressing of exorbitancy, by the cutting off of excess and superfluity, which is the nurse of impiety; take no other care, but to put them into abundance over head and ears, and thrust them into dignities, in the weakness of ability, and greatest strength of passions. From thence proceedeth they behold one another like little Gods, and having shaken off the yoke of obedience to men, free themselves, what they may, from the commands of the supreme Master, having no other guide but temerity, nor other law, but the liberty of doing all. Blasphemies, which in the mouths of mean ones, would be esteemed monsters, pass from their lips for braveries, and such as come to adore their fortune, are constrained for worldly respect, to offer incense to their vices. Herein it is, parents make themselves guilty of high treason to the Divine Majesty, having so ill employed their travels and watch, as day and night to have amassed riches, which serve for sinews to impiety, and scandal to the public.  
The other cause, which much fomenteth blasphemies and irreverencies against Religion, is, that as ears are supple to hear them, so laws are greatly unprovided to punish them. Every man is pleased to revenge his particular injuries, and to reserve unto God the revenge of his own. Profane speeches, which heretofore made the faithful tear their garments, such horror they had to hear them, being now at this time uttered with some witty jests, flatter spirits, and being unable to gain the approbation of truth, they take it from the courtesies of men. It is to be feared, God permitteth this for vengeance of some sin, and wholly withdraws faith from these forlorn spirits, to place it among souls more purified.   

Of the Ignorance and Nullity of Libertinism.  
4. I Find not any thing more intolerable, than to see impiety flatter itself with the pretext of ability learning, and goodness of wit, since it is ever accompanied by two evil conditions, ignorance and 
Ignorance and bruitishness of Libertines. Reg. 1. 2.  bruitishness. What light of understanding can there be in a Libertine, who makes profession to spit against the source of light? God (saith the Scripture) is the Lord of sciences, and on him depends the good order of 
Vnumquodque tantum habet de luce, quantum retinet Esse divini. In memor. rer. difficil.  all our thoughts. How much the more commerce one hath with the Essence Divine, so much the more splendour he enjoyeth, as the Ancient Philosophers do assure us. We resemble those statues, which spoke in that proportion as the beams of the Sun reflected into their mouths. We cannot so much as open our lips to speak worthily of God, unless God, who made them, unloose them for his greater glory.  
I much esteem the sentence of S. Diadocus, who saith, 
Diado. de perfect. spirit. c. 7 Nihil egentius ea ment quae de Deo extra Deum philosophatur.  There is nothing more miserable, or more ignorant, than a spirit which will speak of God out of God, that is to say, who being out of the limits of faith and innocency, dares undertake to touch so high a point, as that of divinity. Now we know by experience, the wicked are alienated both in thoughts and manners from this sovereign sanctity, and therefore we may undoubtedly resolve, they are most uncapable of sciences, and especially those which are divine, being sworn enemies of the God of sciences.  
Moreover, if that be true which Avicen the Philosopher 
A notable saying of Avicen. Immaterialit●● radix spiritualitatis. Avicen. apud Capreol.  said, That immateriality is the root of spirituality, and that by how much the more a thing is discharged of matter, so much the more it is capable of intelligence, what reasonable discourse of man can one derive from a spirit, which is perpetually clouded with vapours of lust? Heraclitus in the secrets of his doctrine, required a dry soul, to render it capable of the most purified meditations of Philosophy: and can we think a spirit, which hath made a prison of its body, by pampering the flesh with all possible tenderness, will declare us the mysteries of hidden sciences? Is it not to go about to gather grapes from thorns, figs from bushes, and golden grains out of straw? And say there were some appearance of sobriety and modesty, know we not, pride is a formal obstacle to the purity of great and noble sciences, because it instantly blind-foldeth men with the presumption of their ability? Are we ignorant many would have become greatly knowing, had they not thought they were absolutely perfect? Now who is more haughty or more arrogant, than a Libertine, who if peradventure he have some smattering of letters, is so puffed up with the opinion of his capacity, that he seems to himself to have slept in Sibylla's cave, to pronounce oracles, and judge all other men consist of superstitions, and idiots.  
Great wits, who have ravished the world with admiration, 
Great wits modest.  resemble those rivers, which glide along with a peaceful majesty, not troubling any body with their waves. But these petty shufflers murmur like unto brooks, and vex the whole world with their tattle. If it happen they arrive to some perfection in humane sciences (which is very seldom) they cannot command their spirit, which admits no other path than precipices. So that in the same things, wherein they take themselves to be wiser than other, they commit errors, and make most shameful lapses.  
It is truly the disgrace and tomb of humane judgement, 
Arrogancy of Libertinism.  to see the barbarous censure, which reigneth among those who pretend acuteness; for they think so many worthy men, who have penetrated into the abyss of the most sublime sciences, are ignorant of the Latin tongue: nay, if S. Augustine and S. Thomas might return into the world, they would be entertained in these acquaint Academies as grooms. But if there be some one can make an ode, a sonnet, a letter, can play the gentile wittie-one in company, and utter blasphemies with philosophy and affectation, he is the God of learning, and the Monarch of eloquence. But let a capable man sound these curious fellows, good God, what empty chambers in these great brain-pans! What darkness, and what confusions! It is soon found they understand not one sole principle of true science, and that all their learning is like a house, that hath guilded gates, and chambers pestered with spiders. Think then what a shame it is, when men of quality, who affect the reputation of being judicious, prostitute their wits to these gods of straw and dung, and for the tuneable cadence of a rhyme, lose all harmonies of faith and conscience.  
All heretics, who make boast to assail the Church 
Their ignorance.  for so many Ages, have likewise made a show to bring with them into this combat, some recommendable qualities. Some came with points of logic, other with knowledge of things natural, other with eloquence, some vaunted profoundness in Scriptures, the rest to be versed in the reading of Counsels and holy Fathers. They who have had no excellent thing in them, have brought an austere countenance, and semblance of moral virtues. But such kind of men have nothing but ignorance with bruitishness, but scoffing sycophancy, but language, and the wind of infamous words. How can it then become them to talk of the Bible, and to argue upon holy Scripture, and the mysteries of our Religions? Shut up your ears against these Questions, if you be unable to stop their mouths.  
Is it handsome, think you, to see a wretched and infamous 
Tertul. l. 2. advers. Marc. c. 2 Censores divinitatis dicentes: sic non debuit Deus, & sic magis debuit, etc. Tert. de prescript. contra haeres. l. 1.  fellow to make himself the censurer of Divinity and corrector of Scripture? God should have done this and that, in such and such a fashion, (say they:) as if any one knew what is in God, but the spirit of God himself, who is never so great, as when he appeareth little to humane understanding.  
There is but one word (saith Tertullian) to determine all disputations with such kind of men: do but ask them whether they be Christians, whether they renounce their Baptism and Christianity. If so, let them wear the turban, or go into the Country of God-makers and Gentiles. But if they make profession of one same Christ, and one same Religion with us, why do they belly their profession, by the impudence of their unbridled speeches.  
Faith (saith S. Zeno) is not faith, when it is sought. 
S. Zeno serm. de fide. Non est fides ubi quaritur fides. Tertul. Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum, nec inquisitione post Evangelium.  We stand not in need of curiosity after Jesus Christ, nor to search for the Gospel, said S. Cyprians great Master. Should an Angel from Heaven speak unto us, we are to change nothing in our belief. We have betaken us to the side of truth, we have a law which the Word declared unto us, which ten millions of Martyrs have signed with their blood, which the best part of mankind professeth, the wisest heads of the world have illustrated by the light of their writings. To whom would we abandon it? To a caitiff spirit, which hath nothing great in it but sin, nothing specious but illusion, nothing undoubted but the loss of salvation.   

Effects of Libertinism, and punishment of the Impious.  
5. THe neglect of God, is the root of all wickedness, nor can there be any thing entire in a soul despoiled of the fear of God. Impiety causeth most pernicious effects in States. First, for that it maketh havoc of all good manners, leaving not one spark of virtue. Secondly, in that it draweth on the inevitable vengeance of God upon Kingdoms and Commonwealths, which suffer this monster to strengthen itself to their prejudice.  
Philo in the Book he made, that no salary of an unchaste 
The table of Philo of the manners of Libertines.  woman should be received in the Sanctuary, very wisely concluded, when he shown, that he who is a Libertine and voluptuous, having no other aim in the world, but the contentments of nature, is unavoidably engaged to all manner of vice: He becomes (saith he) bold, deceitful, irregular, unsociable, troublesome, choleric, opiniative, disobedient, malicious, unjust, ungrateful, ignorant, treacherous, giddy, inconstant, scornful, dishonest, cruel, infamous, arrogant, insatiable, wise in his own judgement, lives for himself, and is unwilling to please any but himself; one while profuse, presently covetous, a calumniatour, an impostor, insensible, rebellious, guileful, pernicious, froward, unmannerly, uncivil, a great talker, loud, vaunter, insolent, disdainful, proud, quarrelsome, bitter, seditious, refractory, effeminate, and above all, a great lover of himself.  
Nay, he goes further upon the like epithets very judiciously, and showeth us the seeds of all evils spring from this cursed liberty.  
Now I leave you to judge, if according to the saying 
Tunishments of God upon Libertinism.  of Machiavelli himself, the means quickly to ruin an estate, be to fill it with evil manners; who sees not that Libertinism, drawing along with it all this great train of vices of corruptions, tendeth directly unto the utter desolation of Empires? But beside, there have been observed in all Ages hideous punishments from God, caused by impiety over Cities, Provinces, Kingdoms, and Commonwealths, which have bred these disorders.  
And that you may be the better satisfied upon this point, I have at this time only two considerations to present unto you, drawn from two models. In the first you shall see God 's justice exercised before the Incarnation, upon the sins of infidelity and irreverence towards sacred things. In the second, you shall behold the rough chastisements of those, who after the Incarnation lifted themselves up against the world's Saviour. When God was pleased to correct the infamous Balaam, who was a Patriarch of atheists and wicked ones, he commanded not an Angel to speak unto him, because he was a Doctor, much unsuitable to a carnal spirit, but he raised a she-ass to instruct him, in so much as he was become worse than a beast. It is likewise loss of time to deal with Libertines by proofs derived from Schools, or from the invention of sciences. Men as brutish as themselves must be made to speak to them, who will put them in mind of the way they have held, and the salary they have received of their impieties. First, I establish this Maxim, for such either, who are not yet hardened, or are too yielding and consenting to evil company, that there are not any sins which God hath so suddenly, and more exemplary punished, than such as were committed against Religion. The Prophet Ezechiel, a captive in Babylon under King Nabuchadnezzar, discovered among tempests and flames, that marvellous chariot, which hath served for matter of question to all curious digladiation for the learned, and admiration for all Ages. I say, the great S. Justine Martyr, touched the sense very near, when he said, 
S. justin. in Epist. ad Orthodox. q. 44. An observation upon the chariot of Ezechiel.  that in four figures, whereof the one was of an ox, the other of a man, the third of an Eagle, the fourth of a Lion, God signified the divers chastisements he would exercise upon King Nabuchadnezzar, in that from a reasonable man he should become brutish, eating grass as an ox, and that his hair should grow as the shag of a Lion, and his body be hoary like the feathers of an eagle, worn with old age. I add also to his conceit, that God by these representations of four living creatures, seemed to say to him: O Nabuchadnezzar, whilst thou didst sin only against men, I came with the slow pace of an ox, to punish thy offences, I suffered thee with much sweetness, as a man: but when thou grewest proud, impious, atheistical, and tottering in the knowledge of the Divinity, I fell upon thy crowned head as the eagle upon her prey, reducing thee to a brutish life; and if thou goest forward, I will pull thee in pieces, as if thou hadst passed through the teeth of a Lion.  
This makes me say, that God tolerateth sins for some time, which are of their own nature very enormous; but as for impieties, either he speedily chastiseth them in the heat of crime, or reserveth them to unspeakable avengements. See you not in the history of Kings, how he tolerated David, defiled with murder 
2 Par. p. 26. 18  & adultery, nine whole months without taking notice of his fault: But so soon as Ozias took the incensory to do an act of sacrilege and impiety, behold him instantly strucken with leprosy in the most eminent part of his body. Why so? Because other sins are many times committed through infirmity, incitement, or frailty; but this which strikes at God's jurisdiction, proceeds from an advised and deliberate malice. Behold the cause wherefore God maketh arrows of all wood, and vengeance of all creatures, to punish it according to its demerit. Add also hereunto a very remarkable proof, which is, that the Sovereign Judge, 
Observation upon the chastisement of impiety.  though oftentimes sending his Prophets to stay the crimes of adultery, of oppression, of injustice, and other like, suffered them to pass on in an ordinary way, yet when he dispatched messengers to confound idolatry and impiety, which was raised in Bethel by Jeroboam, 
Reg. 3. 13.  he made them fly like eagles and impetuous storms. This is verified in Jeroboam King of Israel, who began to offer incense to Idols, when a Prophet came out of Jerusalem, and arrived (as the Interpreters observe) in Bethel before the incensing was finished, which happened in a very short time. If one ask how this man of God, in less than the space of a sacrifice, performed about six leagues, (for it was as far distant from Bethel to Jerusalem) it is answered, God bore him on the wings of winds, because he went of purpose to destroy atheism and impiety, which was hatched among the Israelites. And verily being come before this sacrilegious Altar, he cried out aloud to Jeroboam's face: O Altar, Altar, listen; for much better 
Altar, Altar, haec dicit Dominus, etc.  is it to speak to these stones, than to an Atheist: God hath said, and it shall happen; an infant shall be born of the house of David, called Josias, who shall sacrifice the priests, which now incense to Idols on their own Altars, and there shall he turn their bones into dust. Which was afterward performed.  
I now demand, if the celestial Father proceeded with such rigour against those, who altered some ceremony of the ancient Law, that he was not contented to fall speedily upon them, more swift than eagles and tempests, but caused bones of the dead to be taken out of sepulchres, whereunto the right of nature had confined them, to burn and consume them on the Altar, which they had profaned; what will become of those, who since the venerable mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God, run into horrible sins of infidelity, and trample under foot the blood of the Testament? Perhaps you yet conceive not sufficiently the greatness of this crime, but I will make it appear unto you by a powerful reason. S. Denys the 
Dionys. c. 1. de divin. nominib.  Areopagite saith, that Being is the most intimate, most necessary, most universal, and most perfect of all things, because it containeth in eminency all perfections, which are not but participation of Being. And if this essence be strongly rooted in all creatures, so that there is none but God who can annihilate it, what shall we say of the essence of the Sovereign Creator, which originally containeth all essences; God, to speak properly, being nothing but his own essence? There is no doubt, but it is an excellency wholly incomprehensible. Now we must necessarily infer, that by how much the more a thing is excellent, so much the more the crimes which assail it, are punishable. Behold the cause why one cannot almost find pains suitable to Atheism and impiety, which resist the essence of God.   

The horrible punishments of the wicked for the sin of Impiety.  
I Moreover affirm, if in a time when the Divinity was not yet fully published, it notwithstanding inflicted fearful punishments, both on the living and dead, who had before-time offended, what will become of it after the publication of the Gospel, and the coming of the Word Incarnate, who maketh speak unto us, for the confirmation of his law and word, the blood of so many millions of Martyrs, who died for defence of the truth, who hath opened to us on earth so many mouths of Apostles, Evangelists, Doctors, singular in wisdom and sanctity, as there are stars in heaven; who likewise gave speech to stones and marbles of those ancient Churches, to instruct us in our Religion? The stone shall cry out in 
Habac. 2. 11. Lapi● de pariete clamabit.  the midst of walls, saith the Prophet Habacuc.  
Nay, I demand, which is the more tolerable, either to despise Joseph in the fetters of bondage, or to offer him an affront on Pharaoh's royal chariot? Every man of judgement will tell me there is no comparison, and that he who yielded not honour to Joseph, being a captive, seemed not worthy punishment: but to deny him honour, when Pharaoh having placed him in a chariot of glory, caused to be proclaimed by a Herald of arms, Abrec, Abrec, Let all the world bow the knee before Joseph, was a crime of treason. We then infer, if the Jews for having neglected Jesus Christ in bonds, in opprobries, in torments, and the pains of the Cross, were chastised with hideous punishments to all posterity, what may we expect for such as revile heaven, and dishonour Jesus Christ in the chariot of his triumph, after they had seen and manifestly known, as by ways more than humane, that he put all the glory, power, wisdom and sanctity of the whole universe under his feet, and having now also after sixteen hundred years and more, through all the parts of the habitable world, both Altars and Sacrifices, where he hath received services and homages of so many Mitres, Sceptres, and Crowns, from wise and holy men, that it would be easier to number the sands of the sea, than to keep an account of them? But if you still doubt the punishment of the Jews for the sin of impiety, do but read Histories both divine and humane, to be therein sufficiently informed.  
The Jews were heretofore the chosen people, and are become the reprobate. God for them drove back the waves of the read sea, and suffered them to walk drie-foot between two waters, as between two crystal vaults, and afterward, why did he drown them so many times in rivers of their blood, with so horrible slaughters, that in the whole siege of Jerusalem under Titus and Vespasian, were reckoned according to Josephus his calculation, eleven hundred thousand 
Vide josephum, & Hegesippum, & Thraenos.  dead? God opened to them the sides of rocks to quench their thirst, and afterward, why dried he up the dugs of women, who saw their little ones die between their arms, they unable to give them one drop of milk? God for them made Manna and clouds of Quails to shout, and why afterward did he so afflict them with such cruel and enraged a famine, that the hands of merciful mothers slew and roasted on coals their own proper children, and eat them to satisfy their hunger? God carried them through deserts as upon eagle's wings, and wherefore afterward did he abandon them to eagles and vultures, which so many times made carrion of the bodies of his children? God had given them a land so fat and fruitful, that it streamed altogether milk and honey, and wherefore afterward had it entrails of iron, denying food to the living, yea, burial to the dead? God gave them strength as a devouring fire, before which all Nations were but as straw, and why afterwards became it the shuttlecock of the arms of Infidels? God gave them liberty for an inheritance, and why afterward obtained they not so much as an honourable servitude? Why at the siege of Jerusalem among so many thousand prisoners, did they so much disdain to make use of a Jew, that there being never a a Cross to crucify them, they were reserved for beasts to devour them, rather than derive any service from them? God gave them knowledge, and wherefore afterwards became they blockish, idle, and stupid in all learning? God ordained for them the assistance and protection of Angels, and why afterward forsook they their Temple, crying out aloud: Let us departed, let us departed from hence? God destined to them Royalty and Empire over neighbouring Nations, and why afterward had they not one inch of land at their own dispose, and especially of land, where formerly Jerusalem was built, unless they purchased it with money, only to enjoy it one hour or two in the year, and weep over it, and bedew it with the water of their eyes, after they had so often moistened it with their blood? God established priesthood to them, and afterwards what became of Jerusalem the Holy? What became of Solomon's Temple, the miracle of the world? Where is the Propitiatory? the Table of Proposition-bread? the Rational, which was before the people's oracle? Where is the majesty of High-priests, the comeliness of Prelates, the perpetuity of Sacrifices? From whence comes it, that it is above fifteen hundred years ago, since this miserable Nation goes wandering through the Regions of the earth, as abandoned into an eternal exile without Priests, without Temple, without Sacrifice, without Prince. King, or government? O eternal God, how hast thou thrown down thy footstool! O God of justice, how hast thou made desolate thy royal Priesthood! O God of vengeance, how hast thou suffered thy Sanctuary to be profaned! Who hath ever heard speech of such a punishment? There have been adulteries, rapines, concussions, gluttonies, yea, and idolatries, which God hath not revenged in this manner? A captivity of threescore and ten years expiated all these sins, but this after fifteen hundred years, to what sin may we attribute it, but to the neglect of the essence of the Word Incarnate? After the time that the Son of God shut his eyes, steeped in tears and blood, over the miserable Jerusalem, he never hath opened them to afford them mercy. A Lord so sweet, so mild, so clement, as that he raised thiefs almost from blood and robbery, in an instant to thrones of glory, for having acknowledged and confessed his name, so roughly to chastise the neglect of his authority, for the space of so many Ages; what meaneth this, but to prove the opposing of the divine Essence of God, is a crime of all, the most hideous and unspeakable?  
Run over the Histories of antiquity as long as you 
Tragical events of the wicked.  please, revolve in your memory all the experiences, which your Age may afford, and if you see the impious come to a good end, say, There is no cause of fear. Cain, their Patriarch, banished from the sight of God, lived long like a melancholy spirit among forests, with a perpetual affrightment, until Lamech took away his life: The Cainists were all drenched in the waters of the deluge: Pharaoh drowned in the Red-sea: Nabuchadnezzar turned into a beast: Holofernes slain in his bed by the hand of a woman: Senacherib lost one hundred four-score and five thousand men for a blasphemy: Antiochus strucken with a horrible malady: Birds did eat the tongue of Nicanor, and his hand was hanged up over against the Temple: Heliodorus was visibly chastised by Angels: Herodes Agrippa born from the Theatre to the bed of death: The Precedent Saturninus strucken blind: Hermianus eaten by worms in his Pretourship: Leo the fourth, all covered over with botches and carbuncles: Bamba crowned with a diadem of pitch, after his eyes were pulled out: Julian the Apostate strucken with a dart from Heaven: Michael the Emperor, who had in his train a heap of young scoffers, that in scorn counterfeited the ceremonies of the Church, was torn in pieces as a victim, by his own servants: Olympius strucken with thunder in a bath. And if we observe times more near: Rogero dragged to a laystall: Vanin burnt at Tholouse: Alsan Calefat divided between fire and water, and slain by his own hand.  
Great eye of God, which art ever open upon the sins of the earth, who can steal himself from the lightning-flashes? Great hand of God, who thunderest and lightenest perpetually over rebellious heads, who is able to resist thy justice?   

Advice to Youth, and such as too easily give way to impiety.  
O Unfortunate youth, who having received the first tincture of good instruction, after thou wert bred with so much care and honour by those to whom thou owedst thy birth, betrayest the tears of thy parents, the travels of thy teachers, and the whole hopes of the public! How canst thou embark thyself among these treacherous and ignominious associates? How canst thou walk among so many shelves and precipices, not so much as once opening thy eyes, to behold the abyss thou hast under thy feet? So many heads crushed in pieces under the Divine vengeance, are as broken masts and shivers of a shipwreck, advanced on the promontory of rocks, to give notice of the deplorable events they have found, whose examples thou still pursuest, yet thou lookest on them with arms across, and dallyest in danger like a wanton victim, which leaps and skips between the axe and the knife.  
God is my witness, I writ these lines with a spirit of compassion, for so many who dissolutely abuse the gifts of Heaven, and if any one happen upon the reading of this, I beseech him by the love of his salvation not to despise a pen, which tendereth so sincere affection for the good of his soul.  
A man who hath never so little reason, should he not argue within himself, and say, Verily the harmonious consent of so many Ages, which have upheld and reverenced a Religion innocent, pure, and holy, is not a matter of sport. The horrible punishments of such as sought to disengage themselves from the homage due to the Divinity of Jesus Christ, are no fables, since we still behold the footsteps of their ruins. The lights and reflections of the Divinity, which beset me on every side, are speaking tongues, the consent of so many Ages and holy personages yet alive on the earth, are no small testimony. These kind of men, who seek to sow dangerous maxims in our minds, are creatures of little authority, evil manners, and of a conversation either insolent or covert. They are neither Apostles nor Prophets: It is not credible, truth should so long be hidden, to be discovered to them amidst their abomination: They have neither sanctity, miracles, nor reason: They are not rich but in libertinous words and blasphemies. All they can promise me, is nothing else but a slight contentment of nature in this life, yet cannot they give it me: For amidst these unlawful pleasures, I feel my conscience much disturbed and perplexed with remorse: If I feared God, I should find this fear would banish all other affrightments from my heart. Now have I that, both of men and laws, yea even of beast: It seemeth at every accident which happeneth to me, each creature becomes a sword and an arrow of God to punish my evil thoughts and inordinate actions: If that be not true, which these men promise (as they make no clear proof of what they say) behold me then convinced of the most horrible crime which hath ever been; behold me the object of all the execrations that have fallen on their heads, who bent themselves against God: Behold me fettered in eternal and inexplicable pains, which I shall escape neither alive nor dead. Every understanding man always inclineth to the surest way: I see, that following the opinion my Ancestors had in matter of Religion, there can happen no other evil unto me, bu● to be an honest man, to replenish my heart with good desires, my thoughts with pleasing hopes, my hands with works of justice, and to waste myself like a torch of aromatic wood in a life, satisfied with itself, and laudable to posterity: whereas going along with these, I walk on thorns and ice in the depth of night, not knowing who pursues me behind. Avaunt novelties, avaunt cursed impieties, farewel infamous atheisms, adieu execrable liberty; you shall never be aught with me. O youth, if thou didst well taste these words, what repose, what contentment, what glory shouldst thou acquire? O unhappy youth, which adherest to these impious and licentious companies, what wilt thou say, when time shall have taken from thee the scarf which now veileth thine eyes, and that thou shalt see the chastisement of God, which shall follow thee in all thy undertake, misery by thy sides, torments and pains before 
Against toleration.  thee, and people's execration over thy head? But you meek ones, and you men to halves, who endure with soft and flexible ears, unworthy blasphemies against God, under the shadow of wit and pleasant entertainment, if you have yet any vein of Christianity in all your body, ought it not to bound and leap against these criminals, who in the heat of wine and banquets, flout in your presences at the truth of a Religion, which your Ancestors left you with so much sweat, such virtues, and so many good examples? If you, who be men of quality and authority, persecute even to the gates of hell, such as once have offended you, when you do negligently suffer them to dishonour him, who hath imprinted the ray of majesty with his finger on your faces, do you not render yourselves guilty of all the crimes committed through your coldness and neglects? God hath preserved since so many Ages, doth, and will preserve this Kingdom by the piety of our great King, by the zeal of his Clergy, by the prudence of his Council and good Officers, and by the devotion of people, which are as sincere in France as in any place of the world, enlightened with the rays of faith: But it is for impiety; that Crowns are broken, that Sceptres fly in pieces, and Empires have in all times passed from Nation to Nation. It is I (saith the great God) who make Counsellors fools, and Judges stupid; I who 
Adducet Consilarios in stultum finem.  change the golden girdle of Kings into a cord; I who throw confusion on the brow of Priests; I who supplant the greatest, when they seek to overthrow true piety.  
The Edict of Darius a Pagan King, which he made in favour of the Hebrews Temple, hath astonishing words, when he saith: What man soever shall be so 
Omnis homo qui hanc mutaverit jussionem tollatur lignum de domo ipsius & erigatur, & configatur in eo, & domus ejus publicetur. Esdras.  hardy, as to change and alter my commandment for the building of the Temple of God, let a gibbet be erected for him of the same wood, of which his house is built, let it be raised in the street, let him be affixed thereunto, and his house confiscated. This teacheth you, it is a great unhappiness to build your house at the expense of God's houses: Rafters and beams of such edifices, have many times served for instruments of punishment to such as raised them. The favours of great men, fortunes of ice, inexhaustible riches, reputation, friends, companions, factours, lackeys, buffoons, all have forsaken them as butterflies, which escape the hand of a child; they are fallen through the sin of impiety, which hath made an eclipse of their fortune and life, in the brightest lustre of their greatness.   

That the Remedy of our evil consisteth in the Zeal of our Faith.  
6. THe Remedy of evils which turmoyl us, is wholly in our own hands, and the cure of our wounds dependeth on our own wills. Good examples and strong laws may do all on spirits, which have not yet totally renounced their own good, nor is there any one so desperate, who is not taken either by the hands of virtue, wholly made of adamant, or feareth not to fall into the chains of justice. Let ecclesiastics, whom God hath entrusted with his blood, his word, and his Sacraments, begin first of all to dart rays of sanctity in the firmament of honour, where God hath placed them: Let secular men in dignities and eminent fortunes, affect zeal in Religion: Let such as are stepped far into age, bear the torch before youth: Let women endeavour to establish piety, which is the ornament of their sex: Let children be well bred, and trained within the laws of modesty: Let the doctrine of Jesus Christ be sealed with the seal of good manners; there is no Libertine, but will be daunted at the sight of a life led according to the laws of Christianity: For it is a mirror, which killeth basilisks by reverberation of their proper poison. But if blasphemers continue still so impudent, as to vomit forth unclean and injurious words against the Religion we profess, have not laws, which are in the power of the Sovereign Princes on earth, and of their Ministers of State, iron hands able to stay their most daring impudencies?  
I call you hither, O holy Prelates, O Monarches, 
To the great-ones of all Christendom.  Princes and Potentates, who are in the world as the great Intelligences, who make the Heavens move, and who by diversity of your aspects, cause calms and storms in this inferior region wherein we live: I pray tell me, where do you think hath glory, which you naturally love, placed its throne and state, if not in the bosom of true piety, By what degrees are those immortal spirits of your Ancestors mounted up to the joys and delights of God, having replenished the earth with the veneration of their memory, if it were not by making the honour of the Sovereign Master march in the front of all their designs, and thinking nought their own, but what was acquired for God?  
Remember, you are not altogether like the Angel 
Apo. 10.  of the Apocalypse, which beareth the Sun, and Rainbows, and all the garnishments of glory on feet of brass: you enjoy dignities and supereminencies that draw the Great-ones into admiration, astonish inferiors, attract people, evict honour and wonder from all the world: But consider (if so you please) that all this is only supported on feet of clay and mortar. Time changeth you, cares consume you, maladies assail you, death takes and despoileth you. They who adored you in thrones, may one day trample on you in sepulchres.  
Alas! if it happen you carry all your own interests with violence of passion to the height of your pretensions, and that you hold Religion, and the glory of Jesus in a perpetual contempt, what will your soul one day answer, when it leaves the body, unto the thundering voice of a living God, saying to you, as he did to Cyrus, in Isaiah, Assimilavi te, & non cognovisti 
Isaiah 45.  me: I called thee by thy name, I created thee like unto myself, I made thee a little God on earth, and thou hast forgotten me. I so many times marched before thy standards, many times have I humbled the most glorious of the earth for thee. I broke brazen gates, pulled down iron bars to afford thee hiden treasures, and the wealth of Ages, which nature for thee preserved in her bosom. The Sun seemed not to shine in the world, but to enlighten thy greatness, the seas surged for thee, and for thee the earth was wholly bend to honour and obedience.  
Admirer of thyself, and ignorant of God's works, thou hast so ill husbanded my goods, that thou hast changed them all into evils; I gave thee rays, and thou hast made arrows of them to shoot against me. Did I seat thee on thrones, that there thy passions might sway? Did I imprint on thy forehead the character of my greatness, that thou mightest authorise crimes? Thou hadst a feeble pretext of Religion, and hast neglected the effects: Thy interests reigned, and my honour suffered in thy house. At what aimed thy ambition so strong of wing, and so weak of brain, which only thought how to envy what was above, the more to oppress any thing below it? What did that burning avarice, that profuse riot, that spirit of blood and flesh, employed in the advancement of thine own house, to the contempt of mine? For an inch of land, a wretched matter of profit, the fantasy of an affront, jealousy only subsisting in a body of smoke, all the elements must be troubled, men and swords drawn forth for revenge, and blood of so many mortals shed: but for my Name, which is blasphemed, it is sufficient to wag the finger, to show only a cold countenance, a slight touch of that great authority, whilst I was neglected, having done no other fault, but to have paid ingratitudes with benefits.  
O you Great-ones, who sit at the stern of Churches and temporal Estates, how far will you become accountable to God's justice, if you place not his honour in the first rank of all your intentions? Alas! Ought not you to entertain an ardent zeal towards the Religion which our Ancestors consigned unto us, with so many examples of piety, that Heaven hath not more stars, than we lights before our eyes? Can we well endure that the verities and maxims of God, which the Prophets foretold us, the Apostles pronounced, the Confessors professed, the Martyrs defended in the piece-meal mangling of their bodies, amidst combs and iron hooks, burning cauldrons, wheels armed with keen razors, should now adays be the sport of certain giddy spirits, and the aim of profane lips, who void of wit or shame, dare invade holy things? Is it not for this, O France, the beloved of God, and orient pearl of the world, thou hast seen in thy bosom so many hostilities, such contagions, famines, monsters, and devastations, that had not the arm of God supported thee, thou wouldst have been long since drenched in irrecoverable confusions? O you, who bear the sword of justice, and have authority in your hands, will you not one day say: All 
Omnis qui zelum habet legis, statuens testamentum suum, exeat post me.  they who have the zeal of the law, and the piety of our Ancestors, follow us courageously, for behold we are ready to revenge the quarrels of God, and to account his glory on earth, in the same degree the Angels hold it in Heaven. This was the conceit of the valiant Machabee, the Prince of God's people, who having seen an Apostate of his Nation offer incense to an Idol, slew him with his own hand on the very same Altar, saying aloud: He who hath the zeal of the law, let him 
Vae mihi quis natus sum videre contritionem populi mei! Sancts in manu extrantcrum facts sunt, etc. Nunc ergo silii aemulatores estote legis, & date animas vestras protestamento Patrum. Moriamur in virtule propter fratres nostros, & non inferamus crimen gloriae nostre.  follow me. woe to me, since I am born to behold the desolation of my people! Holy things are in the hands of strangers: The Temple hath been handled as the most wicked man on earth: Our mysteries, our beauties, our glories are desolated: To what purpose do I still lead a miserable life? Fathers of families, will you not say to your children what he did to his: Children, be ye emulatours of the law, and yield your souls up for the testament of your Ancestors. Children, will you not answer what the holy Maccabees did, by the lips of their elder brother: Let us die in virtue for our brethren, and not defile our glory by any crime, which may be objected against us.  
Let war be proclaimed against Libertines and blasphemers, who will still persevere with deliberate malice in their impiety: Let these infernal mouths be stopped, and condemned to an eternal silence: Let the standard of the Cross be adored by all Nations, and the enemies of Jesus dissolved, as wax melted on the flames of burning coals, as smoke scattered in the air: Let a chaste and sincere worship of God flourish every where, and sacrifices of praise mount to Heaven, to obtain benedictions on earth.  
But you, SIR, who most near approach to the King's person, having given so many testimonies of your prudence, your courage, and fidelity, seem to speak unto him with the same tongue, which holdeth ears enchained by the charms of your eloquence, and say, what France pronounceth:  
7. GReat King, for whom our Altars daily smoke 
An Apostrophe of France to the King.  in Sacrifices, and for whom our lips cease not to send forth thanksgivings of prosperity to Heaven. The monsters are not all as yet vanquished: Behold the last head of Hydra, which God hath reserved to this triumphant sword, which the Cross guideth, valour animateth, justice moderateth, and the stars crown. Needs must impiety be crushed under those feet, which have already trampled on so many Dragons, and be fettered with an hundred iron chains, under the Altars we daily charge with our vows.  
When Libra, the constellation of your birth, ariseth, the Ram falleth. It is not time (O Monarch of flowers-de-luce) that appearing on the throne of justice, with Balance in hand, all sparkling with the rays of glory, which environ you after so many battels concluded by your victories, you humble the horns of this Ram of insolent impiety, which dares so confidently oppose, both by words and actions, the Religion which crown you, the spirit which possesseth you, and the power which directeth you.  
Alas, Alas, SIR, To what purpose were it to have walked on the smoking ruins of so many rebellious Cities? What would it avail to have thrown down in one Rochel, so many surly rocks with the help of so great, so faithful, and happy counsel, and opening one gate there at your entrance, to have shut up a thousand against factions and civil wars? What contentment could your Majesty have by wiping away the sweats on the Alps, you had gotten on the Ocean, and to have gathered palms perpetually verdant for you, as well in the frozen ice of winter, as the scorching beats of summer, if you must again behold at your return, that Religion you so often defended, trodden under the feet of impiety, wounded by slanderous tongues, outraged by blasphemies, and contaminated by insolent spirits, who know not God, but to dishonour him? It now at this time presenteth itself to you with sighs in the heart, and tears in the eyes: It showeth unto you the robe, which Clodovaeus, Charlemaigne, and S. Lewis, your Predecessors, gave you with so much splendour, now torn in pieces with such violence; it imploreth your assistance, it expecteth your power, it breathes an air much the more sweet in the confidence conceived of your zeal and courage.  
I call to witness that great Angel, which hath led you by the hand to so many conquests and triumphs, making you dreadful to your enemies, helpful to your Allies, awful to your subjects, and amiable to all the world; it is not here where he will limit your actions, and fix the columns of your memory. We still hope quickly to see the day which shall dry up the tears of the poor, shall ease their burdens, shall sweeten their pains, shall ●our oil on their yokes: And from whom should we expect all this, but from a Prince so pious, so benign? We promise ourselves to see a Clergy, which shall speedily put itself into so good a way under your favour, entirely purified from the dregs of simony, ignorance, and the liberty of evil actions. Who can give us this happiness, but a King, who hath under his heart a Temple for true piety? We sigh for that great day, that day, which shall for ever wash away the stains of blood, impressed on the foreheads of French Nobility, which shall dissipate disorders, shall stop the current of so many dissolutions; and what can assure us of it, but the certainty of your Edicts? We most earnestly desire to behold an absolute regularity in justice, and in all Officers, that a golden Age may shine again, which hath so often been varnished through the corruption of souls set at sale. And who shall do it but a King, that from his most innocent years so much hath cherished the title of Just, that be for it contemned the name of a Conqueror, which his valour presented him, and of Most Sacred, which the veneration of his virtues afforded him. Impiety vanquished, beareth the keys of all these hopes, nor shall we have any thing more to fear or desire, when that shall be throughly suppressed throughout all the parts of the Kingdom.  
Dear delight of Heaven, is it not for this God drew you the last year from the gates of a sepulchre, and restored you to life, to render us all to ourselves? Alas! Great God, what a stroke of thunder was the news of this malady! What a terror to all Cities! What astonishment in all Orders! What a wound in the heart of the whole Kingdom! Your poor France remembered the 27. day of September, made sacred by your royal birth: It considered this nativity had done to your state, what the infusion of the soul into a body; and saw you almost taken hence at the same time that your Majesty entered. It beheld all that greatness, and those comforts ready to be shut up within your tomb. The Queens drenched in their deep sorrow, could not speak but by their tears and sobs: Your good Officers dissolved in lamentations at the foot of your bed, which was become at the Altars of grief. All humane hopes were cut off by the violence of the malady. Nothing was expected but the fatal blow, which all the world deplored, and which no man could divert.  
But who knoweth not, SIR, God permitted it to let us see your virtues by their bright reflection. The lustre of beautiful paintings must be suffered a little to mortify, before we can judge of them. We could not sufficiently know your Majesty in the bright splendours of fortune, and such good success of arms: Needs must we have a character from God of men afflicted, and a mark of the Cross of Jesus to consummate so excellent qualities. And what heart was not then seized with admiration, when we saw a young King, so great, so flourishing, so awful, to look death in the face with a confident eye, to expect it with a stable foot, to receive it willingly with a spirit infinitely peaceful: afterward to be fortified by Sacraments of the Church, with most exemplar devotion, and having given the last adieus to his good subjects, to go out of the world and all glorious honours, as joyful as from a prison? But God with drew this stroke, when life held but by a slender thread, and heard the many prayers made throughout all France: He restored you to life at the same time he had given it you: He settled the pillars of this State, which then tottered over our heads: He raised our joys again, which were faded, and gave us that we would not lose, to gain the whole world. It is, SIR, to tell you, you must perform all God requireth at your sacred hands, and so to profit in sanctity, that the earth may one day give you in reward of piety, the Altars you have raised to Heaven, by the valour of your arms.  
To the King of all Ages Immortal and Invisible, to GOD alone be given honour and glory, for ever and ever.      

THE CHRISTIAN DIARY.  

THE AUTHORS DESIGN.  
OF the practice of Virtues I have already spoken in my Book of the HOLY COURT. This is a small Pattern thereof in every days action. It should employ your heart, rather than your eyes or hand. It is short to read, but if you practise it, you will in one day find years and ages of felicity.  
Indeed we have at this present many spiritual Books, which echo one another. This Age is as fruitful in words, as barren in works; Inclining to speak much, to do nothing; evapourating the best part of wit, by pen or tongue.  
Nevertheless, in matters of Devotion, it is apparent, that a man cannot say too much, that, which he can never do enough; and that in so great a penury of worthy acts, we should not be sparing of good words.  
I present you with this short Treatise: carry it in your hand, as the clock which a great Prince wore in a Ring: it striketh every hour of the day, and agreeth with Reason, as true dials with the Sun. If you read it with attention, you will find it great in its littleness, rich in its poverty, and large in its brevity. Great books make men sometimes more learned, seldom more innocent. This reduceth wisdom to practice, and prosperity to devotion. By often reading it, and doing what it directeth, you shall know what it is; for it hath no other character of its worth, than that of your virtues.   

THE CHRISTIAN DIARY.  
The First PART.  

The first SECTION. The Importance of well ordering every Action of the day.  
A Wise Hermit (as Pelagius a Greek Author relates) being demanded, if the way to perfection were very long said: That the Virtues accompany one another, and if a man would himself, he might in one day attain to a proportionable measure of Divinity. Indeed our Virtues are all conjoined in our Actions, our Actions in the Hours, the Hours in the Day, the Days in the Month, the Months in the Year, and the Years in the Ages. Every day is a little map of our life; and the way to be soon perfect, is to use much consideration and perfection in the performance of every days action. See here a draught thereof, the lineaments of which I have taken in part from one endued with much wisdom, religion & integrity, whom I would willingly name, did I not fear to offend his humility, which can suffer all things but his own praises.   

The second SECTION. At Waking.  
THe Sun hath long since, for your benefit chased away the shades of night, to delight you with the sight of the wonderful works of God, and your curtains are yet undrawn, to entertain you with a shadow of death. Arise out of bed, and consider, that this great star, which makes you begin the course of this day, must this day run about ten or twelve millions of leagues; and you, how many steps will you proceed towards virtue? This unwearied Harbinger is gone to take you up a lodging in the grave; Each minute is so much deducted from your life. Will you not follow the counsel of the Son of God, and work while it is day? A long night will shortly cover you with its wings, in which you will not have the power to work.  
Suppose every day a day in Harvest, suppose it a Market-day; suppose it a day, wherein you are to work in a golden Mine; suppose it a ring, which you are to engrave and ennammel with your actions, to be at night presented on God's Altar.  
Set before you the excellent consideration of S. Bernard, That your actions in passing, pass not away; for every good work is a grain of seed for eternal life. Say with the famous Painter Xeuxes, Aeternitati pingo, I paint for eternity.  
Fellow the counsel of Thomas Aquinas, Do every action in the name of Jesus Christ, desiring to have the approbation and good affections of all the Church, Militant and Triumphant. Do it as if the glory of God, the welfare of all the world, and your whole salvation depended on it, and as if that were to set the seal to all your works.  
Contrive over night the good works you are to do the next day; on what points you are to meditate, what sin you are to vanquish, what virtue you are to practice, what business you are to do: that with a well-digested foresight, you may give birth to every thing in its own time. This is Ariadne's clew, which guides our actions in the great labyrinth of Time, without which all would go to confusion.  
Be curious sometimes to know of what colour the dawning of the day is prevent the light (as the Wiseman adviseth) to praise God. Take heed of imitating that Epicurean swine, who boasted, that he had grown old, without seeing the Sun either rise or set. It is a good custom to rise betimes, but hardly persuaded to Ladies, and those Antipodes to Nature, who change the night into day, and the day into night. The famous Apollonius being very early at Vespasian's gate, and finding him stirring, from thence conjectured, that he was worthy to govern an Empire, and said to his companion, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, This man surely will be Emperor, he is so early.  
That unto which you are to dispose the day, may be divided into four parts. Devotion, Practise of Virtues, Business, and Recreation. Devotion should bear the light, and open the door to all our actions.  
As soon as you awake, make an account you are to give the first fruits of your reason, your sense, and faculties, to the Divine Majesty. Let the Memory immediately call to mind, that the works of God must be done. Let the Understanding cast an ejaculation upon its Creator, like a flash of lightning. Let the Will inflame itself with love of him. Let the Heart let fly the burning shafts of desires and celestial affections. Let the Mouth and Tongue labour to pronounce some vocal prayer to the most blessed Trinity. Let the Hands lift themselves up to Heaven. Let the Arms and Feet shake off the numbness of sleep, as S. Peter did his chains at the voice of the Angel. This were a beginning as it were of sacrificing ourselves too God. They used to pluck the hair off the beast, and cast it into the fire, before they sacrificed it; so should we take these little actions from our uprising, as the beginning of our sacrifice.   

The third SECTION. Five good actions to begin the day.  
THat Action, should be as a preparative to another more long and serious devotion, which you should perform in your Closet, as you come out of bed. If your attire be so curious, that it would require much time to dress you, it is a miserable slavery: Stay not till that be done, to give God your tribute; but cloth yourself indifferently, so much as is necessary for decency and health: Then on bended knees do five things, Adoration, Thanksgiving, Oblation, Contrition, and Petition.  
I will here show you the way to frame these actions, which you may read at times: and I will add examples and forms, taken partly out of Scripture, such as are fit to be repeated daily.   

The fourth SECTION. Of Adoration. The first Act of Devotion.  
YOu are to observe, that Praise is one thing, Honour another, Reverence another, Adoration another. Praise consists properly in words, Honour in outward signs, Reverence in inward respect, but Adoration (considered at large) comprehends all these acts with much eminence. For, Adoration is an act of Religion, whereby we do homage to the sovereignty of God with a lowly submission, which is not communicable to any creature.  
This act is form and composed of four things, which are as it were its four Elements. The first is a strong apprehension of the greatness and excellency of God. The second, a consideration of our own meanness, in comparison of that great Majesty. The third, a fervent act of the will, which at the thought hereof melts itself into respect. And the fourth, an outward expression both of the mouth and gestures of the body, testifying the resentment of our heart.  
To discharge herself in this act of Adoration, the soul first conceives▪ God, great, dreadful, majestic; she conceives him as a sea, infinite in essence, goodness, beatitude, comprehending within himself all Being, all Good, all Truth; and not only comprehending, but anticipating it to all eternity with an incomparable eminence.  
She beholds the whole universe, in the immensity of God, like a sponge in the midst of the Ocean, an atom in the air, and a little diamond set in the highest Heaven. She acknowledgeth God to be the Foundation of all things possible, the Super-essential being of all things that are, and that are not, without whom nothing can subsist, neither actually nor potentially, and that he hath no hold which the understanding may take, to have knowledge of him. She represents God to herself, as the beginning and end of all things, the Creator, the Founder, the Basis, the Support, the Place, the Continuation, the Bound, the Order, the Tie, the Concord, the Consummation of all creatures; who hath within himself all the good of Angels, of men, and universal Nature; who hath all glory, all dignities, all riches, all treasures, all pleasures, all comforts, all delights, all joys, all Beatitudes, as Lessius very well explains in his Treatise of infinity.  
This soul unsatisfied, walks leisurely into these fourteen depths of greatness, which are in God; that is, infinity, Immensity, immutability, Eternity, Omnipotence, Wisdom, Perfection, Holiness, Bounty, Dominion, Providence, Mercie, Justice, and the End to which all things tend.  
She considers every perfection, first absolutely, then by comparison and application, making return upon herself, and comparing this infinity of God with her nothing, this Immensity with her smallness, this immutability with her inconstancy, this Eternity with the shortness of this temporal life, this Omnipotence with her weakness, this Wisdom with her ignorance, this Perfection with her defects, this Holiness with her vice, this Bounty with her ingratitude, this Dominion with her poverty, this Providence with her stupidity, this Mercy with her obdurateness, this Justice with her iniquity, this End to which all things tend, with the necessary dependences which arise from her infirmities.  
Here she is ravished in God, as a little pismire in the Sun, and like Aristotle, who (as it is said) being not able to comprehend the ebb and flow of an arm of the Sea, threw himself into it: so she drowneth herself in such a multitude of wonders, not willing any longer to measure her love by the ell of her knowledge.  
She is transported in this great labyrinth of miracles, otherwise than the Queen of Sheba at sight of the Palace of Solomon: and cannot at the last but break forth into an outward act, and say: My God, and my All, the God of my heart, my portion and my inheritance to all Eternity!   

The fifth SECTION. Example of Adoration.  
IN pursuit hereof you shall worship God prostrate on the earth, sounding like a small string of that great Harp, the world: offering to the Creator the whole Universe, as a picture to hang up at his Altar, and resigning yourself totally to his will: The Hymn of the three children in the fiery furnace, suiteth very well with this Act; who call all creatures (as by a catalogue) to praise God: or else take that form, which the Angels and Saints use in adoring this Sovereign Majesty.  
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come; Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Thou hast made Heaven and earth, with all the ornaments thereof. Thou hast compassed the sea with bounds, by thy Almighty word. Thou hast shut up the deep, and sealed it by thy terrible and glorious Name. Thou makest the pillars of Heaven to tremble under thy feet. Thou strikest terror into all creatures, by the insupportable brightness of thy Majesty. Thou art in the Temple of thy holy glory; Thou beholdest the depths, and sittest upon the Cherubims; I adore thee my God, from the centre of my nothing, with all the creatures of the Universe; making an entire resignation of all that I am, into thy hands; and desiring now, and to all eternity, to depend on thy blessed will.   

The sixth SECTION. Of Thanksgiving. The second Act of Devotion.  
THis is an Act very necessary, considering the benefits that we receive continually from the hand of God: We should not be like the clouds which obscure the Sun that raised them; but let us rather imitate the Looking-glass, which returns the image so soon as the face is presented to it.  
We must not let slip any benefit proceeding from this sovereign hand, without representing to ourselves the lively image of it in our acknowledgement. And if the Ancient Hebrews (as Josephus relates) set marks and tokens, sometimes on their arms, sometimes at their gates, to publish to all the world the benefits that God hath conferred upon their families, is it not most fitting, that we endeavour to acknowledge in some manner the liberality of the Divine Majesty.  
This act consisteth in three things. First, in the Memory, which represents to the Understanding, the benefit received; and this Understanding considers the hand that gives them, and to whom, and how, and wherefore, and by what ways, and in what measure. Thereupon an affectionate acknowledgement is framed in the Will, which not able to continue idle, spreads itself into outward acts, to witness the fervour of its affection.  
To practise this well, it is requisite to make a catalogue of the benefits of God; which are contained in three kinds of goodness and mercy.  
The first is, that whereby he drew this great Universe, out of the Chaos and darkness of nothing, to the light of being and life, for our sakes creating a world of such greatness, beauty, profit, measure, order, vicissitude, continuance; and preserving it as it whereby the continual breathing of his spirit, affording to every thing its rank, form, propriety, appetite, inclination, situation, limits, and accomplishment. But above all, making man as a little miracle of Nature, with the adornments of so many pieces, so well set, to bear in his aspect the beams of his own Majesty.  
The second bounty is, that whereby he hath decreed to raise in man all that is natural, to a supernatural estate.  
The third, that whereby he hath raised the nature of man, being fallen into sin, into misery, into the shadow of death, to innocence, bliss, light, and eternal life.  
This is the incomprehensible mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, which comprehends six other benefits; that is, the benefit of the doctrine and wisdom of Heaven, conferred on us, the benefit of our Saviors good examples; the benefit of Redemption; the benefit of Adoption into the number of God's children; the benefit of the treasure of the merits of Jesus Christ; the benefit of the blessed Eucharist.  
Besides those benefits, which are in the generality of Christianity, we are to represent in all humility often to ourselves, the particular favours received from God, in our birth, nourishment, education, instruction; in gifts of soul and body; in means and conveniences; in friends, allies, kindred; in vocation, estate, and profession of life; in continued protection, in deliverance out of so many dangers, in vicissitude of adversities and prosperity, in guidance through the degrees of age; wherein every one in his own particular, may acknowledge infinite passages of the Divine Providence.  
All this pouring itself upon the soul, with consideration of the circumstances of each benefit, at last draws from the Will this act of acknowledgement, which maketh it to say with the Prophet David, Who am I? O Lord God, and what is my house, that thou hast brought me bitherto? 2 Sam, 7. 18.   

The seventh SECTION. A Pattern of Thanksgiving.  
HEreupon you shall give thanks for all benefits in general, and particularly for those you have received at present, which at that time you are to set before you, that may season this action with some new relish. The Church furnisheth us with an excellent form of Thanksgiving to God in the hymn Te Deum: or else say with the blessed spirits:  
O God, power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and blessing, be unto thee for ever and ever.  
O God, glory be to thee on high, and on earth peace, good will towards men: I bless thee, I worship thee, I give thanks to thee for thy great glory, and thy benefits, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty; and thou also O Lord Jesus Christ my Saviour, only Son of the Heavenly Father; perfect God and perfect man; Thou that takest away the sins of the world, and sittest at the right hand of God the Father; And thou, O Holy Gbost, consubstantial with the Father and the Son, most blessed Trinity, receive my prayers in giving thanks.   

The eighth SECTION. Of Offering or Oblation. The third Act of Devotion.  
REligion and Sacrifice had their beginning in the world's infancy, and ever since have been linked together by an indissoluble tie. God, who giveth all, will have us give to him, meaning we should take out of his store, that which our Nothing cannot afford. Observe here a thing remarkable. That as in the Law of Moses there were three kinds of Sacrifice, that is, Immolations, Libations, and Victims: Immolations, which were made of the fruits of the earth; Libations, of liquours, as oil and wine; Victims, of living creatures: so likewise God requires that we give him our actions for fruits, our affections for liquours, and our selves for victims. This is done by the act of Oblation or Offering, which is a way of sacrifice, by which we offer ourselves, and all that belongeth to us, at the Altar, of the Divine Majesty.  
To perform this act well we must have first, a pure apprehension of the power and dominion, which God hath over us: secondly, an intimate knowledge of our own dependence upon him; considering, that we not only have received being, and all things annexed to being, from his goodness; but that we are also sustained perpetually by his hand, as a stone in the air; and that if he should let go never so little, we should be dissolved into that Nothing, out of which we are extracted. From thence will arise an act of Justice in the will, ready to give to God that which is his: and as the Holocaust, (where the host was quite consumed in honour to the Divine Majesty) was heretofore the noblest of all Sacrifices; so will we imitate this excellent act of Religion, by consecrating not only our actions and affections, but all that we are, unto God; wishing to be dissolved and annihilated for his sake, if it might be for the glory of his Divine Majesty. But if this annihilation cannot be real, we must at the least form it to our mind, in an extraordinary manner, acquiring to ourselves (as much as is possible) twelve dis-engagements, wherein the perfection of the Holocaust consisteth.  
The first, is a divesting ourselves of all affection to temporal things, so that we no longer love any thing but for God, of God, and to God. The second, a dis-entangling from our own interest in all our actions. The third, an absolute mortifying of sensuality. The fourth, a separation from friendships sensual, tural, and acquired, that they have no longer hold on our heart, to the prejudice of virtue. The fifth, a banishing of worldly imaginations, in such a manner, that the mere representation of them, may beget aversion and horror in us. The sixth, a discharge from worldly cares not necessary to salvation. The seventh, a deliverance from bitterness of heart and discontents which ordinarily arise from excessive love to creatures. The eighth, a valiant flight from all kind of vanity of spirit. The ninth, a contempt of sensible consolations, when God would have us to be weaned from them. The tenth, a renouncing of scruples of mind, and of our own fantasies, to follow the counsel and will of those that are superior unto us. The eleventh, an insensibility of the troubles that happen in adversity. The twelfth, an entire mortification of judgement and will, that we follow all the inspirations of God, as true dials the Sun.  
He who hath proceeded therein thus far, maketh a true annihilation of himself, and an excellent oblation of all that he is: But if you cannot give the whole tree with such perfection, yet give at least the fruits; desiring in conclusion, to offer up all your faculties, senses, functions, words works, and all that you are; remembering that saying of S. Chrysostom, That it is the most wicked avarice, to defraud God of the oblation of ourselves. Offer to the Father your memory, to fill it as a choice vessel with profitable things; to the Son your understanding, to enlighten it with eternal truth; to the Holy Ghost your will, to enkindle it with his holy flame; Say particularly to the Incarnate Word, with the devout virgin Gertrude.   

The ninth SECTION. The manner of offering ourselves too God.  
O My sweet Saviour, illuminate my intentions with thy light, and support my weakness by thy mercy: I recommend the small service which I shall do this day, to the unspeakable sweetness of thy heart; and set it from hence forward before thine eyes, to direct, correct, and perfect it. I offer it, and all that I am to thee, with my whole affection, both for myself and all the faithful; and I offer it unto thee, in the union of that most perfect intention which thou hadst, when thou prayedst upon earth to thy Father in Heaven.   

The tenth SECTION. Of Contrition. The fourth Act of Devotion.  
THis is an Act exceeding necessary in so dangerous an estate, and so great frailty as we continually live in. Theodoret in his Questions upon the Scripture, saith, That there are three kinds of life, intimated by the three sorts of creatures mentioned in Abraham's sacrifice, Gen. 15. 9 There is a Natural life, represented by the fourfooted beasts; a Mourning life, figured in the Turtle; a pure and innocent life, signified by the young pigeon. Natural lives are very frequent in the world; Dovelike, very rare, but there is no Dove so pure, but always needs the mourning of the Turtle.  
This is the reason why we should not pray almost at no time, without stirring up some acts of Contrition. Every one knows, contrition is a detestation of sin, beyond all things most detestable, taking beginning from the love of God, and hope of his mercy, and aught always to be accompanied with a firm resolution of amendment. Its first foundation is the belief of a living God, of a God clear-sighted, of a God dreadful in all his judgements, from whence a servile fear of the pains due to sin is begot, even in the most stupid hearts. Thunder causeth Doves to fawn, and raiseth tempests and earthquakes in the soul. Then Hope ariseth above the horizon, scattering amorous beams, through the assured confidence we have to obtain pardon for our sins, by undergoing the yoke of Repentance. Then beginneth the love of God in the soul, to free and discharge itself of the interests of earth, that it may at last bring forth that heavenly grief, which is begot like pearls of the dew of heaven. Oh blessed a thousand-fold are they, that wash themselves with that snow water which holy Job mentioneth, Job 9 30. and cleanse themselves in the wholesome pool of repentance!  
Stir up acts of contrition often for all sins in general, and especially for those defects and imperfections, whereunto you are most subject, with a firm purpose to oppose them strongly, and by God's help, to root them out. Say to that end, as followeth;   

The eleventh SECTION. A form of Contrition.  
FAther, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son, having paid so great bounty with contempt, and so many benefits with ingratitude. I grieve not at the pains I suffer for my rebellion, but I grieve for having offended a God, who ought to be loved and honoured above all things. Where can I find punishment enough to be avenged on myself, and tears enough to wash away my offences? Father, from hence forward the face of sin shall be more hideous to me than hell: Make me as one of thy hired servants. My God, thou art our Father, and we are nothing, but earth and dust in comparison of Thee! Thou art our Maker, and we are all but clay in thy hands. My God, be not incensed against so weak, so wicked an object. My God, have not the sins of my life passed in remembrance.   

The twelfth SECTION. Of Petition or Request. The fifth Act of Devotion.  
A Certain great Emperor coming into Egypt, to show the zeal he had to the public good, said to the Egyptians, Draw from me as from your river Nilus; but what can be drawn from a man, but hopes, which swell like bubbles of water till they burst. It is from God that we must draw, for he is a fountain which perpetually distilleth, who quenching the thirst of all the world, hath himself but one, which is (saith Gregory Nazianzen) that all men should thirst his bounty.  
We must necessarily beg of God, seeing our necessities constrain us, and his bounty invites us, we must beg of him, according as he himself hath taught us in the Lord's Prayer, which is the sum of all Divinity; we must ask in his Son's name, and with confidence to obtain. We must pray for the Church, for the Pastors, for our King, for public necessities, for ourselves, for our neighbours: we must pray for spiritual and temporal blessings according to occasion, as far as is lawful. For which purpose it is good to have a collection of prayers for all occasions, like a little Fort, furnished with all pieces of battery, to force even heaven itself, with a religious fortitude, and a pious violence.  
Desire of God every morning at least, That you may not offend him; That you may not want Grace, Light, and Courage to resist those sins whereunto you are most inclined; That you may practise those virtues that are most necessary for you: That you may be guided and governed this day by God's providence, in all that concerns your soul, body, and outward things. That you may obtain new graces and assistance for the necessities of your neighbours, which you may then set before him. Say for yourself, and for all those that concern you, this form of prayer, used by Thomas Aquinas.   

The thirteenth SECTION. A Form of Petition.  
O God, give unto me, and to all those whom I commend in my prayers, an Understanding to know thee, an affectionate Devotion to seek thee; a Wisdom to find thee; a Conversation to please thee; a Perseverance boldly to wait on thee; a Faith happily to embrace thee. My God, so order it, that I may be wounded with thy sufferings in repentance, that in this life, I may use thy blessings in grace, and enjoy in the other, thy eternal joys in the bosom of Glory. So be it.   

The fourteenth SECTION. Of the time proper for spiritual reading.  
BElieve me, you shall do well at this time of the morning, when your mind is freest from earthly thoughts, to use some spiritual reading; sometimes of the precepts, sometimes of the lives of the Apostles and Saints, calling to mind that saying of Isidore in his Book of Sentences: He that will live in the exercise of God's presence, must pray and read frequently. When you pray, you speak to God; and when you read, God speaks to you; Good sermons and good books are the sinews of virtue.  
Observe you not how colours (as Philosophy teacheth) have a certain light, which in the night time is obscured and buried (as it were) in matter: But as soon as the Sun riseth, and di●playeth his beams on so many beauties that languished in darkness, he awakes them, and makes them appear in their true lustre? So may we (truly) say, that we have all some seeds of knowledge, which would be quite choked (as it were) with the vapours arising ●rom our passions, did not the wisdom of God (which speaketh in the holy Scripture, and in good spiritual books) stir them up, and give them light and vigour to inflame the course of our actions to virtue. Always before you take a book in hand, invoke the Father of light to direct your reading. Read little if you have but little leisure, but with attention; and make a pause at some sentence, which all that day may come into your memory. You will find, that good books teach nothing but truth, command nothing but virtue, and promise nothing but happiness.   

The fifteenth SECTION. An Abstract of the doctrine of Jesus Christ, to be used at the Communion.  
JOhn 14. 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh to the Father, but by me.  
Mark 1. 15. The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: Repent ye, and believe the Gospel.  
Matth. 11. 28. Come unto me all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;  
29. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  
30. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.  
Matth. 7. 12. All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the Law and the Prophets.  
John 15. 12. This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.  
13. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.  
14. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.  
Matth. 5. 44. Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.  
45. That you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven: For he maketh his Sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just, and on the unjust.  
Luke 5. 35. Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful.  
23. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and it shall be forgiven.  
30. Give, and it shall be given unto you.  
Luke 12. 15. Take heed and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.  
Matth. 7. 13. Enter ye in at the strait-gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.  
14. Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.  
Matth. 10. 38. He that taketh not his Cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.  
John 16. 33. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.  
Matth. 28. 20. Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.  
Matth. 26. 41. Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.  
Luke 12. 36. Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning.  
37. And ye yourselves like unto men, that wait for the Lord, when he will return from the wedding, that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.  
Luke 21. 34. Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life.  
John 5. 28. The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the grave, shall hear his voice,  
29. And shall come forth, they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.   

The sixteenth SECTION. What is to be done at the Celebration of the Sacrament.  
AT the Celebration of the Sacrament, you shall endeavour to stir up in yourself a great reverence of this incomparable Majesty, who cometh to fill the Sacrifice with his presence, and say:  
O God, dispose me to offer unto Thee the merits of the life and passion of thy wellbeloved Son. At this present I offer up to thee, in the union thereof, my understanding, my will, my memory, my thoughts, my words, my works, my sufferings, and consolations, my good, my life, all that I have, and all that I can ever pretend unto.  
Afterwards, at the Preface when the Priest inviteth all to lift up their hearts to God, or when the Angelical Hymn, called by the Ancients Trisagion, is pronounced, may be said as followeth, being taken out of the Liturgies of S. James and S. Chrysostom.  
TO thee the Creator of all things visible and invisible: To thee the Treasure of eternal blessings: To thee the Fountain of life and immortality. To thee the absolute Lord of the whole world, be given, as is due, all praise, honour, and worship. Let the Sun, Moon, and Quires of Stars; the Air, Earth, Sea, and all that is in the Celestial Elementary world, bless thee. Let thy Jerusalem, thy Church, from the firstborn thereof already enroled in Heaven, glorify thee. Let the elect souls of Apostles, Martyrs, and Prophets; Let Angels, Arch-Angels, Thrones, Dominations, Principalities, Powers, and Virutes. Let the dreadful Cherubims and Seraphins perpetually sing the Hymn of thy triumphs.  
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, Heaven and Earth are full of thy glory; Save us, O thou that dwellest in Heaven, the palace of thy Majesty.  
O Lord Jesus, thou art the everlasting Son of the Father. When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou clothedst thyself with flesh in the Virgin's womb. When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open unto us the Kingdom of Heaven. Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father, and shalt judge both the quick and the dead. O Lord, help thy servants, whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.  
As soon as you have received the Sacrament, say this prayer of S. Bernard in his Meditations upon the Passion.  
O Heavenly Father, look down from thy Sanctuary; from the Throne of thy glory, upon the blessed sacrifice, which our High Priest Jesus, thy most innocent and sacred Son, doth offer unto thee for the sins of his Brethren. Pardon the multitude of our offences, and have compassion upon our miseries. Harken to the voice of the blood of that immaculate Lamb, which crieth out to thee, and he himself standeth before thee at the right hand of thy Majesty, crowned with honour and glory. Behold, O Lord, the face of thy Messiah, who hath been obedient to thee, even unto death; and put not his blessed wounds out of thy sight, nor the satisfaction he made for our sins, out of thy remembrance. O let every tongue praise and bless thee in commemoration of thy infinite goodness, who didst deliver thy only Son over to death upon Earth, to make him our most prevalent Advocate in Heaven.  
For Petition. Immediately after you have recited the Lords Prayer, say these words of the aforesaid Liturgy.  
O God, be mindful of all Pastors and faithful people, dwelling in all parts of the habitable world, in the union of the Catholic Faith, and preserve them in thy holy peace.  
O God, bless our most gracious King; and his whole Kingdom; hear the prayers which we offer up at thy Altar.  
O God, remember all those that travel by sea or land, and are exposed to so many dreadful dangers. Remember the many poor prisoners and exiles, who groan under the miseries of the world.  
O God, remember the sick, and all such as are in any discomfort of mind: Remember the many poor souls oppressed with bitterness, who implore thy succour. Remember also the conversion of so many Heretics, Infidels, and sinners, whom thou hast created after thine own image.  
O God, remember our Friends and Benefactors: Accept this sacrifice for us sinners, and let us all feel the effects of thy Mercy; drive away scandal, war, and heresy; and grant us thy peace and love.  
And at the end of the Communion;  
O God, pour down thy graces upon us; direct our steps in thy ways, strengthen us in thy fear, confirm us in thy love, and give us at last the inheritance of thy children.  
It is very expedient also to have our devotions ordered for every day of the week.   

The seventeenth SECTION. Devotion ordered for the days of the Week.  
WE may derive an excellent practice of Devotion for every day of the Week, from the Hymn of S. Ambrose, used by the Church. For therein we learn to give God thanks for every work of the Creation, and to make the greater world correspond with the lesser.  
Sunday, which is the day wherein the light was created, we should render thanks to God for having produced this temporal light, which is the smile of Heaven, and joy of the world, spreading it like cloth of gold, over the face of the air and earth, and lighting it as a torch, by which we might behold his works, Then penetrating further, we will give him thanks for having afforded us his Son, called by the Fathers, The Day-bringer, to communicate unto us the great light of faith, which is (as saith S. Bernard) a Copy of Eternity; we will humbly beseech him, that this light may never be eclipsed in our understandings, but may replenish us every day more and more, with the knowledge of his blessed will. And for this purpose, we must hear the word of God, and be present at Divine Service, with all fervour and purity. Take great heed that you slain not this day (which God hath set apart for himself) with any disorder, nor give the first fruits of the week to Dagon, which you should offer up at the feet of the Ark of the Covenant.  
Monday, which is the day wherein the Firmament was created, to separate the celestial waters from the inferior and terrestrial; we will represent unto our selves, that God hath given us Reason, as a Firmament to separate divine cogitations from animal; and we will pray unto him, to mortify anger and concupiscence in us, and to grant us absolute sway over all passions, which resist the eternal Law.  
Thesday, the day wherein the waters (which before covered the whole element of Earth) were ranked in their place, and the earth appeared, to become the dwelling, nurse, and grave of man; we will figure unto ourselves the great work of the justification of the world, done by the Incarnate Word, who took away a great heap of obstac●es (as well of ignorance as of sin) that covered the face of the whole world, and made a Church, which like a holy Land, appears laden with fruit and beauties, to raise us up in Faith, and to bury us in the hope of the Resurrection, We will beseech him, to take away all hindrances to our soul; (so many ignorances', sins, imperfections, fears, sorrows, cares, which detain it as in an abyss,) and to replenish us with the fruits of justice.  
Wednesday, wherein the Sun, Moon, and Stars were created; we will propose unto ourselves for object, the Beauty and Excellency of the Church of God, adorned with the presence of the Saviour of the world as with a Sun, and with so many Saints, as with Stars of the Firmament; and we will humbly beseech God to embellish our soul with light and virtue, suitable to its condition: Especially, to give us the six qualities of the Sun, Greatness, Beauty, Measure, Fervour, Readiness, and Fruitfulness. Greatness, in the elevation of our mind, above all created things, and in a capacity of heart, which can never be filled with any thing, but God: Beauty, in gifts of grace; Measure, to limit our passions; Fervour, in the exercise of charity; Readiness, in the obedience we owe to his Law: Fruitfulness, in bringing forth good works.  
Toursday, the day wherein God (as S. Ambrose saith) drew the birds and fishes out of the waters, the birds to fly in the air, and the fishes to dwell in this lower Element. We will imagine the great separation which shall be made at the day of God's judgement; when so vast a number of men, extracted from one and the same mass, some shall be raised on high to people Heaven, and enjoy the sight of God; others shall be made a prey to hell and everlasting torments. And in this great abyss and horror of thought, we will beseech God to hold us in the number of his elect, and to be pleased to mark out our predestination, in our good and commendable actions.  
Friday, wherein the other creatures were brought forth, and man created, who was then appointed to them for a King and Governor, we will set before us the greatness, excellency, and beauty of this Man, in the Talents which God hath given him, as well of grace, as of nature. How much it cost to make him, the hands of the Creator being employed in his production: Hands (saith S. Basil) which were to him as a womb; but how much more it cost to make him anew, drawing forth so much labour, sweat, and blood from the Son of God, who annihilated himself for him, cherishing and fostering him (saith Thomas Aquinas in his Treatise of Beatitude) in such sort, that one not well instructed by Faith, would say, Man were the God of God himself: Hereupon we will beg, that we may not frustrate the merit of the life of God, given to eternize ours, and we will practise some kind of mortification, to bear God in our flesh, (as saith S. Paul) & to conform ourselves to the sufferings of the King of the afflicted.  
Saturday, which is the day wherein God rested from the Creation of the world, we will meditate upon the rest the blessed enjoy in Heaven. There, is no more poverty, no sickness, no grief, no care, no calumny, no persecution, no heat, no cold, no night, no alteration, no confusion, no noise. The body resteth five or six foot under ground, freed from the relapsing employments of a frail and dying life. It is in the grave, as in an impregnable fortress, where it no longer fears debts, sergeants, prisons, nor fetters. And the soul, when it is glorified, leadeth the life of God himself; a vital life, an amiable life, an inexhaustible life, for which we must sigh and labour, and beg it often of God, with the tears of our eyes, and the groans of our heart, as saith S. dugustine.  
It is requisite, the same day to make a review of the whole week, to examine the state of your soul, your passions, affections, intentions, aims, proceed, and progressions.  
And especially at the month's end, to consider diligently what God would have of us, what we of him, and what course we take to please both him and ourselves: what desire we have of perfection, what obstacles, what defects, what resistance, what means; and to manage all our endeavours under the protection of our great Captain Jesus Christ.   

The eighteenth SECTION.  

Devotion for the hours of the day.  
THe Church likewise assigneth us a practice of Devotion for every hour of the day, if we will apply it right. For as if she meant of a Christian champion, to make a true Bird of the Sun, which saluteth that bright Star almost every hour, seeming to applaud by its songs, and the clapping of its wings; so she requireth, that in imitation thereof, we lose not God out of sight all the day long, but keep perpetual centinel, to worship and pray to him.   

At the break of day.  
(Not to say any thing of our nightly exercise) The Church inviteth us, in the Hymn of S. Ambrose, to ask five things: the protection of God for all that day, peace, government of the sense, guard of the heart, and Mortification of the flesh.   

At the third  
Hour, from the rising of the Sun; the hour wherein the Holy Ghost descended in the likeness of fiery tongues upon the Apostles; we pray to the Holy Ghost so to replenish our understandings, our wills, our senses, our hearts, our tongues, our mouths, with vigour and flame, that we may by our good example enkindle our neighbours.   

At the sixth,  
Which is noon; we look up to our Son of Justice, to entreat of him four things; that is alienation from the heat of concupiscence, mortification of anger, health of body, and peace of mind.   

At the ninth,  
Which is about three a clock; when the Sun is now declining towards the west, we cast our eye upon our great Star, and desire him, (as he is the  Centre, about which the whole world is turned; and holdeth the beginning and continuance of light, in his hand:) first, to grant us a happy evening: secondly, a constancy in virtue: thirdly, a good end.   

At evening.  
When darkness draweth near, we beseech the Divine Majesty to gather unto him our hearts, oppressed with sin, and distracted by so great diversity of actions; to cleanse them, and to direct them in the way of Eternity; that when we shall be deprived of this temporal light, we may make a sweet retreat into the bosom of God, who is the fountain of Intellectual light; and that having finished our life, as we have ended this present day, we may receive the prize of Beatitude.   

At going to bed.  
Now that darkness covereth the face of the earth, we will shelter ourselves (like little birds) under God's wing beseeching him to keep us (according to his accustomed goodness) in his protection; to drive away evil dreams, and the illusions of night from our sleep; hindering the crafty surprisals of our adversary, who goeth up and down like a roaring Lion, besetting the sheep-fold.  
These devotions are grave, authentic, and sufficient, throughly to instruct a soul that will practise them.    

The nineteenth SECTION. Of Confession, a very necessary Act of Devotion; and advice thereupon.  
I Place Confession and Communion, amongst the weekly devotions, because for such as desire to lead a pure life, there is no excess, if at the week's end, they acquit themselves of this duty. And although I have lately spoken enough, according to my scope, of the practice of these exercises, in Treatises upon this subject; and that to write more concerning them after so many books, were but to bring a drop of water to the river; yet am I obliged by the necessity of my design, to tell you in few words, that to make your Confession good, it ought to have the properties of a looking-glass. Solidity, lively representation, and clearness.  
Solidity; 1. In going to it with much consideration of your own misery, sins and imperfections.  
2. Much reverence towards the Majesty of God.  
3. A reasonable examination of your conscience.  
4. A dislike of your offences, more for God's sake, than out of any other consideration.  
Lively representation; 1. In avoiding confessions made by rote, which have always one and the same tune: or such as are over dry, and not sufficiently explained; or such as are too historical, and full of superfluity.  
2. In representing perspicuously the State of your soul, and succinctly discovering how you have behaved yourself.  
Fiist, in those acts of devotion, which concern more particularly the Divine Service; accusing yourself of impure intentions, negligences irreverences; voluntary distractions, contempt of holy things, coldness in Faith and evil thoughts.  
Secondly, towards yourself; in the direction both of your interior and exterior, namely, in sins of vanity, pride, sensuality, intemperance curiosity, impurity, idleness pusillanimity, anger, envy, jealousy, quarrels aversion, impatience, murmuring, lies, detraction, injuries, swearing, breach of promise, impertinent and idle discourse, flattery, scoffing, and mockery.  
Thirdly, towards your neighbours, as well supeperiours and equals, as inferiors; unfolding the defects that may have happened in the duties, which Charity or Justice oblige you to render to every one according to his degree.  
Here examine every word, and you shall find matter for accusation.  
Clearness of Confession, consisteth in explaining yourselves in simple, honest, and significant terms.  
S. Bernard, in his book of the Interiour house, (which is the Conscience) hath composed a brief form of Confession, making the penitent say thus:  
Father, I accuse myself, That I have been disquieted with anger, exasperated with envy, puffed up with pride, and have thereupon fallen into an inconstancy of mind, scoffings, slanders, and excesses of speech.  
I accuse myself, That I have been more ready to judge my superiors, than to obey them: That being reprehended for my faults, I have murmured, and shown myself refractory in matters of duty.  
I accuse myself, That I have preferred myself before my betters; vaunting and boasting with much vanity and presumption, of all that belonged to me, and despising others with mockery and derision.  
I accuse myself, That I have neglected the duty of my own charge, and ambitiously aimed at others.  
I have neither had respect to obedience, nor modesty in my words, nor government in my carriage; but much self-opinion in my intentions, hardness in my heart, and vainglory in my words.  
I accuse myself, That I have been a Hypocrite, stiff in hatred and aversion from my neighbour, biting in speech; impatient of subjection, ambitious of honour, covetous of wealth, slothful in works of Charity and Devotion, in conversation unsociable, and many times uncivil.  
I accuse myself, That I have been ready to speak of the actions of others, rash in censuring, contentious in arguing, disdainful in hearing, presumptuous in informing others, dissolute in laughter, excessive in pleasures of taste, and in gaming, costly in apparel, burdensome to my friends, troublesome to the peaceful, ungrateful to those who have done me any good, harsh and imperious to such as were under my charge.  
I have boasted to have done that which I did not, to have seen what I saw not, to have said what I said not, and on the contrary, have dissembled and denied to have seen what I have seen, to have said what I did say, and to have done what I did do.  
I accuse myself of carnal thoughts, impure rememberances, dishonest motions, which I have not soon enough resisted.  
They who live more dissolutely, shall find (as Hamartolus, a Greek Author saith) that they have great accounts to cast up, at the audit of concupiscence: wherefore they may examine themselves concerning kiss, touchings, softness, pollutions, fornications, adulteries, abuse of marriage, and other sins called monstrous; adding also, impieties, sorceries, divinations, false oaths, perjuries, blasphemies, calumnies, contentions, disobediences, injustices, oppressions, falsehoods, thefts, usuries, sacrileges, and the like.  
You must not think that there can be made a Form of Confession like a boot, fit for all legs; consciences are as faces, every one hath its diversity: what Saint Bernard hath said in general, may serve for a direction; yet must it be particularised with the circumstances, expressing the intention, quality, manner, and continuance of the vice.   

The twentieth SECTION. An excellent Prayer of S. Augustine, for this exercise, taken out of a Manuscript of Cardinal Seripandus.  
O God, behold the stains and wounds of my sin, which I never can, nor will bide from the eyes of thy Majesty: I feel the smart of them already, in remorse of my conscience, and other sufferings ordained by thy providence for my correction; but all that I suffer, cannot equal my demerit. I only wonder, that feeling the pain of sin so often, I still retain the malice and obstinacy of it. My weakness boweth under the burden; yet my iniquity remaineth . My life groaneth in languishments, yet is not reform in its works. If thou defer the punishment, I defer my amendment; and if thou chastise me, I can no longer endure. Whilst thou correctest, I confess my offence, but after thy visitation I remember my sorrows no more. As long as thou hast the rod in hand to scourge me, I promise all; But if thou withdraw it, I perform nothing. If thou touch me, I cry out for mercy: and if thou pardon, I again provoke thee to strike: O Lord God, I confess my miseries, and implore thy clemency, without which there is no salvation for me. O God, give me what I ask of thee, though without any merit of mine, since without any merit of mine, thou hast taken me out of nothing, to ask it of thee.   

The one and twentieth SECTION. Of Communion, the chiefest of all acts of Devotion; with a brief Advice concerning the practice of it.  
AS for Receiving, remember the six leaves of the Lily, which it ought to have; I mean desire and purity, before you present yourself at it; Humility and Charity, in presenting yourself; thanksgiving and newness of spirit after you have presented yourself. And if you desire to know the qualities, whereby you may discern a lukewarm Communion from a fervent, I say, that a good Communion ought to be light some, savoury, nourishing, & effectual. Lightsome, in illuminating you ever more and more with the light and truth of faith, which begets in you an esteem of divine things, and a contempt of the worldly, fading, and temporal. Savoury, in making you to relish in will and sense, what you know by the light of understanding. Yet if you have not this last, in a tender and sensible devotion, be not discomforted at it; for sensible devotion will often happen to those that have least charity; as Richardus observes upon the Canticles: Affectuosa dilectio interdum officit minùs diligentem. It is sufficient that you have good habits of virtue in the upper region of your soul. Nourishing, in keeping yourself in a good spiritual estate, in good resentments of Heavenly things, in good affections towards the service of God, free from dryness, leanness, and voluntary barrenhess. Effectual, in applying yourself immediately to the exercise of solid virtues, humility, patience, charity, and the works of mercy; for that is the most undoubted mark of a good Communion.  
It is good to present yourself with sincere intentions, pondered and fitted to occurrences; communicating (as Bonaventure observes) sometimes for remission of sins, sometimes for remedy of infirmities, sometimes for deliverance out of some affliction, sometimes to obtain a benefit, sometimes for thanksgiving; sometimes also for the help of our neighbour: And lastly, to offer up a perfect praise to the most blessed Trinity, to commemorate the passion of Jesus Christ, and to grow daily in love toward him. To this end, before you communicate, you may say this Prayer of Thomas Aquinas:  
O Most sweet Jesus, My Lord and Master, O that the force of thy love, subtler than fire, and sweeter than honey, would engulf my soul in an Abyss, drawing it from all inordinate affections to things heneath Heaven; that I might die with love of thee, since out of love thou didst vouchsafe to die on the Cross for me!  
And after Communion, make these Petitions of S. Augustine.  
O God, let me know thee; and let me also know myself; Let the end of my desires be ever where thou art: O god, let me hear no hatred, but to myself; nor love, but to thee: and be thou the beginning, progress, and the end of all my actions. O God, let me humble myself even to the deep, and exalt thee above the heavens; having my mind employed only in thy praise. O God, let me die in myself, and live in thy heart; and let me receive all that comes from thy providence, as gifts from Heaven. O God, let me persecute myself as an enemy, and follow thee as an only friend. O God, let me have no assurance, but the fear of thy holy Name, nor confidence, but the diffidence of myself. O God, when will the day come, when thou shalt take away the evil of the Temple, that I may behold thee face to face, to enjoy thee eternally?    

THE SECOND PART of the CHRISTIAN DIARY.  

The first SECTION. Twelve fundamental Considerations of Virtue.  
YOu must firmly believe, that the chiefest Devotion consisteth in practice of virtues, without which, there is neither solid piety, nor hope of salvation.  
Paradise holds none but blessed souls, and hell the wretched; but the world, wherein we live, hath many kinds of merchants; some traffic with Babylon, others with Zion; some, through their ill trading and disorderly carriage, go on insensibly to the last misery, which is a banishment from the life of God, into an eternity of punishment: Others, go on in a straight line, to the first and sovereign happiness, which is the vision, fruition, and possession of God, in an eternity of inexplicable joys. If you desire to take this latter course, I would advise you, to set often before you these twelve Considerations, (which I have inserted in my Book of the Holy Court) for in my opinion they are twelve great motives to all actions of virtue.  
The first, is the nature and dignity of man, that is to say, the first and continual study of man ought to be man himself; to behold what he was, what he is, and what he shall be. What he was, nothing; what he is, a reasonable creature; what he shall be, a guest either of Paradise, or of hell, of eternal happiness, or of everlasting misery. What he is by Nature; a Masterpiece, in which there are a thousand several motions; a Body framed with admirable Architecture; a Soul endowed with Understanding, Reason, Wit, Judgement, Will, Memory, Imagination, and Opinion: a Soul, which in an instant flieth from one Pole to the other; descends to the centre, and mounts up to the top of the world; which in one instant is in a thousand several places; which fathoms the Universe, without touching it; which goes, glisters, sparkles, which ransacks all the treasures and magazines of Nature, which finds out all sorts of inventions, which frameth Arts, which governeth States, which ordereth worlds. This soul in the mean time seethe her passions about her, like an infinite company of dogs, barking at her happiness, and offering on every side to seize upon her with their teeth.  
Love fools her, Ambition racks her, Covetousness rusts her, Lust inflames her, Hope tickles her, Pleasure melts her, Despair depresses her, Anger burns her, Hatred sowers her, Envy gnaws her, Jealousies prick her, Revenge exasperates her, Cruelty hardens her, Fears frieze her, and Sorrow consumes her.  
This poor soul (shut up in the body, like a bird of Paradise in a cage) is quite amazed to see herself assailed by all this mutinous multitude: and although she holds in her hand the sceptre of government, yet she often suffers herself to be deceived, ravished, and dragged into a miserable slavery.  
Consider also what man is by sin, vanity, weakness, inconstancy, misery, and curse. What he is made by Grace; a child of light, an earthly Angel, son by adoption to the heavenly Father, brother and coheir with Jesus Christ, a vessel of election, the temple of the Holy Ghost. What he may be by Glory; an inhabitant of Heaven, beholding then those stars under his feet, which are now over his head; feasted with the sight of God, his beginning, his end, his true, only, and original happiness.  
The second, the benefits received from God, considered in general as those of Creation, Conversation, Redemption, Vocation; and in particular, the gifts of the body, of the soul, of nature, of capacity, ability, industry, discretion, nobility, offices, authority, means, credit, reputation, good success in business, and the like; which are given us from Heaven as instruments to work out our salvation. And sometimes one of the greatest benefits, is that which few account a benefit, to have none of all those helps which lead a presumptuous, weak, and worldly soul to ruin; but on the contrary, their better wants in the esteem of the world, beget in him an esteem of heavenly things; Man (seeing what he was, what he is, and what he must be, whence he cometh, whither he goeth, and that union with God, his beginning, is his scope, mark, and aim;) if he follow the dictates of his reason, presently resolveth, that no sinew nor vein he hath, but shall tend to this end, to subdue his passions, and to serve creatures no further than he knows them available to attain to the Creator. Serva commissum, expecta promissum, cave prohibitum. Every creature saith these three things to man: O man, preserve that which is committed to thee, expect that which is promised thee, and eschew that which is forbidden thee.  
The third consideration, is the Passion of the Son of God; an Abyss of grief, reproaches, annihilations, love, mercy, wisdom, humility, patience, charity; the book of books, the science of sciences, the secret of secrets; the shop where all good resolutions are forged, where all virtues are refined, where all knots of holy obligations are tied; the school of all Martyrs, Confessors, and Saints. Our weakness and saintness proceeds only from want of contemplating this infinite tablet. Who would once open his mouth to complain of doing too much, of suffering too much, of being thrown too low, too much despised, too much disquieted, if he considered the life of God delivered over, and resigned for his sake to so painful labour, so horrible confusions, so insupportable torments? Nolo vivere sine vulnere, cùmte video vulneratum: Oh my God as long as I see thy wounds, I will never live without wound; saith Bonaventure.  
The fourth: the examples of all the Saints who have followed the King in the high way of the Cross. When we look upon the progress of Christianity, and the succession of so many Ages, wheresoever our consideration setteth foot, it finds nothing but blood of Martyrs, combats of Virgins, Prayers, Tears, Fast, Sackcloth, Haircloth, Afflictions, Persecutions of so many Saints, who have taken Heaven, as it were, by violence: Some there have been, who having filled graves with their limbs (torn off with engines and swords of persecution) yet remained alive to endure and suffer in their bodies, which had more wounds than parts: Demorabantur in luce detenti, quorum membris pleni erant tumuli, saith Zeno. Is it not a shame to have the same name, the same Baptism, the same Profession, and to desire ever to tread on Roses; to be embarked in this great ship of Christianity, with so many brave spirits, and to go under hatches, to sleep, like the outcasts and scorns of humane Nature?  
The fifth: the peace of a good conscience, the inseparable companion of honest men; which sugereth all their tears, which sweeteneth all their sharpness, which melteth all their bitterness; a continual feast, a portable theatre, a delicious torrent of unspeakable content, which beginneth in this world, and is often felt in this life, even in chains, prisons, persecutions; what then will it be, when consummated in the other life? when the curtain of the great Tabernacle shall be withdrawn; when we shall see God face to face; in a body impossible as an Angel, subtle as a beam of light, swift as the wings of thunder, bright as the Sun; and when we shall dwell among so goodly and flourishing a company, in a palace of inestimable glory; where we shall enjoy no life but the life of God, the knowledge of God, the love of God, as long as God shall be God. Nescio quid erit, quod ista vita non erit, ubi lucet quod non capiat locus, ubi sonat quod non rapit tempus, ubi olet quod non spargit flatus, ubi sapit quod non minuit edacitas, ubi haeret quod non divellit aeternitas, said S. Augustine. What will that life be, or rather, what will not that life be? Since all good, either is not at all, or is in such a life: Light, which place cannot comprehend: Voices and music, which time cannot ravish away: Odours, which are never dissipated: a Feast, which is never consumed: a Blessing, which Eternity bestoweth, but Eternity shall never see at an end.  
The sixth, is on the other side to consider the state of this present life: A true dream, which hath only the disturbances, but never the rest of sleep; a childish sport, a toil of burdensome and ever-relapsing actions; where for one rose we meet with a thousand thorns; for an ounce of honey a tun of gall, for apparent good, real evil: The happiest here may number their years, but not their cares; The paths here to the highest honours, are all of ice, and often bordered only by precipices. Its felicities are floating Islands, which always retire, when we but offer to touch them; they are the feast of Heliogabalus, where are many invitations, many ceremonies, many compliments, many services, and at the end of all this, we find a table & banquet of wax, which melts at the fire, whence we return more hungry than we came. It is the enchanted egg of Oromazes, in which that Impostor boasted, that he had enclosed all the happiness of the world: but broken, there was found nothing but wind. Omnia haec conspectui nostro insidiosis coloribus lenocinantur: vis illa occulorum attributa lumini, non applicetur errori, saith Eucherius. All these prosperities flatter our senses with an imposture of false colours: why do we suffer those eyes to be taken in the snares of errors, which are given us by Heaven to behold the light, and not to minister unto lying? Besides, another thing which should put us into an infinite dislike of this present life, is, that we live in a time as full of diseases as old age of indispositions; we live in a world extremely corrupt, of which may be said, it is a monster, whose understanding, is a pit of darkness; his reason, a shop of malice, his will, a hell, where thousands of passions outrageously infest him; his eyes are two Conduit-pipes of fire, out of which fly sparkles of concupiscence; his tongue, an instrument of cursing; his face, a painted hypocrisy; his body, a sponge full of filth; his hands, harpies talons; and to conclude, he owns no faith, but infidelity; no Lord, but his passion; no God, but his belly; what content can there be in living with such a monster?  
The seventh: If there are any pleasures in this life, they do nothing but overflow the heart slightly with a little superficial delectation. Sadness dives into the bottom of my soul, and when it is there, you would think it hath leaden feet, never to go thence; but pleasure doth only tickle us in the outside of the skin, and then all those sweet waters run down with haste, to discharge themselves into the sea of bitterness. For this reason, Saint Augustine said, when any prosperity presented itself before his eyes, he durst not touch it; he beheld pleasure as a wandering bird, that would deceive him and fly away as soon as he should offer to lay hold of it.  
The eighth: Pleasures are begot in the sense, and like abortives die in their birth: their desires are full of disquiet; their access, of violent, forced and turbulent commotions; their satiety is seasoned with shame and repentance; they pass away as soon as they have wearied out the body, and leave it like a bunch of grapes, whose juice hath been pressed out as saith Saint Bernard. They stretch themselves out at full length, to much purpose, when they must end with this life; and it is a great chance, if even during life, they prove not executioner to him that entertains them. I see no greater pleasure in this world, than the contempt of pleasure: Nulla major voluptas, q●àm voluptatis fastidium, saith Tertullian.  
The ninth: He that consumeth his time in pleasures, when they slide away (like waters occasioned by a storm) findeth himself destitute and ashamed, like a Pilgrim despoiled by a Thief; so many golden harvests, which time presented to him, are passed away, and the rust of a heavy age furnished him with nothing, but sorrow for having done ill, and impotence to do well; what then remains, but to say with that miserable King, who gave away his sceptre for a glass of water, Alas! Must I for so short a pleasure, lose so great a Kingdom?  
The tenth: Sin always carrieth sorrow behind it, but not always true repentance: It is an extraordinary favour from God, to have time to bewail the offences of our life past, and to take that time by the foretop. Many are sent into the other world without once thinking of their departure; and some think of it at their death with many tears, but not one good act of repentance: they weep for the sins which forsake them, and not for God whom they have lost. True contrition is a hard work, how can he obtain it who hath ever falsified it? Faciliùs inveni, qui innocentiam servarent, quàm qui congruè poenitentiam agerent, saith S. Ambrose.  
The eleventh: Death all this while is coming on a great pace, he waits for you at all hours, in all places, and yet you cannot wait for him so much as one minute, so displeasing is this thought unto you; his sentence is more clear and perspicuous, than if it were written with the Sun's beams, and yet cannot we read it; his trumpet soundeth perpetually, more audibly than thunder, and yet we hear it not. No wonder, that David, Psal. 49. 4. calleth it (according to the Hebrew) a Riddle, every one beholds the Tablet, but few know the meaning: yet it is a granted truth, that we must bid a long farewell to all such things of life, as can extend no further than life itself; a granted truth, that we must inherit serpents and worms in a house of darkness: How excellent a lesson might be learned from hence! to know it once well, we must study it every day: Every where we see watches and clocks, some of gold, some of silver, others beset with precious stones; they give us notice of all hours except that which must be our last; and since they cannot strike that hour, we must make it sound in our conscience: The very instant that you are reading this, a thousand and perhaps a thousand souls, loosed from their bodies, are presented before God's tribunal; what would you do, if you were now to bear them company? Omnia ista contemnito quibus solutus corpore non indigebis, said Diodore: In a word, despise timely, whilst you are in the body, those things whereof you shall have no need, when you are out of the body.  
The twelfth: your soul shall go forth, and of all her followers in life, shall only be attended by good and evil: If she be surprised in sin, hell shall be her share; hell, the great lake of God's wrath; hell, the common shore of all the filth of the world; hell, the store-house of eternal fire; hell, a bottomless depth, where there is no evil but must be expected, nor good that can be hoped.  
These twelve considerations are very fit to be meditated upon monthly, at leisure.   

The second SECTION. Seven paths of Eternity, which lead the soul to great Virtues.  
THese twelve Considerations well weighed, make us take a serious resolution to proceed directly to good, whereof, if you desire further demonstration, Bonaventure points us out seven fair paths, and seven great gates, which lead us in a straight line to this blessed eternity: and I wish we had as much courage to follow them, as he grace to unfold them.  
First, seeing the beginning of your virtue and felicity consisteth in the knowledge of God, and in the state of the next life, (of which we cannot, without some crime, be ignorant, and which we can never know, but with profit,) you must understand, that the first gate of eternity, is, To have good and sincere intentions in the performance of eternal things: To take a strong resolution to work out your salvation at what rate soever: To account all temporal things as wandering birds, which look upon us from a bough of some tree, make us a little chirping music, and then fly away: To think, that to bear a vicious mind in a fair ornament of fortune, is to keep a leaden blade in an ivory sheath: To banish evil, hypocritical, impure, and mercenary intentions throughout all the course of your life, and exercise of your charge: to go towards God: To do for God: To aim at the honour and glory of God above all things.  
You are no little way on your journey, when you have gone this path. Thence you come to the second, which is, the Meditation of eternal things; wherein the Kingly Prophet exercised himself, like a stout Champion, when he said: I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times, Psal. 77. 5. This good intention which you take to advance to Eternity, will imprint daily in your thoughts an eternal God, an eternal Paradise, an everlasting hell, an everlasting life: and as jacobs' flocks, by looking upon the streaked rods, brought forth ring-streaked and spotted , so all you do, in contemplating this eternity, will be coloured with eternity: And if any temporal pleasure, or opportunity to commit a sin, were offered, you would say as Demosthenes the Orator, did of the beautiful Lais, when he was asked an excessive sum of money to behold her, I will not buy repentance so dear; I am not so ill a Merchant, as to sell the eternal for the temporal.  
Having passed through this gate, you will come to the third, which is the gate of Light, called Contemplation of Eternal things: Here is it that we see the divine things, not only by form of argument and discourse, as if we cast up some account, but with the light of our illuminated understanding, as if we should behold with a glance of the eye, an excellent piece of some eminent Master, almost with an ecstasy of admiration. So Tiburtius saw Paradise, when he walked upon burning coals: so all the Saints beheld Beatitude, when amidst so many afflictions they remained , drowning the pain of their bodies, in the overflowing content of the minds.  
From this step we necessarily light upon the fourth gate, which is, most servant love of Eternal things; for as (saith Thomas Aquinas very well) the sight of temporal beauty begetteth temporal love, oftentimes filling the soul with fire and flame; so the contemplation of eternity, begetteth eternal love, which is an ardent affection towards God, and all that appertaineth to his glory; as was that of S. Mary Magdalen, who saith in Origen, That Heaven and the Angels are a burden to her, and that she could live no longer, except ●he beheld him who made both Heaven and the Angels: she had crossed seas armed with monsters and tempests, without any sails, but those of her desires, to reach her Beloved: She had passed through flames, and grappled a thousand times with lances and swords, to cast herself at his feet. The perfect love of God is a wonderful Alchemy, when we have attained it, it changeth iron to Gold, ignominies to Crowns, and all sufferings to delights.  
At the fifth gate, which is called the Revelation of Eternal things, God speaketh in the ear of the heart, and replenisheth the soul with extraordinary light and knowledge, darting even here upon it (as saith Gerson) some lightning flashes of Paradise, as when a torch casteth some beams through the chinks of a door or window.  
And as the knowledge of the understanding is nothing without the fervour of the will, from this gate we go on to the sixth, called the Taste of Experience, by which we begin to relish the joys of Paradise in this life, and contentments which cannot be expressed. A hundred thousand tongues may discourse to you the sweetness of honey, but you can never have such knowledge of it, as by taste; so a world full of books may tell you wonders of the science of God, but you can never understand it exactly, but by the taste of experience. True science (as Thomas Aquinas saith upon the Canticles) consisteth more in relish, than in knowledge; In sapore, non in sapere. I had rather have the feeling which a simple soul hath with God, than all the definition of Philosophers.  
Lastly, the seventh gate of Eternity, is called The deifying, or divinized operation, which S. Dionysius termeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, is, when a soul worketh all its actions by eternal principles, in imitation of the Incarnate Word, and a perfect union with God. Clemens Alexandrinus called him that hath arrived at this degree, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a little Deity conversing in mortal flesh: and addeth, That as all good Orators endeavour to be like Demosthenes, so our whole employment in this life must be to beget in ourselves a resemblance to God; it is that wherein lies all our perfection.   

The third SECTION. Perfection, and wherein it consisteth.  
NOw lest this Doctrine (which is something too sublime) should dazzle your sight, and not inflame your courage, I will lay before you a more familiar Divinity, which is, that there are two kinds of Perfection, the one, of Glory; the other, of Pilgrimage. That of Glory is reserved for the next life, that of Pilgrimage is our chiefest affair in this: It is divided ordinarily into perfection of state, and perfection of operation; Perfection of state is as that of Ecclesiastical degrees and Magistrates, who are obliged by the duty of their profession, not only to the common virtues, but also to others more eminent. Perfection of operation is that, which consisteth in good habits. Never trouble yourself with the perfection of state, but live contented with that condition wherein God's Providence hath placed you, assuring yourself, that the best philosophy is to discharge your office well. It imports not upon what stuff you work, so you work well; for it is the manner, and not the matter which shall bear the prize. Great dignities are oftentimes great vizards, behind which lies no brain; and small fortunes may with little noise do such things, as are of no small value with God.  
Apply yourself earnestly to the perfection of operation, which consisteth in guiding the Heart, Tongue, and Hands in perfect charity. Addict yourself to the practice of good and solid virtues, which produce all wonders on earth, and receive all Crowns in Heaven.   

The fourth SECTION.  

Virtues, and their degrees.  
IF you desire to know their names, qualities, and degrees, I will tell you a wise saying of Plato: There are four kinds of Virtues; the first Purgative, the second Illuminative, the third Civil, the fourth Exemplary. The Purgative serve to cleanse our hearts of vices and imperfections, to which our depraved nature is subject. The Illuminative settle the soul in a calm, resulting from the victory we have gained over passions. The Civil incline a man to the duty he oweth his neighbour, every one according to his degree, and to a good conversation amongst men. The Exemplary are those which make the furthest progress into perfection, and may be looked upon as models, whereof the beholders are to take copy.  
So order it, that your virtues may arrive at such a height, as that they may not only purge your heart, enlighten your soul, and dispose you to good conversation, but may be as a light also to others to manifest you in them by imitation of your good example.  
I add here in few words, the definitions and acts of virtue, by which you may direct your practice.   

Prudence.  
Prudence (according to Aristotle) is a virtue, which ordereth and prepareth all things that concern the ordering of our life.  
Richardus de Sancto Victore assigneth to it five parts, that is, Judgement, Deliberation, Disposition, Discretion, and Moderation. Judgement discerneth the good from the bad; Deliberation teacheth how to do all things advisedly; Disposition showeth what order we must observe; Discretion instructeth how to give way sometimes to occasions, and yield to humane infirmities; not adhering obstinately to our own opinions; Moderation holdeth the scales and measure of every affair.  
The effects hereof (according to Albertus Magnus) are these; To proceed to the knowledge of God, by the knowledge of yourself; to see in every thing what is best, and to embrace that; to weigh the beginnings, proceed, and events of affairs; to take care your thoughts go not out of God; your affections be not too much employed upon creatures; your inrentions be without mixture; your judgement diverted from evil, and applied to good; your words polished, your actions measured, all the motions of your body well ordered: To avoid the four rocks that molest all good affairs, which are Passion, Precipitation, Vanity, and Self-opinion; To keep secrets carefully, to know, to choose, to execute.   

Devotion.  
Devotion, is a readiness of mind to those things which concern the service of God: the parts of it are, Adoration, Thanksgiving, Oblation, Repentance, Prayer, Mortification, Union with God by contemplation, Frequentation of the Sacrament, Conformity of will to the Divine Providence, and the zeal of souls.   

Humility.  
Humility, (according to Saint Bernard) is a virtue which maketh a man disesteem himself, out of a deep knowledge of himself; the chief points thereof are, To know ourselves well, to prise ourselves little, to fly humane applause, to preserve our senses free from itch of honour, to despise bravely all worldly things, to affect a retired life, to acknowledge and confess freely our faults, to hearken willingly to advice, to yield to others, to submit your will and judgement to obedience, to shun splendour and pomp in such things as concern ourselves, to converse freely with the poor.   

Poverty.  
Poverty, is the moderation of covetousness, respecting temporal things, the parts whereof are, To cut off superfluities to have no inordinate care of worldly things, to bear the want of necessities patiently, to enter into an absolute nakedness of spirit.   

Obedience.  
Obedience, according to Bonaventure, is a reasonable sacrifice of our own will; and according to Climachus, a life without curiosity, a voluntary death, a secure danger. The points thereof are, To perform what you are commanded readily, stoutly, humbly, indefatigably, though it be contrary to your own inclination, to make an entire resignation of your own judgement, opinion, and will; to be sent imperiously upon hard and troublesome employments, and to undergo them cheerfully, without delay, excuse, or reply; to be indifferent in all things; to covet nothing, nor refuse any thing; to do nothing of yourself, nor to presume; to have a greater inclination to such things as are mean and laborious, than to such as are more splendid, and less burdensome.   

Chastity.  
Chastity, is an abstinence from impure pleasures: Its parts are, purity of mind and body, vigilant guard of the senses, shunning of occasions, honesty of speech, mortification of Curiosity, exact decency, care of ourselves.   

Modesty.  
Modesty, is a composure of yourself, consisting in government of the whole body, gesture, attire, play, recreation, but especially of the tongue, which is to be restrained from detraction, contention, boasting, disclosing of secrets, idleness, imprudence, importunity, irreverence, affected silence.   

Abstinence.  
Abstinence, is a virtue which moderates the concupiscence that relateth to delectation of sense: The parts thereof are, To have no rule but necessity, in all which concerneth the pleasures of the body; to fear the very lest stains of all those things, which reason counteth dishonest, and to preserve yourself in a holy bashfulness; to observe the Fasts commanded, and to add some out of private devotion; to put far from you all curiosity of diet, apparel, and sensual pleasures.   

Fortitude.  
Fortitude, is a virtue which confirms us against the pusillanimity that may hinder good actions: It hath two arms, one to undertake, the other to suffer: Aristotle assigneth it four parts, that is, confidence, patience, love of labour, and valour,   

Patience.  
Patience, is an honest suffering of evils incident to nature: The points thereof are, To bear the loss of goods, sickness, sorrows, injuries, and other accidents with courage; neither to complain, nor to groan, but discreetly to conceal your grief; to be afflicted in innocency for justice sake, and sometimes, even by those that are good, to covet and embrace persecutions, out of a generous desire to be conformable to the patience of the Saviour of the world.   

Justice.  
Justice, is a virtue which giveth to every one that which is his due; and all the acts of it are included in this sentence, You must measure others by the same measure wherewith you desire to be measured yourself.   

Magnanimity.  
Magnanimity, according to Thomas Aquinas, is a virtue which aimeth at great things, by the direct means of reason: The acts thereof are, To frame yourself to an honest confidence, by purity of heart and manners; to expose yourself reasonably to difficult and dreadful exploits for God's honour; neither to be bewitched with prosperity, nor dejected at adversity; not to yield to opposition; not to make a stay at mean virtues; to despise complacence and threats for love of virtue; to have regard only to God, and for his sake to disesteem all frail and perishable things: to keep yourself from presumption, which often ruins high spirits, under colour of Magnanimity.   

Gratitude.  
Gratitude, is the acknowledgement and recompense (as far as lies in our power) of benefits received. The acts thereof are, To preserve the benefit in our memory, to profess and publish it, to return the like without any hope of requital.   

Amity.  
Amity, is a mutual good will, grounded upon virtue and community of goods: The acts thereof are, To choose friends by reason for virtues sake, communicating of secrets, bearing with imperfections, consent of wills, a life serviceable and officious, protection in adversities, observance of honesty in every thing, care of spiritual profit, accompanied with necessary advice, in all love and respect.   

Simplicity.  
Simplicity, is nothing but union of the outward man with inward: The acts thereof are, To be free from all false colour, never to lie, never to dissemble, or counterfeit, never to presume, to shun equivocation and double speech, to interpret all things to the best, to perform business sincerely, to forgo multiplicity of employments and erterprises.   

Perseverance.  
Perseverance, is a constancy in good works to the end, through an affection to pursue goodness and virtue. The acts thereof are, firmness in good, quietness in services, offices, and ordinary employments, constancy in good undertake, flight from innovations, to walk with God, to fix your thoughts and desires upon him; neither to give way to bitterness, nor to sweetness, that may divert us from our good purposes.   

Charity toward God and our neighbour.  
Charity, the true Queen of virtues, consisteth in love of God and our Neighbour; the love of God appeareth much, in the zeal we have of his Glory; the acts thereof are, to embrace mean and painful things, so they conduce to our Neighbour's benefit; To offer the cares of your mind, and the prayers of your heart unto God for him; To make no exceptions against any in exercise of your charge; to make your virtues a pattern for others; To give you what you have, and what you are, for the good of souls, and the glory of God; to bear incommodities and disturbances, which happen in the execution of your duty, with patience; Not to be discouraged in successless labours; To pray fervently for the salvation of souls; to assist them to your power both in spiritual and temporal things; to root out vice, and to plant virtue and good manners in all who have dependence on you.   

Charity in Conversation.  
Charity in the ordinary course of life, consisteth in taking the opinions, words and actions of our equals in good part; To speak ill of no man, to despise none, to honour every one according to his degree, to be affable to all, to be helpful, to compassionate the afflicted, to share in the good success of the prosperous, to bear the hearts of others in your own breast; to glory in good deeds, rather than specious compliments, to addict yourself diligently to works of mercy.   

Degrees of Virtues.  
Bonaventure deciphers unto us certain degrees of Virtue, very considerable for practise; his words are these:  
It is a high degree in the virtue of Religion, continually to extirpate some imperfection; a higher than that, to increase always in Faith; and highest of all, to be insatiable for matter of good works, and to think you have never done any thing.  
In the virtue of Truth, it is a high degree to be true in all your words; a higher, to defend Truth stoutly; and highest, to defend it to the prejudice of those things which are dearest to you in the world.  
In the virtue of Prudence, it is a high degree, to know God by his creatures; a higher, to know him by the Scriptures; but highest of all, to behold him with the eye of Faith.  
It is a high degree to know yourself well; a higher, to govern yourself well, and to be able to make good choice in all erterprises: and the highest, to order readily the salvation of your soul.  
In the virtue of Humility, it is a high degree to acknowledge your faults freely; a higher, to bow with the weight, like a tree laden with fruit: the highest, to seek out courageously humiliations and abasements, thereby to conform yourself to our Saviour's life.  
It is a high degree (according to the old Axiom) to despise the world: a higher, to despise no man: yet a higher, to despise ourselves: but highest of all, to despise despisal. In these four words you have the full extent of Humility.  
In Poverty, it is a high degree to forsake temporal goods: a higher, to forsake sensual amities: and highest, to be divorced from yourself.  
In Chastity, restraint of the tongue, is a high degree: guard of all the senses, a higher: undefiledness of body, a higher than that: purity of heart, yet a higher: and banishment of pride and anger, which have some affinity with uncleanness, the highest.  
In Obedience, it is a high degree to obey the Law of God: a higher, to subject yourself to the commands of a man, for the honour you bear your Sovereign Lord: yet a higher, to submit yourself, with an entire resignation of your opinion judgement, affection, will; but highest of all, to obey in difficult matters, gladly, courageously, and constantly even to death.  
In Patience, it is a high degree to suffer willingly in your goods, in your friends, in your good name, in your person: a higher, to bear, being innocent the exasperations of an enemy, or an ungrateful man: a higher yet, to suffer much and repine at nothing: but highest of all to go to meet crosses and afflictions, and to embrace them as liveries of Jesus Christ.  
In Mercy, it is a high degree, to give away temporal things: a higher, to forgive injuries: the highest, to oblige them who persecute us.  
It is a high degree to pity all bodily afflictions; a higher, to be zealous for souls: and highest to compassionate the torments of our Saviour, in remembering his Passion.  
In the virtue of Fortitude, it is a high degree, to overcome the world: a higher, to subdue the flesh the highest, to vanquish yourself.  
In Temperance, it is a high degree to moderate your eating, drinking, sleeping, watching, gaming, recreation, your tongue, words, and all gestures of your body; a higher, to regulate your affections; and highest, to purify throughly your thoughts and imaginations.  
In Justice, it is a high degree, to give unto your Neighbour that which belongeth to him; a higher, to exact an account of yourself: and highest, to offer up to God all satisfaction, which is his due.  
In the virtue of Faith, it is a high degree to be well instructed in all that you are to believe: a higher, to make profession of it in your good works: and highest, to ratify (when there is necessity) with the loss of goods and life.  
In the virtue of Hope, it is a high degree, to have good apprehensions of God's power: a higher to repose all your affairs upon his holy providence: a higher than that, to pray to him and serve him incessantly, with fervour and purity: but highest of all, to trust in him, in our most desperate affairs.  
Lastly, for the virtue of Charity, which is the accomplishment of all the other; you must know there are three kinds of it: The first the beginning Charity. The second, the proficient. The third, the perfect.  
Beginning Charity, hath five degrees. 1. Dislike of offences past. 2. Good resolution of amendment. 3. Relish of God's Word. 4. Readiness to good works. 5. Compassion of the ill, and joy at the prosperity of others.  
Proficient Charity, hath five degrees more. 1 An extraordinary purity of Conscience, which is cleansed by very frequent examination. 2. Weakness of concupiscence. 3. Vigorous exercise of the faculties of the inward man. For, as good operations of the exterior senses are signs of bodily health; so holy occupations of the understanding, memory, and will, are signs of a spiritual life. 4. Ready observance of God's law. 5. Relishing knowledge of Heavenly Truth, and Maxims.  
Perfect Charity, reckoneth also five other degrees. 1. To love your enemies. 2. To receive contentedly, and to suffer all adversities courageously. 3. Not to have any worldly ends, but to measure all things by the fear of God. 4. To be dis-entangled from all love to creatures. 5. To resign your own life, to save your neighbours.    

The fifth SECTION. Of four Orders of those who aspire to Perfection.  
NOw consider what virtues, and in what degree you would practise; for there are four sorts of those who aspire to perfection.  
The first are very innocent, but little valiant in exercise of virtues. The second have besides innocency, courage enough to employ themselves in worldly actions, but they are very sparing towards God, and do measure their perfections by a certain Ell, which they will upon no terms exceed; like the ox of Susis, that drew his usual number of buckets of water out of the Well very willingly, but could by no means be brought to go beyond his ordinary proportion. The third order is of the Fervent, who are innocent, courageous, and virtuous, without restriction, but they will not take charge of others, supposing they are troubled enough with their own bodies; wherein they may be often deceived. The fourth rank comprehends those, who having with much care profited themselves, do charitably refresh the necessities of their neighbour, when they are called to his aid; thinking, that to be good only to ones self, is to be in some sort evil.  
Observe what God requires of you, and emulate the most abundant graces. But if the multiplicity of these degrees of virtue perplex your mind, I will show you a shorter and easier way to perfection.   

The sixth SECTION. A short way to Perfection, used by the Ancients.  
THe Ancients were accustomed to reduce all virtue to certain heads; and some addicted themselves with so much fervour, and perfection, to the exercise of one single virtue, as possessing that in a supreme degree, by one link only they drew insensibly the whole chain of great actions. One dedicated all his life's study to government of the tongue, another to abstinence, another to meekness, another to obedience. So that at the death of a holy man, named Orus (as Pelagius relates) it was found, he had never lied, never sworn, never slandered, never (but upon necessity) spoken. So Phasius (in Cassian) said upon his deathbed, that the Sun had never seen him take his refection; for he fasted every day until sun set. So John the Abbot professeth, that the Sun had never seen him angry, that he had never done his own will, nor ever had taught others any thing, which he had not first practised himself. To arrive at this, requires much fortitude of spirit. If you desire things more imitable, be assured you shall lead a good life, if you endeavour continually to practise these three words, To abstain, To suffer, To go forward in well doing, as S. Luke saith, in the Acts of the Apostles of the Son of God. To abstain. 1. By refraining from all unlawful things, and sometimes even from lawful pleasures, through virtue. 2. By mortifying concupiscence, anger, desire of esteem and wealth. 3. By well ordering your senses, your will, your judgement, and obtaining always some victory over yourself, by the mastery of your passions. To suffer. 1. By enduring the burdens of life with patience, esteeming yourself happy to partake of our Saviour's sufferings, which are the noblest marks of your Christianity. 2. By endeavouring to use a singular meekness in bearing with the oppressions and imperfections of others. 3. By undergoing (with advice) some bodily austerities. 4. By keeping your foot firm in the good you have already begun; For, (as old Marcus the Hermit said) The wolf and sheep never couple together, nor did change and dislike ever make up a good virtue. To go forward in well-doing. By becoming serviceable and obliging to all the world, every one according to his degree: but above all, having a catalogue of the works of mercy, as well spiritual as temporal, continually before your eye; as a lesson, wherein you must be seriously examined, either for life or death eternal. And for this purpose some Saints had these words (in stead of all books) in their Libraries.  
Visito, Poto, Cibo, Redimo, Tego, Colligo, Condo, Consul, Castiga, Solare, Remit, Fer, Ora.  
To Visit Quench thirst Feed Redeem Cloth Lodge Bury To Teach Counsel Correct Comfort Pardon Suffer Pray.  
Man's best knowledge is how to oblige man; the time will come when death shall strip us to the very bones, and leave us nothing but that, which we have given for God.   

The seventh SECTION. The way to become perfect.  
TO this end you must keep a perpetual watch over your actions, and be like a Seraphim, beset all over with eyes, and lights, as Bassarion said: you shall perceive your progression in virtue, when you begin, purged from greater sins, to be fearful of the least; when you feel yourself loosed from ardent desires of interest and honour; when your tongue is restrained from slander and vanity, when your heart is more purified in its affections, and that you draw near to indifferency.  
The means to make yourself thus perfect, is, first, to be inflamed with a fervent desire of perfection; secondly, not to neglect the extirpation, even of the slightest imperfections; thirdly, to have a good director, who may be to you as the Angel Raphael was to young Tobias, and withal, to confer very often with spiritual men, and to be warned by their good example; fourthly, to make, as it were, a nosegay of flowers out of the lives of Saints, to take from it, odour and imitation; fifthly, to become constant in good purposes, and to offer them up to God, as by the hands of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.   

The eighth SECTION. How we must govern ourselves against temptations, tribulations and Obstacles occurring in the way of virtue.  
FInally, seeing in the practice of virtue we must ever be ready armed to overthrow the power of our adversary, and to further our own affairs of salvation, call to mind these twelve maxims, which I propose against such obstacles as may happen.  
The way to resist temptation, is, not to frame yourself to a spiritual insensibility, unmoved with any thing; that is hard to attain, so sensible is self-love, and to have it, were to be stone, not man; it is not to expel one temptation by another, and to do one evil, to be delivered from another: for to take that course were to wash yourself in ink. It is not, to hid yourself upon all occasions, and never to do good, for fear of fight with evil, but to resist stoutly as I shall show you. The great Scholar, Joannes Picus Mirandula, hath collected twelve remarkble Maxims, the practice whereof is exceeding profitable, when we address ourselves to spiritual combat against weakness.  
The first Maxim. That you must be tempted on what side soever it happen: In hoc positi sumus: It is our profession, our trade and continual exercise. The eagle complaineth not of her wings, neither the Nightingale of her voice, nor the Peacock of his train, because these are natural to them; and it is as natural to a man to be tempted, as to a bird to fly, to sing to prune her feathers. If you desert the course of spiritual life through fear of being tempted, and turn about to worldly delights, assure yourself you will be much more engaged; and which is worse, without comfort, honour, or recompense; you forsake a cross of paper, which if you knew well how to carry, would be no heavier burden than feathers to a bird; you forsake it I say, to take up another which is hard, toilsome, and bloody, and will make you of one confraternity with the bad thief. Sidonius Apollinaris relateth, how a certain man named Maximus, arriving by unlawful and indirect means at the top of honour, was the very first day much wearied, and fetching a deep sigh, said thus, Foelicem, te Damocle, qui non longiùs uno prandio regni necessitatem tolerasti. O Damocles, how happy do I esteem thee for having been a King but the space of a dinner! I have been one a whole day, and can hear it no longer.  
The second. Remember, that in the affairs of the world, we fight longest, we work hardest, and reap least; the end of one labour is the beginning of another; in pains taking the only hope is ever to take pains; and temporal labour doth many times pull after it eternal punishment.  
The third. Is it not direct folly to believe there is a Paradise, an eternal life, and a Jesus Christ, who, of the Cross, made a ladder, to get up to his throne of glory, and yet to desire to live here with folded arms? to see the master open the way to heaven through so many thorns, and the servant unwilling to tread on any thing but flowers? to see a fresh and tender limb, to a head worn away with sufferings, like a brazen Colossus with feet of flax?  
The fourth. Were there no other fruit in tribulation but conformity with Jesus Christ, who is the Sovereign wisdom, yet were it a high recompense. A famous captain said to a soldier dying with him, hadst thou been obscure all thy life, yet art thou not a little honoured to day, in dying with thy master; and who would not glory, to have the Son of God for his leader, his companion, his spectator, his theatre, his reward in all afflictions and Tribulations? who would not account it a great honour, to be crucified daily with him? to stretch his hands and arms upon the Cross, by restraining them from violence, rapine, and ruin, whereunto we are carried away by the spirit of lying? to fetter his feet, by hindering them from running after the unbridled desires of his heart? to embitter his tongue, by overcoming the pleasures of the taste? to annihilate himself, by despising honour after his example, who when he might have walked upon the wings of the Cherubims, would rather creep amongst us like a little worm of the earth? what a glory were it, to say with S. Paul, I hear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus, Gal. 6. 17.  
The fifth. Not to put any trust in humane means, when you undertake to subdue a temptation; It is not a thing depending wholly upon us; God must go before, and we contribute our will; for if he watch not over us, to much purpose is it for us to keep centinel. None is so weak as he that thinks himself strong. Multa in homine bona fiunt, quae non facit homo Nulla verò facit homo bona quae non Deus praestet ut faciat homo saith the council of Orange. Many good things are done in man, which man doth not; But man doth not any good which God doth not. He that thinks to resist temptations without his aid, is like one that would go to the wars, and stumbles at his own threshold. And therefore an effectual means in this combat, is to insist much on prayer, especially at the first assault of a temptation.  
The sixth. When you have overcome a temptation, take heed of unbending and softening your courage, as if you had no more enemies to encounter. As distrust is the mother of safety, so security is the gate of danger. If the enemy goeth up and down continually like a roaring Lion, be you on the other side a watchful Lion in the sentinels of the Lord of hosts; and take for your word, super speculam Domini ego sto; I stand upon the watchtower of the Lord.  
The seventh. Rest not satisfied only with not being beaten yourself, but beat your enemy: when Satan lays a snare to entrap you, make it an instrument of virtue; if he present a good work, which glisters in the sight of the world, thereby to tempt you to pride, do the work, and let alone the vanity; referring all to the greater honour of God.  
The eighth. When you are in combat, fight cheerfully, as if you were already assured of the victory. Turn away the eye of your consideration from what you suffer, and keep it continually fixed upon the reward. One great misfortune, which causeth many to fall when they are tempted is, that their mind is set and bend so wholly upon the pain, that no room in it is left to contemplate the reward which waits for them. When the forty Martyrs were in the frozen lake, thirty nine looked upon their future Crowns, but one of them thought of nothing but his pain; all were victorious, except this wretch, who sullying the glory of patience, came out of the pool, to die presently after in infidelity, Do you not think, the glorious mirror, wherein he beheld all his sufferings Crowned, was that which comforted our Saviour on the Cross in that Abyss of reproach and torment. This is the course you must take; to insist little on the present, and to have a lively imagination of the future, bearing these words of S. Paul always in mind, Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 2. Cor. 4. 17. Fight then valiantly, as if this were the last temptation which should assail you; and persuade yourself, that herein consisteth the evidence of your predestination. When you have over come it, behave yourself like one always ready to re-enter the list, and to make one victory the step to another.  
The ninth. Though you are never so valiant, do not provoke danger; tempt not temptation, by thrusting yourself into occasions, through presumption of heart: he that loveth danger, shall instead of finding glory, mark out his grave in it.  
The tenth. A Sovereign means to overcome temptation, is to discover the Mine betimes; to open your heart freely to your spiritual counsellor, to disclose your thoughts, to know them well, to consider their nature, and to seek what power they have upon your soul. It happens commonly as Epictetus saith; It is not the things themselves, that trouble us, but our own fancies. How many temptations might be vanquished by slighting them, if we took but a little leisure to laugh at them? We make elephants of flies, and of little pigmies, which pinch us by stealth, frame giants. We are like young children, who frighted with a vizard, hid their heads in their nurse's bosom, crying: but take off the vizard, and give it them in their hand, they will make sport with it. How many things seem terrible and impossible, which we find ridiculous, and easy to be overcome, if we touch them never so little with our finger? In temptations of pusillanimity, it is good to conceive these counterfeit giants, as pigmies; but in those of concupiscence, we must not despise any thing, but rather lay hold of small threads, as if they might grow to huge cables. In the one and the other, there is nothing like dashing these children of Babylon against the stones; to withstand beginnings, and not to suffer our enemies to fortify themselves to our disadvantage. The eleventh. A stumbling block to many is, that they represent the sweetness of sin to the like in their imagination, and never consider the pleasure which follows victory over sin. A man is no sooner plunged in the puddle, but his ashamed soul is immersed in pensiveness, me ancholly, and despair by a loathsome pleasure, which passeth away like the dream of a dream, furnished with a huge heap of scorn, sorrow, and confusion. Whereas on the contrary, the soul which hath held out, remains contented, sprightly, elevated, and said with divine comforts, coming from God's paradise. On this thought (which S. Cyprian highly commendeth) few reflect, which is the reason why the number of the reprobates is so great: And do you not yet think it very fitting, that one who hath fallen a thousand times under temptation, should once in his life taste the sweetness which is in victory over temptation, to rejoice at it for ever? Many have been put by from steep and evident precipices, by pondering these words, Well then, to covenant with sin, what will be the event? To purchase repentance so dear? To give up the credit of so many years, a prey to one unhappy minute of pleasure? Where is the Faith thou hast promised to God? Let us at least seek out some place where he is not: and where is he not? So many stars, so many intelligences, wherewith the world is replenished, are so many eyes of God which behold thee: He himself seethe into thee, even to the bottom of thy conscience, if thou wilt sin, get leave of him; but how wilt thou beg it of him, and how obtain? Patience a while: This temptation is a cloud which will pass away. Thou art going to commit a sin, whose pardon is very uncertain; but it is certain that when thou hast done it, God himself cannot in all eternity make it not to have been done.  
The twelfth. Think not you are the less in God's favour because he suffers you to be tempted, though with dishonest thoughts, which are extremely odious to chaste souls; Why so? If S. Paul, that Cherubin, scorched with celestial heat, who set his foot upon the stars, (according to the opinion of S. Ambrose, Theophylact, and Oecumenius) felt the stings of concupiscence in a body that had been taken up to the third heaven; do you think, that because you have some good dispositions to do well, you must be freed from the wars of nature, which preserve your mind, being to indulgent to its self always in humility?  
To conclude, follow the counsel of Cassian, consider daily the passions which are bred in your heart, as a fisherman beholds the fishes swimming in the water, on purpose to catch them: Look on that which is most predominant within you, from what root it springeth, when it began, what progress it hath made, what rule it usurpeth ordinarily over your soul, what effects it produceth, whether it be more spiritual or temporal, what things use to foment it, what remedies you have taken to divert it; provide counsel and means to root it out; proceed to this with courage and fervour, as to the acquisition of an incomparable good.   

The nineth SECTION.  

Remedies against passions, and temptations proceeding from every vice.  
FIrst, to consider, That passion is a motion of the sensual appetite, arising from the imagination of good or ill, with some commotion of the body.  
2. That there are eleven passions; six in the concupiscible appetite, which are Love, Hatred, Desire, Loathing, Joy, Sadness: five in the irascible, that is, Hope, Despair, Confidence, Fear, and Anger.  
3. That there are two ways to overcome all passions; the first is a precaution of mind against the occasions, and vain appearances of all worldly things. The second, a serious diversion to better things, as prayer, study, labour, and business; But above all, you must pray to God for the light and strength of his holy grace, which infinitely transcends all humane remedies.   

Against Gluttony.  
1. REpresent unto yourself the miserable state of a soul polluted and plunged in the flesh. 2. The hardness of heart. 3. The dulness of understanding. 4. The infirmities of body. 5. The loss of goods. 6. The disparagement of Reputation. 7. The horror, of the members of Jesus Christ, to make members of an unclean creature. 8. The indignity to worship and serve the belly, as a brutish and vile God. 9 The great inundation of sins flowing from this spring. 10. The punishments of God upon the voluptuous.   

Against sloth.  
1. The ceaseless travel of all creatures in the world, natural and civil. 2. The easiness of good works, after grace given by Jesus Christ. 3. The anxiety of a wavering and uncertain mind. 4. The shame and contempt. 5. The confusion at the day of judgement. 6. The irreparable loss of time.   

Against Covetousness.  
1. The disquiet of a greedy mind. 2. The insatiability of desire. 3. The many wars and battles which we must run through, to satisfy one single desire. 4. The dishonour of denial, insupportable to a generous soul. 5. The dependence and servitude we must undergo, to comply with those from whom we expect the accomplishment of our wishes. 6. The easiness of offending God, through excessive greediness of temporal things. 7. The transitory and fleeting pleasure of those things which we most ardently desire. 8. That God many times allows us the fulfilling of our desires, as a punishment for our faults.   

Against carnal love.  
1. To consider the barrenness of worldly loves. which are true gardens of Adonis, where 〈◊〉 can gather nothing but trivial flowers, surrounded with many briars. 2. To set a value on things, and not to be deceived with shows. 3. To guard your senses, to shun accidents and occasions of sinning; and above all, to have a particular recourse to God upon the first impression of thoughts. 4. To pull yourself away by main force from presented objects, and to direct yourself by serious designs, and good employments. 5. To set often before you the imperfection, the ingratitude, the levity, the inconstancy, the perfidiousness of those creatures we most servilely affect.   

Against Sadness.  
THere is a holy sadness: as when we are moved at our Saviour's Passion, or for our own sins: which is the gift of God, not a punishment.  
There is one furious, which hath no ears, and is rather cured by miracle than precept.  
There is another natural, arising from our disposition: and another vicious, which is nourished by ill habits, and neglect of our own salvation.  
1. Against this last we must consider, That our desires and love, cause, for the most part, our sadness: and that the true way to diminish the cares that consume us, is, to sweeten the sharp and ardent Affection we bear to worldly things.  
2. The little esteem we have of God, is the cause that we are often troubled at frivolous things, whether they threaten or happen. He that would truly love this great God, which deserveth to possess all love of heaven and earth, should not entertain fear or sadness for any thing, but for the loss of God; & no man can lose him, but he that purposely forsakes him.  
3. There is nothing beyond remedy, but the tears of the damned: A man who may persist in the way to paradise, should not place himself in the condition of a little hell: and he, who can hope for that great All, ought not to be sad for any thing.   

Against Envy.  
1. THe way not to envy any thing, is to account nothing in this life great. 2. To covet only the inheritance of the land of the living, which is never lessened by the multitude or shares of the possessors. 3. To consider seriously the motives which induce us to love our neighbour, as participation of the same nature.     

THE THIRD PART OF THE CHRISTIAN DIARY.  

The first SECTION. BUSINESS, Of what importance.  
THe third employment of the day is business, whether Public or Private; the government of your Family, or discharge of some Office, Good devotion is a good employment, and nothing is more to be avoided than idleness, which is the very source of sin. He that labours (said the old Hermit) is tempted but by one devil; he that is idle, is assaulted by all. No man is too Noble to have an occupation; If iron had reason, it would choose rather to be used in labour, than to grow rusty in a corner.   

The second SECTION. Two Heads, to which all Business is reduced.  
IN Business we must consider the Substance, and the Form. The Substance; for it is great wisdom to make good choice herein, to take in hand good employments; and to leave the bad, the dangerous, and burdensome, which do nothing but stop up the mind, and choke all feeling of devotion; especially, when there is no obligation to undertake them. They are truly sick even in health, who interpose out of curiosity, to know, to do, and solicit the business of others. It is sufficient (said the Emperor Antonius) that every one in this life do that well which belongs to his calling. The Sun doth not the office of the rain, nor the rain that of the Sun. Is it not absolute madness of some in the world, whose only employment is to attempt all things, but perform none?  
As for the Form, in the exercise of charge, offices, and business, there is required knowledge, conscience, industry, and diligence. Knowledge, 1. In learning that which is requisite to be known for the discharge of your duty. 2. In informing yourself of that which of yourself you cannot apprehend. 3. In harkening very willingly to advise, examining and weighing it with prudence▪ and governing yourself altogether by counsel. Conscience, in performing every thing with good intention, and great integrity, according to the Divine and Humane laws. Industry, in doing all discreetly and peaceably, with more fruit than noise: so that we express no anxiety in business; like that Prince of whom it was said, That he seemed always vacant in his most serious employments. Diligence, in spying out occasions, and doing every thing in due time and place, without disorder, confusion, passion, haste, irresolution, precipitation: For these are the faults which commonly destroy good government. He that hath never so little wit & good inclination, shall ever find wherein to busy himself, especially in works of mercy, amongst so many objects of the miseries of his neighbour.   

The third SECTION. Of the government of a Family.  
THat man hath no little business, who hath a Family to govern; a good Father who breedeth his Children well, that they may one day serve the Commonwealth, is employed in an important affair for the public. A Mother, who bringeth up a little Samuel for the service of the tabernacle, (as S. Monica did her son Augustine) obliged all posterity. A Master & Mistress, who keep their servants in good order, please both God and men. Four things very considerable are here required; Choice, Discretion, Example. Entertainment. Choice, in considering the Quantity, Quality, Capacity, Faithfulness, of those you take into your service. For the Quantity, it is evident that it ought to be proportionable to your estate and revenues. It is a great folly to make ostentation of many servants merely through vanity. As Herod the sophist did, according to the relation of Philostratus, who allowed his son four and twenty pages, every one of them bearing the name of some letter in the Alphabet; for so blockish was the child, that he could not any way else learn the first rudiments. Stars which have least circuit are nearest the Pole; and men who are least perplexed with business, are commonly nearest to God. A great retinue is a mark of a great want. Were there such a beast as the Hebrew fables have feigned, that must have the grass of a thousand mountains for his daily allowance, would you account him happier than a Nightingale, which is satisfied with a few seeds, or a Bee, which liveth on dew? The rich need many pounds, the poor a little bread; both are indigent, but the one not so much as the other, for his want is the lesser. A great number of servants make not a man happy; for none is a greater Master, or better obeyed, than he that serves himself.  
For Quality, take heed of resembling witches, who care not to give the devil wages, so they may make use of his service for their own ends: you must either take good servants, or make them such; In the one, there is good luck, & in the other, for the most part, difficulty. For many are like the ass of Vincent Ferrerius, that did more for a Carter, who swore by the devil, than for his Master who led him in the name of God; which the holy man seeing, turned him off, not able to endure such bruitishnesh in a beast; and can you think, that for the necessities of your business, it may be lawful for you to maintain one, who hath neither God nor conscience; that your children may at the very first be corrupted by his poisonous conversation?  
For Capacity, it is necessary, that besides honesty, there must be an ability to discharge his office: and though we say the saints are good at all things, yet God doth not ever give them either desire or means to undergo all kinds of business. Our abilities are limited, as well as our minds; and every one hath his particular talon, which must be known by those that will make use of him.  
For Faithfulness, it is one of the qualities, which the Gospel gives a good servant; you have reason to require it, and discreetly to make trial of it, not by suspicions & jealousies, which only serve to provoke such as have a disposition to do well: A man is oftentimes made faithful, by being thought faithful; and many through continual fear to be cozened, have taught others to cousin; justifying their deceit by their own distrust, as the Roman Philosopher saith: you must allow your officers, what command and freedom their charges require, not quarrelling with them every minute for trifles; notwithstanding you must carefully reserve the state of your affairs, for your own private knowledge: For it is an equal fault indifferently to trust all, or to distrust all.   

The fourth SECTION. Of Government in spiritual things.  
WHen you have met with a good choice, the government is not hard: For S. Augustine saith, nothing is so easy as to persuade those to good, who have a great desire to put it in practice. Govern your family proportionably as the good Eleazar did his, which Binet hath so lively designed. First banish vice & scandal from your house; let wanton love and impurity never come near it, no more than the serpent to the flower of the vine; Let not surfeiting, drunkenness or excess know so much as the gate; let neither unclean speech nor blasphemy be heard in it. For, as Nabuchadnezzar made the pages that attend on him learn his language, so the devil teacheth those of his acquaintance, his Dialect.  
Having exiled vice, accustom your Family to some devotion, causing them to hear diligently the word of God, especially on Sundays and Holydays; inviting them to frequent the Sacrament according to their condition assembling them as Charles Boromeus did, at evening or some time of the day, to say certain prayers together, if convenience of place permit, and to see how they are instructed in the Articles of Faith.  
Your example will do more than all your words: For the life of a Good Master and Mistress is a perpetual monitour in a house. Those that seek to gain their good opinion, study to be like them, and in endeavouring to be beloved, become good. We live in an age, where we have more need of patterns than precepts, servants adhere to the pillars of a house, as Ivy to great trees, & in a word, to the commands of great-ones, all affections are of wax, they become so pliable.  
It is fitting likewise that to preserve this opinion you be liberal, according to your means, in ordering your Family, honourable in such expenses as are requisite both for necessity and decorum. For we make use of nets, to take fishes, and of liberality, as a golden hook to take men.  
Remember besides, in managing your business, more peculiarly to invoke God's assistance; saying often unto him these words of Solomon. Wisd. 9 O God, give me wisdom that sitteth by thy Throne; O send her out of thy holy Heavens, and from the Throne of thy glory, that being present, she may labour with me, that I may know what is pleasing unto thee, to put it in execution.  
Take heed of indiscreet precipitation in the beginning of an enterprise, of anxiety in the progression, and of despair in the conclusion. If your project have good issue, give the praise to God, and an example of modesty to your neighbour; but if business keep not time to your will, learn you to keep time to the Divine providence, which maketh all harmony in the world; you have power over your own designs, but not over their events; you are not to pray, that things may prove as you desire, but to desire them as they prove. Accustom yourself not to be grieved at worldly accidents, no more than for an ill dream: For all things here below, pass away like a dream; and we do much, if in losing all, we retain that belief: But by long soothing our own wills, we have forsaken (as Cassian saith) the very shadow of patience.   

The fifth SECTION. Advice for such as are in office and government.  
BOnaventure hath made an excellent Treatise, which he calleth The wings of the Seraphin, wherein he giveth very wise instructions to those that are in office and government; whereof in part I present you here with the quintessence and marrow, desiring you to taste of it. He gives his Seraphin six wings. The first is Zeal of God's honour; which you shall exercise in observing four things; that is,  

1. Neither to do; nor show to those under you, the least shadow of evil or sin.  
2. Not to give way to it in any kind, notwithstanding allurements on one side, and importunities on the other.  
3. Never to be pleased that an evil act be done, though without your knowledge; for that were to betray your own conscience.  
4. To correct, and take away disorders, as much as possibly you can.   
The second wing, which you must have is, The spirit of compassion, to help the sick, the aged, the weak, the faint-hearted, the afflicted; for these are poor Porcupines laden with prickles and a cerbities, to whom you must be a Sanctuary and Rock of refuge: Petra refugium Herinaceis.  
The third, Patience in the many labours and cares, as are (in a manner) inseparable from offices and governments. Patience, in ill success of business, which doth not always answer our endeavours and wishes. Patience, in bearing with the ungrateful, who often throw stones at those that give them honey; like the Atlantes, who shot arrows at the Sun. Patience, in occasions of speech and dealing with such as easily take distaste, and are galled with their own harness. It is a great virtue, to soften them with a peaceful, still, and charitable sweetness, as if we cast oil into the raging sea. It was said long since, He that can bear an injury, is worthy an Empire. His very silence will disarm the passionate man, and lay him prostrate at his feet, who seemed to thunder over his head.  
The Fourth wing is, Example; which is observed in three things. 1. In putting in practice the good counsel and precepts which we give others. 2. In managing your dignity in such a way, as is neither harsh, imperious, nor arrogant; but mild, affable, and communicative. 3. In retaining withal a decent and moderate gravity, that the stamp which God sets on those he calleth to offices and commands, may not be debased.  
The Fifth and principal Wing, is called Discretion, without which all virtues become vices: For the honour of great actions lies not so much in doing good, as in doing well.  
This Discretion consisteth in four things. To govern the good with good judgement; To correct the bad; To administer well the temporal affairs of your charge; To uphold and preserve yourself amidst these encumbrances, like fresh water in the salt sea.  
The ordering of good is maintained in Three principal Acts. The first, to cause those under us to observe strictly such things as are necessary, and cannot be omitted without disorder or scandal. The second, To invite, and sweetly attract every one according to his condition, capacity, and judgement, to works of most perfection; whereunto they have no formal obligation. The third, To dispose charges and burdens with a good Oeconomy, according to their inclinations and strength of mind, whom you are to govern.  
For correction; Either they are slight faults of well conditioned persons, which you are to correct, & such are to be handled very gently; Or they are hidden vices of some evil conscience, which you neither must nor can make known; and there you must use much industry, patience, and wisdom to dislodge vice; and to draw the crooked serpent out of his cave obstetricante manu, as the Scripture speaketh, Job 26. 23. Or they are known sins of desperate people, who offend without hope of amendment, infecting a multitude; and here you must set yourself with all your strength, to take away both the fault and the faulty.  
For temporal affairs, manage them as we have already showed, and take heed of entangling your mind in them, like a fish in a net, depriving yourself of the liberty of God's children, to serve the earth.  
But above all, continually look into yourself, as the first piece of your government. Let your conscience be pure, firm, and peaceable; speaking and doing every thing with much consideration; and never despising the counsel of those who are able to advise you.  
Lastly, your sixth wing is Devotion; which is divided into three kinds, the common, the singular, the continual. The common consisteth in performing exactly those duties of piety, which are within the bounds of your profession; and to do them by way of imitation of that celestial Militia, which is always employed in praising God; and by way of edification of those, to whom you owe this good example. Singular devotion obligeth you to seek your principal refuge, in the tabernacle (following Moses steps) for the necessities of your charge. Continual devotion ties you to a most fervent exercise of God's presence, which you testify by a desire to please him in all places, occasions and actions, by dedicating all your works to him, before you begin them; and when you end them, always to set upon them the seal of thanksgiving due to his Divine Majesty.  
Engrave deeply in your heart this saying of S. Bernard, in his first book of Consideration, Chap. 5. Cum omnes te habeant, esto etiam tu ex habentibus unus. Quid solus fraudaris munere tui? Usquequò vadens spiritus, & non rediens? If you are one full of business, and that all the world share in you; take a part as well as others in yourself Deprive not yourself of a good so justly yours, and be not one of those that are ever travelling, yet never return home.    

THE FOURTH PART OF THE CHRISTIAN DIARY.  

The first SECTION. RECREATION, how necessary.  
AS concerning Recreation used in company, at meals, in lawful games, in taking the air, in good conversation, it is necessary to divert the mind, and refresh the strength. Cassian in his 24. Collation chap. 21. relates, how an Archer finding S. John the Evangelist playing with a Partridge, wondered that so renowned a man could pass the time with so slight a recreation: The Saint looking towards the bow in his hand, asked him why he did not always carry it bend; who answering, it would spoil it; the Apostle replied, so it is with the mind of man, which must sometimes be unbent, that it may shoot the better.   

The second SECTION. Of the Pleasures of the Taste.  
MArk, that our minds must only be unbent, not unstrung: Avoid those excesses which make men now adays as gluttonous in the eye, as the belly. It is a strange vanity to affect the repute of a good taste; to set the whole mind to serve that part of the body, which hath least of the mind; and to nourish an esteem which is fed only with the steam of the kitchen.  
Treat not your belly as Caligula did his horse; for he allowed a Beast (for whom nature intended nothing but oats and hay) Princely delicacies and attendance. And you do the like, if you bestow so much cost and pains to feed your most sensual part, which the Divine Providence wills should be nourished sparingly. Great feasts, which begin in vanity, and continue in riot, end always in folly, and often in repentance. Nothing is got by pleasures of the Taste, but a more crazy body, a more close prison of flesh, & a more stinking sepulchre. Unhappy are those feasts, which the hunger of the poor accuseth before God. Above these sixteen ages the tongue of the Rich Glutton hath burned in hell, all his tuns of delicious wine, not having left him so much as one drop to refresh himself.  
If you desire to know what were the banquets of the Primitive Christians, which ought to be models for ours) Tertullian gives you a discourse thereon in his Apology. Our feasts (saith he) express what they are, in their names. They are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (Charities) because they are instituted for relief of the poor: Our Table resembleth an Altar, and our Supper a Sacrifice: We mind not the expense; to spend in the name of Piety, is gain. Our Table hath nothing savouring of baseness, sensuality, or immodesty; We feed by measure: we drink the rules of temperance; we satiate ourselves as much as is necessary for those, who must rise at midnight, to offer up their prayers unto God; We speak and converse as in the presence of God, our hands washed, and candles lighted, every one repeateth what he knoweth out of the holy Scriptures, and his own invention to the praise of God. Prayer, as it began the banquet, concludes it: From the Table we go unto the exercise of modesty and decency: You would say, if you behold us, that we were not at supper, but at a lecture of holiness.  
Alas! Conser the feasts of most Christians with these, and you compare the table of the Centaurs to that of the Angels.   

The third SECTION. Of Gaming.  
BE not over-violent likewise at those Games of chance, which have in them so much covetousness, heat, and flame: Did a man commit no other sin, but conversing the third part, or half of his life with Kings and knaves of cards, being invited to the conversation of Angels, yet were he guilty of no small offence: But besides, gaming was the invention of that devil Zabulon, as S. Cyprian observes, in a Treatise upon this subject. It is the altar of Fortune, detested by the Prophet; It is the shop of deceit, the school of covetousness, the apprenticeship of blasphemy, the academy of anger; where are begot mad amities, unpunished thefts, pleasing murders, and whence nothing for the most part is brought away, but a tempest in the mind, gall in the heart, and air in the purse: What excuse at the last day can he have, who gameth with a full hand, and detains (in the mean while) the wages of a servant, or the relief of some beggar that pineth and quaketh at his gate?  
Pilat's Soldiers cast lots on the garments of the Son of God, whilst the blood distilled from his body; but they were executioners and infidels; who would not be struck with horror to see a Christian, amidst so many images of the Son of God, without regard either of time, of God, or of man, play away the blood of his family, whom he neglecteth, or of the poor, whom he despoileth? Away with these delights, which are bred (like the Salamander) in the tears of heaven.  
Clemens Alexandrinus in his Pedagogue, showeth plainly, that these games of cards, dice, and the like, were not allowed by the Primitive Church; for he teacheth us, that such pastimes are often as an ebullition of ungoverned delights, and an indigestion of evil idleness.  
If we must of necessity play, in complacence to others, we ought at least to have a care, that it be for some good end; that it be with our equals; without passion, little, moderate, and to the profit of the poor.   

The fourth SECTION. Of Dancing.  
AS for Dancing, Balls, and Masks, it is true what the pious Bishop, and excellent Author hath said in his Introduction; they resemble mushrooms, the best of which are worth nothing. Luxury, vanity, foolish expense, masking, good cheer, night, youth, love, liberty, are as dangerous counsellors of wisdom, as ill teachers of modesty: some may be sanctified in them by miracle, but every day more are lost in them, through weakness: since our force is weak, not miraculous, we ought, by flying from occasions, to seek that safety which we cannot find in our own strength.  
The fable saith, that the butterfly asked the owl, how she should deal with the fire, which had singed her wings; who counselled her, not to behold so much as its smoke. With what conscience can a faithful soul frequent those worldly recreations, which have stained her purity with so many blemishes? Must we stay till we are burned, ere we retire from the flame? I wonder at those who would spiritualise dancing, and make it agree with frequent communion; such in effect, with the Emperor Adrian, Lay Adonis in the manger of Jesus. There must be so many circumstances, of the intention, time, place, persons, and manner, to season such pleasures, that it were easier to abstain from them, than to use them well.   

The fifth SECTION. Of wanton songs, and plays.  
IF you speak of wanton songs, of reading ill books, of unchaste comedies and plays, your conscience (which is the School-mistress of the soul) will perhaps tell you more than you are willing to believe. Such recreations are forerunners of disorder, instruments of sensuality, tinder to sin, and scandal to virtue; evil, at that time entereth into you, by every gate of the sense, and goeth out only at the gate of repentance, which is not always open to our indispositions. A young soul is surprised in these, as in a golden snare; to whom the description of sin, is invitation. For we live now in an age, where to know ill, and to do it, have scarce any Medium to sever them; and if at any time we are good, it is rather through ignorance of vice, than principles of virtue, saith Salvian.   

The sixth SECTION. Of walking, and running.  
REcreations, the most innocent, are ever the most commendable; as those in the country, for exercise of the body; for the Country life (saith Columella) is the cousin german to wisdom.  
Setting aside the comfort of Churches, Justice, Learning, Arts and Traffic, what are great Cities, but great prisons? Men live there, like birds in a cage, they crowd, defile one another, & by frequent and infectious conversation, the trouble of business, the importunity of visits, the foolish tyranny of compliments steal from them half their life. In the Country, the heaven, air, earth and waters, (which Cities snatch from us) are restored with greatest liberty. There, all the creatures of God speak to us face to face, to tell us the wonders of the Creator. The Christians of the primitive Church made hermitages of their farms, to sound a retreat from worldly business, and to prepare for their time of rest: but many now, make their gardens temples of Baal-peor, where no God is worshipped, but the belly, luxury, gaming, and uncleanness.  
Many make walks and races, wherein none can run far without stumbling; for they resemble the list of Atalanta and Hippomenes, rather than the race where- S. Paul exhorted Christians to run; there the senses flattered with a thousand delightful objects, many times put themselves in array; there the blood is inflamed; the tongue untied; concupiscence enkindled; there, licentiousness often rendeth the vail, which until then was over the face of modesty; and impudently becomes portress to love; These are the sacrileges, which dry up years, breed disorder amongst seasons, barrenness in the bowels of the earth, and despair in our miseries.   

The seventh SECTION. The four conditions of recreation.  
YOur recreation must have four especial things; choice of persons, good intention, innocency, moderation.  
Choice of persons, in avoiding evil company as the most dangerous shelf of life; for the friendship of wicked men is like a bundle of thorns, tied together to burn and crackle in the fire. Your friendship must be virtuous, faithful, disinterested, if you mean to have any fruits of it.  
Good intention, as, to cherish health and strength, that they may serve the soul; for a good man should seek good even in play and at meals; like the saint, who risen in the night, and fed with a poor hungry brother, that he might not be ashamed of eating at a disorderly hour.  
Innocency; for much consideration must be used therein, lest nature should dissolve into brutish life, un worthy a generous heart. Behind, comes gluttony, intemperate gaming, foolish jesting, and detraction, in this age hard to be avoided.  
The book most ordinary in companies of men, is man himself: Now very few take delight to disourse of the Old and New Testament; nay not so much as of the old Roman Counsels, Egyptian Pyramids, or ancient wars of Caesar's. Men study books of the time, talk of garbs, clothes, looks, conditions, business, customs, alliances; and though we have no intent to wrong any, yet is it very easy, in such variety of discourse to let fall many words of far less value than silence; it is an excellent quality to still good matter into company; either upon occasion, by question, consequence, narration or proposition, as the reverend Jaquinot observes in his Address.  
Moderation. For as the wise man saith, Prov. 25. 16. We glut ourselves with honey: so ought we to have a care, that recreations (made to refresh the mind) tend not by excess to dissoluteness. You must observe what the time, place, and persons require; and to pass the time, must not exceed yourself by profuseness.   

The eighth SECTION. Of vicious conversation, and first of impertinent.  
THe Hebrews say, play, anger, the cup, and conversation, are the windows of the soul, through which she is many times seen more than she would be; he is wise, who makes use of meetings and company, as of a file to polish his mind, and to make it continually more apt for its functions.  
Vicious conversation, may be reduced almost to three heads, that is, impertinent, vain, evil. Impertinent, as the clownish, foolish, troublesome, which many have through want of discretion, fashion and civility.  
Theophrastus, one of the quaintest wits of antiquity, relateth some passages, which he saith he observed in his time, arguing a great weakness of judgement; some (saith he) lay hold on one that is going about business of concernment, to tell him something (as they pretend) of great importance, which when told, is nothing but, foolery. Others invite a traveller, newly come out of the country very weary, to walk up and down; others pull a man out of a ship ready to weigh anchor, to entertain him with follies on the shore; others come to bear witness, after the cause is judged; and bring with much sweat, a Pphysitian to the dead: others pretend to know the way, and undertake to lead the rest, but go wrong at the very first, and protest, they have forgot it. Others make rude enquiry into business, and ask a General of an Army, whither he goes, and what is his design. Some also there are (saith he) so rustic, that (not admitting any thing worth admiration in civil life) they stand still to look upon an ox, as men in rapture; and in company, have no better behaviour, than to take their dog by the muzzle, and say what a fine dog this is, well he keeps the house! Such conversation is able greatly to vilify a man, and to take from him all estimation he can gain in his profession.   

The ninth SECTION. Of vain conversation.  
VAin conversation, is that of talkers, flatterers, vainglorious, and the like; poor Theophrastus (in my opinion) was much tormented with a talker; since he so well describeth one, who, with much passion, praised his wife? told what he dreamt the last night; what he had to dinner; that he had a weakness of stomach: From thence taking flight, he discoursed of times; and assured him, the men of ours came not near the ancients in any thing: Then he told him, that corn was cheap; that there were many strangers in the city; that if it would rain, the year would be fruitful; that he had a field to be ploughed; that Damippus gave the greatest wax light at an offering; that there were so many stairs in such a building, & that he had counted them; with a thousand of the like. Such people (adds the Author) are more to be feared than a fever. He that would live in quiet, must seldom keep them company. Horace mentions one very like, who put him into a great sweat, and when he saw he was so tired, that he knew not which way to turn himself. I see Sir, saith he, that I am troublesome, but there is no remedy; since I have met with you, I must needs wait on you; for (God be thanked) I have nothing else to do.  
Flatterers, are much more acceptable, though many times more dangerous, for they will tell you, that all the world cast their eyes upon you; that you are much esteemed; that the whole town talks of such a fortunate action of yours; that you have an excellent wit, a handsome body, a good grace, winning behaviour; that every thing becomes you, and that it seems Nature, when she had made you broke her mould, because she never since framed the like; If you speak, they bid silence to all the world; then extol your words as oracles; and if you jest at any, they burst with laughter to please you; and deify your imperfections: This is that which poisons friendship, and blinds humane life.  
The Vainglorious, will for the most part entertain you with commendations of themselves; and have a thousand petty singularities in their carriage, their attire, their speech, their houses, their attendants; to show, that they have something more than others: The aforesaid Author saith, he hath observed some, that held it a great honour to have a Blackamoor lackey, that they might be the more noted: and if they sacrificed an ox, they nailed the horns at their gates, to give the world notice of their offering; and to conclude, were so great self-lovers, that they made Epitaphs, even upon their dogs, specifying their age, qualities and conditions; These are testimonies of a soul very frivolous, and destitute of all Humility.   

The tenth SECTION. Of evil Conversation.  
EVil Conversation, is the worst of all; as is that of the Harsh, who make themselves unsociable in company; that of the Opinionated, who bear for their motto, It is so, and It is not so; ever contradicting, even the clearest truths; that of the Crafty and Deceitful, who endeavour to discover all the secrets of others, whilst they disguise themselves with a mask of dissimulation, and intricate speech; feigning ignorance of what they know, knowledge of what they are ignorant, forgetfulness of promise, good will to those they would circumvent, and many such like. That of the Proud, who scorn and despise all but themselves. That of the Choleric, who are displeased upon every accident: That of Scoffers, Buffoons, and Slanderers, who are obscene, biting, and offensive in all occasions.  
It were a long business to examine all these particularly; and I had freely unfolded them, in a Treatise of Manners and Passion, wherein I hoped to give the Reader satisfaction, but that the design of this little book diverted me. It were to small purpose, to make so long a work of it; and it is always better to conclude well, than to enlarge ill.   

The eleventh SECTION. The Conditions of good Conversations.  
I Tell you in brief, S. Bernard, Thomas Aquinas and other learned men are of opinion, that in Conversation we ought to be affable and pleasing, yet not too familiar, nor inquisitive into other men's business, not suspicious, not light, not riotous, not discontented, not affected, not imperious, not cross, not exceptious, not jeering, not fretful, not trivial, not churlish▪ not too ceremonious, not too talkative, not too soft and compliant, not choleric, not too reserved, not proud, not vain▪ all those through vanity (which is only rich in fooleries) discourse perpetually of themselves, as if they were deities. But we must govern ourselves with great discretion and modesty; we must play, but not debase ourselves, laugh, but not to excess; take recreation, but not to effeminacy; be constant, but not obstinate; prudent, but not crafty; simple, but not stupid; concealing ill, furthering good, correcting our own faults by those, we dislike in others; always bringing home some fruit from this garden of Graces; and if acquainted with any secret fit to be concealed, we must make our breast its tomb.  
You will find, there are ordinarily five qualities, which make conversation pleasant; The first is, an obliging way, which sweetly scattereth benefits, from which (in their due time and place) spring up recompenses: This desire of doing good to all the world, is a bait we must keep ever in the water; for by it men are taken more easily than fishes: And such there have been, who by giving a glass of water opportunely, have obtained a Kingdom; as we see in the story of Thaumastus and King Agrippa.  
The second Affability, joined with a grace and sweet behaviour, which hath a most powerful charm over souls naturally inclined to honesty. To do good, and not to do it handsomely is nothing. A benefit given with grudging, is a stony loaf, only taken for necessity.  
The third, a quick and wary prudence, to discern the dispositions, capacities, manners, humours, affections, and aims of those with whom we converse; and to suit our carriage to every man's temper.  
The fourth, Humility, without sottishness or servile baseness, which teacheth to yield to reason, and not to presume upon our own strength.  
The fifth, (whereof we have already spoken) is a discreet Patience, to bear with men and business unmoved, so that you may keep your heart always in a good posture, even in unexpected, and thorny accidents. He that understands this mystery well, deserves to command men, being here placed by virtue in a degree next the Angels.  
A good rule for conversing well, is to propose unto yourself for pattern, one of a perfect conversation: So S. Augustine referred those that desired to profit in virtue, to the conversation of S. Paulinus. Vade in Campaniam, disce Paulinum.  
But the most effectual precept is, to think how the Incarnate Word would converse, if he were in our room; by his example, we shall do as Joseph in Egypt, of whom the Scripture Psal. 105. (according to the Hebrew phrase) saith, he tied the Princes of Pharaoh's Court about his heart.  
The Reverend Gontery, a man of great Judgement, and no less virtue, hath written a little Treatise of Conversation, wherein he descendeth very far to particulars. He that will read it, shall find wise instructions in it.   

The twelfth SECTION. Conclusion of the Diary.  
AT night, before you go to bed, you are to make the examen of Conscience, (which is the little Consistory of the soul, as Philo terms it) where having given thanks to God, and invoked his holy grace, you must recall your thoughts, your words, your actions, your faults, and neglects to account, that you may see the gain, the loss, and reckon of that day; to further good, to correct evil; remitting the one to your own discretion, and the other to God's mercy.  
Esteem this saying of S. Bernard, (in his book of the the Interiour house,) as an oratle, that one of the chiefest mirrors to behold God in, is a reasonable soul, which finds itself out.  
There, we must seat the Conscience in a Throne, with a Sceptre in her hand; and all passions, and imperfections at her feet.  
There she must take the liberty to say to you, Wicked servant, thou hast lost a day: what sluggishness at thy rising? what negligence in labour? how great words? how little works? Why this curious questioning? this rash judgement? these wandering eyes? these straying thoughts? Should you have been angry for so slight a cause, upon such an occasion; should you so freely have censured and murmured at the actions of another? should you have taken your refection so sensually? and sought your ease in, and by all things, so greedily? and so of the rest. If by the grace of God, you shall find some kind of virtues, yet must you well pick and sift them, (as the perfume, which was to be set before the Tabernacle) to present them before the face of God; and say in conclusion with all humility, as the devout Southwell, Quod fui, Domine, ignosce, quod sum corrige, quod ero dirige. O Lord, forgive what I have been, correct what I am, direct what I shall be.  
This done, say some vocal prayer, to shut the day up happily with some acts of contrition, of faith, of hope, of supplication, for yourself and friends.  
Say here.  
O Light of the Children of light! bright day which hast no evening! The world is buried in the darkness of night, and this day quite finished, wherein I see, as in a little Map, how my life shall end. O God, what benefits do I see in it, on thy part, what ingratitudes on mine? Preserve me in what is thine; and wash away with the precious blood of thy Son, what is mine. Shelter me under the wings of thy protection, from so many shadows, apparitions, and snares of the father of darkness; and grant, that though sleep close my eyes, yet my heart may never be shut to thy love.  
Lastly, fall asleep upon some good thought, that your night (as the Prophet saith) may be enlightened with the delights of God; and if you chance to have any interruption of sleep, supply it with ejaculatory prayers, and elevations of heart; as the just did of old, called for this reason, The crickets of the night.  
Thus shall you lead a life full of honour, quiet, and satisfaction to yourself, and shall make every day a step to Eternity. The marks, which may amongst others give you good hope of your predestination, are eleven principal.  
1. Faith, lively, simple, and firm. 2. Purity of life, exempt ordinarily from grievous sins. 3. Tribulation, 4. Clemency and mercy. 5. Poverty of spirit disengaged from the earth. 6. Humility. 7. Charity to your neighbour. 8. Frequentation of the blessed Sacrament. 9 Affection to the word of God. 10. Resignation of your own mind to the will of your Sovereign Lord. 11. Some remarkable act of virtue, which you have upon occasion exercised.  
You will find this Diary little in volume, but great in virtue, if relishing it well, you begin to put it in practice. It contains many things, worthy to be meditated at leisure; for they are grave and wise precepts, choicely extracted out of the moral doctrine of the Fathers. Though they seem short, they cost not the less pains. Remember, that famous Artist Myrmecides, employed more time to make a Bee, than an unskilful workman to build a house.    

EJACULATIONS FOR THE DIARY.  

In the Morning.  
MY voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up, Psal. 5. 3.  
Thou shalt make thy face to shine upon me, and all the beasts of the forest shall gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens, Psal. 184. 22.  
My days are like the days of an hireling. Until the day break, and the shadows fly away, Job 7. 1. Cant. 4. 6.   

Beginning a good work.  
In the volume of the book it is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy Law is within my heart, Psal. 40. 7. 8.   

In good Inspirations.  
The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back, Isaiah 50. 5.   

At Church.  
How amiable are thy Tabernacles! O Lord of hosts, Psal. 84. 1.   

Before reading.  
Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth, 1 Samuel 3. 9   

Speaking.  
My heart is inditing a good matter; I speak of the things which I have made touching the King, Psal. 45. 1.   

Eating.  
Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing, Psal. 145.   

In Prosperity.  
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth: If I prefer not thee above my chief joy, Psal. 137. 6.   

Adversity.  
The Lord killeth, and maketh alive, 1 Sam. 2. 6. Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? Job 2. 10. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? Luke 24. 26.   

Troubles.  
Surely man walketh in a vain show; surely they are disquieted in vain, Psal. 39 6.   

Calumnies.  
If I pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ, Gal. 1. 10.   

Praises.  
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy Name give glory, Psal. 115. 1.   

Against vain hope.  
As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image, Psalm 73. 20.   

Pride.  
Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, Luke 14. 11.   

Covetousness.  
It is more blessed to give, than to receive, Acts 20. 35.   

Luxury.  
Know ye not, that your bodies are the members of Christ? 1. Cor. 6. 15.   

Envy.  
He that loveth not his brother, abideth in death, 1 John 3. 14.   

Gluttony.  
The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, Rom. 14. 17.   

Anger.  
Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, Matth. 11. 29.   

Sloth.  
Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently, Jer. 48. 10.   

Rules of Faith.  
God cannot be known but by himself. What is to be understood of God, is to be learned by God, Hilar. lib. 5. de Trin.  
God doth not call us to the blessed life by hard questions. In simplicity must we seek him, in piety profess him. Idem lib. 10.  
Remove not the ancient bounds which thy fathers have set, Prov. 22. 28.  
Many are the reasons which justly hold me in the bosom of the Catholic Church: Consent of people and nations; Authority, begun by miracles, nourished by hope, increased by charity, confirmed by antiquity. August. lib. De utilitate credendi.  
To dispute against that which the universal Church doth maintenance, is insolent madness. Idem Epist. 118.  
Let us follow universality, antiquity, consent: Let us hold that which is believed every where, always, by all. Vincentius Lyrinensis De profanis vocum novitatibus.   

Acts of Faith.  
Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief, Marc. 9 24.  
I know that my Redeemer liveth, etc. Job 19 25.   

Hope.  
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me, Psal. 24. 4.  
I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him, Psal. 90. 15.   

Charity.  
Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. Psal. 73. 25, 26.  
Feed me, O Lord, thy suppliant with the continual influence of thy Divinity: This I request, this I desire; that vehement love may throughly pierce me, fill me, and change me into itself. Blosius.    

PRAYERS for all Persons and occasions.  

For the Church.  
WE beseech thee, O Lord, graciously to accept the prayers of thy Church, that she being delivered from all adversity and error, may serve thee in safety and freedom, through Jesus Christ our Lord.   

For the King.  
WE beseech thee, O Lord, that thy servant CHARLES by thy gracious appointment our King and Governor, may be enriched with all increase of virtue, whereby he may be able to eschew evil, and to follow Thee, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.   

For a Friend.  
ALmighty and everliving Lord God, have mercy upon thy servant N. and direct him by thy goodness into the way of eternal salvation; that through thy grace, he may desire those things which please thee, and with his whole endeavour perform the same, through Jesus Christ our Lord.   

For Peace.  
O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed, give unto us thy servants that peace which the world cannot give, that both our hearts may be set to obey thy Commandments, and also that by thee we being defended from the fear of our enemies, may pass our time in rest and quietness, through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour.   

In the time of Plague.  
LEt thy anger cease, O Lod, and be appeased for the iniquity of thy people, as thou hast sworn by thyself. O holy God, holy and strong, holy and immortal, have mercy upon us.   

For the Clergy.  
ALmighty and everlasting God, who by thy Spirit dost sanctify and govern the whole body of the Church, graciously hear our prayers for all those whom thou hast ordained, and called to the public service of thy Sanctuary; that by the help of thy grace they may faithfully serve thee in their several degrees, through Jesus Christ our Lord.   

For a City.  
COmpass this City, O Lord, with thy protection, and let thy holy Angels guard the walls thereof; O Lord, mercifully hear thy people.   

For the sick.  
O God the only refuge of our infirmities, by thy mighty power relieve thy sick servants, that they with thy gracious assistance, may be able to give thanks unto thee in thy holy Church, through Jesus Christ.   

For grace.  
LOrd, from whom all good things do come; grant unto us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding, may perform the same through our Lord Jesus Christ.   

For the afflicted.  
O Almighty God, the afflicted soul, the troubled spirit crieth unto thee: Hear O Lord, and have mercy; for thou art a merciful God.   

For friends.  
I Beseech thee, O Lord, for all those to whom I am indebted for my birth, education, instruction, promotion; their necessities are known unto thee; thou art rich in all things; reward them for these benefits, with blessings both temporal and eternal.   

For enemies.  
O God the lover and preserver of peace and charity, give unto all our enemies thy true peace and love, and remission of sins: and mightily deliver us from their snares, through Jesus Christ our Lord.   

For travellers.  
ASsist us mercifully, O Lord, in our supplications and prayers; and dispose the way of thy servants towards the attainment of everlasting salvation, that among all the changes and chances of this mortal life, they may ever be defended by thy most gracious and ready help, through Christ our Lord.   

For a Family.  
ALmighty and everlasting God, send down thy holy Angel from heaven, to visit, protect and defend all that dwell in this house, through Jesus Christ our Lord.   

For the dying.  
FAther of spirits and God of all flesh, receive the souls which thou hast redeemed with thy blood, returning unto thee.   

For the fruits of the earth.  
O God in whom we live, and move, and have our being, open thy treasure in the due season, and give a blessing to the works of thy hands.   

For women in travel.  
O Lord, of thy goodness help thy servants, who are in pains of childbirth; that being delivered out of their present danger, they may glorify thy holy name, blessed for ever.   

Against temptation.  
ALmighty God, which dost see that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, keep thou us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities, which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts, which may assault and hurt the soul, through Jesus Christ.   

For misbelievers and sinners.  
ALmighty and everliving God, who desirest not the death of a sinner, mercifully look upon all that are deceived by the subtlety of Satan, that all evil prejudice laid aside, they may return to the unity of thy truth and love.   

For Prisoners.  
O God, who didst deliver S. Peter from his chains, and restoredst him to liberty, have pity upon thy servants in captivity, release their bonds, and grant them freedom and safety; for his merits who liveth and reigneth with thee and the holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.   

For temporal necessaries.  
REplenish those, O Lord, we beseech thee, with temporal nourishment, whom thou hast refreshed with thy blessed Sacraments.   

Against tempests.  
DRive spiritual wickedness from thy house, O Lord, and preserve it from the malignity of tempestuous weather.   

A Prayer of Thomas Aquinas before study.  
O Unspeakable Creator, who out of the treasure of thy wisdom, hast ordained Hierarchies of Angels, and hast placed them above the highest heaven, in a wonderful order, and disposed them sweetly for all parts of the world; Thou, the true fountain, and incomprehensible principle of light and wisdom, vouchsafe to illuminate the darkness of my understanding with a beam of thy light; remove the darkness wherein I was born, sin and ignorance; Thou who makest the tongues of infants eloquent, loosen my tongue, and pour forth the grace of thy spirit upon my lips; give me acuteness, to apprehend, capacity to retain, subtlety to interpret, aptness to learn, readiness to speak; direct my beginning, further my progression, and perfect my conclusion.    

THE PENITENT, OR, ENTERTAINMENTS for LENT: And for the first day upon the Consideration of Ashes.  
THou art Dust, and to Dust thou shalt return, Genes. 3.  
1. It is an excellent way to begin Lent with the consideration of Dust, whereby Nature gives us beginning, and by the same, Death shall put an end to all our worldly vanities. There is no better way to abate and humble the proudest of all Creatures, than to represent his beginning and his end. The middle part of our life (like a kind of Proteus) takes upon it several shapes not understood by others; but the first and last part of it deceive no man; for they do both begin and end in Dust. It is a strange thing that Man, knowing well what he hath been, and what he must be, is not confounded in himself, by observing the pride of his own life, and the great disorder of his passions. The end of all other creatures is less deformed than that of man: Plants in their death retain some pleasing smell of their bodies: The little rose buries itself in her natural sweetness, and carnation colour. Many Creatures at their death leave us their teeth, horns, feathers, skins, of which we make great use. Others after death are served up in silver and golden dishes, to feed the greatest persons of the world. Only man's dead carcase is good for nothing but to feed worms: and yet he often retains the presumptuous pride of a Giant, by the exorbitancy of his heart, and the cruel nature of a murderer, by the furious rage of his revenge. Surely that man must either be stupid by nature, or most wicked by his own election, who will not correct and amend himself, having still before his eyes Ashes for his Glass, and Death for his Mistress.  
2. This consideration of Dust is an excellent remedy to cure vices, and an assured Rampire against all temptations. S. Paulinus saith excellently well; That holy Job was free from all temptations, when he was placed upon the smoke and dust of his humility. He that lies upon the ground can fall no lower; but may contemplate all above him, and meditate how to raise himself by the hand of God, which pulls down the proud and exalts the humble. Is a man tempted with pride? The consideration of Ashes will humble him. Is he burned with wanton love, which is a direct fire?) But fire cannot consume Ashes. Is he persecuted with covetousness? Ashes do make the greatest Leeches and Bloodsuckers cast their Gorges. Every thing gives way to this unvalued thing, because God is pleased to draw the instruments of his power out of the objects of our infirmities.  
3. If we knew how to use rightly the meditation of death, we should there find the streams of life: All the world together is of no estimation to him, that rightly knows the true value of a just man's death. It would be necessary, that they who are taken with the curiosity of Tulips, should set in their Gardens a Plant called Napel, which carries a flower that most perfectly resembles a Death's head. And if the other Tulips do please their senses, that will instruct their reason. Before our last death we should die many other deaths; by forsaking all those creatures and affections which lead us to sin. We should resemble those creatures (sacred to the Egyptians) called Cynocephales', which died piece-meal, and were buried long before their death: So should we bury all our concupiscences before we go to the grave, and strive to live so, that when death comes, he should find very little business with us.  

Aspiration.  
O Father of all Essences, who givest beginning to all things, and art without end; This day I take Ashes upon my head, thereby professing (before thee) my being nothing; and to do thee homage for that which I am, and for that I ought to be by thy great bounties. Alas, O Lord, my poor soul is confounded to see so many sparkles of pride and covetousness, arise from this caitiff dust which I am: so little do I yet learn how to live, and so late do I know how to die. O God, of my life and death, I most humbly beseech thee, so to govern the first in me, and so to sweeten the last for me, that if I live, I may live only for thee; and if I must die, that I may enter into everlasting bliss, by dying in thy blessed love and favour.    

The Gospel for Ash-wednesday. S. Matthew 6. Of Hypocritical Fasting.  
WHen you fast, be not as the hypocrites, sad, for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Amen, I say to you that they have received their reward.  
But thou when thou dost fast, anoint thy head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father which is in secret: and thy Father which seethe in secret, will repay thee.  
Heap not up to yourselves treasures on the earth: where the rust and moth do corrupt, and where thiefs dig through and steal. But heap up to yourselves treasures in heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth corrupt, and where thiefs do not dig through nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.  

Moralities.  
1. THat man goes to Hell by the way of Paradise, who fasts and afflicts his body, to draw the praise of Men. Sorrow and vanity together, are not able to make one Christian Act. He deserves everlasting hunger, who starves himself, that he may swell and burst with vain glory. He stands for a spectacle to others, being the murderer of himself, and by sowing vanity, reaps nothing but wind. Our intentions must be wholly directed to God, and our examples for our neighbour. The Father of all virtues is not to be served with counterfeit devotions; such lies are abominations in his sight, and Tertullian saith, they are, as many adulteries.  
2. It imports us much to begin Lent well, entering into those lists, in which so many holy souls have run their course with so great strictness, have been glorious before God, and honourable before men. The difficulty of it is apprehended only by those who have their understandings obstructed by a violent affection to kitchen-stuff. It is no more burdensome to a courageous spirit, than feathers are to a bird. The cheerfulness which a man brings to a good action in the beginning, does half the work. Let us wash our faces by confession: Let us perfume our Head (who is Jesus Christ) by alms-deeds. Fasting is a most delicious feast to the conscience, when it is accompanied with pureness and charity: but it breeds great thirst, when it is not nourished with devotion, and watered with mercy.  
3. What great pain is taken to get treasure; what care to preserve it; what fear to lose it; and what sorrow when it is lost? Alas, is there need of so great covetousness in life, to encounter with such extreme nakedness in death? We have not the souls of Giants, nor the body of a Whale. If God will have me poor, must I endeavour to reverse the decrees of heaven and earth, that I may become rich? To whom do we trust the safety of our treasures? To rust, to moths and thiefs: were it not better we should in our infirmities depend only on God Almighty, and comfort our poverty in him who is only rich, and so carry our souls to heaven, where Jesus on the day of his Ascension did place our Sovereign good. Only Serpents and covetous men desire to sleep among treasures as Saint Clement saith. But the greatest riches of the world is poverty, free from Covetousness.   

Aspiration.  
I Seek thee, (O invisible God) within the Abyss of thy brightness, and I see thee through the vail of thy creatures. Wilt thou always be hidden from me? Shall I never see thy face, which with a glimpse of thy splendour canst make Paradise? I work in secret, but I know thou art able to reward me in the light. A man can lose nothing by serving thee, and yet nothing is valuable to thy service, for the pain itself is a sufficient recompense. Thou art the food of my fastings, and the cure of my infirmities. What have I to do with Moles, to dig the earth like them, and there to hid treasures? Is it not time to close the earth, when thou dost open heaven? and to carry my heart where thou art, since all my riches is in thee? Doth not he deserve to be everlastingly poor, who cannot be content with a God so rich as thou art?    

The Gospel for the first Thursday in Lent, S. Matthew 18. of the Centurion's words. O Lord I am not worthy.  
ANd when he was entered into Capharnaum, there came to him a Centurion, beseeching him, and saying, Lord my boy lieth at home sick of the palsy, and is sore tormented.  
And Jesus saith to him, I will come and cure him.  
And the Centurion making answer, said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof: but only say the word, and my boy shall be healed. For I also am a man subject to Authority, having under me soldiers: and I say to this, go, and he goeth: and to another, come, and he cometh: and to my servant, do this, and he doth it. And Jesus hearing this, marvelled, and said to them that followed him, Amen, I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel.  
And I say to you, that many shall come from the East and West, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven: but the children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the Centurion, Go, and as thou hast believed, be it done to thee. And the boy was healed in the same hour.  

Moralities.  
1. OUr whole Salvation consists in two principles; The one is, in our being sensible of God; and the other, in moving toward him; the first, proceeds from faith; the other, comes of charity and other virtues. O what a happy thing it is to follow the examples of this good Centurion, by having such elevated thoughts of the Divinity, and to know nothing of God, but what he is: To behold our heavenly Father, within this great family of the world, who effects all things by his single word; Creates by his power; governs by his council; and orders by his goodness this great universality of all things. The most insensible creatures have ears to hear him. Fevers and tempests are part of that running camp, which marcheth under his Standard: They advance and retire themselves under the shadow of his command: he only hath power to give measures to the Heaven, bounds to the Sea, to join the East and West together in an instant, and to be in all places where his pleasure is understood.  
2. O how goodly a thing it is to go unto him, like this great Captain: To go said I? Nay, rather to fly as he doth, by the two wings of Charity and Humility. His charity made him have a tender care of his poor servant, and to esteem his health more dear, than great men do the rarest pieces in their Cabinets. He doth not trust his servants, but takes the charge upon himself: making himself (by the power of love) a servant to him; who by birth was made subject to his command. What can be said of so many Masters and Mistresses now adays, who live always slaves to their passions? having no care at all of the Salvation, health, or necessities of their servants, as if they were nothing else but the very scum of the world. They make great use of their labours and service (which is just) but neglect their bodies, and kill their souls by the infection of their wicked examples. Mark the humility of this soldier, who doth not think his house worthy to be enlightened by one sole glimpse of our blessed Saviour's presence. By the words of Saint Augustine we may say, he made himself worthy by believing, and declaring himself so unworthy: yea, worthy that our Saviour should enter, not only into his house, but into his very soul. And upon the matter he could not have spoken with such faith and humility, if he had not first enclosed (in his heart) him, whom he durst not receive into his house.  
3. The Gentiles come near unto God, and the Jews go from him; to teach us, that ordinarily the most obliged persons are most ungrateful; and disesteem their benefactors for no other reason, but because they receive benefits daily from them. If you speak courteously to them, they answer churlishly; and in the same proportion wherein you are good, you make them wicked; therefore we must be careful that we be not so toward God. Many are distasted with devotion, as the Israelites were with Manna: All which is good doth displease them, because it is ordinary: And you shall find some, who (like naughty grounds) cast up thorns where roses are planted. But we have great reason to fear, that nothing but hell fire is capable to punish those, who despise the graces of God, and esteem that which comes from him as a thing of no value.   

Aspirations.  
O Almighty Lord, who dost govern all things in the family of this world, and dost bind all insensible creatures, (by the bare sound of thy voice) in a chain of everlasting obedience: Must I only be still rebellious against thy will? Fevers and Palsies have their ears for thee, and yet my unruly spirit is not obedient. Alas, alas, this family of my heart is ill governed; It hath violent passions; my thoughts are wandering, and my reason is ill obeyed. Shall it never be like the house of this good Centurion, where every thing went by measure, because he measured himself by thy commandments? O Lord, I will come resolutely by a profound humility, and an inward feeling of myself, since I am so contemptible before thine eyes. I will come with Charity toward these of my household, and toward all that shall need me. O God of my heart, I beseech thee, let nothing from henceforth move in me, but only to advance my coming toward thee, who art the beginning of all motions, and the only repose of all things which move.    

The Gospel for the first Friday in Lent, S. Matth. 5. Wherein we are directed to pray for our Enemies.  
YOu have heard that it was said, thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and abuse you: that you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven, who maketh his Sun to rise upon good and bad, and raineth upon just and unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? Do not also the Publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? Do not also the heathen this? Be you perfect therefore, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.  

Moralities.  
1. A Man that loves nothing but according to his natural inclination, loves only like a beast or an infidel. The best sort of love is that which is commanded by God, and is derived from judgement, conducted by reason, and perfected by Charity. Me thinks it should be harder for a good Christian to hate, than love his enemy. Hate makes him our equal, whereas love placeth us quite above him. By hating a man's enemy, he breaks the laws of God; he fights against the Incarnation of Christ, which was acted to unite all things in the bands of love: he gives the lie to the most blessed Eucharist, whose nature is to make the hearts of all Christians the lame: he lives (like another Cain in the world) always disquieted by seeking revenge, and it is a very death to him to hear another man's prosperity. Whereas to love an enemy, doth not bind us to love the injury he hath done us; for we must not consider him as a malefactor, but as a man of our own nature, as he is the Image of God, and as he is a Christian. God doth only command perfect things, not impossible. That which is very hard to flesh and blood, become easy by the help of grace and reason. Our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, being the Father of all harmony, can, and doth reconcile all contrarieties at his will and pleasure.  
2. If revenge seem sweet, the gaining of it is most bitter: But there is nothing in the world more profitable, than to pardon an enemy by imitation of our Saviour. For it is then that our conscience can assure us to be the children of God, and inheritors of his glory. We must not fear to be despised for esteeming virtue, for such contempt can only proceed from those, who know not the true value of that glory which belongs to the just. There is no better way to revenge, than leave it to God, who always doth his own business. When David wept for Saul, who was his enemy, his Clemency did insensibly make degrees, by which he mounted up to the throne of Judah. A good work which comes from the spirit of vanity, is like an emptied Mine, good for nothing. God, who is invisible, would have our aspects turned always toward him, and blind toward the world. Alms given by the sound of a Trumpet, makes a great noise on earth, but reaps little fruit in Heaven. The fly of vanity is a mischievous thing, which destroys all the perfumes of Charity. What need we any spectators of our good works, every place is full where God is, and where he is not, there only is Solitude.   

Aspirations.  
O God of all holy affections, when shall I love all which thou lovest, and have in horror all that displeaseth thy divine Majesty: If I cannot love in some person his defects and sins, I will love in him thine Image, and in that will I acknowledge thy mercies. If he be a piece of broken glass, in that little piece, there will shine some lines of a God-Creatour, and of a God-Redeemer. If thou hast chosen him to exercise my patience, why should I make him the object of my revenge, since he gives me trouble to gain me a Crown. He is a hammer to polish and make me bright. I will not hurt him, but reverence the arm that strikes me. I resign all vengeance into thy hands, since it is a Right reserved for thy Almighty power. And certainly, the best revenge I can take, is to gratify my enemy. Give unto me (O most merciful Prince) the grace to suffer, and let the sacrifice of my sufferings mount up to thy propitiatory Throne.    

The Gospel for the first Saturday in Lent, S. Matth. 6. Of the Apostles danger at Sea, and relief by our SAVIOUR.  
ANd when he had dismissed them, he went into the mountain to pray, and when it was late, the boat was in the midst of the Sea, and himself alone on the land. And seeing them labouring in rowing (for the wind was against them) and about the fourth watch of the night, he cometh to them, walking upon the sea and he would have passed by them. But they seeing him walking upon the sea, thought it was a ghost, and cried out, for all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them; and said to them, Have confidence, it is I, fear ye not. And he went up to them into the ship, and the wind ceased; and they were far more astonished within themselves, for they understood not concerning the loaves, for their heart was blinded.  
And when they had passed over, they came into the land of Genesareth, and set to the shore. And when they were gone out of the boat, incontinent they knew him, and running through that whole Country, they began to carry about in couches, those that were ill at ease, where they heard he was. And whither soever he entered into towns, or into villages, or cities, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him, that they might touch but the hem of his garment, and as many as touched him, were made whole.  

Moralities.  
1. WHat a painful thing it is to row, when Jesus is not in the boat; all our travel is just nothing without God's favour: A little blast of wind is worth more than an hundred strokes of oars. What troublesome businesses there are: how many intricate families do labour much, and yet advance nothing, because God withdraws himself from their iniquities; if he do not build, the workman destroys what he is building. But all falls out right to those, that embark themselves with Jesus. They may pass to the Indies in a basket, when others shall miscarry in a good ship, well furnished.  
2. But how comes it about, that the ship of the poor Apostles is beaten so furiously by the winds and tempests? There are many ships with silver beaks, with fine linen sails, and silken tackles, upon which the sea seems to smile. Do the waters reserve their choler, only to vent it upon that ship which carries just persons? This is the course of man's life: The brave and happy men of this world enjoy their wishes, but their ship doth perish in the harbour, as it is sporting; whereas God by his infinite providence, gives tempests to his elect, that he may work a miraculous calm by his Almighty power. Dangers are witnesses of their floating, and Combats are causes of their merit. Never think any man happy in his wickedness, for he is just like a fish that plays with the bait, when the hook sticks fast in his throat. We must wait and attend for help from Heaven patiently (without being tired) even till the fourth, which is the last watch of the night. All which proceeds from the hand of God, comes ever in fit time, and that man is a great gainer by his patiented attendance, who thereby gets nothing but perseverance.  
3. They know Jesus very ill, that take him for a Phantom or an illusion, and cry out for fear of his presence, which should make them most rejoice: So do those souls which are little acquainted with God, who live in blindness, and make much of their own darkness. Let us learn to discern God from the illusions of the world: The tempest ceaseth when he doth approach; and the quietness of our heart is a sure mark of his presence, which fills the soul with splendour, and makes it a delicious garden. He makes all good wheresoever he comes, and the steps which his feet leave, are the bounties of his heart. To touch the Hem of his Garment, cures all that are sick; to teach us, that the forms which cover the blessed Sacrament are the fringes of his holy humanity, which cures our sins.   

Aspiration.  
O Lord, my soul is in night and darkness, and I feel that thou art far from me. What billows of disquiet rise within my heart; what idle thoughts which have been too much considered? Alas (most redoubted Lord and Father of mercy) canst thou behold from firm land this poor vessel, which labours so extremely, being deprived of thy most amiable presence? I row strongly, but can advance nothing; except thou come into my soul. Come (O my adored Master) walk upon this tempestuous Sea of my heart; ascend into this poor vessel; say unto me, Take courage, It is I. Be not conceited that I will take thee for an illusion; for I know thee too well by thy powers and bounties, to be so mistaken. The least thought of my heart will quiet itself to adore thy steps. Thou shalt reign within me; thou shalt disperse my cares; thou shalt recover my decayed senses; thou shalt lighten my understanding; thou shalt inflame my will; thou shalt cure all my infirmities: And to conclude, thou only shalt work in me, and I will be wholly thine.    

The Gospel for the first Sunday in Lent, S. Matthew 4. Of our SAVIOUR's being tempted in the Desert.  
THen Jesus was led of the Spirit into the Desert, to be tempted of the Devil, and when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward he was hungry: And the Tempter approached, and said to him, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones he made bread: Who answered and said, It is written, not in bread alone doth man live, but in every world that proceedeth from the mouth of God.  
Then the Devil took him up into the holy City, and set him upon the pinnacle of the Temple, and said to him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, That he will give his Angels charge of thee, and in their hands shall they hold thee up, lest perhaps thou knock thy foot against a stone. Jesus said to him again, It is written, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.  
Again the Devil took him up into a very high mountain, and he shown him all the Kingdoms of the world; and the glory of them, and said to him, all these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me, Then Jesus saith to him, Avaunt Satan; for it is written, the Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the Devil left him, and behold Angels came, and ministered to him.  

Moralities.  
1. JESUS suffered himself to be tempted (saith Saint Augustine) to the end he might serve for a Mediator, for an example, and for a remedy to work our victory over all temptations. We must fight on his side: Our life is a continual warfare, and our days are Champions which enter into the lists. There is no greater temptation, than to have none at all: Sleeping water doth nourish poison. Motion is the world's soul; fight against temptations, is the soul of virtues, and glory doth spring and bud out of tribulations. Virtue hinders not temptation, but surmounts it. Jesu● fasted (saith the ordinary gloss) that he might be tempted, and is tempted because he did fast. He fasted forty days, and then was hungry; he did eat with his Disciples the space of forty days after his resurrection, without any more necessity of meat, than the Sun hath of the earth's vapours: to make us thereby know, that it only appertained to him, to teach that great secret how to manage want and abundance, by which S. Paul was glorified.  
2. The first victory over a Temptation, is, to know that which tempts us: Some temptations are gay and smiling at their beginning, as those of love and pleasure, which end in terrible and bitter storms: Others are troublesome and irksome: Others doubtful and intricate: Others rapide and sudden, which seize upon their prey like an Eagle: Others are close and catching. These are the snares of Satan, who foams like a Boar, roars like a Lion, and hisseth like a Serpent. We should always have an eye ready, to mark from whence the Temptation comes, whither it tends, what is the root of it, what the course, what the progress, and what power it may have over our spirit.  
3. Solitude of heart, fasting, prayer, the word of God, are weapons of an excellent temper, which the Word Incarnate teacheth us to use in this conflict. These things are to be used with discretion, by the counsel of a good director, to whom a man must declare all his most secret thoughts, and bear a breast of crystal toward him, with a firm purpose to let him see all the inward motions of his heart. It is also good to note here, that our Lord would expressly be tempted in that Desarr, which is between Jerusalem and Jericho, where the Samaritane (mentioned in the Parable) did pour wine and oil into the sores of the poor wounded man; to teach us, that by his combat, he came to cure the wounds of Adam, and all his race, in the very place where they were received.  
4. Sin is killed by flying the occasions of it. Absence, resistance, coldness, silence, labour, diversion, have overcome many assaults of the enemy. Sometimes a Spider's web is strong enough to preserve chastity, and at other times the thick walls of Semiramis are not sufficient. God governs all, and a good will to concur with him, is a strong assurance in all perils, and it will keep us untouched amidst the flames of lust.  
5. Since it imports us so much to fight valiantly, let us bring the hearts of Lions. Where is our Christianity, if we do not give testimony of it to God, both by our fidelity and courage? How many Martyrs have been roasted and broiled, because they would not speak one ill word? What honour can you expect by yielding at the first entrance, to a temptation? Look not upon the violence of it, but contemplate the Crown, which you should gain by conquering it; think at your entrance how you will come off, and know for certain, that he who truly considers the consequence of a wicked action, will never begin it.  
6. Lent is the Springtime for sanctified resolutions, it mortifies the body, that the spirit may triumph, it is a time of grace which tends to salvation and mercy. It imports extremely to commend all to God at the beginning, to sanctify this fasting, which is part of our devotion: we must abstain from flesh, and be content with one meal at seasonable hours, without making over large collations; except age, infirmity, or weakness, labour, or necessity of other functions, shall dispense with our diet: for those who are unable to fast suffer more by their disability, than others do by fasting. It is good to follow the counsel of Athanasius, who adviseth to eat late, and little, and at a table where there is but one sort of meat. We must also fast by abstinence from vice. For to weaken our body, and yet nourish our naughty passions, is to fast as the devils do, who eat nothing, and yet devour the world by the rage of their malice. Sobriety is a stream which waters all virtues. Our soul and body are as the scales of a balance; if you pull down the one, you raise up the other; and if you tame your flesh, it makes the Spirit reign and govern.   

Aspirations.  
O Most merciful Lord, Father, and Protector of all my life, how great are the temptations and snares, whereunto I am subject; when I eat, drink, sleep, when I do business, when I am both in conversation and solitude? Whither shall this poor soul go, which thou hast thrown into a body so frail, in a world so corrupt, and amongst the assaults of so many pernicious enemies? Open, O Lord, thine eyes for my guidance, and compassionate my infirmities: without thee I can do nothing, and in thee I can do all that I ought. Give me, O Lord, a piercing eye, to see my danger, and the wings of an Eagle, to fly from it or the heart of a Lion to fight valiantly, that I may never be wanting in my duty and fidelity to thee. I owe all that I am or have, to thy gracious favour, and I will hope for my salvation, not by any proportion of my own virtues (which are weak and slender) but by thy boundless liberalities, which only do crown all our good works.    

The Gospel upon Monday, the first week of Lent, out of Saint Matthew 25. Of the Judgement-Day.  
ANd when the Son of man shall come in his Majesty, and all the Angels with him, then shall be sit upon the seat of his Majesty. And all Nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the Pastor separateth the sheep from the goats: And shall set the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at his left.  
Then shall the King say to them that shall be at his right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, possess you the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungered, and you gave me to eat: I was athirst, and you gave me to drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me. Then shall the just answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see thee an hungered, and fed thee: athirst, and gave thee drink? and when did we see thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and covered thee? or when did we see thee sick, or in prison, and came to thee? And the King answering, shall say to them, Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.  
Then shall he say to them also that shall be at his left hand, Get you away from me you cursed into fire everlasting, which was prepared for the Devil and his Angels. For I was an hungered, and you gave me not to eat: I was athirst, and you gave me not to drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and you covered me not: sick, and in prison, and you did not visit me. Then they also shall answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these lesser, neither did you it to me. And these shall go into punishment everlasting: but the just, into life everlasting.  

Moralities.  
1. BEhold here a Gospel of great terror, where our spirit, like the Dove of Noah, is placed upon the great deluge of God's wrath, and knows not where to find footing. Every thing is most dreadful; But what can be more terrible, than the certainty of God's judgement, joined with the great uncertainty of the hour of our death? It is an unchangeable decree, that we must all be presented before the high Tribunal of the living God, to render a just account of all which our soul hath done, while it was joined with our body, as we are taught by S. Paul. We must make an account of our time spent, of our thoughts, words, actions, of that we have done, and that we have omitted, of life, death, and of the blood of Jesus Christ; and thereupon receive a judgement of everlasting life or death. All men know that this must certainly be done, but no man knows the hour or moment when it shall be. So many clocks strike about us every day, and yet none can let us know the hour of our death.  
2. O how great is the solitude of a Soul in her separation, from so many great enticements of the world, (wherein many men live) and in an instant to see nothing but the good or ill we have done on either side us, what an astonishment will it be for a man suddenly to see all the actions of his life (as upon a piece of Tapistree) spread  his eyes; where his sins will appear like so many thorns, so many serpents, so many venomous beasts. Where will then be that cozening vail of reputation, and reason of state, which as yet cover so many wicked actions? The soul shall (in that day of God) be showed naked to all the world, and her own eyes will most vex her, by witnessing so plainly what she hath done.  
3. O what a parting water is God's judgement, which in a moment shall separate the metals so different? O what a division will then be made of some men which now live upon earth? Some shall be made clear and bright like the stars of heaven, & others like coals burning in hell. O what a dreadful change will it be to a damned soul at her separation from this life, to live only in the company of devils, in that piercing sense of torments, and eternal punishment? It is a very troublesome thing, to be tied with silken strings in a bed of Roses, for the space of eight days together. What may we think of a damned soul, which must dwell in a bed of flames, so long as there shall be a God.  
4. Make use of the time given you to work your salvation, and live such a life as may end with a happy death, and so obtain that favourable judgement, which shall say; Come, O thou soul blessed of God my Father, possess the kingdom which is prepared for thee from the beginning of the world. There is no better means to avoid the rigour of God's judgements, than to fear them continually. Imitate the tree (mentioned in an Emblem) which being designed to make a ship, and finding itself wind-shaken as it grew upon the land, said, What will become of me in the sea? If we be already moved in this world, by the bare consideration of the punishment due to sin, think what it will be in that vast sea, and dreadful Abyss of God's judgements.   

Aspirations.  
O King of dreadful Majesty, who dost justly damn, and undeservedly save souls; save me, O Fountain of Mercy. Remember thyself (sweet Jesus) that I was the cause of that great journey which thou tookest from God to man; and do not destroy me in that dreadful day, which must decide the Question of my life or death for all eternity. Take care of my last end, since thou art the cause of my beginning, and the only cause of all that I am. O Father of bounties, wouldst thou stop a mouth which desires so earnestly to praise and confess thee everlastingly? Alas (O eternal Sweetness) wouldst thou damn a soul which hath cost thee so much sweat and blood, giving it for ever to those cruel and accursed powers of darkness? Rather, O Lord, pierce my heart with such a fear of thy judgement, that I may always dread, and never feel them: If I forget, awake my memory, if I fly from thee, recall me again: If I defer my amendment, stay for me; If I return, do not despise my soul, but open those arms of mercy, which thou didst spread upon the Cross, with such rigorous justice against thyself, for satisfaction of my sins.    

The Gospel upon Tuesday, the first week in Lent, out of Saint Matthew 21. JESUS drove the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple.  
ANd when he was entered Jerusalem, the whole City was moved, saying, Who is this? And the people said, This is Jesus the Prophet, of Nazareth in Galilee. And Jesus entered into the Temple of God, and cast out all that sold and bought in the Temple, and the tables of the bankers, and the chairs of them that sold pigeons he overthrew: and be saith to them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thiefs. And there came to him the blind and the lame in the Temple: and he healed them. And the chief Priests and Scribes seeing the marvellous things that he did, and the children crying in the Temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: they had indignation, and said to him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus said to them, Very well, have you never read, that out of the mouths of infants and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? and leaving them, he went forth out of the City into Bethania, and remained there.  

Moralities.  
1. JEsus entering into Jerusalem, went straight to the Temple, as a good Son goes to his Father's house; as a Highpriest to the Sanctuary; and as a sacrifice to the Altar. He doth very lively interest himself in the goods of his Heavenly Father, and chaseth out every profane thing out of that sacred place, to give thereby glory to the living God, and to put all things in order. It is a wicked stain to Religion, when Ecclesiastical persons are vicious, and when Churches are profaned. Saint John Chrysostom saith, That Priests are the heart of the Church, but when they are wicked, they turn all into sin. A decaying tree hath always some ill quality about the root; so when any people are without discipline, the Pastors are without virtue. The want of reverence in Churches, begets the contempt of God; they cannot have Jesus in their hearts, when they give him affronts even in his own Temple.  
2. His house (saith he) is a house of Prayer; but your heart should be the Sanctuary, and your lips the door. So long as you are without the exercise of prayer, you shall be like a Bee without a sting, which can make neither honey nor wax. Prayer is the chiefest and most effectual means of that Angelical conversation, to which God calls us, by the merits of his passion, and by the effects of his triumphant resurrection. It is the sacred business which man hath with God, and (to speak with Saint Gregory Nazianzen) it is the art, to make our souls divine. Before all things you must put into an order, the number, the time, the place, the manner of your prayers; and be sure that you pay unto God this tribute, with respect, fervour, and perseverance. But if you desire to make a very good prayer, learn betimes to make a prayer of all your life. Incense hath no smell without fire, and prayer is of no force without charity. A man must converse innocently and purely with men, that desire to treat worthily with God.  
3. Keep your person and your house clean, from ill managing all holy things, and from those irreverences, which are sometimes committed in Churches. It is a happy thing for a man to be ignorant of the trade of buying and selling benefices, and to have no intercourse with the tribunals of iniquity. Many other sins are written in sand, and blown away with a small breath of God's mercy; But the faults of so great impiety, are carved upon a corner of the Altar, with a graver of steel, or with a diamond point, as the Prophet saith. He deserves to be made eternally culpable, who dries up the fountain, which should waste himself, or poisons the stream, which he himself must drink; or contanimates the Sacraments which are given him, to purify his soul.   

Aspirations.  
SPirit of God, which by reason of thy eminent height, canst pray to no body, and yet by thy divine wisdom, makest all the world pray to thee; Give me the gift of prayer, since it is the mother of wisdom; the seal of virginity, the sanctuary for our evils, and fountain of all our goods. Grant that I may adore thee in Spirit with reverence, steadfastness, and perseverance: and if it be thy divine pleasure that I pray unto thee as I ought; inspire into me (by thy virtue) such prayers as thou wilt hear by thy bounty.    

The Gospel for Wednesday the first week of Lent, S. Matth. 12. The Pharisees demand a Sign of JESUS.  
THen answered him certain of the Scribes and Pharisees, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee, who answered, and said to them: The wicked and adulterous generation seeketh a sign: and a sign shall not be given it, but the sign of Ionas the Prophet: For as Ionas was in the Whale's belly three days, and three nights: so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. The men of Nineveh shall rise in the judgement with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they did penance at the preaching of Ionas. And behold more than Ionas here, The Queen of the South shall rise in the judgement with this generation, and shall condemn it; because she come from the ends of the earth, to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold more than Solomon here. And when an unclean spirit shall go out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest and findeth not. Then he saith, I will return into my house whence I came out. And coming, he findeth it vacant, swept with besoms, and trimmed, then goeth he, and taketh with him seven other spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter in, and dwell there; and the last of that man be made worse than the first. So shall it be also to this wicked generation.  
As he was yet speaking to the multitudes, behold his mother and his brethren stood without, seeking to speak to him, and one said unto him, Behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without, seeking thee. But he answering him that told him, said, Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? And stretching forth his hand upon his Disciples, he said, Behold my mother and my brethren: for whosoever shall do the will of my Father that is in Heaven, be is my brother, and sister, and mother.  

Moralities.  
1. IT is a very ill sign, when we desire signs to make us believe in God. The signs which we demand to fortify our faith, are ofttimes marks of our infidelity. There is not a more dangerous plague in the events of worldly affairs, than to deal with the devil, or to cast nativities. All these things fill men with more faults than knowledge. For divine Oracles have more need to be reverenced than interpreted. He that will find God, must seek him with simplicity, and profess him with piety.  
2. Some require a sign, and yet between Heaven and earth, all is full of signs. How many creatures soever they are, they are all steps and characters of the Divinity. What a happy thing it is to study what God is by the volume of time, and by that great Book of the world. There is not so small a flower of the meadows, nor so little a creature upon earth, which doth not tell us some news of him. He speaks in our ears by all creatures, which are so many Organ-pipes to convey his Spirit and voice to us. But he hath no sign so great, as the Word Incarnate, which carries all the types of his glory and power. About him only should be all our curiosity, our knowledge, our admiration, and our love, because in him we can be sure to find all our repose and consolation.  
3. Are we not very miserable, since we know not our own good, but by the loss of it, which makes us esteem so little of those things we have in our hands? The Ninivites did hear old Ionas the Prophet. The Queen of Sheba came from far to hear the wisdom of Solomon: Jesus speaks to us usually from the Pulpits, from the Altars; in our conversations, in our affairs and recreations: And yet we do not sufficiently esteem his words nor inspirations. A surfeited spirit mislikes honey, and is distasted with Manna, raving after the rotten pots of Egypt. But it is the last and worst of all ills, to despise our own good. Too much confidence, is mother of an approaching danger: A man must keep himself from relapses, which are worse than sins, which are the greatest evils of the world; he that loves danger, shall perish in it. The first sin brings with it one devil, but the second brings seven: There are some, who vomit up rheir sins, as the Sea doth cockles, to swallow them again. Their life is nothing but an ebbing and flowing of sins, and their most innocent retreats, are a disposition to iniquity. For as boiled water doth soon freeze, because the cold works upon it with the greater force; so those little fervours of Devotion, which an unfaithful soul feels in confessions, and receiving (if it be not resolute quite to forsake wickedness) serve for nothing else but to provoke the wicked spirit, to make a new impression upon her: It is then we have most reason to fear God's justice, when we despise his mercy. We become nearest of kin to him, when his Ordinances are followed by our manners, and our life by his precepts.   

Aspirations.  
O Word Incarnate, the great sign of thy heavenly Father, who carriest all the marks of his glory, and all the characters of his powers. It is thou alone whom I seek, whom I esteem and honour: All that I see, all I understand, all that I feel, is nothing to me, if it do not carry thy name, and take colour from thy beauties, nor be animated by thy Spirit. Thy conversation hath no trouble, and thy presence no distaste. O let me never lose by my negligence, what I possess by thy bounty. Keep me from relapses, keep me from the second gulf, and second hell of sin. He is too blind, that profits nothing by experience of his own wickedness, and by a full knowledge of thy bounties.    

The Gospel for Thursday, the first week in Lent, out of S. Matth 15. Of the Woman of Canaan.  
ANd Jesus went forth from thence, and retired into the quarters of Tyre and Sidon. And behold a woman of Canaan came forth out of these coasts, and crying out, said to him, Have mercy upon me, O Lord, the Son of David: my daughter is sore vexed of a devil, who answered her not a word. And his Disciples came and besought him, saying, Dismiss her, because she crieth out after us: And he answering, said; I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel. But she came and adored him, saying, Lord help me, who answering, said: It is not good to take the bread of children, and to cast it to the dogs: but she said, Yea Lord, for the dogs also eat of the crumbs that fall from the tables of their masters. Then Jesus answering, said to her, O woman, great is thy faith, be it done to thee as thou wilt: and her daughter was made whole from that hour.  

Moralities.  
1. OUr Saviour Jesus Christ, after his great and wondrous descent from heaven to earth; from being infinite to be finite; from being God to be man; used many several means for salvation of the world. And behold entering upon the frontiers of Tyre and Sidon, he was pleased to conceal himself: But it is very hard to avoid the curiosity of a woman, who seeking his presence, was thereby certain to find the full point of her felicity. A very small beam of illumination reflecting upon her, carried her out of her Country, and a little spark of light brought her to find out the clear streams of truth. We must not be tired with seeking God, and when we have found him, his presence should not diminish, but increase our desire to keep him still. We are to make entrance into our happiness, by taking fast hold of the first means offered for our salvation; and we must not refuse or lose a good fortune which knocks at our door.  
2. Great is the power of a woman, when she applies herself to virtue; behold at one instant, how one of that sex assails God and the devil, prevailing with the one by submission, and conquering the other by command: And he which gave the wild Sea arms to contain all the world, finds his own arms tied by the chains of a prayer, which himself did inspire. She draws unto her (by a pious violence) the God of all strength, such was the fervency of her prayer, such the wisdom of her answers, and such the faith of her words. As he passed away without speaking, she hath the boldness to call him to her; whiles he is silent, she prays; when he excuseth himself, she adores him; when he refuseth her suit, she draws him to her. To be short, she is stronger than the Patriarch Jacob, for when he did wrestle with the Angel, he returned lame from the conflict; but this woman, after she had been so powerful with God, returns straight to her house, there to see her victories, and possess her conquests.  
3. Mark with what weapons she overcame the greatest of all conquerors. Charity drew her from home, to seek health for her daughter, because like a good mother, she loved her not with a luxurious love but in her affliction; feeling all her dolours, by their passionate reflection upon her heart. Her faith was planted upon so firm a rock, that amongst all the appearances of despair, her hope remained constant. Humility did effect, that the name of Dog, was given her for a title of glory, she making profit of injuries, and converting into honour the greatest contempt of her person. Her words were low and humble, but her faith was wondrous high, since in a moment she chased away the devil, saved her daughter, and changed the word Dog, into the name of a Sheep of Christ's flock, as Sedulius writes. Perseverance was the last of her virtues in the Combat, but it was the first which gained her Crown. If you will imitate her in these four virtues; Love, Faith, Humility, and Perseverance, they are the principal materials of which the body of your perfection must be compounded.   

Aspirations.  
O Jesus Christ, Son of David, I remember well that thy forefather did by his harp chase away the devil from Saul. And wilt not thou, who art the Father of all blessed harmonies, drive away from me so many little spirits, of Affections, of Appetites and Passions, which trouble and discompose my heart? This poor soul, which is the breath of thy mouth, and daughter of thine infinite bounties, is (like the Sun under a cloud) possessed with many wicked spirits, but it hath none worse than that of self-love. Look upon me (O Lord) with thine eyes of mercy, and send me not away with silence, since thou art the Word▪ Rather call me Dog, so that I may be suffered to gather up the crumbs which fall from thy table: Whatsoever proceeds from thy mouth is sacred, and must be taken by me as a relic. If thou say I shall obtain my desire, I say I will have no other, than what thou inspirest, and I can be contented with nothing, but what shall be thy blessed will and pleasure.    

The Gospel upon Friday, the first week in Lent, S. John 15. Of the Probatick Pond.  
AFter these things, there was a festival day of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem: and there is at Jerusalem upon Probatica, a Pond, which in Hebrew is named Bethsaida, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick persons, of blind, lame, withered, expecting the stirring of the water.  
And an Angel of our Lord descended at a certain time into the Pond; and the water was stirred. And he that had gone down first into the Pond, after the stirring of the water, was made whole, of whatsoever infirmity he was holden. And there was a certain man there that had been eight and thirty years in his infirmity. Him, when Jesus had seen lying, and knew that he had now a long time, he saith to him, Wilt thou be made whole? The sick man answered him, Lord, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the Pond: for whiles I come, another goeth down before me. Jesus saith to him, Arise, take up thy bed, and walk. And forthwith he was made whole: and he took up his bed, and walked. And it was the Sabbath that day. The Jews therefore said to him that was healed, it is the Sabbath, thou mayest not take up thy bed. He answered them, He that made me whole, he said to me, Take up thy bed, and walk. They asked him therefore, What is that man that said to thee, Take up thy bed, and walk? But he that was made whole, knew not who it was. For Jesus shrunk aside from the multitude, standing in the place. Afterward Jesus findeth him in the Temple, and said to him, Behold thou art made whole: sin no more, lest some worse thing chance to thee. That man went his way, and told the Jews that it was Jesus that made him whole.  

Moralities.  
1. ALl the world is but one great Hospital, wherein so many persons languish, expecting the moving of the water, and the time of their good fortune. The Angels of earth which govern our fortunes, go not so fast as our desires. But Jesus, who is the great Angel of Counsel, is always ready to cure our maladies; to support our weakness, and make perfect our virtues. We need only to follow his motions and inspirations, to meet with everlasting rest. It is a lamentable thing, that some can patiently expect the barren favours of men twenty or thirty years together, and yet will not continue three days in prayer, to seek the inestimable graces of God.  
2. The first step we must make toward our salvation is to desire it. That man is worthy to be eternally sick, who fears nothing else but the loss of his bodily health. Men generally do all what they can possibly, to cure their corporal infirmities; they abide a thousand vexations (which are but too certain) to recover a health, which is most uncertain. And as for the passions of the mind, some love the Fevers of their own love, and their worldly ambition above their own life. They suck the head of a venomous aspic, and are killed by the tongue of a viper. They will not part with that which kills them; and if you take from them the worm which makes them itch, or the executioner who doth indeed torment them, they believe you take away the chiefest of their felicity. Happy is that soul which holds nothing so dear in this world, but will forsake it willingly to find God, and will spare nothing, to gain Paradise.  
3. There is nothing more common, nor so rare as man. The world is full of vicious and unprofitable men. But to find one very complete in all good things, is to find a direct Phoenix. There are more businesses without men, than men without businesses. For how many charitable employments might many lazy and idle persons find out? So many poor men's affairs continue at a stand: so many miserable creatures languish: so many desolate persons long to find some man, who (with little trouble to himself) would take some small care of their affairs, and make up some little piece of their fortunes. Jesus is the man of God desired of all Ages; to him we must apply ourselves, since he is both life and truth. By him we may come to all happiness, by him we may live in the fountains and streams of life, and in him we may contemplate the chiefest of all truths.   

Aspirations.  
WHat patience have I in committing sins, and how impatient am I in my sufferings for them? I am ever most ready to execute vice, and unwilling to abide the punishment. O good God, there are many years in which I have retained an inclination to this disorder, to that sin. My soul is bound, as it were, with iron chains, in this unhappy bed: will there be no Angel to move the water for me? But art not thou the Lord and Prince of Angels? Then I most humbly beseech thee (O blessed Saviour) do thou command, and by thy only word my affairs will go well, and receive a happy dispatch; my body will become sound, my soul innocent, my heart at rest, and my life an eternal glory.    

The Gospel upon Saturday the first week in Lent, and the Sunday following, out of S. Matthew 17. Of the Transfiguration of our Lord.  
ANd after six days, Jesus taketh unto him Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them into a high mountain apart: and he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the Sun: and his garments became white as snow. And behold there appeared to them, Moses and Elias talking with him. And Peter answering, said to Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here, if thou wilt, let us make here three Tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias. And as he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud over-shadowed them. And lo, a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my wellbeloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him. And the Disciples hearing it, fell upon their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them: and he said to them, Arise, and fear not. And they lifting up their eyes, saw no body but only Jesus. And as they descended from the Mount, Jesus commanded them, saying, Tell the vision to no body, till the Son of man be risen from the dead.  

Moralities.  
1. THe words of the Prophet Osee are accomplished; the nets and toils planted upon mount Tabor, not to catch birds, but hearts. The mountain which before was a den for Tigers and Panthers (according to the story) is now beautified by our Saviour, and becomes a place full of sweetness & ravishments. Jesus appears transfigured in the high robes of his glory: The cloud made him a pavilion of gold, and the Sun made his face shine like itself. The heavenly Father doth acknowledge his Son as a true Prince of glory; Moses and Elias both appear in brightness, the one bearing the Tables of the Law, and the other carried in a burning Chariot (as Origen saith) which made the Apostles know him. For the Hebrews had certain figures of the most famous men of their Nation in books. They both (as Saint Luke saith) were seen in glory and Majesty, which fell upon them by reflection of the beams which came from the body of Jesus, who is the true fountain of brightness. The Apostles lose themselves in the deliciousness of this great spectacle; and by seeing more than they ever did, desired to lose their eyes. O that the world is most contemptible to him, that knows how to value God as he ought. So many fine powders, so many pendents and favours of Glass; so many Towers and Columns of dirt plastered over with gold, are followed by a million of Idolaters. To conclude, so many worldly jewels are like the empty imaginations of a sick spirit, not enlightened by the beams of truth. Let us rely upon the word (saith Saint Augustine) which remains for ever, while men pass like the water of a fountain, which hides itself in the Spring, shows itself in the stream, and loseth itself at last in the Sea. But God is always himself, there needs no Tabernacle made by the hands of man, to remain with him; for in Paradise, he is both the God and the Temple.  
2. Tabor is yet but a small pattern, we must get all the piece; we must go to the Palace of Angels and brightness, where the Tabernacles are not made by the hands of men. There we shall see the face of the living God clearly and at full: There the beauties shall have no vails to hid them from us: Our being shall have no end: Our knowledges will not be subject to error, nor our loves and affections to displeasure. O what a joy will it be to enjoy all, and desire nothing; to be a Magistrate without a successor, to be a King without an enemy, to be rich without covetousness, to negotiate without money, and to be everliving without fear of death.  
3. But who can get up to this mountain, except he of whom the Prophet speaks? who hath innocent hands and a clean heart? who hath not received his soul of God in vain, to bury it in worldly pelf. To follow Jesus, we must transform ourselves into him; by hearing and following his doctrine, since God the Father proposeth him for the teacher of mankind, and commands us to hearken unto him. We must follow his examples, since those are the originals of all virtues. The best trade we can practise in this world, is that of transfiguration: and we may do it by reducing our form to the form of our Lord, and walking upon earth like men in Heaven. Then will the Sun make us have shining faces, when purity shall accompany all our actions and intentions. Our clothes shall be as white as snow, when we shall once become innocent in our conversations, we shall then be ravished like the Apostles, and after we have been at Mount Tabor, we shall be blind to the rest of the world, and see nothing but Jesus. It is moreover to be noted, that our Saviour did at that time entertain himself with discourse of his great future sufferings, and of his death; to teach us, that his Cross was the step by which he mounted up to beatitude.   

Aspirations.  
O Blessed Palace, O magnificent Tabor, which this day didst hold upon thee the Prince of Glory; I love and admire thee, but I admire somewhat else above thee: It is the Heavenly Jerusalem, that triumphant company, that face of God, where all those beauties are, which shall never cease to be beauties. It is for that I live, for that I die, for that I languish with a holy impatience. O my Jesus, my most benign Lord, transform me then into thee, that I may thereby be transformed into God. If I have carried the earthly Image of Adam, why should I not also carry the form of Jesus? Catch me, O Lord, within those tissued nets and golden toils of brightness, which thou didst plant upon this sacred mountain. It is there I would leave mine eyes, it is there I resolve to breath out my soul. I ask no Tabernacles to be there built for me; I have long since contemplated thy heart, (O Father of essences and all bounties) as the most faithful abode of my eternity.    

The Gospel upon Monday the second week in Lent, S. John 8. Jesus said to the Jews, Where I go, ye cannot come.  
AGain therefore Jesus said to them, I go, and you shall seek me, and shall die in your sin. Wither I go, you cannot come. The Jews therefore said, Why, will he kill himself, because he saith, Wither I go, you cannot come? And he said to them, You are from beneath, I am from above: you are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I say to you, That you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. They said therefore to him, Who art thou? Jesus said to them, The beginning, who also speak to you. Many things I have to speak and judge of you: but he that sent me, is true: and what I have heard of him, these things I speak in the world. And they knew not that he said to them, that his Father was God. Jesus therefore said to them, When you shall have exalted the Son of man, than you shall know that I am he, and of myself I do nothing, but as the Father hath taught me, these things I speak: and he that sent me, is with me: and he hath not left me alone, because the things that please him, I do always.  

Moralities.  
1. ONe of the greatest misfortunes of our life, is, that we never sufficiently know our own good, till we lose it. We fly from that we should seek: we seek that we should avoid, and never begin to bewail our losses, but when they are not to be recovered. Those Jews possessed an inestimable treasure, by the presence and conversation of the Son of God. But they set light by it, and so at last they lamented amongst eternal flames, what they would not see in so clear a light. Let us take heed of despising holy things, and avoid hardness of heart, which is a gulf of unavoidable mischiefs.  
2. It is a strange thing that God is so near us, and yet we so far from him. That which hinders us from finding him, is because he is above, and we below. We are too much for the world; too fast nailed to the earth; too much bound to our superfluous businesses and cares of this life; and too much subject to our own appetites. He must not be slave to his body, that pretends to receive good from God, who is a Spirit: He must not embark himself deeply into worldly matters, who desires the society of Angels. He must pass from his sense to his reason, from reason to grace, from grace to glory. If you desire to find God, search for him, as the three Kings did in the manger, in his humility: Look for him as the blessed Virgin did in the temple, in his piety: Seek him as the Maries did in his Sepulchre, by the meditation of death: But stay not there, save only to make a passage to life.  
3. When you have lifted me up to the Cross, (saith our Saviour) you shall know that I am the true Son of God. And indeed it is a great wonder, that the infinite power of that Divinity, would manifest itself in the infirmity of the Cross. It was only for God to perform this great design, & ascend up to his throne of glory, by the basest disgraces of the world. The good thief saw no other title or sign of his kingdom, but only his body covered over with blood, and oppressed with dolours. He learned by that book of the Cross all the glory of Paradise: & he apprehended that none but God could endure with such patience so great torments. If you will be children of God, you must make it appear by participation of his cross, and by suffering tribulation: By that Sun our Eagle, tries his young ones, he who cannot abide that shining ray sprinkled with blood, shall never attain to beatitude. It is not comely to see a head crowned with thorns, sit in a rotten chair of delicacies.   

Aspirations.  
O Blessed Saviour, who dost lift up all the earth with three fingers of thy power, raise up a little this painful mass of my body, which weighs down itself so heavily. Give me the wings of an Eagle to fly after thee, for I am constantly resolved to follow thee, whithersoever thou goest: for though it should be within the shadow of death, what can I fear being in the arms of life? I am not of myself, nor of the world, which is so great a deceiver. Since I am thine by so many titles, (which bind me to adoration) I will be so in life, in death, in time, and for all eternity. I will take part of thy sufferings, since they are the scarves of our Christian warfare. Tribulation is a most excellent engine; the more a man is kept under, the higher he mounts: He descends by perfect humility, that he may ascend to thee by the steps of glory.    

The Gospel for Tuesday the second week in Lent, S. Matthew 23. Jesus said, The Pharisees sit in Moses 〈◊〉 believe therefore what they say.  
THen Jesus spoke to the multitudes, and to his Disciples, saying, Upon the chair of Moses have sitten the Scribes & Pharisees. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe ye, and do ye: but according to their works do ye not, for they say and do not: for they bind heavy burdens and importable, and put them upon men's shoulders, but with a finger of their own they will not move them. But they do all their works for to be seen of men, for they make broad their Phylacteries, and enlarge their fringes. And they love the first places at suppers, and the first chairs in the Synagogues, and salutations in the marketplace, and to be called of men Rabbi: But be not you called Rabbi; for one is your Master, and all you are brethren. And call none father to yourself upon earth, for one is your Father, he that is in Heaven, neither be ye called Masters, for one is your Master, Christ: he that is the greater of you, shall be your servitor. And he that exalteth himself shall be humble: and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.  

Moralities.  
1. IT is a very dangerous error, to think that our Saviour in this Gospel, had a purpose to introduce an Anarchy, and to make all men equal. He showeth in many places, that he would have Kings, Princes, Magistrates, Fathers, and Doctors. But he would not have men to come to honours by a vain ambition, nor others to honour them but only as they have dependency upon the power of God Almighty. Let every soul (saith the Apostle) be subject to higher Powers, for there is no power, but it cometh from God: He gives us superiors, not for us to judge, but to obey them. If a man cannot approve their manners, he must at least reverence the character of their authority. They should be good Christians for themselves, but they are superiors for us. He that resisteth their power, doth resist God, who ordained them. And all the great evils happening by heresies and rebellions, proceed from no other fountain, but from contempt of powers established by the decree of heaven: A man may pretend zeal, but there is no better sacrifice than that of obedience. If great persons abuse their offices, God will find it out, and as their dignities are great, so their punishment shall be answerable.  
2. One of the greatest disorders of this life, is, that we go for the most part outwardly, to please the world, and are little careful of a good inward application of ourselves to please God. In stead of taking the way of God's image (from whence we all come) we are content to have virtues only by imagination, and vices in their true essence. Nembroth professed himself a servant of the true God, and yet adored the fire in secret. Jesus hath many worshippers in words, but few in truth. Some stand upon formalities, others upon disguised habits, others amuse themselves about ceremonies, others go as upon certain springs, to make themselves counted wise. Most men would seem what they are not, and much troubled to be seen what they are. All their time doth pass in fashions and countenances; but death and Gods judgements take off all those masks.  
3. To say that we have seen a man exteriorly devout and spiritual (except he be so inwardly) is to say, we have seen a house without a foundation, a tree without a root, a vessel move upon the sea without a bottom, and an excellent clock without a spring. For the same which the foundation is to a house, the root to a tree, the bottom to a ship, and the spring to a clock, the same is a man's interior life to all virtue. What is a man the better, who resembles window-cushions, which are covered with velvet, and stuffed with hay; or to be like the picture of Diana, in Homer's Island, which wept to some, and laughed to others. A little spark of a good conscience is better than all the lights of the world. Why do we crucify ourselves with so many dissimulations, so many ceremonies, so many enforcements upon our natures, to serve and please men, only to get smoke? He that sows wind (saith the Prophet) shall reap a storm. Let us live to ourselves in the purity of a good conscience, and of a perfect humility; if we desire to live for ever with God. Those shadows of false devotion proceed from the leaves of that figtree, wherewith Adam and Eve covered their nakedness: do not we know that hypocrisy is the same thing to virtue, which painting is to faces? and that it is the very moth which devours sanctity, and will at the day of judgement make all those appear naked, which to the world seem well apparelled.   

Aspiration.  
O God of all truth, wherefore are there so many fictions, and counterfeit behaviours? Must we always live to please the eyes of others, and run after the shadow of vanity, which leaves nothing but illusion within our eyes, and corruption in our manners. I will live unto thee (O fountain of lives) within whom all creatures have life. I will retire myself into my own heart, and negotiate with it by the secret feeling of a good conscience, that I may treat with thee. What need I the eyes of men, if I have the eyes of God? They alone are sufficient to do me good, since by their aspect they give happiness to all the Saints. I will seek for thee (O my beloved Lord) from the break of day, till the dead time of the night. All places are solitary where thou art not, and where thou art, there only is the fullness of all pleasures.    

The Gospel for Wednesday, the second week in Lent, S. Matth 20. The Request of the wife of Zebedce, for her sons James and John.  
ANd Jesus going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve Disciples secretly, and said to them, Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be delivered to the chief Priests, and to the Scribes, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles, to be mocked, and scourged, and crucified, and the third day he shall rise again.  
Then came to him the mother of the sons of Zebedee, with her sons, adoring and desiring something of him: who said to her, What wilt thou? She saith to him, Say that these my two sons may sit one at thy right hand, and one at thy left hand in thy Kingdom. And Jesus answering, said, You know not what you desire. Can ye drink of the cup that I shall drink of? They say to him, We can. He saith to them, My cup indeed you shall drink of: but to sit at my right hand and left, is not mine to give to you, but to whom it is prepared of my Father.  

Moralities.  
1. WHat a short life have we, and yet such large and vast ambitions? We fear every thing like mortal men, and yet desire all, as if we should be immortal upon earth. It is a strange thing to observe how the desire of honour slides even amongst the most refined devotions. Some one is counted an Angel of Heaven amongst men, who hath not forsaken his pretence upon earth. Ambition sleeps in the bosoms of persons consecrated for the Altars. It overthrows some whom luxury could not stir; and moves those whom avarice could not touch. We desire all to be known, and to seem what we are not: but this seeming is that which doth bewitch us. All passions grow old and weaker by age; only the desire of worldly riches and honours, is a shirt which we never put off, till we come to the grave. Why do we so extremely torment our poor life, by running after this shadow of honour, which we cannot follow without trouble, nor possess without fear, nor lose without sorrow? It is not a strange folly, that men love such vanities, till the very last instant of their own ruins, and fear nothing, so they may tumble into precipices of gold and silver?  
2. What great pains you take for these children, as if they did not more belong to God than you: you cast day and night where to place them, when the Providence of God (which is the great Harbinger of the world) hath already marked their lodgings. One is settled in a good Religious course, another in the grave, another perhaps shall have more than is necessary to make him a good man. Eve imagined that her son Cain (having all the world) would have become some great God, when ambition made him a devil incarnate. You shall rarely make your children great Saints, by getting them great honours. You desire they should possess all that which overthrows them; and pretending to make a building with one hand, you destroy it with the other. By all your earnest wishes, and all your laborious endeavours (for advancement of your children) you effect nothing, but thereby give them enticements to pleasure, and weapons for iniquity.  
3. Whereupon should we build our ambitions, if not upon the blood of the holy Lamb? At the foot of the Cross we behold a God covered with blood, crowned with thorns and reproaches, who warns us to be humble; and at the same time we eagerly pursue worldly glory and ambition: We resemble that unhappy daughter of Miltiades, who did prostitute herself under her father's Trophies. By our unmeasurable hunting after honours, amongst the ignominies of Jesus Christ, we abandon ourselves to dishonour, and make no other use of the Cross, but only to be a witness of our infidelity.   

Aspirations.  
AVoid, be gone you importunate cares of worldly goods and honours! you little tyrants, which burn the blood within our veins, and fill the most innocent pleasures of our life, with bitter sorrows, what have I more to do with you? My children shall be what God will. They shall be but too rich, when they have virtue for their portion, and but too high, when they shall see a true contempt of the world under their foots. God forbidden that I should go about any worldly throne upon the holy Lamb's blood, or that I should talk of honours, when there is mention made of the holy Cross. O Jesus, thou father of all true glories, thou shalt from henceforth be my only crown. All greatness where thou art not, shall to me be only baseness, I will mount up to thee by the stairs of humility, since by those thou camest down to me. I will kiss the paths of Mount Calvary, which thou hast sprinkled with thy precious blood, & esteem the Cross above all worldly things, since thou hast consecrated it by thy cruel pains; and brought us forth upon that dolorous bed, to the day of thy eternity.    

The Gospel upon Thursday, the second week in Lent, out of S. Luke 16. Of the rich Glutton, and poor Lazarus.  
T●e was a certain rich man, and he was clothed w●th purple and silk, and he fared every day magnifically. And there was a certain beggar called Lazarus, that lay at his gate full of sores, desiring to be filled of the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, but the dogs also came, and licked his sores. And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried of the Angel into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died, and he was buried in hell, and lifting up his eyes, when he was in torments, he saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he crying, said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger into water, for to cool my tongue, because I am tormented in this flame. And Abraham said to him, Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy life time, and Lazarus likewise evil: but now he is comforted, and thou tormented. And besides all these things, between us and you there is fixed a great Chaos: that they which will pass from hence to you, may not, neither go from thence hither. And he said, Then father, I beseech thee that thou wouldst send him unto my father's house, for I have five brethren, for to testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torments. And Abraham said to him, They have Moses and the Prophets: let them hear them. But he said, No, father Abraham. but if some man shall go from the dead to them, they will do penance. And be said to him, If they hear not Moses and the Prophets, neither if one shall rise again from the dead, will they believe.  

Moralities.  
1. A Rich man and a poor meet in this world, the one loaden with treasures, the other with ulcers. They both meet in the other world, the one in a gulf of fire, the other in Abyss of delights: Their ends are as different, as their lives were contrary: to teach us, that he which shall consider rightly, the end of all worldly sins and vanities, will have in horror the desire of them. And as there is nothing, for which goodly poor men may not hope, so is there nothing, which wicked rich men should not fear. He that is proud of riches, is proud of his burdens and chains, but if he unload them upon the poor, he will be eased of his pain, and secured in his way.  
2. The life of man is a marvellous Comedy; wherein the greatest part of our actions are played under a curtain, which the Divine Providence draws over them, to cover us. It concealed poor Lazarus, and kept him in obscurity, like the fish, which we never see till it be dead. But Jesus draws the curtain, and makes himself the historian of this good poor man, showing us the state of his soul, of his body, of his life and death. He makes him appear in Abraham's bosom, as within the temple of rest and happiness, and makes him known to the rich man, as to the treasurer of hell's riches. Are we not unworthy the name which we carry, when we despise the poor, and hate poverty, as the greatest misery? since the Son of God having once consecrated it upon the throne of his manger, made it serve for his spouse during life, and his bride-maid at the time of his death.  
3. This rich glutton dreamt, and at the end of his dream found himself buried in hell. All those pomps of his life, were scattered in an instant, as so many nocturnal illusions▪ and his heart filled with eternal grief and torment. His first misery is a sudden, unexpected, and hideous change, from a huge sea of delicacies, into an insufferable gulf of fire: where he doth acknowledge, that one of the greatest vexations in misery, is to have been happy. Another disaster which afflicts him, is to see Lazarus in Abraham's bosom; to teach us, that the damned are tormented by Paradise, even to the very lowest part of hell; and and that the most grievous of their torments, is, they can never forget their loss of God. So saith Theophylact, that Adam was placed over against the terrestrial Paradise, from whence he was banished, that in his very punishment, he might see the happiness he had lost by his soul fault. Now you must add to the rest of his sufferings, the great Chaos which (like a diamond wall) is between hell and Paradise, together with the privation of all comfort; those losses without remedy; that wheel of eternity; where death lasteth for ever, and the end gins again without ceasing▪ and the torments can never fail or diminish.  
4. Do good with those goods which God hath given you, and suffer them not to make you wicked; but employ your riches by the hands of virtue: If gold be a child of the Sun, why do you hid him from his father? God chose the bosom of rich Abraham, to be the Paradise of poor Lazarus. So may you make the needy feel happiness by your bounty; your riches shall raise you up, when they are trodden under feet. The Prophet saith, you must sow in the field of Alms, if you desire to reap in the mouth of Mercy.   

Aspirations.  
O God of Justice, I tremble at the terror of thy judgements. Great fortunes of the world (full of honour and riches) are fair trees, ofttimes the more ready for the axe: Their weight makes them apt to fall, and prove the more unhappy fuel for eternal flames O Jesus, father of the poor, and King of the rich, I most humbly beseech thee, never give my heart in prey to covetousness, which (by loading me with land) may make me forget Heaven. I know that death must consume me to the very bones, and I shall then possess nothing, but what I have given for thee. Must I then live in this world (like a Griffin) to hoard up much gold, and silver whereof I shall never have use, and still be vexed with care how to preserve it? O most merciful Lord, suffer me not to be taught by hell fire, that which I may have neglected to learn out of thy Gospel. I most hearty renounce all luxury and pomp of the world, and this carnal life, which would always busy itself about my body. If thou be pleased to make me rich, I will be so for the poor; and if thou make me poor, I will make myself rich in thee, who art the true riches of all thine elect.    

The Gospel upon Friday the second week in Lent, S. Matth. 21. Of the Master of a Vineyard, whose son was killed by his Farmers.  
ANother Parable hear ye: A man there was, an householder, who planted a Vineyard, and made a hedge round about it, and digged in it a press, and builded a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went forth into a strange Country. And when the time of fruits drew nigh, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, to receive the fruits thereof. And the husbandmen apprehending his servants, one they beat, another they killed, and another they stoned. Again, he sent other servants, more than the former; and they did to them likewise. And last of all, he sent to them his Son, saying, They will reverence my Son. But the husbandmen seeing the Son, said within themselves, This is the heir, come, let us kill him, and we shall have his inheritance. And apprehending him, they cast him forth out of the Vineyard, and killed him. When therefore the Lord of the Vineyard shall come, what will be do to those husbandmen! They say to him, The naughty men he will bring to nought: and his Vineyard be will let out: to other husbandmen, that shall render him the fruit of their seasons.  
Jesus saith to them, Have you never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the bvilders rejected, the same is made into the head of the corner? By our Lord was this done, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Therefore I say to you, That the Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a Nation, yielding the fruits thereof. And he that falleth upon this stone, shall be broken: and on whom it falleth, it shall all to bruise him. And when the chief Priests and Pharisees had heard his Parables, they knew that he spoke of them. And seeking to lay hands upon him, they feared the multitudes: because they held him as a Prophet.  

Moralities.  
WE have reason to fear all that is in us, yea, even the gifts of God: All his favours are so many chains; If they bind us not to do our duty, they will bind us to the punishment due for that neglect. Our soul is given us by God, as a thing borrowed from Heaven, we must not be too prodigal of it. We must dig up ill roots, as we do in land cultivated: The time will come, that we must render up the fruits; and shall we then present thorns? Examine every day how you profit, and what you do: draw every day a line, but draw it toward eternity. What can you hid from God who knows all? What can you repay to God who gives all? and how can you requite Jesus who hath given himself?  
2. How many messengers doth God send to our hearts without intermission, and how many inspiratiosn which we reject? So many Sermons which we do not observe, and so many examples which we neglect. Jesus comes in person by the Sacrament of the Altar, and we drive him from us, to crucify him, when we place the Devil and Mortal sin in his room. What other thing can we expect for reward of all these violences, but a most fearful destruction, if ye do not prevent the sword of justice, by walking in the paths of Mercy? Our vanities, which at first are like small threads, by the contempt of God's grace, come to be great cables of sin. He that defers his repentance, is in danger to lose it, and will be kept out of the Ark, with the croaking Raven, since he hath neglected the mourning of the sorrowful Dove.  
3. It is a most horrible thing, to see a soul left to itself, after it hath so many times forsaken the inspirations of God. It becomes a desolate vineyard, without enclosure. The wild Boar enters into it, and all unclean and ravenous creatures do there sport and leap without control. God hangs clouds over it, but will let no drop of water fall upon it. The Sun never looks upon it with a loving eye: all there is barren, venomous, and near to hell. Therefore above all things, we must fear to be forsaken of God. Mercy provoked, changes itself into severe Justice. All creatures will serve (as Gods instruments) to punish a fugitive soul, which flies from him by her ingratitude, when he draws her to him by the sweetness of his benefits.   

Aspiration.  
ALas, O great Father of the world's family, I am confounded to see thy vineyard so ill ordered, made so barren, and spoiled. My passions domineer, like wild beasts, and devours the fruits due to thy bounty. I am hearty sorry I have so little esteemed thy graces, and to have preferred all that, which makes me contemptible, before thee. I do this day renounce all the abuses of my soul. I will grow and prosper under thy blessings: I will flourish under thy aspect, and fructify under thy protection. Command only thy graces and sweet dews of Heaven (which are as paps of thy favours) to rain upon me, and water this rotten trunk of my heart. Speak to that eye of love; that beautiful eye of Jesus, that it will shine upon me but once with that ray, which doth make souls happy for ever.    

The Gospel upon Saturday, the second week in Lent, S. Luke 15. Of the prodigal Child.  
ANd he said, A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of substance that belongeth to me: and he divided unto them the substance. And not many days after, the youngest son gathering all his things together, went from home into a far Country, and there he wasted his substance, living riotously. And after he had spent all, there fell a sore famine in that Country, and he began to be in need: and he went and cleaved to one of the Citizens of that Country, and he sent him into his Farm to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly of the husks that the swine did eat, and no body gave unto him. And returning to himself, he said, How many of my father's hirelings have abundance of bread, and I here perish for famine? I will arise, and will go to my father, and say unto him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee, I am not now worthy to be called thy son, make me as one of thy hirelings. And rising up, he came to his father; and when he was yet far off, his father saw him, and was moved with mercy, and running to him, fell upon his neck and kissed him. And his son said to him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee, I am not now worthy to be called thy son. And the father said to his servants, Quickly bring forth the first stole, and do it on him, and put a ring upon his hand, and shoes upon his feet, and bring the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat and make merry, because this my son was dead, and is revived, was lost, and is found. And they began to make merry. But his elder son was in the field, and when he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things should be? And he said to him, Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe, But he had indignation, and would not go in. His father therefore going forth, began to desire him. But he answering, said to his father, Behold, so many years do I serve thee, and I never transgressed thy commandment, and thou didst never give me a Kid to make merry with my friends. But after that thy son, this, that hath devoured his substance with whores, is come, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. But he said to him, Son, thou art always with me, and all my things are thine. But it behoved us to make merry and be glad, because this thy brother was dead, and is revived; was lost, and is found.  

Moralities.  
1. THis parable is a true table, expressing the excursions of a prodigal soul, and her return to the mercy of God, by the way of repentance. Note, that the first step which she trod toward her own destruction (as Cain did) was her departing from God, not by changing of place, but of heart. It departed from the chiefest light, which made it fall into an eclipse of reason, and so into profound darkness. She diverted herself from the greatest bounty, which made her incline toward all wickedness, (being strayed from her sovereign being) which made her become just nothing.  
2. She continued in sin, as in a Country which was just nothing, where she was vexed on all sides with disquiet, with cares, with fears and discontents. All sins toss their followers, as the ball is tossed at Baloon. Vanity sends them to pride: pride to violence: violence to avarice: avarice to ambition: ambition to pomp and riot: pomp to gluttony: gluttony to luxury: luxury to idleness: idleness to contempt and poverty, and that poverty brings them to all worldly misery. For all mischiefs follow a wicked soul, which departing from God, thinks to find a better condition.  
3. Affliction opens the eyes of man, and makes him come to himself, that he may the better return to God. There is no journey so far, as when a man departs from himself, not by place, but by manners. A sea of Licentiousness interposeth itself between his soul and innocence, to divorce her from the way of goodness: But God's grace is a burning wind, which dries it up; and having brought man to himself, takes him by the hand, and leads him even to God.  
4. O what a happy thing it is, to consider the effects of God's mercy in the entertainment of the good father, to his prodigal son: The one had lost all which he had of a good son: but the other had not lost what belonged to a good father. The son had yet said nothing, when fatherly affection pleaded for him in the heart of his father, who felt the dolours of a spiritual labour; and his entrails were moved to give a second birth to his son. Though he were old, yet he went the pace of a young man: Charity gives him wings to fly to the embracements of his lost child. He is most joyful of that comes with him, even of his very poverty. This without doubt, should give us a marvellous confidence in God's mercy, when we seek it with hearty repentance. It is a sea of bounty; which washeth away all that is amiss. Since he hath changed the name of master, into that of father, he will rather command by love, than reign by a predominant power. No man ought to despair of pardon, except he, who can be as fully wicked, as God is good, none is so merciful as God, none is so good a father as he: for when you may have lost your part of all his virtues, you can never (while you live) lose the possibility of his mercy. He will receive you between his arms without any other reason, but your return by repentance.  
5. The same Parable is also a true glass, showing the life of those young unthrifts, who think they are born only for sport, for their bellies, and for pleasure. They imagine their fathers keep for them the golden mines of Peru; and their life being without government, their expenses are without measure. Some of them run through the world, they wander into all places, but never enter into consideration of themselves. They return from foreign parts laden with debts, and bring home nothing but some new fantastical fashions, cringes, and corantoes. There are many of them in whom pride and misery continue inseparable, after they have lost their money and their brains. Their fathers are causes of their faults, by gathering so much wealth for those, who know not how to use it. Yet if they have the true repentance of the prodigal child, he must not deny them pardon: But mercy must not be had of those who ask it by strong hand, or seek it by a counterfeit sorrow.   

Aspirations.  
IT is an accursed wand'ring to travel into the country of nothing, where pleasure drops down as water from a storm; the miserable consequences whereof have leaden feet, which never remove from the heart. Good God what a country is that where the earth is made of quicksilver, which steals itself from under our feet, when we think to tread upon it. What a country is that, where if a man gather one bud of roses, he must be forced to eat a thousand thorns, and be companion with the most nasty, filthy beasts in their stinking ordures, and be glad to eat of their loathsome draff for want of other meat. Alas, I have surfeited, and such a misery as this, is necessary to make me remember the happiness which I possessed in thy house: O merciful Father, behold my prodigal soul which returns to thee, and will have no other advocate but thy goodness; which as yet pleads for me within thy heart. I have consumed all which I had, but I could not consume thy mercy. For that is as an Abyss which surpasseth that of my sins, and Miseries. Receive me as a mercenary servant, if I may not obtain the name of a son. Why shouldst not thou receive that which is thine, since the wicked spirits have taken that which was not theirs? Either show me mercy, or else show me a heart more fatherly than thine, and if neither earth nor heaven can find the like, to whom wouldst thou have me go but to thyself, who dost not yet cease to call me?    

The Gospel upon the third Sunday in Lent, S. Luke 11. Jesus cast out the Devil which was dumb.  
ANd he was casting out a devil, and that was dumb. And when he had cast out the devil, the dumb spoke, and the multitudes marvelled. And certain of them said, in Belzebub the Prince of Devils he casteth out Devils. And others tempting, asked him a sign from Heaven. But he seeing their cogitations, said to them: Every Kingdom divided against itself, shall be made desolate, and house upon house shall fall. And if Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his Kingdom stand? because you say, that in Belzebub I do cast out Devils. And if I in Belzebub cast out Devils; your children, in whom do they cast out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I in the finger of God do cast out Devils, surely the Kingdom of God is come upon you. When the strong armed keepeth his court, those things are in peace that he possesseth; but if a stronger than he come upon him, and overcome him, he will take away his whole armour, wherein he trusted, and will distribute his spoils. He that is not with me, is against me; and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth. When the unclean spirit shall departed out of a man, he wandreth through places without water, seeking rest; and not finding, he saith, I will return into my house whence I departed. And when he is come, he findeth it swept with a besom, and trimmed. Then he goeth and taketh seven other spirits worse than himself, and entering in, they dwell there. And the last of that man be made worse than the first.  
And it came to pass, when he said these things, a certain woman lifting up her voice out of the multitude, said to him, Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that thou didst suck. But he said, Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.  

Moralities.  
1. THe Almond-tree is the first which gins to flourish, and it is often first nipped with frost. The tongue is the first thing which moves in a man's body, and is soon caught with the snares of Satan. That man deserves to be speechless all his life, who never speaks a word better than silence.  
2. Jesus, the eternal word of God, came upon earth to reform the words of man: his life was a lightning, and his word a thunder, which was powerful in effect, but always measured within his bounds. He did fight against ill tongues in his life, and conquered them all in his death. The gall and vinegar which he took to expiate the sins of this unhappy tongue, do show how great the evil was, since it did need so sharp a remedy. He hath cured by suffering his dolours, what it deserved by our committing sins. Other vices are determined by one act, the tongue goes to all: it is a servant to all malicious actions, and is generally confederate with the heart in all crimes.  
3. We have just so much Religion as we have government of our tongues: A little thing serves to tame wild beasts, and a small stern will serve to govern a ship; Why then cannot a man rule so small a part of his body? It is not sufficient to avoid lying, perjuries, quarrels, injuries, slanders and blasphemies, such as the Scribes and Pharisees did vomit out in this Gospel against the purity of the Son of God: We must also repress idle talk, and other frivolous and unprofitable discourses. There are some persons who have their hearts so lose, that they cannot keep them within their breasts, but they will quickly swim upon their lips, without thinking what they say, and so make a shift to wound their souls.  
4. Imitate a holy Father called Sisus, who prayed God thirty years together every day to deliver him from his tongue, as from a capital enemy: You shall never be very chaste of your body, except you do very well bridle your tongue. For looseness of the flesh proceeds sometimes from liberty of the tongue: Remember yourself that your heart should go like a clock, with all the just and equal motions of his springs; and that your tongue is the finger, which shows how all the hours of the day pass. When the heart goes of one side, and the tongue of another, it is a sure desolation of your spirits Kingdom. If Jesus set it once at peace and quiet, you must be very careful to keep it so; and be very fearful of relapses. For the multiplying of long continued sins, brings at last hell itself upon a man's shoulders.   

Aspirations.  
O Word incarnate, to whom all just tongues speak, and after whom all hearts do thirst and languish; chase from us all prating devils, and also those which are dumb: the first provoke and lose the tongue to speak wickedly, and the other bind it when it should confess the truth. O peacemaking Solomon, appease the divisions of my heart, and unite all my powers to the love of thy service. Destroy in me all the marks of Satan's Empire, and plant there thy Trophies and Standards, that my spirit be never like those devils which seek for rest, but shall never find it. Make me preserve inviolable the house of my conscience, which thou hast cleansed by repentance, and clothed with thy graces: that I may have perseverance to the end without relapses, and so obtain happiness without more need of repentance.    

The Gospel upon Monday the third week in Lent, S. Luke 4. Jesus is required to do Miracles in his own Country.  
ANd he said to them, Certes, you will say to me this similitude, Physician cure thyself: as great things as we have heard done in Capharnaum, do also here in thy Country. And he said, Amen, I say to you, that no Prophet is accepted in his own Country. In truth I say to you, there were many widows in the days of Elias in Israel, when the heaven was shut three years and six months, when there was a great famine made in the whole earth; and to none of them was Elias sent, but into Sarepta of Sidon, to a widow woman. And there were many Lepars in Israel under Elizeus the Prophet, and none of them made clean but Naaman the Syrian. And all in the Synagogue were filled with anger, hearing these things. And they risen, and cast him out of the City: and they brought him to the edge of the hill, whereupon their City was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them, went his way.  

Moralities.  
1. THe malignity of man's nature undervalueth all that which it hath in hand, & little esteems many necessary things, because they are common. The Sun is not counted rare, because it shines every day, and the elements are held contemptible, since they are common to the poor as well as the rich. Jesus was despised in his own Country, because he was there known to all the world, and the disdain of that ungrateful Nation closed the hands of his great bounty. Is it not a great unhappiness to be weary and tired with often communicating? to be wicked because God is good, and to shut up ourselves close, when he would impart himself to us: Men make little account of great benefits and spiritual helps, for that they have them present. They must lose those favours to know them well, and seek outrageously without effect, what they have kicked away with contempt, because it was easily possessed.  
2. The choices and elections of God are not to be comprehended within our thoughts, but they should be adored by our hearts. He is Master of his own favours, and doth what he will in the Kingdoms of Nature, Grace, and Glory. He makes vessels of Potter's earth, of gold and silver. He makes Holidays and working-days (saith the Wiseman) his liberalites are as free to him, as his thoughts. We must not examine the reason why he doth elevate some, and abase others. Our eye must not be wicked, because his heart is good. Let us content ourselves that he loves the humble, and to know that the lowest place of all, is most secure. No man is made reprobate without justice, no man is saved without mercy. God creates men to repair in many, that which he hath made; and also to punish in the persons of many, that which he hath not made.  
3. Jesus doth not cure his brethren; and yet cures strangers; to show, that his powers are not tied to any nation, but his own will, So likewise the graces of God are not to be measured according to the nature of him who receives them, but by the pure bounty of him who gives them. The humility of some doth call him, when the presumption of others doth estrange him. The weak grounds of a dying law, did no good to the Jews, who disdained the grace of Jesus Christ, And that disdain deprived them of their adoption, of the glory of the New Testament, of all the promises, and of all Magistracy. They lost all, because they would keep their own wills. Let us learn by the grace of God to desire earnestly that good, which we would obtain effectually. Persons distasted and surfeited cannot advance much in a spiritual life. And he that seeks after perfection coldly, shall never find it.   

Aspirations.  
THy beauties (most sweet Jesus) are without stain, thy goodness without reproach, and thy conversation without importunity. God forbidden I should be of the number of those souls which are distasted with Monna▪ and languish after the onions of Egypt. The more I taste thee, the more I incline to do thee honour. Familiarity with an infinite thing, begets no contempt but only from those whom thou dost despise for their own faults. O what high secrets are thy favours. O what Abysses are thy graces. We may wish and run: But except thou cooperate, nothing is done. If thou cease to work, all is undone. I put all my happiness into thy hands: It is thou alone which knowest how to choose what we most need by thy Sovereign wisdom, and thou givest it by thy extreme bounty.    

The Gospel upon Tuesday the third week in Lent, S. Matth. 18. If thy brother offend thee, tell him of it alone.  
BUt if thy brother shall offend against thee, go and rebuke him between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother and if he will not hear thee, join with thee besides one or two, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. And if he will not hear them, tell the Church; and if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the Heathen and the Publican. Amen, I say to you, whatsoever ye shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall lose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning every thing whatsoever they ask, it shall be done to them of my Father which is in heaven: for where there be two or three gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.  
Then came Peter unto him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me and I forgive him? until seven times? Jesus said to him, I say not to thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven times.  

Moralities.  
1. THe heavens are happy that they go always in one measure, and in so great a revolution of ages do not make one false step; but man is naturally subject to fail: He is full of imperfections, and if he have any virtues, he carries them like dust against the wind, or snow against the sun. This is the reason which teaches him that he needs good advice.  
2. It is somewhat hard to give right correction, but much harder to receive it profitably. Some are so very fair spoken, that they praise all which they see; and because they will find nothing amiss, they are ordinarily good to no body. They show to those whom they flatter, their virtues in great, and their faults in little; they will say to those who are plunged in great disorders, they have no other fault, but that they are not sufficiently careful of their own health. Others do correct with such sharpness and violence, that they wound their own hearts to cure other men's, and seem to have a greater mind to please their own passions, than to amend those whom they would instruct. Correction should be accompanied with sweetness, but it must carry withal a little vigour to make a right temper, and to keep a mean between softness and austerity. Jesus in the Prophet Isaiah is called both a rod and a flower: to show us (according to Origen) that he carries severity mingled with sweetness; to use either of them according to the diversity of persons.  
3. It is not a very easy thing to receive brotherly correction patiently, we are so far in love with being well thought of. And after we have lost the tree of life, (which is virtue itself) we would keep the bark of it, which is only reputation. All shadows proceed from those bodies upon which somewhat shines; honour is the child of a known virtue: and many, when they cannot get one lawful, are willing to have a Bastard. This is the cause, why so many resemble those serpents, which requite them with poison, who sing to them pleasant songs. Whatsoever is spoken to instruct them, makes them passionate, and dart out angry speeches against those, who speak to them mild and gentle words of truth, and tending to their salvation. Rest assured, you can never get perfection, except you count it a glory to learn, and discover your own imperfections.  
4. There is nothing of more force than the prayers of just men: which are animated by the same spirit, and cemented together with perfect concord. They are most powerful both in heaven and earth. When they desire what God will, they are always heard; if not according to the wishes of their own nature, yet according to the greater profits of his grace. He is always happy, who hath that which he would; because he knows how to wish what is fitting, and finds means to obtain what he desires, by reason of his abstinence from coveting that which cannot be had.  
5. We must not offer to limit our goodness, but as it comes from an infinite God, we should make it as near being infinite as we can. He gives the lie to virtues, who will reduce them to a certain number. We must never be weary of well doing, but imitate the nature of celestial things, which never make any end but to begin again.   

Aspiration.  
O God, what spots are in my soul, and how little do I look into my own imperfections? Wilt thou never show me to myself (for some good time) that I may cure myself by horror of seeing what I am, since I do so often wound myself, by being too indulgent to my own naughty affections. It is a great offence to break the glass which representeth me to myself by brotherly correction, and to think, I shall commit to more sins when no body will take liberty to reprove me. I will humble myself to the very dust, and mount up to thy glory by contempt of my own baseness: Alas, must my soul be always so far in love with itself, that it cannot suffer the remonstrance of a friend? how will it then endure the tooth of an enemy? what can she love being so partial to herself, if she do not love most ugly darkness, O my redoubted Master, I fear thine eyes which see those obscurities, which the foolish world takes to be brightness. If I cannot be always innocent, make me at least acknowledge myself faulty, that I may know myself as I am; to the end thou mayest know me for an object capable of thy mercy.    

The Gospel upon Wednesday the third week in Lent, S. Matthew 15. The Pharisees asked Jesus, Why do thy Disciples contradict ancient Traditions.  
THen came to him from Jerusalem, Scribes and Pharisees, saying, Why do thy Disciples transgress the tradition of the ancients? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But be answering, said to them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for your tradition? For God said, Honour father and mother: and he that shall curse father or mother, dying let him die. But you say, Whosoever shall say to father or mother, The gift whatsoever proceedeth from me, shall profit thee, and shall not honour his father or his mother: and you have made frustrate the commandment of God for your own tradition. Hypocrites, well hath Esaiah prophesied of you, saying, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain do they worship me, teaching doctrines and commandments of men.  
And having called together the multitudes unto him, he said to them, Hear ye and understand, Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, that defileth a man. Then came his Disciples and said to him, Dost thou know that the Pharisees when they heard this word were scandalised? But he answering, said, All planting which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone, blind they are, guides of the blind: and if the blind be guide to the blind, both fall into the ditch. And Peter answering, said to him, Expound us this parable. But he said, Are you also as yet without understanding? Do you not understand, that all that entereth into the mouth, goeth into the belly, and is cast forth into the privy? But the things that proceed out of the mouth, come forth from the heart, and those things defile a man. For from the heart come forth evil cogitations, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemy: These are the things that defile: but to eat with unwashen hands, doth not defile a man.  

Moralities.  
1. THe spirit of man is wretched, and makes itself business by being disquieted with petty little things: and tormenting itself with formalities, whiles it lives in a deep neglect of all that which is most essential to her salvation. The Pharisees did place their perfections in washing themselves every hour of the day; in bearing writs of the Law upon their foreheads, and thorns upon their heels; but made no scruple to take away the honour due to fathers and mothers from their children; to make spoil of the world by a ravenous avarice (which took upon it the appearance of piety) and to give up innocent blood under show of justice. The world doth now furnish itself with such like devotions. Some make it a sin to look upon a fair flower with delight: to eat with a good appetite: to drink cool wine in hot weather: to burn a paper, upon which the name of Jesus is written: to tread upon two straws that lie a cross. But to set money to usury, to remember injuries for ever, to keep a poor workman's wages, to oppress the weak, to accuse the innocent, to spoil miserable persons: These are the little sins which pass for virtues in this world. Assure yourself that such proceed are abominable before God: and there can be no better devotion in the world, than to have a true and right feeling of God, and to live in honesty, not sophisticated, but such as is produced out of the pure lights of nature. The conscience of hypocrites is a spider's web, whereof no garment can ever be made. Hypocrisy is a very subtle fault, and a secret poison, which kills other virtues with their own swords.  
2. Jesus is our great Master, who hath abridged six hundred and thirteen Precepts of the old Testament within the Law of love. Do but love (saith Saint Augustine) and do what you will: but then your love must go to the right fountain, which is the heart of God. It is in him you must cherish and honour your nearest friends; and for him also you are bound to love even your greatest enemies. Be not afraid to show him your heart stark naked, that he may pierce it with his arrows; for the wounds of such an archer are much more precious than rubies. You shall gain all by loving him; and death itself, which comes from this love, is the gate of life. If you love him truly, you will have the three conditions of love, which are, to serve him, to imitate him, and to suffer for him. You must serve him with all fidelity in your prayers, and all your actions: you must imitate him (what possibly you can) in all the passages of his life; And you must hold it for a glory to participate (with a valiant patience) all the fruits of his Cross.   

Aspirations.  
O Great God, who judgest all hearts, and dost penetrate the most secret retirements of our consciences, drive away from me all counterfeit Pharisaical devotions, which are nothing but shows, and cannot subsist but by false apparencies. O my God, my Jesus, make me keep the Law of thy love, and nothing else. It is a yoke which brings with it more honour than burden; It is a yoke which hath wings, but no heaviness: Make me serve thee, (O my Master) since thou beholdest the services of all the Angels under thy feet: Make me imitate thee, (O my Redeemer) since thou art the original of all perfections: make me suffer for thee, (O King of the afflicted) and that I may not know what it is to suffer, by knowing what it is to love.    

The Gospel upon Thursday the third week in Lent, S. Luke 4. Jesus cured the Fever of Simons Mother in Law.  
ANd Jesus rising up out of the Synagogue, entered into Simons house, and Simons wives mother was holden with a great Fever, and they besought him for her. And standing over her, he commanded the Fever, and it left her: And incontinent rising, she ministered to them. And when the Sun was down, all that had diseased of sundry maladies, brought them to him: But he imposing hands upon every one, cured them. And Devils went out from many, crying and saying, that thou art the Son of God. And rebuking them, he suffered them not to speak that they knew he was Christ. And when it was day, going forth, he went into a desert place, and the multitudes sought him, and came even unto him: and they held him, that he should not departed from them. To whom he said, That to other Cities also must I Evangelize the Kingdom of God: because therefore I was sent. And he was preaching in the Synagogues of Galilee.  

Moralities.  
1. A Soul within a sick body, is a Princess that dwells in a ruinous house: Health is the best of all temporal goods; without which, all honours are as the beams of an eclipsed sun: Riches are unpleasing, and all pleasures are languishing. All joy of the heart subsists naturally in the health of the body. But yet it is true, that the most healthful persons are not always the most holy. What profit is there in that health, which serves for a provocation to sin, for an enticement to worldly pleasure, and a gate to death? The best souls are never better nor stronger, than when their bodies are sick: their diseases are too hard for their mortal bodies, but their courage is invincible. It is a great knowledge to understand our own infirmities. Prosperity keeps us from the view of them, but adversity shows them to us. We should hardly know what death is, if so many diseases did not teach us every day that we are mortal. Semiramis the proudest of all Queens had made a law, whereby she was to be adored in stead of all the gods, but being humbled by a great sickness, she acknowledged herself to be but a woman.  
2. All the Apostles pray for this holy woman which was sick, but she herself asked nothing, nor did complain of any thing. She leaves all to God, who is only Master of life and death. She knew that he which gives his benefits with such bounty, hath the wisdom to choose those which are most fit for us. How do we know, whether we desiring to be delivered from a sickness, do not ask of God to take away a gift which is very necessary to our salvation? That malady or affliction which makes us distaste worldly pleasures, gives us a disposition to taste the joys of heaven.  
3. How many sick persons in the heat of a Fever promise much, and when they are well again perform nothing. That body which carried all the marks of death in the face, is no sooner grown strong by health (which rejoiceth the heart, and fills the veins with blood) but it becomes a slave to sin. The gifts of God (being abused) serve for nothing but to make it wicked; and so the soul is killed by recovery of the flesh, But this pious woman is no sooner on foot but she serves the Author of life, and employs all those limbs, (which Jesus cured of the Fever) to prepare some provisions to refresh him. He that will not use the treasures of heaven with acknowledgement, deserveth never to keep them. When a man is recovered from a great sickness, as his body is renewed by health, so on the other side, he should renew his spirit by virtue. The body (saith Saint Maximus) is the bed of the soul, where it sleeps too easily in continual health, and forgets itself in many things. But a good round sickness doth not only move, but turn over this bed, which maketh the soul awake, to think on her salvation, and make a total conversion.   

Aspirations.  
O Word Incarnate, all Fevers and Devils fly before the beams of thy redoubted face. Must nothing but the heat of thy passions always resist thy powers and bounties? To what maladies and indispositions am I subject? I have more diseases in my soul then limbs in my body. My weakness bends under thy scourges, and yet my sins continue still unmoveable. Stay (O benign Lord) stay thyself near me. Cast upon my dull and heavy eyes, one beam from those thine eyes, which make all storms clear, and all disasters happy. Command that my weakness leave me, and that I may arise to perform my services due to thy greatness, as I will for ever owe my salvation to thine infinite power and bounty.    

The Gospel upon Friday the third week in Lent, S. John 4. Of the Samatitan woman at jacob's Well, near Sichar.  
HE cometh therefore into a City of Samaria, which is called Sichar, beside the Manor that Jacob gave to Joseph his son. And there was there the fountain of Jacob. Jesus therefore wearied of his journey, sat so upon the fountain. It was about the sixth hour.  
There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water, Jesus saith to her, Give me to drink: for his Disciples were gone into the City to buy meats: therefore that Samaritan woman saith to him, How dost thou being a Jew ask of me to drink which am a Samaritan woman? for the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, If thou didst know the gift of God, and who he is that saith unto thee, Give me to drink, thou perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith to him, Sir, neither haste thou wherein to draw, and the well is deep; whence hast thou the living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well, an● himself drank of it, and his children and his . Jesus answered, and said to her, Every one that drinketh of this water, shall thirst again; but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him, shall not thirst for ever: but the water that I will give him, shall become unto him a fountain of water springing up unto life everlasting. The woman saith to him, Lord, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come hither to draw.  
Jesus said to her, Go call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus saith to her, Thou hast said well that I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast, is not thy husband. This thou hast said truly.  
The woman saith to him, Lord, I perceive that thou art a Prophet. Our fathers adored in this mountain, and you say, that Jerusalem is the place where men must adore. Jesus saith to her, woman believe me, that the hour shall come, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, adore the Father. You adore that you know not: we adore that we know; for salvation is of the Jews: but the hour cometh, and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and verity. For the Father also seeketh such to adore him. God is a spirit, and they that adore him, must adore in spirit and verity. The woman saith to him, I know that Messiah cometh, (which is called Christ) therefore when he cometh, he will show us all things. Jesus saith to her, I am he that speak with thee.  
And incontinent his Disciples came: and they marvelled that he talked with a woman. No man for all that said, what seekest thou, or why talkest thou with her? The woman therefore lest her waterpot, and she went into the City, and saith to those men, Come and see a man that hath told me all things whatsoever I have done: Is not he Christ? They went forth therefore out of the City, and came to him.  
In the mean time the Disciples desired him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But he said to them, I have meat to eat which you know not. The Disciples therefore said one to another, hath any man brought him for to eat? Jesus saith to them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, to perfect his work. Do not you say, that yet there are four months, and harvest cometh? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes, and see the Countries, that they are white already to harvest: And he that reapeth, receiveth hire, and gathereth fruit unto life everlasting, that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth, may rejoice together. For in this is the saying true, that it is one man that soweth, and it is another that reapeth. I have sent you to reap that for which you laboured not: others have laboured, and you have entered into their labours.  
And of that City many believed in him of the Samaritans, for the word of the woman giving testimony, that he told me all things whatsoever I have done. Therefore when the Samaritans were come to him, they desired him that he would tarry there. And he tarried there two days. And many moe believed for his own word: and they said to the woman, That now, not for thy saying do we believe: for ourselves have heard, and do know, that this is the Saviour of the world indeed.  

Moralities.  
1 THe God of all power is weary, the main sea desires a drop of salt water: the King of Angels becomes a suppliant for a little part of all that which is his own. This Gospel shows us clearly the love of God toward humane nature, and the infinite zeal which he hath to the salvation of souls. Is it not a thing, which should load us with confusion, to see, that he who is filled with all felicities hath only one thirst, which is, that we should thirst after him? and that we should make chief account of that living water, which he carrieth within his breast, which indeed properly is grace, the only way to glory.  
2. Behold the difference between jacob's Well, and the Well of Jesus; between contentments of the world, and the pleasures of God. The Well of Jacob is common to men and beasts; to show unto us, that a man which glorifieth himself of his sensual delights, makes a Trophy of his own baseness, and and a Triumph of his fault. It is just ●s if N●bucadnezzar forsaking his Crown and Throne (to transform himself into a beast) should brag, that he had gotten a handsome stable, and very good hay. But the fountain of Jesus holds in it the water of graces, a wholesome water, pure and Crystalline; which brings us to the society of Angels. The water of Jacob though it be but a water for beasts, yet it is hard to obtain: There are many which run mad after riches, honours and contentments of this world, and can never come to possess them: They live in a mill, and gain nothing out of it, but the noise and dust. They turn round about upon the wheel of disquiet, and never rest. But if good fortune sometime cast them a bone, there are a hundred dogs which strive to catch it. All their life is nothing but expectation, and their end only despair. Whereas the Well of Jesus is open to all the world; he seeketh, he asketh, he calleth, he giveth gratis, he requireth nothing of us but ourselves, and would have us for no other reason but only to make us happy. The Well of Jacob begetteth thirst, but doth not quench it. Do not you consider that the Samaritan woman left her pot there, and did not drink? After so many phantasms and illusions, which do amuse worldlings, they must part from the world with great thirst. But the fountains of our Saviour free us from the desire of all creatures, and do establish within man's spirit, an object of which the heart can never lose the delight. O happy Samaritan! (saith Saint Ambrose) which left her pot empty, that she might return full of Jesus Christ. She did no wrong to her fellow Citizens, for if she brought no water to the Town, yet she made the fountain itself come thither.  
3. Is it not a shameful thing that God should seek us amongst the heats of his love and sufferings, desireth nothing but us, is contented with the possession of our heart, and yet we cannot be content with him? Shall not we forsake all the disorders of a sensual life which hinder the effect of God's grace? Shall not we forsake and leave behind us our pitcher, bidding farewell to all those occasions which lead us to sin, to avoid that fire whereof we have reason to fear the smoke?   

Aspirations.  
O (Unexhaustible fountain of all beauties) that my soul hath been long alienated from thee. I have so many times run after the salt waters of worldly pleasures and contentments, which have not ceased to kindle a wicked thirst within my veins, in such a violent proportion, that I could not quench it. But now (O sweet Saviour) my soul (being weary and distasted with all the fading delights of this transitory world) doth languish incessantly after thee. Whether the break of day begin to gild the mountains with his brightness, whether the Sun be advanced high in his course, or whether the night do cast a dark vail over all mortal things. I seek and desire thy entertainments, which are the only sweet Ideas of my soul. I plunge myself within the contemplation of thy greatness, I adore thy powers: The first which torments me (by loving thee) is so precious, that I would not lose it to drink Nectar; and I can never quench it, but in the streams of those delights and pleasures, which proceed from the throne of the holy Lamb.    

The Gospel upon Saturday the third week in Lent, S. John the 8. Of the woman found in adultery.  
ANd Jesus went into the mount O livet, and early in the morning again he came into the temple, and the people came to him, and sitting he taught them.  
And the Scribes and Pharisees bring a woman taken in adultery, and they did set her in the midst, and said to him, Master, this woman was even now taken in adultery. And in the law Moses commanded to stone such. What sayest thou therefore? and this they said tempting him, that they might accuse him. But Jesus bowing himself down, with his finger wrote in the earth. When they therefore continued ask him, he lifted up himself, and said to them, He that is without sin of you, let him first throw the stone at her. And again bowing himself, he wrote in the earth. And they hearing, went out one by one, beginning at the Seniors, and Jesus alone remained, and the woman standing in the midst. And Jesus listing up himself, said to her, Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee? who said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said, Neither will I condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more.  

Moralities.  
1. MEn naturally love better to censure the life of another, than to examine their own. The Ravens accuse Doves, and he sits often upon a Tribunal to condemn vice, who doth lodge it in his heart. Many resemble the Cocks which crow against a Basilisk, and yet bear the seed of it in their entrails. Reason would always, that we begin to reform others, by the censure of our own life. No word can carry such life and vigour with it, as that which is followed by action. To talk all and do nothing, is to build with one hand, and destroy with the other. The land of the living shall never be for those, who have their tongues longer than their arms.  
2. To what purpose is it to speak good words, and yet lead an ill life? A man can neither hid himself from God nor himself: his conscience is a thousand witnesses. Those, who were ready to lift up their hands to stone the adulterous woman, were diverted, and departed with confusion, seeing their sins written in the dust, with certain figures to express them. If we could always behold our own life before our eyes (as a piece of Tapestry) we should there see so many Serpents amongst flowers, that we would have more horror of our own sins, than will to censure those who are like ourselves.  
3. God shows mercy, but will not suffer his mildness to be abused, sin must not print its steps upon his clemency. It is a false repentance for a man to act that which himself hath condemned: and after so many relapses, to take but one fall into everlasting pain. The ordinary Gloss observes, that our Saviour bended down, when he wrote upon the earth, to show that the remembrance of our sins lay heavy upon him: But when he began to pardon, he arose up; to teach us, what joy and comfort he takes in the Kingdom of his mercy.   

Aspirations.  
O Sovereign Judge, who sittest upon a Tribunal seat, born up with truth and power; make me rather judge mine own life, than censure the lives of others. Must I be full of eyes without, and blind within? Show me my stains, and give me water to wash them out. Alas, I am altogether but one stain, and thou art all purity. My soul is ashamed to see itself so dark before thy light, and so smutted over, before thine immortal whiteness. Do not write me upon the ground, as a child of earth; writ me in heaven, since I am the portion which thou hast purchased with thy precious blood: Blot out my sins, which are but too deeply graven upon my hands, and pardon, by thine infinite mercy, what thou mayest condemn by justice.    

The Gospel upon Sunday the fourth week in Lent, S. John 6. Of the five Fishes, and two Barley loaves.  
AFter these things Jesus went beyond the Sea of Galilee, which is of Tiberias; and a great multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he did upon those that were sick. Jesus therefore went up into the mountain, and there he sat with his Disciples. And the Pascha was at hand, the festival day of the Jews. When Jesus therefore had lifted up his eyes, and saw that a very great multitude cometh to him, he saith to Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? and this he said, tempting him, for himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every man may take a little piece. One of his Disciples, Andrew the brother of Simon Peter, saith to him, There is a Boy here that hath five Barley loaves, and two Fishes, but what are these among so many? Jesus therefore saith, Make the men sit down. And there was much grass in the place. The men therefore sat down, in number about five thousand. Jesus therefore took the leaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed to them that sat. In like manner also of the Fishes, as much as they would. And after they were filled, he said to his Disciples, Gather the fragments that are remaining, lest they be lost. They gathered therefore, and filled twelve baskets with fragments of the five Barley loaves which remained to them that had eaten. Those men therefore when they had seen What a sign Jesus had done, said, That this is the Prophet indeed that is to come into the world. Jesus therefore when he knew that they would come to take him, and make him a King, he fled again into the mountain himself alone.  

Moralities.  
1. WHat a happy thing it is to serve God, whose conversation is so worthy all love! See how he carried himself toward this poor multitude, which followed him with such zeal and constancy. It seems they were his children, that he carried them all upon his shoulders, that he had their names, their Countries, their qualities, and the conditions of their small fortunes graven in his heart. He is so tender over them, he so afflicts himself about them, as a Shepherd over his poor flock. He instructs them, he speaks to them of heavenly things, he heals their maladies, he comforts their sadness, he lifts his eyes up to heaven for them; and for them he opens his divine hands (the treasures of Heaven) and nourishes them by a miracle, as they had wholly resigned themselves to him with such absolute confidence. O how are we cherished by heaven, since God doth bind himself to help us! And we should be unfaithful not to trust him, who makes nature itself so faithful to us. It is here much to be observed, that God doth no miracles for his own profit; he doth not change stones into bread in the Desert to nourish himself after that long fast which he did there make; but for his faithful servants he altars the course of nature; and being austere to himself, he becomes indulgent to us; to teach us, that we should despoil ourselves of self-love, which ties us to our own flesh, and makes us so negligent to our neighbour.  
2. What precious thing is to be gotten by following the world, that we should forsake Jesus in the Desert, and run after vain hopes at Court, and great men's houses, where we pretend to make some fortune? How many injuries must a man dissemble? How many affronts must he swallow? How many deadly sweats must he endure, to obtain some reasonable condition? How many times must he sacrifice his children, engage his own conscience, and offer violences to others, to advance the affairs of great men? And after many years' service, if any foreaird or ruinous business committed to his charge (in the pursuit whereof he must walk upon thorns) shall chance to miscarry, all the fault must be laid upon a good officer; and if he prove unlucky, he shall ever be made culpable, and in the turning of a hand, all his good services forgotten and lost: and for a final recompense, he must be loaden with infinite disgraces. It is quite contrary in the service of God: for he encourages our virtues, he supplies our defects, governs our spiritual, and yet neglects not our temporal occasions. He that clothes the flowers of the Meadows more gorgeously than Monarches, who lodges so many little Fishes in golden and azure shells, he, who doth but open his hand and replenishes all nature with blessings, if we be faithful in keeping his Commandments, will never forsake us at our need. But yet we find all the difficulties of the world to put our trust in him, we vilify our cares of eternity: and by seeking after worldly things whereby to live, we torment ourselves, and in the end lose our own lives. A man that must die, needs very few worldly things; a very little  will suffice nature, but whole Kingdoms will not satisfy covetousness.  
3. Jesus flies from Sceptres, and runs to the Cross; he would have no worldly Kingdoms, because their Thrones are made of Ice, and their Crowns of Glass. He valued the Kingdom of God above all things, that he might make us partakers of his precious conquest, and infinite rich prize. But now it seems that heaven is not a sufficient Kingdom for us; men run after land, and itch after the ambition of fading greatness: and sometimes all their life passeth away in great sins, and as great troubles to get a poor title of three letters upon their Tomb. Alas! do we know better than God, in what honour consists, that we must seek after that which he did avoid, and not imitate that which he followed?  
Let us follow God, and believe that where he is, there can be no desert or solitude for us. They shall never taste the delights of virtue that feed upon the joys of vanity. All worldly pleasures are Comets made fat with the smokes and vapours of the earth; and in stead of giving light and brightness, they bring forth murders and contagions: but the following of God is always sweet, and he which suffers thereby, changes his very tears into nourishment.   

Aspiration.  
O My God Shall I always run after that which flies from me, and never follow Jesus who follows me by incomparable paths, and loves me even while I am ungrateful. I will no more run after the shadows of worldly honour, I will no more have my own will, which both is, and hath proved so unfaithful. I will put myself into the happy course of God's disposition, for all which shall happen unto me, either in time or eternity; his careful eye watches over me, it is for me that his hands have treasures, and the very Deserts possess abundance. O crucified love, the most pure of all beauties, it is for thee that so many generous Champions have peopled the Deserts, and passed the streams of bitterness and sorrow, bearing their crosses after thee; and thereupon have felt the sweetness of thy visits amongst their cruel rigours. God forbidden, that I should give the lie to so great and so generous a company. I go to thee, and will follow thee amongst the deserts; I run not after bread, I run after thy divine person, I will make much of thy wounds, I honour thy torments, I will conform myself to thee, that I may find joy amongst thy dolours, and life itself amongst thine infinite sufferings.    

The Gospel upon Monday the fourth week in Lent, S. John 2. Of the whipping buyers and sellers out of the Temple.  
ANd the Pasch of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and he found in the Temple them that sold Oxen, and Sheep, and Doves, and the Bankers sitting. And when he had made, as it were, a whip of little cords, he cast them all out of the Temple, the sheep also and the oxen, and the money of the Bankers he poured out, and the tables be overthrew. And to them that sold Doves, he said, Take away these things hence, and make not the house of my Father a house of merchandise. And his Disciples remembered that it is written, The zeal of thy house hath eaten me. The Jews therefore answered, and said to him, What sign dost thou show us, that thou dost these things? Jesus answered and said to them, Dissolve this Temple, and in three days I will raise it. The Jews therefore said, in forty and six years was this Temple built, and wilt thou raise it in three days? But he spoke of the Temple of his body. Therefore when he was risen again from the dead, his Disciples remembered that he said this, and they believed the Scripture, and the word that Jesus did say. And when he was at Jerusalem in the Pasche upon the festival day, many believed in his name, seeing his signs which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, for that he knew all, and because it was not needful for him that any should give testimony of man: for be knew what was in man.  

Moralities.  
1. PIety is a silver chain hanged up aloft, which ties heaven and earth, spiritual and temporal, God and man together. Devotion is a virtue derived to us from the Father of all light, who gives us thereby means to hold a traffic or commerce with Angels. All which is here below, sinks by its proper weight, and leans downward toward natural corruption: Our spirit though it be immortal, would follow the weight of our bodies, if it were not endued with the knowledge of God which works the same effect in it, as the Adamant doth with iron: for it pierceth and gives it life, together with a secret and powerful spirit, from which all great actions take their beginning: You shall never do any great act, if the honour of God, and the reverence of sacred things shall not accompany all your pretences. For if you ground your piety upon any temporal respects, you resemble that people, which believes the highest mountains do support the skies.  
2. There are no sins which God doth punish more rigorously, nor speedily, than those which are committed against devotion and piety: He doth not here take up the scourge against naughty Judges, usurers and unchaste persons, because the Church is to find remedy against all faults which happen in the life of man. But if a man commit a sin against God's Altar, the remedy grows desperate. King Ozias felt a leoprofie rise upon his face at the instant when he made the sum rise from the censor, which he usurped from the high Priests. Ely the chief Priest was buried in the ruins of his own house, for the sacrilege of his children, without any consideration of those long services, which he had performed at the Tabernacle. Keep yourself from simonies, from irreverence in Churches, and from abusing Sacraments. He can have no excuse, which makes his Judge a witness.  
3. Jesus was violently moved by the zeal which he bore to the house of his heavenly Father. But many wicked rich men limit their zeal only to their own families. They build great Palaces upon the people's blood, and they nothing care though all the world be in a storm, so long as they (and what belongs to them) be well covered. But there is a revenging God who doth insensibly dry up the roots of proud Nations, and throws disgrace and infamy upon the faces of those, who neglect the glories of God's Altars to advance their own. He who builds without God, doth demolish, and whosoever thinks to make any great increase without him, shall find nothing but sterility.   

Aspiration.  
O Most pure Spirit of Jesus, which wast consummate by zeal toward the house of God, wilt thou never burn my heart with those adored flames, wherewith thou inspirest chaste hearts? Why do we take so much care of our houses (which are built upon quicksilver, and roll up and down upon the inconstancies of humane fortunes) while we have no love nor zeal towards God's Church, which is the Palace which we should choose here upon earth, to be as the Image of heaven above? I will adore thy Altars (all my life) with a profound humility. But I will first make an Altar of my own heart, where I will offer sacrifice; to which I doubt not but thou wilt put fire with thine own hand.    

The Gospel upon Tuesday the fourth week in Lent, S. John 7.  
The Jews marvel at the learning of Jesus who was never taught.  
ANd when the festivity was now half done, Jesus went up into the Temple and taught. And the Jews marvelled, saying, how doth this man know letters, whereas he hath not learned? Jesus answered them, and said, my doctrine is not mine but his that sent me. If any man will do the will of him, he shall understand of the doctrine, whither it be of God, or I speak of myself; he that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory, but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, he is true, and injustice in him there is not. Did not Moses give you the Law, and none of you doth the Law? Why seek you to kill me? The multitude answered and said, thou hast a Devil, who seeketh to kill thee? Jesus answered and said to them, One work I have done, and you do all marvel, Therefore Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is of Moses, but of the Fathers, and in the Sabbath ye circumcise a man. If a man receive circumcision in the Sabbath, that the law of Moses be not broken, are you angry at me because I have healed a man wholly in the Sabbath? Judge not according to the face, judge just judgement.  
Certain therefore of Jerusalem said, Is not this he whom they seek to kill: And behold, he speaks openly, and they say nothing to him. Have the Princes known indeed that this is Christ? But this man we know whence he is. But when Christ cometh, no man knowerh whence he is. Jesus therefore cried in the Temple, teaching and saying, Both me you do know, and whence I am you know; and of myself I am not come. But he is true that sent me, whom you know not. I know him, because I am of him, and he sent me. They sought therefore to apprehend him, and no man laid hands upon him, because his hour was not yet come. But of the multitude many believed in him.  

Moralities.  
1. IT appears by this Gospel that Jesus was judged according to apparences, not according to truth. It is one of the greatest confusions which is deeply rooted in the life of man, that every thing is full of painting, and instead of taking it off with a sponge, we foment it, and make our illusions voluntary. The Prophet Isay adviseth us to use our judgement, as men do leaven to season bread. All the objects presented to our imaginations, which we esteem are fading, if we do not add some heavenly vigour to help our judgement.  
2. To judge according to apparences is a great want both of judgement and courage. The first makes us prefer vanity before truth; the second gives that to silk and golden clothes, which is properly due to virtue: We adore painted coals and certain dark fumes covered outwardly with snow; But if we did know how many great miseries, and what beastly ordure is hidden under cloth of gold, silk, and scarlet, we would complain of our eyes for being so far without reason. It is a kind of Apostasy and rebellion against God's providence, to judge without calling God to be a precedent in our counsel; or to take in hand any humane inventions without the assistance of his Spirit.  
3. God is pleased to lodge pearls within cockles; and bestows his treasures of wisdom and virtue, many times upon persons, who have the most unfashionable outsides, to countercheck humane wisdom. He makes his orators of those who are speechless; and numbers of frogs and flies to overthrow mighty armies. He makes Kings out of shepherds, and serves himself of things which are not, as if they were. The most pleasing Sacrifice which he receives upon earth, is from the humble; and when we despise those, we divert the honours of God. We offer Sacrifice to the world's opinion, like the Sages of Egypt; who did light candles and burn incense to Crocodiles. The Jews lost their faith to follow apparences: and there is no shorter way to Apostasy, than to adore the world and neglect God.  
4. An ill opinion make folks many times pass a rash judgement: They mount into God's chair to judge the hearts of men: The chaste doves are used like Ravens, and Ravens like Swans. Opinion puts false spectacles upon our eyes, which make faults seem virtues, and virtues crimes. Yet nevertheless we should think that virtuous persons will not conceive an ill suspicion of their neighbour without a very sure ground: Saint John Climacus saith, fire is no more contrary to water, than rash judgement is to the state of repentance. It is a certain sign, that we do not see our own sins, when we seek curiously after the least defects of our neighbour. If we would but once enter into ourselves, we should be so busy to lament our own lives, that we should not have time to censure those of others.   

Aspirations.  
O Judge most redoubtable, who dost plant thy Throne within the heart of man, who judgest the greatest Monarches, without leaving them power to appeal; Thy judgements are secret and impenetrable: That which shines to our eyes like a Diamond, is like a contemptible worm in thy balance. That which we value as a Star thou judgest to be a coal. We have just so much greatness, virtue, and happiness, as we have by entrance into thy heart. And he whom thou esteemest, needs not the judgement of mortal man. No innocent is justified, nor guilty person condemned without thee, and therefore I will from henceforth judge only according to thee. I will lay down all my affections, and take thine, so far as I shall be able; and I will account nothing great, but what shall be so in thy esteem.    

The Gospel upon Wednesday the fourth week in Lent, S. John 9 Of the blind man cured by clay and spittle.  
ANd Jesus passing by, saw a blind man from his nativity: and his Disciples asked him, Rabbi, Who hath sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind, Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned; nor his parents; but that the works of God may be manifested in him. I must work the works of him that sent me whiles it is day, the night cometh when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had said these things, he spit on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and spread the clay upon his eyes, and said to him, Go, wash in the Pool of Silo, which is interpreted, sent. He went therefore and washed, and he came seeing.  
Therefore the neighbours, and they which had seen him before, that he was a beggar, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Others said, that this is he. But others no, not so, but he is like him. But he said that I am he. They said therefore to him, How were thine eyes opened? He answered, that man that is called Jesus, made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said to me, Go to the Pool of Silo and wash: and I went and washed, and saw. And they said to him, Where is he? He saith, I know not. They bring him that had been blind to the Pharisees: And it was the Sabbath when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.  
Again therefore the Pharisees asked him, how he saw. But he said to them, he put clay upon mine eyes, and I washed, and I see. Certain therefore of the Pharisees said, This man is not of God, that keepeth not the Sabbath. But others said, How can a man that is a sinner do these signs? And there was a schism among them. They say therefore to the blind again. Thou, what sayest thou of him that opened thine eyes? And he said, that he is a Prophet. The Jews therefore did not believe of him, that he had been blind, and saw, until they called the Parents of him that saw, and asked them, saying; Is this your son, whom you say that he was born blind? how then doth he now see? His parents answered them, and said, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind: but how be now seethe we know not, or who hath opened his eyes weknow not, ask himself, he is of age, let himself speak of himself. These things his parents said, because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had now conspired, that if any man should confess him to be Christ, he should be put out of the Synagogue. Therefore did his parents say, that he is of age, ask himself. They therefore again called the man that had been blind, and said to him, Give glory to God, we know that this man is a sinner.  
He therefore said to them, Whether he be a sinner, I know not; one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see. They said therefore to him, What did he to thee? How did he open thine eyes? He answered them, I have now told you, and you have heard, why will you hear it again? will you also become his Disciples? They reviled him therefore, and said, be thou his Disciple; but we are the Disciples of Moses: we know that to Moses God did speak: but this man we know not whence he is. The man answered and said to them, For in this it is marvellous, that you know not whence he is, and he hath opened mine eyes. And we know that sinners God doth not hear. But if a man be a server of God, and do the will of him, him he heareth. From the beginning of the world it hath not been heard, that any man hath opened the eyes of one born blind; unless this man were of God, he could not do any thing. They answered and said to him, Thou waste wholly born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they did cast him forth.  
Jesus heard that they cast him forth, and when he had found him, he said to him, Dost thou believe in the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he Lord, that I may believe in him? And Jesus said to him, Both thou hast seen him, and he that talketh with thee, he it is. But he said, I believe Lord: and falling down, he adored him.  

Moralities.  
1. JEsus the Father of all brightness (who walked accompanied with his twelve Apostles, as the Sun doth with the hours of the day) gives eyes to a blind man, and doth it by clay and spittle: to teach us, that none hath power to do works above nature, but he that was the Author of it. On the other side, a blind man becomes a King over persons of the clearest sight; and being restored to light, he renders again the same, to the first fountain from whence it came. He makes himself an Advocate to plead for the chiefest truth, and of a poor beggar becomes a confessor; and after he had deplored his misery at the Temple gate, teacheth all mankind the estate of its own felicities. We should (in imitation of him) love the light by adoring the fountain of it, and behave ourselves as witnesses and defenders of the truth.  
2. God is a light, and by his light draws all unto him: he makes a break of day by his grace in this life, which becomes afterward a perfect day for all eternity. But many lose themselves in this world, some for want of light, some by a false light, and some by having too much light.  
3. Those lose themselves for want of light, who are not at all instructed in the faith and maxims of Christian Religion; and those instead of approaching near the light, love their own darkness. They hate the light of their salvation, as the shadow of death: and think, that if you give them eyes to see their blindness, you take away their life. If they seem Christians, they yet have nothing but the name and the appearance, the book of Jesus is shut from them, or if they make a show to read, they may name the letters, but never can produce one right good word.  
4. Others destroy themselves by false lights, who being wedded to their own opinions, and adoring the Chimeras of their spirit, think themselves full of knowledge, just and happy; that the sun riseth only for them, and that all the rest of the world is in darkness; they conceive they have the fairest stars for conductours; but at the end of their career, they find (too late) that this pretended light, was but an Ignis fatuus, which led them to a precipice of eternal flames. It is the worst of all follies to be wise in our own eyesight, and the worst of all temptations is, for a man to be a devil to himself.  
5. Those ruin themselves with too much light, who have all God's law by heart, but never have any heart to that law. They know the Scriptures, all learning and sciences: they understand every thing but themselves: they can find spots in the sun; they can give new names to the stars; they persuade themselves, that God is all that they apprehend: But after all this heap of knowledge, they are found to be like the Sages of Pharaob: and can produce nothing but blood and frogs: They embroil and trouble the world; they slain their own lives, and at their deaths leave nothing to continue but the memory of their sins. It would be more expedient for them (rather than have such light) to carry fire, wherewith to be burning in the love of God, and not to swell and burst with that kind of knowledge. All learning which is not joined with a good life, is like a picture in the air, which hath no table to make it subsist. It is not sufficient to be elevated in spirit (like the Prophets) except a man do enter into some perfect imitation of their virtues.   

Aspirations.  
O Fountain of all brightness, before whom night can have no vail, who seest the day spring out of thy bosom, to spread itself over all nature, will thou have no pity upon my blindness? will there be no medicine for my eyes, which have so often grown dull & heavy with earthly humours. O Lord, I want light, being always so blind to my own sins. So many years are past, wherein I have dwelled with myself, and yet know not what I am. Self-love maketh me sometimes apprehend imaginary virtues in great, and see all my crimes in little. I too often believe my own judgement, and adore my own opinions, as gods, and goddesses, and if thou send me any light, I make so ill use of it, that I dazzle myself, even in the brightness of thy day; making little or no profit of that which would be so much to my advantage, if I were so happy as to know it. But henceforth I will have no eyes but for thee: I will only contemplate thee, (O life of all beauties) and draw all the powers of my soul into my eyes, that I may the better apprehend the mystery of thy bounties. O cast upon me one beam of thy grace so powerful, that it may never forsake me till I may see the day of thy glory.    

The Gospel upon Thursday, the fourth week in Lent, S. Luke the 7. Of the widow's son raised from death to life at Naim by our Saviour.  
ANd it came to pass afterward he went into a City that is called Naim, and there went with him his Disciples, and a very great multitude: And when he came nigh to the gate of the City, behold a dead man was carried forth, the only son of his mother: and she was a widow, and a great multitude of the City with her; whom when our Lord had seen, being moved with mercy upon her, he said to her, Weep not. And he came near, and touched the Coffin: And they that carried it, stood still: and he said, Young man, I say to thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother: and fear took them all; and they magnified God, saying, That a great Prophet is risen among us: and that God hath visited his people. And this saying went forth into all Jewry of him, and into all the Country about.  

Moralities.  
JEsus met at the Gates of Naim, (which is interpreted the Town of Beauties) a young man carried to burial, to show us, that neither beauty nor youth are freed from the laws of death. We fear death, and there is almost nothing more immortal; here below every thing dies, but death itself. We see him always in the Gospels, we touch him every day by our experiences, and yet neither the Gospels make us sufficiently faithful, nor our experiences well advised.  
2. If we behold death by his natural face, he seems a little strange to us, because we have not seen him well acted. We lay upon him scythes, bows and arrows; we put upon him ugly antic faces, we compass him round about with terrors and illusions, of all which he never so much as thought. It is a profound sleep, in which nature lets itself fail insensibly, when she is tired with the disquiets of this life. It is a cessation of all those services which the soul renders to the flesh. It is an execution of God's will, and a decree common to all the world. To be disquieted and drawn by the ears, to pay a debt which so many millions of men (of all conditions) have paid before us, is to do as a frog that would swim against a sharp stream of a forcible torrent. We have been as it were dead to so many ages which went before us; we die piece-meal every day; we assay death so often in our sleep; discreet men expect him, fools despise him, and the most disdainful persons must entertain him. Shall we not know and endeavour to do that one thing well, which being once well performed, will give us life for ever? Me thinks it is rather a gift of God to die soon, than to stay late amongst the occasions of sin.  
3. It is not death, but a wicked life we have cause to fear. That only lies heavy, and both troubles us, and keeps us from understanding and tasting the sweets of death. He that can die to so many little dead and dying things (which makes us die every day by our unwillingness to forsake them) shall find that death is nothing to him. But we would fain (in death) carry the world with us upon our shoulders to the grave; and that is a thing we cannot do. We would avoid the judgement of a just God, and that is a thing which we should not so much as think. Let us clear our accounts before we die, let us take order for our soul by repentance, and a moderate care of our body's burial: Let us order our goods by a good and charitable Testament, with a discreet direction for the poor, for our children and kindred to be executed by fit persons. Let us put ourselves into the protection of the Divine providence, with a most perfect confidence; and how can we then fear death, being in the arms of life?   

Aspirations.  
O Jesus, fountain of all lives, in whose bosom all things are living; Jesus, the fruit of the dead, who hast destroyed the kingdom of death; why should we fear a path, which thou hast so terrified with thy steps, honoured with thy blood, and sanctified by thy conquests? Shall we never die to so many dying things? All is dead here for us, and we have no life, if we do not seek it from thy heart. What should I care for death, though he come with all those grim, hideous and antic faces, which men put upon him, for when I see him through thy wounds, thy blood, and thy venerable death, I find he hath no sting at all. If I shall walk in the shadow of death, and a thousand terrors shall conspire against me on every side to disturb my quiet, I will fear nothing, being placed in the arms of thy providence. O my sweet Master, do but once touch the winding sheet of my body, which holds down my soul so often within the sleep of death and sin. Command me to arise and speak, and then the light of thy morning shall never set: my discourses shall be always of thy praises, and my life shall be only a contemplation of thy beautiful countenance.    

The Gospel upon Friday the fourth week in Lent, S. John 11. Of the raising of Lazarus from death.  
ANd there was a certain sick man, Lazarus of Bethania, of the Town of Marry and Martha her sister. (And Marie was she that anointed our Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick) his sisters therefore sent to him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. And Jesus hearing, said to them, This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son may be glorified by it. And Jesus loved Martha and her sister Marie, and Lazarus. As he heard therefore that he was sick, than he tarried in the same place two days: Then after this he saith to his Disciples, Let us go into Jewry again, The Disciples say to him, Rabbi, now the Jews sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither again? Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours of the day? If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seethe the light of this world: but if he walk in the night, he stumbleth, because the light is not in him. These things he said: and after this he saith to them, Lazarus our friend sleepeth; but I go that I may raise him from sleep. His Disciples therefore said, Lord, if he sleep, he shall be safe. But Jesus spoke of his death, and they thought that he spoke of the sleeping of sleep. Then therefore Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sake, that you may believe, because I was not there: but let us go to him. Thomas therefore who is called Didymus, said to his condisciples, Let us also go to die with him. Jesus therefore came, and found him now having been four days in the grave. And Bethania was nigh to Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs. And many of the Jews were come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother. Martha therefore when she heard that Jesus was come, went to meet him: but Mary sat at home. Martha therefore said to Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But now also I know, that what things soever thou shalt ask of God, God will give thee. Jesus saith to her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith to him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection in the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live. And every one that liveth, and believeth in me, shall not die for ever. Believest thou this? She said to him, Yea, Lord, I have believed that thou art Christ the Son of God, that art come into this world.  

Moralities.  
1. OUr Saviour Jesus makes here a strong assault upon death, to cure our infirmities at the cost of his dearest friends; He suffered Lazarus, whom he loved tenderly, to fall into a violent sickness, to teach us, that the bodies of God's favourites are not free from infirmities; and that, to make men Saints, they must not enjoy too much health. A soul is never more worthy to be a house for God, than when she raiseth up the greatness of her courage, the body being cast down with sickness. A soul which suffers is a sacred thing. All the world did touch our Saviour before his Passion, The throng of people pressed upon him, but after his death he would not be touched by S. Mary Maudlin, because he was consecrated by his dolours.  
2. The good sisters dispatch a messenger, not to a strange God, as they do who seek for health by remedies, which are a thousand times worse than the disease: But they addressed themselves to the living God; the God of life and death, to drive away death. And to recover life, they were content only to show the wound to the faithful friendship of the Physician, without prescribing any remedies: for that is better left to his providence, than committed to our passion.  
3. He defers his cure to raise from death. The delay of God's favours, is not always a refusal, but sometimes a double liberality. The vows of good men are paid with usury: It was expedient that Lazarus should die, that he might triumph over death, in the triumph of Jesus Christ. It is here that we should always raise high our thoughts, by considering our glory in the state of resurrection; he would have us believe it, not only as it is a lesson of Nature imprinted above the skies, upon the plants or elements of the world, and as a doctrine which many ancient Philosophers had by the light of nature; but also as a belief, which is fast joined to the faith we have in the Divine providence, which keeps our bodies in trust under its seal within the bosom of the earth, so that no prescription of time can make laws to restrain his power, having passed his word, and raised up Lazarus who was but as one grain of seed in respect of all posterity.  
4. Jesus wept over Lazarus, thereby to weep over us all. Our evils were lamentable, and could never sufficiently be deplored, without opening a fountain of tears within heaven, and within the eyes of the Son of God. This is justly the river which comes from that place of all pleasure to water Paradise. How could those heavenly tears come from any other, than the place of all delight, since they issued from a brain, and from eyes which were united to the divinity? And how should they not water Paradise, since for so many ages they have flowed over the Church for producing the fruits of justice. The balm of Egypt could not grow without water of that Well, which was commonly called the fountain of Jesus: because the blessed Virgin had there washed the clothes of her dear Son: And we have no Odour of virtue, nor good conversation, (which is not directly barren) except it be endued with the merit of our Saviour's tears.   

Aspirations.  
O Eyes of my Saviour, from whence the sun receives his clearest light: fair eyes which only deserve eternal joys and delights. Why should you this day be moistened with tears? Thou dost give me (O only love of my heart) the blood of thy soul, before thou sheddest that of thy body. There are so many things to make me weep and I feel them so little, that if they tears do not weep for me, I shall always be miserable. Water then (O my sweet Master) the barrenness of my soul from that fountain of blessing, which I have opened within thine eyes and heart: I have opened it by my sins, and let it I beseech thee bless me by thine infinite mercies.    

The Gospel upon Saturday the fourth week in Lent, S. John 8. Upon our Saviour's words, I am the light of the world.  
AGain therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world, he that followeth me, walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of life. The Pharisees therefore said to him, Thou givest testimony of thyself, thy testimony is not true. Jesus answered and said to them, although I do give testimony of myself, my testimony is true; because I know whence I came, and whither I go: but you know not whence I came, or whither I go. You judge according to the flesh, I do not judge any man. And if I do judge, my judgement is true, because I am not alone, but I and he that sent me, the Father. And in your law it is written, that the testimony of two men is true. I am he that give testimony of myself: and he that sent me, the Father, giveth testimony of me. They said therefore to him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Neither me do you know, nor my Father: if you did know me, perhaps you might know my Father also. These words Jesus spoke in the Treasury, teaching in the Temple, and no man apprehended him, because his hour was not yet come.  

Moralities.  
1. THere is in the blessed Trinity a communicating light, to which nothing is communicated: another light which is communicative and communicated: and a third light which is communicated, but not communicating. The first is the heavenly Father, who gives but takes nothing. The second is that of the Son, who takes from his Father and gives to the holy Ghost all that can be given; The third is the holy Ghost, which receives equally from the Father and the Son, and doth produce nothing in the Trinity. But Jesus illuminating from all eternity, this state (for ever to be adored) did vouchsafe to descend into the country of our darkness, to scatter it by his brightness. It is he that hath thrown down the Crocodiles and Bats from profane Altars; who hath broken so many idols; who hath overthrown so many Temples of the adulterers and murdering gods, to plant the honours of his heavenly Father. He hath invested the world during so many ages, with the shining of his face. He doth not cease to give light, nor to kindle in our hearts many inspirations, which are like so many stars to conduct us to the fountain of all our happiness. You are very blind if you do not see this, and much more miserable if you despise it.  
2. It is most dangerous to do as the Jews did, to speak every day to the light, and yet love their own darkness. Screech-owls find holes and nights to keep themselves from day, which they cannot abide. But he that flies from the face of God, where can he find darkness enough to hid himself? When he shall be within the gulf of sin, his own conscience will light up a thousand torches to see his punishments. It is the worst of all mischiefs, to pay for the contempt of the fountain of light by suffering eternal darkness.  
3. Let us behold the conversation of Jesus Christ as a sea mark, sticked all over with lights: his life gives Testimony of his Sanctity: his miracles publish his power; his law declares his infinite wisdom, his Sanctity gives us an example to imitate, his power gives the strength of Authority, to make him the more readily obeyed; and from his wisdom faith is given us to regulate and govern our belief.   

Aspirations.  
O My Lord Jesus, the spirit of all beauties, and the most visible of all lights, what do the eyes of my soul, if they be not always busied in the contemplation of thy brightness. When I find thou art departed from me, me thinks I am buried within myself, and that my soul is nothing else, but a Sepulchre of terrors, phantasms and deaths; But when thou returnest by thy visits and consolations, I am cheerfully revived, and my heart leaps in thy presence, as a child rejoiceth at sight of his dear nurse. O Light of lights, which dost illuminate man coming into this world, I will contemplate thee at the sunrising above all creatures. I will follow thee with mine eyes all the day long, and I will not leave thee at sunset, for there is nothing can be in value near like thee. It belongs only to thee, (O Sun of my Soul) to arise at all hours, and to give light at Midnight, as well as at Noonday.    

The Gospel upon Passion Sunday, S. John the 8. upon these words, Who can accuse me of sin?  
WHich of you shall argue me of sin? If I say the verity, why do you not believe me? He that is of God, heareth the words of God: therefore you hear not, because you are not of God. The Jews therefore answered, and said to him, Do not we say well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a Devil? Jesus answered, I have no Devil: but I do honour my Father, and you have dishonoured me. But I seek not mine own glory. There is that seeketh and judgeth. Amen, Amen, I say to you, if any man keep my word, he shall not see death for ever. The Jews therefore said, now we have known that thou hast a Devil; Abraham is dead, and the Prophets, and thou sayest, if any man keep my word, he shall not taste death for ever. Why, art thou greater than our Father Abraham who is dead? and the Prophets are dead. Whom dost thou make thyself? Jesus answered, if I do glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father that glorifieth me, whom you say that he is your God, and you have not known him, but I know him. And if I shall say that I know him not, I shall be like to you, a liar: but I do know him, and do keep his word. Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day, and he saw and was glad. The Jews therefore said to him, Thou hast not yet fifty years, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said to them, Amen, Amen, I say to you, before that Abraham was made, I am. They took stones therefore to cast at him. But Jesus hide himself, and went out of the Temple.  

Moralities.  
1. THe Saviour of the world being resolved to suffer death as the Priest of his own sacrifice, and sacrifice of his priesthood, shows that it is an effect of his mercy, and not a suffering for any fault. He doth advance the standard of the Cross (which was the punishment of guilty persons) but he brought with him innocence, which is the mark of Saints: he honours it with his dolours, and sanctifies it with his blood, to glorify it in the estimation of all the just. He is without spot, and capable to take all stains, by his infinite sanctity: and yet he suffered as a sinner, to blot out all our sins; It is in this suffering he would have us all imitate him. He doth not require us to make a heaven, nor stars, nor to enlarge the sea, or to make the earth firm; but to make ourselves holy as he is holy (according to our capacity) And this we may gain by his favour, which he hath by his own nature. No man is worthy to suffer with Jesus, who doth not purify himself by the sufferings of Jesus. If we suffer in sin, we carry the Cross of the bad thief. We must carry the Cross of Jesus, and consecrate our tribulations by our own virtues.  
2. It is said that the venomous serpent called a Basilisk (which kills both men and beasts by his pestilent breath) kills himself when he looks upon a looking glass, by the very reflection of his own poison. The Jews do here the very same; They come about this great mirror of sanctity, which carried all the glory of the living God; he casts his beams upon them, but envy, the mother of murder (which kills itself only by the rays of golden arrows) makes them dart out venomous words to dishonour him: yet his incomparable virtue kills them, without losing any of his own brightness; to teach us, that the beauty of innocency, is the best buckler against all slanders. Though it seem to be tarnished for a time, yet her brightness will thereby become more lively: for it is a star which the blackest vail of night cannot darken.  
3. Abraham did rejoice at this day of God two thousand years before it was manifested to the world: All the Patriarches did long after it; and did anticipate their felicities by the purity of their thoughts. This blessed Day hath been reserved for us, and yet many of us despise it. We so much love the day of man, that by the force of too much love to it, we forget the love of God. We should, and must contemn those perishing days of worldly honours and pleasures, which are covered with eternal night, that we may partake the eternity of that beautiful day, which shall never have any evening.   

Aspirations.  
O God of purity, in whose presence the Angels (ravished with admiration) do cover their faces with their wings, and have no sweeter ecstasies, than the admiration of thy beauty: The stars are not pure enough before thy redoubted Majesty. The Sun beholds thee as the true Author of his light. Thou only canst purify all humane kind, by a sanctity which spreads itself over all Ages. Alas, I am confounded to see my sinful soul so often died black with so many stains, and beastly ordures, before those most pure beams of thy glory. Wash, O wash again out all that which displeaseth thee. Regenerate in my heart a Spirit, that shall be worthy thyself. How shall I follow thee to Mount Calvarie, if I be pursued with so many ill habits, which I have often detested before thine eyes? How can I go in company with the first and greatest of all Saints, drawing after me so many sins? The increase of my offences would multiply thy crosses: I will therefore do my best to drown all my imperfections within thy blood. I will procure light to my nights (by that bright and beautiful day which Abraham saw) from that glorious day which took beginning from thy Cross. I will no more care for the day of man, that I may the better apply myself to the day of God.    

The Gospel upon Monday, the fifth week in Lent, S. John 7. Jesus said to the Pharisees, You shall seek and not find me: and he that is thirsty, let him come to me.  
ANd the Princes and Pharisees sent Ministers to apprehend him. Jesus therefore said to them: Yet a little time, and I will be with you, and I go to him that sent me: you seek me, and shall not find, and where I am, you cannot come. The Jews therefore said among themselves, Whither will this man go, that we shall not find him? will he go into the dispersion of the Gentile, and teach the Gentiles: what is this saying, that he hath said? You shall seek me, and shall not find: and where I am, you cannot come.  
And in the last, the great day of the festivity, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (And this he said of the Spirit) that they should receive, which believed in him.  

Moralities.  
1. TAke for your comfort this excellent word of our Saviour: he that is thirsty, and desires in this world to thirst after God, let him come unto me, and he shall quench his thirst at the chiefest fountain. S. Augustine saith, We are all here, as David was in the desert of Idumea: our life is a perpetual alteration, which will never be settled while we live. If we be weary, we desire rest, and if we rest overlong, our bed becomes troublesome, though it should be all of roses. Then again, we thirst to be in action and business, which also in a short time tires us, and puts us into another alteration; and that carries us again to a desire to do nothing. All our life goeth like Penelope's web: what one hour effects, the next destroys. We do sufficiently perceive that we are not well in this world: It is a large bed, but very troublesome, wherein every man stirs and tumbles himself up and down, but no man can here attain to his perfect happiness.  
2. This shows us plainly that we are made for God, and that we should thirst after divine things, if we desire true contentment. There is no default in him, because all that can be desired, is there, and yet there is no superfluity, because there can be nothing beyond him. There only we abound without necessity, we are assured without fear, & glorious without change. And it is there only where we find all our satisfactions perfectly accomplished. For to speak truth, contentment consisteth in four principal things, which are, to have a contenting object; to have a heart capable to apprehend it; to feel a strong inclination to it, and to enter into an absolute full possession of it. Now God hath provided for all this by his infinite bounty. He will not have us affect any other object of pleasure but his own. He is God, and therefore can have nothing but God for his satisfaction, and intends graciously that we shall have the same. He will have us thirst after him, and quench our thirst within himself: and to this, our soul is singularly disposed; for as God is a Spirit, so is our soul only spiritual. We have so strong an inclination to love God, that even our vices themselves (without thinking what they do) love somewhat of God. For if pride affect greatness, there can be nothing so great, as the Monarch of it. If luxury love pleasure, God containeth all pure delights in his bosom: and this which I say, may be verified of all sins whatsoever. If the presence of a right object, and the enjoying be wanting, we have nothing so present as God. S. Paul saith, We are all within him, within him we live, and within him we have the fountain of all our motions: we see him through all his creatures, until he take off the vail, and so let us see him, and taste of his Glory.  
3. A true and perfect way to make us thirst after God, is to forsake the burning thirst which we have after bodily and worldly goods: Our soul and flesh go in the several scales of a balance, the rising of one, pulls down the other: It is a having two wives, for us to think we can place all our delights in God, and withal enjoy all worldly contentments. A man must have a conscience free from earthly matters, to receive the infusion of grace; we must pass by Calvary, before we come to Tabor; and first taste gall with Jesus, before we can taste that honeycomb, which he took after his resurrection.   

Aspirations.  
O God, true God of my salvation, My heart which feeleth itself moved with an affectionare zeal, thinks always upon thee, and in thinking, finds an earnest thirst after thy beauties, which heats my veins. My soul is all consumed, & I find that my flesh itself insensibly followeth the violence of my spirit. I am here, as within the deserts of Africa, in a barren world, the drought whereof makes it a direct habitation for dragons. O my God, I am tormented with this flame, and yet I cherish it more than myself. Will there be no good Lazarus found to dip the end of his finger within the fountain of the highest Heaven, a little to allay the burning of my thirst. Do not tell me (O my dear Spouse) that there is a great Chaos between thee and me: Thou hast already passed it in coming to me by thy bounty: and wilt not thou lift me up then by thy mercy?    

The Gospel upon Tuesday the fifth week in Lent, S. John 7. Jesus went not into Jewry, because the Jews had a purpose to take away his life.  
AFter these things Jesus walked into Galilee: for he would not walk into Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him. And the festival day of the Jews Scenopegia was at hand. And his brethren said to him, Pass from hence, and go into Jewry, that thy Disciples also may see thy works which thou dost. For no man doth any thing in secret, and seeketh himself to be in public: if thou do these things, manifest thyself to the world: for neither did his brethren believe in him: Jesus therefore saith to them; My time is not yet come: but your time is always ready. The world cannot bate you, but me it hateth, because I give testimony of it, that the works thereof are evil. Go you up to this festival day, I go not up to this festival day; because my time is not yet accomplished.  
When he had said these things, himself tarried in Galilee: But after his brethren were gone up, than he also went up to the festival day, not openly, but as it were in secret. The Jews therefore sought him in the festival day, and said, Where is be? And there was much murmuring in the multitude of him. For certain said that he is good. And others said, No, but he seduceth the multitudes: yet no man spoke openly of him for fear of the Jews.  

Moralities.  
1. JEsus hides himself in this Gospel (as the Sun within a cloud) to show himself at his own time: to teach us, that all the serets of our life consisteth in well concealing, and well discovering ourselves. He did conceal the life which he took from nature, when he might have been born a perfect man as well as Adam, and yet did he hid himself in the hay of a base stable. He concealeth his life of grace, dissembling under silence, so many great and divine virtues, as if he had locked up the stars under lock and key, as holy Job saith. He keeps secret his life of Glory, retaining for thirty three years the light of his soul, which should without intermission have glorified and cast a divine brightness upon his body. But when he concealed himself, the stars discovered him at his birth; the Sun at his death: all the Elements did then confess him, and all creatures gave testimony of his Divinity.  
2. We should be well known of God, if we did not so curiously inquire into the knowledge of the world. Vanity at this day opens all her gates to manifest divers men to the world, who should otherwise be buried in obscurity and darkness. It maketh some appear by the luxurious excess of their apparel, as so many sale creatures, whose heads (being high and costly dressed up) go to the market of idle love. Others by the riches and pomps of the world, others by honours and dignities, others by the spirit of industry, and others by the deeds of arms and policy. Every one sets out himself to be seen and esteemed in the world. It seemeth that life is made for nothing but to be showed, and that we should always live, for that which makes us die. We are a kind of walking spirits, which return late to our lodgings: But yet nevertheless, giving ourselves so continually to the world, me thinks we should at least stay with ourselves every day one short hour. It is said, that the Pelican hides her eggs, and that they must be stolen from her, to make them disclose: But vanity is an egg, which all the world hatcheth under her wings, and none are willing to forsake it.  
3. If it be needful to show yourself to the world, be then known by your virtues, which are characters of the Divinity. Let men know you by your good examples, which are the seeds of eternity, and of all fair actions. You must be known by your alms and bounty, which are the steps which God left imprinted in this world. If you must rise to honours and dignities, take them as instruments of holiness: and be not powerful, but to be more obliged to do good by so being.   

Aspirations.  
O God, which didst conceal thyself; how comes it about, that I desire so much to be seen, and make myself known to the world? What can I discover, if I show that which I am, but only sin, vanity, misery, and inconstancy, which make the four elements of my life? To what serves this itch of seeing, but only to receive into our eyes the seeds of curiosity? Why do we covet to be so much seen, but to expose ourselves to vanity, and to carry a Torch in a blast of wind? Alas (O Merciful Lord) I have very long lived for myself, and for the eyes of the world, when shall I begin to live for thee? Shall I never see those happy moments of my life, which will receive light only from the day of thy face? Let me (O most beloved of my heart) be blind to all the world, so that I may have eyes for thee. If the condition of my estate must needs show me to the world, let it be to give it part of thy light, without receiving any part of that darkness which covereth it. Let me be in the world to do good, but let me dwell in thee, as within the Fountain of all goodness.    

The Gospel upon Wednesday the fifth week in Lent, S. John 10. The Jews said, If thou be the Messiah, tell us plainly.  
ANd the Dedication was in Jerusalem, and it was in winter: And Jesus walked in the Temple in Solomon's Porch. The Jews therefore compassed him round about, and said to him, How long dost thou hold our soul in suspense? If thou be Christ, tell us openly. Jesus answered them, I speak to you, and you believe not. The works that I do in the Name of my Father, they give testimony of me. But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them life everlasting, and they shall not perish for ever, and no man shall pluck them out of my hand. My Father, that which he hath given me, is greater than all, and no man can pluck them out of the hand of my Father. I and the Father are one.  
The Jews took up stones to stone him: Jesus answered them, Many good works I have showed you from my Father, for which of these works do you stone me? The Jews answered him, for a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and because thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them: Is it not written in your Law, that I said, You are Gods? If he called them Gods, to whom the word of God was made, and the Scripture cannot be broken: whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, say you, That thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, and if you will not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.  

Moralities.  
1. THe Wolf's encompass the good shepherd, counterfeiting Lambs, to draw truth out of his mouth, which they would persecute. They resembled a certain plant, which carrieth the name and shape of a Lamb, but hath a contrary substance, and different qualities, for it is ravenous as a wolf, and devours all the herbs which grow about it. So are there many who do insinuate themselves into the friendship of good men, by fair (but counterfeit) respects, to the end that afterward they may be made the object of their cruelty. Those men look after the Messiah in the Porch of Solomon, as Herod sought after him in the Manger, not to adore, but to kill him. Their mouth carries honey, when their heart hatcheth poison: but nothing is unknown to God, from whom hell itself hath not darkness enough to hid itself.  
2. Jesus knows his flock, and his flock reciprocally knows him, and in that consists all our happiness, to know God, and to be known of him. The chiefest of all wisdom, is to know him, and to be known by him, and to be written in the Book of life, which is the last and chiefest of all felicities. It is true, that he knows all things by the knowledge of a clear intelligence, which serves the wicked only to discover plainly their crimes: whereas he knows the just by a science of favour and approbation, which indeed is eternal predestination. If we be unknown to God, we must make ourselves known to him by some good virtue, which doth not depend only upon us. The first beam is of prevenient grace, and our vocation to Christianity, which is part of our predestination, and is not all within our power. We have not been elected, because we have believed in God, by our own forces; but we believe, because we have been elected. The first knowledge comes purely from God, but it is in us by his grace, to pursue this first light, and to advance our predestination to glory, by forcing ourselves to know him perfectly, who hath known us so liberally.  
3. Jesus will not be known singly by his words, but by his works. Our words must agree with our good actions, as the needle of a clock agrees with the springs. When we have heard, or read some good doctrine, that Sermon, or reading, must pass into our manners. It is surely a strange thing, that many employ their leisure to know much, and yet will not spend some considerable time, to make themselves good Christians. We must be Philosophers, more by imitating the example of God, than by any curious enquiry of his greatness. Our Christianity teacheth us, that we should be more knowing and skilful in the practice of our life, than of our tongue; and that we are rather made to perform great actions, than to speak them. We must have a special care that our hands do not give our mouth the lie. What can we gain (in the judgement of God) by being like those trees, which have a fair outside, garnished with leaves, yet good for nothing but to give a shadow, and to make a little noise when the wind blows? God requires of us fruit, since he is the Father of all fertility, and nothing is barren in the land of the living.   

Aspirations.  
O My God, I know thee, because thou was first pleased to know me: Thou hast known me by thy goodness, and I will do my best to know thee, that I may obtain all happiness. O that I might know that my name is written in the Book of life; and also know the life which I may possess within the heart of Jesus, in which so many lives do live. O how should I then find my spirit ravished in those beautiful Ideas of glory? Fix thine eyes on me (O Lord) and thou shalt thereby bring to me the fountain of all happiness. The Father hath given me to thee, and I am the conquest of thy precious blood; Suffer not a soul to be taken away from thee, which hath cost thee so many sweats and sufferings. I am thine by so many titles, that I will be no more mine own, but only to have the right of renouncing that which I am, and to establish what shall be thine in this little kingdom of my heart.    

The Gospel upon Thursday, the fifth week in Lent, S. John 7. Upon S. Marie Magdalen 's washing our Saviour's feet in the Pharisees house.  
ANd one of the Pharisees desired him to eat with him. And he being entered into the house of the Pharisee, he sat down to meat. And behold, a woman that was in the City, a sinner, as she knew that he set down in the Pharisees house, she brought an Alabaster box of ointment; and standing behind, beside his feet, she began to water his feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment. And the Pharisee that had bid him, seeing it, spak-within himself, saying, This man, if he were a Prophet, would know certes who, and what manner of woman she is which toucheth him, that she is a sinner, And Jesus answering, said to him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. But he said, Master, say. A certain Creditor had two debtors, one did owe five hundred pence, and the other fifty; they having not wherewith to pay, he forgave both, whether therefore doth love him more: Simon answering, said, I suppose that he to whom be forgave more. But he said to him, Thou hast judged rightly. And turning to the woman, he said unto Simon, Dost thou see this woman? I entered into thy house, water to my feet thou didst not give: but she with tears hath watered my feet, and with her hairs hath wiped them. Kiss thou gavest me not; but she, since I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. With oil thou didst not anoint my head: but she with ointment hath anointed my feet. For the which I say to thee, many sins are forgiven her, because she hath loved much. But to whom less is forgiven, he loveth less. And he said to her, Thy sins are forgiven thee. And they that sat together at the table, began to say within themselves, Who is this that also forgiveth sins? And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath made thee safe, Go in peace.  

Moralities.  
1. SAint Marie Magdalen is under the feet of Jesus Christ, as is that work of Saphires (mentioned in Exodus) under the feet of God. It is a work wrought by the right hand of the Highest, the wonder of women, the most happy of all lovers; who made profit of sin, which destroys all; who sanctified that love, which so little knew the way to any sanctity. This is the fountain mentioned in the Book of Esther, in the vision of Mordocheus; A fountain which became a river, and after changes itself into the Sun, which gives beams and showers at one instant. She is a fountain at the Pharisees talbe she is a river in her solitary grove, she is a Sun both in Paradise, and in that great exaltation, wherein the Catholic Church now beholds her. Being now in glory, she doth not yet forbear to open fountains of tears (by imitation of her) within the souls of repentant sinners, of whom incessantly she procures the conversion. Happy is that heart which is pierced with the imitation of her virtues, thereby to gain some part of her crowns.  
2. Every thing is admirable in her conversion: A sinner wounded with love, cures herself by love. She changes the fire of Babylon, into that of Jerusalem. She plucks out of her wound the venomous dart of worldly love, to make large room for the arrows of Jesus, which pierce her heart; and at an instant make a harmony of heavenly passions within the bottom of her soul. She holds the wound dearer than life, and goes straight to her conqueror, to desire death, or increase of love.  
3. She appears most ingenious in her affections, to provide no water wherewith to wash her Master's feet, since she could draw it so fitly out of her own eyes. This was the water which Jesus did thirst after, when he asked of the Samaritane woman some to drink; But that poor woman was so astonished, that she forsook her pitcher, and forgot that which Jesus asked. Now the holy Magdalen brings her eyes to the Pharisees table, as to vessels full of Crystal water, which was of that pure stream which comes from the holy Lamb. Heaven is wont to water the earth, but here the earth waters Heaven. A soul which was before black, and burnt up with the fire of concupiscence, provides a Fountain for the KING of highest Heaven. She draws tears from her sins, to make them become the joys of Paradise.  
4. She sanctifies all that which was esteemed most profane. Her hairs, which were the nets wherein so many captive souls did sigh under the yoke of wanton love, are now (as the ensigns and standards of wicked Cupid) trampled under the feet of her Conqueror. Those kisses, which carried the poison of a luxurious passion in her heart, do now breathe from her nothing but the delicacies of chastity. Her pleasing odours which were before vowed to sensuality, are now become the sweetest exhalations from that Amber Isle, which brings an odoriferous perfume to Jesus Christ. She brings with her Aromatic spices, to burn herself at the Mountain of her Sun, who makes himself her Priest, her Advocate, and Brideman.  
5. She had gained the great Jubilee, and was assured of it, by the word of the Eternal Bishop; and yet during all the rest of her life, she practised upon herself a sanctified revenge, and her penance never ends, but with her life; to confound our coldness, who know so little what it is to bewail a sin. She is as timorous in the assurance of her pardon, as we are secure at the approach of God's justice. No body could be so patiented, and so constant in her love, but she, that had a holy emulation toward heavenly charity. It is her perseverance which draws to the earth a perfect copy of that life (without limit) which the blessed souls enjoy in heaven. It is she alone to whom eternity was then given, because she had power to offer repentant frailty to Eternity itself.   

Aspirations. Upon Saint Mary magdalen's great Repentance.  
O Jesus, my Conqueror, and my Sovereign Bishop, thou art pleased to be satisfied of thy unworthy servant; but I am not yet content with myself. No, no, my life and penance shall end together, since I have lost that which should never have been separated from my body, before the separation of my soul. And since I cannot enter chaste into my grave, I will now go repentant into an obscure and savage Cave, where the Sun shall shine no more upon a head so sinful as mine. Mine eyes (O mine eyes) who have first received that fire which hath so passionately devoured my soul, I will make you imitate the Pond of Hesebon, and sooner shall those two fountains be dried up, which serve the stream of Jordan, than you shall want water to wash the steps of your Concupiscences. I will have that neck (which hath suffered itself to be embraced by unlawful Arms) held under the yoke of him that hath overcome me, and so happily subjected me to to his Empire. These arms and hands, which have been the chains of wanton embracements, shall henceforth for ever be lifted up to Heaven in prayer, and they shall have no other Altars, but the feet of my Lord and Master, if I dare think myself worthy to kiss them. This mouth, which hath been the gate of unchastity, shall now become a Temple of God's praises. And this heart, which hath been a burning furnace of worldly love, shall be a burning lamp of holy affections before God; and shall have no other oil to maintain it, but that water which shall be drawn from mine eyes. O my God, since I have so betrayed my heart, abused my youth, spent prodigally thy Treasures, and made crowns to Baal out of thy silver; since I have forsaken thee, who art eternal, unchangeable, and incomparable Goodness, (without whom all other goods are nothing) to follow a wanton fire, which hath brought me to the brim of everlasting precipice; where shall I find sufficient tears to wash my offences? where shall I find enough parts of my body, to be continually offered up as the sacrifice of my repentance? I would make my life immortal, to have my pains so lasting, and if thy mercy will not let me be the object of thy vengeance, let me at least serve for a sacrifice at thy Altars.    

The Gospel upon Friday the fifth week in Lent, S. John 11. The Jews said, What shall we do? for this man doth many miracles.  
THe chief Priests therefore and the Pharisees, gathered a Council, and said, What shall we do? for this man doth many signs: if we let him alone so, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away our place and Nation. But one of them named Caiaphas, being the High Priest of that year, said to them, You know nothing, neither do you consider that it is expedient for us, that one man die for the people, and the whole Nation perish not. And this he said not of himself, but being the High Priest of that year, be prophesied that Jesus should die for the Nation: and not only for the Nation, but to gather in one the children of God that were dispersed. From that day therefore they devised to kill him. Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews, but he went into the Country beside the Desert, unto a City that is called Ephrem, and there he abode with his Disciples.  

Moralities.  
1. ONe of the greatest Tragedies acted in the life of man, which makes curious persons to question, wise men to wonder, good men to groan, and the wicked to rejoice; is to see an innocent man oppressed by colour of justice. Now Jesus being resolved to espouse our miseries, as far as they can reach, was pleased to pass through those rigours and formalities of the wicked, coloured with a pretext of equity. He is not here condemned by a mean people without consideration, without power, without formality of process: But by these chief Priests and principal men of that Nation assembled in Council; they informed themselves, they reason, and conclude his death. The Lions of Solomon's throne, did anciently bear certain Writs of the Law, to signify, that it was to be handled by courageous and clear-seeing Judges. But here Foxes got it into their hands, and did manage it by crafty deceits and wickedness. Alas, we are far from the Laws of God, when we cannot abide the least word spoken against our reputation. We are troubled to suffer for innocency, as if it were a greater honour to suffer for a direct offence. Shall we never think, that the triumph of virtue consists in well doing, and (thereby) sometimes receiving harm, even from those who are esteemed good men?  
2. There are some difficulties in affairs, where truth is shut up, as within a cloud. Wise men can hardly find out where the point lies, but God doth so order it, that falsehood leaves always certain marks by which it may be known; and the beauty of truth is ever like that lake of Africa, which early or late discovers all that is cast into it, and makes all impostures plainly appear, when we think they are most concealed. And this appears by the proceeding of Caiaphas, who chose to condemn Christ, for those things which were the certain tokens, that he was the true Messiah. He concluded his death by reason of his miracles, and those gave him authority, as to the Prince of life. A troubled spirit makes darts of every thing, (which it can) to fight against reason, and kills itself, not suspecting its own poison.  
3. The devil publisheth Jesus for the true Messiah, and so doth likewise Caiaphas prophesy the same. It is not always a certain mark of goodness, to speak that which is good, but it is an assurance of virtue to avoid that which is ill. There are many from whom good works do escape, while they both think and do ill. Truth makes use of their tongues, when Devils command their hearts. It is this which makes us to see our Saviour's Empire, and the extent of his conquests, which is not limited by time, he being already entered into possession of Eternity: and it is not bounded by place; because it contains all Immensity. Night hath no power to cover it, because it is light itself; It cannot be shut up in any deceitful shadow, because it scatters and discovers all falsehood: It cannot be comprehended within our senses, because it exceeds their Capacity; and it is present in all places, being omnipotent and eternal in all time.   

Aspirations.  
O Jesus, Father of all blessed unions, who hast suffered death to unite all the children of God together, who are scattered over all the countries of the world; wilt thou have no pity of my heart, so many times torn in pieces, & strayed among a great multitude of objects, which estrange and draw me from the first of all Unities? My soul melts through all the Gates of my senses, by running after so many creatures which do kindle covetousness, but never serve to refresh or cool the heat of it. Draw me (O Lord) from the great throng of so many exterior things, that I may retire into my own heart, and from thence arise to thine, where I may find that peace, which thou hast cemented fast with thy most precious blood.  
When shall I see the first beams of that liberty, which thou grantest to thy children? When shall my thoughts return from wandering in those barren regions, where thou art not acknowledged? When shall I be reunited, and so purified by thy favours, that they may celebrate continual days of feast in my soul? I am already there in desire, and shall be there in presence, when by help of thine infinite grace and mercy, I can be wholly thine.    

The Gospel upon Saturday, the fifth week in Lent, S. John 12. The chief Priests thought to kill Lazarus, because the miracle upon him, made many follow JESUS.  
BUt the chief Priests devised for to kill Lazarus also; because many for him of the Jews went away, and believed in Jesus.  
And on the morrow a great multitude that was come to a festival day, when they had heard that Jesus cometh to Jerusalem, they took the boughs of Palms, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of our Lord, the King of Israel. And Jesus found a young Ass, and sat upon it, as it is written, Fear not daughter of Zion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting upon an Ass' colt. These things his Disciples did not know at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, than they remembered that these things had been written of him, and these things they did to him. The multitude therefore gave testimony, which was with him when he called Lazarus out of the grave, and raised him from the dead. For therefore all the multitude came to meet him, because they heard that he had done this sign. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Do you see that we prevail nothing? Behold the whole world is gone after him.  
And there were certain Gentiles of them that came up to adore in the festival day. These therefore came to Philip, who was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we are desirous to see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew. Again, Andrew and Philip told Jesus: but Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come that the Son of man shall be glorified. Amen, Amen, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground, die, itself remaineth alone: but if it die, it bringeth much fruit. He that loveth his life, shall lose it: and he that hateth his life in this world, doth keep it to life everlasting. If any man minister to me, let him follow me: and where I am, there also shall my minister be. If any man minister to me, my Father will honour him.  

Moralities.  
1. ADmire here the ecstasies of our sweet Saviour: He is ravished by the object of his death, and is transported by the Idea of his sufferings. The trumpet of Heaven sounded in the voice which was heard by this great multitude. He encourages himself to his combat; he looks confidently upon the Cross, as the fountain of his glories, and planted his elevation upon the lowest abasements. Shall not we love this Cross, which Jesus hath cherished as his Spouse? He gave up his soul in the arms of it, to conquer our souls. We shall never be worthy of him, till we bear the Ensigns of his war, and the ornaments of his peace. Every thing is Paradise to him, that knows how to love the Cross: and every thing is hell to those who fly from it; and no body flies it, but shall find it. It is the gate of our mortality, whither we must all come, though we turn our backs to it.  
2. What a great secret it is, to hate our soul, that we may love it; To hate it for a time, that we may love it for all eternity; to punish it in this life, to give it thereby a perpetual rest in that to come; To despise it, that we may honour it: To handle it roughly, that it may be perfectly established in all delights? And yet this is the way which all just men have passed, to arrive at the chiefest point of their rest. They have resembled the Flowers-de-luce, which weep for a time, & out of their own tears produce seeds which renew their beauties. The salt sea for them becomes a flourishing field, as it did to the people of God, when they came forth of the chains of Egypt. The cloud which appeared to the Prophet Ezechiel, carried with it winds and storms, but it was environed with a golden circle, to teach us that the storms of afflictions which happen to God's children, are encompassed with brightness, and smiling felicity. They must rot as a grain of wheat, that they may bud out and flourish in the ear. They must abide the diversity of times, and endure the sith and flail; They must be ground in a mill, and pass by water and fire, before they can be made bread pleasing to Jesus Christ. Our losses are our advantages; we lose nothing, but to gain by it; we humble and abase ourselves to be exalted; we despoil ourselves to be better clothed, and we mortify ourselves, to be revived. O what a grain of wheat is Jesus Christ, who hath past all these trials, to make the height of all heavenly glories bud out of his infinite sufferings.   

Aspirations.  
O God, I have that passionate desire, which these strangers had, to see Jesus. I do not ask it of Philip, nor shall Philip have cause to ask Andrew. My Jesus, I ask it of thyself. Thou art beautiful even in the way of the Cross; Thou didst show thyself courageous in the Abyss of thy pains: thou art admirable in the contempt of death. The heavenly trumpet hath already sounded for thee, and cheerfulness gives wings to carry thee to this great combat, where death and life fight singly together: which makes life die for a time, and death live for ever. I will forsake my very soul, to follow thee in this Agony, and find my life in thy death, as thou hast extinguished death in thy life.    

The Gospel upon Palm-Sunday, S. Matthew 21. Our SAVIOUR came in triumph to Jerusalem a little before his Passion.  
ANd when they drew nigh to Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto mount Olivet, than Jesus sent two Disciples, saying to them, Go ye into the Town that is against you, and immediately you shall find an Ass tied, and a colt with her: lose them, and bring them to me. And if any man shall say aught unto you, say ye, That our Lord hath need of them, and forthwith he will let them go. And this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet, saying, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold thy King cometh to thee, meek, and sitting upon an Ass, and a Colt, the foal of her that is used to the yoke. And the Disciples going, did as Jesus commanded them: and they brought the Ass, and the Colt, and laid their garments upon them, and made him to sit thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way: and others did cut boughs from the trees, and strawed them in the way, and the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying: Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord.  

Moralities.  
1. OUr Saviour goes to his death in triumph: he appears to be a King, but a King of hearts, who requires nothing of us, but ourselves, only to make us happy and contented in him. He triumphs before the victory, because none but he could be sure of the future certainty of his happiness. But he watered his triumphs with tears, to weep for our joys, which were to proceed out of his sadness. It is related by an ancient Orator, that when Constantine made his entry into great Britain, (where he was born) the people received him with so great applause, that they kissed the Sails and Oars of the vessel which brought him, and were ready to pave the streets with their bodies for him to tread on. If they did so for a mortal man, what should we not do for an eternal God, who comes to buy us with his precious blood, and demands entrance into our hearts, only to give us Paradise.  
2. He walks towards his Cross, amongst the cries of favours and joy, to teach us, with what cheerfulness we should conform ourselves to abide our own sufferings; imitating the Apostles, who received their first reproaches, as Manna from heaven. He would have us prepared and resolved always to suffer death patiently; whether it be a death which raiseth up our spirit to forsake sensuality, or a natural death. Whethersoever it be, we should embrace it as the day which must bring us to our lodging, after a troublesome pilgrimage. Doth it not appear plainly, that those who are loath to forsake the world, are like herbs put into an earthen pot among straw and dung, and yet would be unwilling to come forth of it. The furniture of our worldly lodging grown rotten, the roof is ready to fall upon our heads, the foundation shakes under our feet, and we fear that day, which (if we ourselves will) shall be the morning of our eternal happiness. It is not death, but only the opinion of it, which is terrible, and every man considers it according to the disposition of his own spirit.  
3. The Palm-branches which we carry in our hands, require from us the renewing of a life purified and cleansed in the blood of the holy Lamb. In the beginning of Lent we take upon our heads the ashes of Palm branches, to teach us, that we do then, enter (as it were) into the Sepulchre of repentance: But now we carry green bows, to make us know, that now we come out of the tomb of Ashes, to enter again into the strength of doing good works, in imitation of the trees, which having been covered with snow, and buried in the sharpness of winter, do again begin to bud out in the Spring time.  
4. The garments spread under the feet of Jesus, declare, that all our temporal goods should be employed toward his glory; and that we must forsake our affections to all things which perish, that we may be partakers of his kingdom. No man can stand firm, that is delighted with movable things. He that is subject to worldly affections, binds himself to a wheel which turns about continually. Jesus accepted this triumph, only to despise it: he reserved the honour of it in his own hands, to drown it in the flood of his tears, and in the sea of his precious blood. If you be rich and wealthy, do not publish it vainly, but let the poor feel it. You must live amongst all the greatness and jollity of this world, as a man whose only business must be to go to God.   

Aspirations.  
O Sovereign King of hearts, after whom all chaste loves do languish, I am filled with joy to see thee walk amongst the cries of joy, and the Palms and garments of thy admirers, which served for carpets. I am ravished with thy honours, and the delights of thy glory, and I applaud thy triumphs. Alas, that all the earth is not obedient to thy laws; and that the tongues of all people do not make one voice, to acknowledge thee sole Monarch of Heaven and earth. Triumph at least in the hearts of thy faithful servants (O my magnificent Master) make a triumphal Ark composed of hearts; Put fire to it with thy adored hand; Pour out one spark of that heat, which thou camest to spread upon the earth. Let every thing burn for thee, and consume itself in thy love. I do irrevocably bind my heart to the magnificence of thy triumph, and I love better to be thy slave, than to be saluted King of the whole world.    

The Gospel upon Monday in holy week, S. John 12. Saint Marie Magdolen anointed our Saviour feet with precious Ointment: at which Judas repined.  
JEsus therefore six days before the Pasche, came to Bethania, where Lazarus was, that had been dead, whom Jesus raised: and they made him a supper there, and Martha ministered, but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Marry therefore took a pound of Ointment of right Spikenard, precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled of the odour of the Ointment. One therefore of his Disciples, Judas Iscariot, he that was to betray him, said, Why was not this Ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? And he said this, not because he cared for the poor, but because be was a thief, and having the purse, carried the things that were put in it. Jesus therefore said, Let her alone, that she may keep it for the day of my burial: for the poor you have always with you, but me you shall not have always. A great multitude of the Jews knew that he was there: and they came, not for Jesus only, but that they might see Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead.  

Moralities.  
1. LAzarus being raised from his grave, converseth familiarly with Jesus, and to preserve the life which he had newly received, he ties himself continually to the fountain of lives: to teach us, that since we have begun to make a strong conversion from sin to grace, we must not be out of the sight of God: we must live with him, and of him; with him, by applying our spirit, our prayers, our fervours, our passionate sighs toward him: and live of him, by often receiving the blessed Sacrament. Happy they (saith the Angel in the Apocalypse) who are invited to the wedding-supper of the Lamb. But note, that he who invites us to this feast, stands upright amidst the Sun, to signify, that we should be as pure as the beams of light, when we come unto the most holy Sacrament. Lazarus did eat bread with his Lord, but (to speak with S. Augustine) he did not then eat the bread of our Lord, and yet this great favour is reserved for you, when you are admitted to that heavenly banquet, where God makes himself meat, to give you an Antepast of his Immortality.  
2. God will have us acknowledge his benefits, by the faithfulness of our services. S. Peter's mother in law, as soon as she was healed of her Fever, presently served her Physician. And observe, that Martha served the Author of life, who had redeemed her brother from the power of death. The faithful Mary, who had shed tears, gave what she had most precious, and observes no measure in the worth, because Jesus cannot be valued Cleopatra's pearl (estimated to be worth two hundred thousand crowns) which she made her friend swallow at a Banquet, this holy woman thought too base; She melts her heart in a sacred Limbeck of love, and distils it out by her eyes. And Jesus makes so great account of her waters and perfumes, that he would suffer no body to wash his feet, when he instituted the blessed Sacrament, as not being willing to deface the sacred characters of his sacred Lover.  
3. Judas murmurs and covers his villainous passion of Avarice, under the colour of Charity, and Mercy toward the poor. And just so do many cover their vices with a specious show of virtue. The proud man would be thought Magnanimous; the prodigal would pass for liberal, the covetous for a good husband; the brainsick rash man, would be reputed courageous; the glutton, a hospitable good fellow; Sloth puts on the face of quietness, timorousness of wisdom, impudence of boldness, insolence of liberty, and over-confident or saucy prating, would be taken for eloquence. Many men (for their own particular interests) borrow some colours of the public good, and very many actions, both unjust and unreasonable, take upon them a semblance of piety. S. Irenaeus saith, that many give water, coloured with sleckt whitelime or plaster, in stead of milk. 
* A Farce is a French Jig, wherein the faces of all the actors a●e whited over with meal.  And all their life is but a Farce, where Blackamoors are whited over with meal. Poor truth suffers much more amongst these cozenages: But you must take notice that in the end, wicked and dissembling Judas did burst, and show his damned soul stark naked. Yet some think fairly to cover foul intentions, who must needs know well, that hypocrisy hath no vail to cousin death.   

Aspirations.  
I See no Altars in all the world more amiable than the feet of our Saviour; I will go by his steps to find his feet; and by the excellencies of the best of men, I will go find out the God of gods. Those feet are admirable, and S. John hath well described them to be made of metal, burning in a furnace; they are feet of metal by their constancy, and feet of fire by the inflamed affections of their Master. Let Judas murmur at it, what he will; but if I had a sea of sweet odours, and odoriferous perfumes, I would empty them all upon an object so worthy of love. Give, (O mine eyes) Give at least tears to this precious Holocaust, which goes to sacrifice itself for satisfaction of your libidinous concupiscences. Wash it with your waters, before it wash you with its blood. O my soul, seek not after excrements of thy head, to dry it: Thy hairs are thy thoughts, which must only think of him, who thought so kindly and passionately of thee, on the day of his Eternity.    

The Gospel upon Maunday Thursday, S. John the 13. Of our Saviour's washing the feet of his Apostles.  
ANd before the festival day of the Pasche, Jesus knowing that his hour was come, that he should pass out of this world to his Father: whereas he had loved his that were in the world, unto the end he loved them. And when supper was done, whereas the devil now had put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray him, knowing that the Father gave him all things into his hands, and that he came from God, and goeth to God: be riseth from supper, and layeth aside his garments, and having taken a towel, girded himself. After that he put water into a basin, and began to wash the feet of the Disciples, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. He cometh therefore to Simon Peter; and Peter saith to him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered, and said to him, That which I do, thou knowest not now, hereafter thou shalt know. Peter saith to him, Thou shalt not wash my feet for ever. Jesus answered him, if I wash thee not, thou shalt not have part with me. Simon Peter saith to him, Lord, not only my feet, but also hands and head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed, needeth not but to wash his feet, but is clean wholly: and you are clean, but not all; for he knew who he was that would betray him, therefore he said, You are not clean all.  
Therefore after he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, being set down, again he said to them, Know you what I have done to you? You call me Master, and Lord, and you say well, for I am so. If then I have washed your feet; Lord and Master, you also aught to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so do you also.  

Moralities.  
1. JEsus loves his servants for an end, and till the full accomplishment of that end. The world loves his creatures with a love which tends to concupiscence; but that is not the end for which they were made, or should be loved. There is a very great difference between them: for the love of worldly men, plays the tyrant in the world; snatching and turning all things from the true scope and intention, for which they were made by God, diverting them to profane uses, by turbulent and forcible ways. The world pleaseth itself to set up Idols every where, to make itself adored in them, as chief Sovereign. It makes use of the Sun to light his crimes; of the fatness of the earth to fatten his pleasures, of apparel for his luxury, of all metals to kindle Avarice, and of the purest beauties to serve sensuality. And if by chance it love any creature, with a well-wishing love, and as it ought to be loved, that is not permanent. The wind is not more inconstant, nor a calm at Sea more unfaithful than worldly friendship. For sometimes it gins with Fire, and ends in Ice. It is made as between a pot and a glass, and is broken sooner than a glass. The ancient Almans tried their children in the Rbine, but true friendship is tried in a sea of Tribulation. It is only Jesus (the preserver and restorer of all things) who loves us from Eternity to Eternity. We must follow the sacred steps of his examples, to reduce ourselves to our first beginning, and to bring ourselves to the final point of our happiness.  
2. The water at first was a mild element, which served the Majesty of God, as a floating chariot, since (as the Scripture saith) his Spirit was carried upon the waters, from whence he drew the seeds which produced all the world. But after man had sinned, like a Supreme Judge, he made use of the gentlest things to be the instruments of our punishments. The water which carried the Divine Mercies, was chosen at the deluge, to drown all mankind. Now at this time Jesus sanctified it by his sacred touch: He took the Basin, which being in his hands, became greater and more full of Majesty, than all the Ocean. Our spots, which eternity could not wash clean, are taken away at Baptism, by one only drop of water, sanctified by his blessing. He prevents the bath of his blood, by the bath of an element: which he doth expressly before his institution of the blessed Sacrament; to teach us, what purity of life, of heart, of faith, of intentions and affections, we must bring to the holy Eucharist. It is necessary to chase away all strange gods (which are sins and passions) before we receive the God of Israel: we must wash ourselves in the waters of repentance, and change our attire by a new conversation. Is it too much for us to give flesh for flesh, the body of a miserable man, for that of Jesus Christ? The consideration of our sins should bring up the blood of blushing into our cheeks, since they were the only cause why he shed his most precious blood upon the Cross for us. Alas, the Heavens are not pure before his most pure Spirit, which purifies all nature: Then how can we go to him, with so many voluntary stains and deformities? Is it not to cast flowers upon a dunghill, and to drive Swine to a clear fountain, when we will go to Jesus (the Author of innocency) carrying with us the steps and spots of our heinous sins?  
3. Jesus would not only take upon himself the form of man, but also of a base servant, as S. Paul saith. It was the office of slaves to carry water to wash bodies; which made David say, That Moah should be the Basin of his hope, expressing thereby, that he would humble the Moabites so low, that they should serve only to bring water to wash unclean houses. Alas, who would have said, that the Messiah was come amongst us to execute the office of a Moabite? What force hath conquered him, what arms have brought him under, but only love? How can we then become proud, and burn incense to that Idol, called Point of honour, when we see how our God humbled himself in this action? Observe with what preparation the Evangelist said, that his Heavenly Father had put all into his hands: that he came from God, and went to God; yet in stead of taking the world's Sceptre, he takes a Basin, and humbles himself to the most servile offices. And if the waters of this Basin cannot burst in us the foul imposthume of vanity, we must expect no other remedy, but the eternal flames of hell fire.   

Aspirations.  
OKing of Lovers, and Master of all holy Loves, Thou lovest for an end, and till the accomplishment of that end. It appertains only to thee, to teach the Art of loving well, since thou hast practised it so admirably. Thou art none of those delicate friends, who only make love to beauties, to gold, and silk; thou lovest our very poverty, and our miseries; because they serve for objects of thy charity. Let proud Michol laugh (while she list) to see my dear David made as a water-bearer; I honour him as much in that posture, as I would, sitting upon the throne of all the world. I look upon him holding this Basin, as upon him that holds the vast seas in his hands. O my merciful Jesus, I beseech thee wash; wash again, and make clean my most sinful soul. Be it as black as hell, being in thy hands, it may become more white than that Dove (with silver wings) of which the Prophet speaks. I go, I run to the fountain; I burn with love amongst thy purifying waters. I desire affectionately to humble myself, but I know not where to find so low a place as thine, when thou thus wast humbled before Judas, to wash his traiterours feet.    

Upon the Garden of Mount Olivet.  

Moralities.  
1. JEsus enters into a Garden, to expiate the sin committed in a Garden by the first man. The first Adam stole the fruit, and the second is ordained to make satisfaction. It is a strange thing, that he chose the places of our delights, for suffering his pains; and never looked upon our most dainty sweets, but to draw out of them most bitter sorrows. Gardens are made for recreations, but our Saviour finds there only desolation. The Olives, which are tokens of peace, denounce war unto him. The plants there do groan; the flowers are but flowers of death, and those fountains are but fountains of sweat and blood. He that shall study well this Garden, must needs be ashamed of all his pleasant Gardens: and will forsake those refined curiosities of Tulips, to make his heart become another manner of Garden, where Jesus should be planted, as the only Tree of Life, which brings forth the most perfect fruits of justice.  
2. It was there that the greatest Champion of the world undertook so great Combats, which began with sweat and blood, but ended with the loss of his life. There were three marvellous Agonies, of God and Death; of Joy and Sorrow; of the Soul and Flesh of Jesus. God and Death were two incomparable things; since God is the first, and the most universal of all lives, who banisheth from him all the operations of death, and yet his love finds means to unite them together for our redemption.  
The joy of beatitude was a fruition of all celestial delights, whereunto nothing which displeased, could have access; and yet Jesus suffered sorrow, to give him a mortal blow, even in the Sanctuary of his Divinity. He afflicted himself for us, because we knew not what it was to afflict ourselves for him, and he descended by our steps to the very anguishes of death, to make us rise by his death, to the greatest joys of life.  
To be short, there was a great duel between the affectionate love, and the virginal flesh of Jesus. His soul did naturally love a body, which was so obedient; and his body followed wholly the inclinations of his soul: There was so perfect an agreement between these two parties, that their separation must needs be most dolorous. Yet Jesus would have it so, and signed the decree by sweeting blood. And, as if it had been too little to weep for our sins with two eyes, he suffered as many eyes as he had veins, to be made in his body, to shed for us tears of his own blood.  
3. Observe here how this soul of Jesus amongst those great anguishes, continued always constant, like the Needle of a Sea-compass in a storm. He prays, he exhorts, he orders, he reproves and he encourages; he is like the Heavens, which (amongst so many motions and agitations) lose no part of their measure or proportion. Nature and obedience make great convulsions in his heart; but he remains constantly obedient to the will of his Heavenly Father: he tears himself from himself, to make himself a voluntary sacrifice for death, amongst all his inclinations to life; to teach us that principal lesson of Christianity, which is to desire only what God will, and to execute all the decrees of his divine Providence, as our chiefest helps to obtain perfection.   

Aspirations.  
OBeauteous garden of Olives, which from henceforth shalt be the most delicious object of my heart. I will lose myself in thy walks, I will be lost with God, that I may never be lost. I will breathe only thy air, since it is made noble by the sighs of my dear Master. I will gather thy flowers, since Jesus hath marked them with his blood. I will wash myself in those fountains, since they are sanctified by the sweat of my Jesus. I will have no other joy, but the sorrow of the Son of God, nor any other will but his. O my sweet Saviour, Master and teacher of all humane kind, wilt thou be abridged of thine own will (which was so reasonable and pure) to give me an example of mortifying my passions, and shall I (before thy face) retain any wicked or disordinate appetites? Is it possible I should desire to be Lord of myself (who am so bad a Master) when I see the Author of all goodness separate himself from himself, only to make me and all mankind, partakers of his merits?   

Of the apprehension of JESUS.  
IN that obscure and dolorous night, wherein our Saviour was apprehended, three sorts of darkness were cast; upon the Jews, upon Judas, and upon Saint Peter: A darkness of obduration upon the hearts of the Jews; a darkness of ingrateful malignity upon Judas; and a darkness of infirmity upon Saint Peter. Was there ever any blindness like that of the Jews, who sought for the shining Sun with lighted torches, without knowing him by so many beams of power, which shined from him? They are strucken down with the voice of the Son of God, as with lightning; and they rise again upon the earth to arm themselves against Heaven. They bind his hands to take away the use of his forces, but they could not stop the course of his bounties. To show that he is totally good, he is good and charitable, even amongst his merciless executioners, and he lost all he had (saving his Godhead) only to gain patience.  
When S. Peter struck the high Priests servant, the patience of our Lord Jesus received the blow, and had no patience till he was healed. If goodness did show forth any one beam in the garden, modesty sent forth another in the house of Anuas, when his face was strucken by a servile hand, his mouth opened itself as a Temple, from whence nothing came but sweetness and light. The God of Truth speaketh to Caiaphas, and they spit upon his brightness, and cover that face which must discover Heaven for us. The mirror of Angels is tarnisht with the spittle of infernal mouths, and wounded by most sacrilegious hands, without any disturbance of his constancy. That was invincible by his virtue, as the wilfulness of the Jews stood  by their obduration. There are souls, which after they have filled the earth with crimes, expect no cure of their diseases, but by the hell of the reprobate.  
2. The second darkness appeareth by the black passion of Judas, who falls down into hell with his eyes open; and after he had sold his soul, sold Jesus, and both all he had, and all he was, to buy an infamous halter to hang himself. A soul become passionate with wanton love, with ambition or avarice, is banished into itself, as into a direct hell, and delivered to her own passions, as to the Furies. The Poet Hydra had but seven heads; but the spirit of Avarice (S. john Climacus saith) hath ten thousand. The conversation of Jesus, which was so full of infinite attractions, could never win the spirit of judas, when it was once bewitched with covetousness. The tinkling of silver kept him from rightly understanding jesus. He makes use of the most holy things, to betray Holiness itself. He employs the kiss of peace, to begin war. He carries poison in his heart, and honey in his mouth: he puts on the spirit of jesus, to betray him. This shows us plainly, that covetous and traitorous persons are farthest from God, and nearest to the devils.  
3. The third power of darkness appeared in the infirmity of S. Peter, who after so many protestations of fidelity, for fear of death, renounced the Author of life. One of the Ancients said, The greatest frailty of Humanity, was, that the wisest men were not infallibly wise at all times. And all men are astonished to see, that the greatest spirits (being left to themselves) become barren, and suffer eclipses, which give examples to the wisest, and terror to all the world. God hath suffered the fall of S. Peter, to make us have in horror all presumption of our own forces; and to teach us, that overgreat assurance is oftentimes mother of an approaching danger. Besides, it seemeth he would by this example, consecrate the virtue of repentance in this fault of him, whom he chose to be head of his Church; to make us see, that there is no dignity so high, nor holiness so eminent, which doth not owe Tribute to the mercy of God.   

Aspirations. Upon S. Peter's tears.  
IT is most true (saith S. Peter) that a proud felicity hath always reeling feet. Thou which didst defy the gates of hell, hast yielded thyself to the voice of a simple woman. All those conquests which thou didst promise to thyself, are become the trophies of so weak a hand Return to the combat, and since she hath triumphed over thee, do thou at least triumph over thyself. Alas, I am afraid even to behold the place of my fall, and the weak snares of a simple woman appear to me as boisterous chains. Yet what can he fear, who is resolute to die? If thou find death amongst these massacres, thou shouldst rather embrace than decline it: For what can it do, but make thee companion of life itself? Our soul is yet too foul to be a sacrifice for God; let us first wash it with tears. I fell down before the fire, and I will rise by water. I have walked upon the sea to come to Jesus, and I will now return to him by the way of my tears. I will speak now only by my tears, since I have lately talked so wickedly with my mouth. Since that which should open to speak Oracles for the Church, hath been employed to commit foul treason; since we have nothing left free to us, but sighs and groans, let us make use of the last liberty which is left us, and when all is spent, return to the mercy of Jesus, which all the sins of the world can never evacuate. I will from henceforth be a perpetual example to the Church by my fall, and rising again from death; for the comfort of sinners; and the fault of one night shall be lamented by me all the days of my life.    

Moralities upon the Praetorian, or Judgement-Hall.  
1. IN the passion of our Saviour, all things are divine, and it seemeth they go as high as they could be raised by that Sovereign power, joined with extreme love. Jesus the most supreme and redoubted Judge, who will come in his great Majesty to judge the world, fire and lightning streaming from his face, and all things trembling under his feet, was pleased at this time to be judged as a criminal person. Every thing is most admirable in this judgement: The Accusers speak nothing of those things, which they had resolved in their counsels, but all spoke against their consciences. As soon as they are heard, they are condemned; justice forsaketh them, and they are wholly possessed with rage. Pilate, before he gave judgement upon Jesus, pronounced it against himself: for after he had so many times declared him innocent, he could not give judgement, without protesting himself to be unjust. The silence of Jesus is more admired by this infidel, than the eloquence of all the world; and Truth, without speaking one word, triumpheth over falsehood. A Pagan Lady (the wife of Pilate) is more knowing than all the Laws: more religious than the Priests; more zealous than the Apostles, more courageous than the men of Arms: when she sleepeth, Jesus is in her sleep: when she talketh, Jesus is upon her tongue: if she writ, Jesus is under her pen: her letter defended him at the Judgement-Hall, when all the world condemned him; she calleth him holy, when they used him like a thief: She maketh her husband wash his hands, before he touched that blood, the high price of which she proclaimed. She was a Roman Lady by Nation, called Claudia Procula, and it was very fit she should defend this Jesus, who was to plant the Seat of his Church in Rome. All this while Jesus doth good amongst so many evils: He had caused a place to be bought newly for the burial of Pilgrims at the price of his blood; he reconciles Herod and Pilate, by the loss of his life. He sets Barrabas at liberty, by the loss of his honour: he speaks not one word to him that had killed S. John the Baptist, who was the voice. And the other to revenge himself (without thinking what he did) shown him as a King. He appears before Pilate as the king of dolours, that he might become for us the King of glories. But what a horror is it to consider, that in this judgement, he was used like a slave, like a sorcerer, like an accursed sacrifice? Slavery made him subject to be whipped, the crown of thorns was given only to Enchanters, and that made him appear as a Sorcerer: And so many curses pronounced against him, made him as the dismissive Goat, mentioned in Leviticus, which was a miserable beast, upon which they cast all their execrations, before they sent it to die in the desert. He that bindeth the showers in clouds, to make them water the earth, is bound and drawn like a criminal person: He that holds the vast seas in his fist, and ballanceth Heaven with his fingers, is strucken by servile hands. He that enamels the bosom of the earth, with a rare and pleasing diversity of flowers, is most ignominiously crowned with a crown of thorns. O hideous prodigies, which took away from us the light of the Sun, and covered the Moon with a sorrowful darkness. Behold what a garland of flowers he hath taken upon his head, to expiate the sins of both Sexes. It was made of briers and thorns, which the earth of our flesh had sowed for us, and which the virtue of his Cross took away. All the pricks of death were thrust upon this prodigious patience, which planted her throne upon the head of our Lord. Consider how the Son of God would be used for our sins, while we live in delicacies? and one little offensive word goeth to our hearts; to which, though he that spoke it, gave the swiftness of wings, yet we keep it so shut up in our hearts, that it getteth leaden heels, which make it continue there fixed.  

Aspirations.  
ALas, what do I see here? A crown of thorns grafted upon a man of thorns: A man of dolours, who burns between two fires, the one of love, the other of tribulation; both which do inflame and devour him equally, and yet never can consume him. O thou the most pure of all beauties, where have my sins placed thee? Thou art no more a man, but a bloody skin taken from the teeth of Tigers and Leopards. Alas, what a spectacle is this to despoil this silk 
* Ego sum vermis & non home. Psalm 21.  worm, which at this day attires our Churches and Altars? How could they make those men (who looked upon thy chaste body) strike and disfigure it? O white Alabaster, how hast thou been so changed into scarlet? Every stroke hath made a wound, and every wound a fountain of blood. And yet so many fountains of thy so precious blood, cannot draw from me one tear. But O sacred Nightingale of the Cross, who hath put thee within these thorns, to make so great harmonies only by thy silence? O holy thorns, I do not ask you where are your Roses. I know well they are the blood of Jesus, and I am not ignorant that all roses would be thorns, if they had any feeling of that which you have. Jesus carried them upon his head, but I will bear them at my heart: and thou (O Jesus) shalt be the object of my present dolours, that thou mayest after be the Fountain of my everlasting joys.    

Moralities for Good Friday upon the death of JESUS CHRIST.  
MOunt Calvarie is a marvellous scaffold, where the chiefest Monarch of all the world, loseth his life, to restore our salvation which was lost, and where he makes the Sun to be eclipsed over his head, and stones to be cloven under his feet; to teach us by insensible creatures, the feeling which we should have of his sufferings.  
This is the school where Jesus teacheth that great Lesson, which is the way to do well. And we cannot better learn it than by his examples, since he was pleased to make himself passable and mortal, to overcome our passions, and to be the Author of our immortality.  
The qualities of a good death may be reduced to three points: of which the first is to have a right conformity to the will of God, for the manner, the hour, and circumstances of our death.  
The second is, to forsake as well the affections, as the presence of all creatures of this base world.  
The third is, to unite ourselves to God by the practice of great virtues, which will serve as steps to glory.  
Now these three conditions are to be seen in the death of the Prince of Glory upon Mount Calvarie; which we will take as the purest Ideas, whereby to regulate our passage out of this world.  
1. COnsider in the first place, that every man living hath a natural inclination to life, because it hath some kind of divinity in it. We love it, when it smileth upon us, as if it were our Paradise; and if it be troublesome, yet we strive to retain it, though it be accompanied with very great miseries. And if we must needs forsake this miserable body, we then desire to leave it by some gentle and easy death. This maketh us plainly see the generosity of our Saviour, who being Master of life and death, and having it in his power to choose that manner of death which would be least hideous, (being of itself full enough of horror) yet nevertheless, to conform himself to the will of his heavenly Father, and to confound our delicacies, he would needs leave his life by the most dolorous and ignominious, which was to be found among all the deaths of the whole world. The Cross among the Gentiles, was a punishment for slaves, and the most desperate persons of the whole world. The Cross amongst the Hebrews was accursed: It was the ordinary curse which the most uncapable and most malicious mouths did pronounce against their greatest enemies. The death of a crucified man, was the most continual, languishing, and tearing of a soul from the body, with most excessive violence and agony. And yet the Eternal Wisdom chose this kind of punishment, and drank all the sorrows of a cup so bitter. He should have died upon some Trophy, and breathed out his last amongst flowers, and left his soul in a moment: and if he must needs have felt death, to have had the least sense of it that might be. But he would try the rigour of all greatest sufferings: he would fall to the very bottom of dishonour: and (having ever spared from himself all the pleasures of this life) to make his death complete, he would spare none of those infinite dolours. The devout Simon of Cassia asketh our Saviour, going toward Mount Calvarie, saying, O Lord, whither go you with the extreme weight of this dry, and barren piece of wood? Whither do you carry it, and why? Where do you mean to set it? Upon mount Calvary? That place is most wild & stony: how will you plant it? Who shall water it? Jesus answers, I bear upon my shoulders a piece of wood, which must conquer him, who must make a far greater conquest by the same piece of wood: I carry it to mount Calvarie, to plant it by my death, and water it with my blood. This wood which I bear, must bear me, to bear the salvation of all the world, and to draw all after me. And then (O faithful soul) will't not thou suffer some confusion, at thine own delicacies? to be so fearful of death by an ordinary disease, in a doun-bed, amongst such necessary services, such favourable helps, consolations and kindnesses of friends so sensible of thy condition? We bemoan and complain ourselves of heat, cold, distaste, of disquiet, of grief: Let us allow some of this to Nature; yet must it be confessed, that we lament ourselves very much: because we have never known how we should lament a Jesus Christ crucified. Let us die as it shall please the Divine Providence: If death come when we are old, it is a haven: If in youth, it is a direct benefit antedated: If by sickness, it is the nature of our bodies: If by external violence, it is yet always the decree of Heaven. It is no matter how many deaths there are, we are sure there can be but one for us.  
2. Consider further, the second condition of a good death, which consists in the forsaking of all creatures, and you shall find it most punctually observed by our Saviour at the time of his death. Ferrara, a great Divine, who hath written a book of the hidden Word, toucheth twelve things abandoned by our Saviour.  

1. His apparel, leaving himself naked.  
2. The marks of his dignity.  
3. The College of his Apostles.  
4. The sweetness of all comfort.  
5. His own proper will.  
6. The authority of virtues.  
7. The power of Angels.  
8. The perfect joys of his soul.  
9 The proper clarity of his body.  
10. The honour's due to him.  
11. His own skin.  
12. All his blood.   
Now, do but consider his abandoning the principal of those things, how bitter it was. First, the abandoning of nearest and most faithful friends, is able to afflict any heart: Behold him forsaken by all his so wellbeloved Disciples, of whom he had made choice (amongst all mortal men) to be the depositaries of his doctrine, of his life, of his blood. If Judas be at the mystery of his Passion, it is to betray him. If S. Peter be there assisting, it is to deny him: If his sorrowful mother stand at the foot of the Cross, it is to increase the grief of her Son; and after he had been so ill handled by his cruel executioners, to crucify him again by the hands of Love. The courageous Mother, to triumph over herself by a magnanimous constancy, was present at the execution of her dear Son. She fixed her eyes upon all his wounds, to engrave them deep in her heart. She opened her soul wide, to receive that sharp piercing sword, with which she was threatened by that venerable old Simeon at her Purification: And Jesus, who saw her so afflicted for his sake, felt himself doubly crucified upon the wood of the Cross, and the heart of his dear Mother. We know it by experience, that when we love one tenderly, his afflictions and disgraces will trouble us more than our own, because he living in us by an affectionate life, we live in him by a life of reason and election. Jesus lived and reposed in the heart of his blessed Mother, as upon a Throne of love, and as within a Paradise of his most holy delights. This heart was before as a bed covered with flowers: But this same heart (on the day of his Passion) became like a scaffold hanged with mourning, whereupon our Saviour entered, to be tormented and crucified upon the cross of love, which was the Cross of his Mother. This admirable Merchant, who descended from Heaven to accomplish the business of all Ages; (who took upon him our miseries, to give us felicities) was plunged within a sea of blood; and in this so precious shipwreck, there remained one only inestimable pearl, (which was his divine Mother) and yet he abandons her, and gives her into the hand of his Disciple. After he had forsaken those nearest to him, see what he does with his body; Jesus did so abandon it (a little before his death) that not being content only to deliver it as a prey to sorrow, but he suffered it to be exposed naked, to the view of the world. And amongst his sharpest dolours, (after he had been refused the drink which they gave to malefactors, to strengthen them in their torments) he took for himself vinegar and gall. O what a spectacle was it to see a body torn in pieces, which rested itself upon its own wounds, which was dying every moment, but could not die, because that life distilled by drops? What Martyr did ever endure, in a body so sensible and delicate, having an imagination so lively, and in such piercing dolours, mixed with so few comforts? And what Martyr did suffer for all the sins of the whole world, as he did, proportioning his torments according to the fruits which were to proceed from his Cross? Perhaps, O faithful soul, thou lookest for a man's body in thy Jesus, but thou findest nothing but the appearance of one, crusted over with gore blood: Thou seekest for limbs, and findest nothing but wounds: Thou lookest for a Jesus, which appeared glorious upon Mount Tabor, as upon a Throne of Majesty, with all the Ensigns of his Glory, and thou findest only a skin all bloody, fastened to a Cross between two thiefs. And if the consideration of this cannot bring drops of blood from thy heart, it must be more insensible than a diamond.  
3. To conclude, observe the third quality of a good death, which will declare itself by the exercise of great and heroic virtues. Consider that incomparable mildness which hath astonished all Ages, hath encouraged all virtues, hath condemned all revenges, hath instructed all Schools, and crowned all good actions: He was raised upon the Cross, when his dolours were most sharp and piercing; when his wounds did open on all sides, when his precious blood shed upon the earth, and moistened it in great abundance; when he saw his poor clothes torn in pieces, and yet bloody in the hands of those who crucified him. He considered the extreme malice of that cruel people, how those which could not wound him with iron, pierced him with the points of their accursed tongues. He could quickly have made fire come down from Heaven upon those rebellious heads. And yet forgetting all his pains to remember his mercies, he opened his mouth, and the first word he spoke, was in favour of his enemies, to negotiate their reconciliation, before his soul departed. The learned Cardinal Hugues admiring this excessive charity of our Saviour toward his enemies, applies excellent well that which is spoken of the Sun in Ecclesiasticus. He brings news to all the world at his rising, and at noon day he burns the earth, and heats those furnaces of Nature, which make it produce all her feats.  
So Jesus the Sun of the intelligible world, did manifest himself at his Nativity; as in the morning. But the Cross was his bed at noon, from whence came those burning streams of Love, which inflame the hearts of all blessed persons, who are like furnaces of that eternal fire, which burns in holy Zion.  
On the other part, admire that great magnanimity which held him so long upon the Cross, as upon a throne of honour and power; when he bestowed Paradise upon a man that was his companion in suffering. I cannot tell whether in this action we should more admire the good fortune of the good thief, or the greatness of Jesus. The happiness of the good thief; who is drawn for a cutthroat to prison; from prison to the Judgement-hall, from thence to the Cross, and thence goes to Paradise, without needing any other gate, but the heart of Jesus.  
On the other side, what can be more admirable than to see a man crucified, to do that act, which must be performed by the living God, when the world shall end? To save some, to make others reprobate, and to judge from the height of his Cross, as if he sat upon the chiefest throne of all Monarches.  
But we must needs affirm, that the virtue of patience in this, holds a chief place, and teaches very admirable lessons. He endures the torments of body, and the pains of spirit, in all the faculties of his soul, in all the parts of his virgin flesh; and by the cruelty and multiplicity of his wounds, they all become one only wound, from the sole of his foot, to the top of his head.  
His delicate body suffers most innocently, and all, by most ingrate and hypocritical persons, who would colour their vengeance with an appearance of holiness. He suffers without any comfort at all, and (which is more) without bemoaning himself; he suffers whatsoever they would, or could lay upon him, to the very last gasp of his life. Heaven wears mourning upon the Cross; all the Citizens of Heaven weep over his torments; the earth quakes; stones rend themselves; Sepulchers open; the dead arise: Only Jesus dies unmoveable upon this throne of patience.  
To conclude, who would not be astonished at the tranquillity of his spirit, and amongst those great convulsions of the world, which moved round about the Cross, amongst such bloody dolours, insolent cries, and insupportable blasphemies, how he remained upon the Cross, as in a Sanctuary, at the foot of an Altar, bleeding, weeping, and praying, to mingle his prayers with his blood and tears. I do now understand why the Wiseman said, He planted Isles within the Abyss, since that in so great a Gulf of afflictions, he shown such a serenity of spirit; thereby making a Paradise for his Father (amongst so great pains) by the sweet perfume of his virtues. After he had prayed for his enemies, given a promise of Paradise to the good thief, and recommended his Mother to his Disciple, he shut up his eyes from all humane things, entertaining himself only with prayers and sighs to his Heavenly Father. O that at the time of our deaths, we could imitate the death of Jesus, and then we should be sure to find the streams of life.  

Aspirations.  
O Spectacles of horror, but Abyss of goodness and mercy. I feel my heart divided by horror, pity, hate, love, execration, and adoration. But my admiration being ravished, carries me beyond myself. Is this then that bloody sacrifice which hath been expected from all Ages? This hidden mystery, this profound knowledge of the Cross; this dolorous Jesus; which makes the honourable amends between Heaven and earth, to the eternal Father, for expiation of the sins of humane kind.  
Alas, poor Lord, thou hadst but one life, and I see a thousand instruments of death, which have taken it away. Was there need of opening so many bloody doors, to let out thine innocent soul? Can it not part from thy body without making (on all sides) so many wounds? which after they have served for the objects of men's cruelty, serve now for those of thy mercy? O my Jesus, I know not to whom I speak, for I do no more know thee in the state thou now art; or if I do, it is only by thy miseries, because they are so excessive, that there was need of a God to suffer what thou hast endured. I look upon thy disfigured countenance, to find some part of thy resemblance, and yet can find none but that of thy love. Alas, O beautiful head, which dost carry all the glory of the highest Heaven, divide with me this dolorous Crown of Thorns; they were my sins which sowed them, and it is thy pleasure that thine innocency should mow them. Give me, O Sacred mouth, give me that Gall which I see upon thy lips: suffer me to sprinkle all my pleasures with it, since after a long continuance, it did shut up and conclude all thy dolours. Give me, O Sacred hands, and adored feet, the Nails which have pierced you: love binds you fast enough to the Cross without them. But do thou, O Lord, hold me fast to thyself, by the chain of thine immensity.  
O Lance, cruel Lance, Why didst thou open that most precious side? Thou didst think perhaps to find there the Sons life, and yet thou foundest nothing but the Mother's heart. But without so much as thinking what thou didst, in playing the murderer, thou hast made a Sepulchre, wherein I will from henceforth bury my soul. When I behold these wounds of my dear Saviour, I do acknowledge the strokes of my own hand: I will therefore likewise engrave there my repentance: I will write my conversion with an eternal Character. And if I must live, I will never breathe any other life, but that only which shall be produced from the death of my Jesus crucified.    

The Gospel for Easter-day, S. Mark 16.  
ANd when the Sabbath was past, Marry Magdalene, and Mary of James, and Salome bought spices, that coming, they might anoint Jesus. And very early the first of the Sabbaths, they come to the Monument: the Sun being now risen. And they say one to another, who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the Monument? And looking, they saw the stone rolled back. For it was very great. And entering into the Monument, they saw a young man sitting on the right hand, covered with a white Robe: and they were astonished. Who saith to them, Be not dismayed, you seck Jesus of Nazareth that was crucified: he is risen, he is not here, behold the place where they laid him. But go, tell his Disciples, and Peter, that be goeth before you into Galilee: there you shall see him, as he told you.  

Moralities.  
1. THe Sepulchre of Jesus becomes a fountain of life, which carries in power, all the glories of the highest Heaven. Our Saviour riseth from thence, as day out of the East, and appears as triumphant in the ornaments of his beauties, as he had been humbled by the excess of his mercies. The rage of the Jews looseth here its power, death his sting, Satan his kingdom, the Tomb his corruption, and hell his conquest. Mortality is destroyed, life is illuminated; all is drowned in one day of glory, which comes from the glorious light of our Redeemer. It is now (saith Tertullian) that he is revested with his Robe of Honour, and is acknowledged as the eternal Priest for all eternity. It is now (saith S. Gregory Nazianzen) that he reassembles humane kind (which was scattered so many years by the sin of one man) and placeth it between the arms of his Divinity. This is the Masterpiece of his profound humility; and I dare boldly affirm (saith S. Ambrose) that God had lost the whole world, if this Sacred Virtue, which he made so clearly shine in his beloved Son, had not put him into possession of his Conquests. We should all languish after this Triumphant state of the Resurrection, which will make an end of all our pains, and make our Crowns everlasting.  
2. Let us love our Jesus as the Maries did, that, with them, we may be honoured with his visits. Their love is indefatigable, courageous and insatiable. They had all the day walked round about the Judgement-Hall, Mount Calvary, the Cross, and the Sepulchre. They were not wearied with all that: And night had no sleep to shut up their eyes. They forsook the Image of death, which is sleep, to find death itself, and never looked after any bed, except the Sepulchre of their Master; They travel amongst darkness, pikes, lances, the affrights of Arms, and of the night, nothing makes them afraid. If there appear a difficulty to remove the stones, love gives them arms. They spare nothing for their Master and Saviour: They are above Nicodemus and Joseph, they have more exquisite perfumes, for they are ready to melt and distil their hearts upon the Tomb of their Master. O faithful lovers, seek no more for the living amongst the dead: That cannot die for love, which is the root of life.  
3. The Angel in form of a young man (covered with a white Robe) shows us, that all is young and white in immortality. The Resurrection hath no old age; it is an age, which can neither grow, nor diminish. These holy Maries enter alive into the sepulchre, where they thought to find death, but they learn news of the chiefest of lives. Their faith is there confirmed, their piety satisfied, their promises assured, and their love receives consolation.   

Aspirations.  
I Do not this day look toward the East, O my Jesus, I consider the Sepulchre, it is from thence this fair Sun is risen. O that thou appearest amiable, dear Spouse of my soul. Thy head, which was covered with thorns, is now crowned with a Diadem of Stars, and Lights, and all the glory of the highest Heaven rests upon it. Thine eyes, which were eclipsed in blood, have enlightened them with fires and delicious brightness, which melt my heart. Thy feet and hands, so far as I can see, are enamelled with Rubies, which, after they have been the objects of men's cruelty, are now become eternal marks of thy bounty. O Jesus, no more my wounded, but my glorified Jesus, where am I? What do I? I see, I fly, I swoon, I die, I revive myself with thee. I do beseech thee, my most Sacred Jesus, by the most triumphant of thy glories, let me no more fall into the image of death, nor into those appetites of smoke and earth, which have so many times buried the light of my soul. What have I to do with the illusions of this world? I am for Heaven, for Glory, and for the Resurrection, which I will now make bud out of my thoughts, that I may hereafter possess them with a full fruition.    

The Gospel upon Monday in Easter-week, S. Luke the 24.  
ANd behold, two of them went the same day into a Town, which was the space of sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, named Emmaus. And they talked betwixt themselves of all those things that had chanced. And it came to pass, while they talked and reasoned with themselves, Jesus also himself approaching, went with them, but their eyes were held, that they might not know him. And he said to them, What are these communications that you confer one with another walking, and are sad? And one, whose name was Cleophas, answering, said to him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things that have been done in it these days? To whom he said, What things? And they said, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a man, a Prophet, mighty in work and word before God and all the people. And how our chief Priests and Princes delivered him into condemnation of death, and crucified him. But we hoped that it was he that should redeem Israel: And now besides all this, to day is the third day since these things were done. But certain women also of ours made us afraid; who, before it was light, were at the Monument, and not finding his body, came, saying, That they saw a vision also of Angels, who say that he is alive. And certain men of ours went to the Monument; and they found it so as the women said, but him they found not.  
And he said to them, O foolish, and slow of heart, to believe in all thing which the Prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so enter into his glory? And beginning from Moses and all the Prophets, he did interpret to them in all the Scriptures, the things that were concerning him. And they drew nigh to the Town whither they went; and he made semblance to go further. And they forced him, saying, Tarry with us, because it is toward night, and the day now far spent, and he went in with them. And it came to pass, while he sat at the table with them, he took bread, and blessed, and broke, and did reach to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him: and he vanished out of their sight. And they said to the other, Was not our heart burning in us whiles he spoke in the way, and opened unto us the Scriptures? And rising up the same hour, they went back into Jerusalem, and they found the eleven gathered together, and those that were with them, saying▪ That our Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told the things that were done in the way: and how they knew him in the breaking of bread.  

Moralities.  
1. IT is a strange thing, that God is always with us, and we are so little with him. We have our being, our moving, our life from him: he carries us in his arms, he keeps us as a nurse doth her dear child; and yet all this while we scarce know what he is, and use him so often as a stranger. He is in our being, and yet we keep him far from our heart, as a dead man, who is quite forgotten. And Enoch walked with him, and for that he was taken from the conversation of men, and reserved for Paradise. To speak truth, our soul should always be languishing after her Jesus, and count it a kind of Adultery to be separated from him, so much as by thought. Let us learn a little to talk with him; we commonly have that in our tongue, which we keep in our heart. Let us sweeten the sadness of our pilgrimage, by the contemplation of his beauties. Let us look upon him as God and man; the God of gods; the Man of men; our great Saviour and Prophet, powerful both in word and work; for if his word be thunder, his life is a lightning. He hath been here doing good to all the world, and suffering hurt from all the world; doing good without reward, and enduring evil without impatience. We all pass here as Torrents into valleys; the only question is of our passing well: whether we look on worldly goods as on waters which pass under a bridge, and as upon the furniture of an Inn which is none of ours. If we be embarked in the Vessel of life, let us not amuse ourselves to gather Cockles upon the shore; but so, that we may always have our eyes fixed upon Paradise.  
2. Two things do hinder those Pilgrims from knowing Jesus as they should. The one is, their eyes are dazzled; and the other is, the little account they make of the Cross, which drives them into the mistrust of the Resurrection. And this is it which crosseth us all our life, and so oft diverts us from the point of our happiness. Our eyes are dazzled with false lights of the world, they are darkened with so many mists and vapours of our own appetites and passions, that we cannot see the goods of heaven in the brightest of their day. Worldly chains have a certain effective vigour and pleasure, which is only painted, but they have a most certain sorrow, and a most uncertain contentment: They have a painful labour, and a timorous rest: A possession full of misery, and void of all beatitude. If we had our eyes well opened, to penetrate and see what it is, we should then say of all the most ravishing objects of the world; How senseless was I when I courted you? O deceitful world, thou didst appear great to me, when I saw thee not as thou art: But so soon as I did see thee rightly, I did then cease to see thee: for thou wast no more to me but just nothing. We run in full career after all that pleaseth our sense, and the Cross, which is so much preached to us, is much more upon our Altars, than in our hearts. We will not know, that the throne of Mount Calvarie, is the pathway to Heaven; and as this truth wanders from our hearts, Jesus departs from our eyes. Let us at least pray Jesus to stay with us, for it is late in our hearts, and the night is far advanced by our want of true light. We shall not know Jesus by discourse, but by feeding him in the persons of his poor, since he gives the continual nourishment of his body.   

Aspirations.  
O Only Pilgrim of the world, and first dweller in the heart of thy heavenly Father, what a pilgrimage hast thou made, descending from Heaven to earth, and yet without forsaking Heaven? Thou hast marked thy steps by thy conquests: made visible thy way by thine own light, thou hast watered it with thy precious blood, and paved it with thy wounds. O what a goodly thing it is to walk with thee, when thou openest thy sacred mouth, as the opening of a temple, to discover the beauties and mysteries of it. O that is most pleasing to understand that mouth, which distils so much honey through lips of Roses. But wherefore (My good Lord) art thou pleased to hid thyself from a soul which languishes after thee? Take away the vail from mine eyes, and suffer thyself to be seen in the vesture of thy heavenly beauties. If I must bear the Cross, and pass by the throne of Mount Calvarie, to come to Heaven, I most humbly submit to thy divine pleasure, that I may possess all that thou art.    

The Gospel upon Tuesday in Easter week, S. Luke the 24.  
ANd whiles they spoke these things, Jesus stood in the midst of them, and he saith to them, Peace be to you, It is I, fear not. But they being troubled and frighted, imagined they saw a Spirit. And he saith to them, Why are you troubled, and cogitations arise in your hearts? See my hands and feet, that it is I myself, handle, and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have. And when he had said this, he shown them his hands and feet. But they yet not believing, and marveling for joy, he said, Have you here any thing to be eaten? But they offered him a piece of fish broiled, and a honeycomb. And when he had eaten before them, taking the remains, he gave to them. And he said to them, These are the words which I spoke to you when I was yet with you, that all things must needs be fulfilled, which are written in the Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms, of me. Then he opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, That so it is written, and so it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead the third day, and penance to be preached in his Name, and remission of sins unto all Nations.  

Moralities.  
1. WE think sometimes that Jesus is far from us, when he is in the midst of our heart: he watches over us, and stretches out his divine hands for our protection. Let us live always as if we were actually in his presence, before his eyes, and in his bosom. An ancient Tradition doth observe, that after our Lord's Ascension, the Apostles did never eat together, but they left the first napkin, for their good Master, conceiving, that according to his promise, he was always with them: Let us accustom ourselves to this exercise of God's presence: It is a happy necessity to make us do well, to believe and apprehend that our Judge is always present. If respect make him formidable, love will teach us, that he is the Father of all sweetness. There can be no greater comfort in this world, than to be present in heart and body with that which we love beast.  
2. Jesus is taken by his Apostles for a Spirit, because after the Resurrection he pierced the walls, and appeared suddenly as Spirits do. S. Paul also saith, in the second to the Corinthians, that now we do no more know Christ according to the flesh, that is to say, by the passions of a mortal body, as S. Epiphanius doth expound it. We must make little use of our bodies, to converse with our Jesus, who hath taken upon him the rare qualities of a Spirit. We must raise ourselves above our senses, when we go to the Father of light, and the Creator of sense. He teaches us the life of Spirits, and the commerce of Angels, and makes assays of our immortality, by a body now immortal. Why are we so tied to our sense, and glued to the earth? Must we suffer ourselves to enter into a kingdom of death, when we are told of the resurrection of him, who is the Author of all lives?  
3. Admire the condescending and bounties of our Lord to his dear Disciples. He that was entered into the kingdom of spirits, and immortal conversation, suffers his feet and hands to be touched, to prove in him the reality of a true body. He eats in presence of his Apostles, though he was not in more estate to digest meat, than the Sun is to digest vapours. He did no more nourish himself with our corruptible meats, than the Stars do by the vapours of the earth. And yet he took them to confirm our belief, and to make us familiar with him. It is the act of great and generous spirits to abase themselves, and condescend to their inferiors. So David being anointed King, and inspired as a Prophet, doth not show his person terrible in the height of his great glory, but still retained the mildness of a shepherd. So Jesus, the true Son of David (by his condescending to us) hath consecrated a certain degree, whereby we may ascend to Heaven. Are not we ashamed that we have so little humility or respect to our inferiors, but are always so full of ourselves; since our Lord, sitting in his Throne of glory and majesty, doth yet abase himself to the actions of our mortal life? Let it be seen by our hands whether we be resuscitated, by doing good works, and giving liberal alms: Let it appear by our feet, that they follow the paths of the most holy persons. Let it be seen by our nourishment (which should be most of honey) that is, of that celestial sweetness which is extracted from prayer. And if we seem to refuse fish, let us at least remain in the element of piety, as fish is in water.   

Aspirations.  
THy love is most tender, and thy cares most generous (O mild Saviour.) Amongst all the torrents of thy Passion, thou hast not tasted the waters of forgetfulness. Thou returnest to thy children, as a Nightingale to her little nest: Thou dost comfort them with thy visits, and makest them familiar with thy glorious life. Thou eatest of a honeycomb by just right, having first tasted the bitter gall of that unmerciful Cross. It is thus, that our sorrows should be turned into sweets. Thou must always be most welcome to me in my troubles, for I know well, that thou only canst pacify, and give them remedy. I will govern myself toward thee, as to the fire: too much near familiarity will burn us; and the want of it will let us freeze: I will eat honey with thee in the blessed Sacrament; I know that many there do chew, but few receive thee worthily. Make me (O Lord) I beseech thee, capable of those which here on earth shall be the true Antepasts to our future glory.    

The Gospel upon Low-Sunday, S. John the 20.  
THerefore when it was late that day, the first of the Sabbaths, and the doors were shut where the Disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and saith to them, Peace be to you. And when he had said this, he shown them his hands and side. The Disciples therefore were glad when they saw our Lord. He said therefore to them again, Peace be to you. As my Father hath sent me, I also do send you. When he had said this, he breathed upon them, and he said to them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose you shall retain, they are retained. But Thomas, one of the twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came: the other Disciples therefore said to him, We have seen our Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.  
And after eight days, again his Disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be to you. Then he saith to Thomas, Put in thy finger hither, and see my hands, and bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side, and be not incredulous, but faithful. Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God: Jesus saith to him, Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: Blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed.  

Moralities.  
1. JEsus the Father of all blessed harmonies (after so many combats) makes a general peace in all nature. He pacifieth Limbo, taking the holy Fathers out of darkness, to enjoy an eternal light, and sending the damned to the bottom of hell. He pacifieth the earth, making it from thenceforth to breathe the air of his mercies. He pacifieth his Apostles, by delivering them from that profound sadness, which they conceived by the imaginary loss of their dear Master. He pacifieth Heaven, by sweetening the sharpness of his Heavenly Father, quenching by his wounds, the fire which was kindled of his just anger. Every thing smileth upon this great Peacemaker: Nature leaveth her mourning, and putteth on robes of cheerfulness, to congratulate with him his great and admirable conquests. It is in him that the Heavenly Father (by a singular delight) hath poured out the fullness of all Graces, to make us an eternal dwelling, and to reconcile all in him, and by him; pacifying by his blood from the Cross, all that is upon earth, and in Heaven. This is our Joshua, of whom the Scripture speaketh, that he clears all differences, and appeaseth all battles. No stroke of any hammer or other iron, was heard at the building of Solomon's Temple; and behold the Church (which is the Temple of the living God) doth edify souls with a marvellous tranquillity.  
2. The Sun is not so well set forth by his beams, as our Saviour is magnificently adorned, with his wounds. Those are the characters which he hath engraved upon his flesh, altar a hundred ingenious fashions. The Ladies count their pearls and diamonds, but our Saviour keeps his wounds, in the highest attire of his Magnificences. It is from thence, that the beauty of his body, taketh a new state of glory, and our faith in the resurrection is confirmed: that the good fill themselves with hope, miscreants with terror, and Martyrs find wherewith to inflame their courage. These divine wounds open themselves as so many mouths, to plead our cause before the Celestial Father. Our Saviour Jesus never spoke better for us, than by the voice of his precious Blood. Great inquiry hath been made for those mountains of myrrh and frankincense, which Solomon promiseth in the Canticles, but now we have found them in the wounds of Jesus. It is from thence that there cometh forth a million of sanctified exhalations of sweetness, of peace and propitiation, as from an eternal Sanctuary. A man may say they are like the Carbuncle, which melteth the wax upon which it is imprinted, for they melt our hearts by a most profitable impression. At this sight the Eternal Father calms his countenance, and the sword of his Justice returneth into the sheath. Shall not we be worthy of all miseries, if we do not arm these wounds against us, which are so effectual in our behalf? And if this blood of our Abel (after it hath reconciled his cruel executioners) should find just matter to condemn us for our ingratitudes? John the Second, King of Portugal, had made a sacred vow, never to refuse any thing which should be asked of him in the virtue of our Saviour's wounds; which made him give all his silver vessel to a poor gentleman, that had found out the word. And why should not we give ourselves to God, who both buyeth and requireth us by the wounds of Jesus?  
3. Jesus inspireth the sacred breath of his mouth upon the Apostles, as upon the first fruits of Christianity: to repair the first breath, and respiration of lives, which the Author of our race did so miserably lose. If we can obtain a part of this, we shall be like the wheels of ezechiel's mysterious chariot, which are filled with the spirit of life. That great Divine called Mathias Vienna, said, That light was the substance of colours, and the spirit of Jesus is the same of all our virtues. If we live of his flesh, there is great reason we should be animated by his Spirit. Happy a thousand times are they, who are possessed with the the Spirit of Jesus, which is to their spirit as the apple of the eye. S. Thomas was deprived of this amorous communication, by reason of his incredulity. He would see with his eyes, and feel with his hands, that which should rather be comprehended by faith: which is, an eye blessedly blind: which knoweth all within its own blindness, and is also a hand, which remaining on earth, goeth to find God in Heaven.   

Aspirations.  
GReat Peacemaker of the world, who by the effusion of thy precious blood, hast pacified the wars of forty ages, which went before thy death. This word of peace hath cost thee many battles, many sweats and labours, to cement this agreement of Heaven and earth, of sense and reason, of God and man. Behold thou art at this present like the Dove of Noah's Ark, thou hast escaped a great deluge of passions, and many torrents of dolours, thrown headlong one upon another. Thou bringest us the green Olive branch, to be the mark of thy eternal alliances. What? Shall my soul be so audacious and disordered, as to talk to thee of war, when thou speakest to her of peace? To offer thee a weapon, when thou offerest her the Articles of her reconciliation, signed with thy precious blood? Oh, what earth could open wide enough her bosom to swallow me, if I should live like a little Abiram, with a hand armed against Heaven, which pours out for me nothing but flowers and roses? Reign (O my sweet Saviour) within all the conquered powers of my soul, and within my heart as a conquest which thou hast gotten by so many titles. I will swear upon thy wounds, which after they have been the monuments of thy fidelity, shall be the adored Altars of my vows and sacrifices. I will promise thereupon, an inviolable fidelity to thy service. I will live no more but for thee since thou hast killed my death in thy life, and makest my life flourish within thy triumphant Resurrection.    
FINIS.   

AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE, Setting down the most observable Matters contained in the first three TOMES of the HOLY COURT.  

A  A●d●rites. Fol: 38 Abd●l●●in. 7 Abraham the Hermit. 86 Abstinence defined. 468 The A●●rons of men must be directed to one assured Butt. 67 Apprehension of Affronts. 47 Retreat into the Conscience in Affronts, is a good remedy against them. 58 Aglae a noble Dame. 379 She is a worldly Widow. ibid. She is in love. ibid. Her admirable Conversion. 380 Her devotion in enquiry after Martyrs. ibid. Her speech to Boniface her Steward. ibid. Agrippa Grandchild of Herod, 3●2 His flattery. ibid. Alexander son of Mariam imprisoned. 130 Alms the works of God. 9 Ambition an itch. 56 It is a foreign vice. ibid. It is the life of a slave. 57 The Ambitious are miserable. ibid. Extreme disaster of an Ambitions man. ib. Ambitious men travel for Rachel and find 〈◊〉. 58 Ambition was the God of Antiochus. 347 Sr. Ambrose 175 His Calling, ib. His Election. 176 His rare endowments, 179 His government. ib. He cherisheth the Religious, 181 He took away superstitions and excesses. ib. His purity of invention, ib. His Oration against Symmachus, 184 He refuteth Symmachus his strongest arguments, ib. His answer concerning the dearth, 186 His greatness in the Conversion of Sr. Augustine. 188 He speaketh unto the two souls of his Pupils. 211 His brave speech to Theodorick. 214 The majesty of Sr. Ambrose. 205 His prudence and charity, 209 He is persecuted by Justice. 206 Resolution of Sr. Ambrose. 207 His death. 215 Ammon plotteth incest with his sister. 407 He is counselled to this sin by Joadab. ib. He dissembleth fickness. ib. Thamar's advice to him. ib. He despiseth his dishonoured sister. ib. He is slain. 408 Ana●tatius fearing thunder, is slain by a Thunder bolt. 288 Angelical Aenigmas. 56 Why bad Angels punished without mercy. 23 Antipater his cunningness in geeting the kingdom of Judea. 115 He calumniateth his brothers. 130 He is thrown from the top of the wheel. 132 His Conspiracy is discovered. 133 His woeful event. ib. His Accusation before his Father. ib. His death. 135 Wicked Antiothus punished. 348 He is delivered Hostage to the Romans. 347 His manners. 393 He warreth against Ptolomey. ib. The war between them is ended by a marriage. ib. antony's generous act. 352 A trick of an Ape. 43 Apes in the Court of Solomon. 46 A pretty tale of an Ape. ib. Intellectual Appetite faulty. 37 Appetite of man infinite. 436 Apple of discord. 145 Arbogastus. 210 Aristobulus taken prisoner by Pompey, and Jerusalem become tributary. 115 His pitiful death. 119 Arius, and his qualities. 251 Original of Arians: ib. Their proceed: ib. Condemnation of Arius. 154 End of Arius. ib. Art's tributary to Great-men. 16 Astrology, the vanity thereof. 360 Athanasius. 254 Athenais her admirable adventure. 141 She pleadeth her cause before Pulcheria. 142 Her Conversion. ib. She could not brook Pulcheria 145 Audas destroyeth a Pyraum. 942 Sr. Augustine converted by Sr. Ambrose. 188 His wit. ib. His inclination. ib. He studied Judicial Astrology. 189 His Religion. ib. Curiosity, Presumption and Love, the three impediments in the conversion of Sr. Augustine. 190 The Oeconomy of God in the conversion of S ●. Augustine. 193 He is baptised by Sr. Ambrose. 198  

B  THe Bat employeth her eyes to make her wings. 382 An excellent Act of Bayard the Cavalier. 227 Opinion concerning Beatitude. 435 The essential point of Beatitude is union with God. 437 Three acts of Beatitude. ib. Three effects of Beatitude. 438 Excellency of Beatike science. ib. Beauty of beatike love, as it is compared to the weakness of worldly love. ib. Beauty condemned by Idolaters. 9 Defence of Beauty as the gift of God. 10 Natural Beauty of men praised by Poets. ib. Beauty an instrument of God. ib. Beauty of our Saviour. ib. Power of Beauty. 11 Beauty of Constantine. 16 Abuse of Beauty damnable. ib. Vanity of Beauty. 93 Tyranny of the Belly. 52 Binet, a Reverend Father of the Church. 174 Boetius his Nobility. 276 His eminent wisdom and learning. 278 He was styled the Father and Light of his Country. 287 His opinion of the providence of God. 291 His death. ibid. Boleslaus his notable act. 5 Boniface martyred. 380  

C  CAligula a great scoffer. 47 The devils busied about Calumny. 46 From whence it proceedeth. 47 Horror of Calumny. ibid. Calumny plotted against the sons of Mariam. 128 Calumny of Fausta against her son Crispus. 244 Her rage turned into pity. ibid. Her Calumny discovered. ibid. Her death. ibid. Camerarius his observation concerning the Heron. 405 The excellency of a brave Captain. 217 The delight of Histories to praise Captains. 218 Singular commendation of Cato. 13 The praise of the strength and courage of Cato. ibid. The Stone Ceraunia. 7 Charity excellently displayed. 2 Charity towards God and our neighbour defined. 469 Charity in Conversation defined. ibid. Charity with the acts thereof. 91 An excellent passage of Charity. ibid. Charles of Anjou is taken and put to death. 402 Charlemaign his goodness and indulgence. 403 Chastity defined. 468 Three sorts of Chastity, with the acts thereof. 85, 86 A royal act of Chastity in a Soldier. 230 S. Paul calleth Chastity Sanctification. 304 Excellent Instructions for Children. 343 Chrysaphius an heretical Eunuch projecteth ruin to Theodosius his Court. 147 He entangleth the Emperor and his Wife in the heresy of the Eutyches. 148 Christian's Warfare delicate. 2 To do good and suffer wrong, the true Character of a Christian. 48 Virtue of the first Christians. 53 The happiness to be born a Christian. 339 Solitude of Christian Religion. ibid. Clergy reform. 149 Clotilda. 309 Her birth and education. ibid. Clodovaeus requireth her in marriage. ibid. An Ambassador is dispatched to the King of Burgundy concerning the Marriage. 310 Her first Request to King Clodovaeus her husband. 312 How she behaved herself in the Conversion of her husband. 313 She converteth her husband. 315 How Clodovaeus behaved himself after Baptism. 316 Communion without preparation, what it is. 72 What ought to be done in the day of receiving the Communion. 73 Considerations for Communions. ibid. Fruits of Communions. ibid. General Confession of sin the beginning of spiritual life. 69 Practice of ordinary Confession. 70 Three sorts of Conscience from whence Impiety doth spring. 26 Horrible estate of a sinful Conscience. 27 Brutish Conscience. ibid. Curious Conscience. ibid. Nothing so pleasing as the house of a good Conscience. 48 Constancy in Tribulation doth manifestly appear in the death of Sosia and Eleonora. 411 Constantia her exceeding Clemency to the Son of Charles of Anjou, being condemned to death. 403 Constantine's Law. 12 His greatness. 233 His Nobility. 235 His notable Moderation. ibid. He was bred up in the Court of Diocletian. 237 His first battle against Lycinius. 242 His great victory. 243 His first Marriage. 244 The beginning of his Conversion. 246 His absolute Conversion. ibid. His Baptism. ibid. The History of his Baptism, drawn from the acts of Saint Sylvester, is more easy piously to be believed, than effectually proved. 247 His Oration. ibid. The great alteration of the world by his Oration and Example. 248 His Piety, Devotion, and Humility. 249 He made an Oration in the Assembly of Bishops. 253 His Successors. 259 Constantinople built. 254 His death. 274 Divers degrees of Contemplation. 384 Contrition, what it is. 71 Cross of Nature, what it is. 52 Honour of the Cross. 251 The Court full of Envy. 17 Comparison between a Courtier and a Religious man. 18 A Courtier frustrated of his hope, how he is afflicted. 352 Courage compared to the River Tigris. 13 Baseness of Courage in some Noblemen. 14 Crispus his death. 245 Curiosity, and the Description thereof. 188 The whole world an enemy of Curiosity. 405 Impious Curiosity pulls out both its eyes. 27 Dangerous Curiosity. 28  

D  PAins of the Damned are eternal. 431 Three Reasons to prove the eternity of the Damned. ibid. An excellent Conceit of Picus Mirandula concerning the punishment of the Damned. 432 Strange Narration of Palladius concerning the Damned. ibid. Souls of the Damned tormented by their lights. ibid. Daniel and his Companions bred at Court. 16 Daniel the Hermit having seen a Vision, went to Constantine, and spoke to Eulogius. 364 David his remedy against a malevolent Tongue. 48 Day is precious. 94 Motives to pass the Day well. ibid. Every Day a Table of Life. ibid. To provide in the evening for the Day to come. 95 Three parts of the Day. ibid. Five things to be practised in the Day. ibid. Desperate Death. 24 It's Attendants. 66 Meditation of Death. 67 Death of the Just is sweet. 415 Quality of a good Death is the indifferency of time and manner. 416 Worldly irresolutions of Death. 417 The way how to be well provided for Death. 418 A good Death must have Union with God. 419 A notable Aenigma of Death. 436 Devotion defined. 467 That the great number of Devout men, should settle men in Devotion. 82 The adhering to creatures doth mar all in Devotion. ib. Pretext of Devotion dangerous, illustrated by the Fowler. 203 Devotion subject to many illusions, and the reason why. 381 Gross and afflicting Devotion. 382 Three blemishes of anxious Devotion. ibid. Acquaint Devotion. 383 The pomp and practices of this Devotion. ibid. Reasons of the nullity of this Devotion. 284 Transcendent Devotion. ibid. Illusions of this Transcendent Devotion. 385 S. Lewis the true Table of Solid Devotion. 387 State of the Church under Diocletian. 234 His conditions. ibid. He forsaketh the Empire. 235 Dissimulation reigneth every where. 394 Dissimulation doth ruin humane faith. 395 Dissimulation shameful to the Author of it. ibid. Dissimulation doth debase a man. ibid. The horrors and hatred of Dissimulation. 396 The troubles and miseries of Dissimulation. ibid. The dreadful Events of Dissemblers. ibid. The power of the Divinity over Infidels. 346 Different opinion of the Divinity. 348 It is a sacrilege to make Divinity of proper Interest. 390 How abominable vicious Domestics are. 17 Duels unlawful. 14 A Duel is no act of Courage. ibid. Who anciently entered into Duels. ibid. There is want of Generosity in Duels. ibid. Authors of Duels. 224 Courage of Duellers like to that of the possessed. 22● Dydimus his bold attempt. 86  

E  EDucation, its force. 15 Defects of Education. ibid. Moses educated in the Court. 16 Education of Children recommended by excellent passages of the holy Fathers. 17 Eleazar his Combat, 347 The Isle of Amber the felicity of Epicurus. 40● The Philosophy of Epicurus doth bear sway in the world. 404 The foundation of Episcopal life. 180 Eponina a rare example of Conjugal Piety. 306 Errors of the Time. 341 Eternity of nothing, first humiliation of man. 349 Eucharist the foundation of Paradise. 72 Greatness of the Eucharist. ibid. Eusebius the Patron of Heretics. 252 Eustatius his Oration at the opening of the Council. 253 Evils generally proceed from ignorance, and from the want of the knowledge of God. 62 Evil always beareth sorrow behind it, but not true penance. 66 Eudoxia mother of Theodosius. 138 Her humour. ibid. Bishops treat with her. ibid. Her Zeal. ibid. She goeth into Palestine. 147 Her return is laboured by Chrysaphius. ibid. She lived in the Holy Land in the Eutychian heresy. 153 Her Conversion. 155 Her worthy life and glorious death. ibid. Remedies and reasons against Excess. 52 Indignity of Excess in apparel. ibid. Necessity of Examen. 71 Six things in the Examen to employ the most perfect. ibid. Ill Example the work of Antichrist. 22 Exemplar crimes deserve Exemplar punishments. 23 An Observation upon the Chariot of Ezechiel. 451  

F  FAith, what it is, and the dignity thereof. 62 Its Object, and the manner of its working. ibid. Touchstone to know whether we have Faith. 63 Heroic acts of Faith. ibid. How acts of Faith may be made easy. 64 What ought to be the Faith of good Communicants. 72 To be Faithful to the King, one must be loyal to God. 236 To be Faithful, is to be conformable to reason. 340 The great Providence of God in the establishment of Faith. ibid. The repose which our Faith promiseth. 341 Constancy of Faith. 417 Fathers and Mothers compared to Ostriches. 16 Fantasies to gain honours. 25 Conclusions against Fatality. 36 Maxims of Fatality. 365 Favorinus his excellent Observations. 10 Excellency of Fidelity. 395 Flattery punished. 349 Flattery inebriateth Great-men from the Cradle. 46 Great Spirits, enemies to the Flesh. 405 Immoderate love of health, doth make a man become suppliant, and servile to the Flesh. 406 Plotinus a great enemy to his own Flesh. 405 Instance upon the weakness and misery of the Flesh. ibid. Hierom his Observation upon the Flower of Box. 406 A notable Fable of the Fly and Silkworm. 43 Fortitude defined. 486 Fantasies of Ancients upon the Names of Fortune. 360 Fortune is in the power of Providence. ibid. A Conclusion against those who curse Fortune. 362 Manners are changed with Fortune. 364  

G  GAramant the Fountain. 301 GOd's hands, a golden bowl full of the Sea. 9 God named Obliging in the beginning of the World. 19 God, a great Thesis. 22 God is better known to us than ourselves. 344 God, most easy to be known. ibid. All things contribute to the knowledge of God. 345 God in this life handleth the wicked as the damned. 348 God is who he is. 349 Excellency of the Simplicity and Universality of God in comparison of the World. 350 Perfections of God. 351 God, his Goodness. 355, 367 An excellent similitude of God with the Ocean. 351 The God of Hosts besiegeth a City. 217 Diversity of Gods. 349 Gods pastime, what it is. 42 Why God admitted not the Ostrich and Swan into the number of Victims. ibid. Knowledge of the Goodness, Justice, and Power of God. 356, 357 God governeth the world with two hands. 430 God will replenish us with himself. 437 Desperate desire of worldly Goods. 418 Gratian the son of Valentinian. 200 His excellent qualities. 201 Affectionate words of S. Ambrose unto him. ibid. His zeal and virtue by the direction of S. Ambrose. ibid. His admirable Charity. 202 Maximus rebell●th against him. ibid. His pitiful death. 204 Gratitude in the Law of God. 20 Excellent proofs of natural Gratitude. 19 Gratitude defined. 488 The acts of Gratitude. 90 Gratitude of the Hebrews. ibid. Practise of S. Augustine, to encourage himself to Gratitude. 20 Greatness of God. 437 Greatness of an honest man. 48 Lives of Great-ones enlightened. 6 The great virtue of Great-ones. 7 Authority of Great-ones to strengthen Devotion. 8 Great-ones heretofore have perverted the world. 21 Great-ones that are vicious, draw on themselves horrible execrations of God. 23 Great-ones strangely punished. 24 Three sorts of Great ones do make Fortune. 25 True Devotion in Great-ones. 60 Humility of Great-ones. 92 A good Document for Great-ones. 139 Plague of Great-ones. 140 Great-ones are the flatterers of Gods. 349  

H  HEart of man, what it is. 69 HEbrews horribly persecuted. 347 Heliogabalus, his wheel. 57 Hell defined. 432 How the fire of Hell burneth. 430 Helena the Beauty and grace of her time. 236 She is married to Constantius. ibid. Her exceeding virtue. ibid. Exceeding love of Constantius and Helena. ibid. Effects of Heresy. 35 Herod depresseth the Royal Stock. 117 His deep Hypocrisy and Dissimulation. 120 He is accused for the death of Aristobulus. ibid. His Apology for himself full of craft. 121 His Oration against his Wife. 125 His fury after the death of Mariam. 127 He advanceth Antipater his son, whom he had by Doris. 128 His horrible condition in his latter days. 134 Herod's fearful malady. 135 His notorious cruelty even in his extremest sickness. ibid. His miserable death. ibid. Hermingildus his retreat and conversion. 325 His father's letter to him, and his to his father. 326 He is wickedly betrayed by Goizintha. 328 His letter to his wife, and his undaunted resolution. 330 His death. 331 His young son Hermingildus died not long after. 332 A notable Observation upon the habit of a Highpriest. 93 Hilarion of Costa a reverend Father. 388 Hypocrates his desire how to cure the itch of ambition. 56 House of the Moth. 25 House of Swallows. ibid. A notable Doctrine of Hugo. 61 Humility defined. 468 Humiliation of Death. 350 State of Humility. 18 All the world teacheth us the lesson of Humility. 56 The kingdom of Hypocrisy. 11 Reasons against Hypocrisy. ibid. Baseness of Hypocrisy. ibid. Hypocrisy confuted in the great School of the world. 42 Hypocrisy condemned by the Law of Heaven. ibid. Deformity of Hypocrisy. ibid.  

I  JAcques de Vitry his pretty Observation. 39 Idleness the business of some Great men. 44 Abuse of an Idolatrous spirit. 13 Jesus one and the same for Nobles and Plebeians. 3 Excellent qualities of Jesus Christ. 376 He is the Concurrence of all perfections. ibid. Three Excellencies of Jesus, in which all other are included. ibid. His Sanctity, Wisdom, and Power. 377 Practice of the love of Jesus reduced to three heads. ibid. Miracles of the person of Jesus. 442 Jesus entereth into his glory by his merit. ibid. Suspension of actual glory in the body of our Saviour Jesus. ibid. Imitation of Jesus Christ the abridgement of Wisdom. 3 Images of Emperors how much reverenced. 13 Impiety hath its misery. 36 Impiety condemned in the Tribunal of Nature. 420 Impiety chastised. 451 Against Toleration of Impiety. 452 Impurity of life ariseth from three sources. 85 Reasons against Inconstancy. 40 Inconstancy of men. 236 Indegondis transporteth the Catholic Faith into Spain. 323 The persecutions of Indegondis. 324 By her mediation there is a Treaty of peace between Levigildus and his son. 327 The glory and greatness of that man who knows how to suffer Injuries. 40 Observation of Isaiah 30. 8, 406 Belief of Judgement most general. 430 Judea, in what condition before Herod came to the Crown. 89 The causes of the corruption of Julian. 373 The School of Julian. ibid. How he became depraved. 374 He is a Christian for policy, and an Infidel in soul. ibid. Prowess of Julian among the Gauls. ibid. His subtlety to invade the Empire. ibid. His Embassage. ibid. His remarkable punishment. ibid. He had ill success with the qualities that Machiavelli furnished him with. 260 Jupiter painting goats in the Clouds, what it meaneth. 14 Justina an Arian, requireth a Church in Milan. 206 Justice and Mercy the two Arms of God. 22 Necessity of Justice, with its acts. 89 Justice without favour very remarkable. ibid. Justice of Belizarius and Aurelianus. 226 Justice defined. 468  

K  KNowledge of good and evil, doth make the sin more foul. 23 Knowledge of ones self very hard. 69 No certain Knowledge of four things. 440  

L  Lacedæmonians practice. 381 LAdies excellent in piety. 388 Sordid Liberality of Emmanuel Comenus. 91 Ignorance and bruitishness of Libertines. 449 Arrogancy of Libertinism. 450 The Table of Philo of the manners of Libertines. ibid. Punishment of God upon Libertines. ibid. Evil of a sleight Lie. 145 Lying the key of vice. 469 A Life led by opinion, is ridiculous. 8 Condition of this Life well described. 65 Man must lead a Pilgrim's Life in this world. 72 Our Life is a Musick-book. 84 Four sorts of Life. 137 Opinion of the other Life. 403 Life and Death the two poles of the World. ibid. Divers kinds of Life. ibid. Life was given to Cain for a punishment. 414 Disturbances of Life. 435 Divers ways of humane Life, according to Saint Gregory: ibid. The choice of conditions of Life is hazardous. ibid. Miseries of this present Life. 436 Of the Lily with six leaves. 72 Divers kinds of Love. 228, 229 Love turned into rage. 244 The baseness of Love. 375 Love of invisible things most penetrating. ibid. Worldly Lovers being converted, are the most servant in the Love of God, illustrated by a comparison. 379 Excellency of Love. 399 Division of Love. ibid. There is a possibility in man to love his enemies. ibid. Effects of the Love of enemies in the Law of Nature. 400 Loyalty of a wife to her husband. 352 Lust ruineth Empires. 154 Lust is a fire that burneth the garment of the soul. 182 Luxury the sin of the heel. 195 Lycinius his condition. 242 His end. 242 Lycurgus his greatness. 3  

M  Magnanimity. 468 MAn a Stage-player upon the Theatre of the world. 12 Three sorts of Man in every man. 61 Character of the carnal and spiritual Man. ibid. Of the nature and dignity of man, what he hath been, what he is, and what he shall be. 64 Man hath more non-essence than essence. 350 Man's ingratitude towards God. 346 Mutability of men. ibid. Miseries of an indebted man. 352 It is dangerous to disoblige pious and learned Men. 379 Diversity of Men. 413 Monument of the Empress Marie. 418 Five notable things in the mystery of the Mass. 74 Mass a sacrifice. ibid. Instructions for the Married. 96 Mariamne's accusation and pitiful death. 124 Martianus, of whom a marvellous accident. 150 His good success. ibid. A great Massacre at Thessalonica. 214 Maxims very dangerous used by Heretics. 183 Maxentius acteth a strange Tragedy. 240 He is defeated by Constantine. 241 Maximian the Baloon of Fortune. 239 A remarkable speech of Maximus. 79 Maximus overthrown and put to death. 209, 210 Meditation its definition. 75 Necessity and easiness of Meditation. ibid. What you must understand to Meditate well. ibid. Practice and Form of Meditation, consisteth in six-things. 76 Seven ways to dilate one's self in Meditating in abundance upon sundry thoughts. ibid. Modesty important. 87 Modesty of a son of S. Lewis. 418 Modesty defined. 468 The actions of Modesty. ibid. Marvellous contempt of money. 227 Monica the mother of S. Augustine, her qualities. 193 Her death. 198 A singular saying of Sir Thomas Moor. 90 Mother of Macchabees persecuted. 348  

N  Nature's evil. 355 Nature's voice. 370 Nature delighteth in contrarieties. 412 Nature the price of time. 43 Nebucadnezzar nursed by a Goat. 16 Nero his folly. 12 Notable action of Noah. 414 Nobility the first gift of God. 4 Nobility not tied to blood. ibid. Against such as betray their Nobility. 5 Nobility of Noah, wherein. ibid. Nobility of Eleazar, and his excellent speech. ibid. Privileges of Nobility. 8 Noblemen, why ill educated. 16 Nobility very much corrupted. 17 Nobleman's particular obligation. 20 Noblemen examples of great importance in the world. 21 Noblemen appeal from the sentence of Labour. 51 Disorders in corrupt Nobility. 218, 219 Novelty in Religion dangerous. 31 Novelty ever suspected by the Wise. 32  

O  OAths of Magistrates. 90 OBedience defined. 468 The qualities of an Officer. 272 Onocratalus his instinct. 417 Souls in the torrent of Opinion. 37 Opinion the source of all corruption. ibid. Strange giddiness of Opinion. 38 We must wean ourselves from the Opinion of the world. 66 Every one ought to have a good Opinion of the Providence of God, and to know the ways thereof. ibid. Oration of Symmachus to Theodosius and Valentinian the Younger, for the Altar of Victory, Exercise of Pagan Religion, and Revenues of Vestals. 182  

P  PAgans, and their acts. 227 Terrestrial Paradise the Chamber of Justice. 51 Tyranny of Passions over the Soul. 64 Passions are Echoes. 83 Passions of Love. ibid. The danger of this Passion. ibid. Preservatives against this Passion. ibid. Ordinary and sovereign Remedies for this Passion. ibid. The folly of this Passion. ibid. How Raymund and Lullius were cured of this Passion. ibid. Want of employment is the cause of our being ensnared by this Passion. ibid. Partiality of parents. 108 Patience the nature of God. 48 Patience defined. 468 Praise of Patience. 93 Patience of S. Macarius. ibid. Patience of Great men what. ibid. The first Patience is to endure one's self, the next to spare men, and endure men. ibid. Patience of David. ibid. Acts of Patience. ibid. Patience the Sanctuary of Mortals. ibid. Mariam wife of Herod, the picture of Patience. 114 Pearls are Ushers, saith Seneca. 9 Paulina did bear about her a million of Gold. 93 The desire of S. Augustine to ruin the Opinion of Pelagius. 366 Penance called by the name of Envy. 17 Five degrees of Penance among the Ancients. ibid. The Practice of these degrees at Court. ibid. Philo's notable Speech concerning the estate of Moses. 417 Invincible proofs of piety. 28 Piso's mad cruelty. 90 Plato his Opinion concerning Souls. 406 Who always striveth to Please himself, must necessarily displease others. 84 The quality of worldly Pleasures, and their shortness. 65 Politicians are vain without the direction of God. 362 Pompey in Palestine. 115 His cruel vanity. 340 Resolutions of great courages in Poverty. 392 Poverty of three sorts, either of Necessity, Profession, or Affection. 89 Practice of the poverty of Affection. ibid. Poverty a chief scourge. 352 Difficulties of the Poor in virtue. 8 Poverty defined. 468 Poverty the Island of Ithaca. 363 Pulcheria sister of Theodosius, and her qualities. 441 Against the necessity inferred of Prescience. 361 The Doctrine of Praedestination, with three reasons of this Doctrine. 366 S. Paul and S. Augustine interpreted in the matter of Praedestination. ibid. The Doctrine of the most ancient Fathers concerning Praedestination. ibid. The fruits of God's glory derived from Praedestination. 367 The matter of Praedestination. ibid. Marvellous secret of Praedestination. 368 Praise of Prayer, with the necessity thereof. 68 Practice of Vocal Prayer. 77 Government of Vocal Prayer. 78 Cup and Harp in Prayer, what is understood thereby. ibid. Remedies against Distractions in Prayer. ibid. Sublime Prayer. 381 Pretended Religion, how far from true Christianity. 34 Pride, especially of the Nobility, reprehended. 92 The humility of Primislaus and Pope Benedict the eleventh. ibid. Prosperity. 7 Procopius presented to Diocletian. 368 He is sent to destroy the Christians, and is converted to Christianism. ibid. Constancy of Procopius. 369 His sufferings for Religion. ibid. His imprisonment and Martyrdom. ibid. Prodigality of a Venetian Lady, and her punishment. 418 Voice of Prophecy. 37 Excellent Prophecies touching our Saviour. ibid. Disloyalties that spring from the Maxim of Proper Interest. 389 Reasons against this Maxim. ibid. It's a great sacrilege to make a Divinity of Proper Interest. 390 Proper Interest is like the feathers of an Eagle. ibid. False Pretexts of Interest. 391 Horror of Poverty doth nourish the fervour of Interests. ibid. Hidden Passages of the Divine Providence in the reclaiming of Souls. 192 The Theatre of Divine Providence. 233 Admirable Providence of God above all humane things. 258 Belief of a Providence is the sweetness of Life. 354 Manifest proof of the Providence of God. 355 Maxims of Providence. 356 Four foundations and pillars of Providence. ibid. Providence of God in the ordinary marks of nature. 358 Particular providences over divers Countries. ibid. The admirable Providence of God in protecting King Mithridates in his cradle. ibid. Providence over Empires. 359 Providence over the Church. ibid. Three Squadrons against Providence. ibid. Great Providence to stick to Altars and the Church. 148 Against Providence three squadrons of nice ones, according to humane prudence. 361 Providence of God, concerning the sentence of death in the generality of men. 414 Providence in the death of the vicious. ibid. Providence of God in limits of our appetites. 346 The Prowess of Christians. 221 Importance of Prudence. 88 Prudence a hand sprinkled with eyes. ibid. Hierogliph of Prudence. ibid. Truest Prudence is to distrust their own judgement. ibid. Prudence defined. 467 Ptolomey his magnificence. 392 His Library. ibid. His daughter Berenice entereth into Babylon. ibid. Purgatory compared to the Cherubins fiery sword. 425 Proved by the light of Nature. ibid. The opinions of the Ancient concerning Purgatory. ibid. An excellent opinion on the belief of Purgatory among the Hebrews. ibid. Notable Purgation of the Egyptians. ibid. Purgatory proved by the light of Faith. 426 The manner of Purgatory. 427 Against the dulness of those who do not understand it. ibid. Rigour of the living against the souls in Purgatory. 428 Pirrho's stupidity. 92  

R  RAbsaces the false Soldier, his damnable Precepts, which contain a true Satire of the manners of depraved Nobility. 218 Rebellions and Seditions fatal to the people. 364 Wholesome advice how to resolve on the choice of Religion. 35 Maxims of the Catholic and pretended Religion. 36 The powerful operation of Religion. 340 Commotions for matters of Religion. 342 Three things necessary to dispose one's self in Religion. 31 Without Religion all is unprofitable, observed in the quality of Julian. 373 Four notable points to discover the falsehood of pretended Religion. 32 An excellent Resolution upon worldly accidents. 362 Resurrection proved more than any other mystery. 440 No impossibility in the Resurrection to an Omnipotent hand. 441 Three properties of splendour in the Resurrection of our Saviour. 443 The triumphant glory of the Resurrection. ibid. The sweetness of the repose of Jesus, and all the Elect in the estate of Resurrection. ibid. Relation of the Resurrection to the Creation. ibid. The joys of the heart of Jesus in the first instant of the Resurrection. ibid. The goodly world he beheld in his Idaea's at his Resurrection. ibid. Revenge is not only contrary to Divine right, but to the right of Nature. 399 The Maxim of Revenge opposeth common sense. ibid. Goodly company of those who did not desire Revenge. 400, 401 Not to Revenge injuries, is not so much an election of virtue, as a necessity of salvation. ibid. The horror and confusion of Revenge. ibid. Goodly Considerations to pacify the mind against Revenge. ibid. Absalon close in his Revenge. 408 Riches the mother of vices, and neglect of God. 364 Riot cruel and injurious to God and his Church. 53 Tyranny of Riot. 406 Reasons against the Maxims of Riot. 461 Rispeliones. 265 Rodomonts. 93 A condemnation of Rodomonts and Duels. 224 Roman Empire full of strange disorders. 154  

S  Sacrilege of fair souls. 13 To Sacrifice the Calf without flower. 78 Sanctity the character of Nobility. 5 Sanctity an irrefragable argument of Faith. 29 Sadness the snare of Satan. 83 Immortification one cause of Sadness. 84 Sadness a plant of our own growing. ibid. Prayer the best remedy against Sadness. ibid. Unworthiness of Sadness. 85 Two great Obstacles of Salvation. 43 To handle the affairs of Salvation, is a matter of no small importance. 31 Sameas his grave and free Speech concerning Herod. 116 Sames a Martyr of poverty. 89 Scoffing the harbinger of Atheism. 46 Danger of Scoffing. 47, 368 Self-love hard to be repressed. 400 Semblances the children of opinion and lying. 37 Sesostris his Chariot applied to the rich. 9 Simplicity defined. 468 Simplicity the chief virtue of Saints. 41 What it is to be Simple. ibid. Simplicianus a holy man. 96 Sins committed for want of witnesses. 6 Sin of the flesh a mark of Reprobation, and injurious to the incarnation of the Son of God. 50 Sincerity preserved in the light of Nature. 396 Slander the wound of Frogs. 46 Greatness of the Soul. 64 Souls of men different in qualities. 4 Excellencies of the Soul remarkable. 11 The Soul clothed with royal purple. 12 What the Soul is, and wherefore it is a Spirit. ibid. The care that is to be had of the Soul. 423 Piety the first virtue, and the Soul of Military virtue. 220 The belief of the immortality of the Soul invincible. 420 The operations of the Soul are admirable. 421 Sentence of God upon the immortality of the Soul. ibid. Piety and Valour of a French Soldier. 222 Notable Devotion of a Soldier. 223 Military virtues of a French Soldier. 226 A great indignity of the abuse of the Spirit. 12 Apparition of the Soul of Samuel. 423 Spurina. 3 Stratonica her ridiculous pride. 93 Supereminency of person. ibid. Suem●s persecuted. 342 His admirable constancy. ibid. Three Suns shine at one time. 370 Symmachus magnifieth the Vestals. 182 Shameful Law of the Sybarites. 87 Synagogue of the Jews burned. 213  

T  TEmperance the first tribute of Sanctity. 86 Emptations remoras of the Soul. 79 Temptation is a Christians trade. ibid. What is the cause that many yield in Temptation. ibid. It is not good to tempt Temptations. 80 The sweetness of victory over Temptation. ibid. Tertullian his parable of the Ass to the Heretics of his time. 33 An excellent conceit of Tertullian. 19 Tertullian his saying is repugned. 267 Thaumastus made the second man in the Kingdom, for having given a glass of water. 91 Theodosius his birth and extraction foretold. 137 His Baptism. 139 His Education. 140 Sanctity of his Court. 143 The Discourse between him, and a Hermit. 144 Theodosius destroyeth Marna. 139 He maketh the Court holy. 212 His remarkable Piety. 261 His death. 148 Theodosia her revenge. 368 Theodorick's practice which he gave to Cassiodorus. 274 Theodorick slew Odoacer at a Banquet. 281 Strange act of Theodorick. 90 A crafty and witty conceit of Theodora. 397 Theophilus a bloody Emperor. 402 The admirable Justice of Theodorick. 285 Time not only precious, but only necessary. 43 Time compared to a River. 44 Time irrevocable. ibid. The Tongue compared to the Almond-Tree. 45 The Tongue a feathered Bell. ibid. The Tongue the incensory of the Divinity. 47 Trajan his notable Act. 90 Travel of worldlings. 79 Triumph of Asmodeus, with a description of his Chariot, wheels, horses, coachman, and Court. 49 The power of Truth. 395 As bad contesting against Truth, as against the master of the Bow. ibid. Tutor's are Fathers over the Spirits. 373  

V  VAlentinian father to Gratian, his death. 200 Erity a Sea. 45 Virgins give an Altar of Gold to the Church of S. Sophia. 140 Ungrateful men punished. 23 Diversity of Unions. 437 Union of glory, what it is. ibid. Unworthiness of being ashamed of well-doing. 82  

W  WAnt a great misery. 15 Excellent discipline in War. 226 The name of Sun given to Warriors. 172 Tragical events of the Wicked. 257 Equity of the Senate of Rome to support Widows. 340 William of Paris his notable Doctrine. 360 Weakness of humane Wisdom. 362 Good Wives of bad husbands. 388 Wisdom requisite in Prelates. 169 All Wisdom reduced to one Word. 88 Overmuch Wit troubleth. 37 Modesty of Great Wits. 450 Women stout to do good. 39 Women without Devotion, as a Bee without a sting. 302 Therare qualities which are given to them in Scripture. ibid. Household affairs recommended to Women. 305 Words are the Chariot of the Soul. 70 Word of God altered in Chairs, by the extravagant opinions of hearers. 385 The World a Clock, and how. 18 Worldlings condition. 24 The World an Island of Dreams. 16 The vanity of the World, and misery thereof. 119 The vanity and inconstancy of the World. 146 Practice of Worldly men. 389 Baseness of the World. 414 Tertullian his Conceit concerning the World. ibid. Three Ties of the World. 417 Discordant acts of the World. 442 The World is full of Craft. 397 A Wonderful Spectacle of the affairs of the World. 238  

Z  ZEal of a Lady towards God. 90 Eal ought to be had towards Religion. 341  
The End of the Table of the first Three TOMES.   

THE HOLY COURT, THE COMMAND OF REASON OVERDO THE PASSIONS.  
Written in French by F. N. CAUSSIN.  
AND Translated into English by Sir T. H.  
WITH HISTORICAL OBSERVATIONS UPON IT.  
Printed M.DC.L.   

TO THE EXCELLENT PRINCESS, THE DUCHESS OF BUCKINGHAM.  
Excellent Princess,  
THis Translation of the Holy Court, as it had its first life breathed into it by the animating spirit of her sacred Majesty's Royal acceptance; so in this last, and concluding piece it infinitely desires such your favourable entertainment. Nor, verily, can I (where so bright and resplendent a Star, from a Sphere of Greatness, hath already lighted up a flame to direct others in their approbation) but with much confidence hope the like propitious rays may benignly reflect from your so near a confining Influence.  
Here shall your Grace behold the powerful predominance of Reason over passions, not taught in Epictetus, or Senecas Profane School, but dictated from the Truth-teaching sacred Oracles of Christian Piety.  
Here the soul is informed, and judgement rectified, to hate vice, and fly it; to love virtue, and practise it, not in exterior garbs, and petty slight formalities, which only serve to amuse vulgar spirits: but by the interior Habits, and serious embracement of the most solid virtues. The precious memory (Excellent Princess) of your thrice-noble Father, whose living Image, and second-self you representatively are, together with your known love of pious Books, and daily practise in your life of the wholesome precepts couched in This, hath encouraged my present address, to serve for the entertainment of your vacant hours, which thus silently spent, and maturely digested, will have the force, and efficacy of the most serious employment, and may Exemplarily invite other eminent Spirits, to imitate your Grace's profitable, and well-seasoned retirements. I wish (excellent Lady) there were any thing wherein I might better express the devoted service I owe to your eminent self, and illustrious Family: but since weak endeavours can produce but slender effects, and noble dispositions do readily pardon incident imperfections; I will rest in the cheerful hope of Excuse, and in the ardent Vow of a studious willingness to become worthy the Title of  
Your Grace's humblest, and most obsequious servant, THOMAS HAWKINS.   

To my Lord, MY LORD THE DUKE OF ANGVIEN, ELDEST SON OF MY LORD THE PRINCE.  
MY LORD,  
I Finish the Holy-Court in my Books, when your age inviteth you to begin it in your manners; and for your first exercise of arms, I offer you the Combats and Empire over Passions, which is greater than that of the world.  
There it is where you shall know the industry of a war, which nature wageth, and reason teacheth us; which is never too soon learned, and which is ordinarily but too late understood. Princes in other battles speak with mouths of fire, and make use of a million of hands; but in this which I represent, they are alone, and therein employ but the moiety of themselves, one part of Man being revolted against the other. Besides, all the honour of the victory rests in themselves; arms, fortresses, and Regiments not at all participating therein, and if they prove fortunate in these encounters, they stand in the esteem of wise men, for Demigods.  
Their quality obligeth them to this duty more than other men, since Passions are winds, which in popular life raise but little waves, but in them stir up mountains of water. For which, I, am persuaded, that, as you so dearly have loved the labours of my Pen, and sought for your instruction out of my Books; I could not do a better service, or more suitable to your age, then by arming you against these plagues, which have so often tarnished Diadems on the brow of Caesar's, and turned Conquerors into Slaves.  
Sir, I promise myself much from your Greatness in this Conquest, seeing it already hath given testimonies to the world, worthy of your eminent Birth, which oblige you to virtue, out of a necessity, as strong, as your disposition is sweet. Wit, which is as the principal Genius of your house, hath in you cast forth glimmers, that have flown throughout Europe, when you publicly answered throughout all Philosophy, in an age wherein other Princes begin to learn the first elements. You have placed wisdom on the highest Throne of Glory, and it by your mouth hath rendered Oracles to instruct the learned, and astonish Doctors. In the first season of life, which so many other spend in delights, you have heightened the lights of your understanding by the labour and industry of study, living, as certain Plants, which bear the figure of Stars all environed with Thorns.  
It is time, that all your Brightness change into Fire, and since Sciences are but Colours, which appear not in the nighttime, if Virtue do not illuminate them, they must be gilded with the rays of your good life, and enkindled with the ardours of your courage, as you very happily have already begun.  
Sir, I do assure myself, that of all those things you know you will only approve the good, and that of all such as you can, you will do none but the just. This is it you own to the King, to whom you have the honour to be so near. This is it, which the education of the most prudent of Fathers, and the tender care of the best of mothers, exact. This is it, that France, which looketh on you (as a Sien of its Lilies) wisheth. This is it, which blood, the mostnoble on Earth, breeding the most happy in the world, and that face, where Grace and Majesty make so sweet a commixion, cease not to promise us.  
As there is nothing little in you, so we must not endure any thing, imperfect: and if that, which we take to be spots in the Sun, be Stars; it plainly showeth us, that all must be splendour in your condition, and that we must not expect years, since the wit of Princes in much swifter than time.  
Your great Uncle, who gained the battle of Cerisoles, said to those who upbraided him with his youth, that he did not cut with his beard, but with his sword: and I am persuaded, that you will imitate his valour, to take part in his glory, yea even in this your minority, wherein the King's colours being already to fly under your name.  
My Lord, remember, the throne of the Sun among the Egyptians was supported by Lions, and that you must be all heart to support that of our most Christian King▪ in imitation of the great Prince, to whom you owe your Birth; For whose sake I wish you as many blessings as Heaven promiseth you, esteeming myself most happy to be able to contribute my labours and services to the glory of your education, since I have the honour to call myself by just title:  
SIR, Your most humble and most affectionate servant in our Lord, N. CAUSSIN.   

A TASTE OF THE SEVERAL DISPOSITIONS OF MEN, Which serves for a Foundation to the Discourse of PASSIONS.  
THE HOLY COURT was not (as yet) sufficiently beautified with the eminent lustre of Glory (wherein I represented it) but it was necessary, that taking possession of the Empire over passions, it should wear a crown, which it hath gained by its travel, and wrought by its proper virtues. In this last Tome (dear Reader) I present thee the absolute reformation of the soul by eternal principles, and the victory over powers which oppose Reason.  
Thou art not ignorant, that Angels and bruit beasts are but of one piece, the one being wholly Spirit, and the other Flesh: But Man (a middle creature between Angels and bruit beasts) participateth both of flesh and Spirit by an admirable tye, which in him occasioneth continual war of Passions, which are properly commotions of animal and sensitive nature caused by the imagination of good and evil, with some alteration of body. They take their origin from two Appetites, of which the Concupiscible causeth Love, Hatred, Desire, Aversion, Joy and Sadness: The Irascible, causeth Hope, Despair, Boldness, Fear and Anger. To this ordinary number, I add Shamefastness, Envy, Jealousy and Compassion, to accomplish our work in all its parts.  
All Passions are generally in all men, but all appear not in all. There is a certain mixture in nature, which is the cause, that the worst have something of good and the best something of bad. Now note, that as the Platonists distinguish five sorts of devils; to wit, Fiery, Airy, Aquatic Terrestrial and Subterranean: so humane spirits are divided into as many forms, which produce merveilous diversities in every nature. The Fiery, are Spirits of fire, whereof some seem to be enkindled with the purest flames of stars, which are magnanimous, pure, vigorous, bold, intelligent, active, amiable, and munificent. And of this sort are the most illustrious of Kings and of Queens, of Princes and of Princesses, good Prelates, great and virtuous Ladies, the wise the valiant, the most notable Statesmen, Generals of Armies, Conquerors, yea and the Saints most eminet in virtue. There are others also Fiery, but burnt with the fire of Comets, which are malign, counterfeit, vicious, insolent, peevish, cross, covetous, ambitious, cruel, arrogant, inhuman, violent, and impetuous. Of this matter were composed the Tiberiuses, the Herod's, the Neros, and the Domitian's, who seemed to be born for the desolation of mankind.  
The Airy are likewise of two kinds very different: for the one are of a temperate constitution which maketh them mild, peaceable, pious, cordial, sociable, graceful, affable, courteous, pliant, witty, liberal▪ and active.  
Of this kind are many gentle, courteous, modest and handsome women: men of honour and of quality, who make a noble Company, and are infinitely apt for all the civilities of a laudable conversation. But if they degenerate from this degree, they become great caters, great scoffers, dissolute, vain flatterers, lascivious, and brutish.  
Others, like unto stirred air are, turbulent, stormy, choleric, suspicious, impatient, nice, biting undertakers, mutable, mutinous, unquiet, murmurers, and slanderers. It is they who raise quarrels, and litigious wranglings in the world, who disturb men and affairs: wherein they many times are as quicksilver in guildings, only used to make it resolve into smoke.  
Of the Aquaticks some are slow and cold, tastelesse, without affection, without cordiality, wedded to their own petty profits, and born for themselves. Of this rank you see many that make a good show, who resemble those dryed-up or frozen fountains upon a throne of marble, which have ostent enough, but afford no water. Others, which like standing and marishy waters, are close, foul, sluggish, traitorous and dangerous. Others, like the sea, are ambitious, unequal, uncertain, fantastical, and capricious, every moment changing shape in this great Comedy of the world. Others are peaceable and useful, as goodly Fountains and great Rivers.  
As for the Terrestrial, they are stubborn, inflexible, dull and stupid, of the condition of those people who thought they were at the end of numbers, when they had counted to four, and could go no further. Some in the beginning appear what they are, and others have a specious outside, which makes them to pass for handsome beasts. Sometimes they are loutish, cloudy, enemies of joy, of innocent pleasure, of beauty, of witty conceits, of discourse, of inventions, slaves of gain, and traitors to their own life, out of the exorbitancy of their avarice. In this number you shall find many like to those (which Theophrastus describeth) who neither lend fire nor salt to their neighbours; who wear hideous habits, and cause themselves to be shaved very close, that they may be at the less cost with their Barber; who have Magazines of pedlars, and who laden with old keys, walk every day up and down their grounds, to see whither they have not changed place. Some are like Poulcats, others are Fawns and Satyrs, who are addicted to base, and shameful lusts, captious, shifting, impudent, nightwalkers, and Hobgoblins, who extremely disturb the repose of humane life, if laws armed with force endeavour not to dissipate them, to make use of chains to restrain them.  
The Subterraneans are Melancholic, close, hypocritical, silent, fumish, sad, irreconcilable, bloody, and venomous. They are very apt to hatch revenges long pondered, to build labyrinths in their hearts, wherein no day light appeareth: Nevertheless, as they most time's have an impotency in the execution of bad designs, so they cherish, but not satisfy their passions. Yet do these qualities diversely commix one with another, yea the highest with the lowest from whence proceed infinite variations in the spirit of man, so that there is not any thing so changeable in total nature, or so hard to be known, ●● man.  
Some seem to be born with good parts, but through the want of some help of nature, or instruction, they degenerate into bad, and render themselves very capable of deceits and illusions. So many are become Huguenots, for that they want vigour of judgement, and see not that we rather should refer ourselves to a General Council, then to their silly arguments. Others abuse themselves in spiritual life, and would willingly refine devotion, even to the talking with Angels, and the seeing a white Pigeon. Others, to appear strong wits, contemn all ordinary guizes, make themselves extravagant, and as the Antipodes of mankind.  
Others put themselves into the number of confused Scholars, who have store of learning, but very ill-digested. There are some who with much endeavour to seem wise, become crafty, they converse not but under a mask, they set snares in every place, they have the talon of plyantnesse. They draw tribute out of the good turns they do their friends, they make profit of all, they become extremely distrustful, and they would willingly be of that kind, of which Theophrastus speaketh, who every moment tell their money, and make their Lackeys go before them for fear they should run away. Others, out of too much desire of glory, become vain, affected in their speech, in their actions, and in all their proceed, to the studying and learning by heart the slightest compliments, as do some women, whom one would take to be virgins of the Goddess Memory, and such as boast elocution, who traffic in hearers, and invite to their sermons, more than one would to weddings or burials.  
Some, out of an intemperance of neatness, and of dotage upon health, torment their life, such circumspection use they in their diet, their garments, their furnitures, in all things which are for their use. They every where carry their bread and wine along with them, and never sit well but in their own chair. Others take delight to negottate they always have their hands full of Papers, they make a Registers office of their Cabinet: they are great Formalists, and strangely persecute the world with their punctualities. They put one business into an hundred dishes, and incessantly trouble all such as have to do with them. Others desirous to make themselves overmuch pleasing in their conversation become babblers and ceremonious; they are importune and unseasonable in compliments; they go to prattle with their friends whilst they have a fever; they tell extravagant tales, wherein they take themselves to be very facetious although at the latter end of the discourse they be asked where the conceit to be laughed at, lies: They burden themselves also with news of no value; They make a secret of every thing, and give things out for mysteries, which are proclaimed with a Trumpet.  
There are some, who not to seem flatterers tell truth with an ill grace, they are great Censurers, and they see not any one, whom they reform not from the head to the heel. If they put themselves upon matter of doctrine, and eloquence; they are the Fathers of wits, and the creators of excellent conceits, under whom the Empire of learning circumvolveth: and if they talk of State-matters, of the Church, of Justice, and of War; they are the Gods of Loves and battles, who pronounce Edicts, assemble Counsels, levy Arms, raise fortifications, correct Kingdoms, move the earth; and in their own imagination, change the face of the Universe. Others are so diligent, that they tyre all the world with their unreasonable activities; others use afflicting delays, and stir so little in all their designs, that they seem to be in a perpetual Solstice.  
You see some extremely open breasted, who tell all their thoughts, and as if their heart were a sieve, it keeps nothing which it sends not instantly out by the lips. Some proceed to a simplicity, next door to sottishness, which makes them do many extravagancies; and when it hath a mixture of vanity men of mean condition imitate the actions of the great: and silly Citizens wives say, my Lord and Husband, as well as Sarah, or the greatest Ladies. There are among these some subtle Coxcombs, and fortunate fools, who duily deceive themselves to their own gain.  
They who have a Magistral aspect are much more odious, when with a countenance supercilious, and Tone of a voice affected, they make speeches, and usurp a personage which neither age, quality, nor merit alloweth them. Dreamers, and pensive are heavy in conversation, and the squeamish, who make their good aspects and fair countenances to be bought, are insupportable; but the apprehensive, who deplore all things, multiply what they can the miseries of the times, and ceasing not to blame the actions of those who govern, raise more mischiefs than remedies.  
Good God what an alteration do passions make in us? but it is a gift from heaven, that they may be changed, and that by Grace and the practice of good instructions, we can despoil ourselves as well of an evil habit, as of an old garment.  
It is not expedient to be without passion, nor is it possible to humane nature; but it is much to obtain by discretion the moderation of a thing, of which we by necessity have the experience. These motions are given us with our bodies, they are little spirits which are born and die with us; some find them more mild others, more wayward; but every one hath his part, howbeit there are very few who well understand their own portion. Young people, who show no desire, no affection, no feeling, are commonly abject spirits; unless this come to them by grace, or some notable constraint, which in the end is the cause, that of a young Angel, an old Devil is often made: we must not lose humanity (saith Saint Augustine) to acquire tranquillity of mind, nor think that, that which is hard and boisterous is always right, or that one hath much health, when he is come to the highest degree of stupidity. All good spirits have delicate apprehensions, and resemble the burning bush which had thorns among lights; but they are none of the best, who, to follow nature, abandon reason.  
I affirm the Stars contribute much to our inclinations, and Birth, much more: Education maketh another nature; Blood, choler, melancholy, and phlegm, do in our passions, what the elements do in our bodies. Yea stature itself conduceth: spirit, goodness grace, full garb, and courage is very often in little bodies which have their heat moderated and well digested. But if great bodies be destitute of it, they are very lazy; and if they have too much of it, they are flaming fornaces full of violence: which made S. Cyril say, that greatness was given to Giants for a punishment of their wickedness. But this must be understood without any prejudice to well-composed tall statures, which have much Majesty. There are humours so sticking, that what care soever be used, there is somewhat still remains behind, which (according to Job) sleeps with us in our graves. I have heard that a good Religious man having been bred with the milk of a Goat, was very modest in public by a great reflection he made on his actions: But he ever had some hour in secret, wherein he had his frisks and his capers.  
Nevertheless, one cannot believe, how much one gaineth upon his own nature, when he will take the pain to manure it: but for want of using industry therein, one makes to himself a turbulent life, a continual torment, a hasty death, and his salvation to be doubtful.  
There are some who drive away one devil by another, curing one passion with another, and tiring them all, that they may have none; which was the cause that Theodosian said, that they are, as that possessed man, who had a legion of devils in his body. Some by the counsel of certain Directours, would break them all at once, as that soldier, who thought to pull off a horse's tail by strength of arm and not by drawing one hair after another. Others expect remedy from time, from affairs, from change of life and condition, and are rather cured by weariness, than prudence.  
Others continually flatter themselves, and think they have got great victories, when they have lessened their fits, and left the root of the Fever. But they who will therein proceed seriously, endeavour first of all to find out the enemy, and as we all have one passion, which predominateth in our heart above the rest, and which most entertaineth our thoughts, they principally assail that waging to rough battles by prayer, fasting, alms, consideration, reading of good books, continual examen of conscience, flight from occasions, diversion upon some better thing, good company, imitation of holy personages, counsel of sage directours, and by a thousand stratagems which the spirit of God furnisheth them with, in the fruitfulness of their inventions. After they have pulled down their chief adversary, they easily prevail against the rest, and continuing their progression in the list of generous souls, they come in the end to a great tranquillity.  
This is it I intent to show in this last volume, wherein I treat of Passions in a new tone, my purpose being rather to show their remedies, than their pictures. I know Monsiour Coeseteau (the eloquent Bishop of Marseilles) who hath afforded immortal lights to French eloquence, hath set forth the Table of humane passions. I lay not my pencil upon the line of this Apelles, I begin where he ends, and if he be content to paint them, I endeavour to cure them.  
For this purpose, having briefly explicated the nature, proprieties, effects, and symptoms of every passion; I set against it two remedies; the first whereof is drawn from some divine perfection, contrary to the disorder of the same Passion: and because that is (yet) too sharp, and dazzling by the quickness of its lights, I show it, sweetened and tempered in the virtues of Jesus Christ.  
In the end of the Book I bring the examples of those who have overcome their Passions, and of such as have sunk under their violence, deriving profit out of all, for the scope which I aim at. There are certain Flies which live on Monks-hood, a venomous herb, and who make use of an antidote against its poison. So they who have tried the malice and danger of passions, may profit us whether they edify us by their repentance, or divert us by their disasters.  
I conclude the HOLY COURT in this Volume, which I esteem above the rest, by reason of its utillty: and, writing of passions to cure them; I wish in myself an incurable one, which is, to desire the progression of my Readers, and to beseech God they may submit Sense to Reason, Time to Eternity, and the Creature to the Creator.   

THE FIRST TREATISE. OF LOVE.  

Sect. 1. Of the Necessity of Love. Against those Philosophers who teach Indifferency, saying, We must not Love any thing.  
THe Divine Providence which hath concluded our salvation 
All Happiness included in love.  in Love, very plainly shows us, That the means to be quickly happy is to love Felicity; and that the way we walk in to become singularly happy, is to esteem (as we ought) the chief of Felicities. We lose all our good hap for want of loving; and our Love through, the defect of well placing it; which is the cause that we daily learning so many Arts, forget what we should eternally practise, if it be true we desire to be everlastingly happy.  
I find the great Apostle of France S. Denis, said well, when he called God, The Father of Unions, who 
S. Dion. l. de Hierarch. coelest. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. God the Father of unions draweth all to unity by the means of love.  ceaseth not to gather and rally together all the creatures into his heart which issued out of his heart. He is, That in the life of Intelligencies, which the Sun is in the celestial world: but one  Sun, about which so many changes, and agitations of all creatures circumvolve, who groan and aim at this First beauty, the true Centre of Repose.  
It concerneth us, since we are made for it, and that God hath given us Love, which is to the soul, That, which wings are to Birds, to carry us to its fruition. It is a riches, which is only ours, and which would be infinitely profitable, if we could tell how to employ it well: but for want of well loving, we apply the most precious thing, which is Love, to gain wretched Creatures, as if one used a golden hook to fish for Frogs, and a Sceptre to shake hay. This is it which causeth me to undertake in this discourse, to speak of the well ordering of Love, as the most assured way we can choose to arrive at Tranquillity, and to show that we first of all most necessarily love, to be happy in the world, and that the most loving and tenderest hearts are ordinarily the best.  
This age scant enough in goodness, and fruitful 
The Sect of Philosophers of Indifferency.  in malice, hath of late brought forth a Sect of wits, who term themselves the Philosophers of Indifferency, and who make boast to be very insensible, as well in the fear of the Divinity; as in tenderness towards the miseries of men.  
To what purpose is it (say they) to addict one's self to the worship of a God, whom we cannot sufficiently know? And wherefore should we be solicitous for the afflictions of another, which nothing concern us? This is to make ourselves eternally miserable, and to be tormented with all manner of objects. He who would live contented in the world, must love nothing but himself, entertain himself within himself, and concerning himself; and derive pleasure, as a tribute, out of all the creatures of the world; but to take heed not to enter into the participation of their troubles, and should we see all to be turned topsie turvey, so it inconvenienceth not us in any thing to let time slide, to catch good by the wings whilst we may, and to let evil fall on the miserable.  
These kind of people are so unnatural, that they laugh at all, and mock at the miseries which others suffer. If you tell them of a house burnt, they say it is nothing, and that it is but a fire of great wood: If of an inundation of water; that Fishes have a good time of it: If of a war, or contagion; that it is a good harvest for death, and that there are too many bread-eaters: If one say such a friend hath lost an eye; they answer he is very happy, because he shall see but half the bad times.  
I do not think there is a vice in the whole world more btutish, or contrary to nature, than this obdurateness; which is the cause I would cast it under the feet of love: and show you, that tenderness towards God as a Father, towards men as the lively Images of his Goodness, is the principal foundation of all virtues.  
Consider first, that all the good order of life comes 
1. Reason against the Indifferents.  from the knowledge of the First cause, whereon all Creatures have their dependence; as on the contrary, the Disorder of all actions springeth from the ignorance of the submission we owe to the Increated Essence. Now he, who loveth none but himself, and cares not but for his own Interests, maketh himself as the chief end, and the God of himself, which sufficiently proveth it to be the most palpable folly, and the greatest evil may be imagined in Nature.  
It is a remarkable thing, that among all Essences 
There is none, but God, which is for itself.  there is none but God alone, who, as he can know nothing out of himself, nor love any thing but in himself, so he doth nothing but for himself. For in doing all for himself, he doth all for us, since we have no good, which tendeth not to him, as to its scope, 
Monas ge●uit monadem, & in se suum reflexit amorem, S. Thom. 1. part. q 32. a. t. 1.  which subsisteth not in him as on its Basis, which resteth not in him, as in its Centre. Thus did S. Thomas understand that notable saying of Mercury Trismegistus. Unity hath produced unity, and hath reflected its love on itself.  
It is not but for an Infinite Essence to do so; but had the highest Angel in heaven the thought only to behold himself, and henceforward to work for himself, he would instantly be pulled out of heaven, and would of a bright Sun, become a sooty Coal.  
What may one think then of a man, who says in his heart, I am born for myself, and I have no other aim in the world, but to satisfy my mind with all contentments, nor shall the evils of another ever enter into my heart, till Fire commix with Water, and Heaven with Earth, If I obtain my ends all shall go well? Harken how God speaketh in the Prophet Ezechiel to these wicked ones. Behold, I come to fall upon thee 
Ecce ego ad te, draco magne qui tuba i● medio fluminum tuorum, etc. Ezec. 29. 3.  (oh! thou great Dragon) who liest stretched out at length in the midst of thy Rivers, and darest saey, this stream is mine, and I made myself. Assure thee I will put a bridle upon thee, and when I have fastened to thy scale all the fishes of the waters wherein thou bearest sway, I will drag thee from the midst of the Kingdom of waves and I will throw thee into a wilderness: thou shalt lie upon the dry land, nor shall any one care to sae thy obsequies performed. For I have abandoned thee to the beasts of the field, and to the birds of the air, to be devoured.  
This sentence of God was executed on the person of the Emperor Tiberius, under whom our Saviour suffered that death which gave life to the world. Verily he was a man, who through the whole course of his Empire made himself the God of himself, the slave of his passions, and the hatred of mankind. He lay close as an Owl in the retirement of his filthy lusts, he was greedy as a Griphon, in such sort, that dying he had above threescore and six millions of gold in his coffers, which he, with the Empire, left to an infamous nephew, who, as it is thought, hastened his death, tearing that sensual soul out of the body, which in the world breathed nothing, but the love of itself.  
How can a man so wretched, so caitive, behold himself as a Divinity, seeing God in the height of glory, riches and beauties, which so happily entertains him within himself, hath so affectionate bowels of mercy for man, that he thinks of him from all eternity, he presenteth himself unto him on all sides, with hands replenished with benefits in so great a diversity of Creatures, and hath in general so much care of all men, and of every one in particular, 
S. Tho opus. de Beatit. Quasi homo s●t. Dei Deu●.  that he who were not well instructed by faith, might have matter to imagine that Man were the God of God himself!  
Let us besides produce another proof, which more 
2. Reason drawn from the communication of creatures.  evidently convinceth this obdurateness of heart, and this cruel rechlessnesse of the Philosophers, who teach Indifferency; which is, that all creatures, yea the most insensible, are made by God to impart, and to compassionate. If the Sun hath light, it is not for himself, he clotheth the Air, the Land, and Sea with a golded net, he imparteth it also as well to the little eyes of the Ant, as to those of the mightiest Monarch in the world, he soweth seeds of flames and vigour, to warm and quicken total nature. If the Air hath Rain, it keeps it not eternally within the treasury of clouds, but distilleth it as in a Limbeck to moisten the earth. If the Sea have waters, it so diveth them among all the Rivers, as to bear men and victual in Vessels, and to make itself a knot of commerce from Land to Land, from Country to Country, from World 
Unaquaeque res cogitur dare ●eip â, adeo exclusit Deus avaritiam à rebus humanis. Guil. Paris. l. de univers.  to World. If the earth hath fruits, it preserves them not for itself, no more than the trees which bear them; but plentifully opens its bosom profusely to communicate itself to all nature. Every thing, saith a great Bishop of Paris, is bound by the Divine Providence to communicate itself; so true it is, that God hath banished avarice from humane things. As each creature giveth itself by love, so it suffers with others by conformity. All the world is united and collected within itself, as the parts of an Egg are tied one within another; All the members of the Universe mutually love and embrace; and if they make war it is but to establish their peace; If there be want of an element, as of Air, the Water would mount to heaven, or heaven descend to the water, rather than not supply the defect of a neighbour. It is a law which God hath engraven, as with a tool of Adamont in the bosom of Nature.  
It ●ath been observed, that Palms divided one from another by an arm of the Sea, which had overflowed the country, bowed their tops one towards another by a natural inclination, as witnessing their Amity, and protesting against the fury of that element which had disunited them; and if this sense be in plants, what may we say of living creatures? where we see cares, troubles, anxieties, go, and come, combats, yells, neglect, and loss of body, repose and life, with the sense they have of the detriment and damage of their like. And shall we not say then, that a man who loveth nothing in the world, and only studieth the preservation of himself, is a prodigy in Nature, fit to be denied the Air he breatheth, the light which reflecteth on him, the fire which warms him, the viands which feed him, and the earth which bears him?  
I add for a third reason, that pity and tenderness 
3. Reason of the tenderness of great hearts  of heart is not only authorized by God and nature, but it is established, as by a common decree of nations. Photius the learned Patriarch of Constantinople observeth in his Bibliotheque, a wonderful judgement 
A notable sentence of the Areopagites.  given in the City of Athens, where he saith, the Senate of Areopagites being assembled together upon a mountain, without any roof but heaven; the Senators perceived a bird of prey which pursued a little Sparrow, that came to save itself in the bosom of one of their company. This man, who naturally was harsh threw it from him so roughly that he killed it; whereat the Court was offended, and a Decree was made, by which he was condemned and banished from the Senate: Where the most judicial observe, That this company, which was at that time one of the gravest in the world, did it not for the care they had to make a law concerning Sparrows; but it was to show that clemency and merciful inclination was a virtue so necessary in a State, that a man destitute of it, was not worthy to hold any Place in government, he having (as it were) renounced Humanity.  
We likewise see, that the wisest and most courageous men in the world have been infinitely tender, full of love, zeal, affection, care, anxiety and travel, for the good of another. David and Jonathan, who were the bravest Princes over the people of God, loved each other so much, that the Scripture speaking of this Amity, saith, Their souls were tied together with an inseparable band. S. Paul was so affectionate and jealous, for the salvation of his Corinthians, that he seemed to carry them all in his bowels, and daily to bring them forth with convulsions and pains attended by joys and delights not to be expressed. Saint Ambrose bitterly bewailed the death of his brother Satyrus, that to hear him speak, one would think he meant to distil out his eyes and breathe out his soul on his Tomb. So did S. Bernard at the decease of his brother Gerard. S. Augustine was a man all of fire before and after his conversion, with only this difference, that this fire before the morn-tide of his salvation was nourished with corruptible matter of Earth, but after he became a Christian, he lived upon the most pure influences of heaven. S. Gregory Nazianzen saith he more breathed S. Basile, than the air itself, and that all his absences were to him so many deaths. S. chrysostom in banishment was perpetually in spirit with those he most esteemed. S. Jerome better loved to entertain his spiritual amities in little Bethelem, then to be a Courtier in Rome where he might be chosen Pope. And if we reflect on those who have lived in the light of nature; Plato was nothing but love. Aristotle had never spoken so excellently of friendship, had he not been a good friend. Seneca spent himself in this virtue, being suspected by Nero for the affection he bore to Piso. Alexander was so good that he carried between his arms a poor soldier frozen with cold, up to his throne to warm him, and to give him somewhat to eat from his royal hands. Trajan broke his proper Diadem to bind up the wound of one of his servants. Titus wept over the ruins of rebellious Jerusalem. A man may as soon tell the stars in the heavens, as make an enumeration of the brave spirits which have been sacrificed to amity. 
Wherefore great hearts are the most loving.   
If we seek out the causes, we shall find it ordinarily proceedeth from a good temperature which hath fire and vigour, and that comes from good humours, and a perfect harmony of spirit: little Courages are cold, straightened, and wholly tied to proper interests, and the preservation of their own person. They lock themselves up in their proprieties as certain fishes in their shell, and still fear least elements should fail them; But magnanimous hearts, who more conform themselves to the perfections of God, have sources of Bounty, which seem not to be made, but to stream and overflow such as come near them. This likewise many times proceedeth from education; for those who fall upon a breeding base, wretched, and extremely penurious, having hands very hard to be ungrasped, have likewise a heart shut up against amities, still fearing lest acquaintance may oblige them to be more liberal than they would; contrariwise, such as have the good hap to be nobly bred hold it an honour to oblige, and to purchase friends every where.  
Add also that there is ever some gentleness of spirit among these loving souls, who desiring to produce themselves in a sociable life, and who understanding it is not given them to enlighten sands and serpents, will have spectators, and subjects of its magnificence. Which happens otherwise to low and sordid spirits; for they voluntarily banish themselves from the conversation of men, that they may not have so many eyes for witnesses of their faults; So that we must conclude against the Philosophers of Indifferency, that Grace, Beauty, strength and power of nature are on their side, who naturally have love and affection.   

§. 2. Of Love in general.  
LOve when it is well ordered is the soul of the universe, 
Love, the soul of the universe.  which penetrateth, which animateth, which toeth and maintaineth all things: and so many millions of creatures as aspire and respire this love, would be but a burden to Nature, were they not quickened by the innocent flame, which gives them lustre, as to the burning Bush, not doing them any hurt 
Fornacem custodiens in operibus ardoris. Eccl. 43.  at all.  
I may say, that, of honest love, which the wise man did of the Sun; That it is the superintendent of the great fornaces of the world, which make all the most 
Love, the superintendent of the great Furnace of the world. Faber ferrarius sedens juxta in eodem & considerans opus ferri: vapour iguis uret carnes ejus, & in calore fornacis concertatur, etc. Eccl. 29 38.  Pieces of work in Nature.  
Have you ever beheld the Forge-master described by the same wiseman? You see a man in his shirt all covered over with sweat, grease, and smoke, who sporteth among the sparks of fire, and seemeth to be grown familiar with the flames: He burns gold and silver in the furnace, than he battereth it on the Anvil with huge blows of the hammer, he fashioneth it, he polisheth it, he beautifies it, and of a rude and indigested substance, makes a fair piece of plate to shine on the Cup-boards of the most noble houses.  
So doth love in the world, it taketh hearts, which are (as yet) but of earth and mortar, it enkindleth them with a divine flame, It beats them under the hammer of tribulations and sufferings, to try them, It filleth them by the assiduity of prayer, It polisheth them by the exercise of virtues, lastly it makes vessels of them worthy to be placed above the Empyreal heaven.  
Thus did it with S. Paul, and made him so perfect, 
Act. 9  that the First verity saith of him, that he is his vessel of election, to carry his name among nations and the Kings of the Earth, and that he will show him how much he must suffer for his sake. The whole nature of 
Pigri, mortui oetestandi eritis si nihil ametis: Amare, sed quid ameris videte. August. in Psal. 31. Hoc amet, nec ametur ab ullo. Juvenal. Seven excellent things.  the world tendeth to true love; every thing loves; some of necessity, other by inclination, and other out of reason. He who will love nothing (saith S. Augustine) is the most miserable and wretched man on earth; nor is it without cause, that in imprecations pronounced over the wicked, it is said, Let him not love, nor be beloved by any.  
The ancient Sages have observed in the light of Nature, that there are seven excellent things to be esteemed as gifts from heaven, which are clearness of senses, vivacity of understanding, grace to express one's thoughts, ability to govern well, Courage in great and difficult undertake, fruitfulness in the productions of the mind, and the strength of love; and forasmuch as concerneth the last, Orpheus and Hesiodus have thought it so necessary, that they make it the first thing that came out of the Chaos before the Creation of the world.  
The Platonists revolving upon this conceit, have built us three worlds; which are, the Angelical nature, 
Vide Marsilium Ficinum in convivium Platonis. An excellent conceit of the Platonists.  the soul, and the Frame of the universe. All three (as they say) have their Chaos. The Angel before the ray of God, had his in the privation of lights; Man, in the darkness of Ignorance and Sin; The material world, in the confusion of all its parts: But these three Chaoses were dissipated by love, which was the cause that God gave to Angelical spirits the knowledge of the most sublime verities, to Man Reason, and to the world, Order.  
All we see is a perpetual circle of God to the world, and of the world to God; This circle beginning in God by inestimable perfections, full of charms and attractives, is properly called Beauty: and when it comes to extend itself in the world, and to draw it to it 
The nat●●e of love Lib. 1▪ de civet. ●8. Amor inhians labere qu●● amatu● cupidity est, idem ●mor habens cóque fruen●, letitia est, fugiens quod adversatur el timor est: quod si acciderit eitristitia est: proinde mala sunt ista si malus est amor; bona si bonus.  self, it is called love. But if you consider it in the condition wherein it gathereth together all Creatures to the first cause, and makes its works re-ascend to God, they say it then takes the name of Pleasure, which is a most happy satisfaction of to all Nature in its Author. So love is a circle, which turns from good to good by an everlasting revolution.  
Now, if you desire I should in few words explicate the nature thereof, its origin, progress, causes, qualities and effects; you must observe a notable doctrine of S. Augustine, who saith, That Love whilst it is in the search of what it loveth, is called Desire; and when it enjoyeth the thing beloved, it is changed into joy. But if it avoid that thing which is contrary to it, either in effect, or opinion, it is Fear; and if the Fear hath its effect by the arrival of the evil it apprehendeth, it turns into Sadness. This love takes sundry countenances, according to divers Circumstances.  
I agree all this is said with good reason, yet notwithstanding we must affirm with divines, that this Oracle of Doctors hath in this definition rather comprised the cause, the effects, and progresses of love; then its essence and nature: For to speak properly, love is neither Desire, Fear, Joy, nor Sadness; but A Complacence of the Appetite or will in an object conveniont 
5. Definition of love.  either according to verity, or appearance; But if we will speak more generally, we say it is nothing, but an inclination 
Richard de Medvill. dist. 27. l. 3. Art. 1. q. 1.  propending and moving to a good which is conform to it: For by the definition, we include all the kinds of love which are divided principallly into three branches, to wit, Natural, Animal, and Reasonable 
It's division.  love. Natural love consisteth in things inanimate, which have their sympathies, and Antipathies, As Palms, male, and female, Amber and straw, Iron and the Adamant. Animal love, is that Beginning which giveth motion to the sensitive appetite of beasts to seek for that which is fit for them, and to be pleased in the enjoying what they fought for. Reasonable love, is an Act which pursueth and accepteth the good represented by the understanding wherein we may also comprehend Angelical and Divine love, which S. Denis addeth to these three kinds whereof we speak.  
Reasonable love is also divided into love of Amity, and love of Concupiscence. Love of Amity, which wisheth good to the thing beloved for itself, without enquiry into its own proper interest: As when it desired to one, Health, knowledge, grace, virtues, wealth, honours, without pretence of any benefit to itself. This 
Gabriel. d. 27. q. 1. l. 3.  is to affect with a love of amity, which is very rare now a days, so mercenary are affections, and when this love is not only Affective (as Divines speak, contenting itself with bare desires) but Effective, by plentifully opening hauds to liberality, it mounteth to a huge degree of Complacence.  
Love of Concupiscence, is an interessed love, which causeth one to love a thing, not for itself, but for the pleasure, and commodity derived from it, or to be hoped (in time) to be dersved from it: So the Horseman desireth beauty, strength, and courage, in his horse and dog; not for their sakes, but his own contentment. Such love is worldly love, commonly defiled with base and animal consideration, nor is ever purified, but when it, for God, loveth that which cannot in itself be lovely.  
Behold the nature and Essence of Love in its whole latitude: Now to speak of the proceed of the soul in its loves, The first step it makes when it beginneth to love, is the degree of the conformity of the will with 
The steps and progressions of ●ove.  the good is proposed. The senses, imagination, understanding, give it notice of some Beauty, Goodness, or Commodity, which it conceiveth to be fit for it. Thereupon it beginneth to take fire, and to have sparks of desires, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  which make it to wish the good proposed unto it. Thence it passeth to the second Degree, which is that of Sharp-sweet Complacence, which pleasingly each moment, holds it fixed upon the thoughts of its object. Sometimes between hope to possess it, another while between fear to lose it and many other passions, which accompany this (as yet suffering) Complacence.  
From this degree it goes to the third, which is inqui (+sitio● and motion, where love putteth on wings to fly speedily into the bosom of its repose, employing all possible means for its contentment; and if it be favoured in its pursuit, it advanceth to the fourth degree, which is union, esteemed the principal scope of Amity's. From this union ariseth another Complacence, which is not painful and dolorous; but satisfied, and pleased in the fruition of its object which is the height of love.  
By the sides of love are lodged Beauty and Goodness, for that (as S. Denis saith) they are the objects 
Its causes.  and motive of love, which are so allied together, that the Grecians call them by one self same name. The Sages have ever sought for the true causes which dispose the wills of men to love: and there are many different opinions upon this point. Some hold, it is a quality, which God imprinteth on nature; others imagine it comes from the aspect of stars, and from divers constellations; Others make it to proceed from Parents, and education: others from a certain Harmony and consonancy of hearts, which meeting in accord upon the same Tone, have a natural correspondence. Lastly, the Maxim of Divines and Philosophers much swayeth, which saith, that Fair, and Good, make all loves.  
I hold that to accord these opinions, a notable distinction must be made of three loves, which we have proposed in the beginning, to wit, Natural, Animal, and Reasonable. Forasmuch as concerneth Natural or Animal love, besides the order of nature, it is God which giveth to each creature necessary inclinations to arrive at their end. Well there may be influency of stars, which bear sway over humours and bodies, and with the stars, bands of blood, temperature of Humours, education and secret qualities, which tie creatures with the knot of a certain love, the cause whereof is not well known. For how many are there, who love things which are neither lovely nor good? I not only say in effect, but in their own opinion and judgement, yet are they thereunto fastened by some Tie, nor can they free themselves from it, but by the absolute power of Reason. Do we not daily find by experience, that a Man who is, and who knoweth himself to be deformed and wicked, yet faileth not by Nature, to be in love with himself? So through a love of Concupiscence he may love things which have neither Beauty nor Goodness, although he daily have a blind feeling of some thing suitable to sensuality, and an unperceivable attractive.  
As for love of reason, which is properly Humane love, one may be assured, it always looks directly upon good and fair, not simply, but good, fair acknowledged, agreeable to its contentment; This is the root of all reasonable amities, and hitherto those great sources 
Means to make one's self to be beloved worthily.  of love reduced, which are, Honesty, utility, Delectation, Resemblance, reciprocal love, obliging and pleasing conversation.  
Within these six heads (in my opinion) the fifteen means to make one to be beloved are comprised, which are touched by Aristotle in the second book of his Rhetoric; To wit, to love that which a friend loveth, to entertain his apprehensions, his joys and his discomforts, his hatred and Amity's; to keep him in a laudable opinion of our sufficiency by good parts of wit, courage, virtue, industry, and reciprocally to hold him in good esteem, to love him, to oblige him, to praise him unto others, to bear with him in his humours, to trust him with your secrets, readily to serve him without forgetfulness or negligence, to be inviolably faithful to him, which we will more amply deduce in the subsequent section.  
But if you regard its effects, I find three great empires 
Notable effects of love in the 3. worlds.  it exerciseth in the world, natural, civil, and supernatural. In the natural, it causeth all sympathies, antipathies, accords, ties, generations, productions. In the civil world, it builds two cities, as saith S. Augustine, very different. If it be good, it raiseth a City of peace, wherein chaste Amity's sway, and with them, Truth, Faith, Honour, Virtues, contentments, delights. If it be bad, It makes a Babylon full of confusion, where cares, fears, griefs, war, enmities, impurities, adulteries, incests, sacrileges, blood, murder, and poison inhabit; and all that, which commonly ariseth from this fatal plague. In the supernatural world, it causeth nine effects, which are very well figured by the celestial throne of love: composed of nine diaphanous globes; whose effects are Solitude. Silence, Suspension, Indefatigability, Languishment, Ecstasy, and Transanimation, which we more at length will consider in the sequel of this Treatise.   

§. 2. Of Amity.  
AMITY is the medicine of health, and Immortality 
Eccl. 6. Medicamentùm vitae. Amity the tree of life.  of life, and in a manner doth that in Civil life, which the tree of life in terrestrial Paradise promises in natural life with an infinite number of sweetnesses and pleasures: it immortaliseth us after death in the remembrance of that which is most dear unto us in the world: It is that, which giveth light to dark affairs, certainty 
It Includeth all blessings.  to doubtful, support to tottering, goodness to evil, grace to good, order to irregular, ornament to simple, and activeness to dead. By it, the banished find a country, the poor a patrimony, great ones find offices, the rich services, the Ignorant knowledge, the feeble support, the sick health and the afflicted comfort. Should a man live on Nectar and Ambrosia, among stars and Intelligencies; he would not be happy, if he had not friends to be witnesses of his good fortune: and we may truly say, that Amity continually makes up the greater part of our Felicities. It is not here my purpose to extend myself with full sail upon the praise thereof, since so many excellent wits have already handled this subject; but, to show how good Amity's are to be chosen, and how to be cultivated.  
There are some who make profession to be friends, 
What amity is. Affectus est spontanea & suavis animi ad aliquem inflectio. Cassiod. de amicit.  and know not so much as what friendship is, but Aristotle plainly proves, there is difference between affection, , Love, Amity, and Concord. Affection is a spark of love, not yet throughly form, in which understanding hath some slight passion. , A simple  and consent born towards some one, although many times there be no great knowledge of the party, as it happeneth to such, who of two Combatants favour rather the one than the other, not knowing either of them. Love is an affection already form and inclined with fervour to the good of Conformity, Amity is a love of mutual well-wishing, grounded upon communication. Whence may be inferred that all those who love, are not friends, but all such as are true friends, necessarily love. The meanest people may love the most eminent; but there can be no Amity, since they therein find not correspondence. There are entranced lovers in the world, who are enamoured 
Miserable lovers.  of all beauties, none returning them love again: which deserves either laughter, or compassion, seeing they may directly go to the first of Beauties, where they shall find reciprocal contentment. After love, followeth concord, which is the fruit of it, in the union of judgement and will.  
Now, well to understand how to choose good Amity's; the Species or kind of them must be known; wherein I find that one Hippodamus a great Platonic Philosopher hit right, when he established three sorts of 
Three sorts of amity.  Amity's, whereof, one belongs to beasts, the other to men, and the third to Demigods.  
Animall-Amities are those which subsist only in 
Animal-amity.  Nature, and which are common to us with beasts. Thus (saith S. Augustine) a mother which loveth 
Pro mugno laudarurus sum in homine, quod videam in Tigride. August. 410. homil. 38.  her children for flesh and blood's sake, not otherwise raising her thoughts towards God, doth but as a Hen, a Dove, a Tigress, a Serpent, and so many other living creatures, which have so great affection towards their little ones. It is not that these Amity's are not very necessary, since Nature inspires them, and poureth them into the veins with the soul by admirable infusions, which preserve the estate of the world, entire. It is good, much to affect ones own, but we must build upon the first elements of Nature; and by Grace and Reason raise the edifice of true charity. Parents ought to love their children as a part of their own bodies, which Nature hath separated from themselves: But, Amity should never divide their hearts. Children are bound to love their parents, as fishes their water. Brother's cannot too much esteem the love and Concord which they mutually maintain together. A husband and a wife are bound to a most strict commerce of Amity, since as God produced a word in heaven, and with the word the holy Ghost: So, he hath been pleased to create Adam on earth, as his own Image, and out of this Image, he hath drawn Eve to be unto a man a spirit of peace, and a love of a perpetual lasting.  
There is no doubt, but that to fail in these laws, and to break the Knots which God hath tied with his own hands for all the living, is a vice which surpasseth all kind of brutishness. Notwithstanding, the evil manners of men corrupt things the most sacred, and are the cause that some love their own Blood fare above God himself, and others even furiously persecute them. I put likewise in the number of animall-Amities all such as love one another for sport, for the Belly, and Lust: For they have no other scope; they do not much better than wanton whelps who cease not to run up and down turn after turn, dallying and playing one with another. And such as love their wives not otherwise then for pleasure, do like the male Crevisse, who in his little Cavern hath 
〈…〉 the 〈◊〉 of nature.  many females, for whom he fights as for an Empire. All this kind of proceeding smells too much of the brute beast, nor can it have any merit in heaven.  
The Amity's of men are those which are exercised with reason, and are ordinarily built upon three foundations 
Humane Amity's, and their foundation.  which Aristotle expresseth in the Treatise he wrote of it, which are utility, pleasure, and moral virtue. Utility, is now adays the most common Cement of worldly Amity's, and you find few friends who hold it not in much esteem. It is that, which hath raised Towns, Cities, and the society of men; That, which having raised, maintaineth them by mutual offices rendered one another in the necessities of ordinary life. The hand must wash the hand, and the finger, the finger. One contributes his counsel, another his industry, another his abilities, another his pain, one his pen, another his tongue, and another his feet. All set themselves a-work, to do service to Amity. I know Philosophers will say, that this is somewhat mercenary; it notwithstanding preserveth communities, and he who would take it out of the world should find almost nothing in it, but a mere shadow of Amity.  
Particular Interest is (as it were) the fift Gospel of 
Interest the fift Gospel of many.  Christianity depraved in the minds of many, and is the great God of the Time, to whom millions of souls do homage. Think not that so many busy spirits, and men 
Avaru● Evangeliorum irrisor, transgressórque perpetuu●. Climach. Grad. 16.  fervent to make a fortune, care much for Idle friends, although they were endowed with all the virtues of the Anchorets of the wilderness. They esteem not gods of clay, although they had all the curious draughts of Polycletus upon them: It is gods of Gold and silver they would have, men which may give them whatsoever they desire. They carry these dispositions even to Altars, and make piety itself mercenary; For we see, many are little enough moved to hear of the greatest Saints in heaven, when a discourse is made of their excellent virtues: but, if peradventure an extraordinary cure happen, thither they run by heaps, and the saint which is the author of them hath magnificent Altars waited on by many vows, offerings, 
Tertull. in lib. ad Natiaver. D●i vero qui magis tributary, magis sancti majestas constituitur in quaestum, venditis totam divinitatem, non licet eam gratis coli. Amity's of pleasure. Merry jests.  and Candles. It is the poverty of the heart of man to measure all things by proper interest, but it is a maxim deep-settled through all Ages in the opinion of the multitude, and one may truly say, that to him utility is the mother of the Gods. Others who have a more gentle spirit seek for pleasure in their affections. I do not say those pleasures, which we have placed in Animal Amity's, but some worthy recreation, as that of the Mathematics, of Eloquence, of Poesy, of Painting, of Music, ingenuous Sports, pleasant jests, most witty and acquaint. This hath much predominance upon spirits who love recreative pastime, and I think the seven Sages of Greece, should they live again, would die for hunger in that house, where one who can jest with a good grace might make a brave fortune. These kind of amities although they may for a time be sweet to sense, are subject to change according to the diversity of Ages, seasons, humours, employments, and occasions.  
The best men tie themselves to the honesty of moral 
Amity's grounded upon Honesty.  virtues, and singularly love one who is wise, prudent, courageous, just, temperate, liberal, magnificent, weighing all this in the course of a life suitable to Aristotle's Philosophy, and do please themselves with the familiarity of such a man, and are entertained by a Correspondence of manners, a delightful conversation, and an affection very sincere, but not extraordinary.  
The third sort of Amity's, which the Pythagorean 
Amity of Demigods.  calleth, of Demigods, and which we may attribute to the most rare and excellent soul, is, among such as mutually love one another, not for ordinary virtues, but for celestial qualities, graces, and singular gifts of God, and interchangeably love in an extatick manner, to wit, by a rapture of spirit, of heart, and affection, which causeth all things to be common among them, so much as virtue and honesty permitteth. Such was the Amity of the first Christians, of whom, with much wonder, the Pagans said; Behold, how 
Vide ut invicem se diligant & pro alterutro morisint parati. Tertull. Apolog.  they love one another! See how ready they are to die each for other: and that which the Poets found to be a matter so rare, reckoning up some few parts of true friends. Christianity made it appear, at that time, in as many subjects as it had men. But at this present, the multiplication of persons hath abbreviated the extent of charity. That generous spirit (which borrowed the golden wings of the dove of the Prophet, to fly throughout the world, and to sacrifice itself for a neighbour) is waxed cold, and rests immured within its little house, busing itself almost wholly in the preservation of its Individuums.  
From the discourse of these sorts of Amity, it is now much more easy to judge of the conditions of a good friend, then to meet with the effects of it: but if you will follow the way I shall prescribe, I will show you what choice is to be used.  
First I am of Aristotle's opinion, that Great ones 
Qualities of a good friend. Great men are no● ordinarily the best friends.  (to speak according to the ordinary course of life) are not very fit for Amity's, because they love themselves too much, and make use of men as of Instruments for their purposes, looking after nothing but the establishment of their own greatness: Besides the licentious life they commonly lead in a fortune which permits them all, is the cause that good men love them not, unless they become as virtuous and magnificent, as they are powerful. Which is the cause, that being usually encompassed with a multitude of flatterers, or of intercessed people, who labour to enrich themselves in the manage of their affairs, they have very few good friends. But there are some among them, who are endowed with so eminent virtues, affability, and bounty, that they win affections, and find friends, who would willingly offer themselves up as a sacrifice for their glory. Amity desireth equality; If it find it not, it makes it: and although one cannot always exact it in an Arithmetical proportion, and that two friends of divers qualities cannot be in all kinds equal in offices rendered one to another, yet it is ever necessary therein to observe some proportion; which many great ones do not, thinking all is due to them, and that having usurped the blood and sweat of men, they are but victim born to be sacrificed to their magnificence. Which made the great Aristotle say, That if of two friends the one should become a God, he would cease to be a friend. In 
Arist. 8. & 9 Moral.  which he spoke as a man, and a man ignorant of the Divinity; For he figured to himself a god of a luskish and proud humour, wholly busied within himself, and disesteeming all whatsoever under himself. But had he 
Tertull. contra Marcionem. Nihil tam Deo dignum, quam salus hominis.  known the ineffable sweetness of the divine Bounty, he would rather with Tertullian have said, that there is nothing so worthy of God, as the salvation of man.  
Secondly, it is most certain, that those who love too much, are not very proper for great and strong amities, 
Who loves too much, loveth little.  for with over much eagerness to love all, they love nothing. You find men of honour in the world, who are extremely endearing, and who create amities innumerable, 
Men too endearing incapable of amity.  their heart resembleth the weathercock on a steeple which turns with every wind; they no sooner see one, but they oppress him with favours, promises and courtesies: but such amities resemble those bubbles of water which rise upon a river during the time of a shower, and break as soon as they grow. Birds, which have yet the shell on their backs are taken with the sweetness of their bait, and think they have gotten their favour upon the first acquaintance; but the prudent well see, that they say to all the world, is not spoken to them.  
They do as Plato, who in the beginning thought 
The Judgement of Plato. Seneca lib. 6. de Benefic. c. 18. Negavit illi jam apud Platonem positum, officium. One must not adhere too much to one's self to be a good friend.  himself much obliged to a Ferryman, that courteously without ask aught, had wafted him, imagining this was done in respect of his merit, but when he afterward perceived, he thus entertained persons of the meanest condition, He then could well say, Friend, I owe thee nothing.  
Moreover, we may truly affirm, that such are never good friends, who too much adhere to themselves, and rest fully satisfied with themselves; For amity being a certain transportment of a friend to a friend, it loveth to go out and readily secure such as stand in need of its help: but the man who is fast tied to his own interests, captived by his own employments, irrevocably squared out to his own hours, is a piece not to be stirred, 
Unequal spirits.  but with many engines. Add also to those the fantastical suspicions, and unequal spirits, who daily at least, have some fit of folly; and infinitely vary both in manners and visage, which maketh poor Amity to far ill in their hands. But prudent, and patiented friends, who have need of them, strive to find out the folds of their hearts, to observe their good fits, and the lightsome seasons of their mind.  
Lastly, I would banish out of the temple of Amity 
Men banished from the Temple of amity.  all wicked lives, and evil humours, weak brains, and indiscreet tongues, which are not retentive of a secret; the overcurious, the light, the exorbitant, flouters, Buffoons, the sad, mischievous murmurers, great talkers, and the Ceremonious.  
To choose a friend well, it is necessary he be honest, 
The choice of a friend.  prudent, of a good disposition, cordial, obliging, faithful, and patiented. Honesty is the foundation of all the most eminent amities; without which there is not any thing can be of a solid subsistence. Prudence is the instrument for every thing, and the Rule of all the actions of man's life. Good disposition seasoneth the greatest pleasures of conversation. Cordiality makes a commixion of hearts and minds, which is the principal scope of Amity. Obligations, maintained by mutual offices, straightly knit affections. Fidelity, which is an unmoveable rock against all the assaults of men and time, which tend to the division of hearts; and Patience in the defects of a friend, is that which crowneth the perfections of Love.   

§. 4. Of Amity between persons of different Sex.  
I Hold myself obliged by the necessity of the subject, to speak here of the Amity of different Sexes, especially, between people of the world, as also, because many complain, that men of our profession would willingly handle them as Hermit's of Thebais, and wholly forbid them the conversation of women; I will deliver what conscience and civility permit in this. It is often asked whether women be capable of good Amity, and whether it may be tied between sex and sex out of wedlock-bands?  
This is a very hard question for me to resolve, because, having all my time been employed (according to the laws of my profession) to court wisdom and virtue, and having had little practice, but amongst the sagest and most virtuous women, it is not so easy for me to judge of the humours of such as are bred otherwise.  
If we consult with Histories, we see millions of Lovers, who complain of the infidelity of their Mistresses: On the other side, women wage war with men, ceasing not to accuse their inconstancy: and all your feigned Romans eternally chant forth the same song, which were able to tyre spirits any thing serious: but it is evident, that these vices with which they reproach one another, chastising with severity, that, which they commit through idleness, proceedeth not so much from sex, as from the nature of a shameful passion of love, which hath no more stability, than the wind in the Spring, and the sea in a Calm.  
It is certain, that evil love hath its disloyal ones every where but since we are insensibly engaged to treat of Amity, after so many excellent pens who have handled the same subject; we are rather to observe what is commonly done in virtuous love, then that which is acted out of the madness of Concupiscence.  
Some have thought, women were not so proper for 
Reasons for which women seem less capable of Amity.  Amity's, because they resemble a cloud in the Rainbow, which receiveth the impression of all colours in their natural diversified forms: besides, for that according to Pliny, they are imaginative more than any creature in the world, which suggesteth to them infinite many 
Velocitas cogitationum, animi celeritas, & ingeni● varictas multiformes illis nota● imprim●t. Plin. l. 7 cap. 12.  thoughts, divers inflexions of the heart, tastes, distastes, which thrust on one another as the waves of the sea. They likewise thereunto add, that they very easily are turmoiled with suspicions, jealousies, and distrusts; the least matters offend them, and many once displeased, are irreconcilable. And which is more, that the most part of them have narrow hearts, and hands nor open enough to help their good friends at a need, they being ordinarily much tied to the interest of their family; so that there are many who love not so much for love, as for gain. 
Reasons for the modest love of women. Amor magis lentitur cum prodit eum indigentia August. l. 10. de Trin. c. 12 S. Thom. 1. 2 q 25.   
This may well happen in certain humours, but there are some grievous spirits, who do not so easily receive the impressions of these ill qualities, and who persevere till death in an unshaken constancy of affection. And verily it seemeth, that contrary to what hath been spoken, nature more favoureth them therein, because Love, as saith S. Thomas after S. Augustine, appears best in indigence, and those love most fervently and powerfully, who besides other attractives see themselves bound unto it by some kind of necessity. Now, the inclination which a woman hath towards man, is (as it were) necessary: For it is more easy for a man to be without a woman (having regard to spiritual and temporal assistances, as Sacraments and Physic) then for a woman to be without a man. Adam was for a while all alone in Paradise, in a  world, but God permitted not that Eve should be there alone one moment: for this solitude would have gone hard with her to see so many living creatures, and in so divers kinds, and not meet with one to bear her resemblance.  
This being so, one may with reason say, that as we love things necessary, with more endeavour and stability, so women are tied with the more indissoluble chains in virtuous inclinations. But not to speak of this motive (which proceeding from a mere motion of nature) cannot be the most generous; we find men, who rest upon Indifferency, and seek nothing but to content their own senses and to idolatrize themselves: but women very rarely stay upon neutrality, needs they must love or hate, there is no third condition for them; and since, according to the Philosopher, it is fit to judge of Contraries by proportion, we will truly say, that if they be susceptible of the impressions of hatred above all may be said, so are they likewise capable of noble Amity's. They think themselves more engaged in honour to entertain them when they have begun, fearing to be disparaged by the multitude of wand'ring and flitting affections.  
Add also to this, that they are more tender than men, and that softness of temperature, is to love, as the air to the ray of the Sun, seeing the affections more easily penetrate where they find dispositions which have already prepared a way for them. Lastly, as they commonly are more devout and religious than men, so they observe virtuous Amity's with respect, and entertain them out of conscience, and especially such as are grounded on piety, which is the thing that most powerfully predominateth over their heart.  
I speak this in respect of those who are very virtuous, but as we find, few rare virtues and strong amities accompanied with all necessary circumstances, are not so frequent in their sex.  
It seemeth also, that the Examples we derive as well from Nature, as Civil life, insensibly lead us to the proof of that which we propose.  
Among living creatures, the Females are the more 
Bodin. Theatri nature. l. 3. sect. 6.  sharp and ardent, as well in their affection as in their anger: the cuttlefish takes revenge on that which striketh her male; but the male flieth if his female catch a blow, as Aristotle hath observed in the ninth book of his living Creatures. I well remember the Ancients studiously reckoned up the pairs of friends which they had observed throughout all Ages, and that Lucian 
Luc. Toxatis.  in his Toxaris, hath strange examples of amity between men, as of him who left his whole family in a fire, to carry out his dearest friend on his shoulders: and of another, who gave his own eyes for the ransom of him whom he most tenderly affected. But who likewise would in particular decipher the notable acts of love, which many wives have witnessed to their husbands, should find wherewith to be moved to admiration, and to settle his constancy. If we talk of preserving a widowhood, inaccessible to second wedlocks, 
Rare amity's of women. Valer. Max. l. 4 c. 6.  how many may we find of them, even in Gentilism, who, after the death of their dear husbands have said, (what the ancient Valeria did) My husband is dead to others, but not to me. If we speak of suffering great toils of body, Queen Hipsicrates followed King Mithridates her husband, as one of his bravest Captains, gallautly corvetting a horse, and galloping through snows and wildernesses not to be separated from him. If we discourse of banishment and ignominies, Sulpitia broke up doors and locks to run 
Idem lib. 6. cap. 7.  (maugre her mother) after her exiled husband, among the proscripts of the Triumvirate. If imprisonments be 
Lipsii exem. politica.  put into the list of account, Eponia was nine years shut up with her husband in the hollow cavern of a Tomb. If you regard maladies, a daughter of Spain, daily 
Rhod. Santius histor. Hispan. p. 1. cap. 4. Scard. lib. 3. hist. Paravinae.  with her tongue, licked the envenomed wound of King Edward of England her dear husband. If you look on the terrible of terribles, death; Blanch, the Italian Lady, scorning the flatteries of the Tyrant Actolin, who passionately wooed her, (captive though she were) escaping out of the hands of soldiers, she went to breathe out her life upon the tomb of him to whom she first of all had given her heart and affections. Yea, I much more admire those, who willingly have deprived themselves of all riches, greatness, yea even of the presence of their husbands, whom they dearly loved, to procure them liberty, wealth, and honour. Cedrenus 
Cedrens. in Epirom. hist p. 596.  observeth in his history, that Constantine the ninth, exercising tyranny, as well in matter of love, as within his Empire, caused the Roman Argyropylus to be sought out, and commanded him to repudiate his wife, whom he had lawfully married, to take his daughter, on condition that he would make him Cesar, and associate him with himself in his dignity: but if he condescended not to his will, he threatened to pull out his eyes, and to make him all the days of his life miserable. The 
Excellent loyalty of a Lady.  Lady, who was present, seeing her husband involved in all the perplexities that might be, and ignorant what answer to give unto the Emperor. Ah Sir (said she) I see you are much hindered in a brave way, if it only rest in your wife, that you be not great and happy; I freely deprive myself of all, yea, of your company (which is more precious to me then all the Empires of the world) rather than prejudice your fortune; For 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  know, I love you better than myself: And saying this, she cut off her hair; and voluntarily entered into a Monastery, which the other was willing enough to suffer, preferring ambition before love, a matter very ordinary among great ones.  
Out of all this it may be inferred, that women are to be found very virtuous, and most constant in their affections. But the question I proposed in the second place, if in case it so fall out, whether amities may be fixed out of marriage, between sex and sex, is a passage very dangerous, and worldlings must not think it strange, if I look into it with much precantion. It is 
Rodomanto of Pelagius, Jerem, in Pelagium.  a pleasant thing to hear how Pelagius the Arch-heretick talks in S. Jerome; For he makes a Rhodomantade suitable to a spirit swollen up with pride, and blinded within the opinion of his own worth, There are (saith he) who shut themselves within cells, and never see the face of any one woman, yet suffer themselves to be enslamed with love, and tormented with desires: which may very well happen, for they are miserable creatures, who well deserve to be so handled. As for me, I freely profess, I am daily environed with an host of women, and feel not the least spark of concupiscence. S. Basil 
S. Basil de Virginita●e. Inclination of sex to sex.  was of another opinion, when he showeth, that a man, who perpetually converseth with women, and saith he feeleth not any touch thereof, participateth not at all of humane nature, but rather is some extraordinary prodigy; For, as he learnedly disputeth in the Book he composed of Virginity, the body of a woman is (as it were) a section, and a fragment of that, of 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Dangerous autractives in the conversation with women.  the first man, which is the cause he naturally desireth her, as a part taken from himself. The palm hath not more inclination to the palm, nor the iron to the adamant, than one sex hath towards another. When God created the mother of the living, it is written (he built) as if the Scripture would say, That woman is a house 
Aedificavit dominus costam quàm tulerat de Adam in mulierem Gen. 2. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. S. Basil. ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Clem. Alex. paedag. l. 3.  wherein the heart of man lodgeth, but too often. Sole glances (saith this great man) are spiritual hands, which cause wonderful effects; From thence the first battery of Concupiscence beginneth, as saith Clemens Alexandrinus. Add, that after the corruption of sin, we have in us an evil source of carnal desire, which floweth from the bottom of our soul by our five senses, as by so many conduit-pipes. Nature is extremely subtle and busy, and when one hath a hundred times together by strong hand chased it away, a hundred times it returneth; It insinuates itself, it presseth forward with sweet violences, with charming sweetnesses, it insensibly spinneth the web, and doth what it list.  
Moreover, it is seconded with a certain curiosity, to know all that which is most pernicious to it. It kicketh against the laws of honesty and modesty, and thinks the forbiddance of an evil is the greatest of all torments. It will know too much, to be chaste, and makes a snare to itself of proper science. O God of purity, how many do we now adays see, who, to give entrance to a wicked curiosity, through too free conversation, receive as many wounds as they give glances, and as many deaths as beauty shoots arrows against them! Solomon, who well knew the effect of this passion, said: Thy eyes shall see foreign women, and thy heart shall 
Prov. 23. Oculi tui videbunt extraneas, & cor tuum loquetur perversa, etc.  entertain a very evil discourse within thee: Thou shalt be as one fast asleep in the midst of the waves of the sea, or as a lazy plot, who, oppressed with drowsiness, hath forsaken the helm. Thou wilt say, It is true, they struck me, but I feel no pain of it: They have drawn me this way and that way, but I am not sensible of it, when shall I be awakened, to be again drunk with love, and to return to my accustomed pleasures? See how a senseless soul talketh, which having not well guarded its senses in the first assault, delivereth the heart over as a prey, and sinks into the bottom of Abyss. But to rest within the limits of honest 
Modest amities with women should always be handled with much precaution.  amities, it is undoubted one cannot use too much precaution, so subtle and penetrative are the stings thereof, especially, when it is sharpened by Beauty, Bounty, and Benefits. Yea, misery therein doth sometimes bear so sensible a part, that a beautiful and virtuous woman, being in her innocency afflicted, shooteth 
Magnus amor est, qui de misericordia venit 8. Cant. 6.  arrows of victorious love into the heart of man: And very well the Philosopher Seneca hath observed, that love is great, when it grows out of commiseration.  
It is true which Cassidorus said in the book of 
Cassiod. de amicitia.  Amity, that one affection degenerateth insensibly into another. Love, in the beginning, is wholly divine, than it becometh humane, being yet within the limits of reason: From humane it passeth to natural, wherein 
Degeneration-amity.  it quickly feels the sting of nature, and the first fervour of Concupiscence. From natural, it becometh officious, entertaining itself with discourses, compliments, complacence, offices, and services. From officious, it most times becometh carnal, and from carnal, absolutely unchaste.  
jamblichus, a Philosopher, very curious, saith, that 
Observation of jamblichus applied to the amities of women.  those who professed to consult with spirits by this divine operation; as is pretended, saw in the beginning obscurities, spectres, and night; but persisting in their search they perceived the air by little and little waxed bright with a pleasing serenity, and the apparitions became more lightsome. It falleth out quite otherwise in the matter of Amity's, indiscreetly tied with women: For at first, those shows are fair and specious, but the issues of them (if one be not heedful) are black and hideous. A soul which feareth God, might sometimes be very confident among such as make profession to be none of the honestest, because it is prevented by some aversion which hindereth its perdition; but virtue, consorted by sweet disposition, hath another manner of power: for it insinuateth itself into the soul with admirations and satisfactions, which attract the inclination before the consideration can be permitted to frame any further discourse. So S. Bonaventure in 
S. Bon. l. de Purit. Conf.  the Treatise he composed of the Purity of Confession, saith, The Amity of virtuous women is more to be feared, and the testimonies of mutual affections which one sex rendereth to another, are infinitely able to enkindle love. One, who is not extremely exorbitant, beginneth not the practice of vice on the top; iniquity hath its apprenticeships, none comes in an instant to the utmost of impudence. Above all, heed must be had of the beginnings, before vice take much predominance to our prejudice.  
Have you observed what a stone doth thrown into a 
S. Basil de Virginitate.  pond? it maketh at first a small circle, which causeth another, and the other a third, the third out of that produceth a fourth, and they are still infinitely upon 
A notable comparison of S. Basil. Subtleties of the passion of love.  increase so much, that the water only curled with a little pebble, makes a long chain of circles, which fill up the total superficies. This happeneth in love, it falls into our heart not perceived, nor foreseen, and in the beginning causeth some slight touch, which, according as it is entertained, distends itself, and is in such sort multiplied, that it replenisheth the whole capacity of our soul with arrows and chain-links, which we cannot but with much labour dissolve and unloose. A spirit which before rested in a generous liberty becomes captive. This imperious visage perpetually knocks at the gate of his heart. It enters into game, study, repose, repast, sleep and action. It insinuateth itself into prayer, with distractions pleasingly troublesome, it busieth the thoughts, it exerciseth the discourse, it inflameth the desire, to go, to visit, to speak; it replenisheth the memory with what is past, the imagination with the future, and the present, with disturbance. A soul finds it is not well, that it dissolves, that it consumes by the senses, and hath already dried up all its smiling beauties, and weakened that vigour, which is in devotion. It notwithstanding flattereth itself with the colour of innocency; it feigneth to itself that this is an act of charity; that it is a duty of civility; that it is an act of the soul that burns not but for virtue; but the mischief is, this soul is not an intelligence separated from matter, and that in the guest thereof, we pass by the veil of body, which becometh a snare to chastity.  
How many Bulls have we seen feeding in a pasture, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  strong and sound, who having heedlessly swallowed a little worm called by the Grecians, The fire of 
Aelian. de animal. l. 6. cap. 35. Love compared to the fire of Oxen.  Oxen, become meager and faint, retaining nothing at all of their bodies but bones and figure? And how many great spirits have we beheld which were in excellent state, and in full vigour of the functions of intellectual life; who, by approaching over-near to this sex, have entered into affections of fire and flames: which, like little creeping serpents, have stolen into their hearts and destroyed virtue? I will not soil the purity of my Pen with the exorbitancies, which both ancient and modern histories have observed upon this subject. I pass over it, as bees over hemlock, without any stay, it seeming unto me that many Authors had done better to have covered the stains of their mother, then to have divulged them to malign spirits, who make use of poison, and readily impute the disorders of particular, to the general body. 
The opinion of Fathers concerning the Amity of women.   
All I have said hereupon hath been to suit myself to the sense of Scripture, and holy Fathers who so notably have condemned the overmuch familiar conversation with women, and if they seem sometimes to speak of it with too much rigour, it is for that in great crimes the evil might be diverted by exaggeration of the peril, to the end, that since the fire is to be feared, the very smoke might be avoided.  
It is not to be wondered at what the Wiseman said, 
Prov. 6. 27.  That the too free familiarity with women was a firebrand in the bosom: That S. Ephraim thought it was as easy to live among burning-coals, as to converse with this sex, and not to wound the soul: That S. Bernard 
Bern. ser. 64 in Cant.  wrote, that to be always among women without hurt, was to do more then to raise the dead: That, S. 
Cyp. de singular. Cler. S. H●ron. ad Nepotian.  Cyprian imagined it was to erect a precipice, to be addicted to such society: That S. Jerome advised, that we should either equally love them all, or equally not know them.  
We see many shipwracked fools standing on promontory 
Shipwrecks happened by ●he love of women.  tops, who tell us of the ruins which these passions have caused. Simon Magus was undone by a Helen, being more bewitched by her love, than he enchanted others by his sorcery. Appelles' was corrupted 
Ex monoeis.  by Philumene: Montanus, by Prisca and Maximilla: Donatus, by Lucilia: Elpidius, by Agape. Women have ended among all these, what Magic and Heresy had but begun. O good God what man would not be astonished at the Roman Macarius, who having overcome love in the world, was surprised in the wilderness by finding a woman's shoe? To conclude, Heaven is most happy, said Tertullian very wittily, 
In coelo non Angelus & Angela. Tertul. adversus Val.  because, though it hath Angels, it hath not Angelicals; though it hath a God, it hath no Goddesses; and it might be feared, if there were diversity of Sex there, it would alter something of its tranquillity.  
So many great men, who were much accomplished in sanctity, have thought of women upon the brink of the grave, and have found, we must ever fear, that we may never fall. Besides, I leave you to think with what conscience a spruce youth who hath a body full of blood, and a spirit replenished with flames, can say, He will love God in his works, and that he findeth not any one better, than a handsome woman. He knoweth how to manage his love, he will take in no more fire than he list and this fire shall not burn, but at his discretion. This beauty shall serve to ray him towards God; he will pass from the creature to the Creator without any difficulty: It is a ladder of gold, which God hath set for him to climb up into heaven by. But, it is to be doubted lest it prove Archimedes his engine, whereon the higher they mounted, the lower they descended. Such an one by this way thinks to touch heaven with a finger, who already hath a foot in hell. But since I writ this Treatise for Courtiers, and for the well-ordering of divine and humane love; I neither 
That there may be spiritual Amity's between persons of different Sexes, endowed with great virtue and rare prudence. Nec inferorum reguum in terra. Sap. 1.  must, nor will, by my discourse put any prejudice upon the virtuous, and civil Amity's which may be between persons of different sex, who are endowed with singular and excellent virtues, and who manage their affections with admirable discretion: which, although rarely, may be done; and if there be any who abuse it, it is not fit, by reason of blasted members, to blame sound parts, and suspect them of corruption; nor to censure the actions of many great Saints, who, being obliged by duty to converse with other sex than their own, have therein comported themselves with so much prudence and chariness.  
S. Augustine, in the fourth Book of the City of God, saith, The Ancients had three Goddesses of Love; one for the irregular, another for the married, and a third for Virgins. We must not think the kingdom of hell perpetually swayeth upon the earth (to speak with the Wiseman) and that one cannot look on a woman, & not take in the fire of evil love. How many be the●e, who, wholly are estranged from all tender and affectionate inclinations? Briars and thorns are as full of courtesy as their greetings, and the ice of Scythia is not more cold than their conversation. How many do we find, who, having their spirits wholly possessed by other passions; one of Ambition, another of Avarice, another of Revenge, another of Envy, another transported by the solicitude of a suit, and the turmoil of a family who think very little upon love? How many other are there, from whom study, affairs, and charges (wherein they strive supereminently to transcend) free their minds from all other thoughts? And how many Ladies see we in the world, with a countenance ever smiling, of a humour cheerful and conversation most pleasing who make love to wits and spirits, as Bees to flowers, but have with the body no commerce at all?  
But, if this may sometimes proceed from humour; by a much stronger reason we must think, great souls, that are powerfully possessed by the love of God which replenisheth the whole latitude of their hearts, and who live in continual exercises of prayer and mortification, may converse with women for the affairs of salvation, by a conversation sweetly grave, and simply prudent, not changing the love which they bear to the virtue of chastity.  
It is an act of a base or malign spirit, to measure all by ones own self, and to think that, what he would do in a slippery occasion, must be done by all such who are fare otherwise eminent in grace and virtue, then are the ordinary sort of men.  
The Author of the theatre of Nature holdeth, 
The Basilisk cannot be enchanted.  that the Basilisk alone, among serpents, cannot be enchanted; and, I dare affirm there are men, who have the like privilege, and have their eyes love-proof, and their hearts shut up against all the assaults of concupiscence, whether it proceed from singular habits of virtue, or whether it be some very extraordinary gift from God. Democritus voluntarily made himself 
Tertul. Apologeticu●  blind, by looking steadfastly on the beams of the sun, to free himself from the importunities of the love of women; He (perhaps) shut up two gates against love, to open a thousand to his imagination. Origen deprived himself of the distinction of sex, to rebate the stings of sensuality, which bred him much mischief. Grace, and the gift of God, doth more than all the endeavours of men, it forsaketh not those, who, by obligation of their charge, and out of the necessity of their profession, converse with women, within all the limits and due proportions of decorum.  
The Ecclesiastical History assureth us, that the glorious 
The extraordinary practice of S. Athanasius.  S. Athanasius, seeing himself persecuted by the Arrians with rage, thirsty of his blood, and not knowing whom to trust, hid himself in the nighttime in the house of a devout Virgin, where he was long concealed, and protected against the fury of his persecutors. Whosoever will weigh this, shall find it an extraordinary 
Soz. l. 5. c 6. Palladius.  act, for the history saith, the Virgin was a miracle of beauty; and being not fully twenty years of age, had made a vow to preserve a perpetual virginity to God. It much amazed her at first, seeing the great Prelate had chosen her little habitation for the place of his retreat: but he assuring her it was the will of God, she entertained him with an open heart, and served him with so much purity, obedience, and reverence, that she seemed to have lodged an Angel, not a Man in her house.  
She furnished him with all necessaries for life, she washed his feet; yea, she borrowed Books for him, with singular heed, that he might entertain time in this his imprisonment. Cardinal Baronius calleth this history into question, and thinks it an invention of Arrius his side, but there is very little appearance, seeing the Arrians of that time never objected it to S. Athanasius, as being a matter out of their knowledge. And although this great man, in his Apology, hath said nothing of it, where he speaketh of his flights and retreats, this, notwithstanding, nothing at all lesseneth the truth of it, since there are many things may very innocently be done by prudent men, which are not necessary to be published to all the world.  
And needs must he have had little judgement to have vaunted this accident before his enemies, whereof they would have taken but too much occasion to calumniate him. And as for that which Baronius saith, that it only belonged to widows to wash the feet of Saints, it is true, according to the ordinary proceed of the Church, and the liberty of its functions; but here the question is of an outrageous persecution, and of an act, out of common practice, and there is not any reason which can essicaciously prove this history to be invented, seeing it is faithfully set down by Sozomen and Palladius, two great admirers of the virtues of S. Athanasius; whereof the one giveth so evident proofs, that he witnesseth he had seen the same Virgin when she was seventy years old, and saith this relation was confirmed to him by Priests of Alexandria. I hold it more admirable than imitable, and that although the Hebrew Children were once preserved in the furnace by miracle, one must not therefore desperately throw himself, through imprudence, among coals; but ever confess the hand of God is able to safeguard those in perils, who have not despaired in the peril, but who by necessity become therein engaged.  
What shall we say of S. John chrysostom? Is 
Lusiaca. Amity of S. John chrysostom, with a Lady named Olympias.  there a man more austere in his life, and more vehement in the matters of virtuous Amity's? It is a strange thing to read the letters he writes from the place of his banishment to his dear Olympias. He saluteth her with openness of most ardent affections, he calleth her his Saint, and his venerable Lady; sometimes he instructs and encourageth her by sublime, grave discourses, addressing Epistles to her, to be valued with whole Books. Another while he descendeth into particulars, he recounts unto her his voyages, his adventures, his comforts, his discomforts; He omits nothing of the condition of his health, of the disposition of his body, of his chamber, of his habit, of his ordinary exercises in this ugly place, whereunto he is banished. He protesteth he is much troubled he sees her not, he assures her, all his pains are nothing in comparison of the want of such an one whom he so tenderly loved, which he confirmed unto her by the example of S. Paul, who challenged 
S. Paul tender in holy affections.  Angels and Devils, who mocked at all persecutions, who was ready to carry all hell on his shoulders (had it been possible) out of the desire he had to suffer. And yet the separation of Titus, his wellbeloved Disciple, afflicted him so much, that he could not give his thoughts any repose. He dilates much upon this affection of S. Paul, to excuse his own, which shown itself at the height, when the news was brought him of the sickness of the same Olympias: For than it was, when the winters of Scythia, the countenances of Barbarians, the hideous roughness of some place where it seemed Nature had never been, the noise of war, and the incursions of soldiers fleshed in massacres and spoils, are nothing in comparison of the affliction he feels for the indisposition of this dear Virgin. He conjureth her by all things the most precious to tender her health, he sendeth her to skilful Physicians, he teacheth her medicinal drugs which help himself, he promiseth her long letters, which she infinitely loved; so that she take care of her, health, he assureth her, as it were in the spirit of prophecy, that he must visit her again to comfort his cares, wipe away his tears, and replenish his heart with satisfaction. What can be more lovely, what more affectionate, than this whole discourse?  
Saint Jerome is in the same passions for Saint Paula. 
Great affection of S. Hierom toward Sancta Paula. S. Hierome. in Epitaph. Paulae.  All the splendour of Rome's greatness, all the riches of the earth, are nothing with him in comparison of his little Bethleem, made resplendent by the virtues of this noble Lady. He telleth us that Pilgrims who come from the remotest confines of the world cannot see any thing, in all the affluent wealth thereof comparable to her. When he goes about to praise her, he wisheth all the members of his body were changed into tongue, and that he were nought but voice, to be throughout, the whole Universe, the Trumpet of her praises. He describeth her life and death with ecstasies he plays the Poet in his old age to make her an Epitaph and fetcheth out a pedigree for her from the ashes of old Troy, and the conquests of Agamemnon. He formerly had made himself a Secretary to her and her daughter, enditing their letters for them to invite Marcelia their companion into the solitudes of Bethleem. When he thinks of her coming, all the holy land is turned topsie-turvey, the hillocks leap for joy, the fields deck themselves in their best beauties, the rivers carry the news thereof to the meadows, squadrons of religious, and virgins go before; there is nothing but salutations and transportations, and rejoicings incomparable: Out of which we may conclude, Saints have very lively affections towards all they love.  
That blessed Prelate, the Bishop of Geneva had 
The affectionare ●etter of my Lord Bishop of Geneva.  the same spirit for his Philothea. For behold how he speaks of her in the first letter of his second Book. When you unfolded yourself to me more particularly, it was an admirable joy to my soul that I might more and more comfort yours, which made me believe that God had given me to you, not imagining any thing might be added to the affection I felt in my mind and especially when I prayed for you: But now (my dear daughter there hath upon it succeeded a new business which to my seeming cannot benamed, but the effect of it is only a great interior sweetness, which I have, to wish you all the perfections of the love of God and all other spiritual benedictions. In the 16 Epistle he saith, It is a dew which moisteneth his heart without blow or noise; I speak before the God of my heart, and yours; every affection hath its particular difference one from another: That which I bear you hath a certain particularity which infinitely comforteth me, and to say all, it is infinitely available for me. Account this as an irrefragable verity, and do not you doubt it at all. Then he adds, when many particular persons recommended to him, come into his mind, she is always the first, or the last, who there longest abideth.  
See how the ways of the just are hidden, and leave no prints to follow them by the tracks. An ill informed Censurer would here have wrinkled the brow, he would have said with a supercilious countenance, a severe aspect, in the words of Cato: That, it must needs be a manifest snare of Satan, to have a woman's face in his mind in the midst of his prayers. and yet we know this worthy man lived in most perfect purity, in imitation of immaterial Angels. This teacheth, us, 
Necessitudo Christi glutine copulata quam non utilitas ●ei familiatis, non subdola & palpans adulatio, sed Dei timor & divinarum scripturarum studia conciliant. S. Hierom.  there may be amity between Sex and Sex, purre and ardent as the flames which enlighten stars. But this only belongeth to persons infinitely prudent, and absolute in virtue, who are therein more worthy of admiration than imitation: yea indefatigable circumspection must be used, to contain them within their limits: And then is the time that they produce chaste and strong delights, when two spirits perpetually look one upon another, as the Cherubins of the Ark having continually the Propitiatory of the living God in the midst of them: or when they resemble the Sun and Moon, who for these six thousand years have courted each other, and never touched.   

§ 5. Of the entertainment of Amity's.  
AMity, in the world wherein we are, is a fire out of its sphere, which properly is heaven; where knowledges are without darkness, joys without discomforts, and love without blemish. For which cause, 
Mollis est animus diligentis & ad omnem sensum doloris argutus; si negligentiu● tracts cito marcet ut ●osa, si durius teneas. livet ut lilia. S●nthacus: ep. 34.  it stands in need of precaution to defend itself, and of strength to abide in a place, where constancy is rare, change ordinary, errors natural, assaults violent, and resistance weak: The mind of a Lover is delicate nice, and sensible in injuries, if you handle it slightly, it withereth like a Rose; if roughly it fadeth like a Lilly. I then will briefly glance at those things which altar Amity, and show you likewise the Antidotes that preserve it, to the end, remedies opposed; the evils may with the more lustre appear.  
I hold, that among all the stains which Amity may 
The eight stains of Amity. 1. Forget. fullness of friends.  contract, there is not any more blemisheth it, than Forgetfulness, Negligence, Scorn, Dissension, Distrust Inequality, Impatience, and Infidelity. We see so many Amity's daily do dissolve by Forgetfulness, and want of frequentation, that it seems divers friends (especially when they be of eminent condition make their way to the Elyzian fields by the river of forgetfulness. They no longer remember those whom they had courted, than a nightly dream, nor know they so 
Qualem eupisut mittamus imaginem ●ibi, ●errent hominis an coelestis▪ S. Paulinus ep 8. ad Severum.  much as whether they be in the world or no, and whether they yet have any part among the living. Severus demanded of S. Paulinus his picture to preserve his memory, but he asked him, whether he desired the image of a terrene, or celestial man; showing we must rather remember friends by the figures of the mind, than the lineaments of the face.  
Others want not memory, but they have a certain 
2. Negligence.  carelessness which many times proceedeth from a nature lazy and indifferent, that cannot take a little pains to quicken the memory of a friend; another-while it cometh from a narrow-streightned heart which vouchsafeth not to oblige itself in an occasion, wherein it hath full power.  
Some are not content to scorn, but do also make 
3. Contempt.  their scorn appear, by preferring men of no worth, and who were before unknown to them in ancient Amity's. They think a friend who is yet to be made, is ever better than he who is already wholly endeared. This is it that causeth sharp convulsions in a generous heart 
Attalus. Jucundius amicum facere, quàm habere. Nec tamen Aeneam quamvis-male cogi tet odi.  which sees itself neglected, and abandoned in need, by one from whom all possible help was expected. Then arise loud out-cries, exclamations and complaints: Yea there are of them, who hid their wounds, yet fail not to love in the midst of these disfavours; which I suppose doth either proceed from a strong virtue, or from a great abjectness of mind. If it come from virtue, it is an action truly Christian: But, if from abjectness of mind; than it is a lamentable thing to see a silly soul so profuse of love (the greatest treasure in the world) as to confer it on the ingrate, disdainful; as if one took delight to feed, and flatter owls. And were a man able to give us the heavens, and stars; if he have not Amity and affection for us, must we make ourselves slaves to a proud spirit, which is wholly employed within itself; which can never distinguish what virtue or Amity is? Disdain is a thing not hard to be learned, when he, whom we honour most, giveth us a lesson of it in his ingratitude, One may pay scorn with scorn, and set a value upon nothing but God who gives estimation to all things.  
There are others who begin the breach of Amity by 
4. Dissension  diversity of opinions and judgements; they build but upon one ground in the exercise of the holy virtue; their understanding inclineth to one side, their will seems to propend to another: but in the conclusion it is gained by judgement, and the continual diversity of reasons causeth the dissension of hearts. I do not say, one should play the Chameleon in Amity, and, without foundation, 
Chameleontis bestiolae vice quae de subjectis sumit colorem. Aulon. ep. 32. Ezec. 3. 13.  take upon him all colours which are presented; for, that would be rather to become a flatterer then a friend. The Seraphins of Ezekiel, though they clap themselves with the tips of their wings, yet fail not to make a heavenly Harmony: So, good friends, who at first somewhat differ in opinion upon subjects offered, and propose their reasons with sweetness and modesty, thereby altar not concord; but when this dissension is very frequent, and captious, it is an evident token, love is strucken at the heart.  
Others are easily transported with suspicions and 
5. Suspicions and distrust.  Distrust, and open their ears very wide to tale-tellers who are the most dangerous plagues which the evil Genius can vomit forth to disturb concord. Antiquity telleth 
Rabbi Solomon.  us that friends sent earrings to their dearest correspondents on their birthday, to consecrate their ears to Amity, and preoccupate them against slander. We must judge (saith Seneca) before we love, but when 
Post amicitiam, credendum; ante amicitiam. judie andum est. ●en. ep. 38.  once we have begun to love, we must believe a friend. We must not open a heart byhalves; he is made faithful by the power of believing him to be such; and there are not any so worthy to be deceived as those, who upon all occasions, fear to be deceived. It is an act proper to a spirit stupid, and unworthy of the manage of affairs, to be ready at the first, to give credit to the venomous tongue of a calumniatour, opposed against the life and innocency of a friend; or of one in prime place, without sifting diligently all the circumstances of his accusation. And what assuredness may we hope for in humane things, if all ears should become as credulous, as tongues are licentious? Came not thence the frequent subversions of States, and calamities of Mankind?  
Is it not that which irrecoverably ruined the Roman Empire, under Valentinian the third, when (as Maximus relateth who was his Capital enemy) he with his own hand slew his chief General Aetius, the pillar and prop of his Empire? We must not believe any thing against an Amity long settled, unless the proofs thereof be written with the rays of the Sun. Alexander rather chose to put himself upon the hazard of swallowing poison, then to believe one, who made him 
Quintus Curtius l. 3.  a report against the loyalty of his Physician. He, with one hand, took the goblet without further information, and with the other, gave the accuser's Letter to the accused; the one smiling drank down an apparent death, whilst the other implored heaven and earth against the calumny, which was notably refelled by the generosity of the great Monarch.  
Lastly, they do not long preserve Amity, who are Unequal and Impatient: and as Moses makes no mention 
6, 7, Inequality and Impatience  of the air in the history of the Creation, because it is inconstant, according to S. Gregory Nyssen's conceit: So, we must let their names passed under silence in the 
Greg. Nys. in Hexam.  Temple of Amity. They grow weary of all, they are displeased with a slight word spoken at random; with some innocent freedom they enter into Labyrinths of suspicions and perplexities, whence they never come forth; and Amity (which is the most delightful of all things) becomes their punishment.  
All, which hath pleased them, displeaseth: All, which hath contented them, discontenteth; one knows not into what posture to put himself, to give satisfaction: Good words vex them, services distaste them, submissions torment them, contradictions make them mad: It seemeth saul's devil possesseth them, and that they 
1 Reg. 18. 10.  know not themselves; they hate by humour, as if they had loved without consideration of merit.  
But we must say, that of all the plagues of Amity, there is none so fatal to it, as the discovery of a secret by Treason and Infidelity: That is it which Petrus 
8. Infidelity Petrus Blesenfis l. de amie. c. 6. Plutarch. in Julio. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  Blesensis called the blow without noise, under the shadow of Amity. It is that which Brutus gave to great Cesar, and which was the cause that the valorous Emperor (long tumbled to and fro among his murderers, and defending himself from every blow they gave him) covered his eyes with his garment, not enduring the treachery of a man whom he had loved, and obliged above all other: But saying, Ah son! art thou then one of these? He suffered himself as a victim to be butchered, ashamed to behold the day light, which made him see so black a mischief. And what is there more to be deplored, then to behold a generous heart which dilates itself in the presence of a pretended friend, and poureth out unto him all he hath in his soul, whilst the wretch (shooting back envenomed, shafts against all the rays of Amity) maketh a prey of his goodness and a trophy of his sincerity; abandoning him to the discretion of such as persecute him. There are some who suffer themselves to fall into these Infidelities by the surprisal of some wicked spirits who wholly govern them, and who draw out of them all they have in their hearts, either by craft, or power, which rendereth them less culpable, but not innocent. Others run to it with the malignity of a Devil, and joyfully triumph 
Sient novatulla acute fecisti dolum: propterea, Deus destructte.  when they have prospered in an Act so base and barbarous. Do not these kind of people deserve to be accounted the horror of nature, the scorn of Ages, the execration of mankind? And shall we not believe that if Pythagoras' Metempsychosis were in being, their souls would put on no other bodies but of Hyena's, Rats, or Owls, to fly in an eternal night, and never to be illustrated with one sole ray of the bright day of Amity?  
Now, if you desire to know the things which are 
Psal. 51. 4. Six perfections, which preserve Amity  of power perpetually to uphold Amity, I must tell you, it subsisteth in honesty good disposition communication, Bounty, Patience and Fidelity. Assure yourself, you will not long be a good friend, if you study not to be ever virtuous.  
The heart of a wicked man (saith the Prophet) is a 
Cor impurum quasi mare servens. Isa. 57  turmoiled sea, which never rests; it hath as many changes as the waves in the Ocean, as many agitations as Tempests, which with Amity is incompatible, of its own nature peaceful, and which enterteins the mind in a constant situation. What is the cause the blessed are never weary of loving, but that they perpetually find in God new beauties and perfections? The body is finite, and quickly thrusts forth all its qualities, which with time, rather fade, than flourish; but our spirit is profound as an abyss, and our soul tendeth in some sort 
Dum unusquisque se sub umbra alterius obscurare volebat, tan quam res percussa claritas utrumque radiabat. S. Hilar. In Honorat.  to Infinity. Hence it comes, that two friends seriously disposing themselves to perfection daily receive some new lustre, which rendereth them lovely, so, that increasing in goodness by degrees, they insensibly love some better thing. Saint Hilary of Arles said of two good friends, that they sought to hid themselves in the shadow of one another, but that thence their humility was reflected, as from a solid bottom which made its lights the more resplendent.  
Yet would I not that your virtue should be austere 
Humour.  and unmanaged, but seasoned with a good disposition and a certain cordiality, which is the best temper of Amity. There are some who love so coldly, that their love is as a day in winter, when the Sun is involved in gross vapours, and shows nothing but sadness: which is extremely troublesome; for it is better to receive a manifest Correction, then to endure a hidden Amity (to speak with the Wiseman) 
Melior est manifesta correptio, quam amor absconditus Prov. 27.  and you shall find many women who better love harsh men, than such as are neither one nor other.  
He is no good friend who rejoiceth not at the presence of his friend, who is not sorry for his absence; yet not opposing the conformity we should have with 
Vid. Chrys. ep. p. 715, 716. 1 Thes. 2. & 3.  the divine Providence. S. chrysostom in the letters he wrote to his dear Olympias observed these sensible affections in S. Paul, for he was much troubled at the absence of his best friends, and desired to see their faces, (as he saith) where this great Prelate insisteth upon 
Tertul. de velandis. c. 12. Quis audebit oculis suis premere faciem clausam, faciem non sentientem, faciem ut ita dixerim tristem.  on the word face, and says it is good right, that we desire the face of our friend, because it is the place where the soul showeth itself in all its senses. There is not any man (saith Tertullian) unless he hath little to do, delighteth to hold long discourse before a face shut up, a visage sensible of nothing, and which to say truly cannot but be melancholy in this posture. This hindereth not, but that the use of veils is very laudable, in time and place among religious women, who make profession of penance; and the fore-alledged Author, who ardently urgeth virgins to this observance, gives them an example of Arabian women, who were so veiled, that they had but one eye free to guide them, and to 
Content sunt dimidiatâ fruiluce quàm totam faciem prostituere. Idem de velandis. Virg. cap. 14.  receive a half light: which caused a Roman Queen to say, that they were miserable women who went so, because they might take in love, but not give it out again. But contrariwise they were most happy, to be delivered from a thousand importunities of wanton eyes, which do nothing but court beauties.  
Howsoever, true amity is necessarily accompanied with some tenderness and sensibility, which causeth one to be perpetually anxious for such as he loveth. Love, in the heart is an exhalation in a cloud, it cannot continue idle there; It daily formeth a thousand imaginations, and brings forth a thousand cares: It findeth out an infinity of inventions to advance the good of the beloved: It openeth itself in his prosperities, it shuts itself up in his adversities, it is a palled in perils, it triumpheth in glories; If it hear speech of his praises, it is Manna fallen from heaven; if he be blamed, it is a poisoned arrow which transsixeth the heart: The eye, the tongue, the arm, all the veins and arteries bend to his defence.  
Add for the third Antidote, that Amity is notably entertained 
Conversation, and its contentments.  by conversation and mutable communication, which should be full of liberty, freedom, and confidence. There it is where one entereth into community of secrets, of thoughts, counsels, inventions, opinions, industries, affairs, and purposes. There it is, where hearts discover their nakedness, and where spirits going out of Crystalline breasts, make a sweet mixture of fires and lights. There it is, where (saith the Wiseman) 
Prov. 27. 17. Ferrum ferro acui●ur, & homo exacuit faciem amici sui, & v. 19 Quomodo in a quis respondent vultus prospicientium, sic corda hominum manifesta sunt prudentibus.  Iron sharpeneth Iron, where one Intelligence awakens another. There it is, where the bottom of the heart becomes as a fountain of clear water, wherein souls behold each other by admirable reflections. One reckoneth up his life, his courses, his voyages, his hazards, his erterprises, his successes, his joys, his annoys, his Sympathies, his Antipathies; The other receiveth all this into his bosom, and reciprocally opens himself to his friend. Oh what sweetness, oh what an Atom of the life of the blessed is this communication, when it is inviolably grounded upon virtue, and honesty! What a contentment it is to see a poor man who was as a cloud surcharged with storms and darkness, to free himself and become bright by aspect of the beams, which reflect from the eyes of a friend, to clear up at the words which come from his lips, to receive infusions wholly celestial, which put in order things confused, give vigour to the languishing, comfort in affliction, and hope amidst despairs! Time stealeth away in these entertainments, and is not felt: hours are not numbered, moments are there precious; the space which intercurres between two Suns, seemeth but one. Whosoever importunely troubles these conversations, are like Birds of ill presage: and night which separates them (although it be the mother of Repose) is not always welcome, unless it in sleep restore those beloved delights it took away.  
Yet, it is good to moderate this conversation, the 
Conversation must be moderated. Praenuntia est tribulationis laetitia satietatis. Gregor. in Job c 3. Absence is sometimes a stratagem of Amity.  nature of humane things being such, that pleasure when it is arrived at the highest, is not far distant from distaste. The more that Flowers breathe forth their excellent odour, so much the sooner they whither; and by how much the more love produceth fires and sparklings, so much the more it is weakened, unless it be repaired by reason, which is swallowed by sense. Absence entertained by letters full of confidence, is not always without its profit; for the soul by the memory tasteth what it hath taken in by the understanding, and gives itself more leisure to recogitate its pleasures, which are not so well perceived, when presence drencheth the mind in a deluge of contentments, and gives it not leisure to bethink itself. It is a goodly thing (verily) to 
Bounty a true note of Amity.  behold these affectionate complacents, yet never is one a good friend, if he come not to the fourth point, which is, to wish, and to do good to those he loveth. It is nowadays a true testimony of Amity, to give liberally of ones own, in a time when silver is the God of the world, and interest the mark, whereat all intentions aim. There are some, who would rather give the blood of their veins, than aught of their purse; would suffer incredible toils for a friend, and would not diminish for him the least part of their ordinary expense; yet Amity never is perfect, unless it enter into a free communication of necessary helps, as much as ability and reason permit. Whosoever 
Benefits of Amity.  invented benefits gave wings to Amity, and made arrows of gold which insensibly penetrate hearts the most unnatural.  
An Elephant, who beareth Towers and houses on 
Glorificabit me bestia agri, dracones, & struthione●. Isa. 34.  his back, cannot carry a benefit without a grateful acknowledgement of it: It is that which quencheth the fire that sparkleth in the eyes of Lions, which stayeth their paws keen as rasours, and makes them adore that which is thrown out to them as a prey to be devoured. Liberality is a hook we must ever hold in the water; we must not fear many times to lose, to confer once well, a good office done to a friend. That man deserveth never to get any thing, who thinks all he giveth is lost, and who gives not at all, but to receive double. His intentions are mercenary, and his favours are like Lime-twigs; he maketh a Marketplace of the Temple of Amity, and profaneth all that is sacred in it, to consecrate it to his own passion.  
It is an excellent industry, to give well, and it requireth 
A great industry to give well.  much study. There are such as give all they cannot keep, and are never liberal but in extremity, like to the fountain of Spoleto which never appeared, but when the country was threatened with an approaching famine. Others send Presents to no purpose, 
Leander in Umbria.  and unseasonably, as if one should give books to a Peasant, and arms to a Scholar. Their gifts are many times so unhappy, that they may be reckoned among the mischiefs their enemies wish. Others throw largesses by starts, and distribute not favours, but cast them at random; and there are oft to be found such, who giving to all, for want of giving with judgement, oblige none. They hasten to those who desire nothing of them, not seeing it is a great torment to be obliged to one, to whom one would owe nothing. There are, who make themselves to be adored before they open the golden gates of liberality, they are shut up within so many locks, that an age passeth before they secure the misery of a friend; they put oil into the lamp to light it, when it is quite out, and do good to Hobgoblins, and spirits in tombs. It is too late to give to a friend, if 
Senec. l. 2. de Benefic. c. 20.  you stay till he demand it: you give him twice, when you deliver him out of his torment. Archesilaus' well understood this mystery, who laid a bag of money under the pillow of his sick friend, whom he knew to be in great necessity, without telling him from whence this supply came, and rather choosing he should have the pleasure to find it, than the pain to ask it. What good is it to do, as the officers of great ones who are stately in their distributions, and think not they ever have given aught, unless it were long asked? They make themselves to be waited on like Demigods, and magnify what comes from their own hands, in such sort that their benefits are scorned, and we begin to hate that, which was too late resolved on, or too proudly afforded. He must give his Presents according to the common practice of men, observing circumstance of place, time, season, persons; gild his favour with the gold of graces, and not do, as they who give so sadly, that one would take them for men who deny.  
Friends also who receive ought not to be troublesome, there being not any thing which more offendeth firm Amity's then the too great importunities of the bold, who ever have their hand open to receive, and never have a brow soft enough to blush. There are many Amity's which are by this way dissolved; when friends persuade themselves to ask boldly, and will not be denied, but think one gives them nothing, if they give them not all.  
The fifth condition of a good friend, consisteth in 
Patience most necessary in Amity's. Advice and correction of friends. Non asperè, quantum existimo, non durites, non modo imperioso vitia tolluntur; sed magis docendo, quam jubendo, magis movendo quàm minando. S. Aug. in ep. ad Aurel. Non caret scrupulo socictatis occultae, qui manifesto facinori desinit obviare. S. Athanas. in Conc. Alexand.  a strong patience to bear with the defects of the person he loveth, whether they be in the mind, the body, or in the exterior: Yet it is not that crimes and scandals, hidden under the shadow of Amity, should be tolerated: for that were to be a traitor to the most innocent of virtues. Above all, it is expedient to observe, and in the beginning to touch the passion of one dear unto us with hands of silk, and words of satin; not to distemper him, if he be somewhat sensible. But if light remedies make not impression, we must urge, solicit, labour with all the liberty which confidence affordeth, and not forsake the sick, until we see some little hope of amendment. But if the evil daily increase by the contempt of remedies, and that it be such that it involves a friend within the danger of infamy; a man ought not to think it strange if he be abandoned, since he first of all degraded himself of the character of Amity, which is virtue. Other defects of manners, which proceed not to crime, aught to be handled with singular sweetness and discretion, and these of nature and humane accidents cannot be taken by a good friend but as a decree from heaven, and an exercise of his goodness. There are some, who have their souls so generous, that they love miseries; they find deformity to be handsome, when it is dressed up in the liveries of Loves; plagues and cankered sores breed neither fear, nor aversion in them: They digest all by the heat of an immortal affection.  
Then it is, when we come to perfect fidelity, which 
Fidelity and its excellency.  is the Basis that supporteth the whole house of Amity's. It is a virtue really divine, and one of the most precious treasures in the heart of man. It is a Bud of Fidelity, a proof of an invincible courage, a note of 
Ante Jovem generata. Qua sine non tellus pacem, non aequora ●ô runt. Silius.  an inviolable goodness: It is an imitation of the order of the heavens, and of the elementary world, where all persevere in the observance of the laws which were written by the Divine Providence from the beginning of ages, by the help of Fidelity, which the principal parts of the universe do observe one towards another.  
It is that, which is the cause that stars eternally circumvolve within their divisions, not usurping one upon another: That, which causeth days and nights yearly to restore the time they had borrowed one of another, and so well to make up their accounts that they pay even to the utmost minute. It is that, which stayeth the waves of the sea, and current of rivers; That, which maketh masters and servants, families and Provinces, States and Empites. All is quickened, all lives, all under the divine hands of this great Mistress. By it; Kings have subjects, Lords their officers, Commonwealths Magistrates, Communities Administratours, Fields Labourers, Civil-life Merchants and Artificers, by it, the whole world hath order, and by it, order prospers in all things. One must rather break an hundred times, then once fail in fidelity to a good friend. Were the devil capable of commerce with men, he must observe fidelity: by how much a more just title ought we to preserve love, and honour it, even with veneration in holy Amity's?  
If a friend, one of those who have been very acceptable to you, chance to fail; whether it be by evil life, or through manifest contempt of you, or out of other ill dispositions; yet must you on the rotten trunk honour the last characters of Love, you must rather unstitch then break, you must keep the secrets he at other times hath committed to you, and not publish his defects. Amity is so venerable, that we must honour even its shadows, and imitate the Pythagorians, who celebrated the obsequies of such as forsook their society to bury them with honour.  
These precepts being observed; Children will live with Parents in great duty and submission; Husbands with Wives will hold together, not only by eyes, flesh, and blood, which are too feeble ties, but by excellent conjugal virtues; Parents will live in all sweetness of nature; People will be fastened with the knot of indissoluble Concord; Great ones will be indulgent to inferiors; Inferiors pay obedience to the great; and intimate friends gather flowers and fruits of immortal delights, in the sacred garden of Amity.   

§ 6. Of sensual Love. Its Essence, and Source.  
I Here could wish my pen were born on the wings of 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Hypocrates in ep. ad Abderites.  winds from one pole to another, and that it might fall with a strong and impetuous flight upon a passion which maketh attractives, charms, and illusions to march before it, and after it draggeth along furies, disasters, and rapines.  
The wise Hippocrates in his time deplored the evil effects of Avarice, and said the life of man was miserable, because insupportable Avarice, like unto a spirit of storms and tempests, had poured itself upon mortals, and that it were to be wished the best Physicians might meet together from all parts to cure this disease, which is worse than folly, and which occasioneth a mischief irreparable: Because instead of seeking remedies to drive it away, false praises are invented to flatter it.  
I may say the like of Love, since it is the most fatal 
Love is a strange malady.  plague among all passions. It is not a simple malady, but one composed of all the evils in the world. It hath the shiverings and heats of Fevers, the Ache and prickings of the Megrim, the rage of Teeth, the stupefaction of the Vertigo, the furies of Frenzy, the black vapours of the Hypocondry, the disturbances of the waking, the stupidities of the Lethargy, the fits of the falling sickness, the faintness of the Physic, the heave of the passion of the heart, the pangs of the colic, the infections of the leprosy, the venom of ulcers, the malignity of the plague, the putrefaction of the gangrene, and all, which is horrible in nature.  
After all this, it is made a God, to whom Eulogies, Hymns, Songs, and victim are offered: Empire over the heart is given to it; a soul, not created but for him who hath saved it, is subjected, fetters are honoured, and its Tyranny adored.  
There are many millions of men in the world 
Disasters of evil love.  who would be most fortunate and flourishing, if they knew how to avoid the mischievous power of this passion: but having not used any consideration or endeavour; they have abandoned their bodies to dishonour, their reputation to infamy, their estates to pillage, and their lives to an infinity of disturbances and torments. Hence it is, that, virgins of noble blood are stolen away, that families are desolated, that parents are precipitated into their Tombs by ungrateful children, that so many young widows are dishonoured in the world, that so many miserable creatures, after they have served for talk to a City, die in an Hospital; that so many little innocents' are made away by a death which preventeth their birth; that so many Infants are thrown into life as froth of the sea, exposed to poverty, and vice, by that condition which brought them forth. Hence is it, that chaste wedlocks are disturbed, that poisons are mingled, that Halters are noozed, that swords are sharpened, that Tragedies are begun under the Coverture of night, and are ended in a full daylight upon a scaffold.  
O God, how happy might a soul be which would well consider all this, and take what I am about to speak, as a letter sent from heaven, for the remedy of infinite many evils, which in this passion environ our miserable life! I invite hither every age, each sex, all conditions. I entreat my Readers to peruse these lines with the same spirit wherewith I address them: and although it befell me to treat of this subject in my other works; notwithstanding never have I (yet) undertaken it with so much method, vigour, or force, as at this present. I will show you the Essence, the Causes, the Symptoms, and the effects of love, as religiously as 
Vereenndian periclitari malo, quàm probationem. l. 1. de anima, c. 17.  I can possibly, supposing myself not bound to follow Tertullia's opinion, who though very chaste, spared not to speak of this subject a little grossly, saying for excuse, that he had rather put himself upon the hazard of losing shame then a good argument. I made you see in the beginning of this treatise, that love, considered in general, was properly an inclination to the good of Conformity, which putteth on divers faces according to the sundry objects and ways it pursues to arrive thither. If it go directly towards God, and reflect on a neighbour, as his Image, loving the one for himself, and the other for his Author; this is charity: If it diffuse itself upon divers creatures sensible, and insensible, which it pursueth for its pleasure and commodity; it is an appetite, and a simple affection, as that, which is towards hunting, birds, books, pictures, pearls, and Tulips: If it be applied to humane creatures, loving them withal integrity, by a reciprocal well-wishing; it is Amity: If it regard the body for pleasures sake; it is a love of venereal concupiscence, which being immoderate (even 
Tertull. in exhortatione ad castitatem. Nec per aliud fit marita, nisi per quod & adultera.  in the intention of marriage) fails not to be vicious; which made Tertullian say, that the same thing an Adulterer would do, the married likewise did, If it be chaste, and guided within the Limits which the Law of God prescribeth; it is conjugal love. If it overflow to sensual pleasures; It is Luxury, S. Denis saith, It is not love, but an idol, and a fall from true love. And Plato 
Plato in convivio.  in his Banquet addeth, that sober love is contentment of heart, eyes, and ears; but when it will content itself by the other senses; namely, that, of touching; it is not love, but a spirit of insolency, a passion of a servile soul, a rage of a trivial lust which maketh show to love beauty; but, through its exorbitancy, descended to the worst of deformities.  
I know there are learned pens, which here distinguish 
Division of Lone.  all love into two parts, and say there is one of consideration, and another of inclination. They call it love of consideration when one is therein embarked with a full knowledge, and a settled judgement; love of inclination, when one loveth, not able to give any reason. But I find this division is not exact enough insomuch as it confoundeth the Genus and Speeys, and doth not clearly distinguish the members of this body; since all love is nothing else, but an inclination, and since that which is made by consideration, inclineth the loving to the thing loved. Whence it appeareth that to mention a love of inclination, is to say, love is love, without any further explication. I had rather say there are two loves, the one of Election, which resulteth from Consideration, and is form, when, after one hath acknowledged a thing to be fair, profitable, and pleasing, he out of reason affects it: The other of humour, when without consulting with reason, one is suddenly surprised by some secret attractive in the thing loved, without giving himself leisure to judge what it is, and this properly is to love by humour, and fantasy, which is now adays the most ordinary love, but not the best. It is a kind 
Love of humour.  of love which quickly beginneth, and which never ends slowly, so full it is of inconstancy. It seems to itself all its bands are silken, although they be rough chains: it will not take pains to consider them. It thinks not it cherisheth the wound, nor looks it back on the hand which gave it. It is heedlessely engaged, and signeth transactions without reading them, that it may not be ashamed to abrogate what it made, or to entertain that which kills it. There are many miserable ones, who daily marry upon the first sight, and whose amities arise but from a glance which passeth away more swiftly than a shadow: and then there must be a thousand repentances to redeem the pleasure of one moment. It is ever better to prefer Election; for, though in the beginning it had not so much sweetness in the search, it hath less sorrow in the possession.  
But to enter farther into the knowledge of Carnal love; it is good to penetrate the causes and effects thereof which will the more perspicuously enlighten us in the choice of remedies. We see many people in the world, who being tormented by this evil even unto folly, seek for pretexts to cover their passions: some saying, It is a touch from heaven, and an effect of their Horoscope, which cannot be diverted. Others 
Casus in culpam transit. Velleius Pater culus.  complain they are bewitched, and that they feel the power of magic: Others cast all the blame upon devils, who notwithstanding think not so much of them as they may imagine; for love comes easily enough from natural causes, without going about to seek for it in the bottom of the Abyss. I here remember what Pliny recounteth of one Cresin; who manured a piece of ground which yielded him fruit in abundance, while 
Plin. l. 18. c. 16.  his neighbour's lands, were extremely poor, and barren, for which cause he was accused to have enchanted them: Otherwise, said his accuser, his inheritance could not raise such a revenue, while others stand in so wretched a Condition. But he pleading his cause, did nothing else but bring forth a lusty daughter of his, well 
Filiam validam & bene curatam.  fed, and well bred, who took pains in his garden, with strong carts, and stout oxen which ploughed his land, and the whole equipage of his Tillage in very good order; He than cried out aloud before the Judges, Behold the art magic, and charms of Cresin, willing to show that we must not seek for hidden and extraordinary causes, where ordinary are so evident.  
So in the like case we may say it is a thing most ridiculous, 
Haec sunt veneficia mea Quirites.  to see a body composed according to nature, found, and very strong, which hath fire in the spirits, and blood in the veins, which continually feeds high, lies soft, and perpetually converseth among women the most handsome, to complain of celestial influences, or the sorseries of Venus. Totall Nature, especially since 
Interiour causes of love.  the corruption of sin, conspireth to make love. It sets Reason to sale (if it carefully take not heed) and insensibly draweth it to its side. There is not almost a stone, whereunder some scorpion lieth not; there is not a place where concupiscence spreadeth not out some net for us. It fighteth against ourselves, makes use of our members, as of the Instruments of its battles, and the Organs of its wiles. There is sedition within, and war without, and never any repose, but by the singular grace of God. Tertullian writes, the chastity 
Tertull. de Velandis. Continentia majoris ardoris laboratior.  of men is the more painful, the fervour of concupiscence being the more fiery in their sex, and one may justly say, that such as persist all their life time in great resistances and notable victories, are Martyrs of purity, who, having passed through fire and water, hasten to a place of refreshment. We have all one domestic enemy, which is our own body, that perpetually 
Rebellion of the flesh, S. Climach. de castita te, grad. 15. in fine. Quomodo illum vinciam, quam ut amem a natura suscepimus. Est cooperator, & hostis, adjutator atque adversarias, auxiliator simul & infidiator, etc.  almost opposeth the dispositions of the spirit. If I go about to fetter it (saith S. John Climachus) it gets out of my hands; If I will judge it, it grows into favour with me; If I intent to punish it, it flatters me; If I will hate it, Nature commandeth me to love it; If I will fly from it, it saith it is tied to my soul for the whole time of my life: If I will destroy it with one hand, I repair it with another; Is it too much cherished? it the more violently assaults me; Is it too much mortified? it cannot almost creep; watching withers it, sleep, on the other side fatteneth it, whips torment it, and dandlings corrupt it: By treating it ill, I endanger my life; by pampering it, I incur death. This showeth, how Saints fortified themselves with much precaution, diligently observing the condition of Nature, the causes of temptations, and the maladies of the soul, thereby the more successfully to practise the cure. They who are most retired (said the fore-alledged Author) fail not to feel domestic wars, but such as indifferently expose themselves to objects, are violently both within and without, assaulted.  
The beauty, and handsomeness of one sex, is a sweet 
Beauty imperious. Nomen. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal. 49. Alii reddunt fetam, alii pulch●it udinem ut sept naginta Interpretes. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  poison to the other, which entereth in by the eyes, and maketh strange havoc: And I wonder not at all that the Scripture compares it to a Panther (a savage and cruel beast) which with teeth teareth those she hath amuzed with the mirrour-like spots of her skin, & drawn to her by the sweet exhalation of her body; It is more to be feared (said an Ancient) than the horns of the Bull, the teeth of the Lion, the gall of the Aspic, yea then fire or flames: and the holy Abbot of mount Sinai saith, that had not God given woman shamefacedness, which is the scabbard wherein this sword is 
Climach. de castreate.  kept, there would be no salvation in the world.  
The love of women caused Sampson's, David's, and Salomon's shipwrecks. It hath besotted Sages, conquered the strong, deceived the prudent, corrupted saints, humbled the mighty. It hath walked on Sceptres, 
The love of women dangerous.  parched the laurels of victors, thrown trouble into states, schism into Churches, corruption among judges; fury into arms. It hath entered into places which seemed inaccessible, but to spirits, and lightnings. And if beauty be so much to be dreaded, when it hath no other companions; how dangerous think we is it, when it causeth to walk along with it, pomp apparel, attractives, dalliances, cunning wires, liberty of conversation, merriment, Good cheer, Courting, Idleness, Night, solitude, familiarity? Need we to require any other charms then those to work the ruin of a soul?  
Yet, besides these open causes, there are other secret ones to be found in the love of humour and fantasy, which insensibly fetter a mind, and suffer it not to find its chains.  
A modern Author hath of late written a treatise of the love of inclination, wherein he speaks very pertinently of its original, and doth (according to his saying) 
Monsiur de la Chambre.  seem to draw it a second time out of its Chaos. To understand his opinion, we must presuppose that which S. Thomas saith; That total Nature loveth to present itself in the objects proposed unto it: And as they continually proceed from all things, coloured images 
S. Thom. l. 4. contra gentes. c 11. The secret attractives of love.  and figures as it were wholly spiritual, which make themselves to be seen, as in looking-glasses; and are received into the eyes, to contribute to the effect of sight: so every body hath its projections, and unperceivable influences, as we find in the power of Amber, and the Adamant, which attract Iron and straw by the expiration they scatter in the air, to serve as instruments and hands to their attractions.  
This being common to other natures of plants, metals, and living creatures; we must not think but that the body of man participateth therein, by reason of its vivacity and the multitude of pores which give a more easy passage to such emissions. There then cometh forth a spirituous substance, which is (according to Marsilius Ficinus) a vapour of blood, pure, subtle, hot, and clear, more strong, or weak, according to the interior agitation of spirits; which carrieth along with it some quality of a temperate, friendly and convenient, which 
Marsilius Ficinus l. 1. de vita c. 2.  insinuating itself into the heart and soul, doth (if it there find a disposition of conformity) abide, as a seed cast into the earth, or as a Leaven which swelleth up a piece of dough, and forms this love of correspondence, with an admirable promptness and vigour.  
From thence it cometh that brothers many times feel motions and affections of tenderness, one for another 
Surius.  without knowing each other, as it happened to S. Justus, who knew his brother Justinian, among sundry slaves who were at the chain, by this notice, without any other fore-judgement. Thence it comes that at first we are passionate for persons we never saw, and that we wish them well, though they always have not so much grace, nor beauty: but there is some relation of humour, which weaveth the web, and toeth such affections.  
All nature is full of such communications, which are effects of Sympathy, observed in the Coral, which sensibly changeth according to his disposition, who hath it about him; as also in the flesh of beasts, which boileth in the powdering-tub, at the time of the fury of dogs, because they have been bitten by a mad dog; And in wine, which seems to be sprinkled all over with certain white flowers, when the vines are in blossom.  
So it happeneth that the spirits, which do in our bodies, 
Modification of the opinion who place love only in transpiration. Species forma semel per o●ulos illiga●a, vix magni luctaminis manu solviter. Hieron. in Threnos cap. 3.  what the winds do in Nature, being transpired from one body to another, and carrying in their wings, qualities consonant, do infallibly excite and awaken the inclinations. But it is not credible, or at least, ordinary, that this manner of working should be, as in things inanimate, and that it hath nothing to do with the senses; for it is principally the eyes, which are interressed therein, breathing thence the most thin spirits, and darting forth the visual rays, as the arrows of love, which penetrate the heart, are united, confounded, and lost one within another; then, heating the blood, they strike the Imagination, and attract wills, which are so linked one to another, that one cannot perceive the knot which so fast tied them together.  
If transpiration alone of spirit, indifferently proceeding from all the parts of the body, were able to inflame concupiscence; we must then say, that a blind man set at a certain distance from a perfect beauty, would become enamoured with beholding it, hearing it, smelling it, couching it, or by any sense, understanding it: which notwithstanding happeneth not in that manner, and if nature thus proceeded, and that this passion were to be taken as a Contagion, we might extremely fear the approach of bodies, and persist in continual apprehensions to be infected by them. It is certain, that the senses being well guarded shut up all the gates against love, 
A Guard over the senses.  since the Imagination itself stirreth not, but upon their report; but after they yield themselves up by a too familiar conversation, and resign their defences; a terrible havoc is made in the mind: for love entereth thereunto, as a Conqueror into a surprised City, and imprinteth that pleasing face in every drop of the mass of blood, It engraveth it on the Imagination: It figureth it on every thought, and there is nothing any longer entire in the mind, which is not divided between slavery, and frenzy.   

§ 7. The effects of Sensual Love.  
IT is a strange thing, that this fury hath a thousand hands, and a thousand attractives, a thousand ways of working, quite different, and many times opposite. It takes by the eyes, by the ears, by the imagination, by chance, of purpose, by flying, pressing forward, honouring, insulting, by complacence, and by disdain. Sometimes also it lays hold by tears, by laughing, by modesty, by audacity, by confidence, by carelessness, by wiles, by simplicity, by speech; and by silence. Sometimes it assaileth in company, sometimes in solitude, at windows, at grates. in Theatres, and in Cabinets. at Balls, at sports, in a feast at a Comedy, sometimes at Church at prayers, in acts of Penance. And who can assure us against it, without the protection of God? Eustatius the Interpreter of Homer saith, there are some who feign Love to be the son of the wind, and the Rainbow in Heaven; in my opinion, to signify unto us its Inconstancy and diversified colours: and this beautiful Iris in the beginning appears all in Rubies, in Diamonds, and Emeralds over our heads, afterward to cause rain, and tempests: So, love showing itself at first with such bright semblances to our senses, occasioneth storms and corruption in our minds.  
Observe one transfixed with violent love, and you 
The miserable state of one passionately in love. Insomnia, aetumnae, terror, fuga stultitià que adeò, & temer●tas, in cogitantia excors, & immodestia, etc. Plautus in Mo●cat.  shall find he hath all that, in his love, which Divines have placed in Hell, darkness, Flames, the worm of Conscience, an ill Savour, Banishment from the sight of God. You shall see a man, whose mind is bewitched, brain dislocated, and Reason eclipsed: All he beholdeth, all he meditateth on, all he speaketh, all he dreameth, is the creature he loveth. He hath her in his head and heart, painted graved, carved in all the most pleasing forms. For her, he sometimes entereth into quakings, sometimes into faintings, another while into fits of fire, and Ice, He flieth in the air, and instantly is ●●enged in the Abyss, He attendeth, he espieth, He fears, He hopes, he despairs, He groaneth, he sigheth, He blusheth, he waxeth pale, He doteth in the best company, He talks to woods and fountains; He writeth. He blots out, He teareth, He lives like a spectre estranged from the conversation of men: Repast is irksome to him, and Repose, which charmeth all the cares of the world, is not made for him. Still this fair one, still this cruel one tormenteth him, and God maketh him a whip of the thing he most loveth.  
Yet is this more strange in the other sex, which hath naturally more inclimation to honesty. A Lady chaste, or a Virgin well-bred; who gins to wax cold in the love of God, and in the exercise of devotion, and takes too much liberty in her conversation with men, finds herself insensibly surprised by the eyes and ears, by the heart, by the Garb: the Humour, the smiles the speech, the silence, the courage, the discretion of a man, lays a plot with her passion, to betray her reason. The poison of love by little and little spreads itself throughout all the veins; the presence of the object gins to cause blushing, paleness, unquietness, disturbance of the mind: so that she cannot tell what she desireth, nor what she would have. Absence awakeneth the Imagination, which makes an Echo of all the discourses; of all the actions, that past in presence. This man is presented unto her in a thousand shapes, there is not a lineament, a word, a gesture, but is expressed. The understanding quickly creates to itself too many ill lights, the will too much fire, and the soul wholly propendeth to the thing beloved. Yet the fire of God awakeneth her, and suffers her to have good respites, which makes her ashamed to tell her own thoughts to her proper heart. Conscience and Honour make some resistance and glimmering flashes; and if there be found some good director who may help them in this first battle; they, many times, get the victory. But if a soul be deprived of good counsel, abandoned to itself, and which is worse, soothed in its malady, by some soft, and complying spirit; it is an unhappiness which cannot sufficiently be deplored. Reason is weakened, shamefacedness flies away, passion prevaileth, there is nothing left, but wandering of the soul, a fever, a perpetual Frenzy, a neglect of works, of affairs, of functions, sadness, languour, Impatience, Confidence, and affrightment. Shall she say so? shall she do so? God forbids it, the law menaceth it, and honour cries vengeance; The pleasure of a dream, and beyond it nothing, but Abysses. Love notwithstanding urgeth, and strikes at all considerations, they impute to stars, to destiny, to Necessity, what is nothing but folly. They think business is done, when it is but thought on; that they must be audacious; and that there are crimes which are sanctified in the world's opinion by the good hap of their succestes. They come 
Prosperum ac foelix seclus vi●tus vocatur. Senec. Diversities of Love.  to that pass, that they no longer sin by method, but through exorbitancy.  
In some Love is sharp and violent; in others, dull and impetuous; in others, toyish, and wanton; in others, turbulent, and cloudy; in others, brutish and unnatural; in others, mute and shamefaced; in others, perplexed and captious; in others, light and tradsitory; in others, fast and retentive; in others, fantastic and inconstant; in others, weak and foppish; in others, stupid & astonished; in others, distempted; in some, furious and desperate.  
It inflameth the blood, it weakens the body, it wanneth 
Moechia affinis Idololatriae. Tertul. de pudicitia.  the colour, it halloweth the eyes, it overthrows the mind; it hath somewhat of being possessed, and witchcraft; something of Idolatry. For you behold in those who are entered fare into this passion, floods and Ebbs of thoughts, Fits, and Countenances of one possessed, and it is in all of them to deify the creature of whom they are so passionately enamoured, and would willingly set it in the place where the Sun and stars are, yea upon Altars. All which proceeds from it, is sacred; chains and wounds are honourable with them, if they come from this beloved-hand. They would die a hundred times for it, so it throw but so much as a handful of flowers, or distil but a poor tear on their Tomb.  
It is to deceive, to say that love excludeth all other passions; it awakeneth them, and garboileth them, and makes them all wait on it; it causeth Aversion, Hatred, Jealousy, envy, hope, sadness, despair, anger, mirth, tears, scorn, grief, songs, and sighs: and as it is thought that evil spirits shuffle in storms, to stir up lightning flasks, and make the thunderstroke the more terrible and pernicious; So is it likewise true that the 
Evil Angels intermeddle in the great tempests of love.  angel of darkness involveth himself in these great tempests of love, many times making use of the abominable minestery of Magicians, and acteth Treasons, furies, fierings, poison, murders, and ransackings. And how should it spare its enemy, since it 
Cruelty of love on the persons of lovers.  is cruel to itself? It maketh some to sink in the twinkling of an eye, drinking their blood, and insensibly devouring their members. It confineth others into regions of Hobgoblins, and darkness. It kills and murdereth those who have the most constantly served it. It sharpened the sword which transfixed Amnon. It shaved and blinded Samson. It gave a Halter to Phyllis, A downfoll to Timagoras. A gulf to Caleazo; and caused Hemon to kill himself on the tomb of Antigone. Volumes would not be sufficient for him who should write all the Tragedies which daily arise from this passion; all pens would be weak, words be dried up, and wits lost therein.   

§ 8. Remedies of evil Love by precaution.  
I Leave you now (dear Reader) to argue within yourself, whether one who hath never so little humane judgement for his comportment and quiet, ought not to bend all his endeavours to banish the fury, which plungeth his whole life in so great acerbities, and such horrible 
Distrust ofones self, recourse to God.  calamities. But if you desire to know the way, the first thing I advise you while you are yet in perfect health, is seriously to consider, that one cannot be chaste but by a most singular gift from God, (as the wiseman saith) and therefore it is necessary to have a particular recourse to the most blessed Trinity, which, according to S. Gregory Nazianxen, is the first of virgins, humbly beseeching it, by the intercession of the most pure among creatures, and by the mediation of your Angel-guardian, to deliver you from the reproaches of the spirit of impurity; in such sort that you may pass 
Love is sometimes the punishment of pride. Climachus de castitate.  your life innocently, and it may become inaccessible to the pollutions of flesh. If you feel yourself free from this vice, yet enter not into any vain complacence of yourself, as if it proceeded from your own forces, and not from heaven's benignity. Above all, take heed of pride; for the most illuminated Fathers have observed that God ofttimes permitteth arrogant spirits to fall into carnal sins, to abate the fierceness of their courage by the sensible ignominy of the stains of luxury: and this is so proper to quail the exorbitance of humane arrogance; that God had not a better Counterpoise to make S. Paul humble, in such height of revelations, than the sting of the flesh. Pardon not your 
Et ne magnitudo revelationis extollat me, datus est mihi stimulus earnis meae Ange●us Satanae qui me colaphizet. Cor. 2. 12.  self any thing no not so much as the shadow of this sin; but only excuse such as fall through some notable surprisal, or pitiful frailty. Think, if you have not experienced the like falls, you are beholding to your good hap for it, rather than to your merit: presume not at all of your strength or integrity; but resolve with yourself that the presumption of ones own power maketh up the moiety of Impudence.  
Learn how seasonably you may know yourself, by considering your own temperature, your humours, 
Knowledge of ones self.  the inclinations of your mind, your judgement, your courage. Behold the part wherein you are the most sensible, and where you give most access to your enemy to tempt you. Endeavour to fortify yourself that way, and the more inability you therein find, use the more precaution: if you be weak, fear nothing but your infirmity: and if you be strong, fear all, yea even your own safety. 
Disposition of ages.   
Sometimes the seasons of age, which might seem more to propend to lust, are peaceful and calm enough; In our bodies there is a springtide in winter, to become afterward a winter in the springtide. Youth transported by other purposes, or withheld by a serious education, is quiet enough, and riper years fall into the most stormy part of the tempest. It hath happened to divers to converse many years with a contrary sex, and never to have felt any touch, from which, they have entered into a strong confidence that served for a bait in the peril, which had spared them in a thousand occasions, the more notable to ruin them in one sole accident.  
Flight from occasions is the most assured bulwark 
Fly second occasions.  for chastity, and who can carry himself well in this affair, shall be much stronger by flying, then were Conquerors in the bravest battles; a retreat in this, being 
Time videre, unde possis cadere, noli sitri perversâ simplicitate securus. Aug. in Psa. 50. The attractives of the world were never so urgent. Tertul. in exhortatione ad castitatem Majus est vivere cum castitato quàm pro ea●mpri. Complacence's stronger than fire and sword.  as honourable as victory. The world was never so beautiful, so gentile, nor so squarely disposed: Bodies, apparel, garb, civil behaviour, compliment, wit, merriment, entertainments, books, songs, airs, voices, plays, balls, races, walkings, Banquets, Feasts, liberty (which at first seem innocent enough) Conversation, and great confidence; lastly, all we heard, all we see, all we smell, all we taste, all we touch in so great effeminacy of life, seems to be made to persecute purity. I am almost of Tertullia's opinion, who saith, it is more easy to die for chastity, then to live with it. Women were found in the world, who suffered themselves to be martyred under Tyrants, for the defence of chastity; who had they long continued among pleasures, Courtships, Curiosities, and the importunities of men, I should fear, might have yielded that to a lover, which they would have denied to an Executioner. There are a thousand, and a thousand creatures, infinitely much alienated from voluptuous pleasures; They love the dispositions to love, but hate the effects thereof; and it seems to them they may do as it is read in Romances, they will spend their time in the pleasing conversation of a friend, and talk of nothing else; but they perceive not that men seek them not, but for what they should fly, that they at length undermine them as a city besieged; and desire not to afford them any peace but by the conquest of their honour, which they ought more bravely to maintain, than life.  
We find an ancient Emblem of a Duke of Burgundy, where was to be seen a pillar, which two hands 
Joannes Dux Burgundiae in Simbolis Imperatorum. Great cunning of men who go about to surprise chastity.  sought to overthrow; the one had wings and the other was figured with a Tortoise, the word, Vtcunque, as much as to say, which way soever, I will have it. There are Amourists, who take the like course; Some strike down the pillars of chastity by the sudden and impetuous violence of great promises, offers, unexpected presents, pressing necessities. Others proceed therein with a Tortoises pace, with long patience, daily assiduity, faithful services, and profound submissions. They are not all so sottish, as to talk at first to an honest woman of her dishonour, they only entreat she will accept of a man, who will live or die for her, begging nought else but a remembrance. They play not the rapt lovers by every moment declaring their fervours, their torments, and martyrdom; They serve, they sooth, they continually frequent, they spy out all occasions, they silently practise all the ways they can, to come to the end of their designs, and often it happeneth, that as drops of water incessantly falling, do hollow Rocks, so ceaseless compliments soften the most inaccessible rigours. What would not a man do, who is so base, as to waste ten years of service to kiss a womanr hand, and suffer for a shameful servitude, that, which others could not endure for an Empire?  
It is evident, that the persecutions of chastity being so manifest in all objects, (as I said before) if you desire to be faithful to God, and charitably to preserve a precious treasure, you must necessarily either live with singular modesty in the world, or die out of it, if you cannot be saved in it.  
You Ladies who read this, it is not required of you, 
Advice to Ladies and Gentlewomen.  that for the love of chastity, you should be reduced to an affected negligence, to some ugly habits, to fashions rough and barbarous, as Roman women were when their husbands fed upon acorns, as yet unaccustomed to the use of bread. Some neatness, some acquaint trims must of necessity be admitted in a woman, which seems to be bound with her body, and is the cause, why the wisest and most modest among them, do not (notwithstanding) renounce civil decorum; you must walk, and converse modestly within yourself, remembering what the Apostle saith, That your apparel alone 
1 Tim. 8. Quod decet mulieres promittentes pietatem  should make you be known for Ladies, who make profession of piety.  
Whom would you be thought to be in the day of judgement? Would you be there accounted Christians, when you have all the signs about you of women the most worldly, that ever lived among Infidels? To what purpose are those garments so pompous, those stuffs so costly, those guizes so sought after, those colours so fantastic, those jewels so sumptuous, that painting so shameless, those curls so extravagant, those braveries, those flies, those patches, and those robbers, unless it be to cut the throat of chastity? Is it not a reproach to Christianity to say, that an infinite quantity of Hospitals might be founded out of the superfluities which so many Ladies unprofitably waste about their bodies? Is is not a point of cruelty, that there are so many lazars, who breathe out the remnant of their days, laid upon straw, where they are only covered with the putrefaction of their ulcers, whiles there are bodies, who drag at their heels the spoil of Elements, and riches of the Universe, to prank themselves so industriously, as if they were of the matter of the sun and stars? God, who hath a care every year to make garments all sprinkled over with the pearls of so many meadow-flowers, is not wise enough to inspire you with the fashion you should entertain in your attires. Heaven and earth must be turned topsie-turvie, nature forced, and all arts wearied out to invent extravagances, to serve as instruments to Luxury. I wish those gorgets might be seen at the day of judgement, which we have beheld worn in Paris, worth the revenue of an honest family, and wherein ingenious Artists had employed three years of their time: I much desire to know with what arms these miserable creatures would defend themselves, who have made so proud a monument of their vanity, to erect an eternal reproach of their punishment. A dissolute habit, saith S. Augustine, is a messenger of the adulteries of the mind; A 
Tom. 10. ser. 147. de Tempore:  woman, who will appear too acquaint before the world, cannot have a chaste heart before God.  
They are not content with all this vast preparation, but nakedness of necks must be exposed, which is reprehended by God, shameful to their sex, injurious to nature, and scandalous to civil decency.  
They are the breasts of Lamia's whereof the Prophet 
Lamiaes nudaverunt mammam, lactaverunt catulo● suos.  speaketh in his Lamentations, which serve not but to nourish the impurity of Gallants, and foster their Luxury. A woman who exposeth that which should be hidden, will one day be enforced to hid that which will necessarily be made public. A Virgin who delights to show the nakedness of her body, maketh it enough appear, she is not a Virgin; by how much she uncovers herself on the one side, by so much on the other she clothes herself with the brand of ignominy. 
A small expression, and an odd one Hos. 2.  God by his Prophet commandeth women to take adulteries out of their bosoms: but it is in the nakedness of the neck, where they begin, to conclude afterward in all the parts of the body. They make 
Auferai adulteria de medio uberum snorum.  no scruple of it, because this vice is an immortal evil, which having so many hands wherewith to do hurt, hath no eyes at all to understand itself.  
Alas! whosoever had any (never so little) love of her Christianity, and respect towards God, would quickly within herself condemn all this exorbitancy, and make a thousand times more account of the counsel of Saints then of the customs of blinded souls. Tell me not (Ladies) you do it very innocently; for a woman dissolute in dresses (which is the cause of the sins men commit) is as a land full of thieveries, where though the Lord be no robber, yet he becomes infamous. You on your body bear Eve the penitent, who 
Damnatae & mortuae mulieris impedimenta quasi ad pompam funeris constituta. Tert. de hab. mulieris.  was clothed with simple skins, and you will incessantly carry her in worldly pomps. All that (saith Tertullian) is but the equipage and furniture of a woman half damned, which would be more fit for the setting forth of her funerals, than the ornament of her body.  
Take pity of so much of the world that perisheth, Take pity of yourselves, enter into the way of a modest life, regulated in your habits, your conversation, your recreations, that all may therein speak, preach, and breathe the adour of virtue.  
Then have you a singular means to free yourselves from the importunities which assail chastity; for verily none would address themselves to women, if they thought not they were places that will render upon composition. A face which hath a Christian aspect drives away all the loves of the world, as the flower of the vine dissipateth serpents.   

§ 9 Other Remedies, which nearer hand oppose this passion.  
THese in my opinion are remedies which, at distance 
Advices & remedies against this Passion in its full.  oppose this passion, and not only suffer it, not to come near us, but if it happen that we must grapple with it, and join battle with it in some urgent temptation; I advise you never to begin the combat, until you have well weighed the end of it. Love, at first, comes to us with the visage of a Virgin, and returneth from us with the body of a Serpent. He, who will know the utmost limits of it, should never make trial of its entrance.  
The Ancients heretofore delighted to make medals, 
The medal of love hath two faces.  the faces whereof were quite different and contrary; so as, if upon one side of the medal they graved an Achilles, on the other they figured a Thersites; if upon one side an Absalon, on the other an Aesop; if on the one an Hecuba, on the other an Helena; and if upon one side a Rose, on the other an Onion. This is observed in the medal of Carnal Love, if you look upon it on one side, you shall see a figure infinitely sweet and charming, on the other a most hideous fury. A thousand and a thousand Artists have set their hand, one to the pen, another to the graving-chizzel, another to the pencil, to write, insculp, and paint the form of evil Love: but I think that Solomon, as he more sensibly felt the effects of it, gave us also more light, how to make a draught in detestation of this unhappy passion.  
I have noted in the Book of Proverbs, where it describeth 
An excellent conceit of Solomo● concerning Love.  the detestable loves of a poor young man deceived by o cunning Courtesant, that it gives four or five properties to Carnal Love, which very notably 
Prov. 7. 1. Intex●i funibus lectulum meum. 2. Aspersi c●bile meum myrrhâ & alo●. 3. Victimas pro salute devovi. 4. Bosductus advictimam, agnus lasciviens, avis ad laqueum. 5. Viae inferni domus ejus.  discover the misery and imposture thereof. First, That its bed is woven with cords in the form of a little labyrinth, with many intricate wind. Secondly, That its chamber is perfumed with myrrh and aloes, very bitter drugs. Thirdly, That it in the beginning promiseth a sacrifice, and performs a slaughter. Fourthly, That the Lover who suffers himself to be deceived, is first an ox, than a sheep: and lastly, A bird taken in a snare, and wounded with a mortal arrow. Fifthly, That the house thereof is in the suburbs of hell.  
All this is spoken with great sense; the beds woven with cords and hampered with so many Gordian knots, signifieth unto us the gins and attractives of evil Love. False opinion is ever at the gates of its house, which deceiveth and bewitcheth all such as come near it. It cares not in the beginning of the gain to discover to them the dreadful events and tragedies of this passion; but it shows them a chamber wherein beauty is presented, which under a little white skin, hideth gross ordures: with it are smiles, glances, flatteries, courtships, overflow of words, kisses, sauciness, immodesty, good cheer, idleness; this seems a goodly thing to sottish youth, which hath nothing so certain as ruin. These are the snares wherewith it surpriseth, and the knots which many times indissolubly settereth its liberty. After that comes the chamber perfumed with myrrh and aloes, wherein the slight expected pleasures are drenched in great acerbities. There, folly, temerity, liberty meet, mixed with care, terror, distrust, tears, sighs, falsehood, perjury, dolours, jealousies, execrations, rage; which caused an Ancient to say, That the 
Plutarch. in Sympos.  heart of a Lover was a city, in which, upon one and the same day were seen sports and banquets, battles and funerals. In the third place, a slaughter-house is opened, where we clearly behold that false love which insinuateth itself with so many fair resemblances, is nothing but massacres both of body and soul; and that it is not without cause, that a foolish Lover saith in the best of Comic Poets, that the first Executioner that 
Plautus in Cystellaria.  ever was on earth, was Love, which he saith, taught men all cruelties and tortures: adding that to Love fond, and to be racked on the wheel, was in a manner all one. In this place of slaughter, there are likewise seen Pictures of Samson, with his eyes pulled out, pouring 
Jud. 16.  forth tears and blood through the same channel. Of Amon, who transfixed with a deadly and dreadful 
2 Sam. 13.  wound, yields up the ghost in a feast at the foot of his brother Absoloms' table, for having violated Thamar. On the other side, two armies of God's people, 
Judg. 20.  who cruelly kill one another for a luxurious act committed on the person of a married wife; so that of one part, eighteen thousand men were massacred, and of the other, more than twenty and five thousand. And round about, there is nothing but halters, poison, sword's, blood, racks, gibbets, and precipices, See here the goodly Sacrifices of Lust. In the fourth chamber are beheld the transfigurations of sottish Love, where he who is strucken with it, becomes first stupid as an Ox; dull and benumbed in his wits, as having a paralytic soul; and brutish, like Nebuchadonozor, who forsook his Regal throne, to eat hay with beasts. Then he is shorn as a sheep, by taking away his flieces, and despoiling him of the goods of soul, body, wealth, and reputation, and of all that, to which a reasonable creature may pretend unto. Lastly, to cut off all hope of recovery, he is unfeathered like a bird caught in a gin, yea, his wings are taken away, which are the desires of futurely doing well, that he may perpetually have the evil in object, and an inability towards good. The first chamber is very near to hell; there is to be seen darkness, smoke, flames, and from whence are heard gnash of teeth, despairs, and enraged complaints of unfortunate Lovers, who vomit out their souls in sin, having made no expiation by a long penance. Oh God what is he, who beholding this picture, would ever betray his soul, heaven, and his God, to yield obedience to loathsome lust?  
All this well considered, give yourself a little leisure 
Disasters of love in every age and condition.  to rally your thoughts together, and to behold the disasters which wait on the experience of miserable sin. If you be a Virgin, slain not the honour of your body; vilify not, in your flesh on earth, a virtue 
Advice to all sorts of persons.  to which Angels afford such glory in heaven. Above all, beware of a damnable curiosity, which cannot be known, but by becoming criminal. If you understand the sin, profit by your experience, and betray not an eternity of blessing, for a pleasure so short and wretched. If you be a master of a Family, and a 
Greg. Naz. homil. de Fornic.  man of quality, note what S. Gregory Nazianzene saith, That a man by his sin wholly ruineth body, soul, estate, and reputation. He is terrible in his house, shameful abroad, he serves for an executioner to a chaste wife, he is a tyrant to his children, a reproach to his friends, a scourge to his domestics, a dishonour to his allies, a blemish to his renown, a shipwreck to his means, and a fable to all the world. If you be a maid, ever fear to become a woman, and cast not the garland of your virginity under the feet of hogs. Give not a hair of your head to them who promise you golden mountains, and when they desire you in the quest of marriage, then is the time you must least be for marriage. All you grant to their importunity, will be the subject of your disgrace; and when they shall have wedded you, should you live as chaste as Susanna, they will continually imagine, you will be liberal to others, of that, whereof you were prodigal to them. If you desire to marry by fancy, rather pursuing your own wanton humours, than the reasonable commands of those to whom you own your being, hold it as a crime, the most capital you may undertake, and confidently believe, if so you do, you will open a floodgate to a deluge of miseries and cares, which will flow upon you through all the parts of your life. Account the resolutions you make to this purpose, as treasons, and think whosoever shall to you suggest the execution of them, will poison you by the ear to murder your chastity.  
If you be a married woman, and peradventure innocent enough, and of good reputation, what colour is there for you to engage yourself in a crime for which husbands have furies, laws, thunder's, threats; Judges for Sentence, punishments of gibbets and bloody scaffolds; and for which, a thousand poor creatures have ended their miserable lives, surprised in the heat of sin, to pass from a temporal fire, to that which never is quenched. If you be a man of the sword, know it is given you to defend honour, not to violate it, and that a man who suffers himself to be lead by women, what Rhodomontadoes soever he make in words, he is ever a coward.  
If you be a Judge or an Officer, raised up into an eminent place, degrade not yourself of the honours which God hath imprinted on your forehead, and never mount you up to the throne of Judicature, to condemn your own act, and still think the purple, which will not be died but by virginal hands, ought not to be worn but on a chaste body.  
If you be an Ecclesiastic, and which is more, engaged to Religion or Prelacy; will you be so unnatural as ever to consent to a sin, which cannot in your person but be a sacrilege? What a madness is it, that for to satisfy an infamous act of lust, you must be either an excommunicate, or a persecutor of Jesus, Christ? Excommunicate (I say) if you forsake altars, and a persecutor of Jesus Christ, if you come to them in this horrible sin, where you strike a nail into his hand, a lance into his side, you devour his flock, and kill his brethren by your ill example.  
Carnal love, in what person soever, is still ill situate (said Epictetus) In a maid it is a shame, in a woman it is a fury, in a man a lewdness, in youth it is a rage, in man's estate a blemish, in old-age a disgrace worthy of scorn.  
You will say, all these considerations are very effectual, but that they cure not passion already inflamed, and almost desperate of remedy. 
Remedies for affections which come against our will.   
To that I answer, we must proceed with more efficacy and address, among such as are surprised with vehement affection of which they would be free, but they find all possible repugnancies.  
I approve not the course of certain directours, who think all maladies are healed by words, as if they had ears. To what purpose is it to hold long discourses, and to appoint many meditations to a sharp fever, which is full of rave and furious symptoms?  
All the maladies of Love are not cured in one and 
Diversity of the maladies of love, and their cures.  the same manner: There are some who are engaged in the sense of the passion, but not in the consent to the sin; which is expressly sent by God to persons very innocent, but not entirely perfect, to punish some negligencies or some slight liberties of conversation, whereinto they have suffered themselves to slide by surprisal; that they may feel the danger of sin by the torment they suffer, and may correct themselves by the scent of the smoke before they be involved in the flame. And this many times lasteth long, being ordained as under a sentence of the divine Providence, as a punishment to become afterward a bridle to negligence, and a precaution against peril.  
Some also are permitted by heaven, and imposed upon certain souls who had a little too much rigour towards such as were tempted, to the end, they might learn by their experience more mildly to handle suffering hearts, and not exasperate their wounds by the sharpness of the remedy. Witness that old man of whom Cassian speaketh; who having roughly entertained a young religious man, that discovered his passion 
Cas. Col. 2. de discreet. Intellige te, vel ignotarum hactenus a diabolo vel despectum.  to him, was tempted so violently, that he thereby became frantic, and understood from the venerable Abbot Apollon, this had befallen him by reason of his great harshness; and that although he hitherto had not felt any rebellion against chastity, it was because the devil either knew him not, or contemned him.  
There are some which like tertian and quartan agues, have their accesses and recesses measured; and what diligence soever be used therein (well, the pain may be mitigated, but) the root is not taken away till it arrive to a certain period of time, wherein the sick man is insensibly cured. There are some driven away by hunger, and others overthrown by a reasonable usage, as it happeneth to melancholy Lovers, whose bodies are dry, and brains hollow; if you appoint them fasts and austerities ill ordered, you kill them. Some advise them recreation, wine, baths, honest and pleasing company, necessary care of the body:  
Some, sweet and active entertainment, which gives not leisure to the wild fancies of the mind; but this must be taken with much moderation. There are some who expect a good sickness, and many blood-letting, which may evacuate all the blood imprinted with Images of the thing beloved, to make a new body; others are cured by a suit, a quarrel, ambition, an ill business, great success, a new state of life, a voyage, a marriage, an office, a wife. There are now very few fools of Love to be found, who neglect worth and honour to serve their passion.  
There are nice and suspicious Loves, which have more of vanity than concupiscence; when one troubleth and hinders them from honestly seeing that which they love, they are distempered, and if one resist them not, they vanish away as if they had not had so much intention to love, as to vanish. It were almost necessary for many, if it may be done without sin or scandal, to converse continually; for being somewhat of their own nature, coy, they still observe some defect in the thing beloved, which weakeneth their passion, and find that the presence is much inferior to their Idea, which is the cause they easily desist from their enterprise, having more shame to have begun it, then purpose to continue it.  
Some are inflamed by denial, others become totally cool by contempt, as proud and predominate loves, who have not learned to suffer the imperious carriage of a woman; a disdain of their mistress, a cunning trick, a coldness, a frown, makes them quickly break their chains. One would not believe how many humane industries there are to cure the pain of Love, but ever it is better to owe one's health to the fear of God, to Penance, to Devotion, then to all other inventions.  
For which cause, you must consider the glorious battles which so many heroic souls have waged to crush 
Solid remedies.  this serpent, and to walk with noble steps in the liberty of the children of God.  
Some have fought with it on thorns, as S. Bennet; others on flowers, as the Martyr Nicetas, who being 
Admirable examples of the combats of Saints against Love.  bound on a bed of roses with silken cords, to resign himself to the love of a courtesan, spit out his tongue in her face. Others have thrust sharp pointed reeds under their nails, as S. John the Good: others have quenched it in snows, as S. Francis: others in flames, as S. Martinian, who, being by an unchaste woman solicited to sin, burnt his face and hands to overthrow the strongest passion, by the most violent pain. There are many of them in the new Christianity of Japonia, who pursue the same ways, and run to their chimney-hearths to vanquish the temptations of the flesh, thinking there is not a better remedy against this fire, than fire itself. Others have overcome this brutishness by a savage life, as S. Theoclista, who being taken by Arabians, stole from them, and was thirty years hidden in the forests, living on grass, and clothing herself with leaves. To say truly, there is not any virtue hath cost mankind so much, as invincible Chastity.  
But since these manners of conquests are more admirable than imitable; at least mortify your body by some ordinary devotion. Make use of the memory of death, make use of assiduity of prayer, of labour, of care over the eyes, ears, heart, and all the senses.  
Humble your spirit, and submit to obedience, that your flesh may obey you. Be not transported with extravagancies, 
Ubi furoris insederit virus, libid●ni● quoque incendium n●cesse est pene●. Cased spiritu fornic. c. 23.  animosity, and revenge: since Anger and Love (according to the Ancients) work upon one subject, and that the same fervours of blood which make men revengeful, will make them unchaste; fail not to heal yourself by the practice of retirement, of penance, of haircloth, and fasting. A holy maid of Alexandria was twelve years in a sepulchre 
Raderus  to free herself from the importunities of concupiscence; & cannot you be there one hour, so much as in thought? Another had this stratagem to elude love; for, she seeing 
Speculum Anonymi.  a young man to be very much touched with her love, who ceased not to importune her with all the violent pursuits which passion could suggest; told him, she had made a vow to fast forty days with bread and water: of which she would discharge herself before she would think of any thing else, and asked whether he pleased not to be a Party for the trial of his love? which he accepted: but in few days he was so weakened, that he then more thought upon death then love. Have not you courage to resist your enemy by the like arms? your heart faileth you in all that is generous, and you can better tell how to commit a sin then to do penance. Then choose out that which is most necessary and reasonable, separation, from that body so beloved which by 
Separation, the first remedy,  its presence is the nourishment of your flames. Consider you not, that comets which (as it is said) are fed by vapours of the earth, are maintained whilst their mother furnisheth them with food? so, love, which shineth, and burns like a false star in the bottom of your heart continually taketh its substance and sustenance from the face which you behold with so much admiration, from the conversation which entertains you in an enchanted palace full of chains and charms. Believe me, unlose this charm, stoutly take your self off, dispute not any longer with your concupiscence; fly away, cut the cable, weigh anchor, spread sails, set forward, go, fly: Oh, how a little care will quickly be passed over! Oh, how a thousand times will you bless the hour of this resosolution! Look for no more letters, regard not pictures; no longer preserve favours; let all be to preserve your reason. Ah! why argue you still with your own thoughts? Take me then some Angel, some Director, 
The counsel and assiduity of a good director, is an excellent antidote.  who is an able, intelligent, industrious, courageous man; resign yourself wholly up to his advice, he will draw you out from these fires of Gomorrha, to place you in repose and safety on the mountain of the living God.  
I add also one advice (which I think very essential) which is, infinitely to fear relapses after health, and to avoid all that may re-enkindle the flame. For, Love ofttimes resembleth a snake enchanted, cast asleep and smothered; which, upon the first occasions, awakeneth, and becomes more stronger and more outrageous than ever. You must not only fortify your body against it, but your heart; for, to what purpose is it to be chaste in your members, and be in thought an adulterer! Many stick not to entertain love in their imagination, with frequent desires, without putting them in execution: but they should consider, that Love, though imaginary, makes not an imaginary hell; and that for a transitory smoke, they purchase an eternal fire.   

§ 10. Of Celestial Amity's.  
BUt, it is time we leave the giddy fancies of love, to behold the beauties and lights of divine Charity, which causeth peace in battles, conquest in victories, life in death, admiration on earth, and paradise in heaven itself. It is a strange thing that this subject (the most amiable of all) proves somewhat dreadful to me, by the confluence of so many excellent Writers, ancient and modern, who have handled it so worthily, since their riches hath impoverished their successions, and their plenty maketh me in some sort to fear sterility.  
They had much furtherance in their design; they took as much stuff as they thought good, referring all that to the love of God, which is in nature, and above nature, in grace, and beyond grace. They have enlarged themselves in great volumes, the sight whereof alone seems to have much majesty: and to please their own appetites, they have said all they might possible. But here, forasmuch as concemeth my purpose, I have reduced myself into contractions of great figures, which will not prove troublesome, if measures and proportions be therein observed, and nothing forgotten of all that, which is most essential to the matter we treat. I find myself very often enforced to confine giants to 
Myrmecidia opera apud Aelianum.  the compass of a ring, and to cover ships under the wing of a fly, drawing propositions out of a huge mass of thoughts and discourses, to conclude them in a little Treatise, not suffering sublimity to take aught away of their facility, nativenesse of their majesty, shadows of their lustre, nor superficies of their dimensions.  
Besides, that which renders this my discourse the less pleasing, is, that speaking to men of the world, I cannot disguise the matter in unknown habits, splendid and pompous words, conceptions extatick; I cannot persuade them that a Seraphin hath penetrated the heart of one with a dart of fire, and that another hath had his sides broken by the strength of the love of God. I must pursue ordinary ways, and teach practices more nearly approaching to our humanity.  
I am then resolved to show there are celestial Amity's, which great souls contract with God, that their condition is very excellent and most happy, and that the practice of them must begin in this world, to have a full fruition of them in the other.  
Carnal spirits, which only follow animal ways, have much ado to conceive how a man can become passionate in the love of God, and think there is no affection but for temporal and visible things: It is a Love too high (say they) to transfer their affections into heaven: It is a country wherein we have no commerce; There comes neither letter nor message thence; No ships arrive on that coast; It is a world separated from ours by a great Chaos wholly impenetrable, 
That there may be a celestial amity by the commerce of man with God.  How would you I love God, since he is all spirit, and I a body? He is Infinite, I finite. He so High, and I so low. It is a kind of insolency to go about to think of it. Behold, how spirits, ignorant of heaven's mysteries, do talk. But I maintain upon good grounds, that we are made to place our love in the heart of God, and that if we do not seasonably take this way; well we may go on, but never shall we arrive at repose,  
First the Philosopher Plato hath worthily observed, 
An excellent conceit of Plato. Plato in Sympos. & Marlil. Ficinus. Amor memoria primi, ac summi, & purissuni pulchri. Appetitor artis, desertor artificis amplectitur speciem, eujus non miratur authorem. S. Eucherius ep. Paraen●t,  that the love we have here below, is, a remembrance of the first, fair sovereign and most pure of all beauties, which is the Divinity. Our soul, which is the blast of his mouth, the image of his bounty, the representation of his power, as it beareth so lively characters of his Majesty, hath (as it were) also, not heeding it, a generous passion towards him: unless it be infected by the breath of the serpent, and obstructed by vapours of sensuality; it seeks for him; it speaks to him in all creatures: It beholdeth him through so many veils which nature hath spread before it in so divers objects. But it often falleth out, that, charmed with present pleasures, it is so much delighted with beautiful workmanships, that it forgetteth the workman: It embraceth momentary beauties for eternal verities: It takes the shadow for the body: It creates to itself an Empire in banishment, and a haven in shipwreck. This carnal piece, which is ravished with the contemplation of this goodly face, will not stay upon flesh: It feeleth there is some invisible hand which shoots arrows at it, amidst the vermilion of roses, and the whiteness of lilies: it well knoweth not what transports it, what entranceth it, what worketh these transanimations in it: It is not the body which must rot, but it is the shadow of the first-fair upholds itself in the frailty of dying things, and incessantly causeth returns to the first origin, in souls which know how to profit by theri wounds.  
O how attractive is the Beauty! O should it on a sudden take away the veil from all mortal eyes who court it; the world in an instant would dissolve under its much to be adored rays, souls would fly out of bodies, and total nature would impetuously affect its delights.  
It is so naturally imprinted on the heart of man, that Hell itself cannot forget it, since the evil rich man laid on the coals of so unfortunate a lodging, did for his first act, lift up his eyes to heaven, as desirous to look for the lovely face which he had eternally lost.  
Secondly, I will deliver an excellent reason, which I 
Aug. l. 2. conf. c 6. An excellent reason of S. Augustine, to show the inclination we have to love God.  draw out of S. Augustine, to convince us that there is some very forcible inclination which insensibly moveth us to the love of God: which is the cause that even our vices and exorbitancies (not reflecting thereon) love some perfection of the Divinity, although not regulated, nor limited in the bounds wherewith it ought to be beloved. Pride contends for height; and what is higher than God, who sits upon Thrones, predominateth over Dominations, who governeth Principalities, and makes Heaven bow even to the Abyss, under the shadow of his Majesty?  
Ambition passionately seeketh after honours; and who hath more honour than God, who seethe glory to be hatched in his own bosom, for whom so many Altar's smoke, for whom so many sacrifices burn, under whom so many Diadems bow, to who so many Sceptres obey, before whom so many States, Kingdoms, and Empires▪ are but a drop of dew? Power will make itself great; and who is more formidable than this great Judge, for whom Thunders roar, Lightnings fly, Thunder-stones shiver lofty rocks, for whom elements fight, and nature dresseth up its scaffolds, to prosecute offenders even in hell; there being neither Place, Time, Height, or Power which hath ability to deliver itself out of his hands? Flattery, and Complacence will make itself to be beloved; and what is more lovely than the sweetness of the charity of this good Father, which distilleth like unto a celestial Manna upon all the creatures of the Universe? Curiosity affecteth the study of wisdom; And what is wiser than God, who seethe all within himself, who hath Abysses of knowledges in his heart, riches of eternal sapience in his bosom, for whom Time hath no prescription, nature no veil, Height no height, and abysses no depth: Who is the Father of Sciences, Creator of thoughts, Treasure of Eloquence; who dazzleth all humane Ability, who taketh his Sages from among Idiots, and out of the dumb, raiseth his Orators. laziness seeks out a life soft and peaceful continually fixed upon its repose, and the contentments of the flesh and spirit; and where shall we find the repose out of God, since it is he who is perpetually ingulphed in the delights of a pure tranquillity? Luxury ardently desireth pleasures, and will satisfy all the desires of its heart; And God is he not the plenitude of joy, an abundance which never fails, a sweetness incorruptible, a feast which consumeth not, a perpetual Theatre of comforts a Flood of most pure contentments, which floweth overall Paradise? Avarice will possess much, it stretcheth out the hands of a Harpy over the goods of another; It garboileth the world, it disquieteth the earth; It would willingly delve into hell, it pleadeth, it wrangleth, it assails, it defendeth to satiate its covetousness, yet still is hungry: For what is he that possesseth all but the prime of the rich, who is the beauty of fields, the lustre of flowers, the fecundity of fruits, the wealth of minerals, and the fertility of total nature? Envy is troubled about supereminency, and will have the highest place, accounting him an enemy, who precedeth; And is it not the eternal Father, who is King of Glory, who seethe all to be much lower than himself, and seethe nothing beyond what he is? Choler will revenge for it, it striketh at heaven, it troubleth the earth, it causeth lightning and tempests, which raise so many Tragedies in the world; And who better knows how to avenge sins then the sovereign Monarch of the Universe, for whom exterminating Angels carry the sword of Justice, for whom hell reserveth treasures of flames eternal?  
Now, I demand of you, if it be true, that even our 
Tantus est ille, ut, qui non amant eum, injust quidem, non nisi quoddam ejus amare possint. S. Eucherius. Objection, about the invisibility of God. Mercur. Trism. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. That God renders himself infinitely amiable in total nature. Synesius Hymn. 4. Naturam universam lyram ae●erni Patris vocat diversis fidibus intentam. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ubi alludit ad chordas cytharae hypatem mesen neten. The sun the image of God. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Orpheo. Boni conspicuus filius, conspicuum in templo mundi Dei simula chrum● Platonicis, Proclus thronum justitiae in medio sole collocat.  vices are in love with some perfections which are in God, how can our virtues but bear a singular affection towards him? why should they not be enamoured of his beauties? why not sigh after his attractives; since they are his real daughters?  
Some one will say, it were but reasonable, if God, to make himself beloved, would become visible to men; but he is a secret so hidden, that our poor spirit seeking for him, finds more confusion, then light. Verily, I like Mercury Trismegistus; for he stopping his mouth, who complained of the invisibility of God: Hold thy peace (thou profane fellow) saith he, and if thou hast eyes, confess God is visible, and that he showeth himself in as many mirrors as there are creatures in this great Universe.  
A man needs to be a Philosopher but a little to learn to love; let him see, know and study nature in all its works; let him hear the harmonies of God's consort, to understand in some measure, the perfections of the workman. Those little golden, and azure shells, which make a lodging for certain fishes, more magnificent than Solomon's Palace; Those cob-web-lawns, and those tiffanies, which compose the body of flowers with an exquisite delicacy; Those waves, which curl on the current of rivers; those gentle western blasts which bear comfort and health on their wings; those huge theaters of seas; that vast extent of plains; those meteors so artificially varied; those little eyes of heaven, which show themselves so soon as night spreads its mantle on the inferior regions of the world; all that is seen, all that is heard, all that is touched, all that is handled; cease not to recount unto us the love of our Father.  
One must never have seen the sun, not to have love for God; he must have lived like a hog, with his head in the mire, and his eyes in a trough, to say he knoweth not what the Divinity is. To speak truly, this great star is the visible son of the first Bright; the Image of the sovereign King; the eye of the world; the heart of nature; it daily speaketh to us out of the gates of the East, with as many tongues as it hath rays. This great supervisor of the fornaces of the universe traveleth throughout total nature. He lighteth up the stars; in heaven he createth crowns, and rainbows in the air; on earth, flowers and fruits; in the sea, pearls; and in the bosom of rocks, saphires and diamonds: he throws fire and vigour into all living creatures; his presence causeth alacrity, and his absence (insensibly) horror and melancholy in all nature. His motion so rapid, his circumvolution so even, that, so regular harmony of nights and days, those reflections, which are as fathers of so many Essences, set the whole Divinity before our eyes. O what a goodly thing it is to talk face to face with those great forests, which are born with the world to discourse with the murmur of waters, the warbling of birds in the sweetness of solitude and of so many creatures, which (according to S. Denis) are the veils and Tapestries of the great Temple! There it is, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. S. Dyonisius c. 1. Hierar. coelestis.  where God accoasteth on all sides, where our soul is stirred up with its own thoughts, dischargeth itself of matter, and entereth into a great commerce with Intelligencies. When I behold all the perquisites of Organs, where Music is in perfection; I stay not on the Iron, Led. Wood, the Piper nor on the bellows; my spirit flieth to that hidden spirit which distributeth itself with so melodious proportionable divisions throughout the whole Instrument. So, when I contemplate the world, I stick not on the body of the Sun, the stars, the elements, the stones, the metals, the plants, nor the living creatures; I penetrate into that secret spirit which insinuateth itself thereunto, with such admirable power, such ravishing sweetness, and incomparable 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Synesi●o. Quod colimus nos Deus unus est, qui totam molem istam cum instrumento elementorum, corporum, spirituum expressit in ornamentum majestatis suae, Tertul. Apol. c. 17.  Harmony. I infinitely love him, because he is fair, since he made all the beauties which are presented before mine eyes; Because he is good; because he is wise, since he communicateth himself with so much profusion: since he so well tempered the consonancies of the whole world; I love him, because I know he is mine, and I am wholly his. Were I not touched with his beauty, his wisdom, his goodness, perpetually his benefits would soften my heart, Me thinks I meet him every where, with a hundred arms, and as many hands to do me good. I neither see place, room, time, or moment, which is not figured with his liberalities.  
I am clothed with his wool, fed with his Granary, warmed with his wood, served by his Officers; I live in him, I breathe by him, I have nothing which is not his Inheritance. It is neither Father nor Mother, great one, Lord, or King, which gave me wealth, honour, and estate. Well they may be instruments of my happiness but they are not the cause. They were nothing for so many years; They came into the world as poor, as I; they daily return from it, into dust; I feel my necessities and dependences; and I know they cannot be supplied, but by a necessary, and independent Essence.  
We must not say, we have not commerce enough with him; great things are for the little, and the rich 
The commerce of man with God. S. Maximus Cent. 5 ex vatiis. Deum extra se effici creaturis omnibus providendo Melinra sunt ubera tua vino. Can 1. Quia vinum exprimitur cum la bore in torculari ubèra sponte fluunt.  for the necessitous. See we not that heaven is all for the earth? doth it cause one sprig of an herb to grow, in itself? produceth it one sole flower among its stars? It giveth all it hath, and is perpetually content with what it is. So God is all for us, as if man were his God, saith S. Thomas. If we be miserable, he is not therefore disdainful; if he be high, he is not therefore far distant from our inferior condition. He is all, in all things; ever present; continually doing somewhat; He hath dugs of bounty which put him to pain, if he stream not upon us. We see him to come from all parts, and his approach is not mute; for, the best part of us is spiritual, which maketh commerce easy unto us, with a God, who is all spirit. How often find we our soul to be raised above itself, and to be transported with thoughts, knowledges, lights, joys, pleasures, consolations, hopes, confidences, courages, and antipasts of glory, which we acknowledge to be above our strength! It is God then, who worketh by them in us, who enters into our soul, as a Master into his house, who becomes our guest, our friend, our Doctor, and our Protector. We need not seek for him in heaven, he is in our heart (saith the Emperor Antonine) and there he uttereth his oracles. There it is, where he enterteineth us, and teacheth us, we are his children, and reserveth for us an admirable inheritance.  
When it was said to little Nabuchodonozor, who was exposed in his infancy and bred up in the house of 
Glossa in Danielem.  a Peasant, whose son he took himself to be; Courage (child) you are not made to drive Oxen, and till the ground; there is another profession expecteth you: you are the son of a great Prince, who keeps the prime kingdom of the world for you: These rags must be changed into robes of cloth of gold; this ugly Hat into a Diadem; this Spade into a Sceptre; This Cottage into a Palace, this servitude into an Empire: For whom shall treasures, officers, services, arms, greatness, pleasures, joys, and feasts, be but for you, who art the heir of the Assyrian throne? Do not we think that upon the recital of these words, this young man felt a flame which spread itself over his heart, that he was touched to the quick, with his extraction, and ravished with love towards a Father, by whom he was born so great? And have we not the like apprehensions, when faith dictateth unto us; Thou art not created to live perpetually among mire and dirt, and to be tied to a wretched, frail, and perishable body to walk upon thorns, and to embroil thyself in the tolls and cares of a mortal life; there are above palaces of stars, of Intelligencies, of incomprehensible lights, of ineffable beauties which expect thee, of crowns prepared for thee, of sceptres made to fill thy hands: All times are for thee, and all which Nature endeavoureth here below, is but to contribute to thy contentment. Thou art the son of a noble Father, who makes men happy at his pleasure. He loves thee as his heart, and would have thee near him, to accomplish thee with all his dearest delights and the height of his glories. And what can a soul do, which learns all this from faith; but raise itself above all concupiscences of flesh; but love, but dilate itself, but readily mix with this most pure spirit, which inviteth it in all creatures?  
Have we yet the heart to say, we have not familiarity enough with God; and that he is of too high a 
The conversation of God with man by the mystery of the incarnation in the consummation of love. Leo serm. 3. de Passione Venit in hunc mundum dives, atque misericors negotiator coeli. & commutatione mirabili inivit commercium salutare nostra accipiens, sua tribuens.  strain to love him, when we think upon Jesus, who for us descended from the highest part of heaven to the slime of Adam. who made himself our brother, who sucked the dugs of our Mother, who spoke our tongue who took upon him our semblance, who charged himself with our burdens, who on himself laid our miseries, to turn them into felicities? He is that Merchant who is come out of a happy and rich country full of treasures, glory, and greatness, which were to him more natural, than rays to the Sun; and yet, being lodged (as it were) with us, in a silly Cottage, hath despoiled himself for us, wholly inebriated with the ecstasies of love; hath made himself poor to make us rich, weak to strengthen us, contemptible to render us glorious, full of sufferings to beautify us, and a man, that we might be Gods. This is the man who hath been able to contract all God's extent under a little clay, who went not a step which was not worthy to produce a star, who carried the Divinity upon the ends of his fingers, whose life was a flash of lightning, his word a thunder, his virtues lessons and actions, prodigies. Hath he not loved the ungrateful, when he heaped on his own body the pains and sufferings of all ages, making himself of a King of glory, a man of dolours, to purchase pleasures for us with as many wounds as he had members, as many crosses as we have sins!  
After all this, he gives himself to us in the Sacrament, 
The Eucharict the last degree of love.  which he hath instituted as an abridgement of his miracles, wherein he is incorporated within our heart, inour soul, as one piece of wax melted within another. I readily here remember what an ancient lover said, that love made a Butt of his heart, where, so soon as it had shot all its arrows, it threw itself as an inflamed dart into the bottom of his breast, to set him all on 
Anacre on. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Ita applicat Johannes Eusebius l. 4. arte voluntatis.  fire, What arrows, and what shafts, flying on every side, in Nature, in Grace, what benefits, what favours, what Amity's, what forward affections, for which man still continued obdurate, till Jesus wholly gaining him, did descend into his entrails fully replenished with love and flames, and heavenly ardours? Is it not time to pronounce Anathema with S. Paul, against him who loveth him not after his coming in this manner, to captivate us by his bounty?  
To speak sincerely, he must needs be amiable, since (according to the Canticles) he is wholly composed of 
Love of Saints towards Jesus.  desires, and satisfactions, and that all the just sigh after him. We have heard talk through so many Ages of the most accomplished beauties of certain ereatures who have drawn many Amorists after them: but never have we seen one sole woman to gain the affection of an entire City, Province, or Kingdom. From whence cometh it, that there is not any beauty, but that of Jesus Christ, which enchaineth Cities, Empires, and Monarchies? From whence cometh it, that so many Kings and Queens have followed him through Forests, Thorns, and among Rocks, even to the abandoning of themselves? From whence cometh it, that so many millions of souls, the wisest, most purified, and most courageous on the earth, have loved him even to the suffering of flames and wheels, in the dislocation of bones, and the dismembering of their whole bodies? From whence cometh it, that all, which is most pure, and most eminent in the world, daily dissolveth for him, and that so many hearts melt for his service in honourable flames which purify them, without consuming them? Verily, we may say, there is nothing which equalleth the excellency of celestial Amity's: and that, well to place your love; you must fix it in the heart of God.   

§ 11. Of the Nature of Divine Love. Of its Essence, Qualities, Effects, and Degrees.  
THe great Anachoret Raymond went very high 
Blanquerna in l. de amico & amato.  when he said. The love of God was an influence of Eternity: For it is true that we, coming from an eternal God, have an infinite desire to make our Being perpetual. And for this purpose, we tie ourselves by love to so many things, to live again in them, and by them: but they being transitory and frail, we there find no support, until God hath poured his holy love into our heart, which is the true influence of Eternity, that alone can purify our life, and eternize our souls.  
We then must not feign to ourselves, that the love of God proceeds merely from our own strength, but we must hearken to the decision of the Council of 
Concilium Arausicanum. Donum D● est dili●●re Denm, ipse ut diligeretur dededit, qui non diligentes diligit, displicentes, amati sumus; ut esset in nobis unde placeremus. The growth of love like unto pearls.  Orange which saith, that to love God, is a gift from God: It is he who inspireth the love with which he will be loved, and who hath loved us even in disfavour, to transport us to favour: Whereby it appeareth, that this fair love is nought else but a celestial quality infused into the soul, by which we love God above all, and all for God.  
Now, I imagine with myself, that he is born in our hearts, in such a manner, as pearls grow in their shells. The mother of pearl is first pierced by a celestial influence, as with an arrow, fiery, and sharp, which solicits and importuneth it, to dispose itself to this excellent production. Which is the cause, that it spreads, openeth, and dilates itself, to receive the dew distilled into it from the air, and having moistened it, it digesteth, concocteth, and transfigureth it into this little miracle of nature, which is with so much curiosity sought after. Behold what passeth in a soul; when it bringeth forth this precious love, it is prevented by a special grace from the Divine Goodness, which at first gives it a distaste of all things in the world, and fixeth a generous spur in the heart, to excite, awaken, and inflame it to the quest of so great a good. Then it extendeth, dilates, and opens all its gates to the Holy Ghost, who descendeth into it, as the dew of Hermon by qualities, and 
Donec Christus formetur in vobis. Gal 4. 10.  effects admirable, which through freewill it embraceth; and ties, and habituateth itself therein, conceiving and forming Jesus Christ (as saith S. Paul:) Then is the time, when this divine love is conceived, which is no sooner born, but it causeth a rejoicing in the heart of man, like unto that which happened in the house of Abraham at Isaac's nativity. It is a celestial laughter, 
The Empire and eminencies of Divine love.  an extraordinary jubilation, an expansion of all the faculties and functions of the spirit, and will. This little Monarch is no sooner born, but it gins to command, and sits on the heart as in its Throne: All powers do it 
Instructi in charitate in omnes divitias plenitudinis intellectûs. Col. 2. 2. Ailredus tom. 13. Bibliorum in speculo charitatis. Excellent conceit of charity.  homage; all passions render it service. All the virtues applaud at its coronation, and confess they hold of it, and are all in it. He who is once well instructed in charity aboundeth with all riches, and hath the full plenitude of the spirit, (according to the Apostles) and is a Tree grafted with scions of all perfection, and which fail not to bring forth their fruits.  
Sciences, and virtues are, that, to us, which oars to vessels, what the viaticum to travellers, what light to blear-eyes, what arms to soldiers: but charity alone is the repose of the wearied, the Country of Pilgrims, the light of the blind, the Crown of the victorious, Faith, and the knowledge of God carry us to our country; Hope maintaineth us the other virtues defend us: but where charity is perfect, as it is in glory, one no longer believes any thing, because it seethe all, one hopes for nought, because he possesseth all.  
Temperance combateth against Concupiscence, Prudence against error, Fortitude against adversity, Justice against inequality: But in perfect charity, there is a perfect chastity, which standeth not in need of the arms of temperance, having no blemish of impurity; A perfect knowledge, which expecteth not any help from ordinary Prudence, since it hath no errors; a perfect Beatitude, which needeth not Fortitude to conquer adversities, since to it nothing is uneasy; a Sovereign peace which imploreth not the aid of Justice against inequality, since all therein is equal.  
For in a word, what is charity but a temperate love without lust, A prudent love without error, a strong love without impatience, a just love without inequality? Faith is the first day of our Creation, which driveth away darkness; Hope is the second, which makes a firmament for us, and which divideth waters from waters, things transitory from eternal. Temperance is the third, which arraungeth the waters, and storms of passions in their proper element, and causeth the land of our heart to appear, which sendeth up vapours to God, that are its sighs.  
Prudence, is the fourth, which lighteth up in us the sun of understanding, and the lights of knowledge, Fortitude is the fifth, which sustains us in the Ocean of adversities (not suffering us to corrupt as fishes in salt-waters, and as birds) above the Tempest. Justice the sixth, for it gives us to command over our passions, as Adam who on the same day he was created, obtained it over all living creatures. But charity is the seventh day The Symbol of Glory, which contracteth all delights in the circle of its Septenary. And how can it but abridge all Theology, since it abbridgeth God himself, 
S. Zeno ser. de fide, spe, & charit. Tu Deum in hominem demutatum voluisti, tu Deum abbreviatum paulisper à majestatis suae immensitate peregrinari fecisti, tu virginali carcere nove n●mensibus religasti, tu mortem, Deum mori docendo, evacusti.  and that we have cause to speak to him in such terms, as Saint Zeno did. O love what hast thou done? Thou hast changed God into Man, Thou hast contracted him, drawing him out of the lustre of his Majesty, to make him a pilgrim on earth; Thou hast shut him in the prison of a virginal womb the space of nine months: Thou hast annihilated the empire of death, when thou taughtest God to die.  
Love thus acknowledged by all the virtues, mounteth as on a chariot of Glory, maketh itself conspicuous with heroic, and noble qualities: It is pious, since it employeth all its thoughts on God: It is generous, and magnanimous, since it is ever disposed to great designs: It is liberal, as that which spareth nothing: It is strong, not yielding to any of all those obstacles, which present themselves to divert the course of its intentions: 
Qualities of divine love by which we may know whether it inhabit a soul.  It is just, equally distributing rewards to merit: It is temperate admitting no excesses but of love: It is prudent, having eyes always upon its deportments: It is witty, to find out a thousand inventions: It is violent without eagerness, active without participation, sage without coldness, good without remissness, and calm without idleness.  
But I must tell you, though its perfections be without number, you shall chief know it by three qualities, 
Three principal marks of love.  which will make it appear unto you, pliant, obliging, and patiented.  
I say pliant; for there is nothing but fires, desires, sweetness, affections, joys, admirations, ecstasies, 
Plyantness.  pleasures, transportments for its wellbeloved. This is the State, which the great Origen figureth unto us 
Orig. Hom. de Magdal.  of S. Mary Magdalen, when he saith, that by the strength of love she was dead to all the objects of the world. She had her thoughts so employed upon her Jesus, that she was almost insensible; she had eyes and saw not, ears and heard not, senses and felt not; she was not where she was: for she was wholly where her Master was, although she knew not where he was. She knew no other art but that of love, she had unlearnt to fear, to hope, to rejoice, to be sad; all in her turned to love, by reason of him whom she loved above all: The Angels who descended from heaven to comfort her, were to her troublesome, nor could she endure them she stood upright near the sepulchre, where in the place of death she found her heaven.  
Now as in efficacious plyantnesses are flowers of 
Liberality.  love which never bring forth any fruit; so, it takes a second quality, which is, to be liberal, and much obliging: For this cause the hands of the bridegroom (according to the Canticles (are all of gold, and round; to show there is not any thing crooked, or rough to stay 
Cant. 5. 14 Manus ejus tornatiles, aureae, plenae Hyacinthis, (alia versio) Globi aurei pleni mari.  his gifts: besides, they are all filled with precious stones, to figure his benefits unto us; Jacinths, and Diamonds which he scattereth, and bestoweth as liberally, as the sand of the sea. The Hebrew saith, that the same hands are vessels of gold replenished with the sea because love is an Ocean of liberalities, which is never exhausted.  
There remains nothing but to be patiented, which it 
Patience. Pennas habet, non pondus. Ailredus  doth with so much grace, that one may say, its yoke hath wings, not weight. The heart of it, ofttimes is environed with thorns, and it sweareth they are roses. It swims in a sea of wormwood and faith it is sweet water: It is covered all over with wounds, and protesteth they are Pearls, and Rubies; It is overwhelmed with affairs, and maintains they are recreations; It is surcharged with maladies, and they are sports; with calumnies, and they are blessings; with death, and that is life,  
These three qualities cause twelve very notable effects 
Twelve effects of love  in love, which are, To love God above all, and, in comparison of him to despise all. To account one's self unhappy, if but a very moment diverted from his sweet Ideas. To do all that may be, and to endure all things impossible to come near him. To embellish, and adorn our soul to please him. To be always corporally present with him, as in the Sacrament; or spiritually, as in prayer. To love all which is for him, and to hate all which is not for him. To desire that he may be declared, confessed, praised and adored by all the world. To entertain all the most sublime thoughts (that is possible) of his dear person. To pass over with sweetness all the acerbities suffered in his service. To accommodate one's self to all his motions, and to receive both sad and joyful things with his countenance. To languish perpetually with the desires to behold him face to face; and lastly, To serve him without anxiety, or expectation of reward.  
These things being so sublime; we must not presume to arrive thither at the first dash. It is very fit to file, and continually to polish our soul by long services and goodly actions, to arrive in the end at the happy accomplishment of love. For this cause there are reckoned certain degrees by which the soul is led to the palace of this triumphant Monarch.  
There is a love, as yet but young, which doth only begin, and hath five degrees, within the compass whereof, it dilates itself to pass to a much greater perfection. It beginneth first by the taste of the word of God, and the sweetness it feels by the reading of good books, which is a sign that a soul already hath an arrow of true love in the heart. This taste maketh a man take good resolutions for the amendment of his manners, and order of his life: this resolution is followed by a happy penance which bewaileth all the imperfections of the life passed with a bitter distaste, and a fit satisfaction. By this way, we proceed to the love of a neighbour, and a beginning is made by a tender compassion of his afflictions, and a rejoicing at his prosperities: Lastly, or addicts himself much, to many very laudable good works, and to the holy exercises of mercy. Behold here a most sincere condition, and to be wished in many men of honour, who may therein persist with great constancy.  
The second order comprehendeth those which are 
Three orders of true lovers of the World.  yet more strong, and it containeth five other degrees. First, they are very assiduous in prayer, wherein they are much enlightened with the knowledge of verities, and celestial maxims. Secondly, they obtain an excellent purity of conscience, which they cleanse and polish by an enquiry into their interior; holily curious, and perfectly disposed. Thirdly, they feel the exterior man much weakened by a generous mortification, wherewith concupiscence is quailed, Fourthly, followeth the vigour of the inward man, who finds himself happily enabled to all the functions of the spirit, with a certain facility which becometh as it were natural to him. Fifthly, appeareth a great observance of the law of God, which maketh him apprehend the least atoms of sin, through a notable fidelity with which he desires to serve his master. In this rank are many good religious who lead a life most accomplished in devotion, and in the continual mortification of senses.  
Lastly, in the third order of perfect lovers, are the great effects of perfect charity, as is, not to have any humane and natural considerations in all one's actions; but to tread under foot all respect of flesh and blood, to defend truth: Not to stick to earth by any root; but to account all things worse than a dunghill, to gain Jesus Christ: to run before the Cross, and to bear the greatest adversities with a generous patience: to love one's enemies: to do good to persecutors; and in conclusion, freely to expose one's life for the salvation of a neighbour. To say truly, they had need to be persons most heroic, to go so far; and there is no doubt, but this is the full accomplishment of love.  
Notwithstanding, nine degrees also are added of Seraphic love, which concern Contemplatives; which are, 
Nine degrees of Seraphical love for the contemplative.  The solitude of a heart throughly purified from all the forms of Creatures: Silence in a sublime tranquillity of passions: Suspension, which is a mean degree between Angel and man: Inseparability, which adhereth to its well-beloved for an eternity, not admitting the least disunion: Insatiability, which never is satiated with love: Indefatigability, which endureth all labours without weariness: Languour, which causeth the soul to dissolve and melt on the heart of its beloved: Ecstasy, which causeth a destitution of the vegetative and sensitive soul, totally to actuate the intellectual. Deiformity, which is a degree approaching near to beatific love. Then is there made in the soul a deluge of mysterious and adorable love, which drowneth all humane thoughts, which swalloweth all earthly affections, which flieth to the superior region of man, which hideth all that is eminent in sciences, transcendent in virtue, great in imagination, and which causeth the spirit to forget itself, and to look on nothing but heaven.   

§ 12. The Practice of Divine Love.  
THe love of God is a science inspired, not studied, where the infusion of the Holy Ghost is more eloquent than all Tongues, and more learned than all Pens. That which comes to us by art, ofttimes gins very late, and quickly endeth. That which is given us by the favour of heaven, comes very readily, and never is dost. Those who think to learn the love of God by precepts only, croak like Ravens, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. etc. Pindarus.  and have nothing solid: such as have it by grace are Angels, who are raised into the highest region, and poise themselves on their wings. Grave discourses, and good books fail not to contribute much to this purpose, as we lately may have tried by the treatise which the R. F. Stephen Binet hath published, fully replenished with the holy ardours of extraordinary devotion, and which seem to have been dictated by love itself, and conceived in that fire, which Jesus came to enkindle on earth, to inflame the whole world.  
If then you desire to profit in this love, let your endeavour 
The means to acquire the love of God.  be continually to beg it of God with the most fervent prayers which the holy Ghost shall suggest, to esteem it above all worldly things, and to apply all your actions to this happy conquest.  
Be ye very careful to cut off from your heart all impediments which may give it any obstacle; for if you should imagine to entertain it in a soul sullied with terrestrial affections; it were to ask a most precious 
Quot vitia habemus, tot recentes habemus Deos, Hieron.  Balm, to put it in an unclean vessel. We have as many Idols in our heart, as passions, opposite to the law of God.  
Be not satisfied with taking away vices, but stifle the remembrance of worldly things, which may in you occasion any exorbitancy. Withdraw your mind as much as you can from a thousand imaginations, which fly as airy spirits about your heart when it gins to take wings to its repose. Perplex not yourself likewise, more than is reason, with affairs both spiritual and temporal, which cause a thousand cares to arise, and only serve to quench the vigour of devotion, and to draw out the juice of piety. Fly acerbities of heart, apprehensions, and servitudes, accustoming yourself to do all with a spirit of sweetness, and holy liberty.  
Consequently make a practice of the love of God, 
The practice of the love of God.  undertaking it with a resolute purpose, a great application of mind, and employing all possible industries to profit therein, as one would in affecting some great bargain, some very considerable office, or affair, most important. For it is a very unworthy thing to behold all despicable Trades full of artisans, who kill themselves 
How we may earn to love God, above the love of the world. Jnhonestos amatores ostendite, si quis amore foeminae lasciviens vestit se aliter quàm amatae, placet. Aug. ler. 19 de verbis. Apost.  to find out inventions that may set forth the profession, and that only the occupation of the love of God, should have workmen so lazy, and unnatural.  
After all, following the counsel of S. Augustine, consider what the children of darkness often do to prosper in worldly loves and amities. They strive to insinuate themselves by some good office, they consider on every side the person of him of whom they would be beloved, they study his nature, his inclinations, his desires, his affairs, and they oblige him, ere he is ware, in what he desireth most. Are they entered into his amity? they persist in the practice of great assiduities; they have entertainments and admirable correspondencies; they delight, they serve, they mingle the recreative with the serious: They apply all they see, all they think upon, all they invent, all they hope, all they possess, all they say, all they writ, to the contentment of this creature. They draw tribute out of all for it, and, if it be possible, will give it its hearts-wish in all things: They transform themselves into its humours and like: They espouse its loves, enmities, quarrels, and revenges: They publish its virtues, with discretion conceal its favours: they have tricks to pacify its anger, to stir up its languors, to open its heart, to hold their possession, and if it be needful, will pass through ten purgatories of fire, ice, tears, blood, torrents, seas, inflamed serpents, gnawing vultures, to arrive at one of its pretensions. O reproach, that all this is done for a frivolous worldly love, which oftentimes is the Hangman of life, the gulf of Reason, the Hell of souls; and that there is none but Jesus, for whom they will not so much ss stir a finger!  
Make a resolution to insinuate yourself into his friendship by some notable Act, which you know to be acceptable to him, and which he already hath required of you by so many inspirations. Enter into his house, and into his bosom: render him assiduity in your prayers, your meditations, your communions, and in all your exercises of devotion. Learn to speak to him every hour by jaculatory prayers, as one would to some friend tenderly loved, and vehemently affected. Refer all creatures to his love, and love nothing but him, but in him, but for him: publish his greatness every where, make a thousand instruments of his glory: but conceal his favours by a profound humility. Behold men your like, as his images; Engrave all his words, all his actions, all his wounds in the bottom of your heart; make yourselves like him, as much as you may; bear him on your flesh, suffering for him, not only with patience, but alacrity, through a desire of conformity. Behold the principal means by which one may come to the love of God, and to the unitive way.  
Observe there withal the three Conditions which S. Bernard prescribeth, to wit to love sweetly, prudently, strongly: sweetly without violence; prudently without illusion; strongly without separation.  
But there being nothing which more forcibly moveth 
That we learn to love God himself, and by the character of his substance which is Jesus. In medio animalium splendor ignis, & de igne fulgur egrediens. Ezekiel 1.  the soul, than Example; I advise you, often to present unto yourself the love of God and Jesus Christ, which should be the source of ours; and to make a sacred posy to yourself of all the lovers who were most vehement in Divine Love.  
Reflect (O Christian soul) upon the chariot of Cherubins in Ezechiel, and thou shalt learn what God would have of thee. I see (saith the Prophet) a clear and bright fire in the midst of these living Creatures, and from this fire I see lightning flashes to issue forth. This is the fire of the love of God, and these lightnings are the eruptions he made, by communicating himself to man. Consider (O soul redeemed with the blood of the son of God) that thou canst not live without love; on what side soever thou turnest, thou necessarily must love; and God, foreseeing this necessity, would that thou lovest like him, that thou take the object of his love for the object of thine own, his manner of loving, for thine, his scope and contentment, for thine. And where thinkest thou hath God the heavenly Father placed his love from all eternity, but in himself? Because he alone is worthy to be originally beloved as the source and fountainhead of all beauties, and bounties, which are the two baits of affections, excessively; as he who hath neither end nor beginning; He loves himself by his holy Spirit, which is his own substance, and he loves himself necessarily, because love is his Essence. O soul! if thou couldst a little lift up thine eyes surcharged with so many terrestrial humours, and behold in the bosom of the heavenly Father the eternal Firebrand which he gives for a rule of thy love; what secrets, and what mysteries of love wouldst thou learn? there mightest thou observe the four conditions which constitute all the excellency of love to wit, Purity, Simplicity, Fervour, and Communication.  
First, thou must learn to purify thy love, this love being most pure and excellent, for it is God himself, produced in the bosom of God: it is the first of Sanctities, holy by origin, by object, by example and by form; It is the holy Ghost burning in the heart of the eternal Father. S. Thomas teacheth us a very singular piece of Theology in the Treatise he wrote of charity, 
S. Thom. opusc. 61. De Dilectione, omne receptum est in recipiente per modum recipientis.  where he saith, every thing placed in another is measured and adapted to that which receiveth it, as water, which is round, in a round vessel, and square, in a square vessel. For, if the thing received be lesser than that which received it; it by this reception gets a state of excellency, and a Title of worth above its Nature: so, (saith he) the visible species are ennobled in our eyes, and the Intelligible, in our understanding. This admitted; I say, that if we only consider the love of God, in that manner as we do in men, as drawn from exterior objects; yet would it be a matter of a marvellous value to be received into the heart of God, and to be conform to the Divini●y: but when Divinity telleth us, that this love produced of God, is the substance of God received in God hinself, and inseparable from his essence; what greatness, and, what purity must we conceive in this love of God? and if he will, that this same love (which is all his) should be not only the object, but the efficient cause of ours by the infusions 
Charitas Dei d●ffusa est in cordibus nostris per spiritum san●tum. Rom. 5. 8.  he worketh in our hearts; O how much shame ought we to have, so to defile our love with contaminations and impurities of the earth?  
Secondly, you must know, this love is most simple, and totally as well in this unity as in the Essence of God, and although he love creatures, as the tokens and footsteps of his bounty, which are in kinds so manifold, in multitude so innumerable; yet is he not divided, nor severed, because he gathers all those creatures together in his bosom, where their beginning and end is and therein uniteth them, as rays of his benignity contracted and drawn together into one Centre in a burning-glasse: 
Monas genuis monadem, & in se suum reflexit amorem. it a explicat. S. Thom 1. part. 9 23. Fornacem custodiens in operibus ardoris. Eccl. 43. 3.  Thereupon thou shouldst be sorry to see thy heart torn, and divided by so many objects which divert thy affections, and hinder thee from simply giving them to God, for whom they are made.  
Thirdly, thou must understand, this love is most ardent, since the bosom of the eternal father is as a great Furnace which with its flames enkindleth all the chaste loves that burn, whether they be in heaven, in the heart of Angels, or whether on earth, in the souls of the elect. Ah! how much oughtest thou to blush, and to be ashamed, considering, how, in stead of enkindling thy love with the sacred fires of this eternal furnace, thou hast sought to beg a profane fire from the eyes of a wretched woman, which hath burnt thee to the bones, thou hast gone (door after door) to all sorts of creatures, opening thy heart to foreign flames, whereby thou hast gone about to burn even the sacrifice of the living God? Ah? Thou insensible creature, knowest thou not that Nadab and Abihu, for putting ordinary 
Levit 10.  fire into their Incensories, when they came to the Altar of the synagogue, were devoured, as unfortunate victim, with the proper coals of their own sacrifices? and dost thou think it will be lawful for thee to approach the Altar of the eternal Testament with this foreign love which thou lodgest in thy heart? Art not thou afraid to hear those thundering words, This Sacrifice shall be a punishment to thee, since thou hast 
Crysol. serm. 26. sums de sacrificio p●nam, quia feci●● de propitistione peccatum.  made a sin of thy propitiation?  
Lastly, (faithful soul) thou shouldst know the love of God is most communicative, for it is streamed forth in his eternal productions by two emanations, of understanding, and will, as by two Conduit-pipes of Glories, and beauties. And not content with this, this eternal communication being involved in a profound obscurity unknown to all creatures; he hath cleft the cloud in five places, and is come to communicate himself to the world by five admirable ways of his magnificence, which are Creation, Conservation, the Incarnation of the word, Justification, and Exaltation of the soul to beatitude. O! how thou shouldest be confounded hereupon to see thy heart so narrow, and straightened in the exercise of good works?  
Look back again upon thy second model, and attentively 
The love of Jesus towards his heavenly Father.  consider, how Jesus the pattern of all chaste amities loved his eternal Father; and on earth rendered him that honourable tribute of love, which could not well have been paid to a God so justly loved, but by a loving God, and who did, with so much perfection love. Jesus alone passed with an incomparable eminency those nine degrees, whereof we spoke before, which are as nine spheres of love. This most blessed foul which had an exact knowledge of all the excellencies of increated beauty, loved him according to its science, equalling his fervours to its lights. It first of all entered into the solitude of love, which made a little fortunate Island of the heart, wherein there was nothing but God, and It: God, who was in it with eternal contentments: It, which was in God, with reciprocal and wholly ineffable affections. This heart of Jesus resembled the Haltions' nest, which cannot hold one silly fly more than the bird itself: So he knew not how to lodge one creature in himself to the prejudice of the Creator, but could tell how to lodge them altogether, to u●ite them to their Head. O it was properly his business to give us this lesson, which he afterward dictated by one of his Oracles. He loveth thee not 
August. ●olil. Minàs t● amat qui t●cum aliquid amat quod propter te non amat. Apoc. 8.  enough, whosoever loveth any thing with thee which he loveth not for thee. From solitude he entered into the silence which Synesius calleth Beatific Silence, and which S. John placeth in heaven in the peaceful condition of the Blessed: It was properly the calm, and repose, which the holy soul of Jesus took with his heavenly Father in his divine Orisons which he many times continued the space of whole nights, watching, and weeping for us, and dwelling as it were in the fire of love. It is that silence which the Canticle calleth the 
Cantic. 3.  Bed of Solomon, encompassed with threescore valiant ones, but of that great Host of Angels. From silence he passed to the suspension whereof Job speaketh, 
Job. 7. 15. Elegit suspendium anima 〈◊〉.  where his soul felt itself totally pulled up by the root from earth, but not (as yet) placed in heaven, because he was corporally in this transitory life. We, (verily) find three admirable suspensions in Nature; That, of water in the clouds; of Heaven, above the clouds; and of earth, under the clouds: and two ineffable suspensions in the Humanity of Jesus: The first is that of his blessed soul, which was always hanging at the heart of God, and the second of his body on the Cross, to purify by his death all the regions of the world, both above, and beneath: above, by the exhalation of his spirit; beneath, by the effusion of his blood. After suspension, he mounted to insatiability, which 
Da●i●●. Cardi. ●● Hymno d● Paradiso. Avidi, & semper pl●ni, quod habent, de ●●●●rant.  caused him, that, drinking those eternal sources by long draughts in the delighrs of Contemplation which streams upon him from heaven, he slaked his thirst in his own bosom, not quite quenching it, therein retaining the condition of those who see God: of whom it is said, That they are still replenished, yet still greedy, incessantly desiring what they possess.  
From insatiability he came to the degree of Indefatigability, which caused him perpetually to spend himself in most glorious labours for the redemption of the world, measuring: and running over the earth, as the sun doth Heaven, and sowing virtues, and benefits every where, to reap nought but Ingratitude. From thence he proceeded to that Inseparability which tied him for the love of his heavenly Father, not only to the punishment of the Cross, but to so many scorns and miseries as he embraced for us; and he made so much account of this mortal flesh which he took of us, that he associated it unto himself with an eternal band, and hath transmitted it into the bosom of Immortality, placing his wounds (which were the characters of his love, and of our inhumanity) even in the sanctuary of the most blessed Trinity. From this Inseparability, he suffered himself to slide into languors, ecstasies, and transanimations, which make up a Deified love, such as was that of Jesus. Languour dried him up with the zeal he had for our salvation exhausting all the strength of his body, and (to speak with Philo) he seemed as if he would have transformed his flesh into the nature of 
Mark 3. 21.  his spirit, causing it to melt and dissolve under the ardours of ineffable affection, as we see a Myrrhe-Tree which distilleth the first fruits of its liquor under the lustre of the sunbeams. Ecstasy, which bore this great soul with a vigorous violence to the heart of God, made a truce in all the actions of sensitive nature: and as it happeneth that the Ocean extraordinarily swelling up upon one shore, forsaketh the other: So the spirit of our Saviour already divinized, amassing together the whole multitude of his forces, to serve his love and satisfy the passion he had towards his celestial Father, overflowed in the heart of the Divinity, with so immeasurable a profusion, that all his inferior Nature seemed to be forsaken, and despoiled of the presence, and government of his soul.  
In the end he entered into that transanimation which 
Orig. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Anima ilia quasi scr●um in igne, semper in verbo, semper in sapientia, semper in Deo, in convertibilitatem ex verbi Dei unitate indesinenter ignita possidebat.  so powerfully united him to God, that only retaining the property of two natures, Divine and Humane; he made an incomparable commixtion of heart, of love, of affections, and conformities; which made Origen say, This soul, like unto Iron which is on burning Coals, was always in the word, always in wisdom, ever in God, and took an immutable constancy from the ardour wherewith it is enkindled in the union of God.  
If you find this love too sublime for you; behold it as it were tempered, and reflected, in so many saints, as were S. Paul, S. Augustine, S. Bernard and so many other.   

§. 13. A notable Example of worldly love changed into divine Charity.  
I Will give you a very familiar one, in a man of the world, a man of the Court, and one who is at this present a treasure hidden from many, who was hated by the envious, persecuted by the proud, condemned by the Ignorant; and yet a great servant of God. It is the learned, and pious Raymundus Lullus, as it 
Vitae Patrum Occid. l. ●. Ex Carolo Bovillo.  appeareth by his life faithfully written in the Tome of the lives of the Western Fathers. This man flourished above three hundred years ago, and was born in the Island of Majorica of a notable extraction, which gave him passage into worldly honours, and caused him to be bread in the Court of his King, by whom he afterward was made one of his prime Officers. Never was there a man more inclining to love, for he loved transportedly, and spent all his youth in this vanity, having no employment more acceptable then to write amorous verses, to express his passion. In the end he fell into the snare of a violent affection that long turmoiled him, which was the love of an honourable Lady endowed with an invincible chastity. Here ordinarily, love which delights to pursue what it cannot arrive unto, finds most admiration for the eyes, and food for its flame.  
He was so on fire in this quest, that he thought he should lose his wits, suffering himself to fall into unbeseeming and extraordinary actions, so fare as being one day on horseback, and seeing this his wellbeloved to go into a Church to do her devotions, he spurred hard, and in such manner entered into the holy place, not minding Church, Priest, Altars, or Sacraments; He had no eyes but for this creature, before whom he delighted to manage his horse with his usual grace: But instantly a loud clamour was raised by the people, who thrust him our of the Church, and handled him like a madman.  
The Lady was so much displeased, and ashamed at his exorbitant importunities, that she resolved to cure his love by a stratagem, which she could not vanquish by flight. She called this passionate amorist to her (by her husband's permission) and having showed him the wrong he did to her reputation so to resign himself over to such a gross indiscretion, as also the disasters he might draw on his own person; she bared her neck, and discovered her bosom all eaten by a malign Cancer, which at first caused some aversion in him: but, the more to fortify the act, the Lady thereunto added prevalent words, reproaching him with simplicity to employ so many hours to seek after an unhappy loathsomeness, and take away his love from God, to confer it on a Creature, who so little deserved it.  
Poor Raymond was astonished at this speech, dividing his soul between the horror of this ulcer, and the admiration of the wisdom of the virtuous woman, when instantly this cancer of the body cured that of the mind. He in a moment found himself to be changed, as if all his passion had expected this period of sin, and as if on a sudden his soul had been freed from a charm: He could not wonder enough at his frenzy passed. He deplored the loss of so much time, he put forward for the future, to consecrate the remainder of his days to penance. It seemed to him he perpetually heard the voice of the Crucifix, which said unto him, Raymond follow me: and his heart burnt with a generous flame to augment the number of so many good servants of so worthy a Master. He would not by halves perform so important a business: he disposed of his whole estate for the benefit of the poor, and threw himself all naked between the arms of the Cross. Behold how it importeth to begin the great work of the love of God by some remarkable Act, and to give one's self freely to him, who hath not for us spared his own son! Thence he retired into a little Hermitage, where attending to prayer, fasts, and contemplations, he was so illuminated, that being before unlearned in any science, but in that of worldly love, he became as knowing as the greatest Doctors; yet still austere as the most rigorous Hermits.  
His love towards God began, first by great tenderness, 
All this is observed in Bla●u●rnas book.  and continual familiarity adoring this most pure spirit throughout the great Theatre of nature. If he looked on the rising sun; he out of Ecstasy sung, and said, From the chaste bosom of the morning went forth the desire of eternal mountains, wherein there are no more blemishe● than there is darkness in the Sun: If he considered the sea, he took occasion to enter into the secret abysses of the judgements of God, wherein he remained wholly absorbed. If he cast his eye on the fields; so many flowers as he there observed, were as many little eyes of his wellbeloved: If he heard a bird sing; in his conceit it spoke to him of the love of his incomparable lover, and he used to say, there was a certain language of love which he understood in all creatures: If he saw a butterfly flying, and a little child running after it; he thereon frames sublime meditations of the Philosophy of love. His solitude seemed to him all environed with Intelligencies, and when any one came to interrupt him and blamed him for being alone; Nothing less (answered he:) I was in good company, but found myself alone after your coming.  
He was so transported, that he walked throughout the streets chanting the praises of his Jesus, and when some who knew him, while he was in high place, demanded of him, whether he had lost his wits? verily you are in the right (replied he) my wellbeloved hath taken away my will, and I have given him my understanding; there is nothing left me but memory to remember him. He many times caused his eyes and memory to dispute touching the possession of his Divine love, to see who might vaunt the most right; His eyes said, sight surpassed all: but memory answered, remembrance was much stronger, because it made water mount into the eyes, and fire into the heart. One while he caused his understanding and will to run after this his dear spouse, and he found the understanding was the more able, but the will better held what it embraced. He was many times seen to be in such a manner, that being ready to sleep, he bitterly with scalding tears wailed that he in sleep had forgotten his Creator, having then no power over his dreams, nor thoughts. His passion became so violent, when he to himself presented the state of this world, wherein we are separated from the sight of God, that he thereby fell into fainting fits, and was sick of it almost to the death. A Physician, on a time visiting him in these fits, and throughly understanding his grief, held much troublesome and tedious discourse with him, after which he said, this man had cured him, for that he had made him suffer throughly, and that taking this punishment patiently for God's sake he thereby was infinitely comforted. He commonly said love was a Tree, the fruit whereof was To love, and that tribulations, and languors were the flowers, and leaves of it: the proof whereof daily appeared in the motions of his soul, wherein he felt most sensible afflictions, when he within himself reflected on the contempt was done to his crucified love.  
One day he had a revelation, that of a thousand there were not a hundred who had any fear, or but an indifferent affection for their Saviour; and that of those hundred, ninety feared him out of their apprehension of the torments of Hell; and that of those ninety, there were not two who loved him for the hope of heaven; and that of a thousand, scareely could one be found who loved him for his goodness his nobleness, and his worth: whereat he poured forth so many tears, that he was not to be comforted. He was often heard to groan, and sigh in the open fields, as if he had lain in an irksome prison, and had sought to break his fetters; when, being in these agitations, he came to a fountain-side, where lay an Hermit asleep, whom he awakened and asked if he could tell how one might get out of prison? The other, who was a man of God, understood him, and replied, he was in the same prison that he was, as well sleeping, as waking; but it was a prison of love, where his desires, his thoughts, his hopes, his joys were chains: upon which, he fell into an ecstasy of holy comfort, to have found a man so conform to his humour; and both of them wept so much out of love, over this fountain, that they seemed to go about to raise those streams by their tears. If he wrote a letter, he imagined love gave him the pen, and that he dipped it in his tears, and that the paper was all over filled with instruments of the passion, and that he sent his thoughts and sighs, as Courtiers, to seek out the wellbeloved of his heart. When he saw an Epistle, or a letter wherein the name of Jesus was not premised; it sensibly tormented him, saying, Saracens had more devotion for Mahomet a man of sin, setting his name in the front of all their letters, than Christians had for their Redeemer.  
A holy occasion one day drew him to a Church to hear excellent music: but he perceiving the words were of God, and the tune according to the world; he could not forbear to cry out aloud, Cease, profane men, Cease to cast pearls into mire. Impure airs are not fit for the King of virgins. Some took delight to ask him many questions, and he answered them nothing, but the word, love; which he had perpetually in his mouth. To whom belongest thou? To love: whence comest thou? from love: whither goest thou? To love: who begat thee? Love: Of what dost thou live? upon love: where dwellest thou? In love. He accounted them unworthy to live, who died of any other death, then of love: and beholding a sick-man in an agony, who shown no feeling of joy to go unto God, but only complained of his pain; he lamented him as a man most miserable. At his entrance into a great City, he asked who were the friends of God, and a poor man being showed him, who continually wept for the love of heaven, and heavenly things; he instantly ran to him, and embracing him, they mingled their tears together with unspeakable joy.  
God often visited him by many lights, and most sweet consolations, as it happened at that time when he thought he saw a huge cloud between his Beloved and him, which hindered and much troubled him; but presently it seemed to him, that love put itself between them both, and gilded the cloud with great and admirable splendours, in such sort that through this radiant beauty he saw a ray of the face of his wellbeloved, and for a long space spoke to him with profusions of heart, and admirations not to be expressed.  
From this obsequious love, he passed to obliging love, and made a strong resolution to become profitable to all the world.  
For which purpose, feeling every moment to be replenished with sublime and divine thoughts which God had communicated to him, and that he had no insight in Grammar, nor other slight school-notions; he resolved to learn the Latin tongue, being now full forty years old. He hit upon a teacher one Master Thomas who taught him words, conjugations, and concord's; but he rendered him back again elate conceptions, unheard of discourses, and harmonies wholly celestial; so much honouring his Master, that he dedicated the most part of his books to him, wherein for the dead letter, he offered unto him the spirit of life. Not satisfied with this, he added the Arabic tongue, of purpose to convert the Mahometans: and for this end he bought a slave, for whom having no other employment but to teach him it, and he having therein already well profited, and endeavouring to convert this wretched servant, who had been his teacher; the other found him so knowing and eloquent, that he had an apprehension that through this industry he was able to confound the Mahumetan-law, which was the cause that the Traitor, espying his opportunity, took a knife, and sought to kill his Master; but he stopped the blow, and only received a wound which proved not mortal. All the house ran at the noise, and there was not any one, who would not have knocked down the ungrateful creature: but he hindered it with all his might, and hearty pardoned him in the greatest sharpness of his dolours. Instantly the officers seized on this compassion, and put him into prison, where he was strangled, repenting himself of nothing but that he had not finished his mischief; which caused extreme sorrow in Raymond, who bewailed him with many tender tears of compassion.  
After this, he undertook divers journeys into France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and afric, wand'ring continually over the world, and not ceasing to preach, writ, and teach, to advance the salvation of his neighbours. Paris many times received him with all courtesy in such sort, that the Chancellor Bertand, who was infinitely affected to knowledges, permitted him to read them publicly in his hall.  
The reverend  Monks, whose houses have so often been sanctuaries for Learning and Devotion, were his hosts, and so much he confided in their integrtty and sincerity, that he with them deposed all which he had most precious. The love of God, which is as lightning in a cloud still striving to break forth, suffered him not to rest, but disposed him to undertake somewhat for the glory of God.  
It is true, he had first of all that purpose which afterwards our father S. Ignatius so gloriously accomplished: for he was desirous to make Seminaries of learned and courageous spirits who should spread themselves throughout the world to preach the Gospel, and to sacrifice themselves for the propagation of Faith.  
For this cause, he multiplied his voyages to Rome, to Lions, to Paris, to Avignon, incessantly soliciting Popes and Kings to so excellent a work, without success. He used fervour and zeal therein, but our father thereunto contributed more order and prudence: The one undertook it in a cross time, during the passage of the holy See from Rome to Avignon, where the Pope's more thought upon their own preservation then tha conquests of Christianity: The other knew how to take occasion by the forelock, and he interessed Rome, and the Popes thereof, in his design. The one made his first trial under Pope Boniface the Eighth, who having dispossessed a Hermit of S. Peter's Chair, held those for suspected who were of the same profession, fearing they a second time might make a head of the Church. The other happened upon Paul the Third, who was a benign Pope, and he gained his good opinion by his ready services and submissions, which tended to nothing but the humility of Jesus Christ. The one embroiled himself too much in Sciences, even unto curiosity, and made them walk like Ladies and Mistresses: the other held them as faithful servants of the Cross, subjected to holy Humility.  
The one stood too much upon his own wit, and needs would beat out ways not hitherto printed with any footsteps, nor conferred enough with the Doctors of his times in matters of Opinion and Concord: the other passed through the surges of Universities, and followed an ordinary tracked in the progression of his studies. The one was of a humour very haughty, the other of a spirit facile and sweet. The one took the golden branch with violence, the other gathered it gently, as if the Providence of God had put it into his hands. Now Raymond, not satisfied with seminaries of students, embraced the conquest of the Holy Land, and stirred up many cities of Italy in this matter, exhorting them to make contributions; wherein he was so persuasive, that the city of Pisa alone, which is none of the greatest, furnished him with devotists, who made of one sole free gift twenty five thousand crowns, which he would by no means handle, leaving it to the dispose of the Pope, who would not give ear to the erection of new Colleges; so much were the affairs of the Papacy embroiled. He more easily obtained one thing, which was one of his three wishes, to wit, the suppression of the books of Averro (an enemy to Christianity) which many with too much curiosity read in the Schools of Philosophy. God many times grants good dispositions to his servants, whereof he will not they have the accomplishment, making them appear more eminent in sufferings than actions. This great man was of the number of those; for he made himself most remarkable in the love of suffering, wand'ring over the world in extreme poverty, great incommodities of heat, cold, nakedness, hunger, scorns, contempts, dolours, banishments, dangers, both by sea and land, shipwrecks, treasons, chains, prisons, and a thousand images of death.  
One day, travelling alone through a huge forest, he met two lions, which caused some little fear of death in him, as he witnesseth in his writings, desirous to live, that he might yet on earth serve his wellbeloved: but in this great surprisal be had a thought, that love would put itself into the midst of this passage, and make him endure death with the more contentment: herewith he comforted himself, and the lions drew near and licked his face bathed in tears of Devotion, and kissed his feet and hands, doing him no harm. Men were more sharp and discourteous to him, who ceased not to drag him before Tribunals, to charge him with calumnies for his extraordinary ways, to give sentence against him; but in all he appealed to his wellbeloved who never forsook him.  
Seeing himself destitute of all succour for the conversion of Saracens, he passed alone into the kingdom of Thunes, where he freely disputed with the chief of the Mahometans, concerning the greatness and excellency of our Faith, against the impostures of Mahomet; which was the cause that he was immediately cast into prison, and condemned by the King himself to have his head cut off: to which he disposed himself with an incomparable fervour of love. At which time, one of the prime men of State in the country, who had conceived well of him, out of the admiration of his wit, persuaded the King to be satisfied with banishing him out of his kingdom, and that by this way, he should do all he was obliged unto for the preservation of his own law, and should get the reputation of a mild Prince among Christians, abstaining from the blood of such a man; which he did: but he was thrust out of Thunes with so many blows and ignominies, that he therein gained a noble participation in the Cross of Jesus Christ. The fervour which incessantly boiled in his veins suffered him not to be long at rest. He went into the kingdom of Bugia, as Ionas into Nineveh, crying out aloud through the streets, that there was in the world but one Religion, and that was ours; and that the law of Mahomet was a mere imposture and a fantasy. He was instantly laid hands on, as a madman, and lead to the high Priest named Alguassin, who asked him, whether he knew not the Laws of the country, which forbade him upon pain of death to speak against Mahometism. To which he answered, he could not be ignorant of it, but that a man who knew the truth of Christian Religion, as he did, could do no other but seal it with his blood. This Alguassin proud of science, perceiving him to be a man of a good wit, entered farther into discourse with him, where he found himself shamefully gravelled; which made him forsake the Syllogisms of the School, to have recourse to the arguments of tyrants, which are arms and violence: for he caused him to be presently taken as an Emissary Goat, there being not any Mahometan hand so little which delighted not to hale and lead him with blows, until they brought him into the most hideous prison, which was rather a retreat then a gaol, where he endured a thousand miseries with an unshaken constancy. The Genoese, his good friends, who traffic in these parts, moved with his affliction, got with good round sums of money, a more reasonable prison for him, where he began again to dispute with the most learned of the sect, and made himself to be so much admired by those his adversaries, that they endeavoured to gain him to their Religion, promising him wife, family, honours, and riches, as much as he could wish: but he mocked at all their machinations, and seeing them fervent to dispute, he persisted therein with great strength of reason and courage. They said, words were lost in the air, but they must take the pen in hand and write on both sides, with which he was infinitely pleased; and spent nights and days in prison to compose a great volumn for defence of our Religion. But the King of Bugea coming into his capital city, dissipated all these counsels, much fearing the touch of his Law, which was gold of a base allay, and caused him the second time to come out of prison. From thence he sought to get something in Greece, passing over into Cyprus, where he disputed against the Nestorians and Jacobites, who rendered him poison for the honey of his discourses, whereof he was like to die, had he not been preserved by divine Providence, and the assistance of a good Angel. The blessed man had already passed forty years in a thousand toils and crosses, and spared not to suffer, by reason of the flames of love which burned his heart; but he knew not whether he suffered or no, so much he took to heart the cup which God had mingled for him. Verily, our Lord appearing one day unto him, and ask him if he well knew what love was, of which he so many years had made profession? he very excellently answered, If I do not well know what Love is, I at least well understand what Patience is: meaning, that it was to suffer, since nothing troubled him for the satisfaction he had in God's causes. And another time being asked whether he had Patience? he said, All pleased him, and that he had no cause of impatience, which only belongs to them who keep the possession of their own will. Lastly, being about fourscore years of age, he considered within himself what he said afterwards, that love was a sea full tempests and storms, where a port was not to be hoped for, but with the loss of himself, and that its depth was his exaltation. He went back again into the kingdom of Saracens in afric, where being known, he was suddenly stoned to death in a popular commotion, and buried under a great heap of stones, in which place his body long remained unknown to all the world: but it pleased God, that certain merchants, his countrymen, sailing into that country, saw in the night a Pyramid of fire to rise up over his tomb, which caused a curiosity in them to see what it was, and coming to dig into it, they found this venerable old man who was so gloriously buried in his own triumph; they brought him back into his own country, where he is all this time reverenced out of an ancient Devotion of the people, which the holy See permitteth rather by way of toleration, then express Canonization.    

The second Treatise, Of HATRED.  

§ 1. It's Essence, Degrees, and Differences.  
WHat a Comet is among stars, Hatred is 
Hatred a hidenus Comet.  among virtues. It is a passion malign, cold, pernicious, deadly, which ever broodeth some egg of the serpent, out of which it produceth infinite disastres. It is not content to vent its poison in certain places and times, but it hateth to the world's end, yea, as fare as eternity. To set before your eyes the havoc it maketh in a soul; it is necessary to understand it in all the degrees and dimensions thereof. For which purpose you shall observe, that Hatred being properly an hostility of the appetite against those things which it apprehendeth to be contrary 
It's nature.  to its contentment; It hath some similitude with Choler, but there is much difference, as between pieces engraven, and painted, which may easily be defaced. Choler is more sudden, more particular, more ardent, and more easy to be cured: Hatred, more radical; more general, more extended, more sad, and more remediless. It hath two notable properties, whereof, the one 
Its properties.  consisteth in aversion and flight, the other in persecution and damage. There is a Hatred of aversion, which is satisfied to fly from all that is contrary to it. There is another Enmity, which pursueth and avengeth, and tends to the destruction of all whatsoever. The first property hateth the evil; the second, wisheth it to the author of the evil, and when it hath once possessed a black soul, it maketh terrible progressions, and is especially augmented by four very considerable degrees.  
First, it beginneth in certain subjects by a simple 
Its degrees.  aversion, and a hatred of humour, which is the cause we have an horror at all those things that oppose natural harmony, which appears as well in the good constitution of body, as in the correspondencies of senses, and the faculties of the soul with their objects. And although this contrariety be not always evident enough unto us; yet there is some feeling which in the beginning maketh us many times to have an aversion from some person whom we never saw, and from whom we have never received the least suspicion of affront or damage: Be it out of some disproportion of body, of speech, of behaviour, or whether it be there is some secret disaccord; we often hate, not well knowing the cause thereof, which very easily happeneth to the female sex. For, women being full of imaginations; the vivacity of fancy furnisheth them with infinite many species of conveniences and inconveniences that cause a diversity of humours which very seldom make a good harmony; but if they do, it is ever easy enough to be disturbed.  
There are loves and hatreds which cannot be put on and put off, as easily as a man would do a shirt; which teacheth us it is very hard to make one to love by commands, as if we went about to introduce love by cannon-shots. The first degree of Hatred is properly called Antipathy, and is so general in nature that it 
The natural antipathies.  passeth into things inanimate, and into bruit beasts, which are no sooner born, but they exercise their enmities and war in the world. A little chicken, which yet drags her shell after her, hath no horror at a horse, nor at an elephant, which would seem so terrible creatures to those that know not their qualities; but it already feareth the kite, and doth no sooner espy him, but it hasteneth to be hidden under the wings of the hen. Drums made of sheepskins crack (as it is said) if another 
Jo. ●. Por a in Chaos.  there be strucken near them, made of a wolves hid; and such as are made of the skin of a camel scare horses. The lion is troubled at the crowing of a cock; Cabbages and herb-grace cannot endure each others neighbourhood, such enmity they have; and a thousand other such like things are observed in nature, wherein there are such express and irreconciliable hatreds.  
If man, who should moderate his passions by reason, suffers himself to run into Antipathies and natural aversions, and doth not repress them by virtue; it falleth out they increase, and are inflamed out of interest, contempt, slander, ill manners, outrages, offences, or out of simple imaginations of offence, which then causeth a second degree of hatred, which is a humane hatred, consented to with deliberation; which putteth 
Humane hatred.  itself into the field to exercise its hostilities: here, by injuries; there, by wrangling; here, by forgery; there, by violence, and by all the ways which passion inventeth to do hurt by. Abject courages hate with a cold and cloudy hatred which they long hatch in their hearts through impotency of vindicative strength. The haughty and proud do it with noise, accompanied 
Its differences.  with disdains, affronts, and insolency. All they who love themselves tenderly perpetually swarm in hatreds and aversions, seeing themselves countre-buffed and crossed in a thousand objects which they passionately affect. All the most violent hatreds come out of love; 
Hatred of love.  and namely, when lovers, the most passionate, see themselves to be despised; despair of amity transporteth them to a● outrageous hatred, finding they have afforded love the most precious thing that is in our dispose, to receive scorn.  
There are likewise who, without receiving any injury, begin to hate out of wearisomeness in love, and coming to know the defects of such as they had the most ardently loved; they take revenge upon the abuse of their own judgement, by the evil disposition of their own will, and do as those people who 
Quintil. decls. 17. Non habent proximorum odia regressum: quaecunque nexus accepere naturae & quae sanguine visceribúsque constructa sunt, non laxantur diducta, sed percunt.  burned the Gods they had adored. Whether hatred arises out of a weary love, or whether it proceeds from an irritated love; it is ever to be feared: and there are not any worse aversions in the world, than those which come from the sources of amity. Quintilian also hath observed, That the Hatreds of neighbours are enmities irrecoverable, and wounds which never are cured, because bands woven by flesh, blood and bowels, cannot be untied, but by making a rapture remediless.  
Out of this second degree, ofttimes a melancholic Hatred sprouteth, which the Grecians call man-hating, 
Melancholy hatred. Man hatred  which is an Hatred bred in feeble, black, ugly, and ulcerated souls in the world, who, to be revenged of their mishaps, extend (as it were) their aversions over Totall Nature. You see men pale, meager, hidrous, who being unable to endure a reasonable yoke which God hath put about their necks, or finding themselves to be disfavoured in their ambitions, endeavours, and pretensions; 
Plin. l. 18. cap. 1. Homines quidam ut venena nascuntur: atra ceu serpentium lingua vibrat: tabéque animi contracta adurit, culpantium omnia, ac dirarum alitum modo tenebris quoque suis & ipsarum noctium quieti invid●●tium.  steal out of all amities, out of all companies, hiding themselves, not in those glorious Hermitages of Religion, where heavenly souls are; but in shameful solitudes, where they busy themselves to feed on gall, and gnaw some heart in imagination, since they have not been able to transfix it with iron. Others grow up like poisons with the tongue of a serpent▪ which is ever in action; They have a Pthisick of spirit that gnaws, burns, and consumeth them: so that they have no other profession in their life, but to blame all which is done, becoming like unto those ill presaging night-birds which cast forth boding scrietches in the dead time of night, as if they envied us darkness and the sweetness of repose. Such was the disease of Dioclesian and Tiberius, when they retired from the Court to hid themselves in solitary places, as serpents among thorns. Lastly, this Hatred ever fomented, if it fall upon men powerful and factious; it maketh tyrants of them who pass to the degree of brutishness and execrable Barbarism, which causeth some to eat hearts stark raw, others to disentomb the dead, and to exercise cruelty on those who have nothing common with the living: Others, to invent torments never seen, heard, nor imagined; others, to make themselves goblets of the heads of their enemies, therein, still to drink revenge, as often as they do wine, as did Alboinus a monster worthy of the horror and execration of all men. See here somewhat near the essence, qualities, division causes, and effects of hatred.   

§ 2. That the consideration of the goodness of the heart of God should dry up the root of the Hatred of a neighbour.  
LEt us now dazzle the eyes of this fury by the contemplation of the goodness of our celestial Father, who is the prime model whereon we ought to reform the exorbitancy of our passions.  
Let us learn from him to hate nothing, or, if we 
Diligis enim omnie quae sunt, & nihil odisti corum quae fecisti, nec enim odiens aliquid quod constituisti aut fecisti. Sap. 11. 21.  must hate at all; let us enter into the participation of a hatred fit to rest in the heart of God. The sovereign Creator hates not any thing in the world; for, he made in all the world, and as his wisdom is free from error, so his works are void of repentance. Whence is it (think you) that Antipathies are to be found in Creatures? But that, their essence being limited to certain conditions and particular qualities, they commonly meet with other objects of natures quite contrary to that wherewith themselves are endowed; which causeth countrebuffs and resistance in encounters. But if a creature might be found which eminently had all the qualities and perfections that are observed throughout the whole latitude of essences, and which had thereof made a good temperature within itself; it would not hate any body, but rather within itself accord all contrarieties.  
Now, that which we cannot give to creatures piece-meal, no not in our 
* Simplicity of Divine Essence exempt from Antipathy.  imagination, God possesseth in gross from all eternity. For within a most simple essence, and one sole form of Divinity, he involveth all essences, all forms and perfections of creatures, which in him are exalted and deified: which is the cause he hated nothing that he made, he despiseth nothing, he accounts nothing unworthy the care of his Providence, even to the least worm of the earth. He is not like those nice and curious men who are distasted with all that is not for them. As he is all, he loveth all, and communicateth himself to all creatures according to their disposition.  
O God what say we, when we speak of the 
† Omnia unum sunt in Deo, & cum Deo, nec enim aliunde justus aut sapien; quam unde magnus & bonus, nec aliunde denique simul haec omnia est, quam unde Deus. Bern. ser. 8. in Cant. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. S. Greg. Orat Natal. S. Zeno ser. x de gener. verbi. Solu● ante omnia, quoniam in ejus manuinclusa sunt omnia, ex se est, quod est solus sui conscius.  Essence of God? All things are in God, the same form of the Divinity which makes him great; maketh him by the same means, good, wise, just, and all he is by his proper Essence. The great Divine S. Gregory, surnamed the Divine, saith, It is only in him to comprehend in his bosom all the Essences whereof he is the source of Origin. And S. Zeno addeth, That he alone is before all things, because all things are contained in his hands; he of himself is what he is, and there is none but he who knoweth himself in all the dimensions of the perfection which science may have. All the Attributes of God make in him but one perfection; all creatures which are in the heavens, the air, on the earth, and in the sea, are but one Essence. He united all in himself and for this he loveth all, and regardeth all things created, as rays of his light, and tokens of his bounty. Hemlock, aconite, and aspics, and so many other mischiefs in nature, are evils but in appearance, and benefits in substance, as S. Augustine very pertinently discourseth. 
August. de moribus Manich.  There is not so much as poison in the scorpion which is not good; although it be not good for us, it is so much a good for the scorpion, that take away his poison, you take away his life. It is the disproportion of our nature, it is sin, which hath in us changed so many excellent blessings into great mischiefs, and which daily maketh us to hate and curse them: but God hateth nothing, nor curseth any thing, but what 
Only sin hared by God.  he is not, and he is all, except sin: It is that alone which he esteemeth worthy of the hatred of his heart, which he chastiseth, and which he with an armed hand pursueth to the gates of hell, and beyond the gates of hell. He presseth continually upon sin, he convinceth it, he fights against it, with no other arms then his Justice and Sanctity, which is an eternal rule that looketh round about on every side, condemneth and censureth the works of darkness. For as in things artificial, all the perfection of works consist in the conformity they have with the rule of the art which made them, and all their imperfection proceedeth from their recess from the same rule, which without speech or motion declareth the defects of manufactures that depart from its direction: so all the good, and all the beauty of moral actions is, in the correspondence they hold with Reason, and the eternal Law: As all their deformity and mishap, comes from their departure from this same law, which is, the Justice, the Holiness, and Essence of God himself, who perpetually stands in opposition against iniquity. It is it, which he drenched in the waters of the deluge, whic● he burned in the ashes of Sodom, which he swallowed in the gulf of Core Dathan, and Abiram, which he tormented by the plagues of Pharaoh, which he gnawed by worms in the person of Herod, which he consumed by ordure and stenches in Antiochus, which he punished with gibbets and tormenting wheels in so many offenders, which he still tortureth to all eternity, sunk down into the abyss of the damned; and it is out of which he produceth his glory, whence he raiseth his trophies, and makes his triumphs to be by Essence, and Nature, a perpetual enemy, and a destroyer of sin. O magnificent hatred! O glorious enemy! O triumphant persecution!  
Let us enter with God into this community of glory, let us hate sin (as he doth) by him, and for him; let us destroy it in ourselves by penance, let us destroy it out of ourselves by our good examples, let us destroy it by a good resolution, since Jesus hath destroyed it with so much pain and blood. How can we love such a monster, but by hating God? And how can we hate God, but by making ourselves worse than devils? For if they hate him, they hate an avenging God, a punishing God. And we will hate a God that seeks us, a loving God, and hate him after so many execrable punishments of sin which we nave before our eyes; and hate him after he hath offered himself up for us in the great sacrifice of love and patience. Is not this intolerable? We will employ some part of our life to revenge an injury, and to hate a man as if we had too much of it to hate sin: we make a show to honour the Master, and we kill his servants; we make profession to adore the Creator, and we tear his images asunder. Where are we, and what do we; when we make a divorce between our likes to disunite ourselves from the first Unity, which draweth all to itself by union?   

§. 3, That Jesus grounded all the greatest Mysteries of our Religion upon Union, to cure Hatred.  
LEt us also contemplate our second model, let us behold our Jesus, and we shall learn, that all the greatest mysteries of his life and death, are mysteries of Union, to unite us to him, to unite us to his Father, to unite us to ourselves with sacred and indissoluble bands.  
First, all creatures of this great Universe were made 
Heb. 1. ●. Locut us est nobis in Filio, quem constituit haeredem universorum, per quem fecit & secula.  by the Word, in the Unity of Beginning. He spoke to us by his Son, whom he hath established the heir of the whole universe, by whom likewise he created the worlds. Secondly, all the parts of this great All were so straight tied one to the other, that they never have suffered the least disunion, and although many seem to have antipathy, and reciprocally to pursue each other; yet they will not be separated, but join together in a manner so adherent, that he who should go about to disunite one Element from another, all these great pieces of the world would infinitely strive beyond their quality to replenish its place worthily, and to leave nothing void.  
And it is a wonder, that from the beginning of the 
Aeterno complectitur omnia nexu. Tot retum mistique salus concordia mundi. Lucan l. 4. Plin. l. 36. cap. 17.  world, all things are held together by this Divine Tie. Concord which in its union causeth the happiness of the world, and those sacred influences of love, hath woven eternal chains to tie indissolubly all the parts of the universe. All this great body resembleth the stone Scyrus▪ which floateth on the water while it is whole, and sinks into the bottom so soon as it is broken. This is the cause why all creatures have from all times conspired, and do still daily conspire with inviolable inclinations in the maintenance of this concord, that the celestial and elementary world may subsist in a state unchangeable. There is none but Angel, and Man in the intellectual world, who have made false accords, and have begun to sow division▪ the one in Heaven, the other in the terrestrial Paradise. He who placed it in heaven, is banished into the abyss without recovery; 
Joh. 17. 21. Ut omnes unum sint, sicut tu Pater in me, & ego in te.  the other is succoured by a Redeemer, who came to restore the lost world, and he in Saint John professeth, he aimed at nothing but Unity to make this reparation.  
For this cause (saith S. Maximus) he united himself 
S. Max. secunda cent. 146. 147.  to humane Nature, not by a simple union of will, of love, and of correspondence, but by the ineffable knot of Hypostatical union, conjoining two Natures in one sole Person, and by making a communication of all he is, to his humane Nature, transplanted into the Divine. For this, he likewise doth daily unite himself to us in the Sacrament of the Altar, a true Sacrament of Love, where, if we will speak with S. Cyril, we 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Cyril. in Johan.  say, that God is dissolved into us, as one piece of wax melted and poured together with another, and if we will reason with S. John chrysostom, we say, He 
Chrys. hom. 46. in Johan 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  giveth us his virginal flesh, as a most sacred Leaven to season the whole mass of Humane nature: It is that, which in us should work that virtue, which the great Areopagite calleth a Conformity of affections and manners, drawing near to Divinity: It is that which giveth the name of peace to the holy Eucharist, with S. Cyprian, and that which so united the Christians in 
Cyp. ep 10. 29. 30. Dare pacem lapsis.  the Primitive Church, that they went from this mysterious Table, as from a banquet of Love, after which they breathed nothing but most pure flames of perfect 
Vide ut invicem se diligant, vide ut pro alterutro moti sint parati Tertul. in Apol.  amity, whereat the Pagans who saw them, cried out, See how they love one another! Behold, how ready they are to die one for another! as we have said.  
And yet thou (O man) wilt play the hobgoblin, hate a man, and hate him in cold blood, yea, hate him determinately, and hate him irreconcilably. Seest thou not that, remaining in this disposition of a devil, thou dost thrust as much as thou canst the knife of division into the bosom of God banding against unity in contempt of the first of unities? Seest thou not, thou sinnest against the Incamation of the word, the chief Sacrament of union which thou profanest; Against the sacrament of the Eucharist dreadful to Angels, which our Saviour instituted to unite us as grains of Corn are united in the Host which serveth as a basis to this Mystery, and thou wilt frustrate the counsels of Jesus, despise the blood wherewith thou wert regenerated, separate thyself from the body, from whence thou canst not be divided, but by making thyself a companion for devils? Senseless man! by what God, by what Sacrament wilt thou swear, after thou hast profaned (not out of sudden choler, but by premeditated hatred) the God of peace, and the Father of unions? What a life of an Owl is it to resolve to live perpetually without seeing such a person, and to be reconciled unto him, and to be satisfied with only saying he wished him no ill, because he will not tear his heart out of his belly? Noble and illustrious souls who bear the character of the living God; will you not rise up against this life of a Tiger and a Leopard, to enter into the sweetnesses, and communications of Jesus, who shut up his transitory life by sealing with his blood the pardon he gave to hisenemies?   

§ 4. Of three notable sources of hatred, and of politic remedies proper for its cure.  
WE peradventure take too high a flight in Theological proofs, I will descend lower, and touch remedies more secular for such as are in the practice of humane life. You shall observe, that it is most expedient to know the sources of Hatred, to apply sit remedies; and since those most ordinarily bear sway, proceed from Humour Reason, and Interest; it is good to adapt to every passion, that, which is most proper to the cure thereof.  
Hatreds of Humour and natural Antipathy are very hard to be cured in those who guide themselves by the 
Hatreds of humour, and how they are to be handled.  senses: the best remedy is to advise them to separation who hate in this manner, so much as affairs, occasions, and civil reasons may permit: For, as there be certain natures which cannot endure the presence of some creatures but that they feel some notable alteration (witness those who are affrighted being shut up in a chamber with a Cat which they are sensible of before they see her, by instantly changing hue and countenance; and others who are terrified at a spider, or some other venomous creature: so, there are spirits so contrary that mutual presence causeth disturbances in them, which are not absolutely in their power to repress.  
Attila, the scourge of the world, who made the 
Suldas. Attila fears Zercon.  whole earth to tremble under the lightning of his arms, feared not any thing in all nature, but the sole countenance of Zercon, wherewith he was so moved, that he thereby became ungrateful. We must sometimes in these matters give way to natural inclinations, when they rise to so great a violence. And I cannot approve of those, who for worldly wealth's sake marry such together as have as much correspondence as the ape & the tortoise, who naturally hate one another. And although they persuade themselves that these a versions of humour will waste with time; yet this happeneth but to those who 
Porra l. magnatur. S. Bernard. tom. 4. ser. 6 An observation of S. Bernardin concerning bad marriage.  are infinitely virtuous. But, if vice and profit become parties in the business; then do we see hatreds irreconciliably arise between man and wife. S. Bernardine, in his fourth Tome, six and thirtieth Sermon, speaketh of a marriage made by surprisal, for the accommodation of a family, without any disposition of the parties; which was the cause, that a very handsome youngman was made to marry a maid with many deformities of body, palliated with many impostures; so that she appeared as those birds who having no body, make themselves a pompous dress of their plumage. But above all, they had given her chopins, which might of a dwarf have made a Colossus. But at night she laying off all those her trims, and artificial leaves, the husband took such an aversion, that he flew out of the nuptial bed, and could never endure her; because he was a youngman, and did not resolve to love so much out of charity, but that he would call his eyes to council. Here divorce began as soon as marriage; wherein it was more happy, then in those, who after many years of miseries, madness, tragedies, and sins, come in the end to separation. That which is observed in ill-ordered marriages, is likewise seen among many brothers and sisters, who are full of contrarieties, which begin almost with their birth; and when these cannot easily be overcome, parents do not amiss to separate them, and breed them in sundry houses, that continual presence may not increase enmity.  
Do we not see it is an industry in nature to interpose great rivers, seas, and mountains, almost inaccessible between people, who are of humour, manners, and customs extremely different? Following which principle, I do not think we should continually urge with eagerness a sick man to see those against whom he hath (as it were) an invincible antipathy, but rather to be contented with other testimonies, by which he declares, he entertaineth no deliberate hatred. I say this with regard to necessity, and humane infirmities. For it is most certain, that a soul truly Christian should advance its actions to the highest top of Generosity.  
And although, (to speak humanely) we seldom find 
He habitable lupus cum agno, & delectabitur infans ab ubere super foramine aspidis. Reasonable Hatred and its illusion.  Orpheuses who with their Harp do accord creatures very different; yet is the grace of the Gospel able to make wolves to cohabit with lambs, and children to sport in the cavern of an Aspic.  
As for Hatred upon reason, which causeth one to hate evil and the wicked, out of zeal or indignation; It is much more nice; and sometimes there are spiritual persons who infinitely flatter themselves therein, thinking they have reason to hate, although they have no other ground but a false report, and a lie, whereof they will not be cured, thinking to do that through zeal, which they act out of mere revenge. There is no doubt but one may, and aught to have vice and the vicious; yet must he ever in them love the image of God, and the resembrance of humane nature, which is that perfect Hatred whereof the Kingly Prophet spoke, according to S. Augustine. But we meeting not with vices, which, like Plato's Ideas, are not tied to persons; it 
Perfecto odio odera●● illos. Psal. 138.  is dangerous, lest, seeking to pull them away, we be more passionate against the party who hath them, then against all the most abominable iniquities. We must not believe ourselves, when there is question of some important punishment, nor such as are born to flatter our like with too much servitude; but those Angels for our counsellors, if it be possible, who are disintangled from the matter of Interests. There are some who use to fortify themselves in their resolutions by the deportments of those who are held for Saints in the Church, and do readily allege the examples of David, who being upon his deathbed, recommended to his son Solomon the punishment of Joab and Shimei. But, we must here consider that David is not a man impeceable to serve 
Question upon the act of David.  as a pattern for all our actions, and that it is ever better to consecrate our dying lips with the words our Saviour spoke a thousand years after, on the cross, then with those he left in this instant, as a Testament to his son. The Jews had naturally great inclinations to revenge, and many sought to persuade themselves, it was by their laws permitted: which is the cause this great King was not so perfectly free from all the seeds of Hatred in the whole course of his life. But, forasmuch as concerneth this last will of his, one may excuse him for divers reasons, nor can it be denied an act of justice to put Joah to death, who had defiled his hands with the blood of two innocent Princes; but it is strange, that David reserved this so rough a punishment for him after forty years of great and singular services, when he was about threescore and ten years old. Yet Theodoret brings a reason of state for it, wherein he showeth, that Joah, 
Theodoretin c. 2. l. 3. Regum citatus in Glossa.  Joah, being in himself a great Captain, was withal, daring in his manners, and tyrannical in his undertake, and had already made it but too much appear, that he meant to embroil the state after the death of his Master, and to set Adonijah upon the throne, to the prejudice of Solomon: which was the cause that David, who sought fixedly to establish the Kingdom upon his lawful successor counselled him to take him away by a just punishment of other crimes which he had committed. And as for Shimei, who had surcharged him with injuries and curses, when, afterward he returned victorious into Jerusalem, he came before him, and craving pardon of his fault with lowly submission which stayed David, and made him swear he should not die for it, which seemeth to convince him of perjury, when he commanded his son Solomon to kill him. I cannot approve Tostatus his distinction, who saith, When persons, very different in the qualities of their rights treat together, that he who hath justice on his side, may promise things with an intention not to perform them, as the other meaneth them. For verily the permission of this manner of captious proceed, would throw a distrust upon all treaties. But it is easy to see that David, in this occasion, beholding himself to be accomplished with joy and glory, when Shimei came to cast himself at his feet, and that Abishai counselled him instantly to put him to death, he swore he should not die, and that the alacrity of a day so pleasing should not be purpled with humane blood: so that he had no further purpose, but to assure Shimei for the time present, and to promise him impunity in this conjunction of Kingdom and affairs: but when he saw this spirit was insolent, and like also to occasion trouble in the young King he did not absolutely command (as Cajetan observeth) to put him to death for what was past which had been pardoned; but not to spare him in new occasions of commotion; as actually Solomon (following the intentions of the King his father) troubled him not upon his slanders; but upon another occurrent. Now although one may always give colour to the Hatred which is undertaken upon consideration, and that it be sometimes necessary for the extirpation of the wicked; yet must we more incline to clemency, than justice, in all which concerneth ourselves.  
For Hatreds of Interest, which concern estates and 
Hatred of interest.  honour, they many times in these days are incurable, if they be not accompanied with some reasonable satisfaction. It is a thing very remarkable, that our Saviour 
Luc. 12. 14.  who accordeth elements, and pacifieth total Nature, would not undertake the agreement of two brothers upon the partition of their patrimony. Nay, there are some now a days so greedy and fleshed in prey, that for a finger's breadth of land they would oppose Jesus Christ, if he should visibly come to mediate their reconciliation; After a thousand reasons which may be alleged for peace, and good correspondence, they derive but one conclusion out of it, which is, to have their will. For which cause, God chastiseth them, and very often permitteth dissipation of goods, ruin of families, and many other accidents which slain their consciences, and tarnish their reputation. As on the contrary; he blesseth the children of peace, who forgo somewhat of their interest to acquire this inestimable treasure. It is almost as hard to preserve charity in a great suit, as to maintain fire in the water, or under earth to keep inextinguible lamps. He who will persist with a conscience indifferently Christian, must never descend into suits 
Suits, their nature and description.  but with a leaden pace, and come out of them with the wings of an Eagle. Suits are as the sons of Chaos and night, there is nothing in them but confusion and darkness. It is a mixture of all evils, which hath the heat of fire, the threats, the roaring thunders, and tempests of the air, the rocks of the sea, the talons of birds of rapine, and ravenous throat of fishes, the gall of serpents, the fury of savage beasts, and the malignity of poisons. Before it, ever walketh the desire of another's goods; by its side, deceit, revenge, injustice, falsehood, and treachery: after it, repentance, poverty, shame, and infamy. As war is made for peace, so we sometimes undertake suits for justice; and those are honest men, who desire it: but they who at this present do it with all sincerity, are the greatest Saints of this age, who seem to be given by God to mortify civil hatreds, and to establish minds in concord.  
After suits, Hatred brings forth another mischief, 
Duel.  which is Duel, a true Sacrifice of Moloch, which hath cost France so much blood, mothers and wives so many tears, which filleth families with sorrow, friends with grief, ages with horror, and hearts the most reasonable, with the detestation of such a Crime.  
The edicts of our most Christian King (which have 
Means to use an efficacious remedy in Duel.  had more force than all other) have served instead of a Jasper-stone to staunch blood: But never would a remedy absolutely efficacious be had therein, were it not that the King (who is the true Arbiter of honour, and distributer of glories) did not pour a strong influence of his spirit upon the Marshals of France, those great Captains, and all the brave men who wield a sword: by which, he lively and powerfully persuadeth the whole nobility, that this opinion conceived of the valour of those who fight Duels is a mere illusion, since it may be common to lackeys, and to the most abject conditions. Besides, there is need of a strong and speedy military justice to accord differences of men of war, and to chastise so many petty insolences which seem to arise from nought but to put affronts on men of honour: Otherwise it is hard to persuade a swordman to forbear revenge, seeing himself provoked byoutrages, which would make him to live dishonoured (according to tho world) in his profession. and as for these slight soldiers of God muss, whose fingers itch, and who ground Duels upon the wind of a word, to let the world know they are tied to a sword; It were very good to send them into armies, and to recommend them to some prudenr Captain who may put them into some good occasion to make trial of their courage, and to give information of them, that either their cowardice may be punished, or their valour approved. It seems to me that these proceed being well observed, might be of power to stifle this fatal plague which hath caused so many mischiefs. For we must not wholly take away point of honour from the nobility, no more then from women. Now, as virtuous women account it not a point of honour to be faithful to an Amorist, but to a husband: so it is nor fit that real gentlemen should think themselves valiant by the practice of a crime, but by the exercise of a virtue. As the first invention of Duels grew out of an opinion of point of honour: so must it die by a true judgement of honour, which proceedeth not so much from Doctors, as Captains. When the Gladiatours were in vogue, and that it was accounted a glorious thing to descend into the Amphitheatre to fight against men and beasts; all the world was inflamed therewith as with fury, and not so much as women but would be partakers.  
This manner of massacres also bare sway sometimes in the times of Christianity, until the Emperor Honorius who buried them, after so many eloquent tongues had, to Princes and Magistrates, represented the horror of those so barbarous actions: so we ought to hope, that the King, to whom God hath given the plenitude of so many and so admirable blessings, will cultivate the Palm which he already hath planted by his victory over Duels, and will cover under earth and forgetfulness this infamy of mankind. I satisfy myself with giving this advice; having treated on this subject in the second Tome of the Holy Court.   

§ 5. Natural, and Moral Remedies against this Passion.  
IF you require remedies and instructions both Natural and Moral against Hatred; Know that the Philosophers, who consider all according to the course of Nature, teach us that some have rebated and blunted the points of this cold and malign Passion, one while by living with hot and moist viands, another while, by consideration of the joys and prosperities which God hath given them in divers negotiations and accidents of affairs, thinking it not teasonable to employ the time in hatred, which was too short to enjoy the benignities of heaven. Others have cured themselves by conversation with good company, which is one of the sweetest charms of life: Others, by hope, and the desire they had to derive favour from the selfsame party who had offended them; another while also, by a courteous interpretation of words and actions which had raised the same hatred: Lastly, by the change of those whom they hated before, seeing them rather to be raised in great innocency, or fallen into deep miseries, which made them derive from mercy that satisfaction they could not expect from revenge: But if they from nature have begged some comfort for their passion, and have not been frustrated of their attempt in the practice of the means; How much better helps have we, than they ever had, since that besides those natural remedies, which are not always certain, we have the grace and example of Jesus Christ.  
Will you efficaciously remedy Hatred? Learn not 
Who loves himself overmuch hath no friend.  to love yourself so passionately as you do: For that is the cause that you make of yourself a little Idol, and that the least word which seems to be let slip against you, many times, not of purpose, nor with intention, grieveth you, as if by displeasing your Chimeras, a Divinity were offended: That is the cause that you have burning and enraged desires towards money, and the frivolous honour of the world, so that one cannot touch you on this side, but he strikes the apple of your eye.  
Learn, as a wholesome instruction, those words of the Prophet Aggeus. You have hastened to go into 
Agg. 1. Festinatis unusquisque in domum suam, propterea prohibiti sunt coeli ne darent rorem.  your own house with contempt of mine, for which cause I have stayed the clouds in the heavens from distilling down their dew upon the earth. So long as you love yourself so much, you shall never have love nor friends. So long as you think upon nothing but to raise your house and fortune, on the ruins of the houses and fortunes of others, you shall be deprived of the dew of heaven, which is that Consolation of the just, which they find in charity.  
Secondly make account, to compose yourself to a 
Exercise of patience.  noble exercise of patience, which is to tolerate the defects and imperfections of your like; beholding them, not on the side where they do you wrong, but on that where they have connexion with God: and upon every offence you receive, say, This man is troublesome, but he is the image of God; He is violent, but it is he must crown my patience; He is vicious but he is my flesh and blood: Let us hate his vice, but love the man, although he deserve it not: Let us love him in the heart of God, since we cannot love him out of his own merit. S. John kissed the hand of an Apostate, and a Thief, covered all over with blood, to oblige him, by whom he was traiteroufly disobliged; and I cannot show the least token of amity towards one, who hath spoken one cold word to me. S. Katherine sucked away the matter and filth of the ulcer of an infamous slanderer, who had detracted her with all manner of virulence, after infinite many benefits; and I cannot endure so much as to see one who hath displeased me, as if 
Haec est porta per quam quis ingreditur in Sanctum sanctorum, & inaccessae pulchritudinis spectator dignus constituitur S. Max. de consent. l. 38.  I were created to live free from all worldly contrarieties. I, who commit so many fins; on the other part, will to day do an act of virtue in honour of my Master, and in despite of passion. Let us go to heaven by love, since we cannot go thither by sufferings. This is the true gate by which we enter into the sanctuary, eternally to enjoy the sight of the inaccessible beauties of the holy and regal Trinity.  
Hear you not the God of peace who saith to us, If thou (O unhappy soul) will't still persist in Hatred; I pronounce unto thee the six punishments of Cain, Banishment from the sight of God, fear, stupidity of mind, the life of a beast, the malediction of the earth, and (as Procopius addeth) persecuting Angels armed with swords of fire who shall pursue thee like spectres and spirits in all places, and shall make themselves visible, and dreadful to thee at the last day of thy life? Behold here deservedly thy inheritance, since being mortal, thou makest thy enemies immortal, and dost still persecute the afflicted widow and her children, who are become orphans after the death of a husband and a father, whom thou hatest. The strongest enmities ofttimes are appeased at the sight of a dead body and a tomb, which we find exemplified in Josephus: for, Alexander was extremely hated by the Jews as having reigned over them with a rod of Iron: But when death had closed up his eyes, and that the Queen his wife most sorrowfully presented 
Joseph. l. 3. c. 23. A notable example to appease hatred.  herself, accompanied by two young children, and exposed the body of her husband, saying aloud (Sirs) I am not ignorant that my husband hath most unworthily used you; but see to what death hath brought him: if you be not satisfied; tear his body in pieces, and satisfy your own revenge: but, pardon a deplorable widow and her little innocent orphans who implore your mercy. The most savage spirits were so softened by this act, that all their hatred turned into pity; yet you (Barbarian) still persist to hate a man after his death, to persecute him in a part of himself, to tear him in pieces in his living members. O good God, if you renounce not this revenge you will be used like Cain, as an enemy of mankind, and a hangman of Nature! O flame! O love! O God As thou art dispersed throughout us by love; so banish all these cursed Hatreds of Hell, and make us love all in thy goodness, to possess all in thy fruition.   

§ 6, Of the profit may be drawn from Hatred, and the course we must hold to be freed from the Danger of being Hated.  
THere now remains to consider here, what profit may be derived from hatred, and with what Oeconomy 
Utility of hatred.  it may be husbanded, to render it in some sort profitable: and in case it be hurtful; to prevent its assaults, and sweeten its acerbities. If the industry of men found out the way to make preservitives out of the most dangerous poisons; why should it be impossible for us to make some notable utilities to arise out of a passion, which seems not to be created, but for the damage and ruin of all things? yet it is certain, that Nature (which never is idle in its productions) hath given it us for a great good. For it may serve love well rectified in its pretensions, it furnisheth it with sentinels, and light-horse, to hinder that which opposeth its inclination, and to ruin all contrarieties banded against its contentments. How often would Nature throw itself out of stupidity into uncertain dangers and most certain mischiefs, were it not that natural a version did awaken it, did avert it from its misery, and insensibly show it the place of repose? Is it not a wholesome Hatred to hate Pride, Riot, Ambition, and all ill Habits? Is it not a reasonable Hatred discreetly to fly from maladies, crosses, incommodities which hurt the body and nothing advantage the mind? This passion which in the beginning seemed so hideous teacheth us all this; When it is well managed it conspireth against others by an according Discord, to the lovely Harmony of total Nature.  
One may say there is happiness, and advantage to hate many things; but what profit can one find in passive Hatred, which makes a man many times to be hated, and ill wished without cause or any demerit?  
To that I answer with Saint Ambrose, that it is 
That it is good to be honestly loved.  good to avoid such a kind of Hatred, that it is fit to make one's self to be beloved with all honour by good men, and to gain (as much as possible) the good opinion of all the world, thereby to render glory to God, as Rivers carry their tribute to the Ocean. A public 
Bonum est testimonium habere de multorum dilectione, hinc, nascitur fides, ut committere se tuo affectul non vereatut alienus, quem charum advertit pluribus. Ambr. l. 2. offic. c. 7. Means to gain the good will of the public.  person who is in the employments, and commerce of the great world, may have all the treasures of the Indies, and all the dignities of old Rome, but if he have not the love and goodwill of men, I account him most indigent and poor: Thence it is that confidence taketh beginning, without which there is no fortune maketh any notable progression, nor affair which can have such success as might be expected.  
It is infinitely profitable for great men, that they may divert the Hatred of the people, to have innocency of life, greatness without contempt of inferiors, revenues without injustice, riches without avarice, pleasures without riot, liberty without tyranny, and splendour without rapine. All the rich who live in the society of men, as Pikes (called the tyrants of rivers) in the company of other fishes; to ruin, devour, and fatten themselves with the blood of the commons, are ordinarily most odious: but as there is a certain fish, which Elians History calleth the Adonis of the Sea, because 
Adonis' an admirable fish. Aelian. l. 9 c. 16. de animal.  it liveth so innocently that it toucheth no living thing, strictly preserving peace with all the offspring of the sea, which is the cause it is beloved, and courted as the true darling of waters: so we find in the world men of honour and estate, who came to eminent fortunes by pure and innocent ways, wherein they demeaned themselves with much maturity, sweetness, and affability, which put them into the possession of the good opinion of all the world. But those who are hated aught diligently and carefully to consider from whence this hatred proceedeth, and by what ways it is fomented; that fit remedies may thereunto be applied.  
There is a hatred which cometh from equals, another 
How hatred is to be diverted.  from inferiors, a third from great ones, and sometimes from powerful and subtle women, which is little to be feared. That which proceedeth from equals, lasteth long, by the counterpoise of power evenly balanced, and wasteth wretched hearts in the search after a cursed revenge, which drowneth pleasure in great acerbities, and many times, life, in blood. We must instantly labour for reconciliation, by a just satisfaction of the offended party, or stand upon our guard, that the enemy may not prevail. The hatred of inferiors towards great ones, whilst it is spread amongst the confusions of the multitude, ofttimes long remaineth under silence shut up, as the impetuous current of a River kept in by a trench; but so soon as it hath liberty, it with so much fury overfloweth, that it turneth men into Tigers and Leopards. So we see in Histories, many miserable Princes overwhelmed with the hatred of the people, with a thousand inventions of cruelties, which force compassion from the most obdurate.  
All books are filled with these disastrous events: but I do not think, we can behold a more tragical spectacle of popular hatred, then that which is represented by Nicetas in the person of Andronicus Emperor of 
Horrible example of the hatred of the multitude.  Constantinople. He entered into the Empire like a Fox, by tyrannical usurpation, and covered his crimes with a dumb show of a sophisticate devotion, at which time (God the avenger of iniquities,) was pleased to chastise him with an iron rod, and to make him as an example of his justice to all posterity. He fell (alive) into the hands of his enemy, who having loaden him with injuries and contumelies, abandoned him to the people for the punishment of his perfidiousness. From that time he was entertained with all the despites which Hatred, and the liberty of doing all, permitted his enemies: For he had buffets redoubled one upon another given him with implacable violence, his hair was torn off, his beard was pulled away, his teeth were knocked out, and not so much as women but ran upon his wretched body to torture and torment it, whilst he replied not a word. Some days after, his eyes being digged out, and his face disfigured with blows, they set him on an old botchy Camel, without aught else to cover him then an old shirt, to lead him through public places in the manner of a triumph. This spectacle so full of horror nothing at all mollified the people's hearts, but desperate men were to be seen to rush upon him on every side as thick, as in Autumn swarms of flies fleshed with some carrion; some covered him all over with dirt and filth, others squeezed sponges filled with ordure on his face, others gave him blows with clubs upon the head, others pricked him with Auls and Bodkins, and divers threw stones at him, calling him at every stroke Mad Dog. And there was a wicked woman of the dregs of the vulgar, who threw a pail of scalding hot water upon his head that his skin piled off. Lastly, they hastened to hang him on a gibbet by the feet, exposing him to a shameful nakedness in sight of all the world, and they tormented him to the last instant of death, at which time he received the favourable blow from a hand which thrust a sword through his mouth into his bowels, without other complaint then to beseech God to have mercy on him. Behold the most bloody effects of this cruel Passion. But we may say, if this, of the people resemble torrents; that of great and powerful ones is not unlike thunders and lightnings.  
Many Monarches may be compared to the mountain 
Mountain of Vesuvius. Julius Recupitus.  Vesuvius near Naples which (as it is written) is so fertile, that it yieldeth unto those who manure it a million of gold in revenue; but when it comes to cast forth its all-enflamed entrails, it ofttimes makes as much a havoc in one day alone, as it brings profit in a whole Age. How many persons meet we in ancient and modern History, raised to flourishing estate, and enriched with the spoils of the Universe, who in a moment of misfortune have lost the honours and wealth, which in so many years of favours, they had with full hand amassed together in their houses?  
But most especially, imperious women are ardent 
Hatred of women.  and exorbitant in their revenges, when a great power combineth with Passion to replenish all with disasters. Hatred shown itself fierce and insolent in Eudoxia against S. John chrysostom, furious in Justina against S. Ambrose, bitter in Theodora against Narses, bloody in Fredegonda against Pretexatus Archbishop of Rouen, whom she caused to be murdered at the Altar. And when this Hatred is enkindled with the flame of love itself, and that they in their dispose have the arms of their Amorists, and servants for execution of their purposes; they cause cruelties, which would make the History of Man-haters, and Lestrygons to blush.  
It is good, for prevention of this kind of Hatred, to 
Means to eschew, and prevent the Hatred of powerful men.  have little occasion to intermeddle with such kind of people, nor too eagerly to pursue the favour of great ones, nor the pompous glories of worldly fortunes, since its felicities (like as if they were crimes) never scape . You must not enter too fare into the intrication of affairs and persons: keep yourself from slanders, and mischievous strokes of the Tongue, ill offices and treasons of such as have no soul; to make yourself recommendable by Piety, Justice, Liberality, Moderation, Sweetness, and so many other virtues; which having adorned you in prosperity, raise a lustre and consolation in the bottom of adversity. To this also you must add powerful friends, who enlighten, with the ray of truth, that darkness, which envy ceaseth ●ot to spread over lives the most innocent, and which permit not virtue to be ever oppressed by Iniquity.  
As for such as are in charges, offices, dignities, and commands, wherein in reason alteration may be expected, if they see themselves to be persecuted by public hatred, it is best for them to change their condition to find repose: and especially, when there are powers which will hate out of humour, or levity; and who shutting up all passages to Reason, do only open an ear to slander. I ask whether, in such a case, God hath not consecrated a sanctuary for evil fortune in the pity of a neighbour? The Divine Providence never permitted, that one sole man should be King of the whole world. He who is persecuted in one Province passeth to another, and often finds friends who wipe away his tears, and gild his fetters: Whilst Hatred swayeth in the Consistory of Cruelty, to draw down lightnings, and dart thunders on his head. Joseph sold by his brethren, found innumerable favours in Egypt. David pursued on all sides by the envy of Saul, like a wild Beast, met with refuge, and employment under Abimelech. S. Athanasius sanctified the places of his banishment by the sanctity of his virtues. S. Hillary pulled out of his Bishopric, lighted in Phrygia upon a silent repose, which gave him leave to write his learned books of the Trinity, S. Thomas of Canterbury rested between the arms of France, whilst Henry of England thundered sentences, and proscriptions of death against him. If one country become a stepmother, another proves a Mother, and the Divine Providence (the world's great Harbinger) ever findeth some petty work to entertain its elected.  
But if there be no means to escape, and that servitudes must be undergone, prisons, and chains, and that scaffolds must be bloodied to satisfy the revenge of an enemy: Then is the time, when a spirit well habituated in the continual exercises of virtue entereth into the centre of the soul; and beholdeth as from a high fortress, the vicissitude of humane things, which here below have in them nothing immovable, but their proper unstedfastness. Then it is, when despising these veils of body composed of our inferior elements, it now entereth in thought into the region of Intelligencies; than it is, when it accosteth the legions of so many Martyrs, who on their bodies have received as many wounds as they had members, and have moistened the sacred palms of their victories in the effusion of their blood. All which is humane, yieldeth to the Tyranny of persecutors, but the immortal spirit makes itself a large way all bordered with laurels in the Temple of glory, and reputation; and like to the dove of the Prophet (whose wings were of silver,) taketh a high, and exalted flight to declare to all ages the innocency of a great courage, and to make its relics survive in Cabinets, and in the memory of all good men.  
How many have we seen die on Scaffolds, who with the sweetness of their countenances, terrified the most terrible aspects of executioners? They spoke, they did, they suffered, they ordered their deaths as matter of Triumph, they comforted others in their suffering at a time when they had much to do not to complain themselves. They acted together all the parts of wisdom, and came off so well in every one, as if they only had undertaken this one. It was a great thing for them to do; but to do it so exactly, is that which for ever makes them the more admirable; and it was a matter incredible, that speaking so well, they yet suffered better in an occasion, where words have no credit, works no time, violence no relaxation, nor enmity Compassion.    

The third Treatise, Of DESIRE.  

§ 1. Whether we should desire any thing in the world? The Nature, the Diversity, and description of Desire.  
THe Sages make a question, whether it be a thing to be wished to have no Desire? And there are of them who 
Whether it be good to have no desire.  think that to live happy and contented, we must banish all desires. For they are amusements which perpetually entertain us with the time to come, which put us on the Rack, and burn us by our proper thoughts. Desires are the Echoes of our loves, which mock us, and counterfeit certain voices, essences, and personages, which ordinarily are made of nought else but wind.  
But now (say others) to have no desires, is to have no soul, no sense, no reason: it is to be a fly, not a man. The Seraphins in Isaiah stand by God's side, yet cease not to clap their wings, to signify unto us there is no soul so perfect and contented, which hath not the heart still excited with some generous desire. Trees are purified by the winds agitation, rivers are cleansed and purged in their perpetual currents, and the heart by desires. If we would have no desires, we must not talk any more of eating and drinking; we must no longer have this young lover sigh after his beloved; we must not then admit learned men to make love to wisdom. That wrestlers burn with affection of prizes due to their valour; and that the soldier covers himself with his wounds to embellish his garlands, all aught to be indifferent to us; and that is the way quickly to run into the nature of rocks and stones.  
We must here make a notable distinction of desires, insomuch, some are natural, given by God to man for the preservation of himself: Others are artificial, which arising out of an exorbitant will, are nothing but flood and ebb, but agitations and tempests. Desires are like number, one cannot name any so great, but that it is capable of addition.  
Hence it proceedeth, that the world is replenished 
The world replenished with desiring souls. Psal. 50 v. 12. Tabescere fecisti animam meam (alia versio) liquescere fecisti, ut timeam desiderium ejus. Eos felicitas ingrata subterfluit ut semper pleni spei, vacui commodorum, praesentibus ca●eant dum furura prospectant. In Psal. 92. Richard●● de S. Victore in Psal. 80. An excellent picture of desire.  with desiring, and suffering souls, and that there is not almost any one who is not in expectation, and breathes not the air of the Region of desires. The most part of men resemble the moth which gnaws a garment, and in gnawing eateth its own house: For by the eagerness of desiring the future, they lose all the pleasure of the present, and demolish their fortune by their greediness to raise it. That is it which the Panegyric wittily expressed, pronounced before Constantine the son. Felicity glideth by us, as the water which streameth along under bridges, when still, full of hope, we rest unfurnished of contentments.  
Desiring hearts (saith S, Augustine) are as those great-bellied women to whom the eternal word hath denounced a Curse in the Gospel. All the world would be but a morsel in the mouth of man's heart (saith Richardus de sancto Victore) since its wishes are infinite and that it is evident that in Infinity what part soever you assign, you are still at the beginning.  
If you desire that I make you a picture of the nature and perquisits of Desire, I will tell you it is a strange country whereunto the prodigal Child sailed, when he forsook his father's house to undertake a banishment: a Country where corn is still in grass, vines in the bud, trees perpetually in blossom, and birds always in the shell. You neither see corn, fruit, nor any thing fully shaped; all is there only in expectation. It is a Country full of figures, phantasms, illusions, and hopes which are dreams without sleep: a Country where the inhabitants are never without fevers, one is no sooner gone, but another cometh into its place. There, dwelleth Covetousness a great woman, meager, lean, starven, having round about her a huge swarm of winged boys, of which some are altogether languishing, others cast her a thousand smiles as she passeth along; upon herself she hath an infinite number of horsleeches, which suck upon her to the marrow. Time looketh on her afar off, and never cometh near her, showing her an enchanted lookingglass, wherein she seethe a thousand, and a thousand false colours, which amuse her; and when she hath sported enough, she hath nothing to dinner, but smoke.  
Behold the table of Covetousness grounded upon 
The explication of the picture. Decide rium est motus rppetitus in amabili, & inchoatio amoris. S. Thom. 2 sent. dist. 26. q. 1. art 3.  Theology and the Philosophy of S. Thomas. I say, to explicate myself, that the country thereof is the country of the prodigal child, and that famine is perpetually there, Desire being nothing else but a hunger of the good it wisheth: or indeed, a motion of the appetite towards the thing it loveth, and the first degree of love. All is in blossom in this country, and never in fruit, insomuch, as he who desiret, hpossesseih nothing, as yet, but in imagination: and such is the nature of Desire, that coming to the end of its carrer, it sinks; sinee where the good is present that is affected, there is no further desire. the Inhabitants there, are continually in fevers, since wishes are but feverish fervours. All there, is full of phantasms, because all those blessings are merely imaginary. Covetousness is necessarily hungry, being perpetually in pursuit, never overtaking nor eating: but if it do overtake and eat, and gluts its heart, it ceaseth to be Covetousness. Verily it hath round about it little laughing boys; those are gaudy, and sparkling desires: some sad, they are frustrated desires: Many bloodsuckers, which suck it, they are troublesome, and turbulent Desires. I add, that time (ever distant from it (entertaineth it with an enchanted mirror: For it seethe nothing but in the future, and sees many Chimeras and illusions, after which it is tormented, As Tigers who beholding the lookingglass which hunters have set in Forests, imagine it to be a creature of their own kind shut up in a prison of glass, and so long they scratch it, till they break it and deface their desire. Lastly, I conclude, that they are served at dinner with smoke, all worldly desires being nought else but wind, and smoke.   

§, 2, The Disorders which spring from inordinate Desires, and namely from curiosity, and Inconstancy,  
O God should one imagine the misery of those 
Ose 13. §. E●unt qua●● nubes matutina, & sicut ros matutinus praeteriens, sicut pulvis turbine raptus ex area, & uncut fumus de fumario. Three disorders of desire.  who dwell in this Counrety of Covetousness, and who live in worldly desires, and perpetual disturbances; he could not have any thing more efficacious to give him a distaste of it.  
I observe, ill-rectified desire causeth three Disorders in the soul, which are sterility, ardour, and unquietness: Sterility; for, persuade yourself, all the inhabitants of this country, which are now adays many, are empty, hollow souls, void of the solid and eternal good for which they were created, and are filled with imaginary wind, and labyrinths: Ardour; since they are hearts inflamed like Fornaces, which dart forth desires, as Coals do sparks; Hearts, which as the Eagle-stone are still big, but produce nothing: Unquietness; for that they live like Hedgehogs all environed with sharp quills; There is only this difference, that sharp quills serve the Hedgehog for a defence, and sharp-pointed desires kill, and consume those who have them.  
You see men who all their life-time lie at anchor: and expect a wind, never sailing; Men, who are continually in fetters like prisoners; Men, perpetually like to languishing Amorists, or to truantly scholars who vehemently desire play-days. some, the most spiritual thirst after books, and libraries: others please themselves with Ideas of dogs, of birds, of apes, and of horses: Others, in imagination, handle pieces of crystal, pictures, Diamonds, and pistols: Others cut out garments at their pleasure, of the richest stuffs which fancy can furnish them with; some are eager after hunting, and traffic; others, after Courtship, and Game: Some, go to the temple of Honour; others mind nothing but money. It were a very hard thing to reckon up all the fevers, purgatories, and pains of those passionate souls; For indeed, natural Desires are not limited by nature which made them; but those which consist in opinion have no limits, as Imagination which produceth them, hath no measure; but although men be very different in desires, they agree all in one point, which is, never to be contented, always to desire some change, and novelty, and so ardently to desire it that there are such to be found, who for a ruff-band, or a shoe, would gladly hasten the course of the sun, as they set forward the hand of the dial.  
But among these Symptoms, which are frequent with persons infected with such like diseases, I discover 
The passion of Curiosity a kind of Desire.  two other passions of Curiosity, and Inconstancy, the companions of desire. Note; that Truth sitteth in a Throne all replenished with lights, and is of very difficult access, if one have not wisdom for direction. For ordinarily Curiosity way-layeth such as go about to approach to it, and involveth them in vast labyrinths of errors. This curiosity (if you desire to know the nature of it) is nought else but irregular appetite to know things either vain, unprofitable, or evil. It dwelleth in a Country fertile in appearance, but very barren in effect, it hath in its dominion many spirits (to speak truly) neither dull nor stupid; for they all have smartness and vivacity; but the most part have a great want of judgement and discretion to serve as a Counterpoise to their levity. They will know all, and in an instant ask more questions than the seven Sages of Greece could resolve in ten years; so likewise they are of the nature of those Stars which raise tempests and cannot calm them, since they frame a thousand casualties, a thousand difficulties in affairs, and never derive a good conclusion: you may say, if you well weigh them, that they have a worm in their wits which gnaws them; that they are men sick in health, and living deadmen who neither know what they would, what they do, nor what they are. Curiosity, seeing they have so much 
Curiositas motus animae mortuae. S. August. Confess. l. 13.  disposition to receive its impressions, entertaineth them in the winding ways of Truth, like a Mountebank, who puts a multitude upon a gaze, by letting them see infinite many dainty colours in a Triangular-glasse, and in the conclusion sends them away dinnerlesse, with hunger in their teeth, and illusion in their eyes.  
After these slight amusements, this evil Mistress turns them over to anxiety, anxiety delivers them to new desires, and new desires to servitude, servitude to ignorance, ignorance to presumption, and presumption to unquietness of mind. From thence they, who are 
Omnis anima curiosa indocta est. August. de ago Christiano. c. 14. Nullâ curiofitare videant quae sunt in sanctuario. Num. 4.  deeper plunged into this poison of false wisdom, take the way of impiety, others of misery and poverty; some of choler, of envy, of slander, and despair; the best provided are like the Danaides, who do nought but fill and empty their tub, but to no purpose. All are not sick of one same disease; For some have a Curiosity, black and faulty, as those who seek for a Master in matter of Religion, and would gladly talk with a devil to learn news from Paradise: or such as those who strain curious Sciences so hard, that they sqeeze black and malign vices out of them, as Magic, or the trick of coining false money: or as those who are mad to hear, to see, to know the vices, or mischiefs of others. Others have a more innocent Curiosity, one of medals, another of Tulipaes, some of voyages, others of companies; and indeed, of all things which may serve for incentives to Concupiscence.  
There are of them who are much disquieted with matters which little concern them, they are curious to know all that passeth in the world in the Indies, in Japonia: how many elephants the great Mogul keeps; who is to succeed the King of China in his Empire; whether the great Turk armeth; whether the Persian stirreth; and what forces Prester John hath for the preservation of his State. They think within themselves, what a face they would set upon it if they were Kings or Popes: They in their heads dispose of Kingdoms: They raise Republics, they rig forth ships, they pitch battles; and after they have doted, they find nought but nothing in their hands. Others advance not their aims so high, but rest satisfied with inferior thoughts and petty cares; as how to troth up and down the streets, to visit houses, and to ask of all they meet, what news do you hear? As also to observe post-dayes, and to visit their friends round, by a list-roll indifferently, to heap together the bruits of the City, to vent them again without any consideration. There are some who make vows of pilgrimages, not out of Devotion towards Saints, but from a purpose to content their Curiosity. They know all the Indulgencies which are throughout all the Churches of the Province, and beyond, all the houses that are built, all the christen every day, all the weddings celebrated, all the childbirths of male or female, all the merchandizes newly brought in, all the strangers who arrive, all the suits determinated, all the charges given, all the offices sold, all the pamphlets cried up and down the streets: Their heads are wonderful Fairs, whither merchants come from all sides, there is not a moment of repose, and solitude with such is accounted a petty Hell.  
This multiplicity of Desires is waited on by another 
In constancy followeth the multitude of Desires.  Malady of Inconstancy, which is properly a levity, and an irresolution of mind which showeth itself in his manners, actions, and words, who is touched with it. To say truth, this passion is a Devil who inhabiteth in 
The kingdom of Inconstancy.  a land of Quicksilver, where Earthquakes are almost perpetual, winds blow on each side; and blowing, make many weathercocks to turn to and fro, and every moment change posture; In this place, an admirable Creature is to be seen, who is not what she is, and is that she is not; so many faces and figures she hath: She likewise is still upon transformations, and seems to do nothing at all, but to make, and unmake herself. One while she is great, another while little, one while gross, another while slender, one while affable, another while harsh, one while serious, another while gamesome, but ever slippery; and if you lay hold of her, you catch nothing. She goes forth of her lodging to appear in public, as if she came into a Theatre, clothed, one while in changeable Taffeta, another while with different pieces set together out of a singular Fantastic addlenesse of wit. She alone representeth all personages, talks with all kind of voices, and in all manner of languages. After her we behold a million of petty phantasms, imperfect in shape, and which seem to be but pieces roughly begun, which we may say are her works.  
If you a little observe the men which inhabit this kingdom of Inconstancy, you shall find they are people whose humours consist much of air and water; for they are always supple and pliant to all manner of objects, they have a spirit which brooketh not businesses with a strong and solid penetration, to see the bottom of it; but only scratch them with a little bodkin which is blunted and broken presently. If you could see their heart and brain, you should behold in the one huge squadrons of thoughts which scuffle together like Cadmus his soldiers: in the other, a mighty mass of desires and indigested purposes, which renders them very unable to receive the impressions of the Divinity. as S. Basil hath observed upon that Prophet Isaiah. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. S. Basil. Hom. 1. in Isaiam.  It seemeth all this kind of people have a will of wax, and that any man may work it which way he list. Their passions are sharp, and ardent in the beginning, so that they transport judgement, which is either notably weak, or much benumbed; but they last not: for they instantly are troubled at things present, and ever tum their face away from the future, never (as it were) being where they are, and still being where they neither are nor can be. You shall see they every day begin to live, yea, when they should make an end; and if they do any good, they do it but by halves, never allowing themselves leisure to lick their Bear (as they say) nor to finish their work; so precipitate they are by contrariety of different desires which draw them this way and that way, and destroy all the abilities of their wits. You shall note in them a great greediness after novelties, and continual changes of manners, study, apparel, of wearing their hair, of their manner of living, gate, of voice, of conversation, of sports, exercises, counsels, loves, of amities, words, and of mouths which at once breathe forth hot and cold. To conclude, their life is nought else but the flood and ebb of a continual Euripus, it is replenished with shadows, giddiness, and illusions, which in effect make it miserable; For commonly it is waited on by disesteem, grief, shame, anxiety, and great shipwrecks of wit and renown.   

§ 3, The four sources out of which ill-rectified desires proceed.  
YOu must know, that those restless desires which toil us, proceed from four sources: the first and 
Four sources of Desires which toil us.  principal whereof is, a Heart void of things Divine; there being not (saith S. Augustine) a more manifest sign, that a soul is not well with God, then, when it entertaineth a multiplicity of desires. Moses pulled off his shoes before the burning bush, where he saw his eyes cleared by the rays of the Divine Majesty, (in my opinion) to teach us, that his heart was at an end of its journey, since he had found the Centre of eternal Rest. Whilst the soul of man is out of the limits which God assigned it, well it may find Inns to lodge in, but it never finds a home; But he who knows the way how to accommodate himself, in all things, to the will of God, hath found the industry of an Infinite good, in the accomplishment of his desires.  
It is to live like Cain in the region of Instability, and to walk upon a quagmire, daily to entertain so many fresh appetites. Their multiplication witnesseth enough the barrenness of their purchase; but when one well tasteth God, and finds him to comprehend all relishes; he forsaketh all to follow him, and the Heart hath no more to do, but to please him who is the source of its Contentment.  
The second cause of desires, is a promptitude, and a vivacity of the Mind, which bends much to levity, and is not at all ballasted by solidity of judgement, whereby the soul is set at liberty to fly after all manner of objects, as bees do after flowers. I will deliver unto you an excellent doctrine, which will teach us, that between a ship and the heart of a man (if we consider them well) there is much resemblance. The ship is a house 
A comparison of a ship and the heart of man.  of the sea, and the heart is the habitation of the soul, whilst it is in the ocean of this mortal life. The ship goes on the waters, and the heart upon abysses: The ship hath its sails, and the heart its aims: The ship is guided by the rudder, and the heart by prudence: The ship expecteth winds, and the heart the divers motions of its thoughts: The ship feeleth tempests, and the heart passions: the ship feareth rocks, and the heart obstacles: The ship suffers shipwreck under water, and the heart under the gulf of iniquity: The ship in the haven, and the heart in tranquillity.  
Now as in the Scripture there are three sorts of ships specified; so there likewise are three manner of hearts. Some compared to ships which carry fruit, are such as 
Naves poma portantes. Job. 9  are replenished with affections and desires; with pleasures and contentments of the world; which are enemies of the present, and perpetually sigh after the future. Others, are ships of traffic, which are continually 
Navis institoris. Prov. 31.  full of affairs, disturbances, great and little cares, that steal the repose of life from them. The rest are the ships of Tharsus in the Mediterranean sea, which carry 
Naves Tharsis. Psal. 47.  great designs, great earthly ambitions, and are very often tossed by most impetuous winds.  
The third source of our Appetites is a hot and sanguine Complexion, which in our heart enkindleth many desires like unto a fire made with straw, violent enough in the beginning, but of no lasting: as on the contrary, cold people have fewer desires, but are more pertinacious in the pursuit of them.  
It is said we must beware of a man, who hath but one thing to do, because his thoughts being perpetually bend upon one and the same object, he becomes extremely troublesome to those from whom he desireth the accomplishment of his design: so must we defend ourselves from a man who hath but one desire: especially when it is inordinate; For we may easily escape from such as have many cares. Time wasteth them as fast as he produceth them; it is needless to oppose, or much to contradict them: let their mind's rest, and you shall find the purpose they had in the morning, to be quite gone by the evening, like the Ephemery, which lives but one day. Now as for those, who have amassed together all the strength of their soul, upon one desire they are immeasurably urgent, and cease not to persecute you until they have put their wish in execution.  
The fourth is a certain crooked winding of a Heart, which is (as it were spongy and insatiable, joined to a debility of spirit which apprehendeth want and necessity, and this makes it to fasten upon any thing to help itself.  
Tertulliun saith, that all these wand'ring souls have 
Interpellat ad desiderandum finis ipse desiderandi. Tertul. lib. de poenit●n.  no other profession in this life, but to be in wish, where they cannot be personally in presence. The end of one desire provoketh them to begin another. Their desires resemble fruits that pass away, which in their latter season retain some beauty of their first vigour. There are many who esteem it a bitter business to expect, and who had rather see their hopes cut off, then to find out the way how to prolong them: but such are born to desire, they are not pleased with a victory already gotten; you do greatly wrong them, instantly, to give what they ask, they love even things unlawful, because they are such, and so soon as they are permitted them, they lose that place which they had before in their heart.   

§ 4. That the tranquillity of Divine Essence, for which we are created, aught to rule the unquietness of our desires.  
AGainst this passion, I have two remedies to propose 
Reason against vain desires drawn from the Divine tranquillity.  in two Reasons; the first whereof is drawn from the first model, which is the heavenly Father; and the second from the second, which is the Incarnate Word, since in them are the most efficacious ways for reformation of the table of the Soul. As for the first, I say, that our soul being made to the Image of God, and for the possession and fruition of God, it will never rest but in the conformity of its understanding and will, with the understanding and will of its Creator. Now, what think you would God desire, if he were capable of desire; what would he wish to see, to know, and to have? nothing but himself: and insomuch as he is eternally and inseparably with himself, he is not capable of any impression of desires whatsoever. We cannot be like unto God without desires, whilst we are in the world; but we may, and aught to have but one main desire, which is God himself.  
Imagine your heavenly Father to be a great sea of 
Nazian. in Natal●tia. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Essences, of perfections, and of contentments, a sea which hath neither bottom nor shore; a sea wherein all the vessels of curious souls suffer shipwreck. Imagine with yourself an Exemplary world, a vast world of wisdom, of sanctity, of intelligencies, of lives, of reasons, and of forms. There God inhabiteth within himself, being to himself, (as saith Tertullian) place, palace, 
Tertul. in Praxeum, cap. 5.  world; there he is absorbed as in a huge abyss of delights, not to be imagined. He from all eternity hath his felicity purely perfect, and concentred in his own bosom, seeing he from all eternity hath his Son, his great and only Conception, which emptieth him without his emptiness, which issueth from him without issuing forth, which abideth in him without distinction of Essence, or confusion of Persons.  
He hath all his loves within himself, since he hath 
Nec intelligentiam admittit solitudin●s, 〈◊〉 diversitatem divinita●is. Magist ●ent lib. 1. d 3.  his holy Spirit, a substantial flame of love, enkindled in his heart by his proper will, which is the eternal and unquenchable furnace of all chaste affections. He hath all his desires limited and replenished, since, as he sees nothing out of himself; so he cannot desire any thing out of himself. If you imagine the sea (saith S. Augustine) 
Mare co gitas non est hoc Deus, omnia quae sunt in terra homines & animalia, non est hoc Deus. Augin Psal. 85.  it is not God: If you imagine the earth with so many rivers which moisten it, so many herbs and flowers which enamel it, so many trees which cover it, so many living creatures which furnish it, so many men which inhabit and cultivate it, it is not God. If you in your thoughts figure the air, with all its birds so different in shape, so various in plumage, so diversified in their notes, it is not God. If you go up to those Chrystaline and Azure vaults, where the Sun and Moon and so many Stars perform their career with such measure, it is not God. If you behold in heaven innumerable legions of Angels, Spirits of fire and light, resplendent before the face of God, as lamps of balsamum lighted before the propitiatory, it is not God: but God is he who comprehendeth all that, who bounds it, and incomparably surpasseth it.  
All things (say Divines) are in God by way of eminency, as in the Exemplar Cause which mouldeth them, as in the Efficient Cause which produceth them, as in the Final Cause which determines them: but they are in a manner so elate and exalted, that those same which in themselves are inanimate, in God, are spirit and life.  
All the Creatures we have seen produced in the revolution of so many Ages, are as Actors, which God 
Quod factum est, in ipso vita erat. Joh. 1.  (who is the great Master of the Comedy which is acted in this world) kept hidden behind the hang in his Ideas, more lively and more lustrous than they be on the stage. The World strikes the hour of their Entrances, and Exits of their life and death; but the great Clock of God in his Eternity, hath at one instant strucken all their hours. Nothing to him is unexpected, nothing unknown, nothing new: All that which toeth the desires of the most curious, all that which suspendeth the admiration of the sagest: all, which inflameth the hearts, of the most passionate, Lands and Seas, Magazines of Nature, Thrones, Theatres, Arms, and Empires; all are but a silly drop of dew before the face of God.  
Then how can God but live contented within himself, 
Ecce gentes quasi stilla fitulae & quasi momentum staterae reputatae sunt; ecce insulae quasi pulvis exiguus, & Libanus non sufficiet ac ad succedendum. Isa. 4. 16.  since the smallest streams of the fountain which springs from his bosom, may suffice a million of worlds. O ungrateful and faithless soul! the same Paradise which God hath for himself, he hath prepared for thee; he will, thou beholdest thyself, that thou contemplatest thyself, that thou reposest thyself in his heart; yet thou flutterest up and down like a silly butterfly among so many creatures, so many objects, so many desires; perpetually hungry, ever distant from thy good, ever a traitor to thy repose and glory. Beggarly soul, which beggest every where: Miserable soul which in every place findest want in abundance: Ignominious soul, upon whose front all loves have stamped dishonour; when wilt thou rally together all thy desires into one period? When wilt thou begin to live the life of God, to be satisfied with God's contentment, and to be happy with God's felicity?   

§ 5. That we should desire by the imitation of Jesus Christ.  
THe second Reason that I draw from the second 
2. Reason of the only desire which Jesus had in seeking the glory of his heavenly Father.  Model, which is, the Word Incarnate, the Rule and Example of all our actions, is, that Jesus Christ had no other desire on earth, but to suffer, to be dissolved, and to annihilate himself for the glory of his heavenly Father, by subjecting rebellious powers to his Sceptre, and by gaining souls, of which he infinitely was desirous, even to the last moment of his life. The 
Plato lib. de ordine universi apud Viennam.  Philosopher Plato in the Book of the order of the Universe, writeth, that all the Elements naturally desired to evaporate themselves in the Celestial Region, as it were therein to obtain a more noble, and more eminent state of consistence. Now the deaf and dumb desire, which things inanimate have, to be transformed into a nature more delicate; is most apparent in the sacred Humanity of the Son of God, which, although it always remained within the limits of its Essence, it notwithstanding had an ineffable sympathy with the Divinity, being totally plunged therein, as iron in burning coals. It in all, and through all, followed its motions, will, and ordinances, as true dials wait on the Sun; nor had it any desire more ordinary, then to make a profusion of itself, in all it had created.  
Theology teacheth us, that albeit, the will of God were necessitated in certain actions, as in the production of the love which sprang from the sight of God; notwithstanding in others, it was altogether free, able to do, and not to do such, or such a thing according to his good pleasure; as at such or such a time to go, or not to go into Jury. Able, of two good things which were presented, to choose the one or leave the other; as, to do miracles, rather in Jury then in Sidon. Able also 
Nonvolebat in Judaeam ambulare Job 7. 1.  to do the things ordained him by his heavenly Father out of motives and reasons such as his wisdom thought best to choose: In all those liberties, never pretended he ought but the Glory and Service of his Father. Good God, what sublimate is made in the limbeck of Love, what evaporations, and what separations of things, even indivisible, are made in the five great annihilations which Theology contemplateth in the person of Jesus Christ!  
First, the inseparable Word of God seemeth to make a divorce, but a divorce of obedience, and to separate itself; but with a separation always adherent by the condition of a foreign nature transplanted into 
Radius ex sole, portio de summa, de spiritu spiritus, & de Deo Deus. Tertul Apol 2. Greg. l. 28 mor. cap. 2.  the Divinity. Secondly, he, by a new miracle permitteth, that this Humane nature tied to the Divine nature, be separated from its subsistence, its last determination and substantial accomplishments. Thirdly, that Glory be separated from the estate and condition of Glory, yielding his glorious soul up as a prey to sadness. Fourthly, he separateth himself not only from the signs and conditions of a Messiah, but almost from the resemblance of a man, being become us a worm.  
Lastly, he draws himself into the interior of his 
Quasi ignis effulgens, & thus arden's in igne.  soul of his own accord, and wholly melts himself as Incense in the fire: in such sort, that S. Gregory very well saith, That he is the Amber of the Prophet Ezekiel, enrobed with the heat of flames. But better saith Origen, who calleth him the Perfume which is annihilated 
Origen. in Cant. unguentum exinanitum.  for us; comparing the will of the Son of God to a viol filled with an aromatic liquor, which one hath turned up-side down to empty it to the last drop; so the desires and affections of Jesus are poured forth in the bosom of his heavenly Father. But most espeally 
Hab. 3. Qui ascendis super equos tuos, & quadrigae tuae salvatio  on the day of his Passion, for than was the time when the Prophecy of Habakuk was accomplished; It is thou who mountest upon the light-horses, and who bearest salvation in thy mysterious chariot.  
I now leave those who interpret this passage of the chariot of God triumphing in those ugly darknesses of Egypt. I leave those who refer it to the second coming. I follow the Interpretation which S. Ambrose 
Ambros. in Luc. Patibulum triumphale 〈…〉.  presenteth unto me, who calleth the Cross a gibbet of Triumph, and others who term it the true chariot of the glory of the God of hosts. I consequently say, that the light-horses of our Saviour are his winged and flaming desires, which bore him more gloriously than Elias unto the throne of Honour, where he hath made a full consummation of himself, by the separation of his blood and soul in that great Sacrifice, which put Heaven to mourning, the Sun into eclipse, the Earth into quakings, and men the most stupid into affrightment. O with what obedience, with what resignation did that dying Swan then appear, when all the stars (as Dydimus relateth) about three of the clock afternoon were seen in the heavens to enlighten his death! O, with what union of his will to Gods will, he spoke these words, O my God, O my Father, behold me on the Pile to be sacrificed to thy Divine Majesty: My God, I have desired it from the first moment of my conception, 
Deus mens volvi & le gem tuam in medio cordis mei.  I have had the law of Obedience engraven in my heart with a chisel of fire and an eternal character, and at this time (O my celestial Father) I wish it, I would it, and will protest it whilst my soul shall be on my lip, to have but one only desire in the world, which is to annihilate myself in accomplishing thy will!   

§ 6. The condemnation of the evil Desires of the world, and the means how to divert them.  
ANd yet thou (O disloyal soul) will't in thy heart entertain a mass of Desires, thou wilt 
Against evil desires.  rather live among fevers and burning coals, then tie thyself to the will of God Rebel, thou hast 
In omni colle sublimi, & in omni ligno frondo so tu prosternebaris meretrix. Jer. 2. 21.  prostituted thyself on high and below, upon the mountains and under trees, under cedars and on the hyssop; so many great and little Desires have possessed thy heart. Thou miserable man, to have affection in store for a deceiving creature, who hath put the sword of division into thy marriage, to cut asunder a knot tied before the face of Angels and men! Thou unfortunate maid, unlucky victim, to fill all the sails of thy Desires for a man more light than the wind, and more faithless than ice; whose words are but promises, promises but perjuries, perjuries but forsakings, and forsakings but diastres; and to have neither heart nor thought for God, a Father so benign, a Saviour so affectionate, a Lover so loyal! Thou, to burn alive with black and shameful flames of ravenous avarice; and to have no feeling for him, who hath the beauty of fields, the enamel of meadows, the extent of seas, the riches of metals, and all the magazines of the Universe in his bosom! Thou, to run at random after transitory honour, which glisters like a worm in a piece of rotten wood, and which pricketh like a thorn; and not to hold sympathy with him who crowneth the heads of his Elect with eternal garlands! Thou, to live daily in fits of fire and ice for a slight toy, for a gorget, for a chopino, for a little dog, a parichito, for all that which I neither can nor dare to express! O what a shame is it, that all creatures serve for snares and prisons to hearts moistened with the blood of Jesus; and they not to be softened by this venerable shower, able to break rocks asunder, and dissolve anvils!  
You will ask me what you should do to be delivered from this tyranny? First, accustom yourself to cut away all superfluities, whether of apparel; 
Desideria tua parvo redime hoc enim tantum curare debes ut desinant. Sense  diet, vain company, or other delights which fight against the law of God. Reduce your appetites to a small cost, and take more care how to end them, then to cherish them. Resolve with yourself to lop off all your superfluities, and to be contented with little, holding it for a thing most assured, that by how much the less you shall depend on your greedy desires (which are most forward mistresses, to whom you have prostituted your Christian liberty) so much shall you be the more near to God.  
Secondly, if you feel in your heart some seeds of desires to sprout and disquiet you; seasonably prevent them, one while diverting them by some laudable employment, another while by pulling them up with main strength in their first tenderness, and never to 
Non obtinebis ut desinat, si incipere permiseris. Sen. ep. 116.  let them get strength to your prejudice. It is much more easy to defend one's self in the beginning from a passion, then to moderate the violence of the exorbitancy when it is lodged in your heart.  
Thirdly, follow Aristotle's counsel, and look 
Voluptates abeuntes, specta fessas, & poenitentiâ plenas, quò minus cupidè repetantur.  on all the objects of pleasure, not such as they are, when they at first sooth Sensuality, but such as they be when they turn their backs to forsake us. Lastly, exercise yourself continually in the desire of joys eternal.  
Behold all those things which environ you, all those honours, those riches, those pomps, as deceitful and momentary things; Behold them as a flitting company; Each day undo a knot of your slavery; Put yourself into the liberty of God's Children; Place yourself in such a nakedness of spirit that you may say, One, and no more. Blind soul, how canst thou live one sole moment with so many desires, which are as so many daughters to marry? what a care must be had well to bestow them? what a fear to bestow them ill? what a grief that they are ill bestowed? Stupid soul, canst thou rest with so many bloodsuckers fastened to the marrow of thy bones, which draw thence all thy vital humour, and make thee have a life which hath nothing less than life in it? Temerarious soul, who hast dared to think, that forsaking thy Creator, thou elsewhere shouldst find a better match! Go, and see the obstacles which daily meet with those who hunt after honours, favours, and worldly wealth. Go, go, behold, and thou shalt see a thousand fishes swim in a pond after a rotten worm. How many battles must thou wage, how many sweats of death must thou sweat, how many irongates must thou break through, to content one only of thy desires? O how often will the Heavens and the Elements conspire against thy affections, which thou so unworthily, so disastrously hast placed?  
O what bloody sorrows at thy death, when God shall draw aside the curtain of the city of peace, and shall show thee an infinite number of souls in the bosom of Beatitude, for having well disposed their Desires; and on the other side, burning coals to expiate affections ill managed!  
O what horror, what terror, and what despair, if the Angels come and say with a voice of thunder, Foris 
Apoc. 22. 15  Canes, and that we must wander up and down in affection with a hunger everlastingly enraged after a good we so many times have despised! O Jesus, the desire of Eternal mountains, draw to thee all my desires, since thou art the Adamant. Jesus, the love of all faithful souls, take all my affections, since thou art the Centre of all hearts. Jesus, the Joy and Crown of all the Elect, stay my floating hopes: since thou art the haven of hearts, stretch out an assisting hand to so many errors, and set me in a place where I may desire nothing: but let it be such a place, wherein I may love that which is infinitely amiable.    

The fourth Treatise, Of AVERSION.  

§ 1. The Nature and Qualities thereof.  
AVersion is a passion apprehensive, disdainful 
The essence and nature of Aversion.  of distastes, which is shut up as a snail in its shell, and hath no inclination to any thing in the world. Covetousness presenteth it many objects, to see if it can snare it with a bait; but it doth nothing but fly away, and turn the face to the other side: and albeit, it seems not to desire aught of all is offered unto it; it nevertheless coveteth good, but goes towards it by by-paths, and flight from all that which seems opposite to its felicity.  
Well, to understand the nature of this Passion, we 
How Aversion is form.  must know, that as in motions of affections, there is first made in the soul a love wholly simple, which is an inclination and a complacence towards some object; from thence Desire is created, by which we consider the same object, not only as good and convenient, but as a thing absent, and out of us, which we must endeavour to have, and to bring within our power: But if we have the good hap to possess it, from thence joy ariseth, which is a perfect complacence, raised upon the possession of the thing desired. Likewise in passions which resist and oppose our heart; first, a simple hatred is created, which only importeth an Antipathy, and a certain dissenting from the object, which the understanding proposeth to the will, as disagreeable or hurtful: Thence we come to consider this object, either as fare distant, and hard to be avoided; and then Fear lays hold of our heart, or we behold it more near at hand, and very easy to be repelled, being wholly unable to make any great or strong impressions upon us, as Fear doth, and then it is properly called Aversion: but if the evil happen to be present, it is a vexation and a trouble; and when it is past, there remains a horror, which we call Detestation.  
We may say, this passion which is disgusted withal, 
The character and true image of a spirit subject to Aversion.  hath nothing so distasteful as itself. There you behold a soul oppressed, still apprehensive, still retired, and ever harsh; and as nothing pleaseth it, so easily it displeaseth all the world. If there be cause to name one, he will never call him by his name; but will say, of whom speak you? of that wretch? of that sluggard? of that miser? of that ignorant fellow? Or, if he hath some deformity of body; of that crooked piece? that crump-shoulder? of that unfortunate caitiff, who is much duller than a winters-day, or the snows of Scythia? If a Book be to be censured; there is nothing worth aught in it, they are discourses and words ill placed. If merchandise be to be bought; the shop and storehouses of a merchant shall be turned over and over, and nothing found that gives contentment. If he be in his own house; he makes himself insupportable to his domestics: this garment is ill made, this chamber ill furnished, this bed too hard, these dishes unsavoury; the wind at a door, the creaking of a casement, the crying of a child, the barking of a dog, all is troublesome to him. If a man of this condition be to be married; there is not a maid in the world worthy of him, he must have one framed out of his own rib, as God did for the first Man: or suffer him to raise his love in imitation of Endymion and Caligula, up to the sphere of the Moon. But most especially, women 
Humour of coy women  of this humour are extremely troublesome; They have no small business to do, who are to find them out maidservants and nurses; this is too rustical, she hath nothing amiable in her eye, she speaks too big, her body is not slender enough; the other is a piece of flesh not worth aught: needs must she be perpetually upon change; and out of too much curiosity to meet with a good service, be the worst served of any woman in the world. Behold one distasted with professions, conditions, and offices, all displeaseth him; Shall he become a Churchman? that seems a slavery to him: Shall he betake him to a sword? It is hazardous: To an office? It costs too much: To traffic? Little is to be gotten: To a Trade? He cannot find a good one: Lastly, it troubleth him to be a man, and would gladly entertain the invention of Ovid's Metamorphosis, to be transformed into some other kind of Creature. There are young wenches, who have much  with themselves: Shall they marry? There is not any match likes them; this man is unhandsome; that other is but simple; this man too wayward; that, too melancholy; one, too wild; another hath not living enough; nor that other, good alliance; an Angel must be fetched out of heaven to marry them. In the mean time, some amorist learneth to dance his cinque-pace, and to powder and frizzle himself to please this coy piece, whom nothing contenteth but her own distastes. If, one the other side, this creature looks towards Religion; she will multiply her paces and visits, and will run over all the Monasteries, and find none to content her; one is too indulgent, and another too austere; the habit of this pleaseth, but the manner of living is distasteful; the flesh draweth upon one side, and the discipline drives away on the other, and her wavering mind can resolve on nothing, nor irresolve on nothing, but irresolution.  
That admitted and established in this manner; I say there are two sorts of Aversion, the one whereof is tied to things, the other to persons, and both of them are of power much to disturb us, if we seasonably seek not to give remedy thereto in our most tender years before these dispositions wax old in us, and strengthen themselves to our prejudice. Now, I observe we may find very good remedies out of the consideration of the Divine proceed of God, as I intent to let you see in the sequel of this discourse.   

§ 2. The sweetnesses and harmonies of the heart of God show us the way to cure our Aversions.  
FIrst, we see that God loves all things except sin, and hates nothing he hath made. Essence, Goodness, 
The consideration of the love which God bears to his creatures, is a powerful remedy to cure Aversion. Diligis omnia quae sunt & nihil odisti eorum quae fecisti. Sap. 11. 25. Sin corrupteth the goodness of essence in intellectual creatures. Cypr. de Idol vanir. & à vigore  and truth, follow one another by necessity of consequence; and God hath put nothing into Being, which is not in the state of some Goodness; yea, the devils will burn in hell having something good, having somewhat of God. They have being, and substance, understanding, and will; all which, considered within the limits of Nature, cannot but be good. There is nothing but sin which altereth and depraveth it by the ill usage of it. S. Cyprian hath well noted it, when he saith of devils, That they were 
* Spiritus insinceri, & vagi qui posteaquam terrenis immersi vitiis sunt, coelesti terr●no contagio recesserunt, non desinunt perditi perdere.  spirits impure and sophisticate, who having lost their sincerity and heavenly vigour by the contagion of the vices of the earth, and, who being once lost, cease not to ruin men. From thence we behold, that as in adulterated merchandise and false money, there is always some good mixed with the bad; so in these unclean spirits, there is an Intellectual nature of itself very good, which hath been corrupted by sin. God cannot but love in them all that is his, as much as he detesteth all which proceedeth from their rebellion: But if there be any thing lovely in creatures so miserable and forsaken, which is worthy to entertain the heart of God; how can we have an Aversion against so many other things which rest (as yet) in innocency?  
It is an admirable thing, that the heart of God is as 
God in his Essence accordeth the diversity of all Essences.  the Father of Harmonies, and doth within itself accord things the most opposite. For, we know all the world in this sovereign being, is more beautiful, better coloured, and more flourishing than it is in itself; yet there is no contrariety. Water resisteth not fire; heat, cold; drought, moisture; because it is a Sanctuary of Peace, where all diversities conclude in Unity. Greek 
Marvellous Temples, where lions were tractable.  Histories make mention of certain Temples, as was that of Adonis, wherein lions were tractable; that might come to pass from the industry of men, and not out of the virtue of the place, as Elian the Historian 
Aelian. de animal. l. 12. cap. 25.  supposeth: but here we must say, The bosom of God is a true temple of Peace, which makes lions familiar with lambs, and which uniteth all to itself.  
But to witness unto us, beside, the intention which God hath to dispose us to sympathy, hence is it, that 
The sympathies and antipathies which God hath wisely impressed on Essences, end in union.  not satisfied to have united all the parts of the world, as those of an Egg, he giveth even to creatures insensible, certain Bands and dumb Amity's, which causeth them to seek one after another, and to link themselves together by complacence, as we see to happen in the loadstone and iron, in the amber and the straw, whether it be done by a substantial form which is hidden from us, or whether it be by transpiration and effluxion of their substances, as the Philosop Empedocles thought; and which is more, if this sovereign Workman permit Antipathy among creatures, he hath reduced all to the good of community, since it serves for the conservation of Species which compose the beauty of his Universe. So the contrariety between the Lamb and the Wolf is a perfect incitement to the conservation of this creature, necessary for humane life.  
Some one may here say, that by persuading too 
How we ought to govern out Aversions. Nature necessarily brings with it its sympathies and antipathies. Fracast de sympath. & ●ntipath. 1. c. 13.  much, I persuade nothing: for, if we admit sympathy for all which God hath created, we then must love serpents and poisons; we must miserably satisfy our hunger with all impure viands, which cannot be done without destroying the principles of nature which necessarily hath its Appetites to good, and its Aversions from many things contrary unto it. To that I answer, we cannot wholly live without Sympathy and Antipathy: For we well know that the knowledges of the Senses, of the Imagination, of the Understanding come to us by the help of Species which represent unto us, the quantity, figure, form, habit, motion, and rest of things; but above all, the accord, and dissonance from whence commonly arise in our soul two affections, the one of Dilatation, and the other of Restriction: For as the soul dilates and spreadeth itself to things which are delightful to it; So it draws back, and foldeth itself up at the sight of all is unpleasing to it, very well witnessed even in the members of the body, which extend or contract themselves, according as matters are agreeable or disagreeable to the heart. We do not 
The first motions are for the most part inevitable. Senec. l. 2. de Ira. cap. 2.  here intent to stifle all the first motions which are not in our power, insomuch as they are invincible and inevitable. It were to no purpose to make long discourses to a man to exhort him, not to have some small quaking in his body, when on a sudden cold water is thrown upon him, or not to wink with his eyes when a glittering sword is presented, as it were to strike him, or not to have some dizziness in the head, by beholding a precipice from a place on high: For all that is natural, and may happen to men the most moderate.  
We do not likewise say, that we must not fly, not 
One may reasonably fly that which is in any wise hurtful. Nemo enim unquam carnem suam odio habuit, sed nutrit & sovet eam, sicut & Christus Ecclesiam. Ephes. 5. 25. To seek by lawful ways one's petty accommodations, is not a thing of itself to be always condemned. Servus vocarus ●es▪ non fit tibi curae, sed ● potes fieri liber, magis utere. 1 Cor. 7. 21.  only by the first Motives of Nature, but also out of Election and Reason, all that which is hurtful to the body and health. No man (saith the Apostle) hateth his own flesh, but cherisheth and entertaineth it as long as he can, therein imitating the tenderness of affection which Jesus Christ hath for his Church. I add, that it is not also my intention to persuade, that one should not seek, in the care of his life, things the most commodious, so much as Justice and Reason will permit. We must bear with servitude (saith this fore-alledged Oracle) if we be engaged in this condition, but if one can become free, I advise him rather to make choice of liberty. Yet we are not ignorant, but that there are many good men who by the power of virtue afflict their bodies, and prefer contempt above all which the world esteemeth, that they may conform themselves to the suffering of our Saviour.  
But to rest within the limits of 
* One must take heed of being 〈◊〉 curious.  Civii life, I say, that although we may innocently use the blessings of God, and put nature to its small pittances; yet we must take heed of becoming too suspicious, too nice, and too apprehensive of those things which are not according to our appetites; for otherwise there happen great disturbances, and irksome confusions of mind which thrust the health of our soul into uncertainty.  
First, when a spirit is too much tied to its skin, and 
It is a hard thing not to feel some incommodities, life being so full of them.  too much bend to fly all the contrarieties of nature; it is very beggarly and suppliant towards its body, which is not done without much care: For life being replenished with great and little incommodities, from which Kings themselves cannot be wholly exempt: If one apprehend them too much, he must live like a man who would perpetually shut his eyes for fear of flies, and employ (almost) all his time which is so precious in the service of the flesh. 
God himself permitteth it also. Timor quem timebam evenit mihi, & quod verebar accidit. Job 3. 25.   
Secondly, God for punishment of this niceness, will suffer that all we most fear shall happen to us: a man many times falleth into mischiefs even by fearing them. Death seems to be only for cowards, and when one seeks for liberty by unworthy ways, than he is involved in the greatest servitude.  
Thirdly, one is in danger to fall into much discouragement 
One puts himself upon the hazard to live always in insupportable anxiety▪ Debitores sumus non car●i, ut socundum carnem vi● vamus. Rom. 8. Hier. in ep. ad Aglas. Non est de ficata in Deum, & secura confessio quoti● die eredent in Christum, tollit Crucem suam, & negat scipsum. Bern. ser. 85. in Cant. Fuge ad illum qui adversatur, per quem talis fias, cui jam non adversetur.  and into sad despair, when he sees himself slipped into matters troublesome and very vexing, since he sought to avoid the lightest. For which cause the Sages counsel us, willingly to accustom ourselves a little to evil, and of our own accord to harden ourselves, to the end, that when it shall come, necessity may make that more supportable, which we have already assayed by prudence. We owe nothing to flesh to live according to flesh, saith S. Paul: and S. Hierome in the Epistle he wrote to Aglasius, clearly giveth him to understand, That the Profession of Christianity is not a Profession nice and lazy; a true Christian every day beareth the Cross, and renounceth himself. S. Bernard said as much in one of his Sermons upon the Canticles: Fly (saith he) to your beloved persecutor, that you may find the end of your persecutions in the accomplishment of his will. It is a determination from heaven that we should see before our eyes so many great religious men and women most austere, whom the divine Providence seems to propose unto us, to extend, and glorify the Cross of Jesus Christ, and show, that all is possible to the love of God.   

§ 3. The Consideration of the indulgent favours of Jesus Christ towards Humane Nature is a powerful remedy against the Humour of Disdain.  
IF we be not yet throughly persuaded by these reasons, 
The example of our Saviour serves for another strong remedy to sweeten our Aversions.  the example of our Saviour ought to make us ashamed: For when we more nearly consider his life, we find that he only did not show an Aversion from things despicable, but chose the most abject, and contrary to Nature.  
I ask of you, what attractive was there in humane nature, to draw him from the highest parts of the heavens to its love? What saw he in it but a brutish body, a soul in the most inferior order of Intelligencies, all covered over with crimes, wholly drenched in remediless miseries? and yet laying aside those beautiful Angels who did shine as Aromatic lamps in his eternal Temple; he came upon earth to seek for this lost creature, prodigal of his substance, a foe to his honour, injurious to his glory: and not content to reconcile it to 
Eras ●●da, & confusione plena; & transivi , vidi ●●, & expandi amictum meum super te, & ope●u● Ignominram tuam. Ezech. 16. Displicentes amati snmus, ut fieret in nobis unde placeremus. Concil. Arausican. Ne pereuntem perire patitur, nec abaverso avertirur; sed fugientem paternâ charitate insequitur, revocat, blanditur, & re●erso no● 〈…〉 ignoscit, sed & regn●● promerit. Fra●●●. Abb●● l. 5. de gratia. The humours of the world are quite contrary to the designs of God. Displicet avaris quòd non corpus aureum habuit; displicet impudicis, quia ex virgine natus est; displicet superbis quòd contumelias ●apienter pertulit, displicet delicatis quòd ●ru●iatus est displicet timidis quòd mortuus est. & ut non vitia sua videantur defendere unum in hoc dicunt sibi hoc displicere sed in filio Dei. August. de ago Christiano.  his father, he espoused it, and united it to himself with a band indissoluble, putting it into the possession of all his greatness, to surcharge himself with its miseries. This is it, which is so notably described by the Prophet Ezechiel; when he sets before our eyes a miserable ungracious wretch, cast forth upon the face of the earth, wallowing in ordures, abandoned to all sorts of injuries, and scorns, whom the Prince of glory looketh on with his eyes of mercy, taketh him, washeth, clotheth, adorneth, and tieth him to himself by the band of marriage.  
We naturally have so much Aversion from persons misshapen, nasty, and infected, that we cannot look upon them; but if with these defects, we also there find a soul wicked, ungrateful, an enemy to God and men; we then conceive such horror, that one had need to be more than a man, to endure them. Now, we were in this estate, which I speak of; for besides the misfortunes and calamities which encompassed us on all sides, we were enemies to God, by having been too much a friend to ourselves; and which is more, we could not have one silly spark of love for him, if it were not inspired into us by himself: mean while he accepteth us, and appropriateth us to himself among all these contrarieties, He out of his goodness will not lose him, who through his own malice delighteth to lose himself; he than stretcheth forth his hand unto him, when the other tums his back, the one flieth, and the other pursueth this fugitive with the pace of his charity, even into the shadow of death. He calleth him: he flatters him: he courteth him, and not content to pardon him a crime; he promiseth him a Kingdom. What may one say of so profuse a Bounty!  
How can we in the world so greedily seek for all the contentments of nature, seeing the God of nature so roughly handled in the world, which he built with his own hands? we cannot abide the stinging of a fly, a noise, a smoke, the sight of a thing which is in any sort displeasing: a world must be made of gold and silk to satisfy our desires. Jesus is the sign of a Contradiction, reverenced in appearance, and in effect used as a thing of nought. O how divinely hath Saint Augustine expressed the humour of a worldly man, an enemy to the life of God, in the book he wrote of the Christian Combat! Jesus was not wise enough, according to the opinion of the world; He hath indifferently taken upon himself all that which his heavenly Father would, not showing any Aversion, from things the most distasteful.  
This is it which is hard to digest; It displeaseth the covetous, that he coming into the world hath not brought with him a body of gold and pearl. It displeaseth the luxurious that he was born of a Virgin. It displeaseth the proud, that he so patiently suffered injuries: It displeaseth the nice, that he endured so many afflictions and torments: Lastly, It pleaseth not the timorous, that he died. Profane spirits cease not to say, but how can that be done in the person of God? and in stead of correcting their vices (which are very great) they find cavils at the perfections of Jesus Christ, which are most innocent.   

§ 4. The Conclusion, against Disdain.  
Will we still out of humour love things pleasing 
It is a shame to have an Aversion against one for some defect of body, or some other deformity of nature, when we are bound to love him.  to sensuality, and have a perpetual distaste against all which may maintain virtue?  
A Father and a Mother, to have an aversion against their own children, under colour that they have some defect in nature; and in stead of regarding them with an eye full of pity and compassion to comfort their infirmities, wipe away their tears, and provide for the necessities of their life, to leave them at random in the storm: and if out of necessity we must do them some good, to throw them out bread in an anger, as if they had committed a great crime to come into the world, in that rank which the providence of God had prepared for them; what a shame is it to entertain amities and petty loves only to please flesh and blood; that if the eyes find not contentment, the heart will no longer observe fidelity!  
This creature, which hath heretofore been so much beloved, is now forsaken, rejected, and used like an excommunicate, having no other crime but some deformity of body, some infirmity or other accident, nothing at all in its power to remedy.  
A husband, traitorous to Altars, and to the Sacrament of Marriage, barbarously useth a wife who brought with her the wealth of her parents, and her own heart and body, in lawful wedlock: but now this carnal man taken in the snare of his lust by a wretch and a prostitute, rejecteth a lawful wife, as if she were a serpent or the froth of an enraged Sea, elsewhere to satiate his brutishness, to the prejudice of his reputation, and the death of his soul. Must I here produce the actions of Infidels, to confound ours?  
One Mnesippus relateth in Lucian, How that he one 
Lucianus in Toxaride. A generous act of a Pagan, who teacheth us powerfully to command over our Aversions.  day seeing a man, comely, and of eminent condition passing along in a Coach with a woman extremely unhandsome, he was much amazed, and said, he could not understand why a man of prime quality and of so brave a presence should be seen to stir abroad in the company of a monster. Hereupon one that followed the Coach overhearing him said (Sir) you seem to wonder at what you now see; but if I tell you the causes and circumstances thereof, you will much more admire. Know, this Gentleman whom you see in the coach, is called Zenothemis, and born in the City of Marseilles, where he heretofore contracted a firm amity with a neighbour-citizen of his, named Menecrates, who was at that time one of the chief men of the City as well in wealth as dignities: But as all things in the world are exposed to the inconstancy of fortune, it happened that having (as it is thought) given a false sentence, he was degraded of honour, and all his goods were confiseated. Every one avoided him as a Monster, in this change of fortune; but Zenothemis his good friend as if he had loved miseries, not men, more esteemed him in his adversity, than he had done in prosperity, and bringing him to his house, shown him huge treasures, conjured him to share them with him, since such was the laws of amity: the other weeping for joy to see himself so entertained in such sharp necessities; said, he was not so apprehensive of the want of worldly wealth, as of the burden he had in a daughter, ripe for marriage, and willing enough, but blemished with many deformities. She was (saith the history) but half a woman, a body misshapen, and limping, an eye bleared, a face disfigured, and besides, she had the falling sickness with horrible convulsions. Nevertheless this noble heart said unto him. Trouble not yourself about the marriage of your daughter, for I will be her husband. The other astonished at such goodness, God forbidden (saith he) I lay such a burden upon you. No, no, replieth the other, she shall be mine, and instantly he married her, making great feasts, whilst the poor Father was rapt out of himself with admiration.  
Having married this miserable Creature, he honoured her with much regard, and made it his glory to show her in the best company, as a trophy of his friendship. In the end she brought him a goodly son, who restored his grandfather to his estate, and was the honour of his family.  
O good God A man of the world, to speak, and do all this for worldly amity, to command over himself in all the great aversions of nature, to content a friend! To act all these admirable prodigies, in fight of all the world for the satisfaction of a moral virtue; And can it become us to play the nicelings, and so much to give way to our aversions; to forsake the law of God, Nature, and our own salvation! Will we never understand the saying of Saint Justine; That to live according to the propensions of Nature, is not to live like a Christian?    

The fifth Treatise, Of DELECTATION.  

§ 1. That Delectation is the scope of all Nature: Its Essence, Objects, and Differences.  
GOd seemed to have made all things for Delectation, since even Creatures which have no 
God hath made all creatures to have Delectation.  soul nor reason have a dead Delectation applied to the place, and end for which they were made. Had fire sense; it would triumph for joy to see itself in an eminent place: and a stone would receive contentment to be below: the Iron would smile to feel itself enchained by the charms of the Adamant, and a straw, to behold itself caught by the Amber.  
Now for as much as these things are without judgement; all their joy consisteth only in the cessation of their motion, which is done when they are arrived at their proper elements. Creatures the most eminent have a sensitive knowledge of things agreeable to them, and do infinitely rejoice in their possession and fruition; But, man, who worketh by more powerful and exalted engines of reason, is created to participate in Joy, not by a dead Action, but by an understanding, and a reasonable fruition. And that you may the better conceive, wherein the joy of a real Man consisteth; you must know, it is composed of four things, the first whereof, is, that to receive; one must have an object 
Four things compose the solid delectation of man.  pleasing and delightful, which is as the basis of rejoicing: and secondly, a faculty capable to conceive, and know this object which in itself naturally disposeth to Delectation; from whence it cometh to pass, that a Beast will hear the bravest and best Lutenist in France without any pleasure; because, it hath not ears to judge of it: thence we must go to a third degree which is an affection toward this object, otherwise, had it all the perfections in the world, there is no contentment taken therein; from whence it cometh that devils, albeit they have a certain presence of the sovereign of all objects, which is God, and have a certain knowledge of him; they cannot find any repose therein, because they love him not. To conclude; the accomplishment of pleasure is the presence, possession, and fruition of the good which is known to us, and which we love: For from thence proceedeth a sweetness, vital, lively, and delicious, which poureth itself forth into the bottom 
Why devils love not God, whom they know to be so amiable.  of our souls, and diffuseth itself upon our senses, as a gentle dew falling on plants. See what joy doth, if you have never well tried it; which is indeed nought else but a satisfaction of the soul in the enjoying what it loves.  
But now at this present, to express all the objects, and particular causes thereof, is a discourse which rather 
Three sorts of joy.  extendeth in length, then establisheth any solid verity; Yet, I think one may undertake to affirm there are three sorts of joy: some are wholly divine and inspired, as those of holy Confessors, Virgins, and Martyrs, who rejoice in the practice of virtues, in austerities, and torments; others are indifferent, partly humane and civil as are the pleasures we take in the beauty, and diversity of natural things, honest amities, and sciences, in honour and estimation, in the success and prosperity of affairs, and in the exercise of great charges: Others come from the Base Court, and from animal nature, as are the pleasures of eating and drinking, of feasts, of banquets, of love, of dancing, of sports, of plays, and of jesting.  
Every one measureth his like by his own nature 
Contentments ●● rather in the will, then in pleasing objects.  and condition, and one may truly say, that pleasure is not properly in things exterior, but in the interior of our wills and appetites. See we not, that all colours have no lustre in the nighttime, and that necessarily light must awaken, and put them in possession of being coloured? so, all objects in the world are of the same nature; they are dumb, dead, and insensible, unless the ray of our will reflects on them to actuate them, to set them awork, and of them to make matter of our delight  
If pleasure sprang from the quality of creatures, it would be alike in all hearts, and never would any thing, which is pleasing to one, be irksome or distasteful to another: but sigh we see so many diversities in the contentments of particulars and that one selfsame man is sometimes displeased with that he hath most affected; we may well say, there is some secret in joy which is not derived from any thing else, than itself. Chiron could not endure to be a feigned God, because he daily saw the same things. Polycrates was impatient to have Felicity fixed upon him, and sought, of his own accord, to become unfortunate, as one glutted with his own happiness,  
There are a thousand fantastical tricks in a spirit overmuch contented with worldly blessings, needs must our appetite in the same tone meet with objects, to accomplish our felicity: Wherefore it much importeth to habituate it in delight, which ariseth from things good, and laudable, to purchase its joys at a low rate, to have them continually within ones self, without begging them from elsewhere, which will never happen but by flight from unlawful lusts, and by the application of our minds to things divine, For which purpose I will here represent unto you the reproach of evil pleasure, that you may adapt yourselves to the sources of the delights of God.   

§ 2. The Baseness and Giddiness of sensual Voluptuousness.  
Wicked pleasure is an inordinate delight in 
The essence of this Passion.  sensual things, proceeding from a soft, nice, and effeminate soul which adhereth to its flesh, and excessively loveth it, and which also oft proceedeth from a spirit become cold in the love of God, and darkened in the knowledge of the blessings of the other life, from bad education, and from many vicious habits contracted in youth: strange is the dominion of flesh, and admirable the sway of pleasures.  
Figure unto yourself that you in a Table see that 
Delubrum voluptatis Isa. 13. 21.  Edifice. which the Prophet Esay calleth, The temple of pleasure. It is a house of delight, where one entrethin by five gates which are all crowned with Roses, and carry the badge of youth, and prosperity. The five gates are the five senses, by which all the passages are made into carnal pleasure, and which according to their nature are perpetually put upon sensual pleasures, and vain delights of the world: when one entereth into this house, he instantly feels the smoke of meats, he heareth a great noise in the Kitchen, and mixed with it a consort of dissolute people who chant, that, which those miserable souls sung in the book of Wisdom. Come, let us 
Venito fruamur bonis quae sunt, & utamur creaturâ tanquam in juventute celeriter, vino pretioso, & unguento nos implea mus: & non praetereat nos flos temporis; coronemus nos rosis, antequam mar●escant, nullum pratum sit quod non per transeat luxuria nostra.  enjoy present blessings, and let us not torment our minds with the time to come; let us make much of creatures while they are in our power, let us take prosperity by the wing, Whilst youth smileth on us. Let us spare neither rich wines nor perfume: the flower of time flieth away, lay hold of it who can: Let us make coronets of roses before they whither, and let there not be a meadow wherein our sensuality want only sporteth not.  
Then we behold a great number of those drunkards, of whom the Prophet Esay speaketh, who are upon the side of a river, called the Forgetfulness of God: some of them are frizeled, powdered, musquefied; others smoke-dried, high-coloured, and Fiery-faced; others pale, meager, and out of countenance: some drink eat, and make good cheer so prodigiously, that Nature doth even burst for anger: some toy, sport, and trifle among women of their own humour: others fumble upon a Lute, sing airs and prattle to please themselves: others shuffle Cards shake dice, and pitch battle at the sound of money: others design strange new dances in their fantasies: and to conclude; all of them have no other aim, but the satisfaction of sense, and the slavery of the flesh.  
You see likewise among these heaps very many of 
The image of nice ones.  suspicious nicelings, who have as great a care of their health, as if the Species of men were to fail in themselves. There are many people, who never by experience knew of what colour the Crisping of day was, and who aswell also may vaunt, as the Sybarite, that they never saw the sun either rising or setting. Alchemists labour to turn copper into gold; but these men commonly turn day into night, and seek for elements apart to distinguish themselves from other men, as being not made of the same matter with the rest. They perpetually pick quarrels at the air, the winds, the seasons; and there is scarcely a day clear enough for them: they must keep their chambers, learn the trick of dining in their beds, to beware of Planets, and Moons (as great enemies) and to fear the Serene as if it were some flying serpent, which came to rob them of their life: heat, cold moisture, drought, travel, the way, are hostilities with them, against which they proclaim an everlasting war. All these kinds of people would willingly make Epicurus his vow, which is, never to have any trouble, nor ever would they be dispensed within it. If there be the least shadow of some sickness; Physicians upon Physicians must be consulted with, all the world must be entertained with an imaginary evil, remedies must be sought for, on all sides; Drugs every hour, and of all kinds sent for, so long, until they have made an Apothecary's shop of their bodies. But if really they be sick; Hypocrates and Galen must be raised again, to feel their pulse, so few Physicians they find to their liking, and then battles must be waged to take a medicine, or to receive a prick of the lancet, if peradventure the apprehension of it be lodged in the giddiness of their brains. When Death comes to look on them, he must have a gilded Mask on, and be clothed with a garment of white satin, embroidered with pearls, and a little  of Crystal put into his hands, or a silver dart, for they extremely fear the stroke.  
Lastly, to be short, you in this lodging observe infinite many who never make use of their feet, and as little of their head, but to trouble all the world: such as cannot eat one morsel but with silver forks, nor cannot spit but upon the same metal; such, whose viands must be more choice than were used in those ancient feasts of false gods; There is not a Cook, a Groom, nor a maid-servant can content them; so many fashions, singularities, and services there are about them: you would say their life is a continual sacrifice replenished with ceremonies. Every day they must be upon change of officers, and he who accommodateth not himself to their humour, is their open enemy. Were it not better for one to die a thousand times, or to live all the days of his life attending the most skittish Mule that is, then do such service to his body?   

§ 3. The Sublimity, Beauty, and Sweetness of Heavenly delights.  
WRetched Soul! if thou yet art not grieved to 
Remedies, True contentment is in God.  lead a life, an enemy to the Cross, odious to Reason, insupportable to men: and if thou seekest joy and contentment, for which, it seems to thee, we are born; lift up thine eye, and behold, delight in its source, which thou wilt never find but in the house of God. The wine of Palms makes all other wine unsavoury, and men to be temperate; So the contentment which cometh from things divine, blotteth out the memory of all sensual delectations.  
One grape alone of Ephraim is better worth, than 
Melior est racemus Ephraim vindemiis Abiezer. Jud. c. 8. 2.  all the vineyards of Abtezer. One sole pleasure taken in heavenly objects, is a thousand times more to be esteemed then all the contentments in the world, whose desire is nothing but fire; fruition, but disturbance; and loss, but repentance. All the pleasure of God is in God 
God possessing himself enjoyeth his contentment.  himself. He hath his Halls, his orchard, his delights, his Cabinet, and his Paradise in his own bosom: he alone is an infinite good to himself, and sustinent in all the latitudes of his beatitude: he enjoyeth it from all eternity, having no need of any creature, to augment the pleasure of it, and to accomplish the glory of it: and, if of necessity he must have company, and amity to make up an accomplished good; he never needed more than the most sweet and lovely society which he found before all Ages in the Trinity of persons, amongst whom there is a sovereign Communication of blessings, joy, counsels, and nature. Now, it is an admirable thing that the same good which God out of necessity hath for himself, he hath prepared for us through Charity; and will we have any other Paradise, than himself! Master's will not have any thing common with their servants, and if they could, they would not breathe the air which ordinary people daily draw in without any difference; but would create another more pure and delicate, for their own use. God, all good, and all bounteous, doth quite contrary: For, all that, which is greatest, most rare, and most to be wished, is beatitude which boundeth the desires of all the world; and he hath shared it with us, not dividing it, sigh he will, that every one of us possess it without division, as he enjoyeth himself without distinction of felicity between persons. O what a shame is it, that a soul created for the delight of God, beggeth its contentment from an ape, from a parrot, from some sauce, from a dance, or other thing more contemptible!  
The blessing of God hath three things, observed by 
Three considerable qualities in the blessings of God.  S. Thomas, which marvellously recommend it, to wit, that it is most general, most intimate, and most durable. If we found the like qualities in the pleasures of the flesh; I should think they were wise, who provided themselves of them: but if there be nothing less in them, than all that which a well-rectified soul may desire; why pursue we them, to inflame our thirst and provoke our appetites? as for what concerneth Generality; the benefits of sense have this want; they never generally delight, sigh the train of the Peacock, 
Aurum tuum pax est, praedia tua pax, Deus tuus pax, quicquid hic desideras, pax tibi ent, quia hoc aurum quod tibi est, non potest esse argentum: quod vinum est, non potest esse panis: quod tibi ●ux est, non potest esse potus; Deus tuus torum erit tibi. Aug. in Psal. 36. serm. 1.  which pleaseth the eye with its diversified paintings, contents not the taste at all; and that which pleaseth the taste doth not necessarily please either the touching, or smelling. Otherwise doth gold recreate, and otherwise delight; every creature hath its property and nature which limitteth the virtue thereof within a certain circumference: God is the object which gathereth together all delights, as he uniteth all blessings. O man, thou callest here under the little of Contentment, all that pleaseth thee: Thy gold is thy contentment, and thy Farm thy contentment, and thy life thy contentment; but God is a contentment which includeth all other pleasures: among these objects which charm thy senses, that which is silver cannot be gold, and that which is wine cannot become bread, and that which is light cannot serve thee for drink: but thy God is that alone which containeth the models of all pleasures to be imagined.  
Secondly, if we regard the manner of delighting; all pleasures of sense pass but to the outward skin: and if they come to penetrate farther; they beat down our senses which are not long able to bear an object so violent, although it be gustful and pleasing. Our soul alone, as it is in its nature, is not mingled with that matter which tieth things corporal: It hath a capacity almost infinite of not being weary of its object; and God who is a spirit-Creatour pierceth in into the bottom, and overfloweth it with eternal felicities. For, as for the third consideration, we see all sensual delectations pass along like a torrent which runs through a valley: but the blessings of God ever flow with an affluence which never drieth, and therefore Hugh of S. Victor very well compared the favours of heaven to 
Hugo. l. 1. Miscellane. orum. tit. 3. Ad oleum mundi vasa deficiunt, oleum mundi in vasis deficit.  a miraculous oil, which the Prophet Elizeus obtained by his prayer for the good widow: for as ordinarily oil daily decreased in the vessels wherein it was put; this, quite contrary, so multiplied through the blessing of the Saint, that the woman was enforced to say, she had no more vessels to put it in, And how many see we in the world, who keep a wicked slight pleasure as a drop of corrupt oil which comes to nothing, and fadeth away as if it be not spent; whereas the consolations of heaven do sometimes so fruitfully overflow upon faithful souls, that they confess they have not a heart large enough to contain them! O soul really penurious, worthy of all the poverties on earth; whom the riches of heaven cannot suffice! what hast thou to do with those standing puddles of Egypt which do only inflame thirst in thy veins? wilt thou never seek for thy refreshment in the Cisterns of Bethlehem?   

§ 4. The Paradise, and joys of our Lord, when he was on earth.  
LEt us, in the second instance, behold what joys 
Our Lord passed all his life in contentments which were necessarily due to him, to give us an example to wean ourselves from them. Hic est filius meus dilectus in quo mihi bene complacui. Mat. 17. 5.  and what pleasures the incarnate word made choice of in this life; since it must serve us for a model. Verily, were there a man in the world worthy to live in perpetual delight; it was he, in whom the heavenly Father had chosen to place his heart, his joys, and contentments: It is he, who is called by Saint Augustine the summary of all power, the Treasury of virtues, the flower and quintessence of contentments, the sweetness of delights, and the perpetual banquet of Angels. As supremely potent; he might afford himself all the pleasures of Monarches: as correspondently virtuous; he might sanctify them in his own person: As being in possession of the most pure delight (in such sort that the only aspect of his face served for a delicious 
Totius potestatis summa, thesaurus virtutu●●, flos delectationum amoenitas deliciarum, convivium Angelorum. Aug. hom in Exurgens Maria.  feast to all the blessed souls;) he seemed to be inseparable from joy: He notwithstanding would take so poor a part in the comfort of the world▪ that he, who will consider and behold the whole Table of his life from the time of his birth to his death, shall find he chose the life of a Halcyon who liveth among thorns, whereof her nest is made, and on the trembling agitation of waters, which serve it for a moving chariot, The life of Jesus Christ was a thorny life among a thousand difficulties which environed it on all sides, a life tossed with a thousand afflictions, which afforded him no rest, a life like unto a piece of Tapestry wrought with threads of gold, wherein there was nothing but thickets of briers and brambles. Good God if we be threatened by some evil; we try all manner of helps, we offer vows to all the saints, and make heaven and earth to conspire (if we can) to free us from it: we beseech God to do miracles in our behalf, that we may suffer nothing; and he doth a perpetual one in himself, to endure all which a supreme cruelty could invent, and an equal patience suffer. He permitted sadness to settle on him even in the bosom of Beatitude, as if a King should give a sergeant leave to bring him a summons in the midst of the pleasures of his Table. The two most triumphant days of his mortal life seem to be, that, of his Transfiguration, and that, whereon he made his magnificent entrance into Jerusalem; And yet on this; he wept, as moistening his triumph with tears from his eyes: and on the other, Moses and Elias, who appeared by his sides, to serve as Orators in his praises, spoke of that he was to fulfil in Jerusalem (to wit) of his excessive sufferings, as if one had proclaimed to Cesar the sentence of his death, at the instant when he entered into his Ivory chariot; to be drawn by four white horses. Jesus Christ was at that time in a body all resplendent with lights, which was as a chariot to his soul, and he would, to be entertained with his passion, mingle the Cypress with the laurel. I do not wonder the Fathers have applied to him the passage of Genesis; I will put my Bow in the clouds:  
This, verily was the Rainbow of the Celestial Father, 
Arcum meum pona●● in nubibes. Gen. 9  which shone, and showered both at one time; For we see, this goodly Meteor, all composed of clouds of glory which serve as a Mirror for the sun, ceaseth not to pour down itself in rain upon our heads; so, the Saviour of the world in the pavilion of the Beatitude of his soul all covered over with fires and lights, had eyes weeping over the sins, and miseries of men. Where think you were his joys? S. Augustine will tell you, the soul of Jesus Christ was perpetually content, because 
Aug. l. de Incarnatio. ne Verbi.  it was drenched in God his father, as a drop of dew in the Ocean: It was ever in the place of pleasures which were born with it. All it thought, all it did, all it aimed at, was nothing but God: and from this so perfect union, waited on by immortal ardours of his love, it derived its Immutability.  
The soul (besides these delicious Torrents of beatific vision which overflowed it) drew its consolations from the very sufferings it endured for the glory of the Divine Majesty. It drew them from the destruction of Idols, and from the confusion of devils which yelled being now despoiled under its feet, from the exaltation of the Church in sufferings and persecutions, from the glory of so many souls who sailed from the red sea of their blood to eternal rewards, from so many holy Virgins who were to follow the standard of the purity which his Mother did first of all place on his Altars, from so many Doctors who should be born to beat down heresy in so many battles which were to be waged throughout the revolution of Ages, from so many Confessors who should bedew themselves with tears of penance, and burn themselves in a Holocaust of sweetness. All was presented unto it, as in a burning-glasse; the rays whereof reflected in diametre upon its heart to set it all on fire, in such sort, that it was then like to the great Angel of whom the Prophet Zachary 
Zach. 1. 8.  speaketh, who sat upon a red horse among gardens of Myrrh, which are the Hieroglyphes of love; his red horse was the ardour of his celestial affection, and the branches of Myrrh so many elect souls, which were even then in the Book of Prescience, wherein he took unspeakable delight.   

§ 5. Against the Stupidity and Cruelty of worldly pleasures.  
ANd now, (O disloyal soul) to be called to the society of the joys of the celestial Father, and of the son of God; and to despise them for a miserable fancy of pleasure! Ah, illusion! Ah witchcraft! What sense is there to feast perpetually, and to live in the profuse excess of Taste and gourmandize, which you shall one day have more cause to curse, then cherish; whilst so many poor Widows, so many little Orphans, and people heretofore fortunate, now necessitous, even to the extremity of penury, have not dry bread to moisten it with their tears, before they eat it? When have you enquired after their Calamities? When have you opened an eye to behold them? When have you so much as made a ray of mercy to reflect on so pressing and deplorable miseries? Go (O thou ungrateful to God) traitor to thy own salvation, enemy 
Ingrate Deo, tibi ne quam, hostis panperum, divitum nota, carcer naturae. Chrysol. serm. 104.  of the poor, scorn of the rich, and prison of humane Nature, who keepest it shut up in thy bowels of brass, not suffering it so much as to behold its like. What wilt thou answer to the voice of the blood of so many poor who will plead against thee at the day of judgement, if thou from this time resolvest not to cut off thy superfluities, to comfort their afflictions? where wilt thou find any to receive thee into those celestial mansions, if thou dost not visit the poor in their Hospitals, and Cabins, abandoned by all the world? Where wilt thou find rewards from heaven, if thou sowest not liberalities on earth? O thou nice wanton who wiltst perpetually be observed according to the giddy fancies of the exorbitant spirit; and the many sufferings which have covered, and swallowed up the third part of mankind never to enter into thy thoughts! Of what flesh, of what blood, of what bones dost thou think thou art made; to desire here to be served like a demy-God, and to walk on the heads of men? Ignorant of thyself, nay Hangman of thyself, who canst not live without so much prodigality, superfluities, and services; not knowing that the first imitation of God is to depend little in the world on aught which concerneth the service of the body. O thou old raven of the Deluge, who still art tied with a long chain of servitude, to a wretched piece of Carrion which hath exhausted the wealth of thy purse, and brain! Is it then infamous pleasure for which thou hast renounced the delights of heaven, for which thou hast betrayed thy salvation, and trampled under foot the blood of the Testament; and thou not yet so vouchsafe to open thy eyes▪ to see the headlong ruin which threatneth thee? Unhappy Bacchanalians, who make Temples to be consecrated among Christians to Idolatrize you; where will you find any place to lodge you in, unless you mean to leap, and skip upon the blood of the lamb? Hence with riot, curiosity, sports, feasts, and dissolute delights; I pronounce it, I publish it aloud, They are the Apostasies of Christianity, if you daily go about to countenance their libertismes.  
Traitorous pleasures, pleasures enemies of the Cross; 
Num. 11. 34  see, see at the door of the house of these Sirens the sepulchers of Concupiscence which stink, and smoke still with the disastrous carrions of those unsatiable bellies which made war against heaven, to have dainties which they no sooner received into their throats, but the anger of God fell on their criminal heads: and do you think that following their steps, you shall have better success? See, see Lot's wife turned into a statue 
Gen. 19 26.  of salt, who still cryeth out with an eternal voice over the burning ruins of Sodom, and saith, For having looked back on a voluptuous City, yea on the flames of my punishment, behold me changed into a pillar of salt, that all posterity may know, that Bodily Lusts 
Num. 25. 4. Tolle cunctos Principes populi, & suspend eos contra solem in patibulis: quia exfornicati cum Moabitibus comederunt sacrificia Beelphegor  are like unto salt water, which well may irritate thirst, but never can quench it. See, see likewise those Princes glutted with delights, crucified right against the sun, which at their death reproacheth them with their crimes. O voluptuous! O carnal creature! the time will come, when those members which thou wouldst not crucify by a holy mortification on the Cross of Jesus Christ, shall be crucified on the Cross of the bad thief, by the pains and torments which the Justice of God shall send thee, and it shall be said; Crucify, Crucify him against the sun, that he dying may see him whom he hath despised; that he may see the sun of Justice, against which he hath spit; that he in Idea may see the splendour of eternal delights which he hath left, to tie himself to a dunghill; that dying, Jesus may reproach him 
Hîc ure, hîc seca, modò in ●ternum par●as.  with his sensualities, his dissolutions, and ingratitudes. O God, rather hair-shirts, sackcloth, ashes, sacks, thorns, fasts, austerities, and sharp rasours, then to fall into such ignominy.   

§. 6. The Art of Joy, and the means how to live contented in the world.  
ONe of the best arts in the world is how well to rejoice, 
The art of Joy.  and the man who finds out the mystery of it, doth more than if he had discovered the fountainhead of Nilus, or the countries which produce gold and diamonds. I will give you a brief method of it, to conclude the treatise of Delight; and place your soul (if you will take so much pains as to obey reason) in the state of a most sincere tranquillity.  
You must first of all imagine with yourself, that the earth whereon we live is not the region of joys, and what industry soever we may use, we shall not any long time of our life be impenetrable to cares, and Sadness, which commonly grow from our condition.  
It was a fancy in King Abenner to be desirous to 
Damascen.  breed up his son in continual pleasure, never suffering him to be touched with the least impression of so many discontents, which occur in the course of man's life. For which purpose he caused him to be educated in a palace, which seemed to be consecrated to merriments, and delights: all, which Art and nature could do to make a man contented, was shut within this circuit, and the Father permitted not any thing to be presented before his sons eyes, which might have the power any way to displease him. In the end, this happy creature was troubled at his golden Cage, and delicious prison. He had a desire to behold the world: and having before never seen about him but flourishing troops of youth endowed with strength, garb, and health, enjoying full prosperity; he at his going out of the palace met first a beggar, than a leper; lastly a man all worn with age; which sight instantly moved his heart, touched with much compassion of the miseries of man's life.  
Cares enter into us by the gates of the senses, let them be never so well guarded: and if we have not wherewithal to be contristated; our own felicities displease us. Upon which Symmachus hath very well observed, that 
Symmath. ep. l. 1. Sic nati sumus ut sepius adversis fungamur, & bonae uniuscujusque rei tam brevis usus, quam levis senius est.  We are born in the world much rather for sorrows than joys: pleasures which accost us stay not long with us, they have wings to forsake us, but to say truly, sweetest things in the world are given us for a use as short, as the sense thereof is feeble. And that which the more is to be lamented, is, that wits the most subtle are ordinarily the least satisfied; they are more greedy of the time to come, more distasted with the present, less forgetful of evil past: They burn themselves with their proper light, and many times, to avoid an honest captivity, they frame themselves a thousand fetters. It is no disgrace, but, the desire of many; to be a beast a little, to live the more in repose; and to leave the tree of Knowledge to gather the fruit of life. Now albeit we cannot arrive in the state of this present world to a fullness offelicity; yet there are means somewhat to manage our life, and to lead it in innocent contentments. To reach this happiness, it is necessary first of all to have a conscience very clean, and free from remorses, from crimes, and from sins, never well expiated; For that is it which lighteth up Torches, and which causeth furies, and Tormentors in the midst of a heart troubled with spectres of its own wickedness. What joy hath a man who hath God his enemy, and who feels the Divine Justice to shoot lightnings, and shake thunder over his criminal head? nay, may we not say there's not a moment of his life which is not steeped in the bitterness of his thoughts? There is not a Thunderclap which seemeth not to roar for him; There is neither an anger in the heavens, nor a menace on the Earth, which seems not to conspire to his ruin. If you have passed your life very innocently; give thanks to God who is the Father of innocency, and the source of Sanctity.  
But it by mishap you are fallen into some very grievous 
Damian. serm 30. Ascend tribunal mentis, & temeripsum portrahe ad judicium quaelljonis, cogitatio accuset, animus judicet, penitent conscientia velut Carnifex, feriat, la chtymarum ri●u vulnus cr●mpat: Sic per Martyrii si militudinem ad veram pervenīes Martyrii dignitatem. Nahum. 3. 2.  sin; (following the Counsel of Cardinal Petrus Damianus) Mount up to the Tribunal of your understanding, lead your soul to judgement, let your thoughts accuse you, let your reason judge you, let your conscience lift up the sword, let it strike home, let the blood of tears be seen to stream from the wound, and be you a Martyr of penance, to become a witness of the mercies of God,  
It is to mount very high, to come to this first degree, but we must yet pass to the second, which is mortification of passions, because a soul perpetually mastered by its appetites cannot freely breathe the air of the children of God. It was in the confusion of stirs, that the Prophet Nahum accumplished his Prophecy. The voice of the whip, the voice of the impetuosity of wheels, of the neighing horse, and the flaming chariot, of the corvetting horseman, of the glittering sword, and of the lightning lance, where we see nothing but death and ruin. There is nothing but wars in a passionate spirit, the whip of God's Justice scourgeth, the wheel of inconstancy there circumvolveth continually, their concupiscence neigheth. Pride walks in Triumph, anger shooteth its envenomed shafts, there virtues are ruined, and vices walk in pomp. And what pleasure can you have in these tumults, and in these nights, drawing so near to Hell!  
It is held that pearls have a thick film which darkneth 
Salmeron in Parab. E. vang.  all their lustre: but when they have passed through the entrails of a pigeon which concocteth them by its heat, this skin falleth off, and they get a radiance infinitely beauteous. The like happeneth in the matter of a soul troubled with some evil passion; it loseth the lustre which is imprinted thereon by the finger of God, and fadeth in the obscurity of its concupiscence; but if it throw itself into the heart of God, which is the holy Ghost itself, it tempereth the unruliness of passions by his divine ardours, and is clothed with the most pleasing lights of the Empyreal Heaven, which are the sources of the most innocent delights. What a spectacle is it to see a man master over himself, who walketh according to the levels of God, as the hours by the degrees of the sun, who prefers conscience before riches, virtue above honour, who will not be knowing but to understand his own ignorance, who desireth not to be potent but to do good, who of his words maketh decrees of wisdom, and of his life, a continual harmony! Must we not confess that he entereth into a fortress, where envy no longer hath a tooth to hurt, calumny no serpentine tongue to sting him, nor fortune darts to strike him? It is not a simple word, but an Oracle of the seventy interpreters, when they said that a man who hath well mastered his passions, is the Physician of his own heart.  
Add to this victory over passions, a good choice 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Eccl. 30. 2●. ubivul●a● Exultati● viri est loagaevitas.  of professions and vocations, which are to be exercised in humane life, when ein we necessarily must play some part, and have some reasonable employment to entertain ourselves, otherwise Idleness oftentimes becomes the seminary of unquietness. There are men, who be in the world as distlocated bones in the body, They have hit ill by the mishap of their choice, they are not in the place, where the Divine Providence would have them. A storm of passion hath peradventure thrust one into a Cloister; an infirmity of flesh hath bound another too basely to some poor wedlock: those are bands which wisdom cannot break, although Imprudence hath many times tied them with its hands, we must sweeten them by reason, since they vex us by their necessity. A heart galled by some ill chance, which it knoweth to be incorrigible, hath much ado to find any joy, it must be created by a●t, seeing we cannot attain it by good luck, It will not be so genuine, but perhaps generous enough. It is a great mystery in matter of contentment, prudently to order the course of ones life, and not to put one's self upon bad businesses; to be guided rather by Counsel, then by passion, to dispose his persons, and family within limits civilly well rectified, neither to make matter for a Comedy of his name, nor for a Tragedy of his manners, to settle his little fortune in a pure tranquillity; not to be offensive, nor to have any enemies but such as have proclaimed enmity against Reason. Great estates are much more uncapable of contentment then mean; they have too great a Train, and in the great extent of their appertenances, they fall the more often upon all kind of hazards; their felicity is a body composed of a million of members, multitude burdeneth them, and the want but of one afflicteth them. We have seen Kings and Princes, who could not be merry, but by stealing themselves from themselves, and by forsaking the ensigns of their dignity, to descend to the conversation of more inferior conditions.  
There are many in the world, who are incited by great worldly ambitions, but who having met the golden mean, habituate themselves in their condition, and there to adapt them, as Halcyons to their nest: They have the dew of Heaven, and the fat of the Earth, wealth, children, inheritances, houses, money, health, and friends; they manure the gifts of God, in an assured repose, it seemeth contentments are only made for such men. Such is the felicity described by the Poet Martial. Wealth which comes by succession not by 
Martial. Epig. ●. 10.  painstaking, land which affords a good revenue; a perpetual fire, no suit, no servitude, a mind contented, a body sound and conveniently strong; a prudent simplicity: friends suitable, domestics obsequious, a Table without art, night free from cares, and not burdened with wine, a bed not sad, but chaste; sleep which makes the night seem short; to desire to be what one is, and to reach at no more; neither to fear the last day of our life, nor to wish it. Behold the bounds of humane happiness, which are well enough expressed according to the opinion of the world; and such as walk these ways, readily sequester themselves from all disturbances of care, and would not in any sort approve the ceremonious customs of the Jews, who commonly 
Cunaeus l. 1 de Rep. Hebr.  carried panniers and Hay along with them in a journey, to put them in mind that their ancestors had carried earth and mortar in Egypt. But yet we must tell you, it were to make life too beggarly, and too much depending on fortune; to think felicity is included within so narrow bounds. There needeth but a moment to pull down a nest, which a bird hath built with time and pains; nor needeth there also but one misfortune to dissipate all the little Oeconomy of humane prudence.  
Learn a good lesson of contentment, which shall be, not to rejoice much at vain and mutable things: to unloose yourself, what you may from sense, and to fly into the region of Angels, therein to find your contentment. There is ordinarily much satisfaction in the commerce one hath with God, in great and worthy actions, in good conversations and pure amities, in the estimation which proceedeth from virtue, in the contemplation of total Nature therein to find the God of Nature, in the last of the maxims, and verities of our Religion, and (if you be of capacity) in Eloquence, Poetry, Painting Music, the Mathematics, in Games which are most spiritual, Histories, Books, meetings of good wits, woods and solitudes. Discharge your delights (as much as you can) from matter, to approach unto those of Paradise. Fix them not on things which are hard to achieve, and easy to be lost; practise your spirit, to find them in your heart, as a good father of a family, who ever hath wherewith to live, and to feast his guests in his own house. Forget not in the time of fair weather to prevent the stonn of humane accidents, and daily think how you may put yourself under covert within yourself; but, which is more, into the bosom of God. When Gyges his ring was turned towards the world, it made him visible to all there present; but when he drew it back towards himself, he became invisible and impregnable against such as wished him ill. If your quality cause you to look towards the world, and pompously to propose you to the eyes of beholders; remember you must have a Retreat, and innocent invisibilities to vindicate yourself from the throng of importunacies.  
When you shall have well-grounded the matter of your contentments, then neglect not the form and fashion of them. Imitate not those, who on a sudden drench and drown themselves in pleasure, with a voluntary drunkenness, which presently deprives them of all pleasure; Distil your joys, like unto a heavenly dew; moisten your heart, but overflow it not; otherwise it is to be feared in such as are of a very soft temper, lest the approach of excessive joy may cause a great evaporation of spirit, and leave the heart destitute of heat and vigour: which caused Zouxes the painter to die laughing, as he beheld the rough draught of an old woman, which he was a finishing; and the Poet Philemon, by seeing an Ass that came to eat figs on his Table.  
Howsoever it be, distaste sticks to the extremes of the greatest pleasures, as Cantharideses on the fairest Roses. Resemble not those who overflow in their favours, who publish their own prosperities, and tell them to all the world; which raiseth them many envious and maligue spirits who stir up tempests in their imaginary tranquillity: Rejoice (said an ancient) in your bosom; do all the good you practise from morning till night with pleasure; and when any misadventure befalleth you, ever think it is a great favour from God it went no further, and that the divine providence is satisfied with a little hurt. Call sometimes to your memory the ill days and dangers you have escaped by the goodness of God, that you with the more gust may taste your repose. If you be fortunate, hold you there, and be not like the dog in the Fable, who let go his piece of flesh to catch a shadow. The foolish Idolaters of Egypt after they had Courted their god Apis in so many studied fashions, after they had found him with so much satisfaction, after they had received him with so much applause, killed him to put another in his place. That is it which all senseless worldly spirits do; they disturb their own pleasures, and themselves, to live to become the conquest of a Chimaera of honour, or of some pleasing thing, which keeps them in a perpetual famine. You are permitted to love the gifts of God, to derive a little tribute of contentment out of all creatures, to restore it to the Author, to avoid discontented humour, spirits troublesome and complaining, to please yourself with good Company: But if you desire to know the mystery of mystenes in pleasure; understand, you shall never find it but when you shall learn to rejoice in tribulations, out of a desire you have to conform yourself to Jesus Christ. That is the joy which all the Saints have studied with pain, have found with delight, and have tasted with glory. That is it which Saint Peter calleth, The ineffable, and the glorified; That which S. Jrmes said contained the 
Exultabitis laetitiâ inenarrabili & glorificatâ 1 Pet 1. 8 Om●e gaudium. Jac. 1. 2.  consummation of all comforts: That which Saint Paul found in Caverns, S. Laurence on the Gridiron, S. Katherine on the wheel, S. Apolonia in flames; Lastly, That which cometh from the throne of the Lamb, and which with its eternal streams watereth all the plants of Paradise.    

The sixth Treatise, Of SADNESS.  

§ 1. It's Description, Qualities, and the Diversity of those who are turmoiled with this Passion.  
A Wise man said that man entereth into life, as 
The Essence and Image of Sadness. Cujus initium caecitas obtinet, progressum labour, dolour exitum, error omnia. Petrarch. de remediis.  into a Career, where in the beginning, blindness putteth a scarf over his eyes, then delivers him over to labour which giveth him a heavy stone to roll all the length of the life, labour placeth him in the hands of sorrow and Sadness; sorrow (which properly is a dislike had against objects contrary to its inclination) exerciseth him principally in the body: Sadness, which is a passion of the reasonable Appetite, that filleth the heart with acerbity by the privation of amiable objects, and by the representation of things grievous and opposite to Nature, works upon the soul, which it incessantly afflicteth. Some are slowly wasted by perpetual languors, others are many times seized on with so much violence that they suddenly die of it, as it happened to a son of Gilbert Duke of Montpensier, who yielded up the ghost on the Tomb of his father.  
This passion hath for nurse, softness of spirit, seeing a soft soul is ordinarily eaten by anxiety, and gnawn by perplexity, as iron is consumed by Rust: It is seated in Melancholy, for the Melancholic are they who most feel the burdens of life, the spirit being deprived of alacrity, which useth to season things the most bitter. Faintness and discouragement are ever by its sides to torment it: because they are the two passions which dry up the Humidum radical, quench the heat, drain the source of spirits, and constitute the whole state of its mischief. Round about it fly cares, discontentments, and annoys; since these are its companions, and most ordinary enterteinments. The heart of it is filled with an infinite number of desires, being our discontentments do multiply according to the measure of our desires; and that he who desireth nothing, quarrels at no body, nor is impatient at the burdens which the providence of God layeth on his shoulders. It liveth on gall, as being nourished by continual acerbities: It looketh back fare off after contentment, which flieth from it, insomuch as its only torments consisteth in desiring and not enjoying: It beholdeth itself in a pond of standing water, because such are the objects of sadness, which the impatient set before their eyes, to stir up in them many troubled and uncollected fantasies. Lastly, it is one while, little, crouching, and loutish, with a countenance of lead, and weeping eyes; another while also it is furious, inflamed, and fietfull; to signify unto us two sorts of impatient men, whereof the one silently bites the bridle, having no means to come to the end of their pretensions: and the other breaks out into extraordinary fury, with intention to tear asunder the obstacles which oppose their designs. Behold the picture of sadneste drawn out of Philosophy and reason. Now, I may well add, following the conceits of the wise, that I see infinite many in this picture who have 
Spina gratiam floris, humanae speculum praefetens vitae, quae suavitatem perfunctionis suae finitimis cura●si stimulis saepe compungit. S. Ambr. l. 3. Hexameron. Impatient of divers qualities.  not all the same liveries; For the Kingdom of this Passion, is an admirable Purgatory, where punishments are divers, and every one participates of them according to the quality of his apprehension, and the diversity of objects. Such (saith S. Ambrose) is the condition of our life, Roses, which before sin grew without thorns, are afterward on all sides armed with sharp-pointed prickles, to teach us that the most smiling fortunes take part in the cares, and miseries of the condition of mortals.  
I observe nice impatient ones, who have been bred as it were between silk and cotton, and who never beheld the miseries of the world, but through shadows and clouds, and therefore the use they have taken to be served from their childhood according to their humour, causeth patience to be a matter very extraordinary with them. So you see that upon the least occasion presented of suffering, their weak spirit shrinks within itself, and their tender flesh makes resistance. These are they of whom the Prophet Baruch spoke, My nice ones have walked through hard and rough 
Delicati mei ambu. laverunt vias difficiles. Baruch. 1. 26.  ways. And of whom Seneca hath aptly said; They are ulcers which are irritated when they are lightly touched, or that you make but a show to do it. I on the other side observe suspicious Impatient ones, who skirmish with flies, and are tormented upon shadows of affronts which never were, continually ruminating on some slight cold countenance not purposely showed them, or some word spoken, merely out of freedom of speech: on the other side, I see of them that are prompt, and sharp, whose blood quickly comes into their faces, whose eyes sparkle, voice is shrill, fashion turbulent, and veins wholly bend upon revenge, so that they do not long dispute with a yoke, but break it, and run at random, where they oftentimes commit as many errors as they go steps. I observe others, who are more bitter than sharp in their Impatience, and in this number I behold many wayward, and prying old men; who still have some accusations to make against the actions of youth. I see many Courties discountenanced, many entranced lovers, many officers, servants male and female dismissed, many suitors rejected in their pursuits, many envious, who repine at the prosperity of their Neighbour: on the other part I behold many persons afflicted in the world, one with sickness, another for the death of a friend, one with contempt, another with slander, one with poverty, another with deformity of body; some with indispositions of mind, and other temporal mishaps. It is of this Sadness whereof the Wiseman speaketh, when he saith, that Even as the moth marreth a garment, and a little worm gnaweth wood, so Sadness insensibly eateth 
Prov. 25. Sicut tinea vestimento, & vermis ligno, ita tristitia viri nocet cordi.  the heart of man.  
Lastly, I see many miserable creatures, who cease not to find fault with their vocation, and to complain of those who govern them, to accuse the Age, and seasons; and ofttimes to call God in question. Some tell their evil to all the world, like unto those sick persons who sought for remedies from all who passed by the gates of their Temples: others hatch their discontent in the bottom of their heart, and have much to do, that it be not seen in their faces; others publicly drag their Cross through Currents of water, with murmurs and imprecations; of which the Scripture saith: That the clamour and noise of 
Tumultus murmurationum non abscondetur. Sap. 1.  their exclamations openly broke forth. Others cannot restin any place, being weary of all manner of sports, recreation and company: others are vexed at themselves, are dotish, melancholic, frightful, as if they had some evil spirit in their heart, so much oppression of mind they feel: they neglect all the offices of civil life; yea, and the functions of natural life, loath any longer to eat or drink, as if they already were in their graves: from thence proceed black fancies, illusions, despair, and a thousand agitations of mind, which cannot be sufficiently expressed. It is Sadness which in Scripture is called a general Plague. Verily it is a lamentable thing to see, how we are here 
Omnis plaga. Eccl. 25. 17.  handled by the unhappiness of our passions. I am not ignorant, there are dolours so great, and Sadnesses so deep, that an extraordinary grace of God is necessary to free a soul from it which is touched with it, and to set it at liberty; but we must likewise say, that we often betray our Repose and Conscience, by suffering so many bad seeds to grow up in our hearts, which we might kill with some resistance of virtue, and some ordinary help of the grace of God.   

§ 2. Humane Remedies of Sadness, and how that is to be cured which proceedeth from melancholy and pusillanimity.  
WHilst the great Genius of Physic, Hippocrates, drove away maladies by his precepts and almost snatched bodies out of the hands of death, one Antiphon arose in Greece, who envious of his glory, promised to do upon souls what the other did on mortal members, and proposed this sublime invention which Plutarch calleth the art of curing of all Sadnesses: 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Plutarch. in vita 10. Rhetorum.  where we may truly say, he used more vanity, promises, and ostent of words, than he wrought good effects. Certainly it were to be wished, that our age (which is so abundant in miseries) should likewise arise great comforts to sweeten the acerbities of the times, to pour oil on the people's yoke (as the Scripture speaketh) 
Isa. 10. 27.  to enter into the interior of so many poor souls beaten down with Sadness, and wasted with cares, to draw them out of the shadow of death with the first rays of some felicity. Another Helena were needful to mingle the divine Drug of Nepenthe in the meats of so many afflicted persons, who moisten their bread with their tears before they eat it.  
For my part, I think, that to apply a remedy to Sadness, there must a diligent consideration be had of its nature, kind, and quality, for fear that going about to give it comfort, the evil be not exasperated, or that a medicine be unprofitably applied.  
There are Sadnesses which come from humour, 
Four kinds of Sadnesses  there are which proceed from pusillamity, others are caused by scruples, others by an infinite many of irksome objects which happen in the chances of humane life.  
As for those which grow from Melancholic humour, they are deep rooted, as being the inheritances of Nature, and the effects of Temperature. They may notwithstanding be greatly moderated by prudence, discretion, and study, which one may use in overcoming them. It were not to be desired to cut off all manner of Melancholy at once, when it is born with us, and 
Utility of melancholy  proportioned to the functions of our mind and motions of our body. It is a land which seemeth somewhat dry, but it hideth great treasures. What would become 
Saturnus fuerit opti mè constitutus, largitur scientiae profunditatem.  of subtlety of wit, weight of judgement in conceits, invention in sciences, indefatigable labour in affairs, constancy in resolutions, a corrective for light humours, beseemlinesse in modesty, perseverance in devotion; strength in meditation, constancy in serious life, patience in contempt exercise of humility; if the Melancholic temperature, and Saturnian influence did not thereto contribute solidity? It's that which maketh great Captains, sage Counselors of State, divine Philosophers, and the most famous Religious: From whence it cometh, that the Antiens called it the passion of Demigods. Only heed must be taken it run not into some excess, and render not nature sharp, critical, 
Abditas. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Gellius l. 18 cap. 7.  presumptuous, inflexible, and odious; For by that means, certain spirits too much do sooth their own humour, using therein not any correction, make themselves among company, that which Aconite is among plants. They are insupportable in conversation, and 
Sad spirits.  ofttimes mingling vanity with sharpness, there is not any thing wherein they will not find somewhat to reprehend in words, in sciences, in affairs, in sport, in recreation, in voice, in garb, in habits: and because nothing pleaseth them, they many times displease all the world. It is a great prudence in such as feel themselves naturally disposed to Melancholy, to cultivate their mind, and to take from it all which may make it harsh by a perpetual countrepoise of sweetness and mildness. The wicked Rutilius thought all the Anachorets 
Rutilius in Itinerat.  and Religious were sick of Bellerophon's disease, which is a furious sadness; but he is grossly deceived. For it is undoubted, there are great Religious persons, who drawing nought out of Melancholy, but solidity and constancy, do associate unto it, out of virtue, a singular serenity of life, so that it is a hard matter to find any of a humour more pliant and pleasing. Palladius 
Pallad. in hist. Laufia.  in his Lausiac History, maketh mention of a famous Abbot named Apolon, who was the father and master of about five hundred Monks, whom he maintained in so perfect alacrity, that their countenances seemed to bear the characters of Celestial tranquillity. There were none sad, and if any one seemed to be touched with heaviness, the good Abbot drove it away by his discourse, as swiftly as the Northern wind dispelleth the clouds, saying unto them, It was for Jews, for Gentiles, and for sins to be contristated; but good religious men ought to entertain an eternal commerce with Joy.  
S. Athanasius saith of S. Anthony, that his face 
S. Athan. c. 40. in vita S. Anton.  was a lookingglass, wherein God caused the sanctity of his mind to be resplendent, and that he always seemed cheerful, as if the bloomings of his heart had 
Dionyfius exiguus in vita S. Pachomii.  put his venerable face all into blossom. So much saith Denis (surnamed the little.) S. Pachomius (a man very eminent, who, in body altogether dissolved with austerities and maladies) did in conversation retain the vigour of holy alacrity. It is an imitation of the Saviour of the world, who, according to the Prophet Esay, was to be neither sad nor tempestuous. And as pious Anna of whom is spoken in the first book of 
Non erit tristis neque turbulenrus Isa. 42. 4. 1 Regum. Vultus ejus non sunt amplius in diversa mutad.  Kings, forsook all the countenances and crabbed looks which sadness caused in her so soon as she had conceived the little Samuel: so we must infer, that a soul which is honoured with the spiritual conception of Jesus form in his heart, is able to drive away all the disturbances of dolour. Otherwise, if this evil humour of Sadness be cherished, without breaking it upon all occasions by convenient diversions and the direction of reason, it increaseth with age, and being aided by evil dispositions of body, it often degenerateth into shameful follies and hideous frenzies. From thence are come those melancholics of whom Galen speaketh, 
Gal. c. 6. l. 3 de locis affectis.  whereof one thought himself to be an earthen-pot, the other imagined he was a cock, and ceased not to crow and clap his wings; the other feared that Atlas would let the heavens fall. And Trallianus assureth, 
Trallian, l. 1 cap: 16.  there was a woman who continually kept her hand very closely shut, fearing lest the world, which in her opinion was held between her fingers, might escape her. Such Melancholies (saith S. Jerome) stand more in need of Hypocrates his remedies, than the discourses of Philosophers.  
But laying aside these Sadnesses of natural Melancholy, it is fit to know, that which proceedeth from a tedious anxiety of heart, is very hurtful to the practice of virtue, and may be cured by the resolution and courage of a well-disposed will. It is the malady which the Grecian calls Acedia, against which Cassian wrote 
Cassian. lib. de spiritu Acediae.  a whole book, showing, it fasteneth very easily upon persons who make profession of Devotion, if they use not labour and study to divert it.  
And verily, there are people in no sort fit for Religion, nor the exercises of Meditation, who, nevertheless are therein embarked through levity or ignorance, never having well weighed the greatness of that vocation. But if they meet some spiritual Directours, either indiscreetly Zealous, or little experienced, they will raise them from earth, and instantly apply them to the highest contemplations, drawing them from handy labours and employments of civil life. I would willingly ask what can they else do but fall into the passion of slothfulness, into anxieties and languors, which make life unprofitable to them; In the mean time, they who have undertaken the charge to guide them in their Labyrinth, make them many times believe these dryness, and disrelishes are the visitations of God, who will try them; and that they must go on and not faint, nor suffer the honour of their crown to whither. And there are, who living as beasts in a mere laziness of spirit, imagine it is an Inaction which causeth a cessation from all the functions of their soul, to let the Spirit of God to work in them. Hereupon, we see some Devoters so well practised in this mystery, that they abandon all the correspondencies due to a husband, all the care of their children, all the providence they ought to have for their family and household affairs, to satisfy the fancies of their mind. It is not Devotion which teacheth them this, nor is it fit that Libertines hereby take occasion to condemn the exercise of piety. It is an error must be corrected, and speedily, such spirits must be reduced to labour and care for affairs, to cure their sadness. It is the counsel which the Apostle gave to the Thessalonians: We 
1 Thes. 4.  entreat you (my brethren) to profit more and more, and to endeavour to be peaceful, and that attending your affairs, you take pains with your hands, as we have appointed you, that you by your conversation may edific those who are none of ours, and that you may need nothing. The fore-alledged Author notably deduceth this Text of Saint Paul, with many other which he citeth, showing, that a singular remedy for Sadness, caused by Idleness, is, the occupation of the mind and body.  
For my part, I am persuaded, that by this means 
The serupulous.  many scruples might be cured, wherewith divers minds are nowadays miserably turmoiled. For they no sooner enter into the great representations of God's judgement, of sins, and of the torments of the damned, but they presently bear all Hell on their shoulders. The thunders of the divine Justice roars not, but for them, and for them the lightning-slashes; they build scaffolds in their heart, whereon their imaginations walk; they nail themselves on voluntary Crosses, and bind themselves on racks, making an executioner of their mind, and a continual punishment of their life. All they think (in their opinion) is sin; all they do, nought but disorder; and all they expect, mere malediction. They never have made a good Confession, they have ever forgotten some circumstance, they have not well summed up the number of their sins, the Confessor hath not well comprised what they would say; they must eternally begin again, and for trifles of no value: they must run and weary all the tribunals of Confession, and employ more time than would be needful for a man who should manage all the great affairs of France. It is a pitiful thing, and verily tyrants never invented so rigorous torments, which superstition (witty in the fruitfulness of its own tortures) surpasseth not. It so toileth the mind, that the body is extremely weakened, which is seen in a face discoloured and wan, a brow heavy, an eye troubled, a heart sobbing, a countenance ghastly, a loss of sleep and appetite, a forbearance of all recreations and pleasures of life.  
To speak truly, these poor souls are worthy of compassion: for they are perpetually in most painful Purgatories. 
Remedies for scrupulous minds:  Efficaciously to comfort them, they must be put into the hands of some prudent, charitable, and resolute man, who may enter into their heart, and may be (as it were) the soul of their soul. They must be drawn from this indigested and too frequent devotion, from all those general confessions so often reiterated; they must not be permitted to accuse themselves of all the vain imaginations of their interior, but of the transgressions which pass to their exterior. They must be made to account their doubtful sins for not sins. since ordinarily the scrupulous have a mind wakeful and adverse enough to themselves, not to doubt of any grievous sin; great conceits must be put into them of the goodness and mercy of God; their courage must be raised; and they, instead of sins, caused to set down in writing, or otherwise, their good works, and the favours they have received from God. It is sometimes fit to change meditations into good broths, to excite them with some generous thought, to stir them up some difference or suit if it be needful, to hold them in business interlaced with honest repose, and convenient recreation; to handle them sometimes a little severely, to teach them to believe, and to suffer themselves to be directed, and to accustom them to brave this scrupulous conscience and to vaunt to have despised whatsoever it dictateth. Lastly, to persuade them there one is who hath answered for their soul before God and that if there be any ill in his direction, he shall be damned for them and no hurt come to them thereby. To commend them for their docibleness when they obey, to let them see the fruit of their obedience in the consolation of their soul, to exhilerate them, to heighten them, to take them from themselves, and to turn them into other personages. Many have been absolutely cured by these kinds of proceed, many much sweetened. For there are of them who suffer all their life time, their thoughts being as devils settled in some possession which never fully forsake them; but they must be let to understand, the crosses ordained them in this life, and that undertaking a good resolution for patience, they shall multiply their merits.   

§ 3. The remedy of Sadnesses which proceed from divers accidents of humane life.  
HEnce I discover very long dilation of pleasures daily framed in so many divers occasions, which makes it sufficiently appear unto us, that as of all living creatures, there is not any, more delicate, more sensible, and which is waited on with such a train, as man; so there is none more exposed as a Butt for all accidents, which are of power to occasion trouble, than he. Alas! what is man who maketh a crime of his birth, a slavery 
Miseries of Humane conditions  of his life, and an horror of his death? To salute daylight with his tears, to come into the world to be instantly crucified, his mouth open to cries and hunger, to bring a barren mind, a frail body, enraged concupiscences, to be a beast so many years, than an infant to feel his misery; to see his poor liberty fettered, to live under the fear of rods, in a perpetual restraint of will; then to enter into adolescency, followed by youth, which causeth loud storms of passions to bear along with them the seeds of all his miseries. After that, a servitude of marriage, an evil encounter of wives and husbands, of affairs, of cares, of poverty, of children, of slanders, of quarrels, affronts, of contumelies, of bodily pains, of faintness of spirit, of ruins of families, of poison, of punishments, of privation of all one loveth, of vexations by all one hateth, an old age contemptible, sick, and languishing. Death a hundred times invoked, to fly from the miserable, and to lay hold of the fortunate. With all this, to see abysses of fire, and torments prepared for sins, ordinary in worldly life. Who is it that trembleth not, thinking upon all these objects? and who saith not, that one must be either well fortified with prudence to divert his evils, or have patience to bear them?  
Note, that all which may afflict us, is reduced to 
The subjects of our afflictions.  the loss of goods, of credit, of friends, of incommodities of body or mind; and that our miseries, which we think to be infinite, are confined within three small limits. For all the Sadnesses which may arise from these five sources, God hath given us five remedies: 
Five remedies for all Sadnesses.  Sense, Reason Time, Necessity, and Grace. There are many dolouts which grow from the senses, and are likewise cured by the senses, We must not think all Sadnesses have ears patiently to hear the discourses of Philosophers. There is question how to help the soul by the body. hundred shillings are of more worth than a hundred reasons to a poor wretch who hath need of sustenance and refreshment to solace his pains. A little good usage, meat, apparel, a Cross upon gold or silver, remedieth many Crosses of needy people. If they to whom God hath given worldly wealth, took the pain to imitate so many honourable personages, and to accustom themselves to visit the shamefaced poor, they would daily do miracles, they would drive away the devils of Melancholy, bad humours, spectres, despairs, and maladies, they would pull millions of souls out of the hands of their evil fortunes▪ and would be more to men than were the demigods of Antiquity,  
How many herbs, simples, compositions of physic; how many lenitives; what powerful effects of Chirurgery, being well ordered, do cure strange infirmities, and do pluck one from out of the gates of death? But as the cure and easing of the senses is neither present nor efficacious with all the world: what should a man do who hath never so little heart, but try to cure himself by reason? It is it which God hath given unto 
The comfort derived from reason.  man instead of so many offensive and defensive arms, born with other creatures: why should we not use its help? It is it which teacheth us, that grief is nothing else but an apprehension of division, and that 
Aug. l. 3. de liber. at bitr. cap 23. Quid est enim aliud dolor nisi quidam sensus divisionis, vel corruptionis impatiens.  as we are out of excess tied to all pleasing things in the world, so the want of them becomes very sensible, in such sort, that our Sadnesses ordinarily proceed from our love; Experience sufficiently showing, that all such spirits as most are in love with themselves, are the most tormented: but if we come to lessen thoser geat affections which straightly tie us to conceits, and account as lost all which may be lost; there is no doubt, but we shall begin to find a wholesome medicine for all the afflictions of life. A mother, greeved for the death of her 
Amabam misera periturum. We most ardently love the things we most lose.  son, said in Quintilian, That all her evil came from loving too much what she might lose, and that our passions are insensibly most ardent for things which must quickly be taken from us, as if our grief were to take revenge upon the exorbitancy of our love. It is reason that weakeneth the opinion of evils, which many times torment us more than their effect. It, which giveth light to things obscure, order to confused, vigour to languishing, and resolution to despair: there is nothing for which it finds not a lenitive; if poverty make 
How it remedieth all humane accidents.  you sad, why complain you? Ignorant of thyself, (saith it unto us) it is not poverty, it is thy fancy which tormenteth thee. No man is ever so poor as he is born. Hast thou brought gold in thy veins, and pearls 
Poverty.  in thy entrails, that thou complainest of the change of thy condition; why dost thou set thyself upon the rack for a thing, whereof Jesus made boast, and so many wisemen make vows? Expect a little, Death will make thee as rich as Croesus. If thou thinkest thou art poor, for that thou hast not what thy covetousness desireth, it is an Illusion. If thou wantest necessaries for life after thou hast lived commodiously and happily, it is somewhat pitiful, but make thyself a good poor man since God will have thee such; suffer a while without murmuring and the divine Providence will not fail to raise for thee the mercy of some rich man to become thy steward. Pray, be patiented, endeavour, take pains, live meanly, thou shalt become 
A suit.  rich by learning to live contented. If a suit be lost, what cares, what apprehensions, what pains, what toils are in the same instant lost? If it be according to Justice, endure it; if angainst Justice, those who have lost their conscience in making thee lose thy cavie, have more cause to be sorry than thou. If thou hast lost much in game, it is a lesson of wisdom to cure a folly; If thou 
Loss of money.  hast lost all, give thanks to God that thou shalt never lose any more so basely, and that thou hast means to purchase a little in this occasion. If fire and water, winds and tempests, harpies and thiefs take away thy goods; what will't thou do against chance, violence, and iniquity, but preserve submission and innocency? The whole mass of worldly wealth is a torrent, which swellerh now upon one side, and then upon another: let that go with patience which thou canst not hold by force. If slander assail thy renown, and condemn thee, perhaps it doth that thou oughtest to do hadst 
Slander.  thou more virtues. Many by despising themselves have prevented all contempts. Tongues cannot hurt thy conscience; we stand before God such as we are, and all the teeth of calumny, take not from us one sole atom of perfection. Others have but one tongue to say, and thou hast two hands to do. Perfect thy life since it hath censures: verity will force light through those vapours of malign spirits, derive glory out of thy proper confusion. If thou be'st discountenanced by great ones, put thyself into the good favour of 
Disgrace.  God, who is above all greatness, and after thou hast made thyself a slave to men, live a while a master over thyself. Thou shalt find envy will have consecrated thee, and that thy punishments will make a part of thy felicities, If thou interest into sadness for being frustrated of some expected good, wherefore art thou so earnest in thy desires, and so credulous in thy hopes? and wherefore makest thou crosses to thyself out of thy own thoughts? If it be for the absence 
Absence of friends.  of a beloved friend, thinkest thou he must continually be tied to thee, as if he were a second body? It is in absence where our imaginations oftentimes render all that we affect most present; we enter into the bottom of our soul, and there find the images of our friends despoiled of matter and body: we practise the best amities in mind, where the envious watch us not, the jealous observe us not, and the troublesome interrupt not our discourses. If this good friend be gone into the other world, we every moment run after him, and each hour draw near to him. Let us be satisfied that his death is the cause that death hath nothing 
Death.  terrible for us, and that for him we begin to desire what we most fear.  
If we in body must suffer chains, imprisonment, 
Bodily pains.  maladies, sharp pains, hunger, thirst, the sword, fire, and all the hostility of nature, we must needs say, all which toucheth the skin, toucheth us very near, and that there are few charming words that can well cast these serpent's asleep which devour us; but we must likewise confess, that if our griefs be short, they deserve not so great complaints; and if they be long, their lasting fashioneth us to patience. All is formidable to a body full of long health, but the accustoming to things unpleasing causeth the contempt of them.  
Nature hath destinated the most nice and tender to great dolours, as women to that of childbearing; to teach us, that what we fear most, is not always to be most feared. When our courage faileth, all torments insult over us, but if it makes some resistance, we much the less feel our pain. There are who fight even to blood, out of bravery, others receive wounds for a very little money, others run to the burning chaps of cannons, for a small salary; there are others to be found who have jested at the gash, and others who have played on a lute, whilst their members have been flashed with keen razors, to show that if there be an evil in nature, there is much more in our opinion.  
The Philosopher Zeno sought out torments to cast pleasures, and said they were nohing if they were not thus seasoned. Pain and pleasure interchangeably sway in us, as do day and night in our Hemisphere. If we must die, it is but a moment of adversity to enter into a perpetual repose. Evil taketh up all the parts of our life, but death hath only one instant of time. It is so conformed to the most part of the world oppressed with so many afflictions, that as Zaleucus the 
Notable speech of Zaleucus.  Lawmaker said, an Edict should fitly have been made, to die, if God had not imposed a necessity upon it, To be born, maketh us tributaries to all miseries: but death alone freeth us from all imposts. Socrates saw his death coming whilst he was philosophising: Anaxagoras in pleading: Calanus braved it, out of temerity, and Canius jested at it, out of merriment.  
If your evil be in the mind, is it chief sin or folly 
The evils of the mind.  which tormenteth you? Why forbear you to chastise the one by penance, and the other by the credit you will give to the judgement of the wise? By this means you shall find, that Reason will remedy almost all evils without much violence.  
Where Reason is surprised and darkened by the violence 
Comforts which proceed from time.  of torments, Time quits the medicine. There is no evil immortal: for the mortal; let us make ourselves tractable by not thinking on our evils, and they cease to be evils, according as time stealeth them away from us. Think not to dry up the eyes of a mother who hath lost her son, or of a wife, from whom death 
Insensible comforts.  hath taken her husband; on the day of the burial suffer them to weep, let the wound bleed, and think how to cure it, rather by prayers then by discourses: The most pertinacious dolours disband with time, and we are all amazed that we find ourselves above our afflictions, as if we had climbed up thither from out of the bottom of abysses. He who should see the mount Aetna big with flames and thunders, would not think there were any means to approach It, but its furies pass away with time, and we pursue little tracks, which insensibly lead us to the top, where we find verdant grass and blooming flowers. The like happeneth to us, when we in the beginning consider our evil fortune, it seems our mind can never associate with its disasters? but in the end, the divine Providence discovereth ways unto us, which (ere we think on't) bring us to the top of patience, where we gather the fruit of our travels.  
Who would not admire the goodness of God, to say, That time doth our business without our trouble, and if we must be sad, we find (I know not what) in our sadness that pleaseth us? so that we prefer solitude and silence before the most eloquent consolations. The friends of Job seeing these his deep miseries were seven days without speaking to him, they let him discourse with his own thoughts, and gather some case from his own dolour, as we draw remedies 
Julianus Imperator in consola●. Ametil. ep. 37.  out of scorpions.  
I (to this purpose) observe an excellent invention in the Emperor Julian of the Philosopher Democritus, where it is said, That Darius' King of Persia had lost 
An excellent observation of Julian.  the Queen his wife, and that excessive melancholy made him disconsolate. The wisest men of Greece were called to him to mitigate his torments; but it was to play on a lute to the ears of Tigers and Panthers, to go about to cure by words fitly applied, a grief, which had had more of fury than mediocrity in it. The Philosopher let all these great comforters to pass on, and put himself upon time to expect some disposition in the heart of this Monarch; and seeing his mind tired out with his tears, began to resent, he promised to raise the Queen again if he he would furnish him with things necessary for his purpose: the other extremely rapt with this proposition, said, he therein would employ all the riches of the world, which were at his dispose; but 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  the Philosopher only demanded of him three names of such as had never felt any grief or sadness, to engrave them on the Queen's Monument, which could not in any sort be found, after a long search throughout the whole kingdom of Persia. Then Democritus taking his opportunity: Alas! Sir, we may well say, the rubies and diamonds of this diadem resplendent on your head, dazzle your eyes, and hinder you from seeing the miseries of your poor subjects, not to be able in so great and vast an Empire, to meet with three happy men; and yet you wonder, though born under the condition of mortals, that death is entered into your palace. He added many grave say, which the Emperor for his consolation liked very well. Whereby we are taught, that we must sometimes make use of time to remedy sadness.  
If time doth nothing and that it be an evil necessary which we cannot remedy, (as it happeneth in death and in other accidents, which those Ancients called the blows of Destiny) why do we resist against heaven, and censure the divine Decrees? It is a goodly thing indeed to see a man to afflict himself with a fatal necessity, 
Necessity forceth patience.  which indifferently involveth Monarches and peasants. Must God revoke his laws? and must he create a world apart to content a simple creature, and serve it to its liking? But is it not much better to go along with the stream of this water, and follow the great current of the divine Providence which maketh all the harmony in the world?   

§ 4. That the Contemplation of the divine Patience and Tranquillity serves for Remedies for our temptations.  
LAstly, let us behold the assistances of Grace, which is incomparably above Nature, and let us from 
Remedies and helps of grace by the contemptation contemptations of things Divinie.  the example of the Divinity, take instruction how to demean ourselves.  
Let us look on our first model, and consider a strange thing able to make our impatiencies was red, not with anger but with shame, to say, that God all impassable (as he is) of his own nature not obnoxious to the sword, fire, sickness, or any other exterior violence, would in all times suffer men more violent than the sword, more ardent than fire, more irksome than sickness, and many times more cruel than savage beasts.  
It is said, there were heretofore made very goodly mirrors of saphyr, which were for Princes and Monarches; let us not covet those which cannot much avail us; but let us contemplate the admirable saphyr enchased in the Throne of the living God, in the Prophet 
Ezek. 1. 26. Quasi aspectus lapidis sapphiri similirudo Throni.  Ezekiel, and let us therein see and compare our impatiencies, with the mildness of the Creator. It seems that by how much the more a dignity is sovereign, by so much the less ought it to be exposed to injuries, because the fear which is had of its power should stamp in hearts that respect which, love (weak) cannot imprint: yet God a (sovereign Majesty, a supreme Greatness, an absolute Justice) hath endured, and doth daily endure so many contradictions of men, that it seems, 
Plures idcirco Dominum non credunt, quia seculo iratum ram diu nesciunt Tert, de patiented. 〈◊〉.  that to give credit to his mercy, he occasioneth some prejudice to the terror of his Divinity. Many men (saith Tertullian) believe not in God, because they cannot persuade themselves he is angry with the world, since they see it in so peaceful a state,  
What is there more important for God, and men, than the knowledge of his Divine nature, than the fear of his Justice, than the much to be adored reverence of his sovereignty? Notwithstanding, as if he preferred the glory of his patience before his own Being; he rather chose patiently to suffer so many faithless, so many wicked ones, so many sinners, and that the lips of Blasphemers might dare to say there is no God; then that, taking revenge, in the heat of crimes, by punishing every sin, it should be said of him, Verily there is a God, but he is perpetually armed with lightning and terrors, ever inaccessible to the prayers of men, as those mountains which throw forth their inflamed bowels. Nay, much otherwise; he would be simamed the God of mercy, and the Father of goodness: whereupon Saint Gregory hath judiciously said, that his patience walks 
Pater misericordiarum Dominator, Dominus, Deus misericors, & clemens & patience, & mule● miserationis, etc. Deut. 5. Quantum lata mens fuerit per amorem, rantum erit & patience jonganimitatem. Totius geniturae tributa dignis & indignis patitur simul occurtere. Tertul. de patiented c. 2  still hand in hand with his charity. Wherefote, as the love of God towards men is incomparable: so his patience, to endure the faults and infirmities of sinners, admits no comparison. How wany Pirates are there daily for whom God openeth seas? How many Idolaters, for whom he causeth stars to shine, fountains to stream, plants to sprout, harvests to wax yellow, and vines to ripen; as well as for the faithful? How many ungrateful and rebellious children are there, who every day receiving so many benefits from him, take them as Hogs do Acorns, still grunting towards the ground, and never casting an eye towards heaven? How many spirits (enemies of truth, and light disturbers of public repose, transgressors of laws both Divine and Humane) do daily frame obstacles against the will of their sovereign Master, and yet he suffers them, as if he had no other business in the world but patiently to bare, and vanquish by benefits, the malice, and ingratitude of men? Jerusalem is the stone of burden (said the Prophet) which layeth a burden upon God himself. What will this Oracle of God say, but the same conceits which Saint Hierom suggesteth unto us 
Jerusalem lapis on eris. Zachar. 12.  upon this passage, when he writes, that there were seen, in places where the Ancient wrestlers did exercise, huge stones or certain bowls of Iron or Copper, with which they made trial of their strength: and he witnesseth that he in a list saw one of those bowls which was so heavy, that he could not lift it up from the ground, although others robustuous of body, and eminent in those exercises, could easily carry it. Now mark my conceit, and say, that as those champions of antiquity 
God is busied about the world, as his stone of burden.  had for object of their strength those weighty bulks, on which they daily exercised themselves: So likewise, God, that strong Giant, and great Wrestler, as if he stood in need of exercise, takes the sphere of this great Universe which he beareth, & lifterh it up with all facility. He takes the Mass of so many mortals whom heaven covers, and the earth beareth, and there he findeth much resistance: he takes his people which he hath chosen and sanctified above all the nations of the world, and hence ofttimes very many sensible displeasures come. A true stone of burden is that Christian, that Ecclesiastic, that Priest, that Religious, who belies his profession, who throws disorder and scandal among the people by his ill example; yet God tolerateth him, God protecteth him, God continually obligeth him: and, if needs he must draw the sword of Justice out of the scabbard; it is with delays, consideration, and excessive Clemency. O infinite Goodness! And who is that man, now, that will not bear with a man? and who is he that seeing God of nature impassable, busy in the world as about his stone of burden from the beginning of Ages; cannot bear a small burden, whereto he finds himself tied by duty, by condition, and by nature!   

§ 5. That the great temper of our Saviour's soul in most horrible sufferings, is a powerful lenitive against our Dolours.  
AS for the second Model, which is the Word Incarnate the true mirror of Patience, and only reward of the Patient; It is a very strange thing, that all nature being so bend upon its conservation as to suffer nothing, Jesus Christ did miracles incomprehensible to the spirit of Angels, only of purpose to suffer for man! For, how could dolour have laid hold on a God, of his own nature impassable, if it had not passed through all the heavens to take the divine word in the sanctuary of the Trinity, which otherwise was merely impossible! but, the son of God, considering this Impossibility, and being fixed in the desire to sustain for us, took the body of man to suffer all that which the most cruel could invent, and all whatsoever the most miserable might undergo. Verily it is an effect of so prodigious a love that it found no belief in senses, persuasion in minds, example in manners, nor resemblance in Nature. We have heretofore heard of a Prince, who, desirous to offer himself to death for the preservation of his subjects, took the habit of a Peasant to steal himself from his greatness, and facilitate his death. All histories say he laid down his purple, and crown, and all the ensigns of Royalty, retaining none but those of love, which caused him to go into his enemy's army, where he left life to purchase an immortal trophy for his reputation. But I must tell you, he had a mortal life, and in giving it, he gave that tribute to nature, which he owed to nature from the day of his birth, and which of necessity he was to pay; yea, he gave it to buy the memory of posterity, and to beg honour, which is more esteemed by generous spirits, than life. But in what history have we read, that, a man glorious by birth, immortal by condition, necessarily happy, hath espoused humility which all the world despiseth, mortality which the most advised apprehend, misery which the bravest detest; for no other occasion, but to have the opportunity to die for a friend! And this is it which Jesus Christ did. He was by nature immortal, impassable, impregnable against all exterior violences: he took not the habit of a peasant, as Codrus, nor a body of air, as 
Abscondit purpuram sub miseri● vestimentis; ad lutum ubi jacebam, inclinatur, non mergitur:  the Angell-conductour of Tobias; but a true body, a flesh, tender and virginal, personally united to the word of God; to quail it with toils, to consume it with travails: and lastly, to resign it as a prey to a most dolorous death; he casts tottered rags over his royal purple, and takes pains to stoop down to pull me out of the mire where I lay, and to take my miseries upon him, not sullying himself in my sins.  
My God what a prodigy is this? All ages have 
Abbas Guerricus.  observed a thousand and a thousand industries of men which they found out to avoid the pains and torments of life; but never have we seen a man who sought to invent means, and to offer violence to his own condition; to become suffering, and miserable, according to the estimation of the world, since there are day and night so many gates open to this path: yet thou (Oh God of Glory! O mild Saviour!) hast done it. Thou hast found a way how to accord infirmity with sovereign 
Mortem nec solus Deus sentire, nec solus homo vincere poterat, homo suscepit, & Deus vicit. Faustus l. 1. de lib. arbitr. The quality of the sufferings of our Saviour.  power, honour with ignominy, time with eternity, and death with life. It was not possible that sole God should endure death; or that sole Man could vanquish it; but man hath abided it, and God hath overcome it.  
As for the quality of pains; it sufficeth to say, that if men judged of the greatness of Giants by one of their footsteps impressed on the sand: and if we likewise measure the course of the sun by a small thread of shadow; one may have some gross knowledge of so great a mystery, by the figures which forwent it. Now, all the sacrifices of the Mosaic law, and so many travails and sufferings of the ancient Patriarches were but a rough draught of the passion of Jesus Christ: from whence we may imagine what the original was, sigh the Copies thereof were so numerous and different throughout the course of all Ages.  
The perpetual sacrifice which was evening and 
3 Reg. 8. 63. 22000 bullocks, and 120000 sheep sacrificed for the dedication of Solomon his Temple.  morning made in the Temple, the twenty two thousand oxen, and the hundred and twenty thousand sheep which were sacrificed by Solomon at one feast of the dedication of the Temple (so much bloodshed, that it seemed a red sea to those who beheld it) was to no other end but to figure the blood of the immaculate Lamb, and of all its members which have suffered after it. But if so much preparation and profusion were needful to express one sole shadow of his passion; what may we conjecture of the body, and the thing figured! Besides, if all the ancient Patriarches, who were so persecuted in times past, and all the Martyrs (who since the death of our Saviour have endured torments almost infinite in number, and prodigious in kinds) made but an assay or trial of the dolours of this King of the afflicted; what an account shall we make of his pains, which ever ought to be as much adored by our wills as they are incomprehensible to our understanding! The Lamb was sacrificed from the beginning of the world (saith Saint 
Apoc. 13. 8. Agnas accisus est ab origine mundi. Our Saviour hath suffered in the person of all the just and the martyrs  John); He was massacred in Abel (saith S. Paulinus;) tossed upon so many waves, in the person of Noah; wand'ring, in that of Abraham; offered up, in Isaac; persecuted, in Jacob; betrayed, in Joseph; stoned, in Moses; bruised, on a dunghill, in the patience of Job; blinded, in Samson; sawn, in Esay; flayed afterward, in the person of S. Bartholomew; roasted, in that of Saint Laurence; thrown out to Lions, in that of Saint Ignatius; burned, in that of Saint Polycarp; 
Confummatio abbreviata. Isa. 10 12. Unâ oblatione consummavit in sempiter num satisfactos. Heb 10 14. Unigenitus Dei ad peragendum mort is suae sacramentum, consummavit humanarum omne genus passionum. Hilar. l. 10. de trinit.  pulled in picees by four horses, and cast headlong into a ditch full of Serpents, in that of Saint Tecla; drowned, in that of S. Clement; exposed to wasps, in that of many other Martyrs. From whence it cometh that the passion of Jesus is called a short Consummation by the Prophet Esay, and that Saint Paul hath said to the Hebrew, That by one sole Sacrifice he hath consummated those which were to be sanctified for all eternity. And S. Hilary clearly confesseth, That Jesus Christ the only Son of God desirous to fulfil this great and mysterious Sacrament of his precious death, did pass through all imaginable dolours which were (as it were) melted and distilled together; to make of it a prodigious accomplishment.  
Jesus is the stone with seven eyes, whereof the Prephet Zachary speaketh, which the heavenly Father says he hath cut and engraven with his own hand, 
Zach. 39  thereon figuring all the most glorious characters of patience. He is an Abyss of love, of mercy, of dolours, of ignominies, of blood, of lowliness and greatness, of excess, of admiration and amazement, which swalloweth all thoughts, drieth up all mouths, stayeth all pens, and drencheth all conceptions; Who now then, will dare to complain that he suffereth too much, that he doth too much, that he is treated with less tenderness than he deserveth? O our coldness, and remissness! whence can it proceed but from not studying enough on this incomparable Book which comprehends all secrets? we at least should consider the divine Providence in the matter of the burdens of all the world; to diminish our niceness, to gain opinion and understanding which may alter our judgement.  
A sage Roman showing to an impatient man the 
Sense. l. 3. nat. quaest. Praeferri scies quid deceat si cogitaveris orbem terrarum notare.  whole world surrounded in a great deluge of miseries, said unto him, I assure myself, you would not so much play the milk sop, nor have a soul so effeminate, if you would think that the whole world swimmeth in a dreadful sea of calamities. All things conform themselves to the nature of their original; and we have elsewhere said, that Bees bred in the dead body of a Bull 
Bees bear the figure of a ball on their bodies  carry the resemblance of their Progenitor, portrayed by certain little lineaments in their proper body. The world hath produced us, and Jesus Christ hath regenerated us by his Death and most precious Blood; never should we rest until we carry upon us some token 
Glorisi care & portate Deum in corpore vestro. 1 Cor. 6.  of nature wailing, and of a God suffering: according to S. Paul's precept, Glorify, and hear the Image of God in your body,   

§ 6. Advice to impatient Souls.  
IMpatient Souls, to you I speak; I ask you, Is it a small motive to you to suffer that have the Universe for a Companion, God for an Example, and God for the Guerdon of your Patience? All creatures (saith S. Paul) sigh, groan, and are, as it were in labour, 
Rom. 8. 22.  expecting that day wherein all things shall be glorified in the resurrection of bodies; and will you be of so 
Ad communem hanc Rempublicam, quisque promodulo exsolvimus quod debemu●, & quasi canonem passionum inferimus. S. August. in Psal.  abject a courage as to be like unprofitable burdens, with arms across in the midst of a suffering world, and before the eyes of the God of suffering? Is it not a scandal to the Religion we profess, often to afflict ourselves with great and heavy sadnesses, for causes most light? To see too, you would make one think the Law, the Sacraments, and Jesus Christ himself, were cast away: Where is the Consolation of holy Scriptures, the fruit of Preach, the sweetness of Prayers? Where is that huge cloud of Examples of so many Patiented ones, whose courages you so often have admired? where are good purposes, good thoughts? where are so many resolutions so well taken in the time of prosperity? must the least adversity make you to shrink back? Verily, Idiots and silly women who have neither the wit nor knowledge which you have, do many times bear no flight burdens with much courage; and you, after so many good instructions, lay down arms, and make it appear, that stupidity hath more foree with them, than all the precepts of wisdom have power over your weakness. People who live according to nature find remedies for their sadness in nature itself; Bathe, Wine, Plays, Balls, Hunting, open Air, and so many other recreations make them pass away their evil. Is it possible, but that the cosideration of the first verity, and the divine Providence should mitigate yours? What is it can have such power over you? It is strange that things the most frivolous torment you. Call back into your thoughts what I have said to you concerning the matter of your pleasures. It grieves you, you have not thrived in this affair, nor have had the success of reputation which you expected! what a folly is this? as if I should be troubled that the air and winds were not at my dispose. Will you never cease from usurping that which appertaineth not to you? will you never order your own house, without taking care for things out of it? You afflict you self for a word spoken of you! wretched (that you are) to tie your felicity to the condition of tongues. There would almost be 
Very true.  no slander, if it were not made slander by thinking thereon you torment yourself for the loss of health, or of some other good which was very precious with you: Impute your cross to your affection; so excessively to have loved a blessing which you might lose, and to have coveted all good things without you, to have an ill guest within your own house. You put yourself upon the rack with the fear of the future: why do you set your foot into the possession of another? why do you not leave the future to the divine Providence? why do you reap dolours in a field, where you are not permitted to sow? you incessantly complain of poverty, of sickness, and other inconveniences of life; if you think to live here free from pain, you must build a world apart, and not be contented with the elements which served your ancestors turns. God here distributeth burdens, as the father of a family doth offices to all his domestics: every one must bear that which is allotted him, otherwise, if he do not, he is a bastard, and not a legitimate child: and if having one, he hear it 
Quod si extra disciplinam cujus participes facti sunt omnes, ergo adulterini, & non f●●ii. Heb. 12. 8.  with a perpetual vexation, he deprives himself of the crown of patience, the value whereof is as inestimable as the force thereof hath in all times been judged invincible. Have you forgot what S. Paul said? If you be (saith he) out of the number of those who live in a regular discipline, and who daily have their petty charge in God's family, wherein they are subjects, I assure you you are not used like children of the house, but as very bastards left to live at random. Believe me, our burdens are like the stone of the Sibyls, which to some, weighed 
Dio. Chrys. orat. 13. Marvellous stone of Sibyls.  like lead, and to others, as a feather: ofttimes the weight or lightness of your evils proceeds from nought but your own disposition: Imagination hath made you believe it, nice breeding (which hath been bestowed on you) and evil habits wherein you have been perpetually nuzzled, fail not to accomplish your misery. Accustom yourself a little to do that work well, for which you came into the world. Learn, that you must bear the miseries of man's condition, since you participate of humane nature, and that (thanks be to God) you are not a monster. When you have learned to suffer something; you will begin to enter into the possession of your soul, in which alone you shall find all felicities, if so you be united to your beginning. Courage poor impatient one, raise yourself a little above yourself by the grace which is given you from on high, and so many good assistances, which you can never want. The God of patience and Consolation will confirm you, will fortify you, and will give you the reward of your fidelity.    

The seventh Treatise, Of HOPE.  

§ 1. The Description, Essence, and appertenances thereof.  
HOpe is the gate of a great Palace replenished with riches. It is in my opinion the place 
The Image and nature of Hope.  which Tertullian termeth, when he calls it, the portresse of Nature. It looketh on, and considers upon one side pearls, which are (as yet) in the shell, and 
Naturae ja●tricem.  on the other upon Roses in the midst of thorns, which it thinks it may enjoy with some labour. Such is the nature of Hope according to S. Thomas; It is a motion of the 
S. Thom. 1. 2 q. 40. art. 2.  appetite, which followeth the knowledge one hath of a good future possible, and somewhat difficult. It hath two arms with which it endeavoureth to pursue, and embrace objects, whereof the one is called Desire, and the other, Belief; to be able to obtain what one desireth. Thus doth learned Occam define it. It is not sufficient 
Occam. quodlibeto 3. q 9  to say that a thing is beautiful, pleasing, and profitable to create Hope, unless it be showed it is possible, and that one may arrive thereunto by certain ways, which are not out of his power, who hopeth. So Hope, if it be reasonable, hath ordinarily wisdom, strength, eloquence, amity and money for it: for these are the things which raise its courage. At the gates of passion we see huge heaps of people of all manner of dispositons, who flatter it, and behold it; of one side lovers, who seek for a mate; For Philo said, it was the virtue of lovers: on 
●hilo lib. Quod deterius, etc.  the other side, Courtiers who run after favour; on the other, aspirers, who canvas for offices, and dignities, on the other, Laborours' and Merchant's: but above all, there are many youngmen bold and resolute, who therein have a great share; because, (as saith Aristotle) they 
Arist l. 2. Rhet. c. 12.  have little of the past and much of the future. Or (as S. Gregory Nazianzen affirmeth) for that nothing is 
Nazian. de vita sua. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  hard to a fervent spirit. Moreover it sitteth upon a Peacock, and its face is encompassed with a Rainbow, by reason it infinitely charmeth, and recreateth the minds of such as follow it by very pleasing semblances: and (as King Mithridates saith) it hath, I know not what kind 
Mithrid. in epist. Graecis.  of sweetness, which pleaseth even then, when it deceiveth, but if you observe it, you shall find, it holdeth an Anchor in the right hand to fix the desire of the wise: as on the contrary, it carrieth in the left hand an enchanted mirror, wherein it letteth fools see a thousand slight trifles, all which turn into smoke. Pleasure waiteth on it, whilst we hope; for it is that which sweeteneth all the labours of life; and which serves for a spur to all great and generous actions. But if it falls out that things happen not as they were figured in the imagination; then are all these Courtiers delivered over to a furious Monster called Despair, which drags them down to the foot of a mountain, and ofttimes drencheth them in gulfs and precipices. Behold in few words the nature, definition, difference, composition, object, subject, the causes and the effects of hope. Let us now see, how we may govern this Motion.   

§ 2. That one cannot live in the world without Hope, and what course is to be held for the well ordering of it.  
THey are of too haughty a strain who never friendly entertain Hope, and think there is no life for them, if Felicity be not always at their gate. The condition of creatures is such that all their blessings never come to them all at one. It were to go about to express a word without letters, to compose a happiness without joys and contentments succeeding one another. How can hope be banished from earth, sigh Heaven, which is so well content, hath not renounced it! The blessed souls, after the vision of God, do yet hope something, which is, the Resurrection of their bodies, to which they most ardently wish to be reunited: those which are represented under the Altar in the Apocalypse, who ask vengeance 
Apoc. 6.  of their blood at the tribunal of the Divine Justice, are instantly clothed with white garments, in token of this most bright flesh which is to be joined to their immortal spirits. Heaven, which expecteth nothing for the perfection of its beauties, ceaseth not to revolve each moment of the day and night, to diversify them. But we must confess, that earth is the place of Hopes, which are as seeds of our Felicities, from whence it cometh, that what the Grecians call to some, we name it to hope. Our soul here resembleth the 
Sperare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  First Matter, which is perpetually enamoured of new forms: and as the understanding of Angels (according to the saying of a great Philosopher) is all, that, which it ought to be from the beginning, and becometh not 
Carolus Bovilus de, intellectu humano & Angelico.  new at all; Contrariwise, Humane understanding is nothing in the beginning, and becomes all in process of time. So our will is like unto white Writing-tables wherein we easily writ, or blot out all we will. The estate of perfection must be expected to imprint it with a lasting Character. So many young plants, so many little living creatures, so many children, so many imperfections, so many wishes warn us that we may live here with hope: we have so little of time present, that we are enforced to dilate ourselves upon the future. This insensibly delighteth us, and stirs us, as Trees which seem to take pleasure to be rocked by the winds. It being resolved that we necessarily must expect and hope 
The good husbanding of hopes.  whilst we are in the world. It remaineth to consider, how we may well employ this passion in hoping good things, and hoping them by ways very direct, and in an orderly manner.  
First, It is a shameful thing to say there are such who hope all that, which is to be feared. One promiseth himself the death of a Kinsman; the other, the confusion of a family; another, to seduce some silly maid; another, to debauch a married wife; another, to satisfy his revenge; another, to scrape together as much as his avarice can wish; and so many other things which are most unhappy Hopes▪ the success whereof God sometimes permitteth, when he will chastise wicked men. What a horror is it to hope for crimes, and to feed one's self with another's evil, as if one sought nourishment from coals and serpents! If our thoughts be not always so high as the glory of heaven; at least, let us not abase them so low as Hell. If they cannot be divine; let them not be inhuman; let them tie themselves to blessings permitted, and not to objects so unworthy. One may expect wealth, children, health, knowledge, honour, an office, a marriage, and so many other things which are commodious for humane life; without desiring disasters: notwithstanding, it is not enough to will good, unless one therein observe circumstances and measures requisite for its accomplishment. One of the best rules for the passion of which we treat, is, to adapt 
To adapt ourselves to our hope.  one's self to his hopes, to see what comports with his birth, his breeding, his capacity, his genius, his knowledge, his power, his credit, and his pains; and not rashly to be stirred up with the desire of things above his strength, unless he will disturb his life, and hasten his death.  
The world is a great Sepulchre of so many little Phaeton's, who will guide the sun and hours, although 
Spes impii tanquam lanugo est, quae à ven to tollitur, & tanquam spuma grac●lis quae à procella dispergitur, & tanquam fumus qui à vento diffusus est, & tanquam memoria hospitis uni●s dici praetereu●tis. Sap. 5. 15.  their life be but a continual deviation; they have no other honour but to be fallen from on high, and to have used more temerity in affairs then ability: such hopes also are very well compared by the Wiseman, To those little downs of flowers scattered in the air, to the froth which floateth on the water, and is instantly dissipated by a tempest, to smoke which vanisheth under the blast of winds, and to the memory of a traveller, who passeth by an Inn.  
By the sight of a bird we judge of her flight, by the genius of men we make conjectures of their fortunes; needs must there be much extravagancy, when a man in all kinds little, proposeth to himself nothing but great things. I well know, the divine Providence, the worker of wonders, delighteth sometimes to strike a stroke with its own hand, drawing out men of most base extraction, to bear them to the highest tops of worldly greatness. It is that, which forged a Diadem for 
●ulgotius l. 3. c. 4.  Pupienus upon the same anvil whereof his father hammered Iron: That, which changed Martianus his spade into a Sceptre: That, which taught Valentinian 
Idem l. 6. c. 10.  to make crowns by twisting ropes: That, which shown Justine in a Carpenters-shop how to build a Throne for himself: That, which drew Petrus Damianus from the midst of sheep, to be made a Cardinal; and Gregory the seventh out of a Joiner's house, to give him a Pope's mitre. But, one Swallow makes not a summer, nor one accident, from an extraordinary hand, which happeneth scarcely in an age, makes not all fortunes. S. John saith, that the measure of an Angel is the measure of a man; but this is not, but in the celestial city of Jerusalem, where we shall be as the Angel 
Apoc. 21. 1●  of God. Here our thoughts are high, our aims great, but the limit of our power, little. He who doth well understand what he can; wills, but what is reasonable, and shall find that the modesty of wishes makes life more commodious, and happiness more undoubted.  
To this first rule of the moderation of hopes, we 
To ground them well.  must add a second, which is, to give them good foundations, to the end we be not constrained to see the indiscretion of our desires punished, by the small success of our pretensions. There are some who infinitely confide in the words of Astrologers, and to speak plainly, it is a prodigious thing to hear the predictions they make upon the life and fortunes of men, which cause amazement among the wise, and love in the curious: as at the time when they answered to the Edict of the Emperor Vitellius, who commanded them to leave the city, that they would obey on such condition, that 
Theodorus Merechista hist. Rom. fol. 86.  he instantly should leave life; which so fell out. Yet we must say that although God should write down in the book of stars the successes of our life, which cannot be easily agreed unto; yet ever would they be extremely encumbered, nor ever happen out of a fatal necessity. That is the cause why for some presages which hit right, there are many other notably false; which makes it sufficiently appear that God hath reserved to himself the full knowledge of what shall befall us. Among other qualities, which the holy Canticle gives him, it forgetteth 
Coma ejus nigra, quafis Corvus Cant. 5. 11.  not to say, He had hair as black as the feather of a Crow. Where you shall observe the hairs mystically signify the Thoughts, and when the Scripture termeth them black, it will declare the obscurity and depth of God's counsels over the wisdom of men. Tertullian 
Tertul. Homo divini cura ingenii. Deus in omnia sufficit, nec potest esse suae perspicaciae praevaricator.  said, man was the care of the understanding of God, who provideth for all, and who cannot be a prevaricatour of his own providence. Can we think men are permitted to enter into those great abysses of knowledge, and to take the reins of nature into their hands? think we, that a man who doth not always very plainly see what lies before his feet; can assuredly behold that which is infinitely exalted above his head? Where have not Astrologers sowed lies? where is it that great ones who harkened unto them as to their Gospel, were not filled with disastrous successes? By their saying, all which is born 
Gen. 38. 27.  at Rome comes into the world like unto little Zara, already marked with red, There are some who consume themselves with anxieties and cares of their life-time, to verify the words of an ginger, and who instead of scarlet find (perhaps) in the other world a 
Powerful friends may serve for a support for Hope. Fatis accede Diisque & coal foelices. Lucan. Maledictus homo qui ponit carnem brachium suum. Jer. 17. 3.  Robe of flames. It is a wretched support to tie one's hopes to so great an uncertainty. I find the favour of great and powerful friends is much more certain; for God establisheth them on earth as his images, to be the treasurers of felicity, and distributers of good hap. When they be just, upright, and grateful; men of merit have some cause to hope of their good affections; and an Ancient said, that we must approach near to the Destinies, and the Gods, and honour the happy. But how many are there, who, adhering too much unto men, make to themselves an arm of flesh without bones, and a fortune as frail as Reeds? Others make themselves brave fellow with their sword, and expect all from their valour. Others from their wit and eloquence. Others from their gold. Others from dexterity in businesses. All this may do well, when a great integrity of long services puts these good qualities into action: but if it happen you have some ray of hope grounded upon some good title; do as Job, and keep it hidden (as long as is 
To hope without vanity.  fit) in your bosom, for fear that discovering it you lose the pretended effects thereof. There are, who tell all their designs to the whole world, if they see themselves either contraried in the pursuit, or contemned in the small success of them. The Scripture observeth 
Prudence of Saul.  how that a Saul seeking for Asses found a Kingdom, when he met Samuel who foretold him, he was to be the first King of God's people. A mere peasant though he were, he was so prudent, that an uncle of his examining him curiously of the particularities of his journey, 
De sermone autem regni non indicavit ei. 1 Reg. 10. 16.  he gave him account of the Asses, and other such mean things; but never did he open his mouth to declare the hidden mystery. This is the third precept which is to be kept in the ordering of this passion. To which we will gladly add a fourth, which is, not too soon to reject, not over slowly to press forward in the 
Not too soon to reject, nor too late to put forward.  pursuit of your hopes; by reason that there are some who are extremely impatient, and presently despair, if all happen not to their wish: Where, they well show, they are never to make a great fortune, sigh this search after good luck is a war, wherein Time is of more use than Arms. There are days which be stepmother's others, be mothers; there be years which are spent with much pain, and little harvest: But there cometh 
Stare se ante fores felsum, & nisi ocyus reciperetur, cuique obvio praedae futurum. Sueton in Galb. c 4  a good one, which recompenseth all sterilities, and with a full hand casteth fruits into our bosom. A good Fisher catcheth some fish, or still keeps the hook in the water; so, vigilant Courtiers either get favour, or incessantly watch the hour of their good hap, to cast themselves into the fish-pool, when the Angel hath stirred the water. Fortune was at Galba's Gate with a diadem, complaining she was weary of attendance, and would be gone to another, if he took not heed thereto. Felicity hath wings of an Eagle for some, and towards others, she comes with a leaden pace. There are times and ages, when one may reasonably expect her: but it is likewise a lamentable thing to be tormented all one's life, to run after a fancy of honour and wealth which flouteth us; and never to account that, as lost, which for us is but a nothing. There are who have lost all their discretion, opinioatively to pursue a hope, and have profited nothing by their labour, but to give a solemn testimony of their unhappiness.  
It is here most expedient to make use of the precepts 
Damascen. in Batlaam. A witty Fable of Saint John Damascen.  which the Nightingale gave to the Fowler in the Fable of S. John Damascen. For he wittily feigneth that this poor bird being taken in the snare would redeem herself by three good words she spoke in his ear who had captivated her precious liberty. The first was, Not to be light of belief, nor inconsiderately to be transported with the first appearance of objects. The second, Not to pursue that, which one cannot attain. The third, To put out of your memory those evils, the remedy whereof is not in your power. Upon these instructions the bird is delivered, which, desirous to make trial of the docibility of the man, told him in her language, he was very simple, to dismiss her so easily, for that if he had ripped up her belly, he had found a precious stone which had made him rich for ever. The Fowler, vexed at his own avarice and curiosity, gins to pursue her through the woods and forests a very long way till seeing she was out of his reach, he afflicted himself with his own folly. But the Nightingale said unto him, Art not thou a miserable man to have observed with so little constancy the precepts which concerned thy Happiness? Thou didst imagine there were Diamonds in the belly of a Nightingale; who misled thee, but thy own credulity? Thou most inconsiderately hast followed me, not observing that thou art a man, and I a bird: that thou art an inhabitant of the earth, and I, of the air: that thou hast natural weight, and I, wings. Lastly, thou art out of hope to be able to catch me; and had it not been much better to believe what I told thee, which was, not to trouble thyself for an Impossibility? Behold, how this great Divine personates Aesop; to give sage directions to Courtiers in love with Hope, whence they may learn the means how to hope well. But, as for others who mock the world, and perpetually promise to those who serve them rewards which end in nothing; they deserve to have the same punishment inflicted, with which the Emperor Alexander Severus chastised an Impostor of his Court who made very advantageous promises to many honest men, without ever coming to performance; for which, he caused him to be choked with smoke, the Crier proclaiming aloud, He who sold smoke is punished by smoke. It were 
Petronius apud Lampridium.  better to cut off at a blow the hopes of many, then to draw them at length in insupportable languors. But it is time we pass from humane manners, to divine perfections: and behold, how, by the examples of our heavenly Father, and the practices of the eternal Word, we may rule and settle this Passion.   

§ 3. That God being not capable of Hope, serves as an eternal Basis to all good Hopes.  
GOd hath this property, that, being uncapable of 
God is not capable of Hope, sigh he possesseth all. Jac. 1. Apud quem non est transmutatio, nec viciffitudinis obumbratio  Hope, he is capable to support all hopes. I say, he is uncapable of Hope, not through the want of ability, but out of a singular excellency, and a most abundant plenitude of all perfections. Hope, is of good to come, and no man hopeth for what he possesseth. Now, God expecteth not any thing in the future, since he from all eternity hath felicities perpetually present. It were good to hear S. Zeno speak of the sufficiency of the eternal God. What is it which God may Hope, sigh he hath nothing 
Zeno Veronserm. 1. de gener. verbi. Solus Deus est principium, qui exseip●o dedic sibi principium; solus ante omnia, quoniam in man ejus inclusa sunt omnia; Ex se est quod est; solus perfectus. quia non potest illi addi, nec minui: Solus indemnabilis, ac semper aequalis quia in se non admittit aetatem.  out of himself? And from whom can he Hope, being he alone is the origin of all things? Who hath no other beginning then himself, shall he expect any good from one elder them himself? And know we not he is before all things, since he shutteth all things within his own bosom? All that he is he is of himself; and no man well knows what he is, but himself. He alone is perfect, because nothing can be added to him, nor taken from him. He is never damnified, but always equal to himself, because he admitteth not Age, but is one day composed of Eternity.  
One may object here, that, to hope for any thing from another; it is not always necessary he be absolutely greater, or more worthy than we. We hope from artificers, we hope likewise from our servants, the performance of businesses which we put into their hands, and therefore one might infer, that it is not a proposition contrary to reason to say, that God can hope something from us, as are the praises and service which we are bound to render to him, as were likewise our conversion. To that I answer, it is true, that the greatest Monarches of the earth may hope from the meanest persons of their 
God is independent of all creatures and the source of his felicities proceedeth from the infinity of his persections.  kingdom, because they are men, and have dependence of men: and in this, God greatly humbleth great men, when he makes them see that all this glorious pomp of their fortune which seems to afford matter of jealousy to heaven, and of new laws to earth, subsisteth not but by the commerce of merchants, and by the labour and sweat of peasants: all which makes no impression on the Divinity. It exspecteth (say you) our praises; as if God were not his own praise to himself; as if he stood in need of a mortal mouth to honour an Essence 
Tanquam momentum staterae, sie est ante te orbis terrarum. Sap. 11 3. Resoluto mundo & diis in unum confusis. cessante naturâ acquies●● sibi, cogitati onibus suis traditus. Sense. ep. 9  immortal. Were all the lips of men the most eloquent at this present covered under ashes, what would it concern him? All the world is before him no more than the turn of a balance. Hath not he the morning stars round about his awful throne? I mean those great Angels all replenished with lights and perfections, who praise him incessantly. And were the world annihilated, and the very Angels confounded in the mass of stars and elements; he would ever be God, always as great as himself: and even left alone to his thoughts; in his own thoughts he would find heaven.  
But yet you will say, he may expect our conversion, which partly dependeth on ourselves; since he, who made us without us, will not save us without us. It is easy to reply thereupon, that God hath no need of the 
God hath no need of our conversion, to increase his glory Fasciculum suum super terram sundavit. Amos 6.  conversion of men, to augment his glory; but to establish their salvation: and should he have need; he continually hath his elect before him in the book of his prescience, without blotting forth, or thereunto adding any names. Think you he expecteth till we have done, to judge of our works? He knoweth from all eternity what we must do in such or such an occasion, his prescience not imposing any necessity upon our freewill. This great God sitting in the highest part of heaven continually 
Manet spectator cunctorum Deus, visionisque ejus praesens aeternitas cum nostrorum actuum qualitate concurrit Boet. l. 5. p. 6.  beholdeth all the actions of men: and the eternity of his vision perpetually present infallibly meeteth with the quality of our merits. It letteth us go according to the current of the stream, and the choice of our liberty; but if he would proceed with absolute power, there is no will so determinate upon evil which can resist him. And therefore we must conclude, his account is already made both within himself, and without himself; he not any whit depending on the future.  
It is more clear than the day, that God cannot hope; 
God supporteth all good hopes, by reason of the infinite capacity of his Essence. Sperastis in Domino in seculis aeternis, in Domino Deo forti in perpetuum. Isa. 16. 2.  but it is likewise most manifest, that he supporteth all good hopes by reason of the capacity of his Essence, of his power, and of his goodness: and therefore Esay speaks very notably: You have put your hope in our Lord, who is in eternal ages. In our Lord (I say) the true God, whose strength is not limited by length of time. Men are weak; and God is the God of the strong: Men sometimes preserve for a time; but God guardeth us eternally: Men have their wills as changeable as their power is limited; but God (besides that he is of a constancy unshaken) exerciseth a power unbounded. Where then may we better lodge our hopes, then in the Divinity?  
There it is where our second model (I mean the holy 
We must place our hopes in God, by the example of the holy Humanity of Jesus Christ. In te projectus sum ex ute●o, spes mea ab ube ribus matrismeae. For what reasons our Lord prayed  humanity of Jesus) placed all his hope. My God, my Hope; I did cast myself between thy arms, so soon as I began to be born in the world, and at my going from my mother's bosom, But one may here ask of theology, If Jesus had the virtue of Hope; what is it then he might hope? I answer, that if he might pray, he might hope. For, prayer, and (namely) a request is not made but with hope to obtain that we seek for. Now, who doubteth but that Jesus prayed on earth? and doth he not also pray now in heaven? He prayed (saith Theology) for four reasons. First, for the exercise of his virtue which is most excellent. Secondly, for our example. Thirdly, for the accomplishment of his commission; and lastly for necessity. I am not ignorant that S. John Damascen hath said, that Christ prayed not but in appearance, 
Damascen. l. 4. de side.  insomuch as prayer being properly an ascension of the mind to God; it could not be that the soul of Jesus Christ should mount anew into the Divinity, since from the day of his Conception it was there (as it were) enchased, not being able to be separated from it, one sole moment. But this question is satisfied by saying with Vazquez, that it is true that our Lord, in regard of the person of the Word, could not pray, having in this kind no superior: but by reason of the Humanity, which might be wanting and indigent without the help of the Divinity; therefore he mounted up to the source of the word, not by vision and beatific love, which he already enjoyed; but by the knowledge of science infused, and by a new desire to impetrate something of his heavenly Father.  
I say, he already had Beatitude, and that he was (as it were) engulfed in lights of glory; he notwithstanding had not yet glorification of his body, exaltation of his name, extent of his Church from one pole to the other: which made him pray, and to say with S. John, I beseech thee (O Father) make me glorious and resplendent before the face of all Creatures, as I was from 
Clarific. me tu Pater, apud temetipsum, claritate quam habui, priu●. quam mundus fieret apud re. Joan. 17.  all eternity in the source of thy divine lights, even before thou hadst enlightened the beauty of this Universe. And it is to no purpose to oppose against this, That he had nothing to do, to pray and hope for, since all he asked was fully assured him. For, it is evident that hopes, though certain, fail not to be hopes although they depend on the future. But which is more; the eternal Father had so tied our salvation to the prayers and hopes of Jesus Christ, that we could not obtain it, but under this condition. He prayed and hoped for us; but whilst he was yet hanging on the breast of his most blessed Mother, he shown us we must pour forth all our hopes on the firm rock of the power and goodness of God. And to speak truly; what are all the hopes of the world, but reeds without support; shells without pearls; seeming colours of the rainbow without solidity? O! how 
The hopes of the, world are very deceitful, and have no solidity. S. August. Serm. 28. de verbis Domini. c. 5.  well doth S. Augustine speak when he compareth hope to an egg? saying, that all Beasts bring forth young ones; but birds produce nothing but hopes, which are the Eggs. We are true Birds whilst we are in this miserable life, still hanging upon leaves, still troubled at time passed, ever uncertain of the future, ranging hither and thither, and perpetually restless, and finding punishments in the greatest contentments of Nature. We brood weak hopes like unto eggs, which promise us to bring forth wonders, and produce nought but wind. Hope is a marvellous Egg, whereof some eat the shell; others the white; but very few the yolk.  
This very well figureth unto us three sorts of Hopes, 
Three sorts of Hopes.  whereof some are harsh and irksome; others, vain; the rest in the end good, and nutritive. If you desire to see the harshness of worldly hopes, which we have set in the first place of this division; consider first, that hoping much, we must have much dependence upon another, which taketh away from us that sweet liberty, which is a good inestimable. To hope is not a thing which dependeth 
Sperare non est possibilitatis nostrae, sed largitatis alienae. ● Paul. Orosius in Apol. de lib. arbitrio.  upon our power, but on the liberality of another. It is much, that Hope, which is so slender and scanty, is not wholly ours. If we hope for a good, and expect it from our own forces; we are in danger to become presumptuous, vain and ridiculous. For how many see we in the world who daily are undone, by having too much presumed on their own power? How many little birds with feeble wings, have sought to take a flight which hath only served to render their fall the more notable? If we must expect this good hap from another (besides the submission of dependence which hath always somewhat distasteful in it) I see we most depend on men, some whereof want power; others, will; others, both together; but, if the one and other meet for a while, they are not of long continuance. The nature of blessings, which we hope for in the world, is frail, and more frail they from whom we hope them. We oftentimes hope for health from them, who are as sick as ourselves; life, from mortals; riches, from creatures, who are all in the poverty of nothing. If we reckon up our evils, our maladies, our suits, our injuries, and our persecutions; we shall find many who will compassionate us but very few to afford remedy. And that which often most vexeth us, is, that if there be some who are able, after they have promised us so much favour, & so many good turns, they in our cause are sparing of a step, and of the very wind of a word.  
Others sell us under pretext to secure us. These are Herculese, to whom we offer sacrifice to drive away Wolves, and they torment us more than the Wolves themselves. O how often are we enforced to say with the Prophet, Babylon my well-beloved, is set before mine 
Isa. 21. 14. Babylon dilecta mea posita est mihi in miraculum. Crepusculum desiderii mei posuit mihi in horrorem.  eyes as a miracle! And then presently, that, which is in the same Text, according to the Hebrew, Mishap is the cause, that the bright daybreak of my desires is turned into the horror of my thoughts. This Babylon of worldly hopes showeth itself, in the beginning, as a miracle; but if we proceed further, we find that those desires that were as pleasing as the dawning of day (which at its first springing appeareth all over studded with Emeralds and Rubies) turn at last, and are changed into the horrors of a sad Tempest.  
Many seemed to be already arrived at the end of 
Cruentat fortunae lenocinanus perfidus finis, & virum ut scorplus, ultimâ patre percutit.  their hopes, when good success forsook them in the beginning of their rising fortune, and if others went towards the end, they fell: that, albeit it had honey on the lip, and light in the face; it carried poison in the tail, like unto Scorpions. The vain hope of the world suggesteth us, what the Emperor Zemisees said to a Patriarch of Constantinople. Thou wert but an oven, and 
Sidon. l. 2. ep. 13. Ego te, furne, aedificavi, ego te, fume, destruam.  I have made thee a palace, but I will bring thee back to that state from whence thou goest. And all the splendour of thy false greatness shall only serve to make thy fall the more miserable. Good God, that those are constrained to eat the eggshel, who after they have hoped great felicities, see themselves thrown down, and roughly handled with pains waited on by ignominy, and confusion!  
They hit not upon a much more favourable condition, who eat the white of the egg, and who after they have hoped for great comforts in worldly prosperities, find the acquisition is painful, the fruition uncertain, and the taste most unsavoury. Never are the hopes of the 
Aut poterit comedi insullum, quod non est sale conditum. Job 6. 6. Et sicut somniat sitient, & bibit, & postquam fueri● expergefactus lassus adhuc sitit, Isa 29. 8. Libanins declare. 37.  world specious, but when they are far from us, and all the pleasure we take in them is like to that of dreams; from whence it comes that they very well are called dreams without sleep. What pleasure is it for a thirsty man to dream all night that he is one the brink of a most delicious fountain, if, being awakened, he find, that he still hath the fire of thirst on his lips? Libanius the Orator said, he would gladly cite his dreams to appear in judgement, and see them condemned as very impostors, which many times promise golden mountains, and perform nought but matter of sorrow. By a much stronger reason we have cause to say the same thing of all worldly hopes which desist not to deceive us, till we be a-sleep, but surprise us open-eyed; Yet we shall do wrong to question them; for they are innocent: but we are culpable to make so ill use of reason, as to run all our life-time after fancies. One of the wisest men of ancient times uttered a matter very remarkable, related by D. John chrysostom, to wit, that all mankind is tied with a great chain; composed of two folds of 
An excellent passage of a wise man mentioned by Chrysost.  links, which in great number all our life-time are multiplied, and interchangeably follow one another. One is called joy, and the other, sorrow. But besides this, there are some (saith this Wiseman) who have fetters on their heels, being tormented with harsh hopes, which, under the shadow of sweetness, insult over them, and hold them as long as they live in a painful slavery. There is a file (addeth he) called Reason, which is very excellent to file our fetters: but, there are none, but the most considerate who find it: fools are enforced to languish all their life-time in this Martyrdom, and as they have lived in the fervours of a fever, they also die in illusion.  
Then let us learn to make an eternal divorce from all those frivolous worldly hopes, and to look on Jesus as a polestar always , under whom all mobilities move. What a shame is it to spend the better part of our age after smokes and fantastic semblances, which pay us with nothing but griefs; and not to hope in a strong God, who supporteth the earth with 
Esto brac●ium nostrum in mane & salus vostra in tempore tribulationis. Isa. 33. 2 Salutare tuum expectabo Domine, Gen. 49. 18.  three fingers of his power; in a merciful God, who loveth us tenderly as the apple of his eye! Shall we never learn to say. Be our arms in the morning, and our salvation in the day of Tribulation? Let us not flatter ourselves with these goodly semblances of honour, of greatness, of riches, of pleasures, which by heap present themselves to our imagination; but let us say, Lord I will expect the Saviour thou hast promised me. Let us leave the men of the world, who unbowell themselves like Spiders by drawing out their entrails to catch files; but let us imitate those little silkworms, who cast forth precious threads, whereof they make a rich bottom in which they sleep, and come not forth but to take wings 
Fortissimum solatium habeamus, qui confugimus ad tenendam spem, quam sicut anchoram habemus aenimae tutam ac firmam, incedentes usque ad interlora velaminis, ubi praecur●or pro nobis introvit Jesus. Heb. 6 19  and soar in the air. Let us go and produce hopes which are as so many threads of gold, that involve us here below in precious repose, and a certain expectation of Beatitude, until charity hath perfected our wings to take our flight to the City of peace; where so many chosen souls stretch out an arm unto us. Let us take a very strong comfort, since we put ourselves between the arms of hope, (which we hold as a firm, and an assured anchor) to stay all the disturbances of our mind, going forward in our way till we pass the veil, and enter into the Tabernacle of the Sanctuary, whereinto Jesus our Precursor hath made his entry for our Salvation.    

The eight Treatise. Of DESPAIR.  

§ 1. It's Nature, Composition, and Effects.  
HE who would set forth the picture of Despair (me thinks) should do well to represent 
The image of Despair.  hope in the manner of some bird variously diversified with curious-coloured feathers, and endowed with a most melodious voice, that were pursued by a man with much eagerness; but when he should think to touch her with his finger, she should instantly vanish away in the air, and leave, in stead of herself, a black and ugy Hobgoblin which should possess all the passages both 
S. Thom. 1. 2. q. 4. art. 40. Recessus vitalis à bono ob ejus difficultaté vel praeciusam futuritionem. There are two sorts of Acts in this passion.  of the Palace, and Throne of this goodly Hope. In this property behold what the definition of Despair meaneth, which according to S. Thomas, is a recess from a good impossible, or which one proposeth within himself he can never attain unto. From whence it cometh, that there are two acts which compose this miserable Passion: the first whereof is a determinate judgement made upon the impossibility of the good that is sought; whether it be lost, or whether the means to arrive unto it be taken away, or whether it be so difficult, that the wit of man cannot purchase it at any price. Thence followeth a second Act, of grief and sadness, to see itself driven back from the desired object, without any hope of coming near unto it: for which cause, we may well represent the dismal spectre of Despair, tumbling so many Courtiers with frivolous hope down the mountain into the bottom of a valley, where some gnash their teeth, stamp with their feet, and pull themselves by the hair. Some run to the sword, to precipices and halters: others lie flat on the ground, drowned in their tears, and drenched in dull sadness, like people wholly senseless, and walking in the way of a Tomb, as having almost nothing at all to do with the living. But the thing most admirable is, that there are some to be seen, who, being come to the extremity of miseries, find themselves in an instant fallen into a happiness unexpected, so that Despair seems to have been for them the source of all their hopes.   

§ 2. The Causes of Despair, and the Condition of those who are most subject to this Passion.  
THey who are of a Melancholic humour are infinitely disposed to the effects of this direful passion. For to say truth, Melancholy is the Pit of the Abyss, from whence issueth forth an infinite quantity of evil vapours which cause night in the most cheerful brightness, and make the most pleasing beauties of Nature to be beheld with affrightment.  
They who are turmoiled herewith, easily resigning themselves over to Despair, are perpetually upon complaints and lamentations; they see public calamities coming afar off, and, like birds of an ill presage, do prognostic nothing but disastres. They have a singular inclination to believe the worst news, to augment it in their imagination, to amplify it in their discourses, and to affright the whole world (if they could) with panic terrors and imaginary fears. The lest mishap which befalls their family, is (in their opinion) a general ruin: Menaces are blows; blows, murders; the least sparks are Coals; Theatres strewed with flowers, are scaffolds covered with black for them; and all the actions of men are nought but Tragedies.  
Wise Plutarch said, All little Courages were naturally full of Complaints. They are like the river of Silias, wherein all sinks to the bottom, and nothing floateth; all passeth with them into the bottom of the soul, nought stays in the superficies: which is the cause that the heart replenished with cares and apprehensions, dischargeth itself (what it may) by the tongue.  
Besides the material cause of Despair, which is observed in Melancholy, we find others efficient, which ordinarily fasten upon great strong passions of Love, of Ambition, and of Avarice. All histories are full of miserable people, who having settled their affections upon objects, whence they could not with reason expect any satisfaction, after an infinite number of languors, toils and pursuits, have buried their love in Despair, and drowned their ardour in the blood of their wounds. Some have hanged themselves at the gate of their Mistresses, others have thrown themselves headlong down into ruins, others have been exposed to savage beasts, rather choosing to suffer the fury of tigers and lions, than the rage of Love without fruition.  
The Poet Virgil did her wrong, to put Dido Queen 
Dido prof●●● in alieno ●●lo ●bi nu●●ias regis 〈◊〉 optas●● lebueratne tamen secundas experiretur, maluitè contrario uri, quàm nubere. Tertul. in exhort. ad castitatem.  of Carthage into the number of the Unhappy, saying, she sacrificed herself to the sword and flames, out of a Despair conceived to see herself deprived of her Trojan: Tertullian justified the Ashes of his Countrywoman, assuring us she was one of the most chaste Ladies in the world, and did more in the matter of Chastity then S. Paul prescribeth. For the Apostle having said, That it is better to marry then to burn; she rather chose to burn then to marry, making her own funeral alive, and rather entering upon the flaming pile then to comply with the passion of a King who sought her in marriage after the death of her husband whom she had singularly loved.  
The passion of Ambition is no less violent in proud and arrogant spirits (who having been long born as on the wings of glory, and seeing themselves on a sudden so unfortunate, as to be trampled under foot by those who adored them) cannot digest the change of their fortune, anticipating that by violence, which they ought rather to expect from mercy. Such was Achitophel, accounted to be one of the greatest Statesmen of 
1 Reg. 17. 23  his time, whose counsels were esteemed as of a Deity, when seeing himself fallen from the great authority he had acquired, after he had set the affairs of his house in order, he took a halter with which he hanged himself. And it is thought Pilate followed the like course, 
Tantis irrogante Caio ang●●ibus coarctatus est, ut se suâ transverberans manu, malorum compendium mortis celeritate quaesierit Paul. Oros. l. 7. c. 4.  when he saw himself to be discountenanced after the death of his master Tiberius, and banished by Caius Caligula, the successor to the Empire. This calamity seemed unto him so intolerable, that he sought to shorten his miseries by hastening his death, which he gave himself by his own hand. Yet Eusebius, who seems to be the chief author of this narration, and who is followed by Paulus Orosius and others, doth not assure it, as a thing undoubtedly true, but as a popular rumour. For my part, I think it not amiss to believe 
Pilatus jam tunc pro sua conscientia Christian. Tertul. in Apoleg.  Tertullian, who conceiveth, that after the death of our Saviour, Pilate was a Christian in his conscience, when he in writing expressed to the Emperor Tiberius the things which occurred in the person of our Saviour with so much honour for our Religion, that from that time the Emperor resolved to put Jesus Christ into the number of the Gods. But if the opinion of this Author 
Yes that it might very well, as many examples testify.  were true, It could not be credible, that a man who had a tincture of Christianity should have ended his life by so furious a Despair.  
Avarice in this point will nothing at all give place to Ambition, for there are many to be found, who (seeing themselves unexpectedly deprived of treasures which they kept, as the Griphons' of Scythia) would not longer behold the Sun, after the Sun had seen the Gold which they hide in the bowels of the earth. Witness that covetous man of the Greek Anthology, who strangled himself with the same halter wherewith another man had determined to hang himself, who by chance having found this caitiffs treasure, was diverted from it. This may very well teach us, that it is very dangerous, passionately to affect the objects of the world, because (as saith S. Gregory) one cannot without immeasurable grief lose all that which with unlimited love is possessed. The evil spirit, who soundeth each one's inclinations, and discovereth their dispositions, powerfully intermeddleth in them, and layeth snares for men in all the things wherein he observeth them to be with the most fervour, busied. To these occasions of Despair, fear of pain and shame is added, which is very ordinary, and is the cause that many hasten their end, before they fall into the hands of their enemies, or are laid hold on by Justice, which is as much as if one should die, not to die. This was very common among Pagans, who esteemed that a glory which we hold the worst of crimes: and the like opinion crept very fare, into the minds of the Hebrews, who thought themselves to be sacred persons, and imagined they did an act generous and profitable to the glory of God, to kill themselves, before the hands of Infidels were bathed in their blood. This is the cause if we believe the ordinary Gloss of the first Book of Kings, and 
Glossa in 1 Reg. 31. Dicunt Hebraei, & aliqui etiam Christiani, quod interficere seipsum in●uitu Divini honoris, nè vituperium exerceatur in proprio corpore redundans in Dei vituperium, sicut timebar Saul, non esse illicitum.  the ancient Interpreters of this Nation, that we cannot conclude the damnation of Saul by an infallible demonstration for having strucken himself; seeing, that according to their opinion, he was not sufficiently illuminated by the lights of the ancient Law, that it was a Mortal sin to hasten his death to save the honour of his Religion, and to deliver himself from the scorn of Infidels. Nay, they assure us, that he in this occasion ordered himself as a treasure of God, refusing to deliver up unto enemies a Head honoured with sacred Unction, to be alive defiled by their profane hands. They add, that he had before him the example of Samson, who was admired by all his own Nation for being overwhelmed with the Philistims under the ruins of a house. And that after him Razias, esteemed a Saint 
Macch. 1. 12  and a courageous man, gave himself the stroke of death, and threw his bowels all bloody from the top of a turret on the heads of his enemies. But now at 
Placuit, ut qui sibi ipsis voluntariè violentam inferunt mortem, nulla prorsus pro illis in oblatione commemoratio fiat. Ex Concil. Braccarensi primo. c. 34. Caus 23. q 5 in Glossa. Laym. p. 116  this time we stand in a clear light, communicated unto us by Counsels and School-Divinity, and know it is not at all lawful, so fare as that a Decree hath decided, that a Virgin ought rather to suffer the loss of virginity of body by a manifest violence, then of her own accord to tear out her soul. Yet Doctors do not condemn him who throws himself down headlong to avoid a burning, nor him who putteth fire to the powder of a ship taken with Pirates, wherein he cannot doubt but he must perish, but he hasteneth his end to take a prey from his enemy, and to sacrifice himself for a Public good.  
The Doctrine which blameth every other act of Despair, is conform to the opinion of the best Philosophers, who held, it is to die like a licentious beast, to go out of this life without his warrant, by whose leave we entered into it. Seneca who had been of another opinion, changed it afterward at the end of his days, nor would he use violence against himself, wherewith Nero was amazed, and sent him the sentence of death, which he received with a marvellous courage; showing, that if he sealed not his former opinion with his blood, it was not for want of resolution, but that he had acquired more light. For my part, I probably 
Bundem quem nos Jovem, intelligunt rectorem universi, cui nomen omue convenit.  think he was at that time a Christian, although not declared; and it is to no purpose to allege, that he in his last words maketh mention of a Jupiter Liberator, since he explicateth it in his writings, showing that by this word he understands no other God, than the sovereign Monarch of the Universe.  
We ought not to take this glory from him, since 
Nat. quaest. lib. 3. S. Hier. l. de Scriptoribus Ecclesiast.  S. Hierome so clearly giveth it him, placing him in the number of Christian Authors and Confessors of Jesus Christ. And that Flavius Dexter, a notable Historian, who flourished in S. Augustine's time, and who wrote the History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ our Saviour, to the year 430. expressly saith in the year 64. De Christiana re bene sensit, factúsque Christianus occultus. But if this be so, it cannot have been but in the last year of Seneca's life, which is 66. of our Lord, when the holy Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul returning thither the second time, made Christianity in that place to be resplendent. From whence it comes, that they much labour in vain who allege many passages out of Seneca's book, composed in his Paganism, to disapprove our opinion.   

§ 3. Humane Remedies of Despair.  
THe cause of Despair and the condition of those who Despair, being sufficiently known, we must fortify ourselves against this pernicious passion with all the courage and prudence we can use. If we consider the humane Remedies, they will teach us, that the inconstancy of things on the earth which overwhelm us, may raise us, that the state of this inferior world is as a wheel, whereon we do nought but go up and come down; and that when we have the most happiness, then is the time we fall to the lowest degree of misery. When the unfortunate are descended into abysses, the 
De carcer● catenisque interdum quis egreditur ad regnum. Zonaras. in Michael.  prosperous leap up in their places. We have seen of them, as the Wiseman observeth, that have mounted to Empires from the deep dungeons of a prison, as did Michael the Emperor, who was unexpectedly snatched out of the hands of Leo when he had resolved to burn him alive: was taken from black Caverns, born to the Palace as yet nasty and all horrid, and on his Imperial Throne made to file off the fetters on his feet, for that the key of them could not be found. The proud Sesostris, King of Egypt, who pompously walked along in a chariot harnessed out with Kings, was diverted from his insolency by one of those miserable Princes, who taught him a lesson of the revolution of humane things by the resemblance of the wheels of the chariot of triumph, whereuhto pride had lifted him. Experience will tell us, that many for having lightly believed their evil fortune, were deprived of very great prosperities; and became unfortunate for no other reason, but that they thought themselves such before their time.  
Perseverance will instruct us, that in worldly affairs, as are marriages, offices, benefices, suits in law, commerce, good turns, and recompenses; we must not still fall off out of mood, but patiently expect the hour of our good hap, whilst there is any reasonable likelihood, Scardion in the third Book of his History, recounteth an excellent passage of Pope Innocent the Seventh, who employed a famous Painter named Andrew Mattineus, in adorning his Chapel of the Vatican. This brave workman bend himself to it with affection, and therein used his most exquisite inventions, hoping that he who set him a-work, would largely requite his merit in so notable a power to oblige all the world. He notwithstanding saw his labours daily to go on, but felt no rewards coming, which one day put him into Choler, with a resolution to be revenged by some trick of his Art. The Pope had commanded him to paint the seven deadly Sins, but he instead of taking his proportions for seven places, added thereunto an eighth, wherein he purposed to make a hideous monster. Innocent more fully informing himself of his design, the Painter answered, he left this place there to represent Ingratitude, as the most capital of all Vices. The Pope well understanding what he would say, smiled, and said, Matineus, I give consent thou paint Ingratitude as ugly as thou pleasest, but on this condition, that thou place Patience directly over against it, which of all Virtues is the most courageous, from which thou art very much alienated, being unable a little to expect patiently the good I have resolved to do thee: and presently he gave him a good Benefice for his son's preferment.  
Lastly, commonly fame will show us there are people, whose ears are like those gates through which nothing was suffered to pass but direful things. They burden themselves with all the worst, and become eloquent in the mishap of their friends, as if they infinitely obliged them by learning their disastres. We shall easily find a remedy for the evil we apprehend, by not being over credulous in giving ear to these news-carriers whom Poets will have to be the messengers of Hell. Constancy will assure us, that the evil opinion one hath of his own affairs troubleth the whole business; that we must persevere to the end, and albeit, the tempest turmoil us, never to forsake the helm, though tossed in the midst of surges. If it be a last necessity which assaileth us, we must put on the countenance of a Saint to receive it, and confidently believe, that if it take all Hope from us, it will by little and little take away also all our Despair. It is very dangerous at that time to trust our own thoughts, and to entertain dotages of the mind: rather, we should seek (by the comfort of a confident Confessor, and by other good friends) to strengthen ourselves against the storm which most commonly, only threatneth us in the haven.   

§ 4, Divine Remedies.  
IF our soul have leisure to take wings, and to raise itself above itself, let us look upon Divine Remedies, 
Remedies for this Passion.  whereof we may make use to divert or vanquish this direful Passion; which is verily one of the most poisonous of reasonable nature. And first of all, let us consider, how God being neither capable of Hope nor Despair, faileth not to invite us to the one, and to withdraw us from the other, by the operations which he exerciseth on the visible world.  
Venerable Bede saith excellently well in his Observations, 
An excellent saying of venerable Bede.  that he hath three sorts of Habitations, wherein he hath lodged six divers things. In heaven, he hath placed Verity and Eternity. On earth, Curiosity and Repentance. In hell, Misery and Despair. Why should we then take to us a Passion of the damned, which is not made for the world wherein we live? It is a remarkable thing, that God to make us hope, hath oftentimes strained the laws of Nature, doing things which seemed impossible to all humane judgements; and in works of Grace he daily also produceth miracles, drawing to salvation and glory people merely desperate, according to the opinion of the world. How could we have one sole touch of Despair, were we truly faithful, since God engageth even his goodness and power, to make us hope all that, which according to 
Non est impossibile apud Deum omne verbum. Luc. 1. Ipse dixit & facta sunt, ipse manda vit & creata sunt. Psal. 148.  Man, is desperate. There is nothing impossible to the omnipotency of God. He did but speak a word, and it was sufficient to vindicate from nothing all this vast world of Creatures. So soon as he ordained it, so soon it was done. And he hath indifferently let us know his greatness, as well in the production of the least things, as in the creation of the most noble and eminent.  
There are three things which are opposite to admirable 
Magnus' in magn●, nec parvus in minimis. Aug. serm. de Temp. What hindereth the production of admirable works.  works: First, the weakness of the Agent created. Secondly, the indisposition of the subject. Thirdly, the frequency of things seen and used. But God takes away these three obstacles to do miracles in Nature. He gives to Active creatures a strength merely particular, and wholly Divine, to work above their force. He gives to Passive, a power of submission, and a capacity to receive the supernatural impression of agents, and brings forth effects, which are not only great, but 
God when he pleaseth takes away all the obstacles which oppose thereunto.  wholly extraordinary. And which is more, we therein observe five Excellencies, which are as five rays of their glory: to wit, Efficacy, Durance, Utility, the End, and the Means, which render all these works of God infinitely recommendable. It is by his command, that burning pillars walk in the air to serve as a standard 
The wonders which God makes to appear in the ●ld Testa●e●● by the help of his creatures.  for six hundred thousand fighting-men. That the sea parts in sunder and divides itself into two banks of Crystal, to make a rampart for his people. That the Clouds of heaven shower bread of Angels. That Rocks open their sides to pour forth fountains. That armies of Flies and Caterpillars destroy legions all of iron and steel. That the Sun stands still in the midsts of his career. That whales make a temple of their belly for a Prophet. That Sepulchers yield forth the dead alive. All this is done in nature by the ministry of Angels and the service of men: but, by the virtue of God alone, to whom it belongeth to do miracles; the soul of Jesus Christ itself having not been but the instrument 
S. Thom 3. q. 13. 2.  of the World united to it in such like operation. What is it we ought not to hope from a God, from whom we can despair of nothing, and who holdeth Totall Nature at his service to help our confidence? But, not content with it, he passeth to miraculous works of Grace, wherein he causeth unexpected productions. I will give you an excellent consideration, 
God indifferently treateth elect souls as reprobate, during life, without showing that he despaireth of their salvation.  to encourage you never to despair, either of your own salvation, or that of other sinners. It is, that God, albeit, by his prescience he cannot be ignorant of the success of souls which are out of the sweetness of his predestination, and who are not reckoned in the number of his Elect; yet whilst they are involved in bodies, he treateth them as his own, not showing that he despaireth of their happiness.  
Divines teach us, that there is not any one destitute 
God never faileth, with necessary succours, & sufficient Grace, to save us. Psalm 18. August. ibid. Non est qui se abscondat à calore ejus.  of the help of sufficient Grace to work his salvation; not any one who is not visited with inspirations necessary for this purpose. Thus doth S. Augustine interpret the passage of the 18. Psalm, There is none who can hid himself from his heat. The ardour of the Word Divine pierceth through the coldest shadows of death. The Sun is very general, and there is not a creature in the world so little, which hears not news of him: yet all night long he retireth from us. And there are many people who are plunged in nights so tedious and irksome, that they seem to be (as it were) eternal. But this sun of Grace penetrateth into the 
Desperate people whom God visited to their end.  darkest obscurities: It finds out men, who have nothing of man but skin and figure, and speaketh to them with its rays, which are so many tongues from heaven: It spoke to Herod after the murder of fourteen thousand Innocents': It spoke to Nero, in the agitations of a mind troubled with the image of his crimes: It spoke to the Emperor Theophilus, when dying, he held between his hands the head of Theophobus his Constable to satiate his revenge: Lastly, It makes us pronounce aloud the excellent saying of S. Clemens Alexandrinus, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Cle●▪ Alex. protrept.  There are no Cimmerians for the Word of God. He makes allusion to certain people, whom we now call Georgians, or else to those who anciently inhabited in the territory of Rome in places under the ground, such as that which we now adays call Sibylla's Grot, and it is thought the Sun never reflected into their caves; but it is not so in the visits of the holy Ghost; The great 
S. Dionys. de Hierarch. coelesti.  sea of Divine Lights is ever at hand, and abundantly overfloweth in favour of such evils as will participate therein. I am not ignorant, that certain Divines have said, that some sinners arrive many times to such exorbitancy of crimes and ingratitudes, that they in the end are totally abandoned by God, and have not all the rest of their time, one sole good thought. But the 
Bellarm. l. 2 de Gratia.  most moderate say, that this happeneth for certain time, and certain moments, albeit, one cannot generally 
S. Thom. 3. 4. 86. Dicere quod peccatum sit in hac vita de quo quis poenltere non possit, erroneum est. Misericordiae Dei nec mensuram possumus ponere nec tempora definire. S. Leo. ep. 89 Admirabile conversions of such as seemed desperate.  say that a man may come to an estate so desperate, as to be wholly impenetrable to the graces of God: It is an error to say, that a crime so detestable may happen in the world, of which one cannot have remission. We cannot set limits, nor bound time in the infinite mercies of God. Moses the Ethiopian, who was so black of body, so stained in conscience, so wicked of life, that he was accounted a devil incarnate, was so changed by the Grace of God, that he became an Angel of heaven. An infamous thief having obtained his pardon of the Emperor Mauricius, was put into the Hospital of S. Samson, where he so plentifully bewailed his sins in the last agonies of death, that the Physician who took care of him, coming to see him, found him unexpectedly dead, and over his face a handkerchief bathed with his tears; and soon after he had a certain revelation of his Beatitude. To this purpose Pope Celestine said, That a true Conversion made at the 
Coelest. 1. ep. 2. c. 2. Vera ad Deum conversio in ultimis positorum ment potius est existimanda quam tempere.  last end of life, is to be measured by the mind, not by the time. God caused a thief to mount from the gallows to Glory, to teach us, that as there is nothing impossible to his Power, so there is not any thing limited in his Mercy. It is only fit for him to Despair, who can be as wicked as God is good.   

§ 5, The Examples which Jesus Christ gave us in the abyss of his suffering are most efficacious against pusillanimity.  
BEhold the consolations we may derive f●om our first model: but if we will consider the second; 
The sight of our Saviour teacheth us to persevere in our good hopes, and not to despair.  we shall find that our Lord, who did all for our instruction, witnessed strong hopes in the great abyss of dolours wherewith he was all covered over on the Cross, to encourage us to hope well in the most sensible afflictions.  
That you may well understand this point so important, you must consider, what then was the state of the body and soul of Jesus Christ: the body was so full of wounds, that they, who could not be satisfied with his pains, did more in him torment his wounds then his members. He had almost no part about him entire, whereof he on the Cross could make use, but his eyes and his tongue. His eyes not being pulled out as (Samson's and Zedekiahs;) there was nothing left for him, but to set before his view the Martyrdom of his good Mother, who was fastened on the Cross by love, and who imprinted in her soul, by a most amorous reflection, all the torments which the King of the afflicted bare on his body. His Tongue, which he had reserved free to be the organ of heavenly harmonies in those fervent prayers he sent to his celestial Father, was wholly drenched in gall,  
But all this was nothing in comparison of the dolours of his Soul: For, he was destitute for a time of all divine Consolations, abandoned to himself, delivered over as a prey to all the outrageous sadness which may grow in our minds. It was a horrible blasphemy in Calvin to say, that our Lord descended into Hell, 
Calvin. l. 2. Instit. c. 16.  there to endure the pains of the damned, without the suffering of which, he was not in a state to be able to redeem the world. This (spoken in the manner as this abominable Novelist hath dared to write) woundeth, and offendeth the most obdurate ears. But if we 
Sua●ez. in 3. q. 46. Fieri potuit ut intensiuè esset major: an ità de facto fuerit non potest constare.  will speak with the most eminent Divines, we may say, that it is very likely that the Agonies of our Saviour's Soul might in some sort enter into Comparison with the sadness of the damned; not by reason of their condition, but of their excess. And certainly some have thought that our Saviour, stirring up in his blessed Soul a Contrition for all the sin of the world in 
The excess of the contrition and dolour of our Lord.  general, and of every one in particular, was wounded with so piercing a sorrow, that it in some sort exceeded that of devils and the damned. For, all the sadness, which may be imagined in hell consisteth in acts which are produced from Principles that surpass not the force of Humane or Angelical Nature: but the pain which our Saviour endured for the expiation of our Ingratitude, was derived from the heart of God according to the whole latitude of the Grace and Charity of the word Incarnrte.  
For which cause, it is conformable to reason to say, 
The three sadnesses of our Saviour.  by Allegory, that this blessed Soul entered into three kinds of sacred and honourable flames, and of pains wholly Divine. The first was, in the garden of Olivet, when he said, His soul was sad to death: The 
Ma●. 16.  second, when he pronounced on the Cross, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Complaining, 
Mat. 17.  not of the separation of the Word (as some ancient Writers have understood it, little conform to true 
Vox recedentis verbi Dei contestata dissidium. Hil. can. 33. Athan. lib. de Incarn. Aug. racked. 47. in Joan.  Theology) but of recess from protection (as S. Athanasius doth explicate it in his Book of the Incarnation; and S. Augustine in his 47. Tract upon S. John.) The third was, at the going forth of the incomparable soul of Jesus, when there was not so small a filament of a vein in his body, which resented not the absence of this divine Sun.  
Notwithstanding, among all these great convulsions which put heaven into mourning, and earth into quakings under his feet: he stood firm, and, with an eye bathed in blood beheld the rays of Glory which were to crown him after so exquisite torments: so that in the one and twentieth Psalm (which it is thought our 
Narr abo nomen tuum fratribus meis, in medio Ecclesiae laudabo te. Apud te laus mea in Ecclesia magna, vota meareddam in conspectu timentium cum. Psal. 21  Saviour wholly recited when he hanged on the Cross) having reckoned up the dolours which environed him on all sides; he raised himself up as the Palm against the weight of his afflictions, and said, I will declare thy Name to my brethren in the midst of the whole assembly of the faithful. Yea, my God, all my praise shall be in thee, and for thee. I will pronounce thy marvels in thine own house, and I will offer thee my vows and sacrifices before all those who make profession to honour thee.   

6. Encouragements to good Hopes.  
ANd will we then in so great light of Examples, in so eminent protection of divine Helps, resign ourselves over to sadness and despair; among so many accidents of this transitory life? Despair only belongs to hearts gnawn with dull melancholy, and to souls extremely in love with themselves and the commodities of the world, or to malign spirits who have lost all the sparks of good conscience; or lastly, to the damned.  
Why should we deprive ourselves of an inestimable treasure of good hopes, which the eternal Father hath kept for us in his omnipotency; of which the word Incarnate hath assured us on the Cross with his blood, and the rest of his life? Is it not a goodly thing to see people who bear the character of Christianity, to lay down the bucklet, and to throw away arms at the first approach of some affliction whatsoever, to grumble and murmur against God and men; to cruciate themselves like Prometheus on the rocks of Caucasus, to torment themselves with a thousand imaginary evils? woe to you Apostate and fugitive children, 
Vae, filii desertores, dicit Dominus, ut faceretis consilium & non ex me, & ordiremini telam, & non per Spiritum meum. Isa 30. 1. Chrysost. ad Theodorum  who have made resolutions without me, and who have weaved a web which was not warped by my spirit. It is no extraordinary matter (said S. chrysostom) to fall in wrestling; but to be willing to lie still stretched out at length on the earth. It is no dishonour to receive wounds in fight; but, to neglect them, and to let the gangrene through laziness to creep in, is a folly inexcusable.  
We entered into this life, as into a list, to wrestle; as into a field of battle to fight: why are we amazed, if God use us as he did his most valorous champions? Let us look upon life on all sides, and we shall find it preserved by good Hopes, and is totally ruined by Despair. Behold, men build after ruins and fires; see, others (after they are come all naked from amidst waves, rocks, frothy rages of the sea) gather together in the haven broken planks of their unfortunate vessels, to commit their life to an element whose infidelity they know by experience, and taste prosperous success only by very slight hopes. Yet fly they like Eagles into dangers, among all the images of death, after they therein have been so ill treated. When Alexander was ready to enter into the Indies, one said unto him, Whither wilt thou go? Beyond the world? where dying Nature is but a dull lump: where darkness robs men of heaven's light: and the water hath no acquaintance 
Aliena quid aequo ra remis, & sacras violamus aquas, Diuúmque quietas turbamus sedes? Eamus, inter has sedes, Hercules coelum meruit. Senec. suasorta 1.  with the earth. What shall you see, but frozen seas; prodigious monsters; malign stars; and all the powers of life conspiring your death? To what purpose is it to hasten to sail over new and unheard of seas? Inconsiderately to interrupt the peaceful seat of the Gods? But (replied he) Let us courageously go on, let us discover those forlorn countries': Thus did great Hercules deserve to win heaven.  
Hope caused Rome to set Armies on foot after the battle of Cannae; and France, to triumph over the English by the hands of a silly shepherdnesse: wherefore will we despair of our salvation, sigh the mercy of God was never extinguished, nor can he cease to be what he is? what a thought of a devil is it, to deliver one's self over to despair in the sight of a Jesus, who beareth our reconciliation on his sacred members, and pleadeth our cause before his eternal Fathet, with as many mouths as our sins in him have opened wounds? Know we not, We have a Bishop, who cannot but compassionate 
Non habemus Pontificem, qui non possit compati infirmitatibus nostris, tentatum per omnia. Heb. 4.  our infirmities, seeing he himself hath pleased to pass through all those trials; and to make experience thereof to his own cost and charges? It is not the despair of our salvation which tempteth us, but that of temporal goods; this suit, and that money, is lost: here is the thing which afflicteth this desolate soul, and makes it hate its proper life. O soul, ignorant of the good and evil of thy life! It is thy love and not thy despair alone which tormenteth thee. Thou than hast fixed thy Beatitude on this gold, this silver, on thy profit by this suit; and thou lookest on it, as on a little Divinity. Dost thou forget the words 
Perdix sovit quae non peperit, secit divitias, & none in judicio, in dimidio dierum suorum derelinquet eas. Jer. 17. 11.  of the Prophet? Silly partridge thou broodest borrowed eggs, thou hast hatched birds which were not thine: let them fly, sigh thou canst not hold them.  
That which thou esteemest a great loss, shall be the beginning of thy happiness: thou shalt ever be rich enough, if thou learnest to be satisfied with God. But, this person (whom I more dearly loved then myself) is dead, and all my purposes are ruined by his death: wherefore dost thou resolve with thyself to say now he is dead? Began he not to die from the day of his birth? Must he be looked on as a thing immortal, since both thou and he have already received the Sentence of your deaths from your mother's wombs? If thou only grievest for his absence, thou wilt quickly be content; for thou daily goest on towards him, as fast as the Sun which enlighteneth us; there is not a day which set thee not forward millions of leagues towards thy Tomb. I am content that they bewail the dead, who 
Ruricius. S. Hieron. Fleant mortuos suos qui spem resurrectionis habere non possunt. fleant mortuos suos quos in perpetuum aestimant interiisse, in brevi visuri sumus, quos dolemus absentes.  can have no hope of Resurrection; they who believe they are dead never to live again. Let them bemoan the loss of their friends as long as they will: as for us, we shall soon see one another, and re-enter into the possession of those, whose absence we a while lament.  
It is not absence (say you) which most afflicteth me; but, to see myself destitute of a support which I expected, that is it vexeth me. Enter into thy heart, lay thy hand on thy thoughts, and they will teach thee, that all thy unhappiness cometh from being still too much tied to honours, ambitions, and worldly commodities. I would divert thee as much as I might possibly from despair, but I at this present find that the remedy of thy evils will never be, but in a holy Despair of all the frivolous fair semblances of the world. O how wisely said Vegetius, That Despair is in many a necessity of virtue. But more wisely, S. John Climachus, 
Veg. l 4. c. 5. Necessitas quaedam virtutis est desperatio. Clym. gr. 3. peregrinatio vera est omnium protsus rerum desperatio.  who defining the life of a perfect Christian, which he calleth the Pilgrimage, did let these words fall, True, and perfect Religion is a general Despair of all things. O what a happy science is it, to know how to Despair of all, to put all our hope in God alone? Let us take away those deceitful and treacherous props which besiege our credulous minds, and cease not to enter into our heart by heaps: Let us bid adieu to all the charming promises of a barren and lying world, and turning our eyes towards this celestial Jerusalem our true country; let us sing with the Prophet, All the greatest comfort I have in this miserable life, is, that I often lift 
Levavi oculos meos in montes, unde veniet auxilium mihi. Auxilium meum à Domino, qui fecit coelum & terram. Psal. 120.  up mine eyes to the mountains, and towards heaven, to see if any necessary succour comes to me from any place. From whence can I hope more help or consolation, then from the great God omnipotent, who of nothing created this Universe and hath (for my sake) made an infinity of so many goodly creatures? Should I see armed squadrons of thunders and lightnings to fall on me, I would have a spirit as confident, as if there were no danger. Were I 
Si consistant adversùm me castra, non timebit cor meum. Psal. 263. etc.  to pass through the horrors of death being in thy company, I would fear no danger. Moreover, I hold it for a singular favour, and it shall be no small comfort to me, when thou takest pain lovingly to chastise me for my misdeeds, and to favour me with thy visits. Happy he, who hath raised his gain from his losses, his assurance out of his uncertainties, his strength out of his infirmities, his hopes out of his proper Despairs, and who hopes not any thing but what is promised by God, nor is contented but with God who satisfieth all desires and crowneth all felicities.    

The ninth Treatise, Of FEAR.  

§ 1. The Definition, the Description, the Causes and Effects thereof.  
FEar is the daughter of self-love and opinion; a Passion truly horrid, which causeth 
The nature of Fear, and the bad effects of it.  all things to be feared (yea, those which are not, as yet in being) and by making all to be feared, hath nothing so terrible as itself. It falleth on a poor heart, on a miserable man, as would a tempest not fore-seen, or like a ravenous beast practised in slaughter; and confiscateth a body which it suddenly interdicteth the functions of nature, and the use of forces. It doth at first, that, with us, which the Sparrow-hawk doth with the Quail. It lays hold on the heart, which is the fountain of heat, and source of life; it seizeth on it, it gripes it, it tortureth it in such sort, that all the members of the body extremely afflicted with the accident befallen their poor Prince, send him some small tributes of blood and heat to comfort him in his sufferings, whereby the body becomes much weakened. The vermilion of cheeks instantly fadeth, and paleness spreads over all the face, destitute of the blood wherewith it was formerly coloured; the hair hard strained at the root with cold, stairs and stands on end; the flames which sweetly blaze in the eyes, fall into eclipse; the voice is interrupted; words are imperfectly spoken; all the organs and bands are loosened and untied; quaking spreads itself over all, especially the knees, which are the Basis of this building of Nature) and over the hands which are frontier-places, most distant from the direction of the Prince, who is then toiled with the confusion of his state. This evil passion is not content to seize on our body, but it flieth to the superior region of our soul, to cause disorder; robbing us almost in a moment of memory, understanding judgement will, courage, and rendering us benumbed, dull, and stupid in our actions. This notwithstanding is not to be understood but of an inordinate fear. And that we may see daylight through this dark passion, to know it in all 
The sorts of Fear. Clavus animae fluctuantis. Amb. de Paradis. Tertul. de cultufoemin. O necessarius timor! qui tim et arte non casu, voluntate non necessitate, religione non culpa. S. Zeno.  the parts thereof; I say first in general that there are two sorts of Fear, Moral and Natural, Moral, which comprehending filial, and servile, is not properly a Passion, but a Virtue, which S. Barnaby (according to the report of Clemens Alexandrinus) called the Coadjutrix of Faith. S. Ambrose, the rudder of the soul. And Tertullian, the foundation of Salvation. Of this very same it was S. Zeno spoke so eloquently. O necessary fear! which art to be procured by care and study, and not to be met by chance, voluntarily, not out of necessity, and rather by overmuch piety and tenderness, then by the occasion of sin which brings a guilty soul vexation enough.  
Natural fear is properly an apprehension of a near approaching evil framed in the soul, whether it be real, or seeming, to which one cannot easily make resistance. It is divided into six parts, according to the Doctrine of S. John Damascen, to wit, Pusillanimity, Bashfulness, 
Six sorts of natural Fear.  Shame, Amazement, Stupidity, and Agony. Pusillanimity feareth a labour burdensome, and offensive to nature. Bashfulness flieth a foul act, not yet committed. Shame dreadeth disgrace which ordinarily followeth the sin when it is committed. Amazement (which we otherwise call admiration) is caused by an object we have of some evil which is great, new, and not expected, the progressions and events whereof we cannot foresee. Stupidity proceedeth, from a great superabundance of fear which oppresseth all the faculties of the soul. And Agony is the last degree which totally swalloweth up the spirit in the extreme nearness of great evils, and greatly remediless.  
Forasmuch as concerneth the causes of this passion, 
The causes of fear.  if we will reason upon it, we shall find, that the chief and most considerable, is self-love, which is ever bend upon the preservation of itself, and the exclusion of all things offensive; from whence it cometh, that all the greatest lovers of themselves are the most fearful, and the most reserved in the least occasions of peril, as are ordinarily persons rich, full of ease, and nice; who resemble the fish that hath gold on his scales, and is 
Aelian. l. 12. de animal. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  the most timorous creature of the sea. The second, wherein many particular causes meet, is the evil to come, namely when it is great, near, inevitable, and that it tends to the privation of our being. From thence arise a thousand spectres of terror; as are poverty, outrages, maladies, thunder, fire, sword, inundations, violent deaths, wild beasts; and above all, men powerful, cruel, revengeful, wicked; especially when they are offended, or that they have some interest in our ruin, and that they can freely be revenged without any fear of laws or punishment. Add to these, the envious, corrivals, greedy heirs, friends treacherous, provoked, or timorous, mutinous, quarrelsome, violent, and greedy. The third motive of fear, is, the ignorance, and little experience we have in the evils of the world: for, all that which is covert and hidden from us seems the more terrible, as are solitudes, abysses, darknesses, and persons disguised. From thence cometh, that women, children, and men bred in a soft and sedentary life are more timorous, sigh the knowledge of dangers whereof they are deprived is a great Mistress of Fortitude. The fourth source is coldness, and consideration, which is the cause that the wisest justly fear perils, where hare-brained youngmen, fools and drunkards carelessly jest and make sport: and that was the cause why Sylla finding himself many times too considerate in the forefight of evils, did endeavour to drown his apprehensions in wine. The fifth, is observed in a nature cold, melancholic, imaginative, and distrustful, which sometimes happeneth to Hypocondriacks, such as was that of the ancient Artemon, who caused a buckler continually to be carried over his head by two Lackeys, fearing lest something falling from on high might hurt him: or that of Pisander, who feared to meet his own soul: or that other frantic fellow, who durst not walk for fear of breaking the world, which he persuaded himself was wholly made of glass.  
The sixth, lastly comes from an ill conscience. For there 
Semper enim praesumit saeva perturbata conscientia. Sap. 17. 11. Plutarch, de sera numinis vindicta.  is not any thing so turmoiled, so torn, and so divided as a soul which hath always before it the image of its own crimes. This was it which made the Nero's and Domitian's to tremble: This, which caused Apollodorus (of whom Plutarch speaketh) to have horrible visions, so that it many times seemed to him in his nightly sleeps that the Scythians flaied him alive & threw his chopped members one after another into a boiling caldron, and that he had nothing alive but his heart, which said to him in the bottom of this caldron, I am thy wicked heart, It is I, who am the source of all thy Disastres.   

§. 2. Of the vexations of Fear, its Differences, and Remedies.  
WE may well say this passion is one of the most 
Fear, a troublesome passion.  troublesome and vexing among all the motions of our mind; because it is extremely ranging, sith, not content with the evils which are on the sea and land, yea in Hell, it forgeth new which have no subsistence, but in the perplexity of an imagination quite confounded. Besides this, it more spiritually tormenteth us, making our Judgement and Reason to contribute to our vexations, and many times so long turmoileth us, that it maketh us to fear, half an age of time, that, which 
The ignorance of our evils is a stratagem of the divine Providence.  passeth in a moment. For which cause, I account it a loving clemency of God to hid from us the greatest part of the things which befall us, the knowledge whereof would continually over-whelm our wretched life with sadness and affrightment, and not give us leave nor leisure, to breathe among the delicious objects of Nature. If so many great and eminent personages, who being mounted to the highest degrees of honour, have been thrown down into abysses, had continually beheld the change of their fortune, and the bloody ends of their life; it is not credible but that the joys of their triumphs would have been moistened with their tears, and by a perpetual fear of an inevitable necessity, they would have lost all the moments of their felicity.  
Now, in some sort to remedy a plague so general; 
Three sor●● of fear.  I find, the troubles which come to us this way either are natural timidities, or fears of things very frequent in the condition of humane life, or are affrightments upon some terrible and unusual objects. Forasmuch as concerneth timidities which we see in fearful natures, 
Timidity, its causes and symptoms.  they proceed either from the disposition of body and melancholic humour, or from the quantity of heart which is sometimes too great and hath little heat; or from idleness and effeminacy of life; or from a base birth and from a sedentary breeding, or from small experience, or from overmuch love of reputation, and ease both of mind and body. Some are timorous in conversation and fear to approach men of quality, they dread the aspect of those whom they have not accustomed to see, they quickly change colour, they have no consequence in their speech, no behaviour, no discourse, their words are broken, the tone of their voice is trembling, and their countenance nothing confident; which very often happeneth to young men timorously bred, and little experienced. Others fear all occasions of Ceremonies, of pomp, and splendour, to see and to be seen, and would willingly borrow the veil of night to cover themselves from them. Others are very bad solicitors of businesses, daring not to say, nor contradict any thing; and if they must needs ask a question, they do it so fearfully, that in ask, they show how they should be denied. There are, who more fear to speak in public, than one would a battle: which hath happened to many great wits, as to Demosthenes, Theophrastus, and Cicero, who protesteth, 
Fearful Orators.  that being already of good years, he still became pale, and trembled in the beginning of his discourse: which in my opinion proceeded from an excessive love of honour, which these men seemed to hazard when they made Orations before Princes, the Senate, and people. A blockhead exposeth himself with much more confidence, because he hath nothing to lose, and is like a Pilot who steereth a ship fraught with hay: But these were masters who guided vessels furnished with pearls, such credit and authority they had purchased. Aeschines, 
Aelian. l. 8. variae Hist.  a man well behaved, a great talker, and a huge flatterer, triumphantly spoke before King Philip and the Macedonians, where poor Demosthenes had much ado to deliver his mind; so that one might have taken the one for an Idiot, and the other for an Oracle: yet there was no comparison, seeing the one had high and sublime thoughts, the other trivial and very vulgar, which were only made good by the utterance of voice and gesture. Some there have been so afflicted to have failed in a public Oration, that they thereby have fallen into despair; it so happened to Herod 
Philostratus in Sophistis.  the Athenian (the proudest Orator of his time) who being gravelled before the Emperor Marcus Antonius, was like to die with grief: yet judicial hearers, do not the less value a learned man for the misfortune of these accidents; whilst popular spirits account them for disgraces, which more truly fall upon those who intrude themselves out of temerity, where they are not called out of duty, and striving to gain glory, do lose all the title they might have acquired. This happens to some by a precipitate imagination, who think upon the middle, and end of a discourse, when they are (as yet) in the beginning: To others, out of a light and skipping spirit, which in despite of them doth overflow: To others, by unexpected accidents, as it happened to the learned Oporinus of the University of Basil, to whom it was given in charge to receive the famous Erasmus, by offering him presents 
Theodorus Zingerius.  of wine in the name of the City: He was prepared for it with a brave and a long Oration; but being trained up to the School (which had little curiosity 
The courteous meeting of Erasmus and Oporinus.  and quaintness in Compliments) going about to kiss Erasmus his hand full of the gout, he did it so roughly that he hurt him, and made him to cry out of the pain he had put him to, by this kiss: which made the good Professor lose himself, nor could he ever hit upon the beginning of his discourse, until they plentifully had poured out some of this presented wine for him to drink, so to awaken his memory.  
Certainly we must needs tell you, it is like a dancing 
The shelf of Orations.  on a rope to recite a long oration by heart, and there are many rocks for those who are naturally fearful. There is not any thing which so much correcteth these timidities, 
Remedies for timidity in declaiming.  as to break them in one's youth; to put one's self upon hazard when he hath not so much to lose; to cry out, to declaim, to take on in the theaters of a College; to accustom one's self to see good company; to be fashioned for entertainments, discourses, replies; to learn the garbs of the time and country; to study the art of penetrating spirits; not to be out of countenance with ill success at the beginning; fairly to put on a business what one can, and not to become impudent by striving to resist fear. For it happeneth that 
Timidity sometimes turns into Insolency.  such as were very timorous become many times so bold by complacence, that they must master their passion which is grown a little too insolent. One would not believe how resolute and fearless a man is upon all occasions, who hath been accustomed to declaim.  
When Luitprand Bishop of Cremona was sent in 
Luitprand. l. 6. de rebus in Europa gestis.  Embassage to Constantine son of Leo the Emperor of Constantinople, he gave him audience sitting in a throne which suddenly was lifted up to the roof, and was environed with Lions of brass, who by art began to roar, of purpose to astonish him; but, he gave not over to speak as confidently, as if all this spectacle had been but a childish sport, because he had overcome himself before in a thousand occasions.  
But they who after they have in youth tried to correct 
How perverse timidities should be handled.  these natural fears, seeing they therein very little profit, should do well to withdraw from great conversations of the world, from the embroilment of affairs, from specious offices, from negotiations (which must be treated with bold and quick spirits) from warfare, from the Court, from Ceremonies, from Orations; to cultivate a sweet repose, without being stirred up by worldly ambitions, and to set themselves on the rack to be successful in a profession, whereunto nature stands indisposed.  
This did Isocrates, who had an excellent wit, and very capable of Eloquence; notwithstanding, finding himself destitute of Countenance, Gesture and Confidence, he never durst to speak in public, contenting himself to teach even to his decrepit days; and commonly saying, he taught Rhetoric for a thousand Rials, but would give more than ten thousand to him who would teach him Confidence.   

§ 3. Against the fear of the Accidents of humane life.  
THe second manner of fear is more troublesome, as 
Fear of accidents in the world.  poverty, scorns, chains, imprisonment, pains, maladies, and of death which assaulteth us in a million of objects plentifully diffused throughout total Nature. But we must confess, that of all evils there is not any one so terrible to man, as man himself. An enemy 
Man terrible above all terrible.  powerful, factious, and wicked; he employeth all the instruments of terror, to serve as arms for his iniquity; he inventeth crafty tricks, he whetteth swords, he mingleth poisons, he prepareth fetters and dark dungeons; he tieth tortures, he raiseth gibbets to satiate his Revenge: and it seems he holds all the Furies and Devils under hire, to torment the miserable.  
What shall a poor heart do which sees itself menaced by many mischiefs, greatly contrary to nature? Think you it is a rock, or an anvil, which is moved at nothing? we must not brave it on paper, and with a Stoical insolency mock at Phalaris his Bull, and Rhadamant's tortures. All these fears of things adverse to our nature may fall into the life of men the most constant, namely when hostilities (which assail us) are sudden, and violent, that the issue of them is irreparable.  
Notwithstanding, it much helps to sweeten this passion, 
Remedies against accidental fear. Senec. ep. 17  to consider what Seneca saith, That often we fear too much, or too soon, or without cause. We fear too much, by fearing things mortal, as if we were immortal. We have infinite apprehensions of pains which end with a life so short. It is to be ignorant of the things of nature, and to make an ill dividend of our thoughts, to cast perpetual cares upon an evil which is not many times so soon come, but that it ceaseth to be an evil, taking away the sense by the violence, or fortifying it by its faintness. We fear too soon by apprehending things far distant from us. There is but too much time to be miserable in this life: Let us not hasten to anticipate it, nor let us lose one sole moment of present happiness for imaginations of the future. We fear without cause, when we dread things which will never happen; and if they do happen, it will peradventure be for our advantage.  
There are who escape out of prison by fire, others who are fallen into precipices very gently, and have in the bottom found their liberty; others, to whom poisons are turned into nutriment; others, to whom blows of a sword have broken impostumes: so true it is, that the seeds of good hap are sometimes hidden under the appearances of ill.  
Besides this, give yourself the leisure to find out the 
To take things at the worst  whole latitude of the evil which strikes you: Take (if you think good) all things at the worst, and handle yourself as an enemy; yet you shall find that this evil is not so bad as it is said; that many have gone that way before you; and that if God permit it, he will give you strength to bear it, The fear itself (which is the worst of our evils) is not so great a torment, since it affordeth us precaution, industry, and fit means, and suggesteth us ways to fear no more. If you never have experienced evil you have much to complain, that you so little have been a man; and if you have some experience of the time past, it will much serve you to sweeten the apprehension of the evils to come. Vanquish your own conceits as much as you can, and pray them not to present unto you under so hideous a mask, those pains, which women and children have many times laughed at: If you in the beginning feel any horror, and the first rebellions of nature, lose not courage for 
Fiducia pallens. Statius Theb. Rodericus Toletanus rerum Hisp. l. 5. c. 23.  all that, since the Poet painted Boldness with a pale visage. We have often seen great Captains (as Garcias) to quake in the beginning of dangerous battles, because their flesh (as they said) laid hold of their courage, and carried the imagination into the most hideous perils. Lastly, be it how it will be, you shall find the remedy of your fears, in the presence of that which you fear, since there are some who in the irresolution of some affair do endure a thousand evils, and so soon as the determination thereof succeedeth, though to their prejudice, they fell themselves much more lightened. Many prisoners who stand on thorns in prison expecting the issue of their trial, go very resolute to execution, seeing it is better to die once, then to live still in the apprehension of death. David shook with fear, 
Reg 2. 12.  wept, and fasted lay on the ground for the sickness of his young son: But after the death was denounced him, he risen up from the earth, changed his habit, washed and perfumed himself: then having worshipped in the house of God, he asked for his dinner; and first of all comforted Bathsheba upon this accident: whereat his houshold-servants were amazed. But he taught them, we must not afflict ourselves for those things, whereof there is no remedy.  
I conclude, with the last kind of fear, which comes from things very extraordinary, as are Comets, Armies of fire, Prodigies in the Heavens and the Air, Thunders, Lightnings, Monsters, Inundations, Fires, Earthquakes, Spirits, Spectres, Devils, and Hell. Good God what terror is there in this miserable life, since besides these which are so ordinary with us, we must expect other from places so high, and so low? But howsoever, we notwithstanding do find courages which surmount them with the assistance of God, although it do not ordinarily happen without some impressions of fear: otherwise we must be far engaged in stupidity. Comets, Eclipses, flying fires, and so many other Meteors, do not nowadays so much affright, since we have discovered the causes, which is a powerful proof, that ignorance in many occasions makes up a great part of our torments. Pericles struck 
Stratagem of Pericles, Polyaenus l. 3.  a fire-steel in an assembly of his Captains and Soldiers (who were astonished at a thunder and lightning happened in the instant of a battle) showing, that what the heavens did, was that he was doing before their eyes, which marvellously satisfied them.  
Superstition makes a thousand fantasies to be feared, whereat we might laugh with a little wisdom. The 
Euseb. l. 1. de praeparat. Evang. c. 7.  Egyptians were half dead, when the figure of a huge dragon, which sometimes of the year was showed them, did not seem to look well on them: and the Romans fell in their Courage, when the Cocks which governed their battles did not feed to their liking, Hecataeus 
Hecataeus apud Cunaeum, l. 2. de Rep. Hebraeorum.  an ancient Historian, telleth that Alexander's whole army stood still to look on a bird, from whence the Augur went about to derive some presage, which being seen by a Jew named Mosellan, he drew an arrow out of his quiver and killed it; mocking at the Grecians who expected their destiny, from a creature which so little knew its own. As we laugh at this present at these fopperies, so we should entertain with scorn so many dreams, and superstitious observations which trouble them enough who make account of them. Wild beasts, inundation of rivers, productions of mountains big with flames, sulphur, and stonas; are other causes of terror: nor hath there ever been seen any more hideous, then that which happened these late years in Italy, in the last firing of Mount Vesuvius, 
The burning of Vesuvius in the year 1631. Julius Recupitus.  which is excellently described by F. Julius Recupitus: Then it, there can be nothing seen more able to excite terror, unless in an instant the bottom of Hell were laid open, and all the hideous aspects of the torments of the damned. Yet it is a strange thing, how among waves of fire which ran on all sides, clouds of Ashes which appeared like vast mountains, continual Earthquakes, countrebuffs of Hillocks, and of houses, of Abysses, of Gulfs, and of Chaoses; there were people to be found, who yet thought upon their purses, and took the way towards their houses to lay hold of their slender substances; which makes us see, that there is nothing so horrid where the soul of man (returned to itself) findeth not some leisure to breathe. The monsters of the Roman Amphitheatre, which in the beginning made the most hardy to quake, were in the end despised by women, who were hired to combat with them. Things not seen, which (it seems) should most trouble the mind, because they are most hidden, are also in some sort surmounted; since we read how that many great Anchorets lay in Churchyards infested with ghosts, and spectres, and about solitudes, in forests and wildernesses the most retired, in the midst of so many illusions of evil spirits: as it is written in the Acts of Saint Anthony, S. Hilarion, and S. Macarius. There is nothing but the day of Judgement, Hell and the punishments of the damned, we should reasonably fear, and not out of visionary scruples, to free us from all fear.   

§ 4. That the Contemplation of the power, and Bounty of God ought to take away all our fears.  
BUt if these reason (which I more according to humane 
Remedies. The power and providence of God which preserveth us aught to drive away all our fears  nature have deduced) enter not sufficiently into your mind; lift up your thoughts to things divine: and when you have contemplated all the devastation of this passion, learn a little to deplore your misery, which causeth you to fear almost all except that which is able to deliver you from all fear. Behold, in our first model, the Power and Providence of God, which are two perfections able to fortify our weakness, dissipate all our faintness, and encourage all our pusillanimity. The omnipotency of God not only sets free from the surprisals of fear; but assures all which is under its power and protection, to which we voluntary have submitted. What should he fear; nay, what should he no● 
Apud Deum non erit impossibile omne verbum. Luc. 1.  hope; who hath a God for protector, and a God absolutely powerful? His Power, and his Essence walk hand in hand, insomuch as Power in God is nothing else but the effective Essence of God.  
We need not fear, that his jurisdiction is only extended 
Nempe in semet manens quod habet. est; & quod est semper uno & eodem modo est. In eo & multa in unum, & diversa in idem rediguntur, ut nec numerositate rerum sumat pluralitatem, nec alterationem de variatione sentiar. Bernard. in Cantic.  to certain places, since it is without limits, and embraceth all places: That it is limited, to a certain number of Ages; since it is eternal and involveth all Time: That it is greater at one time then at another, in that which interiorly concerneth it; because it is immutable: That it looseth any thing of its vivacity in the revolution of so many years; for that it hath an infinite vigour which comprehendeth all the perfections of Essence. As much as the Divine understanding can comprehend, so much the Divine power can execute. Both have no measure; and both always go in the same proportion; equalling their greatnesses, whilst nothing equalleth their worth. What abysses, and what treasures of power must He possess, who hath within himself so inexhaustible sources, and such communications, as are in God, who can endlessly communicate himself in the orders of Vegetative, Sensitive, and Intellectual nature; and lastly in Grace and Glory, where he doth so many wonders, never emptying nor limiting his Virtue! All this great world, where the Sun (as some Astrologers say) is an hundred and forty times 
The Sun is an hundred and forty times bigger than the earth; and in twenty four hours goeth more than twelve millions of leagues. Prodigious course of some stars.  greater than the Earth, and progresseth in twenty four hours more than twelve millions of leagues; where there are fixed Stars which go in the space of an hour more way, than a Horseman could in seventeen hundred, and twenty six years: All the great variety of this Universe (where there are creature without number, beauties without end, and greatnesses to our eyes immeasurable) is but an effect of his word; He made it with the least blast of his mouth; and with the least breath of his mouth can unmake it, and instead of it build up an infinity of other worlds much greater and more perfect than this. Good God what say we, when we say God? when we say the power of God? All that is, and moves in nature, actuateth not, but by this predominant Power; and should he once draw back an arm, total Nature would cease from its operations, and dissolve into nothing. All those vast armies which made ostent to tear down smoking Cities, and dry up seas, to render mountains navigable, to turn the course of whole nature topsie-turvey, were overthrown by the hand of God, who for this purpose made use of grasshoppers and flies, which he calleth his Great Forces, 
Locusta fortitudo mea magna. Joel 2. 25.  in the Prophet. It is he who circumvolveth the heavens, who supports the earth, who distendeth the waters, who quickeneth the whole world with his fire and breath, who darkneth the air with tempests, when he pleaseth; who maketh clouds to pour down in deluges, who swalloweth up the flects of petty Pharaohs, who flieth upon the curl of waves, who imflameth lightnings, and maketh blood and scorpions to rain upon 
In manu enim ejus no, & sermons nostri, & omnis sapientia attingit à sine usque ad finem fortiter, & d●spoter, omnia s●avi●er. Sap. 7.  the rebellions of earth. O power of God what do we say, when we tell your wonders? It is not sufficient to strike terror into the wicked, and to occasion confidence in his children; since it hath an eternal alliance with this great Providence which governeth the world? For, in a word, we are in his hands, both we, and all our designs, and all our poor providence: as for him he powerfully actuateth from one extremity to another, and sweetly disposeth of all, without any trouble. What assurance would a good soul have if it would attentively consider itself all covered under the wing of God, all looked upon with the eye of the divine Providence which protects Sceptres and Crowns, not forgetting the sillyest little worm of the earth?  
It shielded the little Moses under the waves, and the three Children in the flames: it likewise shielded all the just, nor doth it ever permit them to suffer, but to derive lights out of their Eclipses, and glory from their torment. If we speak with S. Thomas, we will say, it is the unchangeable rule of all the alterations of the world: If with S. Denis; it is a fountain which overfloweth 
Opuse. 20. 23. S. Dyonis. de coelesti Hiorareh. c. 4. Clemens Alexandr. in protrept.  from the highest part of the heavens upon the least creatures of the earth: If with Clemens Alexandrinus; is is the superintendent of all this great circle which we call the world: If it be the rule; why do we wander from it? If it be the fountain; why do we deprive ourselves of its favour? If it be all Eye; why do we departed from its lights? Blind that we are, if we forget it, living daily in its bosom, and between its arms; disloyal, if we forsake it; unnatural, if we betray it.   

§ 5. That the Example of a God-man ought to instruct, and assure us against affrightments of this life.  
LEt us cast our eyes upon the second model, and add 
The example of our Saviour ought to encourage us against fear.  to these, two great Motives which we go about to deduce, the example of Jesus, which should serve us for a bulwark of Adamant against vicious fear. He was the strong of strongs, and the most noble Courage which ever fell into the strongest Ideas of Angels. The holy Scripture likewise calleth him by the name of 
Foemina circund abit virum. Jer. 32. ●●. Num. 18▪ ●0. Mares tantum edent ex eo.  Man, and of a strong man, from his mother's womb; and as heretofore, in the sacrifice which was made for the expiation of sins, the Old Law admitted not any but males; so it was fit to seek out for a man perfectly man, to celebrate this great and eternal sacrifice which was once made, and which is renewed every day for the Redemption of the whole world.  
All Divines and Philosophers agree, that Fortitude 
What true fortitude is, And the parts thereof.  (which properly resisteth Fear and Pusillanimity) is a courageous and a considerate daring in great hazards, conjoined with a Patience in great misadventures: For it hath two arms, whereof the one assaileth, and the other supporteth; and the whole extent of its wonders is very aptly contracted within the circle of four virtues, which are Confidency, Constancy, Patience, and Perseverance. For which cause we may truly say, that the champion that combateth in the honourable list of Fortitude, giving notable proofs of his courage by every one of these virtues, with reason, election, and intention (which are the conditions required by Saint Thomas) is arrived at the highest period of honour, generously triumphing over all the images of terror. Now this is it which Jesus Christ did with incomparable transcendencies for our instruction. For first, he would not, out of infirmity of nature, but through a dispose of the sacred oeconomy of our Redemption be assaulted by the most furious object of fear which ever fell into the mind of man; permitting fear to invade the most elate part of his soul, and to surprise it, as in the Sanctuary of the Divinity.  
All the greatest subjects of apprehension which ever men the most valorous had, concluded in the loss of a miserable life; & if they did apprehend an evil to come, it ordinarily was the space of some very little time; and when they exposed themselves thereto, it was by fits of necessity, and with feeble intentions, and interessed in self-love. But if they had the worst in the beginning of the hazards which they confronted, their Confidence was quickly changed into Distrust, their Constancy into Levity, their Patience into Fury, and their Perseverance into Smoke. These are the vioes which we observe in the comportment of Alexander's and Caesar's, and of all the valiant men of the earth: but, Jesus, the true model of Valour, gave up for us a life of God, which is no small object of Fear; for, otherwise feareth the Merchant who is fraughted with slight merchandise; otherwise he who carrieth gold and precious stones. Should a man to do a generous Act, hazard all the lives of men, if they might be confined within his heart; he should endanger nought else but a little straw or stubble: but, our Saviour exposeth a life created, rooted in a life increate; which did as much excel all the lives of men, as the sun doth rushes. He exposeth this life, not to common and ordinary torments, or to mean tortures; but he delivered it over to excessive pains throughout all the parts of his body, to unheard of scorns, and to execrable cruelties. He contenteth not himself to have once had them in sight a little before his death; but he looks them in the face from the first day of his conception; so soon as his blessed soul is poured into his body, he seethe two abysses, the one of dolorous pains, the other of deep ignominies which he was to undergo in the undertaking of the reparation of the world. There is not a man who had not rather fall once, then to be three days only in the Fear one should be in, to see himself upon the point to fall into a precipice; and yet Jesus would live thirty three years in the object of his pains: nay, not only of his, but of those which in so long a revolution of ages were to be practised on all the Martyrs who were members of his body,  
Noah seems to have been one of the greatest courages 
Gen. ●.  that ever was, since he was chosen out by God among men to sail in a frail vessel in a general deluge, and to sustain the shock of the fatal convulsions of the world; but the Scripture teacheth us that God with his own hand shut the window of the Ark wherein he was enclosed, and that he saw not any of the deaths and disasters which then happened, to the end Fear might ●ot take away his life. There is none but Jesus for whom the Curtains are drawn-aside, to whom all the gates of lights and knowledges are opened to let him see the issue of all his labours; He accepteth them with a powerful reason, a full liberty, and most glorious intentions; He entereth into them with a generous confidence: He remaineth in them with an unshaken constancy, he endures them with an incomparable patience, he persevereth in them with an entire consummation of love, of sufferings, of virtues, and of mysteries; wasting himself as the victim of the old Law which were to burn all night till morning. So did he burn in this 
Levit. c. 6. Cremabitur in altari tota nocte usque ad manè. Jos. 8. Leva clypeum quod in 〈◊〉 tua est contra urbem ●●.  transitory life, until the Aurora of the great Eternity. This true Joshua never laid down the bucklers until he saw the profane City of Ai (the City of the wicked) overthrown under his feet, and the Church established in his blood. And that which also raiseth the merit of his magnanimity in all this, is, that in all the greatest terrors and sharpest dolours to which he resigned himself for our sakes; he did all which concerned our instructions with an entire judgement, in a manner deliberate and resolute, and a spirit equal. He prayed moistened with his sweat and blood in the agony of the garden of Olives, he exhorted his Disciples, he went out to meet the Soldiers, he delivered himself up to Executioners he gave order for the safety of his Disciples in the peril of his own person, he healed the wounds of his enemies, he gave lessons of Virtues, he rendered oracles of Wisdom, he meditated and preached the Cross; and whilst all heaven was troubled over his head, and the earth trembled under his feet, he was ; expecting the time of the Consummation ordained by his heavenly Father.  
O the greatness of the Combats of Jesus! O the 
Dominus exercituum, ipse Pavor noster, & ipse terror vester. Isa. 8.  force of the resistances of Jesus! O the Excess! O the Example! shall we not be ashamed, if from the spectacle of his splendours we cast our eyes upon our own pusillanimity? We nowadays fear all in the world, and fear not the Sovereign Master and absolute Governor of the world. All creatures which should be the objects of our conteptments, are the subjects of our fears ever since we made a divorce from the Creator; it being a matter very reasonable that God make use of all manner of arms to prosecute a fugitive from his Providence, who seeks to save himself in a Region of nothing.  
O poor soul! thou fearest the poverty which thy Jesus 
Resolution against fear  hath consecrated in the Crib and in Clouts: Thou fearest the reproaches which he hath sanctified in the loss of his reputation: thou fearest the dolours which he hath lodged in his virginal flesh: thou fearest death which he overcame for thee: thou fearest the false opinions of the world. And what fearest thou not, since thou dreadest fantasies which are less than the shadow of an hair! There is but one thing which thou fearest not; to 
Nulla metuendi causa, nisi ne quod amamus, aut adeptum amittamus, aut non adipiscamur speratum. Aug. q. 33. & 83.  lose innocency and sanctity which thou exposest to so many liberties, and alluring occasions; so prodigal thou art of a good which thou hast not. O thou well-beloved of God, although the most ungrateful to the love of God wilt not thou dress thy wounds? wilt not thou apply some remedies to those vicious fears which gnaw thee and daily devour thee?  
If thou wilt follow my counsel, thy first resolution shall be to regulate the love of thyself, not to have so indulgent, and passionate a care of all things which concern thee, as if thou wert an only one in the species, and that thy death were waited on by the Sepulchre of the world. Thy aim should be to unloose thyself as much as thou mayest from so many ties and dependencies which multiply thy slaveries. Thou must (as it were) live here a life of Nabatheans, which were people of Arabia, who neither planted, nor sowed, nor 
Diodor. l. 6.  built, but by express laws, flew from delicious and fruitful Countries, for fear that Riches might subjugate them to Passions & the Commands of great ones. But if we cannot come to this height; at least let us have our heart well devested from these ardent affections which we have towards worldly enablements; and behold them as one would an inconstant moving of shadows and spirits which glide before our eyes with a swift course, and which ever move with the step of time and of the Sun; to account as already lost whatsoever may be lost; to cast your immortal cares upon an immortal soul; and to place it in the first rank of your affections. But if natural love do yet tie us to health, to life, to honour, and to slight pleasures, to the preservation of our own person; to whom should we entrust all this, but to the Divine Providence, with whom so many just have deposited their goods, their reputation, their life, their blood; and have loft nothing by this confidence, but have transmitted 
Qui te tibi committis: melius te potest servare qui te potuit antequam esses creare. Aug. serm. 8. de verbis Apostol.  their purchases and conquests to the bosom of Eternity? In all which happeneth to us, let us look towards this eye of God which perpetually beholdeth us, this puissant hand of God, this amorous direction: Let us behold it as our Polestar, as our flaming pillar, as our great intelligence which manageth all the treasures of our life: Let us learn to repose us in his bosom, to slumber upon his heart, to sleep between his arms. Upon the first accident which befalleth us; let us readily bend our knees in prayer; let us adore the ordinances of our sovereign Master: Let us behold with a confident countenance all which is happened, or may happen: Let us say, God knoweth all this, God permitteth all this, God governeth all this: He loves me as his creature, he wisheth me well as one who hath given himself to him; he can free me from this affliction, if it be his holy will: He is all good, to will it; he is all potent, to do it. Nay, he is all wise, to will, and to do, all that which is best. Let us not meddle with the great current of his Counsels. He maketh light, in the most dusky nights, and havens in the most forlorn shipwrecks. Were we with him in the shades of death, what should we fear being between the arms of life?  
Secondly, let us not be corrupted by opinions which invade 
Nullus est miseriarum modu●, si timetur quantum potest. Sense. ep. 13.  us with a great show of spectres and terrors, and make us so often to fear things which are not, and which shall never be. It is to be too soon miserable, to be so before the instant: and if we for some time must be so; let us consider that all the blessing and evils of the world are not great, since they cannot long time be great. Let us take away the mask from these fears of Poverty, of Sickness, and above all from humane respects, as one would from him who goes about to affright children. Why fear we so much such and such accidents, which they, who are made of no other flesh and bones than we, do daily despise? The acquaintance with perils hardeneth to perils: and there is nothing so terrible, as the ignorance of real truths. Lastly, let us hold for certain, that a great part of our tranquillity dependeth upon our conscience: Let us settle in 
Anchora mentis pondu● timoris. S. Gregor.  it repose by a good Confession; let us constantly undertake the fear of God, who will cure us of all our fears, since the Anchor of the floating understanding is the Honour of the Divinity.    

The tenth Treatise, Of BOLDNESS.  

§ 1. The Picture, and Essence of it.  
Boldness is very well depainted in the bosom of power, showing a heart in its 
The picture 〈◊〉 Boldness.  hand, all encompassed with spirits and flames, its visage is replenished with confidence, its habit altogether warlike, and countenance undaunted. It looketh upon good all environed with dangers, as a Rose among thorns, or as the golden fleece among dragons, and is no whit amazed; but it is on fire to fly through perils, and to beat down all obstacles which oppose its conquest. Good hap walketh before it, by its sides innocency, benignity, piety, strength, experience, and other good qualities which excite courage. The presence thereof dissipateth a thousand petty Fancies which are lost in the obscurity of night, not able to endure the sparkling of its eyes.  
All this natively representeth unto us the nature and 
It's essence.  condition of Boldness, which is properly an effect of good hope, and a resolution of courage against dangers. It is no wonder, if Power hold it in its bosom, since all the Boldness a man hath comes to him from the opinion he conceives to be able enough, not to yield to the accidents which may assault him. This heart of fire, in which so many vigorous spirits sparkle, is a token of the bold, who commonly have more heat and vivacity; from whence it comerh that youngmen have herein more advantage then old, were it not that they derive more assurance from some other part, then from the weakness of their age. The Eye, Port, and Habit suitable to warriors make it sufficiently appear, it is a virtue wholly Military; and if it regard good environed with perils, we may thence conclude, it is the proper profession of Boldness to hasten to the conquest of a good, but of a good very difficult. For it will not gather palms and crowns but in a field watered all over with sweats. All those virtues which are by its sides ordinarily, show us such as are the boldest, as are those, who have their conscience most clear, who are not offensive, and therefore less fear to be offended; who are underpropped by some great favour, and namely the protection of heaven; who are well disposed both in mind and body; who have experience of other hazards from which they successfully have vindicated themselves, and the good hap which hath always accompanied them. Those airy fantasies which fly from Boldness, are fears and affrights which are scattered by the first ray of its eyes.   

§ 2. The Diversity of Boldnesses.  
LEt us now more enlarge our thoughts to consider the differences, causes, effects, qualities, and appurtenances of this Passion.  
It is hard enough to make a sound judgement of a man truly bold so many illusions there are of Boldness which present themselves to our eyes, and would have us make that to pass for virtue, which is mere crime and stupidity.  
There are sottish and bestial Boldnesses which proceed from the ignorance of dangers, and which consider not what is good or bad, hurtful or innocent, perilous or safe in humane life.  
This is it which makes such, as know not what sea-matters are, to laugh many times, and to take delight to scoff in occasions which cause pilots, the most experienced, to become pale.  
This makes little children sport and dally upon the brink of a precipice; that drunkards and fools go together by the ears, hastening to sword and peril; and that those who walk, and are active in sleep, to scramble upon house-roofs, pass over rivers, and precipitate themselves into accidents, able to make the most hardy to tremble. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil costs us very dear: It setteth before our eyes all the extent of our hazards and miseries; it draweth our evils at length; it frames in our thought, that which shall never happen in effect; it armeth our knowledges against ourselves; and, as Basilisks kill themselves by the reverberation of the mirrors they behold; so very often we cause the death of ourselves by the reflection of our lights.  
There are in the world who have Turkish opinions, 
A prima deseendit origine mundi causarum series, a●que omnia fatal laboran●si quid quam mutasse velis. Lucan. l. 6.  and who believe a fatality in our lives, thinking the hour of our death is fixed; and that the height of rocks, the descent of precipices, squadrons bristled with swords, deserts full of serpents, flames issuing out of the bellies of scorched mountains, all poisons and contagions hasten it not one sole moment: and that on the other side; brazen walls, sentinels full of terror, fortresses and castles, flights and coverts cannot defer it one silly instant. This opinion is very contrary to reason, because it maketh from life all discourse and discretion: and were it true, we need not eat nor drink, make use of arms, of garments, of munitions, of counsel, of industry, of punishment, or of reward; but to let all our actions lose in a general defection, which is wholly impertinenr: and yet those Maxims help Generals of armies, and are the cause that Turks throw themselves with a brutish Boldness into the most dreadful dangers, and suffer themselves to be killed like flies, out of persuasion of this Destiny. It is very true, that God knows the number of our days, and that he likewise by his Providence stayeth the course of our years: but on the other part, he obliging us to a reasonable preservation of ourselves,, if it happen that out of some temerity merely extravagant we run into an evident danger of death, and that we therein persist; well is our death according to God's calculation, but the cause is an effect of our folly and presumption, for which God reserveth a chastisement in the other life. So, that such blind Boldnesses being in no sort laudable cannot have any place among actions of virtue.  
There are others which are absolutely impudent, and which deserve the title of shamelessness, as are those bold askers who offer up armed supplications, and will have demands the most disadvantageous to be assented unto: as are those also of deceivers and impostors, who readily lie to ensnare the goods of another. They invent a thousand crafty tricks and guileful impostures which they distribute piece-meal, as seriously, as if they were the most confessed truths of all the world. Some, who are men of no account, make themselves noble and illustrions, even to the pretending of their being descended from Demigods: others feign riches in picture, and surname themselves from Baronies and Marquisates, which are no more in being then Chimaeras and flying stags: others seem valiant like unto Rhodomonts, and would willingly say in the tone of Romances: That they have had brave Combats with Rowland, Oliver, and the Knight of the burning sword. Others are babblers, offensive, and seem to be only born to affront men of worth. There you find throats stretched wide, affected countenances, dissolute tongues, crooked finger's, hands exercised in thefts and robberies. There are likewise some who go up the gallows with a countenance as confident as if they had learned no other trade all their life time, but the practice of this kind of punishment; others blush not at any crime whatsoever, living in a strange prostitution of renown; and pursuing this course, frame to themselves other diabolical Boldnesses of cutthroats, who out of an overflow of enraged furies, dare attempt upon the sacred persons of Kings and Bishops; esteeming nothing to be safe from their mischief, nor impossible to their daring.  
All these manners of proceeding are most abominable, and in no sort deserve the title whereof we treat in this discourse, wherein▪ I intent to speak of generous Boldnesses, which are necessary for humane life; and wherein there are some Military, others Civil, others, Holy and Religious.   

§ 3. Of laudable Boldness.  
IS it not a wonder to behold, that, which is so illustrious in combats, and is the inseparable companion of true valour, to which so many valiant men have in all times made love, sacrificing themselves in so many members to the honour thereof; to be glorified with such crowns by its liberality? It is it which enkindled a brand of fire in the heart of Alexander, and gave him wings to fly into the thickest squadrons of his adversaries: It, which Cesar looked on boldly swimming 
Olathus in vita Attilae.  amidst the roaring waves, fearless of the hailshot of his enemy's arrows: It, which sparkled with ardent flames in Attila's eyes, when at the siege of Aquileia, seeing himself all alone unexpectedly set upon by a number of soldiers, he slew some of them in the place with his own hands, and scattered the rest with the 
●●●archus.  lightning flashes which reflected from his face: It, which crowned Pyrrhus in two duels: It, which made Constantine appear like a thunderstroke in the battle 
Valer. l. 3. cap. 2.  against Maxentius: It, which animated Scevola when (left alone in the straits of an Island by the Ebb of 
Plin. l. 7. cap. 28.  the sea) he withstood a whole Army of Barbarians: It, which accompanied Sicinvius in a hundred and twenty pitched battles, and affixed on his body forty five wounds, as so many Rubies: It, which taught Cynegirus after his hands were cut off, to lay hold of a vessel of his enemy's fleet with his teeth: It, which 
Sabel. l. 7. Aenead. 6.  caused a soldier of the Roman Army seeing himself lifted on high, and born with his armour upon an elephants Trunk, unaffrightedly to strike him with so strong and violent a blow that he made him let go his hold, and alone become victorious over a beast which carrieth turrets and houses on his back. It is more easy to number the Stars in the sky, then to keep a register of so many valorous men who have been throughout all ages. Women and Virgins have had a share in glory of this kind among many nations, envying the Laurels which crown the heads of brave Captains. The Scythian 
Alexander ab Alexandro.  Jaxametes married not their daughters until they brought the head of an enemy. The Lacedaemonian women defeated the army of Aristomenes who 
Pausanias' in Messeniacis.  had assailed them at a sacrifice, and they massacred them with spits.  
Lybyssa slew seven men in a battle with her own 
Aeneas Silvius in historia Bohe miaes.  hand. Semiramis was in a Bath, when hearing the news of the rebellion of a Province of her Empire, she speedily hastened thither not taking the leisure to put on her shoes, or dress her; and brought it to obedience. 
Herodotus.  She caused to be graven on a pillar of her tomb, That Nature had made her a Woman, but that Valour had equalled her to the most valiant Captains; that she had made rivers to run along according to the current of her liking, and her like, by the course of Reason; that she had peopled desert lands, hewed with the sword through rocks, with silver-sowed fields which were unknown but to savage beasts, and that amidst all her affairs she ever had time for herself, and for her friends.  
In the foregoing Age in the wars of Hungary, 
Ascanius Contorius lib. 5. Bellar. Tranfilvan.  we read of a young Christian woman at the siege of Agria, who with her mother and husband fought against the Turks, and the husband being slain, the mother advised her daughter to retire, and to inter the body of her dear Spouse. But the valorous Amazon having answered, It was no time for funerals, took the sword of her dead husband, thrust herself into the thickest of the troops, killed three Turks with her own hand, and in the end bore away the body of her wellbeloved on her shoulders in despite of so many enemies, who ceased not to shoot at her. What may one add to this Military Boldness? Do we not daily see examples of it in our French Nobility, who fight upon occasions, as if every man had a hundred bodies to lose?  
There is another, which hath place in civil life, and which maketh men bold in conversation, forward in affairs, courageous in occasions, and patiented in adversity. Many who have not this great heart, are content to be eternally what they are, and do cultivate a little life within the limits of modesty. But others breathe nothing but businesses, but bargains, but foreign commerces, but sea-voyages; fearing neither storms nor shipwrecks. When this hardiness meets with great Statesmen, it maketh them pillars of Adamant, which a thousand countrebuffs cannot shake. All the malice which is in corrupt minds, impiety in profane, inventions in the factious, daring in the insolent, terror in the potent, threats in the passionate, and cruelty in the bloody, doth not make them go back one step. They think with wisdom, they speak with liberty, they act with courage; nor have they any other fortune in their heads but the law, other life but innocency, other aim but truth, other reward then glory. Of this temper was the magnanimous Papinian (the honour of Lawyers) 
Notable Boldness Spartianus.  to whom the Emperor Severus, dying, recommended his two sons, with the Government of the Empire. But the impious Caracalla having imbrued his hands in the blood of his own brother Geta, and desirous this great man should set some Colour by his eloquence before the Senate and People upon an action so barbarous; he freely answered him, it was more easy to commit a parricide then to justify it, uttering this truth, to the prejudice of his head which this wretched Prince caused to be cut off, and which the posterity of great men hath honoured with immortal Crowns. Of the like constancy was Aristides the Locrian, in the Court of Dionysius King of Sicily, who would have married one of his daughters; but the father stoutly answered, he had rather see her in her sepulchre, then in the bed of a tyrant; which cost him the life of his children: nor for all this did he repent him of his free Boldness. Such also was the great Orator Lycurgus, who managed the affairs of the Athenian Commonwealth, with such equity and constancy, that being ready to die, he caused himself to be carried to the Senate to give an account of all the actions of his life; and to satisfy all those whom he might have offended in his Government: but such a life, instead of stains, had nought but palms and lights. To this may be joined the boldness of Saints, who have so often defended the Truth with the peril of their life against the rage of Tyrants: as, that of S. Athanasius, against the Emperor Constantius: That of S. Ambrose, against Maximus: That of S. chrysostom, against Eudoxia: That of S. Basil, against Valeus: Of S. Stanislaus, against Boleslaus: Of S. Thomas, against Henry King of England. With this, a million of Religious are to be found who have undergone, and 
Voyages of Canada & the Indies.  do daily undergo the labours of Giants, who forsake the smiling favours of their native soil, to go into places, whither it seems nature hath been afraid to come. Thither they pass through an infinity of dangers, tempests, and monsters; there they live in forlorn wildernesses, among tombs of ice and snow; there they seed upon that which, to the curious and nice, would be a death to taste. All sweetness and pleasures of humane life are thence banished; rigours, toils, and miseries there perpetually reign; their eyes see none but barbarous visages, their ears hear nought but outcries and yells, their taste finds only bitterness, their travels nought but thorns, their repose but torment, life but anxiety, and death very often a tomb of water. And yet holy Boldness reserveth to itself courages which it leadeth forth, as it seems, beyond the sun, time, and seasons, to conquer souls to God. Must we not say, this passion is infinitely generous, and that it mounted to a height of virtue almost prodigious?  
All are not created to come to the most eminent degree of its excellencies; Nature must therein have a part: and verily in my opinion, the divine Providence prepareth bodies greatly adapted to those daring souls which in them he resolveth to enclose,  
Their temperature is hot, their heart little in bulk, but a true furnace of heat; the members well composed, the speech strong, and the arm sturdy. Education and Custom create another nature; which hath always been observed to be extremely necessary in the children which are to be trained up to valour. Those people of India must in some sort be imitated, who set them on the backs of certain great birds to carry them in the air, whereat these little Cavaliers are at first astonished, but in the end, they so fashion themselves thereto, that they despise all other peril. The Romans daily made them to see lions and elephants in the Amphitheatre, and the blood of sword-players shed almost as ordinarily as wine; others lead them out to the sea, among monsters and tempests; others practised them to combats, where they quickly learned the art of giving and receiving wounds, and to beat men down. David, Theseus, and Brasidas, began the profession of War very young. The son of King Tarquin, at the age of fourteen years, slew an enemy with his own hand. Scipio saved his father in the confusion of a battle, being then but seventeen years old. Probus was without a beard when he was made Tribune in the Army. Alboinus very young in duel vanquished the son of Thorismond King of the Gepides; which was the cause that his father, 
Cranz. l. 3. Daniae.  who before bred him amongst his servants, did set him at his own table.  
Some think that study and learning are very much 
Study lesseneth not courage.  opposite to Military Boldness; and it is very little to be doubted (if it be excessively pursued in the vigour of years which are proper for the exercise of arms) but that it will endanger men's Courages to become timorous. But it is of infinite use for Princes and young Gentlemen, who are to be disposed to actions the most elate. For by a laudable temperature it sweeteneth all that which a warlike humour might have contracted of roughness and incivility; it awakeneth wisdom, it enlighteneth counsel, it renders Boldness intelligent and magnanimous; it polisheth the tongue; it gives authority in charges, grace in conversation, invention in the cabinet, honour among the wise, and glory with posterity.  
After nature and education; to become bold, he 
Nec tristibus impar, nec pro successu timid usspatiúmque morandi, vincendique modum mutatis noscit habenis. Claudianus  must be sensible of Honour, which enkindleth the most timorous; he must vigorously exercise himself in the toils of Military discipline, and the practice of brave pieces of service; he must not be either vaunting, scoffing, captious, or offensive; but prudent, reserved, active, and laborious: he must very little fasten his affections upon things of the earth; compose himself to the contempt of death, make account one is not born but to die for his Prince and Country and to esteem no life in the world more precious than Glory.   

§ 4. That true Boldness is inspired by God, and that we must wholly depend on him to become bold.  
BUt besides this, to raise one's self to something 
Why Boldness is not in God.  more excellent, we must look upon the divine Virtues which ought to be the perpetual sources of ours. But if you now ask me wherein we may be aided by our first model, to acquire Boldness? I do not affirm we may properly say, that Boldness is in God; because this Passion is essentially conjoined to a regard it hath towards a thing very difficult, and encompassed with dangers. Now we know, that nothing can be difficult or dangerous before God, by reason of his Sovereign Power and most accomplished Felicity. God (to speak 
Aristot. ●. Rhetor. Audaciore eos esse quo rectè se habent ad divina.  perspicuously) can neither be timorous nor bold; but it is he who makes all those who are truly bold within the limits and lists of virtue. Certainly Aristotle saw much, when he said, That the most bold were such as were most in God's favour.  
I will make good this proposition in the first part of this discourse, and show a most manifest reason, which teacheth us, that every able man considering what he is, cannot be hardy of himself, by reason of the incapacity and weakness of humane nature, and therefore we must say, that if he have some Boldness, it necessarily comes to him from above.  
The Platonists said, there are seven things able much 
Seven things able to humble a man.  to humble a man; the First whereof is, that his spirit is caitive, thorny, and light. Secondly, that his body is brutish, and extremely exposed to all the injuries and impressions of exterior violences. Thirdly, that being 
Apulei de Daemonio Socratis. Homo levi, & anxiâ ment, bru●o, & obnoxio corpore, sui similis erroribus, dissimilis moribus, casso labore fortunâ caducâ, tardâ sapientiâ, citâ morte.  so inconstant in his manners, he commonly is very constant in his errors. Fourthly, that his endeavours are infinitely vain, and that many times being ready to enter into his tomb (when he comes to behold and consider his whole life already past) he finds it to be full of spider's webs which he with much labour and industry hath spun, but to no purpose. Fifthly, that his fortune is of glass, and many times catcheth a crack when it is most resplendent. Sixthly, that if he find wisdom amidst so many errors, it is but too late, and when he scarcely hath time left to use it. The seventh, that wisdom coming so slowly, death fails not to make haste, and to surprise a man, when his heart is embroiled with divers designs, and with certain knowledges of having done ill, with uncertainty of doing better. Besides Reason, doth not the Scripture in many places teach the weakness of man, and the necessity he hath of Divine succour for his subsistence? Behold, you 
Isa. 41. 24. Psal. 143. 4. Isa. 45. Jac. 1. Pro. 18.  are but a nothing, and all your works are as if they were not. Man is the very image of vanity, and a sherd of an earthen pot; Hay, that withers at the first rising of the hot sun. The name of God, is a strong and most assured tower, the just shall there have their refuge, and there shall be exalted.  
Hence we see, how all those who have appeared in the world with some eminency, have ever had some particular favours from heaven to authorise their actions, and to make men believe, they had somewhat above man. So Moses, Joshuah, Deborah, Gedeon, Samson, David, Solomon, and so many others sent by God for the government of his people, came with certain characters of his Divinity, which gave them an admirable confidence, and framed in their souls notable persuasions of their own abilities. And it is a thing very remarkable, that such as were not in the way of true Religion, and who consequently could not have those assistances and singular protections from heaven, sought at the least to fortify themselves with some semblances. All which filled Alexander with Boldness, was, that they had persuaded him he was of Divine extraction, and that this belief had seized on the souls of the credulous people; which was the cause that he was looked on as a man wholly celestial, destinated to the Empire of the world. It is thought that Pyrrhus 
A notable observation of Pyrrhus.  who imitated him, shown his teeth in great secret to his friends; on the upper row whereof the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was engraven, and on the lower, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; as much as to say, He was a King as generous as a lion: but that which most made this Elegy good, was, that these letters were thought to be form by a Divine hand, to give a testimony from heaven of the greatness of this Monarch: And this being spread among the people, it made them to expect prodigious things from him. Augustus Cesar, who changed the face of the Commonwealth into Empire mounted on the Throne of the Universe by the same means. For it is said, 
Adolphus Occo.  that his father Octavius whilst he sacrificed in a wood, having shed a little wine on the Altar, there came a flame from it which flew up to heaven, whereon the Augur foretold him, he should have a son who should 
Suetonius. 9  be Emperor of the world. It is added, that this Prince, being yet very young, in his childhood, played 
Presages of the generosity of Cesar.  with Eagles, and made frogs to cease their croaking by a silly command; and that as he entered into Rome after the death of Julius Cesar, the Sun was 
Dio, & Ziphilinus in Augusto.  encompassed with a Rainbow, as a presage of the great Peace he should produce in the Roman Empire. Vespasian had never dared to aspire to the Empire, 
Cornel. Tac. histor. l. 2.  without the favour of presages, and namely of that, which happened to him on Mount Carmel, when, sacrificing in the same place, and being in a great perplexity of mind what resolution he should make in this affair; the Priest bade him to be of good courage, and the secret hopes of his heart should have very good success. The world hath not been content to afford 
Eulogies of the City of Rome.  these favours to men alone, but it hath also given it to famous places. Rome, for good luck's sake, was termed, among other titles, Valence, by the name of Valour; 
Solinus l. 1. Gergyrhius.  and Cephale, as much as to say (Head,) to show it 
Ammianus l. 15. c. 6.  should be the Head of the world. Presently also it was flattered with the opinion of its Eternity, so that many termed it the Eternal City, which was the cause that the Romans in their greatest desolations would never forsake the place.  
It appears out of all this, that men having not the power to be ignorant of their own weaknesses, never think themselves strong enough, if they have not some (I know not what) of Divinity: wherefore we must conclude, that the true means to have a generous and solid boldness, is, to be well with God, and to tie one's 
The most bold are such as have a clear conscience.  self to this most pure spirit by purity of heart; for if a little opinion of Divine favour so much encouraged Kings and People; what will not the testimony of a good Conscience do?  
The Egyptians amidst so many plagues from heaven, 
Sap. 17. Ipsi ergò sibi tenebris graviores eraut.  and that dreadful night which took away their firstborn children, were dejected, and couched low on the earth without any spark of courage, because their evil Conscience was more weighty upon them then all their miseries, as the Book of Wisdom observeth.  
What assurance can one have in perils, when, after 
Carnifi●c occulto in authorem sceleris tormenta deserviunt. Peleg. ad Demetr. S. Basil. in Isa. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  he hath committed some crime, he feeleth a little Executioner in his heart with pincers and hooks of iron? Contrariwise, a good Conscience is well compared by S. Basil to that little Kell which environeth the heart, and which continually refresheth it with its wholesome waters; to signify unto us that the heart of a good man abides in perpetual solace, which among dangers preserveth it from disturbances. I ask you, with what assurance stood the good Malchus 
Hieron. in Malcho.  with his holy wife at the entrance of the lion's den, when of one side the glittering sword was presented them, and on the other, they heard those savage beasts to roar, and they notwithstanding remained ? With what arms? but with those which S. Hierome gives them, when he saith, They were encompassed as 
Pudicitiae conscientiâ quasi muro septi.  with a strong wall, which they found in the testimony of their innocency, whereof they were most certain. With what confidence went S. Macarius to lie in the sepulchers of Pagans, and (wholly fearless himself) to strike terror into the spirits of the damned! was it not the assurance of his holy life which furnished his heart with all this resolution? And shall we then doubt but that the true means to be replenished with a holy Courage, is, to set the Conscience in good order, and to make entire Confession of sins to preserve one's self afterward, in all possible purity, from our infirmities?   

§ 5. That Jesus hath given us many Pledges of a sublime Confidence to strengthen our Courage.  
LEt us next contemplate our second Model, and consider a thing very remarkable, which is, that 
Jesus Christ acquired us Boldness by his 〈◊〉.  Jesus Christ, who putteth us into a holy dread by the consideration of his greatness, hath acquired us boldness by his proper fear. These are the words of great S. Leo, I have borrowed fear from thee, and I 
S. Leo hom. de Pass.  have furnished thee with my confidence. He expressly would admit the agony of Mount Olivet in his sacred Humanity, to encourage our pusillanimity; that we in mildness being Lambs, might become Lions by courage: and this is the course he hath observed in all his actions in this great contexture of pains and dolours, of 
Christus venit suscipere infirmitates nostras, & suas nobis conferre virtutes, humana quaerere, praestare divina, accipere inj●●ias, reddere dignitates: quia medicus qui non fert infirmirates, curare nescit. Chrysol. serm. 150.  punishments and glory. He descended from heaven like a rich Merchant laden with great treasures, he came to lodge in a wretched cottage among mortals, whom he held for his brethren. He was charmed with a love so powerful, and entranced in a manner so prodigious, that he made a change, admirable to all the world; taking upon him our infirmities to give us strength, our affronts, to confer his dignity upon us; our wounds, to bestow his health on us.  
When I here below behold a man, well may I have some small impression of his example, but I thereby become not enriched with his merit. Now Jesus hath this property, that besides the benefit of the celestial Doctrine which he communicateth to us, besides that of example (which is infinitely ravishing) he maketh in us, under the title of Adoption, a powerful infusion of his Graces. He continually poureth his virtue on 
Tanquam caput in membra, & tanquam vitis in palmites; in ipsos justificatos jugiter virtutem influit. Concil. Trid. sess. 6. c. 16. Eccli. 45. 9  souls who are in the possession of Justifying Grace: as the head on the rest of the members, and as the root of the vine sendeth nourishment to all the branches which depend upon it. He is our Aaron, who (as it is said in the Book of Wisdom) is crowned with vessels of virtue, since the treasure of his merits are so many vessels of sanctity, which flow over the whole mass of mankind.  
Note, that he communicateth to us three Pledges 
Three powerful succours of our Saviour to animate our constancy.  of his inestimable Love, to give us confidence; that is to say, his Name, his Cross, and the Sacrament of his Body and his Blood. Good God What dastardliness would not be animated, and what courage not raised in the presence of three so much to be adored assistances? The Name of Jesus is the Name of names 
The power of the name of Jesus.  which we should grave on our foreheads, as the Character of our Christianity, and the assurance of our salvation against all hostilities. This is the Name, 
Fancies laminam de auro purissimo in qua sculpes opere caelatoris sa●ctum Domino. Exod. 28. Oratio Manassis. Conclusisti Abyssum, & signastieam, terribili & laudabili nomine tuo.  which the high Priest of the Jews bore on his mitre. It is the name, in sight of which, Alexander, when he went out to besiege Jerusalem, became a lamb of an enraged lion, breaking all his choler at the feet of a Priest, as waves are dashed against the rocks. It is that Name, which made Daniel to take his refection, whilst he was in the paws of lions, with all tranquillity. That Name, which the flames of the Babylonian furnace acknowledged. That Name, which God maketh use of to seal up the Abysses.  
And what shall I say of the Cross, and of this Royal Standard of the Monarch of monarches, said 
The admirable effects of the Cross of Jesus Christ.  the voice of heaven to Constantine. It is he under whom so many brave Colonels of Christian soldiery have flown from one Pole to another as Eagles, fallen like tempests upon the armies of Saracens, cut like keen razors, consumed as with coals all Powers opposed against Christianity. How often hath this sign lifted up dejected Courages? How often hath it thrown terror among legions of Infidels? How often hath it driven away Devils? On this wood, God established 
Dominus regnavit à ligno. Aug. in Psal 91. Pugnavit Cruce sua Christus, vicit Reges & subjugatis eis ipsam Crucem in front fixit.  his Throne. Jesus Chiist (as saith S. Augustine) fought with his Cross. He by it, defeated the Kings and Monarches of the earth; and having gloriously overthrown them, hath made them to carry the Cross on their foreheads. O how unhappy be we if we resemble vipers who bear the Cross, but, hidden under their jaws! It is to do like the brood of vipers, to blush at the Cross, and to be ashamed at the venerable scorns of the Passion of our Saviour. But it is our work to bear it in the sight of all the world, and to 
Raymund. in Autechristo.  regard it as the sign of our Redemption, and the harness of our Protection.  
What shall we not do with it, and with this adorable 
The courage we may derive from the help of the holy Sacrament of the Altar.  Sacrament of the Altar, which maketh us present with God, and God so present to us? Is it not from thence, that so many Saints have gone forth as lions casting fire and flames out of their mouths? (as saith S. John chrysostom) The learned S. Gregory of Tours teacheth us, that anciently the holy Eucharist was kept 
An excellent observation of S. Gregory.  in Churches in a little tower of silver. In my opinion, to signify, that this pledge of the love of God is a fortress inexpugnable, against the assaults of our enemies. That is it, which at all times fortified Virgins against the ardours of Concupiscence and the importunities of carnal lovers who would have bereft them of their honour. That, which made Martyrs run to flames and wheels, as others, to delights. That, which made them to look with alacrity upon their streaming blood, and to hold it more precious than oriental pearls.  
The Scripture telleth us, that the Children of Israel 
Numb. 35.  being departed from Marah (as much as to say a place of Bitterness) arrived at Elim, where they found twelve Fountains and seventy Palms. And I must tell you, that when, after the Mortification of the flesh, the afflictions of the world, the fears of so many accidents which menace us, we come to this divine Sacrament; there we meet with fountains which stream from the wounds of our Saviour; there we gather palms and victories, numberless. Who then would not learn holy Boldness in the school of Jesus Christ? But alas! it often happens that instead of profiting in so good a school, and in the Doctrine of so great a Master; we are bold for the world, and timorous in the affairs of God. What a prodigy is it to see nowadays so many who are only bold, to do ill? If a falsehood be to be averred, if a wretched maid to be debauched, if a revenge to be put forward, even to the effusion of humane blood, if lawful Powers to be resisted, if laws both Divine and Humane to be spoken against; there Boldness and Confidence appeareth. But, what say I? Confidence? yea, Impudence, fomented by the mildness of laws and impunity of so many crimes. But, in undertake made for God, we have hearts of wax, and souls trembling like leaves under the breath of winds.  
O detestable Boldness! which art not born but to serve as an instrument to mischief; dost thou not know there is no assured Power against God, who in the twinkling of an eye overthroweth the children and race of Titanians? O senseless man! canst thou not be bold, but from the presumption of thy strength? And hast thou not yet learned, that the things, which, according to the opinion of the world, are most strong, are confounded by the weakest? Lions have been fed upon by flies, and wretched rust wasteth the hardest metals. If we must be bold, let it be in things honest; let it be for virtue, for verity, for God's cause. Should the heavens 
Si tactus illabatur orbis, impavidum serient ruinae: Quadratum lapidem qua verteris stat Aug. in Psal. 86.  fall in thunderclaps upon our heads, their ruins have not power to astonish a mind courageous. Turn a square stone which way you will, it never stands  upon the solidity of its Basis, said S. Augustine. One would have me do an ill act, and if I consent not thereto, I am threatened with the loss of a suit, of a ruin of my affairs, and with poverty, the worst scourge of all. Let my enemies vomit forth all their rage on me, they cannot make me poorer than I was when I was born. I came not into the world glittering with precious stones, and it was not gold which instead of blood ran up and down my veins; let poverty come against me with all the train of its terrors. When I behold on the Cross a God all naked, who in his nakedness 
We must fearnothing in the world, to the prejudice of our soul.  giveth all things; I say, we should account it a glory to die poor, for a God so despoiled. They threaten me with banishment; the Spirit of God teacheth me, not to care what land be under my feet, when my eyes are fixed on heaven, and on the most blessed repose of the living, which concludeth all evils in a beatitude infinite.  
They threaten me with imprisonment, fetters, gibbets, and death, the terrible of terribles. I expect not till it fall on me. I look on it afar off with an eye strucken with the first rays of felicity. What can death take from me but a miserable carcase subject to a thousand deaths, but a life of pismires and flies? And what can it bring unto me, but a cessation from so many relapsing actions, and from a wretched embroilment, which every day endeth not, but to begin again? O how little are all things mortal, with him who looks on a God immortal! I will walk in the shades of death with a firm footing, and a confident countenance, since it cannot separate me from the source of Lives.    

The eleventh Treatise, Of SHAMEFACTNESSE.  

§ 1. The Decency of Shamefacedness, its Nature, and Definition.  
Shamefacedness is a humane Passion, more reasonable than the rest: because (being properly 
Shamefacedness a very reasonable Passion.  A fear of Dishonour) it makes distinction between that which is decent or undecent; laudable or blame-worthy; glorious or infamous; which appertaineth to the Court-hall of Judgement and Reason: It hath this privilege, that 
Its sources, honour, and conscience.  it takes its Origin from two very eminent sources; which are Conscience and Honour: seeing the things which cause shame in us, are ordinarily vicious, or naught in the common understanding of men.  
Conscience (which, according to S. Thomas, is a natural habitude that exciteth us to good, and maketh 
1 Part. q. 80  us to disapprove evil) insensibly stirreth in us shame so soon as any of our thoughts, actions, or words transgress its laws. Honour, on the other side, casts forth a ray from the circuit of its glory which visibly figureth 
The love of reputation is a strong spur.  unto us the blemishes that darken its beauty. The love of Reputation is powerful. It seems to be some Atom of Divinity which enters into hearts the most generous, makes men very desirous to be well esteemed, thinking by this means to lead a pleasing life in the minds of many: which is much more prized than the life of bodies, seeing there are some who daily sacrifice themselves for punctilio's of Honour, to bloody deaths, in the most exalted height of their prosperity. This reputation pompously marchethe before Conquerors, and causeth a million of Trumpets to be sounded to make them famous: It cultivateth the verdant Laurels of great Captains: It encourageth the most heartless soldiers to Combat: It cherisheth the learned, and sweeteneth the toils of their pens: It awakeneth arts: It raiseth the most excellent Ladies, as it were, on the wing of Glory, by singularpraises of their Chastity: It entereth into places the most infamous, as the ray of the Sun into a puddle, and makes even those who have renounced Honour still to seek some rag of Renown to cover their reproach. S. Augustine saith, 
S August. in Psal. 19 Herostratus and others. Non sum tantus, ut sim contentus conscientia mea. Ambr. l. 1. Offic. c. 48.  men are so ready to make themselves to be known, that those who cannot be known for their goodness, make themselves many times to be talked of for their wickedness, as if they thought, it were as good to be nothing as to see themselves deprived of the knowledge of the living. S. Ambrose saith admirably well, I am not so great a man, as to be satisfied with my own Conscience. I have this infirmity that I cannot endure the least stain of shame without washing it off. This is the cause, that the whole world endeavoureth to preserve for itself (as much as it can) an inviolable estimation among so many different opinions of judgements, passions, favours, disgraces, interests, and revolutions of the world. Manners (saith S. Bernard) have their colours, and their odours, which are good examples. So soon as Reputation is wounded by the object of some dishonour; the soul is moved, all the blood is stirred, spreading itself over the face with a ruddiness, as if it proceeded from this wound. It is a favour from heaven, when we have our senses tender in this kind: and I find the ancient Orator Demades spoke 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Demades.  right, when he said, Shamefacedness was the Citadel of Beauty and Virtue. Likewise, the Oracle of Doctors, S. Augustine writeth, that a more acceptable sacrifice we cannot give to devils, then to offer them up 
Aug. Epist. 202.  our Shamefacedness; forsomuch as if that be once extinct, there remains nothing but to expect a general inundation of all wickedness.   

§ 2. Divers kinds of Shamefacedness.  
NOw we must here observe, that there are many kinds of Shamefacedness, one whereof is Holy, 
Three kinds of shamefacedness.  the other Humane, and the other Evil. I say, a holy Shamefacedness (as that which being a most faithful companion of Chastity) cannot endure the least thing 
Holy shamefacedness.  contrary to this holy virtue, but that it becomes much interessed therein. This most evidently appeareth in so many good men, in so many virtuous women, and chaste virgins; who cannot hear an unchaste word but that it fixeth a wound in their hearts. Tertullian said, 
Virginibus etiam ipsum suum bonum erubescendum est. Tertul. de Velandis Virginibus cap. 3.  Virgins should blush even at the good they possessed; meaning, that albeit their virginal body bear nothing upon it but the characters of honour: yet ought they not to permit the view of their beauty, as a pillage, to curious eyes, fearing lest any glance might steal away some tender blossom of amiable Virginity. There are some who easily blush at the approach of another sex, and at words too freely spoken, not that they feel themselves guilty of any thing; but of a natural Shamefacedness, which cannot suffer the least thought of things reproachful: and many times also out of the fear they have to be suspected in matters, of which they in conscience have no remorse. This is a sign of a good soul, and it is necessary for such an one as will preserve a Chastity inviolable; to avoid the least approaches, and all which may prejudice Decorum. Libanius an excellent Orator observeth, that a Painter one day 
An excellent observation of Libanius.  desirous to paint Apollo upon a board of Laurel, the colours seemed to be rejected and could not be laid thereon. Out of which, this curious wit invented an excellent rarity, saying, That the chaste Daphne (who according to the fiction of Poets was turned into a Laurel-tree, flying from Apollo who would dishonour her) could not endure him, yea, even in painting; although she now was nought else, but a piece of insensible wood. Whereupon we may infer, that chaste bodies fear the least images and resemblances of impurity, and do, even beyond a Tomb, preserve some sense of Integrity. It is read in the life of S. Ephiphanius, 
Simeon Constantin. in Epiphan.  that he gave a kick with his foot, after his death, at a curious man who looked too near upon him. And we also see many who expressly by their will forbid themselves to be opened, and to have their entrails pried into by dissections, which somewhat savours of inhumanity. We must not be too curious in these matters, when we make no profession of them. For, sometimes many maids are more knowing before marriage, then is requisite for Chastity. Marcia daughter of 
Fulgosus l. 6  Varro, who was one of the rarest wits of her time, was skilful in all arts, yea, even in Painting; but never would she paint naked men, lest she might offend modesty. Is it not a brave sight to behold a Christian, whose blood flieth up into his face when he heareth blasphemies vomited forth against God, as a good son would blush when the Ashes of his father were defamed! What a goodly thing is it to see a vice rejected, which, a dissolute brazen-face, or a confident corrupt spirit suggesteth to a young tender soul of an Angelical Shamefacedness, that draweth blood from the face, and makes use of this vermilion as of mysterious ink, to write down the comdemnation of dishonour!  
The second kind of Shamefacedness is much more 
Humane & interessed shamefacedness.  humane, and more interessed, which is daily observed in a thousand occasions in the world, when one blusheth, out of an apprehension of incurring some blemish of a good reputation, in what concerneth Extraction, Body, Wit, Profession, Integrity, Virtue, Condition, and Estate. Some are much vexed at their own birth, and when they see themselves raised to some degree of honour, they are ashamed that their enemy's reproach them with the baseness of their beginning: but, they should remember, that Birth is a business whereunto they are not called; that it is no more in our power then are the stars and the winds; and that many great personages have boasted they have mounted higher by Virtue, than their ancestors had descended by the obscurity of their Extraction.  
Porus the Monarch of the Indies was the son of a 
Obscurity of birth in great personages.  Barber: Bradyllus Prince of the Sclavonians, of a Collier: Ortagoras Duke of the Sicyonians, of a Cook: Agathocles King of Sicily, of a Potter: and yet they gloried to have made a large way to greatness for themselves from the recommendation of their valour. Primislaus, come from the condition of a peasant to principality, caused his old homely rags to be kept, that he might sometimes look on them. The Archbishop Villegesius' son of a Carter, commanded wheels to be painted all over his Scutcheons of Arms. There are none but inferior hearts which are offended with God's counsels, who is the distributour of Glory. Others are confounded for deformities of body, as he, 
Senec. de constantia sapien●is.  of whom Chrysippus speaketh, who was extremely discontented that he was called Sea-Ram: and Cornelius who wept in full Senate for being compared to a bald 
Shame of scoffing.  Ostrich: but this tenderness of apprehension proceeded from overmuch prising the body, which is but a dunghill even in those who are most resplendent in beauty. We should prevent such a scoff upon so slight occasions, and to take the word out of their mouth, as Vatinius a man much mishapen, who mocked so long at his own throat and legs, that he in conclusion left nothing for Cicero to declaim against. Others love not to have their age talked of, as if that, which is to be desired, were a crime. Others must not be seen in a mean habit, as if they were much greater than Adam and Eve, who in the beginning of the world were clothed only with leaves and skins. Others are infinitely apprehensive to seem poor, not considering that by hiding poverty, they reproach themselves, and condemn Jesus Christ, who spread it over the Crib, as on a Throne of Honour.  
Others are dejected with deep melancholy, to see themselves despised in parts of Wit, Judgement, Understanding, Capacity, Industry, and Dexterity in matters, whereof they make profession, and wherein they think to excel; namely, when this contempt is offered in company before men of reputation whose good opinion they affect, before their competitors, their corrivals, their enemies, who take a direful comfort in their confusion. Then is the time when one sinketh into the bottom of dishonour, and when shamefacedness 
The strange shame of contempt, Laertius.  covers all the face over. Cronus was so abashed, that he was not able to solve a Sophism at King Ptolomy's Table, that he died with discontent. A Polonian Prince strangled himself upon an oppression of 
Cromerus lib. 6.  Ignominy, seeing Bolestaus the Third, who was his King, had sent him a Hares-skin with a distaff, to upbraid him with his Cowardice in a battle against the Muscovites. But we must say truly, that all this proceedeth from an enraged desire of punctilios of Honour which ought never, to such extremity, take root in the soul of a Christian.  
Lastly, there be who are touched with some shame for vices, not those which they know do displease God, but for such as are accounted ignominious in the opinion of men: as to be a Villain, a Miser, a Liar, a Traitor, a Falsifier, an Impostor, a Thief, Unjust, Ungrateful, Base, and exorbitant in the excess of bodily vices, especially when those exorbitancies are waited on by shameful punishments and public infamy. All this is able to confound one who hath any feeling of honour; but if shame happen for sin, it must be driven away by virtue; nay, it is much better to take shame, then to be taken by it; for the one flieth the sin before it be committed, and the other blusheth to have committed it. There are others to be found who make a little account of grievous sins with which they defile their consciences, and dishonour their reputation: But if there be any blemish or some suspicion concerning the honour of their wife, that thrusts them into despair: as it happened to Valerius a man of eminent quality, who was wounded with the most sensible arrow that ever he received, when the Emperor Caligula 
Seneca de constantia sapientis.  reproached him at his table, and in the presence of many, with some very secret defects which he said were on his wife's body, which was indeed to publish an Adultery, and the contempt of a Lord one of his dearest friends, and of a man of his own nature, fierce enough to take revenge, as it happened a while after, when the insolences of this miserable Prince bore him to a violent and a direful death.  
Let us conclude with a third sort of Shamefacedness, which is absolutely bad and blame-worthy, when one blusheth for Devotion, for Chastity, for Temperance, and other Virtues which are not accounted of in the souls of Libertines and dissolute people. How many are there, who, to comply with ill company, attribute sins to themselves which they never committed, and vaunt imaginary vices, as if there were no Hell for them, but in picture? Others had rather be found in an ill place, then to be often seen at the feet of a Priest, or at the Communion-Table, in a time when great spirits accustom not to observe Christian duties. They fear lest the reputation of being devout may draw along with it some suspicion of weakness: they are troubled, that nature hath not made them impudent enough, to shake off the stings of a good Conscience. It is a monstrous shame to betray so good a Mistress as Virtue, and to esteem the services ignominious which are done her. They who adulterate metals, and potion the sources of lively fountains, do less ill, than such as corrupt the pure lights of the apprehensions we ought to have out of virtue. But, although it be many times ill to be shamefaced; yet there is not any thing more intolerable then to be impudent: for, that is it which putteth all vice into authority; and all the noblest actions into a base and bad esteem.   

§ 3. The excellency of shamefacedness, and the ugliness of Impudence.  
I have always made great account of a Curious note of Clemens Alexandrinus, who observeth that at 
A notable observation of Clemens Alexandr. S. Stromat.  Diospolis a City of Egypt, on the gate of a Temple named Pylon, were seen five figures: To wit, of a child, of an old man, a Hawk, a Fish, and of a Crocodile: A child, to signify Birth; an old man, to denote death; a Hawk, to represent the eye of God; A fish, to be the Hieroglyphic of Hatred; and the Crocodile of impudence. And this excellent Author addeth, that these five statues only meant this sentence, O you who are born, and shall die, Know God hateth impudence.  
shamefacedness hath been so recommended by all 
The esteem antiquity had of shamfac'dnesse. Vit pudens.  Antiquity, that when one would praise a man of honour by a most special title; he was called a man of shamefacedness, as we see in ancient styles, and contrariwise, to name a man impudent, were to qualify him with the titles of all vices. The Scripture, which is admirable in representing to the life the propriety of all things, hath not forgotten this: For, willing in two draughts to give the picture of a bad man, in the person of Antiochus; it saith, An impudent, and a crafty king, shall rise who shall 
Consurget Rex impudens fancy, & intelligens propositiones. Dan. 8. 23.  seek to understand all manner of subtleties. And it is a strange thing, that, going about to set forth a man who was a mass of ordures and blood; it is content to give him, for the chief of his titles, the term of Impudent in his countenance; leaving us from that, to conjecture that he had lost shamefacedness, the nurse of virtues, and the 
Melissa disc. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  Guardian of the Temple of Sanctity. To this purpose the learned Melissa in the sixteenth discourse, speaks two excellent words. The first of all virtues is Innocency, and the second shamefacedness,  
He who hath once lost it, hath nothing entire, since he hath likewise broken the sacred instrument of all virtues, 
Theophrastus' de impudentia. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  which is Conscience. Thence we may easily understand, that impudence (which is no other than a neglect of reputation, as Theophrastus a Disciple of Aristotle defineth it) is a great evil. Should I depaint it, I would give it a brow of Brass: What is more impregnable 
The picture of impudence.  against blushing? I would make it with the eyes of a Frog, black, and bloody: What is more inflexible to modesty? And could I give a voice to my Table, I would make the voice of Stentor to resound from its mouth, who was the most open-throated of men: For what is more filled with outcries, or is more tumultuously clamorous? I would give it hands of violence and rapine: for what is more injurious? Wandering feet: for what is more straying? I would set by its side liberty, and hope of impunity, which are two disorders that support and foment it. Finally, it should have all vices waiting on it, since he who is not ashamed of doing ill, is capable to produce all manner of monsters. I would figure at its feet a Crocodile; for it is a creature which, from the least of all, proportionably, becometh the greatest: and impudency, which in its, beginnings seems in children but a little spark, doth in conclusion kindle a huge fire. Besides, I behold in the region 
Divers spirits subject to impudence.  of this unhappy passion divers subjects, according to the diversity of age, sex, and conditions: I there see little children, to whom Nature hath given a veil of shamefacedness, which made their scarlet innocency appear upon the first object of malice. And I perceive that Impudence by little and little breaks in upon them, some have more of it, some less; but all, instantly begin to prattle too freely, and indifferently to take liberty by slight mis-becoming actions. I see others of them at the age of eighteen and twenty, who have shaken off the yoke of parents, masters, and kindred, tearing away even in a moment the scarf of shamefacedness, and sucking in the breath of liberty, as if they were little wild-Asses in a wilderness. O! what dangerous beasts; oh! what savage creatures (saith Plato) 
Plato de Republ.  are children ill bred! Foxes and Wolves are a thousand times more casy to be tamed, then dissolute youth, which hath folly for guide, and Impudence for companion. O God what a monster see I here? I also discover young maids and women to whom Nature (as S. Gregory Nazianzen saith) had supereminently afforded the 
Greg. Nag. Carm. in mulier.  goodly veil of virtuous shamefacedness, died in the richest and most beautiful Incarnadine that may be; yet have they defaced it. When they conceived sin, they had 
Basil. apud Melissam  got a little shame; after they had brought it forth, they became extremely impudent in glances, in words, in conversation, in immodesty, and dissolution. I have seen Lionesses, and Panthers taken out of the most savage wildernesses, which one (well practised in the ordering of beasts) with a little industry lead along through cities and villages; but I never found a bridle strong enough to curb an impudent woman. A cohabitation with Aspics and Vipers would be more sweet and supportable. I see (moreover) in this Region many deceivers and impostors, many Buffoons and hunters after bountiful meals, who have belly-talk perpetually in their mouths and actions, such as were those of the Cynic Diogenes, which they cover with a pretext of Nature. Lastly, I see servants bandied against their Masters, son's rebellious against their fathers, people revolted against their King, who trample under foot all manner of obedience and justice. I see hideous Monsters of Heresies, of impiety, and Atheism; who uncontrollably throw forth blasphemies against religion. Behold the effects and goodly government of Impudence!   

§ 4. Of Reverence due to God.  
TO reform the Image of shamefacedness, let us 
Remedies  reflect on our first original, and see how God would train us up to Reverence by an admirable way of 
The great reverence of the Divinity.  his divine Providence. Is it not a thing very remarkable that the apparitions and communications of the Divinity, although they seem to be most important to awaken our faith, were at all times so rare; that God rather chose to permit doubts in the faith of his Essence, and formal infidelities, then to show and communicate himself upon all occasions under corporal and visible forms, which might cause any diminution in the reverence due to his Majesty? He is in the world, as a King in his palace who sees all, and is not seen by any: He looketh on us through so many latice-windows, as there are creatures, yet is invisible to our corporal eyes. Verily, It was an ancient maxim held by the Hebrews, to oblige them to the reverence of the Divinity; that the Majesty of God was so potent, and awful, that no man might see it without dying in the place; which they inferred upon the passage of Exodus, No man shall 
Ezod. 38.  see me, and live.  
Thence, Manoah father of Samson after the admirable 
Judic. 13.  apparition of the Angel (the Lieutenant of God) which appeared unto him said to his wife we shall die, for we have seen God. And Jacob according to the interpretation 
Gen. 32. 30.  of some Father, after the notable vision of the ladder, said, not by a motion of joy, but out of admiration, O wonder! I have seen God face to face, and yet I am alive. And albeit God communicated himself to his 
Clarâ atque persp. cuâ praesentiâ divinae dignationis donatus. Ambr 1. Hexam. c. 2.  greatest favourites under visible figures; yet never did he show himself properly in his Essence, no not to Moses, although S. Ambrose saith of him, that God gave him a clear and most manifest view of his divine presence.  
We must understand it, in such manner, as that this great lawgiver had most resplendent and most familiar apparitions of God, above the other Prophets. For God seemed to speak with him face to face, as one friend talks to another: notwithstanding we must say, with the greatest doctors of the Church, that for all this, he saw not the essence of God. Such is the opinion of Pope Euaristus, of S. Dionysius, of S. Irenaeus, of Tertullian; 
eucharist. Dionys. c. 4. H●erarch, coelestis. Origen. 2. princip. Irenaeus ● 4. adve●sus Haereses. c. 34. Tertul. adversus Mar●ian. Deum nemo vidit unquam Joan. 1. 18. Illi autem id eo viderunt qui cunque Deum viderunt, quia cùm voluerit, sicut voluerit, apparet, e● specie quam voluntas elegerit etiam latente naturâ. Aug. ep. 112. ad Paulinam. Non loquatur nobis Dominus. Exod. 12.  and, the text of S. John is therein express, No man hath ever seen God; and the decision of S. Augustine, who saith, That as for those who have seen him, this favour was granted them, Because God appeared when he would, and how he would, in such figure as it pleased him to make choice of, his Essence still remaining under covert. Let us also add, for a reason, that as often as God in the old Testament gave to his people visible marks of his presence, he gave them with so much terror and affrightment, that the poor people astonished at his approach so prodigious, were enforced to say, Let not God speak to us. We know it by the apparition of the mount Sinai, where they saw voices, that is to say exhalations of flames which made a great noise in the clouds, and burning lamps, and horrible smokes, the sound of Trumpets, and Clarions being mingled throughout all this loud Din; which made them to swoon, and become pale at the foot of the mountain, and with suppliant hands to beseech Moses to speak to them, because the voice of God was too terrible. Wherefore was all this done? but to maintain reverence in the people which were ready enough to let themselves lose to impudence.  
Alas! How can we live under the laws of God with so little respect, and reverence, even in Churches? Have we not still the same signs? the like advertisements? All in this universe, on us, about us, and above us, is marked with the messages of the fear of God. Above us, God reigneth in the store-house of air and clouds; the pillars of the Firmament tremble, the heavens are bowed in all their regions under the glory of his steps. The winds are the Courriers, and postilions of his will, who run along spreading his name throughout the four quarters of the habitable world. The Sun confesseth, he is but a shadow in comparison of the increated light, and presenteth as many fingers as there are rays, to write down the commandments of God upon the brow of clouds; his decrees move with wings of lightnings, and are heard in the roaring voice of thunders. It is so natural to bear a reverence to his Divine Majesty, that there is not a creature in the world, how insensible soever, which feeleth not the touches of this much-to-beadored greatness. Wild beasts, who roam up and down Forests with blood and massacres perpetually under their paws, by natural instinct quake at the thundering voice of God. Fishes in the bottom of seas, and abysses with horror hear it: enraged tempests (which seem ready to tear the world in pieces) become silent at the command of the Highest, and draw in their 
O maxim, O sum invisibilium procreator, opifex invise, & nullis unquam comprehense naturis, d●gnus e● verè, si modò te dignum mortali dicendum est cre, cui spirans omnis intelligénsque natura, & habere, & agere nunquam gratias desinat, cui totâ conveniat vitâ genu nixo procumbere, & continuatis precibus suppiicàte. Arnob. contra gentes.  wings under his throne: waves and floods which make a show not to regard this great All, no more than a single Element, dissolve their fury upon the sight of one silly grain of sand, which imposeth a law on them by virtue of God's ordinance. The very devils, all on Fire in the flames of their punishment, which, infinite misery seems to have exempted from fear, can not free themselves from this sting. O most mighty! O most sovereign Lord of things visible and invisible! O great Eye, who seest all, and art not seen by any here below! Thou art truly worthy (If we with mortal lips may call thee worthy; yea worthy) to whom all intelligent and reasonable Nature should give continual thanks for thy inexplicable benefits; worthy, before whom we on our bended knees should all our life-time remain prostrate; worthy, that for thee we should have praises and prayers everlastingly on our lips. And where is that brazen brow which dares to offend thee in the midst of thy Temple of this universe, from whence thou on all sides beholdest us? O what a monster is impudence, if it persist insensible to such considerations!   

§ 5. Of the reverence which the holy Humanity of our Lord bare to his Eternal Father.  
LEt us look on the other Model, and consider how 
The reverence Jesus bare to that divine Majesty.  Jesus Christ, uncapable properly either of fear or shamefacedness caused by any defect, observed all the days of his mortal conversation so lowly a reverence towards the divine Majesty, that it serves for matter of admiration to all Angels, and of example for all ages. To understand this well, I beseech you to take into your consideration two reasons that I will set before you, which me thinks are well worthy of your ponderation. First, that the greatness of actions ought ever to be measured by the end for which God hath instituted them: as if one prove that the actions of understanding are given us to raise us to the knowledge of God, we by the same means infer that those actions are very noble, since they are directed to an end so eminent. Now wherefore, think you, was the eternal Word Incarnate in the womb of a holy Virgin? I say, that besides consideration of humane Redemption, and the instruction of all mortals, God covered himself with the flesh of man, that there might by that means be a person in the world able to praise and honour God, as much as he is praiseworthy, and honourable, by a nature create, hypostatically joined to the divine nature. Philo in 
Philo de plantatione Noemi.  the Book of Noah's plantation saith, that search was made through the world for a voice suitable to the divine Majesty, to speak, and recount his praises, and there was none found. For although the sovereign Creator hath been praised from the beginning of Ages by the morning stars, which are the Angels (as saith Job) 
Come me laudarent astra matutina, & jubi● larent omnes filii Dei. Job 38. 5.  yet we must say, that all the praises which the highest Seraphims may give to the Divinity (if we compare them to the merits of its incomparable greatness) are like a Candle in comparison of the Sun; a small drop of water paralleled with the sea; and an infantlike stutterer who should undertake to declare the prowesses of the most illustrious Caesar's. There needeth a lauding God, a reverencing God, and an adoring God, to praise, reverence, and adore God worthily: otherwise there were nothing suitable to his Divine Majesty, there being no proportion between the finite, and the Infinite. And that which seemed to be impossible is accomplished in the person of Jesus Christ. All reverences of Angels and men are dissolved into him, as if one should melt many small Bells, to make a great one. And verily all creatures being dumb in his presence, he made himself as a huge Bell of the great clock of the word, which striketh the hours, and resoundeth thanks to his heavenly Father. All our reverences, our homages, our adorations have neither force, dignity, nor value, if they be not united, and incorporated with the homage, submission, and adoration which this glorious Humanity rendereth to his Celestial Father, even above the vaults of the Empereall Heaven. This is the great Angel of Counsel, of whom we may pronounce these words of the Apocalypse, That he came to present himself 
Apoc. 8. 3.  before the Altar having in his hand a golden Incensorie, and much incense was given him, that he might offer the prayers of holy Saints on this golden Altar.  
The second reason is, that the reverence and honour we do to one, is justly augmented according as we more clearly know his great and worthy parts; whereupon we may infer, that as our Saviour had knowledges and incomparable lights of the Majesty of his heavenly Father, not only in respect of science increate, but of science beatific and infused: so had he proportionably resentments of honour, so profoundly reverend, that he perpetually lived absorbed in this reverence, as a drop of water in the sea, or a hot Iron in the furnace. There was neither vein nor artery which was not every moment penetrated and overflowed with the veneration he yielded to God his Father.  
Men who naturally are dull and sensual, stand in need of exterior signs to raise them to the reverence of God. For which cause the sages of the world in the falsehood of pretended religions, have always affected some tokens of terror to affright perjured and 
Philostr. l. 1. c. 16 de vit. Apollonii. A notable custom of the Babylonians in doing Justice.  wicked men. So the Babylonians when they sat on matters of Justice went into a Hall of the Palace, made in the form of the heavens, where were hanged the figures of their Gods, all resplentent in gold, and where were to be seen on the roof certain forms of birds which they thought to be sent from on high, as messengers of 
The custom of Bochyris a Judge of Egypt.  the Sun. So Bochyris a most famous Judge of Egypt, (ordinarily named as the Father and protector of Equity) that he might powerfully imprint an apprehension of God avenger of Injustices, when he fate on his throne of Judicature, always had the image of a serpent in embossed work, hanging over his head as in a readiness to sting him if he pronounced an unjust sentence. This is partly tolerable, partly also praiseworthy among mortal men; but as for the person of our Saviour, he had not any need of exterior signs, having always a perspicuous vision of the Divinity. And tell me not, this continual sight of God, this so expressed familiarity, might lessen the reverence which ordinarily is preserved in things less accustomed. This verily hath some truth: if we speak of men, their perpetual presence many times diminisheth the reverence of those who familiarly converse with them; because being men, their perfections are finite, and imperfections almost infinite; which is the cause they are exhausted like roses, which with their odour cast forth part of their substance. They waste like Torches which annihilate themselves before the eyes of beholders, leaving most time's nought behind them but stink and smoke. They are to be looked on afar off and in the dark, as painted women and adulterate merchandise: but in God, whom S. Denis calleth the Hearth and House of Essences; we must not apprehend 
Dionys. de divin. nominibus c. 1.  these limitations, these defects, and these disrelishes, since he, being of his own nature infinite, is never lessened.  
The most blessed soul of Jesus Christ entered into the consideration of his greatnesses, as into a most spacious Labyrinth all replenished with lights, perfections, and virtues which never satiate; but on the contrary give (as in an eternal Theatre) spectacles delicious, immortal, and inexplicable. For there it is, where all the blessed draw their felicity; always greedy and ever full, always in possession and ever desiring; their satiety is without loathing, and their hunger free from torment; still they eat the bread of life, and never waste it. As S. Augustine hath most divinely observed 
Hymn. Dam de gloria Para.  in the Hymn, which Cardinal Damian hath framed out of his words. Thence I leave you to consider with what reverence our Lord walked on the earth, as a man suspended in heaven, drenched in God, as a sponge would be in a vast sea; a man who held not of the earth, but by roots of compassion and mercy. Still he had his eyes lifted up towards heaven in doing miracles, still his hands raised towards heaven in prayer, still his heart contracted with sadness for the irreverencies committed against the irreverencies of his father. Conversation, drinking, eating, sleeping desolved not the sweet conversation he had with God. Sometimes even in company, being overwhelmed with the impetuous approach of this holy Majesty, he broke forth into words of reverence, of love, of thanksgiving, as it were saying, I laud 
Matt. 21. 25  thee my Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden those goodly lights from men who make account of the wisdom and prudence of the world, and hast made them known to the most simple and little ones; yea dear Father, for such hath been thy most holy will.  
In honour of the lowly reverence which Jesus Christ bore to his heavenly Father. Let us resolve to preserve in ourselves three sorts of shamefacedness; of piety, of chastity, of discretion: Shamefacedness of piety; by observing a holy and religious modesty in Churches, and all those actions which do appertain to the service and honour of God: Shamefacedness of chastity; by abstaining from all words and actions which render conversation too free and exorbitant, not without some prejudice to chastity. And therefore (O Virgins) engrave in your hearts this document of Tertullian, who saith. That it is fit a virgin should blush even at virtue. Lastly, let us have shamefac'nesse of discretion in demeaning ourselves very circumspectly in all the duties we ought to yield to persons worthy of honour, and namely to those to whom we are tied by some obligations.  
Alas! who can endure those that have lost not only reverence of a God invisible, but even the shame of men visible? Shamefacedness is the last shirt of virtue which one never putteth off, but when he is ready to cloth himself with an infinity of vices. It is a strange thing that Adam and Eve, who bore (as it were) in one vessel all the riches of Mankind, after they had made that miserable shipwreck (the losses whereof we yet deplore) after they had lost all that which a wretch might lose, and all that which a happy man might desire; they yet still, in the midst of this great breach preserved shamefacedness as the last plank of this lamentable shipwreck. They yet were ashamed to see themselves naked; and by this spectacle of their nakedness, were persuaded to penance. And thou wretched and depraved soul, over head and ears; thou fearest neither God nor man, father nor mother, neighbour nor kinsman, friend nor magistrate, force, mildness, admonition, menace, nor reputation, either good or bad. Ah Caitiff! It is to run to a downfall with veiled eyes, to live in this manner: It is to lift up an armed hand against heaven. Thy conscience justifies thee (sayest thou) and thou carest not at all for men; what conscience, if thou neglectest reputation which is the bridle wherewith God useth to repress all sorts of vice? Thou hast no conscience, which notwithstanding, never forsakes any man, enlightening and stinging thiefs in wild caves, and in the massacres of men, to expose to light vices (which could never endure the rays of the Sun which were confined to darkness and Gomorrhian night) to establish them in the conversation of men, to publish them, to practise them openly before the eyes of heaven and earth, and to say we should give nature free liberty. Ah! wicked Zimri. Hast thou not read the History in the book of Numbers? hast thou not in this picture observed the effects and disasters of impudence? As that of Zimri, a Prince of God's people, 
〈◊〉. 35. ●he miserable end of an unhappy impudent man  who hastening to make love to a Madianite, a Cozbi, at midday, in sight of all the people of Israel; cast under foot the laws of God, the shame of men, the honour of Reputation, the reverence of all posterity: Wretch, whither goest thou? said one to him. Know'st thou not the law of God forbiddeth alliance with strangers? what hast thou to do with this Madianite? she will ruin thee. It importeth thee not to say, I will go. But dost thou consider thy quality, and the rank thou holdest, being a Prince of People? Thou well seest, the bad example thou wilt give to all the world, cannot but be pernicious. It importeth not, I will go. Behold thy Parents and nearest of kin stretch forth their hands to thee, and say; Son, Do not our family this dishonour: Bring not such a crime into our house, which will make us incur the malediction of God, and will overwhelm thee first of all under some notable disaster. It importeth not, I will go. Alas! seest thou not poor Moses, who weeps with all the people prostrated before the Tabernacle of God, that he would be pleased to divert such a thought from thee, lest thou become culpable of the anger of God, which will fall on the whole Army, if thou goest to this stranger? It importeth not, I will go. Son, if thou resolvest to sin, then stay till night; make a veil of darkness further to cover thy wickedness from the eyes of the world, for fear lest thy example may serve for a rock of scandal to those who are yet novices in virtue. Yet, thou perversely sayest, I will go in full day light: I will enjoy my pleasures; and who art thou that givest me a law? Go Zimri, Go impudent man, thou in thy calamity shalt know the salary of thy sin. You know the rest of the History, he goes thither, he accosteth the Madianite in sight of all the world. At which time God raiseth a young Prince, as courageous as a Lion, grandchild of Aaron, who followeth him armed with zeal and sword, crying out aloud; Ah Traitor! Ah infamous man! He finds him out in the throne of Lust, in the bed of iniquity, in the heat of Crime; and with his sword transfixeth him and the Madianite, making the abominable Bed and their unchaste loves to float all in blood. O blood horribly (but justly) shed, which still cryeth out with a voice of blood, and saith to all posterity! Men, women, children, great, little, poor, rich; fly from Impudence, fly from Impudence, as the last of vices: otherwise know, there is a revenging sword, and a Judgement of God inevitable to all the shamelessness of Sinners.    

The twelfth Treatise, Of ANGER.  

§ 1. The origine of Anger, its Nature, Causes, and Diversities.  
FIre, which is a Mean between Spirits and Bodies, doth work very diversely according 
The marvellous effects of fire.  to the matter and disposition it meets withal; In the heavens it enkindleth the stars with flames the most pure in total Nature: it diversifieth clouds with Gold and Rubies: it maketh Bows and Coronets in the air: it enterteineth a heat of life in the body of living Creatures, which being maintained in a good temperature, cause all the harmonies of health; but, when it mounteth up into a tempestuous cloud, when it boileth in Fornaces, and creeps into Canons, which are as mouths of fire to pronounce war; it maketh so strange devastations, that it vanquisheth the most valiant, beats down the most boisterous, mollifieth the hardest, and terrifieth the most daring.  
In the same manner we may say, heat, which in our bodies is an admirable work-Mistresse, multiplieth its effects according to the diversity of the stuffs, and occasions it lights on: it conspireth with our spirits, to serve as an instrument for the soul in its great operations: it exciteth the honourable flames of chaste loves: it disposeth courage to generous resolutions: it polisheth the mind to embrace worthy purposes: It secondeth the Imagination in its apprehensions: It makes itself the steward of the vegetative faculties for the generation and production of men; But if it once meet with  blood, and fuming Choler, which is as it were in the hands of the imagination; when it is touched with some displeasure, it insinuateth itself thereinto, as into a cloud swollen with storms and tempests, which throws forth fires, roareth with thunders, shooteth with inflamed darts, and practiseth nought but ruin.  
This is it we call Anger, which is properly an ardent 
What Anger is.  appetite of revenge caused by an apprehension of contempt, and injuries. Now this opinion of Contempt springeth in some from disesteem, or for that they are forgotten and neglected by those of whom they think they ought to be respected: In others, from being crossed in what they desire most, as in their profession, their ambition, and especially their affections: In others, from being depressed in that wherein they imagine they excel, and principally before such, by whom they persuade themselves they are beloved and honoured; In others from being derided for defects of nature aswel of body as of mind, and extraction also: In others, from being injuriously disgraced, and insolently outraged by base and abject people, and such as they have obliged, As the opinion of injury increaseth, and as it meeteth with a nature disposed, and matter prepared, this ardour is inflamed: and if it be accompanied with a great power, it teareth down smoking cities, it desolateth Provinces, it swims in massacres, it raiseth scaffolds all sprinkled over with blood, and hung with black, whereon it acteth horrible Tragedies.  
The other passions are augmented by degrees; but 
Dum incipit tota est Sen. de Ira. How Anger is form.  this ariseth fully form, and appears perfect so soon as it beginneth. The opinion of contempt no sooner entereth in by the eyes and ears, but it striketh the imagination, which promptly communicateth its influence to the irascible appetite; and then, as if fire were given to a Canon, it becomes Thunder and Tempest, which disfigureth the bravest bodies, turmoileth the blood and spirits, and bendeth all the veins to vengeance. You would say, the heart is not at that time any other than Vulcan's Forge, where the thoughts, like so many Cyclopes, labour to make Hail-showrs, Lightnings and Tempests. It is not known in this country what kind of language Reason speaketh: It is no better heard than words among the Catadupes of Nilus; strength hath a hand lifted up to employ the sword, and a thousand instruments of iniquity, to commit outrages. This passion resembleth the furious Martichora renowned among Indian wild beasts, who teareth his members asunder to make of them the arrows of his vengeance; It hath nothing so resolved on, as to destroy all, and to raise unto itself a Tomb in its own ruins. Yet we cannot but say, that there are 
Divers qualities of anger.  three very different sorts of Anger, according to the offences and persons who either raise it, or suffer it. In some it is cold in appearance, and more inward; but these oftentimes have the aspect of Virgins, who in conclusion throw forth the fire of dragons: In others, it is fervent, and headlong: In others, haughty, and scornful: In others, dumb, and malicious: In others, obstreperous, and stormy: In some it is frequent, and sudden: in others, sticking, and obstinate. There are some, who being offended for frivolous things, cease not to persevere therein for fear some may think they began without reason, in which the less the cause is, the more passionate they become: Others, blame their greatest friends for having done them less good than they expected. In some, Anger is but yet in bloom; in others, it taketh great and deep root. Some satisfy themselves with clamour and injuries; others, therein employ the hand; others, would, and Iron; others would have lightning in their power for some time, of purpose to prosecute their revenge with all advantage. Lastly, this passion thrusts forth 
Vir iracundus effodit peccata. Caffiao. de spirits irae. c. 1.  all that is hidden in the heart: Which made Cassian, according to the Septuagint, to write, that it disentombed sins which were before (as it were) interred.   

§. 2. Three principal Kind's of Anger.  
WE notwithstanding can say with S. John Damascen, that Anger stirreth up and down in three principal regions, where it produceth very different 
Three regions of Anger. Damascen. l. 2. orth. c. 16. Weak spirits ordinarily choleric.  effects. The first is called the region of sharp choler, the second of bitter choler, and the third of fury. In the first region are all those who have slight heats of the liver; who are angry upon every light occasion, and almost ever moment. In this are to be found many women, many children, and lovers; and besides; Hungry, Thirsty, needy, sickly and nice ones, fantastics and extravagants, as that Smyndrides, who seeing a peasant taking pains before him, said, his body was quite broken therewith. There needs almost nothing to make choler fly up into their faces, so much they are thereunto disposed. The slightest things put them out of the limits of reason; and if no man contradict them, they frame quarrels to themselves with wood and stones, and with other things inanimate which serve their use; and in the end, fall out with themselves, and skirmish against their own shadow. The great Cesarius, a Greek Author, 
Caesarius in dialog.  saith that Millstones, having not corn to grind, strike fire: so we ofttimes see, in households and Communities, when there is no employment, no gain, nor profit; the fire of Anger interposeth between man and wife, between brothers and friends; yea among religious, who are not throughly well applied to the functions of their profession.  
The second Region is, that, of inveterate choler, 
Second region of anger wherein rest malicious and covert souls.  wherein malicious souls are engaged, who do nothing else but gnaw their own heart, and envy the felicity of another, closely undermining it as much as they can, both by word and deed. There you behold them all ranked in order, which is nothing but disorder, with a visage ghastly and disfigured, an eye of an owl, a countenance moody, a gate slow, speech wrangling, and most often an enraged silence. O discontented, and dismal Region! I had rather see the Comet which appeared not long since, then to behold a man so composed, who perpetually hath vultures in his entrails, executioners by his sides, and who moreover hath a petty hell within himself. It is of this anger, the wiseman saith, 
Proverb. 26. Grave est saxum & onerosa a rena sed ira utroque gravior. The property of the yew Tree, like unto Anger.  that A stone was very heavy, and sand weighty: but choler, incomparably more. I had rather roll Sisyphus his stone, eat sand and cloes, then hatch in my heart such anger. Have you ever observed the unlucky Tree, whereof Theophylact speaketh upon the Prophet Nahum, which we in our Language call the yew Tree? It is a Tree of death, which with its shadow alone, killeth the herbs and plants about it. This worthy Interpreter addeth, that it out of a singular malignity devoureth them. And Dioscorides noteth, that being once set on fire, it will many months keep a melancholy fire, hidden under the ashes, not, almost, to be quenched. Behold the picture of one who is tainted with the cursed choler of the second region; you see him anxious, and burdensome to himself, dull like an old yew, an old Tree in a Churchyard. He is impotent, in effect, for revenge; but hath a furious appetite towards it, which he dissembleth under the meagerness of the Countenance of a dead man, and under the coldness of a malign passion. The fire is, as under ashes, the space of so many months, so many good friends, so many good advices, so many convincing reasons quench some little spark of it; yet there still remaineth some of it behind. So many powerful Sermons, so many confessions, so many communions cry out, Fire, Fire, pour on water. Miserable creature! thy house smoketh. It will burn thee when thou art asleep. But he hath no ears. And when this serpentine soul shall be snatched away by a sudden death, if you search into the ashes of his body, there you shall yet find fire. The Earth which shall cover him, shall be 
Et erit terra ejus in picem ardentem, nocte, & die non extinguetur; in sempiternum ascendet fumus ejus. Isai. 34. Festuca in oculo ira est, trabs verò odium. Festuca initium trabis est, nam trabs quando nascitur prius festuca est; rigan●o festucam deducis ad trabem, alendo iram malis suspicionibus perducis ad odium. August. l. de verbis Domini, ser. 16. The region, wherein are the furious  like burning pitch, It shall burn night and day, and make black and thick smokes arise, which shall eternally issue out of it. Preserve yourself from this second region, and observe the words of S. Augustine; Choler, which proceedeth from some innocent promptitude, is as a stick; but this, is a beam. A stick is the beginning of a beam. For the beam at first, is but a stick; if you water it, it becometh a beam: and if you cherish choler, by evil suspicions; you turn it into Hatred.  
The third region of choler, is fury, in which all such are, as play the part of mad Orlando, and become as red as the Comb of a Cock, and presently as pale as the dead; who have eyes bloody like frogs, sparkling like Gorgon's, rolling as those of Cain; who roar like lions, who foam like Boars, who hisse like serpents, who poison all they see, like Basilisks; who cast forth fire like Medea's bulls; who tear one another, like Cannibals; who sup with lights and lamps of blood, like Cyclops; who walk in the night to strike and commit outrages, like Furies; who are perpetually in disturbance, like Devils; who do nothing but vomit forth blasphemies; who swear by heaps; who breathe nothing but wounds, but plague-sores, and revenges; who have no more of man in them, but so much as may serve for food to eternal fire, unless they betake them to repentance. There are of them so ardent that they resemble those dogs of hot Countries, whereof Xenophon speaketh, which strike their teeth so eagerly into the skin of a boar, that, together with the gash, they make fire to fly out.  
Behold a horrible sphere of monsters, and tempests, bloody Comets, horses, and arms of fire. It is they of 
Genes. 49 Simeon, & Levi vasa iniquitatis bellantia, etc. Maledi●●us furor eorum, quiae pertinax, & indignatio quia dura.  whom the Scripture speaketh, Simeon and Levi (you vessels of war, instruments of Iniquity, Trumpets of fury and blood) never, shall my spirit have to do with you, never will I defile the glory of a peaceful soul by the contagion of your company. Cursed be your fury, for it is headstrong, cursed your anger and revenge, for it is wicked and insatiable.  
Two things principally are deplorable, in this third region; The first, is, that anger is exercised, with outrages and violence, upon the renown, estate, body, and soul of a neighbour, who crieth out for vengeance before God: and above all, it is much to be feared, when great passion is linked to great power, where fortune permits all which vengeance desireth. For, fire, water, and greatness never overflow without bearing down the common shore. Secondly, it so bewitcheth some infatuated spirits of these times, that they make trophies of the greatest reproaches which are in nature, 
〈◊〉 Oosius lib. 2. adversus Pagan. c. 16. Expers confilli suror, dolorem virtutem putat; quantum meditatur ira, tantum promittit audacia.  and to make their torments everlasting they deify their Crimes. That is it which the excellent Author Paulus Orosius said, Fury, as it ordinarily walketh without reason, will make its dolour to pass for virtue, and boldness promiseth to accomplish all whatsoever anger suggesteth it.   

§. 3. The Contemplation of the serenity of the divine spirit is the Mistress of meekness.  
LEt us to this disorder, oppose the serenity of God, which we may contemplate when we are far removed 
The picture of the Tranquillity of God.  from the surprisals of this passion. If this place would permit me to delineate the picture of the Tranquillity of God, as the sublime Tertullian hath done, that of patience; I would give it a visage wholly angelical. What is more divine and celestical, than this virtue? I would set it in a fortunate Island (all tapistred with verdure, and enameled with flowers) where the sun should smile out of all its mansions. For, what is more delicious? I would place it on a Rock such as was that of Egypt, which was never touched by profane feet: What is more stable, and more religious? Thereon I would raise a Temple to it, such as was that of Adonis, in Greece, wherein lions were tractable: what is more lovely? I would give it a sceptre of diamond; what is more solid, or powerful over the passions of man's heart? I would set upon the head thereof a Crown of stars: What is more sublime? what more majestical? At its feet I would hang harps and lutes; for it is the Mistress of holy Harmonies. About it should be little nightingales, Halcyons, and holy Fishes which cause a calm every where: what is more peaceful? A good distance from it, should be seadogs, storms, and waves which should roar, without troubling its repose; since it is . It should have eyes lifted up to heaven, and should live by influences flowing to it from the union it hath with God; as it is said the bird of Paradise liveth on the thinnest vapours of the air.  
But let us in a word tell you, that Tranquillity is the Essence of God himself, and that all which is peaceful draweth near towards God. I am not ignorant of what the Scripture speaketh in many places of God's anger, and among others, David, in his Psalms, with a certain admiration; Who is it knoweth the force of thy anger? 
Quis novit potestatem itae tuae, aut prae timore tuo iram tuam dinumera●e? Psal. 89. God, to speak properly, hath no anger.  and can weigh thy indignation in the terror of thy countenance? But this must be understood by an Anthropopathia, as Theologians do explicate it; which is done when God is represented by sensible figures, like unto men. For to speak truly, God hath no anger, nor can any wise have it, being incapable either of the form or matter of it. The form is an appetite of revenge, and the matter, a boiling of blood; as appeareth by that we have said before. Now, we understand, that in God there is neither blood, nor appetite. If he in all times hath produced Examples of Justice, (as he did in the deluge, in the burning of Sodom and Gomorrha, in the plagues of Egypt, in the defeat of Sennacherib) It was with the same tranquillity which he had when he made Paradise, and the blessed by his aspects. God punisheth not the wicked out of anger; but the wicked punish themselves by the remorse of their own consciences; and if the divine Justice put a hand thereto, the world marcheth in battle-array against them, and is all on fire under the feet of its judge, the Judge being thereby nothing at all inflamed. The punishments which fall from heaven, come not from a headlong precipitation, since they are resolved on from all Eternity.  
It was a judicious invention of the ancient sages, to tell us, there were three sorts of thunderbolts in Heaven; and that, the first was only to advertise, without 
Senec. nature. l. 2. c. 41. Three sorts of thunderbolts, which figure unto us, how God proceedeth in the chastisements of men.  doing hurt; the second did good, but not without causing hurt; the third ruined, and defaced all it met. And thereupon to show us the mildness of God, they said, the Monarch of heaven and earth of his own motion sent the innocent Thunderbolts; but if there were cause to throw that which doth but little hurt; (although it were to derive profit from it) he called twelve Gods to counsel: but when those great artilleries of heaven were to be shot off, which aimed at the ruin of the most guilty; it was never done without a general council of all the Gods: we say more than all this; for we affirm that God stayeth not a certain time to resolve on the punishment of men, but hath decided it from all eternity, and hath ordained Hell for crimes, with the same Countenance he decreed Heaven for the blessed. All is peaceful, and always peaceful in God: from whence it cometh that men most like unto him, as are good Kings, have borrowed the Title of Serenity. Can it then well become a Christian, who makes profession to render himself like unto his heavenly Father, to suffer himself to be transported with the furies of anger, which in man extinguish all that is divine, and leave nothing humane?   

§. 4. That the example of our Saviour teacheth us the moderation of Anger.  
ONe might perhaps object for excuse, that our 
To know whether our Lord was subject to anger. The answer.  Lord, who ought to be the example of all our actions, was angry when he with a whip drove buyers and sellers out of the Temple. I to this answer with a doctrine of S. Augustine, very remarkable, which teacheth us, that as our Lord took a true body, when he was born of the most blessed virgin; so he hath showed himself to have real passions descending for us into the shadow of our infirmities, to make us ascend into the 
Aug. l. 14. de civitate Dei● cap. 9 Neque enim in quo erat verum hominis corpus, & verus hominis animus, falsus erat humanus affectus. An amo● affectus est hominis? sed ipse audiens adolescentem seipsum de observatione mandatorum commendantem, intuitus dilexit cum. An timor? sed ipse in janua passionis constitutus coepit pavere & taedere. An gaudium? sed & Lazarus mortuus est inquir, & gaudeo propter vos quia non eram ibi. An tristitiate sed & tri●●is est anima mea usque ad mortem. An excellens observation upon the terming our Saviour a Lamb.  light of his glory. Notwithstanding, we must not think he would undergo all sorts of passions, especially such as carry in them any uncomely misbeseeming; but those he took upon him which were most decent, and incident to man. If love (saith the oracle of Doctors) be a humane passion; Jesus hath taken it, showing many time's tenderness of affections towards persons of merit: as it is said, that seeing a young man, who had strictly kept the commandments of God, from his most innocent years, he loved him, and had some compassion of him, for that he entered not directly into the way of the Gospel being withheld by the love of his riches. If fear be accounted among the motions of nature; had not he fear and anxiety when he was near unto his passion? If you look for joy; doth not he say, Lazarus is dead, but, I rejoice for your sake? because by this means the Apostles faith must be confirmed. Lastly, if sadness be the inheritance of our condition; hath he not said, My soul is heavy to the death? But there are other passions which he would never admit, as, sensual Love, Hatred of a neighbour, Envy, and Anger.  
As for that which concerneth this last passion; it is certain that our Lord was more meek and gentle than all men; from whence it came that he would be called the lamb of God, by a solemn title, and that he in the primitive Church was represented under the same figure, as it appeareth in the Christening Font of Constantine, where the statue of a Lamb of massy gold poured out the water of Baptism. Never in his greatest sufferings hath he shown one lest spark of anger, or impatience; but was always calm and peaceful, even showing an incomparable sweetness to a naughty servant, who had cruelly wronged him at the time of his passion. And as for that he did, in the matter of buyers and sellers; that ought not to be called anger, but a servant and vigorous zeal which caused him to punish irreverences committed against his eternal Father.  
Good God Had we perpetually before our eyes this mirror of meekness; we need not seek for any other remedies. His aspect would remedy all our anger, as the brazen serpent cured the plagues of Israel. This sacred fish would cause a Calm wheresoever it rested, and the presence of his aspect would banish tempests: but since passion so cloudeth our reason; let us apply remedies more obvious against the motions of anger.   

§. 5. Politic Remedies to appease such as are Angry.  
ANger being a jealous passion ever grounded upon the opinion of contempt, aught to be handled with much industry, and dexterity. There are some who very soon are cured by joy, by the meeting of lighthearted people, and by some pleasing and unexpected accident. This notably appeared at the Coronation of Philip Augustus, where there was a prodigious confluence 
Rigordus.  of many people, who out of curiosity excessively flocking thither, much hindered the Ceremony. A certain Captain troubled to see this disorder, was desirous to remedy it, ceasing not to cry out and thunder with a loud voice to them to be quiet; but the earnestness of those that thronged had no ears for Thunders: which made him, being much incensed with anger to throw a cudgel he had in his hand at the heads of such as were the most unruly; and this cudgel being not well directed, lighted upon three lamps of Crystal hanging right over the King and Queen's heads, which breaking, the oil abundantly poured down upon them. All there present were troubled at an act so temerarious; but the pleasure of the fight put off their anger. The King with the Queen his wife instead of being offended, laughed hearty; seeing themselves so throughly besmeared: and a Doctor thereupon inferring, that it was a good presage, and that it signified abundance of unction, both of honours and prosperities which should overflow in their sacred persons; they had no power to be angry, out of the Imagination of glory which drieth up the root of this passion. Verily, there is no better a remedy to appease such as are choleric, then to flatter them with honour, and submission: which likewise was to be seen in that which happened in the person of Carloman. He was a virtuous religious man, brother of King Pepin; who had buried himself in humility, 
Chronicon Cassinense.  that he might courageously renounce all the greatness, whereunto by birth he was called. It fell out, that being in a Monastery of Italy, not discovering himself; he begged he might serve in the Kitchen, which was granted him: But the Choleric cook, seeing him to do somewhat contrary to his liking (not contented to use him harshly in words) with much indignity strake him: But there being not any thing which more vexeth a generous spirit, then to see him ill treated whom he most loveth; Carlomans companion who was present, not remembering himself to be a religious man, entereth into a violent anger, and suddenly taketh a pestle, and throws it at the cooks head, to revenge the good father who bore this affront with incredible generosity.  
But so soon as this his companion had declared his extraction, and related all which had happened; the whole convent fell at his feet who was affronted; and begged pardon of him. Where were to be seen sundry sorts of passions; Some of indignation, others of compassion, the rest, of Reverence. But Carloman thought it a thing intolerable, to see himself honoured in such a manner, whilst his Companion laughed beholding the Cook beaten, and the submissions yielded to his Prince.  
There are others, who seeing their friends much incensed, seign to take their part, and seem angry with them; saying, this wicked fellow must at leisure be chastised, to render his punishment the more exemplary. Mean while, they give time, and expect the return of reason, and then they persuade the contrary. Many also have in appearance pretended fear, to flatter the anger of great ones, who take pleasure to render themselves awful in this passion, as did Agrippa towards the Emperor Caligula.   

§. 6. Moral Remedies against the same Passion.  
I Will descend into more particulars against the three 
More particular remedies against the three sorts of anger.  kinds of choler, which we insinuate. As for the first, which consisteth in that hastiness and heat of liver, that breaks forth in motions somewhat inordinate; First, I say, God is offended to see persons who make profession of a life more pure, and whose soul verily is not bad, to be perpetually upon the extravagancies of passions unworthy of a well composed spirit. Besides, it causeth a notable detriment to our repose. For, by being often angry, our gall increaseth (as Philosophers observe) and the increase of gall maketh us the more anxious, wayward, and irksome to ourselves.  
The only means to amend and correct yourself, is, to represent the hurt this passion bringeth, by depriving you of wisdom, of justice, civility, concord, virtue, and of the splendour of the spirit of God. The way to lessen the opinion you have of being despised, is, not lightly to believe tale-tellers, and to find reasons to excuse him who hath erred; not to be curious to know that which may displease you; to fortify yourself in that side you find to be most feeble in you, avoiding objects which most ordinarily provoke you; to live with peaceable people; to shun cares, and troublesome affairs; to afford yourself convenient solaces; to extirpate petty Curiosities and false opinions which you have of your sufficiency, in such sort that you imagine within yourself that you ought to be used with great respect, and that you should not suffer any disgrace either by word or deed, but that men and elements must contribute to your like. Behold from whence your fever proceedeth, and how you may handsomely remedy it. O soul, infinitely nice! It seems you were bred in a box, in perfumed Cotton, and that you must endure nothing. Broth overmuch salted, a garment too strait, a mustachio ill turned up, the creaking of a door, the wind of a window, the least indiscretion of a servant, puts you out of yourself. What do you take yourself to be? You believe those flatterers who say. Do you suffer this? you measure not yourself by your quality. And yet Kings and Queens and the Monarches of the earth have endured, and daily do endure many slight oppositions with great tranquillity: and you, silly worm of the earth, turn against God, when he permitteth any thing to happen contrary to your liking. Frame unto yourself a life simple, and free from affectations; take away your wantonness, your pleasures, and petty peevishness. Choler is engendered by overmuch curiosities 
Seneca de Ira. Ira voluptatibu● generatur, & volu ptatum suppression● sopitur. Seneca de Ira l. 2. c. 14. Ira perturbat arts. Agrippinus, Epictetus. Stob●us.  of spirit: stifle them, and you immediately extinguish it. Know that to quarrel with an equal is hazardous; with an inferior, is contemptuous; and with a superior, it is foolish. Set before you the Maxim of Pyrrhus, that great Master of Fence, who said this passion was a Trouble-Trade; and that whilst you continue the same humour, you shall be unable for all good employments. Do as the brave Philosopher Agrippinus, of whom Epictetus makes mention, who perceiving that when any misfortune befell him, he thereby became hasty and choleric: What is this? (saith he) I play the slave, where I should play the Monarch. O misfortunes! I will deceive you. Thereupon he wrote the praises of every evil which might happen against his will. If a calumny; the praise of the profit calumny brought. If an Exile; the praise of exile. If a quartane Ague; the praise of the Quartane Ague. And by this means he came to such a height of Tranquillity, that so soon as a fresh mischief assailed him; he met it with a smiling countenance, and said, God be praised, behold the way of my exercise.  
And you who are a child of light, fed with the body and blood of your master for Heaven, and the company of Angels, you cannot say (when some little inconvenience befalleth you) praised be Jesus; behold here how the good purpose I have made of patience is exercised. And then if you feel any rebellion; Take heed you show it not either by words or outward signs, but get you and lodge at the sign of silence, where the haven of Tranquillity is. Do as those that are ill of the falling sickness, who retire at the approach of their fits, that they may not let any things uncomely appear. 
Renedictus Dominus. Deus meus, qui docet manus meas ad praelium, & digitos meos ad bellum Psal. 143. Benedictus Dominus rupes mea. Stabilisque manens d●t cuncta moveri.  say, Blessed be our Lord God, who teacheth my hands to fight, and frameth my fingers to war. The Hebrew hath it, Blessed be our Lord who is my rock. To show you, that God, if you endeavour to vanquish your passions, will place you upon the holy rock of Tranquillity, from whence he in his immutability beholdeth the motion of all ages. Take a good friend, a faithful companion, who may divert your passion in its first fit, who may admonish you, and play on David's harp to drive away this devil of mad Saul, and take you from the occasions of hurt.  
The second remedy for such as long chew on their choler, and entertain aversions irreconcilable, is, that It 
The second remedy. Cogitemus nequaquam licere nobis orare, nec iratas fundere preces ad Deum. quotidie crèdamus nos è corpore migraturos, nihilque nobis continentiâ castitatis, nihil abre nuntiatione facultatum, nihil divitiarum contemptu, nihil jejuniorum vigiliarum, laboribus conserendum, quibus propter iracundiam solam & odium ab universitatis judice supplicia promittuntur aeterna. Cassian. l. 8. c. 21. de Institutis Renunt. Vade, priuns reconciliare ●●atri tuo, & tunc veniens offeres munus tusi Matth. 5. 24  were good to ponder and consider the words of Cassian, Let us persuade ourselves that whilst we are angry, It is not permitted us to pray unto God, and to present him our prayers. Let us take each day to be our last; and let us not think that for being chaste and continent, for having forsaken the pleasures of the world, and despised riches, for macerating our bodies with fastings, watch, and labours; much is due to us, if at the end of the reckoning it be found we carry hatred, and anger in our hearts. That alone is sufficient to condemn us to eternal punishments, by the sentence of him, who shall judge the whole world.  
Take not this as my saying, but take it as an oracle which that great man hath collected from many holy men of his age. When you keep in your heart some hatred against your neighbour, you do a notable wrong to your soul. For first, what have we more sweet, more merciful than altars? There we should seek for mercy, if God had banished it from all parts of the world; and yet whilst you defer reconciliation with your enemy, you deprive yourself of the right of altars: and if you still have some spark of Christianity, as often as you approach to them you hear the voice of the son of God, who speaketh to you in the bottom of your heart, and saith these words of the Gospel, Go first of all, and reconcile yourself to your brother, and then you shall come to offer your sacrifice of the altar. By despising these words of our Saviour, and going on, you commit a new sacrilege; by recoiling back, and avoiding the altar, and sacrifice, you fly from pardon, and life. And then in what a state are you? what necessity is there that for sparing a good word, you must perpetually live either a sacrilegious, or an excommunicate person?  
Lastly, you must think you are not immortal: the very moment which is now in your hands you must divide 
The third remedy.  it with death: even the sun (which you to day have seen to rise out of his couch.) before his setting, may see you in your Tomb. Moreover, know that should you all your life time have preserved an inviolable virginity; should you have built a thousand hospitals, and spent your whole estate in entertaining of the poor; should you have lived in Haircloth, among thorns, and in great abstinencies: if you into the other world carry a dram of resolved and determinate hatred of a neighbour, with unwillingness to hear any words of reconciliation; all which may be in you of virtue or merit will nothing avail you; your lot shall be with reprobate souls & devils. O God what a sentence, what a Decree, what a punishment is this? and who would now purposely cherish hatred against his neighbour, unless he had lost all Reason, all sense, and discretion? Let us conclude with the third remedy, against the furious and bloody, who are not content to fume; but like unto Aeina, do throw forth their all-enflamed bowels, nor are ever satiated but with outrages and humane blood. This is it which makes us to behold the goodly duels which have at all times been the profession of servile souls, of fools, or madmen. There we see men, bewitched with a cursed and damnable opinion, seeking upon the least injury to require reparations sealed with humane blood; to engage seconds to make them complices of their crime, and companions of their misery; to send challenges many times by pages apparelled like women, then to cut another's throat with horrible fury; to drag a long chain of allies, to make a pitched battle of a single combat, and mothers and wives in the mean time to tremble in expectation of the issue of this butchery. Some slight fellow, who hath a soul miserably shallow and base, to cover his cowardice and acquire reputation, will wash his impurity in humane blood. It is not courage which puts him forward; he who would behold him a little in the business, should see him ready to swoon, to wax pale, and tremble. If he would follow his own nature, he would fly a hundred leagues off, and never look behind him: but for a little vanity, that Hackster's may praise him and say he hath fought a duel; he tormenteth his mind, and especially when he is among pots and glasses he shows himself valiant. Ah (Rodomont) Is this your business? you cannot speak, but you must menace to slash a man. Bloody beast! where have you learned this, but in the school of Furies and devils? and do not say, he hath put an affront upon me. What affront? a cold countenance, a harsh word, a piece of foppery which you would never have taken notice of, had you not been void of the reason of an honest man. None would affront you, were not you your own affront: behold the root of all these inflamed angers. And he who will give remedy to them, must cut them off in his imagined contempt, where indeed there is none; and therefore it is fit 
Multos absolvemus, si coeperimus antè judicare quàm irasci. Senec 3. de ira. c. 29. Terminum etiam marinis fluctibus ac tempestatibus fabricator descrip●●●●arena maris exigua saepe inter duas acics inter capedo est: si reprimere iram non potes memento quia indignabundum mare nil ultra spumam & fluctuationem effert. Simoca●●●.  he retire to the haven of silence, and lessen what he may in his imagination, the injury which he thinks he hath received: when you shall have well weighed it, you will find that you of a fly have made an elephant. The true means to forgive all the world, and to pardon it, is to judge of offences, before we be angry. There are offences which we should laugh at; others, which we at least should defer, and some we should speedily pardon.  
If this stay you not, at least think upon the end, and say, Behold a quarrel which gins to be enkindled: there is nothing wanting but a poor word, fair, and advised, yea verily but mere silence, to give remedy thereto. If I augment it, in stead of lessening it, I do put fire to dry wood, which will make a terrible havoc to consume me first. I must be a homicide, or a sacrifice to death, or live in brawls, quarrels, and eternal divisions, which will involve parents, children, brothers, cousins, and a whole posterity. Behold the goodly fruit which brutish anger bringeth. Since I can prevent all this by a little discretion and patience; am I such an enemy of my own good as willingly to seek my proper ruin! The sea is tempestuous, but there needs but a little sand to repress it; and when it hath made all its menaces which seemed ready to swallow all the world, it retires back, contenting itself only to leave froth and broken shells.  
Behold, if you have eyes, the goodly gain which 
The direful example of Haman, a, against the enraged, who are, at a little offended.  Haman made of his anger, and how, seeking to remedy an affront, he transfixed himself with eternal misery. Mardocheus, whom he accounted a beggar, had not saluted him at his entrance into the King's palace, for which he must be revenged. His reason suggested to him, he was a man of no worth; why wilt thou take notice of him? No, I will destroy him. What! for not saluting thee? He is a Jew by nation, and peradventure he hath seen on thy garments the figures of the Persian gods embroidered, and dares not bend his knee, lest it might be thought he gave this honour to thy gods; and he should be esteemed an Idolater. It is no matter, I am resolved to ruin him. If thou be'st gone so fare, take then the head of the culpable, and pardon all the rest who are innocent. No, I will destroy him with all his race. See, I have in my hand the King's Signet-ring, and I go to dispatch letters throughout all the Provinces, that all the Jews may be slain, which shall be found on such a prefixed day. O God what! a slaughter for the denial of a silly salutation, to make choler swim in the tears of so many widows and orphans, in the murder of so many mortals, in the blood of so many Provinces? Dost thou think, there is not a God in heaven to take vengeance upon such torturing cruelties? God may do what he pleaseth; But I must be revenged, my wife, and my friends advise me so. Alas! unhappy wretch! He was then, contriving his direful design, when the vengeance of God fell upon his head. Behold him disgraced, lost, and shamefully supplanted by a woman; coming to the palace of the King his Master, he heard the roaring of a lion which said, Take him away; when instantly, behold, he was hanged on a gallows fifty cubits high which he had caused to be prepared for his enemy; his ten male children were made the companions of his punishments, and his whole race was destroyed. O God of Justice! what Thunders, and what Tempests fall upon men of anger, blood, and revenge! O God of the patiented, and eternal mirror of patience! may my sold for ever avoid these three regions of Gall, Hatred, and Fury; to become a Mistress over its Passions which have hitherto tormented it: And may it arrive in that fortunate Island, where divine Tranquillity dwelleth: May it enter into thy temple; and may the eternal odours of the sacrifice of Reconciliation, of Mercy, and Propitiation mount up to thy throne, which thou taughtest us upon Calvary, in the bitter and sharp dolours of thy body, amidst the sorrow of heaven, the darkness of the sun the opening of sepulchers, the breaking of stones, the effusion of thy blood, and the desolation of thy Soul!    

The thirteenth Treatise, Of ENVY and JEALOUSY  

§. 1. The Picture thereof.  
MAtthias Vienna, in the piece of work which he confesseth to have carefully laboured 
The picture of Envy.  the space of thirty years to make a present thereof to Pope John the two and twentieth, giveth us a picture of Envy, when he depainteth it born on a Dragon, with a Coat-armour wreathed all over with Serpents, a Helmet on its head figured with Bee-hives, to signify, that the Envious like unto Bees, carry sharp and sweet; and a Target all over portrayed with Batts, enemies of light, as is that which beareth it. Should I amply dilate myself upon his conceits, setting aside all the inventions of Poets and Painters upon this subject; I would place it, not in the deserts of Lybia, where the Sun only shineth on sands and rocks, but in the midst of Virtues; because such are the objects of Envy: I would give it a fierce eye, a countenance spiteful and dusky; what is more sad and direful? I would paint it sucking the heads of Aspics for its ordinary repast, since so, holy Job describeth 
Caput aspidum suget. Job 20. 16.  wickedness, nor should I be deceived, it living on poison: I would set two companions by its sides, which S. Bonaventure giveth it, the one whereof is called 
S. Bonavent. in diaeta.  Oola, and the other Oliba: the one (saith he) signifieth the sadness which Envy hath at the prosperity of another; the other, the ignominious joy it conceiveth upon other men's disasters. I would make it dine and sup by candlelight, but they should be serpentine lights, whereof the same Doctor maketh mention, which cause straws to seem like unto serpents; so, the slight imperfections of men, which are but straws, are by the Envious, esteemed the malices of a serpent: I would have Truth present a Torch before its eyes, to dazzle those infernal lights; but the miscreant should turn its face to the other side, for it hateth all which is true and solid: I would make virtue appear before it with a branch of Palm in its hand; but this caitiff should vomit up frogs, to mar this brave monument of worth, according to the ingenious model which Cypselus giveth us. (Verily, the words of the Envious are as so many frogs which on all sides besiege the benignities of virtue) I would paint round about it screetch Owls, and Hyena's, and all manner of malign creatures. One cannot do too much to express the malice of it: Lastly, I would make it to feed on itself, as the beast of Martreas the Enchanter, and that it should rise again out of its blood and wounds, ever ready for new torments. For doth not this infamous passion ordinarily do so?   

§. 2. The Definition of Envy, its several kinds, and first of Jealousy.  
BUt let us leave this portrait and tell you, that 
Definition of Envy.  Envy (which is a sorrow one hath for the good of his like, thinking it to be prejudicial to his own ends) ever since by the malice of our enemy it entered into the world, hath many officers, and servitors, who notwithstanding are not alike evil. I see in this Picture 
First degree of the Envious.  some like Rachel, who seeing herself barren, and her sister Leah very fruitful, would not really cut the throat of her sister's children but only with much earnestness desired to have issue, and for that cause she said to her husband the Patriarch Jacob, Give me children, or let 
Gen. 30. Da mihi liberos alioqui moriar. S. Thom. 2. 2. q. 36.  me die with grief. Many (saith S. Thomas) are in this degree, which properly is Jealousy; for they are pensive, comparing their want and imperfections with the plenty and perfections of others: to see themselves reduced to that condition, albeit, they have no purpose to prejudice the prosperity they behold in another; and such are not the worst. In this rank are many old folks who envy the graces, pleasures, and good successes of young people: many men painful and little prosperous, who are troubled at the great felicities of their likes: many Merchants, and handlecrafts-men, many women and maids, who are vexed with some discontent, when they see the beauty, graceful carriage; gentle behaviour, estimation, and account wherein their companions are: and others also are troubled to observe in them, wit, devotion, and more virtue than they could wish. Others honour these fair parts, but they would that those who have them were wholly at their dispose, without having recourse to any other.  
The great love which many have towards themselves 
The seed of Jealousies.  and the desire they show of coveting to be in all things the only of their kind, are the feeds of infinite many Jealousies. So we see old Captains, (who having been eminent in a thousand occasions, and having bred, and raised to themselves a flourishing reputation out of a world of labours, and in a very long course of years) are stung to the quick when they hear speech of some new prowesses of young people, daring and fortunate, who find out short ways to hasten to the Temple of honour, and do in little time that which others could not with much pain, industry, service, and toil. This afflicteth the hearts of men experienced; to whom it then seems that this new-come-man is born, as a worm in wood, to gnaw and whither up the Laurels, whence they hoped to gather immortal crowns.  
This Passion very often affaileth Prelates, Princes, 
Jealousy for honours and dignities.  Sovereign Monarches: and by how much the dignity is exalted, so much the more the fire of Jealousy therein finds matter and bait. A man who beholdeth himself on a throne, in the most supreme glitters of glory, who seethe so many powers to bow under his feet; who is the God of Battles, of War, of Peace, Life, and of Death; the distributour of Fortunes, the arbitrator of Differences; who makes himself an avenging Mars, and the pacifier of minds, when he pleaseth; who marcheth environed with lightnings of arms, who sendeth thunders and tempests, and calm air in the midst of storms; cannot endure a Companion in this dignity. The least suspicions cause wounds in the mind, which are many times waited on by anger, poison, fury, and massacres. Blood and asfinitie is not therein acknowledged; is not assured; virtue hath no credit; parents will have no children, how perfect so ever; yea, even those who are worn with old age, borrow vermilion to paint their faces, and still think themselves young enough to command.  
Diadems and Sceptres run the like hazard, and they have but one desire in the midst of Authority, which is, to reserve the appeals of death to themselves, and never to leave the places void, which they have once replenished. This poison creepeth into ecclesiastics, 
Learned men subject to Jealousy  into Priests, Religious, Graduates, into the Learned, into Doctors and Preachers, who are willing to bear sway in Letters, in Eloquence and chairs, and to have none to argue their supe●-eminencie; and when some one outstrips the Course of his years by the lustre of his wit, and in the beginning stands in high esteem, the old Gamesters cannot digest it. Master's spare not to lessen the credit of their scholars. Fountain-heads envy rivulets, and the Sun, his proper rays; especially, when some barbarous applause of people of slender judgement and little wit giveth excessive praise to a young man, who discovereth more wind and ostent in brave undertake than capacity. This frenzy endeavours to insinuate itself into Altars, into Tribunals of Penance, where (without touching so many deserving 
Jealousy goath to Altars.  men, who worthily acquit themselves therein) there are some, who are more jealous of their spiritual daughters, than the most passionate husbands of their wives, It seems to some, that, now adays, to have a notable penitent, is to possess a piece of land that yields a good revenue, or a fat Abbacy; and that they must have a perpetual title to it. It is cunning deceit to blind their eyes, to taptive them, to tie them to a Confession-seat with an indissoluble chain, not to permit them conference nor commerce with any, which may let them see their bondage, to be offended if they change Confessor, to throw out complaints, and to make it to be accounted as if it were a sin of Adultery. God forbidden such a folly ever enter into a generous mind, and unworthily profane the Sanctuary. It is very certain, that all good directours imitate the sea which receiveth rivers into its bosom, without ask from whence they come, or what country they passed through, and when they came from thence; nay, so fare is it from being displeased, that it hath not any feeling of it; this being not able to cause any diminution of its greatness: so, a good spiritual Father leaveth all the souls he directeth, not in exorbitant liberty, but in a discreet permission, to go, to come, to absent themselves; to return according as it shall be most fit for their commodity, and spiritual advancement. He neither feels them almost to come near him or retire from him, so little is his mind busied in the distinguishment of persons.  
One may here add the Jealousy of unfortunate 
Jealousy in Marriage.  Marriages, although (to say truly) it is an effect of the Passion of Love. I am not ignorant that great personages and learned Writers have thought, that Jealousy 
The Jealousy of marriages, which may hold the first place among the envious.  proceeded not at all from Love, because Love is obsequious, and readily taketh the tincture of the affections of the thing beloved, which the Passion of Jealousy doth not, thwarting the most innocent inclinations of a creature, and framing suspicions upon actions. But it is easy to answer to this objection, and to say, that never hath any of understanding had the opinion, That Jealousy might proceed from a generous and well rectified Love, and nevertheless it followeth not, that it doth not proceed from a Love of concupiscence, bad, and inordinate. For it is very reasonable, the definition of S. Thomas stand good, as being the 
Definition of Jealousy according to S. Thomas.  most judicious, who said, That Jealousy is nothing else, but Love impatient of a Corrival. And it is to no purpose to say, That there are many jealous Husbands to be found, who notwithstanding love not their Wives. For if their passion be without Love, it is not properly Jealousy, but Malignity, and Envy; because they envy them the sweetness of conversation, the good and honour they might derive from the honest conversation of persons of merit, and do resemble the Dog who eats no hay, nor suffereth the Ox to come near it. The envious man cannot endure it, out of the hatred he hath of another's contentment; and the Jealous cannot suffer it, through the over much love he beareth to himself, perpetually fearing lest communication of love may not tend to the diminution of the good he possesseth, or pretends to have right to possess. This passion ordinarily is framed out of a dull 
Out of what Jealousy is framed.  fever of indiscreet love; and taketh its original in minds too greatly in love with themselves, greedy, weak, and interessed; upon one side they have a most strong imagination of the excellency of the thing beloved which they excessively affect; on the other, a certain distrust of their own small capacity, and of the uncertainty of love, which makes them perpetually to apprehend the loss of that which they love. A lover (in Plato) seeing the creature he most loved, did use to 
Plato in Anthol. Graec.  behold the stars; wished he were heaven, to look on her with as many eyes as there were stars. These eyes in my opinion, would be very proper for good love; but Jealousy is a monster with a hundred eyes, which are enkindled with certain flames like to those of hell; dark, and mischievous. And besides, it hath very many ears continually harkening, and receiving all which any one will pour into them. Its loves are rages; benefits, snares; thoughts, crimes; words, outrages; designs, 
Description of Jealousy  follies; and events, tragedies. So soon as it observeth in the things beloved the least inclination to another, suspicions are framed, distrusts and giddy fantasies in a man who would willingly number his wives hairs on her head, for fear lest she should have laid apart some of them to give them to a lover. And if these suspicions be fortified by some ill accident, or some reports of a venomous tongue; then do we see anger, anxiety, fury; and despair to come forward, which many times run to fire and blood, to precipices and halters. What is more ugly or monstrous than this passion? Think you not you see the pit of the Abyss, whereof S. John speaketh in his Apocalyps, when he saith, That the pit of the Abyss is open, and the smoke comes out of it as from a great furnace, wherewith the Sun is darkened, and in the midst of 
Compared to the pit of the Abyss. Apoc 9 2.  this smoke strange grasshoppers are seen which waste and consume all that is verdant. What is the pit of the Abyss, but Jealousy? And what are those smokes, but its suspicions? and what is the darkened Sun, but Reason all over oppressed by Passion? and what are those grasshoppers, but the evil effects of cruel Jealousy which over runneth mankind? Ah! How many innocent Ladies have been wounded by this monster in their honour, more precious with them then life? Ah! How many miserable wives have served for victim to the fury of enraged husbands, who have thrust a sword through the moiety of their own flesh to satisfy their barbarous Tyranny? Our eyes are still moistened with this blood, and our minds cannot speak of it but with horror. All the Jealousies men entertain for the goods and persons of the world, have this proper, that they presently make their deformity appear in the disorder of sundry passions which toss & turmoil them.  
Who could see a jealous heart, should behold a huge swarm of distrusts and suspicions which issue 
The havoc it makes in the heart.  thence, as spirits of Hell, and hasten to whisper in its ear; she becometh cool in love; she was in such a place to watch an opportunity to see such an one: If she be simple, she dissembles; if she be prudent, she is cunning; if she be pensive, she contriveth plots; if she be lightsome, she figureth fruition to herself. Never did a more detestable plague come out of the Abyss to trouble the peace of Marriages; never was any thing seen so unjust, never any thing so cruel. An innocent 
Advice to women.  creature who abhorreth sin as hell, sees herself wounded in reputation, more dear to her then life, transfixed with mortal arrows all covered over with ordure and blood in the soul of a passionate man: afterward this unhappiness stretching further, first filleth the house with division, than the neighbours with curiosity, and the whole city with a tale which trotteth on tongues.  
Many times they pass from sport to actions tragical, direful, and diabolical. It hath happened that Jealous women running up and down the streets and fields, to discover their husband's loves, have been torn in pieces by wild beasts: and husbands have been hanged and strangled for having sought by infamous ways into the secret of confession. Many times banishments, and murders have followed which have put all into combustion: witness Theodosius his appeal, and Mariam, of whom I have spoken very amply in the first volume of this Book. It is undoubted, that a husband makes his wife loyal, by accounting her such, and that he who suspecteth evil in an innocent creature, gives her occasion of sin. Never doth a generous husband slightly fall into these weaknesses. Women also are most injurious when they give cause of suspicion by a licentious life which striketh the understanding of the most stupid man. It is to cast oil into the flame, and to wish it may not burn, when one in all occasions carrieth herself ill, and cannot endure suspicions, which ordinarily wait on actions too free, as the shadow on the body. And that which is more insupportable is, that certain women chaste enough in their conscience, will needs many times appear Libertines to increase the distrusts of a husband, and to hold his soul in a hell of torments; when they should by all ways endeavour to diver his Jealousies.  
A woman is ill advised to complain of the Jealousy of her husband, when she thinks it sufficeth to have a husband for the Sacrament, and a friend for her own liking; and so that she preserve herself from the extremity of Infamy, that all is permitted her in wedlock. When she imagines it a decent thing to be alone, and (in the obscurity of darkness with men who are not reputed Angel-raphaels'; guardians of Chastity) to roam and run up and down the streets, orchards, and gardens; to hearken after appointments, walks, and junketings; to receive and write love-letters; to be acquaint, and to desire to be esteemed such; to serve others in their humours, and to wish to be alike served; to wear a wanton garment; to be bare-breasted; to talk freely; to live wantonly; to despise all that is said; to follow her own pleasure. Doth not all this tend to prostitution of Honour, and to shipwreck of Chastity?   

§ 3. Two other branches of this stock, which are Indignation, and malicious Envy, with calumny its companion.  
BUt let us lay aside that which concerneth the Jealousies of Marriage. There are others plunged in 
Two other sorts of the envious Indignation.  this passion, who have a perpetual indignation to see those to prosper who are really wicked, or whom they in their thoughts do imagine to be so. They would willingly call God in question, and see not (to speak with S. Augustine) that the fish which they esteem happy 
August. in Psal. 91.  in the bait, hath the hook already in his throat. I behold others who afflict themselves, and are unquiet, not for these considerations only, which were more tolerable; but because others are fare more excellent than they, either in wit, industry, beauty, or in estate desirous (out of an irregular appetite of proper excellency, and most palpable ambition) to stand in all things, transcendently conspicuous, to the prejudice and abasement of others: and such Envy (saith the most eminent of Doctors) is of all the most perfect and absolute; and is ordinarily to be found among concurrencies of age, of fortune, and profession. We see others who are not content with simple thoughts, but thrust their passion forward to wretched effects; and I observe that these are disposed to evil by divers motives. Some have a dark and cloudy Envy; as the Philistims who went and secretly filled the pits with earth, which the Patriarch Abraham had made with much labour for the benefit of many: so we behold them, who silently seek to frame obstacles against all the good works which they observe to be begun, casting the stone of scandal as far as they can, then pulling back the arm which threw it. Others are possessed with a furious 
1 Reg 18. 11  and fantastic Envy; as that of Saul, who setting himself lose to the extravagancies of his malign spirit, sought to transfix David with his lance to the wall, when he for his Recreation played on the harp: so we see mischievous souls, who out of a transportation of frenzy, do brutish acts against such as wish them well. Others have a determinate Envy, and a formal habitude, which proceedeth to rage, to glut themselves in blood, and massacres; such was that of joseph's brothers, and of Cain who imbrued his hands in the blood of Abel, out of the jealousy of a sacrifice.  
It seldom happens, but that this Fury concludeth in some execrable Tragedy. At least, it hath calumny for a perpetual companion, which is a hideous monster whose picture anciently Apelles drew. He figureth it unto us a woman; for it is a feminine vice to skirmish with the Tongue in the want of courage, and virtue. It hath by its sides two waiting-women, one whereof is called Surprisal, and the other Deceit, because these 
Lucian. The picture of Slander.  are the two vices which make Calumny prevail; the one surprising credulous spirits; the other sophisticacating and disguizing Truth. It is very curiously decked and pranked up; for, who would not abhor it, if it had not some exterior attractive to surprise the unwary? It nevertheless shows in its countenance passion and rage; for it is as hard to hid Love and Hatred, as a Cough, or Fire. It holds in one hand a Torch, like that of the Furies; and who hath not heard that a great personage called it the Phaeton of the world, because it sets all a fire, and in combustion? With the other hand 
Lipsius' de Calumnia.  she catcheth a poor man by the hair, as if she were ready to strangle him; and albeit he implore heaven and earth to his aid, there is not any one to deliver him out of the hands of this murtheress. These are the effects of the tyranny of this Passion. Before it marcheth a vast fellow, dry, frightful, and lean, whose eyes are sharp: He is Envy's Agent, and the inseparable companion of Slander. On the right hand is seen a man with great ears, such as were Midas'es', who makes a show to receive this impostress with open arms. Ignorance and Suspicion (seeing the disposition and inclinations he hath) do put a yoke about his neck, and lead him by the nose. Behold! just so they are composed who readily hear Detractions. They for the most part are open-eared to receive all poured in; but otherwise suspicious and ignorant. Lastly, Repentance cometh behind all mourning, and ill clad, saying, What have we done? This creature was innocent; and then with a finger showeth Truth, which in the Evening presenteth herself to enlighten darkness. It is the misery of humane things, that one never almost repenteth a wickedness, but when it is remediless. Nothing may be added to the conceit of this excellent Painter, so happily he hath hit it. I will only say, that if you desire to know the officers and inferior minister's of this tyrannical Passion (they are not all equal in qualities or vices) I find three principal Orders of them.  
The first is, of those who slander of purpose to vilify the actions of others, and to weaken their reputation, 
Divers degrees of Calumniatours  whether they be disposed thereto by some motive of pride which cannot endure any thing eminent but itself, or through some jealousy; (as it happeneth in concurrencies of professions and conditions) or out of some pretention of interest. These are not gone so far yet as to black Slander: for they do not report any criminal matters; but content themselves to fall upon some defects, sometimes slight, and sometimes sufficiently apparent: yea, they seem to be reserved in matter of Slander; for they do as the spies of the Land of Promise, who first told its beauties and singularities, before they mentioned its monsiers: They lick the person before they by't, they know the number of his virtues and perfections, as if they had undertaken to make a Panegyric of them, saying, This man is witty, is sober, is temperate, is just and other such like; nevertheless there is always a Conclusion which in the end mars all. You see likewise of this sort, who cover the praises of another under a sad silence; others, who ascribe to chance that which was out of virtue; others, who by comparison of excellent men extenuate the acts of him whom they would blame; others, who punctually decipher all the defects of a good action; others, who say they have great compassion of his imperfections of whom they speak, and would have supplied them at their own charge, if it were in their power. To conclude, all such have some honest cloak for their Passion.  
The second order is much more dangerous; for it comprehendeth those who publicly and confidently speak of defects not common and incident, but important and notable. So you find an infinite number of them in the world, who seem to have studied the lives, the estates, the families, and genealogies of a whole City; and, as nothing can exempt itself from the curiosity of their eyes, so none escapeth the poison of their tongues.  
The third order is that of the Devil, the father of Calumniatours, and containeth such as invent mischiefs and crimes with defamatory libels, to brand the reputation of persons most innocent, and many times very virtuous. And as it is said, that the ink of the Cuttlefish poured into lamps, maketh the bravest pieces of Painting to be seen with horror; so these wicked tongues, when they have cast their poison upon the lights of a life the most innocent, make it appear with hideous deformities. One cannot say how damnable this vice is, for it proceedeth from a source of Hell, to ruin and extirpate all the members of humane society: and if there be a disorder which deserveth that all men detest it, and by common consent make war against it; This stands in the first place. Such as forge Calumnies are extremely detestable; but those who lend their ears to receive them, and do easily believe all which is suggested to their credulity (against the same persons whom they have loved, without hearing their justification) grievously offend the divine Majesty, and show they have little judgement but much wilfulness. An ear very hard to evil reports, is needful in a time when the tongue is so soft, and streaming in an overflow of words.   

§ 4. Humane remedies of Envy.  
IF you at this present seek for humane remedies which 
Humane remedies against Envy.  may be applied against the poisonous passion of Envy and Jealousy; I can then tell you that this evil lays hold very often by the eyes; and that it is expedient to guard them with a careful heed, and to divert them what one may from objects which are of power to excite many inordinate motives in the soul in this kind. To what purpose is it to be so curious in the affairs of one, towards whom you have no affection; since by understanding his prosperities, you very often learn your own disastres? you look on his lands, his houses, his bravery, his pomp, his family, his alliance, his friends, and all that (entering into your heart through the curiosity of your eyes) causeth therein fits of a linger  which wastes and consumeth you. The amorous eye sucketh in a sweet poison, and the envious eye feeds itself with a venom which is full of bitterness. It (perad venture) expecteth, that beholding the parts of the person it hateth, it shall see the mischief it wisheth; but God permits it there, to find what least it would, and that those envenomed aspects serve for a torment to the soul.  
S. Gregory Nyssen in the life of Moses, saith it resembleth the Vulture whom carrions nourish, and 
Greg. Nyss. in vita Mosis.  perfumes kill. All the evil it meeteth, prepareth a refection of Serpents for its mind, and all the good, afflicteth it to death.  
Accustom not yourself likewise easily to believe those tale-tellers who (to gain your good liking by base servitude) relate the vices and disasters of the party whom you envy: for, that much avails to foment your Passion. Prosper hath sagely said, that the envious are ready to believe all the evils in the world which the 
Prosper. l. 3. de contemplate. c. 9  tongue of a complaining spirit telleth them touching the mishaps of such as they hate; and if any one by chance (not knowing the disease) happen to speak good 
Omne malum quod mendax fama citaverie statim credunt: feraliter el, qui illud verum non esse probare volucrit, contradicunt.  of them; they sufficiently witness by their contradiction, that they believe not what they say.  
Secondly, it is very behooveful incessantly to labour in the mortification of pride, and the exorbitant appetite of ones own proper excellency, as being the principal root of the passion of Envy, as affirmeth the fore-alledged Author, saying, that Satan became envious out of pride, and not proud through Envy; we must infer, Pride is not the fruit of Envy, but Envy a sprout 
Non superbia fructus, invidiae fuit, sed invidia de superbiae radice processit. Prosper. ib.  of Pride. The ambition you have, every where to have the highest place, to be in great esteem, to possess a petty sovereignty in all savours, necessarily makes you envious and jealous; so that one cannot praise any body in your presence, but that this commendation instantly seems to tend to the diminution of your reputation: Your heart bleeds at it, & the blood flieth up into your face; nature arms herself to beat back a good office (which a charitable tongue would render a person of merit) as if it were a great injury, and a suit commenced against you. It is a sign you deserve little praise since you cannot endure it in another. How would you be esteemed, since you first of all betray your own reputation, showing yourself to be of so weak a judgement 
Multis abundar virtutibus qui alienas amat Vincen. Bel. 8. 2. l. 4. c. 7.  that one cannot speak a good word of another, but it ministers matter of an evil thought in you? Were you as rich in merits, as your mind figureth to you: you would no more be moved, when a good word is spoken of another, than a man infinitely wealthy; to give a small piece of coin to a poor creature who were in want.  
I add also a third remedy (that many have found to be very efficacious) which is, to know, and much to esteem the gifts that God hath given us; to content ourselves with what we are, and with the state the divine Providence allotteth us, without attempting on foreign hopes, which would (perhaps) be great evils unto us. S. Chrysologus saith, that Envy once shut up Terrestrial Paradise with a sword of fire: but I may say, it 
Paradisi nobis amoena flammeo custode seclusit.  daily stoppeth from us the sources of many contentments which would plentifully moisten all the parts of our life: that, many would be happy, if they could tell how to manure their fortune, could content themselves with their own mediocrity, and take the felicities which Nature presenteth them, without being troubled at others. Miserable that they are, not knowing how to be happy, unless another be unhappy! unfortunate that they are, to forsake Roses which grow in their gardens, to hasten to reap thorns in their neighbours! Tertullian writeth, the Pagans in his time were so 
Tantinon est bonum, quanti est odium Christianorum.  enraged against the Christians, that all their comforts seemed nothing to them in comparison of the pleasure they took to hate and torment them. This is the fury which many envious nowadays practise. All their prosperities fade, all their joys languish, and all their good successes never are accomplished, whilst they see those to flourish whom they persecute. It grieves them they are what they are, that God hath fixed them in a mean condition, and that they are not born to be of those great Colossuses which shrink and daily fall by the sole burden of their weight. If they knew the black phantasms of cares which leap on the top of silver pillars, and go athwart gilded marbles (to find out those pompous lives who most commonly have but the bark of happiness) they would every day a thousand times bless their condition: but this malign ignorance which sealeth up their eyes makes them complain of all that they should love, and causeth them to love all they ought to complain of.  
Lastly, to remedy the bitings of Envy, you must entertain a spirit of love and correspondence, often representing unto yourself, that a man who loveth none but himself, and wholly lives to himself (not able to endure the prosperities of another,) is a piece unlosened from this great universe which altogether bendeth to the unity of our sovereign God, who is one in Essence, and who gathereth all creatures into the union of his heart. What would this jealous man have, who is so desperately passionate concerning this creature? Doth he not well see, that loving so inordinately he takes the course to be no longer loved by her, and looseth all he desireth most, by the violence of desiring it? A woman out of a desire to be beloved, would not be tyrannised over. She wisheth love, not fury; fire of Seraphins, not of devils. These Courtships are offences to her: these suspicions, injuries: these prohibitions, rigours: these solitudes, imprisonments. How can she love a man, who loves not any but himself, who will play a God in the world, who will fetter the freedom of creatures, which is, the will; for which God himself hath made neither bands, nor chains? How can she affect an Argus who observeth her, who watcheth her, who reckoneth up her words, who questeth at her thoughts, who prepareth racks of the mind for her in the most innocent pleasures? The sole consideration of the ruins and miseries which envy and jealousy do cause to themselves, were able to stay these exorbitancies, were it once well considered; but if these humane reasons seem yet too weak, raise yourself to divine.   

§ 5. Divine Remedies drawn from the Benignity of God.  
O Man! Behold (for a first remedy, among all the 
Remedy by the consideration of the first model.  divine ones) thy first model, and contemplate the benignity of God opposed to thy malice. It is an excellent thing to consider against an envious eye, that God who will reform us to his likeness, doth all the good to the world, by simple seeing, and by being seen. 
God doth all by seeing, and by being seen.  For by seeing he giveth Essence and grace; and by being seen, he causeth heaven and beatitude. Thus doth S. Augustine assure us, that the science of God is the cause of all things, which draweth Being from the Abyss of nothing, and brings the shades of death into light. The world is known by us, because it is; but it is insomuch as it is known by God, so efficacious this knowledge is. O what a goodly thing it had been, to see this great world, how it displayed itself in all its pieces, and smiled in all its mansions under the eye of God The Heavens were stretched forth like a Curtain, the stars were inchased in the Heavens as Diamonds, the clouds suspended in the air as floating bodies, that air was diversified in meteors, the eternal veins of fountains began to stream, the earth to cover its bosom, and liberally to afford us, out of its entrails, infinite many blessings from the benignity of his aspects.  
Tell me not that, which the natural History mentioneth, that the Ostrich hatcheth her little ones by the rays of her eyes, yet never shall she bring forth eggs by looking on the earth: but the Eye (that is to say) the knowledge of God, hath such virtue that it is the maker of all creatures. O beauty! O greatness! O goodness! Beauty; to inhabit in the Idea of God, as in a Paradise of Glory: Greatness; to have a capacity infinite: Goodness; to rest in the bowels of the mercy of the Creator.  
See (a little) the difference that is between our knowledges 
The differences of our knowledges from those of God.  and that of God; you think it a goodly matter to know a man, and to wish him well, yet he thereby becomes neither white nor black, hot nor cold, good, rich, nor learned; for our knowledges are small, in their capacities; limited, in their effects; and inefficacious, in their operations. How many brave Captains, and learned Authors are there, who are still well thought of in the opinion of men! but whether they believing, or whether they be dead; (if their souls be in an ill state) this knowledge, and this love nothing contributeth to their felicities. But so is it not, with the knowledge of God (I speak of an amorous knowledge:) It gives Being, and Grace: Being; because all things, known by God, are, in God, in a more noble manner, then in themselves.  
Here, we behold dying creatures who fade, whither, and shrink insensibly into nothing, were they not supported by the divine hand; but, in the house of God, in the palace of Essences; the Summers are of Cypress (saith the holy Canticle?) insomuch as all therein 
Cant. 1. 17.  is immortal, vigorous, perfect, and incorruptible; and there it is where the blessed (who have not here seen the world but by two eyes of flesh, and have seen it tottering, 
Bearis pervium est omniforme illud divinitatis speculum, in quo, quicquid eorum interest, illucescat. Concil. Sen nonse.  and altogether imperfect) behold it in God, fully stable, equal, and absolute, in all its dimensions. The Saints perpetually have before their eyes the incomprehensible mirror of the Divinity in which they at case behold all that which concerneth them, and may conduce to their greater contentment.  
I add that this knowledge causeth Grace. For, what makes predestination, but that preparation of Grace and Glory which God hath conceived from all Eternity in his understanding, to communicate it to his elect? See what God doth, seeing; and, God seen; what doth he else but actually make heaven, and Beatitude which consisteth in the clear vision of God? So soon as a soul, predestinated to enjoy without delay the glory of heaven, is gone from out the bands of its body; it hath, for guide, this divine splendour which Divines call the light of Glory, which is a quality infused into the understanding, that so elevates and fortifies it beyond its condition, that it is able to endure the lightning flash eternal Beatitude. Is it not of this light holy Job spoke when he said; he hideth light in his hands 
Job 36.  and faith to his friend, it is his inheritance & possession?  
Then God (all-good) communicateth himself to this soul ennobled with such a quality, not by some image or representation, but by its very essence intimately united to the glorified understanding; and from thence, what followeth, but an admirable transformation! The soul is wholly absorbed in felicity; and, as a small drop of water poured into the sea, instantly takes the colour, and taste of the sea; so, the souls taste is fully inebriated, and coloured with the Divinity; It is almost no longer in its self, but becometh wholly like to God, not by nature but by participation. We know (saith S. John) when we shall see him, we shall be like him. And S. Gregory Nazianzen dareth to call it God. 
Joan. ep. 1.  and as we have two principal parts of the soul to content; 
Greg. Naz. Hymn.  the understanding, and the will: so God all benign abundantly satisfieth them, making thither to stream, as by two dugs of glory, all the delights and contentments proportioned to their condition. For the understanding which naturally desireth to know, is illuminated by a most excellent knowledge of things the most hidden which it seethe in God (as in an incomprehensible Mirror) and seethe them, not in the manner of the wise men of the world, who flutter round about sciences, as little flies about lamps that findge their wings, and make their tomb in the flames; but it seethe them with a vision sublime, calm, and delicious, which giveth to the will (that is made to love) amorous eagerness; 
Avidi, & semper pleni quod habent desiderant. Pet. Damis. in Hymn. de gloria Paradis.  ever desiring, and ever having what it desireth. O what miracles doth the eye of God (enkindling with one sole aspect of many Divinities) when maketh so many blessed ones, like unto itself! as if the sun rising should, in the heavens, createa million of little suns; and on earth, an infinity of Diamonds; all which should bear the image of this bright star.  
All those blessed ones illustrated by this aspect (albeit 
The blessed although unequal i● glory are not enviou●.  they shine diversely according to each one's merit) are so far from envy, receiving the flames of eternal Goodness; that every one accounteth the felicity of his companion, for the accomplishment of his own. 
Non erit tibi aliqua invidia disparis claritatis ubi regnat unitas charitatis. Aug.  There you shall hear no speech of envy occasioned by inequality of felicity, where the union of charity shall eternally reign. Go to then, O thou Envious, O thou malign Man! God hath made thee to his likeness, to carry, as he, (in proportion) rays of love and compassion in thy eyes, towards men; and thou there bearest gall, blood, and poison. Nay so far art thou otherwise, that if it were in thy power to make benefits to grow from thy aspects, thou wouldst rather desire the eye of a Basilisk, to poison, burn, and consume the estate, and person of thy neighbour. O miserable Owl, where wilt thou find waters strong enough to wash a stain so criminally opposite to the Sovereign bounty of the Creator!   

§ 6. The merciful eye of Jesus serves for an Antidote against all sorts of Envy.  
LEt us next consider the second model: and if we 
The eye o● Jesus watching, sparkling, weeping.  be stung by the birings of Envy; Let us cast our eyes upon Jesus Christ, as heretofore did the Israelites on the brazen serpent to free themselves from serpents of fire. The eye of Jesus was a gentle eye, an eye of love, of compassion, and of mercy which opened (as the gates of the East) to let in day light, and the spirit of life. It always had in our cause the symptoms which Physicians gave a sick eye, which is, to watch, to sparkle, and to weep: yea, the eye of the Saviour of the world was to watch incessantly, for our salvation, even to the passing of nights in oratory's dedicated to God, as S. Luke observeth. Is it not this eye the Prophet Jeremy meant, when he said, I see awaking rod? The interpreters think 
He erat pernoctans in oratione Dei. Hier. 1. 11▪  he alluded to the sceptre of the Kings of Egypt which had an eye portrayed upon the top of it; and that such was the sceptre and power of Jesus for our sakes: a power not harsh and imperious, but sweet and charitable; which spent itself without waste in the watches wherein it persevered for our salvation. Others, following the 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  Hebrew letter, instead of a waking Rod, read a twig of an Almond-tree, which first of all other trees, flourisheth, and expecteth not the summer to tell us news of the spring; So the eye of Jesus, so soon as it began to exercise the functions of life, was seen all in blossom, and in an amorous aspect for us: In blossom; when, at his arrival, he caused the Angels to sing the Hymn of Glory, and Peace; of Glory to God, and of Peace to men: In blossom; when, at the age of twelve years he so sweetly darted forth beams in the Temple of his father; In blossom; when, from the top of a mountain, he looked on his poor famished people who wandered through the deserts, as sheep deprived of their shepherd: In blossom; when he stayed upon so many miserable bodies, detained by incurable maladies, to give them health. O eye of Jesus! Eye of the Nazarean! always flourishing and blown for the comfort of mortals.  
I say, in the second place, this eye sparkled when he was to give the example of zeal (which it behoved him to have) the honour of his heavenly father; than it was when he was armed with terrors and lightnings, to cast astonishment into wicked souls, and to deliver 
Igneum quoddam, atque sydereum radiabat ex oculis ejus & divinitatis majestas lucebat in fancy. 8. Hier. in Mat.  those from their Tyranny who thereby were oppressed: There was seen I know not what of glittering and flaming to sparkle from his eyes, and the Majesty of a Divinity did shine on his face, saith S. Jerome. Have you heretofore considered the Angel of the living God, who was as a sentinel, in the great flaming pillar of fire which led the Israelites in the passage of the red-sea? Have you observed, how (placed just in the midst 
Exod. 14. 20  of two armies, the one whereof was of the people of God, and the other of the Egyptians) he darted rays of favour on the heads of the elect, which were all lighted with a celestial light, notwithstanding the thick darkness of the Egyptian night, and at the same time he threw on Pharaohs Diadem and on his warlike horses the avenging dart of God's anger, to involve them in remediless misery? So the eye of our Lord hath always beheld (and at this day likewise doth lovingly behold) such as fear his holy name and do tremble out of the reverence they bear to his divine Majesty; but as for perverse souls, who have hands armed against heaven, he hath sparklings sharp and quick, which are the messengers of his justice. As for thee (Libertine) this sparkling eye; for thee (Harpy) for thee (bloody Devil) for thee (wicked creature) it throws forth sparks of fire which in this life will begin to burn thy sinful soul: but, as for souls (chaste and loyal) he hath sweet influences, and mercies. In the last place, I likewise say, to show the benignity of this eye, that it was almost always weeping, and dropping for us in tears a thousand times more precious than those of Myrrh. O what tears were those of Jesus! Jesus was the firmament which divided waters from waters, heavenly tears from earthly tears. And seeing Interpreters say, that the mass of waters was divided into two substances, whereof the one, congealing into a bright Crystal, made Heaven; and the other, remaining on the earth, made the Sea; I may say, the tears of Jesus were all Crystalline▪ and wholly celestial, as that Palace of God, which we see over our heads; but ours are salt, bitter, and storm like the sea. Jesus yet walking on the earth, was towards the wicked and proud, a mount Sinai, which roared, thundered, light (ned, and seemed to be as the Chariot of the God of Hosts; but in respect the miseries of the earth, and the pains likewise which waited on sinners; he was a Mount Lebanon that ceased not to make the waters stream forth in the spring, which issued from the snows wherewith the winter had wholly covered it. Jesus the true Lebanon, 
Numquid deficiet de petra agri nix Libani. Hier. 18.  in whiteness of innocency: Jesus the true Lebanon, in the continual waters of his eyes, which can no more be dried up then the fountains of Lebanon. Jesus also the true Lebanon, in the sweetness of the odours of his eternal sacrifice. He burned as the incense of Lebanon, and dissolved as the snow of Lebanon; at the same time giving us fire and water; Fire to enkindle our love, water to wash our sins: O how these waters have quenched the flames of the sword of the Cherubin, able to burn all the earth with the fire of Justice! O how sweetly distilled these tears for us on the day of his birth, when he moistened the clots of his poverty! O how often have these tears hathed his eyes in the sacrifice 
In diebus carnis suae preces supplicationésque cum clamore valido et lachrymis offerens exauditus est pro sua reverentia. Hob 5. 7.  of prayer! O how pitifully these tears bedewed the pomp of his triumph, when he wept over miserable Jerusalem! O how efficacious were these tears; when he oftered them for us in the bloody Sacrifice of the Cross, and rendered up his sweet soul into the hands of his heavenly Father, bleeding and weeping, and looking this last time on the earth in his mortal conversation to lift it up to Heaven!   

§ 7. A Detestation of Envy.  
Will we not then enter into the joy of God by participation of the joys and prosperities of men, whence we shall take a holy and magnificent possession 
Multis abundat virturibus quialienas amat Plin. Jun. in epist. ad Cornel.  in the quiet we shall find in our hearts, persuading ourselves that that saying is most true, That he who loveth virtues in another, hath them abundantly in himself? There is not any way more short or honourable to felicity, then to arrive thither by a contentment taken in the happiness of our likes. In wishing their hurt we resemble the Thunderbolt, which to strike a rock, breaks the cloud that bred it; we ruin ourselves by our proper labours, and profit not but by the Justice of our punishment. But by loving in another, that which others envy, we shall become absolutely rich, and totally powerful in the kingdom of perfect love. Let us not satisfy ourselves with not envying any, and to take pleasure in the good success of good men; but let us have an eye of affections, a liberal hand, and a heart wide open to the exercise of charity, always remembering two rare documents given by two great Apostles S. Peter and S. Bartholomew.  
The first teacheth us that the virginity of the soul consisteth in brotherly love Rendering (saith he) your souls chaste in the obedience of charity, in the brotherly 
1 Pet. 1.  love which you ought mutually to preserve. The other hath in S. Denis, left us in writing this royal sentence, 
Dion c. 1. de Mist. Theo. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  which saith, Love is the greatest, and least Theology, because all is abbreviated in this great word. Who is it then would enter into the Hell of Jealousy, to rob himself of all the joys of chaste marriage, and to live like Ixion on the wheel of an eternal torment? Were it not much better, to tear away this frantic love, this troublesome curiosity, this easiness to believe tales, this rashness of judgement, and all that which fomenteth passion; then to raise matter of Laughter, of Comedies, and Tragedies, to defile your conscience, betray your bed, dishonour your children, and ruin your house?  
Thou envious and jealous creature! what dost thou answer to this eye of our celestial Father, which causeth by seeing, Essence and Grace, and by being seen produceth heaven? What dost thou answer to this eye of Jesus, waking, sparkling, and weeping for thee? Wilt thou yet have an eye of the Basilisk to scorch plants, break stones, and kill men? Ah thou pusillanimous thing! to be envious against thy neighbour for a good which thou hast not, and which thou with excessive passion desirest. Thou dost envy profit, thou enviest credit, honour, riches, and the talon of nature, and all which thy jealous heart beholdeth. Thou wilt not (sayest thou) bereave others, but dost only complain of the want thou findest in thyself. And how knowest thou whether these blessings (thou seekest for, with desires as ardent as fire) would not be great evils unto thee? How knowest thou whether in prosperity and abundance thou mightest not lose thyself with ingratitude, forgetfulness of God, arrogance, and sin? How knowest thou whether the Saviour of the world hath not expressly deprived thee of these temporal favours, to assure thy predestination? Cease to envy, that, which God will not give thee. Ah! Thou on the other side, to be perpetually arguing with God about the prosperity of sinners and out of petty infidelities to waver in the belief of his holy Providence. Ignorant of celestial blessings, and stupid admirer of the bread of dags! who seest not that all these favours are rough obligations, and rich punishments, which will rather increase the misery of the wicked: then lessen their pain. God promiseth thee a Kingdom if thou be faithful; and thou longest for the dishes which sinners feed on at the table of the world, even tearing one another with a thousand torments, and as many disturbancies. And thou on the other side, wicked as thou art, not only to envy the good of thy neighbour, but to desire, and work his hurt with impatient madness, one while biting his reputation, another while hindering his good; one while deliberately wishing his death & another while having direful enterprises upon his life: what canst thou expect from this infernal passion, but an eternal damnation? wouldst thou know whom thou art like? Behold (I pray) in histories the mount Aetna which rends and throweth forth its all-inflamed entrails, as if it would scorch and consume the flowers, which in the mean time flourish upon its top. Thou ceasest not to cry out, to storm, to thunder against this man; Thou castest forth fire and flames from thy throat, with which it seems thou art resolved to vomit up thy heart infected with poison. What gettest thou with this brutish fury? This man whom thou wouldst swallow alive, by the permission of God shall flourish over thy head.  
Let us go, let us go to seek in Judea for the cruel 
Joseph triumphant mangers the enraged envy or his brothers.  brothers of Joseph, and let us show them the innocent, not any longer groaning under the weight of fetters, but born on the wings of glory, and mounted upon the chariot of Pharaoh, in a habit full of Majesty, and in a pomp which dazleth the eyes of those, who have now no other word in their mouths but Abrech, Abrech, which was an acclamation of joy, by which the people acknowledged him, as the Father and Protector of all Egypt, Abrech, Abrech. O wretches! know you this man? This is he, of whom you said, Behold our Lord, come let us kill 
Gen. 37. 9  him  
Look well upon him; this is he, whom you inhumanely did despoil of his garments, to imbrue them in the blood of beasts, and represent them to your deplorable Father, to give him the stroke of death. Acknowledge your own blood; this is he, whom you threw into the bottom of an old Cistern, and banqueted over his head. Detest your fury; This is he whom you did sell to the Amalekites! Behold what your envy hath brought him to! bend your knee with all the people who adore him, and say, O caitif Envy, the Hangman of the envious, mayst thou never find any habitation but in hell, whence thou first camest to trouble the peace of men.  
Heavenly Father, I beseech thee by that Eye which createth heaven; and (thou world Incarnate) by that Eye which hath wept so many tears of compassion and love over us; banish this fury from our hearts, and make thy holy charities there to flourish, which shall by us for ever be as much adored, as they have been to mankind profitable, who hath no subsistence but in thy mercies.    

The fourteenth Treatise, of MILDNESS and COMPASSION.  

§ 1. The great Miseries of Manmake Compassion necessary in the world,  
HEaven is replenished with Sanctities, and Felicities; with sanctities without blemishes, with Felicities without disasters: and hell is filled with ordures, and miseries; Ordures, which never are washed off, miseries, which are without end. But this world wherein we live, as it hath sanctities which are not without hazard, and Felicities which cannot be without change: so it hath sins waited on by pardon, and miseries comforted by remedies; yet against iniquities God hath given us penance, and against calamities, mercy. 
Deum extra se effici, creaturis omanibus providendo. S. Maximus.  God in heaven produceth another God, not in substance, but in person, and on earth a second image of himself, which is this divine mercy. It is an infinite goodness of the Father of Nature and grace, to have here below seated this excellent passion, to the end great maladies might not be without great medicines.  
Of all living creatures there is none more miserable 
Man as he is the most miserable of all creatures, so he is the most merciful.  than man, nor is there any likewise more merciful than man, whilst he is man, and that he despoil not himself of that which God hath made him to do that which ought never to be so much as thought on. And if he forget mildness and Compassion, which is natural to him, our sovereign Creator teacheth it him, by his own miseries. Alas! How can one man harden his heart one against another? on what side soever he look he seethe the tokens of his infirmities; and scarce can he go a step but he finds a lesson of humility against his vanities. If he consider what is above him; he beholdeth the heavens and the air which so waste and change his life, that (yet) without them, he cannot live: If he cast his eye round about him, and under his feet; he sees waters which in moistening him, rot him; and earth, which being spread as a Table before his eyes, fails not to serve him for a Tomb.  
It is a strange thing that even evils are necessary for him, and that he cannot overslip things which kill him. Smelling, tasting, meat and drink, sleep and repose, do with his life what Penelope did with her web: what one hour makes, another unmakes; and the very sources of the greatest blessings are found to be wholly infected with mortal poison. But if man come to examine himself; he finds he hath a body frail, naked, disarmed▪ begging of all creatures, exposed to all the injuries of elements, of beasts, and men; and there is not a hand so little, which strives not violently to pull off his skin. Heat, cold, drought, moisture, labour, maladies, old age, exercise him: and if he think to take a little repose, idleness corrupteth him: If he enter farther in to himself; he meeteth a spirit fastened to the brink of his lips, which is invaded by an army of passions, so many times fleshed for his ruin. And yet we must truly say that of all the evils of man, there is not any worse, than 
Man hath no greater evil than Man.  man. It is he who causeth wars and shipwrecks, murders and poisons; he who burneth houses, and whole Cities; he who maketh Wildernesses of the most flourishing Provinces; he who demolisheth the foundations of the most famous buildings; he who rednceth the greatest riches to nakedness; he who putteth Princes into fetters, who exposeth Ladies to dishonour, who thrusts the knife into the throats of the people, who not content with so many manner of deaths, daily inventeth new to force out a soul by the violence of torments, by as many bloody gates, as it receiveth wounds. Good God what doth not man against man, when he hath once renounced humanity? Now what remedy would there be in so great and horrible confusions which make a hell of the earth, were it not that God hath given us this wholesome mercy, which it seems is come from heaven to unloose our chains, to wipe away our tears, to sweeten our acerbities; repair our losses and rebeautifie our felicities! Mercy tilleth the fields of heaven, and had it not descended on earth, all which God did, had been lost. (saith the golden mouth of the West.) 
Chry l. 1. 4. so    

§ 2. The Essence of Compassion and how it findeth place in hearts the most generous.  
GOd (then) hath caused Compassion to grow in our hearts as a Celestial inspiration, which stirreth 
The Essence of this passion.  up the will to secure the miseries of another; and taketh its source (as Theology observeth) from a dislike we conceive out of the consideration of a certain dissent and disorder we see in a civil life, when we behold a man like unto us according to nature, so different in quality, and so ill handled by the mishap of the accidents of life. Thence it comes to pass that all good souls have tender hearts, and especially such as know what worldly miseries are (as learned men, and those who have had experience of them) and who think they may also feel them in the uncertainty of life and condition of humane things. The bowels of mercy open with some sweetness in the evils which nearly touch us: namely, when we see persons innocently qualified, delicate, well disposed; to fall into great calamities and ruins of fortune; Honourable old men, ill used; young people, snatched away in the flower of their age, and beauty; Ladies, despised and dishonoured; afflictions, without remedies; or remedies that come too late, when the evil is ended: And moreover, when those afflicted persons show constancy and generosity in their affliction, it penetrateth into the deepest apprehensions of the soul. Yet we still find, among so many objects of miseries, hearts which have no compassion, and (as if they were made of rocks or anviles) are never mollified with the sufferings of mortals. This proceeds in some, from a great stupidity, from a nature very savage; in others, from a narrowness of heart caused by self-love, which perpetually keeps them busied within themselves, never going forth to behold the miseries of another; in some, from long prosperities which make them forget the condition of men; in others, from the nature of a Hangman who takes delight in blood, in fire, and in all horrid things. Such kind of men think nature did them wrong in not having given them the horn of a Rhinoceros, 
Detestation of Cruelty.  the paws of bears, the throat of a Lion, the teeth of Tigers, to crush, to quail, to devour, and tear men in pieces. They supply, by a cursed industry, that which by nature faileth them. They make themselves mouths of fire by the means of flaming fornaces, and boiling caldrons; hands, by the invention of Iron hooks; arms, with combs of steel; fingers, with scorpions; and feet, with the claws of wild beasts. You would say, these are men composed of the instruments of all torments, or rather devils crept into humane bodies, to create a Hell on Earth. Such are those Tonoes' of Japonia, who study to saw, to hack asunder, to beat, and bray in a mortar the courage of Christians, thinking the greatest marks of their power to be scaffolds and gibbets, where are practised inventions of devils, to draw life, drop after drop, out of a miserable body.  
But not speaking at this present of these extremities of Cruelty which arise out of Hell; it is evident that the Hardness of heart, and the harshness of a nature devoid of Compassion, is a monster in humane nature. All great souls have (I know not what) tincture of goodnesse which rendereth them pliant to the afflictions of such as suffer. It is a feeling which God hath poured into the mass of mankind, and which he would have communicated by the prime men of the world, to all posterity. The tradition of the Hebrews holdeth that the 
Mildness of the first men.  Patriarch Noah recommendeth mildness even among beasts, accounting it a capital crime to tear off a member of a living beast. And the most sage commonwealths 
Fab. Quintilian. l, 5. cap. 9  have walked in the same ways, since, that of Athens condemned to death a young child, who took delight to prick out the eyes of crows, and having made them blind, let them fly for his pastime: It judged this heart was base and bloody, and practised its first apprenticeship of cruelty upon birds to exercise it one day upon men. The Carthaginians publicly condemned 
Plin. l. 8. c. 16.  a very industrious Citizen for no other cause but for having made a lion tractable, supposing that a man who had so great conversation among wild beasts would lose all he had humane in him, and put on the manners of a tyrant.  
What can those answer to this call of Nature, who are ashamed to compassionate their neighbours, seeing pity extends itself even to beasts? They fear, that by showing compassion it may be thought their courage thereby is greatly effeminate; and see not that to seem valiant, they cease to be men.  
Conquerors have wept over their Laurels as yet 
Compassion of great courages.  all verdant, blaming the just rigour of their arms albeit they could not hate the glory. Marcellus desired to quench the coals of the city Syracuse with his tears. Titus seeing the city of Jerusalem all covered with dead bodies, found his heart much softened therewith, protesting it was an act of Heaven, and not an effect of his own disposition. There is some touch of Divinity in good natures; and God hath always been pleased that they who nearest approach to him, should be the most humane. The first Images of the Saviour of the world were ordinarily painted in the form of a Lamb, and it was likewise a Lamb of God which represented him in Great Constantine's Font, and which poured forth the water of Baptism; to show us that the fountains of his Bounty ran throughout the whole Church. The holy Ghost hath never been seen 
Concil. 6. in Teul. can. 82 Damasus in Pontifieibus qui est potius Anastafius Bibliothecarius.  in the form of an Eagle or of a Hawk, but of a Dove; to stamp on our manners the impressions of his bounty. It is an insupportable thing, when there is observed (even among those who approach nearest to Altars, and who consecrate the Lamb of God in their hands) some to be of imperious spirits, and wills inflexible, who torment poor subjects, and make them groan under 
Non dominantes in Cleris sed forma facti● gregis ex animo. 1 Pet. 5. 3.  their Commands. They resemble Semiramis who on her Banners bore a Dove which in its beak held a bloody sword, as meaning to say, that under a woman's face, she had the courage and stem violence of tyrants. So their name, theircharacter, and degree testifieth 
Revertamur ad populum nostrum à facie gladii columbae Hier. 46. 16  nought but mildness; but their manners are full of rigour and acerbity which wound hearts even to blood. This happeneth to many out of a certain stupidity, in such sort, that it seems they entering into office, at that instant drink of the water of forgetfulness which 
Rigour misbecometh persons Ecclesiastical. Its causes, and differences.  in them blotteth out the memory of all they were, to become that which they ought never to be. They forget their inferiors are men, who put their precious liberty (to wit a good inestimable) into their hands as a pledge, and that they must very skilfully handle them, there being not a creature in all nature more tender or more sensible than the King of creatures. They consider not that the power of one man over another is a thing which is always somewhat suspected by nature on what side soever it come, and that it must be practised insensibly, so that the flesh be rather cast into a slumber, then irritated. To others, it comes from a most refined pride, which being under the subjection of a superior, kept itself close in the interior of the soul, a serpent enchanted, and fast asleep; but so soon as he sees himself armed with a sword of authority, he cuts with both edges, not sparing any one, as if the great mystery of making a dignity valuable, were to encompass it with all the ensigns of terror. Some are not 
Porta in Chaos.  of a bad nature, and do resemble the sea, which is not by nature salt, but the sun stirreth up unto it vapours, cold, dry, and terrestrial, which being burnt by heat, spread themselves on the superficies of the water, and cause saltness: so these lights of authority which environ a man raise smokes in him, which, being not well tempered by prudence, leave a bitter impression on manners, communicating some haughtiness to words and conversation. It is gotten in others by a long assiduity of superiority, which is the cause that beholding themselves perpetually with a head of gold, and a breast of silver, they consider not that being in some sort like to Nabuchodonozor's statue, they yet have feet of clay. Others come thereunto, by an indiscreet zeal, and out of small experience of humane things, who are no sooner raised unto some degree, but they talk of reformation, of correction, of chastisements; and to see them you would say they were so many Archimedes who seek for a place out of the world, to set foot in, of purpose to turn the world to psie-turvey. Their power is not always answerable to their purpose, which makes them sad and dejected in their courage, causing them to fall back to the other extremity; from whence it cometh that they are one while harsh, and another time gentle; and by inequality in their manners, thrust all into disorder. That is it which Saint Gregory the great observed 
Gregor. M. in epist ola ad Utbicum.  in Abbot Vrbicus, saying, that his Monastery was in distemper, because he made himself unequal, one while flattering some, and another while reprehending the rest with immeasurable anger. Lastly, there are others who have a very good conscience, and whose manners are rigid, and they be not imprudent; but they have such a desire to frame the whole world to their humour, that out of the assiduity of their admonitions they render themselves somewhat burden some to their inferiors, and authorise the saying of that ancient who affirmed an honest man was a great burden. There are 
Molesta sarcina vir bonus. Apud Joan. Euscbium.  natures like to Caper-shrubs, which grow worse by too much manuring, and are much better being left to the goodness of their own nature.   

§ 3. Moderate Saverity is necessary in government; but it ought to be free from Cruelty.  
IT must of necessity be acknowledged that they who govern States and Commonwealths stand in need of severity in so great a corruption of men's manners; there being almost nothing so pitiful as the goodness of a Prince disarmed, who serves for a Butt to reproaches, and a sport for insolency. The Senator Fronton, who had experience of many Kingdoms, said it was a miserable kind of life to live under an Emperor who permitted nothing; but much more wretched likewise was the estate of such as live under a Prince who permitted all: as it happened in the time of Nerva, who caused those men to fit near him that had conspired against 
Dion. in Nerva.  him, and presented them swords to give the blow, and asked them whether they were sharp enough. His over-faint goodness, which could not engage itself to punish any, made men almost to desire the rule of the most cruel; good men being unable to endure to be equalised with the most dissolute. Needs must Justice hold its place, to cut off rotten members, to repress the insolent, and to make honest men live in the sweetness of repose. But it being very hard to find this divine temperature which is between softness and too much severity; it is always fare better to lean towards Mildness, then to incur the least suspicion of Cruelty.  
Cardinal Petrus Damianus, seeing himself one day 
Lib. 1. ep. 16  very civilly entreated by the Pope, and at the same time menaced by his Archdeacon Hildebrand who was a most severe Cardinal, answered according to Plutarch's fable, that Heat despoiled more than the Northwind. These stormy spirits are not always the most efficacious. It is not sparkling flames, but invisible heats which melt metals, and sweetest influences are those which cause the greatest effects in total Nature. Our Saviour, in the Prophet Esay, is called a Rod, and a 
Isai. 11.  flower; to correct some, and comfort others: but never is he termed a sword to kill and destroy. Power, which is given by God, aught to be managed according to his intentions; and as we cannot but see on all sides the effects of his bounty; so is it not lawful for a man to defile the Character of the Divinity by rigours insupportable. O what a brave thing it is to possess a great Kingdom in the hearts of men by bounty and munificence! to make one's self a Throne of peace, to which love raiseth an eternal Basis, on which God raineth from above with full hand an infinity of Benedictions! A Prince which so liveth, findeth Corpse du guard in the 
The beauty, and utility of Mildness.  most unfrequented wildernesses, assurance in perils, protection in battles good hap in affairs, success in his enterprises, prosperity in his house, veneration abroad, & admiration among foreign nations. When he sleeps, a million of eyes wake for him; a million of mouths open at altars to carry thanksgivings to God for the favours he receiveth from heaven: and were he not in his Throne, all his subjects would make steps of their bodies for him to mount up unto it. His joys are pure, his pleasures innocent, his repasts without fear of poison, his repose dreadless, his life a miracle, and his Memory 
Horror of Cruelty.  a Blessing. But, what a spectacle is it to see Tyrants close hidden like old Owls in perpetual nights; with a mind befet with horrid fantasies, filled with suspicions, seized by distrust; for whom Thunders seem to roar, and for whom Heaven seems to prepare all its Thunderbolts! What a horror is it to see them come in public, clothed with Iron, and despoiled of the people's affections! To see them tear their members in the torments of their subjects; to suck in blood; to break bones; to make terrors to march before them; and after them massacres! What honour is it for them, to be hated like: plagues and poisons; to make a Hell of their life a Tyranny of their manners, and a public vow of their death? Lastly, the divine Providence (which sharpeneth the sword of Justice with the tears of the miserable) falls on their heads; some have been consumed by strange maladies; others have been abandoned to the fury of people; massacred by a thousand hands, punished with a thousand deaths, dragged over lay stalls, buried in dunghills; even stones and metals have been punished, which had no other crime but to be ensculpted with their features: Their life had been a reproach; their memory, the But of all maledictions. All this is not of power to teach us, that there is not any thing so sovereign for the government of minds, as Mildness and Compassion.   

§ 8. The goodness of God beateth down the rigour of men.  
IF we be not fully convinced of this verity; Let us behold our first Model, against the infamy of this unnatural 
Remedies.  passion; and let us first see the benignity of our heavenly Father in natural, and civil life; thence we will consider the mercy of Jesus in the life of Grace. God, is sovereignly good, as Theology noteth, by three sorts of Goodnesses; of Nature, of Manners, and of Bounty: His Nature, and his Manners make him to appear good in himself: His bounty out of himself in so many communications as he imparteth to all Creatures. The Platonists said, he had the understanding of a father, and the heart of a mother, to provide for the great family of the world: and one of them, rapt with the Consideration of his Bounties, cried out, As for thee O God of stinctity, Saviour, and conservatour 
Tu quidem sancte, & humani generis sospitator prepend, semper fovendis mortalibus mirificè dulcem matris affectionem miserorum casibus tribuis, nec dies nec quies ulla, ac nè quidem momentum tuis transcurrit benesiciis otiosum. Apul. 11. Metamor. Author. Theolog. Aegypti l. 12 cap. 1.  of all Mankind, thou hast the heart of a Mother, admirably to comfort the calamities of so many miserable mortals, and there is not a day, a Rest, nor a moment, which is not replenished with thy benefits. You would say he is perpetually bend upon the care of the very least creatures, to give them the contentment and satisfaction they can derive from their condition. He is in the feathers of the peacock, to frame a mirror unto himself of his train; In the throat of Nightingales, there to make Music; in the innocent theft of Bees, to lad them with booty; in the Husbandry of Aunts, to maintain them in their little Granaries. The Author of the Egyptian Theology saith, that the Eternal Father, willing to please all living Creatures gave them bodies fashioned to their like and inclinations: and as there are other instruments necessary for a Tailor, others, for a Smith: So he hath given other members to Lions; others, to Bulls; others, to Fishes, and Birds. He gives to a Lion (which is a predominant Beast) a Robustuous body, Eyes of lightning a Roar of Thunder, a Gate Haughty; To Bulls, Horns to defend themselves; To Birds, a little head and a sharp beak to cleave the air, feathers to cover them wings to fly; To Fishes, a tail to serve them for a Rudder, and little sins to be unto them as Oars.  
S. Basil likewise observed, that this great Father of a family distributeth to birds of prey a body fit to seek out for their living, and to such as are of a more peaceable disposition, members suitable to their nature. So true it is that there is nothing in the world which is not replenished with the wisdom of this great Master-workman. He provideth and armeth each one according to his Kind; Some have natural arms to resist such as assail them; others have a marvellous promptitude to fly from that which is contrary to them; others have an incomparable dexterity to defend themselves; some poise themselves in the air with their feathers; others grapple with their claws; others fortify themselves with their horns: and if there be some which serve as a prey to the rest; God supplieth this necessity with a very great fruitfulness which he affordeth those poor little creatures exposed to the violence of the stronger. Thus discourseth Lactantius. To conclude, There is not any creature so little which beareth not his own 
S. Basil. in Hexam. Lactant. l. de opificio Dei, c. 2.  Mill, his chimney, his habit, his ware, and his shop about him: and, if this paternal bounty continually open its hands to replenish all creatures with benedictions; what would it not do for man who so divinely and so happily busieth the divine providence, and is the rule of all the rest of the world!  
It were to enter into a vast Labyrinth of discourses and reasons, to represent at this time before our eyes, how this eternal understanding maketh infinite many engines to concur in all the creatures of this great universe; to contribute to our benefit, our protection, and delight. I will only express one thing very considerable which he powerfully doth above the ordinary nature of elements, to divert the inconveniencies of people, and to afford them favours beyond all humane hopes. Behold how under the torrid zone (which would otherwise be inhabitable, by reason of excessive heats) he causeth ●ain to fall so commodiously, that he seems to distil it through a Limbeck in rule and measure! Behold, how in Egypt, (when the Pharaohs covered the land with arms and chariots against his people,) he made Nilus most gently to overflow to supply the want of rain, which (as it is said) never falls in that country! We will also tell you what modern writers have observed in certain Islands, where there are neither rivers nor fountains for the use of the living; God gives them certain trees which (at a time determinate by his Providence) fail not to sprinkle down water with so much advantage, that the thirst of man and beast thereby is sufficiently slaked: Who is he that considering all these works of nature will not cry out that God really is (what S. Isiodore of Peleusium said) the common Magazine of all the people of the earth, from 
Isiodor. l. 2. ep. 151. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. etc.  whence they incessantly derive an infinite number of liberalities, & the true Temple of sweetness and benignity wherein altars are perpetually covered with victimes!  
What doth he not in civil life; to make men live in peace, abundance and tranquillity! what good Laws inspireth he not into them! what laudable instructions suggesteth he not, even to people adverse to his honour! what industries, and what inventions in all acts! what conveniencies in trade! what authority imprinteth he on the face of Kings and Magistrates! what obedience he causeth insensibly to creep into the hearts of people, so that bloodsuckers, and murderers do also adore some rays of Justice! And forasmuch as he permitteth poor and miserable creatures in the world, (which seems to have some repugnance with his bounty;) we see by experience, it is so necessary that we may say of them what the glorious Hanna did in her Canticle, The poor of the Earth belong to God, and he hath laid the whole universe on their shoulders: without them; arts would fail, industries would languish, the services and benefits (which the rich derive from men who are their likes) would wholly cease; and, which is more; the two most eminent virtues of the world (Mercy and Patience) would be banished from the earth. Besides, God hath an incomparable care of those necessitous people whom we think to be wholly abandoned. He hath numbered their hairs, he hath taken the task to preserve all their bones, he moisteneth the dry bread of peasants in tasteful sweetness, he diverteth them from the apprehension of their miseries, he fitteth them to their conditions, he comforteth their labours, he crowneth their patience. Lastly, to express the tenderness of God's mercy in a word; there is not so much as our own tears from whence he doth not make us to draw sweetness and consolation, for our solace. O ineffable Bounty! O greatness unheard of! O inexhaustible liberality! And can we then beholding this model have a heart shut up against all manner of liberality? what a horror is it to see men burn with enraged a varice which sticks to their bones as doth their marrow, and which shall sleep with them in their Tomb!   

§ 5. The Mercles' of the Incarnate word are able to soften the harshest hearts.  
BUt with what admiration is not the heart of man seized on, when he entereth into the great Abysses which are discovered in the second model, in the Oeconomy of our Redemption?  
Have we any proof more manifest than that which is so well weighed by S. Anselm in these words? What greater mercy can there be then to see a humane nature 
Quid misericordius intelligivalet, quam quod peecatori aeternis tormentis deputato, & unde se redimeret non habenti, Deus pater dixit, accipe unguentum meum, & da pro te, & filius dixit, tolle me & redime te? Ansel. l. Cur Deus homo.  despoiled of the robe of honour and of the diadem of glory, by a just chastisement of its rebellions, condemned to a prison of flames and darkness, even then when it was unable to free itself, and when there was neither Angel nor man could deliver it from the misery, whereinto it was plunged? to see it (say I) sought unto by God when it flew from his liberality, and to consider how the heavenly Father transported with unspeakable love, said unto it, Take my only Son to redeem thee from so many remediless calamities, and that this only son disdaineth not to become its ransom, delivered himself for it to torments so enormous, and confusions so hideous.  
The earth (saith S. Augustine) expecteth light and rain from heaven, and we from a Messiah expect truth and mercy: He came after so long expectations, and hath replenished the earth with his knowledge, and the effects of his benignity. What shall we now admire in the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation!  
If we cast our eyes on the heavenly Father, we there see a work of the power of his arm, wherein he seems to have exhausted all his strength. The heavens, and the stars (saith Saint Gregory Nyssen) were but the works of the fingers of this divine Majesty: But in the Incarnation he proceedeth with all the extent of his might, with all the engines of his power, and all the miracles of his Greatness. It is a Maxim among Politicians, that a man, to appear very great, should not waste all his force at an instant; but still to reserve to himself somewhat to do, wherein he may make his ability to be seen, as it were by degrees, by daily surpassing himself. From whence it came that Seneca said to Nero 
Plutarch. de Ira.  who had caused a certain Pavilion infinitely precious to be made, that he therein had showed his weakness; for if it should chance to perish, he could not recover it: and were it preserved, it would be an everlasting reproach to him, to have done to the uttermost of his power. Behold the proceed of humane prudence. But our celestial Father setting aside all other considerations (and forgetting his greatness, to be mindful of his mercy) did a work in our behalf which hath so limited his power that we may truly say, that God cannot in the world in all Eternity make any thing greater than a Man-God.  
And if we on the other part do reflect on the holy Ghost, it seems that this third person (which in the sphere of the Trinity had a mysterious barrenness) springing from the incomparability of a new production in the divine emanations, would make recompense in this mystery, pouring out at once, heats, lights, and beauties in the blessed Virgin, there to form the body of Jesus Christ, and to raise his holy Humanity to the union of the Word Increate. But what piece meriteth more admiration, then to see the person of a God-man, then to see a Jesus Christ, who in himself uniteth Divine and Humane Nature, who carries in himself the last lines of the love and power of his Father, who beareth the consummation of all his designs for the government of man, who includeth all possible communications to an inferior nature in one inimitable communication, who makes himself the source of Grace and Glory in Angelical and humane nature, as he is the source of life and love in the Trinity! O what a goodly spectacle is it, To behold how he blesseth by his presence, how he replenisheth by his greatness, how he governeth by his power, how he sanctifieth by his influences, both heaven and Earth! If we yet doubt of his love and fatherly goodness; let us look on his hands, and we shall see that he hath written our name with his nails: Let us see his heart which was opened for us by that lance which at the latter end of his days digged from out his entrails the remainder of his life; and we shall observe how we therein live, how we therein breathe, and how we therein honourably burn, as in a great furnace common to all intelligible Nature. If you would know what you have cost (and happily do not believe your Creator) 
Quàm pre●iosus si● si factori forte non cred●s, interroga redem●torem Euseb Gal. Homil. 2. de Symbol.  ask your Redeemer and he will tell you. Let us also behold the effects which have succeeded from the alliance of the Divine nature with the Humane; and let us reverence the divine Goodness which hath raised up all the great Mass of men in a supernatural Being, to innocency, to felicity, to light, and to life eternal. Who was more destitute than Man, more brutish, and more ignorant in so great a night and in so horrible confusions of Idolatry? and Jesus by his Incarnation hath revealed unto us the secrets and wisdom of heaven. Who was more unfurnished of wise direction? and he affordeth us his examples. Who was more forlorn? & he adopteth us for his children. Who was more needy? and he gives us the treasure of his merits. Who was more hungry? and he nourisheth us with his flesh and blood. Who was more unhappy? and he divideth his Beatitude among us. If after so many benefits we remain still faithless to his fidelity; he expecteth us with a singular long forbearance: if we delay; he stirreth us up: if we fly; he followeth us: if we return; he stretcheth forth his arm. He washeth us in his blood; He regenerateth us in his love: He makes it his trophy to have conquered us, as if he entered afresh into the possession of an Empire, & causeth our proper sins to contribute to our glory. If we endure somewhat for him; he endureth with us; he weepeth over us; he prepareth eternal sources of consolations: and, as it is said that there is a certain fish which sweetens the water of the salt sea in its mouth; so Jesus mingleth all our acerbities in the inexplicable 
Fasten apud Maiolum.  sweetnesses of his benignity.  
And yet thou (O Man) will't in presence of this Model 
The source of charity.  still remain a little Tiger, as irreconcilable to amities, as streight-handed to works of liberality. Believe me, among all the Ensigns of Greatness which thou canst have; there is not any more sensible than the charitable communication of one man to another by ways of liberality and alms, which God receiveth in the nature 
Plin l. 2. c. 7 Deus est, mortali benefacere mortalem, & haec ad aeternam gloriam via.  of victim. It is a Divinity for one man by his benefits to oblige another, and this is properly the way of eternal glory.  
Who are they, in your opinion, that first of all deserved the title of Cardinal, which is nowadays accounted among the great dignities of the Church? Do 
From whence the Title of Cardinals cometh.  you think that nobility of extraction, favour of great ones, Eminency of wisdom, prudence in the government of Empires gave these Titles to the primitive Church? I say all these qualities are very considerable; 
Fabianus. Vide Concil. Rom. sub Sylvestro. Lacerdam. adversar. c. 35. Cardinals á Cardinibus seu vicis Rome.  yet nevertheless it is true, that the first fourteen Cardinals who were called by this name, were fourteen personages of honour and merit, who under Pope Sylvester were ranged in as many streets of the City of Rome, to take care of the poor. So true it is that they who begat us to Christianity placed the magnificence of men, not in garments which are the food of moths: not in precious stones which are the excrements of the sea and land: not in Coaches and horses which are the notes of our poverty and dependence: not in titles which are 
Errat qui Deo proximam conscientiam credit commodis invitari: sola putatis lucra, quae vobis de liberalirate ●aseuntur qui divitias cum tributis accipitis. Euod. l. 1. Ep. ad Symmachum Papam.  Imaginary felicities: but in the relief of persons necessitous who are the Images of God. A learned Bishop said to a Pope, He deceives himself who thinks that a conscience so near to the Divinity is tied to its Interests; For my part I imagine you do not believe there is any other gain for you, but that which takes birth from your liberality, and that you think you receive good, as oftentimes as you do it.  
But if there be no spur of honour which inciteth you to proceed confidently, and liberally to open your hands to men, to enter into the communication of the virtue and glory of so many Saints; at the least soften your bowels from the necessity of times, and the calamities of so many poor people who seem to be the dregs of the earth, or froth of an enraged sea. Inform yourself a little of the wants of Cities and Towns, and you shall find many (abandoned of all consolation, and destitute of all necessaries) who yet are your flesh, your brethren, and your coheirs in Jesus Christ: and now, whilst all smileth in your houses, and all is resplendent with a lustre of fair accommodation in your own persons; there are poor old men couched on straw among cobwebs; there are women afflicted with long and irksome maladies, environed with very many children whom they see dying before their eyes, not having any means to give them a bit of bread.  
They are forsaken by kindred, friends, and all manner of assistance, as if they were some monsters of nature thrown on the shore by the seas anger. There are Virgins for whom daily snares are laid, that they may fall into sin under colour of poverty. There are some who have been heretofore very fortunate according to the world, who are fallen into great wants, and at this present (when they have so many tears to bewail their misery under the covert of some poor cottage) have not a tongue to complain; for having lost all, they yet retain shame which toeth the hands of their poverty, and hindereth them from stretching them out to the cruel rich, from whom they expect nothing but denial. Know we not, how in certain places men many times have run up and down the streets armed with fury and rage for bread, and have snatched (as it were) out of blood and flames a nourishment worse than death? Know we not, there are many who have been divers days without bread? And how often have others eaten such as they were fain to shut their eyes when they put it in their mouths? Are we ignorant, that certain mothers have prostituted their daughters out of a cursed and vicious constraint to help their miseries? Their hands peradventure had been more merciful, if they had hewed them in pieces before they sacrificed them to dishonour; but, behold whither the tyranny of Avarice and Prodigality have transported the affairs of Christendom! What rock would not be mollified among so many direful objects? What eye of ice would not melt amidst such spectacles of disastres? Will you not then in your houses establish the sacrifice of Mercy, which God would have to be perpetual? Will you not consider what you may do without much prejudicing your revenues? Will you expect death to do good, and to make your torch to be carried after you? They who have renounced Faith, Truth and light (I mean Heretics) have not renounced mercy: they exhaust themselves for their faction, and many times do acts of liberality to ours, who help the poor. But what say I? Heretics? The Turks in their savage life give the Tenth part of their goods to the poor. There are some who build fountains, and pay men wages to give drink to passengers; and some thereto add camels to carry their fardels. Will it not be a great honour to you at the day of judgement, if persisting in this inhumanity, you see yourself worse than the Infidels, and that the Character of Christianity hath served you for no other purpose, but to reproach you in the eternity of your pains with the exorbitance of your Infamy? Good God, divert this misery from thy servants: and since thou so freely hast opened thy heart unto them; Let them never shut up the bowels of their Compassion against thy brethren who are the poor.   
FINIS.   

HISTORICAL OBSERVATIONS Upon the Four Principal PASSIONS, Which are as Four DEVILS, Disturbers OF THE HOLY COURT.  
Printed, M.DC.L.   

To the READER.  
Dear Reader,  
I Here find that which Job, the first Writer of the world, saith that our thoughts are as the Branches of our soul which multiply and extend as fare as their Root giveth them vigour and nutriment. You see, the affection you have showed to these Books of the Holy Court, hath served for vital humours to my wit; to produce many discourses; and with much labour, to undertake that which I supposed to be profitable and satisfactory for you, which I have ever more esteemed than my own repose.  
When I thought I was at the end of my design, you have caused me to set forth a fourth Tome, wherein I conceive I have comprised all the secrets of humane life in the moderation of Passions. It would here have been fit for me to end, were it not that some Lords and Ladies, who make up a part of this innocent Court by the good example of their lives, are not fully satisfied unless I afford them Histories. This then hath moved me, to crown these Treatises with most select Historical Observations, to expose to view the disorder which ill rectified Passions introduce, and the profits they bring when they are ranged under the laws of discretion. I meant expressly to have drawn them almost all out of our own History, for two reasons; whereof the one is, That the Passions of Infidels of Antiquity, and even those of many other Christian Nations have passages too full of horror and brutishness: But ours, albeit they have extravagancies inconsiderate enough, are more within limits ordinary to nature corrupted by sin. The second is, that writing this to the Court of France, I propose to myself I should more efficaciously persuade by domestic Examples which are partly already known to our Countrymen, then by foreign and unheard of Histories.  
Now all Passions of the Court relate to four Principal, which are Love; Desire of Honours and Pleasures of the world; Anger always animated to Revenge; and Envy which draggeth along with it the black Passions of Jealousy, Sadness, and Despair: I will content myself to pursue these Tracts, scoring out unto you the disastres of such as have yielded to these Motives, and the felicity of others who have gloriously surmounted them; And to add a pleasing variety to this last piece, I will conclude with many short and remarkable Examples suited to those four mentioned Passions.   

THE DISASTERS OF SUCH As have yielded to the Passion OF LOVE AND The Glory of Souls, which have overcome it.  
1. LEt us begin with that Passion which is the Source of the rest, and which in all times hath caused trouble among men, to give a ground to our discourse. The children of great Clodoveus, became not so soon tractable to the severity of Christian manners, but suffered themselves very often to be transported with very violent exorbitancies, and particularly with unlawful loves; which caused ill example in their house, and great disorder throughout their Kingdom. 
Gregory of Tours l. 4.   
Gregory of Tours observeth fordid and shameful affections in the person of King Caribert grandchild of Clodoveus, which cast an Eclipse upon the lights of the Diadem of this great King, and could never be rooted out but by patience, by prayers, and by the effects of the puissant hand of God.  
Queen Ingobergua, who knew the humours of her 
The plot of Queen Ingobergna to cure her husband's passion, succeedeth ill out of too much affectation.  husband to be addicted to inconsiderate love, and who was jealous enough of her bed, took not among her attendant Ladies those nymphs of the Court which are full of attractives, and deserve admiration: but purposely chose out base and despicable waiters, thinking it was a singular remedy against the King's malady. She had at that time in her Court and service two daughters of a Clothworker, the eldest of which was called Marcovessa, and the youngest Mirefleur. Caribert (whose love was more lustful than ambitious) became desperately in love, and courted them to the prejudice of his honour and wedlock, which wounded the soul of the Queen with a very sensible arrow, seeing the havoc this passion made in the mind of this Monarch. Jealousy suggesteth her a trick which seemed sufficient to divert him from his infamous servitude; if this passion might be cured by another, and that a jealous woman did not irritate the wounds of love by its proper remedies. She calleth the Father of her two servants, & commanded him secretly to practise his trade in some corner of the Court, whither she very cunningly brought his Majesty, to make him see the base extraction of his Mistresses, and to throw shame & confusion upon him. But he (who at distance saw this wile coming towards him, and the solemn preparation of it) was displeased, saying, that if nothing were wanting but nobility to render these maids worthy of his love, he would sufficiently ennoble them by his person, and that it only belonged to him to raise inferior things, by loving them: and as great ones will rather be flattered in their passions, then censured; instantly he made a shameful divorce with the Queen contrary to laws both divine and humane, to take to wife the younger of these sisters which was Mirefleur. But, love (which being of its nature a slave faileth not to be disdainful) quickly put a distaste of her unto him, to make him look after the elder who seemed the more modest, and wear a religious habit; whether desirous to inflame love by this pretext, (which ordinarily is eager to pursue all it can least obtain) or whether she did it to give less advantage and suspicion to the jealous spirit of Queen Ingobergua: The fire of Concupiscence (which spareth not to inflame Linsy-wolsie, as well as Satin) continually blowed by the wind of ambition (which promised this creature a giddy Fancy of a Crown) burned so strongly; that this spirit (which had more cunning than beauty) caused so much madness to creep into the heart of this miserable king, that he resolved to marry her; which he did, qualifying a prodigious whoredom with the title of wedlock. The Queen was ready to die, and addresseth her complaints to God, and men.  
The Bishops, who were assembled in the Council of Tours in favour of her, made Canons against incestuous marriages; but the Canons at that time were not strong enough against the arrows of love. S. German Bishop of Paris sent forth thunders of excommunication; but passion armed with authority made no more account of them then of flying fires, which are quenched in their birth. God thereto put his hand by the prayers of the Church, and took away this religious woman by a horrible and sudden death which affrighted the King, and he in the end conceived shame and sorrow for his fault, deriving his salvation out of necessity, since he could not gain it from the glory of his refistance. That which remained him of life was short and miserable, and his passion having rendered him contemptible to his own subjects, he quickly left Crown and Sceptre to pay a tribute to his Tomb.  
2. Another kind of sottish love appeared in the government 
Gregory of Tours l. 5.  of young Meraveus, which I will here relate, as being able to minister matter of terror to youth which takes liberty in clandestine marriages. King Chilperic his father happened to bear away the bloody spoil of his brother Sigebert who had been traitorously murdered by the subtle practices of Fredegond, when he was come to the Eve of his triumph. The famous Brunhault widow of the deceased King (as yet) very young was become a party of this miserable booty, and saw her precious liberty enthralled in the hands of her brother in law, and sister, who was born for vengeance, and exercised in massacres. Her fortune represented nothing unto her but a thousand images of terror; and the cruelty of her adversaries made her apprehend all that which notable mischievous wickedness can do, when it hath the sword of power in hand. Yet her blood was spared to consume her with languors, sentence of her Captivity was pronounced, by giving her the City of Rouen for prison. A trusty man 
A notable example of Meroveus to dieurt youth from licentious marriages.  was sought for to execute this Commission, and the King cast his eye on his son Meroveus a young Prince of a nature sweet and facile, & endowed uviht excellent parts which made him to be beloved, and beheld (as a rising star) by all the eyes of France. This was to put fire too near to stubble, not considering that the calm of such natures is ordinarily the most turmoiled with storms of love. So soon as Brunhault (who according to the relation of S. Gregory of Torus was a very beautiful and well spoken Princess) began to unciel her eyes which had hitherto been drenched in a deluge of tears; she appeared to Meroveus as a blushing Morn which raiseth the more fair after a shower; and the arrow of love sharpened by compassion made such flames to sparkle in his heart, that he was enforced to quench them with his blood. He saw himself the captive of his fair prisoner, and already well felt he was not born to be predominant over a beauty so triumphant. The easiness of his nature suffered him not to be long in resolving to give way to his passion. He instantly declares himself, and coloureth his request with the title of marriage. Brunhault gives ear, (whether for the love of Meroveus, or whether out of the hatred of Fredegond his mother) supposing it was an opportunity to carry fire very far into the Royal race.  
They secretly marry, the Nephew espouseth the Aunt, by a crime unheard; Love is their Pope and King, from whom they take dispensation and leave. Fury conceiveth this marriage: Timerity signeth it; but misery sealeth the contract. Meroveus returneth from Rouen still hiding his fire under the ashes. He gives account of his commission. The King his father resolveth to send him to take possession of Guyenne, which he judged to be fallen unto him by the death of Sigebert. He fergneth to departed from the Court with intention to go to Bourdeaux, but the countrepoise of love insensibly carried him to Rouen, and he hasteneth to court his pretended spouse, and forgets all cares and affairs, to please his passion: which being not kept with in the limits of moderation, made a great noise, and was carried to the ears of the Court. King Chilperic went to Rouen with an army to quench the fire in its beginning, thinking there was some notable plot contrived against his state; but he finds these lovers had no other arms, but those of Cupid; and that the excess of their passion had given them so little leisure to think on their own safety, that seeing themselves beset by soldiers, they had recourse to altars which were then secure refuges: for the miserable Chilperic durst not violate Sanctuaries in the presence of Pretextatus Bishop of Rouen, a man courageous and zealous for things divine. He promised himself to take this new married Couple by the want of victual, and other natural neecessities But he seeing the business to be drawn, at length patience slips from him, and he made them to come out of the Church, with promise of impunity. His soul was softened, seeing a young Queen, a widow; and miserable by the cruelty of his wife. Nature pleadeth in his heart for his own blood, he embraceth them both with tears in his eyes: and (not to affright them) enterteins them with fair hopes; & whilst they little think of it, he sends Brunhault into Austrasia her own Country, and keeps Meroveus under good and sure guard, judging one could not well trust him if he were at his own dispose. In the mean time Fredegonda, immeasurably displeased with the proceed of this affair, and supposing the King her husband went on too remissly; made it a great crime of state, and of manifest conspiracy: wherein she involved the Archbishop Pretextatus. He was Meroveus his Godfather, & could not but have some tenderness towards this Prince his God-child, which being sinisterly interpreted, drew much misery upon him. He with his moveables and papers were seized on, where they found certain packets of Queen Brunhaults, which strengthened the suspicion they conceived to his prejudice. He is sent for to an assembly of Bishops, where the King coming in chargeth him with the crime of rebellion, accusing him to have withdrawn the people from their obedience, to crown his son; and thereupon roundly required the Prelates that justice might be done according to holy Canons. The witnesses are heard, and confronted, who do not throughly enough prove the crime whereof he was accused. Pretextatus justifieth himself by a solemn protestation of his innocency, which caused compassion in many. But these Prelates assembled were partly weak, and partly sold to serve the King's passions; there was almost none but Gregory of Torus who having an invincible spirit in a little body encouraged the whole Assembly to the defence of the truth; the menacies of the King, and murdering flatteries of Queen Fredegonde being unable to shake his constancy; Other batteries were likewise made to ruin a man half dead, by stirring up against him divers calumnies from which he very happily vindicated himself; until at length some treacherous Bishops counselled him to accuse himself (by way of humiliation) of the offence of state which was objected against him. They told him he must not appear too just before his Master; that it was not reasonable the King should receive an affront in this affair; that he was a mild Prince who would Pretextatus should owe his safety to his clemency, and that he no sooner could speak one word of confession but he should be freed from this vexation, and restored to his Dignity. The unfortuante Prelate (giving ear to the hissing of serpents) made his tongue the snare of his soul, and owned an imaginary crime, to undergo a real unhappiness. He had no sooner pronounced the word, but the King transported with excessive joy prostrated himself on his knees before the assembly of Bishops, demanding that his robe (for ignominy) should be cut off, and the execrations (thundering against Judas) to be pronounced over him. The compassion of some procured moderation therein. Nevertheless he was instantly degraded, condemned to banishment, and delivered to the King's Guard, who lead him to a little desert Island near the city of Constance in Normandy, whence he esaped to be in the end massacred by the practices of Q. Fredegonde.  
This stepmother was not content to see Meroveus confined to a prison, but she violently urged he might be shaved, and shut in a Monastery, which was executed. But it is a great error to think to make a religious man by holding a poignard to his throan, and by taking hair from his head when the consent of his heart cannot be had. The thoughts (which according to the Interpreters of Scripture, are as the hairs of the soul) were not taken away by the roots from this miserble Samson. They much persecuted him about his passed Loves, that h● quickly forsaken Cowl and Monastery, to begin new stirs. He went directly to Torus, (which gave much trouble to good Saint Grogory) and spent nights upon the tomb of Saint Martin, fasting and praying to have a revelation which might promise him a crown. But seeing Chilperic pursued him with armed hand, he fled from town to town, and from Sanctuary to Sanctuary, finding not any one who would support his rebellion. In the end he gets into Austrasia, and returneth to the embracements of his Spouse, as it were to end himself in those eyes which had enkindled his first flames. But the cunning Queen (considering that her subjects were raised in alarms upon his coming, and fearing she might draw upon them the total storm of Chilperics arms, preferred reasons of state before those of love,) besought him to retire. They of Tours (who were suspected by the King for having first of all favoured his flight) thinking not to find their own safety but in his ruin, called him back again under colour to support his arms, and to become of his side. The Prince (in whom passion caused a continual dr●●kennesse of Reason) being more easy to believe, then prudent to examine reasons, turned towards them; and presently found himself caught in their snare. When seeing himself betrayed and ready to be delivered into the hands of his Father, and stepmother (whom he more feared than a Panther) he addressed himself to Geilan his confident friend, and prayed him to give an end to his miserable life, sigh having found so much infidelity in his beloved, treachery in his friends, and cruelty in his father, there nothing remained for him but a Tomb to bury all his miseries. The other thinking to do him great service, thrust his sword into his body, and separated his soul. Which may be a fearful example for youth, to make them for ever to abhor the charms of love.  
That of Carloman was as light, (although it had 
Paulus Aemilius.  not, so long a sequel of accidents.) Paulus Aemilius recounteth that this young Prince, accustomed to sottish and sordid love, having in a street perceived a creature which to him seemed handsome; he began to follow her being mounted on his horse; but the maid very chaste (to avoid his courtships) cast herself speedily into a house, whither Carloman (spurring his horse) desperately followed her, not observing that the door of the house was too low; which smote him, and struck him down so unfortunately, that he left both love and life. It was a direful thing to see so great a Prince to die in jest: but the sports of this passion are ordinarily bloody, and Venus came from a sea of water, to swim in a sea of blood.  
3. I will here also let you see the effect of a passion 
Concilia Gallieana tom. 3.  (to all extremity) dissolute and scandalous, which made a great noise throughout all Christendom, and will serve to make men detest the wickedness of such as break conjugal bands, to satisfy their lust. The young Emperor Lotharius, grandchild of Lewis the Courteous, loved in his younger years a Lady, much mentioned in the Epistles of Popes, under the name of Valdrada. She had a commanding beauty, was of a humour full of attractives and wiles, which surprised the young Prince with an affection so strong and catching, that after a thousand crosses he could not be unloosed from it, but by death. Nevertheless, Time and Reason inviting him to think upon a lawful marriage; he espoused Theutbergue a beautiful and virtuous Princess, 
Scandalous love of the Emperor Lotharius, and Valdrada.  who was thought fit to quench the fire of his unchaste love, and hereafter to enkindle his heart with flames more chaste and happy. But fascinated by his evil Genius, he presently took an aversion against his wife, being seldom personally with her; and perpetually in mind, and affection with her, who had laid hold of his first love. Whether it were that this audacious woman imperiously ruled over him, (as a man timorous in his passions, who durst not yet confidently do a mischief) or whether he were sufficiently disposed thereunto by the violence of his love; he undertakes a very scandalous business, which was to unmarry himself, falsely imputing adultery and barrenness to his wife. The criminal process is handled in the Ecclesiastical Court; Gontier Archbishop of Collen, who had great power and great faults, supporteth the Prince's part what he might, & having won Theutgard Archbishop of Trew on his side, he drags along souls set to sale by a torrent of authority to which none make resistance. The innocent Theutbergue is condemned in two pestilent Synods, and handled as a prostitute, the Crown is taken from her and put on Valdradas head, who appeared with a marvellous pomp, whilst the other groaned under the ashes of a public penance. The chaste Princess, who not so much regarded eminent wedlocks as the honour of her purity (which she meant to preserve to her tomb) appealed to the Pope, which at that time was Nicholas the first, and wrote mournful letters to him, able to rend rocks asunder. The common Father of Christendom heareth her complaints animated by truth, and deputeth two Legates to do her right. These Prelates had not courage enough to decide the matter; and seeing themselves upon one side assailed by their conscience, and on the other, besieged by the powerful contentions of Lotharius and two Archbishops, they found out a way how to wash their hands from this judgement, They show, that since two Provincial Counsels had passed upon it, and that the Archbishop's Gontier, and Theutgard had born sway therein; it were good that the same men took pains to go to Rome to let the Pope see the acts of those two assemblies, and to justify all their proceed. These two Prelates (who thought nothing was impossible to their credit) refused not the commission. They go armed with impostures and tattle, to oppress truth, and overwhelm innocency. The Pope, a clear-seeing and charitable man, interessed himself in the cause, and in full assembly discovereth their juggling, with such vigour and perspicuity, that all the Fathers cast their stone at them. The mischief they meant against the innocent Theutbergue falls back upon their own heads; they are excommunicated, degraded, deprived of their offices and benefices, to be reduced to the communion of Lackeys. Never did men practise a mischief with more unluckiness, and less success. A Legate is dispatched to annul all they had done, which was the courageous Arsemius, who caused all the process to be reviewed, drove away the impudent Valdrada, restored her honour to Queen Theutbergue, and tied her marriage with an indissoluble knot. Nevertheless this judicious Lady, well foreseeing that those loves (which are re-enkindled with the fires of S. Peter's thunders, would neither be happy nor faithful for her) saith, she was satisfied to have put her honour into safeguard, and that having observed so much evil disposition in her husband, and treachery in the world, she desired to spend the rest of her days with God. Lotharius was transported with joy upon this news, and addressed an humble supplication to the Pope showing he had obeyed his commandments; being dutifully bend to take his wife again: but since the piety of this Princess, who is not born for worldly matters, is suggested with the thought of entering into religion; it would please him to favour her generous purpose; & to give him leave to marry Valdrada, which would be a means, to take away all the sin & scandal of his miserable life. The holy Father answers, that he much commended the charity he had towards queen Theutbergue his spouse; but that it was fit this good affection might begin in himself, and should he throughly resolve to enter into a Monastery, the permission he required for his wife should hinder nothing. This answer confounded him, and seeing that of two wives, he was despised by the one, and interdicted from the other; he lived in the world as a man without soul or contentment. Mean while, he hoped that God calling Theutbergue; he at least should then have all facility in his marriage with Valdrada: but the Pope, considering the evil practices of this lustful love which had scandalised all Christendom, and the former usage of his wife; he let him understand that this match was for ever forbidden. Provoked desire burns to fury: and he again beginneth a most notorious whoredom, since he could not colour it with the title of marriage. Thereupon menaces and thunders from Rome follow, and the name of Valdrada is mentioned in all excommunications reiterated one after another. The miserable Lotharius seeing himself crossed by God and men, perpetually pricked with remorse of conscience, resolved to take a journey to Rome; and to present himself to Hadrian the second, successor of Nicholas, and to get his absolution, and to mediate the affair of his marriage; his heart still propending towards her, whom he so unfortunately had loved. The Pope hearkened to him, and received him to penance, and disposed himself to say Mass, wherein he was fully to finish the affair of his reconciliation. When he came to the instant of Communion, he takes the venerable Host in his hand, and addresseth himself to king Lotharius and all his complices ready to communicate, and says to them, Sir, if it be true, that, having renounced your unchaste loves, you this day do present your submissions to God and to the Church in all sincerity; come near, you and yours, to this blessed Sacrament with all confidence in the mercy of God: But, if you still retain the old Leaven of your inordinate affections; get you from the Altar both you and all those who have served you in this business, if you will not be involved in the vengeance of God. This speech was a stroke of thunder that affrighted the king and his followers, and which made many of them instantly to retire. Lotharius was ashamed to go back; and albeit he yet felt the flames of his love to burn in his heart; yet failed he not to pass further with his greatest intimates and friends. From that time not any one of those who had unworthily communicated had any health; all miserably died, and the poor Lotharius, returning from his voyage, found the end of his life and direful passion in the city of Placentia: Valdrada submitting herself to a just penance obtained absolution from Pope Adrian. Gontier and Theutgard seeing themselves deposed without hope of recovery, armed their pens against the Pope to no purpose. But afterward, Gontier made great submission that he might be reestablished; yet obtained not what he desired: for it was answered him that it was from respect of honour and temporal gain that all these humiliations proceeded; and therefore it were much better for him to persever in the exercise of his penance, which was so much the more bitter unto him for that he had in the beginning of this business prostituted his Niece to King Lotharius under the hope of marriage, which his ambition figured to him. So true it is that God chasticeth vice with a rod of Iron, in such as too near approach the Sanctuary.  
Valdrada is not alone (among the Ladies of the old Court) who hath made herself to be talked of in so ill a sense. Love appeared as weak and shameful in Ogine Queen of France, Mother of Lewis Outremer, who transported with foolish affection married herself to a young gallant named Heribert, son of him who had betrayed and imprisoned Charles the simple, her husband.  
5. The like passion was scandalous in the time of 
Annals of France.  Philip le Bel in three noble Princesses married to three sons of France; who were all accused of unchastity by their own husbands, and fell into horrible disasters, to teach women of quality, in what account they ought to hold the honour of chastity.  
6. But verily never any thing in this kind did equal the exorbitancy of Queen Eleanor, who renounced F●ance which had eyes too chaste to tolerate her disorders. She going along to the conquest of the holy land, with King Lewis the young her husband, lost piety and reputation, resigning herself to the love of a Sultan Sarazin, the turban, nor dusky colour of a hideous man being able to stay the fury of her passion. She was the daughter of William the last Duke of Aquitane, who in his time was a scourge of mankind; he alone at one meal did eat as much as eight men; and this vast body filled with wine and viands burnt like a Furnace, throwing out flames of choler and lust on all sides. S. Bernard knocked him down like a Boar; foaming at his feet, presenting the holy Host before him, and by that miracle made a Hermit of him. His daughter imitating his evil habits, had no part in his conversion, living in all liberty. Which was the cause that the King, under colour of affinity, made his match with her to be broken, and restored Guyenne to her which she brought. This bold woman, not amazed at this divorce; espouseth Henry of England, a man as passionate as she, where she found a terrible business, when (her unquiet spirit, powerfully bustling in affairs of state, and the interests of her husband's children) she saw herself shut up in a prison, where she lay for the space of fourteen years in rage and languors, which put a penance upon her more irksome to her humour, than it proved profitable to her soul.  
Good God what heavy horrors, what Tragedies, and what scourges of God do always fall on sin! What a pleasing spectacle it is to see, amidst such confusions, victories gained over evil love!  
7. It is very true, that he who would recount the remarkable 
The honour the French have born to the virtue of Chastity.  acts of chastity, resplendent in the Court of France, and especially among Ladies, for one (who ought to be forgotten) a thousand might be found, who had lived with very singular testimonies of Integrity: but it is certain that Historians have an itch to set down mischiefs and crimes rather than virtues; which is the cause, that when so many honourable women walk in the beaten tract of a well ordered life, we no more admire it then the ordinary course of the Sun: But if one step awry, all curious eyes look on her as on a star in Eclipse.  
Yet in so great a negligence of Historians to write the rare effects of modesty, we do not want good arguments which testify the love our nation hath in all ages born to purity.  
8. Nicetas a Greek Author (in the lamentations of the city of Constantinople taken by the French) cannot hold from admiring Baldwin the conqueror thereof, who, entering into a vanquished City wherein there were many beauties, never did he cast so much as one wanton glance; beginning his triumph from the victory he got over himself: and that which he practised in his own person, he caused to be exactly observed among his attendants, commanding his Heralds twice in a week to proclaim throughout the Imperial Palace, that all such as should have any ill purpose towards the chastity of Ladies, and meant to debauch the wife of another, were to take heed under grievous penalties never to lodge within the circuit of the house. Verily this is a rare example of integrity, able to shame the nobility so much defamed by giddy and base luxury, which hath blasted the lustre of its conquests, and not spared to raise up bloody tragedies which still make Historians to lament.  
9 Clodoveus who brought not virginity from Paganism 
Baronius ad annum. 499.  so much honoured virgins, that, in the liberty of arms, he permitted not any to touch either their bodies or lands. He bore a singular reverence to S. Geneviefue who made profession of this angelical virtue; he willingly gave ear to her request, and often granted her what he had denied the greatest in his kingdom, even to the drawing of offenders from the gates of hell who had already the executioners axe over their heads.  
10. Gontranus his grandchild made himself much 
Greg. Turon. l. 9 c. 27  worthy of praise by a notable act he did in the behalf of Chastity. It happened that in his time, one Amalon Count of Champain (who no more spared the honour of Virgins than his own, of which he was infinitely prodigal) caused a Virgin as fair as chaste to be taken, that he might dishonour her. Whilst he expected the success of this theft, he feasted and drank (according to his custom) immoderately. Wine, which enkindleth concupiscence, quenched it in him by reason of his excess: and whilst he more thought upon sleep then love; this poor unfortunate victim was stolen into his bed with all menaces and violences that fury could invent. The poor Virgin seeing this Holophernes was fast asleep thought it were not amiss to renew the History of Judith, to vindicate her honour from this gulf whereinto the craft of this treacherous man had precipitated her: she takes a sword which hung at the beds-head, draweth it out of the scabbard, and gave him a wound on the head, which awakened him from this dead-sleep, and made him cry out Murder. His servants speedily ran thither and were ready to knock down this Amazon, when the other, touched with remorse of conscience, hindered it, and gave her leisure to escape through the throng of the people. The wound (being mortal) quickly carried him out of the world after he had had some time to detest his sin. But his kindred and allies sought for nothing but to cut this young Judith in pieces, who had dared to lift up a sword against a man of so eminent quality. Wherefore she had recourse to King Gontranus, and prostrated herself at his feet, telling him all the story which had passed between the Count and her. The King harkened to her, and freed her, taking her into his protection, against all such as would enterprise upon her life, or honour.  
11. Lewis the Courteous consecrated his Kingdom by the honour he gave to chastity, resolving not to enter into his father charlemagne palace, until it was sanctified. He instantly banished thence all those plagues (which laid snares for the honour of the Princesses his sisters; replenishing his whole Royal palace with a holy odour of virtue and reputation.  
12. S. Lewis may serve for an Example to all Princes, 
Vita S. Ludovici.  inasmuch as may concern the continency of the married. To banish all Love-toys from his heart; he resolved perfectly to love the Queen his wife, whom he 
Conjugal Chastity S. Lewis.  espoused in his most tender years, and both of them lived and conversed with so much integrity, sweetness, and admiration, that one would have thought them a pair of Angels on earth. The husband secretly stole into the chamber of his dear spouse; and much he feared to be met by the Queen his mother who seemed (to such as did not well understand her intentions) to be somewhat jealous to see them together. But to say truly, she managed these interviews in their tender youth, that their health might not be prejudiced, and their marriage might become the more fruitful. And the good King, to give her no cause of suspicion, had little dogs in the lobby of purpose that they might bark and afford him leisure to save himself, and not be surprised by the diligence of Blanch, in the Queen's chamber. His love was accompanied with so much respect and confidence, that he dispatched not any business without communicating it with her; in such sort, that when he was to conclude the conditions of his deliverance with the Saracens; he freely told them, he could not sign them without the advice of the Queen his wife, who was not fare off. At which these Barbarians were much amazed; but he answered them, it only belonged to them to account their wives for slaves, and that his, was his Lady and Mistress.  
13. Our most Christian King (an imitator of S. Lewis in the virtue of purity) possesseth it in such a degree, that in him it more dependeth on a gift from God than the temper of man. Praises are often given to Princes, which are as colours in the air, and have no foundation in their merit; but this hath taken such an incorruptible root in the integrity of his manners, that it will never die; which might minister matter for me here to enlarge, had I resolved to write a Panigyrick, and not a History which treateth of things past, as Prophecy, those which are to come.  
14. I think I have sufficiently touched in the first and second Tome the notable acts of Charles the Eighth, and chevalier Bayard; and I am confident, History 
Helgaldus Monachus Floriacensis  will never suffer the austerities of holy K. Robert to die; who to mortify concupiscence sometimes lay on the boards the seven whole weeks before Easter.  
15. I do not account them contemptible, who having not had the happiness to live in this great purity of S. Lewis, have not spared to resist love which had formerly mastered them. Dagobert, a young King bred 
Notable victory of Dagobert against love. Paulus Aemil. Haymonius.  in all virtue, by the care and zeal of S. Arnold his Tutor, took liberty in vice very irregularly, so soon as this grave director had obtained leave to retire from the Court. There are spirits which resemble the wooden Dove of Archytas the Philosopher, which flew by engines whilst they had their operation, and soared in the air; but so soon as they ceased, it trailed the wing on the earth. Such was our Dagobert, who perpetually having this worthy man Arnold by his sides; he spoke as an Oracle, and lived like an Angel. There was not any thing more chaste, more devout, and more affable: which was the cause that his Tutor, thinking there was no more need of him about his person, urgently entreated he might be permitted to withdraw into the Country, which the King gainsaid, even to the expression of anger, if he spoke any more of this retreat. Nevertheless, redoubling his importunities, he prevailed; and so soon as he was separated from his scholar; he, who before, was a dove with wings of silver, and who in acts of virtue took a strong and confident flight, suffered himself to fall into the mire with a scandal as shameful, as the excess was violent. Lust assaulteth, and on all sides besieges him. Licentious youth takes possession of his soul, and continually blows love and beauty into his ears. It many times happeneth that the passions of young men which have been too severely restrained, so soon as they have found passage, do the more violently overflow, as if nature went about to take revenge upon art and precepts. They must sometime be showed the world with contempt, they must be enured against its assaults, they must be prepared against its deceits, that they be not like foolish pigeons which have never seen any thing but suffer themselves to be taken with the first baits. S. Arnold, who was a man that breathed nothing but wildernesses, in my opinion held the spirit of Dagobert in a life too much restrained, which, in the first approach of liberty, flew out into most violent extravagancies. He presently took an aversion against Queen Gomatrade his wife, and in a liberty of doing all which flatterers told him fell to him as an inheritance; he durst to repudiate her, and take a young Lady named Ragintrude, whom he most affectionately loved. Lust is the throat of Hell, which never says It is enough; and when shame hath no bridle to withhold it, it makes no difference between things sacred and profane, and the greatest crimes pass with it, as matters indifferent. This love is not content with common passion; he entereth into Cloisters, and takes a virgin out of a Monastery who had begun to dedicate herself to God. To her he addeth many others, and makes a little Seraglio of his palace. All France groaned to see so sudden and deplorable a change of life in their King. S. Arnold is invited by some good men again to visit his young plant, and to take in hand the reins of the King's direction, which he had forsaken; but whether he were charmed by the sweetness of his solitude, or whether he feared he should have no favourable admission after so solemn a leave; (which he with so much importunity had begged) he would not hearken to it, rather choosing to send his sighs to the ears of God than the Kings. S. Amand determines to undertake the matter, which he did with Ecclesiastic vigour, and a most undoubted confidence; but the sick man was too tender to endure a tongue armed with sword and fire; so fare was he from disposing himself to remedies, that he could not suffer so much as the presence of his Physician, causing him to be sent into another country. Pepin of Landen, who was the prime man in the Court, thought fit to instill some good counsel and sage words as occasion offered; but the King, transported with the exorbitancy of his youth, told him he was a troublesome man, of whom it were fit to rid the world, since he was so hardy as to censure the innocent delights of his Master. For which cause, this great pillar of state, shaken by the storm of a violent passion, much tottered, and was very near to have been thrown down. The Reverence wherewith his virtue was honoured, (which proceeded almost to veneration) saved him to reserve his reasons for a better disposition. During this time the Queen dieth, and the affections of Dagobert began to slacken either out of satiety or shame. This good Counsellor lays hold of his opportunity, and takes him on the Bias; showing him, his honour and repose joined with the good of the state required of him a happy posterity; and that it was a very easy matter for him, since he had honoured Ragintrude with his affections for her exquisite beauty and the excellent gifts wherein she surpassed, that he might take her to wife, and limit his love within lawful wedlock, which would draw upon him the blessings of heaven, and the love of all his people. This speech happily entered into the King's heart, and he resolved to follow the Counsel which was presented him by so good a hand. He dismisseth all the women which had tyrannised over his affection; he marrieth Ragintrude: and, as if in an instant some charm had been taken away; he in himself (by the hand of God) made such a change, that his life was a Rule of virtue, and his conversion, a miracle. The Court which commonly followeth the inclinations of the Prince, took with him a quite other face; vice and vicious are thence banished, and all virtues thither brought chastity as in triumph.  
16, I verily think, it is many times an act as hard 
Rigordus.  and heroic, to free ones self from a miry bog whereinto one by mischance is fallen, as to live perpetually innocent. For which cause, I much esteem the resolution 
Great Triumph of Philip Gods-gift over himself.  of Philip Gods-gift, who being in the beginning distasted with Engelbergue his wife, after he had repudiated her, and taken Mary the daughter of the Duke of Moravia, out of a violent affection which long had embroiled him; he was suddenly converted, and laid hold of the occasion of his salvation. The Complaints of the scandal he gave flew to Rome, and returned with Censures and Thunders. Census, and Meilleur (two Legates sent by the Holy Sea) durst not touch this wound which they judged to be incurable. Peter, Cardinal of S. Marry absolutely incensed him, putting the Kingdom into interdict, and the King into despair, who vomited nought but choler and flames. Two other Legates deputed for a third trial proceeded therein with much sweetness, which so gained the soul of Philip that he began to submit to reason. Yet the charms were so violent, that his reason thereby became infirm, and his constancy wavering. His business was lastly decided by a Synod, and it was dangerous lest it might stir up a storm, when this Royal heart (which was come to plead before the Council, and to dispose of his affections to the height of his contentment (there wanting not to men of authority who flattered his passion) was suddenly touched, takes the Queen his wife, reconcileth himself to her, sets her behind him on his horse, carries her to his Palace, and caused to be said to the Legates and the other Prelates assembled, that they had no more to do to trouble their heads any longer about his business, for he had happily determined it. If Henry the eighth, King of England, had taken the same course; love would have been disarmed, innovations hindered, concord established, and all the disasters banished out of England.  
last; to conclude this discourse, I verily think, never woman better managed love then Queen Blanch mother of S. Lewis. She was very lovely: and among those great lights of perfection which encompassed her on all sides; she wanted not beauty, which was the cause that, continuing a widow in a flourishing age, there were Princes in her kingdom who durst promise themselves, that she would reflect on them for a second marriage. Among others, the Count of Champaign proposed this good hap to himself, more than was to be believed, and ceased not to play the Courtier, even to the fitting his gallery with verses and Emblems of the Queen. This prudent widow, who had to do with Great ones in the beginning of her authority of Regent, engaged not herself to any, nor did she likewise reject their suits: but so soon as some of them perceived she had no purpose for them, they presently took arms to disturb the Kingdom, and lessen the authority of the young King. The Count of Champaign saw himself by necessity embarked in the faction; but he had much ado to defend himself from the affection which possessed him for this exquisite beauty. For which cause he pleaded like a lover, and betrayed his faction, discovering the things most important; which gave Queen Blanch a great light to guard herself from the wicked enterprises of her enemies, and dissipate all factions.  

Observations upon the Passion of DESIRE. Wherein we may behold the misery of ambitious and turbulent Spirits.  
THe wind, which is an invisible power, and 
Marvellous effects of the passion of Desire.  which appears before our eyes no more than nothing, maketh tall ships to move, pulleth up trees by the roots, overthroweth houses, exercising on land and sea powers too-too visible. Desires, and hopes likewise (which, to say truly, are but imaginations almost unperceivable) vex empires, embroil states, desolate Cities and Provinces, and make havoc, such, as we cannot in thought conceive, nor can our eyes ever sufficiently deplore.  
It is a strange thing, that from a little fountainhead which only distilleth drops of water, great rivers grow; and from a desire which invisibly hatcheth in the heart of man, lofty ambitions, burning avarices', and enraged covetousness proceed, which destroy mankind.  
Our first desires respect body and life, which is the foundation of all the blessings we can hope in this world, and here it is wherein those who flourish in Empires and eminent fortunes show passions and cares, able to make them immortal, if humane nature might reach to such a state.  
We all know that Lewis the eleventh was a Monarch, 
Strange desire of life in Lewis the eleventh.  who, by the greatness of his wit and power, darkened all the Kings of his Time; but we likewise cannot be ignorant, that he had most ardent Passions which gave him infinite disturbances, the consideration whereof may serve Great ones for the establishment of their repose. Never any man more loved life, nor more feared death, than this mighty Prince; who seeing himself laden with infirmities, and assailed by old age, (a disease incurable) employed the whole power of an ample Kingdom to hold together a poor thread of life. There was not any remedy in the world which he tried not; there was no secret in physic which he opened not: his profusion caused him to give a Physician ten thousand crowns a month: and although this Monarch were one of the most eminent of his time, and that he sought nothing but to climb over the heads of Princes; yet he made himself a slave to Hypocrates his disciples, to idolatrize health. It is to be thought, if Medea had in his days returned into the world, he would have put himself into her hands, of purpose to wax young again, like another Peleus. So soon as he heard speech of a man who cured maladies by certain extraordinary ways; needs must he come from the utmost limits of the earth: and for this cause he called S. Francis de Paula who drove away fevers and plagues from humane bodies with so much ease; yet could he not prolong the King's days, whom God would punish by the privation of that he most loved. He also took the holy viol of Rheims to keep it in his chamber, and therein to find treasures of life, which was bootless; to teach us there is no greater a Hangman of our hearts, then inordinate ill rectified desire. The desire of life transported him to extraordinary actions. For having been all his life time very plain in apparel; towards his latter days when he went out of his chamber, he sumptuously clothed himself, he shuffled his officers, and changed them out of a certain desire of novelty, that it might be known, he was yet alive: he cared not to be cursed so that men believed him to be living. Yet, if he had done all this to lead the life of a man, and of a King with some reasonable contentment; his cares might have been the more excusable. But all this great endeavour was but to drag along a miserable life among the distrusts of his nearest allies, among jealousies of his own son, among wooden and Iron cages wherein he kept a Bishop of Verdun for the space of fourteen years, among chains and clogs of Iron, (which he called his threads) among disconsolate sadnesses which they sought by all means to sweeten, one while making clowns to sport before him, another while furnishing out a music of Hogs ranged under a pavillon of velvet, which they pricked through the ears with bodkins to make them chant forth their goodly warble. What inventions doth a passionate man find out to prolong his punishments!  
Next unto life, the most ardent desires are for wealth and honour, which make turbulent and busy spirits to disturb the whole world, without enjoying one hour of repose. One might as soon number the stars and the sands of the sea, as reckon up the souls of this kind, with which the Histories of all nations are stuffed. For, in matters that concern particular ends, you on every occasion see children bandied against their parents, and kindred in mutiny one against another, who belly their blood, betray nature, and devour lands, bloody and smoking for imaginary pretensions in the matter of their inheritance.  
2. But it would be very hard to find a spirit more covetous, more factious, (and more tempestuous to increase his estate) then was that of Lotharius the son of Lewis the Courteous: Hence it was that he shamefully degraded, shaved, and shut the King his Father in 
Prodigious victory which in the end Lotharius gained over himself after a great storm of passions; in becoming Religious.  a Cloister: Hence, that he contrived so many matches, and plotted so many conspiracies: Hence, that he levied so many armies, and gave so many battles: Hence, that he ransacked so many Churches, put the Clergy to ransom, threw down Justice, and exhausted the nobility: Hence it was, that he had always an eye towards the field, and an armed hand to ruin the inheritance of his brothers: Lastly, hence proceeded that bloody battle of Fontenay, where a hundred thousand men of account died in the place; so many rivers and seas of blood must an outrageous ambition swim in, which is wedded to particular ends, and covetousness.  
But howsoever it were, he by an unexpected miracle became victor over these two passions, when (after he had embroiled his whole life) he was sensibly touched with a divine inspiration, and forsook the crown of an Empire, to take that of a Cloister, changing his pride into humility, his impiety into devotion, and his ambition into penance. It is an Act which only appertaineth to a Hand wholly divine, to draw light out of a Chaos, and pull this serpent out of his cavern; but it was likewise a most incomparable happiness, to see him to die a good Religious man at the years-end, and to receive the Crown in the beginning of the Career, although it be not likely, that those grievous sins were so soon expiated, but that a good part of them were reserved for purifying flames.  
3. Forasmuch as concerneth the diversity of ambitions; 
Shallow and Fantastic ambitions.  there are some shallow and fantastic which resemble that of a silly Tradesman in Constantinople, who gave all the wealth he had gathered in his whole life, that he might (but so much as one hour) wear the crown on his head, and play a King of the Cards on a 
Codinus in Eclog.  stage, where he was used with all manner of scorn: Even so, many Courtiers suffer themselves desperately to run into certain barren vanities, busying themselves about Genealogies, marriages, extractions, right and left lines; to find, in the Ashes of Troy the great, an ally of their blood, and to make themselves diadems in picture.  
Others are a little Hypocondriack, and have humours 
Lucianus in Peregrino.  not unlike those of Peregrinus, who presented a letter of challenge in a great assembly of Grecians, inviting all the world to come and see him burn alive, wherein he failed not, throwing himself into the fire to gain the glory of a generous man. All our Gladiatours are in this state, who desire to make themselves famous by infamous Duels, and have a greater appetite to live in the fantasy of men (such as themselves) then in their own bodies.  
4. There are other covert desires of honour which 
The ambitions of ecclesiastics and Religious much more subtle.  sleep in the bosom of men consecrated to God, and enkindle their flames with the fire of the Incensory, which are much more subtle, and which devour, as fire from heaven.  
5. This was verified under the reign of Clotharius 
Crodielde daughter of King Caribert a Religious woman raiseth great troubles by her ambition.  in the person of Crodielde a religious woman of the Monastery of Saint Cross of Poitiers. She was daughter of Caribert, and following the example of the Queen saint Radegonde, she had generously despised the world, to take a husband in the house of God: But, as these kind of persons are commonly treated with much honour and fair entertainment; their passions sleep like the silkworm solded up in its threads which in the end breaks its prison, becomes a butterfly, and flies aloft in the air.  
She had a violent desire to hold the highest place, and to yield to none, as far as her power would extend. She patiently enough endured S. Radegunde, because she had been a Queen: but so soon as death had closed up her eyes, and that she saw, without any regard had of Royal blood, Leuboece was chosen and confirmed for Abbess of the Monastery; she broke her bands of silk which so tenderly tied her to the Cross, awakened all her sleeping passions, took the wings of such an exorbitant ambition, that having opened the locks, and broken open the doors, she went out accompanied with Basines her Cousin, and forty others, Religious Libertines, to provide for herself at Court, and to procure to be chosen Abbess.  
The good S. Gregory of Tours relateth, that she coming unto his City throughly wet, and much tired with her journey, besought him to take her and her virgins into his protection, against the violences of the Abbess of Poitiers, who had treated her with all manner of indignity. She added that for this purpose she was going to the Court, and prayed him, that expecting her return, he would be pleased according to usual charity to provide for the entertainment of all her religious women. The good Bishop, who was very busy about his studies, and the function of his charge, would not undertake the trouble of maintaining so many virgins, which he feared as much as a vast army; but entertained her very canonically, saying he could not approve her going forth, and that if she were offended with her Abbess, she ought not therefore to forsake her Monastery without leave; but peaceably to inform Moroveus the Bishop, who, by the obligation of his place, was to order all their differences. She, who would not hear speech of this man, answered; He marred all, and that order cannot be expected from the author of disorder, so that, seeing S. Gregory nothing disposed to feed so many mouths; she provided elsewhere, and went directly to her uncle King Gontran, leaving all her religious under the charge of Basines. Gontran received her very courteously, as his niece, and gave her many gifts; but, having well considered her business, he would not meddle with it, saying, It was an Ecclesiastical affair; and that he would recommend it to the Bishops of the Province; which he most exactly did, without prescribing them any thing to the prejudice of right, or the dishonour of their dignity. Crodielde thereupon returning to Tours found her sisters much impaired, and knew by experience that religious women dissolve in secular life, as salt in water, although thence it took its original. They were so chargeable to all, but especially to saint Gregory, that he prayed and made vows for their departure, which caused them to hasten their retreat to Poitiers, where instead of entering into the Abbey, they withdrew into the Church of saint Hilary.  
In the end, Godegesillus Archbishop of Bourdeaux arrived with his Suffragans, to decide the matter: but these Mistresses (who had good noses, smelling that this assembly was not to favour their faction) levied a regiment of soldiers to defend them, of which they make Childeric to be the Captain; a wicked and a most resolute fellow, who failed not to be well followed, such store there was of Frizlers and effeminate youngsters who put themselves into this army of women. The Bishops failed not to march directly towards them, accompanied with the Clergy, and a great multitude of people, to summon them to reenter into the Monastery; but this Amazon instantly commanded her soldiers to strike, which they did with so much violence, that the Cros●ers and banners seeing themselves so unexpectedly charged, began to totter; the Bishops, the Priests and Deacons fled: There was a general dissipation of the people, and many were wounded in the place, the Church itself being stained with humane blood. Crodielde running on to the highest degree of insolency, as if she had been puffed up with her victory, entereth into the Monastery with her Hackster's, and takes her Abbess, who is dragged by the hair, used with all hideous extremities, and confined to a prison. She caused all the religious women to come who had opposed her, she torments them with sundry tortures, lays hold of the charters, seizeth on all the papers, maketh herself Abbess; and bearing a barbarous soul in the heart of a woman, exerciseth rigours and cruelties which struck horror into all the world. The Bishops had no other defence, but the Thunders of Excommunication, of which these creatures, abandoned by God, made very little account. Macon Governor of Poitiers was entreated to use a strong hand, but he excused himself, saying, he would not contend with the daughter of a King, without commission. But it was not fit, matters should so continue; and honest men unable any longer to see the Church groan under an unheard of Tyranny, implore by most humble supplications the aid of three Kings, Clotharius, Gontran, and Childebert, who being sensibly touched with these disorders gave large Commissions, power, and commandment to Governors to assist the Bishops of Tours, Colen, and Poitiers, who were appointed to determine this difference. Order is at this time well observed, Justice is there supported by force: the gallants, who had adhered to the faction of the nuns, scatter under the terror of arms and Royal authority. This Empress of Rebels is taken, and carried to the Council to give an account of her deportments. She comes thither in an audacious manner, retaining still something of her arrogancy and insupportable haughtiness, even in her depression; and after she had employed arms, she skirmisheth, what she could, with her tongue; which was by falling on the life and manners of her Abbess, whom she accused of many trifling things, reproaching her (among other points) to have made a garment for her niece of a Cope taken out of the Treasury of the Church, which was false; to have caused secular persons to eat at her Table; to have a bath in the Monastery, and to play at Chess. For this required to have her deposed, that she might be put into her place: wherein it plainly appeareth, that ambition is not only furious, but blind in its fury. She who swallowed Camels, maketh an anatomy of a fly: she who was defiled with the crimes of Tyrants, reprehendeth slight recreations which had been permitted under the government of S. Radegonde. The Abbess replied very modestly to all her objections, and made her innocency appear as bright as the rays of the sun, whereupon she was reestablished with honour and applause in her dignity; and the other condemned to ask her pardon, and to submit to her commands: To which she stoutly answered, she would never do it, and that they should rather advise upon the means of putting the Abbess to death, then to use her in such sort. But she persisting in this obdurateness is again deprived of the communion of the Church, separated from all her complices who are placed in divers Monasteries there to do penance: yet she still finding herself to be supported by some, by reason of her noble extraction; on a time stole herself from the just punishment of evil carriage, and fled with her Cousin to Childeberts' Court, where being not able any longer to raise storms, she was constrained to be quiet, rather for want of force, then through the defect of courage. One may by this proceeding see the Tempests which arise from ill rectified desires, when they are underpropped by some manner of power, and that there is nothing so sovereign, as in their root to mortify them.  
5. But they never are so insolent, as when they 
Ambitions which bud in hearts of base extraction are most infelent. The example of a Chirurgeon of S. Lewis, wisely repressed and chastised by the prudence and justice of Philip the 3. King of France.  bud in the hearts of people of base extraction, who behold themselves unexpecteoly raised to some extraordinary favour.  
S. Lewis had taken into his friendship his Chirurgeon named Peter La Brosse, because, besides the experience he had in his profession, he had made himself praiseworthy for the goodness of his wit and great loyalty. This favour mounted much higher under Philip the Third, successor of S. Lewis: for, he not content to honour this man with a particular affection; bestowed benefits upon him with such an inestimable profusion, that he raised him to the dignity of Chamberlain, and conferred honours and largesses upon all his kindred. This fellow seeing the young King had not the moderation of the father, to proportion his affections to his reputation and the good of his state; usurped upon his spirit, entered into all his secrets, and needs would intermeddle in State-affairs, from which his birth and the much limited capacity of his wit ought to have deterred him.  
The King had in a second wedlock married a most virtuous Princess, Mary of Brabant, who held in his heart that place which the Law of God and the Sacrament of Marriage gave her. It is a wonder, how this child of the Earth entereth hereby into jealousies, and thought the tender affections of the King towards his dearest spouse might lessen the good favours of his Master, whom he was desirous to possess in the title of a Sovereign.  
He sought to cast the apple of discord into so happy a marriage: and, seeing this knot could not be broken but with much labour, having a soul sold to Iniquity; it is thought he found means to poison Lewis eldest son of Philip, and of Isabel his first wife. This young Prince is by a sudden death taken away to the infinite grief of all the Court: Physicians being consulted with upon it, judge his life was shortened by poison, not knowing the author of so detestable a crime. The wicked man in the mean time gives close counter-blows, and underhand fixeth this suspicion upon the innocent Queen. And, albeit, her behaviour (which did print innocency on the mild aspect of her face) sufficiently freed her before all good men; yet the interest which commonly stepmother's have in the death of their husband's children, and the subtle slights of this devil (who coloured the matter with zeal of public good) began to blemish a life which was as free from stains, as the brightest stars. The King is already half wavering, but loath to precipitate any thing in an affair of such importance, he resolved to consult with the Oracles of that time, and to have recourse to the lights of heaven, since they on earth were eclipsed. There was in those days a religious woman in Flanders, who was thought to be endowed with the spirit of Prophecy, and to tell the most hidden things; to whom he resolved to send the Abbot of S. Denis to satisfy him in the truth of the fact. La Brosse, who expected a more speedying dispatch upon his informations, began to be troubled, and fearing this Prophetess might mar all; so wrought, that the Bishop of Bayeux his kinsman agreed with the Abbot to undertake the journey of Flanders with him. He being very subtle, sought to prevent the Virgin, and to accommodate her to his like, wherein he could not prevail according to his wicked purpose; and it is likewise thought, she let him see presumptions pregnant enough against La Brosse his kinsman. But he, surprising her by way of conscience, enjoined her silence, saying, It was not fit for her to speak, since her speech might peradventure be the cause of the death of a man whom she could not expose to this danger without mortal sin. The Abbot, being come to acquit himself of his Commission, found her wholly reserved, and could get nothing out of her, which made him to suspect some deceit. Both of them returned to the Court, where the Bishop, being questioned by the King concerning his proceed, saith, the religious woman had told him things under the secret of Confession, which was not fit for him to reveal. To which Philip readily replied, that he sent him not to hear her Confession, but to know the revelations she had from God in the discharge of Innocents'. The Abbot said aloud, he well perceived there was juggling in the Bishops proceeding, and that he went not sincerely to work, which was the cause that a second Embassage was appointed to this religious creature, whereof Theobald Bishop of Dol, and Arnulph a Knight of the Templars, had the Commission; and they so well understood how to handle the matter, that she spoke in these terms. Tell the King, If any one hath spoken to him in an ill sense of the Queen his wife; let him not believe it: for she is truly, and sincerely good, and cordially faithful towards him and his, her virtue cannot be obscured by the darkness of Calumny, This answer cured Philip's mind in the matter of suspicion against Mary, and turned it upon his bad servants, although the want of proof permitted him not, to hazard the punishment was due to them.  
But God, who draweth brightness out of the bosom of darkness, discovered the mischief of La Brosse by a notable accident. One of his trusty friends passing by the Abbey of S. Peter at Melun is surprised by a sharp sickness; which made him think upon his last passage by the assistance of good Religious men of that Monastery; and finding himself touched to the quick with remorse of conscience, he declared his crime, and gave a little Casket to a Religious man who heard his Confession, charging him to give it to the King with his own hands, and to no other; which he very faithfully did; and when they had opened this box of Pandora, there were discovered all the mischiefs and practices of La Brosse, and his hopes to be dissolved. For he was presently put in prison and brought to his trial, which was followed by a Sentence that condemned him to be hanged and strangled on a gallows of Felons. Here it was where the ambitious desires of this disloyal soul were to determine, who found that worldly fortunes in which God is not, are gross smokes that produce nought but tempests.  
6. To conclude; we find (in the last order) bloody 
The French revengers of ambition.  and furious ambitions which cause revolutions of Empire, and shake the pillars of the earth: Nicetas observeth one very terrible, wherein the French were witnesses, arbitratours, and revengers.  
During the expedition they made in the Land under Philip Gods-gift, there appeared a strange accident, and a horrible confusion in the state of the Eastern Empire. Isaac Comnenus, who held the reins of the Empire, is menaced much misery by his nearest allies, and those whom he had advanced to the greatest dignities. He thereupon consulteth with a Soothsayer, who, among popular spirits, was in great reputation, but who, according to the opinion of Nicetas, was a cheating Imposter that sought to pass for a Prophet, although his words consisted of a thousand falsehoods. The Emperor with much courtesy having saluted him; he disposed himself to leap, and to express postures which savoured more of a man possessed and frantic, then of a prophet: notwithstanding, without saying any thing else, he threw his staff at the Emperor's Image, and (for an ill presage) put out the eyes of it. Isaac Comnenus, making no account here of contemneth the Soothsayer, and in few days is deprived of the Empire and of his eyes (by a horrible conspiracy of Alexius his nearest kinsman) and in this condition confined to a loathsome prison all the rest of his life. The tyrant (who had put out his eyes) takes his bloody spoil, and finding no resistance, possesseth himself of the throne of Constantinople.  
Alexis, son of the Emperor made blind, escaped 
The furious ambition, of Alexius (the Tyrant of Greece) punished by the valour and Justice of the French.  out of the chains and hand of the parricide his uncle, and goes to the French Camp, where he made a lamentable narration of his disasters. He prays, he beseecheth, he conjureth these brave conquerors by all things the most sacred, to take pity upon a miserable Emperor, and to secure his father against the most execrable treachery that ever was practised in the world, saying, It only belonged to them to trample dragons, and monsters, underfoot. Besides the glory of this action; he promiseth them wonders, arms, ships, munition, to advance the design they had for the conquest of the holy Land. The French were divided in opinion upon this business: some desiring to pursue their journey, others judging, this occasion well deserved to stay them, there being not any actions in the world more glorious, then to do Justice to the afflicted, dispossess bloody usurpers of Empires, and to restore true Kings into that rank which nature and the consent of people had given them. This Faction carried it, and ours, using the advantage which their first fervours afforded them, put themselves presently in a readiness to take Constantinople. One who should well weigh the exploits of arms they did in six days, would think their army had consisted of Giants, who bare Mountains and piled them one upon another, to overlook the strongest Citadels in the world. What they did exceedeth ordinary prodigies, and will scarcely find credit with posterity. Two thousand foot, separated from the rest of the army, aided only by five hundred horse, entered into a city, wherein there were threescore thousand horse, and four hundred thousand souls able to bear arms. This so filled minds with terror, that the tyrant, as timorous in war as he had been violent in peace, leaves his place without resistance, and putting his richest treasures into covert, he goes to sea, in an instant to change a great Empire into Banishment.  
He went out at one gate, and young Alexis entered in by the other, causing his troops to march in good order, and was with applause received by the chief Citizens who had used much compassion in the afflictions of his Father. There was then seen a strange alteration, when they went to take this poor blind Emperor out of prison, to carry him in triumph to his throne; he thought himself a sleep, and in a dream, and imagined it so sweet, that he in his blindness feared the daylight. He learned from his son all the success of this negotiation, and the valour us achievements of the French. He knew not what he should believe, what he might hope, nor what to admire. A world of wonders overwhelm his mind; and more than ever he bewaileth the loss of his eyes, to behold himself bereft of the sight of these incomparable men who seemed to be sent from heaven.  
Finally, he saith, he is satiated with Empire and worldly greatness, and that he putteth all his state into the hands of his son. His son embraceth him with all unexpressible tenderness, calling him his Lord and Father, and protesting he will not intermeddle with any thing of the Empire, but the cares, whilst he liveth, leaving the dignity to his discretion who had given him birth.  
The Father, on the other side, answered, that the piety of his son was more to him then all Empires, and that he hereafter should repute himself the happiest man in the world, being enlightened by the rays of such virtue in the deprivation of temporal light. This was an admirable strife, which made it appear that if there be impetuous desires in the Courts of great men, there are likewise sometimes to be found moderations, which surpass all men's imagination. I am not ignorant Nicetas saith, that this affection afterward turned into jealousy; but we must note this Author is passionate against Alexis and his father, by reason of the amity he contracted with strangers. The French judged it fit that the son should reign by the authority of the father, and in respect of his infirmities, take the whole government of the State into his hand, which he did, and all seemed to prosper in his beginnings; when, after the retreat of ours, who had made havoc enough in the city, out of the liberty of arms; rebels stirred, who put the whole city into combustion, exciting it against the young Emperor, and saying, that under pretext of Public good, he had called in strangers to the saccage of his Country, which made him unworthy both of Empire and life. The conspiring was so violent, that Alexis, having no leisure to look about him, was betrayed by one of his intimate friends named Mursuflus, who, pretending to put him into a place of safety, threw him into an ugly dungeon, where, twice having tried to put him to death by poison, and seeing his plot succeeded not; he out of a horrid baseness caused him to be strangled. Deceitful Felicities of the world! True turrets of Fairies, which are only in imagination! Where shall your allurements prevail from henceforth?  
The poor father, hearing the death of his son, and the sudden alteration of affairs, saith,  
Good God to what calamity do you reserve my wretched old age? I have consummated evils, and evils have not yet ended me. I am now but a rotten trunk deprived of vigour, and the functions of life; and if I have any feeling, it is only of my miseries. Take this soul which is on my lips and which is over-toiled with worldly Empires, and put it in a place where it may no longer fear either hostilities or treasons. Ah! Poor son, thou art passed away like froth on the water, and Fortune did not raise thee within the imaginary Circuit of her Empire, but to cast thee down headlong. I bewail not my blindness, it is the happiest of my evils, since it bereaves me the aspect of the horrible accidents which by heap pass through my ears. Dear Son! thou hast outstripped me; but, I follow thee with a confident pace into the shades of death, which shall for me hereafter be the best of lives.  
He gave up the ghost in these anguishs, whilst the city of Constantinople was divided by a thousand Factions, and turmoiled with fatal convulsions which ministered matter of presage of the change of Empire.  
The people, weary of the government of the Angels (whose names were Isaac and Alexis) had already chosen one called Canabus, a man before unknown, who was quickly put down by the power and violence of Mursuflus. He was a Prince arrogant, incontinent, and more cunning than prudent; who kept not long that Sceptre which he by such wickedness had usurped. For, scarcely two months and a half were passed, but that the French returned, and besieged Constantinople which the new tyrant had already very well fortified. But the Grecians then were so cowardous and affrighted that they made very little resistance, and flew before the French, and other Westrin and Northem people, as before so many Giants. Mursuflus, as faint-hearted in peril as he had been adventurous to commit a treason, puts himself upon the sea to fly into Morea; but is taken, and slain by the divine Vengeance which perpetually hath an armed hand over surious and bloody ambitions. The City and Empire of Constantinople yield, in the end, to the Western power: and Baldwin Earl of Flanders is chosen Emperor by the consent of all the army. Nicetas a Greek Author, who lived at that time, deploreth this change with the Lamentations of Jeremy. But it was God's judgement, who would purify the Eastern Throne defiled by so many wicked actions, making a Prince so chaste to sit thereon, that Nicetas himself is enforced to praise and admire his singular continency, as I have observed in my first Treatise.  
Throughout all these Discourse we now see how the desires of the ambitious are chastised, and how their hopes being vain, their joys are likewise short and unhappy.  
7. Historians give most of our Kings this praise, that they never had turbulent and troublesome spirits; but 
Moderation of the Kings of France.  loved Peace, and maintained Justice.  
The History of the Fathers of the West assures us, that in the general combustion of Wars between the French and the English, there was a good Hermit named John of Gaunt, who ceased not to beseech heaven to quench the fire of these fatal Divisions, & that he was sent by God to meditate Peace between the two Kings.  
He first went to our Charles the Seventh, whom he found infinitely disposed to all the conditions of a good Peace, and this gave him occasion to promise him infinite many benedictions from heaven, that he should have a Son (successor of his Estates) to crown his Felicities: which happened to him (as being a voice from God, and an Oracle of Truth.) But when the Religious man came to the King of England, he would in no sort hearken to him, but caused him to be used in a manner unworthy his person; which drew the anger of God upon the Kingdom, and occasioned him great calamities.  
This subject is so plentiful, that I am willing to abbreviate it: ambitious desires being so frequent that they have more need to be corrected, then sought into.   

Observations upon ANGER and REVENGE.  
BEhold here the Passion from whence sparkles, flames, and coals proceed, which make horrible havoc, unless Grace and Reason cause some temper.  
There is not any devil more familiar in Court, more injurious to civil conversation, more pernicious to States, than Choler and Revenge. Pride, which is born with the most eminent conditions, nourisheth it, flatterers enkindle it, insolent tongues sharpen it, fire and sword end it.  
In some it is haughty and cruel; as it appeared in Dagobert, a young Prince, son of Clotharius the Second, who in his tenderest years, had (I know not what) of savage in him, which savoured of the manners of Paganism, or the humours of his Grandmother Fredegond; 
Aymonius l. 4. p. Aemilius. Annals of France.  albeit, he afterward gained victories over himself. The King his Father had appointed him two Governors; Arnold, to rectify his manners; Sadragesillus, to breed him up to Arms and Courtlike behaviour. The first governed him like the Sun; the second, as the Northern-wind.  
The one insinuated himself with much sweetness; the other undertook him with too proud and arrogant an apgroach, which in him rather caused Aversion, than 
Choler of Dagobert somewhat rough.  Instruction. From whence it came to pass, that he being one day invited to the Prince's Table, where he did eat apart, as the King's son: he placed himself right over against him, took Dagoberts' glass and drank to him: wherewith he was so desperately offended, that instantly he fell upon him, and taking a knife on the table, cut off his beard, and most contemptuonsly disfigured him.  
Sadragesillus, in this plight, presented himself to King Clotharius, who was likewise enraged, and caused his son to be pursued, commanding his Guard to apprehend him: but he saved himself in the Sanctuary of Montmartre under the protection of S. Denis, until his father's anger was pacified, who spared not to give him a sharp reprehension and to raise Sadragesillus to great dignities, to take away the acerbities of the affront he had received.  
Another time, S. Arnold ask leave of the same Dagobert to retire from Court, out of the desire he had to pass the rest of his days in sweet solitude; the King many times denied him: and he growing a little earnest in a good cause; he furiously draws froth his sword, threatening to kill him if he persisted in this request. A Lord there present stayed the blow, and the Queen, showing her husband the unworthiness of his Choler, so gained him, that he came to himself, gave his Master full satisfaction, and permitted him to go whither he thought good, most affectionately recommending his person and state to him.  
Seneca hath well said, that Choler was not a sign of a courageous, but a swollen spirit: as it by experience appeared in Dagobert who was little warlike. For, being but in one piece of service against the Saxons, where he received a very slight hurt; he made so many ceremonies about it, that he sent a lock of his bloody hair to his father to implore his aid. It is true that this Prince, being in his youth a little unruly, harkened afterward to the good reasons of his Council, and became very temperate.  
2. There are Martial angers which are generous 
Generous anger of K. Clotharius.  and bold, when a heart upon a good occasion is inflamed to the avengement of some Injustice; as it happened to Clotharius the Second, who coming to secure his son Dagobert presently appeared marching along the Rhine, and made himself remarkable by a notable head of hair: whereupon, Bertrand, Captain of the Saxons, darting some insolent words at him; the King suddenly passed the river with great danger of his person, observeth his enemy, pursues him, strikes him down from his horse, and cuts off his head, which he fixed on the top of a lance, to fill the Saxon Army with terror. Thus should the anger of a great Prince be bend against proud and unjust adversaries, not against his own Subjects. This spur hath sometimes added valour to the sweetest natures; witness Charles the Simple, 
Valour of Charles the Simple.  who seeing that Robert had gathered together a huge army of Rebels against him, passed the river of Aisne to charge him; and the other putting himself into a readiness to resist him, animating his own side, and braving in the head of his army; Charles looked him in the face, as the Butt against which he should unburden all his gall, spurs forward directly towards him, and so successfully hits him with a thrust of his lance in the mouth, that he tore out his tongue and killed him.  
3. Yet Choler is extremely dangerous in matter of Arms, especially in things where some resolution is to be taken with counsel and maturity. For it troubleth 
The passion of anger is very prejudicial to Military art in a General  the art (said an Ancient) and many times causeth errors irreparable.  
This is but too much verified in the fatal day of Crescy-field, where Philip of Valois, one of the most valiant Monarches which ever handled Sceptre, gave battle to Edward King of England. The English Army bravely encamped, heard Mass, leisurely took its repast, and coolly expected the enemy, to fight with firm footing: at which time, our Philip animated with anger, and above all, fearing lest the English might escape him hastened his army what he could, causing it to march, and tiring it out on the day of battle. The Monk Basellus, a man well experienced in feats of arms, 
Philip of Valois, a great and a generous King loseth a battle, out of a peevish humour of anger.  shown him, it were much better to expect till morning: on which he seemed to be resolved; but this Choler had already put fire into his soldiers: and although some cried out, Stay, Ensign-bearers; yet those who marched before were so afraid to be outgone by them who followed, that they had not the patience. When they came to join battle, the Genua Archers who were in the French army, protested aloud, they were not able to do their duty, and instantly disbanded; whereupon the King grew into a fresh anger, and commanded to cut them in pieces, which with all possible violence was executed; ours being cruelly bend to devour their members, whilst the arrows of the enemy fell upon them like hail, and the horse gauled with shot, horribly neighing ran away with their riders, and all the place was covered with dead bodies. This trouble of mind cost the loss of a battle, wherein (Froissard saith) were eight French against one Englishman, and thirty thousand men (where among others, the King of Bohemia, and Charles Count of Alencon the King's brother) were slain in the place. Behold the disasters of an il-governed Passion, which never is well known but by the experience of its misery.  
4. There are other nice and haughty Cholers, which are brought forth in the Curiosities of an imperious life, as it happened to many Emperors who took a glory in being angry, and to make their brutishness famous by bloody effects. Bajazet showing one day the pleasure of hawking to the Count of Nevers, 
Barbarous Anger of Bajazet.  caused almost two thousand Falconers to be killed, for a hawk which had not flown well. He well deserved to be shut up in a cage (as he was afterward) for sporting with such prodigality with humane blood. It is much more intolerable, when Christian Princes fly out as did Lewis the young, who (being offended by Theobald Count of Champagne) entered into his territory, and made strange spoil, even to the setting of the great Church of Vitry a fire, and therein burning fifteen hundred men, who fled into it as into a Sanctuary. But this enraged passion knew no distinction between sacred and profane, and the confusion of this fancy confounded heaven and earth. Good French men abhorred an act so barbarous, and S. Bernard (who then flourished) made the thunders of God's 
Lewis the Young admonished by S. Bernard, chastiseth himself (for hi● a●ger) by sadness and penance.  judgements to roar in the King's ear, wherewith he was so terrified, that re-entering into himself, he fell into a deep melancholy, which caused his mind to make a divorce from all worldly joys, wherewith he became so dejected, that he was like to die, had not S. Bernard sought to cure the wound he gave, showing that the true penitent aught to be sad without; discomfort; humble, without sottishness; timorous, without despair: and that the grief of his fall should not exclude the hope of his rising again.  
But they are more tolerable who punish themselves with their own choler, as Henry King of England, that bitten his lips gnashed his teeth, pulled off his hair, threw his bed and clothes on the ground, eat straw and hay to express his impetuous passion.  
5. They who are arrogant, and given to contemn 
Danger of scoffing. Polydor. Virg. l. 9  and flout others, draw fire and poison on their heads when they assail impatient natures, which have not learned to feed themselves with affronts and injuries.  
A word flying like a spark of fire raiseth flames 
William the Conqueror of England, very suspicious.  which are not quenched but with great effusion of blood. Philip the first, hearing that William the Conqueror, who was very gross, would not suffer any man to see him, by reason of a corporal infirmity; It is no wonder (saith he) if this big man be in the end brought a bed. This being told to the other, who was of a capricious spirit, he protested he would rise from his childbed, but with so many torches and lights, that he would carry fire into the bosom of France. And verily he failed not therein, and in this fury so heated himself, that he died in proper flames. A man hath little to do to enkindle a War at the charge of so many lives, for a jest, a cold countenance, a letter not written obsequiously enough, for a word inconsiderate.  
6. The Flemings were to blame when revolted against 
History of Froissard.  Philip of Valois; they out of derision called him The found King, and advanced a great Cock on their principal standard, the device whereof was, that 
The scoffs of certain rebellious Flemings severely punished by the generosity of Philip of Valois  when he should crow, the found King should enter into their city. This so exasperated his great Courage, that he waged them a battle, and with such fury defeated them, that Froissard assureth, that of a huge army of Rebels, there was not one left who became not a victim of his vengeance. Lewis Outremer was detained prisoner at Rouen, for having in his anger spoken injuriously against Richard, the young Duke of Normandy. And Francis the First ruined all his affairs, for having handled Charles Duke of Bourbon with some manner of indignity, therein complying with the humour of the Queen his Mother.  
7. The Anger of potent women is (above all) dreadful, when they are not withheld by considerations of 
Anger of women.  conscience, because they have a certain appetite of revenge, which exceedeth all may be imagined. Queen Eleonor, wife of Lewis the Young, who had as violent 
Queen Eleonor an enemy of France.  a spirit as ever animated the body of a woman, seeing herself repudiated by her husband, albeit, upon most just reason, conceived such rage & fury against France, that being afterward remarried to Henry of England, she incestantly stirred up all the powers of that Kingdom to our ruin, and sowed the first seeds of War, 
Dupleix.  which, the continuance of three hundred years; which, an infinite number of fights and battles; which, the reverence due to Religion; the knot of mutual Alliances, and Oath interposed in sixscore Treaties; could not wholly extinguish.  
8. There are other angers free and simple, which 
Annals of France.  proceed from an indiscreet goodness, but which fail not to occasion much evil to themselves when they assail eminent and vindicative people. It was the misery of poor Enguerrand of Marigny, who having governed 
Anger our of simplicity many tim●s cause hurt for a word too free, witness that of Enguerrand.  the Finances under Philip the Pair (and afterward seeing himself persecuted by Charles of Valois uncle of Lewis Hutin Heir of a Crown) was transported with so much heat, that it cost him his life.  
For this Prince sharply ask an account of him of the treasures of the deceased King; he freely answered, It is to you (Sir) I have given a good part of them, and the rest hath been employed in the King's affairs, Whereupon Charles giving him the lie; the other transported with passion, had the boldness to say unto him, By God, It is you yourself, Sir. This reply being of itself very insolent, and spoken at a time when all conspired to his ruin, sent him to the Gallows of Montfaucon, which he had caused to be built in his greatest authority. Men cold, and well acquainted with affairs, who commonly think much, never speak ill of them that can hurt them.  
9 All these extravagancies which we have produced, have proceeded from fervour; but there are others cold, and malign, as are Aversions and Hatred, which are no other than inveterate and hardened angers, so much the more dangerous as they proceed from a spirit more deep, and are plotted with more time and preparation.  
So did Lewis the Eleventh who had many Labyrinths in his heart wherein he kep his revenges, and oftentimes took delight to send them abroad with ceremony and pomp, to take the more pleasure in them. So soon as he was King, he set himself to revenge his injuries, as if power given from heaven ought to be an instrument of passion. He persecuted a good subject (which was the Count of Dammartin) for no other crime, but for having obeyed and executed the order of Charles the Seventh who had sent him into Dauphin, to stop Lewis who then turmoiled and perplexed the King his father. He prevented this plot, and fled into Flanders; yet ceased he not afterward to hate this good servant: and albeit he prostrated himself at his feet, praying him to forget what was passed; yet he caused his process to be made in Parliament, upon accusations, which did more manifest the Passion of the King, than any crime in the life of the Count Notwithstanding, the close practice was so great that he was condemned to death: and although Lewis, terrified by his own Conscience and the general opinion, would not have it to proceed any further; yet he confined him to the Bastile, where he had spent the rest of his days if he had not found means to save himself. But whom would he spare who put away and deprived of Office his best servants, for having hindered him during his sickness to come near unto a Window, out of the care they had of his health? This passion was a Devil in the heart of this Prince, which made him odious to many, and filled his whole life with disturbance and acerbity.  
10. A revengeful spirit spares nothing to please it 
Aymonius l. 5. c. 39  self, and ofttimes openeth precipices to fill them with death and ruin. It is a strange thing; that one sole 
Wicked revenge of an Abbot, and of John Prochytas against the French.  Abbot of Saint German de Prez named Gaulin had almost ruined the whole Kingdom of France, for having been bereft of an Abbacy. He many years revolved his revenge, and after the death of Lewis le Begue (under whom he had received the injury which he proposed to himself) he went to Lewis the German, whom he inflamed with so much cunning to the conquest of the Kingdom of France, that he set a huge army on foot to surprise the heir of the Crown in the Confusion of his Affairs: and the trouble was so great, that needs must Lorraigne be cut off from the Kingdom of France, to give it to this Conqueror.  
So did John Prochytas the Sicilian, who (having been deprived of his estate by Charles of Anjou) conceived a mortal enmity against the French, which made him contrive that bloody Tragedy of Sicilian Vespres. This unfortunate man, disguising himself in the habit of a Franciscan, went to Peter of Arragon, to show him the means how to invade Sicily: and seeing that he, and his wife Queen Constance, bend all their endeavour thereto, he ceased not to stir up the Country, where he had much credit, and used so many engines, that in the end he caused one of the most horrible massactes which was ever projected. On an Easter-day, in the time of Vespres, the French had all their throats cut throughout the Island of Sicily. No age, sex, condition, nobility, nor religious were spared. The black spirit of the Abysle drew men from the Altar to run to the sword, which they indifferently thrust into the bosom of their guests: nor were so many cries and lamentations nor such images of death flying before their eyes able to wound their hearts with one sole touch of compassion which useth to move the most unnatural. Rage (blown by the breath of the most cruel furies of Hell) made them to open the bellies of women, and to dig into their entrails to tear thence little Infants conceived of French blood. It caused the most secret sanctuaries of nature to be violated, to put those to death, who had not (as yet) the first taste of life. Shall we not then say, that the passion of revenge, which hath taken root in a soul half damned, is the most fatal instrument that Hell can invent to overthrow the Empire of Christianity?  
11. All these accidents well considered are sufficient to moderate the passions which make so much noise among mankind. But let us consider before we go off this stage, that Anger and Revenge are not creatures invincible to Courtiers who yet retain some Character of Christianity.  
Robert, one of the greatest Kings that ever beware the Crown of France, saw his two sons bandied against 
Glaber.  him, when (provoked by the practices of the Queen 
Great moderation in Saint (King) Robert.  their mother, who ceased not to insult over them) they ran to the field with some tumultuary troops, and began to exercise acts of hostility which made them very guilty. The father (incensed by their rebellion, and forcibly urged by the sting of the mother's revenge) speedily prepares an army, and entereth into Burgundy to surprise and chastise them. Thereupon William Abbot of S. Benign of Dion goeth to him, and shows that these disorders were an effect of the divine Providence which we should rather appease by penance, then irritate by anger: that, if his Majesty would call to mind, he should find that his youth was not exempt from errors committed by the inconsideration of age, and the practice of evil counsels: that he ought not to revenge with sword and fire that which he had suffered in his own person; and that as he would not any should enterprise upon his hereditary possession; so it was fit, not to meddle with that which was Gods, who had reserved vengeance to himself. This speech had such power that the good King was instantly appeased; caused his children to come, embraced them with paternal affection, and received them into favour, tying their reconciliation with an indissoluble knot. What can one answer to the mildness of a King accompanied with so much power and wisdom, but confess that pardon is not a thing impossible? since this great Prince upon the words of a religious man lays down arms, and dissipateth all his anger, as waves break at the foot of rocks.  
12. We must confess, that Regality was never 
Helgandus in vita Roberti Regis.  seen allied to a spirit more mild and peaceable, and that his actions should rather be matter of admiration than example. He pardoned twelve murderers (who had a purpose to attempt upon his life) after he had caused them to confess and communicate; saying, it was not reasonable to condemn those whom the Church had absolved, and to afflict death upon such as had received the bread of life. But, what would not he have done, who, surprising a rogue which had cut away half of his cloak furred with Ermines, said mildly to him, Save thyself, and leave the rest for another who may have need of it!  
13. This mildness is very like to that of Henry the First, afterward King of England, who seeing his Father's body to be stayed in open street (upon the instant of his obsequies) and this by a mean Citizen who complained the soil of the land where the dead (which was William the Conqueror) was to be interred was his Ancestors inheritance; he was nothing at all moved, but presently commanded his Treasurer to satisfy the Creditor, and to prosecute the pomp of his Funerals.  
14. Lewis the Eleventh did a Kinglike act, towards 
Generous act of Lewis the Eleventh.  the ashes of the fair Agnes, who had possessed the heart of his father Charles the Seventh, and had persecuted him (the son) in her life-time. At her death she gave threescore thousand crowns for a foundation to the Cannons of Loches; to pray, and to build a Tomb for her in the midst of the Church. These men (prudent according to the world) accommodating themselves to the time, and honouring this rising Sun (mounted to the throne of the Kingdom, after the death of his father) presented themselves before him, ask, they might be permitted to demolish the tomb of this woman who had so ill used him: but he with incredible generosity answered, he made not war against the dead, and that so far was he from ruining the monuments of Agnes, that he would command his Treasurer to give them six thousand florins to preserve them.  
15. Sage and devout women, albeit the sex is too apt 
Humility and wisdom of Queen Anne to overcome the passion of anger.  for revenge, fail not to re-enter into themselves, and blame their proceed, when passion hath transported them out of the lists of reason. Anne of Britain seeing King Lewis the Twelfth very sick and in danger of his life (upon the consideration that he left her no male-child) caused a Ship to be rigged out, laden with great riches which she sent into her dear country, of purpose to retire thither so soon as the King were dead.  
But, the Marshal de Gié, who commanded in a City of passage, judging that his charge obliged him to let nothing pass out of the Kingdom during the King's sickness, did without any other order upon this resolution arrest all the goods of the poor Queen. She was a Bee which lived in the sweetness of devotion; but yet had her sting: so that being much provoked by this act, she pursued the Marshal, and made him come to a trial at the Parliament of Tholose, where he was condemned to be banished out of France: But the good Queen calling back reason (after the stirring of her choler withheld the blow) granted liberty to the delinquent; protested he was a worthy Lord, and had proceeded in all he had done according to the rules of state. Whence it appeareth, that those cruel souls are most unreasonable which persist in hating, because they have once begun; and never lay down a wicked hatred, for which they have no other reason but their own wickedness.  
16. Lewis the Twelfth her husband might have 
Great and magnanimous goodness of Lewis the Twelfth.  taught her this lesson, who having received ill measure under Charles the Eighth his Predecessor when he was Duke of Orleans, some flatterers counselling him to ennoble his entry to the Crown by the beating down his adversaries, answered in this memorable manner.  
That it was not fit for a King of France to revenge the quarrels of the Duke of Orleans; and for this purpose he marked with a cross all the names of his enemies written down on paper: Whereat many wondered, thinking this note promised them nothing but a pair of gallows; which made them presently fly, so much they were urged by their own conscience. But he assembled them all together, and let them understand he had signed their names with a Cross, that they therein might behold the lesson which the author of life dictated unto us on the Cross, which was to forgive those who persecute us. Francis the First, his successor following these steps, pardoned the rebellious Rochellers, moved by the pitiful clamours of a great number of little children who cried for mercy at his entrance into the City. Our most Christian King hath renewed the examples of the like clemency. I speak nothing of the Christian generosity of Henry the Third, who seeing himself taken away from Throne and Life by a most detestable Parricide, left the revenge thereof to God in the sharpness of his wound. Henry the Fourth had a soul infinitely mild, and if we find in his life some humane defects, yet therein there are a thousand divine virtues which shadow them by their great lights.  
17. But, if we compare goodness with offence; 
Incomparable mildness of Lewis the son of Charlemaigne.  scarcely shall we find (throughout all the histories of the Christian world) a Prince who in this point hath equalled the virtue of Lewis the mild, son of Charlemaigne. This name cost him an invincible patience, which made it well appear that a nature too easy is exposed to infinite difficulties. His own children (Lotharius, Pepin, and Lewis) rebelled against him, and (out of a horrible daring) took Queen Judith from his sides, whom he in a second wedlock had married, caused her by force to take the veil, and holding a dagger at her throat, made her promise to persuade her husband to forsake the world, out of their Ambition to usurp his Sceptre, and to pull the Diadem from his head with hands of Harpies.  
The poor Prince saw himself in one night abandoned by his army which slipped away before his eyes, and went to yield themselves to his unnatural sons: but, some honest men staying about him; he besought and conjured them to save themselves and to leave him alone in peril, since he was the victim of Expiation, and that his sins had reduced him to this Calamity: and verily he went like a victim to the Altar accompanied with the Queen his wife and his grandchild Charles, to render himself up a prisoner into their hands, to whom he had given both livelihood, and life. This heart truely-mild said by the way to those who lead him, Let my sons do what they will with me, and all that God shall permit: I only pray you (since I have never offended them) not to expose me to the fury of the multitude which commonly are very unjust to those who are depressed, as you now behold me: and above all, I will ask this favour of them, that they abstain from maiming any member of the Queen my wife's body, whom I know to be most innocent; or pulling out the eyes of Charles my grandchild, for that would to me be more bitter than death. In this manner he came to his son's Camp, who hypocritically received him with all reverence, promising an usage worthy his condition: and in the mean time assembled a venomous Counsel of malign spirits to degrade him. The sentence was given contrary to all form of Justice, by subjects against their Sovereign Prince; by 
Dupleix.  children against their father; by guilty against the innocent, without hearing him, without seeing him; and on a sudden it was publicly executed at the assembly of Compiegne.  
This King, the best in the world, on his knees in the Church, in the presence of his vassals, among an infinite number of people, held a scroll in his hand, which contained the imaginary causes of his condemnation; they enforced him to read it himself; to open his mouth against his own innocency; to ask forgiveness of the Assembly which did him an irreparable wrong. Then, to conclude this cruel scene; he is constrained to take off his belt, and to lay it on the Altar; to despoil himself of his Royal Robes, and to take from the hands of certain infamous Prelates a habit of penance, with which he was put into the hands of the Guard, and a few days after, led along in Lotharius his train.  
All Histories mourn in the horror of this narration, and there is not any who in his thoughts condemns not the Authors of this attempt. But this good King (being reestablished by the endeavour of his best Subjects) did never pursue his injuries; witnessing in all occasions an extreme facility to be reconciled to his children: and when, afterward he was upon the point of death, he rallyed together all he had of life, spirits, and strength, to forgive them & asked of God that he would not take vengeance upon their crimes. This was to fulfil the whole law, and to do at the Court all that which the most perfectly religious can perform in a Cloister.  
18. I will yet tell you for a conclusion, that there are certain industries, which they who are near great ones may use to appease their Anger, and to divert the pernicious effects, by some delay, which is the best Counsellor 
Argentre.  this furious passion can have.  
This is to be seen in the course that Bavalon took 
Address of Bavalon to appease that anger of the Duke of Brittaign  with the Duke of Brittaigne. The Prince being offended with the Count of Clisson Constable of France, resolved to take him in a snare, and undo him. To compass this enterprise, he made a great feast, whereto he invited all the principal Lords of Brittaigne; courting Clisson with incomparable courtesy.  
After all, he let him see his Castle of Lermine, where leading him from story to story, and from chamber to chamber; he brought him to the chief Turret, praying him to consider the fortifications, to reform the defects, whilst he spoke a word to Seigneur Laval, brother in law to Clisson. He no sooner entered in, but he saw himself arrested by the Guard, and put into irons, with commandment given to Mounsieur Bavalon Captain of the Castle, to throw him (the next night) in a sack into the water. Bavalon, who perceived his Master was very quick, and thought that night might give him better counsel, resolved to do nothing. In the mean time solitude and darkness having recollected the Duke's spirits together which had all day been scattered by the tempest of passion; he found his heart infinitely balanced between the satisfaction of revenge, and the apprehension of inevitable dangers which would wait on it, imagining the shadow of the Constable, already drowned (as he thought) would draw fire, blood, and havoc upon his desolated Country. The hideous visions which already pitched battle in his distempered brain, the displayed Ensigns, and Armies heaped together from all parts, drew deep sighs from him which were observed by the gentlemen of his chamber. Bavalon about break of day comes into his chamber, and being asked concerning the secret execution of his command, he answered, It is done, loath to open any more, until he could clearly look into his master's mind. The Duke upon this word beginneth his sobs again, with beating his hands, which testified great despair in him. But he insisting, and many times demanding whether Clisson were drowned; The Captain replied, He was, and that he about midnight had buried the body, fearing it might be discovered. Then began the Prince afresh to curse, and to abhor his own anger which had transported him to this outrage; and said, Would to God, Bavalon, I had believed thee when thou didst counsel me to do nothing, or that thou hadst not believed me, when I so passionately commanded thee. His trusty servant seeing he spoke in good earnest, and that it was time to declare himself, assured him Clisson was alive; and that he had deferred his commandment, out of this consideration, that, if he persisted in the same mind, he should always have means enough to execute him. The Duke (rapt with this prudence) embraced him, and gave him a thousand florins, for finding out so excellent a remedy for his Passion.   

Observations upon ENVY Which draweth along with it jealousy, Hatred, and Sadness.  
WE enter into black and Saturnian Passions, which are Envy, Jealousy, Fear, Sadness, and Despair, wherein we shall observe a venomous malignity which replenisheth the heart with plagues, the life with furies, and the world with Tragedies. I will begin this order with two Court-Monks who in their time made a great noise: one of which being born for cruelty, and bred in massacres; his life was a continual crime, and his memory a perpetually execration.  
But the other (profiting by the experience of his evils) 
Lamentable envy and enmity of Ebroin against S. Leger.  opened himself a way unto glory, and drew upon him the blessings of posterity. Under the reign of Clotharius the third, Ebroin governed the State in the quality of the Major of the Palace, who was of a spirit ambitious, cruel, and subtle; valuing nothing above his own ends, and placing conscience under all things in the world. He entered into this charge like a Fox, and swayed therein like a Lion; doing nought else but roar against some, and devour others; there being no power able enough to bend his pride, as if there were not riches enough in all the world to satisfy his avarice. God (who oftentimes suffereth not things violent to be long-lasting) gave an end to his tyranny by the death of his Master, whose reign was short, and life most obscure. He left two sons, the eldest of which bore the name of Childeric, and the youngest was called Thierry. Ebroin seeing himself, like creeping Ivy, (which seeks a pillar for support) not to stand fair in Childerics mind, whether this Prince were too clear sighted, to discover his juggle; or whether under the reign of his Father, he had otherwise used him then his condition deserved; it made him arrogantly to adhere to Thierries' faction, thinking he had power and credit enough to make an alteration both in nature, and State-affairs. He than raiseth a controversy in a matter which was sufficiently decided by birth, and assembleth the Estates to deliberate upon it; where there were so many creatures, whom he accounted to be obliged to follow his liking, that the palm of so doubtful a battle seemed to him already absolutely gained.  
There was then in France one Leger, a man of great birth, of an excellent spirit, of an eminent virtue, accompanied with grace of body, and other parts which made him fit for the Court.  
His Uncle, who was a great Prelate, had very nobly bred him, giving him admittance into the Palace and his affairs; but, the sweetness of his nature, not born for much trouble, made him addict himself to the Church, and become a religious man, but was afterward taken out of his Monastery to be Bishop of Autun. His degree and merit then obliged him to be present at this Assembly, where it was treated of making a new King: and seeing Ebroin insolently supported the younger to the prejudice of Nature, and the laws of the Kingdom; he undertook to dissolve his busy practice, and to reduce misled minds, unto reason. Notwithstanding this violent Mayor of the palace ceased not openly to declare his design in full Assembly, in favour of Thierry; using many pretexts and colours which put a quite other face upon a business so unreasonable. Good men, who more feared his bloody countenance and his irreconcilable enmities, then approved his reasons; looked one upon another, expecting that some generous soul should stand for truth: and all of them imagined, that having declared themselves with much weakness, and small effect; they might not serve so much for a support to Childeric's cause, as for an object of Ebroins revenge. Cruelties and Jealousies often ruin many good affairs; and they took the way to overthrow this, if Leger had not risen up, who spoke with so much reason, grace, authority and courage, that he alone gave a countrepoise to Ebroins malice, and drew all the soundest in the Assembly to his side: where Ebroins adherents (seeing Truth carried as in Triumph by hands so courageous) did disband, studying more their own preservation, then to serve his ambition.  
Childeric mounts up to the Throne which nature had prepared for him; Ebroin, who knew the main and manifest contradictions he had framed against his right, hath a soul full of affrightments, and already accounts himself for a dead mad; he searcheth for some sanctuary to hid himself, but findeth none more safe than Religion. Necessity makes a Monk, where piety could never make a Christian. He comes and throweth himself at Childeric's feet, offers him his head and life with most humble submission, by which he begged of the young King, that (if his goodness permitted him not to moisten the entrance into his Throne with the blood of the guilty) his Majesty would please to confine him to a Monastery, to bewail his sins, and daily to die as many times, as he should call to mind his own Ingratitude. Childeric (who was not born to blood, and who at that time had his heart busied enough with the joy of his victory (which is a time when Mildness costs him least) permitted him to retire into the Monastery of Luxevil in Burgundy. Mean time, Leger (who had given such testimonies of his capacity, Courage, and fidelity) is put into Ebroins place, and undertaketh the absolute government of all the affairs of the Kingdom.  
His virtue should have dispensed with him at this time, not to give others occasion to think that he had beaten down Ebroins tyranny, of purpose to raise himself upon his ruins. But there are certain chains of Adamantin charges, and Court-dignities, which oftentimes captive the most austere. His Rival bursts with anger to see him lifted up to this dignity, when his calamity enforced him to be tied to a Coul, which is a piece he never had thought was for his purpose. He was a strange Hermit, like to Nicephorus (Gregoras his fox) who, being blacked over with ink, counterfeited the Monk, and told the poultry, he much repent him to have used them so ill, but that hereafter they might confidently converse with him, since his habit and condition permitted him not to live otherwise then innocently. This miserable man had no other repentance, but that he had not prospered in his ambition; no other poverty, than the impotency of taking away others men's goods; no other obedience, than the hypocrisy of his submission; no other singing, than the sorrows of his fortune; and no other Religion, but his habit. All his prayers tended to nothing else but to demand some change of State, that he might change his fortune; whereas Leger (taking ways quite contrary in his government) made Religion, Justice, and Peace to flourish.  
His zeal opposed impiety; his equity, injustice; his sweetness, violence; and his authority carried all that was reasonable. But, there is a certain unhappiness in the manage of state-affairs which makes a man hate his own quiet; and virtue too regular, is often troublesome even to those it intends to oblige.  
Leger is offensive to some, because he makes them more honest than they would be: to others, because his lights manifest their darkness; whilst others think that, in the newness and change of a Minister of State, they shall better make up their own reckoning. Childeric himself takes a distaste against the faithfullest of his servant; and whether that Ebroins faction breathed this passion into him, or whether it proceeded from his licentious youth, or whether his humour felt too much constraint in the innocent severity of the manners of his Mayor of the Palace; he shown him not so pleasing a look as he had accustomed. He, desirous more efficatiously to sound the King's opinion, most humbly besought him to give him leave to pass the Feast of Easter in the city whereof he was Bishop, which Childeric easily assented to. But perverse souls (who enkindled the fire of division, under colour of friendship) told the good Prelate, that the easiness his Prince had witnessed in this late occasion, was but a bait to undo him, and that he had resolved to cause his person be seized on, of purpose to murder him. One fears all from a power that taketh the liberty to do all; which was the cause that Leger entered into great affrightments noon this news, and resolved to leave the Court, to free himself from Envy and the dangers which threatened him. He communicateth his intention with his greatest confidents, who are nothing of his opinion, and they shown him he must not yield to a little stormy gust, but rather die in the midst of the waves (holding the helm in his hand) then to forsake the vessel: that his flight would give matter of suspicion to the King; of advantage to his enemies; and of confusion to his own friends: and that (hitherto) there was not any sign of disgrace which might make him to begin, where the only extremity of evils might constrain him to end. Notwithstanding, whether fear had taken too much hold upon this good Prelate's mind, or whether his conscience reduced into his imagination the repose of those innocent days he had spent in the Monastery; he takes a sudden resolution, not to forsake the world by halves; but by laying down the government of the affairs of the Kingdom, to rid himself also of his Bishopric. The conclusion of this business is followed by a speedy dispatch; which made the King wonder, who sent trusty persons to invite him to return, and to give him assurance of his good affection towards him; but his zeal had its ear in heaven, not to hearken to the persuasions of the earth. He goes to the Monastery of Luxevil, where he sees Ebroin, who was there held as a fettered beast, and not in a condition to by't. The Abbot, who knew the differences that were in Court, fearing, lest hatred might hatch its egg by the help of a religious habit, caused them to be reconciled, and to talk together, although he had separated their abode, fearing that too fiequent conversation might in them awaken their former aversions. Time slideth away very quietly with them, until the arrival of a very unexpected accident. Childeric (after the departure of S. Leger) useth the greatness of his power licentiously, and soileth both his Name and Dignity with inconsiderate actions; which quickly made this great Minister of State to be deplored, and all the Envy to be cast upon the King, for having so easily dismissed him. The contempt of his person began so to creep into the minds of his subjects, that defamatory Libels went abroad upon his Passions and Government, which seemed to have no other aim, but the weakening of his Authority. He thought to quench a coal with flames, and entereth into outrageous anger against those whom he suspected to raise any question upon his actions.  
He causeth a gentleman named Bodil to be taken, and having caused him to be tied to a post, he commandeth him to be ignominiously whipped, contrary to the manner of ordinary punishments; which occasioned so much acerbity in the Nobility, that all in an instant rebelled against him. Bodil, transported by the fury of his Passion, and encouraged by the number of his Complices, out of a horrible attempt, kills Childeric whilst he was a hunting: and passing on to the Palace, extendeth his revenge (like a devil fleshed in massacres) to the person of the Queen (great with child) whom he murdered. The Court is drenched in deep desolation; the pillars of the State totter; there is need of able men to free them from this danger. The friends of Ebroin and S. Leger (who sought their own ends in the employment of these two) invited them with urgent reasons (covered with the good of the State) to return to the world; assuring them that all France went to ruin, if they supported it not. Ebroin (to whom Soothsayers promised wonders, and who, under hope he had to forsake the Monks Coul, had already suffered his hair to grow, to be the better disposed for all occasions) shown himself nothing hard to be persuaded.  
S. Leger therein used more resistance; but in the end suffered himself to be overcome, leaving the sweetness of Solitude to enter again into the troubles of the world; which never passeth unpunished, but in such as do it by the Laws of pure Obedience. He is received into his Bishopric as an Angel, and his friends do all they can to bring him to the Court, and to gain him a good esteem in the King's mind, who seemed to stand in need of such a servant, to purchase the more authority among the people who with much satisfaction had tasted the sweetness of his Government. Ebroin (on the other side) seeing Thierry (Childeric's brother) had taken possession of the Kingdom, was very confident of his return; having formerly been of the faction of the young King: But he being neglected; Leudegesillus, an ancient favourite of Thierry;s, had undertaken the government of affairs. The furious Monk storms like a madman for the dignity of Master of the Palace which he had possessed; and being unable to creep into it by mildness, he entereth thereinto by open violence. He rallieth together all his ancient friends; in this new change of State, he gathereth a tumultuary army, and flieth into the field with so much speed, that he almost surprised the King with his Favourite, to use them at his discretion. Necessity enforceth to offer candles and incense to this devil; he is sought unto for peace; great recompenses are proposed to his crimes: his ambition takes no satisfaction but in the object of his design. He draweth Leudegesillus to a Conference under show of accommodation; and (being a man without Faith or Soul) he killeth him, emptying his place by a murder, to replenish it by a Treachery. Notwithstanding, he lets Thierry know, his arms were not taken but for his service, and that he had no other purpose, but to reduce all powers under his Sceptre. The other was in a condition of inability to defend himself; which made him resolve rather to take him for a servant, then to have him for a master. In the end; this horrible fury (hidden under the habit of a Monk) never ceased until it carried him to the nearest place of a Royal Throne. So soon as he was possessed of his former dignity, he bent all his powers to vengeance, and thought upon nothing but of ridding his hands of such as had crossed his fortune. S. Leger was the very first he aimed at in his wicked plots; he dispatcheth troops to make havoc about the city of Autun, and gives commands to murderers, (executioners of his revenge) to lay hold of his person.  
The good Prelate (who heard the lamentable cries of the people) afflicted by the detestation of these hostilities, went forth, and presents himself before these barbarians, as a victim of expiation, to deliver himself over to death, and to stay the stream of the miseries which overflowed his diocese. He was prepared to make an Oration, but (they as Tigers, which had no commerce with music) presently fell upon him; and having taken him, they pulled out his eyes, to lead him in triumph to Ebroin. He had already poisoned the ear of the young King, having set forth this sage Bishop, as the most execrable man on earth, and the most capital enemy he had in the world. There remained nothing (but to produce him in this state) fully to accomplish the contentment his brutishness did aim at.  
He at the same time caused Guerin (S. Legers brother) to be taken; doubly to torment him in that he most loved: and having presented them both before the King; he beginneth to charge them with injuries and scorns; the Saints eclipsed eyes, and faces covered all over with blood nothing mollifyed the heart of this Polyphemus. Captivity tied not the tongues of the two brothers, nor excess of miseries dejected their courages. They spoke with all liberty what might be expected from their constancy; rendering thanks to God, that he in this world had chastised them with temporal punishments, as true children; and menacing Ebroin with an eternity of torments, which, the anger of God reserved for the exorbitancy of his wickedness. This cruel creature, who expected some more pliantness in so great a misery, was immeasurably offended, and instantly commanded them to be separated, and Guerin to be speedily put to death.  
He received the sentence of death with great fortitude, embracing his blind brother with all unexpressible tenderness, and encouraging him to the last conflict, with words full of the spirit of God. After this, he is bound to a pillar, and knocked down with stones. Ebroin, who would relish his revenge by long draughts, found out in his heart inventions of a hangman, to torment Saint Leger, causing him to walk on stones as sharp as razors, and appointing his face to be disfigured, by cutting out his tongue, his nose, and lips, to send him from thence a prisoner to the Monastery of Fecan. All this was executed, yet the patience of this incomparable man (by so hideous torments) no whit shaken, blessing God for all these things, and incessantly praying, and forming some stuttering inarticulate sounds, to instruct and exhort those who visited him.  
A while after, he is called again before this Tyrant, who made a sport of his pains, and sought to make him end his life by despair, to kill the soul with the body. But when he perceived his heart was of so strong a temper, and that the dreadful horror of a poor body (carried up and down among so many tortures) made nothing for his reputation, he gave order to Chrodobert to put him to death; and instantly he was delivered to four executioners who led him forth into a forest, which retaineth the name of S. Leger. The blessed blind man perceiving his hour approached, said to them, I see what you go about to do; Trouble not yourselves, I am more ready to die, than you to execute me. Thereupon, three of the murderers relenting, prostrated themselves at his feet, and craved pardon, which he very freely granted, and putting himself upon his knees prayed for his persecutors, recommending his soul to the Father of souls; at which time one of these four executioners persisting in his obdurateness cut off his head. The wife of Chrodobert took the body, and interred it in a little Chapel, where it did great miracles which have deserved the veneration of people. Some time after, the detestable Ebroin (continuing the wickedness of his bloody life) was slain in his bed like another Holophernes, and suddenly taken out of the world, not showing any sign of repentance; to be reserved for an eternal torment.  
Behold all which Envy, Jealousy, and the Rage of a man abandoned by God can do; which letteth us manifestly see, that there are not any men in the world worse than those, who, degenerating from a religious profession, return to the vices of the world. And on the other side, we may behold in the person of S. Leger, that there is not any Passion which may not be overcome; nor honour which may not be trodden underfoot; nor torments which a man is not able to set at naught, when he with strong confidence throws himself between the arms of the Cross, there to find those of Jesus Christ.   
LAUS DEO.  
FINIS.   

THE HOLY COURT.  
Written in French by N. CAUSSIN, S. J.  
The Fifth Tome, Containing the Lives and Eulogies of Persons of the COURT most Illustrious, both of the Old and New Testament, etc. divided into five ORDERS: Monarches and Princes. Queens and Ladies. Soldiers. Statesmen. Religious men.  
Printed M.DC.L.   

To the READER.  
HAving employed my first Volumn in pious and profitable discourses, I have purposed to set forth in this fifth Tome a sufficient large Court to serve for example. Which I have done by uniting to the Histories which I have already published these which I have here added a new, which are almost all taken out of the holy Scriptures, and handled in a style more solid and contract, then specious and enlarged.  
If this Work hath somewhat delayed its coming forth into the light, it hath been businesses other ways coming upon me, that hath stayed it. We have had adversaries to deal with, very well known, that have by their Requests and by their Libels exceedingly troubled themselves to molest us. I have answered them in two Books after a long silence, for that the necessity did seem so to require, and Authority therein did expressly command my obedience. I have done it with the greatest modesty and sincerity that I was able: and I may with confidence say, that it hath been to the satisfaction of people of quality and desert.  
Since, as I understand, they have continued their Replies, where they largely witness their sharpness, against me. But what offence have I committed, if in a Cause so good, and by order from my Superiors I have undertaken the Defence in general of a Society, in which I have lived near these forty years, and have never learned any thing therein but Wisdom and Virtue? They have so little matter, that they are compelled to use old News-books against me, which have spoken nothing, but what hath been interpreted to my honour. I have served God, the King, the Queen, and all France, without ever offending any person, they might be ashamed to reproach me with that which hath been so much for my credit, and to imitate those people that threw their Gods at the heads of their enemies for want of arrows.  
God keep me from losing so much time as to read their Writings, or any desire to answer them. I should seem to have lost my understanding, if I should busy myself in fight against Shadows and Lies put into Rhetoric, so fully refuted by our Justifications, and so manifestly condemned by the judgement of the Queen Regent, and the rest of the. Powers that have acknowledged and maintained the Innocency of this Society against all Accusations.  
These Books of evil Language are intolerable to all honest people, and even odious to those that are rational of their own party, in so much, that I pity their Authors, to whom the pains of so great a Volumn with so little success hath already served for a large punishment.  
Instead of Replies to all those slanders, I do sincerely offer up Prayers to God for our Persecutors, that he may please to kindle in their hearts his holy Love, which may purge out this gall of bitterness, this carnal wisdom, and cause them to bring forth the fruits of Truth, Justice, and Charity.  
The which I have endeavoured to do in this Work wherein I conceive that I have acquitted myself of the promises that I made to the Public by treating on the true Histories of great Personages, and especially those whom the holy Scripture hath honoured by its style, for the edification of all the world.  
It is in these illustrious Representations that the mind contents itself; it is here that it contemplates the Virtues of famous Persons, like the beams of the first Magnitude; it is here that it quickens itself to the imitation of their glorious deeds, and that it fore-stalls the delights of its own immortality. It is here that it learns to endure adversities without departing from the duties of its Calling, and firmly to keep its Constancy like the shadow in the Quadrants, that remains  under the blasts of the most furious winds, not forsaking the measures of the Sun.  
Receive therefore (courteous Reader) the fruits of this my labour sprung up in the midst of a tempest, that is may find calmness in thy favourable acceptance.   

THE MONARCHES.  
THe wisest of Monarches speaking in the holy Scripture unto the Princes of his age, and proceeding at large to give a full warning to all those that should bear part in their honour, and imitate their lives, delivereth these words by way of Oracle. Harken O Kings, not only 
The words of the wiseman directed to the Kings of his time. Sap. 6.  with an ear of flesh, but attend with that of the understanding and heart, to give entrance thereby to the Spirit of God. If you esteem it a most glorious honour to govern innumerable people, and to behold from the throne of your Magnificence, Nations bending under your Sceptres; Know ye, that this Power which lifts you so high above the rest of mortals, is borrowed from Heaven, and is a gift which hath its original from God, who is the Sovereign of all Monarches of the World. It is He that will examine all your works, and search into the secretest of your thoughts. You forget, that notwithstanding all the services that men render to you, you are but the Servants and Attendants of this powerful King: You have not judged sincerely; you have not kept the laws which yourselves have prescribed, nor rendered justice to your Subjects, nor walked according to the commands of Him whose person you represent. This is the reason, why He will appear to you suddenly and terribly, separating your soul from your bodies. You shall see Him on His Throne of Justice, compassed with terrors, and you shall know that He exercises most severe judgement over those that bear Rule over men. All those poor people, which tremble under your power, shall be lovingly and mercifully dealt with by God; but the mighty shall be mightily tormented, if they behave not themselves as they ought; and shall know that the greatness of their Sovereign Authority shall avail them nothing, but to serve to augment their just punishments.  
There are no plagues more fatal to the destruction 
The end of Royalty.  of Princes, than those, who (under colour of raising their authority,) would make themselves great by power to commit (and that without punishment) all kind of enormities. Royalty is an Invention of God, appointed not for the benefit of the Kings, but of the Commonwealth. It was not instituted for the vainglory of men, but for the safety of the World; and Princes are more for the people's sake, than the people for theirs.  
All the great things were made to serve the lesser. 
Great things were made for the lesser.  The Sun (the Prince of Lights, and the heart of Nature,) serves as well for the eyes of a little fly, as for those of a Monarch. The Ocean within that its monstrous extent of Seas and wonders, tenders its service to the little Fish enclosed in a small shell, which cannot subsist without its attendance: The one possesses not the least beam, nor the other the least drop of water, which it employs not for the Commune.  
The Eternal Father would not that the great things should be great in vain; but that they pay for their greatness, by the favours and cares they are to take for the little ones. Thus God commanded Moses to carry all that great people that he had brought out of Egypt, to serve them all as a mother: and (if we will believe 
Orat. 2. in Adam.  Saint Basil of Seleucia) Kings are made to bear the World.  
In ancient time they were lifted up upon Bucklers on the day of their Consecration, to cause them to understand, that they ought to serve for a Buckler for their whole Realm. Nature hath made neither King nor Subject amongst Men. Kings are not born Kings, but by the consent of those people which have made themselves a Law to obey him whom God should declare to them by his birth, or whom themselves should make by Election. Royalty is a power of all the particulars united together in one man, to be applied and exercised according to the Law.  
When Romulus founded the Monarchy of Rome, composed of divers people that offered themselves to 
The practice of Romulus to be noted. Navarre. l. 1. c. 9  him, he expressly ordained that every one should bring to him some of the earth and fruits of his country, whereof he composed a mass, and caused it to be buried in a great pit which he called the Word: intending to show by this ceremony, that Royalty is a heap of Wills, of Powers, of Riches united in one only Power. This is a borrowing which Kings make without obligation to restore again, but with obligement to render it better. They ought to do as the Bees, which take of the flowers, to make Honey thereof. They ought to temper and bring to perfection the Virtues and Qualities of the whole Communality in their own person, to compose thereof the public happiness.  
Wherefore do you think that the ancient Hebrews 
Targum & Navarinus. l. 4.  planted trees at the birth of the children of their Kings, which they held as sacred, and dressed them with careful diligence, to make thereof one day thrones for those little Monarches, when they were come to the Crown; but only to teach them, that they ought to cover the people with their protection, and to enrich them with goods; as the tree defends men from the tempest with its leaves, and nourisheth them with its fruit? They are not properly Masters in a strict sense, for that the Master may do whatsoever he will with his goods without giving account thereof: But a King cannot use his subjects, but according to the law: he must entreat them, as the Goods of God, for that he is accountable therefore to the Sovereign Judge of Heaven and Earth, whose Stewart he is for a certain time, and not proprietary for ever. If he abuse this trust, although the people cannot recall the authority, which they have given to him, and which hath been established of itself by a long prescription; nevertheless he is answerable to the Divine Majesty for all that he doth.  
The Divines hold that a King which should reign 
Navarrus in Manual●.  only for his own honour and pleasure, would sin grievously, and put himself upon hazard of losing his salvation.  
To speak then the very truth, Royalty is a very 
Royalty a glorious servitude.  great obligement, and a glorious servitude, and he that shall well consider all its burdens, would not so much as stoop to take up a Diadem lying on the ground,  
Doctor Navarrus and other Divines, that treat of the duty of Princes, say, That to be a King, is to be the people's man, who is charged before God upon the peril of his soul; to take care of their affairs, and to maintain them in peace, as far as shall be lawful and possible: to defend them from their enemies, to render justice to them by himself or his officers. That is, to choose men of ability and virtuous, to undertake those charges; to watch over their actions and their behaviour, to chastise the evil ones that trouble the public quiet, and to recompense the good ones: That is, to keep the Laws, to root out abuses, to cause piety and good manners to flourish, to stop all injustice, corruptions and exactions. As also to facilitate tradeing, to order the conducts for Soldiers, to take care for the reparations of public Buildings, for Ammunition and provision, for the health and conveniency of his Subjects, and to exact nothing of them above their ability: and that which is exacted, to husband it for their benefit, to employ the customs with the greatest fidelity, as the blood of men redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ: This is, to take order for the Education of Youth, to honour the Church, and persons of desert, to Authorise good Magistrates, to have a particular care of acknowledging the good services of men at Arms, which do sacrifice themselves in a thousand occasions for the Common-weal. It is to have great compassion on the poor, especially Widows and Orphans, to hear willingly the Petitions of those that are afflicted and oppressed, to take thought for all, watch for all; to do that in his Realm, that the soul infused doth in the Body.  
It is too much power to say that which Nero said by 
Royalty a mervellous profession.  the tongue of Seneca, Among so many mortals, I am the only one chosen in heaven to perform the office of God upon earth: I am the arbitrator both of life and death, I am the distributer of fortunes, the favours that come from above are not bestowed but by my mouth: I cause the rejoicings of cities and countries, nothing flourisheth but by my favour. If I speak but a word I make a million of swords to come forth of the scabbard, and if I command, I cause them to be put up again. It is I that give, and take away liberty, which make and unmake Kings, which remove nations, which lay waste rebellious towns, which hold the happiness or unhappiness of men in mine hands.  
What other thing is this that he vaunts, and so proudly boasts himself of? but only to confess himself responsible to God for so great an account: whereof this miserable Emperor acquitted himself so ill, that having lived like a beast, he died like a madman. There is no man worthy to reign, but he that can tremble at the very shadow of Royalty.  
Great Princes are not made by the suffrages of men 
Great Princes the workmanship of God  alone, but by the finger of God: they are born in Heaven by the Divine Decrees, before they appear upon earth by humane birth. To speak the truth, there are wonderful qualities required to make a well-accomplished King; and this is a thing more hard to 
Very rare▪  find then the Phoenix nest. When the children of Israel had this conceit that Moses was lost, they repair to his brother Aaron, and entreat him to make them a God, to sit in the place of their conductor, as if they meant to say; after Moses, no less will serve them then a Deity. Nevertheless, God hath never suffered that there should be a perfect Monarch in the World, in whom nothing hath been wanting; for there would have been a hazard, lest he should have been taken for a God, and thereby have caused a perpetual Idolatry.  
The Heathens have made Gods of some Emperor's vicious enough; what would they not have made of perfect ones, seeing that men naturally do bear a certain reverence towards virtue? Look a little narrowly into the life of the greatest Monarches of the World, as of David, Cyrus, Alexander, Julius Cesar, Augustus, Constantine, Charlemain; and you shall find that all those beauties, which have so dazzled the eyes of the World, have had their spots, and the most part of the rest have inherited a Renown but little commendable; that is, To be none of the worst amongst many bad ones.  
Whatsoever excellency the most famous of them had, proceeded from the especial gift of God: and whatsoever meanness was in them, proceeded from themselves; who always mingled somewhat of Man with the work of the great Workmaster. Nevertheless, good Instructions are very useful for Princes, to rouse up and make active the endowments they have from above: yet it is not in those Panegyrics so well composed that they learn their duty; for, there they may sooner learn to forget it (when being puffed up by those flatteries) they think themselves to be in deed, that, which they are there, but in flourish.  
It is not my intent here to discourse at large how Princes ought to govern themselves, but to contract in a few words that which is necessary for their direction, and I am persuaded that the Scripture, Saint Lewis in his Testament, and Lewis the eleventh in that Treatise which he composed himself for the instruction of the King his son, have said hereto sufficient, and that the rules of reigning well cannot be drawn better from any then those that have been of the same profession.  
The perfection of a Prince may be comprehended within these five Qualities, Piety, Wisdom, Justice, Goodness, and Valour. Piety fits him for God: Wisdom, for himself: Justice, for the Law: Valour, for Arms: and Goodness, for the whole World.  
Piety, or (to speak more properly with Saint Thomas) Religion is a virtue, that appropriates Man to God, and makes him to render that honour that is due to him as first Original, and chief Lord of the whole frame of Nature. Synesius in that excellent Treatise that he made for the Emperor Arcadius concerning government, says, That this is the foundation on the which all firmness subsists. This is that spirit of life, which Kings do breathe from heaven which fills their understanding with enlightening, their heart with Divine love and confidence, their Palace with holiness, and their Kingdom with a Blessing.  
It belongs to a King above all, to be Pious and Devout towards God, even by the Title of Royalty itself. Who should honour that highest Majesty, more than his Vicegerent here on Earth? Who should represent his virtues, more than his image here below? Who should render greatest thanks for his favours, more than he that receives them in the mostabundance? besides the obligement that binds the Prince unto this virtue; he finds the chiefest interest there. Prosperity for the most part is found on their side, which honour the Deity, saith Titus Livius in his History. And Aristotle who proceeds by way of Policy only, counsels a Monarch to be exceedingly religious, for that thereby he will be more beloved and reverenced by his subjects, which expect less evil, and more good from a Prince which is joined to God by Religion. This also procures him an assurance in his affairs; and makes his prosperity the sweeter, and adversities the less afflicting,  
God who is the Master and Teacher of Princes, doth so strictly recommend this virtue to those Kings, that were made more especially by his own election, that he commands them to receive from the Priests a copy of the Law of God, or else to transcribe it with their own hand, to carry it always with them, and to read it all the days of their life, to learn thereby to fear the highest King, and to keep his instructions.  
Now the Piety of a Prince ought not to be ordinary, but it ought to excel in three things chief, in an inward sense of the Deity, in his worship, and zealous affection. An Ancient said, That he which believes the Gods, makes them, and that they have no need of our Sacrifices, but that they would have our Heart. The King ought to acknowledge God with a very deep sense of Piety, as the chiefest essence, the chiefest light, a Trinity within an Unity infinite, an Eternal Spirit, whose Power is Almightiness, whose Will is the highest Reason, and whose Nature is nothing but Holiness: That he is a Mysterious Silence, a Lovely terribleness, an Immensnesse of Glory, which Sees all, and Knows all, from whom all Being's have their rising, which gives and takes away Empires, before whom the World, and all its Kingdoms, and all its Monarches, are but as it were small atoms moving within that immovable Beam. This sense will cause the Prince to tender his Crown and Person at the feet of God with a perfect humility, and whole dependence on him in all things: he will learn the mysteries of our faith, and all the great maxims of Religion, not for disputation, but to believe and adore them.  
In prosecution of this deep sense, it behoves him 
The service of God.  to profess the outward worship and service for the performance of his duty, and the example of his people: as by his assisting at divine Service with great reverence; honouring the holy Sacrament, showing himself exceeding devout towards the most holy mother of God, towards the Angels and Saints; frequenting confession and the Eucharist, harkening willingly to the word of God, and regulating his prayers and daily devotions, by the advice of those that direct his conscience, and above all accounting it the chiefest devotion to be careful of his people, just in his Government, and full of compassion towards the afflicted.  
It is also expedient to take heed that the Prince in this do neither too much, nor too little; it is not fitting that he take upon him the devotion of a Priest or Religious man, which might a little diminish the credit of his profession, nor that he should likewise become too careless and negligent in Divine matters, for fear lest he fall into Libertinism which is the gulf of all misfortunes.  
True Piety in a Monarch shineth forth most of 
Zeal.  all in zeal, which is a mostardent love of the honour of God; and to attein to this, he ought above all to keep the Law of God, avoiding all grievous and scandalous sins, and he ought continually to take care, that God be served in his own house, and throughout his whole Realm.  
That Blasphemies, Sacrileges, Heresies, Simony, and all impicties be scattered and vanish by the beams of his power: That the Pope, which is the Father, and chief Shepherd of all Christendom, be respected with a holy Reverence. That the Bishops be honoured and maintained. That the Church be provided of good Pastors: That the Clergy live under Rule and comeliness, and that it be maintained in its rights. That Hospitals, Monasteries, and Religious-houses be protected and preserved in their estates. He ought not to suffer in any manner whatsoever, according to the order of Lewis, that sacred placed be violated in the Wars which may happen between Christian Princes. He ought to have an earnest zeal and indefatigable for the advancement of the Faith and Religion, and according as the times and occasions shall permit, to employ his arms and person to subdue the pride of Infidels and set up the Standard of the Cross. This is the portion which God reserves for Christian Princes, which should never partake of true honour, but that which is enclosed within the glory of Jesus Christ (saith Julius Firmicus to the children of Constantine) Nevertheless in designs of war against the Insidels, nothing should be too fervently hasted, under pretence of zeal, to the prejudice of the Realm; but to attend the coming in of God, which knows the times and opportunities, and that sometimes gives in without much labour, which men at other times undertake without good advice, and with little success.  
Wisdom doth very excellently agree with Piety, as being a science of Divine and Humane things, not idle, but with an active relish and skill for the directing of our life. If a Prince do not study to get this wisdom, he is ignorant of his profession, and makes himself contemptible to his subjects. He is given by God to his Kingdom, as the Soul to the Body, and how can he then subsist without understanding? He is given as the Eye, what can he do without Light? He ought himself to be the Light, and would it not be a shame for him to be covered with perpetual darkness? The 
Jer. 23. 5.  King shall reign and shall be wise, saith the holy Scripture: this is the only thing that Solomon desired of God at the beginning of his reign: and he gave him this request in such a manner, that he replenished him with a wonderful ability.  
Wisdom maketh a man more worth than a thousand, 
The greatness of Wisdom.  it multiplies itself into many heads, and gathers together the riches of the Universe into one only heart. The Wiseman draws an harmless Tribute from the Learning of all ages, he learns the lives of all, for to husband well his own; he enters into those great labyrinths of time past, as into his own house, he makes use of so many rare inventions of the best wits of the World, as of his own Patrimony. You may say that the Soul of a learned Prince hath run through many Ages in divers Bodies. Wisdom maketh him to pass through long ways with small charges, and to discover the whole World without going out of his Closet: He learns, he discourseth, he judgeth, he approveth, he condemneth; that which is past, makes him profit by that which is to come: Good Counsels do enlighten him, and even the follies of others erect him a Theatre for Wisdom.  
Yet he must take heed, lest of a Prince becoming 
What the wisdom of a Prince should be.  a Philosopher, he cease not to be a King: he ought not to study only to know and dispute, but to have the knowledge and practice of Excellent things: To think to become wise by the reading of Books only, is like thinking to be hot by the remembrance of fire. He must of necessity traffic with his own understanding, with his own experience: and that he may profit by Teachers, he must be a teacher to himself. I would not that all Princes should be such Philosophers as Marcus Aurelius the Emperor, nor so Eloquent as Julian the Apostate, nor so curious in every Art as Hadrian. It is a Science which comes very near to ignorance, to study for that which will profit nothing, and to take the pains to learn that which would be better unlearned.  
Seeing that the Scripture is the Book of books, and that the Ancients called the Bible the Crown; a 
Hielel. Author. Hebraeus excercet see in Corona. 1. Lege.  King ought not to be ignorant thereof; yet not to make himself a Divine, but thereby to learn his duty. Natural Philosophy (which sets before us the great spectacle of the Creatures, thereby to ascend to the Creator) is not unprofitable for a good understanding: that which teaches to reason and discourse is good for every occasion: but the Moral, Political, and History make up the best part of a King's Library; and if he make a little digression, into Music and Painting; it cannot but be commendable.  
Promote that knowledge that puffs not up vain spirits; but that rather, which humbles the solid ones: for, by learning that which we know not, we understand our Ignorance; and know by experience, that one might make a great Library of that which is beyond the knowledge of the most learned in the World. There are none but those that know little, and which know ill, who take upon them to have a sufficiency of knowledge: they crackle like little Rivulets, whereas the greater Rivers run quietly. That Prince, which by reason that he hath studied will carry all his counsel in his own head, shows that he hath little profited by his study: for in this mortal life, a man is so far wise, as he seeks still to become so: but, after that he thinks that he hath atteined it, and hath no more need of others help; then he gins to be out of the way. The use of wisdom is to become wise, as that of the eye, is to see.  
The wisdom of a King may be seen by a reasonable tincture of Learning, by the knowledge that he hath of himself, and the frail flourishing of all humane things, by the discreetness of his words, by his modesty in prosperity, by his constancy in adversity. It will show itself by a Greatness, without Affectation; a Majesty, without Pride; an Humimity, without Contempt; a Comeliness, without Striving: where every thing declares a King, without any show of making him seem so: it will show itself by its Temperance, by the moderating of his passions, and by Prudence in the government of his life and estate.  
This is to have deeply studied; to be able to overcome his Anger, to disarm Revenge, to moderate a Victory, to overcome Concupiscence, to regulate his Affection, to keep under Ambition, to restrain his Tongue, to overrule his Delights, to assuage his Discontents, to live like a Saint, and speak like an Oracle. This is exceedingly to have profited in wisdom: to be able to proceed in all affairs according to the laws of true prudence, But, the false maketh that its principal which is but the accessary: it takes Greatness and Pleasures for the chief aim of a King's life, it consults little, it judgeth ill, it decreeth nothing. But the true Prudence can look unto the end, can take a right mark in all businesses, it doth all things with advice, it brings Judgement without Passion in all occurrences, and gives an effectual order for the performance of all that which hath been wisely concluded: the remembrance of that past, the understanding of the present, and foreseeing of that to come, makes up its whole perfection: a quick apprehension prepares, an acuteness works it, good advice orders, foreseeing confirms, and performance crowns it. It is by these steps that a Prince ascends to the Throne of wisdom, which is an unestimable Gift, and the true favour of the Deity.  
Saint Lewis, whose life might have been the school of the ablest Philosophers, although he bore in his mind the best maxims of Empires, yet ceased not to read good Books, and as he had seen in the time of his imprisonment in the East, that a Sarazen Prince had a Library of the Books of his Law, he caused the like to be made at his return in his Palace, where he spent many hours, and would converse freely with men of learning and desert. Demetrius Phalereus advised Kings to instruct themselves often by reading, for that there one may learn of the dead, which they cannot know by the living.  
The next to Wisdom followeth Justice, which performs in a manner the chief duty that is required of a Prince: and Royalty, seems to be nothing else but an excellent science of Justice; as Justice is taken for that habit of virtue, by which we render to every one the right that belongs to him. Tertullian said, That Goodness had created the World, but that Justice had made the Concord's thereof. This wise mother of Harmonies ceaseth not to open an ear to the dissents that are made in the World, to correct the disagreeing Voices by its own love, and to bring all to its own end: Ambition inventeth extravagant sounds, Covetousness sends forth enraged cries, tyranny makes an infernal Music: but Justice corrects all these excesses, and if it meet with valiant and incorrupt souls to serve it as an instrument, it sends forth incomparable Melodies which delight the ears of God, and rejoice the whole fabric of Nature.  
There are two great Virtues which make all the equalities of man's life, Truth equals the understanding to all the objects; and Justice, the hearts to that which is right.  
Lying and Injustice make every where great inequalities which fill Kingdoms with Disorder: Consciences with Crimes, and the World with Confusion. But Truth and Justice render light to dark things, strength to feeble, certainty to doubtful, and order to the confused.  
We naturally take a delight to behold the fair bow in heaven, which compasseth the air with a crown of glory: but Alcuin the Schoolmaster of Charlemain writes, That that which makes it the more admired is, for that amongst its other beauties, it carrieth the ensigns of Justice. It shows the fire and the water, in its red and blue colours, to instruct us that Justice holds the fire in its power to consume the wicked, and the water to bring refreshment to those scorching heats of calamities that trouble the miserable.  
Justice is God's profession, and an Ancient said, that his continual exercise was to weigh the hearts and the works of men, and to distribute rewards, and ordain chastisements according to the good and ill deserving of every one in particular. The Scripture saith, that he is glorious and magnificent, but that these magnificences are chief seen upon the mountains of wounds and robberies, when he beats down with an invincible arm the great ones of the earth, loaden with the spoils of iniquity. The Hebrews said, that Good took such delight in Justice, that he had bestowed even the Saphires of his own Throne to engrave the Law thereon.  
The Saviour of the world is named the Just by the holy Ghost in the writings of his Apostles, not in dissimulation, but by his Essence. All the great Imitators of God have honoured this quality, and have held it in the number of their dearest delights. Job maketh it his crown and his garment: David, his virtue: Solomon, his wisdom: Josias his love: Augustus, his exercise: and Trajan, his honour. The memory of so many Conflicts, Sieges, battles, Conquests, Triumphs, whereby the life of this great Emperor was so famous, are found but in the record of a few lines: but that which remaineth engraven in the memory of all Ages, is an Act of Justice which he performed even then when marching forth of Rome in great state to go to the wars (as I have related in the first Volumn) he harkened to a poor widow-woman which desired Justice of him; he alighted from his horse to understand her business at large, and restored her to her right before he departed thence. Which thing did so wonderfully astonish S. Gregory, that he prayed, as they say, for the Soul of Trajan, and saved it: the which the Doctor Alphonsus Ciaconius justifies in a learned Treatise, although the Cardinal Baronius be of another opinion.  
By all this, it is apparent and manifest, that a Prince ought to have especial care above all things, not only to be just, but to make it appear both by his words and deeds that which he bears in his heart. He is the greatest King, according to the Philosopher Diogenes, which is the justest; and if he be without Justice, he is nothing but an empty Name, and a shadow of Royalty. The most excellent thing that a King can do in that his Dignity (said the same Wiseman) is to worship the Deity; to ordain Laws; to conduct Armies; and all this is to be done Legally, according to the rule of Justice. The people feel it not if he be devout, if he be sober, if he be discreet, if he be chaste; but if he be unjust this is a public mischief: this all presently feel, as if the Sun should go out of his bounds, or if some malign Constellation should cause burning or floods to happen upon the earth. King Nebuchadonozor is represented in the Prophet Daniel, by a Tree, under the which the fowls made their nests; and under the which, the other living creatures remained under covert; to give us to understand, that Princes ought to stretch forth their Power, even like branches, to protect their Subjects by rendering them Justice.  
A true Prince (to speak as Casiodore doth) ought to serve for a Temple to Innocency: for a Sanctuary to Temperance: for an Altar to Justice. You therefore (O Monarches!) that take delight in the glittering of your Crown, know ye, that it is given you from above, to be God's Vicegerent, rendering to every one that which belongs to him. You ought to watch like an Angel over your whole Estate, and not to suffer at any time that the smallest things should be destitute of your tenderest cares. Harken to that which God speaks to you by his Apostle, Masters, render that which is just and right to your servants; seeing that you cannot be ignorant, that you have a great Master in heaven to whom you must give an account of your actions. Harken to that which he commands you by his Prophet: Do Judgement and Justice, deliver those that are oppressed 
Jer. 21.  from the hand of the persecutors: Taken good heed you afflict not the stranger, the orphan, nor the widow. The Justice of private persons is manifest in their particular commerce, but that of a King hath other kind of beams to make it appear and be beheld in its glory.  
If you be a true King, as Nature hath not given 
Acts of Justice in punishment and reward.  you an hundred mouths to speak, nor a hundred hands to do all that is necessary with your Government; it is fitting that you make a good choice of those to whom you commit the managing of your Arms, of your Revenues, and of your Laws. Never suffer you, that your Name which is sacred, and your Authority which is inviolable, should serve for a pretence to wicked ones to oppress your Subjects. The hunt of men are for the wild Boar, the Wolves, and the Foxes; those of Princes ought to be after the Outrageous, the Robbers, and Tyrants.  
All offences are but the overflowings of Injustice: there can be nothing chaste (saith S. Augustine) where adulterers are; nothing safe, where robbers; nothing out of danger, where murderers. If the sword of the Prince, the revenger of iniquities, do not stop the audacious, cities become forests, and forests everlasting terrors; if there be not Laws for men and punishment for offences. Corrupt nature would never make an end of offending, if Gooernment restrained not its erterprises. The chiefest care of him that is set over people, is to take away the evil and the evil-doers, that honest people may live in safety: for this cause are Kingdoms, Magistrates, Arms, Laws; the world would be nothing but robbery, and the life of man confusion, if Justice did not suppress the violence of disordered affections. But to speak the truth, the Prince that should be severe in punishments, and should have an heart locked up at rewards, would be as it were lame of one arm: he ought equally to be ready to chastise offences, and to recompense well-doing. When the Government of Kings is so lose, that vices come in request and those that commit them, it is almost a kind of sin, then to do well: and when virtues are so unhappy as to be deprived of the honour which is due to them, it is a scandal of that age, and the shame of Crowns.  
It is not sufficient to appoint Judges to hear and determine of suits, he must be well informed of their proceed and their actions, he must sometimes imitate S. Lewis, which gave judgement under an Elm about the differences of his Subjects, and consecrated the Woods and the Fields by the sincerity of the Oracles that went forth of his mouth.  
The Emperors of Constantinople heard likewise the controversies of their people; and as Codin saith, when one party pleaded, they held one ear uncovered, and covered the other; to signify, that they kept it for the adverse party.  
It is a weakness of judgement to go about to decide a business, having heard but one party; one ought to have an ear somewhat hard at such diversity of reports, which are made by parties diversely interessed in a business, otherwise it is to be feared, that a long repentance will quickly follow a short determination.  
Civil Justice is exercised within Bars, and on Judgement-seats; but the Military hath been oft very much neglected by some former Princes in its time, when having lost the opportunity of making a good Peace, they have afterwaids made an unhappy War.  
Those Judges that buy Justice, it is a very great chance if they do not sell it; and those Soldiers which are not paid by the Taxes levied for that end, are as it were authorised to pay themselves by the permission of spoils and plunderings. Our Laws and our Age may blush, when the Roman histories tell us, that one Scaurus, conducting an Army, oftentimes lodged in the fields, where there were trees loaden with fruit, and yet the soldiers durst not lift up the hand to gather one only: the passing by of a great army left every thing in the same order in which it had found them. And amongst Christians, one Regiment only of Soldiers hath often made a desolation in the Country, and affrightment in the towns, and as many sackings, as quarterings. Those which sit at the Stern of Empires and Commonwealths, are greatly accountable to God for that which hath passed in this business. King's ought not only to maintain Justice by their Arms, but to teach it by their behaviour, and to consecrate it by their examples. The Doctor Navarrus hath set down divers sins against Justice, by the which Princes, Commonwealths, and Lords may offend against God mortally; as, to take unlawfully the goods that belong not to them, and to keep them without restitution. To govern loosely and negligently their Kingdoms and Principalities. To suffer their Countries to be unprovided of victuals and defence necessary, which may bring their Subjects in danger of being spoiled. To waste and consume in charges, either evil or unnecessary, the goods which are for the defence of their estates. To burden excessively their subjects with Imposts and Subsidies; without propounding any good intent therefore, and without having any necessity (not pretended, but) true and real. To suffer the poor to die with famine, and not to sustain them with their Revenues in that extremity. Not to hearken to reasonable conditions for a just Peace, and to give occasion to the enemies of the Christian name, to invade their Lands and root out our Religion. To dispense either with the Law of God or Nature. To give judgement in the suits of their Subjects according to their own affection. To deceive their creditors, to suppress the Liberty and Rights of the people, to compel them by threaten or importunate entreaties to give their goods, or to make marriages against their wills, or to their disadvantage. To make unjust Wars; to hinder the service of the Church; to sell offices and places of Charge so dear, that they give occasion to those that buy them to make ill use thereof. To present to Benefices with Cure of Souls, persons unworthy and scandalous. To give Commissions and Offices to corrupt and unfit officers. To tolerate and permit vices, filthiness, and robberies by their servants, and to condemn to death, and cause to be slain unjustly without due order of Law, and to violate the marriage-beds of their Subjects.  
All these things and others which this Doctor hath noted, cause great sins of Injustice in the persons of great ones, unto which they ought especially to take heed: and to prevent the same, it is most necessary that they be instructed in the duties of their charge, and in the estate of their affairs, bending themselves thereto as the most important point of their safety: and seeing that the passion of Hatred or Love, which one may bear to some person, will trouble the judgement and pervert Justice; S. Lewis counselled the King his son strongly to keep his heart in quiet, and in the uncertainty of any differences, always to restrain his own affection, and to keep under all move of the spirit, as the most capital enemy to Reason.  
Many Princes have often lost both their life and Sceptre for giving themselves to some unjust action; and there is no cause more ordinary, for which God translates Kingdoms from one hand to another, than Injustice; as on the contrary, those Princes which have been great Justiciaries do shine as the stars of the first magnitude within God's Eternity, and even their ashes do seem as yet to exhale from their Tombs a certain savour, which rejoiceth people, and keeps their memory for ever blessed.  
But one cannot believe the rare mixture that Justice 
Goodness, its Excellency.  and Goodness make joined together: Goodness is an essence profitable and helpful, which serves as a Nurse to Love; it hath its original in the Deity, and from thence disperseth itself by little veins into all created Being's, and mixeth itself with every object, as the light with every Colour. It drives away, and stops up evil on every side, and there is no place, even to the lowest hell, where it causeth not some beam of its brightness to shine. Beauty which amazeth all mortal eyes, is but the flower of its essence; but Goodness is the fruit thereof, and its savour is the savour of God which all creatures do taste and relish. God, which as Casiodore saith, is the cause of all Being's, the life of the senses, the wisdom of understandings, the love and glory of Angels, having from all eternity his happiness complete in his own bosom, hath created man, that he might have to whom to do good, as Gregory Nyssen writes: and S. Cyprian saith, that this eternal Spirit did move upon the waters from the beginning of the world, to unite and appropriate the Creature to its self, and to dispose it for the loving inspirations of its Goodness.  
The Prince, which according to the obligement of his Charge, would make himself an imitator of God, aught to be exceedingly good, with four sorts of Goodness; of Behaviour, of Affability, of Bounty, and of Clemency. I say, first of Behaviour, for that there is small hope of any great one, which is not good towards God; which keeps not his Law, and rules not his life thereby: if he have any virtues, they are all sophisticate, and if he do any good, it is by ebbing and flowing, by fits, and for some ends. No person can be truly good towards others, which doth not begin with himself; he must needs have Christian Love, without which, no man shall ever see God: if he possess this virtue, he will first have a love of honour to those which have begot him, a conjugal love for his wife, a cordial love to those of his blood, and all his kindred: from thence it will spread itself over his whole house, and through all his estate, and will cause him to love his Subjects with a certain tenderness, as his own goods, and as the good shepherd cherisheth his flocks. He will imitate our Lord, which looked from the top of the mountain upon the poor people of Judea that followed him, and his heart melted for them with singular compassion. Herein doth truly consist the virtue of Piety which gives so great a lustre to the life of Princes.  
Now, according to the Goodness that is in his heart, he must needs pour it forth upon all his, by these three conduit-pipes that I have said, of Affability, of Liberality, and of Clemency: Affability, which is a well ordered sweetness both in words and converse, aught to increase together with a Prince from his tender age. This is a virtue which costeth nothing, and yet brings forth great fruit; it procures treasuries of hearts and wills, which do assist great ones, when need requires.  
A good word that cometh forth of the mouth of a King, is like the Manna that came from heaven, and fell upon the desert. It nourisheth and delighteth his Subjects: it hath hands to frame and fashion their hearts as it pleaseth him: it carrieth with it chains of gold sweetly to captivate their wills. The command that cometh with sweetness, is performed with strength invincible, and every one naturally delights more to obey him, that seemeth to entreat in commanding, than a power that cometh with an armed hand, and threatens to root out that which refuseth it.  
It is fitting, nevertheless, that the Prince dispense his favours, according to the deserts of his Subjects, for it would be a great inequality to be alike to all the world. Affectation oftentimes spoils the profession of courtesy, and when one gives too many words at too cheap a price, and almost indifferently to every one, it maketh one think, that they are none of the sincerest: false gold is too high in colour, and a dissembling courtesy is too glorious in appearance: this deceiveth some which are not accustomed to it, and have no great skill in discerning, carrying itself like the Ivy as fairly over cracked pillars as sound ones; but those which are better advised are quickly wary of empty courtesies, when they with good reason expect better effects. Kings, although they are great, are not able to enrich the whole world, there are very many which must be contented with good words, but to think always to escape paying with this coin, is to deceive himself and the whole world.  
There are so many hungry ones, which cannot feed upon flowers, which expect gifts and rewards, after they have been at great charges, and run through great hazards for the glory of the Prince and the good of the State, that it is necessary, really, to acknowledge their services.  
The Prince which thinks himself bound to give nothing or very little, betrays his birth, shows himself to be lowly minded, and of as low a fortune, having little reason to expect a great harvest from that field where he sowed nothing; he declares his too much greediness after temporal goods, and if he knoweth little what the love of his Subjects is worth, he heaps up the Indian Clay, and neglects that patrimony of hearts, wherewith God, as rich as he is, contents himself: it happens oft that he finds himself afterwards in the midst of thorny affairs, where his silver without friends serves for nothing but to lose.  
But although it behoveth him to give, one can hardly say how difficult this profession is to do it rightly, there can be no greater loss then to give away all, and to give unadvisedly to those which deserve least. He that gives too much and above his ability, destroys his liberality intending to confirm it, for that by giving too much, he taketh the way to be able no more to give any thing. John Michael in his Anatomy of a Body Politic saith, that the Doctor Bricot in an Oration which he made to King Francis the Just, shown him that he was like to S. Francis, whose name he bore; that his hands were pierced, and could hold nothing, as it were, which he gave not away; and if that he took not heed, this would consume all his Revenues, and that thereby he would make more poor in his Kingdom then Saint Francis had drawn to his Religion.  
Those Sovereigns that starve their people to nourish the unsatiable greediness of some particular, are like those mountains that bear fruit, not for the use of men, but for the birds of prey; they give to a few, that which they take from the whole, and oftentimes fatten full monsters and abominable ones with the blood of the Public, that they make the ground to tremble under their feet, and the heaven to thunder upon their heads. Others give that which they can hold no longer; as, Manuel Comnenus, which offered his silver to his soldiers then, when he was in the hand of the Saracens. Others give after an evil manner, more for that they are not able any longer to deny, then with intent to gratify. Others give slowly and little, in such a fashion, as after they have long time fed men's hopes with wind, they pay them at length almost with smoke. Others repent themselves presently for having given that which they could hold no longer, and have no other content by their liberality, then to repent of their hastiness. He that would be truly liberal and magnificent, will avoid all these rocks, he will give with good advice according to his ability, and with a comely grace, to the poor Gentry, to the Soldiery maimed by his service, to Churches, to Religious Persons, to people of Virtue, Knowledge, and Desert, which do show themselves profitable for the Public.  
But to say truth, it is a great gift to pardon that by Clemency, which one might justly punish by Justice: this is that admirable quality that Kings have, and nearest approaching to God; they cannot create, they cannot raise men from the dead, and yet to give safety and life to a man; is to give him, as it were, a second Creation, it is to give him a being without a not being, and to bestow on him a Resurrection without causing him to taste of death.  
What would a man do which should suddenly be made an half-God, and which should be transported amongst the stars? what would he dream of? in what business would he take most pleasure, unless it were to do good; and amongst all good, to give and preserve the foundation of all the rest, which is life? There is nothing more glorious then to be able and not willing to revenge an injury; the power makes the greatness of Majesty, but the good will giveth its perfection.  
The Hebrews said, that the chiefest work of God was Mercy, that he dwelled in his Tabernacle from the beginning of the world unto the day of judgement, and that giving all the rest of the time to Clemency, he reserved but one day for Justice.  
Away with those Kings of the Macedonians, that would appear in their stateliest walks with the head of of a lion; this was not to show their greatness, but to testify their brutishness. The heart of the King (saith the Scripture) is in the hand of the Lord: within that hand that doth nothing but open itself to fill every creature with a blessing from heaven to earth; how can it take then there any thought into itself of rage, of killing, or of sacking? It ought to be merciful even in punishing, taking great heed to do nothing by way of revenge, but doing all by Goodness.  
Clemency doth not exclude Justice, but moderate it, and if it suffer the life to be taken away from one that is faulty, it is to preserve a thousand Innocents'. It is a cruelty to pardon nothing, but it is a double cruelty to pardon all, seeing that one cannot equal the evil to the good, in so great an inequality of lives and manners, unless one overthrow a whole State. It behoves him wisely and with good advice to discern, that which is worthy of pardon, and that which is worthy of punishment; there are pestilent crimes, scandalous, and which draw great consequences with them, which the Prince cannot leave unpunished without condemning himself. There are other faults committed by error, by frailness, by surprise, by strong inducements, mighty temptations, and those that have yielded once thereto, have done a thousand other worthy actions, to blot out the memory of one ill. If Clemency hath no place in such occasions, it will have nothing to do about a Prince, and if it find no employment with him, it is to be feared that the vengeance of God will find work there to busy itself.  
The wisest of Kings is of opinion, that this virtue is the foundation of thrones; whence it follows, that that Prince which is unprovided thereof, puts his own person in danger, and his estate into shaking.  
It is to deceive one's self to think, that a Prince may be secure there, where there is nothing secure against the violence of the Prince. Despair of Mercy hath often caused horrible cruelties to ensue, and it is needful always to take heed of the force of a last necessity. There are some things which ought to be pardoned, by the contempt of punishing them; others by the profit, and others by the glory, and it is always to be remembered, that we have a Judge over our heads, which suffers us to live by his only goodness, being able every moment to punish us by his Justice.  
At last, to conclude this little Treatise, Valour procures an high reputation to a Monarch, making him terrible to his Enemies, and amiable to his Subjects. Greatness maintains itself by the same means which gave it its beginning; and it renews new vigour by those qualities which have been the Authors of its original. Our fist Kings attained to this dignity by their valour; and by that stoutness which they had to expose their courageous persons to very many hazards for the safety of the public: this made them admired, and lifted them up at last upon the Target to be showed throughout the whole Army, and chosen by general consent to command over others by the title of their deserts.  
The same of Valour doth so easily run through, and with such approbation, the minds of people and valiant men, that it sufficing not it to make Kings upon earth, it hath made amongst the Heathens Gods in Heaven. They have deified an Hercules, and a Theseus, for having cut off the head of Hydra's, and overcome Minotaures; and not contenting themselves to have consecrated their persons, they have put wild beasts and monsters amongst the Constellations, for having served as objects of their victories, choosing rather to eternize beasts amongst the Stars, then to diminish any thing of the eternal glory of those valiant men.  
Alexander being crowned King by his father Philip, before he took possession of the Kingdom that fell to him by the decease of his Predecessor, assembled together all the great ones of his Kingdom, and said to them, that he would counsel them to choose such a one as should be most obedient to God, which should have the best thoughts for the Public Good, which should be most compassionate towards the Poor, which should best defend the right of the weak ones against the strong; but above all, that should be the most Valiant, and should adventure himself most boldly for the safety of his Country. And when they had all confirmed to him that which his birth had given him, he took an Oath, that he would keep all he had propounded, as he did, testifying in all his actions his Goodness and Valour above all the Kings that had gone before him.  
A Monarch shall give some proof of himself, by diligently studying the art of War; in often frequenting the exercises thereof, in being able to judge of places and Armies, of Captains, of Soldiers, of Defences, of On-sets, of Policies and Stratagems, of Fortifications, of Arms, of Provision, of Munition, and giving exact order for every thing that belongs to Military affairs. He must often show himself in the Army, by exhorting, encouraging, consulting, resolving, giving orders, and causing them to be executed, by showing readiness of courage in dangers, and an invincible heart in the midst of bad success. But he ought not at any time to mix himself therein without great necessity, seeing that the hand of one man can do very little, and the loss of a King brings a damage unrecoverable.  
The young King Ladislaus thrust himself into danger at the Battle of Varna, against Bajazet the Turk when he had there lost himself, and that they had taken away his head, and put it upon the end of a spear, as a sad spectacle to the Christians: This caused their whole Army to be routed, which before was half victorious, and gave the victory to the Infidel.  
War is a long and difficult profession, and one of the most dangerous, which never ought to be undertaken but upon necessity. I cannot, neither aught I here to teach it by words, reserving that to the skill of the more understanding, and to the experience of perfect ones.  
I am only obliged to advertise, that great heed is to be taken, lest any one take rashness, or savage rage instead of true valiantness. Those are no Bravadoes nor terrible looks that give the most valiant blows in Armies. It pleaseth not God, that a Virtue that doth such wonders upon earth, and places the Hero's in the heaven, should be accomplished by such feeble means. This is no effect of boasting, nor of ignorance, nor of fury: this is a branch of generousness, which teacheth the contempt of dangers, and of death itself, for the glory of God, for the defence of ones Country, for the subduing of the impious Infidels and wicked ones, for the exaltation of the true Faith, of Religion, and the glory of ones Nation.  
Oh the excellency of this divine Virtue, which protects so many people with the shadow of its branches and laurels; which causes a calm to be found in a tempest; safety in the midst of dangers; comfort in disastres; an upholding in the midst of weakness! Happy are the wounds of the valiant, whence flows more honour than blood. Happy their immortal Souls which fly hence into heaven, carried upon the purple of so generous blood, and which flying hence, leave to posterity an eternal memory of their prowess.  
Time hath not sith for them; Death is unprovided with darts; Calumny loseth its teeth there, and Glory spreads (throughout) the Ensigns of their Immortality.   

THE MONARCHES.  

DAVID. SOLOMON.  
 portrait of King David 
DAVID REX.   portrait of King Solomon 
SALOMON REX.   

DAvid is a great mixture of divers adventures, of Good, of Evils, of Joys, of Griefs, of Contempts, of Glories, of Vices, of Virtues, of Actions, of Passions, of un-thought-of Successes, of strange Accidents and Marvels. It is not my purpose to set forth his Life here, which is exactly contained in the holy Scripture, but to make some reflections on the principal things therein that concern the Court. We will consider him in a twofold estate, of a Servant, and of a Master, and will observe with what wisdom he preserved himself in the one, and with what Majesty he behaved himself in the other.  
The whole beginning of his History is a continual combat against an horrid monster, which is the jealousy of Saul, which torments him a thousand ways, for to adorn him with as many Crowns. An Ancient 
A great secret of life.  said very well, That the greatest secret of one's life was to undergo destiny, and endure patiently the ordinance of God concerning our lives and estates; for by learning Patience, we learn to forget our misery; but by 
Antholog. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  bearing the Divine appointment with Impatience, we row all our life against a torrent which swallows us up.  
David was at the heart of God, but he was not at the heart of Saul: God had made him for to command, and Saul would not allow any ways that he should be obeyed: He sought his life, when as God had appointed his Crown for him: He desired his death, and procured for him immortality.  
God and man did strive, who should exalt or depress this man; but the counsels of the one were , and the endeavours of the other were violent in their on-sets, and feeble in their effects.  
Assoon as David was seen, one might see some Divine 
The qualities of David.  thing; a little body well made, enlivened with a great spirit; a comeliness which could not be learned at school, but which was a gift from above; a mildness without weakness; a behaviour without affectation; a valiantness without ostentation; a gallantness without vanity; a virtue that was made to be admired by all, and imitated but by few.  
All flowers have their being from the earth by their 
Men of God.  roots, but they have influences from heaven much different. Men also are all of Adam's clay, but the gifts of God do manifest themselves in some so visibly, that it is wisdom to give them place, and but headiness to fight against them. This little boy neglected, which fed the sheep, and whom the father would not so much as reckon amongst the number of his sons, this is He, whom Samuel chose for King by God's direction, who commands not to measure Kings any more by their stature, but by their endowments from heaven.  
He comes first to the Court under the quality of a 
Divides entrance into the Court.  player on instruments, there he makes himself known for a good Soldier; admired, as Commander of an Army; and crowned, as a Conqueror. Saul was tormented with an evil spirit, which was maintained by his melancholic Humour, and nourished by his passion. They seek out for him a fair young man, which withal was skilful in playing on the Harp for to make him merry. One of his servants said, that David the son of Jesse would be very fit for that employment; he is sent for in the King's Name, he comes, he pleaseth while he played on the instruments, but he displeases while he handled his weapons, when as Envy 
Envy never sleepeth.  gins to cause his valour to be reputed for a fault. Such kind of enraged asps never sleep at the sound of Music, his Devil is offended at this comeliness, is incensed by those gallant actions, and even vomits its poison against those which cast flowers at it. Saul knew not that God prepared him this little Musician for to be his heir, if he had known that which heaven intended to do with this child, that would have sufficed to have troubled all the Music.  
He was at that time happy in his blindness, and his first mischance was to have eyes which could not endure the lustre of another's virtues. This young shepherd, which in his apprenticeship had learned to fight with Lions and Bears, would go to the wars as well as his brethren, who do blame that his curiosity, and despise his person.  
There must always be some famous exploit for to put a man at first in great credit at the Court, all that which is humane goes on very slowly; and an ability is not gotten but by long experience. But when God will put to his hand, he gives to a man in one happy moment, that which thirty years pains could not obtain. The combat with Goliath 
Goliath.  was that that raised David; Heaven had prepared this giant for to serve for a trial of his valour, and for an ornament of his prowess. One man alone, which had affrighted a whole army, nine foot high, and armed with five hundred pound weight of iron, continues for the space of forty days his stately bravadoes, challenging the stoutest of the Israelites to combat.  
All their hearts are frozen at the sound of his terrible voice; there is not his like in the world which dares come forth against him. The King propounds great riches, and his daughter in marriage to him, which would take away this blemish from the people of God printed on the face of the whole army by this Philistim.  
David hereupon presents himself, and goes forth to fight with him, not with the guilded Arms of Saul, but with a Sling.  
The Giant scoffs at him, and finding him sufficiently armed to defend himself from dogs, but not for to set upon men, he looks now upon this little body as a fit prey for some bird of rapine. But this Champion of the Lord of Hosts, reads a lesson first to him of Religion, before he shows him his skill in fencing. Thou comest to me (saith he) with a spear, a sword, and a buckler, but I come to thee in the name of the God of armies; of the God of the hosts of Israel, at which thou this day hast scoffed with so great insolence.  
It is written in heaven, that this great God will deliver thee into mine hands, and that I shall take away thy head from off thy shoulders, and that I shall make a great feast for all beasts of prey with the flesh of this monstrous body, and this shall be the means for thee to learn that there is a God in Israel. He saith it, he doth it, he strikes his adversary with a blow of the sling in the midst of his forehead, and makes this mighty tower of flesh to fall in a moment, this terrible giant, cutting off his head with his own sword; which put the whole army of the Philistims to confusion, and lifted up the glory of the chosen people to an incomparable height.  
Behold the fountain of all great evils that David suffered afterwards; all the laurels that he gathered in the field of the battle, carried an evil tincture of saul's envy. The great ones admire him, the people applaud him, he is the subject of the Songs of the daughters of Jerusalem, which set him above Saul.  
It is this music that enraged his evil spirit, and would 
The horrible Envy of Saul.  not give him any rest: Goliath overcome in the opinion of all the world, is still upon his legs to torment him: here is the cause of his rage, as it was before of his fear. David must be destroyed, because he hath saved the Nation, he must be put to death because he hath restored the people to life, he must be dishonoured for having upheld the honour of the King, he is sufficiently faulty; because he is too virtuous.  
They say, that Love and Tears are learned without 
Envy is easily learned at the Court.  any master, and I may say, that there is no great need of studying at the Court, to learn Envy and Revenge. It is a strange thing that Saul of a simple country-fellow, should become so malicious and subtle a Courtier, as to practise the most refined dissimulations of the Court. He had resolved to destroy David, and yet conceived that this duel with Goliath had set him in too high an esteem in the opinion of the people, and that if he should openly attempt against his life, he should bring his own into danger. He thought best to bestow on him a chief place in the Army, under pretence of honour, which might be most subject to the violence of the Philistims, believing that his courage would carry him into dangers, and that the Philistims being incensed by the death of their countryman, would not ways spare him, and that by this means his death would be imputed to his Destiny, and not to the Envy of Saul.  
But after that he saw that he returned from the manifest dangers, with a crowned head, with the applause of the people, and that he behaved himself within the Kingdom with very great wisdom; he began to suspect him more than before: he took heed of bestowing great riches on him, and married his eldest daughter which he had promised to him, to another, using him by this means injuriously.  
Nevertheless, for that his honour was engaged therein, and that one might justly complain of his faithlessnesse, he took advice to marry him to his younger, which was Michol, with very harsh and dangerous conditions, making him to buy a thing that was due to him, by the death of 200. Philistims, conceiving that by so great a number of men and so many fights reiterated, he might be entangled in some mischance; or if he should escape that, the best that could hap was only to gain a woman of a costy humour which would be to him but for a reproach, and much discontent.  
Behold how man's reasoning doth propound: but 
Humane wisdom overthrown by the power of heaven  God which catches the subtle in their devices, and overthrows the designs of the malicious to establish his own counsels upon their ruins, caused the victories and the marriage of David to succeed to his good content, together with the good will and admiration of all the Court. Jonathan the eldest son of Saul was so astonished 
The love of David and Jonathan.  with his valiant exploits, his rare virtues, and his incomparable brave carriage, that he loved him as his own heart, and bereft himself of the most precious things that he had, to adorn him withal. David likewise swears unto him reciprocally an immortal friendship.  
These two souls, to speak according to the phrase of the Scripture, were united together with an indissoluble affection. Their hearts were two fornaces which continually breathed forth flames of sacred love, and might sooner be found without any thoughts, then to be without thinking one of the other. Their separations were as so many die, and their meetings again did prevent their paradise. The longest days were but as a small moment while they lovingly conversed together, than they never perceived that the time ran away, and they were departed from each other, but with promise to visit again as soon as may be. Each of them in their absence seemed to itself a wand'ring soul without habitation, and without a body; their spirits made wonderful transpirations for to join themselves together, and talk to each other as in an Idea, when Saul hindered their visits.  
Poor Jonathan, which was of an incomparable mildness, 
The good offices of Jonathan.  declared to his father, as much as he could, the Innocency of David, and the great services that he had done for the Crown; and when he saw his spirit moved against him, he was almost ready to die therefore, he ceased not to represent to him with horror of mind the monstrous impiety that it would be to sacrifice such a personage as he, which had so often devoted himself for the safety of his Country, the outcry of the people; and the vengeance of God. At other times he dealt with him with sweet and persuasive language, causing him (as it were) to touch with his fingers the brave carriage and excellencies of David, and assuring him, that there was not a man in his whole Kingdom which was of a more harmless and pleasing a conversation, and that it was the joy of his heart, and his only safety to have him always at his side.  
Saul suffered himself to be overcome with these his discourses, whether it were indeed that he was persuaded, 
Saul cleared for a while, again returns to his evil spirit.  or whether he feigned himself to be appeased, and suffered David, whom he had driven fare of, to return again near his person. But this madman, upon a day when he played on the Harp in his presence, took his lance, and endeavoured to strike him through therewith, which he dad done, if David by his nimbleness had not avoided that evil blow; and lest that any should charge him with this perfidiousness, he excused it by the distemper of his spirit. Jonathan endeavoured yet another time this reconciliation, but having been repelled by Saul by pricking words, and with threaten to kill him, if he did not give over this his friendship with David; he saw clearly that there was no more safety for his friend, and gave him the counsel which was for himself the sharpest of all, causing him to retire.  
David goes from the Court, and makes a sad departure from his friend, for to avoid the unmerciful fury of his father.  
These two dear souls on the day of this sad departure were pierced with a thousand darts of grief, and were a thousand times upon their eyes and lips for to fly from thence, and to mingle themselves one with the other. The time passed caused them to remember that which they had lost; the present, that which they were to lose; and that to come, was unto them a bottomless pit of terror and affrightment. They apprehended the one for the other, as many dangers as there are upon the earth and sea, and they could not promise themselves any thing but days without comforts, and nights full of terrible dreams and torments. They poured out so many tears, and fetched so many sighs, having no other eloquence but that of their hearts mutually wounded in their lodging, that it was a thing worthy of compassion, even of Saul himself.  
This madman seeing that he was escaped out of 
David is pursued, and escapes.  his bloody hands, would have caused him to be taken, and sent forth soldiers for to bring him back. But his wife Michol having descried the evil intent of her father, advertised her husband of it, and made him departed suddenly in the deep silence of the night, putting in his place an image in his bed. The house failed not to be set upon the next morning, and the Guard of Saul entering by force, passed on unto the bed and found there the counterfeit. Michol was accused hereof and chidden by Saul, but she excused herself, saying, That her husband had compelled her to do this, threatening to kill her, if she would not obey, and that the presence of so manifest a danger had forced her to procure this invention. He ceased not to increase his anger, and to invent every day new means to destroy him, whom he ought to have preserved above all men.  
In the mean time David knew not whither to retire 
The life of David in banishment.  himself, and saw himself every day, amongst the nets, hunted like a poor beast, which caused him to pass a life so worthy to be esteemed by the whole world in very many bitternesses. He would have taken the boldness to have gone to Samuel, who was yet alive, but this his interview would have been prejudicial both to the one and the other, in the the mind of Saul, which turned all its suspicions into fury.  
He removed himself from thence unto the town of 
His arrival at Nob causeth great disaster to the high Priest.  Nob, to the high Priest Ahimelech; who seeing him in very small equipage, was somewhat amazed at his arrival: but David for to confirm him, told him, that he went about a certain urgent business, which the King had given him in charge, and that it was necessary that it should be done without noise: the which had compelled him to take but few people with him, which were come forth very suddenly, without having leisure to take order for necessary things for their journey; whereby, he should do him a great pleasure to give him some bread, and to help him to some weapons, which the haste of the business would not suffer him to take.  
The Priest answered, that he had no other loaves than those of the shewbread which were consecrated, but that they might make use of them, if they were purified, and especially if they abstained from all converse with women: of which David having assured him, he gave them those, and having no other sword then that of Goliath, which was kept in the Tabernacle for a Monument, he presented it to him, wherewith he was very well contented, judging it the best of all, and so went forward in his way.  
Saul having heard a report that David had appeared, entered into great forests, and going through a wood with a lance in his hand, being compassed by his Captains and Officers, sharply complained of the unfaithfulness of his servants, ask them with reproach, What it was that David had promised them, and whether he would give them every one Lordships, or make them Captains, or Camp-masters, that they had thus forsaken their Prince? That it was a pitiful thing to behold him betrayed of his own children for to uphold a rebel, which sought nothing but an occasion to get his Crown from him.  
Hereupon, Doeg, master of the shepherds of Saul, and 
Doeg accuseth the high Priest being innocent.  Idumean by nation, and of barbarous behaviour, having been at Nob when David passed by there, and desirous to get favour with his Master, accused Ahimelech the Priest, with all his company, for having helped David with weapons and Provision, and having testified a good affection to his party: which caused Saul to send for him presently, and handle him with great anger, reproaching him with villainy, and suspecting him of treason. The other answered very wisely, That he being retired from the knowledge of business at the Court, and of the Bedchamber, he could not know the intents of David, but knowing very assuredly the goodwill that the King had testified towards him the great charges and commissions wherewith he had honoured him, the favour that he had showed to him by so nearly allying him to his house, he could not, nor he ought not to drive him away from his lodging, having received no command from the King, and not being able to understand by any the offence that David had incurred.  
This excuse was very just and lawful. But the violent 
Bloody effects of the jealousy of Saul.  are never contented with reasons, intending to be masters of the Laws, although they are slaves to their brutish passions. Saul commanded without any other form of proceed to kill him with those of his company, which the soldiers did very much abhor, and there was not found one that durst lift up his hand against those sacred persons. But Doeg that villainous butcher, which had a long time been bred up in slaying beasts, having gathered together the small rabble of his servants, set upon the high Priest and the Priests which accompanied him, to the number of 85. which were all murdered in one day, and this cursed servant stretching further yet the command of his master, drove on his murderers to the sacking of the town of Nob, which they filled with fire and blood.  
What will not the jealousy of State do? what will not tyranny, rage, and fury, when they are seconded by evil servants which blow the coal able to devour both men and towns? Saul, the plain country-fellow, the cordial man, the child of one year, after he had sucked the breath of this serpent, kills the high Priest and the Priests, buries the smoking towns in the blood of the miserable citizens. A thousand poor bloody sacrifices stretched out upon the cart, pleaded sufficiently before God with the voice of their blood, for to pull down this in humane Tyrant, for whom all the furies prepared their pincers and torches.  
Poor David having understood by Abiathar the son of the high Priest all that was past, was pierced with a most bitter grief, accusing himself as the cause of the death of those unhappy ones, and took along with him, him that brought him this sad news, using him as his own brother. He perceived well, that the spirit of Saul 
David saves himself in the caves of the desert, whither father and mother go to seek him.  was wholly envenomed, and in despair of remedy, he saved himself in the cave of Adulla, where he thought he had been hid from the eyes of the whole world. But his father and his brethren flying the persecution, ceased not till they had found him therein, and did wonderfully pierce his tender heart, lamenting for the change of his fortune, because they perceive not any more in him a David triumphant the object of all the thoughts and discourses of all tongues. But he comforted them, promising not to forsake them, and recommended all that was dearest unto him, which was the person of his father 
His piety towards▪ them.  with that of his mother, to the King of Moab, until that he knew what it would please God to do with him.  
At the same time, all the banished, all that fled for 
Banished men repaired to him.  safety, & all the miserable betook themselves unto him, unto the number of 400. men, which entrenched themselves in a fortress, going forth every day for to rob, to maintain themselves thereby. In the midst of all these misfortunes, the good Prince kept always in his heart a true love of his country, and knowing that the Philistims had laid siege before Keilah, he failed not to go to help it, and to deliver it, although this ungrateful city was intened to deliver him to Saul, if he had enclosed himself therein; the which he would not do, having consulted with the Oracle of God, but retired himself to the desert of Ziph, whither Jonathan that 
The visit of Jonathan, secret and and very profitable to David.  burned with a great desire to see him, came to find him secretly, and they were for some time together with unspeakable expansions of heart. This good friend comforted him, and assured him, that he should be King after his father, and for himself he would be content to be his second; which sufficiently witnessed the wonderful modesty of this Prince, and the incomparable love that he bore to David.  
But the Ziphims, men for the time that would provide for their own safety, sent their deputies to Saul, to advertise him, that David was retired into their quarters, and if it pleased him to follow him, they would deliver him into his hands. At the which Saul was exceeding joyful, and entered the chase to entrap him, compassing him on every side, and hunting him like a poor deer chased by men and dogs with great out cries. The danger was very manifest, and David in great hazard to be taken, had it not been for a happy message, it may be, procured by Jonathan, that advertised Saul, that the Philistims had taken the field, and made great waste upon his lands, at which he returned to bring remedy thereto, deferring his former design till another occasion.  
In the mean while, David ran from desert to desert 
The rudeness of Nabal towards David.  with his troops, and was hardly able to live, which made him have recourse to Nabal a rich man, and that had great means, entreating him for some courtesy for to maintain his people, which had used him with very great respect, defending his house, his flocks, and all his family against the spoilings of robbers. This Nabal, that was clownish and covetous, answered the deputies of David, that he knew not the son of Jesse, but that he was not ignorant, that there were evil servants enough, which were fled from their masters, and that he was not in case to take the bread from his hired servants for to give it to highway men. This word being told to David, incensed him so much, that he was going to set upon his house for to rob and sack it. But Abagail the 
The wisdom of Abigail his wife.  wife of Nabal, better behaved, and wiser, without busying herself to discourse with her husband, that was a fool and drunk, caused presently mules to be loaden with provision necessary for the men of war, and went to meet David, to whom she spoke with so great wisdom, comeliness, and humility, that she turned away the tempest, and stayed the swords already drawn out of the scabbards for to make a great slaughter in her house. David admiring the wisdom and goodness of this spirit of the woman, married her after the death of her husband. It is so true, that a good deed bestowed on a high 
A good deed done to a great one afflicted is of much value.  person in time of his affliction, and when he hath most leisure to consider it, is a seed-sowing which in its time brings forth and bears fruits of blessedness.  
After that Saul had driven back the Philistims, he returns to the pursuit of David, accompanied with three thousand men, with a purpose to take him, although he should hid himself under ground, or should fly through the air. And indeed he crept up rocks unaccessible, 
David furiously pursued by Saul  which were not frequented by any but by wild goats; and as he passed that way, he entered into a cave for some natural necessity, where David was hid, with a small number of his faithfullest servants, which failed not to tell him, that this was the hand of God, which had this day delivered his deadly enemy into his hands, and that he should not now lose time, but to cut him off quickly, whilst that he gave him so fair play, and this would be the means to end all those bitternesses, wherewith his life was filled by the rage of this barbarous Persecutor.  
This was a strong temptation to a man so violently 
His generousness in pardoning his enemy, very admirable.  persecuted, and whose life was sought by so many outrages. Nevertheless, David stopping all those motions of revenge, resolved in his heart, by a strong inspiration of God, never to lay his hands upon him which was consecrated King, and contenting himself with cutting off the skirts of his coat, he went out of the cave after Saul, and crying with a loud voice, he worshipped him prostrate on the earth, holding in his hand the piece of his cassock, and saying to him, Behold my Lord, my Father, and my King, the innocence of my hands, and do not believe them any more which filled you with suspicions of poor David: you cannot be ignorant at this time, that God hath put you into my power, and that I could have handled you ill, & by taking away your life have saved mine own. But God hath kept me by his holy grace from this thought, and hath preserved you from all evil. I never yet had any intent to hurt your Majesty, having always reverenced and served it, as your most humble servant and subject; whiles that you cease not to pesecute me, and to torment my poor life with a thousand afflictions: Alas, my Lord, what is it that you desire? Against whom are you come forth with so great furniture of Arms and Horses? against a poor dead Dog, a miserable little beast? I beseech the living God to judge between us two, and to make you to know the goodness of my cause.  
One may avouch, that great and glorious actions 
The greatness and benefit of clemency.  of Clemency do never hurt Princes, but that often they do place or keep the Crown upon their heads, God and Men concurring to favour that goodness that approaches so near to the highest. Saul was so amazed with this action, that he ran to him, and embraced him weeping, and said to him, This is a sure sign, O David, which I acknowledge at the present, and whereby I know for certain that you must reign after me, so great a goodness not being able to be rewarded but by an Empire. I do pray and conjure you only to have pity on my poor children after my death, and not to revenge your injuries upon them: hereupon he swore to him, to deal with him afterwards peaceably.  
But as this spirit was unequal, and did oftentimes 
David goes out of the kingdom, and retires himself among strangers.  easily departed from reason for long seasons; David resolved to go out of the Kingdom, and to betake himself to Achish King of the Philistims: Some may seek occasion to blame his behaviour in this matter, and may think it strange, that he should retire himself to the Philistims, the sworn enemies of the people of Israel, especially after this reconciliation and oath passed between him and Saul. But it must be considered, that his life was no ways assured within the Kingdom, and that Saul at another time having given so solemn a promise to Jonathan for the safety of his friend, yet would have killed him with his own hand: and further that he was every day in danger to be set upon by arms from the other party, with effusion of blood both of the one and other, and that it seemed better to him to avoid the occasion, then to see himself perpetually obliged by so miserable a necessity to defend himself.  
Further he considered, that he brought his chiefest friends into danger, not being able to retire himself amongst them, without making them guilty of treason, and exposing them to slaughter: lastly he found not so much security amongst other Kings, which having no war with Saul, would have made some difficulty in entertaining him, or might have delivered him up, after they had received him, for their own commodity.  
This made him resolve to take his refuge amongst a Nation, that bore an irreconcilable hatred against Saul. But forasmuch as some have thought, that he 
1 King. 27.  bore arms for Achish against the people of God, this is manifestly convinced of falsehood, by the Text of the Scripture, where it is expressly said, that David did invade the Amalekites, and other people Infidels, although that Achish persuaded himself, that he would do the like to the Israelites, after he had been so evilly used by his own Nation. But he used dissimulation herein, for to maintain himself in good favour with the King, as the Doctor Tostatus hath very well noted: And this was the cause that the great ones of the Kingdom, which perceived this dissembling of David, would never suffer him to be in the army-royal, in the day that the battle joined against the people of Israel, saying openly to the King, that he would betray the party, and would reconcile himself with his own men by the price of the lives of the Philistims, unto the great disadvantage of the whole Realm; which was the cause that Achish gave him leave to departed fairly, excusing it upon the suspicions which the Noblemen had taken of him.  
At the last, the fatal day of Saul drew near, and he saw the Philistims which came thick and threefold upon him with the chiefest forces of their Empire, he felt 
Saul being in great perplexity consults with the soul of Samuel.  the remorse of conscience, and the blood of so many Innocents' undeservedly shed, ceased not to leap up against his faulty head. In these confusions of a troubled spirit, by the representation of his crimes, he sought unto the Divine Oracles, to learn what he should do in so pressing a necessity. But this unhappy Prince, that had used Samuel so unworthily in his life, and driven away as fare as he could all honest men from his counsels, for to let lose the reins of his fury, sought after the dead in vain, having trod under feet the admonitions of the living.  
I have declared in the Maxim concerning the Immortality of the soul, the whole discourse about his consulting with the Witch at Endor, and it is not my purpose here to trouble again my Reader with the rehearsal of those things. We may only note, that the soul of Samuel, having appeared before that the Sorceress could employ the charms of her profession, rebuked Saul for having disquieted it, and foretold him the routing of his Army, his Death, with that of his Children, at which he was so affrighted, that he fell down in a swound, having eaten nothing all that day. Whereat the Sorceress having pity, and having prepared somewhat to eat, was urgent with him to take some little refreshment, which he did, and condescended to her entreaties, and those of his servants.  
After he went from her table, he marched all night, 
He marches against the Philistims in battle and is overthrown.  that he might come to the Army, whether it were that he did not firmly believe that his last mishap, or whether he would willingly sacrifice himself, without any contrarying Gods appointment. The next morning he perceived the Army of the Philistims wonderfully increased, and with full resolution to fight, and on the contrary the Israelites exceedingly weakened and which seemed already to carry the picture of their disaster printed in their faces. The enemies gave the onset with very great violence, and overthrew the vanguard, in which Jonathan was with his two brethren, all which sealed the last proofs of their valour with their blood and death. The miserable father saw carried away before he died, all that might have obliged him to live; and presently perceived that the whole body of the Army of the Philistims was fallen upon him, and yet for all that he had no desire to retire, not willing to over-live those his misfortunes. He was ill handled by those of the forlorn hope, which ceased not to let fly their arrows very thick upon the Troops where he was, and which fell with such violence and multitude, that they seemed to imitate the hail in a great tempest, which furiously beats down the hopes of a poor husbandman. He saw his bravest Captains die before his eyes, which sacrificed themselves with despair of better fortune, and although he were wounded with many wounds, and that he had lost almost all his blood, yet he stoutly upheld 
The end of Saul.  himself, desiring nothing so much as to die in the bed of honour. But as forces failed him, and the violence of his adversaries redoubled, fearing lest they had a purpose to take him alive, he commanded his Target-bearer to make an end of him, and to give him his deaths-blow, before he should fall into the hands of the Philistims. The other excused himself wisely, saying, That he would never undertake that against his Majesty, and upon so sacred a person, and that one ought to expect the destiny and not to prevent it. Then Saul seeing that he could not die so soon as he desired, neither by the hands of his friends nor of his enemies, suffered himself to fall upon his sword, and made it enter into him, vomiting forth both his soul and blood, with ragings and griefs unspeakable. The Philistims having found his body amongst the dead corpse, took off his armour, and cut off his head, which they carried through the towns of Palestina, for a pitiful spectacle, making many thanksgivings in the Temple of their Idol for this victory. And not content herewith, they took the body of the King, with those of his three children, and hung them upon the walls of Bethshan, where they were seen, until the time, that certain valiant men of his party took them away by night, and gave them burial. Such was the end of this unhappy Prince, whom impiety, disobedience, love of himself, and the jealousy of State accompanied with his ordinary ragings, threw headlong into a gulf of calamities.  
At the same time that this unhappy battle was 
David receives the news thereof.  fought, David was pursuing the Amalekites, which in his absence had sacked the town of Ziklag, which was the place of his retireing that Achish the King of the Philistims had bestowed upon him. He was so happy that he overtook those robbers loaden with their prey, and took out of their hands his two wives Ahinoam and Abigail, whom they had taken away. As he came from this battle, a young Amalekite presents himself, and brings him the news of the death of Saul, of Jonathan, and of his other sons, affirming that he himself had stood by at the death of the King, and had helped him to die, by order which he had received from him, cutting off the thread of his life, and delivering him from those deadly pains that caused him to languish: and for a proof hereof he shown him his Crown and his bracelet, which he presented to David, hoping for a great reward from him.  
But this virtuous and wise Prince, aswell for conscience sake, as his reputation, took great heed of receiving or manifesting any joy at this accident, but on the contrary, being moved with extreme grief, he tore his garments, and put all his court in mourning, he wept, he fasted, he made funeral Orations for the honour of Saul and Jonathan, and set forth lamentations which caused as great esteem of his virtue, as they moved pity to his country. Not content herewith, he caused the Amalekite that brought him the news of the death of Saul, to die by Justice, which he himself had helped to confirm (according as he had avouched) by obedience and by compassion, not enduring that he should lay hands upon a King, for to take away his life from him, by any pretence whatsoever that he could allege.  
It seemed that after the death of this unhappy Prince, David should forthwith have taken possession of all his estates, but wisdom hindered him from proceeding herein so hastily: They knew that he had not assisted at the the battle for to help his people, that he had retired himself into the hands of the capital enemies of Israel, and many might very justly think, that he had born arms for Achish, which might diminish much the great opinion that they had of his virtue. Further also, although that Saul was not so much loved in his life-time, yet his death might very well have defaced that blemish of hatred that many had conceived against him. They considered that he had sacrificed himself with his three sons for the public safety, and had spared nothing for his country. They had pity on the evil usage that the Philistims had done unto his body; his former good actions in time past, the dignity of a King, his laborious life, and tragical death, did quell all the envy that any could have at his fortunes.  
Hence it was that Abner his chief Captain, who was a man sufficiently upright, would not lose any time, but seeing there remained yet a son of Saul named Ishbosheth, aged forty years, although he was but of little courage, and as little understanding, he made him presently to come into the Camp, and caused him to be declared the true and lawful successor of the estates of Saul, not so much for the esteem that he had of his sufficiency, or for the love that he bore him, as intending to reign by him, and over him. All the people gave unto him the oath of Allegiance, except the kindred of Juda, from which David was sprung, which gathered together in favour of him, and crowned him King in Hebron, where he reigned about seven years, before he possessed the whole power of the Empire.  
The Kingdom of Judah was then one body with 
The kingdom divided by the ambition of the favourites.  two heads, the house of Saul and David clashing against each other, not so much by the inclination of the Masters, as by the ambition of the Favourites and Servants which would reign at their costs.  
Abner was high and courageous; Joab also the 
Joab and Abner do seek for the government  chief Captain of David, stern and violent, which would gain the favour of his Master by devouring him, in the which he did not succeed well, for that the spirit of David was not so feeble as to comply with such behaviour; and it was nothing but necessity which caused him to pass by many things.  
These two chief Captains full of jealousy the one 
Their combat.  over the other, meeting together at the Fishpond of Gibeon with the chief of the Nobility, Abner began first and demanded a combat under pretence of play; unto whom Joab which had no need of a spur, easily consented. Presently one might see the young men of each side nimbly to bestir themselves, whose fingers did itch to be at it, and did not fail quickly to surprise one another. The sport growing hot by little and little came to a full combat, and at last to a battle where many remained upon the place.  
Joabs' party was the stronger, and that for twenty which he lost, he killed three hundred and sixty of Abners men who was constrained to retire himself.  
But Azael the brother of Joab a nimble runner followed 
The death of Azael by his rashness.  him lively with his sword at every turn ready to wound him, the other which had no desire to slay him, being not ignorant that if it should come to that, it would prove the seed of an irreconcilable enmity between him and Joab his brother, prayed him twice to departed from him, and to content himself with the spoil of some other, without being ambitious of his. Azael would not hearken unto him, but desired to make himself famous by getting the better of the Captain of the Army. At last he seeing him insolent unto that extremity, turned back and struck him through with his Lance. Joab and Abishai his two brethren incensed with that his slaughter, followed Abner with all their force, who saved himself upon a hill, where a great squadron of the family of Banjamin encompassed him, and cried with a loud voice unto Joab, saying, shall the sword devour for ever? and would he make of a sport so deadly a tragedy, as if he were ignorant that it was dangerous to drive them to despair? Joab caused a retreat to be sounded, making a show to do that for courtesy, which he agreed to for necessity.  
Abner laying aside his warlike humour, fell in love 
The disagreeing of Abner and Ishbosheth.  with a Concubine of Saul named Rispah, which was a woman well bred and of good courage. Ishbosheth was offended thereat, for that he had done this without telling him of it. But Abner for one poor word spoken to in a very mild manner, entered into a rage against 
The insolence of Abner.  his King, and said that it was to use him like a dog, to quarrel with him for a woman, after so great services as he had done for the Crown, reproaching his Master, for that he held both his life and his Kingdom of him. But seeing that he used him in this manner, he would take a course with him, and would translate the government from the house of Saul to that of David. 
Master's should not give too much authority to their subjects.   
The poor Prince held his peace, and durst not answer one word only to this bold fellow, which was a pitiful thing to see him thus devoured by his own servant. The houses of Great ones are very often filled with such servants, who having been honoured with an especial confidence of their Master in the administration of their affairs, whether they be their Receivers or Stewards of their families, take upon them authority, and not contenting themselves to govern the goods, enter upon the right of their Lords, leaving them nothing, but a name and shadow of the Power, which is due unto them.  
Abner grew so hot with anger, that he dispatched 
He treateth with David  his Messengers to David to desire his friendship, and promiseth him to bring the whole Kingdom of Ishbosheth into his hands. David answered, that he was content to make peace with him, so that he would cause his wife Michol to be restored him, whom they had married to another after his departure, which was readily agreed to for him, for they took her away from the hands of her husband that followed her weeping; this woman with her lofty spirit had some pleasing behaviour, wherewith David's affection was taken.  
In the mean while Abner powerfully solicits the people of Israel to betake themselves on David's side, showing them that God had committed their safety and rest into his hands, and that it was he which should unite together all the families under his obedience, for to compose a Monarchy, which should become happy to his people, helpful to his friends, and terrible to his enemies. This discourse did very much shake the principal ones of the Nation, which were not ignorant of the small hopes that were in the person of Ishbosheth, which was disparaged both by nature and fortune. This stout Captain following the business, came to meet with David in Hebron, who made him a feast, harkened unto his propositions, and conducted him back with honour.  
Joab who was at that time absent, at his return quickly understood of the coming of Abner, whereat 
Joabs' Jealousy over Abner.  he entered into a furious jealousy, fearing lest David should be of the humour of those, which delight more in making of friends, then keeping of those that are made, and that the friendship of a man which seemed to draw a whole Kingdom after him, might much prejudice his fortunes. He enters roughly into his King's chamber, telling him that this was but a deceiver, which came but to spy out his secrets, and to do him some ill turn, that he should lay hold of him, seeing he was come under his power. And for that David answered him nothing, seeing him in a hot anger, he went out furiously, and without authority sent a message to the chief Captain Abner, to entreat him to return to Hebron, under colour of treating more fully with David. 
The death of Abner.  He lightly believed it, and came back the same way, when as Joab that lay in wait for him, took him treasonably and killed him at the gate of the city.  
David was indeed very much perplexed hereat, and 
David tolerates Joab in his fault upon necessity.  uttered grievous curses against Joab, and his whole race: nevertheless, as the wisest did judge, that there was a great interest in this death, and that his chief Captain had become the executor thereof, this made some to think, that there was some design, and though that suspicion was false, David did all that he could to deface the blemish thereof, assisting at the funerals of Abner, very near to the corpse, protesting against the cruelty of those that had taken his life from him, and highly setting forth the praises of the dead: yet he caused not process to be made against Joab, conceiving that he was not able to destroy him, in such a time, when it was dangerous to provoke him. Nevertheless, he kept the resolution to punish him even to his death, but Joab contemned all upon the confidence that he had that none could go beyond him, and measured his own greatness by the impunity of his great offences.  
It is hard to excuse David upon this treaty that he 
David cannot be excused upon the treaty made with Abner, if one have not recourse to the secret and overruling will of God.  projected with Abner, traitor to his Master, if one have not recourse to the secret and overruling will of God, or to the right that he pretended to have to the Crown, in consideration of his first anointment made by Samuel. He knew that the Edicts of his royal dignity were written in heaven, and for this cause, without endeavouring by any criminal way, he expected the work of Providence, and applied himself to the events, for without any thought of his, Ishbosheth King of Israel was slain by two murderers Rechab and Baana, which killed him as he slept upon his bed at noonday, and brought his head to him, at which this great King was so highly incensed, abhorring this barbarous act, that he condemned them presently to death, and after he had caused their heads and feet to be cut off, he made them to be hanged at the fishpond of Hebron. 
David absolute by the death of Ishbosheth son of Saul.   
The death of Ishbosheth the son of Saul, ended the difference which was between the two Royal houses, and the other families yielded themselves to David, by an universal consentment. It was then that he began to reign absolutely, and to make to appear, as in a glorious light, the admirable qualities, and Royal virtues, wherewith he was adorned. And it is certain, that of all the Kings of Juda, there was none hath equalled him in all kind of perfections. He was one that feared God without superstition, religious without hypocrisy, valiant without any sternness, liberal without reproaching it to any one, a good husband without covetousness, 
The Royal qualities of David.  stout without insolency, vigilant without unquietness, wise without subtlety, courteous without looseness, humble without cowardliness, cheerful without too much familiarity, grave without fierceness, and kind without any compliments.  
He united all those things together which ordinarily 
His zeal to religion.  make Princes great, and proved in each of them so advantageous, as if he had been endowed with that only quality. Above all, he shown himself all his life very zealous for religion, and wonderfully affected towards divine things. He removeth the Ark of the Covenant with great and stately Ceremonies, he prepared infinite treasure to build the House of God, he composeth Hymns for his people, which have astonished all ages, and which serve for perpetual springs of devotion in the Church. He ordained the Quyres of Music and singers, which have prescribed the law of praises in consort for all Nations. He perfectly honoured the Prophets and Priests, maintaining a very great intelligence with and amongst them.  
All these exercises no ways diminished in him actions 
His valour and his wars  of valour, he overthrew the Philistims in two great battles: he made war on every side; in the East against the Moabites and Ammonites; in the West against the Phoenicians; on the South against the Amalekites, the Arabians, and Idumeans; in the North against the Syrians, the Sabeans and Mesopotamians, and was happy in all his enterprises. Besides this he made leagues with the Kings his neighbours for the benefit of commerce; gaining them all either by friendship or subduing them by force.  
He rendered Justice exactly to his Subjects, he favoured 
His justice and good husbandry.  Arts, he enriched and fortified the Towns, he made himself flatly Palaces, and drew the Kingdom of Juda out of servility, which had not yet known what magnificence was, he was honoured by the great ones, beloved by the Priests, admired by the wisest, and as it were adored by all his people.  
But as all light in mortal things hath its shadow; 
His vices. The love of Bathsheba.  God suffered him to fall into a great offence, which served to humble him, and caused very much trouble in his house. His mind being loosed from the cares of war, and businesses, had too much inclination to the flesh, more than it used. He was sleeping upon his bed, and 
The love Bathsheba.  being awaked in the afternoon, he walked on the top of his house upon the covering made in platform, and delighted in the fair prospects that he had from his Palace, from whence he descried a woman that bathed herself in her garden, he enquired of her name, her kindred, and her qualities, and became in love thereby, sends for her to his house, and had company with her.  
How dear did this unhappy cast of his eye cost him! and, how many damned are there, that shall one day bewail with eyes of fire the concupiscence of their fleshly eyes! This Fountain where Bathsheba washed herself ran with flames and poison, which entering by the senses of a Prophet empoisoned his heart, blinded his reason, infected his thoughts, and overthrew his whole soul. This Creature was neither Bear, nor Lion, nor Goliath, nor Philistim, and yet she overthrew in a moment, him that made but a sport of Bears, which conquered Lions, subdued Goliahs, and marched over the heads of Philistims. All conspired unto the mishap of poor David, the season, the hour, the sleep, the solitariness, the prospect, the object, a woman very fair, and smoothly composed: for it seemed that this unlucky one did lie in ambush, and made it her glory to triumph over a Saint, and one of the valiantest men that was at that time upon the earth. Perhaps she would only have given an occasion of love, but not have taken; had she been like the Sun, that scorches all here below, and yet remains untouched in the midst of his flames. When one doth more than he ought in this blind passion, he goes further than he thought.  
It is a great temptation to a woman to be beloved of a King. Cleophis by this means gained a Kingdom 
Paulus Orosius. l. 3. Concubitu regnum ab Alexandro redemit.  in a night. Bathsheba looked more upon the greatness, than the pleasure. When love and ambition blow at the same time in the head of a woman, she hath two great Devils to fight with. She might honestly have refused this visit, she might have deferred it, have gained time, and turned aside the occasion. There is no need sometimes but of a spider's web, to beat back the darts of love, that at other times the Ramparts of Semiramis are not strong enough against it. But she was ready to sell, and to yield, that had already laid aside her honour, with her attire. She failed not speedily to send news to David that she had conceived, and that her husband having not seen her, might very easily conceive that that was none of his doing.  
The honour of this lost creature must now have a 
The death of Utiah.  cover: the King sends for her husband, under some other pretence, he comes from the Army, he is very kindly entertained, they are earnest with him to go take his ease at his house, and to go to see his wife: But the good man refuseth it, saying that it was not fitting for him to lie in a bed, when the Ark of God, and his Captain Joab were under Tents. He lies upon the ground before the door of David's chamber, and so passeth the night, having no other desire then to return speedily to the army.  
Alas poor Vriah! a harmless sacrifice, thou wast 
The blindness of David.  but too faithful to faithlessnesse, and therefore thou must water with thy blood the loves of thy master! David takes the pen, and love dictates to him a bloody letter, by which he sends to Joab, that he should place Vriah amongst the forlom-hope, that they might so fairly be rid of him, for such was his pleasure. Vriah carrieth this deadly packet, Joab without enquiring any further, obeys, the innocent is massacred, and the false liberty of these two lovers thinks it is now in surety enough. David remains nine months covered with this filth, and this blood, without coming to the knowledge of himself, until that Nathan takes away the veil that thus blinded him.  
Truth is one of the excellentest commodities that is 
The carriage of truth costs dear at the court  in all nature, but the carriage thereof costs dear, which makes that many will not take it up to bear, especially when there is any question about carrying it into a King's Palace: one saith that it is not yet time; another, that it will not be useful; others, that it is of no great force obliging. One will daub over businesses, another seems to make a conscience, one studies for reasons, where little is to be found, for to please the humours of great ones, but there is danger, that those that would preserve themselves by fair-speaking, do not ruin themselves by flattery.  
The Prophet Nathan showeth himself courageous in this point, for although he was not ignorant, that it was a thing dangerous enough to speak freely to a King, and to a lover, of that which he least did love to hear: yet he resolved to show David his sin, and took a very right course therein, preventing him with a Parable of a rich man having great store of sheep, that had violently taken one only Ewe from a poor man, which David finding very strange, judged him worthy to die.  
The other hits him home, and tells him that it was himself, that had caused poor Vriah to be slain, after he had taken his Bathsheba from him. He brought to his memory the good things that he had received from the Divine Bounty, even from his infancy, and how by this action he had ill rewarded them, with so great ingratitude. Whereupon he declared to him the mischances that should happen to him, to his house and posterity. David awaking, as it were, out of a dead sleep, acknowledged his sin, with a true humility, and submitted himself to all the chastisements which it would please that great Judge to draw forth for his unfaithfulness.  
He entered at that very present into great grief for the 
David's repentance.  fault committed, not so much for the punishment that he should receive therefore, as for the love of his so good master, accounting it the greatest punishment of sins, to have offended. He was presently changed into another man, he was no more that amorous David, but a Penitent exceedingly humbled, a heart bleeding, eyes weeping; a sad and disfigured face, a body made thin, sigh redoubled one upon another, joints pined away with fastings and austereness, a continual avoiding of all Society, of the light and day which reproached him with his offence, and a fixed love of solitariness and tears: His Harp hanging up knew no more what songs of Triumphs meant, and was wholly employed in expressing his griefs. This heart dying to all mortal things of the earth, was upon the coasts of the sea of Repentance, which he made to echo with his groan, and swell continually with his weep: whereby he fell into a great sickness, and God beginning the punishments of a sin pardoned, caused the child conceived in adultery to die, and suffered him not to bring up any young one of Bathsheba, before he had espoused her by lawful marriage.  
A year after, those pitiful Tragedies of his house 
Punishment upon the house of David.  began, which covered it with horror, and filled his heart with terrors. Amnon the eldest son of David fell in love with his sister Thamar, a very fair Princess, and which was of the mother's side as well as of the fathers, of the blood Royal. The more hindrances that he saw in that his love,, both by his quality, and virginity, and kindred, and the inclination of the maid, the more was his concupiscence inflamed. This kind of passion ordinarily covets that which it should least of all desire, and that which it can least bring to pass. This was a subtle poison breathed forth by the contagion of the father's example, which had possessed the brains of this miserable one. His burning lust was▪ His that which tormented him most. The King his Father goes to see him, to take order for his health. There is but one medicine, saith he, that could heal him, which is, that his sister Thamar, who hath the skill of making excellent broth, may prepare some with her own hand, for to cause him to have an appetite. This is very readily granted to him. The poor maid which suspected nothing is ready to give him content, for the better recovery of his person, he causes all others to avoid the place, and prays her to stay in the chamber for to give him to eat, but without any other counterfeits he takes away the Mask, and declares to her his detestable passion, at which Thamar, who was a Maid of Honour conceived as great horror as could be, alleging unto him, that this was a deed unheard of amongst the people of God.  
But this barbarous one proceeded on to force her, and deflowered her body, without getting the consent of her mind. The passion was no sooner evaporated, but that he entered into as furious a repentance, not enduring to behold her with his eyes, which caused him to remember his heinous crime. He drives her out of his house with reproach, where she would have left her life with her honour: her mourning attire, and head covered with ashes, testified the funeral of her virginity.  
At last she cast herself under the protection of her brother Absalon, who was born of the same mother, and rehearsed to him the disaster that had happened unto her. Her brother comforts her, and enjoins her silence, having in the mean while no vein in his body that did not swell to revenge this dishonour. The report thereof came to the knowledge of the father, who remembering his own offence, durst not censure that of his son, besides that he loved him with too tender an indulgency, and feared to grieve him, the which made him seem to wink at all that had passed, wherein he cannot be excused from having committed a great fault, which proceeded from a vicious mildness.  
Absalon seeing that David said nothing, continued in great dissimulation, never complaining of Amnon, but resolved to do himself justice with his own hands. And having kept two years his design fast locked up in his breast, to avoid all suspicion thereof, he prepares a Royal Feast, to which he invites the King his Father, and all his brethren: David excuses himself, and the other earnestly entreats that his eldest brother Amnon, might supply his place, unto which the father consents.  
The brethren enter joyfully into the Hall where the Banquet was, where the Furies had prepared a bloody spectacle, and horrible sacrifice. Absalon gives the word to his servants to take the time, wherein his brother Amnon had already drank plentifully, and to kill him in the middle of the Feast, without any fail, saying that it was sufficient, that it was he which had so appointed it, and that he would provide for their safety. The Wine, the good Cheer, and heat, did let lose their tongues to merriment, when as Swords drawn out of the Scabbards glittered before the eyes of the Guests: fear came upon all, but the danger was only to Amnon, who was suddenly massacred, his blood leaping on his brother's table for a just revenge of his shameful lust.  
The brethren affrighted get up upon their Mules, and get to the Town, the report mixing false with true, brings sad news to David, and gives him to understand that Absalon had slain all his brethren. The poor King casts himself on his face upon the ground weeping, and all the Court tear their clothes, and put on mourning. Jonadab in the mean while certifies, that there was none but Amnon that remained upon the place, in revenge of the offence committed against Thamar. David returns a little to himself, and his other children present themselves before him, affrighted and weeping for that which had passed. Absalon 
Absalon out of favour.  saves himself in the house of his Grandfather by the mother the King of Gesher, where he remains three years, without daring to see the King his father, who would not ways pardon that his enterprise.  
Joab labours very advisedly to reconcile the son to 
His reconciliation by the means of Joab.  the father, by the mediation of a very discreet woman of Tecoah, which came with a counterfeit pretence, and complained to the King, that she being mother of two sons, the one in a hot quarrel had slain his brother, and that they would constrain her to deliver up the other to justice, that process might be maid against him, to the end to extinguish all her race. And therefore she entreated his Majesty to be gracious to save her son that remained, and not wholly to deprive her of all comfort in the world. The which David having agreed to, she declared to him, that he ought to practise the same towards his own son, which he would have done for one of his subjects: that we were all mortal and that we pass away here below as the current of a stream, that we should imitate the goodness of God, which loves our souls, and would not that they should perish.  
As this woman spoke with so much discretion, David was in doubt that Joab had instructed her, and made her underhand to act this fine play, the which she affirmed, and so much gained the heart of David, that he gave full permission to Joab, to fetch back the banished to his house, although it was for the space of two years without seeing him. Absalon grew so melancholic, by his being so far from the court, without seeing the king his father, that having oftentimes sent to Joab to put an end to his business, seeing that he would not come to him for friendship, he caused his corn to be set on fire, to make him come for anger, for the which he excused himself, and entreated him to ask of David in his behalf, either that he might die, or that he might have leave to see him.  
This good father could no longer dissemble the movings 
Absalon's revolt.  of nature, but having sent for him, he embraced him, and gave the kiss of peace, and re-establishes him in the court. The spirit of this Prince was lofty, tempestuous, movable, which could not contain itself any longer within the bounds of obedience. For the space of the five years of his removal from the court he had leisure enough to by't the bridle, and as it is credible, he had projected already the design of reigning, his ambition seemed to him sufficiently well founded: Amnon his eldest brother was dead, Celeab the son of Abigail the second of his brethren made no great noise, he saw himself underpropt on his mother's side, by the King of Gesher his grandfather: This was a Prince well made, upright, pleasing, courteous, liberal, secret, courageous, and capable of great undertake. He saw his father upon the declining of his age who had lost very much of that vigour testified so many times in his battles. Adonija was too much a fondling, and Solomon yet a child and not able to 
His designs.  oppose him. He conceived that the Empire could not slip out of his hands: And indeed there was great hopes for him, if he had had so much patience to stay for it, as desire to command.  
He made too soon to appear what was in his mind, causing himself to be encompassed when he marched forth with soldiers, and a guard, which was a sign of Royalty. Further also he ceased not to gain the hearts, and secretly to get the good will of all his father's subjects. He was up betimes in the morning, and set himself at the entrance of the Palace to take 
His ambition.  notice of all those that had any business to propound to the King. One never saw Prince more prodigal in courtesies, he called them to him, he embraced them, he kissed them, he enquired of their country, of their condition, of their suit, and of that their negotiation. He did justice to all the world, and said that there was no other mishap, but that the King was old and tired with businesses, and had not a man to hear the complaints of his subjects, and to render them justice, and that if one day he had the charge which his birth deserved, he would give full satisfaction to every one.  
By this means he made himself conqueror of hearts, and traced out great intelligence throughout the Provinces, guiding himself by the counsels of Achitophel, who was the most refined spirit, the best dissembler, and most pernicious that was in the whole Kingdom: David did not sufficiently watch over the actions of his son, and the secret workings of this evil Counsellor, the evil increased, and their party was already framed, Absalon asketh leave of the King his father to go to Hebron under pretence of performing a vow, but with an intent to proclaim himself King. That which he desired was granted to him, he marches under this coverture with a train and splendour, carrying many people with him, and Sacrifices to offer. He gives order in the mean while to all his confederates, that at the first sound of the Trumpet, they should march forth into the field to go to meet him, and to bring him all the Troops that they could gather together.  
All this was readily performed, and without further 
Absalon caused himself to be proclaimed King.  dissimulation he declared himself, and caused himself to be crowned in Hebron: the news came quickly to David, which brought him word that his son Absalon was revolted against him, and had got possession of Hebron, and that all the forces of the Kingdom run to him.  
Here one may see a great example of the judgement 
A great example of the weakness of man's spirit when it is left by God.  of God, of the weakness of a man left to himself, as also, the beams of an high and profound humility. To speak according to man, all that David did in this encounter of affairs, was low and feeble. He might have taken the field with the Regiments which he had, which amounted at least to six or seven thousand men, and have unwoven this web of conspiracy, at its springing forth. And if he had not perceived himself strong enough, he had sufficient means to maintain himself in Jerusalem, to entrench and fortify himself there, and to tire out those spirits of his Rebels. He might have entertained him with good hopes, promises, and treaties, and have cooled this first heat, by rallying by little and little the affections of his subjects to his own party. And if he had conceived his affairs to be in ill plight, he should have been the last that had taken notice of it, after the manner of those great Captains which carry hope in their faces, even then when they have despair in their heart, to keep together their Troops in their duty.  
But this poor Prince at the news of this rebellion, talked of nothing but flying, and leaving his chief City, and saving himself in the by-paths of the wildernesses: he is the first that goes forth without a horse to ride on, on his bare feet, his head uncovered, with tears in his eyes, affrighting all the world, and left ten Concubines to keep his palace, which was very ill advice according to the world, for what could these women do being forsaken by men, and strength, but only to prostitute themselves to the soldiers, and yield up all the honour they had left, as a prey to them?  
Further also he sent back the Ark of the Covenant 
Whence this small courage came, when David proceeded.  which Zadock and Abiathar had brought into his camp, which might have put very much courage into his army, and obliged it to defend a thing so honourable and so precious to this nation. Whence do we think then that this ordering himself, in a king, to whom neither valour was wanting, nor wisdom, nor experience, but only that he saw clearly that this calamity was an ordinance of God, which had been foretold by the Prophet Nathan? and in pursuit whereof, this virtuous Prince had no other thought then to suffer the work of providence, and to submit his whole heart, in the full extension thereof, to the chastisement of his judge, and to kiss the rods which beat him. He marched like a Penitent and not like a Captain, he adored the judgements of God upon him, he enlarged his pains going a foot, and that barefoot, to exalt the justice of his sovereign Master: He esteemed himself unworthy to look upon the Ark of the Covenant, and used himself with all kind of rigour, to honour the design of Heaven for his abasement. This is the cause that he endured all, and complains of nothing, bearing with a deep patience, the enraged tongue of Shemei, who seeing him in this estate, 
The patience of David towards Shemei.  in which the most barbarous would have pitied him, persecuted him with bloody injuries, and went about to have stoned him: Abishai offered himself to have cut him in pieces at the present, but David sharply reproved him for it, and would that they should suffer him to exercise his rage at his pleasure, not being ignorant that all which happened to him was designed from above. He contented himself with saying, If God will be merciful to me, he will call me back, and make me to see again his Ark and his Tabernacle; But if he cause me to know that I am not sitting any more to please him, nor to serve in the estate of a King, I am ready to obey all his pleasure, seeing it belongs to him to do whatsoever he will with me. These words alone were 
His great humility and humble words.  more worth than all crowns, and brought him again into the favour of God, by bearing that his affliction with so great humility.  
In the mean while Absalon entered into Jerusalem 
The pernicious counsel of Achitophel.  without resistance, with his pestilent Council of State, Achitophel, which, the surer to engage him in the war, and an irreconcilable hatred against his father, gave him most detestable counsel, and which could not have been inspired but from the blackest of the bottomless pits; he persuades him to abuse all the concubines that his father had left in the palace, the which this disloyal son would execute, most erroneously, causing a pavilion to be set up in the sight of all the people, and going publicly thereinto to accomplish all his incests. Behold the politic wisdom of this mischievous servant, whom they esteemed as a god in counsels; who is there that saw not that this action, besides that it drew upon Absalon the wrath and vengeance of God, made him odious and abominable to all his people, and to all those which had any feeling of Religion or public honesty?  
After he had begun so villainously, he assembled his 
The wisdom of Chushi the servant of David in the counsel of Absalon.  counsel, for to give order for the affairs of the war. Achitophel counselled him to take twelve thousand men of the best exercised, to pursue his father the same night, and to take him in that disorder and weariness, and to make him away, assuring him, that if that one man alone were down, all the kingdom would be for him. In this private council there was by good chance one wise man named Chushi a secret friend of David, and his confident, which was come to join himself in appearance to Absalon's party, closely to countrepoise the counsels and authority of Achitophel. He saw well that if God had permitted the execution of this first advice, that David had been lost without any recovery: this was the reason, that after he had insinuated himself into the heart and friendship of Absalon, testifying that from henceforth he would serve him with the same fidelity that he had done to his predecessor; he declared unto him, That they should do nothing hastily, for, that his father was an old Captain which knew all policy in war, and that he had still in his Army men full of counsel and valour, that he should not rouse up the Bear in her wood after he had rob her of her young ones, and that despair is a valiant piece in war, that it stood not with his honour to give battle, unless he were assured of the victory, for that, If at his first encounter he should have the worst, yet disadvantage would be of dangerous consequence, able to abate the courages, and put the whole Army to a rout. But if he would stay awhile, the people would gather together about him in a great number, as the sand on the Seashore, and that he being in the midst of so mighty an Army might overthrow the Cedars, and pull up Towns by the roots, without any body being able to resist him.  
This Counsel was relished and preferred before the first, whereat Achitophel entered into such a rage, that he suddenly went forth of the chamber, and retired himself to his house, where, after he had disposed of the estate of his family-affairs, he took unto himself an unlucky cord and strangled himself, by the most manifest justice of God.  
After which, Absalon seeing himself sufficiently well accompanied, passes over Jordan, takes Amasa for his chief Captain, and intends to give battle to his father. David which had had a little leisure to recollect and fortify himself, takes courage again, divides his Army into three parts, names Lieutenants and Captains, and appoints three for Chief, Joab, Abishai, and Ittai. He would also have been himself in the encounter, but his Counsel beseeched him to retire, which he did after he had encouraged his people to do their duty well: but above all, that in case they should gain the Victory, that they should guard his son Absalon without doing him any hurt.  
This being done; the Trumpets sound, and the 
Absalon gives battle to his father, where he is overthrown and killed.  Armies approach, David's people enter into the field of the Battle, as Lions, their Master's good cause gave them such confidence. It seemed that the victory that day had taken a pledge to follow their Colours, and that it was enough if they did but show themselves to conquer. The Rebels tormented with the affrightments of their conscience, and which had not such entertainment as they were promised, first were put into disorder, after to flight, and then to a rout. It seemed that on the one part, there were men that came to kill, and on the other, sheep that came to be slain. As soon as they were mingled the one amongst the other; the sword on the one side made great Massacres, on the other, the falls and tumblings headlong carried them away, in such manner, that there remained twenty thousand upon the place.  
Absalon taken with a great astonishment, is left by all the world, and betaking himself to flight, gets 
The death of Absalon.  up upon a Mule. It happened that passing through a Forest, his head was catched, and wreathed within the branches of a Tree, insomuch that his carrier having left him, he remained hanging between heaven and earth, where he made a very fitting amends both to the justice of God, and the goodness of his Father: Joab had notice thereof, who nevertheless although David had forbidden it, struck him through with three Darts, and when as yet he seemed to have life, ten young soldiers of the Troops of Joab ran to make an end of him; he feared so much that if he should return into favour and authority, lest he should take vengeance upon him, because he would not follow his party. The body was interred in a pit under a great heap of stones, for to convince the vanity of him which had caused a stately monument to be built for himself, which he called Absalon's hand. Behold an horrible end of an evil son and a rebellious subject, which is sufficient to make posterity afraid throughout the revolution of all ages.  
While all this was doing, David enclosed in a little Town, expected the event of the battle, and when as the Posts brought him the news of the Victory, he shown not so much rejoicing as fear: ask every moment, in what estate his son Absalon was, which caused that divers durst not bring him the news of his death, seeing the trouble of his mind. At last Cushi uttered the word, and said, That they should desire Absolon's end to all the King's enemies. He understood well what he would say, and was pierced with so violent a grief, that he could not be comforted, losing all courage, and crying every moment, Absalon my son, my son Absalon, Oh that this favour had been done for me, that I might have died for thee! Every one cast down his eyes for pity, and the whole victory was turned into sorrow, the Palms and Laurels were changed into Cypress.  
Joab always bold and insolent towards his Master, 
Joabs' insolency.  instead of receiving reproaches for his fault, casts them upon David, and thinks that the means to justify himself, was to speak the more stoutly. He enters into the Chamber of his King, and reproves him sharply, saying to him That he would put to confusion all his good servants that had that day saved his life, his house, and all his estate: That he was of a strange nature, and seemed to have been made for nothing but to hate those that loved him, and to love those that hated him: That it was very clear, that he bore no good affection to his Captains, and good Soldiers, and if they all had perished to save the life of one rebellious son, he would have been very well satisfied. Further, he swore to him by the living God, that if he did not rise and go forth to see and entertain those that returned from the battle, that there should not remain one man only with him before the morning, which would prove a greater displeasure to him, than ever he received in all his life. He pressed him so vehemently, that the King without daring to answer him one word, risen up, and did all that he would have him.  
This great grief diminished by little and little, and the rejoicings of those that came on every side to carry him back to Jerusalem in Triumph gave him no leisure to think upon his loss. He endeavoured to draw to him again all those that had separated themselves, pardoning all the world with an unspeakable meekness, being ready even to give Joabs' place to 
David's mildness very great.  Amasa that was chief Captain for Absalon.  
But Joab quickly hindered this, and killed with his own hand him that they had purposed for his successor. After that he began to pursue one Sheba a Captain of the Rebels, who was retired into Abela, with some remainder of the mutinous, and as he was about to besiege it, and destroy the City for to take him, a woman, of discretion and great in credit amongst her people, which had made composition with Joab, caused him to be slain, and threw his head over the walls, to put an end to this whole bloody war.  
After this re-establishment of his Estate, David 
The last acts of David's life.  reigned about eleven years in full peace in continual exercises of Piety, of Devotion, of Justice, and caused a general Assembly of the States of his Realm, where he made his son Solomon which he had chosen to be confirmed, and encouraged him to build that great Temple, which should be the marvel of the World, whereof he shown him the platform, the beautifying and the orders, in the Idea.  
Two things do a little astonish those which do seek an exact sanctity in this Prince: the first, that he died having unto the last hour a maid of rare beauty by him; and the other, that he recommended to his son Solomon punishments and deaths by his Testament.  
But there are that answer to those that may be offended with these actions: That God hath permitted this to make us the better to relish and admire the perfections of his Evangelicall law, whereof the Word Incarnate was made the Lawgiver, and bringet, above all the excellencies of the presents and virtues of the Mosaical law. And that one ought not to expect from David the chastity of a Saint Lewis, nor of a Casimire, but that one ought to measure things according to the manner of the time, according to the law and custom. Nevertheless I should rather say, that the plurality of women was not an offence, seeing that it was approved of God, so that it caused not a weakening of the vigour of the spirits, and mortifying their divine functions by too much commerce with the flesh. David sinned not in causing the Shunamite to lie besides him, seeing that she was in the place of a spouse, and approached unto him not for the pleasure which his great age had totally extinguished, but for the entertainment of his Royal person. Lastly, there are other actions that do set forth his virtue, besides this which is more worthy of excuse then blame.  
And forasmuch as he ordained by his testament, the death of Joab and of Shimei, this doth something trouble those spirits which have an inclination to mildness; they say that Joab was his kinsman, his faithful servant, the best of his Captains, the chief Commander that had followed him from his youth, accompanied him through infinite dangers, and upheld the Crown a thousand times shaking upon his head. He never meddled in the factions that were raised against the King, he was always the first that dissipated them by the vigour of his spirit, resolution, counsel, of his Arms, and of his Sword. If he slew Abner, it was in revenge of his Brother which the other had slain. If he stabbed Amasa, it was the chief Captain of the Rebel Absalon, whom they would have put in his place, for to lay then great faults of the State upon him. If he spoke freely to David, it was always for his good, and for his glory; in the mean time at his Death he recommended him to be punished, after that in effect he had pardoned him all his life.  
But to all this I say, that the last actions of so great a King, are more worthy of honour than censure. The punishment of Joab proceeded, not from a Passion, but from a Justice inspired by God, which would satisfy the voice of blood, the which cried still against the murders committed by this Captain. Further also there was a secret of State, as saith Theodoret, which is, that this Joab showed himself against the re-election of Solomon, and was ready to trouble the peace of the Realm.  
And as concerning Shimei to whom he had sworn that he would not cause him to die, he kept his promise to him faithfully, abstaining from doing him any evil while he lived, although he was in absolute power for to hurt him, but as his oath was personal, he would not extend it upon his son, and tie his hands, contenting himself to recommend unto him that he should do justice, according as his wisdom and discretion should direct him. It is very fitting that we should think highly of this Prophet, and that we should rather search out the reason of many of his actions, from the secret inspiration of God, then from the weakness of humane judgement.  
He lived near upon threescore and twelve years, reigned forty, and died a thousand and thirty two years before the birth of our Saviour, leaving infinite treasures for the building of the Temple, and eternal monuments of his devotion and understanding. It was a special favour to him, that the Saviour would be born of his blood, and that his birth was revealed to him so many days before it was known to the world; He hath often set it down upon the title of his Psalms, and was in an ecstasy, in this contemplation, by the fore-taste of that his happiness. Men are accustomed to take their nobility, and their names from their Ancestors that go before them. But David drew it from a Son which is the Father of Glory, and Author of Eternity. The industrious hands of men have taken pains in vain, to carve him out a Tomb, Death hath no power over him, seeing that he is the Primogenitour of life. All things are great in his person; but the height of all his greatness is, that he hath given us a Jesus.   

SOLOMON.  
SOlomon was he that ordered the holiness of the Temple and yet he can hardly find place in the Holy Court. The love which gave 
Solomon's entry into the Realm full of troubles.  him the Crown by the means of his mother Bathsheba, hath taken from him his innocency. The Gentiles might have made him one of their Gods, if Women had not made him less than a man. His entrance into the Throne of his father was bloody, his Reign peaceable, his Life variable, and his End uncertain. One may observe great weaknesses at the Court at his coming to the Crown, confused designs, desperate hopes, a Prophet upright at the Court, a woman full of invention, an old Courtier overthrown, and little brotherhood where there is dispute of Royalty.  
David was upon the fading of his Age, and his Throne looked at by his Children, which expected the dissolution of their father. He had taken the authority upon him to decide this question by his commands, not willing to be ruled therein by nature, nor to prefer him whom she had first brought into the world, but him which should be appointed by God, and best fitted thereto by his favours. Bathsheba a subtle woman 
Bathsheba fitly insinuares herself and procures the Crown for her son Solomon.  that had carried him away by violence of a great affection, kept herself in her possession, and had more power over the mind of the King, than all his other associates. Amidst the kindnesses of an affectionate husband, which is not willing to deny any thing to her whom he loves; she drew this promise from David, that he would take her son Solomon to be successor in his Estates.  
This was a little miracle of Nature in his Infancy, 
Solomon's infancy pleasing.  and it seemed that all the Graces had striven together to make a work so curiously polished. His mother loved him with infinite tenderness, and his father could not look upon him without amazedness. He was married at the age of nineteen years; and David before he departed from the world, saw himself multiplied by his son in a second, which was Roboam.  
Aristotle hath observed well, that children which are married so young do seldom bring forth great men; and this observation was verified in Roboam, who caused as many confusions in his life, as he had made rejoicings at his birth. This strengthened Solomon at the beginning in his own and his mother's pretences.  
But Adonijah his brother, which immediately followed Absalon, was before him in the right of Eldership, and promised himself to have a good part of the Empire.  
The example of that unfortunate brother, which had 
Adonijah competitor of the Crown and his faction.  expired his life in the despair of his fortune, was not strong enough for to stay him, which treading (as it were) in the same steps, went on infallibly unto his last mischance. David endured too long for him, and it seems to him that the greatest kindnesses that a rich father could do for his son, when he is come to die, is to suffer himself to die.  
He had sufficiently well knitted his party together, binding himself closely to the chief Priest Abiathar, and to Joab; It seemed to him, that having on his side the Altars and Arms he was invincible.  
But in that burning desire that he had to reign, he 
The fault of Adonijah in his Counsel of State.  committed very great faults which put an end to his life by an event very tragical. He did not sufficiently consider the power of his father, who governed himself by the orders of them in the disposition of their Royalty, and saw not, that to undertake to succeed him without his good will, was to desire to climb to the top of the house without going up by the stairs. His experience might have made him weigh, what the jealousy of an old man may do; who desires the more honour and life, the nearer he sees them to their setting. His reason might have taught him to judge, what the artifices were of a woman beloved, how imperious over a husband. He thought of nothing but climbing, without endeavouring to take away the hindrances which he had about his feet.  
Other ways also he contented himself to have the favour of some without seeking that of others, which, it may be, had no great desire to set him forward, but were of a real power to hinder him. There are some which hold themselves offended, because they are not entreated, and which endeavour to hinder a business without having any other reason, but that they were not employed in it. Adonijah contented himself to have Abiathar and Joab for him, but he considered not that Nathan the Prophet, and Zadok the Priest, and Benaiah the Captain, whom he contemned, were mighty, and able to trouble his pretensions.  
Further, for fear lest he should fail in the business, he made too much haste of it, taking into his company soldiers, and a guard, in imitation of Absalon. And when as he should have kept himself, retired, and recollected within himself, he opened himself too much, and published his designs, which were like to those pearls, that instead of a good substance, had nothing but an outward rind.  
He made a great feast, to which he invited all his brethren without speaking of Solomon; he called Abiathar and Joab, without making mention of Nathan and Zadok. The one made great cheer, and created a King amongst their pots and glasses, whilst that Nathan and Zadok vented all their secrets, and countremined all their designs.  
Amongst these excessive joys of Adonijah, Nathan 
Nathan and Bathsheba's advice.  plotted together with Bathsheba, declared to her the news of the pretensions of the imaginary King; exhorted her strongly to oppose him, and shown her the means thereto. They take their counsels together, with a resolution to make the proceed of Adonijah to sound aloud in the ears of David. It is agreed that Bathsheba should enter into the chamber of the King first, and that Nathan, without understanding any thing of their conference, should wind in, as it were, upon a sudden, and as it were to strike up the business, when as she already had well proceeded in the discourse.  
All this was artificially executed, Bathsheba, with many honeyed words causeth David to remember his promise, represented to him the enterprise of his son Adonijah, and sets forth before him the pitiful handling that she with her dear son must expect, in case that the design of the Rebel should take effect.  
Nathan, an eloquent speaker comes in, as if he were amazed, and without showing that he bore any affection to any party, he laid chief hold on the authority and pleasure of the King, which he comes to understand, as the true oracle of the Realm, to conform himself thereto, and without falling into passion against Adonijah, he caused him to send his secret intelligences and carriages, avouching, that if he had undertaken that, without communicating it to him, he makes his proceed very strange.  
This was to interest David in the business in such a manner, as he failed not presently to command Nathan and Zadok, to set Solomon upon his mule, to cause his guard and his old Regiments to accompany him unto Gibeon, and there without any delay to consecrate him King, and to give the people to understand, that he had chosen him for his lawful successor.  
All this was executed with vigorousness incredible, 
Solomon is declared King.  when as a woman so ardent had taken it in hand. And while Adonijah was yet drinking with his confidents, the trumpet sounded through the town, with great outcries of joy, and unspeakable clapping of hands. He had thought that all this had been done for him, but Jonathan the son of the high Priest Abiathar put them all beside this belief, and told them with lamentation, together, for their overthrow, what that was which was done, and that Solomon was coming presently to be consecrated.  
All their hearts failed upon the news of this chance, and they separated themselves as much as they could from each other, to take away the suspicion of a conspiracy, which was but too manifest. Solomon is brought back to the Palace with strong acclamations, and all the officers and servants entering into the chamber of David, gave him a thousand benedictions for the choice that he had made, wishing to the new King all the greatness and all the prosperity of his father.  
Adonijah saw well that he was gone too fare, and fearing lest Solomon might make the first trial of his power at the cost of his life, he fled unto the ordinary refuge, taking hold of the horns of the Altar, and entreating Solomon for his life, who gave it him upon such condition, that he should keep himself within his duty, and would not spot a day so glorious for him by shedding the blood of his miserable brother. Joab and Abiathar dissembling their intelligence with Adonijah, ran to worship as well as others, him, whom willingly they would have devoured, seeing that their safety consisted at that time in hiding their intention.  
But after that David had his eyes closed up, and 
The death of David, and the bloody engrance of Solomon.  that Solomon saw himself confirmed by the general consentment of all orders; those waves of the Court, which as yet had made but little frizlings, began to raise a great tempest.  
Adonijah after he had lost a Kingdom, endeavoured 
Adonijah desired the Shunamite which completed his misfortune.  to get a woman, and goes directly to Bathsheba the Queen-mother, to uphold his request. She was not unwilling to see him, fearing that he had still retained some bitterness in his heart, upon the things that had passed: behold wherefore, she presently asked him whether he came as a friend; to which he answered, that all was quiet, but that he had one request to make to her, knowing well the credit in which she was with the King her son. The Queen having showed him a good countenance, and a free willingness to serve him, he opens the matter to her, and saith, That she was not ignorant that the Kingdom did appertain to him by the right of Eldership, but seeing that God had otherwise disposed of it, that he did willingly acquiesce, and desired nothing of the King, but that it would please his Majesty, to give him Abishag in marriage, that maid which served David his father in his old age.  
It is clear that this Prince was good, and of an easy nature, that could content himself with so small a thing, and his request was not uncivil, seeing that she was but a servant, and never the wife of his father, which had no other commerce with her, then to receive the service and assistance necessary for his health.  
Bathsheba was very glad that his ambition did here bound itself, and promised to speak to the King thereof very willingly, which she did, going expressly to visit him. Solomon went forth to meet her, made her very great reverence, received her with most courteous entertainment, and having ascended his Throne, he caused another to be set at his right hand for his mother, which said to him, That she came to make a very little request unto him, upon which it would be a displeasure to her to receive any denial.  
The son assured her, and said, That she might boldly demand, and that he was no ways intended to give her any discontent. As soon as she had opened the business, and named Abishag's name, Solomon entered 
Solomon's rigour.  into great anger, and said, she might have added thereto the Kingdom, seeing that he was his eldest brother, and that he had Joab and Abiathar on his side; and without giving any other answer, he swore, that he would make Adonijah die before it was night: whereupon, presently he gave order to Benaiah, who supplied the office of Captain of the Guard, which failed not to slay this young Prince.  
Those that think that Solomon might do this in conscience, 
He cannot well be justified for the murder of his brother.  and that one may conjecture that God had revealed it unto him, take very small reasons to excuse great crimes, and see not that whosoever would have recourse to imaginary Revelations, might justify all the most wicked actions of Princes. There is not one word alone in the Scripture, that witnesses, that after the establishment of Solomon, this poor Prince did make the least trouble in the State, he acknowledged Solomon for King, he lived peaceable, he was contented with the order that God permitted: for the comfort of the loss of a Kingdom, which according to the Law of Nations did belong to him, he desired but a maid servant in marriage, and he is put to death for it.  
Who could excuse this? I am of opinion of the 
The just punishment of God upon Solomon  Dr Cajetan, who saith, that this command was not only severe, but unjust; and I believe that hence came the misfortune of Solomon, for that having showed himself so little courteous towards his mother, and so cruel towards his brother, for the love of a woman; God to punish him, hath suffered, that he should be lost by all that which he loved most. After this murder, he sent for Abiathar the chief Priest, and gave 
Abiathar the high Priest deprived of his dignity by a very violent action.  him to understand, that he was worthy to die, but forasmuch as he had carried the Ark of the living God, and had done infinite services for the King his father, even from his youth, he gave him his life, upon such condition, that he should be deprived of the dignity of the high Priest, and should retire himself to his house. The Scripture saith, that this was to fulfil the word of the Lord, which had been pronounced against the house of Eli; but yet it follows not for all that, that this depriving was very just on Solomon's side, being done without mature consideration. And although God ordains sometimes temporal afflictions upon children for the punishment of the fathers, yet one cannot nevertheless infer from this, that those which torment and persecute them, without any other reason then their own satisfaction, should not any ways be faulty; for otherwise one might avouch, that the death of our Lord having come to pass by the ordinance of God, Pilate and Caiaphas that did cooperate unto this order without any knowledge thereof, should be without offence. As for those that think that the Levites were accusers in those proceed, it is a conjecture of their own invention; and if indeed it were so, one might yet further reason, by what Law could the Levites bring accusation against their chief Priest? This jealousy of Government is a marvellous beast, and those that would excuse it, find, for the most part, that there is no stronger reasons, than swords, and prisons, and banishments.  
In the mean time the news comes to Joab, that he was in great danger for having followed the party of Adonijah, and as he saw himself on the sudden forsaken, and fallen from the great credit that he had in the Militia, he had recourse to the Tabernacle, which was the common refuge, and taking hold of the Altar, he asked mercy and his life. Banaiah the executor of the murder, goes to him, by Solomon's order, and commands him to come forth, for which he excuses himself, protesting that he would rather die then forsake his refuge, which was related to King Solomon, who without regard to the holy place, caused him to be massacred 
The death of Joab.  at the foot of the Altar, to mingle his blood with that of the sacrifices. Behold what he got from the Court after forty years' services, and one may affirm, that if it had been sometimes a good mother to him, now it acted a cruel stepmother at the last period of his life.  
There remained no more but Shimei to make up the last Act of the Tragedy, and although David had given commandment for his death, Solomon seemed yet to make some scruple upon the promise of impunity that was made to him: and this was the cause that he appointed him the city of Jerusalem for a prison, with threatening, that if he should go forth thence, and only go over the brook of Cedron, he would put him to death. The other that expected nothing but a bloody death, willingly received the condition, and kept it three years, until the time that on a day having received news of his servants that were fled to the Philistims, it came into his mind to follow them, without taking heed to that which was commanded him, which caused, that at his return, he was murdered by the commandment of Solomon, by the hand of Benaiah.  
Behold the beginning of a reign tempestuous, and one must not think to find Saints so easily at the Court, especially in those which have liberty to do what they please; many things slip from them, which may better be justified by repentance, then by any other apology. That which follows in this history of Solomon is all peaceable and pleasing, even unto his fall, which may give cause of affrightment.  
The third year of his reign, he had an admirable Dream, after the manner of those that are called Oracles 
A wonderful Dream of Solomon. : It seemed to him that God appeared to him, and spoke to him: at the which he was in an ecstasy, and seeing himself so near to him that could do all, he desired of him with incredible ardency, the gift of Wisdom to govern his people; the which pleased so much the Sovereign Majesty, that not only he gave him a very great understanding above all the men of the world, but further also added thereto, Riches and Glory in so high an eminence, that none should equal him.  
There are those that dispute here, though beyond their sight, concerning the Learning of Solomon, and would 
His Knowledge.  prove that he composed Comedies and Satyrs; but although we cannot deny that he was filled with abundance of Learning, yet we must affirm, that his Political Science had the chiefest place, and that all his knowledge of Natural things tended but to that intent, seeing that he specified it in his Prayer, that the desire of Wisdom that he professed was only for the Government of his Kingdom.  
And hence we may gather, that Learning is an Instrument very necessary for the accomplishment of 
Whether learning be profitable for Princes.  great Princes, although that the ignorant may conceive otherwise. They say, that this makes them too lofty, curious, and self-conceited, and that hence they take the boldness to rest upon their own belief, and deify all their opinions; a great Authority being sufficiently able to raise up a little sufficiency. They bring the examples of Nero, and Julian the Apostate, both which, having so well studied, they governed ill, and came to an unhappy end.  
But I shall avouch to them, that knowledge and judgement without piety is an unprofitable commodity, and sometimes pernicious to Kings. Hence it is that they take occasion to move extravagant questions, to undertake dangerous businesses, to authorise their faults by apparent reasons, and to be pricked forward with a conceit which causes them to despise all counsels. Nevertheless, it is an insupportable abuse to blame 
The learning of a Prince defended.  good things in those, which either have but the counterfeit thereof, or which make an evil use of them. I esteem not Nero nor Julian to have been very learned men, because they had skill in Poetry and Rhetoric, without ever well attaining the knowledge of their principal profession: and if they having learned good precepts among humane Writers, have abused them, shall one say for that, that they are naught and dangerous for a Prince?  
By the same reason we might condemn the Sun, because that Phaeton burned himself in those heats: And take away the Water from amongst the Elements, because that Aristotle, as they say, was drowned therein.  
Lastly, we might bring an accusation against Nature in general, and so find nothing to be good of all that God made, because it may be corrupted by the wickedness of men. But for two or three Princes somewhat learned, which have used their skill evilly, how many ignorant ones shall we find which have done fare more cruel and barbarous things than these: as, Dioclesian, Licinius, Maximian, Bajazet, and Sclim?  
Nature hath placed all the Senses, which are the principles of our Knowledge, in the Head, to give us to understand, that all the lights ought to be in a Prince, which is the Head of his Realm. The Soul is not more necessary for the Body, than Understanding for a King. He is (as Philo reports) to his people, that which God is to the creature.  
And what doth God, but only shed forth his clearness throughout the whole world, visible and invisible? and what ought a Monarch to do, but to make himself the fountain of good counsels that should maintain his estate?  
What can a Prince do which sees not but with others eyes; which speaks not, but by the mouth of another; which hears not, but with borrowed ears; but only lose his estimation in the minds of his Subjects, and yield up his Authority as a prey unto those, that knowing his insufficiency, take the boldness, to enterprise any thing without punishment?  
I confess there are those, which having not studied, have a very good understanding, which they have polished by the experience of things in the world, and by conversing with great personages; but how can we say that those are ignorant which know as much as the books, and might serve for examples to Philosophers? their modesty doth yet make them affirm and acknowledge, that if they had received a deeper tincture of good learning, they should have drawn therefrom the more grace and advantage.  
I would in no wise that a Prince should be like to 
Knowledge ought to be moderate.  the Emperor Michael Paripanatius, which had always Table-books in his hand, and a pen, composing of Verses, or making Periods to run smooth.  
I do not so much esteem such petty shows of superfluous knowledge, and ill ordered in a great one; but to see a man at the government of people, which hath laid a deep foundation of true piety, knows the secrets of Philosophy, the best purified, is no ways ignorant of Divine and Humane Laws, is skilful in the Histories of all Nations, with very diligent Observations and particular applications to his own government. A man that can judge, speak, and act, that can express himself with clearness and majesty of words, fitting to his estate; this is it which makes him appear as a God amongst men; which gives him authority amongst his people; which makes him esteemed by his equals; feared by his inferiors; terrible to his enemies; and honoured by all the world. It is by these means that Augustus Cesar, Trajan, Vespasian, Marcus Aurelius, Antoninus, and so man others, whereof Tiraquel reckons up eight and thirty very famous in his Book of Nobility, have attained to that height of reverence which hath made them honoured throughout all ages.  
For a proof of this, we see the great reputation 
The judgement of Solomon on the contention of the two women  that Solomon got in judging of the two women, which disputed whose the little infant should be. Both of them said equally, that she was the true mother; the one acted it cunningly, the other proceeded therein with truth. It was needful to know which spoke from the heart, and which from the tongue only. There are counterfeits so well stuffed out and neatly coloured, that many able men cannot know, nor are able to distinguish the true from the false. Parmeno counterfeited so perfectly the cry of a young chicken, that one would have thought that nature could not have set out out any thing better in comparison of him. So many skilful men, so many grey heads were at that time in the Court of Solomon, which lost themselves in this counterfeit, without being able to discover it; and when he commanded a sword to be brought, and to divide the little infant, all the world was amazed: some thought his judgement was gross, that it was cruel and bloody; but Solomon had studied in the bosom of nature the affections of a true mother. When he understood that the one approved of this command, and was urgent that the infant should be divided in two, he drove her away as an impudent one; but when he saw that the other was moved and wounded deeply at her heart, and that she cried with a pitiful voice, that they should rather give the infant all whole to that wicked one, then to make two pieces of it. When he considered the affrightment on her face, and all the veins of her body swelling at this design, he pronounced with the voice of an Oracle, that she was the true mother, which was avouched and acknowledged publicly. All the assistants were so taken with this expedient that their King had invented, that they extolled him to heaven, and promised themselves all, such a discerning, and equity, semblable in their differences. Who doth not see then that Understanding is the Eye of a Prince, and the light of his people? This reputation of understanding, and lofty knowledge of Solomon, was spread abroad amongst strange Nations, 
The Queen of Sheba.  and drew the Queen of Sheba unto Jerusalem. This is a story which hath afforded recreation to divers, that have exercised their pens thereupon, and curiosity, throughout the whole world. Every one would baptise her and give her a name; one calls her name Nicaula, another Nitocrisse, another Masseda, and others will have her name to be Candaesse. There is nothing more certain in all this then uncertainty, and it is very hard to give her a name without making a lie thereby.  
And yet can one less know that of her husband, nor whether she were a maid or a widow, or a married woman. There is some appearance that if she were 
Her qualities.  within the bonds of marriage, she was like unto those Dames that bear rule over their Husbands, and do all that please them in their own house. Her husband was very patiented; if it be true which Pineda saith, that she stayed a whole year at Jerusalem in Pastimes, and to propound Riddles. But Claudian that assures us, 
Claudian. in Eutrop.  that the Sabeans are governed by women, will make 
Levibúsque Sabaeis imperat hic fexus. Women amongst the Sabeans command over men.  us rather believe that she was free, and without subjection. She came from the country of the Sabeans, which make a part of Arabia, and are very rich in gold and perfumes. This is the reason that she entered into Jerusalem with a great train, and spared not the riches of her country for Solomon. She propounded many questions, whereof the Scripture doth not 
The questions of the Queen of Sheba.  touch one, which hath given occasion to many to invent at their pleasure; and divers have set down so ridiculous ones, that if the Queen of Sheba should have come so fare to have learned so little, there might be an appearance, that coming loaden with so great riches, she had forgot to put in a little Judgement amongst them.  
That which Baronius saith is somewhat more credible; that she was of a country where she might learn the prophecy of Balaam touching the birth of the Messiah, and that understanding afterwards the greatness of Solomon, she had a desire to know if this were not he, whom that prediction looked at. And it is very true that she found the shadow of him in Solomon, but not the body; yet she was so much amazed beholding only his figure, and viewing the Temple of God which was now built after five and twenty years; in considering the Palace, the Officers, and the order of the whole house of Solomon, that she thought to leave her whole spirit behind her in Jerusalem, having nothing elsewhere able to content her.  
Those which do judge of the inclinations of Solomon, do conceive, that all these great discourses with a woman, could not pass without strains of love, and produced him a child by the Queen of Sheba named David, from whom Prestor John is descended; but they should have considered that Solomon was not yet so inclined to women, and it was not likely that he should begin with her, causing her to return as one forlorn, which came thither with honest behaviour, and of whom the Gospel speaks honourably.  
There are many things in which the Scripture would not content our curiosity, those which would learn more from thence then it hath taught them, are like to those Painters, which account themselves very brave men, when they have the skill to go beyond nature.  
And so much for that concerns the Wisdom of Solomon, 
His zeal to the building of the Temple.  which caused a great part of his miracles. But one cannot sufficiently commend the Zeal which he bore, from the first year of his reign, to the building of the house of God. Herein it is that he hath testified a singular Piety, and a great Wisdom of a Statesman; for to say the truth, and to speak according unto the mind of Aristotle, it doth much import that a Prince be religious, for that he is thereby the more loved and feared by his people, which do not so easily offend him, whom they think to be under God's protection.  
Further also, he was to content a Nation more religious than any other, and greatly ceremonious, which he could not better do, then in causing them to behold so beautiful a Temple, which should be the marvel of the whole universe.  
All men are naturally stirred up with a resentment of a Divinity, and they think that the means to testify their affection and service thereto, is to erect Temples and offer Sacrifice unto it.  
Emulation doth often mingle itself with Religion, and great ones do find their glory, in lifting up that of the Divinity. Pliny makes mention of the Temple 
Plin. l. 36. c. 14. The Temple of Ephesu●.  of Diana at Ephesus, whose length was 425. foot, and the breadth 220. with 137. Pillars made by as many Kings; and saith, that all Asia joined together to build it, and spent thereupon the space of two hundred an● twenty years before it was fully finished. Whatsoeve he saith of this Temple, we are obliged to believe that was not of value with this of solomon's, which is recommended to us by him to whom it was dedicated, The Living God; which had not then upon earth any buse but this where he was acknowledged. Further als● it is to be prised, by reason of its founders, which were two great Princes: for, its greatness (which is ompared in the Scripture to a city, the number of offices was so great; Allies, Porches, Houses, and Divisions) was very great there; and above all, the number of the attendants, which did amount sometimes between seven and eight hundred ministers. Add hereunto the height, which was upon the top of two high mountains; the beauty, and the riches which was found there, you will avouch, that it was greater than it is reported. It is a prodigious thing which David saith of himself, in the first of the Chronicles, that he offered for this design out of his poverty, a hundred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand thousand talents of silver, which make in all, according to the supputation of our Villalpand, two 
Villalp. in Ezekiel. 3. apparat. Patal, 1. 22. Tyrinus his mille quingentos & aureorum ex eodem Vallalpando.  thousand one hundred twenty and three millions of gold, without comprehending therein that which the people offered freely of their own, which amounted to seventy one millions of gold, eight hundred and fourscore thousand crowns; and the two sums taken together, make one thousand one hundred ninety four millions of gold, eight hundred fourscore thousand crowns, and all this but to serve for that which should be wrought in gold and silver for the use of the Temple.  
Josephus also in the eighth Book of his Antiquities 
Josep. l. 8. cap. 3.  saith, That there was numbered there fourscore thousand cups, and as many plates of gold, twenty thousand cencers of the same material, two hundred thousand trumpets of silver, and forty thousand instruments of music, fashioned of gold and silver; garments of linen and surplasses, to the number of ten thousand. Lastly, the whole Temple, from the top to the bottom, and the pavement itself, was covered with plates of gold, fastened together with nails of gold which weighed every one five and twenty ounces.  
To say the truth, some Interpreters of the Scripture have taken that very high, making the value of their moneys according as they will, in this great obscurity of those that have written of the diversity of their values, according to the diversity of their Ages and Nations: but one may not doubt of the truth of the Scripture, which raises this Temple to a height of magnificence, which exceeds all other works.  
After that the House of God was established, Solomon made a solemn Dedication thereof, for the which he sacrificed 2200. oxen, and 20000. sheep. He prayed to God aloud before all the people with a wisdom and zeal unparallelled. He blessed all his Subjects with an uncredible joy, so that the face of Jerusalem that day seemed an anticipated Paradise. He busied himself after in building for himself; he made himself a palace, wherein he spared nothing for gloriousness, with the most sumptuous Kings of the earth. When as the Scripture relates this with a plainness of its style, it ceaseth not to fill our spirits with amazement: and if we had not recourse to the sovereign power of God, which doth all which pleaseth him; we should scarce be able to believe, that the Kingdom of Judea having begun but in Saul, by so miserable beginnings that there was hardly found any iron to make swords of, and that at sometimes there was but two to be found in a whole Army, that it should on a sudden rise to so great an increase, that silver was there as common as stones.  
This gives a large entry to all sorts of delights and pleasures of stately Princes of the earth, which Solomon soon caused to enter into his palace; and which ruined him by a fare greater disaster, than ever the armies of the Philistims, Ammonites and Moabites could have done. And as Juvenal said, That luxury had taken room, and had reserved unto itself the vengeance for all the evil usage wherewith the Romans had handled so many Kings and People of the habitable world: So we may say, That the Licentiousness of Solomon did revenge all the injuries of the Nations stirred up against the people of the Jews.  
He which should see a star fall from heaven into 
The fall of Solomon.  the dirt, for to be trodden upon by the feet of men and beasts, after it had shined amongst the celestial globes; would he be more affrighted and amazed, then in considering Solomon thrown down from the beautiful firmament of glory where the hand of God had placed him, into those opprobrious passions, labirynths of errors, and unexplicable confusions?  
Solomon that was as high lifted up above other Kings, as Kings are above common men, this man of wonders and miracles, the wellbeloved of God, which had wisdom for his spouse, virtue for his delight, happiness for his companion, and glory for the assistant of his throne; to disgrace, by a detestable old age, all the comeliness of his life, to deface all the rare inventions of his mind, to eclipse all the weak lights of his understanding.  
O women, always fatal to the ruin of great men! who will hereafter think it strange that you have changed the Gods of the heathens into beasts, seeing that you have transported Solomon into a monster? It is not almost imaginable into what a gulf of destruction Love plunged this miserable Prince: and that Philosopher Antisthenes said true, that if there were such a Venus as the Poets have made, he would be her hangman: If there were such a Cupid as they have painted out, he would pull off his wings, and throw him down from the Heaven of heavens, where they had placed him, into the deepest of the bottomless pits, for that this is the frenzy of the understanding, the poison of the heart, the corruption of the manners, and the desolation of our life. O true God how ought all good understandings, and all persons that make profession of knowledge, of honour and virtue, look upon Solomon, as a mast broken on the top of a mountain, which God hath placed there above to make them take heed of the shipwrecks of Love!  
One doth seldom begin wickednesses at the top: 
The beginning of his debauchedness.  vices have their degrees as well as virtues; Solomon at first began to grow cool in the worship of the true God, his conversations with him were not so often nor so pleasing, the pleasures of the world invited him, the delights of the Court charmed him; actions that are too free, soon become evil, and evil ones turn themselves into custom, and custom into an habit. This child of God saw the daughters of men, these strange beauties which pricked him by their novelty; he became man, and made of them his Goddesses. The daughters of the Amorites, and of the Moabites, those of Egypt, of Sidon, of Idumea, and so many others, whereof God had forbidden him any alliance, were the Idols of his heart, after they had been the plague and poison of his understanding.  
He which had pronounced so many excellent parables against love, which had so many times advertised youth, that the lips of an unchaste woman distilled honey at the beginning, but at the end they gave a potion of wormwood; was taken by the eyes, enchained with infinite affections. His love was pompous; his luxury, sumptuous; he loved as much for glory as for concupiscence; he would act the King in his unchastenesse, as stately as in the furniture of his Temple. He had about seven hundred women which were as his Queens; and with that three hundred Concubines, which is according to the account of the Scripture a thousand wives, which he had shut up in a Seraglio, for the pleasures of his eyes and of his flesh; and of so many loves there is but one son to be found, Rehoboam, void of wisdom and understanding.  
What could a Prince do amongst so many delights, so many allurements, so many charms, and so many bewitchings! A man is ofttimes much hindered by the troublesome brain of one woman only; what serious business than could he set himself to, that had them multiplied by hundreds! These strangers came 
Their artifice.  each of them with all the inventions of their Nation, for to surprise him; there was one that would gain him to her; another that would keep him; another that would draw him from one sin to another, even unto the bottom of hell. It is fare more easy to become a fool with a woman, then to make her wise; he had endeavoured perhaps to covert them to his Religion, but they perverted him, and drew him to theirs. He took their loves, and afterward 
He is perverted in Religion.  their behaviour, and at last their Superstition.  
Every one of these women would bring her God into esteem, and thought not herself to have any credit in her love, if she did not make her false Deity to partake thereof: they made such Gods, as had no honester Title than the sins of debauched women. As soon as he had made an Idol for one, he must do the like for another; all there went by the Emulation of their brains, weak in reason, and ardent in their passions. They reckon about six Temples built round about Jerusalem to the Gods of six principal Nations. But it was not sufficient to make these Gods, they must be adored, and presented with Sacrifices and Incense, to content his Loves. And he did not all this in shows only, nor dissimulation, but his heart (as the Scripture saith) was wholly turned aside from the true God; and fell (as S. Austin saith) into the depth of the gulf of Idolatry. What might the admirers of his great Temple have said; or rather the true worshippers of the great God? What discourse might so many Kings and Queens have held, that had had in so high esteem the wisdom of Solomon? The report of his Loves and his Superstitions ran throughout all Kingdoms as a story unheard of, which caused laughter enough to wicked ones, as tears to good people, and astonishment to the whole world.  
How art thou fallen from heaven, O fair star of the 
The dissipation of his estate.  morning! Thou faithful forerunner of the King of Lamps, which wert adorned with the purest and most innocent flames of the firmament; who hath made thee to become a coal? and who could bury thy lights in a dunghill?  
This lamentable King lost that great wisdom that made him esteemed over the whole world, and became stupid, leaving the care of all the affairs of his Kingdom. All those great riches were exhausted, and cast, as it were, into the gulf of Luxury. He began to over-charge his people to maintain his infamous pleasures, which made all their minds revolt against him. The Prophets and Priests could not relish with him, by reason of his changing Religion. All the understanding Nobility did abhor him, seeing him so plunged in his filth. The Commons desired nothing but to shake off the yoke that they could no longer bear. God raised him up Rebellions on every side, which prepared themselves ●● overthrow his Empire. But no man took it so much to heart, as Jeroboam, an able and subtle man whom he had advanced, and employed in gathering his Tributes for him. It was he to whom he Prophet Ahaziah gave ten pieces of his garment, foretelling him, that he should reign over to Tribes of Israel; and that was the cause that the King would have put him to death, but he fled ●nto Egypt, and returned under weak Rehoboam th● successor of Solomon; who, despising the counsels of the Ancients, that exhorted him to give his people content, trusted to that of the young ones without brains, which persuaded him to hold his own, and that the people would not be brought under but by rigour. Which made him to be forsaken by ten Tribes at once, which cast themselves into the arms of Jeroboam, who made a change of Religion and State in Samaria, without ever being able, either himself or his successors to bring them unto obedience again. See here how Kingdoms change their Masters for the sins of lasciviousness, impiety, and oppressions of the people, which are then greatly to be feared when despair hath brought them to fear nothing.  
One may ask, for a conclusion, what became 
The estate of Solomon in the other world.  of this wise Solomon? Whether he died in his sin? or whether he repent? Whether he were saved, or damned? This is a Common place that hath exercised many excellent pens which have handled this subject curiously and eloquently. I love not to do things done already: I shall say only, that we may always take the most favourable opinions, which can with any likelihood defend themselves in favour of the safety of great persons. There are some number of the holy Fathers which speak very openly thereof, and persuade themselves that he repent. S. Jerome upon the Prophet Ezekiel saith, That although the founder of this great Temple sinned, yet he was converted to God by a true repentance, and for proof hereof, he alleges the Book of the Proverbs, in the four and twentieth Chapter, that saith, Novissimè ego egi poenitentiam & respexi, ut eligerem disciplinam: that is, At the last I repent and looked back, that I might choose instruction. Although these words are not found in our Bible; as he also draws them from the Septuagint, and to uphold his opinion, he will have Solomon to have written the Book of the Proverbs after his fall, which is very hard to verify.  
And elsewhere also, the same Author upon the first Chapter of Ecclesiastes saith, That this Book is the repentance of Solomon, according to the Hebrews. S. Ambrose in the second book of the Apology of David, Chap. 3. puts Samson, David, and Solomon in the number of sinners converted: Erraverunt tamen ut homines, sed peccata sua, tanquam justi agnoverunt. Behold here that which is most formal, without collecting many ambiguous passages. S. Gregory the Great, in the second book of his Morals, Chap. 2. S. Prosper, S. Eucherius, 
Prosp. lib. 2. de praedict. cap. 27. Solomon clatus in senio, fornicatus animo & corpore Domivo ipsum deserente malè obiit.  and amongst the Modern, Tostat. Bellarmine, and Maldonat condemn him. Tertullian, Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory Nyssen, Isidore, Bernard, chrysostom, and Rupert, leave this question doubtful and undecided. And to say truly, this is all which can be said modestly and humanely, and also the truestin a matter where there is nothing more certain than incertainty.  
For to say that he hath composed the Book of Ecclesiastes after that he was deprived of his Kingdom, and of all the Vanities, is a story of the Rabbins which are little to be believed; further also, this Book is properly a Dialogue of divers men that dispute one against the other, and bring forth good and bad sentences, although the Author of the Book doth take the good part. To say that which Bonaventure saith, That not one of the sacred Authors was damned; if it be true, the reason is, because they lived well, and not because they have written well. For the kingdom of God (saith Saint Paul) doth not consist in words. To build upon the Promises which were made to David concerning 
1 Par. 2. 9  Solomon, if there be some favourable, there are also others that say, That if he leave God, he shall be cast away by God for ever. To allege that he was buried in the Sepulchre of his father, how many of the damned have had a quiet death, and a stately burial? To bring forth all the kindnesses and favours of God towards him, are but so many reproaches of his unthankfulness.  
The argument which is drawn from the negative which they esteem ordinarily very weak, is here too strong for his condemnation. For whence comes it that Nathan his Master, and Partisan, who wrote the Books of the Kings, or caused them to be continued by Aziah and Haddo his disciples; whence comes it, I say, that Authors so affectionate to Solomon, so zealous for the honour of their Nation, having undertaken to give us his story, and having forgotten nothing of the least things, even to the numbering of Solomon's horses, after they have so expressly spoken of his sin, have not added his repentance? This thing was too much important for the glory of God, for the reputation of their Master, for the edification of their people, for the example of other Kings, to pass it over in silence. Surely we might well accuse them either of great malice, or of gross stupidity, a thing which cannot happen to Prophets which writ by the inspiration of God.  
Further, who knows not, that repentance ought to be followed by outward actions, and conformable to the movings of the heart? Who will not avouch that it ought to be testified by a renouncing of sins, and all things that have drawn us to offend? Where is it then spoken that Solomon had dismissed one only of his thousand women, which were those nets of his destruction? Where is it written that he destroyed the Temples, and beat down the Images which he had erected at the solicitations of his Mistresses? We know all the contrary, that these Abominations remained standing until King Josiah who caused them to be overthrown. That which causes the more fear, is, that by how much the more a man comes near the great understanding which they attribute to the Devils, by so much also he takes the greater part in their punishment, when he falls into any grievous sin. The great lights of these rare Spirits, turned themselves into the flames of their punishments, and their knowledge serves for nothing but to nourish the more the worm of Conscience.  
Now as Solomon was advantaged by understanding and wisdom above other men, and that he fell into the sin of Apostasy, and turning from God, there is great danger lest God turned from him his Mercy, which is used more ordinarily towards those that sin by ignorance, although culpable.  
Add unto all this, that those which in their old age continue in the sins of unthankfulness which they have contracted by long habits, are very hard to cure, because that old men become more hardened in evil, more despising all admonitions which are made to them, by presuming on the authority which they think is due to their age. Further also, their luxury is not only a sin of the flesh, which then less feels the violence of great temptations, but a spiritual sin, which proceeds from a spiritual and enraged concupiscence, which makes them offered professedly rather then by frailty. He that shall 
The conclusion touching Solomon's salvation.  well weigh this, shall find that it is better to leave to the secret mercy of God, that which one cannot attain by reason, and to fear every thing in this life, even to the gifts of heaven and ones own sureness thereby.    

JUSTINIAN. CHARLEMAIN. Or, CHARLES THE GREAT  
 portrait of Justinian 
JUSTINIAN EMPEROR.   portrait of Charlemagne 
CHARLEMAINE EMPEROR AND K. OF FRANCE.   

PRovidence is an excellent workwoman, which renews yet every day in the world that which God did in the terrestrial Paradise. He took clay to make a Man the most excellent piece of all the Creatures, and she takes some men of the earth to make them Sovereigns and Demigods in the Universe.  
This Emperor that hath filled the world with his brave Deeds, and the Ages with his memory, was of a very base extraction, which served to him as a cloud of glory, and caused a marvellous day to spring out of the deep of his obscurity. The beginning of his Nobility came from his uncle Justine, who having been born a Cow-herd, mounted by the stairs of Virtue and of Valour even to the Throne of the Emperors of Constantinople. Nature had furnished him with a good understanding, with a body well made and robustuous, and God had inspired into him from his most tender years a particular grace of Devotion, which rendered him good, officious, and charitable towards all the world. As he was keeping the Cows he saw passing by some men of war, who were going in an expedition against the Infidels: he persuaded himself that he was very fit for that employment, and stout enough to give good strokes to the enemies of God and his Religion. Upon this thought, he sold a cow that was his own, buys a sword, and the rest of the small equipage of a Soldier; bids adieu to his kindred, goes and lists himself, and suddenly (of a peasant) becomes a man of war. Yet Procopius makes him so poor, that he gives him nothing but a little bread in a scrip when he entered into Constantinople. He passed through all the proofs of a long and laborious warfare, in which, he behaved himself with an exact discipline, a great dexterity, a courage invincible, and above all, with a discretion that made him lovely, and gained the hearts of all the world. He came to the office of an Ensign, of a Lieutenant, of a Captain of the Guard, of a Colonel, of a General, and in the end was put amongst the Counts of the Court that were the greatest Lords of the Imperial house.  
Anastasius at that time was Emperor, happening to die, Amantius his high Chamberlain, who was a very rich, and a great moneyed man, had a very earnest desire to make himself Emperor. But he was disfavoured by nature, having not been born a perfect man; he thought therefore that he should never be liked by the Militia, in so high a dignity, and would needs make it fall upon Theocritus who was his creature, that he might reign in him, and by him, with a full satisfaction of his whole desires. To this end he opened his treasures, and resolved to make great distributions of money to the soldiers, committing the managery of the horsemen to the Earl Justin, who he knew was well affected by all the world, and very capable to favour his canvasing. But the men of war looking upon the hand that gave the gold, and not upon the coffer from whence it came, nor the design of him that did it, unexpectedly proclaimed Justin Emperor; whereto, the Senate and the People shown a strong inclination, forasmuch as he was most Catholic, and that they feared, lest the Chamberlain and his favourite held yet some of the leven of Anastasius that was an Heretic.  
The Cow-herd being then set upon the Throne of Constantine, Amantius, that had merchandized the Empire, seeing himself so shamefully fallen from his pretensions, plotted a mischievous conspiracy against the new Emperor, but he succeeded in it so ill, that his design being discovered, he lost his life together with his complices, after he had lost his honour and his money. Justin, that was endowed with a great goodness, did not grow proud and scornful when he was arrived to the top of honours, but having married a woman very mean in her first condition, he caused her suddenly to be crowned Empress, changing her savage name of Lupicia into Euphenica. He consecrated the beginning of his reign by the return of the Bishops, and of all the honest men which he caused to be called back from the exile to which the Heretic Emperor had condemned them. He caused Religion to flourish again on all sides, and expressed a most ardent zeal to render justice to his people, without sparing himself in the toils of war, though he was already very aged. He enjoyed the Empire eight or nine years, and being a man extremely humble, he loved his kindred though of base condition; and seeing he had no children of his own, he chose his sister's son to make him his Successor, and gave him even the Crown, before he quitted the Sceptre and the world, after a reign of nine years.  
Behold the original of our Justinian, of whom Histories speak very diversely, seeing that the admirers of his actions give him high commendations, and the enviers of his great fortune (who might perhaps have experimented the effects of his severity) have scattered imputations on him in their reviling Histories, that have passed even to this age. But the most understanding men having well examined every thing, put him in the rank of the most illustrious Monarches of all Christendom.  
And indeed, it is a wonder how a spirit extracted from the life and condition of a Shepherds took, so high a flight in the Temple of glory, that having taken in hand all the great designs that may fall into the spirit of a Monarch, he prospered in all with a merveilous success. He maintained his dignity against the most horrible conspiracies that ever set upon an Empire in the revolution of so many Kingdoms. He made wars in Asia, in Europe, and in Africa, which he ended by most eminent victories. He recovered Africa out of the hands of the Vandals, he powerfully plucked the Capital City of the World out of the tyranny of the Goths, he published eternal Books, he erected buildings that remain yet, after they have passed more than ten ages. He encountered the greatest Captains, and the most able Statesmen that have been ever in the world, in the person of Bellisarius and Tribonian. And although that when he took the government of the Empire, he was five and forty years of age, yet he reigned thirty nine years, God crowning all his good actions with a long continuance, which serves infinitely for the accomplishment of all great designs.  
I will tell you in few words his Nature and his Manners, before I come to his deeds of valour, according to the most true relation that I have been able to extract out of Histories, without passion, and not according to the Ideas of Procopius, who hath horribly difigured him, by a manifest hatred in his railing History.  
This Prince was a man that feared God, and firm in the faith of Christianity, and although he was at certain times surprised with some errors by the artifices of his wife the Empress, yet the Learned men of the West, and Pastors of the East, that have so highly praised him, after his death testify sufficiently that his spirit was purged of all the wicked beliefs that his Doctors had endeavoured to infuse into his soul, and which he had approved by an excess of a too credulove zeal. Heretics and Libertines were the object of his hatred and his choler; but good Churchmen caused in his soul a certain veneration, and he studied by all ways to assist and protect the Churches and the Hospitals: his Liberalities were extended every where in works of piety by great buildings, and magnificent alms.  
He was most chaste, contenting himself all his life with her that God had given him for a companion: and his most violent enemies have not been able to tell us one only woman's name that hath possessed his heart to the prejucice of his Bed. He could not endure wantonness, and especially that, that brings a shame to nature, which he chastised with most rigorous punishments. He detested and punished by his laws, all those that laid snares to the modesty of Virgins and of Women to corrupt them.  
His manner of life was extreme austere, and Procopius himself, the most cruel of his revilers, acknowledges, that he was most sober, and that he would cause the table to be taken away when he had scarce touched the victuals, seeking nothing exquisite therein, but denying oftentimes to nature even her necessities. He hath seen him, he says, fast the Lents with such an austerity, that the devoutest of all his people could not reach it, for he would be eight and forty hours without eating or drinking, and at the end of that he drank nothing but water, contenting himself with a little bread and a salad; yet he was endowed with a body so well composed, and so happily tempered, that after his long abstinencies, he appeared yet ruddy; from whence it came, that that Calumniatour instead of acknowledging the blessing that God gives in this extraordinarily to some of his servants, said, That he was a Devil and not a Man.  
Further yet, he slept very little, and the same man adds, that often an hours repose sufficed him, and that he bewailed the time that he allowed his body. He made long prayers night and day, and employed the rest of his time in his affairs, without admitting any other recreation. Those that have published that he could neither write nor read, have abused the belief of men taking the name of Justinian for that of his Uncle Justine, for the Historian his persecutor confesses, that he wrote his Breviates, and all his dispatches, without troubling his Secretaries. He was of a most easy access to all the world, and was not offended at the importunities, no nor at the incivilities, that those that were ignorant of the fashions of the Court committed in his presence. He heard willingly the differences of his people, and he himself pronounced the sentence to determine them: his patience was extreme, he never was moved in handling any businesses, and decreed even the most rigorous punishments with a cold visage, and a tone of a moderated voice.  
He was a true observer of order, who managed in his closet with incomparable justice, what ere should be produced in the whole Univers. When he undertook any business of importance, he fasted and prayed extraordinarily, and caused it to be recommended to the devotions of the good servants of God; and when he had a good issue of it, his thanksgivings were seen in all places on all occasions. He neglected nothing, and when men thought him overwhelmed with the greatest businesses of war, they were astonished that amidst them he took his time for some petty Ordinance of Policy.  
He loved Learning, especially Divinity and Law. This was it that made him conceive a magnificent design to leave monuments of it to posterity, that should last longer than the Temples and the Pyramids of Egypt. And for this purpose, being a man very judicious, he made choice of the mostable men in the whole Empire, to collect all the laws of the Emperors his predecessors, which he augmented and enriched with his own, so that this book was called Justinians Code. Afterward, he gave a charge to Tribonian, who was accomplished in that profession, to compile all the Resolves of the ancient Lawyers, which he did with a most exact diligence, and at length composed those famous Pandects or Digests divided into fifty Books. He caused also the Institutions which contain the Principles of Law, and are as it were the elements of that excellent doctrine, to be added to them. And for what concerns Divinity, he published a certain work of the Incarnation, and abundance of Ordinances for the government of Ecclesiastical persons, wherein Baronius finds fault, that he entered sometimes a little too far into the Sanctuary.  
He was not much advanced in the years of his reign, when an horrible conspiracy was raised against him, which was on the point to ruin all his affairs; and although I have already touched it in my first volumn in the History of Eulogius, yet I will decipher here more particularly the reasons and the remedies of it.  
Many have attributed the total cause of it to the new Subsidies that the Emperor imposed upon the people to maintain the war that he had already enterprised, but there was yet more poison and which sprang from an higher source, which was, that the house of the Emperor Anastasius (which had preceded Justine the Uncle of our Justinian, and which cherished always the most violent passion to continue themselves in that Empire) was not quite extinct, but had two principal Chieftains Pompey and Hypatius, who thought they had heads well enough made to wear a Diadem. These men when they saw that the affairs of State were disposed to a commotion, and that the Malignant Vapours were gathered together on all sides to make up clouds, did as the Sorcerers do, who mix the work of the Devil to assist the effects of nature. They knew that the Emperor began to be ill-beloved, both for the imposts, and for the rigid and inflexible severity that he used in the government of his Empire; which seemed insupportable to the spirits of so many Libertines, who would live according to their own discretion in the permission of all crimes. They failed not to lay hold on this opportunity, and underhand to sow in the spirits of men the seeds of Division. There was then in Constantinople two popular factions of men belonging to the Theatre which were called the Green and the Blue, by reason of the Liveries by which they were distinguished. State-Policy suffered them, and chose rather to foment the one against the other, then to extinguish them. But the conspirators for that time united them by artifices and by money to bandy them against Justinian. The Chieftains ceased not to scatter venomous speeches amongst the people, and to say,  
What? are we then made to suffer eternally the Empire of these Cowkeepers? the Uncle is dead, and the Nephew hath succeeded him, which is a Crow hatched of an evil Egg. Was it not enough that he learned in governing beasts to handle us as a Shepherd, but he must become a Butcher, and be pleased with nothing, but with the flaying and the massacring of his people? What have we any more to hope for under him, since he hath put us in a condition of fearing every thing? Do we expect that the Empress, which is the worst of Furies, should give him counsels of mildness for us, or that Bellisarius which is the fatal instrument of his cruelty should deliver us out of his hands? All our safety is in ourselves, all our good is in our resistance. Shall we doubt to obey necessity which constrains us, and the justice of our cause which is our guide? We ought to set upon this goodly Emperor while his state is yet tottering and ill-settled, without staying till he fortify himself to our ruin. We have amongst us the blood of the true Caesar's, Pompey and Hypatius, the Protectors of the people, and the most accomplished of all Princes, it is those that we ought to reverence, and that we ought to carry upon our shoulders to the Empire.  
These words at length inflamed the sedition which began by a small handful of Mutineers, which a Provost of the City endeavoured to suppress, and apprehended three that were the ringleaders of the Rebellion, but the people ran suddenly in an huddle and plucked them out of his hands by violence. The Alarm was given to the Palace, and the Emperor dispatched instantly some soldiers to quell the Mutineers, but they were beaten back, for the number of the seditious grew greater every moment as a Ball of snow that rolls from the top of a mountain. Behold in a little time the whole City in arms, with a rage so violent, and a sight so hideous, that it seemed that Hell had opened itself that day to vomit out all its Furies upon the earth. The men ran to fire and sword, the women with their hair about their ears, and howling like so many Megeras made themselves arms of what ere they met with. There was not any, even to the children that did not seem to be little devils flying athwart the flames. The Regiments of the Herules, (which the King a little before had converted to Christianity) were at that time quartered in the City of Constantinople who failed not, according to the Orders of the Emperor, to oppose themselves against the fury of the people. These having been barbarous soldiers without all compassion made at first a great massacre. The incensed Citizens fall upon them on all parts to beat them out; their courts of Guard are burned by the hands of the seditious, and their companies much worsted, some were run through with Partisans, others knocked on the head with Levers: the affrighted women from the tops of the houses, make themselves parties in the quarrel, and cease not to throw down boiling water, and stones upon them. These wild-Boars thus chaffed seeing the blood of their companions run in rivers through the streets, rally all their forces, and take Torches to fire the Churches and houses, which they performed with so much violence, that one might see in an instant the whole city in flames. The Temples were burned with the most sumptuous structures, the pictures, the statues, and the most beautiful works of the Ancient Masters crackled in the fiery coals which none extinguished but by humane blood. The most religious of the Clergy being come forth to appease the tumult, in showing them the books of the Gospels, the images of the Saints, and the Shrines of their relics, although they marched at that time in a Procession were trod under foot, and in part murdered by the Herules. This redoubled the fury of the people, who had yet some good sense of their Religion, and could not endure the contempt of sacred things. The Massacres began afresh on both sides, and the images of death fly up and down on all parts.  
The Emperor was for that time shut up within his Palace, with his wife the Empress accompanied with Bellisarius, who was newly returned from Africa, with Narses and with Mundus, and the Regiments of his Guards. His heart bled within him to see those horrors, and he was so courageous, as to be willing to go forth and present himself to make an Oration to his people, and to pacific the sedition. But the Empress throwing herself at his feet laid hold on him, and conjured him by all that he had most dear not to commit himself to an evident Butchery, which caused him to be contented to sound the Ford, and to send Messengers to the people to promise them all satisfaction if they would assemble themselves peaceably in the Theatre to hear their Prince. The factious began to cry that it was a snare to entrap them, and that they had no reason to hearken to a Tyrant that had sold their skins to the Barbarians, that there was no more safety now remaining for them but in desperateness. Thereupon they take Hypatius, and having lifted him upon a great Buckler, carry him a cross the multitude, place him upon a Throne in the midst of the great Marketplace, and proclaim him Emperor. He was as it were altogether astonished between hope and fear, when he spoke these words with a feeble voice.  
Friends, I am your work, I come to live and die with you. I know well what ye have made me be, but I know not what I shall be, if ye bring not as much force to preserve me, as ye have testified affection to elect me: In a word, the life of Justinian is incompatible with mine, and your arms must decide this day which of the two you will keep, either the Prince that ye have chosen, or the Tyrant that ye have sworn to destroy. The Assembly answered confusedly with great clamours, Let Hypatius live, Let Justinian die; and the stoutest men amongst them take a resolution to assail him in his Palace. But this Prince after he had called upon the name of God, the Protector of Kings, took this perilous business into deliberation. Narses was of opinion, that it was best to fortify the Royal Palace, to dam up the entrances, to prepare themselves for assaults within, and not to trust themselves without. That all rebellions were strong and invincible in their first heat, and that time ought to be given to some to think upon their fault, and to others to declare their good affection.  
Belizarius liked not this opinion, and desired nothing but to march and to fall upon the Rebels. The Empress Theodora who held the upper end in all the counsels of Justinian intermeddled very far in this business as Historians observe, and spoke with a loud voice.  
What? seek security in dishonour? Endure a siege of our subjects, and of the dregs of the people without taking other arms then those of walls? It is a counsel that will give boldness to Hypatius, and fear to all those that are yet for us. I assure myself, that the Tyrant wholly trembling in this novelty, and that there is not a more sovereign remedy then to prevent him. Let us rather die then leave a blot upon our reputation. The name of Emperor and of Empress sound well in an Epitaph, and ought never to be quitted, but with life.  
She animated the whole company by her discourses: The Emperor himself had a mind to go out amongst them but it was concluded that he should suffer Belizarius to advance with the most resolute Regiments, which he did very courageously and removed himself into the place where was the hottest of the combat. The Herules, that had pvissantly sustained the first furies of the enemies, took new forces and joined themselves to the Emperor's Court of Guard. They began altogether to charge the Rebels with such an Impetuousness, that they seemed Lions and not Men. The Faction was no longer equal, the heart of the Revolted failed them, and they let themselves be killed as Sheep, whilst the fury of the Soldiers fleshed in blood slackened nothing of its vehemence.  
Justinian touched with pity, commanded that they should spare the rest, and to persuade them more efficaciously to their good and safety, endeavoured to gain the faction of the Blue-coats, and to divide it from the Green, by force of Courtesy and of Money.  
This being done Hypatius found himself much astonished, and wished then, that he had rather put his hand on Thorns, then on the Pearls of a Diadem. He fights now no more for honour, but for his life; he seeks out holes to hid himself, but those that knew that their security consisted in nothing, but in producing him, seize upon his person, and deliver him into the hands of the Emperor, who caused suddenly the law to proceed against him, together with Pompey and other great Lords that were their Complices, who were all put to death. After which the Emperor endeavoured with all his might to Rally his people, and to declare to them the pernicious effects of sedition, which were but too visible. The City being all wasted by the fire, and forty thousand men (as Zanoras' tells us) dead upon the place.  
Behold one of the most hideous Histories that I find in all Antiquity, and which ought to teach people to adhere firmly to their Sovereign, and never to lend an ear to wicked counsels that cause so lamentable Tragedies. It admonishes also great men to enterprise no thing against their lawful Princes, and to place always their Principal Honour in Obedience.  
This Monarch seeing himself settled in his Kingdom by so sensible a protection, gave all the thanks of it to God, and bend the vigour of his cares to the advancement of his glory. An hundred years had already passed, since the Vandals, a barbarous people, and Heretic Arrians had possessed themselves of Africa; after they had torn it from the Roman Empire. Three Kings were already dead, and the fourth that then reigned was a Tyrant named Gilimer, revolted from the true King Hilderic his Lord and Kinsman, whom he left in a close prison after he had put himself into possession of his Sceptre. Justinian that was a friend and Protector of him that had been Deposed, demands an account of that action, and resolved to re-establish the true King in his right, because that, besides that justice would have it so, he was much more favourable to the Catholics. The other answered that he had dispossessed a Sit-still, and a Traitor to the Religion of the Arrians, and that the Greek ought to look to his own business without intermeddling with the Kingdoms of another.  
This Arrogance nettled more the Emperor, who now saw himself persuaded by all reasons to enterprise a War against an Heretic for Religion, against a Tyrant for Justice, against an Adversary for his Goods. He ordered all this business with a marvellous prudence, for he sowed first division in Gilimer's Kingdom, interressing as much as possible every man to his party; the Catholics for his protection, the Kinsmen of Hilderic for Revenge, the Zealous men for Piety, the Understanding for Reason, the Soldiers for the Booty, and all the world for the sweetness of the tranquillity under his Government.  
He chose Belizarius General, to whom he gave an Army more Valiant than numerous, of Soldiers well tried, and charged him to use the Africans as his own people, and as his children. One cannot believe the effect that this moderation wrought: The People began to look upon the Armies of that brave Captain, not as upon those of an enemy, but rather of a Liberatour. Tripoli rendered itself quickly to him, and the Isle of Sardynia revolted against the Tyrant. He dismantled all the strong Holds that might defend him from the Enemy, as if he had been assured to live in perpetual peace; which caused that Belizarius in a short time marched even to the gates of Carthage. The Usurper as fearful in War, as he was bold in wickedness, was astonished and surprised, having not had so much leisure as to fortify the place of his abode. He suddenly dispatches his brother Amaras to cut off all the Avenues from the Greeks, but he was encountered by John the Armenian who led the Vanguard of the Imperialists, and who hotly gave him battle, in which the African lost the Victory and his life.  
The Tyrant, whether out of rage or out of fear, caused Hilderic his Master, which he kept in prison, to be murdered, and went out with his best Troops to meet Belizarius, all dipped as he yet was in innocent blood, and troubled with the image of his crimes. He met with the Grecian General a little scattered from the rest of his Army, and might have defeated him, if art and activeness, or rather happiness had accompanied his designs. But while he ranges his ill-traind soldiers, Belizarius surprises him, kills his best troops, and constrains him to put himself in flight. He seeing his army much lessened, sends for his brother Zaron who led some troops near the coasts of Sardynia to come and join with him, which he did readily; but in the mean time, Belizarius following the paths that good fortune trod out for him, enters Carthage, which cries for quarter to him without resistance. The two brothers rallyed together made as though they would retake it, but seeing themselves vigorously repulsed by the Imperialists, they more thought of a Retreat then an Assault. This caused all the People to despair of their party, seeing they themselves had forsaken the seat of Empire. They withdrew themselves to a place called Tricamerum about eight Leagues from Carthage, whither Belizarius after he had taken order for the security of the conquered country soon followed them, and commanded John the Armenian to pass the River, for whose advantage they were encamped there, and to charge them: He obeyed and executed very courageously his General's commands; But Zaron Gilimer's brother susteins his onset, and twice beat him back, till such time as Belizarius reinforced his Vanguard with new Troops, who defeated the enemy, and killed the chief Commander in the combat. His head was cut off, and shown the Africans, who fell into a great despair of their affairs. Ah, my brother, says Gilimer, the most valiant man on earth, could I not be miserable without losing you, and without sacrificing you to my fortune? It is now that I perceive the disaster of my Nation; It is now that the blood of Hilderie rebounds against me. In the mean time Belizarius, who lead up the battalio, passed also the River which was fordable, and assaults Gilimer who made but a small resistance, but taking with him his domestics saved himself by abandoning his Camp, where nothing was heard but the cries and sighs of the Captives that lamented their Misfortune. The unhappy King saved himself in Rocks situated upon high mountains, where there was a Fortress almost inaccessible, but unfurnished of Victuals and Munition, whither Pharas had order to follow him, in the place of John the Armenian who was unhappily killed by accident by a Captain that shot at a Bird. Gilimer that now thought that there was no greater enemy in the world than Hunger, was quickly weary of the place to which he was retired, and seeing himself solicited every day by his friends to render up himself, he sends to Pharas to demand three things for the capitulation of the Treaty, which were, some Bread, a Sponge, and a Lute; some Bread, because he now knew not what it was to Eat; a Sponge, to wipe off the tears that he continually poured out upon the Tombs of his brothers and the Funerals of his Country; a Lute, to give some truce to his anguish by its Music. This disastrous man, which had never well played the King, would now play the Philosopher at the end of his days, and express a contempt of all things. Pharas easily granted him what he demanded, and having taken him, conducted him to Belizarius who was retired to Carthage.  
This General contemplated the principal object of his Conquest with delight, and had a great curiosity to entertain him, but he did nothing but laugh with a forced and unpleasing laughter. All his treasures fell into the hands of the Conqueror, who suddenly carried him to Constantinople.  
A Triumph after the manner of the Ancients was ordained in honour of Belizarius, who entered in great pomp into the City with all his soldiery, causing the proud spoils of Africa to be born before him, and dragging after him the prisoners, among which was Gilimer in chains, who was brought before the Emperor and the Empress seated upon their Thrones on an high Theatre with an unparrelleled magnificence.  
Gilimer, as soon as he saw a fare off this pompous splendour, cried out, Vanity of Vanities, and every thing is vanity: afterward began again his laughings, which he did, in my opinion, that he might pass for a Fool, and so have his life. He did obeisance to Justinian with most humble submissions, who used him with much clemency, giving him a Place in the Lands of the Empire, to finish there the rest of his days.  
The Booty was divided with much equity, and the rich Vessels of the Temple of Jerusalem that the Vandals had heretofore found, and pillaged in Rome, were sent back again to the Place from whence they had been transported by Titus Vespasian.  
This war was finished in three months with an Army of six thousand men, so easy it is to row when God conducts the vessel.  
But that of the West was very long in its continuance, Obstinate in its Resistance, Malignant in its Designs, and Lamentable in its Effects. Theodoric King of the Goths (as I have said in the life of Boetius) had made himself Master of Rome, and of all Italy, where he reigned with great authority. He left for Successor Athanaric, son of his daughter Amalazunta (at that time but nine years old) under the Protection of his Mother. She was the most accomplished Princess of her age, and most worthy to govern an Empire. Nevertheless since she saw herself environed with those Goth Princes that were of an humour sufficiently cruel, and that did not easily brook her domination; She honoured with her confidence Theodate one of the principal of them, because he was of the blood Royal, and appeared the most moderate of all the rest, playing rather the Philosopher than the Captain. This ungrateful man, after the death of the little Athanaric who was not of a long life, was moved with so furious a state-jealousy, that by the basest of Treasons he caused that poor Princess to be strangled in a Bath, fearing lest she (as being fare more able than he in the managing of affairs, and he holding the Sceptre only by her favour) might take too great a share in the Government. But this unnatural man that thought to settle his Crown by the death of that innocent Queen totally ruined his affairs, and could not avoid the vengeance of God that pursues Traitors even to the gates of hell.  
The Emperor Justinian that had already projected to recover his City of Rome and all Italy out of the hand of the Goths, hearing the rehearsal of that horrible baseness committed against the person of Amalazunta that had sought Alliance with him, failed not to take the occasion, and to declare a war against Theodate, thinking that it was then a good time to set upon an Empire, when he that governs it gins to be forsaken of God for the enormity of his Crimes.  
This cowardly King was so much astonished at this news, that at first he humbled himself by very great submissions, offering the Sovereignty to the Emperor of the East, and contenting himself to reign under him.  
But the other seeing him so wicked and so weak, despised him, and caused Belizarius to advance with his Army into his Territories, who suddenly possessed himself of Sicily.  
Theodate although an Arrian Heretic, had recourse to the Pope, and invited him, as well by Entreaties as by Menaces, to make a Voyage to Constantinople, to Treat a Peace between the two Crowns. Agapetus, who was then seated on Saint Peter's Chair, was so Poor and Indigent, that he had not wherewith to furnish himself with Provision for the Journey, that he was fain to pawn the Sacred Vessels of Saint Peter's Church to bear his charges by the way; He failed not to transport himself into the East, and was received by Justinian with all the respects due to so high a Dignity; but when he came to touch upon the point of Peace, the Emperor told him, That the business was already too fare advanced, That that War was an Holy War against the Enemies of God and his Church, which ought not to be hindered by the Counsels of a Pope, and that he need fear nothing that Theodate could do, who was more able to threated then to hurt.  
The Pope suffered himself easily to be persuaded, and quitting the Interests of that King, busied himself about the Government of his Church. It is a wonder, that he had so much Authority, as to depose Anthimus Patriarch of Constantinople, who had been brought in by Faction, and to substitute Menas in his Place, in spite of the Empress Theodora, who had not at that time all the power that is attributed to her over the spirit of her Husband.  
The Good Shepherd, after he had Courageously done the duty of his Charge, died in Constantinople, where he left a most sweet odour of his sanctity.  
In the mean while, Belizarius pursues the Conquest, enters into Pou, and takes Naples by night, using a Stratagem of War, that made him put on three hundred men through subterraneous places, where there passed nothing but water. The taking of so flourishing a City gave astonishment and rage to the Goths, who Conspired against their King Theodate, and substituted by Election Vitiges in his place, who was not of so Noble a Family, but who seemed to them Bold and Generous to repair the Ruins of the State.  
As soon as he was chosen, he suddenly caused Theodate to be slain, who was surprised in his flight, and washed away by his blood the murder of Amalazunta.  
This Prince was agitated with two contrary Passions, with the desire of solitude, and with the motion of his ambition; the one counselled him to quit the Empire, the other to retain it; while that he would content them both, he contents no body, and was surprised in his irresolution.  
In this conjuncture of affairs, the Grecian General advances, and marches strait to Rome, which receives him with open Arms, some through love, and others through impotence.  
Vitiges desirous to make his Crown renowned by some illustrious Act, and to confirm by his Valour the judgement of those that had chosen him, assembles from all parts the Goths, spurring them on both with the Glory of their Nation, and the necessity of their affairs, in such a manner that in a small time he lay siege to Rome, with an Army of an hundred and fifty thousand men.  
It is in this occasion that the Valour of Belizarius was made visible in all its advantages, for with an Army of six thousand men he sustained that prodigious number of Barbarians, amidst sickness, hunger, and a thousand other incommodities, and when the Romans wanted Arms and Ammunitions of War, he made Arrows of the Statues of the Gods and of the Caesar's, to throw at the head of his enemies.  
In the end having solicited with diligence, and expected with constancy the succours that came to him from the East, he raised the siege, and scattered all that thick Cloud of Armies that environed him.  
Vitiges is constrained to retire into Ravenna, where he besieges him, and presses him so strictly, that he forces him to deliver to him his City, and even his own Person.  
He was carried away Prisoner, with his Wife, and abundance of Lords to Constantinople, presented to Justinian, and served for a Pompous object in the Triumph of Belizarius, who was received with the full satisfaction of all the Nobles, with the admiration of the wisest, and with the general acclamation of all the World: The Emperor alone began to be pricked with jealousy, and to entertain him with coldness.  
In the mean space, the Goths make Elections of two Kings, one after the other, who lived but a while, and did nothing, but the third named Totilas was endowed with so eminent and lovely qualities, that he raised up all their hopes: and his coming to the Crown of the Goths was as the infusion of a new soul into a dead body.  
He puts himself suddenly into the field, with all that he could rally of the wrack of Vitiges, and at first he was so happy that he defeated Bessa and Vitalius, The two Generals of Justinian left by Belizarius for the Guard of all the Country of Italy.  
After that, he took Spoletum, dismantled Beneventum, planted a Siege before Naples, and won it by valour and by patience.  
But besides, he shown so many proofs of his Moderation, and of his Goodness toward the Conquered, that with all their hearts they wished for nothing more than his Government. He gave great order for the comfort of the people, that were at that time oppressed with a cruel famine, he provided for the security of the Goods of his Subjects, chastising rigorously the thieveries of the Soldiers, he preserved the modesty of Women and Maids with so much severity, that he caused his General to be beheaded for having violated a Gentlewoman.  
By these so commendable ways he rendered himself Master of all Pou, and from thence transported himself to Rome, which he held a long time besieged, and which was at last delivered to him, by the treachery of a Court of Guard of Isaurian and Cilician Soldiers.  
He used his Victory with so much clemency, that he caused to be proclaimed that the Churches should serve for a Sanctuary, forbidding expressly to touch those that should retire themselves thither: He used the Pope Pelagius, and all the sacred persons with great respect, the Ladies with Honour, the Citizens with Courtesy, contenting himself only to demolish the Walls of Rome, without hurting any thing within. He rendered himself so absolute a Master of the City, and people's hearts, that every one confessed they had never seen the like, and published him worthy of the Empire of the World.  
The Emperor Justinian fortifies his Courage against this ebb of bad successes, and with draws Belizarius from the war with the Persians to send him back to Italy, believing that all the happiness of his Arms subsisted wholly in his hands.  
But it seems that Felicity was weary to follow always the Standarts of that valorous Captain; the affairs of War quite changed their face; all good Successes now are only for the Goths, and misfortune seemed to be fastened to all the enterprises of the Romans.  
Belizarius was as a man forlorn in the hands of an evil destiny, that darkened his Prudence, froze his Courage, weakened the strength of his Arms, and made him unprofitable to all things, so that he seemed to have passed back into Italy for nothing, but to be the spectator of his own disasters. At last, he was called home again, and Narses the Eunuch was sent in his place, who mended the business, and defeated Totilas in a pitched Battle, who died suddenly of his wounds.  
Providence, (if it be permitted here to lift up the veil, and to enter into your secrets) whence could this change proceed? We know that Belizarius was the most accomplished of all the Generals of Armies that were at that time under Heaven; He was endowed with a lively and luminous spirit, with an inventive understanding, with a profound judgement, that had nothing like it, but his Courage. Providence for the future, and Activeness for the present, contended in him which should carry away the Palm; his Valour was incomparable, and his Experience complete in all sorts of business, his Prosperity without Insolence, and his Adversity without Discouragement. He was Prudent, Sober, Chaste, even to a wonder, Affable, Gracious, Liberal, Charitable, Just, Merciful, Happy. Not only the Soldiers respected him, but even the Labourers looked upon him as their Protector, and the Father of their Quiet. From whence then came it, that he made a wrack at the end of his Life, and that he saw all the eminent lustre of his Glory bleaked even in his hands?  
Here may Great ones learn a wise Instruction for the governance of their Actions, and have cause to admire the Judgements of God. And for that purpose, I shall enlarge myself upon the causes of the miseries that happened to the fortunes of the highest Lords of the earth, and the more curiously search into this History in its source.  
I confess that the Secret one of Procopius is too railing in many places, where it speaks things incredible, but it is not deceived when it tells us, that two women Theodora the Empress, and Antonina the wife of Belizarius, were the two Helen's of the Empire, and the Torches that consumed mankind by their flames.  
Behold (saith he) from whence began the Misery of Belizarius, that ruined his bravest Enterprises, and plunged him deep into great displeasures.  
He had in his house a young Gentleman named Theodosius, whom he loved with a sincere affection, having converted him from Heresy, and procured him to be Baptised at Constantinople, whose Godfather he himself would be. He put him so fare in the good esteems of his wife, that they having no children of their Marriage, resolved both of them to Adopt him. Theodosius conquered by so great a courtesy, rendered himself obedient to Belizarius, and above all observant to the humours of Antonina. She loved him at first with a tender affection, but honest enough, which gave occasion to the more curious sort of people to think, but permitted not the wiser sort to speak.  
At last, as the best Wine degenerates into Vineegre, so the chastest Love of the spirit (if heed be not taken) changes itself to flesh.  
The conversation of the young Theodosius in the African voyage, the graces that smiled upon his face, the sweetness of his speech, the wittiness of his discourses, his good offices, his observances, his confidence, and the secrecy of the place, kindled so great a fire in the heart of Antonina, that she cherished no more that object as a Mother, but loved him as a frontless woman, that sells her prostitution.  
Happy are the women that reject the first thoughts of such miserable designs, as the sparkles of the fire of Hell.  
She gave at first too much command to her passion, and too much overture to her unhappiness. Her Caresses seemed already too soft to the young man that strove to pay them with respect, feigning himself not to understand that language of Love, for fear he should make her faulty in his thoughts. But she ceased not to pursue him, and kindled continually her flames by the liberty of her life. Conscience, Honour, the fear of an Husband, contended for a time in her heart, but in the end quitted the place. She forgot all Divine and Humane Laws, and abandoned herself to her passion, and openly solicited Theodosius to sin.  
She acted the part of Potiphars wife, but she met not with a Joseph. He was not yet wicked, but capable to become so; he went not to seek sin, but sin sought him, and he wanted strength to resist it; the respect of a woman took from him that of God; he consented to evil that he might not offend her, and betrayed his soul to content the heart of a woman past all regard of her honour and salvation.  
A man owes not obedience in this case to the most qualified and the most beneficial personages; he ought to fly from them, he ought to break off with them, he must not think upon pleasing them, in a thing that may displease God.  
Both of them at last habituated themselves in their crime, and at first acted it secretly enough: but the impudence of Antonina, and the great confidence she had of her husband's love, took from her her shame, and discovered her dishonour.  
Belizarius began to be doubtful of it, but he feared his own thoughts, and that he might not render his wife criminal, he made himself stupid. Behold! at length a poor maid-servant, a Macedonian by Nation comes to him and tells him, My Master, I put my life into your hands, I have great things to tell you, but I am a dead woman if you ever open your mouth of them: Promise me upon your oath to keep my counsel, and I will tell you that which concerns the honour of your house. The Master swears, the servant speaks, and accuses her Mistress of an infamous conversation with Theodosius.  
Belizarius that would not believe his shame and misery, asked her if there were any other witnesses, she produces two Grooms of the house that depose the same.  
It is too much (says he) Ah Theodosius, unfaithful Theodosius, Have I then made thee my son, to become now my Torturer? Have I put Thee into my house to defile my Bed? Have I given thee Life to take away my Honour? Deceitful Man! Where is that Modesty that was painted upon thy Countenance? Where are those Artificial words that thou hast so oft employed to seduce my Goodness? Thou shalt now receive a Reward worthy of thy Wickedness. What do I say? Kill my son of Adoption? It is to condemn mine own Judgement, and to tear out my heart. But it is his Crimes that destroys him, and not I; He must die, and there is no pardon for him.  
Constantine his intimate friend perceived his sadness, knew the cause of it, and counselled him rather to rid himself of his wife, that had seduced Theodosius, and which was the Plague and fury of his House; but he loved her passionately, and would by no means hearken to it. He called instantly a soldier of those that were most engaged, and having greatly obliged him to secrecy, commanded him to kill Theodosius. He knowing how well he was beloved of the Lady, asked counsel of the business of a friend of his, that told him that Belizarius was mutable in that matter, and that Antonina was the Mistress, that it might happen that she might regain the spirit of her husband, and might be a very bad enemy to him that should undertake to kill her Minion. The Soldier was afraid, and instead of doing the Act, gave secret notice of it to Theodosius, who fled to the City of Ephesus.  
Troubles are in the House; The Husband sad and pensive, believing that the business commanded was already executed: The Wife in fears, and passions impossible to be related: yet her pain was somewhat mitigated when she knew that Theodosius was yet alive.  
But Belizarius that thought him dead, and knew no way to content his wife, endured a torment unspeakable. Where is then your son? (saith she) Where is mine? Whence comes it that he is so long without appearing? They are your suspicions that have destroyed him. Is it This then that I have merited of you, for having loved you more than my own self! He trembled every joint, and durst not come to the point of the command that he had given: To deny it appeared to him impossible, and to confess it seemed to him worse than Death. The Lady takes up the discourse again: Tell me, What is become of him? If you have caused him to be murdered, let me cause his Body to be sought for, to give it Burial. The poor Innocent is no longer in the World, you have sacrificed him to your jealousy, well knowing, that the sword that passed through his Body, hath brought a mortal wound into my Heart. What advantage have I got by being faithful to you, if I have not been able to escape your suspicions which you have sprinkled with the blood of your dear Adopted? But I will pardon you all, on condition, that you will tell me those that have brought this unhappiness upon you, either by their false reports, or by their damnable counsels.  
This wicked woman gave the Rack without ceasing to the spirit of her husband who with all Sampsons' strength could not keep in a secret, no more than he. He named the Macedonian wench, and the two Grooms: Whereupon she had sport enough, by reason of the persons, saying, That it was an horrible thing to put her honour to an arbitration upon the report of Slaves, and used recrimination so cunningly, that she made all their accusation pass for a calumny.  
She seized instantly upon the poor maid and the two men, which she delivered up to her Hangman, and after she had caused their tongues to be cut off, she commanded that they should be thrown in a sack into the water, where they finished their life by the detestable hatred of that Megaera. She found out also the Counsel that Constantine had given, and straightway caused him to be assassinated, so great a desire had she and so much power to pursue her vengegeance.  
Soon thereupon after it was published every where abroad, that Theodosius was alive, and he was suddenly called back to Court, but he seemed to be cold in it, making the wicked designs that some had undertaken to destroy him, his excuse; and feigning himself ignorant of the secret command that Belizarius had given of his death, he lays all upon the head of Photius. He was the son of Antonina, born of her first bed, a brave man and very accomplished, who was in the chiefest offices of the Empire, and had conceived an extreme displeasure at the debaucheries of his mother, not being able to endure that Amoretto, to whom she made a profession of her goods and honour.  
This unnatural woman forgetting both her blood and duty, ceased not to raise calumnies and troubles against her own son in the favour of her Adulterer, and to make use even of the most detestable inventions, to take him out of the World, in such a manner, as that he not thinking his life safe enough against the sword and poison, was constrained to choose a voluntary exile, to give place to Theodosius. Belizarius by a most infamous observance that he rendered to his wife, employed his credit and his Letters to compass his return. He comes now to seek his Mistress in Italy, where she was with her husband, and from thence they all returned to Constantinople, where this crafty artificious woman had the leisure to satiate herself with the simplicity of the one, and the love of the other.  
But it is a strange thing, yet true, that That kind of Love is nourished with Opposition, whereas the full enjoyment renders the seeds of Iniquity less Active and more Languishing.  
Theodosius now began to feel a great remorse of Conscience, for his infamous Life. He was fully persuaded that he could not escape the disaster of some violent death, if he continued that debauchery, that the patience of an husband so many times provoked would break out at length in some evil end, and that, happen what would, he could not escape the judgements of God neither Alive nor Dead. Upon these thoughts, he steals away secretly from the Court, transports himself to Ephesus, enters into a Monastery, and makes himself a Monk, causing those handsome locks to be shaved off, that were the strings that tied Antoninas affection.  
This unhappy woman hearing the news of it, put on mourning as for a public disaster, deprived herself of all company, persecuted her own life by a horror of eating and drinking, and not contenting herself with weeping for her Beloved, she howled and sent out cries that affrighted the whole World.  
It is a thing sufficiently remarkable, that Love encamped in that Friars Cowle, darted more subtle fires, and sharpened his Arrows with the Ashes of Repentance, Imitating the Sorcerers that employ the Mass and Bible to fortify their Enchantments.  
The Passion of Antonina was so desperate, that Belizarius pitied her, and so wrought, that by the Authority of the Empress, Theodosius was fetched back again from the Monastery, and brought unto her house. It is true that he made a great resistance before he would come forth, whether it was feignedly, or really, it is doubtful, but he yielded to the violent pursuits that were made for him, and quitting the Altar of Jesus, made himself again of a Monk an Adonis to sacrifice himself to his Venus.  
One would have thought that the flames of that cursed passion would have been totally extinguished, and that there had been no danger to be feared in such a conversation. But, O God, who knows not that the presence of Lovers, especially after a long absence makes love arise again out of its own ashes, and extracts sparks of fire even out of ice and snow? Belizarius marches in an expedition towards the coasts of Persia, where Photius his son in law comes to seek him, who resenting in his heart the bitter displeasures that the persecution of his mother caused him, was resolved to pluck out her Minion from between her arms, or to die in the attempt. He disposes his Spies at Constantinople, to observe diligently what should pass in their Conversation. He hath news sent him from all parts that the fire is again kindled, and that Triclaresses continue to the scandal of the whole City. He causes a very understanding man and most faithful to the service of Belizarius to go to him; and tell him from point to point that which he least desired to hear.  
His displeasure was so greatly kindled that the very same moment, he goes to seek out Photius, and says to him, My son, it is now that you must secure your miserable father, if you would not have grief send him to the grave; you are not my son by nature, but you are by love and by election. I have given you goods and honour, I have not ceased to oblige you all my life-time; yet I desire to pass by whatever I have done hitherto, on condition that you will revenge me upon that disloyal Theodosius who hath placed again dishonour in my bed. Photius, who desired nothing more than that discourse, comforts him, and promises him quickly to dispatch him of his enemy. They both of them swear upon the Gospels, mutually to keep close the secret. The other to acquit himself of his promise takes his time, learns by his Spies the day wherein Theodosius was to make a Voyage to Ephesus, and transport himself thither with a company of resolute soldiers. The Adulterer doubting that all that commotion was against him, saved himself in Saint John's Church, as in a secure Sanctuary. But he was drawn out from thence by a Trick, and delivered by the Bishop himself of the Place, into the hands of Photius, who being of a very sweet Nature would not kill him, but contented himself to send him away into Cilicia, to the utmost bounds of the Empire, and to keep him in close prison, under the guard of men, very much engaged to him, in such a manner as he should be never heard of any more.  
He was seasoned a sufficient time in this Prison-hole, which worked an enraged sadness in his Antonina, who found no better remedy then to implore the assistance of the Empress, with whom she was so familiar, that she deposed even her loves, and immodesties in her bosom. She makes an horrible perquition of Theodosius' business, and by misfortune it happened that one Calligonius (who was the Confident of Belizarius his wife, having been taken and ill used by Photius, to make him disclose to him all the secrets of his Mistress) made an escape and came secretly to Constantinople, where he charged the son of having attempted something upon the friend of the Mother. Theodora suffers him to come to Court privately, and when he dreamt not of it, causes him to be apprehended, confines him into a secret place, and unknown to all the world, where he was put to the Rack without having any regard to his Great Quality or even to the infirmities of his Body. He kept Belizarius his counsel in his sharpest torments, but he told them the place where Theodosius was detained, from whence the Empress caused him secretly to be fetched, and commanded that he should be brought to Constantinople, without noise, to drown in a sudden and unhoped for joy the spirit of her Confident. She kept him some days in her Palace to put him in better liking, and told her dear Antonina (who was very curious in her pearls) that she had a rare Jewel to show her, which made her haste to the Palace with a great desire to see what it was.  
The Empress, after she had a long time suspended her hopes, causes Theodosius to come forth out of the chamber of one of her Eunuches, and casts the whole Sun into her eyes. She fell down in a swoon at that sight, and was like to die, but at length when she had been succoured, and was come to herself again, she had so much staidness, as not to cast herself hastily upon her friend's neck, before she had kissed Theodoras' feet, to whom she said with transports of an unparalleled joy; Madam, You have been hitherto my Empress and my Mistress, but I shall now in time to come esteem you as the Goddess of my safety, seeing you have withdrawn my Son out of the bottomless pit of Hell, whither his enemy had precipitated him. There were nothing then but Caresses, but Dalliances and discourses upon the adventures of Theodosius.  
But God, whose just anger follows always sinners at the heels, waited till the Offering was fat to sacrifice it.  
He permitted them to make so many Banquets, so many Dance, and so many youthful debaucheries for the return of that Minion, that he suffering himself to be carried to excesses above the ability of his body, fell sick of the Bloodyflux, by which he was carried within few days into the other World, to render an account to the Sovereign Judge, of his unfaithfulness and Dissolute Life.  
Antonina remained near the Corpse, as the Ghost of the Body, but a Damned Ghost and deprived eternally of all she loved most. God gave her a life long enough, and prolonged her Hell among the living, to anticipate that of the other life, seeing that we know her crimes, and know nothing of her Repentance.  
In the mean while poor Photius was three years in a black Dungeon, out of which having twice escaped and saved himself in Churches which served for a Sanctuary, he was taken again, and shut up close, without being ever able to get forth but by a Miracle, which discovered to him in a Vision the Prophet Zachary, who drew him out of that deep pit wherein he was, and conducted him to Jerusalem, whither indeed he went and made himself a perfect Votary to accomplish the Vow that he had made, if ever he did obtain his dear liberty.  
Behold here the springs of Belizarius his misery, which Procopius hath observed in his secret History.  
It is believed, that it is but a Fable to say, that he had his eyes put out by the command of Justinian, and was reduced to beggary, but it is true that the Emperor had a jealousy of him, as if he had aspired to the Empire, and that Theodora who had a mind to persecute him to favour his wives wicked humour, who yet cherished in her heart some poison against him for the business of Theodosius, made him to be disgraced, his offices were taken from him, his goods confiscate; the soldiers that he had trained up given to other Captains; his friends interdicted with a prohibition to speak to him. This brave General, who before, drew the whole world in throngs after him, was forsaken, and walked through the streets of Constantinople with two or three poor servants, as a man that had outlived his Funerals to serve for a spectacle of Pity.  
One day as he went to do his Courtship at the palace, the Empress shown him a bad countenance, whereat he was so affrighted, that at his coming forth he expected nothing every hour but murderers to assassinate him. He returns into his lodging, being dismayed above all that can be imagined of so generous a man. He presently throws himself upon his bed trembling and sweeting with fear. One comes to tell him that a Gentleman is at the gate with a message from Theodora; he prepared himself already for death, when the man gave him a Billet from the Empress which imported thus: Belizarius, thy conscience tells thee that thou hast offended me, and that thou deservest to be punished, but I give thee to thy wife to whom I am obliged. It is from her that in time to come thou shalt hold thy life, thy goods and thy honour. I shall know how thou shalt behave thyself towards her, and with what submissions thou shalt acknowledge and thank her for her benefits. He instantly kisses the Letter, and in the presence of him that brought it to him, enters into his wife's chamber, throws himself down at her feet, kisses sometimes one, sometimes the other; professes that he owes to her his life, and that he will no longer hold the rank of an Husband but of a Slave. The Lady receives him into favour, and goes and thanks the Empress.  
But is it possible, that Belizarius, that thunderbolt of war, that had made the East, the West, and the South to tremble; that had led two Kings in triumph; that shaked not before armies of an hundred and fifty thousand men, having but a little handful; Belizarius, before whom the mighty Powers of the earth crawled along in dust, was so basely subjugated by women! Procopius assures us that it was a Charm that caused that perturbation of his mind, and stole him from himself, and needs must it be a work of the Devil, that could quite change upside down, and besot so great a personage.  
Yet may we aff●rm, that it was not only the wicked spirit of Antonina that made that Tragedy, but that the person of the Pope's violated by that General, who was too basely obedient to the Empress, brought on him an infinite number of miseries, that broke out at last upon Justinian, and upon the whole Empire.  
Here is a great Theatre of Providence, where Princes may learn, that it is very dangerous to be observant to women's wicked humours, and to seize even on sacred persons to satisfy their Revenge.  
Behold then the Prime and most capital fury of the Empire; Theodora, who made her husband fall into Heresy, who made the Popes be plucked out of their Sees to put therein her servants, that turned topsie turvie all Divine and Humane Laws to content her Passion.  
Procopius speaks shamefully of the original of this woman, and saith, that she was the daughter of a Bear-keeper, a Comedian by her trade, a Prostitute by her public profession, and abandoned even to the little boys of the Theatre from her infancy. He adds also, that she had a very good grace in puffing up her cheeks to receive boxes on them, and to gain money by that pastime; and that in her little youth, she was debauched by one Ecebolus who kept her for a time, and afterward was weary of her, which made her, having now nothing whereon to live, run from place to place through the whole East in that shameful prostitution; and afterward returning to Constantinople, Justinian made love to her as to a famous Courtesan, and finding her to his liking, married her, in the life time of the Emperor his uncle.  
It appears clearly that this Author enraged against the memory of Justinian, invented execrable lies that pass in the approbation of those that nourish themselves willingly with poison, and that think, that one cannot speak too much ill of great ones, and that those are the best Historians that relate their most abominable vices.  
But we ought to consider that this wicked man (who appeared more a Pagan in his Writings then a Christian) after he had highly praised his Master in public, when he had not the recompense he expected, and was perhaps punished for his looseness, and his demerits, sets himself to write a secret History wherein he speaks fearful things which never came into the thought of so many other Historians that wrote after him, and in a time when they had a full liberty, who would not have omitted so many remarkable things, if they had had any foundation in truth.  
That man must be of a belief either simple or malicious, that can persuade himself that Justinian who was a cold Prince, considerate in all his actions, extremely ambitious of glory, and careful of his reputation, who never was tainted with the vices of youth, should marry a caytiff-wench, cried out upon by the whole world, when he reigned already with his uncle, and governed the whole business of the Empire. It was he that before his marriage published a Law, by which it was forbidden to the Senators to ally themselves with mean and dishonest women. Who can believe that he should teach the transgression of his ordinances by his own example, without fearing the severe honesty of the Emperor his uncle, the reproaches of the Senate, the advantage that he might give to his competitors by so ill an action?  
All that can be said most truly, is, that Theodora was the daughter of the great Huntsman of the Emperors, whose office was to cause wild beasts to be taken and kept for the spectacles of the Amphitheatre, which was not a mean or dishonourable employment. It is not read in all other Historians, that she had any stain of immodesty in her conversation, but quite contrary, that she was such a capital enemy to women and maids of an ill life, that at one time she caused five hundred of them to be shut up, to take from them the occasion of doing ill, and to be trained up in the exercises of honesty: which is a thing that Procopius himself could not conceal, not considering, that if she had been in former time stained with the same vice, she should have exposed herself to the laughter of all the world; some blaming her cares and others her rigours, which would have renewed the memory of her infamy, whereas she should have endeavoured to have buried it in silence.  
She was certainly too stately to be a Prostitute; those that have seen her, say, That she was a little woman, that had a face full of Majesty, eyes burning, and casting out lightning in their anger, a lively and piercing wit, a solid judgement, an expeditenesse in business, and the activity of fire. She was so discreet, that seeing that Justinian could not be gained by the flesh, she took him by the spirit, which she adorned carefully with excellent and sublime knowledges, causing herself secretly to be instructed in State affairs, which gave her a facility to suggest advices to the Emperor her husband, which he relished wonderfully, and did nothing in all the business of the Empire without communicating it to her, calling her, even in some ordinances, his Venerable Spouse, the assistant and companion of all his Counsels.  
It is then the poison of the Serpent that serves for ink to Procopius' pen, when he writes extravagant fables of the birth of Theodora, and when he says that Justinian was the son of an Incubus, a true Devil in an humane shape; that the servants of his chamber have seen him often in the figure of a Devil; that sometimes his head hath been perceived separated from his body with mounting itself up to the ceiling of his chamber, and the same body walking on another place without an head; and that a certain Friar coming to salute him, was altogether astonished, for that he saw Lucifer in his Throne. After this, he makes him the murderer of a great number of millions of men; he attributes to him the Comets, the Conflagrations, the Deluges, the Plagues, and the Sterilities of the earth. He complains that he would have reduced all sorts of spirits to the union of the Catholic Belief; that he tormented Heretics and Jews; that he caused sumptuous Churches to be built; that he took too much care for the protection of Bishops, Priests, and Monks.  
This Author spitting out his gall, even against the Light itself, with so much impudence, and inserting in his writings such enormous tales, shows sufficiently, that he was altogether filled with the cursed fury of Revenge: a man without Faith, and without Religion, a bloody scoffer, which was more fit to write a Romance of the Cyclops, than the Life of our Justinian. He is so contrary to himself, that having made him the most subtle, and the craftiest of all men, he says in another place, that there was nothing so easy to be deceived, and abundance of other contradictions that destroy his credit. We need not then wonder if a famous Historian of these times, who takes many pieces out of Euagrius, who hath transcribed a part of this Calumniatour, deals sometimes severely with the memory of this Monarch, without regarding the great virtues that might counterpoise his faults.  
That which Procopius speaks most probably of Justinian's imperfections, is, that he was an extreme dissembler, crafty in his actions, close in his hatred, the master of his countenance, and even of his tears; inconstant to his friends, inexorable to his enemies (had not Christian Piety made him flexible) covetous of money, and more inclining to rigour then to clemency; obstinate in his resolutions, and not constant enough in his promises when there intervened reasons of State. These are spots ordinary enough to Great ones, which, it is good to correct by the counterpoise of Gods Law. As for Theodora, it cannot be denied but that she was scornful, proud, revengeful, an intermeddler, severe, even to the excess, and flitting in matters of Religion, which caused much trouble to the conscience of them both.  
I have said before, that Pope Agapetus, after he had deposed Anthimus the Patriarch of Constantinople, died in the same city. The news of it being carried to Rome, an assembly was made to proceed to the election of a new high Priest. Theodate King of the Goths, partly by entreaties, and partly by threats, caused Sylverius to be chosen, that was the son of Pope Hormisdas by a lawful marriage before his Priesthood. As soon as he was chosen, the Empress Theodora commanded him by an express letter to re-establish Anthimus, and to put Menas out of his Chair that had been substituted in his place. As soon as the Pope had opened that letter, he said sighing, that it was the forerunner of his death, and answered, that the deposition of Anthimus, having been made Canonically by his predecessout he could not in conscience change any thing in that business. Theodora was furiously provoked at his refusal, and gave charge to Belizarius, who was then in Rome with his wife Autonina, to seize upon the Pope, and to send him to the East. Belizarius was very scrupulous at first, but being encouraged by that wicked woman, he resolved himself, saying That it was their duty that commanded, to render an account of their actions to God, and as for him, he pretended to no other thing but to the glory of Obedience.  
There was at that time at Rome a Deacon named Vigilius, an ambitious and factious man, who knowing that the Popedom of Sylverius was tottering, and no way settled, offered himself to that wicked Antonina, desiring to be introduced into the favour of the Empress, promising that he would do nothing in the exercise of his charge but by her orders; that he would put Anthimus again into his Chair; and besides all this, would make a present to Theodora and to Antinina of a good sum of money. The Lady, past all respect of Conscience or Honour, causes his offers to be accepted, and urges her husband (as much as she could) to the execution of that attempt. Vigilius keeps the business warm as much as possible, and produces two witnesses, the one a Lawyer, and the other a Soldier, that accuse Sylverius of having endeavoured to betray the city of Rome, and to deliver a gate to the Goths. Belizarius was very doubtful that there was some calumny in all those Proceed, nevertheless, fearing that if he should uphold the lawful Pope, he might be involved in a crime of State, as having been a favourer of the party of the Goths, he sends for him to his palace to hear him, with promise to send him back unto his house, which was performed after he had been pleased with his Defence.  
But he was called for the second, time and brought into the chamber of Antonina, who was seated on her , and Belizarius at her feet. The proud woman using this holy man as a groom, says to him with a disdain, and the guise of a Prostitute, Ha', Sylverius, what have we done that we should be sold to the enemy? It is time that you should be punished for your treason. Thereupon she makes him pass into another chamber, where she commands that he should be stripped of his habit, and clothed with a Monk's gown, and sent to the East, from whence he was banished to Patura. The Bishop of the place knowing the innocence of this Pope, went out to meet him, and received him with all the submissions due to his dignity: furthermore, being lamed, with a great zeal, he had the boldness to transport himself to Constantinople, and stoutly to tell the Emperor of the oppression of the Head of the Church, which would pull down the vengeance of God upon him, if he did not remedy it. Justinian was much astonished at this discourse, and gave command, that the Pope should be carried back again to Italy, and preserved in his dignity, with this reservation, that if he should be convicted of having intelligence with the Goths, he should not live in Rome, but should choose some other dwelling; which sufficiently testified the moderation of the Emperor in that business, when he acted according to the justice of his own thought.  
But Theodora, who would not stop there, knowing that the Pope was re-conducted into the West, writes to her confident that he should not do a business by halfs. On the other side Vigilius ardently solicits, saying, that he could not perform his promise if he did not mount up to S. Peter's Throne. He presses so violently, that the Pope was delivered into his hands, whom he instantly caused to be carried away into the Isle of Palms, which was an Augury of his Martyrdom. This sacred high Priest had so much vigour in the extremity of miseries, that having assembled as many Bishops that lived thereabout, as he could get together, he excommunicated Vigilius and all his adherents. He having a mind to revenge himself upon him, and to make sure his Chair, made an end of him with hunger, with vexations, and with torments in that desert Island, where he quickly gave up his victorious spirit to God, gaining the Crown of Martyrdom.  
Vigilius his persecutor, who had entered into S. Peter's Chair like a Lion, transformed himself into a Lamb, changing totally his wicked manners, so that he was confirmed by the Romans, and held for lawful Pope. God, that would not destroy him, gave him for a punishment, the accomplishment of his desires, and caused that all that he had most passionately sought for, was the source of all his torments. Theodora the Empress failed not to challenge him of his promise, for the re-establishment of the false Patriarch Anthimus; but he answered, that he had committed a sin in promising, and that he should commit two if he should perform what he had promised. This furious woman provoked with that answer, declares him an usurper of the Apostolic See, and follows the Law against him, accusing him of the murder of Sylverius; whereupon, she causes him to be seized on by the violences of one Anthimus, and to be brought in chains to Constantinople, where she presses again very earnestly the restitution of Anthimus. Vigilius was so generous and constant, that he protested, that he would rather suffer a thousand deaths than do it: and when he was violated with injurious words and armed commands, he spoke aloud, I thought I had been come to Justinian's Court, but I well perceive that I am in Dioclesian's.  
That speech cost him full dear, for Theodora's Ministers, who held him not for lawful Pope, beat him so cruelly, that he was almost dead upon the place; yet he scaped out of their hands, and saved himself in S. Euphemia's Church, from whence he was suddenly plucked out, and led through the streets of Constantinople with an halter about his neck as a thief, then put in prison, and entertained with bread and water, forsaken of all his Clergy, some of which were banished, and others constrained to labour in the mines. All this was done by a just judgement of God, to expiate the stain of Sylverius his blood; but yet the Empress that ordained these violences (in part) to content her passion, should have clearly informed herself upon the point of his character before she should have proceeded to such indignities.  
The Romans, that at his departure from their city, when he was carried away prisoner, loaded him with injuries, so fare, as even to throw stones and sticks at him, were touched with repentance, after they had heard of all the usage that he had at Constantinople, with the admirable patience that he expressed in his pains, sought for him again, avowing him for the true Pastor of the Universal Church: which coming to the knowledge of Justinian, he suddenly commanded that he should be delivered, and the spirit of Theodora herself was appeased and reconciled with him. All the Priests and Deacons that had followed him, were rallied together, and so he was sent back to Italy with honour. But the poor Pope, after he had surmounted a million of torments and inconveniences, died of the stone in Sicily, before he arrived at Rome. O phantasms of Honour, how painful are ye to those that sue for you! How traitorous are ye to those that possess you, and dolorous to those that leave you! Unhappy are those that prise you through error, that court you through vain glory, and obtain you by iniquity. It were better to put one's hand in flames then to lay it upon Tiara's or on Crowns covered with Injustice and with blood.  
Theodora died about the same time, carrying into the other world a great account to give to God, for having embroiled the estate of the Church; for having behaved herself imperiously; and for having always sought with ardency the satisfaction of her Revenge. It is probable that she passed out of this life in the Catholic Belief, and in Repentance. But as concerning the death of Antonina her confident, it is buried in a great obsurity, and it is to be feared, that her life extremely dissolute even to her old age, and her damnable practices have cast her headlong into an eternal misery.  
Justinian languished a long time after Theodora's death; having seen all his designs of War, of Law, and of Buildings perfected, bestowed his whole time afterwards in serving God, and expired the rest of his life in Devotion, to which he ever had a very strong inclination.  
It is held, that about the end of his days, he fell into two errors; the former whereof was, That he should not die, and indeed it seemed to all the world that death had passed him, since he had already attained to the age of fourscore and four years, which is very rare in an Emperor, and not conformable to the Scripture, which says, That the life of Mighty men is ordinarily short enough; nevertheless, it is not probable, that in the solidity of his judgement which endured even to his end, he should suffer himself to be persuaded with such a vanity. The other fault which he committed is more true, which is, That by a zeal not discreet enough, that he had conceived for the humanity of our Lord, he would believe that it was not subject to our miseries, but impassable and incorruptible, even before his Resurrection. He was near of publishing this opinion, and authorising it by his ordinances, but yet he never did it, and repent of it at his last hour; calling back in his Will the Patriarch Eutichius that he had driven away for opposing this his error. So Nicephorus writes manifestly; and every equitable judgement will conclude with him for the salvation of this Emperor. We have very considerable proofs of it; first, his name hath never been blotted out of the Ecclesiastical Tables, out of which it was a custom to deface the memory of Heretic Emperors. Secondly, S. Gregory the Great, who speaks always very correctly, calls him Emperor of pious Memory. In the third place, Pope Agathon, writing after his death, saith, That he was an Emulatour of the sincere and Apostolic faith. Finally, he was commended in the sixth universal Counsel with an Elegy worthy of a most Catholic Prince. Even some Patriarches of Constantinople have caused his memory to be yearly celebrated with acclamations of happiness, and public Orations in his praise. His great Austerities, his magnificent Alms, his Churches, his Devotions, his Laws, his indefatigable pains for the Public, have defaced the spots that so easily slide into the lives of great ones. Let us not rashly condemn that which we may excuse with Justice, and let us not be evil with Ours, if God will be good with His.  
I confess that this end somewhat troubles me, seeing myself constrained to follow an opinion different from that of a great modern Historian which handles this Emperor with much severity. It is true that I have always had a venerable esteem of that Author, knowing well, that by the rays of his virtues, and of his learning, he hath surpassed the lustre of the most glorious purples. Yet the respect which I bear to Truth, and the honour which I own to the memory of great men that have so much obliged the Public, give me permission to say here, that Justinian hath never been so black as he hath painted him, being ill informed by the writings of Procopius and of Euagrius his enemies, or following opinions that by a false intention and manifest equivocation are insinuated into the spirits of men many Ages since. Fables easily surprise us, and when they are authorised by a long time, and by the belief of many persons, they pass oftentimes for truths.  
That which I say is manifest in that which Baronius himself writes touching the opinion which he had of the gross ignorance of Justinian, whom he reproaches often in his History, that he could neither write nor read; and yet it is now more than visible, that it is an error crept in by an equivocation of Names, and a fault in Printing, which hath caused the name of Justinian in the text of Suidas, to be taken for that of Justin as I have already said. This is so clear, that the Commentatour of Procopius (an enemy to Justinian as well as his Author) hath not been able to dissemble it, but confesses that he hath observed in history, that oftentimes the name of Justinian hath passed for that of Justin; and that by this means, the ignorance that agreed to his uncle Justin hath been attributed to this Monarch; and farther yet, the accident of the troubles of mind that befell his nephew Justin. That which I say is proved after an excellent manner by the great Cassiodore (who might have seen Justinian when being young he came into Italy) who calls him aloud The Learned Prince, and most wise Emperor. And that grave Author Agapetus, who dedicated to him the Treatise of Reigning well, which Baronius highly commends, says openly, that he was created Emperor Philosophising, and that in the Empire he ceased not from Philosophy. And Procopius his Calumniatour avouches, that he spent ordinarily a good part of the night in his closet, to study upon the sublimest Sciences; and that he could discourse of them pertinently with the ablest Scholars of his age. After this, judge if there be any reason to set him forth as a Peasant, without Learning, and without Letters. Now, as this illustrious Author was overtaken in that which he spoke concerning the wit and the capacity of Justinian, so (as being a man) might he be mistaken in that which he hath written of his manners, following some pieces of the slanderous history of Procopius, which he had read in Euagrius, and in others like him.  
But I entreat my Reader yet once more to see and consider, whether it be reasonable to believe that obscure Libel of an Author enraged against the memory of that Prince, to the prejudice of so many grave and judicious persons that have quite contrary opinions of him. It is evident, that this Procopius was a Libertine, and a true Atheist, who hath spoken and written in his first book of the History of the Goths, That it is a folly to trouble one's self about the belief of Divine things, and that it should be left to every one, whether Priestor Lay, to believe all that shall seem good to him, rather than disturb the Commonwealth, being extreme angry that Justinian tormented the Pagans, the Jews, the Samaritans, and endeavoured to reduce the whole world to the Christian and Catholic Belief. Judge (my Reader) hereupon what faith a man deserves to have, that making a show to be a Christian, acknowledges not their God. Further yet, being a Philistim by Nation, a Sophister by Profession, an Impostor by Artifice, he hath been able easily to make some of the pranks of his trade slip into his History. Add to this, that being but a mean fellow, he was advanced first by Justin, and afterwards by Justinian to great offices, yet being a man extremely jealous and ambitious, he thought himself not high enough, and bore a mortal hatred to John the superintendent of Justice; to Tribonian the great favourite of Justinian; and not content with tearing them in his History, he falls upon the Emperor that had honoured them with his favours.  
Every one that hath the common sense of a reasonable man, sees plainly that it is a most unworthy thing, that a servant, a domestic, taken from the dust of the earth, raised even to the great Offices of the Empire, should leave a Railing History to posterity, written in an hole, and by a singular treason, against his Lord and Master, of whom he held his life and honour. And beyond all this, that he should speak things in his Book, that must needs have been very public and visible to all the world, that so many other Historians who were near that time, and might speak with all freedom, do not so much as mention.  
To this it will be answered, that it is not only a Procopius that condemns Justinian, but that he himself hath blacked himself eternally by the ill usage which he shown the Pope Vigilius, and by the heresy which he fomented and authorised about the period of his life. To speak truth, there being nothing to be preferred before the fidelity which we own to our Religion, the honour which we ought to render to the common Father of all Christendom, and to the Apostolic See; if this Emperor were directly convinced of these two crimes, and died without Repentance, I should be the first man that would subscribe to his condemnation: But there is a notable difference between that which escapes by error and by surprise, and that which is practised by design and obstinacy.  
It is true that the Pope Vigilius was at first hardly used at Constantinople by the Empress Theodora, but his Election being not held at the beginning for Canonical, he being one whom the Romans had chased away with stones, and whom he himself had deposed and banished from the usurpation which he had made upon Sylverius his Predecessor by a bold attempt, causing himself afterward to be Canonically chosen; it is no wonder if in this doubt of his dignity, and certainty of his crime committed against the person of a lawful Pope, he was not honoured as high Priest, but accused as guilty. It suffices, that as soon as Justinian knew that he had been afterward declared the sovereign Pastor of the Church by the ordinary Forms, he rendered to him the respects due to his Character, and permitted him to exercise his Functions with all liberty in Constantinople. It is true that he had also some difference with him about the condemnation of three Articles, or rather of three persons, Theodore, Ibas, and Theodoret, but in the end the Emperor yielded, and permitted all to the discretion of the Pope.  
As for the Heresy which is objected to him, it hath rather been an error of suprise then a resolute opinion with obstinacy against the decisions of the Church without which it cannot be a formal Heresy. There arose in his time an Opinion that held, That the body of our Saviour was incorruptible even before the Resurrection, and that he was not subject to the natural and irreprehensible passions of other men. Many Bishops, many great learned Friars, and abundance of illustrious persons profess that Belief, and Justinian, deceived by a zeal not well regulated, which he had to the person of our Lord, fell into it, not that he doubted but the two Natures were in Jesus Christ, and that his body was consubstantial with ours, but he could not endure the word Corruptible, when the flesh of our Lord was spoken of. If he had only meant an exemption from the corruption and rottenness to which our bodies are reduced, his opinion had been but commendable; but to intent to take away from the Son of God the natural passions of hunger, thirst, weariness, and other like, is to be fare wide from the Catholic Faith. Yet since that that Opinion had not been yet by name, and expressly decided by the preceding Counsels, and that many Bishops had the same thought, and that the Pope very much busied by the wars of the Goths, had not yet interposed thereon, it is not credible that it was an Heresy framed in the spirit of the Emperor, but rather an error. And since that he abstained from promulgating it as he had projected, and ordained by Will that the Patriarch Eutychus that had been banished for opposing this Opinion should be called back by Justin his Successor; It is evident that he repent at the last period of his life, and that Euagrius who had a strong tincture of the venom of Procopius did him wrong to condemn him to hell: for I leave it to every judicious man to weigh, which we ought rather to believe, a mean Historian angered, or the voice of a general Council assembled after Justinians death. No man certainly can call it into doubt but that the authority of a Council infinitely passes the opinion of one only man. Now it is so, that besides the testimonies of S. Gregory and Pope Agathon heretofore alleged; The sixth Council speaking of the Emperor Justinian calls him always Most Christian Prince, Emperor of pious Memory, And in the end, Holy Monarch, and who is in the number of the Blessed. The German that hath Commented upon the railing History of Procopius is constrained to confess that he hath read even in the best Copies of that Council, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Justinian that is among the Saints. But he being an enemy of his memory eludes that Epithet and says that it hath been attributed to most wicked Emperors, pretending by this means to diminish the lustre of Justinian. I acknowledge that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Holy, or Sacred, sometimes signifies that which is Inviolable, and that in this manner it was given to all the Emperors, but I defy him to find one sole Text that says of a dead Emperor, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, He that is in the company of the Saints who is not reckoned amongst the Blessed that live in heaven.  
This only is enough to stop the mouth of all those that are of a contrary opinion, and to maintain this great Monarch in the possession of an high and happy renown, which he hath so justly purchased.  
It is he that above all the Emperors hath expressed a most ardent Zeal towards the person of our Lord, to whom he dedicated the stateliest Church which was at that time in the whole Universe. It is he that consecrated an Altar to him composed of all the most glittering stones, and of all the most magnificent rich materials that were then to be found in all the world. It is he that had a most tender care of all the Churches of his Empire. He that every where enriched the house of God. The Purveyour for the Hospitals; the refuge of all necessitous persons, and the Sanctuary of the afflicted. It is he that governed the whole world by most holy Laws; who hath revenged, persecuted, and punished those crimes that tended to the infection of the Public. It is he that warred all his life time against Heretics, and that upheld the Glory of the Roman Empire, which since Constantine was fallen into an horrible decay. It is he that displayed his Ensigns in Asia, Europe, and Africa, under the Name of Jesus Christ with a force incomparable, and successes that could not but come from heaven. It is he that banished from Christian society Sorcerers, Immodest, and Infamous persons, and that planted every where good manners. It is he that made Learning flourish, that rewarded men of Merit, that eternised Laws, that bore Arms to the height of Reputation. It is he, that always shown himself a most ardent administrator of the Justice of God, giving audience very often in person to parties with an indesatigable toil. It is he that pardoned injuries, and received even into Grace those that had attempted upon his life. He, that God preserved from a thousand dangers, and a thousand ambushes. He, whom God crowned with great age, and an infinite number of blessings.   

CHARLEMAIN, OR, CHARES the GREAT.  
IT is not flattery that hath given to our Charles the name of Great, since that truth itself may attribute to him the title of three-times-thrice Great, for his Piety, for his Arms, and for his Laws. All that Persia respected in Cyrus, all that Greece vaunted in Alexander, all that Rome honoured in Augustus and in Trajan, all that Christians have commended in the persons of Constantine and Theodosius, is found included in our Charlemain.  
Ptolemy said that great Personages are never born into the world without a conspiration of the Heavens which collect their best Constellations and most favourable Influences to salute them, as soon as they salute the day. We cannot know the quality of the stars that ruled over this happy birth, but we know that Providence which infinitely out-passes the effects of all the celestial Globes hath taken the care of forming this incomparable Prince, and of making him a Masterpiece of her hands to show him to all Ages. Nature was employed to build him a Body capable to sustain the Impressions of that divine Spirit that God would lodge therein. She made him a stature so advantageous, limbs so well composed, so handsome, and so strong; she engraved so much Majesty upon his countenance; she sowed so much lightning and attraction in his eyes, that they triumphed over hearts, before his valour had laid hand upon the Empire. It is not always that Felicity is so prodigal of her benefits; she contents herself in some to adorn the house with troubling herself for the inhabitant; and if there be a fair appearance on the outside, there is little Sense within. But in our Charles, every thing was Great, and his Soul never belied the beautiful spectacle of his Body. His understanding was quick and piercing; his memory most happy; his judgement clean and solid, that discerned exactly good from evil, and truth from falsehood. He that saw him in Letters, thought that they were made for none but him; and he that contemplated him in Arms, perceived that he would be one day the chief of conquerors. He studied Grammar, Rhetoric, Poetry, Philosophy, Law, Astrology, and the rest of the Mathematics. He learned the Latin, the Greek, the Hebrew, the Syriack. He had some taste even of Divinity itself, and succeeded in all Sciences so advantageously, that he might have held the Empire of Letters, if God had not destined to him that of the World. He respected his Tutors all his life time as the Fathers of his soul; he made his Master of Peter the Deacon, when the Law of Arms might have made him his Slave. He drew Alcuin out of England, to learn of him the secret of the Arts, honoured him with great benefits, and at last founded by his Counsel the University of Paris. His meals were seasoned with the reading of some good book, or with the conference of the ablest men of his whole kingdom, loving to refresh himself from business in their discourses without taking any other directions in his pains then the change of one labour into another.  
That which spoils many great ones, is, that they cannot endure any serious thing for a long time, and yet this King made his Recreations even of that whereof others might have made an hard study; and the grace of it was, that he did all this without pain, and that his spirit was no more disquieted with Sciences, than the eye with the most delightful colours. This occupation that he took in Letters by the orders of the King his father, served extremely to the fashioning of his manners, because he saw in Books, and especially in History, as in a true mirror, all the stains that flattery dissembles unto Princes that heed not to be in a resolution to wash them off, since they are not in a condition to know them.  
It is a marvellous thing to see how nature seemed to sport herself in reproducing Martel and Pepin in the person of Charles; she moderated the fierce valour of the Grandsire by the sweetness of the father, and made in him an heavenly temper by the happiest of mixtures. His Devotion was not soft nor feminine, neither was it large or lukewarm, but it gently spread its divine Lights in the soul of this Monarch without deading the fire of his courage.  
He had most sublime knowledges of God and apprehensions very Religious; he offered to him his duties both in public and in private, with a very sincere Piety. He burned with a great zeal to carry his name into all places whither he could extend his Arms. He was ardently affectionate to the holy See, to which he gave respects and incomparable protections; he honoured the Prelates, and filled the Church with Benefits.  
He held that Justice was the Rampart of Kingdoms, the Peace of the people, the policy of manners, the joy of hearts, and that neither the gentle temperature of the air, nor the serenity of the sea, nor the fruitfulness of the earth, were any way equal to its sweetness. He made a manifest profession of it in the inviolable verity of his words, in the sincerity of his proceed, in the duties which he gendered to God, to the authors of his birth, to his kindred, to his country, and universally to all the world. He gave audience often in person to the differences of his people, and even at his rising out of his bed, he caused the Provost of his house to enter into his chamber with the parties that pleaded, to terminate their Lawsuits by his Verdict. His principal care was to commit Justice unto innocent hands; but the horror of his thoughts was perpetually against the unjust, and against the violent; thinking that his Authority and his Arms could have no better employment then in the destruction of tyrants.  
But on the contrary he had goodnesses of heart inexhaustible for honest men, and a wonderful care of the quiet and commodity of his people; his access was easy, his words gracious, his caresses full of attractions, his command sweet, his answers judicious, his orders so just that they seemed all consorted in heaven. He denied with sweetness, and gave with measure, although his hands were seas of Liberality and Magnificence that were never dry. He had all his life time the possession of his soul by a singular moderation that retained his mouth, his tongue, and his anger; but it could not pluck back Love by the wings, which caused some spots to be seen in this Sun, although they were afterward washed away again by a strong Repentance.  
That which was most resplendent in all the parts of his life, was an high generosity that never forsook his heart, and that found exercise continually in all his actions. He contented not himself with middle Virtues, but he carried them all even up to the altitude of their Glory. He had a spirit incessantly bend to great designs, and a soul always filled with a strong confidence, which he had seated totally in God, of whom he thought himself to be beloved. He never was kept back by any obstacles from generous enterprises; he exposed himself to all dangers, even to the most terrible, for the glory of his sovereign Master. Prosperity had no charms upon him, and adversity found not any darts that were able to abate his resolution.  
All these virtues marched in him under the conduct of a great Reason, and failed not to be followed with an happiness that had no equal but his Prudence. God having ennobled him with so eminent qualities ceased not to furnish him with Objects to put them in practice, as well by the condition of his Birth, as by the divers occurrences of Affairs.  
It seems that Providence made him be born on purpose at Ingeheim upon the river of Rhine, and on the Borders of France and Germany, as the man that should unite those two Estates under one Sceptre. He found a Monarchy at his birth, which his Grandfather touched upon, and which his father openly possessed, that had much need of being settled by his power, and husbanded by his cares. He enterprised for this purpose divers wars, but he never waged any one that he was not led to by strong reasons of Piety and Justice. His first Arms were employed against the Saxons, who were at that time Infidels and Pagans, and who, besides, rebelled against the lawful Power that ruled them. One may say truly, that that Nation was the Hydra of our Hercules whose heads continually we●e born again, and whose blood so often shed was but the seed of a new War even to infinite. Never did the Arms of the Romans dare to attempt any thing upon this people which they desired rather not to know then fight with. Their Standards had never resolution enough to see, that which Charlemain had power enough to beat. They were warlike even to a wonder, and obstinate even to all extremity. The business was not only to conquer the Lands, and to gain the men, but to overcome their Superstition, and to disarm the furies of despair. This is that which our Charles performed in nine Wars, as cruel as possible, and in the space of three and thirty years; so much Constancy had he against stubbornness, and so much Power against madness. He defeated them in many battles; he subdued their cities, and took their principal fortresses; he demolished the Altars of the pernicious Irminsul, so many times besprinkled with humane blood; he plucked all the other Idols also out of their demolished Temples, and at last, constrained the brave Vitiguinde their King to yield to the happiness of France, which made him find the kingdom of God in Baptism, by the loss of that of the Barbarians.  
But it is true that this magnificent Conqueror found not any where a Theatre of his deeds more famous than that of Italy, whither, the Church groaning under the chains of the Lombard's, called for him incessantly. Above all, Pope Adrian the first; whom Charlemain loved afterwards as his brother, conjured him to help him speedily, and to recover the Patrimony of Jesus out of the hands of so many unjust usurpers. He transported over into Italy with an eagle's wings and a lion's strength, marching upon his father's steps that exhaled yet the odour of his generous piety. He took at first the city of Verona, then that of Pavia, after a long tedious siege, and appeared victorious with an Army of fire in the champains of his enemies. Didi●● King of the Lombard's, that was more ready to do an injury to a disarmed power, then to ward the blows of an adversary was seen, conquered, and taken prisoner, rendering the Church her liberty by his captivity.  
It was a sight filled with Magnificence and Piety, to see him arrive at Rome, where the heavens seemed to be all in Blessings over his head, and the earth all in respect under his feet. He would have marched with a little noise, and prevented the Pope, not desiring to make his entrance with great pomp. But Adrian that watched over his march perceived it, and sent out very fare to meet him abundance of the Nobility and Officers for a Convoy; and when he was near enough to Rome, the Soldiery, with all the Citizens appeared in Ann's; but that which was most delightful was a Procession of little Children, well chosen out, that carried boughs and sang Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini: Blessed be he that comes in the name of God. The Pope desiring to honour the lively image of the saviour by some kind of honours that had been heretofore rendered to the original. When the King saw the Crosses of the Senators, and that came also out to meet him, he alighted off his horse, and walked afoot as fare as S. Peter's Church, where the holy Father was at the door to receive him, with his Cardinals, and all his Chair. Charlemain by a Ceremonious devotion, and great respect that he bore to S. Peter and his successor, would kiss every stair of the ascent of the Portall, before he would close with Adrian that received and embraced him with ecstasies of joys, and the King kissed his hand amongst a thousand acclamations of cheerfulness and happiness which the people ceased not to redouble. They went both of them into the Church to render thanks for the favours that God had done them on that great day, which was an holy Saturday, and which gave not place for that time to the triumphs of the Resurrection. The Feasts of the Passeover were spent amidst powerful Devotions, pretty Ceremonies, and infinite merriments. The King not contenting himself with having broken the chains of the capital city of the world, made great presents to her Church, and after he had been crowned King of Lombardy by the hands of that great Pope, who offered him also the dignity of a Senator, the forerunner of the Imperial; He returned to France, leaving to all Italy an approbation of his deeds, and a great desire of his Domination.  
On the other side, the Christians of Spain that suffered an Age since insupportable outrages under the Tyranny of the Saracens, had also recourse to this invincible Monarch, who, as one always ready to exalt the Standard of the Faith, and to secure the afflicted, passes happily over the Pyrenean mountains, takes the city of Pampelona, crosses the river Ebro, seizes himself of Sarragossa, and afterwards of Barcelona, plucks the Mahometans out of the fortresses that they possessed, and reestablished the Christian Faith in all the places from whence the fury of that Barbarian had banished it. His zeal always burning carried him by the same means to the Conversion of the Infidels, of which he caused innumerable multitudes to be baptised, so true it is, that every thing gave way to the Arms and to the persuasions of that incomparable Prince, whom God seemed to lead by the hand to the Possession of the Roman Empire.  
Here is the great work of the Providence of God upon his wellbeloved Charles, that he did him this favour to wear the first of all the Diadem of the Caesar's in the house of France, and to have transmitted it to a sufficient long posterity.  
I pray you, Reader, to observe here the sacred traces of that wise governess of Empires, and to consider how she insensibly collected all dispositions necessary to set this great King upon the Throne of the Emperors. The conquest of Kingdoms resemble often that golden bough of Virgil, which one could not pluck off from its tree by main force, but might easily be taken off by an hand that had good fortune on his side. There are many Princes that to take Cities and Provinces by violence, have covered the earth with Arms, and the sea with Vessels, with a noise that astonished the whole world, without ever compassing their designs, whereas others have come to Crowns with as much haste as easiness, without troubling themselves, and almost without stirring because the hand of God was in the mingling of their affairs.  
This is the proceeding which we visibly discover in the advancement of our Charles whilst he dreamed of nothing but on the means of exalting the Glory of God, and succouring afflicted Nations. Heaven labours for him in the East, in the West, and raises him occasions, which without his thinking of it, set the Diadem upon his head.  
It was already a long time since the Eagle of the Roman Emperors clapped but with one wing; Italy having been so many times pillaged by the Goths, the Huns the Vandals, and the Lombard's. The courageous wisdom of Justinian, that thought he had freed it from oppression, did but change, not break its chains. The East had enough to do to defend it, self against the incursions of the Barbarians, and could no more contribute any thing to the West but unprofitable compassions and griess, to lose that which it could no longer keep. It happened, that to aggravate the evils of the successors of Constantine, there sprang up an Heresy of the Iconoclasts, or Image-breakers, which was worse than a plague of Egypt, and which being fomented even by those that were upon the Throne, caused innumerable disastres, and shook the Pillars of the State.  
The beginning of this unhappiness came from Leo the Isauric, who being of a very base extraction, took in hand the Sceptre of Constantinople, which he soiled much more by his furious deportments, then by his shameful originiall. He had in his Privy Council a pernicious Jew that persuaded him to abolish the holy Images, promising him the Empire when he was yet but a private man, as the recompense of that Sacrilege; and for this reason, he afterward employed himself about it with fury, and cast out the roar of a Lion which were heard from East to West. The Patriarch S.  opposed his Edicts, who was for that business deprived of his Dignity, and many great personages horribly persecuted for the same cause, sealed with their blood the Belief of the Church.  
Gregory the Second thundered from S. Peter's Chair against that Lion, although he was under the captivity of the Lombard's, and declared him not only Excommunicated, but had also forfeited his Imperial Dignity, and all the Demesnes he pretended to in Italy. The rage of his Revenge caused a Fleet to be prepared to go down to Italy, and to put this generous Pope in chains; but it was cast away, and death strangled his designs, so that he could never root out of the hearts of men the worshipping of Images.  
Constantine, Copronymus his son, that defiled in the day of his Baptism the waters that purify all the world, continued Leo's furies, and made himself the most abominable of all men, a professed enemy of the most holy Virgin the mother of God, and of all the Saints, till such time as he was consumed by the leprosy. He left an heir of his Sceptre and Impiety, which was called by his Grandfather's name Leo; a profane and unhappy Prince, who being much in love with pearls and precious stones, took away from the treasures of the Church a magnificent Crown that the Emperor Maurice had dedicated to God: but his crime was followed suddenly with vengeance, for scarce had he set it upon his head but it was covered with impostems and sores, accompanied with a violent fever that took him away in few days, after a reign of four years and a half.  
He had a son named Constantine who began his Reign at the age of ten years, under the protection of his mother Irene who was declared Regent of the Empire by her condition, and because she was a woman of great discretion and courage, the daughter of a King, skilful in holy learning end owed with a perfect beauty, and accomplished in many graces and virtues that rendered her Government pleasing to all world. She gave the direction of her affairs to Stauratius, a man of a sublime capacity, and an equal reputation, that seconded all her good intentions, so that she governed ten years with her son in great peace, and in the approbation of all honest men. Her Regency was greatly remarkable for the Zeal which she testified to the Catholic Faith, following the good counsels of Pope Adrian, and of Tarasus Patriarch of Constantinople, who persuaded her to cause a general Council to be held at Nice, where the memory of the preceding Emperors that had authorised the Heresy of the Iconoclasts was condemned, the Images reestablished, and the Devotions of the people inflamed to their veneration. This Council gave a thousand benedictions to the Empress, even so fare as to name her The Revengeresse of the Cause of God, The Conqueress of Impiety; and the Protectress of the Catholic Faith. All businesses took a very happy cou●se, and the State prospered visibly in the hands of that great Princess.  
But it seems that disorder is fatal to the Courts of great Ones, and that virtue can never reign there without contradiction. The ambition that every one hath to promote his fortune, the impatience of good, the desire of novelty, the envy that always follows the happy, cease not secretly to contrive wicked plots which are hatched at last into pernicious effects. The passages to the spirit of the Emperor could not be so well stopped up but that he had about his person some young men, the most venomous pestilences of the court, who by giving him suspicions of the Empress his mother, involved his Dignity and his Life in a misery that causes horror to my thoughts. They cease not to insinuate into his heart by cursed flatteries that gave him the taste of sin, and the love of a faulty liberty, that would no longer measure his Powers but by the impunity of all vices. They called him the perpetual Pupil, the shadow of Stauratius, and told him that the age of twenty years might have made him proceed Master of his affairs and of himself; that it was an insufferable shame to him to endure servitude in a birth that gave him the Empire of the World; that his mother loved his Sceptre and not his Person, and that she was so much used to Reign, that she would never quit the Sovereign Authority, if he did not express Vigour and Resolution to be that which God was pleased he should be born, without dependence on any one; that the pedagogy of Stauratius was infamous to a Monarch that had thrice seven years over his head, and that he ought no more to play the child in a time wherein so many other Princes had played the conquerors.  
They talk to him of it so much, that he resolved to take away all Authory from the State-Officer, and to put his Mother out of the Government, and direction of his affairs, which he began to manage after a strange fashion, favouring the heresy of the Iconoclasts and all disorders, following the advice of that pernicious counsel of the youth that had began his ruin. Irene had an intention at first to marry him to the Princess Rotrude daughter of our Charlemain, but some Greeks diverted that resolution, telling her, that that alliance would give too great a prop to his natural disposition that seemed already bad enough, and that if the French began to set a foot in the Empire, they would one day carry the Crown upon their head. This caused his mother to marry him to Mary the Armenian, who wanted not good qualities, but whether it was that the Emperor found her not to his liking, or whether it was to spite the Empress his mother that had given her to him, he made a very scandalous divorce from that Princess after he had lawfully wedded her, and married with a Chambermaid of his Mothers, through the irregularnesse of his sensuality.  
The Patriarch Tarasus had a good mind to oppose himself against it, but seeing that this Prince enraged with love and choler threatened to open the Temples of the Idols, if one crossed the frenzy of his passion, he held his peace, and let a business shameful to Christianity pass by dissimulation. But Plato and Theodore who were then the two greatest lights of Greece in holiness and learning, much blamed his proceed, and separated themselves from his communion, which made a great rent in the Eastern Church.  
Constantine sullying also his Loves with humane blood, caused the eyes to be put out of his Uncle Nicephorus, and of the General Alexius greatly renowned by his prowess, which drew much hatred upon the person and government of this Prince, yet he left not off for all that to continue, even so far as to take pleasure in cutting off the tongues of many that disapproved of the insolency of his manners.  
Eight years were already passed in these disorders, and his mother retired into her private condition, was secretly solicited by many to take again the Managing of the affairs to stop the Riots of her son. She harkened to it and with the assistance of Stauratius plotted an horrible conspiracy against the Emperor, whom she caused to be apprehended, imprisoned, and made blind, whereat he conceived so much despite and sadness, that in few days he quitted the Sceptre with his life. The wicked deportments of Constantine, and the good reputation in which Irene had lived till then, caused many even amongst the Churchmen, to find out reasons not only to excuse, but also to approve this bold attempt: yet I find it so enormous, so contrary to the law of nature, so injurious to the inviolable Majesty of Kings, that my pen passes over it with horror and cannot choose but condemn it, not only with the Law of God that detests it, but with the heavens themselves which hid the Sun seventeen days together, veiled themselves with darkness, and wept for the inhumanity of that crime. Yet I rather believe that which Cardinal Baronius hath written, that his mother never consented to the making of him blind, although she had given command to seize upon him, but that those who feared the danger of that Commission, wished rather the death of him then the imprisonment.  
But howsoever it came to pass, the Empress took again the Government in hand, and seeing that in that great confusion of affairs she had need of a strong prop, she sought for, by an express embassage, alliance and a marriage with Charlemain, which was not any way disrelished, seeing all that had passed failed not to be coloured with fair pretences, and for that purpose sent back Ambassadors to her to end the business; but when they arrived at Constantinople, they found that Nicephorus one of the Grandees of the East an hypocrite and a traitor to the miserable Irene, had already seized upon the Empire, and banished her into the Isle of Lesbos, where she died soon after with the testimonies of a strong repentance, and a perfect disengagement from all worldly things. Yet this new Usurper knowing that our Charles had already been Proclaimed Emperor in the West, treated him with great submissions, not for the love of his person, but for the fear of his credit, and of his Arms.  
Behold how Providence disposed businesses in the East to make him mount upon the Throne of the Caesar's, she permitted also in the West strange revolutions, and abominable accidents, out of which by her extreme wisdom and goodness she extracted good for the advancement of this Monarch. After the death of Adrian the Pope, Leo the Third was set in Saint Peter's chair, but his Predecessors Nephews, that saw that the Pontificate had taken another visage since the city of Rome had been delivered from the chains of the Lombard, and that it began to be protected, and courted even by Kings themselves, were very liquorous after it, so that bearing an enraged envy to the promotion of Leo, they did in the heart of Christianity that which one would have horror to commit in the savage deserts of the Scythians and Tartarians. The arms of the City being in their hands, they take an infamous band of murderous Soldiers, set upon the Pope in Rome, in full day, in the midst of a Procession, they seize themselves of his person, in an astonishment that put all the world to flight, and after they had laden him with wounds, and covered him with blood, they put out his eyes, and cut off his tongue, shutting him up in close prison.  
But God having heard him by miracle, inspired also a generous resolution into some brave Cavaliers to pluck him out of that Captivity, which they did by an happy and magnanimous attempt, so that Leo got him to the City of Spoletum, and in time recovered France the ordinary refuge of the afflicted Popes. The King with all his Kingdom bearing as much compassion to his misery, as veneration to his Dignity, caused him every where to be received with great honours, and when he was arrived near his person, he rendered him all respects and favours possible so far as to enterprise an expedition to Rome to re-establish him in his seat. The Parricides that had so ill used him, failed not to colour with Reason, that which they had done with fury, and accused the Pope Leo of divers crimes upon which they desired that one should hear a Council. But the Bishops assembled spoke aloud, that the highest throne could not be judged by any one, and that this business of necessity ought to be left to the judgement of God alone.  
Whereupon the Pope monnting into an high and eminent Place, to be perceived of the King that was present, and of the whole Assembly, said, that of his own good will, without any obligation, and without prejudice to his dignity, he was come to justify himself, and thereupon called the living God with his holy Angels, and all the Host of Heaven for witnesses of his innocence which he confirmed by a solemn oath, terrible even to the most shameless of perjured men. Every one saw that sincerity and innocence spoke by his mouth, and all the standers by threw themselves down and prostrated themselves before him, with cries of joy and incomparable approbations of his Holiness, avouching him for the true and lawful successor of Saint Peter. There was nothing now remaining as it should seem, but to cut in pieces the Homicides that had so outrageously dealt with him; but he instantly begged their pardon of the King, which was the cause that men were contented with their banishment that they might not trouble any more the public quiet.  
The Pope inspired powerfully by God, and being not ignorant of the consent of the East and West for the Imperial Dignity, which had been to our Charlemain many years since, caused secretly a magnificent Diadem to be made, and taking the occasion of a solemn day of Christmas, and of a great Ceremony put it upon the head of the King, who was praying upon his knees, when he dreamt not of it, and before a great assembly of all the parts of Christendom proclaimed him Emperor. This action was approved with an universal consent, and followed with so strong acclamations of the people, that it seemed that the letters of that Election had been sent from Heaven. Nicephorus who reigned in the East, opposed not himself against it, but being contented to possess that which he had usurped, abandoned willingly to Charles' pleasure the Empire of the West. And there was no doubt but that if Charles his moderation had not at that time planted limits to his happiness, he might with one hand have held the West, and extended the other over the East, it being most easy for him to put by an usurper, fearful, and shaking, and yet troubled with the image of his crime.  
In fine, our Charles entered into so high a point of veneration, that he seemed to be amongst Kings that which Kings are amongst private men. There was none amongst the sovereign Powers on Earth that did not desire his friendship or his Protection. Aaron King of Persia sent him his Ambassadors, and rich presents, offering him the Keys of the City of Jerusalem, and of the holy Sepulchre to dispose of them according to his will. Amiras King of the Sarrazins of Fez in Africa, and Idnabala King of Sarragossa in Spain, sought in like manner the honour of his favour; Cagan King of the Avares put himself under his protection. Eardulph King of the Northumbrians was reestablished by him in his Dominion. Hemingue King of Denmark rendered to him his homages. Achaic king of Scots submitted himself unto him. All Nations reposed themselves under the shadow of his Sceptre, whilst this great Monarch was as the compass, which keeps one foot firm in the Centre, and with the other runs the round of the Circumference. He watched perpetually at home over his Empire, and provided abroad that nothing should arise to trouble his repose.  
He was not so attentive to the affairs of war as not to give continual order to that which concerned the Government of the State, and as not to make divers Rules for the good of Ecclesiastical and Secular businesses. He caused five Counsels to be held in the Cities of Mayence, of Reims, of Chalons, of Tours, and of Arles. He caused the Heresy of Felix Bishop of Urgel in Spain to be condemned. He wrote himself in the Latin tongue mostexcellent ordinances which he entitled the Capitularies. He caused great care and industry to be had in the correction of the Holy Writ that had been altered by ignorance or by Heresy.  
He ceased not to set times a part for pious works, giving great alms in all places, and keeping a second Table for twelve poor people near his own, which he entertained with the victuals as his own Person. He founded many Monasteries, and built as many Churches as there are letters in the Alphabet.  
God that would accomplish in all points the happiness of this Monareh gave him a great age in a strong Body, and a sound health, Blessed him also with a numerous posterity, and let him see his children in a maturity that rendered them already capable of the Government of Empires. So he caused his son Lewis to be Crowned after a general consent of his Estates, and appeared on that day like a Phoenix which is said to receive a new life from his own ashes. He walked to the Church in an high Equipage held up by his son, and followed by all the Assembly, and having prepared upon the high Altar a Crown, after he had made a long and fervent prayer, prostrated before God with his dear Lewis, he put the Crown upon his head, and said to him,  
My dear son, It is to day that I die to the Empires of the World, and that Heaven makes me be born again in your Person. If you will reign happily, fear God which is the source of Empires, and the Sovereign Father of all Dominions; keep his Commandments, and cause them to be observed with an inviolable fidelity. Take the care and the Protection of his Church. Love your young brothers and your sisters, rendering yourself good and officious to your Kindred. Honour the Churchmen as your Fathers, cherish tenderly your subjects, as your children, and be all your life time the comforter and the Protector of the Poor. Chastise the vicious, and recompense the men of merit. Establish not Governments, Judges, and Officers which are not capable and without reproach, and when you have established them, deprive them not of their charges without a most just cause. Serve first of all for an example to all the world, and lead before God and Man a life irreprochable.  
After this action he stayed about a year longer in the world, purifying continually his spirit by repentance, by good works, and by the contemplation of heavenly things. And when he saw himself infected with an extraordinary sickness, he caused immediately the Sacraments to be administered to him, and died with a most pious and most exemplary death, at the age of seventy two years, the forty seventh of his reign, and the four teenth of his Empire. His Corpse were exposed in public, clothed after the manner of a King, with a sword and the Gospel which he had so gloriously defended. Then he was interred with a stately Magnificence in the Church of Aix the Chapel which he had built.  
He was universally lamented by all the world, as the Father of the Universe, and the singular ornament of Christianity. The Pagan's themselves wept for him abundance of tears, so true it is, that the goodness and sweetness of a King towards his subjects is a ray of God that renders him lovely in his life, and gives splendour even to his ashes after his death. He was afterward Canonised by Paschal that was not a lawful Pope, but forasmuch as the true successors of Saint Peter never retracted that action; He is held for a Saint, and honoured publicly in the Church with the approbation of all ages.   

Saint LEWIS.  
S. LEWIS K. OF FRANCE.  
I Do not forget that I have already spoken of Saint Lewis in the first Tome, but because that was by accident, and by the way, I will here extend my thoughts somewhat more largely, and give you a more complete Elogium of him.  
It is very true that an Ancient faith, That great Goodness is seldom joined with great Power; and that well-accomplished Kings are so few in number, that their names might be comprehended all together within the circumference of a Ring. But I may add, that if God did take delight to carry this Ring in very deed, as the Scripture doth attribute it to him in an Allegory, and if he would engrave there the names of all the good Kings; that of great S. Lewis would possess the first place.  
This Monarch was so like unto virtue, that if it should have showed itself on the one side incarnate to mortal eyes, and Saint Lewis on the other, one should hardly have been able to judge, which had been the Copy, and which the Original.  
It is not my intention to write of his life here, upon which so many excellent pens have laboured very fortunately, but to make a reflection upon some principal points of his Government. Great things do not always cause themselves to be known by a multitude, or great variety of discourse, but oftentimes by draughts abbreviated. And no man in my opinion ought to conceive amiss of this, seeing that we measure every day the greatness of the Sun by the shadow of the earth, and his go, in the Dial's by a little thread. I know that heretofore three lines only represented upon a Table did set forth an Idea of the perfection of the excellentest Painter in the world, in the understanding of the skilful; and I will draw here three little draughts for to set before your eyes the beauty and bigness of the virtues of S. Lewis.  
In one word, he hath done three mervellous things, whereof the first is, that he found out the means to join the wisdom of State with that of the Cross.  
The second, that he hath planted humility upon Sceptres, where it hath ordinarily very slippery footing, and hath likewise placed it amongst the Rubies and Diamonds of the Crown, where its lustre is often darkened by the too stately glittering of the World.  
A third is, that he hath joined the devotion of one consecrated to Religion to the courage of the Alexanders and Caesar's.  
As for that which concerns the first conjunction, it 
The first marvel, the joining of the wisdom of State with the Gospel. Tert. Apol.  is so rare that Tertullian, who flourished two hundred years after the Nativity of our Lord, when as yet there had no speech been of any Emperor that had embraced Christianity, said, That if the Caesar's should become Christians, they would cease to be Caesar's; and if the Christians should become Caesar's, they would cease to be Christians. He conceived, that poorness of spirit could not agree with so high and stately riches, nor humility with a sovereign Empire, or the tears of Repentance with the delights of the Court; that the hungering and thirsting after righteousness could not stand with the desire of Conquerors; nor pitifulness with Arms, nor pureness of heart with the conversing with most pleasing beauties, nor peace would consist with the licentiousness of war, and suffering persecutions with an absolute power to revenge one's self: And nevertheless Saint Lewis alone hath found means to join things together which seem so contrary in the highest degree that ever they were found to be in so-Kingly an estate. Amidst the riches of a Kingdom so abundant; he was not rich, but only towards the poor, and if God had permitted him he would have as willingly covered himself with the habit of Saint Francis, as with his Royal Purple. He did never consider himself otherwise amongst all the goods that he possessed, but as the Steward of Jesus Christ: he left unto God willingly the glory of having given them him, to needy persons the benefit of receiving them; and kept nothing to himself but the pains of distributing them. He assayed a thousand times to enter into Religious Orders, and yet still answer was made him, that God would have him to be King: he wore the Crown by way of obedience he used riches only for necessity, and had no other thing in his desire then spiritual nakedness, and a perfect unloosing himself from all worldly things. In the midst of an Absolute power he was so meek that his heart seemed a Sea, where a calm perpetually reigned. The Scarlet of his attire did never colour his face with the heat of anger. Arrogance did never puff up his words; he made it his glory to communicate himself to the miserablest, and although he was higher than all the Cedars, yet he humbled his eyes even unto the smallest worms of the earth. If he appeared in public with a splendour agreeable to his Dignity; in his retiring, he made his life a continual Repentance which equalled the strictness of the severest Religious ones. The zeal of justice was so perfect in him, that he would not usurp a finger's breadth of land upon his neighbours, to the prejudice of his conscience, and his generousness caused him also to refuse the Empire which the Pope and all the Princes of Christendom offered him with a general consent, after the deposing of the Emperor Frederick. The exercises of War did never stop up in his heart the pitiful bounties that were there towards the poor, not contenting himself to give them most liberally all that they could expect from his condition, but very often being ready at their hand to provide them with necessities for their life. Amidst the great tumults of war he was always peaceable, never making any war but for necessity, or for zeal of the glory of God, but carrying throughout all places peace with an exceeding meekness. His chastity amidst all the delights of so great a Realm was always impenetrable by the darts of love; and his heart was like the bed of the Phoenix, which takes no fire but from the Beams of the Sun. He was persecuted by the tongues of slanderers, by the arms of his kindred, by the chains and prisons of Infidels, by the ingratitude of those upon whom he had heaped good turns, without having one lest motion to revenge; rendering always good for evil: and if justice did require of him reasonable punishment of the wicked, he paid the Tribute that Kings own to the Sovereign Power, without ever altering the quietness of his mind, in such manner, as if you will judge rightly of that which I have said, you will find that S. Lewis hath brought the eight Beatitudes to the Court, and hath happily joined the highest Maxims of the Gospel, to the Policy of a great Kingdom.  
Nevertheless, some one may make himself believe, that he was not sufficiently refined in the tenets of a great Statesman, but that the excessiveness of his devotion must needs mollify somewhat the vigour of his understanding, and that the tenderness of his conscience was incompatible with the Principles of those Politicians that are complete in the managing of affairs. I entreat my reader to consider here the great error of the Politic ones of the world, that will be wise without God, and believe that the Empires and Kingdoms of Christendom being founded in Piety and Justice can maintain themselves happily, and increase by the subtleties and Maxims that are common amongst the Pagans and Mahometans. Let any one compare the frederick's (Emperors) that flourished in the same age with Saint Lewis the King, let one weigh the Principles of the one and of the other, let him examine their proceed, and look upon the success, and they shall find, that the honest wisdom of our King hath surpassed all the subtleties of those great brains, and that these lights have as far excelled those their false glances, as the eyes of the Eagles are far above those of the Owls.  
The frederick's aim was to look at themselves, to bring all to their own ends, to complain against the Pope, to contest with the Princes, to regard nothing but their own greatness, to have nothing in esteem but their own interest, to measure the true and the false by their own profit, to keep Religion under the State, to think that a good conscience was an hindrance to great designs, and that there was nothing unjust of all that was profitable and glorious in appearance for so high a Monarchy, to employ all the subtleties and all rigour that might obtain their purposes, to beat down all that they might raise themselves, and to ruin all to make themselves great. Saint Lewis on the contrary caused the glory and interest of God to march at the head of his actions, esteemed himself little, prised the benefit of the public above all things, honoured the Pope with a singular reverence, entertained as much as he could Peace with the Princes of Christendom, never undertook any thing to the prejudice of his conscience, would not buy a Kingdom with the smallest lie, made every thing serve for Religion, valued nothing great that was not just, nothing glorious that agreed not with equity, and measured all by the law of God, and the benefit of his subjects.  
If it be true which our Saviour saith, That we should judge of men by their deeds and by the fruits of their actions; who sees not that those men with their refined politic Maxims did very ill govern themselves, seeing that after so general a dissipation of blood, of men and of wealth, they buried their fortunes in the ruins of the public? And this man with his honesty, which others do take for simplicity, did free himself happily from civil wars, frustrated the subtleties of the craftiest, brought to the ground the strength of the mightiest, securing his Crown and Sceptre in the hands of a woman against the enterprises of men subtle and interressed. He made foreign wars for the pure glory of God, without oppressing his people. He governed his Kingdom in Peace, in Piety, in Justice, and in the abundance of all things, leaving a large posterity which sits even yet upon the chief thrones of Christendom.  
May we not well affirm that this Prince was endued with marvellous wisdom, seeing that he knew God the fountain of all Essences, and judged of all things according to the rules of the eternal Truth? From this fountain there ran down in his soul two Rivulets, which were the great contempt that he had of the world, and the perfect union which he had with God, which poured forth a vigorous influence upon all his undertake. From hence came that good choice that he took for the ordering of his life, mingling contemplation with action, which were as two sisters mutually helping each other. It happens sometimes to men, that some are carried away with the world, and others flying from it, carry it along with them. The one let themselves run with the torrent of corruptions, the other retiring themselves to solitariness carry with them all their worldly affections which do but sleep, and cast forth still sparkles under the ashes. But Saint Lewis being within the world, was nothing less than of the world, seeing that amidst the meeting with so many people which encompassed him every day, he built himself a desert in his heart, and in the midst of a great sea of affairs, he lived as the fishes that are silent in the roar of the waves, and keep themselves fresh amidst the briny waters.  
The sweet familiarity that he had with his Redeemer, did not steal from him the care of his employments, and government of his Kingdom, seeing that always like the beams of the Sun, he touched the earth without leaving heaven.  
The second marvel of S. Lewis, is to have lodged humility upon the glittering splendour of his Diadem, and to have preserved this place for it, amongst all the 
The second marvel, the union of humility and royal greatness.  occasions which might invite him to make use of his greatness. One may avouch that this virtue in what place soever it is found, is always great, and S. Paul justly calls it, the virtue of Jesus Christ by excellency: but when it mingles itself with the estate of great ones, it carries away the admiration of mankind. We are all born with the desire of honour, and this appetite deviated from its proper excellence, is found even in the lowest persons. In the age past, there was found in India a people called the Verrais, of so gross an understanding, and uncomely in body, which lived so basely that they eaten nothing but roasted Aunts and Crocodiles tails, and nevertheless they were so proud, that when they spoke to them of baptising them, they asked if they should be baptised in the same water with other people, and if they would have no respect to their quality. If presumption doth take such hold on such base souls, I leave it to you to consider what effect it might have on those that are lifted up in all qualities above the common sort. There is no doubt that ambition ruleth over all our actions, and that to see a Prince humble amidst the flatteries of the Court, modest with an absolute power, victorious over vanity in the midst of the great mortifying of truth, which comes into the cabinet of Kings, like money into their coffers with very much disguising and diminution, is a wonder almost as rare as if one should see the stars to walk on the earth.  
And nevertheless, S. Lewis, as he had very great wisdom and a perfect knowledge of the life of man, was a soul the most humble, the most meek and most amiable that ever conversed amongst men in the like estate. Princes have had at all times a high ambition to carry in their titles great names. There are some which have caused themselves to be called the brethren of the Sun, and cousins to the Stars, others would be the Arms, the Eyes, the Rubies of the World, and some the Saviour's and the Gods: but our Monarch named himself Lewis of Poysey the humble servant of Jesus, accounting it, that the highest greatness of a Sceptre was to serve God. Hence he desired nothing so ardently, in all his behaviour, as to humble himself before God, by a perfect examination, without retaining any thing more of himself then this high point of humility. When he entered into Damiata, the first town that he conquered in his voyage to Egypt, he caused not himself to be carried in a chariot drawn with Lions or Elephants as the Roman Captains use to do, but he caused the cross to march before him, and followed it with a bare head and naked feet. And when at the Council of Lions they spoke of giving him the name and quality of an Emperor, he avoided that honour like a tempest, and chose rather the extremity of sufferings amongst the Saracens, then to ascend into the throne of the Caesar's. He carried his Royalty as it were a mountain on his back, and there was no greater servitude in the world to him, than his greatness. When he could free himself of the necessary ceremonies in public for a person of his quality, and that he had full liberty to converse with inferior ones, he was as a fish in his water. This wise humility caused that he entertained the whole world, every one according to his degree with great consideration. He honoured the Queen his mother all his life time with a respect which approached near to reverence. He was wonderfully-kind to all his kindred, and courteous to all those that came to him, which he did without ceremonies, without constraint, but with an unparalleled cordialness, for that his humility was rooted in a deep charity which gave all the motions to his soul. He walked oftentimes in public in a plain garment of chamlet, and if he had seen the riot that now reigns in our behaviour, he would have taken our conversation for some Mascorade. He conversed not only with the plainest, but abased himself continually even to the feet of the poor, and that the most ill favoured. He was seen to bow himself, and to make clean the ulcers of the leprous so horrible, that people cast bread to them afar off, not any one daring to come near them. He was seen in the champions of Asia and Africa, to seek out the bodies of his poor Subjects all stinking with corruption, to bury them with his royal hands. O what a triumph of humility is here! O what ardency of charity! and where is it that God can place the condemnation of our pride and hardness of our hearts more high, then upon the person of this great King?  
Lastly, the third miracle that we observe in the life of 
The third marvel his devotion and courage.  S. Lewis, is that he hath joined the devotion of the most perfect religious ones, with the courage of the most invincible conquerors. Here it is that I do challenge all those brave ones in appearance, all those Phantasms of valour, for to testify unto them, that S. Lewis was one of the most valiant and most courageous Princes that ever bore Sceptre in Christendom. For where is valiantness placed, according to Aristotle, if it be not conceived in the understanding? and if it tend not to virtuous actions, would you that I should account it an action of courage and ability to hue men in pieces, and to fill the world with massacres, for to content the rage, for to nourish an ambition, or satisfy a revenge? God forbidden that we should judge so basely of a virtue that makes them demigods. If the intentions thereof be not right, if the actions thereof be not justifiable, if its effects be not commendable, it is a spirit that seduces us, and not a perfection that rectifies us.  
The valour of S. Lewis was the effect of a lively faith, of an incomparable wisdom, of a strong and puissant charity; faith filled him with confidence, wisdom with moderation, and charity with boldness. This valour was enlivened by three loves, which the Divines do observe, which are, the love incomparable, the love ardent, and the love indefatigable. The love incomparable, caused him to forsake a great and flourishing kingdom, (filled with peace, contentments, and delights, where he might have lived under the shadow of his Palm-trees in all happiness,) to transport himself into the land of the Saracens, and there to suffer all the inconveniencies of nature. The same love caused him to carry the Queen his wife young and tender, amongst so many foaming rocks, so many seas, so many monsters, and so many tempests. The same love persuaded him to embark the Princes his children in their tender age in this voyage, conceiving that he ought not to spare any thing which the service of God might require. The ardent love caused him to expose his Royal person, not only to weariness but to the most dangerous blows of battles. There is a certain jealous strictness of judgement, in the understanding of men, which would not that any one person should be excellent in the degree of Sovereignty in two illustrious qualities. The reputation of Arms took away the high title of eloquence from Julius Cesar, and we may see that S. Lewis contented himself with his rare devotion, without taking that high part that he deserved in valour. But this is the truth that he was courageous, heroical, and valiant above all those brave ones whom the opinion of men do often deify without very much desert. Together with all his devotion, he seemed to have obliged himself to take up Arms against his enemies, even from his tenderest infancy. He made wars both by sea and land in Europe, Asia, and Africa. He was set upon in his minority by the neighbouring Princes, and by the greatest Lords of his State, from which he freed himself, both by wisdom and valour, marching forth into the field, with the assistance of God, and good counsel of his Mother. He disarmed Philip his Uncle by courtesy, the English by force, he vanquished the inconstancy of Theohald by his steadfastness, and the self-conceitedness of Peter de Drues by his patience. After he had pacified his kingdom, he undertook the Holy War, by a pious generousness of heart, in the which he shown marvellous valiantness of his person.  
Joinville that was present saith that he stoutly ventured himself into the hottest conflicts of the battalions, and fought fiercely with his own hand, scattering and overthrowing the Saracens that opposed his enterprises. They speak much of the valour of Attila, that visiting a certain place, was set upon by two soldiers that had a purpose to kill him, and escaped both the one and the other by his valour and mention. But S. Lowis on a day having gone aside from the Army, was set upon by six whom he put to flight by a victorious resistance. When they were in some doubt about going a shore in his first voyage to Africa, he was the first that threw himself upon the Coast of the Enemies with his sword in his hand without any amazement, although he was up to the neck in water. When he was seen at the beginning of the battle arrayed in his Royal arms, he appeared like a Sun to the whole Army, but as soon as he began to enter into the fight, he was like a lightning that made a wonderful flashing upon the Infidels, together with all the misfortune of the time, wherewith he was overborne: he took the great and famous City of Damiata in his first voyage, he discomfited the Saracens in two battles, he fortified four great places in Syria, he compelled the Emmiers of Egypt to restore him his prisoners, he provided for the safety of all the Christians that were remaining in Palestine. In his second voyage, he vanquished at the first onset the Africans, which had anciently made Italy, Greece, and Spain to tremble, and had so long time disputed for the Empire of the world with the Romans, and if he had not been hindered by sickness, he had forthwith made himself master of Thunis and Carthage.  
Behold what this ardent love did by his hands. But the love indefatigable, the true and faithful character of a great stoutness of courage, caused him not to be amazed at any thing, and that he continued with an invincible magnanimity, under the most burdensome accidents that contraried his enterprises. This love caused him to make trial of another voyage, after the sad accidents of the first: this love caused that the seas filled with terrors, the Lands with Ant-heaps of Saracens form into Batalions, the air that seemed from every part to let fly arrows of pestilence, the ways which were full of toils, the wars of terrors and maslacres, the encounters of evil success, and the champions of a million of divers kinds of death, never altered the constancy of his invincible heart. The very day of his captivity, after he had lost a great battle which overthrew all his affairs, when as he saw the ways covered with the dead bodies of his servants, when he saw the river Nilus smoking and bubbling up the French blood, when as the arrows of the Saracens did fly round about his head, like the hail on a winter's day, when as he was taken and carried to the Aunt of the Sultan, and that he heard the clamours of those outrageous mouths, that he saw so many infernal faces that might shake a soul of the stoutest temper, he remained still in a great tranquillity of mind, and asked his page for his book of prayers, which being ready he began to perform the duty of his Orazons, which he presented every day to God, with as quiet a spirit as if he had been returned from taking a walk in his gardens. The very day that he was seized upon by the pestilence, he beheld death coming upon him with a settled countenance, he disposed of the affairs of his kingdom and of his house, with a great judgement, gave very excellent instructions to the prince's children, comforted all his good servants, strengthened himself with the Sacraments, entered into ecstasies of divine love, which drove out of his heart all the cares of this present life. The poor Prince sooner failed of his life than he could fail of his constancy and faithfulness to his high virtue.  
It is here, O Providence, that you cover with a canopy of the night and darkness the great events of the affairs of the world, it is here that we acknowledge your government. This Prince so wise, so humble, so holy, which deserved that the world should bend under his laws, and to have constrained good fortune to fly no where but about his colours, in the mean while was handled by you, as it seems to many not like to an indulgent mother, but as by a stepmother severe and rigorous. Alas! the Lands have often undertaken the yoke, and the seas have spread their back with coverlids by a pleasing calmness under the arms and vessels of Pirates. Was there none but this Monarch to whom all creatures ought to have served as a defence, that could deserve to be so evil handled at your hands? In the first of his expeditions he lost his liberty, and in the second, his life. What is the meaning of this, O Providence? draw the curtain a little, uncover your secrets, and unceil our eyes to behold them.  
She answereth, that the general truth hath revealed to us in the Gospel his judgements on this point, when he said to the Jews which were come to take him, behold your hour, and the power of darkness. It is true, that by a certain order of God, and for causes very reasonable, well known to his Providence, the evil spirits have their reign and their time, which good men are not able to hinder, no more than the winter and the night, and that the sovereign Creator and Governor of all things hath limited their powers and their endure by certain celestial periods, which being not yet come to an end, do make all the endeavours which can be used to destroy them unprofitable. This is the cause why there is not taken in hand with such eagerness as might be, wars in the East and Africa, nor that we should undertake great designs against the powers of darkness, if we cannot see by very evident conjectures, that God directs us as by the hand. Nevertheless, as he reveals not always to his Saints the times and seasons of Empires, it happens, that those that with great zeal, and very rational prudence, do embark themselves in generous designs to advance the glory of God, should not justly always be commended even in the default of good success. And I may very well say that the most glorious action of S. Lewis was his prison and his death: For, to kill the Saracens, to make mountains of dead bodies, rivers of blood, to overthrow Cities all in a smoke; this is that which Chamgy and Tamerlan have done. But to do that which S. Lewis hath done, it is it which hath no compare, it is that which the Angels would do willingly, if they could merit it by a mortal body. God which had drawn him from his Kingdom with the faith of Abraham, which had lead him through so many dangers with the guiding of Moses, gave him in the end to seal up his great actions the patience of Job. And to countreballance that which the world esteems mishap, he would have him to govern a great Kingdom a long time, with an high wisdom, and profound peace, an exact justice for the good and repose of his people, and an uncredible sweetness of spirit, which hath made him the most amiable of all Kings on the earth, and a great Saint in Paradise, by the consent of all mortals, and the Universal approbation of the Church.     

Queens and Ladies.  

JUDITH. HESTER.  
 portrait of Judith 
JUDITH   portrait of Hester 
HESTER ROYNE.   

EXpect nothing Feminine in this Woman, all in her is Male, all in her is Generous, all in her is full of Prodigies. Nature hath put nothing in her but the Sex, she hath left to Virtue to make up the rest, who after she had laboured a long time in this her Masterpiece, incorporated herself in her work. Never was beauty better placed then upon this face, which bears a mixture of Terror and of Love: Lovely in its Graces, Terrible in its Valour. What a Court-Lady is this, that came thither for nothing but to draw the sword? Her hand did much by destroying an 100000 men in one only head; but her eye did much more than her hand: it was that, that first triumphed over Holophernes, and with a little ray of its flames burnt up a whole army. O what a magnificent employment had Love in this act of hers! and to say truth, he consecrated his arrows; never was he so innocent in his Combats, never was he so glorious in his Triumphs.  
Represent to yourselves a Nabuchodonozor in the flower of his age, in the vigour of his Conquests, holding a secret Council wherein he makes a resolution to subdue the World. After a short conclusion of an affair so great, he calls Holophernes, and commands him to march towards the West with an Army of 100000 Foot, and 12000 Horse. All the Captains assemble themselves together, and in all places soldiers swarm. It seems that that brave General did nothing but give a stamp with his foot to procreate armed men. Behold him already environed with Legions all glittering with fire and flames; his Army is on foot with an horrible Artillery of military Engines, and a great preparation of Victual and Ammunition. It seemed that heaven looked upon this Host with affrightment, and that the earth echoed at every step under the clattering of its Arms. The motions of it give terror to the stoutest sort, and confusion to the weaker; before it marches Noises, Affrights, and Threats; after it, Weep, Ruins, and Desolations.  
Holophernes is in the middle as a Giant with an hundred arms, which promises to himself to demolish smoking Cities, to-overthrow Mountains, and to beat all Arms to powder with the lightning of his eyes. Ambassadors of all Nations are seen waiting at his gate, who present unto him Crowns, who offer him Tapers and Incense, desire peace and mercy of him, and beseech him to grant them servitude. But this supercilious General would march upon the heads of men, and make himself a river of Blood to water therewith his Palms.  
Fame that publishing with an hundred mouths the wastes that that Army made on all sides, failed not to fly unto Jerusalem, and to carry that sad news unto the people of God. Nothing was then heard but the sighs and groans of a scared people, who beholding that furious Tempest coming afar off, had neither heart nor arms to oppose themselves against it. Their courages were dismayed, their hands weak, their tongues mute; they had no other defence but their tears which they poured out in abundance to begin the funerals of their dear Country.  
Manasseh reigned at that time in Jerusalem, seven hundred years before the Nativity of our Lord, who seeing no expedient to divert this misery, abandoned himself to silence, and to darkness. But Joachim the High Priest, executing a Captain's office together with a Priests, encouraged his poor people, and wiped off their tears, to make them see the first ray of hope which they conceived of their dear Liberty.  
He dispatches Posts to all parts, and commands the cities that were menaced with the marches of that army to contribute all that they were able of Money, Iron, Men, and Victuals to beat back the common Enemy, and above all to prepossess themselves of the straits of the mountains, to stop up the passages, where a few men would be able to do much, rather than to expect them in the champain, where so great forces would swallow up all that could be opposed against them.  
After this he commands public prayers to be made, where the Altar of God was covered with sackcloth, and the Priests with haircloth, all the people were at their supplications, tears, and fastings, even the children prostrated themselves on the earth, and cried to implore the mercy of God.  
This excellent Highpriest not being ignorant that with Piety we ought to move the hand, contented not himself only to weep before the Altar, but visited in person the Cities and the burgh's, comforting the afflicted, stirring up the slack, strengthening the weak, and doing that which the infusion of the soul doth in the Body, in giving life and vigour to all the members of the State.  
The news comes to Holophernes, that the Jews prepared themselves to make resistance to his Army, whereat he entered into great fits of choler, and called the Princes of the Ammonites and of the Moabites that were in his army with him, to know what forces that people might have that were disposed to make an opposition. Then Achior Prince of the Ammonites risen up, and made him a long narration of the original and qualities of the Jews, telling him by piece-meal how that Nation came from the Chaldeans, and separated themselves from them by reason of Religion, despising all the Gods of the Gentiles, and believing but one God the Maker of Heaven and Earth. He added how they went into Egypt when there was a great famine, and that they were there so exceedingly multiplied, that they began to give terror to the Egyptians, who ceased not to torment them. But that God revenged their injuries by horrible plagues from Heaven, that made havoc of all Egypt, so that their Landlords were constrained to let them go whithersoever it seemed good unto them.  
But Pharaoh the King having made a resolution to pursue them, and to destroy them utterly, was buried with all his Army in the red-Sea, through which that people had passed on dryfoot. From thence they journeyed through the barren deserts of Arabia, where their God miraculoufly nourished them, giving them food from heaven, and commanding the Rocks to open to them springs and fountains. Furthermore he advertised Holophernes that when things were well between their Master and them, they were invincible, which visibly appeared by the victories they obtained over the Amorites, the Jebusites, and the Peresites, and other Nations, which they had devoured as fire would do the chaff; possessing themselves of their Lands, and estates. But if it happened that they were defiled with some iniquity, there was nothing more weak than they by reason that they were then forsaken of heaven, and left to their own selves: and therefore he advised him not to hazard any thing against them, before he knew the condition wherein they were at present, because that if they were well united to the Deity which they worshipped, he should carry away nothing but confusion.  
Holophernes Captains hearing Achiors' discourse, loaded him with reproaches, for that he had so much as a thought that so small an handful of people, and ill trained, should be able to resist a Royal Army of Nabuchadonosors. The General holds him for a mad man, and commands him to be delivered to the Jews, since he was a Jew in heart and affection. And indeed, the soldiers having taken him and bound him to a tree, left him to the discretion of those of the City of Bethulia, who carried him away, and having presented him to the Priests that governed, and to all the Assembly of the City, enquired of him of all that had passed about him. He straightway made them a long discourse, and exalted the Testimonies that he had given to the Majesty of their God, whereat all betook themselves to weep for joy, and praised the Divine Goodness, prostrating themselves on the ground, and promising all favour to their Prisoner.  
In the mean while Holophernes causes his Troops to advance to surprise the little Bethulia; but he saw himself combated by men invisible, hidden in the mountains, that much gauled his Army, being cooped up in very narrow passages. His Captains counselled him not to torment his soldiers unprofitably, but to seize only upon the Channels of the fountains that carried the water to the City, and that would be a means to take it without putting himself to much trouble. This was performed, and it proved very effectual; for the people seeing themselves deprived of the commodities of those fair sources that gave them drink, begin to murmur aloud against the Priests, who by their rashness had resisted so prodigious a power, against the example of so many Nations, and cry out that they were better render themselves to the Assyrians, then see their wives and children buried in the same tomb. Ozias in the absence of Joachim appeased them by his tears, and caused them to resolve on a patience of five days.  
This City of Bethulia had within the circuit of its walls a great Treasure, whose merit it was not yet sufficiently acquainted with. It was the valorous Judith, in whom Heaven had put rare qualities, and God had chosen her to give safety to her country. She was of an high extraction, of the Tribe of Reuben, three years and an half a Widow, beautiful even to perfection, of a chastity and reputation inviolable, extreme rich, but above all, devout and virtuous. She had built on the top of her house a little Solitude whither she with her maids retired themselves to be vacant to things Divine; there was her Oratory, there her intercourses with God, and from thence mounted to Heaven her prayers that carried up the groans of her people even to the throne of the most High.  
The holy Lady had her innocent flesh loaden with a rough haircloth, fasted every day, except the saturdays, and the solemn feasts that were amongst the Jews, her heart was inflamed with an incredible zeal of the glory of God, and touched to the quick with the miseries of her people.  
When she understood what had been resolved on at the Assembly, and that the City was to be yielded in five days, if it had no other relief; she spoke to Ozias the Prince of the people, and to the Priests that governed, and made them a most excellent advertisement upon what had passed at their last convention. She told them, That it was to tempt God to prescribe to him the time of his mercies, and not to expect it of his Providence; that it did not belong to men to dispose of heaven, who are reserved to the disposal of their Sovereign Master; that they ought only to think upon the performance of an exact repentance for the sins of their life past, and imploring the divine clemency with the effusion of tears, which well knew how to find a remedy to so great necessities. She made them understand that good men are necessarily proved by divers Tribulations, and that those that bear them with patience are at last glorious before God; But those that disquiet themselves and murmur, have no profit by their afflictions, and provoke wrath from on high that redoubles scourge upon scourge to punish their rebellion.  
In the end she persuaded them, that seeing they were the Heads of the People, and that so many souls breathe not but by their breath, they would not fail to exhort them to a further patience. The principal men of the City were ravished with a mouth that spoke so divinely and the words that issued from so fair a source had a grace incomparable to subdue the most obdurate hearts. They all avowed that she was a woman according to the heart of God, that had spoken worthily, and that there was nothing deficient in her discourse. But she submitted herself by a great humility to their judgements, and beseeched them to leave one of the city gates free for her to go out at that very night, accompanied with her servant, for she had some good work in her heart for the safety of her Country; and entreated, that it might be recommended to the prayers of the whole Assembly without curiously enquiring what it was that God would do by her means. Ozias answered her that she might go in peace, and that he prayed that her action might succeed to the good of the universal people.  
Here perhaps may some men be astonished, that a woman should take the boldness to go and advise the Magistrates, and the Priests; and the severer sort of censurers will say, that by right Judith should have been sent home to her distaff. They will allege, that the Jews give every day thanks to God in their Prayers for that he had not made them be born Women. Anciently, they were placed in the Churches on the North side, from whence the Scripture makes all the evil of the world to come. Chrysologus hath also said, that woman was the Way of Death, the Title of the Sepulchre, and the Gate of Hell.  
But this aught to be understood of those that follow the steps of the first of Women, and not the ways of the chief of Virgins. Those who abandon themselves to luxury, to vanity, and to dissolute pleasures are no way fit for great affairs, being too delicate for labour, and too ambitious of honour. But many others that have taken pains in the regulating of their passions, have rendered great services to Kingdoms and Commonwealths. Rome had never been Rome without the Sabine women. The people of the North, by the report of Tacitus, have been governed in their Wars and in their Polities by women, professing that they perceived in them a certain prophetic and divine spirit. Plato in his Commonwealth hath judged them capable of Offices, their souls being of the same species or kind as men's. Wherefore then should we think it strange that God made use of a virtuous woman to counsel men, and to deliver her country?  
Before she undertook that great work, she was a long time prostrated before God in her Oratory, with sackcloth upon her back, and ashes upon her head, saying, with an amorous heart,  
My God, the God of my Fathers, to whom nothing is impossible, look down now upon the camp of the Assyrians with that eye of lightnings and of thunders that thou heretofore didst cast upon the army of Egyptians when they were buried in the bottom of the Sea. Let the same happen to those here that trust in their chariots of war, in their spears, and in their swords, and know not that thou art the God of heaven that breakest in pieces the mighty Powers of the earth with one sole look of thine eyes: lift up that same arm that hath made itself renowned from all antiquity by so many wonders, and tread underfoot all their strength by thine for ever dreadful forces. Suffer them not to violate thy Temple, and to sack the House where thy Name is from all time invoked. 'Cause this barbarous Colonel, who promises himself our spoils, to be taken by me through the snares of his eyes, that his own Coutelax may divide his soul and body. Strike him with the grace that thy blessing shall make to flow upon my lips, and with the eloquence that it shall give to my speeches; animate my heart, and stiffen my arm to make that great blow that shall be thine, and carry away an eternal honour for having pulled down that Colossus by a woman's hand. Thy strength is not in the multitude of soldiers, nor in the valour of Cavaliers. It is not those proud warriors that ought to expect the succour of thy arm, but it is the Prayer of the humble that gains thy heart, and draws thy forces to their protection. God of the heavens, creator of the waters, and the God of all nature, hear thy poor servant that presumes nothing but from thy mercy. Remember thy Covenant, give counsel to my heart, words to my mouth, and strength to my hands, for the defence of thy House; and that all the Nations of the habitable world may know, that there is not any other God but thee.  
Such were the Arms and Engines of this excellent woman; such was the confidence she had in the God of hosts. After this Prayer, she rises from her Oratory, comes down from her chamber, and calls her maid to dress her. She puts off the sackcloth, she washes herself, she perfumes herself, and quitting the mourning habit which she wore in her widowhood, she puts on her gayest clothing. The tresses of her long hairs are combed out with a delicate hand, and her head covered with a stately tire; her handsome body appeared a little taller by the favour of her patins; she hangs on her pendants at her ears; she puts on her bracelets, her chain of pearls, her rings certain jewels made in form of flower-de-Lis's, and all her richest ornaments. It seemed that God took a pleasure that day to render her fairer than ever she had been, and that all the graces smiled in her countenance, because she had adorned herself through virtue and not through wantonness.  
She caused her meat and drink to be carried by her maid, fearing to pollute her body with the viands of the Infidels; and instantly she went out of her house, and betook herself to the city gate where she found Ozias the Prince, together with the Priests, that were ravished with the lustre of her heavenly beauty. Yet no body curiously enquired whither she was going, but were contented to wish that God would make her designs successful, that she might be one day the honour of Jerusalem, and that her name might be put in the rank of those great and holy souls that had rendered to God most renowned services. She departs out of the city, calling again upon the name of God, and reciting some prayers with her servant.  
As she went down the mountain upon the break of day, the soldiers having perceived her, failed not to run to her, and seeing her so excellently beautiful, were at first dazzled in their eyes more by the splendour of her visage then by the first rays of the day that then was upon its birth. They inform themselves of her country, of her journey, and of her intentions, whereto she answered, that she was of Bethulia, and that she had that day forsaken that miserable city, that was obstinate in its misery, and that, for having resisted the triumphant legions of the Assyrians, deserved to be destroyed by the thunderbolts of heaven and earth. That she would have no share in their crime no more than in their disastres; and that her desire was to present herself to Holophernes to reveal to him the secrets of the city, and to teach him the means how to take it without losing any of his men.  
These men were ravished at the hearing of these discourses, and assured her that she had taken an excellent course to live in quiet, and in honour, and that she would be very welcome to their master of whom she should receive all possible courtesies.  
Some men will marvel at all this proceeding of Judith: A woman so handsome and so capable to tempt men, to go into the midst of Soldiers without fearing to expose her modesty that was so dear to her, not considering that she kindled love, and that she was yet in the fair season of her years capable to admit that which she moved in others: Who had told her that the Assyrians would let her freely pass without attempting any thing upon her honour? What security could there be in a dissolute Militia, that propound to themselves the ravishing of women for a recompense of their toils? And suppose she had promised herself that in case she should be forced, her soul should remain incorruptible in the corruption of her body; yet sure an honest woman would hardly ever expose her body to the least affront, although it were to save a city.  
If we consider all this according to man, it cannot be defended: but who should dare so to condemn that which was done by a manifest inspiration of God, and of her good Angel that lead her, as by the hand, and made her walk securely upon the tops of precipices, and kept her always green as the Ivy in the ruins of old decayed walls?  
With all this she was skilful in the art of dissembling, and deceived those soldiers that took a singular pleasure to hear her talk. And who would make a scruple to speak words with two meanings to deceive an enemy in war, and to save his life, seeing that some Divines and the Lawyers agree that there are deceits that are good and commendable, being done to a good end, and by lawful means?  
She was then conducted to the General Holophernes, whom she found seated on his Throne under a pavilion of gold and purple, all bestudded with emeralds, proud as a peacock that spreads in the sun the mirrors of his tail, for which alone he seems to have been created. She suddenly prostrates herself on the earth, and makes him a reverence of civility, and not of adoration. He failed not to be taken with her at first sight, just as she had plotted, and to make of his eyes the snares of his soul.  
Those that were about him began to say with admiration, that the Land that bore so handsome women, deserved to have no labour spared in its conquest. Holophernes caused her instantly to be raised up again, and because she feigned that she had some fear, and that she was seized with a profound reverence at the aspect of that great General of an Army, knowing well that he was vain, and that it would conduce much to surprise him. He speaks to her with an incomparable sweetness, assuring her that he was not so terrible as men would make him, and that since that he had had the Arms of that great Monarchy in his hands, he never did hurt to any one that rendered himself to the obedience of his Master; that he bore no ill will to her Nation, but that if they had reduced themselves to their duty, he would not have permitted so much as that a sword should have been lifted up against them. And therefore he desired to know from whence it came that she had forsaken her City and was come to his Camp.  
Then that Lady holily-deceitfull began to speak to him after such a winning manner, that an hundred Holophernes' would have had work enough to defend themselves against such batteries of Love. She beseeched him to hear with attention, and to take her speeches in good part by which God would accomplish a great affair.  
That she knew well that Nebuchadonozor had been chosen of God to be King of the whole world, and that all the puissance of his Monarchy was included in Holophernes, where it lived and triumphed magnificently for the safety of the good, and the chastisement of the wicked. That she was not so ignorant of humane things, as not to have heard of the Prudence and valour of an Holophernes, who hath the honour to be the only man in the Kingdom of Nebuchadonozor that is arrived to so high a degree of Power, as that it cannot be equalled by any thing in the world, but by the goodness of his disposition: for he desires to be powerful for nothing but to do good, and all the Provinces well know the good order that he hath put to all the businesses of the Realm. She declared to him, that she had heard of what had passed in Achiors' person, and told him, that he truly discovered the weak spirit of her Nation, and that he might do good upon it at the present, now God was provoked against it, and had threatened by his Prophets to destroy it. And therefore they were all seized with an unspeakable affright, besides that hunger and thirst conspired together to their ruin, and they had taken a resolution to kill all the cattle to drink their blood, and not to spare even the things consecrated to the divine Majesty, which is a sign of a manifest reprobation. And this was the reason that she had left that abominable city, and was come as a messenger from God to give him this advice. She added, that the God which she adored was very great, and that she would not fail to pray him to make known his will, and to tell her the time that he hath determined for the utmost misery of that unfortunate City, with intention to inform him of the news, that at last she might lead him even to the gates of Jerusalem, delivering up to him all that people as sheep without a shepherd, and that there should not be so much as a dog that should bark against him; it being very reasonable that men and beasts should submit themselves under a power so formidable, conducted by the hand of the most High, and by the orders of his Providence.  
Holophernes that had already been taken by the Eyes, was now chained by the Ears with the sweetness and profit of that discourse. His heart was no more his own; he courts her, and promises her that her God shall be his God, and that he will make her great in the house of Nebuchadonozor, and renowned through all the earth. At the same instant he causes her to enter into the chamber where his treasures were, to show her his Magnificence, and ordered what should be given her day by day from his own table for her diet. Whereto she answered, that it was not yet. permitted her according to her Law to enter into a community of table with those that are of any other Religion but her own, and that providing for it, she had caused what was necessary for her to be brought with her. But when your provision comes to fail (says Holophernes) what shall we then do with you? She replied that she hoped to accomplish the business that had brought her thither, before that her ordinary food should be all spent. Thereupon, he commanded that she should be conducted into a fair chamber to repose herself, but before she entered into it she desired a courtesy, which was, that she might go out before day to address her Prayers to the God she worshipped, according to her custom, and pass up and down in his Camp with all freedom, which was granted to her.  
She went therefore in the silence of the night to wash herself in a secret fountain, that she might purify herself from the commerce of those Infidels, and prayed God incessantly, that it would please him to prosper her design for the deliverance of her Country.  
She had now passed four days in the Army watching an opportunity to execute that which she had projected, when Holophernes would needs entertain himself with mirth, and make a magnificent feast, to which he resolved to invite his guest, thinking good cheer and jollity would dispose her to that which he had a mind to have of her. But because the Assyrians hold it a great dishonour for a man to make love to a woman and not to win her, he would not hazard himself so much as to make an overture to her of such a discourse himself, but gave the Commission of it to Vagoa the chief Gentleman of his chamber, who used to serve him in such a business. He failed not to make her know that she was very fare in the favour of his Master, and that that very day he made a banquet, and desired to see her in particular, and that she should take heed of making a scruple of obeying, for it was one of the greatest honours that she could receive in her whole life. He added, that she ought a little to be merry, and pass away her time without engendering melancholy; she understood well what he meant to say, and answered, that she was wholly disposed to obey his Lords commands, and would have no other will but his, and strait way adorns and dresses herself the most pleasingly she could, to wound him in the eyes, and so passes into her chamber.  
As soon as he saw her alone and near him, his heart was totally overthrown, and it seemed that the lightning that issued out of the eyes of that beauty had crushed it to powder. His passion permitted him not to speak much he was so much moved; he contented himself only with inviting her to be merry, and assuring her that she had gained his heart. The holy woman prayed him that it might seem good in his eyes, that she might entertain herself after her own fashion, and that she might eat of that which her servant had prepared for her, which he consented to, being willing to leave her in a full liberty that he might not scare nor trouble her.  
Now behold him the happiest man in the whole world. He drinks with large draughts, makes himself exceeding merry and wonderfully pleasant, whereat Judith expressed that she had a great content to see him in so good an humour, and said, that she had cause to reckon in time to come that day for the happiest of all her life. The other to please her drank so much the more, so that he made himself drunk with a dead drunkenness. It appears plainly that this man was an honest hog, and took not the way to bring about his design, depriving himself of reason when he had most need of it. Vagoa that had the word does his office, brings his Master to bed, and gets him gone, shutting the door to leave him alone with Judith. All the servants had so well liquored themselves that they desired nothing but repose. Judith alone was well awake, and made a sign to her servant to stay for her before the door and not to leave her.  
She contemplates this brave General who was now in a dead sleep; she stands still for a certain time by his bed's side▪ praying God ardently in her silence that it would please him to accomplish by her hand that great stroke that she had destined. From thence she goes to the pillar where Holophernes' Cimetre was hanged, and draws it boldly out of the scabbard, then lays hold of her man by his long hair, saying only in her heart, My God, it is now, strengthen my arm; and instantly having turned him for her best advantage, she strikes with a masculine hand, and cuts off his head at two strokes, carries away his pavilion, and tumbled down his body as a log. She gives suddenly his head to her waiting-woman, who puts it up in the same bag that she had brought her victuals in, and both of them pass through the midst of the Army without being stayed by any one by reason of the permission that they had from the General Holophernes.  
They come by night to the gate of the city, and cry afar off to the Sentinels, Open, God is with us that hath done wonders in Israel. They run to advertise Ozias, and the Priests, who come in haste to receive her. All the city from the highest to the lowest assemble themselves about her, thinking that she had been lost, and looked upon her as a woman come from the other world. She causes instantly torches to be lighted, and gets her up into an high place from whence they were wont to make Orations to the people, and after she had made a silence she thus spoke. Sirs,  
Praise God our Lord, who never forsakes his own, and hath through his grace accomplished this day by me his most humble servant the promise which he hath made to his chosen people; for this night he hath slain by my hands the common enemy of our Nation. And as she was saying this, she drew out of the bag that horrible head of Holophernes, pale and bloody, and shown it to the whole Assembly, adding, Behold the head of Holophernes the General of the army of the Assyrians; and then she spread abroad the pavilion, saying, Behold the pavilion under which he reposed himself in his drunkenness, and where God struck him by the hand of a woman. I call that living God to witness, that by the protection of his holy Angel, he hath preserved me pure, going and coming, and in the abode which I made in the Camp, without permitting any one to attempt any thing upon my honour. And now he hath brought me back glad of his victory, of my own safety, and of your deliverance. It is to him that we ought to give all the praise, because his goodnesses and mercies are inexhaustible.  
The people felt transports of joys, and seeing that head by the help of torches in the silence of the night, thought that it was a dream; but the multitude of those that beheld all one and the same thing, present and real, made them plainly see that it was a truth. They prostrate themselves all on the earth, adoring the living God that was the worker of those great wonders, and then turning themselves to Judith, gave her a thousand blessings with triumphant acclamations, protesting that she was their Mother and their Deliverer.  
Then Ozias the Prince of the people of Israel in Bethulia said to her, You are this day blessed my daughter, and glorious above all women that are in the habitable world. Praised be the Creator of heaven and earth, who hath so well guided your victorious hand to the ruin of the capital of our enemies, and who by the same means hath so glorified your name, that he hath rendered your praise immortal in the mouth of men that shall have any sense of the wonderful works of God. Every one will remember how you have not spared your life to draw your people out of the ruins wherein they were almost buried.  
Thereupon Achior was called, and Judith showing him the head of Holophernes, says to him, You have lost nothing by the testimonies you give to the power of our God; for behold the head of the Colonel of the Unbelievers which God hath cut off this night by this hand of mine. Behold him that threatened to make you die when he had taken Bethulia, but sure now he will let you live in great quiet. This man was in such an ecstasy at this news that he fell down in a swoon, and when he was come to himself again, he cast himself at the feet of Judith, and gave her a reverence that was near to adoration. And by her means was converted to the true Religion, and rendered all glory to the God of Jerusalem.  
Judith pursuing this her conquest, counselled her people to make a show of sallying out of the city in arms at the break of day as if they would give battle, which would make the Assyrians hasten to the Pavilion of Holophernes to awake him, and so seeing what had passed, would be seized with so great a fear that they would sell their lives at a cheap rate. This was executed, and the Captains failed not to repair unto the General to receive orders. It was already forward days, and he was yet asleep with the sleep of death, from whence there is no waking, unless by an extraordinary power. Every one was astonished that he appeared not, but no body durst take the boldness to awake him, so greatly was he feared. They press Vagoa to enter into the chamber, who refuses at first to trouble the pleasures of his Master: but when the time was drawn out in length, he entered, and made a noise, not as by design, but accident, and seeing that no body stirred, he went near the bed, thinking that he was yet with Judith. At last, when one told him that the enemy appeared in arms, he drew the curtain very gently, and saw the body of his Master weltering in his own blood.  
He therefore became so furious, that he rend suddenly his clothes, and ran to Judith's chamber to make her suffer a thousand deaths; but when he could not find her, he sent out frightful cries, and spoke aloud, that that stranger-woman had filled the house of Nebuchadonozor with confusion, and that she had assassinated their General, who was now nothing but a trunk without an head plunged in his own blood. All ran to this spectacle, and the whole Camp was filled with astonishment, with fears, with despair, with tears, and with howl. At the same time appeared the head of Holophernes hanged up upon the walls of Bethulia; and all the army of the Assyrians surprised with a panic fear, and, as it were struck with a scourge from heaven, began to scatter themselves, every one seeking his safety in his flight.  
The Israelites pursued them making a great noise, as if they had drawn forth numerous troops, and as if their squadrons had marched compacted and in good order. It was easy for them to vanquish runaways, who had already delivered up to fear all the hope of their life and fortune. All the neighbouring cities came out to take a share of this glory, and cast themselves into the fields on all parts to entrap their routed enemies, of whom they made most horrible massacre.  
All the Camp of Holophernes was pillaged, where was found so great a quantity of booty that it was a thing prodigious. The noise of this victory was spread unto Jerusalem, the high Priest came to Bethulia with his other Priests to see Judith, to whom every one gave a thousand blessings. One could hear nothing but shouts of joy, and acclamations, that published her The Glory of Jerusalem, the Joy of Israel, the Honour of her People, the gallant Woman, the Chaste and Valiant Princess, the incomparable Lady, whose Reputation should live as long as Eternity itself.  
A month passed wherein there was nothing heard but joys, but consorts of music, but trophies amongst the people. They gathered every day some new spoils, whereof the most precious in gold, in silver, in purple, in pearls and jewels were presented to the victorious Judith. She composed a song of Triumph which was sung solemnly with the admiration of the whole world. After all, they went (as it behoved them) to Jerusalem, to render to God the Vows of the whole people, and to make great Offerings, where three months more were spent in an incomparable cheerfulness. There was not a day that was not Festival, nor a face that did not wear the lineaments of the joys of Paradise.  
Judith offered in the Temple the Pavilion of Holophernes, that the memory of it might never be defaced by oblivion. At last, all returned home to their own houses, and the holy woman remained in her little city of Bethulia, always in her widowhood, honoured of all the world as the most glorious soul on earth. She made her servant free, and lived even to the age of 105 years amongst her people in a profound peace. She appeared abroad the Festival days in a magnificent glory, spending the other days in her solitude, and living with great examples of Virtues and Devotion. The day of that happiness was marked with white, and reckoned in the number of the greatest Feasts of the Jews to all posterity. God, who is the worker of so many wonders hath taken a care also of this History.  
It is an eternal monument of the virtue of his arm, that shakes the mountains, that cleaves the rocks, and overthrows in a moment those sons of the Titans who make war against heaven itself, and would walk upon the wings of the winds. A General of an Army that vaunted himself in the midst of an hundred thousand soldiers environed all about with steel, with fires and lightnings; who said, I will go, I will do, I will levelly with the ground; who held a fatal council, where he decreed the firing of Cities, the sacking of Provinces, where so many dragons drank up the tears of Nations without being touched with any sense of pity. A Giant, that heaped mountain upon mountain to ascend through fire and sword even to the throne of the most High; behold, now conquered, slain, massacred, tumbled in his blood by a woman that makes a play-game of his head; and an army that cut their passage through the Rocks, that drank up Rivers, that shadowed the Sun by the multitude of their flying arrows, overthrown, scattered, torn into a thousand pieces by the enterprise of a Jewesse. Judith gives not herself the praise of this work; it was God that acted in her, who was the direction of her hand, the strength of her arm, the spirit of her prudence, the ardour of her courage, and the soul of her soul. O how great is this God of gods! O how terrible is this Lord of hosts! and who is there that fears not God, but he that hath none at all? What Colossus' of pride have fallen, and shall yet fall under his hands! What giants beaten down and plunged even into hell, for kindling fiery coals of concupiscence, shall smoak in flames by an eternal sacrifice which their pains shall render to the Divine Justice!   

HESTER.  
THe holy Scripture sets before our eyes in this History, Greatness falling into an eclipse, and the lowness of the earth elevated to the Stars; Humility on the Throne, and Ambition on the Gallows, Might overthrown by Beauty; Love sanctified, and Revenge strangled by its own hands. It teaches Kings to govern, and People to obey, great Ones not to rely on a fortune of ice, Ladies to cherish Piety and Honour, the Happy to fear every thing, and the Miserable to despair of nothing.  
All that we have to discourse of here, happened in the Kingdom of Persia, during the Captivity of the Jews in Babylon, about four hundred and sixty years before the Nativity of our Lord, and under the Reign of Ahasuerus. But it is a great Riddle to divine who this Prince was to whom Hester was married, and which is called here by a name that is not found in the History of the Persian Kings, and which indeed may agree to all those high Monarches, signifying no other thing but The great Lord. Mercator says, that it was Astyages grandfather of Cyrus; and Cedrenus, that it was Darius the Mede. Genebrand is for Cambyses; Scaliger for Xerxes; Serrarius for Ochus; Josephus and Saillan for Artaxerxes with the long hand. The wise Hester that was so much in love with Chastity is found to have had fourteen husbands by the contestation of Authors, every one would give her one of his own making; she is married to all the Kings of Persia, she is coursed up and down through all the Empire, and her Espousals made to last above two hundred years. But as it is easy enough to confute the Opinions of all those that speak of her, so is it very hard to settle the truth of the Chronology amidst so great obscurities. The Scripture says, that Mordecai with Hester was carried away out of Judea into Babylon under the Reign of Nebuchadonozor; and if we are of the opinion that marries her to Artaxerxes, if we reckon well all the years that were between those two Kings, we shall find that this young and ravishing beauty of Hester, which caught so great a Monarch by the eyes, was already an hundred and fifty years old, which is an age too ripe for a maid that one would give for a wife to a King. It is impossible to get out of this labyrinth, if we do not say that Mordecai and Hester were not transported in their own, but in the persons of their ancestors; and that that passage means nothing else, but that they issued from the race of those that were lead captives with King Jechonias, destroyed by Nebuchadonozor: so we will take Artaxerxes, and not divide that amiable concord of Authors united in this point.  
Represent then to yourselves, that from the time that the Jews were dispersed into Babylon, into Persia, into Medea, and through all the States of those great Kings, they ceased not to multiply in Captivity; and that servitude which is wont to stifle great spirits, produced sometimes amongst them gallant men. Amongst others appeared upon the Theatre the excellent Mordecai, a man of a good understanding and of a great courage, who by his dexterity and valour delivered all his Nation from death and total ruin. He then dwelled in Shushan, the capital city of all the Kingdom, and bred up in his house a little Niece, the daughter of his brother, an orphan both by father and mother, which was named in her first childhood Edisla, and after called Hester.  
Now as those great spirits that are particularly governed by God have some tincture of Prophecy, he had a wonderful Dream, and saw in his sleep a great tempest, with thunderings and lightnings, and an earthquake which was followed with a combat of two dragons who were fight one against the other, and sent forth horrible hissings, whiles divers Nations assembled together, stood and looked upon them, expecting the issue of the combat; thereupon, he perceived a little fountain which became suddenly a great river which was changed into a Light, and of a Light transformed itself into a Sun, that both watcred and illuminated the earth.  
He knew not what his Dream did mean, but he learned the Interpretation of it in the great combats he had with Haman, and in the exaltation of his little Niece that was promoted to so high a splendour, as to give both evidence and refreshment to all the people of her Nation.  
This Mordecai being a man of good behaviour and quality, found means to advance himself to Court, and to make his beginnings there in some inferior office, expecting some good occasion to make himself be known. He had an eye always open to discover all that passed without any bragging of it. He considered the approaches of divers Nations that lived in that Court; the humours, the capacities, the businesses, the obligations, the intricacies, the credit, the industry of every one; omitting nothing of all that might advance the benefit of his Countrymen.  
He quickly discovered the spirit of Haman, who was at that time a mean Cavalier of fortune, but ambitious, close, crafty, revengeful, bloody, and capable to embroil a State. He had an aversation from him, although he had not yet been offended by him, and began to distrust him, fearing lest he be one day fatal to his people. Nevertheless, Haman with the times took an high ascendant, and Mordecai feared his greatness as one would do the apparition of a Comet.  
It happened that two perfidious Subjects, Thares and Bagathan, ushers of the door made an abominable conspiracy against King Artaxerxes, which Mordecai, who was not a drowsy spirit, soon perceived, and began carefully to watch them, observing their go out and come in, their words and their countenances, their plottings and their practices. He gave notice of it very opportunely, so that being taken, arrested, and put to the rack, they acknowledged the crime, and were led away to punishment. The King gave hearty thanks to Mordecai, commanded him to live in his Palace in a certain office which he bestowed upon him, and caused the day to be set down in writing, wherein he had been preserved from the conspiracy of those unhappy servants, to recompense, as opportunity should be offered, the good services of his Deliverer.  
It is credible that Haman had an hand in that execrable design, seeing that he gave so little thanks to Mordecai for having been the discoverer of it; but the dissimulation that he brought to cover his fact, and his mighty power that rendered him so terrible, suffered him not to be involved in the ruin of those wretched men. These two Courtiers had an eye to one another, and sought nothing but each others ruin; the power of the one being always suspected by the other, when God, without Mordecai's thinking of it, sent him a great succour by the choice which was made of his Niece to be the King's wife.  
The History says, that Ahasuenus would show his magnificence, and made great feasts for the space of an hundred and fourscore days, in which he entertained the Princes, the governors of Provinces, and all the Nobles of the Realm. He would have the people too to have their share, and for that purpose, he caused to be set up at the entrance of his gardens (which he was wont to dress with his own hands) abundance of great Pavilions of Sky-colour, born up with marble pillars, and tied together with ribbons of red silk, and rings of ivory. He caused also certain beds of gold and silver to be set up upon a pavement of emerald and other precious stones, ranged by a proportion made after the Mosaical fashion, which had a very fine grace. Thither he invited all the people of that great city of Shushan, and caused them to be served in vessels of gold and of silver, with most exquisite viands, and delicious wine, and left every one to drink according to his ability, without constraining any one.  
Vasthi the Queen, on the other side, made a banquet for the women in the Royal palace, wherein she forgot nothing to equal the stately Grandeurs of the King her husband. This merry life lasted the space of seven days, in the last of which the King being very jolly and inflamed with wine, commanded the Eunuches that were about him to cause the Queen to come with the Crown upon her head in her most gorgeous attire, to make a show of her beauty in the presence of all the people. The Queen took no pleasure in this command, and refused to go; in which, says Sulpicius, the wife was wiser than the husband, in that she was not willing to make a spectacle of the beauty of her body to men full of meats and wine, and deserved so much the more commendation as she was more constant to keep the Laws of modesty and comeliness.  
But this was not taken that way as that sacred Historian presents it; they imagined that she had some of the disposition of beautiful women, that she was a little proud and scornful, which caused that she was not so well beloved of the Grandees of the Court, who, as it is credible, having long since a desire to do her some ill office, laid hold on this occasion. They caused that refusal to be reported very harshly by the Eunuches to the King when it might have been sweetened and moderated; they made use of his wine, as of an instrument of their iniquity, and exasperated him also by the diminution of his Authority, whereof Princes are very jealous if they have not much stupidity.  
Assoon as the answer of the Queen was published, the King turned himself about to the seven principal Counsellors of his State who were always by his side, and governed the Kingdom, and demanded their advice, what he should do to repress his wife's pride. Memuchan, which was the last and the rashest, made of this denial a crime of State, and said, That it tended to the disorder of all the other women, because, that other women, every one in her condition, framed themselves after the example of the Queen, and would draw a licentious advantage over their husbands, founded upon that affront done to his Royal Majesty, and that every where they would domineer, which would overthrow the order of Nature, and cause great troubles in all houses; and therefore he was of the opinion that the Queen should be divorced by the King her husband, and that an Edict should be made to be sent through all his Kingdoms touching the obedience that women own to those that are their heads.  
The man perhaps was ill dealt with in his lodging by his wife, and under shadow of Policy would revenge his wrongs. It is very true that the Law of God strictly recommends the submission of the wife towards the husband: but it ought to be understood in things good and reasonable; for if a wife were bound to render a blind obedience to all the extravagances of a husband that hath but little wit and much passion, she should be the most miserable of all slaves. There were many reasons that might make Vasthi's action be excused; but because they saw that Memuchan had pleased the King by his discourse, all the rest of the Counsellors of State ran to servitude, and condemned her to a long torment by a short sentence.  
She was degraded and divorced, which was a thing ordinary enough to those Kings who made no great account of losing a wife, seeing that they had so great a number of them in their Seraglio. The Edict was also made in the terms that the other had required it, and the name of that poor Queen went up and down the whole Kingdom as a sad story, and a true portraiture of an abased greatness.  
God permitted all this to make way for Hester, whom he had destined to Ahasuerus his bed, not for herself, but for the safety of her people. After the divorce and the disaster of poor Vasthi, a new Queen must be sought out, and the King comforted about his loss. A great culling is made through all the Provinces of the Kingdom of the handsomest Virgins to be brought to Court. This little Hester is found very delightful, being endowed with a perfect beauty and a natural grace that surpassed all things. She is carried amongst abundance of others, and as soon as the King cast his eyes upon her, he liked her, and commanded Hegai the Eunuch that had the superintendency of his Seraglio to have a great care of that young damsel, to spare nothing on her, and to give her seven waiting-maids with all necessary equipage. Those Virgins that were thus chosen for the Prince's bed made a novitiate of twelve months, in which time they had all leisure to fit themselves, and to learn the civilities of the Court. After this, they were presented to the King, who took those that pleased him most, and when any one had passed a night in his chamber, she was sent in the morning into a new Seraglio unto the charge of another Eunuch, and returned no more to the King if she was not asked for, and that by name.  
Hester spent but ten months in her prepartion and was incontinently conducted to the King, who liked her above all the maids that he had ever seen, and declared her Queen in Vashti's place, putting the Crown upon her head. Mordecai was ravished at this choice, and walked every day from the first beginning that she was brought to Court, before the Seraglio to hear news of her, having recommended her to a certain Eunuch his confident, that had of her a very particular care. He sent her very opportunely necessary advice, to teach her how to behave herself; and above all, he was so wise, as to recommend to her not to declare the Nation whereof she was, and to make no discovery that she had any relation to him, which he judged to be to the purpose, for fear lest Haman, who was in so great favour, and who hated naturally the Jews, should ruin her before she had taken rooting in the King's heart.  
Behold a wonderful sport of Providence, which took a little stone with an intention to beat down a great Colossus, and makes in one instant of an earthen pot a vessel of gold. Men stand now amazed to think what wind drove this poor Jewesse to the crown of the chief Monarchy that was at that time in the whole world. They think that sure it was a great chance, but God knew that it was a great counsel digested from all eternity in his thoughts. For if command is due (according to Aristotle) to persons that are most accomplished, there was some foundation in the excellent qualities of Hester on which to set a Crown: for beside the beauty of her body, and the ingeniousness of her mind, she had great gifts of virtues that rendered her lovely to all the world, and might serve for models to all Ladies.  
She was not a lump of flesh, or a body without a soul, nor a worldly woman that had no other Idol but her Beauty, nor other Deities but Pleasure and Ambition, as it happens ordinarily to most women, who seeing themselves elevated to the top of the grandeurs of the age, strangely corrupt their manners and dishonour their condition. hester's chief and principal virtue that made a most pure source of pleasures flow into the rest of her life, was, That she was devout, and that being young of age, frail of sex, high of condition, in a Court of an Infidel King, amongst so many other Pagan women, she never forgot God, but observed punctually, as fare as it was lawful and possible for her; the exercise of her Religion, making her prayers with an incredible ardour, and retaining a faith inviolable in the midst of the Empire of impiety. She brought the King her husband to the worship of God, and to the love of her people, as fare as she could perceive any disposition in him. She erected a Temple in her heart, having not yet the power to build one in her Kingdom, and directed all her Devotions to the sacrificing of herself.  
She was also greatly to be commended for the little care she had of her Body against the nature of that sex, which often prefers their flesh before God and all Paradise. This appeared evidently at that season when she was to present herself to the King the second time, since that in an occasion so important wherein all other women would have had an infinite care of their habit and attire, she contented herself with so small a thing: and yet in her natural grace, just as a risen adorned with its own leaves, she obscured all other beauties; even the most tricked and pranked. Her art was to have no art at all; to take what nature had given her, and to render all to God.  
Furthermore, she brought to Court a great Humility and a perfect submission, which she never quitted, being as obedient to her uncle when she had the Crown upon her head as in her lowest age; she harkened to his advice, she put it in execution, she despised no body but her own self. The habit of a Queen was to her a burden almost insupportable, and she never found more joy than in her solitude. There are few women that are born without self-wilfulnesse, and without opinions that augment themselves with age, and increase excessively in high conditions, which makes us admire this woman in contemplating nearer her deportments, and seeing how little she relied upon her own self, but although she was endowed with a rare wit, yet she harkened to reason, and without much ado yielded to good counsel, which rendered her demeanour very happy, and all her negotiations most advantageous.  
Besides all this, as God had chosen her for great things, so he gave her the prudence of the Saints accompanied with a good judgement, with docility, with providence, with discretion, with circumspection, and with expeditnesse in the execution of affairs.  
To this prudence was joined a courage, and an incomparable generosity, even to enterprise by a motive of virtue, actions so dangerous, that she could expect nothing from them that was less than death. And for to crown all these virtues, she possessed (farther) an illustrious patience, taking every thing from the hand of God, and suiting herself to his will in all the successes and events of the businesses of the world.  
Behold the principal qualities that adomed this Princess, and that may be seen in those women that God hath gratified with his favours. In the sequel of this story he makes us see the brave employment that he gave her in that Court of Ahasuerus, to bruise the head of a great Serpent, and to deliver her Nation from a gulf of great and horrible calamities.  
Princes and great men would be happy, if without dying by procuration, they might live in person. They are born often enough with most excellent qualities; they are calm seas, and killed with riches that might do good to all the world, if the winds would but let them run according to their own nature. But as the Beauties of women are courted by many Lovers, so high conditions have their flatterers, that under a shadow of themselves Adorers, make themselves Masters; and under colour of Service, exercise an Empire even over those that think they command the whole Universe. Their name by this means serves for a Passport to all mischiefs; their Authority for a sanctuary to crimes; their Taxes for tinder to concupiscence; their Power for an instrument to revenge, and for a scourge to mankind.  
This may be manifestly seen in the sequel of this History, where it is said, That Ahasuerus exalted Haman above all the Princes and Nobles of his Kingdom, and took the wickedest man of the earth to make of him the most puissant, that Crimes might have as much assistance, as this Monarch had power and riches. His goodness was seduced in this point, and his too easy spirit was gained by great appearances that stole him from himself, and left him nothing but a mere apparition of Dignity.  
This Haman which he thought at first to be a Persian, an honest man, an able, and affectionate to his service, was partly an Amalekite, and partly also a Macedonian, a son of the earth, that had neither God nor conscience, a spirit full of labyrinths, captious, suspicious, great in appearance and little in reality; a lion in prosperity, and an ape in adversity, whose life was a perpetual crime, whose avarice was a gulf, ambition an abyss, and fortune a scandal, and an injury to Providence.  
Yet for all this he entered so fare into the friendship of the King, that he saw not, but by his eyes; heard not, but by his ears; walked not, but by his steps; and governed not, but by his counsels. He called him his father, and believed him the most excellent, and the wisest man in his whole Kingdom, commanding every one to acknowledge him for the second person of the Empire, and to give him the greatest reverence. This Court, that was full of slaves, carried many candles to this Idol; some through fear, as to a mischievous Devil, and others through hope and expectation to be preferred.  
The poor Mordecai felt a most bitter grief to see over the heads of men, him, that would bring the whole world under his feet, and in that slavery so general to all men, he chose rather the loss of his life then of his liberty. He would never bow the knee before that Baal, and although his enemy persecuted him in that business by fury, and his friends by importunities, he remained unmoveable, resolved to suffer much rather than to do any thing that was base. Haman that was at the beginning giddy-headed by the fumigations of the incense that was presented to him on all sides, and that regarded men, but as the little gnats, took no heed to it at first; but when he was advertised by his flatterers that there was but one only man at Court that refused to be an adorer of his fortune, he was inflamed with choler, and esteeming it but a small game for him to cause one man to die, he made a resolution horrible and bloody to root out a whole Nation.  
He goes and tells the King that the Jews dispersed through all the Provinces of his Kingdom, were divided by Religion and by Laws from the rest of all the world, and by affection, from his Person and his State. That they were a people most pernicious to an Empire, that always sat abrood upon some poison, and that if they seemed moderate, it was not but through impotence, being disposed at the first occasion to cast themselves into Rebellion and Insolence. He added also, that the great care which he had of the good of the State, put these words into his mouth, that would cause the universal quiet of all his Monarchy, and that after consideration had of the great perils wherewith his Crowns and Life were menaced by that faction, he hath found nothing better than to prevent them, and to cut them off in time, before they had fortified themselves to the prejudice of the public. That if the Treasurers of the Exchequer feared by this a diminution of the Tributes, he would give with all his heart ten thousand talents of his proper goods to recompense the Levies, so much he took to heart that business that concerned the safety of his King and the benefit of his people.  
This Serpent played his game with so much artifice, that he persuaded whatsoever he had a mind to in such a manner, as that poor Ahasuerus, who was of a mean and credulous spirit, without examining any thing, plucks his ring from off his finger, puts it into Hamans' hands, with a full power to do as he in his discretion should think fit. Behold the great confusion of the State, of the Spirit, and of the Conscience of Kings when they suffer themselves so easily to be lead away by evil counsels, and will not so much as know what passes in the government of their people.  
It is an horrible thing that in the turn of an hand this miserable Prince should abandon to the vengeance of a pernicious man so many millions of lives, without making one sole reflection upon what he says, or what he grants. He had no imagination whither that did tend, and his ordinary idleness suffered him not to take any further cognizance of it; which rendered him doubly culpable, to permit so many murders, and to be ignorant of it. Seneca says, that when Claudius was 
Turpiùs ignorasti quàm occidisti. Sen. in Ludo de morte Claudii.  in the other world, some men reproached him with abundance of murders done under his name, and yet he knew not what they meant; then Augustus risen up and said, Thou miscreant, we talk not here of the slaughters thou hast committed, but of those thou hast not known, for it is a more shameful thing to a King to be ignorant of the evil that passeth in his Kingdom then to act it.  
The sister of one of the Ptolomy's, King of Egypt, seeing that her brother as he was playing at dice, caused some criminal Processes to be read to him to decide them in the last Appeal, snatched the papers out of the Clerk of the Assise's hand, and said to her brother, that a die fell otherwise then the head of a man. One cannot bring too much consideration when there is a question of shedding a man's blood, be it in peace or war.  
Yet Ahasuerus trusts this proud Haman, as one that would trust the wolf with the lives of his sheep. He triumphs with joy for having obtained the King's ring; he relishes and digests his vengeance with ceremony. He causes a great vessel to be brought him, into which he throws twelve little billets which bore the name of every month, and causes the month to be drawn out by lot in which he should execute his pernicious design. The lot fell upon the last, although it was cast in the first, and he would not change it, whether through an old superstition of his Country, or through the great confidence he had, that what time soever he took to make the projected Massaere, the Jews could not possibly escape him, so impotent they were; and he thought to keep them as beasts shut up which one chaces when one will.  
It was a pleasure to him to show them the glittering steel a year before they should die, and to make them perish a thousand times by fear, before their life should be once taken away by the sword. He assembles all the King's secretaries, and dictates to them a bloody letter, whereof he causes a great many copies to be drawn to send into all the Provinces, and the renour of them was, That the thirteenth day of the last month, which was that of February, the Jews should be massacred in all the Cities and Provinces that were within the utmost limits of the Empire; and that from the least even to the greatest, without sparing either man, woman, or child, all should be put to the sword without remission, and that their goods should be confiscated and exposed to pillage. The Letters marked with the Seal and Arms of the King, flew as ill-boding Birds through all the extents of the seven and twenty Provinces of that great Kingdom. It was an Edict of Death, not of the death and of the ruin of one man, or of one City, or of one Province, but of a whole Nation. The evil was universal, and carried on all parts Menaces, Blood, Slaughters, Fears, and Affrights, from Euphrates even to Nile. The terror began at the capital city Shushan, where the Edict was seen and read by all the world, hanged upon the pillars and on the walls of Public places bearing these words;  
Artaxerxes the Sovereign Lord and King of all the Nations, that are from India as fare as Ethiopia, to the Princes and Governors of the seven and twenty Provinces of our Empire, Greeting:  
Since the time that I subdued the universe under my Laws, it was never my will to abase the greatness of my Power, but I have desired to govern my good Subjects with all clemency and sweetness, making them enjoy a peace and tranquillity to be wished for by all mortals; and for this purpose, enquiring of the means that I might use for the effecting of this design, Our most dear Haman, the second person of our Kingdom, which exceeds all the men of the world in capacity and fidelity, hath represented to me, that the Jewish people dispersed through all the Provinces of my Empire, being separated both by Religion and Laws from all the other Nations, despise our Edicts, and cease not to render themselves troublers of the public Quiet. Which having been well and duly considered, we have ordained and do ordain, That they be punished according to the orders of our most dear Haman, who is the Superintendent of all our Provinces, and whom we honour as our true father. Furthermore we will and intent that this Edict shall be put in execution, the thirteenth day of the Month Adar, the last of the year, to the end that all the wicked descending into Hell in one and the same day, may render peace, and quietness to our good Subjects, which they have troubled by their Factions. Such is our good pleasure.  
Given at Shushan the first of the Month Nisan.  
Behold how Haman and his Complices, workers of Iniquity, cut their Furies Quills, and dipped them in Blood, to make the King of the Persians say what ever pleased them, having his Seal and Authority in their hands. Poor Mordecai seeing the great Tempest that was ready to fall upon the heads of all his people, having read that Edict, and knowing that Haman was at the Table with the King, who was not seen by any, endeavoured to move the whole World to pity, clothing himself with Sackcloth, and covering himself with Ashes, together with all his people that wept and howled about him.  
This sad Squadron marched even to the Walls of the Palace, without entering in, for it was not permitted not so much as to Mordecai, to be seen at Court in so deplorable a Condition, which would have offended the eyes of the delicater sort. Bad news hath Wings to fly, and abundance of Voices to make itself be heard. The frighted Maids and Eunuches fail not to tell Queen Hester of what ever had passed, whereat she was much amazed, and hearing that her Uncle was at the Gate, covered over with Ashes, with Sackcloth upon his back, she sent him secretly a Suit of Clothes, which he refused, judging it not suitable to his fortune, which made her dispatch another Messenger, which was Athac the Eunuch that waited on her, who went out of the Castle, and inquired of Mordecai of all the state of so sad a business. The other made him a short Narration of it, and gave him a Copy of the Edict to present unto the Queen, praying him to tell her, that she must necessarily go and see the King, and act powerfully with his Majesty for the deliverance of his people.  
Athac returns readily to his Mistress, and faithfully relates to her what he had heard of Mordecai. The poor Princess was in an equal balance greatly racked in mind; She durst not go to the King without being sent for, and to reject the entreaty of her Uncle in an accident so pressing, it was another Death to her. She sends Athac back again to represent again to the good Mordecai the danger of that Negotiation, and to tell him that there is a Law established by the Prince, that ordains, That whosoever shall present himself before his eyes, without being called for, shall be punished with Death, unless that by his mercy he holds out his Sceptre to him in sign of safety, and that thereupon she had not seen his Majesty these thirty Days, not knowing in what posture she is at present in his heart, that if she should find him in some ill Humour, there were an end of that Life, which she seeks not to preserve but for the safety of her People.  
Notwithstanding all these Remonstrances, her Uncle sends to her to go; tells her, that if she neglected to negotiate in so important an occasion, God would find other means to save his people. But she should had need to take great heed, lest her Father's House, and herself also should perish, by too great a care of their Preservation, and that she ought to think that perhaps the Divine Providence had placed her where she was, it may be for that only reason.  
Here one knows not what one ought to admire most whether the Authority that Mordecai took over the Queen, or the Obedience that the Queen rendered to him. She had no sooner heard that Reply of his, but she said, It is concluded, I will go, and sacrifice myself to Death with all my heart, to obey my Uncle, and save, if I can, my Nation. Go to him, Athac, and bid him assemble all the Jews that are in Shushan, let them keep a Fast of three days for the success of this Attempt, with continual Prayers. I will do the same on my side with my servants here, and afterward we will adventure upon the business.  
Behold how we ought to proceed in great Negotiations, making God always to march in the head of them, who is the source of all good Successes. There was then an admirable Consort of Devotions, both within and without the Palace; Mordecai was in the midst of his People, lifting up his hands to Heaven, and saying;  
Great God, whose Empire hath no limits, and whose absolute will suffers no contradiction; Your hands have form both Heaven and Earth, with all the beauties that are included in their bosom, and there is nothing that can resist the puissance of your Arm. My God you know every thing, and are not ignorant that the refusal that I have made to reverence the proud Haman, proceeds of Pride or Vanity that is in me, for from this present time I would kiss the ground whereon he treads for the safety of my people. But I have been afraid to transfer the honour of the Creator to the Creature, and to give a companion to your Majesty; and therefore I be-you, O the God of our Fathers, to cause one ray of your mercies to shine upon those poor afflicted ones. You see the rage of our Enemies, who have all sworn our Ruin. Despise not your Inheritance, that you have Redeemed from Egypt. Show yourself propicious to your People, that is, as it were, the Lot of your Empire; Change our Mourning into Joy, and shut not the Mouths of those that sing your Praises. This Prayer was followed unanimously by all the people.  
But the Divine Hester on the other side, shut up in her secret Closet, lays aside her precious habits, and all the attires of the glory that environed her, taking a mourning suit, and covering herself with Ashes. She was in Prayer day and night, and mortified her body with Fast and Austerities. Care made those Roses of her beautiful face to whither, and the places that had been the complices of her joys, were for that time watered with her tears. She said to God with an amorous heart;  
My God, you know the necessity that oppresses me, and you are not ignorant that I detest with all mine heart, that proud Diadem that glitters upon my head, when by constraint I must appear at Court. I have never worn it in the Holidays of my silence, and of my dear solitude which I prise above all the Empires of the Earth. You are not Ignorant, O my Lord, that since that I was transported to this Palace, my heart hath never joyed in any thing, but the consideration of your Blessings. I am here alone, and forsaken of all friends and kindred, expecting no other Succour but that of your Arm. Lo, I hold my Life and my Soul now in my hands, to lose it for you, or to save it for you. Those that have resolved to pull down your Altars, and to destroy the glory of your Temple, are the men that have sworn our Death. But give not, O Lord, your Sceptre and your Power to those that have no name amongst your faithful People; Make their own Arrows return upon their own faces, and keep us always under the Protection of your Divine Hands. Seeing that I must be the Prolocutresse for the good of all your Nation, and of mine, Inspire me with the discourses that I ought to make in the presence of that Lyon. Soften for us his heart, and make him turn his gall on the side of our enemies, that we may render to you our Thanksgivings, and offer to you Immortal praises.  
The third Day being expired, she puts off her Mourning, and adorns herself with her richest dresses, to sharpen the Arrows of her Beauty which she had so worthily consecrated to the great Business of the preservation of her Nation. And although she had an heart filled with cares about the event of an Embassage of so great importance, yet she appeared with a Countenance as flourishing, as the fair dawning of the Day, Calming the Tempest of her Heart by the force of an invincible Spirit. After she had once more invoked the Author and Finisher of Wonders, she went accompanied with two maids, one of which held her up, managing exactly the delicacy of her body, and the other carried the Train of her Gown largely spread abroad. She passes from Door to Door, from Chamber to Chamber, and at last arrived at the Kings, who was seated on a Throne in a Suit all laid with Diamonds, and a pomp unparalleled. He was ruddy of Face, and had eyes very sparkling, and it seemed that he took a kind of pleasure in rolling them up and down, to dazzle those that looked upon him, by the lightnings of his Majesty. At first, his look appeared a little terrible to this new Wife, whether he did it by an Amorous Caresse, or whether he was moved with some Choler to see her enter without calling for. The wise Hester knew also well enough how to play her game, and to surprise where he was weak, in which he thought himself most strong. She used a mute Eloquence, and a fear wherein there was much quaintness and gentleness of the Sex. The Carnation of her checks instantly took a precious paleness, that came so opportunely as if one had called for it; and as if she had been Thunderstruckk with the eyes of that mighty Monarch, she let herself fall down in a swoon into the bosom of the Maid that held her up.  
This wonderful King that desired so much to terrify, took for himself what he would give to others, and felt his own heart assaulted, by the fear he had lest his Countenance had wounded the heart of his dearest Spouse. He quits the dreadfulness of a King, and takes the servitude of a Lover; he comes down from his Throne faster than apase, runs as well as others to ease her of her swoon, and cries aloud, Hester, my sister, what ails you? The Law that I have made, is not for you, but for the rest only of my Kingdom: And when she yet gave no answer to that Speech, he takes his golden Sceptre, gives it her to touch and handle, and kisses her with a great affection, conjuring her to take courage, and to come again to herself.  
Then as if she had returned from the Country of the Dead, she spoke with a languishing voice, and interrupted words, saying to the King, that he need not be astonished at that fear of hers, for she had seen his face as the face of an Angel, that he was truly Terrible, but withal Lovely above all the Princes of the World, so many Graces he had and beauties upon his Visage. This was to take him where he was easiest to be Conquered, and to better colour yet that speech, she let herself fall again upon the bosom of her servant. All the Court had work enough about her, and the King above all did what he could to settle her. At last she came fully to herself, and Ahasuerus told her, That if she came to make any Request unto him, she should ask boldly, yea though it were even the Moiety of his Kingdom, for he was now on terms to deny her nothing.  
It was a large promise, and one would think that now was the time for her to discover herself. Yet she had so much reservedness, and so great a power over herself, that she advanced not yet her Business, but waited for the hour of his Repast, wherein she knew that the King Ahasuerus was ordinarily more free and merry. She told him only that she came to make a small Request unto his Majesty, and most humbly to beseech him to be pleased to honour her with his Presence, together with Haman, at a little Banquet which she had prepared for them. The King was very joyful of it, and caused Haman to be called, whom he commanded to do whatsoever Hester should desire, which was most pleasing to him, being one that loved nothing so much as that which flattered his vainglory.  
They failed not to be both of them at dinner with the Queen, who entertained them very handsomely, and with great Magnificence, and this entertainment pleased so much her Husband, that he summoned her again to ask what ever seemed good unto her, for there was no request but should be granted, that proceeded from her mouth. The Queen that would give herself leisure to consult with her Uncle first, that she might effectually disclose that great affair, put off the offer till the morrow after, and said to the King, That since his Majesty had expressed so great a satisfaction for her little Dinner, and that the cheerfulness of his heart redounded to the benefit of his Health, she would present to him again with all humility the very same Petition, and convince him by his friendship, which she prised above all things in the World, to eat again the following day of the Viands that she should make ready for him, and with the same Company.  
This was fully granted her, and after she had prepared the spirit of the King by these dispositions, she resolved to open her whole mind, with the Counsel and art of Mordecai. Haman went out of the Palace gloriously triumphing and accompanied with a great Train; But when he perceived Mordecai at the Gate, who made as though he did not see him, when all others killed themselves to make him Reverences, he felt himself moved with fury, and went suddenly to his house, to conclude upon the Death of that innocent man.  
Good (say the Philosophers) is never Good, if it be not entire and Perfect, which is the cause that there are few felicities in the World, where all Light hath its Shadow, all fruit its Worm, and every Beauty fails not to have its embasement and Alloy. And this is it, that Proud Haman experiments in the highest glory of his Fortune. He makes a consultation with his Wife and Friends, and tells them, That he is this day, according to the World's esteem, one of the happiest men upon the Earth. If he looks upon his Riches, they are well-nigh infinite; If he casts his eyes upon his House, he sees it underproped with a good company of Children; If he considers the favour of the Prince, Never man was in a like degree. His Counsels are the Felicities of the State, his Words are Oracles, and his Altitudes are Ravishments that dazzle the whole Earth from Euphrates even as fare as Nilus. Yet he confesses to them ingeniously, that in this high heap of Honours and of Blessings that environ him, he hath no content at all, as long as he sees himself outbraved by that beggarly Rascal Mordecai, who vouchsafes not so much as to do him any Reverence. All the Joys that he hath in his House, and all the Applauses that he receives every day in public, gives him not so much Pleasure, as that sole Affront pours bitterness into his heart, which he cannot digest. And therefore he prays them to advise him on some means that he should use, to rid himself of that Villain, and sacrifice him to his vengeance. He added, that he had Dined with the King and Queen, and that he was to go thither again the morrow after, which was a favour that none could hope for after him; yet he lost all the sense of it when it entered into his imagination, that he must see a Mordecai at the Palace gate, to reproach to him his impotence; and that there was no more life for him, as long as that cursed fellow, that was to him as an ill-boding Bird, remained at Court.  
The Wife that was of the same humour with her Husband, pronounced a short sentence, and said that if there were not Gallows enough at Shushan to hang a Rascal, he shall cause one to be set up of fifty Cubits high, and should desire the King, that Mordecai should be suddenly fastened to it, and that this being done, he might go with a purified spirit to the Banquet of the Queen. This Counsel pleased him very much, and he resolved to forward it, but Providence Prepared for him fare other business to dispatch, to make him know, that no body thinks upon the Ruin of another, without hastening of his own.  
The Angel of God that Governs Kings, giveth them thoughts not foreseen, and raises to them occasions of Virtues and great Actions sometimes, even when they least dream of it. The King was laid upon his Bed to repose himself, and could not shut his Eyes the whole night, without having the least appearance of Care or Trouble in his spirit. He calls for his Reader, and bids him read to him some Book or other to entertain him. He reads in his presence the Annals of the Kingdom, and particularly, That which happened in his Time; He comes without thinking on it, to the Year that made mention of Thares and Bagathans' Conspiracy, discovered by Mordecai. The King's heart that was in the hand of God changed in an instant; the remembrance of that good servant begins to enter into his mind with some Tenderness and Compassion; That ardent and inconsiderate Love that he had had to his friend Haman grows cold again insensibly, without having any Reason for it. It seemed as if there had been a charm raised suddenly by an Heavenly hand. He resumes thoughts of Consideration, of Justice, and affection towards honest men.  
He asked what Recompense Mordecai hath had for so great and notable a Service that he did his Person and all his State. It was found that he had gained nothing by it, but Promises and Hopes. The King demands of the Gentlemen of his Chamber, who was in the Antichamber? they answered Haman, that was come according to his custom, to discourse with him while he was rising, and to press hotly Mordecai's Ruin. He commands them to bid him enter; He enters with a Boldness that promised itself all things, and sets himself to his Compliments and his ordinary merriments; Yet all that had pleased the King heretofore, in the conversation of that man even to a Rapture, gins to displease him now, and he seeks nothing more than the means to humble him.  
He frames to himself in Ideas a man of Fortune rising from nothing that hath prevailed over the simplicity of his Spirit, that hath made great Magazines of Gold and Silver our of his Levies, That disposes of all the Offices of his Kingdom, That makes himself adored of great and small, That is followed as Himself, and morethens Himself, That hath his Privy-Seal and all his Authority in his hands, That hath so much money to lay out, as to offer ten thousand Talents to satiate his Revenge, and that Authorises all wickedness, by the Name, and avouching of his Master, if at least he hath one on this top of glory whither he is mounted. He hath now a mind to undo him, and feels a powerful motion pushing him forward to it, and which permits him not to deliberate of it any more, nor to Consider with what security he might execute so great a business.  
He knew that he was hated of all the World by Reason of his Pride, and that his Adorers themselves would have eaten him up with a very good will, if they might have had but the permission given them; He saw that he subsisted not, but by his favour which he abused so basely. He resolved to pick a quarrel with him, and asked him instantly, What might a Great King do, that would honour a Favourite to the highest Point? Haman thinking that that Question was not made but in favour, and Consideration of him, Answers with an Immeasurable Impudence, That to honour worthily a Favourite, and to show in his Person what a great Master can do that Loves with Passion, He must cloth him with his Royal Cloak, put the King's Diadem upon his Head, set him upon his own Horse, and command the greatest Prince of the Court to hold his Stitrop and his Bridle, and lead him through all places of the City, and to Cause an Herald to Proclaim before him, That it is thus that Ahasuerus honoureth his Favourites.  
The Prince was astonished at this Insolence, and to make him burst with spite, said to him, that his Opinion was very good, and therefore he commanded him to render all those honours presently to Mordecai the Jew that was at the Palace Gate. This Devil of Pride was seized with so great an amazement at that Speech, that he had not so much as one word in his mouth to Reply; and as he was Vainglorious and Insupportable in his Prosperity, so there was nothing more Amated or more Base in Adversity. He extremely racks his spirit to dissemble his discontent; The fear of Death and Punishments due to his Crimes, if he did resist the Pleasure of the King, made him swallow all the bitterness of that Cup.  
A strange thing! Poor Mordecai that was all nasty, covered with Sackcloth and Ashes, is fetched, is washed, is trimmed up, and clad after the fashion of a King. Haman presents himself to hold the Stirrup of the Horse, and to lead him by the Bridle, while his Enemy was showed in Triumph to the eyes of the whole City of Shushan. How much Resistance do we think he made, not to accept this Honour? What thoughts came into his head, whether it was not a Trick of Haman, that would give him a short Joy to deliver him to a long Punishment. He could not believe his Eyes nor his Reason; he thought that all this had been a Dream. In the mean while the whole City of Shushan beheld that great Spectacle, and could not be sufficiently amazed at so extraordinary a Change.  
Haman, after the Ceremony was over, returns very sad unto his House, deploring with his Wife and friends the sad sport of Fortune. The Confusion of their troubled spirits suggests nothing to them but Counsels of despair, and they say, That since Mordecai hath begun, sure he will make an end. He was very loath to go to that Feast of the Queens, he feared that it would prove a sacrifice, and that he should be the offering.  
Hester that saw that her sport was spoiled if he was not present, caused him secretly to be engaged, and pressed by the Eunuches of the King, who under colour of Civility, conduct him to his final Misery.  
He enters into the Chamber of the Feast: The King dissembles all that had been done; there was nothing talked of at the first, but of passing merrily the time away; Every thing flourished, every thing Laughed, but Poison was hid under the Laughter, and Venom under the Flowers.  
At the end of their Repast, the King Conjures the Queen to tell him at last what it was that she desired of him, because he was fully resolved to divide his Crown and Sceptre with her. Then sending forth a great sigh, she cried,  
Alas Sir, I do not sue to your Majesty for any of all the Honours, or the Riches of your Empire, but I desire of you only my own and my poor people's Lives which some would overthrow, Destroy, and Massacree by an horrible and bloody Butchery. Sir, I ought no longer to disguise any thing to your Majesty; God hath made me be born of that Nation, which is given for a Prey under your Authority, and destined to the Shambels. It is me that they aim at; If they had gone about only to make me and my People Slaves, I would have held my peace, and stifled my groans. But Sir, what have I done, that my Throat should be cut, after I shall have seen the Blood of my nearest Kindred shed before mine Eyes, to be thrown as the last Sacrifice, upon a great heap of Dead Bodies, and Buried in the Ruins of my dear Country? Alas, Sir, show us Mercy, You that are the Mildest of all Princes, restore me my soul, and the lives of my whole Nation.  
The King entered into an Admiration of Ecstasy upon these Words, and said to the Queen,  
I know not to what this Discourse tends, or where the Man or the Authority is, that dares do this without my command.  
Then she replies, He, to whom your Majesty hath given your Seal, that Traitor, and perfidious Haman, It is he that hath caused bloody Letters to be written through all the Provinces, to deliver me and my People up to Death, and know Sir, that his cruelty rebounds upon your head.  
Haman quickly perceived that he was a lost man, and the Paleness of Death came at the same instant into his Face; The King rises from the Table, and walks into the Garden, that was hard by, to chew upon his Choler.  
The Queen that had put herself into a Melancholy, casts herself down upon the Bed. Haman throws himself at her feet, and as a man that is drowning, lays hold on what ere he meets with, He beseeches her, he Urges her, he Conjures her to show him Mercy, and in saying so bowed himself down upon the Bed, and approached very near unto her.  
The King entering at the same time into the Chamber, and finding him in that Posture; How (says he) will he also violate the Queen, my Wife, in my Presence, and in my House? Let some body take him away. Instantly they come, and cover his Face as they were wont to do to those that were carried away to Punishment, and one of the Eunuches thought of, saying, That he had prepared a pair of Gallows of fifty Cubits high, for Mordecai the Preserver of the King's Life.  
It is that which is his Due, (answered Ahasuerus) and let him be hanged suddenly upon the Gibbet that he hath set up.  
This was executed without delay, there being no body that was not extreme joyful of his Ruin. Mordecai was called to the Palace, to take his Place, and to Govern all the Household of the Queen, that now acknowledged him in the presence of the King her husband, for her Uncle.  
Hester afterward beseeched the King, to command Dispatches to be sent through all the Provinces, to countermand, and to make void the Letters of Death which cruel Haman had caused already to be spread through all the Kingdom. This was found very reasonable, and they were forthwith Expedited in these Terms.  
Artaxerxes the Sovereign Lord and King, of all the Nations that are from India to Ethiopia, To the Princes and Governors of the seven and twenty Provinces of our Empire, Greeting.  
Many abusing through their Pride, the Goodness of Princes, and the Honours that have been given them, do not only endeavour to oppress People, but also by a detestable Felony, to attempt upon the Life of their Benefactors, not being able to bear the Weight of the Glory, to which they are Exalted.  
They are not contented to be Ingrateful for Benefits, and to Violate the Laws of Humanity, but persuade themselves, that, though they run out into so great Crimes, they shall escape the Judgements of that Great God, from whom nothing is Concealed. Their Fury is so irregulated, that though they be defiled with all sorts of Vices, they Accuse those that are Innocent, and observe punctually all the Justness of their Duty, endeavouring to ruin them by the Artifices and Juggle of their Lies. And for this they surprise the Ear of Kings, who have an Heart full of Goodness and Sincerity, measuring those that are near their Persons by their own Dispositions.  
The Proof of this may befound in Ancient Stories, and even in those of our Days too, which show sufficiently how the Good Intentions of Kings, are Corrupted by the wicked Counsels of their Ministers and Servants.  
For this Reason we ought to give order for the Peace of our Provinces, and if we are Constrained to make you a Countermand, know, that it proceeds rather from the necessity of the Times, then from the inconstancy of our Resolutions.  
It is necessary, that you should understand that Haman the son of Amadatha a Macedonian by Nation and Affection, after he had been promoted by our Goodness to the second Place of our Kingdom, hath defiled by his Cruelty the effects of our Piety, and hath puffed himself up with so great an Arrogance, as to have dared to attempt to deprive us of our Sceptre, and of our Life. For he resolved to cause Mordecai to Die, to whose Fidelity I own my preservation, and to destroy with him Hester the Companion of our Bed, and of our Sceptre with her whole Nation, by Inventions pernicious, and till this time unheard of.  
He hoped by this means, that having taken away ou● Conservators, he might surprise us in a Dereliction, and translate the Kingdom of the Persians to the Macedonians.  
But we have discovered, that the Jews destined to death by this wicked Villain are without fault, That they use good Laws, and that they are the true Children of the most High, most Great, and Everliving God, by whom the Empire is given and preserved to us.  
And for this Reason, we make void and disannul the Letters that he hath directed to you in our Name, to cause them to be Murdered, making you to know that the Author of the Lie hath been hanged upon the Gallows at the Gate of Shushan, God rendering to him that which he hath deserved.  
Furthermore, we Will and Ordain that the Jews live in all our Provinces according to their Law and Ceremonies, and that you assist them in bringing their Enemies to Punishment the same day that they had determined to destroy them, seeing that the God Almighty hath turned to them into Joy that day of Tears and Grief.  
And since that that is Important even for our Life and Preservation, We Command that that Day be put in the number of the Feasts, that Posterity may know the Recompenses of our Faithful Servants, and the Punishment of those that oppose our Will, and make attempt upon our State.  
And if there be any Province or City that refuses to solemnize that very Day with Joys and cheerfulness befitting it, we Will that it be destroyed with Fire and Sword, and that it be made inaccessible to Men and Beasts to perpetuity, to give an Example to others by the punishment of their contempt and Disobedience.  
The Commands of the King were diligently executed, and the Jews Dreaded and Honoured in all places by reason of the great Credit that Mordecai had with the King his Master.  
It seemed that the Sun was risen a new for these people heretofore afflicted, and that Heaven poured down upon them blessings in abundance. There was nothing every where but Joys, but Dances, but Feasts, in Testimony of so public an alacrity. But it is clear that Hester held yet somewhat of the Old Testament in the searching out of the enemies of her Nation, and in the Revenge that she caused to be ex-excised every where upon them that had sworn her Ruin.  
Haman's House was given her, and ten of his Sons hanged to accompany the punishment of their Father. Five hundred men were slain in Shushan for having adhered to that miserable man, and through all the rest of the Cities of the Kingdom, much blood was shed on the same day that had been assigned for the Massacres of the Hebrews.  
We must avow that this History is wonderfully Tragical, and one of the most wonderful Revolutions of Fortune that ever arrived to Great ones, to make Posterity fear the Judgements of a God whose Hand is as weighty in the Chastisement of Crimes, as his Eye quick-sighted in the discerning of Hearts.     

The SOLDIERS.  

JOSHUA. JUDAS MACCABEUS.  
 portrait of Joshua (the patriarch) 
JOSVE.   portrait of Judas Maccabeus 
JUDAS MACHABEE.   

HE must be ignorant of the chief and most visible of beauties that knows not Joshua. One cannot see the Sun without remembering the great commerce that this Valorous Captain had with the King of Stars. All the World lift their eyes up to it, but none hath ever lifted his voice as far as it, to make himself be heard, and to make himself to be obeyed. The Stars knew Joshua because he bore the Name of him that form them; It is he that first gave us the fore-tasts of the name of Jesus, at which the Heaven, the Earth, and Hell do bend the knee.  
What lovely thing had not this generous Joshua, seeing one cannot name him without mentioning Salvation, which is the wish and content of all men? Who would think that such a spirit had been born and bred in servitude? And yet he was Pharaohs slave, he was as the rest in the chain, that was at that time common to all his people. Those were very patiented that could endure it, but he was far more valiant that found a means to break it.  
When in his little infancy he played upon the banks of the River of Nile with the other prisoners, he then struck terror into all its floats, and the Angels of Egypt, knew that he should tread under his feet the pride Pharaoh, and carry away the spoils of that proud kingdom so many times cemented with the blood of his brethren. He did every thing by Moses' orders, and Moses did nothing without him. If one was the eye of his people, the other was the arm; if one was the conductor of them, the other was the Protector. If one had the Providence, the other reserved to himself the execution which is ordinarily the most difficult piece of Prudence.  
Moses lifted up his hands to Heaven, and Joshua his Arms upon the head of the enemies of God; the one combated with the lips, and the other with the sword; the one poured out oil and wine upon the Altars, the other shed the blood of the wicked to make a sacrifice to the justice of the Sovereign Monarch.  
He was inclined to war by the disposition of God himself, he received the sword as from his hands, and wore it fifty seven years always in assaults, always in defences, always in various encounters, and in bloody battles, for the safety and the glory of his Nation.  
He hath reaped more Palms, than heaven hath stars, he made as many combats as journeys, and gained as many victories as he gave battles. Happiness never deliberated whether she should follow his undertake. She was under him as a soldier in pay, and whither one carried his Standarts, the other incontinently displayed her wings to cover them. They never broke asunder, and hazard that hath often a foot so slippery, found firm ground when it was covered with the arms of Joshua.  
He affronted Giants that seemed to have been born only for the terror of Mankind. He tumbled down towers of flesh, and trod under feet Monsters that the most valiant durst not so much as look on. He took Cities whose walls and Citadels were so high that they seemed to be lost in heaven.  
The Plains of Makkedah of Libnah, of Lachish, of Debir, of Hebron, of Gilgal, of Gezer, and of Jericho bear yet the seeds of his Laurels. Eglon and Ai preserve his Trophies which are yet standing after they have seen the ruins of the Pyramids of Egypt. But Gibeon carries away the price of his victories, seeing that it was it that saw the Sun stand still upon his Conquest.  
Plato and Aristotle that hold the heavens and the Stars, animated Julius Firmicus that believes them filled with sense and with prudence, would not have failed to tell us here, that it was the love and the admiration of the valour of that great Captain, that tied the Sun by insensible chains in the midst of his firmament, and that he could not endure to set before he had seen the end of that famous battle; he could see nothing amongst our Antipodes that came near this spectacle; he esteemed his Light more noble and more precious for that it had shone that very Day even upon the Valour of the most rare Man of the whole Earth.  
But the Scripture teaches us, that the chief of the Luminaries of heaven stood for that time immovable, not by any understanding that it had, but by obedience that it rendered to its Creator, seeing the Creator himself would obey the voice of a man. All the Militia of heaven desired to be of the Party, the Moon and the Stars waited upon their King, and would not move one step that was not trodden according to his measures.  
After this do we think it strange that the Rivers turned about their Passages to favour Joshua's, and that the sacred Jordan was sensible of the footsteps of a mortal man, to whom the Heavens themselves gave some veneration?  
Millions of men grew pale with fear when they saw one single man with his sword in hand; The walls of Cities fell to the ground, though he did not touch them but with his eyes.  
The only presence of one Joshua was worth an hundred Regiments; The soldiers thought nothing impossible under him, and by him the enemies esteemed themselves vanquished as soon as seen.  
What may one say of a General that subdued thirty and one Kings, that broke so many Sceptres, that saw so many Crowns and Diadems at his feet? One sole Victory carried away upon a Monarch caused the Roman Captains to be seen in a Chariot of Ivory drawn by white Horses, and sometimes by Elephants and Lions: Sesostris King of the Egyptians four Kings to be tied to his Coach, for that he had conquered them in battle. But our Joshua, a subduer of Pride as well as men, desires no exterior pomp to honour his deeds of valour. It sufficed him that God Triumphed in him, and would not have any other glory, but to be under the feet of him that marches upon the wings of the winds, and upon the head of Cherubins.  
He was not only a valiant Soldier, and wise General, but at last the Judge and Prince of his people, Great in Arms and in Laws, and accomplished in all sort of virtues. The Israelites thinking one day that Moses their conductor had been lost in the Wilderness, desired the Highpriest Aaron to make them a God to supply his default; But after that Moses was dead, and that they beheld Joshua seated in his place, they desired no more any other Deity because they perceived in him the liveliest impression that man can have of God upon the earth.  
Virtues that seemed most contrary were reconciled in him, and made but one sole visage of perfection. Piety made nothing soft in his Courage, nor Courage any thing fierce in his Piety. Height of Spirit found that she was compatible with Meekness. Activeness went the same pace with providence, and the most Illustrious of glories reposed in him under the shadow of humility. Justice in him did not offend Clemency; He imitated the living God that is merciful even as fare as Hell. He punished Crimes with a zeal mixed with ardour and compassion; and when he caused Achan that sacrilegeous man to die, at the time that his hand was stiff to hold the balance of Justice in an equality, he felt in his heart a tenderness that made him give death to the culpable as a benefit, though others took it for a punishment.  
But let us remember while we speak of Joshua that God hath covered him with the rays of glory; to teach us, that we are constrained to cover his brave acts in silence.  
To conclude, He to whom nothing was wanting but immortality, died as a setting Sun, animating his people with the spirit that went out of his body: and some hold that the Hebrews put upon his Tomb the figure of a Sun, as if they would say that he was amongst men that which the Sun is amongst the stars, and that there is nothing even as far as the shadow of death, that hath not kindled for him lights of Immortality.   

JUDAS MACCABEUS.  
WHatsoever Virtue hath of Great, whatsoever Valour hath of Generous met in the person of Judas Maccabeus to make a mervell of his life, and an Immortal memory of his Name.  
God caused him to be born in a deplorable age, in the time that King Antiochus surnamed the Illustrious raised that horrible persecution against the Jews, that made the heavens to weep, and the earth to blush with blood. It was a sport to that Barbarous man to profane holy things, and a continual exercise to flea and roast Men, or to throw them into boiling Caldrons, without having any other crime but dying for the true Religion. The cruelty of the torments overcomes the weak, and shakes even the strongest; The Altars overturned upon the bleeding Priests, the children strangled in the bosom of their sighing Mothers, the flames that without distinction devoured the sacred and profane, the Houses that seemed now but dens of Beasts, presented to the world an hideous spectacle that gave more desire to die, than courage to live.  
Amidst these desolations was found a gallant old man named Matathias, the father of many sons all men of valour, who went our of Jerusalem to retire himself in the City of Modin. There he assembled all those of his family, who were followed of whatsoever remained yet of most courageous to oppose themselves against the fury of the Tyrant, and to retain the remnants of the true Piety. As soon as the infidels had heard that a little handful of men assayed to subtract themselves from their puissance, and refused to make open profession of the Religion of the Pagans, they failed not hastily to send unto them a Lieutenant of the Kings, that summoned Matathias to render up himself with all his men, and to offer Incense to the Idols. But this virtuous man assembling his sons and his allies said thus unto them,  
It would be to be too much in love with Life, to be willing to spare and keep it in the loss of the true Religion. I am sorry that I ever entered into the world, when I consider the time to which God hath reserved my age to see the disasters of my people, and the desolation of holy Jerusalem abandoned to the pillage of rapinous hands, and to the profanation of the impious. Her Temple hath been handled as the object of all reproaches, and those Vessels of Glory that served for the Ministry of the Living God, hath been taken away by violence. We have seen her streets covered with dead bodies, and the little children having their throats cut upon the Carcases of their Fathers. And what Nation hath not possessed our heritage's, and is not enriched with our spoils? The holiness of the Temple hath not stayed sacrilegious hands, and so many slaves of that proud City, have not been able to preserve themselves from flames. After this, what interest can we have in life, unless it be to revenge the quarrel of God? I am promised all the honours and all the goods that I can reasonably hope for, If I will obey the King Antiochus, and range myself on the party of those that have so basely betrayed their faith. But God forbidden, that I should ever fall into such a prostitution of Judgement or of courage. When all those of my nation shall have conspired to forsake their Law, to obey the time, and to accommodate themselves to the Prince's will, I can answer for myself and for my children, and for my brothers, assuring myself of their Generosity that they will never do any thing that is base. Let all those that shall have a zeal to the true Religion join themselves to us, and know that amongst so many miseries there is nothing better, then to mark with their blood the way of Safety and of Glory, to give example to Posterity.  
In the mean time the King's Commissioners pressed every one to declare himself, and to sacrifice, whereupon a man of the people of the Jews, whether he was frighted by the terror of the punishments, or alured by the promise of rewards, stepped forth to sacrifice upon an Altar set up in public, and dedicated to the false Deities, But Matathias having looked steadily upon him felt his heart inflamed with a violent heat of the zeal that possessed him, and running to that Apostate, killed him with his own hand, and laid him dead upon the Altar, making him serve for an offering in the place to which he came to be a Priest. He added to him also that Lieutenant of the King that commanded them to offer those sacrifices of abominations, and declared open war to all the Infidels that would constrain them to forsake their Law.  
It is a wonderful thing to consider the power of a man in zeal that contemns his life, and is ambitious of death. This holy old man began an army with five sons that he had and a few kinsmen. He quitted the City of Modin, where he could not be the stronger, to entrench himself upon a mountain, whither those that were zealous for the defence of the ancient piety arrived from all sides with their wives, their children, and their flocks; all resolved to live, or to die with the Illustrious Maccabeans. Matathias seeing his army every day increase, did brave exploits of war so that he was not contented to beat back the Infidels, but assaulted them even in their trenches, and chased them away, which gave him all liberty to demolish the profane Altars that they had erected in many places, to cause Circumcision to be administered to little Infants, and to recover the sacred books out of the hand of the enemies.  
In fine, this valorous Captain, after many Combats, seeing his last day approach made a long oration to his children, enflaming them to the zeal of their Religion against the Tyranny of King Antiochus, and, after he had given them Judas Maccabeus for their Chief, and Simeon for their Counsel, blessed them, and shut up his life by a most glorious end.  
Judas, that had been a good Soldier under his Father, became a great Commander amongst his brethren, and continued the design that had been traced out unto him by the virtue of their Ancestors, employing all his power to raise again the Trophies of the God of Hosts that had been thrown down by the fury of the Infidels.  
I find that this great Cavalier founded his whole life upon Conscience, and Honour, which he always esteemed above all that is precious in Nature and recommendable to Grace. He believed even in perfection a God Sovereignly Almighty, that hath an eye always open upon the actions of men, that is the distributour of Glory, and the Revenger of Iniquities, and held firmly that he was to be acknowledged and adored by the worship and the Ceremonies ordained in the law of his Fathers; and therefore embraced with an Incomparable ardour the true Religion, using his uttermost endeavour to practice, defend, and maintain it, to the prejudice of goods, life, honour, and of all that is esteemed dearest in the world. He yielded himself to be totally conducted by Providence, which he held to preside in all Battles, so that he measured not victories by the multitude of soldiers, by arms, by fortresses, by ammunitions of war, but assured himself that there was a secret Providence from above, that made all the happiness and misery of men.  
From thence it came that he had a wonderful confidence in the Divine Protection, believing himself to be beloved of God, whom he loved reciprocally more by sincerity of affection, then by exterior Pomp; He never went to fight but he fore-armed himself with strong and ardent prayers, he never undertook to give battle, but he exhorted his men to implore the assistance of God upon their Arms.  
He also shown himself very sensible of the favours of Heaven, and desired that God should first of all triumph in all the good successes that accompanied his Standards; which he expressed visibly, when, having defeated the Generals of King Antiochus in manifold assaults, and gotten a little rest to his dear country; he took a pressing care to cause the Temple to be repaired and cleansed, that had been horribly profaned by the Infidels.  
It was an incomparable joy to all the people, when after so many desolations that had preceded, he celebrated a Triumphant Dedication, by which he caused the hopes of his Nation to reflourish. His cares extended even beyond the World wherein we live, and one may well affirm, that he was the first of the Ancient Fathers of the Old Testament, that expressed more openly the charitable offices that ought to be rendered to the souls of the Deceased. This manifestly appears in an encounter which he had with Gorgias General of the Army of the Enemy, in which he lost some Soldiers, and when he came to visit the field of battle to view the Dead, and to cause them to be carried to the Sepulchre of their Fathers, he found that some amongst them had in their clothes certain pieces of the offerings presented to the Idols, thinking perhaps that it was lawful for them to accommodate themselves with it for their use, though in effect the Law forbade it. This gave a shock at first unto his conscience that was very delicate, and he deplored the unhappiness of those forsaken people, that had loaded themselves with profane Booties, yet when he thought that that befell them more for want of consideration, and by the hope of some little gain, then by any consent that they had given to Idolatry, he sent twelve thousand Drachmas into Jerusalem, to cause Sacrifices to be offered for the rest of their Souls.  
This made him to be honoured with very particular favours of heaven; for he hath been sometimes seen in a combat environed with celestial virtues that watched for his protection, and filled his enemies with terror. His very dreams were not without a mystery, witness that which shown him the Prophet Jeremy, and the high Priest Onias, who prayed before the face of God for the safety of the People; the former of which two put into his hand a guilded sword, telling him that it was that wherewith he should bring down to the earth the enemies of his Religion.  
The great love that he had for God reflected itself continually towards his neighbour, on whom he contemplated the image of the first beauty. He bore in his heart all that were afflicted, and burned with a most ardent love for the good of his dear country. The zeal of Justice possessed his soul, and he had no greater delights in the world, then to secure widows, orphans, and all necessitous persons. They ran to him as to their true Father; they ranged themselves under the shadow of his virtue, and found there a refreshment in their most parching heats. His conversation was sweet, his speech affable, his manners without avarice. He never sold his Protection, nor made any Traffic of his Valour. He knew not what it was to buy his neighbour's lands, to build palaces, to plant orchards, to make gardens, and to heap up treasures. He was rich for the poor, and poor for himself, living as a man untied from all things else, and fastened to virtue alone by an indissoluble knot of duty.  
His Temperance passed even to admiration, so greatly did he contemn those pleasures and delights that others regard as their chief felicity. He never dreamt of causing the beautiful women-prisoners to be preserved for himself, because he was skilful in the trade of defending Ladies honours rather than assaulting them. He never had any Mistress, being perpetually Master of himself, and one shall have work enough to find out his wife's name; it is not read that he had any other children but Virtues and Victories. He lived as an Essean estranged from all the pleasures of the flesh, and tasted no other contentment in the world, then to do great actions. He never enterprised the war against King Antiochus to make himself great, and to reign, but for the pure love of his Religion and dear country.  
Traitors and corrupted spirits blame him for having taken up arms, saying, That it behoved them rather to suffer the Destinies then to make them. That it behoved them to obey the Powers that God had set over their heads. That it was a great rashness to think to resist the forces of all Asia with a little handful of soldiers; that it could not choose but provoke the conquerors, and draw upon the vanquished a deluge of calamities.  
The world hath been full in all times of certain condescending Philosophers, who accommodate themselves to every thing that they may not disaccommodate themselves for virtue. They care not what visage is given to Piety, so that they find therein their own advantages. By how much the more men's spirits are refined to search out reasons to colour the toleration of vices, by so much the more their courages are weakened, and neglect to maintain themselves in duty. There are some that had rather lie still in the dirt then take the pains to arise out of it.  
Judas considered that King Antiochus was not contented with having brought the Jews to a common servitude, but would overthrow all their Laws, and abolish entirely their Religion. He did not believe that it was lawful for him to abandon cowardly the interests of God. He thought that there are times wherein one ought rather destroy one's self with courage, then preserve one's self with sluggishness. He looked not so much upon his strength as upon his duty. He persuaded himself that a good Cause cannot be forsaken of God, and that we ought to essay to serve him, applying our wills to his orders, and leaving all the success of our works to his disposal.  
This great zeal that he had of Justice was accompanied with a well tempered prudence. As he never let lose himself in that which was absolutely of the Law, so did he never use to rack himself by unprofitable scruples that are ordinary enough to those that are zealous through indiscretion. Some of his Nation shown themselves so superstitious, that being assaulted by their enemies on the Saturday, they let their throats be cut, as sheep, without the least resistance, for fear of violating the Sabbath if they should put themselves upon a defence. Judas following the example of his father Matathias took away that error, which tended to the general desolation of his country, and shown by lively reasons, that God who hath obliged us to the preservation of ourselves by the Law of Nature, had never such an intention as to give us for a prey to our enemies by an indiscreet superstition. That it was a good work to defend the Altars and one's country against the Infidels, and that it was not to break the Sabbath, but rather to sanctify it.  
Following these paths, he was the first of all the Jews that made a League with the Romans, which hath seemed a little harsh to Rupertus and some other Divines. But we must consider what Saint Paul saith, That if all commerce with the Gentiles had been forbidden to the Jews, and to the first Christians, they should have been constrained rather to go out of the world then converse in it. Never did this great Captain in his most pressing necessities cause the Roman soldiers to come into Palestine, fearing lest their approach might bring some damage and profanation to an Holy Land. But forasmuch as he saw himself environed all round with Kings that bowed under the puissance of the Roman Empire, he thought that it would be convenient to endeavour to gain their friendship to obtain more easily Justice against the oppressions of his neighbours. He employed the power of the Infidels not to torment the faithful but to ruin infidelity. He sought to those into whose hands God had put the Power to have the exercise of it to the glory of him that had communicated it to them; this was not a crime, but a most exquisite piece of prudence.  
The false high Priest Alcimus, Judas' adversary, did not use the matter so, who caused the Armies of Antiochus to come to the destruction of the Altars and to the massacre of his brethren, which caused him to be smitten with a stroke from heaven, and rendered him execrable to the memory of men.  
But we must acknowledge that of all the great qualities that hath shined in this so famous man, Valour hath always held one of the upper ranks. He was made for Military virtue, and furnished with all the necessary conditions that make Generals of Armies and Conquerors. An elevated birth, an happy beginning that he had made under his father, science of War, Authority, Happiness, Vigilancy, Activeness, Boldness, Government, and whatsoever is best in the profession of Arms, had contributed to make of him the wonder of his age. He was a Lion's heart, that found security in dangers, and would not have even Crowns themselves, if he did not pluck them out of the midst of thorns. One cannot read without admiration the two books of the Maccabees, in considering the great progresses that he made in so little time, and so many various encounters. In the space of six years he sustained the great and prodigious forces of three Kings of Asia, opposing himself with a little flying Camp against Armies of forty, sixty, an hundred thousand men, which he put into disorder and confusion. He defeated in ranged battles and in divers combats, nine Generals of the Infidels, killing some with his own hand, and carrying away their spoils.  
The first amongst them was Apollonius, who was of an high repute in Antiochus his Reign, because that he had been employed in the principal businesses of the Realm, treating with the Romans and the Egyptians for his Master. It is the very same that entered into Jerusalem with an army of two and twenty thousand men, and under pretence of Peace made there an horrible spoil. Assoon as he had heard that Judas Maccabeus had put himself into the field with a strength very little considerable, he thought that being Governor of Syria, and of Phenicia, and at that time upon the place, the business concerned him above all others: and therefore he collects together great troops to stop the progress of the Jews, and to succeed with all security. But the valorous Maccabeus prevented him so vigorously, that he had not the leisure well to bethink himself: he gave him battle, wherein his men, seeing the assaults of the faithful people that seemed the assaults of giants, began to stagger. Whatsoever pains he took to rally them, fear had so fare gained upon them, that they destroyed themselves for fear of being destroyed. Judas, by Joseph Gorians report, made that day the heads of his enemies to fall under his cuttle-ax as fast as the ears of corn-fall under the hook of the reaper. He chose Apollonius out of the middle of his best soldiers and ran to him, challenging him to a duel, in which the other was overcome in the sight of a trembling army, and Judas took away his sword which he used the rest of his days in so many glorious combats.  
Seron that was Lieutenant under Apollonius, pushed on with vengeance and with glory that made him long since seek out an occasion to make himself renowned, thinking that Apollonius his defeat was but a stroke of Fortune, and that he should quickly bring Judas into good order, rallyed all his forces, increasing his army as much as possibly he could; which gave at first a great terror to the Hebrews, seeing that the heads of that Hydra which they thought had been cut off pushed forth so suddenly. They had journied and fasted the very day of the combat, and seemed all discouraged, but Judas exhorted them with an ardent speech that put fire and spirit into all his Army. It fell so opportunely upon the enemy, that Seron thought he had to do rather with hungry wolves than men; and although he came with a great deal of bravery to the encounter, he quickly perceived that he had sung the Triumph before the Victory, and had very much ado to retire with a whole skin, contenting himself to run away after he had had the hope of conquering.  
Lysias, that was the Almighty under King Antiochus, grew mad to see himself outbraved by so small an army of men, contemptible, and knew not what account to give the King his Master, to whom he had promised to root out the remainders of the Jewish people, so that there should not be any memory of them left behind. He chose on divers occasions three of the best Generals of all the Armies, which were Ptolemy, Gorgias, and Nicanor▪ Ptolemy made not any great brags; Gorgias was vain enough to promise himself the victory, and persuaded himself that he was very dreadful. But Judas, though he had then but three thousand men badly armed, defeated him, and took his camp which was filled with great riches; which gave a great temptation to the Jewish Army that desired nothing but readily to throw themselves upon the booty. Yet their conductor that knew the art of War, and that many busying themselves about the spoils had lost their honour and their life, gave a strict command that they should not touch that prey of the Infidels before the defeat was perfected, and thereupon set himself to pursue his enemies that were in a disorder, and after he had killed a good number of them, put the rest to flight.  
Nicanor that was the third of those Generals, after he had experimented the valour of Judas with the loss of his men, resolved not to commit his reputation to the incertainty of combats, but put off the Lion's skin to take the Foxes, endeavouring to surprise Judas by treachery, seeing that he was impregnable by force. He made as though he sued to him for Peace, and under colour of friendship to draw him to a parley, wherein he had a design to seize upon him, thinking that it was the shortest way to end the War. But Judas took good order for the security of his person, and diverted that wicked design that the other had upon him. The Agreement that was esteemed a mere dissembling failed not to succeed: the two Generals saw each other, and having promised faithfulness to one another, Nicanor entered into Jerusalem, and expressed much cordialness to the Maccabean, whether he was taken with the admiration of his vircues, and the charms of his conversation, or that he employed all those caresses to deceive him; Yet they were so visible, that they gave a jealousy to the King by the reports of some ill tongues, that rendered the familiarity of Judas and Nicanor suspected to the State. He was constrained to take a journey to the Court to justify himself thereon, and was dismissed with an express command to send the Maccabean bound in chains unto the city of Antioch, if he would that his justifications should be believed. He returned then into Judea continuing always his impostures, but Judas having been advertised of it, disinherited him, and left Jerusalem to retire himself unto Samaria. Nicanor caused the Priests to be summoned, to deliver him up alive or dead, and in case they did refuse, he threatened to profane the Temple, and to make a dedication of it to the false Deities. The Priests having protested to him that it was not in their power, since Judas had forsook their city, he retired with an intention to make an exact inquest after him, and to carry him prisoner to the King.  
But he seeing that the danger was very great, stiffened his courage, and resolved himself rather to die like a gallant man, then to let himself be taken like a sit-still. He disposed his whole army by extraordinary devotions and exhortations that were all of fire, as being to enterprise one of the most important combats. Nicanor caused his troops to march who were of a great number, and concluded to give battle on a Saturday, believing that the day of Rest would make him a better market of the enemy's blood. He had in his Army some Jews that followed him, either by a voluntary Apostasy, or by necessity, that at that time advertised him that he would do well to defer the day of so dangerous a battle, by reason that it was dedicated to Rest. But he demanded thereupon who he was that had ordained that day of Sabbath to countenance their sloth? They answered him, that it was the God of heaven that had destined it for his glory; whereto he replied, That that God of heaven should content himself to make Laws in his own Dominion, but that he, that was the Almighty here on earth, commanded them to march for the business of the King. He was carried away with choler and precipitation, which are two very dangerous rocks in the beginning of a battle, besides the vengeance of God pursued him as the chief of all blasphemers. He fought so ill, that having been defeated by Judas, he left thirty and five thousand dead upon the place, whose number he augmented, finding himself involved in the common misery. The Conqueror caused his body to be sought out, and commanded that his head should be cut off, and the hand that he had stretched out against the Altars, ordering them to be hanged up in very remarkable places to be beheld by all the world: the Tongue that had blasphemed against God was plucked out of his palate, and given for a prey to the birds of rapine. Such was the end of that blasphemer, who hath made us see, that a man never despises God in his life, but he experiments the arrows of his vengeance at his death. He should make a long discourse that would follow in the trace all the valorous acts of Judas. I content myself, my Reader, to set before your eyes all that is most illustrious, and to make you see how God fought for Judas and his brethren under the Reign of six Kings, with whom they had great business to scuffle for.  
The first and the most capital of their enemies was that Antiochus surnamed the Illustrious, who was a factious spirit, turbulent, and enraged, that had undertaken to destroy the whole Nation of the Jews, because they had rejoiced at the presages of his death. One only expedition that he made unto Jerusalem to revenge himself, cost the liberty or the life of fourscore thousand souls, the entire desolation of the Temple, pillaged, ransacked, and profaned even so fare, as that there was seen in it a Statue of Jupiter Olympian upon the Altar. After all these disastres he left Lysias his Lieutenant to extirpate the remainders of the Jewish people, and drew away to the coasts of Persia to make some new pillages. It was a King that Daniel calls the Impudent, because he had neither God, nor Conscience, nor Faith, nor Government, always carried away by an impetuous flux of his own passions that transfigured him into the savagest of all beasts.  
After a Reign of twelve years he finished his life by a most horrible end, which made it visible enough that God combated for his Macchabe, and for all the faithful people. The Scripture saith, That that wicked man that often passed from profusion to necessity without ever separating himself from an insatiable avarice, having heard that there was a Temple very rich in the city of Persepolis, and that was filled with gold and silver, and all the most exquisite rarities that Alexander the Great had left there, resolved to take the City, and pillage the Temple, as he had done that of Jerusalem: But the inhabitants having had intelligence of his design beat him back with much confusion and great loss of his men, in the ruin of which he saw himself almost overwhelmed.  
As he returned from that voyage in a very shameful disorder, he heard of the great successes of our Maccabee, and of the routing of the Lieutenants, and of the forces that he had left behind him in Judea. This news arriving at a cross time struck him upon his wounds, and pierced him to the heart with a lively and pricking grief. He fumed against heaven, he detested his fortune and his life, and swore that he would make no more of Jerusalem but a common tomb of all the inhabitants of the City.  
He hastened with great marches for that effect, and was smitten with a stroke from heaven as invisible as it was afterward uncureable. He that had plucked out the bowels of so many innocents' felt himself tormented with a furious colic, and with a multitude of infernal pains, that in a moment deprived him of his appetite, of his rest, and of all the joys of life; and as evils ordinarily enough come upon the neck of one another, it happened that whiles he caused himself to be drawn in his caroche with too much precipitation, he fell, and got a wound by that fall, wherein corruption and worms suddenly arose that infested that miserable body after a strange manner. The stink of it was so great that all the army scented the infection of it, and he himself had very much ado to endure himself.  
Sometimes he entered into great choler that made him vomit out execrable blasphemies, sometimes he suffered himself to be carried away by lamentations unseemly to his dignity, deploring the loss of that estate which was so beautiful, so stately, so triumphant, filled with honours, with health, with contentments and delights. Sometimes he passed into black affrights, and felt stinging remorses for his life past, saying, that all his misery came from having profaned the Temple of Jerusalem, and made so bloody a butchery of that poor people; that he perceived at present, that there was a sovereign power in heaven to whom all Kings do owe obedience, and that it is an unmeasureable folly for men to equal themselves with God. Furthermore, he protested, that if he recovered his health, he would make reparation for all his faults by an extraordinary piety, filling with riches the Temple that he had pillaged▪ and using the Jews with all courtesies, and all liberalities possible for a great King; adding to all this, that he would make profession of the Jews Religion, and would become a servant of the true God. This wicked man had his mouth open to sorrows, and to vows, but God had no ears for him, and it was in vain to seek for mercy after he had so many times despised it. At last he rendered up his criminal soul after a Reign of twelve years, to suffer an eternity of punishments.  
One may observe in many Histories, that some very bloody Tyrants have not ended by the sword, but that God hath laid his hand upon them by some strange malady and visible strokes, that have made them die slowly, and rendered them spectators of their own dishonour, and of their own funerals. So died Herod, and Tiberius, Alcimus, Copronymus, and Leo.  
This miserable King left a son behind him of a very small age, named Antiochus Eupator, who was assoon successor of his father's misery as of his Empire. It is a pitiful thing that the children of Sovereign Princes that are born so great should not always be born free. Many are like those creatures that bear purple, pearls, and musk; all that they have of Rich is the cause of their destruction; men cease not to torment them, and to hunt after them, and if they love them it is only to have their spoils. Eupator for that he was born a King became a slave to two of his father's servants that contended for the Regency, and fell together by the ears to possess that unfortunate pupil. It is true that Antiochus when he was dying in a strange country, called Philip one of his great favourites, and gave him the diadem, the purple royal, and the ring to carry to his son, and recommended him to him as in quality of a Tutor. But Lysias that had bred up this young Prince from his tender infancy, and held him yet under his government, thought himself to be in a good possession, and would by no means give it up.  
He put off now that countenance of Governor which bore by necessity of duty some lineaments of severity, and took one of a principal Officer of State, full of attractions and complacency towards his King, who esteemed himself very happy that he was got out of his Wardship, and had his liberty. He gained him to him by the taste he gave him of his greatness and delights, accompanied with a thousand fair promises to make him live the most contented and the most triumphant Monarch under heaven.  
Eupator that found his words true in that manner of life which Lysias let him lead, and who durst not anger him, imagining him yet to be his Master, shown himself entirely for him, rejecting the pretensions of his adversary. And that which aided more yet this design, was, that the Army of Antiochus that seemed should have upheld Philip's party was found weak, after it had been evil entreated in a long and tedious voyage. But Lysias had great forces on foot in Palestine, Phenicia, and Syria, who yielded themselves to his disposal, seeing that the young King declared himself openly for him. His competitour then began to flatter, considering him guarded both with favour and with force; but he ceased not to foment his ambitions which made on that occasion a great havoc.  
The new Regent, whether through the hatred that he had against the Jews, or whether through the desire that came to him of giving lustre to the Arms of his young Prince, or whether he was moved to it by the complaints that ordinarily did beat upon his ears about the incursions and progresses of the Macchabe, made a great preparation of war, and came to fall into Judea. His Army was composed of an hundred thousand foot, twenty thousand horse, two and thirty well trained elephants that were distributed into divers legions, and carried wooden towers with great engines upon their backs. Thirty women combated upon them, and about them marched five hundred Cavaliers with a thousand footmen.  
Judas had the hardiness to get him out of the fortress wherein he was to go and view them, and to oppose himself against their designs. But assoon as he was perceived, the adverse Army ranged themselves into a Battalia in the presence of the young King, who was very early up that day, beginning to relish the trade of war with some alacrity. The trumpets began to sound, and the legions instantly were spread over the mountains and over the valleys all round about Jerusalem with such a pomp, as that the earth trembled under the burden of the arms and of the engines of so great a train of men of war. They provoked then their elephants to fight by showing them the juice of grapes and mulberries squeezed out. Nothing was heard but shouts of soldiers, but neighing of horses, but clashings of lances and of swords, and just at the break of day as the Sun appeared in the Horizon, the guilded bucklers cast out so great a light that all the neighbouring mountains seemed to be filled with burning torches.  
It is a prodigious thing that the great heart of the Maccabee should march in the head of his army and begin to charge the enemy, which he dealt roughly with, killing at first five hundred men of the King's vanguard without any loss of his. But that which seemed most fearful, was, that Eleazar a Jewish Captain, having perceived an elephant well armed and pompously adorned above the rest, imagined that the King Eupator combated upon it, and was pricked forward with a generous glory to assault and overthrow him. He passed through all the ranks of the army of the Infidels that were opposed against him, and arrived even to that terrible beast, under which he slipped himself, and pierced it with his sword, but finding himself cooped in by the multitude of men that were about and over him, he could not make a retreat soon enough, but was (as S. Ambrose said) buried in his triumph.  
Yet Judas having perceived the puissant forces of the King, saw well that the party was not tenable, and made an honourable retreat into Jerusalem. Lysias failed not to follow and to besiege him in his trenches with abundance of engines of stone and fire. The other defended himself very courageously, resolving rather to bury himself in that place then to yield it up by any sort of baseness. The besieged after some time were reduced to some extremity, being combated by arms, and hunger in a year of rest, wherein the Jews, according to their custom, had sowed nothing, and were no more in hopes to gather any fruits. There was every where a very great desolation, but (as the favours of heaven happen often to good men in the bottom of their miseries) behold an unexpected accident, that provided fare other business for Lysias and his pupil! Philip took his time, and seeing his Rival busied in that Jewish war, was resolved to ruin him, and to make Eupator a companion of his misery, seeing he had rendered himself the instrument of his will. The deceased King had a brother named Demetrius, who was at that time at Rome given in hostage, having not the liberty to return unto his Kingdom. Philip pricked with jealousy against Lysias, failed not to solicit that young Prince to seize upon the Empire, businesses being not yet well settled in the Nonage of King Eupator. It was an injustice and perfidiousness against the sovereign, but forasmuch as Antiochus the last dead father of Eupator had hereunto supplanted his Nephew by the same artifices, Demetrius left not to hearken to it.  
In those fair hopes of the Crown, and in his captivity, he was as a bird that torments himself in his cage upon the arrival of a spring, and burned with a strong passion to have his dismission from the Roman Senate, to put in order, as he said, the affairs of the Kingdom, and to assist the King his nephew after his father's death. But the Romans that took pity on the pupil by reason of Justice, and that feared lest this man would embroil the State, denied him the liberty that he desired. Philip failed not to possess himself of the city of Antioch the Metropolis of the Kingdom, and to tread out the way for Demetrius to his Nephew's throne. There were men suborned that ceased not to sow amongst the soldiers and people, That it was not a fundamental Law in the Kingdom of the Seleucides that the Nephew should precede the uncle, and although men had a mind to introduce it, that the father of the pretended King had abrogated it, usurping the Sceptre upon his Nephew; that one should do his race no injury to render it the same usage; that there was no reason to refuse a Prince of four and twenty years of age, well made, full of spirit, of courage, and authority, to take a child that had neither strength nor counsel, nor industry, and which was born for nothing but to ruin all. To this was added, that it was not the blood of the Seleucides that was upon the Throne, but that Lysias Reigned, and went about to render himself usurper of the Crown of Asia, which was the uttermost of reproaches that so generous a Nation could endure to see a man of nothing, insolent, savage, to make himself master of the most considerable part of the world, and to exercise a tyranny upon men of honour and merit that oppose his pernicious designs.  
These complaints often redoubled ceased not to stir up spirits, and to procure the change of State that followed. Lysias saw well that it was not now a time to be obstinate on the ruin of the Jews, nor to busy himself about the siege of one place, when the whole Realm was a tottering. He thought on nothing but on getting speedily out of that war with some little honour, thinking it not convenient to provoke a people, mutinous enough, in that commotion. He caused the young King to look upon them with a quite other countenance, and told him that it was best to let them live in peace, without disturbing them in the matter of Religion, assuring him that in all other cases they would contain themselves within their duty, and that good services enough might be drawn from them. Yet that he might not discover any lightness in this change, he laid all the fault upon Menelaus that was an Apostate Jew, and an enemy of his Nation, who, he said, had been the cause of all the confusion by his railing speeches; and therefore he made him serve for a sacrifice to that treaty of Peace; in which he singularly obliged the Jews, and washed away the blot that the favour expressed by him to this wicked villain had printed upon his face. He shown by this action the counsel that Politicians give their Sovereigns, to abandon those to the public hatred that have carried them to reproachable excesses, to disburden themselves of the envy; and if he had practised this example towards him that then made himself the teacher of it, his Sceptre had been more secured, and his life most lasting.  
Lysias, before he raised the siege of Jerusalem, made an Oration publicly before the Principals of the Army and all the soldiery, alleging fair pretences for that resolution, but taking great heed not to discover the chief cause, for fear lest that news should wave the minds of those that inclined enough already to the side of novelty and sedition. He used a wonderful diligence to render himself before the city of Antioch, into which he entered, and Philip, who found not himself yet strong enough to hold out a long siege, quitted to him the place, and fled away to Egypt. This first success puffed up the heart of Lysias, who became exceeding haughty, and considered so little the Romans in that high puissance that made the earth to tremble, that he permitted an Ambassador, sent to him by the Senate, to be assassinated, without showing any reason.  
In the mean time, one Diodorus that had bred up Demetrius in his infancy, transported himself from Syria to Rome, and animated him by a great vigour of words and reasons, to render himself an usurper of the Crown. He certified him that his Nephew Eupator, which was a child but nine years old, was not any whit considered; that Lysias was the object of the public execration, that he had confidence in no body, nor any one in him; that all the soldiery and people sought a new Master, and that he was assured, that if he did only show himself, though he should be followed but with one servant only, all the world would run to him to carry him to the throne. He kindled so strongly the ambition of that young Prince, that he secretly stole away from Rome, and made account to go to the conquest of an Empire, accompanied only with eight persons. He failed not upon the way to write to the Senate of Rome, making great excuses for his so sudden a departure, renewing the offers of his services, and the oaths of his fidelity, with a protestation that he went not to trouble his Nephew, but to oppose Lysias that was an insolent fellow, and would bring under the subjection of his tyranny both the King and Kingdom; he forgot not to charge him with the murder of Octavius a Roman Ambassador, that had been newly slain, adding that he would become the revenger of so cowardly a treachery.  
The Romans seemed neither to be astonished nor angry at his going but attended the succsse of his affairs to make him answer. He quickly got as fare as the city of Tyre, and sent secretly Diodorus into Antioch to hear the reports, and sound the spirits of men, which he found very much disposed to a change.  
Whereupon Demetrius declared himself, and took the Diadem with a general applause of the Tyrians that made a great faction for him. Lysias with his Eupator found himself much surprised at the news, and deliberated a long time whether he should go out of that narrow passage to meet and fight with him, or entrench himself in the city of Antioch, or expect him with sure footing. This last advice seemed the more secure, but it was less glorious, suddenly to shut himself up upon the first brute of a sedition, and as a fearful creature to run into his hole to hid himself. It was represented to him, That the sovereign remedy against those tumults, was to fly speedily to them, whereas delay would serve for nothing but to augment the boldness of the insolent; that ordinarily they were very much amated when they were set upon with vigour, before their conspiracy was settled; that many that were yet but half engaged would retire from them at the least rumour; that the Majesty of Kings bore something of great and sacred that astonished the Rebels. In fine, that it appertained to the dignity of so high a Prince, and to the prudence of a Minister of State, to endure nothing base, but to put themselves suddenly into the field to defend their honour and their Kingdom, which are two things whose loss is irrecoverable.  
Those that desired most the ruin of Lysias were the first to flatter him concerning Courage and Generosity, wishing nothing more than to see him in the field. This made him go out of Antioch to go meet Demetrius. But he that had seen himself so well accompanied in prosperity, found himself almost all alone in danger, for he was betrayed and sold by his own soldiers, who seized upon the young King and him, to deliver them to Demetrius who was yet in a great uncertainty of success, and said to those that had elected him.  
Companions, I am your work, and the question of my life, of your honour, of your goods, and of all that a mortal man can fear, or hope for, is this day to be decided. If ye persist in the good will ye bear to me, I esteem myself sufficiently and sufficiently rich. The Sceptre is nothing to me in comparison of the approbation of your judgements and of your choice, which ought now to be verified by your courage and by your arms: We march under the favour of the Gods of the Roman Empire, against a tyrant that hath possessed himself of that young Prince and of the Crown, to assassinate the one and rob the other. It is time either to defend Justice by our blood, or to conquer the Empire by our sweat.  
As he was upon these discourses, the news came wholly to him, that Lysias had been apprehended (with his pupil) by the consent of all the Legions, and they were to be brought to him prisoners. This grand word gave him joy mingled with some doubt, which made him meditate how he should use his fortune. He shown that he had a very great sense of the honour that had been bestowed upon him, but he desired not to see Lysias nor his Nephew (as the Scripture assure us) whether it was that his heart was mollified with some tenderness by the compassion of his blood, or whether it was a wile of a Politician, who would not seem to do that which he procured to be done, that he might have less blame in that action, and that he might the more easily justify himself to the Roman Senate about the death of the young King. The soldiers finished that which he had begun, slew Lysias, and laid their bloody hands upon the person of poor Eupator, without having any regard either to the innocency of his life, or to the tenderness of his age, or to the character that he bore, so true it is that ambition is filled with a contageous venom that spares nothing for the satiating of itself.  
Demetrius saw himself King by a general consent of all the orders of the Realm, and had no more any thing to sear, unless it was from the Romans the disstributers of Empires and of Glories. And therefore he employed all his cares to appease them by great submissions and reasons, that made them plainly see, that it was more for the interest of their State to preserve then to destroy him. He sent them for this purpose a solemn Embassage with great presents, and and above all, a Crown of an high price, for a mark that he submitted his Royal dignity to their discretion. Further yet, to testify how he embraced their loves and their revenges, he caused Leptines and Isocrates the Grammarian to be put in chains, that were accused to have had an hand in the murdering of Octavius their Ambassador, and sent them away to Rome, to receive the sentence of the Senate. The Roman relished well all those references, and confirmed the new King in his pretensions upon the protestations that he made that he was not stained with his Nephew's blood, whom he said to have been taken away by the misfortune of a Sedition raised against him, without having any means to save himself; and if he had not made a search after the crime, he excused himself by the generality of the culpable, as being a thing ordinary enough, that sins that have an infinite multitude of complices have not any punishment.  
He was no sooner upon the Throne but he saw himself involved by mishap in a war against the Maccabees. Alcimus that was a disloyal Jew, and a traitor to his Nation, pricked forward by the ambition of the Pontificate; and jealous, even to rage, of the great progresses of Judas, failed not to prepossess the spirit of the King, who was a man of an easy belief, to make black his adversary by most horrible calumnies, and to interest all the Kingdoms of Syria to his ruin. This forger of wars and battles obtained all that he did desire by detestable artifices, and caused armies to go to the ruin and desolation of his Country. Judas Maccabeus upon this change kindled again his ancient vigour, and rallied all his forces to oppose the Generals of King Demetrius, so that at first he defeated some of them with a very famous rout, which more inflamed that Monarch, not being able to endure that his Arms should be cried down at the beginning of his Reign; this made him send into the field Army upon Army with so great impetuousness, that there was no more any means left to make resistance.  
Yet the great heart of the Maccabee could not yield, but sailed against wind and tide, the thoughts of his valour making him forget those of his danger. He had yet three thousand men very resolute fellows, with which he promised himself to continue his victories; but when Bacchides the General was seen appear with an army of two and twenty thousand men, many withdrew themselves for fear of the danger, into which the Maccabee, following the ordinary tracts of his courage, was about to precipitate them. These run aways beginning to wheel about to the other side, stole away so handsomely from the Army, that of three thousand there remained but eight hundred. The Maccabee felt his heart much pierced, seeing himself forsaken of his brethren and of his friends in his greatest need; he burned with a desire to charge his enemies, but when he considered the small forces he had about him, his heart bled within him. It was an evident peril to approach the enemy, and death to retire from them; divers thoughts about this combat contended in his heart, but those that favoured his boldness had the upper hand. Let us go (says he to his men) and try our fortune; let us essay whether we shall have heart enough to encounter the army that comes against us. The most considerate men replied, that they wanted not any courage, but that their small appearance, would not be able to affront an army of two and twenty thousand men with a Regiment not complete; and that it was expedient for them to retire that day to rally some new troops, and to return to the combat with hopes of greater advantages. God forbidden (replied the Maccabee) that our enemies should have that contentment to see us turn our backs and fly before them; this is a a thing I could never yet be taught since I took up arms. Ha! Where is that gallantry that I have always seen in you? Ought we to be so much in love with life? If our hour be come let us die valourously for our brethren, and let us not leave a blemish upon the lustre of the honour that we have acquired.  
He carries them away all by his authority, and they are already resolved to conquer or to die. The trumpets sounds on both sides, the earth echoes with the noise of the arms, and shouts of the soldiers. Bacchides causes his dragoons armed with arrows and with slings to advance, who began the skirmish, and lead up a great battle that endured from the morning to the evening, the one combating by number, and the other by valour. And when the Maccabee saw that the best troops were on the right point about the person of Bacchides, he resolved to make his way thither, which he did, with a prodigious violence, making them lose their footing, and beating them back with much confusion. But those on the left point that were yet fresh seeing the disorder of their companions, came to fall upon Judas and upon all his troop that were extremely wearied with having laid upon the place so many bodies of the enemies. These defended themselves valiantly, but the multitude of those that set upon them on all parts overwhelmed them, and the incomparable Maccabee by having received many wounds, opened as many bloody gates to his generous soul to fly away into the other world.  
There are neither Colossus' nor Pyramids that can equal the deeds of this gallant man. Never did any man fight better, or for a better Cause. His heart was a source of generous flames; his hand was the thunder itself; his valour a miracle; his life an example; and his death was like to be that of his whole country that would have buried itself in his tomb, if his brothers, Jonathan and Simon had not enlarged his conquests by the imitation of his prowess.  
The good party was much weakened by the decease of him that was the soul of his whole country, and it seemed that Judea would quickly be swallowed up by the great forces of King Demetrius: but the succouring hand of the God of hosts was not wanting to his servants in the extremity of so many miseries. The pernicious Alcimus that had raised that whole storm, when he thought himself to be above his hopes, was smitten with a stroke from heaven, and died suddenly of a strange malady.  
Demetrius, after a Reign of some years saw a great faction raised against him from that coast whence he lest expected it, which deprived him of his Sceptre and his life. His scornful and haughty nature made him disdain the Kings his neighbours, even so fare as to offend them, by ways of words and deeds. He was also little affable and courteous to his Subjects that loved naturally to be caressed of their Prince, and although at first he was of an humour good enough, yet he was so much changed, that having built a very sumptuous Castle near his capital city, he lived there constantly to take his pleasure, and let himself be seen by very few. His people of Antioch that was on the other side arrogant enough, were incensed and wearied with his Reign. They began to raise rebellions that were fomented under hand by the Kings of Egypt, of Asia, and of Cappadocia that disinherited him, and thought to find him a successor.  
He was quite astonished when he saw one Pompalus, a young man, before that time unknown, that called himself the son of Antiochus the Illustrious, and brother of Eupator, come and demand the Kingdom of Syria, as appertaining to him by right of birth. Many Historians hold that it was a pure fiction, and that that pretended was suborned by the artifice of those three Kings, and namely of Ariarathes the Cappadocian: yet since the Scripture names him the son of Antiochus the Illustrious, I find that it is very probable to follow that which others have written, and to say that that Antiochus had heretofore made love to a young Rhodian woman named Bala, on whom he had begotten this natural son with his sister Laodice. He failed not to show himself at Rome, and to make himself be somewhat taken notice of by the practices of one Heraclides, a wise and crafty man in managing businesses. The enemies of Demetrius embraced this occasion to disturb him, and carried (as much as they were able) this man to the Throne, not by reason of Justice, but because they believed they should have a better market for their pretensions by making a new creature, then suffering any longer him they had rendered more absolute, than they desired he should be.  
It is a strange thing that a man of nothing found instantly Cities, Armies, and a Kingdom at his devotion. It was now that Jonathan, the brother and successor of Judas, was sought after, and sued to by those two adversary Kings with extreme earnestness. Pompalus that took the name of Alexander, wrote him letters full of honour, offering him the Principality and Pontificate of his Nation, qualifying him with the name of friend, and sending him a purple Robe with a Crown of gold. Demetrius, whom necessity had rendered very courteous, made him also on the other side a thousand fair promises to draw him to his party. He exempted him from all Tributes, he took away the Garrisons, he gave him places of importance by a free gift, he received the Jews to offices and governments, he restored all those of their Nation that he held in Hostage, He granted them an entire Liberty in their Religion, and Policy, and Revenues also for the Temple, so that there was nothing more to be desired.  
Yet Jonathan would never range himself under his Standards▪ but (as injuries being yet fresh, smart more than old ones) the Jews chose rather to give themselves to the son of their most cruel persecutor then to Demetrius that had taken from them their dear Maccabee, and held yet their liberty under oppression. The party already made against that miserable Prince fortified itself every day, and although he took all the good order that his affairs seemed to require, yet he could not divert his unhappiness that dragged him to a precipice. It is true that he got the better in some small encounters, but when the great battle that was to decide the controversy of the Kingdom was to be given, he saw himself very much forsaken, and his enemy assisted with the best forces of all Asia. He failed not for all that to fight with all possible valour, and although his Army was scattered, he would never fly, but cast himself in the hottest of the mingling, killing many of his enemies with his own hand. His horse having taken a false step slipped himself into a slough whence he could not get out; but he suddenly quitted him, got himself on foot, and made a great spectacle, a King covered with dirt and blood, with his sword in his hand, that laid about with a stiff arm, and without remission sustained the hail of arrows that the enemy let fly upon him, standing inflexible against all those disastres of his evil fortune. In fine, he would not quit his Crown but with his life, and buried himself in honour.  
Every one bows under the happiness of that false Alexander; he mounts suddenly upon the Throne of his adversary, where he receives the services and adorations of all the world. Philometer the King of Egypt, that had much upheld his party, in which he sought his own interests, gives him his daughter Cleopatra in marriage, whose wedding was magnificently celebrated in the city of Ptolomais, in the presence of the two Kings, the father-in-law and the son-in-law, where Jonathan was also present that was caressed of both the two by extraordinary favours, and managed the businesses of his State with all possible advantages.  
Alexander seeing himself in unexpected riches, and amidst so many ornaments of a borrowed fortune, could not contain himself, but let himself flag in a sluggish and voluptuous life, abandoning all the affairs of his Kingdom to the discretion of one Ammonius, a young brainless fellow, who carried himself most insolently, and incensed the Queen Laodice, and all the Nobles of the Court in such a manner, as that he was at last set upon, and slain in the habit of a woman which he had put on to secure himself; God thus taking vengeance of his filthy and effeminate life. The Antiochians were first weary of the dissolute life of their Prince that was always in the midst of wine and women, which made them believe that he was a supposititious King that had nothing in him of generous. They began to regret Demetrius, whom they had seen dic with so much courage, and knowing that he had left two sons yet very young, one of which bore his father's name, and the other was called Antiochus Sidetes; They invited the elder of them, giving him assurance that he should have the Crown.  
Philometor that was ashamed of the deportments of his son-in-law, and that under pretence of moderation desired nothing less than to add the Diadem of Syria to that of Egypt, well knowing that so many changes of Masters make a State shake, and give fair advantages to those that would invade them, upholds this Rebellion, forsakes Alexander, and by a notable affront takes away his daughter from him to give her to the young Demetrius. And to colour his inconstancy, he made a Manifest that published, That his son-in-law (by an execrable disloyalty) had made an attempt upon his Kingdom, and upon his life, which made him break the friendship that he had sworn with him. Under this pretence he seizes on some places which it was easy for him to keep whiles he made himself author of the fortune of the new King. The miserable Alexander awaking out of his surfeits, saw the Egyptian and all his Subjects bandied against him, and a great army that was coming to fall upon his head, which he resisted feebly, and quickly forsook his party going to hid himself in the bottoms of Arabia, where he was hunted after and entrapped by Zabdiel the Arabian, who cut off his head, and carried it to the King of Egypt, who contemplated it a long time with a spirit more than savage, for which he was punished of God, and died three days after of the wounds he had received by a fall from his horse at the defeating of his son-in-law.  
Behold marvellous sports of fortune, and great revolutions that ended not at this point yet. Demetrius, young of age and government, was not a man to settle a Kingdom shaken with so great concussions. He thought more of taking the pleasures of Royalty then of bearing the burden of it; businesses were to him as many punishments, and pastime a continual exercise. This was the cause of new factions and great seditions that were raised in his Kingdom. The Maccabees, whom he gained to his party, rendered him very good offices, although he was more ready to receive them, then liberal to reward them.  
In the weakness of this new Government started up the disloyal Tryphon, who had been Captain of the Guard to the false Alexander, and having seized himself of a little child that his Master had left behind him, he had the boldness to propound him for King and true Successor of the Crown. When he saw that Jonathan already obliged to Demetrius was able to oppose his designs, and to unravel the web of his ambitions, he surprised him by a detestable treachery, and caused him to be assassinated with his children, after he had received the money that he had demanded for his ransom.  
The young King altogether astonished at the party that was made against him, withdrew himself to the K. of Parthia, to desire assistance of him, where it happened, that by the calumny of his enemies, he was clapped up in an honourable prison, as if he had come to make an attempt upon the Kingdom of his neighbour. His spirit, that was always wanton, made love even in that captivity, and debauched a daughter of that King his host, whom he was constrained to wed, although he was already married, and when he had stolen out of prison, he was caught and brought back again to this new wife.  
Tryphon knowing what had befallen him, caused his Pupil to be murdered by an execrable cruelty, feigning that he had been taken away by a natural death, and took the Diadem, professing himself to be the revenger of the Tyrant, and the lawful King of Syria. After some time, the liberty of the young Demetrius was mediated, but his wife Cleopatra, that had a crafty and proud spirit, vexed with the inconstant loves of her husband, and wearied with his looseness, raised up against him puissant enemies that massacred him, and some are of opinion that she herself was one of the complices of that attempt, and that Demetrius his brother, whom she married afterwards, was not innocent of it. My pen hath horror at these bloody tragedies, and passes over them as upon burning coals.  
Antiochus Sidetes seeing himself on his brother's Throne, eagerly pursued Tryphon, and besieged him in the city of Dora, where finding himself extremely straightened, and out of all hopes of succour, he killed himself with his own hand, and yet could not deface by his blood the villainous stain of perfidiousness that remained upon him by the death of the young King.  
The Conqueror perceiving himself above his businesses, saw that the Maccabees, in the troubles of Syria, possessed by so many Kings, had made great progresses, would repress them, and made war against Simon that succeeded his brother Jonathan, and who was afterward assassinated at a banquet by Ptolemy his son-in-law. The King, as 'tis thought, upholding by his favour that cruel baseness, two of his sons were involved in the misery of the father, and the murderers were already dispatched to add to them John Hircan son of the same Simon. But he, having had intelligence of that first design, stood upon his guard, and governed Judea the space of more than thirty years with much prudence and happiness; out-living a long time that last Antiochus that was stoned to death as he was going to pillage the Temple of Mannaea.  
Hyrcan had for Successor his son Aristobulus who took the Diadem, and resumed the name of King among the Jews, after a long discontinuation, which happened an hundred years before the Nativity of our Lord. Those of his race failed not to continue the Regal Dignity in their house, till that Hyrcan which was so cruelly spoiled and mafsacred by Herod, as I have said in the history of Mariam.  
Behold how the virtue of Judas Maccabeus extended itself through many Ages, and without thinking of it, put the Crown upon the head of those that were of his family and of his name, God recompensing his Zeal and Justice beyond the fourth generation. I have endeavoured to make in this discourse a little abridgement of that which is contained in the two books of Maccabees, and relate it to you (my Reader) in a straight line, and a method clear enough, hoping that you will have content and edification to see the Justice of God reign over so many crowned heads, who ceases not to punish the wicked, and to render to the good, safety and glory for a recompense of their virtue.    

GODFREY of Bovillon. GEORGE CASTRIOT.  
 portrait of George Castriot 
GEORGE CASTRIOT OR SCANDERBERG   portrait of Godfrey of Bouillon 
GODFREY OF BOVILLON   

IT was not the voice of a man, but an Oracle of the holy Spirit that Pope Vrban the second pronounced, when he gave to the Crofier for a Devise, God will have it so: This speech was the soul of all the Intentions of Godfrey of Bovillon, It was the But of all his Actions. God never made the prodigious effects of his power more visibly appear then in the conduct of this most Illustrious Personage. It was a Captain form in his Bosom, and instructed by his hand, that was to break the chains of the Christians, and to pull down the pride of the Sultan's.  
So many other Expeditions were almost all split, but this of Godfrey bore a God would have it so, and nothing resisted its Good hap. Many men torment themselves all their life-time in great designs that are as the Dragons, the Chimeras and armed men, that our fancy shapes upon the body of a Cloud. The wind drives them, the divers postures confound them, the Asspects change them, and all that we behold with admiration in the Heavens falls in water upon our head, and makes mortar under our feet.  
How many Princes have made great preparations both of Men and Elephants, of Horses and of Ships, of Arms and Ammunitions, out of a design to make great Conquests! and all this hath vanished for want of a God will have it so. There are certain impressions in great affairs which are never found without the favours of heaven. One God will have it so, will make us sail in the Sea upon an Hurdle or upon a Tortoise-shell; one God will not have it so will drown us in a well Rigged Ship.  
It was a God wills it, that seized in an instant the spirit of the most excellent Cavaliers of Europe, to undertake a voyage into the Holy Land; It was a God wills it that made them followed by innumerable multitudes of Mortals. But it was also a God wills it that made them cast their eyes upon Godfrey of Bovillon, as upon the most valiant, the most happy, and the most able to pluck Jerusalem out of the hands of Saladine.  
The King of the Bees appears not more visible in the middle of his swarm, than this great Captain appeared amongst an infinite number of Cavaliers assembled to revenge the holy Sepulchre. There was not one only ray of the eyes that beheld him that did not express some favour to his Merit; he had as many Approvers as Spectators, and every man signed him his Commissions even by his silence.  
That illustrious blood of the Heroes that ran in his veins, that advantageous Stature that raised him the head above so many Millions of men, that face that Majesty had chosen for her throne, that tongue that carried insensible chains to captivate men's hearts, that comeliness of the forehead that was at once modest and bold, that valour that was painted on all his limbs, that courage that kindled a delightful fire in his eyes; All the Virtues that seemed to march about his Person, and in fine, that finger of God that had imprnited on him the Character of Conqueror, made him be chosen as the first Mover of that wonderful design.  
There was nothing but his Modesty that opposed the desires of all the World, and that would make him yield to some other man that which every one conferred on him. But the consideration of the public good carried him away, and made him load upon his shoulders a burden that might tyre the Giants. It is true that Hugues the King of France his brother held the first rang by the highness of his House: but counsel, execution of great designs, and experience completed in all sorts of accidents gave to Godfrey the Managing of the Arms.  
Our Army was found to be three hundred thousand Foot, and an hundred thousand Horse, that seemed to carry away the Mass of the earth, yet the Saracens were not discouraged, but assembled themselves on all sides with so prodigious a Multitude, that it might, as it seemed, equal the veins of the Abyss, and the sands of the Seashore.  
The controversy was for Religion, Honour, and goods, between two Nations that aspired to the Domination of the World, and that esteemed all sharing inconsistent with their Greatness. The one came thither moved by their superstition, that had gained a mervellous advantage over spirits possessed by error, and enchanted by the charms of a false Prophet. The other was carried by the true Religion, persuading themselves, that they had all Justice to pluck the Sepulchre of their Master out of the hands of Infidels, and that it would be an immortal Glory to them to lose their Blood in the same place that Jesus had honoured with his.  
Man's Spirit is overwhelmed with the Number of Wonders that are read in the History of this War. The Historians cannot follow them, and we must aver that the Brave Godfrey having fare surpassed the deeds of Achilles and of Hector, hath had the misfortune to want an Homer.  
He gave more than an hundred Battles before he saw himself at the end of his design; He fought with two Nations, that seemed Furies which Hell had vomited upon the Earth, he combated with Hunger, Thirst, Sickness, and all the damnable Artifices of Negromancers that opposed his Valour. The eternal snow of the Mountain Taurus, the inaccessible Rocks, the Rivers died with blood, the Seas armed with Tempests and with Monsters did never abate his ardour.  
He was ready to enter for the love of his Saviour into Regions where Nature is nothing but a benumbed masse, where the Sun hides itself, and the night reigns without a Peer, where the most savage Barbarism makes us believe that it is ranged even as far as the Gates of Hell.  
The City of Nicaea that bore the name of victory itself, was the first that presented Palms to this our Conqueror. It was there, that Solyman one of the most Illustrious Generals of the Barbarians was beaten and quite vanquished, all his Army being put into a Rout, with an exceeding Massacre, that filled Asia with the terror of the Christian Arms. It was there that the Valiant Godfrey killed with his own hand a Rabshakeh, that braved it upon the walls of Nicaea, with an immeasurable presumption of his strength. The City was won, and the vigorous storms of the besiegers beat down before them all the resistances of the besieged.  
The proud Antioch followed quickly after, and although that Corbanes was come to its relief with innumerable troops of Parthians, Medes, Assyrians, he could not stop the current of the prosperities of this invincible General, but augmented by the loss of all his Legions the terror of that victorious arm that overthrew smoking Cities, and made in all places a deluge of the blood of the Barbarians.  
The Caliphe of Egypt that was now advanced to divert the Fatal Day of his Sect, saw himself involved in the same ruins that he thought to have repaired.  
All their attempts now remained but for the City of Jerusalem, which was the Object and Desire of our heavenly Argonauts. It was assaulted and defended with a vigour that never yet had its equal. But in the end it yielded to the Arms of the Christians. It was here that the Illustrious Godfrey was seen to combat upon an Engine of wood that he had caused to be raised, to enter into the City. He appeared that day, not as a Man, but as a Demi-God, all flaming in the brightness of his Arms, whiles the Hail of Arrows flew about his Head, and his Arm mowing the Turbans of the Saracens made way through fire and sword. He entered first of all in bright day in the sight of the Army into Jerusalem, and pitched the the Standard of the Cross in the place where Jesus had consecrated it with his Blood. What Acclamations! What Congratulations! What Palms and Laurels! The Turks fled as the pale Ghosts of Hell, and the Christians erected on all parts the Trophies of our Redeemer upon their ruins.  
It was then that all the Princes proclaimed him King of the conquered Country, thinking that there was not any one more worthy of it, in the rest of the whole world, seeing that he had joined to that prodigious Valour the virtues of Religion, Piety, Justice, Prudence, Liberality, Magnificence, Goodness, Clemency and affability.  
They failed not to offer him a Royal Crown richly adorned with Pearls and precious stones, but this good Prince filled with the zeal of Devotion said, What! should I bear the name of King in the place where my Master hath been covered with Reproaches? Should I take the Sceptre in my hand, where he hath taken the Cross upon his shoulders? Should I suffer a Crown of Gold to be put upon my head, where he hath received one of Thorns? Sure I should then hold myself for vanquished, if such a vanity should be victorious over my heart. It is God that hath inspired into us these designs, it is he that hath conducted them, and that hath Crowned them. I pretend to no other honour, then to hang all honours at the feet of his Cross.  
He contented himself with the name of Duke, and set himself presently about labouring in the Civil Govemment, to purge the City of all its Infamies, to pull down the Mosqueta's to build Churches, to give a lustre to the Clergy, to cause the Gospel to be preached, to found Hospitals, to Administer Justice, to order the Militia for the defence of his Conquest, and in a word to do all the duties of a most accomplished Monarch. But (can we speak it without a Groan?) his Reign lasted but a year, and so many fair hopes were mowed down in their flower, by the pitylesse sith of Death. O impenetrable secrets of Providence! There was nothing beyond Jerusalem, there was nothing beyond Godfrey, but God and Paradise, that could limit his designs, and bound his Conquests.   

GEORGE CASTRIOT.  
OYe Tombs of the Grecians, whose Ashes seem yet to exhale Valour, rejoice now, and hid not the names you bear, for fear they should shame Posterity that hath degenerated from their Virtues. Brave Ancestors! the Glory of your Nation is not yet extinguished; It is raised again in one sole Man, who hath recollected in his Person whatsoever generosity had sown in so many Hearts, and whatsoever Honour had stuffed in so many Trophies.  
I see in Castriot a certain object greater than Leonidas, and Themistocles: I see Pyrrhus, I see Alexander; and if his Enemies have been more stout than the Macedonians, his Valour ought not for that to seem the less.  
He was a Soldier as soon as he was born a Man; Nature pleased to engrave a Sword upon his Body, at the same time as she inspired Courage into his Heart.  
That Stature so proper, that Countenance so filled with Majesty, those Limbs so strong and so Robustuous, those Eyes that mingle the Rainbow with the Lightning, those hands that seem to have been made for nothing but to bear the Thunder, those Feet that move not one only step that savours not of a King, have told betimes that which fame hath afterward related to all ages.  
Little Eaglet! that begannest in thy most innocent years to play with Lightning, thou oughtest not to have been so valiant, or thou oughtest to have had a more happy Father. Shall we say that fortune was unjust, in that it prepared chains for this young virtue, when she should have planted Laurels? Let us rather say that Providence was very wise in that she found out matter for this great Heart, that would have consumed itself in its own flames, if it had not met with some obstacles to resist it.  
It was meet that this Hercules should begin to strangle Serpents from his Cradle; It was meet that he should be bred in the middle of his enemies to Combat from his Infancy with that which he was to abate in his riper age.  
His Father John Castriot, who had little strength and much misery was constrained to give him for an Hostage to Amurath the Turk, to be brought up at his Gate.  
Moses now is in pharoh's house, and Constantine in Dioclesian's, but the Path is here more dangerous, because it leadeth to the ruin of Salvation, and of Honour. His proud Master, that loves him with a Love worse than all the Hatred in the world, would fit him for himself and for his infamous pleasures. He aims at the one by the Circumcision that is imprinted on his flesh by an unhappy violence, he pursues the other by shameful court which are to the Gallant child fare bitterer than Death. He had (as 'tis reported) courage enough to take the sword in hand against him, that Pursued him with nothing but with flowers; He drew blood from him, when nothing could be expected of him but Tears, and put himself in danger of experimenting the horriblest Torments that the Cruelty of those inhuman people could invent, rather than to deliver voluntarily his Soul to sin, and his Body to dishonour. His cruel friend was astonished at so brave a Resolution, and turned the furies that he had prepared for his Innocence, into the admiration of his Valour.  
The Seraglio Imposes on him the name of Scanderbag, that is the same as Alexander which he took by a good omen, to fill up therewith the whole capacity of his brave exploits. He was educated in all the exercises of War in the Academy of the Turks, where he succeeded with so much force, Art, Liking, and Approbation, that every one carried him in his eyes, every one looked on him as a singular prop of Mahomet's Empire. But he bore always Jesus in his heart; he always thought on the means that he might find to break his chain; he felt in the bottom of his most generous soul flames that burned him incessantly with the zeal he had to raise again the leveled Altars of the Christians, and to destroy the estate of the Ottomans.  
Amurath saw some sparkles of it flying in his conversation, although he endeavoured to cover his design with a great prudence. The Master began to fear the Slave, and was afraid to nourish in his Court a Lion that might be able to show him one day his Teeth.  
He endeavoured to destroy him in various encounters, making the Excess of his courage contribute to the Hazard of his Person. A resolute Scythian came to Amurath's Court, challenging the boldest to fight all Naked with a Poniard in the enclosure of a perilous Circle, where, of necessity one must Die, or Conquer. That man had carried away already many bloody Palms, and put so much confidence in his strength, that they were (according to his speech) but the sacrifices of Death that dared to attend the Thunder of his Arm. Every one trembled for fear, when as the valiant Castriot undertook him, and putting his Thrust aside with one hand, killed him with the other, with the acclamations of joy of all those that envy hindered not from applauding Valour.  
This Combat having not succeeded well for Amurath, he raises at another time a Persian Cavalier that kept a stir to fight on Horseback with a Lance. He was a man accomplished in that Trade, who with much cheerfulness of heart transported himself into Cities and Provinces, where he promised himself that he should find Adversaries to exercise his Arms, and increase his Reputation. He curveted up and down in the List proudly Plumed, and his flaming Arms made him appear that day as the great Constellation of Orion amidst the lesser Stars.  
A David was needful for this Goliath, our young Alexander assaults him, falls upon him as an Eagle, handles him very roughly, and at length laid him on the sand where he vomited out his soul and blood, doing a sad homage to valour by a just punishment of his rashness.  
But Amurath that played the part of Saul failed not to find out some new occasions to Exercise his David. He gave him all the most hazardous Employments of the war, wherein he had still so good success, that he changed all the Subjects of his Ruin into Trophies, and returned Crowned with Laurels even out of the Bottom of Abysses, and out of the throat of Lions.  
The perfidious Sultan entertained him with good words, but handled him with bad deeds. He promised him to restore him his estates after his Father's Death, but John Castriot's last hour made it appear, that if his words were full of artifice, his promises were but wind.  
Scanderbag impatient to stay for that which should never come, pays himself by his own hands, and seizeth himself of his Kingdom of Albania, playing the crafty fellow by a Countre-Craft. The Alarm of it is in the Court, and all Amurath's Passions tend to nothing but Revenge. Haly Bassa is sent with an Army of Forty thousand men to dispatch the Business. But all his Troops are cut in pieces; and he had nothing more honourable in his Expedition then that he was conquered by the brave Castriot. Feria and Mustapha pursue the same design with new Forces that experiment the same fortune.  
What shall we say more of Scanderbeg's Greatness? Amurath besecches, the Turban is humbled; that visage of the Tyrant that was the same as that of Cruelty itself, is mollified and takes the Lineaments of a suppliant, after it had born during his whole Life those of Rigour. He desires Peace, and it is denied him, and sues for an agreement, and is slighted. His arrogance being sorely pricked vomits out nothing but whirlwinds of fire, and comes to fall before Croye the Capital City of the Valiant Castriot, with an Army of two hundred thousand men. The other defends himself with six thousand. One only place bays that great Deluge, the Storm is scattered, the Siege raised, the shame of it remains on the face of the Sultan with so lively a Tincture, that the Shadow of death must pass over it to blot it out. He that had lived with Glory, dies with the sadness of his Ignominy, and carries with him into the other World the unability to revenge himself, and an eternal desire of vengeance.  
Mahomet his son, the Scourge and Terror of the Universe, that overthrew two Empires, took two hundred Cities, killed twenty Millions of Men, comes to split against the same Rock. Was there need of so much blood to write upon Castriot's Trophies the Title of Invincible?  
Who would Imagine that a mortal man should have gone so fare? who should believe that those exploits were the Actions of a slave? Truly we must avow, that he lent his Name to God, in all this business, and that God lent his Arm to him. It is said of him, that he never refused Battle, never turned his back, never was wounded but once very Lightly. He slew two thousand Barbarians with his own hand, which he cloven ordinarily with his Coutelax, from the head down to the Girdle. Mahomet desired to see that Thunderbolt that he bore in his hands, and had it in veneration although so many times bedewed with his Subject's blood. He saw the Steel, but he never saw the Arm that gave it Life.  
O brave Castriot! If the State of Christians could have been delivered from the Tyranny of the Sultan's, it should have been by thy hands. We must now acknowledge that our wounds are irrecoverable, seeing that our divisions hinder us from enjoying the succour of so Divine an hand. The Fever that took thee hence in the City of Lissa, in the Climacterical of seven and nine, the most to be feared by old men, extinguished all our hopes by the same burn that consumed thy Body. After thou hadst lived the most Admirable of Captains, thou died'st like a truly Religious, melting the hearts of all those that beheld thee by a most sensible Devotion. Thy victorious spirit soared up to the Palace of the Beautiful Zion, after it had performed in the Body all that was possible for a most eminent Virtue, and an Happiness, to which nothing was wanting but imitators. The most barbarous thy Enemies have kissed thy Sepulchre, have Reverenced thy Ashes, and shared thy Bones as the dearest Relics of Valour. And now thou hast no more to do with a Tomb, seeing that thy Memory hath found as many Monuments, as there are Hearts in all ages.    

BOUCICAUT. BAYARD.  
 portrait of Jean Le Maingre 
BOUCICAUD   portrait of Bayard 
BAYARD   

WE need not search the Catalogue of Saints and Martyrs for a Soldier Furnished before God and men with great and Divine virtues. Behold one among a thousand, I mean the brave Marshal Boucicaut, who flourished in France under Charles the Sixth. Those petty Rodomonts, who boast of their Duels, but indeed mere cowardice varnished with a glossy colour of valour, durst not behold this most excellent Cavalier, without doing that which was anciently done to the Statues of the Sun, that is, to put finger on the mouth, and admire. For, not to mention his other acts of prowess, it is he who was present at that daring Battle which the Turkish Emperor Bajazet waged against the King of Hungary; the Duke of Burgundy, then called the Count of Nevers, with many other of the French Gentry, being there in person.  
The History relateth, that the Turkish Emperor coming to fight with dreadful forces, began so furious a charge, the air being darkened with a black cloud of Arrows, that the Hungarians, who were always reputed good Soldiers, being much amazed with this fierce assault, fled away. The French, who in all Battles had ever learned to conquer or die, not willing to hear so much as the least speech of the name of flight, pierced into the Turkish army, notwithstanding a field of Pikes and stakes fastened in the earth did hinder their approach, and attended by some other Troops, broke the Vanguard of the Turks, by the counsel and example of this brave Marshal; whereat Bajazet much amazed, was about to retire, but that at the same time it was told him, that it was but a very little handful of Frenchmen that made the greatest resistance, and that it was best for him to assault them. The Turk, who kept his Battalions very fresh, returneth, and fell like lightning upon these poor Soldiers now extremely wearied. Never did an angry Lion exercise more violent force against the Hunter's Javelins, than this generous Cavalier shown prowess which shined in the midst of the adventurous Pagans. For, seeing himself at last negligently betrayed, he having no other purpose but to sell his own life and those of his companions at as dear a rate as he could, he with the French Cavalry, and some other people that stuck to him, did such feats of Arms, that it was thought twenty thousand Turks were slain in the place. At last this prodigious multitude, able to tyre out the most hardy, although it had been but to cut them in pieces, did so nearly encompass our French, that the Count of Nevers, with Marshal Boucicaut and other the most worthy Personages, were taken Prisoners.  
The next day after this dismal Battle, the proud Bajazet sitting under a Pavilion spread for him in the field, caused the prisoners to be brought before him, to drench himself in blood and revenge, which he always most passionately loved.  
Never was seen a spectacle more worthy of Compassion; 
A sad spectacle.  The poor Lords who had wrought wonders in Arms, able to move Tigers, were led to the slaughter, half naked, strait bound with cords and fetters, no regard being had either to their blood, which was noble, or youth which was pitiful, or their behaviour which was most ravishing; These Saracens ugly and horrible as Devils, set them before the face of the Tyrant, who in the twinkling of an eye caused their throats to be cut at his feet, as if he meant to carouse their blood.  
The Count of Nevers, with the Count of Ewe and the Count of March had now their heads under the Symiter, and their lives hung as it were by a thread, when Bajazet, who had heard by his interpreters that they were near Kinsmen to the King of France, caused them to be reserved, commanding them to sit at his feet on the ground, where they were enforced to behold the lamentable butchery of their Nobility.  
The valiant Boucicaut, covered with a little linen cloth▪ in his turn was brought forth to be massacred over the bodies of so many valiant men. He, being wise, and in this extremity particularly inspired by God, made a sign with his fingers before Bajazet, because he understood not his Language, as if he would declare himself the Kinsman of the Count of Nevers, who beheld him with so pitiful an eye, that it was able to have rend the most rocky-heart. Bajazet being persuaded by this sign that he was of the Blood Royal caused him to be let a part among the prisoners; where afterwards by his great wisdom he endeavoured the liberty of those noble Gentlemen, and his own. I cannot think that the puny Novices of war of our time, will compare themselves to the valour of this Heroic man, accomplished with such gallant prowess.  
Let us come, if you please, and look into his deportment and conversation, and consider whether he were of the number of those who profess themselves wicked that they may seem valiant. Our Boucicaut was a man who whilst in time of peace he governed the City of Genoa, heard daily two Masses, with so exemplar devotion, that he never suffered any man to speak to him in the Church; where he said the office with singular attention, for which he so accommodated his company, that you should never see the least action of uncomeliness in Divine Service, which he did not severely punish. And the Historian addeth, that he who had beheld his people at Divine Service, would rather think he saw Religious men than Soldiers. Noblemen have power to draw their families to what posture they please, were it not through pusillanimity of spirit they many times give way to the torrent of nurture: and contenting themselves to be good, make all the rest naught by the easiness of their Natures. I mention not here a Canonised Saint, an Hermit, a Religious man, or a Priest; I speak of a Marshal of France, of a most ardent Warrior and Valiant Soldier.  
Behold, I pray, whether Piety be imcompatible with Arms. This Brave Captain happily made his Will, disposing of all his devotions, his affairs and Charge: each day he executed some part hereof, doing all the good he could whiles he lived, not expecting the casual portions of others piety, as those who cause Torches to be carried behind to light them when they have lost their eyes, and, indeed, never do well but when they are in a condition to be able to do no more. This charitable Lord particularly informed himself of the necessities of the bashful poor, and as the rarest pieces of his Cabinet, set their names down in his Register: He appointed on every side his Alms to the poor Religious, to Widows, to Orphans, to needy Soldiers, namely to those who through disability of old age and sickness could labour no more. He visited Hospitals, giving according to his means round sums of money to furnish and accommodate them; if he walked in the streets he ever had charity in his hands, that himself might give all he could, for he took therein a singular contentment, and never was he seen to be so merry, as when he had distributed good store of money; This was to him as his hunting, his game, his delight.  
He bore a singular devotion, in memory of the passion of our Saviour, towards the friday; and whilst he was able, did eat nothing on that day but fruits and Pulls, abstaining from all which participated of the life of Beasts, and clothed himself likewise in a most simple habit, desirous to show outwardly some taste of the Reverence we own to the blood of the son of God. Besides abstinencies commanded, he fasted ordinarily on the Saturday, which is dedicated to the memory of the Blessed Virgin. He never fed at his repast but on one dish, and though he had great quantity of silver Vessels, he caused himself to be served in Pewter and Earth, being glorious in public, but in his particular an enemy to worldly pomps and vanities.  
I leave you to contemplate, how far this kind of life is alienated from the curious Nobility of our days, to whom so many Dispensations and Privileges must daily be given, that it seems, it is needful for their sakes only to create another Christendom, besides that which hath been established by the Son of God. A man would say, to see how they pamper their bodies, they were descended from heaven, and that thither they would return, without passing through the Grave, they Deify themselves, and to fatten and gild a stinking Dunghill covered over with snow; they sport with the blood and sweat of men.  
Superfluity of taste being so well qualified, all went in true measure in the house of this good Marshal: his retinue was well entertained according to his quality, and he had a very solemn custom by him religiously observed, which was speedily to pay his debts, and as much as he might possible to be engaged to none. It is no small virtue, nor of mean importance to be out of engagements of this kind; if we consider the Nobility at this time, so easily plunged in great labyrinths of Debts, which daily increase like huge Snowballs that fall from the mountains, and require Ages and golden Mines to discharge them.  
Is it not a most inexcusable cruelty before God and man, to see a busy Merchant, a needy Artificer, every day to multiply his journeys and steps before the gate of a Lord or a Lady, who bear his sweat and blood in the pleits of their garments? And in stead of giving some satisfaction upon his most just demands, it is told him he is an importunate fellow, and many times is menaced with bastinadoes, if he desist not to demand his own. Is not this to live like a Tartarian? Is not this to degrade one's self from Nobility, Christianity and Reason? Is not this to ruin, and as it were to cut the Throats of whole Houses and Families? Allege not to me, that it is impossible for you to pay what is demanded at present: foreseeing your weakness of estate, why have you heaped so many debts which cannot be discharged!  
Why do you not rather lessen your port, and live more frugally? Why do you not cast off many superfluous things that might be spared? Are not offences odious enough before God, but you must increase them with the marrow of the poor? From hence cometh the contempt of your Persons, the hatred of your Name, the breaches and ruin of your Houses.  
This man by paying his debts well, was honoured and respected of his Officers like a Demigod: there was no need of making any question or doubt, nor to make a false step into his house. He would never suffer a Vice, or bad servant, were it to gain an Empire. Blasphemies, Oaths, Lies, Slanders, pastimes, Quarrels and such like disorders were banished from his Palace as monsters: and if he once found any of his family in fault he put them away lest they should infect the other: yet he would not scandalise them, nor divulge their offences. At the Table he spoke little, and did voluntarily entertain himself with the example of virtues which he observed in the lives of the Nobility: never discoursing of his own achievements but with singular sobriety.  
In his marriage he demeaned himself most chastely, and had such an hatred against impurity, that he would not so much as keep a servant that had a lustful eye. Behold; how passing one day on horseback through the streets of the City of Genoa, as a Lady presented herself at a window to comb her hair, and a Gentleman of the Marshals train seeing her tresses very bright and beautiful cried out, Oh what a goodly head of hair! standing still to behold her. This Lord looking back on him with a severe eye, said, It is not well done, it is not fit that a wanton eye should be seen to glance from the house of a Governor.  
In this kind and all others which concerned the commerce and peace of the Citizens, he rendered so ready and exact justice, that it was a Proverb amongst the Genoes' when any one was offended, to say to him who had done him wrong: If you will not right me, my Lord Martial will. The other understanding it, ofttimes rather chose to submit to the right, then expect a condemnation, which was inevitable. By this means he so gained the good opinion of the people, that the inhabitants of the City sent to the King, beseeching him, that he might continue the Government to the end of his days, which having obtained, it seemed to them, that they had procured an Angel from Heaven to be set at the Stern of their Commonwealth.  
At that time when the Emperor of Constantinople, then dispossessed of one part of his Empire by the great Turk, came into France to desire succour, and had obtained of the King twelve hundred men defrayed for a year, many widow Ladies were seen at the Court, who complained of injustice and oppressions which were offerred them after the death of their husbands; whereby this good Marshal was so moved with compassion, that with much freedom he instituted an Order of Knights for the defence of afflicted Ladies, which he surnamed The Order of the White Lady, because they who made profession of it bore a Scutcheon of gold enameled with green, and thereon the figure of a Lady in a white Vestment: thus sought he by all occasions to do good, and shown himself a great enemy of idleness, as being the very moth of great Spirits.  
He ordinarily risen early in the morning, and spent about three hours in Prayer and divine Service: after that duty was performed he went to Council, which lasted till Dinnertime. After his repast he gave audience to all those who would speak with him upon their affairs, never failing to behold his Hall daily full of people, whom he speedily dispatched, contenting every one with sweet and reasonable answers: from thence he retired to write Letters, and to give such order to his Officers which his pleasure was should be observed in all his affairs: and if he had no other employment he went to Vespers. At his return he took some pains or recreation, then finishing the rest of his Office, he ended the day. On Sundays and Holy-days he either went on foot in some Pilgrimage of Devotion, or caused the Life of Saints or other Histories to be read, daily more and more to dispose his Life and Conversation unto Virtue. When he Marched into the field, he used most admirable discretion, never oppressing any of his company, nor would he permit even in the enemy's Country, that the least disturbance should be done to Churchmen.  
Behold you not here a Life worthy of a French Cavalier? Oh Nobility! This man was not a Petty Roister, that makes boast to fight in a green meadow; But a Soldier, who during the Wars with the English kept the Field of Battle three times thirty days together, against those brave Soldiers who did oppose him; from whence he went out all sparkling with glory and wonder.  
I would here willingly add a Bertrand of Guesclin Count of Longuevil, and Constable of France, whose Life monsieur Menard hath given us written by a Pen of that ancient Age, in as ancient Language. You should see a man, who after he had dedicated his Soul, Body, and Arms in the Offertory of a Mass at the Altar, fought six or seven times hand to hand in the Field, exercised strange Feats of Battle and Arms; stood in the midst of Combats unmoved, and confident as in his Chamber, being otherwise furious, strong and stout in the press. You should see a man sage in Counsels, prompt in Execution, whom an Enemy found near at hand when he thought him thirty miles off. A man in all things else free from Fraud or Dissimulation, Cheerful, Courteous, obliging and liberal of his own, employing his Movables and his Wives Jewels for the relief of poor Soldiers.  
Then you may judge, whether by being Valiant you may live in the Court of a Christian Prince like a little Turk. Where is your Judgement? and where is your Reason?   

BAYARD.  
BEhold a man whose life not long since hath been published to serve as a model for the Nobility: we yet touch him as it were with our finger, for he died under the reign of Francis the First, having served three Kings in their Armies, the space of two and thirty years. It is the valiant Terrail, otherwise called Cavalier Bayard born in Dauphin. I willingly make use of his Example, both because one of our most warlike Kings, the son of Francis the First would needs be knighted by his hands, to witness the honour he bore to his valour, as also for that I see therein many noble 
Martial virtues of a brave French Soldier.  passages which taste of the virtue of a true French soldier. He was a courageous Captain, of excellent direction, valiant and magnanimous, of whom it was said, that he had the assault of the wild Bull, the defence of the Boar, and flight of the wolf. I set aside his warlike deeds, I take some of his virtues which here I will make use of. This royal courage had no other aim in arms, but the glory of God, the service of his Prince, and the honour of his profession, whereof we have an ample testimony in a short Elegy, which his secretary made upon him, saying. That after these two and thirty years' service, he died almost as poor as he was born. Much is spoken in these few words, and I think Bayard more glorious under this title, then if he had born the Duchy of Milan on his back. He had the true piety of a good Soldier: for every morning he prayed to God most devoutly, and would not permit any man to enter into his chamber during his devotions: He was so obedient to those who commanced in the Army, that he never refused any commission imposed upon him. Yea, well foreseeing that the last charge enjoined him by the Marshal Bonivet was most dangerous, and as it were impossible, yet he went thither, sacrificing his life to the commandments of the Lieutenant of his Prince, that he might not digress from his ordinary custom. There was he slain by the most generous manner of death that could happen to any Captain of his quality. He was a Lion in Arms, who with a choice company of men selected by him and trained to his profession, wrought such admirable effects, that there was not any battle won, of which he was not ever the principal cause. Never was any man more terrible to an enemy in the conflict, but out of it, it was said he was one of the most affable and courteous men of the earth: he was so ill a flatterer of great men, that to gain a Kingdom he would not be drawn to speak anything but reason. His practice was to honour the virtuous, speak little of the vicious, less of his own achievements, never to swear; to do favours to all that required them as willingly as if himself were to receive the benefit, to give secret alms according to his ability, in such manner, that it is written, that besides his other acts of piety, he married at the least an hundred poor young maids. Behold of what elements his soul was inwardly composed. As for the manner of his carriage in the war, he as little cared for money as the dust of the earth, and desired not to have any but to give; witness an act of great liberality, which is related of him. He took fairly by law of Arms a Spanish Treasurer, who had about him fifteen thousand Ducats: one of his Captains named Tardieu, enraged with choler, swore that he would have part of the booty, because he was in the Expedition. This good Captain smiling said unto him, It is true, you were of the enterprise, but are not to share in the Booty; and if it were so, you are under my charge, I therefore will give you what I think good. This man entered into more violent fury, and went to complain to the General, who having well considered the business, adjudged it wholly to Bayard. He caused his Ducats to be carried to a place of safety, and commanded them to be spread on a Table, in presence of all his people, saying to them, Companions, what think ye? Do ye not here behold fine junkets? Poor Tardieu, who had been put by his pretensions by express sentence of his Captains, looked on this money with a jealous eye, and said, If he had the half of it, he would all his life be an honest man. Doth that depend on this? (saith this brave Spirit) Hold then, I willingly give you that which you by force could never obtain. And so caused he at the same instant seven thousand five hundred Ducats to be told out to him. The other, (who in the beginning thought it was but a mere mockery, when he saw it to be in good earnest, and himself in possession of that he desired) cast himself on both his knees at the feet of Bayard, having abundant tears of joy in his eyes, and cried out, Alas my Master, my Friend, you have surpassed the liberality of Alexander: How shall I be ever able to acknowledge the benefit, which I at this time do receive at your hands? Hold your peace, (said this incomparable man) If I had power, I would do much more. And thereupon causing all the soldiers of the Garrison to be called, he distributed the rest of the Ducats; not keeping one sole denier for his own use.  
I ask of you, whether this were not a heart of true pearl, wherein there could not one lest blemish of Avarice be found? Yea, also when he passed through the Country, even in a land of Conquest, he paid his expense. And one saying to him, Sir, this money is lost: for, at your departure from hence, they will set this place on fire. He answered, Sirs, I do what I ought, God hath not put me into the world to live by Rapine.  
Moreover, the excellency of this man appeared well in an affair, wherein the life of the most eminent man of the world was interessed. For, heat that time being in Italy, was sent by the King to assist the Duke of Ferrara against the Army of Pope Julius then much opposite to France, although so many other worthy Popes hearty loved our Nation. When one Monsieur Augustine Gerlo, a Gentleman of Milan, but yet a traitor and factious, went to the said Duke to persuade him to forsake the French Engagement, with intention to destroy them, and promised him that in recompense he would give him his Niece in marriage, and make him Captain General of the Church. This Prince would not seem in any wise to understand him; but he handled the matter so by his policy and advantageous promises, that he gained this Augustine who gave him his hand that he in few days would destroy the Pope by a mischievous Morsel which he could easily give him. The Duke of Ferrara having thus dived into his plots and intentions, went immediately to find out this our noble Bayard in his lodgings, and made a long discourse to him of the evil disposition of Pope Julius, and the enterprises he had both on his life and on the Frenchmen, of purpose to enkindle him for Revenge. Then he also pursued his opportunity, and made discovery to him of the treason of this wicked Gerlo. Bayard looking amazedly at him, said, How, Sir! I could never have imagined that a Prince so generous as you would consent to such a wickedness: and had you done it, I swear by my soul, before night I would have given the Pope notice of it. How! answered the Duke, he would have done as much either to you or me. It is no matter (replieth Bayard) this treachery displeaseth me. Whereat, the Duke shrugging up his shoulders, and spitting on the ground, saith, Monsieur Bayard, I would I had killed all mine enemies in this sort: but, since you dislike it, the matter shall rest, and you and I both may have cause to repent it. We shall not, if it please God, replieth the good soldier: but, I pray you, put this gallant into my hands that would do this goodly piece of service; and if I do not cause him to be hanged in an hour, let me supply his place. The Duke finding in him this courage and fidelity, did all he could to wave and excuse the plot, saying he had given him assurance of his person.  
But, behold you not here a brave spirit in Bayard? See you not a man of a Royal conscience, and of an honesty in all things like to itself? Away then with those petty and base spirits of the abyss more black than spectres and infernal furies, who have neither loyalty for their Prince nor Commonwealth, but as it may concern their own interests; who swallow treasons as big as camels to gain a fly. Such would make truth itself to lie, were not heavens Providence awake to make their events as tragical, as are their determinations abominable and hideous.  
All the bravest Chieftains have ever held it to be highest of their glorious victories, to be crowned with Chastity. It was the Trophy of Cyrus, to whom, for this cause God gave all the treasures of Asia: It was the Triumph of Alexander, who, in recompense thereof, had the conquest of the Persians: And, the Emperor Julian, who made profession herein to imitate him, although he had apostatised and renounced all other sacred ties, would never forsake Chastity, but wittily said, This Virtue made beautiful lives, as Painters fair faces. But, not to search so fare into the dust and rubbish of Antiquity; I will draw one line more upon our Bayard in this Point, whereon his History dignifies him with a passage admirable and unparallelled.  
Some there were had advised to convey into his chamber a maid which was one of the fairest creatures in the world, and indeed she was endowed with an angelically graceful aspect, save that at that instant her eyes were swollen (above their ordinary orbs) with an extremity of tears: and that too bespoke rather the commendable virtue of her modesty, than the blemish of her beauty: Whom when the Captain had well surveyed; How now fair maid! saith he unto her; What sayest thou? Why comest thou hither? The amazed damosel falling on her knees, with that utterance her sigh would afford her, she thus answers him: Ah! Sir, My mother hath commanded me I should do what you would have me; yet (Sir) I am a Virgin, and never (truly) had I any disposition to do ill, however a necessity enforced me hither; for, my mother and myself are so poor, that we are nigh perishing through hunger: but, I wish to God I might see death, thereby to be dissolved from the number of unhappy maidens, rather than to fully my soul with the least unworthy and ignoble act. Which words of hers pierced so this generous Lords soul to the quick, that they caused tears in his eyes, associated with this reply; Verily, pretty soul, I will not be so wicked as to take that from thee which thou so charily hast kept for the society of purest Angels. Thereupon he caused her to be veiled lest she should be taken notice of; and that she might not be exposed unto the rigid deal of a rude hand; (not transferring the charge of her person to another's care) he, with a lighted torch in his own hand, conducts her to her safe repose in the house of a virtuous kinswoman of his, where he for that night leaves her. The day following he sent for her mother, and said unto her, Are not you a wicked woman to betray the honour of your daughter, which ought to be more dear unto you then your life? Certainly for thus doing, you deserve a punishment so much the more rigorous, as that I understand you are a Lady: and by a course so sinister you wrong Nobility. The Lady hereat wholly confounded, knew not what else to answer, but that they were as poor as might be. Is there yet (saith he) no man that for her birth, beauty, and virtues sake who requireth her in holy Marriage? Yes, truly (saith she) an honest man, a neighbour of mine; had she (as he with her demands) six hundred florins, which I am in no capacity to raise or to procure.  
Then the brave Bayard drew out his purse, and said, Here are two hundred crowns (which are of more value than six hundred florins of this country) to marry your daughter withal: which my will is you dispatch within three days: and farther, to enable you the better thereto; I also add one hundred crowns more to adorn her with decent change of apparel, and I give yourself an hundred Crowns, which well housewived, may serve to stave you off from future unbecoming shifts and poverty. All which was done accordingly, to the unspeakable joy both of the mother, and of the daughter, who thenceforth lived in an honourable and comfortable condition.  
O Nobility! I present not here an Hermit, but a Captain (who was a French Soldier) who was moulded of no other flesh, blood, nor bones, then are ye yourselves: yet he performeth an act of a Religious man the most mortified: he exerciseth the liberality of a King; he equalleth therein, yea surmounted the heroical deeds of the greatest Saints. True it is, Saint Nicholas saved the honour of Virgins, contributing thereto his gold and silver: as true it is that in so doing he generously triumphed over the covetousness of temporal goods; yet, he served not in this action as a Triumph to himself, which is verily the choicest piece of eminent virtues. But, behold a Cavalier who vanquisheth both Avarice and Lust, (the two most dangerous rocks of the world.) Bayard commandeth his purse in a fortune not the best accommodated; and that meriteth no small applause: But Bayard, in the high flourish of his age, of a body vigorous, commands the passions of his soul and conquers them, even at the temptations of an object so amiable (as hath been represented here unto you) I beseech you therefore, let it be no longer said that Chastity is only to be found amongst the truly most mortified retirers into Cloisters; for, it is every where, where the fear of the omnipresent God, and where generosity or real virtue is. What then can so many wretches answer to this, who fill the world with sins, the Nobility with disgraces, their bodies with diseases, their name with infamy, and load so many poor abused creatures with miseries and despair? What can our spruce gallants devise for passable excuse, who brave it through the streets in their ridiculous ostents of borrowed feathers and in habits; remaining indebted to the mercer for the stuff, and to the poor tailor for the fashion; paying yet neither the one or other? True jackdaws of Aesop, who deserve that all other birds should assemble to pull their plumes off which they have (thus no better then) stolen to catch and to be caught with vanity. What will here so many gluttons and gamesters say, who rend up and eat the entrails of men by their bloody riots?  
You see 'twas possible that this gallant soldier, by unravenous hands had four hundred crowns, (a sum in those days held a huge one) yet all this he gives in one only alms; but, those (whom I thus have taken to task) who in a bravery talk of nothing less than pistolets, not mind any thing else but their sordid voluptuousness, have not a denier to throw to a poor body.  
Pursuing this course, He did an act (at the taking of Bressia a city in Italy) indeed for ever memorable, which was thus; That being set in the front of the Perdues, he first entered and passed the Rampart, whence he received a hurt in the top of his thigh, so dangerous that the top of a pike wherewith he was thrust stuck in the wound: he, nothing terrified hereat, said to one Captain Molard, I am slain; but it is no matter, let your men march on confidently, the town's our own. Then, two of his soldiers bore him out of the throng, who seeing his wound streamed forth much blood, they pulled off their shirts and rend them, binding up his thigh therewith; and, in the next house they hit upon, they took a little door off the hinges whereon they laid their tenderly beloved Captain, to bear him the more easily. From thence they went directly to a great house which they supposed (in all likelihood) to be a very convenient repose, and for his accommodation (and so indeed it proved:) For, it belonged to an honest Gentleman who thence retired into a Monastery to avoid the fury which is ordinarily found from conquering soldiers: for, the saccage of this City was so dreadful, that there were reckoned as well of Venetians who defended it, as Burgesses, to the number of twenty thousand slain: yet, his wife (the Lady of this house) with her two daughters, fortunately had ventured to abide at home, who yet through fear had hid themselves together under hay in a barn, from whence the noble Matron made first her appearance to the two soldiers knocking at the gate, which (arming herself with resolution) she opened to them, when espying a Captain all bloody, for whom they demanded a room in her house to retire in; she conducts them with their carriage on that homely bier (as is before related) into the fairest and best furnished chamber, where she cast herself at his feet, saying, Sir, I freely make a tender of this house unto you with all the furniture thereof, which you may call yours even by the law of Arms: However, this favour I only beg of you, you will be pleased to protect me and save mine honour inviolated, as also of my daughters (two poor maids) grown up to marriage estate, whom I and my dear husband value as the pledges of our conjugal affection. The Captain answered, Madam, fear not, We soldiers that must stand the shock of war ofttimes do meet with such like casualties as hath now betided me, which was the cause (not any design to wrong your persons or diminish your possessions) that drove me hither: and whether I shall escape this wound be a contigency remote as yet from my assurance; yet, this I faithfully promise you, that, whilst I live, there shall not be done the least injury to you nor your daughters, no more than I would have befall to mine own person. Only keep them in your lodging, and let them not be seen: send for your husband home again, whom you may assure and yourself too ye have a guest who will do you all courtesy possible. The Lady comfortably acquiescing in the belief of his nobleness uttered by his word, she goes about the orderly contrivance of her houswife-affairs accordingly, and having employed all her prudentiallest care to give him good entertainment, she soon perceived she had lodged an honest man, (amongst other his own personal civil manifestations) by the harmless and just deportment of the Duke of Nemours the brave General of the Army (Gaston de Foix) who came daily (with his choicest Chevaliers) to visit him; yet he, and all they (although it was then in a city of their conquest) made offer of paying for what ever provisions they demanded for their repasts. The good hostess therefore took herself so much the more concerned to wait on her noble inmate (as indeed she did) as on an Angel sent her from heaven: so much divine honour and virtue saw she resplendent in him. When he was well cured of his hurt, and spoke of dislodging thence to be present at the battle of Ravenna, where that his General passionately desired him no less for his society then his service; the Lady (who accounted herself as his prisoner, with her husband and their two daughters, considering that if their guest would rigorously use them he might (according to the use and liberty of a soldier) draw ten or twelve thousand crowns from her,) resolved to give him a present: and therefore went into his chamber with one of her domestic attendants who carried a little steel cabinet, and presently she threw herself at his feet, but he quickly raised her up again, not suffering she should speak a word till she was seated by him, at which time she made this speech well observed by the Secretary of Bayard.  
Sir, sigh it seemed good to the high Providence that this city should be destined to a captivity by your valour; the favour which God hath afforded me by sending you into this house which is wholly at your service, I thankfully contemplate as one which hath been no less than the preservation of the life of my husband, mine own, and that of my two daughters, with their unattempted chastity which they dearlier estimate then their precious life. Besides, your people have demeaned themselves (to your own rare example, as well as to your lawful commands, I attribute it) here in my house, that I have cause for ever to commend their sober carriage and modesty, and not deserving the least blame or complaint for any kind of injury committed by them. And, yet Sir, I am not so ignorant of the condition whereunto the misery of war hath reduced us, as not very well to apprehend that my husband, myself, and our children are your prisoners, and that all the goods in this house are in your power to be disposed of at your liking and discretion: But withal, knowing the nobleness of your heart which is incomparable; I am come most humbly to beseech you to take pity on us your poor captives, and to deal with us according to your manifested goodness and clemency, whereto we render as a thankful sacrifice this poor present earnestly desiring it may be acceptable. Having thus spoken, she took the cabinet out of her servants hands, and opened it before the good Captain, who saw it to be full of ducats, whereat he smiled, saying, Madam, how many ducats have you there? The poor woman, dismayed because she thought his smiling had proceeded from conceived discontent, answered, Here are but two thousand five hundred ducats; but if you be not satisfied herewith, we will procure you more. Nay, Madam (replied the Captain) I do well assure you, that should you give me an hundred thousand crowns, you could not (for all that) do me so much good as you have benefitted me already by your courteous entertainment and virtuous offices of recovering me. In what place therefore soever I shall remain, while God prolongs my life, you shall find you have thereby engaged a Gentleman ready to embrace occasions of serving your commands. And now, as for your ducats, I will take none of them, but give you thanks, and so I pray you put them up again. For my part, I have ever esteemed people of honour more than crowns; and think not, Madam, but I go away as well contented from you as if this city were at your disposition, and you had made me a present thereof.  
She again humbly prostrating herself on her knees, and the Captain lifting her up, she answered, No Sir? I should think myself, for ever the most unhappy woman of the world, if you accept not of this present, which is nothing in comparison of the infinite obligations I own to your worth. Well (saith he) sigh you give it with so good a will, I accept it for your sake: but, cause your daughters to come hither that I may bid them farewell. These virtuous souls following their mother's presidency, had also with her charitably assisted him during the time of his infirmities cure, many times touching their Lute whereon they played very sweetly, for his mind's recreation. Upon this summon of his into his presence; they fell at his feet, the elder of the daughters (in the name of both) made a short speech unto him in her mother language, importing a thankful form unto him for his just performed preservation of their honour. The Captain heard it, yet not without a weeping-joy and admiration at the sweetness and humility he therein observed, and then said: Ladies, ye do that which I ought to do; which is, to give you thanks for the many good helps ye have afforded me, for which I find myself infinitely obliged unto you. Ye know, men of my profession are not readily furnished with handsome tokens to present fair maidens withal. But behold! your good Lady-mother hath given me two thousand five hundred ducats: take each of you a thousand of them as my gift, for so I am resolved it shall be. Then turning to his Hostess, Madam (saith he) I will take the five hundred to myself to distribute them among poor Religious women who have not had like happiness with you to be preserved from the soldiers plundering pillage: And as you better than any other may judge of the necessities which each one may by such accidents have befallen them: so I am confident I can depute none a more faithful steward for the disposing thereof then is your wise, ingenious, and charitable self, unto whose sole disposal I freely recommend it. The Lady touched to the quick with so rare and pious a disposition, spoke these words unto him; O flower of Chivalry to whom none other can be compared! Our blessed Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ, who for us sinners suffered death and passion, both here in this world, and in the other, reward you. The Gentleman of the house, who at that time heard the courtesy of his guest, came to thank him with a bended knee, making him (withal) a surrender of his person, and a sequestration of his whole estate; but he most nobly left him master of himself and of his estate. The young gentlewomen who (amongst other their many accomplishing endowments) were skilful at the needle, made him a present of a crimson-sattin purse very richly wrought, and of two bracelets woven with thread of gold and silver. He very graciously receiving them; Behold (saith he) I esteem these more than ten thousand crowns: and instantly he put the bracelets on his wrists, and the purse into his pocket; assuring them that while these their respective remembrances would last, he would wear them for their sakes. Which civil ceremonies ended he mounted on his horse, accompanied thence with his true friend the Lord D' Aubigny, and with about two or three thousand other gentlemen and soldiers; the Lady of the house, the daughters, and the whole family as passionately lamenting his departure, as if they should have been put to the sword, although they had assurance from him by his undeniable Protection under which he left them and their possessions to be unmolested after his departure.  
If the stars were to descend from heaven, I would demand now whether they might find more love and respect then this heavenborn piece of generosity did both receive and return. But, be ye your own judges if your observations tell you not, it fare otherwise befalls those silly fencers who in like times of advantages rush themselves into such well feathered nests not otherwise then as fatal Comets portending fire and the destroying sword, who make the props of buildings tremble with their loud blasphemies, who load whole families with injuries, without the least regard of age, sex, or honour, but make a sport at the blood and wounds over whom they tyrannize, pillaging them like ravenous harpies fatted with humane ruins. However, should they do nothing else all their life time but heap up mountains of gold and silver; they could not arrive to the least part of the contentment which this good Captain enjoyed, who sought no other recompense from his fair weighed actions, but the satisfaction of his serene conscience, and the glory to have done so well. And thus it is (O ye who would yourselves to be indeed ennobled) that hearts are gained: thus ye oblige (if I may so say) both earth and heaven to become due tributaries to your virtues, with blessings round about you here, and with a crown of immortality hereafter.     

THE STATESMEN.  

JOSEPH. MOSES.  
 portrait of Joseph (the patriarch) 
JOSEPH   portrait of Moses 
MOSES.   

I Begin the Eulogies of holy Statesmen with the Patriarch Joseph, who was the first of God's chosen people, that entered into the Court of an Infidel Prince, to make of his life an example of virtue; and of his demeanour a miracle. Here is an high design of God, who transports a young child out of the cabans and condition of shepherds, to make him the second person of a great Kingdom, to give him the heart and the treasures of his Master, the friendship of the Nobles, the veneration of the People, and the admiration of all the world. Those that look upon this history after a common manner, observe ordinarily therein the changes of humane things; the beginnings, the progresses, and the issues of worldly affairs: But if we would penetrate farther, we should find two great reasons and two admirable designs of Providence about the entrance and negotiation of Joseph in Egypt.  
The first is, that according to the saying of the great S. Leo, it was reasonable that the eternal Word that was to come for the salvation of the whole world should be divided through all Ages, and through all Nations, showing himself to some in figure, to others in reality, giving himself to some by Hope, to others by Presence, and to many by remembrance. He insinuated himself into the ancient Jews by Prophecies; into the Gentiles by Oracles; into the Learned by Riddles; into the People by visible Figures; into the Saints and the Religious by Mysteries; into the Profane and Gentiles by Government and Politic Prudence. This is the fashion that he held towards the Egyptians, making them see the first rays of the Birthday of his coming in the person of Joseph, that wore very advantageously the Lineaments of his Divine Perfections, and merited to be called by advance, The Saviour of the world.  
The second reason is, that God meaning to begin that Divine work of the persecutions and the wonders of his chosen People transports Joseph thither, and makes of him a man of sufferings and of prodigies, to be as a grain of seed out of which one should see spring that numerous posterity that should equal the stars of heaven. This eternal high Priest prepared for his Altars a great sacrifice of Tribulation, and of Patience which was to be honoured with so much Blood, and so many Tears of the Righteous, and would invite thereto the Saints by the imitation of a Patriarch that consecrated himself by his own evils and mounted out of a deep pit to the triumphant chariot of the Pharaoh's.  
I have proposed to myself to represent this to you (my Reader) not relating at large his History which is sufficiently known, but by making some reflections upon it able to make us admire the greatness of God, and to fashion the manners of Courtiers affected to virtue, by originals that God hath placed as upon the frontispiece of his palace.  
Let us observe then (according to the pursuit which the Scripture makes us see in this narration) his entrance into the Court, his beginning, his progresses, his virtues, his negotiations, and his successes, from which we shall draw great lights and infallible proofs of the work of God upon those whom he embraces by love and by a very particular conduct.  
Ambitious spirits have studied in all times the means to make a fortune at the Court of Kings, and have applied themselves strongly to this design, as to the study of the Philosopher's stone, or to the conquest of the golden fleece: But they have had work enough to find out the true principles and causes of the good will of great ones, which is the reason that some seem to have the golden wings of fortune herself to fly to the palace of Honour, without labour, and without difficulty, while others with indefatigable pains grow old in disgrace and in contempt. Lilius Giraldus a learned man digged out of the ground in his searches an ancient picture of the industrious Apelles, wherein after he had painted Favour winged, blind, standing upon a rolling boul, environned with riches, honour, disdain, flattery, and the impunity of all crimes; he places at her feet some Philosophers that studied her Genealogy, some making her the daughter of Beauty, others of chance, others of Industry, others of Virtue: but the ablest confessed that she was a bastard, and not begotten of lawful Parents, but of an obscure and dark Confusion.  
And indeed if we speak of the favour of Princes taken according to the world, we must acknowledge that it is very uncertain, having as many divers births as there are different humours in the mind of great ones who are ordinarily subject to many changes, whether through an opinion of their greatness, or whether through the delicateness of their breeding, or whether through the diversity of those that approach them, and so many fantastical conceits that proceed from the perturbation of their own felicities. Who is able to tell all the entrances into favour, seeing there are some that have been promoted highly for having caused a little sucking pig to be roasted handsomely, as it happened to a favourtie of Henry the Eighth's King of England? It is true that there are some that insinuate themselves by beauty and by a good grace, others by jesting and delightful pastimes, others by understanding and the conduct of affairs, others by valour, others by science, others by the invention of crimes and infamous ways of magic, by unseemly complacencies and unworthy services which they render to the revenges or to the pleasures of their masters.  
But (not to speak of other proceed that are less clean) those that give precepts of rising at the Court will tell us, that he ought to be of a good birth, of a pleasing behaviour, very dextrous in all sorts of exercises fit for the Nobility, of a gentle wit that hath some tincture of science, of a polished conversation, full of civility, affability, and prudence. In a word, he must be a man of conscience, of understanding, of courage, of service, and held up by some powerful friend, that will gain the good will of great ones, and to open to himself a large way to the honours of the age. This is said with much prudence, but we must avouch, that beside all these rare qualities, there is a secret push of an invisible hand that thrusts forward the favourites, which some have attributed to the stars, others to destiny, others to a good temper, but which I think with reason to be an effect of the divine Providence, and an operation of the Guardian Angels, who in prosperous affairs, procure often counsellors and officers to Kings by high and sublime ways, of exquisite gifts and profitable to second the good genius of the Prince, and to advance by the same means the favourite.  
This is that which may be observed clearly in the person of Joseph (whose Elegy I have undertaken to give you.) There is required in a man of a secular State the birth of a gentleman to make a fortune at the Court, and this man was the son of a shepherd; a skilfulness at weapons, he had never handled nor perhaps seen any; a gentleness in the exercises of the body, he knew no other but those of shepherds; a grace of speech, he was a stranger and a barbarian to the Egyptians; Military valour, he knew no other combats but those of the rams and bulls; politic prudence, he came from a savage life where he had had no other conversation but that of trees and beasts. What was it then that promoted him in the Court of Pharaoh, and made him rise so high? Must we not acknowledge with all submission of spirit, that there is an heavenly hand that takes a charge of this business, and that it is our Tutelar Angel to whom God having given Commission of our lives and fortunes, it is no way credible that he neglects us in these great occurrences of exercises and of conversations that are to compose the happiness or the miseries of our life?  
Yet it is true that God destining a man to some great design fails not insensibly to furnish him with necessary qualities for that disposal though they are elevated above the opinion of the world, and sometimes even contrary to the ordinary practices of Courtiers; from thence it came that Providence had made Joseph of a good mind, and of a grace fitting for conversation, of a sweet and pleasing humour, of a spirit capable of business. She gave him a marvellous gift of Prophecy and of Interpretation of Dreams, which wrought the principal effect of that high fortune, in a King curious to know the things that were to come, and a Nation much inclined to Divinations, and to the knowledge of the secrets of Nature, and above Nature. Here is a point of Doctrine necessary to be observed, as well for the Science as for the Conscience, since the observation of Dreams, which many make by Superstition, was made by Mystery, to the honour of the Interpreter, and to the profit of all the Nation, as the History will show you clearly in its sequel.  
We know that a Dream is a vision which is made in sleep caused by the remainders of the images of the things which we have received in our senses and in our imagination when we were awake; and is as the Echo which brings a repetition of the actions of the day. Our soul hath this mark of its immortality, that it is in a perpetual motion, without any interruption, after the manner of the heavenly Globes and of the intelligences. When the body is laid fast by the charming sweetnesses of sleep, and the night makes a league with all the actions of the day, the soul makes not any with its operations; it meditates, it reasons, it speaks, it is in action, it negotiates, and without parting from its body flies beyond all lands and seas to enjoy a friend. She opens herself with joy, pricks herself with sorrow, interesses herself in businesses, and not being able to use the members of her body, serves herself with her own members, and her own faculties for the satisfaction of her desire. And as sword-players cease not sometimes to fence without arms, and to use gestures as if there passed a real combat; so our spirit, whiles we sleep, carries herself away, and does every thing in Idea, as if it were seconded by the body. Such is the state and natural condition of Dreams, as Tertullian hath well explained it in his Book concerning the Soul. But beyond this, it is expedient to note that there is something in them of extraordinary and Divine, which made the Stoics say, that Providence careful of our preservation gave us Dreaming, as a domestic Oracle, to inform us of our good and evils. This cannot be understood commonly of all Dreams, the truth being such that there are five sorts of them which Macrobius following the Ancients names the Phantasm, the Raving, the Vision, the Oracle, and the figurative Dream; we ought not to rely much upon Phantasms, which are as shadows, which present themselves to our imagination in the very first cloud of sleep, nor of Rave which follow ordinarily the state of the passions and affections of our soul and of our body, as Artemidorus reasons in the beginning of his work; but much on Vision, which without following the paths trodden the day before by our senses, make us see and discover things in our sleep which we experiment when we are awake to be the self same which we saw when we were asleep. And as for Oracle, which expresses to us apparitions of God and Angels, or certain grave persons that seem to speak to us, and to advertise us of what we have to do, or not to do, it cannot be but very considerable; as also the Figurative Dream, which shows us under Figures and Symbols the divers accidents of things profitable either to the common good, or to our particular conduct.  
I have been willing to clear this with more day, to make us know the excellent gifts of the divine Goodness communicated to our Patriarch in that interpretation which he gave to Dreams. To speak truth, it was a kind of Prophecy, which being properly a manifestation of Truths elevated above the ordinary knowledge of man, clearly discovered itself in Joseph in the declaration which he made of things so hidden, and so little penetrable to the understanding of the most learned men of Egypt. Saint Thomas disputes touching the excellency of Prophecies, and says, That those are more sublime that are purely intellectual, than others that are made by similitudes. But although those of our Joseph were revealed by Riddles and by Figures, yet they mount for all that to an high point of excellency; forasmuch as they were by this means more proportioned to the capacity of a Nation that loved them more when they were involved in the shadows and in the clouds of those Figures, then if they had been naked and totally unmixed with corporal Ideas. And I think that the great excellency of a master and of a teacher, is to accommodate himself to the spirit of those to whom he would persuade the verities of his Doctrine.  
Now it discovers to us at present, that this first Courtier of the chosen people had something of Divine that prepared him to great actions, inasmuch as from his little childhood he was exercised by those mysterious Dreams, and amorous of Heaven, and of the Starts that enlightened him in the silence of a delicious night, and brought him the presages of his future greatness. God hath often spoken to his most faithful servants by the means of Dreams: as, to Mordecai; to the Wisemen of the East; to Saint Joseph the spouse of the most holy Virgin: and the observation of them is not bad when one perceives in them some extraordinary thing, and which tends to a good end by lawful and commendable means.  
It is true that Aristotle thought, that Dreams came not from God, because if that had any likelihood, that favour would be for none but for the Philosophers and for eminent persons; but we must pardon a wise worldly man if he knew not the admirable commerce and the sweet discourses that the Spirit of God is pleased to make with simple and innocent souls, which being empty of themselves are filled advantageously with the Deity. Such was little Joseph, when he saw in a Dream his sheaf of corn that exalted itself above those of his brethren, and when he beheld the Sun, and the Moon, with the eleven Stars that came to worship him and do him reverence. This probably seemed to him a presage of a great happiness, seeing that according to the Maxims of Astrampsychus in his book of Dreams, it is a mark of felicity to see the stars in one's sleep. He had not been then refined at Court when he boasted of that Dream by a childish innocence, and related it to his brothers, who conceived so much jealousy from it, that they resolved upon his destruction.  
Here is a second work of Providence which pleases herself in doing the works of her trade, and in conducting to the haven those whom she hath taken in charge by turning her back to them. His brothers, saith S. Gregory, sold him for fear lest he should be worshipped according to his Dream, and he was worshipped because he was sold. Envy (which is properly a sadness for the honour and welfare of another, forasmuch as that it seems to us to tend to the diminution of ours) finds objects in all places; it enters into jacob's family, a family of Saints, to teach us (saith Saint Ambrose) that the servants of God have not escaped Passions, but conquered them. He that in the Government of all Egypt found nothing but admiration amongst strangers, meets with envy amongst his brethren, and amongst those of whom charity should have been adored though she had been persecuted in all the habitable world. There is not a more subtle poison then that of asps, nor a more deadly envy then that of brothers, and especially of those that make profession of wisdom and of holiness. This animal Passion, that makes at length a sin of the spirit, feels herself most conveniently lodged in the heart of spiritual men; she sleeps in their bosom as in her nest; and because that she is always a companion of ambition, and that such kind of persons are ordinarily extreme desirous of the glory that proceeds from the reputation of virtue and of learning, it comes to pass that she hath in them more exercise and nourishment. This ill-boding Comet discovers in them without ceasing new vapours to be digested, and by how much the more aged the envious are, by so much the more strong are their habits to this sin. The rays of virtue and of all perfection are darted continually into the eyes of those of the same house, which makes this iniquity increase by the frequentation of its objects. Little things prick as well as great, and those Spiders find every where matter for poison. Good must be hid from them, that their evil may not be discovered, and virtue be put out of sight, that she may be put out of the danger of being envied. Oleaster saith, that God covered Moses with a cloud in those familiar Colloquies which he had with him, for fear that that being perceived by the Jews who were at the bottom of the Mountain in its highest lustre might move envy by an object that merited nothing but veneration.  
But how just is God to turn that fury of the Serpents against herself, to cause her to promote whiles she abases, and to honour while she insults, and to sanctify whiles she persecutes those on whom she imprints the strongest venom of her rage! O what a brave spectacle it is to see so many storms poured down continually at the foot of the mountain Athos, with an eternal despair to cover it! And what an excellent Theatre of Providence is it to behold envious men that envy without ceasing, and that are never envied, because they have nothing that merits envy! they cast out their foam and their froth against a man whom Gods raises upon the wings of glory, and by making themselves an hell in their entrails, they prepare for him a paradise.  
Joseph sold to the Ishmaelites is bought by Potiphar a great Prince of Egypt, who had the confidence of King Pharaoh and his Arms in his hands. He enters into the Court, a thing which he never had so much as thought on; he comes thither with a chain to carry away one day the collar of gold; he is received there as a Slave, to become a Master, and submits his neck under the yoke of Servitude, to Govern. He enters powerfully into the favour of his Lord, who finding him discreet, industrious, and faithful, gives him the charge of all his house, of his goods, and of his revenues, which he causes greatly to increase, so much were his pains accompanied with an abundance of the benedictions of heaven. But the immodest love of his Mistress raised him great combats that served for an exercise to his virtue, to put it in the highest lustre of its glory.  
Behold a point where God shows plainly, that one never loses any thing by being faithful to him; and that the greatest triumph of virtues, is, to have sin in ones power, and innocence in ones will. Those that would raise fortunes of glass upon the foundations of iniquity, would have thought that Joseph had had a fair opportunity in his hands to promote himself at Court, seeing himself beloved of one of the chief Ladies of the Kingdom, who was as much disposed to wish him well, as powerful to make his happiness. There was no need to woe her, and to gain her heart by many artifices; she loves, she desires, she presses: love hath rob her of the quality of a Mistress, to make her take that of a Servant who offered to him her passion. That pleasing beauty of Joseph, which virtue placed upon the highest of the thrones of love, darted arrows at her that made her forget herself, to run after her slave.  
What shall this faithful servant do, that sees that his beauty hath passed him Master in one day of his Lord's house and bed? He is young, it is a vice, some one will say, pardonable to his age. He is a stranger, he hath need of an upholder, he is a man of fortune, he ought not to shut the door against her when she offers herself to him. It is a deed that will pass in an eternal secret; if he grants his Mistress' request, wealth, content, authority, credit, are for none but him; if he denies it, he must fear chains, prisons, fire, and sword, and all that a woman will, and all that a provoked love can do. It was a great combat, wherein Reason had the upperhand of Passion; Grace of Nature; and God of Man. Joseph would not be fair to the prejudice of another, thinking that that was not the true beauty that was adorned to the disadvantage of Chastity, but that which is preserved to the honour of Modesty. He settled his eyes fast upon the Natural Law of God whom he adored, and although he seemed then to use him harshly in that captivity, yet he forgot nothing of his duty. He represented to himself the faithfulness that he had promised to his Master; the short pleasures that accompany sin, and the remorse that follows; he extinguished the flames of love; he broke all his darts; and in his slavery made himself master of him that hath captivated so many Kings.  
He came out of the chamber where the snare was laid, as a ruby out of burning flames, without losing any thing of his integrity, and making his fair lustre glitter in the eyes of heaven, his only witness. He quitted his coat, and thought it no more his own, after it had touched the hands of that immodest woman; he feared lest that contageous venom of love might communicate itself to his heart by the simple touch of a garment; he stays not near her; he busies not himself so much as to make her a discourse of continence; he answers her by running away, and conquers the strongest of the passions by turning to it his back. O why were not all the roses and all the lilies that flourished in the gardens of Egypt for that time employed to make immortal crowns for that Chastity that consecrated itself so highly even in the Kingdom of loves! O how well did he then merit to be mounted upon a chariot drawn with horses whiter than the snow, and to be shown to all Egypt, as a tamer of monsters, and a triumpher over vices!  
Nevertheless (the love of his Mistress turning itself into rage) he is accused of having attempted to ravish the honour which he preserved. His innocence is born down by the artifices of a wife, and the credulity of an husband; he suffers for virtue all that the most faulty could expect in punishment of their crimes. He is put immediately into the dungeon, loaden with irons, used with all possible rigours, without being defended or succoured of any one; he expects nothing every moment but an ignominious death to put an end to the miseries of his life.  
Eternal Wisdom! (said Tertullian) you cut your child's throats and use them as sacrifices, as if you could not crown them but by their torments, as if you could not honour them but by their punishments. But why do we complain (said a learned Father of the Church) Joseph is free in this captivity; if his body groans under the irons, his spirit walks with God, philosophizes with God, and thinks that the recompense of a good action, is, to have done it.  
Behold the exact method that Providence keeps in the conduct of her chosen one's; One deep must call upon another deep; the deep of afflictions calls for that of glories, and the heights of honour are prepared according to the measure of tribulations. It is the gold that (according to Job's speech) comes from the 
Ab quilone aurum venit flante Deo concrescit g●i●. Job 37.  North; it is that divine crystal that is congealed under the breath of God; it is those burning arrows of the Lord of hosts that cause those combatants to let fly their colours, and that make wounds by communicating lights.  
Joseph's prison was a school of wisdom where God spoke, and his servant harkened to him, having his ear in heaven, and his heart in that of his Master. A certain Grace that proceeding from the interior of his soul spread itself upon his visage, and made itself be heard in every one of his words, gained him the heart of his gaoler that used him kindly, having already an high esteem of his innocence and of his virtue. There are some men so happy that they find Empires every where, which was the cause that this holy Patriarch obtained by merit the charge of all the prisoners that were companions of his misery, and made himself by love the governor even of him that held him in captivity.  
It happens in this accident, that two of the King's officers, his Butler and his Baker, were brought into the same prison, and given in ward to Joseph to administer to them things necessary for life. He comforted them in their adversity, and entertained them with good discourses, and as he saw them one day very melancholy he inquired after the cause of their sadness, and perceived that they disquieted themselves about their Dreams. The Butler had dreamed that he saw a Vine with three branches, which at one time was adorned with leaves, with buds, with blossoms, and with ripe grapes, and that after he had gathered of its fruit, he squeezed it into Pharaoh's cup which he held in his hand, and presented it unto him. Whereupon Joseph foretold him that within three days he should be reestablished in his office. The other had seen himself in his Dream carrying three paniers of meal upon his head, and it seemed to him that in that which was the highest of all, there was abundance of the delicacies of his trade, which the birds of prey came and snatched away, which made his Prophet denounce to him an ignominious death. The effect was answerable to the predictions in the limited time, and the one died upon the gallows, and the other was re-invested in his place.  
But, that being very true which S. Thomas hath observed, that there be four sorts of people that easily forget a courtesy; Proud men, to whom one does some small displeasure, though they have been at other times greatly obliged in divers accidents. Base and mean persons that are unexpectedly raised to some degree of honour. Children, that are become men; and Prisoners that are set at liberty. The Butler was so ravished with his change of fortune, that he was no longer mindful of his friend; the enjoyment of a present good making him lose the remembrance of the Prophecy concerning the time to come.  
Yet Providence that would exalt Joseph to the highest top of honour at the time at which she had destined it, sent Dreams to Pharaoh about the state of his Kingdom, which caused great troubles in his mind, there being no body that he could find able to resolve his doubts. It was then that the Butler spoke, not being ignorant that this news would be most pleasing to the King, and told him the Dreams that had happened both to him and to his companion when they were in prison, adding the interpretation given upon them by a young slave, an Hebrew by Nation, kept in the same goal, and the effect that had followed the Oracles of his mouth. Whereat the King being much joyed, commanded that he should be instantly fetched out of prison, and be brought to be seen and heard by his Majesty; which was readily performed, for after they had trimmed his hair, and clothed him with a befiting habit, he was presented to the King's eyes, who received him with much courtesy, and having related to him his Dreams, which were of seven kine, fat and wonderful fair, that had been followed and devoured by other lean ones, and as much as could be, out of flesh; as also of seven ears of corn extremely well filled that had been eaten up by other empty and barren ones: he desired him to give him the Resolution of them. Whereupon, Joseph shown a singular modesty, telling the King, that the true explications of Dreams, and all certain and infallible Prophecies came from God which is the father of lights, and at length opening his opinion, said, That Egypt should have seven years, such as never were, for abundance and fruitfulness, that should be followed with seven others over which should reign such a barrenness and famine through all the land, that it should deface the memory of all that great fertility that had gone before. And therefore he would counsel his Majesty to find out a prudent and active man to give him the superintendency of all the land of Egypt, which should have Commissaries under him through all the Provinces, that should cause diligently the fifth part of the fruits, and the revenues of corn that should proceed every year out of that fecundity to be laid up and kept in the King's granaries and magazines, that should be distributed in divers Provinces for that purpose, and that this would be a most secure means to remedy the great famine that should follow that long prosperity.  
The interpretation of Pharaoh's Dream was admired, and the advice judged exceeding good, which caused the King, thinking that there was no man in all his Realm more capable of that design than he that had given the invention of it, to establish from that time Joseph in that Charge so important to the whole Nation. It is a marvellous thing to consider the honours that this Prince did him, and the high titles wherewith he qualified him (God being pleased to show in this that he multiplies the consolations of his faithful servants above all the measure of the displeasures that they can have received) for he did not content himself to give him the silk robe, the collar of the order, the ring of his finger, to procure him a rich marriage by causing him to be espoused to the daughter of an high Priest of the city of Heliopolis consecrated to the sun, but he caused him to be called The Saviour of the world, and commanded that he should be carried through the capital city upon his triumphant chariot, and that the Herald of Arms should cause men to bend their knees before him, that he might be acknowledged of all the people, and that all the world might understand that nothing was done but by his orders.  
Where are those admirers of the fortunes of glass that happen to to the wicked? where are those adorers of the Colussus of dirt that appear by the help of some false guildings, and are immediately reduced to dust? Let them see and let them consider that the God of heaven and earth which we adore is the God of honour too, whereof he gives a share to his, when it pleases him, with magnificences that surpass all whatsoever one can imagine. For a prison of three years Joseph is exalted to a principality of fourscore, with an authority so absolute, that it never yet had its equal since the foundation of the Monarchy of the Egyptians.  
It now remains to observe for the instruction of Courtiers the deportments of Joseph in that Charge, and although the Scripture says very little of that business, enlarging itself principally upon the narration of his reconciliation with his brethren, yet it omits not to give us something whereon to meditate, and whereby to instruct ourselves about his demeanour at the Court.  
In the first place, he is greatly to be commended for having preserved through his whole life a piety inviolable in the Religion of his fathers, without altering the service of the true God by any bad tincture of the superstition of the Egyptians. Represent to yourselves a child about seventeen years of age, that was in a strange Nation as the Morningstar, whereof the Scripture speaks, in the midst of clouds, without a father, without a mother, without a governor or a teacher, without a Priest, without a Sacrifice, without a Law, without Precepts, and without example, that saw himself alured and powerfully solicited to quit his Religion, by that complacency which he desired to give his Prince, by the consideration of his fortune, by the friendship of the great ones, by the condition of his marriage, and by the liking (which he might aim at) of a people extremely fastened to their error, that could not easily endure those that had any other opinion of their Gods then their madness did prescibe. And yet, in an age so tender he holds his own by constancy of mind against the mighty, by reason against the sages of the country, by wariness against his own wife, by sweetness and by prudence against the people. He remains alone, amongst so many millions of superstitious men, an adorer of the truth in spirit, without other sacrifices or ceremonies which were not lawful for him to use. To speak truth, he that shall weigh all these circumstances, will find a marvellous weight of virtue and constancy in this holy personage. We may see many of the young gentry sufficiently well educated at the first, that coming to breathe the air of liberty amongst the Heretics, and having not the frequentation of the Sacraments so free as formerly, easily forget their duty, and without having any other corruptour to solicit them, corrupt themselves of themselves through the want of courage and wearisomeness of virtue. But if there be any baits of pleasure or of honour that allures them to the side of impiety they tread often times under foot all that there is of divine and humane, for the satisfying of their sensuality. But this young man that saw every day before his eyes a thousand stumbling-blocks in a Nation that was addicted to Idolatry above all the People of the World, and that had often torn in pieces those that expressed any contempt of their Ceremonies preserves himself amidst these enticements and these furies, as a fountain of freshwater in the midst of the salt-Sea. The true God always returned into his thoughts when he was to combat against the passion of his Mistress, when he was to present himself to the King, when he was to require an oath of his brethren, it was by the true God, and when he was ready to render up the Ghost, he conjured his children not to let his bones rot in a land of Idolatry.  
Yet some men may wonder, that in so long a sojourning as he made in Egypt, and in an authority so absolute, he took care only of the Politic affairs, and advanced not the interests of his Religion. Some may marvel at the alliance that he made with a daughter of a Priest of Idols, which could not be without putting his conscience in great danger, there being nothing more full of Artifice than superstition that is upheld with Love.  
But to this I answer, That all that he could do then was to preserve his Faith, without pretending to ruin the contrary. It was not expedient that the figure should encroach upon the Body, and that Joseph should do the work of the Messiah. This demolition of the profane Temples, and this destruction of the Idols was not due but to Jesus Christ, and to the Deifying operations of the Evangelicall Law, after the coming of the Holy Spirit. How should Joseph have been able to enterprise the conversion of the Gentiles, seeing that our Lord would not permit, no not his Disciples, while he was yet on earth, to make incursions, and missions into the Country of the Heathens, commanding them to stay for that spirit of fire and light that was to inflame the whole world with its ardours? And as for that which touches his alliance, there was not yet any Law that forbade the Marriages of the Jews with the Gentiles, and he had but newly seen the example of his Father Jacob, who had allied himself with the house of Laban. This was done indifferently enough in the Law of Nature, by reason that God had not commanded any thing that was contrary to this practice, and because that his People were yet but a little family in the middle of the world. But this fashion was changed afterward, (as it is clear by the Scripture) and those who produce the Examples of Abraham and of Jacob, to persuade alliance with Infidels, show that they have little Reason and much Passion.  
In the second Place, I say that the Modesty of Joseph is of a rare Example, and of a strength of mind almost incomparable. Which will be easy enough to prove to those that know how seriously to weigh the change of humour and of spirit, that honour ordinarily brings with it, and especially when it is great and sudden, and falls upon a person that is not accustomed to it. There are some that are like the Thracians that make themselves Drunk, standing about burning coals, by the odour of a certain herb which they throw into the fire, after which they dance continually, and forget all the functions of the reasonable life. So may you see abundance of such men, who perceiving themselves raised upon the wings of fortune, fall into such a madness of glory, that they are as it were dizzy-headed by certain venomous fumigations of ambition, and know themselves no more. But this man sees himself at his going out of prison mounted to the highest point of honour that ever happened to a Favourite; He hath the King's Ring and Seal, he triumphs upon his Chariot, he sees the Nobles in admiration of his Fortune, and the Commons in veneration: he sees the applauses, he hears the Clamours of those that highly publish him the saviour of the world; And yet for all this great preparation, there escapes not from him one only word of vanity. He expresses not any complacency in those honours, and in that habit, and it is not read that after the day of the Ceremony he ever used them. He publicly a vouches that he is the son of a Shepherd, he causes his Father and his Brothers to come into the Kingdom of Egypt, not to give them the Offices of the Court, and the Treasures of Pharaoh, but he lets them alone in their vocation, contenting himself to procure their quiet, and some small commodities suitable to that Pastoral life. He humbles himself before his Father, he acknowledges and makes much of his Brethren, he gains the heart of all the world, and bears so actively that high top of glory, that he seems to be no more laden with it, than a Bird is with his Feathers.  
The third perfection of Joseph is remarkable in the great and laborious services that he rendered to his Prince, with an high Prudence, an exquisite Diligence, and an inviolable faithfulness. He visited in person all the Provinces of Egypt, and in the great fertility of those fortunate years, when Corn was almost as cheap as sand, he laid up a prodigious store in the King's Magazines to relieve the necessities of the barrenness that was to come: and indeed it did not fail to happen, but endured the space of seven years, with such a violence, and so great disasters, that it seemed that the bowels of the Earth were iron, and that God had resolved to destroy mankind by a General Famine. It was then that all the People implored the mercy of the King, who sent them back to Joseph who caused the Granaries of all Egypt to be set open, and sold corn to all those that had need of it, first for money, afterward for Cattles, and at last when both money and Cattles failed the Egyptians, they sold their Lands in great number, so that all Egypt was submitted to the discretion of the King, to avoid that raging Famine. They gave themselves and their little possessions with all their heart for Bread; But Joseph takeing pity of their great miseries made them Conditions that were above all their hopes. This people was of a spirit bright enough, addicted to novelties and seditions, which made them often shake off the yoke, but Joseph tamed them insensibly by their own necessities, and subjected all Egypt to his Master, causing him to reign peaceably, and with a great authority, and yet for all this drew no envy upon himself, but quite contrary he made his Government be admired, and his memory blessed!  
Amongst all this it is not said that he enriched his house with the great treasures that he heaped up for Pharaoh, and although that his Master had put all things into his power, yet he used them so moderately, that when he had a mind to offer presents to his brother Benjamin, whom he loved as his own heart, he contented himself to give him five suits of Clothes, and three hundred Livers, making the same largesse to his Father, with some Mules to transport their Baggage. Yet is is very true that he caused the Land of Goshen to be given them, but it was, as it were, by way of loan, to dwell there, and to husband it, till the return that Jacob pretended to make to the Country of his Fathers. In a word, Joseph plainly shown that he was little affected to all the Riches of the Egyptians when he received of his father, and made reckoning of it, a little piece of Land that he had gained from the Amorites.  
A fourth quality of this wise Governor, which is greatly to be prized, is seen in the great prudence and singular sweetness which he used in his Government, in such a manner that he gained the affection of all the great men of Egypt. David speaking of this discretion and of this goodness saith, according to the Hebrew Text, That he tied them all to his heart, which is as much as to say, That he united them to his person by a great affability, by good offices, and by honest yield. They looked upon him as a Father, and as a Master, and had him in veneration: and yet for all this he was not puffed with Pride, nor inebriated with the opinion of his own sufficiency; But in all the extraordinary favours that he received of the King his Master, he was communicable, and esteeming himself as one of them, he saw them all under him. To speak sincerely, it is an admirable thing, That a stranger should have held the Stern of a Kingdom the space of four score years in a Nation full of Spirit, and sufficiently seditious, without complaints, without discontents, and without intermissions in a calm so peaceable, a Peace so amiable, a Love so Universal. How many do we see in Histories that being come to some dignity seem continually to hold a Wolf by the ears and as they love nothing but their own Interest, so are they loved sincerely of no body, which puts them in continual frights and makes them fear even the very shadow of an hair! They think not that there is any security for themselves, unless they put the whole world in danger, nor safety, unless it be in the public Ruins. This makes them be hated of God, and Men; and causes cares to leap over Ramparts of Steel and Iron, to beset their silver Balisters, and to call them to an account at every moment for the Calamity of the Living, and for the Blood of the Dead.  
This was a fifth Lineament of his good demeanour, that he had bowels of Compassion for the poor People in that cruel Famine, and general despair of all Egypt. And although one might imagine that he had promoted the Interests of the King in an excess to the detriment of the Subject; yet is it true that he that will well consider the estate and Laws of that Monarchy will impute to joseph's favour that which he would have taken at first sight for Rigour in his Government.  
It is certain that according to the Ancient Histories which treat of the Policy of that Nation, the Revenue of Egypt was divided into three parts: the first of which was claimed by the Priests that were in great number, and in great esteem in a superstitious Nation; and that Portion was employed in the building of Temples, in the expense of sacrifices, and in the maintenance of the Sacrificers and Ministers that were preserved in their inheritances and possessions by the Reverence that was born to Religion. The second was the Kings who was obliged to feed and pay the Soldiery, and those that administered Justice. The third belonged to the Common people composed of Labourers, of Shepherds and of Artificers, who seeing themselves oppressed with famine, offered willingly their inheritances and their Bodies too for Bread. But Joseph remitted all, gave them wherewith to sow, and even the  to Blow the Ground, on this condition, that they would render to the King the fifth part of the Increase, which they agreed to with a free will, finding their repose, their good, and their safety in that transaction. So that the holy Patriarch is free from blame in all these proceed. For if upon the foresight of the barrenness he made provision of Corn, it was Prudence, if he sold it dear in a time that the want of it was great, it was justice; but if he exacted not of the Egyptians all that necessity prescribed them; using them with more favour than the misery of their condition did bear, it was mercy. And to make it evidently appear that Joseph made himself beloved of the People, one may observe an excellent Treatise of Julius Firmicus an ancient Ecclesiastical Author that assures us, That the Egyptians finding themselves infinitely obliged to his Providence and to his Courtesy, consecrated him under the name of Serapis that carried a measure of Corn upon his head, to signify that he was the God that had given them bread.  
For a sixth observation, one cannot sufficiently admire that prodigious goodness which he testified in his reconciliation with his brethren. Upon which the sacred History extends itself with magnificence and pomp, for he did that action with much preparation, and seasoned it with a certain gentleness and memorable circumstances to render it more solemn. He frighted them to secure them; he made them sad to make them joyful; He tormented them with fears and griefs to make them taste their felicity with a more delicious daintiness.  
An Ancient said also, That there is never any thing Good without the experience of Evil, and for this purpose he afflicts them at first by a feigned Rigour, to make them experiment a true Goodness; for to follow in this History the paths of the holy Scripture without any other amplification such as one may read in the History of the R. Fa. Talon who hath handled this subject with a flourishing and delightful stile: Consider how when they presented themselves unto him to buy Corn in Egypt by his permission, he knew them without being known, He assumed a severe countenance, and harsh language, he used them as Spies that come to observe the defects of the Cities and of the Citadels of Egypt to make a report of it to the enemy. They very much astonished, answered, that they were very far from all such practices, being of a peaceable nature and condition, the sons of a good man the father of twelve children, the youngest of which stayed at home with him, and the other was dead many years ago.  
Joseph that had not his reckoning if he got not his dear brother Benjamin that issued from the same mother as himself, frighted them more to make them resolve to bring him, and told them, that he perceived well that they were Impostors, and that he would believe nothing of what they said, if they came not to produce that little brother of whom they spoke; That these were but inventions to amuse him, but he would not be satisfied, nor put off with Fables. Thereupon he gave command that they should all be put in prison under a good and safe Guard. These miserable men say three days in a place where they endured very long, and they began to think upon their conscience, persuading themselves that it was their brother's blood that rebounded upon their heads. Joseph causes them to be brought, and questions them again, as to make ready their indictment, and to cause them to be put to death. The fear wherein they thought themselves to be gave them great remorses, and made them say amongst themselves; It is upon a just ground that we suffer now an accident so little expected by us; we well enough remember that we saw the anguish of our poor brother Joseph, when we held him in our cruel hands to kill him; we have sold him to the infidels, and he died in slavery overwhelmed with miseries; It is of his blood that God makes us now to give an account.  
They said this with a low voice in joseph's and the Egyptians presence, thinking that their language had not been understood by any one; but all those words entered into the heart of their good brother, who was very much melted with compassion, and withdrew himself to let fall some tears which joy and pity forced from his eyes.  
In fine, he commanded them to return unto their home, on condition that one of them should remain Prisoner till such time as they had brought their little brother. Simeon was chosen to be the sacrifice, and was bound in their presence, which they could not see without a sad displeasure. This done they were dismissed with their Loads of Corn, and the money which they had brought secretly put up again into their sacks by joseph's order. When they perceived it, it astonished them, but being already far advanced upon the way, they returned to their Father, related to him faithfully all that had passed, and expect thereupon his counsels and commands.  
But when the Goodman heard them speak of taking away his Benjamin, he felt himself touched in the apple of the eye, and said, that he saw plainly that all his children would be taken from him, that they should remember that one had been devoured by the wild beasts, another lay in chains in a strange Country, and that instead of comforting him, they would yet carry away him that assisted him in his old age, and made him love more tenderly that little life that remained to him; That if this should come short home, It would precipitate his grey hairs to the Grave with most bitter Griefs. It was pitiful to see the torment of that good old man, and he was not for that time to be pressed farther upon a point so sensible. They let some days slip away, and as the famine increased, and the Corn diminished, Jacob without being brought to it by his Children gins again to speak of a voyage into Egypt. They reply that it was a superfluous thing to think on it, if he made not a resolution to send with them his son Benjamin; but when they spoke to him of that, they opened the wound of his heart, and he said that it was to make all the miseries of his unfortunate house fall back on him, and that they might well have omitted to tell the Governor of Egypt that they had yet another brother. Whereupon they informed him, that he himself had inquired particularly about the state of all the family, and that they had no list to lie, not being able to Divine that he would demand that child.  
The necessity of food, and the love of a father combated at the same time in that afflicted heart, and he knew not what to resolve on. His sons seeing him a little stagger, urge him eagerly as one does those that are slow and fearful when one would wrest any thing from them. Reuben offers him his two little sons in hostage, and would have him kill them, if he brings not back to him his Benjamin. Judah engages himself for him upon his head and life. The battery was too strong for him not to yield; he order them therefore to take some of the best fruits of their Land to make presents to that great Lord of Egypt, and to carry their money double, to restore that which had been put into their sacks, lest it should have happened by an over sight, and also to take their little brother seeing that such was the necessity. When they came to a departure, he felt great convulsions, and said to them go then in an happy hour. I pray my God, the God Almighty which hath never yet forsaken me, that he would render that great Governor of Egypt favourable to you, and that you may quickly bring back that poor prisoner, and my little Benjamin which I put now into your hands upon the promises which you have made, to which I call heaven to witness. Know furthermore, that I am deprived of all my children and that I shall be as in the Grave, till such time as the happy news of your return shall give me a Resurrection.  
This being said, they put themselves on the way, arrive at Egypt, and present themselves suddenly to their brother who perceived that Benjamin was there, whereat he was wonderfully pleased, and commanded his Steward to make ready a dinner, because he would eat with those strangers. They are brought into the house with much courtesy, yet (as an evil conscience is ever fearful) they persuade themselves that it is to put them in Prison, and to keep them in servitude by reason of that money which they had found in their sacks. They address themselves to the Cashkeeper of the house, very much scared, and beseech him to hear them; they relate to him with great sincerity all that had happened to them protesting that that came not by their fault, and offering all that they thought they were indebted to him, The other made answer with great affability, that he had received of them good money, that he held himself satisfied, and that if they had found any in their sacks it was their good luck, and the God of their fathers that had a mind to gratify them. He gave them notice that they were to dine that day with their Lord, who would suddenly return from his affairs to set himself at Table. They order in the mean time their present, and their brother Simeon is released who embraces them with a joy which was as the forerunner of a greater. They are made to wash and repose themselves, and meat is also given to their Mules.  
And when all this was dispatched, Joseph enters to go to dinner; they prostrate themselves before him with a profound reverence, and offer him their presents. He receives them with great courtesy, and asks of them at first sight, how their good Father did, and whether he was yet alive. To which they answered, that God of his goodness had preserved to them that which they held most dear, and that he was in a very good condition. Then he fixed his eyes upon his brother Benjamin, and said unto them, Is this then your little brother of whom you have made mention to me? To which they answer, that they had brought him with them, to obey his commands, and to justify the sincerity of their proceed. His heart was ravished at him, and turning himself towards him, My child, says he to him, I pray God to give your his holy Graces, and to keep you in his protection. Upon this speech, he felt his heart very much moved, and ran into his Closet, not being able any longer to hold his tears, and wept in secret, so great an impression had blood and nature, and perhaps the remembrance of his Mother who had born them both, made upon his Spirit.  
When he had wiped his face, he returns with a merry countenance, he commands his men to wait. He dined apart, a little separated from his brethren, and from another company of the Egyptians who were also at the Feast and had no communication with the Jews. He gives charge above all that they use well the youngest of those eleven brothers, which say that they are all the sons of one and the same father, and that they should spare nothing on them. After all, he ordered that they should fill their sacks with Corn, and that they should put again the money also in them, as they had done at their first journey, and spoke to his Steward, giving him charge to take the Cup in which he drank and to put it in the sack of little Benjamin, which he did; and after they had well dined, they passed the rest of the day in all tranquillity, expecting the morrow to put themselves upon their way, and to return to their father.  
When the day began to dawn after they had bid their Adieus, and given their thanks, they depared from the City very joyful, for that they had had so happy Accidents; But they were not very far before they see a man coming from Joseph, that seems exceedingly to chase, stops them, and says to them that some body had stolen away his Master's Cup with which he serves himself to drink in, and to Divine things hidden; that this could not happen but from them, and that they were very injurious, after they had been entertained in the house of the Governor of Egypt with so much courtesy, to render him evil for good and to fly away after they had committed a Theft so base and so outrageous.  
The brothers extremely astonished answer that this cannot be, and that they should be the wickedest men upon the earth if they had as much as dreamt of such an attempt; That there was no likelihood that they that had brought back faithfully the money that had been put into their sacks would steal in the house of so high a Potentate; Furthermore, that there was no need of words, but that he should come to proof, and search every where, and that if any one of them was culpable of that sacrilege, they were content to deliver him up to death, and to render themselves, all the Governors' slaves for reparation of that fault.  
The condition is accepted with moderation, that the faulty should be punished, and that the innocent should go free. They are all searched in order, and the Cup was found in the sack of the youngest. The brothers are seized with a profound astonishment, and the poor child so amazed, that he hath not a word to defend himself. They begin all to afflict themselves, and to rend their clothes, and return to the City as Thiefs taken in the fact to render an account to the Governor. As soon as he saw them he reproached them of ingratitude, and said to them, that they were much deceived to come to him to steal, seeing there was not a man in the whole world that had more news of secret things than he. All prostrate themselves on the ground, and do him Reverence; Judah takes the word and says, That they came not to excuse themselves, that they had nothing to say, since God had rendered their iniquity so visible, that they were come all to offer themselves to him to be his slaves with him that had done the deed. Nay, it shall not go so, saith Joseph, but the culpable shall stay with me, and ye shall return all of you, at liberty to your house. Then Judah drew near, desired audience with a profound humility, and declared how that child was his Father's heart and life, and that having received order from his Excellence to pluck him out of the arms of the old man and to bring him, they had given him battles to make him resolve on that Voyage, to which he would by no means hearken. But the desire they had to give all possible satisfaction to his greatness had made them press that business so fare as to oblige themselves life for life, body for body, and to deliver their little children to death, in case that they brought not back their brother Benjamin; that thereupon the goodman rendered himself with much difficulty, and that to go and tell him at present that his dear son in whom he lives, and by whom he breathes, is stayed prisoner in Egypt, for a case of theft, would be to give him a double death, and to send him to the Grave with inconsolable griefs. And therefore he beseeched his Greatness to show them mercy, and to take him for a slave in the place of his brother Benjamin.  
Joseph could hear no more, so much love and pity did he feel in the bottom of his heart. He caused all the servants to withdraw, not being willing that any of the Egyptians should be witness of this action, and then he lifted up his voice with a great sigh, and a torrent of tears that glided from his eyes, and said, I am Joseph, is my Father yet alive? At that speech these poor men stood so surprised, and in such an ecstasy, that they made him no reply. By how much the more he saw them astonished, by so much the more did he make much of them, and making them approach very near him, he said again, I am Joseph, I am he that ye sold to the Ishmaelites to be carried into Egypt. Trouble not yourselves; God permitted this for my good and for yours. Two years of Famine are past, there are yet five remaining, and I have been sent from on high into Egypt to nourish you, and to preserve you in the rigour of the time. It was not by your counsels, but by the ordinances of God that I came into this Kingdom. And now behold, I am as a father to Pharaoh, the Superintendent of his house, and the Prince of Egypt. Go, haste ye to return to my father, carry him the news of my life and of my dignity, relate to him all the glory and all the magnificence that environs me, and tell him that I expect him here, and that it is the will of God that he should come to sojourn in the land of Goshen, where he shall have all that he can desire for his children and for his flocks. This said he embraced them weeping, beginning with the little Benjamin, and then they took the boldness to speak to him with open heart about all that had passed, thinking themselves obliged above all measure to his goodness.  
The fame of this acknowledgement ran in the house of Pharaoh, who ordered Joseph to cause his Father to come and sojourn in Egypt with his brothers, dispatching many chariots to carry all his baggage.  
The children returned Triumphing, and gave him the news that his son Joseph was alive, and the second person of the Realm of Egypt that had the managing of all. The Goodman thought that it was a dream, and the admiration of it held him so seized that he could not come to himself again; at length when he saw that it was all in good earnest, and that the Chariots that were to carry away all his family were at the gate, he said, that now there remained nothing more for him to desire, if his son Joseph was alive, and that he would see him before his death. Some time after, he departed, being encouraged by an heavenly Vision that promised him all good successes in that journey; and when he was arrived at Goshen he dispatched Judah to give the news of it to his son Joseph, who at the same instant went up into his Coach to go to meet him, and seeing him embraced him with close enfoldings, weeping for joy and tenderness upon his neck. His Father holding him between his arms said; My son, It is at this hour that I shall die content, since God hath showed me the grace to see you, and to leave you alive after me. The holy man was also presented to King Pharaoh who made him a great entertainment, and demanded of him his age; to which he answered that he was but an hundred and thirty years old, that those days were few and evil, and were not extended to the age of his Fathers; He blessed the King, and his place of abode was assigned in the land of Goshen where he lived in a most full content.  
And now I demand of my Reader, if there be any thing more magnificent, more sweet, and more benign than the heart of Joseph in all the circumstances of that Reconciliation with his brethren? We see many Histories wherein the Grandees of the earth that mount up on their Thrones, after they have been offended, who, have nothing so ordinary as to make Furies and Vengeances with squadrons of Hangmen march with them by their side, to Ruin those that have done them any displeasure. But this man, after he had been so cruelly used, after he had been stripped of his , cast into an old pit of water, domineered over, and sold to Barbarians by his own brothers with an intention to keep him in an hard slavery the rest of his days; not only forgets all that had passed, but pardons them with a profusion of Charity; he does them good, he over-whelms with good offices those ungrateful men, and in obliging them, he hath but one trouble, which is to see them shameful of their crime. He weeps while he embraces them one after another: He would not that that fault should be imputed to them: He says that it was a design of God on which they should think no more unless to thank him. These bad brethren, after their father's death, finding themselves pricked with remorse of conscience, and imagining that that pardon was but a dissembling, cast themselves at his feet, and beseech him to lay aside all the resentments of past wrongs; but he raised them, weeping, and promised them a Charity totally fraternal, and for ever inviolable. And though he was so puissant and so absolute, he never advanced his own children to the prejudice of his brothers, observing them and respecting in every thing the right of Eldership which nature had given them over him. Certainly a man that hath such a power over himself ought to be looked upon on earth as a Star that should descend from heaven, and as the liveliest image of the divine Goodness: he merits not only to triumph on Pharaoh's charrets, but on the Heaven of heavens, and so be beheld by Angels with admiration of his desert. Finally, that which was glorious in Joseph for the fullness of this perfection, was the strength and equality of an incomparable spirit; he was always like himself, and saw all the changes of his fortune without changing: He descends into the deep pit with the same countenance as he mounts upon Pharaoh's chariot: He complains of nothing: He accuses no body: He stifles all the displeasures and all the resentment of nature in him. He is loved of his Mistress, without condescending to her passion: He is hated of her, without accusing her cruelty: He is accused, without defending himself, persecuted, without resisting. So many years' roll over his head without writing one only word to his father to the disadvantage of his inhuman brothers: He suffers with silence: He hides his evils with industry: He does good without affectation: He bears upon his shoulders all the cares of a great Government without groaning under his burden: He communicates his glories and his pleasures: He reserves to himself only the toils: He takes the bitter and the sweet, the hard and the soft, prosperities and adversities, as the sea that receives all the rivers without changing either colour or savour. All his life is but a picture that hath always the same visage: and as the De●ty does continually one and the same action without altering or wearying itself, he continues the exercises of his goodness without remission, even to the last article of his life.   

MOSES.  
WHat spectacle is this here? A cradle of bulrushes floating upon the River Nile, and in it a little abandoned Infant, for whom his own mother is constrained to make a grave of water to avoid the fury of the murderers that came to pluck him from the breast. His sister follows him with weeping eyes, and says to him, Go poor child whither fortune shall conduct thee; go, my dear brother, upon the floats of a furious Element which perhaps will be more favourable to thee then those inhuman men that seek thy life, when as thou knowest not yet what 'tis to live. This River will have pity on thee, or if it swallows up thy cradle in its waves, it will lodge thy bones in its bosom, and cover thy death to sweeten the bitterest of our evils which is to have eyes to look upon our misery.  
But while that this poor maid weeps upon the bank of Nilus, and mingles her tears with the water of the River, Providence takes the care of that cradle; she makes herself as the Pilot of that little vessel which is without mast, without rudder, without cordage; she supplies all, and does all, she shows how one may find life in death, and an haven in a shipwreck.  
The daughter of King Pharaoh comes with her female train, and in it is her intention to bathe herself, but in God's intention, that she might be made the mother of that little Infant exposed to the mercy of the waters; and that since she could not be so by Nature, she might be by Adoption. She discovers first of all that cradle which was on the water's side, and dispatches one of her damsels to take it up and bring it her, that she might see what was in it; she finds a very fair child which pleads his case before her by the eloquence of his tears and of his cries, and implores her mercy against the fury of the Infant-slayers. Her heart is melted in compassion towards it, and she gives command that it should be kept and nourished; his sister standing opportunely by says unto her that she knew where was a good Nurse that would well acquit herself of that duty, if it pleased her Majesty that she might call her; whereto she having showed some inclination, she causes the mother to come that nursed with all security her dear Infant which she had exposed through diffidence.  
This little body drawn out of the bundle of rushes is he that God hath chosen to shake all Egypt, to overthrow the pride of Pharaoh's, and to draw his people out of Captivity.  
The Hebrews were already multiplied exceedingly in the Kingdom of Egypt after the death of Joseph, in the space of sixty five years, and began to make themselves feared of their Masters. The face of the Realm was changed, and he that was then upon the Throne was a Prince that remembered not any longer the obligations that the Monarchy had to the Patriarch Joseph, but blamed the counsels of his Predecessors for having permitted a stranger-people to have a dwelling in his Kingdom; that seeming to him, according to humane Policy, of pernicious consequence, and thinking that that waxing stronger, as it did, every day might be capable to make an attempt upon the State, or be serviceable to those that had a design to make a commotion, and to embroil the affairs of the Kingdom. He judged not ill, according to the rules of Politicians; and for that purpose, he resoved with himself to abate and to destroy them by what means soever it was done. The first was to consume them amongst stones and mortar in the structure of those prodigious Pyramids that are to be seen in Egypt. The second was to command the Midwives to kill all the Male-childrens, which they did not execute through the fear which they had of God, and the horror of that command. This made him advise upon a third means, and ordain, that all the Boys from the day of their birth should be drowned in the River Nile.  
But God (that would teach Princes and State-Ministers, that although one should have in Idea any just and lawful design, yet one never ought to seek to compass it by unjust and violent means) permitted not this unhappy Prince that gnawed himself with cares and unquietness, and tormented his life by so many new inventions of malice and of fury, ever to bring about what he projected; and his successor, after a thousand scourges, and a thousand disastres of his Kingdom which he saw every day fall by pieces before his eyes, was buried in the red Sea for drowning those little Innocents' in the Nile.  
The life of one only man oftentimes costs him dear that will have it by Revenge; what then do we think that it is to root out a great family, or a whole Nation to satisfy one of our appetites? All the veins of those that are persecuted bend themselves to resistance, and God (in fine) taking their cause in hand overwhelms all humane Policy in a crudity of undigested designs and a shame to have tried every thing and to have done nothing, to have exhausted the sweat, and the blood of the people, the gold and the steel of great Kingdoms, all malices and all hell, and to obtain no other thing but a remarkable Confusion through the weakness of ones power.  
Seneca said to Nero that inflicted so many deaths by a jealousy of State, that he killed men to good purpose indeed, and that whatsoever endeavour he used, he should never put to death his successor. When Tyrants torment themselves without, and sack smoking cities, and mow off so many innocent heads, they have within that which will destroy them. Pharaoh ceased not to storm, and to make every day new massacres, to cause him to perish that would make an attempt upon his State; and in the mean while his own daughter nourishes the most capital of his enemies, that was to make his Sceptre fly in shivers, and bury him in his race under the ruins of his Empire.  
Natural History hath observed a strange thing of the nature of the Helmet-flower, that it is a plant as venomous as possible, and that kills all those that eat of it, and yet for all this, there are little flies about that plant which are nourished with it, and (what is admirable) serve for an Antidote against its poison. The Court is a residence very prejudicial to Innocence, and that of Pharaoh's was without doubt a School of Murders and of Massacres, rather than an Academy of Honour: and yet God permitted that Moses should be bred up there, and that without being touched with a venom so contageous to virtues he should give a remedy to those that were offended with it.  
He learned all the Arts and all the Wisdom of the Egyptians; he considered all their Policy, all their Artifices, their Arms; their Levies, their Victual, their Soldiers, the Principles of their Government, the Effects, the Successes, the Disposition of King Pharaoh, the Esteem, the Credit, the Capacity, and the Designs of the great Ones of the Court, the Means that had upheld that Monarchy, and the Things that might ruin it. He was respected and esteemed of all, as the true son of the Princess, which gave him the liberty to know every thing, and to learn the secret mysteries of the Empire, not as a stranger, but as an originary.  
He shown from his infancy some glimpse of the greatness and of the power to which God destined him, when (according to the report of the Hebrews) being at play one day with the Crown of Pharaoh, he threw it on the ground, and trod upon it with his feet, which was esteemed a very bad presage, and gave much trouble to the King; but when they would discern whether that action proceeded from judgement and from malice, or from chance, they presented to him on one side an apple, and on the other a coal of fire, to see to which of the two he would reach his hand; now the child quitting the fruit, took the fire, as if he would put it to his mouth to eat it. Whereupon the sages of the Nation informed the King, that there was no reason to put to death an infant, adopted by his daughter, for an action of simplicity.  
He was then trained up in the exercise of arms, and Josephus relates, that being come to maturity of age, he was a great warrior; and that the Ethiopians having made an inundation upon the Realm of Egypt with great forces, when the State was very much troubled with them, the King was counselled by his Oracles to make use of an Hebrew Captain to stop the course of those hostilities. The charge of the Army was given to Moses, who led it with great prudence through places that others judged inaccessible, and by means of certain Birds which he caused to be carried out of Egypt, purged the Country of the serpents that were wont extremely to annoy the soldiers. In fine, he chased the Ethiopians and shut them up within the walls of their city Saba which he pvissantly besieged. The beauty of his countenance furnished him with darts and engines to take it, that were stronger than fire and sword. The King's daughter having seen him from an high tower as he gave orders for the siege, was so ravished with his valour, that she became passionately in love with him, and causes him to be sued unto for marriage, on which condition she would deliver the city into his hands; which was executed, and the Nuptials followed, which changed the thunders of War into the songs of Love. The glories that this Conqueror gathered from these combats were the seeds of an enraged envy which the Egyptians had against him, ceasing not to persecute his virtue, so that he was constrained to get him out of Egypt.  
Yet it is held that he was at Court till the age of forty years, without advancing any thing in that great affair of the Deliverance of his People, so leisurely do mighty negotiations proceed, and are like the Planet of Saturn, which being the highest is the slowest too. He resented his blood, and his original, and had very much ado to digest the rigours that he saw continually exercised upon his brethren; yet as long as he was at Court, his spirit seemed to be in an eclipse without producing the vivacity of those fair Lights that God communicated to him in the wilderness. The Wisemen lost their Star at the Court of Herod, and Moses was deprived of his high revelations in that of Pharaoh. He was in a condition not to be able any longer to dissemble the evil of his Nation, and in an impotence to advance the good as he would have done; he made a resolution to leave that place that was so familiar to Crimes and inaccessible to Virtues. The clamours that he heard, and the miseries that he saw, rend his heart; He could not hold from making an insolent Egyptian that tormented one of his brethren feel how much his hand weighed; for having already a secret magistracy from God, he killed him, and buried him in the sand.  
A few days after, as he played the moderator between those of his Nation, an impudent fellow risen up against him, and demanded of him the virtue of his commission, reproaching him with the murder of the Egyptian which he thought had been very secret: yet when he perceived that it was known at Court, and that Pharaoh that was a suspicious Prince took jealousies of his courage and of his sufficiency, he quitted all the greatnesses and all the delights of the palace of that Monarch, choosing rather to suffer with his Brethren, as saith S. Paul, then to taste any more the sweetnesses of a temporal glory. It is an act of prudence to steal away from the fury of a wicked Prince, who holds for enemy all that there is of virtuous, and to hid one's self as those Rivers that go a long way under ground without being seen of any one, and then unexpectedly produce themselves, to water the meadows, to bear boats, to serve for a knot to the commerce of men, and to make Islands and Beauties for the ornament of Nature. These retire have been advantageous to many, whom they have hid for a time, with an intention to set them afterward in bright day. The fire which devours every thing hath no more to do with the ashes and the rage of Tyrants, that swallows up every thing, thinks no more on those that enter while they live (as it were) into the sepulchre of a life unknown to all the world.  
Moses passed from one extremity to another without the middle, when forsaking the Court, after a stay of forty years, he went to range himself in the life of shepherds, and remained as one lost in the world, to find himself with God. He withdrew himself into the country of the Midianites, where he had at first approach a pleasing encounter that made him find a commodious dwelling, and a marriage according to his heart. The sacred History says that Jethro a Priest and Shepherd in that Region had sent seven daughters whereof he was the father, to draw water at a fountain for their flocks to drink, and that having met with other shepherds insolent enough that taking a pride to insult over the infirmity of that sex, ceased not to harry them, and to hinder them from the use of an Element that nature had made to slide for the commodity of the public. Moses (that had the quality of Plato's Magistrate, whom he would have to be zealous and courageous for the defence of Justice) could not endure the insolence of those wicked men, and takes the maiden's part whom he defended against oppression with so much success, as that he chased away their adversaries, and gave them free liberty to draw water. For which they thought themselves very much obliged, and failed not to make a large relation to their father of the courtesy of that Egyptian that had taken them into his protection. Their father received him into his house, and took so much pleasure in his conversation, that he gave him one of his daughters in marriage, and allied him to his family by an indissoluble amity.  
This new son-in-law accustomed himself to a country life, and practised the laborious exercises of shepherds; so true it is, that able men bend their spirit whither they will, and are good at doing every thing, habituating themselves to persons and to places where their lot hath ranged them, bearing equally want and abundance, and showing by their example, that there is no life in the world so strange that may not serve for matter to virtue. But without speaking yet of the great secrets that God kept hidden in this ordering of Moses, I find that it was the means to make a great Statesman of him, because that Philosopher which hath deserved the title of Divine says, that a good King is nothing else but a shepherd of a reasonable flock; and that he ought to take his first Rudiments from the manner of ordering sheep, to succeed well in the Government of Kingdoms; that he ought to see the tender love, the cares, and the toils of the true shepherds, to learn how he ought to demean himself towards his Subjects. Moses had all leisure to lay those grounds, tarrying as many years in his Country life as he had before passed at Court: and ceasing not to play the Philosopher, and to contemplate in that great School of Nature, where God spoke to him, and taught him lessons through the veil of all the Creatures. O how little did the pompous pride of the Pharaoh's then seem to him! O how contemptible then did seem all those beauties of dust, and those fortunes of wind that are at Court! His heart dilated itself in the greatnesses of God, and became every day wiser than itself.  
This long solitude having purged him from the impurities of the earth, rendered him capable of the visits and commerce of God; and the time destined to the deliverance of his people being now at hand; as he went along entertaining his thoughts, he was got fare into the desert, and perceived that miraculous Bush all crowned with innocent flames that gave it a delightful beauty, and the fire that consumes every thing seemed rather to dress then to offend it. God meaning to signify by this the estate of his chosen people, for whom the burning coals of Persecution prepared an high lustre of glory. Moses charmed with this Vision draws near, and hears a voice out of the middle of the Bush that calls him, and having commanded him to put off his shoes through reverence, speaks with him, and declares to him its will about the going out of Egypt, which the Israelites were to enterprise and execute under his command.  
To speak truth, this was one of the greatest Colloquies, and one of the highest Discourses that was ever under Heaven, wherein the Sovereign Master seated upon a Throne of Fire talked with the most excellent man of all Ages touching the means to break the chains of six hundred thousand men, besides women and little children that groaned under an horrible Captivity, and drowned every day a part of their life in their tears. Moses that was now totally accustomed to the sweetness of his solitude, refused at first to be the Negotiatour of a business of so great importance, and to betake himself again to the Court of Egypt to treat with Pharaoh, alleging his inability, the incredulity of the people, and the impediment of his speech, to free himself from that Embassage. But God having assured him that he was He that is, that is to say, The absolute Being, the Independent, and the first Original of all Essences, that would be with him, and would give him for a companion, his brother Aaron, who was eloquent enough; and in fine, having confirmed him by prodigious Miracles that he caused to be done in his presence, won him, and made him consent to his will.  
Aristotle in the fifth of his Politics hath said That of all the things that cause the subversions of Kingdoms and of Empires, there was not any more pernicious than Injustice, and Oppression of the innocent, which may be observed clearly in this proceeding. For, behold the ruin of a great Realm procured by the cruelty of the Ministers of Pharaoh, who by his consent and orders turmoiled incessantly a people, miserable and afflicted, above all measure. Their piercing clamours, so many times redoubled, clavae the clouds, and were carried by the Angels even up to the Heaven of heavens, represented before the Throne of the living God, with so much force and vigour, as they made tender the bowels of the God of mercy, that descends, and speaks athwart the Flames and Thrones to bring about their safety.  
Moses and Aaron failed not to discover themselves to the most eminent of the chosen people concerning the Counsel that God had taken of their Liberty, whereat they were at first so joyed, that they prostrated themselves on the earth through respect, adoring the divine Goodness that carried himself with so much love to the easing of their misery: but when this business proved thorny and full of obstacles, their courage failed them, and had almost as leave crouch in their Servitude, as buy their Liberty at the price of a reasonable pain. Yet Moses, accompanied with his brother, courageously transports himself to Pharaoh's Palace, speaks to him with a generous liberty from the living God, and declares to him his Commands, which were, to dismiss his people, and let them go out of Egypt to sacrifice in the wilderness.  
He that reigned at that time was one Pharaoh Cenchris, an haughty and insolent Prince, who having never heard any such language, said, That he knew not that God that intermeddled to make him such Commands, and that he was fully resolved not to let go the prey which he held in his hands; that all these discourses of Sacrifices and of Devotions proceeded from nothing but a pure idleness fatal to the Jewish people, and that he would give them so much exercise, that they should not have the leisure to dream on such Fancies. And, in effect, he commanded the Commissaries that presided over the labour of those poor slaves, to redouble their Pains and augment their Burdens. The straw that was furnished them before to make the brick taken from them; they were constrained to seek for it where they could, and yet for all this the number of their bricks which they were bound to render every day was not diminished. And though this was a thing impossible for them, yet must they expect rods and bastonadoes, and all imaginable rigours. This made a great noise amongst the People, which began already to murmur against Moses and Aaron, blaming their enterprise, and complaining that they would set them at Liberty.  
It is a most ordinary thing in all great affairs; there are spirits that are like those watery clouds that never carry lightning, so cannot they ever conceive any thing that is vigorous: they would have good things, but they would have them loosely, and would willingly desire that Nature should renew for them the favours of the Terrestrial Paradise, and should give them roses that should never be compassed about with thorns. But as one ought not to be rash and violent to push forward businesses out of a giddy humour, so ought one not to be slack and effeminate in letting those alone that oblige us by conscience and by duty. Moses desists not for all this, but takes a stout resolution to advance the work of God, even to the Point whither Providence would have it come. He had on one side men to combat with that resisted their own good; and on the other, an impious, obstinate, and cruel Prince: he gains the one by reasons and by sweetness, he brings down the other by threats and prodigies.  
One may here manifestly see the paths that God hath trodden in the punishment of Pharaoh, when he would abandon a King or a great man for his demerits, and sacrifice him to his Justice; letting him fall into a reprobate sense, which is the last step that one makes to enter into hell. He permits him (to satiate an Ambition or a Revenge) to entangle himself in some great design under the pretence of Justice and of Honour; and forasmuch as he is extremely thirsty after the greatness of the earth, puts him upon a pinnacle in the highest dignities and the most magnificent negotiations, leaves him to himself, and to the wishes of his own heart; and although he be vicious, gives him great successes and incomparable prosperities that puff up his heart, and make him presume upon his own conduct. He takes from him the taste of Divine things, letting him slide into a contempt of the holy Word, and of all the admonitions that one can give him about his safety. If he hath any faithful Counsellor, he puts him out, and substitutes in his place flatterers and enchanters. If there come any scourge from heaven to overwhelm him, he is made believe that it is but a natural thing, and ordinary enough, and that he ought not to trouble himself about such a business. If he be sensible of any evil that affrights him, men endeavour suddenly to scatter it, and to make him understand that that is not the wrath of God, but an order of Nature, and that he may mock at the tempest as soon as the calm returns.  
All this is made visible in this miserable Prince. A great Kingdom, great Ambitions, Revenges hereditaty against the chosen People, an  design to root them out, a contempt of God, success in his vengeances, and some satisfaction of spirit by the pains of those miserable ones, Moses baffled, the Flatterers harkened to, the Magicians adored, the Plagues of heaven turned into laughters as soon as they were passed, an heart (at last) hardened by its own malice, and not by the work of God who doth no more make sin, than the Sun makes the night. Moses endeavours first to gain him by the force of reasons, and by the sweetness of words, whereto, when he shown resistance, he employed Miracles for the proof of his Commission, which the King caused to be counterfeited by his Magicians, opposing the Shadow to the Light, and a Lie to Truth.  
After which, the wrath of Heaven caused those ten Plagues, related in Exodus, successively to rain upon him. For that unfortunate Prince saw first of all the River of Nile all in blood, as if it had demanded Vengeance of God for those little Innocents' that had been cast into it. He saw Frogs that came out of the same Stream by an impetuous ebullition, in such a manner, as that they covered all the fields, entered into the houses, filled the tables, mounted upon the beds, and gave horror and torments to all Egypt. He saw thick clouds of Gnats, that were raised all on a sudden, casting themselves upon the cattle and upon the men, with so irksome a trouble that their life was full of bitterness. He saw after that, army's of all sorts of Flies, so different in their kind, so violent in their assaults, and so pernicious in their effects, that they defiled every thing with their venom. He saw a furious mortality of Beasts, that fell every moment, and infected the air by their corruption. He saw the bodies of his Subjects all laden with Ulcers, wherewith the Magicians themselves, in punishment of their crimes, were covered in such a fashion as that they could stand no longer in the presence of their King. He saw the most horrible Hail fall from Heaven, that since Egypt was in being there was never seen the like; for it sustained itself upon the wings of the Lightning and the Fire and Ice agreed extraordinarily together for the punishment of those perfidious men. He saw legions of Grasshoppers that made an inundation upon the champains, and made havoc of the plants, finishing to destroy that which the Hail had begun. In fine, all Egypt was covered with those palpable Darknesses that lasted for the space of three days, during which, the Egyptians remained as bound with the invisible chains of a night without repose, which had nothing better in it then to take from them the sight of their disaster.  
But that which terrified them above all the plagues was when the destroying Angel entering at midnight into all their houses killed the firstborn from the child of the Miller's wife, to the King's son, and there was not an house wherein the first blossom of the Family was not lopped off by the pitiless hook of Death. The fathers were touched with a stupid grief, the disheveled mothers threw themselves down upon the bodies of their infants, to gather from their mouths the remainders of their life; the whole family sent out howl rather then complaints, and the evil was so universal, and so pressing, that there was neither consolation, nor remedy. Pharaoh sighed at every Plague, and seemed to be willing to turn to God, but as soon as he had the least release, he returned to his obstinacy, which was a mark of a Reprobate soul. Yet his subjects sensibly touched with the last accident urged the Hebrews to be gone, and would no longer oppose the counsels of God.  
The day of departure is taken, and the six hundred thousand combatants, with an innumerable number of women and little children, after the ceremony of the Paschall Lamb, travel to the red-Sea loaden with gold, with silver, with suits of apparel and with all the richest spoils of Egypt. The pillar of cloud and of fire marched before them in the head of the Army, to give signal to the twelve Tribes that beheld it visibly on all parts. Notice is given in the mean time to King Pharaoh, that those fugitives were already stolen away, and gone enriched with the treasures of his People. And although he had given some kind of consent to their going, yet he enters again into his furies, assembles his light-Charriots, and all the flourishing Legions of Egypt to pursue the Israelities. They failed not to overtake them quickly upon the Seashore, so that the two Armies were in view of one another. The one of which was filled with a great number of people badly prepared at that time for a combat, valour forsaking their heart, and their hands ready to throw away their arms; The other was composed of sprightful and well trained Regiments, to whom choler and the hope of booty gave a new vigour. The glittering of the Arms, the Clouds of dust that were raised, the shouts of the Soldiers mingled with the neighing of Horses, gave mortal strokes to the hearts of that poor multitude which had now no other thought but to die murmuring, and to revenge their death on Moses by their murmurs.  
Alas, said they, What! were there no Graves in Egypt to bury our lives and miseries, without leading us into the Wilderness to deliver us for a prey to the sword of the Egyptians, and to the Birds of rapine? Did we not say well that we should have stayed peaceably in the bondage wherein God had ranged us, without making these great provisions, and shutting ourselves all up as in a net, to deliver ourselves to the discretion of our enemies? We have the sea on one side, and on the other our incensed Masters that breathe nothing but fire and blood: on which hand soever we go we see nothing but images of death and infallible marks of the misery that threatens us.  
All the Army was filled with fear, and the sighs of the Wives and of the Children abated the courage of the Fathers and of the Husbands, who expected nothing any more but to be the subject of an horrible butchery. But the generous Moses, although he had an heart pierced with grief to hear their blasphemies, ran through the ranks of the Army, encouraged the Captains, animated the People, and as long as he had any voice or breath cried without ceasing, Courage, my friends, ye are here assembled to see the wonders of the God of Hosts: Behold them only, without troubling yourselves, and God shall fight for you. See and consider those brave Egyptians your persecutors, and believe that it is the last time that you shall see them, for they shall be no more. And after he had said this, he spoke to God with a silence that surpassed all clamours, and therefore God answered him. What hast thou to do any more to cry thus after me? Lift up thy Rod, stretch forth thine hand divide the floats of the Sea, and make thine Army march through the fair middle on dry foot. This was executed, and all that great people of the Israelites (animated by the spirit of God, and the voice of Moses that marched in the head of them) descended with a firm footing and a secure countenance into those Abysles where the water of the sea retiring itself apart made them ramparts of Crystal on each side, and discovered to them in the middle a path that the hand of God seemed to have laid with tapestry for to make them passage. The pillar of fire that was planted in the midst of the two armies furnished them with unparalleled lights to manifest the works of God, and on that side which looked towards the Egyptians it was horrible and dark, bearing already the presages of the funerals that attended them. The Angel of God shut up in this engine of fire darted out Thunder-striking looks upon the Diadem of Pharaoh, and upon all those that encompassed him. Their courage failed them, and nothing now was left them but a rage yet fuming after blood. They throw themselves desperately into the sea which they promised themselves to pass over on dry foot as advantageously as their adversaries. But the waters returning into their bed, with an impetuous course invelop'd those miserable men; there was nothing now but a confusion of men and horses, of Arms and Chariots, of bodies pestering one another, that disputed their life with the waves, and died expiring out the remainders of their fury. Pharaoh the King was drowned; the assistance of his Captains had not the strength to save him whom the hand of God would destroy. Nothing was to be seen but Bucklers and Turbans floating upon the water, and death painted in a thousand faces that made a mervellous booty. The Israelites being in an ecstasy at these wonders, thundered out a song in the praise of God, that hath since ravished the heart and ear of all Ages.  
After that Moses had drawn his people out of the captivity of Egypt, he imitated God that did not make so fair a world to abandon it, but governs it by a secret providence that insinuates itself into all the parties of the universe. So this great Legislatour employed all his cares to the conduct of this great multitude, to which his presence produced the same effect as the infusion of the soul into the body. The chief and most ordinary pains that he took was to appease the murmurs and seditions that were born at every season, and and sometimes for very light occasions. But the greatest part was for the belly to which hunger gives a greediness, and the law gives no ears. When amidst the deserts of Arabia, where they journied, they felt any mitigation in their pain; Moses was a man incomparable: but as soon as water and bread and flesh failed them, he was no more their friend; they longed incessantly after the fleshpots of Egypt, and stirred up furious tempests.  
We see examples of this in all Polities, Empires, and Republics, where all those things that assault the life of the people make them send forth great cries, run to stones and steel, and tear men into little shreds. Those that would reign peaceably think more of gaining the hearts of their subjects then the money, and take a wonderful order that the inferior people may have wherewith to nourish and maintain themselves in mean commodities and all that is absolutely necessary to life. Augustus Cesar, the wisest of the Roman Emperors, had so particular a care to provide for the City of Rome, that when he saw it threatened by any famine, he would be like to die; and he took more pleasure to hear the poor Mechanics commending his paternal sweetness, and the happiness of his time, then to behold Colossus' and Arches of triumphs erected in his name. Those that take a way quite contrary say, Let Clown grumble, and let Clown pay, that one ought little to care for the complaints and murmur of a disarmed Communality. They fill every place with menaces and with terrors; they authorize themselves by a great force of arms, seeing well that they cannot arrive to what they would have, by love. But besides that this fashion of governing provokes God which is the father of the poor, and the comforter of the afflicted; It cannot subsist but by a great violence which cannot continue long either in nature, or in a civil life.  
Moses took nothing from this people, to whom it was an injury in their opinion, to give nothing. It seemed as if he bore them all in his entrails, and that he was to nourish them as a mother; If he came to fail in it, they forgot all the benefits of the time past, and ceased not to grumble and murmur at the present. He had need have had the Magazines of God himself, to satisfy them in a desert, where there was little to live, and much to suffer. So also the Divine goodness was never wanting to them in their necessities, and this mild conductor, that made it his glory to overwhelm these ungrateful men with benefits, opened by his prayers the gates of heaven to cause Manna to be reigned down for them. It is form in the dew, when the subtler parts of the earth mix themselves with the moisture, and when all this composition is purified and baked by the heat of the Sun to a convenient temper. It happens in certain places with profit enough, but if the blessing of God had not given an extraordinary virtue to this food, it was a Diet too dainty for hungry stomaches.  
So were they weary of it, and desired flesh, crying with full mouth, and forcing a man that had nothing, to do miracles to content their sensuality. This great conductor that pitied their necessities, and was not willing to destroy them, pacified them by a fashion full of modesty, a powerful speech, sweet promises and good performances, by making himself a Mediator to God to obtain favours for them, when they merited punishments. They saw clouds of Quails fall down upon the Army which God sent them very opportunely, but he failed not to punish afterward their intemperance by sudden deaths, and Sepulchers raised in the wilderness that bore a long time the name of their concupiscence.  
Another time as they were in great want of water, and made a great tumult for the thirst that tormented them, Moses assisted by the Divine power, opened the flanks of the Rocks, and made fountains to issue forth of them that quenched the thirst of the whole Army. Their distrust caused the greatest part of their evils, and if they had nothing capable to afflict them, they themselves framed Spectrums of terror to themselves, and found their torment in their own imaginations.  
Above all, they exceedingly scared themselves at the return of the Spies from the land of Promise; a false Rumour being sowed in the Army, that it was a Land that devoured its inhabitants, and that it was inhabited by Giants of so prodigious an height, that other men being compared to them appeared no more than Grasshoppers. Then they entered into strange fumes, crying all aloud, that they ought rather to create a General to lead them back to Egypt, then to go and sacrifice their wives and children unto Monsters. Moses and Aaron thinking themselves not able to appease that furious storm of words humbled themselves before them, and remained prostrated on the earth, while Joshua and Caleb renting their clothes, for the horror that they had of that sedition, assured them that that report was false, that the Land of Promise was very good, that it flowed all in Milk and Honey, and that by the help of God they would possess it, and overmaster the originaries which they would eat as bread. Notwithstanding all this they had run to stones, if God had not appeared in that high lustre of his glory, and threatened to consume them all by a general pestilence; But Moses laboured earnestly both with voice and prayers to appease the wrath of God, who punished at last the Rebels by the privation of the Land of Promise which they had spoken against with so much extravagancy.  
These murmurs that proceeded from fear and weakness of courage seemed more sufferable than those that came from pride and malice, as the sedition of Corah, Dathan, Abiram, which made an horrible havoc. These men followed with two hundred and fifty of the Princes of the Synagogue rebelled against Moses and Aaron, usurping the Censer, and publishing aloud that all the people was consecrated as well as they, and that they did wrong to claim to themselves an Empire over their brethren that belonged not to them; that that which had made them press this going out of Egypt was nothing but an ambition that carried them to domineer over freemen, and that they exercised so great a tyranny over their subjects, that there remained nothing more but to pluck out their eyes. Moses very much astonished at such insolent Language prostrated himself with his face on the earth, referring to God the decision of the controversy, and urged them to appear the morrow after to offer Incense, and to see how God would like their offering.  
The Anti-Priests failed not to be at the door of the Tabernacle with their Censers in their hands to make a combination apart, and to oppose the Pontificate of Aaron. But the living God that authorises the true High Priests appeared upon the Tabernacle after a terrible and threatening manner. The people that environed the Mutineers suddenly separated themselves at the voice of Moses; the earth opens itself under the feet of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram to swallow them up alive with their Pavilions and all their riches. The others were devoured by fire from heaven visibly with an extreme affright of the whole Army; and forasmuch as there remained some rebels that mourned for the dead, and inflamed the division, the hand of God yet smoking over their heads was ready utterly to destroy them, had not Moses prostrated himself before the Tabernacle praying for them, and had not Aaron holding the Censer, and beseeching the divine Majesty between the living and the dead appeased the wrath of Heaven. But the punishment of these miserable men left much terror in the souls of the people, and an example of perpetual memory to all those that resist the Powers that are lawfully established by God.  
There were Combats at home and abroad; for the Amalekites, a savage nation descended from Esau's children, endeavoured to beat back the people of God, and gave them battle, which Moses accepted, and making Joshua General of the Army, contented himself to go to the top of the mountain to pray to the God of the living, and to obtain the Victory. His prayers were darts of fire shot upon the enemies, for as long as he kept his arms lifted up to God in prayer, the Israelites had the better, but if he slacked them never so little, they had the worst, which made Hur and Aaron hold up his Arms to prevent a weariness in them, and by this means he desisted not till such time as the Adversaries covered with their dead bodies all the field of battle. Now because this great People would have been but a confused mass, had they remained without law and without policy which is the soul of Assemblies, Moses was powerfully inspired by God to make laws as well those that concerned Religion, as others that regarded the Civil. The Philosophers assure us, that every thing that lives in Nature, lives by the Light, and that all life is nothing else but Light, which spreads itself into the whole Universe, and not content to gild it with its brightness, communicates to it quickening spirits and secret influences which make all the productions in the bosom of Matter; That which the Light doth in the natural World, the Law imitates in the Civil. It is a participation of the first Reason of the ordination and Providence Divine, which insinuates itself into the mass of Mankind, embellishes it with its splendours, and unites it in the point of Felicity by invisible chains of love and obedience.  
God's reason is the sovereign Law which resides in the Divine understanding, in the treasures of his Wisdom, and is as the Primum Mobile of all the regulated motions of the intellectual nature. Plato says That the World following that rule keeps an equal path, with all the fitness, and all the measures requisite to its preservation. But as soon as it departs from it, it falls of necessity into great disorders which cannot be surmounted but by the Divine ordination that re-calls Nature to the point of its Felicity. And because the Eternal Law is so high and so sublime that it surpasses all our thoughts, God hath caused a Rivulet to flow from that source, which is the Law of Nature, a true light of right Reason imprinted in the understanding of all men. But it being so often darkened by the black vapours of the animal Passions, there was a necessity of humane Laws and Magistrates to put them in execution, by the punishment of the wicked, and the recompensing of the good. God gave then a strong inspiration to Moses, to prescribe Precepts and Rules to his People, that have been admired by all Nations.  
The Manichees, by the relation of S. Augustine, rejected the law of Moses as wicked and tyrannical; but in this they have been condemned by the Church; for there is no doubt, but that (having been given by God that is the Father of all Goodness) it was good and profitable, to keep the Jews as under a Pedigogie till the grace of the Gospel. And S. Paul himself in the Epistle to the Romans, where he seems to go about to destroy it, calls it for all that Holy, Just, and Good; But if ye compare it to the Law of grace ye shall find it harsh and imperfect. The Mosaical Law, saith that great Doctor, contains commands, but, that Jesus gives assistance; the one bestows light to know, the other strength to execute. In the ancient Law God says, Do what I command thee. In the new Law we say to God, Give what thou commandest. Moses divided that ancient Law into three parts, the first of which contained the Moral, and was included in the Decalogue, the Second comprehended what ever belonged to Ceremonies and was called Ceremonial, the third regarded Justice between party and party, and was Judicial. The first teaches how a man ought to carry himself with God and his neighbour to obtain salvation. The second treats of the Temple, of the Synagogue, of the Highpriest, of the Priests, of the Levites, of the Prophets, of the Votaries Nazarites and Rechabites. It deciphers the instruments of God's worship, as are the Tabernacle, the Ark of Covenant, the propitiatory, the Table of Shewbread, the Altar of the Perfumes and of the Burnt-offerings. It prescribes the order of the Sacrifices and of the Sacraments, of the divers observations of Vows, of Fasts, of Feasts, of Jubilees, of Shave, of Habits. The third part speaks of Kings, of War, of Peace, of Marriages, of Polygamy, of Divorce, of Crimes, of Theft, of Usury, of Adultery, of Policy, of Man-servants, of Maidservants, of Hirelings, of Strangers, and of the Poor. All this is read yet to this day in the Penteteuc, and is sufficiently expounded by so many Interpreters of Scripture. It would be an infinite, tedious, and unprofitable business to go about to decipher it here piecemeal. Let us content ourselves that as the Morning dies by bringing forth the Day, so the Law is expired by producing the light of the Gospel.  
Moses undertook not so great a work by humane strength, and trusted not to himself in so high an enterprise, God would conduct it with his Authority, and caused the People to be commanded to purify themselves, and to stand ready on the third day to hear his will. That day being come, from the morning were heard great Thunders, and abundance of Lightnings seen that issued out of thick Clouds, at the sound of an affrightful Trumpet that seized all the People with astonishment. They removed themselves according to the Orders of their Legislatour to the foot of the Mountain Sinai, with a prohibition to pass further. All the Mountain smoked as a great Furnace, by reason that God was descended thither all in fire, which made it extreme terrible. But Moses his dear favourite ascended to the highest top amidst the fires, the darknesses and the flames, in that Luminous obscurity where God presided that spoke to him face to face as to his most intimate confident. After all that thundering voice of the Living God was heard that pronounced his Decrees and his Laws in that Chamber of Justice hung with fire and lights that trembled under the footsteps of his Majesty. All this Law was set down in writing with a most exact care, and is yet read every day in the five Books of the Law.  
Now, Religion being the Basis of all Policy, without which great Kingdoms are but great Robbing; This wise Lawgiver applied his whole care and travel to the rooting out of Idolatry, and to the causing of the Adorable Majesty of God to be acknowledged in the condition of a worship truly Monarchical, and incommunicable to any other; as appears in the punishment which he inflicted on those that had worshipped the golden Calf.  
For the Scripture saith, That when the Israelites perceived that Moses tarried a long time on the Mountain of Sinai in those amiable Colloquies that he had with God, they grew weary of it, and said to the high Priest Aaron, That since that man that had brought them out of Egypt was lost, they ought to dream no more of him, but make in his place Gods that should march in the head of their Army. Aaron, that perperhaps had a mind to make them lose the relish of that design by the price to which it would amount, demanded of them the Pendents of the ears of their Wives and of their Children, to go to work about it; but their madness was so great that they devested themselves freely of all that they had most precious to make a God to their own fancy. Aaron accommodating himself to their humour through a great weakness made them a Statue that had some resemblance of the Ox Apis that was adored in Egypt. As soon as they had perceived it, they began to cry, Courage, Israel, behold the God that hath drawn thee out of the slavery of Egypt. Aaron accompanied him with an Altar, and caused a solemn Feast to be bidden for the morrow after, at which the people failed not to be present, offering many sacrifices, making good cheer, and dancing about that Idol. God advertised Moses of that disorder, and commanded him to descend suddenly from the Mountain to remedy it; although he intended to destroy them: and had done it, had he not been appeased by the most humble Remonstrances and Supplications of his servant. He failed not to betake himself speedily to the Camp, where he saw that Abomination and the Dances that were made about it, which inflamed him so much with Choler, that he broke the Tables of the Law written by the hand of God, thinking that such a present was not seasonable for Idolaters and Drunkards. He rebuked Aaron sharply, who excused himself coldly enough, and not intending that so abominable a crime should pass without an exemplary punishment: He took the Golden Calf, and beat it into dust, which he steeped in water, to make all those drink of it that had defiled themselves with that sacrilege, and to make them understand that sin that seems at first to have some sweetness is extremely bitter in its effects.  
After which he commanded That all those that would be on God's side should follow him, and the Tribe of Levi, as being the most interressed, failed not to join with him; whereupon seeing them all well animated he gave them order to pass through all the Camp, from one door to the other with their swords in their hands, and to slay all that they met, without sparing their nearest kindred. This was executed, and all the Army was immediately filled with Massacres; Rivers of blood ran on all sides, accompanied with the sad howl of a scared multitude that expected every minute the stroke of death. God would have that this so severe a punishment be executed upon those miserable men to cause an eternal horror of Idolatry which is the most capital of all sins. And to retain the worship of God a thousand pretty Ceremonies were practised after the structure of the Tabernacle of the Ark of Covenant, of the Table of the Shewbread, of the Altars, and after the institution of the Pontifical habits, of the Offerings and of the Sacrifices that were celebrated with much order and a singular Majesty.  
Moses also was indefatigable in rendering Justice sitting from the morning till the night on his Tribunal to hear the requests of all the particular men that came to him; which Jethro his father in law, that was come to visit him, having perceived, said to him that it was impossible for him to be long able to undergo so troublesome a labour, and that he ought to choose amongst all the people some Puissant men, fearing God, true, and enemies of covetousness to administer Justice, and that it would be sufficient to reserve to himself the controversies that should be of greatest importance. Moses believed his counsel, and established an handsome order for the decision of the differences that should arise amongst the People. He passed forty years in the wilderness in divers habitations, partly in war against the enemies, partly in preserving peace amongst his People, and confirming all the laws which he established by the command of God. In this exercise he lived to the age of an hundred and twenty years, sepaparated himself from all things of the world, and was so united to God, that it seemed that even his Body itself passed into the nature and condition of an immortal Spirit. In fine, God having showed him upon the mountain Nebo all the Land of Promise which he had got to by so many good counsels and so much pains, he died in that view without entering into it; was mourned for thirty days by the Israelites, and interred of set purpose in a sepulchre unknown to the eyes of men, for fear lest he should give an occasion of some Idolatry to that people that would have held him for a Deity.  
Never had man a Birth more forlorn, a Life more various, or a Death more glorious: of an exposed Infant, he became a King's son, of a King's son an Exile, of an Exile a Shepherd, of a Shepherd a Captain, of a Captain a Prophet, of a Prophet a Lawgiver, of a Lawgiver a Sovereign; the God of Kings, and the King of all the Prophets: Active at Court, Devout in Solitude, Victorious in War, Happy in Peace, Wise in his Laws, Terrible in his Arms, a man of Prodigies, that opened Seas, Manured Wildernesses, Commanded things Sensible and Insensible, and exercised an Empire on all Nature. He was Indefatigable in his Travels, Zealous for the honour of God, disobliged from his own interest in the punishment of the Sacrilegeous, Patiented in his own Injuries, Familiar to Few, Courteous to all; a Companion of Angels, the Favourite of God, of a Life very long, and of a Memory that shall have no end.    

SAMUEL. DANIEL.  
 portrait of the prophet Samuel 
SAMVEL   portrait of the prophet Daniel 
DANIEL   

SAmuel that seemed to have been born for nothing but to pray, and to pass away his life in the Tabernacle of God, got very forward at Court, and in the managing of the great affairs of State. His Birth is a Miracle, his Life an Example, and his Death the immortality of his virtues. He was one of those infants that are expected a long time before they come, that are the sons of so many vows, and that pay the expectation of their Nativity by the happiness of their Life. It belongs only to great things to be seen before they are, by presages, by desires, by hopes, and to make themselves be seen, after they are no more, by an eternal memory.  
Hannah his mother barren in children, but fruitful in virtues, conceived him rather by her sighs then by her pleasures. He was a gift of the Tabernacle which she rendered to the Tabernacle, and as she had obtained him by supplication, she made of him a man of prayer, devoted from his infancy to the Divine Ministeries, and a Nazarite by express vow which lived in abstinence, and had no other profession but contemplation. It is by these exercises that God raises great Personages, and we cannot choose but expect brave actions on earth, from a man that hath much commerce with heaven.  
So God began betimes to communicate himself to him, and to make him partaker of his secrets. He informed him of the destruction of his Master, Eli the Highpriest, and powerfully fitted him for his Service. This Eli was a reverend old man, a Judge of the People, that had lived in an high reputation and great glory amongst the Israelites, but his reign being too soft, his children that were now great abusing his authority, practised a petty Larceny even as far as unto the sacrifice itself, and committed impurities and debaucheries of women; which are most ordinarily two of the chiefest things that make a change of Government, there being nothing that doth more exasperate the subject then the avarice and the luxury of those that rule; the one making attempts upon their goods, and the other upon their bed. A grave father of the Church addressing a spiritual direction to a Governor, admonishes him, That it is not enough for him to be innocent, if all his family doth not imitate him, and form themselves according to his examples; for, what profit is it, says he, to a miserable people to have a Prince or Governor wise and moderate, if, while he absteins from things not permitted, there be one of his servants that making use of his name and power takes occasion to satiate his Avarice?  
These wicked sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas committed a thousand extortions under the authority of their father, and dishonoured his grey hairs by the incontinence of their dissolute youth. The complaints thereof came to their father's ears, but instead of depriving them of their Offices and Commissions which they held of him, which would have been a means to wash away the stain that was imprinted on his renown, he contented himself with giving them a weak admonition, which having little force upon their passions, had yet less effect upon their actions.  
God then took the business in hand after a very strange manner; for the Philistims the sworn enemies of the chosen people ran upon their Frontiers, and put an army into the field, which obliged the Israelites to arm, to hinder the waste that they made, but being come to the encounter they lost the Battle, wherein 4000 men were slain upon the place. The conquered people resuming heart and arms set on foot an huge Army that marched under the wings of the Ark of Covenant conducted by Hophni and Phineas to whom it appertained by office. But these debauched men, and ill-trained for war, rather precipitated than gave a scond Battle, and did their businesses in it so ill, that thirty thousand men were cut in pieces, and they themselves increased the number of the dead, and were both slain in defence of the Ark that was taken and carried away by the Philistims.  
This deplorable news being come to the ears of Eli gave him such a confusion of spirit, that he let himself fall, and died upon the place mourning for the Ark of Covenant above his own children. His house fell into great contempt after his death, as had been foretold him, and none of his race came to old-age, the hand of God not ceasing to revenge the Injuries of his Tabernacle, and of his People, to instruct great ones that are in Offices to look carefully to this, that Religion and Justice, as two sisters, by an indissoluable knot be kept fast to one another.  
The Affairs of the Jews were in a piteous estate after the loss of those two Battles, and there was need of a puissant hand to repair those losses. But the Sovereign Master lent his thereto, and raised up Samuel to settle again all that the furies of the wars had shaken. This good Pilot consecrated himself by a Tempest, and took the Government when every rational man would have thought of quitting it. This was a sign that he entered into it by ways very clean, coming in a time when there was more matter for compassion then Ambition. He had no other Love, but that of the Public good, he knew no other Avarice, but that of time, nor other Pleasures but Businesses. His first aim in the Government was to banish Idolatry, and to put in vigour again the worship of the true God, well knowing that the most fatal plagues of States come from the contempt of Religion. He was a man of order, of a great understanding, and of a powerful speech that never fell to the ground. He caused ordinarily whatsoever he had a mind to establish surest to pass General Assemblies, that what concerned the good of every man might be done by the advice of all the World.  
One of the first functions that he exercised was to make an excellent Oration to the People, and to tell them of their infidelity, making them see That Gods forsaking them came from that they had forsaken God, and that if they would enjoy the favours of his protection as their fathers did, they ought necessarily to banish the strange Gods, and to abolish eternally the names of Baal and Astaroth to whom many amongst them had devoted themselves; that God the Sovereign Master could not endure any companion in his Throne, and would not have to do with hearts divided to imaginary Deities; That if they served him faithfully, he hoped that he would deliver them from the hand of the Philistims, and would exalt again the glory of their nation that had been brought low by so many ill Encounters and extreme lamentable losses.  
He persuaded the whole assembly so powerfully by the force and sweetness of his discourse, that all those that had been defiled with those bad beliefs abjured their superstitions, and made a strong resolution to serve no more any, but the Living God, and to bury all their Idols in the Grave of forgetfulness. Whereto Samuel seeing them disposed called together the State's General into a place named Mispah, where he promised to make very solemn prayers for all his Nation. The People failed not to be there in great number, and with a singular devotion, drawing water, and pouring it out as in the presence of God; whether it was a fashion of purification among the Hebrews, or whether by this Ceremony they would represent the vanity and weakness of all men, that are before God as little drops of water spread upon the earth, and that have no true contentment but in God alone who is the fountain of all good things. They disposed themselves to receive the mercy of God by a public fast and a repentance of their faults, confessing aloud their ingratitude to God. Samuel comforted them, and having reconciled them to God again, united them among themselves by a mutual concord, deciding their differences, and judging their Lawsuits in the place forenamed with so much equity that all the People thought that the golden age was raised again under his government.  
But the Philistims that would perpetually bring them down, having intelligence that they made assemblies in Mispah which turned to their prejudice drew themselves again into the field to fight them, whereat the people that had already experimented the disasters that proceeded from such hostilities was seized with a great astonishment, and implored the aid of Samuel to secure them from the fury of their adversaries. This made him have a particular refuge to the goodness of God, whom he invoked by his ardent prayers and by the suitable sacrifices which he offered, being a Priest by an extraordinary mission of God. The Israelites encouraged by their Protector bestir themselves to resist their enemies and combat them with firm footing not without great success. For by good luck it happened that at the same time that the battle was given Samuel was presenting to God a  offering for the whole army, which was so worthily accepted that the trumpet of heaven sounded aloud in great thunderings and menacing lightnings that affrighted the Philistims and put them into a rout, which drew the inhabitants of Mispah to the glory of the combat, and joining their troops with those that had gone before them, defeated the army of the Philistims, and took from them the desire of hazarding another battle.  
Samuel took his time very opportunely, and seeing them in such a disposition harkened to an honourable peace which he made, by recovering the Cities which the Philistims had usurped in those great advantages of their Arms. This was a most wise counsel and worthy of that great Statesman that knew by experience that the Nation of the Philistims was stirring and quarrelsome as much as possible, and that his had need of rest to shut up the wounds that so many stranger-warrs had opened. Further he considered that the worship of the true God perished and lost much of its lustre by continual wars that rendered his subjects less docile in things Divine, and that the Licence of arms stifled the Laws and actions of Justice; In fine he had regard unto himself and was not ignorant that having not been bred in the exercises of war, he might succeed better in the Civil Government, and give much more satisfaction to all his people.  
Every thing happened just as he had projected; for this Peace being well limited by his Counsels and by his cares was a second source of all blessings to his Nations. He visited himself in Person the Cities that the Armies had ransacked, and to whom the commerce of the victorious Philistims had given some bad tincture of their Superstition, and went through all places as a favourable Constellation, bringing Light and healthful Influences to his People. He marked his footsteps with the zeal of Justice, and all his journeys with public felicities.  
But we must aver that the People is a motley Beast that cannot endure war, and yet loathe a long peace. If it be in trouble, it doth nothing but sigh and groan, and if it hath too much ease, it is only to kick and winch. It grows weary of its own felicities, and is not sensible of its happiness but by misery, nor tastes it its prosperities but by losing them. The Israelites at length disrelished Samuel, & inclined under pretence of an advantage, to change the Government. The fashion of this sage Judge seemed to them too simple; they would see a Prince of the People that should have more state about his Person, and that should make a greater noise. And just as the Romans under the Empire Galba lamented the loss of Nero, because they were fallen from a Court full of Luxury and Dissoluteness into another Face of Government under an old man, that had not about him the great Train of an Emperor, and that reduced the Libertines to the Ancient Disciple; So these blind Israelites disgusted a calm and temperate administration that produced good effects without ostentation. They took a colour from his age, and from the offices which he had given his sons, making them by a kind of Resignation Successors of his office, but not of his virtue, seeing that according to the public voice they had behaved themselves but with little honesty, studying more to content their own Avarice, then to render justice. Upon this, they demanded a King whom they offered themselves to receive from Samuel his hand, so good an opinion had they of his sincerity and so much reverence to his Person.  
This Proposition touched sensibly the heart of Samuel; for it is true, That good Officers, although they adhere not to their Charges through Ambition, yet they cannot choose but have some displeasure, to see themselves put out by a Prince, or an ungrateful Commonwealth, after long and faithful Services, and especially if they are Aged; They would not have their Age pass for a Crime, and think that they are always vigorous enough to acquit themselves of their duty; But it is as certain that Samuel, that was a man of God, considered not so much his own interest as the People's, which he saw weary of their Liberty, and by a profound infatuation, demand a Yoke, whose heaviness it should feel when it had no more the power to shake it off.  
To speak sincerely, The Rule of one Man over another is a delicate piece, and when God established the Dominion of Adam, he gave him all power over the Creatures, but he would not comprehend therein the Men that should descend from him. The World was more than two thousand years before it was knwon what Monarchy or Empire was; The Younger were ruled by the Elder with a sweet and amiable discretion, in which there was much satisfaction and small constraint.  
The People of God retained always very near this form of Governing; for the Ancient Patriarches presided over the rest as Masters of Families more by Reverence then by Command. Moses in that high Authority that could do every thing both upon Men and upon the Elements, never assumed the name of King, and his Successors till Samuel his time contented themselves with the Style of Judges of the People.  
Nimrod was the first amongst the Gentiles that usurped a new Domination over the liberty of the Nations that he subdued by Arms, having learned in the continual Massacres of Beasts Cruelty towards Men. Not but that Kingdoms and Monarchies since that time have been holily instituted of God; But he hath always willed that Kings should learn that there was none but he in the Universe of all the Creatures that was an absolute Master, having alone the Power to Create, and to Annihilate what or whom he pleases. This is not permitted to the Greatest Monarches on the Earth, who remaining within the bounds of their charges ought to acknowledge themselves the Vicegerents and Substitutes of God, to Conduct Men to their End, making them arrive at the height of Felicity, by the ways of Justice and of Religion. But when they stray from these intentions, and abuse the Goods, the Blood, and the Life of their Subjects, as if they were the Proprietours of them, and not the Stewards, they render themselves responsible to God's Judgement for all the abuses that are committed in the whole Kingdom through their default.  
This change of Government projected by the Israelites was not according to God's Heart, who comforted Samuel and told him, that he ought not to be sad for that they were weary of him, seeing they were weary of God Himself which is an Infinite Goodness, and gave him Colleagues in his Empire. He Commanded him to make known to them the Right of a King, which should be, to take their children for his servants and to Employ them on such Trades as he should judge fit for the profit of his House, to usurp their Lands and Inheritances to accommodate therewith his Minions, to exact Tithes of their Revenues, of their Vines, and of their Corn to enrich therewith his Officers, and in a word, that he would govern every thing after his own Fancy.  
Those that take these words as a Right that God established in favour of Kings are very fare from the sense of the Scripture, for they are spoken by way of Menace and not of Approbation. Otherwise we should avouch that King Ahab had right to take away Naboth his Vineyard, for which he was so sharply reprehended and so severely punished, with his Wife Queen Jesabel. Yet it is most Just that Kings and Sovereigns should have some reasonable Tributes from the People to support the Majesty of the Kingdom, to maintain their Family, to protect their Subjects against Hostilities, to open them Trading, to give them means to preserve and increase their Revenues, to make Friendships, to live peaceably in their Commodities, and to defend them against the violent Usurpers of their Goods.  
The School-Doctours, as Cajetan and Gregory de Valentia require four Conditions to justify Imposts. The First is, The Power and Authority of the Prince. The Second, That they tend to a good End. The Third, That they be according to the ability of the Subject. The Fourth, That they be imposed upon fit Persons, and rather upon certain Merchandises, then upon that which is totally necessary to the Life of Man.  
Samuel failed not well to aggravate to the People the Burdens that they should undergo by choosing them a King, and the Repentance that they should have of it, when the evil should be incurable. But (It being hard to make them believe Reason that never use it but when it flatters their own will.) The Israelites were no way diverted from their Proposition by all possible Remonstrances, but continued to demand a King with great urgency, desiring to be like in that to so many other Nations. They were much like the Frogs in the Fable that prayed Jupiter to give them a King, whereto he agreeing, threw into their Lake a great piece of Wood which much astonished them at first, but seeing it without Motion they despised it, and said that they desired a King Robustuous, Active, and Nimble, whereupon he gave them a Bird of Prey that ceased not to devour them; After which they made great Complaints, but he would hearken to them no more. So God caused this miserable People to be advertised that when they should be weary of the Domination of Kings, and that they should desire another form of Government, he would have no ears for their Requests. All this inflamed them the more, so resolved were they upon their Misery.  
Samuel being willing to deliver himself from their Importunities purposed to choose them a King, and to give him to them with his own hand, not for any mind that he had to keep yet the Government, but for the zeal that he had of the Glory of God and of Justice, desiring that the pains that he had taken to procure peace unto his people, and to preserve it many years together, might not be made unprofitable through the Caprichio's of an evil Successor that perhaps might take a pride in changing all that he had so carefully established. He did not cast his eyes upon his own Kindred to make himself a creature in whom he might reign according to flesh and blood, but he took by the Order of God a man very ignore, and little taken notice of amongst his brethren.  
Here is a mervellous sport of Divinity, that calls things that are not as things that are, that makes the Light break out of Darkness, and traces the rays of his Glory upon an heap of dirt. Saul, of the Tribe of Benjamin, the least amongst the Hebrews, and one of the least qualified in that Tribe, a Countryman, into whose heart the Court and Royalty never entered, not so much as in a Dream, went to seek his father's Asses that then were gone astray. A domestic servant that was with him seeing that he lost his labour in that search gives him notice that in the neighbouring village there was a great Personage that was ignorant of nothing, and that he could well tell them news of their loss, and added, that he had a piece of silver that was worth about six pence which he would make a present to him. Saul consents to it, and they go along both together into the Village of Ziph, where Samuel was that was to be present that day at a Sacrifice and a Feast that was made among the Principal men. Without thinking on it, they meet him, and asked of him where was the Prophet's house. Samuel knew by revelation that it was he of whom God had spoken to him, and whom he had chosen to be the King of his People, and entertained him very courteously, and invited him to the Feast, and to tarry that night in his house without going further, and promised him that he would tell him all that his heart thought on; and as for the Asses he needed not to trouble himself; for they were found again. But there were other affairs that concerned him, and that would suddenly make all the Glory and all the Riches of Israel fall into his hands.  
The other was extremely surprised to see himself entreated with so much honour, and confessed with all sincerity the meanness of his family, and the little cause that he had to pretend to such heights as those. But Samuel taking him by the hand brings him with his servant into the Hall of the Feast, and sets them both at the upper end of the Table, where there were thirty Guests, and caused Saul to be served with all that was most exquisite in the Banquet that was kept upon a little Hill very near the Burgh, to which they descended after their repast, and Samuel led Saul into his House, and made him lodge that night in his own Chamber. The morrow he conducted him to the Suburbs of the City, and having caused his servant to go before, poured on a sudden upon his head a precious ointment, and kissing him, told him That God had Anointed him King of his People which he should deliver from the hand of the Philistims. After which he foretold him many things that should befall him, and gave him evident signs of the verity of his words.  
When he was returned, he had a curious Uncle that inquired after all that had happened to him, to whom he spoke of the Asses, but was very wary not to discover the secret of the Royalty. Some time after Samuel called a General Assembly of all the people to proceed to the Election of a King, and having disposed all the Tribes of Israel for that design, the lot fell upon that of Benjamin, and upon the Family of Matri, and in fine, upon Saul, who had hid himself, that he might not express any ambition of that Royalty; But he was suddenly taken forth out of the place where he had retired himself, and was showed to the whole Assembly, in which there was not a man that he did not outpass by all the head.  
This rejoiced Samuel, and made him say that they might plainly see that God took a care of their affairs in that Election, by giving them so brave a Man that had not the like amongst all the People, whereupon they all cried, God save the King.  
After this Establishment, Samuel called a second Assembly for his own Discharge, wherein he made a powerful Oration, declaring to the People the Goodness and the Favours they had received from the Hand of God in all his Conduct, ever since their coming out of Egypt, and made a kind of Recapitulation of those that had Governed, and delivered them from their Enemies even till this time; Then he repeated to them that they had plucked a King out of the hand of God with all importunity, and that it was not pleasing to his Divine Majesty. Whereof he gave them a good Pledge, making at the instant the Voice of Heaven speak in a great tempest, which affrighted them so much that all desired pardon of that sin which they would never before acknowledge.  
But before he came to those Reproaches, he highly justified himself, calling them to give a Testimony of his Conduct and Conversation amongst them; He Conjured them to speak before God and the new King, if he had ever injured them, or been excessive either upon their Persons, or upon their Goods, and that if they had any thing concerning his Life, or his Conversation, or the Administration of his Charge, he was ready to give them all satisfaction.  
The Reverend Old-man melted their hearts, and all rendered him the testimony of an Honesty and Justice irreproachable. Thereupon he protested that he would never forget them, and that being out of his Office, he would offer to God his most fervent Prayers for their Welfare, and would have a care of their Quiet, as fare as he should be able, exhorting them furthermore to remain inviolable in the Religion of their Fathers, and in the true Worship of the Living God, and assuring them that he would never cast them off as long as they should adhere to him by the Submission and Duties of true Children.  
The People began to perceive what they had lost, in the discharge of so Venerable a Person, and were ashamed of their precipitation; but they were now embarked too far, and must sail to the liking of the Tempest.  
Here is a great Secret of Divine Policy which hath tormented Curious Spirits in their search into it, that demand wherefore God (making use of the Ministry of the wisest Man that was at that time on Earth to give a King to his own People, that was to be as the Foundation-Stone, and the Basis of the Royalty of Judea) made so ill a choice, that he was as it were forced by the deportments of Saul to break in pieces his own work. But we ought to consider that in the choice of Princes and Sovereigns, God approves not always all that he gives, nor gives not also all that he approves. There are Kings that are given by favour, and others by wrath; Those are sent into the world as Stars, and these as Comets. He saith in his Prophet, That he will give a King in his fury, to expiate the sins of his people; and S. Gregory hath worthily observed, that Kings are measured out by Providence, according to the disposition of the Subjects; and which is more, that God permits the sins of good Kings for the chastisement of the people, and that there is such a connexion between the manners of the Master and the Servants, that the fault of the Master causes the wicked life of the Servants; and the good life of the Servants, the amendment of the Master. God was provoked against the Israelites by reason of their Idolatry, of their Obstinacy, and of their Ingratitude towards Samuel, and this was the cause that he gave them Saul, not so much to govern, as to punish them, and make them regret the virtue of their contemned Prophet by the comparison of the two Governments. He suffers also Samuel to be deceived in that choice, to teach us, that it belongs only to the eternal Wisdom to know, and to make tums of State that surpass the capacity of the ablest men.  
If the stature of the body made the Excellency of Kings, Saul (without controversy) was one of the chief; he had a very fair appearance to the exterior, but within were found great defects of virtues and Royal qualities. He was a guilded portal that nature had built for an house of straw. The people at first were ravished with him, and measuring him by the greatness of the body, judged him the prime man of their Nation, not seeing that making that judgement, they preferred a flint before a pearl. The first unhappiness of his conduct was, that he had not an heart for God, but for his own interest, and that he did not unite himself close enough to Samuel, that had made him King, and that was the Oracle from which he should have learned the divine Will. The second was a furious state-jealousy, his capital devil that put his Reason into a disorder, and infected all the pleasures and contentments of his life. He was but weak to hold an Empire, and govern with love, and yet he loved passionately all that he could least compass, and would do every thing of his own head, thinking that the assistance of a good Council was the diminution of his Authority. Sometimes he was sensible of his defects, but instead of amending them, he desired to take away the eyes of those men that perceived them. His Spirit was little in a great body; his Reason barren in a multitude of business; his Passions violent with small reservedness; hisBreakings out impetuous; his Counsels sudden, and his Life full of inequalities.  
Samuel had prudently perceived that the Philistims were dangerous enemies to the State of Judea, because they knew its weakness, and kept it in subjection a long time, depriving it of the means of thinking fully upon its liberty. And therefore he maintained a peace with them, and used them courteously, gaining all that he could by good Treaties, and would not precipitate a War, which was to weaken the Israelites without recovery. But Saul thought not himself an able man, if he had not spoiled all, and without making any other provision of necessary things, he made a great levy of Soldiers, and a mighty Army to go against the enemies, in which there was but two swords. It was a plot that permitted not the Hebrews to have Armourers, nor other men that laboured in Iron, totally to disarm them, and at the least motion that they should make, expose them for a p●ey. These assaulted Philistims found him business enough through the whole course of his Government and Life, and in the end, buried him with his children in the ruins of his State.  
But God that would give some credit to Samuel's choice, sent at first prosperities to God's people under the conduct of that new King, wherein, that which served for a glory to that holy man, was a vain bait to Saul, to make him enterprise things that could give him no other ability but to destroy himself.  
About a month after his election, Nahash the Ammonite, raised an Army to fall upon the Jabites that were in league with the people of Israel; and those seeing that they were not strong enough to resist so terrible an enemy, dispatched an Embassage to him to treat about a Peace. But that insolent Prince made answer to their Ambassadors, that he would not make any treaty of Peace with them on any other condition, then by plucking out their right Eyes, and covering them with a perpetual ignominy. These poor people that were reduced almost to a despair, implored on all sides the assistance of their neighbours, and failed not to supplicate to the Israelites (their friends) to do something in their favour. Their Messengers being arrived at Gibeah, related the sad news of the cruelty of Nahash, that filled the people with fear and tears. Saul returning from the fields, was driving his oxen, when hearing the groans of his Subjects, demanded the cause of it, and having been informed, entered into so great a rage at the pitiless extremities of that fierce Ammonite, that he instantly tore in pieces his two oxen, and sent the pieces of them through all the cities and villages of his Dominion, commanding every one to follow him to revenge that injury, otherwise their cattle should be dealt with, as he had done with his two oxen. The Israelites moved, partly by compassion, and partly also by fear of those menaces, poured out themselves from all parts to this War in such a sort, that he had got together three hundred thousand men. He divided them into three Battalions, and went to meet the Ammonite, whom he set upon so vigorously, and combated so valiantly, that he totally defeated his Army, and humbled that proud Giant that thought on nothing but putting out men's eyes, making him know that pride goes before reproach, as the lightning before the thunder.  
All the great people that composed that Army returned unto their houses, and Saul retained only three thousand men, whereof he gave one thousand to his son Jonathan, that was a man full of spirit and generosity, and fare better liked then his father Saul. This Militia was too little considerable for so great enemies, yet he had a courage to assault a place of the Philistims, and routed their Garrison; whereat they being pricked beyond measure betake themselves into the field with an Army, in which there were thirty thousand chariots of war, and people without end; whereat the Israelites were so affrighted, that all scattered themselves, and went to hid themselves in caves, so that there remained but about six hundred men with Saul, who marched with a small noise, and durst not appear before his adversaries. Samuel had promised to see him within seven days, to sacrifice to God and encourage the people.  
But Saul seeing that the seventh day was come without having any tidings of him, takes himself the  offering, offers the Sacrifice, and plays the Priest, without having any Mission either ordinary or extraordinary. As soon as he had made an end of burning the Holocaust, Samuel arrives, to whom he related, how that seeing all the people debauch themselves and quit the Army, and how that being pressed by his enemies, in a time wherein it behoved them to have recourse to prayer before they gave battle, he was persuaded that God would like well enough that in the necessity, and long absence of Samuel, he should perform the office of a Priest by presenting the  offering, which he had done with a good intention, without pretending to usurp any thing upon his office. Samuel rebuked him sharply for that action, to show, that there is no pretence nor necessity that is able to justify a sin; and that it no way belongs to Lay-people to meddle with the Censer, and to do the Functions that regard the Priests. Then Samuel foretell him that his Kingdom should not be stable, and that God would provide himself another that should be a more religious observer of his Law: thereupon he left him for a time, and Saul having recollected all the people that he could endeavoured to oppose the enemy.  
The brave Jonathan, accompanied with his armour-bearer, found a way to climb over rocks, and to surprise a court-of-Guard of the Philistims which they thought had been inaccessible, which put them in a terrible fright, imagining that those that had got so fare had great forces, though they did not yet appear.  
This brought their Army into a confusion, and God also putting his hand fare into the business filled them with such an amazement, that their ranks being in disorder, they killed one another without knowing their own party. The people of Israel having received intelligence of that rout take heart again, and get them out of the caves into which they had retired themselves, to range themselves about Saul's person, who was thereby transported with such an ardour, that he conjured all his Army to follow the Philistims (without drinking or eating) till they were all destroyed.  
This was a precipitation of his unequal spirit and a true Chimaera; yet desiring to make that pass for Zeal which was a pure Passion, he would needs cause his son Jonathan to be put to death for having sucked a little honey at the end of his rod; but the people rescued him out of his hands, and desisted to pursue the Philistims, being not in a condition to fight with them.  
Some time after, Samuel exhorted him to enterprise a puissant War against the Amalekites (sworn enemies of the people of God) and conjured him to make every thing pass through the edge of the sword, without sparing any body; and above all, to reserve nothing of the booty that should be made upon them, that should not be consumed with fire. To this, Saul seemed to be inclined with vigour, and raised an Army of more than two hundred thousand men; so great was the weight of the Authority, when Samuel put himself into party. He fell suddenly upon the Amalekites and defeated them with a general rout, so fare, as to take their King prisoner; but he contented himself with destroying and burning all that was caitiff and unprofitable, reserving Agag the King, with the best flocks and herds, and choicest moveables. In the mean while, he was so much puffed up with this victory, that he caused an Arch of Triumph to be erected to himself, and spread himself in the vanities of his spirit while God was thinking of rejecting him, and giving orders to Samuel to tell him his unhappiness. Yet Saul (blind in his sin) received the man of God into his Camp with an extraordinary joy, vaunting himself for having efficaciously fulfilled the commandment of God; and while he was speaking it, the voice of the Flocks that he had put aside was heard; whereupon Samuel said, What means this Cattle that strikes my ears with its bleat? To which he answered, That he had reserved them expressly for an offering to the living God. But Samuel replied, That there was no Sacrifice so pleasing to God as Obedience; and that Sin, which was contrary to him, was a kind of Idolatry; and that since he had despised the Word of God, he should be cast off, and deprived of the Kingdom; whereat he being astonished; confessed that he had offended harkening more to the voice of the People then to that of God, and beseeched Samuel to excuse his sin, to bear with his infirmities, and to go with him to the sacrifice to adore God in sign of reconciliation. Whereto Samuel replied that he would have no more any thing common with a man whom God had abandoned, and saying this, steps forward, and turns his back to him: the other lays hold on the fringe of his robe which remained in his hands, which when the Prophet saw, Behold (said he) how your Kingdom shall be divided and given to a better than yourself. The Triumpher of Israel, the true God of hosts is not as a man, to change his purposes, and repent him of his counsels. The King humbled himself again acknowledging his fault, and beseeching Samuel earnestly not to leave him, but to render him the ordinary respect before the Princes of the people, and to come and worship God with him. Samuel, fearing the disorder of the Army, consented for that time, but afterward never saw Saul any more to the day of his death.  
He ceased not to weep bitterly for him, considering that he that had been chosen by his hand had come to so little good, and had carried himself with so much contempt of the commandments of God. This wounded his heart, and would not let him put an end to his mournings, till his great Master comforted him, and suggested David to him, who should fill up worthily the place that Samuel was about to lose by his iniquity. And (indeed) he performed then a bold enterprise, going to Bethleem, under colour of a Sacrifice, and Anointing David King in Saul's life time, although that design was secret, that it might be managed with more success. After that time, Saul was left visibly by God, possessed with an evil spirit, and gnawed perpetually with jealousies of State which the person of David caused in him by reason of his valour and great virtues, as I shall declare in the following Elegy. In the mean while, Samuel lived retired from Court, without meddling with Sate-affairs; and Saul, by his departure, changed the sins of Vanity and of Fearfulness into Sacrilegies and Massacres, letting lose the bridle to his fury, to retain the phantasm of an Empire that flew out of his hands. Good Samuel ceased not in his solitude to bewail two King that he had made, looking upon one as an homicide, and the other as a sacrifice of death. He was afflicted inconsolably to hear of the deportments of that furious Saul that made of one wickedness a degree to pass unto another, inventing every day new butcheries to cement his Throne with the blood of his brethren. He melted himself with compassion for his poor David, seeing Saul's sword hang but by a little thread, always ready to fall upon his innocent head. He deplored the miseries of the poor people which he could not any longer remedy, and passing over again in his remembrance all the vicissitudes of man's life, and the treacheries of the Court, he had an ardent thirst to departed out of this world to go to find Innocence in the bosom of his Fathers. God heard him, and drew him to himself by a peaceable death the seventy and seventh year of his age, the eight and thirtieth of his Government, and the seventh after his retreat from Court. He was mourned and lamented for, by all the people, as the Father of his Country: and magnificent Funerals were made for him, to render him a testimony at his death of the commendable actions of his holy and generous life. Saul remained yet two years upon the Throne after him, and the Even before his great overthrow, the Soul of Samuel returned from Limbus, not by the work of the Pythonesse, but by the will of God and spoke to him, and told him of his disaster, as I have said in the Maxim of the Immortality of Souls.   

DANIEL.  
DAniel entered into the Court by Captivity, stayed there by Mortification, made himself known by Prophecy, and there also rendered himself renowned by great Virtues. To comprehend this, it is necessary to know, that the little Kingdom of Judea was ordinarily very much exposed to the Armies of the Assyrians, which God had chosen to be scourges and the instruments of the Justice that he exercised upon the sins of his people. King Nebuchadonozor that reigned in that Monarchy six hundred years before the Nativity of our Lord fell upon Palestine with a mighty Army, took and pillaged the city of Jerusalem, carried away King Jehojakim, with the richest vessels of the Temple, and abundance of prisoners of the most noted men, amongst which was Daniel, accompanied with other young children of a good parentage.  
The King gave charge to Ashpenaz chief Gentleman of his Chamber, to choose him Pages of Royal extraction, well made, without any blemish or disgrace, as well of mind as body, that should be versed in arts befitting the Nobility, well learned in exercises, docile, and well-governed, and that he should teach them the Chaldean Tongue, which was the Language of the Kingdom, that they might wait upon him in his Chamber. Ashpenaz having proceeded in the business with much consideration, resolved to take Daniel, and his three companions, Ananias, Azarias, and Misael. From hence one may collect, that this young child was endowed with most excellent qualities for the conversation of the world, and the life of the Court. Some have persuaded themselves that he was the son of King Hezekiah, but it is without foundation, and with ignorance of the Chronology, seeing that if this opinion were true, it must be inferred, that Daniel that is here dealt with as a child, and chosen for Nebuchadonozor's Page, was at that time fourscore and ten years old, which would be a great impertinency.  
Yet it is credible that he was descended from some son or daughter of the same King; but, however, one may assure that he was of the blood Royal, seeing the King had expressly ordered, that the Children that were to appear before him for his service should be taken out of that quality. Besides his eminent birth, he was endowed with a very gentle fashion, knowing according to his age, dextrous in the exercises of the Court, of a sweet and prudent spirit, very different from the temper of him that we proposed in the precedent Elegy. But to speak sincerely, if a good man ought to be considered as a Temple, these exterior qualities make but the portal; there are others in the understanding and in the will that compose the Mysteries of the Sanctuary.  
This young child was endowed with a great intelligence in things of Faith and Religion, and of a chaste fear of God, and of rare virtues, that surpassed fare the ability of his age. Who can sufficiently commend that which he did at his entrance into the Court with his companions, that took light from his spirit, and strength from the imitation of his courage? They were now come from the siege of an hunger-bitten city, from a long voyage, and abundance of wearisome toils; they find themselves suddenly in the abundance and delicacies of a magnificent Court, where they were to be said as the other Pages, with the viands that were served up to the King's table.  
Youth hath ordinarily a great inclination to a sensual life, and to content all its appetites; so that there are some that seem not to eat to live, but to live to eat. Yet these young children made a firm resolution to abstain from all the delicious food that was served up to Nebuchadonozor's table, whether for the fear that they had, lest they should have been offered unto Idols, or for the love of Temperance; they earnestly beseeched the master of the Pages to entertain them with nothing but with pulse: and when he feared lest that usage should make them lean, and that the King should perceive it, they prayed him to try them for the space of ten days, assuring him, that living in such a manner, they should be full of health and vigour. This was verified by experience, and when they were to appear in the presence of the King, they were found in good plight, active, and well instructed above all the rest.  
The Prophet saith, That the beauties of the desert 
Psal. 64. Pinguescent speciosa deserti.  shall be fat and fruitful: so those bodies that are as deserts, deprived of the fat and of the abundance that a voluptuous life ministers to the delicate, have a certain blessing of God, that infuses into them an health, a grace, and a beauty, suitable to a good temper. Do we not see that all those birds of prey that feed themselves with the flesh of beasts send forth an horrid cry? but the Nightingales that live innocently by some little seeds of plants sing melodiously. Daniel was made to charm the ear of a great King by his discourses, to live in contemplations and in lights; he would have nothing to do with the smoke and ill vapours of Nebuchadonozor's Kitchen.  
He was full three years under this master of the Pages, Praying, Fasting, keeping the Law of God, learning the Language of the Country and the Modes of the Court. This time being expired, he was presented to the King amongst other children of divers Nations, who liked him exceeding well, with his companions, and found that he eminently surpassed the capacity of all those of the Country, and of the rest that were nourished with him. When he was advanced in age, and now approaching to thirty years, it pleased God to render him very famous at the Court, as another Joseph, by the Interpretation of a Dream.  
King Nebuchadonozor had a great Vision in his sleep which very much disquieted his mind; for there remained in him an Idea that he had dreamt of some magnificent thing, but his Dream, was escaped from him, and he could by no means unfold it, whether he said true, or whether he dissembled to try his Diviners, and all those that undertook to foretell hidden things. He makes a great Assembly of the Sages of the Country in his Palace, to know of them what it was that he had dreamt; whereat these men were very much astonished, and told him with all humility, that no man ever dealt so with the Interpreters of Dreams, but that the extraordinary manner was to declare the Vision, and then seek for the Interpretation.  
This King that was of an impetuous and extravagant spirit, said, That he was not contented with that trivial fashion of telling his Dreams, to give them matter of inventing afterward such an Interpretation as they would; but that the true secret of the Science was to divine the Dream itself. The Magicians replied, That there was none but the Gods that could give a resolution of that, and that their commerce was fare distant from ours. The King thereupon sent them away with anger, and without giving vent to his choler, resolved to rid himself of all the Diviners in his Kingdom, having already given command to his Captain of the Guard to put them all to death. All of them fled, and were exactly searched for; Daniel that was thought to make profession of these extraordinary Sciences was involved in the same danger, there being no want of wicked minded men, that seeing him sufficiently in the favour of the King endeavoured to destroy him in that occasion.  
He would not suddenly forsake the Court, as one scared, but assuring himself of God's protection, he presented himself to the Captain of the Guard, praying him to make some surcease upon that rigorous Edict, and not to dip his hands in blood by the death of so many men; but to permit him only to present himself to the King, and he hoped to give him all content. In this he shown himself very prudent, there being nothing better in troublesome affairs and very sudden, then to bring some retardment, whilst the spirit may give itself leisure to come to itself again, and to find expediments to get out of an ill way. He spoke to the King, expressing much compassion even for them that bore him envy, and desired some delay, which was very reasonable to resolve so crabbed a Question.  
Now when he saw well that it passed the capacity of any created spirit, he had recourse to the Creator by most humble and most fervent prayers, which he recommended also to his dear companions, that all conspiring to the same design, they might the more easily obtain the mercy and the illumination of God in so great and so profound a secret. It is thus that good men proceed in all businesses of importance, distrusting all their own managery if it be not directed from on high. Their prayers redoubled day and night one upon the other forced heaven with a pious violence, and the Dream with its Interpretation was revealed to Daniel in the midst of his most ardent Devotions. He felt his spirit touched with a glimpse of the first light, and saw as in a mirror, all that had passed in Nebuchadonozor's mind with such a certainty, as permitted him not to doubt of it. Then he was not like Archimedes who having found some secret of the Mathematics, as he was in a Bath leapt out all naked by a strange transport, crying through the streets, I have found it, I have found it. This is ordinary to spirits that have nothing in their head but vanity; but holy Daniel cries out thereon, Let the name of God be blessed for ever, for to him belongeth wisdom and strength. It is he that distributeth wisdom to the true Sages, and that bestows knowledge on those that range themselves under his Discipline. It is he that reveals things hidden in the most deep abysses, and knows that which is buried in the most thick darkness, and light dwells perpetually with him. I praise thee, and I confess thee from the bottom of my heart the God of my fathers, that hast given this strength of spirit and this understanding to penetrate the King's secret.  
He spoke many such like words, and rising from his prayer, he went to seek the Captain of the Guard, whom he besought to save the Sages of Babylon, and to cause no more to die, because he had found out the secret that was searched after by the Prince; which the other received with much joy, and failed not immediately to carry news of it to the King, who caused Daniel to be called, of whom he demanded the performance of his promise. Then the Prophet using a great prudence and a singular modesty excused all the Sages of Chaldea that could not find out the King's secret thoughts, and vaunted not himself to know them by his own sufficiency, but by the inspiration of the God whom he adored. In which, he expressed a great wisdom and a generous humility not giving any praise to himself, but transferring all the glory to the living God, that he might work in the King an high esteem of the true Religion.  
S. Gregory saith That those that seek their own glory in the Commission they have from God, are like those that espousing (in quality of proxies) a wife by order of their Master, would play the Husbands, not contenting themselves to be simple Commissioners. Daniel abhorred such proceed, because he was a Star that would show his Sun, and would not be seen himself but by his favour. He made then a large discourse to the King his master, and told him his Dream, which was touching that famous Statue, that had an head of Gold, a breast and arms of Silver, a belly and thighs of Copper, legs of Iron, and feet partly of Iron and partly of Earth: and added, that whilst the King beheld it in his Dream, he saw a little stone come from a great mountain that struck the feet of the Statue and tumbled it down immediately, scattering the Gold, the Silver, the Copper, the Iron, and the Earth as small chaff dissipated by a whirlwind, and that that little Stone changed itself in an justant into a huge Mountain, and filled the whole earth.  
After he had so subtly touched the Vision of the Prince, making him remember all that his imagination had framed, he descended to the particularities of the Interpretation, and said, That he was the Golden Head of that Statue, God having made him a King of kings, and having given him Strength, Rule, and Glory, with a Power over the Earth inhabited by men, over the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field. Then he advertised, that after him should come a Kingdom less than his, that should be as Silver in comparison of Gold: And after that second should arise a third, resembling Brass, that should command over the whole earth: And after that a fourth, which as Iron, should subdue and break in pieces all that it should meet with. And as for that that he had seen the Feet of the Statue composed of Iron and Clay, it meant, that there should be a great inequality and disproportion in that last Empire, by reason of the mixture of very differing parts that could not be fitted well together. In fine, that God would raise up a Kingdom of Heaven, signified by that little Stone, that should crush the other Kingdoms, and should remain stable to all Eternity.  
The King was so transported with Daniel's discourse, that he risen suddenly from his Throne, and bending with his face to the earth, worshipped him, commanding that Sacrifices and Incense should be offered to him, and publishing highly that his God was the God of gods, and the Lord of kings, to whom alone it belonged to reveal Mysteries, since he could penetrate into such a secret.  
Wisdom was never upon so high a Throne, as to see the proudest of Monarches at her feet. Yet Daniel well knew how to moderate the transports of his spirit, and by showing him the nothing of the creature to draw him to the worship and honour of the Creator which was the master of Knowledge, and source of all pure Light. These are the wonders of the Sovereign Monarch, to consider, that a young man that came to that Court as a slave should find there suddenly in the esteem of his Prince the quality of a God; he was shut up continually in his chamber, and his spirit walked through the whole Universe; he was a Captive, and saw Kings pass before him as the Dream of a night.  
For represent to yourselves with what wisdom and with what greatness of conceptions he saw in one only Dream that which should extend beyond six hundred years, and that which had been doing thirteen or fourteen hundred years before. That Golden Head of the Statue was the chief Monarchy of the World, founded (as 'tis held) by Belus whom Ninus his son consecrated for a God, causing a great statue of gold to be erected for him, which had eyes counterfeited of certain precious stones that were afterwards called Belus his eyes. This Ninus took to wife a maid that came from nothing, named Semiramis, that gained him by her charms, and reigned after him in a most imperious way, till such time as she was assassinated by her own son, when she incited him to a most enormous sin. This son that was called Ninias was esteemed but little, and followed with about two and thirty sit-still Kings the last of which was Sardanapalus, that was spinning out his distaff amongst the women of his Seraglio, when he was surprised by a revolt of two of his Captains, and burned himself with all his most precious wealth that he might leave to his conquerors nothing else but ashes.  
This Monarchy of the Assyrians was then divided into two Kingdoms by those two Chiefs that conspired against their Master. Arbaces took the Medes, and Belesus the Chaldeans; out of this Belesus issued thirteen Kings, amongst which were Nebuchadonozor and Belshazzer: Arbaces was followed by nine, the last of which was Astyages.  
These two Kingdoms were afterward incorporated into one sole Monarchy of the Persians, figured by the Silver, founded by Cyrus, whom God seemed to lead by the hand to the conquest of Nations, and to give him happiness at his disposal, to follow no more any but his standards. His Monarchy reckoned two hundred years, and fourteen Kings, when under Darius, one of the greatest spectacles of the inconstancy of humane things, it was buried by the Grecians, after five millions of men had been consumed in three battles.  
Alexander founded this third Empire, represented by the Brass, and did that great master-work, by which he seemed to have been born only to show posterity to what point of greatness a man may arrive by the height of his enterprises, and the vigour of his arms. The course of his Reign ended in twelve years, and so many conquests were bounded by a glass of poison. His Princes shared diversely the Empire, who, after they had dipped their swords so many times in the blood of the Barbarians, washed them in their own, and tore one another by horrible Civil Wars.  
Finally, the Roman Empire was that Iron which broke the Gold, the Silver, and the Copper, and swallowed up all the Monarchies to contribute to its greatness. But there was a mixture of Clay and Iron in this; that so many stranger-Kings (that were effeminated by luxury) were adjoined to the invincible force of that courageous Nation. This was not well founded; there was need of an eternal Kingdom, which began at the Birth of our Lord, seven hundred years after the foundation of the city of Rome, and is exercised after a spiritual and eminent manner to the end of all Ages.  
I have desired to trace out this in a few lines, toverifie the Interpretation that Daniel gave to Nebuchadonozor's Dream, and the great lights that he communicated to him about the estate of the Empires of the earth. The King in this consideration could not satisfy himself with admiring of him, and raised him unto most high degrees of honour, making him as Viceroy of all the Provinces of his Kingdom, the chief Magistrate, and the Prince of the Council of the Sages. He was constrained to accept all this by reason of the imperious humour of his Master, who in his first motions would no way be contraried; but he so ordered the business, that his cares were divided amongst his dear companions, to whom he caused Offices in the Provinces to be bestowed, whilst he was always about the King's person.  
But it seldom happens that good men are raised at Court, but that God makes them know by some revolution or other, the brittleness of all the glory of the world. Scarce had they tasted the first-fruits of the honour due to their merit, but the Prince always puffed up with his victories, and pricked with an high esteem of greatness, without having any remembrance of the Conduct of his Empire that had been represented to him in his Dream, causes a golden Statue of sixty cubits high to be erected for himself, that should be one of the most formidable Colussus' that had been ever seen. And as it was the custom to make great Ceremonies at the Dedication of these testimonies of honour that were given to Kings, he summoned all the principal men of his whole Kingdom, the Governors, and the Officers of his Crown. One reads not that Daniel had any thing to do with it, be it, that he was absent upon some great employment, or be it that he avoided that occurrence by a shift: But his companions were sent for thither, because that the great credit that they had by the recommendation of Daniel had already drawn upon them the envy of those of the Country, who sought for nothing but an occasion to destroy them.  
They might deliberate among themselves whether it were not permitted to render an honour purely civil to the Statue of a King, and conclude with reason, that such an action tended not to the sin of Idolatry. They could not be ignorant that the Prophet Elisha granted leave to Naaman the Syrian to accompany the King his master to the Temple of the Idols, and even to bend the knee, not with a design to do homage to the false God, but with an intention to hold up his Prince whilst he leaned upon him, as was his custom. This action seemed more bold, because here is mention of a place wherein worship was rendered to an imaginary Deity; and although that this Naaman had neither heart nor adoration for it, yet those that saw him bow before that Abomination might infer that he perished in his Superstition; yet for all that the Prophet grants him in this thing all that he desired. By a juster title seems it, that these here ought not to have moved so furious a tempest against their Nation for lack of doing reverence to the Image of a King.  
Nevertheless, these three young men, after they had considered that the King pretended to cause himself to be adored in that Statue as a God, filled with a sense of their Religion, whiles some suffered themselves to go to that adoration, and others fled for fear of torments, presented themselves to the King, and protested loudly that they were the servants of the Living God, and that they should hold it for a great sin to render the honour that is due to him, to an Idol.  
The King was suddenly moved with choler, and threatened to cause them to be burnt alive if they obeyed not, and that there was no God either in heaven or upon earth that should be able to deliver them out of his hands. These gallant Princes not being able to endure this blasphemy, answered constantly, that the God which they served was the Sovereign Master of all Kings, that nothing was impossible to his power; that it was most easy for him to draw them out of a danger so evident, but happen what would, they would never be so base and cowardly as to betray their Faith and belie their Religion.  
What cannot Resolution do? What cannot Courage do? What cannot true Piety do? And what does not the Spirit of God? That three children that were strangers amidst so many millions of Infidels that environed them as enraged wolves amidst the thundering angers of an inexorable King, the horrible faces of hangmen, whilst the flames of the furnace into which they were suddenly to be thrown flashed over, to the horror and trembling even of those that were without danger, should stand as three rocks  to all these violent shake! What menaces did this wicked King employ to make himself to be feared! What sweetnesses and allurements to make himself be beloved! And yet they remain inflexible to rigours, and impregnable to caresses. They are cast into those fiery coals that bore a true representation of hell, to endure the sharpest of pains, and they find there the most sensible of pleasures. The fire forgets itself to be fire; the furnace strews itself with flowers; the gentle breathe of the South-winds temper the ardour of the flames, and that which was the most rigorous of punishments becomes a Throne of honour, upon which these three Champions speak as Oracles, and all the Creatures change themselves into ears to hear them.  
The King that was there present, and that had seen them thrown in fast bound and manacled, when he saw them walk all three, assisted with a fourth that was the Angel of God, in that great and horrible furnace as in a meadow enamell'd over with flowers, demanded of his Princes whether they were not those same men that were newly thrown into the fire, and whence it could come to pass that that Element should change its nature for them, after it had devoured their executioners. He draws near to the furnace, he calls them by their names, and commands them to come to him, to see if they were not spirits loosed from the body. They come forth, he embraceth them, he is in an ecstasy for joy, and confesses with a loud voice, That the God of those Children is the true God; and ordains, that he that shall be so hardy as to blaspheme him should be punished with death, and his house confiscated.  
What triumph was ever so glorious as that of the true Religion, that then made visible her grandeurs to the sight of all the Infidels in her Captivity, and when one would have thought her dead, wrote her praises in characters of fire? The Nobles came about these three Princes, considered their habits, the hair of their heads, their flesh, their skin, and found that every thing was entire. Calumny changed herself into adoration, rage into astonishment, and those that were thought lost and reduced to nothing, saw themselves consecrated by their punishments.  
This should have converted the King, and all his Nation, to the worship of the true God; and yet (those chains that keep men bound in their Superstition for a long time, and by deep rooted habits being almost indissoluble) every thing remained in the same condition, and this Prince blinded by the prosperity of his arms, carried his ambitions to the highest point to which those of mortal men can mount, whilst it pleased God to chastise him by a very extraordinary change.  
A year before that the unhappiness befell him, he saw in a dream a tree of an immense height, that seemed to him to cover all the earth with its branches; the leaves thereof were pleasant; the fruit most savoury; the beasts of the earth fed under it, and lived by the favours they received from it; and upon it the little birds of the air made melodious consorts; whilst on a sudden he saw an Angel descend from heaven, and commanded that the Tree should be cut down, her branches scattered, her leaves shaken off, her fruits destroyed, that it should be tumbled down upon the grass, wet continually with the dew of heaven, bound with a great iron chain, and that there should be left only some small root to spring up again in time to come, but that it should lie seven years under ground before it should appear.  
He was much affrighted at this Dream, and made a second assembly of the Sages of his Kingdom that could not give any suitable Interpretation of it. Daniel was called, and the Dream related to him from point to point by the Kings own mouth, from which he immediately discovered much misery for his Master. There is need of a great force of spirit when one is to carry an afflicting Truth to a person that one loves, and of whom one hath received great benefits.  
One would have counselled Daniel to hold his peace, to dissemble, to elude the true sense by some appearing Interpretation; yet, he knowing that God had sent him to that Court not to vaunt himself in the honour of his offices, and in the abundance of his riches, but have a care of the salvation of his King, and to heal the vanities of his spirit, although that by interpreting this Dream according to the truth, he should bring himself in danger of the ruin of his fortunes. He disguised nothing, but told him, that it were to be wished, that the effect of that Dream might fall upon his enemies, but since that unhappiness threatened him, it would be better to endeavour to divert it, then to invent artifices to suppress it.  
That he was that great Tree that lifted his branches as high as heaven, and covered with his shadow the roundness of the earth, that so many millions of men were in shelter under his protection, and breathed by his favour; but forasmuch as he had despised God, and had entered into a great presumption of his sufficiency, without considering that every thing came to him from on high, that he should be separated from the conversation of men, ranked with beasts, that he should eat the grass of the field as an ox, and should be exposed to the rain, and to all the injuries of the air, living as a beast, till such time as he should know that there is one most high God that rules over the kingdoms of Monarches, and gives them to whom he pleases; but there being yet a root remaining to that overthrown Tree, that there should be some recovery from that brutal life, and that he should be put again into his Kingdom when he should know the power of the heavenly virtue.  
This Daniel was a sprightly Courtier, to tell a King that he should become an ox for the space of seven years; this had been enough to have made him been declared an Impostor, and been banished from the Court. Nevertheless it is a strange thing that Nebuchadonozor makes no reply thereto, but hears patiently the counsel that he gives him, to expiate his sins by Alms and by good Works. He was seized with a great fear of God, with an affright that took from his mouth all manner of reply, to think by what means he might appease the menaces of heaven.  
But we must aver that this great King had something in him very wild, and a spirit that had no more subsistence than the clouds and winds. He passed often from one extremity of the passions to the other without lighting upon the middle, and sometimes he appeared humbled to the abyss, and sometimes also clavae to the air and clouds; and planted his Throne by extravagant imaginations even above the stars.  
This Dream of the Tree kept him in his wits a pretty while, but scarce were twelve months expired, but being one day in his Palace, he entered into a mad vanity about the city of Babylon which he said he had builded by the strength of his wit and of his arm, and for the high magnificences of his glory. The word was yet in his mouth, when the anger of God fell upon his head, as a sudden flash of lightning, and he was changed into a beast; not that he lost his humane soul, nor the ordinary figure of his body, but he entered into so violent and so extraordinary a frenzy, that he persuaded himself that he was an ox, and instantly forsook his Palace and his Throne, ran up and down the fields, and fed on grass with the beasts; and although endeavour was used to cure him by all sorts of remedies, yet experience shown that this evil was a wound from heaven, for which no case was to be found. He became so mad that they were fain to bind and chain him, and yet he broke his chains and tore his clothes, and exposed himself all naked to the rain, to the winds, and to all the rigours that the seasons brought. His hair increased horribly, and his nails so crooked, that they would make one believe that he was some bird of rapine.  
All the Court was in mourning and sadness for this so terrible an accident, and although his  blood, and his violent passions had much contributed to his malady, yet so was it, that the blindest saw that there was in it a manifest punishment of God.  
Evilmerodach his son took the government of the Empire in quality of Regent, during the indisposition of the King his father; and although he appeared to be much moved at that change, yet there was more show in it then reality. But in fine, this miserable frantic having passed seven years in a pitiful condition came again to his right senses, and the first thing that he did, was, to lift up his eyes to heaven, to bless God, to acknowledge that his might was without limits, that his kingdom was an everlasting kingdom, that all men of the habitable earth were but nothing before him, that he disposed of all, as well amongst the heavenly virtues as amongst the creatures of this lower world, that nothing could resist his power without experimenting his Justice.  
His good Subjects touched with a great compassion sought him out again, and replaced him upon his Throne, where he reigned with a great modesty, and lived in the knowledge of the true God, as so fare, as to work out his own salvation, as S. Augustine assures us, together with other Fathers of the Church. So every thing was restored to him with more splendour and Majesty then before, his accident bringing no diminution to his Authority. This gave incomparable joys to holy Daniel, who amidst all the Grandeurs of the Court, wished for nothing but the conversion of his Master.  
Evilmerodach that had taken some liking to the Regency was not contented at this change, but expressed so much despite at it, that the King his father distrusting him, kept him in prison, which was very bitter unto him, seeing himself descended from the Throne, in a moment, to the condition of a captive.  
It is held, that Nebuchadonozor reigned after his re-establishment the space of six or seven years, and that the successor of his Empire was this Evilmerodach his prisoner, who remained a long time in the languor of his captivity. He found in that prison Jehojakim King of the Jews, and (as men in misery have a kind of obligation to love the like) he looked upon him with a good eye, and recreated himself often with him, having no other company at all. The memory of this friendship accompanied him to the Throne, and he caused his companion to be delivered out of prison, using him honourably, and giving him even Offices of importance in his Court. The new King passing from one extremity to another in such a sudden, behaved himself but ill; for it is said that he caused the body of his father to be torn in pieces, for fear he should return again from the gates of death to resume his Sceptre, and that he reigned with much insolence, taking a pride to trample underfoot all that his predecessors had exalted. And therefore, that eclipse that Daniel was in at Court, as it appears from the sacred Text, might have happened at this time, since that the Jews were retired, and had little credit in the kingdom.  
This holy Prophet seeing himself discharged of the businesses of the Court, and ranged in a solitude, was in his element, and recollected all his thoughts to give to his heart the joys of God, which good souls find in a retirement. It was then that he entered farther into the commerce of the intelligences, that he was visited by Angels with more favour, that he learned the secret of Empires, and saw all the glory of the world at his feet: yet he could not belie his good heart, nor avoid but that the contempt of the true Religion, and the affliction of his poor people that suffered much in this alteration, was very sensible to him.  
Evilmerodach was never the happier for leaving the paths of Piety which his father had trod out for him; for after a short and wicked Reign he was suppressed by his brother-in-law Neriglossor, who having a child by his wife named Belshazzar, the grandchild of the great Nebuchadonozor, put him forward to succeed in the Empire. In the mean while the father governed the kingdom in quality of a Regent, and when Belshazzar was of age, he remitted all the power into his hands, which he used moderately during his father's life; but as soon as he was dead he laid aside his vizard, and grew dissolute in the quantity of excesses and of debauches shameful to a Prince of his extraction.  
The height of his fatal pleasures was in the most sumptuous banquet that he made, to which he invited a thousand persons of the best quality in his kingdom, wherein their spirits being poured out into an excessive voluptuousness, the King himself being full of wine and impiety, commanded that the magnificent vessels which his grandfather had taken in the Temple of Jerusalem should be brought upon their cupboard; which was readily performed, and he put them into the hands of his wanton Courtiers and immodest women, who mocked at the mysteries of the true Religion. That banqueting-house seemed nothing now but a repair of Bacchanals, where Gluttony, Love, Sport, Jeasting exercised all their power; and the lascivious devils were unchained to induce the guests to all sort of intemperance, when behold a Prodigy comes that changes the dissolute merriments of that Court into an horrible tragedy.  
An hand of a man without the body appeared upon a wall, whose fingers seemed to move, and to write unknown characters, whereat the King was so affrighted, that all his body trembled, and his countenance appeared laden with pale colours of Death, which spoilt all the sport, and caused a great silence in the banqueting-hall. Immediately recourse was had to the Sages and Diviners of Chaldea to read and interpret that writing; but they were found always weak in such mysteries as these.  
The Queen Mother had a good soul, and retained always some impression of the true Religion, she remembered Daniel that was at that time banished from the Court, and had in esteem ' his great wisdom and good conversation: and therefore as soon as she had heard of the accident that had happened, and the great trouble of mind the King her son was in, she entered into the hall, and spoke to him very advantageously of Daniel, assuring him, that he was a personage that was filled with the Deity, and that under the Reign of his Grandfather he had given admirable interpretation of hidden things, which made him be loved of that great King, who failed not to declare him the Prince of the Council of the Sages of Chaldea; but that the insolences of Evilmerodach (insufferable to all the world) had driven him from the Court, though not from Babylon, in which yet he was, and that he was the only man capable to resolve him in so strange a business.  
The King received this advice with much joy, and commanded instantly that Daniel should be caused to come to him, who was retired in his little solitude. He is sought for, he is found, he is brought to his Majesty, who entertained him very courteously, and asked of him the Interpretation of the words written on the wall, promising him that if he would tell him the truth he would give him the purple robe and the collar of the Order. But Daniel expressed to him that all these presents moved him nothing, and that he aimed at no other honour at the Court than that of his Master, whose will and decrees he would declare. He puts the King in mind of his Grandfather, of the Greatness and of the Majesty of his Empire, of the absolute power that he exercised over men, and how his heart being lifted up against God, he was reduced to a brutal life, in which he remained the space of seven years, till such time as his chastisement giving him wisdom had rendered to him his health and Sceptre. After he had prepared the spirit of Belshazzar by a domestic example, he told him with a generous freedom, that that which he had known to happen to the person of that great King was sufficient to humble him, and yet he had exalted himself against the Sovereign Monarch, and had caused with much mirth of heart the consecrated Vessels of his Temple to be profaned, when he caused his Gods of gold and silver to be praised to the roproach of the true God, and that in revenge of so bad an action, that hand which he had seen on the wall was sent from heaven and had written three horrible words, which are, Mene, Tekel, Pheres, that is to say, Count, Weigh, Divide; the first signifies that God hath counted the days of his reign, and hath put a period to them: the second, that he had been put in the balance of the Sovereign Judge, and that he had not been found weight: the third, that his kingdom should be divided, and given for a prey to the Medes and Persians.  
It is a strange thing that Daniel having made so doleful a prediction, King Belshazzar entered not into wrath against him, but on the contrary, commanded that the purple and collar of gold should be given him, which he had promised to the Interpreter of his vision. But there will be less cause to wonder, if we consider that it was a Maxim amongst the Babylonians not to be angry with the Diviners and Astrologers when they foretold any evil to come, no more then with the shadow of a sun-dial that shows the hour, or the weathercock that declares the wind. And furthermore, this young Prince hearing his Prophet speak with so much judgement and sanctity, had him in esteem for a man of God, which he ought not to offend, and besides that by entreating him with courtesy, he hoped, that being a friend of the true Gods, he might have as much power to turn away the scourge wherewith he was threatened, as he had understanding to know it, and forced of spirit to foretell it.  
One might also marvel that Daniel, who at the the beginning testified that he made small account of the riches and greatness of the Court, for all that accepted of the purple, of the chain, and of the dignity of the third person in the kingdom, that was presented to him. But we ought to observe, that sometimes it is an infirmity of spirit not to be able to endure honour when it comes by a Divine disposal and a secret of Providence over us. This wise Courtier considered, that being of his own nature so fare from all these things, they came to seek him out in his solitude, and that it was a sign of God that would have it so, not for him, but for the benefit of his Nation, which was much more favourably used in matter of the exercise of their Religion when he was in favour; besides that the virtue and moderation which he made glitter in all his actions, even in his highest prosperities, contrary to the ordinary manner of all those that were then at Court, gave more glory to God, then if he had been perpetually hidden in an obscure life.  
It was an indiscretion in Belshazzar to express so much astonishment, and to disclose that prediction, by reason that there was a secret conspiracy against him, which was plotted amidst those public dissolutions, and the conspirators were the more animated to the execution of that enterprise, when they knew that that Prodigy threatened him. The same night they performed their wicked design, and outrageously murdered him, after he had reigned but nine months since his father's death. The principal men of the Kingdom that were of the conspiracy chose one of their complices named Nabonidus, who is called in Scripture Darius the Mede, who knowing the Prophecy of Daniel, and the freedom with which he had spoken to the King, esteemed him for it, and retained him at the Court in the quality which his Predecessor had given him a night before his death. When he saw himself established in favour again, he forgot not God, his heart being always animated with a zeal to his Religion; and when he saw his King inclining to the Superstition of the Country, his heart was much grieved at it, and he endeavours to cleanse him from his errors, seeing him to be of a disposition too simple and credulous to the prejudice of the truth.  
Amongst these false Deities, Bel was adored with an exquisite and sumptuous worship, in as much as there were offered to him every day out of the King's house twelve baskets of meal, forty sheep, and six great measures of wine; and it was believed that that Idol did eat up all the offerings. The King that loved Daniel so much as to make him dine sometimes at his own table, desired that he would accommodate himself to the Laws of the Country, and that he would express some affection to the service of that great Bell that was adored universally by all the Nation. But this wise Courtier answered him freely that he would never worship any but the true living God. Darius replied, That there was nothing required to be adored but to live; Bel was truly the living God because he did cat and drink well, and cost much to feed him. Daniel smiling answered, that it was a great simplicity to think that that Idol did eat up all that was offered him every day. Whereupon the King was moved with a curiosity to know how all this went, and having caused the ordinary viands to be offered at Bells altar, carefully saw all the doors of the Temple shut, and put Guards before them that no body might enter in. Daniel before he went out thence with the King caused abundance of Ashes to be sown there, hoping by this means to discover the Imposture. The morrow after the King caused the doors to be opened that had remained fast shut with his own seal, and when as he entered in he saw that all the victuals had been taken away, he cried out that Bel was a great God, and that it must needs be acknowledged that he did eat excellently well, seeing nothing of all those offerings was remaining. But Daniel instantly made him see upon the ashes the steps of those that had entered, whereat he was astonished, and called for all the Priests of that Idol, to whom he shown their cheat, and pressed them so eagerly that they discovered certain little doors under the Altar through which they entered to the number of threescore and ten, besides women and little children to devour the sacrifice. The King was ashamed at the simplicity of his belief; this shame passed into wrath, and wrath proceeded as far as blood, causing him to put to death all the Impostors.  
Furthermore, in the same place there was a Dragon which was yet worshipped by that superstitious people, which Daniel, after he had obtained the permission of the King, killed by making a mass composed of pitch, of grease and of hair, which he made him swallow, and with it choke himself.  
This made a great commotion amongst the people that said that the King was become a Jew, causing his Priests to be murdered, and killing the Dragon, that there was now nothing remaining but to strangle all the sense of the Ancient Religion. In such a manner that behold a great tempest is raised against Daniel, which in the opinion of all the world, threatened him with an inevitable death. The Grandees of the realm endeavour to ruin him by all ways, and considering that he was exact and irreprochable in his office, they resolve to ensnare him in matter of Religion. Under colour of gratifying the King they beseech him to make an edict, That whosoever should desire any thing of the Gods or of men for the space of thirty days except of the King, should be cast into the Lions-den; which the King granted them, not knowing what their malice plotted against the innocence of his Prophet and Officer of State. He was watched on all sides, and retired himself from the King to diminish the jealousy that men had of him for the favours he received from him.  
All his consolation was in Prayer and in those amiable discourses which he had with God; and therefore he was afflicted as much as can be expressed, seeing that the King his Master let himself be persuaded to make an edict so outrageous against the honour of God, as to forbid to pray unto him. Yet this hindered not him from continuing his orisons, lifting up thrice a day his weeping eyes on that side whereon the Temple of Jerusalem was built, and sighing in the presence of his great Master with the ardours of an heart that evaporated itself ●ll in Love.  
The Nobles that were every day at his door falled not to surprise him, and to accuse him that he had transgressed the Edict, which he acknowledged freely. Complaints of it were suddenly made to his Majesty whose heart was wounded for the affection that he bore to Daniel, and he laboured even till the Sun set to save him; nevertheless seeing himself pressed violently by his Edict, and the vehemence which the Nobles used that it should be observed, he abandoned the innocent to their fury against his will. This defiles the conscience of many great men, who are evil-doers of their disposition, and yet for all that commit great evils through the complacency that they give to the violent humours of those that are about them. He had some hope that Daniel would escape, and that the God which he adored would save him, and therefore he made no resistance by arms, but delivered him into their hands to be cast into that horrible den of the Lions that had been kept hungry on purpose that he might be the sooner devoured.  
But, O God of wonders, what Prodigy is here▪ The Lions worship their prey; Daniel is visited in that Cave by a Prophet come in an instant from Judea by the Ministry of an Angel that brought him his dinner. The beasts change their Nature, and Nature forces her Laws for the respect of a servant of God. The King that had lain down without his supper, and had not slept all night for the fear that he had for his poor Daniel, runs early in the morning to the Lions-den, which he had caused to be shut up with a great stone put upon the mouth of it, and stamped with his own Seal, and there cries out with a lamentable voice ask of Daniel whether he were yet alive; who made him see how the God that he adored had delivered him and preserved him from all evil; Whereat he was so ravished, that he began to look upon him as an heavenly man, caused his accusers to be apprehended, to be exposed to the same Lions who devoured them immediately, and published an Edict in favour of the true Religion. This King reigned seventeen years, till such time as Cyrus by a most particular design of God seized upon the Monarchy and dealt favourably with the faithful people. Daniel remained always very considerable, having seen five Kings pass away, and was at last honoured even by his enemies themselves for his rare virtues, and for the wonders that God had placed in his person. One may observe in his life abundance of Lineaments that adorn highly the conversation of a true Courtier, as are, his constancy in Religion, his Devotion, the tenderness of his love to God, his Charity towards his neighbour, his modesty, his sparingness to speak of himself, his Moderation in Prosperity, his Strength of spirit in Adversity, his inviolable Firmness never to yield to sin, his exact Faithfulness towards his Master, his Conscience, Science, and Ability in the Administration of his Charges, his Love to his Friends, his Compassion to the Miserable, his affability towards all the World, his patiented enduring of the humours of Strangers, his Prudence in his Conduct, and the blessing of God that made all his enterprises prosper.     

THE RELIGIOUS MEN.  

ELIJAH. ELISHA.  
 portrait of the Prophet Elijah 
ELIIAH THE PROPHETTT   portrait of the Prophet Elisha 
ELISHA THE PROPHETT   

BEhold here an admirable Courtier that was never of the number of those flatterers of the Court that keep Truth in Ironchains, and give to vices the colour of virtue. Elijah was a Prophet that included the name of God and of the Sun in his Name, and who all his life-time bore the perfections of them both, as being a true child of Light, of Fire, and a visible image of the invisible beauties. As he was yet hanging at his mother's breast, his father had a vision, by which it seemed to him that his son sucked fire in stead of Milk, and nourished himself with a most pure flame, which without offending him, furnished him with an Aliment as delicious as possible. So was he all his life a Man of Fire, and as it seemed that that King of Elements followed the course of his words and will, so he burned also in the Interiour with that fire that kindles the heart of Angels.  
He was the first of men that set up the Standart of Virginity, that consecrated it upon his body when it was unknown and despised in the World, who made an Angelical order of the Mount Carmel to which he hath transmitted his spirit through a long and sweet posterity that hath found sources of contemplation which he derived to the world to water the barrenness of the Earth, that hath traced the Originals of all his virtues upon that fair Carmel, upon that sacred solitude that was his first Terrestrial Paradise.  
His Speech was Thunder, and his Life Lightning, his Example a School of great Actions, his Zeal a Devouring fire, his Negotiations the affairs of Eternity, His Conversation an Idea of the Contemplative and Civil Life, his Translation a Miracle without peer. I leave to those that have undertaken to write his Life the retail of his Virtues and of his Miracles, staying only upon his Actions that he did at Court, treating with the Kings Ahab, Jehu, Ahazias, and the wicked Queen Jezabel.  
He flourished nine hundred years before the Nativity of our Lord in the Kingdom of Israel, which was then divided both by Religion and by Policy from that of Judah and Jerusalem. Ahab the son of Amri, an ill Crow of an ill Egg, held then the Empire, and being married to a Sidonian the daughter of the King of Sidon which was called Jezabel, an haughty and malicious woman, he was totally governed by her, and to render himself complacent to her humours caused a Temple to be erected to the God Baal, and near that Temple a Grove to be Planted, where were committed all the Abominations ordinary to Idolaters.  
Elijah that burned with the Zeal of the honour of God was touched with a most sensible grief by so scandalous an action, and was stireed up by his great Master to destroy that Mystery of Iniquity. Now, he knowing that it was hard to Preach efficaciously the Truth to Spirits froliking it in the midst of the smiling prosperities of the world thought, by the order of the God of the Universe, that it was best to afflict that wicked people by a long famine and great adversities to make them reflect upon themselves, and return to the worship of the true Religion. He swore then aloud and publicly before Ahab for the punishment of his Idolatry, that there should not be during three years either rain or dew upon the earth, and that the Heavens should become Brass to chastise that Age of Iron, and that he should not expect that it should be opened during that time, unless it were by the words of his mouth.  
As soon as he had said this in the presence of witnesses, he went away to the Eastern Coast; and hide himself at the Brook of Carith over against Jordan, where God nourished him by Ravens that brought him orderly every day his portion. In the mean while the drought failed not to raise a great famine on the earth, and chief in the Kingdom of Israel, where one could see nothing but people crying with hunger; But the Heavens took in hand to revenge the God of Heaven, and the Clouds, that are as the Breasts of the Earth, had no water for a people that abused the Elements and all the Creatures to the prejudice of the Creator.  
In the mean while, God that spares not always the Lands and Goods of his Servants in a common havoc, that they may not amuse themselves on the vain prosperities of the World, permitted that that Brook that furnished the Prophet with water, should grow dry as well as the rest. But as the Ocean which retires itself out of one River, swells itself in another, so this great Nursing-father of Elias that seemed to fail in matter of that little Rivulet, recompensed it by the miraculous liberality of a poor widow. He forsook not that station that Providence had assigned him, although barren, before he had orders for it from God his Master, who sent him to the Country of Sidon to Sarepta, assuring him that he had already provided for his nourishment.  
The Prophet arriving at the destined place, found at the City-gate a poor Widow-woman, the mother of a little son, and forasmuch as he knew that the Famine was great every where, that he might not astonish her at first, he desired of her only a glass of water, which she gave him with a good will, after which, he prays her to add to it a morsel of bread; but the good woman swore to him that she had but one handful of Meal left in the great rigour of Famine, and that she was going to gather two or three small sticks, to make a little fire and to bake a Cake, which would be the last that she and her son should eat in all their lives, for after that repast they must resolve to die. Yet for all this Elijah orders her to make him a little Loaf baked under the Ashes, and to think afterward upon herself and son, and assure herself that neither her Meal, nor Oil should diminish any thing till such time as the Famine should be passed.  
It was a strong proof of the faith of this Sidonian that commanded her to take away the Bread from herself and her son to give it to a stranger, and quitting that which she had in her hands to rest upon uncertainties: Yet she obeyed in that great necessity, yielding more to a man that she knew not, for the esteem that she had of his virtue, and the opinion which she had that he was the servant of the great God, then to her own Life. So true it is That the Considerations of Religion and of Religious persons touch even the souls of Pagans and of Infidels. So was she worthily requited, having a little inexhaustible treasure in her house, which was sufficient for her Prophet, for herself and for her child; and this was a particular mercy of the Sovereign power to her, that called her to his knowledge by this miracle, and would not that Elijah should eat alone the bread which he multiplied by the words of his mouth, but that he should give part of it to the poor, as our Saviour did afterward; God ordaining that good miracles should be never vain, but profitable to the soul and body of men created after the image of God. While he stayed in this house, the son of the Dame of it died of a burning Fever, whereof this poor afflicted woman laid the fault upon Elijah, saying that he had renewed the memory of her sins before God; and Elijah complained of God for that he had afflicted his Hostess. But that great Master did all for his own glory, for Elijah having three times contracted himself upon the dead body of the child, breathed into him the spirit of life, and restored him to his mother.  
Three years being now passed in the great anguishes of hunger, God commanded Elijah to present himself again to Ahab, and was resolved to sent some Rain. When the extremity of the evil was very great, and no inventions could be found to appease the scourge, Ahab a carnal man, instead of having recourse to Prayers and Supplications to ease his subjects, thought on nothing but preserving his Horses and his Mules. He had at his service and at his Court in quality of a superintendent of his House, and of his Levies, a great and good man named Abdias who moderated the furies of that wicked Court, saved the Prophets of God when they were persecuted, and greatly comforted the People. Ahab resolved to go one way, and send him the other, to seeek some herbage to feed his Cattle.  
As Abdias was going along his way, he met with Elijah the Prophet, whom the King had caused to be searched after in his own territories, and through all the neighbouring Kingdoms without being ever able to learn any news of him. And therefore he was very much amazed at that accost, and asked him if he were Elijah, whereto he answered, that he was the very same, and that he should go and give Ahab information of his coming. The other making him a low Reverence with his face to the Earth, replied, wherein have I ever offended you, that you should deliver me into the hands of Ahab with an intention to cause me to be put to death? For it is true that there is no Kingdom nor Nation, whither my Master hath not sent to inquire news of you, without ever getting any light of you; and now if I should go tell the King of your arrival, and the spirit of God should carry you away (as it doth ordinarily) to transport you into some other part, I should be found a Liar, and the King would take away my Life. What good would it do you to be the cause of my death, seeing that I have feared God even from mine infancy, and have always honoured his servants so fare as to preserve an hundred Prophets from the horrors of the Persecution, and nourish them secretly at mine own charge in Caves wherein they were hidden? Do not deprive yourself now of a servant that is most gained unto you. The Prophet assured him, and swore to him that he would appear before Ahab.  
By which I find that this Abdias was very prudent in that he would not rashly carry a news to his Master that should be without effect; because that great ones are easily incensed, when men are so light as to promise them what they ask, and answer not their expectation; besides that if they are frustrated of their desire, they think themselves to be slighted, and are angry even at the times, and elements that do not apply themselves to their humours. When therefore he was assured by the inviolable oath of a Prophet, he went to the King, and told him that he had met with Elijah who was ready to present himself to his Majesty.  
This Prince that burned with a passion to see him stayed not till he could come to see him, fearing lest he should steal away again, but went to meet him in person, and having found him, asked him with disdain, whether he was not the man that embroiled all his Kingdom? The Prophet as bold as a Lion answered him, that he had never embroiled any thing but that the trouble came from his Father's house, and from him, for that they had forsaken God and followed Baal; and that if he would know by experience the error wherein he was, that he should make an Assembly on Mount Carmel of all the People of Israel, and summon thither the four hundred and fifty false Prophets that are every day fed at Queen Jezabels' Table, and that there should be decided the business of Religion.  
It was an high attempt, on which Elijah had never so much as dreamt, had he not had an express Revelation from God: for one ought not lightly to commit the verity of the faith before the Court and the common people to uncertain disputes and doubtful accidents from whence the Pagans and Heretics may by chance draw some advantage. But the Prophet being well assured on his side; King Ahab exposed himself on His to cause a great revolt among his subjects, and a manifest divorce with his wife. Yet God would have it so to disabuse him, and to bring him back to the true Religion.  
As soon as he had then accepted the condition and commanded the assembly, there were gathered together an infinite number of people (there being nothing that so much tempts curiosity as the affairs of Religion) It was then, that one might see the assurance and vigour of a true servant of God; for he observing that the King and people who had not yet choked all the seeds of Truth floated in divers opinions spoke solemnly to them, That it was no longer time to halt sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other, and that if Baal were God they ought to follow him, but if there were no other God but that of Israel, called upon from all times by their Fathers, it was he to whom they ought to adhere with an inviolable fidelity. To this the assembly made no answer, there being none that was willing to set himself forward upon an uncertainty. Then Elijah taking the word again said, Behold four hundred and fifty Prophets of Baal on one side, and I a Prophet of the true God all alone on the other part in this place here; To make a trial of our Religion, let there be two Oxen given us, for each of the two parties, let them be cut in pieces, and the pieces put upon a pile of wood without putting any fire to them either on one side or on the other; we will expect it from heaven, and the Sacrifice upon which God shall make a flame appear from on high to kindle it, shall carry away the testimony of the true Religion.  
To this all the people answered with a confused voice, that it was a good Proposition. The Victims were brought, sacrificed, and put upon the wood to be consumed. The Priests of Baal began first to invoke the heavenly fire, and to torment themselves with great cries, and a long time without any effect. It was already midday, and nothing had appeared to their advantage, whereat being very much astonished, they drew out their Razors, and make voluntary incisions upon themselves according to their custom, thinking that a prayer was never well heard, if it were not accompanied with their blood, which the evil Spirit made them shed in abundance to satiate his Rage.  
This nothing advanced the effect of their Supplications, which gave occasion to Elijah to mock at the vanity of their Gods, saying, that Baal, that gave no answer, was asleep, or busy, or on a journey, or perhaps drinking at the Tavern. He remained either with security amidst so many enraged Wolves, covered with the protection of the God of Hosts, and began to prepare his Sacrifice, taking twelve stones in memory of the twelve Tribes of Israel, to erect an Altar to the name of God; after which he divided the Offering into divers parts, put them all upon the pile, and that none might have any suspicion that there was fire hidden in some part of them, he caused abundance of buckets of water to be thrown upon the Sacrifice, and all about it, and then began to say, Great God, God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, show now that thou art the God of this people, and that I am thy servant. I have obeyed thee in all this resting myself upon thy word; Hear me, my God, my God hear me, and let this assembly learn this day of thee, that thou art the true God, and the absolute Master of all the universe, and that it is thou that art able to reduce their hearts to the true belief.  
Scarce had he ended his prayer when the Sacred fire fell down from heaven upon his Sacrifice and devoured the Offering and the Altar, to the admiration of all the People; who prostrating themselves on the ground began to cry, That the God of Israel was the true God. Take then says he, the false Prophets of Baal, & let not one sole man of them escape us. The People convinced by the Miracle and the voice of Elijah, without expecting any other thing, fall upon those false Prophets, takes them, and cuts them all in pieces. Ahab amidst all this stood so astonished that he durst not speak one only word, nor any way resist the Divine Command.  
The Prophet bade him take his refection, and go into his Coach, for the so much desired rain was near, and having said so, retired himself to the top of the Mount Carmel, and sent his servant seven times to the sea to see whether he could discover any clouds; but he saw nothing till the seaventh time, and then he perceived a little cloud that exceeded not the measure of a hand; and yet he sends him to tell Ahab that it was time to Harness, if he would not be overtaken with the rain. He mounted instantly into his Coach to get to the City of Jezrael, and Elijah ran before as if he had wings.  
In the mean time the Heavens grew black with darkness, the clouds collect themselves, the wind blows and the Rain falls in abundance. Ahab failed not to relate to Jezabel all that had been done, desiring to make the death of those Prophets pass for a decree of heaven, for fear lest that imperious woman should upbraid him with the softness of his courage. But she not moved with those great miracles of fire and water, that were reported to her, began to foam with wrath, and to swear by all her Gods that she would cause Elijahs head to be laid at her feet by the morrow that time.  
The Prophet is constrained to fly suddenly to save himself not knowing to whom to trust; so that having brought with him but one young man to accompany him in the way, he quitted him, and went alone into the wilderness, wherein having traveled a day he entered into a great sadness, and laid him down under a Juniper-tree to repose himself, and there felt himself very weary of living any longer, and said to God with an amorous heart, My God, it is enough, take me out of this life, I am not better than my fathers. It is a passion ordinary enough to good men to wish for death, that they may be no more obliged to see so many sins and miseries as are in the World, and to go to the place of rest to contemplate there the face of the living God. But this desire ought to be moderated according to the will of God.  
As he was in that thought, sleep, that easily surprises a melancholy spirit, and wearied with raving on its pains, slipped into his benumbed members and gave some truce to his torments. But that great God that had his eyes open to the protection of so dear a person dispatched to him his guardian Angel, who awaked him, and shown him near his head a cruse of water and a loaf of bread baked under the ashes (for such are the banquets that the nursing Father of all Nature makes his Prophets not loving them for the delights of the body, but contenting himself to give them that which is necessary to life) he saw well that it was a Providence that would yet prolong his life. He drank and eaten, and at length being very heavy fell asleep again. But the Angel that had undertaken the direction of his way waked him, and told him that it behoved him to rise quickly, by reason that he had yet a long way to go. Elijah obeyed, and being risen found that he had gained a merveilous strength, so that he journied forty days and forty nights being fortified with that Angelical bread, till such time as he came to the Mountain Horeb. There he retired himself into the hollow of a Rock, unknown to men, but well known to God that appeared to him and comforted him, ask of him what he made there? Whereto he answered That he was zealous with an ardent zeal for the God of Hosts, but the children of Israel had forsaken him, demolished his Altars, killed his Prophets, and that he alone remained, yet for all that they ceased not to seek his life to extinguish the whole service of God. Upon this God commanded him to come forth, and to stand upon the mountain to see great sights caused by the presence of God. And suddenly there came an impetuous whirlwind that overturned the Mountains and broke the Rocks, but God was not therein; after that impetuous Wind came an Earthquake, but God was not therein; after the Earthquake devouring-Fire, but God was not in those flames; after the Fire, behold there came a small gracious gale, and God was in it. And therefore Elijah ravished with a profound respect covered his face with his Mantle, and kept himself at the entry of his Cave, where he heard a voice that demanded of him again what he did there? whereto he answered as before, that he fled from the perfecution of those that would give him the stroke of death for the zeal which he had to the service of the Living God.  
But the voice commanded him to return, and to take again his way through the desert into Damascus, and gave him order to Anoint and declare two Kings, the one over Syria, which was Hazael, and the other over Israel, which was Jehu that should succeed his Persecutor. Furthermore, God informed him, that all was not lost, but that he had yet reserved to himself seven thousand servants that had not bowed the knee to Baal, nor lifted up their hands to adore his Idol. He added yet farther, that he should take Elisha for his Companion and Successor, of whom he had reason to expect good effects.  
Such was Elijahs Vision, and his discourse with God; and it seemed that this Sovereign Teacher of the Prophets, showing him the representation of an impetuous wind, of an Earthquake, and of Fire, in which God was not, although he was in a little gentle blast, and would signify to him that His Spirit is not in those great commotions that would seem to overturn all nature, but in a certain Calm that produces little noise, but much fruit filling the earth with blessings. So also would he make him hope, that after these violent persecutions, and those fatal Convulsions of Kingdoms, there should come a sweet and peaceful Messiah; and that forasmuch as concerned him, Jezabels' persecution should cease, and his soul after the toils of that banishment should taste the sweetness of an anticipated Paradise.  
He took then his way again according to the command of God without passing by Samaria, and finding Elisha ploughing the ground with twelve yoke of Oxen, cast his Mantle on him, to signify to him that he was called of God to that sacred ministry of Prophecy, which the other understood, and quitting instantly his Oxen ran to Elijah, whom he beseeched that he would permit him to go and give the kiss of peace to his Father and Mother, after that he would adhere to nothing, but render himself up to him; which Elijah having granted, he, when he had acquitted himself of his duty, returned and sacrificed two Oxen which he boiled with the wood of his Plough, and made a Feast with them for the people; after which he ranged himself under the conduct of the Prophet, and was a perfect imitator of his virtues.  
An ill occasion embarked him again in a Combat against Ahab and Jezabel, which was fatal to them both. The King had a mind to enlarge his Gardens, and Naboths Vineyard was near his Palace, and for his advantage; he calls for him, and asks him very courteously for it, promising to pay him the price that it was worth, or to buy him a better inheritance in whatsoever place he would. The desire was very civil, and not like that of so many other Princes and Lords, that disposed at that time of the goods of their subjects as of their own, usurping by violence that which they could not have by right. Yet this good man, that measured all by the affection he bore his Vineyard and not by the submission he owed his Master, was obstinate, and told him, That it was the wealth of his Fathers, which he would no way part with.  
Ahab was much troubled at this denial, and returning to his Palace threw himself upon his bed, and would not eat at the ordinary hour of his repast. The Queen his wife being surprised at that accident goes to see him, and inquires after the cause of his indisposition, which he declared to her out of a desire he had to receive some ease. This Princess which was a daughter of the King of Sidon, and who knew how her Father reigned absolutely over his subjects falls a laughing, and meaning to blame the weakness of her husband, said to him; It appears plainly, Sir, that you are a Prince of great authority, very worthy to govern a Kingdom, since you receive affronts from your subjects, and revenge them upon yourself by the loss of your dinner. But if that be all that hinders you, I pray, arise, be merry and eat, for I know the way to make you possessor of that Vineyard that you desire.  
At the same instant that Imperious Queen takes her seal, writes a Letter to the Principal men of Jezreel, and commands them to call an Assembly, under colour of a Fast and Public Prayers, to call Naboth to it, to make him sit amongst the chief, and not to fail to suborn two witnesses against him, that should depose that he had blasphemed against God and his King, and thereupon indite him, and stone him.  
Behold how so many Ministers of Iniquity use the Innocent, not seeing that at the same time as they lay snares against the honour, the goods, and the life of their neighbour, an invisible Hand draws up in Heaven the decree of their ruin. This Letter being come to Jezreel, the principal men assemble themselves, and not seeking any delay or incident to sweeten a bad business, betray their conscience to avoid the fury of the King, executing that which was commanded them, and before they are Judges render themselves Criminal. Thus go violent Reigns, where virtue is abandoned by some through wvaknesse, and persecuted by others through fury. Miserable Naboth astonished at that wicked calumny, protests his innocence in the face of Heaven and Earth, justifies, and defends himself by good reason; but the false Witnesses, which are the instruments of Satan, and the chief furies against the peace of mankind, urge and torment him; His Judges sold to iniquity condemned him; He is led out of the City, delivered to the fury of the people, overwhelmed, as a Blasphemer of God and the King, with a bloody tempest of stones and flints, every hand making itself injurious against him, some through a false zeal, and others through a compliance with the humours of Ahab and Jezabel.  
The news of his death comes instantly to the Court, and Jezabel carries it to the King, without specifying to him any other thing, telling him only that Naboth was out of the world, and that he might now enjoy his spoils all at leisure. To speak Truth, Great ones have great cause to make to God David's Prayer, and to beseech him to deliver them from others sins, and from those that are hidden from them. Unfortunate Ahab knew nothing of all that had passed, and takes not the pains to inform himself of the manner of that death; He trusted all to his wife, and gave her his signet, his authority his heart and Counsels. It was enough to make him guilty to put the Government of his Kingdom into the hands of that Sidonian woman who, he might well know, had great inclinations to blood and rapine. Princes do wisely not to rely too much in every thing upon their Counselors of State, without watching over their actions, and using all diligence to discover their deportments without believing any thing lightly either on one side or the other.  
Ahab without taking any farther information was going to possess himself of Naboths bloody spoil; when the Prophet Elijah by the command of God came and found him upon the way, and began to roar against him as a Lion, What, says he, Murder the Innocent, and take away his Inheritance bedewed with his blood? After this what is there more to do? Know, Sir, that the Vengeance of God hangs over your head, and that in the same place as the Dogs licked the blood of Naboth they shall lick yours. This unhappy Prince extremely amazed at so thundering a speech was not incensed against the Prophet, but endeavouring to pacify him, said to him, Wherein have I offended you? and in what have you found me your enemy, that you use me with all these rigours? You are enough mine enemy, says the Prophet, seeing you are Gods; and since ye have sold yourself, through love to an Idolatrous woman, to serve her passions, and commit so many wicked acts in the face of God. In punishment of your crimes, He will ruin your House, and blot out your Posterity; the blood of that murdered Innocent will cost Jezabel dear, for she shall be eaten up of Dogs in the field of Jezreel.  
Poor Ahab returns hanging down his head without passing farther, tormented on one side by the remorse of his own Conscience, and on the other by the love he bore to his Sidonian, whom he would not any way displease. He said nothing to her of all that she had done without his privity, in Naboth's business, whether through affection, or through fear of her wicked Spirit. He revenges himself upon himself, he rends his Clothes, he fasts, he covers himself with sackcloth, without putting it off even when he went to bed; which softened the heart of God, who ordained that the Kingdom should not be taken from him during his life, but that his Posterity should be deprived of it.  
Three years were slipped away, and Elijah was absent, when Ahab resolved to proclaim war with the King of Syria, to recover Ramoth one of his Cities that the other had usurped, and engaged Jehosaphat King of Juda to his party, making a new Alliance of Arms and Interests with him. When they were assembled, Jehosaphat which had a zeal to the true Religion, said, That it would be good to consult with some Prophet before they enterprised the war; and Ahab to content him, called for four hundred, but they were the false Prophets of his wife, who were none of the best, and who foretold him all falsoly, that he should have an happy issue of his enterprise. King Jehosaphat asked Ahab, whether amongst that great number of Baal's Prophets there were never a Prophet of the true God that one might hear speak, meaning by this to induce him to his duty, and to the knowledge of the true Religion. Ahab replied that there was none at present, but a certain man named Michaiah, but he could not endure him, because he prophesied nothing but mischief to him. Jehosaphat said, that he ought not for that to hate him, but that it would be good to hear him, and instantly was sent away a Gentleman of the Court to call him. This man ceased not to advise him upon the way to remit something of that rigour that was usual to him, and to render himself complacent to the King as all the other Prophets had done; whereto he answered, That he could do nothing against the Spirit of God, nor against his conscience. When he was come, he perceived a great assembly of false Prophets, who all approved that war. One among them named Zedechiah had made himself iron horns, to signify to King Ahab that he should ransack all Syria with a mighty power, and that nothing should resist his Arms. But Michaiah being asked, spoke at first by fiction, as the other Prophets, foretelling prosperities without end. Whereat the King being astonished that he did it against his custom, conjured him not to flatter him, and to tell him openly the truth. To which he answered, that he would not counsel him to hazard a battle against the King of Syria, for if he did, his whole army would be scattered; and added also, that God had given permission to the wicked spirit to deceive him, and that he had found no better way to do it, then to speak by the mouth of so many false Prophets that encompassed him. Whereupon Zedechiah being incensed at that speech gave him a blow, and the King commanded his Person to be seized on, and to be put in prison, to be kept there fasting with bread of tribulation and water of anguish till his return. But the Prophet assured him, that if he went he should never return again.  
It is a strange thing that we cannot believe Truth that comes from the mouth of God's servants, because it complyes not with our passion. It is also a manifest punishment to those that despise it, not to consider that God gins the ruin of their fortune by the blinding of their Counsels. Ahab obstinate to his misery marches with all his Army against the King of Syria; Jehosaphat engaged through inconsideration in that league pursues what he had ill begun, and thinks that there is no better means to justify an error, than Perseverance.  
When the two Kings approached the enemy, and the Armies were ranged in Battle, the King of Syria gave express charge to his most resolute men to aim at the King of Israel, and to endeavour to carry him, it being the true means to dispatch the business and put an end to the war. Ahab began to fear his unhappiness, and prayed Jehosaphat to go into the mingling, putting him forward with courage out of a design, perhaps, to cause him to be destroyed, and to draw all the weight of the Army upon him, by diverting it from his person; And indeed, when the Syrians thought that he that engaged himself so boldly was the most interressed, and that without doubt there was all likely hood that it was Ahab, they fell upon him with ardour, so that he thought he should have been hemmed in. But when he betook himself to crying out aloud, animating his soldiers to his defence, the enemies that had a mind to spare him retired to fall on Ahab; It happened that an Archer letting fly an arrow at random struck him with a mortal wound: whereupon he commanded his Coachman to turn about, and to draw out of the mingling well perceiving that he was grievously hurt. All the Army was immediately scattered, and the Herald of Arms proclaimed that every man might return to his home. King Ahab died the same day, and his body was brought back to Samaria, where it happened, that as his Coach that was all bloody was a washing in a pool of the same City, the Dogs ran thither and licked up his blood according to Elijahs prophecy.  
Ahaziah his son succeeded him inheriting the superstition and misery of his father; for after he had reigned a very little while, he fell out at a window of his house, and grievously hurt himself, without being ever able to find a remedy to his evil. And having forsaken God, sent messengers to the God of Ekron to know if he should recover from that sickness; but the Prophet Elijah having met his Messengers upon the way rebuked them sharply, for that they went to consult with Idols, as if there were no God in Israel; and commanded them to tell their Master, that he should not be cured of his wound, but should die without ever rising out of the Bed wherein he lay. This Prince offended at this truth, causes the Prophet to be pursued, and sends one of his Captains with fifty soldiers to apprehend him: This man in mockery called him Man of God, and prayed him to descend from the mountain whither he had retired himself, but Elijah persisting always in his spirit of rigour, said, that he would give him proofs that should make him know that he was not a Man of God through vanity and irrision, and at the same instant he caused fire to descend from heaven, which consumed him and all his company. Ahaziah sends another of them for the same purpose, which meets also with the same success. He charges again a third, the Captain of which gained Elijah by submission, and brought him to his Master, to whom he spoke constantly the truth, and advertised him of his approaching death; and the other durst not do him any mischief, well knowing that he was under God's protection.  
The truth of the Prophesied was manifest soon after by the death of Ahaziah, who had for successor his brother Joram, who reigned twelve years, and although Elijah was already translated from this life that is but a passage to another estate, his Prophecy failed not to be accomplished particularly upon the house of Ahab, and the wicked Jezabel. For Elisha according to the order of God, and the command received from his Master, caused Jehu to be crowned to reign in Israel. To this purpose he dispatched one of his Disciples, put a viol in his hand, wherein was the oil destined for his unction, giving him charge to go to Ramoth in Gilead, where Jehu one of Jorams principal Captains commanded, and besieged the city continuing the siege that Joram had laid before it, whiles he went to Samaria, to be dressed of some wounds that he had received in the war against the Syrians. Above all he recommended to him that the business should be kept very secret, and that when he should be arrived, he should call Jehu aside, and withdraw into some chamber, and there consecrate him King with that unction that he had in his hand, making him know that God gave him his master's house and crown to revenge the blood of the Prophets and servants of God upon the race of Ahab and on Jazabel.  
This son of a Prophet sent by Elisha did all that was commanded him, and arriving at the Camp found Jehu environed with other Captains, and signified to him that he had a word or two to speak to him, which made him quit the company, and enter into a neighbouring chamber, where the other poured out the sacred oil upon his head, said to him I have anointed you this day over the people of the God of Israel, and consecrated you King to ruin from God the house of Ahab your Master, and to revenge the blood of the Prophets and servants of God upon Jezabel who shall be eaten up of Dogs and no body shall give her burial. As soon as he had said this he opens the door and flies; Jehu comes forth, and shows himself to his Captains, who had a curiosity to know what had passed in that treaty, and asked of him what that madman meant that came to him. Jehu feigning that they well enough knew the cause of it, and need not go about to inform themselves, held them in expectation, and in fine declared to them that it was one of Elisha's desciples that had brought him the news that he should reign in Israel, and that such was the will of God.  
It is a wonderful thing that none of the chief men of the Army opposed themselves against it, but that all at that very instant laid down their Cloaks under Jehu's feet as it were to raise him a throne, and cried out God save the King. The conspiracy against Joram being framed, he hinders any notice to be given him, and marches with a strong hand to the City to surprise him, and Ahaziah King of Judah together with him, that was come to visit him in his sickness. The sentinel that stood at the gate of the City told that he saw a body of Cavaliers coming in a right line to the City, whereupon the King ordered that one of his men should go out to discover it. This Scout was gained by Jehu, and ranged himself on his side. Another is sent out, which do●s also the same; whereat the King being much astonished takes his Coach, and and Ahaziah his, to see what the business was. As soon as he perceived Jehu, he said, What? are you not a man of peace? Whereto Jehu replied, What peace, while the fornications and poison of Jezabel your Mother are yet in full vigour? Joram saw plainly by his countenance, and by that answer, that there was mischief, and began to wheel about, saying to Ahaziah his companion We are betrayed, and seeing that he was no way prepared to make resistance to such a power betook himself to flight. But Jehu bending his Bow let's fly an Arrow at him that pierced him through and killed him in his Chariot. At the same instant he caused his body to be taken up to cast it on the road, in the field of Naboth, and pursued Ahaziah who having received a mortal wound as he fled gave up the Ghost at Megiddo, from whence he was carried to his Metropolis Jerusalem to be interred with his Fathers.  
In the mean while Jehu marches victoriously to the City of Jezreel, and the miserable Jezabel hearing of the death of her son by the conspiracy of his enemy, and considering that there was no way to oppose him by arms had recourse to the charms of herself sex. She was yet in such a condition as she thought her capable to enamour that new King. Instead of putting on mourning, she decks and paints herself, and places herself in a window of the City in sight of all the world to see that Conqueror pass by. But he having cast his eyes on high, asked who that woman was, not being able yet well to discern her so fare off, and when answer was made him that it was Jezabel the Queen, he commanded those that were in the window to throw her down, which they did without any farther deliberation, and the miserable in falling bedewed the wall with her blood, and expired the remainder of her life under the feet of horses. Jehu remembered as he was at supper what had passed, and was touched with some remorse for the usage that had been showed to Jezabel his Mistress, and said to his men, Look out the body of that wretched woman, and give it burial, for she was a King's daughter. And when they were come upon the place they found nothing but her head, with the ends of her feet and hands, the Dogs having eat up the rest. This history is horrible, and none can sufficiently imagine the vengeance of God upon those that violate Religion, and shed the blood of sacred persons and other of God's servants.  
One cannot justify Jehu for the bebellion against his Master, but in taking him for a scourge of the wrath of God who was an instrument of his Justice without for all that becoming just. For whatsoever pretence he made of Religion, he was pushed on by a tempestuous and bloody ambition, and made himself a Revenger of Tyrants for no other end, but to be their successor, filling with crimes the place that he had voided by fury. He made use of the Prophet's fo● his own interest, and left not to continue the Idolatry of the golden Calves, to render himself pleasing to the most powerful. He was an ambiguous spirit, and had as many waters and folds, as he had pretensions. He caused his Mistress to be killed more for the fear of his mind then for the zeal of Religion. This poor Sidonian that was a woman of a good understanding and courage, instead of living quietly with her husband, was pricked on with a vanity to make her Gods be worshipped, and ceased not to persecute the Prophets, having sworn that she would cause Elijah to be murdered, making him to be followed and sought after in all places without being able to entrap him. But on the contrary he ruined her with all her house, leaving a terror to all great ones to enterprise any thing against those that are protected under the covert of the face of God.  
As this Prophet had been a man of Prodigies in all his Life, so God limited his conversation amongst men with a strange miracle that since Enoch had not been practised in the world. It is said that an egg well emptied and filled with dew will mount on high, and follow the rays of the Sun that draws it. So Elijah by a long exercise of contemplation was purified from all earthly things, and filled with the unction of the Spirit of God. He thought on nothing but on Heaven, where he had lodged the better part of himself. God had revealed to him that he should not die after the manner of other men, but that he should be rapt and carried away into a place of peace and rest. He expected that most happy day, and thought to steal away even from his own disciple Elisha that would never quit him. They were walking both together after they had passed the river Jordan on dry foot, Elijah having divided it with his Mantle, when behold a burning Chariot drawn with Horses of fire comes to take up the Prophet. Elisha his disciple had earnestly begged of him, that his Spirit might be multiplied in him, as well in what touches Prophecy as the gift of Miracles, and Elijah promised him that it should be granted to him, in case that he could see him when he should be taken up. And this is the reason for which that dear Disciple never went out of his sight so much as one moment, and when that Chariot surrounded with innocent flames presented itself, he saw his Master ascend who was on a sudden snatched up above the clouds of heaven in recompense of his zeal and most pure Virginity. Elisha looked upon him with tears in his eyes calling him his Father, the Chariot of Israel, and the conductor of the people of God. In fine, when he appeared no longer, he rend his clothes wearing mourning for a loss common to all the people of Israel, but very particular to him; and gathered up his Mantle as a precious Relic which he carefully kept, making use of it to divide the waters of Jordan, and to renew the miracles of his Master.  
Elijah according to the common opinion was transported to the Terrestrial Paradise from which he is to come at the Renovation of the world. And as if in that dwelling of delights he had not yet cast away the care and direction of the Court; Joram King of Judah received a Letter from him nine years after his Translation, in which he chid sharply for his bad deportments, and foretold him the sickness that should happen to him. Some hold that that Letter was written by Elijah before he was taken up by way of Prophecy, and kept till that time by Elisha. Others as the Hebrews think that it came by Miracle and by the Ministry of an Angel, directed by Elijah at the same time, to teach us, That the Saints renounce not a Legitimate care of the Court, and of the Affairs of the World, when they are to be directed to the glory of God, to whom the Living and the Dead aught to render the Homages of their Fidelity.   

ELISHA.  
HE that hath seen Elijah cannot be ignorant of Elisha, seeing his master made him heir of his Spirit (as it were) by a wonderful transpiration. That man of fire engraved his character upon the person that he loved most in all the world, with so perfect an expression, that he seemed to be born again in him in every thing that he had of excellency.  
He went to take a new life in a terrestrial paradise without losing that which he had in the world. He lived in the one by himself, and in the other by Elisha; in the one he performed contemplative Functions, and in the other, active; in the one he was a Demigod, and in the other the Prince of men. That Mantle of Elijah was more than an heaven bespangled with its Stars, since it carried so many Lights and Sciences. It dried up the waters of Jordan, but it opened at the same time springs of Wisdom. It was an Oracle (more admirable than the gift of the high Priest) that spoke without a voice, and taught without a school, that could change in a moment Ignorants into Doctors, and Peasants into Prophets.  
Elisha was taken from the plough, and after he had tilled the earth, he manured his own spirit. He that commanded a little field, exercised his Empire over great kingdoms; he made and unmade Kings, as the true servant of Elijah, or rather as the Interpreter of God. Happy are the lands (said one) that were heretofore tilled by the hands of Triumphers, and with a Plough crowned with Laurels; but more happy those of Elisha, that experimented that same arm as was to divide the waters and crown Kings.  
O what a great thing is Nothing in the hands of God since that a man come from the plough does miracles in Nature, and prodigies in Empires. His wonders have in some sort exceeded those of his master, for he resembled the shoots of the vine that raise themselves even above the tree that have served them for a prop. We let pass all that he did amongst the people, to consider him treating with the Kings and Princes of the earth where we shall see how he brought the Maxims of heaven.  
The first encounter that happened to him at Court, was with three Kings, Jehoshaphat King of Juda, Joram King of Israel, and the King of Idumea. Joram had taken arms against the King of Moab, that refused to pay him a certain tribute, and had drawn to his party those two other Kings that went to aid him in person. Now as they passed through the deserts of Idumea, they were in extreme want of water, so that the men and beasts were ready to perish; which put Joram in an unspeakable grief, seeing that he had assembled those two Kings with their armies, to make them die with thirst. Jehoshaphat, that was more pious than he, counsels him to have recourse to God by the intercession of some Prophet. One of his Courtiers suggests Elisha to him, who was near the place. The three Kings go to seek him in a company, to implore his aid.  
But as soon as the Prophet saw Joram the son of Ahab, who was an Idolater, as his father had been, he said to him with an incomparable constancy, What have we to do together? Go, and consult with the Prophets of your father, and of your mother Jezabel; those that are the servants of God are not for you. This was to express contempt enough to a King; and yet it is the fashion of men at Court not to be repulsed at first by the disdains and anger of a man with whom they have business. This man pursues and tells him, that it was a piteous spectacle to see three Kings perish for thirst, and ready to be delivered into the hands of the Moabites. Elisha remaining in the same opinion, replied, were it not for the respect I bear Jehoshaphat, who is a worshipper of the true God, I would not so much as look you in the face.  
Which discovers clearly, that alliances with Infidels, although for certain necessities they may be somewhat tolerable, cease not for all that to be always much to be feared. Elisha would not for that time address himself to Jehoshaphat and disunite him from that enterprise, imitating the prudence of those that let a business begun run on, when it may any way be defended; but yet he sufficiently expressed, that that company did not please him: and when Jehoshaphat was returned to his house from the war that he had maintained with Ahab against the King of the Syrians, the Prophet chid him for it, and told him, that he deserved the wrath of God for having given aid to an impious King; but that he had had a regard to other good works done by him, and was not willing to destroy him So Elisha could not endure to see that company with him, and was so fare transported with a fervency of zeal, that he was fain to call for a musician to sing some song, and by his harmonies appease the ardours and commotions of his spirit, to set it again in a perfect calmness. After this, he felt the powerful effects of the hand of God, and in a desperate drought commanded to make channels and pits, and promised water in abundance, with a complete victory over the Moabites. And this Prophecy was verified the morrow after, when streams were seen gliding in all places, to the comfort and admiration of all the world.  
The Moabites having discovered the design of these three Kings that came out against them, put themselves into the field, and when they perceived upon the break of day a river that was all red by the reflection of the rays of the Sun that shined upon it, they imagined that their enemies had mutually slain each other, that that river was red with their blood, and that there was no more to do but to run after their spoils. But they were extremely amazed when they saw themselves combated furiously by those that they had put in the number of the dead. The King retired into his capital city, which was immediately besieged, and pressed with violence. He essayed to make a sally and surprise the Idumeans, but had no good success. And therefore he had recourse to an horrible attempt, and made a pitiful tragedy; for he killed his only son, the heir apparent of his kingdom, and offered him in sacrifice to his false Gods, causing his head to be cut off as a victim, upon the ramparts, in the view of all the world. The devil had persuaded those miserable Pagans that the sacrificing of humane blood was sovereign to appease the wrath of the Gods; which made this desperate King slay his own son to preserve his Crown and State by a remedy worse than the disease.  
This mad man saw not that Kingdoms cemented with the blood of innocents' cannot be of long continuance in the hands of those that possess them by such inhuman ways; and that sacrificing his own son to buy a Peace, he made himself an interior war in his own soul, and raised against himself a thousand furies, with as many snakes and torches to stir up bloody remorses the rest of his whole life. The besiegers had such an indignation at an act so barbarous, that they left the siege through horror, being unwilling any more to press him that for the fear of evil had descended (in their opinions) to the last of evils. This war had good success, and the presence of a faithful King brought a blessing to the Infidels; whereas at other times the faithful ones have perished by their alliance with the Infidels: as it happened to Ahaziah, King of Juda, who was at last killed by Jehu for having too much embraced the friendship of those that were not of his Religion.  
Now although the Prophet Elisha had an heart pierced with grief to see Joram separated from the true God, yet he left not to suffer him as long as Providence would have it so, to serve him like a good subject, and to give him advice very necessary for the preservation of his State. He declared to him the counsels and the enterprises of the King of Syria his enemy, which he knew by the spirit of Prophecy, so that the other was amazed to hear that the most secret businesses which he had treated in his cabinet with his most intimate confidents were discovered. He thought that his Counselors of State sold him to the King of Israel, but one assured him that that came from the Prophet Elisha who knew things to come by the Spirit of God, which was in him in a wonderful manner.  
This Prince inflamed with choler, dispatches immediately Soldier (in a great number) to apprehend Elisha, who failed not to beset the little city of Dothan whither the Prophet was retired. The Prophet's servant being risen at break of day, to go abroad, perceived those companies of men of arms, and ran to his master much affrighted, crying out, That all was lost, and that the city was environned with chariots and with horses that came to take him. But Elisha filled with the confidence that he had in God his great Master, made him answer, That there was nothing to be feared, and that his party was much the stronger; which seemed very hard to be believed by a man whom fear had so much shaken, till such time as his Master taking away the fillet of ignorance that was upon his eyes, discovered to him a mountain full of chariots and of horses that entowred Elisha, and watched for his protection.  
Thus it pleases God sometimes to draw his servants out of the hands of persecutors by extraordinary wonders. At other times he permitts darkness to exercise its power upon the light, and the impious to take and persecute the just; to render them glorious by their sufferings. He would not admit on the day of his Passion the twelve legions that he might have obtained of his heavenly Father for his defence, that he might not deprive our Christianity of the example of his dolours; and yet he raises up armies of fire to defend Elisha, with intention to make us see that he is able to hinder us from receiving any harm, but that it is the greater glory to conquer it by Patience.  
The Prophet seeing the heavenly legions that stood to aid him, would not for all that thunder strike those that came to take him, but contented himself to blind them for a time, that he might have given them light for ever, if they would have preferred it before darkness. Those poor men seeing themselves struck with such a sudden blindness were extremely astonished, yet (as malice quits not so soon her venom) they sought for the servant of God, blindfolded, darkened as well in mind as body, when he presented himself to them, and told them that he would show them the man they sought for if they would follow him, which being agreed to, he led them strait into Samaria, the capital city of their enemies, and at the instant restored to them their eyes, to give them the knowledge of the danger wherein they we●e.  
They thought that there was nothing now remaining to them but to be cut in pieces, and indeed, Joram the King of Israel would have caused them to be massacred, had not Elisha forbidden him to touch them, because that he had not got them by the point of the sword, but were come by miracle into his hands. Furthermore, he ordered that something should be given them to eat, which was done, and after they had taken their refection, they were sent back the strait way into their Country. Behold a courtesy worthy of the New Testament and of the Evangelicall Law! Elisha would not that his miracles should be mischievous; he contented himself to overcome those by Benefits that he might hurt by Justice, to show, that there is nothing so victorious as a great heart that can make visible, that it is the highest point of power and goodness, to pardon that by grace and mercy that might be revenged by reason.  
Some time after, Benhaded King of Syria came to lay siege to the city of Samaria, where the King was shut in, and pressed so vigorously the besieged by famine, that an asse's head was sold for fourscore livers, and a little barrel of pigeon's dung for five franks. It was an extreme rage, and a furious despair that expected nothing but the height of evils for its remedy.  
It happened that King Joram passed through the street, that he put on sackcloth under his clothes, when a poor woman all beblubbered with tears came to him, and requested of him life and safety; but the poor King not knowing what to do for her, said only to her, That he was not God to give her bread: she then desired Justice of him in a controversy which she had with a wicked woman. The King was content to hear her, and thereupon she told him, that she had made an agreement with that woman to eat together two little sons whereof they were mothers, on such conditions that hers should be eaten first, and that the morrow following, her neighbours should be served up to the table also; and that in the pursuance of this, her little son had been massacred and devoured by his own mother and the complice of her crime: but that now there was a question of proceeding to eat the son of her comrade, she had hid him, and refused to give him, and that thereupon she beseeched his Majesty to do her Justice. Joram was so affrighted at the proposition of that woman that he rend his clothes, and put himself in mourning.  
But instead of humbling himself, he swore that the head of Elisha should not stay a day longer upon his shoulders, vexing against him, that he being so powerful, suffered such a famine of his people without helping it. He was like those Mexicans that make their King swear that the Sun shall give the Day, and the Clouds their Rain, and the Earth its Fruits; and in case that this fails, lay the blame on him and murder him. He imagined that the Prophet had barrenness and fruitfulness in his hands, as his master Elijah, and that he ought to sacrifice him for the Public. This speech cost Joram dear, who was afterward dispossessed of his kingdom; and the Prophet doubting of his attempt, said to those that were about him, That the son of the murderer Ahab had given command to cut off his head, that he that was to give the stroke was upon the way, and that they should keep the door fast shut: where we see, that the same Prophet that had before fiery legions at his command, is on terms to defend himself after a fashion weak enough to resist the forces of a King. But it is to teach us, that God gives not always to the Saints the power of Miracles, no more than the spirit of Prophecy, and that that failing, they ought to make use of the lights of their ordinary prudence.  
It may be inferred from the sacred Text, that Joram changed his mind, and came himself to find Elisha, not as a persecutor, but in quality of a suppliant, advertising him of the extreme rage of the famine by the accident that had newly happened to those miserable women. Then Elisha inspired, promised aloud, that in that very time that seemed so calamitous, a bushel of meal should be sold but for twenty sous at the gate of Samaria, and that for the same price one should have two of barley. Whereto one of the Nobles of the Court, on whom the King leaned, replied, That that would be very hard to be believed, though it should please God to open windows in heaven to make it rain corn. But Elisha answered, that he should see that miracle before his eyes, but should not enjoy its good effects.  
The morrow after it happened, that four lepers that had withdrawn themselves near to the gate of Samaria, pressed with hunger and with misery, of which they could find no ease, neither within nor without the city, were resolved to go into the camp of the enemy, to find there either bread or death. As they approached their trenches, they perceived that all was empty; which made them venture to enter in their tents, where they found abundance of booty and began to pillage. Yet they had some remorse of conscience to think so ardently upon their own profit, without carrying that good news to the city, and ran instantly to the porters of Samaria, to cause the King to be advertised of that happiness. He was so out of hope, that this made him enter into distrust, lest it should be a plot of the enemies, out of a design to make them come forth and so surprise them. A resolution was made, that some Cavaliers should be sent forth to discover what had passed, and of the five horses that were left in the city, the rest being consumed by the famine, two are dispatched, who confirm the news brought by the former messengers, and assure that the Syrians had raised the siege in disorder, forsaking their victual, their ammunitions, and all their riches. The God of hosts that holds in his hand the issues of battles and of sieges, had operated therein, raising a fervour in them that made them believe, that the King of Egypt and the King of the Hittites were coming to fall upon them with huge annies to cut them in pieces, whereat they were so affrighted that they quitted all that they had most precious to save their lives.  
This hunger-starved people that had been so long shut up within the walls of a desolate city goes out in throngs, and runs on all sides to the prey that the hand of heaven had prepared for them. The abundance was so great, that the Prophecy of Elisha was verified, and that great Lord that had contraried it by derision was trod to death by the people at the gate of the city; so dangerous it is to distrust the power of God, and to oppose his Prophets.  
Elisha had another passage with Naaman, in which he expressed a great generosity. This Naaman was a Syrian by Nation, and Lord high Constable of the King of Syria. His condition had filled him with honours and with riches, but his constitution had burdened him with a shameful leprosy that deprived him of all the sweetnesses of his life. God that often makes the renown of great personages fly upon the tongue of simple people where it is less sophisticated, permitted that a little girl (a slave) that had come from Judea, that was at that time in Naaman's wife's service, should speak a thousand good words of the miracles of Elisha to her mistress; and assured her, that he would easily be able to restore health to her master, and to cure him of his leprosy.  
This came to the King of Syria's ears, who very much prised his Constable by reason of the great and faithful services that he had done him. And, as those that desire cure neglect no advices, he sends Naaman to the King of Israel with many presents, requesting him to heal him by the means of his Prophet. The King was greatly amazed at these letters, and imagined that that crafty Syrian meaned to pick a quarrel with him to invade his kingdom, entreating him as a Deity, as if he had been the author of life and death. His apprehension was so great, that he rend his clothes and put himself in mourning, as in the danger of near disaster.  
But Elisha comforted him made him know that there was a most mighty God in Israel that wrought by his Prophets, and bade him not to fail to send the sick man to him, which he did, and Naaman was immediately at Elisha's door, with a great train of chariots and horses. But the Prophet having a mind to show at that time that he was not moved with the vanity of all the retinue of great personages would not so much as see him, but sent him word that he should go and wash himself seven times in Jordan, and then he should recover his health. This Lord was vexed at so dry a proceeding, and went away discontented, saying, That if there were no other mystery in it, his own country wanted not springs and rivers; so ordinary it is for men to slight remedies that seem too easy, and for the imagination to look to be entreated with pomp.  
Yet his servants told him, that the experiencing of that counsel would not cost him much, and would annoy him nothing, and that in any case he should make trial of it, which he did, and carried away a perfect cure; whereat he was so ravished, that he betook himself suddenly to Elisha's house to give him thanks, confessing that there was no other God in the world but that of Israel, in such a manner, as that he gained the health of his soul by that of his body, and quitted at the same time his leprosy and his infidelity:  
He urged the Prophet to accept abundance of rich presents, wherewith he came well laden, but he constantly refused them, which is no small proof of virtue and of greatness of courage. For covetousness is like the shadow that hinders the light of the sun, extinguishes its heat, and nourishes serpents; so she doth eclipse the brightnesses of the spirit of the Prophets, deads' the love of the Devout, and gives nourishment to the Passions. Men anciently were tried by the river of Rhine, but now they are experimented by the golden streams of Pactolus. Those that render Piety mercenary, have none at all; the spirit in them follows the flesh, and heaven gives way to earth. All the importunities of Naaman could not shake Elisha; he was a basilisk that could not be enchanted by the charms of avarice; he had eyes of proof against the glistering of the gold of Syria; when he would have no money, the other begged of him a little earth, as much only as would load two mules, to build an Altar to the true God with holy ground, and not profaned by Idolatry; expressing by this request, that he desired to worship the true God in spirit and in truth, though he received not Circumcision, nor the other Ceremonies of the Jews. He aded to his former suit the permission to accompany his master to the Temple of the Idols through a pure civility, without rendering any inward adoration to the Gods of Syria, which the Prophet granted him, and sent him away in peace, all full of blessing.  
But Gehazi Elisha's servant was like to spoil all by a wicked cozenage; for he ran after Naaman, who seeing him come, alighted out of his chariot and received him with much honour, ask what he desired of him. The other feigned, that two children of the Prophets were come to see his master, and that he desired to gratify them with a talon of silver, and to give to each of them a change of raiment. Naaman thought himself obliged by this request, and instead of one talon gave him two, with two handsome suits of clothes, causing all of it to be carried by two of his servants, by reason that a talon of silver was a good load for one man. Gehazi thought that he had succeeded bravely in his cheat, but when he presented himself to his master, he told him, that he had been present in spirit at all that had passed, and that he was not ignorant, that he had at present silver from Naaman enough to become a great Lord, and to buy lands and servants; but for punishment of his crime, the leprosy of Naaman should stay on him, and should pass as an inheritance to all his race: and at that instant he was stricken with the leprosy, and retired himself, leaving an horrible example to all those that betray their conscience to satiate their covetousness.  
It happens that these bad servants extremely black the reputation of their masters that have not always their eyes on their shoulders, as Elisha had, to see that which passes behind them; but when they imagine that they live very innocently, and that they discharge their consciences in their charges, one may find that a crafty wife, or a corrupted Committee sell them by a thousand practices, and devour the marrow and the blood of men under the favour of their name. Sigismond the Emperor made one of his officers named Python, that had betrayed his affairs through covetousness of money, drink up a glass of melted gold. 'Twas but a bad potion, but suitable for the chastisement of an overflowing avarice that hath no longer eyes for heaven, having already given all her heart to the earth. It is credible that Naaman was advertised of the untrustinesse of Gehazi, and that this nothing blemished the high reputation of Elisha, that was spread through all Syria.  
After the cure of this Naaman, Benhadad, that was his Master and his King, fell into a mortal sickness, and when he had learned that the Prophet Elisha was come as fare as his city of Damascus, he dispatched Hazael, one of the prime men of his Kingdom with forty camels laden with great riches, to consult with him about the hope that he might have of his recovery, and to desire his help. The Prophet was not like Hippocrates that would cure none but Greeks, and refused to go into Persia, though he was invited thither by letters, and by the offers of that great and magnificent King Artaxerxes. But quite contrary, the man of God thought that one ought not to limit the gifts of heaven, and that he that opens the treasures of nature to all the Nations of the earth, would not have one detain the marks of his power without communicating them to those that bear in any fashion his Image.  
He cleansed the leprosy of Naaman, but yet for all that cured not Benhadad, because it was a decree of Providence that he should die of that sickness. The Scripture tells us not expressly what became of those great presents, but it leaves us to think that Elisha refused them as he had done those of Naaman, and did nothing that belied his generosity. Although one may also believe that he accepted them, as well to diminish the levies of the enemies of his people, as to spread them amongst the poor of his own country. He spoke only to this Hazael the King's Ambassadors a very short speech, which was, that he should die of that sickness, and should never rise out of his bed again; and yet in appearance he commands him to tell him, that he should escape it, and recover again his health.  
Which causes here a question to arise (thorny enough) touching the permission of a lie, and which hath made Cassian and other ancient Divines say that there are some profitable lies which one ought to make use of, as one uses serpents to make treacle. But this opinion is no way followed, but is found condemned by S. Augustine, and the most renowned Doctors. So that when Elisha said to Prince Hazael touching his King, He shall die, but tell him he shall escape: we ought to take it as a command that authorises a lie, but as a prophecy of that which should be done. For the Prophet foresaw these two things with one and the same sight, both that Benhadad should die, and that Hazael, to flatter him, should promise him health and life. And therefore he adds, Tell him that he shall escape; which in a Prophet's terms is as much as a future, and means, that although I declare to you his death, yet I know you well, and am certain, that according to your politic Maxims you will not fail to promise him a cure. It is just as God commaaded the evil spirit to lie and to deceive Ahab, foretelling what he would do, and not commanding that which ought not to be done according to the laws of a good conscience.  
As Elisha was foretelling of that King's death, he felt an ecstasy of spirit, and changed countenance notably, and began to weep, whereat Hazael was much astonished, and had a curiosity to know the reason of a change so sudden. But the Prophet continuing in the trans-ports of his spirit, said unto him, I weep and I sigh bitterly, for I know the evils that thou wilt make my poor people one day suffer. Thou wilt burn down the fair cities; thou wilt make the young men pass by the edge of the sword; thou wilt dash out the brains of the little infants; thou wilt inhumanely rip up women great with child; thou wilt sack my dear country, for which I now pour out my tears by way of advance. The Ambassador was amazed at a discourse so strange, and said, Why? What am I should do all these outrages? God forbidden that I should ever ever proceed so fare; I have in all this no more belief than hath my dog.  
But Elisha insisting, told him, I know by divine Revelation that thou shalt be King of Syria, and that which I say shall come to pass under thy Reign. Behold a strange Prophecy, and some body may wonder that Elisha did not cause that wicked man to be strangled that was to make all those tragedies; for how many mothers are there that would have choked their own children at their breast, if they had foreseen that after they had sucked their milk they would one day assume the spirit of an hangmand, to tyrannize over mankind! Yet Elisha rejects not that Hazael, but consecrates him King by his speech, because that he knew that it was a disposition of God who would make use of him as of the rod of his fury, to chastise the Idolatries of his Kings, and the sins of his People.  
All men of God have this property, to submit themselves exceedingly to Gods will, although it seems to will and permit things strangely lamentable. In conclusion, as Predictions are very ticklish and flatter the intention of those that promise themselves Empires and wonders; they animate also the heart of those that have wicked undertake; and one ought never to permit any one to take consulations with Astrologers and Soothsayers about the life and fortune of great men. This Ambassador returning to the Court deceived his King giving him all hopes of a life, and when he doubted least of death, strangled him with a wet napkin, paying himself with a Kingdom for a recompense of his wickedness. And although it was a disposition of God that Benhadad should be deprived of his Sceptre, yet it failed not to be a crime in Hazael.  
The last rancounter that Elisha had at Court was with King Joash, who went to see him a little before his death; and this Prince foreseeing that he would quickly departed out of this world said to him weeping that he was the Father, the Chariot, and the conductor of his Kingdom, and of all his People: expressing, that he was afflicted with the regret of his loss above all the things of the world. But Elisha to comfort him, made him take his bow and arrows, and put his hand upon the King's hand as to guide it; after that, he commanded the window to be set open towards Syria, and caused the King to let fly an arrow which he accompanied with Prophetical words, saying, That it was the arrow of salvation, whose feathers God himself did guide, and that it was a messenger that prophesied to him, that he should combat and destroy the Syrians, enemies of his people.  
After that, he bad Joash again strike the ground with the point of a dart that he had in his hand, which he did three times; and the Prophet told him that he should carry away as many victories over the King of Syria; but if he had stricken till seven times he should have ruined him even to the utmost consummation,  
A little while after Elisha died, with an high reputation of sanctity, and an extreme regret of all the orders of the kingdom, and was interred in a place where he raised afterward a dead man by the touching of his bones; God rendering every thing wonderful in him, even to his very ashes.  
It appears by all this discourse, that this personage had not a Piety idle and fearful, amorous of its own small preservation, without caring for the public good; but he had an heart filled with generous flames for the protection of his people, and an incomparable security to show to Princes the estate of their conscience. He supported all the Realm by his prayers, by his exhortations, by his heroic actions: and the loss of one such man was the overthrow of the prime Pillar of the State.    

ISAIAH. JEREMIAH.  
 portrait of the Prophet Isaiah 
ISAIAH THE PROPHET   portrait of the Prophet Jeremiah 
JEREMIAH THE PROPHET   

THe Prophet Isaiah hath engraved his spirit in his Book, and cannot be commended more advantageously then by his works. He that would make him great Eulogies after so sublime a Prophecy would seem to intent to show the Sun with a torch. The things that are most excellent make themselves known by themselves, as God and the Light; and I may say, all the words that this divine Personage hath left us, are as many characters of his Immortality.  
It is with a very just title that we put him amongst the holy Courtiers, for he was born at the Court of Judea, and some hold that he was the nephew of King Amasiah. This birth so elevated, and so many fair hopes which might flatter him to make him follow the course of the great ambitions of the world, did no way shake the force of his spirit. It was a soul consecrated to things Divine, that sacrificed the first fires of his youth by the most pure flames of Angels. Never did Prophet enter into that Ministry with more authority and disposition of heaven.  
He had a sublime vision, in which he saw the Majesty of God seated upon a Throne of Glory environed with Seraphims, that were transported through the admiration of his greatness. God in person created him his Prophet; the Seraphim, a messenger of the sovereign power, purified his lips with a Carbuncle, from whence proceeded a celestial fire, that if he had got any pollutions at the Court, where tongues are so free, they might be taken away by that sacred touch. He offered himself to God with an heart full of cheerfulness, to carry his word before Kings and Subjects, without fearing their menaces or their furies. And he acquitted himself all his life time worthily of that duty, and prophesied more than fourscore and ten years, not ceasing to exhort, to counsel, to rebuke, to instruct, to comfort, and to perform all the exercises of his charge.  
His Eloquence is as elevated as his birth; he speaks every where like a King, with a speech firm, lofty, and thundering, that passes all the inventions of man. When he threatens and foretelleth the calamities of Nations, it is so much lightning kindled by the breath of Seraphims that proceeds out of this Divine mouth that pierces the rocks, that shakes the mountains, that crushes the highest cedars into dust, the nations into fear, and the Kings into respect.  
When he comforts, they are rivers of milk and honey that flow from his tongue, and spread themselves with incomparable sweetnesses into afflicted hearts. When he describes the perfections and the reign of the Messiah, they are the amorous ecstasies of a spirit melted by the heats of Jesus that strikes, burns, and penetrates him more than seven hundred years before his Birth.  
The holiness of his Life marched always hand in hand with his Doctrine; He was a man, dead to all worldly things, that lived but by the raptures of his deified spirit. He loved singularly the poor, and comforted them in all their necessities. He spoke to Kings and reproved their sins with an heroic constancy worthy of his Blood and Ministry.  
At the same time, as Romulus began the Court of Rome, Isaiah saw that of Judea, where he experimented great changes and strange diversities according to the revolutions of humane things. He passed his youth under his uncle Amasiah who was at first a Prince good enough, and very obedient to the voice of the Prophets; for when he had enterprised a mighty war with the Idumeans, he raised two armies, one of his own people, and the other of the unbelieving Israelites which he had invited to his aid; but when the Prophet told him that he did not well to make use of the Arms of Israel that was impious and separated from the true God; he discharged them freely, although he had already paid an hundred thousand men, and contenting himself with his own troops, gave them battle, which he gained with great advantages.  
But it is a strange thing, that by taking the Idumeans, he took also their Gods to worship them in Jerusalem, and made himself an arm of hay with the prop of these imaginary Deities that had in nothing profited their adorers. A man of God that prophesied in those times rebuked him sharply for it; but he demanded who made him the King's Counsellor, and threatened to slay him, if he did not learn to hold his peace. The other, without being afraid, denounced against him that he should come to some ill end, and left him by flying from the Court. After which, this miserable Prince fell into a reprobate sense, was taken in war by his enemy the King of Israel; his capital city was laid waste, the Temple and his palace pillaged; there was no more that remained to him but a shameful and miserable life which his own subjects tore from him by a wicked conspiracy.  
Vzziah his son and Isaiah's cousin-german was set on his father's Throne at sixteen years of age, and reigned a very long time with a reign peaceable enough. He built some cities, and fortified others, set in order an Arsenal stored with good arms, enterprised wars against the Philistims, which he ended happily enough. He defeated also the Ammonites and the Arabians, which made incursions upon his territories, and renowned himself by famous victories. He embraced also willingly his rest in season, and addicted himself in the time of peace to husbandry.  
The conversation of his dear cousin that began to prophesy the seventeenth year of his Reign, contributed many good effects to his government. But as he saw himself enjoy a long Reign, with abundance of favours from heaven, he became very absolute in his will, and would join the high-Priest-hood to the Royalty. For he took the censer, entered into the Temple, presented himself at the Altar of Perfumes, to burn Incense after the manner of the Priests, and although the high Priest Azarias opposed him stoutly, he desisted not from that attempt, till such time as by a manifest punishment from heaven he found himself on a sudden touched with a leprosy, which appeared on his face, and rendered him hideous, and out of knowledge, which made the Priests (animated by the judgement of God that had intervened thereon) chase him from the Temple; and he was constrained to retire himself unto an house out of Jerusalem, having left the administration of his Kingdom to his son.  
This change was very sensible to the Prophet that had loved him tenderly, and supported the interests of his house; but on the other side, it was a comfort to him to see that he had a sense of his fault, and had reduced himself voluntarily unto the obscurity of that life for the chastisement of his sin.  
His example ought to serve for a terror to the Secular Powers that will encroach upon the Ministry of the Priests, and break the barriers that Providence hath established for the differencing of the Spiritual and Temporal Authority. There is need sometimes but of a little tongue of Earth to separate two seas, and to keep them in good intelligence, but if one should go and cut it off, they would mix themselves and make a great deluge. So may we say, that the wisdom of God hath put certain bounds between the Priests and the Kings, which keep the affairs of the Church and of the State in a good temper; but when certain young Abirams interpose themselves to confound these Powers, they overflow the banks, and make wastes prejudicial to mankind.  
After the death of Vzziah, Jotham who was already fitted for business, took the government with title of a King, and making a strong reflection upon the deportments of his grandfather and of his father, extracted from thence a most excellent lesson, ruling his subjects with great moderation so that the Prophet Isaiah had nothing to do with him.  
But he left an abominable son named Ahaz that quitted the God of his fathers, renewed the Idolatries of the most corrupted of his Predecessors, took the false Religion of the Kings of Israel, caused statues to be planted on the mountains and on the hills, offered Incense to them, made his children pass through the fire, and consecrated them to Idols; which drew the wrath of heaven upon him and upon his people which was beaten with a thousand scourges and most great calamities.  
The Prophet Isaiah saw all these storms falling down upon the miserable Judea, and ceased not to forewarn them, and to arm himself with a mouth of fire against the disorders of that wicked Prince; but it was without much effect, he being so much corrupted.  
Who would ever have thought that of so bad a father should have been born so excellent a son as Hezekiah, who was instructed by Isaiah, and followed totally the course of his will and counsels so Divine, so wholesome; and wiped out the blot that his father had imprinted upon the Altars of the living God, and made the true Religion flourish again, which seemed altogether extinguished in the confusions of an abandoned age! He broke down all the Idols that that unhappy Ahaz had erected. He dissipated the profane Groves planted on the mountains for the exercise of his abominations. He did not pardon so much as the brazen Serpent that Moses had caused to be set up to a good end, although the Idolaters had afterwards abused it.  
He commanded that the Temple should be purified and cleansed by the Levits, together with the Tabernacle and sacred Vessels, polluted by his predecessor. He renewed the order of the Sacrifices, and the Quoires of Singers dedicated to the praises of God; he rallied all the faithful people to celebrate the Passeover and the other solemn Feasts amongst the Jews. This Reign was a golden Age, and a true school of Wisdom, when the Prophet and the King conspired with a wonderful accord in the service of their great Master. Isaiah ceased not to produce sound thoughts; and that which was wholesomely thought on by that holy man, was stoutly executed by the courageous piety of this good King. He laboured in all things for the honour of him on whom do depend all Crowns, and God also laboured powerfully for him, doing more business in one night than the arms of iron and steel could have done in ten years.  
Every one knows how Sennacherib the King of the Assyrians came to lay siege before Jerusalem with a prodigious army, against which there was no humane resistance. He sent a certain man named Rabshakeh in an Embassage to King Hezekiah, who vomited out blasphemies, and proposed to him conditions shameful to his reputation, and impossible to all his powers. All the people were in an affright, expecting nothing but fire and sword. The King covered with sackcloth implores the heavenly assistance, and sends the chief Counselors of his State to the Prophet Isaiah, to turn away this scourge by his prayers. The holy man, in that confusion of affairs wherein one could not see one only spark of light, encourages him, animates him, and promises him unexpected effects of the mercy of God. The Prophecy was not vain, for in one only night the Angel of God killed an hundred fourscore and five thousand men in the Army of the Assyrians by a stroke from heaven and a devouring fire, which reduced them to dust in their guilded arms. This proud King was constrained to make an ignominious retreat, and being returned to Niniveh the capital city of his Empire, he was slain by his own children. This is a manifest example of the amiable protection of God over the Holy Court, who defended his dear Hezekiah by the intercession of the Prophet as the apple of his eyes.  
He expressed yet another singular favour to him in a great sickness, caused by a malignant ulcer, of which (according to the course of nature) he should have died: and therefore Isaiah went to see him, and without flattering him, brought him word of his last day, exhorting him to put the affairs of his State in order. This good King had a tender affection to life, and being astonished at that news, prayed God fervently with a great profusion of tears, that he would have regard to the sincerity of his heart, and to the good services that he had done him in his Temple, and not to tear away his life by a violent death in the middle of its course. The heart of the everlasting Father melted at the tears of that Prince, and he advertised Isaiah, who was not yet gone out of the Palace, to retread his steps, and carry him the news of his recovery.  
He told him from God that he should rise again from that sickness, and within three days should go up to the Temple ro render his . Further, he promised him that his days should be augmented fifteen years, and that he should see himself totally delivered from the fury of the Assyrians, to serve the living God in a perfect tranquillity. The King was ravished at this happy news, and desired some sign of the Divine will to make him believe an happiness so unhoped for. Isaiah for this purpose did a miracle, which since Joshua had not been seen nor heard, which was to make the Sun turn back, so that the shadow of the Dial which was in the palace, appeared ten degrees retired, to the admiration and ravishment of all the world. And to show that the Prophet was not ignorant of Physic, he caused a Cataplasm composed of a lump of figs to be applied to the wound of the sick man, whereby he was healed, and in three days rendered to the Temple.  
This miracle was not unknown to the Babylonians, who perceived the immense length of the day in which it was done, and their Prince having heard the news of it, sent Ambassadors to King Hezekiah to congratulate his health, and to offer him great presents; whereat this Monarch, that was of an easy nature, suffered himself to be a little too much transported with joy, and out of a little kind of vanity made a show of his treasures and of his great riches to those strangers; which served much to kindle their covetousness. And therefore the Prophet, who was never sparing of his remonstrances to the King, rebuked him for that action, and foretell him that he made Infidels see the great wealth that God had given him, through a vain glory which would cost him dear, and that having been spectators of his treasures they had a mind to be the masters of them, and that at length they should compass their design, but that it should not be in his time. This Prince received the correction with patience, and took courage, hearing that the hail should not fall upon his head, passing over his to his children's.  
Manasses his son succeeded him, a Prince truly abominable, who wiped out all the marks of the piety of his father, and placed Idols even in the very Temple of the living God. All that Idolatry had shown in sacrileges, cruelty in murders, impudence in all sort of wickednesses, was renewed by the perfidiousness of this man abandoned of God. Poor Isaiah that had governed the father with so much authority had no credit with the son; this tiger was incensed at the harmonious consorts of the divine Wisdoms that spoke by his mouth, and could no more endure the truth than serpents the odour of the vine.  
Yet he desisted not to reprehend him, and to advertise him of the punishments that God prepared for his crimes; whereat this barbarous man was so much moved and kindled with fury, that he commanded that this holy old man that had passed the hundreth year, should be sawn alive by an horrible and extraordinary punishment.  
O Manasses! cruel Manasses, the most infamous of tyrants, and the most bloody of hangmen! this was the only crime that the furies themselves even the most enraged should never have permitted to thy salvagenesse. This venerable Master of so many Kings, this King of Prophets, this prime Intelligence of the State, this Seraphim, this instrument of the God of Hosts, to be used so barbarously at the Court by his own blood, after so many good counsels, so many glorious labours, so many Oracles pronounced, so many Divine actions so worthily accomplished! All the Militia of heaven wept over this companion of the Angels, and the earth caused fountains to leap up to bedew her lips in the midst of her ardent pains. His Wisdom hath rendered him admirable to the Learned; his Life inimitable to the most Perfect; his Zeal adorable to the most Courageous; his Age venerable to Nature; and his Death deplorable to all Ages.   

JEREMIAH.  
BEhold the most afflicted of Holy Courtiers, a Prophet weeping, a Man of sorrows, an heart always bleeding, and eyes that are never dry. He haunted not great men but to see great evils, and was not found at Court but to sing its Funerals, and to set it up a tomb.  
Yet was he a very great and most holy person that had been sanctified in his mother's womb: that began to prophesy at the age of fifteen years; a spirit separated from the vanities and the pretensions of the world, that was entire to God, that lived by the purest flames of his holy love, and quenched his thirst with his tears. He drank the mud of bad times, and found himself in a piteous Government in which there was little to gain, and much to suffer.  
After that the cruel Manasses King of Judea had been spoiled of the Sceptre, and led prisoner into Babylon, chained as a savage beast, he was sensibly touched with his affliction, and made a severe repentance, being cast with his irons into a deep pit, where he converted himself to God, with bitter sorrows and roar of heart that made him obtain a pardon of his sins, even so far as to restore him his Liberty and his Crown. He behaved himself exceeding well the rest of his days, destroying that which he had made, and repairing that which he had destroyed. But he left behind him a wicked son, who having imitated him in his vices, followed him not in his repentance. It was the impious Amon, who was nevertheless the father of the holy King Josiah, who began to reign at eight years old, and was governed by the good and salutary precepts of the Prophet Jeremy who took him into a singular affection.  
This good Prince consecrated the first fruits of his government by the extirpation of Idolatry, which he detested always by words, and combated by an indefatigable zeal. He never took any repose till he had caused the Idols in Jerusalem and in the neighbouring places to be beat down, plucking up all those abominations even by the root. He had sworn so capital an enmity with impiety, that he persecuted the authors of it even to the grave which the condition of our mortality seems to have made as the last sanctuary of natural liberty, yet he caused the bones of those that had heretofore sacrificed to Idols to be burnt upon the same Altars as had been profaned by them. After that he commanded that the Temple should be purged, and that the order of the sacrifices and of the praises of God should be there carefully observed.  
The reading of a good book found in the Temple had so powerfully wrought upon him that he assembled his people, and caused it to be read in presence of all the world, with fear and trembling at the threaten contained therein against the impious. Then he conjured all the company there present to renew in the sight of God the oath of fidelity, and to promise him never to departed from his Laws and his commandments, which was performed. There was a re-birth of a quite other world under the reign of this wise Prince that rejoiced the heart of the Prophet Jeremy; but he tasted a little honey, to drink afterward a cup of wormwood.  
Josiah was now come to the flower of his age and of his brave actions, having reigned more than thirty years in a mervellous policy and great tranquillity, when Pharaoh Necho King of Egypt making war against the Assyrians would pass through Judea, which gave some fear to this good Prince as well for the oppression of his subjects that were menaced by the passage of a great army, as not to give cause of discontentment to the King of Assyria, and therefore he bestirrs himself to resist him and to oppose his passage.  
It is the misery of little Princes to be engaged in the differences of greater ones, as between the Anvil and the Hammer; they cannot favour the Party of the one but they must render themselves the sworn enemies of the other, and Neutrality renders them suspected to both. It is a difficult passage, where whatsoever Industry one brings to it, one often leaves behind the best feathers of his wings. Josiah without advertising the King of Assyria that the Party would not be maintainable if he sent not a powerful Aid, arms suddenly against a mightier than himself. Necho sends to him his Ambassadors to tell him that he meant no harm to his Person or to his State; that his design was against another King whom he went to combat by the orders of Heaven; that God was with him, and that if he endeavoured to stop his passage evil would betid him for it. Notwithstanding these pressing speeches Josiah goes out to meet him, and as he was come to coping with his adversary, at the very beginning of the mingling he was wounded mortally with an arrow, and commanded his Coachman to draw him out of the combat, which he did, and as he was put in his second chariot which followed his chariot of war after the fashion of Kings, he gave up the ghost without finding any remedy to divert the sharpness of that fatal stroke. His body was brought back to Jerusalem all bloody, and the mournings for his death were so sensible and so piercing that it seemed as if there had been an universal sacking of the whole City.  
Never Prince was so beloved, never any more passionately lamented, nor is there to be found any one among all the Kings of Judea that had less vices, and more zeal for the honour of God; his life was without spot, his reputation without reproach, and to say truth, his goodness was as it were the breath that all the world did breathe. Poor Jeremy was so cast down at a death so sudden, that he lost all his joys, and begun then, according to S. Jerome, to make those sad lamentations that have engraved his grief on the memory of all men.  
To question why so good a King after so many actions of Piety was killed by the hand of an Infidel, as an old suit that humane curiosity hath commenced against providence from the beginning of the world; Some (said Pliny) thrive by their wickedness, and others are tormented even by their own Sacrifices: But who are we to think to draw the curtain of the Sanctuary before the time, and to know the reasons of all that God does, and permits in the world? For one virtuous Prince that is afflicted in the accidents of humane things, we shall find always ten wicked ones that have ended miserably; and yet we cease not to quarrel with the ordination of heaven. By what contract is God to make his servants always win at play and war? Must he do perpetually miracles to make himself be thought what he is? What wrong did he do Josiah if, after a reign of one and thirty years, conducted with great successes, and an universal approbation, he died in the bed of valour defending his country and rendering proofs of the greatness of his courage? What injury was it to have given him the honour to carry the hearts of all his subjects to his grave, and to spread the glory of his name through all ages, and all the living? After that we have seen in histories 100 Tyrants die, almost all in a row, of hideous and bloody deaths; we come again to King Manasses, who after he had shed so much blood passed out of this life by a death peaceable enough; we return to Herod, and Tiberias, and to Mahomet, who died in their beds, as if they had been great Saints of fortune canonised by their happiness.  
Alas, what is the life of these and of their like! to be stabbed every moment in the heart, and in the public opinion; to be cursed of a million of mouths every hour of the day; to remain shut up in the enclosure of a palace walls, as old owls, and to have no other pleasure but to make fire and blood rain upon the heads of men! What contentment to wax pale at every flash of lightning; to tremble at every assault of the least disease; to prepare poisons and halter's for every change of fortune; to live for nothing but to make men die; and to die for nothing but to make the devils a spectacle of their pains! Is this it that deserves the name of felicity, and the admiration of the world?  
After that Josiah had drawn tears from the eyes of all the Kingdom, the people honouring his memory, set his son Jehoahaz upon the Throne, who reigned but three months, because that Nechoh puffed up with his victory, that would not suffer them to think of making a King without his consent, came and fell upon Jerusalem, and carried him away prisoner into Egypt where he died of displeasure and bad usage. He took his brother Eliakim or Jehoiakim to put him in his place, and to make him reign under his authority. But Nebuchadonozor who esteemed himself the God of Kings could not endure that the Egyptian should intermeddle with giving Crowns, came to besiege Jerusalem with great forces, and having won it, carried away the miserable Jehoiakim captive into Babylon with the flower of the city, and the sacred vessels of the Temple when he reckoned yet but the third year of his reign.  
It was a pitiful thing to see this infortunate King in chains after a dignity so short and so unhappy; but this so lamentable a change moved his adversary to compassion, who released him upon condition of a great annual tribute. He discharged it for the space of three years by constraint, his heart and inclinations leaning always towards Egypt, and never ceasing tacitly to contrive new plots. Besides, he so forsook the service of God, and abandoned himself to the impiety of the Idolaters, that the admonitions and menaces of the Prophet Jeremy that had foretold him of a most tragical issue had no power upon his spirit.  
And therefore Nebuchadonozor returned the eleventh year of the reign of this unhappy King, and having conquered him again, caused him to be assassinated, and his body to be cast on the dunghill for a punishment of his rebellion. He permitted his son Jehoiachin, otherwise Jechonias to succeed him; but scarce had this disastrous Prince reigned three months before this terrible Conqueror transported him, with his mother, his wives, and servants, and made him feel in Babylon the rigours of Captivity after he had rob him of all his treasures, and drawn out of Jerusalem ten thousand prisoners of the principal men of all Judea; so that this deplorable Realm was then between Egypt and Babylon as a straw between two impetuous winds incessantly tossed hither and thither without finding any place of consistence.  
Nebuchadonozor made a King after his own fancy, and chose Zedekiah the uncle of Jehoiachin who was at last the most miserable of all the rest. Here it it that Jeremy received a good share of the sufferings of his dear country, and found himself entangled in very thorny businesses, in which he gave most excellent counsels that were little followed, so resolute were the King and Nobles to their own calamity. He had been very much troubled under the Reign of Jehoiakim: for as he was prophesying one day aloud of the ruin of the city of Jerusalem, and the entire desolation of the Temple, the Priests seized upon his person, and caused the people to mutiny against him out of a design to make him be torn in pieces. But it chanced by good hap that some Lords of the Court ran to appease that tumult, before whom Jeremy justified himself, and protested that it was the Spirit of God that moved to foretell those sad disastres, for the correction of the sins of Jerusalem, and that the only means to shelter themselves from the wrath of heaven, was seriously to embrace repentance; and told them that it was in their hands to do him Justice, and that if they used him otherwise, they would shed innocent blood that would rebound against them and the whole city. Those Courtiers judged that there was nothing in him worthy of death, and delivered him from the hands of those wicked Priests that were ready to assassinate him; there being no persecution in the world like to that which comes from sacred persons when they abuse their dignity to the execution of their revenge.  
After this shaking, command is given him again to hold his peace, and to remain shut up in a certain place without preaching or speaking in public: which was the cause that he dictated from his mouth his thoughts and conceptions to Baruch his Secretary commanding him to read them in a full assembly of the people, which he did, without sparing the great and principal men to whom he communicated them, so that this passed even to the ears of King Jehojakim, who would needs see the book, and when he had read three or four pages of it, he cut it with a penknife, and cast it into the fire, commanding that Jeremy and his Secretary Baruch should be apprehended. But God made them escape, ordaining that that deplorable King that had despised his Word and the admonitions of his Prophet should fall into that gulf of miseries that had been foretell him.  
The same abominations ceased not under the Reign of Zedekiah, and Jeremy resumed also new forces to fight against them, and to publish the desolations that should suddenly bury that miserable Nation; then Pashur one of the principal and of the most violent Priests caused the Prophet to be brought before him to reprehend him, for that he ceased not to foretell evils, and to torment all the world by his predictions. Whereupon he entered into so great a wrath against the innocent, that without having any regard to the decency of his dignity, he struck him, and not content with that, caused him to be clapped in prison, and chains to be put upon him.  
This Divine personage seeing himself reduced to that captivity for having brought the Word of God, and being left (as it were) to himself to do and suffer according to nature and humane passions, was seized with a great melancholy, and made complaints to God which parted not but from the abundance of love that he bore to him.  
Ha! what! (said he) my God, have you then deceived me? And who doubts but that you are stronger than I? Who am I to resist you? You have made me carry your word, and to speak boldly your adorable truths to Kings and Peoples, and for this I am handled as an Imposture, and as the dreg of nature, and the reproach of the world. Behold what I have gained by serving you with so much obedience and fidelity. Often have I said by myself, I will obey the Magistrates, I will hold my peace, and remember no more the thoughts that God reveals to me, nor speak any more in his name: but then I felt a fire boiling in my heart that was shut up in the marrow of my bones, and I fell into a swoon, and could not endure the violence of my thoughts without unloading myself by the tongue, and publishing that which you inspired into me. And for this, behold me reduced to irons. And have I not good cause to say that which miserable men use to say, That the day of my nativity, in regard of original sin, and so many calamities that spring from that source, is lamentable and cursed, and that it were to be wished that the womb of my mother that bore me had been my sepulchre? Wherefore did I come out of the bowels of a woman to be a spectator of so many sorrows and so much confusion?  
The Saints speak sometimes like men, according to the sense of the inferior part of the soul, especially when they see themselves overwhelmed with great evils; but God raises them up immediately, and makes them resume the tongue of heaven.  
As the Prophet was deploring his miseries in that dark prison, God gave lights and remorses to his persecutor that came the next day to deliver him, either through some compassion, or because he had attempted that beyond the limits of his authority. The prisoner instead of expressing some kind of weakness spoke more boldly than before, foretelling even to Pashur that he should be led captive into Babylon, and that he should die there, the other not daring to enterprise any thing against him.  
After that very time, Jeremy betook himself to the Palace to speak with the King and with the Queen his wife, to advertise them of the utmost misery that menaced their Crown, if they did not make an entire conversion to God to give an example to their Subjects. Besides this, he gave some State-counsel, and told the King, that since God had permitted that he should be subdued by the Arms of the King of Babylon that had put him on the Throne, and to whom he had promised Faith, Homage, and Tribute, he should do well to keep his promises inviolable, rather than to adhere to the King of Egypt, and expect the assistance of his Arms. This was the most important point of State, that concerned the safety of all the kingdom.  
Nevertheless, King Zedekiah, whose spirit was a little soft, harkened to the advice, and took sometimes fire, but it was but for a little time, he being no way constant in his good resolves. When he saw himself menaced with a siege by the King of the Babylonians, he was affrighted, and inclined a little to his side; but assoon as he perceived that he diverted his arms another way, he broke his promised faith, being weary of the rigour of the Tributes that the other exacted of him. Thereupon, Jeremy ceased not to publish, that it was an error to expect that the army of Pharaoh King of Egypt which was reported to be upon its march to help Jerusalem should do any good, that it should return upon its own steps without enterprising any thing: that Nebuchadonozor was not so fare off, but that in a small time he would render himself before the city to besiege and win it: That it was a decree of God, and although the Army of the Chaldeans should be defeated, yet those that remained (though wounded and sick) should be sufficient to take Jerusalem abandoned of the Divine protection.  
When he had spoken this publicly, he resolved to retire himself for a time, and to go into the country; but he was taken at the gate of the city by Irijah that accused him falsely, and said that he was going to render himself to the army of the Chaldeans; whereupon, he carried him under a good guard to the Magistrates; who having beaten and ill used him, sent him to prison, where he remained many days without consolation.  
At last, the King having heard of what had happened to him, caused him to come secretly to him, and spoke to him, to conjure him to tell the truth, whether those Predictions that he ceased not to sow in the ears of all the world were Revelations from God; whereof the Prophet assured him again, and gave him some good incitement to incline to the most wholesome counsels. Poor Jeremy seeing this Prince use him kindly, said unto him,  
Alas, Sir, what have I done, and in what have I offended your Majesty to be used as a rogue by those that usurp your authority? What crime have I committed by telling you the truth? Where are your false Prophets that said, that there was no need to fear the coming of Nebuchadonozor, and that he had other business to dispatch? is he not at length come to verify my Prophecies? Since you do me the honour at present to hear me, My Lord and my Master, harken to my most humble request, and grant me a courtesy that I desire of you in the Name of God, which is, that I may no more return into the prison out of which your Majesty hath caused me to be drawn; for, the continuation of the evils that I have suffered there is able suddenly to tear my soul from my body, and it will be but a grief to you to deliver me to death for having given you counsels of life and safety.  
The King was softened by the words of the Prophet, but he was so timorous that he durst not take the boldness to cause a prisoner to be delivered by his absolute authority, fearing the reproaches and outcries of those that would have the upper end in all affairs. He caused only the gaoler to be bid to use him a little kindlier, taking him out of the black dungeon, to give him a place more reasonable, and to have a care that in that great famine of the city he should not want bread.  
This was executed, and he stayed some time at the entrance of the prison with a little more liberty, during which, he spoke again to those that visited him, and said freely, That there was no way to escape the sacking of the city, but by rendering themselves to the Chaldeans. This made Pashur and his complices incensed again with a great wrath, and speak insolently to the King, that Jeremy might be delivered to them, publishing that he was worthy of death, that he was a seditious fellow that did nothing but make the people mutiny, and separate them from their obedience to him.  
The miserable Zedekiah that had let these men take too high an ascendent upon his person had not strength of spirit enough to resist them, but against his conscience abandoned his poor Prophet to them, although it was with some regret. These wicked men having taken him, let him down with cords into a deep pit of the prison, which was full of mire and filth, where he expired the remainder of his deplorable life, and had died there of miseries, if God had not raised him up a protector, of whom he never so much as dreamt.  
There was in the King's house a famous officer, an Ethiopian by Nation, and a man of heart, who hearing of the cruelty that was used against the Prophet, took pity on him, and said boldly to the King, What (Sir?) can your Majesty well approve of the rigours that poor Jeremy is made to suffer for doing the function of a Prophet? It well appears that his enemies would have his skin, for they have let him down with ropes into a deep dungeon, where it is almost impossible to breathe. There is danger if this good man dies by this ill usage that you are guilty of his death, and that this may draw some wrath of God upon your Majesty. He spoke this with so good an accent, that the King was moved, and gave him charge to take thirty soldiers, and to draw him thence, which he did quickly, casting down to him old linen rags to put under him, that he might not be galled by the cords when they should make him ascend out of the bottom of that hideous prison.  
When he was plucked up again the King had another time the curiosity to see him, not in his Palace but in some secret place of the Temple, where Jeremy spoke to him with much fervency and tenderness telling him that the only means to save his person, his house, and all the City was to render up himself to Nabuchodonosor, and that if he refused to do it, he and all his would be destroyed. The King answered that he was afraid to commit himself to the King of Babylon, lest he should deliver him to his rebellious subjects that had fallen from him to the enemy. Jeremy replied, That he need not fear any such thing, and affectionately beseeched him to have pity on his own soul, on his wife and on his children for otherwise there would happen a great misery. This poor Prince feared to attempt this against the opinion of those that governed him, and to scatter them by this means from his party. Nay he was afraid even to be seen with Jeremy, and recommended to him very much to keep secret that discourse, and to tell no body that he had spoken to him about State affairs. He was sent back to Prison that he might not make the seditious mutiny, and all that he could obtain, was, not to be plunged again in that pit from whence he had been delivered.  
In the mean while Nabuchodonosor after a long siege carried the city of Jerusalem which was taken about midnight, the enemies being entered by a breach that no body perceived. Zedekiah much amazed betakes himself to flight with his wife and children, and a few men of war about him, taking his way through night, darkness, affrights, fear, and a thousand images of death. The Chaldeans had notice of his retreat, and caught him on the plains of Jericho, where he was immediately forsaken of his men, and left with his wives and little children that sent out pitiful cries through the apprehension of servitude and death.  
He was carried away from thence to Riblah, where Nabuchodonosor was expecting the issue of that siege. This unfortunate Prince was constrained to present himself before the frightful countenance of a barbarous King puffed up with his victories and prosperities, who loaded him with reproaches and confusions, upbraiding him with his rebellion, his ingratitude and unfaithfulness: he would willingly have been ten foot under ground before he suffered such indignities, thinking himself sufficiently punished, by having lost his crown and liberty.  
But this cruel Conqueror would give other satisfactions to his revenge; for after he had a long time digested his gall, and thought on the means that he would use to punish him, he causes his children to come before him, and commands the Hangmen to murder them in the father's sight. These poor little ones seeing the glittering sword now ready to be plunged in their blood cried out for mercy, and called pitifully upon the sad name of their father that had no other power but to suffer his calamity. The sword passes through the bodies of his children to find his heart who died as many deaths as nature had given him gauges of his marriage.  
He expected that the sword stained with the blood of his dear progeny should have ended his life and griefs; but this inhuman Tyrant having left him as much light as was needful to illuminate his misery, after that he had filled himself with this lamentable spectacle, caused his eyes to be plucked out by an execrable cruelty, and having commanded him to be put in great and heavy chains caused him to be carried into Babylon where he ended his miserable life; and in his Person ended the Kingdom of Judea that had subsisted since Saul four hundred and fourscore years.  
Nabuchodonosor having heard the narration that was made of Jeremy and the good counsel that he had given to his King esteemed him highly, and gave charge to Nebuzaradan the General of his Army to give him content, whether he had a mind to go to Babylon, or whether he would stay in his own country. But to show he sought not the splendour of greatnesses, he chose to make his abode amidst poor Labourers and Vine-dresses that were left after the sacking of the City, the better sort being transported into Babylon.  
He was recommended to Gedaliah who was settled Governor of those miserable Relics of the people by Nebuzaradan; but when this Gedaliah was murdered seven months after his creation, Johanan that was one of the principal men, counselled the Jews to quit that miserable land, and to follow him into Egypt. Jeremy opposed it, and foretold misery to all those that should go thither; but instead of believing him they dragged him along by force either to afflict him, or to prevail over his Prophecies. He failed not to prophecy the desolation of Egypt that was to bend under the arms of Nabuchodonosor, whereat his countrymen found themselves incensed, and fearing lest he should draw some envy on them, stoned him in a sedition. The Egyptians hearing talk of the life and predictions of this great personage made account of him, and set him up a Tomb, where God to honour his servant did great miracles, chase away by his ashes the Crocodiles and serpents. Alexander that flourished two hundred years after him admiring those wonders caused his relics to be transported into Alexandria, where he caused a magnificent Sepulchre to be erected for him, as the Alexandrian Chronicle reports. Behold how virtue persecuted in its own house finds a prop with strangers, and even veneration amongst the Infidels; God using all sorts of instruments to honour the merits of those that have rendered him proofs of a perfect faithfulness.    

S. JOHN Baptist. S. PAUL.  
 portrait of St. John the Baptist 
St. JOHN BAPTIST   portrait of St. Paul 
St. PAUL APOSTLE   

WHat makes an Hermit at the Court, a Solitary man in a Tumult, a Sacred amongst Profane, a Saint in the house of Herod? He was far more secure amongst Wolves, amongst Foxes and Tigers, then amongst those wicked Courtiers. He was more contented with his little dinner of Locusts and wild Honey, retired in his Cabin, then at the fight of the pomps and pleasures of the King of Galilee. But God that is the Master of Kings and the Director of Hermit's hath thus disposed of him, and willed that he should die at Court after he had so long a time lived in the wilderness.  
It is not certainly known what occasion drove him to it, whether he went thither by zeal, or whether he was sent for by design, or whether he was forced by violence. Some think that the miseries of his country afflicted under the government of a dissolute Prince, affecting him with a great Compassion, He went out of the desert, of his own accord to admonish the king of his duty, Since that all those that came near him, and that were obliged to speak to him were mute, partly by a servitude fatal to all those that are tied to the hopes of the world, and partly also being seized with fear by reason of the power and cruelty of a woman's spirit that possessed Herod. Others, as Josephus, have written that the Prince hearing every day of the great concourse of all sorts of people that went to the wilderness to see Saint John, was afraid lest under colour of piety this might make some change of State. Tyrants love not men endowed with an extraordinary virtue, and that have not learned the trade of flattering, their voice is the Cock that frights those cruel Lions; their life is a flash of Lightning that dazzles their Eyes; their actions are as many Convictions of their Iniquity. And therefore this Author saith; that without other form of process, Herod caused him to be apprehended, to prevent him and break off those assemblies that were made about him.  
Yet it is probable and more consonant to the Scripture (which assures us that this Prince bore some respect to John, and heard him, and did many things according to his advice) that he proceeded not against him at first with so much violence. But the cunning Fox (as he was, according to the judgement that the Eternal Truth made of him,) seeing that Saint John was in an high esteem for holiness, and in great credit amongst the people, strove to win him, and to draw him to him, to make himself be reputed for a good Prince that cherished honest men, and to maintain by this means his authority that was already rottering, and little rooted in the true Maxims of a good Government. It was thus that Dionysius the Tyrant made use of the Philosophers, not for any affection that he bore them, but to appropriate them to the bad intentions that he had in State, and to give them some colour by the express or interpreted approbation of those personages that were in reputation for their wisdom. But Herod did ill choose his man; this was not a Court-flatterer, a Tool for all Trades, a Shoe for all Feet, but a stiff and austere man, to whom a whole World would not have given the least temptation to do any thing against his conscience.  
It would be a superfluous thing to enlarge one's self at length upon the rare qualities of Saint John, who having been many times highly commended by the Creator of Virtues, and the Distributour of true praises, who hath preferred him above the greatest of the world, seems to have dried up by his abundance the Eulogies of the most eloquent. Let us content ourselves to say that there are abundance of excellencies in him, enough to make all chairs speak, and all pens writ even to the end of the world.  
He was born of the blood of Aaron the brother of Moses, the first ornament of the Priesthood, and the great conductor of the People. He came out of a barren Womb which he rendered fruitful above all fecundities of the earth. His birth was declared miraculously by the voice of an Archangel. He was sanctified almost as soon as conceived, and virtue appropriated him to herself before that nature had brought him to the Light. He was a worshipper of the word when he was yet in the bowels of his mother, and received the first rays of the everlasting day before that his eye was open to the brightness of the Sun. Reason was advanced to him by a wonder altogether extraordinary. He hath had this honour, to know first, after the Virgin Mary, the news of that high mystery of the Incarnation, and of the Redemption of the world. Of all the Nativities of so many children of Adam, the Church celebrates none but that of John, who hath this common with our Saviour and his most holy Mother, who by a special privilege honoured his birth by her actual presence; So that he saw his first day under the aspect of the Mother of the Universe. His name was given him by an Archangel, a name of grace and favour, that shown he was placed in the rank of the dearest delights of Heaven, and the tongue of his dumb Father tied by an heavenly virtue, was loosed by its power, that it might pronounce that fair name. He was exempted from grievous sins, and (as many Divines hold) even from venial. He consecrated his retirement in the Desert almost as soon as he entered into the world. Farthermore he was a Prophet, and more than a Prophet, a Virgin, a Doctor, a forerunner of the Son of God, the Trumpet of Repentance, the Author of a Baptism (that ushered in that which regenerates us all) whereof Jesus was pleased to receive the sprinkling. In fine, he was the Horizon of the Gospel and the Law, and the first that shown with the finger the Lamb of God, and the Kingdom of Heaven.  
But let us make no reckoning of what I have alleged, but let us say only that which the word hath said of him, That he was not a Reed to bow at every wind, nor a man that could be alured by the delicacies of the Court; He spoke there, as a Prophet, he conversed there as an Angel, and at last died there as a Martyr. The time furnished him with an occasion, about which he could not speak without making much noise, and he could not hold his peace without betraying his Conscience.  
That Herod Antipas, which we are to speak of here, was the son of the great Herod the Murderer of the Innocents' and of a Samaritan woman, who after the death of his Father (forasmuch as the Legitimate issue of Mariam had been unworthily murdered to make way for unjust heirs) had for his part of the Kingdom of Judea Galilee, which he held in quality of a Tetrarch. He was a Prince of a small courage, addicted to his pleasures, lascivious and lose, that endeavoured to preserve himself by poor shifts, having nothing stout nor warlike in his person.  
He had a brother named Philip, which held another parcel of that Kingdom of Judea dismembered and little enough considerable, the Romans having possessed themselves of the best part of it after they had deposed Archelaus that had reigned as Successor of his Father in quality of a King. Philip was married to Herodias the daughter of his brother Aristobulus, and by consequence his Niece; those Marriages being ordinary enough in the Court of Herod. The Husband was a sweet and moderate spirit, that kept his small Government very peaceable, and pleased himself with rendering Justice to his people with so much ardour that he often stayed his Chariot by the way, and heard the differences of the meanest people to reconcile them. But the Wife quite contrary was an Haughty, Ambitious, Turbulent, Immodest spirit, that was not content with what God had given her, but tried by all means to become Queen.  
It happened that Herod Antipas under colour of a progress or recreation went to visit his brother Philip who received him in his Palace with all courtesy and sincerity. He amused himself in the abode that he made there, to cajole that Hernias his sister i● Law, that needed not much courting to be brought i● Love, so fickle was her disposition and so desirous still of Novelties.  
They found that Antipas was not pleased with his Wife, nor Herodias with her Husband; they make an audacious and irregular complot, which was to separate themselves from their Mates under colour of a divorce, and to marry themselves together. Herod promised her, that he would go to Rome and make her Queen, which she could never hope for of her Husband, who (he told her) was a man without heart, and born only to converse with inferior people. He made himself a brave man at his Sword, Rich, Valiant, Happy, Magnificent; and his body was not ill made, so that this false marriage is concluded between the parties, and it is not known whether it began then by a clandestine adultery. Their privacies were but too remarkable: so that Herod's wife that was the daughter of Arethas King of Arabia had an inkling of them; and dissembling her thoughts, wrote to the King her father, that she could no longer live with a dissolute husband, that had no affection to her, and that violating the faith plighted in marriage, had made a promise to an adulteress to espouse her. Her Father was greatly exasperated at this affront, expressing that he was ready to receive her to his Court, and counselled her to steal away warily from her Husband; which she did prudently enough ask leave of him to take a little journey to the Castle of Macheron which was upon the frontier to recreate herself. This was very freely granted her; and in the mean while she order her father's men to carry her away into Arabia. Yet she needed not to have studied her flight, and to have made a mystery of it, since her husband had no great mind to run after her, but had given her much annoyance out of a design to weary her, and to make her escape from him of her own accord, to have an excuse to the King her father when he should complain of him.  
This departure of the Arabian sudden and meditated, came to the ears of Herod and Herodias, who made Bonfires of joy at it in their hearts, and believed that it was an overture that Heaven had given them, to the accomplishment of their design. The wicked woman quits Philip her Husband and comes into Galilee to lodge in the Palace of her brother bringing with her a shameless daughter, whom the deportments of the mother made men believe not to have appertained by good right to her husband. Josephus, out of whom we have in part taken this History doth not tell us whether the good Philip was much troubled for his wife, but her insolent spirit makes us believe that he had no great reason to lament her. This coming was coloured at first with the pretence of a visit that she gave her brother in Law; but at last the business came to light, and to cover the scandal of it, a divorce was to be protested, and a marriage feigned. Herod had no want of flatterers and servile spirits at his Court that found out reasons to colour so great a crime.  
He would have much desired that Saint John would have approved it, or that staying near him without speaking a word, his silence would have made the people believe that he was not upon terms of disapproving it. But this was to judge too basely of so high a virtue. The holy man resolutely tells him, that it was not permitted him to marry his brother's wife; that it was an Adultery, and an odious incest in the sight of God, and scandalous to all his Subjects. He advertised him of the obligations of the Law, whereof he made profession, of the examples of the good Kings that had preceded him, of the chastisements of the wicked that had fault the weight of Divine justice. He laid before his eyes how States passed from one hand to another by Injustice, Iniquity, Impiety and the filthiness of those that Governed ill. He put also into his admonition the contempt of God, that was dreadful above all things, the interests of his brother, the ill example that he would give his family, the speeches of his people, the judgements even of stranger Kings, and as it is credible forgot nothing of all the considerations that were worthy to be represented to him.  
The spirit of Herod was not altogether bad, nor, as yet forsaken of God; He heard Saint John, and conceived sometimes a remorse of his fault. But as soon as he had seen Herodias he remembered no more any of those advertisements, and durst not express that he had so much as any scruple of his marriage, So imperiously did this cunning woman carry him. She knew at last what the man of God had spoken, and was transported with a fury that suffered her not to breathe any other thing but revenge and menaces.  
She laid hold of an opportunity to her advantage, and seeing this Prince besotted with her Love, and in a condition to deny nothing to her enticements informed him (as far as one may guess) that John was very dangerous to the welfare of the State, and that that great deluge of people that he drew after him spoke nothing good; and that if he were a crafty man, as he seemed to be, he would be able to raise a sedition for the interest of his ambition, and if he were but simple, which she did not imagine, there would enough be found with him every day that would abuse that simplicity; that it was a great arrogance in him to find fault with the alliances of his marriage, and to disallow of that, which so many others, as good men as he, had approved of; that she saw plainly that this tended to his ruin, and that if Saint John could bring about what he aimed at, she should be good for nothing but to be cast to Dogs, and that that was not the recompense that she expected of her love and faithfulness towards him after she had despised every thing for the price and esteem of his contentment.  
She ceased not to beat upon the Prince's ears with such like words, and to breed a distrust in him of Saint John, in such a manner as that he consented that he should be apprehended and put in prison under colour, as Josephus saith, that he went about to change the people's minds, and to embroil the State. This detaining of a man so holy and so renowned made a great noise through all Judea, but the wicked woman had this maxim, That one ought to take one's pleasure to content nature, and little to trouble one's self at the opinions of the world below, nor at the complaints of honest men, judging that all mouths ought to be stopped by the rigour of punishments, and that she should be innocent when no body durst any more find fault with her actions.  
She slept not one good sleep with her Herod as long as Saint John was yet alive, but fearing always either that her pretended husband whom she thought light enough, might be softened with compassion to release him, or that the people that held him for a Saint, might break open the prisons to take him thence, she resolved to see the end of him to give all liberty to her unbridled passions.  
She watches the opportunity of Herod's birthday, on which he was accustomed to make feasts and to intertein the principal Officers of his Kingdom. This crafty woman tampered with all the wills of those that had any power over his spirit for this design, and seeing that her daughter was a powerful instrument to move that effeminate Prince, and that he was extraordinarily pleased to see her dance, conjured her to employ all her genius and all her industry, all the baits, allurements, and gentilesses that she had in dancing, to gain the King's heart, and that if she saw him very freely merry, and on terms to gratify her with some great advantage, she should take heed of ask any thing but the head of John, and that he was necessarily to fall, if she would not see her mother perish and all her fortunes overthrown.  
The daughter obeyed, and fits herself even to perfection to please the Prince's eyes; she enters into the banqueting house richly decked, and makes use of a dance not vulgar, whereat he was ravished, and all the Guests (that were perhaps hired by Herodias to commend her) made a wonderful recital of her perfections. There was nothing now remaining but to give her the recompense of her pains. This daughter of iniquity and not of nature, says Chrysologus, seeing that every one applauded her, and that the King, that was no longer his own man, would honour her with some great present which he would remit to her own choice, even as far as to give her the moiety of his Kingdom, if she would have desired it, made a bloody request, following the instructions of her wicked mother, and required that instantly S. John's head should be given her in a plate.  
Herod felt his heart pricked with a repentance piercing enough, but because he had sworn in presence of the Nobles of his Kingdoms to deny nothing that she should ask would not discontent her, but gives command to the Master of his House to go to the prison and to cut off S. John's head, to put it in the hands of this wanton wench. As soon as the word was pronounced, her mother was not quiet till she saw the execution of it; to Prison they run; every one thought that it had been for some grace, since that it was upon the nick of the feast of the Nativity of the King; but they quickly saw an effect quite contrary to that thought, when S. John was called for and told that he must resolve to die.  
What, think we, did this divine forerunner do at this last moment that remained to him of so innocent a life! but render thanks to God that made him die a Martyr for the truth, after he had enlightened his eyes with the visible presence of the Incarnate Word which permitted him not to have any thing left in this world to be desired. He exhorted his disciples to range themselves about our Saviour, who was the Way, the Life, and the Truth. He prayed for his persecutors, and for the easing of the miseries of his poor people; afterward having a relish of the first contentments of his felicity by the tranquillity of his spirit, he yielded his neck to the hangman. His body was honourably buried by his disciples, and his head brought in a plate to that cruel feast, put into the hands of that danceresse, who presented it to her mother; and the mother, according to S. Jerome, made a play-game of it, pricking the tongue with the needle of her hair.  
All that one can speak is below the horror of its spectacle, says S. Ambrose, The head of S. John, of the Prime man of the world, that had shut up the Law, that had opened the Gospel, the head of a Prophet, of an Angel, is outrageously taken off and delivered for the salary of a danceresse. The soberest of men is massacreed in a feast of drunkards, and the chastest, by the artifice of a prostitute. He is condemned on an occasion and on a time in which he would not even have been absolved, as abhorring all that proceeded from intemperance. O how dangerous is it then to offend a woman that hath renounced her honour! Herod gave her an homicide for a kiss. The hangmen wash their hands when they are ready to sit down at table, but these unhappy women pollute theirs in the banquet with a Prophet's blood; The righteous slain by adulterers, the innocent by the guilty, the true judge by criminal souls. This banquet that should have been the source of life brings an edict of death. Cruelty is mingled with delights, and pleasure with funerals. This horrible plate is carried through all the table for the satiating of those unhuman eyes, and the blood that drops yet from his veins falls upon the pavement to be licked up with the ordures of that infamous supper. Look upon it, Herod, look upon a deed that was worthy of none but thy Cruelty; stretch out thine hand, put thy fingers in the wound that thou hast made that they may be again bedewed with a blood so sacred. Drink, cruel man, drink that river which thou seest glide to quench thy thirst. Look upon those dead eyes that accuse thy wickedness, and which thou dost wound again with the aspect of thy filthy pleasures. Alas! they are shut not so much by the necessity of death as by the horror of thy luxury.  
The vengeance of God delayed not long to fall upon those perverse souls that had committed so enourmous a crime. Arethas King of the Arabians, resenting the affront that had been given to his daughter by those Adulterers, enters in arms upon the lands of Herod, who bestirrs himself but weakly to resist him. Pleasures held him so fast chained that he had not the boldness to go to his frontiers in person to oppose his adversary; but contented himself with sending a Colonel that lost the battle hazarded against the Arabian; and this miserable King was in the way to have been deprived of all his Kingdoms, if the Romans had not intervened, who would not permit Arethas to make himself great in their vicinity. Some while after happened the passion of our Saviour, who as we know, was presented to this Herod; but by reason that there was no Herodias to urge him then to murder, he contented himself with the mockeries and derisions of his person. He thought from that time forward to enjoy a great quietness, but the justice of God that punishes exemplarily the violences that are committed against his servants raised him up a strange Catastrophe,  
His wife that spurred him incessantly with ambition persuaded him to take a journey to Rome to make himself great by the favour of the Romans, and to bear openly in his Titles the name of King. But he was much amazed that young Agrippa his Kinsman had supplanted him, and found so much favour with the Emperor Claudius that he gave him the Kingdom of Herod Antipas, with the other of Philip that was now deceased, and sent him into Judea with the name of King, and with good Patents to authorise his Election. And forasmuch as concerns this murderer of the Prophet, having been accused of much insolency and cowardice, the Edict of the Prince banished him to Lions, so that he was like the Camel in the fable, that for having asked for horns of Jupiter lost his ears. The Emperor let Herodias know that he intended not to comprehend her in the Edict, but that he permitted her to stay in the Country. Yet she was so constant in a wicked friendship, that she answered, That since she had been a companion of her husband in prosperity, she would by no means abandon him in adversity, and that she had rather be banished with him then have a Kingdom with another man that should not be according to her heart. She was left to do after her own head, and both of them set forth to go to exile, accompanied with that little wanton, which, according to Nicephorus, passing over a frozen River fell in before she was ware, the Ice melting under her feet. She hung a long time in this snare, moving herself up and down as if she would have danced, in such a sort as that her neck was cut off by a razor of Ice, and her life stifled under the waters, to make an honourable revenge to the holy forerunner of Jesus Christ. Herod Antipas and his Herodias were overwhelmed with poverty, with misery, and with ignominy in a strange land, offering up a long sacrifice of their pains to divine vengeance without ever recovering either liberty or safety.   

Saint PAUL and SENECA In the COURT of NERO.  
BEhold here a theatre and a spectacle worthy of Saints, of Philosophers, and of Kings; the meeting of Paul with Seneca in the Court of Cesar. The Doctor of the Nations with the most knowing man in the Universe. The wisdom of the Cross with that of Philosophy. The birth of the Roman Church in the Blood and in the Flames of Martyrs. The Gospel preached in a City which was the gulf of corruption; and which is more admirable, the Habitation of Christians in the Palace of Nero. To understand aright the greatness of our Christianity, the force of the Gospel, the combats of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the Triumphs and the Majesty of the Church; It is needful to represent unto you an Idea of the estate of this chiefest City of the world, and the wicked manners which those two great Apostles observed in it, to root them out, and to cause a people to be born anew, regenerate in the Blood of their Saviour.  
It seemeth, that S. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans hath undertaken to describe the inordinate life of Nero, and of those in his Court who did conform themselves to his example to partake of his favours. He 
The estate of Rome and the Court of Nero when Paul came to it.  speaketh of some men who were fallen into a reprobate sense, and who had changed the order of nature, and their sex, by most infamous lusts, being filled with all Iniquity with Riot, Covetousness, Detraction, Envy, Murder, Debate, Deceit, and Malice, Whispering, Despiteful, Cursing, Proud, Arrogant, Inventors of evil things, Disobedient to their parents, without Understanding, without Order, without Affection, without Fidelity, without Compassion: And this most clearly is manifested in all the deportments of this most infamous Emperor, who was the monster of men. And we of necessity must affirm, that it is the manifest choler of heaven, and a scourge, enough to exterminate mankind from the earth, when a wicked and a licentious life is joined with the height of Power, which giveth as much force to wickedness as it takes off from the strength and execution of the Laws. It is not my design to stretch forth that in words which might be spoken of Nero, but to make a short Collection of the manners of his own person and his Court, that the Readers might observe on what stuff Seneca and S. Paul did work, and what were their proceed and success.  
In the seven and thirtieth year of our Saviour, this 
The birth and education of Nero  Prince (fatal to the ruin of the Empire) was born on the fifth of December, betwixt seven and eight of the clock in the morning; he came into the world with his feet foremost, contrary to the order of nature; he took all the vices of his ancestors, and did partake of none of all their virtues. On the father's side he was descended from the Domitian's surnamed Barbarossae, whom the Romans vulgarly called Brasse-beards; and it was one of his ancestors unto whom the Orator in choler did reply, That it was no marvel that he had a Beard of Brass, since Nature had given him a Mouth of Iron, and a Heart of Lead. His grandfather was a fiery man, cruel, and prodigal, and so amorous of Plays, that he caused the Ladies of Rome to ascend the Theatre, and to act the Comedies themselves. He gave also the combat of the Gladiatours, performed with so much cruelty, that Augustus Cesar was constrained to stop it by his Edicts. His father Domitius was detestable over all his life, insolent, furious, who with his own hand did stab one of his Freemen to death, because he would not be drunk; and in the pride of heart made his caroche to pass over a little child in the street; and quarrelling with a Knight of Rome, he caused one of his eyes to he pulled out. Besides his cruelty, he was a man without faith, without probity, without honesty, who deceived all his creditors, mocked all the world, and secretly abused his own sister. His wife was named Agrippina she was daughter to Germanicus of the Blood of the Caesar's, but of an evil spirit, and prostituted to all manner of vices. And it is no marvel, that Domitius father to Nero, (when much joy was wished him on the birth of his son) did make answer, that there needed not such acclamations, for nothing could be born from him and Agrippina, but what should be pernicious to the Empire. Not long after, this unfortunate man did die, consumed with diseases that attended his filthy life, and left behind him his son three years of age, who saw his mother banished, and being destitute of means was brought up in the house of his Aunt Lepida, under the discipline of a dancer and a barber who did corrupt his spirit with the first impressions of vice, which from his birth he was too much disposed to receive. The times changing, his mother returned into favour, and by her charms prevailed upon the spirit of the Emperor Claudius the successor of Caligula, a simple and 
The perfidiousness of his mother.  a stupid man, who espoused this dangerous woman, who afterwards poisoned him by a potion, and so placed her own son on the Throne of the Caesar's. And although the Astrologians had foretell her that he should be Emperor and withal the murderer of his mother, she made nothing of it, and thought it no hard bargain to buy the Empire with her own blood, saying, Let him reign, and let him kill me.  
By the artifice of this wicked woman, Nero was saluted Emperor in the seventeenth year of his age with a marvellous applause, and in the public acclamations honoured with all great Names and specious Titles, all which he received, saving only that of Father of his Country, saying, He was too young to have so many children. He was very tractable in his youth, upright, gentle, discreet, well-spoken, and demeaned himself for the first five years very worthily under the conduct of Seneca. But when he approached to the one and twentieth year of his age, the ingredients of vice, which, with his birth he brought into the world, the base education in his infancy, the heat of his youth, the delights of the Court, and (which is the greatest of all temptations) the Power to do all, did weigh down the Philosophy and the Instructions of Seneca, who proved by experience, That there is nothing more difficult then to persuade those to virtue whom too much Power had put in the possession of all vices. His deboistness began by the ill examples which he learned in his infancy, which were altogether unbeseeming his person: he became a Tumbler, a Puppet-player, a Comedian, a Waggoner, a Songster, and a Minstrel, not for Recreation but to make a public Profession of it, to dispute with the Masters of those Faculties, and to abandon all the affairs of Peace and War to be vacant to those exercises, insomuch, that he made it more to outact a Comedian on the stage, then to gain a Battle in the field. He was also a nightwalker, and gave, and sometimes received many sore blows which did not permit him to pass unknown.  
From hence he laid himself open to most extravagant profuseness, insomuch, that he gave to Tumblers the patrimonies of Consuls, and made the funerals of some inconsiderable men to equal the Magnificence of the Obsequies of Kings; he never did wear the most gorgeous garments longer than one day. He did build his Palaces with so much cost, as if he would dispend on them only all the wealth of Rome. When he traveled, he would be followed with a thousand caroaches, and his mules were all shod with silver. He made his halls after the form of the firmament, where the vault being of gold intermingled with azure, and illuminated with counterfeit stars did roll continually over his head, and reigned on him showers of flowers, and waters of a most exquisite smell. There would he dine from noon till midnight in the riot of execrable services. He had a touch in his tender age of the vices of wantonness, luxury, avarice and cruelty, but being in the beginning it was with some shame concealed in private.  
But in the end he took off that mask by an open and inordinate dissoluteness, which knew no restraint. He was of belief that there was not one chaste person in the world, and took great pleasures in those who did repeat their filthiness to him. There was never man more abandoned to all manner of uncleanness without distinction of kindred, sex, time, place, or manhood. There was not one part in all his body that was not sacrificed to dishonesty: his polluted spirit made him invent those abominations which are not to be endured by chaste ears, and with which I will not defile my paper.  
The excess of his insolences did at last render him odious to those who were most near unto him, and when they gently told him of his extravagancies, he would leap into a fury, and made a crime of their virtue who did best advise him. He filled up the apprenticeship of his enormities with the death of Britannicus, a young Prince the son of the Emperor 
His cruelty towards Britannicus.  Claudius, and brother to his wife Octavia, in which he employed the most famous Sorceress of Rome named Locusta who prepared the poison, and made an assay of it before him on a sucking pig who died immediately: now finding it for his turn, caused it to be served to his brother as he dined at the table with him. The malignity of the poison was so piercing, that in an hour after, he fell dead at the feet of his mother and his sister, who were both present at this tragic spectacle. Nero, to excuse himself, said, That it was the effect of a great sickness to which he had been subject from his cradle, and that they ought to be of comfort. But the Princess' concealing their imagination for fear of provoking his rage, did manifestly perceive that he sowed those seeds of his murder which he would afterwards continue in his Family.  
It is almost impossible to believe the tender affection 
The love to his mother degenerated to misprision  with which he prosecuted his mother Agrippina. He sometimes did give to the soldiers that did guard his body for their word, The good Mother. He could not live without her. He did put into her hands the most delicate interests of all his Affairs, and desired that all things should stoop to her Authority. The mother also did endeavour by all possible artifices to tie herself unto his person, even unto the using of Charms; for it is most certain that she gave him the skin of a serpent enclosed in a bracelet of gold, which he carried ordinarily about him, and afterwards in despite did lay it by, and did look for it not long before his death but could not find it. The endearments of this Agrippina were too fond, and her kisses more hot than belonged to a mother.  
Seneca was amazed at the horror of it, and to 
Seneca by a less evil diverts a greater.  avoid a greater evil, he procured a young maiden named Acta, who otherwise was a slave that came from Asia, but very beautiful, to serve as a Love for Nero, and to divert him from that infamous passion towards his mother, in which he demeaned himself as Lot, who presented his daughters to the Sodomites to avoid the greater fury of their brutish lust. This Acta played her part so well by the counsel of Seneca, that mingling with her familiarities the considerations of State, she gave Nero to understand that his great privaces with Agrippina would render him contemptible to the great ones of his Empire, and to all his Subjects, and would also give an advantage of power to his mother, which she would abuse to his own destruction.  
He believed her, and became very amorous of her, 
His mother enraged  and that so furiously, that he intended to prepare a Genealogy for her, in which, he would make her to be descended from the Kings of Asia, and afterwards would marry her. His mother was as much in rage on the other side, that a slave was become her rival, her choler did so much boil over, that she made horrible threaten what she would say, and what she would do: She would go to the Army, she would complain to the Senate, she would discover the disastres of her infortunate house, and the empoysoning by which she had ravished the Diadem which belonged to the sons of Claudius her husband, to put on the head of ingrateful Nero.  
Nero, whether he would appease her or else deride 
Nero's present to his mother.  her, did send her a gown of the ancient Emperors which was very rich, but quite out of fashion; at which she was much incensed, and said she was no Comedian to be dressed in such habiliments as those; and that he ought not but give one part to her from whom he received the whole, she would see she said if so poor a fellow as Burrus was, or such a pedantic as was Seneca, should govern the world at their pleasure in the disgrace of the blood of the Caesar's. Sometimes again she would display herself so weakly, that she would offer herself to be a procurer of Loves for her son, and to hid in her own cabinet, nay, in her own breast, whatsoever he would keep secret.  
Behold how God doth punish all fond affections 
The fond love of parents chastened by God in their children.  and wickednesses by those themselves who have received the profit from their poisons! What shall this miserable mother do? She is no more in a condition to give content, if there came by the by any small re-accommendation in their friendships, it was but languishing and of a short continuance. Nero desired nothing more than to eschew her company, and if he was obliged to see her, it was with a Compliment as cold as ice; he would kiss her indeed, but rather out of ceremonies then out of love, and would immediately forsake her.  
It is recorded, that beholding herself altogether 
Sure. ca 35. in Nero ne.  misprised, her fury provoked her to love a young Prince (on his mother side of the blood of Augustus) named Plantius, whom she served for the satisfaction of her desires, and to find a subject to imbroil the seat. This was brought to the ears of the Prince, who began to startle at the apprehension of it, and could not be at rest until he was rid of them both. He killed Plantius having first violated his body, and took a dismal resolution to enfold his mother in the same calamity.  
After a faint reconcilement which continued for a 
The horrible attempt of Nero upon his mother.  few days, he sent her a letter full of fine Compliments, inviting her to Bajae where he than took his pleasures. Aristotle saith, That women are naturally credulous, especially when they have something sent them to amuse their passion. She immediately prepared to come to him, who was as ready to entertain her, and brought her to Baula where was his house of pleasure. He had a desire to poison her as he did his brother Britannicus, but he knew she had an eye always open for her own preservation, and had with her antidotes to divert the operation of any poison.  
Therefore he consulted to put her to death on the sea, which is the field of dangers, where there is more of the effect and less of the suspicion. To accommodate her on her return, he caused a pompous vessel to be prepared, the deck whereof was to fall down by artifice, and charge was given to disloyal Anicetus, who was to conduct it, to put the device in practice, and to drown the barge. In the mean time he entertained the Queen in his Palace of delight with incomparable cheer. He would place her at the table above him; he would comport and comply with her in a gallant and graceful posture; sometimes he would whisper some soft words in her ear; sometimes he would openly renew the tenderness of his first love and ancient confidence; he served her both with the gentle and with the serious, to give her full satisfaction: she poor woman in long draughts drank deeply of the sweets of those poisonous endearments, and found her heart much enlarged at so unexpected a change. At the hour of her departure he would conduct her to the boat, and entertain her with sugared words, telling her, that he would not live but only for her love, and that the greatest and the most acceptable office that she could do him, was to be cheerful, and to have a particular care of her health. He seemed to look upon her with ravishments, whether it were to put the better countenance on his perfidiousness, or whether he were touched in mind at the near misfortune of his mother, who being made a lamentable sacrifice was going now insensibly to her death. At parting, he was not only content to kiss her mouth, but taking her in his arms, he in a lover's compliment did embrace her, and omitted nothing to cover his horrible design.  
She entered into the barge in the evening: The sea was calm, the winds had fallen asleep upon it. The sky was full of stars, as if it had opened all its eyes to behold the spectacle which it ought to revenge upon the Author. Agrippina had two Gentlemen which sat on each side of her, and a Lady on whom she much relied, named Acroceraunia, who was placed at her feet, who entertained her with the rehearsal of many of the late passages at Court, and the obligations and the protestations of her son, when (behold) the sign being given, the roof of the  in which they were being covered with weights of lead (with which their treason overcharged it) did fall down, and killed one of the Gentlemen, and wounded Agrippina on the shoulder. The Ingineers who undertook the charge that the deck should fall directly down (being troubled in their consciences, or counterchecked by those who knew nothing of the game they were to play) did not perform it with that dexterity as was pretended, but gave leisure to those whom they would destroy to provide for their safety. Acroceraunia beholding herself in that danger, cried out that she was the mother of the Emperor, and that they should make haste to preserve her which was the occasion of her death, for immediately on those words she was killed with the blows of the poles and oars.  
Agrippina beholding this goodly pageant, and being most assured that it was a design of her sons, had yet such a command over her passion that she spoke not one word, and was saved by the swimming of one of those who were not of the Conspiracy. The Frigates made haste to receive her, and to convey her to her own house which was not fare off. The amazement of the accident did not so abate her spirits, but she sent to Nero to acquaint him, That the Gods and the good Fortune of her Son had delivered her from a great danger, but she desired him not to take the pains to visit her, nor to send any of his servants to her, because she desired to take her rest.  
The dismal Prince who every moment attended 
The amazement of Nero.  the issue of this most execrable enterprise, was much amazed to understand that she had escaped the danger, and counterfeited that the messenger whom his mother had sent was an Assassinate employed to murder him. He awaked Seneca and Burrus to demand their counsel, and did remonstrate to them the danger in which he was, if he should not throughly accomplish what he had so ill begun. These two great personages did look on one another, being unwilling to dissuade him without effect, or to consent unto it by reason of the horror of it. Seneca, to whom the fluencies of Language were never before wanting, held his eyes fixed on Burrus Captain of the Lifeguard, as if without speaking to him he would ask him if he had not soldiers enough of his company to execute that which should be conceived to be expedient: but Burrus did prevent him, and told the Emperor that the men under his command were too much affectionated to the Blood of the Caesar's to undertake so hardy an enterprise. They both had a desire to divert him from so bad a deed for the want of an undertaker.  
But the detestable Anicetas, Admiral of the Fleet, 
The death of Agrippina.  did again present himself to put the last hand unto the massacre. He immediately with some soldiers did transport himself to Agrippina's castle; he broke open the gates, and found her in bed forsaken of all the world. Assoon as she beheld three frightful faces to enter her chamber, she spoke courageously to them, and told them, if they came to give her a compliment, that she had no need of it, and if they had any other design, she believed her son was not so wicked as to command her murder. These villains, without answering one word, did begin the assassinate; one struck her with a truncheon, another had his sword at her bleeding breast, to whom she cried out and only said, The Belly, Soldier, the Belly that did bear the monster: after which she gave up the ghost, her body being hacked with many wounds. Her corpse was burned that very night, and one of her servants killed herself before the funeral pile, either for fear of the son, or for grief of the mother. Howsoever, Nero caused a Declaration to be published, in which, not without horror to the Readers he laid all the fault upon his Mother; and after this, he had never any rest, for he dreamt almost every night that he saw his mother calling him down to hell, and beheld unnumbered Furies tormenting him in the flames thereof.  
For all this, he desisted not from the nature of a 
Nero continueth his cruelties,  Tiger, but to the massacre of his mother he added the murder of his wife Octavia, the most innocent Princess on earth. The cause of it was, one Otho, a companion of his deboistness had taken from Crispus, a man of quality, his wife Poppea, and in a fury (such as Nero's himself) had espoused her. He told Nero so many wonders of the pleasures of his marriage, that he gave him a desire to taste them, thinking it would be a means to raise him to a higher dignity; but the event was, that the Lady perceiving herself to be beloved of the Emperor, did totally devote herself unto him, and did advise him to send her husband into Portugal under the colour of Ambassador.  
This cunning woman had a commanding beauty, 
He sals in love with poppea, and estrangeth himself from his wise Octavia  a sweet and pleasing voice, and incomparable attractions and allurements. She did lead Nero as a child, and observing him so violently enamoured of her, she would be his Mistress without a Paramour, and would not permit his own wife to partake of his bed. For which purpose she contrived a detestable plot, and caused the virtuous Empress to be accused for prostituting herself to a player on the Flute, who by his birth was an Alexandrian; an accusation which could not be spoken without the absolute dislike of all good men, nor believed by any but ignorant and depraved persons.  
Nevertheless, Tigillinus the most intimate with Nero, who was a great stickler in the marriage with Poppea, caused the men and maidservants of the Princess to be examined; some of whom being torn upon the rack, did in the extremity of the torment let fall some untruths to deliver themselves from the intolerable pain: others continued constant, and there was a maid-servant of that courage, that being in the midst of all her torments, she said to infamous Tigellinus; Know, Executioner, that there is not one part in all the body of my Mistress, but is more chaste than thy mouth.  
There being not proofs sufficient to destroy her, Nero was content to send her away into one of his houses, and to be divorced from her under the pretence of barrenness. Not long after, she was removed thence and kept under guard, and was afterwards called back to Rome to appease the trouble which the absence of so illustrious and so virtuous a Lady had caused. She was received with great applause of all the City, which so alarmed the spirit of Poppea, that she threw herself at Nero's feet, and did remonstrate to him, That he should take no more care for his loves but for his life, and that this return did tend to nothing else but to ruin him with herself, and to make them both fall under the fury of the people. That this was not it which she had deserved of his friendship; and if he had rather advance in his palace the child of a player on the Flute, then to have from her a legitimate heir, that would give her leave to departed in a good hour, and that she would look out her husband Otho in whatsoever place of the world she could find him.  
She used such and so many attractions, so many 
A hottible calumny.  counterfeit tears, such sweetnesses, and such rigours of love, that she prevailed with detestable Nero, who (by Anicetus, the same man who before killed his mother,) did raise a horrible calumny against the honour of his wife, and caused this instrument of the devil to affirm, that he had played with the Empress; on which he caused her to be banished, and poor Octavia, as a guilty person, did suffer under that wicked sentence, and was banished into the Isle of Pandaluria: and because Poppea could not sleep in quiet with Nero as long as Octavia was alive, he filled up his cruelty, and by a most unworthy death he sacrificed her to the appetite of that most bold woman, whom afterwards he killed with a spum of his foot on the end of his life and of his Empire.  
My pen is weary to describe so many horrors, and doth go over them as on so many burning coals, but (my Reader) it is to represent unto you, that this pernicious caitiste causing the poison of his evil actions to diffuse itself into the veins of all the city of Rome. The world was in its height of iniquity, when S. Paul and Seneca (meeting together at one time) did endeavour to cure the maladies of this wicked Court, the one by Philosophy, the other by the Gospel. Behold here the manners, learning, abilities, and the success both of the one and of the other.  
Who hath not Seneca in veneration (a good Author 
Johannes Sarisburiensis.  saith) hath not the understanding of a reasonable man. He is known by all knowing men in his Writings, and mis-known by some in his Manners and his Life. suilius, a Roman Advocate, accused for corruption, and banished by the counsel of Seneca at what time he was employed in the government of Affairs, did write a defaming Book against that great 
From whence proceeded the calumnies against Seneca.  personage, which two Greek Historians, but men of small judgement, Dion and Xiphiline have followed, and in many things have blamed him with as much passion as impertinence. This Opinion hath infected divers spirits, who, either for want of capacity or application, do discourse unto us of Seneca, as of a man quite contrary to his Books, which hath made me diligently to examine his Life, to take away the abuse, and to give you an Idea of that puissant Genius with as much clearness as sincerity.  
Know then that he was a Roman by his Extract 
His birth.  and Blood. He was born at Corduba a city in Spain, which was then under the Empire of Rome, and full of Italians, who being born almost in all the parts of the world, were yet born within the Circle of their Empire. His father was of an ordinary family; a Gentleman of no great account, removed from the observation of the world, and as fare from command as from ambition, addicted above all things to the study of Eloquence, reasonably learned, but of an admirable memory, for having but once heard them, he would readily rehearse two thousand names, and two hundred verses. His mother was named Helvia, one of the most beautiful women in the Empire, full of understanding and judgement, of a high virtue and a rare modesty; she had some knowledge in letters, and an extraordinary capacity to increase that knowledge, if time and custom had given her leave to take an advantage of it. His elder brother was called Novatus or Gallion. and had a great command in the Empire. His younger brother was named Mela, a man fare from ambition, who lived in the house, and studied Eloquence with his Father, who in that regard did prefer him in his own judgement above his brothers.  
But Seneca was nourished and advanced in Rome 
His Education and Spirit.  in the time of Augustus Cesar; he received his first elements of learning under the Discipline of his father, and afterwards studied Philosophy under Attalus and Sotion. In his first years he made the vigour of his Spirit, the force of Eloquence, and the abundance of Learning to appear so fully in him, that he was admired by the most knowing men. But that great spirit did by degrees consume his body which was lean and thin, and troubled with defluxions and the ptisick, which would have brought him to his grave, if the cruelty of Nero had not prevented it.  
He was obliged to make an Oration in public before 
The fury of Caligula against him.  Caligula the Emperor, concerning which that monster in nature who could not endure any thing that was great and praiseful, and by a malignity of manners, envied all professors of Learning, did pronounce aloud that he had too much spirit, and that they must kill him, which had presently been put in execution, if one of the Mistresses of the Emperor, who knew Seneca, and favoured him for his Eloquence, had not persuaded him, that he was not worth kill, a lean poor fellow, and one whom death would suddenly of itself take away from the world. Howbeit, he lived many years afterwards, and increased in knowledge as in age, and as much in Eloquence as in them both, attending a more favourable time to make a manifestation of it.  
Claudius' succeeded the Emperor Caligula, who was not a man for Seneca, and though he was endued with extraordinary qualities for a Courtier, yet the favour of the times did not much smile upon them. His clear spirit and his brave works made him to be known in the house of Germanicus, a Prince of the Blood, who was poisoned in the flower of his age, and left behind him children of great consideration, namely, two Princesses, who made themselves diversely talked of in Rome; the one was Julia, the other Agrippina, the mother of Nero. This Julia took an affection to Seneca, being much pleased with the beauty 
Dion doth distinguish them in his 9 Book, and Suetonius chap. 29.  of his spirit, and the grace of his discourse. He daily frequented the house of Germanicus, being no less in discretion then in favour, and wisely judged that these two highborn Princesses might one day contribute to the making of his fortunes.  
But the Court is an uncertain sea where sometime a tempest doth arise when a calm is expected. The favour of Julia, in the stead of advancing Seneca, did suppress him, and did almost overwhelm him without any hope of rising again, although in the end it was in effect the cause of all his reputation. It came to pass that Messalina the wife to the Emperor Claudius, the most insatiable woman in her lusts that Nature ever produced, did conceive an enraged hatred against the house of Germanicus, and especially against the Princess Julia, because she was highly esteemed for her rare beauty; and the high spirit of Messalina could not endure that any Lady should be praised at Court, for her beauty, but herself. Besides, she perceived that her husband, whom she absolutely governed, did make very much of that young Princess, she therefore caused her to be falsely accused for prostituting her honour, and procured her to be banished the Court. An inquiry was made after those who did frequent her house: Seneca was named amongst the foremost, 
Calumny against Julia and Seneca,  and by calumny invelopped in the same accusation, whether it was suspected that he had treated of love with her, or whether it was thought that he was an accomplice in her excesses, and had flattered her in her passion without giving her advice.  
It is true that our Seneca was then in the flower of his age, and was none of those sullen and stern Stoics that had put the world into a fright: He had a gentle spirit, discreet, and agreeable to women, but he was too advised to let his passions fly so high as to commit any lose act in the house of the Caesar's. Dion his greatest enemy doth justify him in this business, and doth confess that all this accusation was most unjustly grounded, and that Messalina was so depraved and so corrupted with the inordinateness of filthy lusts that no credit was to be given to her.  
Nevertheless, she ceased not to bear down the innocent with the weight of her power; she condemned the Princess to banishment, and afterwards to death, as Dion and Suetonius do affirm. It did much afflict her that Seneca was alive, who by divers sentences in the Senate was allotted to death: but the good Emperor Claudius was most unwilling to extinguish in that Spirit, the Glory of Eloquence, and of the Empire, desired his life of the Senate, and was contented that he should be banished into the Isle of Corsica, where at the beginning he was touched with a melancholy amazement to find himself separated from the pleasures of the Court to live amongst the rocks, and people as ungentle as the rocks; but he employed all his Philosophy to comfort himself, and to temper the eagerness of his fortune with the tranquillity of his mind.  
Here his spirit being delivered from the noise and the tumults of Rome, and the servitudes of the Court, did altogether reflect upon itself, and found there those Lights and those Treasures which before lay undiscovered to him. Tribulation is to men as a spur to incite them to the production of brave works and of generous actions; and this appeared in Seneca, who in this 
Seneca benished to Corsica where he composed excellent works.  place of banishment did write most excellent Treatises, neither did his conversation with those rude inhabitants alter the graces or the beauty of his language. He treated there with the Intelligences, and dived into the Contemplation of the World: He took off the vail from Nature that she might the better be seen in her majesty. Howsoever in that solitary place he had sometimes his hours of affection, beholding himself severed from his mother whom he tenderly loved, and whom, in that affliction he comforted with a letter which might pass for a good book. He passionately desired the company of his brothers and some personages of Honour who loved him with as much sincerity as profession.  
There was some that think it strange in Seneca that he should desire and endeavour his return, and that in his consolatory letter to Polybius he did write the praises of the Emperor Claudius who did banish 
Seneca did well to desire and procure his liberty.  him. But have not they something to do who exact more perfection in Seneca, a man at that time of the world, then is required in a Prophet: where is the bird that doth not sometimes beat his bill against the cage to find out the door to his liberty? Jeremy was exceeding patiented, and yet he humbly besought K. Zedekiah to draw him out of prison where he had suffered much, and much feared that he should be committed again unto it. Doth not S. Paul say that liberty is better than slavery, & that one is to be supported by necessity, and the other to be procured by reason. What fault hath Seneca done, that in his exile he wrote unto Polybius (a great favourite) a letter consolatory on the death of his brother, and inserted in it a few good words to appease the Emperor. Should he have spared a period or two to deliver himself from a banishment where he had continued for the space of eight years? I should no way approve him for bestowing flatteries on a wicked man, which should be an act unworthy of a Philosopher; for a generous spirit had better to endure the extremity of evil then praise a tyrant, and give applauses to his person. You may observe how careful he is in that Tract to give not so much as one Compliment to Messalina, who was a very bad woman, although she had the command of all; he only praised an Emperor who in that time wherein he wrote his Consolation to Polybius, was in good reputation, and made the face of the Empire look fare otherwise than it did in the Reign of Caligula his predecessor. He is so discreet, that all the praises he doth give him are no more than wishes.  
Let the Powers of Heaven preserve him long on 
The excellent Compliment of Seneca.  earth; Let him surmount the years and the acts of Augustus; and as long as he shall be mortal, let there not any die in his house. Let him give us a long son to be Master of the Roman Empire, having approved him by his long fidelity; And let him have him rather for his Colleague then for his Successor. (Afterwards he addresseth himself to Fortune, & speaketh unto her,) Take heed, O Fortune how thou makest thy approaches to him. Let not thy power be seen in his person but by thy bounties. Let him redress the calamities of mankind, and re-establish all that which the fury of his Predecessor hath ruined and made desolate. Let that fair Star which is risen when the world was falling into the Abysmes, continue always to illuminate the Universe. Let him pacify Germany, and let him open England. Let him gain and surmount the Triumphs of his Father. His Clemency, which is the first of his Virtues, doth promise that I shall not be a Spectator only, and that he hath not cast me down, to raise me up no more. But why say I, cast down? he hath upheld me from the hour that I fell into my misfortune; when they would have thrown me headlong down, he interposed; and by the moderation of his divine hands he laid me gently on the earth. He hath entreated the Senate for me, and not content himself to give me life, he hath desired it of others that I might enjoy the Grant with more assurance. Let him deal with me as he pleaseth, I assure myself that his Justice will find my cause to be good, or his Clemency will make it so. It is all one to me whether I am judged not guilty by his Equity, or whether I am made innocent by his Bounty. In the mean time, I rejoice in my miseries with a sensible consolation to see the course of his Mercy which goes through the Universe, and which every day doth call forth the Banished from this little corner of the earth in which I am buried alive. I have that hope that his Mercy will not come to me, to go beyond me, and to leave me to die in this place. He knoweth the time in which he will relieve those whom he pleaseth, and I must leave that to his Dispensation; only I shall endeavour not to render myself unworthy of his Benefits, and I will provide in some sort that his Goodness shall not blush to have made its approaches to me. How happy, O Cesar, is your Clemency! under whom the Banished do live more contented, than Kings did heretofore under your Predecessor.  
Behold here the finest Compliment that ever proceeded from the mouth of man, and he who well observes it, will find nothing of sordid flattery in it. And that the Reign of Claudius, compared to that of Caligula, doth go so fare beyond it, as silver surpasseth lead. Yet for all those fair words, Claudius did nothing for him as long as Messalina did manage the height of the Affairs, and till after his Polybius, who suffered himself to sink into that infamy, as to be 
The revolution at Court and the return of the banished.  numbered in the List of the Adulterers with the Empress, was disgraced, and condemned to death: not long after which, this prostituted Woman having wearied both heaven and earth with her filthiness, did incense her husband's Patience into a Rage, who caused her to pass under the edge of the sword.  
Agrippina, widow to Domitius the father of Nero, returned then to the Court, having absented herself long from it by reason of the misfortune of her sister Julia; she knew so well to cajole the Emperor, that he espoused her as I have mentioned before. The first action she did, and for which she was praised by all the world, was her revoking of Seneca to Rome from the Isle of Corsica: immediately afterwards, she committed the charge of her son Nero into his hands, who was then eleven years of age, and finding him to be a man of a choice spirit, she took a resolution to make one day use of his service in the management of 
Seneca returns into high repute.  the affairs of State.  
To speak sincerely of the manners of Seneca, he had a great and a gallant soul, and dispositions to a 
The manners of Seneca.  high virtue; he was neither guileful, nor wilful, nor malicious, nor cruel, nor voluptuous, and I do strongly believe, that of a Gentleman he was the best man of that Age. Also Cornelius Tacitus, who concealeth no evil that he knows, and oftentimes doth divine on that of the which he is not throughly informed, doth never speak of Seneca but with honour, as a wise and sober man, and moderate in his passions. And Saint Hierome himself doth witness, that he was a most continent person, which may suffice to disabuse those who suffer themselves to be amazed with the Rhapsodies of Dion.  
Without all doubt he had something in his soul as religious as it was great, which did not contentent itself with words but did proceed to actions; And this did easily appear in his youth, for when so many gentlemen of Rome did resort to the Universities of the Philosophers, some for the wantonness of sporr, others to see fashions, others to carry away some fine sentence in their Table-book, and by that means to get some esteem in conversation, Seneca addressed himself unto them to learn and to practise virtue. When he intended to speak of Riches, of Solitude, of Chastity, of Sobriety, he found his heart inflamed, and he would have lived altogether a retired life, if the great qualities wherewith God had endued him had not embarked him in the Affairs of the Court.  
It is a wonder that amongst so great a confluence at the Court, he always observed that austere life which he practised in his infancy. He did never eat of any delicacies which do serve only to flatter the appetite, and did content himself with the most simple viands. He never drank any wine, he used altogether cold baths, he did not care for perfumes, he oftentimes would lie on the ground upon a poor matter as, where no print of his body was to be seen, so hard it was. He also sometimes did abstain from food, and he found it good for him, and all his life time he had practised it, if his father had not expressly commanded him to the contrary, because in the Reign of Tiberius 
Epist. 108.  there was a sect of strangers condemned at Rome who made a profession of certain Abstinences. Some are of opinion that he did speak of Christians, but they were neither known nor persecuted under the Emperor Tiberius. For the rest, all his Train were carried in one caroche which oftentimes was out of order; and instead of lovely Pages and Minions, he was served by men only, and small was the retinue that attended on him.  
He received all things that were given him with facility, and complained not of any thing: He took no offence at the reports and slanders of men, and pardoned many other inconveniencies, he had an honest heart and full of love to those to whom he professed love; he was tender of compassion on the behalf of the poor, and a hater of covetousness. After he had satisfied the Affairs of the Empire, he took no pleasures at all but in Contemplation and Study, Books being unto him as necessary as his bread. His table was moderate, his discourse affable, his life innocent, and his conversation most attractive. Amongst other things, he would be angry with himself for not having professed Virtue openly enough, and for reflecting his thoughts on the considerations of the world: and in modesty he would say, that he aspired always to the height of Virtue, and nevertheless he still found himself to be in the centre of Vices. Those who condemn him without knowing what he was, would think that they themselves did great penance if they should live after the manner of Seneca. He was with Nero five or six years before he was made Emperor, and form his Infancy with excellent Instructions: in the mean time Agrippina did the fatal act, as I have spoken, and poisoned Claudius her husband to devolve the Empire on her son, who was elected by the general consent of all the States.  
It is too true that Seneca found himself overcharged with joy at so great a change, and at that time a little forgot the severity of a Philosopher, when he composed a railing Book on the death of Claudius which he called Apocolocynthosis; as if he should have said, Divinity 
Seneca made a Libel against Claudius.  acquired by the means of a Drug, alluding to that he was numbered in the catalogue of the Gods, being preferred to heaven by poison. Some believe that he composed that Book as well to revenge himself for the death of his dear Benefactor Julia, and for the affliction of his long banishment, as to tejoyce his Scholar Nero who took great pleasure in it. But in my opinion it is unworthy the gravity of so great a personage; and I know not to what purpose it is to revile the Ashes of the Dead, although it is not forbidden to write a true History to leave a horror to posterity in recording the lives of the wicked. This, howsoever, may serve for instruction not to play with wasps or incense those who have the pen in their hand, and can eternally proscribe their Adversaries.  
After this sport he was employed upon the Earnest, 
He is made Minister of State.  and Agrippina, mother of the young Emperor, desiring to confirm herself in the Monarchy, and to govern by her son, did supply him with two creatures, men of gteat capacity and fidelity, Burrus for Arms, and Seneca for Laws. The first was severe in his conversation, the other was of a mild and pleasing disposition. They both agreed even to their deaths in the government of the Affairs of State. Then it was that Seneca did enter into those great employments, and exercised that high wisdom which he had acquired for the Government of the Empire. He began with his Prince, who was the first and the most amiable object of all his troubles; and although at the first he did express himself very tractable and agreeable to all the world, yet Seneca perceived in his infancy the 
His judgement on Nero.  marks of a cruel and bloody nature; and told to his intimate friends that he nourished a young lion whom he endeavoured to make tractable, but if he should taste once of the blood of men, he would return to his first nature. And this was the occasion that at that time he did write for him the two Divine Books of Clemency, where, with variety of remarkable proofs he doth establish, the Excellency, the Beauty, and the Profit of candour of Spirit, and the advantage which redounds unto a Prince to govern his Subjects with Bounty and Love. On the contrary, he remonstrates the horror and disastres of Tyrants who would prevail by Cruelty in the management of their Estates. All his endeavour tended that way, wisely foreseeing that Nero would fall into extreme Cruelties, and for that cause he did willingly give way that he should delight himself in Comedies, in Music and such Exercises of softness, hoping that in some manner it would make more civil his savage nature. He also composed for him many eloquent Orations, which the young Emperor would pronounce with great grace to the general admiration both of the Senate and the people.  
He made also many excellent Ordinances, some 
He put his State in good order.  whereof, by the report of Dion, were engraved upon a pillar of silver, and were read every year at the renewing of the Senate. He hated all the inventions, the deceits, and tricks of State as a trade of iniquity, and did ground himself on the eternal principles of Justice, by which he kept the Empire in a profound peace, in great abundance, and a sure felicity. So that in a manner Frontine makes a true narration, he saith that Seneca had so redressed all abuses, that it seems he had brought goodness into the Empire, and called the Gods from heaven to be conversant again with men. In which he made use of the Philosophy of the Stoics, not that which is so rigid and so sullen, but that which he had tried and seasoned for that design to give to the world a taste thereof. His opinions for the 
The Maxims of Seneca.  most part are Rational, Sacred, and Divine.  
If he speaks of God it is in the same sense as the 
Of God.  Saviour of the world did discover to the Samaritan. He professeth openly that God is a Spirit, and that the difference betwixt God and us is, that the better part of us is Spirit; but that God is all Spirit, most Pure, Eternal, Infinite, the Creator of the great works of Nature which we behold with our eyes.  
If he speaketh of true Worship and the most sincere 
Of Religion  Religion which we ought to employ to honour and adore the sovereign King of the Universe; he doth sufficiently declare, that the worship of God ought to be in Spirit and in Truth, as our Saviour hath prescribed. When you figure God (saith he) represent a great Spirit, but peaceable, and reverend by the sweetness of his Majesty; a friend to men, and who is always present with them, who is not pleased with bloody Sacrifices, for what delight can he take in the butchery of so many innocent creatures. The true Sacrifice of the great God, is a pure Spirit, an upright understanding of him, and a good Conscience. We ought not to heap stones upon stones to raise a Temple to him, for what need hath he of it: the most agreeable Temple that we can build for God, is to consecrate him in our hearts. Lactantius hath so much 
Lactan. div. Instit. lib. ●. cap. 25.  esteemed of this passage, that in the sixth Book of his Institutions he doth oppose it to the Gentiles as a buckler of our Christianity.  
If there be a question about the Presence of God 
Of the divine presence Epist. 83.  which above all things the masters of spiritual life do commend in their Instructions, he saith, That it is to no purpose to conceal one's self from man, and that there is nothing hid from God who is present in our hearts and in our most secret thoughts.  
If we rest in the Contemplation of the Divine Providence, 
Of Providence.  which is the foundation of our life, he believeth a Providence which reacheth over all. And in a Tract which he hath composed, he pertinently doth answer those who are amazed, why Evil arriveth to good people, since so great and so good a God hath a care of their ways. He saith, That it is the chastisement of a Father an exercise of Virtue, and that what we take to be a great Evil is oftentimes the occasion of a great Good; that such is the course and order of the world according to the Divine dispensation, to which we ought to submit ourselves.  
If we consider the Immorrality of the Soul, which 
Of the Immorrality of the Soul. Juv●e de 〈◊〉 anima●●● q●●rere, ●mò credere. Epist. 102.  is the foundatton of our Faith and of all virtuous actions it is certain that he had a good opinion of it, and professerh in his 102. Epistle, That he delightneth not only according to Reason to search after the Eternity of the Soul, but to believe it; and he complaineth that a letter received from a friend did interrupt him in that Contemplation, which seemed to him so palpable, that it was rather to him an agreeable Vision that he had in a Dream then any Discourse in Philosophy. And in the end of the Epistle he speaketh of wonders, of the original of the Soul, and the return of it to God. And in the Preface of the first Book of Natural Questions, which he did write some few years before his death (which makes the truth more remarkable) he speaketh clearly, that the Soul returneth to heaven, if it be well purified from its commerce with earth; that heaven is its true Country and Element; and that it is a great proof of its Divinity that it delighteth to hear of heavenly things as being the affairs proper to itself.  
We must take care not here to judge and condemn Seneca on a doubtful word, as when in his Consolation to Martia he saith, That all end by Death, and by Death itself. He only there toucheth of Goods and Evils, of Honours, Riches, Pleasures, Troubles, and the Cares of this present life. It is most clear, that there is nothing in that Sentence which derogates from the Immortality of the Soul, because he concludes that Treatise with the joys which a happy Soul receiveth in the other life. And it is not from our purpose to consider, that Seneca sometimes in disputing speaketh by supposition, according to the Idea of others and not according to his own. We cannot know better the opinion of an Author then by his Actions and his Practice; and we observe that Seneca hath not only professed the Immortality of the Soul by words, but believeth the effect in secret; for he reverenced the Souls of great Personages, and did believe them to be in heaven, which he testified before he received the Christian Faith, when being in a countryhouse of Scipio of Africa, he rendered divine honours to his 
Epist. 86.  Spirit, prostrating himself at the Altar of his Sepulchre, and persuading himself (he said) that his Soul was in heaven, not because that he was General of the Army, but because he lived an honest man, and having infinitely obliged his ingrateful country, he retired himself in a voluntary solitude to his own house to give no fears and jealousies of his greatness.  
If we demand where he placed the sovereign good 
His opinion of the sovereign good.  and the end of Man, we shall find that he established the felicity of this present life to live according to Reason; and that of the life to come in the reunion of the Soul with its first beginning which is God. From this foundation he hath drawn a rule and propositions which he hath dispersed over all his Books, and these are to despise all the goods of the world, Honours, Empires, Riches, Reputation, Pleasures, gorgeous Habiliments, stately Buildings great Possessions, Gold, Silver, precious Stones Feasts, Theatres, Plays, and to take all things as accessary, and to regard them no more than the moveables of an Inn where we are not but as passengers. And above all things, to esteem of virtue, of the mortification of lose desires, of contemplation of eternal virtues, of Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance; of Liberality, Benignity; of Friendship; of Constancy in a good course of life; of Patience in Tribulation; of Courage to support injuries; of Sickness, Banishment, Chains, Reproaches; of Punishments, and of Death itself.  
We may affirm that never any man spoke more worthily than he of all these subjects. Never Conqueror did subdue Nations with more honour, than this great Spirit with a magnificent glory at his feet hath leveled and spurned down all the Kingdoms of Fortune. All that he speaketh is vigorons, ardent, lively. His heart when he did write did inflame his style to inflame the hearts of all the world. His words followed his thoughts. He did speak in true Philosophy but as a king, and not as a slave to words and periods. His brevity is not without clearness. His strength hath beauty, his beauty hath no affectation: he is polished, smooth, full, and entire; never languishing, impetuous without confusion; his discourse is tissued, yet nothing unmasculine; invincible in his reasoning, and agreeable in all things. Howsoever, we ought not to conclude by his Books that he was a Christian, because he wrote them all before he had any knowledge of Christianity, and therefore it is not to be wondered at, if sometimes he hath Sentences which are not conformable unto our Religion.  
Some one will object that he is admirable in his Writings, but his Works carry no correspondency with 
The answer to the calumniatours of Seneca.  his Pen. This indeed is the abuse of some spirits grounded on the calumnies of Dion and suilius, which those men may easily see confuted, who without passion will open their eyes unto the truth. He reproacheth him for his great Riches, in lands, in gold and silver, and sumptuous moveables, and layeth to his charge that he had five hundred beds of cedar with feet of ivory. It seems that this slanderer was steward of Seneca's house, so curious he was in deciphering his estate. But all this is but a mere invention, for how is it possible that he who according to Cornelius Tacitus did not live but only on fruit, and bread, and water, and who never had any but his wife to eat with him, or two or three friends at most, should have five hundred beds of cedar and ivory to serve him at his feasts. It is true that he had goods enough, but nothing unjustly gotten; they were the gifts and largesses of the Emperor. And because he had sometimes written that Goods were forbidden to Philosophers, he therefore was content to hold them in servitude and not to be commanded by them. He was overcome by Nero to carry some splendour in his house, as being the chiefest of the Estate, and it was put upon him as a sumptuous habit upon some statue. We cannot find that he had ever any children but his Books, or that he made it his study to enrich his Nephews or his Nieces, or to raise a subsistence for his house from the charges greatness, and riches of the Empire. He had the smallest train and pomp that possibly could be, and when he had the licence to be at liberty from the Court, he lived in an admirable simplicity; and which is more, he besought Nero with much importunity to discharge him from the unprofitable burden of his riches, and to put several stewards into his houses to receive his revenues: but he made answer to him that he did a wrong unto himself to demand that discharge, for he had nothing too much, and that he had in Rome many slaves enfranchised who were fare more rich than Seneca.  
Yet for all this Reproach is proved to be unjust, Dion proceeds further in his slander, and allegeth, That he endeared Queens and Princes to him, for he wrote their Papers, and professed himself a friend to the richest Favourites. What is this, but to reproach a Courtier with his Trade, his Discretion, his Civility, his Affability which this great personage made very worthily to comply with his Philosophy. He married an illustrious Lady and of invaluable wealth. What! should he being in that high dignity to please Suillus, become suitor to some chambermaid, or for mortifications sake, court some country girl? aught he to bring such a reproach after him to the Court of the Prince, what sin hath he committed to espouse the most honest Lady in Rome called Paulina, and to have lived with her in the condition of a good husband, and in a perfect intelligence. But he made love to the mother of the Emperor. This slander never came into the thought neither of Tacitus, nor Suetotius, nor any other Historian who was a man of judgement. It was only the invention of an Impostor infected with poison that dreamt of any such thing. Agrippina had other manner of gallants and servants then Sececa in her Court: she sought not after bodies made thin with abstinence, and manners quite removed from such commerce. In a Court so clear-sighted there could never be discovered any familiarities which might give the least impression of such a thought, and which would have removed both the one and the other; no, Seneca did rather incline too much unto severity then to give any allurements to Agrippina.  
The Glosser yet goes further and saith, That he was 
His falling off from Agrippina●  ungrateful to her. What ingratitude? he always endeavoured to tie the spirits of the mother to the son in a perfect friendship, and did not cease to redress all breaches that might give occasion of offence. But when he observed that Agrippina did mount upon the Throne of her son, did give audience to the Ambassadors of the Nations, did visit the Armies; and when he heard her vaunt that the Empire came unto him by her means, and that she would take it away from him when she thought good, he could not digest it. He preserved himself in that fidelity which he had sworn unto the Emperor, but he never counselled him either to remove Agrippina or to displease her. When Nero very warmly called him and Burrhus together, and in a great fright told them that his mother had conspired against his life, and that he was but a dead man if he did not prevent it. Seneca remained so lost in amazement, that in all his life he was never dumb but at that instant. And Cornelius Tacitus makes no mention of the least word he did let fall that might witness his consent to so horrible a deed. It is true that he composed the Declaration of Nero after his mother's 
He is excusable for making the Declaration  death, but it was by a rigorous necessity. He found himself betwixt two desperate extremities, either to leave the whole Empire at random, to forsake the Helm and the Vessel in the tempest, and tender his neck to Nero, or to find some lenitive to ease the calamities so full of virulence. Some there are that do thus excuse him for it, and say, It was no marvel that he did deport himself in this fashion, because he was near to Princes, and that those who even make a profession of virtue, do study their own preservation, and oftentimes conceal those affairs which they cannot redress.  
For my own part, I am of judgement, that great men being in a place where they are obliged to speak, if they should wilfully or timerously hold their peace, do grievously offend God by their silence, and that Seneca should rather have died then have adhered to Nero polluted with his mother's blood, and execrable to all the world.  
He had before demanded leave to be gone from Court, wisely foreseeing the tempests that follow, but he could not obtain it, nor resist Nero, without putting himself in danger of his life. You see there may be a time when an honest man should rather venture his life then give a scandal unto Virtue. But his dissimulation could not help him from being made at last a sacrifice to his most cruel Scholar, as we anon shall declare unto you.  
But for the present let us demand and examine the 
Why Seneca having so many gallant qualities did perform so little in the reformation of Manners.  cause, why Seneca with so much Power, Authority, Eloquence, Philosophy, and humane Wisdom did effect so little for the reformation of manners in the Court of Nero, and in the City of Rome? It is without all doubt that the wisdom of Books was too low for so high a design. We must make use of the grace of Redemption, and the Blood, and the Gospel of Jesus to redress such lamentable confusions. Let us then behold S. Paul, who at the same time did come to plant the Faith in Rome, and talked with Seneca, and made him to behold more excellent Light in the purity of his Life and Doctrine.  
It is not my intention in this place to write at large 
Serrar. Baran. Cornel.  the life of S. Paul, which is already sufficiently known, but particularly to touch on those things which he did at Rome when Seneca was in the government of the Affairs of the Empire. Nevertheless, it is expedient to make a short recapitulation of the Times and the Voyages of this great Apostle, to understand the occasion that did bring him to Rome, and what he there did practise for the advancement of the Faith.  
S. Paul being born in the second or third year of 
S. Paul came to Rome.  our Saviour, was miraculously converted to the Christian Religion in the three and thirtieth year of his age. By his Extraction, he was a Jew born in the city of Tarsus, in the Province of Cilicia, where was a flourishing University, from which came Antipater, Archidemus, Artemidorus, Diogenes, and Diodorus. But S. Paul, although he took his birth in the air of the Philosophers, and had some tincture of their Principles, did not amuse himself on the Philosophy of the Gentiles, but retiring to Jerusalem he studied at the feet of Gamaliel a great Doctor of the Mosaic Law. The zeal which he had for his Religion made him furiously to persecute Christianity from his birth unto the time that he was subdued by the Spirit of God; and of a ravening wolf was made a lamb of the Fold. Saul fell (saith S. Augustine) and Paul did rise, the Interpretation of which name according to Hesychius is admirable, to show unto us, that all things are marvellous in him, even his name itself.  
After his Conversion, he preached in Arabia and in 
S. Paul falsely accused.  Damascus for the space of three years, and did powerfully convince the Jews on the verities of our Faith, who to divert the course of his Ministry in the imbroilments which then were raised between the King of the Arabians and the Romans, did accuse him for having moved in the favour of Rome against the Arabians and their King Aretas, who at that time held the city of Damascus, and had placed in it a Governor of his own faction. This Barbarian made an exact inquisition, and would have apprehended S. Paul 
Baron. Christi, Anno 39 Cornel. in 2. apud Corin. cap. 11.  who was then in the same city. But his brethren the Christians were very careful to deliver the Innocent from the hands of the guilty; and showing themselves neither slothful nor fearful in a business of that difficulty, (although he who had in his hands the Government of the City did threaten to destroy them if they delivered not Paul unto him) they caused him to escape out of a window, and to come down all along the Ramparts thereof in a panier which had a cord fastened to it.  
From thence he transported himself to Jerusalem, 
His conversation with S. Peter.  where he saw S. Peter, and continued with him fifteen days in one lodging, not without joys and ravishments that cannot be expressed. We ought to content ourselves with that which the Doctor of the Nations saith in his Epistle to to the Galathians, where he assureth 
Gal. 1. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  us, That he did historize the Prince of the Apostles: that is to say, He did contemplate on him as an Historian doth on a Prince whose History he hath a design to write. He regarded not (saith S. Hierome) whether he were fat or lean, or whether he were bald or had a Roman nose, he only dived into his spirit and his heart, and there he discovered all the treasures of wisdom.  
After this most pleasing Colloquy he retired himself into the city of Caesarea, from whence he passed to Cilicia the place of his nativity, which he made fruitful with his Instructions for the space of four years. 
He preacheth the Gospel.  From thence S. Barnabas did lead him into Antioch, a famous city, where were a great number of Christians, who in that place were first called by that most glorious Name, and which hath ever since continued with all those who have made Profession of our Faith.  
Having there so journed one year, he was deputed with S. Barnabas to carry the Charity of the Faithful in Antioch unto Jerusalem, which office he most worthily discharged, and they both taking John and Mark into their company, did travel into divers cities of Greece, and gave the Light of the Gospel unto the Nations, which is at large described in the Acts of the Apostles, which seems almost to be only written for S. Paul his sake.  
On the end of this long Voyage he came unto Jerusalem at the first Council held by the Apostles for the abolishing of Circumcision, and other Jewish Ceremonies, to which certain Jews would oblige the Gentiles who were converted to the Faith, which Saint Paul could not endure, and what in him lay, did endeavour to chase away the shadows of the Old Law to make place for the Light of the Gospel; which was the reason that the Jews stirred up great Persecutions against him, and caused him to be apprehended in the fourth journey he made unto Jerusalem, and were resolved there to put him to death.  
As he entered privately into the Temple with Trophimus 
A great persecution against him.  his Disciple, to discharge himself of some legal Ceremonies, the Jews that were come from Asia did descry him, who could not be ignorant of his conversation with the Gentiles, and began to cry aloud against him, saying, That he was an enemy of the Temple and the Law, which he endeavoured to destroy both by words and deeds, and that it was not fitting he should live. On this cry, a mutiny of enraged people did advance their fury, who did throw themselves upon S. Paul to stone him, and to tear him in pieces. The noise was brought to the Roman garrison in Jerusalem, and the news thereof came to Colonel Lysias, informing that all the City was in a confusion. He presently marched thither with the most resolute of the Soldiery, and plucked the Innocent from their hands to hear his Defence at their leisure. But these insolent Jews ceased not to follow him to the Corpse de Guard, where he was so environed with them that he was carried by force on the Arms of the Soldiers into a place of safety.  
When he saw himself within the power of the Romans he demanded of the Colonel the permission to speak to appease the people, which being obtained he began to make an Oration to them in Hebrew, to inform them of his life and condition, and of the zeal which he had to the Religion of the Jews, and of his miraculous Conversion from it, as also of his Orders which he received from God to preach the Faith unto the Gentiles. When they heard these words, they believed what was told them of him, and they did deal with him as a friend of the Heathen, and an enemy of their Law. They began to lay down ●heir garments to stone him, and to throw dust in the air, and to make a horrible tumult, whereupon, Colonel Lysias who understood not the Hebrew tongue was amazed, and conceived S. Paul had been some fellow, and guilty of some heinous crime. He took him to be the Egyptian who a little before had raised a great Sedition, and had drawn after him four thousand men into the wilderness; and to give consent to the wild multitude, he did command that he should be scourged.  
They proceeded to the execution of this Injustice, 
S. Paul condemned to the whip, did divert that punishment.  and now S. Paul was bound by the hands of the executioners, who prepared themselves to put him into blood, when he advised with himself to acquaint the officer who was to begin the punishment that he was a Citizen of Rome, in regard that those of the city of Tarsus did enjoy the privilege of being Burgesses of the principal City of the world. The officer made haste unto the Tribune, and informed him with the quality of the prisoner, advertising him, that if they proceeded further on him they might be questioned for it. This was the occasion that the punishment was forborn, and the Tribune (to understand what he could plead for himself, being unwilling to trust unto the people) did assemble the Priests and Scribes with the chief of the Jews to hear his Apology.  
S. Paul did here use great discretion, and observing 
His Address  that the Assembly were composed of Sadduces and Pharisees who were counterpointed in the question of the Resurrection, he dd cast them on it, and publicly acknowledging the Resurrection, he cried out, that the Dead should rise again, and held it as an inviolable Article of his Faith. On this, the Doctors of the Law did enter into a hot dispute, and there was a great debate amongst them without making any examination at all concerning the fact of the prisoner. Lysias did very well perceive that all the contention was concerning some questions of the Jewish Law, and knowing that Felix Governor of Judea was then at Caesarea, he resolved to send Paul to him with a strong and a safe guard, because there were forty Jews so obstinate, that they had made a vow neither to eat nor drink until they had massacred S. Paul.  
Felix, who was a man of a delicate ambition and 
He is committed into the hands of Felix the Precedent.  jealous of his Authority, was well satisfied with what the Tribune had done, and did resolve to examine the Process himself. The Saint was presented before one of the most corrupt Judges under heaven; he was brother to Pallas (a servant infranchized) who in the Reign of Claudius was the God of the times: and Felix (as Cornelius Tacitus doth affirm) being covered with the great power and favour of his brother, did usurp the Authority of a King, which he managed with a servile spirit, making Cruelty and Lasciviousness to reign with equal power in his Government. He was the husband, or rather the adulterer of three Queens, and she who then possessed him was called Drusilla, who was the daughter of that Agrippa who was in chains by Tiberius, of whom I have made mention in the Tome of the Maxims, and descended from the blood of Mariamna. She was married to one named Azizus King of the Emmessaeans, but because that Royalty was of no great extent, she preferred the Precedent above the King, so that Felix courting her for her rare beauty, she did willingly forsake her husband to espouse the brother to the great Favourite Pallas, who lived then under a most high consideration. She conversed with him according to the Law of the Jews, and was almost as nice in the curiosity of Religions as of her beauties, which was the reason that (the more to gratify her) Felix did cause S. Paul to be brought before him.  
He was brought in chains before the Precedent, and 
S. Paul before the Tribunal of Felix.  the Prince of the Priests failed not to make his appearance at Caesarea, with the Ancients of the Jewish Nation, who brought with them an Advocate, named Tertullus, to plead against S. Paul, which he performed coldly enough. But the great Champion of Jesus Christ did defend himself with so great a vivacity of spirit, that the Judge did clearly discover that he was not guilty of any fault, which was the occasion that he used him with the more humanity, and told him, that at leisure he would decide that business himself; in the mean time he permitted him to live at more liberty, not hindering any to come unto him and administer things necessary for his life; yet for all this he was still under a guard of Soldiers.  
Not long after Felix called for him, and his wife 
Drusilla comes to hear him.  Drusilla (who was the cause of his more gentle usage) did speak unto him in the presence of her husband, and desired to hear him on his discourses of Faith, which gave a fair occasion to our Apostle to speak, who driving on his Discourse with vigour, did so enlarge himself on the subject of Justice, of Chastity, and of universal Judgement, that Felix was much afraid, and interrupted his Discourse, fearing that he should leave some Scruples on the conscience of his wife concerning their marriage. It is easy to conjecture that this poor Princess was much shaken at it, although the chains of Love and of Ambition did so link her to the world that we do not read that she was absolutely converted to the Faith and number of the Christians. Felix stopping his ears to Judgement, did open his eyes to money, and having learned that S. Paul had brought great sums of Charity unto Jerusalem, he oftentimes spoke with him, and seemed to make much of him, hoping to gain something from him, but when he perceived that there was nothing to be had, and that the time of his Commission was expired, he left Saint Paul to the discretion of Festus his successor, desiring in that to gratify the Jews, and to divert the accusation which they intended at Rome against him.  
Festus being arrived at Jerusalem was environed 
Festus renews the Process: S. Paul appealeth to Rome.  by the chief of the Jews, who with importunity did demand that Paul might be sent to Rome to be judged there, having a design to kill him by the way. But the Precedent did deny them, and did command them to come to Caesarea, where he would continue in the expectation of them. Thither they did transport themselves violently to follow their Accusations, which were all effectually answered, and confuted by S. Paul, who did demonstrate that he had offended neither their Law, nor the Temple, nor Cesar. Festus to content the importunity of the Jews, did demand of him if he would go to Jerusalem to decide the controversy there, but he refused the Jurisdiction of those perverse people, and said, That he stood at the Tribunal of Cesar, and would have no other Judge, and that he appealed to the Emperor. The Judge had some debate thereupon, and it was resolved that he should be sent to Rome.  
In the mean time the young King Agrippa the son 
The young Agrippa King of Judea, with his sister Bernice assist at the judgement of Paul.  of that Agrippa before specified, came to Caesarea with his sister Bernice to compliment the new Governor, who received them with great courtesy, and amongst other things he made a relation to them of his prisoner, which possessed them both with a great curiosity to see him. Festus did invite them to the Audience, at which on the next morning they appeared with great pomp. This was a great Theatre which God had prepared for the publishing of the Gospel, where were present, a King, a Queen, the Governor of the Romans, the principal of the Nation of the Jews, and an infinite number of people who did attend the success of that action.  
S. Paul having received commandment to speak, made a long discourse couched in the Acts of the Apostles, where he rendered a reason of his Faith, and spoke most worthily of the Resurrection of the dead, of his Conversion to Christianity, of the Apparition of Jesus, of the Publication of the Gospel, and of the Prophecies that did forego it. He declared himself with so much ardency, that Festus the Precedent, who was a 
Festus touched with the words of S. Paul.  Heathen, and found his Pagan conscience wounded by his truths, was constrained to interrupt him, and to tell him, That much learning had made him mad; but S. Paul replied to him, That he spoke the words of Truth and Sobriety; and turning from him to King Agrippa, he took him to witness it, as being one who was not ignorant of the Prophets.  
This young King was so ravished at it, that he professed publicly to the Apostle, that he had felt him in his heart, and that he had almost persuaded him to be a Christian; whereupon S. Paul made a great acclamation of joy, wishing him that happiness to be like him in all things, his Bonds excepted, not judging that this Prince was yet an object capable of the Cross. He was of a sweet condition, but he had then great obstacles which hindered him from embracing the saving Truth. Bernice, who assisted at that Audience, was a most lovely Princess, the sister of this Agrippa and Drusilla, but not so happy in the reputation of her Honour as of her Beauty. She was married first unto her uncle, and it is affirmed that she was taken with the love of this her brother Agrippa, and that most passionately she did affect him, nevertheless to divert the fame and suspicion of the world, finding herself courted by Polemon King of Cilicia, she consented to espouse him, on that condition that he should be circumcised, to which the Prince was presently resolved, being overcome by the temptation of her Beauties and the excess of Love to which she had inflamed him. She remained a certain time with him, but her high and wanton spirit did distaste him, and she returned into her own country to the Embraces of her brother, who lived with her, and entertained her in his place without regarding of the scandal.  
I leave you to judge, my Readers, how the matter was disposed to receive the fire which proceeded from the mouth of S. Paul. All that he could do was to imprint in the soul of the Prince and Princess a good opinion of the Christian Religion, and a good respect for his own person; for at the rising of this Session they told the Precedent, that there was nothing in that man, that deserved either imprisonment or death, but because he had appealed to Cesar, it was necessary that he should be sent to Rome.  
After this, S. Paul was embarked under the conduct 
S. Paul embarked for Rome.  of the Centurion Julius, who did use him with great humanity, and in the end, after a laborious voyage and shipwreck, they arrived at Rome. He made his coming known to the chiefest of his Nation, who then resided in the capital City of the world, and did inform them of his good Intentions, protesting to them that he was not come to accuse his Nation, but having done nothing against their Law or their Religion, they had delivered him over to the Infidels, who having found his cause good, were ready to clear him, had not the clamours and the oppositions of some of the Jews obliged him 
He arriveth there, and treateth with the Jews.  to that voyage; and as concerning the rest, he was in chains (he said) for the hope of the salvation of Israel. They made answer to him, that they had understood nothing of him in particular, but knew very well that the Sect of the Christians which he had embraced was contrary to all the world, and that they should be glad to understand by what Arguments he could pretend to justify them.  
To which S. Paul consented, and there were great Disputations amongst them concerning the mysteries of our Faith. S. Luke doth conclude his History on these conferences, and speaketh nothing of the Trial of S. Paul before the Magistrates of Rome; but we may learn it from the Epistle which the Apostle did write to his Disciple Timothy, and from that which 
2 Tim. 4. Phil. 1.  he addressed to the Philipians, where he declareth, that on the first action of that Trial he was forsaken of all the world, but singularly assisted by God; and that the carrying on this affair did much improve itself to the advancement of the Gospel, his chains being known in Jesus Christ to all the Praetoriums in Rome, and to all the world: as also, that at last he was delivered from the mouth of the lion, by whom he understood the Emperor Nero.  
From this, and from that which the holy Fathers and 
S. Paul undoubted ●● known un●o Seneca.  Interpreters have delivered, we may collect that Saint Paul came to Rome in the third year of the Emperor Nero, when as yet he was not depraved, and when Seneca was in the height of his reputation, and the management of the public Affairs. We ought not to doubt that what is reported by the Pope S. Linus, concerning the knowledge which Seneca had with S. Paul, is true, seeing that great Minister of State who had his eye over all, and who was extremely curious to understand the diversity of Sects and Religions, and to be informed of extraordinary Causes to make report thereof unto the Emperor, could no ways be ignorant of so famous a thing which was made known in Rome both to the great and small. Besides, it is very probable that Seneca assisted at the Trial, and heard the Reasons of S. Paul. We may also easily conjecture the Discourse which he made before the Priests and the Senators of Rome by the Apologies and Defences which he used before Felix, Festus, King Agrippa, Bernice, and all the Assembly of the Jews; and by what he spoke to the Senate of the city of Athens. He then declared himself to them much after this manner.  
I think myself this day happy that God hath granted me the favour to justify myself in your presence 
S. Paul's Oration to the Senate of Rome.  on all those Articles with which they of my Nation have accused me, being throughly possessed of the great sufficiency and the integrity of this Senate to decide all differences in the Empire. For this, I do begin to breathe again after my long and heavy voyage, and after a thousand troubles, beholding myself now at the Tribunal of Cesar which I have implored; and I beseech you to attend me with that Patience and Equity which you never refuse to those who are oppressed.  
My accusers know very well what hath been my life from my youth, and how by the pleasure of God being born at Tarsus a city in Cilicia, which is honoured by the privilege of Burgesses to this Capital City of the world, I have followed the Religion of my Fathers, conversing with a good and an upright conscience before God and before men, without offending any.  
I do avow, that according to the most perfect Sect amongst us, I have always conceived assured hopes of our Immortality, and of the universal Resurrection of men, which is established by the the inviolable promise of the living God to whom nothing is impossible; and that I have been most curious to observe all the Ceremonies of our Law. The zeal which did inflame me for it, did make me conceive that I had reason to persecute the Christians, and having received a Commission from the chiefest of the Priests, I made an exact search to surprise, imprison, and torment those who made profession of it.  
The fury did so fare transport me, that not content to prosecute a violent war against them in Judea, I passed into strange Cities into which they were fled to relieve themselves from punishment; it came to pass, that going to Damascus (a city famous enough) as I did breathe forth nothing but fire and threaten, I saw myself suddenly environed with a light so glorious, that it did surpass the brightest rays of the Sun, and from that Splendour there did proceed the voice of a man, who called me by my name, and demanded of me wherefore I did persecute him. I speak (Sirs) before God and before you with all sincerity, that I felt myself strongly surprised, and I demanded of him that spoke unto me, who he was? to which he made answer, That he was called Jesus, and that it was difficult for me to strike my heels against the sharps of the spur. And immediately, as I lay in amazement prostrate on the ground with those that were with me, he commanded me to rise, and said unto me, That he would make choice of me for his people, and for the Nations of the earth, to give a testimony of him and to draw them from the power of wicked Spirits to come unto the Light, that they may obtain remission of sins and the inheritance of Saints by the means of Faith, which subsisteth in Jesus Christ.  
Sirs, For this I was not rebellious to the heavenly Vision, but incontinently I set myself to preach the Word of God, and to exhort all the world to convert themselves unto him by the works of Penitence. Behold all my fault, having done not any thing against the Law, the Temple, or against Cesar; having always counselled all the Subjects that ever heard me in the Empire, to render unto him perfect obedience. Nevertheless, certain of the Jews caused me to be apprehended in the Temple, and excited the people against me, who had torn me in pieces, if I had not been succoured by the Armies and the Legions of the Empire. God hath preserved my life until this present, to discharge the Ministry and the Commission that he hath given me, which is, to deliver to the Nations the news of eternal Salvation.  
Sirs, I do observe you to be great observers of the Religion of the Gentiles; you have Idols, and Temples most magnificent, but we ought not to imagine that God who is a most pure Spirit, the Creator of heaven and earth, is enclosed in Temples built by the hand of men, or that he stands on need of their works for the accomplishment of his Glory. It is he that giveth life, breath, wealth, honour, profit, and all that we can hope for in this world. It is he who from one man hath derived the vast multitude of the people, who by a continual succession do inhabit the roundness of the earth. It is he who giveth measures unto Times, and bounds unto Empires, and who inhabiteth a Light unapproachable. It is he who inspires us all with a generous curiosity to seek him, and to do our endeavours to find him, and to touch him with fingers if his condition render him palpable. But he is not fare from every one of us, For in him we live, we move, and have our being: and to speak according to your own Poet, We are of the generation of God.  
It is not then permitted to vilify the Divine nature beneath us, and to make it like unto things insensible: as, to gold, silver, precious stones, and other materials, elabourate by art, and by the invention of men. And certainly, God from on high hath with compassion beheld this ignorance of men, and hath given them his Son the substantial Image of his Beauties, and the Character of his Glory; true God, and true Man, who is dead for our sins, to wash us and regenerate us in his Blood, whose Words are Truth, and whose Life a miracle, even to the triumphing over Death by his Resurrection. It is by him that the eternal Father will judge at the last both the quick and the dead, and we all shall be represented before the Throne of his Majesty, to receive the salary of the Good or Evil which in our bodies we have done.  
This sovereign Monarch of Angels and of Men suffers not himself to be taken by the flesh or the blood of bullocks, or by the perfumes of incense, but by the exercise of Justice, and by the purity of our bodies in all sanctification. Therefore (Sirs) as he hath advanced you in Dignity above other men, so he hath more particularly obliged you to acknowledge and serve him, and to adore him in Spirit and Truth, and to render Justice according to the Commission which you have received from Cesar; which is, to deliver the innocent from the persecution of the insolent, that so being true imitators of his Justice and Mercy, you may be one day partakers of his Glory.  
This Discourse was well received by divers of them, 
The effect of his Oration.  and a day was appointed for another Appearance, where he so much explained and enlarged himself, that he was sent back and pronounced guiltless; and permitted to preach the Gospel in Rome with all liberty, which gave much encouragemt to all the faithful, and even those who had before forsaken him, did now reassemble themselves, preaching in the Name of Jesus, 
Phil. 1. 13.  and exhorting all the world to Repentance. Cornelius reports the opinion of some men who affirm that Saint Paul was expressly delivered by the advice and the authority of Seneca, who at that time began miraculously to delight in his conversation. And although they could not see one another as often as they would by reason of the considerations of State, yet they mutually did write to one another, which hath given occasion to some weak men who have not their spirits to counterfeit their letters ill imitated, and which all knowing men are assured, to be not of the strain either of S. Paul or Seneca. Howsoever the fiction of the style doth no way hinder the truth of the ancient Deed, seeing that S. Hierome doth cite the true Letters which were in his time, and doth allege the Texts which are not now to be found in the Libraries of the Fathers. Saint Paul continued at Rome two years after his first voyage, where he gained many Christians to the Faith, and some of the Court of Nero, as is declared in his Epistles. Seneca was amazed at the Authority which he had, and desired that he might enjoy amongst his the like opinion of Belief as S. Paul had amongst the Christians; but there was a difference in their spirits, and their proceed were from divers Methods. Seneca was a man, and S. Paul 
The parallel betwixt S. Paul and Seneca.  a demy-God. The one studied with Attalus and Sotion, the other had the Word for his Doctor, and the Angels for his Disciples. The one sought after Nature, the other found out the God of Nature. The one lahoured after Eloquence, the other studied Silence which is the father of Conceptions. The one pleaded the Causes of parties, the other pleaded the Cause of God. The one governed the Republic of men, the other laid open before us the Hierarchy of Angels. The one was in the porch of Zenon, the other in the school of Jesus. The one laid the world low at his feet with his golden words, and when he pleased did carry it on his head, the other subdued it with mortification and the arms of the Cross. The one was full of good Desires, the other of great Effects. The one sought for himself in himself, the other found himself altogether in God. The one was a Minister of State, the other of Heaven. The one promised much and performed little, the other promised nothing of himself and gave all things. The one lived in the Court of Nero, the other in the Courts of Jesus Christ. The one defied Persecutions in his Discourse, the other did bear them engraven in his Body. The one had a considerable estate, the other had nothing yet possessed all things. The life of the one was exposed to Honours and the Delights of the world, the Life of the other was altogether composed of the Cross.  
To conclude all in few words, Seneca had excellent 
The evil opinion of the Stoics to trust altogether to themselves, without acknowledging the Grace and the assistance of God.  Precepts of Virtue, but he derived them from an evil Principle, which was, to hold fast to himself, and to conceive that by his own power he was sufficient of himself without any need of assistance from above, inasmuch that we may imagine that we hear him speak, That a Wiseman may pass by God and take no great notice of him, and live without him as contentedly as himself. From this great Illusion proceeded Arrogance, from Arrogance, Ignorance of the Truth; from Ignorance, Feebleness; from Feebleness, a Confusion both in the life and in all the wisdom of the Stoics.  
From hence it came to pass that having braved it on the paper, they found themselves too short for great actions, and had their pens fare longer than their hands. They made a flight but without one wing to virtue, contenting themselves to have brought some weak lenitives to their malady, and not endeavouring to rout it out.  
And although that Seneca did live uprightly according to the Moral Virtues, yet being forcibly tied to the world by his Honours, Dignities, Riches, the 
Wherefore Seneca prevailed so little for the reformation of Manners at the Court.  Cares of this life, and his endeavours to preserve himself at Court, he could not dispense any strong influence on the body of the Estate, by reason of the defect both of Example and Practice. The Sun and the Moon may both make a Rainbow in the front of heaven, but that of the Moon will be feeble and obscure in comparison of that of the Sun, which will be all luminous and immailed with Emerauds and with Rubies. Seneca did make at Rome a Rainbow of the Moon which had in it much imperfection, and clouds, and darkness. But S. Paul made the Rainbow of the Sun visibly, producing the brightness and the beauties of the eternal Wisdom.  
As the Principles therefore of the Philosophy of 
The Grace of Jesus, and the Cross, are the two Principles of S. Paul.  Seneca were to reduce all to himself, and to study his own particular consent; so the Principles of S. Paul were quite contrary to attribute all to the Grace of Jesus Christ, and in the imitation of him, to love, desire, and seek after the Cross, and the Persecutions attending on it. In those two Maxims, he doth establish all the Greatness and the Glory of the City of God, which he doth prove, deduce, and press with instant importance in all his Epistles. As for that which pertains to the Grace of Redemption, never man before him spoke more clearly or more divinely than he hath done in his Epistles to the Romans, to the Galathians, and to the Hebrews. He is the thundering and the lightning Cherubin on the chariot of the God of Hosts, who ceaseth not to shoot forth his inevitable and his flaming arrows against the head of the pompous Wisdom of this world.  
He makes it apparent how all the ancient Philosophers who were thought to be the Gods of Sciences and Letters, do vanish away in their proud imaginations, and how they are fallen into a Reprobate sense: blind and ignorant, who have transformed the Divinity into hideous forms of serpents and monsters: feeble and caitiff, who having filled their books with Precepts, have abandoned themselves to base and shameful actions, and have overthrown all the order of Nature. From hence also he makes another Battle against the Jews, who tied their happiness and salvation to a dying Law, to feeble Elements, to Shadows flying before the first Rays of the law of the Gospel. He prised nothing but the Incarnate Word, he breathed forth nothing but his Jesus, who is the Desire of the eternal Mountains, the Splendour of the Glory of the celestial Father, the Character of his Substance, who by the virtue of his Word doth support the Universe, who is our Wisdom, our Justice, our Sanctification, and our Redemption; there being no Name either in heaven or earth, or on or under the waters by which we may be saved, but the Name of Jesus.  
His second Principle is the love of the Cross, and he doth publicly and loudly protest both to the great and to the small, to the proud and to the humble, that there is no Knowledge but in the crucified Jesus; and that he is not come to preach him to them with painted Words according to the Wisdom and the Eloquence of men (fearing by that means to make void the mystery of the Cross) but with the Virtue, and the force of the God of the afflicted. He esteems of Sceptres, of Empires, of Nobility, of Beauty, of Strength, of Valour, of Wisdom, of Industry, of Eloquence, of all things in this world from Heaven unto the Deeps but as dung, in comparison of the Cross of his beloved Jesus, on which by love he had ascended, and there did rest as on a Throne, from whence he condemned whatsoever this world did honour.  
By these two Principles, he arrived unto a most great Perfection which did fill him as well in the Intellectual 
S. Paul his Perfection.  part as the Affective. As for that which concerns the former, he was enlightened with a most high and a most excellent Wisdom, with the knowledge of all Nature, with all the mysteries of our Faith, with whatsoever is in Man, with whatsoever the World locks from him in her Treasuries, with Grace in all her Virtues, and with Time in all the Turns and the Revolutions of his Being.  
According to the height that the river Nilus riseth, 
His high knowledge.  the other rivers do decrease; and accordingly as Saint Paul did increase in the Wisdom of God, all humane Science fell down before him even into the Abysm. It is he who with all humility can speak that which Lucifer did usurp by pride, I sit in the 
Ezek. 28.  Chair of God, I have been in the heart of the Deeps. He was in the Chair of God when he spoke as if he had been enclosed in the Word, as the Vicar of his Powers; the Dispenser of his Mysteries; the Oracle of his Thoughts; and the Interpreter of his Will. He was in the heart of the Deeps when he was abysmed in the profound knowledge of the Beauties and the Perfections of the Incarnate Word, of whom he never did lose the sight.  
What an Abysm of Patience was he? what a 
Dion. de Divin. Nomin. S. Hierom. Epist. 6. ad Pammach.  Trumpet of the Gospel saith S. Dennis? What a roaring of the Lion saith S. Hierome? What a Flow of Learning, what a Torrent of Eloquence? who makes us to understand the Mysteries unknown in all Ages, and that as much by his Admiration as his Words. He wrote his Epistles with his Ear in Heaven, and with a Style in the School of Paradise. The feebleness of humane Words could not sustain the force of his Spirit.  
In the Affective part, he was filled with a Seraphic 
His Love.  Love, with a fire drawn from the most pure flames of Heaven, which was shut up within his heart and within his bones, and did uncessantly burn him without consuming him. On his mortified flesh he did bear the Characters of a suffering God, which were his dearest Delights. He was no more himself; he was all and altogether transfigured into that amiable Word by a Deifick transanimation. He lived on his Blood; he breathed not but by his Spirit; he spoke not but by his Words; he thought not but by his Meditations: yet nevertheless, in some manner he did leave God and the delicious School of Paradise, to run unto his Neighbour to save his Soul; and in this exercise of Charity, he defied Tribulation, Anguish, Hunger, Nakedness, Dangers, Persecutions, and bloody Swords, and burning Faggots, and boiling Caldrons. If Hell itself were portable he would adventure to have carried it on his back for the love of his Neighbour.  
He looked upon the world as if every mother's son were of his begetting; he carried in his heart Europe, and Asia, and Af●ick, and all the Provinces of the Earth, to communicate the Light of the Gospel either by himself, or by his children whom already he had begotten in Jesus Christ. Nothing rebated him, nothing hindered, nothing stopped him. He gave no bounds to his Love since God had given no limits to his Spirit. With these fair and extraordinary qualities, God gave him Success in the preaching of the Gospel, which did draw upon him the admiration of all the Apostles.  
He marched in triumph through all Provinces; and God was on his heart. He was like unto that Ark of the Testament which is spoken of in the Revelations, 
Apoc. 21.  which at the same time that it was perceived did cause a Lightning to be seen, a Voice to be heard, the Hail to rattle, and the Earthquakes to roar; so, wheresoever S. Paul did pass, there were the Light of Learning, the Oracles of Wisdom, the impetuous Tempest of words of fire, which made the Philosophers and Kings to tremble, and even removed Nature itself. Behold here the difference which was between S. Paul and Seneca, which being well considered we shall forbear to admire, wherefore one was so fruitless in the Court of Nero, and the other had so great success in Rome, and amongst so many Nations.  
After that Paul was for a season retired from Rome, 
Saint Paul leaves Rome. Nero grows worse and worse.  leaving unto Seneca a strong tincture of the Christian Faith, Nero did every day grow worse and worse, insomuch, that having killed his brother, his wife, his mother, this scourge of mankind in the wicked jollity of his heart had a plot in his head to set the City of 
Anno Neron. 10. Chron. 66.  Rome on fire, which was almost wholly consumed with it, whiles he from a high tower did behold it, and laughing at the calamity, did sing the burning of Troy the great; which did so exasperate the spirits of his Subjects, that on the year following, the chief of the Empire did enter into a conspiracy against him, in which were comprised, Senators, Captains, Colonels, 
The Conspiracy against him detected.  Citizens, Ladies, and all the choicest personages in Rome: but misfortune so would have it, that the secret being dispersed amongst so many people, it did not answer the event to which it was designed, but being discovered, it occasioned a bloody butchery in Rome, Nero like an enraged Tiger desiring nothing more than to bathe himself in blood.  
Seneca's name was entered at the last in the list of the 
The constant and the famous death of Seneca.  Conspirators, whether his Scholar had conceived a jealousy against him, mistrusting his high Virtue, and fearing lest he should tear the Diadem from his head, or whether the insolence of his deportments had put him into that condition as not to endure the very shadow of a Tutor. It was now a long time since this great personage overcome with grief at so many tragical accidents did lead a retired life in his Countryhouse not far from Rome. There was not against him any manifest conviction to rank him amongst the Conspirators, as Tacitus hath observed. It is only said that one of that number named Natalis did depose before Nero that he was sent to Seneca by Piso, who was the chief of the Conspirators, to complain that he would not suffer him to give him a visit, and to meditate an interview to which Seneca made answer, that such a meeting in so dangerous and so fatal a time could be profitable neither to the one nor to the other, and as for the rest, that his life subsisted not but in the safety of the life of Piso.  
On this, the Tribune of the Emperor's Guard was dispatched to Seneca, to understand what answer he could make to the Deposition of Natalis. On the evening he arrived at Seneca's house which he suddenly environed with a troop of Soldiers. He was no sooner entered, but he found him at supper with his wife and two friends, he presently acquainted him what he had in Commission from the Emperor; on which, Seneca confessed that Natalis indeed was sent unto him by Piso, to entreat him to receive a visit from him, but he excused himself by reason of indisposition and retiredness, without speaking one word more unto him; adding, that he had never so high an esteem of Piso, as to judge that the safety of his life did depend upon him, that such flattery was not suitable to his disposition, and that Nero knew it very well, who by experience had always found in Seneca more of Liberty then of Servitude.  
The Tribune made a faithful report of Seneca's answer in the presence of Poppea that impudent woman, and Tigillinus that execrable villain, who in those cruel designs were the only two that were now of his Majesty's sacred Counsel. This barbarous Prince who had promised his Tutor that he would rather die then permit that any offence should be done unto him, did bear that respect unto him as not to question him on that Conspiracy amongst so many other Senators; peradventure he had not a brow of brass enough to outface the reproaches of so eloquent a mouth. He demanded of the Tribune if he did not prepare himself to a voluntary death, who made answer, That he observed not the least sign of it, either in his countenance or discourse; whereupon he was commanded to return to Seneca, and to signify unto him that he must die. The Tribune, whether in reverence to the man, or for fear to precipitate the death of such a Minister of the State by too hasty an execution, demanded counsel of Fannius his Captain what in this case he ought to do, who did advise him to execute the command of the Emperor; and this was done by a sloth fatal to all of the Conspiracy, some Ladies only excepted, who shown themselves more courageous than the Senators and the Cavaliers.  
Howsoever, he having not the heart to carry these heavy tidings, did deliver his Commission to a Centurion, who informed him with the last of all necessities. Seneca, without troubling himself, desired so much liberty as to make his Will, which was refused him: On which, he turned to his friends and said, That since it was not permitted to him to acknowledge their merit, that he would leave unto them the very best of all he had, which was the Image of his Life; in which, if they would please to call to mind how he had passed it in so many commendable Exercises, they should enjoy for their recompense the reputation of a faithful and a constant friendship. And this he spoke not out of arrogance, but as it were by the authotity of a Father when he bids his last Farewell unto his Children, recommending to them to imitate him in what he had done well; and so said S. Paul to his Disciples, Be you imitators of me as I am of Jesus Christ.  
This made their hearts to melt, and they began all to weep, but he did endeavour to wipe away their tears, mingling sweetness with reproaches. What do you mean, he said? where are the Precepts of Philosophy? where is that Reason so long prepared against all the chances of humane Life? who is he that can be ignorant of the cruelty of Nero? and who did not see that after the death of his mother and his brother, there nothing remained but to add unto it the murder of his Master and Governor.  
After this Discourse which served for them all, he embraced his wife, gave her his last farewell; and having fortified her against the terrors of the present dangers, he did entreat and conjure her to moderate her grief, and to sweeten the sorrows of her dear husband by the consideration of his life which was without reproach. He loved most tenderly that virtuous Lady, and did not cherish his own life but for her sake; saying sometimes, That he would spare himself a little the more, because in an old man there lived a young woman, who deserved that he should take care for her, and being not able to obtain from his dear Paulina that she should love him more fervently, her love being in the highest degree of perfection, she should obtain from him that he should use himself for her sake with the more indulgence.  
This fair Lady observing all that had passed, said, That there was no longer life for her after the death of him whom she loved above all things in the world, and that she would keep him company in the other world. On that word he stood a little in a pause, and would not contradict her, as well for the glory of the action, as for the love which he did bear her, and for the fear he had to leave so dear a person to the affronts of an enemy, be therefore said unto her, My dear Love, I have showed you the sweetness and the allurements of life, but I see you prefer unto it the honour of a generous death. I will not envy the example of your Virtue, and although the constancy in our death shall be equal in us both, yet yours shall be always more glorious than mine, for you contribute unto it a courage which is above your sex. Having said this, they caused their veins to be opened by one hand in the presence one of the other; and because the body of her husband was attenuated by great abstinence, and the blood did issue but slowly from him, he gave order that there should be a new incision made in the veins of his legs and of his feet. The poor old man did endeavour to put himself all into blood, and endured cruel dolours, but more in the body of his dear wife then in his own, which was the reason that he caused her to be conveyed into another chamber to mitigate a little the sorrows which one had for the other in beholding themselves to die with so much violence.  
It is a wonderful thing that this great man had so untroubled and so ready a spirit in so fatal an act. He called his Secretary to whom he did dictate his last Thoughts, which were full of a generous constancy. In the mean time, Nero having no particular hatred against Paulina, and considering that the death of so innocent a Lady would but render himself and his cruelty more abhorred, did command that her veins should be stopped, and the blood staunched, which it appeared, that she suffered to her greater grief, both by the short time that she outlived her husband, and by the inviolable faith which she did bear unto his ashes; and she looked ever after as she were some prodigy, such abundance of blood and so much spirits she had lost.  
Seneca was yet remaining in the tedious pangs of death, when upon advice he demanded poison of his Physicians, which had no operation at all, his members being already cold, and his body shut up against all the forces of the poison. He caused himself therefore to be carried to a Bath, and taking some of the warm water, he sprinkled his servants with it that stood about him, saying (according to Cornelius Tacitus) That he offered that water to Jove the deliverer; after which words he entered into the stove, and was stifled with the vapour that did arise from it.  
Many grave Personages have conceived that he died a Christian; and though it is no easy matter to persuade those to this opinion who are possessed with another, and who speak but with little consideration on this subject, yet there are not wanting grounds to prove the truth thereof.  
Flavius Dexter a most ancient Historian, who hath composed a small Chronicle from the Nativity of our Saviour unto the fourth Age, affirmeth in express terms, that in the sixty fourth year, Seneca entertained good thoughts of Christianity, and that he died a Christian, although not a declared one.  
S. Hierome in the Book of Ecclesiastical Authors doth put him in the number of Saints, that is to say, of those who acknowledge and confess Jesus Christ.  
Tertullian, a most grave Author saith, that he was one although not openly. S. Augustine in the City of God, allegeth many excellent passages of a Book which Seneca undoubtedly did write against the Superstition of the Pagans, in which, he overthrows all the Heathenish Religion of Rome, although he doth not vigorously persuade them to change it, for fear of troubling the Estate. This Book was afterwards condemned and burned by the Enemies of our Religion. The holy Doctor doth observe, that he never spoke ill of the Christians, although he hath violently inveighed against the Jews, which testifieth that he was endued with some good thoughts in the favour of it. His brother Gallio being Proconsul in Achaia, would never judge S. Paul for any fact of Religion, although the Jews did press him to it with much importunity.  
Add to this, that our Seneca two years before his death did live a retired life, under the colour of indisposition of body, and would no more frequent the Temples of the Heathen; as also that he would not procure his own death before the Emperor expressly had commanded it, as being then of the opinion of the Christians, who did forbid self-murder, and also that at last, that he did forbid the vain pomp and the vain ceremonies at his Funerals.  
These Reasons being weighed do draw unto this Conclusion, That it is more beseeming our Religion to conceive well of the Salvation of Seneca, then to condemn him. The strongest Objection which can be made against this Opinion, is, That at his death Cornelius Tacitus doth make him to invoke on Jove the Liberatour. But no esteem ought to be given to this Argument, for Tacitus could not understand that which was altogether out of his knowledge, seeing that Seneca did never make open profession of Christianity, but kept that thought totally concealed from Nero and all the Heathen. And we ought not to be amazed that he was not comprised in that search which was made for Christians, it being sufficiently manifest, that many illustrious Christians have lived in the Courts of the Heathen Emperors, and dissembled their Religion, they being not bound in conscience to declare it at all times, to run wilfully into Martyrdom. Moreover, this Historian above named, hath written divers things very lightly, especially when he maketh mention of the Religion of the Jews and Christians, which he describes rather according to his own Idea then any ways according to the truth; insomuch, that when Seneca at his death implored Jesus the Deliverer, he did not forbear to translate Jesus into Jove. As rashly as this, he leaves recorded to posterity, that the Jews are descended from the hill Ida, the name of which he saith the Jews do bear; and that they worship the head of an Ass; as also, that the Christians confessed that they were Incendiaries, and that they burned the city of Rome under Nero.  
But we find by S. Paul himself in his Epistle written from Rome unto the Philippians, that he had many Christians in the house of Nero; and Linus the successor of S. Peter, who was there present at that time, doth rank Seneca amongst them with an high title of commendation: and though his History hath been corrupted by the Heretics and the Ignorant, it is never the less received in those Points which are comformable to the other Fathers of the Church, so that Tacitus in this ought not to be considered.  
This Name then of Redeemer or Deliverer whereof Tacitus maketh mention, and this sprinkling of the water which the Faithful were accustomed to present to God in the manner of Libation, doth employ some secret of which he never heard. And as for that Objection, that there are some opinions in Seneca's Books which are not conformable to the Christian Religigion, it is of no value, seeing those Works were composed before his Christianity.  
And to that which others do allege, that he himself was the author of his own death, it is most manifestly false, seeing he did not suffer a vein to be opened before the express commandment of the Emperor, who had pronounced against him the sentence of Death, as I have said already, which was afterwards executed according to the fashion of those times; in which, by the permission of Magistrates, the houshold-servants of the party condemned performed that office which belonged to the public executioner of Justice. Besides this, in the beginning of Christianity, Seneca who had but a light tincture of it, could not yet know that it was not allowable for him to assist his at his death, seeing that many Christian Virgins have killed themselves to divert the violations by their designed ravishers, and yet have not been condemned for it.  
S. Paul returning to Rome, according to the Calculation of Baronius, did find that Seneca was dead, and that he was deprived of a great help in the propagation of the Gospel. Howsoever he desisted not with all his endeavour to advance with S. Peter the Christian Religion, which by and by they shall both bedew with their blood.  
For Nero to fill up the horror of his crimes, did begin the first Persecution against the Christians. And it is our glory, saith Tertullian, that he was in the head of our Persecutors. The wicked Prince perceiving that he could not wipe away the evil reputation with which he was defamed for the burning of Rome, did cause the Christians to be accused; and did torment them with outrageous and inhuman punishments. Some were nailed to Crosses, distilling their blood drop by drop in extremity of pain. Others by cruel inventions were covered with the skins of savage beasts and exposed to bandogs, who would fly upon them with a most violent rage and tear them in pieces. Others being fastened to blocks, were burned by degrees by fire, with Diabolical art and sport, insomuch, that in the Evening, when the Sun made haste to bed, to be no longer polluted with such horrible spectacles, the bodies of the Faithful being all on fire did serve as torches for the reprobate joys of the Heathen. Nero would be then in his gardens to glut his barbarous eyes with the Torments of those innocent Souls. Happy ye Stars, who in the combats of that laborious night did behold so many victorious Souls ascend from the midst of the flames to take possession of the Temple of eternal Lights. The Infidels themselves had compassion on them, knowing that it was an artifice of Nero's to sacrifice those poor Victims to his brutish cruelty.  
Not long after, S. Peter and S. Paul did find themselves to be involved in the same Persecution; for as they endeavoured themselves to persuade Chastity to some Christian Ladies against the allurements and surprisals of the Emperor, he grew enraged at it, and commanded them to be locked up in close prison, from whence some few days after they were taken forth to go to their Execution, where S. Peter was crucified with his head downwards, and S. Paul was beheaded, after they had converted many Souls, and even the Executioners themselves. They kissed one another with tears of joy, and with an assured pace they marched to their place of torment as to a garden inamelled with the most delightful beauties of Nature. At every minute their sacred mouths did call upon the name of their most beloved Master; and the pleasures they resented to excommunicate with him in his Sufferings, did not permit them to have the least fear of that which of all fears is the most horrible in Nature. The Christians followed them melting into tears, calling them their Fathers and their Pastors, and besought them not to abandon their Flock. But they with countenances as clear as are the smiles of the fairest morning, did comfort them, and did promise not to forget them in the other life. They did exhort them to show themselves courageous in Persecutions, assuring them that they were the places of Pleasure, where even the Thorns should grow into Crowns. They both looked back upon Rome, and beheld it as the field of their dearest Conquest. And God did discover to them the effects of their Blood, how that Infidelity was subdued; the Church was established in the capital City of the Universe; the Cross was planted on the root of the Capitol, where they died as amongst palms, and the odour of their Sacrifice did ascend to heaven.  
As long as there shall be Intelligences and Stars above; as long as there shall be Ages and Men below, these two Apostles shall be beheld as the two Eyes of the Christian world. The Fathers and the Doctors of Mankind; the Gates of Heaven, and Triumphers over unbelieving Rome, which they have now converted into Rome the Holy. At their Palms all the Laurels of the Conquerors shall fade, and the instruments of their Punishments shall obscure their Trophies. The tongues of men can pronounce nothing more pleasing then their Name. The Church hath nothing more precious, than their Virtues; nor more powerful, than their Examples; nor more honourable, than the Veneration of them. The detestable Nero the year after these Martyrs suffered, finding himself tormented with Furies, invested with infernal Shades, torn in his conscience by Vultures, and wounded with sharp Razors, being abandoned both by God and men, understanding that Vindex from France, and Galba was marching against him from Spain, to revenge his Sacrileges, he did fly away, and killed himself; it being impossible for him to die by a more polluted or a more execrable hand.     

Queens and Ladies.  
MARY STUART.   portrait of Queen Mary 
The most excellent Princess Mary Queen of Scotland and Dowager of France.  
IN the last place, I will produce the History of the incomparable Queen, Mary Stuart, where in the height of its lustre, I will represent unto you Innocence persecuted, as much by the jealousies of love, as State, and that by a general combat of all passions, on which she hath raised a Trophy, by the invincible constancy at her death.  
I have taken delight to peruse many Authors on this Subject, and to draw out the truth from a confused Chaos, where the malice of many passionate Historians had extremely perplexed the Story; and I have done it the more willingly, because it is a service which I render to the first Truth which I adore: To France, which nourished and advanced that great Spirit; To the King of Great Britain, who is honoured for his Blood and Royal Virtues; To Scotland, who brought her forth; and to England itself, the sounder part whereof have always detested the attempt which was committed on her person.  
I must entreat the Reader to believe, that there was never History more disguised by a knot of Heretics, never wickedness did carry more artifice, nor calumny more fables, or fables more colours, or impiety more strength, to cry down a poor Princess. And this hath made so bold a noise, that some Catholics, either too ignorant or too negligent, not taking the pains to read and examine the reasons alleged, were betrayed themselves to an indifferent belief of the defaming Libels of the Enemies of our Religion, as if they would believe the History of Jesus Christ, compiled on the reports of the Scribes and Pharisees. A Calvinist of late, the Author of a Spanish History, hath thrust into his Book many outrageous reports against the Memory of Mary, Queen of Scotland, by a Digression stolen enough, which doth eclipse the light of the History, and the Day of her passion. If that man had any modesty, he would have acknowledged his small abilities to be seen in print. If he had any reverence, he would have spared the person of a Queen. If his heart had been touched with any piety, he would have pardoned the Dead. If he had in his soul any sense of honour, being in the service of the King of England, he would never have printed such insolent things, to the disadvantage of his Majesty, he would never have barked at the ashes of so great a Lady.  
Reader, to make you the better to understand with what equity I will proceed in this Narration, I will not allege unto you either , or Bosy, or Florimond of Raymen, or Father Hilarius, of the Order of the right reverend Fathers of the Minims, who have all wrote very worthily concerning this Subject. I will derive the principal truths I shall produce from Cambden a Hugenot, Historiographer of the Queen of England, who hath wrote this Story, not in Pamphlets running without authority, but in authentic Memorials. It hath pleased God that this person, having a generous ambition to speak the truth, should search into the Records, and produce papers that had been buried, which sufficiently do make appear the artifices of Elizabeth, & the innocence of the Queen of Scotland. Reader, Behold whither the abundance and the force of Right and Truth doth carry us, that we take even our enemies for our Judges and Witnesses in this cause.  
MARY STUART, the only Daughter of 
The Birth & Education of this Queen Mary Stuart.  James the Fifth, King of Scotland, and Mary de Lorain, Grandchild to the thrice virtuous Antonietta of Bourbon, was a Queen, who in my judgement, hath equalled the excess of her disasters, with the height of her glory, and it seems her whole life was no other than a Theatre, hung round with blacks, and covered with blood, where the revolution of humane affairs did act unheard-of Tragedies. Never did Nature produce more beauties, nor Grace more wonders in a personage of that high condition. Never did Fortune deal more rigorously with a head, which Heaven had made to support three great Crowns.  
She was born in Scotland, she lost her Father eight 
In the year 1542. on the 〈◊〉 De●ember, on S. Lucy's Day.  days after her birth, she was brought into France at the age of five years, and was nourished in the Court of Henry the Second, and Katherine de Medicis, who did love her most entirely. She was yet but as the Bud of a Rose, which within her first infancy did preserve her Graces undisclosed. But as she began to lay them more open by the increase of age, we might then behold a Princess, descended from the blood of a hundred Kings, who had a body form and fashioned by the hand of Beauty, a fine and a clear spirit, a deep and a sound judgement, a high Virtue, and an incomparable Grace in her expressions. All which, made Henry the Second resolve to give 
Her marriage and widowhood.  her in marriage to his son Francis, to whom she was espoused about the fifteenth year of her age, being himself not much more indebted unto years than she was. All things laughed at the beams of this bright Morning, and it seemed that Felicity herself had with full hands poured down her favours upon a Marriage which had been made in Heaven, to carry along with it the approbation of all the earth.  
But who can dive into the secrets which Providence 
The inconstancy of humane affairs.  hath in her own breast concealed from us? Or who is he that hath tears enough to deplore the condition of great Fortunes, when they are abandoned to the pillage and plunder of destruction? This young French King, having in his way but saluted Royalty, after his reign but of six months, was taken out of the world by an Impostume in his ear. All France did groan under this loss, by reason of the excellent inclination of that Prince, but she was more touched with the impressions, which in her heart her most dear Spouse received, who desired to sacrifice the rest of her days unto the ashes of her husband. Nevertheless, as the tenderness of the King's age who was troubled besides with divers indispositions of body, and the short time they were married together, did not permit that any issue should be left behind him, there did arise upon it a report, that the young 
Her return into Scotland.  Queen should return into her own Country, where two Crowns did attend her, the one in England, the other in Scotland, she being the true Inheritress of them both, of one of which she took possession, and was deprived of her rights in the other, by the injustice of Usurpation.  
3. Elizabeth of England now began to torment 
The first fire of the jealousy of Estate.  herself with a furious jealousy against her, and had already laid the Design to stop her in her return to Scotland, but God was pleased that she was gallantly accompanied with a great part of the most generous of the Nobility of France, and did pass the seas very fortunately, and arrived so suddenly in Scotland, as if she did fly in the Air; there she was received of all the good Catholics, with wonderful entertainments of applause and joy. Elizabeth, who did swell with despite, that she failed in her design, covering her artifice with the vail of friendship, did send a solemn Embassage with Presents, to congratulate her arrival, and to give her the assurances of an eternal Alliance. The good Princess, who had a heart as credulous as generous, was passionately taken with this friendship, and disputed with herself how she should overcome her in honour and in courtesy. She took from her Treasury a Diamond, of which she made a Present to her. It was cut in the manner of a heart, and enriched with a verse of buchanan's, who had not as yet his spirit infected with Treason. In the mean time Elizabeth, not unlike those Sorcerers, which from the fairest mornings do produce the foulest weather, did not cease underhand to sow troubles and divisions in the Realm of Scotland, endeavouring to destroy her Cousin by the fines of policy, whom she durst not attach by the force of Arms.  
On the first arrival of Queen Mary into Scotland, she found the Kingdom overspread with the factions of the Calvinists, which at that time troubled all the Estates in Christendom. And seeing that the youth and inexperience of her widowhood was not compatible with the great undermine, which her Enemies did daily form against her State, she began, after the space of five years, to think of a second Marriage. The small success in her first marriage, made 
Her second marriage.  her suspect an alliance with strangers, and those who were most near unto her, did dissuade her from it. She did cast her eyes on her Cousin Henry Stuart, the young Earl of Lenox, who for the comeliness of his person, was one of the most remarkable in the Kingdom of Scotland, and having procured a Dispensation from the Pope, she married him. This affection, 
The seed of the jealousy of love.  although most innocent in itself, being not managed with all the considerations of State, did bring upon her the jealousy of other Princes, and was in the end attended with great disasters.  
But to speak the truth, the Earl of Murray, natural brother to the Queen, a pernicious and luxurious man, who underhand was the Instrument of Elizabeth of England, did sow the first seeds of all these Tragedies. In the beginning of these troubles he was called, The Prior of S. Andrew, as being ordained by James the Fifth, to Ecclesiastical dignity, but having drunk the air of a turbulent and furious Ambition, which Knox the Patriarch of the Heretics in Scotland had inspired in him, he did not cease to affect the Quality of Regent, and of King, nor sparing any wickednesses to arrive to the butt of his desires.  
As he observed that the Queen his sister, being yet 
Ambition the beginning of all evils.  very young, and very beautiful, was sought for in marriage by the King of Spain, to be married to his Son, and by the Emperor, to be maraied to his Brother, he used the utmost of his power to divert that Design, politicly foreseeing, that such alliances would tend to the diminution of his power, and he failed not with most violent persuasions, to represent unto her, that she should enjoy neither peace nor honour in her Kingdom, if she were espoused to a foreign Prince; and the better to divert her from it, he ceased not to advance the perfections of young Lenox, which he did rather to amuse her, and to possess her with thoughts of love, than in earnest to bring the marriage to accomplishment.  
The generous Princess, who understood not yet what Dissimulation meant, gave car unto him, and overcome by his counsel, she proceeded to the effects of the marriage with the Earl of Lenox, who was indeed accomplished with all excellent endowments both of body and of mind, but being very young, had not the qualities requisite to serve him to secure himself. This Murray, who thought he should reign in him, and by him, and that having advanced him to the Royal Dignity, the King should be but as the instrument of his will, did find himself much deceived, when he observed the King to grow cold in his behalf, and to reign with an Authority more absolute than he intended. His fury did proceed to that height, that he drew into the field to make war against the King, but having bad success therein, he was constrained to retire himself into England, where he began his designs to destroy his Sister. He had in the Scotch Court the Earl of Morton, who was unto him as his other-self, to whom he gave Commission to throw the apple of Discord on this marriage of the King and Queen. This he performed with incredible 
The effects of Envy and Ambition.  cunning, and finding some disposition by the cooling of his affection, he persuaded Lenox, That he was a King in Name only, and that the Queen signed 
The pernicious language of an Incendiary.  first in all the Declarations, and did not permit that any Effigies should be stamped on the moneys, but her own; That of necessity he must discharge himself from the tutelage of that Imperious woman, and teach her to submit to the law of Nature, which allows not that Sex to command their husbands. On the other side, this Forger of iniquity heating two furnaces with one faggot, ceased not by his complaints to set on fire the heart of the Queen, telling her, That she must chastise the rash young Man, and retain the Sovereignty entire on her own side, otherwise his unruly passions, attempting to part the Crown betwixt them, would take it away from them both, and put all things into a confusion. This was the occasion that Mary, arming her heart with a manly courage, would enjoy the Rights and Prerogatives of her birth, and did afterwards reign in full authority.  
4. This young Husband; who of a Subject was become 
The jealousy of King Henry Stuart Darley.  a Master, could not with moderation endure his change of fortune▪ but daily endeavoured to hold more of command than of compliance. The Queen also, who desired to be known the sole efficient Cause of his preferment, being unwilling to lose the name of Mistress in taking that of wife, did distaste his importunity, deferred his Coronation, and did allow him but a little part in the affairs of the Kingdom. She ordinarily did confer much with David Riccius her Secretary, an old and a discreet man, who with great honour possessed her ear and her good opinion, for she cherished him rather for the necessity of her affairs, than for any attractive qualities that were in him, for he was but of a deformed body as they who have seen him, do affirm. But the calumny of the 
The Book of the death of the Queen of Scots, printed in the year 1587.  Puritans, who know of every wood how to make an arrow, did not forbear in their bold discourses, to reflect upon the honour of Queen Mary concerning that subject, although it was the most incredible, and the most ridiculous thing in the world.  
Cambden also, the most sincere of all Historians of the pretended Religion, and Monsieur de Castelnau, have disdained to speak of it, as being an outrage, which had no foundation at all of truth, although the Earls of Morton and Lindsey, two execrable Incendiaries, who had undertaken the divorce of the Royal House, following the spirit of Heresy most impudently to breathe forth the greatest lies, did work a great alteration on the King, in the cooling of his affections to his wife.  
The spirit of Henry now became furious, and 
A spirit tormented with two great devils.  did perceive itself to be possessed on by two fiends: The one, the Jealousy of Love; the other, of Estate, which both at one time did commit a prodigious Ravishment on his heart. They made him believe that he passed for a King in fancy only, and that his Throne was no more than a mere picture, whilst another was made a Partner in his bed. In effect the excellent Beauties of the Queen which had given him such heats of love, did now raise his jealousy to the height of those flames. He was all on fire perpetually night and day, and being tormented with shadows, suspicions, and rages, with choler, frenzies, and with terrors, he lived as on the wheel, not knowing which way to turn himself.  
His passion did suggest unto him a bloody remedy, 
A tragic remedy by the death of the Secretary of the Queen.  which was to draw the Secretary from the Cabinet of the Queen at the hour of supper, and under colour of communicating some affair unto him, to stab him with a poniard in the Presence-Chamber. The body being all bloody by threescore wounds which it received, fell down just at the door of his Mistress, imploring Heaven and earth against those, who by so black a treason, had ravished his life from him in the flower of his hopes. The Queen being frighted at the noise, did run to the door, and with his blood, received the last breathe of his soul, some drops of the blood falling on her outward garment. She startled at the horror of the sight, and believed, that some sprinklings of the blood had painted on her face the opprobriousness of the act.  
But as she made her complaint, the Murderers 
The passion of devilish fury.  presented a pistol to her, without any regard to the brightness of her Majesty, or the bigness of her womb, desiring nothing more, than at one blow to destroy both the Tree and the fruit. They locked her up in a chamber of the Palace, taking from her all her ordinary servants, and putting a Guard on her of four-score soldiers.  
On this the Estates met, and the pestilent Council were assembled, where, with mouths full of fire, the Heretics ceased not to breathe forth Rebellion, Blood, and Butcheries. They gave it out aloud, That they ought not by halfs to do a work of so great importance, and since the Queen, who was a Pillar of the Papists Religion in Scotland, was already shaken, they ought to lay her low as the earth, and utterly destroy her, in giving allowance to the Libels and the Calumnies which were published against her. They had attempted to have seduced the 
The horrible attempt of Heresy.  spirit of the young King, promising him to put the Crown in peace upon his Head, if he would maintain and support their Design, to which, as he shown an inclination, they began to wove an horrible conspiracy, to take from him all the most eminent persons of the State, and embark the innocence of the Queen in the common shipwreck.  
The Earl of Murray, who fled into England for having raised Arms against their Majesties, returned back, and came into Scotland, rathers as a Triumpher than a guilty person. They made him an overture of their pernicious counsels, which he entertained with horror; for as yet he was unwilling that the Affairs should be carried on with such an extremity of violence; wherefore in private he repaired to the Queen, demanding pardon for his offences past, and promising all obedience for the time to come. He counselled her to recollect and rouse up her spirits, and pardon the injuries passed, and to take away from the Conspirators all the apprehensions of Despair. The Queen bending her spirit to the necessity of the time, and her present affairs, did receive him with all courtesy, and told him, that she was ready to perform all as he pleased. She assured him, that he was not ignorant that her heart was without gall, having always pardoned offences even to her own destruction, by her too much clemency. And though she had been used by him with too much rigour for a Brother, that she would not cease to cherish him, and to gratify him above all other, to give him the best testimony of full satisfaction.  
As he departed, the King came in, and then it appeared 
Love and Piety.  how Grace and Nature wrought their effects, for the innocent Queen fashioning her countenance and her words to the most sensible passion, spoke thus unto him:  
Alas, and wherefore thus, SIR, Is this that I have deserved for loving you above all the men in the world? Must I be forced from your friendship, to adhere to my most cruel Enemies? If I have deserved death for doing you all the good that lay in the possibility of my power, what hath this little Innocent in my womb committed, whom I do not preserve, but only to increase your power. The Excess of these violent proceed will tear away the life both from the Mother and the child, and then I am afraid you will too late discover the violence and rage of those, who persuade you to destroy that, which you should hold most dear, and to bury yourself in my ruins.  
As she spoke these words, and mixed them with 
The King reconciled with the Queen.  her tears, the King's heart was softened into compassion; Upon his knees he demanded pardon, breathing forth many sighs, accompanied with groans and tears of love. And having declared to her the conspiracy that was plotted for her ruin, he told her, That he now came either to live or to die with her. This confidence did greatly rejoice her, and having exhorted him above all things, to appease the anger of God, and particularly to have recourse unto his mercy, she gave him instructions necessary for him, she counselled him to dissemble this their love, and make not the least discovery of it to the Conspirators, but only to represent unto them, that he had found the Queen very ill, and that the violence of her malady might be as strong as poison or steel, to take her out of the world; That there was now no more need of keeping any Guard upon her, for in passing affairs according to their advice, he would answer for her, if God should not otherwise dispose of her.  
This counsel was followed, and after the King had persuaded the Rebels, to what he had desired, he returned to his dear wife, and about midnight both of them saved themselves, nine or ten thousand armed men being drawn together by the diligence of the Earl of Bothuel, who in one morning made the whole rebellion to vanish with the Rebels.  
Now the Earl of Murray had repossessed himself 
Choler and Vengeance Nejudicial.  of the favour and good opinion of the Queen, but the King, who well understood the pernicious counsels, of which he was the Author, and that he made him serve to be his instrument at the death of the Secretary, could by no means endure him, and though the good Queen, who would have nothing done violently, had expressly charged the contrary, he was resolved to seize upon him. But Murray apprehending the ill intent of the King towards him, did by a most detestable crime prevent it, by drawing to him the Earl of Bothuel, a man bold of spirit and of hand, and prevailing on him to massacre the King, assuring him that he should marry the Queen, if ever he arrived to the end of his fatal Enterprise. This miserable King, whom Jealousy had transported to the cruel murder of the Secretary, was now again fully reconciled to his wife, and loved her most tenderly, and conceived an extreme pity, to see her youth entangled among such pernicious counsels of her enemies. He was then at Glasco sick of the Smallpox, which the Queen understanding, she immediately repaired thither, to bring him unto Edingborough, where were better accommodations for him. At the same time 
Horrible inventions of Envy and Vengeance.  the Conspirators assembled themselves to accomplish their Design, and moreover they had a desire to involve the Queen and her Son in the same ruin, but they feared that it would be too apparent, and it would be more expedient for them, to bring all the Envy of the death of the husband, upon the head of his wife, whom they conceived to be still highly offended for his ill demeanour towards her. To which purpose they undertook to torment her spirit, and prompt her to thoughts of vengeance, which they never could effect, so strong was the new knot of their reconciled love. They deliberated amongst themselves to put this miserable Prince to death by fire, and because it was inconvenient to perform it in the Palace, they entered into counsel amongst themselves, to remove him into a fair house, which was at the upper end of the City, where they had prepared a fatal Mine for his destruction. His sickness being such, the Queen accorded to his removal, and very innocently did take her husband by the hand, and did conduct him to the Entery of his Lodging, where, with a singular prudence, she disposed of every thing which concerned the recovery of his health. And not contented with that, she stayed with him without the apprehension of any danger of infection, which put the Plotters of this delicate conspiracy into fear, but she seemed to be nothing troubled at it, and staying with him until midnight, she entertained him with all the satisfaction that he could expect from so bountiful a Nature.  
As soon as she was retired; behold by the secret 
The death of Henry Stuart.  artifice of the powder, to which fire was given, under the lodging of the King, the chamber was blown into the Air, and the bed all on fire. He found himself to be desperately in wrapped in this calamity, and the Authors of the Mischief, conspiring with the Elements, did dispatch him outright, having found him half dead in a Garden, into which place the violence of the fire had thrown him. The Queen hearing of it, was possessed with a wonderful amazement, and lost in the depth of sorrow, she feared every thing, and knew not what to do, or what to hope, every hour attending to see the end of that Tragedy, to be the beginning of another on her own life.  
The malicious Earl of Murray, who now had given the blow by the instrument of his wickedness, as he had spoken a little before to those that were nearest to him, that the King should die the same night, did cunningly retire himself. The people murmured, and knew not what to take to, but the clearest sighted amongst them perceived, that it was a work of this pernicious Brother, who had a desire utterly to destroy the Royal Family, to mount himself upon the Throne.  
And this is that which Cambden assureth us, in the 
Cambden in the first part of his History in the year 1567.  first part of his History, who, though by Religion he was a Calvinist, and by profession the Historiographer to the Queen of England, yet he hath not dissembled the truth; in confirmation whereof, he produceth proofs as clear as the day, with the attestations of the Earls of Huntley and Argathel, two principal Lords of Scotland, who by a writing signed under their own hands, have authentically protested to the Queen of England, that the Earls of Murray, Morton, and Lidington, were the Counsellors and Authors of the horrible Parricide committed against the King; the good Queen always professing, that she did forbid them to do any thing whatsoever, that might any way reflect upon her honour, or offend her conscience. Also this unfortunate Earl of Morton, who was afterward 
Cambden part 3. pag. 336.  convicted and executed for this murder, did totally discharge the Queen from having any hand in the King's death, and named the Conspirators, who by writing had obliged themselves one to another, to defend the murder of his Royal Majesty. John Hebron, 
Cambden pag. 128. an. 1567.  Paris, and Daglis, who prepared the Mine, being put to the Rack, to accuse the Innocent Queen, did absolutely discharge her, protesting before God and his Angels, that she was free from all fault, and that Murray and Morton did give them commandment to perform it. Buchanan, a Pensionar of Murrays, who 
Cambden pag. 105.  cried down this Queen by his venomous pen, being touched at last with the remorse of conscience, with tears demanded pardon of her Son, King James. And being sick to death, desired that his life might be prolonged, either to clear the integrity of Queen Mary by the light of Truth, or by his own blood to wash away the stains of his reproaches. Some Protestants being amazed to hear him speak in this manner, in the apprehension he had of God's judgements to fall upon him, did give forth, that his old age had made him to dote. This which I now write, was afterwards acknowledged, as we shall see anon by a public and solemn sentence of the principal Nobility of England, who although Lutherans and enemies, being chosen to examine the business, did highly publish the Innocence of this Queen.  
And now Detractours, what have you to say, Do you not behold wherewith to make your shame to blush, and the despite of so many infamous Historians to increase, who have made black her whiteness. Nay, some of the Catholics themselves; being but little versed in the discerning of History, having suffered themselves to be surprised concerning this subject, not considering that all this calumny is derived from the Book of Buchanan, being corrupted to it by the bastard Murray, who promised to make him Patriarch of Scotland, if ever he should come unto the Crown. And this is it which made this Apostate to write a detestable libel against the honour of this, Queen which was condemned afterwards by the Estates of Scotland, and retracted by the Author himself. But some Huguenots of the Consistory, who are the most pestilent slanderers that ever the earth brought forth, have not ceased to give some countenance to this fable and illusion of mankind, although it was legally condemned of falsehood by the most apparent of all their party. It is an unhappiness of most men, that they are wilfully given to believe the worst, whether by an inclination they have unto it, or whether by a difficulty to forsake and to put off that, which first they entertained in their belief. The most virtuous Queen Dido doth pass perpetually through the world for a woman lost in love, although indeed she died in the defence of her chastity, choosing rather to be devoured by the flames of fire, than to be given in marriage, as Tertullian doth affirm.  
6. But to take into my hand again the thread of 
The rash love of the Earl of Bothuel.  my discourse. Some time after the King's death, Bothuel, who was one of the most powerful Earls of Scotland, did prevent to court this Queen in the way of marriage, and the rather, because the Earl of Murray had promised her unto him for the recompense of this treason. This motion came directly cross to her heart, although as yet she did not know that this pernicious man had imbrued his hands in her Husband's blood, having always found him most faithful in his service. But as the report thereof increased, she grew very angry with all those who offered to renew the motion to her, alleging, that there was no appearance that he should be propounded for a husband to her, who is suspected for so detestable an act, no, although he indeed were innocent. Besides that, she urged that he was already tied in marriage to another woman. But Murray the Bastard and other of the conspirators, who with an obstinate resolution had undertaken this business, did justify this Crime by the Judges of their faction, and gave the Queen to understand, that his first wife was not lawfully contracted to him, and therefore she was removed from him.  
All this was not able to persuade her, who was wonderfully troubled with the dismalness of these late events, which was the occasion that Bothuel being transported with love, and assured of the high reputation which he had in the Kingdom, did draw forth into the fields with five hundred horse, where corvetting before them, a wild presumption did invade him to take away the Queen as she returned from Sterlin, to which place she was gone to see her Son, and to bring him with her to her Castle at Dunbar, At which place having with strange submissions demanded pardon for his boldness, He represented to her the contract of his marriage signed by the Earl of Murray, and the principal of the Nobility of the Kingdom, who thought very well of it, by that means to remedy the public calamities of the Kingdom. Moreover he protested to her, that he would never over-value himself for the Honour he should receive from her Majesty, nor for the greatness of his unexpected fortune; with which the greatest Monarch on the earth might proudly content himself, but that he would always continue her most humble and most obedient servant. In this manner did this Philistine adore the Ark in its captivity.  
But she moderating her passion, did represent unto him, that to proceed in this nature was to overthrow the whole business before it was established, that she would be absolutely, brought to Edinborough, the chiefest City of her Kingdom, where she would take a resolution to do that which should seem good unto Her.  
On this occasion it came about, that the Earl of Murray, who had removed himself a little, to be the less suspected of the murder, did return to Court, and brought with him the Suit of the Assassinate, rewarding him for it with the obtainment of the bravest Lady in the world, as the recompense of his murder. He ceased not to importune her to take Bothuel 
Cambden part 1. pag. 3. doth show that this marriage was brought about by the fraud and the pressing solicitations of the Earl of Murray.  for her husband, declaring his innocence, publicly avouched the splendour of his house, the exploits of his courage, the proofs of his fidelity, which did render him most worthy of her love. He added, that being alone and without assistance, she was no way capable to appease the troubles, prevent the ambuscadoes, or sustain the great charges of the Realm. Therefore she ought to receive him for her husband, and the Companion of her Fortunes and designs, having both power, will, and courage to defend her in all conditions, and that he would never suffer her to be in quiet, but only by the consummation of this Marriage. This wicked man by this Counsel did promise to himself, either to reign with him being his familiar friend, or by this action, to cry down the Queen and overthrow her Authority, as afterwards it came to pass.  
The Marriage is now to be accomplished, and the Importunities of the Earl prevailed on Mary's heart, who married him in the face of the Church with all the ceremonies requisite to it. Some have written, that this virtuous Lady by reason of her beauties, was strongly persecuted by divers with daily motions concerning marriage, And that the easiness of her nature (which could not resist the great importunities and continual battles, which love stirred up against her) did bring upon her a deluge of misfortunes; likewise her neighbour Princes, who knew not the Artifice of her enemies, did in the beginning blame her for having so easily adhered to a man, who was so dangerously suspected concerning that she ought to clear her reputation from the least shadows of suspicion, wherewith Envy began to cloud it: But who shall well consider a young widow of seventeen years of age, placed in the furthest part of all the world, where Heresy had over-turned all order, and let lose the blackest furies of Hell for the dissolution of the State. Who shall contemplate her alone, as the morning Star in the midst of so many clouds without assistance, without forces, without Counsel, persecuted by her brother, outraged by the Heretics, betrayed by the Queen of England, under the colour of good will, sought for in marriage by force of Arms by the Princes of her own Realm, he shall find, that she hath done nothing improvidently in choosing those by friendship which necessity did give her by force, and whether that there are times and revolutions of affairs so dangerous and remediless, in which we have no other power left us but only to destroy ourselves.  
7. In the mean time the Lutherans and the Calvinists 
The persecution of the Queen of Scots by the Protestants.  did not cease to cry out, and to bray against their Princess, and having begun by in famous libels, they prevailed so much by their Trumpets of Sedition, that they kindled a war under the pretence of revenging the King's death, whom they had caused to be portrayed dead in a bloody Standard, with his little Son at his feet who demanded vengeance. Bothuel, who as yet was drunk with the sweetnesses of affection which he received from his new spouse, was altogether amazed when he saw an Army marching in the field against him. And that the clamour of the people did charge him aloud with the death of the King. The Queen was struck into such a horror at the report of the Crime, that forthwith she commanded him to withdraw himself, and never to see her more, and although she was ignorant, that his Courage and Valour were able to secure her from the tempest which was falling on her, yet she chose rather to abandon herself as a prey to all the fury of her Enemies; than to keep but one hour that person near her, which she then only knew to have had some ill designs on the person of the King. He fled from Scotland into Denmark, where after ten years tedious imprisonment, he living and dying did protest that Queen Mary did never know of the conspiracy against her husband, & that those who gave the blow, having demanded some Warrant from the Queen for their discharge, she made answer, that it was sacrilege to think of it, so innocent a Soul she had. This protestation which he made at his death, before the Bishop and other Lords of the Realm, was afterwards sent to divers Princes of Europe, and to Elizabeth herself who did dissemble it. In the mean time the Rage of the Infidels did seize on Mary, and did constrain her with execrable violence and treasons plotted under hand by the Agents of the Queen of England, to resign the Kingdom to her son, whom 
The fury and infidelity of Ambition.  these seditious people caused to be Crowned at one year of age, to put all the Authority into the hands of Murray in the quality of Regent. Not content with this, they surprised her in a morning as she was putting on her , and taking from her all ornaments worthy of her quality, they clothed her in a sordid habit, and having mounted her upon a horse, which by chance passed through a Meadow, they brought her into a place out of the way, and confined her to a Castle, situate on the lake of Lenox, under the guard of the Earl of Douglas, Brother by the mother's side to the Viceroy, using her as a lost creature, and with horrible boldness accusing her for the death of her husband, and a design to invade his Kingdom.  
In this captivity she was charged with contumacies by the Concubine of her Father, a most insolent woman, to whom the keeping of her was committed, and by a disrobed Prior who did visit her, and tendered her some Remonstrances to assist her as her Father Confessor. And at that time some black and butcherly spirits did take a resolution to strangle her, and to publish to the world, that she had done it of herself, being overcome by despair.  
What an indignity was this, and what a confusion in nature and the laws of the world, to behold that excellent Lady, to whom grace and nature had given chains to captivate the hearts of the most barbarous. That great Princess, whom the sun did see almost as soon to be a Queen as a living creature. She that was born to Empires, as all Empires seemed to be made for her; to be deprived of her sweet liberty, to see herself severed from all commerce with mankind, to be banished in a desert, where nothing but rocks were the witnesses of her sufferings. Nay, which is more, she is now become the captive of her own subjects, and a servant to her slaves. The poor Turtle ceased not to groan, and often through the grate would look on the lake, wherein every wave she conceived, she beheld the waving image of her change of fortunes.  
Not long after she entered into a deep melancholy, when the evil spirit that fisheth in troubled waters did tempt her into thoughts of despair, representing to her, that since the air, and the earth were shut from her, she should make choice of the water, into the which she should throw herself, and end the langushment of her captivity, by burying herself in a moment with her afflictions.  
But as her pious soul was fastened unto GOD by chains not to be dissolved, she fervently besought the Divine bounty, that he would vouchsafe to comfort her, and confirm her spirit, which was descended into the bottom of the Abyss of the miseries of this world. Her prayer being ended, she was inspired with infusions of love towards her Creator, and armed with a noble confidence, she in this manner did express herself.  
Wherefore art thou so sad my soul, if GOD permits 
She comforteth herself in prison.  this for thy sins, shouldest thou not kiss the Rod that strikes thee, and adore that infinite mercy who doth chastise thee by temporary punishments, not willing to make thee an object of that choler, which is kindled by an eternity of flames, and if this comes unto thee to approve thy virtues, dost thou fear to enter into the furnace, where that great workman will consume the straw only that burns thee, and will make thee to shine as gold; wherefore art thou so sad my heart? To be deprived of liberty and the delights of the Court, take unto thee the wings of contemplation and of love, and fly thou beyond these waters, fly thou beyond the seas which environ these Islands, and understand, that there is no prison for a Soul which GOD doth set at liberty, and that all the world doth belong to him, who knows how to misprise it.  
In these considerations she took incomparable delight, 
1. Hope against all hope.  and as well as she could did charm the afflictions of her imprisonment, when behold a blind felicity which made her to see unexpected events. GOD stirred up a little Daniel to deliver this poor Susanna, a little Infant, the son of the Earl of Douglas did feel his little heart touched with the miseries of this brave Queen, and had the hardiness to speak thus unto her. Madam, if your Majesty will understand a way to your deliverance, I can give it you. We have here below a Gate, at which we sometimes do go forth to delight ourselves upon the water, I will bring you the key, and have the Boat ready, in which, fearing my father's anger, I must save myself with you. The Queen, extremely amazed at the discourse of the child, made answer. My little friend your counsel is very good, Do as you speak, and acquaint no man with it, otherwise you will ruin us; if you will oblige me for so great a favour, I will make you a great man, and you shall have content all your days. In the mean time for want of pen and paper she wrote on her handkerchief with a coal, and found a means to advertise the Viscount of Selon touching that design, assigning both the day & the place where he should attend her, to which he disposed himself with so much activity, as if he had rather wings to fly, than paces by foot to measure. The child failed not to put in execution what he promised, The Queen took the key in her hand, opened 
Her departure.  the Gate, and nimbly leapt into the Boat with this little Companion of her fortune, she took herself the pole into her hand, seeing the young child had not force to steer the boat, she began to guide it and to save her life by the favour of her arms. One of her maids, named Queneda, seeing her Mistress in this difficulty, did leap into the water out of a window of the Castle, and abandoned herself to the mercy of the waves, to join herself unto the fortunes of her Mistress.  
O good GOD, How may the stars in the greater silence of this world, with admiration behold so great a Queen, to sit at the stern of a boat, with oars in her hand, and practising a trade of life, which necessity doth teach her, and felicity doth govern. The waters stroaked into a calm, did perceive the effects of her fair hand, and gently opened themselves to make a passage for her. At last, she arrived at the bank on the other side, and found there the Viscount, who received her with all reverence and joy. She retired herself into a place of safety, and thought on the means to re-establish herself, to which she found her good subjects well disposed, and in a short time, raised an Army of about seven thousand men. At which the Enemies being enraged, drew up against them in great bodies, and giving them battle, they overpowered them in number, and obtained the victory. The encounter was bloody, to which one part did contribute courage, and the other fury. Seven and fifty personages of Honour of the House of Hamilton, which is next unto the King, did with their dead bodies cover the field, where the Battle was fought. The Queen, who with horror entertained the apprehension of so many massacres, did prefer an innocent Retreat before an uncertain Victory. Her bastard Brother the chief of the Rebellion, of an imaginary King, did now make himself an absolute Tyrant, and as much as in him lay, he endeavoured to root out the rest of the true Religion in Scotland, by the persuasion of Knox and Buchanan, he stripped the Churches naked to cover himself, he oppressed all honest men, and let himself lose unto all manner of insolence.  
8. The deplorable Queen is constrained to departed 
Her Retreat into England, where her enemies accused her.  out of her Kingdom, to fall no more into such cruel hands. She took shipping, having a desire at first to sail into France, where her Memory was still preserved in singular Reputation; but having a lofty heart, though excellently well tempted, she was ashamed to transport herself, & to be seen in the condition of a banished woman, in a place where all the graces and virtues had given her so many trophies. She conceived, that concealed Misery was the more supportable, and that it was more expedient for her to live in an Island, which was an outcorner of the world, than in the splendour of France. Besides, she conceived that she 
A civil shame doth hinder good designs.  ought to continue within the Neighbourhood of her own Kingdom, the better to facilitate her Return unto it. The Archbishop Hamilton, a most wise old man, did dissuade her from that resolution, understanding very well the Deportments of Murray with the Queen of England, and because she made appearance to give but little heed unto his counsels, he threw himself at her feet with tears in his eyes, and besought her not to follow the greatness of her mind, as to make choice of that place, which would be her certain destruction. On the other side, Elizabeth did solicit her again and again, and did importune her by a thousand courtesies to repair into England, to which at last she condescended, as if Necessity had prepared links of Diamonds to chain her to her misfortunes.  
The innocent Dove, in endeavouring to eschew the nets of the Fowler, did fall into the talons of the Hawk. She came into a Kingdom, from whence Justice and Religion were banished, by the horrible factions of the Heretics. She put herself into her hands, who had usurped her Sceptre, and who made use of all Interests to procure her death. In stead of coming to the Court to be received there according to her birth and merit, she found herself to be confined into a corner of a desert Island, where in a new captivity, she most unworthily was detained. Her disloyal Brother, the Viceroy, seeing her escaped from his bloody hands, did promise to himself to oppress with much ease, by the circumventions of the Protestant Judges. He laid anew for her the nets of his old Accusations, and made use of all the falsities which had been invented to eclipse her honour.  
Queen Elizabeth, in stead of suppressing the unnatural insolence of her subjects, gave them Commissions and an Order, that a Process should be made against her. The Puritans and the Lutherans, the mortal Enemies of Queen Mary, are now her Accusers, her Judges, and her Witnesses. The number of honest men was here very few, and the apprehension of the danger did stop the mouths of those men, which understood the truth, but had not the courage to defend it. Nevertheless, amongst others, there was a Scotch Gentleman, the Viscount Herrin, worthy of eternal Memory, who presented himself to Elizabeth for the defence of his own Queen, and said unto her:  
MADAM,  
THe Queen my Mistress, who is nothing subject to 
A generous Compassion.  you, but by misfortune, doth desire you to consider, that it is a work of an evil Example, and most pernicious Consequence, to give way that her rebellious Subjects should be heard against her, who being not able to destroy her by arms, do promise themselves to assassinate her, even in your own breast, under the colour of Justice. Madam, Consider the estate of worldly affairs, and bear some compassion to the calamities of your poor Suppliant. After the most horrid attempt on the King her husband, the murder of her servants, the cruel Designs on her sacred Person: After so many prisons and chains, the subjects are heard against their Queen, the Rebels against their lawful Mistress, the guilty against the Innocent, and the felons against their Judge. Where are we, or what do we do? Though Nature hath planted us in the further parts, and the extremities of all the earth, yet she hath not taken the sense of humanity from us. Consider she is your own blood, your nearest kinswoman, she is one of the best Queens in the world, for whom your Majesty is preparing bloody Scaffolds, in a place where she was promised and expected greatest favours. I want words to express so barbarous a deed, but I am ready to come to the Effects, and to justify the innocence of my Queen, by witnesses unreprovable, and by papers written and subscribed by the hands of the Accusers. If this will not suffice, I offer myself (by your Majesty's permission) to fight hand to hand, for the honour of my Queen, against the most hardy and most resolute of those, who are her Accusers. In this I do assure myself of your Equity, that you will not deny that favour unto her, who will acknowledge herself obliged to your bounty.  
Elizabeth, who found her advantages in the misfortunes of Mary, made no account of these remonstrances, and commanded the Commissioners, who were the Dukes of Norfolk and of Sussex, to proceed unto the Charge. But there is a God, who rules the Assemblies of men, and oftentimes doth turn their Advice against their own consciences. The greatest part of this Court were so transported, that they had a Resolution to destroy Queen Mary: Murray, Morton, the infamous Bishop of Orcades, and the pernicious Buchanan, with divers other Enemies of the Queen, were now come, and brought with them the most execrable inventions, and blackest calumnies, that ever were fetched from hell, to charge the Queen with the death of the King her husband; nay Letters of love were produced, which had been invented by some Puritans, who with an insupportable impudence affirmed, that they found them in a silver coffer of the Queens.  
The Earl of Murray, who in the beginning pretended 
The inhuman cruelty of ambition.  to wish better to no man than to Bothuel, doth now declare himself the chief of this Accusation, outrageously pursuing the death of his Sister, alleging, That she was the occasion of her husband's death, in revenge of the murder of her Secretary, that she never loved him afterwards, that she never lamented his loss, nor repent of her own sin. That she altogether abandoned herself to the love of the Earl of Bothuel, whom afterwards she married, although he was the murderer of her husband. Lesley the Bishop of Rosse, Gordon, Gauvin, Baron, and others, who were there on the behalf of the Queen (for she was present herself in person) knowing the whole truth of the business, and being incensed at the heart, to see the foul treasons of this Judas, did handle him according to his desert, and did answer him by a very strong Apology, which was afterward presented to the Judges, to consider of it at their leisure. I will in this place insert the substance of it, having some years since found it amongst the Acts of the Queen of Scotland.  
MY LORDS,  
IT is a great favour of Heaven to us, that the Earl of Murray is an Accuser in this Cause, since his name is able to justify the greatest crimes, much more to accuse the Innocent, before persons so approved for their justice, and their wisdom. It is sufficiently known, that by the ignominy of his mother, he was the son of a Crime, as soon as a son of Nature, that he hath ever since lived by wickedness, and is grown great by insolence. The Queen his Sister, hath but one fault, which is, that she hath advanced him against the intentions of the King, her father, who designed to him no Crown, but what (when he was to take Religious Orders) the Barber should give him, and now he hath usurped the Crown of the Realm. His desire and endeavours are, that the Diadem should be taken from the head of Mary, in recompense to him, for having cried her down by his calumnies, dishonoured her by his outrages, imprisoned her by his fury, and dispossessed her by his tyranny.  
Murray doth accuse the Innocent, for having contrived her husband's death, and he doth accuse her in a Court, where there are Witnesses unreprovable, that will presently be deposed upon Oath, that having plotted this horrible murder, he being in a Boat, did say, That the King should that night be cured of all his maladies. And surely it was easy for him to presage it, when he and his Accomplices had before decreed it, and he had assigned them the place, the time, and the manner of the execution. Murray hath made himself an Accuser, to ravish the Kingdom, and sway the Sceptre, imbrued with the blood of the Queen his sister. And we are not so much amazed at this, for he hath sold his soul to work wickedness at a far cheaper rate.  
Who had a deeper interest in the death of the King, than a Monk, for so was his condition of life assigned him from his nativity, but by this most detestable murder, he is now become the Regenet of a great Kingdom. Who had a more labouring desire to see the King out of the world, than he, who daily expected from the hand of death, the just reward of his disloyalty.  
We are here ready to represent unto him a paper signed with his own hand, and the hands of his Adherents, where amongst them all, they are obliged against all, to defend that person, who should attempt upon the person of the King. That execrable writing was entrusted in the hands of Bolfou, Captain of the Castle of Edinborough, whom at the first they had drawn unto their side, and being since incensed against some of the Conspirators, hath discovered all the business. This is that which we now manifest with reasons, more clear than the day, and with assurances as strong as truth itself.  
My Lords, We demand what is that which the Rebels oppose against all these proofs, nothing at all but frivolous conjectures, which are not sufficient to condemn the vilest creature in the world, although they are made use of, to overthrow the person and Majesty of a Queen. Ten thousand tongues such as Murrays are, and his Accomplices, ought not to serve to make half a proof against the honour of Mary, and yet you have the patience to hear them, rather than chastise them.  
Her poor servants have been examined again and again, they have been torn to pieces, and flayed alive, to accuse the Queen, and could ever so much as one effectual word be racked from them, to slain her innocence? Have they not in the middle of their torments declared aloud, and before all the people, that she was ignorant of whatsoever was done, and that they never heard the least word proceed from her, which tended to the murder of the King.  
All their Reasons are reduced into two Conjectures. The first whereof is, That the Queen committed the said Act, in revenge of the death of her Secretary. The second is, Her Love and Marriage with the Earl of Bothuel, the murderer of her husband, these two are the inevitable charges against her. But to answer to the first: I demand, If the Queen had any desires of revenge, on whom should she exercise that vengeance? Upon her husband, whom she loved with incomparable affection, whom in all companies she defended, as a young man, seduced by evil counsels, to whom she had given a full forgetfulness, and abolition of the murder of David Riccio, for fear that one day he should be called to an account for it, whom she very lately had received into favour, and the strictest friendship, to whom she had given the testimonies of a fervent love unto the last hour of his death. Is it on him that she would discharge her choler, or on those who were the Authors and Executioners of the act. If she hath pardoned the Earls of Murray, and Morton, her sworn Enemies, whom on a thousand occasions she could cut off: here is it to be believed, that a Lady, who had ever a most tender conscience, would destroy a husband so agreeable to her, and whom she knew to have never offended, but through the malice only of these desperate spirits.  
But why then hath she married him, who made this attempt against the King her husband? This is their second Objection, and to speak the truth, the only one, which they so much cry up. For this it is that they have taken away her Rings and Jewels, and put in the place of them infamous letters, invented by Buchanan, or some like unto him, who treat of love, not as in the person of a Princess, but of a lose licentious woman. And these Letters, when they were produced, did appear to be never made up, or sealed, but exposed to all the world, as if so chaste and so wise a spirit as this Queen, could be so stupid, or so wicked, as to publish her own infamy to the face of all the world.  
But in the end, they say, the Marriage was accomplished. And who did do it but these only, who now do make it a capital Crime. These are they who did give advice to this match by reasons, did solicit it by pursuits, did constrain it by force, and did sign it by continuance. Behold, we are here ready in your presence, to represent unto you the Contract, which doth bear their names and seals of Arms, which they cannot disprove. The Queen hath protested before God and men, that she had rather die ten thousand deaths, than to have married Bothuel, if she had thought he had been stained but with one drop of her husband's blood, and if he had not been proclaimed to be innocent.  
And now judge (My Lords) with what impudence they dare appear before you, and do believe, that the Queen of England hath sent you hither to serve their passions, and sacrifice so great a Princess to their vengeance. We do hope all the contrary, and do firmly persuade ourselves, that the great God, the undoubted Judge of the living and the dead, will inspire you with such counsels, as shall give the Day to Truth, for the glory of your own consciences, and the comfort of the most afflicted of Queens, who desireth not to breathe out the rest of her life that is left her, but under the favour of your Goodness.  
This in this manner being spoken, the Agents and Deputies for the Queen having aloud protested, that they here assembled not to acknowledge any power Superior to the Crown of Scotland, but only to declare in the behalf of their Queen, being unwilling to lose time in words, they came to the proofs, and did defend them with incredible vigour, making in the first place the falsifications, which were very ordinary with the Earl of Murray, to appear in full Council. In the second place, representing the Contract of the Marriage with Bothuel, which he condemned, to be signed by him and his Adherents. Moreover, producing the instrument of the Conspiracy against the King, subscribed by their own hands, and signed by their own Seals. And lastly, reporting the Depositions of John Hebron, Paris, and Daglis, who being executed for this Act, did fully discharge the Queen at the instant of their death before all the people.  
After that the Commissioners had judged the 
Her justification.  Queen of Scots to be innocent of all the Cases and Crimes, which falsely had been imposed on her by her traitorous and disloyal Accusers, and that the proceed which they made, were for no other purpose, but to exempt themselves from the crimes which they had committed, and to cover the tyranny which they had exercised in the Kingdom of Scotland. The Earl of Murray did fly away, filled with 
The confusion of her Accusers.  fear and with confusion, seeing that his life was in great danger, if he had not been secretly protected by the Queen of England.  
In the pursuit of this Sentence, the most honest of the Council did propose three Remedies to take away the differences, and to re-establish the true Queen in her Kingdom. The first was, That she should give assurances to the Queen Elizabeth, no ways to disquiet her in the Succession of the Crown of England. The Second was, That she should grant an Act of Pardon and Forgetfulness to her rebellious Subjects, for fear the punishment should otherwise extend to a number that was infinite. The third was, That the Marriage with Bothuel being condemned to be unlawful, she should consent to be espoused to some Illustrious Person in England, who should be answerable in all conditions, and maintain both Kingdoms in a perpetual friendship, to which Queen Mary shown a singular inclination.  
9 But the Queen of England was wonderfully 
The labyrinths of the hypocrisy of Elizabeth.  amazed at this Sentence and proceed, and although in public she seemed to be much contented at the justification of her Cousin, yet in secret she much raged at it, and encouraged the Accusers to prosecute their complaints in full Parliament, telling them, They were both lazy and impertinent to begin their Suit, and not to accomplish it.  
The Process upon this, was brought again to the Council of England, where the bastard Murray, armed with the outrageous pen of Buchanan, used all his power, even to the affrighting of the Agents of Queen Mary, by the Authority of Elizabeth. But the best sort of people began to murmur, saying, that it was necessary that the Traitors should be taken off, and the innocent Queen reestablished in her Kingdom. On the one side, Elizabeth ceased not to make delays, and on the other, she pretended that she would understand what should be the conditions of her Enlargement, whether it were to appear civil and humane, or whether she would sound the minds of those further, whom she thought did talk with too much liberty, concerning that affair.  
In the mean time, the Spirits which could not clearly enough discover the labyrinths of her dark heart, conceived that Truth had now prevailed to publish the innocence of the Queen of Scotland, that the 
Deceitful hopes.  Storm was grown into a Calm, and that she now began to arrive at her desired haven, she now was looked on by every one with another eye, and the greatest personages in England, did passionately desire an Alliance with her.  
The Earl of Liecester, an intimate favourite of Elizabeth's, observing that his Queen had no intention to be married, and that the Sceptre of England did look upon this Prisoner, did entertain a delicate Ambition, to court her in the way of Marriage, but the Transalpine humour of his most jealous Mistress did so perplex him, that he durst not tell to his own heart, what his own thoughts were. He most passionately desired, that the Queen would make some overture to him of it, to submit all things to her discretion, and to make her understand, that this would be a happy means to take away all doubts, and misapprehensions that should arise from Scotland. But so it was, that he durst not proceed in it, so well he understood the spirit of Elizabeth, who was as apt to receive an evil impression, as she was cruel to revenge it.  
The Duke of Norfolk, who was Precedent at the 
Treason against the Duke of Norfolk, and his ruin.  Trial of Queen Mary, was advanced above all others in Dignity, and remarkable over all the Realm for his great and gallant qualities. The bastard Murray did flatter him with the hope of his Sister's marriage. The Earl of Liecester began to dive into his heart concerning that suit, and gave him some touches of it, whether it were that by that means he would know the pleasure of Elizabeth, or whether he were resolved to destroy the Duke, who only was able to cast a shadow on his light. Throgmorton, who was a friend unto them both, did first carry the message, and acquainted Norfolk, that Leicester had a desire to speak with him on a business of high importance, which was concerning his marriage with the Queen of Scotland, he told him, That he spoke this unto him as of himself, but counselled him as a friend, to refer the further proceed on that marriage to the Earl of Leicester, who, though it was thought did pretend himself to it, yet he desired that his modesty would give way that the Earl might advise him, because there was no great appearance of any thriving in that motion without his direction. He believed this counsel, and as soon as the Earl began to open his mouth concerning it, he did comply unto him with all honour and submission, and did express himself to be indifferent and cold enough concerning that marriage, although, to speak the truth, her Innocence so much persecuted, had kindled already the first fire of love within his heart. Leicester, touched with this courtesy, did increase his flame, and did remonstrate to him, that this Marriage would highly conduce to the benefit of the State, because it would prove a happy means to divert all strange Alliances, which might carry the Queen of Scotland to pursue her pretensions to the Crown of England, and serve absolutely to confirm her in the good opinion of Queen Elizabeth. The Duke, who was endued with a natural freedom of disposition, and knew not how to dissemble, beholding himself at one time betwixt two violent fires of Love and Honour, did entertain the heat, which too soon he did evaporate, and besought the Earl, since he pretended no more to that affair, and that he himself would not proceed in it without his assurance, that he would do him a courtesy worthy of the place which he had near the Queen, for which he never would be ingrateful. This the Earl did promise him, and, if men may judge by appearance, very hearty; which did so blow up the heart of the Lover, that in thinking of it, he did adore his own thoughts. It was indeed a strange temptation, to propose unto himself so accomplished a Beauty, and so eminent a Virtue, on whose train two Kingdoms did attend. The world is not capable to be governed by two Suns, and the heart of man suffers more than mortal Agonies, when it sustains the shock of two violent passions, who unite their forces and designs, to make a war upon him.  
The Duke beholding himself flattered with these 
Great passions of Love and Ambition.  loves, by divers other Agents, did write unto the Queen of Scotland, with magnific compliments, and offers of unparallelled service, with the greater pomp & sweetness to enter into the secrets of her thoughts. The Prisoner, who laboured for nothing more than to break her chains asunder, did desire rather to see the end of that affair, than to understand the beginning of it, but the experience which she had of the dissimulation and jealousies of Elizabeth, did make her to go upon these considerations, as on a fire covered with ashes. Wherefore, without being much moved at it, she made answer, That she must commit the whole Negotiation to the Queen, and trust to none to whom she had not spoken, and openly testified her desires.  
In the mean time, the Earl of Leicester, who had promised to speak unto her, and who only could give a fair colour to the estate of that Marriage, to persuade Elizabeth to incline unto it, did defer to speak unto her from day to day, and being importuned to it, by the violent solicitations of the Duke, he counterfeited himself sick, and continued in a malignant silence.  
He knew very well that to ruin a good business, 
The fury of Elizabeth.  we must make use of an indiscreet tongue, he therefore permitted that some Ladies, who for the most part with curiosity enough do deliver the secrets of lovers, should report the first news of it unto the Queen.  
This was to put her spirit upon the Rack, and to torment her in the most sensible part. She, who was extremely jealous on any motions that were made unto her concerning the Queen of Scotland, and would grow into a fury upon the least discourse that did reflect upon her right unto the Crown, finding herself assaulted at one time by two strong passions, did enter into a rage that cannot be represented. Her spirit, which naturally was form for dissimulation, could not now conceal itself, but she did let fall some words unto the Duke of Norfolk, telling him. That although he slept softly upon a cushion, be should take care it was not taken from him, And immediately upon it, leaving off these riddles, she sharply reproved him for presuming on the marriage with the Queen of Scotland without first acquainting her with it. The Duke made answer, That he never attempted any thing of himself, without attending her pleasure and commandment, and that he gave an express charge to the Earl of Liecester, to acquaint her with it, and to desire her condiscent unto it, but perceiving her Majesty was averse unto it, he would willingly forbear any further suit, having no other aim, but to rule his life and fortunes according unto her intentions. On this promise, she departed from him, and went to look out the Earl of Liecester, who was the Master of the Guard of the Chamber, who understanding that she was advertised that the secret of the marriage was deposed in his breast, he was suddenly possessed with a great fear, which made him look pale and tremble in the presence of the Queen, whom he prevented, and with tears in his eyes besought her to excuse him, that he had not acquainted her with it, because, he said, he waited an opportunity to find her in a good humour, to give the less trouble to her mind, which is found before to be too much disquited. His counterfeit sickness, his pale colour, but above all the inordinate affection which Elizabeth did bear unto him, did at that time save him from the thunder of her Choler: But poor Norfolk did presently behold himself abandoned by his friends, discountenanced by the Queen, followed, spied, persecuted, and at last confined to the Tower of London.  
Not long after, there were scaffolds made in the 
The horrible Catastrophe of the Duke of Norfolk.  great Palace, a Tribunal was planted, and seats were made one both sides of it, for the Commissioners to sit, who were to be his Judges. He was brought to the Bar by two Knights, before whom an Axe was carried, the back whereof was turned towards the accused. The Earl of Talbot, was made Precedent of the Court, and sat on the Judgement seat, and on both sides of him there were ranked a considerable number of Judges and Counselors. After that their Commission was read, the Duke was cited, and accused to have endeavoured to dispossess Queen Elizabeth, and to set the Queen of Scotland on her Throne: To hold great intelligence with the Pope, and foreign Princes, enemies to the Crown of England, and with his possession to have assisted the enemies of the State, with many more particulars. The poor Duke was much amazed to see himself so suddenly invested, with so dangerous an accusation, and charged with so many Articles. He desired that he might be allowed Counsel to draw up his justification, but it was refused, and being demanded to answer readily to the Crimes of which he was accused, he replied very innocently.  
I commend myself to God and to my Peers. The Atrocity of the Crimes do amaze me, but the Royal Clemency of her Majesty, which hath conferred favours on me beyond my hope, doth again encourage me, I beseech you my Lord Precedent, that I may have right done unto me, and that my memory may not be too much oppressed with the variety of confused complaints. I acknowledge myself happy to have you my Peers to be my Judges, and most willingly do commit my life to the integrity of the greatest part of you, assuring you on my innocence, that I will not falter with you, and though I do ingeniously acknowledge, that I have not altogether directed my actions according to an exact rule of Justice, yet so it is, that I have not offended her Majesty.  
At that time there was one Barret, Advocate General to the Queen, a violent man, bold against those who were fearful, and fearful of those who were bold, who to show his abilities, and the zeal which he did bear to the service of his Mistress, did vigorously proceed against the Duke, and did perplex him with multitudes of words: The good Duke, who knew better how to handle his sword than his tongue, and had withal but an uncertain memory, did defend his honour and his life as well as he could, but his party was no way equal, so much Authority, perfidiousness, and malice did pour down upon him, that he was not able to wade through it. At the last, he was commanded to withdraw, that they might advise upon his sentence, and on his return they shown the edge of the Axe towards him, to carry him before hand the sad news of the sentence of his death, which condemned him to be drawn upon a sledge unto the Gibbet, to be there hanged, drawn, and quartered. This sentence did startle him at the horror of it, and produced from him these expressions. Sentence is here pronounced against me as a Traitor, but I do trust in God & the Queen, & I hope, though I am deprived of your company, I shall rejoice in that which is in Heaven, in that assurance I will prepare myself for death. I desire nothing of the Queen but only that she will be favourable to my Children and my servants, and that there may be care taken for the discharge of my debts.  
Some months afterwards the sentence of death being a little moderated, he was brought to the place of execution, where he died like a Divine rather than a Soldier, preaching to the people, and accusing himself, that he treated on the marriage with the Queen of Scotland, without acquainting his own Queen with it. He also accused himself of having seen letters written from the Pope, to which he said, he never condescended, and withal that he had maintained servants affectioned to the Religion of the Church of Rome, in which, if he had offended God, the true Church, and the Protestants, he demanded pardon. A new Dean, A Heretic, who had taken a wild possession of his afflicted Soul, being present at his death (according to the Order he had received) did persuade him to speak any thing in the favour of his own party, after which he prostrated himself on the earth, and having pronounced a prayer or two, he laid his head upon the block, which the Executioner with one blow divided from his body.  
The Earl of Murray, who was the creature of 
God's judgement, on wicked Murray.  Queen Elizabeth for the ruining at once of this Commander's life and his sister's hopes, being returned into Scotland, where after so much perfidiousness, he resolved to triumph in the bloody spoils of his nearest kinswoman, was killed by a Pistol bullet, shot by the hand of one Hamilton, who was one of the chiefest of the Nobility of that Kingdom, and now at last that uncontrolled Ambition, which did blow up so many storms, is extinguished in its own blood, he not witnessing at his death any Act of Christianity. His good sister did much lament his despoiled body, but above all his soul, which being snatched away by sudden death, had not the leisure to repent the actual Crimes of his life, nor the blasphemies of his mouth.  
10. Nevertheless, she found herself fast bound 
The Queen's languishments in prison.  with the chains, which this malicious contriver had linked for her destruction, and under the shadow of this pretended marriage with the Duke of Norfolk, although she deported herself in it with all discretion, yet she was persecuted again, ●o absolutely resolved were mischief and misfortune to pursue her to her grave, and at the same time, when she thought to have seen the beams of her dear liberty, she had double guards set upon her, to afflict her with all the rigour that was possible.  
Of the four and forty years of her life, which God had dispensed to her, she suffered almost the half of them under the cruelty of a tedious imprisonment, where she had a thousand times been overcome with melancholy, were it not for the consolations which she did draw from the fountain of true piety. Pope Pius the fifth, understanding that she was denied the assistance of Priests, did permit her to communicate herself unto him, which oftentimes she did, and oftentimes the consecrated Host was privately sent unto her by those whom he entrusted. Besides this she being a most knowing Princess, who had her education in France from five years of age, and always loved good letters, and understood and spoke six languages, did improve her understanding and her time, by the assiduity of reading, which did much sweeten the afflictions of her captivity.  
During the time of those persecutions, she received the comfort of benediction from divers Popes, who secretly did send some Fathers to her, who being as industrious as courageous did find out a way to see her, and to fortify her in the true Religion, and to discourse with her on heavenly things, which was the sweetest Manna which she tasted in that wilderness. She always protested, in the singular confidence which she had in God, that no violence should separate her from the ancient religion, and that it should be unto her a peculiar gift from heaven, to seal her confession with her blood.  
Henry the third of France, honouring her dignity and alliance, forgot not to send divers Ambassadors to comfort her, although for certain reasons of State he did never act effectually for her deliverance. We have yet living in Paris, a venerable man of four-score years of age, full of Virtue, Honour and Merit, who did visit her in her captivity by the commandment of the said Henry, and who oftentimes hath assured me, that no man could see that excellent Queen without raptures of celestial joy. She loved the French naturally, and was magnificent in her gifts, and finding herself at that time unprovided of those things, which she desired not to enjoy, but only to distribute amongst her friends, she did take a Ring of Diamonds, which was left her, and her own Table-book, which she gave to this good Gentleman, who shown them to me for the rareness of the work. It is true indeed, the book was very rich, being covered with crimson Velvet, and garnished with clapses, and on the corners with plates of Gold, but she did gild it far more with her royal words, telling him, that it was one of the misfortunes of her imprisonment, that she was not able to present a gift unto him, that was worthy of his merit: Howsoever she would tender to him that small gift, which would be the more observable for the profit it should bring him, having written in it some few, but remarkable observations, which should conduce much to his advantage, and, but little to her own.  
In the mean time this great soul passed many years weeping on the banks of this cruel Babylon, where she heard nothing spoken, but what carried the sounds with it of chains and prisons, and the massacres of Catholics. She was perpetually sick in body, and overwhelmed with the bitterness of mind, but amongst all the cares of her cruel and tedious imprisonment, nothing came more near her heart, than the danger of her son, a young Prince in the hands of Heretics, and abandoned to their Doctrine, receiving his first principles from their errors, and exposed as a prey to their conspiracies. This was the occasion that some years before her death, she wrote a long letter to the Queen of England, in which behold some notable expressions.  
MADAM,  
COncerning what is brought to my knowledge, 
A pithy and courageous letter to the Queen of England.  touching the late conspiracies executed in Scotland against my poor Son, finding by my own example, that I have a just occasion to fear the sad consequence, it is most necessary, that before I depart this world, I should employ all the strength and life that is left me, to discharge my heart plainly to you, by my complaints, which are as just as they are lamentable.  
I desire that after my death, this letter may serve you as a perpetual remembrance, which in the deepest characters I would imprint in your conscience, as well for my discharge unto posterity, as to the shame and confusion of all those, who under your Warrant have so unworthily, and so cruelly used me: And because their designs, their practices and proceed (though never so detestable) have always prevailed on your side, against my most just Remonstrances, and all the sincerity of my deportment; and the force which you have in your hands warp and bias the common capacities of men, I will therefore have my recourse to the living God, our only Judge, who under him hath equally and immediately established us, for the Government of his people; I will invoke him in this extremity of my afflictions, to render both to you and myself what is due, either to our Merits or Demerits. Remember, Madam, that he is the only Judge, a Judge whom the painting and policy of this world can no way disguise, although men for a time may obscure the truth, by the subtlety of their inventions.  
In his name, and being, as it were, both of us before him, I must remember you of the secret practices you have used to trouble my Kingdom, to corrupt my Subjects, to forsake their allegiance, and to attempt my person. I shall represent unto you the unjust dismission, which by your Counsel I was overcome to sign, when my enemies held their poniards at my throat, in the prison of Locklevin, you assured me that the Dismission should be of no force, although since, you have made it as effectual and powerful as you could, assisting those by your forces, who were the first Authors of it. You have transmitted my Authority to my Son, when be was but in his Cradle, and was not able to help himself, and since I have by law confirmed the Crown on him, you have entrusted him in the hands of my most capital enemies, who having forced from him the effect, will also take away the title of a King, if God doth not preserve him.  
I will profess unto you, before the most impartial Judge, that beholding myself pursued to death by my Rebels, I sent unto you expressly by a Gentleman the Diamond Ring which I received from you, with an assurance to be protected by your Authority, succoured by your Arms, and received into your Realm with all courtesy. This promise, so often repeated by your mouth; did oblige me to come to throw myself into your Arms, if I could be so happy to approach them. But endeavouring where to find you, behold I was stopped in the way, environed with Guards, detained in strong holds, confined to a lamentable captivity, in which I do at this day die, without numbering a thousand deaths, which already I have suffered.  
After that the Truth hath laid open all the impostures which were contrived against me, that the chiefest of the Nobility of your Kingdom have acknowledged in public, and declared my innocence. After that it hath been made apparent, that what passed betwixt the late Duke of Norfolk and myself, was treated, approved, and signed by those, who held the first place in your Counsels. After so long a time, that I have always submitted to the Orders which were prescribed for my captivity, I do behold myself to be daily persecuted in my own person, and in the persons of my servants, and totally hinders, not only from relieving the pressing necessities of my Son, but from receiving the least knowledge of his condition.  
This is that, MADAM, which makes me once more to beseech you, by the dolorous Passion of our Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ, that I may have permission to departed your Kingdom, to assist my dear Son, and to find some comfort for my poor body, traveled with continual sorrows; and, with all liberty of conscience, to prepare my soul for God, who hourly doth call for it.  
Your Prisons have destroyed my body, there is no more left for my Enemies to satiate their vengeance. My soul is still entire, which you neither can, nor aught to captivate. Allow it some place to breathe more freely after its own safety, which a thousand times I do more desire, than all the greatness in the world. What Honour can you receive to see me stifled in your presence, and to fall at the feet of my Enemies? Do you not consider, that in this extremity, if by your means (although late) I shall be rescued from their hands, that you shall oblige me, and all mine, and especially my Son, whom most of all you may assure your own.  
I must beseech you, that I may understand your intentions concerning this, and that you will not remit me to the discretion of any other, but your own. In the mean time, I shall demand two things; the one, That being ready to departed this world, I may be suffered to have with me some man of honour of the Church, to instruct and perfect me in my Religion, in which I am resolved to live and die. The other, That I may have two maids in my Chamber, to attend me in my sickness, protesting before God, they are most necessary for me, to keep me from the shame of the simple people. Grant me then these Petitions, for the honour of God, and let it appear that my Enemies have not so much credit with you, as to exercise their vengeance and cruelty in a thing of so small a consequence.  
Reassume the marks of your ancient good nature, Oblige your own to yourself. Grant me that contentment before I die, as to see all things remitted betwixt you and myself, to the end that my soul, being enlarged from my body, it be not constrained to lay open her groans before God, for the injuries which you have suffered to be done unto me upon earth; But on the contrary, that departing from this captivity in peace and concord, it may with all content repair to him, whom I most humbly beseech to inspire You, to condescend to my most just Requests.  
Sheffeild: November 28. 1581.  
Your most desolate, most near, and most affectionate Kinswoman, QUEEN MARY.  
11. May we not affirm that these Remonstrances, and that these words were of power to soften the heart of a Tiger, and yet they made no impression on her barbarous soul, who being born by a crime, could not afterwards live but by iniquity.  
Dear Reader, it is true, that we are possessed with 
A parallel on both Queens.  an amazement on the consideration of the particulars of this History; And it may be you have the curiosity to draw open the curtain of the Sanctuary, and enter into the secrets of the Divine Providence, and in the travers of so much shade and darkness, to discover, why two Queens of so different qualities, were so indifferently handled, as it were, by the blind conduct of Chance. How came it about, that nothing but calamity did follow the good Queen, and all good fortune seemed not to be, but only for the bad one? I will parallel the one with the other, and although Queen Elizabeth be dead, out of the communion of the true Church, and in many considerations had extremely undervalved and offended France, yet I will not so rudely speak of her, as she hath been charactered by the eloquent pens of Monsieur, the Cardinal of Peron, and Monsieur du Vair, but content myself to speak of that only, which may be collected from the History written by Cambden, her own Historiographer.  
Queen Mary was high and glorious in her birth, both by the Father and the Mother. Queen Elizabeth did come into the world by a crime and a scandal, who made all Christendom to groan. It is true indeed, she was the daughter of a King, but of a licentious King, and of a wanton mother, whose head the King did cause to be cut off, for her unchastness. The one from five years of age was brought up in France, with so much piety, gravity, and honour, that nothing more could be added or desired. The other had a licentious Education under the bad Example of her licentious parents. The one had an excellent, an active, and a clear spirit, resembling the quality of the Sun. The other was of a crafty, malignant, and a sullen Nature, resembling the condition of a Cornet. The one was experienced in the knowledge of tongues and sciences, as much as was necessary for an honest Lady, who ought not to appear too learned. The other gave herself to such a vanity of study, that oftentimes she committed some extravagances; as when she undertook to translate the five books of the Consolation of Boetius, to comfort herself on the Conversion of Henry the Fourth. The one did speak and write with an extraordinary clearness, and an accurate smoothness. The other in her expressions was harsh, and did much perplex her thoughts, as may appear in a subscription of a Letter, written with her own hand, and directed to Henry the Fourth, after his Conversion. Vostre saeur, since soit a la virille, avec novelle, Je n'ay que fair, Elizabeth R. which is in English, Your Sister, if it be after the old fashion, with the new, I have nothing but to do, Elizabeth R: I leave to the most liberal Interpreter, to divine what she meaneth by it. The one had a generous, free, and a credulous heart. The other was malicious, obstinate, and deceitful. The one loved honour, to which her condition had obliged her. The other had a furious and bloody Ambition, and spared none, to improve the interest of her Greatness. The one retained an admirable constancy in her ancient Religion, by reason whereof, though she was outrageously persecuted, yet she omitted nothing in her devotion. The other did put on Religion as she did her mask, making herself a Heretic amongst Heretics, and a Catholic amongst Catholics, for when in the reign of her sister Mary, she made a high and solemn profession of the Roman Faith, she afterwards counterfeited her belief, and betrayed that character to authorise heresy and rebellion against the Church. The one feared God, and finding herself the Relict of Francis the Second, at seventeen years of age, she had rather stoop to the marriage yoke, to give life unto a King, than to live inordinately, and under the veil of widowhood, to conceal her secret wantonness. The other, who had not so strict a conscience, did find a way to reconcile Ambition and Love, and lived not married, and not a maid, and though I am unwilling to believe, that she lived so salt and melting a life, as some have affirmed, yet I cannot deny but that she had her Favourites and her Minyons, which Cambden her own Historiographer doth not conceal. The one studied for the advancement of Virtue. The other for the advancement only of vain Reputation. The one held forth a generous liberty in all her actions. The other painted her life, and covered her vices, with great pretences, she extremely feared the censure of Posterity, which made her with so much artifice to indeer unto her the ablest men of foreign Countries, and entertained mercenary quills, to increase her glory, thinking by that means to conceal her Defects, and blind the eyes of mankind. Wherefore we ought not to give too much belief to some Historians, though otherwise men of esteem, who deliver many and great praises, having received many and great Presents. Men of that quality are always credulous enough, and are not accustomed to bark at those who do feed them with bread. The one was very religious in her promises, the other was captious and inconstant, and this most visibly she made apparent to the Duke of Alencon, Brother to Henry the Third of France, who was come into England to espouse her and though the Contract of the Marriage was confirmed, both on the one side, and the other, and though the Marriage-Ring was given, yet she broke all, for the Caprichiousness of one night, and to obey the cries of some Maids of Honour, who besought her that she would not marry. The one was full of bounty to her poor Subjects, to whom she could not do all the good she desired, by reason of the Rebellions that were stirred up in her Kingdom. The other was careful enough, not to tax her Subjects with Imposts or with Subsidies, which caused her to be beloved of her people, who in all the virtues of a Prince, do cherish nothing more than a moderation in their Subsidies: The one was endued with an extreme sweetness of disposition, which sometimes did seem to lie too open and defenceless, as when with out seeing justice done, she pardoned great Crimes, which tended to the diminution of her Authority. The other was naturally cruel, a lover of blood, and one who horribly tormented the Catholics, and too easily would bring the Heads of her Great-ones upon the Scaffold, to obtain the honour and title of being just, among popular Spirits. To conclude, one reigned like a Dove, and the other like a Bird of prey. It is a horrible thing to read the History of her Reign, written by her Admirers, where in stead of the Contemplation of Virtues, and of Beauties, you shall observe in every page the Rages of Accusers, bloody Judgements, Proscriptions, Massacres, which I allege not in any disparagement to the Nation, which I love with a true Christian charity, but to the ignominy and the shame of Heresy. It seems to me when I read the Life of Elizabeth, that I enter into the Country of the Anthropophagis, where I behold nothing but men drawn upon Sledges, Hangmen tearing out of bowels, and dividing carcases into quarters, which are still dropping blood, and hanging in the most remarkable places of the City, as the tapestry of the ancient cruelty of the Puritans. I assure myself, that those who are now in authority under so gracious a Prince, do reflect upon it with as much horror as myself, and by their moderation will endeavour to wipe away the stains of so bloody a Time.  
Who is he then that is not amazed to see Virtue so forsaken, and the best Queen in the world to lead so tempestuous a life, persecuted in her estate, in her body, in her honour, in her own person, in the person of her friends, despoiled, outraged, dishonoured, torn by bloody calumines, drawn to unjust Tribunals, locked up in so many prisons, abandoned by those most near unto her, and sacrificed by her kindred, to the vengeance of her enemies, and that in so tragical a manner, and by so barbarous a hand? And how comes it to pass, that the other, being laden with crimes, did mount on the Throne by ways unexpected, and did continue there by uncontrolled power, and reigned, as if she had all good Fortune at her own commandment? Wealth and Honour were always on her side. Delight and Joy seemed only to be ordained for her. Whatsoever she undertook, did thrive, all her thoughts were prosperous, the earth and the sea did obey her, the winds and the tempests did follow her Standards. Some would affirm, that this is no marvel at all, but only the effect of a cunning and politic Council, composed of the sons of darkness, who are more proper to inherit the felicities of this world, than the children of the light; But we must consider, that this is the common condition both of the good and the evil, to find out the cause in which the Understanding of man doth lose itself. David curiously endeavouring to discover the reason, in the beginning did conceive himself to be a Philosopher; but in the end acknowledged, that the consideration thereof did make him to become a Beast. The Astrologers do affirm, that Elizabeth came into the world under the Sign of Virgo, which doth promise Empires and Honours; and that the Queen of Scotland was born under Sagitarius, which doth threaten women with affliction, and a bloody Death. The Machivilians do maintain, that she should accommodate herself to the Religion of her Country, and that in the opposing of that torrent, she ruined her affairs. The Politicians do impute it to the easiness of her gentle Nature. Others do blame the counsel which she entertained, to marry her own Subjects. And some have looked upon her, as Jobs false friends did look on him, and reported him to lie on the dunghill for his zions. But having thoroughly considered on it, I do observe that in these two Queens God would represent the two Cities of Zion and Babylon, the two ways of the just, and the unjust, and the estate of this present world, and of the world to come. He hath given to Elizabeth the bread of dogs, to reserve for Mary the Manna of Angels. In one he hath recompensed some moral virtues with temporal blessings, to make the other to enter into the possession of eternal happiness. Elizabeth did reign, why so did Athalia. Elizabeth did persecute the Prophets, why so did Jezabel. Elizabeth hath obtained Victories, why so did Thomyris the Queen of the Scythians. She hath lived in honour and delight, and so did Semiramis. She died a natural death, being full of years, so died the Herod's and Tiberius', but following the tract that she did walk in; what shall we collect of her end, but as of that which Job speaketh, concerning the Tomb of the wicked? They pass away their life in delights, and descend in a moment unto hell.  
Now God being pleased to raise Marie above all the greatness of this earth, and to renew in her the fruits of his Cross, did permit that in the Age wherein she lived there should be the most outrageous and bloody persecution, that was ever raised against the Church. He was pleased by the secret counsel of his 
The great secret of the Divine Providence.  Providence, that there should be persons of all sorts which should extol the Effects of his Passion. And there being already entered so many Prelates, Doctors, Confessors, Judges, Merchants, Labourers, and Artisans, he would now have Kings and Queens to enter also. Her Husband, Francis the Second, although a most just and innocent Prince, had already took part in this conflict of suffering Souls. His life being shortened (as it is thought) by the fury of the Hugonots, who did not cease to persecute him. It was now requisite that his dear Spouse should undertake the mystery of the Cross also. And as she had a most courageous soul, so God did put her in the front of the most violent persecutions, to suffer the greatest torments and to obtain the richest Crowns.  
The Prophet saith, That man is made as a piece of 
Elizabeth's hatred to the Queen of Scotland.  Embroidery, which doth not manifest itself in the lives of the just: for God doth use them as the Imbroiderer doth his stuffs of Velvet and of Satin, he takes them in pieces to make habilements for the beautifiing of his Temple.  
12. Elizabeth being now transported into Vengeance, and carried away by violent Counsels, is resolved to put Mary to death. It is most certain that she passionately desired the death of this Queen, well understanding, that her life was most apposite to her most delicate interests. She could not be ignorant that Mary Stuart had right to the Crown of England, and that she usurped it; she could not be ignorant, that in a General Assembly of the States of England, she was declared to be a Bastard, as being derived from a marriage made & consummated against all laws, both Divine and humane. She observed that her Throne did not subsit but by the Faction of Heresy, and as her Crown was first established by disorder, so according to her policy it must be cemented by blood. She could not deny, but that the Queen of Scotland had a Title to the Crown, which insensibly might fall on the head of the Prisoner, and then that in a moment she might change the whole face of the State. She observed her to be a Queen of a vast spirit, of an unshaken faith, and of an excellent virtue, who had received the Unction of the Realm of Scotland, and who was Queen Dowager of the Kingdom of France, supported by the Pope, reverenced throughout all Christendom, and regarded by the Catholics as a sacred stock, from which new branches of Religion should spring, which no Axe of persecution could cut down.  
The Heretics in England, who feared her as one that would punish their offences, and destroy their Fortunes, which they had builded on the ruins of Religion, had not a more earnest desire than to see her out of the world. All things conspired to overthrow this poor Princess, and nothing remained but to give a colour to so bold a murder.  
It so fell out, that in the last years of her afflicting imprisonment, a conspiracy was plotted against the Estate, and the life of Elizabeth, as Cambden doth recite it.  
Ballard, an English Priest, who had more zeal to his Religion, than discretion to manage his enterprise, considered with himself how this woman had usurped a Sceptre, which did not appertain unto her. How she had overthrown all the principles of the ancient Religion, How she had kept in prison an innocent Queen, for the space of twenty years, using her with all manner of indignity, how she continually practised new butcheries by the effusion of the blood of the Catholics, he conceived it would be a work of Justice, to procure her death who held our purses in her hand, and our liberty in a chain. But I will not approve of those bloody Counsels, which do provide a Remedy far worse than the disease, and infinitely do trouble the Estate of Christendom.  
Nevertheless, he drew unto him many that were of his opinion, who did offer and devote themselves to give this fatal blow. The chiefest amongst them, was one Babington, who was descended of an Honourable family, of a great spirit, and of a knowledge above his age, and very zealous on the Catholic Religion. His example made many others to embark themselves in that same dangerous design. Some propounded to themselves the hopes of a great reward, others were carried on by glory, and some were transported to it by a hate to evil doers. It is no way to be believed (as I shall make it appear) that the Queen of Scotland, had any hand in the design. For, besides the tenderness of her conscience, she had a wisdom exercised by long experience, which made her easily to apprehend the weakness of that party, who were young men, heady, and inconsiderable, who had not learned to conceal a secret, which is the first knot that confirmeth great affairs. They carried their hearts on their lips, and being not content to make a noise of their design in Taverns, they caused it to be painted in a Table, with devises to it, as the Authors of liberty, and in foolish vanity did show it to one another. Babington could not contain himself from writing to the Queen in prison. And the letter being brought to the hands of her Secretaries, Nau and Curls, they did not communicate it to their Mistress, well knowing, that the witness of her unblemished spirit, would never sympathise with such violent Counsels, But when they perceived that Babington in the said letter had given information of the conference he had with Ballard, and that six Gentlemen were chosen to put the Tragical design in Execution, and that one hundred more were to release the Queen from her imprisonment, they thought they would not neglect the occasion, and therefore they wrote an answer to the letter, making use of the Queen's name, she having no knowledge of it: In this letter they praised Babington for his zeal to the Catholic religion, and to the sacred person of their Lady, who was the supportress of it. They did advertise him to take consideration with him in this enterprise, and to make a strong association amongst them, who were to be the Actors and the Authors, and to attempt nothing before they had assurance of aid from foreign parts, and withal to stir up some new troubles in Ireland, before they gave this blow in England. They advised him to draw unto his party the Earl of Arundel, and his Brothers, and others named in the letter, they did also prescribe a means for the deliverance of the Queen, either by overturning one of her Caroaches at the gate, or by setting on fire some Rooms belonging to her Querries in the Castle, or to take her away, when she took horse to refresh herself, in the conclusion, they did exhort him to promise great rewards to the six Gentlemen, and to all the rest.  
Babington, presuming it was the Queen, who by this letter treated with him, became most vainly glorious, he encouraged his Companions, showing the letter to the most apparent of them, and was inflamed with a desire to execute the design. They were so transported with the vanity of it, that though they did shut their eyes against the danger, yet they did open their mouths to discover the secret, which was communicated to so many of their accomplices, that the multitude of the conspirators did make abortive the conspiracy. They declared it to one Gifford, a pernicious and a luxurious man, who being charged with a Commission to keep safe their letters, did carry them all to Walsingham, the Secretary to the Queen of England, who opened them, and founding the whole progress of their designs, did with much dexterity make them fast again. The last written by Babington, with the answer of the Secretaries, in the name of Queen Mary, was carried to Elizabeth, and to her Counsel who shown an exceeding joy for the discovery. She caused the conspirators to be apprehended, and Babington amongst the foremost, who being demanded the Question, did immediately confess that he had treated with the Queen of Scotland on that subject, in which he spoke truly as he thought, though he did not speak the truth.  
After they were all examined and condemned, they were executed with most cruel punishments, the extremity whereof did strike a horror into those who did condemn them.  
13. It was so decreed, that a passage must be made 
The Process against the Queen of Scotland.  through the entrails of many bodies, to come unto Queen Mary's blood. She that knew of nothing what was done, did continue very quiet in the languishment of her captivity, when behold, she suddenly found herself confined to a close imprisonment, her Guards doubled, her Secretaries apprehended, her papers taken away, and her Coin confiscated, with a labouring expectation she did attend to know the reason of it, when behold a letter from the Queen of England, which imparted that she had given a Commission to her Counsellors of Estate, to hear her in judgement upon Fact, with which she was accused. Having read it, with a Majestic countenance, and a spirit full of the height of understanding, she spoke to those that gave it her.  
I Am much afflicted that my most dear Sister the Queen, hath been so ill informed of me, and that having been so many years most strictly guarded, and withal numbed in my limbs, the many fair conditions which I have offered for my liberty, have been always neglected, and myself abandoned. I have sufficiently advertised her of divers dangers, and yet she never would believe me, but hath always undervalved me, although I am most near unto her in blood. I have too truly foreseen that any accident that did arrive, either within or without this Kingdom, would be interpreted to proceed from me, and that I should be made guilty enough, because I am so miserable. As for his letter, I do look upon it as a strange thing, that any Queen should command me, as her Subject, to appear in judgement. I am of myself an absolute Queen, and will do nothing to the prejudice of Royal Majesty, my courage is not yet abated, nor will I ever stoop unworthily under my calamity.  
Her answer was drawn up in writing, which in these terms she had pronounced, and the same day the Chancellor, and the Treasurer came to her, and declared what power they had given them in their Commission, and desired her gently to hear the Facts with which she was charged, otherwise they both could, and would proceed against her for contempt. To which she made answer, That she was no Subject, and that she had rather die a thousand times, than by such an acknowledgement to bring a prejudice to Royal Majesty. She admonished them, if after having condemned her before hand, they came now unto her to make a semblance of observing some formality in Justice, to consult with their own consciences, and to remember, that the Theatre of the world is of a larger extent than England. The Commissioners did not cease to insist, and represent unto her the Tenor of their Commission, with their own Names. On which she demanded by what Law they would proceed against her, the Canon Law or the civil Law, and because she knew very well that they were no great Lawyers, she conceived it would be requisite that some should be sent for from the Universities in Europe. They replied, That she should be tried by the civil Law of England, in which they were sufficiently experienced. But she, who well observed, that they would entangle her with a new Law on purpose against her, made answer; you are gallant Gentlemen, and can make what Laws you please, but I am not bound to submit unto them since you yourselves in another case refuse to be subjected to the Salic Law of France. Your Law hath no more of Example, than your proceeding hath of Justice.  
On this, Hatton, Vice-Chamberlain to the Queen of England, advanced himself, and said unto her: you are accused for conspiring the ruin of our Mistress, who is an anointed Queen. Your degree is not exempted to answer for such a Crime, neither by the Law of Nations nor of nature. If you are innocent, you are unjust to your Reputation to endeavour to evade the judgement. The Queen will be very glad that you can justify yourself, for she hath assured me, that she never in the world received more discontent, than to find you charged with this accusation. Forbear this vain consideration of Royalty, which at this present serves for nothing. 'Cause the suspicions to cease, and wipe away the stain, which otherwise will cleave for ever to your reputation. She replied, I refuse not to answer before the States of the Realm being lawfully called, because I have been acknowledged to be a presumed Heir of the Kingdom. Then will I speak, not as a subject, but in another nature, without submitting myself to the new Ordinance of your Commission, which is known to be nothing else but a Malicious net, made to inwrap my innocence. The Treasurer on this, did interrupt her, and said: we will then proceed to the contempt, to which she made answer: Examine your own consciences and provide for your Honours, and so God render to you, and your children, as you shall do in the judgement.  
The next morning she called one of the Commissioners, and demanded if her Protestation were committed to writing, And if it were, she would justify herself without any prejudice to the Royal dignity. Whereupon the Commissioners did presently assemble themselves in the Chamber of presence, where they prepared a Scaffold, on the upper end whereof, was the seat Royal under a Cloth of State, to represent the Majesty of Queen Elizabeth, and on the one side of it a Chair of Crimson Velvet prepared for her. The courageous Queen did enter with a modest and an assured countenance amongst the stern Lords, thirsting after her blood, and took her place. Bromley the Chancellor, turning towards her, did speak in these words.  
The most Illustrius Queen of England, being assured, not without an extreme Anguish of spirit that you have conspired the destruction of her, of the Realm of England, and of Religion, to quit herself of her duty, and not to be found wanting to God, herself, and her people, hath without any malice of heart established those Commissioners to hear the things, of which you are accused, how you will resolve them, and show your innocency.  
This Man who had spoken ill enough, had the discretion to speak but little, And immediately as he had given the signal, the perverse Officers, who were more than forty in number, did throw themselves upon her like so many mastiffs on a prey, propounding a thousand captious questions to surprise her, but the generous AMAZA did shake them off with an incredible vivacity. In the end, all things were reduced to the letter of Babington, in which he gave her notice of the conspiracy, and to the answer which she made to it, exhorting him to pursue his design, but most of all to the depositions of her own Secretaries, who gave assurances that she did dictate the said letter, as also other letters to foreign Princes, to invade England with arms. They did press her on these falsities, which seemed to carry some probability with them, but she did answer invincibly to them, as most clearly may appear by those terms, which I have drawn from her several answers, and tied them together to give more light to her Apology, wherein the clearness of her understanding and her judgement is most remarkable.  
IF the Queen, my Sister, hath given you a Commission 
The invincible Apology of the Queen.  to see Justice done, it is reasonable that you should begin it, rather by the easing of my sufferings, than by the oppressing of my innocence. I came into England, to implore succour against the Rebellion of my Subjects. My blood, alliance, Sex, Neighbourhood, and the Title which I bear of a Queen, did promise me all satisfaction, and here I have met with my greatest affliction. This is the twentieth year that I have been detained Prisoner, without cause, without reason, without mercy, and (which is more) without hope. I am no Subject of your Mistresses, but a free and an absolute Queen, and ought not to make answer but to God alone, the Sovereign Judge of my Actions, or bring any prejudice to the Character of Royal Majesty, either in my Son, the King of Scotland, or his Successors, nor other Sovereign Princes of the earth. This is the Protestation which I have made, and which I repeat again in your presence, before I make any answer to the Crimes which are imposed on me.  
The blackest of all the Calumnies, do charge me for having conspired the Death of my most dear Cousin, and after many circumventions, all the proofs are reduced to the Letter of Babington, the Deposition of my Secretaries, and my solicitations made to foreign Princes to invade England with Arms. I will answer effectually to all these Articles, and make the justice of my Cause most clearly appear to those, who shall without passion look upon it. And in the first place, I swear and protest, that I never saw this Babington, who is made the principal in this Charge, I never received any letter from him, neither had he any letter from me. I have always abhorred these violent and black counsels, which tended to the ruin of Queen Elizabeth, and I am ready to produce letters from those, who having had some evil enterprise, have excused themselves, that they have discovered nothing to me, because they were assured, that my spirit was opposite to such Designs. I could not know what Babington or his accomplices have done, being a Prisoner, he might write what he pleased, but I am certain that I never saw nor heard of any letter to me. And if there be found any Answer written by me to those things, which never so much as came into my imagination, it is an abominable forgery. We live not in an Age, nor a Realm, that is to learn the trade to deceive. I am informed that Walsingham, one amongst you, who hath conspired my death, and the death of my Son, doth make use of such artifices, and hath counterfeited a letter from me, in answer to that of babington's, which he intercepted. The other innocently believed it, and took his oath that it came from me, but all this is no more than one simple conjecture. There should be a million of witnesses, more clear than the rays of the Sun, to impeach a Sovereign Queen, who comprehends within her Authority so many millions of lives. And a man unknown, a man half dead, is believed against me, who spoke all that he knew, and that he knew not, to deliver himself from the horrible cruelties of his Examiner's. Let them produce but one letter of my hand, one shadow of the crime, and I will yield myself convinced. I speak it in the sincerity of my heart, and of the tears of my eyes, I would not conquer a Kingdom with the blood of the vilest person, picked out of the scum of the people, much less with the blood of a Queen. I will never make a shipwreck of my soul, in conspiring the ruin of a person, to whom I have vowed so much honour and friendship.  
For my Secretaries, I did always take them for honest men; if they do charge me, and accuse me in their Depositions, to have dictated an Answer to Babington's letter, they have committed two great faults, the first in violating the Oath which they have made to be secret and faithful to their Mistress: the second, in inventing so detestable a Calumny against her, to whom they owe all Reverence and Fidelity. In a manner all the belief that you draw from them, doth amount to more, than that it comes form perfidious men. O good God, In what a desperate condition is the Majesty and the safety of Princes, if they depend upon the writings and the witnesses of their Secretaries, in affairs of so high a consequence. How many are of them, who prostitute themselves to the uncertainty of riches? How many of them for fear only, do comply with the menaces of the great-ones. They are men of Fortune, who follow the ebb and flow of Inconstancy. If those poor men have taken their Oaths, as you say, it was only to deliver themselves from the horror of your torments, and put all upon the crowned head of a Queen, which they thought was inaccessible to your Commissions.  
But what Lawyers are you, to put Babington to death without bringing him before me face to face? To open his mouth by torments to tell a lie, and then to shut it up for ever against the Truth? If my Secretaries are yet alive, let them come into my presence, and I assure myself that they will not persist in that Deposition, which you object against me. Doth it not easily appear, that you proceed here on a bad belief, and that you borrow these poor Formalities, to give some slight tincture to your prejudging?  
I never did dictate any thing to my servants, but what Nature did suggest unto me, for the recovering of my liberty. This is the third Objection of your Process. And I demand of you, if I have not committed a great crime, to desire a benefit which every common voice doth teach us, which the laws do approve, which all men do practise, which Nature prompts the Nightingales, and every little Bird unto, that are imprisoned in their Cages: what can he do less that sees himself in irons, but implore the assistances of his friends, and desire, that some strong hand of mercy might open the prison for him. I confess I have had the desire of liberty, but I deny that I sought the effect thereof by that means which you allege. It is a strange thing that a Prisoner, all whose action are spied into, and every step she treads is counted, should do the affair which great Sovereigns, though of a free and most absolute power, could not remove. So many years are now passed, since I have been, as it were, in the chains of miserable captivity, yet neither the offers which I have made, nor the assurances which I have given, nor the increase of my sickness, nor the declining of my age, could move my Sister to my enlargement. Have I not offered to contract a strict Friendship with her, to cherish her, to respect her above all the Princes in Christendom, to forget all offences, to acknowledge her the true and legitimate Queen of England, submitting all my Rights to the benefit of her peace, neither to pretend to, nor take any part of the Crown during her life, and to remove both the Title and the Arms of the Kingdom of England, which I did attribute to myself by the commandment of Henry the Second, King of France. And yet all these submissions have prevailed nothing for my Deliverance. Am I so much to be blamed, if I have desired foreign Princes, my Friends, and my Allies, to draw me out from the depth of these miseries? And yet I neither have, nor was ever willing to confirm into the hands of the King of Spain, the Right which he pretended to the Crown of England, although he hath been angry with me concerning it, but I have given respect unto my Sister so far, that I have neglected both my life and liberty, to satisfy her interests, and have delighted myself with the prayers of Esther, and not with the sword of Judith. But I now speak and declare, that since England is inequitable and so unkind unto me, that I neither aught, nor will misprise the aid of other Kings.  
I have here sincerely declared my thoughts and my counsels to you on this Accusation, and if Right and Equity must give way to Power, and Force must oppress the Truth amongst men, I do appeal to the living God, who hath an absolute Empire of command over Elizabeth and myself. I swear unto you by God, and protest unto you on my honour, that for this long time, I have had my thoughts on no Kingdom, but only that of Heaven, which I look on as the haven after my long sufferings. I believe I have now satisfied all your Objections; And you know indeed in your own conscience, that nothing doth charge me, but my birth, nor render me guilty but my Religion. But I will not deny, that to which by God's goodness I am born, nor remove the character which I received in the day of my Baptism. I have lived, and I will die a Catholic. It is the crime alone, for which I need no Advocate to defend me, in which I desire all the world to be my witness, and fear not the severest Judges.  
The poor Princess did mingle these words with her tears, foreseeing the persecution of her friends, and considering how barbarously her Royal Dignity was exposed to the Advocates of the Palace, who did all seem to have sworn her death. Howsoever in their consciences they were touched to the quick, because that what she represented, was most true, even by the report of the Heretics themselves, as it appeareth in the Book of Cambden, who hath wrote the Life of 
Cambden pag. 493.  Elizabeth, and who doth not deny, but that Walsingham did open and make up the letters again, which Gifford brought him, counterfeiting in them what he thought good. And he himself confesseth, that it was the judgement of the most rational men, that the Secretaries of the Queen of Scotland, were seduced and corrupted with money. And it is certain, that 
Amanuensium absentium qui pretio corrupti videbantur, testintonio oppressa est.  they demanded a Recompense of Walsingham, who told them, that they ought to content themselves with their lives: And added, that in condemning their Mistress without producing the Witnesses, they had not proceeded according to the Rules of Justice. Observe here the judgement of the Huguenots themselves, her most cruel Enemies: I speak of those who have some sparks of a good conscience, and not of those Incendiaries, who writ Rhapsodies full of ignorance and folly. All this may serve for an invincible proof of her innocence; but her evil Judges, 
The unjust Judgement.  who had sold themselves to iniquity, did not cease to proceed further, even to the Sentence of Condemnation, which they carried to the Queen of England, and was presented to the Parliament for the publication of it.  
Thither Elizabeth did come in person, with a studied Speech, where she gave thanks to God for the Deliverance from this danger, and thanks to her Subjects for the affection to their Queen. Afterwards, coming to the work in hand, she shown herself to be extremely afflicted for the Queen of Scotland, that a Person of her Sex, Estate, and Blood, should be convicted to have conspired against her: Adding, that she was most willing to pardon her, and to abandon her own life, if it would render the affairs of England more flourishing; but in this effect she would neither prejudice herself, nor the good of her Kingdom.  
In this action she came with a heart full of vengeance, however she would put upon it the reputation of Sweetness and of Clemency, imitating the Herod's and Tiberius' Caesar, who never did worse than when they spoke best, and laughed in their hearts, when they distilled the tears of Crocodiles from their eyes. With joined hands she desired that her Parliament would but demand that thing of her, which most willingly she would not grant. Sometimes she would flatter them with the Respects and cordial Affections they did bear her, on purpose to incite them to pursue this business: Sometimes she seemed to be weary of their too much zeal: Sometimes she said, she would preserve herself: And sometimes she said, she would abandon her own preservation to exercise her clemency. Her spirit, which was greatly given to dissimulation, made never more leaps, nor danced more Rounds, than in this business. And to speak the truth, she perplexed herself in her own labyrinth, and endeavouring too much to hid herself, she laid herself more open, saying unto those who demanded the death of the Queen of Scotland:  
I pray and conjure you to content yourself with an Answer without an Answer, I approve your judgement, and comprehend the reasons, but I pray you excuse the careful and the doubtful thought which doth torment me, and take in good part the gracious affection which I bear you; and this Answer, if it be of that worth as you esteem it for an Answer, If I say I will not do what you demand, peradventure I shall say more than I think: If that I will do it, I shall precipitate myself to my ruin, whom you are willing to preserve.  
In the end, the Sentence of Death was confirmed by the Authority of Parliament, and Beal was sent to the Queen of Scotland, to carry her the news of her mournful Condemnation, and to acquaint her, that the Estates demanded the Execution to be dispatched, for Justice, Security, and Necessity.  
Her great heart was no way dejected at this so violent a Rigour, and damnable Injustice▪ but listing up her eyes and her hands to Heaven, she gave thanks to God, demanding immediately a Priest to administer to her the Sacrament, and to dispose her to die. Paulet, 
Execrable indignity.  who had the guard of her, did use her after this most barbarously, commanding the Officers of her house to beat down the cloth of State that was in her chamber, but when he observed that no man would touch it, and that they only answered him by tears and lamentations, which would have softened the heart of any man, he performed the Execution by the Guard, and took from the poor Prisoner all the marks of Royalty, to make her behold her Funeral alive, and to make her heart to bleed with a mortal wound, before the blood were drawn from the veins of her body by the hands of the Hangman. But Elizabeth did yet defer the Execution, whether it were for the fear of sorreign Princes, being not able to see clear enough into their power and protection, or whether it were to gain the imaginary Reputation of Mercy, or whether by degrees she would consume this poor sacrifice by a small fire prolonging the languors of her imprisonment. The other was resolved to write unto her, not in a base and begging stile, to crave her life, but to demand an honest Burial. Behold her letters to that effect.  
MADAM,  
I Give thanks to God with all my heart, who by the Sentence of Death, hath been pleased to put an end to the tedious pilgrimage of my life. I desire not that it may be prolonged, having had too long a time to try the bitterness of it, I only beseech your Majesty, that since I am to expect no favour from some Zealous Ministers of State, who hold the first place in your Counsels, I may receive from You only, and from no other, these following favours.  
In the first place I desire, that since it is not allowed me to hope for a Burial in England, according to the Solemnities of the Roman Church, practised by the ancient Kings, your Ancestors and mine; and that in Scotland they have forced and violated the Ashes of my Grandfathers, that my Body (when my Adversaries shall be satiated with my innocent blood) may be carried by my own servants, into some holy Land; and above all, if it may be, into France, to be there interred, where the Bones of the Queen, my most honoured Mother, are lodged, to the end my poor Body, which knew no rest, whiles joined to my soul, might now find rest, being separated from it.  
Secondly, I beseech Your Majesty (in the apprehension which I have of the tyranny of those, to whose power You abandon me) that I may not suffer in any private place, but in the view of my servants and other people, who may give a testimony of my faith, and of my obedience to the true Church, and defend the remnant of my life, and my last sigh●, against the false Reports which my Adversaries may contrive against me.  
In the third place, I require that my servants, who have attended on me with great fidelity, during so many afflictions, may have free leave to retire where they please, and enjoy those small Legacies, which in my last Will my poverty hath bequeathed to them.  
I conjure You, Madam, by the Blood of Jesus Christ, by the nearness of our consanguinity, by the Memory of Henry the Seventh, our common Father, and by the title of a Queen, which I carry to my Grave, not to deny me these reasonable Demands, but by one word under Your hand, to grant me an assurance of them, and I shall die, as I have lived,  
Your most affectionate Sister and Prisoner, QUEEN MARY.  
It is uncertain whether this Letter came to the hands of Elizabeth, because no Answer can be found unto it, whether it were that those next unto her did conceal it from her, or whether through the hardness of her heart she did dissemble it.  
In the mean time King James employed himself for 
The vain endeavour to delay her death.  the Deliverance of his Mother, the Ambassadors from France, Monsieur de la Mote Aigron, and Monsieur del Aubispene, were commanded thither upon that and other occasions, and Monsieur de Belieurs did there also carry himself with great wisdom, courage and fidelity, as may appear by his grave Remonstrance, which is to be read in the History of France. Howsoever, the Arrest of Death was suspended for there months, until such time that the clamours of the Lutherans and Puritans, did cause the Thunder to fall down upon that hand, which desired nothing more, than to strike home the blow.  
The more advised did remonstrate unto her, That it was without example, to commit a Lady, the Queen of France and Scotland, and the nearest Kinswoman she had in the world, into the hands of a Hangman: A Queen, which was not her prisoner of War, but her Guest, whom she had called and invited into her Kingdom, and sent unto her assurances of her fidelity. That she ought to consider, that what was done, proceeded from her Secretaries, and not from her. And if that after twenty years' imprisonment, she should have consented to be taken from it by force, it did not deserve to be punished with Death. That if she should cause her to die, it would open a wound, from whence there would issue such abundance of blood, that many Ages could not staunch it. That Italy, France and Spain, and all the Christian Kingdoms of the world would be offended at it, and that she should bring upon her Kingdom the Arms of Christendom, who would be glad of that pretence, to invade her Kingdom. That it would be a most remarkable affront to her Son James, and all his Race, who could not but be mindful of it. That it would incense the Spirits of her Kingdom, and render them unreconcilable to her. And in the end, that it was to be feared that Heaven would arm itself against so bloody a Design. That she should use the miserable (and especially a Queen who came into her Country for protection) with more Reverence. That she should hazard much in her death, but could lose nothing by her life, seeing she had so many Guards, Prisons, Bars, and Walls to secure her, if she had an intent to enterprise against the State.  
But the insolent Ministers did incessantly cry out, That she must put an end to her Imprisonment, by putting an end unto her Life. That the Queen ought to remember, that she had usurped her Titles and her Name, and sometimes caused herself to be proclaimed Queen of England, and of Scotland, and that Sovereigns never pardoned those, who did so far entrench upon their Authority. That the life of Elizabeth and Mary were incompatible. That the only means to take away all pretences from the Catholics, was to cut off this Root, which would make all their hopes to perish. That King James was instructed in their Religion, and would rather look after the advancement of his own State, than take vengeance for the Death of his Mother. That foreign Princes were too much perplexed with the difficulties of their own Affairs, and took care, rather to defend their own, than to invade her Kingdom. That her Cousin, the Duke of Guise, was in a bad condition in France, and that Henry the Third would be very careful how he did espouse her quarrels. And if other Princes were so hardy to undertake it, they were to understand, that England had a deep ditch about it. That Queen Elizabeth was mortal, and if she should die, there was not that calamity to be conceived, which both Religion and the State would not suffer under the reign of Marie, in the revenge of her Imprisonment, and other injuries she had received. That she could not but remember, that great personages did write things well done on the sand, but did engrave their Discontents in brass. The Preachers made it to be a work of Religion, with their absurd Allegations out of the Bible, which they did corrupt to their bloody meaning. And the Lawyers, as ignorant as the Ministers, were absurd, did produce some Histories for the punishment of Kings, which were altogether impertinent.  
But there needed not so much labour to persuade a Woman, who had in her so much vanity, as once in her life, to make a Princess head to fly upon a Scaffold, and who did not remember, that in the Reign of Queen Mary, being herself accused of offending the Estate, and expecting her sentence of death, she did so much fear the Axes of the Hangmen in England, that she was resolved to petition to her Sister to send for an Executioner to France, to cut off her head. Now was the Commandment given for her death, and it was signified to the poor Victim, who for a long time, was prepared for this Sacrifice.  
Some passionate writers, do endeavour to divert this Crime from the reputation of Elizabeth, taking their ground on a Letter which she wrote to the Queen of Scotland, in which by a shameful perfidiousness, she doth write, That her spirit was tormented with an incomparable Sorrow, by reason of the lamentable Event, which was arrived against her will, and that she had not a soul so base, as either by terror to fear to do what was just, or by cowardice to deny it, after it was done.  
But who doth not see that this is to mock, and to 
Elizabeth entirely culpable of the death of Queen Mary.  traduce the Story, and the belief of mankind: Davison, her Secretary, who managed this sad affair, as the true instrument of her malice, doth express in his Attestation, reported in the most faithful Memorials of England, by Cambden, that after the departure of the French Ambassador, sent to prevent the Execution, she commanded him to show the Instrument for putting the Queen of Scotland to death, which being done, she most readily signed it with her own hand, and commanded him to see it sealed with the Great Seal; and smiling, she added some few words, that she blamed Paulet and Deurey, who guarded the Prisoner, for not delivering her from that pain.  
It is true, that in the morning she sent one named Killigrew, to Davison, to forbid to put that command in Execution, whether it were that her Remorse of Conscience had put her into some frights, her sleeps being ordinarily disturbed with horrible Dreams, which did represent unto her the images of her Crimes, or whether it were an artifice to procure her the reputation of being merciful, in killing with so much treachery. The Secretary came to her in the field, and declared to her, that the Order for the Queen of Scotland's death, was now finished and sealed, on which she put on the countenance of displeasure, and told him, that by the Counsel of wise men, one might find out other expedients, by which it is believed, that she intended poison. Nevertheless, she now was commanded that the Execution should be delayed, And as Davison presented himself to her three days afterward, demanding of her, if her Majesty had changed her advice, she answered, No, and was angry with Paulet for not enterprising boldly enough the last of the Crimes; And said moreover, That she would find others who would do it for the love they did bear unto her. On which the other did remonstrate, that she must think well of him, for otherwise she would ruin Men of great Merit with their posterity. She still persisted and on the very same day of the Execution, she did chide the Secretary for being so slow in advancing her Commands, who as soon as he had discovered the affair, the evil Counselors did pursue the expedition with incredible heat, for they sent Beal, a Capital Enemy of the Catholics, with letters directed to certain Lords, in which power was given them to proceed unto the Massacre; who immediately repairing to the Castle of Fotheringhey, where the Queen was prisoner, they caused her to rise from her bed, where the Indisposition of her body had laid her, and having read unto her their Commission, they did advertise her, that she must die on the morning following.  
16. She received this without changing of her countenance, and said:  
That she did not think that the Queen, her Sister, 
Her death and miraculous constancy.  would have brought it to that extremity; But since such was her pleasure, death was most agreeable to her, and that a Soul was not worthy of celestial and eternal joys, whose body could not endure the stroke of the Hangman. For the rest, she appealed to Heaven and Earth, who were the witnesses of her Innocence; adding, that the only Consolation which she received in a spectacle so ignominious, was, that she died for the Religion of her Fathers, she beseeched God to increase her constancy to the measure of her afflictions, and to welcome the death she was to suffer, for the expiation of her sins.  
After she spoke these words, she besought the Commissioners to permit her to conser with her Confessor, which by a barbarous cruelty was refused, a cruelty which is not exercised on the worst of all offenders, and in the place, for a Director of her conscience, they gave her for her comforters the Bishop and the Dean of Peterborough, whom with horror she rejected, saying; That God should be her Comforter. The Earl of Kent, who was one of the Commissioners, and most hot in the persecution of her, told her: Your life will he the death, and your death will be the life of our Religion. Declaring in that sufficiently the cause of her death, whereupon she gave thanks to God, that she was judged by her Enemies themselves, to be judged an instrument capable to restore the ancient Religion in England. In this particular she desired, that the Protestants had rather blamed her effects, than her designs.  
After the Lords were retired, she began to provide for her last day, as if she had deliberated on some voyage, and this she did with so much devotion, prudence, and courage, that a Religious man, who hath had all his Meditations on death for thirty years together, could not have performed it with greater Justice; And in the first place, she commanded that supper should be dispatched, to advise of her affairs, and according to her custom, supping very soberly, she entertained herself on a good discourse, with a marvellous tranquillity of mind. And amongst other things, turning herself to Burgon, her Physician, she demanded of him, if he did not observe how great was the power of the Truth, seeing the sentence of her death did import, that she was condemned for having conspired against Elizabeth, and the Earl of Kent did signify, that she died for the apprehension which they had, that she should be the death of the false Religion, which would be rather her glory, than a punishment.  
At the end of supper, she drank to all her Servants with a grave and modest cheerfulness, on which they all kneeled down, and mingled so many tears with their wine, that it was lamentable to behold. As soon as their sobs had given liberty to their words, they asked her pardon for not performing those services which her Majesty did merit, and she (although she was the best Mistress that ever was under heaven) desired all the world to pardon her defects. She comforted them with an invincible courage, and commanded them to wipe away their tears, and to rejoice, because she should now departed from an abyss of misery; and assured them, that she never would forget them, neither before God, nor men.  
After supper, she wrote three letters, one to the King of France, one to the Duke of Guise, and the third, unto her Confessor. Behold, the letter in its own terms which she wrote unto King Henry the Third.  
SIR,  
GOD, as with all humility I am bound to believe, 
A Letter unto Henry the Third.  having permitted, that for the expiation of my sins, I should cast myself into the Arms of this Queen, my Cousin, having endured for above twenty years the afflictions of imprisonment, I am in the end, by her, and her Estates, condemned unto death. I have demanded that they should restore the papers which they have taken from me, the better to perfect my last Will and Testament, and that according to my desire, my body should be transported into your Kingdom, where I have had the Honour to be a Queen, your Sister, and ancient Ally; but as my sufferings are without comfort, so my requests are without answer. This day after dinner they signified unto me the sentence to be executed on the next day about seven of the clock in the morning, as the most guilty offendor in the world. I cannot give you the discourse at large of what is passed, It shall please your Majesty to believe my Physician, and my servants, whom I conceive to be worthy of credence. I am wholly disposed unto death, which in this Innocence I shall receive with as much misprision, as I have attended it with patience. The Right, which my Birth doth give me to the Realm of England, and the Catholic Religion, are the causes of my condemnation, although they disguise them, as much as they are able, by their calumnies. They have taken from me my Almoner, and deprived me of the consolation of the Sacrament, which I intended at my death, pressing me with all violence of importunity, to receive the assistance and the Doctrine of their Ministers, but I will never do any thing that shall be unworthy of my Birth, or my Religion. These, who shall convey unto you the last sighs of my life, shall assure you of my constancy. It remains that I beseech you (since you have always protested to have loved me) to render to me the proofs of your charity, to pray to God for a most Christian Queen, who dieth a Catholic, as she hath lived, and to command, that some reward may be given to my dear Servants, for I depart this world, deprived of all worldly goods. As for my Son, I recommend him to you as far as he shall deserve, for I can not answer for him. I have assumed the boldness to send you two stones, which are very rare for health, which I wish you may find perfect and happy in a long life, you shall receive them from your most affectionate Sister in Law, who dieth in giving you the last testimonies of her heart. I recommend again my desolate Servants to you, and if your Majesty shall bestow on me, wherewith to found a little Covent, and Alms requisite to it for some who shall pray for me, you shall send my Soul unto God, enriched with more merits. This I beseech you for the honour of Jesus Christ, whom near unto my death I pray unto for you in the quality  
SIR,  
Of your most affectionate Sister in Law QUEEN MARY.  
I am of opinion, that the letter, which made its address to the Duke of Guise, was of the same substance. The letter to her Confessor did import the Combats she had suffered for Religion, and the zeal, which did transport her to die in the Catholic faith, and that most cruelly she had been denied to make her last will, or to have her body transported, or to have permission to confess herself. In defect whereof she doth confess her sins in General, as she had intended to rehearse them to him in particular. She desired him to pray and to watch that night in spirit with her, and to send her his absolution, and to prescribe unto her the prayers which he thought most proper for her for that night, and for the morning following, adding, that if she could see him at the hour of her suffering, she would kneel down and take her leave of him, with a desire of his Benediction. This being done, she took a Review of her Testament, and caused the Inventory of her goods to be read, and wrote down the Names of those, to whom she had bestowed her wardrobe; she also distributed money to some with her own hand, afterwards being retired, she spent the rest of the night in watching and prayer. Others affirm, that having said her prayers, she threw herself upon the bed, and slept some hours very quietly, to make herself more strong for the next days conflict. Afterwards awaking, she began to enter into an agony, and her naked knees being humbled on the ground, she did read the Passion, to encourage herself to her last combat, mingling almost already her tears and her blood, with the tears and the blood of her best beloved: she passed many hours in meditations, until she had wearied two of her servants, whom she commanded to take their rest.  
Her last day, which was on the twenty eighth of February, in the year 1587., and on the eighteenth of February according to the English account, the sun beginning to rise, she did put on those habiliments, which she did usually wear on Festival days, and having again assembled her Servants, she caused her Testament to be read unto them, and desired them to take in good part the small Legacies which she had given them, because the condition of her Estate did not permit her to bequeath them greater. She gave them all her last Farewell, exhorting them to the fear and love of their Creator, to the preservation of their Religion, and of concord's amongst themselves, and desired them to pray for the safety of her poor Soul. In the end, she kissed all the women, and permitted the men to kiss her hand. The Hall was filled with cries, and lamentations, and sighs, and sobs, and followed almost with an inundation of tears, which they could not wipe away. But as she had all her thoughts advanced to Heaven, she retired herself again into her Oratory, where she continued a long time, imploring the Grace of God with sighs, and with the groan of a Dove, until that Thomas Andrews Lieutenant of that County, did signify unto her that it was time to come forth.  
She suddenly obeyed him, and came forth in a posture full of Majesty, and with a joyful Countenance. Her habit was most modest, her head was covered with a veil, which hung down beneath her shoulders; She had a Chaplet at her Girdle, and an Ivory Crucifix in her hand. The Commissioners received her in the Gallery, where they did attend her: And Melvin her Steward did present himself before her, and weeping, fell on his knees to understand her last commands.  
Weep not, she said, but rather rejoice, for this day you shall see Mary Stuart delivered from all her sorrows. I conjure you to acquaint my Son, that I have always lived, and do die in the Catholic Religion, and that I do exhort him with all my heart, to preserve the faith of his Ancestors, to love Justice, and to maintain his people in peace, and to enterprise nothing against the Queen of England. I have committed nothing against the Realm of Scotland, and I have always loved the Kingdom of France. God pardon those who do thirst after my blood, as the Hart panteth after the fountain of waters. Thou, O Lord, who art truth itself, and soundest the deepest secrets of my heart, thou dost know how much I have desired peace, and the Union of the two Realms of England and Scotland.  
Her Royal heart growing tender, on her Son, on the consideration of the cruelties, and the persecutions of the Catholic Church, and on the Indignities which most innocently she suffered, her eyes poured down some tears of compassion, which she suddenly wiped away. Then turning to the Lords, she desired that her poor Servants might, after her death, be used with humanity, that they might be suffered to enjoy those poor Legacies which she had given them in her Testament, that they might be suffered to assist her at her death, and afterwards be sent safe into their Countries upon the public faith. The Inhumanity of the Earl of Kent would not permit that her own Servants should assist her, and said, They would but serve to increase Superstition, but she replied; Fear it not, these poor miserable creatures desire nothing more than to give me my last Farewell, and I am confident my Sister Elizabeth would not have refused me so small a courtesy, seeing the Honour of my Sex demandeth that my Servants should be present. I am her near kinswoman, Grandchild to Henry the eight, and Queen Dowager of France, besides I have received the Unction of Queen of Scotland, if you will not grant this courtesy to one of my quality, let me have it at least for the tenderness of the heart of men. On this consideration five or six of her ordinary Servants, were permitted to accompany her to the place of Execution, to which she now was going.  
This Divine Queen, whom France had seen to walk in such state and Triumph at the pomp of her marriage, when she was followed with all the glory of that Kingdom, doth now alas go with this poor train to render her neck unto the Hangman. She came into the Hall hung round about with blacks, and ascended the Scaffold, which was covered with the same livery, to accomplish this last Act of her long Tragedy. What eyes of furies were not struck blind at the aspect of this face, in which, the dying Graces did shoot for the last light of their shining Glories.  
As soon as she was sat in a chair prepared for that purpose, one Beal did read the Command, and the outrageous Sentence of her death, which she heard very peaceably, suppressing all the struggle of Nature, to abandon herself to Grace in the imitation of her Saviour. At last Fletcher, the Dean of Peterborough, one of her evil Counselors did present himself before her, and made a Pedantical Discourse, on the condition of the life passed, the life present, and the life to come, undertaking, according to his power, to pervert her in this her last conflict. This was the most sensible to her of all her afflictions, at the last minute of her life to hear the studied speech of an impertinent and audacious Minister, wherefore she oftentimes interrupted him, and besought him not to importune her, assuring him, that she was confirmed in the saith of the ancient Catholic and Roman Church, and was ready to shed her last blood for it. Nevertheless, this infamous Doctor did not cease to persecute her with his Remonstrances, unto the shades of Death.  
She looked round about the Hall, if she could discover her Confessor, to demand of him the absolution of her sins, but he was so busy that he could not be found. A poor Maid belonging to her, having thrust herself with all her force into the Crowd, as soon as she was got through them, and beheld her Mistress between two Hangmen, did break forth into a loud cry, which troubled those who were about the Queen to assist her. But the Queen, who had a spirit present on all occasions, made a sign unto her with her hand, that she should hold her peace, if she had not a mind to be forced thence. The Lords than made a semblance as if they would pray for her, but she thanked them hearty for their good will, saying, that it would be taken as a crime to communicate in prayers with them. Then turning to the multitude, who were about three hundred persons, she thus expressed herself:  
It is a new spectacle, to behold a Queen brought to die upon a Scaffold. I have not learned to undress, to unveil myself, and to put off the Royal Ornaments in so great a Company, and to have two Hangmen in the place of the Grooms of my Chamber. But we must submit to what Heaven is pleased to have done, and obey the Decrees of the Divine Providence.  
I protest before the face of the living God, that I never attempted against the Life or Estate of my Cousin, neither have I committed any thing worthy of this usage. If it be imputed to my Religion, I esteem myself most happy to shed even the last drop of my life for it. I put all my confidence in him, whom I see represented in this Cross, which I hold in my hand, and I promise and assure myself, that this temporal Death suffered for his Name, shall be a beginning to me of eternal Life, with the Angels and most happy Souls, who shall receive my blood, and represent it before the face of God, in the Remission of all my Offences.  
There was now a flood in every eye, and amongst all her Enemies, there were not above four who were able to contain their tears. The Hangman, clothed in black velvet, fell down on his knees, and did demand her pardon, which she most willingly granted, and not to him only, but to all her persecutors.  
After these words, she kneeled down herself, praying aloud in Latin, and invoked the most holy Mother of God, and the triumphant Company of Saints to assist her. She repeated her most servant prayers for the Church, for her Kingdom, for France, for her Son, for her cruel murderers, for England, for her Judges, and for her Executioner, recommending into the hands of the Saviour of the world, her spirit, purified as well by love, as by affliction. The last words of her Pravers were these, As thy arms, Lord Jesus, were stretched forth on the Cross, so receive me into the stretched forth arms of thy mercy.  
She uncessantly kissed a Crucifix which she had in her hand, whereat, one that stood by, being offended at the honour which she gave unto the Cross, told her. That she should carry it in her heart, to whom she suddenly made answer; Both in my heart, and in my hand. After this she disposed herself to the Block. The Executioner would have taken off her Gown, but she repelled him, and desired, that that office might be performed for her by her own maids, who approached to her, to prepare her for the stroke of Death. And she herself did accommodate them in it, as diligently as she could, and laid open her neck and throat, more white than Alabaster, and too much alas discovered for so lamentable a Subject. This being done, she signed her own Attendants with the sign of the Cross, kissing them, and with a short smile, did bid them farewel, to show, that she died as comfortably as constantly, making no more resistance, than the flower doth against the hand that doth gather it.  
Those poor creatures did weep most bitterly, and with their sighs and sobs could have cleaved the rocks, when the Queen reproved them, saying: Nay, What do you mean? Have I answered for your constancy, and that your grief should not be importunate, and do you suffer yourselves to be thus transported with lamentation, when I am going to exchange a temporal Kingdom, full of misery, for an everlasting Empire, filled with fellcitie?  
It was discovered that she had a Cross about her of great value, which she intended to have bestowed on one of her nearest friends, promising the Executioner to recompense him some other way; but this enemy of the Cross did force it from her, to satisfy his avarice. And as she had her eyes blinded and was applying herself to the Block, she began the Psalm In te, Domine, speravi. In thee, Lord, have I hoped: and amongst those sacred words, In manus tuas, into thy hands, which she again and again, and divers times repeated: the Executioner trembling and indisposed, made one stroke with his Axe, and in stead of her neck, the Axe fell higher, and cutting off some part of her Coyf, it made a grievous wound on the hinder part of her head whereupon readily dispatching two strokes more, the Executioner took up the head from the body, and shown it openly, all pale and bloody, as it was, yet still carrying in her eclipsed eyes the attractives of that brave Soul, which now did cease to animate her body, and with a horrible voice he pronounced, Long live Queen Elizabeth, and so let the Enemies of the Gospel perish, which word the Dean repeated, and the Earl of Kent applauded, when all the world besides them were in tears.  
The blood was collected in silver Basins, and the Corpse was laid forth on the Scaffold. Her poor Maids drew near unto her, desiring that they might be permitted to divest her, and to bury her with their own hands. But the furious Earl did drive them out of the hall, and caused the sacred body to be carried into a Chamber of the Castle, where it was locked up. He also ordered, that the Cloth and boards should be burnt, that were purpled with the blood of this Martyr, as if there were any Element in the world that was able to take away so celestial a tincture. These two Virgins did not cease to follow with their eyes the body of their Mistress, looking upon her as well as they could, through the clefts of the door, as she still lay bloody, and but half covered. They waited there like two magdalen's at the Sepulchre, until such time as she was interred in the Cathedral Church of Peterborough, where all the best sort of men, as long as it was allowed, did repair to let fall their tears, and lay forth their sighs upon her Tomb. The news being brought to London, all the Bells did ring for joy, to convey the tidings of it to cruel Elizabeth, who did conceal herself, rather for shame than grief, although she counterfeited to be extremely touched for the Death of her Kinswoman. And in effects she often felt the Remorse of Conscience, and had horrible Dreams, which did make her to cry out in the night, and to wake her Maids of Honour with her affrights.  
17. As long as Truth, or Virtue, or Men shall continue upon the earth, that wound shall bleed, as long as there shall be Eyes or Tears in this Vale of misery, there shall be tears distilled on these Royal Ashes, and the piety of the living, shall never cease with full hands to strew Lilies and Violets, and Roses on her Tomb. Marie, whom Heaven absolvest, doth now commence an eternal Process against Elizabeth, she shall be brought before as many Tribunals, as there are reasonable Spirits, and shall daily be condemned, without ending of her misery, because she put no end to her injustice.  
It seemeth that God did expressly give her a long life, as to Cain, to Herod, to Tiberius, and other Tyrants, to fill up the measure of her iniquity, to possess a bloody Sceptre amongst Jealousies, Affrights, and Defiances, and to see her hell alive, whom at last, stooping unto the impotency of age, and slighted by her own creatures, she would often complain, that all the world did abandon her, and that she had not one left, in whom she might repose her confidence.  
God hath dried up her root on Earth, and made her die childless: He hath placed on her Throne the blood of Mary, who at this day doth hold the Crown of England and of Scotland.  
Great GOD, if it be permitted to enter into the cloud of thy great Mysteries, and the Secrets which thou hast concealed from our Eyes, Is it not from this blood we shall one day see a flower to arise, the most illustrious of the Posterity, who between his hands shall bring forth the Golden Age, who shall make the Ancient Piety to triumph, and on his Royal shoulders shall carry it even into the Throne of Glory, who shall render divine honours to the ashes of his Mother, and about her Tomb shall make the Cypress trees to grow, that shall advance unto the Stars her honoured Name, which they shall wear engraved on their leaves?  
Elizabeth shall then be but a Spectre of horror, and her pernicious Councillors shall appear round about her, as the pale shades in the centre of Darkness.  
England shall awake from her long Lethargy, and with veneration shall look on her whom she hath dishonoured with so much fury.  
Incomparable Marie, we say no more that Providence hath been a Stepmother, and that she hath used you with too much rigour and violence. She hath caused you to enter in a garden, covered with palms and laurels, which you have bedewed with your tears, manured with your afflictions, ennobled with your combats, and honoured with your blood. She hath mounted you on a Scaffold, where you have acted the last and most glorious Tragedy, that was ever represented in the world by your Sex, or in your condition. The Angels (O Divine Princess) from the portals of Heaven did with admiration contemplate your Combat, they encouraged your Constancy, they sang your Praises, and with emulation they prepared for you your everlasting Crowns.  
The heart of a woman against a hundred leopards: The heart of a Diamond against a thousand hammers, which never turned for all their violence, which never could be tempted with the glitterings of honour, which always did temper with gall the most delicious contentments of this life, to follow he JESUS, her wounded JESUS, her JESUS crucified for her.  
The most Catholic Queen in the world, who honoured nothing more than Churches, and Priests, and Altars, to live twenty years, as it were, without a Church, without a Priest, and without an Altar; to make in herself a Temple of her body, an Altar of her heart, and a Sacrifice of her blood; nay, what shall I say in a Death so abandoned, to be herself the Altar, to be herself the Priest, and herself the Sacrifice? What Virgin hath seen the twentieth year of her captivity? What Martyr hath sanctified so many prisons? Who hath ever made experience of so many Deaths in one? Who hath ever seen Death to come with a more willing foot? And who hath endeared it with a greater joy? who hath managed it with wisdom? and who hath accomplished it with greater glory? Your fair Name, O Marry, borne on the Wings of Triumph and Renown, doth pass through Sea and Land, is an object of Veneration to the people, and of Ornament unto Heaven, where your Soul with advantage doth rejoice in the pleasures of eternal happiness.  
Look down, fair Soul, and behold your Islands and your Realms, with those eyes enlightened with the Beams of the face of God. Consider the waves of the Ocean, which cease not to carry the Memory of your Deeds unto the ends of the earth, pardon your Subjects, and wash away the stain, which the effusion of that generous blood hath made, since you had rather be a Messenger of Reconciliation, than to be the Bearer of Vengeance.  
O great and illustrious Brittany, Is it possible that this blood hath yet wrought nothing on the hardness of thy heart, and that thou dost still delight, by force of Arms, to fight against Heaven, to oppose thy own safety, and to shut the gate against thy own happiness? Where is that glory of thy Christianism, which heretofore did make thee to be looked upon, as on a land of Benediction, which opened her liberal breasts, to give so many Doctors to Europe, so many Lights of learning to the Church, so many Examples of piety to all Christendom, and so many Confessors unto Paradise? Thy Kings, by a pious violence, have forced their way to Heaven, and their people have followed their footsteps. There was nothing spoken of thee, but obedience to the Church of Rome, of Saints, of Relics, of Piety, of Combats, of Virtue, and of Crowns. And since the devil of lust and rebellion, raised from the most black Abyss, hath seized on the soul of a miserable King, thou hast sullied thy perfection, thou hast destroyed thy Sanctuary, the lamentable Relics whereof, are now spread over all the world, and the sacred stones of thy Temples, groaning amongst the Nations, do attend the day of the Justice of God, and the Reunion of the hearts of thy people, in the performance of his service. What hast thou done with the cradle of Constantine, and of S. Helena, who were born with thee, to give Laws unto all Christendom? What hast thou done with those precious stones which composed that Diadem, the beams whereof did sparkle with admiration in the eyes of all the people in the world? Return, O Sbunamite, return: Return, fair Island, to thy first beginning, the hand of God is not shortened, his arms all day are stretched forth to receive thee. If the insolent hands of Heresy have made them bars, which have been planted for so many years, do not think but the hands of true piety will tear away the disorders, which protect themselves in the night of so corrupted an Age. Feign not to thyself imaginary horrors, and overthrowing of Estates by the Inquisitions and Thunders of Rome. The beams of the Sun will make the Manna to melt, which no Power can destroy. The blood of this immortal Queen, shall break the Diamond in pieces, and one day work those great effects, which we ourselves cannot believe, nor our Posterity sufficiently admire.  
It is in your veins, most mighty Monarch of Great Britain, where still her blood doth run. That cruel Axe which made three Crowns to fall with one head, hath not yet poured it all out, it doth preserve itself in your body, and in the body of your Posterity, animated with the Spirit of Marie, and imprinted with the image of her goodness. It is she who hath given you so temperate a spirit, such attractive inclinations, such royal Virtues, and so triumphant a Majesty. It is she who uniteth you with the Queen, your dear Spouse, with a will so cordial, and with a love so perfect, and makes your marriage as a continual Sacrifice of the Ancients, whose offerings that were presented, had no gall at all in them. The Queen of Scotland, your Grandmother, was given unto France, and France hath rendered you a Princess according to the heart of God, and according to your own-heart, a Blossom of our Lilies, the Daughter of a King, the Sister of a King, the Wife of a King, Royal in her blood, Royal in her Religion, Royal in her Piety, in her Prudence, and Royal in her Courage. She enters into your cares she partakes of your troubles. She conspires with your Designs, her spirit turneth unto yours, and yours continually is ready to meet with hers. They are two clocks excellently ordered, which at every hour of the Day do answer one another.  
Great Majesties of Brittany, carry the same yoke in the service of God, and the piety of your Ancestors, and as you have but one heart, maintain also but one Religion. Establish that which your Grandmother of everlasting memory, hath practised by her Virtues, demonstrated by her Examples, honoured by her Constancy, and sealed with her Blood.   

CARDINAL POOL.   portrait of Cardinal Pool 
LE CARDINAL POLUS  
NExt unto Boëtius, I will insert Cardinal Pool, one of the most excellent Men of the Age before us, who being chief of the Council in the Realm of England, under Queen Marie, did know so well to marry the Interests of the State, to the Interests of God, that rendering himself the Restorer of Religion, he repaired the Ruins of the Kingdom, which were fallen into a horrible desolation.  
His Birth most high and illustrious, made him a 
His birth and Education.  near Kinsman to the King of Great Britain, as well by the Father's side, as by the Mothers. His spirit did equal his Nobility, but his Virtue did exceed them both, and proved him to be the wisest and the most moderate person in all the Clergy. The care of his good Mother, did with great advantage improve his more innocent and tender years, and omitted nothing that might either enlighten his understanding in the knowledge of learning or inflame his heart with a generous hea● after gallant actions.  
In his most tender age, he testified a Divine Attraction, 
His love of solitude.  which made him to eschewall commerce of company, and secretly did inspire him with the love of Solitude. He did delight in the Country life, where the pureness of the Air, the aspect of the Stars, the ennammel of the Meadows, the covert of the Woods, the veins of the Waters, and other objects, did prepare him as many Degrees to mount up to God, as he did there behold Beauties in the discovered breasts of Nature.  
It was for this, that he made his first studies near unto the House of the reverend Fathers of the Charters, whose conversation he loved more than all the pleasures in the world, which occasioned a certain tincture of Devotion, and of probity to pass into his manners, which continued with him all his life. From thence he removed to the Universities in England, where he gave most admirable proofs of his Capacity.  
On the approach of the twentieth year of his age, 
His Travels.  he traveled into Italy, where he beheld the wonders of Rome, and had a taste of the rarest spirits in that Age, some whereof did afterwards live with him, and did much conduce to fill his spirit with the height of learning, which made him to be admired by all, and the rather, because it no way diminished the holy heats of his Devotion.  
Having traveled into foreign Countries, for the space of five years, he returned into England, where he was looked upon as a man sl●d down from Heaven, whose excellent Qualities did promise him the fullness of glory.  
But he suddenly observed the Affairs of the Kingdom 
His return to England.  to be greatly perplexed, by reason of the horrible divorce, which Henry the Eight resolved on, who endeavoured at once to separate himself from his wife, and from the Church of God. He much desired that Pool, who was Famous for knowledge and integrity, should approve his intention, to the end that finding no assistance from Truth, he might beg some appearance from the opinions of men.  
This was no small temptation to this young Prelate, 
The Combat in his spirit.  who was not altogether so austere as to distaste all honour of preferment, nor so little versed in Court, as not to look on the King, as the Original from whence it flowed. He a long time consulted with himself to find a mean, which might make his conscience to accord with the will of the King. His integrity which was to him as another Birth, did dispute in his heart with the Interest of his Fortune, and he sought after the means to temper them into one. One day he thought he had found it, and addressed himself to the Court, to expose his advice unto the King, which was an advice more pleasing than just, and he had then a care that the liberty of his words, should not hinder the pretences to his dignity.  
O who is he that is able to Counsel a King in his passion: If you allege unto him too much of Justice, you hazard your Fortune. If you comply unto him with too much Gentleness, you do betray your heart. The words of a Prince are the surnace which doth prove you, where you may behold some to burn and consume away like straw, and others to come forth purified like Gold.  
The spirit of God did seize on the heart and the tongue of this wise Counsellor, he forgot all the worldly and flattering reasons he had prepared, to open only his eyes unto the Truth.  
How Sir, (said be unto the ●●ng) to labour a divorce 
He took part with God.  from Queen Katherine, after so many years of your marriage, who hath brought you issue to succeed you in the Crown. It is true, that she was given a spouse to your elder Brother, but he died in his youth before his marriage was consummated. And you have espoused the Queen in the face of the Church, with a dispensation as authentical as the Pope could give, and which he granted, with your consent, at the request of the King your Father of glorious memory; And since your Majesty hath had a secret Repugnance, caused by a respect to him, to whom you owe your Birth, that can bring no prejudice to the public Faith, nor to the consummation of a marriage followed by such fruits and Benedictions, as ordinarily do attend that mutual commerce.  
Alas Sir, your Majesty hath consecrated its Reign by so many Royal virtues, and excellent Examples, which have acquired you the love and admiration of Christendom, will it now eclipse so pure a life, and so Triumphant a reputation, by a stain which cannot be washed away, but by the effusion of the blood of all your Realm. Your Majesty hath sacrificed both its Sceptre, and its pen, by the obedience which it hath rendered to the holy Sea, and by the book which it hath made in the defence of the Church. Cannot it honestly cast off those Laws, which it hath authorized by a public Testimony? What will your people say, who have so just an apprehension of Religion? What will foreign Princes say, who have conceived so high an opinion of your Merit? Those who do Counsel you to that divorce, are the most capital Enemies of your glory, who do draw upon you the indignation of God, the censure of the Sovereign Priest, the arms of a great estate, who being offended at this affront, will conjure your ruin.  
That which hath droven you to it, is only a passion of youth, which ought to be moderated, it is had Counsel, from which you should retire yourself, it is a mischief, which you should labour to avoid. In this case, the advice which doth least please you, will be the best. The precipitation of so hazardous an Act, can bring nothing but repentance. This I speak unto your Majesty, being driven to it by the fervent zeal which I have unto the safety of its Soul, and by the tender respect which I have always born to your Royal Person. I must beseech it, that I may not be surprised in so important an affair, as this marriage is, which had his Ordinance in heaven, and its happiness on earth.  
This was boldly spoken by a Man, who saw that in accommodating his humour to the King, he incontinently entered into the possession of the richest benefits of the Kingdom, and that crossing his design, he exposed his liberty, his Estate, his life to most apparent danger. Nevertheless, he had the constancy to make him this grave Remonstrance, without following the Example of those, which flatter all evil actions, and make Divinity to speak that, which the interest of their Fortunes doth suggest unto them. 
Henry the Eighth grown more hardened.   
Henry the Eighth was no way softened at this so grave an Oration; but on the contrary, he had a most earnest desire to arrest his Cousin Pool, and to put him to death, which had been put in Execution, if the hand of God had not withheld the blow.  
He very well observed, that the heart of the King was empoisoned with lust and choler, even to the despair of all remedy. Wherefore not long after, finding his opportunity, he asked leave of the King under some pretence to go out of the Kingdom, and did abandon himself to a willing banishment, because he would not offend his conscience. He came 
Pool banished himself.  into France, and stayed sometime in Avignon, from thence he travelled to Milan; and from Milan to Venice; where he was acknowledged and esteemed for one of the chiefest men of Christendom, and renowned 
Pool made Cardinal.  for excellent qualities.  
In the end, God being pleased to demonstrate that there is nothing lost in serving him, and that honours are not only for them who by a politic suppleness do accommodate themselves unto the Times, and the lusts of great men, he stirred up the spirit of Paul the third a great lover of learned men, who made him Cardinal, with approbation of all the world. So that forsaking a Bishopric in England, for the satisfying of his conscience, and the defence of the truth, he obtained by his merit so high a place of Eminence in the Church, which all the Crimes of a conscience prostituted to evil, could never procure unto them.  
Henry, who had already declared war against God and all his Saints by his divorce, was inflamed with choler by reason of the retreat, and the promotion of this holy man, causing him to be proscribed over all England, and promising fifty thousand Crowns to him who should bring him to him, and having understood that the Pope had made him his delegate into France and Flanders, he did importune the French King, by all manner of Solicitation to deliver him into his hands. But the brave Prince, although it was directly against his Interest, would do nothing that was against his generous mind, and received the Cardinal with all courtesy and fidelity, because he would not offend the Pope, howsoever he would not suffer him to continue long in France, because he would not exasperate the King of England, for he had great use of his assistance in the war which he made against the Emperor.  
Pool was then constrained to repair to Flanders, where he was charitably received by Cardinal Everard, Bishop of Cambray, and he continued there sometimes, attending the disposition of the Pope. But Henry understanding that he was retired into that Province, did again kndle his choler, and that in so violent a heat, that he promised the Flemings to entertain four thousand men in pay for ten Months in favour of the Emperor against the French, if they would abandon the Cardinal to his discretion. Howsoever, he found none that would favour his violence, which did so incense him, that he caused the Countess of Salisbury to be arrested. She was mother to the Cardinal, and daughter to the Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward the fourth. She was accused for having received a letter from her Son, and for having worn about her neck the figure of the five wounds of our Saviour, on which he commanded that a Process should proceed against her, which was performed accordingly, and the perverse and abominable Judges, who made all their proceed to comply with the merciless fury of their Prince, did condemn her to death, and caused her head to be cut off upon a Scaffold, where she gave incomparable demonstrations of her piety and constancy. Her dear Son, who did love and respect her with all the tenderness of affection, was extremely afflicted at it, and could find no comfort but in the order of God's providence, and in the glory of her death, which was precious before God.  
After this the Legate was called back to Rome, and after he had informed Paul the third of the misery of the people of Christendom, who incessantly groaned under the calamity of war, kindled betwixt the two principal Crowns, he did contribute the uttermost of his endeavour to provide a remedy for it.  
This good Pope was courteous, liberal, magnificent, well versed in letters, and above all, a great lover of Astrology. It seemeth that the Harmony of celestial bodies, with which his spirit was so delicately transported, did touch his Soul with a desire to make a like harmony on earth. He was passionate for the Peace of Christian Princes, and as he well understood the great capacity of Cardinal Pool joined with the Royal blood, which gave him a more full Authority, he did not delay to send him with a most Authentical Commission to mediate an accord betwixt the two Kings.  
The holy Prelate undertook this business with great courage, being carried to it as well by his own inclination, as by election. He failed not to represent unto their puissances all reasons both Divine and humane, which might move them to an accord for the glory of God, for the glory of their own Monarchies, and for the safety of their people. But as he found in the ear of Henry the Eighth a Devil of lust, which obstructed all the force of reason which was presented to him to divert his passion, so he found in the spirit of these two Monarches a horrible jealousy of Estate, which stopped all entrance to his saving Counsels. The time was not yet come, and it was to row against the wind and tide, to press that business any further. He was constrained to return to Rome, where the Pope gave him Commission to go to Wittimbergh, where he continued certain years, delighting in the fruits of a sweet tranquillity.  
In the end, the Council of Trent being already assembled to extirpate Heresies, and remedy the disorders, with which its venomous Contagion had infected the breast of Christendom, he was chosen to be precedent thereof, which place for some time he executed, to the admiration of his knowledge, and the universal approbation of his zeal.  
But when Paul the third, having exceeded the age 
He is considered on to be Pope.  of four-score years, did pay the Tribute common to the condition of the living, he was obliged to return to Rome, where all the world did cast their eyes on him to make him the head of the Church. All things seemed to conspire to his Election his age, his blood, his virtue, his knowledge, his great experience in affairs, the general affection of all, which did pass almost to veneration. It was only himself that resisted his own Fortune, because he would not assist himself, and permitted nothing of a submiss softness, to overact his generosity, neither in that nature would he be a suppliant, although it were for the chiefest Mitre in the world. The Nephews of Paul the third, who as yet possessed the most high Authority of affairs, considering the faithfulness of the great services which he had rendered their uncle, did persuade him with importunity to this chief Bishopric of the world. And as the Conclave was assembled, and the Decision of the great business did approach unto maturity, they came at night into his Chamber to speak with him concerning his promotion, and to offer themselves to his service to prefer unto him that Sovereign dignity: But he shown so little complacence to their discourse, that in stead of making endearments and submissions, of which they who pretend to honour, are always excessively prodigal, he made answer to them. That God was the God of light, and that the affair which they came about, ought not to be treated on in darkness.  
That one word did rebate the edge of their spirits, and on the morning following, the good Fortune, which for two months together did look directly on Cardinal Pool, did slack its foot at the dismission of the Nephew Cardinals, and Julius the Third was chosen Pope, a person of much renown, and a great Lawyer.  
Pool his Competitor, well understanding that it was 
He retireth again into solitude.  not expedient to reside under the eyes of a Potentate, to whom the power over Christendom was secretly preferred, retired to Mentz into a monastery of Saint Benet's, where he enjoyed the delights of rest, to which his inclinations carried him, exercising his devotion to the height, and recreating himself with good letters, which he always loved.  
But God, who by his means was pleased to bring about the greatest revolution of Estate, as Europe ever saw, did cause occasions to arise to draw him from that solitude to return again to his great employments.  
It is necessary in this place, to make mention of the condition of the affairs in England, to behold virtue in the day of its own brightness, & to consider how Providence, guarding her dear Pool, as the apple of her eye, did reserve him for a time, which made him the true Peacemaker of that nation.  
For this effect it came to pass, that Henry the Eighth 
The Estate of England.  having reigned eighteen years in schism, leading a life profuse in luxury, ravenous in avarice, impious in Sacrilege, cruel in massacres, covered over with ordures, blood, and Infamy, did fall sick of a languishing disease, which gave him the leisure to have some thoughts on the other world.  
It is true, that the affrighting images of his Crimes, 
The death of Henry the Eighth.  and the shades of the dead, which seemed to besiege his bed, and perpetually to trouble his repose, did bring many pangs and remorses to him. Insomuch, that having called some Bishops to his assistance, he testified a desire to reconcile himself unto the Church, and sought after the means thereof. But they, who before were terrified with the fury of his actions, which were more than barbarous, fearing that he spoke not that, but only to sound them, and that he would not seal to their Counsels, which they should suggest unto him, peradventure with the effusion of their blood, did gently advise him, without showing him the endeavours, and the effects of true repentance, and without declaring to him the satisfactions which he ought to God, and to his Neighbours for the enormities of so many Crimes. He was content to erect the Church of the Cardeleirs, and commanded that Mass should there be publicly celebrated, which was performed to the great joy of the Catholics, which yet remained in that horrible Havoc. To this Church he annexed an Hospital and some other appurtenances, and left for all a thousand Crowns of yearly Revenue.  
As he perceived that his life began to abandon him, he demanded the Communion, which he received, making a show as if he would rise himself, but the Bishop told him that his weakness did excuse him from that Ceremony, he made answer, That if he should prostrate himself on the Earth, to receive so Divine a Majesty, he should not humble himself according to his duty. He by his Will ordained that his Son Edward, who was born of Jane Seimer, should succeed him, and in the case of death, that Marie, the Daughter of Queen Katherine, should be the inheritress of the Crown, and if that she should fail, that his Daughter Elizabeth (although a Bastard) should fill her place, and possess the Kingdom. On the approaches of death he called for wine, and those who were next unto his bed, did conceive that he oftentimes did repeat the word Monks, and that he said, as in despair, I have lost all.  
This is that which most truly can be affirmed of him, for it is a very bad sign to behold a man to die in the honour of his Royal dignity, and by a peaceable death, who had torn in pieces JESUS CHRIST, who had divided the Church into schisms, who of the six Queens that he espoused, had killed four of them, who had massacred two Cardinals, three Archbishops, eighteen Bishops, twelve great Earls, Priests, and Religious Men without number, and of his people without end; who had rob all the Churches of his Kingdom, destroyed the Divine worship, oppressed a million of innocents', and in one word, who had assassinated mercy itself.  
Howsoever he wanted not flatterers, who presumed to say and write, that his wisdom had given a good order to his affairs, and that he happily departed this world, not considering what S. dustine doth affirm, That all the penitencies of those who have lived in great disorders, and who only do convert themselves at the end of their life, being pressed to it by the extremity of their disease, aught to be extremely suspected, because they do not forsake their sins, but their sins do forsake them.  
It was observed indeed, that at his death this King did testify a repentance of his savage and inordinate life, but we cannot observe the great and exemplary satisfactions which were due to the expiation of so many abominable sins. King Antiochus made submissions of another nature, and ordered notable restitutions, to recompense the damages which he had caused to the people of the Jews, nevertheless he was rejected of God, by reason of his bloody life, and the Gates of the Temple of mercy were shut against him for all eternity. The foundation of a small Hospital which Henry caused at his death, was not sufficient to recompense the injuries, of so many Churches which he had pillaged, nor of so much goods of his Subjects as he had forced from them, seeing we know by the words of the wise man. That to make a benefit 
Eccles. 34.  of the substance of the poor, is to sacrifice a Son before the eyes of his Father.  
He had by his Testament ordained many tutors to 
The Reign of Edward. His Uncle Seimer spoileth all.  his Son, who were able to have made as many Tyrants, but Seimer, Uncle by the mother's side to the deceased King, gaining the favour of the principal of the Lords of the realm, whom he had corrupted with money and great presents, did cause himself to be proclaimed Protector and Regent. He took a great possession on little Edward, the Son of Henry, heir to the Crown, whom he brought up in schism and Heresy, against the intentions of his Father. This furious man immediately began his Regency with so much insolence, that he almost made the reign of Henry the Eight to be forgotten, he fomented the poison, which he had conceived under him, he did use the Catholics most unworthily, and did cut off the head of his own Brother, by a jealousy of women. But as he had made himself insupportable, so it came to pass, that the affairs of war, which he had enterprised against the French, did fall out unfortunately for him. Dudley, one of the chiefest of the Lords, drawing a party to him, did accuse him of Treason, and caused his head to be cut off on the same Scaffold, where before he had taken off the head of his own Brother. This death was followed with great fears, and horrible commotions for the Regency, which presently after was extinguished by the death of the young King Edward.  
This poor Prince was rather plucked with pincers 
The Qualities and death of King Edward.  from his mother's womb, than born, and he could not come into the world without giving death to her, who conceived him. He was said to have none of the comeliest bodies; He spoke seven languages at fifteen years of age, and in his discourse did testify a rare knowledge of all those sciences, which were most worthy of a King. It seemeth that death did advance itself to ravish his spirit from his body, which did awake too early, and was too forward for his age, for he died in his sixteen year, having not had the time throughly to understand himself, and to see by what course he should sway his Sceptre or his life.  
Cardan, who was employed no less than one hundred hours to make his Horoscope, did easily observe in the stars, the incommodities of his body, and disasters of his person; but he could no way attain to the period of his life, which is of the secrets reserved in the knowledge and in the method of God.  
All England was extremely corrupted in her faith under the Regency of this Seimer, and the Ladies of the Court were enveloped in the errors of the time. He found none but the Lady Marie, daughter to Henry the Eight, and Katherine, which continued in the Religion of their Grandfather's and though she was tempted and solicited on all sides, yet she would not suffer herself to be surprised with a new Faith, but with a vigorous force, did roar against all the torrents of Opinions, and the overflowing disorders which reigned in that age.  
It was for this, that God did cause her to mount on the Throne of his own Tower, and gave her the grace to be both the restorer of Religion, and the State, by the assistance of this Cardinal.  
As soon as Edward was dead, not without suspicion 
Marry the lawful heir is troubled, and Jane is chosen Queen by Faction.  of poison, Dudley, Duke of Northumherland, who was then most mighty in power, and had newly married his Son to the Lady Jane, issued from the blood Royal, conceived himself strong enough to begin the Regency of England, the better afterwards to usurp the Crown. He caused his Daughter-in-Law to be proclaimed Queen of England, and seized on the Tower of London, and gave order for the apprehending of Queen Mary. But the generous Princess, being advertised of the attempt, did take horse in the time of night, and secured herself in a place of strength, and conjured all her good Servants to assemble themselves, to defend her person and her right.  
It is to be admired, that persevering in the true Religion, contrary to that of the great ones of the Kingdom, at the same time when she conceived herself abandonned, and her cause most deplorable, that she should behold the principal of the Nobility, and Gentry, and Commonalty; to fall down before her, and to offer her their obedience and their Arms, to take the possession of the Crown.  
She marched immediately to London, in the middle of her Army apparelled in a Gown of Velvet of a violet colour, and mounted on a white horse. She entered into the City with great applauses of her Subjects, and surprised the Duke, and caused him to deliver his Daughter in Law into her hands.  
It was a spectacle worthy observation, to consider the Inconstancy of these worldly affairs, and to look on that person, who but yesterday promised to himself to force the whole Kingdom under the power of his Laws, to tremble now at the fear of death pronounced by his Judges, who condemned him to be drawn upon a Hurdle, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. The Queen sent him Catholic Divines to convert him, to whom he gave ear, and abjuring Heresy, he embraced the Catholic Religion, which was the occasion, that the Queen did moderate the Sentence of the Execution, and was contented, that his head only should be cut off with his sons, who was the husband of Jane. This miserable Lady from a high Tower, where she was prisoner, beheld the body of her dear husband without a head, at the sight whereof, she fell down into a swoon, and being a little recovered, she melted into tears, and did fetch from her heart so many, and so deep sighs, that they seemed to be able, not only to mollify the hearts of men, but to cleave the Rocks asunder.  
There was a long Deliberation concerning her 
The Execution of the Lady Jane.  Fact, because the Queen had an inclination to pardon her, observing her to be both young, fair, knowing, and of a delicate temper, and one who had not offended, but by the violent suggestions of her Father-in-law, and of her Husband, who had put the Crown upon her head. But the Judges did remonstrate, that it was of a most dangerous consequence, to suffer that person to continue alive, who had carried the Title of a Sovereign, and that one day it might give a new fire to the erterprises of the Remainder of her Faction. On these Considerations the Sentence of Death was pronounced, which she received with a Constancy admirable in her Sex and age. A Doctor was sent unto her, to reduce her to the Catholic Religion, which at the first she refused, alleging. That she had too little time to think on an Affair of that importance. Which being reported to the Queen, she deferred the Execution for certain days, to instruct her at more leisure, so that she was gained to God, and continued to the the last hour of her life in such tranquillity of mind, that a little before she came out of prison, to go to her Execution, she wrote divers Sentences in Greek, Latin, and English, on the contempt of Death, and when on the Scaffold it was represented to her, that she should die by the sword, which (according to the custom of that Country) is accounted a nobler kind of Execution, than to die by the Axe: she said, That she would die by that Axe which was yet discoloured with her husband's blood, and courageously she tendered her neck to the Hangman, drawing tears from herself, and the hearts from all those that did behold her. O most unfortunate Ambition, that hast made so young a Princess a sacrifice of Death, who for the excellency of her spirit, might have been another Minerva, or at least the tenth of the Muses.  
Behold the strange Revolutions, which did prepare the way to Cardinal Pool, for the performance of those high Designs, which God had committed to his Conduct. Queen Marie did incontinently make void all the Sentences which had been pronounced against him, and called him back into England, to which place in a short time he came, as if he had been carried on the shoulders of all honest men. The Pope made him his Legate and gave him full power to ordain and execute all things, which he should conceive necessary for the glory of God, and the establishment of the true Religion.  
He traveled to this Work with incomparable wisdom, 
Pool travels to the Reducement of England to the ancient Faith.  and with a zeal invincible. He well perceived, that to restore Religion by arms, was to undertake a most laborious, if not an infinite work, which would open all the veins in England, and draw dry as well their purses, as their blood, and cover the Kingdom with the calamities of civil wars, which would continue for many Ages. He resolved to put his good Counsels in execution with gentleness, which others propounded to perform with all violence.  
And in the first place, he had recourse to Prayers, 
The course he held.  to Mortifications, to Vows, and to Devotions, which he performed in secret, and which he particularly recommended to all holy minds, who breathed after the restoring of the ancient Religion.  
In the second place, he entered into the heart, and possessed himself with the inclinations of Queen Marie, whom he found throughly disposed, and animated by a generous spur, for the glory of God, and the felicity of her Kingdom, which kept her always exercised on that high thought, and comprehended in it the safety of all that Nation.  
In the last, he more and more encouraged all the Catholics, by the desires of their repose of conscience, and by the liberty of their functions, in the exercise of spiritual things.  
In the third place, he treated with those who were in an error, with the Spirit of Compassion, of Sweetness and of Bounty, complying with them in what he could in civil affairs, and endeavouring to take from them the apprehension which they had conceived to themselves, that the Change of Religion would ruin their fortunes, and the establishment of their houses. He caused a report to be spread by many remarkable and grave Personages, that he came not to take away their temporal goods, but to give them spiritual blessings; And as concerning the Goods of the Church, which many Great men had usurped in that general Confusion of Affairs, he said, he would compose it in the best way that Love and Candour could prescribe him.  
Fourthly, He did wisely foresee, that with sweetness he should also bring in Authority, which might ruin the resistences of those men if any should appear to oppose so saving a work. On which he had recourse to the greatest Potentates in Europe, whom he secretly affected to this Enterprise. He had been before employed on the Peace between Francis the First, and Charles the Fifth. He did apprehend, and attract the spirits of them both with wonderful dexterity, for having dived into the heart of the Emperor, and finding the seeds of the Design, which afterwards did discover themselves, having been dismissed of the Empire, and embraced a solitary life, he wrought upon him with the recital of his great actions, and the Conquests he had obtained, and told him, That all those strong agitations of his spirit, were but as so many lines which ought to tend to the centre of Rest, that he ought not to weary and torment his good fortune. That it was a great gift of God▪ to confine his thoughts on true glory, without attending the tide of the Affairs of the world. That it was the duty of an Emperor, to endeavour the Peace of Christendom, and an incomparable honour to accomplish it. He touched his heart so directly with these Demonstrations, that he opened it, and the Emperor declared to him, That he had a great desire to that divine Peace, and would embrace all reasonable Conditions that should conduce unto it.  
After that he had effected this, he made no delay to address himself to the Most Christian King, and knowing that he was pvissantly generous, he wrought upon him by the glory of the great Wars he had sustained, and the immortal actions of valour, which he produced, that by his invincible courage he had at the last wearied the most puissant Potentate in Europe, who had him in admiration, and desired nothing more than to hold a fair correspondence with him. That a fair Peace should be an inestimable benefit to them both, which should give rest unto their Consciences, and pull down a blessing from on high upon their persons, and be a great comfort to their Subjects, who were overcharged with the continuation of the war. In the end, he did demonstrate to him how extraordinarily he was beloved of his people, who did attend this Effect of his goodness, by which he should crown his Valour with all happiness and abundance in his Kingdom. The King took fire at this Discourse, and the Cardinal most vigorously did blow it up; and did remonstrate, That two so great Monarches, who were made for Heaven, ought not so greedily to hold unto their interests on earth, and that they had nothing now to wish, but to part their affairs, and to save their honour. And this indeed they afterwards performed, restoring willingly on both sides, all that they had conquered since the ordinance of Reconciliation made by Paul the third, who some years before did transport himself to Marseilles (although he was of a very great age) to pacify the Affairs of Christendom.  
This Accord being so happily achieved by Cardinal Pool, he gained by it the approbation and applause of all Princes, who favoured the Catholic cause. He observed that the Emperor had his son Philip to marry, and that there was nothing more expedient for the advancement of Religion, than to ally him to Queen Marie. He carried this affair with such secrecy and dexterity, that the King of Spain was in England, and the Marriage published, before the plot was discovered. By the counsel of Charles, Cardinal Pool did defer his entry into the Realm, until the Marriage was concluded, and then he entered with all assurances. The King himself came to meet him, and Queen Marie with all her people, received him with ecstasies of joy.  
He incontinently did draw unto him the affection of all the principal Lords, and not long after, he counselled the King and Queen, to call an Assembly of the most remarkable persons in the Kingdom, to whom he spoke thus in presence of their Majesties.  
MADAM,  
SInce it hath pleased God, after the Confusions of the 
His speech to the States.  late times, to shine upon us with his eyes of Mercy, and at last to place upon the Throne, the true and faithful Inheritress of the Crown, who is so worthily espoused to one of the greatest Princes in all Christendom, we have a great subject to satisfy our Discontents, and advance our hopes.  
This Realm at this day doth imitate the Creation of the world, coming forth from its Chaos, and dark Abyss, to receive the favourable influences of the light. The day which by all good men hath been so passionately desired, so suspected by the wicked, so unlooked for by the incredulous, and so attended by the afflicted, is at length arrived to destroy our death, and to make us new born in the life of the children of God.  
Behold the true Religion, which entereth with triumph into all the Cities of this Kingdom, from which Impiety and Fury had dispossessed her, she holds out her arms unto you, adorned with the Palms and the Crowns, with which your Ancestors have honoured her, she demands again the place, which from the first conversion, until the fury of these later times, she hold with so much honour and satisfaction.  
Will you yet banish her? Will you yet continue to persecute her? Can you endure that she should present before God her torn and her bloody Robe, and complain again of the outrages of her children?  
My Brethren, There is neither life nor salvation, but in this Faith, which shineth and speaketh in S. Peter's Chair; It is that which God hath given us by our glorious Father, S. Gregory the Great; it is that which our Fathers have embraced; it is that which they have defended by their Words, their Arms, and their Blood, which they have shed for the Honour of it. Nothing is left for those to hope for, who are separated from it, but the tempests of darkness, and the everlasting chains of hell.  
It is well known, that the change of Faith proceeds from an infectious passion, which having possessed the heart of a poor Prince, hath caused these reproachable furies, and the inundations of blood, which hath covered the face of England. He hath at his death condemned that which before he approved. He by his last Testament destroyed that which before he had chosen, wherefore those who have followed him in his Error, may also follow him in his Repentance. The Peace, the Safety, the Abundance, the Felicity of the Kingdom, are ready to re-enter with the true Faith; which if you refuse, I see the choler of God, and a thousand calamities, that do threaten you. Return therefore, O Shunamite: Return, O fair Island, to thy first beginning; feign not to thyself imaginary penalties, terrors, and punishments, which are not prepared but for the obstinate. The Sovereign Father of Christendom, doth continually stretch forth his arms to thy obedience, and hath delegated me, as the Dove out of the Ark, to bring unto thee the Olive Bough, to pronounce Peace and Reconciliation to thee. This is the acceptable Hour, this is the Day of thy salvation. The Night, which hitherto hath covered thee, is at the end of her Course, and the Sun of Justice is risen, to bring light unto thee. It is time to lay down the works of darkness, and to take up the Armour of Light, to the end that all the earth inhabited may take notice, that thou abborrest what is past, embracest what is present, and dost totally put thyself into the hands of God, for the time to come.  
This Oration was attended with a wonderful approbation of all the assembly, and the Cardinal being departed from the Council, the King and Queen commanded that they should debate on this Proposition, which was presently taken into consideration, and it was resolved, That the ancient religion should be established. The Chancellor made this resolution known unto the people, and did powerfully exhort them to follow the examples, which were conformable to the advice of the King and Queen, and the most eminent personages in the Kingdom. This discourse was revived with a general applause for the advancement of the Catholic faith. In the end, he demanded that they would testify their resolution in a Petition to the King and Queen, and mediate for a reconciliation to the Cardinal, Legate of the holy See, which incontenently was done, the paper was presented, and openly read, their Majesties did confirm it, both by their authorities, and their prayers, and humbled themselves on their knees with their Grandees, and all the people, demanding mercy; whereupon an authentic absolution was given by the Legate, the bells did ring in all the Churches, Te Deum was sung. All places were filled with the cries of joys, as people enfranchised, and coming out of the gates of hell. After this, King Philip was obliged to go into Flanders, by reason of the retreat of the Emperor his father. Pool was left chief of the Counsellors with Queen Mary, who did wonders for the good of Religion, & of the State. It is true that Cranmer, and other turbulent and seditious spirits, were punished; but so great a moderation was used, that the Benefices, and the Reveneves of the Church, did continue in the hands of those who did hold them of the King, without disturbing them on that innovation: all things were continued that might any way be suffered, not so much as changing any thing in marriages, because they would not ensnare their spirits. The heart of the Queen, and of her ministers, did think on nothing more, than to establish Religion, to entertain the holy See, to render justice, to comfort the people, to procure peace and rest, to multiply the abundance of the Kingdom.  
They did begin again the golden age, when after the reign of five years and odd months, they were both in one day taken out of the world by sickness, which did oppress with grief all honest men, and did bury with them in one Tomb, the happiness and safety of that Kingdom.  
O providencelnot to be dived into by humane reason, what vail hast thou cast on our Counsels, and our works? What might we have not hoped from such beginnings? What wisdom would not have concluded, That felicity had crowned for ever the erterprises of this Cardinal? An affair so well conducted, a negotiation so happy, a business of State, and the greatest that was ever in any Kingdom whatsoever, ought it not to carry his progress unto eternity? Where are the fine plots of policy? Where are the Arms that in so small a time have ever wrought so great an effect? The Chariots of the Romans, which covered with Laurels, did march on the heads of Kings, did not make their ways remarkable, but by stormings of Towns, by Flames and Massacres. But behold here many millions of men struck down, and raised again, with one only speech, so many legions of souls converted with a soft sweetness, the face of a kingdom totally changed in one Moment, and made the happiest that any Ages have seen. And after all this, to find the inexoarble Trenchant of Death, to sap in one day the two great pillars of Estate, and ruinated the house of God, which should have reached to the imperial heaven.  
O how true is it, that there are the strokes of Fate! that is to say, an order of the secret purpose of God, which is as concealed as inevitable, nothing can divert, nothing can delay it. The counsels of the wise are here blinded, their addresses are lost, their activity troubled, their patience tried, and all their reasons confounded.  
Poor Britain, God gave thee these two Great Lights, not to enjoy them, but as they passed by, to behold them. Thou art soiled with sacrileges and impieties, thou art red with the blood of the Martyrs. The sins of Henry are not yet expiated, and the ignominious passions of his life, are punished by the permission of the Error. The Powers of darkness have their times determined by God, they will abate nothing of their periods, if the invincible hand of the Sovereign Judge doth not stop their courses by his absolute Authority. It pertaineth to God only, to know and appoint the times of punishment, and Mercy; and there is nothing more expedient for man, than to submit to his Laws, to obey his Decrees, to reverence his Chastisements, and to adore the Hand that strikes him.   
FINIS.  

THE ANGEL OF PEACE TO ALL CHRISTIAN PRINCES.  
Written in French by N. CAUSSIN, S. J.  
And now translated into English.   bookseller's device of John Williams? 
Printed in the Year of our Lord, MDCL.   

The Angel of Peace to all Christian Princes.  
IF it be lawful (greatest Princess) to interrupt your Highnesses, I will appear for the Cause of God, the Angel of Peace, the Minister of Concord and Union, the Interpreter of Truth, the Mean and Solicitor of Salvation. I am not that terrible and dreadful messenger who injected terrors and scourges into David, astonished with Divine Prodigies. I am not listed in that number which utterly overwhelmed the City of Pentapolis, almost drowned before in the inundation of their impieties. I rain nor sulphur, I do not brandish flames, I dart no thunderbolts; but with a mild, temperate, and gentle amenity, I exhibit those olive-branches which the direful contagion of Wars hath not yet blasted. I come from the conversation of those who at the Nativity of our Jesus sang Anthems of Peace to Good-willing men. Despise not the Augur of Glad-tydings, contemn not the Hyperaspist of Truth, who speaketh unto you before God in Christ.  
It is the concernment of the whole Christian world, most pious Princes, which I address unto you; it is your interest which I urge and inculcate both by wishes and writings; it is the Profession of God which I require; and indeed of great importance, as having divers times summoned, yea enforced the Priests from the Altars, the Virgins from the Monasteries, and the Anachoretes from the Woods, that of the mute it might make Orators and Agitatours of the retired. God the arbitrator and Accomplisher of all things, who calleth those things which are not as if they were; he formeth and prepareth the mouths of infants, giveth wisdom to the impudent; to yield to him is victory, to contest with him is successless opposition. Appetite infuseth Eloquence, and necessity not seldom makes a soldier. To be silent amidst the articulated movings of the oppressed is unlawful, and to sit still amidst the wounds of Military men as unconcerned, is highly and justly reprovable. That hand that is not officious to the suffering world deserves an amputation.  
I shall not disoblige the supplicated engagement of your patience (excellent Princes) with unimporting reasons. I shall not abuse your senses with unappertaining figments, but by a pleasant prospect I shall show you that Glory which you aim at thorough fields flowing with blood, thorough the flames of collucent Cities, and thorough many doubtful circulations and diverticles. Condescend therefore to give me an allowance of discourse concerning the nature of War and Peace, and of the Right of Christian Princes in each of them. For upon this foundation I conceive I can build firm and satisfactory Arguments whereby to secure your Dignity, and to settle the People's safety.  
It was a speech well becoming the wisdom of the Ancients, that this world, in whose circumference all things are contained, is as it were a great volumn of the Deity, wherein life and death are as the beginning and the end: but the middle Pages are perpetually turned over backwards and forwards. That which Life and Death bring to pass in the nature of things, the same doth Peace and War in the Nation of all Kingdoms and Empires. And indeed Life is a certain portion of the Divine Eternity, which being first diffused in the Divine Nature, and afterwards streaming into the sea, and penetrating into the earth and our world, doth contemperate by an espousal and connexion of bodies and souls wonderful and almost Divine Agreements. But when there is a solution of this undervalved continuity, when this harmony is disturbed and broken, it suddenly vanisheth by the irresistible necessity of death, greedily depopulating all things under his dominion.  
In like manner Peace, the greatest and most excellent gift of the Divine indulgence, reconciles and apportions apportions a kind of temperature in the wills of men, from whence floweth the most active vigour of all functions in the Body Politic; as, the alacrity of minds, the rewarded sedulity of Provinces, the faithful plenty of the Country, the security of travelling, the opulency of Kingdoms, and the accumulation of all temporal blessings. But when Concord is dissipated, and the alarms of War besiege men's ears, presently there ensueth a convulsion and direful decay of all the members, and Audacity finding itself disengaged from the mulcts and penalties of the Laws, runneth headlong into all variety of mischief; the most Sacred things are violenced, and the most Profane are licenced, the nocent and the innocent are involved in the expectation of a sad and promiscuous catastrophe, and bonfires are made of cities not to be quenched but with the blood of miserable Christians.  
He that will tax his own leisure but with the cheap expense of considering our mortality, will so much scruple these effects to be the actions of men, that he may be easily seduced to believe that Hell hath lost some prisoners, or that some troops of Furies have broken the chains of darkness, and in a humane shape deluded men with such enormous villainies.  
My highest obedience (most excellent Princes) is due to truth, and that obligation prompts me to proclaim this judgement, That Contentions and War have not had any ingress into the Church of God, but by clandestine and undermining Policies, Discipline resisting, and Conscience standing aghast at the monstrous object. And indeed Paul exclaimeth against contentions; Brother (saith he) goeth to law with brother, and that under Infidels: Now therefore there is altogether an infirmity in you, in that you go to law one with another. Why rather suffer you not wrong? Why rather sustain you not fraud? But ye yourselves do wrong and exercise fraud and that to your brethren.  
What do we hear? an Edict published by an Apostle invested with thunder and lightning. I beseech the revisitation of your thoughts, what would he imagine were he lent again unto the world by providence, that then wanted patience to see a controversy about a field perhaps, or a house, and should now behold, among those that claim the title of the Faithful, Ensign against Ensign, Nation against Nation, and not a House, not a city, not a Province, but the whole Christian world precipitated into slaughters, rapes, and privileged plunders; would he countenance such an inhuman spectacle with a Declaration of allowance? or would he persuade men to the violations of the Law of Nature, and dictate encourgement to ruin and rapine?  
But Tertullian also is very strict in this point, and peradventure too rigid, whilst he saith that our Lord, by that injunction to Peter to sheathe his sword, disarmed all Christian Soldiers. This in my judgement deserves a censure of extreme severity, if he conclude all warfare to be criminal: this were to destroy the innocent in a detestation of the guilty, should we perpetrate corrupt actions upon the order of the cruel, and the petulancy of luxuriant villains. What would Christianity then be, but a prey to the insatiable, and a laughingstock to the insolent? if it were not lawful to revenge unfaithful injuries with a just retaliation? If it were not lawful to defend Churches from Sacrilege, Widows and Orphans from oppressions, and disinteressed persons from ruin? 'Tis a rash determination that bloweth off the victorious laurels of so many Christian Kings with such a blind and precipitate whirlwind of words. Justly therefore are the Manichees obnoxious to a spiritual Outlawry from the Church, whilst I know not whether they more impudently assert innocence, or more blameably disarm it.  
All Ages concur in the justification of War against Infidels, but the intermingled contentions of the Faithful have been always reprehended, and never impartially tolerated. Be pleased to take a review of an old instrument; There were many and bitter discords among the Jews, many tumults, many wars, but ever against those that had abandoned the true Religion, and collapsed into foul Idolatry, and the worship of the Gentiles. The Israelites indeed upon the division of the Tribes fought against the Benjamites with a fierce war, and an infinite destruction, but this was rather the fury of grief, rushing into arms for the revenge of a woman violated with prodigious lust, than any destinated opposition, or just controversy for the enlargement of their territories. The magnanimity of David could scarce be induced to a just resistance of his son Absalon, forcing his way unto his Father's Throne thorough the blood and carcases of many Citizens, till Joab had obstinately dissipated that languidnesse of his gentle mind, so detestable an undertaking was it for those who were brethren by the bonds of Nature and Religion to forfeit all civil respects to the rage of war.  
If you please to consult the first times of the Christian Emperors, you shall find Constantine opposing his forces against Julian, but not till he became the desertour of Christ, and the Standard-bearer of impiety. You shall also find Theodosius the Great levying his utmost strength against Maximus, Eugenius, and Arbogastus: but his quarrel was with most perfidious Tyrants, who under the veil of Religion laboured to hid flagitious and damnable excesses. You shall scarce meet with any Prince in the more innocent times, who took up arms to be imbrued in Christian blood but upon the most deliberate and important causes. And indeed Baronius doth excellently observe, that the Cross was first opposed to the Cross in arms in the War which Constantius raised against Magnentius. A horrible wickedness (saith he) and not to be attempted but by a Christian Tyrant, a dissembler of Religion, and an Heretical Emperor.  
I am not ignorant that Augustine hath handled this subject and question against Faustus, and that he hath established the equity of Christian arms upon the foundation of the Gospel, because John in so exemplary a rigour of life persuaded not the soldiers, enquiring after the means of their salvation, to cast away their weapons, but to be contented with their pay, and to strike not man. Because also the Apostle not without cause saith, That Princes bear not the sword in vain. But if it be lawful to yield our assent to the approbation of his judgement, we shall find that all those darts were ejaculated against the mad frenzies of the Manichees, who would have Christians to abstain from the sword, and to bear the most cruel injuries of treacherous Infidels unrepelled, unrevenged. He would not therefore either cherish the severity, or irritate the power of Christian Princes in an unlawful War against their brethren; for in the same place he exclaimeth: a desire of doing violence, a cruel preparation of mind to revenge, an implacable mind, a barbarous lust to rebel, a secret speculation of Lordly dominion, and other such as these are the causes which are justly culpable in the Wars.  
Now who are they according to the opinion of S. Austin, that consociate themselves and their adherents in an unjust War? First, they that are hurried into Arms by a blind violence of spirit, not so much for love of Justice, as a greediness of revenge. Who being provoked by some injury, inhumanely and unmeasurably rave and rage, abhorring all atonement, and refusing by the authority of an incensed reason to chide out their Passions, those petulant and contentious inmates: In the second place, they who endeavour a Rebellion against their lawful Sovereign, and casting off the yoke of their Allegiance, precipitate themselves into all licentious enormities. Finally, they who out of a sole desire of Ruling involve and mingle the Kingdoms of their neighbours in commotions and intestine discords, and that they may extend their Empire, open a passage to their ambitious expectations by all designs either violent or fraudulent.  
Consider now (best Princes) what a proclivity there is in such to boil with indignation and displeasure, to burn with paroxisms of envy and exacerbations of revenge; yea, and to be tickled with an apprehension of purchasing or amplifying a Kingdom. How obvious it is the reins being let lose to transcend the just limits, how easy a matter to counterfeit Justice, to pretend necessity, and now to trample upon those Laws which before were so much outwardly reverenced; you will undoubtedly find it true, that it is more easy to take up, then to moderate and temper Arms.  
But that I may not detain you long, Aquinas requireth three things to the justification or legitimation of a War: the Authority of the Prince, a just Cause, and a right Intention, whereunto other Divines have added warrantable Reasons to obtain the end; it is absolutely unlawful therefore for private men to appear in Arms for the prosecution of their own right though in judgement. This God hath delegated unto Princes, that that might happen seldom which must needs be violent. To the Lords of the earth we may say with Seneca, I am he that God hath chosen out of so many men that I might be his Vicegerent upon earth. I am the supreme Arbiter of life and death unto the Nations. It is in the hand of my power to dispose the lot of their conditions to all my people. These millions of swords that guard my peace, shall at the  intimation of my pleasure be all unsheathed. What Cities shall perish, and which shall flourish, is my jurisdiction.  
To be able to put all these things in execution is indeed a great matter, but to forbear the pursuance of them, unless necessity require it, is fare more divine. It is a lawful wish, that he to whom all things are lawful, would confine his will to the practice only of lawful things. The right of the Sword is not extended, when it devolveth into the Protection of one, but is rather restrained. One hand is stretched forth, that all may be bound; affairs are managed by the wisdom of a paucity, lest the temerity of the whole multitude should precipitate them into a promiscuous destruction. The parsimony even of the meanest blood is to be praised. No man is more unjustly invested with a superiority over others, than he that is prodigal of their lives though in a just emergence. Those thunderbolts must be slowly shot, which the wounded persons can reverence. Let Kings therefore beware lest they glorify themselves by that faculty wherewith God hath entrusted them, and abuse it to outward pomp, rather than exercise it to the advantage of good men. Let the fear of misdemeanours and obliquities banish all fierceness from them, and let them esteem it the greatest impotence to boast a Privilege of Injustice, or a Power to hurt.  
The cause of the War must first be balanced by an accurate examination, lest the affections obtain precedence over Equity and Reason, lest iniquity be predominant in the better part, and force and fury comply to cheat the world under the specious title of Injustice. I am both sad and ashamed to consider with myself what frivolous occasions have prevailed with many whereon to ground a War. The Trojan War that common Sepulchre of Asia and Europe flamed out from the impetuous flagrancies of a noble Whore. By a thousand ships she was redemanded, and for her that had lost all modesty, vast numbers of gallant Hero's lost their neglected lives. So many chaste lay open to the lust of the enemies, that an unchaste might be restored. Alexander being yet a child, was reprehended by his Tutor for his profusion of Frankincense in his Sacrifices to the Gods, but being arrived to man's estate, that he might wash away this admonition of his master, he invadeth Arabia, and there the second time offereth up Sacrifice for the conquest of the Country. The Egyptians for a slain Cat risen up in arms against the Romans, and forty destroyed many thousand men. Caligula with a mighty noise of armed men, and a great preparation of all Military ornaments hasteneth to the Ocean, there to gather cockles. The Romans being contumeliously upbraided with this ridiculous Expedition, conspired, and almost effected the utter ruin of the scoffing Tarentians. The people of Alexandria rebelled against Galienus because of a sottish contention between the Master and the Servant concerning the elegancy and neatness of a pair of shoes. And to omit many examples which I could commemorate, William of England surnamed the Conqueror, who was victorious over all men but himself, revenged a pleasant conceit of Maximus the Prince with innumerable destructions. The Conqueror was of a corpulent habit, and his belly was somewhat prominent thorough a plenty of Hydropic humours, wherefore when Philip the King of France heard of the nature of his disease, We will allow him time (saith he) to provide for his lying in, which by the bulk of his belly appeareth to be near at hand. The Conqueror being mad with fury replied, That he would rise up after his delivery and kindle five hundred fires in France to adorn his upsitting. Nor was he unmindful of his resolution, for presently upon his recovery he entered France with a stupendious army, wholly addicting himself by fire, famine, and horrible slaughters, to the satisfaction of his revenge. Shall we suppose that he plays and trifles with the blood of men, who upon such slight provocations can enterprise such mournful Tragedies? May we suppose those people miserable with whom the scoffs of furious men must be expiated with such a direful destruction?  
No man ought to believe himself or another concerning the cause of a War, but let him weigh it with the exquisite prudence of the principal men, whose advices are the more fruitful of truth, the less they are espoused to affection. A right intention must necessarily be coveted to a just Cause, and all these things are estimated by a sober and moderate conclusion, or a justifiable end. Be such a thought eternally banished from the head and heart of a Christian Prince, that he should array himself in a Military posture to oblige some light affections of a luxuriant mind; that he should run on slaughters, command the burning of towns, prosecute and seem to rejoice in devastations, that he should destroy, he should extinguish and bury his own glory in the overthrow of others. This is the indelible ignominy of Centaurs and the Lapathae, who in warring seek nothing but War. The wisest Kings thorough tumults and intestine jars have made a progress unto Justice, Equity, and Concord, and being themselves in Arms have sacrificed undefeigning vows to Peace. They think of an Enemy as a Physician sometimes of his Patient, that he must be recovered by corrosives and sharp remedies. Oh that he would have been cured with a diet, or assuaged with fomentations! But when against the Law and Right of Nations he hath persisted in his obstinacy, and contemned the reiterated offers of composing the present differences, than you must bind, than you must cut, than you must burn him, yet all this to restore, not to exterminate him.  
And all things composed, behold like the scourge of a deadly and destructive War, a Northern tempest rageth in the miseries of Germany, there they wallow in blood, and in their night-marches they are conducted by the hideous light of burning Cities, some few making a resistance, and all men being astonished at the feral prodigy. The Altars are polluted with sacrifice, Virgins with rapes, the chains of Churchmen are heard louder and further than the drums of their persecutors; holy things are profaned, and the abomination of desolation is consummated, their very King who had appointed them thither being either ignorant of those outrages, or unconsenting.  
Now can any man conceive that this was devised by a Christian mind? Can it be imagined that he who hath any reverence unto, or sense of Religion can give such directions? It is not credible: such a monster could not have been brought forth had not hell conceived, the bottomelesse-pit exhaling the fuliginous vapours, and the devils themselves torturing men's minds into such uncouth diversities. All things cannot properly have a reflected reference unto men. The Privadoes and Ministers of Princes are not at all times to be accused, as though they had cast off all humaniry, and covered themselves with brutish cruelty. There are certain vagabond and deceitful spirits destinated to revenge, who being themselves lost in misery, cease not to comfort their malice by driving others into a participation of those miseries, which reason (greatest Princess) ought so much the more to invite, yea to admonish you to leagues of Peace, because our Omnipotent God in his secret counsel hath determined to subdue Satan by your hands, and to cast him under your feet.  
The highest circumspection and vigilancy are therefore requisite, lest matter be suppeditated to the Devil who altogether watcheth for destruction from the affections and vices of men. Jealousy, that tinder of Kingdoms and Nations easily taketh fire, if it be fomented only with an animal wisdom, and be not mixed with the prudence of the Saints. They who are addicted to one part, say, that the Spaniards do too much expose their power to Envy, that it is hateful unto equals, terrible to inferiors, and if not prevented, destructive unto all. There is amongst them (say they) such an epidemical itch after domination, such intentive and indefatigable cares of their ambition, such a luxurious wit to enlarge their Empire, so vast a catalogue of Kingdoms and Titles as provokes the emulous, terrifieth their neighbours, and pricketh even those that are removed from them by intervals of distance. They apprehend the Dignity of one to presage the danger of all. They conjecture that the extent of his jurisdiction bodeth an unattempted servitude to all Kingdoms: they fear whatsoever the land provideth, and whatsoever monsters the sea nourisheth. Greedy Domination that could never yet overcome itself, when it hath once been cherished by Fortune, it unlearneth nature, and forgetteth moderation. Moreover, the temperature of the Nations, as they report, is fiery, hot and dry, swelling with pride, patiented of hunger and well enduring labour, thirsty after glory, prone to admire itself, and apt to continue the virtue and valour of other Nations. I produce not these things as the emanations of my own judgement, which for the present is addicted to no Nation but comprehendeth all in Christ, but I commemorate the vulgar reports, and such things as are openly bruited by many, which if they were suppressed by a removal of their Causes, it could cut off the occasions of many controversies.  
The French on the other side, as they writ who have had knowledge of them, although they are forward to dart reproaches against others, unable to endure them, and most impatient of contempt, yet they know they are of that Nation whereof it was said,  
— Animóqune supersunt  
Jam propè post animam.  
They boast that they filled the world with the fame of their Arms, before the Spaniards could redeem themselves from the diuturnal servitude of the Goths and Vandals. That they have managed the Empire of the East and West, that they have vanquished Constantinople by assault, restored Jerusalem to Christ, and Rome to the Pope seven times deprived of it by his enemies. They affirm that the Gospel was first preached unto them, that the primigenial adoption of the Sons of God was given to them, that they have advanced Learning in all Christian Kingdoms, the whole world almost becoming Students of our Academy at their Paris; in a word, they think they have nothing to be contemned; they are more apt to desire admirers, then able to dispense with contemners. From hence it comes to pass, that both the Nations being prodigal in the accumulations of their own, and envious of the others glory; such flames have of late been kindled, as will, it may be feared, become unquenchable. Would to God that that Charity which is diffused in us by the spirit, would suffocate these superseminated tares of contentions; Oh that it would cut off the occasions of these inhuman strive! then should we have fewer anxieties, and more supportable labours of heart, knowing by what remedies we might resist so pestilent an evil.  
This is frequently augmented by the servants and favourites of Princes, whilst with a familiar, but a direful glory to the greatest Empires; they desire to boast the power of their Lords; they display all their offensive strength and ability to hurt; they press a secret beneficence, and whilst they proceed in these ambitious circulations, nay, whilst they bewray a fear, and discover in themselves a caution, by that very sedulity and caution they provoke things not to be feared, and act things not to be tolerated.  
Here I appeal to you great Masters of Policy and Participatours of hidden Counsels. I speak more willingly to you then to your Fortunes. Consider how much God hath given you, and how much he requireth of you. You sit as Gods among men the Arbiters of mankind; what shall be each man's lot is the verdict of your Dispensations. What good things Felicity intendeth to each individual person, she pronounceth by your mouths; what Navies must be prepared, what Wars must be prosecuted, what Cities destroyed, what Nations depopulated, are the ambiguous effects of your opinions. You are judges of the fortunes and blood of men, and of your behaviours and existimation men are judges. God the discerner of all things judgeth of your head at the terrible and inevitable audit. Every one beholdeth many things by the deception of his own sense, uttereth many things from the dictates of affection. I cannot believe what is reported, that so eminent persons blest with such admirable wits, adorned with the glorious gift of prudence, and conscious of this frailty of humane affairs▪ can think themselves seated in that height, to measure all things by the circle of their own advantage, that public plenty should quit the pre-eminence to their private profit, that all things should be serviceable to their amplitude, that they should dispose their trust according to the level coil of love, hatred, and ambition, and that they should sacrifice the blood of the people to their Fortunes: that they therefore love Wars, and are affected with Divisions and Confusion, hoping thereby to purchase to themselves more beneficial or honourable commands, to close with an opportunity of treasuring up large sums of money, and by the necessity of their Ministration to wed themselves to a more faithful office, or to leap into an Authority of a more hopeful permanency; but goodness forbidden that such sordid, earthly, and narrow cares should be the dishonourable employment of such capacious souls.  
I rather believe that you are incited by emulous anhelations after your Master's glory, whereof you have ever been most zealous; ever prepared to retaliate his injuries, to assert his Majesty, and to dilate his Empire, but I beseech you by the immortal God, and by so many beloved pledges of your Kingdoms, to take heed and diligently to beware, lest a supervehement appetite of Glory make them averse from the right pursuit of Glory. You follow Glory by a muddy search, but now all mortal men desire it by a clear acquist. Consider where there is the greatest splendour of celestial virtues, either in the loud cracks of thunder possessing all men with sudden fear, and when fires and thunderbolts are promiscuously hurled about; or in a fair day the air being defecated and serene, and the pleasure of the light dispelling sadness from men's hearts? hitherto you have made the power of your Lords sufficiently fearful, now render it sweet and make it amiable, for therein only it is invincible. This is not the greatness of Princes to be always encompassed with the terrors of his armed men, and busied in warlike preparations, with a fiery mouth to be always denouncing the cruelties of torments and tortures, to condemn these men to fetters, those to the sword, perpetually to carry about him fire and darts, to make his progress thorough smoking Cities, over the trampled bodies of half dead men, and to exhaust all things lest they should be exhausted. How much more glorious is it like a fortunate Cornet to prevent and exceed the hopes of all men with causes of rejoicing? To repair things ruinous and disordered, to convey glad tidings of consolation to the pensive soul, to recollect things scattered, and to reunite things divided. By this heavenly solicitude many Kings lending their succour, not sending their terror unto the labouring world, have attained unto solid and unshaken honour. What forbiddeth you to follow? what retardeth your emulation? There is one rock which is often to be feared, unto which the cares and cogitations of some Politic men, who differ much from your Piety, do cleave. They think if the administrations of the Public should be regulated by the law of God, and the judgement of pious men, they would become base, low, and unesteemed; they would be exposed to prey and direption, and is he penitent, I insult not; doth he crave audience, I grant access; doth he submit his neck, my mercy shall meet his submission. At the destruction of Cannae, Hannibal was heard to say, Miles parce ferro: Marcellus wished he could quench the flames of burning Syracuse with his tears: Titus with erected hands and eyes to heaven wept over the prostrate carcases of the Jews. What should be then the most decent and laudable behaviour of a Christian King towards a subdued and almost suppliant Enemy? Should he strut with pride? Should he inebriate himself with passion? Or should he strengthen his fury to an utter desolation? The more generous beasts abhor this practice. Vast and inexorable wraths should not cohabit with royal mind; many things are to be pardoned to humane frailty, many things to ignorance, something truly to affection, but all things to repentance. It behoves him to preserve many, even to the prejudice of their obstinate or erroneous wit, neither are all those to be heard that are resolved to perish. Error illaqueates some men, and Opinion sets the complexion upon the procedures of most men; others are ensnared by the counsels of a treacherous vigilancy, and some there are who have no fault but their fortune. His pardon he will extend and communicate to many, whosoever can really desire to obtain from God his own pardon.  
Further I add, that those reasons which are produced as subservient to the attainment of a just end, ought themselves also to be legitimate, otherwise the foundations may be firm, yet the superstructures may totter. That is not good which is not well done, the means we use must be as innocent and unreprovable as our meaning. That which knoweth no mediocrity, I know not how to term a virtue. A depraved intention by a kind of contageous force ever infected the most austere and sacred conduct of affairs; subdolous inventions also and crafty artificers shade and eclipse the beauty of sincere intentions. Gross and scandalous is their error, who having proposed to themselves some laudable mark, are little solicitous of the arrows they shoot. They who have trusted to this footing have (many of them) slipped, and dashed themselves against such a rock of absurdities as hath endangered their brains. I shall instance in those who have thought that health might be innocently purchased from the Devils themselves by the virtue of Magical forms, and that this is the safety which the Divine Oracles pronounce we may acquire from our enemies. But Paul is peremptory in the confutation hereof, saying, That evil must not be done that good may come thereof. No man is merciful by thefts, nor charitable by surreptitious gains; no innocent person seeketh convalescence by wicked accommodations. To go to War is lawful, to kill is lawful when you are backed with the Authority of your Prince, and seconded with a just Cause; but on the contrary, to do injustice is never not unlawful. We may incline and bow the ears of the Deity to a condescendence, but we may not solicit hell for Auxiliaries: we may not contemerate things sacred, nor violate the Divine Charters of the Church; we may not subvert Religion, nor contaminate Chastity; we must not attempt facinorous art, nor invade the lives of Princes with poniards or venomous potions; we ought not to destroy Military Discipline by transgressing the Rights of Warfare, nor adventure upon certain villains to promote a desperate ambition. That War ceaseth to be just (however pretended to have a just beginning) when the future events are intermixed with palpable injustice, and being well begun if they degenerate into evil progressions, they ought speedily to have an end.  
We are fallen by degrees (greatest Princess) upon the matter intended, of which it is your part to judge, and from sound deliberations to provide for the felicity of Christians both Temporal and Eternal. Your Authority is, or aught to be unquestioned, and your disposedness of mind and intentions, what can they be in good Princes, but unsuspected: but the Cause is perplexed and involved, yet the Reasons that seem to conspire the end are violent. A fierce and cruel War is carried on among you, exercised in the besieging of Cities, acquainted with destructions, terrible for its monstrous spreadings: under which the Church laboureth, the wishes of the oppressed evaporate into sighs, and the convulsed world mourneth; it hath not proceeded in an ordinary way, nor is it continued after a humane manner. Sift out (if you please) the causes, and weigh diligently with yourselves the occasions of such an amazing tumult.  
If at any time we behold things natural acting within the limits of their prescriptions, this doth not elevate our considerations to a wonder: but when we see them irritated by some vehement impetuosity, or the determined confinements of Nature's Law to be perverted, we suspect some hidden force within, which suddenly bursteth forth and is circumfused, from whence such various motions do arise. As often as we see the winds to be ordinarily stirred, we either judge it to be some breath or exhalation, or we conjecture that the air hath a natural faculty to move itself, lest it should become dull and torpid in an inagitable Globe; but as often as we behold boisterous tempests to arise by the sharp and violent conflicts of the winds, which compel vast trees from their roots, and levelly strong built houses with the ground, which devour whole navies, and shake the foundations of the world, we ascribe these to the airy Principalities dissipated through the regions of the Earth. In like mnaner, when Wars are managed among men in their accustomed forms, we attribute these to the ambitious designs of men, to choleric temperaments, and to the easy impatience of an objected contumely: but if they exceed proportion and example also, we suspect that there is some undiscovered origin of evils transcending our understandings and astonishing our senses.  
He that will duly and sadly weigh the matter, will confess this of such a cruel War; for it is not actuated with a civil mind, neither hath it those decencies and Military ornaments which are wont to accompany great minds, but it is tainted with a virulent malignity which devoureth both parts, and creeping as it were with a slow contabescence, it eats up all things; the Countries are in a mourning estate, the Cities are dejected, the Blood of gallant men is prodigally wasted, the choicest flowers of the Nobility are destinated to butchery and the shambles of prevailing Rebels, private Gentlemen are despoiled of almost all their goods, complaints are universal and daily multiplied against Taxes and Exactions, which are the aliment that pampers this prodigious pastime. But no force of treasure is comparable to the greediness of the exactours themselves, those gluttons of oppression. The riches of a few men causeth a penury amongst all men; the odious rejoicings of the unjust are saginated with the tears of the miserable. Who is the Architect, the Contriver, the Artisan of all these evils? King Lewis (say they) is the Author of the War. But can a Prince so pious, so chaste, so perpetually clothed with the fear of God, raise such storms, cause such tempests? Whilst he lived, he daily lifted up undefiled hands to Heaven, was frequently conversant in holy Mysteries, and a common Father of such an exemplary and chastised Conscience, that he could not forgive himself the least contamination, till he had craved mercy from his God and washed away his pollution with the Sacramental Blood: he fought by necessity, he overcame by valour; he was magnanimous in Resolution, famous in War, and forward in Peace. Who therefore can conceive that horrid and bloody Counsels tending to the destruction of the whole Christian world, could have had either a conception in, or a welcome into that religious sacrary of his heart? Who can imagine that hatred and grudges, that displeasures and revenge could find an entertainment in his breast. But perhaps the Emperor delights in dissensions, and nourisheth his fancy with the turbulence of Christian affairs. Judgement forbidden that any man should believe this; for he is a Prince accomplished with the best endowments, and compounded of equity and ingenuity, vivacity of spirit, and solidity of wisdom. What can be more agreeable to him then with the gentle hand of a Pacificatour to quiet his Germany shaken with such a dreadful inundation of Wars?  
What? Is the King of Spain then the disturber? No man can prove that who hath the most intimate acquaintance with the sense and apprehensions of that great King. For (he if any other) hath a Christian mind, a pleasant wit, more prone to love and concord, then disposed to quarrels and controversies. There is nothing of fierceness or immoderation in him, nothing of malevolence and despite; he is careful to enjoy his own greatness, careless to exercise an unjust domination.  
From whence then floweth all this sea of blood, if no anger lodgeth in celestial minds? Who seethe not, that it happens not by humane designment, but that it was hatched in Tophet, and the Mali Genii of the Nations have cherished it to this formidable growth, that they might blast our flourishing estate, abate our plenty, and undermine our happiness. The Affairs of Christendom were too potent, when the Factions of Heretics were overthrown: it was their machination to turn our swords reaking with the blood of our enemies into our own bowels. They raised the commotions in Italy at Mantua, and they broached all the Wars in Germany; they have engaged by a malignant enmity, the principal Crowns of Christian Fame in an implacable War, raging with ineffable destructions, the Church mourning, Infidels and carnal men rejoicing, and hell itself triumphing.  
In the great vicissitudes of things there hath often intervened a bad mind, which vitiateth the counsels, or retardeth the good determinations of Princes, and diverteth them from taking a right aim at Glory. Scarce had they saluted the skirts of his Dominions, but, being exagitated by factious whirlwinds, the good King recrowned with triumphant Laurels is called into Italy; the Alps must be penetrated in the depth of winter, a journey must be forced thorough rocks, concealed with now and lined with armed men, the opposite forces must be intermingled, and battles fought upon all disadvantages; which difficulties being conquered by a wonderful courage, and an equal felicity, and therefore they devise and trust to other ar●s of gubernation than God hath prescribed, as if he saw not enough or were careless of his people. They excogitate new, subtle, and crafty ways of procedure, whereby to augment their own, and entangle the estates of others, and if they can to intermingle and endanger all. They conceive it to be the part of a King to mind themselves alone, to guard and watch the safety of themselves alone, to refer all things to themselves, and to make their way to ample and royal profits, if any opposition come in their way, over the carcases of their subjects. That truth and falsehood know no distinction but with reference to our profit, unto which all the lives of all our actions must be concentric, and that whatsoever is profitable is only unlawful among fools, that an humble and timorous conscience is too importunate in the method of high Counsels. That subjects should be taught to exercise Religion with a scrupulous tenderness, that Princes must practise it, or upon it for advantage. That solid virtue is an hindrance if not lawful, 'tis the shadow and resemblance of it that is commodious; that honesty is praised, yet freezeth; that nothing is unlawful to Kings, that is magnificent for the Kingdoms.  
This is not, that I may use the words of the Apostle, This is not that wisdom which descendeth from above, but earthy, carnal, diabolical, which imposeth upon minds bewitched, and involveth Kingdoms in a miserable destruction. Fare different (Excellent Princes) is your reiglement, and vastly opposite is your understanding to these infernal notions. For were it committed to your care to manage the Affairs not of a Christian Empire, but to govern the Kingdom of the Saracens; yet this Doctrine would occur from the very Books and Institutes of Heathenish Legislatours, that craft is pernicious to those that turn the globe of Government: that this is humble, and base, and always hateful, seldom, and never long together advantageous. Whereupon Thucydides the most scientifical Politician, saith, That a Commonwealth is better governed and more prosperously by moderate men, and such as have an indifferent wit, then by the acute and such as are superabundantly industrious. But yet should you act the parts of men exiled from God, and lawless in the world, yet according to humane sense and as is believed, no unprofitable craft, excuse were due to them who have the overseeing of many things, which concern all men. But now seeing that you perceive that your Empires are continued to you chief by those things by which they began, who seethe not that Christian Kingdoms are established in Faith, Justice, and Lenity, and that they are subverted by Impiety, Injustice, and Cruelty? Who observes not that those men who stray from the Canons of heavenly Wisdom precipitate themselves into devious enormities and caliginous observations?  
Consult if you please the whole body of History, and consider what have been the exits of Tiberians and Herodians, you shall sinned this to be the pedigree of their everlasting reproach; first, a subdolous and wily mind, a life full of thorny cares and dawning jealousies, brittle and fugitive hopes, certain fears, uncertain counsels, deaths full of calamity, long punishments, fleeting pleasures, posterity, either none, or of no continuance. But on the other side if you please to contemplate the Records of Christian Princes, who have governed their Kingdoms with sincerity of mind, with gentleness of hand, with a prudent moderation, and an invincible integrity, thorough so many cross accidents, temptations, and discouragements of humane affairs, you may behold Hero's beloved of their own, feared by their enemies, to have lived safe in felicity and accumulated glories, and to have left behind them acceptable pledges of their own virtues for many generations. Therefore casting away the counsels of such an impious and execrable War, overcoming the charges of ambition with the comforts of a valiant modesty, and repressing irregular desires by charity, let us make our addresses to God the founder of Safety, and the reconciler of Divisions; for when we despair he can repair, our extremity is the crisis of his opportunity.  
But what is it that hath disobliged the desires, frustrated the expectations of all men, and almost tired out the oppressive sighs of the mourning Church with such tedious disappointments? Is it Honour? Is it Wealth? Truly if Honour, it is that which hath ministered not the weakest influence unto the vehement inducements of this War; an opinion of contempt should now be cashiered, when the fierce oppositions of two potent Kingdoms are engaged. What affluence can out-age the plenty which either of them may justly boast? What is more admirable than their Power? What more undaunted than their Valour? Fortitude, in a cause so miserable, is indeed rather to be lamented then desired; worthy the compelled praises of an Enemy, or the doleful experience of a Sarazen; but being exercised in a mutual discord among Christians, most undervalved when best extolled, a Spaniard hath no reason to contemn a Frenchman, nor a Frenchman to despise a Spaniard; yet either of them hath his advantages whereon to build a wish, that their united strength might be exhibited in a more just contestation, and a better fate.  
If the question be concerning your Propriety, it is a business so perplexed, that Archesilaus' hath long ago determined, that it can never be determined; so that if we contend about the Rights of Kingdoms, Cities, and Families, we shall prove his words to be full of truth, who called it the confusion of things and fortunes, necessarily teeming with eternal jars, and endless disagreements about the assertions. And if all things should be transacted according to the rigour of Justice, we should neither have a King, nor a rich man remaining. If any man therefore were possessed of whatsoever the sagacity of his wit could suggest unto his wishes; whatsoever opinion could fancy, or appetite imagine, let him plead that immense and perplexed Charter of Kingdoms from Nembrotus who first imposed the yoke upon free necks, let him derive it downwards thorough the labyrinthed Successions of so many Ages, or let him calculate upwards digging up his grandfather and great-grandfathers great-grandfather, till by the search of so many Sepulchers he hath wearied the tenacious memory of the desirous, and confounded the prudence of the skilful: what will he meet with at length but a suppeditation of fresh discord, and fuel for new fires of tumult? Who can be the arbitrator, who the judge to compose such great differences as will result from such involved causes?  
The Lord would not divide the inheritance between the Brethren: he that appointed measure to the Heavens, set bounds to the sea, and prescribed a proportion to all the Elements, even he refused to divide the Lamb between the kinsmen, being confirmed, that the avarice of men was contentious and implacable. Therefore if Christ himself should now descend from heaven, neither would he judge and determine your wealth, your interest, your propriety, and fortunes; neither if he would, should he by the umpirage of his impartial equity define all things according to your sense and will.  
What remaineth therefore, but that all Ages be worn out and wasted by infamous and degenerate War, the parts and factions being not unequally matched, and both sides most desirous of their ends and interests? But is it so glorious and worthy an enterprise for such great Princes, so pious, so majestical, and such potent Lords of sea and land, to contend about one city, nay perhaps one castle, and that too almost battered down by the thunderbolts of war; nay about the very dust and rubbage, and all this with deadly enmity which can be profitable to none, but hurtful to many?  
I understand, O ye wise and intelligent Counselors to Princes, what answer you will return to this, that your Interest is herein concerned, and your Honour engaged, lest the propriety of your Masters should be diminished by that League which the whole world expecteth. But I now leave that to be discussed by your prudence and equity, whether the whole Christian world should be endangered in their fortunes, lives, blood, salvation, and destruction of all things, to give a minister of State, a King's servant an assurance of some fethery and airy fame and perhaps deepest routed in his own opinion? What should such elevated souls as yours have for the object of their wishes, but that all things should have a sweet and peaceable composure to the advantage both of Kings and Kingdoms? But if you please, ponder this choice, whether it be not fare better for the Prince's Honour, and the utility of his State, to remit somewhat of that tenacity of spirit, and indeclinable rigour of mind, then to subject and expose all things to the violence of fire, and to the advantage of plunderers and murdering thiefs? But perhaps you imagine that it is better for Kingdoms to suffer direptions and devastations, than ruin: but what else is devastation than a direful perdition? 'Tis a miserable comfort to destroy, that you may not be destroyed, and to take the burning of Cities to be felicities compared with rapine; as if you should suppose it to be some goodly thing to die, to avoid death. That body is not lost that may be preserved by the sparing of a single nail. In a great and flourishing Kingdom, nothing doth perish if a small town or a castle be surrendered thereby to purchase a general peace and lasting tranquillity. Ministers of State lose nothing of their fame if they be reputed the fortunate Peacemakers of the world, rather than the Firebrands of a Kingdom, and State-barrettours. How many of this tenacious obstinacy and destructive circumspection have the unfortunate people blasted with execrations and defamed with reproaches, because by litigious juggle they had deluded the world into an universal equipage of sorrow and complaint, rather conniving at the destruction of all things, then that they, in the most speechless calamity, would part with a toy of Honour to revive a perishing State.  
But if any among you shall lend an ear of favourable regard to the complaints of the whole Christian world, and shall stretch out a protecting hand, and shall immolate the resignation of a narrow interest to the Divinity of a general preservation, doubtless heaven itself shall be besieged for an accumulation of blessings upon him. The present Age shall pay tributes of Benevolence to his Person, and posterity shall refresh the memory of his virtues with a reverential gratitude. The people will celebrate his praises, and look upon him as the saviour of their Country, a beneficent Patriot, and will flock to behold him as the salutary and propitious Planet of their felicity.  
This glorious burden (Greatest Princess) lieth upon your shoulders, you must command, act, enact, and perfect; you must use your servants as the instruments of their public good. Truly, if you are at jeisure to hear that, which without an indelible stain of negligence you cannot refuse to hear, I shall make it evident that the substance of my persuasions is but the Echo of the voice of God, indeed the Law and Commandment of God; that your preservation and propriety is comprehended in it, and that the edicts of heaven and the conflicts of all good men's hearts do wonderfully conspire & point to it. And first consider, whether you that have so long resisted Christ the Peacemaker, may not seem to war against God, rather than to contend with men. For he is our Peace, and hath made of both one; in him he was pleased that all the fullness of the Godhead should inhabit, and that all things should be reconciled to himself by him, and that through the Blood of his Cross our peace should be purchased. Upon his ingress into the world he brought Peace, by his egress out of the world he bought Peace. His flesh he suffered to be direfully and inhumanely rend and wounded, but his bones which by so many hidden and intricate connexion's represent the Church, he would have untouched; intimating his most vehement desires thereby, that his Elect should be consociated in an indissollubletie of concord. And indeed in the Old Testament the high Priest went not into the Sanctum Sanctorum but with pomegranates fastened to the skirts of his garments, which insinuateth unto us that strict society and agreement of the Saints one among another.  
When Christ had triumphed over Death he saluteth his Disciples with that sweet and amiable name of Peace; with this the Apostles beautify the entrance into their Epistles; with this the just are delighted; this lapsed men implore, and by this the Angel's triumph. For (saith S. Austin) Peace is the serenity of the mind, the tranquillity of the soul, the glue of concord, the cement of affection, the fellowship of charity: this is it which taketh away contentions, putteth an end to wars, trampleth down the proud, affecteth the humble, reconcileth the litigant, is delightsome unto all, full of benignity to all, cannot be extolled, cannot be puffed up, seeketh no unjust possession, vendicateth no propriety, teacheth to love that which it knoweth not how to heal. And saith Nazianzen, Vbi non est pax, non est mundus: It is not a world without peace. For according to Simeon it consisteth in three things, or to say better, subsisteth by three things, Verity, Justice, and Peace. Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God, saith the voice of Truth. Behold the Adoption and the Name of the Sons of God, whereof so many Kings and Emperors have been competitors in desire, is not promised to subdued Nations, not bequeated to stormed and burnt Cities, not legacied to a desolate world, but to such as reverence Peace and compose the variances of Princes by leagues and Treaties.  
Are you not sometimes possessed (Best Princes) with a trembling fear, when you reach out your hands at the Altar, when you appear at and participate those holy Mysteries, lest if you put not a period to these Wars; the Angels of Peace bitterly weeping should divert their eyes from you, lest the voice of Christ should cry aloud to you from the Temple, and as often as you ask Peace and pardon with the Church, so often he should answer, What hast thou to do with Peace? Thou kissest my Head and kickest my Members. You flatter me with Prayers and persecute me with swords. You have the voice of Jacob, but you have the hands of Esau. While you kindle bonfires of outward congratulation and thankfulness to me, you make bonfires of Cities, and exhibit sad emblems of your inflamed minds to the world. You smell of incense, and by your means whole towns are turned into smoke, and whilst you present yourself a suppliant before me, you play the warrior before the world. Your weapons reak not with the blood of Turks but Brethren. So many miserable men are slaughtered by thy command, and the blood of those is shed by thee for whom I shed my blood. Whilst you cry to me, thousands of widows and orphans cry to behold those carcases which now can no more answer to the names of husband and father. Whilst you here erect Altars to me, you elsewhere offer your vows to your own lusts; you do not sacrifice but sin; whilst these things are acted by your command, or tolerated by your connivance. bend your mind and not your knees, deceive not the world with a laborious hypocrisy, and make no false boastings of the portion of my spirit, but manacle your own passions, and tame your own deceitful spirits, and if you will have pardon, pardon.  
Many things (Great Princes) at the beginning are to be pardoned to error, and many things to a mind agitated with a show or a guess of injury. If some Wars be just, if some be necessary, yet whilst they are protracted, they cease to be what they were, they lose their innocence by the very diuturnity, and whilst they increase in fury, they decrease in cause and reputation. Take heed lest our most merciful Lord be offended with the long continuance and the lasting malignity of your undertake. You are not ignorant with what security our Saviour enjoined, a removal of all scandals from his Kingdom, dooming the authors of them to have a millstone tied about their necks and their bodies cast into the sea. I shall not indeed be a rigid interpreter of Prince's actions, or pass a speedy condemnation upon them. But yet we must beware lest so many calamities and funerals spread further by the very contagion of the hatred, lest the minds of all pious people be offended, and the scoffing tongues of the wicked be sharpened against our Religion. The Gentiles in time past were amazed at the Charity of the Christians to see how they loved one another, to see how they had a mutual contention of desires to die for one another. They who wanted the advantage of Faith were alured with the admiration of their virtues. They expected not any profane mixtures nor base designs from him who had devoted himself to brotherly kindness. But now should the Heathen behold brother against brother, what else could be the sad harmony of their jubilations, but, see how they destroy one another; see how they butcher one another; see how they prosecute and persecute one another with endless hatred. Either they are without Christ or Christ is without Peace. It is a hard saying, yet hath it more of truth than wonder. The Cause of God suffereth diminution in these discords; the Church mourneth for many and horrid things, either the Religion we profess accuseth our errors, or we the Professors accuse our Religion. By us Infidels insult over the Elect, the Profane over the godly, the Jews over Christ, and Barbarians over the Church. If our honour be cheap in our own valuation, why do we betray the Honour of God? why do we batter his inheritance?  
Moreover, to what short consideration is it not evident that Christian dissensions have been always the occasion of Heathenish rejoicings? Whilst our own Armies are conflicting one with the other, the Turks have taken Rhodes from us, and usurped Constantinople. May we not think it a miraculous indulgence of our merciful God, to divert so potent and cruel an enemy from our destruction by engaging him in the Persian War? But this is much to be feared, lest if such whirlwinds of wrath continue among us, he should fly upon the torn and scattered remainder of our Kingdoms with fury and violence. It is also to be feared lest the Providence being so often provoked by our renewed injuries should cast us out as a prey to the roaring and the ravenous lion. The greatest Empires have been often lost in ruin for the same causes, and the same offences, and the wicked Kings have been subjected to a foreign domination, their posterity hath been cut off, and all their glories have vanished into a reproachful scoff. What constant glories have they possessed, what dry deaths hath the check of Providence allowed them, by whose means it hath come to pass, that the Kingdom of Christ hath devolved into the hands and power of the Saracens?  
Add to these things (O you Princes!) the unregarded grievances of your Subjects, and the laborious servitude of your people. Necessity compels you to devour your own members, that you get into your grasp the members of another. Such a numerous people as the omnipotent God hath delegated to your care and piety, that they should be kneaded and compounded into one substantial felicity by Peace and concord, by holy laws and religious adoration of the Deity, are either exposed as unfortunate and succourless oblations to the fury of their enemies, or groan under the pressures of taxations, and are tilted in their fortunes by the unappeased and insatiable avarice of exactours. Those who have escaped the Sword, Famine depopulates by lingering deaths, or else they live oppressed under some tyrannous calamity. They are sequestered from light and conversation; they have neither country, nor habitation, neither rest, nor food. Fecundity, the most desired blessing of their former hopes, is now both hated and feared, because they cannot leave an inheritance of good things to their children, they would not propagate them to become heirs of misery. That life which they have been careful to preserve amidst so many dangers, they now detest, as unprofitable to you, uncomfortable to themselves. To be plundered of all things at once is their deliberate wish, lest every day they should be plundered. But in the mean time they are infested with a diversity of evils, the amission of all things, and the capitation of each particular thing: an Excise upon every thing, an undoubted property in nothing. They fall under the cruel command of necessity, where they are neither permitted to live with the honest, nor to die with the quiet: they are made gazing-stocks to others, and are formidable to themselves, whilst their estates perish to themselves, their affections are lessened to you, which formerly adorned and confirmed your Crowns with a loyal valour.  
Consider (Greatest Princess) that next to the Honour and Worship of God, the most supreme Law that binds you, is the safety of the People. It was once the speech of a valiant Emperor, Non mihi sed exercitui sitis: You are not so much born for yourselves as for your subjects. Their cares if you be wise must be your crosses, their oppressions your burdens, their miseries your infelicities, and their discouragements your complaints. What doth it advantage disconsolate men, to be defended from the expectations of a greedy enemy by being rifled and impoverished by those of his own Nation; He is a miserable Pastor from whom the tutelary Gods of the flock require more things than wolves can devour.  
But this is the soul of misfortune, the estate being exhausted, the mind is dejected, and the virtues are disheartened; the Laws are silent among Swords, the Blasphemer and the Hypocrite have the uncontrolled liberty of speaking; Swordmen licentiously swagger, Robbers and Plunderers are the only Ranters; Murderers are the merry-men, and all variety of lust is predominant; the beauty of Churches is disgraced and sullied with Sacrilegious hands; Altars are overthrown; Justice is vilipended, and Injustice blusheth in scarlet robes; Religion fainteth▪ Piety languisheth, Charity is counted scandalous; and not only all things are perverted, but perverse things are neglected, as if it were expedient that things should be so, necessity that fruitful mother of impieties so commanding.  
And if you will reflect upon your own affairs, I beseech you (Princes) among so many funerals of War, what can be pleasant to you? You must stir the earth, add disquiet to the sea, and by many dangers you must arrive at greater danger. Death that is obvious to every person must be sought for by hard labours; no erroneous or reprovable course indeed if a happy Peace were unfeignedly pursued. Many things are unfaithful at home, infested abroad; great Armies are hard to raise, costly to maintain, easy to be destroyed; the fate of Battles is common, and the chance of War uncertain. Prosperity doth not satisfy, adversity striketh with a steep wounding dart, and pierceth the very heart. Many times victories themselves are the seeds of new contentions, the brooding of new sorrows. It is not lawful for them that are up to keep their station, nor for those that were overcome to lie still. Discords increase with a prodigious fertility being once begun, and many times the conquered draw the conquerors, and an inconcocted excess of fortune obstructeth all their glories; all things are intermixed with fear that depend upon expectation. Many times fallacious events delude well-grounded hopes, and horrid Catastrophe's befall the desperate. The ingresses of War are troublesome, the progresses doubtful, the egresses commonly deplorable. Many is exhausted to make good the baffles of force by underming fraud; lost Commanders are lamented, to whom nothing was wanting but immortality. Cyprus disappoints the Laurel, and Funerals are distinguished by Palms. The Conquerors stand over the ruins of the oppressed, being themselves wasted by the expense of blood and strength, and nearer to their Tombs then, Triumphs. You would believe that a Kingdom were destroyed, did you not believe that the enemies were destroyed. How much better were it for Peacemakers to make use of the indulgence of Fortune, rather than so often to provoke the departures of the Fates against yourselves.  
Certainly, if there be any consideration of the value of a Christian Title, if there be any commiseration of humanity, the afflicted condition of all Nations that fight for Christ ought to move you. And it must needs be an object full of bitter anguish to see a Nation worried to ruin by fraternal discords, which Christ hath espoused to himself by a peculiar Election. Germany, that mother of fruitfulness, that advancer of Learning, and shop of War, is now full of mourning, the country being unmanured, many gallant cities being to be sought where the cities themselves flourished, so many men being slain, so much wealth consumed, so many Churches demolished, is now the miserable mirth of Fortune dancing in her ashes. Lotharingia overcame Jerusalem with calamities, and brought upon her more than all barbarity could execute, or all misery could undergo. The Low-countrieses are alarmed with an anniversary contention, and is drawing on among the slow Funerals. A hidden poison hath invaded England, and engaged her in a blind and unexpected War. Spain so long victorious, so long free from jars and tumult, always impatient of slavery, and a stranger to want, is assaulted to the very throat. Fear hath journied over the Alps and possessed Rome. Fury had disordered Italy, and unless the Princes by prudent Counsels and sagacity of wit had re-composed the distractions, it was justly to be feared that when they had made a solitude, they would have called that Peace what is undisturbed? what is not miserable? Si tu victrix provincia ploras: If thou O France mournest which haste so often triumphed over thine enemies, and in a deep sense of misery groanest to feel the darts pulled out of thine own bowels which must be thrown against others. What do barren Laurels profit such as are sick and languishing among the rapines of their goods and estates? To what purpose is it to hold flowers to the nostrils when the body is wasted and parched with such violent fevers? It is a malignant kind of solace for one man to compute his felicity by the increase of another's grief. Nothing is safe, nothing pleasant amidst such calamities, where the worst of evils is the rejoicing. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is heavy, from the sole of the foot unto the crown of the head, there is nothing whole therein, but wounds, and swelling, and sores full of corruption, they have not been wrapped, nor bound up, nor mollified with oil.  
On that same man who is powerful in the conduct of this world's affairs, and can dive into the secret of these controversies, could in a clear prospective behold the Christian world gasping under so many direful perplexities, doubtless it would pierce his soul, and he would condemn himself of cruelty did he not procure her restauration. Hard are those ears that bow not at these considerations; harder are those eyes that can behold them without some moist testimonies of sorrow.  
I shall tell you (Best Princes) that which chief concerneth your interest, I shall show you that which comprehendeth both the augmentation and the glory of your Dignity. I wish your Kingdoms settled upon foundations as firm as rocks: I wish your Cities may continue obedient; all your Subjects obsequious; and all things calm and even in your domestical negotiations. 
These things were written long since, which of late have been verified by many sad events.  Yet it is well worth a serious fear, lest those people who are apprehensive of their hard condition under Kings, and see the neighbouring Commonwealths enjoy so much lenity and freedom, do begin to hate Monarchy, and (which is absolutely unlawful) conspire to withdraw their Obedience, that they may acquire a redemption from their evils by the temptation of Liberty.  
Certainly it is very unequal and unjust that at this day Commonwealths alone should inherit peace and plenty, and Christian Kingdoms should labour under general convulsions, and be wasted with unheard of lacerations. The rigorous strictness of Empire, the tuning of the strings too high in Government doth sometimes crack them and dissolve great Empires, a hard servitude hath not seldom instructed a Nation into Liberty. When the inquinated times of the Hebrew Kings were passed, and the Jews were now returned from a long Captivity, there arose in them an aversation to Kingly Government; and almost for five hundred years no man durst think of a Diadem before Aristobulus, who rather usurped then received it; neither was it established upon a firm basis, for his unfortunate posterity did not long enjoy it.  
Cecrops reigned in Athens in the days of Moses, whom seventeen Kings succeeded; some grew insolent, some negligent, and these perpetual Governors were dethroned: for when it was observed that the diuturnity of Regal Power flattered them into a security of their excesses, the Government was reduced to ten years' continuance.  
The Kings of Sparta also luxuriating in their glories, and made wanton by felicity, were soon dismantled of them both. Lycurgus' tempered the Sceptre by a wise 
These were Magistrates in office like unto the Tribunes among the Roman, and the Spartans' and Lacedæmonians used to appeal from the King to them, as did the Romans from the Consuls to the Tribanes. At the first they were chosen like o●r Parliament men to be advisers about affairs and assistants to the King, but in a short time their authority overtopped the K●ngs power.  institution of twenty eight men called Senators. Afterwards to this number of the Senators there was added the Ephori with too much privilege against Kings, and hateful to all men.  
Rome from the beginning was governed by Kings, the last whereof (which were the two Tarquins) ruling that warlike Nation with pride and petulancy, by great force and perpetual disgrace they were expelled from their Magistracy, leaving almost an everlasting odium against the Regiment of Kings.  
It would be too impertinent to reckon up the Ancient times, we ourselves have seen in our days how many a rigid domination hath sacrificed to the People's fury, who having endured all things, have learned from thence to dare to attempt all things, and those Kingdoms which for a long time they suffered under, they have at length usurped by cruel and lasting Wars. Fare be it from your Subjects to entertain any such perversity of thought, and fare from you also be contempt and rigour, lest the Divine hand bring to pass that which few fear, none dare attempt, and all abhor. Transmit therefore (O ye Princes!) comfort to the wearisome, and Peace to the troubled, upon which all wishes are bend, in which all people are blessed.  
Behold at length there is given unto us by the singular gift of God a good Pope, a man of blameless life, of consummated understanding, of a great mind, and extremely zealous, he is as the Wiseman said as the rainbow that is bright in the fair clouds. This is he, whom after so many storms, so many tempests, and such a deluge of Christian blood, God seems to exhibit as a restorer of things, a Peacemaker to the world, an avenger of evils, and a bestower of blessings. And indeed this is not done by humane counsel, but by the gubernative reason of God which is his Providence, that he might demonstrate to the world by no vain auguries, that to this man as to the Patriarch Noah the tops of the mountains should appear, the waters of strife and the floods of contention being dried up. This I suppose is that dove with silver wings, and whose hinder parts glittered as the purest gold, whereof the Prophet spoke.  
Innocentius hath ever shined brighter than silver by the candour and uprightness of his mind, but now the latter parts of his life promise a golden Age unto the world. He doth not sit idle amidst the complaints and mournings of the Church, he doth not revel in an uncircumspect and lazy greatness, but with unwearied pains and a mind always vigilant, he is intent upon illustrious cares for Christ and aimeth at the consolation of mankind, The amiable name of Pamphilius is delightful unto all men, and delightful is the name of Innocentius so often consecrated to the salvation of men.  
Innocentius the first extinguished Alaricus boasting himself in the prey of the Roman Empire with his prayers, and by his splendour re-beautified the face of the eternal City when it was infuscated with the sooty vapours of a brutish War.  
Innocentius the second dissipated the Schism of the counterfeit Anacletus, and with the co-assistance of S. Bernard, composed the Christian world when it was disunited with great discords.  
A pure white dove fore-shewed the inauguration of Innocent the third by flying to his side; without doubt designing the solicitous endeavours whereby he laboured to consociate all Christian Princes by firm Leagues one with another. and to exasperate them against the common enemy of Religion.  
Innocentius the fourth came to Lions, that he might reconcile the irregular tumults in the Church, and that by his authority he might remove Frederick the Emperor that fomented many things and disturbed all things.  
Innocentius the fifth was not sooner crowned, but presently he addicteth his mind to pacify the Cities of Italy, and being by such pious determinations immortal in glory, he spent his short Pontificate in a fatherly care of his people.  
Innocentius the sixth when the flame of a destructive war devoured France and England, stood stoutly for the House of God, and with a great spirit laboured for Peace with John and Edward at that time the Kings of the Nations.  
Innocentius the seventh mounted not otherwise to this pitch of supreme Dignity, but by a faithful endeavour constantly transacted to reconcile the Princes and appease the cities of Italy, which a malignant force of discord had precipitated into imminent destruction.  
Innocentius the eighth was most desirous of Peace among Christian Princes, and could not without some motions of impatience see any go to war but upon the most important and importunate causes.  
Innocentius the ninth when before his Pontificate he was the apostical Nuntio of Gregory the fourteenth, staying six years among the Venetians, conjoined them both in Arms and Armies with the Pope, and Philip the second King of Spain, and irritated them against the Turk; whereupon that most famous victory of Naupactus broke the boldness of the Saracens, and after a wonderful manner improved the conduct of Christian Affairs.  
Oh how is the name of the Innocents' born and consecrated unto Peace! Oh joyful appellation unto Christians! The Tenth will accomplish what the nine have attempted, so much the greater, as this number is the more noble.  
Go on thou dove of Innocence, display thy silver wings, fly over both earth and sea, view the world, show forth in all places the celestial olive, give Peace so ambitiously desired, and by such constant expectations wished, give Peace I say so often called for, and to be implored of thee the Anointed of the Lord, or else at this time it must be despaired of.  
What remaineth (Greatest Princess) but that you grant that to our Petitions which you have hitherto denied to our Reasons: Whatsoever restraineth passion, whatsoever can appease an armed man in fury, doth now run towards you in one troop, that so it may be honourable for you to be thus entreated, and shameful for you not to yield to these entreaties.  
Behold the Pope the Pastor and Parent of the whole Church stretcheth out friendly hands unto you, and when he might command, entreats you; almost forgetting that he is the Pope, he becomes an humble suppliant: A man dear to heaven, and born for great enterprises: Worthy in all places to bear the felicities of the world about him, amidst all his exalted prosperities is your Petitioner, that Divine wit equal to his height, feels a colluctation with these burdens, and in a vigorous and circumspect old age is grieved by you. The bowels of a Father are urged, who is as often fruitful in the generation of children, as he desires those children to be reconciled to Peace. Be ashamed not to hear him, whose predecessor Attila would hear. He is full of days, honour his grey hairs; he is a Father, acknowledge his Charity; he is the Pope, be observant of his Dignity. God forbidden that he like meek Jacob should be compelled to say, Simeon and Levi are brethren in iniquity; Let not my soul participate of their counsels, and in their company let not my glory come: Cursed be their fury because it is obstinate, and their indignation because it is cruel.  
The whole Church lamenteth with her Pope, in times past triumphing, now deformed, full of filth, now bedewed and almost drowned in tears, and tired under cares and sorrows. He beseecheth you, that you would not suffer the Ammorites and the Moabites to insult in your destructions. Prevent the petulancy of such an objection, that even Barbarians did reverence him, and yet he had Parricides to his sons. How often have we seen the Priests at Jubilees prostrate in the Sanctuary with ejulations? How often have we beheld Religious persons wearying the Altars with unwearied prayers? How often have we seen the well-disposed Virgins imploring the aid of heaven by frequent sighs? How often have we gladly beheld the Devout multitude crowding the Church to pour forth their wishes? Of what quality and complexion is that rigour, that, which God a vert, will not hear the whole world? How is the metal of their souls compounded, that would make heaven iron unto us, and almost noxious, whilst it either seemeth not to hear, or what it heareth to contemn.  
To be never free from Wars they think is either for the public profit or for their own: if for the public, let them hear S. Augustine crying out, That felicity acquired by Martial exploits is always a brittle perishable beauty, and whether it receive the tincture and complexion from Civil or Hostil blood, yet it is the blood of man, which is always mixed with a benighting paleness, or darksome fear, and a cruel desire. And again, that all humane Affairs are then seated in the best station of felicity, when small Kingdoms are joyful in Concord, Piety, and Unity of Religion. And in a third place he hath this excellent saying, Without doubt it is better to have the friendship of a good neighbour, then to subdue a contentious bad neighbour. They are evil wishes to desire to have whom you hate, or whom you fear, as he may prove whom you overcome. If they judge it profitable for themselves to prolong the War, truly they are most unjust, who place the tears of a torn and ragged world amongst their felicities; most miserable of all men are they, who cannot be happy but by the miseries of other men.  
He must needs be (saith Homer) without friend, without affinity, without law, and without God who is a lover of War rather by choice then chance, rather by will then necessity. He is the most poor also who is rich by the calamity of all men. How many who have always been of a froward, contentious, and fight wit, have themselves been tortured with those pains and furies which they raised against others? Achitophel, that busy contriver of the Jewish war between the Father and the Son, paid himself the just wages of his traitorous counsels with an infamous halter. The revenging hand of God fell upon Alcimus that traitor and firebrand, and counterfeit Priest among the Jews. Alexander of Macedon whilst he makes the end of one War the beginning of another, being impatient of rest, and ever greedy after new blood, whilst he thrusts his Soldiers into battles beyond the progress of the sun and the limits of the sea, he perished by poison given by his domestics, to whom he began to grow odious for his excessive appetite to War. He was taken away (as they say) a green God, lest he should further vex the world with arms, who should have obliged it by benefits. Hannibal whilst he weaveth inextricable webs of War, a dishonourable old age surpriseth him, solitude rejected him, society shunned him, therefore to shorten the date of these contempts, he ends his days by voluntary poison. The Romans that were Conquerors of the world, always full, yet always covetous, whilst they remove the Temple of Peace without their gates, they felt the hands of all men conspiring against them, and seven times was this Mistress of Cities taken whereof Sibyl had said, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Rome shall be made a Village.  
Cardinal Baronius citys a little Book witten by Carolus Crassus the Emperor, of a Vision presented unto him three years before he reigned, wherein he declareth that he beheld in the infernal places many souls of Princes and Bishops, who had fomented controversies and fed the rage of Wars, to be tormented with most dreadful pains. At the same time, as this most learned Cardinal writeth, Italy and France were agitated and afflicted with direful factions, but what was worse, and indeed monstrous, the Bishops and Abbats went forth armed to the battles, which execrable custom when it long prevailed in France, from thence it came to pass that the most flourishing Provinces were all laid waste with external and Civil Wars. But what was most detestable of all, these Church's warriors are commended by the Writers of those times for this Ecclesiastical gallantry and Spiritual valour, when indeed they were rather to be abhorred as the violatours of the sacred Canons, despisers of their Order, and desertours of their Pastoral duty: thus Baronius.  
Likewise Julian a Clergyman was the author and promoter of that Varvensian slaughter, which of all other was the most to be lamented by the Christian world, who when he had contributed his persuasions for a countenance of the War against the League, he exposed infinite companies of our side to the insulting fury of the Turks, he himself being also slain with the young King of the Saracens. Thus Nemesis pursueth bloodthirsty and contentious souls, not suffering those to be at rest, who solicited others into disorder who would have been at rest. A watchful eye abides in heaven, ever active, never weary, who perpetually contemplates the deeds of men, and equally dispenseth to every one his deservings. They that were long happy receive their portion, and they who seem to be dismissed are only dilated. These things being put in so illustrious an example will they nothing move? will they effect nothing?  
Will brethren suffer themselves again to rush upon one another's weapons? Or will you O Princes! and ye O Clergymen! encourage brethren to pull down tottering Kingdoms with more destructions? woe and alas! Will brethren forgetful of their covenant, forgetful of their name, and unmindful of their relations thus rage beyond the world, and kill those they cannot hate? But some will say, this reason of blood and alliance is inconsiderable, and very unapt to procure a Peace: for Kings have Subjects, but kinsmen and consanguinity they have none. O cruel speech! O enemy of mankind! O parricide of nature! there must needs be a heap of gross impieties, where there is an oblivion of the greatest Charities. Where Christ is banished, and love finds no habitation, there is either no Government, or such as borders upon ruin. The Turkish Empire that is established upon wickedness and cemented with blood, may for a time subsist with wickedness. God appointing them to be the rods of his fury for our chastisement: Christian Empires which were rooted in Faith and Piety, and wanting the sap of Religion and Justice to nourish them, have abandoned themselves to the infamous counsels of Machiavilians, must unavoidably perish, so preposterous a mind lodgeth not in pious Princes; the voice of nature sometime or other will be heard, Christ will have a resurrection in the minds of all men, Charity will revive, and at length some Peacemaker will arise and at one the labouring world.  
Now there hath shined round about us a most fortunate King and a most sweet Infant born for the Peace of Kingdoms, and the world's advantage. By how many Prayers was he obtained? and with what vehemence of soul was he solicited? how often hath he provoked our desires? how often hath he raised our hopes, and wasted them with delay when they were raised, and renewed them when they were wasted? Great things move slowly: He had done less, had he made more haste. He lay concealed from the inhabitants of the earth in the secret Majesty of the Fates, but now by the Dictates of heaven he is known unto us. He was fore-shewed unto us long before he was, and not being yet conceived he filled the world with Prophecies, and designed his approaches by a prevolant fame. At length the desired Infant came for●h in that month which they call the month of the Valiant, by the prerogative of a great mind. He was born when the Sun obtained the middle part of Virgo, or Astraea, for he was to govern the world with the moderation of Laws. He ascended with Lyra, being to make a harmony and consort of public tranquillity. And if Scorpio did at the same time show forth his sting, he threatened the Saracens, and promised the Idumean Palms to him that should be born, so often dignified by the Valour of his Ancestors. The heavenly habitations rejoiced at his birth, and the whole world welcomed the newborn Babe with joy. Now no man thought himself miserable at this happy birth; now no man thought himself happy whom that birth did not make so. Upon that day France wiped away all the foot of War, and shined clearly with refulgent ensigns of Peace. We had that day as many prosperities as bonfires, and as many bonfires as there are stars.  
O Lewis, beloved of God, whom he seemeth to have regenerated in his son that very month wherein he was born! O Anne! late indeed the mother of a son, yet always a fortunate mother, in bringing forth a son not only to herself, nor so much to herself as to all France. He hath much of his Father, and much of his Mother, and by this very confusion he maketh the image of them both more grateful and more amiable.  
This new Isaac will make thee laugh O France! and whom thou canst scarce hear speaking, hereafter thou shalt see comforting. How many chains will those tender hands burst asunder? How many prisons will they open? How many obscurities will those little eyes enlighten? How many monsters will the feet of this Infant subdue and trample on? Be silent ye waves, be silent ye tempests and rages of the sea at the beck of such a gentle Prince, and restore unto the world that serenrty whereof you have deprived it. Ye heavenly Powers lend him long unto the earth, and whom you have made so healthful to the Nation, make him also lasting. Ye Fates keep off your hands, and touch not this child but to assist him. Let him transcend the years and actions of his Ancestors, and being born mortal may he apprehend nothing but what is immortal. May he love, and desire to be beloved, ever fearing to be feared. Let the oppressed find him a deliverer; may the unjust feel him an avenger; may his enemies know him to be of a warlike spirit, and may his Subjects attest him to be of a peaceable mind. This Nativity ravisheth all my senses which I foretell shall be the beginning of an eternal Peace unto us. Look down from above, O Lewis upon such a son! Look upon him all ye Christian Kings as your little Nephew; give rest to wearied things, let arms be silent at the command of so great a Prince, so potent an Orator, nor let the tumults of War rock this royal cradle.  
To you again, (Great Princes) I wholly turn myself, by whatsoever is dear, I ask, by whatsoever is holy, I beseech you, give peace to them that beg it, or must beg without it; give tranquillity to the world sighing under so many feverish miseries. Make it appear unto us that you chose rather to be the Pacificatours of the world, than the Subverters of your own Kingdoms. There is a story how in that fatal War between the English and the French, continued with lasting contentions and horrible slaughters, a pious Anachoret instigated thereunto by God, came unto the Courts of the two Princes, that he might compose these feral discords between them. But being slighted in the English Court and negligently repulsed, this despised but not despicable Augur, pronounced many direful accidents that should befall that Nation. But travelling to Charles of France, and finding him to be a prince of a gentle wit, and inclined to conditions of Peace, he foretold, that the Kingdom being recovered he should have the Dolphin to be his successor, who, as he was the child of many hearty desires, so he should prove the instrument of many joyful enterprises. The prophecy is inpartpart fulfilled with a prosperous event, so tenderly God loves the sons of Peace accumulated with affluence of all good things.  
whoever he be, let him beware that shall resist and strive against the peaceable wishes of all men: some grievous hand will fall upon him and his from heaven: he shall meet with unhappy events in all his undertake, his life shall be cer-tainly troublesome, his death doubtful. Best and greatest Princes, consider and think with yourselves that what loss soever can be pretended to happen by this league of Peace, whatsoever can detract from your Honour or your Empire, is recompensed unto you in the most fortunate advantages of the whole Christian world. This is rich indeed, this is magnificent, this truly Royal and to be propagated to the memory of all Ages.  
Remember that you are Christians and govern Christians: be you propitious like Gods unto men, if you desire that God should be propitious unto you. Whatsoever you enjoy of life is slippery and uncertain, and your Dignities are full of frailty; it is your Justice that hath reference to your Felicity, and it is your Virtue that links you to Eternity. There is a great and conspicuous Tribunal that expects you, there sits a Judge clothed with purestlight to summon you, unto whom the most secret things are revealed, whom the most involved and disguised actions cannot deceive, no can he be overcome by perversities. Before him must appear the souls of Kings devested of body, fortunes, Empires, and be they just or unjust they must be examined by a most clear light. There you shall hear the Edicts of the supreme Deity, and the King of kings thundering in your ears: the groans of the oppressed shall cry against you; the tears of the poor shall speak against you; the tutelary Gods will plead for their Altars which you have broken down, and all the heavenly Militia will rise together against the contumacious. Endeavour ye pious, and always invincible Princes▪ that those things which have been committed in prejudice of your wills by the  licence of War, may be corrected by your Equity, that they may leave no aspersion upon your Reigns, no stain upon Reputations, no blot upon your Persons. Bring to pass that Justice and Peace may meet in mutual embracements, let them be carried with triumphal pomp thorough your Kingdoms, and thorough your Cities, let them be born upon the shoulders of the whole world unto fixed and eternal seat, that it perpetually may be lawful for us to worship and reverence them at the monuments of your goodness, and the pledges of our felicity.  
Pax super Israel Dei.  
FINIS.   

AN ALPHABETICAL TABLE Setting down the most observable Matters contained in the two last TOMES of the HOLY COURT.  
ABiathar the high Priest deprived of his dignities by a violent action. 152 The wisdom of Abigail. 142 The insolence of Abner. 144 He treateth with David. 145 His death. ibid. Absalon out of favour. 147 His reconciliation by means of Joab. ibid. Absalon's revolt. ibid. His designs, ibid. His Ambition. 148 He caused himself to be proclaimed King. ibid. He giveth battle to his Father, wherein he is overthrown and killed. 149 We must not condemn him that by lawful means seeks his own Accommodations. 46 Achior his oration. 182 It is pleasing to Holophernes and his soldiers. ibid. The pernicious counsel of Achitophel. 148 Adonijah competitour of the Crown and his faction. 151 The fault of Adonijah in his Council of State. ibid. Adonijah desired the Shunamite which did complete his misfortune. 152 Adonis an admirable fish. 38 A good deed done to a great one in Afflictions is of much value 142 what are the subjects of Afflictions. 57 The dispositions of Ages. 19 The death of Agrippina. 273 Ahab goeth to meet Elijah in person. 249 He desireth Naboths Vineyard, 251 His death. 253 Ahashuerus his banquet, which continued for the space of one hundred and fourscore days. 188 Alcimus the false high Priest. 199 Amantius plotteth against Justin jan. 58 A notable observation of Clemens Alexandrinus. 83 The courage we may derive from the Sacrament of the Altar. 80 Shallow and fantastic Ambition. 13 The Ambition of ecclesiastics and Religious men much more subtle than others. ibid. Crodield daughter of king Caribert, a religious woman raiseth great troubles by her Ambition. ibid. Ambition which buddeth in hearts of base extraction is most insolent, which is instanced in a Chirurgeon of S. Lewis, is wisely repressed and chastised by the prudence and justice of King Philip the third of France. 115 The French revengers of Ambition. ibid. The furious Ambition of Alexius the Tyrant of Greece, punished by the valour and justice of the French. 116 Ambition the beginning of all evils. 292 The effects of Ambition and envy. ibid. The fury and infidelity of Ambition. 296 The inhuman cruelty of Ambition. 297 What Amity is. 5 Three sorts of Amity. ibid. Natural Amity and its foundation. ib. Amity of demigods. 6 Amity grounded upon honesty. ib. Men too endearing uncapable of Amity. ib. Men banished from the Temple of Amity. ib. Reasons for which women do seem uncapable of Amity. 7 Degeneration, Amity. 8 There may be spiritual Amity's between persons of different sexes, endowed with great virtue and rare prudence. 9 Amity in S. John chrysostom. 10 The right stains of Amity are forgetfulness of friends, negligence, contempt, dessention, suspicion, distrust, inequality, impatience and infidelity. 11, 12 Six perfections which preserve Amity. ib. Bounty a true note of Amity. 13 The benefits of Amity. ib. Patience most necessary in Amity. 14 There may be a celestial Amity by the commerce of man with God. 22 What Anger is. 86 Divers degrees of Anger. ib. Three Regions of Anger, the first of sharp choler, the second of bitter choler, the third of fury. 87 Remedies against these three sorts of Anger. ib. The property of the Yew-Tree like unto Anger. ib. Anger is very prejudicial in military art in a General. 118 Philip of Valois a great and generous King looseth a battle out of a peevish humour of Anger. ib. The barbarous Anger of Bajazet. ib. Lewis the younger admonished by Bernard chastiseth himself for his Anger by sadness and penance. ib. Anger of women. ib. Anger out of simplicity many times causeth hurt for a word too free, witness that of Enguerrand. ib. The humility and wisdom of Queen Anne to overcome the passion of Anger. 120 Address of Bavalon to appease the Anger of the Duke of Brittaign. 121 Anastatius dying, Amantius his high Chamberlain aimed at the Empire. 158 Antonina wife of Belizarius prostituted herself to Theodosius whom she and her husband had made their adopted son. 164 Antiochus his horrible cruelty. 197 The death of Antiochus. ●01 How we ought to govern our Antipathies. 246 A notable sentence of the Areopagite. 2 The notable practice of S. Athanasius. 10 The Essence and nature of Aversion. 45 How Aversion is form. ib. The character and true image of a spirit subject to Aversion. ib. The consideration of the love which God bears to his creatures is a powerful remedy to cure Aversion. ib. The first motions of Aversion for the most part are inevitable. ib. The example of our Saviour serveth for a strong remedy to sweeten our Aversions. 47 It is a shame to have an Aversion against one for some defect of Body, or some other deformity of nature, when as we are bound to love him. ib. A generous act of a Pagan, who teacheth us powerfully to to command our Aversions. ib. The death of Azael by his rashness, 144  

B  THe Prophets of Baal are murdered. 250 The Basilisk cannot be enchanted. 10 The love of Batsheba. 145 Bathsheba fitly insinuates herself, and procures the crown for her son Solomon. ib. The martial virtues of Bayard. 214 He is wounded at the taking of Bressin. 216 Beauty imperious. 16 An excellent saying of venerable Bede. 68 Bees bear the sign of a Bull on their bodies. 60 Belizasius is chosen general against Gilimer who had usurped the crown from Hilderick. 161 He marcheth to the gates of Carthage. ib. A triumph after the manner of the Ancients was ordained in honour of Belizarius. 162 The valour of Bellizarius. 163 His rare qualities. 164 The original of the miseries of Belizarius. ib. The cause why Belizarius was debased, was because he had violated the persons of the Popes. ib He is brought into disgrace, and his offices taken from him. 167. Belshassar makes a sumptuous banquet, and the hand-writing upon the wall in unknown characters is discovered. 246 He is murdered. ib. Bethulia is besieged. 282 The Bethalians murmur against the Priests. ib. The picture of Boldness. 76 The Essence of Boldness. ib. The notable Boldness of Saints who have often defended the truth with the hazard of their lives, against the rage and malice of cruel and bloody tyrants. 78 Why Boldness is not in God. ib. The rash love of the Earl of Bothuel. 295 Boucicaut is taken prisoner. 211 By his wisdom he endeavoreth the liberty of himself and other Lords, and obtaineth it. 212 His whole course of life (contrary to that of Soldiers) generally was very religious. 213  

C  CAligula her fury against Seneca. 274 Calumny against Julian and Seneca. 275 Divers degrees of Calumniatours. 94 From whence the degree of Cardinal cometh.  George Castriot was a soldier as soon as he was born a man. 209 He died of a Fever in the city of Lyssa. 210 Presages of the generosity of Cesar. 79 An excellent conceit of Charity. 25 The source of Charity. 102 The rare qualities of Charlemaign the Great. 172 His great learning. ib. His seriousness in his study. ib. Martel and Pepin reproduced in the person of Charlemaign. ib. His rare virtues. ib. His brave exploits against the Infidels. 173 His war with the Italians, and his succouring the Church which did groan under the chains of the Lombard's. ib. His entrance into Rome in great pomp. ib. He warreth against the Saracens. ib. He was the first King of France. 174 Great troubles at Rome appeased by him. 175 Pope Leo caused him to be crowned Emperor of Rome. 176 The great cunning of men who go about to surprise Chastity. 18 Advise to Ladies and Gentlewomen concerning Chastity. 19 The honour the French bore to the virtue of Chastity. 110 The conjugal Chastity of S. Lewis. 111 Weak spirits are ordinarily Choleric. 87 Malicious and covert souls are ranked in the second region of anger, which is bitter Choler. ib. Choler and vengeance are prejudicial. 294 Chrysostom mentioneth an excellent presage of a wise man. 65 The greatness and beauty of Clemency. 143 The generous anger of Clotharius. 117 The Essence of Compassion. 99 Complacence stronger than fire and sword. 18 Miseries of humane Condition. 56 Such as have a clear Conscience are most bold, 79 Contentments are rather in the will, then in the pleasing objects. 48 True contentment is in God. 49 God possessing himself, enjoyeth his Contentment. ib. Our Lord passed all his life in Contentments which were necessarily due to him, to give us an example to wean ourselves from them. 50 Conversation and its contentments. 13 Conversation must be moderated. ib. Courage is not lessened by study. 78 Men of obscure birth raised to great preferments by their courage. 8● Compassion of great Courages. 99 The rare endowments that are required in a Courtier. 219 The Court of Pharaoh is compared to the Helmet-flower. 228 The horror of cruelty. 100 A man must take heed of being too Curious. 46 The wisdom of Cushi the servant of David in the counsel of Absalon. 149  

D  A Witty Fable of John Damascen. 2 Daniel is chosen for one of Nebuchadonozars' pages. 247 His noble extraction and rare parts. ib. He is in great hazard of his life. 242 He consulteth with God. ib. He is made Viceroy of all the Provinces of the Kingdom. 243 He is sought unto to give the interpretation of the hand-writing upon the wall. 246 He refuseth to worship Bell. 247 He killeth the Dragon. ib. He is cast into the Lions Den. ib. He is taken from thence and his accusers put into his room who are immediately devoured. ib. The question upon the act of David is resolved. 35 The qualities of David. 139 His entrance into the Court. ib. He is pursued and escapes. ib. The loss of David in banishment. ib. His arrival at Nob causeth great disasters to the Priests. ib▪ David saves himself in the caves of the desert, whither his father and mother go to seek him. 142 His piety towards them. ib. Banished men repair unto David. ib. The visit of Jonathan secret and very profitable for David. ib. Nabals' rudeness towards David. ib. The admirable generousness of David in pardoning his enemies. ib. David goeth out of the Kingdom, and retireth himself among strangers. 143 David receives the news of saul's overthrow. 144 David cannot be excused for the treaty made with Abner. 145 He is absolute King by the death of Ishbosheth the son of Saul. ibid. The royal qualities of David. ib. His zeal to religion. ib. His valour and his wars. ib. His justice and good husbandry. ib. His vices. ib. The blindness of David. 146 David's repentance. ib. Punishment upon the house of David. ib. The patience of David towards Shimel. 148 His great humility and his humble words. ib. David's mildness very great. 149 The last acts of David's life. 150 God hath made all creatures to have delectation. 48 Four things compose the solid Delectation of man. ib. The Essence of Delectation. 49 Demetrius his oration. 203 He is engaged in a war against the Macchabees. 204 Whether it be good to have a Desire. 39 An excellent picture of Desire. ib. The world is replenished with Desiring souls. ib. The exposition of the picture of Desire. ib. The passion of curiosity a kind of Desire ib. Inconstancy followeth the multitude of Desires. 41 Four sources of Desires. 42 A reason against vain Desires drawn from divine tranquillity. ib. Another reason against vain Desires, is the only desire which Jesus had in seeking the glory of his heavenly Father. 43 Marvellous effects of Desire. 112 The image of Despair. 65 Three sorts of acts in Despair. ib. Remedies against Despair. 68 The admirable conversion of some who seemed desperate. ib. The sight of our Saviour teacheth us to persevere in our good hopes, and not to Despair. 69 A great secret of life is to undergo Destiny. 139 Why Devils love not God whom they know to be so amiable. 48 Disorder is fatal to the Court of great ones. 174 Doeg accuseth the high Priest being innocent. 141 Means to use an efficacious remedy in Duels. 36  

E  THe reign of Edward. 316 His qualities, and his death. 317 Divers causes of the ruin of Egypt. 229 The children of Israel depart out of Egypt. 231 Eleazar a Jewish Captain died valiantly having first pierced the Elephant whereon he did suppose that Eupator did combat. 202 Queen Eleanor an enemy to France. 118 Elijah includeth the name God, and the Sun in his name. 248 He hideth himself at the brook Carith over against Jordan ib. He restoreth to life the dead child of the woman of Sarepta 249. He is known to be the Prophet of God by fire coming down from heaven which consumed his sacrifice. 250 He flies into the Wilderness and is sustained by an Angel, which furnished him with a cruse of oil, and a cake baked. ib. He traveleth forty days in the strength of that sustenance. 251 His vision. ibid. He foretelleth to Ahab, that the dogs should lick his blood in the same place where Naboth was slain. 252 He is translated, and took a new life, without losing that he had in the world. 254 The labyrinth of the hypocrisy of Queen Elizabeth. 299 The fury of Elizabeth. 200 Elisha leaveth his Plough and Oxen, and followeth Elijah. 251 He is heir of Elijahs spirit. 255 His speech to Joram. ib. Elisha besieged in Dothan, is guarded by an host of heavenly Angels. 256 Elisha conducteth his enemies stricken with blindness to Samaria the chief city of the adverse party. ib. Joram threateneth to take off his head. ib. He dieth. 259 The estate of England. 315 The picture of Envy. 91 The definition of Envy. ibid. Humane remedies against Envy. 94 The hlessed, though unequal in glory are not envious. 96 The lamentable Envy of Ebroin against S. Leger. 121 Envy never sleepeth. 140 The horrible Envy of Saul. ib. Envy is easily learned at the Court. ib. The Temple of Ephesus. 154 The courteous meeting of Erasmus and Oporinus. 72 Evilmeredech son of Nebuchadonezar took upon him the regincie of the Empire, his father leaving his kingdom to graze with the beasts. 245 The ignorance of our Evils is a stratagem of divine Providence 71  

F  THe nature of Fear, and the bad effects of it, 70 Two sorts of Fear, natural and moral. 71 The causes of Fear. ibid. Fear is a troublesome passion. ibid. Fear of accidents in the world. 72 Remedies against accidental Fear. ib. Fear of poverty causeth most strange boldness. 73 The example of our Saviour ought to encourage us against Fear. 74 Resolutions against Fear. 75 We must Fear nothing in the world to the prejudice of our souls. 81 Fidelity and its excellency. 14 The mervellous effects of fire. 86 Rebellion of the Flesh. 16 What true Fortitude is, and the parts thereof. 74 Qualities of a good Friend. 8 Great men are not ordinarily the best Friends. ib. The choice of a Friend. ib. A man must not adhere too much to himself to be a good friend. ib. Friends ought to advise and correct. 14 Who loves himself too much hath no Friend. 37  

G  THe affectionate Letter of the Lord Bishop of Geneva. 11 The disaster of Gilimer, and his captivity. 162 A great industry to Give well. 13 There is none but God which is for itself. 1 When we distrust ourselves, we must have recourse to God. 18 An excellent reason of S. Augustine to show the inclination we have to God, 23 An objection about the invisibility of God. ib. God rendereth himself infinitely amiable in total nature. ib. The Sun the Image of God. ib. The commerce of man with God. 24 The means to acquire the love of God. 27 The practice of the Love of God. ib. How we may learn to love God above the love of the world. ib. We must learn to love God himself, and by the character of his substance, which is Jesus. ib. Only sin hated by God. 34 God in his Essence accordeth the diversity of all Essences. 46 The sympathies and antipathies which God hath wisely impressed on Essences and in union. ibid. God for the punishment of niceness will suffer that which man most ●ears, to fall upon him. ibid. Three considerable qualities in the blessing of God. 50 God is busied about this world as his stove of burden. 59 God is not capable of hope since he possesseth all. 63 God is independent of all creatures, and the source of his felicities proceedeth from the infinity of his perfection. ibid. God hath no need of our conversion to increase his glory. 64 God supporteth all good hopes by reason of the infinite capacity of his Essence. ibid. We must place our hopes in God, by the example of the holy humanity of Jesus Christ. ibid. God when he pleaseth taketh away all the obstacles which oppose despair. 68 The wonders which God maketh to appear in the old Testament by the help of his creatures. ib. God indifferently treateth elect souls, as reprobate during life, without showing that he despaireth of their salvation. ib. God never faileth with necessary succours, and sufficient grace to lave us. ibid. It is the providence of God which doth preserve us and instruct us to drive away all fear. 73 The picture of the tranquillity of God. 88 God to speak properly hath no anger. ib. Three sorts of thunderbolts, which figure unto us, how God doth proceed with the chastisements of men. ib. God doth all by seeing and by being seen. 95 The differences of our knowledges from those of God. 96 A great example of the weakness of man's spirit, when God leaves it. 148 Godfrey Duke of Bovillon a most resolute and fortunate General. 207 The excellency of Goodness. 136 Grace by the contemplation of divine things is a remedy for our temptations. 50 The great and magnanimous goodness of Lewis the twelfth. 120 Great things were made for the lesser. 131 An excellent observation of S. Gregory. 80  

H  THe direful example of Haman against the enraged, who are at a little offended. 91 Hamans' malice against Mordecai. 193 Haman is condemned to be hanged and the Jews preserved. 195 Hatred a hideous Comet. 32 Its nature, properties, and degrees. ibid. It is called Antipathy. ibid. Hatred cometh out of Love. 33 Melancholy hatred by Grecians is called Man-hatred. ibid. Simplicity of divine Essence, exempt from Antinathy or hatred. ibid. Hatred of humour and how it is to be handled. ib. Reasonable hatred and its illusion. 35 Hatred of Interests which begets suits and Duels. 36 A notable example of appeasing Hatred. 37 The utility of Hatred. ibid. How Hatred is to be diverted. 38 Means to eschew and prevent the Hatred of powerful men. 39 A comparison of a ship and the heart of man. 42 The sons of Heli behave themselves very disorderly, to the great dishonour of his grey hairs. 235 His connivance, or at the most, gentle reproof, no whit doth better them. ib. God punisheth Heli for the sins of his sons. ib. He dieth. ibid. Henry Eight grown more hardened against Cardinal Pool. 314 The death of Henry the Eighth. 315 Herodias slept not one good sleep with Herod so long as S. John Baptist was alive. 269 Her daughter beggeth the head of S. John Baptist, which is granted unto her. ibid. The history of Hester. 187 Hester the niece of Mordecai. ibid. She is married to Ahasuerus King of Persia, and declared Queen. 188 Her excellent virtues and endowments. 189 She is acquainted with the plot of Haman for the utter destruction of the Jews. 191 Her prayer to God. ib. She presenteth herself to Ahasuerus. 192 She inviteth Ahasuerus and Haman to a Banquet. ib. She relates to the King the plot of Haman against herself and her people. 194 Hierom his great affection to S. Paul. 11 Jerusalem is besieged by Lysias and brought to great extremity, 203 Holophernes angry at the great preparation made by the Jews for their defence. 182 Holophernes ravished at the speech of Judith. 184 Holophernes his army defeated. 186 The Image and Nature of Hope. 61 The good husbanding of Hope. 62 We must adapt ourselves to our Hopes. ibid. We must ground our Hopes well. ibid. Powerful friends may serve for a support for Hope. ibid. We must not too soon reject, nor too late put forward in pursuit of our Hopes. 63 The Hopes of the world are very deceitful, and have no solitude. 64 Three sorts of Hope. ib. One may reasonably fly that which is in any wise hurtful. 46 Hypatius his speech. 161  

I  I Conoclasts or Image-breakers, an heresy sprung up even in Rome itself. 174 Jealousy is a degree of the envious. 91 The seed of Jealousy. 92 Jealousy for honours and dignities. ibid. Learned men subject to jealousy. ibid. Jealousy in marriages holdeth the first place in the Envious. ibid. Jealousy defined according to S. Thomas. ibid. Out of what Jealousy is framed. ibid. Description of Jealousy. 93 Jealousy compared to the Abyss. ibid. Jealousy maketh havoc in the heart. ibid. Advice to women concerning jealousy. ib. The bloody effects of the Jealousy of Saul. 141 Joab his Jealousy over Abner. 145 Jeremiah a man of sorrow. 263 His sanctity. ibid. Jeasabel threatneth to take away Elijahs life. 250 Jesabel thrown out of a window dieth miserably. 253 The love of Jesus towards his heavenly Father. 28 For what reasons Jesus prayed on earth. 64 The excess of the contrition, and dolours of our Lord Jesus. 69 Jesus Christ acquired ●s boldness by his fear. 79 Three powerful succours of our Saviour Jesus Christ to animate our constancy. 80 The power of the name of Jesus. ibid. The admirable effects of the Cross of Jesus. ibid. To know whether our Lord Jesus was subject to Anger. 88 The eye of Jesus watching, sparkling and weeping. 96 Impatient men o● divers qualities. 54 The picture of Impudence. 83 Divers spirits subject to impudency. ibid. The miserable end of an unhappy Impudent man. 86 It is a hard thing not to feel some Incommodities, life being so full of them. 46 The kingdom of Inconstancy. 24 Three sorts of Envious Indignation. 93 The plot of Ingobergua to cure her husband's passion of love, succeeded ill out of too much affectation. 107 John Baptist apprehended. 267 His rare qualities. ibid. He is beheaded. 269 Joab and Abner do strive for the government of Judah. 144 Joab and Abner combat. ib. Joab in his fault upon necessity is tolerated by David. ib. Joabs' insolency. 149 The death of Joab. 153 The courage and resolution of Joachim, who executed the office both of a Priest and Captain. 181 The good offices of Jonathan. 141 Josiah slain. 263 Joseph the son of a shepherd. 219 His divine qualities. 220 His brethren sell him. ibid. Mervellous constancy of Joseph amidst those great temptations of the Court, and of his Mistress. 221 He is accused for attempting to ravish that honour, which he preserved. ib. He is imprisoned. ib. He is taken out of the prison, and doth interpret Pharaohs dream. 222 He is promoted to high preferment by Pharaoh. ibid. joseph's deportment in Court a pattern for all Courtiers. ibid. His singular piety and modesty. 223 His fidelity to his Prince. ibid. His demeanour in his government, 224 His brethren came down to Egypt for food, and their entertainment. 225 He meeteth with his aged Father, and appointeth him a place to live in. 226 Josua his education. 196 His familiarity with Moses. ibid. He is made General of the Army of the Israelites. ibid. His death. 177 Three sorts of Joy. 48 The art of Joy. 51 The Israelites murmur against Moses. 231, 232 They have war with the Amalekites, and worst them. 233 The Israelites disrelish Samuel. 236 A great famine in Israel which was caused by a very great drought. 249 Judas Macchabeus the son of Mattathias made General over the Army of the Hebrews against the tyranny of Antiochus. 198 His piety for restoring the Temple. ib. Particular favours which he received from God. ib. He maketh peace with the Romans. 199 He defeated nine Generals of Antiochus in pitched battle. 200 Isaiah his vision. 260 His eloquence as his birth is elevated. ib. He is sawed alive. 262 The kingdom of Judah divided by the ambition of favourites. 144 The rare endowments of Judith. 181 Her prayer to God. 183 Her speech to Holophernes being brought before him. 184 Her courteous entertainment. ibid. Judith being conducted by Vagoa to Holophernes Pavilion, in his sleep cut off his head. 185 She returneth to the Bethulians with the head of Holophernes. ibid. Her entertainment by the Citizens of Bethulia. ibid. Her counsel to the people. ibid. An excellent observation of Julian. 58 Acts of Justice in punishment and reward  Justine who was born a Cowherd mounted to the throne of the Emperors of Constantinople. 158 The fidelity and goodness of Justinian. ibid. His greatness. 159 His nature and manners. ibid. His manner of life was austere. ib. Some abuse the belief of men, in reporting that he could neither read nor write, mistaking Justinian for his uncle Justin. ibid. His great love to learning, but chief Law and Divinity. ibid. A great conspiracy against him. 160 A speech concerning the mutiny against him. ibid. Justinian kept prisoner in his palace, and Hypatius is proclaimed Emperor. ibid. The stoutest men assail Justinian in his Palace. 161 The sedition against Justinian is appeased. ibid. The reflux of the affairs of Justinian. 164 The defects of Justinian. 168 Justinian in the latter end of his age fell into two great errors. 169  

K  THe words of the Wise man directed to the Kings of the times Wisd. 6. 131 Kings ought to profess the outward worship and service of God for the performance of his duty, and the example of his people. 133 Knowledge of ones self. 18 Knowledge ought to be moderate. 153  

L  THe prodigious victory which in the end Lotharius gained over himself, after a great storm of the passion of love, in becoming Religious. 113 The cruel handling of Pope Leo. 175 Strange desire of Lewis the eleventh. 113 Generous act of Lewis the eleventh. 120 An excellent observation of Libanius. 81 All happiness included in Love. 1 God the Father of Unions doth draw all to unity by Love. ibid. The sect of Philosophers of the indifferency of Love. ibid. The first reason against the indifferency of Love, is that thereby he maketh himself as chief end, and the God of himself. ibid. The second reason is drawn from the communication of creatures. 2 A third real on against the indifferency of Love is drawn from the tenderness of great hearts. ibid. Wherefore great hearts are most loving. 3 Love is the soul of the universe. ibid. Love is the superintendent of the great furnace of the world. ibi The nature of Love. ibid. The definition of Love with its division. 4 The steps and progression of Love. ibid. The causes of Love. ibid. The means to make one's self to be worthily loved. ibid. Notable effects of Love in three worlds. ibid. Love includeth all blessings. 5 There are miserable Lovers in the world. ibid. Who loveth too much loveth too little. 6 A notable comparison of S. Basil touching Love. 9 Love is a strange malady. 14 Disasters of evil Love. 15 Division of Love. ibid. Love of humour. ibid. Interiour causes of Love. 16 The secret attractives of Love. ibid. Modification of their opinion, who place Love in transportation. ib. The senses being well guarded shut up all the gates against Love. 17 The miserable estate of one passionately in Love. ib. The diversities of Love. ib. Evil Angels intermeddle in the great tempests of Love. 18 Cruelty of Love on the persons of Lovers. ibid. Love is sometime the punishment of pride. ib. Advices and remedies against Love in its full. 19 The medal of Love hath two faces. ib. An excellent conceit of Solomon concerning Love. ibid. Disasters of Love in each age and condition. 20 Advice to all sorts of persons concerning Love. ibid. Diversity of the maladies of Love, and their cures. 21 Remedies for the affection of Love, which come against our wills. ibid. Admirable example of the combat of Saints against Love. ib. Separation the first remedy against Love. 22 The counsel and assiduity of a good director, is an excellent antidote against Love. ibid. The conversation of God with man by the mystery of the incarnation, in the consummation of Love. 24 The Eucharist the last degree of Love. ibid. The Love of Saints towards Jesus. ibid. The growth of Love like to pearls. 25 The Empire and eminencies of Divine Love. ib▪ Qualities of Divine Love, by which we may know, whether it inhabiteth a soul. 26 pliantness, Liberality, and Patience, three principal marks of Love. ibid. Twelve effects of Love. ibid. Three orders of true Lovers in the world. ib. Nine degrees of Seraphical Love for the conterplative. ib. That it is good to be honestly Loved. 38 We most ardently Love the things we most lose. 58 The scandalous of the Emperor Lotharius, and Valdrada. 109 The Love of David and Jonathan. 140 Excellent loyalty of a Lady. 8 Lysias his speech before the raising of the siege of Jerusalem. 203 Lysias is taken and slain by the soldiers. ibid.  

M  THe gallant resolution of Maccabeus, who with a handful of men gave battle to a great army, wherein being over powered, he lost not his honour but his life. 204 Some Men are in the world as dislocated bones in the body. 52 Man terrible above all terribles. 72 Man as he is the most miserable of all creatures, so he is the most Merciful. 98 Man hath no greater evil than himself. ibid. An observation of Bernardine concerning Marriage. 35 Mattathias the father of Judas Machabeus opposeth the tyranny of Antiochus. 197 He refuseth to offer incense to Idols. ibid. His courage for Religion. 198 His glorious death. ibid. Utility of Melancholy. 55 A notable example of Meroven to divert youth from Marriage. 106 The first Mervell in the life of S. Lewis, is, the joining of the wisdom of State with the Gospel. 177 The second is, of the union of Humility and Greatness. 179 The third is, his devotion and courage. ibid. Incomparable Mildness of Lewis the son of Charlemaign. 120 Mildness of the first men. 99 The beauty and utility of Mildness. 100 Sin and Folly the chief evils of the Mind. 58 Remedies for Minds full of scruple. 56 Moderation of the Kings of France. 117 Great Moderation in S. (King) Robert. 119 Mordecai his excellent personage. 187 His entertainment in the Court of Ahashuerus, ib. He discovereth the treason which was plotted against Ahashuerus. ib. Moses flooted in the river of Nile in a cradle of bulrushes. 227 His education. 228 He killeth an Egyptian. 229 He withdraweth into the country of Midian. ib He talketh with God. ibid. He dyeth, having first seen the land of promise from mount Nebo. 234 Gods judgement on wicked Murray. 300  

N  NAaman the Assyrian commanded by Elisha to wash seven times in the river Jordan. 257 His leprosy stays upon Gehezi. 258 Naboth unjustly condemned and slain. 251 Nathan and Bathsheba's advice. 151 Nature necessarily brings with it its sympathies, and antipathies. 46 Nebuchadonozar his dream. 242 He worshippeth Daniel. 241 He erecteth a statue of gold of sixty cubits high. 243 He commandeth all his nobles to do homage to it. ib. He commandeth the three children, that disobeyed his command therein, to be cast into the furnace. 244 His second dream and the interpretation by Daniel. ibid. His misfortune is bewailed by the whole Court. 245 He is again found out, and reinvested in his throne. ib. The birth and education of Nero. 271 The perfidiousness of his mother. ibid. His cruelty towards Britanicus. 272 The love of his mother did degenerate to misprision. ibid. His present to his mother. ibid. His horrible attempt upon his mother. ibid. The amazement of Nero. 273 Nero continueth his cruelties. ibid. He falls in love with Poppea and doth estrange himself from his wife Octavia. 274 Nero grows worse and worse. 284 The conspiracy against him is detected. ibid. The image of Nice-ones. 49 Treason against the Duke of Norfolk, and his ruin. 299 The horrible Catastrophe of the Duke of Norfolk. 300  

O  FLight from Occasions, is the most assured bulwark for chastity. 18 Octavia calumniated by Poppea. 274 Ozias Prince of the people in the presence of Joachim, appeaseth the people of Bethulia. 182  

P  THe overfond love of Parents to their children, is chastised in them. 272 The exercise of Patience what it is. 37 Necessity forceth Patience. 58 S. Paul tender in holy affections. 8 He came to Rome. 279 He is falsely accused. ibid. His conversation with Peter. ib. He preacheth the Gospel. ib. He is threatened and persecuted. 280 He is condemned to the whip, but diverted that punishment. ib. He is committed to the hands of Felix. ibid. He appears before the Tribunal of Felix. ibid. Drusilla comes to hear him. ib. S. Paul appeals to Rome, 281 The young Agrippa, king of Judea with his sister Bernice assist at the judgement of S. Paul. ib. Festus is touched with his words. ibid. He is embarked for Rome. ibid. He arrives there, and treateth with the Jews. ibid. S. Paul is undoubtedly known by Seneca. ibid. His Oration to the Senate of Rome. 282 The effect of his Oration. ibid. The parallel betwixt S. Paul and Seneca. 283 The grace of Jesus and the Cross are the two principles of S. Paul. ibid. His perfection and high knowledge. 284 He leaveth Rome. ibid. The politic counsel of Pharaoh. 227 He dreameth. 222 He fails in his purposes. 228 Marks of reprobation in Pharaoh. 230 The plagues of Egypt. ibid. An excellent conceit of Plato concerning terrestrial love. 222 An excellent conceit of Platonists.  The secrets of the Divine Policy of God. 238 The birth and education of Cardinal Pool. 313 His love of solitude. ibid. His travels and return to England. ibid. The combat in his spirit. 314 He took part with God. ibid. He is made Cardinal. ib. He is considered on to be made Pope▪ 315 He retireth again into solitude. ibid. He travels to the reducement of England to the ancient faith. 317 His speech to the States. 318 Princes the workmanship of God. 132 What the wisdom of a Prince should be. 133 Princes should not give too much authority to their subjects. 144 Whether learning be fitting for Princes. 153 That learning is fitting for Princes defended. ibid. The favour of Princes is very uncertain. 219 Procopius his extravagant fables of Justinian and Theodora disproved. 168 The secrets of Providence. 164 The great Providence of God, in joseph's entering and negotiating in Egypt. 218  

R  REason remedieth all humane actions. 57 The love of Reputation is a strong spur. 81 The wicked Revenge of an Abbot and of John Proclytas against the French. 119 Rigour misbecometh persons Ecclesiastical. 99 The causes of differences of Rigour. ibid. Elegy of the city of Rome. 79 The estate of Rome and court of Nero when Paul came to it. 271 The Practice of Romulus. 131 The end o● Royalty. 131 Royalty a glorious servitude. 132 Royalty a mervellous profession. ibid.  

S  THe Essence and Image of Sadness. 54 Four kinds of Sadness. 55 The remedies against Sadness. 57 The three Sadnesses of our Blessed Saviour. 60 Samuel from his infancy was conversant in the Tabernacle. 235 His zeal and other rare qualities. 236 His speech to the people. ibid. His wisdom in concluding a peace with the Philistims. ibid. He dieth. 240 The widow of Sarepta's oil and meal fails not during the famine. 249 The qualities of the sufferings of our Saviour. 60 Our Saviour hath suffered in all the persons of the just and Martyrs. ibid. An excellent observation upon the terming our Saviour a Lamb. 88 The prudence of Saul. 63 He found a Kingdom seeking his Father's Asses. 238 The excellency and defects that were in Saul. 239 The resolute valour of Saul in relieving the men of Jabish. ib. Saul being in great perplexity, consulteth with the soul of Samuel. 143 Saul cleared for a while, again returns to his evil spirit. 141 Saul marcheth against the Philistims, and is overthrown in battle. ibid. saul's end. ib. The shame of scoffing. 82 The danger of Scoffing. 118 The scoffs of certain rebellious Flemings severely punished by the generosity of Philip de Valois. ib. Seneca by a less evil diverts a greater. 272 From whence proceed the calumnies of Seneca. 274 His birth. ib. His education and spirit. ib. He is banished to Corsica, where he composed excellent works 275 His excellent compliment. ibid. He is in great repute. 276 His manners. ibid. He made a Libel against Claudius. 277 His judgement on Nero. ibid. He is made minister of State. ibid. He put the State in good order. ib. His Maxims. ibid. His opinion of the Sovereign good. 278 His falling off from Agrippina. ibid. Why Seneca having so many brave qualities, did perform so little in reformation of manners. 283 His constant and famous death. 284 Sin corrupteth the goodness of Essence in intellectual creatures. 45 A civil shame doth hinder good designs. 297 shamefacedness a reasonable passion. 81 Its sources honour and conscience. ibid. Three kinds of shamefacedness. ib. The esteem the ancients had of shamefacedness. 83 The Queen of Sheba. 154 Her quality. ibid. The picture of Slander. 94 There would be no Slander, if it were not made Slander by thinking thereon. ibid. Solomon's entry into the Realm full of trouble. 151 He is declared King. ib. The bloody entrance of Solomon after the death of David. 152 Solomon's rigour. ibid. He cannot well be justified for the blood of his brother. ibid. The just punishment of God upon Solomon. ibid. A wonderful dream of Solomon. 153 His knowledge. ibid. The judgement of Solomon in the contention of the two women. 154 Solomon his zeal to the building of the Temple. ib. The fall of Solomon. 155 The beginning of his debauchedness. ibid. Solomon is perverted in Religion. 156 The estate of Solomon in the other world. ibid. The prodigious course of some Stars. 74 The evil opinion of the Stoics, to trust altogether to themselves without acknowledging the grace and assistance of God. 283 The birth and education of Queen Mary Stuart. 291 Her return into Scotland. ibid. The death of Henry Stuart. 294 Persecution of the Queen Mary Stuart by the Protestants. 295 She comforts herself in prison, and hopeth against hope. 296 She escaped out of prison. ibid. Her languishment in her imprisonment in England. 301 Elizabeth's hatred to her. 304 The Process against the Queen of Scotland. ibid. Her invincible Apology. 305 The unjust judgement given against her. 307 The vain endeavour to delay her death. 308 Queen Elizabeth chief to be charged for her death. ibid. Her death and miraculous constancy. 309 The Sun is an hundred and forty times bigger than the earth and in twenty four hours goeth more than twelve millions of leagues. 74  

T  TWenty two thousand Bullocks and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep, sacrificed for the dedication of Solomon's Temple, 3 Reg. 8. 63 Mervelsous Temples where Lions are tractable. 46 The generosity of Theodora wife of Justinian. 161 Procopius speaketh shamefully of Theodora but undeservingly. 167 Her death. 169 Theodat honoured by Amalazunta. 162 His perfidiousness. ib. He causeth Amalazunta to be strangled in a Bath. ib. Theodat is put to death and Vitiges is chosen in his stead. 163 Time stealeth away from us the sense of Evils. 58 Timidity its causes and Symptoms 71 Remedies for Timidity in declaiming. 72 Timidity sometimes turneth into insolency. ibid. Remedies against accidental fear or Timidity. 64 Totilas is chosen king of the Goths. 163 The carriage of Truth doth cost dear at Court. 146  

V  VAlour of Charles the simple. 117 Vagoa Chamberlain to Holophernes. 185 Vash●● wise of Ahashuerus doth make a banquet for the women answerable to the King her husband. 188 She is degraded, and divorced, ibid. The burning of Vesuvius in the year 1631. 73 Vigilius shamefully used. 169 The slights of Vigilius to get the Popedom from Sylverius. 168 He is again received into favour, and afterwards died of the stone in Sicily. ibid. The death of Uriah. 146  

W  THe greatness of Wisdom. 133 Humane Wisdom overthrown by the power of Heaven. 140 Reasons for the modest love of women. 7 Rare Amity's of Women. ibid. Modest amity with women should always be handled with much precaution. 8 Observation of Jamblicus applied to the amity of Women. ibid. The opinion of Fathers concerning the Amity of Women. 9 Shipwrecks happening by the love of Women. ibid. The love of Women dangerous. 16 Hatred of Women. 38 Humour of Women. 45 Women among the Sabeans command over men. 154 The artifice of Women. 156 It's very dangerous to be observant to wicked Women's humours 167 What hindereth the production of admirable works. 68 The attractives of the world are not very urgent. 18  

Z  A notable speech of Zaleuchus. 58  
FINIS.