where I should play the Monarch. O misfortunes! I will deceive you. Thereupon he wrote the praises of every evil which might happen against his will. If a calumny; the praise of the profit calumny brought. If an Exile; the praise of exile. If a quartane Ague; the praise of the Quartane Ague. And by this means he came to such a height of Tranquillity, that so soon as a fresh mischief assailed him; he met it with a smiling countenance, and said, God be praised, behold the way of my exercise.
And you who are a child of light, fed with the body and bloud of your master for Heaven, and the compa∣ny of Angels, you cannot say (when some little incon∣venience befalleth you) praised be Jesus; behold here how the good purpose I have made of patience is exer∣cised. And then if you feel any rebellion; Take heed you shew it not either by words or outward signs, but get you and lodge at the signe of silence, where the ha∣ven of Tranquility is. Do as those that are ill of the falling sicknesse, who retire at the approch of their fits, that they may not let any things uncomely appear. say, Blessed be our Lord God, who teacheth my hands to fight, and frameth my fingers to warre. The He∣brew hath it, Blessed be our Lord who is my rock. To shew you, that God, if you endeavour to vanquish your passions, will place you upon the holy rock of Tranquility, from whence he in his immutability be∣holdeth the motion of all ages. Take a good friend, a faithfull companion, who may divert your passion in its first fit, who may admonish you, and play on Davids harp to drive away this devil of mad Saul, and take you from the occasions of hurt.
The second remedy for such as long chew on their choler, and entertain aversions irreconcileable, is, that It were good to ponder and consider the words of Cassian, Let us perswade our selves that whilst we are angry, It is not permitted us to pray unto God, and to present him our prayers. Let us take each day to be our last; and let us not think that for being chast and continent, for having forsaken the pleasures of the world, and despised riches, for macerating our bodies with fastings, watch∣ings, and labours; much is due to us, if at the end of the reckoning it be found we carry hatred, and anger in our hearts. That alone is sufficient to condemn us to eternall punishments, by the sentence of him, who shall judge the whole world.
Take not this as my saying, but take it as an oracle which that great man hath collected from many holy men of his age. When you keep in your heart some ha∣tred against your neighour, you do a notable wrong to your soul. For first, what have we more sweet, more mercifull then altars? There we should seek for mercy, if God had banished it from all parts of the world; and yet whilst you deferre reconciliation with your enemy, you deprive your self of the right of altars: and if you still have some spark of Christianity, as often as you approch to them you hear the voice of the son of God, who speaketh to you in the bottome of your heart, and saith these words of the Gospel, Go first of all, and re∣concile your self to your brother, and then you shall come to offer your sacrifice of the altar. By despising these words of our Saviour, and going on, you commit a new sacri∣ledge; by recoyling back, and avoiding the altar, and sacrifice, you fly from pardon, and life. And then in what a state are you? what necessity is there that for sparing a good word, you must perpetually live either a sacrilegious, or an excommunicate person?
Lastly, you must think you are not immortall: the very moment which is now in your hands you must di∣vide it with death: even the sun (which you to day have seen to rise out of his couch.) before his setting, may see you in your Tomb. Moreouer, know that should you all your life time have preserved an inviolable virgini∣ty; should you have built a thousand hospitalls, and spent your whole estate in entertaining of the poor; should you have lived in Hair-cloth, among thorns, and in great abstinencies: if you into the other world carry a dramme of resolved and determinate hatred of a neighbour, with unwillingnesse to hear any words of re∣conciliation; all which may be in you of virtue or me∣rit will nothing avail you; your lot shall be with re∣probate souls & devils. O God! what a sentence, what a Decree, what a punishment is this? and who would now purposely cherish hatred against his neighbour, unlesse he had lost all Reason, all sense, and discretion? Let us conclude with the third remedy, against the furi∣ous and bloudy, who are not content to fume; but like unto Aeina, do throw forth their all-enflamed bowels, nor are ever satiated but with outrages and humane bloud. This is it which makes us to behold the goodly duells which have at all times been the profession of ser∣vile souls, of fools, or mad-men. There we see men, be∣witched with a cursed and damnable opinion, seeking upon the least injury to require reparations sealed with humane bloud; to engage seconds to make them com∣plices of their crime, and companions of their misery; to send challenges many times by pages apparelled like women, then to cut anothers throte with horrible fury; to dragge a long chain of allies, to make a pitchd battel of a single combat, and mothers and wives in the mean time to tremble in expectation of the issue of this butchery. Some slight fellow, who hath a soul miser∣ably shallow and base, to cover his cowardise and ac∣quire reputation, will wash his impurity in humane bloud. It is not courage which puts him forward; he who would behold him a little in the buisinesse, should see him ready to swoon, to wax pale, and tremble. If he would follow his own nature, he would fly a hun∣dred leagues off, and never look behind him: but for a little vanity, that Hacksters may praise him and say he hath fought a duell; he tormenteth his mind, and espe∣cially when he is among pots and glasses he shews him∣self valiant. Ah (Rodomont) Is this your businesse? you cannot speak, but you must menace to slash a man. Bloudy beast! where have you learnt this, but in the school of Furies and devils? and do not say, he hath put an affront upon me. What affront? a cold coun∣tenance, a harsh word, a piece of foppery which you would never have taken notice of, had you not been void of the reason of an honest man. None would af∣front you, were not you your own affront: behold the root of all these enflamed angers. And he who will give remedy to them, must cut them off in his imagined con∣tempt, where indeed there is none; and therefore it is fit he retire to the haven of silence, and lessen what he may in his imagination, the injury which he thinks he hath received: when you shall have well weighed it, you will find that you of a fly have made an elephant. The true means to forgive all the world, and to pardon it, is to judge of offences, before we be angry. There are offences which we should laugh at; others, which we at least should deferre, and some we should speedily pardon.
If this stay you not, at least think upon the end, and say, Behold a quarrell which begins to be enkindled: there is nothing wanting but a poor word, fair, and ad∣vised, yea verily but meere silence, to give remedy there∣to. If I augment it, in stead of lessening it, I do put fire to dry wood, which will make a terrible havock to consume me first. I must be a homicide, or a sacrifice to death, or live in brawls, quarrels, and eternall divisi∣ons, which will involve parents, children, brothers, cou∣sins, and a whole posterity. Behold the goodly fruit which brutish anger bringeth. Since I can prevent all this by a little discretion and patience; am I such an