and soften towards his God who like a melted Goodnesse came to pour out himself amongst us This this beloved were the part of good Christians to pray now in this sense to run like Lacquies nay like shadowes near up to the new Incarnate God who being in himself an Inaccessable light was fain to ecclipse his Glory in the cloud of humane Nature that so within the shadow of his shade-yeilding body we might approach unto him and whisper our necessities in his sacred Ears who now as man will hear us however as God the whole world seemed to cry out in vain to him for 4000. years together Say then Beloved this Prayer to day with this religious Duty this All-ghostly sense dictated unto us by the holy Ghost and we soon shall see the effect it worketh in us towards rendring us the perfect Christians that this dayes Epistle exhorts us to be Joyfull modest resigned thankfull and peacefull even to the surpassing the understanding nay more inlightned Angels running before the face of Jesus Christ to his Crib where born he will immediately dispence in ample manner the speciall Grace of his visitation to us all that thus like Baptists as the Gospell to day exhorts shall now prepare his wayes before him to the future Feast of his Nativity And thus we see both Epistle and Gospell of this day though not litterally yet Mystically if not as it were eminentially too included in this Prayer above The Epistle PHIL. 4. ver 4. c. 4. REjoyce in our Lord alwayes again I say Rejoyce ye 5 Let your modesty be known to all men our Lord is nigh 6. Be nothing carefull but in every thing by Prayer and supplication let your Petitions be known with God 7. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and intelligences in Christ Jesus The Explication 4. TO Rejoice that they were Christians and had the happiness of true Faith true Hope true Charity This the Apostle meant by rejoycing in our Lord in his holy gifts of Spirit bestowed upon them not that he had made them noble rich or great Persons but religious Christians for this he bids them alwayes rejoyce in our Lord again and again rejoyce And when he said always he meant as well in affliction as in prosperity because to zealous Souls no humane trouble ought to be disturbing so long as they have the comfort of a good Cause and a good Conscience too 5. Modesty is a vertue giving a mean to all the actions of a man and therefore that we might see Christianity sets all things in order both with the inward and outward man the Apostle exhorts the Philippians to give a proof of their perfection in Christianity by their Modesty and by such a modesty as might be known to all men such a modesty as puts a gracefull blush upon all their actions lest any one might see the infirmity of man in him who was become more than man by beeing a true and perfect Christian and therefore S. Paul tels us here we should stand upon a modest guard because our Lord who is to be our Judge is nigh and hath his eyes upon us as needs he must when he gives us the concourse of his Divine Assistance towards our each thought and deed but our Lords being nigh may now in Advent be applyed to the Nativity of our Saviour and for this purpose holy Church appoints that place of Scripture to be read to day though litterally the Text alludes to the latter day of Doom 6. By Care is here meant Anxiety or trouble of minde not that he prohibits a diligence a due regard to doe what is on our parts to be done but beyond that he will not have us goe he forbids us all anxious sollicitude and recommends a perfect resignation of our selves to the will and pleasure of Almighty God And though he bids us have a care to pray upon all occasions as well of Prosperity as of Adversity yet he allowes not any sollicitous care in us about the effect of our Prayer whether we obtain our requests or not made unto God by Prayer but will have us leave that freely to his Divine Majesty for indeed Beggars who want all things must not choose what supply they will first receive but humbly accept of whatsoever is given and if denyed they may ask again but never must be troubled when they are refused nor is our Prayer to God other than an expression of our despicable beggery and exigence of all necessaries both for Body and Soul and since from him we receive all our supplyes what hand soever it be that gives relief to him must our Prayer to him our Supplication to him our thanks and for his sake to those that are his Messengers his Ministers of help unto us and then we glorifie him when we thank them by whom he hands his Blessings to us 7. By the peace of God we may here understand either that increated peace which is God himself whereof peaceable creatures participate or the peace which Christ made between God and Man by his passion appeasing the Divine Wrath or the peace which we make among our selves when we forgive each other our Offences or the peace we have within our selves of a quiet Conscience for all and every one of these are truly called the Peace of God And yet when the Apostle sayes That peace which passeth all understanding he seemes to incline to the first and last acception of Peace for as that surpasseth the understanding of Angels so this is indeed past all humane understanding to know how unquiet man can attain the happiness of that peace which a quiet conscience affords him since it calmes all the tempests of outward persecution and trouble and makes a man by the equality of his mind equally to bear all unequalls whatsoever can befall him keeping our hearts our wills and our Intelligences our understandings still sixt upon Almighty God still adhering unto him and united to his sacred Son our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ The Application 1. IN the first Verse of this Epistle we are taught how to comport our selves towards God Alwayes rejoicing in him to bear even the afflictions of this world with a contented mind So Saint Paul Rom. 5. We glory even in our tribulations and glory we cannot in any thing that gives us not content that doth not joy our hearts for the momentary tribulations of this world born with patience secure us of eternall consolations in the next Whence the same Apostle Cor. 6. sayes As it were sad yet alwayes rejoicing because in our patient suffering we serve and glorifie The God of all consolation 2. In the second Verse see how we are to demean our selves towards our neighbour Modestly ever because our Lord is nigh As who should say we can never look upon our Neighbour but as on our fellow servant holding up the hanging to let our common Master in to us that followes
us in the B. Sacrament as we must fear him under his severer name of our Judge if we now fail of such equall love unto him O happy Christians who at the same time when they are bid to fear Christ are taught to love Jesus and consequently their love and fear must be as equal as Christ Jesus is to Jesus Christ But the reason why we beg this equality of fear and love is because Christ doth never leave destitute of his government those whom he instructs in the solidity of his love that is Christ our Judge will sweetly rule us if he find we do solidly love him and we were last Sunday taught the solidity of that love did consist in loving God above all things and not only our neighbour but also our enemies as our selves which lesson was then given as a preparative to this Feast now flowing in the Octaves thereof and alluded unto in this prayer teaching us in brief what the Epistle and Gospel tell us more at large The first that who loves not ought to stand in fear of that death which he abides in by not loving Nay more so confident must our Love be that we must rather not fear to dye for our neighbour then we must dare not to love him and to this we are incited by the example of Christ whose love made him dye for us that were his enemies Again we are told this love must be real and true not verbal onely and that it cannot be so if we relieve not our neighbour in his necessity when we are able so to do This argues indeed that we are not left destitute by our Governour Christ Jesus who instructs us in this solidity of love from one end of the Epistle to the other And since it is the general consent of all Expositours that the Supper mentioned in this dayes Gospel is a figure of the Blessed Sacrament sure that is a mystery as full of solid love as is expressed in the Prayer above teaching us never to go unto this Supper without equal fear and love and so the Prayer stands excellently well adapted both to the Sunday to the Feast to the Epistle and to the Gospel of the day For if we can by saying this prayer fervently obtain the equal fear and love which it petitioneth assuredly in recompense thereof Almighty God will so govern us as we shall not for humane ends excuse our selves from our duties to his Divine Majesty but shall come so religiously to the Supper of the Sacrament here as we need not fear being shut out at the last Supper of eternall rest in glory which again the Expositours will have the Sacramentall Supper to be a signe of And thus as well every sense as every letter of this Gospel is included in this most admirable prayer of holy Church The Epistle 1 Joh. 3.13 c. 13 Marvell not Brethren if the world hate you 14 We know that we are translated from death to life because we love the Brethren He that loveth not abideth in death 15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer hath life everlasting abiding in himself 16 In this we have known the charity of God because he hath yielded his life for us and we ought to yield our lives for the Brethren 17 He that shall have the substance of the world and shall see his Brother hath need and shall shut his bowels from him how doth the charity of God abide in him 18 My little children let us not love in word nor in tongue but in deed and truth The Explication 13. THe Evangelist had in the precedent verses told us the difference between the children of God and those of the devil and how there was mortal enmity between the one and the other instancing in Cain killing his Brother Abel for no other cause then envy to him seeing the sacrifice of Abel was acceptable to God and his was not in regard Abel was a child of God and Cain a child of the devil and so no marvel if his offerings were not acceptable to God Almighty But the Apostle proceeds further and bids Christians not wonder if the world hate them because of their good deeds since for that reason Cain representing the malignancy of the world hated Abel who was a figure of a good Christian offering grateful sacrifice to God besides the Apostle here alludes to what he had said in his Gospel Chap. 15.18 If the world hate you know it hated me before it hated you and therefore here he concludes they should rather expect then wonder at it if they found the world did hate them since no Son can hope for love from him who hates his Father and the foregoing Verses of this Epistle were all upon our happy filiation with God But we may observe the causes remarkable why the wicked for those are understood by the world so called from the greater part thereof that are wicked indeed do hate those who are good The first is the dissimilitude betwixt vice and vertue which begets a hatred as similitude begets love and affection for we see all worldlings puffed up with pride and ambition contrariwise all good Christians are meek and humble The second is Envy for wicked men seeing they cannot arrive at purity and sanctity envy those who do attain thereunto The third because the good men do further reprehend the vices of the wicked as the holy Ghost doth inspire them in imitation of his example whose coming shall argue the world of sin as we heard John 15.8 The fourth because the world sees good men flye the company of the wicked The last because their affections are contrary one doating upon the world altogether the other wholly inamoured on Almighty God so they must needs be as opposite as two Contraries are as heat to cold as dry to moist and labour to overcome each other but with this difference that the good man labours the conversion of the bad the bad man indeavours the perversion of the good 14. The Apostle doth not here say we know by any divine Faith or certain knowledge as hereticks will needs interpret this place but onely by moral certitude we know that if we love one another for Gods sake we must needs love God much more and as by sin against him we dye so by love of him we detest sin and are by that meanes translated from the death of sin to the life of grace in this world and to the life of glory in the next So that all the certitude we have of this is the testimony of our own consciences telling us we are not guilty of any defect either in our love to God or to our neighbour Yet because St. Paul 1 Cor. 4. v. 4. no sooner said he was not guilty then he added yet in this I am not justified the Catholick Church teacheth our assurance of our being in the state of grace is onely moral not divine And three signes
fault as if God did esteem himself contemned when any that bore his image was vilified by us So that in the balance of Christian perfection any the least sinne of anger is veniall the expression of it in ill terms as Raca is doubtfull and worthy of Councill whether veniall or mortall any notable expression as fool is doubtlesse mortall and so damnable if it be so expressed as that thereby we really desire to exasperate and provoke our neighbour to indignation against us for if in jest 't is otherwise if it be to such persons as we may jest withall but if to our betters there such jests are odious and not to be used by any means 24 25. These verses close up the difference of perfection between the Pharisaicall and Christian Laws the former taught that by sacrifice and oblations at the Altar into the hands of the Priest all their sinnes were expiated whether they made satisfaction to the parties offended and injured by them or not This our Saviour beats down and forbids us to hope for pardon from him by any our sacrifices or approchings to the Altar and to Priests unlesse we make our selves worthy to partake of our own offerings to God by a previous justice done unto the world unlesse having abused thy brother by Raca or fool as above thou first ask him pardon much more must we do justice if the injustice hath been yet greater The reason of this is that justice is alwayes of necessity sacrifice many times of devotion onely Where note this doctrine of our Saviour is not onely as some pretend a counsell but indeed a precept because reconciliation is necessary by way of precept sacrifice not alwayes so and because God is never reconciled to us whilest our neighbour is justly offended at us Note this precept obligeth onely when with discretion it can be fulfilled when without scandall amongst other obstacles so that you may receive though you have given a private offence to one absent without going from the Altar to ask pardon provided you resolve to do it when you meet the offended and be actually then sorry for it yes you may in such case receive and are not bound to discover your guilt to others but without this internall sorrow and purpose of a reall externall satisfaction in time and place convenient there is no offering sacrifice to God at lesse danger then of sacriledge in pretending a pledge of peace for such is a sacrifice where God sees there is no peace at all The Application 1. BY the drift of this Gospel it will appear I made no streined application of the prayer above unto the genuine sense of the Epistle for what else is the whole scope of this Gospel which must ever be the same with the Epistle but a putting out of the Ignis fatuus of the feigned saintity of Judaisme by the true fire of Christian charity much as the sun-beams falling on the dimmer light of brightest fire seem to extinguish it and make the flames thereof invisible 2. The Scribes and Pharisees forbidding murder under the servile fear of humane judgement unto death was in regard of true Religion like the dimme light of fire placed in the beams of the Meridian sun The Sonne of justice Jesus Christ forbidding murder not so much for fear of death as for fear of putting out the fire of charity to God and to our neighbour and of taking in our hands the Glow-worm of wrath and anger a passion that seems to have a flame indeed but 't is a flame of hypocrisie of Ignis fatuus of folly-fire onely not of reall virtue 3. To conclude see how the Gospel strikes it yet more home when even the seeming flame of sacrifice and offering at the Altar is a cheat to charity is a Pharisaicall but not a Christian duty of Religion unlesse we light the lamp of brotherly love withall unlesse we be at peace with one another we cannot hope to have a peace with God O beloved who so short-sighted now as not to see appearing saintity is nothing worth unlesse it be as reall as it seems to be Philosophy teacheth us this lesson of Christianity A thing is good when it is made so by the integrity of its cause good every way so is it with a Christian he is good to God when he is made so by beeing also good unto his neighbour but he cannot be so while he offers sacrifice to God with his hand and to the devil with his heart at the same time such is our receiving the blessed Sacrament before we are perfectly reconciled to all the world it is not the visible good action of receiving that makes a good Christian unlesse his invisible good intention make him so that is unlesse he privately forgive all the world and resolve at least publickly to do it when first he meets with any man that he hath odds withall So still we see the reality of our goodnesse consists more in the invisibility then in the outward apparence of it and for this cause Holy Church in her prayer upon this dayes Gospel begs an affection to the Invisible God to the yet unseen good things which he hath promised as if all we see were nothing worth in comparison of things invisible which we are promised On the sixth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Mark 8. v. 2. I Have pitty on the multitude for that behold they have now attended me three dayes neither have they what to eat and if I shall dismisse them fasting they will faint in the way Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God of virtues to whom all belongs that is best ingraft in our breasts the love of thy holy name and grant in us the increase of Religion that thou mayest nourish those things which are good and being so nourished maintain them by the practice of piety The Illustration HOw properly do we to day petition that the love of Gods holy name may be ingrafted in us who are as the Epistle tells us baptized in that holy name and in virtue of the said Baptisme are not onely dead but even buried with Christ to sinne and raised to a newnesse of life by a new resurrection with him into a state of grace How singularly home doth the next petition of the prayer come to all the rest of the Epistle when we beg in the second place the increase of Religion in us whereby we do truely live to God in Christ Jesus as in the close of the Epistle we are said to do How excellently also doth the third petition of the prayer exhaust the whole Gospel of this day whilest it begs a nourishment in us of those things that are good when the said Gospel runnes all upon miraculous food and nourishment which our Saviour gave to day unto four thousand persons that had constantly followed him for three dayes together in the wildernesse This nourishment beloved is dully
our selves is not understood as well as our selves for a man may lawfully love himself better then his neighbour but yet so as withal he is bound to love his neighbour too and self-love is not so much commanded as presumed because it is natural but the love of our neighbour is an absolute command because our neighbour is as dear to God as we and was created by him as we are redeemed by him as we are and so must be beloved by us because he is as well beloved of God as we if not better and if he be a better Christian sure enough he is better beloved 28. Here our Saviour caught the Doctour who thought to have entrapped him by telling him the keeping of this Law is the way to live everlastingly but the Doctour expected Christ would have contradicted the Law and not have confirmed or bound him to keep it which therefore he did bind him to because it was a Law of love not of ceremony as those other lawes were which Christ abrogated 29. By justifying himself is here understood a huge pride in this Doctour as who should say he was so just a keeper of the Law and so just thereby that he did not think he had his fellow in justice or any neighbour like to himself and so he demanded of Christ to know who was his neighbour who so just as he who to be compared with him 30. By these words Jesus taking it is intimated Jesus understood the latent pride of the man and so in the following parable undertook to confound him and make him answer himself by finding that no man in misery is to be rejected by those who are in prosperity but that the way to make a man in prosperity as good as another in misery is to commiserate his case and to relieve his wants who is in need not to neglect or scorn him as it seems the Lawyer did all others besides himself whilest he thought no man so just as he was True by the word tempting as above it is evident this was first the sense of the Lawyer till afterwards as some say he found by his conversation with our Saviour that his own heart was changed from malicious to religious If so the sense is sound that sayes really the Lawyer desired to become just and did not then as formerly think he was so but with a real desire of becoming so ask Christ who was his neighbour that he might love him as he did himself And this stands with reason because the Jewes held none for their neighbours but vertuous people of their own Nation so they thought it a vertue to hate a sinful Jew or a Gentile but our Saviour reduced them from this errour by the following parable wherein he made the Jewish Lawyer see the Samaritan was the Jewes neighbour if he did love him and relieve him in his wants and that Christian perfection extended even to the love of enemies Where note that our Saviour takes hold of the dangerous passage that was between Jerusalem and Jericho because none could passe almost without danger of being rob'd stript wounded and many times slain By this man half-slain is understood the state of man corrupted by the fall of Adam whose understanding and free will remain but so as a man half dead is said to live in respect of another in full health and vigour of body 31. 32. This is understood a chance to man but a true providence in respect of God who therefore ordained those passengers should go by that some of them might relieve the wounded man But by this act of the Priest and Levite we are instructed how little inward vertue was in the Ministers of the Church under the old Law all their sanctity consisting in outward ceremony and having no acquaintance with internal sincerity or charity so as disdaining they went off from him whom they found in misery in the way they were to passe 33. By the Samaritan is here figured Christ the perfect Priest of the perfect new Law and light of the Gospel He therefore goes not off blancheth not from the man in misery but comes near him and hath pity on him 34. By the oyl and wine understand the Sacraments of the new Law made as salves to cure the sore of sin which yet literally may be taken for the Samaritans provision in his journey By his own beast may here be understood the humanity of Christ taking upon his back all our sins to ease us of the burthen 35. By the two pence given the hoste may be understood the Sacrament of the Eucharist consisting of two natures in Christ Divine and humane The hoste may signifie the Deacon or the Priest of the new Law or the Priest assisting the Bishop in administration of the holy Eucharist By what he should supererogate is here understood what he should spend in cure of this man above the two pence held sufficient he would repay and here is grounded the Catholick doctrine of works of supererogation which Hereticks allow not of And by this Parable is insinuated that what the old Law had not power to do for recovery of the wounds in corrupted nature the new Law by way of the Priests and Sacraments thereof is sufficient for and so can save even all the corrupted seed of Adam by the virtue they have from the passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ 36. Christ doth not intend to ask which of these was neighbour to the wounded man for all men are truly neighbours each to other but onely which behaved himself like a neighbour 37. Here you see Christ by a question makes the Doctour be his own instructer commends his answer and tells him if he will be saved he must not onely know but do the law of charity and this whilest he bids him do to all men as the Samaritan did to the Jew to enemy as well as friend to bad as well as good Christians if the bad one be in misery Thus Christ hath made curiosity the cause of sincerity and dissimulation the cause of truth in this entrapping Lawyer and no marvail since he alone is able to cull good out of bad The Application 1. THis dayes Epistle taught us a due regard to the Law of God least breaking it we loose the hopes of heaven and all the expectation of the happy promises God made to those who keep his holy Law This Gospel tells us now how to keep that Law By loving our neighbour as we love our selves by loving him for that dear Jesus sake to whom he is probably much more dear then we as happily offending God lesse however most displeasing us who are still lesse pleased with others when we our selves do most displease the heavenly Majesty So 't is not indeed what others do to us that ought to trouble us but our omitting that we ought to do to please Almighty God and purchase heaven by keeping of his holy Lawes which then our Saviour sayes are kept when we
indeed the custome upon such cures to offer up two Turtles or two young Pigeons at least This he bids him doe for regard to the letter of the Law but mystically sends him to the Priest to shew himself that is to teach us we must shew our Consciences our Sins to the Priest which sins are many times the causes of our corporal diseases and yet with this difference that the Mosaick Priest could onely declare the cure whereas the Evangelicall Priest effects or works it by absolving actually from â—in Goe therefore saith the Text shew thy self to the Priest and offer up thy gift that as thereby they may see thou art cured so they may testifie the same to the world the reason why he was bid Goe to the Priest in the singular number and why it was said doe this in testimony to them in the plurall was in regard there came alwayes one officiating Priest by turnes and he for that time was called the Chief Priest that is the then officiating Priest but what was done by him was to bee made known to all the rest of his company who were in their turns to officiate as well as he Now wee are here to note a Triple Testimonie meant in this place The first is that of the Leper to the Priest shewing his body sound unto him and in sign thereof giving up his offering The second was the Lustration or Lotion of the Priest applyed to the party cured testifying thereby he was capable of being admitted into the company of others as a sound man who had now been washed by the Priest with the legall Lustration or expiation of water taking off the ceremonie of his Legal irregularity by reason of the Leprosie The last and chief Testimony which Christ alludes unto here was that of the miracle done upon this Leper who was to shew the Priest by telling of him how he was cured That Christ was the Messias and by this meanes hee gave indeed testimony to the Priest of that Deity in Jesus which had wrought this cure upon him 5. This is the second Miracle which Christ wrought in confirmation of his doctrine upon the mount as abovesaid and no marvell the Leper was the first because he was a Jew but the Centurion was a Gentile a Commander or captain of an hundred men belonging to the Roman Militia yet whether he were himself a Romane or a Spaniard some doubt â—uffice it he was a Heathen converted by this miracle upon his son principally but formerly much attracted by the reports of other our Saviours Miracles so wee see here he comes strong in Faith even to Christs own admiration some say this mans son was that Oppius a Centurion also who having the command of the Military forces that attended at the crucifying of our Saviour was then and not before converted to the Faith of Christ seeing what prodigious signs were at that time in the heavens and upon the face of the earth Note this miracle was done at our Saviours entrance into Capernaum that City where hee chose to doe many signall wonders but wee are to observe that S. Luke recounts this passage otherwise as saying the Centurion sent first his servants then his friends both which consist with his after going in person upon Christs coming into the town and upon his childs neer approaching unto death though some explicate this place as if it imported onely that the Centurion went to meet him not personally but as S. Luke sayes by mediation of his friends yet lesse probably in regard the personall faith of this Centurion is that which makes the whole storie remarkable Again whether this were the Centurions son or servant is not certain S. Luke calling him servant this Evangelist son to the Centurion or boy who was though a servant dear at least as a son for so were many of the servants in those dayes esteemed of by their masters and provided for as their own children but this makes noâ— much to the purpose certain it is that both the Evangelists tell the undoubted truth of the same Miracle bee their circumstances differing or not it imports but little Hence wee may solve the seeming contradiction of S. Lukes telling us the Centurion sent for Christ to come to his house about this cure and of Saint Matthews saying here he onely required his word not his presence as holding himself not worthy of so much honour for both may stand in a divided sense that is first inviting him by the Iewes his own Countrymen to doe a Gentile that honour but after coming in person and saying O Lord I am not worthy being a Gentile that thou the most Blessed among the Jews shouldest doe me so much honour seeing wee Gentiles are held an unclean people not worthy the company of thy select and chosen Natives the Jewes 6. As to the Paralytick or sick chiâ—d ill tormented with his disease we are to know There are two sorts of Paralyticks some are such as run not danger of death but may hope for cure as those where the resolution of the nerves is but in part of the body taking away sense and motion in some part onely others desperate of all humane help and such was this boyes case whereby the miracle appeared to bee the greater and the more undoubted for here was a totall resolution of the nerves accompanied with a Convulsion leaving the whole body almost quite insensible and unmoveable of it self 7. It seems Christ was well satisfied of this Centurions Faith when immediatly upon his demand he promised to go and cure his sick child 8. Bee this saying of the Centurion Courtship or reall agnition of his unworthinesse it boots not certain it is hâ— had reason to say as much in civility being a Gentile seeing our Saviour a Jew come neer his house and offer to goe in but much more certain it is by the whole context of the following Gospel that he did believe Jesus was able to cure as well at a distance as by personal touch Note this temporall comportment of the Centurion is an excellent pattern for us of the like spirituall behaviour when we receive Jesus not onely into our house but even into our soules in the B. Sacrament each of us to cry out then O Lord I am not worthy c. 9. See here how really the Centurion argued against Christs giving himself the trouble of going to his boy in person and believed his power was abundantly sufficient without his presence when he not onely bids him spare his labour but instanceth how himself being a man under Authority so sayes the Text but means a man of power and command was able in vertue of his power to doe as much as if he applyed his person to the action Though withall the Centurion calls himself a man of power over his little troop and under power of his head Commander both at once and therefore useth an argument from the lesser to the greater as saying if
will this avail to our design though we admit the Epistle may fitly talk of charity while the Gospel runs all upon faith since the prayer which wee must have to suit with both these vertues makes not the least mention of either Truly we must look back to some rules given us in the Preface to this work and thereunto add that there are many rare hidden things which are causes of admirable visible effects for example we see not the root whilest yet the beauty of the Tree is pleasing to our eyes In like manner if we reflect upon what we deprecate in this dayes prayer namely the innumerable evils and visible adversities we groan beneath which are all rooted in our sins wee shall then confess this prayer is not so void of coherence with this dayes service as at first it appears to be for holy Church like a prudent Mother goes the direct and shortest way to work by curing our adversities with cutting up the root or cause thereof whiles she asks humbly in this dayes prayer to bee loosened from the fetters of sin which are the causes of all our sorrows and adversities and which produce a greater blindness in our souls than was cured in the eyes of the blind man specified in this dayes Gospel Nor can holy Church be blamed to make her prayer to day generall that is a deprecation of all our adversities out of the memory of this particular misery of blindness set now before our eyes since this single corporal infirmitie is a figure of the general contagion in our souls by a world of adversities falling upon us through our reiterated sins And therefore Holy Church to day begs that by a precedent absolution from the fetters of our sins we may injoy a consequent cure of all our adversities nor is this desired absolution dissonant from our purpose since as charity is so much this day inculcated to us in the Epistle so we may remember charity was the onely cure of the greatest sinner reputed at least in this world S. Mary Magdalen for we are told many sins are remitted to her because she loved much Hence we may be confident that the best way to untie the fetters of present sin and so to take off present adversities is to love much and to conserve and augment charity But to find out the connection of parts here this I must confess was the Priests work and could hardly be expected from the Laity yet now we see Holy Church doth in this sense to day present us the prayer above we shall soon confess it is not thus understood discordant to the Epistle and Gospel of the day and consequently wee shall believe Holy Church is ever present to her self and hath reason for what she doth much beyond what our distracted thoughts are able easily to reach unto whilest we make onely a slothfull lip-labour of those holy Prayers which should be our deepest studie our most serious meditation and which so studied will be understood in their genuine sense as under correction of better judgements I humbly conceive this sacramentall or mysterious prayer is being thus expounded as above The Epistle 1 COR. 13. ver 1. c. 1. IF I speak with the tongues of men and Angels and have not charity I am become as sounding brasse or a tinkling Cymball 2. And if I should have prophesie and knew all mysteries and all knowledge and if I should have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charitie I am nothing 3. And if I should distribute all my goods to be meat for the poor and if I should deliver my body so that I burn and â—ave not charity it doth profit me nothing 4. Charity is patient is benign charity envieth not dealeth not perversely is not puffed up 5. Is not ambitious seeketh not her own is not provoked to anger thinketh not evill 6. Rejoyceth not upon iniquitie but rejoyceth with the truth 7 Suffereth all things believeth all things hopeth all things beareth all things 8. Charity never falleth away whether prophesies shall be made void or tongues shall cease or knowlâ—dge shall be destroyed 9 For in part we know and in part we prophesie 10. But when that shall come which is perfect that shall be made void which is in part 11. When I was a little one I spake as a little one I understood as a little one I thought as a little one But when I was made a man I did away the things that belonged to a little one 12. We see now by a glasse in a dark sort but then face to face now I know in part but then I shall know as also I am known 13. And now there remain faith hope charitie these three but the greater of these is charity The Explication 1. IN these three fiâ—â—â— verses the Apostle tells us charitie is the top and crown of all gifts and vertues insomuch â—t without it no other vertue profits us at all which â— Paul dilates upon in all this Chapter because he found the Corinthians apt to flatter themselves that the gift of tongues was the greatest of all other gifts And in having that they boasted of equall favour and grace even with the Apostles whereas he ended the twelfth Chapter of this Epistle with these words pursue the better gifts and yet I shew pou a more excellent way by the better gifts he means the Apostolate wisedome science counsel discretion of spirits miracles prophesie and the like by the more excellent way he means this of charity transcending all the rest and to shew he meant it was particularly surpassing their so much boasted gift of tongues he begins first to beat that errour down saying If I speak with tongues of men and Angels c. and have not charitty all is nothing worth But by the tongues of men he alludes both to the learned tongues as Hebrew Greek Latine which were ever held kinde of roots to all others as also to those all tongues or severall Languages which by the gift of the Holy Ghost many men and women even the most ignorant amongst both sexes had bestowed upon them and in particular that naturall gift of tongue which many men had in such perfection that by their eloquence and facundity of speech they were able to ravish their Auditorie and perswade them into any abominable errour schism or heresie whatsoever as we heard S. Paul professe the false Apostles did when they made him Apologize for his defect of their Eloquence See what was said upon last Sundayes Epistle v 19 20 21. to this effect All these wayes therefore he here takes the tongues of men and sayes if he were the most excellent in them yet without charity all were nothing worth Now for the tongues of Angels what he means oâ— those tongueless creatures language or eloquence it is not easie to express yet we may conceive his meaning is if Angels should take upon them the shapes of men and vouchsafe
like reason Charity is benigne because as it gives us fortitude to resist impediments in our way to do well so it gives us mildnesse affability and sweetnes towards the persons who oppose our doing well Againe Charity is not aemulous or envying at other mens good as if what did goe to another went from us No she looks not upon any thing as mine and thine but upon all as Gods Insomuch that Saint Gregorie iâ— his fifth Homily upon the Gospels sayes elegantly and excellently well Whatsoever we covet in this world we envy our Neighbours having that Hence it is that Charity chils while Covetousnesse doth grow warm and contrarywise where Charity reigneth there covetousnesse is exiled from the Court moreover Charity dealeth not perversely or peevishly with any body because such a proceeding would destroy both her patience and benignity above asserted 5. It is not without reason the Expositors have diversly interpreted this place some saying not to be ambitious imports not to be immodest others not to be sordid but what seemes perhaps least and yet is most proper others say it signifies not to be bashful or rather indeed not to be shamed and upon the matter all these are one and the same for shame is here taken as a blush of guilt not of grace as who should say for any man immodestly to arrogate unto himself honour and esteeme when no man can deserve the title of true honour or for any man to be so sordid as to take delight in earthly things is to conclude himself guilty of so much basenesse as when discovered betrayes it self with a blush of shame and confusion as contrariwise for any man being contemned reviled or scorned by others to blush or be ashamed at the disgrace thereof argues he thinks himself injured or undervalued which is a token of huge pride of high ambition in him whereas true Charity would teach him to glory rather than otherwise in such occasions that he were held worthy to take off part of that indignity was layd upon our Saviour which was indeed due to sinfull man that instead of confessing his demerits glories as if all respect esteem and honour were due to him which is high ambition and a thing contrary to Charity and for the same reason the Apostle tels us as we must not be ambitious of more than is our due so true Charity forbids us even to seek our owne telling us we have no title of property to any thing at all but our sinnes which are the onely things we can lay clayme unto as owners of hence he adds Charity is never provoked to anger because anger argues an apprehension of an injury received and those who are truly Charitable ought to esteem themselves the most contemptible things in nature capable of nothing but neglect from others as a condigne punishment for the continuall neglect of their own duty to God whereunto if we can happily arrive then will follow that which the Apostle concludes this verse withall of Charity never thinking ill for if she never be angry probably she never thinks of revenge because she never esteemes her self hurt by any body but her self as believing she is rather in fault to deserve injury than that any body else can do her wrong where note what is here said of Charity is meant of the person who is truely Charitable 6. As it is an evident signe of ill will or hatred in us to another when we rejoyce to see him injured which must needs include some third mans iniquity exercised on him and so to rejoyce at the injury done is to be partaker of the delight w h the third party takes in his iniquity or doing ill in like manner it is a token of good will or true Charity not to rejoyce in such iniquity for contraries are ever best descerned by juxta-position or being set together and wehn the Apostle saies Charity rejoyceth in Truth he meanes by Truth in this place probity goodnesse justice as the opposites to injury which as it must not be rejoyced at so the contrary virtue to that vice ought to be a cause of our Joyes 7. See how Charity here makes her self an arched bridge for all men to trample over how she crys out to all men lay your loades on me it is onely I that am the pack-horse of malice my duty is to bear away the burden of sinne from mount Calvary where all the load was laid on Jesus come beloved bring away from thence apace your burdens heap them on my arched shoulders who am made for no other end than pressure and to be opprest As you can do your selves no greater pleasure than to lighten your own burdens so you can no wayes oblige me more than to adde plummets to my weights for as a Palme tree deprest I grow the better do what you please to me I believe you mean me no hurt because I know you can doe me none if I doe it not unto my self therefore doubt not of my misconstruing your actions I will believe the best of them such as are not apparent sinnes as of your angers I will hold my self the cause I will think your punishing of me is your particular care towards me your fatherly chastizing my undutifull behaviour both to my God and you and thus Charity believes all in the Apostles sence whence consequently she hopeth all in the same sence that is her own amendment upon the just chastizement she received from others who she perswades her self were Gods Ministers of Justice to change her eternall punishment due unto her into temporall pennances imposed upon her by Gods Vice-gerents and in this hope she grounds her bearing all things patiently here will bring her to a crown of glory in the next world For if she stands thus perswaded she cannot think she beares to much here and so the Apostle saith she beareth all things wherewith he ends the sixteen conditions as above expressed requisite to perfect Charity 8. From hence he proceeds to the end of this Chapter declaring the excellency of Charity in it self as more durable than all other virtues even than the other two Theologicall since Faith in heaven shall cease and be changed into vision inconsistent with the obscurity of Faith and hope shall vanish as exchanged for fruition incompatible with hope which being a desire of having must needs vanish when all is had that can be wisht or desired And hence it is that hereticks ground ill their heresie saying a man once in grace that is in perfect charity can never sinne because here the Apostle saith Charity never failes but the true meaning of this sentence is Charity of her selfe never failes however by sinne she may be here extinguished or which is equivalent Charity is never wearied never tyred never exhausted by doing good to others even to our enemies whereas Faith is often shaâ—en and lost Hope is many times lessened and quite gone when we see our expectations faile us what
the Apostle saith here of prophesies failing is to be understood that they faile not as defective in revealing truth but as not rightly understood by those to whom they do reveal the same through the defect of our capacity to hard and abstruse points Note the possible failing of tongues is here on purpose expressed in the plurall number as alluding to the cessation of the gift of many tongues which even now is ceased and was so long since not that the power in God of giving such gifts again is lost but that there is not the like necessity thereof as in the primitive Church but we may observe he doth not say the Tongue shall possibly cease but Tongues or the plurality thereof for it is a common opinion amongst Divines that all men in heaven as they have their bodies there so they shall have the use of their tongues and speak to one another but so as they shall all speak one and that the Hebrew tongue the most perfect expresser of the mind and that which Adam spake in the state of innocency and all the Antient Patriarks before the destruction of Babylon confounded the Tongues and likewise the Prophets singing as in the Apocalyps Amen Allelujah Though some think it not improbable they shall rather than want the use of speech have a new language created common to them all and more perfect yet than Hebrew For thus all shall cease that ever were in use and yet another never used may be made without contradiction to this text not that the Blessed shall want in heaven the gift of Tongues if they please but that as they are there all of one mind so they shall choose rather to speak all one tongue than to use many which multiplicity argues rather an imperfection than otherwise though here it were a Blessing necessary to our imperfect state by Science being destroyed in heaven some will have the acts thereof destroyed onely and the habits remain yet to no purpose this for in vain is that habit faculty or power which never shall be reduced to act hence we must rather say Science as it is imperfect here shall be destroyed by a change into perfect Science there yet even this is rather preservation by addition than destruction by subsâ—â—action Let us therefore say yet further Science shall be destroyed as it imports here teaching and learning which there shall cease since no man can teach nor no man learn in heaven any new Science To conclude let us grant a totall cessation of Science as the best of Sciences namely Divinity grounded on points of Faith deduced here partly out of naturall reason partly out of revelations nay even Faith it self the Mistresse of Divinity and yet we shall doe no wrong to the Blessed because intuition is better than cognition clarity of knowledge is more excellent than obscurity in a word vision is the best of demonstrations and therefore Science being nothing but a rationall exhibition of the object shall suffer no prejudice by ceasing when the object is there more clearly seen with the eye than it could be discerned by the understanding here but the truth is the cessation of prophesie tongues and knowledge or science is not here absolutely asserted but supposed onely to prove their cessation would not yet take away charity 9. See how this Verse cleers the former in the latter sense thereof here we onely know in part so there this partiall knowledge ceasing our Science may be said to cease as also our prophesie which though it be a revelation of truth yet it is not a revelation of all truth which in heaven shall be revealed and so take away all divisions of truth by an unity or integrity of all truths in one 10. See how still the succeeding verse in termes avowes the explication of the precedent when perfect intuition comes then imperfest exhibition shall cease when God in his owne and sole perfect selfe shall appear then creatures who shew him onely in part shall need no more to make their imperfect exhibitions of him or when we see the creature perfectly in God then the imperfection we did see of them in themselves shall cease 11. In this verse he illustrates by a similitude of a child or little one in respect of a man what he said in the former and makes the Science Prophesie or perfection we have here to be in respect of what we shall have in heaven like the meer sensible knowledge in a child to his intellectuall and rationall science when he is a man which is as much as to say most of all our science here is but as knowledge of sense and not indeed intellectuall because not grounded in certitude of principles but in apparences onely of truths and causes which though they doe not yet for any thing we know they may fail us even when we thinke our selves most certain of truth therein 12. Some will have S. Paul to allow cleer Intuition of God here by his confessing we see him at least in a glass because glasses doe represent the reall things and not the pictures onely thereof which is true but withall they represent the things in a reflected not in a direct line and hence we see nothing so perfectly in a glass as when we look directly on the object it self Again hence we never see nor know so much of our selves as we doe of others because we see not our own shapes so directly in a glass as wee doe others out of it by looking on their persons directly Others understand S. Paul to mean by a glass here our seeing God in a confused way as Mercers shew a multitude of ware together to distract the eye of the buyer or as if they were shown by false lights giving them other lustre than indeed they have or as things shewn in a transient way to cheat the eie rather than to satisfie it all which is to see God wrapt up in Riddles of knowledge not in the reality thereof Now if we ask what glasse it is wee here see God by say either the creature representing him or the fancie apprehending him or Christ his humanitie best of all expressing his goodness yet infinitely short thereof or as some will have it in the Sacraments which are visible signs of invisible things of grace and of God the Authour thereof By seeing God face to face some conceive it shall onely be when we see Christ in heaven and through his glorious face behold with our corporall eyes his sacred Deity grounded in the words of Theodoret faying Wee shall not see his nature meaning his Deitie which falls not within the compass of our corporall eyes and so can bee seen by none but that nature onely which hee assumed meaning humane nature but Theodoret thus understood would be made the Author of a huge errour as denying us the happinesse of the Beatificall vision which doth not nay cannot consist onely in seeing Christs humanity face to face because
was to terrifie the people the sweet Law of grace was to be their guide he alone their comfort so that to him they were to stand firme in all distresses of him to receive all reliefes and by him to be brought finally to the eternity of that heavenly glory which here the Apostles had but a transient glimmering of thereby to shew this is not a time or place for comforts but rather for afflictions and that lest we should be dejected by being alwayes in affliction we may hope for the intervening comfort now and then of mysticall Transfigurations by which we shall for a short time take content in the service of God but they passing away againe are to leave us unto the trials of new afflictions till by frequent conformities of our wills to the pleasure of Almighty God we be rewarded with eternall glory for our patient enduring the many Eclypses we found here of heavenly comforts in our Soules by the interposition of earthly tribulations 9. By bidding them tell this vision to no body he forbids their speaking of it not onely to the people but even to the rest of the Apostles lest it might trouble them not to have been present at it and by his resurrection all men would be easily made beleeve he was God who if they had been told it before would have doubted thereof especially when they see him dead and buried so to speak of this Testimony of his Deity before his resurrection were labour lost but by this injoyning silence of his glory and propalation of his death and passion Christ gave us an admirable example to conceale our own praises and to be content with publication of pressures and infirmities since none can have any infamy so great to him as was the ignominy of the Crosse to Christ wherein we see he gloryed whilest he suppressed the fame of his glory till he had suffered the ignominy of his most opprobrious death hence Saint Paul forbids himselfe all other glory then in that of the Crosse of Christ a good lesson for all good Christians to learne and practice to be perfect in The Application 1. SInce there is a day made specially sacred to the Mystery of the Transfiguration the sixth of August when that Feast is celebrated we cannot expect to have this mystery looked on to day so directly as that the Prayer should litterally relate to it suffice it then to find it mystically proper to the Prayer 2. And thus it will be proper enough since we are taught the Transfiguration was at least a transient vision beatificall such as Saint Peter held to be a kinde of Heaven where he was content to build a Tabernacle of aboad and look how unable we are to be chaste so are we in our selves void of all strength to goe to Heaven and have need of a world of guards both interior and exterior to preserve us from the corporall adversities or sins that keep us thence or from the spirituall sins of evill thoughts that shut up Heaven Gates against us 3. To conclude since nothing makes our way securer into Heaven then to carry a Pure Soule in a Chaste body we being taught the cleane of heart are therefore blessed because they shall see God for this cause the Gospel of the transfiguration was very fitly joyned to the Epistle of chastity because the Chaste Body is that Transient Heaven upon Earth which is most delightfull to a pure Soule And as Chastity Transfigures us into a similitude of God whom we shall then live like unto when we see him and therefore like unto him because we see him that we may by the vertue of chastity joyned to our holy Fast be Transfigured into a similitude of his Divine Majesty We pray with holy Church as above On the third Sunday in Lent The Antiphon Luke 11. v. 27. A Certaine woman of the multitude lifting up her voyce said blessed is the wombe that bare thee and the Paps that gave thee Suck But Iesus saith to her yea rather blessed are they that heare the word of God and keep it Vers To his Angells c. Resp That in all c. The Prayer WE beseech thee Almighty God looke downe on the desires of thy humble people and extend the right hand of thy Majesty in our defence The Illustration IF any be to seek here what is meant by the desires we beseech God to looke downe upon of his humble people 't is but casting back an eye to what was declared in the first Sundays Prayer of Lent to be the end of this holy fast and finding it thereto be our purification we shal soon conclude that selfe same end is still and ought ever to be our desires all the Lent long because the continuation of the Fasting Medium argues our constant desire of arriving at the end to which it drives our being Purified by that meanes So thus we see the Torrent of our holy Fast runs never the lesse slowly on because it makes not a noyse in our eares rather it growes the deeper by how much lesse we heare thereof for shallow waters are those that tell us of the stones they fall upon but deep ones silently goe by nor is the stile of humble people any common place but hugely proper to this time of Lent which drawes the whole Christian world upon their knees and not content to have them low as earth while they Fasting watch and pray did in a manner bury them below the earth when on Ashwednesday they were all Sprinkled o're with holy Ashes as if they were not worthy longer to be the upper earth that had so proudly rebelled against Almighty God but must lye lower now and hope by falling downe to rise againe and truly if we reflect upon the words of this Prayer they are exact termes of a most humble Soule who dares not say she hath a will to fast on still and to be purified but onely tels Almighty God 't is her desire and hopes this humble expression will make it be his holy will she shall obtaine her desires because his onely looking on it as she humbly prayes to day he will is able to effect it But lest we forget to shew the Prayer suits as well to the Epistle and Gospell as to the time of Lent we must remember no termes could more directly exhaust them both then what this Prayer is couched in For how can we be followers else of Almighty God as Saint Paul exhorts us to be with the Ephesians unlesse we shew our selves to have learned the lesson of the Son of God without book Learne of me that am meeke and humble of heart which lesson this dayes Prayer repeats when holy Church cals us the humble people of Almighty God and meeknesse ever goes with humility hand in hand so having set our first step right into the track of this Epistle we need not fear the missing of our way for true humility hath root in love and will not stumble
according to the custom at great dinners men by men and women apart with their children in their laps both for modesty sake and for the more easie distribution of each persons proportion 11. Hence we learn while Jesus gives thanks the laudable custome of saying grace before and after meales to shew all our sustenance is Gods speciall blessing upon us but we are here to note Saint Matth. ca. 14. Sayes in this story Christ looking up to Heaven Blessed brake and gave the Loaves to his Disciples which they afterwards distributed to the people set round about on the ground the like saith St. Mark cap. 6. v. 41. he blessed and break the bread so hath St. Luke cap. 9. v. 36. all which is alledged to shew how ill the hereticks decline the usual custom of Christ who ever blessed bread and lest they should be convinced that this blessing of bread at any time was previous to his consecrating of it into his blessed body they always translate Blessing for Thanksgiving whereas to bless God is indeed a thanksgiving to him for the blessings we receive from him but yet blessing bread and meat is another thing which Hereticks will never yield unto for the reasons above It remains here to reconcile St. Matthew and St. Iohn upon this place the former saying Mat. c. 14. v. 19. Christ gave the bread and fishes to his disciples to distribute The latter Ioh. c. 6. v. 11. that he gave it to the people himself whereas both being verifiable in a right sense there can be no contradiction for what the Disciples distributed to the people Christ gave them by the mediation of his Disciples hands and indeed it is more likely the Disciples did distribute the gift because thus it was sooner distributed by many hands to so many people We will not stand here to discuss how this bread was multiplyed whether by creating new corn or extending that little to infinite parts certain it is which way soever we grant it done the bread given was most substantial and gave as wholesom nourishment as it did abundant saturation to the hungry stomacks that did eat it for the works of God are perfect and morally hence we learn what we give to the poor doth increase not any way diminish our wealth since after all men were full there remained of five loaves twelve baskets of surplus more then all could eat 12. 13. These two Verses afford us this Doctrine that the poor man is the richest rewarder of any curtesie in the world lo here how twelve baskets of gratitude are returned for five little loaves of bread onely So this boy that had given little received much as a testimony that God never asks us for any thing that himself hath need of it but because he knows we have huge necessity of his infinite Blessings for the trifles he asks at our hands with no other end then to put them out for our emolument a hundred fold over and over above what that is worth we give him nor is it void of mystery that being there were twelve Apostles each should receive his multiplyed share in the distribution he made to shew that no Minister of God can in vain labour in his cause since even Iudas whom Christ knew then to be hollow-hearted was not excepted from the fruit of his labours too because they fructifie from their root Almighty God not from the branch they grow upon 14. By the Prophet they mean the Messias of whom they expected wonders and seeing these they concluded Christ was he See the difference between these devout people and the proud Pharisees these ask signes upon signes and when they see more then they can in reason ask for yet they believe none at all to be the work of God for indeed the signs which they demanded were curiosities meer Castles in the air but here are people without asking can observe a signe given of Christs omnipotency bestowed not in vain but in a case of necessity upon the poor and seeing but this one signe they rest satisfied and went away praising God for the wonderful works of his sacred Son our Saviour Jesus Christ 15. This intention which Jesus saw in these people of seizing on him to make him king he did also see was out of a Judaical Interest that he might make them rich and great for they served God in their way with regard to humane and temporal blessings and as much for that reason as for his own disdain of humane honours he fled from these promotions that is he slipt aside from the people who were going to the Towns from whence they came when first they did follow him The Application 1. AS the Expositours of the Holy Text do interpret this feeding many thousand people in the desert Mountain with five loaves of Bread and two Fishes onely to be a mystery of the Blessed Sacrament so the Holy Church having carried us now up to the high Mountain of corporal abstinence which we have been climbing these three weeks together following her Preachers daily as these people did our Saviour gives us this present Gospel as a spiritual Banquet to refresh us after a tedious journey to shew us that the end of our corporal Fast is to make us worthy of a spiritual Feast which is this day bestowed upon us in this mystery of the Blessed Sacrament And hence we call this the Sunday of Ioy. 2. And because this is the last Sunday of Lent which carries us down the full Tyde of our Holy Fast the next two Sundays bringing in a new stream upon us of our Saviours Passion therefore having it under Precept to receive once a year at least and that about Easter we shall now do well to look upon this Gospel as on the best Instructions for our complying with that holy Precept deviding our selves into our several Parishes and repairing each to our own Pastours for performing this Precept as these people were divided into several ranks and each division served by the Apostle our Saviour appointed them every Parish hath by a proper Pastor distributed unto her Parishioners the Holy Communion at or about the Feast of our Saviours Resurrection Hence we are taught to add unto our Lenten Fast the vertue of Decency or Order in our religious Duties and Devotions each one going to this commanded Communion in such sort and order as is by Holy Church appointed 3. Lastly because we see twelve Baskets of fragments left and carried away after this refection given unto the people out of that little store of fishes and bread we are minded thereby to carry with us from the Communion-Table where we are fed with the Banquet of the two Natures in Jesus Christ his sacred Deity and his Blessed Humanity if not all the twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost as the abundant effects of this heavenly Feast at least the Fruit of Joy which is proper to this Communion in regard it is a Banquet mercifully bestowed upon
the Sacrament of Pennance though even when they are made Priests they receive Power to Absolve the Bishop saying Receive ye power to remit sins unless it be in case of necessity as in the hour of Death or that they are sure the penitent be not in mortal sin though it be also strongly argued that the very jurisdiction of remitting sins is essential to the Order of Priesthood as his power of Consecration or Sacrificing is and may validly as before God though not lawfully as to men be executed without special faculty for that purpose hence also it is matter of Faith that the Sacrament of Confession was at the same time instituted by Christ for the Priest cannot forgive sins unless he know them and know them he cannot unless they be confessed unto him nor can he tell what to remit what to retaine unless by the confession of the Penitent he finde cause for his so doing nor is the power of retaining sins a meer negation of absolution thereof but it is a positive Declaration that they doe not deserve pardon and more that if they repent not they deserve damnation which is too positive a thing to consist in a pure negation of absolution 24. Some will have St. Thomas called Didymus as signifying that he was a Twin-born joyntly with some other Brother or Sister as Esau and Jacob were and for this purpose the Expositours upon the Eleventh chap. of Saint John v. 16. say he argued himself to be a Twin of Grace with Christ and the rest of his Apostles when he said Let us all go and dye with our master because it is noted to be usual in Twins to love each other most dearly though sometimes it happen otherwise yet very rarely as in Jacob and Esau it did But others will have him in this place called Didymus as this word signifies various wavering or inconstant because he did now declare himself to doubt of the resurrection though he were told it by the Apostles for certain after that Christ had as above appeared to ten of them if he had not also before heard it from the Maries who some say brought news of it to all the eleven Apostles assembled together in the room where they last supped with Christ and where they in a kinde of faint hope expected his rising again according to his promise though it seems onely two of them Peter and John ran immediately to his Sepulchre with the Maries leaving the other nine behinde in expectation of the Truth and Thomas in the interim more diffident of this Truth then the rest that remained went out from amongst them Whether to take his flight for fear of the Jews or whether to ask testimony of Christs enemies the souldiers watching at the Sepulchre rather then to trust the relation of his friends be these reasons real or conjectural onely certain it is he was absent when Christ came first and as certain that after the Apostles had seen him he would as little believe them as the Maries who first brought news he was risen again and for this cause he may be here stiled Didymus as it imports various or doubting 25. See in this Act of St. Thomas four several sins Incredulity Pertinacy Pride Irreverence the first in preferring the test of Sense before that of Authority for point of Faith the second requiring so many Particulars and Proofs by diverse Senses the third presuming he deserved more condescending of Christ to him then had been to the rest of his Brethren the last in daring to make his own Finger the Judge whether Christ were God or not which is a work of the Finger of God of the Holy Ghost not of Man or of Flesh and Blood for if he might touch his wounds it seems he would then and not till then believe he was risen and consequently that he was God so from First to Last we see here a Proof of all these several sins in this one Act of the incredulous Apostle 26. 27. But behold Christ who dyed to redeem us from sin and from the penalty thereof did not after his death disdain to condescend much unto sinners when for this Apostles sake sinning as he did he not onely appears but gives the very redundant Proofs that this incredulous Apostle had required Note that by after eight days is not here understood the ninth day after Easter but the Octave day thereof this very Sunday for it seems Christ by his rising upon Sunday not on the Jewish Sabbath declared he was resolved to make the Christian Sabbath differing from that of the Jews and so the Apostles being again on the next Sunday after Easter assembled to shew they were ready to practice what Christ was pleased to ordain the celebrating a new Christian Sabbath by joynt and publique assembly in Prayer since here they were assembled on that new Sabbath for that end and since Christ by his second apparition upon the new Sabbath confirms his former purpose of altering the Old See the manner of his Second appearing like the First in all points even in the pledge of peace to sinful Thomas among the rest to shew his indefatigability in reclaiming men from sin by all sweet means though withal he did this favour to St. Thomas with regard to the confirmation of all the world in this mystery of his resurrection By this offering nay making Thomas touch his sacred Wounds he cured the Wound of Infidelity in the Apostles soul and shewed him he was God as well as Man that was proved in the Corporal touch of Thomas this in the Spiritual of Christ touching the Apostles soul while he told him for Christ knew his thoughts how they had suggested to his tongue those sinful expressions of his infidelity and though some doubt whether the Apostle did really touch Christ first because Christ said not unto him touch but see my hands and feet as also because Christs Body was then Glorious and as impalpable as it was impassible yet it is out of all doubt he did really touch his sacred Wounds because Christ said bring hither thy finger and see my hands that is by touching of them see they are flesh and blood no phantasm and again put thy whole hand into my side so it is more consonant unto Christian Piety and Truth to think Christ dispensed with the impassibility of his glorious Body making it palpable without being possible for proof of this mystery then that the Apostle did not nor could not touch Christ his Glorious Body again for this very touch the hand of Saint Thomas is kept to this day in Rome together with the Holy Cross of Christ with the Title over his Cross with the Nail and Crown of Thorns to shew there is more reverence due unto his hand upon the Title of this Sacred touch then to other Reliques of Saints 28. And upon this touch it was that the Apostle cryed out my Lord my God I see now and to my confusion too late
Spirit of Servitude and Fear being onely a shadow of that Truth which was to come after it Lastly and most properly because he is the Author of all Truth whence Christ said of him Cap. 16. he shall teacb you all truth 27. See the infinite Dignity of the Apostolate and of their Successors the Prelates of Gods Church that they are joyned in testimony of Christ his Deity and of all the other mysteries of Faith even with the holy Ghost himself and yet the Hereticks so undervalue Church Authority as if it were onely Humane and Fallible whereas indeed it is Divine because supported by Divine Power promising it should be Infallible and it is as little derogatory to God his veracity to say that failing man supported by God cannot erre as it is to say God cannot erre in that he undertaketh so the Infallibility is radicated in God however by his gracious vouchsafing it is also attributed to man as exercising the ministery of God not otherwise C. 16. 1. Many take scandal here in diverse Sences but the best and genuine is that they be not offended at their persecutors when they shall finde them to oppose Gods holy Ordinances and Ministers and that for this reason they do not slacken in their Faith or Zeal as expecting God should being Good and Goodness it self defend them from evil while for his sake and for his Name they were doing well and executing his commands but should rather remember he had foretold them these things would happen and that if his heavenly Father permitted him who was actually God to be in his own sacred Person abused and persecuted to Death they should not being but men expect to have more regard shewed them by Gods enemies then was shewed to God himself but should rather conclude he suffered for them to give them example to suffer for him and for their own and others sins besides 2. The Synagogue imports either the Congregation of the Jewish people or the place wherein they were to observe their ceremonial Rites in serving God as now the word Church signifies the believers in Christ and the place where Christians assemble to attend the Divine Service so by being cast out of the Synagogue imports excommunicated as cast out of the Place or Society of men serving God for so odious were the Apostles to the Jews upon the account of Christ Jesus their Master that they were not esteemed worthy of the name or company of Gods people and Christ comforts them against this disgrace by making them the Heads of hiâ— Church who were not held worthy to be members of the Jewish Synagogue Further he tells them they shall have the honour to be as he was offered up a Sacrifice for the sins of the people by the Jews who are so obstinately blinde as to esteem they offer sacrifice to God for their own sins while they persecute the servants of Christ Jesus the Son of God nor doth our Saviour here onely foretel the personal persecution of the Apostles but that also of all Christians which was to continue till the worlds end and the causes of this persecution are many The first the Devils and his Ministers malice to see Saints prefer Gods Service before the respect even to the proud Princes amongst men the second the destruction of Idols by the erecting a worship to one onely God The third because it was presumed as false as it was new to preach a crucified man to be eternal God The fourth because Christians do not onely beat down the false Religions of the Jews and Gentiles but even reprehend the manners and proceedings of those who profess such false worship of God as the Jewes and Gentiles did exhibite The last because the Devil and his adherents perswaded the world that all the miseries of Famine Plague Warre and Death which befell mankinde were just punishments of God inflicted on them for letting Christian Religion be professed and this saith he they will do to you because 3. They neither know my Father nor me that is they will not know either of us for this is not an excusing but an accusing phrase of Christ so this ignorance was not alledged as extenuating but as aggravating their fault and our Saviour animates the Apostles to suffer these temporal Scorns with as much neglect as a Prince would do who coming singly to Town without any visible attendance or retinue after him should be refused entrance and kept out as a private person for instead of being angry he would comfort himself with the redouble honour it would be to him to have these people let him in with their excuses and apologies for the affront as soon as his train appeared to testifie what he was and such a Train of holy Saints every Christian ought to believe will follow him to make the world with shame cry him mercy for affronting him whom God himself esteems and loves 4. The reason why I tell you or foretel you rather these things is not to disanimate but to hearten you to suffer them with alacrity because I shall as surely help you out of these bryars as I have told you that you should fall into them for my sake and if you remember I foretold you this you shall need no other comfort in your afflictions for you know sufficiently who I am your Jesus your God and when I tell you I shall give you the honour of suffering for me be confident I shall not fail to attend you with a Crown of Glory for your Martyrdoms The Application 1. THe two first Verses of this Gospel run wholly upon the Hope our Saviour put his Apostles in for the coming of the holy Ghost and so do fitly now exhort us to the practice of that Vertue according as we have been taught we must between Ascension and Whitsuntide And what more comfortable exercise can we desire then to expect the holy Ghost to come and take possession of our hearts on Earth while Jesus is gone to take possession of our Mansion House in Heaven A happy and a hopeful parting from our Ascending Saviour when we are left in expectation of our Descending Saintifier 2. In the three next Verses our Blessed Lord tyes the strongest link of Charity that of dying for the Faith to this above of Hope so is the Gospel suitable to the Epistle of the day Just in this sort he welcom'd St. Paul to his conversion promising to shew him what he was to suffer for his holy Name O admirable spirit of Almighty God! making that to his Saints a ground of Hope which were to sinners the greatest Motive of despair How comes this to pass but onely as the Royal Prophet sayes Because thou eternal God hast singularly placed me in Hope that is to say hast made thy servants contemn this tempting world and life it self the sweetest thing on earth in expectation of an everlasting life or to use thy words divine meerly for the Hope of Israel 3. The last
of Tongues bestowed on them first because so sayes the text they spake in divers tongues Secondly because the miracle had been else wrought in the hearers not in the speakers Thirdly the gift or reall diversity of tongues was prophesied by Isaias chap. 28. In other tongues and in other lips will I speak unto this people therefore it must be fulfilled as was affirmed so to be by S. Paul 1 Cor. 14.21 I give my God thanks that I speak with the tongue of you all Besides Christ in S. Mark cap. 16. v. 17. did promise this gift saying They shall speak with new tongues Fourthly because so the Church hath ever taught us Fifthly else many miracles must concurre to one work as in the speaker and the hearer too Though this doth not deny but the Apostles might as well by one language speak intelligibly to all hearers of severall nations as S. Vincentius did To conclude as they were sent to all nations so assuredly they had the gift of all languages as also the B. Virgin S. Mary Magdalene and all the one hundred and twenty then present had the same gift yet so as they did not use it but as the holy Ghost inspired them to speak upon just occasions and then in such manner as was most excellent and best suiting to all purposes because the works of God are ever perfect Deut. 3â— 4 and this was such so that it is credible they never made use of this gift but to Gods honour and glory at least they ever surely aimed thereat how be it as humane creatures they might erre in some circumstantials of their actions as S. Paul reprehended some excesses in that kind especially in women speaking in Churches by this gift of tongues 5. This diversity of nations was there upon occasion of the legall Feast of the Jewish Pentecost as above whereunto great conflux of nations was usuall as Exod. 23.17 it was commanded but more then ordinary in Jerusalem it being the Metropolis or head City of the Jews and the seat of their chief Synagogue so by dwelling is here understood making some stay for a time onely not being constant Inhabitants By religious is understood only devout men not such as now by vowes receive that denomination though with all this confluxe of people was credibly now more then ordinary because God had so ordained it to celebrate the better this Christian Pentecost by the avowment of all nations witnessing the prodigious truth of this unparalleld miracle of the descent or coming of the Holy Ghost in way of fiery tongues 6. By the voyce is understood that of the sudden lowd wind drawing many to the place and that wherewith the Apostles spake which argued there was a grace more then ordinary accompanying their speech after this gift of tongues was bestowed on them so as the multitude of Nations representing the whole world in little assembled suddenly at this place and was strucken with admiration and indeed confusion of mind some thinking one thing some another some trembling to see Christ so glorified now in his Apostles and Friends who had by them been persecuted to death others not knowing what was the reason but inquiring in fine all severally strucken upon several conceits they made of the prodigy every one hearing ignorant men and strangers speak in their own language or tongue 7. This Verse shewes that was the main cause of their amazement seeing the Apostles who were Galilaeans men given more to study the Sword then the Word speak the different Languages of all other several Nations in the World 8. As by this Verse appeares they did 9. 10. 11. There were two Elams one in Persia the other in Media and probably Elamites of both were here There is little to be said of this enumeration of so many nations and people here assembled onely to observe many are specified to shew more indeed all were present that is to say some out of every Nation and though those of Jewry be named in the ninth verse and Jewes again in the eleventh yet it is to be understood the latter were the Jewes dispersed over all the world as well as those living in Judea and the Gentiles by nation Jews by profession who were therefore by another name called Proselytes Adventitious Jews But we are here to observe these Nations did not hear the Apostles speak as some said of them like drunkards nor any vain or idle things but onely the wonders of Almighty God such as the Prophets had foretold Christ taught and were never till now understood nor believed And probably they began here to preach the Incarnation the Nativity the Life and Death the Resurrection the Ascension of our Saviour the reason of this prodigious coming of the Holy Ghost as sent by Christ the mystery of the Blessed Trinity and all things else that were the main heads of Christian doctrine and otherwise appertaining to the splendour of the Church of Christ and to the abrogation of the Synagogue or Jewish Church The Application 1. THe Illustration upon the Prayer and the Explication of the Text render this Epistle so cleer that little more needs to be said then to mind the Christian Reader that as by our Saviours first coming to us God was really made Man so the coming of the Holy Ghost is with a desire to make man become in a manner God but with this difference amongst others that God so assumed humane Nature as he did no way desert nor lessen his own which was Divineâ— whereas Man to be Deified must relinquish and devest himself of his humanity at least of his humane addictions and affections and must call upon the Holy Ghost to create in him a new breast a new heart if not a new soul too 2. And really it seems to have been the chief aym of Jesus Christ to work upon the soules of men but in part onely that is to elevate their Reasons and to illuminate their Understandings by the gift and light of Faith leaving it to the Holy Ghost to perfect the same soules Wills by Charingâ— by adding the heat the Fire of Love to the Light of Faâ—◠〈◊〉 hence it is our Saviour said he came to send Fire into the world and what vvould he else thereby but that this fire should burn burn up he meant the old man with all his stubble of sin and consume even his affections unto vice by setting his heart wholly upon virtue upon goodnesse upon heaven upon glory upon blisful eternity upon Almighty God as amiable objects indeed whereas all things else are but like Foyles to the beauty and lovelinesse of these such as never satiate a soul which the Royal Prophet doth confesse saying I shall then and surely not till then be satiated when thy Glory shall appear 3. Hence it is we see the Apostles turn immediately from Leverets to Lyons from persons afraid of the Jews to look Princes in the Face maugre all their persecution from ignorant and illiterate
offices 12. When he entred as he was entring for lepers use to sit without the gates of towns and castles still as infected people not admitted to mix with the sound and it was a noted penaltie inflicted on the people that the legall infirmity should be catching and infecting by the touch of a leper besides leprosie is a type of sinne especially of concupiscence heresie and other notorious vices They stood afarre off as the custome was that passengers might go by without danger of their contagious breaths And the reason why among nine Jewish lepers one Samaritan stood admitted was because the common contagion of the disease made those two Nations otherwise refusing each others companies to cohabit together 13. They must speak aloud to be heard at a distance By the word voice understand their common and unanimous consent to beg cure of Christ And note they call him here rather Master then Doctour to argue they sought not so much his doctrine as his power for in that they confided what ere they thought of the other they took him to be as powerfull almost as God and so besought him to command away their leprosie by his power and by his command to shew his mercy to them 14. Whom as he saw This shows Gods promptitude to do us good as soon as he but sees our necessities he bid them go show themselves to the Priests because no cured leper could be restored to the society of other men unlesse he had the testimony of the Priests to declare that he was cured so though Christ sent them to the Priests for this cause to observe the Law as Levit. 24. was prescribed yet withall he did it to let the Priests see the miracle was done by him because they were cured before they came at the Priests even indeed as soon as they obeyed his voice saying go show your selves c. Now mystically they were bid go to the Priests to declare that in the new law there is no cure from the leprosie of sinne but by confessing it to the Priests and though contrition be never so great able to save without confession yet by this place we ground that there must be at least a desire or an indeavour to confesse if it be possible 15. That of ten there went but one back to give Christ thanks argues the generality of men to be ingratefull unto God though he be never so beneficiall to them 16. That this one came in so humble a manner as to fall at Christ his feet being a Samaritan and so abhorring all Jews made the miracle the greater when thereby it appeared how much the grace of God shined in this man who by Nation a Samaritan hating Jesus that was a Jew yet by obligation became his captive and laid himself at his feet Again it argues the conversion of Gentiles is more perfect then that of Jews since nine Jewish lepers shewed no gratitude to Christ their own countrey-man whilst a mere stranger a Samaritan expressed a most gratefull heart for the favour of his corporall cure and of his mysticall conversion 17. This verse argues Christ was sensible of the Jewish ingratitude which act of theirs made the gratitude of the Samaritan more pleasing to him and more remarkable to the world but these that came not back declared they were transported with self-interest at the joy they had to be restored to the commerce of men and so neglected their religious repair to God 18. It had indeed been a glory to God to give thanks to Christ who was God and man and as it was Gods miracle wrought by Christ so the glory was due to God and not arrogated by Christ to himself whose wonder was not that they forbore to give him thanks but that they neglected to glorifie God by returning to him as the forreiner the Samaritan did 19. Jesus did not say unto him arise and go hence out of the company of the Jews being a Samaritan but go and be for thy gratitude to me gratefull unto my people converse with them as a native forreiner though thou art to show that union of faith makes amitie amongst all Nations for by admitting him into the company of the Jews he declared his faith and theirs were one And when he told him his faith had saved him that is had not onely cured his corporall leprosie but his spirituall infidelity he meant that his faith had cooperated towards his cure and salvation namely by his going as he was bid to the Priests in hope of cure by that obedience So though the miracle were indeed vvrought by God yet it vvas as vve may say merited by an obedient faith and so Christ lessening his ovvn povver to teach us humility exalts the Samaritans virtue to vvit his faith vvhilst he proclaims it saving to him as being accompanied vvith good vvorks to vvit the acts of obedience and gratitude See still faith and works go hand in hand to render each other saving to our souls The Application 1. THe Illustration and Explication above may ease us in part of amplifying on the Application here further then to let us knovv the gratitude that should accompany our Christian faith our hope our charity vvhen vve see hovv specially it is by Christ observed in this Samaritan hovv in that observation recommended unto all that read the story of it and in reading see the root of all Religion to be faith since unto that our Saviour attributes the cure of this Samaritan and of the other nine ungratefull Jevvs for they vvere cured by Faith as well as he though for want of charity they were not so gratefull as he was to come and render thanks for being cured 2. Hence we see no single virtue is enough to Saint a soul nor lesse indeed then the three roots of all the other virtues whatsoever Faith Hope and Charitie For how soever these extensively taken are what virtue else so ere we can imagine yet they alone intensively produced are sufficient absolutely speaking to save a soul that is to say if on our death bed when we come to die we should be troubled what to do in that no further doing period of our time it were sufficient then to exercise an act of Faith an act of Hope an act of Love to God Neverthelesse we whilest we live and can do more are also bound to an extensive Faith and Hope and Charitie that is to do those other acts of virtue whereunto these three extend themselves and that we may do this the better we are intensively to use these three which then is done when we produce them often and give them an increase intensive making them stronger every one by being frequently produced 3. As for the times when these acts ought to flow from Christian souls which are essential unto christian duty as there is no time when they are unseasonable so there are many times when they are of obligation especially when holy Church obligeth us to saintifie our
you shall receive or reap corruption But the common sense is that the fruit of carnality is disease corruption death damnation that of spirit vertue life everlasting glory and salvation 9. The Apostle here exhorts to a perseverance in doing good the Priest constantly continuing to teach the Lay to learn to relieve his teacher and to work according as he is taught as if incessant reward were not otherwise to be hoped but for incessant labour So as we may understand this in two sorts we shall reap in due time in the next world if we do not cease our labours in this or we shall even in this world reap incessant reward in due time for our labours here if we labour constantly and slack not our zeales since it is the end that crownes the work either with grace in due time here or glory in due time in the next world 10. That is whilest we have time to sow the seeds of good works let us do good to all people Christians or Heathens not onely to those we catechize though principally to Christians as being domesticals and of one house with us fellow servants in the Church of Christ the true house of God The Application 1. THe last Sundayes service and this do seem to be almost the same onely that was a more general Application to all mankind this to the chosen sort of men who make up the mystical body of Christ his holy Church Wherefore S. Paul in this Epistle makes his addresse particularly to the Priests and Pastours of our soules from the first verse to the end of the fifth at the sixth he begins to tell the sheep their duty to the shepherd and so continues to the end of the eighth verse in the two last verses he concludes with an exhortation to them of perseverance in their Christian duties bidding them do good to all men whatsoever but especially to one another to the domesticals of Faith to those who have not onely Christ their Father but do professe his holy Spouse the Church to be their Mother 2. We see by the Illustration above that the Priests office to us is double the one to cleanse us by administring the holy Sacraments unto us the other to defend us by preaching praying and offering up their daily sacrifices for us Hence we must conclude our duty consists in preparing our selves worthily for receiving those Sacraments from the hands of the Priests lest we incurr the censures of unworthy receivers no lesse then our own damnation if it be the Sacrament of the holy Altar that we do receive and if any other of them there hangs a curse at least upon all who perform the work of God negligently as all unworthy receivers of any Sacraments do or the negligent hearers of any Sermons or of Masse which is the sacrifice as well of the people as of the Priest and these are peculiarly indeed the works of God as being instituted by his sacred Son nay more they are the works of his continued mercy towards us and so surpasse all other his works whatsoever because we are told his mercy is above all his works 3. Hence the Priest is put in mind further then in the Explication above with what a holy intention attention reverence and zeal of soules he ought to administer any Sacrament and also how with the like regards he ought to preach or offer up his sacrifices thereby to comply with the trust of Sayntity which both God and man have put into his hands lest he incurr the odious brand of becoming like the people so the Priest for how ever both are sinners to God yet the Priests are set apart as Saints to the eyes of men and they peculiarly were those he bade be holy as himself was holy who made them dispensers of the mysteries of God unto the people Lastly hence the Lay-men are minded with what humility reverence fear and trembling yet with what confidence comfort obedience with what Faith what hope what love with what adoration with what zeal to God Almighties honour and glory they ought to receive the holy Sacraments to hear the Word of God to assist at the sacrifice of Masse which is not onely a commemoration but even a renovation a repetition in a mysterious way of our Saviours death and passion so they are to look upon the Priest going to the Altar with the same devotion as if they did behold our Saviour going to be crucified Now that both may do this our holy Mother prayes to day as above for that special gift of God that bounty whereby it is performable that ardent charity which sets on fire the world of flesh and makes it flye out into flames of holy love unto his heavenly Majesty for by this love it is that the Church militant is govern'd and by the same love God is glorified for all eternity in his Church Triumphant The Gospel Luk. 7.11 11 And it came to passe afterwards he went into a City that is called Naim and there went with him his disciples and a very great multitude 12 And when he came nigh to the gate of the City behold a dead man was carried forth the onely son of his mother and she was a widow and a great multitude of the City with her 13 Whom when our Lord had seen being moved with mercy upon her he said to her Weep not 14 And he came near and touched the Coffin and they that carried it stood still and he said young man I say to thee arise 15 And he that was dead sate up and began to speak and he gave him to his mother 16 And fear took them all and they magnified God saying that a great Prophet is risen among us and that God hath visited his people The Explication 11. THis was a fair Citie in Galilee within two miles of mount Thabor and so had the name of Faire for Naim imports as much This made the sadder funerall and the more gladsome miracle being in so vast so famous a City into which so great a multitude such a train of people followed our Saviour 12. This seeming chance to man of two such multitudes meeting those within and those without the City at the funerall was designed by God to render more authenticall the miracle God thereby more glorified and Christ the more beloved though it is to be noted that the Jews and Romans too had their burials alwayes out of the Cities unlesse rarely for Kings who were buried in the Citie of Sion David building a place for that purpose Note this onely sonne was also her onely child hence the mothers sorrow was greater to lose in him all the whole hopes of her house being a widdow of note and so past hopes of more of that family 13. By saying to her weep not he shewed his compassion of her sorrow was such that he meant to take away the cause of her tears by restoring her son to life again and so doubtlesse she believed when he
bade her weep no more 14. See how soon the promised comforts of God arrive immediately as he said to her weep not he stopt the hearse and bade the dead corps arise Elias Eliseus and others did pray to raise the dead Christ to shew he was God raised this young man by command and not by prayer Yet observe he touched the hearse no marvel upon the touch of Christ who was life everlasting as being God that temporall life should be restored to the dead body that he touched this he did as naturally as a red hot iron burneth straw So did his flesh united to the Word give life to a carcasse by virtue of that hypostaticall union 15. His sitting up and beginning to speak were indeed true signes of his reviving yet Christ was pleased to take him by the hand and thereby lift him from the hearse and lead him to his mother to shew that he was so humble as he would not onely oblige but even serve his servants Nor is it any wonder that Christ the King of Heaven and Earth should perform the office of a Courtier by his civility to the noble person of this sad widdow whom he had graced and comforted by that act of his power 16. Note this miracle was a kind of Parable importing the spirituall death of souls by sinne and the reviving of the soul again by grace though here the widdowes tears were the motive for Christ to reward her by the restoring her son to life and withall many souls doubtlesse from the death of infidelitie to the life of Christianitie upon the sight of so celebrated a miracle That they were all struck with fear what wonder for their guiltie conscience might make them doubt he who could raise the dead could kill the living as easily if he list but seeing he did not so or rather lest he should do so they blessed God and said for magnifying here importeth glorifying of him he had pleased to visit his people by sending them a great Prophet for as yet they understood Christ to be no more and that he was such this very act made them believe and some doubtlesse concluded he was the long expected Messias whom they called by the name of the great Prophet for distinction sake Note the glosse observes three resuscitations from death to be made by Christ the first that of the daughter of the Archi-synagogue and that by private prayer in her fathers house none being by the second this of the onely sonne of the widdow whom he raised in publick by a word of command and by a touch of his hand the third was that of Lazarus whom with a perplexitie of prayer and tears he raised and with loud crying out Lazarus come forth as if he were undone if he had him not alive again The first of these signifies souls dead by mortall sinne of thought and those therefore were more easily raised by private prayer the second signifies those dead by mortall sin of words those are yet with more difficultie raised by command the third yet more hardly by importune prayer tears and cries to heaven as signifying those souls which are dead by mortall sinne of deed and that reiterated or habituall unto them The Application 1. ALl Expositours agree this miracle of raising the dead by a touch of our Saviours holy hand is a mere figure of his raising souls from the death of mortall sinne to the life of grace by the finger of the holy Ghost by the gift of his holy grace his holy Law which cannot touch a soul but it must needs enliven it See the explication of the last verse in the Gospel for more to this purpose 2. And who can now forbid us piously to thinke this onely sonne of the distressed widdow represents the soul of some one faithfull believer dead yet for want of charitie and revived by the tears and prayers of his tender mother the holy Catholick Church at whose intercession and in contemplation of her tears our Saviour Jesus Christ sends down the holy Ghost to touch the Coffin of this sinners heart with the finger of his grace with the gift the flame of Love and so reviving him first internally then gives him by the hands of the Priest who is Christs Vicar in point of absolution into the lap of his mother externally to live again that is to say admitted to the Sacraments and declared to be a living member as before his death of mortall sinne during which time he was not capable of any Sacrament at all as to the effect the grace thereof 3. To conclude as reason teaches every man to beware of his own danger by seeing another perish in going such a way before him thus holy Church knowing her Priests and people are many wayes liable to the snares of the common enemy and perceiving it is often by the prayers of those that stand they are raised again who fall and that this raising is a continuall mercy of Almighty God gratis given even when most earnestly implored and that the continuation of this gratuite gift is the onely means by which even all the children of the Church do not fall all at once into the death of deadly sinne but are many of them while others fall inabled to stand securely on their living legs of charitie and are governed thereby in every step they make to glory Therefore I say we are to day bid pray as above that this charitie this bountie of our Lord may govern us in all our wayes and that we may have the cleansing and the defending mercy of God continued over us lest that failing us we here fall out of grace and thereby faile of glory in the world to come On the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 14.10 WHen thou shalt be called to a marriage sit in the lowest place that he who did invite thee may say unto thee friend ascend up higher and so it shall be a glory unto thee before them that sit there Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt thy grace we beseech thee O Lord alwaies go before and follow us and make us continually intent unto good works The Illustration WHat may seem as common in this Prayer to all persons times and places must not hinder it to be a very particular and apposite petition to this present time wherein it is by holy Church put up unto Almighty God purity cannot approach Tell me beloved now what single-souled devotion can compare with this that being common is peculiar unto each particular in such a sort as it there were no more but one man left in all the world even into his particular necessity would run the whole contents of all these common prayers which are not therefore lesse adapted unto every one because they are the prayers of all the world besides but rather we are sure our selves had need to say them when every man alive doth find himself concerned