of God who made use of sin to destroy sin as saith the Apostle of the Gentiles De peccato damnavit peccatum and changing his death into a sacrifice made it a satisfaction for all our iniquities For if Baptism make us die to sin it is upon no other ground but because it imprints in our souls the merit and image of the death of Christ and by an invisible but a true and real grace works in us a desire to part with all that is derived from Adam This makes the * Infelix ego homo quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus Rom. 7. Saints that they cannot endure the rebellions of concupiscence that they employ all their strength to smother these embryo's that being true to Grace they resist all the motions of its Enemy groaning when they are compelled to follow or suffer his disorders They know that Christ died to oblige them to die to sin that he was not nail'd to the Cross but to crucifie them to the world nor buried in the grave but that the earth might be their sepulchre All that is in the world Crucifixus est Christus ut vos crucifigamini mundo mortuus est ut vos moriamini peccato saeculo vivatis Deo sepultus est ut vos consepeliamini illi per baptismum Apostolo dicente Consepulti sumus c. ut sicut ille semel surgens à mortuis jam non moritur ita vos vetustate mortalitatis per Baptismum mortificati vitale indumentum induti non iterum per peccata in anima in morte retrahamiâ—i Aug. de Expos Orat. Dom. Symbol Serm. 3. displeaseth them diversions are their torments that which is a recreation to sinners afflicts them and knowing very well the minde of the Lord Jesus they endeavour to fulfil it even with the loss of their own lives Saint Augustine entertained the Catechumeni heretofore with these obligations and expounding to them the doctrine of the Gospel taught them that Baptism engaged them in death Jesus Christ said he was crucified that you might be so to the world he suffered death that you might die to sin he was buried that you might be together with him and having put off the old man Adam and being cloathed with the new man Jesus Christ you may die no more in your souls by sin All the other Fathers speak the same language teaching us that there is a death and a life hid in Baptism producing real effects in our souls Thence ariseth the inclination all Christians have to die and to live thence proceed those obstinate conflicts they entertain self-love with thence spring those violent desires to be separated from the world and the flesh that they may be no longer subject to their tyranny But because this Mystery very much concerns our salvation it deserves a more ample explication from us that we may disclose the truths and obligations that lie wrapt up in it The Son of God is willing that as his death is the Principle so it should be the Rule and Example of our salvation as he died to deliver us he would have us die to honour him and as he entered not into glory but by the door of the Cross neither must we pass to the resurrection but by the gate of the Grave He died saith the great Apostle that by his death he might ruine the Empire of sin He died that losing all the imperfections he drew from Adam he might rise again to life everlasting He died that satisfying his Father we might be no longer responsible to his Justice All these considerations oblige us to die in Baptism Pro omnibus mortuus est ut qui vivunt jam non sibi vivant sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est debet ergo vita hominis in se deficere in Christo proficere ut dicat cum Apostolo Vivo ego jam non ego Aug. Serm. de Epiphan if we intend to be the images of Jesus Christ we must destroy sin by death that dying we may be born again and making a sacrifice of our death we may be changed into spotless Victims But as the Son of God was not content onely to die but was willing to joyn the ignominy of the grave to the bitterness of his death Sicut Christus sepultus fuit in terra sic baptizatus mergitur in aqua Nicol. de Lyra. because there was a second punishment of sin comprised in those words of our Arrest Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return he will have our death followed with a funeral and that the same Sacrament that makes us die bury us together with him Consepulti sumus cum Christo. Burial addes to the dead corpse two or three notable conditions The first is Coemeteria extra urbes utnullum esset viveniuÌ„ cum mort uis mmercium that he that is buried is separated from the company of the living that he remains in the regions of death and hath no more commerce with the present world So the Christian is buried with the Son of God because he is removed from amongst wicked men neither doth the state of death into which he is entered suffer him to converse with them Quid est mori peccatâ— consepeliri cum Christo nisi damnandis operibus omnino non vivere nihil concupiscere carnaliter nihil ambire sicut qui mortuus est carne nulli detrahit nullum aversatur Prosp de vita contemp c. 21 He hath now no ears to hear calumnies no eyes to gaze upon the beauties of the earth no desires nor pretensions after the honours of the world and his death being attended with a funeral he protests aloud that he hath renounced all hopes of the things of the world The second condition of this state is the duration that goes along with it For though death be eternal in respect of the Creature nor can any but an Almighty power re-unite the soul with the body when once separated yet there seems to remain some faint hope as long as the body is not committed to the grave we watch it to see if that which appears a death be but a swoon or trance and there have been those that have died and rose again the same day without a miracle But when the body is laid in the sepulchre drooping Nature is then past all hope This dismal abode hath no intercourse with life 't is an everlasting habitation whence there is no return but by a prodigie Sepulchra eoruÌ„ domus illoruÌ„ in aeternuÌ„ jam quia constructa sunt sepulchra domus sunt sepulchra quia ibi semper crunt ideo domus in aeternum Aug. in Psal 48. 't is the place where worms serving for ministers of the Divine Justice discharge their fury upon men till being reduced to powder there remains nothing of these famous criminals Thus the Christians when baptized are as it were interred to
instruct them that this death ought to be immortal that the divorce which they have made with the world can admit of no accommodation and that a departure accompanied with so solemn a funeral should in all reason extinguish the desire and hope of the life of Adam Finally the last condition of a burial is the oblivion of the world For notwithstanding men desire to live after death whereof those proud Mausolaeums they erect to their ashes is a witness as vain as it is confident Postquam per mille indignitates ad dignitates pervenerint misera subit eos cogitatio laborasse tantum in titulū sepulchri Senec. and that the care they take for their Obsequies gives testimony they would be thought to live still in the opinion of the world nevertheless experience teacheth us that Tombs are the chambers of Forgetfulness that they steal out of our remembrance those they cover and that contrary to the intention of the builders they many times together with their Body lay a stone upon their Name and Memory too The holy Scripture whose plainness of expression hath not wholly abandoned the figures of eloquence calls graves the receptacles of Oblivion Oblivioni datus sum tanquam mortuus à corde Psal 30. disciplining us by so elegant a metaphor that the sepulchre draws a black line over the glory of mortals and death having spoil'd them of their life takes pleasure still to plunder their reputation As the Christian is entomb'd so ought he also to be forgotten if he repent not of the grace he hath received Nunquid cognoscentur in tenebris mirabilia tua justitia tua in terra oblivionis Psa 87 he ought to be dead in the memory of men lest their calling him to minde prove fatal to his innocence and being remanded into the world whence death had given him a retirement he begin again to live in Adam and die to Jesus Christ Though this Doctrine appear harsh yet is it sweet and comfortable to those who know that the sepulture we finde in Baptism prepares us for the Resurrection Per Crucem datur credentibus virtus de infirmitate gloria de opprobrio vita de morte Leo. Serm. 8. de Passio Dom. For as Christ by his death entred into a new life the Cross contributed to his glory nor was heaven opened to him but thorow the passage of shame and grief so the Christian in death embraceth life and in the grave findes a new conception He is quickned with a new spirit in Baptism he tastes the joys of heaven there and the grace he receives in that holy Sacrament is not onely an Earnest but an Antepast and Prelibation of glory His life is answerable to his dignity having God for his Father his pretensions must needs be high and despising whatever the world can promise he aspires at no less then the felicity of Angels This is the consolation of the faithful in their troubles 't is the reason the great Apostle makes use of to sweeten his travels and as often as persecution flats our spirits he endeavours to raise them up again from the consideration of the recompenses that are prepared for us The truth is this life lies secret undiscovered the precedent death being much more visible and apparent Ye are dead saith the Apostle and your life is hid with Christ in God Our miseries are publike our advantages walk in the dark Men see what we suffer but doubt of what we hope for Mortui estis vita vestra abscondita cum Christo quomodo videutur arbores per hyemem quasi aridae quasi mortuae ergo quae spes Si mortui sumus intus est radix ibi radix nostra ibi vita nostra ibi charitas nostra Quando autem ver nostrum quando aestas nostra quando circumvestit dignitas foliorum ubertas frucluum Quando hoc erit Audi quod sequrtur Cùm Christus apparuerit vita vestra tunc vos apparebitis cum ipso in gloria Aug. in Ps 36. and in the judgement of Infidels our Religion passeth for an Imposture because the good things it promiseth are invisible but the evils it threatens are sensible and present We are saith S. Augustine like those great trees which during the sharpness of the winter are naked of all their leaves their life is inclosed in their roots their vigour is retired into their sap and all the soul and vegetation they have is hid from the eyes of the beholders but their death is conspicuous every branch publisheth it and all the bavock winter hath made them feel are so many arguments to make us doubt of their life Thus it is with Christians they are dead and they are alive but their life is in a cloud their death manifest the persecutions they suffer the temptations they contest with the conflicts they undergo perswade Infidels that their life is but a languishing and doleful death but their vigour is over-shadowed their beauty is like that of the Spouse whose advantages are the fruits rather of her minde then of her body their glory is retreated with Christ in God And as the Spring must needs return to convince the ignorant that a tree that hath lost his leaves is not dead so must the general Resurrection happen to assure unbelievers that a Christian persecuted by the world is alive with Christ in God Let us die therefore with him if we mean to live with him and to end this Discourse with the words of S. Gregory cited by S. Augustine * Cum Christo ergo nascamur cum Christo crucifigamur consepcliamur ei in mortem ut cum ipso etiam resurgamus ad vitam Greg. citat ab Aug. Let us be born with the Son of God in Baptism die with him upon the Cross be buried with him in the Tomb that we may rise with him in Glory and that from this present receiving the Pledges of his promises we may in the same Sacrament finde a Birth joyned with Death and a Resurrection with a Funeral The fourth DISCOURSE That Grace is communicated to the Christian in his Regeneration as Sin is communicated to Man in his Generation THough Providence display its banner in all the occurrences of our life and there is no moment wherein we may not take notice of its dispensations yet me thinks it never appears with greater lustre Vt qui in ligno vincebat in ligno quoque vinceretur then when from our fall it raiseth our salvation or makes use of a remedy that hath some resemblance with our disease Thus we see it makes the malice of the Devil serviceable to the Glory of the Martyrs employes a Man for the Redemption of all Men that their fall and recovery may have the same Principle 'T is Adam that destroys us Debitum quide Adae tantum erat ut illud non deberet solvere nifi homo sed non posset nisi Deus ita opus
kingdom of Life but by Jesus Christ As all that are born of Adam are sinners all that are born again of Jesus Christ are justified and as all the sons and daughters of Adam are the children of the earth and death all the children of Jesus Christ are the children of heaven and of life This Maxime is so true that man makes no more progresse in perfection then according as he doth in allyance with Jesus Christ The more Faith he hath the lesse hath he of Errour and Falshood the more hope he conceives in the mercy of God the lesse confidence hath he in the favour of men the more he burns with the fire of Charity the lesse is he scorched with the flames of Concupiscence the more he is united to this innocent and glorious Head from whom all grace is derived the lesse is he fixt to that infamous and criminall Head from whom all sin takes it originall so that Christians as we have already proved ought to have no other care but to make Adam die and Jesus Christ live in their person if they intend to be innocent they must be Parricides if they will bestow life upon the Son of God they must inflict death upon their first Father if they meane to be quickned with the spirit of humility which raiseth men in debasing them they must renounce the spirit of vain-glory which lays men low in lifting them up and under a colour of making Gods of them makes them nothing but Devils or Beasts Finally mans unhappinesse flows from the shamefull alliance he contracted with Adam in his Birth Ex transgressione primi hominis universum genus humanum natum cum obligatione peccati victor Diabolus possidebat si enim sub captivitate non teneremur redemptore non indigeremus venit ad captivos non captus venit ad captivos redimendos nihil in se captivitatis ha bens sed carne mortali pretium nostrum portans Aug. de Verb. Apo. Ser. 22. and the Christians happinesse proceeds from the glorious alliance he contracted with Jesus Christ in Baptisme Thus the quality of a Chief in Adam is the source of all our Evils and the quality of a Chief in Jesus Christ is the Originall of all our Good and as Adam did not so much destroy us in being our Father as in being our Head neither doth Jesus Christ save us so much for being his Brethren or his Children as because we are his members because 't is in effect this quality that procures us all the rest neither is God our Father but because Jesus Christ is our Head The Second DISCOURSE Of the Excellencies of the Christians Head and the advantages they draw from thence THough all the alliances Jesus Christ hath contracted with men be as beneficiall to them as they are honourable yet must we confesse that the relation that unites him to them as their Head is the strictest and most advantageous 'T is much that he would be their King and giving them Laws had owned them for his Subjects 'T is more yet that he condescended to be their Brother and sharing his Eternall Inheritance with them made them Co-heirs together with Himself 't is more yet that he made them his Children and conceiving them in his wounds suffered death to give them life But 't is yet a more signall favour that he vouchsafed to make them his Members and joyning them to Himself in one body he is constituted the Head from whence they receive all those indearing influences which communicate to them the life of Grace and merit for them that of Glory Therefore also doth Saint Augustine when he examines the favours we have received from the Father preferre this before all others Nullum majus donum prastâ—re posset hominibus quam ut verbum suum per quod condidit omniâ— faccret illis caput illos ei tanquam membra coaptaret ut esset filius Dei silius hominis unus Deus cum patre unus homo cum hominibus Aug. in Psal 36. Ser. 3. and confesseth he never more sensibly obliged us then when he gave us his onely Son to be our Head God saith he could bestow no higher honour upon men then by uniting them with his Word by whom he created all things as the Members with their Head that he that was the Son of God might be the Sonne of Man and that by reason of his Divine Person subsisting in the Humane Nature he might be God with his Father and Man with his Brethren 'T is in effect from this glorious co-habitation that all our blessings are derived If the Father look upon us 't is because we are the Members of his onely Sonne If he hear our prayers 't is because Jesus Christ speaks by our mouth if he receive us into Glory 't is because he sees us cloathed with the merits of our Head if he admit us into his bosome 't is because the quality we bear renders us inseparable from his Word But if this alliance be beneficiall to Christians 't is honourable to Jesus Christ For though nothing can be added to his Grandeur who is equall to his Father and all the Priviledges he received from his Incarnation may passe for so many Humiliations Neverthelesse the dignity of being Head of the Church is so eminent that after that of the Son of God there is none so Venerable and August It gives Jesus Christ the same advantage over the Faithfull that the Head hath over the Members and to conceive what he is in the Church we must observe what this is in the Body The Head is the noblest seat of the Soul 't is that part of the Body where she acts her highest operations 't is there that she debates those subjects that are presented to her that she deliberates upon the accidents that happen 't is there that the memory preserves the species which may be called the treasures of wisdome and the riches of the Intellectuall faculty 't is there that the understanding conceives truths and the will pronounceth determinations In a word 't is there that the affairs concerning Peace and Warre Salvation or Damnation Time or Eternity are treated of Thus also is it in Iesus Christ that all those lights reside that govern the Church 't is in him that are shut up all the treasures of wisdome and from him that all Oracles proceed whereby the Faithfull are instructed The Head is the most eminent part of the Body Nature was willing that as it is the noblest so it should be placed nearest Heaven and the very situation should oblige all the other parts to shew it reverence It is the most exalted that it may more easily dispence its orders and that the spirits which convey sense and motion by the nerves may descend with more facility into all the parts of the body Iesus Christ also is in the highest place of his State he reignes in Heaven with his Father from thence he views all
places estrangeth their hearts he hath brought us into one City that being shut up within her Lines of Communication we may the easier converse together and of fellow Subjects may become fellow Citizens Vos estis Cives Sanctorum But forasmuch as this alliance is not the strictest there are factions many times in Cities which sow discord in mens minds all the inhabitants steer not one way the diversity of quarters hinders their familiarity he hath adopted us into one family that being the Domesticks of one Master our amity may be the closer by how much our condition is more equall Vos estis Domestici Dei Had he left us in this state he had taken pains enough for our good but as Domesticks have different designes jealousie steals into their souls and the hope of profit which is the end of base and mercenary souls suffers them not to taste the sweets of true Friendship he hath raised them to the quality of children and giving them their Soveraign for their Father will have them love one another as brethren Vos omnes fratres estis Morality and Politicks have nothing to wish for after this favour seeing all the Subjects of a State linkd together by the bonds of so indissoluble an alliance beleeve nothing can be added to their happinesse But God who is pleased to outgoe our hopes hath reduced us to the perfection of unity in making us members of the same body and giving us our Father for our Head So that all the Faithfull make up but one Man all their conditions are happily confounded together and all of them making up one part of Jesus Christ they are quickned with his Spirit clarified with his Light warmd with his Love till they be taken up into his Immensities and consummated in his Glory The Eight DISCOURSE That Jesus Christ hath taken all the infirmities of his Members and his Members have drawn all their strength from him IF it be a Truth that whatever is glorious as relating to Jesus Christ is profitable to Christians it is not true on the other side that whatever is beneficiall to Christians is honourable to Jesus Christ For the dignity of Head whence all their advantages are derived is the source of all those evils Jesus Christ underwent and had he not been the Head of sinners he had not been obliged to be their Surety Hee hath as Saint Augustine saith made a compact with men extreamly advantageous for them but very prejudiciall to himself For as the union which Nature or Grace puts between the members of the same body makes their good and bad common we find that the Son of God imparts his priviledges to us and assumes our miseries to himself He enters into our lownesse and we are admitted into his Greatnesse he is burdend with our transgressions and we are invested with his merits he is made the Sonne of Man and makes us the Children of God This important Verity requires a full Discourse and 't is just that in acknowledgement of the obligations we have to Jesus Christ we take notice of what he drew from us and of what we have received from him Innocence is one of the Apennages of the Word Incarnate Inde nascimur sic nascimur in carne peccati nascimur quam sola sanat similitudo carnis peccati inde mifit Deus filium suum in fimilitudine carnis peccati Inde venit sed non fic venit non enim virgo libidine sed fide concepit Aug. de verb. Dom. ser 10. were he not God by his Person he would be innocent by his Conception and having the Holy Ghost for his Principle and the Virgin for his Mother 't is impossible he should have contracted the sin of Adam Wherefore when the Angel expounded to the Virgin the Grandeurs of her onely Son he expresly observes that his Sanctity was derived from his Birth and being the work of the Holy Ghost must therefore be exempt from all impurity Spiritus Sanctus superveniet in te ideoque quod nascetur ex te Sanctum vocabitur filius Dei In the mean time the quality of Head obliges him to stoop under the load of our offences Hee that is innocent by nature becomes guilty by love and when he united himself to his members he became their Surety and engaged himselfe to satisfie for them Thence it is that the Prophets speak not of him only as a man of sorrows but as a man who stands Hostage for the children of Adam and who is voluntarily boundto bear all the punishments their sins are obnoxious to This made the Father say by the mouth of the Prophet Esay Percussi eum propter scelera populi mei Ipse vulneratus est propter iniquitates nostras attritus est proterscelera nostra posuit Dominus in eo iniquitatē omniū nostrum Isa 53. This made Saint John say That he was the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world and this made Jesus Christ himself upon the Crosse say that his sins condemned him to death Longe à salute mea verba delictorum meorum For he died not that ignominious death but because he stood in the place of men and being their pledge because he is their Head he was bound to satisfie for them the Justice of his Father Therefore the sentence that obliges the Son of God to death is the justest and unjustest sentence in the world 'T is unjust if we consider it as proceeding from the mouth of Pilate because all the crimes Jesus Christ was accused of were forged by his enemies 'T is just if we consider it as proceeding from the mouth of the Eternall Father because his Son appeared before him as the Head of all men and he beholds him as an innocent Victime whose charity hath made him a Delinquent Indeed our sins are not remitted but because the Son of God is charged with them the fury of God the Father is not appeased but because Jesus Christ hath satisfied it nor doe we live securely in the world but because our Head hath restored us our Innocence This is the compact he made with us he hath taken our evils to confer upon us his merits he hath made a change of qualities and to procure us that of the children of God hath voluntarily accepted of that of Surety for sinners This is it that Saint Augustine confirms to us in explaining those words of the Prophet which he supposes spoken by Jesus Christ Domine Deus meus clamavi ad te sanasti me The Son of God saith he prayd to his Father in the mount of Olives before his death and his Father heald him after his death but how could he heal him that never was wounded did he heal his Word who was God equall with himself No certainly but he heald us in his Person because this Word being made our Head was loaden with our wounds and had changed them into remedies to cure us of our scars He heald him then
period to his Controversies he is continually infested with a Domestick and intestine war Though Repentance subdue the Body by its Austerities and Prayer elevate the Soul by its Raptures both Soul and Body continually rebel against the Spirit of God Indicitur enim bellum non solum adversus suggestiones Diaboli sed etiam adversus teipsum sed ex qua parte tibi displices jungeris Deo idoneus eris ad vincendum te quia tecum est qui omnia superat quare autem permittitur ut diu contra te litiges donec absorbeantur omnes cupiditates ut intelligas in te poenam tuam In te ex teipso est flagellum tuum est rixa tua tecum sic vindicatur in rebellem contra Deum ut ipse sit sibi bellum qui pacem noluit habere cum Deo Aug. in Psal 75. The greatest Saints complain of these disorders and wish an End of their life to finde an End of their Conflicts The internal peace that always accompanies a good Conscience is not able to reconcile these two Enemies and experience teacheth us that peace and war wil sooner shake hands in a Kingdom then Concupiscence and Charity in a CHRISTIAN But certainly I never wonder at his Discord since he hath two Fathers two Births and two Principles He hath two Fathers because he came from Adam and from Jesus Christ and deriving from one the Life of Sin he derives from the other the Life of Grace Thus by a strange wonder he is at the same time Innocent and Guilty he hopes for heaven as his Inheritance and is affraid of hel as the place of his torment and pursuing the severall Interests he hath received from these two Parents he is toss'd continually between hope and fear He is * Primas homo Adam sic olim defunctus est ut tamen post illum secundus sit homo Christus cum tot hominum millia inter illum hunc orta sint ideo manifestum pertinere ad illum omnem qui ex illa successione propagatur nascitur sicut ad istum pertinet omnis qui gratiae largitate in illo renascitur unde fit ut totum genus humanum quodammodo sint homines duo primus secundus Ex sent Prosp 299. Adam and Jesus both together in his person he unites their names aswell as their qualities he resents their diverse inclinations and holding something of these two Fathers hee beares the Crime of the one and the Innocencie of the other They reigne successively in his person and the chief Imployment of his life is to make the first dye and the second live This Parricide is innocent all Christians are obliged to commit it neither doth Jesus Christ acknowledge them for his children who endeavour not to strangle this Father who made them liable to Death before he entitled them to Life They cannot dispense with themselves from this murder and whosoever spares Adam in his person gives evidence he hath no minde that Jesus Christ should reign there Adam himself allowes of this cruelty in heaven where he now triumphs amongst the Angels he desires to dye in his Children that he may see him live there who hath repair'd his breach and if there were any thing that could trouble his happinesse it would be this that he sees his sin still to reign in his posterity that he stifles Christ in their souls and makes him suffer death upon Earth by whose benefit he enjoys life in Heaven He complains that he cannot utterly perish in his off-spring that he reigns there to this day against his will and that for punishment of a sin whereof he made them stand convicted before they were born they continue to make him guilty after that he is dead But nothing afflicts him so much as to behold sin in some sort more powerfull then Grace that the One overspreads all mankinde the Other onely the * Contra carnis concupiscentiam ità confligunt Sancti non ei consentientes ad malum ut tamen ejus motibus quibus repugnantibus resistunt non careant in hac vita Aug. l. 1. Retra cap. 13. Faithfull that sin oftentimes destroyes all Grace but Grace can never wholly destroy all sin Lastly that Adam utterly exterminates Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ can never perfectly slay Adam These two Fathers are conveyed to their posterity by two different Productions the first is shamefull and guilty the second is glorious and innocent The first is inseparable from sin For though it be noble according to the Lawes of the world 't is alwaies ignominious according to the Laws of God and though it appeare innocent to the eies of men 't is alwaies Criminall in the sight of Angels The Saints acknowledge it with grief and though the Issue of lawfull Beds they cease not to confesse that they were * Nunquid David de adulterio natus erat de Jesse viro justo Conjuge ipsius quid est quod se dicit in iniquitate conceptum nisi quia trahitur iniquitas ex Adam Aug. in Ps 50. born in sin The second is ever joined with Grace it gives us God for our Father the Church for our Mother and Heaven for our Inheritance We cannot better expresse their differences then in the words of St. Augustine * Duae sunt nativitates una de terra alia de Coelo una de Carne alia de Spiritu una de mortalitate alia de aeternitate una de Masculo Foemina alia de Deo Ecclesia Aug. Tract 11. in Joan. Sicut eos vita spiritus regenerat sideles in Christo sic eos Corpus mortis in Adam generat Peccatores Illa enim carnalis generatio est haec spiritualis illa facit filios carnis haec spiritûs illa filios mortis haec Resurrectionis illa filios saeculi haec filios Dei illa filios irae haec filios misericordiae ac per hoc illa peccato originali obligatos illa omnis vinculo peccati liberatos August lib. 1. de Pecca men who tells us The one comes from the Earth and returns thither again the other comes from Heaven and ascends thither again the one draws it 's Originall from the Flesh the other from the Spirit the one tends to Death the other to Eternity the one proceeds from Man and Woman the other from God and the Church Or to deliver the same Truth in other terms we may adde with the same Saint That the Life of the Spirit regenerates the Faithfull in Jesus Christ and the Death of the Body begets sinners in Adam That of these two Births the One is Carnal the Other Spiritual The One produceth Angels the Other engenders Men The One designes them to Death the Other prepares them for the Resurrection The One renders them the children of the Devil the Other makes them the children of God The One exposeth them to his Wrath the Other to his Mercy Finally
hath so many Ages sealed them up in their Tombs and that now they do arise after they were buried in Infidelity then they shall be freed from all misfortunes that attend their mortal condition now they are delivered from all clouds of Ignorance that darken their spirituall existency then they shall rise to Immortality and Glory now they are regenerated to Grace and Salvation Though these effects of Baptism are sufficiently admirable by their own proper greatnesse Nonne mirandū et lavacro dilui mortem atquin eo magis credendum si quia mirandum est ideo non creditur atquin eo magis credendum est qualia enim decet esse opera divina nisi omnē admirationem Tert. de Bapt. Sine pompa sine apparatu sine sumptu in aquae demissus inter pauca verba tinctus inde exiliit innocentior Idem ibid. yet must we acknowledg that the easinesse that produceth them extreamly heightens their Excellency For to revive a childe there needs only a little water animated with the Word of God all these changes are wrought in his soul when the Priest speaks and sprinkles his body he is miraculously raised when the Ceremonies of the Church are ended and this way that prepares him to eternall life costs the Ministers of Jesus Christ nothing but the Pronunciation of these words I baptise thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The Heathen who heretofore inform'd themselves of our Mysteries were scandaliz'd at a miracle so mean and simple in its Administration so glorious in its Promises and so powerfull in its Effects They could not comprehend saith Tertullian that washing the body with a little water the soul should be cleansed from its sins that without any * Miratur incredulitas non credit miratur enim simplicia quasi vana magnifica quasi impossbilia Ter. pomp or expense a few words mingled with the commonest of the Elements should assure us of the Conquest of heaven But this Great Doctor answers their doubts with such solid Reasons that he at once blazons the honor of our Religion and the Majesty of our God For he makes them see * Prob misera incredulitas quae denegas Deo proprietas suas simplicitatem et potestatē Ter. de Baptis he was pleased to shew his simplicity in the matter of our Sacraments and his State in their effects that not to know God was no more then to deny him these two perfections which seem to constitute his Nature and that it was to want respect to make simple things passe for vain and glorious things for impossible because it is easie for him who drew the world out of nothing to draw our salvation out of an Element quickned by his Word and by his Spirit Baptism then being so fruitfull of Miracles and this Sacrament being the Throne of the power of the Almighty we need not wonder that the Christian finds his birth there that in it he is renewed by Grace that he is raised again by the vertue of Jesus Christ and that there he commenceth a supernatural life whose Progresse is as strange as the Beginning is wonderfull The Third DISCOURSE That the chiefest Mysteries of Jesus Christ are applyed to the Christian in his Birth IT is not without reason that St. Paul informs Christians newly baptized * Quicunque in Christo baptizati estis Christum induistis Gal. 3. that they have put on Jesus Christ since in their second Nativity they are united to his Person replenished with his Grace and quickned with his Spirit For as a * Induistis id est conformes ei facti estis quod est vobis honor contra aestus protectio Glossa ordinar in hunc locum Garment is the ornament and shelter of a man it covers his shame and protects him from the injury of the weather so may we say of Jesus Christ he is the glory and guard of a Christian whom having delivered from the confusion that accompanies sin he defends against the assaults of temptation and bestows upon him vigour and beauty thereby to render him a compleat work But as all graces in Christianity are mixt with pain the Christian according to the doctrine of the same Apostle if he intend to be perfect must die with Christ death must bring him to the resurrection and to life Whosoever saith he are baptized into Jesus Christ are baptized into his death All that we are of Christians we have by being baptized in his death Sacri Baptismatis in cruce Christi grande mysterium commendavit Apostolus eo modo ut intelligamus nihil aliud esse in Christo baptismum nisi mortis Christi similitudinem ut quemadmodum in illo vera mors facta est sic in vobis vera remissio peccatorum quemadmodum in illo vera resurrectio ita in vobis vera justificatio Aug. in Beda we are buried with him in Baptism we drowned our sins in the waters of this Sacrament and in this laver happily lose whatever we received from Adam in our first birth This death is fruitful producing in us the life of grace this burial prepares us for the Resurrection neither doth Jesus Christ make us partake of his Cross but thereby to make us partake of his Glory The Tomb is a step to our Birth like the Phoenix we finde life in our ashes and by a wonderful prodigie the Sepulchre of the Sinner becomes the Cradle of the Believer For the Christian receives a Being in Baptism according as he expires there and contrary to all the Laws of Nature Death is the Midwife of Life All the Fathers speak the same dialect with S. Paul Baptismus Christi nobis est sepultura in quo peccatis morimur criminibus sepelimur veteris hominis conscientia in alterā nativitatem rediviva infantia reparamur Baptismus inquā Salvatoris vobis sepultura quia ibi perdidimus quod antè viximus ibi dennò accipimus ut vivamus magna igitur sepulturae hujus est gratia in qua nobis utilis mors infertur vtilior vita condonatur magna inquā sepulturae hujus gratia quae purificat peccatorē vivificat morientē Aug. Serm. 129. de Temp. never mentioning Baptism but as a Sacrament where the life and death of Jesus Christ are equally applied unto us that we may live to grace and die to sin The Baptism of Jesus Christ saith S. Augustine is a burial wherein we bequeath sin and losing the conscience of the old man we enter upon a second Infancy by a new Nativity In a word the Baptism of our Saviour is a Tomb wherein we are buried and a Cradle wherein we are born again 't is a pleasant dormitory where receiving a death beneficial we receive withal a life far more glorious and where leaving off to be Sinners we begin to be Innocents In this it is that I admire the Providence of the Son
among men the meat he eat assimilated into his substance every part took what was needfull for it and whilest his hands that were to work so many miracles were strengthned his legs that were to bear him over all Palestine were alike fixed and consolidated 'T is so with his Mysticall Body the parts that compose it grow according to their employments they take their bulk and nourishment from his Word and from his Grace nothing remains uselesse in that great Body every particular hastens to perfection and in the difference of conditions all the members receive their growth and dimension This is it that the Apostle had a minde to acquaint us with by those words which being well understood will greatly serve to the clearing of this mystery Speaking the truth in love let us grow in him thorough all things who is the Head Christ From whence we learn that we grow not in our selves but as much as we grow in Jesus Christ and that 't is from the union we contract with him that our greatnesse and perfection is derived Both these Bodies were a Sacrifice to God assoon as Iesus Christ was Incarnate he immolated himself to his Father in the Womb of his Mother he made it appear by the thoughts of his heart that he respects his body as a Holocaust and he testifieth by the language of his Prophets reported by his Apostles that he was cloathed with our flesh only to make an oblation of it Sacrifice wouldest thou not but a body hast thou prepared me His design is to supply the unprofitablenesse of the Law to offer to his Father a Victime well-pleasing to him and meritorious for us that finding our salvation in his losse we might be reconciled to God by his Death Id Sacrificium succedit omnibus illis sacrificiis veteris Testamenti quae immolabantur in umbra futuri propter quod dicit OblationeÌ„ noluisti corpus autem aptasti mihi quia pro illis omnibus sacrificiis oblationibus corpus ejus offertur participantibus ministratur Aug. lib. 16. de Civ Dei His mother who was as well acquainted with his designes offered him in the Temple in that Spirit and Simeon answering her thought speaks to her onely of her sorrows A Sword shall passe thorow thy Soul Iesus Christ exhibited himself as a Sacrifice during his life he entertains his Disciples with this Discourse and testifies he was not at rest till he should be offered up for an oblation He finished in the arms of the Crosse what he had begun in the Womb of his Mother he was immolated to his Father by the hands of the Executioners he made their fury serviceable to his piety and of a Gibbet erected an Altar of a Sacriledge a Sacrifice of a Patient a Holocaust he fully satisfied the Iustice of his Father Thus his Mysticall Body is a Victime which he daily offers for the glory of the same Father He will have every beleever immolated that the members imitating their Head may have the honour to lose their life in the holy severity of an acceptable sacrifice Therefore doth Saint Paul so often invite us to discharge this duty he speaks to us of nothing but Oblations and Altars he exhorts us to offer our selves to God in a sweet smelling savour and he would have us looking upon our selves as reasonable and living sacrifices our whole life should be but one continued Oblation Saint Augustine treading in the steps of his Master teacheth us the same Truth and far differing from their judgement who would mingle Roses with Thorns in Christianity tels us that the life of the Faithfull if it be ordered according to the Maximes of the Gospel is but a languishing and a painfull Martyrdome This Circumstance discovers another and the Sacrifice of these two Bodies leads me insensibly to their persecution For the Natural Body of the Son of God was not exempted from sorrow because innocent his Trials began with his Life he had Enemies assoon as he had Subjects and if he saw Kings at his Cradle paying their Homages Positus est in signum cui contradicetur Luc. 2. he saw others conspiring his Death He was forced to commit his Safety to his Flight to seek an Asylum in Egypt and to passe his minority in a Countrey where his people spent the years of their Infancy the continuance of his life was not much different from his beginning hee lived not in security but whilest he lived unknown hee purchased his quiet with the losse of his Glory nor did he see himself without Enemies but during the time he got his living by the sweat of his brows Assoon as ever he began to appear he began to be persecuted Passionem auteÌ„ Christi non illuÌ„ diem solum appellamus quo mortuus f it sed totam vitam ejus Tota enim vita Chriâ—i crux fuit Martyrium Bernard The Preaching of the Gospel drew upon him the hatred of the Pharisees the lustre of his miracles made an end of him they plotted his death when he had raised Luzarus from the grave and the rage of these cruell men ended not with this life for they made war upon him after his death they endeavoured to destroy his Mysticall Body having destroyed his Naturall Body and God suffered them to have successours in their malice that the condition of these two Bodies might be alike Indeed the Church never wanted persecutors she hath seen all the Princes of the Earth armed against her Children Three full Ages have exercised her patience she hath watered the whole Earth with her blood neither is there any corner in the world wherein she hath not given testimony of her courage The conversion of Heathen Princes hath not been the end of her persecutions Sinners have succeeded Tyrants the good have found tormentors in the person of the wicked Every beleever hath found by experience that the Maxime of Saint Paul is true and that it is impossible to live piously and not to be persecuted All those that will live godlily in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution Indeed their persecution hath appeared glorious and 't is in this particular that they have another resemblance to the Naturall Body of the Son of God For his Father glorified him upon the Crosse hee would have his Innocence known at his Death that his Executioners should be the first witnesses of it that to the confusion of the Jews the Judge that condemned him should make his Apology that the Theeves that suffered with him should publish his Royalty and the Soldiers that nailed him to the Crosse become his Adorers But as if so many miracles had not sufficiently magnified his onely Son he would have whole Nature weare mourning for him The Sun must bewail his Death and the Earth tremble with amazement the rocks cleave asunder with pangs of sorrow and all creatures celebrate the obsequies of a dying God Indeed there never was a more dolefull and more
is often a disguised misery and a reall torment Among so many adversities Heaven that watcheth over the welfare of Christians hath furnished them with Hope which never confounds those it assists for it awakens their courage with recompenses stirres them up by the examples of former Saints quickens them by the shortness of their life and making them balance what they suffer with what they expect gives them occasion to say with Saint Paul Non sunt condignae Passiones hujus temporis ad futuram gloriam quae revelatur in nobis But inasmuch as Jesus Christ is the principal object of this Vertue hence ariseth the strongest comfort it can bestow upon us for representing us his Shame and his Glory his Death and his Resurrection it makes us patiently suffer the afflictions of this present life in consideration of the advantages of the future The Son of God saith Saint Augustine becomes the hope of the Faithful they behold in him labour and recompence labour in his Passion recompence in his Resurrection and in these two states rather different then contrary they behold two kinds of lives whereof the one being miserable and present must be indured with courage the other being happy and future must be expected with patience Jesus Christ hath manifested the former in his Crosse the second in his Glory to the end that having born the former in this world they may hope to possesse the second in the other world Though this Example be able to encourage the most fearful and comfort the most afflicted we must acknowledge neverthelesse that the assurance we have that God wil not forsake those that are his is a powerful Consolation which is indeed the reason Hope makes use of to encourage Christians nor was ever exprest more eloquently then in the words of the Psalmist who representing them the power of their Soveraign obligeth them to hope all things and fear nothing Ideo nihil dicit ut omnia dicat tu omnia credas Spera in Deo ipse faciet In a word it mentions all in naming nothing and giving no bounds to its promises suffers us to hope every thing from God it instructs us by silence leaves us to think what it expresseth not and lest some favours might be forgotten in the rehearfall chuseth rather to be altogether silent then to forget any If I may serve for his Interpreter me thinks his meaning is that from the Almighty power of God we may expect every thing That he will stop the Sun shake the Earth remove the Mountains from their stations open the abysses of the sea and do an hundred miracles for our sakes if we hope in his goodness or this Vertue will have us understand that God will heal us if we be sick that he will comfort us if we be afflicted enrich us if we be poor restore us to liberty if we be in prison and deliver us from the grave when we are dead Finally we may hope all that he can do our hope is as large as his power and without rashnesse we may expect as many favours as he can work miracles Seeing this Vertue is as lowly as generous it keeps us from complaining when successes answer not our desires and teacheth us that there are two wayes whereby God assists us when we are persecuted the One is glittering and full of pomp showrs astonishment into the soul of our Enemies tameth lions that would devour us quencheth flames that would burn us to ashes and disarms Executioners that are ready to sacrifice us The other is more reserv'd and less splendid for not delivering us from torments it gives us courage to bear them makes us victorious by enduring and working the miracle in our selves sweetens not the cup of our punishment but increaseth our constancy whereby we triumph over it The former of these wayes appeared in the three Children who were thrown into a fiery furnace by the command of a heathen Prince The fire spar'd their clothes respected their bodies and having consumed their chains that they might walk at liberty sought out their Executioners to execute vengeance upon them The second appeared in the person of the Maccabees who vanquish'd in suffering tired their Enemies and in an age that trembles at the frowns of a Master laughed at the fury of a Tyrant Might I pass my judgment upon these two Miracles I would prefer the later and had I liberty to chuse I would rather be in the condition of the Maccabees then in that of the companions of Daniel But leaving this Digression to pursue my Discourse Hope is not founded upon promises but upon assurances it hath earnests that dissipates all doubts and considering what hath passed easily beleeves what is yet to come For though God be the supreme Verity though his words be Oracles and reason it self perswades us that he promiseth nothing to his subjects he does not perform yet is he so good he gives them earnest of his promises and as if he were afraid to weary their hope in making them expect too much he sweetens their anxious pains by pledges of affection which make up a part of that summ he hath promised them he gives us favours whereby we are enabled to hope for what remains behinde the death he suffered for us is an assurance of that life he prepares for us neither can we doubt saith St Augustine that we shall not reign with him in heaven seeing he was willing to die for us upon the Crosse For what Goods may we not expect when his death is a pledge of his love and an assurance of the happinesse we look for Let us hope then for his Kingdom and when the greatnesse of his promises shall raise any doubts in our soul let us consider the greatness of our Surety and we shall securely wait the accomplishment of our desires Having considered the necessity of this Vertue 't is just that we consider its Nature and consulting the Divines and Fathers be acquainted with its Definition Philo the Jew calls it the Fore-runner of Joy a Harbingerpleasure preceding the Eternall one an antepast of Blessedness so that following the opinion of this Philosopher he that hopes may boast himself happy before-hand The Master of the Sentences comes neer this sense when defining this Vertue he calls it a certain assurance of a future Felicity the certitude that accompanies it sweetens the pain which the remoteness of the Good it waits for occasions and she thinks her self happy because the felicity she promiseth is certain St Augustine calls it by a more magnificent name and making it passe for a view of the supreme Good seems with Philo to confound it with Joy for he saith that Faith cures the eys of the soul and that Hope makes her see what she desires But because things never appear so clearly as when they are opposed with contraries I conceive I cannot better discover the nature of Christian Hope then by confronting it with that that
Principle of Humility is sin which is a Non-Entity in the order of Grace and which abaseth the sinner to so low a condition that he is much more miserable then if he were annihilated For inasmuch as he recedes from God the supream Beeing adhering to the creature who is in a manner Nothing himself becomes a wretched Non-Entity and loseth all those advantages he was made partaker of by the union he had with his Creator Tamdiu est aliquid homo quādiu haeret illi à quo factus est homo Aug. in Psal 75. This is it that Saint Augustine expresseth in those excellent words Man is Something as long as he is united to God from whom he had his Beeing but he ceaseth to be assoon as he separates from him by sin and finding his Fall in his Crimes tumbles into a more deplorable Nothing then that of Nature For the former obeys the voice of God if it contribute nothing to his design neither doth it resist his hand and the world that issued out of its barren depths was an evident proof of its submission But the Non-Entity of sin resists the will of God forms parties in his State deboists his most loyal subjects and mastering their wils disputes the dominion with their Soveraign Therefore doth Saint Augustine in some place of his writings call sin an armed Nothing and the Scripture to shew us the horrour goes along with it Nihil rebelle in Deum armatū Amb. prefers the condition of men who never were before that of transgressors who are fallen into sin The third Principle of Humility is Death which seems the middle between Nothing and Sin It is an image of the former and a chastisement of the second it bears the name of both in Scripture and the Prophets illuminated from above call it sometimes a Nothing sometimes a Sin Saint Augustine gives us a handsome proof hereof in these words Death saith he is the punishment of sin he bears the name of his Father to teach us that though man sin not in dying he never should have died if he had not sinned and the same Doctor in another passage acquaints us that Death is a Nothing which having no Essence might indeed be ordained by the Justice of God but not produced by his Power Thence it comes to passe that 't is a shameful punishment attempting the honor of man and his life and makes him feel himself a Criminal because having set upon his reputation it proceeds to attaque his person For he destroys this Master-piece of Nature separates the two parts that compound him breaks the ligaments that unites them and being not able to be revenged upon the soul dischargeth his fury upon the body and afflicts the Mistress in punishing her servant But should not all these powerful considerations oblige man to humble himself the Christian could by no means refuse this homage when he considers that his salvation depends upon Grace that his Liberty without this Supernatural aid serves only to damn him and being fallen from that happy condition wherein he was the master of his fortune he is now the slave of Concupiscence if he be not enfranchised by the merits of Jesus Christ Indeed the Example of God debased greatly comforts him in his misery he is never troubled to humble himself when he considers the Word annihilated in the Incarnation he submits to the Counsels of that Divine Master he is not ashamed to learn humility in his School and having heard that Oracle from his mouth Discite à me quia mitis sum humilis corde he looks upon this Vertue as his Glory and is forced to confess with Saint Augustine that if it be a Prodigy to behold a man proud 't is a Miracle to see a God humbled and by consequence of so great an Example that man must have lost his judgement that should be ashamed of Humility The Ninth DISCOURSE Of the Repentance of a Christian ALL the Vertues have their particular advantages the least splendid are the most useful and those that have not so many allurements have commonly most desert Repentance is of the number of these and it seems 't is not so much her beauty as her necessity that makes her considerable Her Countenance hath no comeliness her Mouth is always full of sighes her Eyes moist with tears her shoulders covered with sackcloth and her hands armed with discipline The Interest of God sets her against her self his Goodness offended his Glory obscured his Mercy neglected provokes her indignation against sinners and obliges them to invent torments to punish their offences But did not her zeal contribute to her excellency she is so necessary that in whatever condition man appears she is proper and peculiar to him It seems she is his difference in Grace and that this Vertue distinguisheth him from Angels and Beasts For these have only a blind instinct that guides them they have no liberty in their actions It is not reason but Nature that leads them and as they are incapable of Sin so are they of Repentance The Angels are unchangeable in good and evil Constancy hath made the Angels happy and Obstinacy hath rendred the Devils miserable These pure spirits cannot alter and whether they know good and evil intuitively or whether they act with the full extent of their power or whether they had but one moment to merit in all Divinity assures us that they cannot repent I intend not to examine whether Grace by its victorious sweetness be able to work a change in them and whether their will be so perversly obstinate in evil that it cannot be diverted But I say with our Masters there is something in their Nature and in their Sin which renders them unworthy and uncapable of Repentance so that this Vertue is a priviledge of a man one of his properties in Nature and one of his differences in Grace Being weak he never adheres so strongly to Vertue but he may desert her and by a happiness arising from his infirmity he is never so deeply engaged in vice but he may shake hands with it He is neither constant in good nor obstinate in evil and though he can neither leave the one nor embrace the other unless he be assisted by Grace he hath a natural disposition which rendring him unconstant makes him capable of this happy change that accompanies Repentance It seems the mercy of God which makes use of our sin to redeem us will make use of unconstancy to convert us and managing this weakness which is natural to us takes pleasure to save us by the same means that ruined us If those that are of opinion that the Grace that changeth men were able also to convert the Angels are not agreed as touching this Maxime they ought at least to confess that the Angel having had but one moment to merit in was not capable of this Grace in the order of God because his Salvation or his Fall had immediately followed
a Government loseth all command when not obeyed there are a thousand Reasons which no less respect our own Interest then the Glory of our Soveraign which oblige us to this undisputed resignation If we consider the Word Incarnate we shall finde that his deportment towards his Father exacts this humble duty from us He doth nothing upon the earth but by his orders he consults his will before he undertake any thing and if the time he hath set him to work his miracles in be not yet come he rejects the intreaties of his mother who can receive no other answer from his mouth but these words Nondum venit hora mea But if we look upon the holy Humanity united to the Eternal Word we shall see that as it is despoiled of its proper subsistence it hath no other motions then what it receives from the Divine Assistant that sustains it Humanitas Christi non est sui juris sed verbi actiones enim sunt suppofitorum It is more a his devotion then at its own is guided by that that preserves it and having no dominion over its actions is in a submission equal to its love whatever it acts upon earth all is referred to the Divine Person and as there is no union more strict then theirs neither is any dependance more obedient then that of the Humanity to the Divinity The Word acts absolutely in this holy Humanity Aliud est inviolabile aliud est passibile tamen ejusdem est contumelia cujus est gloria ipse est in infirmitate qui in virtute Leo. he reserves the whole conduct thereof to himself appropriates all the Inclinations and whether the Humane nature suffer or be abased he will have us know and believe that a God suffers and is humbled with it Therefore are all Christians after the imitation of so rare an example obliged to despoil themselves of their Wills to renounce their Desires to submit to Jesus Christ and to manifest in their person an image of the Incarnation 'T was certainly this powerful reason that made the great Apostle to utter these notable words Vivo autem jam non ego vivit vero in me Christus and to teach us by his advice to derive our guidance as well as our glory from the Son of God Indeed the whole Abnegation of a Christian is founded upon the mystery of the Incarnation and when they consider how the holy Humanity is obscured in the desarts humbled in the Villages sacrificed upon Mount Calavary to be obedient to the person of the Word they need not think it strange if to doe Homage to Jesus Christ they are obliged to renounce their glory and consent to lay down their lives at his command But if this example be not powerful enough to perswade us we must be convinced by reason and confess that Christians have no quality that that doth not exact this blind submission from them For if we consider them as Temples of the Holy Ghost or Members of the Son of God we are forced to acknowledge that these two glorious qualities are as well the Fountains of their dependance as of their greatness Temples are only for the Divinity that honours them with his presence they breath forth nothing but his glory and were they inanimated they would act meerly by his motions Therefore inasmuch as Christians are the living Temples of the Holy Ghost they ought not to act but as guided by him they are unable to perform any thing but by his order and all their actions that have not his Grace for their principle are Criminal or profane We are no more the children of God but as far as we are quickned by this ever to be adored Spirit all our merit is from our acting by his Vertue and when he ceaseth to incite and stir us up we leave off to form good thoughts or perform good actions The quality of Members ties us not lesse closely to our Head then that of Temples to the Holy Ghost for according to the Laws of Nature the Members more belong to their Head then slaves doe to their Master they receive life and motion from his Influences they owe all their vigour to the communication they have with him aand whenever there happens any obstruction that hinders him from sending his Spirits into his Members they lose all sense and strength Besides he hath such command over them that he applies them according to his designs takes no notice of their wils employs the eyes to weep as well as see the hand to serve as well as command the tongue to manage meat as well as compose words and as if it were their greatest glory to perish for him there is not any Member but willingly exposeth it self to death for his defence or honour This submission is an Image of the dependance Christians ought to have towards Jesus Christ they are no longer their own when once ingraffed upon his person they receive an obligation to obey from the same quality that gives them a power to operate Quam in in Christo manes per amorem ipse in te per sanctitatis justitiae operationem in ejus corpore membris computaris Ber. they become Servants assoon as they become Members their liberty depends upon their servitude and by a happy occurrence they lose their own will by submitting to that of the Son of God As it is love that unites them to him so that their liberty is not interessed in their obedience they are never more their own then when they are their Heads they recover themselves in being lost possess themselves by forsaking themselves and by a strange adventure find a resurrection in dying Thence it comes to pass that they are never troubled to sacrifice themselves to Jesus Christ they account themselves sufficiently happy if they can be serviceable to his Glory it matters not though they lose their lives provided they obey him and knowing very well that in the State and in Nature subjects expose themselves for their Prince Members for their Head they are of this mind assoon as ever they enter into the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ â—â—t when they consider how he hath joyned the quality of Redeemer to that of Head and that to associate them to his person he hath delivered them by the losse of his own life they believe they can no ways acknowledge this extream obligation but in dying for his glory who was willing to die for their salvation Indeed we are the servants of Jesus Christ he hath bought us by his death we are the price of his bloud and we owe our happiness and our hope to his merits This is it that the Apostle represents to us in such emphatical terms when he saith Empti estis pretio magno and by a necessary consequence teacheth us that we ought to glorifie him in our body and in our soul Thence it is that he infers that those that live upon
receives is digested by the Stomack and is turned to Blood in the Liver thence it is conveyed by the Veins into all the parts of the body which assimilating it into their substance gives it as many forms as they themselves have There by a strange prodigie the same aliment is softned into Flesh hardned into Bones stiffned into Sinews extended into Cartilages its superfluities are not useless and if we be-believe Physitians they serve to nourish our Hair and our Nails whereof the first is the ornament of the Head the second the defence of the Hand Who will not acknowledge that Man is very dear to God since he works so many Miracles to feed him and produceth so many several Meats to entertain a life common to him with beasts But inasmuch as that of the Soul is much more noble the nourishment whereby it is preserved is exceedingly more excellent and if in the order of Nature God hath made so many prodigies to nourish Man he works many more in the order of Grace to entertain the Christian For the body of his oncly Son is the food of the Faithful they live upon that Blood which begat them on the Cross that the same Principle which gave them their life may preserve it This Body is formed upon our Altars by the Word of Jesus Christ himself the Priests are onely the Ministers or Interpreters they repeat what he delivered in the Supper they do that in the Church that he did at Jerusalem and offering up this Sacrifice to the Eternal Father make provision to nourish the Faithful Thus in Nature and in Grace 't is the Word of God that makes us live and we may truely say Non in solo pane vivit homo sed in omni verbo quod procedit ex ore Dei But this Bread that nourisheth our souls is not of the same quality with that that nourisheth our Bodies For the Corn whereof this is made owes its Life to its Death nor can increase till it be corrupted but that which is exhibited to us upon our Altars felt corruption onely on the Cross where dying to procure us life he himself boasted that he was the Grain of Corn whose fruitfulness proceeds from its corruption Si mortuum fuerit multum fructum affert But now it is incorruptible in our Tabernacles death can no more injure it the Glory that invests it secures it from our fury as well as our wrongs We must acknowledge nevertheless that its presence depends upon the species that cover it it ceaseth to be with us when the heat hath digested them or time consumed them and though he remain by his Grace his body is absent which is tied to accidents as to chains his love hath forged for it He never dispenseth with this bondage the treachery of Judas could not make him violate the laws he had prescribed the blinde fury of Hereticks cannot compel him out of this prison and the impiety of Sinners hath not been able to force him to quit their hearts till the species that preserved him there be consumed by the natural heat He is as faithful to observe his promises as to obey the will of his Father and as the blasphemies of the Jews could not make him descend from the Cross to give them proofs of his Innocence and of his Divinity the sacriledges of prophane Christians cannot make him desert the Hoast where his love and fidelity hold him prisoner Though he be subject to all these humiliations to become our nourishment he is not liable for all that to all the conditions of Nutriment For he passeth not into our substance he is not changed into those that receive him and in his debasement he reserves himself the power to convert them into him His being our Food hinders him not from being our God he acts upon those that feed upon him he makes an impression of his Divine qualities in their souls and if he changeth not their Nature at least he makes them change their Condition and their Life Neither ought this to seem strange to those that consider that Natural meats communicate their qualities to us and by a mutual Metamorphosis we are changed into them when they are assimilated into us 'T is believed that Nero was therefore cruel because he suckt the milk of a cruel Nurse and that Achilles was therefore valiant because his Master nourished him with the marrow of Lions Experience it self teacheth us that people draw their humours from the earth that bears them and the heaven that covers them Those that are bred among Rocks are savage those that live in the fertile Plains are more tractable Therefore we need not wonder if the Christians feeding upon a Divine meat do so easily change their inclinations Auâ—ite officaciam communionem corporis sanguinu Domini nos Jesu Christo Jesus Christus nobis in unitate foederatur inenarrabili sicut ipse dicit Qui manducat carnem meum in me manet ego in eo Bern. because more powerful and successful then ordinary food it hath the vertue of conveying its own qualities and of changing the guests into it self And from this Principle do the Fathers draw the obligation the Christians have to be gods upon earth because they receive a God in the Eucharist who acting according to the extent of his power would transform them into himself were not his Divine operations hindered by the weakness or malice of the recipient But that which is begun upon Earth is happily perfected in Heaven where Divinity being the food of the Blessed raiseth them to a condition where leaving off to be Mortals they commence Gods Indeed the holy Scripture teacheth us that the Beatifical state is a Feast where God communicating his Essence to Angels and Men makes them in one dish taste all imaginable delights For though there be diversity of conditions among the Blessed though the degrees of Glory answer the degrees of Love and those who have been most affectionate are those that God most honours yet all Theology confesseth that the Divine Essence is the only object of their felicity that every one enjoys all without division that though common to all 't is notwithstanding proper to each particular that being wholly communicated to one it takes nothing from the rest and more excellent then the light which enlightens one man as perfectly as the whole world it is as fully communicated to the lowest Angel as to the highest Seraphim God is divided upon the Earth without interessing his simplicity he communicates himself to the faithful but in part and handling every one according to their Merit and his Grate is not always the same to one that he is to another He hath manifested his Wisdome in Solomon his Clemency in David his Patience in Job his Love in Saint Peter his Zeal in Saint Paul his Purity in Saint John and his other perfections in the rest of the Faithful But at the end of the world God
will be all in all things he will poure out that in abundance which now he deals forth in measure and all the Saints possessing all the Vertues shall possesse God in all his perfections But the chiefest advantage of this Divine Banquet is that the Mess which is served up will be instead of all things as long as we live upon the Earth the misery of our condition or the frailty of our goods suffers us not to find our contentment in one single object That which allays our hunger quencheth not our thirst that which enlightens us covers us not that which serves us for a garment serves us not for a house and that which satisfies our mind does not always content our body But when we shall be in Heaven the Divine Essence will fill all our desires and being infinite will alone abundantly supply the fulness of all perishable Earthly goods Your God saith Saint Augustine shall be your All you shall feed upon him to satisfie your hunger drink him to quench your thirst rest upon him for your support make him your garment to cover you you shall wholly possess and he as wholly possess you you shall find in him all that others doe because both you and they shall be but one and the same thing in him For the last effect of this viand whereof we have but an essay in the Eucharist is that it will perfectly transform us into it self because all Scripture teacheth us that when we see God we shall be like him Scimus quoniam cum apparuerit similes ei erimus Joan. and that Glory having consumed all that was mortal and perishable in our nature we shall be happily swallowed up in him without ceasing for all this to be our selves Thus God nourisheth us in nature with the fruits of the Earth which maintain a body taken out of the Earth in Grace by the bloud of Jesus Christ which preserves the life he merited for us upon the Crosse In Glory by Divinity it self which is both together our food and our felicity The Second DISCOURSE Of the Nourishment of Innocent Man and of that of Man a Christian I If the state of Innocence be unknown to us by reason of its dignity or its remotenesse we must confesse that Original Righteousnesse and the fruit of the Tree of Life which were the chief priviledges thereof are so hid from us Immortalitas ista praestabatur ei de ligno vitae non de constitutione naturae quo ligno separatus est eū peccasset ut posset mori Aug. that we have but weak conjectures to judge of their properties or of their effects Saint Augustine that hath written most rationally confounds them so often one with another that he seems to attribute to the Tree of Life that which appertains to Original Righteousness For though we know that this united the soul with the body subjected both to God and preserving the one from sin exempted the other from death yet he forbears not to impute that to the Tree of Life which we impute to Grace and to allot it so many advantages that it seems the whole happinesse of man depended absolutely upon this miraculous Tree But having well considered the words of this great Saint I find his doctrine so conformable to Scripture that there is no doubt but it was suggested to him by the same Spirit that made Moses speak in Genesis For as nourishment is ordained to preserve our life we need not think it strange that it holds some analogy with the principle that gives it us and that there should be some agreement between the matter whereof we are made and that wherewith we are nourished Therefore may we say that the Tree of Life preserved in Innocent man all that Original Righteousness had indued him with and that the fruit thereof which certainly was a figure of the holy Sacrament repaired the wasts of the natural heat maintained man in his vigour and secured him from death Wherein I find a great resemblance with truth because it wrought that in man an Innocent which the Body of the Son of God doth in man a Christian For there is none but confesseth that this admirable fruit united the soul with the body that it entertained that good intelligence which made up a notable part of his happiness and subjecting the body to the soul by a necessary consequence subjected the soul to God Divinity hath not yet fully examined whether this Vertue were natural to this Tree or whether being but a visible sign of an invsible grace the Divine power produced this effect in man when he took of that fruit with the dispositions of a firm faith and an humble obedience If we take the Scripture for our Guide and Saint Augustine for its Interpreter it will be easie to judge that this effect depended not upon the disposition of Man but upon the Vertue of the Tree because we see in Genesis that one of the reasons why our forefather was driven out of Paradise was that he might not eat of that wonderful fruit and so the miseries he had contracted by sin be prolonged together with his life Saint Augustine explicating this passage makes us plainly see that man having lost Original Righteousness had not lost Immortality if he had continued to feed upon the fruit of the Tree of Life Thus we are forced to confess that this Tree had a secret Vertue which depended not upon the sole disposition of man and that it was capable of producing a quality in his body which desending him for a time from death had encreased his misfortune with his years But not to engage in a question more curious then profitable 't is enough to know that as this fruit of the Tree of Life subjected the body to the soul and the soul to God the Eucharist produceth the same effects in the Christian and being received with the dispositions requisite to this Sacrament calms the passions weakens Concupiscence enthrones reason For though Baptisme leave Concupiscence to exercise the Christian and this Sacrament which opens him the Gate of the Church gives him not victory together with life yet all the Fathers confess that the Eucharist more powerful then Baptism furnisheth them with forces to set upon this domestick enemy that it sweetens his fury in combating him and that the presence of Jesus Christ delivers him from this evil more obstinate then the Devil and Sin For whether the purity of his flesh cures ours by a holy contagion or whether Concupiscence tremble at the apprehension of a body which is the work of the Holy Ghost or whether lastly this Sacrament that preserves our life gives us strength and delivers us from that languishing impotency which seems the very soul of Concupiscence we find by experience that the body of the Son of God procures us the victory and prepares us the triumph If it defend us it nourisheth us and if it pacifie our disorders it repairs the devastations
Gideon that won so many victories was but the Type of this For this mighty man entring the Camp of the Madianites and hearing one of their soldiers tell his fellow that in his sleep he saw a Cake fall from Heaven which routed their army he perswaded himself contrary to all appearance Sicut verbum Dei cibus est gladius ita corpus ejus Ber. that this Cake was his Sword and taking advantage from this dream set upon his enemies and defeated them Non est hoc aliud nisi gladius Gideonis But 't is very true that the Bread of Jesus Christ is the Sword of the Christians the same meat that nourisheth them defends them and the same remedy that cures their maladies subdues their enemies It s strength no way hinders its sweetness and like Manna there are charms in it that make it pleasing to every palate For the holy Scripture assures us that this Heavenly food was fitted to the appetite of the Israelites that never changing the fashion it altered the savour and following their inclinations complied with their tasts to satisfie their longing I know Saint Augustine is of opinion that this miracle was wrought onely in favour of the righteous and that the guilty were deprived of a Grace which in stead of heightning their devotion did only whet their stomack But the Scripture declares this miracle and the words thereof which are as true as Oracles inform us that Manna besides its natural taste had other rellishes according to the several appetites of those that gathered it If the Figure were thus advantageous for the body the Substance is much more beneficial for the soul For inasmuch as this Sacrament contains the source of Grace there is none but may from thence be communicated unto us though its principal effect be to maintain life it fails not to produce all Vertues and to satisfie the inclinations of all those that receive it It inspires Lovers with Charity weak persons with Courage Virgins with Purity Penitents with Sorrow and becoming all things to all upon Earth as well as in Heaven perfectly fulfils all the desires of the Faithful By its abundance it supplies all other Sacraments It gives us Jesus Christ in all his different relations and comprehending as well his Mysteries as their Graces makes us enjoy him living and dying humble and glorified acting and suffering For whether Eternity which in one indivisible moment includes all the differences of time recollect here all the Mysteries of Jesus Christ or whether this Sacrament comprehend all that it exhibits and being the Figure and Truth both together presents us the Death and Resurrection of the Son of God because it is the Sacrament thereof or finally whether Jesus Christ upon the Altars to comfort the Faithful who saw him not upon the Earth will by a miraculous way for their sakes accord the present with the past and let himself be enjoyed after his Death as he was seen before his Birth he gives himselfe wholly to them in this Mystery and fully communicates all that he is all that he hath done and all that he hath suffered for their salvation so that simple souls may consider him there as a child Hermites as solitary the Evangelists as a Divine Preacher the Martyrs as a Sacrifice the Prelates as a Pastor In hoc Sacramento judex advocatus sacerdos victima Leo Agnus Pastor Pascua Ber. and every one following his own piety may behold him in the condition which most affects him with pleasure or pain It was perhaps for this cause that the Moserabs in their Liturgy divided the Body of the Son of God into nine portions upon which they imposed the names of his chiefest Mysteries to teach us that he repeated them upon our Altars to content our piety and accomplishing the Figure of Manna exhibited himself in all these different estates thereby to accommodate himself to all our inclinations The Fourth DISCOURSE That this Nourishment gives the Christian whatever the Devil promised Innocent Man if he did eat of the Forbidden Fruit. THe Divine Providence is never more wonderful then when it employs the same means to save us the malice of the Devil had made use of to destroy us Thus let us magnifie his Oeconomy when we see our salvation somewhat resemble our fall and the same things that involved us in transgression deliver us out of it A Devil jealous of our happiness began our misery a Woman too easily listened to his words a man over-lightly complacent suffered himself to be cajoled by her and the beauty of the forbidden fruit charming his eyes seduced his mind and corrupted his will The Divine Wisdome imitating our fall in the work of our salvation made use of an Angel the Interpreter of his designs of a Virgin true to his Promises of a Man-God that satisfied his Justice and of a fruit not forbidden but commanded which really exhibits to the Christian all those advantages man was made to hope for in his Innocence For the Devil considering the just inclinations Nature and Grace had imprinted in the soul of man to seduce him promised him that if he would disobey God he should find his happiness in his rebellion and that the use of the fruit he was forbidden to meddle with should make him Immortal knowing Good and Evil and Christian Religion teacheth us that the Body of the Son of God received in the Sacrament with piety due to so great love produceth in us these effects and making us Men-Gods makes us Knowing and Immortal Let us examine these Promises and see what we ought to expect from the God of Truth and the Father of Lyes If the fear of death and the desire of life be not the most ancient passions of man we may affirm them the most natural and most violent He hath an apprehension of death before he knows what it is he desires Immortality before he believes it and whatever he does here below is only by defending himself from a dissolution to live for ever Every one seeks after the same end though by different mediums and he that would put the question to each particular would learn by their answers that they labour only to become Immortal Fathers mary not so much for the pleasure of the bed as for the desire they have to survive in their posterity and in spight of death gain a perpetuity to their Being as well as their Name Philosophers are not so much in love with Knowledge and Vanity as with Life whilst they spend whole nights in their books and leave the productions of their brain to posterity For they think to cozen death by this stratagem they believe their reputation will pierce the Generations to come and that living in the memory of men they shall in some sort enjoy Immortality Monarchs whose minde and body are equally barren leaving neither Children nor Vertues behinde them whereby they may be known to their Successors raise
Pyramids to preserve their memory and being not able to busie the Pen of the Historian employ the Tool of the Engraver and stamp their name upon Marble being unable to write it in the Annals Conquerors are not exempt from this madness they fight onely to get themselves a Name seek for Life in the very bosome of Death depopulate States to make succeeding ages talk of them destroy Towns to raise Trophies and Longum est retexere Curios Regulos Graecos viros quorū iunumera elogia sunt contemptae morti◠propter posthumam famam Tert. not able to gain Reputation by their Justice or Clemency strive to purchase it by their Courage and Valour From this Passion doth Tertullian draw arguments to prove the immortality of the soul and to perswade the Infidels that whole man dies not because he extends his desires beyond this life and knowing very well that his spirit must survive his body is much troubled how he may preserve his reputation after his death The Devil who is not ignorant that this desire is engraved in our hearts by the finger of Nature and that it is easier to divert it then smother it try'd to make use of it in Paradise to seduce the first man he went not about to take from him the belief of the immortality of his soul he knew a minde so enlightned could not be clouded with such darkness but he perswaded him that his happiness depended upon his disobedience and that to defend him from death wherewith God had threatned him his onely way was to eat of the forbidden fruit This subtil spirit would not set upon man till he had stirred up the most violent of his Passions and he conceived it an easie matter to ruine him if he could but perswade him that Immortality would be the recompence of his crime Indeed Man charmed with so fair a promise violated the respect he owed his God he reached his hand to that fatal Tree and plucking the fruit which served for a proof his obedience made himself guilty of sin and obnoxious to death But inasmuch as the Son of God takes pleasure to draw our Salvation out of our Fall and makes us in a blinde submission finde that advantage we sought for in a foolish credulity he hath instituted a Sacrament in his Church which contains an admirable fruit giving those that eat of it a happie Immortality For the chief effect of this celestial food is to preserve us from death and assure us of life He that eateth my flesh saith Jesus Christ shall live for ever He opposeth this nourishment against that of the fathers in the wilderness and protesting that those that eat his flesh shall never die he engageth himself by a solemn promise to raise them from the dead So that though his Justice did not oblige him to raise the Innocent and the Guilty out of the grave to give them their reward his Truth would oblige him to restore life to the Faithful who in obedience to his will have eaten this ever-to-be-adored Fruit. Therefore is it that the Fathers of the Church making the Elogie of this Sacrament call it sometimes the Earnest of glory sometimes the Antidote of death sometimes the Seed of immortality But because the devil joyned the desire of Glory with that of Life and promised man to make him a god if he would eat of the Forbidden fruit Jesus Christ takes the same course and having made us hope for immortality in this Sacrament he raiseth our expectation and promiseth us Divinity I do not wonder that Innocent man desired to be God Nec quicquam homine aut superbius aut miserius Plin. maj seeing Guilty man covets it to this day and that the misery which punisheth his disobedience hath not flatted this his desire nor do I conceive it strange that the greatness of his condition seconded with the promises of the Serpent had perswaded him that in eating the forbidden fruit he might purchase Divinity For in that happie state all was submitted to his will he was equally absolute in his Person and in his Kingdom he discoursed familiarly with the Angels and he knew that his soul though included in a body was little inferiour to those blessed spirits His Soveraignty gave him hopes of an Independencie being Lord of the Universe he was easily perswaded he might be the Conservator his lights which should have cleared up his judgement dazled him his present greatness made him forget his former original The promises of the devil charmed him and not imagining that Humility was the way which should lead him to Glory he suffered himself to be transported with Pride which threw him into confusion and misery His loss had been irrecoverable had not the Son of God found out a remedy and obliging him to taste a Divine Fruit in the Eucharist had not repaired his fault and satisfied his desire For it was not enough to cure Man of his sin by a Sacrament if the Divine Mercy had not furnished him at the same time with a means innocently to content his longings The inclination to Divinity was riveted in the very bottom of his Essence and I dare say the perswasion of the Serpent very far from defacing it had rooted it faster Man had a minde to command though he had lost the power he still retained the desire and as there is no miserable man that would not with all his heart be happie neither is there any sinner that would not raign with God This wish was a Sacriledge and an attempt against the Godhead but by the goodness of Jesus Christ it is become an act of Religion and Obedience For this Son who is equal to his Father and who being his primitive Image and the Character of his Substance hath the right of exalting men to this dignity was made Man in the Incarnation that they might be made Gods in the Eucharist and was laden with their Miseries in the One that they might be cloathed with his Glory in the Other Indeed 't is in this ineffable Mystery wherein Man mingles himself with God where by a holy confusion he loseth his bad qualities and assumes divine ones where leaving off to be a sinner he begins to be innocent where soaring above himself he enters into the rights of God Eucharistia videtur esse velut Incarnationis mira quaedam extensio D◠Tho. There it is that the Eucharist supplies the mystery of the Incarnation For this made onely a Man-God included its effects in one Individual of Nature the holy Humanity enjoyed this favour all alone and if men received any advantage it was rather honourable then useful This Alliance was like those Marriages where all the profit is the Brides and the glory onely the Kinreds 'T was indeed a happiness for men that their nature was preferred before that of the Angels and that God intending to be allied to his Creatures vouchsafed to make himself a Man and not a Seraphim But
make use of it in Sacrifice and laying the punishment we our selves deserve upon the Creature we do our utmost to avoid his indignation by an invention his own mercy hath taught us Et viles animas pro meliore damus Ovi Fast Thence it is that those people who have lost the true Religion have not left off to continue Sacrifice and instructed either by Tradition or Nature they have laboured to appease the gods they worship by the slaughter of Victims Apud Aegyptios victimae inurchantur sigillo quodam in quo effigies erat servi seipsū gladio confodientis Plut. in Isid Osy By that Ceremony they acknowledged themselves worthy of death and at the same time they went about to satisfie Justice they confessed that his Mercy suffered them to transfer the punishment due to their offences upon the Beast and to immolate innocent Animals in stead of guilty Men. The Egyptians who had more dealing with the Jews give testimony they were of the same minde when they stampt upon the Victim the picture of a Slave stabbing himself to inform all the world that the Justice of God sparing the Man gave them leave to sacrifice the Beast in his place and in a manner to charge him with his sin and his punishment 'T is true that as Oblations were not considerable among the Jews but because they were the Figures and Types of Jesus Christ Huic summo veroque sacrificio cuncta falsa sacrificia cesserunt Aug. it was thought requisite that in the fulness of time he should accomplish the Truth and that he might perfectly honour all the perfections of his Father should himself be sacrificed upon the Altar of the Cross The Eighth DISCOURSE That the Christian stood in need that the Son of God should offer for him the Sacrifice of the Cross and of the Altar IT is a strange Paradox but very true that Sin which obligeth Man to sacrifice himself deprives him of the power to do it Animantia minus ingrata Deo quia minus infecta peccato Philo Jud. and reduceth him to a condition where not being able to finde a Victim in himself he is driven to seek for one among the Creatures This shameful necessity discovered not to him onely the Goodness of God who was content that Beasts should be offered up in stead of Men but it upbraided him with his unworthiness and made him wofully resent that being able to offend his Creator he could by no means make him satisfaction Having imprinted this truth in his minde and for many Generations reading him this lesson that he that pretended to equal the Almighty was in a worse condition then the Beasts in process of time it was demonstrated to him that his crime was too great to be expiated by the blood of Goats or Lambs and that his excess required a Sacrifice whose merit was Infinite Indeed that a Sacrifice might be acceptable to God it must have those qualities which are found neither in Angels nor Men nor Beasts For it must be Innocent and no way obnoxious to that evil whereof it is to be the remedy It must be Reasonable to treat with God and to speak in behalf of them whose place he appears in It must be mortal that it may undergo the punishment sin hath deserved and thereby satisfie the Divine Justice But above all its merit must of necessity be Infinite that being equal to the malice of sin the honour of God may have full reparation and the debt of man an entire compleat acquittance De Adaestirpe nullus propagari poterat naturaliter qui illius delicto non teneretur adstrictus Aug. The Angel had two of these conditions he was Reasonable and Innocent but being Immortal and Finite by nature he could neither die nor satisfie Man was Reasonable and Mortal the one he owed to his Sin the other to his Constitution but having lost his Innocence he could neither Satisfie nor Merit The Beast more happie in some sort then Man was Mortal and Innocent but having not the use of Reason his death was unprofitable nor could his sacrifice reconcile us to God Therefore did the Eternal Word contrive to be Incarnate that uniting the Divine Nature with the Humane in his Person there might come forth a Divine Compositum which being God and Man both together might possess all the qualities requisite to accomplish the work of our Salvation He was Mortal because he was Man and had assumed our Nature with its imperfections the appurtenances of sin He was Innocent because he subsisted in the person of the Word which managed his Will without constraining it and by a happie necessity made him absolutely impeccable He was Reasonable inasmuch as having taken our imperfections he withal took our advantages and by a priviledge due to his Greatness the use of Reason was indulged him with life that from the first moment of his conception he might honour his Father and satisfie for sinners His Merit was as his Person Infinite and the actions that were performed by this God-Man were Meritorious because Humane and on the other fide Infinite because Divine Thus the Word Incarnate became the Sacrifice of God and Men and entering into our duties paid what we stood bound for to the Justice of his Father he suffered what our sins deserved and delivered us from those punishments our sentence condemned us to But being the Substance of all the Shadows of the Old Testament and by his acquitting us being obliged to fulfil all the Figures thereof he offered up himself to the Eternal Father by a double Sacrifice that one seconding the other the Christians might render as much honour to God as the Jews For the Synagogue had four kindes of Sacrifices The First was the Holocaust which respected the glory of God wherein the Victim was wholly consumed by the fire The Second was an Atonement for sin where the Oblation being parted between God and his Ministers one part was burnt in the fire and the other remained to the Priest for his nourishment The Third and Fourth were called Peace-offerings with this distinction that the one was made to obtain some favour of God or to give him thanks for what was already received the other to acquit the offerer of his promises and to accomplish those vows he stood engaged to God for In these two last Sacrifices the Victim was divided into Three parts The First was consecrated to God the Second designed to the Priest and the Third left to the Faithful Therefore hath the Son of God joyned the Sacrifice of the Cross with that of the Altar to accomplish all those of the Old Law Upon the Cross he offered up himself an Holocaust to his Father where being destroyed by death he rose from the Grave to be consummated in Glory and to be received into the bosom of his Father from whence he came forth by the Mystery of the Incarnation But because in the Oblation
in that of Isaac it was obliged to separate the Priest from the Victime and to arm the hands of the Father to immolate his only Son In the mean time Jesus Christ unites them in his person and in this adorable Sacrifice which he offers to his Father whether on the Cross or on the Altar he is both the Priest that consecrateth and the Victime that is immolated Inasmuch as Jesus Christ saith Saint Augustine is our God and our Temple he is also our Sacrifice and our Priest He is the Priest that reconciles us he is the Sacrifice whereby we are reconciled and the same Doctor admiring the novelties of the sacrifice of the Cross expresseth his wonder by these words The Altar of the Sacrifice is new because the Immolation is new and admirable For he that is the Sacrifice is the Priest the Sacrifice according to the Flesh the Priest according to the Spirit and both according to his Humanity He that offereth and he that is offered is one and the same person and these qualities which have so little analogy are found united in the sacrifice of the Cross Inasmuch as the Christian is the Image of Jesus Christ and this glorious title obligeth him to transcribe his original he ought to sacrifice himself as he did and to be both the Priest and the Oblation together Indeed if we descend into the Mysteries of our Religion and consider with the eye of Faith what we are not able to discover with the light of reason we shall find that we are immolated upon the Altar with the Son of God and that after his example we are both the sacrificers and the sacrifice For Jesus Christ is not offered all alone in our Temples he is immolated by the hands of the Priests and at the same time that he offers his natural body to his Father he offers also his mystical body so that offering himself to his Father by his Church and offering his Church together with himself he teacheth all the Faithful to joyn the quality of Priests with that of Victimes This is it that Saint Augustine informs us of in his Book De Civitate Dei Per hoc sacerdos est ipse offerens ipse oblatio cujus rei Sacramentum quotidianū esse voluit Ecclesiae sacrificiū quae cum ipsius capitis corpus sit seipsam per ipsū discit offerre Aug. lib. 10. de Civit. ca. 6. where searching into our mysteries he finds that the Church offers her self with her Beloved upon our Altars and that in the same sacrifice she is both Priestess and Oblation His words are too elegant to be omitted neither must it be a less Doctor then he that must appear that Protector of so important a Verity 'T is particularly saith he in unity that the sacrifice of Christians consists where being many in number we make up but one body with Jesus Christ this is it that the Church daily does in this Sacrament which is so well known to the Faithfull wherein is demonstrated that in the Oblation she offers she her self is offered that after the example of her Beloved she may be in the same sacrifice Priestess and Victime From this passage may easily be inferred that the Faithful are offered with Christ upon the Altar that the Host that contains him is large enough to contain all his members and that his mysticall body being immolated with his natural body he obligeth all Christians to associate as he doth the quality of Victime with that of a Priest But if leaving the Altar we consider the Faithful in the course of their life we shall see there is none but ought to sacrifice himself and who either in his body or in his soul may not find Victimes to offer to God There is no more need of providing Buls or Goats with the Jews to lay upon our Altars The time of the Mosaical Law is past truths have succeeded figures and if we rightly understand the secret of our mysteries Noli extrinsecus thura comparare sed dic In me sunt Deus vota tua noli extrinsecus pecus quod mactes inquirere habes in te quod occidas Aug. in Psal 51. it becomes us to offer those things these Animals represent We have whereof to sacrifice within our selves there is not any passion in our soul nor part in our body whereof we may not make an innocent Victime Indeed Christian Religion converting the sinner into a sacrifice obligeth him to immolate to God all that he is He is deficient in the lawfullest of his duties if his whole life be not a sacrifice and being compounded of soul and body he ought to sacrifice both that he may have the honour to be a perfect Holocaust The vertues are auxiliaries which facilitate these means and it seems these glorious habits are given us for no other end then to teach us to sacrifice to God all the faculties of our soul Inasmuch as the will is the noblest and this Soveraign being once perfectly gained over to God gives him an absolute dominion over all the rest there are some vertues which have no other employment but to be made victimes Sorrow which discovers to man the excess of his crime labours to convert him it bruiseth his heart by the violence of a holy contrition and if it cannot draw bloud from this sacrifice it draws tears which are more acceptable to God then the bloud of beasts This made David say that the spirit broken and afflicted was a true sacrifice and that he who sometimes refuseth Goats and Lambs never despiseth a heart that Repentance and Humility offers up unto him Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus Obedience comes in to the succour of grief this beats down the pride of the will masters that imperious faculty and changing her triumph into a sacrifice obligeth her to die to her own inclinations that she may live to those of the Grace of Jesus Christ But love happily finisheth this design he burns the victime with his flames to render it an Holocaust and finding the means to put to death an immortall power teacheth us that a pure spirit may offer sacrifices to God For there is no lover but knows that love imitates death that he commits innocent murders and by stratagems which himself is only privy to makes sin die in us that Grace may live If the will become a Victim by means of Charity the understanding is offered up to God by the intervening of faith This vertue subjects it to her Empire perswades truths she explicates not she obligeth a man to suspend his judgement to renounce his reason and to give his senses the lye she engageth him to offer as many sacrifices as she propounds mysteries and by a power which would seem tyrannical were it not legitimate forbids him the use of reasoning in matters of religion The memory after the example of the understanding is immolated to God by remembrance and forgetfulness These two
for considering the advantages which he promised himself by death how that it would unite him to Jesus Christ he called it by a new name his Gains and his Riches it enters into his minde as the recompence of his travels an indempnity for his losses and the most assured purchase he could make in this world Mihi vivere Christus est mori lucrum Thus every Christian may easily become a Victim because death is a favourable occasion and being well managed may serve to expiate our sins to satisfie the Divine Justice and to imitate the charity of Jesus But the misfortune is that Love is wanting in this Sacrifice and holding a language far different from that of Isaac we are obliged to say We finde the Sacrifice but there is neither knife nor fire to consume it Indeed all men die but few Christians make good use of their death and there are none but the Elect who turning it into a Holocaust know so well how to use it that it opens them the gate of heaven The Third DISCOURSE That the Christian is a Souldier and a Conqueror THe God whom we adore takes his Glory as well from War as from Rest and if he be called in Scripture the God of peace he is as often called the Lord of hosts His Angels are the souldiers that wait upon him to the Battel who avenge him of his enemies Numquid est numerus militum ejus the Stars which keep watch as Sentinels about his Palace bear the name of the Militia in the language of the Prophets Militia coelorum and all those that serve him for Ministers in his Embassies serve him for Combatants in his Conquests Therefore did the Angels who gave notice to the Shepherds of the birth of Jesus Christ take their name from their principal employment and called themselves the heavenly Host Multitudo Militiae coelstis and when the Son of God was taken in the garden of Olives and blamed Saint Peter who would have hindered the work of our Salvation he told his disciples that it was easie for him to ask of his Father legions of Angels to defend him from his enemies Men are considered under this quality upon earth the holy Scripture calls them Souldiers and if we believe the testimony of Job their whole life is a continual warfare They have as many Enemies as Subjects Rebellion is spread over every corner of their State the parts whereof they are composed are revolted and which way soever they turn themselves they finde occasions of Fighting Christians are yet more obliged to War then Men the Sacrament that enables them withal engageth them into the combat Labora sicut bonus miles Christi 2 Tim. 2. Nemo coronabitur nifi vicerit neque vincet n si certaverit quis autem certet nisi inimicū habeat Ex Sent. Prosp The Earth is the Field where they try the Mastery and these terms of a List a Crown a Souldier which S. Paul so often useth in his Epistles are so many proofs of so known a Truth The Church it self is an Army the Christians whereof it is formed are the Souldiers and the Scripture describes her in arms in these words Terribilis ut Castrorum acies ordinata Wherein it seems we may behold the difference between a Camp and a City Both of them are Bodies which have their Head and Members their Laws and Policie their designes and employments But in Cities we observe a pleasing variety of conditions equally contributing to their advantage and beauty There we see Priests who chant forth the praises of God in his Temple who load his Altars with offerings and mixing their tears with the blood of the Victims endeavour to appease his just indignation There are Magistrates which end Controversies maintain Peace among the People and make Justice raign in Families There are Merchants which traffick with strangers who by their Commerce occasion Plenty and by their diligence supply all necessities But difference of condition seems to be banished from Armies as all fight so all are souldiers those that command and those that obey bear this quality and both of them place their glory in their valour Therefore the Church being an Army those it consists of must necessarily fight the most feeble must be courageous the women must be Amazones and all Christians forgetting the difference of their conditions must take upon them the quality of Souldiers Enemies will not be wanting to exercise their courage because the World the Flesh and the Devil hold intelligence to set upon them For the Christians war is at home whatever he hath received from Adam is an occasion of exercising him and for a punishment of his sin he is obliged to fight with himself The Flesh is never at agreement with the Spirit these two parties have always some difference to compose and though linkt together by natural chains and common interests cease not continually to make war upon one another They are two friends that usually fall out and two enemies that caress each other two friends that shake hands and two enemies that make mutual visits two friends that cannot endure one another and two enemies that can never be asunder This division is the first punishment of our sin and when we began to be upon ill terms with God we ceased to have any good correspondence with our selves But that which seems most troublesom is that one Combat furnisheth us with many enemies for as S. Augustine saith we daily fight in our heart in such a little room we finde whole armies and sometimes we grapple with Avarice sometimes with Pride sometimes with Impurity so that 't is very hard being set upon by so many enemies if we receive not some wound This Combat is obstinately disputed if there be some Truce there is no real Peace it lasts till death and if soul and body be not separated it is impossible to make them friends The Senses bring us false reports the Passions raise storms our Inclinations set up a party and to defend us from so many enemies we are obliged to borrow the assistance of Vertue Every Age hath its exercise Infancy is oppressed with Errour and Ignorance Youth is baited with Ambition and Wantonness Old-age is clogged with Anger and Peevishness so that there is no condition but hath need of Grace to defend it from those enemies that set upon it The Devil takes part with the Body to destroy us employs his wiles or his force to terrifie or seduce us he mingles himself with our Humours disorders our Passions troubles our Temper and as if he were the Soveraign of Man as well as the Prince of the World he deboists our Subjects to disquiet our Rest Sometimes he takes upon him the shape of a Lion and sometimes that of a Serpent that using subtilty and violence he may gain some advantage upon us He studies our inclinations to destroy us suits himself with our humours to surprise us and regulating his promises
of nothing but by the priviledge they receive from the Son of God Finally banished persons are degraded from their nobility the loss of their honour is joyned with that of their riches and being driven from their Native soile they can no longer have any share in the Government or charge of the Common-wealth There was requisite an order of the Senate to restore Camillus to his dignities neither would he accept of the office of Dictator till recalled from his banishment All men are thus outed since the fall of Adam the same rebellion that made them poor made them base they lost their honour with their innocence and those that were little lower then the Angels are reduced to the condition of Beasts The world hath put on a new face ever since man chang'd their conduct as long as they were in subjection with God all the creatures were in subjection to them but since their insurrection all their subjects have rebelled and the Empire where they exercised their power is become the Theater of their punishment This gave Tertullian occasion to compare the world to a prison and to make us confess that these two places so different in shew were exceeding like really and in deed Si recogitemus ipsum magis mundum carcerem esse exisse nos è carcere intelligemus Tert. ad Mar. A prison is the receptacle of darkness the Sun darts no beames there and this glorions Luminary which penetrates the deep cannot enlighten the dungeon The world lies in ignorance all men are born blind and if Jesus Christ more powerful then the Sun be not pleased to enlighten them they live and die in a profound blindnesse The Prison deprives Captives of their Liberty if they be not loaded with irons they are at least kept close and being not able to quit those sad abodes without satisfying their obligations they long for death to be delivered from servitude The world in this particular is a perfect image of the Prison all sinners lie fettered in it their crimes compose their chains and every offence they commit is a new link making them stronger and more weighty The Prison is the mansion of Delinquents if an Innocent enter there 't is by misfortune Justice built those dismal habitations for the punishment of Criminals They are Hells upon Earth the common shoars of the state and when the Prince hath a mind to rid himself of some Subject who threatens his Principality with a sedition or a rebellion he sends him to expiate his offence in this dreadful dwelling since the fall of Adam the world hath lodg'd none but sinners if you except Jesus Christ and his Mother all men are guilty they live and die in this shameful condition and whatever care Grace takes to render them innocent there are very few who stand not in need of the flames of Purgatory to consume away what the Calentures of Charity could not But as in the Prison the Criminals are always in fear expecting with a thousand discontents the sentence of the Judge trembling lest being condemned the Officer drag them to execution and make them in some publick place an example to the people In the world men attend their judgement with the same trouble of mind They are apprehensive of the least sickness as personal summons obliging them to appear before the Throne of their Soveraign they tremble at every accident that threatens them with a dissolution and redoubting that arrest which must decide the business of their Eternity Qui se nondum intelligit exulē in hoc mundo nondum se intelligit peccatorem Aug. they live in continuall fear if they live not in blindness and ignorance Thus the world is our Banishment and our Prison we are Captives and Exiles and both these Qualities teach us that though we be justified we cease not to be Delinquents But withall we must confesse that we are Pilgrims and if this condition ease not our pain it does at least diminish our dishonour For every one knows that man was a Pilgrim in the state of Innocence that he lookt upon Heaven as his Countrey and though his life were not a Banishment it was a Pilgrimage Indeed sin made it grievous and changing the face of the Universe changed our condition with it For before the sin of Adam Paradise was a Temple every creature was an image of God Peregrinus erat Adam quia viator sed non Exul quia non erat praevaricator Rich. à San. Vic. and though man promised himself Heaven as the recompence of his merit he fail'd not to meet with some happiness upon Earth The place of his Pilgrimage was not yet the path of his Banishment he loved all things without danger nor feared any change in removing his affection and his thoughts daily raising him to his Creator he performed as many acts of Religion as he employed creatures for his use But now that his condition is changed and that world for a punishment of his offence hath lost its rest and beauty he is as well as Exile as a Pilgrim and the place of his Pilgrimage is become that of his Banishment so that his whole life must be spent in desires and sorrow He is necessitated to sigh perpetually after his dear Countrey to look upon the Earth as a strange place to distrust all creatures which are in his enemies hands for his destruction and to be like Passengers who return home assoon as possibly they can Nothing can stop these when they are ever so little affected with those they have left behind They rise before the Sun be up go to their rest after he is set and by the diligence they make a man would judge their most violent passion were to arrive at their beloved Countrey Thus ought Christians to make speed in the way of perfection they must continually put on that they may shorten their journey and remember that to be wedded to the Earth is to prolong their Banishment Pilgrims look upon all objects as indifferent if they meet with pleasant seats fruitful fields populous towns stately buildings they never lose the desire nor the thought of speedily returning into their Countrey they know very well that since they cannot possesse these goodly things neither ought they to long for them and that the love they spend abroad is injurious to their engagements at home Christians instructed in the School of the Son of God have nothing but contempt for the things of the Earth they behold all its beauties without dwelling upon them they take heed of pleasure as their mortallest enemy and they groan sometimes under the weight of their travels they confess nevertheless that the persecutions of the world are not so tragical as its caresses Experience teacheth us that the pain they endure in it encreaseth their desire of reviewing their dear Countrey and the pleasure they tast makes them lose the remembrance thereof For 't is impossible saith Saint Augustine that he should be
himself with the pleasures of the body renounceth the priviledges of the minde betrays his duty and his dignity despoils himself of the inclinations of Angels and puts on those of Beasts and without changing his shape changeth condition and nature But inasmuch as most men are led more by interest then reason and those that are the slaves of pleasure are more sensible of grief then shame and dishonour it will not be amisse in this Discourse to let them see that the pleasures after which they so eagerly run are very tragical and contrary to their intention are turn'd into punishments The Divine Justice which leaves no crime unpunished hath been pleased that diseases should be natural penances and that the Stone and the Gout should be the recompence of our debauches Seeing sensuall pleasures are commonly criminal they are for the most part irregular having shaken off the yoak of reason they cast men into excesse and perswade them that 't is a kind of injustice and base servility to prescribe Laws to their desires abused by these false sophisms they pursue their inclinations without keeping any measure in their diversions they are drown'd in delights are lost in voluptuousnesse and draining their strength and their substance fall many times into diseases and poverty Thus by a just judgement of Heaven their disorders become their torments Ipsos voluptas habet non ipsi voluptatem cujus aut inopiâ torquentur aut copiâ strangulantur miseri si deseruntur ab illa miseriores si obruantur Sence and they finde sorrow where they expected felicity If to defend themselves from this misfortune they observe some rules in their pleasures they feel another punishment For these pleasures being short their soul is always languishing they have scarce done with one but they long for another and living always in expectation or inquiry can neither be secure from restlesnesse nor discontent Those who to remedy this evil endeavour to associate pleasures undertake an impossibility For whether nature intend to punish us because we are culpable or whether Grace be not willing to expose us to danger because we are weak Pleasures hold not so good intelligence as Paines These set upon us in a full body and joyn companies to render us wretched the Stone the Gout the Colick and the Palsie conspire together to exercise our patience whatever opposition these diseases may have they agree to ruine us and we many times behold distressed spectacles who have no part of their body free from torment But Pleasures are divided Self-love with all its subtilties cannot reconcile them the Birth of one is the Death of another and experience teacheth us that we have more strength to endure Griefs then to support pleasures when these slow in upon us with full tide they stifle us when they succeed they make us droop and languish and when they recompense their shortness by their excess they reduce us to complaints and groanings From all this Discourse we may conclude that bodily pleasure is an enemy to our happiness that it removes us from God engageth us in the Creature obligeth us to partake of their imperfections and is followed with misery and indigence Therefore following the rule of Contraries we shall not have much ado to perswade our selves that Felicity may be found in Grief and that the Christian is never more happie then when he is afflicted for Christs sake For the understanding of this Paradox we must remember that all earthly goods are onely mediums whereby to gain those of heaven that which leads us the safest way thither is the best neither is the Christian ever neerer his happiness then when he is in the way that soonest leads him thither Now there is no man so little skilled in our mysteries but knows that Grief is the surest and the speediest way to arrive at heaven Cohaeredes autē Christi si tamen compatimur ut simul conglorificemur Rom. 8. Si sustinemus conregnabimus 2 Tim. 2. 't is the path Christ hath marked out with his Blood that whereby he entered into his Greatness that which all the Martyrs have gone and the Scripture teacheth us in a hundred places that Glory is dispensed according to the measure of Sorrow that they that have suffered most upon earth shall be the happiest in heaven One of the most remarkable differences between Christian Grace and Original Righteousness is that this guided man to his happiness thorow a way strewed with roses and lilies the means were proportioned to the end and seemed as an Antepast or Earnest thereof He arrived to Glory by Honour to Pleasure by Delights to Plenty by Riches He had reigned over Beasts before he raigned with Angels he had passed from one Paradise to another and had been happie upon Earth before he had been so in Heaven But now Providence hath changed its conduct over men and whether it have a minde to chastis their Rebellion or to wean them from the World or to make them conformable to their Head it leads them by difficult ways thorow paths rugged with thorns and environed with precipices The means it indulgeth to bring them to their end are contrary to it and to make its proceeding admired they are guided to Life thorow the valley of Death to Liberty thorow Servitude to Light thorow Darkness to Pleasure thorow Pain All the Morality of a Christian propoundeth nothing but Crosses its Vertues are austere its Counsels difficult its Commands harsh and had it not found the means to sweeten all these anxities by Charity it would reduce the Faithful to despair For it obligeth them to hate Themselves and to love their Enemies orders them to forsake their Riches and their Parents Fides non habet meritum ubi humana ratio praebet experimentum Greg. to believe without knowledge obey without discerning love without interest pardon without resentment live without pleasure and die without regret All the Maximes of their Master confirm this Truth for he prefers the Poor before the Rich declares the Afflicted happie canonizeth them that suffer and promiseth his Kingdom to them that weep he practised what he taught his whole life was spent in labours or affronts he was born in a Stable died upon a Cross lost his Honour with his Life nor did his Father glorifie him till his Enemies had loaded him with reproaches and sorrows All his Apostles followed his steps they preached his doctrine with the hazard of their lives signed it with their blood sealed it with their death rendered up their souls among torments nor is there any torture the cruelty of men hath not invented to weary their Patience and trample upon their Courage All his faithful disciples seek for Grief in the Rest of the Church they finde Persecution in Penance are their own executioners and their whole life is an imitation of Martyrdom they provide for the Prison by Solitude dispose themselves for Banishment by removing from their Country prevent
the loss of their goods by Alms grow hardened against Stripes by Discipline grow acquainted with Hunger by Fasting and learn to die in Torments mortifying themselves by Austerities Nothing more heartens them then the example of their Head his Agonies sweeten their Sorrows they count themselves happie to suffer for his glory who suffered for their salvation and observing his whole life finde their strength in his death and their recompence in his resurrection The Fifth DISCOURSE That Happiness is rather found in Poverty then in Riches THe inclination we have for the Supreme Good is so strong that sin hath not as yet been able to deface it The Privation there of increaseth the desire and as Health is never more lovely then in the region of Sickness neither is Happiness ever more acceptable then in the confines of Misery Nevertheless we must not always take counsel of this nor follow the advice it always gives us for when we lie under an affliction we are easily perswaded 'tis ever more dolorous and the good it deprives us of exceedingly more considerable Thus we see those that are fallen into disgrace look upon Glory as the supreme felicity those that live in Poverty imagine Riches the true happiness Thence it comes to pass that Poverty being a very common misfortune the opinion that placeth happiness in Plenty is an ordinary errour All men would be rich this passion stealeth into all different conditions and those that speak most pompously of the contempt of earthly goods Est intolerabilis res poscere nummos contemnere pecuniam sub gloria paupertatis quarere Sen. are those that most greedily cover them It seems the evils that Want hath clogged them with provokes their desires and the fear of realpsing makes them of all men most penurious Rich men sooth themselves with this belief out of another consideration and because they see that Riches are the means to satisfie their desires that they open the gate of Honour with a golden-key corrupt the integrity of Judges and the chastity of women with silver they erect altars to a Goddess that prospers all their unjust designes Morality furnisheth us with Reasons to ruine this errour and Religion will afford us Maximes to perswade Christians that if there be any shadow of felicity upon earth it is rather found in Poverty then in Plenty One of the most splendid conditions of the Supreme Good is that it is the centre of our Love and the end of our Desires That which leaves us any thing to wish is not true and because it fully takes not up our heart it possesseth not all perfections This obligeth us to despise riches and to condemn those worldings that would establish their felicity in them For if they bear the name of Goods 't is an unjust title they usurp because for the most part they are means Nature hath furnished us with to procure what we stand in need of The use of Riches is for Commerce we give them in exchange for the commodities we would have and if sometimes we keep them 't is to make use of them in our necessities Thus Riches are extremely different from the Supreme Good which being once possessed is never forsaken and is so the last end of Man that it can never be a medium to arrive at any other more excellent All Philosophers confess that Felicity is a thing so intimately annexed to the Creature that it penetrates him thorewout and so closely united to him that it cannot be separated If it have not these two conditions Man will never be perfectly happie there will be some faculty of his soul which unsatisfied will remain languishing and when they shall all enjoy a contentment he will still be liable to fear lest haply he may be despoiled of the Good he possesseth Now Riches want one of these two conditions they surround us but no ways inform us they are in our coffers but enter not into out hearts we commit the keeping of them to our servants and we are constrained to aband on our felicity as often as we take a journey This misfortune causeth another For being not under safe custody they are exposed to pillage Injustice and violence may plunder us of them and though Gold be the sinews of War 't is in his power that hath the best Sword to take it from us Thus Riches create Fear expose their masters or their slaves to danger and whatever succour they promise procure us more ill then they bring good But should they be as good as their word and were it easie for us to keep them yet could they not give us a protection from the evil whereof they boast themselves the remedy Cum dicitur nihil illi deest attende si nihil cupit nihil deest si autem adhuc cupit accesserunt divitiae ut egestas cresceret Aug. For if there be any misery in the world which Riches can cure us of it must be Poverty It seems as soon as they enter into a house they banish Want and that 't is impossible to be rich and poor both together In the mean time experience teacheth us that Riches introduce Poverty that they inflame our desires sharpen our disease under a pretence of mitigating it and for our punishment beget indigence in our hearts at the same time that they occasion plenty in our house All prophane Philosophy hath acknowledged this Truth and the Stoicks have confessed it that the most biting poverty was that which we suffer in the midst of our Riches This just judgement hath two causes The first is the capacity of mans heart which none but an infinite Good can fill the second is the scantness of riches which increase our appetite in stead of allaying it and like a handful of water thrown upon a great fire serves onely to make it scorch more violently Thence may we conclude with the Philosopher that the richer a man is the more miserable is he that his riches impoverish him if Grace do not instruct him how to moderate his desires so that what he lookt upon as a remedy is a second evil more dangerous then that he would cure This conceit discovers another which makes it evident that in the condition whereto sin hath reduced man Riches are more pernicious then prositable Every one knows that the inordinateness of our Passions is one of the severest punishments of our transgression there is scarce one that is not rebellious against Reason and which attempts not the violation of his authority All our Desires are unjust all our Hopes interessed all our Affections criminal every Passion produceth a sin if not withheld by Grace and whoever gives himself up to his inclinations is sure to wander from his duty In the mean time Riches side with these rebels against their Soveraign they flatter all our desires serve as ministers to all our unjust designes and furnish us with means to make us more culpable under a colour of rendering