Page:St Augustine Of the Citie of God.pdf/120

 and liued happy in all temporall estate: and (e) Cateline, that villenous wretch, was oppressed with misery and brought to naught in the warre which his owne guilt had hatched: good men that worship that God who alone can giue felicity, do shine, and are mighty in the true and surest happinesse: wherefore, when as the contaminate conditions of that weale-publike, did subuert it, the gods neuer put to their helping hands to stop this invndation of corruption into their manners, but rather made it more way, and gaue the Common-wealth a larger passe vnto distruction. Nor let them shadow them-selues vnder goodnesse, or pretend that the Citties wickednesse draue them away. No, no, they were all there, they are produced, they are conuicted, they could neither helpe the Citty by their instruc∣tiōs, nor conceale themselues by their silence. I omit to relate how (f) Marius was commended vnto the goddesse Marica by the pittiful Minturniās in hir Wood, & how they made their praiers to hir that she would prosper all his enterprizes, and how he hauing shaken of his heauy disperation, returned with a bloudy army euē vnto Rome it selfe: Where what a barbarous, cruell, and more then most inhumain victory he obtained, let them that list to read it, looke in those that haue recorded it: This as I said I omit: nor do I impute his murderous felicity vnto any Marica's, or I cannot tell whome, but vnto the most secret iudgement of the most mighty God to shut the mouthes of our aduersaries, and to free those from error that doe obserue this with a discreet iudgement and not with a preiudicate affect. For if the diuels haue any power or can do any thing at all in these affaires, it is no more then what they are permitted to do by the secret prouidence of the almighty: and in this case, they may be allowed to effect somwhat to the end that we should nei∣ther take too much pleasure in this earthly felicity, in that wee see that wicked men like Marius may inioy it, neither hold it as an euil, & therfore to be vtterly refused, seeing that many good honest men, and seruants of the true & liuing God haue possessed it in spite of all the diuels in hell: and that we should not be so fond as to thinke that these vncleane spirits are either to be feared for any hurt, nor ho∣noured for any profit they can bring vpon mans fortunes. For they are in power, but euen as wicked men vpon earth are, so that they cannot do what they please, but are meere ministers to his ordinance, whose iudgements no man can either comprehendfully, or reprehend iustly.

L. VIVES. THey that helped Marius] Ater he returned out of Affrica, hee called all the slaues to his standard, and gaue them their freedome: and with all cruelty spoyled the Collonies of Os∣tiae,*Antium, Lavinium, and Aritia. Entring the Citty, he gaue his soldiars charge that to whom∣soeuer he returned not the salute, they should immediatly dispatch him. It is vnspeakeable to consider the innumerable multitude of all sortes, Noble and ignoble, that were slaughtered by this meanes. His cruelty Lucan in few wordes doth excellently describe.

Vir ferus & fat•…•…vpienti perdere Romam. Sufficiens,— Cruel & fittest instrument for fate. To wrack Rome by.— And yet this bloudy man (as I said before) in his seauenth Consulship, died quietly in his bed, as Lucan saith:

Folix •…uersa Consull moritarus in vrb•…. Happy dead Consull in his ruin'd towne. Soone after his death, came Sylla out of Asia, and rooted out Marius his sonne and all the whole faction of them vtterly. (b) Commodity] Saint ← Augustine → plaies with these Antitheses, Compendio & Superfluo: Compendio Breifely, or Compendio to their commodity,