St. Augustine, Of the citie of God vvith the learned comments of Io. Lod. Viues. Englished by I.H.

Of mans miseries, drawne vpon him by his first parents, and taken away from him onely by CHRISTS merites, and gratious goodnesse. CHAP. 22.

COncerning mans first originall, our present life (if such a miserable estate bee to bee called a life) doth sufficiently prooue that all his progeny was condemned in him. What else doth that horred gulfe of ignorance confirme, whence all error hath birth, and wherein all the sonnes of Adam are so deepe∣ly drenshed, that none can bee freed without toile, feare and sorrow? what else doth our loue of vanities affirme, whence there ariseth such a tempest of cares, sorrowes, repinings, feares, madde exultations, discords, altercations, warres, treasons, furies, hates, deceipts, flatteries, thefts, rapines, periuries, pride, ambition, enuy, murder, parricide, cruelty, villany, luxury, impudence, vnchastnesse, fornications, adulteries, incests, seuerall sorts of sinnes against na∣ture, (beastly euen to bee named) sacriledge, heresie, blasphemy, oppression, ca∣lumnies, circumuentions, cousnages, false witnesses, false iudgements, violence, robberies, and such like, out of my rememberance to recken, but not excluded from the life of man? All these euills are belonging to man, and arise out of the roote of that error and peruerse affection which euery Sonne of Adam brings into the world with him. For who knoweth not in what a mist of ignorance (as wee see in infantes) and with what a crue of vaine desires (as wee see in boies) all man-kinde entreth this world? so that (a) might hee bee left vnto his owne election, hee would fall into most of the fore-sayd mis∣chiues.

But the hand of GOD bearing a raine vpon our condemned soules, and pow∣ring our his mercies vpon vs (not shutting them vppe in displeasure) law, and instruction were reuealed vnto the capacity of man, to awake vs out of those lethargies of ignorance, and to withstand those former incursions, which not∣withstanding is not done without great toyle and trouble. For what imply those feares whereby wee keepe little children in order? what doe teachers, rods, fer•…•…∣laes, thongs, and such like, but confirme this? And that discipline of the scrip∣tures that sayth that our sonnes must bee beaten on the sides whilest they are childeren, least they waxe stubborne, and either past, or very neere past refor∣mation? What is the end of all these, but to abolish ignorance, and to bridle

corruption both which we come wrapped into the world withall? what is our la∣bour to remember things, our labour to learne, and our ignorance without this labour; our agility got by toyle, and our dulnesse if wee neglect it? doth not all declare the promptnesse of our nature (in it selfe) vnto all viciousnesse, and the care that must bee had in reclayming it? Sloath, dulnesse, and negligence, are all vices that avoide labour, and yet labour it selfe is but a profitable paine.

But to omit the paines that enforce childeren tolearne the (scarcely vsefull) bookes that please their parents▪ how huge a band of paines attend the firmer state of man, and bee not peculiarly inflicted on the wicked, but generallie impendent ouer vs all, through our common estate in misery? who can recount them, who can conceiue them? What feares, what calamities •…•…doth the losse of childeren, of goods, or of credite, the false dealing of others, false suspect, open violence, and all other mischieues inflicted by others, heape vpon the heart of man? beeing generally accompanied with pouerty, inprisonment, bandes, ba∣nishments, tortures, losse of limmes or sences, prostitution to beastly lust, and other such horred euents? So are wee afflicted on the other side with chances ab externo, with cold, heate, stormes, shoures, deluges, lightning, thunder, earth∣quakes, falls of houses, furie of beasts, poisons of ayres, waters, plants, and beasts of a thousand forts, stinging of serpents, byting of madde dogges, a strange acci∣dent, wherein a beast most sociable and familiar with man, shall sometimes be∣come more to bee feared then a Lion or a Dragon, infecting him whom hee bit∣eth, with such a furious madnesse, that hee is to bee feared of his family worse then any wilde beast? what misery doe Nauigators now and then endure? or trauellers by land? what man can walke any where free from sudden accidents? (b) One comming home from the court, (beeing sound enough of his feete) fell downe, broke his legge, and died of▪ 〈◊〉〈◊〉, who would haue thought this that had seene him sitting in the court? Heli the Priest, fell from his chaire where hee •…•…ate and brake his neck. What feares are husband-men, yea all men subiect vnto, that the fruites should bee hurt by the heauens, or earth, or caterpillers, or locusts or such other pernicious things? yet when they haue gathered them and layd them vp, they are secured: notwithstanding I haue knowne granaries full of 〈◊〉〈◊〉 borne quite away with an invndation.

Who can bee secured by his owne innocency against the innumerable in∣cursions of the deuills, when as wee see that they doe some-times afflict little baptized infants (who are as innocent as can bee) and (by the permission of GOD) euen vpon their harmelesse bodies, doe shew the miseries of this life, and excite vs all to labour for the blisse of the other? Besides, mans body wee see how subiect it is to (c) diseases, more then phisick can either cure or compre∣hend. And in most of these, we see how offensiue the very medicines are that cure them, nay euen our very meate we eate, during the time of the maladies domina∣tion. Hath not extremity of heate made man to drinke his owne vrine, and o∣thers too? Hath not hunger enforced man to eate man, and to kill one another to make meate of; yea euen the mother to massacre and deuowre her owne child? Nay is not our very (d) sleepe (which wee tearme rest) some-times so fraught with disquiet, that it disturbes the soule, and all her powers at once, by obiecting such horred terrours to the phantasie, and with such an expression, that shee cannot discerne them from true terrours? This is ordinary in some diseases: besides that the deceiptfull fiends some-times will▪ so delude

the eye of a sound man with such apparitions, that although they make no f•…•…r∣ther impression into him, yet they perswade the sence that they are truely so as they seeme, and the deuills desire is euer to deceiue. From all these miserable engagements, (representing a kinde of direct hell) wee are not freed but by the grace of IESVS CHRIST, For this is his name; IESVS IS A SAVIOVR, and he it is that will saue vs from a worse life, or rather a perpetuall death, after this life: for although wee haue many and great comforts by the Saints in this life, yet the benefits hereof are not giuen at euery ones request, least wee should apply our faith vnto those transitory respects, whereas it ra∣ther concerneth the purchase of a life which shalbe absolutely free from all in∣conuenience. And the more faithfull that one is in this life, the greater con∣firmation hath hee from grace, to endure those miseries without faynting, where-vnto the Paynin authors referre their true Philosophy; which their Gods, (e) as Tully saith, reuealed vnto some few of them (f) There was neuer (saith hee) nor could there bee a greater guift giuen vnto man, then this. Thus our aduer∣saries are faine to confesse that true Philosophy is a diuine gift: which beeing (as they confesse) the onely helpe against our humane miseries, and comming from aboue, hence then it appeareth that all mankinde was condemned to suffer miseries. But as they confesse that this helpe was the greatest guift that GOD euer gaue, so doe wee avow and beleeue, that it was giuen by no other God but he to whom euen the worshippers of many gods, giue the preheminence.

L. VIVES.

MIght (a) hee bee left] There was neuer wild beast more vnruely then man would bee, if education and discipline did not represse him: hee would make all his reason serue to compasse his apperites, and become as brutish and fond as the very brutest beast of all (b) One comming] Of such accidents as this read Pliny lib. 7. cap. 4. and Valer. Max. lib. 9. (c) Diseases] As the poxe, (call them French, Neapolitane, Spanish, or what you will, they are indeed, In∣dian, and came from thence hether. Childeren are borne with them, in the Spanish Indies.) or the pestilent sweate that killeth so quickly: the ancient writers neuer mention these. Such another strange disease a Nobleman lay sicke of at Bruges, when I was there, the Em∣peror Charles beeing as then in the towne. Iohn Martin Poblatio told mee that hee had ne∣uer read of the like, and yet I will auouch his theory in phisicke so exact, that either the anci∣ent phisitions neuer wrote of it, or if they did, their bookes are lost and perished. (d) Sleepe] So Dido complayneth to her sister of her frightfull dreames. Uirg. Aeneid. (e) As Tully saith] But where, I cannot finde, vnlesse it bee in his 5. de finibus. (f) There was neuer] The words of Plato in his Timaeus translated by Tully towards the end of the dialogue. Tully •…•…ath it also in his fifth de Legib.