consecrated by his life of relinquishing all temporalities and offering up your daily distresses as sacrifices to the glory of God and his Church And we who in all humility may say 2 Cor. 5.20 We are Legats for Christ Pro Christo Legationâ— fungimur being suspended by the violences of these times from the execution of our commission ought by all the meanes feisable seek to transport our discharges to you and since we cannot import our duties in specie I have desired by Gods motion to make thus over to you some little parcell of our debt Saint Paul when he was poorer then we gloryed that being needy he enriched many having nothing he possessed all things and the wealth he transmitted by his letter to the Corinthians 2 Cor. 6. was this coyn of the stamp of the holy Spirit much patience in tribulations in necessities in distresses in stripes in prisons these were the revenues of the Primitive Christians who let out all their estates to their persecutors for this Rent Saint Paul was so well paid in of superabundo gaudio in omni tribulatione I doe abound exceedingly in joy in all our tribulation We then who are Saint Pauls heires in his office though not of his personall estate of grace may likewise lawfully aspire to that benediction of enriching others while we our selves are needy and indigent To make then a convenient present for you in these your necessities I may open the tombes of the Martyrs and Primitive Christians where so much of this spirituall treasure is inclosed and draw out from their rich lives and examples a plentifull support for your vertues in all the oppressions of your fortunes for Gods providence is such towards the reliefe of his necessitous children as all the wealth which the vessells of election had in them when they were temporally cast away is not lost but rather reserved expresly for the succeeding exigences of other times descending upon the streame of the Churches traditions And thus out of the wrecks of Martyrs the chaines of Confessors and the Testaments of the Fathers the Church maketh a vast treasure of perswasion and exemplarity which duly considered I may our of this blessed store present you with sufficient exhortations to patience and longanimity in your present practices of true Christianity I is the nature of man in any private affliction presently to look over the single table-book of his own conscience to try if by the collation of his actions with his sufferings he can make a congruous connexion of the sense of Gods justice out of his faults and his penalty put together And in common calamities we straightwayes resort to all the Church and State-Books that lye open to our memory and revolve them studiously to make this coherence between the occasion and the imposition which lieth upon the publike And when we find nothing satisfactory upon this inquest then by busie retrospection into the Annals records of times we set our thoughts to find out a coherence in the present sentence of God with the precedent irritation and though a long Parenthesis might seem to break off the references between the one and the other we study to make a connexion of the sense of the antecedent causes with the emergent consequences and we are so fond to satisfie our reason in this which seemeth a propriety belonging to it as we are apt to admit great incongruities in the collations of times to make good our sorting of causes to their effects thereby to joyn any probable coherence between our provocations and our punishments because it is some recreation to the pride of man even in the time of his penance to be able as he presumeth to read the hand-writing on the wall though it be his owne sentence after the weighing of Gods provocation But there are some Psal 38. O Lord illuminate my darknesse that I may know what is wanting to me who it may be do sincerely make this enquiry with the Psalmist of Domine illumina tenebras meas ut sciam quid desit mihi and such a search sometimes findeth case in the disquisition of the reasons of Gods judgements when it enquireth not into the equity of them but pleadeth for some light to facilitate a correspondency to Gods designe upon us but when it is curiosity that rangeth to retrive the order and connexion of causes to events then commonly this agitation proveth the most laborious part of their perplexity when they are so earnest in the Pharisees Quousque animam nostram tollu dic nobis palam this desiring God to speak plainer to us is a familiar unmannerlynesse in our nature And thus we intricate our minds the more by this turning and winding our thoughts about in this maze of co-ordination of causes and consequences in the changes of times and dazle our selves very commonly in that inaccessible light where Gods providence resides inseparable from his essence And I may well presume there are of both these sorts of solicitudes amongst you and that some with a reverend zeale to Gods justice mixed with a naturall desire of some refrigeration in the ardours of these times do call with the holyest of Kings Psal 88.47 How long O Lord Job 10.2 Tell me who thou judgest me so Usque quo Domine and others in some more humane impatience and estuation of spirit doe cry out with Job Indica mihi cur me ita judicas The message sent to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna in this same exigence may be well divided into an answer to both these interrogations To the first which may be an humble solicitation of reliefe this part seemeth to belong Dicit primus novissimus scio tribulationem tuam Apoc. 2.9 I know thy tribulation and thy poverty but thou art rich Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer be faithfull untill death and I will give thee the crown of life pau pertatem tuam sed dives es because patience and conformity to Gods order in all his imposures on us is a more reall treasure then any wee can be despoiled of by the worlds pillaging And to the last which may be a more anxious petition this other part seemes to be a pertinent reference Nihil horum time as quae passurus es esto fidelis usque ad mortem dabo tibi coronam vitae This may silence curiosity in the demand of the cause or the limits of our affliction since it setteth the terme of our fidelity in suffering no neerer then the end of our life so as being enjoyned not to seek an exemption untill our death we should enquire no more why we suffer then why we live In conformity to this principle God hath been pleased to suggest to me the presenting you this animadversion which may solve the difficulties of many controverted points in our weak nature concerning affliction namely that you are to state your case as entred into 3. Covenants of
be demonstrated by the cloquence of any living men or Angels and thus the tongues of the Martyrs spoke more plainly the mysteries of their faith when they were torne out of their mouthes by their tortures then while they were tutoring their Disciples Whereupon Tertullian saith to the Persecutors Exquisitior quaeque iniquitas vestra illecebra magis est sectae the more exquisite their iniquity grew the more efficacious allurement it proved to Christian Religion For as he explains it every one being struck with wonder at the vertue and patience of the sufferers began to think that worthy the enquiring into which men thought so much better worth then their lives and these reflections converted more then the best verball expressions to such auditors as thought life not to be equivalenced by any compensation Wherefore Saint Cyprian who was one of the brightest mirrors of these reflections saith The Heathen were wont to conclude that it deserved to be studyed and fully penetrated that perswasion which could induce a man to suffer so much and to dye so willingly And this Lecture of the bodies of the Martyrs convinced more then the books of the Fathers it wrought more upon flesh and blood to see as it were the whole body set to their faith then the single hand as we saw in Malta the Vipers teeth moved them more then S. Pauls tongue and in like manner this wrought those present effects frequently upon multitudes the considering the mindes of Christians shaking off the stings of tortures which hung upon their bodies the peace of their soules remaining inviolated and unoffended by them And those admirable effects of such causes as were naturally opposite to them were demonstrations of this dictate of Saint John You are of God 1â— Joh. 4. and overcome the world because greater is he that is in you then he that is in the world whereof he was one of the most egregious marks being preserved for a spectator after he had been himselfe a patient in the scene of Martyrdome for being condemned to suffer at Rome in a caldron of scalding oyle he came out of it more refreshed then the Emperor out of his baths of precious oyntments he rested in it with little lesse case then he had done in the bosome of his Master For Martyrdome may well be termed the bosome of Christ as it is the neerest part of his body joyning to the suffering head upon the Crosse and as it is the neerest accesse towards a conjunction with the glorified head in heaven And thus the Martyrs did daily verifie this position That he that was in them was greater then the world for they who had subdued the world could not suppresse Christianity Christ chose to triumph over the tyrannie power of the Emperors of the world before he would vouchsafe to be served by them to evidence this for his glory that it was not his necessity that required but his grace that admitted Kings to be nursing-fathers Queens to be nursing-mothers to his mysticall body upon earth This also deserveth our animadversion that soone after the Church came to suck at those brests she fell into fits of Convulsion interiour Heresies which endangered her more then all the exteriour wounds of Persecution she had received Whereby appeareth that the milk of Princes was not so healthfull for her as the blood of Martyrs For even in Constantine the Great his time who was the first Princely Foster-father of the Church Arianisme began to breed in her The denying the Divinity of Christ and this disease in his time notwithstanding all his cures and remedies administred lay still so neasted in her as presently after his death the corruption broke out into desperate convulsions and the very brest of her temporall nursing father was cancer'd with this Heresie For the second sonne of Constantine named Constantius to whom in the partition of the Empire the East was assigned revolted professedly to Arianisme and in a few yeeres this poyson had so spread by his diffusion as the leprosie had over-run almost all the Easterne Churches insomuch as Christianity seemed more endangered by this canker in the breast of an Emperour professing to nurse it then it had been by all those raging Lyons that sought to devoure it So much more dangerous was it to part Christs Divinity from the Church then to have the whole world united against her while that was acknowledged and relyed upon for the support This perill sprang out of Prosperity when the Emperours of the East seemed to think their Religion supported strongly enough without the Divinity of Christ whereas Rome which was then fallen away in all temporall diminution maintained the intire profession of Christian faith against all the gates of hell which the Emperours under pretence of being watchmen upon the tower had opened against her and for many yeares S. Peters barke floated as it were in an Ocean of Arianisme which had covered the Eastern and had broke in upon many parts of the Western Empire It were too long a work to make a journall of the voyage of S. Peters barke through all those ages in which it hath beene exposed to the stormes of diverse persecutions and the sands of innumerable heresies it hath passed over with safety That which respecteth most my purpose is to clucidate to you how temporall adversity and tribulation have alwaies contributed to the purity of the Doctrine and manners of the Catholike Church for I doe not meane to touch any Controversie but in defence of those you may unjustly account your adversaries which are the crosses and afflictions of these times and to dispute for the use and benefit of them against your diffidence and irresolution in this hower of your examination which I hope by the grace of God may be effected in some degree by this suggestion to you of those Covenants and obligations of suffering wherein you are engaged which I may urge to you in the termes of the mirror of sufferers S. Paul 1 Thes 3.2 I have sent this to you and exhort you for your faith that no man be moved in these tribulations for your selves know that we are appointed to this Me thinks this should lenify and disasperate all the sense of our afflictions to reflect how under these two notions of the Sonnes of Adam and the Brothers of Christ we are designed to sufferings For as men the holy spirit telleth us Job 5.7 Man is born to labor and the bird to flight insomuch as we should wonder no more at our troubles then at our nature Wherefore S. Gregory upon Jobs scraping his soares with a piece of a broken pot saith He made clean one dirt with another for the holy man reflected from whence that was taken which he wore and with a fragment of one piece of clay he scrapes another broken vessell so as considering himselfe in that fragment of clay in the cleansing and extersion of his sores he did also dresse and
and what is joyned that he adored manifesteth that in all his sorrow he did not seek to reclaime or retract the judgement of his senteneer Therefore he was not moved lest he might offend by an excesse of resentment nor unmoved lest he might seeme to slight the corrector by insensiblenesse But as there are two precepts of charity the love of God and the love of our neighbour to the end that he might performe the dilection of his neighbour he did exhibit mourning and sorrow for his children and lest he might trespasse against the love of God even among his sighs he rendred his adoration and as he fell under the blow so he adored in the fall and thus compleated the offices of a son of man and a child of God Surely these words of S. Gregory doe fully regulate your case that you may sorrow and grieve in order to the expressing a sense of your chastisements and paying the duty of traternall charity But you must alwayes joyne the worshipping of God by an humble and cheerful conformity to his finall designâ—s even upon the publick as well as upon your personall sentences And being setled in this disposition Psal 65. My mouth hath spoken in my tribulation holocausts with marrow wil I offer thee you are in that state in which the Psalmists heart was setled when he said Locutum est os meum in tribulatione mea holocausta medullata offeram tibi wherein is the good odour of all offerings For in this feeling of our owne stripes and our fellow-feeling of the stripes of others and our sacrificing of both to the love of God we fulfill the two precepts of love which containe discharges of all the rest Now we have admitted sorrow with such due restrictions as the Apostle alloweth it contributary to salvation being 1 Cor. 7.10 A sorrow according to God which worketh pennance unto salvation there is another question very oovious in these conjunctures which requireth a solid resolution as how farre we are obliged to conform our wills to the declared wil of God in publike judgements and in cases of the prevalence of injustice and violence over right and equity This case is thus regulated in Divinity We know the Will is or ought to be carryed to the object thereof according to what is proposed by Reason and it hapneth often that the same thing may be diversly confidered by Reason so that which in some respect is good in another may be ill therefore when our will defireth any thing as it hath the nature of good our defire is licite and rectified and if another desireth the contrary in the same thing as it hath in his sense the nature of a good that opposite Will is also good and approvable As the will of a Judge is just when he voteth the death of a Malefactor and the desire of the wife or son of the condemned which opposeth the other as they apprehend the husbands life under the notion of a good is also lawfull and vertuous The Judge governeth his will by the common good of Justice and the wife by the private of her family and so both their wills are ordered respectively to their severall reasons Now it is the good of the whole Universe that is primarily in the apprehension and conception of God who is the Maker Pâ—eserver and Ruler thereof whereupon all that he willeth is in order to the common good which is his own goodnesse and that is it which is the good of the Universe But the nature of the creature is to apprehend good as it is particular and proportionate to her nature and there are matters which have the nature of particular goods which doe not hold so in an universal respect and the same holdeth convertibly Whereby it comes to passe that some will is good desiring a thing in order to a particular good which God doth not will because man wisheth according to the light he hath and his owne apprehension which cannot extend to the discernment how the particular he wisheth concordeth or discordeth with the universall benefit which he is obliged to prefer as far as he is informed onely So that to constitute a rectifyed will in the desire of a particular good the private may be wished materially but the common and divine good must be intended formally that is the thing we desire may be affected as the matter of it is a good to us and the end of our affecting it must be as we conceive it good and agreeable to the common order of God upon the world Therefore the wil of man is obliged to be conformable to that of God in the thing he wisheth in this respect of referring it to the fulfilling of the universall designe of his Creatour But he is not commanded to annex his will to every particular matter wherein Gods will is declared because he is not informed how that special course conduceth to the common good so as he may wish the accomplishment of Gods purposes by those wayes notified to his reason to be most equitable and consonant to the divine goodnesse And because we cannot judge how the ruine of a good cause doth contribute to the common good we may well dissent in that particular marter and yet still remaine resigned to the Universall Providence In this order many of the Saints have deprecated even Gods revealed judgements to them as Abraham in the case of Sodome and it is evident and frequent in all the Prophets when they appeal from Gods severity declared to his mercy which they solicited some so vehemently even after many prohibitions as God is faine to silence them as Samuel in the case of Saul and Jeremy in the behalfe of the captived people and many the like materiall inconformities we find in the Saints But this kind of discrepancy is better called a Velleity or wishing that Gods order were otherwise then a dissenting from it and this incomplete concurrence with the Divine will is dispensed with in this our imperfect light which we receive but through a dim glasse and till we come to be above all sense of sorrow we shall never be exempted from a defective perspection through the causes of all calamities in this world and so there is no more conformity exacted of us then there is illumination imparted The blessed who see many present acts and the sequences of the Divine providence in that light which showeth all satisfaction at first sight have their wills as intirely united as their understandings consummately informed Wherefore if we have a rectifide sense of the defective adherence of our wills to God even that resentment may be very supplymentall to the deficiency of our present condition It seemes cleere therefore that in all common calamities wherein the violations of justice are manifest our wills may safelyer be as I have explained unconformable to Gods will declared in those grievances remaining in a confession of our incapacity to conceive the reference they
have to his glory then our wills may be concurrent with Gods moved by the presumption of our understanding upon the concluding it selfe rationally satisfied with the causes of such events For this adherence is upon a worse ground then the other suspension in regard it resteth upon Reason more then upon Faith So they who are conformed to Gods pleasures as they suppose themselves informed of the equity of them may be better said to adhere to their own sufficiency Psal 138. Thy knowledge is become marvailous of me it is made great and I cannot reach to it then to Gods sentence Therefore in all temptations of inspection and prying into the causes of various successes let us quickly break off all such consults with this of the Psalmist Mirabilis facta est scientia tua ex me confortata est non potero ad eam and in such a disposition even our sorrow may be acceptable when our self-fufficiency on the other side is much more unconformable to the will God though it produce an acquiescence to the present occurrencies We ought then with great care and vigilancy to oppose this propension in our nature to retrive satisfactory causes in all our crosses and exigencies For this is a crooked line from the first point and so distorts our thoughts the more the farther they are extended in it All these premisses well weighed will afford us clearly this conclusion that in publick adversities and private afflictions our will may seem to differ frō Gods in the matter of present calamities as in the prevailing of injustice or the detriments we suffer by our enemies so our wills be conjoyned with the divine will in the reason of our desiring what we doe that is when we wish that difference only as we conceive it more conducent to Gods glory And so the very rise of our discordancy is from the stock of a finall conformity Jer. 17 4. I am not troubled and the daies of man I have not desired thouknowest and in this disposition of our infirme nature we may say with the Prophet in all our imperfect adherence Et ego non sum turbatus diem hominis non desideravi tu scis When our desires are not referd to any human projects but directed to the Vniversail accomplishment of Gods orders Psal 106. The just shall see and shall rejoyce and all iniquity shall stop her mouth who is wise and will keep these things and will understand the mercies of our Lord they fall not under the notion of desiring the daies of man but of God And so I will pertinently as I conceive close up this point with the Psalmist who after having given much councell and consolation to the afflicted maketh up and sealeth all with Videbunt justi latabuntur omnis iniquitas opilabit os suum quis sapiens custodiet haec intelliget misericordias Domini CHAP. IX Advises of the readyest way to consolation in all afflictions WHen Christ Jesus was much lesse beleeved then he is now by you and did but command blind Bartimaeus to be called to him Marc. 10.49 they who were sent for him advised him to be of good comfort only upon this motive of his being called as if Christs taking but notice of him had been sufficient security even for the miracle he wanted May not I then very justly counsell you to take comfort and bringing you a more consolatory message which containeth not only a call but a contract for your reliefes the which is specified in this voice of Christ addressed to you Mat. 11.28 Come ye to me all that labour and are burthened and I will refresh you take my yoke upon you and you shall find rest to your soules If the blind man then cast off his garment came leaping to his single call you may well put off all coverings of darknesse and disconsolation from your hearts and come cheerfully not onely to this vocation but to this covenant which is as a counter-security given you by God to save you harmlesse in all your engagements in the three Covenants of sufferance wherein I have shewed you your obligations For here is rest to your soules passed by contract to you by the word of Truth it selfe when you are possessed of this peace and case of your hearts they shall feele the retrenchment of your worldly accommodations little more then our bodies doe the abscission of some excrescent portions For faithfull hearts are as little damnified by any such rescinding or diminution of the conveniencies of this life as bodies by losse of haire Therefore as the remedy of all consists in the assecution of this promise of Christ so the onely meanes of compassing it is the resorting to him for it in that manner prescribed by his call you may all think your selves nominated in this Proclamation of grace as you are qualified with the conditions specified of being in labour and under burthens and yet you may easily mistake what loads you are called to bring first to be discharged of your temporall gravations that lye upon you may goe neere to hasten you too much in your starting forward into this course of reliefe without looking out and laying uppermost that burthen which must be first removed before you can hope for this lightning and exoneration which is proposed unto you And indeed these times without a particular prevention by the grace of God are likely to tempt many to come to Christ with their first suit as he did in the Gospel that came with his first motion of complaining on his brothers detention of his inheritance and desiring Christ to right him in that oppression Luk. 12.18 this was the heaviest burthen whereof he was sensible of some unjust sequestration lying upon him But we know Christs answer cleereth this case to us that his call doth not summon such pressures to come in for ease in the first place The greedy man who had constituted Christ for his temporall Judge made himselfe a Delinquent in what he was a Judge of and found him no Judgel in what he would have had him one And so shall all those who come to Christ to commence their first suit about any temporall damages find this plea cast out rather then admitted and their burthens will but grow the heavier by this earnestnesse to be discharged of them they will be but like weights taken off from their backs and laid upon their heads where they will more annoy them It most importeth us then to be rightly resolved of what burthen we ought first to seek our discharge for it is one of so strange a nature as the increase of the weight diminisheth alwayes the feeling and sensiblenesse of the carryer And this insensiblenesse as it augmenteth doth likewise aggravate the weight so as there is a great perill to leave never so little of this matter that hideth it selfe by the same degrees it heightens in us These qualities are so
These considerations I am certain may justifie my giving you joy of your present conditions and if you take it you will need solicite no other reparatory for if the poverty of Christ doth thus enrich you O! what may you hope for in the plenitude of his treasure from such a master as is able to furnish joy to the followers of him in his sorrow what may be expected at the entring into that masters joy Thus I have visited the principall stations of our Crosse-bearers and according to my best capacity I have offered the hungry meat the strangers hospitality the prisoners society I have served every one faithfully with their severall portions of consolation which the great master of the family distributeth to them through my hands therefore I shall now exhibit unto them all collectively this Pharmacum Catholicum this Canonike or universall receipt of Saint Paul applyable to all conditions Phil. 1.28 In nothing be terrified of the adversaries which to them is cause of perdition but to you of salvation and that of God for to you it is given for CHRIST not only that you beleeve in him but also that you suffer for him CHAP. XIII A Summary of the precedent Treatise WHen I view these sheets mee thinks they call to my minde the Booke sent to the Prophet Ezekiel written full with these three Contents Lamentations A Song and Wee whereunto the three Covenants of Sufferance the subject of my lines may be not improperly accommodated For the first of them as Men answereth well to the Lamentations of the Prophet as consisting altogether of sorrow and labour And the second as Christians reporteth to the Song which signifieth praising and gladnesse for under the notion of Christians we may fitly sing and rejoyce in our obligation to suffer And the last as Catholikes relateth not unfitly to the third of Wee For as Persecution and the Crosse was the Mother so affliction hath alwayes been one of the nurses of Catholike Religion And the state of Christians standing in the middle doth like the Sun in the Skie inlighten the orbes above and below it for this condition of suffering as members of Christ disasperates the thorns left in the sides of the sonnes of Adam and sweetens that Cuppe mingled with Myrrhe which we take from the hand of our mother the Catholike Church who gathereth Myrrhe with all her Aromaticall spices And I would to God there were but as much similitude between the persons as between the Commissions of the Prophet and mine for he was sent to treat of these subjects with people in your condition the Church of God in persecution and captivity to enjoyn them Lamentation for their sinnes to promise them joy to their obedience and to denounce Woe against their inconformity Which offices I have discharged to the best of my capacity and I may owne the charge from God in that order wherein all good gifts come from above Jam. 1.17 from the Father of lights and more precisely by Saint Pauls direction 2 Cor. 3.9 of Communicating to the necessities of the Saints Rom. 12.13 without arrogating any thing towards the least glimpse of pretending an extraordinary warrant The Apostle investeth us with this honour of being Gods coadjutors Wherefore the meanest of that function may avouch his Spirit for the author of what tendeth to the communicating of his good impulses to the refection and solace of his desolated brothers So that whatsoever in these lines shall bring any drop of consolation passeth my pen but as through a pipe which giveth conveyance only no virtue to what is transfused And I desire there may be no more ascribed to my inke then ought to be to the durt or the water of Siloe John 9.24 which were used in the blinde mans cure for it may be truly answered to all such as shall receive any benefit by my pen Give glory unto God for we know this man is a sinner They who will benefit by these my prescriptions must be desired to enter into a serious consideration of these three points which doe naturally issue from the heads of our triple covenant The first is the misery of our estate as sonnes of Adam The second is the dignified condition of the members of Christ The third is security of being such by our incorporation into the Catholike Church the which only is his body and his spouse The first may be ministred against all refractory humour that exasperateth our grievances the which we may-sweeten by this reflection that We are born to sorrow as birds to fly Job 5.7 This may well asswag our distempers to consider sufferance not as an estate of compulsion but of consonancy to our condemned nature The second may present to us our sentence of sorrow converted into a gratification by proving the means of our connexion to such an head who by putting the griefs and dolours of our nature into his bosome hath taken out the sting and hath taught us to kill their venome by imbracing them And the third ascertaineth us to be within that circle wherein the eternall benefit of all the sorrows of the head or members are limited and determined This triangle of meditation is well proportioned to all your suffering hearts in which forme I have drawn this present of my heart unto you and having borrowed of Saint Paul the most of what I have presented to you to make up the want of weight in what is of mine owne stock I will borrow this also from him 2 Cor. 12.15 This little labour I most gladly bestow and will my selfe moreover be bestowed for your soules If I may make a request to you upon this present it shall be to retain châ—ifly the second of these three points I have treated which are your obligation to suffer your manner of bearing the Crosse and your merit in the faithfull carriage thereof There is little danger of your forgetting the first in these times nor any feare of Gods forgetting of the last both in this time and in eternity Heb. 6.10 God is not unjust that he should forget your work and love which you have shewed in his name So as all the difficulty rests in your coÌ„plying faithfully with the Evangelicall manner of suffering exhibited so fairely to you in the practise and precepts of our Saviour Christ Jesus who as Saint Peter urgeth it to us 1 Pet. 2.21 suffered for us leaving us an example that you may follow his steps which I have set out before you as fairly figured and impressed upon these papers as my skill can afford their edition I have shewed you their Marches towards friends and their Postures to enemies in the exercises of all sorts of charities active and passive I have exposed unto you the Apostles and the Martyrs following of Christ in the same track all making one procession of the Crosse I have removed all those stumbling blocks and stones of scandall I could find in