The devout hart or Royal throne of the pacifical Salomon. Composed by F. St. Luzuic S.I. Translated out of Latin into English. Enlarged with incentiue by F. St. Binet of the same S. and now enriched with hymnes by a new hand

THE PREAMBLE to the Meditation.

I Sleep and my hart wakes:a 1.1 It is the voyce of the most lo∣uing IESVS. Whist therefore you Heauens, earth hold your peace. IESVS sleeping in the bed of the hart, sweetly rests. You bustle in vaine, o restlesse winds. The hart where IESVS takes his rest is safe enough the ship is now in the Ha∣uen, which the Master-hand of so diuine a Pilot guides. Cease Aquilo,

Ah thou cold, gelid, cruel stranger of the North; bridle thy most omi∣nou•• blasts, for thou exhausts and dryest vp the riuers of celestial gra∣ces freesest the harts of men, with a slouthful yce, and nigh killest them with cold; thou strippest the trees of fruit and leaues, makest the earth euen horrid with hoary frosts and winter downes, dashest the tallest ships and the best man'd, and sinkest them in a fatal gulf.

Cease thou Southern enemy, Stormy Auster, froward, hot rhew∣matike (and which is worse) thou incentiue and fire-brand of lusts, bridle thy fatal breath wherewith thou burnest al things, stirrest hu∣mours, extinguishest the fires of di∣uine loue; sprincklest the nerues and synnews, dishartnest minds, and makes them languish.

And doe thou cease likewise,

sweeping faune or scourer of the ea∣sterne coasts, thou fatal Affrican not only familiar with tempest, but ful of a pestilent and blasting breath thou rusflest here in vaine, thou shalt neuer shake this hart, wherein IESVS takes his rest.

But thou the fauner of the Ea∣stern sunne gentle Eurus, whether thou wouldst be called Subsolanus or Vulturnus rather, who art thought to blow the winds of a fa∣uourable and smiling fortune, re∣moue those insolent blasts of thine. For the hart intentiue to diuine things, and al enflamed with loue, heares and attends thee not.

Now come I then to thee, my litle IESVS, tel me, goe to, what slumber, is this, which refreshed thy weary body with so gentle a shower of vapours? Thou being once tired in the heat of the day,

satest at the fountaine, attending the poore Samaritan, womanb 1.2 with whom, as the antient Iacob, with his Reb••cca, thou struckest a new con∣tract of mariage. Again els-where being broken with toyle of trauel∣ling sherwd iournyes, thou gottest to the mountaine tops about the shutting in of the dayc 1.3 to refresh thy wearied limmes with a short re∣pose, when presently hauing now hardly begun to enter into prayer, thou wast faine abruptly to break it off. But what sleepst thou here now for. Nor doe I thinke thou art so drownd in sleep, or so idle is to me∣ditate on nothing: If thy loue deceiue me not, I should verily beleeue thou now reuolu••st in mind that sa∣cred mariage which thou one day wast to contract with the Church, thy immaculate Spouse, at that most happy tree of the Crosse, when the

sleep of death should bind thee both hand and foote, and from thine open side that other Eue should yssue forth, as once the forme Eue had done our common Parent, who su∣denly arose, so built of the bone of Adam, cast into that prophetical and extatical sleep.d 1.4 Or whether art thou not perhaps voluing and reuoluing many things within thee, studing and contriuing with thy self, what dowry to make thy new Spouse, and peraduenture thinkst vpon the ornaments and dressings for her head, earings, bracelets, car∣kanets, and wedding robes, al em∣brodred with the richest gemmes with such like nuptial honours, and presents fit for Spouses? Or thou designest, who knovves? the forme perhaps and solemne tables of Ma∣trimony, vvhich hereafter in the pu∣blike Theatre of the vvorld; thou

art to celebrate vvith the Church and the holy Soule. It may be thou considerest vvhat her pouerty is, and vvant of al things, and vvhat the rest of al her goodly stock of miseries; or vvherein only she is richly fur∣nished and abundantly vvel stored.

Or perhaps thou thinkest of yet more ful & happy things then these, which here thou dreamest on, while thou sleepest. For in those gētle slum∣bers; thou takest in the humane hart, thou now plottest perhaps in mind, the immense glory thou wilt affoard the soule with a prodigal hand, who shal haue the grace to receiue thee courteously indeed. This doubtlesse, thou handlest, now voluest, reuoluest destinest, and designest.

O great Iacob, while thou slept'st so, with thy head resting on a hard stone, what strange, what diuine things there didst thou b••hold! And

how many Angels were shewed thee on that ladder going vp and downe, so pitched on the earth and reaching vp to heauen. Iacob (as we haue in the sacred history)e 1.5 flying the more then deadly hate & fury which his brother Esau bare vnto him, came to Luza where he made a stone his pillow, lying on the bare ground, in stead of a soft and easy bed, and be∣hold he saw a ladder fixt on the ground extended to heauen, God leaning on the top thereof, and the Angels ascending and descend••ng to and fro: when being astonished and amazed thereat, he cryed out. The Lord is truly in this place, how terrible this place is! And presently annointed it, and set vp an Altar in the place in al hast gaue thanks to the Diuini∣ty, and put the name of Bethel to it. O litle Iacob! O most louing IESV, rest in my hart a while (if it trouble

thee not too much) though indeed it be but a hart lodging, and thou hast but a stone for a pillow and bol∣stre only, yet surely it wil be soft enough, as soone as thou shalt but powre theron the oyl of thy mercy. Let the hart then so daily consecra∣ted, be called Bethel, that is the house of God. The house of vanity! Ah neuer be it sayd. But rather strēgthen it my God, be sure thou found it wel, least the winds of inconstancy and tempests shake it. But stand it ra∣ther immoueable as the rock of Marpeia in the midst of the sea dashed with the waues & scornfully shaking them off.

Notes

• a 1.1

  Cant 5.
• b 1.2

  Io. 4
• c 1.3

  Luc. 6.
• d 1.4

  Gen. 2.
• e 1.5

  Gen. 28.