by the Heavens examine what Splendour hath issued from your Actions by which your Subjects might steer the course of their lives and be guided free from Shipwrack to the Haven of eternal rest For if they lose themselves on the Sands of misbelief or dashed upon the Rock of Vanity unlawful pleasures and the like for want of your directing beams their ruine will be laid to your charge and were it permitted you to hear the sad complaints and dire invectives those perished Souls do vomit forth against their Leaders who have deceived and tilled them on into misery it would certainly have influence upon you and oblige you to a greater circumspection in your wayes and manner of life If you own Nobility and Honour which the Mountains personate remember you are the Object of many inferiour eyes you are looked upon with respect and indeed as the Glass which should convey unto them the true representation of their Prince For he being but one and consequently not so communicable it is your parts who are dispersed through Kingdoms to supply what he cannot do to shew by your Justice Piety Devotion Charity and other Christian vertues that the practice of them can onely maintain your greatness and is the Foundation of all your hopes in another life which Principles lively set forth in your actions cannot but fix your dependants in a strange passion towards goodness and ground them in a Belief that it ought to be the ultimate scope of all their endeavours and enterprizes in this world Nor are those of the meaner rank hinted at by the Valleys exempt from all obligation in this kind There is not a Master of a family but is as it were a Sovereign to those who depend on him He ought to be the first at every pious duty to see his little flock fed with all necessary instructions in order to what Christianity obliges them to know and believe to carry a watchful Eye over them that he may know their faults to correct their vertues to reward and encourage if they fail in this they may say with David I have sinned against thee alone Though there be none under their roof can be a competent Judge yet this will not render them innocent and this our holy Penitent confesses who in this expression acknowledges the excellency and multitude of God's favours in being a King and consequently the highest ingratitude on his part towards the Author of them The Application By this clause we are further taught that if at any time we fail in our duty the principal motive of that ressentment must be in that it is displeasing to God whose onely frown we apprehend For when we trespass against our Neighbour the evil is in reference to God who forbids it whence every sinner may justly say I have sinned against thee alone So that we ought not to regard our temporal but eternal Penalties due to sin for that concerns our Soul which alone is the source of all our transgressions Wherefore our chief solicitude ought to be for its preservation Wherein we are to imitate St. Mary Magdalen who pressed in her spiritual necessity had a personal recourse to her dear Saviour but when concerned in the loss of her Brothers life she contented her self to dispatch away a letter by a servant insinuating by this the distinction she made between a soul and Body I wish we might all in this follow her Example that is espouse the Souls interest as the main concern Since in relation only to that we are to pronounce tibi soli peccavi I have sinned against thee alone CHAP. X. Vt justificiens in Sermonibus tuis vincas cum judicaris That thou mayest be justified in thy words and overcome when thou art judged OUr holy penitent tells us in this clause why he brought his guiltiness as King upon the Stage because by it the petitioned will be justified in his words which are these that he will never reject a truly repenting heart and he thinks they were never put more home to the Test than in his Person for who can despair after his admission into favour who had broken all the chains and tyes of duty wherein a Creature is linked and obliged by a most loving and liberal Creatour Besides the pardon of his ingratitude will serve as a fence against the rash judgements of the impious who are apt to lay severity to God's charge upon the reprobation of a sinner this makes our penitent to add that thou mayest overcome when thou and judged that is when his case shall be alledged it will stop and silence any blasphemous Tongue I believe also he reflected on the promise made by God that out of his lineâ— should issue forth the hope of Israel the Redeemer of mankind and lest his sin might divert the streams of God's mercy and frustrate his succeeding stemms of that glorious off-spring he minds him first of his promise to receive with open arms the most enormous if repenting Soul nextt his Foundation laid he would insinuate since by an act of mercy he was again planted in the Region of grace his hopes now are that the promises made by Heaven to him and his posterity might stand good that their accomplishment would be a confirmation to him of a plenary indulgence and a pledge that his punishment should not reach to so heavy a Confiscation in order to his temporal satisfaction But you must know when he sayes that thou mayest be justified c. This particle that imports not the efficient cause of the precedent verse to wit he had sinned against God alone to the end God may be justifyed as if the motive of God's justification gave rise to his sin No no it means only this that the eminency of his condition rendered him guilty of the highest ingratitude and since the torrent of God's mercy had born this clear away the publication of this pardon must needs exalt the divine goodness and testify to the World there is no iniquity so monstrous which may not if we will be overcome by his mercy whence he is justified in his words never to be a stranger to those who return with Repentance unto him How many times hath God been irritated by Man's ingratitude nay so touched to the quick as to declare he repented to have made him that is if God were capable of defect or change this exorbitancy in man might well deserve such a repentance have we not seen a Pharaoh prodigiously unmoved insensible as a statue at the sight of miracles which confounded all his inchanters and false Gods yet had not this unbelieving Prince hardned his own heart God had reserved one greater wonder to work in his behalf that is upon his sumission to receive him unto mercy what can be thought of more indulgent than his amarous care and conduct of his people through the desart and yet even when he was prescribing a Law and Rule for the observance of their Duties they frame
to those who use it in excess next he hints the reliques and dreggs it leaves behind that if God's grace joyned with a great resolution happen to dislodge this petulent Guest yet still some footsteps or impressions remain apt to reenter and claim an interest Wherefore he could promise to himself no security unless an inundation of mercy fall upon him to purify and carry away all the remainder of bad inclinations grown into a habit and become as it were a second Nature in him Cleanse me from my sin and as it was not a slight stain he had contracted but all circumstances weighed the most indelible that springs from inordinate acts in carnal pleasures For Lawes Divine Natural and Humane seem to be violated in Adultery Divine in that two persons by marriage are made one flesh and both pass into the incommunicable Nature of individuality becoming the essential part of each other whence violation cannot happen to one without destroying the life of the other and breaking that bond which God hath knit together Natural Law is likewise by an adulterous act infringed because Marriage consists not in the sole possession of the Body but also nay principally in the affections of a reasonable Soul For the bonds of Marriage are not wrought by copulation but mutual consent and under a sacred Vow never to be retracted who then infringes these engagements must needs contract a note of infidelity and consequently strike at the main Hinge of humane Society to preserve which Nature chiefly tends in all her principles and essential motions Lastly a breach is made in humane Law by Adultery in that Marriage is not a private but domestick good which concerns not one but infinite Families strengthened by the Laws of the Church and publick Faith of Nations From hence Nature finds those who carefully cultivate her plants hence Commonwealths are enriched with Citizens the Church with Children By this we may see the malice of Adultery that drawes along with it the violation of so many Laws Christ enjoyns us a love of our Enemies and that the Sun should not set in our anger Yet in the treachery of Marriage-Bed permits a separation between Man and Wife how strictly soever united by indissoluble tyes as if such crimes surpassed the limits of pardon as if an evil so destructive that remedies could find no place and that this individual life once dissolved could no more be recalled than habit from privation Many Tyrants have subdued to therage of their cruelties the wealth liberty and lives of their Subjects who looking upon this power as given from Heaven over them patiently sustained all those depredations but if once they touched upon their wives and would involve them in the Mass of their impurities this rowsed up their fallen spirits cast them into rebellion nay pushed them to that extremity as never to desist untill they had deprived those of life who had ravished from them what was more dear than life untill they had reduced unto ashes the Authors of their infamy and taught them for the example of posterity this violence of all others will not be left unrevenged in this World There hath scarce been any Nation though Pagan or Infidel which hath not punished Adultery with Death or exquisite Torments Some by fire others by wild Horses some by the Halter others in pulling out their Eyes cutting off their Noses some by stones as in Moses Law Whence 't is clear that even the light of Nature taught there ought for the good of humane Society that a stop be made to this disorder Our Penitent having in his thoughts lay'd open all those Enormities of an Adulterous Act is surprised to see himself plunged in so many abominations to have heaped up to himself so much ignominy and infection as the reproach of them would last as long as time How sparingly do good Men treat of carnal subjects either in Writing or in the Pulpit lest the very articulate sound or Characters in this matter might offend chast Ears or cause worse effects in Hearts already tainted If then this poyson carry with it so much of malignity in the very name or lightest thought what corruption and noysomness must the sin it self produce Oh! how strong did this scent breathe in the Nostrils of our Penitent when once his understanding was awake and beheld with an Eye free from passion his Body dissolved into so many contaminations no wonder than if he so oft repeat in this Psalm the cleansing from his sin Every glimps of his past foul delights casts him into a blush beholding no other consequence of them than shame confusion and the threats of eternal destruction notwithstanding all this he sues for a Vesture of innocence and he does it to him who with a fiat or blast from his Mouth drew out of a dark Chaos that glorious Body of the Sun which so revives us To him who hath promised to let fall all the darts of his anger upon the true repentance of a sinner on this basis he fixes his Petition and doubts not but at last to find a happy issue to be drawn out of the mire of his sensualities and his leprous condition changed into the consistence of restored grace after this he sighs and groans nor is capable of any consolation untill that happy moment arrive which shall put a period to this longing demand Et à peccato meo munda me cleanse me from my sin The Application We must consider that God is purity it self who hath nothing more in abomination than an impure Soul That Heaven inhabited by Angels is a place of honour where nothing defiled can have access Wherefore we ought to apprehend any stain of lubricity because most obstructive to our final Beatitude First in that it is according to St. Thomas peccatum maximae inhaerentiae a Sin that clings like Bird-lime to our Souls and of all others most hard to be clawed off it resembles a Phoenix who renews her self with the fire enkindled by the motion of her own Wings so a person inured to that vice even when he would give it over and bury it withall occasion of incentives doth often find the Coals to be blown afresh by the wings of thoughts so that whilst we live we ought never to be secure since 't is a combat of all others the most hazzardous and where the victory is most rare next it is a sin of impudency and when a Soul is devoid of shame what hopes can there be to reclaim her St. Hierom advises to a private admonition of our neighbour and gives this reason lest he break the curb of shame and dwell in his sin for ever By baptism we are made members of Jesus Christ and the chiefest homage we can pay to him as our Head is to preserve it unspotted from any smut of impurity A virginal integrity is so acceptable unto God that the Angels were they permitted would translate them Body and Soul into Heaven that
Penitent's proceedings and that he would disguise if not wholly suppress a main part of his offences yet let us examine e're we censure and I believe his confession will not be found to want the due circumstances of a true repentance I have sinned sayes he against God alone He considers first he is a criminal next he beholds no power on Earth which hath right to take cognizance of his trespass and to carry on a compleat process against him the Holy Ghost had taught him the anointed of God are sacred things not to be violated by any hand wherefore since no humane Law could reach him for that power is not supream which is linked to any dependency To whom can he acknowledge himself an offendour but to him who is King of Kings and from whom all Dominion both in Heaven and Earth is derived He alone is his Judge he alone can punish or save and to his sole will he submits himself and the correction of his misdeeds This specification of his Royal dignity which exempts him from all Earthly Jurisdiction renders him not more innocent but rather is a circumstance of aggravation for the perfection of the person offending is a note of higher ingratitude proportionably to the excellency of his nature and therefore Divines conclude the sin of Lucifer to be the most Enormous that ever was committed First because of the excellency of his nature next in that he directly strook at the source of his perfections for which he ought to have been more grateful than other Creatures having tasted more liberally than any other of his divine Favours Lastly from the causality or consequence of his sin which gave a rise and was the foundation of all the evil that hath happened in the World and in Heaven before it was created overwhelming both Angels and Men by his temptations as in Tobit Chap. 4. From the Pride of the Devil all ruine and perdition is derived and took its beginning If we look upon the dignity of our Penitent we shall find none above him upon Earth if on the favours showred upon him from Heaven he appears the Object of Gods choicest liberalities if on the disastrous sequel of his sin what divisions in his Kingdom what streams of Blood have issued from it Hence I wonder not if St. Austin sayes it is hard for Princes to commit a small offence For the eminency of their place obliges them to so much integrity that the least blemish in them grows up into a monstrous deformity they are as it were the Primum Mobile upon which all the other Orbs depend in their motion Nay Cassidorus sayes it were more credible that Nature could erre than for a Prince to frame a Commonwealth different from the constitution of his own life For he is not onely a glass wherein the people contemplate the Idea or platform of what they ought to do but a glass enflaming and issuing forth incentives to imitation Have we not seen a Rome warlick under Romulus religious under Numa continent under Fabritius dissolute under Lucullus and Anthony Idolatrous under Julian and drenched in Arrianism under Valens to shew the people are alwayes moulded into the temper of their Prince nay think it a crime not to follow his example and believe every leading action in him may authorize and make good any wickedness in them It was for this cause the Poets feigned their gods to have been vicious that from thence they might claim a title and right to do the like and Terentius excuses a young man taken in adultery because he had seen the pourtraiture of Jupiter representing such a posture of obscenity The prophet Hoseah in his Fifth Chapter threatens judgement and ruin to Kings who have become a Snare instead of a Sanctuary to their subjects and St. Austin stiles bad Kings the worst of homicides in destroying the Souls of their Subjects Our sad Penitent was not a stranger to his own condition he knew well his duty to God and how many obligations of vertue were annexed to a Crown he therefore now alledges his regal power not to diminish but rather to give a full view of his transgression by this he confesses that he hath broke his Faith with multitudes of Men deceiving the publick opinion they had of his vertue upon which presumption their Lives Fortunes and what most dear to them were shrowded under his guidance and protection By this he declares the Throne is to edify not destroy the lookers on for a King mediates 'twixt God and Man Now that a Vacuum might not happen but a happy concatenation preserved it is as necessary a King should adhere to God as he would have the People constantly faithful to him a Christian Prince ought to make God not Policy the ultimate Object of his sway so that he must first consecrate himself next his Kingdom to the service of his Creatour And if he do it not he seems to overwhelm and confound both divine and humane Laws By this he ackowledges his own misery as St. Austin sayes Kings are not to be esteemed happy from their conquests and success of Arms but by using their power in the advancement of God's honour and service if they love fear and reverence him if they make their own greatness stoop and lye prostrate before his Divine Majesty lastly if they more value the sweet reign of vertue within them than all the dazling glories of their Earthly â—…ingdoms this only makes them happy Mistake not then our Penitent he boasts not in these words I have sinned against thee alone his exemption from any terrene Judicature but rather would publish by his greatness the enormity of his crimes how every glittering flash of his Crown makes a new flaw in his unhappy trespass He remembred in Leviticus it was decreed the same proportion of Sacrifices for the Priest as for the Universal people and what satisfactions might then justly be required of him into whose hands are entrusted the guidance of that chosen Nation and to fail in so important an affair must needs involve a greater blame For where the Prerogative is more sublime there the miscarriage carryes with it more of deformity as St Hierom cryes Let us rejoyce whilst we ascend but likewise beware a fall because there is not so much contentment in the purchase of honour and greatness as there is grief and confusion to be torn from the prossession of them Besides such shall not only render an account of their own defaults but also be responsible for the deviations of all those to whom they owe the duty of direction and good example O ye great ones whose Birth or Fortune have made eminent in the World take heed you be not the Subject of Jeremy's complaint who having surveyed the Valleys found therein a meer vacuity from thence passing to the Heavens he there met with a profound darkness returning back upon the Mountains he beheld them all in disorder If you be Sovereign Princes meant
indevotion and an indiscreet Zeal Fortitude between rashness and cowardise so of the rest Wherefore the art is so to steer your course as to keep at an equal distance from them both yet alwayes mindful that if one be more dangerous than the other you are most to decline that as if I would embrace the vertue of hope which is beset with presumption and despair and my complexion cold and melancholly drawes me on the extremity of despair this certainly most threatens my ruine and therefore I am to look upon every spark of that with more apprehension than a fire which issues from presumption Our Holy Penitent knew that whilest he sailed in the Ocean of this World he must needs be flanked with two dangerous Rocks that is two opposite vices to any vertue he would embrace so that if he keep not a steady hand to the helm by the least diversion he is cast upon a shelf which will destroy him Wherefore it behoves him to fit himself with a right spirit a Spirit of vertue which leaning upon the Principles of reason might preserve him in that degree of honour wherein he is ranked amidst created Beings For as knowledge makes one knowing so vertue gives us the title of good and as the good of any thing consists in the just measure and proportion unto it he concludes this right spirit of vertue to be a purchase worthy his ambition since doubtless nothing to Man as Man is more sutable and agreeing than such actions as are produced conformable to a reasonable nature he anticipates his Son's Declaration and thinks nothing profitable pleasant or great which is not made so by vertue This right spirit will shower down spiritual comforts settle him in peace with God Angels and Men shelter him under the wings of God's Providence which never fails to cherish those who live according to the rules of vertue and after a life attempered with the Harmony of delightful actions it changes into sweeâ—…ss the grim face of Death making it a secure passage unto eternal Beatitude He is resolved to put in execution the practice both of intellectual and moral vertues and that they may prove meritorious he begs they may be infused into him that when he considers the infinity of God's Being and the immensity of his perfections he may forthwith pay him the just tribute of glory respect and submission all worship praise and possible endeavours of Piety That his omnipotency may never pass his thoughts without an entire obedience to his will that his inexhausted and unerring wisdom may draw him to acts of faith and firm assent to his divine word That the fidelity of his never failing promises may fix a reliance and assured hope in him That his unwearied goodness may ravish him into a charity and love never to be extinguished That his incomparable greatness may work him into the annihilation of himself before him and give him a true feeling of his own vileness That a terrour of his judgments may throw him into a course of rigid pennance for his misdeeds and his unspeakable favours be met with all the Testimonies of gratitude which a poor Creature can give He knowes that had he a Million of hearts lodg'd within his own person yet could they never reach that love his goodness merits and should he stoop even unto Hell nay lower were it possible it would still be short of that submission due to his greatness Wherefore though he be hopeless to pay what he owes he will shew at least he hath a will to be just nor doth he blush at his impotency since it springs from the excellency of his Creditour from whom likewise he expects to be enabled towards the discharge of his arrears and he conceives no treasure can be more effectual than that of a right spirit and therefore he incessantly repeats renew in my bowels a right spirit The Application God will be adored in spirit and truth wherefore man is to serve and honour him by a certain knowledge sutable to his intellectual nature now in the essence of God are contained wonders not to be comprehended by the natural force of our understanding Whence we are with our Holy Penitent to Petition for a right spirit that is the excellent light of faith by which we are raised to a more eminent knowledge of the Divinity than all the activity and vigour of our reason could ever reach In this knowledge consists eternal life in the ignorance of this eternal death For with what Face shall he one day ask Heaven of the adorable Trinity who hath never known that mystery Or claim a share in the fruit of our redemption who hath been ignorant of Jesus Christ Let us then beg for this heavenly wisdom by which we are taken off from the low affection to Creatures to fix our Eyes upon the greatness of our Creatour the wonders of his works and amidst a Million of ravishing objects which this right spirit presents to our meditation let us insist with a particular gust on this that our Souls are created for eternal bliss Amen CHAP. XXIII Ne projicias me à facie tua Cast me not away from thy face OUr Holy Penitent seems here to question the success of his precedent petition by which he had sued for a right understanding this argues how unsetled the mind of a sinner is that no sooner he had aimed at this irradiation but immediately he is struck with a terrour of his demerits and fancies his doom is to be eternally banished from the Face of God wherefore he cryes cast me not away from thy Face St. Hierom conceives this clause levels only at the communication of his Divinity in order to the Hypostatick union which he apprehends in punishment of his sin might be concealed from him and therefore he sayes cast me not away from thy face that is deprive me not of the knowledge of thy divine nature as it relates to Man in the great Sacrament of the incarnation It is this mystery he fears to be ravished off which brings along with it a fulness of time and wherein all the groans and labours of many longing Souls will cease and be at rest But the more vogued opinion layes this expression upon his anxiety touching his eternal reprobation He knew he was unworthy of eternal life through the forfeiture of grace he had made and whether being now a Vessel of dishonour the divine Artist will not leave him eternally in this reproachful mould is the just motive of his fear He remembers a passage in Exodus where our Lord threatens to obdurate the heart of Pharaoh and it is no less affrighting what St. Paul declares that God is merciful on whom he will have mercy and in the Fourth Chapter to the Corinthians God hath cast an obcaecation on the Minds of unbelievers Yet our Petitioner is too good a Divine as entertaining these reflections to make God the efficient cause of Man's obdurateness he knowes that
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