A SERMON Preach'd in the Chappel of HIS EXCELLENCY THE SPANISH EMBASSADOR On the Second Sunday of ADVENT December 4. 1687. On which was Solemniz'd the Feast of St. Francis Xaverius of the Society of JESVS Apostle of the INDIES and Kingdom of JAPAN By the R. F. LEWIS SABRAâ— of the same Society PERMISSU SVPERIORVM LONDON Printed by Henry Hills Printer to the King 's Most Excellent Majesty for His Houshold and Chappel And are sold at his Printing-house on the Ditch-side in Black-Fryers 1687. A SERMON Preach'd in the Chappel of his Excellency The SPANISH Embassador On the Second Sunday of Advent December 4. 1687. Caeci vident claudi ambulant leprosi mudantur surdi audiunt mortui resurgunt pauperes Evangelizantur beatus qui non fuerit scandalizatus in me Matt. 11. 5 6. The blind see the lame walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead rise to life the poor have the Gospel preached to them and happy is he who is not scandalized in me IT is a weighty Doubt which in this Sundays Gospel St. John moves by his Disciples his Chains not allowing him the liberty to offer it himself to our Blessed Lord to be resolved a Tu es qui venturus es Matt. 11. Are you he who is to come Are you that Saviour whom for so many Ages the sighing Prophets have asked gracious Heaven hath promised the longing Earth expected An Important Quaere For what can be of a nearer concern than not to mistake our God b Haec est vita aeterna ut cognoscant te solum Deum verum quem misisti Jesum Christum Joan. 17. 'T is that Life everlasting which we hope for to know by the light of Glory our sole true God and him he hath sent Jesus Christ And 't is the only way leading to that Life to know Both here by the light of Faith. But doth the Voice then question the Word that formed and sent it Is that Head-Mystery concealed from St. John than whom a greater Prophet is not born of a Woman No certainly The Eternal Father lately bore in his presence witness to Christ at the Bank of the River Jordan Even when yet inclos'd in his Mothers Womb he owned his Lord and Prophesied of him before he could speak Lately he proclaimed him to be the Lamb of God which takes away the Sins of the World T is at the very proposal of this Doubt that he receives that high Character of c Major inter natos mulierum propheta Joanne Baptista nemo est Luc. 7. Joan. 1. More than a Prophet becoming by this his Embassy also an Apostle for d Ut sibi quaerens illis disceret Hier ad Aglas as St. Jerom observes St. John proposes the Doubt of his mistaken Disciples that they may be instructed by Jesus his Answer 'T is their Ignorance e Non suae sed discipulorum ignorantiae Joannes consulit Hil. sup Matt. says S. Hilary that he designs to remove not his own Knowledge that he would improve Christians of England if I may call by one Name People of so different a Belief of such opposit Persuasions the Church of God asks in her Gospel the same Question this Day Tu es Are you the Lord And well she may when she finds her Subjects so divided about him * Matt. 24. Here is Christ says one with my Band only No There is Christ in that other different Party says a Second He is within says a Third this Private Spirit of mine singles him from amongst the false ones He was in the Wilderness another pretends there he had been hidden for many Ages till we lately discover'd him Thus each Sect each Party each Division challenges him He is not in all these so different so opposite Beliefs for he is not f Non enim est dissentionis Deus sed pacis 1 Cor. 14. the God of Dissention but of Peace and Unity To correct these various Errors to redress so dangerous Mistakes the true Church in imitation of St. John asks him this Day the same Question Tu es Are you the Lord you that are Adored by my Children Worshipped on my Altars I know each Sect will answer Here he is this is his true Worship which I pay But we are never the nearer some unquestionable and potent Proof must be offered Hence our Blessed Lord answered not the Disciples of St. John by a bare Assertion I am he All Deceivers and Antichristian Cheats could give in that Answer for themselves each false Prophet was ever the readiest to cry out The Word of the Lord the pure Word of the Lord. Jesus brought Facts in lieu of Words and elsewhere assures us that if he had g Si ego testimonium perhibeo de meipso testimonium meum non est verum Joan. 5. 31. with bare words born witness to himself and challenged thereupon to be believed it ought to have been held as a false one and not to have been regarded This was his Answer The blind see the lame walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead rise to life Behold the First Proof and Mark Miracles unquestionable by reason of their greatness number evidence The poor are preached unto behold the Second to wit those unusual Means humanly of no force used to convert and subdue the World by poor silly ignorant Men and again their refusal of all human Helps towards so vast an Enterprise And happy is he who is not scandalized in me behold the Third to wit those eminent supernatural Gifts and Blessings bestowed on those who embraced his Poverty and Abjection so unknown unto or despised by the World which were undeniable Proofs of his Apostles Holiness We agree all about the Messias convinced by those undoubted Marks now observed but many are the more miserable and guilty whilst they debate about his Doctrin and Law and so neither receive the one nor obey the other How shall a well-meaning Man clear these Doubts and find out his true Doctrin Church Worship whom he owns to be his God and Redeemer Could any of this Churches Witnesses give the same Evidence and Proofs which Christ gave for himself our Differences would be at an end our Doubts cleared our Faith setled Christian Auditors God most mercifully offers us many one I will produce this Day the great Apostle of the Indies and the Kingdoms of Japan Xaverius All things concur to move me to speak of him First my Text for I intend to prove that his Life and Actions give the same Answer the same Proofs for the truth of the Catholic Church which Christ gave to evince himself to be the true Messias So that if we proceed on those Motives which Christ himself judged the clearest and safest we must all be Catholics or no Christians Next the general Devotion of the pious World towards this great Apostle of our Days during this Octave of his Feast exacts it of me Again the
him signing their Mission with these following words Healthe Sick raise the Dead cleanse the Leprous cast out Devils And that we might not believe these singular Graces to attend only the first Apostles he assures us without any limitation of Time or Place That those who believe in him John 14. shall do the same Works which He did and greater than those that such Signs and Wonders shall follow those who believe From this clear Method and plain Doctrin of Christ and his Apostles and from this following unquestionable Truth grounded on God's Goodness and Justice to wit That as men are bound to receive the Doctrin which God sends his Servants to preach to them so he cannot induce them into an Error by permitting it to be proposed in his Name and upheld by Prodigies which may prudently be believed to be wrought by his hand it follows First That Miracles are clear proofs by which may be resolved all doubts about questioned Revelations and consequently that there be undoubted Marks to know them by otherwise they would be useless Secondly That God in his Mercy cannot permit that a man slily covering his false Doctrin pretending to be sent by him and to teach only what is conformable to what he hath hitherto revealed in holy Scripture should work Miracles to uphold Falshood and that no one of those who oppose him should work greater in defence of Truth These Principles being thus cleared and settled I form this Argument for Christianity against a Jew or Pagan to which I crave your attention that you may observe if it faulters in any part or whether it concludes not rather in favour of Us Christians an impossibility of being mistaken in adoring Christ and an evident Obligation to it If there were such Persons as Christ and his Apostles and if they wrought such clear Miracles in Proof of the Doctrin which they taught as are related in the Testament it is certain that all men sufficiently informed of those Miracles are bound to receive their Doctrin as a Truth revealed by God. But there were such Men and such Miracles wrought by them and we are all sufficiently informed of them therefore we are all bound to believe and profess the Doctrin taught by Christ and his Apostles that is to be Christians Is this Argument plain and convincing or no May not the Major Proposition if deny'd be easily proved beyond the possibility of a Reply out of the two Principles before laid open As for the Minor no one can refuse his assent to it who considers how those Miracles were wrought in the sight of great Multitudes of which most were declared Enemies to Christ and his Disclples how the Records we find them in were handed to us from Eye-witnesses without any probable Objection ever being opposed to their Truth how they were owned by the very Enemies of Christ for true Records how the miraculous Effects of those Prodigies remain in the wonderful Conversion of the World to Christianity how they have equally been sealed with the Blood of Martyrs the Virtues and Heavenly Gifts of Confessors how these Persons and their miraculous Works were prophesied before and such Prophecies preserved in the hands of their Enemies did point out all the Circumstances that attended their Persons and Miracles how to conclude no other Religion or Belief was ever thus evidently attested by the Omnipotency of God ever thus visibly subscribed unto with his Hand and marked with his Seal Say Christians are these Proofs clear and convincing Yea or No Do you believe your selves strictly bound under pain of Eternal Damnation to believe God speaking to you as plainly as these Miraculous Proofs convince you that 't is He who spoke by Christ and his Apostles Yes or No Yes we may then well conclude our selves all bound to be Christians and we may convince Jews and Gentiles such as are not wilfully obstinate of their obligation to become Proselyâ—es to our Religion But now we are at variance amongst our selves These Arguments I have offered convince indeed each of us that what Christ and his Apostles did teach was the Truth that all who can come to the Knowledge of that Faith which they preach'd that Religion which they setl'd that Church which they form'd are bound under pain of Eternal Damnation to embrace that Faith to profess that Religion and to be Members of that Church but we differ as to the other main Point to wit what Faith they did preach what Religion they settled what Church they formed To reduce then all dissenting Christians to one Faith one Religion one Church what can be a more infallible and unquestionable Motive than to use the same Argument which moves us all to be Christians Which I thus offer altering only such words in it which fit it to our Case without taking away any thing from its force If there was such a man as Xaverius and if he wrought such clear Miracles in proof of the Doctrin which he taught as are related in all the Histories of the Indies and of Japan and in his Life written in all Countries and Languages it is certain that all men sufficiently inform'd of those Miracles are bound to receive his Doctrin as a Truth revealed by God. But there was such a Man and such Miracles wrought by him and we are all or may be when we please sufficiently informed of them therefore we are all bound to believe and profess the Doctrin taught by him that is to be Roman Catholics Is this Argument clear and convincing If so why are we not Catholics If not how are we Christians induced to it by the former which is the very same with this All that needs then to be attempted is only to evince the parity which I shall do first by exposing in short to your view those admirable Miracles of Xaverius which will appear to be the same with those that were wrought by the Prophets by Christ by his Apostles next by shewing that no Objection can be made against them which may not be of equal force in a Pagan's or a Jew's mouth in opposition to the Miracles and Prodigies wrought by the Prophets by Christ by his Apostles If I make good these two Points this Conclusion will unavoidable follow Whoever is a Christian on the true grounds of Christianity must also be a Catholic or if no Catholic no Christian The Prodigies which God wrought by St. Xaverius were such that I dare say of them in general they are the best Instance the Church of God hath had from the first Apostles time of the truth of two Promises of Christ the first * Ecce ego vobiscum sum usque ad consummationem saeculi Mat. 28. Behold I shall be with you to the consummation of Ages the second †John 14. The Works which I do they shall do and greater than these they shall do What greater Miracles can be an evident proof of a Prophet's or an Apostle's Mission than to command
Slaves he had Christned I◠piscariâ Boubours V. X. lib. 6. especially amongst the Paravais having recovered their Liberty chose to forfeit it again by returning to their old Masters rather than to lose the opportunity of frequenting the Sacraments Almost all the Inhabitants of the Island Manar by an illustrious Martyrdom consigned to Posterity their Zeal for Religion equal to the most generous Instances of the Primitive Church of Christ near the whole Nation being destroyed by their Neighbor Heathen Kings whilst not one would disown his Baptism the very Mothers producing their Children and alledging their Baptism as a Title to Martyrdom In Congoxima a Kingdom of Japan he left but a hundred Christians without the help or comfort such new Converts seemed to stand in need of from some Priest yet not one fell off from his Faith tho' pressed to it by a most severe and bloody Persecution raised against them by the Bonzies their Blood and good Example of truly Christian Virtues swell'd up the number of Converts to Four hundred and obliged their King by a solemn Embassy to ask some Priest from the Vice-Roy of the Indies who should Confirm so miraculously established a Christianity Neither were his Converts only inconsiderable unlearned and stupid People He Baptized several Crowned Heads their Families and Courts He had the comfort to see Princes divested of their States and Personal Wealth following him with Joy thus naked for Christ into Banishment and that in Japan a Country where Superstition was raised to its greatest height What can be objected more against these Miracles which if allowed would not equally disprove those which the Apostles wrought If we give belief to the one how can we refuse it to the other If these be of force to make us Christians why shall not those convince us as unavoidably that we must be of that Catholic Religion which Xaverius Legat à Latere of the Bishop of Rome and Priest of the Society of JESVS did profess himself a Member of and Converted so many Kingdoms unto If any one puts this difference betwixt Xaverius's Miracles and those of Christ and his Apostles that these were foreseen by Prophets whose Writings were preserved in the Hands of the very Enemies of Christ that most pregnant Proof for Christian Religion equally supports the Catholic Cause and Xaverius's Miracles for not only Xaverius's Aunt a Religious Virgin of eminent and approved Virtue in the Monastery of S. Clare at Gandia Magd. Jasse by Letters persuaded the Saints Father In proc Canon not to withdraw him from the University of Paris as he designed on the account of the great Expences he put him unto there because writ she he is a chosen Vessel of God designed to be the Apostle of a new World but the very barbarous Indians of Travancor acknowledged him their promised Apostle according to the ancient Prophecy carved by St. Thomas on a Pillar of Free-stone yet standing there which assured them that White Men should come from another World to teach them the way to Heaven and to restore to its lustre decayed Christianity when the Sea then Eighty Miles distant should reach that Pillar which it did few Years before Xaverius came thither and Xaverius in particular was foretold by the Proto-Martyr of the Indies Peter Couillan at the moment that stuck with Darts he shed by many Wounds his Blood for the Name of Christ Fifty Years before Xaverius's Arrival into the Indies Thirteen before his Birth Now such Prophecies are the most infallible Tests of Miracles and Missions because they take off all whatever Habemus propheticum sermonem certiorem voce delapsa de coelo 2 Pet. 1. suspicion of private Ends which incredulous Men are willing to fasten on actual Miracles as St. Augustin observes which made St. Peter own such Prophecies to be more certain than a Voice coming down from Heaven One further Objection some may offer at to wit That these Miracles were wrought only in proof of those common and general Certiorem dixit non meliorem non veriorem c. Aug. Ser. 115. in Nov. Articles of Christian Religion not in debate amongst those who have the Name of Christian and therefore are no Proof of the Catholic Faith as to those Points which are not owned by Dissenting Sectaries I had not believed this could have been objected had I not met with it even in the studied Writings of those who pretend to Sense and own I believe no small share of it but employ it unsuccessfully in a bad Cause against the very most authentic Declarations from God. Could not the Jews have returned the very same Objection to our Blessed Lord and his Apostles Miracles and said they were brought only to prove the Sanctity of the Law which he owned that he came not Non veni legem solvere sed adimplere to break or repeal but to fulfil Again If Miracles may thus be wrought in Confirmation of some Points only of a Doctrin false otherwise in others and erroneous how happens it that no one ever who was not a Catholic happening to be in those Countries by the occasion of Reformed Plantations could work a Miracle to persuade those Infidels of the truth of Christian Religion But to clear this important Point there is not an Article of Catholic Belief not a Part of Catholic Practice which this Saint hath not proved by evident Miracles to be revealed by and acceptable to God. To instance in few If Devotion to the blessed Virgin and the Rosary in particular be a part of Catholic Belief and Practice this Saint Confirmed it by an evident Miracle when at Meliapor giving his Beads to a Merchant then Sailing off he said to him 'T will not be of small use be but devout to the Virgin Mary For the Ship splitting on a Rock this Merchant and some few others reached it then on a Plank committed themselves again to the merciless Waves to escape certain Death by Famine He said his Beads the only comfort or hope then left him being in that Devotion and Xaverius's Prediction when on a sudden after a short Extasie in which he seemed to Converse with S. Xaverius he found himself alone on the Shore without knowing where he lost his Companions who perished all in the Stormy Waves If Invocation and Litanies of Saints be our Practice he hath proved both to be acceptable to God for a little Prayer-Book containing only the Saints Litanies being left by him with the Princess of Ekandono applied by her to her Lord suddenly recovered him from the Agony and Convulsions of Death and restored him to perfect Health If we Honor their Relics 't was his Reliquary the Saint put usually in his young Neophites Hands when he sent them to cure the Sick or to cast the Devils out of possest Persons both which they scarce ever failed to perform by applying it Do we value Holy-Water on the account of the Holy Churches Blessing and the
Habit I have the Honor to wear the Society I am an unworthy Member of challenges it a Society he won such a Credit unto and reciprocally so valued that his last Letters from Cochino into Europē own that he miraculously escaped an infinity of Dangers by recommending himself to the Merits and Prayers of the living and deceased Members of it that he could make no end when he spoke of the value of and love for it which he had that he should sooner forget his h Cum oblitus fuero tui societas Jesu oblivioni detur dextera mea Epist l. 2. Ep. 2. Ex Card. Anton Zapata own Right-hand than that tenderness In fine this very Chappel of the Catholic King forbids me to pass by a Saint of the Royal Blood of Navar whose prodigious Success in Apostolical Labors hath gained to Spain the glorious Character which St. Prosper gave to Catholic Rome to wit That i Quidquid non possidet armis Religione tenet Carm. de Ing. what Parts of the World her Sword hath not subdued to her Empire her Piety and Religion hath Conquered for Christ k Maria sancta Mater Domini nostri Jesu Christi obtine pro nobis ab amabili filio tuo ut credamus hanc veritatem sine ullo dubio Epist l. 1. Ep. 5. Sacred Virgin the great Xaverius never begun a Sermon or Catechism without begging by your Intercession the Knowledge and Practice of the Vertue he treated of In Imitation of him I beg of your Divine Son by the Mediation of your Intercession that I may even to the most wilfully blind of Sectaries shew in the Life and miraculous Actions of Xaverius the most evident Proofs of true Religion and Piety to be found only in the Catholic Church and to the Members thereof the Security of their Faith the Sanctity of their Law the Piety of their Practices AVE MARIA OUR Blessed Lord being to give convincing Proofs of his Divinity to St. John's Disciples such as by their Evidence should lay them and the whole Nation of the Jews under a clear Obligation of owning him drew them not from the written Law or any part of Holy Scripture nor from any Character of Divinity or any such self-persuading Truth that appeared in his holy Word tho' uttered from his own Blessed Mouth or from the Holiness of his Principles the Sanctity and Congruity of his whole Doctrin such Marks could be comprehended by few or were the very Points in Debate He took them from plain Matters of Fact exposed to the dullest proportioned to the meanest Capacities for such ought to be the Proofs of a Religion which excluded none from its Profession but opened Heaven equally to all This was the first the grand and certain Motive of Credibility disposing all to reduce their Understandings unto a due humble subjection to Faith The blind see the lame walk the leprous are cleansed the deaf hear the dead are raised to life By which he left to each Man this Argument to frame Where such evident Prodigies are wrought 't is clear that Gods Hand subscribes to the Doctrin in Evidence whereof they are brought But Gods infinite Veracity cannot attest and his equal Bounty cannot admit us to be most credibly persuaded that he does attest an Untruth Therefore all that Christ teaches is true he is then the Son of God since he declares himself to be so In the beginning of his Preaching he had exposed to the Jews the same Motive by which he pretended they were to be convinced of their Obligation of receiving him to wit because a Hunc enim signavit Deus Joan. 6. his Father Sealed his Commission by which he authorised him to Preach Some Ages before the Prophet Isay warned that incredulous Nation that the clear Marks by which they should undoubtedly know this great Prophet should be these self-same b Tunc aperientur oculi caecorum aures surdorum tunc patebunt saltet tanquam Cervus claudus Isa 35. miraculous Cures of their Sick their blind their lame their leprous Which Wonders were so convincing that our Blessed Lord owned to the Jews that altho' they refused to yield to those Motives which he offered them in his Sermons yet they could not without obstinacy refuse c Opera quae Ego facio testimonium perhibent de me illis credite si verbis non vultis Joan 10. a Belief to his Works which could part from no other Hand but that of God. Such was their Blindness yet such also was the Light his Miracles did yield towards the discovery of the Truths which he taught them that he acknowledged they might have found an Excuse for their Insidelity and without sin have refused to submit to him had he not d Si opera non fecissem in illis quae nemo alius fecit peccatum non haberent Joan. 15. 1 Cor. 4. 2 Cor. 12. wrought greater Miracles than any before amongst them to which consequently no other like Miracles could be pretended to be opposed and therefore nothing that might weaken their Divine Authority to which they could not without a heinous sin refuse Obedience and an entire Submission This was the Method used by Christ as the most natural and clear the most capable to conquer Mens proud yet dull Minds and to fasten their unsteddy and wavering Hearts to Faith and Religion His Apostles used the same To instance in one St. Paul challenges a submissive Belief to what he had Preached from the Corinthians because he had proved himself an Apostle not only by his Patience the true Test of Real and Solid Virtue but also by Signs Prodigies and Power And there being some false Apostles who oppos'd him seduc'd from him his Neophytes and valu'd themselves much on their Preaching and Discourses he minds them that the Word of God is not chiefly attested by Words but by Power And indeed as St. Chrysostom observes a Quando novum a liquid fit praecipuum signa Deus facere confuevit praestat qurdam pignora suae potentiae iisqui legem ejus accipiunt Chrys ho. 14. in Mat. when God declares any new thing or orders any of great importance and such is if any a General Reformation in Faith he uses to work Wonders yielding some pledges of his Power to those who receive his Law. b Adjuncta sunt paaedicatoribus miracula ut Fidem verbis daret virtus ostensa Nova facerent qui nova praedicarent Greg. hom 4. in Evang. Ut magnitudinem promissorum probet magnitudo signorum Hier. Matt. 10. Infirmos curate c. He joyned saith St. Gregory Miracles to Preaching that such an appearance of Power should give credit to Words and their Works should be unusual whose Doctrin was new That their great Promises saith St. Hierom should find a fit warrant in equally great Wonders Hence we no sooner read that Christ had chosen Twelve Apostles and had sent them but that we find