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Contra libi

tum appre

obrinere vi

Aug.

ra d'amor chi fuge

vince.

by the following Rules to prevent, or to cure all the wounds of our flesh made by the poisoned arrows of Luft.

Remedies against Uncleanness.

1. When a temptation of lust assaults thee, do not dinis impe- refift it by heaping up arguments against it, and dif bende fu- puting with it, considering its offers and its danger, gam, fi vis but flie from it, that is, think not at all of it; lay actoriam. s. fide all cousideration concerning it, and turn away from it by any fevere and laudable thought of bufiNella guer- nefs. St Hierom very wittily reproves the Gentile superstition, who pictured the Virgin-Deities armed with a shield and Lance, as if Chastity could not be defended without War and direct contention. No; this enemy is to be treated otherwise. If you hear it speak, though but to dispute with it, it ruines you; and the very arguments you go about to answer, leave a relish upon the tongue. A man may be burned if he goes near the fire, though but to quench his house; and by handling pitch, though but to draw it from your cloaths, you defile your fingers.

2. Avoid idleness, and fill up all the spaces of thy time with fevere and useful employment: for luft ufually creeps in at those emptinesses where the foul is unemployed and the body is at ease. For no easie, healthful and idle person was ever chaste, if he could be tempted. But of all employments, bodily labour is most useful, and of greatest benefit for the driving away the Devil.

3. Give no entertainment to the beginnings, the

---Quisquis in primo obstitit Repulitque amorem, tutus ac victor fuit: Qui blandiendo dulce nutrivit malum, Serò reculat ferre quod fubiit jugum.

Senec. Hippol.

first motions and secret whifpers of the spirit of impurity. For if you totally suppress it, it dies: If you permit the furnace to breathe its smoke and flame out at any

vent, it will rage to the consumption of the whole. This Cockatrice is sooneft crushed in the shell, but if it grows, it turns to a Serpent, and a Dragon, and a Devil.

4. Corporal mortification and hard usages of our body, hath by all ages of the Church been accounted a good instrument, and of fome profit against the spirit of fornication. A spare diet, and a thin, coarse table, seldom refreshment, frequent fasts, not violent and interrupted with returns to ordinary feeding, but constantly little, unpleasant, of wholesome but sparing nourishment: For by such cutting off the provisions of victuals, we shall weaken the strength of our ene my. To which if we add lyings upon the ground, painful postures in Prayer, reciting our devotions with our arms extended at full length, like Mofes praying against Amaleck, or our blessed Saviour hanging upon his painful bed of forrows, the Cross, and (if the lust be upon us, and sharply tempting) by inflicting any Imart to overthrow the strongest paffion by the most violent pain, we shall find great ease for the present, and the resolution and apt sufferance against the future danger. And this was St. Paul's remedy, I bring my body under, he used some rudeness towards it. But it was a great nobleness of Chastity which St. Hierom In vita So reports of a Son of the King of Nicomedia, who being Panli, tempted upon flowers and a perfumed bed with a foft violence, but yet tied down to the temptation, and sollicited with circumstances of Afian Luxury by an impure Curtezan, least the easiness of his posture should abuse him, spit out his tongue into her face : to represent that no vertue hath cost the Saints * so much as this of Chastity.

* Benedictus in spinis se volutavir.

S. Martinianus faciem & manus. S. Johannes cognomento Bonus, calamos acutos inter ungues & carnem digitorum intrufit. S. Theoctystus in sylvis more ferarum vixit, ne inter Arabes pollueretur,

5. Fly from all occafions, temptations, loosenesses of company, balls and revellings, undecent mixtures of wanton dancings, idle talk, private society with strange women, starings upon a beauteous face, the company of women that are fingers, amorous gestures, garishand wanton dressings, feasts and liberty, ban

ἐβΣτέφα πλέκων που εὗρον
τοτε όλοις ου
δεάπτισ ̓ εἰς τὸν οἶνου, καὶ τῶν σἹερῶν κατάσχων λαβῶν
· ἔπιθὸν αὐτὸν, καὶ νῦν ἔσω μερῶν με πλερόϊσι γαρ
Υαλίζει. Julian.

Venus rofam amat propter fabellam quam recitat.

Libanius.

banquets and pers fumes, wine and strong drinks, which are made to perfecute Chastity, some of these

Venter mero æstuans citò despumatur in libidines. being the very pro

S. Hieron.

Il foco che non mi scalda rion voglio che miscorti.

logues to luft, and the most innocent of them

being but like condited or pickled mushromes, which if carefully corrected, and seldom tasted, may be harmless, but can never do good: Ever remembring that it is easier to die for Chastity, than to live with it; and the Hangman could not extort a consent from some persons, from whom a Lover would have entreated it. For the glory of Chastity will easily over come the rudeness of fear and violence; but easiness and softness and smooth temptations creep in, and like the fun, make a maiden lay by her veil and robe, which persecution, like the northern wind, made her hold fast and clap close about her.

6. He that will fecure his Chastity, must first cure his pride and his rage. For ofrentimes lust is the pu nishment of a proud man, to tame the vanity of his pride by the shame and affronts of unchastity: and the same intemperate heat that makes anger, does in kindle luft.

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numquid ego à té

Magno prognatam deposco confule-
Velataque stolâ mea cum conferbuit ira?

Horat. Serm. 1. 1. Sat. 2.

7. If thou beest assaulted with an unclean Spirit, truft not thy felf alone, but run forth into company, whose reverence and modesty may suppress, or whose fociety may divert thy thoughts: and a perpetual witness of thy conversation is of especial use against this vice, which evaporates in the open air like Cam phire, being impatieut of light and witnesses.

8. Use frequent and earnest Prayers to the King of Purities, the first of Virgins, the eternal God, who is of an effential purity, that he would be pleased to re prove and cast out the unclean Spirit. For besides the bleffings

dicam fa

Rblessings of prayer by way of reward, it hath a natural vertue to refstrain this vice: because a prayer against it is an unwillingness to act it; and so long as we heartily pray against it, our desires are secured, and then this Devil hath no power. This was St. Paul's other remedy: [For this cause I befought the Lord thrice.] And there is much reason and much advantage in the use of this instrument; because the main thing that in this affair is to be secured, is a man's mind. He that Mens impugoes about to cure luft by bodily exercises alone (as cere, non St. Paul's phrase is) or mortifications, shall find them corpus foter fometimes instrumental to it, and incitations of fudden desires, but always infufficient and of little profit : but he that hath a chafst mind thall find his body apt enough to take laws; and let it do its worst, it cans not make a fin, and in its greatest violence can but produce a little natural uneasiness, not so much trou ble as a fevere fasting-day; or a hard night's lodging upon boards. If a man be hungry he must eat, and if he be thirsty he must drink in some convenient time, or else he dies: but if the body be rebellious, so the mind be chast, let it do its worst; if you refolve perfectly not to fatisfie it, you can receive no great evil by it. Therefore the proper cure is by applicati ons to the spirit, and securities of the mind, which can no ways fo well be secured as by frequent and fervent prayers, and sober resolutions, and severe difcourses. Therefore,

9. Hither bring in fuccourfrom confideration of the Divine Prefence, and of his holy Angels, meditation of Death, and the Paffions of Christ upon the Cross, imitation of his Purities, and of the Virgin Mary his unspotted and holy Mother, and of such eminent Saints who in their generations were burning and thining lights, unmingled with such uncleannesses which de- * Danda eft file the foul, and who now follow the. Lamb whither-matrimonio

foever he goes.

opera ut

devincian

quod eft

To. These Remedies are of universal efficacy in all tut cases extraordinary and violent; but in ordinary and juventutis common, the Remedy which God hath provided, that vinculum. is, honourable * Marriage, hath a natural efficacy, be-educ, lib,

G

fides

Plut. de

:

:

fides a vertue by divine bleffing, to cure the inconveniences which otherwise might afflict persons temperate and fober.

SECT. IV.

Of Humility.

Humility is the greatest Ornament and Jewel of Christian Religion, that whereby it is diftinguished from all the wisdom of the world; it not having been taught by the wife men of the Gentiles, but first put into a discipline, and made part of a Religion, by our Lord Jesus Christ, who propounded himself imitable by his disciples so signally in nothing as in the twin sisters of Meekness and Humility. Learn of me, for I am meek and humble, and ye shall find rest unto your fouls.

For all the World, all that we are, and all that we have, our bodies and our fouls, our actions and our fufferings, our conditions at home, our accidents a broad, our many fins, and our seldom vertues, are as so many arguments to make our fouls dwell low in the deep valleys of Humility.

Arguments against Pride, by way of confideration.

1. Our Body is weak and impure, sending out more uncleannesses from-its several finks than could be endured if they were not necessary and natural: and we are forced to pass that through our mouths, which as foon as we see upon the ground, we loath like rottenness and vomiting.

2. Our Strength is inferiour to that of many Beasts, and our Infirmities so many, that we are forced to dress and tend Horses and Asses, that they may help our needs and relieve our wants.

3. Our beauty is in colour inferiour to many flowers, and in proportion of parts it is no better than nothing: for even a Dog hath parts as well proportioned and fitted to his purposes, and the designs of his nature,

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