because they were commanded absolutely by the Patriarchs and Prophets being themselves servants of God though masters of the people who were indeed Lords of all Gods graces and favours since no nation shared thereof beside the Jews 2. The Apostle follows his example and proves there is no difference between a Lord under the command of Tutors and Governours and a meer servant since this Lord or heir is not all the while of his Minority to rule and command but to obey his stewards and governours who are then the Fathers and shall after be their young Pupills servants too and this time in those dayes of the old Law lasted till the heir was twenty five yeers of age 3. The Apostle here applyes this argument to himself formerly of the Jewish Religon and consequently an infant or little one in the line of those that are Gods true servants namely Christians serving God onely under the Alphabet of a religious Law that is under the letter or Elements of the world which were the old Law all the rule men had to serve God by and then saith the Apostle we were like little ones young lords and masters by birth-right of our Judaism yet nothing different from servants since we had that Law but as an Usher to bring us up and deliver us over to another much better indeed a most perfect Law of Grace whereunto the old Law was a meer type or figure a meer Element or Alphabet of a true Law Note by the Elements of the world are here understood the letter of the law given to the men of the world in those at least who were the select thereof the Jewes for if the world were here taken for other than the men thereof the Elements of the naturall world were to bee understood earth aire water and fire but since by the world is meant the people thereof therefore Element here stands for the letter of the old ceremoniall and servile Law whence the Apostle here useth the word of serving very aptly for there are three servings in this word related unto The First that of heathens serving their Idols as their Gods The second that of the Jews serving God by their impure creatures ordered unto Gods service The last that of Christians serving God by pure creatures not by Idols nor by bloudie sacrifices but by such as in Sacraments are sanctifyed and so are more than Jewish Elements of sanctity as the Rhemists Annotations have at large expressed though true it is many by the elements here understand also the festivall and solemn dayes moneths and yeares which the Jews very superstitiously observed and made themselves indeed not onely servants thereof but even slaves unto them and this because in the tenth verse of this Chapter S. Paul mentions their formalities upon these dayes moneths times and yeares 4. By the fulnesse of time is here literally understood that time when Christ by the authority of his Father sending him for that purpose came to abrogate the servile law of the Jews and to deliver us a more filiall law of love liberty and grace for then was the time of the old law filled up when it was no longer to remain when we were no more to bee under the Ushers and Tutors of Religion but under Christ himself the true Lord and master of the whole and specially of the Christian world That the Son of God sent unto us is here said to be made of a woman wants not a deep sense namely to shew he was not begotten nor conceived of his fathers seed but was made and framed wholly out of the pure substance and blood of his blessed mother the Virgin Mary where we are to note the word woman in this place doth not signifie any commixture or corruption which doth accompany the losse of virginity when maids passe from their virginal purity to the impurer state of corrupted woman but woman here signifies directly the sex or female kinde of man and so in that sense is competent even to a virgin who is also of the female Sex again he was said to be made of a woman to declare the falsity of the Valentinian and Anabaptistick heresies teaching Christ to have been made of some aeriall and not of an earthly substance as if he had brought his body ready made in the heavens out of some aeriall combinations into the womb of the virgin and had not received his flesh from her whereas the true Christian doctrine teacheth he was flesh of her flesh and bone of her bones He is further said to be made under the Law not that by right he was subject thereunto even as man because his person was divine by the union of his two natures making but one onely sacred and divine person so called from his principal his divine nature but that indeed he was pleased to subject himself to the law though of right he were above it and thus he vouchsafed also to undergo voluntarily the law of circumcision rather to take it honourably away than to subject us to so dishonourable a slavery as that of the Old Law was 5. This Verse reports to the former and makes that to be the cause why Christ subjected himself to the Law of servitude namely because by his so doing he might redeem those who truly were under the servile Law and that by this Redemption we might all receive the Adoption of Sons and by a new filiation become the children of Grace nay even Heirs of God and Coheires of Christ who were formerly bastards and slaves of the Devil whence Saint Bernard sayes well upon this place Therefore God became Man that Man might become God And we must further note here that this our happy Adoption which is made by the means of Grace doth not onely give us right to the Inheritance of God but to a participation even of the Divine Nature it self according to S. Paul Rom. 8. ver 15. where it was said we became True Sons of God by the holy Ghost communicating himself unto us and so making us true Children of Christ God and Man if any doubt of this truth let him read what Cornelius à Lapide excellently proves to this purpose upon the place of Saint Paul his Epistle above cited and what will be said more to this purpose on the eighth Sunday after Pentecost in this Book We are lastly to note that not onely the just who are now under the Law of Grace but even those just who were under the Law of Moses were also the Adopted Sons of God however the Apostle calls them here Servants and not Sons First because though they were the true Sons of God yet they were not in the state of liberty competent unto such Children Secondly because they had not their right to this inheritance or fâ—liation by vertue of the Law under which they lived but by a speciall prerogative of Grace and Faith infused into them of Christ his being to come and so they were rather belonging to
doors 34 Amen I say to you that this generation shall not passe till all these things be done 35 Heaven and earth shall passe but my words shall not passe The Explication 15. BY this Abomination of desolation Christ meant a most abominable desolation and most probably he alluded to that which was to follow namely the Romans sacking of Jerusalem as a punishment upon the Jewes for having there crucified the Saviour of the world how horrid and dreadful an abomination that was Josephus his history best describeth But mystically we may well interpret this abomination to be the sacrilegious defiling of the Temple of Solomon both by the barbarous murders therein committed by the Jews and the profaning the Altars thereof by the wicked Priests much more is this abominable when Christian Priests profane their holy Altars and become wicked Isa 24.2 as the people so the Priest of holy Church And the like abomination it is to receive the body of Christ into a sinfull soul for then he is rather betrayed into the house of the devil then received into the Temple of the holy Ghost Not unaptly also this abomination may allude to Antichrist setting himself upon the Altars of the Churches to be adored as God In fine when any of these horrid iniquities are done then we may piously imagine the Judgement of God is not far of since were it not for his mercy sake these abominations deserved immediate damnation 16. By this verse is mystically meant that when good men see these enormities done commonly in the cities they should flye from such evil cohabitations lest the houses of the city fall upon their heads and run out up to the mountains thereby to shew they are desirous of getting up as near to heaven as may be when their houses become a hell unto them Though literally our Saviour alludes to the advice he after by revelation gave the Christians when Jerusalem was to be destroyed to flye from Jurie to the mountains beyond Judea for the Roman forces had possessed those hills about Judea whereas the Jewes hearing of the Romans approaching into their countrey fled all into Jerusalem God so ordaining it for their destruction who yet thought they should in that famous city be most safe 17. They were bid flye from the tops of houses if they happened to be there when the newes came of Titus with the Romans falling upon them to shew those powers were to come like a tyde or torrent upon the Jewes unavoidably and therefore since in those daies their houses were commonly built flat on the top and their use was to eat and walk there as freely as now men do in lower rooms they were advised to make no stay for getting any goods away but immediately to run and think themselves happy if they could save but their own persons insomuch that the sudden destruction of Jerusalem is by the Historian described like to Noes floud to the burning of Sodome with fire from heaven and to the drowning Pharaoh his forces in the red Sea 18. This verse followes the strain of the former by advising immediate flight without regard to any thing else 19. This expresseth their danger who by the reason of children either in their wombs or at their breasts could not make speed enough to save themselves in regard of their burdens retarding their flight Also it alludes to the severity of Gods wrath over the Jewish Nation who to punish their sins would not spare the innocent infants of that race but leave all a prey to the devouring sword of the Romans meeting them in their mothers bellies or nurses laps 20. This shewes the clogg of winter wayes and weather forbids especially to aged men a speedy flight such as was necessary to avoid this instantaneous destruction and the Jewish Law forbidding any man to walk above a mile indeed half a mile on the Sabbath shewes that slow flight was inconsistent with this speedy danger for though Christ did abrogate the rigour of the Sabbath Law yet be alludes here to the Jewes and Judaizing Christians that were hardly brought off from the superstitions of their old Traditions Again Christ here insinuates it is vain to flye on the Sabbath because Jerusalem and so all was taken on the Sabbath day 21. There is no doubt but the destruction of Jerusalem was a calamity unparallel'd for since Almighty God in revenge of his sacred Sons being butthered therein had designed this city to exemplary punishment he was resolved to make the rigour of it such as resembled rather Hell then any horrour lesse onely note that here it is meant the particular destruction of the Jewes is unparallel'd by any particular nations destruction not that the finall day of Judgement shall be lesse calamitous to all the world then this day was to the Jewes alone 22. This place literally alludes to the Jewes as the chosen people of God and so valued by him above all others that he seems to say if they be safe none else are in danger because them chiefly he desires to preserve yet seeing they will not be gained by him he then converts his love to the Gentiles and in this sense he goes on meaning unlesse the daies of the Jewes subversion by the Romans had been shortened no flesh no Jew in all the world should be saved but for the elect for some very few converted Jews before for some in this confusion of their overthrow and for others reserved for conversion in the latter daies to make one Church as also for respect to many Christians amongst them God ordained that Titus the Commander should put a limit to the fury of the sword and after a time should give quarter even to the Jews insomuch that as Josephus writes fourty thousand of them by the mercy of Titus were saved and but for this not one Jew in all the world either would or could have escaped the sword so inveterate was the hatred of the Romans to that persidious Nation Hence we see the power of even a little virtue in man how great a sway it bears with God that for never so little good he averts a huge deal of mischief 23. Many conceive Christ here passeth from his report to the destruction of Jerusalem and falls on the day of general Judgement but it is not so for by the word then he professeth to continue his former sense and this suites well for then the Jews knowing the time of the Messias to be at hand to save themselves and to flatter such as usurped the properties of the Messias they when persecuted by one party would flye to this other that adhered to such impostours as then boasted themselves to be the Messias so our Saviour to prevent danger to such as might be carried by this meanes to infidelity foretels them what arts would be used to insnare them And there were three eminent men of this wicked faction Eleazar the son of Simon Jehu the son of Leviah and Simon the
corporall eyes to the latter that their time is now come also of awaking from the sleep of infidelity and of their other enormious sins being the Redeemer of all mankinde was actually come though even the Jewes also after Christs Birth were fast enough asleep in their infidelity most of them and so were capable of this speech to them even in that sense too 12. By the night is here meant the time before Christs comming made dark as night with infidelity By the day the time after our Saviours Birth rendered bright as day with the light of the Gospel the works of darkness are Sin because they shut out the light of grace from our Souls the Armour of Light are acts of Vertue works of Grace and in these words Saint Paul minds us that our life is here a spiritual warfare since we know Armour is necessary for Warriours though the Greek Text imports by Armour of Light a kind of habit proper to the day and this is not inconsistent with the other sense above for Armour is a kind of habit too 13. This Verse seemes to begin with prosecuting the last sense in the former as if it were indecent to appear in the day without our Armour of Light as above but if it be taken as independent thereof it imports not for the sense is full in it self Aâ— in the day of Grace as in the day of the illuminating Gospel let us walk honestly that is modestly converse religiously and shew our selves to be children of Light by our works shining to the edification of our neighbour and glory of God Not any more in Banquettings and Drunkenness feastings and excesses of Wines These you know are works of the Flesh not of the Spirit or the Grace of God by Chamber-works the Apostle means here plainly Fornication by Impudicities more petulant and wanton actions of Lust even in publick such as indeed may be well called carnall impudencies Not in Contention not striving for vain-glory and popular applause whence followes the forbidden Emulation which is an envie at our neighbours greater good or esteem than our own See therefore here three of the capitall Sins so represented unto us as by all means to be avoided Gluttony Lechery Envy all being acts and deeds of darkness not fit to appear in the day light of the Gospel which now shines bright among us 14. By putting on Christ is here meant being dressed up in such Vertues as may make us appear Christians men clad in the Livery the Sanctity of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ and so abundant the Apostle in this phrase bids our Vertues be that they may hang as full Garments all over us for this difference there is betwixt carrying and putting on of cloathes that when carryed they are cumbersome and not adorning when put on they are light and becoming So to carry Vertue onely wrapt up in the speculation of it is no way graceful but to unfold it by the practice thereof this becomes a good Christian and this is truly to put on Christ not onely to study and speculate but to practice Vertue The Application 1. THe two first Verses of this Epistle are wholly and clearly describing the effects of the Incarnation and do exhort to a due Christian comportment at such a season That is now to prepare our selves for our Deification since therefore God became man that man might become God I have said ye are Gods and all sons of the Highest Psal 82. v. 6. 2. The third Verse tells us how unsuitable all Sin must needs be at this season though indeed it cannot be allowable at any time but especially how unseasonable these three deadly Sins now are which here the Apostle specifies and under them forbids us all the rest Gluttony Lechery Envy For nothing sooner starves a Soul to death than a gluttonous pampering of the Body nothing more odious to our God incarnate than to pollute that humane nature which Jesus could not endure to take upon him but in the sacred womb of his unpolluted Virgin Mother Nothing so unseasonable at this season of love as for a Christian to envy Christ in his neighbour just now when he coming to save us commands us to love each other as he loves us all 3. The last Verse gives us an armour of Proof against all danger of sin whatsoever for as Jesus by taking our sins upon himself did redeem us so we by putting on his Vertues may deserve to be saved that is to say we may be capable of Salvation for other desert we have not of our selves than a meer capacity of Heaven through the merits of our Saviours death and passion applyed to us cooperating towards that which we cannot operate our own Salvations since it is the onely participation of his merits that makes us fit to receive his rewards for those we call our meritorious actions such as Saint Augustine required saying He that made thee without thee will not save thee without thee Yet the same Doctor lest we should presume too much upon our selves says also When God rewards mans works he crowns his own Gifts for even our cooperation whereby we merit is the speciall Gift of God Which we Petition in the Prayer above most aptly set to the Tune of this Epistle The Gospel LUKE 21. ver 25. c. 25. ANd there shall be signes in the Sun and the Moon and the Stars and upon the Earth distresse of Nations for the confusion of the sound of the Sea and Waves 26. Men withering for fear and expectation what shall come upon the whole world for the powers of Heaven shall be moved 27. And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and majesty 28. But when these things shall begin to come to passe look up and lift up your heads for your redemption is at hand 29. And he spake to them a similitude see the figtree and all trees 30. When they now bud forth fruit out of themselves you know that Summer is nigh 31. So you also when you shall these see things come to passe know that the Kingdom of God is nigh 32. Amen I say to you that this generation shall not pass till all be done 33. Heaven and Earth shall pass but my Words shall not pass The Explication 25. THese Signes appearing in the Sun Moon and Stars argue they shall not perish but remain set to another Series or order of being than they were before such Signes in them shall portend the dismall day of Judgement And indeed how can there be other than a sad distress on earth amongst all the Nations thereof upon the confusion of sound that will then be in the boiling Sea and Waves which by the general conflagration fire falling from Heaven shall be far more agitated than ever by any storm or tempest these commonly happening but in some part of the Sea whereas this disturbance shall arise from the very bottom of the channell
Such as may prepare the way for Jesus Christ to come amongst us that by his coming we may deserve to serve Almighty God with purified Souls How purified By loving him and so deserving to be his Fathers Servants in a high degree indeed as fore-runners to his Sacred Son as Baptists as Angels sent before his face to prepare his wayes and consequently as men than whom greater did never arise amongst the sons of women Blessed God! to what a height of perfection doth holy Church invite her Children to day being but on Sunday last raised from their dead sleep their trance of Sin and yet no marvell for Christianity is in truth the summity or top of all perfection and of all Christians we know the Catholike to be Top and Top-gallant that is to say the highest of men which consequently so purifies their Souls as they become at least the lowest of Angels since in true morality the highest of the inferiour arrives to the perfection of the lowest of his Superiours whence we read of Saint John Baptist That he was an Angel sent before the face of Jesus Christ to prepare his wayes Luke 7. ver 27. Now lest this discourse seeme but gratuite and to have little or no connexion to the whole service of the day however we finde it genuine enough perhaps unto the Prayer see what Lessons of Purity and sanctity of Soules the Epistle gives us insisting altogether upon the highest of Sanctity mutuall peace and charity such as made the two most discordant people in the world united perfectly in one the Jew and Gentile who before they were in Christ united and had their hearts raised up to heavenly affections detested one another but once meeting both in the love of one God they became in Christ one Thing one Body of that undivided Church which hath the onely Son of God to be the head thereof our Saviour Jesus Christ Nay see further how this dayes Gospel makes of humane Soules thus raised up by mutuall love by having all one God and beleeving equally in the doctrine of his sacred Son Baptistick Saints and consequently spirits Angelicall whilst what is read to day of Saint John Baptist is spoken to us as either being or invited to be like him fore-runners to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ voices crying out in the desart of this world prepare the wayes of our Lord. O Christians O Catholicks at least remember we are now in holy Advent a time set out apart to prepare us for a worthy receiving of our Saviour at his Nativity into this world be it therefore spent as Saint John Baptist did imploy his dayes in pennance fasting praying in purifying of our Souls in raising mortall man up to the purity immortality and sanctity of Angels so shall we pray as all our Pastours preach to day which is I hope a sufficient adjusting of this dayes Prayer unto the following Epistle and Gospel of the day bidding us with one mind and one mouth glorifie God which then we doe when our practice and our Prayer is answerable to what our Pastors teach and preach unto us The Epistle ROM 15. ver 4. c. 4. VVHat things soever have been written to our learning they are written that by the patience and consolation of the Scriptures we may have hope 5. And the God of patience and of comfort give you to be of one mind towards one another according to Jesus Christ 6. That of one mind with one mouth you may glorifie God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 7. For the which cause receive one another as Christ also hath received you unto the honour of God 8. For I say Christ Jesus to have been Minister of the Circumcision for the verity of God to confirm the promises of the Fathers 9. But the Gentiles to honour God for his mercy as it is written Therefore will I confesse to Thee in the Gentiles O Lord and will sing to thy name 10. And again he saith Rejoyce ye Gentiles with his people 11. And again Praise all ye Gentiles our Lord and magnifie him all ye people 12. And again Isaiah saith There shall be the root of Jesse and he that shall rise up to rule the Gentiles in him the Gentiles shall hope 13. And the God of hope replenish you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope and in the vertue of the holy Ghost The Explication 4. SAint Paul alludes here to what was written in the old Law and makes it all wholly and entirely to have been a lessen for our instruction at least though not a rule to our actions since the abrogation of it and if he say thus of the abrogated Law much more ought we to receive and read for our instructions all thâ—â— is written in the new Law which shall remain to the worlds end unaltered But he applyes this speech particularly now to what he said in the immediate verse before citing the Prophet Davids words Psal 68. The curses of those that curse Thee have fallen upon me making Christ speak these words as taking upon his own person the Curses and Sins of the people committed against his Heavenly Father to restore to God as it were his lost honour if we may so say by assuming these Curses to himself as also by his suffering to appease the Divine wrath and in this sense he applyes his speech to the Romanes that they might convert to their instructions and comfort this which in their behalf our Saviour took upon himself namely the guilt and burthen of the Gentiles Sins as well as those of the Jewes so to ingratiate them also to his heavenly Father By the patience and consolation of the â—criptures meant the patience they teach us in their singular examples thereof and the comfort they bring us in letting us see we may by following the said examples hope for the like rewards which now the Saints in Heaven have for so the last words of this verse import 5. The Apostle calls him the God of patience and of comfort because he is infinitely patient infinitely comforting and because his Vertues are not as in Man his Ornaments but his Essence so that he is patience it self comfort it self and more if we could more express Then we are most properly of one mind one towards another when we wish and do as well to others as to our selves According to Christ as Christ was to us and as he gave us command to be saying Love one another as I have loved you This is indeed absolute perfection and this is the true Badge of a perfect Christian 6. That of one minde with one mouth c. Then we do truly glorifie God when we conforme our selves in all things to his holy Will and this we can not all do unless all our mindes be one as he is in us all to that one effect of glorifying him so when one pretends God is glorified thus and another will not
and soften towards his God who like a melted Goodnesse came to pour out himself amongst us This this beloved were the part of good Christians to pray now in this sense to run like Lacquies nay like shadowes near up to the new Incarnate God who being in himself an Inaccessable light was fain to ecclipse his Glory in the cloud of humane Nature that so within the shadow of his shade-yeilding body we might approach unto him and whisper our necessities in his sacred Ears who now as man will hear us however as God the whole world seemed to cry out in vain to him for 4000. years together Say then Beloved this Prayer to day with this religious Duty this All-ghostly sense dictated unto us by the holy Ghost and we soon shall see the effect it worketh in us towards rendring us the perfect Christians that this dayes Epistle exhorts us to be Joyfull modest resigned thankfull and peacefull even to the surpassing the understanding nay more inlightned Angels running before the face of Jesus Christ to his Crib where born he will immediately dispence in ample manner the speciall Grace of his visitation to us all that thus like Baptists as the Gospell to day exhorts shall now prepare his wayes before him to the future Feast of his Nativity And thus we see both Epistle and Gospell of this day though not litterally yet Mystically if not as it were eminentially too included in this Prayer above The Epistle PHIL. 4. ver 4. c. 4. REjoyce in our Lord alwayes again I say Rejoyce ye 5 Let your modesty be known to all men our Lord is nigh 6. Be nothing carefull but in every thing by Prayer and supplication let your Petitions be known with God 7. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and intelligences in Christ Jesus The Explication 4. TO Rejoice that they were Christians and had the happiness of true Faith true Hope true Charity This the Apostle meant by rejoycing in our Lord in his holy gifts of Spirit bestowed upon them not that he had made them noble rich or great Persons but religious Christians for this he bids them alwayes rejoyce in our Lord again and again rejoyce And when he said always he meant as well in affliction as in prosperity because to zealous Souls no humane trouble ought to be disturbing so long as they have the comfort of a good Cause and a good Conscience too 5. Modesty is a vertue giving a mean to all the actions of a man and therefore that we might see Christianity sets all things in order both with the inward and outward man the Apostle exhorts the Philippians to give a proof of their perfection in Christianity by their Modesty and by such a modesty as might be known to all men such a modesty as puts a gracefull blush upon all their actions lest any one might see the infirmity of man in him who was become more than man by beeing a true and perfect Christian and therefore S. Paul tels us here we should stand upon a modest guard because our Lord who is to be our Judge is nigh and hath his eyes upon us as needs he must when he gives us the concourse of his Divine Assistance towards our each thought and deed but our Lords being nigh may now in Advent be applyed to the Nativity of our Saviour and for this purpose holy Church appoints that place of Scripture to be read to day though litterally the Text alludes to the latter day of Doom 6. By Care is here meant Anxiety or trouble of minde not that he prohibits a diligence a due regard to doe what is on our parts to be done but beyond that he will not have us goe he forbids us all anxious sollicitude and recommends a perfect resignation of our selves to the will and pleasure of Almighty God And though he bids us have a care to pray upon all occasions as well of Prosperity as of Adversity yet he allowes not any sollicitous care in us about the effect of our Prayer whether we obtain our requests or not made unto God by Prayer but will have us leave that freely to his Divine Majesty for indeed Beggars who want all things must not choose what supply they will first receive but humbly accept of whatsoever is given and if denyed they may ask again but never must be troubled when they are refused nor is our Prayer to God other than an expression of our despicable beggery and exigence of all necessaries both for Body and Soul and since from him we receive all our supplyes what hand soever it be that gives relief to him must our Prayer to him our Supplication to him our thanks and for his sake to those that are his Messengers his Ministers of help unto us and then we glorifie him when we thank them by whom he hands his Blessings to us 7. By the peace of God we may here understand either that increated peace which is God himself whereof peaceable creatures participate or the peace which Christ made between God and Man by his passion appeasing the Divine Wrath or the peace which we make among our selves when we forgive each other our Offences or the peace we have within our selves of a quiet Conscience for all and every one of these are truly called the Peace of God And yet when the Apostle sayes That peace which passeth all understanding he seemes to incline to the first and last acception of Peace for as that surpasseth the understanding of Angels so this is indeed past all humane understanding to know how unquiet man can attain the happiness of that peace which a quiet conscience affords him since it calmes all the tempests of outward persecution and trouble and makes a man by the equality of his mind equally to bear all unequalls whatsoever can befall him keeping our hearts our wills and our Intelligences our understandings still sixt upon Almighty God still adhering unto him and united to his sacred Son our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ The Application 1. IN the first Verse of this Epistle we are taught how to comport our selves towards God Alwayes rejoicing in him to bear even the afflictions of this world with a contented mind So Saint Paul Rom. 5. We glory even in our tribulations and glory we cannot in any thing that gives us not content that doth not joy our hearts for the momentary tribulations of this world born with patience secure us of eternall consolations in the next Whence the same Apostle Cor. 6. sayes As it were sad yet alwayes rejoicing because in our patient suffering we serve and glorifie The God of all consolation 2. In the second Verse see how we are to demean our selves towards our neighbour Modestly ever because our Lord is nigh As who should say we can never look upon our Neighbour but as on our fellow servant holding up the hanging to let our common Master in to us that followes
other Prophet hence they ask as followeth 25. Why then dost thou baptize if thou be neither Christ nor Elias nor the Prophet and by this Interrogatory they thought to have confounded him So it argues beside the Commission they had to ask Who he was they added this Question out of their own malice to him and out of Ostentation to shew the people they were well read in the Scriptures 26. To this Iohn replyes by distinguishing betwixt his own and Christs Baptism telling the people he doth but Baptize in water Christ shall baptize in Spirit for thus the rest of the Evangelists make the Baptist answer and therefore S. Iohn omits that So the Baptist professeth his Baptism is onely in water as a sign or Figure of Christs Baptism which shall be in Spirit to remission of sins which this of Iohns was not but onely by his Baptisme he exhorted people to pennance and tears for sin not that sin was thereby remitted But there is one in the midst of you whom yee know not Iesus Christ who daily converseth with you and yet you do not take notice of him to be the true Messias whom you enquire after so earnestly as who should say leave your curious questions doe but use your own eyes look but earnestly upon Iesus and you shall soon by his works perceive he is the man you seek for 27. The Baptist sayes Christ shall come after him because he shall preach when Iohn is dead by saying Christ was made before him hee both alludes to the eternall generation of Jesus in the decree divine and to the perpetuall prelation or preference both of doctrine and sanctity wherein Christ was many degrees before the Baptist in so much as he doth not esteem himself worthy to untie our Saviours shooes which in the esteem of man is the meanest office that can be imagined because wee commonly stoop as low as earth to perform it 28. This Bethanie is not that where Martha and Lazarus treated our Saviour but is distinguished from it as much in the mysterie of the name as in the distance of the place for that Bethania signifies the house of humility This the house of Ships or The place of passage namely where the people of Israel passed over the River Iordan going out of Egypt into the land of promise and there Christ was baptized by Iohn where also Iohn commonly baptized all others to shew the Figurative Baptisme did declare the transmigration in the true Baptisme from Sin to Grace and so was like that passage of the Israelites from Aegypt into the land of promise from a wretched to a prosperous condition The Application 1. WHat so deplorable as to have eyes and not to see the shining Sun This blindness of the Jewes is what to day the Gospel represents They knew the Tokens of the true Messias well enough they knew those were not verified in the Baptist and as well they knew them all made good in Jesus Christ yet seeme to doubt O wilfull Caecity 2. What shall we think to see the Christian blinder than the Jew the Catholicks perverser than the Hereticks and as we read Tim. 1. Confessing they knew God yet denying him in their Works By doing such things as give themselves the Lye Whence holy David sayes Iniquity belyes herself And this so often as Christians in Profession are Infidels in Practice 3. But see a greater blindness yet in these who will defend their Vices to be Virtues and even glory in their own Iniquities Say then beloved was it not high time to seek an Eye-bright out to cure this Caecity of Souls rebuk'd in being represented Whilest we pray as above to day for illumination of Grace to disperse the dismall darkness of corrupted Nature On the fourth Sunday of Advent The Antiphon O Emmanuel our King and Lawgiver the expectation of Nations and the Saviour of them come to save us O Lord our God Vers Drop dew c. Resp Be the earth c. NOte this O Emmanuel or some one of the seven great O s variable as the Sunday falls out on dayes more or less before Christmas Day is alwayes the Antiphon on this Sunday And these O s shall be explicated in the other Tome of this work when every day that hath a severall Prayer and Gospel shall be set out as these Sundayes were suffice it now to reflect that this O this exclaiming voice argues the manner of crying out in the old Patriarchs and Prophets for the coming away of the so long expected Messias The Prayer O Lord we beseech thee raise up thy power and with thy mighty virtue come away to our succour that by the help of thy grace what our sinnes retard the indulgence of thy propitiation may Accelerate The Illustration LOok in what Stile the Church began her Advent-Prayers she ends them with the same as if Omnipotency had not power enough and could be raised to greater by being rowsed or stirred up for though it be not needfull yet we may lawfully and laudably enough speak in this language to Almighty God who magnifies to us at least his power by acknowledging our want of it to be so great as if it needed re-inforcement to doe the work of our Redemption an act as farre above the Angels naturall reach as it was beyond our hopes or merits had it not been mercifully promised without desert in Man for when Angels see the Sun of Justice clad in the clouds of our Iniquity they were amazed and saw that God had found a means to adde as it were to his Omnipotency by partaking of humane Impotency and by raising our weakness in his sacred person to an ability above Angelicall capacity he seemed indeed to rowse or stirre up his own Omnipotency to a Super-omnipotency to an act greater than it had ere before extended to namely to pardoning of Sin a thing the Angels never were acquainted with for though Man were redeemed yet the Devils were for all eternity condemned upon the guilt of their one onely sin Nor is it a lessening of the phrase to ask the succour of Gods mighty virtue though it be in truth Almighty for all we can adde to God is rather diminution than addition to his perfection which consisteth in simplicity so that in him Power and Omnipotency Might and Almightiness is all one Thing because his Attributes are his Essence each of them Infinâ—â—e and all of them together making his Infinity no greater than it is in any one alone if yet we may use that freedom to speak of multiplicity where pesonality excepted simplicity makes up all perfection as in God it doth But having in this language courted down Almighty God from Heaven lest we grow vaine-glorious by the honour of his approach see how the rest of this dayes Prayer doth humble us while in the following words we give this reason for our calling God to our Succours with all his mustred forces That by the help of his Grace added
to us cooperating with the same what our sins retarded that is to say our own redemption was by our own sins retarded for 4000. years together the Indulgence of his propitiation may accelerate It was indeed a huge indulgence in Almighty God to make his sacred Son a propitiation for our sins and more to hasten him away for this purpose since fourty thousand years had been too short a time to have expected so much mercy as is now accelerated by the indulgence of his propitiation which would not give him leave to stay above 4000. years away And by this close of the Prayer we virtually include the whole Epistle and Gospell of the day while we beg the help of Gods Grace to accelerate unto us the benefit of the Indulgent propitiation that Christ his Birth-Day brings to every pious Christian which benefit lest our sins retard see how the Church prepares both Priest and People to a due regard against them by the counsell given to both in the Epistle and by exhorting both to be Baptistick Saints in the Gospel of the Day to be preparers of the way of Christ Angels of Men running this holy Advent before his face to sanctifie our own and our neighbours wayes unto the Crib where Christ on Christmas Day is mystically born again as often as Christians celebrate the Feast of his Nativity so saith Saint Leo in his nineth Sermon upon that Feast and the like is of all others We doe not so much recall the past as we behold the present Feast of our Saviours Birth so often as it comes about by Annuall revolution The Epistle 1 COR 4. ver 1. c. 1. SO let man esteem of us as the Ministers of Christ and the dispensers of the Mysteries of God 2. Here now is required among the dispensers that a man be found faithfull 3. But to me it is a thing of least account to be judged of you or of Mans day but I judge not my self neither 4. For I am not guilty in Conscience of any thing but I am not justified herein but he that judgeth me is our Lord. 5. Therefore judge not before the time untill our Lord doe come who also will lighten the hidden things of darkness and will manifest the counsels of the hearts and then the praise shall be to every Man of God The Explication 1. THe Apostle seemes here to bid Man esteem of him and his Associates in the Apostolate as if they were not men but Ministers of Christ for as much as they did the Offices of God by being dispensers of his Mysteries and indeed that is most true for though to be a Steward or master of a Family under any temporall Lord and to dispence and dispose of his Lords Monies and Goods be not to execute an office above man in regard all the goods and monies in the Stewards hands are temporall things and the properties of nothing above a humane creature yet to be Steward of the House of God and to have the dispensing of such goods as are Spirituall and cannot be the properties of any temporall Lord certainly this renders a man though not in nature more than Man yet by Office hugely more than an Angel for though we read of them that they are Heb. 1.14 Ministring Spirits in the House or Church of God both triumphant militant and patient yet we never read that they were stiled the dispensing spirits of Gods hidden Mysteries which yet as the Apostles were so must their suuccessours the Priests of holy Church be too and consequently are not in the execution of that Spirituall Office to be looked on or esteemed as men but as Ministers of a higher nature as persons indeed more than Angelicall since they have an Office and Power above Angels namely to forgive Sins and to dispence or dispose of Gods severall Graces by the conduit of holy Sacraments Pipes made on purpose by our Saviour Jesus Christ to convey unto our barren Souls the fertilizing waters of heavenly grace and these pipes are so put into the hands of Priests as they can turn the cock at pleasure give or retain this holy grace as they judge fit to administer a Sacrament or suspend a Sinner from the benefit thereof But we must further note the Apostle here as he speaks in generall to all Christians and bids them esteem Priests above men by reason of their office so he speaks particularly to the Corinthians in order to their main contention which was to make a difference betwixt the Dispensers of these Mysteries as if Baptism for example received from one were of more value than if they were baptized by another or as if the Ministers of Baptism were the Authors of grace and so they who received it at a more holy mans hands received more than if the conferror thereof were lesse holy to both these effects the Apostle speaks correcting the Corinthians errour in them both that is for thinking the Administrator of a Sacrament to be the Author of grace therein conferred or that grace was more abundantly conferred according as the Administrators thereof were more or lesse holy 2 This alludes to the vanity of the Corinthians who were men so curious that they judged of their Preachers as they found them more wise more grave more eloquent in their Sermons or Catechisms than others and particularly they adhered much to Apollo because they held him more eloquent than S. Paul whereas the same Apostle here tells them they must not regard in the Dispensers of Gods word the Rhetorick language or eloquence of the preachers but above all their fidelity or being faithfull that is to have them tell the true sence and meaning of Christ Jesus to have them give rather sound than flourishing doctrine least while they put too much force in words they lose the vigour of the Spirit which is and ought to be the life of a Sermon and least they seek by the Ostentation of their languages rather their own than the glory of God or preach themselves not Christ Whereas S. Paul tells them here fidelity is the principall part of a preacher that is to preach the Word of God and not the word of man to preach spirit rather than language to move the soul to Acts of love rather than the ear to delight of Eloquence 3. This Verse prosecutes the sense of the former telling them plainly he did not regard their fond judgements that esteemed men by their glib tongues rather than by their vertuous spirits for it is indeed Unction a speciall gift of the Holy Ghost that renders a Preacher most profitable to souls and so most accomplisht in his preaching whence the Apostle knowing what he said was pure spirit told them he did not regard their censures of him as if he were defective in his duty of preaching and what he sayes to them in this kinde he affirmes the like in respe of all men by his following words wherein he makes no account of
the will to it Thus these Baptismal vertues make of children men hence the Graces of the Holy Ghost brook no delay but make an Infant Christian as soon the Masculine sacrifice as he is able to be the Sacrificant O Happy Christianity 2. And 't is great reason that new creatures should operate according to the newnesse of their Being Since therefore we are all by Baptism newly made to be children of God who were born slaves of the Divell it is but reason we embrace the Apostles counsell here and live reformed according to the newness of our mind who have new Beings given us such as propend to a conformity unto the will of God and renounce all self-will for ever As then that Renunciation was made last Sunday so this Conformation must be made from this day forward 3. Now least we should erre in this Conformity the close of this Epistle tells us how to scape that Errour by a sweet subordination unto one another such as may make up the mysticall body of Christ which Christians are as perfect as our naturall bodies bee whose every member is subordinate unto the Head whilst they remain subservient to one another and the Head commands them Learn therefore subject Christians to be dutifull to your superiours Learn Commandants to live your selves obedient to the great Commander of us all And that we may learn these Lessons let us pray as above The Gospel Luke 2. ver 42. c. 42. ANd when he was twelve years old they going up into Hierusalem according to the custome of the Festivall day 43. And having ended the dayes when they returned the child Jesus remained in Hierusalem and his parents knew it not 44. And thinking that he was in the companie they came a daies journey and sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance 45. And not finding him they returned into Hierusalem seeking him 46. And it came to passe after three dayes they found him in the Temple sitting in the midst of the Doctors hearing them and asking them 47. And all were astonished that heard him upon his wisdome and answers 48. And seeing him they wondered and his mother said to him Son Why hast thou so done to us Behold thy Father and I sorrowing did seek Thee 49. And he said unto them what is it that you sought mee did you not know that I must be about those things which are my Fathers 50. And they understood not the word that he spake unto them 51. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them And his mother kept all these words in her heart 52. And Jesus proceeded in wisedome and age and grace with God and men The Explication 42. THe twelve years of the childs age are here specified to shew that Jesus who was not onely Doctor of the heavenly chaire but even the wisedome it self of his heavenly Father lost no time in taking hold of all opportunities offered unto him to shew how great a zeal he came withall from heaven to teach and play the Doctors part on earth so as at the twelfth year of age childhood expires and youth begins in us to spell man at least if not to write it wholly Jesus who was as wise an Infant as a youth would not before the years of discretion assume unto himself the office of a Teacher but so soon as by course of nature he was held among men capable of discourse and judgement then he mixed himself mostestly amongst the Doctors in the Temple to shew he came not thither to play the boy as children at that age doe but the man assoon as men would look upon him for such who knew no more of him than what they saw They vvho are here said to goe up into Jerusalem according to the custome of the Festivall Day which was that of the Jewish Easter or Pascha were Jesus Mary and Joseph the childs Mother and Father as also with them wee may presume there went diverse others of their allies and kindred as the custome was for friends to goe in troops together to this celebrated Feast once a year from all neighbouring Countries that being the Metropolis or head City of the Jewes where the grand Synagogue was held 43. The dayes that are here mentioned to be ended were those seven daies which they held continually solemn as now the Catholick Church doth the Octaves of the greatest Feasts in the year consisting of eight solemn dayes to shew that as by seven of those dayes we consecrate all time to God as well that of work as that of rest so by the eighth day we offer up unto him here all the eternity wherein we hope to rest with him in glory after we have ended our laborious time upon earth and by this we give testimony that the Evangelicall Law is much more perfect than the Iewish in regard we labour here in hope of eternal rest and this by the prescript of our law whereas the Law of the Jewes was onely temporary and so prescribed order for no further than the time they lived here upon earth which whole time was mystically represented by their Feast of seven day s continuance and ours hath one day more to shew that we hope for a blessed Eternity after time is gone Here then the Story tells us the Parents of Iesus returned to Nazareth after the seven dayes of this solemnity were ended which yet was more than others spent in the celebrating this festivity for none were tyed to be there all the dayes thereof it being sufficient that they appeared once upon any one of the seven Festivall dayes but as the Devotion of this humane Trinity of Saints Iesus Mary and Ioseph was greater than that of others so they spent the whole time of this Festivity in continuall Prayer and Devotion which time being ended and Iesus having asked leave of his Parents to goe visite some of his kindred whilst they were getting things ready to return home again it was through God Almighties permission that he by this slight gat loose from his Parents making a very short stay with those he went to see nor did he make a false pretence though he concealed the other truth of his further meaning partly out of humility to cover his devotion which lead him to a longer stay in the Temple partly to let his parents see that however they were holy Saints yet they were not exempt from the infirmities of humane nature and so though not sinning therein were short of that home-care they ought to have had of keeping Jesus alwayes in their own eyes as thinking him safe enough for so short a time amongst his kindred hence it was they knew not that their charge stayd behinde them in Ierusalem 44 45. So thinking he had been with his kindred where they presum'd at night to find him but missing of him they returned a dayes journey back full of trouble and yet were carryed on with the comfort of hope
thence retrive that sweet connexion we are at a seeming losse of and shall conclude the key we want to open this connexion lyes hidden in the preamble of this Prayer in the very courtship we use when we call upon God as moderating at once heavenly and earthly Things that is making the earthly obedient to his will when he pleaseth to have them suitable to those that are heavenly Things Thus water by the heavenly will of God became this day wine thus all the materiall parts of this dayes service became as it were immateriall that is to say spirituall Thus the Temporall gifts mentioned in the Epistle of Prophecy Ministery Teaching Exhorting Ruling Mercy Love Joy Hope Patience Prayer Almes Hospitality Vnanimity and Humility are made spirituall in being ordained to a spirituall end by conformity in us earthly creatures to the will of our Creator which is effected by vertue of that moderation God hath set between heaven and earth when he so moderates humane minds and actions as they become subservient to his heavenly will Thus carnall pleasure between man and wife is in them limited by Gods holy grace moderating the excesse and intemperance in that pleasure which indeed carnall men commit but spirituall men avoid God moderating fleshly appetites in them so as they shall not intrench upon spirituall duties but give way to serving God though with abridgement of their own delights and this is done when Saint Pauls counsell is followed Let those that have wives be as if they had none 1 Cor. c. 7. v. 29. when God Almighties service so requires as when attending first to prayer they afterwards return to the same corporall pleasure they forsook to pray and this is called a spirituall continence even in the bed of incontinency not as that term imports sin but as it argues lesse perfection than virginity or absolute containing from all corporall commixture but further and more prodigiously yet this miraculous moderation between heavenly and earthly Things is seen when married people have liberty allowed them for their due and seasonable mutuall pleasures with one another and yet withall at the same instant they have a limit set them beyond which they must not passe but like to flowing Seas must ebbe just at their own bounds and fall to the low-water of a non-temptation towards any other carnall pleasure than between themselves Here I say if ever more eminently than other it doth appear God moderates heavenly and earthly Things at once for here is a kind of continuall miracle betwâ—en man and wife when Saint Pauls counsell is followed as above and since the Story of this dayes Gospel runs upon a marriage and the Prayer concludes with begging peace here is the grant of that petition when man and wife thus moderated live happily together not defrauding one another here is further that peace granted to all sorts of Christians when they apply the Temporall gifts recited in the Epistle to spirituall to heavenly ends and when in the prayer we say Grant us thy peace in our dayes it is no lesse than the peace of that God who at once moderates heavenly and earthly things which we demand Now if any would dive further into that peace let them look back to the seventh verse in the Epistle on the Third Sunday of Advent and to the Explication thereof There they shall see how ravishing how plentifull a peace it is And having thus wrought out our design of connexion here where it was so seeming hard at first but now to flowing from every part like honey from the Combes of this dayes Epistle and Gospel upon the bread of the Prayer let us never despair of as good successe all the year along nor can there be a sweeter Prayer than this thus glossed and in this sense reiterated as often as we find reluctancy in us between nature and grace For then thus to call upon God as moderatour between heaven and earth is to quell all rebellion of nature against grace which God grant we may doe by praying as above The Epistle ROM 12. ver 6. c. 6. ANd having gifts according to the grace that is given us different either prophecy according to the rule of Faith 7. Or ministery in ministring or he that teacheth in doctrine 8. He that exhorteth in exhorting he that giveth in simplicity he that ruleth in carefulnesse he that sheweth mercy in cheerfulnesse 9. Love without simulation hating evill cleaving to good 10. Loving the charity of the Brotherhood one toward another with honour preventing one another 11. In carefulnesse not sloathfull in spirit fervent serving our Lord. 12. Rejoycing in hope patient in tribulation instant in prayer 13. Communicating to the necessities of the Saints pursuing hospitality 14. Blesse them that persecute you Blesse and Curse not 15. To rejoyce with them that rejoyce to weep with them that weep 16. Being of one mind one towards another not minding high things but consenting to the humble The Explication IN regard there was reference made to this place on Sunday last concerning the rule of Faith therefore we shall here take hold of the last part of this verse first and having premised what is peculiarly necessary upon this which is hugely controversiall we shall then proceed in our wonted manner for expounding the rest of the Text. We are therefore here to note That by the Rule of Faith is not understood onely the Apostles Creed branched into twelve Articles as we have received it from age to age but a set Form of life delivered by word of mouth unto the People by the Apostles who had first held Counsels about it amongst themselves and stood resolved all their teaching should be conformable thereunto And this Rule is not as Hereticks will have it the holy Scripture written by the Apostles for this Rule was made long before any Scripture was written and it was never delivered abroad but by word of mouth in their preaching and exhortations so it is properly called the Apostolicall Tradition which is yet even unto this very day the Rule of Faith to the whole Catholick Church to the Decrees of all Councels to the sense or exposition of the holy Scriptures and consequently Scripture cannot be as Hereticks pretend the sole Rule of Faith though true it is there must be nothing nor is there any thing at all in holy Writ contrary to this Rule or Apostolicall Tradition which was much larger than the written Word and therefore it ever was and still is even to the sacred Word a kind of Rule or Test to try it by since before the Apostles issued out their written books of Scripture those books were examined by this Rule of Faith which was framed by common consent of the whole number or Colledge of Apostles whereas all of them did not write nay two onely of the twelve were Evangelists or Writers of the Gospels for Saint Mark and Saint Luke the other two Evangelists were not dignified with the stile
supernaturall propensions by hearing the most elevating Word of God Symbolically Saint Hilary sayes This leaven of the Gospell was hid in the three measures of meal the Law the Psalmes and the Prophets and now appears in the Trinity of the three Theologicall Vertues Faith Hope and Charity or as others will have it to the three sorts of Believers Beginners Proficients and Perfect who bring forth loaves of fruit swollen to these correspondent proportions of Thirty Sixty or an Hundred fold increase of bigness Allegorically Saint Bernard makes the wombe of the Blessed Virgin Mother of Christ to be the leaven of the Hypostaticall union having a seasoning influence into the three parts of Christ his Soul his Body his Divinity uniting them all in one Person or one loaf made of these three measures of meal as above Anagogically Caesarius Dial. 4. Sayes the woman is the divine wisdome or deity of Christ the three measures oâ— meal are all humane natures death and hell and the leaven Christs humanity hid in his grave and in hell whither his humane soul went with his deity seasoning all mankind into the blessed condition of a resurrection from death and purgatory to life eternall in everlasting glory 34 35. There is no more mystery in these two verses than litterally they sound onely this we may observe that as all the whole 77 Psalme of David is a kind of parabolicall or aenigmaticall grave sententious speech because in that psalme he speakes prophetically of this manner of parabolicall speech of Christ therefore to verifie that prophesie Christ here speakes both in grave and truely parabolicall senses though David have much of litterall sence in his said psalme as where he recounts the Benefits God bestowed on the Synagogue or children of Israel in their forty years march with Moses through the red sea and the desert from Aegypt to Canaan the land of promise yet S. Hierome saies that David the type of Christ speakes there mystically as in Christs person promising to his Church infinite blessings namely to man passing through the red sea of his passion and through the desert of this world into the heavenly Canaan or promised land of Glory And for that purpose Christ here ends his parabolical discourse with this second verse of that 77 Psalme of the royall Prophet David I will open my mouth in parables I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world The Application 1. AS it was reason Christ should speak in Parables to verifie what was prophecied of him according to the last Verse in this Gospell so with those Parables he is said with great reason doubtless To utter things hidden from the foundation of the World we may suppose the hidden Mysteries of the Blessed Trinity and of the Incarnation in particular and in generall the workes of Faith whereof Saint Paul in this dayes Epistle mindes the Thessalonians and in them all after Believers For it was indeed the main business our Saviour had to doe upon Earth to plant a Faith in mens mindes whereby they might work out their salvation Hope and Charity assisting the said work of Faith as Saint Paul above cited sayes 2. As it was reason Christ should verifie the Prophets sayings of him so was it reason he should draw the Ignorant multitude to a belief of the greatest Mysteries of Faith by degrees as he did in first speaking Parables and then expounding of them by his Apostles at least in so rationall a way that they easily took all he said for good when they had heard good sense to be wrapt up in his Parabolicall speeches which at first they understood not so what seemed to be spoken to blind their understandings was indeed intended to open them and thus did Christ reasonably condescend when he seemed most unreasonably to transcend the capacities of the People 3. As the Mustard seed of Divine Faith and the leaven of Christian Doctrine have seasoned the whole world with Christianity so is it great reason they being both received into our hearts should in such sort season the little world we are within our selves that all our actions may be answerable to those hidden roots of Religion planted in our hearts as then they will bee when our thoughts are alwayes meditating upon those Christian Duties which in reason we are alwayes bound unto And that we may doe this the Church reasonably prayes to day as above On SEPTUAGESIMA Sunday The Antiphon MAT. 20. ver 6. THe housholder said unto his workmen What stand you here all the day idle but they answering said Because no man hath hired us Goe ye also into my Vineyard and what shall be just I will give you Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer VVEe beseech thee O Lord clemently to hear the Prayers of thy People that we who for our sinnes are justly punished for the Glory of thy Name may be mercifully delivered The Illustration WEe were in the fourth Sunday after the Epiphany taught to pray much to this purpose but we must not think much of repeating the same Prayer when we dayly repeat the same Sins which are the cause of our increased punishments yet we shall finde that danger was there the punishment we deprecated here it is labour either in the race we are by the Epistle bid to run or in the paines the Gospell calls us too in the Vineyard of Christ as if we were hereby given to understand our life in this world is a continuall toil and labour to deserve an eternall rest in the next But further we are to note this Prayer is particularly proper to this day not onely as referring literally in a manner to the Epistle and Gospell but even to the whole Series of holy Churches service upon this Septuagesima Sunday when the Priest in his office is bid begin the story of Genesis thereby to minde us we should from this day begin to serve God as if we were but newly created for that purpose and yet lest we should forget that we were no sooner created than we had by sin annihilated as it were our selves and lost our right of return to that All-being the Creator of Heaven and Earth from whence we came out of our nothing See the Prayer of this Day puts us in minde of our degenerating from God by Sin But withall of our return to him by Repentance if we cooperate with his holy Grace who is ever more ready to give than we are to ask him Pardon Now in regard the Epistle of this day falls from the simile between a Christians life and those who runn a race and mindes us of the Children of Israels going out of Aegypt into the Land of promise of the Cloud and of the Red Sea wherein they were by Moses as it were Baptized as also the Rock which followed them to quench their Thirst and of the Manna from Heaven to be their Food we must observe that this Story
as also the Gentiles that know not God 6. And that no man over-goe nor circumvent his brother in businesse because our Lord is revenger of all these things as we have foretold you and have testified 7. For God hath not called us into uncleannesse but into Sanctification The Explication 1. THe Apostle fitly vseth the word walk insteed of live in this and most places since it is not a posture suitable to the present life for Christians to stand still we remember our Saviour rebuked those that did it Matth. 20. v. 6. Saying why stand ye here the whole day idle as if to stand still were to be idle and loyter so the posture of a good Christian is and ought to be walking moving going on from vertue to vertue Psal 38. untill at last he arrive to the rewarder and source of all vertues God himselfe for by bidding us to walk so as thereby we may please God and abound more and more we are bid to accumulate vertues upon vertues so long as we live in this vicious world and that we may know how to doe this the Apostle bids that we follow his rule for this purpose framed to our hands as it was to the Thessalonians since what he writ to them was with intention it should be handed over from age to age even to us and to those that should live in the very last of times 2. His meaning is that he gave them this rule of perfection by Authority Commission or inspiration from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and this rule was not to tell them onely what he had observed in our Saviour to this purpose making himselfe an example of perfection to us all but also what by inspiration of the holy Ghost himselfe as an Apostle intrusted with the care and charge of soules had upon occasion found expedient to prescribe unto them and this Authority as it was given to the Apostles so it descendeth from them unto their successors the Fathers and rulers of Soules especially the governing party of the Church the Pope and Bishops thereof 3. By the will of God is not here understood that will which is commonly called the will of his Beneplacitum or holy pleasure to doe himselfe what he pleaseth but the will of his signe mark or token what he would have us to doe and that not in generall for so his will is we should have perfect and universall Sanctity in all our actions but in particular he points out here for us the Sanctification of chastity so we may see by all the following verses as who should say God was particularly pleased to point out his Signall will unto us that the vertue which is most suitable to his infinite simplicity and purity namely chastity should be aimed at by all Christians that even those who were marryed people should by tempering their carnall passions and desires partake in some measure of this divine vertue and those who were not marryed should have an expresse prohibition from the foule impurity of Fornication since it seemes the Apostle forbids it here not onely under the generall rule the prohibition thereof in the commandements but with a specially preamble that he doth by name forbid this sinne as having it specially declared unto him that it was the signall will of God he should doe so 4. This place is commonly understood as prescribing a rule of moderation to marryed people that they so use the lawfull bed of pleasure as they forget not to Sanctifie themselves even by and in the use thereof remembring God hath elevated that corporal communication so much coveted and delighted in by Flesh and Bloud that he hath raised the wonted civill contract of marriage to be now a more holy thing even a Sacrament or conduite-pipe of his holy grace into the Soules of such people as make religious and not lustfull use thereof for of the latter we see sad examples in the seven husbands of Sara snatched from her bed because they marryed her purely for lust not for any limited or regulated love and so againe by a pious abstinence upon fasts or feasts from corporall knowledge of each other specially when marryed Christians receive the Sacrament they use their vessels in Sanctification of themselves and honour of God thereby for reverence to whose blessed Body and holy Sacraments they abstaine from their otherwise lawfull pleasures yet there is a deeper and more universall application aimed at by the Apostle in this place even to all Christians whatsoever married or single since though to marryed persons their mutually betrothed bodies to one another are their vessels properly here specified yet to single persons by their vessels are meant their single bodies which containe their soules within them as so many precious liquors in the sight and to the Palat of Almighty God who is jealous lest any of that liquour should be drawne out and given to creatures that is lest by following the impulse of sense they should poure out the affections of their soules upon their own corporall pleasures or the delight of any other body whatsoever for pure respect to the creature and not so stand upon their guard as not to part with the least drop of their soules affections either to themselves or any others which are all due to Almighty God for this is to possesse each one his owne vessell as Rom. 6 v. 19. Saint Paul adviseth and to possesse it in Sanctification of himselfe by acts of love to the divine Majesty and in honour of Almighty God by so doing and contrary to this counsell doe all those who make their bodies possesse that is to say command their Soules whereas the soul is to possesse her body in this sense of commanding it as finally she shall doe in the kingdome of heaven and as at first Adams soul did even here on earth 5. This verse prosecutes the sence of the former by representing unto us the bestiality it is in Christians to proceed like Gentiles who are called a people that is no people because they are more like beasts then men and such the Apostle accounts Christians who follow the passions of lust the full swinge of their carnall desires without any religious limit thereof even when carnall pleasure is lawfull because to doe thus is as if we knew no God for whose sake we were to refraine our inordinate appetites not onely in carnall pleasures but in those meats drinkes or companies that propend us thereunto 6. In this place the Apostles sense lyes lyable to a very easie mistake and the words sound as if he did leap from the Subject of lust to that of fraud deceipt or injury but indeed he prosecutes his former sense in this whole Epistle So he must here be understood by businesse to forbid Adultery as above he hath forbidden Fornication not to overgo is here meant literally forbidding any man to goe over his neighbours marriage bed and thereby defraud him of his due which is to have
when he had spoken to them and anger'd them as above The Application 1. SAint Paul to day hath been the Sacristan and made the Altar ready for the Priest lo here he enters in who is the Sactifice and the Sacrificant our Saviour Jesus Christ the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world And therefore enters reprehending sin as you hear in this days Gospel because he came to dye for sins And who can better reprehend then he that is himself irreprehensible as Jesus shewed he was that asks the Jews who amongst you all can accuse me of sin 2. Thus by his Lamb like Innocency is he brought bleating into Holy Church to day as was the Legal Lamb Exod. 12. v. 11. just fifteen days before the Pascal Feast that by his bleating day and night so many days together he might minde the Jews how the blood of the Lamb upon their doors did cause the Angel to shew mercy there where he had found that blood Now in regard the Blood of Christ is that which is the Safegard of the World from the not onely killing but damning sword of the Angel of Darkness therefore is this Lamb of God brought in to Holy Church to day bleating and minding Christians by the justifying of himself from sin that he is indeed the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and that brings salvation unto those who by Integrity and Innocency of Life shall accomplish the Holy Fast of Lent and so make up that happy Fold of Lambs and Sheep who know their Shepherds Voyce and who are known by him for their Compassion on him now they hear the Tydings of his bitter Death and Passion 3. And in regard the Jews should not pretend they were excus'd from having his Innocency so far as therefore to believe him God because he was an Innocent Man See how all this Gospel runs upon a pregnant Proof of his Divinity where he not onely tells them Before Abraham was I am that is to say I am who am I am Almighty God whose best Definition is his Eternal Being Nor did he say this gratis for see the stones they sting pretending this was Blasphemy can no way hurt him nor can the Flingers see whom they intend to hurt though just before their eyes because his Deity was not pleas'd they should then see his Human Person whom they thought to stone to death yet from this malicious Intention we may fitly call this Passion Sunday And therefore fitly pray as above expressing in the begg'd Propitiation all his Passion and so conclude by casting all our care upon him both for Soul and Body On Palme Sunday in Lent The Antiphon Matth. 26. v. 31. FOr it is written I will strike the Pastor and the Sheep of the Flock shall be dispersed but after I shall rise again I will go before you into Galilee There you shall see me saith our Lord. Vers Deliver me O Lord from the evil man Resp .. From the wicked man deliver me The Prayer OMnipotent everlasting God who hast caused our Saviour to take humane Flesh upon him and be crucified for mankinde to imitate the example of his humility grant propitiously that we may deserve to have both the Instructions of his patience and the fellowship of his Resurrection The Illustration YOu will have heard in the preface to this Book why the Antiphon above is not taken out of this dayes Gospell of the Masse but of the Gospell read at Blessing of Palmes Suffice it here to say they are both waters of one and the same red Sea and therefore suteable to the designe in hand and I think it will be sufficient to cast your eyes onely upon the Epistle and Gospel here below to satisfie you how this Prayer above and they agree since in them both we have the greatest examples of humility that can be given in the one Christ humbled to the very ignominy of the Crosse in the other his humble entrance that he made into Jerusalem upon an Asse to the triumph of his ignominious Death and Passion for he was pleased onely to accept the acclamations of his being King to make greater unto us that example of his humility which he desired we should imitate and which he gave us for that very end as we see this Prayer avoucheth professing that God caused our Saviour to take humane flesh and be crucified for mankinde to imitate the example of his hâ—mility whence we begge as followeth That he will grant propitioâ—sly we may deserve to have both the Instructions of his patience and the fellowship of his Resurrection Stay blessed Jesu how can we deserve this to have thee our eternall God become our Temporall Master in the Schoole of patience and which is more if more can be to deserve that we may have the fellowship of this Resurrection what fellowship can there be betwixt God and man the creator and the creature setting that aside which is betwixt the Sacred Deity and the humanity of Christ where man may in a kinde be bold to say Haile fellow well met But for us that are as much removed from Christ in dignity as nothing is from all things in the world for us not onely to hope for our resurrection out of the infinite mercy of God but to begge we may deserve it too nay deserve the fellowship thereof with Jesus Christ himselfe this I confesse seems very strange and sounds like a bold presumption rather then a modest Prayer and yet because the Holy Ghost inspires the Church to make this Prayer to day we must not feare to say it with a confidence it will be gratefull in the eareâ— of God and for that reason gratefull to him because feasible by us yet no way feasible unlesse he grant us his propitious glaunce againe by looking on us through the blooshed eyes of his Sacred Sonne then indeed we may hope for propitiation by his passion and that propitious looke being afforded us we may like Peter weep most bitterly when the like aspect was cast upon him by our Blessed Lord. Luc. 22.61 But why doe we so timorously come to that which Saint Paul so confidently leads us up unto did not he vaunt to the Colossians cap. 1. v. 24. His sufferings to have been an accomplishment of those things that are wanting of Christs Passion according as we heard in the first Lenten Sundayes Epistle See there v. 1. for in consequence to the Doctrine there delivered we pray to day that wee may deserve to have had Christ our Master of Patience and to be his fellowes in his Resurrection since then we shall deserve such a Master when we become such Scholers as Saint Paul was and as he taught us in the Colossians to be Imitators of his patience in our passions which then become the accomplishment of his when we bear them as patiently as he bore his Crosse Coloss c. 3. v. 12. and being his at least they must have
Apostle sayes of it in termes namely to lye with their Mother in Law or Fathers wife which it seemes some one or more among the Corinthians did so openly practise that they even defended the fact or at least would not be reclaimed from it whence the Apostle orders them to be excommunicated and given as he saith v. 5. corporally over to Satan that so by this punishment their Soules may be reclaimed from that filthy sinne and saved Wherefore it is of this notorious vice by name and of all other whatsoever sort of sinnes the Apostle speakes here under the name of leaven which he would have the Corinthians to purge to cast out from amongst them for he had told them in the immediate Verse before how the least of Leaven would spoil a whole Batch of bread giving it a disrelishing taste and for this cause it was commanded in the old Law that when the Pascal Lamb was killed it should be eaten with bread purer and sweeter then ordinary such as was made without any leaven in it at all to give it the least disrelish to the taste and this Bread was by a special and proper name called Azymes which signifies unleavened bread and to this the Apostle alludes when he exhorts the Corinthians to purge out of their consciences all sin whatsoever as he insinuated when he wished them to cast out of their society by excommunication any one that should be scandalous in his life as it seems this both Adulterer and Fornicator was that kept his Mother in Law for his Concubine a sin the very Gentiles did abominate The literal Sence therefore of the Verse is exhorting the Corinthians and in them all us Christians that since our Pascal Lamb Christ Jesus is immolated sacrificed upon the Altar of the Cross for the sins of the people they and we also should remember as the Legal Pasche was to be eaten with pure and unleavened bread so the Spiritual Pasche Christ Iesus was at this Feast of Easter to be received with pure consciences clean Souls such as by Contrition Confession and Satisfaction had been purged from the old leaven of sin and more made a Spiritual Azyme or unleavened bread fit to be eaten with this Pascal Lamb this Blessed Sacrament that was now by special command of Holy Church to be received with a Christian Piety exceeding in all degrees that of the Ceremonial Law upon the onely Umbratil or Figurative Exhibition of this real Substance and Truth Besides it is worthy our remark in this place that all the Neophytes of the Primitive Church were brought in White Garments on the first Saturday after Easter to be Baptized and at the putting off their White Garments were to receive an Agnus Dei from the Bishop which was to hang about their necks down upon their Breasts in Testimony of an inward Purity of Conscience put upon their Souls at the casting off their outward Garments which were onely Figures of this Internal Candor of Conscience to this also alludes the Chrysome put upon the heads of those that are Baptized and the Candle given into their hands representing the Light of Grace to be their guides to Heaven whose Souls are pure and clean from sin Note that what we now call Pasche was originally called the Passover because it was a legal Lamb yearly commanded to be killed and eaten in memory of their preservations who had their Posts and Thresholds of their Doors sprinkled with the Blood of a Lamb as we read Exod. 12. v. 11. for a mark to shew the Angel whose houses he was to pass by or over without killing the First-born therein whereas else he was to spare none that had not the Blood of a Lamb upon their doors so by Allegory we now call Christ our Pascal Lamb because his Blood was shed to preserve from the Angel of darkness his Ireful Sword the First-born of Grace that is the Christians or the true Believers in Jesus Christ 8. And hence the Apostle in this next Verse exhorts the Corinthians and in them all Christians to make a Solemn Feast of Joy all this Paschal time that is all their life time for the seven Days of this Feast signifie all the days of our life and to feed now not upon old Leaven that is not upon pristin Infidelity And least hence it should be thought Faith alone were enough for a Christian to be saved by the Apostle addes we must not onely believe right which is to cast off the old Leaven of Infidelity but further we must do good Works and so cast off the Leaven of malice and wickedness also by taking in their places the Azymes the unleavened bread of good Works of Sincerity in our Actions of verity in our Words as the Badges of upright Christians that neither we dissemble with God nor with our Neighbour in thought word or deed but as we have vowed in Holy Baptism we shall make it good all the days of our life that so we renounce the World Flesh and the Devil and will be Loyal to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ loving him above all things as our heavenly Spouse and loving our Neighbour with all other Creatures but for his sake and in order to heavenly Conversation with Almighty God both in this world and in the next The Application 1. THe Expositors upon this Holy Text tell us it pointeth at our present Obligation to Celebrate the Feast of Easter by now Confessing and receiving the Blessed Sacrament that beeing purged thus from the old Leaven from the sinful Creatures we were formerly we may become the Saints we ought to be hence forward For though before our Saviour suffered for our sins he did converse with sinners yet now that he is risen from his Grave he hath not taken any sinner with him from the dead how then can living sinners hope to keep him company and how without him can we hope to live 2. O happy Christians in our Rising Christ who hath destroyed Death and given us a double Life by his once onely dying a Life of Grace to that we had of Nature so though we cannot hope to keep him company by living as to Nature which propends to sin and so to death yet we may hope by living as to Grace which leads to Vertue and so to everlasting Life to keep him company for all Eternity yes this may be our hope if with St. Paul each one of us can say I live now not I but Christ he lives in me 3. And thus no doubt it will be too if we can either keep what we have got in Lent the Magazine of Vertues requisite to Sanctifie that Fast and make us fitting for the present Feast or if we can but wish we had those Vertues and that we were able yet to make amends as yet we may for not acquiring them when they were easier to be had then now by reason of that Season more acceptable So good so gracious is Almighty God
wherewith the Son again knows the Father as my Father knows me to be his natural Son so he desires the Pastours to know souls to be their spiritual children and the souls again to know the Priests for their spiritual Fathers Note the Similitude here shews Analogy but not Equality since the Father knows not us to be other then his adopted Children as Christ hath by his Grace regenerated us and made us the adopted Sons of his heavenly Father while he says he yields his Life he means he lays it freely down not that it was or could be by his persecutors taken from him as the lives of his Sub-Pastours his Holy Priests may be for though they may dye willingly when persecuted yet they cannot be said to lay down their lives as Christ did for he came purposely to dye and Priests may not seek death though they are not bound to flye it neither when there is just cause of standing to it for others good again he is truly said to lay down life as being Author of it so is not the Priest 16. This verse alludes to the calling of the Gentiles besides the Jewes to the Faith of Christ and indeed to the plenary conversion of all the Nations in the world to that Faith before the day of latter judgement when all Nations shall be of one religion and unite themselves to the one visible head of Christ * upon earth namely the Pope Saint Peters successor not so as to say every man of every Nation shall be converted then for certainely Antichrist will have corrupted many that shall dye in their errors but so that some of all Nations shall be converted And if we say this hath been already verified in the Apostles converting all the world of whom it is said Psal 18. v. 5. Into all the earth hath the sound of them gone forth and unto the ends of the whole world the words of them perhaps we shall speake more literally to the meaning of Christ in this place for indeed in the time of Constantine the great by his conversion who was Emperor in a manner of all Nations there might be truly said to be one sold and one Pastor namely the then Pope of Rome as by the whole second Chapter of Saint Pauls Epistle to the Ephesians may appeare where three or foure times he repeateth making you both one that iâ— you Jewes and Gentiles both one Church of Christ built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets viz. Christ Jesus The Application 1. LAst Sunday we heard our Saviour gave his Apostles Commission to pardon and detaine sinnes now he tels them what manner of men they must be who are thus impowred namely Pastors of soules such as must feed and defend their sheep with the same fatherly love as hee the head Pastor did even with the loss of life if need be which though it be an act of the highest charity in the world yet is it rooted in the unshaken Faith of the Pastor and hath for the primary end the preservation of the like Faith in the sheep according to that of our Lord unto Saint Peter Luc. 22. v. 32. That thou once converted do confirme thy brethren in Faith 2. It is further worthy our remarke that a good Pastors care ought to be as we see in the close of this Gospel as well to gaine other soules to believe in Jesus Christ as to confirme those who are already true beleevers for it is by his sub-pastors preaching and suffering that our Saviour sayes he must have one shepheard and one fold that is to say all the world at last converted from their infidelity and made right beleevers This still maintaines the Doctrine that the end of Martyrdome is the Propagation of the Christian Faith since by the death of Martyrs even Infidels are brought to the fold of Christ 3. And since in the Epistle of this day Priests are bid to follow the example and steps of Christ in suffering in this a Pastor is most like our Saviour that his humiliation for we cannot come so farre as to exinanition to a naturall death for the good of his sheep is the raising of soules from their death of Infidelity to a supernaturall life to that of Faith in Jesus Christ When therefore our Pastors are invited to dye for their sheep it is to minde us how by our Saviours temporall death which brought him to the lowest humiliation the whole world was raised to the greatest and highest hope of an eternall life And therefore Holy Church most fitly Prayes to day as above On the third Sunday after Easter The Antiphon John 16. v. 20. AMen I say unto you that you shall waile and weepe but the world shall rejoyce and you shall be made sorrowfull but your sorrow shall be turned into joy Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who unto those that goe astray to the end they may returne to the way of Justice doest shew them the light of thy verity grant unto all those who by profession are esteemed Christians that they may both eschue those things which are contrary to this name and pursue those which are agreeable to the same The Illustration IT is admirable to see how many regards the Prayers of Holy Church have at once as in this besides that of the Resurrection which transcends * all the Prayers of the Church between Easter and the Ascension and besides that which is unto the Epistle and Gospel of the day as shall appear anon we see here a speciall regard unto the faint-hearted Christians who seeing Christ was dead and buryed tottered in their Faith of his Deity and went astray into a thousand Meandrous doubts in point of Faith for whose sakes that they might returne to the way of Iustice by a right beliefe Christ was pleased for forty dayes together to dwell upon earth meerly to confirme the truth of his Resurrection not onely infinitely doubted of but even held impossible and by his dwelling here so long to shew them the light of his verity which indeed was never so brightly seen as when it was made appear by his Resurrection confirming all the Truths he had taught the world before his death now that this Prayer reflects upon those tottering Christians who lived then when Christ arose as well as upon all us that succeed them see the following words point out such when the Prayer beggs that those who by profession are esteemed Christians as many were that yet doubted of the Resurrection may both eschue those things that are contrary to this name and nothing more contrary then to doubt of Christs veracity as these men did who would not beleeve he was truly risen from death to life and pursue those which are agreeable to the same that is to say may beleeve and professe their Faith in this particular or else they must disagree from all he said and taught besides if they
did not agree to this so important a truth and article of our Christian beliefe But now to our maine designe see how this Prayer like an Invisible Soule gives life to all the body of the Churches Service on this day whilest it tels us in generall termes the duty of good Christians which more particularly is summed up in the Epistle and Gospel following For what is that which Saint Peter in the former sayes more then this Prayer containes while he bids us walk here like Strangers and Pilgrimes and refraine carnal desires then that when we remember Christ his resurrection we should follow the light of that verity to prevent our going astray after carnall desires what meanes the so much inculcated good conversation among Gentiles in rhe Epistle but that we who are Catholikes and therefore by profession esteemed the best of Christians should give example of good life to all other sorts of Christians to all Gentiles Turkes Jewes and Infidels and should by the example of Christ his obedience to his Parents and to the powers of his time learn to be subject to every humane creature 1 Pet. c. 2. v. 13. though thereby we suffer even unjust oppressions as our Saviour did this is to be the good Christians that by profession we are esteemed This is to eschue things contrary to that most honourable name and to pursue what is most agreeable thereunto according as the Epistle exhorteth us To conclude this is also to beare patiently the vicissitudes of joyes and sorrowes mentioned in the Gospel if a while we See comfort and if a while after we See it not This is to be content Christ shall depart from us so the Holy Ghost come amongst us in his roome This is to be like teeming women groaning here and in Travell with the children of persecution paine torments and death it selfe for Jesus Christ and rejoycing when we are delivered of the manly and heroick acts of vertue the babes of grace which will bring us a comfort that no man can take from us a peace of conscience here and a crowne of glory in the world to come So we see how home this Prayer comes to all the whole Service of the day besides The Epistle 1 Pet. c. 2. v. 11 c. 11 My deerest I beseech you as strangers and pilgrimes to refraine your slves from carnal desires which war against the soule 12 Having your conversation good among the Gentiles that in that wherein they misreport of you as of Malefactors by the good works considering you they may glorifie God in the day of visitation 13 Be subject therefore to every humane creature for God whether it be to King as excelling 14 Or to Rulers as sent by him to the revenge of malefactors but to the praise of the good 15 For so is the will of God that doing well you may make the ignorance of unwise men to be dumb 16 As free and not as having the freedome for a cloak of malice but as the servants of God 17 Honour all men Love the Fraternity Feare God Honour the King 18 Servants be subject in all Feare to your Masters not onely to the good and modest but also to the wayward 19 For this is thank if for conscience of God a man sustaine sorrowes suffering unjustly The Explication 11. IT seemes there were in those dayes faigned devotes of women who under a pretence of piety intruded themselves very officiously into the company of Church-men but oftentimes it appeared their pretended piety was but carnality covered under a vizard of devotion and it is with speciall regard to such singularities and dangerous conversation with women that the Apostle here speakes both to Church-men to those women and to all good Christians in generall beseeching out of his humility though he might have commanded them that they never let fall the memory of their being but strangersâ— pilgrimes meere passengers upon this earth since they are members of Christ who as a stranger came into the world when at his first birth he was stranger-like cast out of doores and not allowed a place in any house to lay his head in so he was content to be borne in a manger that by this meanes he might shew us he came to looke us out who were stragled from Paradise banished thence indeed and made like strangers wander over all the world And seriously it is a deep word if well reflected on for Christians here to call themselves strangers since they have here no dwelling place but are Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem and all their life time being as a pilgrimage through the desert of this wicked world The Apostle strongly perswades when he bids them take heed of setting their affections upon creatures here for how absurd were it if a pilgrim or passenger whose life lay at stake to be at such a place by such a time where he was promised a preferment should yet doat upon some miserable bondslave in the road and thereby not onely lose his way home but his preferment too and binde himselfe Prentice to an eternal bondage or slavery And the Apostle speakes all this very pathetically very briefely under the notion of carnall desires which are indeed the greatest enemies the soule hath and doe clap the Irons of captivity soonest and fastest upon her no vice so surely so speedily inthralling souls as carnality doth See therefore how strongly the Apostles charms under this notion of Pilgrim since the very name shews the nature of the man one that hath no right at all to any thing he sees one that even to ease his own labour makes it his study to keep his right road that longs for nothing more but to get home that for this purpose is content to toyl and moyl continually and never to take long rest that dares offend none he meets lest as a stranger all the natives rise against him to revenge the injury he did to any one of them That looks on all he meets as strangers to him since he knows himself so to them that gets ready tacklings for his tedious journey and casts off all things else as cumbersom that finding himself laught at by most he meets with especially all youth for the Exotick habit which he wears regards not their flouts nor scorn but bears them patiently Thus thus the Apostle exhorts all Christians to walk through the wilderness of this World Note by carnal desires which above all he bids them refrain he means all the works of the flesh all vice indeed gluttony as overloading venery as over-wasting anger as retarding while others in revenge stop his journey and so of all the other fleshly works as St. Paul enumerates them Gal. 5.19 which shall be explicated on the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost 12. Since by Gentiles here are understood all the Nations of the World the Apostle tyes up Christians to a very good and a close guard when he allows him not to use the least miscomportment before
any one man or woman whatsoever that so whom they cannot edifie by their words at least they may by their example by misreports he alludes here to the censure which the Gentiles made of all Christians for wicked and lewd men because they found a Sect of Christians called the Gnosticks who were originally descended from Christians that did indeed live wickedly and defended their errors with obstinacy again they held Christians to be Cannibals and eaters of mans flesh because in the Sacrament they received the Body and Blood of Christ and upon which gross mistake Christians were persecuted almost three hundred years by those who hearing of the thing did not understand the mystery Now there is nothing indeed that so beats down ill reports of men as to see their good works for when those are considered God is presently glorified because those works proclaime God to be within the men that do them By the day of visitation is here understood literally the examine of those false reports before Judges as then Plinius a Gentile was a Judge in those days mystically when by comparing your good deeds with the bad ones of your Detractors that day of such examine may glorifie God by the conversion of the wicked lastly when notwithstanding you suffer upon false accusations even death it self that the wicked finding how strong God is in the just may be converted upon this day of visitation to the just who dyes temporally himself that others may live to God eternally 13. This Illative therefore is aptly taken up after the precedent Exhortation For it was a calumny then laid upon the Christians by the Infidels that they as Subjects and Children of God were exempt from all obedience to man And the Apostle brings in this subjection here as one part of perfect conversation and good life in Christians and to shew how little this misreport against Christians was the Apostolical Doctrine see here the head of the Apostles commands a subjection so large that he will have it extend to all from all men as part of the Christian Doctrine that is to all Superiours over all men of what Religion soever to shew that none are and ought to be more truly obedient and humble then Christians who obey not onely Superiours but Equals and Inferiours too as St. Paul Galat. 5.13 exhorts by charity of the Spirit serving one another Note by humane creature is here understood men as it were made by men or created by men Superiours who were before but Equals For as creation strictly taken gives being out of nothing so in a large sence and here it is thus meant creation of a king makes him to have a moral Being which before he had not The like is of all Superiority Political and to make this subjection the more acceptable he bids it be for Gods sake because though men choose men for Governours yet God so ordains that man by man shall be governed and therefore it is an act of Religion to be obedient to man in power as to Gods appointed vicegerent and hence it was that Lycurgus fained he had his Laws dictated to him by the Gods next we are to look upon Princes as Gods Images by St. Pauls advise saying who resisteth power resisteth the ordination of God and for resisting acquires to himself damnation Rom. 13.2 Again it is by God Kings and other Magistrates rule Prov. 8.15 as who should say the obedience we pay to man ought to be in testimony of our obedience to God setting man over us and requiring testimonies of our Love to him by obedience to his vicegerents that Christians obeying Infidels may gain them to an obedience unto Gods commands Finally that Princes so command as they remember themselves to be Gods Subjects however mens Superiours and this is to obey for Gods sake 14. See here obedience to Captains or any other Magistrates is commanded as to men sent by the Kings or States to govern by punishing the bad and praising the good for hence the Good receive praise when Malefactors are punished for offending them and when they will rather suffer unjustly the oppressing of the wicked then do unjustly or become themselves unjust 15. This Verse encourageth all men to be good when the wicked have nothing left to say for their excuse why they are not good because they see other men good before their eyes and that God hath given grace to the good for a confusion to the bad in not following the like grace which God gives sufficient to make all men good that will follow the instinct thereof by unwise men are here understood wicked men by ignorance is here meant affected rather then real ignorance such as men pretend when they seek excuses for their sins 16. As free that is to say being truly free not onely being like free men and by freedom is here understood immunity from any subjection to sin not from subjection to men who are lawful Superiors for to claim exemption from such subjection were to make malice a cloak of Vertue by pretending more liberty then God allows his Servants who are never more their own masters then when they serve him best for to serve God is truly to raign over all iniquity that would inslave mankinde 17. This alludes to that of St. Paul Rom. 12.10 with honour preventing one another though by honour is here understood all good offices of Charity which while we do to Christians we shew that in them we do truly love and honour Christ by fraternity is meant the men who are all true brothers in one faith to God who were in those dayes distinguished by their fraternities and living as children of one God all together in one brotherhood By the fear of God he means here filial not servile fear such fear as consists with freedom and doth not make men slaves By honouring the king understand not onely external but internal honour such as is best paid by Prayer for the Kings prosperity as who should say it cannot be happy to the people if it be unhappy with the King or State under whom they live 18. In this Verse the Apostle descends to the obedience which Servants ought to pay their Masters as well as that which Subjects pay their Princes to shew he meant to recommend all kinde of subjection as well as duty to Princes By all fear is understood fear of fault fear of punishments fear of scandal in fine all kinde of fear of all offence whatsoever as knowing we cannot offend our masters without offending God be our masters what they will good or bad men we are not subject to their Vices but to their power here is also meant though they be of ferent Religions as well as of different Dispositions 19. By thank is here understood thank-worthy or doing a thing that is so notable an effect of grace as shews it can have no other root to spring from so by Grace is here truly meant Glory or Praise as who
should say we deserve true Praise if for conscience of God towards God for Religion sake we sustain that sorrow which falls upon those who are unjustly molested for commonly this breeds affliction to most men yet Christians ought to make this their comfort or their glory and grace in the sight of God and men For saith the Apostle in the next Verse What glory is it if sinning you suffer for conscience to God may be understood that God is conscious or knowing of our unjust sufferings and so in his justice will one day do us right Again for conscience to God is that by so doing we be cleer in our conscience before Almighty God or lastly and best of all if need be to dye for vertues sake rather then be beaten out of it by any threats whatsoever and to this the Apostle alludes for many slaves that in those days became Christians were by their masters beaten some of them to death and yet indured patiently the tyranny of their earthly masters rather then they would gall their consciences towards God their heavenly master by receding from that vertue which he gave them the grace to conserve even unto death The Application 1. UPon what other account then that of the Christian Faith can St. Peter hope to make us believe we that are made of the Elements of this World are Strangers and Pilgrims here and are to refrain from the Pleasures of the World is it not because we believe that Jesus Christ hath by his bitter Death and Passion purchast us a better inheritance is it not because at our Baptism we make a profession of this our Faith and renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil assuredly it is 2. Again from what other Root then that of our Christian Faith are we ty'd up to so strickt a conversation amongst Gentiles amongst the mis-believers but because we that believe rightly are bound to do uprightly and religiously when he is onely counted a just man who is a true believer as we reade Rom. 1.17 He is just who lives according to Faith he means the Christian Faith where note the word Liveâ— imports outward Actions for we do not otherwise know whether a man be dead or alive but by outward operations 3. To conclude whence is it else that the true children of God are obliged to obey even mis-believing Superiors but because all Power being from God those that are his children must obey it and are by the Principals of their Faith and of Christian Doctrine obliged thereunto for since the Ruler of our Souls St. Peter the Vicar of Christ himself doth teach us this Doctrine assuredly he had it from that spirit who teacheth all verity and since the first Light of Truth is that of Faith which brings all erring souls in to the right way to Heaven the way of Justice grounded in Faith Therefore we most fitly pray as above that all who bear the names of Christians may reject unchristian deportments and do Christian actions such as the Light of Faith leads them to The Gospel Iohn c. 16. v. 16. c. 16 A little while and now you shall not see me and again a little while and you shall see me because I go to the Father 17 Some therefore of his Disciples said one to another what is this that he saith to us A little while and you shall not see me and again a little while and you shall see me and because I go to the Father 18 They said therefore what is this that he saith A little while we know not what he speaketh 19 And Jesus knew that they would ask him and he said to them Of this do you question among your selves because I said to you A little while and you shall not see me and again a little while and ye shall see me 20 Amen Amen I say to you that you shall weep and lament but the world shall rejoyce and you shall be sorrowful but your sorrow shall be turned into joy 21 A woman when she travaileth hath sorrow because her hour is come but when she hath brought forth the childe now she remembreth not the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world 22 And therefore you now indeed you have sorrow but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoyce And your joy no man shall take from you The Explication 16. THis place is diversly understood by some of the day of Judgement which Christ calls a little while because to God all time is but a moment yet in regard he had immediately before comforted the Apostles that though he was to leave them he would send unto them the Holy Ghost another Comforter who should teach them all truth and that what ere he taught them he should receive it of him therefore it is most probable our Saviour here alluded to his Passion Resurrection and Ascension which being at hand when he spake these words and consequently he being by his Death to disappear a while and a little afterwards namely three days he was to rise again when they should see him a while again that was for fourty days after which he was to ascend unto his Father probably I say this was the most literal Sence of the Words a little c. 17. 18. No marvel if they understood not this Riddle and so brok out into these two Verses following full of doubt what his meaning might be 19. He knew indeed they desired to ask him being grieved and sad at the news of his departure yet were loath to be so bold so he knowing their meaning not by any outward actions of theirs but by his Deity which did see the secrets of their hearts was pleased to satisfie them and yet he did this by sweetning their sorrow with diverting them from one Riddle to another opening the first by the last as appears in the next Verse 20. Wherein he tells them as in the two Sences above Verse 16. That his Disciples and all good men should here weep while the bad men of the world did rejoyce but that as the temporal sorrow of the just should be turned into eternal joy so the temporal joy of the unjust should be turned into eternal grief or rather that you who are my friends shall weep to see me suffer and dye while my enemies the Jews shall rejoyce thereat you being sad in the mean time but as by my resurrection your sorrow shall be turned into joy so their joy shall be turned into sorrow and confusion not for love to me but for shame of themselves 21. For divers reasons the sorrow of the Disciples at Christs death was compared to the pains of a woman with childe and their joy at his Resurrection to the joy of a woman delivered of a Son after a hard labour First because both these Griefs were very Bitter Secondly both Short Thirdly both full of Danger Fourthly both converted into after Joy suitable to their Sorrows Fifthly because as
the same childe was first cause of pain so he is cause of comfort the like of Christ dying and rising again Sixthly both joys are excessive Great whereas they take away all sense of Sorrow So here the Passion of Christ is in this Parable supposed to be the labour or travail of the Apostles dolorous as a womans in childe-bearing and his Resurrection is supposed to be as the Birth of a Son to them after so hard a labour as they were in whilest all the world jeered and scorned them for hoping after so impossible a comfort as it was thought when the Apostle calls it a scandal to the Jews and to the Gentiles a folly St. Augustine is so acute upon this place as to say Christ compared the Apostles sorrow for his Passion to the pains of a woman in labour of a Boy and not of a Girl because those are the greatest labours of women and again he makes a special remark that the Text saith here the Mother forgets her pains not because a Boy is born but a man one that is to be the Support and Prop of her house when her self can no longer live for saith St. Augustine Christ was as it were born by his Resurrection to the World not as a Childe but as a Man conquering Death winning eternal Glory to himself and to all his Posterity to all Saints of Heaven who are the Children of his Grace 22. This Verse applies all the rest by way of Repetition to the Senses as above while it tells the Apostles this shall be their Case about him this their Grief at his Death this their Joy at his Resurrection like the travail and comfort of a woman first in labour then delivered of a Son But when he adds this Close That their joy no man shall take from them he means neither in this world nor in the next for such shall be their joy to see Christ risen who was dead that even the menace of Death to themselvcs shall be comfortable out of their assurance to share with Christ in the joy of his Resurrection if they partake with him in the pains of Death by dying for his sake Whence St. Paul boasting said who shall part us from the Love of God Nakedness the Sword Persecution Rom. 8.35 No no the love of Christ and hope of Heaven are comforts above all afflictions whatsoever whence we reade of the Apostles that they went rejoycing from the bench of the Iudges because they were held worthy to suffer contumely for the name of Iesus Act. 5.41 And this to shew that no man could takâ— away that joy which God gave them as the Text above hath told us The Application 1. IT is worthy our observation that amongst so many passages as were between Christ and his Apostles after his Resurrection this days Gospel is taken out of Saint Iohn Evangelist his Story of our Saviours Actions reporting what he said to his Apostles immediately before his Death For we see the Expositors upon the first Verse of this Gospel tell us all that is here said alludes to the Death Passion and Resurrection of our Lord as well as to his Ascension and to the coming of the Holy Ghost Then certainly our Mother Church reads us this Lesson to day with intention to draw from us such like Acts of Faith as our Saviour desired the Apostles should make when he told them he was shortly to dye and shortly to rise again 2. And since this Parable aims at raising consolation in the Apostles hearts out of the disconsolate Death and Passion of their Lord and Master by vertue of the Faith they had in his future Resurrection after his Death Assuredly it is now our parts that are Christians to make the Cross of Christ our chief content the Death of our Saviour the onely hope we have to live and his Resurrection the ground of our Faith that by vertue of his Blessed and Incorrupted Body risen from his Grave our corrupted flesh and blood shall rise again and be made partakers of those heavenly Joys which he hath prepared for all that do firmly believe in him and live according to the Rules of Christian belief 3. Note that amongst those Rules a Principal one is read unto us this day of believing firmly that all the sorrows this world can afford us are not able to rob us of the future joys prepared for us in Heaven if from erring Infidels we become right believing Christians and live according to the light of Truth The Faith of Jesus Christ that is if we do such Actions in Vertue of that Faith as We pray to day we may do say then the Prayer and see how pat it is to this Doctrine of the Church On the fourth Sunday after Easter The Antiphon Joh. 16. v. 5. I Go to him that sent me but because I have spoken these things unto you sorrow hath filled your hearts Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who makest the mindes of thy faithful to be of one accord grant unto thy people that they may love what thou commandest and desire what thou doest promise that amongst worldly varieties there we may fix our hearts where are true joys The Illustration O Beloved what a Prayer is here what an elevated language doth the holy Ghost speak in to day behold hold a whole Sermon in a few lines what preacher needeth other Text then this Prayer to dilate upon even till the day of Judgement shall I speak a big word upon this Prayer be it but with us as this day we pray and we are even with God himself at our journeys end and why should we despair thereof since in vain we are bid to pray for this if it were not by Prayer to be obtained beg it then beloved on your often bended knees beg it earnestly fervently heartily and doubt not but it will be granted for God doth not feed us with fond hopes of what he will not grant if we so a k it as we ought But stay how comes it that with so much plenty of Spirit we finde to day so little seeming connexion with the Epistle and Gospel which yet I am confident will prove both as it were eminentially contained in this admirable Prayer And first observe how suitable it is for holy Church to pray thus when we are now in the time that Jesus Christ prepared his Apostles to be content to leave him or at least that he should leave them How often did he command them resignation on all occasions to the will of Almighty God was not this the very form of his Prayer Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Matth. 6.10 Hence the Church begs to day that we who believe in Christ may live all of one minde and since it is morally impossible so many men should be consenting all in one therefore we see the prayer gives that to God saying it is he
2. O beloved it is wonderfull to think how deep a root S. Paul layes here of Christianitie for whereas he speaks in all the following verses of unitie of body of spirit of hope of our Lord of faith of Baptisme of God c. he means our unanimitie must not consist of our being all of one mind with one another for so are many that are not true believers but that we ought to be all of one mind with God who by his sacred Son and by the holy Ghost hath taught us what that one mind is of his divine Majesty which we should be of such a mind as makes us one thing with him how ever severall things in our selves that is to say one mysticall body of Christ animated by one spirit believing one and the same faith which his sacred Son delivered unto us not making our own faith sutable to our own fancie and calling that one spirit because many are of that fancy too no no beloved Christian unanimitie is rooted in the sacred Trinitie where though there be a multiplicitie of Persons yet is there a simplicitie of Nature an unitie of essence an identitie of Deitie not onely because the Three distinct Persons are al of one mind but because they are one and the same Thing or Beeing rather since in God there is no composition between the Thing and the Being thereof as is in creatures and so he is more properly called a simple Being then a simple Thing And therefore all our simplicitie unitie or indivisibilitie must have root in him and not in us so that the unitie of our spirit which makes us one mysticall body of Christ must be derived from the same divine spirit that made God and man one person onely though consisting of two natures 3. To conclude as the essence of the Deitie consisteth in the unitie of the blessed Trinitie so doth the essence of true Christianitie consist in the unanimitie of Christians yet with this difference that in this life their unitie is rather a communitie then an identitie and their union properly is a communion first with Christ their head next with his holy spouse the Church and lastly with the Saints as in our Creed we professe for by the participation of all their saintities it is that sinners are drawn out of the mire of their iniquities And as we read 1. Jo. 4. v. 10. Charitie is not in this as though you have loved God but because he hath loved you so we may say of faith it is not as we square or choose it but as Christ hath squared it since we are not his for our chosing him but because he hath chosen us Jo. 15. v. 16. Now because upon this Epistle Preachers are to insist on the communion or union the unanimitie or unitie of true Christianitie as the proper difference thereof making them Saints onely and saved souls who are true believers and true lovers as above Therefore holy Church to day prayes to be preserved from that which is the poyson bane and contagion of Christians namely division faction schisme heresie infidelitie c. stilâ—â—g these very properly a diabolicall contagion because the Devill is the authour of them all The Gospel Matt. 22.34 34 But the Pharisees hearing that he had put the Sadduces to silence came together 35 And one of them a Doctour of Law asked of him tempting 36 Master which is the great Commandement of the Law 37 Jesus said unto him thou shalt love the Lord thy God from thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole minde 38 This is the greatest Commandement 39 And the second is like to this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self 40 On these two Commandements depend the whole Law and Prophets 41 And the Pharisees being assembled Jesus asked them 42 Saying what is your opinion of Christ whose sonne is he They say Davids 43 He saith to them how then doth David in spirit call him Lord saying 44 The Lord said to my Lord sit on my right hand untill I put thine enemies thy fooot-stool to thy foot 45 If David therefore call him Lord how is he his sonne 46 And no man could answer him a word neither durst any man from that day ask him any more The Explication 34. THe Pharisees came with intention to undervalue him and find him as they thought ignorant in the Scriptures so to eclipse the glory he had in silencing the Sadduces ignorant men in the esteem of the Pharisees 35. It seems this Doctour came not with any reall intention to entrap our Saviour as the other did whereof mention is made by S. Mark c. 12. but rather blinded the other Pharisees by seeming to ask a question to their entrapping sense while in truth he did ask it to satisfie his own doubt in point of practicall virtue as the Sadduces had been satisfied by him in the speculative verity of the resurrection for here this Doctour did approve our Saviours answer and said to him thou hast answered well indeed 36. The reason they asked this question was in regard they much doubted whether the greatest commandment were not that of sacrifice Levit. c. 1. because God seems chiefly honoured thereby And here the Pharisees absurdly bid children refuse to help their parents under pretense of offering to God what should relieve their needy parents as if that cloak of Religion were better then this duty to nature 37. But Jesus made them see there is no sacrifice so precious in the sight of God as that of our hearts affections and so he puts in the first place of commands that precept of charity which bids us love God above all things with all our heart c. And the reason hereof is because there is no precept so extensive as this of love whence you see it is expressed by giving all our affections wholly to God This made S. Bernard bold to say we must love him beyond all measure when he sayes the mean of love to God is to love him without mean or measure 38. Well is this therefore called the first and great commandment because it is so per excellentiam by excellency as extending to a kind of infinity when it puts no mean to our love of God no end at all but requires it be for ever that we love him Hence it is that charity is the Queen of the soul and life of all virtues and is indeed above Religion above sacrifice because by charity which is the love of the soul to God sacrifices are commanded to be made as testimonies of her loyalty to God who doth command them 39. This love of our neighbour is called the second commandment in order to perfection not in rank of law for there were many laws made before this was declared By loving our neighbour as our self is understood that we must really truly and cordially love him though not so much as our selves So by the particle as is here understood similitude not
instead of purifying our intentions of honouring as we ought to do one onely God when even under that pretence by the contagion of factious doctrine we Idolize to as many devils as mislead us in the wayes of faction and division For prevention whereof holy Church fitly prayes as above that our intentions may be purified by the unity thereof by intending Gods honour only in those services that are pretended done for Gods sake and not our own interest On the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 9. v. 7. THe sick then of the palsie took up his bed in which he lay magnifying God and all the people which beheld it gave praise to God Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt O Lord the operation of thy mercy direct our hearts because without thee wee cannot please thee The Illustration IF any man doubt what is meant by the operation of our Lords mercy mentioned in this prayer S. Paul in the first verse of this daies Epistle will tell him it is the actual grace of God which the Apostle alwayes gives thanks for as being the cause of the Corinthians conversion of their being enriched in all things appertaining to Christian religion so as to want nothing but the revelation of Christ in glory whom already they beheld in grace as also of their perseverance without crime till the day of doom in that belief unto which by this grace they had been called This is the summ of the Epistle and undoubtedly this is the sense of the prayer begging that as by the operation of Christ his mercy the Corinthians became Christians so we that are by the same meanes of the same profession may by the same help have our hearts directed by the operation of our Saviours mercy towards us by the encrease of his grace within us And indeed that encrease is also properly the operation of his mercy too for the first gift thereof was rather the exhibition then the operation of his holy grace and yet to us it seems like an operation of it too within his own bowels and so as we said above the exhibition of it in our eyes is as the effect of his mercie upon himself but the encrease thereof is the operation of it upon us to whom it is exhibited so by the exhibition of this grace we become children of God and by the encrease thereof we grow to be his champions to live his Saints and die his Martyrs rather then renounce the Faith of Christ Thus we see the first clause of this Prayer hath exhausted the whole Epistle of the day Now that the Gospel should be by the close thereof exhausted too would seem strange if already stranger mysteries had not appeared in the mysterious prayers of holy Church And certain it was for the depth of their spirit that S. Gregory the great collects them all together into a book intituled of Sacraments that is to say of Mysteries as in the preface of this book was hinted not that the stile of Churches prayers is other then plain and easie but that the depth of their meaning is prodigious We have examples in the simple stile of Thomas à Kempis authour of the following of Christ the plainest and the deepest book that ever was written next to holy Writ the fullest of common places and yet the most home to every mans particular that reads it So it is with the Churches prayers they are in words simple and facil but in sense such as the deepest understanding may not be able to sound the bottome of them For instance see how the whole story of the Gospel is wound off by the onely close of this daies prayer if yet the former clause thereof were not appropriable thereunto For what imports the pressing into Jesus presence of the paralytick and those who from the houses top did drop him down into the room where Jesus was when they found not entrance any other way but an infinite faith they had of being cured by the least touch of his sacred person and this to satisfie our selves with the letter of the story not recurring as we might to the mystery thereof What I say means this passage else then a remonstrance of this paralyticks faith in Jesus Christ And who doth not see the close of this prayer excellently well allude to faith since we read that without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Do not we Christians then implicitely beg if not the gift which we have already at least the encrease of faith when we end this prayer with confessing We cannot without God please his Divine Majestie that is to say as without the gift of faith we can be no Christians at all so without the encrease thereof through the operation of Christ his mercy in us we cannot become good Christians such as by works of charity still encrease our faith in Jesus Christ and by that encrease deserve with the paralytick as well the remission of our sins as the cure of corporal diseases since without such remission we cannot please Almighty God and without him no such remission can be had that is without his mercy operate first upon him to pardon us and then upon us when pardoned to offend no more not that this operation of Gods mercy upon himself is any new act but ever is ever was and will be one and the same act in him seeming new to us by the new effects it produceth in us So every way is it an undoubted truth that without him we can no wayes please him And thus do we still adjust the prayers of holy Church unto the other service of the day The Epistle 1 Cor. 1. v. 4. 4 I give thanks to my God alwayes for you for the grace of God that is given you in Christ Jesus 5 That in all things you may be rich in him in all utterance and in all knowledge 6 As the testimony of Christ is confirmed in you 7 So that nothing is wanting to you in any grace expecting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ 8 Who also will confirm you unto the end without crime in the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ The Explication 4. IN these words S. Paul gives thanks to God incessant for the grace of Christ which was given to the Corinthians who thereby were made Christians An excellent lesson and ought to be frequently practised by us to acknowledge that our perseverance is a continuation of our vocation to Christianity 5. In all things appertaining to your religion Rich in him rich by him that doth enrich you every hour by preserving you in the same vocation he hath called you unto In all utterance in all your words whereby is preached this faith In all knowledge in all true spiritual understanding the doctrine of Christ as who should say I thank God that hath by mine and by Apollo's preaching afforded you all understanding and true sense
of the doctrine of Christ the Gospel we have delivered unto you 6. The particle as here imports as much as if he had said by these two means namely of our preaching and your thereby tightly understanding the true sense of Christs doctrine you are confirmed in Christ in your belief of his veracity and so he becomes confirmed in you by these infallible testimonies you have of him our preaching and your right believing 7. See here how absolutely right masters the Apostles were how absolutely true schollars or disciples the Corinthians were of Christ to whom nothing is wanting in any grace that can be requisite to their confirmation who are true children of Christ who have such masters and who are such believers as the Corinthians were So that what remained was onely to see all they had heard and believed of Christ to be verified by his revealing the certainty thereof at his second coming in the day of Judgment when this perfect and fertile grace shall bring forth in them the fruits of glory in the Kingdome of heaven 8. This verse alludes to the present grace of Christ which the Apostle sayes should confirm them now in their belief meaning the Church not every particular member thereof and render them both here till then and at the day of Judgement inculpable for their having thus believed being thus called by God and thus instructed by the Apostles The Application 1. WE heard last Sunday how this Apostle summed up to his Ephesian Converts those particular vertues that were proper for new converted soules now to day he speaks to the Corinthians much in the same stile they being newly by his means then made good Christians onely here the Apostle insists much upon the effects of that grace in them which wrought their conversion and those effects how excellent they are the Explication of the Text above hath told us 2. It remains therefore that all Catholick Christians while they read this Text which minds them of their like conversion amidst a thousand millions of men who want that happinesse set their charity on work immediately to produce the like effects in their soules by the operation of the grace they have received to be and to persevere in that saving Faith which works it self by charity out of grace into glory at that latter day when every one shall receive according to their works 3. As therefore the gift of Faith wrought upon our understandings and directed them to an assent to mysteries above the reach of reason so charity is to direct our wills to attempt things above nature such as are all good works done for a supernatural end Now because all such works are the effects of grace and not of nature and because grace is given to us by the operation of God his mercy towards us who mercifully operates that in us which we our selves may cooperate unto but cannot operate without his helping hand without the operation of his mercy upon us even towards our cooperation which is indeed his holy grace working in us Therefore holy Church to day fitly prayes as above The Gospel Mat. 9. v. 1. c. 1 And entering into a boat he passed over the water and came into his own cittie 2 And behold they brought unto him one sick of the palsie lying in bed and Jesus seeing their faith said to the sick of the palsie have a good heart son thy sins are forgiven thee 3 And behold certain of the Scribes said within themselves he blasphemeth 4 And Jesus seeing their thoughts said wherefore think you evil in your hearts 5 Whether is easier to say thy sins are forgiven thee or to say arise and walk 6 But that you may know that the Son of Man hath power in earth to forgive sins then said he to the sick of the palsie Arise take up thy bed and go into thy house 7 And he arose and went into his house 8 And the multitudes seeing it were afraid and glorified God that gave such power to men The Explication 1. MUch dispute there is about this Cittie which it was since the Text calls it his own but the most probable sense is that it was Capharnaam which he was most pleased to grace with his miracles and preaching for Bethleem he had honoured with his birth Nazareth with his youthly education Egypt with his slight thither Hierusalem with his passion and so it rests Capharnaam must be that cittie which he now calls his own by his habitation preaching and cuting all diseases frequently therein 2. They bring him a paralytick in his bed the reason was that men sick of this disease lose the use of their joynts can neither go stand nor sit Here we may learn not onely to labour our own but our neighbours wellfare for this paralytick was brought doubtlesse by those who having seen the works of Christ and his wonders were zealous to bring this sick man on their shoulders to the fountain of health S. Marke sayes c. 2. v. 3. there were foure did bring this man to Christ And by the following words in this verse is evinced what we have already said of these mens zeals foâ— they carried the man up to the top of a house not being able to bring him bed and all through the crowd So Christ seeing the faith of these men who brought him with this zeal said to the paralytick in recompense of his and their faiths who brought him for the Text runs in the plurall number Sonne be of good heart thy sinnes are forgiven thee By these words we see the faith of miracles is and must be mixed with a confident hope of obtaining the favour asked which we believe is in his power to grant that we do ask it of and this confident hope is that which chears up the heart which Christ bade this paralytick continue Great is seen to be the benignitie grace and favour shown by Christ to this poore diseased creature when he calls him childe and to make him capable of that denomination forgives him his sinnes to shew he was not onely a corporall but a spirituall Physician and had power over souls as well as over bodies Nor is it marvell he first heals the soul of sinne by remitting it before he cures the body of this paralytick since commonly sinne in the soul is the cause of diseases in the body so that this was even a due order to cure the disease by taking away the cause thereof besides since all Gods workes are perfect it is consonant to Christ his dignitie and bountie being God to doe the worke completely to cure the man both body and soul and this indeed is commonly found to be the practise of Christ in most of his cures since his aime in all his miracles was the conversion of souls besides he came purposely into the world to take away the sinnes thereof But a main reason why here he did remit sin was to shew himself to be God by exercising that power which
our own deadly sinnes to God by means of confession and yet to refuse a pardon to those men that do but slightly offend us 31. This verse rather tells what infirmity is in man to man on earth then that we can think the Saints or Angels runne officiously to God and provoke him to take notice of our sinnes rather then begge him to turn his face away from them or to cast them at least behind him that if it were possible he might not see them So here the story is rather told to make it flow currantly as an act between man and man then as a true expression of the thing figured in the story 32. The following verse shows clearly God's â—trâ—se of our ingratitude to him and our want of brotherly love to one another so it needs no further exposition 33. 34. This wrath is just and so not to be wondred at By the tormenters here are understood the devils By lying till the debt be paid is to say eternally because no torment is punishment enough for mortall sinne which is of infinite malice and which malice continues eternally if man unfortunately dy in deadly sinne so no marvell his pain be eternall when the duration of the malice is without end All the doubt is here whether a sinne once forgiven by God can be recalled and man be damned for it as if he never had been forgiven so this story imports But the true sense of this place is that by this example was presented so great an ingratitude that it became a mortall sinne and consequently deserving damnation it did as good as bring back all the formerly remitted debt of sinne since to be damned for one only or for many sinns imports a desert of equall torments extensive though not intensive that is to say of as long though not as cruel or as bitter pains But to the thing intended by this Parable which is the obligation we have under pain of damnation to forgive our neighbour if we will hope to have God forgive us the story runnes right enough even in the rigour of the words so it needs the lesse glossing The Application 1. AS this Gospell we see is parabolicall so is it applicable at pleasure to the best of piety we can cull out of it Wherefore not to recapitulate what the Illustration or Explication above have told us already we shall do well to perswade our selves this own example of Ingratitude in our wicked fellow servant ought to be a motive to us of practising the contrary virtue not onely towards our common master who is ever obliging us but also towards our fellow servants who can never disoblige us if we remember that all the hurt we receive is from our selves 2. And again this Gospell minding us how the evil of Ingratitude was punished is therefore fitly placed after an Epistle of so much evil intended us as there we have heard to let us see that nothing but our good deeds can preserve us from those evil machinations against us 3. It is therefore as for a reward of doing good that Holy Church presumes to beg protection from all adversity in her childrens way and for their better means of doing good deeds sacred to the holy name of God shee hath to day drawn them all up into a Body least the enemy finding any stragling souldier of this holy Army fall upon him at a lonely disadvantage O Piety O Prudence of our holy Mother teaching us still To pray in consequence to what we Christians should be at according as she preacheth See how the Prayer above is sutable to this On the two and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 22. v. 21. REnder unto Caesar these things that are Caesars and to God those things which are Gods Vers Let my Prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God our refuge and strength be present thou the Authour of all piety to the godly Prayers of thy Church and grant that what we ask faithfully we may obtain effectually The Illustration I Must confesse that whosoever casts his eye upon the Antiphon taken out of this dayes Gospel and Prayer above will have small encouragement to think they speak both one sense and yet we must or make them do so or in vain we are come thus far towards the end of our Book and to fail now were to suffer shipwrack in our own haven after the having escaped many a storm abroad at Sea First therefore let us sound the depth of the water in this haven see the sense of the Prayer which in the entrance steers us right by bidding us call upon the Authour of piety Almighty God our refuge and strength and to petition he will be present to the godly prayers of holy Church and to grant that what we ask faithfully sincerely or cordially we may obtain effectually even to the full of our desires This certainly is the sense of the Prayer and further Glosse it needeth not nor God be thanked need we any more to shew it speaks the whole contents both of the Epistle and Gospel of the day For see how the trust in Jesus Christ which Saint Paul begins his Epistle with to day unto the Philippians speaks in other terms that which the Prayer calls refuge See how the strength of God is that whereby the good work of Christianity in us begun is made perfect even to the replenishing of us with the fruits of justice by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God as this Epistle concludes the Philippians were so replenished But that which yet more peculiarly appropriates this Prayer unto the Epistle is the sincerity which Saint Paul hopes will be the effect of their Christian charity and such an effect as to render them without offence unto the day of Christ And indeed 't is this sincerity which opens this cabinet of rich connexion to day between all the parts of holy Churches service since it is not to be hoped we shall effectually obtain any thing that we do not sincerely for that is here the sense of faithfully petition Almighty God and consequently if onely the want of sincerity debar us of our hopes where that sincerity is not wanting there we may hope to speed for all we ask and this hope being given us in the Prayer above renders this Epistle most conform unto the Prayer As for the Gospel if we take the words and do not mark to what sense they drive at we may boldly say no Gospel can be more dissonant then this below is to the Prayer above But if we see that from the first unto the last of the Gospel there is nothing but a juggle in the Pharisees to intrap our Saviour in his speeches and then surprise him most when they most do flatter him with the stile of Master of learned of upright of unpartial even unto Princes and the like when yet at the same time we see they aimed at nothing
more then to undermine him and bring him within the compasse of high treason when I say we see this to be the drift of the Gospel on the Jews part and that our Saviour seeing the naughtiness of their thoughts asks them plainly why they play the hypocrites with him then I presume no man that can tell twenty will marvell to see this dayes Prayer beg fidelity and sincerity of heart in us Christians at least when we see the Pharisaick Jews are convinced of so grosse an infidelity and flattery even when they pretend forsooth a tenderness of conscience and when we hear our Saviour recommend the same fidelity which we petition for to day in commanding them faithfully to render that to Caesar which is Caesars and that to God which is Gods namely their pecuniary tribute to Caesar their religious sincerity to God and that especially when they pretend it as here the Pharisees did though they least intended it Let me therefore beloved beg it as a boon that you all say this Prayer to day with such sincerity of heart as may render it and you gratefull in God Almighties sight and hearing for then shall we pray most consonantly to what the Church doth preach to day and then shall we be sure such our petitions will be granted effectually which are made unto God faithfully and this assurance we have both from the Epistle Gospel and Prayer of this present Sunday A great content I confesse after the fear of so great a losse as we were like to be at for making good the grand design of our work which as yet comes fairly home when we might fear we had been farthest off The Epistle Phil. 1. v. 6. c. 6 We trust in God our Lord Jesus that he which hath begun in you a good work will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus 7 As it is reason for me this to think for you all for that I have you in heart and in my bands and in the defence and the confirmation of the Gospel all you to be partakers of my joy 8 For God is my witness how I covet you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. 9 And this I pray that your charity may more and more abound in knowledge and in all understanding 10 That you may approve the better things that you may be sincere and without offence unto the day of Christ. 11 Replenished with the fruit of justice by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God The Explication 6. THe Apostle here speaks in the plural Number because he writes this Epistle as well in his companions name as his own in Timothies though afterwards himself being onely in Prison and not Timothy he speaks to them in his own person but directs his Epistle as from both to shew them that absent or present they are both of one mind The work he confides to have continued is their conversion By the day of Christ he means the day of Judgement which is that of his second coming the first being his birth-day 7. It is reason indeed for him to conside thus because as their conversion was by means of God his special grace so he presumes the same goodnesse of God will be continued which was begun in them and because he hopes their cooperation will not be wanting to persevere in the faith of Christ as it was not first to accept thereof Hence his charity makes him hope this of them with reason and his faith makes him presume the other of God towards them Yet not so that hence the Reformers can infer as they do out of this place that it is impossible for one who is once called by God and in grace ever to lose the same grace or vocation The Apostles words import no such thing onely a religious hope or confidence he hath they will indeed persevere as they have begun to love serve and honour Almighty God as his following words testifie in this Verse because he professeth here that he prayes continually for their perseverance which argues it is not a thing to be hoped but by endeavours and pains on our parts Nay Saint Paul so plainly speaks to this sense that he seems to say least their own endeavours towards this perseverance should not suffice he hath made it even his hearts desire besides and applies his personal sufferings to this end that God moved by his prayer and persecution may supply what is wanting in them towards perseverance by their own sole endeavours And it is Saint Augustines and the Churches doctrine indeed that justifying grace alone sufficeth not toward perseverance without new favours of more and more grace do inable us to persevere In the close of this verse the Apostle alludes to the hope he hath of Martyrdom for the defence of the faith of Christ against those who oppose it and the confirmation of it in those who have imbraced it And this he means by his joy whereof he prayes they may be made partakers 8. And that he doth thus pray he calls God to witness and doth this with such earnestnesse as if he were not himself happy enough to be in the bowels of Jesus Christ which is in his bosome in Heaven unlesse he might find these Philippians there also or as if his love to them and zeal of their salvations were such that he desired Jesus Christ should have them equally in his breast or bowels of affection with himself Both these senses this text will bear very well as also that by these words Saint Paul professeth he loves them so tenderly that he cannot expresse it otherwise then by saying it is even with the affection of Jesus Christ himself following Christ's instruction Joh. 13.34 Love one another as I have loved you 9. Here he prayeth for the superadded grace which above was said to be necessary to perseverance which is for their increase of charity where that abounds there is wanting neither knowledge of what is the true doctrine of the Church of Christ nor what is the true sense and meaning thereof since by this abundant charity we see the ignorant Apostles were so illuminated that they could and did penetrate into the genuine sense of the deepest mysteries of Christian faith and religion 10. This alludes to the sense as above in the former Verse that by their increase in love and charity they might be able to distinguish between the Apostles Christian and Simon Magus his Judaical and others heretical doctrine as finding that of Christianity the more powerfull and efficacious to salvation It seems by these words the Apostle thinks the pretended charity of hereticks is not sincere love and affection to God and their Neighbour but hath a mixture of hypocrisie in it and makes use of the name of Christ to cover the doctrine of those who indeed are opposite to him by saying this or that is Christ his doctrine which indeed is not so but proves upon a strict examine the sense and doctrine of
tells them plainly of their dissimulation when he rebukes them and their hypocritical temptations for though they flatter to destroy him yet he reprehends to save them And thus we see an angry God is more profitable then a propitious man since the one cannot the other may deceive us or attempt at least so to do as here these people did even when they made the fairest shew of friendship to our Saviour 19. But Christ intending to give them a further check by seeming to go yet on towards the snares they had laid to intrap him calls for a piece of that coin which was called the tribute money being a piece to the value of six pence 20. And they giving him one of them he demands whose picture that was which he found stamped on the money not that he who knew their thoughts before could be ignorant whose coin it was they gave him but that he was desirous to give them a convincing answer to their capricious question by taking the ground of his answer out of their own mouthes and so to stop their mouthes by confounding them upon their own words 21. They tell him boldly it was Caesars namely Tiberius his coin the then Roman Emperour who had reigned eighteen years as Saint Luke sayes c. 3. v. 1. and was descended of Julius the first who took the name of Caesar as all the Roman Emperours did after Our Saviour hearing them say this answers in such sort as if he had wondred they could doubt of what they asked so be instantly replies if it be Caesars coin Give that to Caesar which is Caesars or rather surrender restore so reddite imports to your Sovereign the tribute of that coin which he gives you to repay it to him for you cannot your selves without breach of the law make your own coin but must onely use such as your Sovereign stamps and gives you as a token it is his and not your own because it bears his picture on it as you see And whereas you asked me this question with a seeming regard to God as if you would not have him offended by his peoples paying tribute to Gentiles know God expects the tribute of your hearts and not that of your purses open therefore your hearts to God your purses to your Princes so shall you comply with your duties to both Not that by this answer our Saviour did determine whether the Jews were tyrannically subjected to the Roman Empire for this was a question of some intricacy but that since he found themselves confesse the coin they had was Caesars and in using it that they did acknowledge themselves his subjects therefore he bid them give Caesar what was Caesars not determining the crown but at least the coin to be his due Yet if Christ had determined the crown to be Caesars too the one hundred years prescription that the Roman Emperours could pretend unto by a tacite consent all that while on the Jews part might well have avouched that determination and probably our Saviour did so conceive and so determine too by this answer Besides the question was not so much whether they were bound by humane Law as by divine for they seemed to pretend conscience and to think it might be a sin to God for a Jew to pay duty to a Gentile and to this Christ answers it may be lawfully and safely done in conscience if a Gentile be their lawfull Sovereign The Application 1. AS in this dayes Epistle sincerity is recommended so in the Gospel hypocrisie the contrary vice unto it is not onely reprehended by our Saviour but sincerity commended in bidding that be given unto Caesar which is Caesars and that to God which appertains to God 2. Nay more as conscience was pretended for the doubt these hypocrites proposed so the command resolving must be conscientious obliging under pain of sin O Christians learn from hence to make a conscience of your actions learn to let them be sincere indeed and not in shew alone so shall you make your sincerity the testimony of your sayntity if not your non-sincerity will still accuse you of iniquity 3. Alas what boots it to believe in God unlesse that belief be perfected by the like sincerity in our profession as accompanies the confession of our faith For as faith without works is dead so those works that are done without sincerity are rather works of infidelity then of true Christian faith What will hope in God avail us when our actions leading to the fruition of our hope mis-lead us for lack of sincerity therein What will that charity befriend us which is nothing but an unsincere affection to Almighty God while in sincerity of truth 't is but our selves we seek our selves we love in most of those professions which we make of serving and of loving God For remedy of which transcending non sincerity in all our actions holy Church Prayes as above to day that what we petition with sincere recourse to God and with the piety of our joynt praying mother may be effectually granted because it is at least sincerely asked On the three and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 9. v. 22. BVt Jesus being turned and seeing her said Have a good heart Daughter thy faith hath made thee safe Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer PArdon we beseech thee O Lord the offences of thy people that from the bonds of our sins which through our frailty we have contracted by thy benignity we may be delivered The Illustration HOw aptly do we pray to day for the pardon of our offences and to be delivered from the bonds of our sins by the benignity of our Lord which through our own frailty we have contracted since in this Epistle Saint Paul weeping complains that he finds even among Christians such grievous sinners as are enemies to the crosse of Christ such as make their belly their God and for so doing have destruction their end and confusion their glory and since he labours to reclaim them by laying his own life a pattern of sanctitie before their eyes beseeching them to have as himself had their conversation in heaven to emulate the gifts of glory exposed for reward to those that are good Christians and incouraging them the Philippians that were good to continue so naming for example to the rest certain godly matrons Euodia and Syntiche But how much more sutable is the Gospell to this prayer wherein we see the enormitie of sinne set out by the figure of death in Jairus his daughter and by the nastinesse of a long continued issue of bloud in another woman Both which corporall cures the Expositours apply unto a spirituall cure of all sinne whatsoever when they will have the Jewes to be represented by the dead daughter of Jairus restored to life and the Gentiles by the woman cured of her bloudy issue and consequently all the bands of sinne untied by the benignitie of God which were
when having once begun to serve God well the whole continuance of endeavours is still to better that beginning still to begin anew where last we did end as in this work you see we doe setting the same feare of our Lord before our eyes in the end thereof the same memory of the day of Judgement wherewith we first begun this practise of Pietie which here I tender unto every one of our sodalitie not doubting but if we live an hundred yeares we shall find of this devotion that it will alwayes please though a hundred times repeated over because the subject is so sweet as the more we suck it comes the sweeter still And since in the Title of this Booke we called it not onely a Christian sodalitie but a Hive of Bees I beseech God we may find no drones amongst us in this Hive no lazy Bees that will not flie abroad to suck the hony of devotion from the blossomes of the word of God which are growing in every leaf of this Book the whole being framed either of the holy Text or of the Exposition of the same The Epistle Coloss 1. v. 9. c. 9 Therefore we also from the day that we heard it cease not praying for you and desiring that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdome and spirituall understanding 10 That you may walk worthy of God in all things pleasing fructifying in all good works and increasing in the knowledge of God 11 In all power strengthened according to the might of his glory in all patience and longanimity with joy 12 Giving thanks to God and the Father who hath made us worthy unto the part of the lot of the Saints in the light 13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darknesse and hath translated us into the kingdome of the Sonne of his love 14 In whom we have redemption the remission of sinnes The Explication 9. THat is from the day we heard you were converted to the faith of Christ upon the hope you had of heaven thereby as in the precedent verses of this chapter is expressed and as soon as Epaphras our fellow labourer in the vineyard of Christ brought us this happy news and of your speciall love to me and Timothy From that time we cease not praying for your being still filled more and more with the grace of God and with the knowledge of his will with the acknowledgement thereof as being done in you by this your conversion The Apostle appositely mentions here wisdome and spiriâ—uall understanding praying they may be filled therewith to shew the difference between the folly of profane learning such as was that the Simonians affected in those dayes meer humane and carnall wisdome and that sacred learning which Christian doctrine teacheth for that onely he accounts true wisdome and true understanding as teaching us to walk spiritually not carnally in the Church of Christ which is the school of Christianity 10. And praying further that you may walk worthy of God in all things pleasing that you may so farre please God in all you do as to make your selves worthy of him by receiving no lesse then himself for your reward of so walking By which we see S. Paul here piously points at the now Catholick doctrine which the pretended Reformers oppose of meriting heaven by our good works though perhaps this place doth not directly prove it since he speaks of making our selves worthy even of God himself whereas there be those who teach we are onely imputatively and not really or de condigno justified by Christs merits or made partakers of them Again lest he should in vain bid us do what he thought sufficient to render us thus worthy he tells us in the following words how to be made so namely by fructifying in all good works by reaping fruit out of every laudable exercise and others we must not addict our selves unto and by increasing in the knowledge of God by making it our study better to understand the mysteries of our faith and religion for thereby it is we come to know God See here the obligation we have to be daily diligent in learning more and more of Christianity and not to lose our time in studying fooleries for thereby we shall hazard the deserving Hell and not God for our reward 11. See the sense of this verse explicated in the Epistle upon the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost for the first part of it and in the Epistle upon the fourteenth Sunday for the second part theâ—eof because there it is explicated all at large suffice it to note here his aim is to stir them up to alacrity even in persecution 12. And to thank God the Father for the benefit of his grace which gives them that alacrity he directs our thoughts to the Father as knowing they will thereby be more pleasing to his sonne our Saviour Jesus Christ who made offering of all his own actions to his heavenly Father thereby to shew us we must attribute more to the goodnesse of God then even to the passion of Christ which was dignified from the Deity whereunto the humanity was united That hath made us worthy this shews how little we ought to confide in our own merits since even all the good we do is by the speciall grace of God and must have its value from God assisting more then from our selves acting yet by both together we become worthy of God himself for our reward as was said above much more of our share with the Saints in glory though here the Apostle alludes chiefly to the Colossians being made worthy with other Saints of the light and glory of the Gospel by their conversion to the faith of Christ which he calls therefore the lot of the Saints because it is a grace gratis given and no man can merit his conversion which the Apostle calls the lot of the Saints in the light of the Gospel given by God the father gratis through the merits of our Saviours passion Or if we shall take the complete sense of this verse it imports the lot we have to share with those who live in the light of the Gospel is the beginning of the accomplishment of that lot when we shall live and reign with Christ and his Saints in the lot or happinesse they have to dwell in the light of eternall glory 13. By the power of darknesse is here understood the infidelity they were in before conversion when they were under the command of the Prince of darknesse as being then in his power By this Graecisme or phrase common among the Greeks viz. the Sonne of his love is here understood his beloved Sonne the second person of the Blessed Trinity not that as Sabellius would have it Christ was one and the same person with the holy Ghost proceeding as he did by an act of love whereas we are taught the second person was begotten by the understanding of his eternall Father and the third as some Divines hold
Transformation that is Transition or passing out of the old figure of Sinners into the new form of Saints and besides St. Paul recommends the forme of newnesse unto us to shew he desires not so much our innovation as our reformation that is not to have us become new creatures in nature but reformed ones in grace such as by newnesse of the Spirit cast off the Antiquity of flesh and bloud or such as by new grace reform old nature for Antiquity in the holy Story of man reports to old Adam to originall sin sicknesse and death the effects thereof but newnesse relates to Christ renewing the decay of old Adam in us by the spritely or youthfull grace of God and this newnesse of mind the Apostle requires as a meanes to know and prove what the good acceptable and perfect will of God is for by proof is here meant experimentall knowledge of the aforesaid wills and without this newnesse we can have no notion thereof for the old man in us makes us sensible of nothing at all that reports in the least to God all the means we have to come unto this knowledge of his will is by reforming our selves in the newnesse of our Spirit that so we may know the will of a Spirit and not remain in the ignorance of an unknowing body or corporall man who knows nothing at all of God The best acception of this place is when by will we understand the things willed or desired as who should say the good will of God is that which makes us desire to doe in all things what is good at least his acceptable will is that which causeth us to doe what is yet better his perfect will is that which moves us to doe to our powers what we judge ever to be best But we are to note the Apostle here speaks of the will of sign precept or counsell which God hath given us to doe good by or rather to be our rule of knowing when we doe well but not of the will of his absolute divine pleasure for that is so necessary as nothing can be done against it that is to say nothing can be done otherwise than as God is pleased it shall be but the Apostle here thus explicates himself about these three Wills describing the good will from the 3d to the 6th verse of this Chapter to consist in being soberly wise and to proceed according to the measure of grace given us by God each in our calling The acceptable he describes from the 9th verse to the 16th verse making that to consist in a sincere cordiall affection in a servent strong and liberall love to our neighbours The perfect from the 16th verse to the end of the Chapter he sayes consisteth in a perfect love mixt with so much humility as makes us condescend to love even our enemies and doe good to them though they requite us again with ill offices done to us 3. St Paul here professeth his knowledge of spirituall things not to be otherwise in him then by the speciall grace of God given him to know thus much as he doth yet it is most probable be alluded to the particular grace of his Apostolate which gave him the science to distinguish spirits and that he professeth to doe in these three gradations of the will divine which here hee makes and if in this place we understand grace for power given unto him to instruct them by office as he was an Apostle it might so taken bee no wrested sense By bidding us not to bee more wise than becomes he adviseth mediocrity in all proceedings and disswades from excess or extreams in any kinde since even at the extremity of vertue vice attends or hee may forbid curiosities in points of Faith such as brinke upon heresie when they are too far strained Or lastly he may forbid in these words pride and vain glory or self-conceit in men of their own ablities when they value themselves at a higher rate than others doe or then indeed they can deserve For this is to be wiser than they ought this is not to be soberly but impudently wise Hee sayes further That every one should proceed according as God hath divided the measure of Faith that is to say according as God hath given his severall gifts for imbellishment unto the true Faith of Christ or as graces thereunto belonging but so as they must be gratis given and as certain Testimonies of the true Faith Such were the gifts of tongues of prophecie of discretion of Spirits of Interpretation of Scripture of teaching of ministery and the like 1 Cor. 12. v. 10. and while any one had received these gratuit gifts as measures of his Faith or as Testimonies that he was a true Christian the Apostle adviseth him to rest there and not to undertake teaching if he were but gifted to the ministery nor discernment of spirits if he had onely the gift of tongues and so of the rest 4 5. These two next Verses illustrate this to bee the genuine sense of the former measure of Faith by the analogie between the members of a naturall and a mysticall bodie for as in the naturall body it were absurd if the hand should undertake to speak or the tongue to reach what meat the body expected the hand to bring unto the mouth so were it for one member of the mysticall body to execute the office and function of another as for the Clark to teach and the Doctor to play the Clarks part since these are spiritually tyed together for severall spirituall uses and operations as the members of the naturall body are corporally tyed to make one entire thing consisting of severall members and the spirituall tye or union of the Mysticall members are interiourly invisible as Faith and Grace exteriourly visible as the Sacraments of holy Church for by these the whole body mysticall is compacted and set together unto Christ their now invisible and to the Pope S. Peters successour their now visible Head and as no corporall member onely serves it self but is a fellow-servant both with and to the other members of the naturall body for example the hand serves the mouth with meats the mouth the stomack the stomack digests all into nutriment for the whole body So every Christian must be a servant not onely to Christ the Head but even to every soul that beleiving in Christ is a member of his Mysticall bodie the Church as well as we and this were to bee perfect members unto Christ when we were ready to serve one another in order to his service to Gods honour and glory this were to follow the Apostles counsel close of being members to one another that is serving one anothers particular necessities as well as those of our common body the Church united to Christ her Head The Application 1. NO marvell if last sundayes Infants bee to day required to offer up their Reasonable services to Almighty God for as Faith elevateth Reason so Hope and Charity subject
yet by thy mercy soon enough believe that thou art risen and that thou art indeed my Lord my God who didst upon the Cross receive these wounds for mine and all mankindes redemption and though the Apostle knew Christ dyed for all yet he calls him here Emphatically his Lord his God as who should say this grace and favour was to him alone to have so convincing a Proof made unto him of that Truth he onely among all the Apostles then doubted of 29. And lest the Apostle should Glory that by this he might seem more in favour then the rest Christ tells him plainly no That others who without the help of Sense believed were more happy then those who for Sense-sake onely gave consent unto Faith Besides formally Saint Thomas did Believe more then he did see or feel that is he believed Christ to be God by feeling him to be man and not a Phantasm So if we shall allow him to have had onely humane Faith of the resurrection by this sight yet he had thence Divine Faith of all the rest of his Doctrines and especially of his Deity whereunto he Attributed the Power of his resurrection 30. The reason why Saint John writ no more on purpose to confirm this Doctrine of the Resurrection was because he thought the other Evangelists had been large enough in that point and because this was so pregnant a Proof as it alone was sufficient so what he adds in his last Chapter is rather to shew the effect thereof by the multitude that were converted by it then for any other reason 31. Here the Evangelist tells his Reason why he writ this viz. to render Christ received and believed to be the Messias that was promised and so God as well as man and when he says we shall have life by believing in his name he means in his Person in his merits in his Passion so that first we are to believe him to be our Saviour Secondly the Messias Thirdly God and the onely Son of his eternal Father And lastly that he will give to all that thus believe and do as he hath commanded life everlasting eternal happiness The Application 1. THe whole designe of this Gospel being onely to prove the Resurrection and by the reality thereof the Truth of Jesus Christ his being God as well as Man we have hence to gather that the exercise of our Faith is here chiefly required and that so often as we reade this Gospel each one cry out with the convinc't Apostle my Lord my God confirm in me that happiest Act of Faith which believes without the help of touch or eyes that thou art my Leige Lord as thou art Man and hast all Power given thee both in Heaven and Earth That thou art my God who hast created me out of nothing and redeemed me from worse then nothing my grievous sinful state to make me more then all things under Heaven a saved soul 2. Yet lest we should pay the duty of such a Faith without our reason leading thereunto see here apparent Proofs of the same real Body risen which was dead and buried while the wounds are just the same that were received on the Cross see that this humane Person is withall Divine whilest he gives power to pardon sins and to retain them if occasion be see how he proves what the Epistle taught that by our Faith we overcame the world when himself brings to his believers the Fruit and End of Victory a happy Peace and gives it his Apostles as a Testimony that it is the same Gods gift now rising from the dead who brought it with him hither at his Birth onely the Angels then delivered it and now we have it from his mouth Divine who well may give it us now he hath vanquish't all our Enemies the World the Flesh the Devil Sin and Death and gives this Peace both as Recompence and Fruit of Faith 3. O happy Faith that brings forth such a Peace as sets us right to God our neighbors and our selves for if with any of the Three we be at odds we can have peace with neither of the other O happy Faith again that works in us by Charity and brings forth all the twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost with all the other Vertues that accomplish Christianity and integrate the Paschal Feast in us which now we Celebrate And consequently pray as above with holy Church that we may keep these Vertues in our Lives and Manners On the second Sunday after Easter The Antiphon Joh. 10. v. 11. I Am a good Shepherd who do feed my sheep and for my sheep yield my life Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who by the humble abasement of thine own Son hast raised up the prostrate world grant we beseech thee unto thy Faithful people everlasting Joy that they whom thou hast taken out of the danger of Eternal Death may enjoy perpetual Felicity The Illustration AS we finde in this Prayer the streame of the resurrection run strongly down the Channell of the Church her service thus humbly praying so we are minded that the Paschall Feast which we must retaine in our manners and lives is here commemorated in one of the chiefe accomplishments thereof the death of Christ since it was by his abasement unto death that we are raised up to life and are imboldened to begge our joy may be perpetuall who by his temporall resurrection are taken out of the danger of eternall death to the end we may not onely joy therein for ever but even injoy perpetuall felicity thereby But stay beloved why doe we now eclipse the glory of this Festivall by mixing with it the memory of our Blessed Lords inglorious death because the Holy Ghost will have it so first to shew us that it was an abasement for the Son of God to remaine one minute out of the Kingdome of his eternall Father though he were never so much triumphant over death upon death as also to indeer us the more unto Almighty God who was content to give us glory by the infamy of his Sacred Sonne but was not satisfied to give us being out of the nothing we were before he shewed his omnipotency by creating us unless he had made his own Son by death as it were not to be that so he might give us a second being in grace better then our first in nature and unless our Saviours temporall death might give us life eternall free from all danger and injoying perpetuall felicity yes yes the little Prayer above imports all this and infinitely more then all we can imagine who are not able to reach the depth of sence that lies under the dictates of the holy Ghost and such we know are holy Churches Prayers nor is there want of admirable sweet connexion between this Prayer and the Epistle and Gospel of the day for what doth all the former say but that our Saviours abasement was our
exaltation when Saint Peter in his Epistle tels us we that are Christians are called to suffer with Christ who gave us example by his sufferings to follow his steps even unto death for him who did vouchsafe to dye for us And is not this the full sence of the Prayer As for the Gospell if we look with a regardfull eye upon it 't is but the same sence in other words for while it runs upon the nature of a Shepheard it never comes unto the hight of his commends untill it layes him low as death to save his sheep so still it drives to that abasement which is our exaltation and drawes us sweetly on to dye for him while it gives us an example of confidence that admits no fear because there is no security but in Trust and who can we trust more safely then him that knowes no guile our Saviour Jesus Christ who rather dyes in us then we can dye for him and if he dye it is that we may live and joy eternally with him that by his resurrection conquered death Thus do the sparkes of spirit flye from every letter of the Holy Text when they are strook against the steele of this dayes Prayer and thus the high dignity of Pastorate acquires a glory from the lowest stoop the Pastor makes even that to death so in a word our highest sanctity consists in our lowest humility as this dayes Prayer Epistle and Gospel do all avouch The Epistle 1 Pet. 2. v. 21 c. 21 For unto this are you called because Christ also suffered for us leaving you an example that you may follow his steps 32 Who did no sinne neither was guile found in his mouth 23 VVho when he was reviled did not revile when he suffered he threatned not but delivered himselfe to him that Iudged him unjustly 24 VVho himselfe bare our sinnes in his body upon the Tree that dead to sins we may live to justice by whose stripes you are healed 25 For you were as sheep straying but you are converted now to the Pastor and Bishop of your soules The Explication 21. SAint Peter had before advised to bear patiently not onely just punishments inflicted on the faithfull to whom he writ dispersed as they were some here some there of Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia but also to bear injuries with the like patience saying that to this Christians were called because Christ did suffer for us most unjustly leaving us example to doe the like if need were and as there were three causes which moved God to become man this last is one of them The first was by his death to redeeme us the second by his preaching to teach us the third by his example to draw us to imitate his sanctity of life And to this last the Apostle now chiefely exhorts in this place as we see by the following verse contrary to the Hereticks Doctrine who hold it needless Christ having dyed for our sinnes that man himselfe use any mortification or doe any penance at all 22. Nor could he do any because he was God as well as man and hence Calvins Doctrine teaching Christ was a reall sinner and that he was in regard of his sins afraid to dye and did sweat bloud for fear thereof were all most abominable blasphemies because though in Christ there were two natures humane and divine yet there was in him but one person so had that person sinned God had sinned as well as man since the actions are attributed to the suppositum or person not to the natures contracted by the person but see the Apostle mindes us that Christ was not onely free from sin of fact but also of word and consequently of thought which is by word expressed nor is this marvell since out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Matt. c. 12. v. 34. but certainly God was the most abounding in Jesus his heart and so his words were all holy he being the very word of the eternall Father to whom as nothing is more proper then veracity so nothing is more improper then falsity or dissimulation fraud or guile 23 As indeed he was reviled when they called him drunkard raiser of seditions blasphemer nay conjurer or devill as casting out devils in the devils name yet did not he revile those who used him so ill nor did he recriminate as commonly men doe that excuse their own sins by casting other mens faults in their dish though in pure charity we read in Saint Matthew cap. 23. How roundly he did rebuke the Jewes to see if by a temporall check he could preserve them from eternall paines of hell which is a far other aime then those use who excuse themselves by way of recrimination of others for their end is not charity but passion or revenge and when he might have terrified the Judges that unjustly did condemne him he did not give them the least threat but gave himselfe up to the hands of Pilate his unjust judge how farre short are we of following this example whose whole indeavors are in all our actions even in those that are unjust to justifie our selves whereas if we would follow Saint Bernards counsell we should finde a remedy for all evils and injuries done unto us in the passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 24. The Apostle here assimilates Christ to the Emissary Goat in Levit. cap. 16. v. 21. Sent out into the desert loaden with all the sinnes of the people and so Christ came into the desert of this world out of his Eternall Fathers heavenly Pallace carrying all our sinnes upon his shoulders though by sins here is not understood the fact or guilt thereof but the punishment due unto them by the tree is meant the Crosse of Christ whereon while he dies hee represents us to his heavenly Father as dead to sinne because he dyes for us and for our sins whereupon Saint Ambrose sayes divinely well c. It was not our Life but our Sinne which dyed when Christ our Saviour dyed upon the Crosse So we being dead by that meanes to sinne may live to justice that is in the sight of the just Judge may deserve Eternall life in heaven for living justly here on earth O Soveraigne Stripes which bruising Christs body do cure our Soules more ulcerated with sinne then his body was with stripes 25. Straying we were indeed from God from vertue from Salvation from heaven and running to the devill to vice to damnation to hell had not Christ our Shepheard â—â—duced us to his fold againe by converting us to an amendment of our lives and winning us to follow the Footsteps of our heavenly Pastor and Bishop of our Soules See Bishops are metaphorically called Pastors because as shepheards feed their sheep so do Bishops by Doctrine and example feed the soules of men but Christ is eminentially called both as feeding soules not onely by grace here but with glory in the next world The Application 1. HOw sweetly Holy Church