or unworthy But be you irreprehensible Labourers faithfull Stewards sincere Embassadors of our Lord for it is by you that he declares his will to men and it is at your hands hee will demand their soules Think of feeding your Flock and not how to cloath your selves with their wooll and drink of their milk There is nothing more shamefull to a Bishop or Priest then covetousness and the desire of sordid gain that justly takes away all credit from them and much weakens the force of their preaching We brought nothing with us into the world and must go out of it naked Therefore â—â—udy not to hoord up any thing but be content with moderate food and clothing seeking only to get riches of piety which is a great treasure and sufficient to satisfie a heart that is truely Christian They who desire to be rich do easily fall into the snares of the Divel and open a gap in their soules to temptation and to all sorts of bad desires and disquiets For covetousness of money is the root of all evils Yet for this we must not condemn rich men but put them often in minde that they be not proud nor put their trust too much in riches which many accidents may ravish from â—hem but rather to confide in the living God whose enjoyment can only render us truly happy You must also avoid another extremity which is the neglect of your own families for how shall he that cannot govern his own house govern well the Church Your family must be like a Church by the exemplar life of all those that are in it and your children born before your ordination must preach in silence to all the faithfull under your charge by their modesty and by the sanctity of their lives After you have been heard speak men will cast their eies upon the manner of your life and if your actions do not correspond with your words your preaching will be unprofitable Be you your selves sober to persuade sobriety chast to teach others continency patient when you suffer injuries to learn others how to bear them and modest to invite others to modesty Let your humility confound the proud and the contempt you have of riches reprove the covetous and make them ashamed use hospitality to the end you may encourage your Brethren that are able to practise it Love the poore and be ye first in their assistance that by your example others may respect help them Keep a watchfull guard upon your anger that your hands which are consecrated to bless the people never strike any body Above all avoid temporall affairs for you are Souldiers of a militia that requires you intirely and you serve a Master whom only you must study to please The sanctification and conduct of souls which he has redeemed the establishment of his kingdome by preaching his word are so glorious imployments that you ought to contemne all others though presented to you by the greatest Prince of the earth When either the glory of our Lord or charity requires you to undertake any affair be not negligent but presently quit your own repose and quiet Without such like occasions attend to cultivate the field which is appointed for you For Christians are the fields of God planted and watered by him and to him it belongs to give the encrease It suffices for your part that you omit nothing to make the Gospel flourish Be watchfull for after my departure ravenous wolves will fall upon your flocke and devoure them without pity and many false doctours shall rise amongst you who will seduce a great number of the faithfull by their false doctrine They will come with the name of our Lord in their mouthes their lookes will be modest their words Saint-like their actions wary their lives severe and they will teach nothing that is not delightfull But indeed they will be wolves in the skinnes of sheep They will be men that are lovers of themselves fraught with inordinate desires puffed up with pride obstinate in what they hold jealous of their opinions and unsatiable in praise honor and respect They will be called Masters give rules to all and concerning all things have the first place and be considered as men that had nothing of earth in them These blinde guides will lead many others so all fall into the ditch you shall see them come into houses and inquire into the greatest secrets of families not to reform the disorders but to soment them so to make benefit of their indulgence They will abuse men by their false Maxims they will make use of the simplicity of women whom they will lead by flocks aud make them believe they will free them from the burthen of their sinnes they will entertain them with a thousand vain superfluous things which shall render them alwaies more curious but never more learned in the doctrine of piety which they ought chiefly to know In fine they will oppose truth which is never favourable to them and will rise up against you without any respect to the power which Jesus Christ has given you as Jannes and Mambres did against Moyses You are not the work of men but the work of Jesus Christ that Sovereign Priest who has made you Priests to the end you continue the functions of his royall Priesthood He who is the head of Men and Angels will have you receive from him the influences of his graces to communicate them to his members you are the head of his mystical body which cannot subsist without you you are the eye to enlighten it the tongue to instruct it and the bosome to harbor it untill our Lord J. Christ be there formed Labor faithfully in a work that is so admirable be not weary to behold after a long time you have not much advanced resolve to sustain in your selves continual throws that you may beget soules to our Lord. Whilest a woman feels the pains of her childe-bearing she cries out aloud but no sooner is she delivered when she forgets all her dolours rejoices because she has brought a man into the world What then will be your joy when you shall have given children to God and how can all those agonies those disquiets those persecutions which you are to suffer before seem troublesom to you For my self I do neither glory that I am an Israelite or that I am skilful in the law nor that I have been elevated up to heaven nor that I am an Apostle nor in any other quality of my person But all my glory is that I have suffered incredible persecutions for Jesus Christ The most glorious badges of my Apostleship is to see me in nakedness to see me in want of food of drink in misery in prisons in chaines in affronts and scorns for the salvation of those to whom God has destinated the light of his Gospel It is now time that I leave you yet awake a while and call to minde the verities which I have declared unto you
repentant By his study and diligence he learnt the letter of the Law at the feet of Gamaliel by the light of Grace he knew the insufficiency of it to mans justification he concealed it not to the Jewes that hee might beat down their pride and teach them they were to have recourse to the Faith of Jesus Christ if they meant to be delivered from the yoke of sin and concupiscence These verities which they ought to have respected put them into a fury and publication of irreconciliable enmity against him In what place soever he went he found them prepared to cross his designes and raise persecutions against him they laid ambushes for him both by land and sea where horrid tempests seemed to him less terrible then their hatred To ruine him they made use of the authority of Goveruours and imployed their credit with Princes they abused the simplicity of pious women to chase him out of Cities where he preached with success In Lystris they made those throw stones at him who but two hours before would have adored him for a God Hee bare the marks of their cruelty upon his back in the many stripes hee received and had hee laid open to us all the other afflictions which he suffered by their persecution wee might behold the most admirable example of a perfect patience that ever has been and the most horrid fury whereof men are capable In these few things which he relates of himself we may behold his modesty and courage both tegether He was wearied with no pains and hee compared not himself with the other Ministers of the Gospel but in his great sufferings for the defence of it He was oftner imprisoned then any other and turned over to executioners who loaded him with stripes He often suffered shipwrack at sea and ran dangers in the calmest rivers In Cities the people defamed him with calumnies and treated him rudely in his person nor was hee secure in solitude His patience was tryed both in hunger and thirst and he was so far from yielding any pleasures to his senses that hee wanted necessaries for the sustaining of his life He felt the violence of cold in his voyages nor could the ice abate the heat of his zeal He had not wherewith to defend himself from the injury of the weather and the poorest persons would have been ashamed to wear his garments Hee was an invincible Champion that fought naked against his naked enemies the devils But whatsoever injuries he suffered by the Jews Gentiles those hee endured from false brothers were more dangerous and more insupportable The profession which they made of the Gospel in outward shew covered their hatred ambition and covetousness and being not the least suspected of any ill designe were by that the more able to doe him harm His great reputation made his greatest crimes they could not endure his sublime doctrine which had nothing of terrestrial in it nor the discretion of his zeal which was according to knowledge nor the constancy of his courage which would not bow in any thing that concerned the glory of God nor his disinteressed charity that sought no advantages to himself There were no calumnies so black which they cast not upon him or dispersed not cunningly amongst those who knew not the ground of their malice the motives of their hatred To hear them speak they seemed to be no waies interessed but in the defence of truth and regarded only the salvation of souls But they vented their passion and many times those were the instruments of their vengeance who ought to have been the Judges But their fury found it self deceived in all designes hurt none but those who had so unjustly entertained and so cruelly nourished it The Mystery of iniquity was discovered and every one saw that the false Apostles who persecuted him with so much obstinacy and fury were true Wolves in Sheep-skins and that they hated him as offenders hate their Judges All their injuries could not move him to any bitternesse he always rendering blessings for the maledictions they charged upon him He remembred that he was Apostle to him who bore the name of Impostor Seducer and Samaritan All things seemed sweet to him if tending to the progresse of the Gospel and all his care was that it might have no obstacle Although in his rapture he had seen the most profound mysteries of God yet he accommodated himself to the weakness of his disciples and stammered it out with them His Charity comprehended all the world and his care was extended unto Slaves as well as Princes His preaching was plain and he corrupted not the words of Jesus Christ by the ornaments of humane learning His reasons were so forcible that the most learned if not perswaded by them were at lest confounded His Epistles are Abysses of Divine knowledge one may see the light of his understanding there to sparkle and in every line the fire of his Charity The proud are there dazeled and the humble may finde wholsom instructions The Flower of human Eloquence are not seen there but all the beauties of Heavenly rhetorick shine in them This stile is not always elegant but the art in discussing matters and managing the Spirits of men is there admirable Prudence appears in all his precepts and all the profane Politiques come not near them Christian morality is found there in its purity and every one may there learn the duty of his condition without disguise without subtilty and without those pernicious imitations which have corrupted the good manners of these latter ages He neither sought his own reputation nor the applause of men and one of his chief maxims was that we could not please them and be servants of Jesus Christ He regarded not men but as they bore the image of his Master and all his cares were but to imprint that in their souls He having received the Evangelical verity as a sacred pledge he would never alter it out of any complacence He stooped to the capacity of his Disciples but he made not their capacity the rule of his Doctrine as if he were onely to tell them what they could comprehend In stead of satisfying humane reason which is very fecund and insolent in her doubts he placed it under the yoak of faith remitting it to the secrets of Gods Divine judgements The beloved Disciple reposed upon the bosome of Jesus Christ but we may say that Saint Paul entred into it and saw the operations of his Divine life and the influences diffused from thence upon his members Never any one better knew the Oeconomy of the mystical body and her correspondence with the head Never was the ardor of zeal so admirably mixt with prudence for the framing and sanctifying of this body proper interest was unknown to him He was so far from making any sordid commerce of the Gospel as he would not accept of necessaries for his life His charity towards the faithful governed his power and he had rather diminish his authority then give the least cause of murmur His poverty was the more Evangelical in that it was despised He was not ashamed to take pains for his living with the same hands that wrought miracles and write instructions to all the Church He complied with all men by an admirable condescension and never had Father more tenderness for his Children then he for his disciples The Pharisees the Scribes the Priests were not able to speak before him Athens was astonished to hear him the Are page admired him and there he made conquest of the most renouned of their Judges At Rome he set upon Idolatry in the Throne and of a Mistress of error he made her a Mistress of truth over all the earth He who first founded it soyled it presently with the blood of his brother and the Apostle consecrated it with his blood to establish there the Empire of Jesus Christ Her authority is more extended by a religion of humility which he taught then for many ages she could bring to pass by force of armes He advanced his conquests even to the Palace of Nero making the domesticks of a most cruel and infamous Tyrant to become the servants of Jesus Christ Once he escaped the Jawes of this Lyon because God had shut them up that he might make known his name to all the earth But when the time of his Coronation was come he loosened the reins to this monster who sacrificed him to his cruelty and what could be expected less from him who had not spared his own Mother The condemnation of the Judge was a proof of the Criminals vertue After his death the Church hears him as her Master and the Schools of Christians receive all his words as infallible Oracles He is one of the eyes of the body whereof Jesus Christ is the head He is the shrill Trumpet of the Gospel which is heard over all the earth He is the Apostle of the Son of God not mortal and passible but glorious and living the life of resurrection He is the illustrious triumph of his grace the subject of his mercies the vessel of a singular election the instrument of his greatest wonders the interpreter of his wil and the treasurer of all his secrets The Minister of his greatest favours the Embassadour of his most holy aliance the Oracle of his highest verities From this fountain the holy Fathers have drawn what they have most admirable T is from this Mine they have fetched all their riches T is from his spoyles they have taken all their noble ornaments They never went astray when they took him for their guide They have always triumphed when they used his armes It is his fire that warmed their zeal as his light enlightned them It is with his Thunder-bolts they have overthrown the insolency of Heresie and the rebellion of Schisme It is by his rules they have formed their morality It is by his counsels they have governed the Church It is by his maximes they have cleared the doubts of the faithful satisfied their scruples and discovered the snares which were set to entrap them We have endeavoured in this History to represent the marvelous actions of his life and though we are neither able nor willing to aspire to the glory of Eloquence yet we may promise this to our selves that all unpartial Readers will confess we have herein been very faithful and disinteressed FINIS
that is his Church and consequently deprived of the food which he has prepared to nourish his Spouse during her Pilgrimage and if they eat it they shall eat their judgement the body of Jesus Christ shall enter into their breasts and there engrave in characters undeleble the arrest of their death and whilest they think to receive a pledge of their salvation it shall prove the assurance of their damnation For they will be not onely guilty persons but persons already condemned and adjudged to death and the separation of them from the Elect shall be justly grounded upon the litle distinction they made of the body and bloud of the Sonne of God taking ordinary meat with more care and circumspection Alas there are but too many who are guilty of this Sacriledge Men know them not but they cannot lye hid from God who reads their most secret thoughts and sees clearly the evil dispositions of their carnal soules We see young men perish in the flower of their age we behold strong and lusty men fall into languishing diseases of which we know not the cause Suddain death dayly takes away divers persons who in respect of their age and health might have promised themselves a long life These accidents are ordinarily attributed to natural causes but beleeve it 't is a secret punishment for the profanation of the body of Jesus Christ Therefore judge your selves to the end you be not judged Yet be not seized with so great a fear as to hinder you from approaching to him who is as wel bread to strengthen the weak and fraile as to nourish the strong and is a medicine as well as food Eat dayly of this bread but then let your life correspond with your food and as the one is heavenly let not the other savour of the corruption of the Earth As you eat of the same bread and drink of the same cup at the Table of your Father so let there be a perfect union in your desires and in your thoughts as to be one thing This bread which is made of many graines of corn and the wine which is drawne from many grapes teach you to unite your hearts by charity You must be to one another as one bread by an amorous communication of your gifts either spiritual or temporal that all shadow of division even of singularity may be banished from the Church Goe on then my dear Brethren in such a manner as may answer the Sanctity of your name and vocation You are called Christians and this name shewes your Royal Unction and Priesthood together You are of that Kingly Stock doe not then make your selves slaves of sinne which is the most infamous and cruel Master you can choose You are Priests therefore cloath your selves with justice Offer your selves to God as a holy Host immaculate by Jesus Christ our Lord who is the Eternal Priest by whom and in whom our oblations are made acceptable to the heavenly Father I behold here persons of all conditions and therefore I will briefly set down some rules how to performe the duty of Christians Husbands and Wives I would have you know that marriage which has joyned you together is a great Sacrament in Jesus Christ and his Church It represents the adorable union of the heavenly Espouse and this Chaste Bride whom he has purified from all uncleanness by the word of life so that she who before was black and soyled in the time of her disorders now appears more white then Lilies without any spot or wrinckle to dishonour her He has not onely expressed his love to her by these favours but also given his life for her and made his bloud the Seale of his love Therefore love your Wives after this model and consider their bodies as a thing that is yours and consequently ought to be the subject of your care But as the love which Jesus Christ beares to his Church is pure so let the love which you bear to the companions of your bed be likewise pure As Jesus Christ beares with the frailties of his Church so you must bear the infirmites of those whose Sex being more fraile is more excusable and may better claim to be supported when you love them you love your selves for marriage makes that you are two in one flesh Wives be you subject to your husbands as to those who hold the place of our Lord over you they are your heads as Jesus Christ is head of the Church The head conducts the rest of the body take them therefore for the guides of your life and repose more trust in their conduct then in that of your own reason As the Church is subject to the will of Jesus Christ be you obedient to the wills of your husbands never give them any cause of anger nor occasion to distrust you Think not of pleasing any but them to that end adorn your selves modestly as Sarah did and those holy women in times past who were so carefull of gaining the hearts of their husbands as they called them their Lords and were much more carefull in the adorning of their souls then bodies Curled hair with affectation your costly Jewels garments of gold and silver and other dressings of vanity by which you desire to draw the eies of others upon you are unworthy of a Christian wife and indeed in stead of setting her forth renders her deformed Fathers and Mothers breed your Children in the fear of our Lord Suffer them not in your presence to offend him unto whom they appertain more then to your selves and for whose service you ought to bring them up Be carefull rather to make them good then rich and breed them rather for heaven then the earth Never provoke them to anger nor make them despair by holding too vigorous a hand over them but rather use indulgence towards them to reduce them to reason if they fly out Children obey your Fathers and Mothers the observance of this command for your encouragement is recompenced with the promise of a long life The honour which you give them returns to God who is the fountain of all Paternity both in heaven and earth Bear with their froward humors shun all occasions of displeasing them and assuredly believe you can never acquit your selves of the obligations you owe in duty to them You that are servants respect your Masters with a sincere and upright heart and believe that in serving them as you ought you serve Jesus Christ Do not render them service only when they look upon you for hope of reward or fear of punishment but do it in conformity to the faith and religion you profess Consider your selves as Servants of our Lord for the love of whom you serve men whose providence you ought to adore that has put you in that condition Think not of freeing your selves of that bondage but to use it well and to make it voluntary Expect from him the rewards due to your service your fidelity and diligence with love and