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
supernaturall propensions by hearing the most elevating Word of God Symbolically Saint Hilary sayes This leaven of the Gospell was hid in the three measures of meal the Law the Psalmes and the Prophets and now appears in the Trinity of the three Theologicall Vertues Faith Hope and Charity or as others will have it to the three sorts of Believers Beginners Proficients and Perfect who bring forth loaves of fruit swollen to these correspondent proportions of Thirty Sixty or an Hundred fold increase of bigness Allegorically Saint Bernard makes the wombe of the Blessed Virgin Mother of Christ to be the leaven of the Hypostaticall union having a seasoning influence into the three parts of Christ his Soul his Body his Divinity uniting them all in one Person or one loaf made of these three measures of meal as above Anagogically Caesarius Dial. 4. Sayes the woman is the divine wisdome or deity of Christ the three measures oâ— meal are all humane natures death and hell and the leaven Christs humanity hid in his grave and in hell whither his humane soul went with his deity seasoning all mankind into the blessed condition of a resurrection from death and purgatory to life eternall in everlasting glory 34 35. There is no more mystery in these two verses than litterally they sound onely this we may observe that as all the whole 77 Psalme of David is a kind of parabolicall or aenigmaticall grave sententious speech because in that psalme he speakes prophetically of this manner of parabolicall speech of Christ therefore to verifie that prophesie Christ here speakes both in grave and truely parabolicall senses though David have much of litterall sence in his said psalme as where he recounts the Benefits God bestowed on the Synagogue or children of Israel in their forty years march with Moses through the red sea and the desert from Aegypt to Canaan the land of promise yet S. Hierome saies that David the type of Christ speakes there mystically as in Christs person promising to his Church infinite blessings namely to man passing through the red sea of his passion and through the desert of this world into the heavenly Canaan or promised land of Glory And for that purpose Christ here ends his parabolical discourse with this second verse of that 77 Psalme of the royall Prophet David I will open my mouth in parables I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world The Application 1. AS it was reason Christ should speak in Parables to verifie what was prophecied of him according to the last Verse in this Gospell so with those Parables he is said with great reason doubtless To utter things hidden from the foundation of the World we may suppose the hidden Mysteries of the Blessed Trinity and of the Incarnation in particular and in generall the workes of Faith whereof Saint Paul in this dayes Epistle mindes the Thessalonians and in them all after Believers For it was indeed the main business our Saviour had to doe upon Earth to plant a Faith in mens mindes whereby they might work out their salvation Hope and Charity assisting the said work of Faith as Saint Paul above cited sayes 2. As it was reason Christ should verifie the Prophets sayings of him so was it reason he should draw the Ignorant multitude to a belief of the greatest Mysteries of Faith by degrees as he did in first speaking Parables and then expounding of them by his Apostles at least in so rationall a way that they easily took all he said for good when they had heard good sense to be wrapt up in his Parabolicall speeches which at first they understood not so what seemed to be spoken to blind their understandings was indeed intended to open them and thus did Christ reasonably condescend when he seemed most unreasonably to transcend the capacities of the People 3. As the Mustard seed of Divine Faith and the leaven of Christian Doctrine have seasoned the whole world with Christianity so is it great reason they being both received into our hearts should in such sort season the little world we are within our selves that all our actions may be answerable to those hidden roots of Religion planted in our hearts as then they will bee when our thoughts are alwayes meditating upon those Christian Duties which in reason we are alwayes bound unto And that we may doe this the Church reasonably prayes to day as above On SEPTUAGESIMA Sunday The Antiphon MAT. 20. ver 6. THe housholder said unto his workmen What stand you here all the day idle but they answering said Because no man hath hired us Goe ye also into my Vineyard and what shall be just I will give you Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer VVEe beseech thee O Lord clemently to hear the Prayers of thy People that we who for our sinnes are justly punished for the Glory of thy Name may be mercifully delivered The Illustration WEe were in the fourth Sunday after the Epiphany taught to pray much to this purpose but we must not think much of repeating the same Prayer when we dayly repeat the same Sins which are the cause of our increased punishments yet we shall finde that danger was there the punishment we deprecated here it is labour either in the race we are by the Epistle bid to run or in the paines the Gospell calls us too in the Vineyard of Christ as if we were hereby given to understand our life in this world is a continuall toil and labour to deserve an eternall rest in the next But further we are to note this Prayer is particularly proper to this day not onely as referring literally in a manner to the Epistle and Gospell but even to the whole Series of holy Churches service upon this Septuagesima Sunday when the Priest in his office is bid begin the story of Genesis thereby to minde us we should from this day begin to serve God as if we were but newly created for that purpose and yet lest we should forget that we were no sooner created than we had by sin annihilated as it were our selves and lost our right of return to that All-being the Creator of Heaven and Earth from whence we came out of our nothing See the Prayer of this Day puts us in minde of our degenerating from God by Sin But withall of our return to him by Repentance if we cooperate with his holy Grace who is ever more ready to give than we are to ask him Pardon Now in regard the Epistle of this day falls from the simile between a Christians life and those who runn a race and mindes us of the Children of Israels going out of Aegypt into the Land of promise of the Cloud and of the Red Sea wherein they were by Moses as it were Baptized as also the Rock which followed them to quench their Thirst and of the Manna from Heaven to be their Food we must observe that this Story
so now they think they have reason and do well in so reproaching of him because first they had observed he did frequently converse with Samaritanes next that he was bred up in Nazareth a City in Galilee neer to Samaria whence the Jews of that place were esteemed to be much like the Samaritanes Lastly and most literally that the Religion of the Samaritanes was mixed partly with Judaism partly with Gentilism since they did worship the god of the Assyrians from whom they were descended as well as keep the Rights of the Synagogue and for this cause the Jews held them Schismaticks and so detested their Sacrifices that to call Christ a Samaritane was to shew they did detest him too which appeared by their adding he was also possâ—ssed by some Devil and spake as mad men do that are in diabolical frenzies But the truth is they did really believe he was some Devil himself because he laid claim to be the Messias and to be the Son of God which they looked upon him for as if he had been Lucifer himself and Christ understood their meaning to be thus when in the next Verse he tells them 49. He neither is nor hath in him any Devil because in telling them he is the Son of God he doth not boast his own descent so much as that he gives the honour and glory of all he doth unto his heavenly Father and for this Act of his they seek to disgrace and to dishonour indeed to revile him O unparalleld meekness and deep reply in one word to both their calumnies for though he mention not Samaritane in this Reply yet by saying he hath no Devil in him he includes the other since the Schism of the Samaritanes made them slaves of the Devil wherefore he replies onely to the Slander cast upon his Father by calling him Devil to shew he regards not much the abuse they committed against himself as he was man but as he was the Son of God whence he must needs vindicate his Fathers if not his own cause 50. How well might he say this who had professed he came hither by command of his Father that he preached his Fathers not his own Doctrine and the like I do therefore said he not seek my own but my Fathers honour and glory it sufficeth me that I know when the hour of his holy Pleasure is come he will clarifie glorifie me as afterwards he did when Christ said unto him before his Transfiguration the hour is come clarifie thy Son Joh. cap. 17. v. 1. and as then he did honour him by manifesting his glory and avouching him to be his Son so the other part of this Verse will be verified when he shall judge as God and punish those that revile his said Son not that in this place Christ reflected on the general Iudgement which is referred to himself but unto the private Judgement that God makes either by punishing temporally the sins of the people as he did in the destruction of the Jews by Titus and the Romans for having crucified Christ or eternally if he reserve their punishment till the hour of their death for Christ is not properly said to come as Iudge to every Soul dying but to all Souls at the latter day So our private Iudgements are the Sentences of God rather then of Christ upon us yet not to the exclusion of Christ neither 51. Whereupon turning to his own veracity rather then regarding their falsehood he says Amen Amen Truly Truly or since I am God and cannot lye be mens opinions what they will yet really and truly be it so that whosoever shall hear and keep my Word shall never dye eternally for so he would taste eternal death but though he dye temporally through the separation of his Body from his Soul yet he shall not dy eternally that is he shall not sin mortally which can onely cause eternal death and even that death of the body I shall take away too when at the general Resurrection I shall give both corporal and spiritual life everlasting to those Blessed who have inviolably kept and observed my word by living as I have given Law unto them 52 53. By this Reply we may see they understood not the true Sence of Christs meaning when they think to obtrude the lye and the Devil upon him by shewing he hath asserted a manifest lye in saying who believe in him should never dye for say they though thou were God yet would it not follow to hear thy word and keep it were enough to render one immortal since Abraham and the Prophets did hear and keep Gods Word and yet are dead whereas he never meant they should not dye temporally but that they should not dye eternally or which is all one dye in deadly sin nor can indeed the other Sence be rationally inferred out of the Letter of the Text which alludes onely to eternal death No marvel they should wonder at his pretending to be greater then Abraham whom they were content to make Head of the Synagogue by reason he was the First Believer for this proceeded not onely out of their affected but indeed out of their reall ignorance that Christ was God as well as Man and so they held it absurd he should pretend to an immunity not granted to the best of them as then they to argue against him were content to admit Abraham to be he being indeed the Father of all Beliefe the first Believer of all the Synagogue for they went not to Adam nor to the Faithful under the Law of Nature though indeed Moses was the first Member of the Synagogue framed into a Body for Abrahams Beliefe was Personal onely Moses his was Legal 54. The beginning of this Verse is his Answer to the close of the last as who should say he did not make nor boast himself to be much though he might with modesty and truth enough have done it so he doth not desire any other or more glory then what his Father gives him and says if he desire more it proves null alluding to the Judgements of Courts that never take the Testimony of any Party in his own Cause and so now that he is in contrast with them he pretends not to his own Testimony of himself but remits all to his Father whom they did confess to be their God and consequently beyond all exception to be believed 55. Observe he tells them they do not know his Father though they confess him to be their God when they heard him speak and profess Christ was onely his beloved Son and bid them hear that is believe him for then they did not or would not take notice this voyce came from heaven from God the Father as it did indeed But the literal sence of this place is that though they knew there was but one God and did believe in him yet they did not know that God who was one in Essence was Trine in Persons and consequently did beget the word his eternal
dwell indeed within us which happinesse we cannot receive from any one single Person of the Blessed Trinity but we must own it to them All three since where one Person is of necessity there all the three Divine Persons are also be it by presence or by operation 24. Here we see clearly the cause of our well doing or keeping Gods commands is our loving God and consequently the cause of our not doing well is our not loving him to which purpose St. Gregory hom 30. sayes excellently well To know whether we love God or not ask our Tongues if they speak well of him ask our souls if they imploy their thoughts upon him ask our lives if our actions be directed to his honour and glory if they be doing what he hath commanded or avoiding what he hath forbidden When he sayes The word he speaks is not his the meaning is 't is not onely his but also his Fathers because himself is the word of his Father and consequently as his nature is common with him and his Father so is his operation too wherefore what he sayes to us his Father sayes to him because all he is himself is to be his Fathers word 25. These things have I spoken to you abiding with you while I was with you I told you these things not that they abide by you or that you understand them but it sufficeth for the present I tell them to you though you understand them not you will penetrate these and much more when the holy Ghost shall telling you the same confirm you that he and I are both one God one Spirit one Goodnesse one Truth 26. It may seem strange here that Christ sayes his Father shall send the Holy Ghost to them in his name whereas Chap. 15. the same Evangelist tells us that he said he would send them the same holy Spirit himself in his Fathers name but the very truth is these two seeming several speeches are both to one and the same purpose for as the Holy Ghost doth proceed both from the Father and the Son one coequal Spirit and God with them both so is he equally sent by them both whence these are not contradicting but cohering Truths telling at several times what is most certain true But there are divers senses of these words in my name as first the Father is said to send the Holy Ghost in his Sons name as by the Sons means whose spiration as it is joyntly concurring with the Fathers to the procession of the Holy Ghost so by him joyntly with him the Father sends the Holy Ghost unto us Secondly in his name imports in vertue of his merits deserving for us the happinesse of this comfortable mission or missive comforter Thirdly in his name is as much as to say in his place to supply his visible presence by an invisible comfort equal thereunto that he may finish the work of humane salvation which Christ began and hence it followes he shall teach you all things namely to understand what Jesus told you and what he will have you further to know for establishing his Church over all the world and he shall suggest and prompt to you all things whatsoever I shall say This place is liable to several senses as whether the holy Spirit shall suggest more unto them for government of the Church then Christ told them because he spake much which they could not then understand or whether his suggestion shall onely be an exposition of what they heard before and were not able to penetrate the bottome of it but truly the last sense seemes most genuine because of that which followes namely his suggesting what Christ shall say what he hath unintelligibly already said and shall afterwards intelligibly by the Holy Ghost say unto them yet this sense may be verified though we do not take suggestion to be as a help to understanding but to memory as generally the Expositours conceive of it as if the suggestion of the holy Ghost were a renewing the memory of the Apostles towards calling to mind and upon recalling better understanding the meaning of what Christ had said then they did when they heard him speak what was now revived in their memory by the prompting or suggestion of the Holy Ghost But since in other places the Expositours have declared Christ did not tell the Apostles all that which he meant they should do by the instinct of the Holy Gbost especially for framing and maintaining the Hierarchy of the Church nor for expounding the mysteries of Faith therefore if we take here this suggestion in a larger sense then generally Expositours do we shall not erre as if we extend it to the holy Ghost prompting unto them what our Saviour shall say to him and by him to them now that he is in heaven for as Christ sayes his doctrine is not his own but his heavenly Fathers so it is certain the suggestions of the holy Ghost are not his own but Christ his doctrine whether delivered before by himself and so renewed in the memory of the Apostles by the holy Ghost as all Expositours allow or whether now onely spoken immediately to the Holy Ghost by Christ and by mediation of that holy Spirit to us for assuredly there are many things especially concerning government of the holy Church suggested by the Holy Ghost to the now present Governours thereof which were not spoken by Christ to his Apostles 27. By Christ his peace is here meant that which St. Paul Philip. 4. told us did exceed all humane sense and this he calls his so peculiarly as indeed it can be properly no bodies else but his own since he hath purchased it for us by his having ended all our war with sin death and the devil all such war as can indanger us if our selves be not cowards and cease to fight for this assurance we have as long as we fight we conquer and in conquering possesse that peace which by the Battel of temptation the devill sought to wrest away from us that sweetnesse that tranquillity of soul which a good conscience bringeth with it at all times and to all persons whatsoever This is the peace Christ gave and this he gives not as the world gives peace which is rather perturbation for the more we have of worldly peace and ease the lesse we have of true tranquillity of mind which is then most perfect when we are most at strife with the world and other enemies to Christian peace St. Augustine hath an excellent saying to this purpose He cannot be at peace with Christ who hath any contention with a Christian who is a member of him But the most genuine sense of this place is that he gave the Apostles his own peace immunity from all sin which onely can be the breach of peace with God And therefore he closed this verse with these words let not your heart be troubled at my going from you the presence of my peace shall supply for the absence of my
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
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
making it my Work that I can onely say it is my Observation and must give the honour of it to the Prefect of the Sodality his Holinesse for no other single Person can challenge that Priviledge of prescribing the Formes of publick Prayers unto the Universall Church though in truth we must by Name attribute the first Collection of these Prayers unto Gelasius the first Pope of that Name in the year of our Lord 482. and the stating them into the order we now have them in throughout the year unto Saint Gregory the first most worthy called the Great for his remarkable Saintity in the year 590. who in his Volâ—me intituled of Sacraments meaning of Mysteries for it seemes he found these Prayers to be most profoundly mysterious indeed as now I here endeavour to declare throughout my Book hath added some more Prayers to what Gelasius made and hath compacted them altogether as into a Magazine of the Churches Piety whereunto by Decree of two severall Councels namely the second Milevitan and the third Carthaginian held in Saint Agustines time or thereabouts it was forbid to add any more unlesse they were approved by a Generall Councell or at least some Nationall one of Bishops See the 12th Canon in the first Councell above It hath pleased us say the Fathers that the Prayers and divine Services which shall be approved of in this Councell be celebrated by all and that no other be used in the Church unlesse such as shall by the most prudent men bee made or are approved by the Synod least any thing contrary to Faith or through ignorance or lesse then due studie be composed These Authorities I cite not so much to vaunt my own design as to avouch I am not worthy to be Father of it otherwise then by Observation as above I said but thence I am bold indeed to commend the Devotion unto our Sodality as a practise of the most solid Piety imaginable And here I must crave leave to mind the Reader that it will very little availe a man to be of this Christian Sodality unless he make himself worthy of it by his saintitie which he shall soonest arive unto by making the Scripture his studie as was before desired and by taking it often in the Cordiall of Holy Churches prayers when he doth not swallow the greater parts of it all at once by reading much thereof expounded as hee hath it here for this will alwaies be to feed on heavenly food such as can never breed hereticall diseases in the body of our Sodality but must needs give saving nourishment to all our soules and make us feeding here a while on these sweet honey Combs of Grace within our holy Hive feast for all etetnity on the better fruits of glory with all the holy Company of this Sodality in Heaven To conclude I shall desire the Reader to know my aim in this Book was not to set out any thing absolvtely new but something very necessary for the Praying people and exceeding usefull for the preaching Pastor since as the one will have matter enough of Piety from hence so the other will have ground enough for ampliation and to dilate himself upon a short warning by way of exhortation to the People though he be destitute of other Books to help himself and had it not been that I held my self obliged to repair by other men my own omissions in this kind out of a multitude of diversions other wayes as also that I stand more strictly bound of late to help the people then formerly I was my superiours best know why and how truly I should have shaken off I fear the labour of this laborious work whereby I shall not yet be covetous of any other honour then to be door-keeper unto this Sodality and to subscribe my self the most unworthy member of it F. P. HEre followeth a Table directing how to apply each Psalme to the proper Key or genuine sense thereof which I take out of the proemiall Annotations to the second Tome of the holy Bible as it is translated by the Reverend Priests of the Colledge of Doway beginning with the book of Psalmes And though perhaps some Psalmes may seem as proper to other Keyes as unto those they have assigned yet I give so much to their Authority that till some greater countermand it this may be more safely relyed upon then any other and therefore I recommend this way as the best that yet is found out for rendring the book of Plalmes intelligible in some measure to the Common people and very usefull to the Pastours of the Church who may perhaps more safely rely upon these Senses than any private Judgement of their own because these men were versed in the Learned Languages and made it their study to apply each Psalme to a right Key according to such rules as are by them laid down in these Proemialls for that purpose Now these Keyes they reduce to Ten in number which are as follow 1. God in him-himself THe First is of God as he is in himself Trine in Persons and One in Essence and of his Divine Attributes 2. God Creating The Second is of Gods Works in his Creatures as of the Creation and Conservation of the whole World 3. God governing by providence The Third is of the Divine Providence especially towards Man in protecting and rewarding the Just and permitting and punishing the Evill 4. God by Moses leading the Hebrews out of Aegypt into Canaan The Fourth is of the peculiar calling of the Hebrew people their beginning in Abraham Isaack and Jacob their marvellous increase in Aegypt their diverse estates many admirable and miraculous things done amongst them with their ingratitude rejection and reprobation 5. God Redeemer of Mankind The Fifth and principall Key is of our Redeemer Jesus Christ and of his Incarnation Nativity Life and Death Resurrection Ascention and Glory all prophetically foretold 6. Christ erecting his Church The Sixth is of the Conversion of the Gentiles or of the Catholike Church of Christ ever visible in her Pastours Sacraments and Sacrifice of the holy Altar and propagated over all the world 7. Faith and good Works The Seventh is of Faith and good Works which is the true manner of Christians serving God 8. The proper acts of David The Eighth is of Davids own Works and of Gods singular benefits towards him for which he rendreth thanks and Divine Praises as also of his recounting his enemies dangers and afflictions of minde and body namely by Saul Absolon and others in which cases he humbly beseecheth Gods protection and further he expresseth himself a perfect Image and pattern of a sincere and hearty-penitent bewailing confessing and punishing his own sins 9. Death Judgment The Nineth is of Death and Judgement the End and Renovation of this World with the generall Resurrection 10. Heaven Hell The Tenth and last is of Heaven and Hell according as every one deserveth in this Life NOw in the Table following These
at least the Blessed Virgin was not ignorant of what they now marvelled at but that the transcendency of the things they were thinking of and hearing did renew in their mindes the memory of the Miracle so often as they thought upon them yet some think even the Blessed Virgin though she did know our Saviour was to be the Redeemer of the Jewes did not perhaps know he was to be so to the Gentiles the which Simeon did here prophecy and further that he was to be a Ruine to some a Resurrection to many in Israell and a signe which should be contradicted 34. We are to note Simeons Blessing here was rather to the Parents of Jesus than to him their child because it had been too great a boldness for him to blesse whom he by Revelation knew to be his Saviour and his God The reason why Simeon addressed his speech to Mary was because shee was really and truly the naturall mother of our blessed Lord and Ioseph was but his reputed father That it is equally said Christ was set unto the ruine and unto the resurrection of many in Israel doth not argue it was equally meant for hee was the ruine of the incredulous by accident onely but he was by decree the resurrection of all that believe in him and obey his Law and their own incredulity who believed not was their direct ruine he was but indirectly the cause thereof By the sign which shall be contradicted some understand the person of Christ who was not onely the mark of their detracting tongues but even of their tormenting hands when they aimed at him by the stripes they gave him in his whipying at the Pillar and by the wounds they made in his blessed body hanging on the Crosse Others by the sign here understand the crosse of Christ whereof S. Paul sayes there were many enemies and so this crosse is the sign of their malice who by contemning it contemn the fruit of salvation that grew thereon Iâ—sus Christ himself but the best and most genuine sense seems to be that by the sign of contradiction should be here meant his prodigious generation of a mother in earth without a father and of a virgin mother which many pretend as yet to be impossible and so contradict this undoubted truth By this sign also is meant the wonderfull miracles of his life the strange effects of his doctrine converting all the world yet contradicted by those that will not be converted by them and thus as the incredulity of the Jews and Infidels is a contradiction to the Faith of Christ in like manner the wicked lives of sinfull Christians are open contradictions to his Laws and to the secret impulses of his holy graces 35 By the sword here some will understand the spirit of prophecie given to the B. Virgin whereby she knew as well the ill affections of the Jewes to her son as the good ones of Christians towards him yet this can at most be but the mysticall sense Others will have it that the B. Virgin dyed a Martyr by the sword which neverthelesse is against all History The literall therefore and genuine sense is That the sword of torment which killed Christ was to his holy mother a sword of sorrow wounding her very heart insomuch that had it not been healed with he comfort shee received by conformity to Gods will it had been her reall death and wee read often in holy Writ that the contradiction of detracting tongues is called a sword of persecution Their tongue is a sharp sword Psal 63. v. 4 They have sharpened their tongues like swords Psal 104.8 and the sword of Christ his torments was twofold One of his persecutours tongues The other of their stripes nails and spear peirciâ—â—â— his side which were so sharp a sword of sorrow to the blessed Virgin that the Doctors of the Church hold her for more than a Martyr actually dying for Christ but it is hard to know the true sense of what follows in this Verse That this sword of sorrow pierced the mothers soul That out of many hearts cogitations might be revealed in her sacred Son for so the words seem to import which yet is verified thus that while some of the Jewes did before privately machinate Christs death others among them pretended they look'd for the Messias but finding Christ come in an humble way they scorned him and so both these joyning attempted at last to be his ruine which then proved a true sword piercing his mothers soul when they revealed the persidiousnesse of their own false hearts that had the one often before wished but for fear of the Jewes durst not attempt his death the other pretended to honour him but when they found his humility suited not with their pride they plotted and actually procured his death and as in that they peirced his mothers soul so they revealed the iniquity of their own cogitations and to this sense Simeon seems here prophetically to have spoken 36. Anne was celebrated for the known guift shee also had of prophecy whereof v 38. we shall read anon so shee did foretell much of Christ She is called Anne which signifies Grace And her Father Phanuel signifying the Face of God is here named to she that her grace of prophecy as well as that of her justification came from God Her Tribe is here set downe to denotate her nature that was peaceable pleasing wealthy long-living and the like besides Aser signifies Blessed all these remarks of her are to shew the dignity of this Prophetesse who was appointed for one to give testimony of Christ her virginity is here remarked because it was three wayes very notable First her maiden next her conjugall and lastly hâ—r viduall virginitie for so her chastity is here called to shew it was in her more than ordinary by living with her husband â—â—â—en years from her virginity is understood seven years 〈◊〉 shew was marriageable which was then held at fifteen years of age for children are not properly called virgins till they arrive to the ripeness of years fitting for marriage so falling widdow at two and twenty yeers of age it was much shee lived in that Viduall virginity untill shee was as in this next Verse is said 37. Eighty four years of age as some say but of pure widdowhood as S. Ambrose will have it who makes her in all a hundred and six years old dwelling continually in the Temple that is not departing thence but spending most of her time there and seldome going home but to refresh at meales never any whither else for other diversion from her prayers yet some thinke her very abode was if not in yet at least joyning to the Temple as many Anchoresses and some Chanonesses now doe spending her time both night and day in fasting watching and prayer and perpetually serving God so we see fasting in those dayes of the Synagogue was an usuall service to God and is not as Heretikes now say held so onely in our
Parents will to have him lost If then beloved we see the piety of the B. Virgin Mother of God was short of that which must be our guide how can we hope with lesse than heavenly piety to render our actions our desires gratefull to his divine Majesty And who can now complain there wants connexion in this Prayer unto the other service of the day if any doe let him see how to comply with the heavenly piety of his Eternall Father Jesus was Thirty years together subject to his Temporall Mother and then we shall soon find out a way how to sweeten the sour of our humane actions by having no desire to any of them less than heavenly nor to doe them with less than heavenly piety The Epistle ROM 12. ver 1. c. 1. I Beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercy of God that you exhibite your bodies a living host holy pleasing God your reasonable service 2. And be not conformed to this world but he reformed in the newnesse of your mind that you may prove what the good and acceptable and perfect will of God is 3. For I say by the grace that is given me to all that are among you not to be more wise than behooveth to be wise but to be wise unto sobriety to every one as God hath divided the measure of Faith 4. For as in one body we have many members but all the members have not one action 5. So we being many are one body in Christ and each one anothers members The Explication 1. THe Apostle had in his former Chapter told them much of the mercies of Almighty God and shewed them how though the wicked were justly condemned yet even the Blessed were most mercifully saved hence by that mercy so much inculcated immediately before he now conjures them that as they had now received from him the rule of Faith so they would frame their manners their actions and lives according to that rule see what is said of this Rule in the next Sundayes Epistle Rom. 12. v. 6. But to the present Text wherein the Apostle here beseecheth them by the mercy so much above recommended to live good lives answerable to their rule of Faith and to exhibite their bodies by action as well as their souls by Faith a living host to God There are many who loose the literall sense of this place by contenting themselves with the divers and those excellent mysticall meanings thereof as first by saying our bodies are living when our lives are vertuous Secondly when we are charitable because charity is the life of all vertues Thirdly when we have received the Sacrament of Christ his Body and Bloud but in very deed the literall allusion here is to the antient bloudy Sacrifices both of Jews and Gentiles made of beasts dead bodies whereunto the daily unbloudy Sacrifice of the Evangelicall Lamb is diametrically opposite first of the living Body and bloud of Christ next of living chastized but not mortified bodies of Christians being as the Apostle adviseth offered up to the service of Almighty God since such chastizements leave the bodies living by a naturall life again they live by the spirituall life of good works done in obedience to their soules command for so operating besides by corporall mortification or pennance the body is made truly a living host because it is mortified alive by becoming subject to the command of the Spirit for all mortification is a kind of living death whilest it makes the body dye to concupiscence and live to grace but these our bodies must further be holy Sacrifices that is to say imployed in holy not prophane or impure works not worshipping Idols as the Gentiles did but God as befits good Christians not polluting their bodies with unchast actions but keeping them pure and undefiled for this purity is by the Apostle 1 Cor. 7 called sanctity and is such indeed Again this bodily host must be pleasing to God for it may be living and holy in it self and yet not pleasing to God if the offerer be displeasing since many there are who fast goe in pilgrimage to holy places doe other corporall pennances and yet not rectifying together their souls obliquities their passions of the mind are nothing pleasing to God Lastly he concludes exhorting that our offerings to God be seasoned with the salt of wisedome that is be alwayes a reasonable service not fond childish curious indiscreet or singular but such as we may ever render a reasonable account of even to God who will not allow of indiscretions for reasons though indeed the Apostle here alludes to the irrationall offerings among the Gentiles who made their Idols their Gods and dedicated their services to Stocks and Stones whereas he would have Christians be more reasonable and instead of dead beasts to offer their living bodies joyntly with the acts of their believing hoping and loving souls to be a perpetuall Sacrifice or service to God all their life time and thus the whole creature will become not a corporall not an irrationall but a spirituall and reasonable Sacrifice 2. The Apostle hath pleased to make a disjunctive recommends of this entire creature in way of Sacrifice to God while in the former verse he insisted cheifly on the corporall part of the creature which we are and so advised how to render our bodies a living Sacrifice to God but in this verse he tells us how to render our better part the soul of man an acceptable oblation to the divine Majesty and since Christian perfection consists as well in declining evill as in doing good therefore this verse begins with removing evill out of our way that so we may doe good which the Apostle understands when he bids us take heed we doe not conforme our actions to the course of this unconformable world and this we shall performe by avoiding the evill that we see in men for we shall then best shew that we doe not conforme unto sinfull men when we fly their company and avoid such actions as renders them sinners and having thus followed the negative part of this counsell we are the better prepared to put the positive part thereof in execution for by not conforming to the world we whose bodies are made up of the old worldly metall shall be reformed in the newnesse of our minds by setting them henceforward on heavenly which heretofore were imployed wholly upon earthly cogitations so the Apostle by bidding us not conform to this world did not mean to forbid us making use of it but not to figure our selves like unto it that is not to become vain proud idle and the like as the world is for so we make our selves figures of this world or variable as worldlings are whereas the Apostle desires us to avoid becoming mutable or transitory figures and wisheth us to become persisting formes rather which are of a permanent nature namely spirituall formes of Saints not worldly figures of men and here reformation imports in truth
us whose guilty consciences tell us we deserve a famine in punishment of our sins rather then such a Feast as joys our hungry souls And as by this we see a joyful Communion is an accomplishment of our Lenten Fast so before that Communion we are fitly taught to premise such a Prayer as may first strike into us an act of Contrition and then compleat our Ioy. Say then the Prayer above and see if it be not most propper to this purpose And say it also to force out of us further yet the vertue of Gratitude such as these people shewed to Jesus when they thought to make him presently their King O let us make him the perfect Commander of our hearts-affections he will not fly from that Soveraignty because he doth affect it On Passion Sunday in Lent The Antiphon John 8. v. 56. YOur Father Abraham rejoyced that he might see the day he did see it and was glad Vers Deliver me O Lord from the evil man Resp .. From the wicked man deliver me The Prayer VVE beseech thee Almighty God propitiously behold thy Family that thou giving we may be governed in body and thou reserving we may be preserved in soul The Illustration IUst as your ebbing waters meet yong floods so doth the Edde stream of Lenten fast fall to the banks to day and leaves the Channel for the Churches Prayers to bring the red Sea of the Passion in upon us whence we cal this Passion Sunday Yes yes beloved This is very true and yet I do believe few have observed this to be so God grant that all may see it when 't is made appear out of the Prayer above which I confess was to me as hard as if I had been forc't to pick a lock whereof the proper key was lost and truly where to finde a mention of the Passion in a proper term in all this Prayer I know not but yet this help remains a common key will do as well when proper keys are missing Take therefore the propitious look of God upon us which to day we beg and then believe the door is open to our Saviours Passion for what is that but a propitiation for our sins which we implore when we beseech Almighty God to look propitiously upon his Family and though we use this phrase at other times as well as now yet that forbids not a common key to open a private door nay rather this is indeed the particular key unto the Passion and made common upon all other occasions because that sacred Sea flows over all the other works and mercies of Almighty God gives force and value to all our actions and so is here properly applyed however it hath become a common stile in all our Prayers Now by this key we shall open all the doors of this days Epistle and Gospel for why is Christ his blood a more powerful Sacrifice then that of Oxen Goats and Heyfers in the old Law as this Epistle tells us but because theirs availed onely to a nominal purity This to a real propitiation for all our sins that onely leads us into the Tabernacle of the Arke this into the Tabernacle of glory to conclude this propitious look we begge to day unlocks the Cabinet of the Gospel also and leads us after a long contest between Jesus and the Jewes whether he or they were devils whether he or Abraham were the greater person unto the very first entrance into his Sacred Passion where we should finde them stoning him to death but that he miraculously preserves himselfe for a more ignominious Sacrifice upon the Altar of the holy Crosse for whilest Jesus thus expostulated with the Jewes certainly he did looke propitiously upon the Gentiles in whose behalfe hee so much exasperated the Jewes as they menaced his death And this may suffice to bring our new floud in See now how the Lenten edde meetes the Passion Tyde in a way as strang as true while we are bid begge our sparing meales out of Gods ample giving hand and the preservation of our Soules out of his reserving from us whereas fasting requires a hand which will take away rather then give food to the body and our soules preservation depends upon Gods ever giving hand his adding more and more to his former graces bestowed on us all this is true in one sence and so is the contrary in another for we begge in this Prayer a rule and government of our bodies and that according to the time of Fast whence it follows our meat should be now given us with the same regulating hand of God that knowes best how to proportion food fit for a Fast which we doe not know nor doe we aske absolutely the full-giving hand of God to be extended to us but that which may so give as to reserve withal and hence we pray that thou giving us little food for our bodies they may be wel governed and thou reserving the former plenty we may enjoy at other times our Soules may be preserved from the guilt of those past excesses and so prepared as vessels empty of worldly trumpery to be the more capable of those heavenly treasures that are Sayling towards us upon the red Sea of thy bitter Death and Passion O Blessed Saviour now flowing in upon us The Epistle Heb. 9. v. 11 c. 11 But Christ assisting an High Priest of the good things to come by a more ample and more perfect Tabernacle not made with hand that is not of this creation 12 Neither by the blood of Goats or of Calves but by his own blood entred once into the Holies eternall redemption being found 13 For if the blood of Goats and of Oxen and the ashes of an Heifer being sprinkled sanctifieth the polluted to the cleansing of the flesh 14 How much more hath the blood of Christ who by the Holy Ghost offered himselfe unspotted unto God cleansed your consciences from dead workes to serve the living God 15 And therefore he is the Mediator of the New Testament that death being a mean unto the redemption of prevarications which were under the former Testament they that are called may receive the promise of the Eternall Inheritance The Explication 11 12. HItherto the Apostle in this Chapter had described the manner of the High Priests officiating in the old Law as also he described the Exod. c. 25. c. 26. Tabernacle wherein were placed the Candlesticks the Table and the Bread of proposition and this Tabernacle was called Sanctum The Holy but behinde a Curtaine at the back of this Sanctum there was yet placed another Tabernacle which was called Sanctum Sanctorum or the Hoâ—y of Holies unto which none but the High Priest could goe who there was to offer Sacrifice while the people remained all without praying for themselves as the Priest did for them all and here stood a golden Thurible the Arke of the Testament all guilded over wherein was a golden Shrine which had in it the Manna the two
when he had spoken to them and anger'd them as above The Application 1. SAint Paul to day hath been the Sacristan and made the Altar ready for the Priest lo here he enters in who is the Sactifice and the Sacrificant our Saviour Jesus Christ the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world And therefore enters reprehending sin as you hear in this days Gospel because he came to dye for sins And who can better reprehend then he that is himself irreprehensible as Jesus shewed he was that asks the Jews who amongst you all can accuse me of sin 2. Thus by his Lamb like Innocency is he brought bleating into Holy Church to day as was the Legal Lamb Exod. 12. v. 11. just fifteen days before the Pascal Feast that by his bleating day and night so many days together he might minde the Jews how the blood of the Lamb upon their doors did cause the Angel to shew mercy there where he had found that blood Now in regard the Blood of Christ is that which is the Safegard of the World from the not onely killing but damning sword of the Angel of Darkness therefore is this Lamb of God brought in to Holy Church to day bleating and minding Christians by the justifying of himself from sin that he is indeed the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and that brings salvation unto those who by Integrity and Innocency of Life shall accomplish the Holy Fast of Lent and so make up that happy Fold of Lambs and Sheep who know their Shepherds Voyce and who are known by him for their Compassion on him now they hear the Tydings of his bitter Death and Passion 3. And in regard the Jews should not pretend they were excus'd from having his Innocency so far as therefore to believe him God because he was an Innocent Man See how all this Gospel runs upon a pregnant Proof of his Divinity where he not onely tells them Before Abraham was I am that is to say I am who am I am Almighty God whose best Definition is his Eternal Being Nor did he say this gratis for see the stones they sting pretending this was Blasphemy can no way hurt him nor can the Flingers see whom they intend to hurt though just before their eyes because his Deity was not pleas'd they should then see his Human Person whom they thought to stone to death yet from this malicious Intention we may fitly call this Passion Sunday And therefore fitly pray as above expressing in the begg'd Propitiation all his Passion and so conclude by casting all our care upon him both for Soul and Body On Palme Sunday in Lent The Antiphon Matth. 26. v. 31. FOr it is written I will strike the Pastor and the Sheep of the Flock shall be dispersed but after I shall rise again I will go before you into Galilee There you shall see me saith our Lord. Vers Deliver me O Lord from the evil man Resp .. From the wicked man deliver me The Prayer OMnipotent everlasting God who hast caused our Saviour to take humane Flesh upon him and be crucified for mankinde to imitate the example of his humility grant propitiously that we may deserve to have both the Instructions of his patience and the fellowship of his Resurrection The Illustration YOu will have heard in the preface to this Book why the Antiphon above is not taken out of this dayes Gospell of the Masse but of the Gospell read at Blessing of Palmes Suffice it here to say they are both waters of one and the same red Sea and therefore suteable to the designe in hand and I think it will be sufficient to cast your eyes onely upon the Epistle and Gospel here below to satisfie you how this Prayer above and they agree since in them both we have the greatest examples of humility that can be given in the one Christ humbled to the very ignominy of the Crosse in the other his humble entrance that he made into Jerusalem upon an Asse to the triumph of his ignominious Death and Passion for he was pleased onely to accept the acclamations of his being King to make greater unto us that example of his humility which he desired we should imitate and which he gave us for that very end as we see this Prayer avoucheth professing that God caused our Saviour to take humane flesh and be crucified for mankinde to imitate the example of his hâ—mility whence we begge as followeth That he will grant propitioâ—sly we may deserve to have both the Instructions of his patience and the fellowship of his Resurrection Stay blessed Jesu how can we deserve this to have thee our eternall God become our Temporall Master in the Schoole of patience and which is more if more can be to deserve that we may have the fellowship of this Resurrection what fellowship can there be betwixt God and man the creator and the creature setting that aside which is betwixt the Sacred Deity and the humanity of Christ where man may in a kinde be bold to say Haile fellow well met But for us that are as much removed from Christ in dignity as nothing is from all things in the world for us not onely to hope for our resurrection out of the infinite mercy of God but to begge we may deserve it too nay deserve the fellowship thereof with Jesus Christ himselfe this I confesse seems very strange and sounds like a bold presumption rather then a modest Prayer and yet because the Holy Ghost inspires the Church to make this Prayer to day we must not feare to say it with a confidence it will be gratefull in the eareâ— of God and for that reason gratefull to him because feasible by us yet no way feasible unlesse he grant us his propitious glaunce againe by looking on us through the blooshed eyes of his Sacred Sonne then indeed we may hope for propitiation by his passion and that propitious looke being afforded us we may like Peter weep most bitterly when the like aspect was cast upon him by our Blessed Lord. Luc. 22.61 But why doe we so timorously come to that which Saint Paul so confidently leads us up unto did not he vaunt to the Colossians cap. 1. v. 24. His sufferings to have been an accomplishment of those things that are wanting of Christs Passion according as we heard in the first Lenten Sundayes Epistle See there v. 1. for in consequence to the Doctrine there delivered we pray to day that wee may deserve to have had Christ our Master of Patience and to be his fellowes in his Resurrection since then we shall deserve such a Master when we become such Scholers as Saint Paul was and as he taught us in the Colossians to be Imitators of his patience in our passions which then become the accomplishment of his when we bear them as patiently as he bore his Crosse Coloss c. 3. v. 12. and being his at least they must have
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
wherewith the Son again knows the Father as my Father knows me to be his natural Son so he desires the Pastours to know souls to be their spiritual children and the souls again to know the Priests for their spiritual Fathers Note the Similitude here shews Analogy but not Equality since the Father knows not us to be other then his adopted Children as Christ hath by his Grace regenerated us and made us the adopted Sons of his heavenly Father while he says he yields his Life he means he lays it freely down not that it was or could be by his persecutors taken from him as the lives of his Sub-Pastours his Holy Priests may be for though they may dye willingly when persecuted yet they cannot be said to lay down their lives as Christ did for he came purposely to dye and Priests may not seek death though they are not bound to flye it neither when there is just cause of standing to it for others good again he is truly said to lay down life as being Author of it so is not the Priest 16. This verse alludes to the calling of the Gentiles besides the Jewes to the Faith of Christ and indeed to the plenary conversion of all the Nations in the world to that Faith before the day of latter judgement when all Nations shall be of one religion and unite themselves to the one visible head of Christ * upon earth namely the Pope Saint Peters successor not so as to say every man of every Nation shall be converted then for certainely Antichrist will have corrupted many that shall dye in their errors but so that some of all Nations shall be converted And if we say this hath been already verified in the Apostles converting all the world of whom it is said Psal 18. v. 5. Into all the earth hath the sound of them gone forth and unto the ends of the whole world the words of them perhaps we shall speake more literally to the meaning of Christ in this place for indeed in the time of Constantine the great by his conversion who was Emperor in a manner of all Nations there might be truly said to be one sold and one Pastor namely the then Pope of Rome as by the whole second Chapter of Saint Pauls Epistle to the Ephesians may appeare where three or foure times he repeateth making you both one that iâ— you Jewes and Gentiles both one Church of Christ built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets viz. Christ Jesus The Application 1. LAst Sunday we heard our Saviour gave his Apostles Commission to pardon and detaine sinnes now he tels them what manner of men they must be who are thus impowred namely Pastors of soules such as must feed and defend their sheep with the same fatherly love as hee the head Pastor did even with the loss of life if need be which though it be an act of the highest charity in the world yet is it rooted in the unshaken Faith of the Pastor and hath for the primary end the preservation of the like Faith in the sheep according to that of our Lord unto Saint Peter Luc. 22. v. 32. That thou once converted do confirme thy brethren in Faith 2. It is further worthy our remarke that a good Pastors care ought to be as we see in the close of this Gospel as well to gaine other soules to believe in Jesus Christ as to confirme those who are already true beleevers for it is by his sub-pastors preaching and suffering that our Saviour sayes he must have one shepheard and one fold that is to say all the world at last converted from their infidelity and made right beleevers This still maintaines the Doctrine that the end of Martyrdome is the Propagation of the Christian Faith since by the death of Martyrs even Infidels are brought to the fold of Christ 3. And since in the Epistle of this day Priests are bid to follow the example and steps of Christ in suffering in this a Pastor is most like our Saviour that his humiliation for we cannot come so farre as to exinanition to a naturall death for the good of his sheep is the raising of soules from their death of Infidelity to a supernaturall life to that of Faith in Jesus Christ When therefore our Pastors are invited to dye for their sheep it is to minde us how by our Saviours temporall death which brought him to the lowest humiliation the whole world was raised to the greatest and highest hope of an eternall life And therefore Holy Church most fitly Prayes to day as above On the third Sunday after Easter The Antiphon John 16. v. 20. AMen I say unto you that you shall waile and weepe but the world shall rejoyce and you shall be made sorrowfull but your sorrow shall be turned into joy Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who unto those that goe astray to the end they may returne to the way of Justice doest shew them the light of thy verity grant unto all those who by profession are esteemed Christians that they may both eschue those things which are contrary to this name and pursue those which are agreeable to the same The Illustration IT is admirable to see how many regards the Prayers of Holy Church have at once as in this besides that of the Resurrection which transcends * all the Prayers of the Church between Easter and the Ascension and besides that which is unto the Epistle and Gospel of the day as shall appear anon we see here a speciall regard unto the faint-hearted Christians who seeing Christ was dead and buryed tottered in their Faith of his Deity and went astray into a thousand Meandrous doubts in point of Faith for whose sakes that they might returne to the way of Iustice by a right beliefe Christ was pleased for forty dayes together to dwell upon earth meerly to confirme the truth of his Resurrection not onely infinitely doubted of but even held impossible and by his dwelling here so long to shew them the light of his verity which indeed was never so brightly seen as when it was made appear by his Resurrection confirming all the Truths he had taught the world before his death now that this Prayer reflects upon those tottering Christians who lived then when Christ arose as well as upon all us that succeed them see the following words point out such when the Prayer beggs that those who by profession are esteemed Christians as many were that yet doubted of the Resurrection may both eschue those things that are contrary to this name and nothing more contrary then to doubt of Christs veracity as these men did who would not beleeve he was truly risen from death to life and pursue those which are agreeable to the same that is to say may beleeve and professe their Faith in this particular or else they must disagree from all he said and taught besides if they
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
heart so hidden from others that lyes not open to the owner of it who can justly accuse himself of often making his seeming good actions causes of his own damnation whilest he even persecutes Almighty God under a pretext of serving him O sincerity of heart where art thou far from the lip that beggs it Matth. 14. v. 8. as now all Christians ought with the mother Church to do And in this case it fares with us as it did with those of whom we reade Esay 25.13 This people honours me with their lips while their heart is far off from me But could we by this hearty Prayer so convert our hearts to God as to obtain these two Vertues onely Devotion in our Wills and Sincerity in our Hearts we should need no other Ceremony to Saint us what ere were requisite besides to Canonize us nor is this Prayer lesse proper to the service of the day then to the mystery of our Lords Ascension though I confess the root of their connexions lies too deep for every one to finde it out at first but while Saint Peter bids us in his Epistle above all things love one another he sweetly tells us the non sincerity of our hearts is rooted there and that we cannot sincerely love God whom we do not see unless we do sincerely love each other with whom we daily do converse Again he tells us Charity covers a multitude of sins 1 Pet. 1. v. 22. as who should say whilest we pray for sincerity of heart we pray for charity and having that Vertue we not onely cover all our Vices but rise up with it as high as Heaven and then we speak as if we spake the words of God then we honour and serve God in all thingâ— with perfect devotion of our wills and sincerity of our hearts when we serve each other with such subjection as if in every Christian we had Christ to serve and this which is a more neer serving him even at the gates of Heaven where now he is and where we must always attend him for our happy entrance so soon as our willâ— are truly devoted and our hearts sincerely bent unto his service which then the Gospel of this day tells us they will be when taking them off from all terrene contents we set them upon an expectation of higher comforts of heavenly consolations from the Paraclete the Holy Ghost who is comming down upon us to give us all content indeed to testifie the truth of all our Saviours Doctrine and to give us grace not onely to bear patiently all severest persecutions but even to take content to dye for Jesus Christ who pleased to dye for us and not to be scandailzed when the wicked persecute the just under pretence of serving God therein since our Saviour did Apologize for them saying They knew not what they did when they butchered him upon the Altar of the Cross and since he further tells us by St. John to day the wicked will do the same to us we must remembring what he â—aid seek to conform our will to his and to serve him by our patient suffering greatest persecutions with all sincerity of heart which that we may perform we pray to day as above suitably to what our Pastors preach and can we by so praying do so too then are we risen high as heaven-gates with Jesus Christ The Epistle on Sunday within the Octaves of the Ascension 1 Pet. 4. v. 7 c. 7 And the end of all things shall approach Be wise therefore and watch in Prayers 8 But before all things having mutuall charity continuall among your selves because charity covereth the multitude of sins 9 Vsing hospitality one toward another without murmuring 10 Every one as he hath received grace ministring the same one toward another as good dispensers of the manifold grace of God 11 If any man speak as the words of God if any man minister as of the power which God admistreth That in all thingt God may be honoured by Jesus Christ The Explication 7 THe end of all shall come This doth not report to judgement but rather to the end of all those unlawfull pleasures which the Apostle found the Gentiles prone unto as beleeving that after death there was no more remaining to be said or done and consequently since they must have a total end by death both of body and soule they were resolved here to indulge unto themselves all they could and not to lose any pleasure they were able to purchase while they lived To these he sayes the end of all shall come meaning of all you can here delight in and yet you will finde there is not an end of your being by your death but as your actions while you live are lyable to the judgement and scanning of men so shall your souls when your bodies are dead be lyable to another manner of judgement so he bids them be wise and take onely lawful pleasures for they shall be called to an account of their unlawful ones when they least thinke of it who dyed in that heresie of Gentilisme believing the soule to be mortal as the body was But indeed the end which the Apostle here meanes is most properly that which is now actually come namely the last age of the world which is that of Christ and Christians as who should say the world hath stood now six ages compleat and is entered into the seventh which is the last The first age was from Adam to Noe and his flood The second from Noe to Abraham the third from Abraham to Moses the fourth from Moses to David the fifth from David to the captivity of Babylon the sixth from that captivity to Christs coming the seventh and last from Christ to the latter day of judgement whence Saint John 1. Epist C. 1. v. 15. Sayes Beloved this is the last houre and Saint Paul 1. ad Cor. 10. v. 11. These things are written for our correction in whom the worlds ends are found meaning six ages of the world are past in us and now the seventh age flowes away apace Be therefore saith Saint Peter alluding to this sense wise or prudent and so live every one of you now as if you were to close the actions of all the ages gone before you and to carry away a blessed Crown of glory with you if you make your selves secure of your happy end by leading a holy life so long as here you live For in every one of you the whole world hath an end since this is the last age of it and since it is the end that Crowns the worke he bids us be wise and watching pray that our end may be here holy to make our happiness endless in the life to come which is to have no end and here the Apostle mindful of his own error bids us take heed we fall not into the same who remembers he fell asleep when Jesus prayed in the garden and to that sleeping he imputes his revolting from his
peace And here to shew the excesse of his grief he stops and sayes not what should follow to wit thou wouldest weep thy selfe as I doe now for thee thou wouldest weep to see what pains I have taken in my three years preaching of pennance to thee what more I am to take for thee whilest I die to save thee who wilt not be saved Yes all this sense runs through our Saviours soul and is genuinely taken out of this abrupt speech which because I see and thou dost not wilt not indeed therefore I weeep for thee O wretched city 43. This was to a title verified when Titus and the Romans laying seidge to Jerusalem after our Saviours death in three dayes space as Josephus writes built not onely Trenches but walls about them so as none could stirre out at any rate for relief whence mothers were fain to eat their own children So Josephus 44. So sensibly our Saviour speaks of this cities destruction that here he seems to exaggerate for it is not credible the Romans were either so curious or so idle as not to leave a stone upon a stone since there is now in that new city the old mount Calvary where many stones lay one upon the other So the meaning of this place is that the destruction of this city should be so great as if there had not been a stone left upon a stone within it whilest those that were left should be of no use nor profit By the time of the visitation understand this very time when our Saviour came a loving Messias to save this city and she would not receive him but plotted his death in requitall 45. See whither our Saviour goes as soon as he is entered the citie Into the Temple first to rectifie that which was out of order there So he first enters into our Temples into our souls when he adopts us to be his children It was not amisse to begin visibly to reform the visible abuses in the Temple especially since he see the hearts and souls of the high Priests would not be reformed by him 46. This was so palpable an abuse of the written word that none could question it and besides it was necessary to abolish open Sacriledge where there was to be established open Sanctity 47. To shew that thus Priests were to employ their times and their talents and not in secular companies or imployments at least not in merely secular but such as were mixed with Church duties The Application 1. HOw excellently wel doth holy Church follow her design in this Gospel which we perceive she had in the Epistle above For what else is meant by Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and foretelling her destruction but because she did to him while he marcht before her eyes as we have heard her children did to God while he mercifully led them through the red Sea and many other dangers out of Egypt into the land of promise What was their buying and selling in the Temple other then Idolatry to Mammon other then robbing God of that honour which they paid even in his own house unto his greatest enemy the devill For which you see our Saviour whipt them out of the Temple as was said in the Illustration above and not unnecessarily repeated here 2. O Catholick Christians how do we act this Jewish part how do we do our best to make our Jesus weep in Heaven if it were possible to see us Catholickes degenerate into the sordid actions of the Jewes What is it else to hear us murmure against our Lord for commanding us to he meeke and humble who have nothing in us but passion and pride who are with the Jewes ashamed of holy poverty while we clad our selves in nothing but gauderies more vainly farr then those whose Religion binds them not so strictly from such braveries as ours While instead of renouncing the vanity of the world we sell even God himself for hope of onely popular applause by frequenting the Church for vain respects to see and to be seen under pretence of praying there or of hearing the word of God which is to make Gods holy House a denne of thieves to rob him of his honour in that very place appointed onely for honouring and adoring of his holy Name 3. O how rarely well doth holy Church rebuke the Priests and Lay-men too in the Prayer she makes to day as an abstract of all the doctrine on those holy Texts when what so ever we do at other times she bids us while we pray at least refrain as is our duty to commit Idolatry to Fornicate to Tempt our Lord to murmure to swell with Pride to dissemble and to Simonize in holy Church For this were but to shut those sacred eares we praying doe pretend to open This were to aske unpleasing things to God not such as we are bid petition in the Prayer above pleasing to his heavenly Majesty On the tenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 18. v. 14. THis man went down to his house justified more then he for that every one who shall exalt himself shall be humbled and he who humbleth himself shall be exalted Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God who doest manifest thy omnipotency most of all by pardoning and taking pittie multiply on us thy mercy that we running unto thy promises thou maist make us partakers of thy heavenly treasures The Illustration STrange that holy Church should teach us in this Prayer the omnipotency of God is most manifested by his pardoning and pittying of us True his goodnesse and his love is thereby most of all made manifest but his power or his omnipotency seems manifested more in his creating all things out of nothing in his governing the world created so as to make contrary natures combine all in one to the fulfilling of his holy will and pleasure and in his punishing offenders who if they could resist his power would never indure eternall damnation as all the devils and accursed souls in hell are forc'd to do But if we look more narrowly into the businesse we shall find Gods power most manifested in his pardoning and pitâ—ying offenders For as by their sinnes they relapse into a far worser nothing then that they were created out of first of all so to be recreated as often as they sinne is to keep in exercise Gods omnipotency every minute in a manner since they hardly passe a minute without a sinne and if this be mortall they as often disannull themselves as they sinne mortally and since in this case they cannot be re-made again but by the omnipotency of him who can make all things out of nothing this omnipotency being manifested by the pardon and pitty God Almighty doth afford a sinner thus relapsing it followes evidently that the said omnipotency is made most manifest by such pardon and pitty as God affords to sinfull souls Which pitty being an Act of mercy we had need petition that
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