The holy court in five tomes, the first treating of motives which should excite men of qualitie to Christian perfection, the second of the prelate, souldier, states-man, and ladie, the third of maxims of Christianitie against prophanesse ..., the fourth containing the command of reason over the passions, the fifth now first published in English and much augemented according to the last edition of the authour containing the lives of the most famous and illustrious courtiers taken out of the Old and New Testament and other modern authours / written in French by Nicholas Caussin ; translated into English by Sr. T.H. and others.

The third SECTION. The destruction of Babylon, and the government of the Divine Provi∣dence over the Estates of the World.

I Courteously beseech you, O ingenious Politici∣an, to run your eyes over these lines which I have traced, to stay a little your hast, and to con∣sider with me the knot of all this policy, the source, progresse, issue, and remedy of all these disorders, perhaps you may find more reason in my discourses than your passion can expect. Consult awhile with your heart, sound your soul, go to the bottom of your conscience, I fear there may be some pits of the abyss, and grashoppers of the Apocalyps, which are those black vapours, that have hitherto eclipsed all the lights of your understanding. I will not con∣ceal from you that there are three sorts of souls, one virginal, another already changed and somewhat corrupted, the rest shameless, such as those which are called in Scripture vast and giant-like-souls. I * 1.1 do not think to find by your proceedings, that you have a virgin-soul, nor will I likewise perswade my self, you have the soul of a giant, which expecteth no other remedy but thunder: I should rather believe you have a stomack depraved by some wicked principles, whereinto either the unhappiness of your educati∣on, the presumption of your ability, or tickling-hope of good success in worldly affairs hath thrown you. Wil you that I touch with a finger the begin∣ing of your disorder? You have been too much flattered upon the excellency of your wit, which is not, to speak truly, one of the shallowest of the time: but there is much wanting of the singularity you imagine. You have insensibly retired your self from that great judgement which S. Denys calleth the e∣ternal * 1.2 hearth of all the most purified lights, and most chast affections, and by withdrawing your self have taken a great quantity of false lights into your cor∣rupt understanding, and much coldness into your heart, which have brought upon you a remisness in good manners, and a notable disorder in all the parts of your soul. You have seen heaven, and all the hopes of the other life, as Mathematicians make us to behold in a dark chamber, whatsoever passeth abroad, through a little cranny, in such manner, that all things we see appear like shadows and landskips turned topsy-turvy.

Behold what happeneth after you have stopped up all the windows and accesses of heavenly light; you have made a little hole for the moon, and all the blessings of the other life have seemed very slender to your distrustful spirit: you have put on a resolution to make a fortune at what price soever, and to build on earth like Cain, after you have almost renounced the hopes of heaven, In doing this you have played the unruly Ass, thinking to escape from the bands of the dependance you have on God: you have made your self your blessing, your end your (a) 1.3 God. Thereupon you have thought of the means you are to hold to arrive at this scope, already framed in your imagination. It seemeth to you all things suc∣ceeded according to your wit, travel, and indu∣stry used therein, with some small help of fortune, God no whit at all intermedling with affairs here below. You have drawn absurd consequencies of the prosperity of some subtile spirits, not looking in∣to the bottom of the business. The success of your affairs, which seemed to you most prosperous, not∣withstanding your crimes and unlawfull proceed∣ings, have emboldened you; mischievous spirits, which dayly converse with you, have confirmed you. In the end, behold your self reduced as it were to this point, as to suppose you are to hold on a course in all affairs and governments of the world, which may be craftie, captious, worldly, and independent of divine laws, if not for some popular apparence.

If this be so, I demand of you, why then in the * 1.4 judgement of that great Politician Thucidides, and all other well understanding men, is it observed that these curious wits, despoiled of the fear of God, have alwayes been most turbulent and unhappy in the manage both of their own affairs and the pub∣lick also; as on the contrary, those who had not so much knowledge and invention, but pursued the ge∣neral instinct of God, have held their estates better governed in simplicitie, more prosperous in the ig∣norance of evil, and much more firm in the lasting of their felicity? Never was there a more refined wit than Achitophel of whom the Scripture said, * 1.5 men consulted with him as with a God: yet never was there any more unhappy in his practise. For ha∣ving disposed of the affairs of the Kingdom, and those of his own house, there remaining none to be provided for but his own person, he took a halter and strangled himself, because they approved not one of his counsels.

When we behold in Histories a large list of these most curious Politicians, who have had so ill success either in their own persons, or in their posterity, as I presently will produce very many; we must undoubt∣edly say, this kind of way is ever dangerous in its en∣terprises, but not infallible in the successes thereof. If you become as wicked as a little Poliphemus, it would be very hard to deny a first cause of all the creatures which are in the world, of it self absolute, independent, and eternal, For were the world full of wheels and revolutions, even from earth to hea∣ven, still must we necessarily come to the last wheel, to the last revolution, which is to give motion to all the other, and to take it of no other, and that is God. Were you as bruitish as a Lestrigon, you could * 1.6 not deny an eternal Verity. For in what time will you say there hath not been a verity? Should you assign the space of ten millions of years, and all that may be imagined beyond it, you would ever find this Verity: and should you say, it was not then, and that in saying so you were sincere, which cannot be; yet would you speak a truth even in denying a truth, so much is her essence necessary: and this eternal Verity which serves as a basis for all other verities, is that which we call God. Were you as unnatural as a mon∣ster, you knew not how to deny there were a sove∣reign Being in the world, which holdeth the first de∣gree of all excellencies in such sort, that we can∣not imagine any thing more excellent; and that is God.

Besides, it is necessary to infer what S. Thomas hath * 1.7 most divinely sayd, that all things which are by bor∣rowing and participation, have relation of necessity to that, which is by essence and nature. So the stars, the pretious stones have relation to the sun; and things hot to the fire as the scope of their excellency. Now it is certain that men, Cities, and Kingdoms, have but a borrowed being, because they are not made by themselves, and therefore it is necessary to affirm there is an intellectual power in a supreme de∣gree, whereunto all these intelligences, even of men which constituted these States and Republickes, do relate; and this relation is nothing else but provi∣dence.

Verily if you should behold on a Theather about ten thousand white beards, that were come thither to

decide a matter by a common consent, would you take your self to be wise to enter into Councel not called, and to reject the opinions of all those, who have delivered their sentences, publishing an opinion absolutely new, and directly contrary to so many good judgements?

And I ask of you, that were now so many excel∣lent Magistrates raised again, as have governed all sorts of Kingdoms and Common-wealths in the A∣ges past, should we not see more than a million of men most accomplished in knowledge, virtue, and ex∣perience, who had mannaged the world in the fear, and under the laws of this Divine Providence? It would then be a notable spectacle, to see you enter into the Hall of such a Councel with a downy chin, to give all this assembly the lie, and say, There is nothing but hu∣mane policie, dissimulation, and the tricks of flattery to be valued in affairs, without the expectation of any thing from God; would you not be ridiculous? Yet this is it which you do, so much hath sin stupified you. If you have the least spark of the understand∣ing of a man, when you foster such thoughts in your minds, do you think it were fit to prefer some moul∣dy reasons of a carnal spirit, and the capriches of your sensual imaginations before the voice of nature, and the states of the whole world, assembled together to condemn your bruitishness? If there be no Provi∣dence to chastise the perverse, and recompence the just, conclude, we must live in the world like a spar∣row-hawk, or Pike, called the Tyrant of the water, and to have no other measure of virtue, but your ta∣lon and throat. Is it not to pen the gate to all in∣justices, perjuries, treacheries, and all possible abomi∣nations? For what monster will not that soul be ca∣pable of, which conceiveth nothing of God? I have some reason, say you, and for this cause you are of opinion, this belief should be entertained to amuze the people.

In saying this, you discover a great weakness of judgement; for it must be concluded, according to your proposition, that all what ever was in the world, either of justice, temperance, modesty, courtesie, pa∣tience, honesty, peace and tranquility, were derived from an imaginary belief, touching Providence, from an errour a folly, an illusion: which is as absurd, as to say grapes grow upon thistles, & roses spring from the ice of winter. And tell me not, I pray, that a false belief seeks to procure good effects, as it appeareth in the virtues of Pagans. For I hold, that what good the Pagans have done, they have not acted it with re∣lation to the adulteries of Jupiter, nor the murders of bloudy Mars: but in honour of a Divinity, which they thought avenged iniquity, and rewarded vir∣tue. In this general belief, which was the true root of their moral virtues, there happened no abuse, although they in particular were deceived in their judgement.

Your goodly objections of aw proceed from an infamous Diagoras, or Plinie, who thought to have * 1.8 found a great secret in saying, The belief of a Di∣vine Providence was a jolly invention, because it kept the world in aw. Deserved he not well to be cursed as a Traytour to all mankind? Deserved not he well to be broiled alive in the throat of hell, as in∣deed he was loosing, his life in the flames of Vesuvius, since he vaunteth himself to have discovered a secret, * 1.9 which would be able, were it true, to let loose the bridle to all profanations and bruitishness of a life the most savage that might be imagined? Ever would it be more to the purpose to tolerate an evil well conferred, than to introduce a good ill digested, say the wise: and what crime is it then to invent false secrets, the ignorance whereof is so wholesom, and the verity whereof would be so prodigiously hurtfull? Why do you not rather take into your considera∣tion the sage discourse of the Philosopher Simplicius, who said: When I imagine a god unto my self, I fi∣gure a great Master, whom I know of necessitie to be endowed with a most stable science, and a most ex∣cellent will. And for this cause I conclude, be cannot be ignorant of the things be hath produced, seeing this ignorance falleth not even upon beasts most stupid; and I say, that he knowing them, governeth them without pain, Omnipotent though he be; there being no greatness nor multitude of burdens, which can weaken the forces and vigour of this infinite Spirit. As there is not any thing too great for his capacity, so is there nothing too little for his bounty. Nothing escapeth his Paternal Providence, nor doth he think it a matter unworthy of his care to govern a butter-flie, since he esteemed it a thing consonant to his bounty, to create a butter-flie. Now for us to think that he knowing, able, and willing to govern the world, is diverted from it through pleasures and con∣tentments he taketh for his own delights, is a most gross imagination; for why should we attribute to God appre∣hensions and assertions, which we would be ashamed to give to men, if they made not profession to be of the num∣ber of the altogether idle?

Behold how this singular wit discourseth: and ve∣rily it is to be wholly ignorant of God, to have any conceit of him less than infinite. Independent Sove∣reigntie cannot admit a companion; and the inex∣haustible force of a Creatour, who made all, sufficeth to govern all. An Angel cost him no more in the ma∣king than a silk-worm, and a silk-wom cost him no less to produce it than an Angel. Why do you not judge that which is to be made, by it which is already made? When you entered into the world, the Divine Providence, as a harbinger, prepared your lodging for you, it was not in your power to make your self then either rich or poor, Master or servant, King or subject; your affairs were dispatch∣ed, and your counsel not asked. God also in silence draweth out the web of your life; if you desire to be happy, you have nothing to do, but to contribute your free-will to his work. But if you have set up your rest to become a Politician, contrary to the de∣crees of Providence, and to bend the byass to your pretended interests, is it not to do the same thing, which a frog should, if she sought to swim against the current of Rhodanus or Danubius? Would not it be as ridiculous, as if a flie should seek to soar up to heaven, and fix her little feet, to stay the course of the Primum Mobile? You say, I press you, and if you * 1.10 can prosper well in the affairs of the world by these ways of piety and honesty, which are ever annexed to a firm belief of a divine Providence, you would rather take this same than any other. To it I answer that which Laertius speaketh of the Philosopher Byon, who having before been an athe••st, & afterward by chance disposing himself to invoke the false gods, became most superstitious in their service, under hope of some temporal commodities, which he thought to gain. O * 1.11 great fool (saith this Authour) who could not propose gods to himself, unless he made them mercenary, and would needs have the belief of a Divinitie depend on the succes∣ses of his person and house. God (saith S. dugustine) en∣gageth not his promise to make us happy according to the world, so soon as we become honest men. If you say unto him: O God, where is your justice, to suffer the wicked so to flourish, & good men to be afflicted? He will answer, Where is your faith? where is that promise I have made you? Have you made your self a Christian to be happy in the world? This were to make a virtue beggerly, wanton, and interessed, which must ever be payed with prosperities: we may well say, it resigned it self to God for good morsels, and not for honesty. It is much to be feared, lest the pleasures of the pre∣sent, may make it loose the tast of the recompence promised in Heaven, as it is said the dogs, which hunt∣ed among the flowers of Mount Gibel, lost hereto∣fore the tracks of the hare.

If following good Policie, we should be unhappy towards the world, we might ever comfort the cap∣tivity of our body by the liberty of our mind, and guild our chains of glory with our virtues. We should enter into the community of great spirits, who have done all good, to endure all evil; we should much more rejoyce to be in the bottom of the pri∣son with S. Paul, than in the heaven on earth, which Cosroes the Persian King caused to be built. But God is not so harsh to a good conscience, that he desireth to hold it still in the incommodities of present life: but much otherwise, if you will well discourse, there will be found an infinite number of good Princes, ex∣cellent Magistrates, and all sorts of persons qualified, who pursuing the way of honesty, have been most prosperous in the mannage of affairs. And if you consider your Politicians, who make profession to re∣fine all the world, either you have seen but the first station of their plaistered felicity, or have ever found great labyrinths, horrible confusions, fortunes little lasting, dejection in their posterity, hatred, and the execration of Ages.

I think, I have fully illustrated these truths in the histories which I have written of Herod, Theodosius, Maximus, Eugenius, Constantine, Dioclesian, Constans, Jalian, and divers others.

And if you yet desire to behold with a ready eye, how there is no policie powerfull against God, and how he surprizeth the most subtile, making snares of their greatest cunning to captive them; behold Jo∣seph, sold by his wicked brothers, for fear he should be honoured, and yet see him honoured because he was sold. Behold Haman, who practised the ruin of the Hebrews, to raise himself; and see him raised on a gibbet of fifty cubits high, to humble him. Behold Jonas, who would also be a Politician con∣trary to the counsels of his Master; yet tempests pur∣sued him, the lot served him for an arrest, the sea for a Mistress of constancy, the belly of a Whale, which should be his sepulcher, for a Palace. He came to the haven by ship-wrack, much more safe in the en∣trails of a fish, than in a ship. Behold Pharaoh, who becomes crafty, and thinketh by ruinating the Israe∣lites, his Scepter is throughly established: God sur∣prizeth him in subtility, and makes him know the op∣pression of this poor people, is the instrument of his ruin. A little child, which lieth floating on the wa∣ters of Nilus, in a cradle of bulrushes, as a worm hid∣den in straw, and whose afflicted mother measureth his tomb with her eyes in every billow of this faith∣less element, is delivered from peril by the very bloud of Pharaoh, to turn the Diadem of Pharaoh into dust, and bury him all enflamed in a gulf of the Red-sea. Behold Jeroboam, who revolting against * 1.12 his Prince, raised a State by ambition, and a Reli∣gion out of fantasie, having seen the Altars crack with the horrour of his crime, yet his heart still re∣maining more obdurate than stone, in the end he is so chastised by the hand of God, that there was not left so much as one handfull of dust of his house up∣on the face of the earth. Behold Absalom, who thought the means to mount up to a Throne, was to make a foot-stool by force of Arms of the crowned head of his father: yet see him entangled in a tree, transfixed with three spears, and thrown into a deep pit, which left nothing of him alive, but the memory of his misery. Behold Saul, who makes shew pun∣ctually to obey the law of God under the direction of Samuel, he afterwards learns to become cunning, plotting designs, and seeking in all points his own petty interests: but in the end David, whose life he judged incompatible with his own estate, dismount∣ed him, using no other Policie, but by making himself an honest man.

Behold the Monarchies of the world, so much dis∣puted on, behold Scepters hanging on a silken thread, the Empires, and lives of Otho, Vitellins, Galba, Piso, Balbinus, Florianus, Basilius, Silvianus, Tacitus, Quinti∣lius, Maximus, Michael Colophates. Behold the fall of Parm••••io under Alexander, Sejanus under Tybe∣rius, Cleander under Commodus, Ablavius under Con∣stantine, Eutropius under Arcadius, Vignius under Fre∣derick, Brocas under Philip, Cabreca under Peter, and so many of the like kind.

Either you shall make your self wholly insensible, or must affirm, that to raise a State, and build a for∣tune, you are to proceed securely therein, with a very great tie upon the maxims of faith, religion, and honesty, unless you will expect in the course of an uncertain life a most certain ruin. And yet you still doubt to enter into the Citie of good Policie. Oh, had you once tasted those delights, you would become wholly enamoured of them, but I see it is fit I make a piece of painting for you, to oppose that wicked Policie.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Eccles. 23. the Greek vers. 5. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
• * 1.2

  Dionis. c. 1. de divinis no∣minibus.
• (a) 1.3

  Aug. l. 3. de libero arbit. c. 24. Cui bonum non est Deus, sibi ipsi vult esse bonum su∣um sicut sibi est Deus.
• * 1.4

  Vide Lipsium in notis ad 3. lib. politic. c. 4. p. 125.
• * 1.5

  Consilium A∣chitophel quasi siquis consulerit De∣um. 2. Reg. 2.
• * 1.6

  Ratio D. An∣s••l••i dialog. de veritate c. 1.
• * 1.7

  D. Thom. opus∣cul. 2. cap. 21. Quae sunt per participatio∣nem relu••un∣tur in id quod est per essenti∣am.
• * 1.8

  Irridendum, agere curam rerum huma∣n••rum quic∣quid est sum∣mum, sed cre∣di, & usu vi∣t•• est. Plin. l. 2. c. 7.
• * 1.9

  O proditorem generis huma∣ni. Vives 1. de verit. fidei lib. 9.
• * 1.10

  Against the ancient say∣ing touched by Tertullian: Non licet Deos nosse gratis. Diogen. Laer. lib. 4.
• * 1.11

  Aug. Enar. 2. in Psal. 25. Dicis Deo, Haec est justitia tua ut mali flore∣ant, boni labo∣rent: & Deus tibi respondet, Haec est fides tua: Hoccine tibi promisi, & ad hoc Christi∣anus factus es, ut in spculo stor••res?
• * 1.12

  Domus Jero∣boam eversa esi, & deleta de superficie terrae. 3 Reg. 15.