Head-City by Saints and Sinners his Apostles Jewes and Gentiles by all Sects and Ages Men women and Children that so he might give an example of his humility to all the world and unto all mankind 2. But especially to great ones Nobles Princes Monarches that these may learn Pal. 61. v. 11. If Riches slow not to set their hearts upon them Nor if honored by their subjects Psal 48. v. 13. to lose their understandings and to become like foolish Beasts by taking Pride in Popular Applause but rather with the wise to say So passeth by the Glory of the world this day cry'd up a King and in three dayes decry'd to dye an ignominious death 3. As therefore Princes you are those whom Jesus represented last of all and made the least demur upon your Pompous State so learne of him to set the world at naught by a contempt thereof and thereto fix your thoughts where true joyes are live humbly dye patiently with Jesus here that you may rise and reign gloriously with him in the world to come See how to all these purposes we fitly pray as above On Easter Sunday The Antiphon Mark 16. v. 4. ANd looking they saw the stone rowled backe for it was a very great one Alleluja Vers This is the day which our Lord hath made Resp Let us exalt and rejoyce therein The Prayer O God who this day by thine onely begotten Sonne hast opened to us the doore of eternity by the destruction of death prosecute we beseech thee in us those good desires which thou preventing hast afforded us The Illustration LOoke how the Salt Sea waters strained through the loose and Sandy grounds breake into Springs that head the greatest and the freshest Rivers thus doth the red Sea of our Saviours Passion breake from his Sepulchre into the Chrystall streames of his glorious resurrection so that all the Churches Prayers will now a while taste of those living waters that doe spring from death from the Sepulchre of our Blessed Lord in such sort as if death were content to dye that we may live For we see by this Prayer holy Church esteemes Christs resurrection to be the destruction of death since he hath no otherwise then by rising againe this day from his grave opened unto us the door of eternity of eternall and blissefull life whereupon she prayes the zeale we are now supposed to have of living eternally may be perfected by God his prosecuting in us our good desires thereof which are first afforded us by his preventing grace without which indeed wee cannot have as of our selves one good thought much lesse can we doe any the least good deed Now as there can be no tidings of any greater joy unto us who even naturally desire eternall life then for holy Church to tel us it is this day bestowed upon us by Christ his rising from his grave and by his raising us to everlasting life from the eternal death of deadly same which before had swallowed up all mankinde so we ought to rejoyce to day as a dead man would to find himselfe revived and brought from the brink of eternal damnation unto a promise of eternal life and blisse O could we say this Prayer with a lively apprehension of this to be our present condition with what fervour should we say it with what joy should we repeat it over and over again and how infinitely should we profit our selves thereby nay how home should we Preach unto our Souls by praying thus Since thereby we should exhaust not onely the whole Epistle and Gospel of the day but even the Introite of holy Mass wherein the Royal Prophet Psalme 138. speaks in the Person of Christ saying I am risen and yet I am with thee He was indeed with Ierusalem many a day after he had risen from his grave to shew her whom she had crucified her Iesus if shee pleased if not her Iudge and againe in the graduall at Masse which Holy Church makes stand to day for a versicle to the Antiphon above the same Prophet Psal 117. Speakes in our persons saying This is the day which our Lord hath made let us exult and rejoyce in it hence we see how gladsome a day our Holy Mother would have this to be unto us how cheerfully she would have us say the Prayer aforesaid and withall how suiteably to the Epistle which if observed is no other then a ground-work of our Prayer in the very sense above of our holy desires given us by Gods preventing grace and prosecuted by his grace continually helping us to enter in at the doore of a new life by going out of the old gate of sinfull death for that indeed is the true meaning of this dayes Epistle exhorting us to purge away the old leaven the sinne that makes our actions not only sowre but deadly in the esteem of God Almighty who having set his teeth on edge by the leavened bread of our sins desired now to make us unleavened loaves seasoned with vertues not with vices for though Saint Paul as the Rhemists interpret this place alludeth here to our Communion at Easter according as by precept we are bound and in that sense cals the blessed Sacrament Christ our immolated Pasch whereon he bids us Feast when by the Sacrament of pennance we have purged away the old leaven of malice and wickednesse out of our Soules yet in very truth both the beginning and ending of this Epistle tels us that while we thus Feast on Christ he feeds on us who have made our selves Azymes or unleaven'd loaves of sincerity and verity which is to say pure Manchet for his heavenly Table since thus we become the new paste and Azymes of Sanctity as the Apostle cals us under the termes of sincerity and verity as to the Gospel which is Saint Mark his story of the Resurrection it is all wide open unto us even in the first clause of the Prayer above saying Christ opened this day the door of eternity by the destruction of death though it be all abstracted too even in these closing words of the Prayer thou preventing for in every deed as Christ prevented the early Maries in his rising so doth his holy Grace prevent even the first thoughts of our rising from the lazinesse of sinne into the sedulity of serving God Almighty And thus we see the whole service of Easterday abstracted in this little Prayer and consequently we have hitherto made good our hard designe thereof The Epistle 1 Cor. 5.7 c. 7 Purge the old leaven that you may be a new paste as you are Azymes For our Pasche Christ is immolated 8 Therefore let us Feast not in the old leaven not in the leaven of malice and wickednesse but in the Azymes of sincerity and verity The Explication 7. BY the old leaven Saint Paul meanes that notorious kinde of Fornication which was practized amongst the Corinthians worse then any among Gentiles as in the first verse of this Chapter the
to day mixeth the Lay mans duty with that of the Priest to shew us that what in an eminent degree Christ taught his Apostles and consequently their successors the Pastors of Gods Church who by office have care of soules in some sort at least the layty was to imitate namely that heroicall or rather that divine Act of Faith which is required to Martyrdom For albeit the Priest be bound to many duties which do not oblige Lay people yet there is no man or woman whatsoever that is not rigorously bound to lay down life it selfe the deerest thing they have rather then deny their faith in Jesus Christ 2. Againe however the Lay-man is not bound to that perfection of charity and Justice which the Priest ought to have nor to excell in many other vertues essentially proper to the Priest as zeale of soules especially yet this dayes Epistle tels us that every Christian whatsoever stands obliged thus far to imitate the perfection of Jesus Christ himselfe as to preserve the proper vertues of the Paschall Feast sincerity and verity which is as much as to say some degree of saintity as was declared in the exposition of the Epistle upon Easter day and consequently if all be bound to saintity none are priviledg'd to sinne but every one is to avoid it as is told us in the second verse of this Epistle none is priviledg'd to beguile or defraud his neighbour for that is contrary to the Paschall sincerity and verity which all the Lambs of Christ are obliged unto 3. To conclude as all Christians are rigorously bound to a profession of the Faith of Christ with hazard of their lives so this Epistle instructs them all in that particular duty of suffering for Justice in testimony of their Faith and for that purpose layes before their eyes in what manner they are to suffer just as Jesus did following his steps therein Not reviling those that revile them not straying away for fear but like believing Lambs to follow their Pastor the Bishop of their soules their Jesus and their God to whom they are converted by their faith in him for whom they are to dye if need be as he hath dy'd for them and by his humble death hath raised them to the hopes of an eternall life and of everlasting joyes therein Which ever living comfort they Petition for to day emboldened thereunto by a pious memory of our Saviours death and Passion since from his Sepulchre as was said before flow all the hopefull streames of our eternall happinesse for the head and spring of Faith is our Saviours Resurrection from his grave The Gospel John 10. v. 11 c. 11 I am the good Pastor The good Pastor giveth his life for his sheep 12 But the hireling and he that is not the Pastor whose own the sheep are not seeth the wolfe comming and leaveth the sheep and flyeth and the wolfe raveneth and disperseth the sheep 13 And the hireling flyeth because he is an hireling And he hath no care of the sheep 14 I am the good Pastor and I know mine and mine know me 15 As the Father knoweth me and I know the Father and I yeeld my life for the sheep 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold them also I must bring and they shall heare my voyce and there shall be made one fold and one Pastor The Explication 11. GOod Pastor is here taken for most excellent prime or indeed onely Pastor as from whom all others derive that name because his death is reall life to his sheep whereas the death of other Pastors is 〈◊〉 a due sacrifice for the dyer and an example for the liver to follow rather then to flye from faith so that Christs life was not onely given us as an example but as a satisfaction for our sinnes 12. By Hireling here mystically understand those Priests who serve their Flock more for love of their Fleece then of the Sheep more for base gain then for souls salvation as who should say this very Act renders a man no true Pastour though by his place he be so yet literally by hireling is understood those that are not really true Pastours but usurpe the places of them Namely Hereticks who neither have Orders nor Mission and yet live upon Tythes as if they were truly intituled thereto for to such the souls of men do not truly belong however they take an usurped charge over them and those men commonly in time of persecution flinch steal themselves away and leave their sheep the souls they pretended right over unto the tyranny of the devouring wolfe the persecutor of Gods holy Church Note the true Pastour is said also to flye when he is silent and doth not rebuke his erring Flock by the Wolfe is understood Heresie or the Devil the father thereof ravening and snatching this man to luxury t'other to gluttony a third to murther and so disperseth them from the Flock and Fold of orderly Sheep making them wander till they fall into the pit that cryes Vae soli wo to the lonely 13. St. Gregory says the Name shews the Nature and so gives the cause by giving the Name for to be a hireling is cause enough to flye from danger since it argues he loves his hire better then his cure his profit better then his Office nor is he truly said to have care of his Sheep but of himself and therefore by his flying from his sheep he shews he had indeed no care of them 14. See the mark of a good Shepherd is to know his sheep and to have his sheep know him he knows their vertues to incourage them to more he knows their Vices to dehort them from the same and they know his Love and Doctrine to follow both since as his Love leads them freely so his Doctrine leads them safely again as a Pastour leads his sheep to new Pastures so must the Priest feed them with new Exhortations as the Pastour keeps the Wolfe from his Sheep so must the Priest his Souls from the temptation of sin and the Devil as the Pastour cherisheth his Lambs more then ordinarily so must the Priest cherish his children with frequent Catechisms and his new converts even as children as the Pastour cures the Diseases of his Sheep so must the Priest the Infirmities of his Souls Lastly as the true Shepherd will fight to Death rather then be beaten from his Flock so must the Priest in persecution dye rather then flye from his Parish and in case of Plague the Pastour is rather to run the hazard of it then to leave the people unprovided of Priests and in this case particularly the Pastours are bound ex officio by office to stay when Regulars that onely help ex charitate out of charity as it were may flye in point of danger if they please and that without sin 15. See how he follows this mutual knowledge comparing it to that wherewith God the Father knows his Son and that
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
us in the B. Sacrament as we must fear him under his severer name of our Judge if we now fail of such equall love unto him O happy Christians who at the same time when they are bid to fear Christ are taught to love Jesus and consequently their love and fear must be as equal as Christ Jesus is to Jesus Christ But the reason why we beg this equality of fear and love is because Christ doth never leave destitute of his government those whom he instructs in the solidity of his love that is Christ our Judge will sweetly rule us if he find we do solidly love him and we were last Sunday taught the solidity of that love did consist in loving God above all things and not only our neighbour but also our enemies as our selves which lesson was then given as a preparative to this Feast now flowing in the Octaves thereof and alluded unto in this prayer teaching us in brief what the Epistle and Gospel tell us more at large The first that who loves not ought to stand in fear of that death which he abides in by not loving Nay more so confident must our Love be that we must rather not fear to dye for our neighbour then we must dare not to love him and to this we are incited by the example of Christ whose love made him dye for us that were his enemies Again we are told this love must be real and true not verbal onely and that it cannot be so if we relieve not our neighbour in his necessity when we are able so to do This argues indeed that we are not left destitute by our Governour Christ Jesus who instructs us in this solidity of love from one end of the Epistle to the other And since it is the general consent of all Expositours that the Supper mentioned in this dayes Gospel is a figure of the Blessed Sacrament sure that is a mystery as full of solid love as is expressed in the Prayer above teaching us never to go unto this Supper without equal fear and love and so the Prayer stands excellently well adapted both to the Sunday to the Feast to the Epistle and to the Gospel of the day For if we can by saying this prayer fervently obtain the equal fear and love which it petitioneth assuredly in recompense thereof Almighty God will so govern us as we shall not for humane ends excuse our selves from our duties to his Divine Majesty but shall come so religiously to the Supper of the Sacrament here as we need not fear being shut out at the last Supper of eternall rest in glory which again the Expositours will have the Sacramentall Supper to be a signe of And thus as well every sense as every letter of this Gospel is included in this most admirable prayer of holy Church The Epistle 1 Joh. 3.13 c. 13 Marvell not Brethren if the world hate you 14 We know that we are translated from death to life because we love the Brethren He that loveth not abideth in death 15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer hath life everlasting abiding in himself 16 In this we have known the charity of God because he hath yielded his life for us and we ought to yield our lives for the Brethren 17 He that shall have the substance of the world and shall see his Brother hath need and shall shut his bowels from him how doth the charity of God abide in him 18 My little children let us not love in word nor in tongue but in deed and truth The Explication 13. THe Evangelist had in the precedent verses told us the difference between the children of God and those of the devil and how there was mortal enmity between the one and the other instancing in Cain killing his Brother Abel for no other cause then envy to him seeing the sacrifice of Abel was acceptable to God and his was not in regard Abel was a child of God and Cain a child of the devil and so no marvel if his offerings were not acceptable to God Almighty But the Apostle proceeds further and bids Christians not wonder if the world hate them because of their good deeds since for that reason Cain representing the malignancy of the world hated Abel who was a figure of a good Christian offering grateful sacrifice to God besides the Apostle here alludes to what he had said in his Gospel Chap. 15.18 If the world hate you know it hated me before it hated you and therefore here he concludes they should rather expect then wonder at it if they found the world did hate them since no Son can hope for love from him who hates his Father and the foregoing Verses of this Epistle were all upon our happy filiation with God But we may observe the causes remarkable why the wicked for those are understood by the world so called from the greater part thereof that are wicked indeed do hate those who are good The first is the dissimilitude betwixt vice and vertue which begets a hatred as similitude begets love and affection for we see all worldlings puffed up with pride and ambition contrariwise all good Christians are meek and humble The second is Envy for wicked men seeing they cannot arrive at purity and sanctity envy those who do attain thereunto The third because the good men do further reprehend the vices of the wicked as the holy Ghost doth inspire them in imitation of his example whose coming shall argue the world of sin as we heard John 15.8 The fourth because the world sees good men flye the company of the wicked The last because their affections are contrary one doating upon the world altogether the other wholly inamoured on Almighty God so they must needs be as opposite as two Contraries are as heat to cold as dry to moist and labour to overcome each other but with this difference that the good man labours the conversion of the bad the bad man indeavours the perversion of the good 14. The Apostle doth not here say we know by any divine Faith or certain knowledge as hereticks will needs interpret this place but onely by moral certitude we know that if we love one another for Gods sake we must needs love God much more and as by sin against him we dye so by love of him we detest sin and are by that meanes translated from the death of sin to the life of grace in this world and to the life of glory in the next So that all the certitude we have of this is the testimony of our own consciences telling us we are not guilty of any defect either in our love to God or to our neighbour Yet because St. Paul 1 Cor. 4. v. 4. no sooner said he was not guilty then he added yet in this I am not justified the Catholick Church teacheth our assurance of our being in the state of grace is onely moral not divine And three signes
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
he lost his own life for that purpose And that this was the last time of our Saviours going to this City of Hierusalem in observation of their Paschall solemnity all the four Evangelists agree Saint John onely adding this circumstance Chap. 11. ver 54. that Jesus came now from the City Ephrem privately to this Feast having fled thither for fear of the Jewes after he had raised Lazarus from death to life a little before and was much envied and sought after to punish not to reward him for his said goodness Now some Expositours will have it that from this very instant of Christ foretelling his Apostles he should die and rise again Judas gave his first way to the temptation of covetousness which moved him to betray his Master for Mony since he did believe the first part of his death but gave no credit to his last of Rising again and so concluded when once his Master was dead all the little treasure of the common purse would fall to his share that feared no account to be exacted from a dead man by his Resurrection nor is this conjecture improbable But to the letter of the Text we shall not doe amisse to observe the phrase our Saviour useth saying here Behold we goe up and indeed the word Ascend or goe up alludes deeply to the mystery of the prediction as above of Christ his passion for by ascending voluntarily now to this Feast he shewed he was as voluntarily to ascend within few dayes out of this City up the Mount Calvary to his Passion Again the Temple of Hierusalem was upon the highest part of the Town and contiguous if not continuous to the Mount Sion which over-looked the City and so by Analogie the heavenly Hierusalem is called Sion besides he now said we ascend as shewing with what alacrity he resolved to rise up the ascending Mount when he was upon the Cross to triumph over Sin Death the Devill and Hell for as Saint Chrysostome sayes well By his voluntary death he shewed himself to be God as well as Man since though to be able to die argued he was man yet to be willing to die shewed he was more than man But see how he was not content to tell them in generall termes of his future Death and Passion and that it should be consummated as was written by the Prophets unlesse he had farther told them what particular death he was to die saying as followes 32. For he shall be delivered to the Gentiles as he was when Pilate and Herod substitutes of the Roman Empire set upon him as Judges and condemned him after many mockeries scourgings and revilings even to the Death of the Crosse but because the proper place to enlarge upon this subject will be when the Passion is dilated upon here we shall say no more of it than that 33. He foretells the Glory of his Resurrection shall recompence the ignominy of his death and this hony of his rising he gave them a taste off thereby to sweeten the gall of his Passion nor shall we now adde more here than that as Christ used the prediction of his Death as a meanes of comfort to his Apostles in hope of his future Resurrection so we must make affliction sorrow grief persecution and death it self for love of God sweet unto us in hope we shall rise from death to glory and from our corruption to incorruptibility as our Saviour did 34. No marvell they understood not these words nor the things they meant for our Saviour did not then intend they should understand them but then only told them what they should hereafter know by experience and remembring they had been foretold as much should not be dismayed but hope they should by the integrity of the prediction including the joy of his Resurrection be eased of their affliction at his Death and Passion Then therefore he gave them the cordiall of comfort and they were after to feel this effect thâ—reof when it should have a comfortable operation in them which actually it had as soon as he arose from his grave and did appear alive again amongst them all according as he now foretold them he was to doe 35. There is some difficulty in the true meaning of this verse in regard Saint Matthew chap. 20. ver 19. and Saint Mark in his tenth chap. ver 46. both of them say this blinde man was cured by our Saviour as he went out of Jericho whereas Saint Luke here tells us it was done as Jesus went into Jericho again Saint Luke and Saint Mark make mention onely of one blinde man restored to his sight and yet Saint Matthew speaking of the same time and place tells us of two blind then and there cured by Jesus as he passed by them and heard them both in the same words as the other two Evangelists say one onely they called on him for cure saying Iesus son of David have mercy on me on us saith Saint Matthew but for reconciliation of these two different relations by the Evangelists we must recurre to our accustomed observation that Saint Matthew generally under takes to write the Story of our Saviours life most methodically and therefore since he from the verse 29. above cited to the verse 33. ending his said twentieth Chapter continues his Story in the plurall number we are to presume there were two blind men cured though here S. Luke mentions but one and though Saint Mark name that one to be Bartimaeus the sonne of Timaeus so called as Bartholomaeus is called the son of Tholomaeus Bar in Hebrew importing Son hence therefore we are to conclude there is no contradiction in the relation though it be more amply and intirely made by Saint Matthew than by the other Evangelists and as for the differing circumstances of the Miracle being done as Saint Luke here saith when our Saviour went into Iericho happily one of the Two was then cured and the other namely Bartimaeus when our Saviour came out again Saint Matthew and Saint Mark may relate the Story as perfected by a double cure in the exit of our Saviour from Iericho which S. Luke began with a single one in his entrance thither as if it were a continuation of one and the same cure exercised upon two severall persons one at the entrance the other at the exit of the City and so the circumstantialls of the cure make nâ— diversity therein all being but a restitution of sight to the blinde but whither Christ were going or coming restoring sight to one or two it makes no great matter the Miracle being of the same nature and equally shewing Christ to be God and all Evangelists agreeing they both believed alike and both petitioned in the same stile if there were two of them in fine as silence is no disproof nor contradiction to what another positively affirmeth so Saint Matthews positive affirmation stands good without any constradiction by the silence of Saint Mark and S. Luke to part of the Story
intrinsical flowing from the Deity The causes of this Fast were many As that thereby he might satisfie for Adams eating the forbidden Apple That his own humane Soul might be more apt to contemplation by this means That he might sanctifie the Lenten fast of forty days which he knew his Apostles would erect and deliver over for the Church to follow until the worlds end in imitation of this example he had given them When it is said That after forty dayes he was hungry this argues not but he might sooner have felt the want of meat however his divinity supplyed the defect thereof and when he was sensible of hunger afterwards it was not that he could no longer fast but to have the merit of being tempted against his holy purpose and of resisting that Temptation for our future instructions in like occasions 3. The Tempters approaching argues he came visibly in the shape of a man which he had assumed for Christ had his internals so regulated as likewise Adam by Original Justice had that he could not be tempted by any inward Suggestion against Reason nor was Adam what-ere he might have been so tempted but by Eve and she by a Serpent outwardly appearing When the Devil said If thou be the Son of God it argues he was doubtful of it for he had heard the voyce from heaven saying This is my beloved Son when Christ was Baptized as also he had heard how John the Baptist preached him to be the Messias the Son of God and yet seeing him appear to be a man and finding he was hungry as men are he tempts him to break his fast by the subtilty of telling him it would shew him to be the Son of God if he would turn stone into bread to satisfie his hunger 4. Excellent answer giving no advantage to the aggressor but repelling him rather by his own weapons turned upon him by holy Writ saying Man doth not onely live by bread but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God Deut. c. 8. v. 3. and what need he convert the stones to bread to manifest his power who with the least word of his mouth could feed the better part of man his Soul intimating thereby Prayer and Meditation to be as fit a food for the refreshment of a Christian as his daily bread the one enabling him to live eternally the other helping out a momentary breathing onely 5 6 7. The evil Spirit finding Gluttony to be no motive able to prevail with Deity flies to the medium that had wrought upon himself the Titillation of Ambition or Vain-glory when he said he would be like the Highest fondly thinking what prevailed with him in Heaven would work upon our Lord on Earth To be forsooth attended on by holy Angels though in an act of diabolical presumption Precipitation of himself from the pinacle of the Temple Too short a cloak to hide so large a sin as the Revenge thou aymest at beneath it Thou hadst thy self a Fall from Heaven down to Hell which thou wouldst now repay by giving Christ another from off the Temple where God is adored down to the ground where thy High Altar is when men adore low Creatures of the earth before their high Creator This this fond Serpent is thine aym to make thy God lye sprawling on the earth as thou dost lye in everlasting flames and this thou wouldst have done before the doors of all the holy Priests whose houses were about the Temple so to make them scorn and trample ore the God they had adored upon their holy Altars Alas how short is thy Serpentine wisdom of his that is eternal of his that sees thy specious pretexts are all deceits and tells thee so when he replies Thou shalt not tempt thy Lord thy God Deut. 6.16 How canst thou hope to Tempt hereafter any man to evil under shew of good this thou hast got to make poor man thy Master by ayming at the Mastery upon thy God To conclude by the Hands of Angels in this Text is understood their ayd for Spirits have no hands nor any other limbs or parts at all 8 9 10. Alas how poor a thing is Avarice to tempt a God withall say who is able first to give him any thing and it shall be restored Rom. 11. v. 35. Thus creatures seeme to uncreate their God in their foolish imaginations thinking him to be imperfect as themselves needy or indigent as they who yet hath made and given to the universe a being out of nothing But for the devill to presume God should adore him too for that he could not give this is a fondnesse not to be exprest as passing all imagination and so was best returned with a scorn of bidding the fond usurper know his distance go like a Lacquey at the heeles of his creator and well he was not yet reduc't to his first principle to nothing by an immediate annihilation It was indeed high time to tame his insolence when nothing but an homage due to God an Adoration would suffice him No devil no maugre thy pride Thou must adorâ— thy Lord thy God and he alone it is that thou and we and all the world must serve His are the Heavens and the earth is his and well it is thou art the Lacquey yet of him thou wouldst have Lorded over if thou couldst It is his greater glory to force thee to thy duty maugre thy proud heart then to deprive himselfe of what is good in thee thy being how bad soever thou art thy selfe and howsover despicablely miserable in that being too 11. Some doe doubt how Christ came backe to his desert of Quarentana when the devill was gone affirming the good Angels carryed him thither as the bad Angel had brought him thence but probably himselfe gave his own Divinity leave to doe that office to his body if yet we may not say it was the effect of his glorified soule and body too for they were both as glorious then as now Sure enough as soon as he was there the Angels as to their Lord and God came offering their attendance however this is for our comfort that after the devill hath tempted us if we resist we may hope the Angels will come to comfort us that need it since they did so to Christ who stood in no necessity thereof at all The Application 1. WE had the honour to be called into the field to day by the Lieutenant Generall the Priest of holy Church but we are led up to the Battaile by the Captaine Generall himselfe our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath already vanquisht all our enemies for as he dyed to conquer death and purchase us eternall life by dying so by his being tempted he secur'd us of the victory in our Temptations if we but resist the Temptor and persisting in our holy purposes Crown the Fast with our Perseverance therein such as Jesus in his hunger gave us an example of although not bound to Fast as we 2. It is a
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
Apostle sayes of it in termes namely to lye with their Mother in Law or Fathers wife which it seemes some one or more among the Corinthians did so openly practise that they even defended the fact or at least would not be reclaimed from it whence the Apostle orders them to be excommunicated and given as he saith v. 5. corporally over to Satan that so by this punishment their Soules may be reclaimed from that filthy sinne and saved Wherefore it is of this notorious vice by name and of all other whatsoever sort of sinnes the Apostle speakes here under the name of leaven which he would have the Corinthians to purge to cast out from amongst them for he had told them in the immediate Verse before how the least of Leaven would spoil a whole Batch of bread giving it a disrelishing taste and for this cause it was commanded in the old Law that when the Pascal Lamb was killed it should be eaten with bread purer and sweeter then ordinary such as was made without any leaven in it at all to give it the least disrelish to the taste and this Bread was by a special and proper name called Azymes which signifies unleavened bread and to this the Apostle alludes when he exhorts the Corinthians to purge out of their consciences all sin whatsoever as he insinuated when he wished them to cast out of their society by excommunication any one that should be scandalous in his life as it seems this both Adulterer and Fornicator was that kept his Mother in Law for his Concubine a sin the very Gentiles did abominate The literal Sence therefore of the Verse is exhorting the Corinthians and in them all us Christians that since our Pascal Lamb Christ Jesus is immolated sacrificed upon the Altar of the Cross for the sins of the people they and we also should remember as the Legal Pasche was to be eaten with pure and unleavened bread so the Spiritual Pasche Christ Iesus was at this Feast of Easter to be received with pure consciences clean Souls such as by Contrition Confession and Satisfaction had been purged from the old leaven of sin and more made a Spiritual Azyme or unleavened bread fit to be eaten with this Pascal Lamb this Blessed Sacrament that was now by special command of Holy Church to be received with a Christian Piety exceeding in all degrees that of the Ceremonial Law upon the onely Umbratil or Figurative Exhibition of this real Substance and Truth Besides it is worthy our remark in this place that all the Neophytes of the Primitive Church were brought in White Garments on the first Saturday after Easter to be Baptized and at the putting off their White Garments were to receive an Agnus Dei from the Bishop which was to hang about their necks down upon their Breasts in Testimony of an inward Purity of Conscience put upon their Souls at the casting off their outward Garments which were onely Figures of this Internal Candor of Conscience to this also alludes the Chrysome put upon the heads of those that are Baptized and the Candle given into their hands representing the Light of Grace to be their guides to Heaven whose Souls are pure and clean from sin Note that what we now call Pasche was originally called the Passover because it was a legal Lamb yearly commanded to be killed and eaten in memory of their preservations who had their Posts and Thresholds of their Doors sprinkled with the Blood of a Lamb as we read Exod. 12. v. 11. for a mark to shew the Angel whose houses he was to pass by or over without killing the First-born therein whereas else he was to spare none that had not the Blood of a Lamb upon their doors so by Allegory we now call Christ our Pascal Lamb because his Blood was shed to preserve from the Angel of darkness his Ireful Sword the First-born of Grace that is the Christians or the true Believers in Jesus Christ 8. And hence the Apostle in this next Verse exhorts the Corinthians and in them all Christians to make a Solemn Feast of Joy all this Paschal time that is all their life time for the seven Days of this Feast signifie all the days of our life and to feed now not upon old Leaven that is not upon pristin Infidelity And least hence it should be thought Faith alone were enough for a Christian to be saved by the Apostle addes we must not onely believe right which is to cast off the old Leaven of Infidelity but further we must do good Works and so cast off the Leaven of malice and wickedness also by taking in their places the Azymes the unleavened bread of good Works of Sincerity in our Actions of verity in our Words as the Badges of upright Christians that neither we dissemble with God nor with our Neighbour in thought word or deed but as we have vowed in Holy Baptism we shall make it good all the days of our life that so we renounce the World Flesh and the Devil and will be Loyal to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ loving him above all things as our heavenly Spouse and loving our Neighbour with all other Creatures but for his sake and in order to heavenly Conversation with Almighty God both in this world and in the next The Application 1. THe Expositors upon this Holy Text tell us it pointeth at our present Obligation to Celebrate the Feast of Easter by now Confessing and receiving the Blessed Sacrament that beeing purged thus from the old Leaven from the sinful Creatures we were formerly we may become the Saints we ought to be hence forward For though before our Saviour suffered for our sins he did converse with sinners yet now that he is risen from his Grave he hath not taken any sinner with him from the dead how then can living sinners hope to keep him company and how without him can we hope to live 2. O happy Christians in our Rising Christ who hath destroyed Death and given us a double Life by his once onely dying a Life of Grace to that we had of Nature so though we cannot hope to keep him company by living as to Nature which propends to sin and so to death yet we may hope by living as to Grace which leads to Vertue and so to everlasting Life to keep him company for all Eternity yes this may be our hope if with St. Paul each one of us can say I live now not I but Christ he lives in me 3. And thus no doubt it will be too if we can either keep what we have got in Lent the Magazine of Vertues requisite to Sanctifie that Fast and make us fitting for the present Feast or if we can but wish we had those Vertues and that we were able yet to make amends as yet we may for not acquiring them when they were easier to be had then now by reason of that Season more acceptable So good so gracious is Almighty God
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
exaltation when Saint Peter in his Epistle tels us we that are Christians are called to suffer with Christ who gave us example by his sufferings to follow his steps even unto death for him who did vouchsafe to dye for us And is not this the full sence of the Prayer As for the Gospell if we look with a regardfull eye upon it 't is but the same sence in other words for while it runs upon the nature of a Shepheard it never comes unto the hight of his commends untill it layes him low as death to save his sheep so still it drives to that abasement which is our exaltation and drawes us sweetly on to dye for him while it gives us an example of confidence that admits no fear because there is no security but in Trust and who can we trust more safely then him that knowes no guile our Saviour Jesus Christ who rather dyes in us then we can dye for him and if he dye it is that we may live and joy eternally with him that by his resurrection conquered death Thus do the sparkes of spirit flye from every letter of the Holy Text when they are strook against the steele of this dayes Prayer and thus the high dignity of Pastorate acquires a glory from the lowest stoop the Pastor makes even that to death so in a word our highest sanctity consists in our lowest humility as this dayes Prayer Epistle and Gospel do all avouch The Epistle 1 Pet. 2. v. 21 c. 21 For unto this are you called because Christ also suffered for us leaving you an example that you may follow his steps 32 Who did no sinne neither was guile found in his mouth 23 VVho when he was reviled did not revile when he suffered he threatned not but delivered himselfe to him that Iudged him unjustly 24 VVho himselfe bare our sinnes in his body upon the Tree that dead to sins we may live to justice by whose stripes you are healed 25 For you were as sheep straying but you are converted now to the Pastor and Bishop of your soules The Explication 21. SAint Peter had before advised to bear patiently not onely just punishments inflicted on the faithfull to whom he writ dispersed as they were some here some there of Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia but also to bear injuries with the like patience saying that to this Christians were called because Christ did suffer for us most unjustly leaving us example to doe the like if need were and as there were three causes which moved God to become man this last is one of them The first was by his death to redeeme us the second by his preaching to teach us the third by his example to draw us to imitate his sanctity of life And to this last the Apostle now chiefely exhorts in this place as we see by the following verse contrary to the Hereticks Doctrine who hold it needless Christ having dyed for our sinnes that man himselfe use any mortification or doe any penance at all 22. Nor could he do any because he was God as well as man and hence Calvins Doctrine teaching Christ was a reall sinner and that he was in regard of his sins afraid to dye and did sweat bloud for fear thereof were all most abominable blasphemies because though in Christ there were two natures humane and divine yet there was in him but one person so had that person sinned God had sinned as well as man since the actions are attributed to the suppositum or person not to the natures contracted by the person but see the Apostle mindes us that Christ was not onely free from sin of fact but also of word and consequently of thought which is by word expressed nor is this marvell since out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Matt. c. 12. v. 34. but certainly God was the most abounding in Jesus his heart and so his words were all holy he being the very word of the eternall Father to whom as nothing is more proper then veracity so nothing is more improper then falsity or dissimulation fraud or guile 23 As indeed he was reviled when they called him drunkard raiser of seditions blasphemer nay conjurer or devill as casting out devils in the devils name yet did not he revile those who used him so ill nor did he recriminate as commonly men doe that excuse their own sins by casting other mens faults in their dish though in pure charity we read in Saint Matthew cap. 23. How roundly he did rebuke the Jewes to see if by a temporall check he could preserve them from eternall paines of hell which is a far other aime then those use who excuse themselves by way of recrimination of others for their end is not charity but passion or revenge and when he might have terrified the Judges that unjustly did condemne him he did not give them the least threat but gave himselfe up to the hands of Pilate his unjust judge how farre short are we of following this example whose whole indeavors are in all our actions even in those that are unjust to justifie our selves whereas if we would follow Saint Bernards counsell we should finde a remedy for all evils and injuries done unto us in the passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 24. The Apostle here assimilates Christ to the Emissary Goat in Levit. cap. 16. v. 21. Sent out into the desert loaden with all the sinnes of the people and so Christ came into the desert of this world out of his Eternall Fathers heavenly Pallace carrying all our sinnes upon his shoulders though by sins here is not understood the fact or guilt thereof but the punishment due unto them by the tree is meant the Crosse of Christ whereon while he dies hee represents us to his heavenly Father as dead to sinne because he dyes for us and for our sins whereupon Saint Ambrose sayes divinely well c. It was not our Life but our Sinne which dyed when Christ our Saviour dyed upon the Crosse So we being dead by that meanes to sinne may live to justice that is in the sight of the just Judge may deserve Eternall life in heaven for living justly here on earth O Soveraigne Stripes which bruising Christs body do cure our Soules more ulcerated with sinne then his body was with stripes 25. Straying we were indeed from God from vertue from Salvation from heaven and running to the devill to vice to damnation to hell had not Christ our Shepheard â—â—duced us to his fold againe by converting us to an amendment of our lives and winning us to follow the Footsteps of our heavenly Pastor and Bishop of our Soules See Bishops are metaphorically called Pastors because as shepheards feed their sheep so do Bishops by Doctrine and example feed the soules of men but Christ is eminentially called both as feeding soules not onely by grace here but with glory in the next world The Application 1. HOw sweetly Holy Church
you shall receive or reap corruption But the common sense is that the fruit of carnality is disease corruption death damnation that of spirit vertue life everlasting glory and salvation 9. The Apostle here exhorts to a perseverance in doing good the Priest constantly continuing to teach the Lay to learn to relieve his teacher and to work according as he is taught as if incessant reward were not otherwise to be hoped but for incessant labour So as we may understand this in two sorts we shall reap in due time in the next world if we do not cease our labours in this or we shall even in this world reap incessant reward in due time for our labours here if we labour constantly and slack not our zeales since it is the end that crownes the work either with grace in due time here or glory in due time in the next world 10. That is whilest we have time to sow the seeds of good works let us do good to all people Christians or Heathens not onely to those we catechize though principally to Christians as being domesticals and of one house with us fellow servants in the Church of Christ the true house of God The Application 1. THe last Sundayes service and this do seem to be almost the same onely that was a more general Application to all mankind this to the chosen sort of men who make up the mystical body of Christ his holy Church Wherefore S. Paul in this Epistle makes his addresse particularly to the Priests and Pastours of our soules from the first verse to the end of the fifth at the sixth he begins to tell the sheep their duty to the shepherd and so continues to the end of the eighth verse in the two last verses he concludes with an exhortation to them of perseverance in their Christian duties bidding them do good to all men whatsoever but especially to one another to the domesticals of Faith to those who have not onely Christ their Father but do professe his holy Spouse the Church to be their Mother 2. We see by the Illustration above that the Priests office to us is double the one to cleanse us by administring the holy Sacraments unto us the other to defend us by preaching praying and offering up their daily sacrifices for us Hence we must conclude our duty consists in preparing our selves worthily for receiving those Sacraments from the hands of the Priests lest we incurr the censures of unworthy receivers no lesse then our own damnation if it be the Sacrament of the holy Altar that we do receive and if any other of them there hangs a curse at least upon all who perform the work of God negligently as all unworthy receivers of any Sacraments do or the negligent hearers of any Sermons or of Masse which is the sacrifice as well of the people as of the Priest and these are peculiarly indeed the works of God as being instituted by his sacred Son nay more they are the works of his continued mercy towards us and so surpasse all other his works whatsoever because we are told his mercy is above all his works 3. Hence the Priest is put in mind further then in the Explication above with what a holy intention attention reverence and zeal of soules he ought to administer any Sacrament and also how with the like regards he ought to preach or offer up his sacrifices thereby to comply with the trust of Sayntity which both God and man have put into his hands lest he incurr the odious brand of becoming like the people so the Priest for how ever both are sinners to God yet the Priests are set apart as Saints to the eyes of men and they peculiarly were those he bade be holy as himself was holy who made them dispensers of the mysteries of God unto the people Lastly hence the Lay-men are minded with what humility reverence fear and trembling yet with what confidence comfort obedience with what Faith what hope what love with what adoration with what zeal to God Almighties honour and glory they ought to receive the holy Sacraments to hear the Word of God to assist at the sacrifice of Masse which is not onely a commemoration but even a renovation a repetition in a mysterious way of our Saviours death and passion so they are to look upon the Priest going to the Altar with the same devotion as if they did behold our Saviour going to be crucified Now that both may do this our holy Mother prayes to day as above for that special gift of God that bounty whereby it is performable that ardent charity which sets on fire the world of flesh and makes it flye out into flames of holy love unto his heavenly Majesty for by this love it is that the Church militant is govern'd and by the same love God is glorified for all eternity in his Church Triumphant The Gospel Luk. 7.11 11 And it came to passe afterwards he went into a City that is called Naim and there went with him his disciples and a very great multitude 12 And when he came nigh to the gate of the City behold a dead man was carried forth the onely son of his mother and she was a widow and a great multitude of the City with her 13 Whom when our Lord had seen being moved with mercy upon her he said to her Weep not 14 And he came near and touched the Coffin and they that carried it stood still and he said young man I say to thee arise 15 And he that was dead sate up and began to speak and he gave him to his mother 16 And fear took them all and they magnified God saying that a great Prophet is risen among us and that God hath visited his people The Explication 11. THis was a fair Citie in Galilee within two miles of mount Thabor and so had the name of Faire for Naim imports as much This made the sadder funerall and the more gladsome miracle being in so vast so famous a City into which so great a multitude such a train of people followed our Saviour 12. This seeming chance to man of two such multitudes meeting those within and those without the City at the funerall was designed by God to render more authenticall the miracle God thereby more glorified and Christ the more beloved though it is to be noted that the Jews and Romans too had their burials alwayes out of the Cities unlesse rarely for Kings who were buried in the Citie of Sion David building a place for that purpose Note this onely sonne was also her onely child hence the mothers sorrow was greater to lose in him all the whole hopes of her house being a widdow of note and so past hopes of more of that family 13. By saying to her weep not he shewed his compassion of her sorrow was such that he meant to take away the cause of her tears by restoring her son to life again and so doubtlesse she believed when he
contracted through the frailtie of humane nature when Christ our Lord came to shew mercy and give pardon not onely to his own chosen people the Jewes but even to all the Gentiles to all sinners how enormous soever Tell me now beloved is it not with reason Saint Gregory calls the prayers of holy Church Sacraments Mysteries when they are set to the same tune that the mysterious Scripture sings unto the people out of the Preachers mouthes for such we may account the Expositours of holy Writ to be And what marvell if we finde the Antiphon leading the tune to the prayer to point at the latter of these two women rather then at the former since we have heard this was a Gentile that a Jew For hence we that are Gentiles are taught to pray peculiarly for pardon of our owne sinnes moved thereunto especially by the benignitie of our Lord who though he first called the Jew yet he first converted the Gentile because as this Antiphon tells us the Gentiles faith was stronger then the Jews and therefore the obstinate Jew shall not be converted till the latter day when we are to have onely one shepheard and one fold of sheep one Christian Church made up both of Jews and Gentiles and for that reason we do not distinguish in the prayer between them because as it is now onely our prayer to God so hereafter it will be theirs as well as ours without putting the Church to the trouble of a new prayer upon that occasion of increasing the number of her children And assuredly that happy time will come with the greater increase if we with fervour say this prayer in the mean time first for the amâ—ndment of our own lives and for the perfecting our selves as in this dayes Epistle Saint Paul exhorteth us and next for the conversion of the stiff necked Jews prefigured to day in the after reviving of Jairus his daughter from death to life though Christ went first about that worâ— when he had before cured the woman of her twelve years issue of bloud first indeed calling the Jew but last converting him as was said above And for further reason of applying this prayer thus to the other service of the day I remit the pious Christian to the Expositours upon the 20.21.22 verses of the following Gospell Suffice it here is enough to shew that the connexion of parts in holy Churches services hath not been wanting hitherto in some measure or other and out of that little I am able to find I doubt not but deeper souls more habituated to meditation then I am will retrive much more The Epistle Philip. 3. v. 17. c. 4. v. 1. c. Chap. 3.17 Be ye followers of me Brethren and observe them that walk so as you have our form 18 For many walk whom often I told you of and now weeping also I tell you the enemies of the Crosse of Christ 19 Whos 's end is destruction whose God is the belly and their glorie in their confusion which mind worldly things 20 But our conversation is in heaven whence also we exspect the Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ 21 Who will reform the body of our humilitie configured to the body of his glory according to the operation whereby also he is able to subdue all things to himself Chap. 1. Therefore my dearest brethren and most desired my joy and my crown so stand in our Lord my dearest 2 Euodia I desire and Syntiche I beseech to be of one mind in our Lord. 3 Yea and I beseech thee my sincere companion help those women that have laboured with me in the Gospell with Clement and the rest my coadjutours whose names are in the book of life The Explication 17. BE not onely followers of my words but of my actions for so he means by bidding them walk live as they do who follow the form of his Apostolical life and actions Happy instructions for the Priests to do themselves as they exhort others to do and in this shew they are truly ministers of the new not of the old law whence Christ bid the people hear believe and obey but not to do as they did themselves that Mat. 23.4 laid huge burdens on their neighbours shoulders and would not carry the least burden on their own Happy sheep that had now shepherds who would not onely let them out into the pastures but defend them from the wolves by loosing their lives rather then expose their sheep to danger as S. Paul did who in persecution gave his flock a pattern of constancy even to the death rather then he would not follow to a tittle his own form whereby he had taught them born in peace and persecution how to serve God 18. This verse again argues the Apostle reports to good life as well as to doctrine when he tells them here many live contrary to the rule he had framed for them for though they beleeve rightly yet they live they walke awry they keep not the direct path of perfection but follow wayes of their own invention and are to those so fondly wedded that rather then leave their own brainsick imaginations they will even deny what no reason can doubt of These are Schismaticks and Sectaries of whom the Apostle often warned the faithfull and now with teares in his eyes moves the Philippians to beware of them again and tells them they are so far from being Christians that they are enemies to Christ for so he means here by the Crosse of Christ And why his enemies Because they mangle his doctrine in pieces believing what they list thereof and rejecting what they please Of this sort were in those dayes Simon Magus who said Christ himself went off from the Crosse and onely left his picture hanging there and Cerinthus who would needs separate Jesus from Christ and teach that Jesus did indeed truly die and rise again from the dead but that Christ was impassible and so went off from the Crosse leaving Jesus there to die Thus while they invent foolish pieties they become blasphemously impious whence it was Saint Paul said 1 Cor. 2.2 He knew nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified to shew the fondnesse of those who would separate Jesus from Christ and deny Christ to have suffered at all whence he calls these the enemies not of Jesus nor of Christ but of the Crosse of Christ that is such as deny Christ to have been really and truely crucified For beating down of which the Church brought up the use of crucifixes erected in all places And those also who make such simple imaginations the ground of Libertinisme Saint Paul calls enemies to the Crosse of Christ those who teach austeritie of life and mortification to be needlesse under pretence that Jesus hath suffered all punishment due for sinne and so pâ—ofesse it a kinde of injurie and prejudice to our Saviours passion for any man since that time to use mortification 19. But see the Apostles judgement of such Sectaries while he sayes
their end is destruction And that you may know he means the Libertines above mentioned he tells you they are such whose God is their belly who worship Dagon not Jesus Christ who delight in venery and gluttony But see the sequel of such worldlings their glory sayes the Apostle is their confusion it shall fare with them as with their God Dagon it did 1 King 5.4 whose head and hands fell from him upon the approach of the Ark brought by the Philistaeans into the Temple of their God Dagon while the people rested themselves leaving this broken-God nothing but the trunk of his body to shew that the preservation of his sordid parts were rather a confusion then a glory to them whilest the instruments of glory the head and the hands betokening glorious resolutions and heroick actions were destroyed And indeed what so contemptible so uselesse as a man without hands or head so while Dagon was thus preserved he had reserved onely his infamy to be his future glory and this in token the Libertines that are his Adorers can expect no other end then what is infamous as this Let therefore such miscreants fear to come near the Christian Ark the Tabernacle of the holy Altar lest they be in the sight of God at least regarded but as Dagons ignominious Statue before the Ark. 20. See how farre S. Paul is removed from those sordid those earthly cogitations when he tells you his conversation is in heaven his thoughts are fixed on Almighty God and by this means teacheth us that ours should be so too the form or rule of Christianity being to meditate heavenly not earthly things and to hope for no good but what descends from heaven upon us whence we may expect to see our Saviour Jesus Christ coming to bring us at the latter day the superabundant reward of all our dayes spent here in a holy conversation 21. And see the manner how he will impart this reward declared in these words that follow by reforming the body of our humility when our abject vile and contemptible bodies shall become beautifull noble and glorious in the sight of God by having them reformed transfigured into another accidentall not essentiall form but remaining shaped as now they are they shall of corruptible become incorruptible of passible impassible of earthly celestiall of lumpish agile of dark lightsome and thus reformed or transfigured they shall be configured conformed also to the body of Christ his gloâ—y as who should say they shall be like or conformable to the glorious body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ So immensely doth he love man that in requitall of the humane nature which he took of us we shall take as it were divine nature from him while our bodies shall by heavenly glory be like to that of Christ which hath its splendour not as ours from a created but as his from an increated glory by the irradiation of his divinity through the cloud of our humanity there being no personall difference in Christ between God and man however his two natures differ as much as the creature doth from the Creatour And how this ineffable alteration is made the Apostle tells us in the close of this verse namely by that operation of Christ whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself Happy subjection to that power which glories to exalt what it is able to subdue and yet loseth not the glory of subduing death while it gives eternall life to our dead bodies and glory to our corruption Cap. 4. v. 1. It is indeed an apt rise he takes to incourage the Philippians in this fourth chapter to stand firm to his principles to his rules of good life which in the former chapter he sayes he framed for them when for their so doing they shall have the reward as above No marvell he calls them his dearest when he professeth they are his joy his crown the fruits of his labours which God will reward with the joyes of heaven and with a crown of glory which shall have in it a precious stone of speciall beauty for every soul he hath converted And by this we see besides the essentiall Beatitude which consists in seeing God those that are the means of others souls salvation shall have an accidentall glory given them as a particular reward due unto them not onely for every soul they have been a means to save but also for every good deed wrought by those souls who have followed the examples of Gods Saints but how that accidentall glory differs from the essentiall is hard to say the words we allow the things we know not See how he inculcates here perseverance in good works Stand persist continue my dearest sayes the Apostle as you have begun and then you make your selves and me happy indeed since it is the end that crowns the work so to begin well little avails without you persevere in well-doing unto the end 2. These were two remarkably famous women among the Philippians for saintity of life and for exhorting of people to the same by their good examples so the Apostle takes speciall notice of them thereby to incourage them to go on and others to follow their footsteps and lest their difference in the wayes of piety and devotion might make a division of minds in them he exhorts them to be of one mind to direct their devotions to one end of Gods glory onely for that is to be of one mind in our Lord not to affect singularity but solidity of devotion they being otherwise free enough from faction or discord of mind though some impertinently inferre hence they were at variance 3. It is left by Expositours uncertain who this dear companion was though all concurre he was some holy man whom also S. Paul here exhorts as he did holy women before but sure enough it is not his wife though some hereticks will have it so yet without all ground since the Apostle in another place professeth he was not married but commends those who remained single as himself was Neither doth it follow that women in those dayes did preach the Gospel as well as men though here the Apostle sayes Euodia and Syntiche did labour with him in the Gospel did suffer for their faith for their belief in Jesus Christ and for following the doctrine of the Gospel and did incourage all others to do the like by harbouring the Apostles and by relieving those Christians that were in want O that the Ladies of these dayes would give Priests occasion by following the examples of these two Ladies to record their holy memories as the Apostle hath done those of these two pious women Clement here mentioned is the same who was the fourth Pope succeeding Cletus who had Linus for his predecessour that was S. Peters immediate successour The close of this Epistle is liable to misconstruction some make it the ground of their errour saying that those who are once in grace can never fall from thence and
in this with a mighty authority of Fathers so 't is no weak assertion I hope of mine nor any ill-grounded recommends being thus supported O Beloved what an ineffable dignity doth this set upon these Prayers What an Emolument may we bring to our selves by saying them in such society What a vast Treasure of devotion shall we find wrapt up in them In fine what a supine negligence shall it be in us not to avail our selves of this devotion which without envie I may say is such as none that is vocall can equall it and which yet I have aymed to contrive into so short a method as shall not hinder us from any other pious exercises whatsoever onely let me beg this favour of our Sodality to ranke this way of prayer in the number of those duties towards Almighty God whereof it is truly said Mat. 23. ver 23. Haec oportet facere These things we ought to doe which yet shall nothing clash with what followes truly averrable of other Devotions to Et illa non omittere Those we need not omit for using these Not that I affirm we must of necessity say this Trinity of Prayer which here I have suggested to deserve the Title of good Christians or of Trinitarians as some from hence may call us but that I mean we must prefer the publike prayers of holy Church before all others whatsoever And truly since the first of these three Prayers will by this Book appear to bee an Abstract both of the Epistle and Gospel of the day rather than I shall attribute this devotion to my own Invention I will conceive it was the pristine practice of the Church because the very nature of the Piety is such as seems to draw its source from the better fountaines of devotion than any I can lay claim unto namely the zeals of the Antient Fathers of the Church True it is I can not positively say it was so but thus much I need not scruple to avouch That as the Epistles and Gospels are the expresse Doctrine of our blessed Saviour or of his Apostles as where S. Paul sayes Non Dominus sed ego Not our Lord but I c. 1 Cor. Chap. 7. so the Churches publike Prayers are the speciall Dictates of the Holy Ghost that is to say the avowed suggestions of that Holy Spirit which avowment our private praiers do want though whether the blessed spirit were resolv'd The holy Fathers who made these Publick Prayers should with reflection frame them suiteable to this Designe which I now draw them to that is more than I dare venture to affirme but certainly that holy Spirit did suggest unto the Pastors of the Church a stile so proper and so deep withall as might sound the lowest bottome of the Sea of holy Writ and so exhaust even the abstrusest sence thereof which whether I have alwayes done I know not but I beleive the meanest understanding will perceive I often make the Collect expresse the substance of the whole Epistle and Gospel of the day and where I come not home to this 't is rather that I see it not than that the Prayer extends no further or suits no better unto this Design suffice it now the door is open that stronger-sighted soules may see much farther into the Paradise of this Devotion than I have done and shew the world much rarer fruit therein To me the Honour is too much that I have made a great Attempt which is to render that Book sweet and easie wherein we may presume the Holy Ghost directed the Composers of it for the publick use of the Layety the Primmer I mean whose Prayers I hope henceforward will be found as sweet as they are sound and not so hard as to be laid aside for either barren or too deep to be understood by the common People The Hymmes whereof I conceive are lately made so smooth so eloquent and yet so easie too in the Manuell lately printed at Saint Omers that every one who can but read the English Tongue will find them very pleasing The Lessons I shall explicate in my second Tome of this Christian Sodality which I intend to Publish next following the like method as here I hold in this upon all the Feasts of our Lord as also upon those Festivals of his ever Blessed Mother the Virgin Mary those especially which allude to any Mystery of our Redemption As to the particular Feasts of other Saints I shall spare the labour to write upon them in this method but shall recommend them for daily Garnishing or Sawces to the Dishes added now and then as they occurre to the constant Table of the Churches Sundayes and weekly food out of the Epistles and Gospels of the Season First Because the Prayers we use to Saints are cheifly addrest to God by the merits of his sacred Son as in the close of every Prayer appeares ending still Through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen Secondly Because the particular honour we give to Saints must never interrupt the generall duty we owe to God at all times and upon all occasions Thirdly Because I find these Prayers have rather a Report to the Martyrologe or Stories of Saints lives and deaths than to the Epistle and Gospel of the day in regard one and the same Epistle and Gospel is common to divers Saints yet we may piously beleive those Saints whom then we serve have served God in their life time by being eminent in such perfections as the Epistles and Gospels read upon their Feasts doe recommend unto us all Neverthelesse I shall in my second Tome set out the Communion of Saints in such order as I intend to doe the Feasts of our Lord and of his sacred Mother that by this meanes the Layety may see in generall at least the severall Degrees of Saintity in Holy Church as those of Angels Apostles Martyrs Confessors Virgins and Widdowes whence they may easily distinguish the particular Proportion of every particular Saint as his or her Feast occurres in that line of Perfection which the common Glasse of Saintity shall represent As for the like regard I intend lastly in my second â—ome to add the Communion of Vigils the Embers and Rogation Dayes in this self-same method as these above because my third â—ome else of Lent will be too long if set forth after this manner there being six and thirty feriall Dayes in Lent besides the Sundayes already published in this first Tome and every day hath as well a particular Antiphon and Prayer as a particular Epistle and Gospel proper to it self whereof divers are very long besides those four long Gospels of the four Evangelists read all at length in Holy week which will swell this third Tome to a mighty bulk being done in this method where every verse is particularly gloss'd and by this meanes I shall render as much Scripture easie to the people as will occurre in the flux of the whole year which is the cheifest motive I have to give
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
of pennance unto remission of sins as it is written in the Book of the sayings of Isaiah the Prophet 4. A voice of one crying in the Desart prepare the way of our Lord make straight his paths 5. Every valley shall bee filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low and crooked things shall become straight and rough wayes plaine 6. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God The Explication 1. BY Tetrarch we are here to understand a Commander of the fourth part of the kingdome of Paleâ—â—ina equally divided by the Roman Emperours into four Provinces and those committed to the care of four chief Commanders called Tetrarchs The reason why the Evangelist is here so exact as to specifie Tiberius the Roman Emperour and all the four temporall Commanders under him of â—alestina divided as above into four Provinces as also the spirituall Commanders which were the High Priests of Ierusalem at the time of Iohn the Baptists preaching and pointing out our Saviour Iesus Christ to be the Messias or Redeemer of all mankinde was because the verity of our Saviours birth death and passion should be left to after ages as a truth so abundantly testified that never any doubt should be rationally made thereof since all that are here named had some remarkable hand in the passages of our Saviours life and death as namely Tiberius the Emperour who was so taken with the reports of our Saviours singular sanctity of life and miracles that hee contended mainly to have him placed among the Roman gods but failed in the attempt by divine Ordinance because it had been an Indignity for him that was the onely true God of all the world to have obtained an after-place among the Idols and false gods of the Romans Pilate as having condemned Christ to be crucified Herod Antipas for having unjustly committed to prison Iohn the Baptist the fore-runner of Christ because he reprehended him for marrying Herodias wife to his brother Philip so these two brothers are brought in upon one account Lastly Lysanias because he about that time did endeavour to recover the Kingdome of Iudea for Antigonus in casting out Hircanus made King thereof by the Roman Emperour and Herod for backing Hircanus against Lysanias in the quarrel as above was by Augustus Cesar and Anthonie his colleague preferred to the crown of Iudea with the exclusion of the said Hircanus from that crown these four principall Commanders being men famous in the world at that time and having all notice of our Saviours prodigious miracles they are recorded as Testimonies beyond all exception of the truth thereof 2. As also were the two Priests Annas and Caithas ' whereof the latter was then and all the three years of our Saviours preaching high-Priest before whom he was first convented after he had been by Judas betrayed into the hands of the Jews that conspired his death and 't is here specially remarked that in the conjunction of these above named circumstances the word of our Lord the divine Command fell upon John the Baptist Son to Zachary in the desart that he should preach the coming of our Saviour and baptize in water to shew that he was the fore-runner of him who afterwards was to baptize in spirit Christ Jesus but whether this command this word of God came to the Baptist by some Angell or an expresse Messenger from heaven or onely by an internall Inspiration to John himself so to doe is not certain neither is it much materiall since either way gave Authority enough as appeared by Christ so solemnly avowing him afterwards 3 4. Besides the coming of John the Baptist into the Country of Jordan was foretold we see by the Prophet Isaias as in these three following verses doth clearly appear By his preaching the baptisme of pennance unto remission of sinnes is not understood that remission of sinnes was had by Iohn's but should be had by Christ his baptism So Iohn did onely by preaching pennance dispose to the receiving remission of sins which was given by the baptisme of Christ for originall and by the Sacrament of Confession for all actuall sin and Iohn for this preaching is called a voyce of one crying in the desart c. 5. Note this Verse as spoken now by Iohn the Baptist is not so much propheticall of what shall be done hereafter as exhorting to what is fit for the present to doe since he came to prepare the way for Christ rather than to foretell what should be done by him or by us after him so this Future tense is here to be understood as a command or counsell in the Present tense as if he should say Let every valley be filled every hill made levell c. So to even the way for the King of Heavens coming since upon Kings approaches such preparations are usually made to shew the duties and zeals of Subjects laying themselves and all they have levell at the feet of their Soveraign whence by Valley here understand the dejected by Mountain or Hill the proud Soul by Crooked understand wicked by Rough stubborn by Plain gentle Souls and then take the Morall thus That if we will shew our selves loyall and loving subjects to Christ and prepare his wayes for him as Iohn the Baptist exhorteth we must raise up our dejected and suppress our proud thoughts we must streighten our crooked and even our rough wayes by confessing our sins so to make him see he shall not come amongst rebellious and refractory subjects but finde us ready to conform or ply our selves alwayes and to all purposes by his holy Grace according to his sacred will and pleasure 6. The genuine sense of this last Verse is also by the same trope of the future to make an exhortation to us in the Present tense as if the Evangelist or the Prophet Isaias spake now in the Baptists name and let all flesh that is every man see not onely with the eyes of his Soul or understanding but with those of his Body the Salvation of God namely the Messias God and Man our Saviour Iesus Christ either in his Person living in the Sacrament of the Altar or on his Throne of Judgement at the latter day or as he is now in the midst of you that doe not take notice of him see I tell you I am his forerunner sent before him to point him out unto you and that done to recede that you may not longer be diverted from looking towards himself by deceiving your selves as you doe to think I am the Messias No I must be diminished cut off and set out of your way though upon another seeming pretence namely Herodias her malice to me for speaking against her unlawfull Marriage age but indeed to give way that Christ may be exalted in yours and in all the worlds esteeme as it is fit and absolutely necessary it should be according as I tell you Iohn 3. ver 30. He must encrease and I be diminished Note though now as these
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
to them that hearing me speak they may come after me or you to know the meaning of what I said and so to increase in them their zeals by little and little opening their eyes and understandings and this may I hope suffice for a sufficient exposition of the two Verses Now to the Parable and Explication thereof as our Saviour himself delivered it to his Disciples that thereby the Faith they had in him before might be increased when they see how much solidity of clear Doctrine and true Piety was couched under his parabolicall expressions 5. 11 12. As to the fifth or eleventh and tweltfth verses for these are in sense all one as our Saviour himself declares in the very letter of the Texts we are therefore onely to give a reason why the Word of God is compared to seed of Corn sowed in the fields and we shall finde as many reasons for it as there are Analogies between the Seed and the Word the Sowing the one and Preaching the other as first because the Word of the Preacher is cast into the ears of his Auditory out of the Pulpit as the Seed is cast over all the ground by the sowing Seeds-man Secondly as the Word links from the Ear of the hearer into the Heart so the Seed descends by degrees from the surface or superficies of the earth into the bowels thereof Thirdly as Seed is the Mother of all Fruits so the Word of God is the Parent of all good Works Fourthly as the Earth without Seed brings forth nothing but weeds bryars and brambles so Man without the Word of God brings forth nothing but futility vice and vanity Fifthly as Seed requires soft manured and tilled ground to grow in so the Word of God must finde gentle rich and mortified Souls to fructifie upon Sixthly as Seed requires moisture and sun to bring it forth so the Soul requires the tears of sorrow for our Sins and the Son of Justice his heat of Grace to make the Word of God fructifie in mans heart and bring forth Acts of love to God Seventhly as the Seed in the Earth must first dissolve and die before it spring so must the Word of God be ruminated upon by meditation and procure in us a death to the world before we can find in our selves the spring of living in Gods favour Eighthly as the Seed must first take root then sprout up branch into leaves and boughs next blossome and then knit into a fruit so the Word of God must first enter deep into our hearts then rise by holy cogitations branch it self into variety of good desires blossom into Religious resolutions at last knit it self up into the knot of good Works which are the fruits of our lives Ninethly as the force and vertue of all fruits is contracted into its Seed so the force of all our good Works is lodged in the Word of God Tenthly as diverse seeds bring diverse fruits so diverse sentences of Scripture bring forth diverse Vertues in our Souls Eleventhly as to the child of fruit are required two parents the Seed as the male and the Earth as the female so to the Children of Vertues are required the Word of God and his holy Grace Lastly as from the best Seed man preparing his ground with most industry proceeds the best Crop of Corn so from the best chosen Texts delivered by the best Preachers those that use the most diligence in preparing and making soft the hearts of their penitents towards God proceed the best fruits of Vertue and good Works here as unto the best Saints to serve as fruits for a Heavenly banquet in the next World Now we see the meaning of the seed let us examine the reasons why these severall effects follow upon the severall grounds the Seed falleth on First that falling on the high-way cannot enter to take root for growth and consequently lying open to be both trodden to pieces by passengers and pecked up by birds must needs be like to so much cast away such is the Word of God as Saint Matthew sayes Heard but not understood because the hearer doth not ask his spirituall Adviser the meaning of what is told him but pretends to be satisfied therein when indeed he carries away the onely empty sound of words but is wholly ignorant of the sense through his own lazinesse in not asking the meaning thereof and consequently what is thus ignorantly received is not understood and by that means makes no entrance into the heart of the hearer so is trodden to pieces even by our own trampling over it whilst we run from Sermons as if we had never heard a word of what the Preacher said unto us which indeed is commonly their case that come to Church for curiosity to hear Humane Eloquence not Divine Preaching to see and to be seen not to hear their faults and amend them to laugh indeed at the Preacher if he please not the pallate of their fancy or curious ears as those did to whom for that very reason Christ spake Parables not clear sense and to such as these be the Preachers words never so clear never so easie they sound as Parables in his ears whose own distracted minde robs him of the faculty of understanding what he hears and though such men seeme to come to God when they appear in Churches yet in very truth their coming is to the Devill in Gods House and no marvell then he carry them and their understandings away with him lest hearing that is intelligently hearing they believe and believing plow up the high-way their hearts with acts of Love and so render the Corn the Word of God capable to sink into their Souls and take root to their emolument indeed to their Salvation as Text the speaketh 6. 13. The first reason of the Corn failing to grow was the want of sinking into the earth now it fails though sunk because it wants moisture by incountring a stony or rocky ground which is onely covered with a shallow superficies of earth and cannot receive moisture enough to carry the Corn deeper into the ground and to root it there This place alludes to schismaticks whose petrifying hearts whose cold affections to God turn all they hear of him how ever they believe it to be true into rocks and stones into sterility and barrenness of Soul and hence rather than suffer the least temporall losse for Gods sake they hazard to loose themselves eternally A clear place to covince Hereticks by that Faith alone is not sufficient without good Works to save them and that Souls though once in the Grace of God may nevertheless loose his favour and the Kingdome of Heaven too 7. 14. The second reason of failing was for want of ground to take sufficient root and to cherish the Seed in both which may seeme to be defects of intrinsecall requisites now this third reason points at what is extrinsecally necessary and rather at defects of redundance than of want because the
we lack but also whatsoever we can rationally ask of him who is no niggard of his favours and while the blind man askes his sight we may conceive he askes as much as his life too for a blind man is like a visible death to all other men and a sensible one unto himself since he can feele misery on all sides but see comfort no way to which purpose see Tobias Cap. 5. ver 12. and heare Saint Ambrose Uti tristes sunt c. As the day without Sun-shine is but sad and the nights without Moone-light not so pleasing so is the life of man deprived of the light of his body his eyes for they the Sunne and Moone are as it were the eyes of the world and without their lustre the heavens themselevs do suffer a deformity of blindnesse And S. Austine upon this place saies Tota igitur vita c. Our whole lifes exercise therefore is but to cure this eye of the heart to this end hath Almighty God instituted all the holy Mysteries to this end is the word of God preached to this end tend all Ecclesiastical exhortations c. Let us therefore all cry out O Lord give us the light of Grace to see the turpitude of sinne the vilitie of concupiscence the exilitie of pleasure the atrocity of hell fire the beauty of virtue the happinesse of Paradise the eternity of Glory Amen 42. No marvel our Saviour gave so speedy a reward to so strong a Faith the cause taken once away the effect must needs cease the cause of this corporall blindnesse was spirituall coecity the blind-mans infidelity which taken away by Faith he enjoyes immediately his corporall sight and so hath the effect gone upon surcease of the cause nor need we scruple to make this exposition when our Saviour saies in expresse termes This mans Faith was his cure for if so then Infidelity was his disease 43. We cannot read this story without being moved to imitate the gratitude of the blind man in giving thankes for the benefit received as we shall be forward enough to imitate his importunity in calling to God for help in our necessities and what was his gratitude his following our Saviour magnifying and praysing of him as also did all the people that were witnesse to the benefit received that we would our selves thus testifie our own gratitudes thus get all the world to help us expresse our thanks for such benefits as they all see we receive daily and hourly from almighty God since we have an assurance if we goe as farre with him as this blind man did to his passion to his Cross to his death to his grave he will raise us with him to a new life of grace here and to an eternall life of Glory in the next world The Application 1. AS it was this blind mans Faith that made him corporally whole so was it his love and charity that made him spiritually sound that did shake off the Fetters of his affection to sinne and kept him by that meanes from all adversitie while it fastned him to the purchaser of all prosperity our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ 2. It was indeed his Charity that made him leave all other company to follow Jesus and to magnifie his Deity by proclaiming his mercy in having delivered him from misery And whither did he follow him To Hierusalem to his Passion to his Death to his Sepulcher 3. O lively Faith that did not die in this poor man when Jesus dying for him left even his Apostles tottering in their Faith O burning Charity that like a flaming lamp hung ore the Sepulcher of Jesus dead and buried Adoring then and magnifying the Divinity which never did forsake the sacred corps of Christs Humanity though his living soul had left his dead body in the grave O admirable way to shake off the shackles of sinne and to keep us free from all adversitie thus firmely to believe thus ardently to love and so to follow Jesus from his grave into his glory O for this purpose well adapted Gospel of Faith to an Epistle of Charity O well adjusted Prayer as above to both On the first Sunday of Advent The Prayer called the Collect. ROwse up we beseech thee O Lord thy power and come away that from the emiâ—ent dangers of our sinnes thou protecting we may deserve to be freed and thou delivering us we may be saved Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen So end all Prayers The Prayer called the Secret MAy these Sacrifices O Lord by their powerfull vertue bring us cleansed and more pure unto their purifying fountain The Prayer called the Post-Communion LEt us receive O Lord thy mercy in the midst of thy Temple that we may prepare for the future solemnities of our reparation with congruous homages On the second Sunday of Advent The Prayer ROwse up our hearts O Lord towards preparing the wayes of thy onely begotten Sonne that by his coming amongst us we may deserve to serve thee with purified Souls The Secret VOuchsafe O Lord to be appeased by our humble Prayers and Offerings and whereas we have no title of merit succour us with thine own supplyes The Post-Communion BEing filled with the food of Spirituall Almes we humbly beseech thee O Lord that by the participation of this Mystery thou wilt teach us to contemn Earthly and to love Heavenly things On the Third Sunday of Advent The Prayer LEnd we beseech thee O Lord thine ear unto our Prayer and enlighten the darknesse of our minde with the Grace thy Visitation The Secret MAy the sacrifice O Lord of our Devotion be continually offered up both to perform the precepts of this sacred Mystery and admirably in us to produce thy saving work The Post-Communion VVEe implore O Lord thy clemency that these Divine helps may expiatâ— our sinnes and prepare us to the future solemnities On the fourth Sunday of Advent The Prayer O Lord we beseech thee raise up thy power and with thy mighty vertue come away to our succour that by the help of thy Grace what our sins retard the indulgence of thy propitiation may accelerate The Secret ORdain O Lord we beseech thee being by these present sacrifices appeased that they may avail to our Devotion and Salvation also The Post-Communion HAving received thy bounties we beseech thee O Lord that by frequentation of thy Mystery the effect of our salvation may increase On Sunday within the Octaves of the Nativity The Prayer OMnipotent Sempiternall God direct our actions in thy good pleasure that in the name of thy beloved Son we may deserve to abound in good Works The Secret GRant we beseech thee Omnipotent God that the offering which we have made in the eyes of thy majesty may obtain us the grace of holy Devotion and bring unto us the effect of a blessed Eternity The Post-Communion BY the operation of this Mystery may O Lord our sins be purged and our just desires be accomplished On Sunday within the
his wife wholly and solely to his own single use and by businesse is not here understood traffique bargaine sale law or the like but properly that businesse which is betweene man and wife their mutuall accompanying one another in the Act of wedlock because our Lord will in a particular way revenge and commonly he doth it by some curse upon the children of Adulterous parents this wrong for as much as it is a speciall abuse to God to violate the Faith of marriage bed since by the Sacrament of marriage is represented the union betweene Christ and his spouse the holy Church and consequently since for that reason men are bid to love their wives as Christ doth love his Church and wives their husbands as the Church loves Christ so to violate the signe of this holy union is to attempt an adultery even betweene Christ and his holy spouse since they who are disloyall to their marriage bed can no more be what they are appointed by God for representers of Christ his fidelity to holy Church and of the Churches loyalty to him 7. See how the Apostle closeth this subject with a generall addresse to all Christians that chastity is a vertue they all must practise more or lesse and since in particular the Gentiles were noted for huge licentiousnesse and liberty in their lustfull wayes he requires of Christians a speciall study of the vertue contrary thereunto namely of purity and chastity as a distinctive signe from Gentilisme and a peculiar badge of Christianity whence it is that as all Gentiles in the primitive Church before they were reconciled had particular instructions to forgoe their former uncleannesse and were made by Baptisme to renounce the world the Flesh and the Devill so we see it is still continued a rule in holy Church that all who are new converted from Infidelity to the true faith of Christ and all Infants as soone as they are borne are by the voices of their Godfathers and Godmothers to make the like renunciation and to enter a solemne Covenant with Almighty God of purity and Sanctification to shew they renounce the soule feind their former parent and adhere to Almighty God the fountaine of Purity and Chastity and that peculiar vertue of Sanctification is it the Apostle here sayes all Christians are called unto The Application 1. THe grand designe of finishing by good works the Purification we aime at by this Lenten fast is closely carried on to day by the recommended work of chastity from the very beginning to the end of this Epistle 2 Now because we are not onely unable of our selves to compasse this vertue but have further huge interiour and exteriour temptations against it and are for the most part more propense naturally to the sin of the flesh then to any other vice whatsoever 3. And lastly because the breach of Chastity exposeth us more to corporal adversities then the violating other vâ—â—â—ues do which violation we are yet often tempted unto by evil that is to say by unclean cogitations Therefore as least able of our selves to compass this Vertue of Chastity necessary for rendring our Fast compleat and our Souls purified thereby We pray for it most properly as above much as on S. Josephs day we pray That what our Possibility cannot obtain namely Chastity may be granted us by his Intercession The Gospel Matth. 17. v. 1 c. 1 And after six dayes Jesus taketh unto him Peter and James and John his brother and bringeth them into a high mountain apart 2 And he was transfigured before them And his face did shine as the Sun and his garments became white as snow 3 And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with him 4 And Peter answering said to Jesus Lord it is good for us to be here if thou wilt let us make here three Tabernales one for thee and one for Moses and one for Elias 5 And as he was yet speaking behold a bright cloud overshadowed them And lo a voyce out of the cloud saying This is my well-beloved Son in whom I am well pleased hear ye him 6 And the disciples hearing it fell upon their face and were sore afraid 7 And Jesus came ond touched them and he said to them Arise and fear not 8 And they lifting up their eyes saw no body but onely Jesus 9 And as they descended from the mount Jesus commanded them saying Tell the vision to no body till the Son of man be risen from the dead The Explieation 1. IT was six dayes after Christ had told his Apostles and the people that some of them who were then in his company should not dye before they had seen him in his Kingdom Thus ended the sixteenth Chapter of S. Matthew yet S. Luke recounting the story of Christs Transfiguration sayes it was eight dayes after our Saviour foretelling his passion told them That some there present should see him in his Kingdom before they dyed here seems a contradiction where one sayes eight the other six dayes after but both are true in their several senses for S. Luke includes the day in which this was spoken and that on which Christ was transfigured S. Matthew speaks onely of the six dayes between spent by Christ in teaching and preaching as he went that twenty leagues between Caesarea Philippi the place where he spake this and Mount Tabor whither he went to fulfil his saying So that although many conceive diversly in the true sense of what Christ meant by his Kingdom which some will have to be his Churâ—h others his Resurrection others his Ascension whereof many then present were witnesses yet the most probable opinion is that he meant by his Kingdom this very mystery of his Transfiguration wherein he shewed the Apostles in a transient passage a glimmering of that permanent glory he was to raign in for all Eternity in his Kingdom of Heaven for having before declared he was to dye it was fit he should give them a testimony he was nevertheless the Ever-living God and for this purpose he did in this glorious manner appear unto them so that they seeing him thought they were in heaven and consequently having seen him thus glorious once could not lose their Faith but that he would assuredly rise again from death to life which yet few could give credit unto when once they see him dead and buried The reason why he took these three Apostles onely was to shew he had special regard to each of them more then ordinary to Peter as the head of all the rest to James as honored with the Title of our Saviours Brother for being like him in person and so left his successor at Jerusalem where James was the first Bishop after Christ his death and first Martyr of the Apostles to John as his favourite being known by the title of that Disciple whom Jesus loved These three therefore Christ singles out and carries them into a high Mountain called Thabor near to Nazareth where Christ was
any legall servitude imposed on man as punishment of his sins against God for this servitude tooke hold on the Individuals of humane nature not of the nature it selâ—e and since our Saviours Individuall person was one with that of God the second person of the Blessed Trinity he was not a Servant by any legall servitude falling on his person and so even his humane nature though servile as a creature was not yet servile as a sinfull man because he had not the least guilt of sinne in him and thus we see in captives humane nature is no slave though the man that is taken be made so when then we say humane nature was corrupted in Adam we doe mean every childe of Adam received a contagion or corruption from him and yet humane nature in the line of a creature to God was not corrupted so as to be a less perfect creature then it was before for that had been to corrupt the Essence not the Persons of mankinde whereas sin onely corrupted his State and not his Essence the Persons contracting Humane Nature and not the Nature of man it self for if so Christ being man made of that Humane Nature must have been corrupted in that nature at least which yet he was not By the Similitude of man in this verse we are to understand literally the external shape of man not the accidental or phantastical as the Hereticks said but the substantial and real shape though St. Augustine takes it here as for the predicament of habit which consists in Garments or Clothing and likens Christs Humanity to be as a Garment covering his Divinity or as Iron is made fiery or as Gold is made a Statue and even in that Sence the thing is as true as it is ingeniously expressed by St. Augustine By being made as man is not to say onely like man and not to be truly such but like here signifies to be so like as it is the very same as if a Statue should from a dead Stone be made move as a man moveth eat as a man eateth speak as a man speaketh why still by every one of these gradations the Statue becomes more like a man then it was before and when at last it had all the Faculties of a man it became as man indeed that is to say not onely like but really and truly man In this Sence our Saviour was said to be as man as if we said though he were truly God yet he did not appear to be so but appeared onely to be as man which truly he was as well as he was God 8. This humility was not an Act of God the Son to God the Father for so there is no commanding Power in the one over the other but of his Humanity both to his own Divine Person and to his heavenly Father too by dying on the Cross in vertue of this command Christ did humble himself as low as could be in regard no death was so vile and contemptible as that on the Cross was in the esteem of man in those days though since even for reverence no man is executed in that kinde so Christs Humility made this contempt become reverentiall 9. For the which Act of Humility and Obedience God hath exalted him his Humanity for his Deity could not be exalted and given him a name Here we are to note Calvins pervisity who took such a hatred against the Church for the Doctrine of merit that he hence denied Christ the honour of meriting this Exaltation by his Humiliation but says that for which is to be taken consecutively or consequently not causally as who should say after his Humility God rewarded him by exalting of him but not for his Humility or for the merit thereof which yet is an abominable Impiety and Heresie whereas we allow Christ by his Death not onely to have merited for mankind redemption whereof himself had no need who was from his first Conception Blessed by his Hypostatical Union but even for himself the Glory of his Body and the endowments of a glorious Body the highest place in Heaven above Saints and Angels nay the very setting at the right hand of God the Power to Judge all the world and the dominion over Heaven and Earth which were not onely due to him as united to his Deity but as merited by his Passion further he merited to have a name that is above all names and such a name it was when Christ was called God and the Son of God the name of the Messias so famous in this world lastly the name of Jesus and Redeemer of all mankinde which name though it were given him in circumcision yet it was not divulged to all the world till he was crucified so then he was truly said to have merited that name of Saviour and many times names are given to foretell what such men will merit before they dye thus was the Blessed Name of Jesus given to Christ foretelling how richly he would deserve to be called Saviour of the world 10 In the name of Jesus every knee shall bow because this name is greater then ever any other was for Jehovah which signified God creating and was the greatest that ever had before been heard of is not so great as God redeeming and that is meant by the name of Jesus whence the Church boldly says it had nothing availed us to be born unless to have been redeemed had made our birth availing to us So it is a greater abuse to blaspheme the name of Jesus then the name of God because God gave us more Grace and Benefit by our Redemption then he did by our Creation and Jesus includes both God and Saviour which God alone doth not whence the very Angels who were not redeemed bow their knees to the name of Iesus as convertible with that of God and therefore all mankinde hath much more reason so to do for the Devils they would refrain to honour it perhaps if they could but as it is they cannot since if no otherwise they must adore Man in the Person of God ever since Iesus took Humane Nature upon him 11. And every tongue not onely all Nations upon the Earth first or last shall confess that our Lord Iesus is in the Glory of his Father but every tongue of Angels and Devils as well as of Men and by saying he is in the glory of God the Father is understood more then that he sâ—tteth at his right hand namely that he is equal in Glory to God the Father since Iesus is not onely Man but joyntly God withal So that the summity or highest pitch of Iesus his praise is indeed this that the Man Iesus being God as well as Man is though as man much inferiour yet as God even equal to the Heavenly Father in Glory Power Majesty Goodness and all the other Attributes Divine which are given to Almighty God The Application 1. MOrtification Prayer and Alms-Deeds Perseverance in good Purposes The Fear of God and Holy Poverty were
that where there wants a will a wish sufficeth Say then beloved can you wish at least ability to rise from Death of Sin into the Life of Grace O wish it then for shame and wishing Pray as above with Holy Church that having had from God the grace of such a wish he will vouchsafe to prosecute it in you till you come thereby to such a Glory as you cannot wish to have a Greater The Gospel Mark 16. v. 1 c. 1 And when the Sabbath was past Mary Magdalene and Mary of James and Salome bought Spices that coming they might anoynt Jesus 2 And very early the first of the Sabbaths they come to the Monument the Sun being now risen 3 And they said one to another who shall role us back the stone from the door of the Monument 4 And looking they saw the stone rolled back For it was very great 5 And entring into the Monument they saw a yong man sitting on the right hand covered with a White Robe and they were astonied 6 Who saith to them Be not dismayed you seek Iesus of Nazareth that was crucified he is risen he is not here behold the place where they laid him 7 But go tell his Disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee There you shall see him as he told you The Explication 1. THat is when Saturday night was past for Saturday was the Sabbath of the Jews then and not till then lest they should be said to violate the Sabbath they bought Spices to anoint Jesus Here is to be noted the Sedulity and Diligence to be used by Christian Souls to take hold of the first minute of time allowed for devotion and not to loyter any instant thereof away since these pious women watched purposely all night to lay hold of the first stroake of the clock which strook twelve that then they might freely call up the Shop keepers to sell them oyntments when the last minute of the Sabbath was past Note these three women were Mary Magdalene the sister to Martha and Lazarus Mary of James that is the Mother of James the lesser so called for distinction from the other Iames the greater who was also an Apostle and Salome wife to Zebedeus Mother to James the greater and to John the Evangelist the favourite of Jesus and whether or no Salome be her Christian name here or her surname is not cleer by the Text For she may have been Mary Salome wife to Zebedeus above which is not unsuitable to the common Tradition of the three Maries that visited the Sepulcher of Christ and to whom in recompence he after appeared by this action we see the ancient custom of Pilgrimage to Holy Places and reverencing of Reliques however those who deny that to be lawful distinguish between the Reliques of Christ and others because Christ was God and it was besides an ancient custom of the Jews to embalm dead bodies to make them odoriferous and sweet so this was not done by them to Christ as God for indeed they did not then firmly believe in his Deity but were passionate Lovers of his Holy Person and as they esteemed him a man of Blessed Life so to shew their devotion to him they went as it were to embalm his Body and his Tombe which they revered as Reliques of man not of God and as this gives a literal avowment to Pilgrimages and worship of Reliques so it is a Tropical Example for all Christians to carry the oyntments of their Vertues and good Works about them as shewing they desire therewith to embalm the Memory of Christs Death and Passion and those who shall be diligent in this Art of Piety may hope with the first to see Christ in Heaven for the reward of their attending so Religiously on the Grave of his Death and Passion in this life 2. It seems they had been stayed in their journey to the Sepulchre either in the buying their oyntments or upon other accommodations for their holy purpose that it was Sun-rising ere they came to the Monument how ever they were going thither from midnight to that time of the day and had assuredly the merit of a more speedy arrival though by Divine providence it was appointed Christ should be out of his Grave sooner then any the most faithful Soul could get thither to see whether he was risen or not according to his promise if yet they were not retarded by the same Providence for a punishment of their want of Faith that came with intent to finde him there and as man to embalm him whom as God they ought to have believed was risen and needed not those pious expressions towards his humanity which this Resolution and Action in these holy Women did represent 3. Here again they betraied the weakness of their Faith as if God could not remove all obstacles in the way to his own Service as it seems really he did by the hands of his holy Angels who St. Matth. cap. 28. v. 3. sayes had rolâ—ed this stone away before they came which yet the Angel did not by any his Corporal Touch but by making an Earth-quake purposely to do it and joyntly to shew the terrour all the Earth was in for having covered the glorious Body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and by this we see the Power that Angels have over all Corporal Things when they can even by the Touch of their Vertues or Powers make the whole Earth to quake not that there was need for the Angel to remove this stone that Christ might rise for he did rise before the Stone was gone by the same Power wherewith he came out of his Mothers Wombe without the least violation of her Virginity but meerly that by the stones removal the coming Maries and others to follow might see Christ was risen and why may not Christs Body be as well all under the Little Wafer of the Consecrated Hoste as it was able to pass through the Virgins Wombe a Childe and through the Stone a Man without any Division in either Quantities or Bodies through which it passed Note though these Maries were solicitous who should help them to role away the stone yet they went on with their Holy Resolutions to shew us we are not to desist from doing good though we finde huge Difficulties in our way but to proceed and put our trust in God that to those who Love him even every thing in Nature will co-operate towards the expression of their Loves 4. This Verse gives an excellent Proof of what was said last for see they no sooner look to have the stone removed but they finde it done to their hands by the Angel as above though they knew not who did it and therefore here is mention this Stone was very Great because we should not despair of overcoming any the greatest Difficulties in the way of a willing Soul to serve Almighty God 5. See they lose no time to ask or wonder how the stone was gone their
seen the Example of Humane Frailty in the chief Pastour of Gods Church that since the Sword of spiritual Power was put into their hands they might also have reason to shew mercy and not to retain other mens sins being penitent fiâ—ding their own were remitted upon Repentance and it was not without Reason that Christ foretold his Apostles he would rise again and appear to them in Galilee because he knew after his Death the Apostles and all the rest of his Disciples or Friends would be both afraid to meet together in Judea and that the Jews were so malicious against Christ as they would not suffer so great a number of his Disciples as Christ had above the eleven Apostles to appear amongst them much less to make assemblies Again the Apostles were most of them Galileans and so Christ knew they would be retreating to their own homes when he was gone or soon after if he rose not presently Lastly he had himself done many miracles in Galilee and therefore chose to get belief of them all at once by this one above all the rest his rising from the dead to Life again besides Galilee imports as much as transmigration and Christ passing from Death to life chose to do it in a place proper to the mystery which was yet redoubled by his appearing to multitudes at once in Galilee to shew he found the Jews no longer worthy his aboad among them and so he passed from them to the Gentiles where he had left many Disciples besides those Twelve he chose Apostles and whereof Judas was turned Apostata and dyed despairing so when the Angel said to the Maries Go tell his Disciples he meant tell all his Friends who are many in Galilee and St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. v. 6. seems to say that at the first apparition of Christ in Galilee there were more then five hundred of his Disciples or Friends and such as believed religiously of him whom therefore he rewarded by making them undoubted witnesses of this most doubtful and much controverted Truth his rising from the dead The Application 1. THe scope of all this Gospel is to prove the real Resurrection of our Blessed Lord and by that means the Immortality of Humane Souls so to wean them from their Temporal desires and plant their Loves upon Eternity the doubt if not the ignorance whereof made them embrace the Transitory Pleasures of the World and laugh at those for fools who thought of any happiness or misery to come when this life had an end by Death 2. Hence when the Apostles preach't our Saviours Resurrection it was held a scandal to the Jews and a folly to the Gentiles because it brought the tidings of Eternity to men that knew not any thing before but fleeting time and so for want of hoping in eternal Happiness by leading holy Lives fell headlong in a trice to everlasting Misery by living viciously according as the Royal Prophet said They lead their days in Jollity and in an instant they descend to Hell 3. As therefore when our Saviour died good men began to think it folly to be good because their Vertue was not able to maintain them living still So when he rose again bad men began to fear they might as well revive to misery as happiness and consequently were more easily reclaimed from Vice and brought in Love with Vertue so that Eternity we see is made a special Root of Christianity when even a desire to live eternalâ—y is held a motive strong enough to work a Sanctity into our Souls Since Holy Church makes it her rule to day that as by Christ his Resurrection the door was open to a blest Eternity so our desires thereof may be preserved in us by him that gave them to us by his prevenient Grace On White or Low Sunday The Antiphon Joh. 20. v. 26. AFter eight days the doors being shut our Lord entring in said unto them Peace be to you Alleluja Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that we who have accomplished the Pascal Feasts may retain the same in our Manners and Lives by thy bounty inabling us so to do The Illustration WE heard last Sunday the Churches Prayers were now to run in a peculiar Channel of Life-giving Waters those of the Resurrection of our Lord See therefore this days Service sliding sweetly down that stream but in this Prayer I finde a Phrase so strange as needs a gloss to make it understood though it speak plain English too for how can we retain a thing that 's past as is the Paschal Feast and yet this is it we pray for to day and not onely to retain this feast in our memories but in our manners and our lives sure then the meaning is we must retain those good desires which we besought God to prosecute in us in our last Sundays Prayer and which as by his preventing grace they were afforded us so by his continued bounty we now beg ability to continue or retain them in our manners and lives Now albeit this makes the Prayer above to be as it were a recapitulation of the last Sundays Prayer since the Octave Day is a closing up one and the self same Feast that began seven days before yet we must finde a deeper sence in this days Prayer such as petitioneth we should retain the Vertues which did occur to the accomplishment of the Paschal Feast as the good desires to those Vertues and if we look back to what those Vertues were we shall finde them to be sincerity and verity or rather in a word perfect Sanctity such as might make the old Leaven in us of sin to be White Manchet of Sanctity as if it were nothing for us to make yearly Memory of Christ his Death and Passion and of his Resurrection for in these two Mysteries consist the Paschal Feast unless our selves did remain ever dead unto sin and ever alive to God by vertue of our resurrection in his holy grace assuredly this must be the sence of our Prayer to day for this is truly to retaine in our manners and lives the Feasts of Pasche that are past when we make our selves Paschall Lambes by the Sincerity and Sanctity of our lives and manners For thus we shall first by our Faith overcome the world and next by our good works give the testimony of Gods Holy Spirit being in us which this dayes Epistle so much insisteth on as the effect of our Faith and of our Victory over the world by the same Faith And to the Gospell this Prayer is literall whilst it beggs we may retaine in us that Paschall Feast which is the whole scope of this dayes Gospell telling us how our Saviour appeared in confirmation of his Resurrection to his Apostles and in the narration of Saint Thomas his infidelity exhorting us to a firmer Faith in that and in all the other mysteries of our Redemption To conclude
this day is called White or Low â—unday because in the Primitive Church those Neophytes that on Easter Eve were Baptized and Clad in white Garments did to day put them off with this admonition that they were to keep within them a perpetuall candor of Spirit signified by the Agnus Dei hung about their necks which falling downe upon their breasts put them in minde what Innocent Lambes they must be now that of sinfull high and haughty men they were by Baptisme made Low and little children of Almighty God such as ought to retaine in their manners and lives the Paschall Feasts which they had accomplished * And thus we see an ample performance of our designe taking this Prayer in the true sence it hath The Epistle Ep. 1 Joan. cap. 5 v. 4 c. 4 Because all that is borne of God overcommeth the world And this is the victory which overcommeth the world our Faith 5 Who is he that overcommeth the world but he that beleeveth that Iesus is the Sonne of God 6 This is he that came by water and bloud Iesus Christ not in water only but in water and bloud And it is the Spirit which testifieth that Christ is the Truth 7 For there be three which give Testimony in heaven the Father the word and the Holy Ghost And these Three be One. 8 And there be Three which give Testimony in earth The Spirit Water and Bloud And these Three be one 9 If we receive the Testimony of men the Testimony of God is greater because this is the Testimony of God which is greater that he hath testified of his Son 10 He that beleeveth in the Sonne of God hath the Testimony of God in himselfe The Explication 4. THe Evangelist had in this Epistle and in the immediate verse before told us The love of God consisted in keeping his commands and that his commands are not heavy and this for divers reasons because compared to the grievous weighty precepts of the old ceremoniall Law they are nothing in a manner difficult at all For there were as Rabbi Moses did reckon them in his third Book two hundred and eighteen affirmative and three hundred sixty five negative precepts of the old Law which in the Law of Grace are reduced unto ten and those no other then even any reasonable man would exact of a creature towards God and of one man towards another for a quiet civill and honest neighbourhood and though to corrupted nature mortification may seeme hard yet to sound nature it is sweet and appetible at least as medicine is unto the sick person and as grace is the balsame that renders our corrupted nature sound againe so taking grace into the consideration as a help more powerfull then any impediment it is most true the Commandements are easie to a gratious soule to any one that hath in him the fear or love of God whence the Evangelist inferres that as by grace we are borne a new to in and of God so by this regeneration our feeble nature is made able enough to overcome all the world all the enemies and obstacles man hath betweene him and heaven which is the inheritance of Gods children whence Saint Bernard saith excellently well in his first Sermon upon this day it is an argument of our heavenly regeneration or new birth when we overcome temptations as therefore we are first borne children of God by Baptisme wherein we receive the infused vertues of Faith Hope and Charity so by contrition and confession after actuall sinne we are as it were new borne to God by his holy grace conferred on us againe and bringing back with it all those vertues and graces we had lost by reiterated sinnes But we are specially to note that this Text saith every thing that is borne of God overcommeth the world not every man because it is not by any naturall thing in man that he doth overcome sinne but by that which is supernaturall to wit Grace Faith Hope Charity and whence the Apostle saith immediately and this is the victory which overcomes the world our Faith by the victory he meanes the cause of our victory or the overcommer it selfe of the world whereupon Saint Leo Saint Cyprian and others said oftentimes a faithfull soule is farre greater then the world and one who is in heaven looks upon the earth as on a contemptible point so that it was most truly said of Saint Marke cap. 9. verse 23. All things are possible to him that beleeveth nay we see a strong and lively Faith hath in it a kinde of omnipotency when it commands as it were that to be done which none but God can do And what was it that brought the Infidell world and all the Monarchs thereof to the subjection of the yoke of Christ but Faith how then every way waâ— it true that Faith is the Victory or the Victrix rather that overcomes the whole world for by Faith we captivate our stubborne wils to reason and so quell as well the inward as the outward enemies to Christ and how doe Martyrs else by dying conquer death as Christ did on the Crosse but by dying for the Faith and in the Faith of Christ 5. None else indeed can doe it for in beleeving this we are forced to oppose all other that deny it and if in that opposition we lose our lives rather then our Faith we get the Victory of all the world that persecutes us for it and of death it selfe for he that beleeves this hopes in Iesus and hoping cals upon him and calling him to aide loves him and loving him takes courage to defie all his Enemies which are the world the flesh and the devill and in scorning them gets force to resist them and in resisting obtaines grace to overcome them 6. This is the Messias that Ezechiel cap. 36. v. 25. and Zachary cap. 13. v. 1. foretold should come in water and bloud alluding to the water of holy Baptisme and to the bloud he shed upon the Crosse and to verifie this both bloud and water issued out of his pierced side as he hung upon the Crosse as also of teares and bloud in his circumcision in his Prayer in the garden and in his whipping at the Pillory in memory of all which in the sacrifice of the Masse water is mixed with the wine that is to be consecrated By the Spirit testifying Christ to be verity is understood the holy Ghost descending and confirming the Apostles in grace and in beliefe of all that Christ had said unto them as if not onely a true man but God and man had told them and consequently verity it selfe for God is no lesse then very verity So Saint John rests not content to have given us the double Testimony of bloud and water without he had added also the sumnity or height of all Testimony the pure Spirit of Almighty God Nor are they out of the way that understand this place to be meant also of the testimony of the
victorious peace as who should say his coming hither was not upon his own account but ours So he tells them now his business is done their peace is made in Heaven and Earth 20. He shewed how they still remained perforated boared thorough as with the Nayles and Spear that had pierced them while he hung upon the Cross what more powerful Argument of the Truth of his resurrection what more convincing proof that it is a Piety for Christians to revere the memory of his Sacred wounds when the first thing he shewed to oblige us to love him after his resurrection were the Wounds he received for us in his bitter Death and Passion The joy which followed in the Disciples upon seeing these wounds was not that he had received them but that those notwithstanding and his Death to boot for the sins of mankinde they saw him propitious merciful sweet benigne unto them that they did not see him come to reproach their flight from him nor Peters denying of him but to comfort them to consolidate their Faith and in them the Faith of all Christians in this now undoubted Truth that as he became man was crucified dead and buried for satisfaction of our sins so now he arose from Death to Life to give all mankinde an assurance that the work of their redemption was finished and their salvation secured if they would themselves hence it was the Apostles were glad to see our Lord risen and alive to confirm all his former Doctrine maugre the Jews malice against him and their belief that they had put him to such a death as he was past all power of reviving 21. While he repeats peace to them again he shews the abundance of his goodness flowing still from himself and falling upon those he loves and further in testimony that these his Apostles were all in the rank of those he loved most behold he gives his own most ample commission which he had from his heavenly Father unto every one of them while he sends them in vertue of the same Commission to convert the whole world as he himself was sent first to redeem it and by vertue of his Passion to convert it also which yet he would not do to have the whole honour of it to himself but gives to his Apostles the happiness to be his instruments his cooperators thereunto as himself was the instrument of his heavenly Father to the same purpose and if we observe the force of our Saviours words in giving his commission of Apostolate to these his chosen Servants we shall finde he doth not onely give them the title and honour of being his Apostles but of being even so many Sons of God by commission not by nature while he sends them even as his Father sent him to supply what was wanting of his Passion as we have heard already explicated once or twice 22. And least being but men not God as he was they should fear to fail in the execution of this high Commission Lo by his breathing on them he seems to convert them into holy Spirits and if we may so say even to so many Hoâ—y Ghosts by Commission or Office not by Nature in giving the Holy Ghost unto them For as by Spiration of the Father and Son the Holy Ghost proceeded equal to both in Nature so by this Spiration of Christ upon his Apostles they became equal in Spirit to him sent as he was by his heavenly Father in similitude of office in-similitude of power because he was God as well as his Father in similitude of end to save the souls of men in similitude of works of miracles and lastly in similitude of Spirit of Love and of affection while their commission is given by way of his Holy and Divine Insufflation or Inspiration whence they were impowered even to dye for him as he was by the force of his own holy Spirit to dye for us and by this inspiration he shews that as God by breathing on Adam gave him natural Life so he by breathing on his Apostles gives them a supernatural one a life of Grace but we must note here the holy Ghost was not given them as they had it before in Baptism when they received justifying Grace and Grace rendring them grateful nor as it was afterward to be given them by way of plenitude containing the fulness when they were so confirmed in Grace as that probably they never sinned afterwards but as a thing here gratis given and limited to one special effect namely to that of remission of sins as is made evident by the words in the following Verse so here we may see gratuite grace may consist with the state of sin or power to absolve others sins may be in a Priest who is actually himself in sin Note also by this inspiration the same power of remitting sins was given to St. Thomas though absent as well as to those Apostles present as Numb 11. v. 26. we read the Spirit of Prophesie was given in like absence by Moses to Eldad and Medad for we do not see it repeated after when St. Thomas came in among them though some think it was then he received that power and not before Note also that by this ceremony of our Saviours breathing upon the Apostles holy Church is grounded in sufficient warrant to use such ceremonies as to her shall seem fit in Administration or Collation of Sacraments 23. How absurdly doth Calvin wrest this place to power of preaching rather then he will allow man power of remitting sins though it be given him by God himself This very corruption of so plain a place of Scripture argues how dangerous a thing it is for men to read and wrest it to their own sense since the Act of Preaching is Teaching and Exhorting the Act of forgiving sins is the Act of a judging Power besides all men may at all times be lawfully preacht unto be they in sin or out of sin but all cannot at all times be absolved from sin nor any indeed at any time but by Contrition Confession and Satisfaction either Actual or in Vote if opportunity be given It is therefore an Article of Faith that by these words our Saviour gave to the Apostles power to forgive sins however it may be disputed whether he had not before at his last Supper made them Priests when he said unto them as often as you shall do this that is as often as you shall Consecrate my Body and Blood or Eat and Drink them do it in remembrance of me Luk. 22. v. 19. because now whensoever Priests are Ordained it is done by their joynt prolation of the words of Consecration with the Bishop at Mass after he hath said unto them Receive ye power to offer Sacrifice and though here were given by Christ the Faculties of Absolving to the Apostles yet it doth not follow Priesthood was then given since to this day we see many Priests that have power to Sacrifice and yet have not leave to Administer
the Sacrament of Pennance though even when they are made Priests they receive Power to Absolve the Bishop saying Receive ye power to remit sins unless it be in case of necessity as in the hour of Death or that they are sure the penitent be not in mortal sin though it be also strongly argued that the very jurisdiction of remitting sins is essential to the Order of Priesthood as his power of Consecration or Sacrificing is and may validly as before God though not lawfully as to men be executed without special faculty for that purpose hence also it is matter of Faith that the Sacrament of Confession was at the same time instituted by Christ for the Priest cannot forgive sins unless he know them and know them he cannot unless they be confessed unto him nor can he tell what to remit what to retaine unless by the confession of the Penitent he finde cause for his so doing nor is the power of retaining sins a meer negation of absolution thereof but it is a positive Declaration that they doe not deserve pardon and more that if they repent not they deserve damnation which is too positive a thing to consist in a pure negation of absolution 24. Some will have St. Thomas called Didymus as signifying that he was a Twin-born joyntly with some other Brother or Sister as Esau and Jacob were and for this purpose the Expositours upon the Eleventh chap. of Saint John v. 16. say he argued himself to be a Twin of Grace with Christ and the rest of his Apostles when he said Let us all go and dye with our master because it is noted to be usual in Twins to love each other most dearly though sometimes it happen otherwise yet very rarely as in Jacob and Esau it did But others will have him in this place called Didymus as this word signifies various wavering or inconstant because he did now declare himself to doubt of the resurrection though he were told it by the Apostles for certain after that Christ had as above appeared to ten of them if he had not also before heard it from the Maries who some say brought news of it to all the eleven Apostles assembled together in the room where they last supped with Christ and where they in a kinde of faint hope expected his rising again according to his promise though it seems onely two of them Peter and John ran immediately to his Sepulchre with the Maries leaving the other nine behinde in expectation of the Truth and Thomas in the interim more diffident of this Truth then the rest that remained went out from amongst them Whether to take his flight for fear of the Jews or whether to ask testimony of Christs enemies the souldiers watching at the Sepulchre rather then to trust the relation of his friends be these reasons real or conjectural onely certain it is he was absent when Christ came first and as certain that after the Apostles had seen him he would as little believe them as the Maries who first brought news he was risen again and for this cause he may be here stiled Didymus as it imports various or doubting 25. See in this Act of St. Thomas four several sins Incredulity Pertinacy Pride Irreverence the first in preferring the test of Sense before that of Authority for point of Faith the second requiring so many Particulars and Proofs by diverse Senses the third presuming he deserved more condescending of Christ to him then had been to the rest of his Brethren the last in daring to make his own Finger the Judge whether Christ were God or not which is a work of the Finger of God of the Holy Ghost not of Man or of Flesh and Blood for if he might touch his wounds it seems he would then and not till then believe he was risen and consequently that he was God so from First to Last we see here a Proof of all these several sins in this one Act of the incredulous Apostle 26. 27. But behold Christ who dyed to redeem us from sin and from the penalty thereof did not after his death disdain to condescend much unto sinners when for this Apostles sake sinning as he did he not onely appears but gives the very redundant Proofs that this incredulous Apostle had required Note that by after eight days is not here understood the ninth day after Easter but the Octave day thereof this very Sunday for it seems Christ by his rising upon Sunday not on the Jewish Sabbath declared he was resolved to make the Christian Sabbath differing from that of the Jews and so the Apostles being again on the next Sunday after Easter assembled to shew they were ready to practice what Christ was pleased to ordain the celebrating a new Christian Sabbath by joynt and publique assembly in Prayer since here they were assembled on that new Sabbath for that end and since Christ by his second apparition upon the new Sabbath confirms his former purpose of altering the Old See the manner of his Second appearing like the First in all points even in the pledge of peace to sinful Thomas among the rest to shew his indefatigability in reclaiming men from sin by all sweet means though withal he did this favour to St. Thomas with regard to the confirmation of all the world in this mystery of his resurrection By this offering nay making Thomas touch his sacred Wounds he cured the Wound of Infidelity in the Apostles soul and shewed him he was God as well as Man that was proved in the Corporal touch of Thomas this in the Spiritual of Christ touching the Apostles soul while he told him for Christ knew his thoughts how they had suggested to his tongue those sinful expressions of his infidelity and though some doubt whether the Apostle did really touch Christ first because Christ said not unto him touch but see my hands and feet as also because Christs Body was then Glorious and as impalpable as it was impassible yet it is out of all doubt he did really touch his sacred Wounds because Christ said bring hither thy finger and see my hands that is by touching of them see they are flesh and blood no phantasm and again put thy whole hand into my side so it is more consonant unto Christian Piety and Truth to think Christ dispensed with the impassibility of his glorious Body making it palpable without being possible for proof of this mystery then that the Apostle did not nor could not touch Christ his Glorious Body again for this very touch the hand of Saint Thomas is kept to this day in Rome together with the Holy Cross of Christ with the Title over his Cross with the Nail and Crown of Thorns to shew there is more reverence due unto his hand upon the Title of this Sacred touch then to other Reliques of Saints 28. And upon this touch it was that the Apostle cryed out my Lord my God I see now and to my confusion too late
yet by thy mercy soon enough believe that thou art risen and that thou art indeed my Lord my God who didst upon the Cross receive these wounds for mine and all mankindes redemption and though the Apostle knew Christ dyed for all yet he calls him here Emphatically his Lord his God as who should say this grace and favour was to him alone to have so convincing a Proof made unto him of that Truth he onely among all the Apostles then doubted of 29. And lest the Apostle should Glory that by this he might seem more in favour then the rest Christ tells him plainly no That others who without the help of Sense believed were more happy then those who for Sense-sake onely gave consent unto Faith Besides formally Saint Thomas did Believe more then he did see or feel that is he believed Christ to be God by feeling him to be man and not a Phantasm So if we shall allow him to have had onely humane Faith of the resurrection by this sight yet he had thence Divine Faith of all the rest of his Doctrines and especially of his Deity whereunto he Attributed the Power of his resurrection 30. The reason why Saint John writ no more on purpose to confirm this Doctrine of the Resurrection was because he thought the other Evangelists had been large enough in that point and because this was so pregnant a Proof as it alone was sufficient so what he adds in his last Chapter is rather to shew the effect thereof by the multitude that were converted by it then for any other reason 31. Here the Evangelist tells his Reason why he writ this viz. to render Christ received and believed to be the Messias that was promised and so God as well as man and when he says we shall have life by believing in his name he means in his Person in his merits in his Passion so that first we are to believe him to be our Saviour Secondly the Messias Thirdly God and the onely Son of his eternal Father And lastly that he will give to all that thus believe and do as he hath commanded life everlasting eternal happiness The Application 1. THe whole designe of this Gospel being onely to prove the Resurrection and by the reality thereof the Truth of Jesus Christ his being God as well as Man we have hence to gather that the exercise of our Faith is here chiefly required and that so often as we reade this Gospel each one cry out with the convinc't Apostle my Lord my God confirm in me that happiest Act of Faith which believes without the help of touch or eyes that thou art my Leige Lord as thou art Man and hast all Power given thee both in Heaven and Earth That thou art my God who hast created me out of nothing and redeemed me from worse then nothing my grievous sinful state to make me more then all things under Heaven a saved soul 2. Yet lest we should pay the duty of such a Faith without our reason leading thereunto see here apparent Proofs of the same real Body risen which was dead and buried while the wounds are just the same that were received on the Cross see that this humane Person is withall Divine whilest he gives power to pardon sins and to retain them if occasion be see how he proves what the Epistle taught that by our Faith we overcame the world when himself brings to his believers the Fruit and End of Victory a happy Peace and gives it his Apostles as a Testimony that it is the same Gods gift now rising from the dead who brought it with him hither at his Birth onely the Angels then delivered it and now we have it from his mouth Divine who well may give it us now he hath vanquish't all our Enemies the World the Flesh the Devil Sin and Death and gives this Peace both as Recompence and Fruit of Faith 3. O happy Faith that brings forth such a Peace as sets us right to God our neighbors and our selves for if with any of the Three we be at odds we can have peace with neither of the other O happy Faith again that works in us by Charity and brings forth all the twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost with all the other Vertues that accomplish Christianity and integrate the Paschal Feast in us which now we Celebrate And consequently pray as above with holy Church that we may keep these Vertues in our Lives and Manners On the second Sunday after Easter The Antiphon Joh. 10. v. 11. I Am a good Shepherd who do feed my sheep and for my sheep yield my life Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who by the humble abasement of thine own Son hast raised up the prostrate world grant we beseech thee unto thy Faithful people everlasting Joy that they whom thou hast taken out of the danger of Eternal Death may enjoy perpetual Felicity The Illustration AS we finde in this Prayer the streame of the resurrection run strongly down the Channell of the Church her service thus humbly praying so we are minded that the Paschall Feast which we must retaine in our manners and lives is here commemorated in one of the chiefe accomplishments thereof the death of Christ since it was by his abasement unto death that we are raised up to life and are imboldened to begge our joy may be perpetuall who by his temporall resurrection are taken out of the danger of eternall death to the end we may not onely joy therein for ever but even injoy perpetuall felicity thereby But stay beloved why doe we now eclipse the glory of this Festivall by mixing with it the memory of our Blessed Lords inglorious death because the Holy Ghost will have it so first to shew us that it was an abasement for the Son of God to remaine one minute out of the Kingdome of his eternall Father though he were never so much triumphant over death upon death as also to indeer us the more unto Almighty God who was content to give us glory by the infamy of his Sacred Sonne but was not satisfied to give us being out of the nothing we were before he shewed his omnipotency by creating us unless he had made his own Son by death as it were not to be that so he might give us a second being in grace better then our first in nature and unless our Saviours temporall death might give us life eternall free from all danger and injoying perpetuall felicity yes yes the little Prayer above imports all this and infinitely more then all we can imagine who are not able to reach the depth of sence that lies under the dictates of the holy Ghost and such we know are holy Churches Prayers nor is there want of admirable sweet connexion between this Prayer and the Epistle and Gospel of the day for what doth all the former say but that our Saviours abasement was our
should say we deserve true Praise if for conscience of God towards God for Religion sake we sustain that sorrow which falls upon those who are unjustly molested for commonly this breeds affliction to most men yet Christians ought to make this their comfort or their glory and grace in the sight of God and men For saith the Apostle in the next Verse What glory is it if sinning you suffer for conscience to God may be understood that God is conscious or knowing of our unjust sufferings and so in his justice will one day do us right Again for conscience to God is that by so doing we be cleer in our conscience before Almighty God or lastly and best of all if need be to dye for vertues sake rather then be beaten out of it by any threats whatsoever and to this the Apostle alludes for many slaves that in those days became Christians were by their masters beaten some of them to death and yet indured patiently the tyranny of their earthly masters rather then they would gall their consciences towards God their heavenly master by receding from that vertue which he gave them the grace to conserve even unto death The Application 1. UPon what other account then that of the Christian Faith can St. Peter hope to make us believe we that are made of the Elements of this World are Strangers and Pilgrims here and are to refrain from the Pleasures of the World is it not because we believe that Jesus Christ hath by his bitter Death and Passion purchast us a better inheritance is it not because at our Baptism we make a profession of this our Faith and renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil assuredly it is 2. Again from what other Root then that of our Christian Faith are we ty'd up to so strickt a conversation amongst Gentiles amongst the mis-believers but because we that believe rightly are bound to do uprightly and religiously when he is onely counted a just man who is a true believer as we reade Rom. 1.17 He is just who lives according to Faith he means the Christian Faith where note the word Liveâ— imports outward Actions for we do not otherwise know whether a man be dead or alive but by outward operations 3. To conclude whence is it else that the true children of God are obliged to obey even mis-believing Superiors but because all Power being from God those that are his children must obey it and are by the Principals of their Faith and of Christian Doctrine obliged thereunto for since the Ruler of our Souls St. Peter the Vicar of Christ himself doth teach us this Doctrine assuredly he had it from that spirit who teacheth all verity and since the first Light of Truth is that of Faith which brings all erring souls in to the right way to Heaven the way of Justice grounded in Faith Therefore we most fitly pray as above that all who bear the names of Christians may reject unchristian deportments and do Christian actions such as the Light of Faith leads them to The Gospel Iohn c. 16. v. 16. c. 16 A little while and now you shall not see me and again a little while and you shall see me because I go to the Father 17 Some therefore of his Disciples said one to another what is this that he saith to us A little while and you shall not see me and again a little while and you shall see me and because I go to the Father 18 They said therefore what is this that he saith A little while we know not what he speaketh 19 And Jesus knew that they would ask him and he said to them Of this do you question among your selves because I said to you A little while and you shall not see me and again a little while and ye shall see me 20 Amen Amen I say to you that you shall weep and lament but the world shall rejoyce and you shall be sorrowful but your sorrow shall be turned into joy 21 A woman when she travaileth hath sorrow because her hour is come but when she hath brought forth the childe now she remembreth not the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world 22 And therefore you now indeed you have sorrow but I will see you again and your heart shall rejoyce And your joy no man shall take from you The Explication 16. THis place is diversly understood by some of the day of Judgement which Christ calls a little while because to God all time is but a moment yet in regard he had immediately before comforted the Apostles that though he was to leave them he would send unto them the Holy Ghost another Comforter who should teach them all truth and that what ere he taught them he should receive it of him therefore it is most probable our Saviour here alluded to his Passion Resurrection and Ascension which being at hand when he spake these words and consequently he being by his Death to disappear a while and a little afterwards namely three days he was to rise again when they should see him a while again that was for fourty days after which he was to ascend unto his Father probably I say this was the most literal Sence of the Words a little c. 17. 18. No marvel if they understood not this Riddle and so brok out into these two Verses following full of doubt what his meaning might be 19. He knew indeed they desired to ask him being grieved and sad at the news of his departure yet were loath to be so bold so he knowing their meaning not by any outward actions of theirs but by his Deity which did see the secrets of their hearts was pleased to satisfie them and yet he did this by sweetning their sorrow with diverting them from one Riddle to another opening the first by the last as appears in the next Verse 20. Wherein he tells them as in the two Sences above Verse 16. That his Disciples and all good men should here weep while the bad men of the world did rejoyce but that as the temporal sorrow of the just should be turned into eternal joy so the temporal joy of the unjust should be turned into eternal grief or rather that you who are my friends shall weep to see me suffer and dye while my enemies the Jews shall rejoyce thereat you being sad in the mean time but as by my resurrection your sorrow shall be turned into joy so their joy shall be turned into sorrow and confusion not for love to me but for shame of themselves 21. For divers reasons the sorrow of the Disciples at Christs death was compared to the pains of a woman with childe and their joy at his Resurrection to the joy of a woman delivered of a Son after a hard labour First because both these Griefs were very Bitter Secondly both Short Thirdly both full of Danger Fourthly both converted into after Joy suitable to their Sorrows Fifthly because as
the same childe was first cause of pain so he is cause of comfort the like of Christ dying and rising again Sixthly both joys are excessive Great whereas they take away all sense of Sorrow So here the Passion of Christ is in this Parable supposed to be the labour or travail of the Apostles dolorous as a womans in childe-bearing and his Resurrection is supposed to be as the Birth of a Son to them after so hard a labour as they were in whilest all the world jeered and scorned them for hoping after so impossible a comfort as it was thought when the Apostle calls it a scandal to the Jews and to the Gentiles a folly St. Augustine is so acute upon this place as to say Christ compared the Apostles sorrow for his Passion to the pains of a woman in labour of a Boy and not of a Girl because those are the greatest labours of women and again he makes a special remark that the Text saith here the Mother forgets her pains not because a Boy is born but a man one that is to be the Support and Prop of her house when her self can no longer live for saith St. Augustine Christ was as it were born by his Resurrection to the World not as a Childe but as a Man conquering Death winning eternal Glory to himself and to all his Posterity to all Saints of Heaven who are the Children of his Grace 22. This Verse applies all the rest by way of Repetition to the Senses as above while it tells the Apostles this shall be their Case about him this their Grief at his Death this their Joy at his Resurrection like the travail and comfort of a woman first in labour then delivered of a Son But when he adds this Close That their joy no man shall take from them he means neither in this world nor in the next for such shall be their joy to see Christ risen who was dead that even the menace of Death to themselvcs shall be comfortable out of their assurance to share with Christ in the joy of his Resurrection if they partake with him in the pains of Death by dying for his sake Whence St. Paul boasting said who shall part us from the Love of God Nakedness the Sword Persecution Rom. 8.35 No no the love of Christ and hope of Heaven are comforts above all afflictions whatsoever whence we reade of the Apostles that they went rejoycing from the bench of the Iudges because they were held worthy to suffer contumely for the name of Iesus Act. 5.41 And this to shew that no man could takâ— away that joy which God gave them as the Text above hath told us The Application 1. IT is worthy our observation that amongst so many passages as were between Christ and his Apostles after his Resurrection this days Gospel is taken out of Saint Iohn Evangelist his Story of our Saviours Actions reporting what he said to his Apostles immediately before his Death For we see the Expositors upon the first Verse of this Gospel tell us all that is here said alludes to the Death Passion and Resurrection of our Lord as well as to his Ascension and to the coming of the Holy Ghost Then certainly our Mother Church reads us this Lesson to day with intention to draw from us such like Acts of Faith as our Saviour desired the Apostles should make when he told them he was shortly to dye and shortly to rise again 2. And since this Parable aims at raising consolation in the Apostles hearts out of the disconsolate Death and Passion of their Lord and Master by vertue of the Faith they had in his future Resurrection after his Death Assuredly it is now our parts that are Christians to make the Cross of Christ our chief content the Death of our Saviour the onely hope we have to live and his Resurrection the ground of our Faith that by vertue of his Blessed and Incorrupted Body risen from his Grave our corrupted flesh and blood shall rise again and be made partakers of those heavenly Joys which he hath prepared for all that do firmly believe in him and live according to the Rules of Christian belief 3. Note that amongst those Rules a Principal one is read unto us this day of believing firmly that all the sorrows this world can afford us are not able to rob us of the future joys prepared for us in Heaven if from erring Infidels we become right believing Christians and live according to the light of Truth The Faith of Jesus Christ that is if we do such Actions in Vertue of that Faith as We pray to day we may do say then the Prayer and see how pat it is to this Doctrine of the Church On the fourth Sunday after Easter The Antiphon Joh. 16. v. 5. I Go to him that sent me but because I have spoken these things unto you sorrow hath filled your hearts Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who makest the mindes of thy faithful to be of one accord grant unto thy people that they may love what thou commandest and desire what thou doest promise that amongst worldly varieties there we may fix our hearts where are true joys The Illustration O Beloved what a Prayer is here what an elevated language doth the holy Ghost speak in to day behold hold a whole Sermon in a few lines what preacher needeth other Text then this Prayer to dilate upon even till the day of Judgement shall I speak a big word upon this Prayer be it but with us as this day we pray and we are even with God himself at our journeys end and why should we despair thereof since in vain we are bid to pray for this if it were not by Prayer to be obtained beg it then beloved on your often bended knees beg it earnestly fervently heartily and doubt not but it will be granted for God doth not feed us with fond hopes of what he will not grant if we so a k it as we ought But stay how comes it that with so much plenty of Spirit we finde to day so little seeming connexion with the Epistle and Gospel which yet I am confident will prove both as it were eminentially contained in this admirable Prayer And first observe how suitable it is for holy Church to pray thus when we are now in the time that Jesus Christ prepared his Apostles to be content to leave him or at least that he should leave them How often did he command them resignation on all occasions to the will of Almighty God was not this the very form of his Prayer Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven Matth. 6.10 Hence the Church begs to day that we who believe in Christ may live all of one minde and since it is morally impossible so many men should be consenting all in one therefore we see the prayer gives that to God saying it is he
shewing him the features and deformities of his soule according as he is truly in himselfe good or bad for that is the property of a glass to represent truly the object which is set before it and the Apostle in effect here says those that run to Churches or to their ghostly Fathers to hear onely what they say and do not put in execution their Counsels are like a man note t is not said a woman too too frequently looking there seeing his native his natural countenance not then his painted face in a glaâ—s for what indeed follows of this meer sight nothing but what is said in the next Verse forgetfulness which cannot tend to perfection and such an introspection men make into their souls by reading or hearing the word of God if there they persist and do not study to perfect themselves thereby and truly the Law or Word of God is rightly called a Glass because it represents to us that image of perfect creatures which God would have us to be it tells us what reward our Vertues shall have what punishment our Vices 24. The reason why a man sooner forgets his own face then anothers is because he never sees his own but by reflected Species in a Glass which are therefore weaker and less vigorous then if they came directly to his eye as those of another mans countenance do both directly and more frequently seen by any man then his own So no wonder if a man see and consider himself never so exactly for a time that he soon forgets himself and covets to see himself again whereas he much more perfectly remembers the Face and Features of anothers person then his own Now though it be needless for a man to look much into a material Glass which can onely shew him the outward man yet it is very recommendable for him to look into the spiritual Glass of Gods Word to read or hear that often thereby to see what is wanting to that ornament of Grace or Vertue which should render him a perfect image of our Saviour Jesus Christ but besides this often looking on himself he must be doing and practising upon himself namely adding this Vertue taking away that Vice or else he onely looks and forgets what he see or what he should make himself to be Note there are three kindes of hearers of Gods word the lazy the active the contemplative the first heare onely and forget indeed contemne the next heare and obey the third heare and dye imbracing it with all the powers of their soules and never let goe their imbracement again many are the Analogies betweene a glass and the word of God for first as in a glass is seene not a picture of a thing but the thing it selfe by a reflected species though not by a direct one soe by the word is seene the wil of God nay God himself since the word of the minde is seene by the word of the mouth as in a glass Againe as flat or plaine glasses represent the species equall to the object but convex or round glasses represent them less then they are and both the further off the weaker they represent them so the word of God plainly sincerely and without any crooked intention hearkened unto or read represents truly the will of God unto us but if we make this word a convex glass one swollen up with a bulk of pride or ambition to wrest it to our crooked senses then it represents the wil of God abridged shortned or lessened not entirely and plainely as it is in it selfe whence preachers must learne to be sincere and faithfull in the exposition of holy writ Againe as concave or hollow glasses placed against the Sun are apt to cast a heat and burne whatsoever combustible matter is neere them so the word of God looked on with an humble eye a dinted heart wherein it makes the hollow of a sweet impression sets on fire all the inordinate appetites to sinne burns up all the stubble of vicious inclinations and renders a soule burning bright in flames of love to Almighty God 25. By this verse it is cleer that the word of God is the glass here alluded unto because the Law of perfect liberty is that word of God the Law and life of Jesus Christ whereby we are made children of God not slaves to empty ceremonies onely as they under the slavish Law of Moses were he that hath looked fixedly not slightly into the glass of perfect liberty and hath remained in it not made a forgetfull hearer this man shall be blessed in his deed because his deed shal deserve a blessing by being such as this glass represents it should be note by perfect liberty is not here understood liberty to doe what we list so we beleeve aright as Luther hence pretended but first by liberty is here understood that which freeth us from the servility of the Mosaical Law next that which freeth us from the slavery to sinne and the devil thirdly that which freeth us from compulsion or feare but leaves us free to doe wel out of pure love to God not for fear of hel fourthly that liberty which by resurrection we shal have from death when we arise to life everlasting further by the close of this verse saying that man shall be blessed in his deed is meant he shal have the blessing here of grace in the next world of glory and that his blessing shal be given to his doing not to his contemplating what is to be done 26. By this place Saint James alludes to what he said in the nineteenth verse of this Epistle of being quick to heare and slow to speak and not to be angry for by the laxity of the tongue the hands are as it were tyed up from action and those men seldom do wel that are alwayes talking or vaunting in many words the little good they doe in deeds so that one kinde of doing the Law is a religious silence for religion imports as much as a binding up of the Law which consisteth in observing or doing it not in talking of it by the word bridling our tongues is insinuated as if the tongue were an unruly beast alwayes running away from reason unless bridled in thereby by seducing his heart is understood making it erre for a talking man seldome deceives others but often himselfe since they see the sin of petulance in his heart and so regard as little what he saith as himself doth what he speaks who is never doing wel whilest he speaketh too much or ill and such a mans religion is truly vaine by religion is here understood either that vertue of religion which makes a man render all his actions good towards God and his neighbor and is the first of moral vertues as charity is the first of divine ones or true Christianity profession of the true faith for even that is vaine if it be not made avayling by good workes annexed thereunto though here the Apostle his genuine sense is
The whole house was filled with this noise to shew all their hearts who were within should be filled with the Holy Ghost for thus the Text affirms immediately saying vers 4. and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost Note it is said they were Sitting both to shew the rest and quiet Gods holy Spirit bringeth with it and to shew that prayer of expectation and such this was is perhaps best when it is performed sitting thus S. Bernard a great Saint was noted to proceed in his deepest meditations 3. By parted tongues is here understood tongues divided amongst many not in themselues as commonly Painters make them thinking thereby to expresse the activity of fire rising up in many-pointed flames but the reasons why the Holy Ghost would have the forme of a tongue to declare his coming are many First because the Apostles were by this coming confirmed to be the Preachers of the Gospel and the proper instrument of a Preacher is his tongue So the gift of tongues was first expressed by the species of a tongue where we are to note this gift includes three properties the first the knowledge of languages the next the true signification of the words of different languages the third a volubility of tongue adapted to the several articulations requisite to several Languages and consequently a prudence to use all these in a right way The second reason is because a tongue hath a great affinity with a word as therefore the Holy Ghost was the Spirit of the VVord so he came in the species of a Tongue and as by the word of the mind is produced the voyce of the tongue so from the Divine word did proceed the Holy Ghost whence the Apostle 1 Cor. 12. vers 3. sayes no man can say Jesus but in the Holy Ghost The third as the tongue distinguisheth tastes so doth the Holy Ghost truths from falshoods heavenly from earthly things insomuch that St Paul tells us The Animal man doth not perceive the things of the Spirit 1 Cor. 4. Lastly because the tongue is both the best and worst instrument of man Proverb 12. Death and life are in the hand of the Tongue Prov. 16. It is in man to prepare his heart but the government of the tongue is from our Lord wherefore there was great reason to have the gift of the Holy Ghost to tame rule and sanctifie the tongues of men As for the tongues themselves whether they were true fire or true tongues is questioned yet resolved best that they were not truly fire but only fiery forms like unto tongues as some ayr condensed and made into that form and illuminated so as to seem fire but not to burn because it was to set upon the heads of those it fell upon Of their pyramidal form we give many reasons First to shew the Spirit of God only penetrates all deep and hard mysteries Secondly to shew it penetrated the very hearts of those it fell upon and made them cordially love Almighty God Thirdly it made them aspire from earth as high as heaven Fourthly that the very tongues of those who had this gift should penetrate the hearts of men to their conversion Lastly to shew it should give them the discretion of spirits that had this gift to distinguish betwixt good and bad inspirations in themselves or in those they were to direct spiritually And these tongues were rather fiery then of any other kind to shew God is all a flame of Love as Deut. 4.24 Thy God O Israel is a consuming fire And therefore as the Law of Moyses shewing Gods Will was given with the Circumstances of Thunder and Lightening so the Law of Christ now was to be confirmed by the holy Ghost with like signes to shew it was the Will of the same God abrogating the former and constituting this new Law Secondly as all the old Prophets were authorized by circumstance of fire Isaias his lips being touched with a coal of fire became as we read Chap. 6 ver 6. like fire and his words seemed all fiery too and Elias being carried up in a fiery Chariot into heaven 4 Reg. 2.11 and of Hieremias it is said from above he sent fire into mens bones and thereby instructed them Thren 2. v. 13. and Ezechiel foretelling of Christ his Chariot supported by four Cherubims of whom he sayes Chap. 1. v. 13. Their looks were like fire coales all which were but types of the more univocal fire that did accompany the election confirmation and conversation of the Apostles true Prophets of the new law foretellers of heavenly things Thirdly to shew Christ his law was a law of love of charity of coelestiall fire Fourthly to shew the effect of this love was to produce the fire of love divine in all Christian souls Fifthly to shew the spirit of God was searching as fire the most subtle worker and penetratour that is in nature The reason why these fiery tongues were said to sit in the singular number not plurall upon the Apostles was to shew that though the tongues were and must be many for each to have one yet the Spirit giving them was one and not many namely one onely God And this Spirit was rather expressed setting then otherwise to shew the constancy of Gods holy grace and gifts in those he pleaseth to bestow his speciall favours on and their ease and rest in the possession of that Spirit as also that the holy Ghost was to rest in the hearts of the Faithfull to the worlds end 4. They were all replenished whereas before they had received the grace of God now they had the plenitude thereof not all alike but some more some lesse according as was requisite to their callings No marvell then if the Apostles being full of grace and the gift of tongues they could not contain themselves but say The Things which we have seen and heard we cannot but speak nay so much they spake that some believed they were drunk with new wine and so it was indeed with the wine of the heavenly grape the holy Ghost not otherwise and as they were inforced to speak the praises of God by the irrefragable impulse of this holy Spirit so they spake to all purposes that is to the capacity and understandings of all hearers of what nation soever for they spake all kind of languages or tongues which some will understand as if each Apostle speaking a severall language among them all they had all languages others conceive that they speaking onely in their own Syro-Hebraean tongue all the several nations understood them as if their languages had been various as in this manner S. Vincentius Ferrerius preaching in Spanish was understood by severall nations as Italians French Flemish English c. each conceiving they heard him in their native tongue grounded in these words following v. 11. We hear them speaking in our tongues But the true sense is they did really and truly speak upon occasion all languages by the gift
person 28. You have heard I say to you I go when I dye and come when I rise again and when I am so come back to take away your grief for my departure by death if then you did love me you would rejoyce at my leaving you again because I then am to go not to dye any more but to live eternally with my Father in glory and to share out part of that glory to you also But he gives another and a deeper reason why they should if they did love him rejoyce at his going to his Father namely because his Father is greater then he can protect him and his friends from all those persecutions which the Jews raised against him and them not but that he could have protected them himself from these but this he sayes as accommodating his speech to them to make it an argument which they themselves should yeeld unto as convincing to those that did love him And though from these very words the Arrian heresie took fastest root denying the Deity of Christ because he said his Father is greater then he yet without all reason for no such thing followes since his meaning was in this place that his Father as God was greater then he as man for so he was even lesse then Angels being it was onely as man that he went to his Father who as God was never from him nor could be And so Christ as God was greater then himself as man much more then was his Father greater then he in that true sense he spake this in though according to humane sense and reason the Father as God is also greater then the Son as God because he is the origin of the Son or his beginning how ever the Son be equall to him in essence and power so it is a majority in our understanding at least though not in the thing understood But the Arrian heresie was grounded on a mistake of the Analogy between divine and humane generation for though amongst men the Father is many wayes better and greater then the Son as for example because he is older then the Son and was in beeing before him again because he a tall Father begetteth at first a little son besides his Son is a thing numerically nay substantially distinct from the father lastly because the Father had liberty and could have chosen whether or no he would have begotten a Son yet in God all is quite otherwise for there is no priority nor posteriority no majority nor minority no numerical nor substantial difference in Deity between the Father and the Son though there be a numerical difference in their personalities neither is there any liberty but an absolute necessity of the Sons generation and of his being coaeval coequal and abâ—olutely one and the same essential numerical and necessary God with his eternal Father 29. The belief he here ayms to gain is that of his Deity and of his voluntary not coacted or inforced death for the sins of the people so that which he foretold here was his Death his Resurrection his Ascension and his sending the holy Ghost unto them after he was ascended that when they see all things happen as he had told them they might undoubtedly believe he was the Messias the God-man that came to redeem and save the world 30. So after he had thus prepared them for all events he told them he would not say much more unto them because the devil whom he calls the prince of this world cometh was at hand in his ministers the Jews to persecute him to death and he therefore calls him prince of the world because by sin the world inslaves it self unto him he is come to take me and yet he hath no power in me because I have no sin to give him the least right over me but I freely give my self up to his tyranny over me that I may redeem the world from his usurpation and Tyranny over them nay the very injustice he doth to me shall confiscate all the right he hath over others 31. That is to shew the world that I love my Father and do as he commanded me therefore I dye and give my self into the hands of my enemies Hence it is asked how it can be true which is said of him by Isaias 53. he was offered for sin because himself was so pleased since it was not by his choice but by his Fathers command that he did suffer insomuch that if he had not suffered he had sinned in an act of disobedience and though pure man may choose to do or not to do as he is bid and so truly doth either yet Christ who was God as well as man could not choose and so seems inforced for if man in him had sinned by reason his two Natures made but one Person and actions are of persons not of natures then God had sinned as well as man because God and man were in Christ but one person But we must conceive in one person of Christ there were two states or conditions the one of a viatour or passenger the other of a comprehensour of one impatriated or in glory that is to say the one of a traveller of a man banished from home or in his journey homewards the other of one possessed of his own restored from banishment arrived at his journies end and beeing at his rest So Christ as a viatour or traveller had liberty of choise to suffer or not to suffer though as he was by his hypostatical union to the word and by his Beatifical Vision consequent to that union rendring him in glory in the state of those who are finally blessed he had no choyce but did all things as necessarily as the Blessed do in heaven who cannot choose to do otherwise then love and obey God in all things that they do and yet even so they may be said to love God freely too because they are understanding creatures and free will is radicated in the understanding for nothing that hath not reason hath will and the root of willing is the understanding therefore though the will be necessitated upon supposition that the soul is at home or in glory and cannot choose but love God as long as she sees him yet that love is radically free because it was a free act of the soul departing from the state of a viatour and so retains the nature of freedome as being rather a continued then a new act of free-will And in this sense Christ even as in his state of blisse might be said here freely to suffer because as he was at the same time a viatour he did suffer freely and uncoacted for the necessary continuation is rather a reward of the former act then any new act at all besides this necessity is rather extrinsecal to the act as being radicated in the immutability of the object and of the glory representing to the sight that object then intrinsecal thereunto otherwise then as continuation of an act is intrinsecal unto it self
at all so we ought not to move the least step towards sinne when once we are by Baptisme dead unto it and therefore it followes well that all our vitall motion should be towards God towards his honour and glory in Christ Jesus lest we fall back from the life of grace to the death of sinne which we can never do if in imitation of Christs life we square ours For that is understood by living to God in Christ glorifying God by following the footsteps of his Sonne our Saviour Jesus Christ who so lived after his resurrection that he never died more and desires we may so live in grace as never to die in sinne again being once freed from it by holy Baptisme The Application 1. IT stands with all the reason in the world that where the increase of Religion and Practise of Piety are petitioned there should be laid the ground-work of Religion to build an increase upon see how this whole Epistle is for that purpose nothing else but the very basis and foundation of Christian Religion our death to sinne by holy Baptisme and our resurrection to the life of Grace by the practice of Piety which practice will increase Religion in us according as we do petition 2. If any aske what is the best practice of Pietie whereby we shall most advance and increase Religion in our souls I shall conclude confidently out of this holy Text that the greatest men and saints of Gods holy Church must be made such by becoming Infants and children again by going backward if we may so call it and down the hill of Humility by retreating to the holy Font where first they received life to God since it was of such that our Saviour said Let the little ones come to me and so important he made their comming as Matth. 8. v. 5. we see he excludes from Heaven all that do not make themselves as holy Infants in his sight saying Unlesse ye become like these little ones you shall not enter into the Kingdome of Heaven 3. To conclude then This Text exhorteth all good Christians to become as new born Infants coveting the milk of their mothers breast 1. Pet. 2. v. 2. desiring rather to live babies of grace then men of sinne indeavouring a dayly growth of that love to Gods holy Name which was ingrafted in their breasts in holy Baptisme by that God of vertues to whom all belongs that is best from whom all those best graces vertues and gifts proceeded which were bestowed upon us at the holy Font Namely Originall Justice for the primary effect thereof a rectitude to God when we were adopted his children who before were slaves of the devill The three Theologicall vertues Faith Hope and Charity The four Cardinall vertues Prudence Justice Fortitude and Temperance The seven gifts of the Holy Ghost Wisedome Understanding Counsell Fortitude Knowledge Piety and the Feare of God As also Pennance Religion and all such other vertues as being supernaturall like these are not acquiâ—able by any humane indeavours and therâ—foâ—e â—he habits of them are held probably to be all infused in holy Baptisme So that it is by the work of Charity properly called the practice of Piety by the exercise of these vertues in the frequent Acts thereof that we increase our Religion and nourish what is good in us and rightly called Best in God from whom all goodness flowes all vertue springs as from the proper fountain thereof Say now beloved doth not holy Text beeing all upon Baptisme and the effects thereof give a fit occasion for holy Church to pray to day as above The Gospel Mark 8. v. 1. c. 1 IN those dayes again when there was a great multitude and had not what to eat calling his Disciples together he saith to them 2 I have compassion upon the multitude because loe three dayes they now indure with me neither have they what to eat 3 And if I dismisse them fasting into their home they will faint in the way for some of them came afar off 4 And his Disciples answered him whence may a man fill them here with bread in the wildernesse 5 And he asked them how many loaves have yee who said seven 6 And he commanded the multitude to sit down upon the ground And taking the seven loaves giving thanks he brake and gave to his Disciples for to set before them and they did set them before the multitude 7 And they had few little fishes and he blessed them and commanded them to be set before them 8 And they did eat and were filled and they tooke up that which was left of the fragments seven maundes 9 And they that had eaten were about foure thousand and he dismissed them The Explication 1. IN those dayes signifies here about that time and doth not determine exactly any day For what was now done was not the work of one onely day but of divers wherein many people had flocked together to behold our Saviour and his prodigious works as also to hear him speak and preach unto them so attractive was all he said or did as we see here they were even carelesse how to subsist when our Saviour himself was the first that proved solicitous about them And by calling his disciples he shewes us example to consult with our Brethren and not to rely onely upon our selves in difficulties 2. In this second verse he tells his Disciples he had compassion of the multitude that had row indured with him three dayes and had not what to eat Blessed God! how tender is thy heart to those that suffer purely for thy sake as these did if yet their suffering were not rather a content to them then otherwise For 't is not saith S. Chrysostome that they had fasted three dayes without refection but that they had now nothing left to eat yet happily some amongst them had nothing at all and did really in zeal fast three dayes and therefore 3. As in the third verse is said if they had been dismissed fasting they might have fainted having some of them far to go home See here the reward of perseverance in good works how our Saviour requites but three dayes susteining with a miraculous banquet And indeed his aym was more at feeding their soules by the miracle then their bodies by meat however his disciples understood him to mean onely a corporal repast unto the people when they replyed as followeth 4. In order to the corporal food that it was not to be hoped for in the desert or wildernesse This incredulity our Saviour permitted in his disciples both for their own and the peoples greater satisfaction afterwards when beyond all humane hope he had provided a feast in the desert for his servants as God had done for the Jewes when even Moyses their leader despaired of it as the disciples now did 5. The Interrogatory in this verse argues not any his ignorance of the number of loaves that were amongst them but he asks the question that by
our course according to that Providence since it is most certain that God Almighty never intends our ruine by the miseries he permits to fall upon us but rather our salvation if we bear them with conformity to his holy will But we must find the prayer adapted to this present Epistle and Gospel too else we fail of our design You will have anon the literall sense of both expounded but we must now prosecute our further aim of making it appear this prayer is as it were an abstract of them both In which holy Church would teach us how to cast our selves upon the providence of God with a perfect resignation to his divine will as who should say O God we know thou hast environed mankind with a world of internall and externall evils yet thou that art omnipotent canst remove those evils or things which are hurtfull out of our way and canst afford us all that is good and beneficiall to us since we doubt not but thy goodnesse hath a desire to save each of us and consequently hast so disposed of us in thy saving Providence as notwithstanding all the evils that environ us thy will of saving us shall not be frustrated No not maugre all the internall evils mentioned in the Epistle of our own flesh and bloud propending us to perpetuall sinne nor all the externall evils mentioned in the Gospel of ravenous wolves of false prophets who under colour of saving our souls seek to swallow them up into the mouth of hell For as against our internall evils we find helps in the Epistle domestick easie helps such as S. Paul is almost ashamed to name our own flesh and bloud captivated onely to the rule of reason and grace in like manner we find helps in the Gospel against our externall evils false prophets or teachers when we are in the Gospel taught how to distinguish them from true and safe guides by looking into their lives and works which are compared there to fruits of trees that is if their lives be good we may safely follow them if bad we must avoid them And certainly as we have no internall enemy greater then our own flesh and bloud ill regulated so we have no externall greater then false prophets ill teachers since the Lay-mens lives ought to be squared unto the lives of their spirituall leaders and when any of these are false guides it is like the corruption of the best thing which alwayes is the worst corruption O how fitly then doth holy Church to day reflecting on these internall and externall enemies or evils mind Almighty God in this prayer of that his never-failing providence when to secure us that it be not frustrated in us she bids us deprecate all those evils that may indanger it and beg all those helps that may conduce unto it Say then beloved this prayer with this relation to the Epistle and Gospel both which it sweetly summes up unto you and say it with such a fervour of spirit as it self imports that is beseeching God to looke upon us as lost souls amidst so many dangers as he hath placed us in unlesse he use his own omnipotent power to make good in us his saving Providence For then God hears best when we pray with most earnestnesse and when we cast our selves wholly upon his care and Providence which can never be frustrated The Epistle Rom. 6. v. 19. c. 19 I speak a humane thing because of the infirmity of your flesh For as you have exhibited your members to serve uncleannesse and iniquity unto iniquitie So now exhibit your members to serve justice unto sanctification 20 For when you were servants of sinne you were free to justice 21 What fruit therefore had you then in those things for which now you are ashamed for the end of them is death 22 But now being made free from sinne and become servants to God you have your fruit unto sanctification but the end life everlasting 23 For the stipends of sin death But the grace of God life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Explication 19. St. Paul calls it well a humane thing or motive when he moves us to piety by the argument of requiring no more care in us to serve God then we used to serve our selves And as by iniquity he understands all sinne so by justice he understands all virtue which doth sanctifie us 20. That is to say by making sinne your master you had cast off all the yoke of duty you ow to justice the mistresse under whom you ought to serve God So free to justice means slavery to injustice in this place which is a very ill freedome indeed 21. 'T is clear enough we reap no fruit from sinne but shame and death 22. As clear it is that when we renounce the bondage we were in to sinne we then become servants to God and have for the present fruit of our service sanctity and for the future an eternall and blissfull life 23. That is to say the naturall and due reward of sin is death but life eternall is not so due to Saints because it is a huge grace of God that they obtain heaven when they have done all they can to gain it And in this place the Apostle calls it grace or a reward given to virtue by the singular favour and mercy of God And he calls this grace life everlasting because under the notion of life he includes all that is good and happy and because he will confront it with death which is the reward of sinne to make it more gratefull by being compared to so ungratefull an opposite as death is unto life The Application 1. IT is evident S. Paul in this place speaks to the Lay-people amongst the Romans not to the Church-men for he requires a farre greater perfection of them then of the Layity to whom he indulgeth here as much as humane frailty can expect when he makes the Infirmity of their flesh the strength of his argument to perswade them to the fruits of the spirit their sanctification by the works of charity For without charity there can be no saintity 2. As therefore all sins whatsoever are reduced to the works of the flesh so all virtues are reduced to the works of charity which is the spirit of God working in us counter to the flesh that still producing slavery shame death and damnation this freedome confidence life everlasting and salvation 3. Now in regard Almighty God hath made no flesh at all of his spirituall counsels and in regard we see his wisdome hath so ordained that the life of man is a perpetuall warfare between the spirit and the flesh as this Epistle tells us from the first to the last of it and lastly in regard he hath provided us one sole Chieftain sufficient to quell all the enemies of the flesh his holy grace his love his charity which alone is able to secure souls from all the assaults of their triple enemies the world the flesh and
supernall grace the breasts that thou hast created 7. This verse clears all we said in the precedent and averres that the law of Moyses was rather a law of death then life a law of figure not of substance for that law did rather threaten death and damnation then truely contribute to life or salvation That it was in glory is understood by the ceremony it was delivered with of thunder lightning tempests earthquakes and the shining of Moyses face coming down from the mountain of Sinai By being figured with letters is understood literally written in the tables of stone 8 9. By the ministration of spirit is meant in these two verses the promulgation of the new law the law of grace of Christ which leads us indeed by the spirit of it into a spirituall life of glory and salvation This ministration is said to be glorious by the promulgation of it by Christ the sonne of God next by the coming of the Holy Ghost like a whirlwind in fiery tongues confirming the Apostles in grace teaching them all truth giving them the gift of prophecie of severall tongues as also the two last were given visibly to Christians in baptisme in the primitive Church as 1 Cor. 14.26 we may see and even now graces gifts and virtues are in baptisme given invisibly to all Christians The Application 1. THe Apostle in this Epistle teacheth three principall things the first how frail men are of themselves and that they can do nothing at all by their own power which is able to merit grace here much lesse glory in the next world The second how by degrees of the two Laws God brought these unapt men laudibly to serve his Divine Majesty The third how these two laws differ both in their manner of delivery and in their finall ends which they were to bring frail man unto 2. Stay then beloved this abstract of the Text premised and set before the eyes of our marching charity through the desert of this world what is her office now but that first she do walk warily not onely in regard of her own frailty but of the multitude of ambuscadoes laid in her way by the common enemy next that she give God thanks he hath betterr'd her condition now from what it was in our forefathers dayes and lastly that she do remember 't is not onely present grace she is to beg but future glory as if God had not made this world beautifull nor rich enough for his beloved but valued her alone above all the treasure of the earth and beauty of the universe to the end she might prize his promises unto her yet to come above all that he had here bestowed upon her already and consequently cast her eyes off all the vanity of present objects and fix both them and all her hopes upon the better expectation she is in 3. Thus farre assuredly we hit the Churches aim in giving us the present Text to square our actions by It remains that we conclude These greater promises require a present vigilance to keep this law of grace that is but as 〈◊〉 little key to open heavens widest gates put in our hands which key if it be broken will not let us in nor can we break it if we keep it close with in our hearts or hang it as a jewell in our ears and hearken unto nothing else but what this law commands or if we fix it still before our eyes as the lantern that must light us through the darksome wayes we are to passe lest losing sight thereof we do not onely lose our way but lose our selves indeed by falling into such offences as the law forbids not slightly neither but under pain of forfeiture of all we can expect to make us ever happy Which mischief that we may prevent we fitly pray as above The Gospel Luke 10. v. 23. c. 23 And turning to his disciples he said blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see 24 For I say unto you that many Prophets and Kings desired to see things that you see and saw them not and to hear the things that you hear and heard them not 25 And behold a certain Lawyer stood up tempting him and saying Master what shall I do to possesse eternall life 26 But he said to him in the Law what is written how readest thou 27 He answering said Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thy self 28 And he said to him thou hast answered right Do this and thou shalt live 29 But he desirous to justifie himself said to Jesus and who is my neighbour 30 And Jesus taking it said A certain man went down from Jerusalem into Jericho and fell among thieves who also spoiled him and giving him many wounds went away leaving him half dead 31 And it chanced that a certain Priest went down the same way and seeing him passed by 32 In like manner also a Levite when he was near the place and saw him passed by 33 But a certain Samaritan going his journey came near unto him and seeing him was moved with mercy 34 And going unto him bound his wounds pouring in oil and wâ—ne and setting him upon his own beast brought him into an Inn and took care of him 35 And the next day he took forth two pence and gave to the host and said have care of him and whatsoever thou shalt supererogate I at my return will repay thee 36 Which of those three in thy opinion was neighbour to him that fell among thieves 37 But he said he that had mercy upon him and Jesus said to him go and do thou in like manner The Explication 23. 24. That is the works and person of the living God of the Messias so long being foretold so longed for to be seen so hoped in and this is the sense of these two first verses 25. This Lawyer is therefore said to tempt him because he did not ask with a sincere desire to know what to do for gaining heaven but rather to entrap him if he had said any thing contrary to the Law of Moyses by venting or abetting a new doctrine of his own 26. See how in this verse Christ frustrates the Lawyers plot referring him to the written Law contrary to the Doctours expectation 27. In this verse is grounded the Catholick doctrine that the Law is observeable against Hereticks who say it is impossible to be kept Not that the love here commanded is either to be extensive or intensive but onely comparative final and appretiative that is nothing ought by us to be loved better then God more finally then God nor more dearly or appretiatively By the heart soul and mind is here explicated the whole Will of man applyed to the love of God By strength is explicated here his endeavours and forces used to shew this love in all his actions By loving our neighbour as
so we must live rather content to die poor then seek to live rich after God will have us die beggars Note it is onely excesse of care or anxious solicitude that we are forbidden not ordinary diligence in our occasions 33. By first is here understood chiefly or principally so that we are allowed a secondary care of our temporals though our main imploy and study must be to get heaven for that is the Kingdome of God By Gods justice is here understood those virtues and good deeds that render us just in the sight of God and so capable of that heaven we are in the first place to seek since it was the end for which we were first created By those things which shall be given us besides are understood things of lesse moment and consequently which ought to take up lesse of our care such as are meat clothes and other temporalls The Application 1. GOd and Mammon are not so here declared to be the two masters meant who cannot be both served at once but that we may also take the spirit and the flesh for these two masters and this the rather because so the Gospel is more literally suting the Epistle and besides S. Matthew in the following verses of this present Text doth aim directly at the service we pretend unto the flesh when we neglect our souls to provide for our bodies 2. And see how to prevent this poor pretext our charity is led to day by Providence to shew us that we cannot any way pretend to corporall duty for excusing us from our spirituall obligations since God Almighties Providence is here brought in to furnish us with all things necessary for the body and so to ease us of that care and to send us about our main and onely businesse our secking in the first place the kingdome of heaven and the justice thereof by the works of charity such as in the Epistle above are enumerated and assuring us all things wanting else shall be provided us by his Providence who never relinquisheth the just man nor permits his seed to seek their bread so if neither for our selves nor for our posterity we need to interrupt our spiritual duties or to renounce our service to our souls for any tie we have to serve our bodies we have no pretence then left at all for our so doing 3. Yet least we be withdrawn from the saving works of charity by the hurtfull ones of the flesh which humane frailty would easily incline us to therefore we are taught upon the reading of this holy Text To pray as above alwayes for the help of Christ his perpetuall propitiation by the cordiall of his passion to relieve our fainting charity withall in her march to heaven On the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 7. v. 16. A Great Prophet is risen amongst us and because God hath visited his people c. Vers Let my Prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt thy continued mercy O Lord both cleanse and defend thy Church and because without thee it cannot stand securely be it alwayes governed by thy bounty The Illustration WE heard in the exposition of the last Sundayes prayer that the perpetuall propitiation there begged was the continuation of our Saviours passion to be our continuall help in all occasions and now that to day we beg to have the mercy of our Lord continued to his Church we seem but to repeat the same prayer again in a varied phrase But if we cast our eyes upon the Epistle and Gospel here below and observe how the Expositours upon them apply the same as declaring all the office of Priestly function and telling us what should be the duty of the people thereupon we shall soon perceive as well a difference in the substance as in the phrase or language of these two prayers That alluding to the immediate influence of the passion into us by the personall help which our Saviour affords in the grace he gives us to repent us of our sinnes which relating to himself is fitly called his perpetuall propitiation but reporting to the mediate helps we have from our Saviour by the mediation of his Ministers the Doctours Teachers Preachers and Priests of holy Church it is rather stiled his continued mercy towards us because it was his mercy that moved him to supply his own personall presence amongst us by the mediation of the Priests whom in his place he left by means of catechising preaching and administration of the Sacraments to continue his mercy towards us and by the continuation thereof to cleanse and defend his holy Church cleansed indeed by participation of the Sacraments defended by the communication of the Priests their functions sacrifices and prayers in her behalf and yet our holy mother closeth up this Sundayes prayer with an immediate addresse again unto the fountain it self when she concludes affirming it is as well his bounty as his mercy that she subsisteth by when she professeth she cannot stand securely unlesse she be alwayes governed by his bounty that is to say by his holy grace derived unto us through the hands of his Ministers the Priests of holy Church so that this prayer instructs us whence our helps do flow and by what hands they are conveyed to us And requisite it is that we do pray in this sort to day when the Epistle runs all upon the Priests office to the people and their putting in practice the Christian doctrine taught them by the Priest all which is neatly couched under the spirituality wherewith the Epistle tells us both are rendred compleat as signifying neither the Master nor the Schollar must sow fleshly seeds since both must live by spirituall fruits And for the Gospel we hear the Fathers of the Church avouch it to be a parable alluding to the death of sinne and life of grace which is coincident with what the Epistle taught us of sowing spirituall seeds that might bring forth fruits of grace of Christ not fleshly which produce nothing at all but corruption and death Since then we have this prayer adjusted to the sense of the Expositours upon the other parts of this dayes service we make good our designe as hitherto we did in some one of the latitudes in the preface of this work allowable unto this mysticall Theologie The Epistle Galat. 5. and 6. Chap. Chap. 5. v. 26. If we live in the spirit in the spirit also let us walk let us not be made desirous of vain-glory provoking one another envying one another Chap. 6. v. 1. Brethren if a man be preoccupied in any fault you that are spirituall instruct such a one in the spirit of lenitie considering thine own self lest thou also be tempted 2 Bear ye one anothers burthens and so you shall fulfill the Law of Christ 3 For if any man esteem himself to be something where as he is nothing he seduceth himself 4 But let every one prove his own work and so in
bade her weep no more 14. See how soon the promised comforts of God arrive immediately as he said to her weep not he stopt the hearse and bade the dead corps arise Elias Eliseus and others did pray to raise the dead Christ to shew he was God raised this young man by command and not by prayer Yet observe he touched the hearse no marvel upon the touch of Christ who was life everlasting as being God that temporall life should be restored to the dead body that he touched this he did as naturally as a red hot iron burneth straw So did his flesh united to the Word give life to a carcasse by virtue of that hypostaticall union 15. His sitting up and beginning to speak were indeed true signes of his reviving yet Christ was pleased to take him by the hand and thereby lift him from the hearse and lead him to his mother to shew that he was so humble as he would not onely oblige but even serve his servants Nor is it any wonder that Christ the King of Heaven and Earth should perform the office of a Courtier by his civility to the noble person of this sad widdow whom he had graced and comforted by that act of his power 16. Note this miracle was a kind of Parable importing the spirituall death of souls by sinne and the reviving of the soul again by grace though here the widdowes tears were the motive for Christ to reward her by the restoring her son to life and withall many souls doubtlesse from the death of infidelitie to the life of Christianitie upon the sight of so celebrated a miracle That they were all struck with fear what wonder for their guiltie conscience might make them doubt he who could raise the dead could kill the living as easily if he list but seeing he did not so or rather lest he should do so they blessed God and said for magnifying here importeth glorifying of him he had pleased to visit his people by sending them a great Prophet for as yet they understood Christ to be no more and that he was such this very act made them believe and some doubtlesse concluded he was the long expected Messias whom they called by the name of the great Prophet for distinction sake Note the glosse observes three resuscitations from death to be made by Christ the first that of the daughter of the Archi-synagogue and that by private prayer in her fathers house none being by the second this of the onely sonne of the widdow whom he raised in publick by a word of command and by a touch of his hand the third was that of Lazarus whom with a perplexitie of prayer and tears he raised and with loud crying out Lazarus come forth as if he were undone if he had him not alive again The first of these signifies souls dead by mortall sinne of thought and those therefore were more easily raised by private prayer the second signifies those dead by mortall sin of words those are yet with more difficultie raised by command the third yet more hardly by importune prayer tears and cries to heaven as signifying those souls which are dead by mortall sinne of deed and that reiterated or habituall unto them The Application 1. ALl Expositours agree this miracle of raising the dead by a touch of our Saviours holy hand is a mere figure of his raising souls from the death of mortall sinne to the life of grace by the finger of the holy Ghost by the gift of his holy grace his holy Law which cannot touch a soul but it must needs enliven it See the explication of the last verse in the Gospel for more to this purpose 2. And who can now forbid us piously to thinke this onely sonne of the distressed widdow represents the soul of some one faithfull believer dead yet for want of charitie and revived by the tears and prayers of his tender mother the holy Catholick Church at whose intercession and in contemplation of her tears our Saviour Jesus Christ sends down the holy Ghost to touch the Coffin of this sinners heart with the finger of his grace with the gift the flame of Love and so reviving him first internally then gives him by the hands of the Priest who is Christs Vicar in point of absolution into the lap of his mother externally to live again that is to say admitted to the Sacraments and declared to be a living member as before his death of mortall sinne during which time he was not capable of any Sacrament at all as to the effect the grace thereof 3. To conclude as reason teaches every man to beware of his own danger by seeing another perish in going such a way before him thus holy Church knowing her Priests and people are many wayes liable to the snares of the common enemy and perceiving it is often by the prayers of those that stand they are raised again who fall and that this raising is a continuall mercy of Almighty God gratis given even when most earnestly implored and that the continuation of this gratuite gift is the onely means by which even all the children of the Church do not fall all at once into the death of deadly sinne but are many of them while others fall inabled to stand securely on their living legs of charitie and are governed thereby in every step they make to glory Therefore I say we are to day bid pray as above that this charitie this bountie of our Lord may govern us in all our wayes and that we may have the cleansing and the defending mercy of God continued over us lest that failing us we here fall out of grace and thereby faile of glory in the world to come On the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 14.10 WHen thou shalt be called to a marriage sit in the lowest place that he who did invite thee may say unto thee friend ascend up higher and so it shall be a glory unto thee before them that sit there Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt thy grace we beseech thee O Lord alwaies go before and follow us and make us continually intent unto good works The Illustration WHat may seem as common in this Prayer to all persons times and places must not hinder it to be a very particular and apposite petition to this present time wherein it is by holy Church put up unto Almighty God purity cannot approach Tell me beloved now what single-souled devotion can compare with this that being common is peculiar unto each particular in such a sort as it there were no more but one man left in all the world even into his particular necessity would run the whole contents of all these common prayers which are not therefore lesse adapted unto every one because they are the prayers of all the world besides but rather we are sure our selves had need to say them when every man alive doth find himself concerned
believe the touch of his vertue was sufficient unless he added thereunto the touch of his person so he pressed him to go personally to his son 48. Be the opinion of the Lord what it will concerning Christ his power whether as Doctour or as God that he did his cures certain it is Christ his meaning was to bring men by the fame of his works to believe in his Deity and therefore he replies to this Lord as if he must have signes and wonders done to work belief into him Note that signes and wonders thus differ the first are properly done in and by nature gently operating as curing diseases which need not any power above nature the second is commonly miraculous and is therefore done by a power exceeding natures force of this sort is raising the dead So by wonders here are understood miracles and all little enough to make the Jews believe 49. It seems by this reply the Lord shewed himself to be rather of the Jewish then of the Samaritan that is of the Gentiles race for you see he believes in no virtual but will have an actual touch to cure his son lest he die for want of such a touch and no Nation so hard of belief as the Jewish 50. O strange clemency in our Saviour he rebukes no more but by yielding to humane infirmity confirms this Lord in the belief of his Deity for the more he doubted of Christ his power to be able at a distance to cure his son the more he must admire to see it done at the same distance and the more he admires at the thing done the better he thinks of the power doing it and the stronger is his faith in him that gives testimony of such a power Lo by this art our Saviour converts this Infidel by doing at a distance what the other thought was impossible so to be done whereupon our Saviour sayes to him Go thy son liveth that is as much as to say he is cured and shall live Now though this Lord did not sufficiently believe in Christ his distantial operative virtue yet he nothing doubted of his presential veracity but firmly believed what he said or promised here would undoubtedly be verified and made good there where his son was Hence the Text sayes he believed and went to enjoy the hopes of his belief by finding him well for the words of our Saviour were not onely affirmative or enunciative but operative too that is did effect the thing they declared to be done and this effect the Lord did confidently believe So by this means Christ wrought two miracles one in curing the corporal sickness of the son the other in curing the spiritual disease of the father his infidelity and it may not be wide of the sense to say the later cure prevailed to obtein the first for it seems the child proved well just at the time the father did believe he should find him so when he came home 51. 52. These two verses seem to tell us onely for they import little else besides this remarkable sign of Gods goodnesse to prevent the father in the satisfaction he expected by ordaining his servants should meet him and give him the certainty thereof and thereby the reward of his belief soone then he did expect it which was not before he had seen his son well at home but now he finds it is true ere he gate unto his house much lesse unto his son for it seems they were come the day before from home since they told him he was yesterday recovered to meet their master with this gladsome tidings of his sons recovery Yes indeed God is so good he rather anticipates then protracts his servants rewards when they do well 53. The reason why the exact hour of the childs recovery was enquired after by the father was to satisfie his family as well as himself that this was a miraculous and not a natural cure since the child lying at the point of death was proved to recover just at the instant wherein our Saviour said he lived or which is here all one that he was well for it was proper enough to speak this later by the former words since the father had told our Saviour his son began to dye was actually agonizing or dying whereupon Christ told him he did live as who should say there was not in him any danger of death And since this danger was prevented by the virtue onely of a word out of our Saviours mouth spoken at that minute when it was doubted whether he were dead or alive so dangerous a case he was in those who heard of this prodigious alteration upon the meer and sole prolation of a word were immediately converted and became as faithful believers in our Saviours Deity as their Lord and Master was so every way is it true that God his works are absolutely perfect Deut. 32. v. 4. since here we see by the force of one onely word of God the father son and all the family became of Jewes good Christians and doubtlesse so continued and so dyed having the same their converter who was their Saviour and who questionlesse converted them to save them all To conclude if we will understand this story mystically we may conceive this Lord to be the soul of man called little King as being allied to the King of heaven his sick son to be his depraved will his servants his corporeal senses his ague his inordinate appetites or desires This soul sick as above is cured by Christ in holy baptisme and made of a petty King of an heir to the world a great King indeed an heir to the Kingdome of heaven her cure is said to be perfected at the seventh hour because the number seven is a type of the Sabbath or day of rest or of the seven-fold healing Spirit of God the Holy Ghost conveyed into our soules by the seven Sacraments while in them his holy grace is bestowed on us or of the number seven divided into three and four betokening the mystery of the sacred Trinity dispersed into and reigning over all the four corners of the world East West North and South The Application 1. SInce the story of this Gospel is all parabolical and concludes that in recompence of this Lords faith his sick son was cured and his whole family with himself was converted to the faith of Christ we that have already the happinesse to be of this faith are taught yet by this parable how to perfect it upon all occasions by producing frequent and deeper acts thereof then as yet we have done For here in this Lord we see three degrees of Faith the first that faint one when he besought our Saviour to come to his house and cure his son the second that stronger one when after Christ had bid him go for that his son was well then he believed the touch of his power was equal to that of his person and the third that strongest of all which made him go
tells them plainly of their dissimulation when he rebukes them and their hypocritical temptations for though they flatter to destroy him yet he reprehends to save them And thus we see an angry God is more profitable then a propitious man since the one cannot the other may deceive us or attempt at least so to do as here these people did even when they made the fairest shew of friendship to our Saviour 19. But Christ intending to give them a further check by seeming to go yet on towards the snares they had laid to intrap him calls for a piece of that coin which was called the tribute money being a piece to the value of six pence 20. And they giving him one of them he demands whose picture that was which he found stamped on the money not that he who knew their thoughts before could be ignorant whose coin it was they gave him but that he was desirous to give them a convincing answer to their capricious question by taking the ground of his answer out of their own mouthes and so to stop their mouthes by confounding them upon their own words 21. They tell him boldly it was Caesars namely Tiberius his coin the then Roman Emperour who had reigned eighteen years as Saint Luke sayes c. 3. v. 1. and was descended of Julius the first who took the name of Caesar as all the Roman Emperours did after Our Saviour hearing them say this answers in such sort as if he had wondred they could doubt of what they asked so be instantly replies if it be Caesars coin Give that to Caesar which is Caesars or rather surrender restore so reddite imports to your Sovereign the tribute of that coin which he gives you to repay it to him for you cannot your selves without breach of the law make your own coin but must onely use such as your Sovereign stamps and gives you as a token it is his and not your own because it bears his picture on it as you see And whereas you asked me this question with a seeming regard to God as if you would not have him offended by his peoples paying tribute to Gentiles know God expects the tribute of your hearts and not that of your purses open therefore your hearts to God your purses to your Princes so shall you comply with your duties to both Not that by this answer our Saviour did determine whether the Jews were tyrannically subjected to the Roman Empire for this was a question of some intricacy but that since he found themselves confesse the coin they had was Caesars and in using it that they did acknowledge themselves his subjects therefore he bid them give Caesar what was Caesars not determining the crown but at least the coin to be his due Yet if Christ had determined the crown to be Caesars too the one hundred years prescription that the Roman Emperours could pretend unto by a tacite consent all that while on the Jews part might well have avouched that determination and probably our Saviour did so conceive and so determine too by this answer Besides the question was not so much whether they were bound by humane Law as by divine for they seemed to pretend conscience and to think it might be a sin to God for a Jew to pay duty to a Gentile and to this Christ answers it may be lawfully and safely done in conscience if a Gentile be their lawfull Sovereign The Application 1. AS in this dayes Epistle sincerity is recommended so in the Gospel hypocrisie the contrary vice unto it is not onely reprehended by our Saviour but sincerity commended in bidding that be given unto Caesar which is Caesars and that to God which appertains to God 2. Nay more as conscience was pretended for the doubt these hypocrites proposed so the command resolving must be conscientious obliging under pain of sin O Christians learn from hence to make a conscience of your actions learn to let them be sincere indeed and not in shew alone so shall you make your sincerity the testimony of your sayntity if not your non-sincerity will still accuse you of iniquity 3. Alas what boots it to believe in God unlesse that belief be perfected by the like sincerity in our profession as accompanies the confession of our faith For as faith without works is dead so those works that are done without sincerity are rather works of infidelity then of true Christian faith What will hope in God avail us when our actions leading to the fruition of our hope mis-lead us for lack of sincerity therein What will that charity befriend us which is nothing but an unsincere affection to Almighty God while in sincerity of truth 't is but our selves we seek our selves we love in most of those professions which we make of serving and of loving God For remedy of which transcending non sincerity in all our actions holy Church Prayes as above to day that what we petition with sincere recourse to God and with the piety of our joynt praying mother may be effectually granted because it is at least sincerely asked On the three and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 9. v. 22. BVt Jesus being turned and seeing her said Have a good heart Daughter thy faith hath made thee safe Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer PArdon we beseech thee O Lord the offences of thy people that from the bonds of our sins which through our frailty we have contracted by thy benignity we may be delivered The Illustration HOw aptly do we pray to day for the pardon of our offences and to be delivered from the bonds of our sins by the benignity of our Lord which through our own frailty we have contracted since in this Epistle Saint Paul weeping complains that he finds even among Christians such grievous sinners as are enemies to the crosse of Christ such as make their belly their God and for so doing have destruction their end and confusion their glory and since he labours to reclaim them by laying his own life a pattern of sanctitie before their eyes beseeching them to have as himself had their conversation in heaven to emulate the gifts of glory exposed for reward to those that are good Christians and incouraging them the Philippians that were good to continue so naming for example to the rest certain godly matrons Euodia and Syntiche But how much more sutable is the Gospell to this prayer wherein we see the enormitie of sinne set out by the figure of death in Jairus his daughter and by the nastinesse of a long continued issue of bloud in another woman Both which corporall cures the Expositours apply unto a spirituall cure of all sinne whatsoever when they will have the Jewes to be represented by the dead daughter of Jairus restored to life and the Gentiles by the woman cured of her bloudy issue and consequently all the bands of sinne untied by the benignitie of God which were
so have their names written in the book of life are predestinate and cannot choose but be saved But this is farre from the genuine sense of the Apostle who had before so much inculcated perseverance in good works as in this Epistle we have heard his meaning therefore must be that those who by Baptisme are first adopted children of God and by a holy life preserve their favour in the sight of God are at last written in the book of glory as at first they were in the book of grace as who should say he did exhort them that were first innocents to be at last Saints and so deserve to be finally inrolled Commanders of the heavenly Militia after they had been once listed souldiers of the militant Church of Christ The Application 1. THe doctrine of sincerity last Sunday inculcated is this day prosecuted by S. Paul to the Philippians and lest they should misunderstand him he tells them plainly he requires as sincere a Christianity in them as they found to be in himself while he makes his own rule of life their pattern and example to follow him by and doth not fear to fright them from their onely nominall Christianity by declaring those to be enemies to the Crosse of Christ who do not really sincerely take up the same and carry it as well as they pretend to do it who have not their conversation in heaven while they presume to hope their bodies shall go thither though their souls be wallowing here in the mire of flesh and bloud Finally lest they should be deterr'd from following S. Pauls Rule out of a despair of arriving to his perfection in Christianity which in those dayes was and still should be Synonyma with saintity he exhorts them at least to follow the examples of the two virtuous Matrones here set before their eyes Euodia and Syntiche as also those of his sincere companion though not an Apostle and of the rest of his Coadjutors in the propagation of the faith of Christ 2. Yes yes beloved 't is a holy sincerity that now our charity must bring along with her to her journeys end and therefore no marvell 't is two dayes together inculcated by holy Church nor can there be a greater sincerity then that to day before our eyes that of the Primitive Church and consequently that is it we should endeavour now to have indeed and not to fain for as we glory to be Christian Catholicks so we should endeavour to be as sincerely such as they from whom we are descended 3. And for as much as holy Church knows rightly well there is no saintity on earth free from iniquity no sincerity that is not waited on by some hypocrisie or other therefore while she preacheth perfection she prudently prayes for absolution especially now that she draws to the close of her annuall piety now that she brings her charity towards her journeys end lest vanity runne away with part of her holy labours For that is the safest step to saintity which tramples on iniquity treads it under foot those stand firmest in the grace of God that are alwayes begging new favours by asking pardon for old offences and they shew sincerity of their love to God who desire to cancell all their obligations to the devil who are not content with pardon for their guilt of sinne unlesse they may be loosened from the bands thereof from their affections unto sinne And for as much as charity is taught to march out of the field of this life with such a sincerity with such a sincere desire of saintity Therefore holy Church brings her towards her journeyes end now praying for it as above The Gospel Mat. 9. v. 18. c. 18 As he was speaking this unto them behold a certain Governour approched and adored him saying Lord my daughter is even now dead but come lay thy hand upon her and she shall live 19 And Jesus rising up followed him and his disciples 20 And behold a woman which was troubled with an issue of bloud twelve years came behind him and touched the hemme of his garment 21 For she said within her self If I shall touch onely his garment I shall be safe 22 But Jesus turning and seeing her said have a good heart daughter thy faith hath made thee safe And the woman became whole from that hour 23 And when Jesus was come into the house of the Governour and saw minstrels and the multitude keeping a stirre he said 24 Depart for the wench is not dead but sleepeth And they laughed him to scorn 25 And when the multitude was put forth he entred in and held her hand and the maid arose 26 And this bruit went forth into all that countrey The Explication 18. THat is as he was giving a reason why his disciples did not fast so rigorously as those of John the Baptist did and as also the Pharisees were wont to do which were onely voluntary and not legall fasts Then came in this Governour who was a chief officer in the Synagogue called Jairus which signifies Illuminatour or teacher of the people By Adoration is here literally meant falling at Christs feet which yet he did not do before news was brought him by his servants that now his daughter was dead lo then he believes firmly and in testimony thereof prostrates himself and in the very manner of his language saying now my daughter is dead he blames his not believing and asking help sooner but to make amends for his not hoping Christ could cure his sick daughter he invites him to go home and revive her though she now were dead not that he doubted but his power at a distance would suffice but that he had heard Christ was accustomed to touch those whom he healed in Capharnaam and this was on the sea coast of Galilee not farre from the same town famous for Christ his miracles 19. That this is the genuine sense of the verse above is gathered the rather from Christ his going immediately to undertake the cure even after the same manner namely by a touch of his sacred hand for we do not hear any rebuke given to Jairus for want of Faith but Christ resting satisfied his belief was full resolved to give him full satisfaction to his Faith and hope by reviving as was desired his dead daughter taking his disciples as witnesses to this his gracious condescending and working this miracle Yet this notwithstanding the Centurions Faith was above this of Jairus who onely asked a word saying Mat. 8.8 speak the word onely and held himself not worthy the honour of Christ his entring his house 20 21. 22. Note this woman was a Gentile and it wants not mystery to have the twelve yeares of her diseases continuation upon her here made mention of in regard it alludes to the twelve years age of Jairus daughter whom Christ was going to raise from death to life and thereby gives us to understand Christ by his ordaining to do those two miracles at
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