and forcibly entered by Cyrus King of the Medes he resolved rather than become a scornful prisoner to dye on the places upon which design he cast himself into the midst of his Enemies preferring an honorable death before an opprobrious life His Son beholding his imminent danger though to that instant at the Age of twenty years he had been alwayes dumb cryed out spare my Father spare my Father it is the King Whereupon the Enemy seised his person and preserved his life some attribute this to a natural cause alledging the love this Prince had for his Father put all his vital spirits into combustion and by that violent motion broke the obstacle of his speech However methinks this passage may in some sense be applyed to our great Penitent who was morally dumb the Organs of his Soul structed by the malignity of sin insomuch as he could not utter one syllable which might have force to reach the Ears of his Creatour untill he came to have a prospect of his eternal ruine and no sooner these Terrours appeared before him but all the faculties of his Soul were stirred up removed all Obstacles and made him Petition for the opening his Lips the first motion to his happiness Lord thou wilt open my Lips For this imports not a local division of the Lips but an inflamation of the heart by vertue of which heat all the parts of his Body will be disposed to discharge those functions for which they were created St Paul to shew how little Man can do if left to himself sayes 1 Cor. 4. What do we possess which we have not received and if so why glory we in it as if our own Again he powerfully asserts it in the Eighth Chapter to the Romans It is not he who wills or runs but he on whom God will have mercy As if he would say as Esau in vain pursued his Chase thinking from thence to derive to himself his Fathers blessing So Man after sin loses but his time and endeavour if he think by the strength of his natural faculties to be able to observe the Commandements of God or perform what is requisite to the purchase of Heaven So that it must chiefly spring from the mercy of God's assisting grace Nay which is more we cannot so much as desire to serve God according to our obligations unless he first by his divine grace move our hearts and dispose our will unto it as the same St. Paul sayes God works in us both the will and the execution without God assisting we cannot have a desire neither to believe what is proposed as the object of Faith nor perform what we should in order to vertuous actions and therefore St. Austin sayes the prodigal Son had never resolved to return home to his Father if the mercy of God had not inspired him to it To manifest this truth we need go no further than to cast our thoughts upon the Grecian and Roman learning which produced the greatest wits in the World yet in all their inquisition after a sovereign good they were so lost as even to become ridiculous acting things concerning a Deity and Man's supream felicity as if they were destitute of reason St. Paul takes notice in particular how coming to Athens he found an Altar dedicated to an unknown God For they had been visited with a great pestilence and ignorant for what offence a chastisement so severe was inflicted at last fancied it was for want of homage to be rendered to some Deity not yet discovered than this what could be more absurd to shew in what darkness and errours Man doth grope when left to himself So that if at any time a person blushes at his vanities and past extravagancies and doth confess that what before he behold as light and life to be nothing else than obscurity and death this Conversion sayes St. Austin comes not from himself but from the powerful and hidden grace of God which dissipates the Clouds of Earthly opinions and enflames his heart with a desire of knowing the truth Now this change God works in Souls several wayes in some more gently in others more forcibly Solomon insinuates that he particularly gives his call by the outward preaching of his word this Esai confirms Chap. 40. God hath sent Doctors of his Faith into the World who should reduce their Brethren like the blind into the way that is unto Jesus Christ the Messias who is styled the way truth and life In this manner Surius recounts Barlaam was sent to Josaphat Son to a King in the Indies that by his conversion the whole Kingdom might embrace the Law of Christ St. Paul was sent to Athens who converted the great St. Dennis a famous Doctor of the Areopagites St. Philip to the Eunuch of the Ethiopian Queen who by expounding unto him a Prophecy of Christ in Esai immediately received Baptism at his hands In the History of Japonia it is related of a certain Indian who had lived well according to the light of nature how he was restless in his Mind believing his religion to be false he went to the Turks thinking to follow theirs but finding there no satisfaction then he applyed himself to the Jews but still remained in perplexity so that with much fervour he was wont to cry out O God let me know who thou art and that I may serve thee according to thy will otherwise do not charge me with blame for my errour At last it happened St. Francis Xavierus came into the Town where he was and no sooner did he hear him unfold the points and sacred mysteries of Christian Religion but he proclaimed that Man preaches the God I must serve and forth with was baptized By this expedient he likewise made a conquest of our Holy Penitent in which action Nathan the Prophet was instrumental who laying before him his obligations to God and his ingratitude occasioned that without delay he had recourse to the Sanctuary of this present petition or Miserere The second manner of his call is by the inward operation of his Spirit and this he communicates to all witness St. Paul 1 Cor. 4. God who drew light from darkness by a word from his mouth hath filled our hearts with the splendour of his knowledge For without this light of Faith Man knowes not God who made him he knowes not whither he tends he knowes not eternal felicity for which he was created nay he knowes not himself for without Faith we know not that we are born Imps of wrath and lyable to eternal death We know not the wounds of our nature our inability to good the necessity of being regenerated by grace Lastly without this interiour light we know not Christ our Mediatour by whose pretious blood we are Redeemed from eternal damnation and restored to a life of Grace and Glory But you will say if God imparts this light of faith to all how comes it so many remain in darkness and infidelity of this the reason is
observers of it as that rain should fall in due season their Lands become fertile their Trees be laden with fruit abundance in their Vineyards that they should be preserved from wild Beasts enjoy a full peace overcome their Enemies and plant themselves in the midst of them Nay more that these temporal blessings were to be Crowned with eternal life of which promise made to the first inhabitants of the Earth they had a Tradition though their Law made no mention of it So that not only for their temporal prosperity but likewise in order to spiritual and eternal treasures they were bound to obey their legal precepts and this in conscience under the penalty of a mortal or venial guilt according to the matter wherein they transgressed Now this obligation was extended not only to their moral and Ceremonial precepts but likewise to their Judicial and Politick for why should not civil and temporal Lawes bind in Conscience since we are tyed by a certain external Justice in morality to contribute to the peace and quiet order of the Common-wealth Lastly they are commanded by God as well as the others and pronounced with the like benedictions and maledictions and therefore obligatory after the same manner It was upon this ground they set more by one precept of the Law than by their lives or whatsoever else most precious to them For example Eleazer and the Mother of the Machabees with her Sons chose rather to dye than to eat Swines flesh forbidden by the Law it was in pursuance of this their zeal that when the Romans first took Hierusalem under Pompey and forcibly entering the Temple mowed down all before them neither the terrour of death nor outcryes of the dying Multitude round about them could divert them from their divine service oblations and Sacrifices but on the contrary were resolved to lye at the mercy of the victorious and suffer what they pleased rather then abandon their Altars on quit any part of their duty in observing what was commanded by their Law and forefathers Now since these legal Sacrifices were so much valued by the Jews and observed with so much zeal as instituted by God's own appointment in Testimony of our acknowledgment of his supream power and our subjection and being they were their sole refuge to shelter themselves from the darts of his anger how comes it to pass that in the case of our Petitioner they are censured useless and no wayes to be countenanced from Heaven For as here he expresly declares that God would not have him pay this tribute or homage of Sacrifice so we have reason to believe he did it not for it is no where read that he offered up any Sacrifice for Vriah's murder or his adultery with Berfabee though usually all offendours in that nature did it nor were to be admitted into humane Society untill they had purifyed themselves by a Sacrifice of expiation Some there are who fancy that our Petitioner understands here that legal Sacrifices were most of them appointed for sins committed through ignorance and negligence Now he not finding himself guilty in this kind presumes that God would not exact a Sacrifice of him upon that score But this cannot hold Water for certain it is that many of those Sacrifices were instituted for the expiation of several trespasses of commission and namely those which gave birth to this his penitential Psalm Besides he seems to be much devoted to that kind of Sacrifice which was ordained for sins of ignorance often supplicating the Divine mercy in behalf of his secret and hidden sins which must needs import his faults into which through ignorance he may have fallen and therefore upon that score he would never desist from the offering up of a Sacrifice Others again interpret this clause of our Petitioner as if he would say Lord should I offer up those Sacrifices commanded in the Law they will not please nor appease thee They are but figures and representations of that true Sacrifice thou wilt one day give us and from the efficacy of which future Sacrifice the weak vertue of these are derived at whose approach all these are to be evacuated and cease Were it not then better that I present you with one that will never be refused that is a heart pierced with sorrow and bowed with repentance this is a Sacrifice I am sure you require and if I give you this you will not think I grudge you the other Upon these Terms the three Young Men in Babylon petitioned That God would receive a contrite heart and spirit of humility in lieu of Ramms Bulls and a thousand fat Lambs offered up in Holocaust But with submission I conceive our Petitioner in this clause appeals to his great God and insinuates it is his revealed will he should desist from these Sacrifices as being all satisfyed with his internal acts of repentance which more perfectly contribute to the effect of a Sacrifice though not to the formality of it than any external oblation For this expression if you would have had one supposing the command of God in general to the Jewish Nation that in all their distresses they were to make their way to him by the means of Sacrifice imports a knowledge he had to the contrary otherwise he would never have put in an if nor made a Quere whether he should do it had he not been first warranted in the forbearance Now if you ask me why God should proceed so particularly with him it seems to me probable that it was in consideration of his vigorous Faith and ardent zeal for the coming of the Messias by which he merited the effect of what the legal Sacrifices did represent and so was dispensed with in order to all those Sacrifices as to him with these circumstances little beneficial For we see in several Emergencies that God would not tye himself to the strict rules he had set down for the guidance of his people he had ordained that Priests only were to be the lawful Ministers of Sacrifice and the prevarication of this Law he punished severely in the persons of Ozias and Saul Yet at another time by a particular Ordination he enjoyned Abel Abraham Isaac and others though they were not Priests to offer Sacrifice For by vertue of this Command they were consecrated Priests and had the power of Sacrificing committed to them In like manner our Petitioner living in the time of the Law a Law of bondage where many harsh impositions were laid upon them might be exempted from the burden of Sacrifices upon the score of his Heroick Love Repentance and ceaseless groans for a Redeemer For doubtless amongst all the Patriarchs of the old Testament none ever interessed themselves so much in that particular as he and it is believed he much obliged the World by those his longing desires in hastning the coming of the Messias For all this at the first glance one would think our Penitent were lyable to censure That knowing he addressed
merits Hence it is that Jesus Christ being infinite in consideration of his person and his humanity being infinitely holy his actions are of an infinite value and merit If it be said his goodness is deficient in this ransom and that he contracted it only to some few St. John confounds them for speaking of the incarnation he seems transported with wonder and expresses it with a sic that is God so loved the World as he gave unto it his only Son Can we imagine then he loved it so little as to select a certain small number no no he loved it so much as he died for all There is no good person upon Earth who desires not out of charity all Men's Salvation and shall Jesus Christ the Saint of Saints be limited in this his charity St. Bridget in her Revelations recounts how Christ our Lord said once unto her I am much offended with those who say my Lawes are hard that I give not sufficient Grace to their observance and that my passion is to some no wayes beneficial by which they would ravish my goodness from me but at the latter day I will justify my self before the Angels and Saints and make it clear as the Sun there was no want on my part that there is not one Soul for whom I would not have endured as much as I have done for all and that the sole fault consists in the obliquity of their wills alwayes rebellious and contrary to mine St. Peter in his second Epistle Chap. 2. speaking of certain Reprobate Hereticks sayes They deny him by which they are redeemed and St. Paul 1 Cor. c. 8. Thus thy Brother will perish for whom our Lord and Saviour dyed Whence it followes a person may be damned for whom Christ offered up his death by consequence he dyed for the Reprobate The councel of Trent Sess 6. c. 3. Christ dyed for all though as to the benefit of his death those only receive it unto whom his passion is applyed The price of his blood was given then for all Men though the success be different some more some less partaking the fruit of his passion He is a Saviour then to all in some degree of redemption even to those he shall judge and condemn as St. Austin on the 53. Psalm He shall judge all the VVorld who hath payed the ransome for all the VVorld In which appears his magnificence and copious redemption that would dye for Souls whom he foreknew would resist the charms of his grace to the last and as much as lyes in them render his passion fruitless nay he gloryes in that he came for the greatest sinners promising cure to the most desperate diseases nay to the impious in case they will comply with his prescriptions To bring this a little more home St. Thomas sayes the passion of Jesus Christ is like to a ray of the Sun which though it be created for the benefit of the whole World yet all reap not advantage by it there being some of a melancholy reserved humour who effect darkness and shut up their doors and windowes against his beams so the passion and death of our Saviour is offered up for the universal good of all Men but many loving the darkness of sin keep themselves barricadoed from his benign influence resisting the light of Faith and other attractives of his love Thus you see all have power to save themselves though such only are effectually saved unto whom the passion of Jesus Christ by our happy concurrence with his sufficient Grace is communicated and applyed as in the Fifth Chapter to the Hebrews he is cause of Salvation unto all those who obey him Our Learned Doctor upon these grounds hath reason to hope that when he shall have deciphered unto the wicked the wayes of God how full of mercy and obliging sweetness they are they will lend their cooperation and consent to the movings of his grace bear part with their Saviour's passion that they may likewise share in his glory acknowledging with faith and love all that is done or to be done by them the effects of his grace and so apply to themselves Christ's merits and satisfaction And the impious shall be converted to thee Impiety in the strict acceptation imports Atheism and a shaking off all acknowledgement of a Deity its usual mates are prophaneness and impurity by which all things sacred are contemned and Man degenerates into a brute What a task is it then to reduce an impious person Whom neither the fear of a divinity doth awe nor the charms of holy things allure nor finally the shame of a base action can move St. Austin treating of such as are enslaved to this vice sayes they resemble in nature to a Feaverish Distemper which still creates a thirst though you throw in an Ocean of liquor so where the flames of impiety have once taken hold to stop the wastes of its fury passes the art of reason or eloquence for the impious have neither Eye nor Ear nor any sense which is not depraved and turns all into the malignity of its own humour I remember St. Chrysostom makes a query why Herod fell so barbarously upon the massacre of so many Infants for sayes he he either believed the Prophecy or believed it not if he gave no credit to it it was sottish in him to embrue his hands in so much blood any spark of judgement would have dictated he ought to have contemned and slighted it Again if he believed it was a real prophecy issuing from the decree of Heaven it must needs be inviolable and could not want its effect At last he solves the question and throwes it upon this that a Soul drenched in impiety is above all things the most infatuated she is so unhappy as where there is no impulse from abroad to precipitate herself into inevitable ruine nay fruitlesly to attempt odious and impossible things It is of these impious holy Job speaks when he gives a relation of their Maxims They say unto God retire from us we scorn the knowledge of your wayes what is the Omnipotent that we must serve him and what benefit arises if we pray unto him These are the familiar blasphemies which the impious belch forth the presence of God they decline shutting up all the Avenues of Faith and Charity by which he may enter unto them The knowledge of his wayes and Commandements they abhor because they are contrary to their works to his power they submit not faigning to believe he is not omnipotent because he is merciful Finally they offer not up their supplications unto him because they would ask what is not fit for his supream wisdom and goodness to accord Our great Minister in despight of all these exorbitancies promises yet to himself the reduction of these Monsters and hopes to shape them to the resemblance in which they were created in which undertaking we need not doubt but he used all the Topicks of authority and reason apt to convince and
give life to them and truly it is rational that since God threatens punishment to the wicked deeds of Men he should likewise propose a recompence to vertuous actions otherwise he might be said to be more enclined to severity than sweetness which is much repugnant to his nature Again sanctifying grace is a quality so sublime that it dignifies and exalts the works of that subject it informs above all the Worlds greatness Now there being nothing but eternal glory which surpasses grace a meritorious action animated by grace cannot be recompenced to the worth but by glory whence it followes that grace by a title of right and condignity merits eternal glory Lastly sanctifying Grace is communicated by God unto a Soul with the circumstance of an affectionate Amity by which in the first place he loves her and this love of friendship moves him to pardon all her offences to receive her into his favour and adorn her with the incomparable Ornament of this Celestial quality This done Man becomes a Friend of God in his first justification is raised to a pitch of greatness so transcending as his works are worthy of Heaven as performed by a friend of God who hath an affection for her and by that will render her compleatly happy Upon these motives and supposition of a grant to the preceeding clause of his petition he will blazon forth the Iustice of God not in the remission of his sin for this he acknowledges to his pure mercy but upon the score of a recompence which his goodness hath promised This consideration awakens him from sluggishness and as the Labourer endures patiently the fatigues of his task in hopes of his salary at Night so will our Petitioner unweariedly sustain the traverses of this life and amidst his tribulations every thought of Paradise shall move his Tongue to exalt O Lord thy Justice Merit is defined a service which obliges to a retribution or a good work done freely and which God accepts of as the price of eternal life Now albeit good actions arising from grace by which they are supernaturallized are in a certain manner rendered worthy of eternal life even without the promise of God yet they can no wayes oblige God to give it unless he first engage his word to this effect For he is the Sovereign Lord of the World and most particularly of just Men and their good deeds yet can they not so much sway with him as to put a constraint on his will to let them share with him in his Heavenly Kingdom For when all the just had consecrated to his honour all the good works imaginable he might justly say I accept of these in discharge of your past debts and obligations due to me for your Creation conservation grace and power I have given you to act So that when any one makes an oblation of his person fortune or any other his goods unto God he must not present it in way of a gift but with humility as in satisfaction of a debt nor yet as if he would clear all scores but as a small parcel of that great Summ which he owes Wherefore that Man may have an unquestionable right to Heaven by the value of his good works being so engaged to God as he is it was necessary a contract or stipulation should pass by which God should please to declare he would give him Heaven in recompence and upon this ground he should have a title to demand and obtain it In this proceeding his Mercy and Justice meet his mercy in that he accepts the works of the just for more than the bare discharge of their obligations His Justice in that he is pleased to give the rate of Heaven in return of their good works by this means Saints are humbled in the excellency and value of their merits for by it they know that Heaven is so bestowed by way of Iustice as they are notwithstanding unspeakably obliged to the Divine mercy which passing over the debts accepts of their works for Heaven this certainly will give them immortal resentments of gratitude for which they will powre forth an infinity of praises and benedictions throughout the vast spaces of eternity to a Benefactour who treats them so nobly with such signal favours as to become a Debtor even to his own debtors St. Austin admiring this Mystery sayes God hath made himself a Debtor to us not by receiving any thing from us but by promising what he pleased unto us For all things are depending on him nor can they oblige him but as far as he will oblige himself by his incomparable Charity and inviolable Fidelity Our great Penitent ravished in the contemplation of these truths cannot but unloose his Tongue to celebrate the praises of the Divine Iustice which so attempers the circumstances of our Salvation that we may claim it as our due He hires us into his Vineyard and if we prove faithful to our task he will not fail in his promise to give us a salary he often reflects what a comfort it will be to a beatifyed Soul to have contributed something to her own happiness In this liberty and free will which God hath given us he beholds the perfection and greatness of the Soul that neither the most charming beauties the most ravishing delights the most glorious dignities the most amiable vertues in spiritual entertainments nay nor the most eminent hopes of glory can work any impression or impose any necessity upon her actions but according to the mtasure of her will Again she hath a vigour impregnable fortifyed with God's grace against all sin and misfortunes that neither the allurements of what is lovely nor the horrid face of what is frightful can make any entrance by force for the Soul is above all the machinations of Men can resist them and meerly because it pleases her so to do Let them speak fair let them bribe threaten weep attack thunder lighten muster the Elements into storms and fury nothing finds admittance but at her disposal So that these words in the Apocalips may justly be applyed to her I have been dead and am living She was dead by Original sin and is revived by the Grace of Jesus Christ she hath put into her Hands the Keys of life and death that is free will which may open to her either Paradise or Hell After this survey of Man's liberty in this life by which he is free either to the acting of what is good or bad he makes a pause upon the apprehension that Man would have been more perfect were he limited to vertue and incapable of any vitious action as God himself is and all the blessed by a clear vision But he solves this objection considering that God alone by nature is impeccable it is a priviledge wherein none can share with him as being infinitely perfect and can admit of no imperfection St. Ambrose sayes that only the substance of the Divinity is a Being that cannot dye to wit by the death of