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
Tables of the Law and the Cherubins of Glory above this overshadowing the propitiatory and the Apostle told them this way of Sacrificing should last till the time of correction that is untill the first comming of Christ into this world who should correct this manner of proceeding and take away those legall rites and ceremonies by putting in their place a spiritual Sacrifice and worshipping of God not that it is to be understood the old being corrected should stand but be abrogated by command of Christ as we say ill manners are corrected in youth not by remaining in the young man but by being taken away by good behavior and by vertue correcting his former vices so the Apostle having told the Hebrewes thus much of the old way of Sacrificing begins in this verse to shew how Christ assisting taking upon him the office of High Priest of the new law and of the good things to come thereby distinguished the fruits of his Sacrifice from those of the High Priest in the old Law who by assisting officiating at the Tabernacle obtained onely present and temporall benefits but Christ was an High Priest obtaining the good things to come Spirituall and Heavenly things as here remission of sins graces and vertues and in the next world glory blisse and everlasting life and this by entering to keep the Analogy between the old way of officiating and the new first a more ample and perfect Tabernacle that is as some say by his Divinity entering our humanity as others by his entering his Virgin Mothers wombe but the most genuine sence is by his entering into his Church Militant becoming the first member of it as it was framed in the Idaea of his Heavenly Father For so it was not a work of humane hands of flesh and blood or of this creation of creatures making but was indeed the Tabernacle of God the first Sanctum Holy through which he was to passe by the vale of the Crosse into the second Tabernacle Sancta Sanctorum the holy of Holies his Church triumphant the Kingdome of Heaven nor was it necessary for Christ to prepare his way from his outward Tabernacle his Church Militant to his inward his Church triumphant by the bloud of Goates for his own sins since he had none and the blood of a Calfe for the sins of the people as in the old Law the High Priests did once a yeare that by Sprinkling the Sancta Sanctorum with this blood they might render God more propitious to themselves and the people no he shed once for all mankinde his own most sacred bloud and dying on the Crosse he entered the holy of holies the kingdome of heaven whereby he found for us eternal redemption so copious an one indeed as needed not be repeated by his dying any more for us then once though in the old Law the bloody Sacrifice of the High Priests were annuall because the power of that bloud they shed was weak and could not plead for long mercy whereas Christs blood prevaileth for eternall and that by being shed but once 13. It was the ceremony of the old Law Num. 19. first to shed the blood of Goats Oxen and Heifers and then burning the Beasts to keep the ashes and putting them into living so they called fountaine water and Sprinkling the people with them to declare they should by that aspersion after Sun-set not before be reputed sanctifyed corporally cleane and be admitted into the company of the faithfull as formerly which was a figure of the blood of Christ issuing out of his earthly body to be a reall purgation of sin out of our Souls and not onely of our corporal impurity it was also the ground whence holy Church useth aspersion with holy water wherin is mixed Salt insteed of those burnt-ashes Note it is well said here this ceremony was but to the cleansing of the flâ—sh for it only did declare their bodies who were thus sprinkled should be esteemed cleane and pure though before polluted by the touch of a dead carcasse a leper or otherwise and this cleansing was then called sanctifying as in this text it is 14. It is indeed great reason the blood of Christ who was God as well as man inspired by the instinct of his own Deity and by the speciall instigation of the Holy Ghost to offer up his life as an unspotted Sacrifice to God the Father for our sins should have much more force to purge our Soules from sins that is from dead works then the blood of beasts had to cleanse mens bodies and Sin is not unfitly called a dead work because it not onely defileth our Soule worse then the touch of a dead carcasse did their bodies of the old Law but even kils them too and yet by the blood of Christ they are both purged and revived so as to be able to waite upon the living God before whom no dead Soul that is to say no Soule in deadly Sin can give any attendance at all it being unfit that the Fountaine of life should be attended on by the ougly countenance of death 15. He is therefore truly the Mediator because he did partake of the nature of both extreames that is of God offended and of man offending and so death being a mean which is to say man dying in Christ God was satisfied not onely for the Sins of those who live under the Law of grace but as is specially noted here in this verse for the Sins of those under the former Law of Moses which was the former Testament here specified and of those also under the Law of nature quoniam copiosa erat apud eum redemptio because redemption with him is plentifull and since he took humane nature it was not out of the Spheare of his activity to satisfie for all mankind to whom that nature is common by those called are understood here the elected for those onely are effectually called to the participation of the promise of eternal inheritance of being eternally heirs of God and coheires of Christ and this inheritance is called a promise because it was the pact of God the Father with his Sacred Son that if he would once dye to satisfie divine justice for mans Sins those whom he should call that is effectually single out or elect for eternall salvation should receive the same by vertue of promise from God the Father to his Sacred Sonne whence their salvation is called the promise of eternal inheritance and in this regard Saint Paul speaking of himselfe as of one thus effectually called or elected said that he having done what was required of him had reposed for him in heaven a Crown of Justice not as due to his work but as due to the promises God the Father in Pauls behalfe made to his Sacred Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the like promise we account is made in the behalfe of all those whom Christ hath elected to his eternal inheritance not that it is a thing man can
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
Columnes that are marked with the denote the number of the Psalmes Those that are marked with the * declare the numbers of the Keys whereunto every Psalme is appropriated and in what sense it ought to be understood according to the meaning of the Royall Prophet David * 1 7 2 6 3 8 4 7 5 9 6 7 7 8 8 5 9 3 10 3 11 6 12 7 13 5 14 10 15 5 16 3 17 8 18 6 19 7 20 5 21 5 22 7 23 5 24 7 25 8 26 3 27 8 28 6 29 8 30 7 31 7 32 2 33 3 34 5 35 3 36 7 37 7 38 3 39 5 40 5 41 10 42 1 43 4 44 6 45 6 46 6 47 6 48 7 49 9 50 7 51 8 52 9 53 7 54 3 55 8 56 8 57 3 58 8 59 8 60 5 61 7 62 8 63 7 64 6 65 6 66 6 67 6 68 5 69 8 70 7 71 5 72 9 73 7 74 9 75 3 76 4 77 4 78 6 79 5 80 7 81 7 82 6 83 10 84 5 85 7 86 6 87 7 88 6 89 2 90 3 91 2 92 6 93 10 94 5 95 5 96 9 97 6 98 5 99 1 100 7 101 7 102 7 103 2 104 4 105 4 106 3 107 8 108 5 109 5 110 6 111 7 112 3 113 4 114 7 115 5 116 6 117 6 118 7 119 7 120 3 121 10 122 7 123 3 124 3 125 7 126 3 127 7 128 6 129 7 130 7 131 5 132 7 133 1 134 1 135 2 136 4 137 7 138 3 139 10 140 6 141 8 142 7 143 8 144 1 145 3 146 2 147 6 148 2 149 6 150 1 FINIS THE Christian Sodality On the first Sunday of Advent The Antiphon LUKE 1. v. 30. FEar not Mary for thou hast found grace with our Lord Behold thou shalt conceive and shalt bring forth a Son Vers Drop dew ye Heavens from above and let the clouds rain down the Just Resp Be the earth opened and let it bud forth a Saviour The Prayer ROwse up we beseech Thee O Lord thy power and come away that from the eminent dangers of our sins thou protecting we may deserve to be freed and thou delivering us we may be saved The Illustration of the Prayer SHould a Turk or Heathen ask me what report this Prayer hath to the Epistle and Gospel of the day there being scarce one word of either in it I should not wonder at him but did a Christian ask me such a question I should pitty him as either not well Catechized or at least as not reflecting on what he hath been taught for example that past Mysteries are by Holy Church presentiated unto us as now actually flowing namely that Advent represents the time when the Blessed Virgin Mary was near to her delivery of her Sacred Son the Messias our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ into this world and for respect unto this time the Antiphon of this day is taken out of the 1. of Saint Luke not out of the 21. as the Gospel is because that 1. Chapter puts us in minde of the time which this Prayer reports unto so doth the Versicle and Responsory and so doth the last Antiphon of Advent being one of the great Os as we call them importing the exclamations used by the holy Patriarchs in their Prayers calling upon our Saviours Birth as near at hand and consequently the Prayers of Advent must be adapted to the times past to the voices of the Ancient Patriarchs and Prophets looking up to Heaven with their Predecessours and their own wearied eyes for four thousand years together all crying out as if they durst not believe their own eyes but would awake as it were the sleeping God that had so long left the world under the lash of a Triple Tyranny which they did groan beneath of Death Sin and Damnation and speaking by the dictate of the holy Ghost like men to God as if there were more or lesse of power in his Omnipotency beseeching him to hasten away with all his Rowsed power and by his protecting grace to free them from the eminent dangers they were in that had slept so many years in the night and trance of sin that is to say in the guilt thereof and next to deliver them from all future punishment due unto them for that guilt by a saving sentence in the latter day of Doom and so briefly praying to be secured from all dangers they were liable unto either of Guilt or pain of Sin He I say that looks upon the present Prayer with this reflection which is but due unto it will soon perceive the connexion it hath by beseeching God to Rowse up his power and come away to the Epistle specifying the greatest roots of Sin from the guilt whereof we desire protection and freedom by the coming of Christ the source and fountain of all Grace and to the Gospel telling us we are then before all the world finally truly and most absolutely delivered from the due penalty of Sin which is eternall damnation when the Devil and all his accursed crew shall see us called at the latter day of Doom unto an everlasting Bliss and Glory by the happy sentence of Salvation passed upon us For though we are protected here and by the Grace of God set free from the guilt of Sin yet we are then most properly delivered from all danger of punishment for the same when we are declared which God grant at the latter day maugre the Devils malice to be saved Souls But that all this may more clearly appear see both the letters of the Texts in Epistle and Gospel with the Expositours senses thereupon suitable to this Illustration of the Prayer as above and then confess there is more depth of sense and spirit in the Churches Prayers being all dictates of the holy Ghost than at first sight men will imagine or without deep meditation ever find out and believe The Epistle ROM 13. 11. ANd knowing the season that it is now the hour for us to rise from slâ—ep for now our salvation is nearer than when we believed 12. The night is past and the day is at hand let us therefore cast off the works of Darknesse and put on the Armour of Light 13. As in the day let us walk honestly not in Banquettings and Drunkenesse not in Chamberings and Impudicities not in Contention and Emulation 14. But put ye on our Lord Jesus Christ The Explication 11. THe Apostle in the immediate Verse before had told them That the fulness of the Law was Love and supposing them thereby prepared to fulfill the same by loving one another he now adds the convenience of the season and happiness of the present hour to encourage them to perfection But we must note he applies his speech both to the Jewes and Gentiles in this place to the former alluding unto the time when they did onely believe the Messias was to come whom now they can see with their own
I of a slight command can doe much by vertue of this power what mayst thou O Christ by thy command who hast perfect and absolute power over Heaven and Earth and art under no command as I am who can deny but this stile was used purposely for our morall instruction that hearing this we should remember if at any time we have command ovâ—r others yet we are commanded our selves by many more above us and again to advertise us that the Soul shall then best command the Body when she her selfe moves not but as commanded by God and moved by his holy grace And if she rebell against God no marvell the body requoiles against her as in Adam and his race was and still is apparent 10. Since Admiration or Wonder is an effect of ignorance and Christ as being God was omniscient and had in perfection all the three Sciences that could render him perfectly knowing as man namely Beatificall Infused and Experimentall certain it is his Admiration here could not be a proper wondring at what he seemes to make exceeding strange of as by professing he had not found so great faith in Israel rather indeed to excite and stir up others to admiration and imitation of the like than that he was or could be seised on by the surprisall of any new notion accruing unto him which he had not before So Saint Austine sayes well These operations in Christ were rather signes of his actions upon others than of his passions from them of his teaching us not of his being taught himself by any thing that could happen unto him new or strange and what followes is to be taken strictly as spoken to those common people who were then present for else it could not be meant of all others or spoken to them that were absent For example when he said to those that followed him I have not found so great Faith in Israel meaning among such as you are that now behold the Faith of this Centurion for certainly he knew the Faith of his blessed Mother of Abraham of Moses and of John the Baptist was greater yet than this of the said Centurion so highly commended so much admired by our Saviour 11. This following Verse illustrates the latter end of the former in the sense as above for here Christ gives Abraham Isaack and Iacob as presidents for singular Faith rewarded with eternall glory in the Kingdome of Heaven and sayes Many shall come from East and West meaning from all corners of the world and share with Abraham c. in the like reward for their like Faith so here our Saviour alludes to the calling of the Gentiles unto the Faith of Christ and gives for their encouragement this encomiastick or superlative praise of the Centurion for the first fruits of the Gentiles vocation or beleeving in Christ Iesus the adoration of three Kings arguing not so much Faith as the Profession did so what he said to his followers in the Verse above may by adjoynder of this unto it be conceived as if Christ had said he never found so great Faith in any Gentile whom he had met with amongst the Israelites as he found in this Centurion for the three Kings were not Israelites admit their adoration could argue like Faith in them 12. He pursues the incitement to like Faith of this Centurion saying Those Gentiles who believe as he did shall succeed in the Kingdome of Glory to be dis-inherited Heirs thereof namely the Israelites or Jewes whom he calls the Children of the Kingdome in two regards first because as descended from the loynes of Abraham they were heires to his promised earthly kingdome of Iudea next as for the same reason they were heires to the Heavenly Kingdome of glory likewise promised to his issue in like Faith to his as who should say the forraign Gentiles shall inherit the two Crowns whereunto the Jewes were born heirs by Promise and this by reason the said Gâ—ntiles shall receive the faith of Abraham which the Jewes had deserted and apostatized from So as the Gentiles shall be saved in reward of their Faith and the Jewes damned in punishment of their incredulity which damnation or hell is here called outward darknes as often elsâ—where in holy Writ it is because hell as it is the most remote part from Heaven so is it the darkest and outmost in respect of the inhabitants in Glory whose Beatitude consisting in their beholding the inward light of the Deity by means of the outward light of Glory argues the damnation of the wicked consisteth in their being deprived of all light either of Glory or of God and consequently are out-casts from Heaven wallowing in the deep hell of outward darkness And as by this darkness is understood their pain of damnation or pain of loss consisting in an absolute privation of the sight or light of God and consequenly of all light so by weeping or gnashing of teeth is understood their pain of sense best expressed by those termes which alwayes betoken sorrow and horrour 13. Christ concludes giving the Centurion all he askes in reward of his Faith so curing his Boy at a distance in vertue of his sole Word as was observed that just when Christ spake those words Be it to thee as thou believest then the child was wel recovered hence we are to learn that according to the firmnesse of our Faith we may measure the greatness of our hope in God and mystically we may apply this passage of the Centurion to our selves who are commanders of our senses and powers which make up a spirituall Militia in this life Iob 7. if therefore any of these languish or grow otherwise diseased let us make our addresses by our Friends the Saints in Heaven and Good men on Earth to God beseeching him to cure that sick sense or faculty which is in danger to let in upon us the death of Sin and look with what Faith with what Hope with what Love we make our applications to Almighty God either by our selves or others we may rest assured our help shall be answerable thereunto The Application 1. CHrist cures the Leper to Day by a touch of his sacred Hand to shew he had cured the leprosie of sin in all humane nature by touching it with his nature Divine in the mystery of his Incarnation 2. Being intreated he cures the Centurions son by saying I will come and cure him however by the humility and faith of the Centurion he was not suffered to goe but desired by his Word to doe it at a distance This argues the power of Christ to be as operative as his Person and that by his Power given to Priests he cures all humble and believing Souls in the Sacrament of Pennance as he did the Centurion whose corporall infirmity was here but a figure of Sin-sick-souls 3. O happy Christians who have against all humane diseases a Cure Divine The touch of all the three Persons of the sacred Trinity in the Blessed Sacrament
flow between these two extreames the more they approach to the Circle the wider they are but as they recede from the Circle the closer they go till at last they are all concentred in one point Almighty God and so made one heart and one soule amongst our selves hence we see that all the motion our affections have from man to God growes still more and more vigorous and more perfect So S. Austine concludes DILIGE ET FAC QUOD VIS. Love and do what thou please Tract 7. in Epist 1. S. John whereas the Apostle sayes if there be any other precept meaning of the Second Table for of the three belonging to the First Table and that of honouring our parents the first precept of the Second Table he had spoken before at large under the title of Superiour powers Princes and others ending that subject in these words To whom honour honour for that command is in these words Honour thy Father and Mother under which title are included Elders Betters Superiours especially Princes spoken of at large from the first verse of this Chapter to the end of the seventh ending as above to whom honour honour I say whereas the Apostle saies if there be any other Precept it is included in this word Love your neighbour as your selfe we are to note the Precept of love to our neighhour is bipartite as divided into two branches the first whereof is affirmative grounded on these words of S. Matth. Chap. 6. What you will have others doe to you doe you the same to them The second negative in that of Tobit Chap. 4. v. 16. What you hate to have another doe to you see you never do that to another not that this Precept commands an equality but onely a similitude of love to your neighbour with that you beare to your self that is to say as all you desire is honest good delectable to your selfe so desire the like to your neighbour not in equall proportion but in exact similitude distaste him not hurt him not rob him not as you desire he should not distaste hurt nor rob you so the allusion is to similitude not to equality 10. The reason of this is because the object of our love being good the effect thereof must be good also for as none can love evill for evills sake so none can love good for evills sake because true love both makes good the end and medium of its operation as who should say doe I finally ayme at good then good must be the medium leading thereunto so it being good to love our neighbour the operation of this good love cannot be a bad thing Therefore the Apostle concludes The fullnesse of the Law is Love that is to say if we love we fulfill the Law or as Tolet saies The scope or end of the Law is Love or as S. Augustine because love forceth a man to fulfill the Law hence we see Faith alone sufficeth not to satisfie the Law without Acts of Love how absurd is it then to say as hereticks do the Commandements are impossible to be kept when by onely love they are all fulfilled not that so perfect a love can here be hoped for as shall exempt us from veniall sinnes against the Law since such is onely reserved for the next world and performed in the state of Bliss but that we may forbeare mortall sin even in this life if we but love our neighbour as our selves and God appretiatively at least above all things that is to say not so well to love any thing but still to resolve we will rather leave to love it than for its sake cease to love God and surely thus all good Christians doe appretiatively Love God above all things The Application 1. WEll is Love said to be the fullnesse of the Law because the Law commands us nothing else but that we love So to love it to prevent the danger of the Law which is never broken but under paine of penalty Wherefore as last Sunday bids us fly sin as a disease this bids us fly it as a danger 2. Well is the danger of the Law expressed in these negative Commandements for prohibition is the best prevention of a mischief Hence we say forewarn'd and arm'd against all danger whatsoever as new we are especialyl against the dangerous temptations unto what is here prohibited 3. Well doth S. Paul conclude as he began exhorting us to love because love workes no evill now amongst evills danger is not the least and onely not to love is hugely dangerous since we are taught 1 John 3. vers 14. and 1 Cor. 16. v. 21. that he who loveth not remaines in death in the death of that sin he commits against the Law for lack of loving God above all things and his neighbour as himself Say now the Payer above and see how suitable it is to this Epistle The Gospel MAT. 8. v. 23. c. 23. ANd when he entered into the boate his disciples followed him 24. And loe a great tempest arose in the sea so that the boate was covered with waves but he slept 25. And they came to him and raised him saying Lord save us we perish 26. And he saith to them why are ye fearfull O ye of little faith Then rising up he commanded the windes and the sea and there ensued a great calme 27. Moreover the men marvelled saying what an one is this for the windes and the sea obey him The Explication 23. IT was his usuall custome to preach in a boate a little off from the shoare but here it seemes he took boat to avoid the multitude of people that followed him and so both to flie popular applause and to give occasion to this following miracle he took boat and put to Sea with his Disciples 24. Probably our Saviour himself raised this Tempest purposely First to shew he was Lord of all the world both sea and land the figure of which passage S. John in his Apoc. Chap. 10. v. 2. recounts telling how an Angell set his right foot upon the Sea and thereby commanded it at pleasure Secondly to inure his Disciples to tribulation as well at sea as land Thirdly to confirm his Disciples in their Faith of him and some others besides in the company and these may be all true reall causes of the tempest but figuratively wee may believe this Tempest to have been raised to shew the future persecution of the Church of Christ and of a devout soul in temptation and how as by his permission it comes so by his power it shall passe away even when it seemes most severe and when Almighty God seems as it were asleep and not to regard it till by the joynt prayer of the Church he be wakened and made propitious For Seneca himself sayes A mans life without temptation seems like a dead Sea so called for the stillness thereof as if there were no life in the water of it and indeed as in a storm at sea the best man aboard is
Head-City by Saints and Sinners his Apostles Jewes and Gentiles by all Sects and Ages Men women and Children that so he might give an example of his humility to all the world and unto all mankind 2. But especially to great ones Nobles Princes Monarches that these may learn Pal. 61. v. 11. If Riches slow not to set their hearts upon them Nor if honored by their subjects Psal 48. v. 13. to lose their understandings and to become like foolish Beasts by taking Pride in Popular Applause but rather with the wise to say So passeth by the Glory of the world this day cry'd up a King and in three dayes decry'd to dye an ignominious death 3. As therefore Princes you are those whom Jesus represented last of all and made the least demur upon your Pompous State so learne of him to set the world at naught by a contempt thereof and thereto fix your thoughts where true joyes are live humbly dye patiently with Jesus here that you may rise and reign gloriously with him in the world to come See how to all these purposes we fitly pray as above On Easter Sunday The Antiphon Mark 16. v. 4. ANd looking they saw the stone rowled backe for it was a very great one Alleluja Vers This is the day which our Lord hath made Resp Let us exalt and rejoyce therein The Prayer O God who this day by thine onely begotten Sonne hast opened to us the doore of eternity by the destruction of death prosecute we beseech thee in us those good desires which thou preventing hast afforded us The Illustration LOoke how the Salt Sea waters strained through the loose and Sandy grounds breake into Springs that head the greatest and the freshest Rivers thus doth the red Sea of our Saviours Passion breake from his Sepulchre into the Chrystall streames of his glorious resurrection so that all the Churches Prayers will now a while taste of those living waters that doe spring from death from the Sepulchre of our Blessed Lord in such sort as if death were content to dye that we may live For we see by this Prayer holy Church esteemes Christs resurrection to be the destruction of death since he hath no otherwise then by rising againe this day from his grave opened unto us the door of eternity of eternall and blissefull life whereupon she prayes the zeale we are now supposed to have of living eternally may be perfected by God his prosecuting in us our good desires thereof which are first afforded us by his preventing grace without which indeed wee cannot have as of our selves one good thought much lesse can we doe any the least good deed Now as there can be no tidings of any greater joy unto us who even naturally desire eternall life then for holy Church to tel us it is this day bestowed upon us by Christ his rising from his grave and by his raising us to everlasting life from the eternal death of deadly same which before had swallowed up all mankinde so we ought to rejoyce to day as a dead man would to find himselfe revived and brought from the brink of eternal damnation unto a promise of eternal life and blisse O could we say this Prayer with a lively apprehension of this to be our present condition with what fervour should we say it with what joy should we repeat it over and over again and how infinitely should we profit our selves thereby nay how home should we Preach unto our Souls by praying thus Since thereby we should exhaust not onely the whole Epistle and Gospel of the day but even the Introite of holy Mass wherein the Royal Prophet Psalme 138. speaks in the Person of Christ saying I am risen and yet I am with thee He was indeed with Ierusalem many a day after he had risen from his grave to shew her whom she had crucified her Iesus if shee pleased if not her Iudge and againe in the graduall at Masse which Holy Church makes stand to day for a versicle to the Antiphon above the same Prophet Psal 117. Speakes in our persons saying This is the day which our Lord hath made let us exult and rejoyce in it hence we see how gladsome a day our Holy Mother would have this to be unto us how cheerfully she would have us say the Prayer aforesaid and withall how suiteably to the Epistle which if observed is no other then a ground-work of our Prayer in the very sense above of our holy desires given us by Gods preventing grace and prosecuted by his grace continually helping us to enter in at the doore of a new life by going out of the old gate of sinfull death for that indeed is the true meaning of this dayes Epistle exhorting us to purge away the old leaven the sinne that makes our actions not only sowre but deadly in the esteem of God Almighty who having set his teeth on edge by the leavened bread of our sins desired now to make us unleavened loaves seasoned with vertues not with vices for though Saint Paul as the Rhemists interpret this place alludeth here to our Communion at Easter according as by precept we are bound and in that sense cals the blessed Sacrament Christ our immolated Pasch whereon he bids us Feast when by the Sacrament of pennance we have purged away the old leaven of malice and wickednesse out of our Soules yet in very truth both the beginning and ending of this Epistle tels us that while we thus Feast on Christ he feeds on us who have made our selves Azymes or unleaven'd loaves of sincerity and verity which is to say pure Manchet for his heavenly Table since thus we become the new paste and Azymes of Sanctity as the Apostle cals us under the termes of sincerity and verity as to the Gospel which is Saint Mark his story of the Resurrection it is all wide open unto us even in the first clause of the Prayer above saying Christ opened this day the door of eternity by the destruction of death though it be all abstracted too even in these closing words of the Prayer thou preventing for in every deed as Christ prevented the early Maries in his rising so doth his holy Grace prevent even the first thoughts of our rising from the lazinesse of sinne into the sedulity of serving God Almighty And thus we see the whole service of Easterday abstracted in this little Prayer and consequently we have hitherto made good our hard designe thereof The Epistle 1 Cor. 5.7 c. 7 Purge the old leaven that you may be a new paste as you are Azymes For our Pasche Christ is immolated 8 Therefore let us Feast not in the old leaven not in the leaven of malice and wickednesse but in the Azymes of sincerity and verity The Explication 7. BY the old leaven Saint Paul meanes that notorious kinde of Fornication which was practized amongst the Corinthians worse then any among Gentiles as in the first verse of this Chapter the
that where there wants a will a wish sufficeth Say then beloved can you wish at least ability to rise from Death of Sin into the Life of Grace O wish it then for shame and wishing Pray as above with Holy Church that having had from God the grace of such a wish he will vouchsafe to prosecute it in you till you come thereby to such a Glory as you cannot wish to have a Greater The Gospel Mark 16. v. 1 c. 1 And when the Sabbath was past Mary Magdalene and Mary of James and Salome bought Spices that coming they might anoynt Jesus 2 And very early the first of the Sabbaths they come to the Monument the Sun being now risen 3 And they said one to another who shall role us back the stone from the door of the Monument 4 And looking they saw the stone rolled back For it was very great 5 And entring into the Monument they saw a yong man sitting on the right hand covered with a White Robe and they were astonied 6 Who saith to them Be not dismayed you seek Iesus of Nazareth that was crucified he is risen he is not here behold the place where they laid him 7 But go tell his Disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee There you shall see him as he told you The Explication 1. THat is when Saturday night was past for Saturday was the Sabbath of the Jews then and not till then lest they should be said to violate the Sabbath they bought Spices to anoint Jesus Here is to be noted the Sedulity and Diligence to be used by Christian Souls to take hold of the first minute of time allowed for devotion and not to loyter any instant thereof away since these pious women watched purposely all night to lay hold of the first stroake of the clock which strook twelve that then they might freely call up the Shop keepers to sell them oyntments when the last minute of the Sabbath was past Note these three women were Mary Magdalene the sister to Martha and Lazarus Mary of James that is the Mother of James the lesser so called for distinction from the other Iames the greater who was also an Apostle and Salome wife to Zebedeus Mother to James the greater and to John the Evangelist the favourite of Jesus and whether or no Salome be her Christian name here or her surname is not cleer by the Text For she may have been Mary Salome wife to Zebedeus above which is not unsuitable to the common Tradition of the three Maries that visited the Sepulcher of Christ and to whom in recompence he after appeared by this action we see the ancient custom of Pilgrimage to Holy Places and reverencing of Reliques however those who deny that to be lawful distinguish between the Reliques of Christ and others because Christ was God and it was besides an ancient custom of the Jews to embalm dead bodies to make them odoriferous and sweet so this was not done by them to Christ as God for indeed they did not then firmly believe in his Deity but were passionate Lovers of his Holy Person and as they esteemed him a man of Blessed Life so to shew their devotion to him they went as it were to embalm his Body and his Tombe which they revered as Reliques of man not of God and as this gives a literal avowment to Pilgrimages and worship of Reliques so it is a Tropical Example for all Christians to carry the oyntments of their Vertues and good Works about them as shewing they desire therewith to embalm the Memory of Christs Death and Passion and those who shall be diligent in this Art of Piety may hope with the first to see Christ in Heaven for the reward of their attending so Religiously on the Grave of his Death and Passion in this life 2. It seems they had been stayed in their journey to the Sepulchre either in the buying their oyntments or upon other accommodations for their holy purpose that it was Sun-rising ere they came to the Monument how ever they were going thither from midnight to that time of the day and had assuredly the merit of a more speedy arrival though by Divine providence it was appointed Christ should be out of his Grave sooner then any the most faithful Soul could get thither to see whether he was risen or not according to his promise if yet they were not retarded by the same Providence for a punishment of their want of Faith that came with intent to finde him there and as man to embalm him whom as God they ought to have believed was risen and needed not those pious expressions towards his humanity which this Resolution and Action in these holy Women did represent 3. Here again they betraied the weakness of their Faith as if God could not remove all obstacles in the way to his own Service as it seems really he did by the hands of his holy Angels who St. Matth. cap. 28. v. 3. sayes had rolâ—ed this stone away before they came which yet the Angel did not by any his Corporal Touch but by making an Earth-quake purposely to do it and joyntly to shew the terrour all the Earth was in for having covered the glorious Body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and by this we see the Power that Angels have over all Corporal Things when they can even by the Touch of their Vertues or Powers make the whole Earth to quake not that there was need for the Angel to remove this stone that Christ might rise for he did rise before the Stone was gone by the same Power wherewith he came out of his Mothers Wombe without the least violation of her Virginity but meerly that by the stones removal the coming Maries and others to follow might see Christ was risen and why may not Christs Body be as well all under the Little Wafer of the Consecrated Hoste as it was able to pass through the Virgins Wombe a Childe and through the Stone a Man without any Division in either Quantities or Bodies through which it passed Note though these Maries were solicitous who should help them to role away the stone yet they went on with their Holy Resolutions to shew us we are not to desist from doing good though we finde huge Difficulties in our way but to proceed and put our trust in God that to those who Love him even every thing in Nature will co-operate towards the expression of their Loves 4. This Verse gives an excellent Proof of what was said last for see they no sooner look to have the stone removed but they finde it done to their hands by the Angel as above though they knew not who did it and therefore here is mention this Stone was very Great because we should not despair of overcoming any the greatest Difficulties in the way of a willing Soul to serve Almighty God 5. See they lose no time to ask or wonder how the stone was gone their
mindes were wholly bent on the end of their journey and they minded not so much the rubs in the way as to stop and say here we expected a rub but go on courageously to the end as placing their happiness in that not in the mediums thereto which they pass over as good Christians ought to do with a zeal that carries them still on unto the end of their Aims Observe they are again punished for want of Faith by missing Christ and finding onely a young man that is an Angel sitting upon his Tombe which was all open and had no Body in it And probably this Angel was Gabriel whose name imports fortitude and therefore he was the witness of this last Act of Gods Power shewed in the redemption of Man as he was the first that brought to the Virgin Mary tidings of the same Christ his Incarnation when upon the news thereof she did conceive but this Angel appears for many other respects to shew unto the Maries it was he that had removed the stone out of their way as our good Angels ever do all temptations out of ours to shew that as the Jews exteriorly kept the Sepulchre so Angels did wait upon it within Lastly to let the armed Jews see the unarmed Servants of Christ were too hard for them when he pleased to assist his naked Servants against the most strongly armed Men or Devils in Hell But there is yet further mystery in this Angels sitting when another Evangelist St. Luke says he was standing for that imports as much as sitting too in the Hebrew Phrase so this Evangelist says Cap 7. ver 37. that Mary Magdalene stood behinde the feet of Jesus washing them with her Tears and wiping them with her Hair which yet imported she did either kneel or lye down so standing there imports she was present when Christ sat at the Table and did as above besides by the position of sitting is here signified the firm and fixed Faith wherewith Christians ought to believe the mystery of the resurrection and again by sitting on the stone of his monument is mystically told us Christs Faith was placed upon the stone of his Church or of the head thereof or that as stones are heavy and press hard upon us so by this stone was signified how heavily death lyes upon all mankinde and yet while the Angel sets upon it he declares that Christ hath crushed and pressed down death as this Holy Spirit doth the stone of his Tombe again his sitting on the right hand of the monument shews Christ is to set in Heaven at the right hand of his Father and from thence shall come to judge the quick and the dead he is covered with a white robe to betoken both his own Angelical Purity and the Purity of Christs Sacred Humanity for St. Matth. says the Angels face was bright as lightning to shew Christs Deity and his Garments white as snow to shew the Purity of Christ which had taken away all the Stains and Ordures of our Sins and rendered us white as snow in the sight of his heavenly Father It is no wonder that they were astonished to see this young man there and to miss the Body of our Saviour which they sought for assuredly they either found there or met the souldiers running away all in a fright since the Angel did appear even unto the souldiers to fright them and the women not knowing any other intention in the Angel then to do the like to all that came to this place then delivered into the custody of Angels they with reason fell also into a mighty fear which yet was mixed with a kinde of hope whilest they did not run away as the souldiers but rather stood in a middle state between hope and fear astonished indeed but not frighted at the sight wondered at it but did not wander from it nor can a good Spirit appear so affrighting but withal he brings a kinde of Comfort to all that see him if they be Gods Servants 6. And hence it was this Angel said immediately to these Holy Women be not you dismayed you who have had no hand in Christs death my terrour is to those onely to you I come a Comforter as knowing you come to seek not to slay to Embalm not to Kill to Adore not to Scorn as those that crucified him and that guarded his Sepulchre did Hence we that truly seek Jesus crucified must cast away all fear in the pursuit of him as these Maries were bid to do and if we finde him not in one place or action we must seek him out in some other but never cease our religious inquest till we finde him the Angel here boldly names Jesus crucified to shew he was his Servant though others had lately Butchered him and Reviled him yet that some durst have his name in their mouth to revere him he is risen as who should say Christ his rising from the Grave was as our waking out of sleep onely or as the Spring that shews the Winter Tree is still alive though esteemed to be dead not but that he was truly dead and buried but that his resurrection is to him as easie as our awaking is to us by the least noyse when we are asleep he is not here imports he is not now dead as you thought here to have found him when you brought your oyntments to anoynt his Blessed Body and that you may be sure I tell you truth behold the empty place which lately his Sacred Body filled here indeed it was he did lye but here he lyes no more be your own eyes witness that I tell you Truth 7. Go therefore lose no longer time in looking here tell the Disciples see how woman now is made the Messenger of Life to the Apostles that were afterwards to preach it over all the world whereas woman before brought the tidings of Death to all mankinde that so the same who had deceived Adam by Death lurking in the Apple of Life should undeceive us again by bringing news of Life rising from the Grave of Death So Good is God he makes the Instruments of Wo become the Messengers of Bliss But it is worthy our remark why the Angels first said tell the Disciples and then by name should say tell Peter too This was spoken indeed like an Angel who had known Peters Soul so humbled at his having denied his Lord and Master that he durst not now repute himself worthy of the honour any longer to be reckoned amongst the Disciples of our Saviour whence St. Gregory says he is called again to that Dignity by name lest he had despaired upon his Negation ever to be reputed a Disciple again though others and not perhaps without reason read this place as spoken thus tell the Disciples in general and particularly the chief of them Peter for though he were permitted to fall being the Head of the rest yet it was that he and his Successors should learn to have compassion upon others having
seen the Example of Humane Frailty in the chief Pastour of Gods Church that since the Sword of spiritual Power was put into their hands they might also have reason to shew mercy and not to retain other mens sins being penitent fiâ—ding their own were remitted upon Repentance and it was not without Reason that Christ foretold his Apostles he would rise again and appear to them in Galilee because he knew after his Death the Apostles and all the rest of his Disciples or Friends would be both afraid to meet together in Judea and that the Jews were so malicious against Christ as they would not suffer so great a number of his Disciples as Christ had above the eleven Apostles to appear amongst them much less to make assemblies Again the Apostles were most of them Galileans and so Christ knew they would be retreating to their own homes when he was gone or soon after if he rose not presently Lastly he had himself done many miracles in Galilee and therefore chose to get belief of them all at once by this one above all the rest his rising from the dead to Life again besides Galilee imports as much as transmigration and Christ passing from Death to life chose to do it in a place proper to the mystery which was yet redoubled by his appearing to multitudes at once in Galilee to shew he found the Jews no longer worthy his aboad among them and so he passed from them to the Gentiles where he had left many Disciples besides those Twelve he chose Apostles and whereof Judas was turned Apostata and dyed despairing so when the Angel said to the Maries Go tell his Disciples he meant tell all his Friends who are many in Galilee and St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. v. 6. seems to say that at the first apparition of Christ in Galilee there were more then five hundred of his Disciples or Friends and such as believed religiously of him whom therefore he rewarded by making them undoubted witnesses of this most doubtful and much controverted Truth his rising from the dead The Application 1. THe scope of all this Gospel is to prove the real Resurrection of our Blessed Lord and by that means the Immortality of Humane Souls so to wean them from their Temporal desires and plant their Loves upon Eternity the doubt if not the ignorance whereof made them embrace the Transitory Pleasures of the World and laugh at those for fools who thought of any happiness or misery to come when this life had an end by Death 2. Hence when the Apostles preach't our Saviours Resurrection it was held a scandal to the Jews and a folly to the Gentiles because it brought the tidings of Eternity to men that knew not any thing before but fleeting time and so for want of hoping in eternal Happiness by leading holy Lives fell headlong in a trice to everlasting Misery by living viciously according as the Royal Prophet said They lead their days in Jollity and in an instant they descend to Hell 3. As therefore when our Saviour died good men began to think it folly to be good because their Vertue was not able to maintain them living still So when he rose again bad men began to fear they might as well revive to misery as happiness and consequently were more easily reclaimed from Vice and brought in Love with Vertue so that Eternity we see is made a special Root of Christianity when even a desire to live eternalâ—y is held a motive strong enough to work a Sanctity into our Souls Since Holy Church makes it her rule to day that as by Christ his Resurrection the door was open to a blest Eternity so our desires thereof may be preserved in us by him that gave them to us by his prevenient Grace On White or Low Sunday The Antiphon Joh. 20. v. 26. AFter eight days the doors being shut our Lord entring in said unto them Peace be to you Alleluja Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that we who have accomplished the Pascal Feasts may retain the same in our Manners and Lives by thy bounty inabling us so to do The Illustration WE heard last Sunday the Churches Prayers were now to run in a peculiar Channel of Life-giving Waters those of the Resurrection of our Lord See therefore this days Service sliding sweetly down that stream but in this Prayer I finde a Phrase so strange as needs a gloss to make it understood though it speak plain English too for how can we retain a thing that 's past as is the Paschal Feast and yet this is it we pray for to day and not onely to retain this feast in our memories but in our manners and our lives sure then the meaning is we must retain those good desires which we besought God to prosecute in us in our last Sundays Prayer and which as by his preventing grace they were afforded us so by his continued bounty we now beg ability to continue or retain them in our manners and lives Now albeit this makes the Prayer above to be as it were a recapitulation of the last Sundays Prayer since the Octave Day is a closing up one and the self same Feast that began seven days before yet we must finde a deeper sence in this days Prayer such as petitioneth we should retain the Vertues which did occur to the accomplishment of the Paschal Feast as the good desires to those Vertues and if we look back to what those Vertues were we shall finde them to be sincerity and verity or rather in a word perfect Sanctity such as might make the old Leaven in us of sin to be White Manchet of Sanctity as if it were nothing for us to make yearly Memory of Christ his Death and Passion and of his Resurrection for in these two Mysteries consist the Paschal Feast unless our selves did remain ever dead unto sin and ever alive to God by vertue of our resurrection in his holy grace assuredly this must be the sence of our Prayer to day for this is truly to retaine in our manners and lives the Feasts of Pasche that are past when we make our selves Paschall Lambes by the Sincerity and Sanctity of our lives and manners For thus we shall first by our Faith overcome the world and next by our good works give the testimony of Gods Holy Spirit being in us which this dayes Epistle so much insisteth on as the effect of our Faith and of our Victory over the world by the same Faith And to the Gospell this Prayer is literall whilst it beggs we may retaine in us that Paschall Feast which is the whole scope of this dayes Gospell telling us how our Saviour appeared in confirmation of his Resurrection to his Apostles and in the narration of Saint Thomas his infidelity exhorting us to a firmer Faith in that and in all the other mysteries of our Redemption To conclude
victorious peace as who should say his coming hither was not upon his own account but ours So he tells them now his business is done their peace is made in Heaven and Earth 20. He shewed how they still remained perforated boared thorough as with the Nayles and Spear that had pierced them while he hung upon the Cross what more powerful Argument of the Truth of his resurrection what more convincing proof that it is a Piety for Christians to revere the memory of his Sacred wounds when the first thing he shewed to oblige us to love him after his resurrection were the Wounds he received for us in his bitter Death and Passion The joy which followed in the Disciples upon seeing these wounds was not that he had received them but that those notwithstanding and his Death to boot for the sins of mankinde they saw him propitious merciful sweet benigne unto them that they did not see him come to reproach their flight from him nor Peters denying of him but to comfort them to consolidate their Faith and in them the Faith of all Christians in this now undoubted Truth that as he became man was crucified dead and buried for satisfaction of our sins so now he arose from Death to Life to give all mankinde an assurance that the work of their redemption was finished and their salvation secured if they would themselves hence it was the Apostles were glad to see our Lord risen and alive to confirm all his former Doctrine maugre the Jews malice against him and their belief that they had put him to such a death as he was past all power of reviving 21. While he repeats peace to them again he shews the abundance of his goodness flowing still from himself and falling upon those he loves and further in testimony that these his Apostles were all in the rank of those he loved most behold he gives his own most ample commission which he had from his heavenly Father unto every one of them while he sends them in vertue of the same Commission to convert the whole world as he himself was sent first to redeem it and by vertue of his Passion to convert it also which yet he would not do to have the whole honour of it to himself but gives to his Apostles the happiness to be his instruments his cooperators thereunto as himself was the instrument of his heavenly Father to the same purpose and if we observe the force of our Saviours words in giving his commission of Apostolate to these his chosen Servants we shall finde he doth not onely give them the title and honour of being his Apostles but of being even so many Sons of God by commission not by nature while he sends them even as his Father sent him to supply what was wanting of his Passion as we have heard already explicated once or twice 22. And least being but men not God as he was they should fear to fail in the execution of this high Commission Lo by his breathing on them he seems to convert them into holy Spirits and if we may so say even to so many Hoâ—y Ghosts by Commission or Office not by Nature in giving the Holy Ghost unto them For as by Spiration of the Father and Son the Holy Ghost proceeded equal to both in Nature so by this Spiration of Christ upon his Apostles they became equal in Spirit to him sent as he was by his heavenly Father in similitude of office in-similitude of power because he was God as well as his Father in similitude of end to save the souls of men in similitude of works of miracles and lastly in similitude of Spirit of Love and of affection while their commission is given by way of his Holy and Divine Insufflation or Inspiration whence they were impowered even to dye for him as he was by the force of his own holy Spirit to dye for us and by this inspiration he shews that as God by breathing on Adam gave him natural Life so he by breathing on his Apostles gives them a supernatural one a life of Grace but we must note here the holy Ghost was not given them as they had it before in Baptism when they received justifying Grace and Grace rendring them grateful nor as it was afterward to be given them by way of plenitude containing the fulness when they were so confirmed in Grace as that probably they never sinned afterwards but as a thing here gratis given and limited to one special effect namely to that of remission of sins as is made evident by the words in the following Verse so here we may see gratuite grace may consist with the state of sin or power to absolve others sins may be in a Priest who is actually himself in sin Note also by this inspiration the same power of remitting sins was given to St. Thomas though absent as well as to those Apostles present as Numb 11. v. 26. we read the Spirit of Prophesie was given in like absence by Moses to Eldad and Medad for we do not see it repeated after when St. Thomas came in among them though some think it was then he received that power and not before Note also that by this ceremony of our Saviours breathing upon the Apostles holy Church is grounded in sufficient warrant to use such ceremonies as to her shall seem fit in Administration or Collation of Sacraments 23. How absurdly doth Calvin wrest this place to power of preaching rather then he will allow man power of remitting sins though it be given him by God himself This very corruption of so plain a place of Scripture argues how dangerous a thing it is for men to read and wrest it to their own sense since the Act of Preaching is Teaching and Exhorting the Act of forgiving sins is the Act of a judging Power besides all men may at all times be lawfully preacht unto be they in sin or out of sin but all cannot at all times be absolved from sin nor any indeed at any time but by Contrition Confession and Satisfaction either Actual or in Vote if opportunity be given It is therefore an Article of Faith that by these words our Saviour gave to the Apostles power to forgive sins however it may be disputed whether he had not before at his last Supper made them Priests when he said unto them as often as you shall do this that is as often as you shall Consecrate my Body and Blood or Eat and Drink them do it in remembrance of me Luk. 22. v. 19. because now whensoever Priests are Ordained it is done by their joynt prolation of the words of Consecration with the Bishop at Mass after he hath said unto them Receive ye power to offer Sacrifice and though here were given by Christ the Faculties of Absolving to the Apostles yet it doth not follow Priesthood was then given since to this day we see many Priests that have power to Sacrifice and yet have not leave to Administer
the Sacrament of Pennance though even when they are made Priests they receive Power to Absolve the Bishop saying Receive ye power to remit sins unless it be in case of necessity as in the hour of Death or that they are sure the penitent be not in mortal sin though it be also strongly argued that the very jurisdiction of remitting sins is essential to the Order of Priesthood as his power of Consecration or Sacrificing is and may validly as before God though not lawfully as to men be executed without special faculty for that purpose hence also it is matter of Faith that the Sacrament of Confession was at the same time instituted by Christ for the Priest cannot forgive sins unless he know them and know them he cannot unless they be confessed unto him nor can he tell what to remit what to retaine unless by the confession of the Penitent he finde cause for his so doing nor is the power of retaining sins a meer negation of absolution thereof but it is a positive Declaration that they doe not deserve pardon and more that if they repent not they deserve damnation which is too positive a thing to consist in a pure negation of absolution 24. Some will have St. Thomas called Didymus as signifying that he was a Twin-born joyntly with some other Brother or Sister as Esau and Jacob were and for this purpose the Expositours upon the Eleventh chap. of Saint John v. 16. say he argued himself to be a Twin of Grace with Christ and the rest of his Apostles when he said Let us all go and dye with our master because it is noted to be usual in Twins to love each other most dearly though sometimes it happen otherwise yet very rarely as in Jacob and Esau it did But others will have him in this place called Didymus as this word signifies various wavering or inconstant because he did now declare himself to doubt of the resurrection though he were told it by the Apostles for certain after that Christ had as above appeared to ten of them if he had not also before heard it from the Maries who some say brought news of it to all the eleven Apostles assembled together in the room where they last supped with Christ and where they in a kinde of faint hope expected his rising again according to his promise though it seems onely two of them Peter and John ran immediately to his Sepulchre with the Maries leaving the other nine behinde in expectation of the Truth and Thomas in the interim more diffident of this Truth then the rest that remained went out from amongst them Whether to take his flight for fear of the Jews or whether to ask testimony of Christs enemies the souldiers watching at the Sepulchre rather then to trust the relation of his friends be these reasons real or conjectural onely certain it is he was absent when Christ came first and as certain that after the Apostles had seen him he would as little believe them as the Maries who first brought news he was risen again and for this cause he may be here stiled Didymus as it imports various or doubting 25. See in this Act of St. Thomas four several sins Incredulity Pertinacy Pride Irreverence the first in preferring the test of Sense before that of Authority for point of Faith the second requiring so many Particulars and Proofs by diverse Senses the third presuming he deserved more condescending of Christ to him then had been to the rest of his Brethren the last in daring to make his own Finger the Judge whether Christ were God or not which is a work of the Finger of God of the Holy Ghost not of Man or of Flesh and Blood for if he might touch his wounds it seems he would then and not till then believe he was risen and consequently that he was God so from First to Last we see here a Proof of all these several sins in this one Act of the incredulous Apostle 26. 27. But behold Christ who dyed to redeem us from sin and from the penalty thereof did not after his death disdain to condescend much unto sinners when for this Apostles sake sinning as he did he not onely appears but gives the very redundant Proofs that this incredulous Apostle had required Note that by after eight days is not here understood the ninth day after Easter but the Octave day thereof this very Sunday for it seems Christ by his rising upon Sunday not on the Jewish Sabbath declared he was resolved to make the Christian Sabbath differing from that of the Jews and so the Apostles being again on the next Sunday after Easter assembled to shew they were ready to practice what Christ was pleased to ordain the celebrating a new Christian Sabbath by joynt and publique assembly in Prayer since here they were assembled on that new Sabbath for that end and since Christ by his second apparition upon the new Sabbath confirms his former purpose of altering the Old See the manner of his Second appearing like the First in all points even in the pledge of peace to sinful Thomas among the rest to shew his indefatigability in reclaiming men from sin by all sweet means though withal he did this favour to St. Thomas with regard to the confirmation of all the world in this mystery of his resurrection By this offering nay making Thomas touch his sacred Wounds he cured the Wound of Infidelity in the Apostles soul and shewed him he was God as well as Man that was proved in the Corporal touch of Thomas this in the Spiritual of Christ touching the Apostles soul while he told him for Christ knew his thoughts how they had suggested to his tongue those sinful expressions of his infidelity and though some doubt whether the Apostle did really touch Christ first because Christ said not unto him touch but see my hands and feet as also because Christs Body was then Glorious and as impalpable as it was impassible yet it is out of all doubt he did really touch his sacred Wounds because Christ said bring hither thy finger and see my hands that is by touching of them see they are flesh and blood no phantasm and again put thy whole hand into my side so it is more consonant unto Christian Piety and Truth to think Christ dispensed with the impassibility of his glorious Body making it palpable without being possible for proof of this mystery then that the Apostle did not nor could not touch Christ his Glorious Body again for this very touch the hand of Saint Thomas is kept to this day in Rome together with the Holy Cross of Christ with the Title over his Cross with the Nail and Crown of Thorns to shew there is more reverence due unto his hand upon the Title of this Sacred touch then to other Reliques of Saints 28. And upon this touch it was that the Apostle cryed out my Lord my God I see now and to my confusion too late
to day mixeth the Lay mans duty with that of the Priest to shew us that what in an eminent degree Christ taught his Apostles and consequently their successors the Pastors of Gods Church who by office have care of soules in some sort at least the layty was to imitate namely that heroicall or rather that divine Act of Faith which is required to Martyrdom For albeit the Priest be bound to many duties which do not oblige Lay people yet there is no man or woman whatsoever that is not rigorously bound to lay down life it selfe the deerest thing they have rather then deny their faith in Jesus Christ 2. Againe however the Lay-man is not bound to that perfection of charity and Justice which the Priest ought to have nor to excell in many other vertues essentially proper to the Priest as zeale of soules especially yet this dayes Epistle tels us that every Christian whatsoever stands obliged thus far to imitate the perfection of Jesus Christ himselfe as to preserve the proper vertues of the Paschall Feast sincerity and verity which is as much as to say some degree of saintity as was declared in the exposition of the Epistle upon Easter day and consequently if all be bound to saintity none are priviledg'd to sinne but every one is to avoid it as is told us in the second verse of this Epistle none is priviledg'd to beguile or defraud his neighbour for that is contrary to the Paschall sincerity and verity which all the Lambs of Christ are obliged unto 3. To conclude as all Christians are rigorously bound to a profession of the Faith of Christ with hazard of their lives so this Epistle instructs them all in that particular duty of suffering for Justice in testimony of their Faith and for that purpose layes before their eyes in what manner they are to suffer just as Jesus did following his steps therein Not reviling those that revile them not straying away for fear but like believing Lambs to follow their Pastor the Bishop of their soules their Jesus and their God to whom they are converted by their faith in him for whom they are to dye if need be as he hath dy'd for them and by his humble death hath raised them to the hopes of an eternall life and of everlasting joyes therein Which ever living comfort they Petition for to day emboldened thereunto by a pious memory of our Saviours death and Passion since from his Sepulchre as was said before flow all the hopefull streames of our eternall happinesse for the head and spring of Faith is our Saviours Resurrection from his grave The Gospel John 10. v. 11 c. 11 I am the good Pastor The good Pastor giveth his life for his sheep 12 But the hireling and he that is not the Pastor whose own the sheep are not seeth the wolfe comming and leaveth the sheep and flyeth and the wolfe raveneth and disperseth the sheep 13 And the hireling flyeth because he is an hireling And he hath no care of the sheep 14 I am the good Pastor and I know mine and mine know me 15 As the Father knoweth me and I know the Father and I yeeld my life for the sheep 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold them also I must bring and they shall heare my voyce and there shall be made one fold and one Pastor The Explication 11. GOod Pastor is here taken for most excellent prime or indeed onely Pastor as from whom all others derive that name because his death is reall life to his sheep whereas the death of other Pastors is 〈◊〉 a due sacrifice for the dyer and an example for the liver to follow rather then to flye from faith so that Christs life was not onely given us as an example but as a satisfaction for our sinnes 12. By Hireling here mystically understand those Priests who serve their Flock more for love of their Fleece then of the Sheep more for base gain then for souls salvation as who should say this very Act renders a man no true Pastour though by his place he be so yet literally by hireling is understood those that are not really true Pastours but usurpe the places of them Namely Hereticks who neither have Orders nor Mission and yet live upon Tythes as if they were truly intituled thereto for to such the souls of men do not truly belong however they take an usurped charge over them and those men commonly in time of persecution flinch steal themselves away and leave their sheep the souls they pretended right over unto the tyranny of the devouring wolfe the persecutor of Gods holy Church Note the true Pastour is said also to flye when he is silent and doth not rebuke his erring Flock by the Wolfe is understood Heresie or the Devil the father thereof ravening and snatching this man to luxury t'other to gluttony a third to murther and so disperseth them from the Flock and Fold of orderly Sheep making them wander till they fall into the pit that cryes Vae soli wo to the lonely 13. St. Gregory says the Name shews the Nature and so gives the cause by giving the Name for to be a hireling is cause enough to flye from danger since it argues he loves his hire better then his cure his profit better then his Office nor is he truly said to have care of his Sheep but of himself and therefore by his flying from his sheep he shews he had indeed no care of them 14. See the mark of a good Shepherd is to know his sheep and to have his sheep know him he knows their vertues to incourage them to more he knows their Vices to dehort them from the same and they know his Love and Doctrine to follow both since as his Love leads them freely so his Doctrine leads them safely again as a Pastour leads his sheep to new Pastures so must the Priest feed them with new Exhortations as the Pastour keeps the Wolfe from his Sheep so must the Priest his Souls from the temptation of sin and the Devil as the Pastour cherisheth his Lambs more then ordinarily so must the Priest cherish his children with frequent Catechisms and his new converts even as children as the Pastour cures the Diseases of his Sheep so must the Priest the Infirmities of his Souls Lastly as the true Shepherd will fight to Death rather then be beaten from his Flock so must the Priest in persecution dye rather then flye from his Parish and in case of Plague the Pastour is rather to run the hazard of it then to leave the people unprovided of Priests and in this case particularly the Pastours are bound ex officio by office to stay when Regulars that onely help ex charitate out of charity as it were may flye in point of danger if they please and that without sin 15. See how he follows this mutual knowledge comparing it to that wherewith God the Father knows his Son and that
those of Grace and Glory for he had before spoken much of Faith Grace Wisdom and Patience all of them seeds planted in the souls of the Faithful purposely to render them the fruits of Glory in the next World To conclude Saint Thomas of Aquin will have the word Datum that is the thing given to mean the gift of Glory in the next world as who should say all God gives here is to make us good all he gives in Heaven is to make us perfect others and they not unproperly say by the best and most perfect gift here mentioned is meant our Saviour Jesus Christ himself who is indeed all goodness all perfection and so it is well said that when God gave us his onely Son how is it possible he must not with him have given us all things but we may also conceive the Apostle here gives all Christians a general rule to ask of God nothing but what is good and perfect because he can give nothing else being himself all goodness and all perfection And since Christ was the best pledge of this goodness and of this perfection that ever man was witness off he coming from his heavenly Father it is by consequence true that all the good we can hope for must come from the same Fountain the same heavenly Father who is therefore called the Father of Light because he is the Fountain of in accessible Light and indeed by the Father of Light is here understood the whole sacred Trinity First because God is ad intra as Divines speak meaning in himself Majesty Glory and Light inaccessible as was said above again as in this Trinity there are three Divine Persons so every one of them is properly called a light as of the Son we are told by the Nicene Council that he is Light of light or the Light of the eternal Father and consequently the holy Ghost is Light of lights proceeding both from the Father and from the Son whence holy Church calls the holy Ghost lumen cordium the Light of hearts and St. Dennis explicates the mystery of the sacred Trinity by light in which are three Properties Light Splendor and Heat for as light without its own loss produceth the other two so the Father without his own loss begets his Son who is called Splendor patris the Splendor of the Father and from them proceed the holy Ghost called Love which is not onely a Heat but a Fire of Charity burning eternally bright between the three sacred Persons Father Son and holy Ghost Secondly because God ad extra that is to say without himself is the Origen of light as he created Angels the chief of whom being for his excessive brightness called Lucifer and the rest having power each Superiour of them to illuminate his Inferiour Angel Also as he created man endowed with the excellent light of reason by which he was able to enlighten the souls of those that are ignorant in the knowledge of Truth Thirdly as he created the Sun Moon and Stars all gallant lights useful to creatures in this world Fourthly as he is the Author of all Supernatural lights namely of Faith Hope and Charity Wisdom Understanding Counsel and all other Vertues whatsoever and Graces that are the lights guiding our souls to eternal Bliss amidst the mysty darkness of death and sin Fifthly as he is the Author of all prophetical Spirits foreseeing by the light of Revelation things to come Lastly as he is the Author of the light of Glory a creature so perfect that St. Thomas saith God cannot make it perfecter his reason is because it is the medium to shew us perfection it self his own sacred Deity and without the help of this Glory elevating the powers of Angels and blessed Souls of men neither of them could behold this inaccessible light which is God himself but whether this light of Glory may not be answerable to the more or less Grace in Saints or Angels and consequently an accident more or less intense or perfect accord to the exigence of every individual subject in which it is we shall rather leave to Schools to dispute with St. Thom. then presume here to determine with whom that is with which Father of Light with which sacred Trinity there is no Transmutation no going from place to place as all other lights do especially the Sun from East to West nor no vicissitude of over-shadowing no Eclypse or Darkness by the Interposition of any thing between God and his creatures or by his recess from them as the Sun goes from us and so makes night called vicissitudinal darkness and comes to us and so makes day called vicissitudinal light because it comes and goes by fits by turns by changes by alterations whereas in God there is none of these to be found for his light doth not come and go he is not now Author of Grace now of sin but all that comes from him is Grace and if sin interpose it is from us that interposition comes nor doth his Glory to the Blessed fade at any time grow dark or dim but keeps still the same fulness of lustre it hath at first but God is so far from mutability that he is from five remarkable Heads immutable First by nature Immortal Secondly by quality as we call it Vnalterable Thirdly by place Immoveable because immense and filling all place Fourthly by Will constant ever the same in Resolution Lastly by Operation ever here with Grace ever in Heaven with Glory working upon his Creatures and all these four last flow as from their origin out of his Immortal and Eternal Nature nay that which is most remarkable is to think how in all the vicissitudes and changes that Christ Jesus felt in himself for us as man he was not the least altered as he was God but therefore became man that he might incourage us to beare patiently the changings and turnings of corrupted nature when he that was God exposed himselfe to the like lest we should despaire of ever coming to an unalterable eternity of bliss from amidst so great a privation of rest as this perpetually altering world produced in us 18. This verse proves God is not the Author of temptation or sin in us since he hath freely begotten us to be his children children of his own inaccessible light and this generation also is that best and perfect gift which in the verse above we heard came from God but this word voluntarily is of deep sense and alludes to the difference wherewith God begot his own naturall and eternall Son namely naturally and necessarily so that he could not choose but beget him from all eternity coequall to himselfe but our generation was gratuit free voluntary whereby we were in time begotten and so as God might have chosen whether he would or not have gotten us to be his children of grace and not of nature infinitely inferiour no wayes coequall to him againe by voluntarily is understood not only gratis but also by designe as
our being by the word of truth begotten since the Apostle doth close this verse with telling us how to make our selves more apt to receive the word of truth into our soules or as who should say since wee are begotten voluntarily by the word of truth let us endeavor by all meanes to preserve in us this regeneration this inborne word in us this filiation to God this adoption to glory and by the name of uncleanness the Apostle here alludes to concupiscence drawing us from the life of this word unto the death of sinne by the name of malice hee alludes to the sinne of anger before inculcated as hindering our justice such as by meekness we produce in our selves and so preserve the inbred word our filiation to God which must be our finall salvation of our soules by taking in or receiving the ingraffed word is here meant keeping it for this was spoken to those who were already Christians and the allusion is pretty which is here made to a graft for as by ingrafting on the body of an Apple-tree the gardiner if he please brings forth a Plum or Peare so the word of God ingrafted into our soules brings forth the fruits of grace which are the Seeds of better fruit of glory if any aske what is this ingrafted word we may say it is God incarnate for his incarnation is as it were an ingrafting or inoculating God into the hearts or soules of men since as the graft is alwayes of a better kinde then the Stock it is ingrafted on so the Divinity is much more sweet and fertil then our sowre Crab of humane nature whereas by the Hypostaticall union God and man in Christ became one person as the Tree and the graft become one body when the Sap unites and cements them together againe as all grafts are first cut from their own homogeneall Stock before they be ingrafted into another so the second person of the Trinity was taken as it were out of the hosome of his eternal Father to be ingrafted in the wombe of the Blessed Virgin Mary and so was brought out of his heavenly to be planted in our earthly Paradise or rather wilderness indeed for such it was when he came downe to earth and as from the sowre Stock of a Crab-tree we must first cut a branch before we can ingraft a better fruit upon it so was there cut off from Christ his humane hypostasis and he made to subsist by the hypostasis divine besides as the graft and the Stock are bound together till they fasten into one another so by the hypostaticall union was the divine graft bound to our stock of humane nature that thereby God and man might grow into one person consisting of two natures others will have this ingrafted word to be the Blessed Sacrament united to our Soules others understand it to be Christ crucified on the Cross others contend it is the word of God ingrafted by the Preachers into the hearts of the Faithfull The Application 1. THe two first verses of this Epistle point directly at the gift of Faith which is indeed the Best and most perfect gift eminentially called the gift of God and is such a Light to our Reason as can come from none but the Father of Lights in it selfe the Blessed Trinity but as to us we may say it comes from the Father of our Light that is of our Faith our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath indeed voluntarily begotten us by the word of Truth the Holy Writ the Record of our Faith whereby we have our first beginnings of being God Almighties creatures 2. The two next verses tell us with what Alacrity and Promptitude we should hear this Sacred word of God as also with what Patience we should bear the Rebukes and Checks it gives our Consciences when it reprehends our vices In plaine termes we are told that to be Angry at any holy reprehension is an evident signe of our not being Right beleevers since by our operative Faith we are made just as we have often been taught and nothing is less consistent with justice then Anger 3. The last verse tels us what effects Faith ought to work in us namely Purity Love and Meekness for without these we are not capable of saving our soules by the ingafted word of God in us which yet of it self is sufficient to save us if received with that Purity which renounceth all mixture of Heresie Schisme or Infidelity for these are the Obstructions to the unity of minds which Faith worketh in the soules of true beleevers making them therefore all of one minde because they are all of one pure and impermixed Faith such as is only in the Catholicke Church and the effect whereof is to make them therefore love even the hardest commands of that good God they do beleeve in and to covet ardently what he promiseth unto them in requitall of their love who amongst all the allurements in this world fix their hearts only upon heavenly joyes which are promised in the next world not on such shadowes of joyes as we possess here in a word not to fix their hearts upon our present loanes but upon our future promises for God here doth not properly give us any thing how ever he lends us all we have his gifts are for eternall enjoyment not for temporary uses onely Now that we may doe this see how fitly Holy Church Prayes as above The Gospel John 16. v. 5 c. 5 But I told you not these things from the beginning because I was with you And now I goe to him that sent me and none of you asketh me whither goest thou 6 But because J have spoken these things to you sorrow hath filled your hearts 7 But J tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I goe for if I goe not the Paraclete shall not come to you but if I goe J will send him to you 8 And when he is come he shall argue the world of sinne and of Iustice and of Iudgement 9 Of sinne because they beleeve not in me 10 But of Justice because I goe to my Father and now you shall not see me 11 And of judgement because the Prince of this world is now judged 12 Yet many things I have to say to you but you cannot bear them now 13 But when hee the spirit of truth commeth hee shall teach you all truth for hee shall not speake of himselfe but what things soever he shall heare he shal speake and the things that are to come he shall shew 14 He shall glorifie me because he shall receive of mine and shall shew to you The Explication 5. TO understand what the Apostle meanes in this verse we must know the meaning of the foregoing words and though many wil have these things to report unto what went before namely our Saviours having told them they should be persecuted and punished to death for his sake after he was gone which he told them of that when it
Spirit of Servitude and Fear being onely a shadow of that Truth which was to come after it Lastly and most properly because he is the Author of all Truth whence Christ said of him Cap. 16. he shall teacb you all truth 27. See the infinite Dignity of the Apostolate and of their Successors the Prelates of Gods Church that they are joyned in testimony of Christ his Deity and of all the other mysteries of Faith even with the holy Ghost himself and yet the Hereticks so undervalue Church Authority as if it were onely Humane and Fallible whereas indeed it is Divine because supported by Divine Power promising it should be Infallible and it is as little derogatory to God his veracity to say that failing man supported by God cannot erre as it is to say God cannot erre in that he undertaketh so the Infallibility is radicated in God however by his gracious vouchsafing it is also attributed to man as exercising the ministery of God not otherwise C. 16. 1. Many take scandal here in diverse Sences but the best and genuine is that they be not offended at their persecutors when they shall finde them to oppose Gods holy Ordinances and Ministers and that for this reason they do not slacken in their Faith or Zeal as expecting God should being Good and Goodness it self defend them from evil while for his sake and for his Name they were doing well and executing his commands but should rather remember he had foretold them these things would happen and that if his heavenly Father permitted him who was actually God to be in his own sacred Person abused and persecuted to Death they should not being but men expect to have more regard shewed them by Gods enemies then was shewed to God himself but should rather conclude he suffered for them to give them example to suffer for him and for their own and others sins besides 2. The Synagogue imports either the Congregation of the Jewish people or the place wherein they were to observe their ceremonial Rites in serving God as now the word Church signifies the believers in Christ and the place where Christians assemble to attend the Divine Service so by being cast out of the Synagogue imports excommunicated as cast out of the Place or Society of men serving God for so odious were the Apostles to the Jews upon the account of Christ Jesus their Master that they were not esteemed worthy of the name or company of Gods people and Christ comforts them against this disgrace by making them the Heads of hiâ— Church who were not held worthy to be members of the Jewish Synagogue Further he tells them they shall have the honour to be as he was offered up a Sacrifice for the sins of the people by the Jews who are so obstinately blinde as to esteem they offer sacrifice to God for their own sins while they persecute the servants of Christ Jesus the Son of God nor doth our Saviour here onely foretel the personal persecution of the Apostles but that also of all Christians which was to continue till the worlds end and the causes of this persecution are many The first the Devils and his Ministers malice to see Saints prefer Gods Service before the respect even to the proud Princes amongst men the second the destruction of Idols by the erecting a worship to one onely God The third because it was presumed as false as it was new to preach a crucified man to be eternal God The fourth because Christians do not onely beat down the false Religions of the Jews and Gentiles but even reprehend the manners and proceedings of those who profess such false worship of God as the Jewes and Gentiles did exhibite The last because the Devil and his adherents perswaded the world that all the miseries of Famine Plague Warre and Death which befell mankinde were just punishments of God inflicted on them for letting Christian Religion be professed and this saith he they will do to you because 3. They neither know my Father nor me that is they will not know either of us for this is not an excusing but an accusing phrase of Christ so this ignorance was not alledged as extenuating but as aggravating their fault and our Saviour animates the Apostles to suffer these temporal Scorns with as much neglect as a Prince would do who coming singly to Town without any visible attendance or retinue after him should be refused entrance and kept out as a private person for instead of being angry he would comfort himself with the redouble honour it would be to him to have these people let him in with their excuses and apologies for the affront as soon as his train appeared to testifie what he was and such a Train of holy Saints every Christian ought to believe will follow him to make the world with shame cry him mercy for affronting him whom God himself esteems and loves 4. The reason why I tell you or foretel you rather these things is not to disanimate but to hearten you to suffer them with alacrity because I shall as surely help you out of these bryars as I have told you that you should fall into them for my sake and if you remember I foretold you this you shall need no other comfort in your afflictions for you know sufficiently who I am your Jesus your God and when I tell you I shall give you the honour of suffering for me be confident I shall not fail to attend you with a Crown of Glory for your Martyrdoms The Application 1. THe two first Verses of this Gospel run wholly upon the Hope our Saviour put his Apostles in for the coming of the holy Ghost and so do fitly now exhort us to the practice of that Vertue according as we have been taught we must between Ascension and Whitsuntide And what more comfortable exercise can we desire then to expect the holy Ghost to come and take possession of our hearts on Earth while Jesus is gone to take possession of our Mansion House in Heaven A happy and a hopeful parting from our Ascending Saviour when we are left in expectation of our Descending Saintifier 2. In the three next Verses our Blessed Lord tyes the strongest link of Charity that of dying for the Faith to this above of Hope so is the Gospel suitable to the Epistle of the day Just in this sort he welcom'd St. Paul to his conversion promising to shew him what he was to suffer for his holy Name O admirable spirit of Almighty God! making that to his Saints a ground of Hope which were to sinners the greatest Motive of despair How comes this to pass but onely as the Royal Prophet sayes Because thou eternal God hast singularly placed me in Hope that is to say hast made thy servants contemn this tempting world and life it self the sweetest thing on earth in expectation of an everlasting life or to use thy words divine meerly for the Hope of Israel 3. The last
person 28. You have heard I say to you I go when I dye and come when I rise again and when I am so come back to take away your grief for my departure by death if then you did love me you would rejoyce at my leaving you again because I then am to go not to dye any more but to live eternally with my Father in glory and to share out part of that glory to you also But he gives another and a deeper reason why they should if they did love him rejoyce at his going to his Father namely because his Father is greater then he can protect him and his friends from all those persecutions which the Jews raised against him and them not but that he could have protected them himself from these but this he sayes as accommodating his speech to them to make it an argument which they themselves should yeeld unto as convincing to those that did love him And though from these very words the Arrian heresie took fastest root denying the Deity of Christ because he said his Father is greater then he yet without all reason for no such thing followes since his meaning was in this place that his Father as God was greater then he as man for so he was even lesse then Angels being it was onely as man that he went to his Father who as God was never from him nor could be And so Christ as God was greater then himself as man much more then was his Father greater then he in that true sense he spake this in though according to humane sense and reason the Father as God is also greater then the Son as God because he is the origin of the Son or his beginning how ever the Son be equall to him in essence and power so it is a majority in our understanding at least though not in the thing understood But the Arrian heresie was grounded on a mistake of the Analogy between divine and humane generation for though amongst men the Father is many wayes better and greater then the Son as for example because he is older then the Son and was in beeing before him again because he a tall Father begetteth at first a little son besides his Son is a thing numerically nay substantially distinct from the father lastly because the Father had liberty and could have chosen whether or no he would have begotten a Son yet in God all is quite otherwise for there is no priority nor posteriority no majority nor minority no numerical nor substantial difference in Deity between the Father and the Son though there be a numerical difference in their personalities neither is there any liberty but an absolute necessity of the Sons generation and of his being coaeval coequal and abâ—olutely one and the same essential numerical and necessary God with his eternal Father 29. The belief he here ayms to gain is that of his Deity and of his voluntary not coacted or inforced death for the sins of the people so that which he foretold here was his Death his Resurrection his Ascension and his sending the holy Ghost unto them after he was ascended that when they see all things happen as he had told them they might undoubtedly believe he was the Messias the God-man that came to redeem and save the world 30. So after he had thus prepared them for all events he told them he would not say much more unto them because the devil whom he calls the prince of this world cometh was at hand in his ministers the Jews to persecute him to death and he therefore calls him prince of the world because by sin the world inslaves it self unto him he is come to take me and yet he hath no power in me because I have no sin to give him the least right over me but I freely give my self up to his tyranny over me that I may redeem the world from his usurpation and Tyranny over them nay the very injustice he doth to me shall confiscate all the right he hath over others 31. That is to shew the world that I love my Father and do as he commanded me therefore I dye and give my self into the hands of my enemies Hence it is asked how it can be true which is said of him by Isaias 53. he was offered for sin because himself was so pleased since it was not by his choice but by his Fathers command that he did suffer insomuch that if he had not suffered he had sinned in an act of disobedience and though pure man may choose to do or not to do as he is bid and so truly doth either yet Christ who was God as well as man could not choose and so seems inforced for if man in him had sinned by reason his two Natures made but one Person and actions are of persons not of natures then God had sinned as well as man because God and man were in Christ but one person But we must conceive in one person of Christ there were two states or conditions the one of a viatour or passenger the other of a comprehensour of one impatriated or in glory that is to say the one of a traveller of a man banished from home or in his journey homewards the other of one possessed of his own restored from banishment arrived at his journies end and beeing at his rest So Christ as a viatour or traveller had liberty of choise to suffer or not to suffer though as he was by his hypostatical union to the word and by his Beatifical Vision consequent to that union rendring him in glory in the state of those who are finally blessed he had no choyce but did all things as necessarily as the Blessed do in heaven who cannot choose to do otherwise then love and obey God in all things that they do and yet even so they may be said to love God freely too because they are understanding creatures and free will is radicated in the understanding for nothing that hath not reason hath will and the root of willing is the understanding therefore though the will be necessitated upon supposition that the soul is at home or in glory and cannot choose but love God as long as she sees him yet that love is radically free because it was a free act of the soul departing from the state of a viatour and so retains the nature of freedome as being rather a continued then a new act of free-will And in this sense Christ even as in his state of blisse might be said here freely to suffer because as he was at the same time a viatour he did suffer freely and uncoacted for the necessary continuation is rather a reward of the former act then any new act at all besides this necessity is rather extrinsecal to the act as being radicated in the immutability of the object and of the glory representing to the sight that object then intrinsecal thereunto otherwise then as continuation of an act is intrinsecal unto it self
us in the B. Sacrament as we must fear him under his severer name of our Judge if we now fail of such equall love unto him O happy Christians who at the same time when they are bid to fear Christ are taught to love Jesus and consequently their love and fear must be as equal as Christ Jesus is to Jesus Christ But the reason why we beg this equality of fear and love is because Christ doth never leave destitute of his government those whom he instructs in the solidity of his love that is Christ our Judge will sweetly rule us if he find we do solidly love him and we were last Sunday taught the solidity of that love did consist in loving God above all things and not only our neighbour but also our enemies as our selves which lesson was then given as a preparative to this Feast now flowing in the Octaves thereof and alluded unto in this prayer teaching us in brief what the Epistle and Gospel tell us more at large The first that who loves not ought to stand in fear of that death which he abides in by not loving Nay more so confident must our Love be that we must rather not fear to dye for our neighbour then we must dare not to love him and to this we are incited by the example of Christ whose love made him dye for us that were his enemies Again we are told this love must be real and true not verbal onely and that it cannot be so if we relieve not our neighbour in his necessity when we are able so to do This argues indeed that we are not left destitute by our Governour Christ Jesus who instructs us in this solidity of love from one end of the Epistle to the other And since it is the general consent of all Expositours that the Supper mentioned in this dayes Gospel is a figure of the Blessed Sacrament sure that is a mystery as full of solid love as is expressed in the Prayer above teaching us never to go unto this Supper without equal fear and love and so the Prayer stands excellently well adapted both to the Sunday to the Feast to the Epistle and to the Gospel of the day For if we can by saying this prayer fervently obtain the equal fear and love which it petitioneth assuredly in recompense thereof Almighty God will so govern us as we shall not for humane ends excuse our selves from our duties to his Divine Majesty but shall come so religiously to the Supper of the Sacrament here as we need not fear being shut out at the last Supper of eternall rest in glory which again the Expositours will have the Sacramentall Supper to be a signe of And thus as well every sense as every letter of this Gospel is included in this most admirable prayer of holy Church The Epistle 1 Joh. 3.13 c. 13 Marvell not Brethren if the world hate you 14 We know that we are translated from death to life because we love the Brethren He that loveth not abideth in death 15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer hath life everlasting abiding in himself 16 In this we have known the charity of God because he hath yielded his life for us and we ought to yield our lives for the Brethren 17 He that shall have the substance of the world and shall see his Brother hath need and shall shut his bowels from him how doth the charity of God abide in him 18 My little children let us not love in word nor in tongue but in deed and truth The Explication 13. THe Evangelist had in the precedent verses told us the difference between the children of God and those of the devil and how there was mortal enmity between the one and the other instancing in Cain killing his Brother Abel for no other cause then envy to him seeing the sacrifice of Abel was acceptable to God and his was not in regard Abel was a child of God and Cain a child of the devil and so no marvel if his offerings were not acceptable to God Almighty But the Apostle proceeds further and bids Christians not wonder if the world hate them because of their good deeds since for that reason Cain representing the malignancy of the world hated Abel who was a figure of a good Christian offering grateful sacrifice to God besides the Apostle here alludes to what he had said in his Gospel Chap. 15.18 If the world hate you know it hated me before it hated you and therefore here he concludes they should rather expect then wonder at it if they found the world did hate them since no Son can hope for love from him who hates his Father and the foregoing Verses of this Epistle were all upon our happy filiation with God But we may observe the causes remarkable why the wicked for those are understood by the world so called from the greater part thereof that are wicked indeed do hate those who are good The first is the dissimilitude betwixt vice and vertue which begets a hatred as similitude begets love and affection for we see all worldlings puffed up with pride and ambition contrariwise all good Christians are meek and humble The second is Envy for wicked men seeing they cannot arrive at purity and sanctity envy those who do attain thereunto The third because the good men do further reprehend the vices of the wicked as the holy Ghost doth inspire them in imitation of his example whose coming shall argue the world of sin as we heard John 15.8 The fourth because the world sees good men flye the company of the wicked The last because their affections are contrary one doating upon the world altogether the other wholly inamoured on Almighty God so they must needs be as opposite as two Contraries are as heat to cold as dry to moist and labour to overcome each other but with this difference that the good man labours the conversion of the bad the bad man indeavours the perversion of the good 14. The Apostle doth not here say we know by any divine Faith or certain knowledge as hereticks will needs interpret this place but onely by moral certitude we know that if we love one another for Gods sake we must needs love God much more and as by sin against him we dye so by love of him we detest sin and are by that meanes translated from the death of sin to the life of grace in this world and to the life of glory in the next So that all the certitude we have of this is the testimony of our own consciences telling us we are not guilty of any defect either in our love to God or to our neighbour Yet because St. Paul 1 Cor. 4. v. 4. no sooner said he was not guilty then he added yet in this I am not justified the Catholick Church teacheth our assurance of our being in the state of grace is onely moral not divine And three signes
there are of Justifying grace inhabiting within us The first if we perfectly hate sin The second if we mortifie the flesh The third if we have zeal to our neighbours good such as St. Paul had saying Who is sick and I am not distempered with him also 2 Cor. 11. insomuch that here St. John presumes to say he that loves not remaines in death that is if when he is bound to shew his love either to God or his neighbour he doth it not he remaines in death in the guilt at least of that past sin which he committed by omitting to do his duty when he was bound to do it out of which guilt since there is no going but by the help of grace therefore he is said to remain in death untill by an Act of love he revives from the death of that guilt which he remained in by not loving when he was bound to do it Nay the death of our body is but a shadow of death to that of our soules so the Apostle needs not scruple to say men living in sin remain in death because they are truly dead to grace and glory as long as they continue in their sin be they never so vigorouslâ— alive in body 15. He is a murderer of his own soul because as was said above he that loves not remains in death Where note not to love is esteemed to be as bad as to hate and consequently who hates his neighbour actually kills himself and in effect his neighbour too though not in Act not unlike him that coveting his neighours wife is an Adulterer in will though not in fact Yet others will have this hatred to be onely murder in disposition not reduced into act but who so loves danger shall perish in it and therefore to dally in such dispositions is to indanger at least perishing in them Let no man wonder the Apostle should say he that murdereth hath not life everlasting in him when he that is in this world freest from all sinne hath not here everlasting life abiding in him whence it follows by life everlasting is here understood that life of grace whereunto everlasting life and glory is due whereof none can have so much as a hope so long as he remains in hatred or murder as above 16. Not content to instance in lesse then the highest perfection the Apostle here tells us what is perfect charity perfect dilection to lay down our lives for our neighbours souls as Christ did his for ours But not so as we can loose our spirituall life to gain the like life to our neighbour no this is against the rule of charity which ever regards it self but reserving our spirituall we may loose our temporall lives to gain our neighbours souls And not onely may but are here exhorted thereunto if we say commanded the text will bear it in case we see our neighbours soul in danger unlesse we venture our lives And in some cases men may and are bound to hazzard at least their own to save anothers life as first a souldier may rather choose to die in the place then yield to his enemy the advantage of that ground his commander trusted him to defend the like is of a citizen in defense of the whole city for the part is not of equall regard with the whole so Samson did as we reade Judg. 16. who oppressed himself with the ruine of a house thereby to oppresse the Philistines also and to save the people of God from their captivity and though they are not many examples of obligation yet we have many of election shewing divers have died to save the life of their friend divers have rendered themselves captive to redeem others from bondage divers have lost their lives to preserve the chastity of others as esteeming the life of grace in their neighbour more pretious then that of nature in themselves 17. Having shewed in the precedent verse that we are bound in some cases to poure out our blouds for our neighbours no marvell if here it be concluded he cannot have charity who seeing his neighbour in necessity shuts up the bowels of his mercy from him and will not allow him any relief And yet because this is so usuall a thing therefore to confound those who have such stony hearts the Text compells them to the necessity of doing the lesser upon all occasions by shewing before they were obliged to a much greater act of charity upon some particular emergencies as who should say though it be hard to lay down your life for another yet it must be easie to lay down your purse or some equivalent relief if you will merit the name of a Christian and give proof by your acts of mercy that the authour of mercy is within you and that your self do live spiritually by relieving your neighbour corporally Whence most Divines hold a man is bound in conscience to give alms more or lesse and that not onely in extream but even in common reall necessities as of meat drink clothing housing or the like grounded in that of Eccles chap. 4. v. 1. Child defraud not the poor man of that Alms which is due unto him from thee for indeed the portion of the poor is in the rich mans hands and God gives riches to the end rich men may have the merit of poverty by giving their goods away and poor men the benefit of riches by what they receive out of the surplus of others And because it is too long for my present purpose to inlarge upon this point I referre the reader to the fourth book of Salvianus dedicated to the Catholick Church wherein he shews how great a sinne it is for Church-men to inrich their kindred with the Churches treasure and for rich persons of the world to starve Christ in the persons of the poor while they feast the devil in the excesses of the rich by leaving their estates to such as will not make at least pious uses thereof I do heartily therefore recommend this Authour to all those rich persons who find flesh and bloud prevail more in them then pietie to the poor for if I be not much mistaken they will thank me to have done this charity to them who thought perhaps they did not stand in need thereof but their minds may be other after reading the solid pietie of this learned Authour Salvianus upon this particular subject 18. Lo here the word is opposed to the work the tongue to truth as if we did want charity that onely gave good words to the poor without alms or as if they wanted truth who fed the poor with words of comfort onely when they were able truely to satisfie their hunger and would not Not but that he is truely charitable who instructing feeds the soul at least when he cannot feed his body but that to do both is the duty of a Christian when both may be done and where both are wanting So the meaning of this text is that our charity ought to
given us in the Blessed Sacrament whereof this Gospel was but a figure according to the exposition of the best Expositours of Holy Writ For look how to day four thousand persons were corporally fed with multiplied loaves so are millions of soules dayly fed with the body of Christ multiplied under millions of consecrated hoasts and as by this food is chiefly nourished in us all that is good so by the practice of Piety as the prayer petitions in the close is maintained in us what by the aforesaid blessed Sacrament is nourished as who should say in vain we take this spirituall nutriment if after it we do not maintain the grace it gives us by the continuall study and practice of Piety wherefore to make this Prayer accomplished we beg in the close thereof that God will maintain in us by our practice of Piety the good nutriment we receive by the blessed Sacrament Thus wee see how admirably the Prayer is adapted to the other parts of this dayes service and withall we are taught that the perfection of a Christian life consists in the continuall practice of Piety and devotion The Epistle Rom. 6. v. 3. c. 3 Are you ignorant that all we which are baptized in Christ Jesus in his death we are baptized 4 For we are buried together with him by Baptisme into death that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father so we also may walk in newnesse of life 5 For if we become complanted to the similitude of his death we shall be also of his resurrection 6 Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sinne may be destroyed to the end that we may serve sin no longer 7 For he that is dead is justified from sin 8 And if we be dead with Christ we believe that we shall also live together with Christ 9 Knowing that Christ rising again from the dead now dieth no more death shall no more have dominion over him 10 For that he died to sin he died once but that he liveth he liveth to God 11 So think you also that you are dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Explication 3. TO be baptized in Christ is to be christned according as Christ hath commanded in the name of the Father Sonne and holy Ghost to be baptized in his death is as much as to say in representation of his death and that our Baptisme hath force and vertue from the merits of his death and passion and signifies that as Christ died on the Crosse to this naturall life so the baptized die to sinne and live to Christ which is a life opposite to that of a sinner 4. This verse adds more to the Analogie saying we are not onely dead to sinne in Baptisme but thereby also buried with him in proof of our death to sinne So that the Trine Immersion used in Baptisme alludes to the three dayes that Christ lay buried in his grave as our sinnes in Baptisme lie drowned under the water thereof And for this cause holy Church makes a solemn Baptisme yearly on Easter eve to shew that thereby those who died were buried with Christ do also rise with him by the glory of his heavenly Father that is to glorifie him to a new life in him in testimony whereof the baptized have a white garment cast over them called the Chrisome to shew the purity of their souls and are advised to carry the same inward purity with them to the tribunall of Christ as a proofe of their fidelity to their vow in holy Baptisme of renouncing the world the flesh and the devill so to conserve their puritie or newnesse of life to the which the Fathers exhort earnestly when they inculcate the frequent memory of our baptismall vow which they ground in these words so we also may walk importing so we may persevere in that purity 5. See how this verse insists further upon the consequence of our spirituall resurrection even in this life by our spirituall death and buriall as above shewing that our newnesse of life by Baptism is like the ingrafting us into the stock or tree of Christ whence we are to receive all our future sap or nutriment so that as his death to naturall life was the way to his resurrection in like manner our death to sinne is the way to our resurrection with him and as we see graftâ— following the changes of the tree they are ingrafted in seem in the winter to die with it in the spring to revive with it so do we by Baptisme in Christ seem to die with him in the winter of his passion but revive in the spring of his resurrection 6. Then we know indeed our old man to be crucified with Christ when the new man lives in him By the old Man understand custome of sinning renounced by Baptisme by the body of sinne understand here the whole masse of our sinnes by the destruction of it understand not the palliation of it onely by imputative Justice as heretikes do but the absolute death thereof by inherent justice infused by baptismall grace into our souls 7. And this sense is confirmed by the next verse saying he that is dead meaning to sinne is justified from sinne lives by the infused Justice which hath killed and not onely covered sinnes in the baptized 8. This verse imports our future life eternall which we firmly believe we shall injoy with Christ if here we die with him to sinne 9. The sense of the precedent verse is confirmed by this following that tells us death shall as little reign over us in the next life if we truely die to sinne in this as it did over Christ once risen from his grave and yet withall alludes to the constancie we ought to have in good works even in this life that having once had the happinesse to live spiritually here we should disdain to die again by relapse into sinne and so to let death dominear ever us whom once we had slain by grace Note here the strange goodnesse of our Saviour who being God was content to let death once dominear over him on the Crosse that we might for ever after triumph with him over death 10. Here Christ is not to be understood to die to sinne as we doe but to die for sinne not his own but ours and that once for all our sinnes Where he is said here to live to God understand with God a blessed and immortall life as also that by so living he may perpetually praise and glorifie Almightie God since as he died for sinnes abolition so he lives for Gods glorification 11. 'T is reason we should think our selves dead to sinne when by Baptisme we renounce it and living to God when by the same Baptisme we live in him But it is a high expression of the alteration which the Apostle exhorts unto in advising us to think we are dead to sinne for as dead men have no motion
at all so we ought not to move the least step towards sinne when once we are by Baptisme dead unto it and therefore it followes well that all our vitall motion should be towards God towards his honour and glory in Christ Jesus lest we fall back from the life of grace to the death of sinne which we can never do if in imitation of Christs life we square ours For that is understood by living to God in Christ glorifying God by following the footsteps of his Sonne our Saviour Jesus Christ who so lived after his resurrection that he never died more and desires we may so live in grace as never to die in sinne again being once freed from it by holy Baptisme The Application 1. IT stands with all the reason in the world that where the increase of Religion and Practise of Piety are petitioned there should be laid the ground-work of Religion to build an increase upon see how this whole Epistle is for that purpose nothing else but the very basis and foundation of Christian Religion our death to sinne by holy Baptisme and our resurrection to the life of Grace by the practice of Piety which practice will increase Religion in us according as we do petition 2. If any aske what is the best practice of Pietie whereby we shall most advance and increase Religion in our souls I shall conclude confidently out of this holy Text that the greatest men and saints of Gods holy Church must be made such by becoming Infants and children again by going backward if we may so call it and down the hill of Humility by retreating to the holy Font where first they received life to God since it was of such that our Saviour said Let the little ones come to me and so important he made their comming as Matth. 8. v. 5. we see he excludes from Heaven all that do not make themselves as holy Infants in his sight saying Unlesse ye become like these little ones you shall not enter into the Kingdome of Heaven 3. To conclude then This Text exhorteth all good Christians to become as new born Infants coveting the milk of their mothers breast 1. Pet. 2. v. 2. desiring rather to live babies of grace then men of sinne indeavouring a dayly growth of that love to Gods holy Name which was ingrafted in their breasts in holy Baptisme by that God of vertues to whom all belongs that is best from whom all those best graces vertues and gifts proceeded which were bestowed upon us at the holy Font Namely Originall Justice for the primary effect thereof a rectitude to God when we were adopted his children who before were slaves of the devill The three Theologicall vertues Faith Hope and Charity The four Cardinall vertues Prudence Justice Fortitude and Temperance The seven gifts of the Holy Ghost Wisedome Understanding Counsell Fortitude Knowledge Piety and the Feare of God As also Pennance Religion and all such other vertues as being supernaturall like these are not acquiâ—able by any humane indeavours and therâ—foâ—e â—he habits of them are held probably to be all infused in holy Baptisme So that it is by the work of Charity properly called the practice of Piety by the exercise of these vertues in the frequent Acts thereof that we increase our Religion and nourish what is good in us and rightly called Best in God from whom all goodness flowes all vertue springs as from the proper fountain thereof Say now beloved doth not holy Text beeing all upon Baptisme and the effects thereof give a fit occasion for holy Church to pray to day as above The Gospel Mark 8. v. 1. c. 1 IN those dayes again when there was a great multitude and had not what to eat calling his Disciples together he saith to them 2 I have compassion upon the multitude because loe three dayes they now indure with me neither have they what to eat 3 And if I dismisse them fasting into their home they will faint in the way for some of them came afar off 4 And his Disciples answered him whence may a man fill them here with bread in the wildernesse 5 And he asked them how many loaves have yee who said seven 6 And he commanded the multitude to sit down upon the ground And taking the seven loaves giving thanks he brake and gave to his Disciples for to set before them and they did set them before the multitude 7 And they had few little fishes and he blessed them and commanded them to be set before them 8 And they did eat and were filled and they tooke up that which was left of the fragments seven maundes 9 And they that had eaten were about foure thousand and he dismissed them The Explication 1. IN those dayes signifies here about that time and doth not determine exactly any day For what was now done was not the work of one onely day but of divers wherein many people had flocked together to behold our Saviour and his prodigious works as also to hear him speak and preach unto them so attractive was all he said or did as we see here they were even carelesse how to subsist when our Saviour himself was the first that proved solicitous about them And by calling his disciples he shewes us example to consult with our Brethren and not to rely onely upon our selves in difficulties 2. In this second verse he tells his Disciples he had compassion of the multitude that had row indured with him three dayes and had not what to eat Blessed God! how tender is thy heart to those that suffer purely for thy sake as these did if yet their suffering were not rather a content to them then otherwise For 't is not saith S. Chrysostome that they had fasted three dayes without refection but that they had now nothing left to eat yet happily some amongst them had nothing at all and did really in zeal fast three dayes and therefore 3. As in the third verse is said if they had been dismissed fasting they might have fainted having some of them far to go home See here the reward of perseverance in good works how our Saviour requites but three dayes susteining with a miraculous banquet And indeed his aym was more at feeding their soules by the miracle then their bodies by meat however his disciples understood him to mean onely a corporal repast unto the people when they replyed as followeth 4. In order to the corporal food that it was not to be hoped for in the desert or wildernesse This incredulity our Saviour permitted in his disciples both for their own and the peoples greater satisfaction afterwards when beyond all humane hope he had provided a feast in the desert for his servants as God had done for the Jewes when even Moyses their leader despaired of it as the disciples now did 5. The Interrogatory in this verse argues not any his ignorance of the number of loaves that were amongst them but he asks the question that by
our course according to that Providence since it is most certain that God Almighty never intends our ruine by the miseries he permits to fall upon us but rather our salvation if we bear them with conformity to his holy will But we must find the prayer adapted to this present Epistle and Gospel too else we fail of our design You will have anon the literall sense of both expounded but we must now prosecute our further aim of making it appear this prayer is as it were an abstract of them both In which holy Church would teach us how to cast our selves upon the providence of God with a perfect resignation to his divine will as who should say O God we know thou hast environed mankind with a world of internall and externall evils yet thou that art omnipotent canst remove those evils or things which are hurtfull out of our way and canst afford us all that is good and beneficiall to us since we doubt not but thy goodnesse hath a desire to save each of us and consequently hast so disposed of us in thy saving Providence as notwithstanding all the evils that environ us thy will of saving us shall not be frustrated No not maugre all the internall evils mentioned in the Epistle of our own flesh and bloud propending us to perpetuall sinne nor all the externall evils mentioned in the Gospel of ravenous wolves of false prophets who under colour of saving our souls seek to swallow them up into the mouth of hell For as against our internall evils we find helps in the Epistle domestick easie helps such as S. Paul is almost ashamed to name our own flesh and bloud captivated onely to the rule of reason and grace in like manner we find helps in the Gospel against our externall evils false prophets or teachers when we are in the Gospel taught how to distinguish them from true and safe guides by looking into their lives and works which are compared there to fruits of trees that is if their lives be good we may safely follow them if bad we must avoid them And certainly as we have no internall enemy greater then our own flesh and bloud ill regulated so we have no externall greater then false prophets ill teachers since the Lay-mens lives ought to be squared unto the lives of their spirituall leaders and when any of these are false guides it is like the corruption of the best thing which alwayes is the worst corruption O how fitly then doth holy Church to day reflecting on these internall and externall enemies or evils mind Almighty God in this prayer of that his never-failing providence when to secure us that it be not frustrated in us she bids us deprecate all those evils that may indanger it and beg all those helps that may conduce unto it Say then beloved this prayer with this relation to the Epistle and Gospel both which it sweetly summes up unto you and say it with such a fervour of spirit as it self imports that is beseeching God to looke upon us as lost souls amidst so many dangers as he hath placed us in unlesse he use his own omnipotent power to make good in us his saving Providence For then God hears best when we pray with most earnestnesse and when we cast our selves wholly upon his care and Providence which can never be frustrated The Epistle Rom. 6. v. 19. c. 19 I speak a humane thing because of the infirmity of your flesh For as you have exhibited your members to serve uncleannesse and iniquity unto iniquitie So now exhibit your members to serve justice unto sanctification 20 For when you were servants of sinne you were free to justice 21 What fruit therefore had you then in those things for which now you are ashamed for the end of them is death 22 But now being made free from sinne and become servants to God you have your fruit unto sanctification but the end life everlasting 23 For the stipends of sin death But the grace of God life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Explication 19. St. Paul calls it well a humane thing or motive when he moves us to piety by the argument of requiring no more care in us to serve God then we used to serve our selves And as by iniquity he understands all sinne so by justice he understands all virtue which doth sanctifie us 20. That is to say by making sinne your master you had cast off all the yoke of duty you ow to justice the mistresse under whom you ought to serve God So free to justice means slavery to injustice in this place which is a very ill freedome indeed 21. 'T is clear enough we reap no fruit from sinne but shame and death 22. As clear it is that when we renounce the bondage we were in to sinne we then become servants to God and have for the present fruit of our service sanctity and for the future an eternall and blissfull life 23. That is to say the naturall and due reward of sin is death but life eternall is not so due to Saints because it is a huge grace of God that they obtain heaven when they have done all they can to gain it And in this place the Apostle calls it grace or a reward given to virtue by the singular favour and mercy of God And he calls this grace life everlasting because under the notion of life he includes all that is good and happy and because he will confront it with death which is the reward of sinne to make it more gratefull by being compared to so ungratefull an opposite as death is unto life The Application 1. IT is evident S. Paul in this place speaks to the Lay-people amongst the Romans not to the Church-men for he requires a farre greater perfection of them then of the Layity to whom he indulgeth here as much as humane frailty can expect when he makes the Infirmity of their flesh the strength of his argument to perswade them to the fruits of the spirit their sanctification by the works of charity For without charity there can be no saintity 2. As therefore all sins whatsoever are reduced to the works of the flesh so all virtues are reduced to the works of charity which is the spirit of God working in us counter to the flesh that still producing slavery shame death and damnation this freedome confidence life everlasting and salvation 3. Now in regard Almighty God hath made no flesh at all of his spirituall counsels and in regard we see his wisdome hath so ordained that the life of man is a perpetuall warfare between the spirit and the flesh as this Epistle tells us from the first to the last of it and lastly in regard he hath provided us one sole Chieftain sufficient to quell all the enemies of the flesh his holy grace his love his charity which alone is able to secure souls from all the assaults of their triple enemies the world the flesh and
ordinary but ultroneous Tythes of things he needed not to pay Tyâ—hes for This relates to what went before as vaunting himself to be the only chast the onely just man living chast as fasting which is the mother of chastity just as giving Tythes of all he had 13. The Publicane a true Type of humility standing his reverential distance from the Altar confessing him elf unworthy to come nearer to the place where the Pharisee proudly stood not daring to lift up his eyes to heaven where he had offended the whole Court the Saints and Angels whose inspirations he had contemned whose prayers defrauded God whose commands he had broken he knocks his breast his heart in token of sorrow and repentance for his sinnes By saying he is a sinner he confesseth his habit of sin by saying have mercy on me he doth not blame either fortune the world or the devil but himself meerly and layes all the load on his own shoulders as true penitents ought to do 14. More then he is as much as to say not absolutely but in respect of the Pharisee he was justified because the one humbled himself the other exalted himself Whence Optatus Milevitanus sayes well lib. 2. against the Donatists Better in some sort are the sinnes of an humble spirit then the pretended or boasted Innocency of an arrogant person The Application 1. THis whole Gospel is summ'd up in these few words of the Publican God be merciful to me a sinner For we see there is nothing else aym'd at in the whole Text but a condemnation of the Pharisees pride and a commendation of the Publicans humility or rather of his humble charity That is such a love as renounceth all proper merit and hath recourse to nothing but the mercy of Almighty God such a love as likes but dares not look to heaven such a love as hates all sin but hath no other hope of sayntity then from the mercy of God Almighty such a love as believes God hath power to save a soul but that he cannot manifest this Power without his mercy first appear because he cannot save a sinner unlesse he mercifully give him first leave to repent his sins 2. Thus we see beloved how charity goes shod with humility when in her journey she is handed on by Faith and Hope But that which to me is most admirable in this dayes service is to see the little end for which Almighty God is manifesting his power most of all by his mercy and how he is besought to multiply that mercy for the maâ—ifestation of his power both to men and Angels upon so small an account as making us pursue our own felicity onely that is to say the Promises he hath made unto us of much better gifts in the dayes of glory then he hath yet bestowed upon us in these our dayes of grace 3. Yes yes beloved our good God hath much to do with wicked sinners We may say with much more reason of mans salvation as the Romans did of erecting their Empire Tantae molis erat O what a huge attempt it was to set up the Roman Nation and to make them Monarchs of this world So if we look upon the final end of God Almighties exercised power and multiplyed mercies over us it is meerly to save his Christian people meerly to make them Monarchs of the next world eternal Emperours everlasting Triumphers over death sin devil and damnation after they had been slaves to them four thousand years together Nay so fond Almighty God is of his darling man that he is even content to bestow his utmost Power his extended omnipotency his multiplyed mercies on him to beget but a desire in him onely of his own felicity which consists in the promises of the next world not in the possessions of this Say then the Prayer above and see how it petitions onely this desire here to make us capable of all the joyes in heaven and of all the Treasures there On the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Mark 7. v. 37. HE hath done all things well he hath caused the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer ALmighty everlasting God who out of the abundance of thy pitty dost exceed as well the merits of thy suppliants as their desires pour out thy mercy upon us that thou mayst forgive what our conscience is afraid of and adde even what our prayer dares not presume to ask The Illustration HOw apposite is this admirable Prayer unto the Epistle and Gospel of this day which are nothing else but meer relations to the abundance of that pity whereby God doth exceed as well the merits as the desires of his suppliants and whereby he did pour out his mercy upon his people forgiving them what their own conscience was afraid of and adding what their prayer durst not presume to ask Say beloved was it not an abundance of pity that Christ gave us S. Paul and other Apostles to preach unto us the story of his life passion death and resurrection were not these works of his pity exceeding as well the merits as the desires of his suppliants when no mortal durst have desired so much misery to Christ because no man was able to deserve his God should suffer so much for him were not then the mercies of Heaven poured out upon us when our redemption was purchased at so deare a rate to Jesus Christ and was not St. Paul justly afraid something might lurk in his conscience unforgiven when he ends this dayes Epistle saying his having persecuted the Church of God made him unworthy to be called an Apostle and that since he was what he was by the grace of God he durst not presume to ask so great a favour O how literally is this whole Epistle exhausted in this excellent Prayer And what are the cures done upon the deaf and dumb related in the Gospel but an abundance of like pity in Jesus Christ but like excesse of his mercy poured out upon these diseased people what the amazement in the beholders of these miracles closing up the said Gospel but an acknowledgment that the guilt of their consciences made them afraid to be in the presence of so good a God and that the grant of the cure was a thing added freely by Christ as done in more ample manner then they durst presume to aske though with a faint desire and a fainter faith they had presented those diseased people to our Saviour to be cured Say now beloved was I rash in falling upon this bold attempt to shew a sympathy between the Prayers of holy Church and the preaching part of her Services Rather I am to ask God pardon that I did often doubt it was not true because I was many times too lazy to beat it out by way of meditation but now that I see the thing is certainly true I shall not be troubled if I fail at any time in so
the vice of a persecuter which was in none but himself though more may be attributed to his doing as much in a lesse time as the rest did in longer space being he was last called With me that is laboureth with me and not as the Heretickes translate the grace which is with me or in me I not laboring my self but relying on the past labours of Christ thus vainly they but the holy Church understands the Apostle to mean his joynt labour with the grace of God The Application 1. St. Paul in this Epistle recapitulates the arguments by which he brought the Corinthians to believe the hardest point of Faith that then was agitated the resurrection of our Saviour for it was upon preaching that doctrine this Apostle was chiefly persecuted and for defence whereof he suffered martyrdome 2. But as we see this Epistle in the beginning requires that charity accompany the faith of this great mystery so in the close thereof humility attends on charity while S. Paul first calls himself an abortive and the least of the Apostles more one not worthy of that celebrated Name nor daring to ascribe unto himself the fruits of any his greatest labours but attributing all to the grace of God effectually operating in him all those things whereunto he thought himself did very poorly cooperate Thus must faith and humility accompany our charity in her now long march to Advent in all her way to Judgement it self 3. What can be the result of this mystery other then that which naturally followes the unexpected proof of the least expected and most unbelieved thing in all the world the Resurrection of our Saviour A joy no doubt ineffable in those that were his friends and had no hand in any of his sufferings and a confusion on the other side in all that had contributed unto his death a sorrow and a fear if not a deep despair indeed that their sinne of Deicide was sure enough unpardonable So should it be with us beloved who although we cannot kill our Christ again yet do attempt to crucifie him by the very least of many mortall sinnes that we commit against his heavenly Majesty notwithstanding our own conscience tells us we doe therein worse then ever did the Jewes for they pretended zeal in all they did whereas we know we sinne for want of zeal for want of love to him who died for love of us What remedy but that which holy Church to day hath found when we hear the Preachers tell us of the frights and feares the sadnesse and confusion of the Jewes in such a case that then We pray not onely as we did on Sunday last to have Gods mercy multiplyed but even powred out upon us as his precious bloud was powred upon the Jewes that by such a showre of mercy the sinnes our conscience fears may be pardoned and the favours we dare not aske may be granted for the reasons given in the preamble of the Prayer and in the end of the Illustration above The Gospel Mark c. 7. v. 31. 31 And again going out of the coasts of Tyre he came by Sidon to the sea of Galilee through the middest of the coast of Decapolis 32 And they bring to him one deaf and dumb and they besought him that he would impose his hands upon him 33 And taking him from the multitude apart he put his fingers into his eares and spitting touched his tongue 34 And looking up unto heaven he groaned and said to him Epheta which is be opened 35 And immediately his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosened and he spake right 36 And he commanded them not to tell any body but how much he commanded them so much the more a great deal did they publish it 37 And so much the more did they wonder saying He hath done all things well he hath made both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak The Explication 31. THis literall narration of Christ going from coast to coast and by the Sea side alludeth to the change which grace maketh in those who follow the calling of Almighty God that they must leave their former customes and go by new coasts even rough and dangerous seas of persecution up mountains of dangers and difficulties to enjoy the quiet of a good conscience 32. By deaf understand mystically those who will not obey the commands of God and holy Church by dumbe those who will not praise Almighty God in their actions nor in their thoughts but like mutes spend their time in silencing Gods praises They ask him to lay his hands on them because they had experience he did use to cure the diseased by that means 33. He tooke him apart because this corporall cure alludes to the conversion of the soul and the best means of conversion to God is an aversion from the world a retyring from evill company By his fingers put into the deaf mans eares understand the holy Ghost opening the infidels understanding and making him believe the word of God when he hears it Besides the holy Ghost is often intimated by the finger of God as Ex. 8.19 alibi By spitting here is meant Christ his wetting his own finger with his own spittle so notes the Greek Text not that he did spit into the dumb mans mouth And Christ his spittle is not an unfit cure of dumbnesse since by the moisture of the tongue speech is much perfected and aridity is an impediment to speech Thus even God works miracles by the aptest instruments in nature for them 34. By his looking to heaven we are minded that from thence comes all the power we have to heare the word of God and to speak his praise By his groaning he showes how God seems to lament the miseries of those souls which are infected with the contagion of sin By his saying Epheta be thou open to the deaf ear he shewes himself to be God as curing by command 35. No marvel God commanding the cure was done but by his speaking right we are told the cure was perfectly done and not palliated And indeed then it is most evident Gods operation is perfect in us when it brings us from wrong to right from sick to sound but mystically when from sinners we are brought to be right perfected Saints and surely needs must he speak right whom God had cured of his dumbnesse Though some will have it hence that this man was not quite dumb but had onely a stammering in his speech or a weaknesse in that organ not suffering him to speak plain but to babble as children do that first learn to speak Yet by right speaking may here be well understood the cured mans speaking perfectly the praises of God and rightly glorifying his Divine Majesty thereby 36. The word command here is not to be taken strictly or arguing a precept but rather a request so there was no sin in breaking it but rather as S. Augustine insinuates a virtue and that obedience too for
so we must live rather content to die poor then seek to live rich after God will have us die beggars Note it is onely excesse of care or anxious solicitude that we are forbidden not ordinary diligence in our occasions 33. By first is here understood chiefly or principally so that we are allowed a secondary care of our temporals though our main imploy and study must be to get heaven for that is the Kingdome of God By Gods justice is here understood those virtues and good deeds that render us just in the sight of God and so capable of that heaven we are in the first place to seek since it was the end for which we were first created By those things which shall be given us besides are understood things of lesse moment and consequently which ought to take up lesse of our care such as are meat clothes and other temporalls The Application 1. GOd and Mammon are not so here declared to be the two masters meant who cannot be both served at once but that we may also take the spirit and the flesh for these two masters and this the rather because so the Gospel is more literally suting the Epistle and besides S. Matthew in the following verses of this present Text doth aim directly at the service we pretend unto the flesh when we neglect our souls to provide for our bodies 2. And see how to prevent this poor pretext our charity is led to day by Providence to shew us that we cannot any way pretend to corporall duty for excusing us from our spirituall obligations since God Almighties Providence is here brought in to furnish us with all things necessary for the body and so to ease us of that care and to send us about our main and onely businesse our secking in the first place the kingdome of heaven and the justice thereof by the works of charity such as in the Epistle above are enumerated and assuring us all things wanting else shall be provided us by his Providence who never relinquisheth the just man nor permits his seed to seek their bread so if neither for our selves nor for our posterity we need to interrupt our spiritual duties or to renounce our service to our souls for any tie we have to serve our bodies we have no pretence then left at all for our so doing 3. Yet least we be withdrawn from the saving works of charity by the hurtfull ones of the flesh which humane frailty would easily incline us to therefore we are taught upon the reading of this holy Text To pray as above alwayes for the help of Christ his perpetuall propitiation by the cordiall of his passion to relieve our fainting charity withall in her march to heaven On the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 7. v. 16. A Great Prophet is risen amongst us and because God hath visited his people c. Vers Let my Prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt thy continued mercy O Lord both cleanse and defend thy Church and because without thee it cannot stand securely be it alwayes governed by thy bounty The Illustration WE heard in the exposition of the last Sundayes prayer that the perpetuall propitiation there begged was the continuation of our Saviours passion to be our continuall help in all occasions and now that to day we beg to have the mercy of our Lord continued to his Church we seem but to repeat the same prayer again in a varied phrase But if we cast our eyes upon the Epistle and Gospel here below and observe how the Expositours upon them apply the same as declaring all the office of Priestly function and telling us what should be the duty of the people thereupon we shall soon perceive as well a difference in the substance as in the phrase or language of these two prayers That alluding to the immediate influence of the passion into us by the personall help which our Saviour affords in the grace he gives us to repent us of our sinnes which relating to himself is fitly called his perpetuall propitiation but reporting to the mediate helps we have from our Saviour by the mediation of his Ministers the Doctours Teachers Preachers and Priests of holy Church it is rather stiled his continued mercy towards us because it was his mercy that moved him to supply his own personall presence amongst us by the mediation of the Priests whom in his place he left by means of catechising preaching and administration of the Sacraments to continue his mercy towards us and by the continuation thereof to cleanse and defend his holy Church cleansed indeed by participation of the Sacraments defended by the communication of the Priests their functions sacrifices and prayers in her behalf and yet our holy mother closeth up this Sundayes prayer with an immediate addresse again unto the fountain it self when she concludes affirming it is as well his bounty as his mercy that she subsisteth by when she professeth she cannot stand securely unlesse she be alwayes governed by his bounty that is to say by his holy grace derived unto us through the hands of his Ministers the Priests of holy Church so that this prayer instructs us whence our helps do flow and by what hands they are conveyed to us And requisite it is that we do pray in this sort to day when the Epistle runs all upon the Priests office to the people and their putting in practice the Christian doctrine taught them by the Priest all which is neatly couched under the spirituality wherewith the Epistle tells us both are rendred compleat as signifying neither the Master nor the Schollar must sow fleshly seeds since both must live by spirituall fruits And for the Gospel we hear the Fathers of the Church avouch it to be a parable alluding to the death of sinne and life of grace which is coincident with what the Epistle taught us of sowing spirituall seeds that might bring forth fruits of grace of Christ not fleshly which produce nothing at all but corruption and death Since then we have this prayer adjusted to the sense of the Expositours upon the other parts of this dayes service we make good our designe as hitherto we did in some one of the latitudes in the preface of this work allowable unto this mysticall Theologie The Epistle Galat. 5. and 6. Chap. Chap. 5. v. 26. If we live in the spirit in the spirit also let us walk let us not be made desirous of vain-glory provoking one another envying one another Chap. 6. v. 1. Brethren if a man be preoccupied in any fault you that are spirituall instruct such a one in the spirit of lenitie considering thine own self lest thou also be tempted 2 Bear ye one anothers burthens and so you shall fulfill the Law of Christ 3 For if any man esteem himself to be something where as he is nothing he seduceth himself 4 But let every one prove his own work and so in
bade her weep no more 14. See how soon the promised comforts of God arrive immediately as he said to her weep not he stopt the hearse and bade the dead corps arise Elias Eliseus and others did pray to raise the dead Christ to shew he was God raised this young man by command and not by prayer Yet observe he touched the hearse no marvel upon the touch of Christ who was life everlasting as being God that temporall life should be restored to the dead body that he touched this he did as naturally as a red hot iron burneth straw So did his flesh united to the Word give life to a carcasse by virtue of that hypostaticall union 15. His sitting up and beginning to speak were indeed true signes of his reviving yet Christ was pleased to take him by the hand and thereby lift him from the hearse and lead him to his mother to shew that he was so humble as he would not onely oblige but even serve his servants Nor is it any wonder that Christ the King of Heaven and Earth should perform the office of a Courtier by his civility to the noble person of this sad widdow whom he had graced and comforted by that act of his power 16. Note this miracle was a kind of Parable importing the spirituall death of souls by sinne and the reviving of the soul again by grace though here the widdowes tears were the motive for Christ to reward her by the restoring her son to life and withall many souls doubtlesse from the death of infidelitie to the life of Christianitie upon the sight of so celebrated a miracle That they were all struck with fear what wonder for their guiltie conscience might make them doubt he who could raise the dead could kill the living as easily if he list but seeing he did not so or rather lest he should do so they blessed God and said for magnifying here importeth glorifying of him he had pleased to visit his people by sending them a great Prophet for as yet they understood Christ to be no more and that he was such this very act made them believe and some doubtlesse concluded he was the long expected Messias whom they called by the name of the great Prophet for distinction sake Note the glosse observes three resuscitations from death to be made by Christ the first that of the daughter of the Archi-synagogue and that by private prayer in her fathers house none being by the second this of the onely sonne of the widdow whom he raised in publick by a word of command and by a touch of his hand the third was that of Lazarus whom with a perplexitie of prayer and tears he raised and with loud crying out Lazarus come forth as if he were undone if he had him not alive again The first of these signifies souls dead by mortall sinne of thought and those therefore were more easily raised by private prayer the second signifies those dead by mortall sin of words those are yet with more difficultie raised by command the third yet more hardly by importune prayer tears and cries to heaven as signifying those souls which are dead by mortall sinne of deed and that reiterated or habituall unto them The Application 1. ALl Expositours agree this miracle of raising the dead by a touch of our Saviours holy hand is a mere figure of his raising souls from the death of mortall sinne to the life of grace by the finger of the holy Ghost by the gift of his holy grace his holy Law which cannot touch a soul but it must needs enliven it See the explication of the last verse in the Gospel for more to this purpose 2. And who can now forbid us piously to thinke this onely sonne of the distressed widdow represents the soul of some one faithfull believer dead yet for want of charitie and revived by the tears and prayers of his tender mother the holy Catholick Church at whose intercession and in contemplation of her tears our Saviour Jesus Christ sends down the holy Ghost to touch the Coffin of this sinners heart with the finger of his grace with the gift the flame of Love and so reviving him first internally then gives him by the hands of the Priest who is Christs Vicar in point of absolution into the lap of his mother externally to live again that is to say admitted to the Sacraments and declared to be a living member as before his death of mortall sinne during which time he was not capable of any Sacrament at all as to the effect the grace thereof 3. To conclude as reason teaches every man to beware of his own danger by seeing another perish in going such a way before him thus holy Church knowing her Priests and people are many wayes liable to the snares of the common enemy and perceiving it is often by the prayers of those that stand they are raised again who fall and that this raising is a continuall mercy of Almighty God gratis given even when most earnestly implored and that the continuation of this gratuite gift is the onely means by which even all the children of the Church do not fall all at once into the death of deadly sinne but are many of them while others fall inabled to stand securely on their living legs of charitie and are governed thereby in every step they make to glory Therefore I say we are to day bid pray as above that this charitie this bountie of our Lord may govern us in all our wayes and that we may have the cleansing and the defending mercy of God continued over us lest that failing us we here fall out of grace and thereby faile of glory in the world to come On the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 14.10 WHen thou shalt be called to a marriage sit in the lowest place that he who did invite thee may say unto thee friend ascend up higher and so it shall be a glory unto thee before them that sit there Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt thy grace we beseech thee O Lord alwaies go before and follow us and make us continually intent unto good works The Illustration WHat may seem as common in this Prayer to all persons times and places must not hinder it to be a very particular and apposite petition to this present time wherein it is by holy Church put up unto Almighty God purity cannot approach Tell me beloved now what single-souled devotion can compare with this that being common is peculiar unto each particular in such a sort as it there were no more but one man left in all the world even into his particular necessity would run the whole contents of all these common prayers which are not therefore lesse adapted unto every one because they are the prayers of all the world besides but rather we are sure our selves had need to say them when every man alive doth find himself concerned
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
once would let us know the dead child being a Jew represents the expiration of the Jewish Synagogue by the plantation of the Church of Christ For as this diseased Gentile fell sick when Jairus his child was born so the Gentiles fell to their brutish Idolatry figured by the Bloudy Flux when the Jewes were born to right belief in Abraham and therefore as Christ went to raise this child from death to life and by the way first healed the diseased woman so he came first to the Jewes yet the Gentiles received and believed in him before the Jewes whose conversion or being raised from the death of infidelity to the life of Faith is not to be till after all Gentiles are first reduced and then at last even the Jewes shall generally be converted This is the mystical sense of the present story prosecuted in these three verses onely we are to observe by this womans Faith that the Gentiles are of much more easie and entire belief then the Jewes besides this place gives a great ground for the Catholick doctrine of revering reliques since here the woman was cured by the onely touch of our Saviours garments hemm and Eusebius writes that she in memory of this favour shewed unto her made a coat like that of our Saviours and kept it religiously in her house and that diverse who were diseased went away from her perfectly cured upon the sole touch of this garments hemm also 23. 24. The musick our Saviour found here was onely such as usually in those dayes did accompany all burials Our Saviours saying the child is not dead did not deny but she was so for all that onely his meaning was she should live again and therefore he accounted her death but a sleep in the sight of God because her soul was not summoned to the barre of Judgement being to return and lead a longer life in this world though this saying of Christ might also import his modesty in not making difficult his works to get thereby popular applause However they knew and so did Christ the child was really dead to all humane power of recovery but that they might see death to God was but as sleep to nature since he that could out of nothing make all things could much more easily out of a dead body make a living creature and so as to God death and sleep are much alike in respect of privation of life whence it is frequent for Christ to call death obdormition or sleeping onely thus he did in Lazarus his case after he was four dayes buried Joh. 11.44 and thus you see here he doth in this present case of the dead child But as commonly men judge of all things by outward appearances and of other mens powers by comparing them to their own so here these mourners laugh at Christ for saying the dead child was onely asleep as who should say they held it impossible for him to revive her which argues they were sufficiently satisfied she was truly dead to all this world 25. 26. Note his bidding them depart when he sayes she is not dead argues that their diffidence in his power did not deserve the honour to be eye-witnesses of the miracle how it was done though afterwards they had proof enough it was most true and again it argues he was not seeking popular applause when he went in alone leaving the company without taking onely the child's parents and his disciples with him S. Mark sayes Peter James and John to shew it was not ultroneous fasting that conferred sanctity of which you heard before but a lively Faith and an ardent love to God wherewith his Apostles were endowed and so fit to be now witnesses of his and after workers of as great miracles themselves though they did not run the vain-glorious wayes of Pharisaical fasting or the like Note the Scripture phrase is here pathetical saying Christ held the childs hand in such sort probably as officers take hold of such as they arrest to carry away with them and so shew their power over them for thus our Saviour seemed to snatch the body of this child from death and to command her soul from entring into hell but to animate again the body thereby to shew he had perfect dominion over life and death And it seems the manner of this was extraordinary when the story of it ends by saying it was divulged all the countrey over for a famous miracle though St. Mark sayes Christ gave the girle to her parents bidding them say nothing Mar. 5.43 to shew his modesty and that he sought not the worlds applause but onely Gods honour and glory Yet their disobedience in this was not unseemly The Application 1. THis Gospel of the Jewes and Gentiles Infidelity is as we heard in the Explication made a whole Type of all Iniquity whatsoever and yet is most peculiarly proper to the Epistle inculcating so sincere a sayntity as above because as to that sayntity pardon of iniquity is necessary and this pardon is mystically represented in the raising Jairus his daughter from the brink of death which is the natural punishment of sinne so to the said sayntity there is also necessary a detestation of all affection to sin which detestation is also represented by the cure upon the woman sick of the Issue of bloud not unfitly likened to reiterated or accustomary sinne which argues a huge affection thereunto 2. What then more proper for Christians at the reading of this holy Text then first to procure an act of contrition for all guilt of sinne upon their soules and next to detest all affection to any sinne whatsoever especially to those which have been formerly to them accustomary for those are properly bonds which we have sealed to the devil while we hamper our selves with giving them up as our well advised acts of our yet most abominable wicked deeds 3. Say now beloved if our holy Mother have not fram'd a fitting Prayer when to this purpose she brings charity to day upon her knees preparing her self for the grand account she is next Sunday put in mind to make By petitioning as above an acquittance of her sinful debts by absolution from the guilt thereof and a cancelling of all her bonds to the devil by teating her affections to sin in pieces and planting her love from hence upon Almighty God above On the four and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 24.34 AMen I say to you this Generation shall not passe untill all be done Heaven and Earth shall passe but my word shall not passe saith our Lord. Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer STirre up we beseech thee O Lord the wills of thy Faithful that they more diligently preparing the fruit of thy divine work may receive the greater remedies of thy mercy The Illustration WE are this day closing up the Ring of our devotion which we desire all the devotes of our sodality to wear in testimony they are of