they are to wade through in making good their fidelity to God they throw themselves upon the points of Halberts and other instruments of severity without the least whining or flinching at their sharpness they take in as it were with the same relish the Gall of misfortunes and desolations and the Hony of prosperities and comforts No stormy season hinders their Journey and that which disturbs soft and effeminate Spirits is to them matter of joy and repose because they possess what they desire to wit affliction so that all things which pass under the name of Adversity are not so but to the wicked who make ill use of them in prizing the Creature more than the Creatour Hence it is that the general spirit of Saints have carried them on to be ambitious of suffering and to reckon it amongst one of the choice favours of Heaven for they had learnt by experience that if God with one Hand reaches unto them the Cup of his passion it is but by snatches and as it were a sup whilst with the other he gives them large draughts of consolation It is noted in the sacred Text that God laid open the person of Job to all the assaults of Satan but with this reserve that he touch not upon his life and this not in regard that death would have ecclipsed the glory of that great Champion but because he would not be deprived of such a Combatant to whose conflict he and his blessed Angels were intent with much satisfaction and so would not lose the pleasure of seeing this stout skirmish fought out to the last 'twixt him and his Enemy And as the Heathen Emperours took great delight to see a Christian enter into the list with a wild Beast so the King of Heaven is solaced with the sight of one of his Saints when he maintains a Fight against those fierce Beasts of Hell Seneca out of the principles of humane wisdom drew this excellent saying that no object was more worthy in the Eyes of the gods than to behold a stout Man with a settled countenance unmoved to struggle with adverse Fortune and truly the delay our blessed Saviour made in sending succour to his Disciples endangered by a storm at Sea sufficiently hints unto us the pleasure God takes to see the Just row against the stream tugg and wrestle with all the might they can against the stream and afflictions of this World Thus you see how happy our Holy Penitent hath ajusted his Sacrifice to the lines of God's will and that he never spake more emphatically than when he said A Sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit St. Bonaventure sayes that honor is due to God in four several respects and in like manner we ought in as many wayes render it unto him First in consideration of many blessings and this is to be returned by our gratitude and acts of thanksgiving Next we owe him honor in that he hath laid his commands upon us and this we perform by our obedience and submission to his Laws Thirdly his greatness and sovereignity exact it at our hands and this is paid by the vertue of Latria and adoration Lastly honor is due unto him in that he hath been offended and injuriously treated by sin Now the honor due to him in this point is restored by Penitential acts and by a troubled spirit Because in regard of his displeasure and to make reparation for the contempts thrown upon his Majesty he is ready to humble himself and apply all his endeavour to works of piety so far as even to afflict himself that he might honor the Divine Justice which requires that sin should never go unpunished Wherefore God is delighted in these painful satisfactory acquittances which we often give him written in our sweat and blood And Jesus Christ makes of them a present to his Father with his own from whence the value of ours is derived and there they find acceptance not upon the score of any contentment it is to God that we are tormented either in Soul or Body but meerly in that by them his Justice is honored and exalted and the Palms of our victory more resplendent This anxiety of spirit supported with a patient resignation and strengthened with a fervent prayer purchased to the distressed Anna and to the Jewish Nation that great Prophet Samuel This same disturbance of Spirit carried on by a generous submissive resolution against all the Machinations of Saul put into the Hands of our Penitent the Scepter of Juda in a word it seems to be a principle setled in Heaven that without this Sacrifice of a troubled spirit he will not part with his blessings It may be objected that God knowes the Hearts of Men and what they will do and therefore he need not this external Testimony Next that Christ's merits being of an infinite value ours appear altogether superfluous to which I answer First that his external glory consisting in the visible homages payd to him by his Creatures this would be wanting should he give them no occasion to make it manifest and shew unto the World he hath dependants who value no suffering in proportion to the duty they owe him Besides the satisfaction we shall take in Heaven to have done something to merit our Beatitude will certainly be a great addition to our Contentment As to the other though I confess the merits of Christ all sufficient yet this will not excuse us from offering what we can in satisfaction for the Honor and glory of all our actions belong to God now it being an Act of injustice to defraud any one of his revenue no less is it against equity to deprive God of the glory due unto him Wherefore a life that contributes not to his glory is perverse and wicked Again he that owns a Tree hath likewise right to the fruit it bears if the Land be mine the Crop also is at my disposal the labour and service of a Horse is due to his Master In like manner all that we are all the good we do or shall do is the work of God and a present with which he enriches us that we might be able to give something to him Wherefore as all is his our duty binds us to consecrate all our interiour and exteriour actions to promote his honor and glory And since it is reasonable sin should be punished our Holy Penitent submits to the decree exposes himself to be wracked and tortured by what punishment the Divine Majesty shall think good either in Mind or Body nor can he ever repine whilst he reflects That a Sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit The Application Here we are taught there is no Sacrifice conveyes an odour so pleasing unto Heaven as that of a Soul angustiated upon the score of God's cause The oblation of a Holocaust imports the reduction of it to Ashes that of a troubled spirit is a transmutation into the Holy Ghost who promises to be the intellect to be the Tongue nay
usage it is weakned and the Soul gets the Mastery to do what she pleases as with an Enemy overcome disarmed and at our Feet This Opinion hath given birth to so many austerities in several orders to so many Crucifying inventions that the Soul might become more powerful by extenuating the Body and so render it less rebellions to the decrees of reason This way hath the approbation of St. Paul who in his Fift Chapter to the Galathians sayes that those who are servants to Christ have crucifyed their flesh with their vices and concupiscencies Others again say it is not enough to quel and reform your spirit by the Body but that your Body is likewise to be reduced to order by the Mind because in the commission of sin the Body is not alwayes the offendour and deserves not to be harassed with rude strokes like an Asse wherefore they judge it more expedient that the superior portion of Man to wit his reason should interpose and taking into consideration what is prejudicious or conducing to Salvation frame resolutions accordingly both to avoid such actions as are pernicious and embrace such as are to her interest And if this be put in Execution with a vertue Heroick it will infallibly oblige the sensitive part to quit her pursuits and follow the dictamens of the Soul For example suppose I am transported with a passion of Anger for some disgrace thrown upon me my part is to reproach my self with the Vanity of being concerned in the trifling affairs of the World to that degree as to forfeit my quiet which is more pretious and if I generously pardon my Neighbour this injury will at last conclude in my honour by this means all will succeed in peace and tranquility I shall be fortified against all Events and so rationally govern my passions especially if guided with a moderate severity to my Body Our Holy Penitent having undertaken to instruct the wicked and setled in the possession of a principal spirit that is a spirit of perfection was not blind in the conduct of himself wherefore we may believe he squared out this Sacrifice according to the rules of a good and prudent Artist he expresses in the first of his penitential Psalms that his Soul was troubled and in another place it was like wax melted before the Fire and that his Enemies neer him to wit his passions assaulted him with strange violence insomuch as he confesses his sole refuge as if reason were then useless to him was to play the deaf and dumb and by that passive comportment avoiding contests he Sacrificed his troubled spirit to his Creatour A Sacrifice to God c. St. Gregory Nyssen descants upon God's proceeding with the Israelites in commanding them to set up a brazen Serpent at the sight of which those that should be bit with those venemous Beasts might immediately find their cure and why sayes he did not God take a shorter cut by destroying all those Serpents which had given an end to that Plague he had sent amongst them at last he satisfies himself with this reason that whilst the Hebrews beheld that Soveraign Medicament in casting up their Eyes to Heaven they might have occasion to consider from whence they received their deliverance which otherwise that gross ungrateful people would soon have forgot So that to draw them to pay what they owe to his goodness he was faign to lengthen out their afflictions Job likewise whilst he was scraping his Soares upon the Dunghill said Lord when I was in prosperity I heard thee but now in my affliction I see thee Which shews nothing gives a more intimate knowledge of God than to be surrounded with tribulation the Soul in prosperity growes proud deaf and careless so that she must smart in the sense to be made sensible With how many charming Courtships doth the espouse in the Canticles woe his Darling to open the door but all in vain she is not to be wrought upon but inter angustias when afflicted and in misery Jonas in the Whales Belly the Prodigal in the Pig-sty the Sick in his Feaver thinks and calls upon God but when in sports and pastimes sailing in a Sea of plenty and delights all our senses are shut up and no passage open to his merciful call But to be pinched in the last of any temporal misfortune as it awakens a Soul to stretch out for succour so doth it no less bow God's powerful Arm towards us This he declares to Moses out of a bush which he made the Throne of his Glory to shew that the affliction of his people made him run after that Prophet and retrive him in the Thickest part of the desart and from thence commission him in order to their deliverance St. Gregory sayes that God appeared to Job in a Whirl-wind because having hurried him into a boisterous storm of afflictions he would himself enjoy no calmer Weather but let him know he was there to secure him Of Joseph it is said he went down with him into the Pit nor left him in his Bonds and Esay 12. speaking in the person of God sayes my people is gone down into Egypt Assur hath afflicted them without cause and now what do I here My people captive and I at liberty VVhat do I here My people trod under Foot and I enjoy the smoak of Incense and Sacrifice what do I here No no there is no Sacrifice acceptable to God like to a troubled spirit and this our Holy Penitent had wrought out even to perfection For he declares how all his Bones were in disorder his Loyns filled with illusions and spectres at the ghastly memory of his Sins his groans were like the roarings of a Lyon and the burthen of his Folly so weighty as it bowed him even to the ground if his Flesh appeared before the Face of God's anger it dissolved into corruption and had not one sound part if before the frightful aspect of his transgression it gave a trembling and disquiet to all his Bones the night he spent in bathing his Couch with Tears and in the day he confessed that the hand of God was heavy upon him so that if ever the Sacrifice of a troubled spirit that is of a person discomposed by the resentment of his ingratitude was offered up to God it was certainly in our Holy Penitent who amidst all his afflictions had this comfort A Sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit Spiritual directors lay down as the ground work of a life of Sanctity an interiour abnegation of our selves by which we give a repulse to our selves For when once we come to devest our selves of love then the terrours of mortifications torments and adversity will find no effect then generous and Heroick Acts will be the productions of such a Soul for solid vertue like a Rose amidst Thornes seldome springs forth but in the soyl of crosses austerities and repentance Those that are seised with this holy aversion against themselves mind not the hardships
of Christ God-man The Church calls it a happy fault in that it merited so great a Redeemer in the same sense our Penitent contemplating the cause of his redemption admires his happy deliverance and urges for this spirit of perfection that as the just was to be the motive of a more copious effusion of his blood so he becoming perfect might asswage his torments to which end he cryes confirm me with a principal spirit Again our Penitent is animated to this his petition upon the consideration that when a perfect Soul whom God hath designed to salvation falls into any notable default as she may not being impeccable he lets her not lye mired in the filth of sin without any feeling of her condition but presently solicits her with his exciting graces and this with such importunity as he told St. Paul it was hard for him to play the obstinate against so many darts of his love and if ever that parable was fulfilled where out Saviour having found the lost sheep witnesses more joy for the recovery of that one than of the Ninety nine he had left in the desart it is certainly in the resettlement of a Soul in his favour whom he hath marked out to be his 'T is true sometimes Almighty God withdraws his sustaining hand and permits them to dash upon the Rock of offence so to humble them that sin might effect what his Grace could not yet the conclusion is alwayes to their greater good and if he makes use of so many stratagems to bring them to their former state of happiness being once reâ—urned with what profusions of his bounty with what inundations of his grace doth he overflow them It is then a Soul makes a new oblation of herself to God renewing her vowes and promises and soon regains her former lustre nay becomes more accomplished improving still her light and vertue and with these penitential ornaments she invites her Espouse to a visit who declares in the Canticles that he is descended into the Garden of Filberts and amidst the Apples of the Valleys Intimating by these words that his satisfaction is to behold a Soul freed from the sink of sin to spring anew and bud forth in the practice of eminent vertues to see her like fire always in motion acting generous things for his service To hear her amidst the baits of this world to send forth amorous Sighs after him passionately coveting to be discharged from the mass of the body so to arrive at the fruition of him and he is so good as to answer every motion of this converted Soul She never looks on him but he amorously casts an Eye upon her she never thinks on him but he requites the kindness with a thought on her she never gives herself unto him but he as liberally bestowes himself upon her These are the entertainments our Holy Penitent doth promise to himself by means of this spirit of perfection he confesses he hath been humbled by his sin Next he hopes he is raised by his Grace and now he expects the consequence of his merciful reconciliation imploring confirm me with a principal spirit When I read this clause it minds me of what St. Paul sayes that where sin hath abounded there Grace doth many times superabound For doubtless nothing adds wings to the fervour of a true Penitent like to the remembrance of their past failings whence I gather our Petitioner upon these seeds of his restauration will add a superstructure of mystick Divinity and raise himself to as high a pitch of Vnion with God as in this life Man is capable of But in this enterprize he is ignorant what method to follow because no certain rule is set down by God for its acquisition it being a pure gift of his like Grace gratis given that we might know we have a Master in Heaven who instructs immediately by himself his Disciples in the maxims of true wisdom Wherefore our Penitent trusts not to his own industry or vertue but supplicates for divine immissions as a thing independent of any other means than his own free Donation confirm me with a principal spirit This Science of mystick Divinity is defined an experimental knowledge of God arising from a most elevated union of the will with him For the will is the Organ of a spiritual rellish by which Man tastes the sweetness of God and by this experience teaches the understanding what God is Now this savour tast or spiritual feeling may be said to be a kind of knowing because love it self according to St. Austin is a knowledge but a knowledge so secret as unintelligible to any but the person in whom it is as it is commonly said of a smart pain none can so justly conceive it as he that suffers Now our Penitent thirsts after this banquet he knowes it fortifies and confirms a Soul in the practice of devotion and at a pinch sustains her in the rude combats of temptations For being united unto God she is above all the attractives and violence of Creatures So that enjoying this delicious guest by an experimental knowledge there is doubtless nothing in this World of force to separate her from God This Job seems to insinuate Chap. 1. Place me near to thee and I fear not the attempt of any And St. Paul likewise apprehending himself in this secure state sets the whole World at defiance who sayes he shall separate me from the love of Jesus Christ As this security must needs give birth to continual acts of joy No less are the ravishments which overwhelm a Soul in the practice of this devotion for it is a certain lively experiment of God's intimate presence of his essence of his perfections and divine operations and this with an experimental affection or strong assurance that we love God that we make his glory our interest that by complacence and friendship we share in what he hath it being the Nature of true love to make all things common The first effect is to work a compleat Metamorphosie in us for to transform a thing is to separate it from its natural form and communicate another not only interiour but exteriour Now when a Soul is arrived to a holy complacence in God and to a strict amity with him she is devested of the form of sin and vitious affections which was her natural inclination and receives within the Center of her heart new affections desires wholly Divine and motions quite different from what Nature prompts her to This made St. Paul cry I live now not I but Christ doth live in me and this same motive gave life to our Petitioners present address that gaining this spirit of perfection he might loose himself and by that enterchange come to know what God is That he is a source of goodness eminency and beauty that he merits all honour glory reverence and praise Then comparing himself to God he beholds how vile captive and contemptible a Creature he is Lastly comparing God to himself he
and forcibly entered by Cyrus King of the Medes he resolved rather than become a scornful prisoner to dye on the places upon which design he cast himself into the midst of his Enemies preferring an honorable death before an opprobrious life His Son beholding his imminent danger though to that instant at the Age of twenty years he had been alwayes dumb cryed out spare my Father spare my Father it is the King Whereupon the Enemy seised his person and preserved his life some attribute this to a natural cause alledging the love this Prince had for his Father put all his vital spirits into combustion and by that violent motion broke the obstacle of his speech However methinks this passage may in some sense be applyed to our great Penitent who was morally dumb the Organs of his Soul structed by the malignity of sin insomuch as he could not utter one syllable which might have force to reach the Ears of his Creatour untill he came to have a prospect of his eternal ruine and no sooner these Terrours appeared before him but all the faculties of his Soul were stirred up removed all Obstacles and made him Petition for the opening his Lips the first motion to his happiness Lord thou wilt open my Lips For this imports not a local division of the Lips but an inflamation of the heart by vertue of which heat all the parts of his Body will be disposed to discharge those functions for which they were created St Paul to shew how little Man can do if left to himself sayes 1 Cor. 4. What do we possess which we have not received and if so why glory we in it as if our own Again he powerfully asserts it in the Eighth Chapter to the Romans It is not he who wills or runs but he on whom God will have mercy As if he would say as Esau in vain pursued his Chase thinking from thence to derive to himself his Fathers blessing So Man after sin loses but his time and endeavour if he think by the strength of his natural faculties to be able to observe the Commandements of God or perform what is requisite to the purchase of Heaven So that it must chiefly spring from the mercy of God's assisting grace Nay which is more we cannot so much as desire to serve God according to our obligations unless he first by his divine grace move our hearts and dispose our will unto it as the same St. Paul sayes God works in us both the will and the execution without God assisting we cannot have a desire neither to believe what is proposed as the object of Faith nor perform what we should in order to vertuous actions and therefore St. Austin sayes the prodigal Son had never resolved to return home to his Father if the mercy of God had not inspired him to it To manifest this truth we need go no further than to cast our thoughts upon the Grecian and Roman learning which produced the greatest wits in the World yet in all their inquisition after a sovereign good they were so lost as even to become ridiculous acting things concerning a Deity and Man's supream felicity as if they were destitute of reason St. Paul takes notice in particular how coming to Athens he found an Altar dedicated to an unknown God For they had been visited with a great pestilence and ignorant for what offence a chastisement so severe was inflicted at last fancied it was for want of homage to be rendered to some Deity not yet discovered than this what could be more absurd to shew in what darkness and errours Man doth grope when left to himself So that if at any time a person blushes at his vanities and past extravagancies and doth confess that what before he behold as light and life to be nothing else than obscurity and death this Conversion sayes St. Austin comes not from himself but from the powerful and hidden grace of God which dissipates the Clouds of Earthly opinions and enflames his heart with a desire of knowing the truth Now this change God works in Souls several wayes in some more gently in others more forcibly Solomon insinuates that he particularly gives his call by the outward preaching of his word this Esai confirms Chap. 40. God hath sent Doctors of his Faith into the World who should reduce their Brethren like the blind into the way that is unto Jesus Christ the Messias who is styled the way truth and life In this manner Surius recounts Barlaam was sent to Josaphat Son to a King in the Indies that by his conversion the whole Kingdom might embrace the Law of Christ St. Paul was sent to Athens who converted the great St. Dennis a famous Doctor of the Areopagites St. Philip to the Eunuch of the Ethiopian Queen who by expounding unto him a Prophecy of Christ in Esai immediately received Baptism at his hands In the History of Japonia it is related of a certain Indian who had lived well according to the light of nature how he was restless in his Mind believing his religion to be false he went to the Turks thinking to follow theirs but finding there no satisfaction then he applyed himself to the Jews but still remained in perplexity so that with much fervour he was wont to cry out O God let me know who thou art and that I may serve thee according to thy will otherwise do not charge me with blame for my errour At last it happened St. Francis Xavierus came into the Town where he was and no sooner did he hear him unfold the points and sacred mysteries of Christian Religion but he proclaimed that Man preaches the God I must serve and forth with was baptized By this expedient he likewise made a conquest of our Holy Penitent in which action Nathan the Prophet was instrumental who laying before him his obligations to God and his ingratitude occasioned that without delay he had recourse to the Sanctuary of this present petition or Miserere The second manner of his call is by the inward operation of his Spirit and this he communicates to all witness St. Paul 1 Cor. 4. God who drew light from darkness by a word from his mouth hath filled our hearts with the splendour of his knowledge For without this light of Faith Man knowes not God who made him he knowes not whither he tends he knowes not eternal felicity for which he was created nay he knowes not himself for without Faith we know not that we are born Imps of wrath and lyable to eternal death We know not the wounds of our nature our inability to good the necessity of being regenerated by grace Lastly without this interiour light we know not Christ our Mediatour by whose pretious blood we are Redeemed from eternal damnation and restored to a life of Grace and Glory But you will say if God imparts this light of faith to all how comes it so many remain in darkness and infidelity of this the reason is